Robby isn’t able to get anything out before Jack hangs up. He knows he needs to move, needs to start running back to the hospital but he’s stuck standing in your apartment with tears streaming down his face. 

Adamson. Leah. And now you. Another name on the list of people he’s killed on this date. 

Because Robby is sure you’re not going to be alive when he gets to the hospital. Or that if you are it won’t be for long. Even after he broke your heart and got you killed he could see you trying to be nice to him and waiting to die until tomorrow but he’s not sure he wants that. 

Robby’s eyes roam your kitchen to your fridge. You have a strip of photobooth photos of the two of you hanging up with a magnet. You look so happy. He looks so happy. You both look so in love, even if you hadn’t said it yet. It brings him back down and he realizes he has to go, he needs to try and get to the hospital in time to either help save you or say goodbye to you. 

He walks quickly back to your front door and locks it before running down the stairs and back out onto the street where he starts sprinting again. He takes every shortcut he knows, anything to shave off even just a couple of seconds. The adrenaline coursing through him is giving him the ability to keep up his sprint and he knows when that adrenaline crashes, it’s going to crash hard. 

There’s the briefest second of relief when he finally sees the ambulance bay doors. He’s almost to you. 

He comes running in through the doors looking for you or for Jack. “Where is she?” Robby yells the second his eyes find Jack on the opposite side of the hub.

Jack’s head snaps in Robby’s direction like he’s been here waiting for Robby. He starts to walk toward Robby who has lessened from a sprint to a partial run. Jack holds his hands up and steps in front of Robby, putting his hands on Robby’s chest to catch and slow Robby down for a few seconds before removing them.

Robby thinks he might be sick. Because Jack isn’t working on you. And Jack isn’t greeting him with a reassuring ‘she’s alive.’ And Jack isn’t leading him toward a trauma room or toward the elevators to go up to an ICU or OR or whatever other floor but off to the side toward one of the more secluded empty rooms. And everyone is looking at him not with hope but with sympathy that feels more like pity. 

“Jack. Please.” He can’t even begin to try and catch his breath. “Please don’t take me into some room and tell me she’s dead. Please.” His voice breaks on the last please, a prayer and a plea to his best friend to not fucking do this to him. 

Jack shakes his head. “She’s alive. I’m not taking you to any room to tell you she’s dead. I just didn’t think you’d want to do this in front of everyone.” Robby lets out a barely muffled sob of relief. “She’s up with neuro. Dana’s in observation. She’s not alone okay? But it’s ba-”

“Brain surgery? Oh jesus fucking christ.” Robby takes off for the elevator, Jack right behind him. “I need to see her.” 

“Robby, hey,” Jack tries to get his attention as he presses the elevator call button over and over. “Are you sure you want to see her like that?”

“Yes.” There’s no real thought to it. Because to Robby it’s not even a question. The doors open and the two step in, Jack hitting the button for the right floor and then the door closed button. “What are her injuries?”

Jack pauses for a second. “It’s bad, Robby.” 

Robby’s stomach twists again. He knows what it means when Jack says something is bad because of how rarely he uses it. For Jack, bad is the worst. 

The elevator arrives at their floor and they both step out, Jack pulling Robby over to the side of the hallway with him. Jack lets out a breath. “Longitudinal basilar skull fracture, depressed skull fracture along her left parietal and temporal. Massive subdural hematoma, easily the biggest I’ve ever seen on a patient. Tripod fracture on the right.”

Robby shakes his head at Jack, more adrenaline pouring into his system and making him shake a little. It feels like he can’t breathe. “What else?” he whispers.

“Scrapes and bruises, nasal fracture. Cut on her face that I’ve made sure Plastics will stitch.” Jack gives Robby a couple of seconds to take it all in before nodding in the direction of the observation room for your OR. “Come on.”

They finish the short walk to the door and Jack opens it, walks in after Robby. 

“Hey,” Dana says softly as she stands and approaches Robby to give him a hug. “She’s hanging in there.” 

Robby barely hugs Dana back, too focused on looking at you. Because seeing you, seeing you in that chair with your head bolted into place, intubated, face already incredibly swollen and bruised, seeing you makes it all too real. “Oh my god,” Robby whispers. “Oh my fucking god.”

“I know,” Dana murmurs, standing next to him and rubbing his back. 

“I…She…” Robby shakes his head and swallows hard. He has to turn around and he hates himself for it, feels like he’s abandoning you once again but he just can’t. He lets out a half-broken sob as he puts his face in his hands. 

“Sit down, yeah?” Dana leads Robby over to one of the seats while Jack turns the monitors and speaker off so Robby doesn’t have to see it up close or hear it. 

“How long has she been in surgery?” Robby whispers after a minute, dropping his hands in his lap and sniffling. 

“She went up a minute or so after I hung up,” Jack tells him. 

Dana takes the seat next to Robby. “They’ve evacuated about half of the hematoma.” 

Robby gets dizzy at that. The hematoma he just saw on your brain was still huge. He figured you hadn’t been up here that long and they were just getting started. “That was half of it?” 

Neither Dana nor Jack say anything. There’s not much to say at this point. Like Jack said. It’s bad. 

Robby wipes away a few tears and can almost feel the wall his mind builds around him and everything growing numb. “What was her GCS?” He watches Dana and Jack look at each other, neither answering. “That bad?”

“It wasn’t great,” Jack says slowly. “We burr holed her downstairs and once we got the ICP down her GCS came back up. Then I called you and while I was talking to you she seized and her GCS dropped again.”

He just nods. He doesn’t push for the actual numbers. They don’t really matter right now anyway. Robby doesn’t know if five minutes or five hours pass as he sits there, lost in his head and wishing he could just go to sleep and wake up and have you in bed next to him and none of this be real. He’s not even fully aware of Dana squeezing his shoulder and slipping out of the room. He’s stuck in his thoughts, replaying all of your best moments together and then him breaking up with you in that supply closet, over and over and over. 

It’s only been six or so minutes of Robby lost to his thoughts when he finally pulls himself free enough to look at Jack. “What happened?” 

Jack sighs and takes a seat, leaves one chair in between him and Robby. “Not super clear. Based on her injuries and where she was found it looks like she got punched from the side and fell and hit her head on the curb. Mugging probably, she was missing her backpack and phone.”

“How long was she down?” Robby mumbles.

“Don’t know.” Jack shakes his head. “A while I would guess. Her body was hidden by a car to anyone driving by and where she was found isn’t a heavy pedestrian street at night.”

“Where was she?” You couldn’t have been on your way home, Robby would’ve seen you while running there. Unless you’d already been picked up. 

“Paramedics said she was about a block west up and a hundred feet or so down from Harry’s bodega.” Jack tells him. “I don’t know, obviously, but it feels like she was trying to get to a busier street to walk on.”

Robby nods. The two settle back into silence. Robby can hardly fathom you just laying there on the sidewalk growing closer and closer to death all alone. He wonders how long you were conscious for. If hitting your head on the curb knocked you out or if you had to lay there knowing what was slowly happening to you, if you had to watch them take your backpack and feel in your pockets for your phone. 

That line of thought brings Robby to a natural worry. What if whoever it was hurt you even worse? What if taking your backpack and phone wasn’t enough? He almost gags at how hard the nausea hits again. “Jack. Was she…” Robby looks at Jack with a horrified expression. He can’t bring himself to finish the question, to say the words, but Jack knows immediately. 

“No,” Jack shakes his head emphatically, “Dana checked. There were absolutely no signs. And the paramedics said her clothes looked normal, not like someone had tried to put them back on an unconscious body.”

Some relief floods Robby’s system at that news. “How the fuck-” Robby presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. “How did she even end up here? We should’ve been closed to trauma.”

“Paramedics recognized her,” Jack says quietly, “knew she needed to come here regardless of our status.” 

Robby doesn’t respond, just shakes his head a little and closes his eyes again. He keeps praying he’s going to wake up and this entire day will have just been a horrible nightmare but he knows he won’t. He knows this is his reality. He knows what he lost. 

“I killed her,” he whispers, just loud enough for Jack to hear. “I killed Adamson, and then I killed Leah, and now I’ve killed her.” Robby swallows down a sob. “I killed them all and I killed her after I broke her heart for no reason, and I don’t know what to do with that, how to, how to… This is my fault Jack.”

“Robby,” Jack lets out a breath as he looks over at him, “I love you brother, but you are not god. You didn’t kill Adamson. You didn’t kill Leah. You didn’t kill her. She’s still alive and we don’t know if she’s going to die. The world is fucked up Robby. Fucked up things happen. Disease and violence happen. I get why you feel like all of those things are your fault but they’re not.”

He shakes his head at Jack and looks back down at his lap. Jack just doesn’t understand, can’t see it. Maybe Jack does and is just lying to him as his friend trying to make him feel better. Because it’s hard for Robby to believe Jack that he isn’t to blame. Especially about you. If he hadn’t broken up with you then you wouldn’t have left and you wouldn’t have been assaulted. But he did break up with you.

Robby replays the night in his head again. He gets to being on the roof with Jack and realizes that Jack let you leave. You told Jack you were leaving and he didn’t stop you. Robby knows his thoughts are wrong and that Jack has no responsibility for any of this, but Robby needs someone to be angry at if he can’t be angry at himself. 

“Why’d you let her leave?” Robby spits the question venomously. 

“Excuse me?” Jack raises his eyebrows at Robby.

“Why’d you let her fucking leave?” He glares at Jack. 

“I didn’t let her do anything. She’s a grown adult and an attending whose shift was well over. We didn’t need her anymore. So she left.” Jack stares back at him, seemingly unperturbed by Robby’s glare. 

“Well if you asked her to stay until after that debrief maybe she wouldn’t have left and I could have talked to her-”

“No, Robby.” Jack shakes his head. “I understand you’re grieving and deeply upset and a lot of horrible fucking things have happened today, but you do not get to blame me for this just because I’m trying to stop you from blaming yourself.” 

Robby looks away from him again and is quiet. “You’re right, I’m sorry,” he whispers. 

“It’s okay, I get it.” Jack reaches over and squeezes Robby’s shoulder. “You know I do,” he whispers. 

“She’s not going to wake up is she Jack?” Robby slowly looks over at Jack with tears streaming down his face as the numbness he’d gotten himself to starts to fade and he’s left with overwhelming grief and sorrow. 

Jack’s quiet for a few seconds. “I don’t know, Robby. She’s young. That’s heavily in her favor with all of this. We got the swelling and pressure down quickly once she got here.” 

“Yeah,” Robby huffs, “but who the fuck knows how long she was out there. It had to have been at least an hour if not closer to two. That’s a long fucking time to have blood on the brain and a high ICP, Jack.”

“It’s hard to know Robby. It’s hard to know how long and if the bleeding and swelling started immediately or if it took time to come on or what.” Jack nods slowly. “But we both know she’s stubborn and a fighter.” 

Robby scoffs. It’s at himself and not Jack’s admittedly correct observation about you. “She doesn’t think she has anything left to fight for.”

“Yes she does. She knows she does.” Jack looks like he’s debating whether to say more. 

“What?”

Jack lets out a breath. “When her GCS came up, before we intubated her, she started repeating your name. Michael. So I think she knows she has a lot to fight for. Has you to fight for.”

The thought slams into Robby. You were saying his name. That’s the word your injured brain came up with. His name. His fucking name. Michael. 

Robby’s phone buzzing in his pocket distracts him from his thoughts for a few seconds. He goes to pull it out of his pocket but stops as the realization hits him. “She called me Jack, she called me. Right after I spoke with everyone, she called me. Twice.” He stands up and starts pacing the length of the room. “She might have been trying to get to a busier street like you said because maybe she was being followed or something and she knew she was in danger and that’s why she called me. For help. And I, I sent her straight to voicemail and then just let it ring. I ignored her. I ignored her.”  

“You don’t know that Robby,” Jack shakes his head, “I know it’s hard but you have to try not to let yourself go there. She could’ve been calling you for any number of reasons.”

“No, Jack.” Robby stops pacing near the wall at the far side of the room from Jack. “We both know that she called for something related to what happened.” He can feel the adrenaline start to crash as he looks back down at you in surgery. “She called because she needed me and I wasn’t there.”

He’s thankful when Jack doesn’t try to argue with him on this one and just lets him have it. Robby focuses on watching what they’re doing to you while he thinks about you. How much he loves you, how perfect you are for him, how beautiful and smart you are, how lucky he is just to know you. And then another realization hits him. 

He never told you he loves you. 

The adrenaline crash finally hits him. Robby turns away from the window and steps backwards until he hits the wall and slides down it, just like he did in pedes earlier today. But this time you’re not coming to find him. You might never come to find him again. “I never told her I love her,” he manages to get out clearly enough for Jack to hear before he starts sobbing and slips into a total breakdown, finally letting himself sob freely even more than in pedes earlier. Robby breaks all the way down, comes completely unglued because he can’t get the grief and hurt out fast enough, and what he does get out is immediately replaced. 

“She knows,” Jack says quietly as he sits next to Robby and leans back against the wall. 

Robby lets himself lean against Jack a bit just to feel someone else even though he doesn’t think he deserves any comfort from anyone. This is all his fault. He made this bed and now he has to lay in it. “I never told her Jack, she’ll never get to hear it from me, I’ll never know she heard it,” Robby chokes out between sobs over and over. “I never told her I love her.”

The two sit there until Robby cries himself out and for a bit longer after while Robby tries to pull himself together. By the time they get up you’re out of surgery and settled in a room in the neuro-ICU. 

“Dana and I will be downstairs. Call or text if you need anything,” Jack tells Robby as they stand outside your room.

Robby nods distractedly at Jack. “Yeah thanks,” he mumbles as Jack walks away.

He forces himself to open the door to your room and step in, closing the door behind him and walking towards your bed. “Oh god, Kid,” Robby lets out through a shuddery breath as he gets close enough to really see you. He saw you from a distance in the OR but that was nothing compared to seeing you close up.

The bruising and swelling is some of the worst Robby has ever seen and it’s you. They stitched your cheek well. Your incision looks good too all things considered, the drain they left in isn’t too full. You’re intubated, hooked up to more monitors and drugs than Robby cares to look at right now. But this is you. Robby is looking at you and seeing all of this. This is you. 

He thought he had truly cried himself out, that he didn’t have any tears left but somehow more find him. “I’m so sorry,” he sniffles as he pulls a chair over close to your bed and sits in it. He takes your hand so gently, holding it between both of his like he’s holding the thinnest piece of glass that’s waiting to be broken. Robby rests his forehead on the back of his top hand as he lets more tears fall. “I’m so sorry for everything, I love you so much and I need you to come back to me.” 

Robby pulls his head back up to look at you, finally lets himself squeeze your hand a little. “I need you. I really fucking need you, Kid. So please. Please come back,” he hiccups out, close to giving into his sobs once more. 

He tries to think back on what you look like normally, when you’re not this bruised and swollen and don’t have stitches or partially shaved hair or an incision on your scalp or a drain. The only image Robby’s brain will conjure up for him is the expression on your face in the supply closet earlier today. How the more he spoke the more upset you became, how the sadness and heartbreak took over all of your features, how your tears slid down your cheeks and your lips trembled. 

It’s all he can see and it triggers that memory to start playing again. Him breaking up with you in that supply closet. Him being needlessly mean. Him refusing to listen to you. And it hits him like so many other realizations have tonight. What’s likely to be the last thing he ever said to you.

No, you don’t get to call me Michael. Or Robby. It’s Dr. Robinavitch to you.

Robby holds your hand against the side of his face as he rests his head on your thigh and lets himself sob again. Because what the fuck else is he supposed to do. 

A couple of days pass. They’re able to wean you off the ventilator so you’re breathing on your own now and you’ve been stable the entire time. Robby knows how good that is, how good of a sign it is. But it’s hard for him to appreciate when you’re still unconscious and not really here with him. He wants to talk to you. Tell you that he loves you and he’s sorry. He wants to work it all out, to have you forgive him and get better and go home with him and get engaged and married and grow old together. He says it to you over and over, to your unconscious form. But that’s not the same. He doesn’t know if you’re hearing him. 

Time passes slowly. He reads on his phone sometimes. Jack and Dana come to visit frequently and most of the ED has stopped by for at least a couple of minutes by now so that breaks up the days a bit. 

But Robby’s pretty sure he spends most of his days just watching you and replaying your last day together over and over in his head. Ruminating on what might be the last thing he ever said to you. No, you don’t get to call me Michael. Or Robby. It’s Dr. Robinavitch to you. Ruminating on how sad and destroyed you looked.

The buzzing of his phone pulls him from his thoughts. 

D - Can I get you anything? Coffee or water?

He’s been given multiple cups of coffee over the last couple of days. Nobody has asked. They’ve just brought him cups figuring he needed it or that it would be some small gesture of comfort. He didn’t think much of it. But seeing the word in Dana’s text makes the memory hit him hard.

That coffee. That fucking coffee he made that morning that lead to him accidentally hurting you and the two of you having a little tiff. And he used the coffee as an excuse to say no and now he might have turned down his last chance to ever be intimate with you, to ever be that close to and with you. 

And that coffee is still sitting there. The mug he poured himself and the carafe. He has to go home to it. It’ll be sitting there waiting and ready to taunt him when he has to walk in his front door without you. Without you in his life. Without you in the world. With you in the morgue. 

Robby isn’t sure if he’ll ever be able to drink coffee again. 

He doesn’t reply to Dana immediately. Can’t bring himself to. Robby puts his phone back in his pocket and looks at you. Your fingers moving catches his eye and he stands, heart rate speeding up as he watches you open and close your hands. 

“Kid?” He grabs your hand and wraps it in a fist around two of his fingers. “Can you open your eyes for me? Or squeeze my hand?” You do neither and Robby’s heart sinks. But he keeps talking to you, keeps trying to coax you back to him. 

A few minutes pass and Robby wants to sob with joy for once when you flutter your eyes open. Everything is too much. It’s too bright and too loud and god everything hurts. You think you might be sick. But as you adjust you finally start to really hear noise. It just kind of sounds like gibberish though, you don’t know what any of it means. You also realize you have no idea where you are or what happened and that scares you. Your eyes focus and you realize Robby is standing by you and crying, and while him crying worries you, you’re just relieved to see someone you recognize, someone who cares about you. 

“Mic-” You stop yourself and lick your lips before trying to speak again. Because for whatever reason that’s the memory that comes into your mind first. “Dr. Robinavitch.” His name is heavily slurred and difficult for you to force out, but Robby knows exactly what you’re saying. He knows you started to say Michael and caught yourself. 

So he knows that you remember. That some piece of you remembers what happened. He shakes his head at you and squeezes your hand. “Hey, Kid, no. No, please. You can call me Michael. Or Robby. Whatever you want, okay? I’ve been so worried about you.” 

Your eyes flutter shut as another wave of tears soaks Robby’s beard. A searing pain worse than anything you’ve ever felt before hits your head and you wince and groan as everything fades back to black. 

“Kid? What’s wrong? Stay with me, yeah?” But Robby knows by the way your body goes limp that you’re unconscious again. “Fuck,” he mutters. He knows that’s not unexpected, but he was really praying you would be one of the ones who just wake up and are fine. And he realizes he just had his opportunity. That the first words out of his mouth should have been that he loves you. But they weren’t, he didn’t say it at all. And now you’re unconscious again.

He lets go of your hand and steps away from your bed, planning on pacing a little as he texts Dana and Jack to let them know you woke up briefly. Robby doesn’t get the chance though. Because as soon as he pulls out his phone your intracranial pressure monitor alarm goes off and you start to seize. 

Robby gives you one last lingering kiss before pulling out of you with a groan and falling onto his back beside you. He takes off the condom, ties it and tosses it in the trash before settling in next to you and pulling the sheet up and over you so that you don’t get cold. 

The two of you finally just had sex for the first time and Robby already knows your pussy is like a drug to him. He’s never going to be able to get enough, is constantly going to think about it. He bets your mouth will join it. 

His hand closest to you splays out over your tummy, something that feels, and is, protective and possessive. His other hand comes up to rest behind his head against his pillow. He knows he’s grinning like a love sick idiot. 

“I have a confession,” he says through soft pants as he continues to come back down. You can hear that love sick idiot grin in his voice.

“Oh yeah?” you sigh happily, still panting a little yourself.

“After that, I kind of really regret waiting until you were an attending,” he chuckles. There’s enough of a teasing lilt to his voice to know he’s not being completely serious, but some seriousness rings through. 

You scoff at him and grab your pillow under your head, turn onto your side as you hit him with it over his chest and stomach. 

“Hey!” He grabs the pillow from you as he turns on his side to face you. “What was that for? That’s just how good the sex was!” He gives you a look before giving you your pillow back. 

“That’s why you regret waiting until I was an attending? The sex. Just the sex?” You fake pout at him.“Not me in general? Dating me? Kissing me even? It took you until being inside of me to regret waiting?”

“No, I didn’t mean it like that and you know it. It was just a funny joke.” He smirks at you as you roll your eyes at him playfully. “You think the sex would be that good if the chemistry we have with our clothes on wasn’t here? If I didn’t love spending time with you and dating you and kissing you?” 

“You know, you never asked me if the sex was that good.” You smirk at him now. 

“Oh,” Robby laughs, leaning in and kissing you for a second and then letting his lips ghost yours. “You’re not really trying to tell me it wasn’t. Because I think the scratches on my back and how hard your pussy squeezed me when you came on my cock and how you were crying my name beg to differ.” 

You smile as you shiver a little at the memory. “I never said it wasn’t, I merely pointed out that you didn’t ask.” You give him another kiss. 

Robby pulls back and looks at you. “Was it good? Was it worth the wait?” He pauses for a second but then gets it out. “Was it better than with him?” The teasing nature of the first two questions gets watered down with the last. There’s some real insecurity there. Robby just knows the guy you went out with and slept with was fit and closer to your age. 

You smile at him fondly, run your hand up and down his side. “Better than I ever could’ve hoped to imagine, Michael, and trust me I did a lot of imagining over the last four years. So it was more than worth the wait.” You let your hand slide up his chest and neck and cup his face. “And yes, it was better than with him. Because you’re better in bed than him and because you care and because there’s something real here and because I’m more attracted to you. Which I think is something I’m just going to have to show you.” You can both see him blush and feel the heat coming off his cheeks under your hand. “I didn’t mean to ruin it and make you insecure. It was amazing. You were incredible. I’ve never had that good of sex and I’ve never been more attracted to and turned on by a man in my life. I promise.” 

Robby puts his hand over yours and smiles. “You didn’t ruin anything and believe me you weren’t what made me insecure. That’s all self-driven. I just know I’m older and my body is much… different.”

“It is yeah.” You nod, pull your hand from under his and run it down his neck and chest and tummy, lick your lips. “It’s much fucking better.”

He just laughs. “Whatever you say, Kid.” 

“Good, yes. Remember that. Make that your mantra.” You nod as you laugh with him. 

The two of you keep chatting as you wait for him to recover, waiting to be ready to go again. You’re planning on staying the night and neither of you work tomorrow or the next day so you have plenty of time to explore each other. The conversation eventually ends up turning to sex and likes and dislikes and would tries and wheres and whens. 

“How do you feel about shower sex?” You smile at him curiously. 

Robby lets out a soft chuckle. “I feel like I’ve been an emergency room physician too long and know better.” 

“So no?”

He lets out a breath. “It would really depend, but I really doubt it. Not penetrative sex at least. Oral… I think I could be persuaded quite easily.” 

“Oh, good to know.” You flick your eyebrows up at him suggestively. “Bathtub sex?” 

“Sounds great.” He nods. 

“Car sex?”

He lets out a small laugh that reflects the way your question took him a little by surprise. “It would depend on when and where exactly, I suppose. But not a categorical rule out by any means.” 

You make a face of consideration and nod before smirking at him because you know this one is going to pull a reaction. “On-call room sex?” 

“Ha!” Robby lets out a surprised laugh and thinks about for a second, a slight blush creeping up. “I mean I would never say never but I, I don’t know. It’s so, I don’t know. I don’t know.” 

You hum in acknowledgment. “Hospital roof sex?” 

He shakes his head at you and your questions but thinks about it for a second. “Maybe. At the right time. Maybe.”

“Quickie in someone’s bathroom?” 

“Depends.”

“Whiskey dick?” 

“Oh my god,” he laughs under his breath, turning his head into the pillow for a second as a deep blush creeps up his chest and neck to his cheeks. “Not that I can recall, but it’s been a bit since I’ve been inebriated and really tried to do anything.” 

“Okay, so we need to experiment with that. Got it,” you giggle. “Alcohol can make me a little slutty sometimes.”

“Yes, I’m aware.” He reaches out and pinches the side of your ass teasingly. “I’ve seen you get quite drunk before. More than once. I’ve even made sure you got home safely on more than one occasion.”

You grab his hand with yours so he can’t pinch you again. “True,” you sigh. “Such a noble gentleman not taking advantage of me. Not that I’d have minded.” You laugh and Robby just shakes his head at you as he smiles, the corners of his eye crinkling so perfectly. You sit there looking at each other in silence for a bit, your fingers playing with his absent-mindedly. “Remember celebrating my champagne tap?” 

“Of course,” he chuckles. “How could I ever forget the two of us sitting on the hospital roof drinking nice champagne straight out of the bottle with some stale cheez-its we scrounged from the breakroom?” 

“Oh god, those cheez-its were so fucking stale,” you laugh. 

“They were pretty fucking bad.” Robby pulls his hand from yours and cups your cheek this time, growing more serious. “I was so proud of you. First tap and zero red blood cells. I got you good champagne. Normally I just get something cheap. Don’t tell anyone.”

“And here I thought you got me good champagne because you liked me.” You smirk but it fades into a fond smile quickly. “That was one of the best days and best nights of my entire residency.” 

He raises his eyebrows at you. “Yeah?” You nod at him. “Why?” 

“I don’t know.” You shrug. You absolutely know, it’s just hard to explain. “I laughed so hard I cried several times that night. I left feeling human again. Like I was more than just an intern. And you did that. You made me feel like that. And earlier in the day, when we were on shift you made me feel like a doctor for the first time, and a good one at that. There’s not a ton of good vivid memories from residency, but I distinctly remember getting home and thinking how on that one day you’d made me feel like a real doctor for the first time ever and like a real person for the first time since at least before medical school.” 

You look a little misty eyed because it truly was a day and night that meant so much to you. You’ve wanted this man for so long and now that you have him you’re never letting him go. Robby looks at you with the softest smile and devoted eyes, the two of you sharing the moment. You break the silence with a soft chuckle. “If I hadn’t already been down hopelessly bad for you that sure would’ve done it.” 

He laughs through his nose at that, blushes a little. He just can’t believe you’ve wanted him as long as he’s wanted you. “That night is special for me too. It’s one of the best memories I have at the Pitt. Or in general, honestly.” 

“Yeah? Why?”

His answer comes quick but breathtaking in its admission and simplicity. “Because I was just myself and it was enough for you. And I’d never really had that before.” Both your and Robby’s eyes grow glassy. He doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t need to. You know what he means. That it was easy and he could be unfiltered and himself and knew he wouldn’t be judged. 

“Michael,” you whisper. You take his hand from your cheek and kiss at his palm and the back of his hand and knuckles before squeezing it and looking at him. “You weren’t just enough, you were more than enough. You’ve always been more than enough. You always will be.” 

You scoot closer and press your bodies together as you kiss him, trying to pour into him how much more than enough he truly is for you. The two of you stay like that, just making out and being close until you have to pull away a bit for some air.

“We should share champagne and stale cheez-its on the roof together more often,” Robby teases, his arm winding around you. 

You smirk at him and raise your eyebrows. “Could do that before the hospital roof sex.” 

“Stop it.” He let out a fake groan and rolls his eyes playfully as he rolls you on your back and hovers over you.

Your smirk grows. “Make me.”

Days pass. They turn into weeks. Weeks turn into a month. 

The seizure you had was due to a sudden spike in your ICP so they did a craniectomy, removed a piece of your skull to help relieve the pressure on your brain and accommodate the swelling. 

You’re not brain dead. You’re in a coma. You’ve been in a coma for over a month now. 

For 41 days. 

41 days without you. 

