freds / rose

But after that, in that way that phones do after hearing one word, everything you saw seemed to be about tennis. Books that were recommended to you. Movies that you saw ads for. The news as you rushed into work. Even the clothes seemed to be for tennis. You thought, why not give it a try? You liked sports enough anyway, and the weather was getting warmer.

And of course there was the added bonus of seeing Abbot flushed and panting as he told you what to do.

It was a hot day when you finally drove over to the address Jack sent after you’d agreed to his invite. You’d had the roof of your convertible down, sunglasses low on your nose and cap with your hair tucked out the back off it. You smelled distinctly of suncream as you parked up, singing along to the radio at the top of your lungs.

As you got out of the car, an old tennis racket of your friends in hand, you stared at a motorbike nearby that was all too familiar. For a moment, you almost convinced yourself you were wrong. But the registration plate couldn’t be mistaken; that was Robby’s motorbike. Jack hadn’t warned you that he was going to be here too, but you supposed it was only fair. They were always together in their own way, especially whenever you were near.

You sighed, slinging your bag over your shoulder, and made your way down to the courts. There were a few clustered together, but most of them were empty. Most except for the one with Jack and Robby on.

It wasn’t hard to hear them. They grunted and huffed with your every step, the sounds you’d heard only when watching tennis on the TV, the thud of tennis balls echoing around the courts as you leaned against the fence. A thin sheen of sweat had appeared on both of them, making Robby’s shirt stick to his torso in a way that highlighted every inch of him, the slight stomach and the muscles beneath tensing. You would have been happy to watch him the whole time if it weren’t for the fact that Jack had abandoned his shirt at some point, the damp black fabric laying on the floor leaving every inch of his muscles on display. You assumed his leg would be killing him later, but you also doubted that he’d ever stop.

Only when Jack won the point triumphantly, his fist pumping the air, did they notice you. Robby’s head turned to scoff, but stopped the second his eyes met yours. “Well, well, well, Jack. Look who we got here.”

Jack looked over to you at the same time, lips quirking up at the edge. “You spying, sweetheart?”

You flushed red, tightening your grip on the racket. “No. I just didn’t wanna distract you from your match.”

Jack and Robby made eye contact across the net, a silent conversation happening between the two of them. You’d noticed it happen so many times, the wordless method of communication across the Pitt something so casual, that you just didn’t question it. They’d let you in if you needed. Then Robby went over and opened the gate for you, beckoning you in.

“You couldn’t distract us. Only make the day brighter, don’t you?” he hummed, taking your bag from you and setting it down on a bench, letting you find a shaded spot to stand in.

“It’s bright anyway,” you said, gesturing to the sun above you. You knew it wasn’t helping to keep you focused on anything but them, but you really tried with all your might. Your eyes flickered across the tennis balls scattered across the court with a frown, looking up between them again. “You two played a few matches?”

“No,” Jack said, walking over to take a swig from his bottle. You watched as he swallowed, the muscles of his neck working, sweat dripping down from his curls onto his shoulders. Some part of you wanted to lean forward and lick it. “Just one. Which I’m winning.”

“Ha!” Robby scoffed, shaking his head. “You’ve got a head start. I’m still gonna beat you.”

You bent down to pick up a ball, skirt lifting just that little bit too high. You didn’t notice, too bothered with bouncing the ball against the ground to test it, but they certainly did. Their conversation stalled for a moment before they both turned to you.

“So… Jack here tells me you’ve never played tennis before,” Robby said, running a hand over his beard.

You shook your head. You’d played it in school, though you doubted it counted much. You liked to watch the occasional match when the Olympics was on. But you truly didn’t touch the sport otherwise. “Nope. I might be really shit at it.”

Jack laughed not unkindly, the sound coming from somewhere deep inside him. “That’s okay. We don’t need you to be some specialist.”

“We’ll teach you everything you need to know,” Robby added from beside him. There was something in the way he said everything that made your stomach flutter, like there was an extra lesson they were keeping from you.

You were quickly pulled from your thoughts by a scoff from Jack, smacking Robby’s arm with just enough heat to make it reprimanding, before he focused his attention back on you. “You know the rules though, right?”

“A little,” you nodded. You knew bits and pieces, the basics really, but nothing in depth. There’d never been any reason to.

“That’s okay,” he reassured you, squeezing your shoulder and reducing any of your nerves to mush. “You just watch us finish our game. Should teach you a thing or two before we switch out.”

You took a seat in the sun, wanting to seize the opportunity to sunbathe before you exhausted yourself with running around after men who were both older and fitter than you. Using your elbows to prop yourself up, you lay your legs out before you. From your position, you had a perfect view of them both, better even than standing at the fence had been. Now, you could see the sweat drip down Abbot as he prepared to serve, bouncing the ball twice. You could see as Robby wiped his face using the bottom of his shirt, showing off the hairs on his stomach that trailed beneath the waistband of his shorts whilst he waited for Jack.

And once the ball was moving, so was your head. You watched as each of them hit the ball with as much force and precision as they could, keeping a rally going for so long you were convinced it would never end. It was beautiful in a way, like watching a ballet of synchronised dancers. They seemed to anticipate each other’s moves before they’d even come up with them. You put it down to the years of friendship they shared.

When the rally finally broke as the ball landed on the wrong side of Jack’s half of the court, he’d cursed and threw a middle finger up at Robby, who in response bowed mockingly. “Cry all you want, I knew I could beat you.”

“You haven’t won yet, don’t get too cocky Michael,” he said, before turning his head back to you. You watched his gaze soften slightly, the frustration ebbing away just a little. “Did you get why I lost that point, sweetheart?”

“Because you missed it, right?” you guessed, sitting up a little straighter.

“Good girl,” Jack smiled, before gently explaining that it wasn’t just because he missed but because of where he was stood when he missed. You nodded, slowly understanding the sections of the court despite the thrill rushing through you from his praise.

Once he was sure you understood, the match resumed. Every grunt and groan had you clenching around nothing, imagining them making similar sounds in a very different scenario. It wasn’t your fault that they were both hot. It was theirs honestly. Especially as Robby yanked his shirt off and threw it so that it landed beside you, now making both men in front of you half naked. You could even see the sun glinting off the Star of David hanging around his neck, swinging this way and that as he ran to send the ball flying across the court. You told yourself you were only watching because you wanted to study his form, but you knew that to be a bold faced lie. Anyone else would have too.

You felt Jack’s eyes on you as you focused on Robby like a physical thing. It was heavier and hotter than the humidity itself, and it held a weight to it that you didn’t quite know what to do with. He lost the next point too. Only when your eyes drifted to him did he start to win again. He moved with a strength you’d long assumed he held, the grunts an echo as his muscles tensed with each swing of his racket. He didn’t run as much as Robby did, instead using his good leg to stretch to catch the ball. You could see the droplets run down the curve of his spine before soaking his shorts, only a few connecting with the green of the astroturf beneath him.

Slowly, you started to notice that which ever of the two attendings you looked was the won who would be winning. It was a strange power to hold. That with a turn of your head, you could make one of them win over the other. If you didn’t know better, you’d have assumed they were trying to win your attention. That in being the better tennis player, they were somehow the better man for you. If so, you were being granted the best game of tennis you’d seen in your life.

But you wanted them to win fairly, not because of who held your favour. So you lifted your head, letting yourself look up at the sun instead.

It took twenty minutes for the match to be won. Throughout, they each provided you with little pointers and quiz questions that you kept tucked into your memory. Mostly, it was the rules and the language they were making sure you had down. Like asking you what ‘love’ meant or how you got to match point, or the amount of sets that were in the men’s games vs the women’s. You assumed the questions were more an attempt to get your eyes on them again, but you stayed committed to looking at the clouds until Jack eventually triumphed over Robby.

“Better luck next time, brother,” Jack panted, clapping a hand onto Robby’s shoulder as the latter helped him to the bench. You shifted out of the sun to rest your head against the bench beside Jack, looking up at the both of them.

“I let you win,” Robby said, though you all could tell he didn’t mean it. Jack had won fair and square; it was just that his counterpart was a sore loser.

Jack huffed and rested his arms behind his head, letting the muscles flex beneath them. “Fifth time you’ve ‘let’ me win this year. Starting to think you’ve gone soft, man.”

Robby scoffed and shook his head. “Me and soft don’t go together.” Then, as if he’d just remembered, he tilted his head down to look at you, the sweat running down his brow and dropping inches away from your feet. “What do you think, honey? Do you think I’m soft?”

Your brow furrowed in genuine thought. If you were honest, no he wasn’t. He was snappy and short tempered, mostly with others and only occasionally with you. You knew he always tried to be gentler with you for some reason, so you shook your head. “Not with everyone else. With me, though, I think you are.”

“That’s right,” he smiled, taking the seat on the bench on the other side to you. He ran a hand through his hair, sharing a glance with Jack that said everything. “Only soft when it comes to my best resident.”

Jack scoffed. “You mean my best resident.”

“She’s been on night shift a month, brother. She was mine first.”

Your face flushed as the men bickered over your head. They were competing for you… again? Between the match and this, you almost couldn’t believe it. You had to be dreaming, because it all seemed too surreal.

“Fine, ours then,” Jack offered as a compromise, his hand reaching across the space above your head. As you tilted your neck back to look at what he was doing, Robby’s hand met Jack’s as they shook on it.

When they separated from each other, you looked between them. “Do I not get a say in this?”

Their gazes dropped to yours, Robby’s amused and Jack’s baring the slightest hint of something akin to disappointment. Robby leaned forward, arms braced on his spread thighs. “Do you not wanna be ours?”

You shook your head too quickly, face flushing. You wanted to be theirs in a way that ached between your ribs. “No! That’s not – that’s not what I meant.”

Jack hummed, mirroring Robby’s position whilst rubbing at where his skin met his prosthetic. “What did you mean then sweetheart?”

You felt your heart thud against your chest as you met his gaze. A thousand explanations filled your mind, some that pushed the boundaries between you a little less than others, some that may even have been passable as the truth. But you felt each potential lie like a lead weight on your tongue. You couldn’t lie to them; it just wasn’t possible.

“I do wanna be yours,” you whispered, chewing your cheek. “I wanna be both of yours.”

Robby reached a hand down and cupped your chin, steering you to look at him. “In what way?”

Your breath stuttered in your chest as you leaned into his touch as if you’d been waiting for it all your life, because maybe you had been. “I wanna belong to you.”

The words had barely settled in the air when Robby lifted you up, sitting you so that you had your legs thrown over one of each of theirs. Jack and Robby seemed to cock their heads in unison, looking to each other until Jack whispered, “I won the match. You kiss her first, brother.”

“That okay with you, honey?” Robby asked as he brushed some hair from your face.

You couldn’t have nodded faster if you tried. Different ways of saying yes lived and died on your tongue as Robby kissed you, so hard and demanding you thought he was surely trying to steal the oxygen from your lungs. You kissed him back with all the energy in your body, tongue pushing and tangling with his as one of his hands gripped your hair and the other lightly held your neck. There wasn’t enough pressure to hurt or mark, just enough to keep you steady as you panted into him.

When you pulled back, you only just managed to catch your breath before Jack was kissing you. He was different. If anything, he was gentle. His hands did not reach for your hair but instead stayed on your hips to make sure you didn’t fall from their laps. Where Robby had been messy and almost needy, Jack was controlled. It was a dizzying contrast, one you found yourself moaning about into the kiss.

Beside you, you heard Robby laugh at the whine as Jack pulled back from you. “Don’t gotta complain. We’re gonna do a lot more than kiss you, honey.”

“You promise?” you asked, your eyes lighting up with desire.

“Oh, we promise,” Jack murmured as he started to nip at your neck. “If you want us the way you say you do, we can give you everything.”

Robby leaned in on the other side, kissing along the shell of your ear. “You want us proper?”

“Yes,” you breathed out whilst your head tilted back to let them have more access.

The men shared a look across you, speaking without the need for words. They had questions, wants, plans even. But a tennis court did not provide the best place for everything they wanted. So instead Jack cupped the back of your head, eyes tilted down to meet yours. “Sweetheart, only Robby’s gonna fuck you today, is that okay?”

You pouted, looking to him in confusion. You could feel the tent in his shorts against your knee so you knew he wanted it too. “Why not you though?”

He smiled and brushed his thumb against your cheek to soothe you. “My legs sore. But I promise you, I’ll fuck you the next time you want.”

“But what about you?” you asked, this time gesturing to where you could see the shape of him.

Jack looked to Robby, and you could see the unwillingness to back down from either of them. He was tired, yes, but Jack still wanted you. Wanted to please you. Wanted to prove himself stronger than Robby. And Robby wanted to do that too, that was clear. But he backed down with a shrug, copying Jack’s earlier words. “You won the match, brother. You have her first.”

“You’re too kind,” Jack said, his tone half amused before he looked to you again, with your hair just a little bit of a mess and your lips kiss-swollen. “C’mon, get between my knees sweetheart.”

Your heart thudded against your chest as you sunk onto the grass of the court in front of him, tucking your knees beneath you as you waited for his next instruction. He nodded towards his shorts, leaning back on his elbows as Robby rested his chin on Jack’s shoulder to watch your hands undo the drawstring. Jack inhaled sharply as you pulled them down, your other hand tracing the outline of him.

“Can you go straight in my mouth?” you asked, a little emboldened when his breath stuttered.

The two men let out a low curse, Robby’s shaking on a laugh whilst Jack practically choked on it. “Shit, you can have whatever you want sweetheart.”

