love is an inside job ❦

He removed the scanner from his nightstand. He ended his days as a TEMS provider and learned what it meant to take a real day off. He realized that he didn’t have to spend his mornings memorizing you before running into a burning building, because you’d still be there when the fire died out; he just needed to learn to stop running all the goddamn time.

Now, the silence in your home feels softer than it used to. Changed, almost. Filled not by a strangling tension of what once felt like an inevitable end, but rather by the steady hiss of running water and panted breaths as heavy as the steam swirling between you.

Jack slouches in his shower chair to accommodate your round stomach as you straddle his lap, bracing your hands on his freckled shoulders. His heavy eyes are clouded with a mixture of desire and worry as they dart between your face and the half-hard cock he holds in his fist.

“You sure about this?” he wonders through panted breaths, which make his flushed chest rise and fall at an uneven pace beneath you.

You exhale hard through your nose, annoyed in a flicker. “Are you gonna ask me that the entire time, or…?”

“I just don’t want you to hurt yourself,” Jack hums, lip quirking into a distant half-smile, ‘cause he loves how easily grumpy you get. “That’s all…”

You flash him a glower, and only slightly melt under his touch when his calloused hands trail up your waist and over your back, skin slick from the warm water rushing from the mounted faucet behind you.

“I’ve been hurting all day— This is the only way to not hurt.”

Jack melts for you instantly. ‘Cause he’s been worried about you all day, in truth, unable to find the root of your sudden headaches and stomach pain. He’s been checking your blood pressure every hour since he woke up, and giving you pain meds every two — though nothing seems to help you quite as much as sex, which you’ve been craving more and more in the latter half of your pregnancy (not that Jack is complaining, of course.)

“Sure you can handle it, honey?” the older man hums, teasing now, as the tip of his weeping cock nudges your achingly sensitive clit.

“Don’t I always, baby?” you deadpan, and don’t give him time to breathe before sinking down over him. 

A groan rumbles deep in his throat as your pussy swallows him, inch by inch. Your relieved sigh entwines with the humming faucet as you ease yourself onto him. The warmth of him inside of you cuts through the ache that’s been lingering in your body for days now — a dull, persistent pain that only he can cure.

You melt into his slick chest as the aching leaves your body, replaced now by the fuller feeling of him nestled deep inside of you. You bury your head into his corded neck, inhaling the scent of musky soap clinging to his skin there. Jack noses into your damp hair.

“This okay?” he pants against your temple.

You nod lazily against him and murmur something that sounds like “fuck, you feel so good…” into his skin, though the words come out mostly muffled.  

You thread your fingers into the damp silver curls at the nape of his neck, and Jack fights back a shiver. He molds you back together when you go lax on his lap, clutching your hip in one hand and cradling the base of your neck with the other, helping you move back and forth over his scruffy thighs.  

“Take it then…” Jack mumbles in half-drunken slurs. “Take it for me, honey. C’mon…”

He leans slightly over, straining one arm to reach for the shower head hanging off the nozzle at his feet, left splashing against the tiled wall beside you. He keeps you pressed against his chest with one hand while his other angles the spout between your thighs. The water sprays against your already sensitive clit; you twitch instinctively at the warm pressure there.

“Jack—” you whimper through a gasped breath.

The man moans through gritted teeth when you clench around him. His free hand tightens around the back of your neck. “I know, honey. I know,” he hums in uneven breaths. “It’s okay. Just use me, baby. There you go. Just use me.”

His words cling to you the same way the rolling steam does, softening all the hardened edges of you. And just for a little while, as Jack keeps you together as you fall apart for him on his lap, the pain finally quiets.

The smell hits him about halfway down the hall. 

The lingering steam from the bathroom, smelling like a mixture of your sweet-musky shampoos, gives way to something far more bitter as he nears the kitchen — which has become nothing short of your own personal laboratory since your pregnancy cravings hit. You’ve made otherwise unfathomable concoctions within these walls in the meantime. Jack’s just glad you’ve moved past the sardines and lemon juice phase.