41 days Robby hasn’t been home. 

Because he can’t bring himself to go home. He can’t face that coffee. Can’t face all of your things that have made their way to his place over time. Can’t face walking in without you. 

Initially he had to fight to be able to stay overnight with you while you were in the neuro-ICU but he was one of the hospital’s own so it hadn’t been a particularly hard fight. Jack and Dana promised one of them would stay the night with you and convinced him to go to Jack’s place a few times to get some real sleep on a real bed. He managed to get one of the nicer cots brought to your room so it isn’t like he’s sleeping in a chair, but still, it’s a cot and he gets woken up during the night when your nurse comes in to check your vitals and look you over every couple of hours. 

He had Jack go to his place to get him clothes and toiletries and your shampoo and conditioner that was in his shower. He gave Jack specific instructions not to touch the coffee on the counter. He had to face that eventually. He had to be the one to deal with it. 

Having any of your stuff at the hospital felt wrong and like tempting fate but once you were cleared to have your head moved enough to deal with your hair, Robby started doing it for you every few days so that it didn’t get matted. He made sure to leave it in a style that would help prevent matting too. He also helped bathe you too, meticulously using a sponge to clean your skin so that when you woke up you wouldn’t feel gross.

There were at least some positives over the 41 days. You hadn’t had another seizure. As far as they could tell you had normal sensation in all your extremities. You had surgery to repair your tripod fracture on day 9 and it had gone fine. The swelling in your brain subsided and your ICP decreased and returned to normal so they were able to do a cranioplasty to put the piece of your skull they had removed back in and remove your drain on day 23. And on day 35 they were able to extubate you and you’ve been breathing fine on your own since then. 

Robby thought that was going to be the turning point. That you’d wake up soon after. But no. You haven’t. It’s getting harder and harder to believe that you will.

He’s still not drinking coffee. It’s either black tea or a Redbull he tries to pace drinking and not just chug. But sometimes he does because the heart palpitations caused by 111 mg of caffeine hitting his system all at once give him something physical to really feel. Something other than the nausea and the tension making him ache all over and pop a concerning amount of ibuprofen.

He listened to Dana. Somewhere around day 10 she told him that he might want to think about going back to work, to save his time off. And so Robby forced himself to go back to work on day 15. He knew she was right, that he’d want the time off when you woke up and really needed him. 

If you woke up.

If you needed him. 

Robby’s still terrified you’re going to wake up and tell him to get out. That he broke up with you and made that bed and he has to go lay in it. That what happened to you doesn’t change anything. That you’ll find other people to help you. He spends just about all of his free time with you despite his worries, only excepting the few times he’s gone to Jack’s to sleep. He has to. He loves you and doesn’t know how to exist in the world without you and this is the only way he can have you right now. 

He also listened to Jack and started therapy. If he’s honest with himself he knows it’s already helping. He can already feel the difference in how he thinks and feels and interacts. Jack and Dana have both commented on it. He’s ready for you to wake up and hopefully see and feel the difference, see that he’s not just willing to work on himself but that he’s actually doing it. He hopes it’ll help you forgive him. 

Robby’s off today so he’s sitting in his chair beside you in your room like he normally does, plays with your fingers absentmindedly as he reads out loud for the both of you. At first he thinks it’s just him imagining things again, because god knows he’s imagined your fingers twitching against his and your hand squeezing his more than once or twice over the last 41 days. 

He always checks though, he always has to. Just in case it’s real. He lets go of your fingers and rests them on the bed. And this is that just in case. Because it’s real. Your fingers are moving.

“Hey.” Robby stands up and leans over you, brushes his thumb over your forehead lightly and takes your hand back, squeezes it. “Can you open your eyes for me, Kid?” 

You don’t, but your fingers twitch in his hand again and he’s sure he can see your eyes moving under your eyelids. He looks over you and sees your other hand moving, your feet too. 

“Come back to me, Kid, yeah?” Robby puts his hand in yours gently. “Can you squeeze my hand? Try for me, hm?”

There’s nothing for a second but then he feels you try to. It’s undoubtedly incredibly weak but it’s still following a command. “That was so good Kid,” Robby praises you, already getting a little teary. “Try to come back to me. Follow my voice.”

Your head moves a little but quickly stills, face pulling up in a slight grimace. “Can you make a fist with your other hand?” He’s desperate for you to open your eyes and talk to him again, but he’ll take this, take you following commands, take knowing you’re in there. 

Robby knows that even if you do open your eyes, there’s no guarantees. No guarantees you’ll recognize him or be able to speak or that your personality will be the same or that you’ll be cognitively the same. But you’ll be awake. He’ll be able to look in your eyes again. 

There’s a little delay again but he watches as you do your best to make your other hand a fist. You don’t get particularly close to an actual fist but you very clearly are trying, are responding to his command. Robby knows he should call your nurse so she can page your doctor but he’s worried if more people come in and you get overwhelmed you’ll stop. 

“Good job, Kid,” he murmurs, squeezing your other hand a little. He lets it go and walks down to the end of your bed, pulls the blankets up a little so your feet are free. “Can you press down with your feet? Like you’re pushing the accelerator?”

After a couple of seconds you do. It’s weak and there’s not a ton of movement but there’s some. There’s some and that’s hope. Hope enough for Robby. 

“Good, that was good. I’m so proud of you.” He pulls the blankets back over your feet and walks back to the head of your bed. “Can you open your eyes now, Kid? Come back to me all the way, hm?”

The words feel a little wrong in his mouth. They have every time he’s asked you to come back to him. Because Robby knows he has absolutely no fucking right to ask you that. Not after the way he spoke to you and treated you. After the last thing he said to you. But he asks anyway. 

“You’ve done so good. I’m right here, okay?” He grabs your hand again. “I’m with you. So open your eyes, yeah? Let me see you, let me see your pretty eyes.” Robby watches as your eyes continue to move behind your eyelids, and he sees your lashes flutter like you’re trying to open your eyes. “Good, that’s good. I know you’re trying for me, thank you. Thank you, Kid. Just keep trying. Come back to me. Open your eyes.”

Your hand squeezes his a little harder than it had previously had and that’s what breaks him, a few tears running down Robby’s face that he’s quick to wipe away. 

“Come on Kid,” his voice is thicker with his tears than he’d like it to be. “You can do it, I know you can. Open your eyes for me. Open your eyes for me, please. Please.” He’s pleading now. 

Robby whispers your name and words of encouragement as he watches your eyes continue to move, lashes continue to flutter, more and more. And then it happens. Your eyes flutter open. It’s for less than a second though as you slam them back shut and pull away, grimacing at the pain. 

It’s too fucking bright and everything fucking hurts. Despite it seeming like you were slowly coming back to, for you it feels like consciousness slams back into you all at once. There’s suddenly so much light even through your eyelids and so many sounds and it smells like Robby and the hospital. You’re hyper aware of whatever it is you’re wearing and the blankets over you. It’s overwhelming. It’s too much. 

Robby laughs through a sob. “Hi Kid.”

You keep trying to get your eyes to stay open but struggle to. You squeeze Robby’s hand and lift one finger, trying to point at the windows. You struggle to process how unbelievably weak you feel. You’ve never felt like this before, where it’s hard to even move a finger. It’s scary. Everything feels so scary right now. You don’t know why you feel like this, aren’t sure where you are. But you know Robby is here with you and that gives you some comfort because you trust him not to let anything happen to you. You know him. Recognize him.

It takes him a second to put it all together, but he moves fast when he does, almost running over to lower the blinds over your windows and dim the room lights. “That better?” He asks as he returns to stand at the top of your bed, slipping his hand back in yours. 

It takes another couple of minutes for you to really get your eyes open and keep them open, in part because you’re trying to acclimate back to awareness, but eventually it comes.

You blink a few times as he comes into focus, your eyes looking around the room a little before landing back on him. He’s smiling at you as tears stream down his face. More fear seeps into you at his tears because you don’t understand why he’s crying. You don’t understand anything right now. “Michael.”

Your voice is nearly unrecognizable with how weak and raw and cracked it is but Robby beams at you. You thought you’d seen him beam at you before but no. He’s never smiled like this at you before. He’s looking at you like you think he might on your wedding day. Like you’re everything to him, the only thing that matters and his whole world and life. It’s contagious and you can’t help but give him a small genuine, but weak, smile back. 

He lets out another sobbed laugh when you smile at him, more tears streaking his face. You calling him Michael gives him hope. That you’ll forgive him and the two of you will be okay and that you’re going to be okay and recover well. That you’ll have the future the two of you have talked about before, marriage, maybe a kid or two running around the house you buy together. 

“Hey, Kid.” He squeezes your hand again and leans in and presses a kiss to your forehead. “I’ve missed you.”

You furrow your brows at that a little as he pulls back. “What?” You start to cough a little and groan a little at the pain. It just makes you more scared.

“Here,” he says quietly when you stop. He puts his hands in the right position on your neck. “Can you swallow?” Focusing on you like this helps his tears stop. 

Getting your brain to execute the task feels harder than the actual act itself but after a few seconds you do without much of a problem. Robby deems it good enough for some small sips of water. He grabs the cup of water he changes every few hours just in case and grabs an empty needleless syringe from his pocket. He draws a bit of the water up and brings the syringe to your mouth. This way he can control how much you’re having at once, yes, but he also doesn’t know if you’re able to use a straw yet and just wants to get you some relief. 

You take the small dispenses of water he gives you greedily, swallow them down without any issue. “There you go,” Robby murmurs as he finishes giving you what’s left in the syringe. 

“Thank you,” you whisper. Your voice is still pretty raw and it hurts to hear far more than he thought it would. He thought he’d feel sheer relief hearing it again, and he does, there is so much relief in hearing your voice. But it’s also partially a reminder of everything that’s happened. “What happened?”

Robby grabs his chair and pulls it back over to the side of your bed and sits. “When you fell you hit your head-”

“When did I fall?” The confusion is clear in your voice. 

Robby’s stomach twists a little, his smile faltering. You don’t remember. It wouldn’t be surprising for you to have some retrograde amnesia, he tells himself. It doesn’t mean it’s permanent. But he needs to know. 

Robby needs to know what the last thing you remember is. In part because that’s where he’ll start telling you what happened and in part because he needs to know if you remember the supply closet. Because now he’s not sure if you called him Michael because you heard him before you had your seizure or because you don’t remember the supply closet.

He clears his throat. “What’s the last thing you remember?” he asks gently. “Don’t strain yourself, just whatever you can think of.” 

You try to think back but it’s hard. It feels like you don’t know how to think in a way, like you can’t get your mind to move out of the present and what’s directly in front of you. 

Robby can see you struggling and prompts you to see if it’ll help. “Do you remember any of the PittFest MCI?”

His prompt helps, gives your brain something to wrap itself around and it slowly feels like you can think again and the memory comes back. “Pedes. After Leah died. I remember sit, sit, sitting and talk, talking with you and then we got up and went back to it.” You’re having some trouble with your speech. It’s not that you can’t think of the words, it’s that you can’t seem to get your mouth to say them how you want. It just makes you more scared. What if it’s always like this? “But nothing after you thank, thanking me and wal-, walk, walking away.” 

You look over at him and shake your head a little despite the increase in pain it causes. “Are you okay?” You start to get a little worked up about it, about whether Robby is okay. Not about yourself. Your focus completely shifts to him. “I’m here for you. We can talk.” You try to reach your hand out for his but your arm doesn’t move the way you want it to. 

It’s just something else that warms and breaks Robby’s heart. Here you are in the hospital having just woken up from a coma with a severe TBI and you’re worried about him. Like really worried and starting to get worked up which your body absolutely doesn’t need right now. 

“Hey, I’m okay.” He gives you a reassuring nod and takes your hand, he saw you trying to move it toward him. “I’m okay, I promise. We can talk eventually, yeah, but right now I’m not worried about that or myself.” 

You calm down a bit hearing that he’s okay. But you know he’s not worried about that or himself because he’s worried about you, and you hate that for a number of reasons. You hate it because it just makes the fear come back into focus. You hate it because you’re making him worry, causing him pain. You hate it because he needs to focus on himself and healing. And you hate it because you don’t understand it, don’t have any idea why he’s worried about you. 

“What happened?” you whisper again. 

Robby takes a deep breath in. You’re calling him Michael because you don’t remember, not because you heard him before you seized and it’s a little sign of forgiveness. You don’t remember him breaking up with you, the way he treated you. A part of him doesn’t want to tell you. Wants to bet on you not remembering that part ever and him getting away with it almost, being able to pretend it didn’t happen. But he knows he can’t. He’d never get over the guilt of lying to you, because it would be a huge lie by omission. 

But Robby also knows he can’t tell you now. Not right now. Not when you just woke up. Because he can’t risk you getting escalated and the additional strain it would put on your body. In a day or so. He’ll tell you in a day or so he promises himself and you. 

“We’re not entirely sure. After the MCI you were walking home and we think you got punched from the side and fell backwards and hit the side of your head on the curb. It was probably a mugging, your backpack and phone were missing.” He squeezes your hand gently. “You were down for a while but once you were found you got brought here and Jack got you stable. Longitudinal basilar skull fracture, depressed skull fracture along your left parietal and temporal. Massive subdural hematoma, tripod fracture on your right. Some cuts and bruises, broken nose, you had a cut on your face that needed stitches. Jack made sure Plastics did it. Stitches are out already. Obviously you had surgery to evacuate the hematoma. You woke up briefly, for just a few seconds, and then seized from high ICP. Craniectomy, cranioplasty. They got your tripod fixed. Stitches and staples are all out.”

You look away from Robby while you try to take all of that in. Your head is swimming. On the one hand you’re relieved you know what all that shit means still given the severity of your TBI. And it explains the weakness you feel, why your head hurts, why Robby is worried, why he did a quick swallow test, why you’re struggling to get some words out, why you felt like you couldn’t think and your apparent retrograde amnesia. On the other though, holy fuck it’s a lot to take in. Hearing everything you went through feels like more than your injured brain can handle or process. 

That last part sticks out to you though. All the stitches and staples are out. That means time has passed. A decent chunk of it. 

You look back at Robby and swallow hard, think to yourself it’s a good sign that you can. “How long?” you whisper. 

You recognize his furrowed brows, crinkled sad eyes and frown for what they are, sympathy, an indicator of hard news to come. But a part of you can’t help but feel like it’s a look of pity. Like he’s here because he feels bad for you. “You were out for two days initially. After you seized… 41 days.”

You knew it was going to be long from his expression, but you didn’t expect a month and a half. “Oh my god,” you gasp quietly. “Michael, that’s so long.” 

Your pained and horrified expression kills him. More and more pieces of him are breaking off inside and he feels it, feels each one. He can only hope that there’s enough good in your recovery for them to heal back over. 

But the second you start crying he does again too. “I know, Kid,” he whispers. “I know, I’m so sorry.” He stands back up and gently wipes away some of your tears. “Can I kiss you? Please?” His eyes tell you just how badly he needs you to say yes, how he’s been sitting here for that month and a half needing to kiss you, needing to see your eyes and hear your voice. 

“Yeah,” you sniffle and he helps wipe away more tears. “Please.”

He gives you a watery smile before leaning down and pressing a soft kiss to your lips that you’re finally able to reciprocate. It’s more than one. You knew it would be and you’re glad it is, you need to feel close to him. It’s like your body and mind missed him, missed the way his lips felt against yours as you kissed him back, is still missing the feeling of cuddling with him and sleeping in his arms and hugging him. It brings tears to your eyes but you’re too tired to cry. After at least a dozen kisses Robby rests his forehead against yours. “I love you. I’m not just saying that because of all of this. I’ve been in love with you for a while now, I just never found the courage to say it.” 

His admission catches you off guard, his words so unexpected. But it warms your heart, makes butterflies flutter in your stomach and your chest tighten in a good way. He pulls away to look at you, his stomach in knots about whether you’ll reciprocate. “I love you too. Have for a while now.” The smile you give him is weak but genuine and it has him beaming at you. 

“Good,” he whispers before leaning back in for another few kisses. 

You turn your head to the side a little after a few. “I’m sorry but I… I’m really tired Michael.” You want to say more, want to ask him to get in bed but the exhaustion has hit and words and speaking suddenly feel so hard and your brain hurts. So you don’t. You can’t.

“I’m sure you are, just get some rest, okay?” He pulls his head away and smiles at you. He’s glad your eyes are already closed because he wouldn’t be able to even try to fake a reassuring smile right now. The terror he feels at you going back to sleep and slipping back into a coma has to be written all over his face. “I’ll be here when you wake up, I promise.” 

You don’t reply, have already drifted off. Robby calls your nurse and lets her know you woke up, asks her to send your doctor in. She does and Robby and your doctor discuss you, what you were like, what Robby observed. Ultimately they decide to let you rest and not wake you for more tests. 

It’s a few hours later when you shift on the bed more than you have before. Robby can tell it’s a similar movement to what you do sometimes when you wake up at home so he stands from his chair and squeezes your hand gently. 

After a moment or so your eyes open again, find him quickly. “Michael.” It’s truly croaked out.

Everything is too much as you return to consciousness. Too bright and too loud and you can feel everything touching you, all the fabric and plastic tubing and wires. You recognize it as a hospital. 

“Hey, I’m here,” he smiles at you. “How are you feeling?”

“Weak. Where…” You take a couple of heavy breaths as you look around the room, brows furrowing and lips pulling down. “Why am I in the hospital? What happened?”

You’re scared. The room doesn’t reveal any clues about why you’re here. All you know is your head hurts, everything seems to hurt and moving any part of you feels like pushing a boulder around. You’re so weak you can barely get a hand into your lap from where it rested on the bed. And Robby, he was happy when you woke up but you could see the concern in his brown eyes, could see his own worry and knew it was for you. 

Robby stiffens, heart starting to slip into his stomach, a feeling of dread settling in even though he knows some anterograde amnesia wouldn’t be the end of the world and would likely go away. “What do you mean?”

You look back over at him with that same expression, eyes widening a little as the fear and panic set in, his frightened look only making it worse. “What happened?” 

“You don’t remember us talking about this earlier?” He tries to keep his voice steady and calm because he can see how scared you’re growing.

Your chin trembles and tears start to slide down your cheeks. “No.”

“Okay, okay, that’s okay. It’s okay to not remember right now.” He’s able to set aside his concern at this development to reassure and comfort you, hiding his own fear well enough that his smile is actually helping reassure you. He wipes some tears from your face again. “Don’t worry about it, okay? I’ll tell you what happened.” 

He repeats the story, tells you how long it’s been. But this time you don’t focus on that as your head spins. You’re too caught up on the fact that you and Robby apparently had this conversation before. 

“And now I can’t rem, re, remem,” you huff, frustrated with yourself and your inability to get the word out easily, “remember.” 

Robby nods. “The anterograde amnesia could be temporary. So could your retrograde amnesia. Mostly likely they both will be temporary. What’s the last thing you can remember? Don’t push yourself, just whatever you can remember.”

You try to remember, try to do what he asks. But your brain doesn’t seem to know how to think, doesn’t know where to begin. It hurts trying to remember, and feeling like you’re unable to think scares you into shutting down this time. “I don’t know and think, thinking is hard. I…”

“Okay, it’s okay.” He’s still smiling at you, can tell you won’t be receptive to a prompt this time. “We don’t need to worry about that right now. You should get some more rest, okay? Let your brain rest.”

You try to squeeze his hand lightly, get enough pressure behind it for him to notice and glance down at your hands, his smile widening. “What if I don’t remember?”

Robby looks back up at you. “Then I’ll tell you again, I promise.” 

“You shouldn’t have to,” you whisper. 

“Not about should or shouldn’t, Kid.” He kisses your forehead, hopes the gesture will feel familiar and comforting. “If that’s part of how you need me right now then that’s part of how I’m going to help you.” 

You look over at the window. He pulled the blinds back up when it got dark. He likes staring out of it sometimes. There’s something vaguely soothing about looking out and down on the city. “I don’t want to sleep.”

“Okay,” he nods, watching you get lost looking out the window. “I’m going to get your doctor, okay?”

You hum at him in response. Robby’s able to tell your nurse you’re awake again but resting and gets told your doctor is in an emergency surgery but will be by as soon as he can. Robby wants to keep talking to you, wants to have you talking to him but he knows you need to rest your brain so he sits quietly with you, strokes the back of your hand with his thumb. 

If asked you wouldn’t be able to describe how it happens or when exactly it started to happen. Twenty or so minutes after you woke up looking out the window grows unfamiliar, your surroundings suddenly new again. You look around the room, recognize it as a hospital room. Recognize Robby sitting next to you as you look at him. “Michael?” 

“Yeah, Kid?” Robby’s heart sinks further. He knows what you’re about to ask, recognizes the all too familiar look of confusion and panic in your eyes. You haven’t even slept. You were awake and it just slipped away from you. 

His expression has your heart mirroring his and sinking. It feels vaguely like you shouldn’t need to ask, like you should know already. But you don’t and you’re scared not knowing or understanding anything or what’s going on right now so you have to ask. 

“Why am I here? What happened?” 

“Do I finally get to know where it is you’re taking me so that I can dress appropriately?” You ask Robby as you open the door to your closet. 

“Jeans and a shirt will be more than fine.” He motions to himself. “Look at what I’m wearing.” 

“Michael,” you whine a little. “That’s unhelpful. Like a t-shirt or are we talking a blouse or something even a bit fancier than that? And I just want to know. Why the big surprise?”

“A t-shirt will be okay. You could do a blouse if you wanted but you don’t need to.” He stands from the edge of your bed and walks up to you, wrapping his arms around you. “And it’s a surprise because I enjoy teasing you,” he murmurs. “But if you don’t put some clothes on over your bra and underwear soon you’re never going to find out what the surprise is because we won’t make it out the door.”

You swallow hard at his words and Robby’s able to watch your eyes widen as you contemplate his last sentence. “Fine,” you huff, “I’ll just get dressed with no information and hope I don’t end up looking ridiculous!”

Robby chuckles as he lets you step out of his arms and into your closet. “I promise you will not end up looking ridiculous.”

“Famous last words,” you deadpan at him. 

The date starts with dinner at a casual restaurant in the city. 

“Jake asked for my PittFest pass earlier today so he could take Leah instead.” Robby shakes his head at you. You guys are at your table sipping drinks and waiting on your food. 

“Oof,” you say with a sympathetic and somewhat teasing smile. “Ten days away and he wants the girlfriend over the stepdad. That’s rough.”

Robby shrugs it off. “It’s all good. I was a teenage boy once. I get it.” 

You nod at him, growing a little nervous. When he made plans to go to Pittfest you said you were okay working that day. That day. “What are you going to do to keep yourself occupied?” You try to keep it casual.

“Work,” Robby says simply, like it’s not a big deal at all. You raise your eyebrows and tilt your head, mouth opening a little. He shakes his head. “Don’t look at me like that. I have to face the day eventually.” 

“I mean, no,” you shake your head at him, “you don’t. It can just be a day you don’t work. In perpetuity.”

He keeps shaking his head. “I don’t want it to be.” 

You can tell he doesn’t want to have this conversation right now, doesn’t want to talk about this ever really, but much less while on a date with you. He doesn’t even have to ask for you to stop and move on. You just read it on him. And you respect it, nodding at him. “Okay.”

“Thank you.” He gives you a small smile. “For not making it a thing right now.” 

“Of course.” You return his smile. You both turn your heads to look at your waiter as he sets your food down and tells you to enjoy. 

“Okay,” you clear your throat as you and Robby walk out of the restaurant. “Where to next?”

Robby grabs your hand and laces your fingers together. “This way.” He nods his head to the right. 

You give him a look. “You’re not going to tell me are you?”

He smirks and bobs his head a little while he speaks. “I’ll let the establishment’s sign tell you.”

You snort a laugh. “The establishment’s sign?” You bump your hip with his as you stop at a crosswalk and wait for the light to turn green. Cars race by but there aren’t any other pedestrians near you. “Sometimes I forget just how old you are and then you remind me.”

Robby scoffs but smiles. He stoops down to your level, something you normally hate when he does. But the smirk that has pulled up as he stooped makes it hot. “Yeah,” he leans in so you can feel his breath on your lips, drops his voice low “and you fucking love it. Get all worked up about how much you love my body and crow’s feet and how hot it is that I’m going gray everywhere. So yes,” he closes the distance between your lips and gives you a searing kiss that’s made all the better by how shocked you are that he’s kissing you like this in public. “I’ll let the establishment’s sign tell you.” 

You’re wired for him as you think about what he just said and how he said it, the physicality of it. “What if the establishment was one of our apartments?”

He laughs as he tugs you along gently when the light turns. “Yeah, we’ll get there eventually, Kid. Don’t you worry about that.” 

You nearly stop walking in the middle of the street at the insinuation. “Does that mean you have like… bedroom plans for us?”

Robby glances down at you, a smirk ghosting his lips. “Oh, I have a plan or two in mind for you, yeah.”

You swallow hard. “Okay, so, see, I just really think that your apartment should be the next establishment.”

He shakes his head at you and the two of you continue to walk.  

“Pins?” You look at the sign as Robby slows in front of the building.

“Yeah,” he nods, “you ever been?”

“No, but it’s been on the list of places to go.” You smile brightly at him, excited to finally get to try the place. “I was trying to get a group from work to come here because who else was I going to go with, you know? Just never happened.”

“Well good, I’m glad to know you’ve wanted to try it.” Robby opens the door and holds it for you. 

“Have you been?”

Robby nods. “I took Jake once when it first opened a couple of years ago. I remembered they had shaved ice cocktails and immediately thought of you and knew I had to take you. So here we are.” 

A heavy dose of butterflies hit your stomach. He thought of you. You know he probably does a lot just like you do about him, but hearing him say it is different. You stop walking and turn so that you and Robby are chest to chest. “It’s very sweet of you to think of me like that.”

You push your lips out for a kiss that Robby happily gives you, basking in how happy and excited you look to be here. “Where would you like to start,” he nods to cut you off as you start to answer preemptively, “after we get you a shaved ice cocktail?”

“Mmmm,” you hum as you look around. “Well, that depends on how competitive you’d like to be Dr. Robinavitch.” 

“Oh it’s Dr. Robinavitch now that things are getting competitive, is it?” he laughs. 

“Does the deflecting mean you’re scared to go up against me in anything here?” you grin slyly. 

“Not at all, Kid. We can start however competitive you’d like. I’ll win whatever it is.” Robby gives you a matching grin as he grabs a drinks menu and hands it to you. You roll your eyes at him affectionately and tell him which drink you’d like with a please and he orders them and pays. “Thoughts on what’s first?” Robby asks as he hands you your shaved ice cocktail. 

You’re still looking around. “Yeah, I’m trying to figure out which things I really want to do and then order them from most to least difficult to do while tipsy. Probably anything requiring movement we should do first so we don’t even risk injury because I’ll be very annoyed if we end up at work tonight. So duckpin bowling, bocce, ping pong. The arcade games and pinball are far more stationary.”

“You’re very smart, you know that?” 

You stare at him for a second. You’re not good with compliments most of the time, especially about your intelligence. “I’m saving us both and just going to ignore that question.” You immediately take a bite of your shaved ice and decide as you finish it. “Let’s start with bocce. Something nice and competitive.” 

“Alright, Kid, but don’t get mad when you lose,” Robby challenges.

“Please Robinavitch,” you snort and roll your eyes at him teasingly. “My ball handling skills are far superior to yours.”

You’re both quite tipsy later in the evening when you see the photobooth. All being tipsy does is augment how you feel about each other when you’re sober and has you showing it more in the way you look at each other, has you both giggly.

“Michael, look! Let’s take photos!” You point to it, grabbing his hand and pulling him along.

He chuckles at your enthusiasm and pays on the side of the machine before literally folding himself in the photobooth with you. “Okay, so what poses do you want?” 

“Just whatever,” you giggle. 

“Just whatever?”

“Yeah, whatever we happen to be doing when it takes. Look at the camera Michael!” You pull at his shirt to get him in frame with you. 

Once you’re done you leave the booth and wait for the strips to print, he’d gotten two, one for each of you. You grab them and then spot a bench and walk over to sit on it while you look at them, Robby right behind you.