What you really wanted was Jack between your legs, but you weren’t about to make demands that would hurt him. Instead, you pulled down his shorts and started with a gentle, open-mouthed kiss to the head. Jack tensed instantly, his hand reaching to gather your hair into his fist so that it wasn’t in your way. He was always caring like that. He twitched beneath your mouth as you gently dragged your tongue along the length, the taste of him enough to have you switching instantly to taking him into your mouth.

You cursed inwardly at the stretch. Jack was big. Way too big to fit it all into your mouth, but you tried valiantly regardless. You suckled desperately, your tongue almost cradling the length as you worked him with all the energy you had, your cheeks hollowing whilst Jack kept his hand in your hair. Distantly, you were aware of Robby wrapping a hand around himself and jerking himself off to the sight of you and Jack. You switched between licking and sucking, sucking and licking until drool had collected at the edges of your lips.

“Look at you, taking every inch of Jack like a good girl,” Robby murmured, one of his hands coming to help Jack keep the hair from falling into your face.

You felt yourself clench around nothing at the praise, pushing to take more of Jack at the same time.

“Fuck, sweetheart,” he cursed, his head thrown back onto Robby’s shoulder as he arched up into your mouth. “Way too good at this. Gonna come, fuck, ‘m gonna come in this pretty mouth of yours.”

Your hands tightened on his thighs as you doubled your efforts. In that moment, you wanted nothing more than to bring him to the edge again and again. But you’d settle for just this once if you had to. Slowly, your eyes met his, slightly teary from the force of him pressing into your throat. You gave a small nod, hands stroking what of him you couldn’t fit, letting him know exactly how you wanted it. Jack’s spare hand tangled with Robby’s as his other hand tightened in your hair. With a curse of your name, Jack Abbot whimpered as he came.

There was absolutely no world where you could imagine him whimpering, but an hour ago there was no world where he was finishing in your mouth. You waited until his breath had steadied to pull off of him, swallowing so audibly as you settled back on your knees. Jack looked down at you, letting go of your hair to brush a thumb over where a drop of come had landed on your chin. “Hey, pretty girl,” he cooed gently, “You still with us?”

“Yeah,” you breathed out, leaning into his touch as you turned to kiss the inside of his wrist.

“Hey,” Robby cut in, his hand having stilled on himself. “Don’t take all of her attention.”

“Be patient, brother,” Jack shot back though there was no anger to it. He leaned down to kiss your forehead before letting you lift off the floor to stand between Robby’s legs. “Be just as good for him now.”

You tried – you honestly did – to keep your eyes on Robby’s face. But you couldn’t help looking at the length of Robby, your mouth watering at the potential of having that in your mouth too. Where Jack was long, Robby was wide. You briefly considered that it would be an almost impossible fit, but then he was tugging you into his lap. “There you are, honey.”

A grin split across your face as you kissed his nose. “Hi, Robby.”

“Now, I know Jack’s very good at what he does. But so am I. So what I’m gonna do is take this very cute skirt of yours off, and then I’m gonna fuck you on this court. Sound good to you?”

You nodded even faster than when Jack had asked you before. God, you’d wanted him but now you wanted this. Carefully, Robby pulled your skirt off of you and passed it to Jack. Then he lay you down on the astroturf again, and Jack only followed. It felt strange to you, like they’d done this dance a thousand times. And maybe they had, but the strangeness didn’t make you uncomfortable. Just a little behind as Jack lay your head in his lap whilst Robby spread your legs.

He started kissing up along your thigh, murmuring gentle praise as his fingers stroked over the fabric of your panties. “Oh, she’s soaked. Must’ve loved sucking off Jack there, right honey?”

You gasped as he pressed his fingers into you over the fabric before yanking them down. “I’m sorry, sorry.”

“Don’t apologise. Just perfect for us,” he smiled against your skin, tutting at the mere idea of you finding shame in something he clearly believes to be beautiful.

For a moment, you thought he was going to use his mouth. You wouldn’t have complained, not at all, but you felt giddier when he slowly moved up you instead. Robby kissed between your eyes, gentle in a way you hadn’t expected whilst moving a hand between your legs to part you. You gasped and arched into him from the contact.

Then slowly, Robby pressed a single finger into you, and then another. He was testing you, seeing how much he needed to work you before pressing into you completely. With his two considerably thick fingers, he worked you open, curling and scissoring his finger so that you mewled highly. Just when you started to plead for him, for more of him, did Robby remove his fingers and instead line up the head of his cock against your entrance.

“You ready?”

“Yeah,” you whispered, pressing your head back into Jack’s lap as your eyes fluttered.

Robby smirked and gently pushed into you. You’d expected him to be rougher, but the slow and steady push that lit a delicious fire in your stomach that had you whining. He murmured praises against your skin until he was fully inside you, your hips meeting his, and then he looked to you. “‘m gonna move now, yeah?”

Once you nodded, there was no stopping him. Robby’s cock disappeared in and out of you, the sound of flesh on flesh echoing across the court rhythmically and intertwining with the sound of your shaky gasps and moans. It felt like you’d moulded to fit him, that maybe he was always meant to be right there. And it seemed like Robby felt it too.

Jack leaned down to kiss your forehead, his hands holding your legs open so that Robby could hold himself up. “You’re doing so good, baby, so good.”

You let out a whine at the praise as your heels pressed into the grass of the court beneath you, trying to push yourself to meet Robby. It was almost all too much: the heat of the grass beneath you, the potential for anyone to walk past to another court, the pleasure-pain of Robby, the comforting smell of Jack’s skin beneath your head. You clenched around him at the combined overwhelming sensations, head falling back all the more.

Robby groaned above you as he brought his hand between your legs, circling your clit with the pad of his thumb in sync with the strokes of his cock. “Fuck, she’s squeezing me. You close, honey?”

You could just about manage a nod, almost drunk on the thrill of it all. You felt your climax building in your belly, a string being pulled tighter and tighter with each thrust. Robby seemed to chase it with everything he had, grunting and groaning as the head of his cock found that spongy spot inside you seeing stars. Then, above your head, you watched as Jack and Robby kissed. It was deep, deeper than how either of them had kissed you. It showed just how much they trusted each other.

And that alone made you come with a whimper of, “Oh, holy fucking shit – ”

The way you clenched around Robby had him coming with you, moaning into the kiss as his hips stuttered against yours. His cock pulsed and twitched inside you as his warmth mixed with your own, both of you hazy with pleasure as Jack murmured praises for you and Robby, his hand slowly pulling Robby’s from your clit to let you come down easier.

For a moment, you both just lay there without moving, catching your breath. Then, very slowly, Robby pulled out with a quiet, wet squelch as Jack rubbed a hand over your arm. Robby found a towel from his bag that had been shoved beneath the bench, gently wiping you and him clean.

“You okay?” Jack asked, stroking your hair when you whined at the thorough cleaning.

“So good,” you breathed out, a hazy smile splitting your face.

You hadn’t been possessive before Jack. Maybe it was because you’d had a horrific taste in men in your prior relationships, and no one had really wanted them. But that was the difference with Jack.

You knew your boyfriend was hot. And not just casually hot, the kind that had your heart (and somewhere just a little lower) throb every time you saw him.

It was in his every feature. His hair that you loved to run your hands through was silver with age and had curled in ways that he knew you loved. His eyes, dark and piercing, were enough to make a grown woman melt when they were focused on them. God knew his voice didn’t help too, especially when it got all low and gravelly. Jack’s charm was it’s own thing too; the joking, the winking, the confidence that seemed to emanate from every inch of him.

Maybe part of it was seeing him in uniform. You knew it did things to people. It did things to you. But sometimes you wished it was only you who got to reap the benefits of him in his SWAT uniform, or with his stethoscope around his neck. It was a silly thought you knew, and almost definitely selfish, but it didn’t stop you thinking it.

Especially when you went to visit him at work. You didn’t do it often. Just when you knew he’d gotten to PTMC early, or that he was working a double. You wanted to see him, and it felt even better that he wanted to see you too. And it was always with the promise of you bringing him lunch, for a change, that often ended with you getting food for the entire night shift instead.

It was on one of these nights that you noticed her.

You’d slipped in, handing a meatball sandwich to Dan on security as a bribe before going straight to the nurses station. Lena’s face brightened just a little at the sight of you. “What are you doing out so late?”

“Had to come see my favourite people,” you grinned, leaning against the counter.

“And I’m top of that list, right?” she asked as she looked at you over her glasses.

You reached into your bag, pulling out a chicken and salad sandwich and sliding it across to her. “Oh, of course. Way higher than my boyfriend. Speaking of, where has he gotten to?”

Lena accepted the sandwich with an approving nod, setting it aside only to glance around for Jack with you. “No idea. Can’t be far though.”

You rolled your eyes at her before moving through the Pitt like you belonged there. And you did, honestly. Ever since you and Jack had started dating a whole year and a half ago, you’d come to the Pitt a lot. People recognised you now. Some, mostly Shen when he was around, called you ‘Mrs Abbot’, a title you didn’t have yet but knew it belonged to you. They appreciated the food you brought, even if everyone knew it was just to buy you some peace and quiet with Jack. As long as it kept you coming back and Jack in good spirits, it was all worth it.

You were used to having to search for him. He could be anywhere, doing any number of things, but what remained consistent was that he was always down here. So you weren’t that surprised to see him exiting one of the trauma rooms, like rough and ragged in all the best ways.

What did surprise you was the woman trailing behind him.

She was a little older than you maybe. She was pretty even whilst looking tired. And she was watching Jack like she was trying to strategise how she could eat him up at the soonest availability.

You were about to try and convince yourself that you’d imagined that last part when Crus appeared at your shoulder. “You met the new nurse yet?”

“So that’s who she is,” you muttered, passing him his cheese and tomato sandwich.

He gave you a look that said he knew exactly what you were thinking as he took a bite. “That’s a no then.”

“Jack’s only mentioned her in passing. Said she’s keen.” He had in fact done so. You’d been out shopping for clothes to a family event that had closed in on you too fast when work cropped up, as it often did. You searched for her name in your mind. “Rachel, right?”

Crus nodded, speaking through a mouthful. “Keen is one way of putting it. I’d say she’s obvious, but I think he’s just too blinded by you to notice.”

That helped a little. You knew it to be true. Jack was loyal, almost too loyal in some places, but you loved it about him. It’s part of what made you feel safe in the relationship, knowing that there was always someone who wasn’t halfway out the door with another girl. He made sure there wasn’t a person out there who didn’t know that you belonged to him and he belonged to you.

Except for Rachel, it seemed. Your fingers played with the necklace that had his initials on as you watched, sensing that freshly familiar possessive urge underneath your ribs. No matter how much you trusted him, the jealousy didn’t seem to want to stop.

Jack looked up from his chart, sighing as he went to say something to Rachel. Then he stopped, letting his eyes drift back until they landed on you. It calmed you a little to see how his expression softened, just that little bit, in the way you’d come to know he only did for you. Crus had disappeared because he knew way better than to get between the two of you. A fact Rachel would have to learn when she stepped in your way when you got closer to Jack.

“Can I help you?” she asked, her voice tight. You would have found it amusing at any other time. But not then. Not when she was in your path.

“I was just going to see my boyfriend.”

“What room is he in?” Rachel said, looking at you as if you were dirt on her shoe. You made a mental note to tell Lena that her new nurse needed some lessons in bedside manners.

Before you could snap back though, Jack stepped forward. “Hey Rachel, she’s here for me.”

You found some sort of strange thrill at the way her head turned to look at him disbelievingly. You were a grown woman, you shouldn’t take pride in the jealousy of others. And yet.

You pushed past Rachel, wrapping your arms around Jack’s middle and pressing a kiss to his neck. Beneath your lips, you could feel his chuckle. “Missed me, have you sweetheart?”

“So much, Jack,” you murmured, pulling back to look him in the eyes innocently. “Brought food for you and the others though.”

“Aren’t you just an angel,” he said amusedly. You knew it wasn’t a question. Late at night, he’d whisper to you that you were sent to guard him, to keep him sane and keep him on earth. “What did you bring me?”

You kissed his cheek and pulled his BLT from your bag. “Your favourite.”

Jack grinned proudly as he set the sandwich aside. “I should really start listening to Dana and marry you. Make you the official Mrs Abbot.”

“I’m ready when you are,” you teased, feeling the warmth settle in your chest at the idea of marrying him. You already had a Pinterest board set aside for when he asked, one that he had seen frequently when he stole your phone. You weren’t rushing though. You knew he’d know when the time was right.

You could feel Rachel’s eyes on your back. There was a heat to her gaze that you didn’t appreciate. Just because she thought Jack was hot didn’t make him hers, and you were determined to prove it to her.

With one quick glance to make sure Jack wasn’t urgently needed, you stood behind him as he started to eat his sandwich. He only hummed as you slipped your arms around his middle and barely batted an eye when you started to kiss his neck. The only sound of vague complaint that came from him started when you sucked a bruise in a place far too prominent.

“Is it my birthday?” he asked, his voice only slightly rough as he swallowed down the food. “Is that why I’m getting this treatment?”

“Maybe,” you hummed, marking along his neck like it was your sole purpose. And finally, you heard a huff beside you as Rachel rushed off.

He let you keep going, just for a minute, before saying, “Honey, I’m at work.”

“And I miss you when you’re here,” you murmured, trying to sound whiny enough that he wouldn’t stop you from your mission.

“Is that so?” Jack said. He sounded just a little amused, but in that way you knew that told you when you were pushing it. “Here I just thought you were jealous.”

You lifted your head to meet his gaze indignantly. “I am not jealous.”

He snorted, turning to cup your face in his gentle, calloused hands. “You are. And it’s sweet, baby, but we both know I’m all yours.”

“She didn’t know that though, did she?” you huffed, leaning into his touch like you were starving for it. You knew it wasn’t Jack’s fault that he was abnormally hot, but it didn’t help that sliver of insecurity when he couldn’t shake his admirers off.