“Wow…” the man croons sarcastically from the threshold, stuffing his keys into the pocket of his scrub pants. “It smells absolutely delicious in here, honey. What’s on the menu for today?”

You don’t look up from the counter before you, as you drench a plate in hot sauce. “Pickles and tabasco,” you answer in monotone. “AKA the only thing I can eat without puking.”

“Hm,” Jack hums, closer now, as his wide hands splay along your shoulders. He spots the container of Rocky Road sitting just to the side, slowly weeping until it gets to the consistency you like. “And the ice cream?”

You tilt your head, glancing up at him like it’s obvious. “To help with the burn. Duh.”

His stomach turns at the thought of such a mixture. His nose scrunches as you reach for a pickle slice, which seems to serve purely as a vehicle for the hot sauce that drips onto the side of your thumb and forefinger when you shove the thing into your mouth.

You hum with a slow nod, eyes fluttering shut as you lick the excess from your fingertips — you didn’t even look this gratified when he was fucking you a half-hour ago.

A laugh sputters from his mouth at the thought.

“That’s what makes you less nauseous?”

“Well, you made me eat real food last night, and I spent all morning puking, so…”

“You don’t feel nauseous anymore, though, right?” he asks, more solemn now, as his chest reignites with a red-hot worry.

“Mm-mm,” you hum wordlessly through another bite.

“And the medicine helped your headache?” 

You sigh hard through your nose, turning once more to face him. “Yes, Jack— What’s with the third degree?”

His scruffy jaw tightens a fraction as concern flickers behind his eyes. The hands on your shoulders grip you harder, absentmindedly massaging the ache in your back with his thumb. “You just worry me, honey. That’s all…”

You roll your eyes, though there’s no real bite to your annoyance now. “It’s your fault for getting me pregnant…”

“Hey. You were there, too,” he scoffs, watching with a big dumb grin on his face as you shovel a bite of Rocky Road into your mouth to wash down the pickle-tabasco mixture. “You played a pretty big part in the whole getting pregnant thing, if I recall. Don’t act like you didn’t enjoy it, either.”

He reaches past you for the plate and steals a sauceless pickle from the pile there, pinching it into his mouth with his thumb and forefinger.

“Hm,” you shrug and swallow down the mouthful. “Jury’s still out on that, I think…”

That earns you a look. Jack’s eyes widen with something sharper and visibly amused, scruffy cheek softly jutted until he downs the bite. “Oh, you are just asking for it, aren’t you?” he hums, leaning forward with clear intent.

You pull back from him at the last second, scrunching your nose in disgust. 

“My breath smells.”

“I don’t give a shit,” Jack scoffs, and leans down again to press his mouth to yours anyway — a chaste and smacking kiss, filled with a sort of domesticity that makes your stomach do a back flip. It’s hard to imagine, now, that there was ever a time you didn’t want this; that you didn’t want him.

“I’ll be back in the morning,” he tells you with a huff, parting from you to head to the front door. “Get some sleep while I’m gone— I need you to be well-rested for what I have planned tomorrow.”

Your eyes narrow in his direction, because you thought you’d made it pretty clear that you had zero plans of doing anything until the baby got here. “And what is that exactly?”

“Well, it’s my professional opinion that intercourse is the best way to induce labor,” Jack tells you as he swings open the door, letting in streams of golden hour sunlight and wisps of cool evening air. He picks up his military bag from the entrance and swings it over his shoulder. A slow grin spreads across his face as he says, “And I plan on intercourse-ing the shit out of you when I get home.”

Your chest burns with a giddy feeling. One you haven’t felt in quite some time, a flame burning anew.

“Yay…” you deadpan anyway, rolling your eyes for dramatic effect. “So exciting…”

“Yeah. Keep it up,” Jack squints with a smile as he swings the door shut behind him. “Let’s just hope you can back up that mouth when I get back.”