You get five photos. The first is both of you looking at the camera, the second Robby looking at you, the third you looking at Robby, the fourth you kissing and the fifth you looking at each other. You both look drunk on love and each other in every single one. Your feelings for each other are nearly palpable just through the photo paper. You look like you’ve been together for years, not a couple days shy of four months. 

“Aw, they’re so cute! It’s perfect! I’m hanging mine right in the center of my fridge.” You hand Robby his copy and watch his face light up as he looks at each photo. “What’re you going to do with yours?”

“Keep it in my wallet.” He winks at you. 

“That’s very, very sweet, Michael. Very old school. I like it.” You lean into him and kiss his cheek. “I want you to know that I was going to tease you very dirtily right then, but I controlled myself.” 

“Oh yeah?” he smirks, “what were you going to say?”

“You said ‘keep it in my wallet’ and winked at me and I immediately thought, oh so jacking off in the on-call room is okay, but sex in the on-call room is where you draw the line,” you giggle, very pleased with yourself. 

He chuckles and shakes his head at you. “That is not why I’m going to keep it in my wallet, nor is it why I winked at you.” You look at him with feigned disbelief. “I just like the idea of having a photo of you in my wallet and this fits in the billfold and I winked because I knew you were going to make some comment including the word old.”

“Well shit,” you let out a long breath. “I’m getting predictable.”

“Believe me, Kid, predictable is one of the last ways I would describe you,” Robby laughs. “You have no idea just how on my toes you keep me.”

You lean in close to him. “Yeah, but you love it,” you breathe against his lips. You smirk as you pull away and stand up, ready to head back into the arcade. “Keeps you young.” You wink at him. 

It takes about five days for the anterograde amnesia to go away. The longest five days of your life. Robby had eventually written everything down on a little notecard for you to read when you forgot what happened and why you were in the hospital. He didn’t mind telling you, at all, but he could see how much you hated having to ask. All sorts of therapies start that week. Speech, physical, occupational. You get moved out of the neuro-ICU to just neuro. More scans are done, a recovery plan drawn up. 

Now at least you can remember the plan and why you’re in the hospital and why you’re doing all these different therapies. You’re still struggling with some words, have trouble pronouncing them or getting them out. You haven’t gotten to relearning to walk yet, you’re still bed bound for the most part. 

Robby is there with you for all of it and sometimes you can’t decide if you like that or not. It’s not about him but about how all of this makes you feel and how having him see you like this makes you feel. Because it’s nice having your boyfriend help you with various exercises, nice to have him being the one moving your legs and arms and helping you stretch, to know he cares enough to be involved. But it’s also embarrassing, having him see you like this, having to watch him do it and know that he knows how weak you are, how much you can’t do for yourself, how much you’ve lost. You know that’s just you and how you feel and that Robby doesn’t care, that he wants to be here doing this all with you and thinks you’re strong for it all. 

Now that it’s been a day and a half since you started forming new memories and he’s convinced the anterograde amnesia has resolved, Robby knows it’s time. Your retrograde amnesia hasn’t resolved much, you still can’t remember much past walking away from him when you left pedes. So he has to tell you about the supply closet now, no matter how much he doesn’t want to. No matter how terrified he is. 

He’s not sure what he’s going to do if you kick him out, if you never want to see or speak to him again. He knows it won’t be that simple, that it’s not going to be a black and white thing where you’re either okay or you’re done. But it wouldn’t surprise him if you wanted space from him. Robby hates himself for it but he would struggle to give it to you. You don’t realize it but you’re part of what’s holding him together right now. Yes, therapy is helping him, but having you in his life, both in general and to focus on your recovery, is helping him keep it together and not spin out. You’re his reason to hold on and stay grounded and here. You give him purpose. 

“I really hate this,” you mutter as you keep repeating the physical therapy exercises they’d given you to help you with moving your arms. You can move them normally for the most part but it’s hard and they’re weak and sometimes it’s not quite completely normal at all and occasionally you just can’t. Everything about you is a work in progress right now. You hate that too.  

“I know, I’m sorry. You should take a break though, the line between pushing yourself productively and exhausting yourself so that it’s ultimately unproductive is fine.” He looks at you over the top of his glasses from where he’s sitting and reading in his chair. 

You roll your eyes playfully even though it hurts a little. “I think you just want me to be done so that you can come get in bed and have cuddles.” You give him an impish grin. 

He smiles and shakes his head at you, takes off his glasses and sets his paper aside. He’s not ready to lose this. The relative normality of your relationship. Your happiness and affection. Robby realizes he’s not ready to break your heart. Again. To have to spell out for you how he did the first time.

You stop your exercises, focus on moving yourself over in bed but Robby stops you. “Not quite yet, okay? I have something I need to tell you first.”

You furrow your eyebrows together and cock your head at him. You can already feel the panic rising. “What’s wrong?” 

As he moves his chair closer to your bedside again your mind whirls through what it is he could need to to tell you. Maybe he’s done with this. With you. With how much work you are right now. It would make sense, you’d understand it. It has pretty much taken up most of his life and it’s not like he’s getting much back from you right now. You try to be there for him emotionally, try to listen when he needs to talk. 

But he hasn’t been talking a tremendous amount about how he’s doing and how this is making him feel. And you’re sure in part he feels like he can’t because he thinks it’ll add stress to you and in part when is he supposed to talk to you? You’re in physical and speech and occupational  therapy for large portions of the day and still get tired pretty easily so you’re frequently napping after. 

And on the physical side you have very little to offer him other than kisses and cuddling in bed. You know he doesn’t give a shit about that side of things and that he’d never leave you because you couldn’t do much physically, but it still crosses your mind. 

Robby sits down and looks at you. The look of concern and rising panic on your face is what gives him the ability to just jump right into telling you. “After pedes, and after the MCI was over, Langdon and I had it out in the ambulance bay. He threw me being on the floor in pedes in my face. I… I assumed it was you who had told him. So I found you and dragged you into the supply closet and I,” he shakes his head, looks away from you even though he knows he shouldn’t. “I was awful to you. Truly fucking awful. And I regret it constantly.” Robby pauses. “Is this bringing back anything for you?” 

“No,” you whisper, still looking at him even if he won’t look at you. 

“Okay, I just wanted to check.” He takes in a deep breath and lets it out. This is going to be the hardest part. Telling you what he did. Having to confront it for himself even though he spends a significant portion of each day thinking about it. It’s different having to tell you. 

“I said I couldn’t fucking believe you and asked how you could betray me like that. By gossiping about me. I told you that there were a lot of people I’d expect to gossip about it or could see doing so but never did I think you would.” Robby finally looks up at you. “You had no fucking idea what I was talking about because you didn’t gossip. You didn’t tell anyone. And I yelled at you about that, about you pretending to not know what I was talking about because I was convinced you did know, that you had done it. I told you that you were trying to be the victim. I finally said I’d spell it out for you and told you that I knew you told Langdon or someone about what happened in pedes. You tried to speak and tell me that you knew I wasn’t going to believe you but that you didn’t talk to anyone about pedes and never would.”

“I wouldn’t.” You’re still whispering but it’s emphatic, almost pleading. Because as much as it’s hurting you to hear all of this you still want him to know. Need him to. 

“I know. I knew.” He nods his head. This next part is going to hurt. You can tell by the way he pulls away from you, like he needs distance to cushion the pain he’s about to inflict, on you and himself. “I cut you off and asked how else Langdon would’ve known.” He swallows thickly. “And then I broke up with you.” 

“What?” It’s whispered so quietly he barely hears the question. Your tears are spilling down your face the second they hit your eyes. You hadn’t been holding hands but you pull your hand away from the side of the bed he’s sitting by. This isn’t what you expected him to need to talk to you about. You could never have fathomed it, you’re not sure you can. Part of you wonders if you’re dreaming or maybe hallucinating, part of you hopes for either of those. But you know neither is true. It gets hard to breathe. 

Robby nods at you, looks like he’s at war with himself, chin trembling and eyes full of self-loathing. A few tears slip down his face and he sniffles hard. “I told you we were done because I’d never be able to trust you again. I said that we had waited all this time, that I had waited all this time and you threw it all away before we hit six months. I asked why, told you I didn’t understand.” 

You let out a small sob and the sound kills Robby. He hates it when you cry. It’s even worse when it’s because of him. You try to keep it together but you can’t, the thought of him breaking up with you and not being here too much for you to compartmentalize and keep inside.

“And then I finally let you talk. And you were so you about it,” he laughs out a small sob. “You were so much more than I deserved in that moment, treated me far better than I deserved. You said you knew I wasn’t interested in listening to you but that you didn’t and would never tell anyone about pedes. You told me you loved me and that you hadn’t told me because you felt like I wasn’t ready to hear it or say it or that maybe you misread things and I didn’t or don’t love you.” He shakes his head because it was and is so untrue. He did and does love you, you hadn’t misread anything.

“You said you were proud of me for pulling it together in pedes and that one day you hoped I’d find out you were telling the truth and didn’t say anything to anyone.” Robby swallows down a sob. “And then you said you loved me. Past tense. That you were proud of me and I should be proud of myself through all my hurt. You ended with Michael, by saying my name. But I didn’t take anything in. I just told you no. That you weren’t allowed to call me Michael or even Robby. That I was Dr. Robinavitch to you. And then I left you in the supply closet. You ended up leaving the hospital and you called me, as you were walking home. And I didn’t answer. Deliberately. And if I had maybe none of this would’ve happened.” 

You feel sick, have to look away, not because of what he just said, because of all of it. You don’t blame him for what happened, even if he didn’t answer your calls. It’s a lot to hear at once. He broke up with you. What does that even mean for right now? You don’t even remember. He could have just not told you but he did and even in your haze that sticks out to you. 

When you pull your eyes from his and don’t say anything Robby continues. “I didn’t bring it up while you were still struggling with the anterograde amnesia because I didn’t want you to have to experience whatever emotions this brings up more than once. I didn’t want to keep putting you through that. Genuinely. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell you.” He wants to reach out and take your hand, squeeze it reassuringly but he knows you don’t want that right now. “I’m telling you now that you can remember because not telling you felt like a lie, and I just thought you needed to know. So that you could decide what you wanted to do, if you want me to stay or go, how this changes things, if it does.” 

You’re quiet for a moment as you fight through all of your thoughts and then shake your head slowly. “I don’t know,” you say softly and shake your head. Because you don’t. You don’t know what to say or think or do. You’re not super sure what exactly your brain is even doing with all this information at the moment. It feels like it’s just there.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am. How much I hate myself for it. For all of it. For speaking to you how I did, for what I said, for not listening to you and for thinking you would betray me. There’s no excuse. Not a single one. It doesn’t matter how bad the day was and where I was at mentally. I am so sorry, Kid. I will spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you and earning back your trust.” Robby can’t bring himself to offer to leave if that’s what you need, to say that he’d understand if you needed him to go. He would. But he doesn’t want his suggestion to prompt you into asking him to leave or kicking him out because he’s not sure he’d survive having to leave you.

You’re quiet as you try to process or do something with everything Robby’s just told you. You bring your hand to your face slowly and wipe some tears away as you try to get rid of some of the big hiccuped breaths that slip out. 

You finally look back at him. “So we weren’t even… a couple? When this happened?”

“No,” he shakes his head and sniffles, “not technically.” 

“But we are one now?” 

“I,” Robby pauses. He’s not sure if he knows. In his mind you are. But he knows that for the last week he was able to just kind of pretend the supply closet breakup didn’t happen. That’s not true anymore and he doesn’t know where that leaves the two of you. Because right now you’re you before it happened. And so he doesn’t know what happens to the you he broke up with who believed you were broken up. He doesn’t know what happens to that conversation, if it still exists in a sense. If it still happened between the two of you. It’s so intangible and hard to wrap his non-injured brain around so he can just imagine what it’s like for you. And on top of it you can’t even remember. 

“I don’t know. I want us to be. In my mind we are. But I guess I don’t really know if we are. There’s a version of you in there who thinks we aren’t together. But she’s not here and so I don’t know how it works with you not remembering. I don’t know how it works now that I’ve told you.” He lets out a breath. “I guess it’s kind of up to you, Kid.”

“Oh, I…” You shake your head but grow quiet again, your tears having at least stopped. This entire conversation, everything Robby has told you, it’s all way the fuck too much for your brain right now. It’s hurting you. Emotionally, yes, obviously. But physically too. Your brain and head literally hurt as they search for where to even begin to try to make sense of and process this. It’s a scary feeling, not feeling like you can’t really control your mind. 

Your silence gets to Robby. He desperately needs to know how you’re feeling, where you’re at. If you still love him. He knows it’s selfish and that this isn’t about him and how he feels but he can’t help himself right now.

“Can I ask,” he breaks the silence, interrupts your spiral which you’re kind of grateful for. “Do you um, do you still love me? You went from love to loved when we were talking in the supply closet. So I was just wondering if you do.”

You nod slightly. “I… This is… Yes. I do. The me here with you now, of course I do. But I don’t remember, Michael. I’m sorry. I don’t know if the me you left in the supply closet… I don’t know if that me meant to say loved or if it was an accident. I don’t know.”

“But even knowing right now? You still do?” He looks shattered at even just the thought that you might not.

“Yeah. I love you, Michael. I do. The love I have for you, the way I love you, it doesn’t just go away like that, over one thing. And I don’t know for sure but, I’m me before the supply closet thing I guess and I don’t think that would have made me just abruptly stop loving you even after the supply closet. It doesn’t work like that.” You can see the relief ease some of the tension in his body and you’re glad for it. He’s too tense normally and you hate the thought of him being more tense because of you, even with what you just learned. 

“Thank you,” he whispers. “I love you too. I love you so fucking much, you have no idea. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry the way I treated you didn’t reflect that. Because I loved you then too, of course. I’m sorry, I’m really fucking sorry.”

“I know you are, and I accept your apology right now.” You look away from him for a second and let out a breath before returning your gaze to his. “But Michael I’m going to be honest, I don’t know how to feel really. I think I know how I should feel, but it’s hard to when I’m just hearing about it. I don’t remember how I felt or what exactly happened and what it was like and I don’t know what it means for us right now. It’s hard and it’s all hurting my brain right now, so can we just… not talk about it for now? I’m sorry. I know that’s unfair to you. I’m just getting really tired and feel like everything’s being pulled from under me a little. Do you want to go? Is that part of why you told me? To make me tell you to go?”

“God no. No. Absolutely fucking not. I don’t want to go anywhere. I don’t want you to tell me to go anywhere. The thought of that is terrifying. I would understand if you needed me to, but no,” he shakes his head in emphasis, “I don’t want to go anywhere. Ever. I never want to leave your side ever again. I want to be here with you, be your boyfriend and take care of you.”

You can’t deal with this anymore right now. With trying to sort out your thoughts and feelings about it all. It’s too much for your brain. You feel too alone even though Michael is right next to you. You just want him. To feel him and be with him and have it all be okay and for none of this to be happening. 

“Okay. Good.” You start to shift over in bed a little bit. “I just can’t right now, with this, it’s too much. Can you just get into bed please? I just want to rest on you, if that’s okay? I feel very alone with you in the room and I hate that feeling, so can we just… be together in bed right now?”

“Of course, Kid.” He’s quick to stand and push the chair back, help you move over in bed and climb in next to you. It’s like he’s worried you’re going to change your mind before he has the chance to hold you. 

The two of you settle into one of the positions you’ve found to work well. You rest your head on his chest and close your eyes, focus on the repetitive beat of his heart, the way his warmth seeps into you wherever you’re touching, how his scent overwhelms you, how his hand feels rubbing up and down your back, how he kisses the top of your head over and over. How loved he makes you feel. 

“I love you Michael,” you whisper as you flirt heavily with sleep. 

Robby smiles to himself, gives the top of your head another kiss. “I love you too, Kid. Just rest now.”

You do. You rest on him a lot the next couple of days. Eventually you find some words and the two of you talk a little more about what happened. It’s hard to figure out, to decide what you are or aren’t. It’s hard for you to figure out how to heal from what happened in the supply closet, both individually and as a couple, how to move on from it, and how to work through it together when you don’t remember it. How can you process or heal from or move on from or work through something you can’t remember? Robby telling you just isn’t the same. 

Even after you talk and say you’re together and going to work through what happened, it doesn’t quite feel real. The reality you both come to accept is that it’s extremely difficult to work on repairing and healing a relationship while basically living in a hospital. Everything is artificial. You’re together all the time. There is routine but not true normalcy. 

There are moments of happiness, yes, but it doesn’t seem to stay. There are moments where things really do feel like they used to, where they feel like how things were before any of this. There are moments where it gets close to that feeling and seems like you’re working your way back there, like you’re healing. And there are moments where you just feel like two people who used to be together sitting in a room and awkwardness infests the silence in a way it hasn’t between the two of you ever before.

It’s like there’s something between the two of you preventing you from really feeling like you’re together and it’s hard to know what exactly it is. If it’s what happened in the supply closet or if it’s because you’re at a hospital and so you’re relationship is almost stunted in a way, you can’t be a totally normal couple here, there’s no privacy, you can’t go on dates, you’re still recovering, or if it’s something totally unrelated, or if it’s you struggling with how to do anything about something you don’t remember, or if it’s the depression that’s starting to settle in you. 

Because settle it does. 

Nobody is surprised when it seems to blanket you almost overnight. In the beginning, once you got over how you looked physically and accepted your injury and your new reality, you had been happy to see people and chat and have visitors. It made you feel good, made things seem a little better getting to laugh and smile with people. And then pretty much overnight that stopped. And now it doesn’t anymore. Now almost nothing makes you feel good anymore. You just exist. Spend your days counting down the minutes until you can go back to sleep. 

You pull away and revert into yourself, block nearly everyone out. Absolutely no visitors with the exceptions of Robby, Jack and Dana. You don’t want to see anyone. You don’t even let people in your room just to turn them away. Robby stops them at the door. You don’t respond to texts. You ask Robby not to tell anyone anything about you or where you are with your recovery, even if they ask. 

You let Dana and Jack visit, but that’s for Robby really because it’s not fair of you to cut him off from the world just because you want to cut yourself off from it, and you know he wouldn’t leave you to go talk with them elsewhere. So you let them visit. You don’t say much when they’re visiting, mostly you just let the three or two of them chat and look out your window or drift in and out of sleep. 

You don’t pull that far away from Robby in that you let him be around, still want him to be around. But you barely talk to him a lot of the time. You don’t react when something goes well in physical or occupational or speech therapy. He’s worried you’re going to slowly stop wanting to even do them. That you’re going to slide from this kind of sadness to apathy where you just don’t care what happens to you, don’t feel like working on anything. 

Robby hates it, you feeling like this and his inability to fix it. It’s hard to see you this depressed. But he’s going to stay with you through it. Your struggle with depression isn’t going to push him anywhere. He knows this is a part of your recovery.  

He knows there’s only so much you’re able to give him right now and for the most part he accepts that, is okay with it, doesn’t push you for more, something both of you know he’s learning and working on in his therapy. He takes whatever you’re able to give and holds onto it, holds on to each rare little smile he pulls from you, each time you reach out to hold his hand, each time you pat the bed for him to get in, each time you kiss him. Each time you tell him you love him. 

That type of depression is where you’re at about ten days after Robby told you about what happened in the supply closet. Your memory still hasn’t returned. You know that’s normal but you hate it. It’s difficult in general to cope with not being able to remember, but it’s made all the worse by knowing that your inability to remember is playing a role in the strain between you and Robby. You feel like if you could just remember what happened and how it made you feel then you’d be able to actually truly start to work through it and move on. But you can’t. You can’t remember. 

You’re having a very good day for you, physically and emotionally. You and Robby are cuddled together in your hospital bed together watching the TV show you started binging recently. You chat sometimes as you watch, even flirt with him a little and laugh. It doesn’t feel like that thing is there between you right now and while you both know it’s unlikely, you’re still praying you’ve finally turned some corner. Robby swears you’ve said more words to him all of today than you have all of the last ten days combined. He’s high on the sound of your voice and laugh. 

Both of you are particularly irritated when there’s a knock on your door. 

“No,” you say immediately as you pause the show. “Not unless it’s Jack or Dana.” 

“Alright, Kid. I’ll be right back.” He lingers for just a second and you know what he’s waiting for, waiting to see if you’ll offer. You tilt your head up at him and push your lips out. Robby’s face lights up as he leans down and steals a couple of kisses from you before getting out of bed and going to the door. 

“Sorry, not up for-” Robby cuts himself off when he gets the door open enough to see that it’s not someone either of you know. 

“Dr. Robinavitch? They said you’d be up here with her.” Robby nods and the guy introduces himself as the detective investigating your assault. “Can I speak with her?” 

“Um.” Robby rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah, I don’t think now is really a great time. Her memory of the assault hasn’t come back either, so I don’t know what she’d be able to tell you.”

The guy gives Robby a tight smile. “Well then she can tell me that herself.” 

Robby lets out a single dry laugh. “She’s not up for visitors right now.” 

“I’m not just a visitor. I’m the detective trying to find the person who assaulted her and put her in the hospital.” He cocks his head at Robby. “So why don’t you go ask her if she’ll entertain me for a few minutes.”

Robby senses it’s probably going to be easier and get the guy out quicker if you tell him you don’t remember yourself. “Wait here.”

You’re confused why it’s taking Robby so long to get rid of whoever it is. You have no idea who would try to be pushing their way in this hard. You raise your eyebrows when you see him and sit up a little so he can get back in bed. 

He shakes his head. “It’s the detective assigned to your assault. I told him you don’t remember anything but he doesn’t seem to care. I know you don’t want anyone in right now but it might be easier to get him to leave if you just tell him yourself that you don’t remember.”

“Fine,” you sigh, your irritation at the detective clear in your tone. 

Robby nods and walks back over to the door and opens it. “Come in.”

“I don’t remember anything related to the assault,” you tell the detective as he walks in before he can even open his mouth to introduce himself. “I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.” 

He introduces himself anyway. “Even the smallest detail could help.”

“I’m sorry, but I promise you I can’t remember any of it. My memory stops several hours before the assault. I don’t remember.” You shrug at him. You were irritated the second the guy knocked but that irritation is growing exponentially with each passing second because you can tell he doesn’t give a shit about you or your feelings or your need for this conversation to be over. 

“Do you remember what they were wearing? The color? If it was a jacket or a hoodie?” the detective presses. 

“No.” You shake your head. “I don’t remember anything. I had to ask what even happened to me because I don’t remember any of it. Nothing about it exists in my mind, I can’t picture it or anything. I’d like you to go, please.”

“Well, now, just wait a second, maybe it’ll come back. Anything shoe wise? Boots? Tennis shoes?” He steps closer to your bed and Robby moves in a little closer in turn, between you and the detective because Robby’s already done with how the guy is treating you. 

“I don’t remember. There is just a void where the memory of it should be. I get it. It’s frustrating. Believe me, I get it. I’d like my memory to come back too.” You’re starting to hit anger levels of irritation. “I’ve been waiting for it to come back for over two weeks now. You being here isn’t going to make it come back. You’ve done your job and asked. I’m telling you I don’t remember. So please leave.”

“She doesn’t remember. She had a very traumatic brain injury, okay? Retrograde amnesia is common.” Robby holds an arm out in front of the detective and motions to the door. “She’s asked you to leave, so please respect her and go.” 

He doesn’t. “Anything. Anything at all, the direction the assailant came at you from, skin color, were they wearing a ski mask-”

Something in you breaks when he won’t leave and keeps asking you questions. Something that feels like it’s going to take a while to heal. 

“No,” you cut him off. “See now I’m fucking done. I’ve been trying to be polite and nice. But I’m fucking done. I get that you have a job to do and I appreciate you trying to find whoever did this to me, but you still need to respect me. I’ve asked you to leave. I was having a great day for the first time in too long and you’ve ruined it,” you snap at him. Robby hasn’t seen you this angry and irritated in a long time and something about the way it’s settled in your face and body makes his stomach sink.

“I have run out of ways to tell you that I don’t fucking remember. I have no idea how else to phrase it or communicate it to you. I don’t know how to make you understand it, it’s not a difficult concept. I do not remember anything about what happened. You sitting here repeating the question and asking if I remember specific little things is simply not going to change the fact that I don’t fucking remember. Any of it. As I’ve said what feels like seven thousand times in this conversation,” you seethe. “So get the fuck out of my room and don’t come back. Leave your card and if and when I remember something I’ll make sure you’re the first person I call.”

“I don’t know, Jack. I think she’s the one.” Robby can’t fight off the small smile that forms on his face at the thought of you.

The two are out having a couple of drinks together at a bar not far from work, Robby just getting off and Jack not on tonight. They’re watching the game on TV and chatting about whatever comes up. Jack is unsurprised when the conversation turns to you.

Jack finishes taking a sip of his beer and sets the bottle back down on the bar top. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah, man. I can’t imagine life without her.” Robby shrugs and looks at Jack. “I know it’s crazy because we haven’t said I love you yet, but I just feel it. Like she’s it. She’s the one.”

“No, I get it.” The smile Jack gives him is a little wistful. “When you know, you know.” 

Robby grimaces. “I’m sorry-”

“Hey, no. Don’t be.” He gives Robby a seriously look. “I’m happy for you. I want you to be happy.”

Robby nods, smile creeping back up. “I am.”

“I know.” Jack smirks. “Everyone knows.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, everyone knows you’re down real bad Robinavitch,” Jack laughs teasingly.

“Shut up.” Robby rolls his eyes but knows Jack is telling the truth. He knows he can’t hide how he feels about you. From anyone. “I see a future with her. I want to marry her one day. Maybe get a townhouse or a house, something with a yard. Maybe have a kid.”

Jack’s eyebrows raise. “Wow, I’ve never heard that from you before.” He takes another sip of his beer. “You thought about telling her that you love her?”

“Of course,” Robby sighs. “All the fucking time. It’s just scary, honestly. And it never feels perfect.”

Jack clicks his tongue at Robby. “It’ll never be perfect.”

“I know, yeah.” Robby looks up at the TV. “Just what if she doesn’t say it back? What if it freaks her out and is too much too soon?”

Jack breathes a small laugh through his nose. “Well, I can’t promise you that she’ll say it back, but seeing the two of you together, I’d be pretty fucking floored if she didn’t. And I think the absolute last fucking thing you telling her is going to do is freak her out or be too much too soon. She’s down just as bad, Michael.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Listen.” Jack waits for a second for Robby to look at him and tilts his head and leans in just a touch. “Just, tell her before you can’t anymore, yeah? Tell her all the time. Don’t wake up one day regretting not telling her enough. And I know it’s scary and it’s hard and it’s easy for me to say and a whole different thing to actually do. But try. It’ll be worth it to hear it back from her and have her know exactly how you feel.”

“Yeah. I will. Soon.” Robby takes a drink of his beer and looks at Jack. “I will soon.”  

A few days later you and Dana have a similar conversation. 

“So,” Dana drawls, ducking into the room where you’re suturing an inebriated unconscious patient, “how are things with Robby?”

“They’re good.” You smile at her. You can hear how syrupy your voice is. She gives you a knowing smile in return. “I think he might be the one Dana.”

“Yeah?”

You bite your lip and nod at her. “He’s just always there, you know? Like when I think about the future, future plans, he’s always there with me. Ten years down the road, fifteen. I see a house and marriage and maybe kids. And I know we haven’t said I love you yet, but I know I love him, and I’m pretty sure he loves me. Even if he doesn’t say it, I can feel it. In how he treats me and the things he does for me.”

“I knew my husband was the one before we said the l word too. Sometimes it just takes longer to say it.” She raises her eyebrows at you. “But when are you gonna tell him?”

You shrug as you tie off your knot. “I don’t know. I haven’t because I don’t want it to be too soon for him and have him freak out or pull away. Especially now with the anniversary in two days and him working on it. Sometimes I feel like he’s the kind of guy who needs to say it first, but I can’t decide if that’s true or an excuse I’m creating.”

“Well, it’s good you can recognize that might be what it is,” Dana laughs. “You didn’t ask for advice but the advice I’m going to give you anyway is that if you keep waiting for the perfect moment to tell him, you’ll never end up telling him. Because no moment will ever seem perfect enough. And he’s going to end up falling into that same trap of waiting.”