Jack sighed. Not in frustration, but understanding. He hadn’t considered how it would look to you, half assuming Rachel’s closeness was a willingness to learn. But he saw it now. He knew that if he reversed it – him coming to see you at work with some boy following you around, acting like you didn’t belong to Jack – he’d feel a little insecure. More than a little, if he was being honest. His thumbs brushed your cheeks as he pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead. “’M sorry, baby. I wasn’t paying any attention to her, I promise.”

“I know you wouldn’t,” you murmured, expression softening as you basked in his attention. “It’s just… she should know you’re mine.”

He pulled one hand from your face to gesture to the marks on his neck. “Mission accomplished.”

“Not as thoroughly as I want,” you said, rolling your eyes. You’d much rather he could fuck you in front of everyone, just so no one else ever got the same idea as Rachel. Even just him and you and your mouth in an on-call room would have been enough.

But chance would be a fine thing. Before you could even drag him in the direction of somewhere a little more private, Lena was calling Jack towards the ambulance bay. “Fuck,” he cursed beneath his breath, “I gotta go, sweetheart.”

“I know,” you sighed, giving him an understanding smile.

His eyes darted across the ER as the paramedics pulled in the patient, rattling off information at a speed some wouldn’t be able to keep up with. Instead of rushing to their side though, he pulled you in for a kiss. Too deep, too intimate to be something others would see. When he pulled back, you felt Rachel’s eyes on you again. This time though, you knew she wasn’t going to push with him again.

“I’ll see you at home,” he whispered as he brushed a strand of hair from your face. Only then he rushed away.

You stood there for a moment, feeling the shift from peaceful to hectic like a physical thing. You were used to it really. It didn’t hurt like it did in the beginning, especially because you knew it wasn’t personal. It was just the way the Pitt worked.

Ellis waved you out as you left, taking her usual sandwich from you with a quiet appreciation. The drive home was quiet in the way you liked, especially when you were drifting towards being too tired to drive. When you got home, you headed straight for the bed you shared with Jack with a yawn. And as you were settled and drifting towards sleep, you heard a ping from your phone. Jack was the only person you had notifications on for, so you weren’t surprised to see it was from him. What brought on the reluctantly proud smile to your face was the message itself:

After you’d determined they weren’t going to answer for about another hour, Robby had turned his attention from your sister to you. He’d made you breathe with a grounding hand on your shoulder. He’d calmly explained everything to you, asking each time if you understood. If you didn’t, he’d explain again, a little slower, until you’d got that your sister’s rash could be cured with some simple antibiotics.

Robby had watched the way the tension left your shoulders, the little tears gathering in the corners of your eyes disappearing with a relief so enormous you swore your heartrate dropped to normal again. He’d sat with you and your sister until your parents came, occasionally having to rush out to help with a different patient, but always coming back to you.

When you’d left that night, exhausted and grateful, he’d internally cursed at never asking for your number.

He was there again when you brought your very drunk friend in after she’d fell over in her heels. You were sober, and more frustrated at having to sit in a hospital when you would have rather been anywhere else. But then when Robby turned out to be the one checking your friend over, the frustration ebbed away. Enough that when he’d sorted out the girl you were with, you’d felt confident in giving him your number. You couldn’t be so frustrated at her after, not when she’d helped you get a date with him.

Your first date with him was unlike any other you’d been on in ages. You were used to cinemas and football games you couldn’t care less about. You weren’t used to dinner in the fancy part of town. Half the food seemed too expensive to even consider, but when Robby ordered with ease a burger three times the price of the one you’d eaten the night before, you decided to get the carbonara. Slightly cheaper than his, but still way too much. You’d seen him raise a brow, but he hadn’t commented anything.

Instead, he asked you about your degree. He wanted to know why you’d taken it (to appease your parents), what you wanted to do with it (you had no clue) and what you actually wanted to do (a question to which you had a myriad of answers). It was the first date you’d been on in a while that wasn’t spent entirely talking about who was sat opposite you. In fact, Robby only lightly touched on why he became a doctor. He said it made him feel old, and he didn’t want to feel old with you.

But he learned that it was inevitable for it to crop up in your relationship.

When he paid the bill for your meal, he said he had to as he was not only the man taking you out, but also almost thirty years older than you. To be fair, it wasn’t something guys your age often did for you. They’d almost always expect you to pay your half, and sometimes ask you to pay their half too. But Robby had done it like the money never really mattered. Maybe it didn’t.

You’d run a hand through his hair when you were round his, admiring each grey strand as if it were actually something special. He remembered asking you once if he should dye it, only to watch the pure look of horror on his face. You started changing the channel when ads for hair dye came on the TV, and routinely checked his cupboards to make sure he hadn’t secretly bought some. He thinks his glasses are something to hide too, claiming he didn’t need them despite having to frequently squint at what he was reading. When you’d found them hidden on his bedside table, you’d practically forced them onto his face and made sure to thoroughly show him how much you appreciated them.

Sometimes he’d make a reference and you’d stare at him blankly until he realised you’d probably never seen the show he was referencing. You’d do it with him too. Sitting on his couch and scrolling through TikTok, you’d mutter sounds beneath your breath that had Robby’s head snapping up to meet your gaze in confusion. He’d been stumped on ‘beekeeping age’ until he’d caved and asked Santos about it, much to his immediate regret.

It was way too clear when you moved in with him. Robby watched you make his home brighter and more colourful. You didn’t take it over, you just made a space that was his into yours and his. But now he slept in a bed with teddies, and fell asleep to movies you’d never seen before that he’d seen when they came out. Your record collection merged with his, bringing a lot more pop to his collection than he ever thought there would be. He had to help you with the instructions on how to build a wardrobe so that you actually had space for your vast collection of clothes that somehow managed to spill into his drawers too.

You’d encouraged him to go to therapy too. It was after he’d had started an argument with you that you just wouldn’t tolerate. You’d glared at him, arms folded across your chest as you stated that grown men went to therapy and little boys ran from their problems. It had been the first time someone had managed to get through to him. Maybe it was because you’d sounded infinitely older and wiser than him, or maybe it was just because you were right. Either way, he’d scheduled an appointment by the time he’d made you an apologetic breakfast the day after.

When you decided to go back to college for a degree you actually wanted, Robby had praised you to no end. He’d said it was good you were doing it then, because he proved that you couldn’t teach an old dog new tricks. He told everyone about what you were doing now, and would sit up proofreading your essays when you refused to put them through any sort of AI checker for fear of that somehow proving you used it. He’d buy you snacks when you wouldn’t move for hours whilst researching for endless hours. He never pulled you from it; he would’ve hated anyone doing that for him even when he needed it, and he assumed the same was true of you. Instead, Robby would open his arms when you would finally collapse into bed, listening to you mutter explanations sleepily.

What really amazed Robby was your insatiable energy despite it all though. He put it down to you being in your twenties and so eager to live your life, but he really didn’t know where it came from. He’d walk behind you as you ran through fields on weekends when you insisted the city was the last place on the planet you wanted to be. He watched you sing along to every song on the radio at the top of your lungs, insisting he join in with you, which he always reluctantly did. It was worth it though to see the smile split across your face.

He was always sore after fucking you too. He hated to blame his age, but… it was definitely his age. Every part of him would ache after putting all his energy into work. It was why he’d gotten used to you riding him instead, which he’d had to learn you loved after he actually did put his back out once. Robby did thank himself for finding it out later however when your insatiability carried into sex too. That and the collection of vibrators he’d bought you for Valentines (which he’d found entirely weird, but you’d adored, and that was what counted).

And afterwards, he’d always tuck you into bed, whispering, “I love you, sweet girl,” into your hairline.

He can recite the moments, muscle memory by now. Him, always sat gripping the steering wheel of his first truck, staring at the rain thudding against the bonnet like it’ll wash all of this away. But then he says it, every time, he says, “You should go.”

And every time he knows the scoff is coming. Sometimes he even thinks he lets himself replay the dream just to hear that scoff. So used to hearing it when he would choose a bad radio station, or when he’d wear one of his dad’s shirts, or accidentally order the wrong thing out at dinner. A noise so completely, intrinsically yours he would get it engraved onto a vinyl if he only knew how.

“You have to be fucking kidding me Joel. You’re not ending the conversation there. You have no right!” Your words always manage to drive a stake through his heart, the little waver of your voice when you say his name. He knew now that if he could redo the moment, he’d take you into his lap and soothe you with apologies again and again.

But he can’t, and so he says instead, “I won’t say it again. You need to get out.” Joel still would sometimes wonder if you could hear that he had to choke the words out. He could feel the lump in his throat even now, even as a man in his late thirties, and it threatened to kill him where he lay.

Worser still when you shift in your seat and turn his face towards you, because every time he looks into your eyes he knows he’s making the biggest mistake of his life. “Joel, baby, please just talk to me. I can’t lose this. Can’t lose you. I’m beggin’ you.” You always try to kiss the crinkle of his eye, and he curses himself for pulling away. It’s this he’s learnt seems to be where he breaks you most. “Just say something.”

“Shit, I can’t. Darlin’ I can’t explain it, okay? Just - just get out the truck for me.”

In his head, Joel reaches for your hands as they slip from his face. Instead he grips the wheel harder. “You’re really doing this?” He doesn’t answer. Just watches the bounce of each raindrop so he doesn’t see the moment you accept defeat. “Fuck you then Joel Miller.” You grab your hoodie, pulling it over your head and shove open the door. He wills his head to move when you hesitate, wills his mouth to open to say something, wills the clocks to change so he can save whatever you had. “I really did love you, if that’s worth anything anymore.” And you’re gone.

He’s allowed to watch you run into the house, and to feel the sob break from his chest when the front door locks, before he too peels away.

Only then is he allowed to wake. Most of the time he can get on with his day. There was a while when the memory would floor him, have him sat in bed for hours just praying to be able to go back and say that your love was worth everything. Even now, it was still worth everything. Sarah made it easier. He found it to be a cruel twist of fate that if he had never left you then he would never have had Sarah, and he cannot fathom a world in which he doesn’t have her. And yet, sometimes, he finds himself begging for a life with you.

Still, this morning he sits almost frozen whilst spooning cereals into his mouth. Your hands have burned him this time, burned marks into his face only he can feel. Sarah talks about the day ahead of her, and he nods in the right places, but his mind drifts. When Tommy picks them up, he can’t help feeling distracted. Joel reckons Tommy suspects there’s a girl on his mind. He’d never told his brother about you; truth be told, he’d never felt man enough to. If Tommy heard Joel had let the love of his life slip away just because her daddy asked, he’d tell him he was a fucking idiot. Which was true, but it didn’t mean he needed to hear it.

He tries to focus on the conversation between Sarah and Tommy. Some musician they both like. He groans and looks out the window instead; he’d given up knowing about music when he’d driven home from leaving you. His guitar follows him like some twisted reminder of what he’d lost, your initials carved with his into the neck that he brushes against every time he plays.

Joel doesn’t know much of modern day music now. He can tap his foot to the beat in a bar, and hum to the songs on the radio that Tommy and Sarah know all the words to, but he wouldn’t be able to say what song belongs to who. It’s not that he doesn’t enjoy music anymore. He does. He likes the CD’s Sarah buys him for Christmas, the old ones that don’t play on the radio anymore. He likes the sound of his guitar when the sun is low and the crickets sing. He likes the sound of his brother singing over the construction site. It’s rather that he’s not well acquainted with what makes today’s music good. He doesn’t feel the connection to the words or the chords or the people who sing them. Joel thinks music should have proper heart to it, a soul beneath the song of which he cannot find on modern radio stations.

Mostly, he just compares them to your songs. Sometimes he thinks he can hear them on the radio. The ones you’d sing to him whilst in the bed of his truck at a sunset, when you’d smile at him and he’d feel like the world just paused for the both of you. But he knows it’s ridiculous. It’s probably just those fucking memories again. So he doesn’t keep the radio on if he’s alone.

Tommy and Sarah though, they love it. They know some of the broadcasters from the stations and beg for their favourites if Joel’ driving, but they know the singers more. Sarah’s walls are covered in posters of who’s popular right now and her collection of CD’s puts the local music shop to shame. Tommy spoils her with them. If he ever picks her up from school by himself, he can’t stop himself from buying her a new one. They like to play them loud whilst Joel has a barbecue on and sing at the top of their lungs. Sarah shakes her head when her dad cannot name a single face on her wall, but she loves when he puts on his songs and they dance in the kitchen like they used to when she was little.

As Sarah hops out the truck, she’s humming some new song and waving an easy goodbye to them both. His brother leans back in the seat and not so subtly eyes Joel. He sighs and nods, and Tommy grabs himself a cigarette, lights it and has it in his mouth within seconds. “We need to grab anything before gettin’ to site?”

Joel huffs. They don’t truthfully, but Joel doesn’t want to start work just yet, not when he can still feel the brand of your hands on his cheeks. He decides to opt for a decision he knows Tommy won’t mind whatsoever, not when he’s got a raging crush on one of the girls there. “The biggest cup of coffee that your little café will give me.”

“Coming right up.” Tommy grins wide enough to split his face in two, putting his foot down in a heartbeat.

Joel shakes his head, looking out the truck window as he turns the radio down, the voice singing some song about lost love a little too familiar for his liking. He thinks he gave up on love after Sarah’s mother – a feeble attempt at loving someone other than you – and he failed. She had disappeared from their lives in a night. Truth be told, he’s always known there was only one person in this world he would ever want to be with until the end, and he long ago accepted that he fucked it up when he gave in to the wishes of your father for you to be untethered as you chased your dreams. Was his love a tether trapping you? Joel sometimes still ponders the answer.