It starts first with a headache. It always did, even before you were pregnant. That sharp, splitting pressure behind your eyes is all too familiar to you now. You languish in the ache for a while and wait for it to pass with a cold press over your forehead like you always do. It doesn’t start to really scare you until it feels like the room has tilted slightly on its axis; an unwavering dizziness that doesn’t seem to shake off with a few blinks like it normally would.

The panic that gives you makes it suddenly very hard to breathe. Each exhale comes out shorter and tighter, as if your lungs have forgotten how to stretch properly. A cold, leaden weight settles in your chest accordingly, overpowering the pain that curls warm and low in your stomach where the baby kicks and writhes — an alien sort of feeling, like being stretched from the inside.

When it doesn’t pass after five minutes, you fumble for your phone and call the number for the PTMC like Jack had told you to — the best way to reach him while at work. It rings three times and clicks once when it’s answered. Static hums briefly on the other line before a familiar voice comes in, stammering slightly, as if they’d been told to answer.

“Uh— Um, PTMC— This is Mel. I mean, uh, Dr. King.”

“Hey, Mel…” You squeeze your eyes shut when your voice wavers, despite your attempt to steady it. You exhale slowly through your mouth and rub at the right side of your stomach, just below your ribs, where the baby kicks mercilessly at your side. “Is, uh… Is Jack around? He told me to call if I—”

“Honey?” Mel blurts, then turns slightly away from the receiver to call somewhere distantly. “Hey, Robby? Dr. Robby— It’s Honey.”

There’s a beat of silence, filled by distant shuffling as the line shifts again.

“Honey?” Robby calls, immediate and alert. “What’s wrong?”

“I didn’t think you’d still be around…” you hum into the receiver, voice taut as you blink away the blur creeping into your vision. “Aren’t you supposed to be on the road by now, Motorcycle Mike?”

He huffs a tired laugh. “Yeah, I-I’m headed that way, actually— Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I— I’m fine,” you lie weakly. “Is Jack there?”

“Uh…” Robby trails off, voice distant as he glances over his shoulder. “He’s in the OR right now, I believe. Do you need something?”

Your clammy grip tightens on the phone. Asking for help feels like choking.

“Do you remember my last check-up? With Dr. Myers?” 

“Yeah?”

“Well, she told me that if I had another one of those headaches that feels like I’m being stabbed through the eyeball, that I need to come in, right?” you ramble on bated breath. “But do you think she meant it, like, I need to come in, or was she just, you know, saying that as a… formality?”

Robby’s silence is less than comforting. The static that precedes his response is heavy and ominous.

“Do I need to come get you?” he asks, suddenly very, very serious in a way that makes your aching chest that much tighter.

“Yeah,” you scoff anyway. “Because driving a motorcycle with a pregnant woman on the back is so safe.”

“No, I—” he huffs a breath, a mixture of a laugh and a frustrated sigh. “I meant, do you need someone to come get you?”

The thought of someone picking you up to take you to the ED is just as nerve-wracking as having to call someone for help. So you spend another two minutes convincing Robby that you’re fit enough to drive, and the eight minutes it takes to get to the hospital praying your migraine doesn’t blind you before you can pull into the parking lot.

Robby meets you in the waiting room to escort you the rest of the way inside. The white-blue fluorescent lights overhead feel like daggers in your temples. The sounds of a moderately controlled chaos blur around you — of beeping monitors, rushing footsteps, and distant voices. 

He ushers you into the nearest room and dims the lights before he goes, leaving you alone just long enough for you to put on a hospital gown.

You wait for him on the edge of the made bed, with your heart in your throat and your legs swinging off the side. Robby knocks before he enters, flashing you a small smile as he rubs sanitizer between his palms.