“I know,” you sigh. You glance up at her in between stitches. “I just don’t want to lose him.” 

“You won’t, Hon. You make him happy. He’s crazy about you. Has been for a long time.” Dana smirks before growing more serious. “I’ve known Robby for a long time. I’ve never seen him as happy as he is when he’s with you. And it’s not just when he’s with you. He’s happier in general.”

You finish cutting your last suture and look up at her. “Good. He deserves to be happy.”

“And who are we chatting about today ladies?” Robby smirks as he walks in the room. He seems very proud of himself for discovering the two of you talking.  

You exchange an amused look with Dana before looking at your boyfriend. “You.” 

“Ha!” Robby laughs. “You’re so funny.” Neither your nor Dana’s facial expressions change and he realizes you meant it. “What about me?” He asks with mock upset. 

You shake your head at him. “We were just talking about the future. Naturally you came up.”

“Naturally?” The smirk pulls back on his face. 

“I’m out.” Dana holds up her hands and walks out of the room. 

Robby steps closer to you as you stand up. “Naturally? What does ‘naturally’ mean?”

“It means we can talk about it tonight at home.” You smile saccharinely at him as you take your gloves off and throw them away. 

He shakes his head. “No, no. I want to hear about the future and me naturally coming up now.” 

“We don’t always get what we want.” You tilt your head at him.

“I know,” he nods. “For example, you don’t want to talk about this until we get home tonight, but you’re not going to get what you want because we’re going to talk about it now.” 

You scoff though there’s nothing really behind it. You hate how attractive the self-satisfied grin he’s wearing is and how it makes you want to jump him, except you don’t hate it at all. But if he really wants to play this game then you’re happy to. “Fine. She asked how things were going with you and I told her that when I thought about the future you’re always there with me and that I even see rings on fingers and sometimes I see a couple little mini-Michaels running around the house we buy together, okay?”

It makes him glitch out and go still and silent for a second like you figured it would and you smirk as you walk out the door and start to quickly make your way to the hub to find a patient to get involved with so he can’t pull you away. 

Rings? Robby thinks to himself. Mini-Michaels. Plural. A couple. More than one. Marriage. Kids. You see that with him. A huge smile pulls onto his face because he sees it with you but has always wondered if you saw it with him. Because he’s older and insecure about it and whether you’d really consider having kids with him because of that and if you wouldn’t would that end up being a deal-breaker. 

Robby turns and walks out of the room. “Hey!” he calls after you as he watches you giggle to yourself and damn near fucking scamper to the hub when you hear his voice.

“Hey, Javadi and McKay are with a patient in central 2 looking to present if you’re free,” Dana greets you as you walk up to the hub. 

“Oh,” you smirk to yourself and nod, “I am so free and available for them right now.” 

“Hey, hey, hey!” Robby gets to you just before you can get away. His hand wraps loosely but just tightly enough to remind you he’s your boyfriend around your upper arm and he pulls you to the side and then releases you. “You do not just get to drop that and run.” He shakes his head at you. 

You see McKay pop her head out of the room and look at Dana who points at you. You wave at her. “I’ll be right there!” 

“No you-”

“Yes, I will Dr. Robinavitch. Dr. McKay needs to present so that her patient can get the care they need. And she can present to me. That’s just one of those things I get to do,” you emphasize the word with a smirk and a slight bob of your head at him, “now that I’m an attending. So, our conversation will naturally have to wait.” You get to give him your own self-satisfied grin now as you walk off to central 2. 

The rest of the shift is busy. A rough busy. You and Robby barely see each other until you’re gathering your stuff to leave. You’re both quiet as you walk home holding hands. You’re not upset with each other or anything, you’re both just using the time to decompress a little. 

“You know,” Robby says as the two of you walk into his bedroom, “today was the closest I’ve gotten to hauling you into the on-call room and fucking you on shift.” 

You stop walking at his words and he nearly runs into you. “No, I did not know that. Why didn’t you?”

He steps in front of you and turns your hips, walks you backwards until you’re pressed against the wall, cages you in a little. He smirks at you. “I needed you to be able to walk to finish your shift.”

“Oh,” you laugh a little, mostly just a breath out, “you are talking an awfully big game right now, Michael.” 

His eyes sparkle as he nods. But he gets a bit more serious, almost a little shy or nervous. “Were you serious earlier? About marriage and kids and a house with me?”

Now you’re the shy one, but just like his, your eyes still sparkle. “Yeah. None of those are a dealbreaker for me, though. If you don’t want any of them. I see those things, or I can see those things with you, I want those things with you if you want them. Because really it’s just you. Whenever I think about my future, however many years down the road, you’re always with me, right there by my side.”

Robby beams at you and nods.“That’s funny because whenever I think about my future, however many years down the road, you’re always right there by my side. I’ve talked to Jack about it before.”

“Really?” you whisper, a huge smile of your own pulling onto your face.

“Mhm.” He nods. 

“Would you want any of that?” You’re a little breathless at the thought. And at Robby and how handsome he looks right now smiling at you like you’re perfect and the living embodiment of everything he could ever need and then some. “Buying a house together or marriage or kids?”

“I want all of that with you. None are a dealbreaker for me either, but I want all of that with you. I want everything with you, Kid.” He pauses and tilts his head. “Though if we have babies, I’d like there to be a bunch of mini-yous running around our house as opposed to a bunch of mini-mes.” 

You bite your lip and shake your head, watch Michael’s eyes blow a little more. “Nah, I want mini-Michaels.”

“Well, seeing as we can’t really control that, we’ll just have to see what happens.” Robby leans down and closer to you. “But I do want that with you. To marry you and buy a house and have some kids. I want that a lot.”

You nod. “I want that a lot too.” 

“Good,” he murmurs before leaning in and kissing you. 

He’s teasing about it, taking his time devouring you and leaving your hips canting against his before he pulls away and smirks at you, walks over towards the dresser. 

“And just so you know,” Robby says as he pulls his scrub top and under shirt off and looks at you. “It was the thought of fucking a baby into you, my wife, in our house that nearly had you getting fucked in the on-call room today.”

“Oh yeah?” You smirk, pulling off your own top. “You hiding a breeding kink from me Dr. Robinavitch?”

“Maybe.” Robby takes off his cargo pants and steps closer to you. Like he knew they would, your eyes drop down and you lick your lips when you see how hard he is under his boxer briefs. “You want to find out right now?”

You nod as you unhook your bra and let it drop to the floor. “Maybe I do.” Like Robby you take off your scrub pants but leave your underwear on and take a few steps closer to him. “And maybe you better put your money where your mouth is and I better not be able to walk after, Michael.” 

You’re different after speaking with that detective. The depression remains, the apathy and sadness and numbness are still there but anger and irritability start to take over. At first it seems to be more of a dynamic situation. One where you wake up every day not knowing how you’re going to feel. One where Robby wakes up every day and has no idea what you’re going to be like. That fact just feeds into the depression because it makes you hate yourself, hate the way Robby’s damn near walking on eggshells around you at times because he doesn’t know what you’re going to be like today.

He reacts by getting a little clingier, trying harder to be there for you, trying harder to anticipate your every need. You love him and you truly do appreciate all he’s doing but with each passing day you’re settling more into irritation and anger and his constant hovering and touching and offering you things and doing things for you starts to get suffocating. 

You’re both aware that speaking to the detective is what really set off your shift into the irritability and anger side of your depression and there’s a part of you who holds it against Robby. Because he was the one who didn’t just tell the guy no for however long it took to get him to leave. He was the one who told you it would just be easier if you spoke to the guy. And if you hadn’t spoken to him it’s likely you wouldn’t be this angry and irritable.

Your resentment about that slowly becomes some resentment about everything and he starts to agitate you more and more. You know it’s not him and it’s the depression so you fight it off hard for a while, but it’s fucking exhausting and eventually you’re not able to as much. You start to snap at him. Especially when it starts to feel like he’s here doing all these things for you and hovering and smothering you because he’s trying to make what he did in the supply closet all better just by being here for you. Like if he helps you get through this all will be forgiven and it’ll just be like the supply closet thing never happened. 

You don’t kick him out or tell him to leave. You let him be here with you. Let him do whatever he wants and thinks helps you even when it doesn’t. Because the few times you’ve gotten snappy and told him to stop and that he wasn’t helping and needed to stop hovering he looked like a kicked puppy with those big brown wide eyes and you immediately hated yourself. So you keep trying to bury your feelings down when you know you shouldn’t be. You know if you talked to him kindly about it then he’d probably adjust and things would be better but you’re constantly too irritated to want to engage in any prolonged conversation with him, or anyone else for that matter. 

Robby can feel it, despite how much you try to hide it. He can feel how irritated and annoyed he makes you. But he doesn’t know what to do about it, doesn’t know what you want from him. And so again, as you slip further into irritation and anger he holds on tighter, clings more, because he’s so afraid of losing you. The colder and more off with him you grow the more he does to show his worth and that he loves you and just wants to help you. It’s a never ending cycle for the two of you. 

It kills him inside knowing he upsets you. He slips into a depression of his own. He keeps going to therapy but it’s hard to make much progress right now. Once you woke up, being here with you all the time and helping you and doting on you, let him ignore everything else that happened on the day of the PittFest MCI. But it gets harder not to think about, to ignore all of the guilt weighing on him, when you really start to pull away from him and the two of you spend most of the time you’re not in some form of therapy in complete silence with you not even looking in his direction, sometimes turning in bed so that your back is to him. 

He hates himself. For all of it. Every single thing. Adamson. Langdon. Leah. You. All the people he either killed or failed or both.

The more angry and irritable with him you get, the more he feels like him being here isn’t actually helping you, the more he thinks he should just go. That you’d be better off without him. That the world would be. That it would be the kind thing to do to kill himself. That it would actually help you. That then neither you nor he would have to continue to suffer.  

Physically, you have good days and bad ones. Generally it depends on how tired you are. And the more you swallow down your feelings the more tired you are. The depression sucks all of the energy out of you too. You still have all kinds of therapy, but you start to stall out in terms of progress because of how tired you are. It makes it difficult for your body to maintain where it has recovered to, let alone make gains. 

They won’t let you go to a rehabilitation facility and be out of the hospital because they’re slowly weaning you off the heavier anti-seizure medications and they’re concerned about a delayed CSF leak causing you to develop meningitis and they’re worried if you do end up seizing that you’ll have another brain bleed and don’t want you to be at a facility far away and get delayed treatment. You know those are all technically legitimate concerns, but you also know they’ve definitely discharged patients where you’re at in recovery to rehab facilities and that really they won’t let you leave because Robby is asking them not to because he’s scared of you not being in the hospital. You learn to let that one go because you’re not sure what difference it really makes at this point. A rehab facility wouldn’t be home. 

Your memory is slowly starting to come back and the more you remember taking care of patients and wrapping up the MCI after pedes the more you and Robby know that eventually you’re probably going to remember him breaking up with you in the supply closet and things are likely to change between the two of you. It’s unclear whether it’ll be for the better or worse, whether remembering will help you process and heal and move on or whether it’ll be too much and you’ll end up telling him you can’t forgive him for it and work through it with him. 

One day little flashes start to come through. Nothing that’s enough to really give you much insight as to what happened and how it made you feel. You don’t tell Robby it’s starting to come back. You worry it’ll make him somehow even clingier, though you’re not sure how that would be possible at this point. 

And then one day it does come back fully. You can see the whole thing from start to finish. You can feel all the feelings you felt then. In fairness to him, Robby had done a good job of explaining what happened and just how severely he spoke to you and yelled at you when he broke up with you in the supply closet. But nothing he said or could have said or any way he could’ve explained compares to the memory. Robby couldn’t remind you of how it made you feel in the moment, of how he looked at you.

It’s mid-afternoon and you’ve just finished some therapy and settled into bed when it really comes back. You let it play through in your mind a couple of times before looking at Robby for a couple of seconds. He catches you looking and raises his eyebrows in a silent ask of what you need. 

You don’t ask for anything, immediately turning yourself over so your back is to him. You can’t look at him. Tears start to stream down your face and you clamp your hand over your mouth to stifle some of the noise. You wouldn’t be able to handle him trying to get into bed with you right now. 

So you force yourself to cry quietly. Force the dry heaves down. He thought so little of you and that hurts. It hurts more than anything you’ve been through during all of this. He didn’t trust you, he thought you’d breach his trust that egregiously. He wouldn’t even listen. How could he? How could he so easily dispose of you and throw you away without even hearing you out? It was just over for him. You were nothing. 

The walls your mind starts to build up around it are built subconsciously. You’re far too tired already today to really deal with this. You can’t let yourself feel any of this. But then heartbreak doesn’t really work like that does it? You try as hard as you can to pull it together and put it in a box and shove it away but you can’t. The sadness is overwhelming. It’s like you’re drowning in it. 

You can’t even begin to try and think of how to forgive him. How to heal this massive wound he’s inflicted on your heart and soul. You don’t know what the two of you even are anymore. He’s here acting like he’s your boyfriend but he never asked you to take him back. There hasn’t been any real conversation. 

The sorrow settles into your bones. It feels like you’ll never love again. Like you could never possibly feel any kind of romantic love towards anyone but him and so you’re destined for a lifetime without it. And it feels like nobody will ever love you again. Not like he did. Or not like how you thought he did, because you’re not sure anymore. That he ever did. Not when he could throw you away so easily. 

“Kid?” Robby’s voice is gentle as he calls to you and gets out of the chair. He knows you’re crying. He can see it in the way your body shakes and how you curl in on yourself, can hear the sniffles you try to muffle. It breaks his heart. It’s the first time in a good while now that he’s seen you show some real emotion other than various forms of anger and irritation. He wants to hold you. He wants so badly to make it all better. “What’s wrong?”

You hear him growing closer, you know he’s going to try and get in bed behind you. So you automatically adjust yourself and spread out a little so that there’s no room for him to. So that he’d have to ask and you could make up an excuse and say no. 

“I’m fine,” you sniffle. 

“Please talk to me,” he whispers, his hand finding your side and rubbing up and down in what he incorrectly thinks is a soothing manner. 

“I’m just tired and am going to try and sleep,” you mumble, pulling the covers further up you. 

Robby wants to push you, get you to talk to him. But he doesn’t. He knows you don’t need that right now. “Okay,” he murmurs, walking back over to his chair.

Eventually you wake up. You say even less to Robby than usual the rest of the day. You don’t eat the dinner he gets you, just say you’re not hungry. Which is true because you’re far too nauseous to feel hungry right now. And then you go back to sleep for the night without him in bed with you. 

In the morning you don’t feel better but you’re at least rested and not as tired. You have some breakfast because you know you need your blood sugar to be okay. The rest and food will make it easier to control your emotions and you’re going to need to because you’re going to talk to Robby and do your best to set aside your anger and irritation and hurt and sadness for this conversation. 

“Hey,” you say softly. “Can we talk?”

“Of course.” Robby nods from his chair at the side of your bed. “What’s up?”

You let out a shaky breath. “More of my memory has come back. So, um, I remember now. The supply closet. You breaking up with me. It’s a little hazy in places still but, yeah.” You let out a long breath. “I remember it.” 

You do your best to keep your voice neutral, to keep any emotions from taking you over, to keep from crying. It’s almost worse for him in a way. He’d rather have you express emotion so he could know where you are with it.

Robby swallows thickly and nods. He’d been expecting this. Thought the last afternoon and night might be about it. “I wondered. But I didn’t want to push you or something by asking.”

You give him a strained smile. “I appreciate that.” 

“I’m sorry,” he offers quietly. “I know it doesn’t change anything or make it better, but I truly am sorry.” 

You nod. “I know Michael. I know you are. Trust me, I know. And I see how bad you feel and I don’t want you to hate yourself for this. I think we can get through it, I’m just not sure how right now. And I don’t know where exactly this leaves us.” You shrug. “But I don’t want to lose you and not be with you if you don’t want to lose me. I’m just telling you now that I’m struggling with it, now that I can remember, and I’m struggling with how to process it and where we even start and how we work through it and heal. My brain is still…you know?” 

Robby nods but stays quiet to see if there’s more you want to say, trying to be better at listening and hearing you. Trying to show you he’s not who he was that day in the supply closet. Trying not to push when you don’t want to be pushed.

“But it’s not just better, things aren’t repaired and fixed.” You know you’re repeating yourself a little. You just want to communicate all the thoughts your brain can put together so that Robby knows where you’re at with things, even though you don’t really know. You want him to know you don’t know. “So I don’t really know exactly where we are right now, what we are exactly. I’m just, we’re just going to kind of have to take it day by day and I know in a way that’s not fair to you, not fair for you to be here taking care of me and helping me but not knowing exactly what and where we are and maybe doing all of this for me just for us not to end up together.”

He’s shaking his head before you even finish speaking. “No. No, I don’t care about that for a second. I mean I do in the sense that I care about whether we’re together or not but not, I don’t think it’s unfair is what I mean, or even if it is, I don’t mind. Like even if we definitively weren’t together and you wanted or needed or even were just okay with me being here helping you I would be. Because I love you and I care about you and I always will. Even if we’re not together. I will always love you.” He pauses and rubs the back of his neck. “I don’t know if that made sense or made things worse.” The way he seems so scared to get your reaction makes you sad. 

“I know what you mean.” You nod at him. “And I love you too, always will.” You give him a small smile.

Robby returns your small smile with a big one of his own. All he ever wants to do is make you laugh and smile. “Okay, good.” He lets out a breath. “I don’t want to lose you. That’s the last fucking thing I want. I thought I was going to and I…” He looks away from you for a second to pull it together. “I couldn’t handle it. So I’m going to try to follow your lead with this and meet you where you are with it and try and help us figure out a way to heal.” He looks down. “From me.”

“I appreciate that and think that will be very helpful.” You’re surprised at the course of this conversation. You were fully expecting Robby to push you and bombard you with questions or try to keep the conversation going and try to sit on the bed next to you and fluff your pillows so he’d feel like he was helping you. Because that’s what he’s been doing a lot as of late when you do talk casually about whatever. 

You know it’s probably because he’s desperate for you to talk to him and so once you start he doesn’t want the conversation, good or bad, to end. And that he likes to feel helpful and like he’s doing things that really help you and wants to show you he’s taking care of you. 

Your physical therapist knocks and comes in. Robby’s distracted during it, normally far more involved. You’re hopeful it’s a sign that he’s stepping back a little and not going to hover and be in your space and trying to do everything for you as much. 

But really he’s just thinking. About what you said. About how you don’t know what the two of you are. About how that conversation went far better than he thought it would. He expected your irritability and anger to come out hard because that’s where you seem to live lately. He was prepared to accept it, whatever it was you needed to say, however you needed to say it, as long as it helped you heal. If you needed to be mean and yell at him like he had done to you to heal from this and be able to move on and still be with him then he’d let you. He’s hoping your irritability and anger not showing themselves too much is a sign you’re not going to be living there anymore. 

Unfortunately neither of your hopes turn into reality. Things are just awkward over the next two days. Robby still hovers and is suffocating at times and you’re right back to irritability and anger as you try to deal with your broken heart and how to heal it. 

There’s a bit of a change, though. Your irritation and anger and depression in general manifest in extreme apathy. It builds slowly over those two awkward days after you and Robby talk, but by the third it’s almost total apathy. You stop pushing yourself during any of your therapies. Everyone can tell you’re mentally checked out the entire time and just doing whatever you’re told without any real thought. 

And over the next three days while you’re checked out and not pushing yourself and trying to figure out what to do about Robby a more complete apathy sets in. You stop doing your various therapies. Physical therapy comes and you say no. Speech therapy comes and you say no. Occupational therapy comes and you say no. 

You say no when Robby reminds you to do all your various exercises they leave you with. You say no thanks when he brings you food. You get irritated and are quick to snap at him if he tries to persuade you into doing things for too long. 

At first everyone agrees to let it go. Nobody is happy about it but you’ve been working very hard for a good chunk of time now and so they agree to let you have a couple of days of rest. Everyone that is except for you. 

Because once those couple of days pass, you’re still saying no. And Robby can’t take it anymore. 

“You need to do speech therapy.” He gives you a look. “You had a break. It’s time to get back to it all.”

“I don’t even need it anymore. My speech is fine. I very occasionally have trouble with some words but I probably did before this anyway.” You shrug at him. 

Robby shakes his head. “You know there are some words you consistently struggle with. They can help with that.”

“Why do you fucking care? What does it matter? Is it because I might embarrass you one day when I struggle with a word in front of someone? Just stop. I’m not doing it.” You let out an irritated sigh and shake your head at him. 

Robby lets out a slightly irritated sigh of his own that makes you bristle a little. Today is really not the day for him to do this with you. Your irritability is particularly bad, you’re tired and just want to sleep and be left alone.

“Alright, how about some physical therapy then? We don’t need to call them. I can help you.” You ignore him and make no effort to sit up so that you can do some exercises. “I’m just worried, Kid. I know it’s tiring and it’s hard but if you don’t keep up with it you’re going to lose everything you’ve worked for.”

“I didn’t realize I suddenly wasn’t a doctor anymore and didn’t know that,” you deadpan. 

“Kid,” he sighs again. 

“I know,” you huff, “I know and I’m still choosing to not do it. Not today. Let it go.” You take a deep breath to try and let out some of your irritation and tension because when it builds up you snap at him and you hate that, hate snapping at him.

“You have to,” he says simply, starting to walk closer to your bed. If you’re not going to do it when he asks nicely then he’s going to take a tough love approach because he can’t let you lay here and lose all of your progress and waste away in front of his eyes. 

“No I don’t.” 

“Yes.” He throws your blankets off you. “You do.” Robby adds to your rapidly growing irritation when he goes to grab at you to get you sitting up.

“Fucking stop, Michael.” You bat his hands away. “I really don’t. So please stop. I really can’t do this right now. You can try asking again in a bit.”

“You really do.” He’s unperturbed by you batting his hands away, continuing to try and get ahold of you enough to get you sitting up. 

“No. Stop. Michael, I’m so fucking serious right, stop touching me please. It’s too much. I need you to get out of my personal space right now.” You shove at his arms as best you can to try and get him to back off, the increasing tension and irritation clear in your voice. “I can’t do it, okay? And I’m not going to.” 

“No. You don’t want to.” He doesn’t mean for it to but it comes across like he’s scolding you to you. “You can and you are going to.” His hand manages to wrap around your upper arm and that’s it. You’re done.

You snap. 

“Oh my fucking god, Robby!” You half yell. He freezes instantly. “I need some space, I need you to go.” 

Robby doesn’t freeze because you half yelled. He freezes because you called him Robby. You haven’t called him that in years now. And it doesn’t even look like a fully conscious choice, more something that just slipped out and for some reason that panics him even more. He pulls his hand from you and takes a few steps back from your bed. 

“What?” he whispers.

You take a second to let out a breath and bring yourself back down. “I need some space, please Michael. I’m too overstimulated and irritated right now, I don’t care if you don’t understand why, you don’t need to. I just need some space. Please.”

“What is this really about? Because I know it’s only about me trying to get you to do exercises to an extent.” He shakes his head, mouth set. “I’m sorry I didn’t stop when you asked and tried to keep going and take the tough love route. That was wrong of me. I should’ve stopped as soon as you asked. But something else is driving this, this anger and irritation that you have, that gets so high you snap and now apparently makes you need to be alone. And I need you to talk to me. Like really talk to me honestly. So we can work things out and I can know what to do and not do.” 

You stay quiet, hoping he’ll take the hint and let the conversation go and give you the space you desperately need. Neither of you are at your best right now. Neither of you are perfect. And you don’t want to continue to hurt each other with this conversation.

“If this is about what happened that day in the supply closet you need to just say that so we can talk about it. Because we haven’t. Not really. Not since you remembered. We ignore it.” He shrugs at you. “We can’t keep ignoring it.”

“Michael,” you let out a long breath, “right now I just need some space, a little time to be alone. We should not have this conversation right now while we’re both this escalated. I don’t want to.”

“I’m not escalated. I’m just saying we can’t keep ignoring it.” The thought of this conversation ending and leaving you even just to give you some space terrifies him. 

You clench your jaw, give into the irritation and anger a little. 

“Fine, you want to talk about it now of all fucking times? Now when I’ve asked you to leave and give me some space because I’m overstimulated and irritated and too escalated? Fine. Whatever you want, Robby!” You scoff a laugh at him because it feels so fucking typical. His breath hitches because you’re back to calling him Robby. “I haven’t been ignoring it. Somedays it’s close to all I think about. I’ve been trying so hard to let it go and to forgive you and try and move on, and figure out how to do all of that. But I still don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?” he asks. Doesn’t agree to stop the conversation. Just asks a follow up question. He knows he shouldn’t. He knows he should just give you the bit of space you’re asking for and not push you. 

“Anything! I don’t know how to do any of this and deal with it. I don’t know about us. Where and what we are. You broke my heart! You shattered my trust! You thought I’d just betray you. You didn’t, maybe don’t, trust me. So I don’t really know why you even want to be with me. And right now I am so physically fucked up everywhere and my brain is a mess. I just…” You let out a long breath and try to regain some semblance of composure but it’s getting increasingly difficult. 

“Honestly, you’re hovering, constantly, and suffocating me. I never get any fucking alone time. You schedule your therapy at the same time as one of mine so someone’s with me. You’re here with me all the time, and yes I appreciate it, and I love it and you so very much, I promise I do. Even when it feels like I don’t and when I’m irritated. I do. But it feels so much like you think that if you’re here and helping me through this and doing whatever I need and hovering and showing me you’re here for me then it’ll all be fine and work out like nothing happened and that’s just not true. So I just need some space right now in this moment. I’m getting overwhelmed and I just need to be alone. I really don’t want to continue this conversation. Now is not the time.” You shake your head at him.

“I am sorry, you know. I really am.” Robby wraps his arms around himself. “And I want to do whatever you need me to so that we can fix this and get through it. So please just tell me.”

He still won’t end the conversation. He’s still pushing you. Because Robby would rather be feeling your anger than feeling nothing from you. But it’s winding you up again, the way he won’t stop. And you know if you try and shut down he’ll just keep talking at you and hover near you which will be just as bad. 

“I know. I know you are. And I remember understanding in the moment. Understanding why you did it, how bad of a day it had been, how emotionally fried you were. I know what the day was but you were so ready to just throw me away. And I know you want to fix this. But I still don’t know what exactly I need from you. It is hard for me to be around you sometimes. I’ve never asked you to leave because I know how much it would hurt you. I know how bad it would be for you. But it’s hard to look at you. Because I look at you and all I can see is the man who thought so little of me that he wouldn’t even give me a chance to ask questions or explain and wouldn’t listen to me. It’s like I was nothing to you. And you’re always here and so I’m thinking about that a lot. I just…” 

You pause for a second. It’s getting harder to organize your thoughts and keep them on topic and not tangential and rambling. “Please. I’m not even asking you to leave, Robby. I’m asking for some space. For like an hour or so. You say you’ll do anything for me, then do this. Give me some space.”

Everything Robby’s learned at therapy is sliding right out the door during this conversation. He needs to walk away because you aren’t able to and you’re asking for space. And he knows that as calm as you’re trying to keep yourself and your voice, he’s winding you up every time he won’t do as you ask, won’t give you space. But he can’t stop. Eventually you guys will talk your way out of this, just like you always do. That’s what he tells himself. 

“You weren’t nothing to me.” He shakes his head, face screwing up in worry that you still think that. “You aren’t nothing to me. You’re everything, you always have been, even when I was being a full on piece of shit and horrible to you.”

You look away from him for a second before shaking your head to yourself and looking back at him. “You say that Robby but sometimes actions are so much louder than words.”

“And what about now?” He scoffs at you a little because what the fuck do you mean actions are louder than words. He’s here and trying so hard and that’s apparently nothing to you. All it does is make you pissed off with him. “What about all this, everything I’m doing now? You have to be able to see that you’re not nothing to me, that you’re everything, that I’d do fucking anything for you! I’ve stayed through it all, through the depression, through feeling like you don’t want me here, through you snapping at me and not talking to me and nearly ignoring me. I’m still here. I’m still here even when you make it difficult to be! And you’re telling me that counts for nothing?”