Instead he looks back to his brother. “You gonna ask her out this time, or keep on gawkin’?”

Tommy has the good graces to blush a little. “What you talking about? I’ve never gawked at a girl.”

“Yeah right.” Joel laughs, shoving Tommy’s arm just enough to annoy him without knocking his steering. “You’ve gawked at girls since the moment you knew you could get something from them. You gawk at that barista you always go there for, don’t be lying now.”

Tommy, shaking his head, shoves his brother right back. “Well, at least I’m looking at them. I haven’t seen you look at a girl in god knows how long.”

“Don’t need to look at girls. Got enough on as is.” He says, shaking his head and looking away, out of the window. He was right earlier then. Tommy did suspect something, and was fishing for answers as unsubtly as he could manage. Sometimes Joel forgets that Tommy doesn’t have a clue about you. That he is still hung up on a girl he hasn’t seen in almost twenty years. That to him, the only explanation must be some girl Joel met in a bar by himself after a long day, or some mum from Sarah’s class. He wishes he could move on, but it’s just not possible.

“Girls can be fun to fool with Joel.” Tommy tuts, head clearly not in the same place as Joel. “Can help get some of that stress to run along, and we both know you got stress to lose.”

He scoffs as he clenches and unclenches his fists. “I have ways of relieving myself.”

Tommy scoffs in return, pulling up outside the café and hopping out of the truck with Joel in tow. “Don’t I know it. But that doesn’t mean you have to be lonely.”

“I’m not lonely Tommy.” Joel says flatly as they enter the café, joining the way too long queue. The truth is he isn’t. Just because he misses you doesn’t mean he’s lonely. He has Tommy, even when he pisses him off. He has the boys on the sites, though they’re mostly annoying kids. He has Sarah, who he has adored since before she was born. He isn’t lonely. He’s loveless, and he knows the two things are very different. But Tommy is younger, and he doesn’t see that yet. He will though. Maybe if he messes up with another girl. “I’m fine as I am.”

“Yeah right.” Tommy shakes his head as he glances about. His expression brightens instantly when he sees the barista, gaze fixing on her like she’s the centre of the universe.

She is pretty, Joel has to admit, but he’s not really sure what his brother sees in her. He never does see what Tommy does in girls. Their tastes have always been different. Tommy is in for the cheap, the instant, and someday he’ll become like Joel who wants the long and lasting relationship. He’s had two loves of his life compared to the new one Tommy finds each week. This girl though, Tommy’s had an eye on her for months. Maybe he is growing up like Joel wants him to.

He elbows Tommy as they finally move a spot in the queue. “If I buy, I want you to tell me what to get Sarah for her birthday. And for you to not tell her I had to ask.”

“Only if you let me pay with your card.” Tommy mutters, his focus still split. “Don’t want it to seem like I can’t afford my own coffee.”

“You can’t.” Joel snorts, digging his card out of his wallet and passing it to him subtly.

Tommy pockets the card with a glare. “Yeah, but she don’t know that.”

He shakes his head, muttering something about how it wouldn’t matter, but Joel knew it fell on deaf ears. Tommy was too busy watching the girl, probably already preparing to trip over his words in an effort to speak before the woman behind them tries to get them to hurry up. He gives his brother the grace of a moment to himself, pretending to be fixated on a painting on the wall.

The problem comes when he realises he knows this painting. It was your favourite, a poster version of it hung above your bed. He remembers looking at it before you pulled him down into a kiss your mother had caught.

“What’s that?” He had asked, nodding towards it after you’d recovered from giggling at the look your mother had given the both of you.

You had turned your head, messy hair falling into your face as your grin widened. “My painting.”

Joel remembers leaning forward, mouth agape. “You painted that?”

“Don’t sound so surprised.” You say, laughing and shaking your head. “But no. It’s like, hundreds of years old Joel. I just call it mine because I love it so much.”

He fixed you with an unamused look, only to pull you into his lap with his chin rested on your head as you both looked at the painting. “Why do you love it then?”

“Firstly, it’s called The Toilet of Venus. How many paintings have the word ‘toilet’ in their name?” You grinned, gaze stuck on him and not the painting. “And I like what it could mean. You can’t see Venus properly, and I think that’s so we can still keep our own image of what the pinnacle of beauty is. It doesn’t have to just be ‘Venus’.”

He remembers saying some soppy shit about you being the pinnacle of beauty before kissing you again. It’s funny, he thinks, that even though it was soppy, it was undoubtedly true, even now. Joel looks at a picture of Sarah in his wallet and thinks about how beautiful she is. How he can think that both she and you are pinnacles of beauty, because Venus has changed for him, and yet he still finds comfort in the old.

Tommy slides to his side, holding out the cup of black coffee to Joel. “Earth to Joel, order up.”

His gaze snaps back to his brother, brought back to the present too quickly to breathe. There is no you. There is no him and you. There is, instead, an aching chasm in his heart. But he doesn’t talk about that. So he takes the coffee from Tommy and sips as they head back to the truck. Joel can sense his brother knows something is up, but what is a mystery to him, and one he is willing to continue. This is a wound he heals frequently.

He clears his throat, shifting the coffee cup in his hand, eager to change the topic before Tommy can get too close. “So, about that birthday present for Sarah...”

Tommy gives Joel a look that says he knows what he’s doing, but he knows that as the younger brother, he knows he has no room to demand. “I have an idea, but it’s expensive. I mean, she’ll love you for it. Absolutely. Like you hung the moon type of shit.”

Joel hesitates. Money is unfortunately an issue, even if it is for his most perfect girl. But he hums thoughtfully. It depends how expensive. He supposes that he could take more jobs, work a little later, and get Tommy to chip in. “What is it?”

“A concert.”

“A concert?” Joel repeats hesitantly, thinking of what he’s heard of the increased cost of concerts nowadays.

Tommy nods, leaning forward in his seat. “There’s one in a month, a singer she loves, and I know a guy who can get us tickets for just a little cheaper. He owes me a favour.”

He hums and runs a hand over his face. “I don’t know. Is she even old enough to go to these things? Don’t they have, like, age limits nowadays?”

Tommy huffs out a laugh. “God but if you don’t sound like an old man.” Joel shoots him a glare across the truck, and his brother raises his hands in surrender. “Yeah they do sometimes. We could go with her though, seein’ as it’s her first time. If she’s fine with it all, then maybe for Christmas she can go to one by herself or something.”

He turns the thought over in his mind. Joel hadn’t been to a concert in years. The last time must have been well before Sarah was born. Before he’d been with her mother. Oh god, probably when he was still with you. He shakes the thought from his head. Not there, Joel warns himself, anywhere but there. Instead he tries to focus on Tommy, on sneaking into a concert together for the first time a decade or so ago now. He did like live music. Sometimes he misses it more than he likes to admit. He remembers the feeling of the bass in his bones, his ears ringing for hours afterwards with the sound of the speakers, the ground shaking beneath his feet. One concert couldn’t hurt, especially if it was for his baby girl. He couldn’t drive her to a life without music.

“Who’s the guy who can get us tickets then?”

You haven’t known a decent night’s sleep since Joel Miller broke your heart.

You remember running into your house after he didn’t say that he loved you back. You remember sobbing into your bedsheets as you felt your heart break in two as the love of your life left you for no apparent reason. Sometimes the ache still splits you in two.

But after weeks of sobbing, the sleepless nights became about packing your life up in chase of your dream; singing. You kept your guitar, the one Joel gave you for your one year anniversary, but threw the rest into storage and tried to forget about it – though you never could. Even when the nights became working endlessly to get yourself picked up by a label, the songs you wrote ended up being about him.

You’d tried dating others in the new circles you inhabited, but none stuck. They didn’t light that same fire in you. They didn’t make the long days seem short and they didn’t make a rainy day seem to brighten. Your relationships with them were like a lifespan of a flea – short and each easily forgotten about by the morning. The nights in which they kept you up had you running to your notebook to write another lyric about how no one could compare to Joel fucking Miller.

There are nights when you dream of him. Dream about laying in his bed, singing him some song in his truck, driving the length and breadth of the state you had fled. The worst ones are the dreams in which he never broke your heart. Where you live a whole life together. You still sing and he builds you a big house, but more importantly you’re together, with three kids and some animals – the number always changes but it tends to include horses and dogs and chickens. You grow old and grey together, and your guitars rest against each other by the fireplace.

You can’t escape him.

You don’t think you want to.

But you ran regardless, and you are grateful for what has welcomed you. Four albums, all of which have sold a million times over. Unreleased songs that your online fan groups beg for. People covet your early merch and posters like precious jewels, and you’ve won enough awards to warrant a glass case to house them. Some know your real name, but you buried it with your old life from the internet’s knowledge. To them, you are Clio – a name born from a remembered story of the muse of history. You hadn’t wanted anyone to know of your past, and taking a stage name seemed the best decision.

You haven’t even gone back to your hometown yet. You keep a flat there, just in case, but otherwise you stay clear. That is, until now. After the release of your most recent album, your team has prepared a tour for you, and you almost pass out seeing your home city on the list of locations. Two weeks there. Six shows. You beg for them to change venue – maybe just to the next nearest city – but they refuse. The venue has been chosen, and you have no choice. You’re going back.

The dreams have gotten worse since then. You wake sweating from dreams in which you see him again. Some good, in which he falls at your feet and begs for forgiveness. Most bad, having him start an argument and chase you from the state, or worse in your eyes, having him had entirely forgotten about you. You sometimes think he had anyway. That maybe he had started a whole life and forgot your relationship had ever happened.

It’s new, living together. Some of your things are still in boxes that you swear you will unpack on your next day off from work, but Jack doubts you will. He knows the boxes will be unpacked slowly, over the course of a few months, until finally he can get rid of the cardboard forever. He doesn’t rush you though. He knows what it is like to be waiting until you know you don’t have to run.

Sometimes, he’ll have breakfast with you. He’ll sit beside you and watch as you pour a glass of apple juice for yourself, wanting to immortalise the way your tongue sticks out as you pour him a glass too. Jack gives you his spare fried egg when he finishes, knowing how much you love them. Then he’ll kiss your forehead and excuse himself to bed.

He is lucky, he thinks, that you spend the first half of your day working from home. It gives him time to lay there and stare at the ceiling and not sleep, despite the exhaustion aching through every molecule of his body.

He compares himself to a shark; if he stops moving, he’ll die. That’s why he works with SWAT in the day, and takes the night shift. It’s why he works double after double and helps everyone else without even thinking for himself. Because as long as he keeps pushing himself, he doesn’t have to acknowledge the pain that he knows goes deeper than the physical. The time he allots for sleep is torture. It is silence in the dark. It is a space for the darkness to enter into his mind.

Images play in his head of things he wished to never see again. Men dying out on the battlefield. Children dying on the operating table. His wife dying in his arms.

He tries to turn his thoughts to you. Your bright smile when he comes home after a shift. Your voice cutting through the ER when you drop off lunch to him. The scent of your shampoo on his bedsheets. Your eyes peering up at him, unsure but full of hope, when he asked you to move in. Usually, you are enough to push the darkness away.

But it’s one of those days he finds the worst. A seven year old girl died of an entirely avoidable accident. A husband lost his wife after a long battle with cancer. A vet thirty years older than him had a sudden heart attack whilst telling Jack his own tales of war and died thinking of those he’d lost. It all cuts too deep, pushes him closer to the edge of that roof in ways he really doesn’t want to admit to anyone.

When he got home, he’d kissed you briefly on the forehead before disappearing into your shared room. He knew you wouldn’t have thought much of it at the time. But if you find him awake, you’ll know. And he hates to see the way your eyes soften with an understanding he doesn’t even have for himself.

So he tries to fall asleep. Tries to push the images in his head away, even when they turn darker and become things he’s only ever seen in nightmares. You, in the ER after some sort of car crash, and him stood beside you, knowing there’s nothing he can do to save you. He’s come up with about a thousand different versions in his time with you, and hates them all. Jack won’t let you get hurt if it’s the last thing he does.

He finds himself still awake when he hears the telltale signs of you coming for your nap; the click of your computer closing, the water running as you clean your mug of tea and your footsteps padding across the floor so that you don’t wake him up. Jack feels his heart ache at your thoughtfulness as he turns over, half hiding his face against a pillow so that maybe you won’t notice that your boyfriend’s an insomniac.

You’re humming to yourself as you peer around the door, that song that you’ve insisted on playing every day this week because, in your words, it’s just too perfect not to. He feels the way your eyes search him before you must decide he’s asleep. You creak across the floor gently, changing into your pyjamas and climbing into bed beside him. You lay yourself as close to him as you can without touching him, so hesitant to wake him.

Jack listens to the sound of you trying to get to sleep. He knows it usually takes you a while. Not nearly as long as him, but still. You huff and puff as you try to will yourself towards a nap you’re slowly becoming aware is not going to happen. Jack can’t stand hearing your frustration. Not because he gets annoyed at you, but because he’s annoyed that it’s not working for you. He loves you so deeply he’s sure the sentiment has melted into his bones over the course of your relationship.

And because he’s a brave man, he swallows his pride and turns to face you.

Your eyes meet his, tears welling in frustration as you reach for him. Jack goes easily, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you to his chest. Instinctively, your arms wrap around his middle, tucking your head beneath his chin.

“I’m sorry I woke you,” you whisper, sniffling.

Jack shakes his head, pressing his lips to your hair. “You didn’t wake me, baby. I was already up.”

He knows it takes a minute to register through your frustration. Can feel the moment you catch onto what he says, pulling back to meet his gaze again. “What do you mean you were already up?”