“Jack’s finishing up. He’s on his way down now,” he tells you, then tilts his bearded chin in a more concerned look. “How’s your head?”

“Eh,” you shrug. “Haven’t had any complaints.”

“Okay, I’m not even— gonna comment on the sarcasm,” Robby huffs as he descends onto the squeaking stool beside the monitor. He slips his glasses out of his scrub pocket and slides them onto the bridge of his nose. “You being a smart ass is a pretty good sign, actually…”

He slips a blood pressure cuff over your elbow with practiced hands. You try not to focus on the strangling feeling as it tightens around your arm, where you can feel your heart beating as your fingers start to tingle. Robby watches the numbers closely, with a strange sort of attentiveness typically only reserved for less-than-desirable results.

“What?” you blurt when his expression shifts. “What is it?”

He blinks hard for a second, then shakes his head. “Nothing. Sorry. Your— Your blood pressure just a little higher than I’d like…”

The cuff loosens with a mechanical whir. Robby slips it off and slides it back into place on the monitor beside you. You tilt your chin to watch him as he looms suddenly over you.

“Is that bad?”

Robby doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he slips his stethoscope over his ears and presses the cold chest piece against your back. 

“Take a deep breath for me,” he murmurs in a distant, gritty voice. You abide and pray silently that he doesn’t notice how the inhale catches somewhere deep in your chest. He listens for a few beats longer than you expect him to, with his brows lowered in a look of concentration.

“Any chest pain?” he wonders suddenly.

“I had some earlier. You know, before I called.” You inhale once more. “But I feel better now.”

“What about any nausea or vomiting in the past week?”

“I had some morning sickness when I woke up, but… Google said it was normal, so…”

“Well,” Robby scoffs a laugh, sliding his stethoscope back over his neck. He keeps his hands wrapped around either end as he walks backward for the door. “If it was Dr. Google, then I guess it’s alright.”

His smile slips off his face the second he’s back outside. His pace hurries as he rushes for the work station down the hall. He makes a beeline for Dana by the overhead monitor, keeping his voice low, though it trembles around the edges with urgency.

“Get a crash cart and a fetal monitor to North 2,” Robby whispers to the woman, who tenses at his direction, because she knows you’re the one in North 2. “Call the NICU, call the OB, and wherever Jack is— tell him to hurry the hell up. Now.”

Robby disappears for no longer than a minute or two. He brings a strange air in with him when he returns, an undeniable tension that makes it suddenly very hard to breathe. He plucks on a pair of blue gloves this time before he steps in — and you’ve known him long enough to tell that the smile he gives you is faker than the one he had before.

“Is everything okay?” you ask, heart pounding against your ribcage. It’s like anxiety times a thousand — the racing pulse you get right before a panic attack, except no amount of breathing can seem to slow it down again.

“Yeah,” Robby says gently, and steps out of the doorway when a team of doctors and grey-scrubbed nurses rush in — machines rolling, wires tangling, voices overlapping with directions. 

Robby looms at your side and ducks his head to keep your wandering attention. “Everything’s great, honey— You’re just about to meet a lot of people right now.”

The inhale you take feels shorter than usual as you blink up at him with eyes swimming with worry. “But… I’m okay, right?”

“You’re gonna be,” he tells you, steady and only slightly reassuring, as he reaches for the oxygen tube propped on the monitor at your side. “You and Jack are gonna meet your baby before the night’s over— That’s exciting, right?”

You feel strangled. Like worry’s wrapped a cold hand around your throat and your heart, too — and when you go dizzy again, you can’t tell if it’s from the news or if the migraine is flaring again. You take in a stuttering breath when Robby slips the oxygen tube over your ears, cool air rushing up into your nostrils.

“Where’s Jack?” is the only thing you can think to say.

“He’s on his way,” Robby promises firmly. 