Robby can see you grow more upset and irate, can see it building up again. You tense further, your chest starts to heave just slightly, jaw grinding. Your eyes show it too, look at him sharper. 

“Oh,” you draw out your laugh of the word. “When I make it difficult to be here you push through and stay, okay. Don’t fucking act like you’re doing me some goddamned favor by staying and being here Robby! It shouldn’t be a fucking favor. It shouldn’t be something you lord over me. It should be you here because you love me and you want to be here and you don’t feel like you need recognition for being here because that’s just what people who love each other do. If you don’t want to be here, if I make it too fucking difficult, then fucking leave and don’t come back.” 

“I didn’t mean it like that and I don’t want to leave and not come back,” he starts to interject. But you keep going.

“And of course you being here and staying counts, for a lot, I never said it didn’t. I literally just fucking told you I appreciate you being here but that doesn’t change what happened. It doesn’t just magically fix what you broke!” You shake your head and shrug at him, let out a breath of a laugh. “How do I know this isn’t just some manifestation of you feeling guilty and responsible and like you have to fix me? How do I know it’s not the guilt that’s keeping you here? How do I know you don’t really want to still be broken up but feel so guilty that you’re here and pretending? Because you were fine with not having me until something happened to me that you blame yourself for.” 

“No! No. I was never fine with not having you, even when I still stupidly thought you had gossiped about it. I wasn’t fine. I was destroyed!” He shakes his head at you, takes a step forward because he needs you to believe him about this. “Do I feel guilty? Yes. I’m not going to lie to you or myself. Of course I feel guilty. If I had been there or if you had stayed at the hospital this wouldn’t have happened to you. But you’re not going to get better and then I’m going to be like oh yeah actually I don’t want to be with you and just fuck off and leave you. I’m fighting for you. For us. For that future we talked about. Marriage and a house and kids. Please let me fight for us. Please fight with me for us.” 

He knows you are fighting for the two of you, that you are everyday, and that you asking for space doesn’t mean you’re just giving up. It’s a healthy thing to do. He should respect it. He knows he’s making things worse by continuing the conversation. 

“Don’t.” The coil of anger and irritation Robby’s winding up in you is getting tighter and tighter. “Don’t act like I’m not. Don’t act like me asking for some space means I’m not fighting for us. I could’ve told you to get the fuck out the second you told me what happened or the second I remembered. Believe me there have been times the irritation and depression or the sheer hurt from what you did have overwhelmed me and I’ve wanted to make you leave. There still are those times. But I didn’t and I don’t make you leave. Because it would hurt you deeply and because I want to fix this and make it work. So I fight for us. I fight for us every fucking day. And me needing an hour of space doesn’t change that.” You stare at him intensely as you try to use the silence to drive it all home. 

“I don’t want to lose you.” Robby rubs the back of his neck. He’s terrified. You can see it. His face is furrowed, lips pulled down and eyes wide and glassy and reflecting the anxiety and self-loathing you know he’s drowning in. “I can’t lose you.” 

He still won’t stop and give you what you need, what you’re begging him for and you’re a hair’s breadth away from reaching a point of no return.

“Staying doesn’t mean you won’t lose me, Robby! You really need to see that! The simple fact of you being here and trying to help me and supporting me doesn’t mean everything’s going to be okay.” You rub your face as you let out a long sigh and look at him pleadingly. “Please Robby, I’m literally begging you for some space right now. I really need it. I really need you to go because I don’t want to end up completely snapping at you and saying a bunch of shit I regret and damaging things further when I get totally overwhelmed and I’m headed there really fast. And I know you want to help. Right now what would help me is if you gave me some space.” 

“I think we should do couple’s therapy.” You nod at him, hoping that at this point in the conversation your silence will at the very least get him to be quiet. “I can start looking for someone and-” 

“Robby,” you interrupt him. But he speaks before you can say anything else.

“Please don’t call me that.” He shakes his head at it. “Why are you suddenly calling me that? What happened to Michael?” 

You let out a slow and shaky breath. “I really need space and this conversation to be over.” 

“But I love you. I want to work this out.” He’s pleading with you now just as much as you’ve been pleading with him. 

“I know. I know that. And I love you. I genuinely do, Michael. Unfortunately though, despite what many people say, sometimes love alone isn’t enough. I need you to respect me right now. I am asking you for space please. Just please give me some time to myself right now. An hour. Just an hour for right now. If we keep going I’m going to snap and say shit I regret, I really can’t take anymore, so please,” you’re begging him, “please give me some space.” 

You’ve hit the point and you know it. This conversation is either going to end and Robby is going to give you the space you need, or he’s going to try and continue the conversation and you’re going to lose it on him and end up hurting him. 

Robby is fully aware that he’s not going to get the answer he wants to the question he’s about to ask. It’s not going to make you calm down and slip into reassurance mode and end this argument or whatever this is. He knows it’s just him pushing you further and he tries to stop himself but it slips out anyway. 

“You don’t need me? To help you.” 

And that’s it for you. The way that question seems like it’s about you but is really about him. The way he kept pushing. You’re too tired and totally overstimulated and overwhelmed and he has just kept pushing and pushing you, kept winding you up and adding to your overwhelm and irritation and overstimulation. So you snap again. 

But you snap much, much harder this time. 

“God damn it Robby just get the fuck out, okay?” you seethe at him. You’re fucking livid. He has never seen you like this before. “Get out! I’m fucking done! Is that what you wanted? Me to totally snap and come unglued and say I’m done so you could get out of all this and not be to blame in your mind? Because congrats, you got me there! You fucking pushed me there! I’m done right now. Done. I asked for space and you can’t do it. You just had to keep fucking going. So yeah, now I am kicking you the fuck out!” 

You let out a shaky breath as tears of anger and frustration start to stream down your face. “You are making it so fucking hard right now to want to keep fucking fighting for us and I hate it. I hate it. I get you’re scared about losing me either physically or emotionally, but jesus fucking christ I just asked for some space Robby! But you still don’t trust me, you don’t trust me to take the space I need and not go anywhere! You don’t trust me to not just give up on us!” 

“I didn’t want to have to kick you out. I just wanted a little bit of fucking space. And you can’t give me it and you’re making this about you! Like you always do. Everything is about you! Do you even see it?” You throw your hands up at him and give him a look. “I asked not to have this conversation because I was too escalated and upset and exhausted and overwhelmed but no, you wanted to fucking have it so here we are. Both of us hurt and upset. Do you see that you not leaving is making this about you and what you need to quell your fears? To be here with me constantly. But it’s not about you and what you need!” 

“In the hospital right now, this shit is about me! I’m the one who has been relearning to walk and feed myself and everything fucking else. I’m the one who has problems speaking at times. I’m the one who can’t get her brain to think sometimes, who just forgets how to get her brain to do anything.” You wipe at your face. The tears of frustration and anger haven’t stopped. “You have no fucking idea what that’s like, what it’s like to feel like a toddler again in some ways, even with how far I’ve come. I’m the one who might never be able to practice medicine again, who might have my entire career ripped away from me as it was literally just fucking beginning.” 

“And you know what, actually, yeah.” You nod at him with a sardonic laugh. “To answer your question. I do. I do need you. I need your help with all of this, your support and your respect, but not on your terms. Not you doing what helps you. Not you doing what you think is helping me and supporting me and respecting me. On my terms.” You point at yourself. “On what is actually doing or will do those things for me. I need you but you have now stopped me from having you by not giving me some simple space when I asked. You’re my partner, or you were my partner, I guess. I don’t even know if you are anymore. You broke up with me. You told me to call you Dr. Rob-, Dr. Rob- fuck.” 

You let out an acerbic scoff at your inability to get out his name. It strikes you as exceedingly poetic in the moment. “You told me to call you by your title. The one I can’t even fucking say now so I guess it’s a good job you decide to let me call you something else. You broke my fucking heart Robby! You shot a fucking bullet right through my heart and that bullet tore through it, just like what happened to Leah!”

Neither of you breathe for a couple of seconds and the room is pin drop silent. Robby’s chin trembles and he tilts his head at you for a second in a look of total heartbreak before looking down as his tears start to fall. He can’t believe you just said that. That you went there. It’s pain on multiple levels. Pain because of what happened with and to Leah, because of what it did to Jake, because he should have been there instead of her, and because you just threw it in his face. 

You know how low of a blow that was. You know you could hardly go any lower than that. You know that you just broke his heart in a way. You hate yourself for saying it. But you are so overstimulated and angry and exhausted and irritated and just fucking done that it’s difficult to find it within you to care. So you go on, you don’t let up at all, don’t calm at all. You just keep going. 

“Sure mine wasn’t physical but it was emotional. You managed to do that with words, tear right through my heart with your words.” You sneer at him. “And it’s really fucking hard to figure it all out, Robby, how to do this and heal my heart and us. Especially with a very traumatic brain injury that’s not healed. We weren’t even fucking together when this happened, not to you! I don’t know what we are! I don’t know what I want!” 

“I am so far fucking beyond overwhelmed and overstimulated right now, Robby. You have made me that far beyond overwhelmed and overstimulated by not giving me the little bit of fucking space I asked for over and over again! You have gotten us here!” Your head is killing you and it’s getting substantially harder to form coherent thoughts that aren’t just essentially repetitions of things you’ve already said. 

“Everything hurts, thinking hurts. Being with you hurts! It hurts way the fuck too much. You need to leave me alone and go and not fucking be here because it’s too much! It’s too much and I can’t do this anymore. I cannot fucking do it. You need to fucking go,” you fully snarl at him. “And if you don’t I will call my nurse and have her get security. I can’t do this anymore, okay? So get the fuck out and don’t come back until I want and ask you to.” 

Robby’s still looking at the floor as he sniffles and nods. He’s not sure how he hasn’t thrown up already or started audibly sobbing. “Okay,” he whispers. He pushed you way too far and he knows it. And he might have permanently pushed you too far, might have destroyed everything because he was so terrified of losing you. Might have created a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

He grabs a couple of his things and his backpack as he makes his way to the door. He stops with hand on the door handle and looks back at you. “Are you ever going to want me to come back?” 

It’s a loaded question. He asked ‘are you ever going to want me to come back’ but what he really means is ‘are you ever going to want me back’ and both of you know it.

You look over at him, still just as livid as when you threw Leah in his face and told him to get the fuck out. Your voice is ice cold when you answer. 

“I don’t know.”

😶 I have very little to say for myself, but please do not hate me lol. I tried to make the vignettes fluffy for some balance. 😭 There will of course be a Part 3.

I hope it was okay and enjoyable! I really enjoy hearing your thoughts and comments, they give me so much motivation and inspiration!! Liking, replies and reblogging are always so so appreciated! My inbox and DMs are always open for thoughts, comments, and general screaming (or (lovingly) screaming at me again)! 🙂♥️

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THEN, 2008

“Deran, I thought you and your brothers were throwing a small party” you say as the two of you walked through the breezeway. 

“This is small”

“This is not small…at all!” 

You’d thought this would be like one of Deran’s beach bonfires—something small, low-key, intimate. A few people, music, maybe some snacks and a fire. Not this. Not chaos.

You look around and take it all in. Loud music blasts. The bass thumping in your chest. People fill the backyard and house, red cups in hand, yelling and laughing like they don’t have a care in the world. The air smells like smoke, beer, and sweat. Someone cannonballs into the pool, water splashing everywhere, but no one seems to mind.

“This is a normal party” he say nonchalantly 

“You’re telling me this is normal? Your mom lets you guys throw parties like this? This is insane, Deran” you say, eyes wide as you take in the chaos unfolding around you.

“Relax,” he says with a grin. “This is pretty tame, actually.“Smurf doesn’t care. We throw parties like this all the time. Kick backs…keg parties—”

“Smurf?”

“My mom, it’s a nickname– that's what we call her”

“Right” 

You didn’t know much about Deran’s family. just what he’d told you once, almost offhandedly: “We’re a chaotic bunch. Headstrong. Dysfunctional, but we’re close.” He didn’t go into details.

You glance around at the strangers bumping shoulders, dancing, arguing, kissing, drinking. “Do you even know all these people?”

He shrugs, “Some are my friends, you know from surfing…my brothers’ friends… people from the neighborhood.”

A guy you’ve never seen before stumbles past, nearly crashing into you before Deran catches your arm to steady you.

“My mom’s over there,” Deran says, nodding toward a woman sprawled out on a lounge chair, sunglasses on, sipping liquid from a crystal glass.

“Hey, Ma.” He says as the two of you walk over.

“Hey, baby” She sets her drink down on the little table beside her as Deran bends down and kisses her on the cheek.

She eyes you, then sits up and rises from the lounge chair with effortless grace. Sliding her sunglasses to the top of her head, she looks you over, like she’s trying to read you.

“And who is this? Where are your manners, Deran?” she asks, raising an eyebrow as her gaze sweeps over you.

You feel the judgment in her stare. You weren’t what people expected Deran to be friends with, let alone bring home.

Deran quickly introduces you.

“Hi, Ms. Cody,” you say with a shy smile, extending your hand politely.

She doesn’t take it. Instead, she steps forward and pulls you into a tight, unexpected hug.

“No need for all the formalities. I’m Janine—but you can call me Smurf.”

“Make yourself at home.” She pulled away. 

“Thank you.”

You return her smile, but your stomach twists. There was something about her—she seemed warm, friendly, even generous… but it felt like a performance. Like her kindness was a test, and if you failed it, she’d turn on you without warning. You couldn’t explain it, but somehow, you already knew: Janine Cody was not someone you wanted to be on the wrong side of.

He nods toward a group of  people sitting together. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to my brothers.”

“Have fun, kids,” Smurf says, but you can still feel her gaze on you—sharp, burning into your back as you walk away. 

Before you have a chance to say anything, Deran leads you to the back corner of the backyard towards the deep end of the pool.

“Hey guys, ladies,” Deran calls out. He nods acknowledging the girls around his brothers.

They’re all sitting in a loose half-circle on worn couches and sofas pulled close near the pool. Drinks and other items rest on the low table in front of them.

“Who’s this?” The brother with a girl in his lap asks. 

Deran introduces you.

His older brothers stare at you like their mother had but not as sharply. The girls’ reactions are instant. You feel their stares, their judgment. A few roll their eyes.

You feel like a kid standing among the group. The girls lounge around in crop tops and bikini bottoms like it’s just another day at the beach, perfectly comfortable in their skin. They move like they belong here. Like they’ve done this a hundred times before.

Meanwhile, you’re in a plain white t-shirt, overall shorts over top, and Converse. Your hair’s pulled back in a tight braid, with a few loose strands framing your face—and you’re still rocking your multicolored braces. You look every bit the outsider, too clean, too young, too far removed from whatever this is.

They’re adults. Seasoned, wild, careless in a way that only comes with time.

You had only just turned eighteen a few months ago. Technically legal, sure. But not like them. Not yet. Not even close.

You stick out in every way.

Too sweet, too innocent. Definitely not someone who fits into their world. This place wasn’t made for someone like you. And they all seemed to be wondering the same thing—how someone like Deran could be friends with someone like you.

Honestly, they could hardly believe it.

“You already sorta know Craig” Deran says.

You’d met Craig a few times. He was closest in age to Deran, and the two of them had always been thick as thieves. Craig was the kind of guy who would show up on campus unannounced, yank Deran out of class, and vanish with him for the day if the swells were good. You’d spotted him at a couple of the bonfires Deran threw down at the beach—loud, shirt half off, drink in hand, laughing like the world belonged to him. Craig was reckless, wild, the kind of guy who lived for the moment. The life of the party—sometimes too much of it.

“This is Baz… he’s the adopted one,” Deran adds with a laugh.

“Deran,” you scold, thinking it’s rude to refer to his brother like that.

Baz just grins, clearly unbothered. “No, I am,” he says, raising his beer in a mock toast.

He’s lounging back like he owns the place, a beer in one hand, a girl settled easily in his lap, and another tucked in close against his shoulder. He doesn’t seem the least bit fazed by the noise or the chaos—completely at ease, like he’s soaking in the attention without even trying. There’s a cocky edge to him, like he thinks he’s better than everyone else and maybe, in his mind, he is.

“And this…” Deran pauses, then gestures. “This is Andrew or Pope as we like to call him”

You notice it right away, Andrew is different from his brothers. He doesn’t have a girl draped over him, doesn’t flash a grin, doesn’t even try to look relaxed. While the others are loud and easy, half-lost in the party, Andrew is still. Coiled. Intense.

He sits slightly apart, legs spread, leaning back in his chair with a beer in hand. A backward baseball cap hides most of his curls, just a few peeking out at the sides. His eyes follow everything—sharp, unblinking, like he’s trying to figure you out. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t have to. The way he watches you is enough to make your skin crawl.

It’s not just that he’s quiet. It feels like he’s holding something back. Like he could snap at any moment or is waiting for a reason to. Deciding if you’re a threat or just someone to watch.

“Don’t mind his staring,” Deran mutters under his breath. “He’s like that with everyone.”

You give a small wave and a quiet greeting before sitting down right where you were standing. Deran goes to squeeze between Baz and one of the girls.

The group stays together on the other side of the low table, while you sit alone. It feels like there’s a clear line separating you from them.

“You want a beer?” Baz asks, giving the bottle in his hand a slight shake, the amber liquid sloshing inside.

“I’m good,” you reply, keeping your voice steady despite all the eyes on you.

“You sure?” he presses, tipping his beer back and finishing it in a few quick gulps. “We’ve got more than beer—tequila, vodka, whiskey. Pick your poison.”

“Really, I’m fine.” You nod, a little firmer this time.

Baz shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

The blonde sitting in Baz’s lap raises an eyebrow. “You come to a party and don't drink?” she says.

She pulls a lighter and a pack of cigarettes from her pocket, “How about a smoke?”

“I don’t smoke,” you say, your tone polite but firm.

“Drugs?” The brunette sitting next to Deran chimes in. She leans forward, smirking, and taps her manicured nail against a small plastic bag on the table—white powder clearly visible through the plastic.

Craig raises an eyebrow. “Who brought this?” He grabs the bag.

“I did,” she says, all charm, tilting her head at him. “Thought I’d liven things up a bit.”

“Do you mind?”

She shrugs, flashing him a smile that’s way too eager. “Not at all. Help yourself.”

Craig leans forward, rolls up a dollar bill with practiced ease, and starts dividing the powder into neat lines on the table like it’s nothing.

Your throat tightens. You’re no stranger to partying. You’ve seen beer, joints, even the occasional edible passed around. But this? This feels like a line you can’t and won’t cross.

You keep your voice firm, steady—calm, despite the way your skin prickles.

“Definitely pass on the drugs.”

A few of them snicker. The brunette raises a brow like you’ve said something ridiculous. Someone mutters something under their breath that you don’t catch, but the tone is mocking.

But you don’t waver.

“Well, aren’t you fun,” the redhead beside Craig drawls, her tone dripping with sarcasm.

“So you don’t drink, don’t smoke, no drugs?” the blonde adds, eyes narrowing, her voice thick with mockery.

“Let me guess—virgin too?” the brunette jumps in before you can answer, already laughing.

“Cute,” the brunette sneers, her eyes gleaming with sharp, smug amusement as she looks you up and down.

Craig and Baz follow, trying to hold back their laughter, but it still slips out—sharp and too loud. They know you’re Deran’s friend, but that doesn’t stop them. Baz chuckles into his beer like it’s all a joke. Craig throws an arm around the redhead, lets out a low whistle, and grins. He looks at you, clearly amused, but doesn’t stop.

And then there’s Andrew.

He doesn’t laugh. He just watches, his eyes locked on you. There’s no mockery in his stare. There’s no amusement on his face, just that same unreadable intensity. Like he’s studying you, the girls, the entire scene. Like he’s deciding something.

His silence feels different. Not like the others who are ignoring it—but like he’s measuring it.

No one steps in.

Except Deran. 

He rolls his eyes from where he’s lounging back on the couch. “Alright, cut it out. Leave her alone.”

It doesn’t do much—they keep laughing, barely glancing his way. Deran wants to say more, but he doesn’t. He wants to fit in with his brothers, to not be the one always pushing back—but he doesn’t always like the things they do. So he stays quiet, caught between wanting to protect you and not wanting to stand out.

You shift in your spot, feeling like you’ve never been more out of place in your life.

“You guys really know how to make someone feel welcome,” Andrew says finally, bringing the beer to his lips.

“Oh come on, we’re kidding, don’t get soft now Pope you know how it goes. ” the brunette says, waving a hand like she’s brushing off the tension. “Look, usually people come here for something—fun, a drink, a distraction… whatever.”

“Yeah,” the redhead adds with a laugh. “Not to sit around being all… moral.”

The girls giggle again, smug and satisfied—until Andrew gaze lands on them.

His eyes are cold. Hard. Unamused.

“God forbid someone here actually wants to stay sober. Coherent. Not a pathetic mess slurring through the night.”

Their laughter dies instantly, like a record screeching to a halt.

He leans forward, elbows on his knees, voice low and ruthless. “If your idea of fun is getting wasted, mocking and tearing down someone just because they don’t need substances or sex to feel valid… then congrats. You’re exactly as empty as you sound.”

He takes another swig of his beer.

“But hey, keep going. Keep ruining your dignity one sloppy night at a time. Makes the rest of us look better by comparison.” 

That shuts them up.

The vibe goes still—until Baz lets out a snort he tries (and fails) to smother. Craig chuckles under his breath. 

Andrew turns his head slowly, eyes cutting toward them.

“Don’t laugh. You idiots enable this.”

That quiets them fast. Baz shrugs, not quite apologetic. Craig suddenly finds intense interest in the condensation on his drink, avoiding eye contact.

The girls scoff, insulted. “Whatever,” one mutters, getting up. “Fucking asshole,” another hisses as she pushes past him.

They leave in a flurry, muttered curses, tossing one last glare your way like you were the one who started it.

Baz shakes his head with a smirk, like it’s all a bit amusing, while Craig just shrugs, like it’s not his problem.

Andrew doesn’t flinch. Don't watch them go. His eyes remain steady, locked on you.

And now, the silence left behind isn’t just awkward—it’s charged.

You sit there, still and quiet, as something settles heavily in your chest. You aren’t sure if it’s gratitude, relief, or just the shock of being defended by someone who didn’t know you.

Maybe it’s all of it.

No one says anything right away. The girls are gone. Baz takes a sip of his drink, eyes on the table. Craig leans back, arms crossed, pretending not to care. 

But Deran doesn’t laugh. He’s been quiet—too quiet. He glances at you, then down at his hands.

“I shouldn’t have let them talk to you like that,” he says quietly. “That’s on me.”

Andrew’s head turns toward him. His voice is cold. “Damn right it is.”

Deran doesn’t argue.

“You invited her,” Andrew says, voice low but sharp. “Then you sat there and let them treat her like a joke.”

Andrew doesn’t let up. “Don’t be a pussy. If she’s your friend, act like it. Stick up for her.”

“Sorry,” Deran mutters.

You speak before the tension can stretch any further. “It’s fine, Deran.”

Deran nods, still not meeting your eyes.

Andrew's eyes lock onto Craig and Baz.

“You think that was funny?” he asks, voice low but deadly sharp.

Craig raises his eyebrows, all mock innocence. “Relax, Pope. We were just messing around.”

Andrew’s gaze hardens. “She’s young. Our little brother’s friend. She deserves respect. Not this bullshit. You wanna keep messing around? Then do that shit with someone else.”

Baz leans forward, voice rough but calm. “Yeah, man. We got the message. No need to get all serious.”

Craig and Baz both look at you. “Sorry,” they say, the edge gone from their voices.

Andrew leans back in his chair, silent again. He’s still tense, still watching, but he lets it drop—for now.

The tension lingers for a moment longer, then the conversation loosening again, now less sharp, less pointed, less about you.

Craig suggests going for a swim. The night is moving on.

Shoes were kicked off, laughter echoed louder Craig was the first to cannonball in, soaking the pool deck. 

You quickly stood up from sitting on the ground, moving to the side to avoid getting wet further. 

Baz followed, tossing his shirt aside and diving in after a running start.

Deran stands up.

“I’m getting a drink,” he says casually.

“Do you want anything?”

“You guys have soda?” you ask.

“Yeah, we have soda… Pope, you want?”

Andrew doesn’t say anything.

Deran’s mouth tightens into a thin line. “Okay…” he mutters, not pushing further as his brother stays silent.

You watch as Deran disappears into the house, weaving through the chaos of the pool deck. Laughter echoes, music thumps.

You move to sit where Craig had been on the couch. Now it’s just you and Andrew.

His eyes are fixed somewhere beyond the party, watching, but not really part of it.

The silence between you stretches, still, not awkward.

You glance at him, then quickly look away, heart pounding. You want to say something, anythin, but the words tangle in your mind.

You fidget with your fingers, gathering courage. Finally, you say, “Thanks… for standing up for me. You didn’t have to, but you did.”

He stays silent at first. Then, slowly, he turns his head.

“I talk,” he says simply, “when it’s worth saying. When it matters.”

He shrugs, looking away before you can read his expression. “Didn’t do it for a thank you.”

You glance down, a small smile tugging at your lips. “I know. Still… thanks.”

He doesn’t say more, but the corner of his mouth twitches—just a flicker of something.

It’s the smallest thing, but it feels like a crack in the wall between you.

You watch the pool together—Craig yelling something, Baz trying to dunk someone, people screaming and laughing as they swim around in the pool. 

You find the courage to continue the conversation and shift slightly in your seat. “You don’t like parties?” you ask, noticing he hasn’t really socialized or engaged. He’s just kind of a wallflower.

He doesn’t answer right away, his eyes stay fixed, watching the water ripple.

“I don’t like people,” he says simply.

There’s no bite to it, just a quiet fact.

You glance at him again, trying to read his expression. His face is blank, distant—as if he’s both here and somewhere else at the same time.

“Well, I can’t argue with that,” you say. “But if you don’t like people, why are you at a party?” You give him a sideways look. “You’re kind of a wallflower.”

He repeats the word quietly, almost like he’s testing it. “Wallflower.”

Then he shrugs. “Better to be on the wall than in the middle of the chaos.”

You glance toward the crowd—laughing, dancing, loud—and then back at him. “Fair point.”

Finally, he looks at you. “Craig drags me to these things sometimes. Says I need to ‘be normal’ more.”

It’s his turn to ask the questions. “What about you? Why are you here? This isn’t much of your scene either.”

The question catches you off guard, not the words, but the tone. It’s not accusatory. Just curious. Honest.

You shrug. “When Deran said you guys were throwing a party, I figured it’d be more like his beach bonfires—small, laid-back, a few familiar faces. I wasn’t expecting… all this.”

He nods slowly, his arms crossed loosely over his chest.

“Yeah… this is definitely not that,” he says.

“Here.” Deran comes back and hands you a cold Spirit, droplets of condensation slipping down the can in the humid air.

You take it, fingers brushing him briefly. “Thanks.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah I’m fine”

“Pope’s not staring you down to death, is he? It’s okay to admit it. Dude’s got a staring problem—makes people uncomfortable.”

You laugh quietly, shaking your head. “No.”

“Okay so he’s not doing that ‘reading your soul or plotting your funeral’ look? I never can tell which.”

“If you’re asking if I’m uncomfortable, I’m not,” you say, trying to keep it casual.

Deran raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure about that?”

Before you can answer, Andrew cuts in—calm but firm.

“We’re just talking.”

Deran raised an eyebrow. “Talking…” He knew his brother—brooding, intense, always watching but rarely engaging. But something about him now was different. His body language had shifted.

Andrew looked almost relaxed. Not smiling, not soft, but looser. There was a quiet stillness to him, a calm that rarely showed, especially around strangers.

And then there was you.

Most girls stayed far away from Andrew. They flinched under his stare, got quiet or flustered, or just walked away without a word.

But not you.

You held your ground—steady, calm. Like you weren’t intimidated at all.

Andrew wasn’t shutting you out. He was actually engaged, in his own way.

Deran stood with his drink, watching like something was unfolding in real time.

You weren’t trying to impress Andrew or put on a show. You were just being yourself, real, genuine. For someone like Andrew, who could smell fake a mile away, that probably felt like oxygen.

That’s what got to Deran, the reason he became your friend.