Jack sighed as he sat up against the headboard, letting you move up with him to curl into his side like you always do. “It was a rough one today. We… we lost a lot of people.”

“Oh, baby,” you whisper, hand coming up to cup his face, making sure he faces you and not the shadows that you know all too well can become shapes, “I’m sorry. I know how much they take from you.”

He shook his head, pressing his lips to your hair so he doesn’t have to look you in the eye. “I’m fine. Not anything I’m not used to.”

You frown as you climb onto his lap, being careful not to hurt his leg that you knew would be sore from a long day. You knew he was lying. You always knew, a fact he both loved and hated about you. It made it hard to hide. “Just because you’re used to it doesn’t make it easy to deal with.”

Jack stares down at his lap, hands fisting into the fabric of your pyjamas. He didn’t want to tell you. He didn’t want to open doors he knew he couldn’t close. He kept you separate from the dark of his mind as much as he could, even if you managed to break in sometimes.

But he was defenceless against you when you would place a soft hand beneath his chin, tilting his gaze up to meet yours and whispering in that desperate, almost hurting, voice of yours, “Talk to me baby. Please.”

He crumbled, his eyes filling with tears he hadn’t realised he’d been holding in. “I keep seeing you in the places of everyone dying. I keep seeing all the possible ways you could die and it terrifies me, because I don’t know what I would do if I lost you. And if I woke up and you were dead… I just – I can’t do it again.”

You cradle his head to your chest like you do every time you see the hurt he doesn’t let out often. Your fingers tangle in his hair, stroking him as if you would to soothe a child. What helps him the most though is your mouth at his ear speaking so quietly he sometimes doesn’t believe you’ve made a noise. “I’m still here. I’m not dying.”

You don’t say, ‘I’m not her’. You don’t say, ‘You’re ridiculous’. You soothe him. You kiss him. You hold him until he can find his voice again.

“I know, but it’s just there. Always. Running through my head all the fucking time.”

Slowly, you take one of his hands and place it over where he told you your heart was, letting him feel the slow beat beneath his palm. “I know I can’t take away the fear. I’m just telling you that I’ll still be here when you wake up.”

Jack’s breath hitches as he looks up at you, cataloguing every inch of you to memory like he was scared to forget you. You knew he was. He swallows, fiddling with a strand of your hair and curling it around his fingers, his voice coming out like he couldn’t truly trust it. “Will you – will you hold me until I fall asleep? I don’t think I can do it without you.”

The way your face softens as you look down at him, leaning your head into his touch, brightens something in him. It pushes away the darkness he hates that he finds comfort in. And when you nod, the world gets a little brighter.

You climb off his lap and lay back down, resting his head on your chest where he can still hear your heartbeat. You hold him like he’s something precious, and you don’t judge him for a single thing he whispers to you until his words start to slur. Of course, you notice instantly. You always notice.

Jack thinks of the time’s he’s done this with you, when you’ve been worked up and frustrated and nothing in the world could get you to sleep. He thinks of what he usually says to you, and feels his chest tighten as you lean close to his ear to whisper the same thing. “It’s okay, baby. You’re not alone. I’m right here. I’ll watch you sleep.”

He lets out a shaky breath, because he has always been a brave man, but with you he doesn’t have to be. He can let himself listen to your heartbeat and have that be enough to get him to finally, finally, fall asleep.

Before you knew it, she was snatching your phone out of your hand and scrolling through the album she’d found of every failed homemade dinner from the past year. There was chicken that was the brightest shade of pink she’d ever seen which you swore you’d cooked for an hour, a wall that was black with smoke from a chilli that had given up the ghost and rice that she swore looked like it could be used to build a house. And then she found your screen time on UberEats, and the screenshot of how much you spent on it a month.

“How are you a doctor?” she laughed, jaw dropped in disbelief as she continued scrolling. “This is, like, worse than the contents of that guy’s stomach we saw the other week.”

“It is not!” you gasped as you snatched your phone back from Ellis, shoving it into your pocket before anyone else could see.

Unfortunately, that didn’t mean no one else heard.

Jack Abbot, unbeknownst to you, had stepped out just in time to hear the relentless manner in which Ellis was teasing you over your inability to even cook a pizza without charring it to a crisp. He crossed the short distance, leaned against the nurse’s station and looked down at you with an expression that could only be described as amused confusion. “What’s this I’m hearing?”

You flushed as you spun to look at him, his deep voice all soft and inquiring and making you want to melt into a puddle at his feet. “Nothing!”

“Oh, boss, you gotta see the shit this one’s been cooking up. And I really mean ‘shit’ because one of those pictures I saw was definitely just a bowl of brown mush,” Ellis said, face lighting up at the delight of having something to hold over your head for once.

Face as red as the tomatoes you never bought, you hid behind your hands with a borderline whine. “Oh shut up. Just because you learned to cook at ten.”

“Because it’s basic survival skills, you should – ”

“Leave her be,” Jack said. You don’t think you could ever be more grateful for him and the soft spot you both knew he held for you. After about six months, you’d given up hope that he’d act on it, but at least it hadn’t gone away.

He leaned a little closer to you as Ellis scoffed and returned to half-focusing on her charts. “Why don’t you know how to cook?”

Slowly, you lifted your head from your hands and met his gaze, shameful and embarrassed. “No one ever had the time to teach me. And then when I moved out, I couldn’t make sense of the ovens or the hobs, and there was no YouTube tutorial for it. I just… didn’t know.”

Jack’s gaze softened knowingly, arm brushing against yours so subtly you doubted the contact was really there. “Hey, that’s okay. Not everyone learns until they’re in their 20s.”

“I’m in my 20s, Jack. And I live off of takeaways.”

He laughed, shaking his head and rolling his eyes in a way that lessened the sting of humiliation just enough. “You know what I meant. People learn at their own pace.”

You huffed and looked anywhere else but at him. He was right, but it didn’t make it any less shameful to not have eaten a homecooked meal in over three years. You wanted to know how to work it all so desperately, to become the functioning human being you pretended to be on the outside, but every time you tried something would go wrong. You couldn’t explain it. Maybe you were cursed. But whatever it was, you hated it.

Jack watched closely, his attention too well focused for you to feel like he wasn’t potentially a mind reader. He could see that beneath the indignation there was a genuine frustration that had built itself a prison of shame – one that had found a home in your heart. He’d been trying so hard not to get too close to you, to not let what you two had cross into unprofessional boundaries, but seeing the small pout on your face had him crumbling in a heartbeat.

“What if I teach you?”

Your head snapped up. Ellis’ too, before she remembered she was supposed to not be listening. “What?”

He looked down at you with all the calm, collected confidence in the world. “You heard me. What if, on our next day off, I teach you how to cook?”

Quickly, your eyes searched his face for any hint of a lie, a crack in his armour that would prove he was only out to humiliate you further. It had happened enough times in your life to make you suspicious. But you found none of it in Jack Abbot. There was just the quiet conviction that he would be the one to help you.

You inhaled, breath shaking slightly. “You would do that for me?”

“Can’t have my favourite nurse go dying from lack of nutrients on me,” he shrugged, like what he said meant nothing.

But it meant everything to you. It was a lifeline, a promise that maybe you could finally become an entirely self-sufficient person. He wasn’t offering half-arsed advice, he was offering a full day with him in your flat as he taught you skills you were convinced you’d never unlock. “Alright then. When would you be free?”

You spent the next four days dusting off the unused pots and pans you’d bought years ago in the hopes of finally mastering more than microwaved rice. After that, Jack gave you specific instructions.

He had you catalogue what ingredients you owned which turned into a short list of seasonings and condiments (plus a can of Pringles, though you doubted they were of any importance). He had you come up with meals you missed and meals you thought sounded interesting, rating them in order of what you liked most. Then he asked what supermarket you thought was easiest to get to from yours.

You didn’t pry too much into his reasons for each, just guessing enough to form an idea of his plan to teach you to cook. You kept ordering takeaway pizzas and burgers and just waited until finally, on a Friday – you knew because it was the one night Ellis and you had free time for a movie marathon – he sent you a message, saying simply, ‘I’ll come pick you up on Sunday. Managed to get the day off. Be ready by nine am.’ Ellis snickered beside you as you blushed, rushing to reply like a high schooler with a crush.

When Sunday came, you were ready by 7. Despite the effort you put into acting like Abbot meant nothing more to you than a coworker, you’d put on your nicest dress and wore the necklace he’d gotten for you in a Secret Santa three years before. The hours spent sat in your windowsill until 9 were merely about watching for his Jeep that you knew the registration of all too well to park up on the road. You didn’t plan to rush down when he buzzed for you though. Didn’t want to seem too keen. After all, he was doing you a favour that you didn’t want to turn into something other than what it was.

In checking your phone for the millionth time, you’d missed Jack parking up. You’d missed him looking up and catching sight of you in the window, all curled up and curious. What was worse was that you’d missed the slow smirk that had crossed his face at the knowledge that he’d gotten you so worked up. He shook his head, carefully schooling his expression back to that same calm and collected one you’d come to know and love before ringing the bell for your apartment.

You jumped from your spot, eyes flying straight to the sight of Jack stood below waiting for you. “Shit!” you squeaked as you grabbed your bag, slipped haphazardly into your shoes and rushed down to open the door to him. “Hey!”

“Good morning to you too,” he said, half smiling at the sight of you just on the edge of breathless. “In a rush?”

“Uh, yeah,” you said as you tried to come up with believable excuses. “I couldn’t find my shoes, and I didn’t wanna leave you waiting too long.”

He looked you up and down, eyes lingering on the hem of your dress just that little bit too long before finding your eyes again. “I would’ve waited if you needed. Don’t stress yourself out over me.”

You bit your lip, trying to will the blush that had started to creep up your neck away. How long would he have waited, you think quietly. Ten minutes? Twenty? An hour? You shook the thought away just as quickly as it formed. “So, um, you said we needed to go to buy stuff first, yeah?”

“Yeah. Need to give you enough supplies to get you through at least three meals,” he said as he led you to the car, opening the passenger door whilst you got in with a soft thank you. Jack smiled to himself at the sound of your voice, so loud he could usually hear it across the hospital, suddenly so quiet. He closed the door behind you before getting into his side with a small sigh as he settled into the seat.

Glancing over his shoulder, he spun the wheel with one hand as he drove back out into the road, turning the car in the direction of the supermarket you’d said you went to for the bare necessities. Your eyes drifted over Jack as he told you all about the night shift you’d missed in favour of your movie marathon. You tried really hard not to stare at the way his neck moved as he talked, but you couldn’t help focusing on how it tensed, one vein standing out so clearly you knew you could trace your finger along it to his pulse. He’d washed his hair this morning too, you could tell from the way the curls seemed to bounce slightly as the Jeep went over a bump in the road. Briefly, you wondered what would happen if you just reached out and pulled on it.

Only to realise Jack was staring at you expectantly. “Did you hear any of what I just said?

“Yeah…” you said, despite knowing exactly that he’d keep pushing.

“Uh huh,” he hummed, an amused grin spreading across his face. “So what was it?”

Your brain blanked as you tried desperately to come up with a thought that wasn’t I wonder what his hands would feel like if they touched me. Some gossip maybe?

“Exactly what I thought,” Jack scoffed, tutting as if you’d failed some test. “You know, you really should be better at following instructions.”

Oh, your face had to be red from the images that conjured up. You felt the heat in your cheeks as you huffed and turned your head to look out the window. “Fine. Tell me what it was then.”

He smirked triumphantly, pulling into the car park. “I said, we’re gonna start you off easy. Fried eggs on toast. Halloumi in a wrap, with rice. And a chicken pasta bake.”

You looked at him as if he’d spoken a foreign language. “You’re joking. There’s no way you’re teaching me all that in one day.”

Jack looked at you as he parked up. For a second he was tempted to tease you; that was until he saw the way your brow creased with genuine nerves. You were sat tenser than he’d seen you during any major emergency at the Pitt. Maybe that’s because that was work and this was personal. He didn’t need to pry further. Instead he slowly reached a hand out, placing it over yours where it gripped your knee, thumb brushing across the delicate skin on the back soothingly. “Hey. Breathe. I promise you, I won’t be testing at the end. You’ll be fine.”

You tensed under his hand, for different reasons than nerves this time, before forcing yourself to relax. Jack was right. In all the time you’d known him, he hadn’t once judged you. And unlike Ellis, who you loved and adored, when he heard of your lack of culinary skills, he hadn’t laughed. Jack wouldn’t berate you if you got it wrong. He’d teach you the way he did when you couldn’t remember a specific suture he wanted the first time you’d been his helping hands; calm and steady.

Before you knew it, your breathing was back to normal. You gave Jack a shy smile as you nodded. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

Jack was slow and methodical as he took you through the store, not dissimilar to the way he taught doctors at the hospital. Your job was simply to push the cart as he pointed out what he was choosing for each dish.

He made sure to show you the type of chicken and where the best before date on them was. He taught you how to pick the best vegetables. He opened the box of eggs, checking to see if they were broken before placing them in the cart. He even insisted on you having the fanciest brand of penne pasta, because this one time, you were going to have Jack Abbot buy your groceries.

You grinned at your bountiful haul as you and Jack loaded it into the back of his truck. You’d never bought yourself so much food in your life. And for once, you knew none of it would go to waste.

This time the drive to your apartment had you gushing to him about all the food you wanted to try in detail. You sat up as you spoke about the TikTok folder of recipes you’d started the same day Jack offered his help, completely unaware of his gaze being too focused on your smile to fully pay attention to the other vehicles on the road. He saw the hope he’d given you, and kept it locked away safe in his chest; there was no way he’d let himself shatter it.