He took a slow sip of his drink. It was rare to see his brother open up like this, rare for anyone to get close to Andrew at all.

Deran remembered how you came into his life—not with flashy words or fake smiles, but with quiet honesty and genuine kindness. You were nothing like the rough, reckless, broken people he’d known all his life.

You’d known each other since freshman year, but didn’t really become friends until senior year, when you were paired for an English project.

That project started it. But it was the quiet talks afterward that made your friendship real.

Deran liked that about you. He liked that you were truly good, truly kind.

He desperately wanted to hold on to that—the good—in a world that didn’t offer much of it.

Now, watching Andrew soften, even just a little, Deran wondered if maybe his brother saw that same something in you.

“Yeah we’re talking” You echo. 

“Okay, I—uh, ran into Adrian. You’re cool if I catch up with him for a bit?” His eyes search yours, a little hesitant.

You knew Deran liked Adrian. You were the only one who knew—something private between you two. There was a quiet understanding there, an unspoken trust.

You smiled softly. “Yeah, of course.”

Deran’s shoulders relaxed, a flicker of relief crossing his face. “Thanks. I’ll be back soon.”

He gave you a quick nod before weaving his way through the crowd,

“How are you friends with Deran?” Andrew asks, his voice low and curious.

You laugh softly, a touch of nostalgia in your voice. “We’ve known each other for years—shared a few classes here and there since freshman year. But it wasn’t until this year, when we were paired for that English assignment, that we really started talking.”

Andrew nods slightly, his expression unreadable but attentive. “What changed?”

You pause for a moment, a small smile tugging at your lips. “That project forced us to actually work together.” You laugh softly. “We had to talk, argue, figure things out. But after a while, it wasn’t just about the assignment anymore. I always thought he was nothing, but a beach bum, but there’s more to him than that. We really got to know each other”

“Like what? Do you talk about?  He asks, watching you closely.

“Just normal stuff… music, our interests, hobbies… But sometimes, it’s more than that—like when we talk about what’s going on in our lives, what we’re dealing with. Stuff most people don’t see.”

Andrew’s eyes darken, suspicion flickering beneath the surface. He wonders if Deran has told you anything about their family—what they really do, who they are, what they’re capable of.

Andrew’s eyes flicker with something unreadable as he moves in slight closer to you. “So, you talk about music and hobbies, huh? Sounds pretty normal.” His voice is casual, but there’s a quiet edge beneath it. “But you ever stumble into the... other stuff? The stuff no one’s supposed to know about?”

You glance away, choosing your words carefully. “Other stuff? Like what?”

Andrew studies you for a moment, his eyes flickering with suspicion. From your reaction, it’s clear—you don’t know much at all. You seem almost oblivious to it.

He shrugs, almost like he’s joking. “You know. Family drama. Secrets. Things that don’t usually get shared so casually”

You swallow, keeping your tone even. “No, nothing like that. Just the usual. The only thing he’s ever said about your family is that you’re all—his words, not mine—‘dysfunctional,’ but close.”

“It’s silly, kind of childish I guess but we talk about our hopes, dreams… our future after high school” 

“I probably shouldn’t be telling you this,” you admit, your voice softening as you look around if Andrew happened to be in ear shot.

“He wants to go pro—make it big in surfing. He thinks it could lead to sponsors, travel, maybe even a real career.”

You pause, a fond smile tugging at the corner of your mouth.

“He wants to surf all over the world—Indonesia, Australia, South Africa. He’s got this list in his head of dream breaks and secret beaches he wants to chase. He talks about it like it’s already within reach.”

You glance at Andrew, more thoughtful now. “It’s ambitious… but he’s passionate about it. And honestly? I want that for him.”

Andrew doesn’t respond right away, but you see it in the shift of his expression—something softer, more distant. His posture loosens a fraction, like your words struck a familiar chord.

Because he knew what you were saying was true.

Deran had a real shot. Out of all of them, he was the one who could actually get out—the one with something pure to chase. Surfing wasn’t just a hobby. It was freedom. A way to outrun everything they’d been born into.

Even the family saw it. Smurf had said once, almost grudgingly, that Deran could make something of himself—if the weight of their world didn’t drag him down first.

Andrew wanted that for him. Maybe more than Deran knew.

But underneath that quiet hope lived something heavier: fear.

Because in their world, having something good meant having something to lose. And good things didn’t last.

“What about you? What are your plans?” He wasn’t sure what compelled him to ask.

“College,” you say with a small shrug. “I haven’t heard back from the schools I applied to yet, but that’s the goal.”

You pause. “I’m not sure what I want to major in yet. I’m planning to do exploratory studies my first year. You know…feel things out, see what clicks. I’m just… open to learning, you know?” There was a spark in your eye, a quiet hope that still shone bright beneath the uncertainty.

Deran shouldn’t have brought you here, Andrew thought. but for some reason, though, Deran did—and if you kept coming around, Andrew knew it wouldn’t end well for you. 

“You don’t belong here,” he said, blunt and unflinching.

It came out of nowhere. A punch wrapped in plain words. Just seconds ago, he’d been almost warm. But now? All edges. Cold. Controlled.

You blinked. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“Is that supposed to mean something?” you question. 

“It means this isn’t for you,” he said, low and final.

His tone caught you off guard. It felt personal, though you didn’t know why.

“I didn’t realize coming to a party was such a federal offense,” you said, trying to keep it light.

He didn’t smile.

“You think this is just a party?” he asked.

You hesitated. “It’s a bunch of people drinking and being loud. I got the gist.”

His jaw ticked. Then: “This isn’t your world.”

“Okay… but it’s Deran’s,” you said carefully. “And I’m his friend…” You had no idea where this was coming from or what you’d said to set him off. 

He let out a breath. Almost a laugh—but not quite. “Yeah. That’s the part that worries me.”

You frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He didn’t answer. Just stared at you too long, silence thick between you.

“You don’t see it now,” he finally said. “But one day you will.”

“See what?”

No answer.

“You’re not built for this.”

“Built for what?”

Still nothing. Just that unreadable look.

Then he shifted, like the conversation was already over. “Just… don’t get too comfortable.”

A chill passed through you, and it wasn’t the wind. He hadn’t been cruel. But it still felt like a door was slammed shut.

You didn’t know it, but just by stepping into this party, you were already too close. You weren’t built for their life—untouched by it. Clean. Genuine. Real.

Andrew understood why Deran clung to you. Because that’s what had drawn him in, too. You weren’t pretending. You weren’t playing games. You were just… yourself. Something steady in all their chaos. And maybe that was the problem.

For someone like Andrew—who’d spent his life navigating wreckage—peace wasn’t just unfamiliar. It was dangerous. Still, part of him wanted to protect it. Protect you. Even if it meant pushing you away before the world he lived in pulled you under.

To him, you were just starting out. 

You had to keep your distance—once you glimpsed what lay behind the curtain, there was no turning back.

His words were harsh, but they weren’t meant to hurt. They were meant to warn. To set a boundary. And he wasn’t about to let you cross it.

With that, Andrew stood up and weaved through the crowd. You watched him walk away, leaving you sitting alone.

_

It was the wee hours of the morning. The party had died an hour or so ago.

Andrew was in cleanup mode—gloves on, a red Solo cup in one hand, and a large black trash bag dragging behind him.

The backyard looked like a war zone. Crushed cups and empty bottles blanketed the patio. Cigarette butts were mashed into half-eaten pizza crusts. Beer cans floated lazily in the pool. The fire pit was a ring of dead embers, its smoke still clinging faintly to the air, mixing with the sour scent of stale alcohol and ash.

“You need help?”

Your voice was soft, almost hesitant, as you stepped out through the sliding glass door. The cold hit you immediately, but you stayed where you were.

Andrew paused mid-step, glancing over his shoulder, surprise flickering in his eyes when he saw you still there.

“You’re still hanging around?” he asked, tone guarded but not unfriendly.

“Yeah. Even though I don’t belong here,” you said quietly, watching his face for any sign of a shift.

“That’s not what I had meant,” he said quickly, something unreadable crossing his face—regret, maybe, or something sharper.

“Then what did you mean?”

Your voice stayed steady, but a quiet unease pulled tight in your chest. You couldn’t stop thinking about your conversation with him earlier that night—how, for a moment, it had felt easy. Maybe even warm. His guard had slipped just enough to make you think he could see you as a potential friend. But then, like a switch had flipped, everything shifted. The warmth vanished, the air between you changed, and now… now you weren’t sure he even liked you at all.

He looked at you for a long moment, and for a second, it felt like he might say something real. His expression softened just barely, like he wanted to warn you, protect you, explain something you weren’t ready to understand. But whatever flickered behind his eyes, it vanished just as fast.

After a pause that stretched uncomfortably long, he said flatly, “It’s complicated.”

You let out a dry laugh, the sound sharp and brittle in the quiet night. “That’s one way to put it.”

He didn’t respond. Just went back to work—lifting a half-smashed folding chair and tossing it toward the side fence with a dull thud.

You watched him for a moment, then sighed. You weren’t going to get answers. That much was clear. So you bent down and started picking up trash beside him.

He nodded toward the mess. “You don’t have to help”

“I don’t mind,” you said, stepping forward, brushing hair from your face as you bent to grab a red cup half-buried in the grass.

“Deran was supposed to be my ride… I don’t know where he went.” You knew he was probably left the party so he could be alone with Adrian, away from anybody seeing them.

Andrew didn’t look at you right away. He just kept working, the trash bag rustling with every movement. For a moment, it seemed like he wasn’t going to say anything. Then:

“I’ll take you home.” His tone was flat, no emotion behind it—just certainty.

You looked over at him. “I can just call a cab—”

“I’ll take you.”

“It’s really not a big deal—”

“I said I’ll take you.”

He still wasn’t looking at you, but his voice left no room for protest.

You blinked, caught off guard by the edge in him again. “Okay,” you said quietly.

He pause his work. He stripped off the gloves and dropped them into the bag. Then, without missing a beat, he pulled the drawstrings tight—muscles in his forearm flexing with the motion—and slung the heavy trash bag over his shoulder like it weighed nothing.

He walked it over to the breezeway and dropped it with a dull thud next to the other trash bags piled there. For a moment, he stood there in the quiet, then glanced back at you over his shoulder.

“Let’s go,” he said, already turning pull out his keys and walking towards the car in the driveway.

You hesitated. Not because you didn’t want to, because you suddenly weren’t sure what this meant. His voice was closed off again. But still… you followed.

The car ride had been silent. The only words exchanged were when you gave him directions.

Andrew pulled up outside your house and shut off the engine. The soft hum of the car faded, leaving only the sound of crickets chirping somewhere in the distance.

You went to open the door, but before you could, he was already stepping out. It took you a second to realize—He was walking with you up to your house.

He walked you to the gate, hands tucked into his pockets, his steps slow and unhurried. The porch light spilled a soft glow across the sidewalk, casting long shadows on the concrete.

You stopped just before the latch.

“Thank you, Andrew,” you said quietly, turning to face him.

It was the first time you’d said his name all night. He noticed. He’d expected you to use his nickname Pope—like everyone else

But you hadn’t treated him like everyone else. All night, you spoke to him like he was just a man—not a threat, not a monster. Hell, even when he stared at you, you didn’t flinch.

But you didn’t know him. You didn’t know what he’s done. What he’s capable of. If you’d seen the blood, the wreckage—the cost of getting close to someone like him—you’d see him for what he really is.

His gaze flicked to yours. He nodded once. “Yeah.”

“I’ll see you around.” 

“Maybe.”

He was hoping Deran wouldn’t bring you around again. Hoping he’d know better than to keep you far from their family.

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

There was a pause—just long enough to wonder if he might say something more.

You stepped through the gate, fingers brushing the iron latch, and made your way up the walk. You didn’t look back, but you could feel him standing there, still watching.

—

When Andrew got home, Baz and Craig were still lounging at the outdoor table, trash, bottles, and empty cans scattered around them. It looked exactly the same as when he’d left to drop you off. He knew they weren’t going to lift a finger. He’d be out here a while—picking up every piece of it, scrubbing the place down until it looked like there was never a party at all.

“Where’d you go?” Baz asked, eyes narrowing as he took a long drag from his cigarette.

Andrew shrugged, sitting down heavily. “I took Deran’s friend home.”

Craig raised an eyebrow, a slow smirk creeping across his face. “Really? Since when do you play chauffeur?”

Andrew’s jaw tightened. “Deran was supposed to take her home.”

Just then, Deran came rushing through the open sliding glass door, catching the tail end of the conversation. His gaze flicked between his brothers.

“Where’s—” he started.

“Pope took her home already,” Craig cut in smoothly.

Deran blinked, surprised. “Really?”

Andrew’s tone sharpened. “Why’s it such a shock that I took her home?”

Baz snorted, but Craig just leaned back, crossing his arms with a look that said he was amused but also intrigued.

“I mean, you were practically staring at her all night,” Craig said, grinning.

“Like you saw an angel or something, when she first walked in” Baz added with a snicker, nudging Craig.

Andrew rolled his eyes and looked away, his jaw tightening.

“And then you were chatting her up,” Baz said, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“We were having a conversation. I wasn’t chatting her up,” Andrew shot back, trying to keep his tone even.

Craig leaned in, eyes gleaming with mischief. “I think someone’s got a crush.”

Deran cut in, voice cold and sharp. “No. She’s off limits. Don’t even fucking think about it. I’ll kick your asses.”

Baz held up his hands in mock surrender. “Alright, alright. Damn.”

“Message received,” Craig said, smirking. “Loud and clear.”.

.“Trust me. It’s not happening.” Andrew responds

Andrew didn’t have feelings for you—not really. He’d only met you today. You were nine years younger, his little brother’s friend. That alone drew a hard line between you. It wasn’t going to happen. Not now. Not ever.

And yet, something in him shifted the moment you showed up. This instinct to protect you—it hit fast and hard, like a reflex he couldn’t explain.

He told himself it was just because you were young. Out of place. Too soft for this life.

Too good for this world.

Baz turned toward Deran, smirking. “Why’d you bring the angel around anyway? Maybe you’re the one that wants in her pants…”

Deran didn’t flinch. “Shut the fuck up, Baz.”

“Oooh, touchy,” Craig chimed in with a grin. “That a yes?”

Deran’s face hardened. “She’s a friend. Chill out.”

Baz raised a brow. “Yeah? Since when do you bring friends to our parties?”

Deran hesitated for a beat, then ran a hand through his hair. “It’s just... she’s different. Normal. Not caught up in bullshit.”

Baz laughed under his breath, shaking his head. “Yeah, no kidding. You didn’t have to spell it out. She’s the opposite of everyone we know. That’s for damn sure.”

Deran’s voice dropped a little as he added, “She’s got her head on straight. She’s... good. And I like being around that for once.”

Baz eyed him, head tilted. “Damn. You sound soft.”

“She doesn’t belong here,” Andrew muttered suddenly, still watching the door like he could see you walking through it again. “You know that.”

Deran didn’t argue. “Yeah. I know.”

“But do you really, Deran?”

Andrew leaned forward, elbows on his knees, voice low and grim.

“She won’t last. Not around us. People like her—they get hurt.”

His eyes sharpened as he spoke, each word deliberate.

“I’m telling you now, you need to be careful. If you know what’s best for her, you’ll keep her away from all of this. From us. Because if you don’t… there’ll be consequences. Sooner or later, she’ll see. She’ll know.”

He didn’t say what she’d see—didn’t have to. The violence. The lies. The blood.

Andrew’s gaze flicked toward Deran again, unreadable.

“You think you’re doing her a favor by letting her in. But you’re not. You’re dragging her toward the fire and pretending it won’t burn.”

Deran said nothing.

He didn’t have to.

The silence between them was thick, heavy with everything they couldn’t say.

And maybe, deep down, Andrew wasn’t just talking about you. Maybe he was thinking of the past—of people he tried to protect, and failed.

Andrew stood, pushing away from the table without another word leaving Deran alone with Baz and Craig as he starts back into cleaning mode.

Deran didn’t respond. Didn’t argue. Didn’t defend.

Because the worst part was—Andrew was right.

And for the first time, he wondered if bringing you in—letting you close—meant he’d already set something in motion he couldn’t stop.

LYA Tags: @obfuscateyummy

A gentle eye roll and smile is all you give him as you take an empty spot near Jack’s bench. The go bag you have slung over one shoulder hits the bench first, your water bottle and old energy drink that didn’t (and won’t) get finished go next, but then a second bag (a new one, Jack notes) falls next to it all with a clunk. Then, your feet are moving on their own accord to where Ellis is propped, sitting on the backrest of the bench, with the white printed box of carbs and coffee laid by her feet. 

Lifting the lid, you mutter, “Ah shit, must’ve missed the good stuff.” Your eyes flit over the box’s contents, your usual post shift snack missing from the arrangement.

Ellis gives a sympathetic shrug, but Shen butts in before she can speak a word, “How does the saying go? You snooze, you lose?” He raises his eyebrows your way before taking a strong sip on his iced coffee. The small smile he gives lets you know he's just teasing.

You throw another eyeroll and give him a gentle shove.

Shutting the box and grabbing a hot cup, you walk back to your bench, explaining your lateness to the group. “It’s not my fault, charting a patient with a candle where the sun doesn’t shine happens to be more complicated than you'd think.” You sit with a huff.

Abbot, his eyes never having left you since your arrival to the scene, gives you a sideways smirk. Your eyes find his briefly, and you give him a soft one in return. 

You return to Shen, “Besides, having to figure out how to carry all this extra crap while getting through the heavy exit doors slowed me down”. 

Abbot glances at the bags next to you, and goes to comment on it before Shen claps both hands on his knees and goes to rise. 

“Alright everyone, enough for me.” 

This seems to awaken the once passive mood of everyone on the benches, the small talk turning into soft farewells and “see you tonight”s. Some people pass by you, and you offer them a small smile in return, settling further into the bench with no intention of moving anytime soon. 

After everyone has left, and the last of the muffins have been picked over, Abbot and you are left at the benches. You take a deep inhale and raise your eyes upward, admiring the soft rays of light as they peak through tree branches, refracting and reflecting on the dew drops that hang from each leaf. 

“Candle where the sun doesn’t shine?” A low voice grumbles, the teasing smirk evident in his voice. It’s the first thing he’s said since you’ve set foot in the park.

You set your eyes forward, head shaking back and forth slowly with a soft smile of your own, “Can’t say it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

You turn to look at him fully for the first time when you see him shift in your peripherals. 

A strip of sun lays just right on his face, and for a second looking at him almost becomes too much. All day everyday you see him under the constant glow of bright, clean lights. Seeing him bathed in the soft yellow of day sets something alight in you, something that only breathes in the quiet moments you’ve silently shared in the many years you’ve worked side by side.

Your trance is broken when he stretches across the bench under where his jacket lays on his side. He pulls out something, wrapped in a pink napkin – the ones that come customary with every order from the bakery where the early morning goods are supplied. He offers it your way.

“Figured you might get tied up.” His eyes reveal nothing.

With a confused look, you take it gently from him. Your body pays no attention to the sleepiness that engulfs itself as a zing goes down your fingers at the faint brush of your hands together.

It’s a subconscious reaction you’ve been fighting to control for years now.

You gently unwrap the napkin to see your favorite sweet tucked neatly inside, careful and delicate. 

“I -, you didn’t have to -,” you turn and beam at Jack, settling on “thank you.”

He shrugs and looks forward, like he didn’t take the risk of actually grabbing something from the box for once and getting a few jabs from Shen and Ellis after realizing you might take longer than normal to get to here. Like he hasn’t spent every shift memorizing what snacks were your favorite. Like he hadn’t spent the whole shift glancing at you, looking across the room for you, or thinking about you in basically any capacity.

Very casual.

It was always like that between you two, however. A protein bar here, a gentle pat of encouragement there. All unspoken. It was like you and Jack have always operated on some sort of frequency no one else tuned into.

The feeling swells again. 

He blinks, seemingly brought back from his contemplation, and looks back. He nods towards the bag with a curious expression.

“Oh! This?” You set the pink napkin wrapped gift delicately next to you before reaching for the bag. Inside is a set of roller skates, the wheels clearly worn but brilliant nonetheless. Four wheels and very eighties, just a hobby picked up from COVID. “Occasionally I skate around after work. We don’t really have a good set of bike racks around here so this is sort of the next best thing when I need a little more time to decompress after a shift…” You trail off, spinning a wheel as you fidget.

With no response from him, you look back up. “It’s kind of lame isn’t it,” you say, using that brand of self-deprecating humor that creeps up when you begin to feel embarrassed. There’s truly no reason to be, it just felt a little silly to be telling someone like Abbot that one of your preferred decompression activities involved pushing yourself around on skates like a middle schooler.

His mouth creases a bit as he frowns and shakes his head, “Didn’t say that.”

“Yeah, but, y’know, no one wants to see their doctor on rollerskates, right?” There it is again.

“Wouldn’t say that.” He has a look on his face you can’t quite decipher.

You shrug, smiling a little to yourself. You shrug off the unnecessary embarrassment as your finger spins one of the front wheels again.

You reach down to slip your shoes off your feet, suddenly sparked to life again.

He eyes you wearily as you begin to lace them up. There's equal parts amusement and equal parts something uniquely grumpy about him. 

You stand up slowly from the bench (and Jack has half the mind to reach out and steady you), but you begin to roll forward with little momentum.

You look at him with a little shrug, almost as if to say “watch this!”

You start to push yourself around, swaying gently back and forth. There’s no intention or motive, just simply taking a few loops. You circle around Jack, who cranes his neck either way to keep his eyes on you the whole time.

“I know I’m not that old, but something about just taking the time to skate makes me feel like a kid again,” you say, slowly coming to a stop in front of Jack. As if you needed to explain anything.

His eyes bore into yours, the soft dew surrounding you for a brief moment. All he can see is how your eyes twinkle. A slow nod is all he manages.

“You ride those all the way home?”

“Oh god no,” a small laugh and head shake, “I think my legs would turn into jelly.” 

You kick one stopper against the ground, “I, uh, there's a local park. Some kids are out before school and hang around there. I teach them how to skate sometimes.”

Jack's eyes glimmer. How like you to spend all night battling the horrors of the world in such a caring manner, only to get off shift and become a caregiver once more.

You shrug again, slowly riding back over to the bench and plopping down. You don't reach to take off the skates just yet, but spin them a bit as you drag them against the ground - kicking your feet gently like you were eight again.

A deep inhale, “I used to skate.”

You turn quickly, looking towards Jack. He’s looking forward, his eyes a little wistful. Almost like he’s somewhere else.

“Yeah?” You offer softly.

“Yeah,” a pause, “A long time ago…would skateboard around.”

His foot shifts a little bit, like remembering what the feeling was like was enough to send a sensation to something that wasn’t there.

Your heart swells just a little bit.

Only then do you reach down, untying the loose laces. 

“Well, you’re welcome to join sometime,” the words are out of your mouth before you can stop them. You can’t bring yourself to look up from the tops of your shoes. “I’ve got a board too, although I prefer to stick with these guys.”

He stares forward for a beat longer before looking at you. Only when you see him move is when you turn to look. 

He gives a soft nod, something between acknowledgement and agreement. 

You nod back.

A few weeks go by before the topic is ever brought up again. 

You had been covering the day shift for three days now, and today was the first day that you felt your brain had somewhat caught up to the change in schedule. But that didn’t mean much for today, you were already down one doctor and it felt like a storm just trying to keep up with the normal inflow. However, when a bus full of college athletes flips on the highway mid-afternoon, everything becomes a bit too much. 

So it doesn’t surprise you to see a familiar ER cowboy come slinking in with his camo backpack slung over his shoulder. 

You had just finished attending to a smaller head lac, offering to go find her a blanket, when you see Jack. Your body seems to subconsciously relax knowing he’s there, especially after not having seen him for three days now.

“Thought you were off today?” You say once you get close enough.

His lips give a downturned smile and he shrugs softly. 

You nod in understanding, “No rest for the wicked.”

That gets you a real smile.

You take a step back instinctively when the sound of the ambulance bay doors come crashing open again, snapping back to the instincts that push you through the non-routine routine of the ER. 

With one nod your way, he moves to put his bag in the lockers. And you, you stand there dumbly while you try to remember what you were just doing before salt and pepper curls invaded your thoughts.

The shift ends without fanfare. It’s a minor miracle that everyone from the highway accident ends up okay, and that the shift “quiets” down after everyone is treated. 

After final rounds are made, and you bump elbows with Ellis to hand off any final patients, it was time for your day to come to an end.

You open your locker, your regular backpack sits at the front, but right behind sits that familiar tote bag. You groan internally. You had left your skates here for more than a few days now, and they really should come home at some point. Not only that, but a penny board sits in the bag, too. One of the kids had been asking, and it's difficult to say no to them (and maybe part of you was hoping someone else could get some use out of it, too). Today was just not the day that you wanted to lug them back with you. 

But I guess that was every day that they had sat there so far.

Princess appears by your side right as you’re closing your locker, both bags slung over your shoulder. You’ve worked with her more than a few times now, and she’s definitely one of your favorite nurses to have when things go south.

“A couple of us are going to decompress in the park for a bit…” The implication doesn’t have to be said to know what she means. 

You go to give her an answer, but your eyes drift over her shoulder to where Jack hunched over a computer trying to finish up the last of his own notes.

Princess looks at you expectantly. 

“Oh! Uh, yeah. I’ll be there in a bit.”

That satisfies her. 

As she walks to the exit, you head towards Jack. You sidle up alongside him.

“A couple of us are headed to the park, care to join?”

He looks up at you and the rejection he typically gives to anyone who asks that question falls flat on his tongue. 

“Sure,” leaves his mouth before he can realize that what he said wasn’t no. “I’ll be there.”

You give a gentle nod to the last of the electronic filing he had, “I can wait while you finish that up.”

That seems to fluster him a bit more. 

By the time you both have exited the doors of the ER, the party has well and truly started. There’s a small crew on the park benches - Robby, Mohan, Mateo, Javadi, Whitaker (surprisingly), Princess, and Donnie.

Now Princess is all well and good on her own, but Princess and Donnie? That’s where there’s an issue.

Two cans get tossed your way, one to you and one to Jack, but Princess and Donnie continue to stare long after you set your stuff down. You go to sit down before you hear someone clear their throat. They raise their eyes at you…and you look back, truly confused.

Then you remember.

“Really? I thought you guys were kidding about that,” you stare down at the unopened beer can.

“Nope!” Donnie tosses you his key chain.

You catch it, albeit reluctantly.

“I’m not in med school anymore,” you groan, “nor have I been for a while now,” comes a little quieter after.

Javadi tunes in at the mention of med school. “What’s up?”

“The three of us made a bet on a stolen ambulance and our friend here,” Donnie tips his beer your way, “has yet to fulfill their end of the bargain”. 

“Guys that was weeks ago at this point,” you groan further. 

“And it’s been weeks since we’ve seen you,” Princess retorts.

“Might I also add that you were the one confident enough to not only bet money but also a shotgun on this based on a gut feeling,” Donnie adds.

You turn to Jack, giving him a look to ask him to back you up.

But all you get is a mischievous grin in return. “Go on, doctor.”

You look up, then back down again, then sink one key into the bottom of the can. You slip one finger under the tab, slowly tip the can up to chug, and crack it open.

It’s slower than your med school days, but you still get a round of ceremonious cheers when you finish. You shake your head as you finish, wiping the stray drop at the corner of your mouth with the back of your hand. 

“You’re setting a great example,” Robby chimes teasingly. Because that makes you feel better.

You toss Donnie his keys back, and get another beer in return. 

And when you finally sit down next to Jack on the bench, he gives you a proud smile and tips his beer your way. You laugh softly and clink the cans together.

It isn’t long after the shotgun stunt that people start to excuse themselves from the group. Mateo and Javadi take off at some point (which gets you an eyebrow raise from Princess). Whitaker whispers something about having left something inside his locker and that he had to go back in. When Donnie begins to pack up, everyone else takes it as their cue to start heading out as well. You grab another beer before he closes the lid to the cooler, you don’t have to work tomorrow anyways.

And it’s you and Jack alone at the park again.

It’s still. And you suppose it’s cold, too, but the two beers you have had so far leave a gentle thrum underneath your skin. 

You break the silence first with the crack of your third can.

Jack huffs a silent laugh as you take your first sip. Only this time, you don’t bother to hide the gentle grimace. 

“Do you even like that?” He asks quietly. 

“Jury’s still out, I think,” is your response. “Not my first choice, but it gets the job done.” Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask - “What about you?” The question comes out clunky and not at all conversational in the way you would have liked.

He nods, “I’m with you on that.”

“Well that surprises me, I think.”

“You think?”

You mull on it a little bit, “Yeah, I figured you would be. Are you sure you’re not out and around Pittsburgh hitting up all the craft breweries?”

He chuckles, “There aren’t any open at the time I’m out anyways.”

You giggle a little bit at that. 

You just can’t bring yourself to look at him. Your eyes are anywhere else - the streetlamps, the tops of your shoes, anything. You blame it on the alcohol, the fact that you’re alone, the fact that he’s been staring at you for the past five minutes and basically the entire night up to this point with the intensity that really only Jack Abbot could carry.

And when you do go to look at him, your eyes get snagged on that tote bag that separates the two of you.

“Oh!” You’re positively delighted by this discovery.

The beer gets abandoned on the bench. You immediately take off your shoes, hands diving into the bag and pulling out the delighted skates, and you pull them on without hesitation. 

You stand up with a “woo!” and push yourself forward. 

The first time you catch Jack’s eyes all night is when you look at him, full of delight, enchanted by the skates again. 

“Oh! I almost forgot!” You push yourself back to the bench again, going straight back to the bag. You pull out the penny board and look at Jack with wide eyes and an expectant grin.

Instead of the excitement you were expecting him to match you with, the look you see is one of apprehension. Maybe a small bit of melancholy. 

It makes you drop your smile immediately.

“Or not! You…don’t have to, at all. I know it’s been a few….because of…,” your voice trails. Your tongue feels too big for your mouth as you stumble over what you want to say. Your brain feels like it's tripping over itself to find what he wants to even hear. 

You end up on: “I’m sorry,” as you move to put the board back in the bag. 

“It’s okay,” he says. His hand stops you before you can pick the tote bag up. “I want to try.”

“Yeah?” A small smile creeps back onto your face.

“Yeah,” he shrugs nonchalantly. Like the pure excitement thrumming off of you couldn’t power whole cities, like it didn’t pain him to see that excitement deflate at the thought of offending him.

He could do this, for you.

He stands up in the exaggerated old man way that makes you giggle as you hand off the board to him. He sets the board down in front of him, and it's almost a muscle jerk reaction to place his foot on the board to stop it from rolling. 

It feels…odd. Jack doesn’t have the same stability he used to as his prosthetic sits on the board. Or, at least, it’s more difficult for him to sense out the balance needed to push himself forward.

For a moment, he gets stuck. He wants to push his leg forward and start the roll of the board, but his leg feels locked in place. Jack knows how to do this. He’s done it so many times before, but that was years ago. Decades ago. During a time when both of his legs were his. Beyond the kicked up dust storm of memories this brings, he thinks he would have to move out of the country if he went to move forward and fell flat on his face.

Standing in front of him, you notice his stare becomes fixated on his leg. You see the rush of emotions that pass across his face - confusion, uncertainty, apprehension.

“Need help, cowboy?” You hope it comes across as light. 

Jack looks up, finally. The storm clears when he sees your face looking back at him expectantly, how at ease you are standing there. 

A small smile and a chuckle, he feels a little ridiculous for being scared. “Probably.”

That’s all it takes for you to position yourself beside him and loop one arm in his like it was the most natural thing in the world. As you stand side by side, his face is right next to yours. 

“You’ve got this,” you say with such sweetness in your voice he’s sure he might melt. “Besides, if you fall, I’m going down with you. Then we can both laugh at our stupidity.”

He turns his face away and shakes his head with a huff of a laugh before looking back at you.

“Ready?” You say.

“As I’ll ever be,” is the response you get before he gives a timid push forward.

As both of you start to roll, Jack gives another push before setting his foot on the board. He feels wobbly, but he can’t tell if it’s because he’s out of practice or your hands on him make him short circuit just a bit.

He doesn’t get a chance to think about it any further because you let out a short, “WOO!” as you both continue around the park. After a bit, you’re the one pushing the both of you forward, as Jack stays stable on the board. 

You look at him with a beaming smile (that he should have seen for what it truly is - mischievous) as you ask him, “Ready?”

Just as his eyebrows begin to furrow and ask you what you meant, you let him go with a gentle push. The change in balance only throws him off a bit before he finds his “footing” again and he continues to skate forward on his own. 

It isn’t long before his confidence builds and he maneuvers to turn around without a hitch. Right back to you. 

“Good job!” You cheer, skating over to be by Jack again, once forgotten beer back in your hand (if Jack sees, he makes no comment).  

The park is quiet, no one around, but the thrum of blood rushes through your ears loud enough to compensate.

You like seeing Jack like this, sporting a small smile meant only for himself while doing something he once loved.

Okay, fine, maybe that shotgun just really went right through your system. Maybe the other two were hitting a bit harder than you thought. But now, beer in hand and skates on your feet, you feel a little silly. 

It doesn't help that your adrenaline was through the roof, giggling to yourself as you watch Jack push himself gently around on his board. You giggle once again. 

“Jack!” You gasp when the idea comes to you after a healthy swig of beer. “Jack, Jack, jack, jack, jack,” his name comes spilling out of your mouth, your tongue getting twisted on the consonants before righting itself. 

“YOU! Should pull me and then we could go super fast!”

He shoots you a look of amusement. 

A stupid idea, a pair of wheels, and a few drinks? Sounds like the start to any ER trip. 

However, there's no slur to your words and you seem to balance yourself alright. You just seem - loose, relaxed. The giddiness you have just seems like a side to you he hasn't quite gotten to yet.

He relents and gives you a wave to “c'mere.”

You slide on over, and take his outstretched hand. The warmth stored in his palm immediately seeps through your body, spreading from one end to another. You almost wished you had wiped your hands on your scrub bottoms first before reaching out.

He raises his eyebrows at you, “Ready?”

You nod with a grin. 

Then he pushes off on one foot, barely fast at all, but you let out a soft squeal as you're pulled. You give yourself a little push as well, trying to gain some momentum. 

All original ideas of going fast fly out the window as you fall side by side, both pushing a little when needed. Your hands never let go, however. 

You spare a glance his way, then give a devilish smirk. With a hard push off of your right foot, you go to get in front of Jack. 

You giggle softly as you stare at him head on, now skating backwards. 

He huffs, “Show-off.”

There's a smirk hiding soft in the dimple on his cheek. 

You continue to ride backwards, “What can I say, I guess I'm just a pro-”

Your gloating is cut off, abruptly ended by a raised piece of sidewalk. You crash backwards, landing promptly on your butt and partially on your arm as you let out an undignified squeal of surprise. 

The beer rolls sadly into the grass.

Jack stops immediately in front of you, letting the board roll backward slowly as he immediately goes to your side. 

You sit up immediately, no broken bones or hits to the head. You pull your elbow up to look at it, though. There's a healthy scrape there from when you caught yourself. You let out a soft hiss as you look at the damage. 

“You okay?” His eyes are full of worry, immediately scanning you up and down. 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” you say, trying not to worry him as you flick a pebble off of your elbow. 

You were fine, truly. The scrape burned like a son of a bitch, but you were feeling more embarrassed than anything. If that squeal was recorded and played at any point, you’re sure you just might keel over and die of embarrassment. 

He very gently takes your elbow to assess the damage. “We should get this cleaned.”

“Oh no, it’s okay,” you object. “If we go back inside they’ll rope us into something and then we’ll never leave.”

Jack gives you a pointed look. It almost makes you laugh.

“I’m fine! I promise, I’ll just wash it out when I get home. No fuss.” You smile at him gently.

“Although…you could kiss it and make it better,” the words slip out before you can even process that it’s a thought that you have. 

You go to open your mouth to apologize, but then he drops a soft kiss to the uninjured skin on your elbow.

“Better?” His voice is soft, meant for only you. You’re sure you’re gaping at him with a stupid surprised look, but you can’t bring yourself to care. Every nerve is on fire but you’re frozen still.

“Yeah,” you breathe out. Your eyes flicker to his lips without even meaning to. You can still feel the spot on your arm where they touched, and, yeah, it doesn’t hurt anymore. 

He moves just a little closer and you’re sure the entire city block can hear your heartbeat at this point. 

Jack drops his forehead to yours slowly, and then your noses brush. He waits for any sign of a no, but it’s washed away when you breathe out “please”. 

He doesn’t wait after that.

Jack’s lips capture yours and it feels like relief. Your hand immediately goes to cradle one side of his face and you can feel the small amount of stubble scratch your fingertips. 

Your lips move together for a while before you start to feel desperate, wanting more. You go to move to put your other hand on his shoulder but you bump your elbow against him and immediately pull away. You hiss and look at your elbow again before giving him a sheepish smile.

He smiles brightly at you, and you swear it splits your soul in half.

“Alright, we should really clean that,” he says. 

“Yeah maybe,” you laugh. 

“Although…it’s a little difficult to reach…I might need some help,” you start teasingly.

He grins back at you, trying to figure out where you’re going with this.

 “And, you know,” you continue, “we can’t go back inside the Pitt…so maybe you should help me back at mine?” Your voice tilts upwards at the end, like you can’t really even believe you’re asking him this. 

You stare at him with bated breath.

“Yeah, I can do that,” Jack says, before leaning down to steal another kiss.

He was an R4, but with the way he carried himself and practiced and the fact that he was older, you assumed he was your attending. You were both drawn to each other immediately. For both of you it was pretty much love at first sight and interaction. Neither of you could explain why if asked. It just was. By the end of your first twelve hours knowing each other you were in love with each other. 

Not, of course, that either of you told the other that. Because there was no way the other would feel the same. So instead you became best friends, almost instantly. Like after two weeks everyone had noticed how close you were. People hadn’t started assuming you were together at that point but they were assuming it was heading in that direction. 

Your reasons for not telling each other were slightly different then. For you, you were new and an intern to Jack’s R4, were quite sure Jack was not interested in you like that and, even that early on, having him in your life as a best friend was better than losing him and not having him in your life at all. For Jack, he was an R4 and you were an intern, plus he was older than you and missing a foot, he truly believed you weren’t and would never be into him like that and, as it was for you, even that early on, having you in his life as a best friend was better than losing you and not having you in his life at all.

And for a while you really were just best friends. But then over time you both seemed to greatly expand your definition of best friends. And after a while you were doing almost everything a couple did except for kissing and having sex and admitting feelings and saying you loved each other. To you and Jack though, it was all just being best friends, all things best friends did. 

The true beginning of that expansion was the first time you spent the night at Jack’s house, about three months after you met. 

Jack is confused when he sees you sitting at the hub eating the other half of the granola bar you’d started and not finished last night. It’s strange because he just assumed you guys would grab breakfast so why would you be eating. “Aren’t you off?” he asks you as he walks up to where you’re sitting.

“I am, but I just got a text from my neighbor that the AC in my apartment building is broken and won’t be fixed until this evening so I’m just gonna hang here.” You shrug. “Maybe work, maybe try to catch some sleep in the on-call room and then head home and pray it’s working.”

It has been disgustingly hot and humid the last week or ten days and being in your AC-less apartment on the fifth floor during the day was simply not happening. You’d rather be at the hospital getting shitty sleep in the on-call room or working. 

“Wasn’t this last shift our sixth straight night on?” Jack asks, with a raise of his brows.

“Indeed it was,” you sigh. “Pretty irritating because I would just like to go sleep. But what can you do? I’m not going home to sleep in this heat.”

“Yeah. No, you’re not.” It’s short, somewhere between disbelief and concern. “You’re not staying here either. Go grab your shit. You can crash at my place.” 

“Really?”

“No, I just said it to be a dick and take back the offer when you agreed.” Jack gives you a pointed really? look. “Yes, really. Now go get your shit before we both end up getting pulled back into something.”

“You don’t have to do that Jack, I’ll be fine. I wouldn’t want to intrude like that.” You shake your head at him a little. 

“I know I don’t have to offer, but you need to get some real sleep. I know you know that. You’ll make yourself sick. And you’re not intruding, you know that too.” Jack tilts his head at you.

“Aw,” you tease him a little, “are you worried about me?”

Jack rolls his eyes at you. You both know he is and that he does worry about you and that you worry about him. That’s what best friends do. “Okay, stay here then.” He shrugs.

“No, no. I’ll take you up on it if you’re still offering,” you say quickly. 

“I am.”

“Okay, let me grab my stuff.” You get up and head to the lockers, grab your things and make your way over to Jack. 

Once you’re out of the Pitt Jack turns to you as you walk towards your guys’ favorite breakfast spot. You haven’t discussed going there but it’s just unspoken at this point. “Why didn’t you just ask? How many times now have I told you you’re welcome at my place whenever? Open door or whatever. It’s not like you’ve never been to my place and don’t know I have a guest room.”

You shrug as he opens the door for you. “It felt like there was a difference between come over whenever and spend the night, or what’s our night, at my place.”

“Well there’s not,” he tells you as you slide into a booth sitting across from each other. “I’m telling you that now.”

Once you finish breakfast the two of you head to Jack’s place. Like Jack said, you’ve been to his place before. 

“You should take my bed,” Jack says once you’re at his place and both of you have set all your stuff down. “The guest bed mattress is really not the greatest. I need to replace it but nobody ever sleeps on it so I just haven’t gotten around to it.”

You’re thrown for a second at the prospect of sleeping in Jack’s bed. Even without him. “It’s alright, I don’t mind. My cheap mattress at home isn’t really the greatest.” 

“No seriously, you’ll probably wake up hurting.” He gives you a firm look. “Just let me take it.” 

“Oh, yes, because if it’s going to hurt the person who sleeps on it, the best idea is surely to give it to the older of the two of us.” You give him a look. 

“Did you just call me old?” Jack says in mock offence. 

“No, I just said you were older than me.” You soften a little. “I can tell your hip and back are hurting after six straight Jack.” You both know you’re right. This shift in particular he could really feel his hip and back compensating as his prosthetic caused him a little more pain than usual. “So just let me take the guest room.”

That makes Jack blush a little and you feel bad. You hadn’t meant to hit a nerve or make him self-conscious. “Hate than you can tell, but alright. You wanna shower before?” 

“If you don’t mind.”

“Wouldn’t have asked if I did. You’re going to have to use mine though. I don’t have any shampoo or whatever in the spare. And I’ll leave you a shirt and some boxers on my bed so you don’t have to get back into your scrubs.” He says it so casually, like he’s totally unaffected by it when he is in fact very, very affected. The thought of you in his clothes has him hardening. And the thought of wearing his clothes makes you feel warm and start to get slick between your thighs. 

You clear your throat. “Thank you.” 

Jack nods, flick his head to tell you to follow him and you do. He steps into his bathroom for a second and then comes back out. “Fresh towel and washcloth on the counter for you. I found a spare toothbrush too. Clothes will be on the bed. Shout if you need anything.”

It’s not until you’re in Jack’s shower squeezing some of his shampoo into your hand that you realize you’re going to smell like him at the end of this. You get even slicker between your legs at the thought and spend the entire shower telling yourself to stop thinking about him as anything other than your best friend. It doesn’t really work. 

And getting dried off and into Jack’s clothes does nothing to help the matter. His black shirt is oversized on you and he said boxers but he really meant boxer briefs which make you feel far closer to him in a way. 

You find Jack sitting on his couch reading. “Hey. Thank you for the shower and clothes.” Jack looks up at you and has to carefully control his reaction. He’s glad you’re far enough away that you don’t see the way his jaw clenches at how unbelievably hot you look in his clothes. It makes him feel possessive in a way he knows he shouldn’t. He’s also glad he’s sitting far enough away that you can’t see the bulge in his pants that starts to grow. 

“Of course.”

“I’m going to try and get some sleep. Wake me whenever you need me to leave.” Jack’s not waking you up. As far as he’s concerned you never need to leave. “And I hope you sleep well.” You give him a shy nod and turn to head back to the guest room. 

“Sleep well,” he calls after you. 

From then on, going to each other’s places after work slowly became a thing. By the end of your intern year it was far more common for you to end up at Jack’s place or him to end up at yours after work. Sometimes you’d spend what was your night at Jack’s, sometimes you wouldn’t. He only spent the night at yours once when you both fell asleep on your couch. You didn’t have a spare room and no way were you making Jack sleep on your couch and you knew he’d never accept your bed with you on the couch.

And then one day about a year and a half after meeting and being best friends both of you were clearly sore from your run of shifts and Jack floated the idea. 

“You wanna just sleep in my bed with me? It’s far more comfortable. And big enough so we don’t have to like… be particularly close or anything.” It takes a lot for him not to tack on ‘unless you want.’

“Oh.” His offer catches you by surprise. It feels like it should mean something, but best friends sleep in the same beds, right? It’s not that big of a deal. “Yeah, sure. That would be nice, thank you.” 

After you both shower you and Jack slide into his bed, staying respectfully at the edge of the side of the bed each of you is on. You wake up much closer, about a foot between you, and both of you have to fight the urge to snuggle into the other and try to use this opportunity to express your real feelings for each other.

After that, sleeping in the same bed became your usual thing. It opened up staying at your place more often after a while when you slowly started sleeping closer together since you had a smaller mattress. And before either of you knew it you had a drawer at Jack’s place and he had a drawer at yours, both of you had your toiletries in the other’s shower and on the other’s bathroom counter. It happened so naturally neither of you truly realized the implication for a while, and when you did you convinced yourselves that it was something best friends did.

You also convinced yourselves that getting ready in the bathroom together at the same time, bumping into each other and being close and Jack sometimes shirtless and you sometimes in just a bra and pants or shorts was something best friends did. And you wearing Jack’s clothes just because you liked to, not because you needed to borrow them, without asking him and wearing his shirt and boxer briefs to bed because they were comfortable was a best friends thing. So was Jack sleeping in just a pair of pajama pants and eventually just his boxer briefs in the same bed as you. Laying in his lap with your head on his chest cuddling or him snuggling up to you after a bad day as you watched a movie together was also just something best friends did. 

And then Jack had a really bad day. 

“Jack,” you say softly, moving your head down to try and get him to look at you as he keeps doing compressions. “We have to let him go.” Both you and Jack are sweaty, as are most of the people in the room with you. You’ve been coding the patient in front of you for two hours now. 

“Not your call to make,” he pants out. But it’s laced with anger and frustration. “You’re an R3 and I’m the attending. It’s not your call to make. So either keep running the code or get out.” It’s pretty close to snarled and makes you grimace. You and everybody in the room know that Jack’s anger and frustration isn’t truly at you. 

Jack knows you’re right but he can’t bring himself to stop. Because it’s unfair. It’s so fucking unfair. 

“Jack. Look at me.” He doesn’t stop compressions but he does lift his eyes to yours after a few seconds. “You know that I’m with you and just as aggressive as you. You know that if I thought for a second there was even the slightest chance of us getting him back I wouldn’t be telling you we have to let him go.” You nod at him, watch his jaw clench. The protective eye glasses he’s wearing might fool others into thinking that’s what’s making his eyes shiny but you know better. “He’s gone, Jack.” 

He just looks at you for another minute as he does compressions before he finally stops, panting hard. You both look up at the monitor. “Asystole,” you say quietly. You try to be quicker than Jack but aren’t and Jack’s the one to confirm with his stethoscope and you shut the monitor off. 

He pulls it away and puts it back on his neck as he speaks and glances at his watch. “Time of death 06:57.”

Jack is silent as he pulls his gloves, trauma gown and glasses off, tossing them in the biohazard bin before walking out. You tell everyone thank you before doing the same as Jack and walking out of the trauma room, head on a swivel as you look for him even though you’re pretty sure you know exactly where he is. It’s all but confirmed for you when you don’t see him in the immediate vicinity. 

It is confirmed when you step out onto the roof. You hate it when he stands on that side of the railing, it always scares the shit out of you because you always worry one day he’s going to do it. And if he was, today would likely be that day. You’re one of three people who work at the hospital other than Jack who knows that when it hit midnight seven hours ago it became the anniversary of the day of his injury. So yeah. With the significance of the day and the fact that you just coded a veteran for two hours, if he was going to do it, today seems like it could be the day. 

“You know you’re not allowed to leave me,” you call to him as you walk closer. Jack doesn’t say anything. “Seriously.” You reach the rail right behind him. “What the fuck am I gonna do if you jump?” 

Jack lets out a heavy sigh. “It’s unfair. It’s a fucking joke. Surviving over there to come back and be taken out by a drunk driver. Just like that.” He snaps his fingers as he says it. “What the fuck is the point? Of any of this anymore?” 

“It is unfair. And it’s pretty fucking cruel of the universe to have this happen ever, but especially to have it happen and put it in front of you today.” You let out a long breath. “And I don’t know what the point is either sometimes, or I lose sight of it. But I think the point is all the ones you can and do save and help, Jack. And if you jump then you can’t save or help anyone else. Civilian, service member or vet. You can’t teach others, pass on what you’ve learned. Every student and resident who comes through here would be worse off.” 

Jack knows you’re right. Some part of him wants to almost be mad at you for the way that you’re right and know what to say. He’s not though. He looks back at you a little to acknowledge he heard you. To tell you that you’re right and he knows it. 

“Will you come here, please, Jack?”

He gives a little shake of his head and lets out a shuddery breath before he turns and ducks under the rail so he’s standing right next to you. You turn into him and give him a hug. Jack returns it tightly and you can feel how hard he swallows. You know the last place he wants to show any further emotion is here so you pull out of the hug. 

“Let’s get out of here.” You grab Jack’s hand and start walking. Jack follows and the two of you only drop hands once someone else gets on the elevator with you. 

You guys manage to get out fairly quickly and unsurprisingly end up at Jack’s place. You take turns showering before crawling into bed together, both exhausted and ready to just pass out. You roll on your sides and look at each other. You know Jack needs to let some emotion out and you consider going to sleep in the guest room so he can be alone but the thought of him being alone today, especially after that code, makes you sad.

“Jack?” you say his name softly. He raises his eyebrows at you. “I know the real question you went up there looking for an answer to. Why were you the one to survive? And I’m not going to pretend to know the answer. I know this might be selfish of me, but I just want you to know that I’m really glad you were the one to survive.”

Jack’s mind spins. He can’t believe you knew that was the question. He can in a way, because it’s you and you always seem to know but part of him still can’t comprehend someone caring for him and knowing him how you do. And he wishes more than anything in the moment that he could kiss you. But he can’t. And he can’t risk losing you. His mind also spins trying to answer the question, why him, why did he survive over there, why does he survive over here? And it spins like it always does on this day, scenes of this day all those years ago playing in the background of his mind constantly.

He shakes his head a little at you, eyes glassy. He really didn’t want to cry. “You can come here, if you want, Jack.” 

Jack nods this time and slides over to you. You pull him close to you and wrap your arms around him as he buries his face in your neck and lets himself cry. You run your hands through his hair for the first time without even realizing it and keep doing it. Scratch at his scalp sometimes, play with the curls at the nape of his neck. You wish you could pull his head from your neck and kiss him, tell him you love him and have him know you mean it as more than just a friend. 

After that it became your guys’ normal. Cuddling together in bed, sleeping tangled up together or you on Jack’s chest or him on yours or with him as the big spoon or you as the big spoon, you running your hands through his hair, something you discovered relaxed him immensely and helped him fall asleep. 

Neither of you really dated over the years, not as such. It was just another thing that made everyone think you were already together or heavily in denial. As an intern and resident you didn’t really have the time, and it just wasn’t how you wanted to spend your free time at that point in your life. Jack theoretically had the time but he just didn’t want to put the effort into it really. He was content with you, even non-romantically. As you were with him. You did want more though, you did want to get married and have kids one day. With someone. You knew it would never be Jack and that if you wanted that you were eventually going to have to get over Jack and go try. You just never really brought yourself to.

Occasionally over the years each of you would pick someone up at a bar or somewhere and have some casual sex. Sometimes it turned into a bit of a friends with benefits situation and you’d see the person more than once. That was all more common for you. Jack wasn’t super into casual sex or friends with benefits. You went on a couple of dates to appease some friends and try to get over Jack. He did the same to try and get over you. Nothing ever went anywhere. 

People of course noticed how close you and Jack were. The way you always seemed to walk in and out of work together. The times you’d come in wearing Jack’s sweatshirt. The reactions you’d both have at times when the other got flirted with, either at work or when everyone went out to a bar or somewhere. 

Both of you were constantly getting asked if you were together, some people just assumed it. You both always laughed and said no, you weren’t, you didn’t know why so many people thought that, you’re just best friends. Bets were placed on when you guys would finally either admit you were together already or realize what literally everyone else could tell, that you were both in love with each other, and finally get together as a couple.

A few people bet on it taking one of you to get worryingly sick or injured or otherwise put in danger for the other to admit their feelings. They were proven wrong one night. 

Your mistake was something you’d done hundreds of times before. Walking out into the ambulance bay by yourself in the middle of the night. It’s how you find yourself being held hostage and walked back into the ED with a knife pressed against your throat. 

Sound seems to go. You’re only vaguely aware of the guy holding you making demands for drugs. Your eyes drag across the floor looking for a single person. One you can’t find. He must be in with a patient. You know he’s the only person who would give you any comfort in this situation but a part of you is almost glad you don’t see him. 

You don’t want him to see this. Especially if this guy ends up using the knife on you. You really don’t want Jack to see that. 

The scream a patient lets out and the general collective gasps he hears are Jack’s initial clues something is wrong. The chilly silence that follows is another clue and he decides to go look, makes his way to the door of the exam room he’s in. He doesn’t know what he expects to see when he steps out but it sure isn’t you with a knife pressed to your throat. And yet that’s what he sees.

Jack’s entire world stops, the vial of medication he was holding falling out of his hand. His eyes find yours immediately. “I’m sorry,” you mouth to him. He shakes his head. Why the fuck are you sorry? is all he can think. 

Jack walks forward holding up his hands. “What do you want?” he asks the guy. 

“Finally somebody with some fucking sense. Demerol. 150. To start. Then I want all the fucking vials of it and morphine you have with a bunch of needles.” The guy laughs, thinks he’s about to make out. 

“And then you’ll let her go?” Jack asks.

“I’ll walk her out with me and then I’ll let her go, yeah.”

“Fine,” Jack nods at him. “I’ll pull your dose now.” The way the guy laughs as Jack walks over to pull some demerol out makes him want to be sick. If something happens to you, anything at all, if you die, Jack swears he’ll die with you. He’d never forgive himself. He’s eerily calm and steady for how fast his heart is racing but he knows he needs to be calm and focused to get you out of this alive and physically uninjured. He knows the mental injuries are already there. 

Jack can’t quite pin down how sophisticated this guy is. The laughter makes Jack think he’s not very. That he doesn’t really know what he’s doing. So Jack tries it, sees if the guy will tell him to show him the vial first and pull it in front of him and make Jack give himself some to prove it’s nothing dangerous first. He takes a vial of etomidate out and pulls a dose, starts walking over to the guy. 

There’s no questioning. No telling Jack to go back and bring it all over and pull it in front of him, no asking Jack if Jack think he’s stupid. Only that fucking laugh that neither you nor Jack will ever forget.

“Need a vein,” Jack tells the guy as he gets close. 

“Back of the hand. The one holding the knife. She can watch,” the guy grunts at Jack and laughs as he tightens his grip on the knife and presses it into your neck hard enough to give you little deeper than a paper cut, but deep enough to draw some blood. 

The sight of your blood makes him want to be sick because, even though it’s only a few drops, you still have a fucking knife against your throat that’s making you bleed. Jack nods at you but doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t want to risk pissing the guy off, not with how tight that knife is against your skin. Jack feels the back of the guys hand for a vein to make sure they’re not all blown. He finds one and so Jack pushes the med and then steps back 

“I’m getting the rest now, okay?” Jack starts walking backwards slowly. It’s the longest onset time of Jack’s entire life but he can see when it starts to hit the guy and he’s already running back towards you as the etomidate renders the guy unconscious. “Etomidate,” Jack shouts at nobody in particular so at least somebody knows what he gave the guy and can deal with him accordingly.