As the two of you grabbed the bags of food, Jack followed very closely behind you, keeping his eyes on your feet to ensure you wouldn’t trip. He’d given you the lighter, less breakable bag anyway, but he preferred to be safe. He also felt he couldn’t really be blamed when slowly, and entirely on accident, his eyes drifted up to catch a glimpse of your panties beneath the skirt of your dress. Letting out a curse beneath his breath, Jack felt himself harden in his cargo pants. They were pretty and pink and all together too enticing. He found himself thinking about how easy it would be to just slip his hand under the fabric and pull when you came to a stop in front of him, setting the bag of food at your feet and biting your lip as you dug your keys out.

“There they are,” you breathed when you finally found them, unlocking the door and shouldering it open before letting Abbot in behind you.

Trying not to seem like he was prying, Jack glanced over your apartment with a smile. If he could have made a person into a place, this apartment was you. There was light mess in piles that were clearly intentional, blankets thrown over the back of your couch and posters and pictures that lined the walls. There was even one of him, he’d noticed. It wasn’t just lived in, it was loved, like the pair of shoes he knew you’d worn throughout the years since you’d started at PTMC. He knew you didn’t think anyone knew they were old, because you faithfully cleaned them every fortnight, but he did.

He followed you into your kitchen and diligently passed over each item as he let you store them wherever you wanted. On occasion, he’d watch as you bit your lip before looking up at him with those eyes of yours so wide and gentle and curious, asking him to guide you on if the cupboard was alright or if you needed to store the food in your hands in the fridge. Each time he’d correct you softly, watching the way you relaxed and repeated the location beneath your breath before packing it away.

For a brief moment, he imagined doing something like this weekly. Taking you out, shopping for your food for the week and then unpacking it with you, though he’d know how you liked to organise your spices or what shelf of the fridge you liked to keep your cheese on. He’d teach you every dish you wanted, and then some. And when you were tired, he wouldn’t hesitate to cook for you instead. Even this small version of that reality felt so domestic in a way he’d never even imagined was possible for him to have again after everything he’d been through. But he wouldn’t push you yet. First he’d make sure you could cook the best meals you’d ever taste in your life.

The first meal Jack had you learn was the halloumi wrap, him laying out the ingredients on the side so that he was sure you could see it all as you set up the blender and a pan.

“Right, so we’re gonna take this nice and slow, yeah?” he said, eyes searching yours as you tied your hair back from your face.

“Yeah,” you agreed whilst letting out a deep breath. In the back of your mind, you had to keep remembering that this was only Jack Abbot. He’d practically sworn an oath to do no harm, he couldn’t be mean to you.

Once he was certain you were ready, Jack pointed towards a cutting board he’d prepared earlier. “First you gotta do the sauce. Grab the coriander, jalapenos and avocado.” He waited until the ingredients were laid out and your hands had started to tremble less before continuing. “Now chop them up.”

Careful and somewhat methodic, you cut up the ingredients one by one. For a moment, it felt blissfully easy to slice the coriander thinly and to cut the jalapenos up into smaller pieces. Then came the avocado. You turned to him, chewing your cheek. “How do I do this?”

His gaze softened almost imperceptibly at the sight of your nervous fidgeting before he moved, so quick and smooth it was almost like he was always stood with your arm pressed against his. Jack held a hand out, and it felt not dissimilar to that of standing beside him in the ER, passing him the knife as you would a scalpel. He hummed as he lay the avocado on its side, tapping it once. “It’s easy once you know, I promise.”

Again, he waited for your nod before sinking the knife in, rolling the avocado along the blade until it came apart in two even halves, the pit sat in the middle of one. “You gotta check for bruising. If there’s brown, you can cut that part away if you’re just using it in the sauce. If you’re eating it proper, then it might be a little mushy.”

“Okay,” you murmured, soaking up the information like a sponge, despite the urge to watch his hands more than what he was doing with them.

Jack moved one half of it away, explaining that he would use it when he taught you how to fry an egg later, before sliding the other half to you. “Now just peel away the skin and cut it into slices.”

Even though he was hovering much closer now, you managed to do as he instructed without much distraction. Then Jack nodded towards the blender, and you carefully added the ingredients in, along with the yoghurt he slid across the counter to you. He reminded you to add the salt and the garlic clove he’d crushed for you, as well as the lime juice before asking, “You know how to work it?”

“Press the button and hold down the lid, right?” you asked, glancing up just enough to see the approving look on his face.

Jack nodded and leaned against the counter, checking everything was right. Only when he was certain did he close the lid with a murmured, “Attagirl.”

If you’d had turned on the blender a second earlier, the praise would’ve slipped by unnoticed. But you hadn’t and instead your legs had turned to jelly beneath you. He’d made comments like it a million times over, but something about having Jack in your kitchen, cooking a meal with you made the comment hit you all the more harder. You prayed that any slight tremble could be dismissed as the effects of the blender, and not your hopeless crush on him.

By the time the ingredients were mixed into a sauce, Jack had already lined up the next few ingredients. Surely, if he was being so normal, he hadn’t noticed the affect his words had on you. Surely.

“You said you don’t know how to work the stove, right?” he asked, his words probing but gentle in that way you’d come to trust.

“Yeah. I stopped trying after I almost gassed myself,” you said as you set the sauce aside and came to the stove beside him.

“That would put most people off,” he murmured, looking at you almost amusedly before gesturing in front of him. “Stand here. I’ll tell you how to work it without killing yourself.”

You gave him a look that would stop most people in their tracks, though doing exactly as he said seemed to have lessened the intended sting. Once you were stood at the stove, your hands hovered over the knobs unknowingly. Jack tried to tell you how to turn the heat on. But he saw the panic starting to settle in again, the way you stared at the stove before you as if it was out to kill you. He let out a sigh that he knew you hadn’t heard before closing the distance between you. His hands lay on top of yours whilst his head rested against your own. “I’ve got you. It’s okay.”

You stiffened at first. Too much contact too quickly. But when he tried to pull away, you shook your head. “Help me. Please.”

“I know. Just breathe,” he whispered, his breath ghosting your ear as he moved your hands. It was as if you were a puppet, and he was the puppeteer guiding you through the movements. But it didn’t feel controlling when he twisted your wrist with his; it felt just like being held, like being steadied and knowing that there’s someone else to ensure you don’t collapse into the ground.

Jack didn’t stop murmuring into your ear as he poured olive oil onto the pan, nor when he helped you add the halloumi. You were sure he was doing it just to keep you grounded, but it didn’t help ease the ache steadily growing between your legs. He praised you just for sticking with it when he turned the halloumi over. He praised you for adding the honey and hot sauce over the top without spilling any. And if you weren’t so lost in his comfort and his praise, you might have noticed that what was pressing into your back was not his belt buckle, but him.

When he pulled away to set the halloumi down, you mourned the loss of him. But then he was pulling you along to lay the wraps out, and though he didn’t stand behind you as you added the sauce to the wraps, he was still stood too close to be casual. He didn’t say anything whilst you assembled the food together, watching as you looked at the food in almost awe.

“You did that,” he said softly, hoping that it would sink in.

“You helped.”

Jack shook his head and pointed at the plated up lunch. “I just moved your hands. You were the one who made that.”

He saw the smile start to grow on your face slowly, as if you didn’t know how to trust that it was real. He saw the moment you started to believe him. And when you turned to him, he knew it was a privilege to see the genuine joy across your face as you finally said, “I just made myself a proper meal.”

“There we go,” he grinned, placing a hand on your shoulder and squeezing with just enough pressure to make sure you felt it. “Knew you had it in you.”

Slowly, a grin to match his spread across your face. It was only one meal, but it was more than you thought you’d ever be capable of. The grin didn’t leave your face once. Not when you moved his and your plates to your kitchen table. Not when he poured you a small glass of wine as a treat. Not when the giddiness faded into the easy conversation that was usual between you after the years of closeness.

Jack was more focused on you than on the food or conversation though. He’d seen you happy many times before, but there was something about that specific moment. Seeing you so triumphant and pleased with yourself had a part of his heart he’d kept locked away opening for you. Like maybe that was always what it was waiting for.

As you ate, you barely paid attention to the mess you were making of yourself. The hot honey sauce had somehow managed to not just get over your fingers, but also down your chin. Jack, however, had not a drop to him. When you finished your meal, you leaned back in your seat with a sigh. “God, that was the best fucking thing I’ve ever eaten.”

He huffed, shaking his head. “Sure it is.”

“I mean it!” you giggled, hand going to push your hair from your face. But before your fingers could even brush across a strand, Jack’s hand had darted out, grabbing your wrist to stop you. Your eyes widened before dropping to look at where his fingers rested over your thumping pulse. “What are you doing?”

“You... have sauce on your hand. Didn’t want you to get your hair messy,” he said. Then suddenly, like he had to force himself into doing so, he let go of your wrist.

You blushed deeply, looking away. “Oh, yeah. Thanks. I hadn’t noticed.”

The silence pushed it’s way into the lull in conversation, making it feel all the bigger and slightly uncomfortable. Until the stickiness from the sauce on your fingers got to be too much, and slowly you lifted your hand to your mouth. Thousands of times you’d licked your fingers clean of food without thinking. It was almost second nature to you.

But Jack’s followed the movement of your tongue against your fingers like you were the target he’d been following for a week. You were about to stop when you saw the way his pupils had widened, turning his gaze darker. And it was the least clever idea on the planet to push Jack Abbot past his breaking point, but you figured you’d already gone so far. When you went to lick at your thumb, you pushed it so you were almost sucking it clean, tongue curled around it. He was closer now than before, having leaned subtly towards your side of the table, his eyes locked on the way your throat bobbed when you swallowed down the sauce.

You moved your hand away from your mouth slowly, like you were scared of breaking the moment. For the first time, you noticed the tent in Abbot’s cargos. Although the meal you’d just made had been amazing, you found your mouth watering for an entirely different reason.

Then Jack stood. His hand, rough and calloused, came to cup your face as he stood between your legs. His thumb swiped across your cheek, rhythmic and unhurried, like he had all the time in the world as he collected the sauce that had spilled there too. “You make a habit of getting this messy when you eat?”

“Yeah,” you breathed out, too enraptured by his voice dropping into that low, gravelly register you recognised from working a twelve hour shift beside him. This time though it was better. Because this time, it was just for you.

He tutted and rested his thumb against your bottom lip. “Can’t have that. Gotta clean up your mess f’me.”

Maybe it was the years you’d spent beside him, following his instructions through medical procedures you were sure he could do with his eyes shut. Or maybe it was because you’d spent most of the day already listening to him. But you knew instantly what he was expecting of you. You didn’t even care that he hadn’t kissed you yet as your tongue darting out of your mouth to lick across his thumb. There was no hesitation to it, just a small sigh of relief as you traced his calluses clean of the sauce he’d gathered from your chin. Jack’s breath hitched at the sight, catching in the back of his throat like he was waiting to be told when to breathe out again.

“Look at that,” he murmured when he finally pulled his thumb back, watching the line of spit from your lips to his hand stretch until it broke. He smiled at the disappointed little noise you let out, stepping back just enough to let you stand too. “What’s the whining for?”

You got to your feet slowly, barely trusting yourself to use them properly as your hands went to rest on his chest. “You stopped.”

Jack huffed out an incredulous laugh, brushing your hair back from your face. “Of course I stopped, baby. If I hadn’t, I couldn’t kiss you, could I?”

When your face brightened again like it had when you’d finally gotten the recipe right, Jack made sure to cup your face between his two hands. He let your hands slip to hold onto his wrists, making sure you didn’t want to push him away. He waited, just until he heard the start of a complaint form on your tongue, and then he brought his lips to yours.

You’d been kissed before. There’d been many fumbles in high school and nights out as you’d gotten older that had ended with a kiss or two beneath your belt. You’d slept with a few of them too. Though none of them had ever stolen your breath quite like Jack did. When he kissed you, it was domineering and demanding and somehow still the softest you’d ever been touched. You couldn’t help but melt into him as his tongue pushed against yours, letting him slide a hand into your hair to angle your head back for that little bit of ease it afforded him in deepening the kiss. It was all encompassing. It was too much. It was not enough. You wanted to drown in him.

But then he pulled back, forehead resting against yours as you both fought to find your breath again. Your eyes, bright and shiny, met Jack’s, dark and wanting, hesitantly before grins split across your faces.

“I have been waiting for you to do that for like, forever,” you giggled, finding the confidence in yourself to kiss beside his mouth.

Jack raised an eyebrow as he looked down at you. “Forever? I didn’t know you were the one who lived through the dark ages.”

“You know what I meant,” you said whilst glaring at him like it would actually change anything.

One of his hands slipped down to rest just beneath the hem of your dress, thumb rubbing circles into your thigh like he did it every day. It made the want surge through you faster and sharper than before. Jack, like always, saw it before you said it. “No.”

You looked up at him incredulously. “What do you mean ‘no’?”

“No, I am not having sex with you. We’ve still got other meals to go.”

“That – that wasn’t even crossing my mind!” you spluttered, knowing that he’d hit the nail on the head exactly.

“Uh huh, sure,” he said, watching as you tried excuses on him you knew wouldn’t work before they were even spoken.

“It’s not fair,” you said, trying for a whine as you peered at him through your lashes, not unlike when you’d admitted how bad you were at cooking. It had worked for you once, you reckoned it had every chance of working again. “I’ve not been with anyone in months.”

“Months?” he asked. “How’d that happen, baby?”

You chewed your cheek, glancing away from him. There was a part of you that wanted to give into the urge to lie, to tell him that no one had wanted to. But there was something in his eyes that made you want to tell him all your truths. “No one was right. No one was you.”