The second the knife drops from your throat you’re stepping forward and Jack is right there to grab you and pull you away from the guy. Jack crushes you to him. “Jack,” you whimper as your hands fist at his scrub top at his chest, his arms wrapping around you and holding you tighter than he ever has before. 

“Fuck,” he breathes out, “fuck, you’re okay.” You’re shaking in Jack’s arms just as much as he’s shaking having you safe and in his as the adrenaline crashes for you both. “Let me see your neck.” 

He tries to pull away but you cling to him and follow him. “It’s fine, it’s fine. Just stay, please.” 

Jack wants to look at your neck for himself but he knows you’re right that it’s okay for now and you clearly need him like this and frankly he needs you like this too. Safe in his arms. 

It makes you feel safe. If you’re in Jack’s arms nothing is going to happen to you. You trust him. You know he’s safe, will keep you safe. “Please stay,” you whisper, voice shaking. “I need you.” 

“I’m not going anywhere,” he promises. “I’ve got you. And I’m not letting you out of my sight.” Jack’s voice is shaky like yours. “I can’t lose you.”

Everyone who heard that line and the way Jack said it had thought it meant you in fact weren’t together but Jack was going to admit his feelings to you and you’d admit yours back and you’d finally be together and holding hands walking in and calling each other pet names. And Jack almost did admit his feelings to you. But then you guys had gotten home and went about your routine and you were so shaken and clingy that he wasn’t able to bring himself to tell you and risk losing you, especially when you needed him so much in the aftermath. So it didn’t happen. 

The calling each other a pet name, however, did. But not in the way anyone expected. To you and Jack the word just became a nickname. One that intensified the confusion about what you and Jack were. 

You’re standing at the hub charting when you overhear Jack finishing discharge instructions with a mom and her five or six year old daughter as he walks them towards the door. You’re finally an R4 about two weeks away from starting the attending position you were offered and accepted. Jack is of course still an attending. Your schedules are almost always identical. It was easy to pull off when most people didn’t want to work nights and the two of you volunteered to. You both knew it would be staying that way once you became an attending.

“Thank you so much, babe!” You watch the mom tell Jack as she hugs him. You bite your lip to stifle your laugh, continuing to watch as Jack remains completely still. “And like we talked about if you ever need anything or get bored, here’s my number,” she giggles as she presses a post-it note to his chest. You’d be more jealous if you thought for a single second Jack might actually be interested, but he is so clearly not you almost feel embarrassed for the woman. The whole thing is so funny you have to quickly log out and walk away to keep from laughing. 

The second the mom is out the door Jack tosses the post-it note with a shake of his head. Jack has always gotten hit on at work. He’s always gotten flirted with everywhere really. He very, very rarely flirts back. But though he may not have put it together, everyone else, yourself included, has noticed that now that he’s truly gone salt and pepper he gets flirted with far more. 

Later that night around 1:30 a.m. the two of you are at the hub charting together. “Can you take the eight year old with a possible broken arm from a bunk bed fall with the new med student, Cooper? I said I would but I don’t think I can handle another mom right now and I would really love to try and get like four bites of literally anything.”

“I suppose for you I can,” you tease him, bumping your hip against his. “I brought us leftovers from last night too. They’re in the fridge.”

“I knew I kept you around for a reason.” You scoff in mock offense as Jack logs off his computer. He looks over at you and waits until you look up at him which doesn’t take long. “Thank you.” He gives you a flash of a smile and then starts to walk toward the breakroom. 

The opportunity is too good to pass up. After he gets a step or two away you call out to him. “Sure thing, babe!” 

Jack stops walking and tilts his head letting out a single huffed laugh as he shakes his head and rolls his eyes before he resumes walking. He can’t keep the small smile off his face though. 

A while later Jack finds you again at the hub, just the two of you. You guys chat for a bit until you get called away. “Oh,” you turn back to Jack, “can you remind me to check if my mascara is dried out when we get home. I’m going to need some for Shen’s wedding.”

Jack smirks at you and you already know what he’s about to say. “Sure thing, babe!” 

The nickname stuck and it pretty much became your and Jack’s exclusive way of referring to each other. You both ached for it to be a real pet name. People assumed that calling each other ‘babe’ constantly would lead to a conversation and so you’d get together within a month or so. Especially because then you’d be an attending. You wouldn’t technically be Jack’s student anymore, you’d be equals. But you still didn’t get together.

And once you became an attending and had been one for six months or so and nothing happened, people stopped placing bets. Because surely if it was going to happen it would have already. 

A year after you became an attending you started to notice it more than you had before. It felt like most of your patients were children with their parents or newlyweds or recently engaged or celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary or pregnant. Marriage and kids were frequently on your mind. But you still couldn’t bring yourself to put yourself out there and try to find someone. 

You talk about it casually with a couple of people at work, that you think you’d like marriage and kids one day, and the interest in you and Jack is renewed and bets start getting placed again. 

And one day, six years after you met, it finally happens.

You and Jack walk into his place after your shift. You unsurprisingly had to stay late so it’s 9 a.m. or so, your guys’ evening. It wasn’t a bad shift in the scope of things, but it wasn’t the easiest shift you’ve ever had either. 

Jack keeps semi blackout curtains in his living room and pulls them closed while you grab a drink for yourself and a beer for Jack from his fridge without even asking if he wants one. You don’t turn any lights on. The curtains dim the room, but you can still easily see each other.

He sits on the opposite end of the couch from you, leaning into the corner of it and putting the thigh of one leg on it as he tilts his body towards you so that you guys can see each other. Manspreading like always. If only he knew how insane it drove you. You hand him his beer and then settle back into the same position, and if only you knew how insane your legs being relatively spread open drove him. 

“I guess at least nobody died,” you mutter before taking a drink. 

Jack nods slowly as he finishes swallowing. “We’ll take the wins where we can.” He tilts his head at you. “Didn’t see much of you tonight.” 

“It was busy. I think we kept hitting our free moments at different times. It’s not like I was ignoring you.” You give him a knowing look, confused about why he’s even commenting on it. It’s something that just happens sometimes. 

He’s commenting because he missed you, quite a lot today for some reason, and especially because he saw you on your phone a decent amount at the beginning of your shift, more than you usually are, and you seemed happy. Of course he wants you to be happy, but he wants to know why. Why you weren’t using that time to come see him and let him make you happy. He’s hoping the explanation isn’t another man. 

“You seemed to be in an awfully good mood at the beginning of your shift.” He tries to keep it light, like it’s just something he noticed and not him trying to probe for information.

“Eh. My college ex boyfriend texted me.” You roll your eyes. “It was random more than anything.”

He swallows hard. Fuck. It was another man. “Oh,” Jack draws the word out, “is that who was making you smile down at your phone until about midnight tonight?” He smirks at you like he isn’t internally seething with jealousy.

You roll your eyes again but this time at Jack. “He sent me the most ridiculous opening line and it was funny, so it made me smile, yes.” 

Jack’s jaw sets and he takes a drink of his beer so that he doesn’t grind his teeth loud enough for you to hear. “You sharing or?”

There’s the faintest hint of snippiness in his tone that makes you narrow your eyes at him slightly. Jack knows all about your college ex, how he decided he didn’t want to move with you for medical school and then again for residency potentially. It broke your heart at the time but things still ended amicably all things considered. You figure the snippiness is related to Jack disliking him.

“He asked if I went into cardiology because, and I quote ‘you are the very beating and pulse of my heart.’” You start laughing as you finish saying it. Jack hardly even laughs, he just rolls his eyes and shakes his head, shifts to sit straighter on the couch so he’s looking at the black TV in front of him and not over at you. “Oh come on,” you nudge his thigh with your foot. “It was funny.”

Jack takes another swig of his beer and pulls his lips down, shrugs slightly. “Worked on you enough that you memorized it.” 

You choke on the sip of your drink you just took, coughing a little. Jack glances over at you for a second just to make sure you’re okay. 

“Worked on me? It didn’t fucking work on me. He sent it to break the ice, babe.” You furrow your brows and shake your head at him, looking at him with a mixture of disbelief and confusion. 

“Well you liked it enough to remember it and keep talking to him.” He already knows you’re going to go see this guy and probably get into a relationship and that’ll pretty much be the end of your best friends relationship as you know it now. 

You scoff at him. “I found it funny enough to remember. There’s a difference.” 

“Okay,” he sings, clearly not believing you and you just shake your head at him. You both take sips of your drinks. Even with Jack’s kind of strange behavior the silence is still comfortable. “So why’d he text you after all this time? It’s been like what? Ten years?”

You shift on the couch and pull your legs up to your chest. “He moved to Pittsburgh. Asked if I’d be interested in seeing him.”

Jack’s head snaps over to you. “You are, aren’t you? You’re going to see him?” 

His gaze is so intense it feels like it’s pinning you in place. “Yeah.” You shrug. You don’t get why this is such a big deal all of the sudden. You need this. You need to move on from Jack. You need to try and have the rest of the life you want, even if it’s not quite how you pictured it. You and Jack would still be best friends and some things might change, but it’s not like everything would change or suddenly you’d just stop hanging out because you got married and had kids.

Jack scoffs at you now. “Why?” There’s a bite behind his tone. He’s not sure if you have a real reason or if it’s just to reconnect. You squirm under his gaze for a second before you have to look away as you give him another shrug. That’s the confirmation he needs. “Bull-fucking-shit, you absolutely have a reason.” You let out a breath and occupy your mouth with another sip of your drink. “Fine. Then look me in the eye and tell me you don’t have a reason.” 

You sigh and look back at him. You swear he almost seems mad with how serious he looks, lips pressed in a line, still staring at you with that same intensity, eyes slightly narrowed. You know you’re going to have to tell him because you can’t lie to him. As in you couldn’t bring yourself to do it and also he would know the second it came out of your mouth. 

“It’s stupid,” you admit, “it’s stupid and I know it and a big part of me doesn’t care. But you’ll think it’s stupid too. Think I’m stupid for even considering it.” 

“Hey.” Jack shifts on the couch so he’s turned towards you again, features softened. “You’re not stupid. I know you far too well to know that if there is one thing in this world that you are definitively not, it’s stupid. If it’s a stupid idea, yeah I will tell you that. ” 

You look down at your hands. You know you’re going to have to tell him eventually. If you end up doing it then it’s going to come out. “When we broke up we made this stupid pact together that we both thought was just a funny joke at the time. We said if we reached the age we are now and weren’t married or in a serious relationship we’d get married and have kids together.” You pause for a second and swallow. “Neither of us are married or in a serious relationship. So you know…”

Jack’s jaw falls open a little as his head lolls forward. Adrenaline floods his body so fast he grows cold in seconds, stomach churning. He can’t lose you. Not like this. If you dated the guy and fell back in love with him that would be one thing. But this? No. And actually, no in general. He can’t lose you. He can’t watch you marry someone else and have someone else’s kids. He knows you really want marriage and kids and he wants that for you, just selfishly only with him. It gets harder to breathe as some actual panic starts to seep into him. 

He lets out an incredulous laugh. “You’re actually fucking considering this?” 

Tears sting at the back of your eyes. You know he’s not laughing at you and you know he’s not truly judging you but his reaction still hurts in a way you didn’t expect it to. All you can do is nod at him. 

Jack laughs again, running a hand through his hair and shaking his head. “Fucking why?”

“Because Jack!” He shrinks back slightly, eyebrows raising at your response and the emotion he thinks he hears in your voice. “Because I want to share my life with someone romantically! Because I want to get married and have a house and have kids! I want that life. And I’m not getting any fucking younger.”

“Oh my fucking god,” Jack scoffs. He’s nearly at a loss for words. “How can you say that? You haven’t even been looking for someone! You don’t date and I know you’ve been asked out plenty of times. And don’t give the excuse of being too busy because we both know that’s not true anymore.” He shakes his head at you and looks pissed. “Do you even fucking love him?” 

You shrug. You have absolutely no justification for why you don’t date other than because you’re in love with Jack. So you don’t even really try to justify anything. “I haven’t been, no, but I’ve still always wanted that stuff and this kind of fell in my lap and so maybe it’s a sign. And as for loving him… yeah. No. Kind of? I don’t know anymore. Would he be my first pick? No. But he’s nice, he treated me well and he’ll be a good dad I think. And maybe now that we’re both grown up there will be more of a spark there.” You knew Jack would think it was a stupid and bad idea but you didn’t know he’d react quite this strongly. In part you’re not sure why he cares so much. He’s your best friend. He should want to see you happy and living the life you want. And this is a way for you to at least be living the life you want and to be happy enough.

“So what, you’re going to fucking settle? Settle for the guy who broke your heart? The guy who couldn’t be fucking asked to move maybe twice for you so that you could do what you dreamed of? The guy who allegedly loved you but not quite enough to make any sacrifices for you?” Jack tilts his head at you. “Babe you deserve so much better. So much fucking better. Don’t do this to yourself. Don’t even consider it further. Please” 

“I think maybe I would be enough for him now. He reached out. Remembered. That has to count for something, right? And I want it Jack.” You shrug at him. You’re a little upset. Not with Jack, just with everything else. With what you don’t have. With the way you struggle about whether you really want marriage and kids without Jack now that you’re really thinking about it. “I want that life and I feel like I’m running out of time and yeah, I haven’t been looking so that’s on me, but still. You can want something and still be okay with not having it. But if the opportunity arose, if it just kind of fell in your lap… you know?”

“I know,” Jack whispers before speaking at a normal level. “I just want you to be with someone who you are enough for. Because you are enough. You are so much fucking more than enough.” Jack nods at you, hoping it will help drive his words home. “He doesn’t deserve you. Any fucking part of you. He doesn’t deserve another second of your time. I know you won’t be happy with him. Not truly. You would be settling and you know it. But you don’t have to settle. You don’t. You still have time. You can still have the life you want, just with someone who really makes you happy. Who you really want to live that life with. You still have time to find that person. Your person. So don’t do this to yourself. Please.”

Your heart aches. You know and love Jack so deeply, he’s the one you trust with every secret and part of you. You wish that you could tell him you already found your person. You already found the man who makes you really, truly happy. You already found the man you want to live your life with. That you’re staring at him.

“Jack, we have to be realistic. When am I going to go find that person? With what time? And where? It’ll take me forever to find someone.” You let out a short breath. “And then after I do find them it’s at minimum a year of dating, an engagement, then a wedding, then wanting time as just a couple before kids. I don’t have that kind of time. I have a couple of years at best.” 

“You’re giving yourself an artificial timeline.” He shakes his head. He’s not getting through to you. “You could still go find them. Or at least do this all, marriage and kids, with someone better.” 

“Who, Jack?” You laugh exasperatedly. “Who the fuck is that? I’d still have to find them. At least I know him. That’s better than jumping into this with a stranger. Who the fuck else do I know that I would do this with?” 

There’s a silence as you and Jack stare at each other. 

And then Jack raises his eyebrows and tilts his head at you quickly, just a one second or two flash. 

It hits you. 

“Jack?” you whisper. You need him to say it. Because there’s no fucking way.

He swallows hard. “Please just don’t do it with him.” 

“Jack.” 

“Me.” He rushes the word out, taking a few heavy breaths. “You could do it with me.” 

You stop breathing for a second as you look at him, expression unreadable in a way that makes him incredibly self-conscious, blush creeping up his neck to his ears and cheeks. You’re stunned. Beyond stunned. While your body is still and you’re silent your mind is running a million miles an hour screaming seventy things at once. There’s no way he means this as a romantic thing. He just has to be volunteering himself because he thinks he’s at least better than your college ex. 

The breath you take in thirty seconds later is still shocked. You lick your lips quickly and open your mouth to say something, but then close it when you can’t think of anything. This happens a couple of times before Jack speaks again. He’s quite sure he knows what your reaction means. That you’re trying to find a way to turn him down nicely. 

“I know I’m not him and I’m sure I have much less to offer than him.” You stare at Jack as he speaks, bring a hand up to cover your mouth. “And I know that I come with baggage and that I’m older and that I’m missing a piece of me, literally, but I just think, no I know I could make you happier than he could.” 

You’re silent for a minute. You process what he says but your brain doesn’t formulate a reply to it because you need to know exactly what Jack means. You move your hand from your mouth and rest it to the side of you. 

Your voice is surprisingly even, just like your body is still. You haven’t given into the trembling you can feel coming yet. “Is that… Would you want that? Or would it just be a pact kind of thing to you?” You’re still not convinced he’s thinking about this the same way you are. You’re convinced he’s just offering to take the place of your ex in the pact, not that he’s in love with you like you are with him.

The way you gloss over what he said hurts. He tries to hold onto some modicum of hope that all of this will get figured out and he won’t lose you but it’s getting hard. 

Jack lets out the saddest laugh you’ve ever heard by anyone ever. “Oh no, I want that. I’ve wanted that for a long time. Wanted you. I’ve been in love with you since that first day. The first day I met you. And I’m sorry if knowing it would be really real for me ruins it and makes me not an option. But even if it’s not me you should still find someone better than him.” He shrugs and looks away from you. 

“Are you being for fucking real?” He nods, still looking down. “No, Jack.” You move down the couch so that you’re sitting right next to each other, you with your legs crossed facing Jack who’s still turned into the couch so that he could see you. “Look at me.” He forces himself to look up at you. “Are you serious right now? Do you mean it? You want me? You’re in love with me? Like more than platonically?” 

Jack’s heart breaks because it’s not the declaration of love he’d hoped you give him in return. 

“Yes.” He nods at you, gives you the eye contact you sought, as intense as always even with his glassy and somewhat defeated looking eyes. “I want you. I’m in love with you. I’m in love with you like I want to marry you, I want you to be my wife and me to be your husband, I want to give you my last name, I want to confuse the fuck out of everyone on night shift with two Dr. Abbots, I want you to be the mother of my kids, I want to get you pregnant, more than once maybe, I want to grow old holding your hand and kissing your lips and making you laugh. I want you. I’m in love with you. I love you. I have always loved you.”

You swallow hard, the trembling finally hitting your entire body. “Why did you never say anything or make a move?” 

Your lack of real response to everything he just admitted confirms it for Jack. You don’t feel the same way. You don’t love him like he does you. There’s not going to be any saving this. 

“Because I knew you’d never reciprocate and if I said anything or made a move it would make things awkward and if it didn’t totally end our friendship it would have at least changed it significantly. And having you in my life like this, as my best friend, like you have been for the past six years was so much better than not having you in my life at all and being tortured seeing you at work.” Jack sniffles a little. “But then you started talking about marriage and kids with this guy and I know you want that life and that if you were even considering this pact you were either going to do it or probably start seriously dating and looking for someone. And so I sat here and realized I’d lose you either way. If I admitted my unrequited love I’d lose you. If you do it with him or go find someone to have that life with we obviously wouldn’t be able to continue how we are and so you’d slowly slip away and I’d lose you. So I figured I might as well throw it out there so that if nothing else you know that you are enough for someone. So much more than enough. And you shouldn’t settle for anyone who thinks differently.” 

You look at Jack for a few seconds and then you laugh. Hard. Because you cannot think of how else to react in the moment and Jack fucking Abbot is in love with you and you’re in love with him and you both have been forever and you’re both fucking idiots. 

The sound is a knife through Jack’s heart. 

You quiet your laughter and smile at Jack. He can’t quite believe it because it would be so out of character for you but Jack assumes you’re about to make fun of him. What else could you do?

“Knew I’d never reciprocate? Unrequited love?” You let out a few giggles this time. “Jack Abbot I have loved you every day for the past six years. I fell in love with you the day we met too. I am in love with you. Romantically. I love you.” You laugh again, a few tears slipping down your face, not from the laughter but the other emotions the laughter is just audibly louder than. “You’re sitting here talking about me going and finding my person and I’m trying not to fucking lose it because I’m sitting here fucking staring at my person so sure you would never reciprocate. You’re the one who makes me happy. The fucking happiest. The happiest I’ve ever been.” You take a breath and look at Jack, laughter leaving you and watery smile pulling up on your face, eyes the brightest Jack has ever seen them even in the relatively low light. “You are the one I want that life with. Marriage and kids. I said he wasn’t my first choice. You know who fucking is? You, Jack. You. It’s always been you. I’ve always loved you, too.” 

“Me?” There’s no fucking way.

“Yeah, Jack. You!” You’re beaming at him.

“You’re being for fucking real now?” He loosely mimics what you asked him earlier. A tentative smile pulls onto his face. He’s still struggling to believe that you love him. “You’re in love with me?”

“Yes. Like, like, I don’t even fucking know,” you pause trying to search for a word but it’s hard with how fucking giddy you are, “I’m soul-consumingly in love with you. Head over heels. All the clichés. I’m in love with you. I love you. I love you too.” 

His smile widens and he rests a hand on your thigh. He has to be sure you understand the reality of him though. Or what he thinks the reality of him is. “But I’m-”

“Oh, don’t even start with the I’m older and missing a piece of myself and have baggage. I’ve got some baggage myself. And I know you fucking know that.” You give him a pointed look though your smile remains. “I don’t care how old you are. And it’s hot quite frankly. I mean you are in general but you being older. The salt and pepper drives me fucking insane. Hardest day of my life was when you got enough gray for me to really notice. I had to go back to my place alone after shift and damn near burned out a vibrator over it, I mean jesus fucking christ, I set a personal record, Jack. Your age is hot. You’re hot. And handsome. Unfairly so.” You grow a little more serious to address the last point Jack had brought up earlier, rest one of your hands over his on your thigh and your other hand on his knee. “And yes. You’re missing a piece of yourself. But that doesn’t matter to me Jack. And I know what you think but it’s not unattractive, it doesn’t make you less desirable. And it certainly doesn’t somehow make you less of a man, Jack.”

His head is spinning. At all of. The whole situation. Him professing his love. You professing yours. The fact that you’re in love with each other. That you both want to get married and have kids. His brain glitched out for a second at almost burned out a vibrator and set a personal record all because you were thinking of him. And the way you read him like a book when all he said was he was he’s missing a piece of himself and reassured him perfectly, textbook example of a reason why he loves you. 

Jack’s eyes search yours as he beams with you now. He laughs, and he understands why you laughed. A few tears slide down his face, just as happy and emotional as you. “We’re fucking idiots.”

You laugh with him and nod. “Total fucking idiots.”

“We could have had all those years together. Why did you never say anything?” Jack asks, his free hand covering your hand on his knee. You’re both still so in shock and processing that kissing each other or continuing this conversation with you straddling him or somehow being closer than you are now hasn’t come to the forefront of either of your minds. 

“Same reason you didn’t. Having you somehow was better than not at all. And I mean, Jack,” you let out a flustered laugh, “you have to know like everyone wants you. You could have anybody you wanted and so I never thought you’d want me.”

“Hey. Listen to me.” Jack grows more serious though a soft smile remains. He shifts so that he can hold your face in his hands. He’s held your face like this before, many times, but not like this. This is different. You know you love each other. And while Jack is still your best friend and will always be your best friend, he’s your partner now. Your lover. Your future husband. Your future children’s father. And the same is true for Jack. You are and will always be his best friend, but you’re his partner now. His lover. His future wife. His future children’s mother. And so Jack’s holding your face like that. Like you’re his, in every sense of the word. “There is not a single human being on this entire fucking planet who I want more than you. Not a single fucking one. And there isn’t one that’s better for me. You’re the only woman I see anymore. You’ve been the only woman I see for a long time. You are the only one I want and the only one for me, Babe.”

You grin at the nickname and how it really is a pet name now, how it suddenly holds even more meaning. And you nod at Jack’s words, relish in how they warm your heart and make you feel so needed and wanted and loved. You know he means them. With his entire being. You bring your hands up and wrap them around Jack’s wrists as he holds your face, thumbs rubbing soft circles on the inside of his wrists. 

“You are the only one I want and the only for me, Babe,” you repeat to him. You bite your lip and giggle again and it goes straight to Jack’s cock. Now that you can say it you can’t help yourself. “And I can’t wait to marry you one day.”

“Oh yeah?” He smirks, confidence back in full force, seductive without even really trying. “You want it to be soon?” Jack tilts his head and leans his head in a little closer. You both know you’re fucking finally about to kiss. 

“Could be tomorrow as far as I’m concerned.” You wink at him. It’s kind of a joke but also not really. You’d marry him tomorrow. “But I do want to wait on kids. I know we’ve been dating in a sense for effectively six years, but I want time for us to really be a couple together. Just the two of us. We have a lot of time to make up for.” You look down at Jack’s lips and tilt your head opposite his, lean in even closer expecting him to close the gap. 

But instead he pulls away, making your face furrow. “Seriously?” Jack asks. 

“To which part?” Your confusion at his question and at his pulling back is clear in your tone.

Jack lets go of your face and you let go of his wrists. He stands, confusing you further until he pulls at the fabric of his scrub pants on one leg and sinks onto one knee. “Jack.” Your breathing picks up and tears hit your eyes. 

“I’m sorry I don’t have a ring right now. But I will buy you whatever you want-”

“I want whatever you pick out, Jack,” you interrupt him. 

He huffs a laugh. He loves you so much. You would interrupt his proposal for that. “Okay. I’m sorry I don’t have a ring right now. But I will pick you out one and we’ll get wedding bands on our way. I want to do life by your side forever. I love you.” Jack takes in a breath. “Will you marry me? Tomorrow?”

You nod as you start laughing. “Yeah. Yes! Of course I’ll marry you, Jack. Tomorrow.” 

You and Jack are beaming at each other again as he starts to laugh with you, standing back up and holding his hands out for you. You take them and uncross your legs, let Jack help pull you up. He pulls you close, so that you’re flush against him. And after six years, you both finally get what you want as you tilt your heads and lean in and kiss each other. 

The first kiss is soft, a lingering expression of love that has the two of you breathless as you focus on feeling each other’s lips and the electricity it seems to send through you. The second kiss is a little more, turns sucking on each other’s bottom lips are taken. The third kiss is where things really escalate and before you know it you and Jack are standing in front of his couch properly making out, tongues in each other’s mouths, Jack’s arms sliding around you to keep you close, one forearm running parallel up your spine and holding the nape of your neck, your hands finding Jack’s hair and running through it, scratching at his scalp and occasionally tugging. 

“We’re going to have to go to a different state though,” you laugh against his lips when you finally break apart for air. 

“Wait, what?” His question is a little breathless from kissing and he pulls away a bit so that you can look at each other properly. 

You nod. “Pennsylvania has a three day waiting period after you apply for a marriage license. It almost fucked up Shen’s wedding.” 

“Fuck,” Jack mutters. He looks off to the side in thought for a moment. You take the moment to admire him, this beautiful beautiful man who’s now yours. Who loves you. You keep running your hands through his hair. It’s not the first time you’ve done it but it’s the first time as his lover, his fiancée. “This is the start of our string of offs, right?”

“Mhm,” you hum, “sure is, Babe.”

Jack looks back at you, right in the eyes as usual. “Tomorrow we fly to Vegas. Elope.” 

You raise your eyebrows and pause, waiting to see if he says more or changes his mind or anything. When he doesn’t you bite your lip and nod. He’s probably not even aware of how loved it makes you feel to know he’s ready to marry you tomorrow. Just like that. But then you being ready to marry him tomorrow makes him feel the same. “Sounds like a plan, Dr. Abbot.” Jack’s pupils dilate even more, his hands sliding down your sides and back to grab your ass. “Get your laptop or my iPad, we can book the plane tickets now.”

Jack doesn’t move. “You know you’re going to be Dr. Abbot in less than 48 hours.” The realization has you taking a shallow breath in and subconsciously pressing yourself against Jack even harder. “And we can book later, in a couple of hours.”

You raise your eyebrows slightly. “Oh? Why the delay?”

He uses his hands that are still gripping your ass to grind your hips and pelvis against him as he does the same with his against you. You let out a soft moan when you feel just how hard he is, swear you can feel him throb against as you grow even wetter for him. “Because I’ve been waiting six years to fuck you and now I can. And I need to. You have no idea how badly I need you. So if it’s okay with you I’m going to take my fiancée to bed now.”

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