And bingo. You saw the words land their target on his heart. He was so predictable it was almost easy, the way his thumb paused its rhythmic movements before picking up again. You watched the gears turn in his head. Saw the way his eyes flickered to the other ingredients laying in wait, and then back to you again. And then you spotted the exact moment you knew you’d get exactly what you wanted.

Jack was the one to start the oven. He was the one to lay the pan and the pot on the side after showing you how to cut chicken, and thoroughly washing his hands. “Don’t touch stuff after you’ve touched raw chicken, okay baby? It’s important to remember that.”

You nodded, eyes so fixed on the movement of his hands you were barely paying attention to anything else. From the moment he’d suggested his plan to you, your brain had defaulted to needing him so bad it almost hurt.

He’d been insistent that you were going to learn at least one more meal before he actually fucked you. You’d argued that if you had to wait that long, you might actually die. He’d said that you were being entirely too dramatic, but that you could come to a compromise. If you followed a step well in his recipe for a chicken pasta bake, he would reward you in whatever way he saw fit. And so you really did try to pay as much attention as you could.

“Put two tablespoons of olive oil in the big pot on the stove,” Jack instructed as he took up his place at your back.

You inhaled sharply at the weight of him behind you, all warm and steady in ways you never knew you needed. Mercifully, your hands barely trembles as you added one, two tablespoons into the already heated pot. You set the spoon to the side as you watched the oil spread across the bottom before saying a quick, “Done.”

“Good girl,” he murmured. Your stomach started to twist with something far better than anxiety as his hand slipped beneath your dress to rest on your thigh. It wasn’t much. It wasn’t nearly enough to get you anywhere. But it was his hand so close to where you wanted it. “Now add in the onions.”

You’d chopped up the vegetables before, and with everyone you did right, he gave you a kiss. It wasn’t nearly as good as his hand between your thighs, but it was close. Now, you just had to pour them into the pot and move them around in the oil a little. He’d warned you it would take a while for them to fry, but that you didn’t need to worry. He had it all planned perfectly.

With every onion that you dropped in, Jack’s hand inched a little higher until he was cupping you over your panties. Every urge in you wanted to buck into his hand, but you knew the reward at the end was going to be far sweeter than anything you wanted to chase after right now. Once the onions were done, he nodded towards the chicken. “Do the same with the pan. Olive oil and then chicken. Don’t forget your spices too, honey, those are important.”

You followed his instructions perfectly, and in reward he angled his hand so that the heel of his palm was pressing deliciously against your clit. A low moan fell from your lips, head falling forward as you rolled your hips into his hand once, twice, three times before he stopped you. You looked up at him, pouting enough to make him smile. “What do I do now?”

“Gotta set a timer. Seven minutes,” he said, taking no small amount of joy in the whimper you let out as his thumb made its way beneath the edge of your panties.

You fumbled for his phone, opening it after he’d murmured the password right into your ear like it was some sort of dirty secret. When you opened his timer app, you found the seven minutes sat waiting for you to start. You clicked it and slid the phone back onto the counter just as Jack dragged his thumb up through your core, your head falling back against his shoulder with an embarrassingly high pitched moan.

Jack tutted, nudging your head forward instantly. “Just ‘cos you’re soaked through, doesn’t mean you can skip out on food safety. Gotta stay focused. Make sure it doesn’t burn.”

You whined, fingers gripping the counter so hard your knuckles went white. “It’s hard to focus though.”

“I know baby, I know,” he cooed against the shell of your ear, starting to circle your clit with his thumb to a soft squelch. “Just be good f’me, yeah? It’ll all be worth it.”

Reluctantly, you nodded and returned your gaze to the chicken. You tried to focus on the way it changed colour as it cooked. You tried to focus on the smell of the onions frying beside them. But in the end, you were lost to the feeling of the knot in your stomach starting to tighten. Jack knew it too, but maybe he was just too eager to care about pulling back just yet.

The shrill sound of the alarm cut through your impending build up, and you let out a quick curse beneath your breath. This, though, Jack would not do. His hand pulled away from you, drunk on the whiny complaint you let out in response. “What do you need to do next?”

You gritted your teeth, desperately trying to recall what your brain had since reduced to nonsense. “I – I take the chicken off and put the pasta on to boil.”

“There’s my clever girl,” he said, and the pride in his voice had you calming enough to actually follow through on the instructions. After you were done, Jack’s hand found it’s way back, dragging a finger up your slit to brush at your entrance before drifting higher again. “Now, add your seasonings to the sauce, and the can of chopped tomatoes.”

You feel suspended in the moment, trying so hard to make the sauce whilst waiting for more from Jack. Somewhere along the way, the food stopped being important to you. All you wanted was him.

Once the sauce was done, Jack peered over your shoulder to check it. Whatever he saw, it must have been good, because he patted your leg. “Now get up on the counter.”

Your brow creased, half in frustration, half in confusion. But when his hand pulled away again, you really had no choice but to do as he said. Once you were up, Jack pressed a hand to your thigh as if to move your legs apart, but you let them fall to the side easily. He scoffed, not unkindly. “That desperate, huh?”

“Only for you,” you whine in frustration, reaching a hand out to fist in his shirt and pull him closer. He went so easily, filling the space between your legs as his hands danced along your thighs.

He hummed, a look on his face that could only be described as triumphant. “We’ve got time until the sauce is done, yeah?” You nodded. “But we both know you can’t wait until it’s done for me to touch you.” You shook your head. “So while the sauce cooks, I’m gonna fuck you with my fingers until you come. How does that sound?”

If you weren’t already a pile of mush at his touch, that sentence alone would have had you collapsing. You nodded as enthusiastically as you could. “I really like the sound of that.”

He chuckled, lifting up your dress and slowly pulling your panties off. “I thought you would.”

Jack lifted your panties up close to his face when they were finally off, tracing a finger along the wetness there before dropping them to the ground. You’d find them later, when you were less occupied. Right now, you just wanted to focus on the way his fingers parted your pussy, gathering the slick that gathered there.

“You good?” he asked, and once you’d nodded, he slipped one finger inside.

You gasped, sharp and shocked, at the suddenness, so tight around his digit. Your hands flew from the edge of the counter to grip his shoulders, so tight you’re certain you’ll leave bruises. “Jack!”

“There you go, so desperate for it, I know,” he cooed against your forehead. Adding another finger, he effectively melted you into the counter as he curled them inside of you, finding that sweet spot that had your eyes watering. You tried to push towards him, needing so much more so much deeper, but he wouldn’t let you.

Jack grinned as he pulled back enough to watch your face lined with pleasure. “Tell me, how long have you needed me?”

“Years,” you gasp, arching towards him like you’d die if he wasn’t touching you. “Since my first day.”

“Oh really now?” he asked, speeding up the movement of his fingers in a way that had you coming so close to the edge. “Did you touch yourself thinking of me?”

You nod ferociously, not trusting the sound of your own voice.

“Good girl, knew you would. Bet the real thing’s better though,” he smirked, his fingers finally finding the best spot inside of you. It made you squeal and hide your face against his shoulder, but this time he let you. He just let his thumb drift to your clit, moving it in time with his other fingers.

You started to babble his name, the pleasure almost too much as it burns through you. He feels it before you even say it. “You’re close, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” you whine, gripping onto him tighter, making him hiss.

“Fuckin’ knew it,” he muttered, eyes flickering to check on the pasta sauce before deciding to let you have it. “Go on then. Come for me.”

The tightening in your stomach snapped with ease as he coaxed the orgasm from you. Your head fell back, whimpers loud in the kitchen. You gasped through it, his fingers not stopping moving until he’s sure you’ve come down from the high. Jack shushed you with a gentle kiss, spare hand stroking along your arm as he removed his fingers from you.

When the kiss broke, he brought his fingers up to your mouth. “What do we do with messes like this again?”

You brought his fingers to your mouth like you’d done with your own before, your lips wrapping around them greedily. You made sure to clean them thoroughly, sucking the taste of yourself off of him.

When he pulled them away, you whined at the loss. He chuckled and wiped his hand clean on your thigh. “You’ll get more soon sweetheart, don’t worry.”

He stepped back, looking over you, trembling and messy but wanting still.

Then he nodded towards the sauce, bubbling away. “Finish putting that together and wash your hands.”

You looked at him incredulously. “Seriously?”

“Do I look like I’m joking?” Jack asked, raising his brow. “If you do that, I’ll give you more. But only if.”

You huffed in frustration as you hopped off the counter, grabbing the dish Jack had set aside earlier and pouring the sauce, chicken and pasta in. He glanced over your shoulder once, making sure you’d done it right. When he was satisfied, he took the dish from you to put it in the oven whilst you cleaned. You could feel him, only steps away, still watching you as you dried your hands on the towel. You felt the tension like a palpable thing, thrumming through the room. But once the dish was in the oven, it was like a switch was clicked. Jack just couldn’t wait anymore.

He pulled you down from the counter, fixing your dress from where it had slipped down and placed a hand on the middle of your back. “Where’s your bedroom, baby?”

You flushed deep as you reached your hand back to steer him through your apartment, thanking God that you’d actually made sure it was spotless when you opened the door. It wasn’t like you actually expected this to happen, but you’d really hoped.

Jack’s eyes catalogued every inch of the room quickly before landing on your bed, pretending not to notice the teddy you’d clearly stuffed behind the pillows. He crossed the room, leaving you at the door as he climbed up your bed and rested his back against the headboard. Slowly, he took his cargos off and dropped them onto the floor. You were about to complain that that was a job you wanted to do, before his hands went to remove his prosthetic. You were half tempted to help him with that too, but you didn’t want to get in the way.

Before you could get too lost, he lay his prosthetic on the floor with a sigh of relief, sat back up and patted his thigh. “C’mon.”

Grinning, you climbed onto his lap with zero hesitation. Your knees landed on either side of his hips as you lowered yourself so that your core was resting over the heat of him, letting out a whine when he held you there. “I could’ve helped you with your prosthetic, y’know.”

“Next time,” he whispered, distracting you from the promise in his words by crashing his lips to yours. Kissing Jack felt like heaven. It felt like falling and knowing you’re not going to hit the ground because someone’s there to catch you.

His hands curled around the fabric of your dress and started to tug it up, checking that you liked it before lifting higher and higher until finally it was off of you. He glanced down, looking over the skin he had been yet to see. “So pretty, baby, aren’t you?”

You blushed and tried to look away, though he grabbed your chin with one hand. He turned your head, guiding it down just enough for you to see him leaving marks along your neck and down your chest. Where his lips found you, he’d suck and lick and bite, leaving bruises and red marks of all kinds almost like a path.

His spare hand came up your back to pull your bra off, dropping it to the side like it meant nothing. For a moment, you thought he’d touch your breasts, but when you rolled your hips into his, he let out a groan so deep you knew he couldn’t last much longer.

In one swift movement, Jack had hoisted you up and pulled his boxers down. Your mouth watered as you watched his impressive, thick cock spring free, hitting his stomach. Your hand went to reach to wrap around it, desperate to feel the weight of it in your hand. Before you could, Jack stopped you with his tutting.

“Not this time,” he said when you frowned up at him. “Gotta be in you too much for that.”

“Okay,” you breathed out, wanting him so much that it honestly did not matter what he did so long as he did it.

He moved your hands so that they rested on his shoulders, his own landing on your ass and lifting you up to hover over the length of him. The hand that wasn’t holding you up held his cock as he lined you up. Slowly, you lowered yourself onto him until your hips met his.

Jack was big. There was no doubt about it. You felt him so deep you were convinced that the two of you had become one. And when he tipped his head back and groaned, you knew he felt it too.

As you adjusted to the stretch of him, Jack kissed your forehead. He kissed the little crease between your eyes that had formed. He kissed your nose. Then he hovered over your mouth. “You okay?”

You nodded, brain slightly fuzzy as you met his eyes. Something in your heart twisted at the genuine softness there.

“Then I’m gonna move you.”

And just like that he was bouncing you on him. The wet sound of skin slapping against skin filled your room, your fingers clawing at his chest like it was the only thing grounding you to Earth. The feeling of being so full shocks you into moving with him, rolling your hips into his relentlessly.

Jack moaned, breathing so heavy you’d have worried about him in any other setting. “Do you like that then?”

You nodded, mouth hanging open as you sped up, chasing the high again. His hands still helped you move, grabbing at the plush skin of your ass and pounding you down on top of him. Little breathy moans fell from your mouth as your hands tangled in his hair, touching him as much as you could for as long as you could.

“Jack, fuck, it feels so good.”

“Yeah,” he breathed out, pushing up to meet you just enough to make it all feel sharper. Clenching around him, a punched out noise escaped his throat. “You close, sweetheart?”

Tears formed in your eyes, whining so loudly you knew your neighbours would complain the next time they saw you. “Uh huh.”

Jack tutted, holding on just that little bit longer. “Words, baby, use your words.”

“So close, gonna come,” you whimpered.

A proud smirk spread across his face as he brought you down with a hand in your hair to whisper in your ear, “Come with me then.”

The world around you seemed to fade away as your release came and his followed. You clamped down around him, both of you cursing beneath your breath as he filled you to the brim. Only when Jack was certain that you’d finished and had floated into the aftermath did he kiss you again. You were sure it was to muffle the noise that came from you as he slipped out of you and rolled you onto your back, but it made you feel all sweet anyway.

Jack pulled back, eyes meeting yours. “Still okay? Not too much?”

You let out a breathy laugh, shaking your head. “No. Was perfect. You were perfect.”

He hummed and leaned down to kiss you again. “Nah, that was all you.”

When Jack was sure you were okay, he lifted himself from the bed. He reluctantly attached his prosthetic again before going to remove the food from the oven. When you were ready, he’d feed you the fruits of your labour.

It's not like you hid the fact you were pregnant maliciously. You knew he had the makings of a great father in him, even if the two of you weren’t actively trying. And whilst the idea of having a baby whilst being a fourth year resident wasn’t exactly ideal, you knew you didn’t want to get rid of the baby either. But you felt like maybe – just maybe – you didn’t have to tell Robby just yet. Again, not because you wanted to baby trap him or anything like that. No. Because for the first time in years, Michael Robinavitch was taking a holiday and the last thing you wanted was to ruin it for him.

You knew his sabbatical seemed to most like a midlife crisis. Admittedly, it did to you too. Riding across the country on a motorbike was stupid, but you’d bought him the best helmet money could buy and he’d sworn to you that he wasn’t going to do anything stupid. He planned to miss you very much during the three months and make up for how much you’d missed him before returning to his job.

Deep down, the both of you knew how much he needed a break. He’d been getting snappier and angrier with every day that had passed over the last few months. Mostly at work, but on occasion with you too. You’d had your first big fights of the relationship. Ones that had him crawling across the floor to whisper apologies, looking up at you with those big dark brown eyes of his all wet and begging for a forgiveness you always gave. But that was you. You knew Robby didn’t afford that same privilege to his other coworkers. Abbot and Dana, occasionally, with a push. But Mohan was a different story, one you knew you couldn’t let him keep writing. It had been you who had suggested he find himself an adventure far away from Pittsburgh and any reminders of it – even if that included yourself.

Maybe it was because you saw what you reckoned others couldn’t; that Robby was pushing and pushing and forcing people away so they wouldn’t miss him. But you weren’t about to let him have a reason to leave the world. Not when you both loved each other so much.

Should that be a reason to tell him, you wondered as you sat cross legged on your shared bed, smiling at him as he talked to you about his plans for the drive. As Robby spoke of tourist traps he’d marked on his map, you decided it wasn’t. You could practically see the responsibilities lifting off of him one by one as he talked about his plans, the lost weight bringing back a version of him you had briefly genuinely feared was lost. You weren’t about to make that all crash down around him.

So instead, you lay a hand over your stomach, rubbing small subtle circles into it as you nodded along to his conversation. He tried on shirts for you, posing just to have you giggle at his over exaggerated flexing, before folding them messily and throwing them into his backpack. Once the backpack was half packed, Robby pushed it from the bed with a sigh, eyes flickering to you. “You’re still good with this, right?”

For a brief moment, your stomach twisted with something close to guilt. You hated lying to him, you’d usually crumble in seconds. But this was for him, not against him, you reminded yourself. You had to be good with this.

Your eyes softened, hand slowly leaving your stomach to reach for him. “Yeah. Yeah, of course I am. You need to do this. It’s okay.”

Robby had crumbled within seconds. He climbed up the bed and cupped your face in his hands. “You promise?

“I do. Don’t worry about me.”

He sighed, leaning down to kiss your nose. “Too good for me, honey. That’s what you are. Way too good.”

God, you begged he didn’t see the guilt eating you from your inside out.

It took you until the morning of Robby’s last shift to confide in anyone else that you were pregnant.

You honestly thought you’d been hiding it perfectly. The sudden lack of eggs for breakfast was easily disguised by your sudden affinity for waffles and bacon, and your vomiting wasn’t noticed so long as you were careful to lock the bathroom door at work with a ‘Cleaning in Progress’ sign on the handle.

But knowing Robby’s sabbatical was only hours away had thrown you off your game. You slipped the sign on as usual the second you started your shift, but in your haste to make it to the toilet you’d forgotten to lock the door. And Dana had started to get more than a little pissed off that the easiest bathroom to access was always locked at the start of the day. When she tried the handle, she expected the usual frustration of rattling it for a minute or two before giving up, not to find it open and you vomiting into a toilet like your body was trying to get rid of all the nutrients it held.

“Oh, honey,” she said as she moved to hold your hair away from your face, rubbing your back with all the care you’d come to expect from her. “It’s okay. Get it all up.”

After enough time had passed that you were sure it was over, you sat back against the stall, wiping tears from your eyes as Dana flushed the contents of the toilet away. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it, kid,” she murmured as she sat beside you, her shoulder nudging against yours. “Now, do I gotta send you home?”

You shook your head with a sniffle. “I’m – I’m not sick.”

Dana snorted. “Looked pretty sick to me.”

Slowly, you tore your gaze from the floor to meet hers, swallowing around a lump in your throat so big that you worried it was about to choke you. “I’m not sick, Dana. I’m pregnant.”

You’d half expected a stunned silence from Dana, but instead she was looking at you with an expression so soft it hurt. “You’re sure?”

“Took four tests, all positive. Gave myself an ultrasound,” you whispered as you nodded shakily. “There’s a baby in me, I’ve seen them.”

Dana watched you for a moment, cataloguing the way your breath hitched, how your lip trembled and your eyes looking at the floor like you were awaiting a charge of ‘guilty’. “Robby doesn’t know, does he?”

“I can’t tell him. He’ll never go on his sabbatical, and he’ll just get worse, and it’ll be all my fault.”

You hated hearing how your voice broke. You especially hated the tears forming too thick and too fast to stop. After weeks of keeping it a secret - of keeping all the fear in – your resolve dissolved into sobs you didn’t know you held. Dana’s arms slipped around you, rubbing your back again as she let you stop being strong.

It was the first time since you’d taken the test that you’d actually said the words ‘I’m pregnant’. Of course they’d been stuck in your head; at the moment, all you could think about was baby and Robby. There had been no you until you’d said it aloud. You’d forgotten that in taking all the weight away from Robby, you’d been crushing yourself into a fine dust.

Dana didn’t say anything until you’d quietened again, knowing she needed your focus to make any sort of leeway. “Listen to me, yeah? Robby may be pissing us all off a little at the moment, but I can say for certain that he loves you. He would love a baby with you. He wouldn’t want you keeping it from him.”

“But – ”

“No buts. He can have his sabbatical sat at home with you just as easily as he can in the middle of fucking nowhere on a motorbike,” she sighed, wiping your damp hair and tears from your face. “Let him choose you. Don’t push him away.”

You knew, deep down, that she was right. Of course she was. But that part of you that was so scared of being hurt and hurting others was so strong it threatened to drown you forever. “You don’t think he’ll be mad?”

Dana shook her head instantly, smiling in that warm way that made everything better. “No, kid. I think he’ll be over the moon.”

It wasn’t your fault that it took you until the end of the shift to work up the courage to tell Robby.

You really hadn’t meant to take so long. The problem was that every time you got close, one of you was pulled in a different direction. There was Langdon, and Robby’s determination to be wherever he was not. There was Louie passing and the grief that seemed to suspend the hospital. There was the influx of patients from Westbridge and the rush to ensure they were treated properly. And in between it all, there was the beautiful little baby girl who had been left in the hospital.

When you went to find Robby after you’d finally finished your shift, you felt it was cruel of the universe to show you him holding baby Jane Doe in the darkened paediatrics room. He was swaying her as she cried, trying to soothe her no doubt. God, he really would make a good father. Your hand went to lay over your stomach at the sight as you found the lump in your throat returning with a vengeance.

For a moment, you considered running to anywhere else – the toilets, Dana’s arms, your soon to be empty home. But then Robby looked up. His eyes, watery and soft, found you and he seemed to brighten. Just a little. Just enough to melt something inside of you.

You couldn’t keep running from him. Not the way he usually did. So instead, you made yourself step into the room.

“You okay?” Robby asked softly, patting the baby’s back as he watched you, looking for the signs you didn’t want to show. He’d gotten quite good at it, if he did say so himself. But he could see nothing. It was like you were closed off even from yourself. The observation made his frown deepen.

You nodded, chewing the inside of your cheek. “I’m good. I just… wanted to see you before you left.”

“Still here, baby,” he murmured.

You liked it when it was quiet between the two of you. You didn’t need loud and obvious to love Robby. You just needed a hand on your back, his voice whispering in your ear as you watched a movie late at night and him beside you in bed. Your heart ached at the sudden remembrance that he wouldn’t be there for the next three months.

You moved until you were directly in front of him, smiling at the baby as your hand joined his on her back. “God, aren’t you just perfect?”

Robby watched the way your eyes shimmered with barely restrained tears, the quiet longing ache that had settled in your bones struggling to hold you steady the way it had before. You were watching the baby as if she held secrets you’d wanted to know for so long, and maybe she did. Robby just wished he knew how to give them to you too.

“She is, isn’t she?” he said back, giving you the space he knew you needed to let him in.

Your tongue darted across your lip, trying to buy yourself time to find the right words before he pressed too hard. But your brain was so tired and the pain in your chest wasn’t easing the way you needed it to. It wasn’t your fault that the word’s seemed to tumble from your mouth without really consulting your brain. “Would you have a baby?”

You felt the air in the room shift. Not in a way that made you want to run, but similar to that of the moments before a storm you know won’t do too much damage. Robby’s eyes weren’t so soft anymore; they were confused and cautious, as if he was aware you’d stepped into territory he wasn’t prepared for. “A baby? What do you mean?”

“With me,” you whispered, biting your lip. You would be lying if you said you hadn’t imagined it already. Growing bigger, growing a life inside of you, and watching Robby as he built a crib or painted a room when you got too sore to help. Him letting you have your pick of names when the baby finally came. Watching him as he learned to love a mini version of the both of you that you’d made. From the moment they would enter the world to the minute they left you for college, you’d thought of it all in excruciating detail.

“Are you asking if I’d have a baby with you?” he asked as one hand left the baby to cup your face, his thumb rubbing across the apple of your cheek so gently it brought tears back to your eyes. “Why?”

And you knew what was going to happen before it even did. You saw it the way people described a car crash – watching as if you were a bystander to the event. You felt it as the tears finally spilled over and your voice wavered whilst choking out, “I’m pregnant.”

Robby stood frozen before you, eyes darting over your face as if he could find a trace of a lie or a joke. But he didn’t find the tells he had become used to throughout your relationship. You were pregnant, and he could see that you were certain of it. He didn’t ask you if you’d taken a test as he lay the baby back down. He didn’t ask if you’d actually had it confirmed as he took your face in both of his hands. What he asked instead when he leaned down to make sure he saw you properly was, “How long have you known?”

“Three weeks,” you said through tears, hands going to hold his wrists so that he couldn’t let go of you.

He repeated the timeline in a quiet whisper. You could practically see the cogs turn in his head as he thought of your sudden hatred for eggs, your over exhaustion at the end of a shift and the few times he’d caught you vomiting, which you had waved off as a result of a bad takeaway. But mostly he thought of the quietness he’d started to notice in you. At first, he’d thought it was because of his sabbatical. It was your way of preparing for the three months you’d have without him to talk to constantly. But he could see now that this was a different kind of withdrawal; one he wasn’t meant to have noticed.

“Why didn’t you tell me, honey?”

You sniffle and hiccup, trying to get the tears to stop as he soothes you with the gentle brush of his thumbs. “I didn’t – I didn’t want to ruin your sabbatical. I didn’t want to stress you out more and ruin everything.”

You expected him to yell. Maybe even to curse you out. Possibly even to say that you had ruined everything and that he was going on his sabbatical and not coming back. That was the kind of man you had come to expect in your past, and had started to notice in Robby too.

What you hadn’t prepared for was kindness.

“Oh, sweetheart, this wouldn’t have ruined anything,” he cooed gently, kissing your forehead like he could absorb all your overthinking.

“No?” you say as the tears slowed.

Robby shook his head with an exhausted half-smile. “No. I would have hated to come back and find out that you’d kept a baby from me.”

Your lip trembled again, and he sighed before pulling you to his chest. Slowly, in that soothing way he’d perfected after over a year of being with you, he rubbed a hand up your back. He kissed your hair and whispered comfort that you’d been desperate to hear since that pregnancy test had come back positive. “I don’t hate you. It’s okay,” he murmured, eyes creasing with a love that truly weighed him down. It wasn’t a weight he hated; he found comfort in it. There was a steadiness, a familiarity, a calm he found there that he hadn’t anywhere else. He wasn’t about to give that up – not in a million years.

Slowly, your panicked breaths slowed, and you met his gaze hesitantly. “I didn’t mean to hide it from you. I just didn’t want to ruin your road trip.”

“Hey, it’s okay.” He shook his head and stroked your hair from your face like he did every morning when he finally climbed from your bed. Robby looked from your face to your stomach slowly, moving one of his hands to rest over it like he could already feel the physical difference in you. “I don’t think I want to go on my sabbatical anymore anyway.”

“Because of me?” you asked in a panic, rushing to come up with reasons to make him go.

“No, because everyone’s right. It is a midlife crisis,” Robby said, exhaling through his nose, lips quirking up into a smile at the corner when you let out a shaky laugh. There she is, he thought. The kind, easy, giving girl was the one he loved, not the one who sat up all night with her stomach twisting from omitted truths. “We could go somewhere instead. You’re overdue for a break yourself. Especially if there’s gonna be a baby on the way.”

A million thoughts rushed through your head. That you should push Robby to go on his sabbatical still. That you didn’t need a break, not yet anyway. That he still needed space from everything that was pulling him down. But at the same time, all you could really hear echoing in your ears was that the plans had changed because of the baby. “You want the baby?”

“Of course I want our baby,” he said softly, kissing your cheek so gently you barely felt it. “I’m fucked up. You’re a mess. But I’m not missing out on this. Not when it’s with you.”

You waited for your brain to supply excuses, reasons not to do this. But for once, you found your thoughts to be blissfully quiet. You wanted this. He wanted this. It was okay to want to do this together. So you didn’t argue. You let yourself want it. You gave yourself permission, finally, to fully love the life inside of you.