Shen lays a cotton blanket over your lap as Crus stands on the other side of the bed, rolling an ultrasound machine with him. “Some jelly on the belly, Ms. Honey,” the R4 tells you with a smile, too soft for all the chaos filling the room. “We’re gonna do a quick ultrasound, okay? Check on little Abbot in there.”

You can’t find the words to speak. You feel like your throat’s too tight for that now. So you just lift the bottom of your hospital gown and drag it over your round stomach, leaving the rest of you concealed beneath the blanket. He squirts gel onto your skin, and a shiver trails up your spine.

Only then do the words on the tip of your tongue seem to gain the courage to spill out. 

“What the hell is going on—?”

The door swings open then. You just barely catch sight of Jack over the bustling bodies surrounding you, but his voice is unmistakable. “What the hell is going on?” he announces the same way you had, though his sharper tone cuts through the room like a blade.

Robby leaves your side to intercept the man, pulling him to the corner and debriefing him in a hushed voice. “Her BP’s 170/110. Her symptoms have only gotten worse since she’s been here— I’m worried if she doesn’t deliver this baby right now, she’ll go into cardiac arrest.”

Jack’s face drains of color. 

He crosses his strong arms over his chest in a feeble attempt to soothe the sudden tightness there, as his head whips suddenly in your direction. He watches his residents tend to you with a controlled sort of chaos, moving around each other in swift motions usually reserved for when someone’s really in trouble. 

He shakes his silver head to himself. “No… No, she was— She was fine this morning, man. I’ve been— I’ve been checking on her all day. She was 130/80 when I left—”

“Well, it’s not anymore,” Robby interjects, firm but not entirely unkind. His dark eyes swim with a similar sternness when he catches Jack’s eye. “If we don’t do something now, something will happen to this, baby— Or to her. So you don’t have to stay and watch, brother, but you cannot get in the way, understand?”

Jack struggles to catch his breath. He feels a little like the room is spinning around him. He blinks hard once, regains his bearings, and rushes immediately to your side. He plucks a handful of tissues from the dispenser on the wall to wipe the gel from your stomach as Crus finishes the ultrasound. 

Your pinched look of worry ebbs at the sight of him. Your heavy head lolls on the pillow behind you as your bleary eyes follow his face, though you struggle to blink the haze from them now.

“Jack…” you sigh.

“Hey, honey…” he says, voice soft but still tighter than usual.

“What’s going on?” you tell him, in half-breathless slurs. “I just came in for a headache— I don’t… I don’t understand what’s wrong?”

“Everything’s fine—”

You shake your head, then close your eyes when it makes the room spin harder. “You’re lying…”

“You have severe preeclampsia. It’s a blood pressure disorder. The only cure for it now is to deliver the baby,” Jack explains in a strangely even voice as he leans over the side of your bed, keeping your gaze on him and not the chaos surrounding you. “But your heart’s working a little too hard right now, so we’re gonna have to put you to sleep so we can get you upstairs to the OB—” 

“We’re inducing here,” Robby says, as a nurse helps him tie the back of his PPE gown.

Jack’s head snaps over his shoulder. “Here?”

“It’s better than her arresting in the elevator.”

Your breath stutters, and this time, it feels impossible to catch again. 

“Am I gonna die?” you hear yourself ask.

“No,” Jack answers immediately. “You’re fine, honey. Between all of us, we’ve seen this procedure done a hundred times, okay? You’re in good hands— The best hands.”

McKay enters your tunnel vision then. The PPE covering her from head to toe feels sort of daunting, but her eyes are still kind behind her safety glasses. 

“I’m gonna give you an IV, okay? The medicine’s gonna sedate you— It’ll feel just like falling asleep,” the woman coos to you, as she smooths an alcohol wipe over the inside of your elbow. “A little pinch and some burning…”

You wince when the needle pierces your skin. An icy burning sensation follows quickly, spanning the length of your forearm. You’re grounded only by Jack’s hands on your cheeks, warm and softly calloused, velvet personified.

“I’ll be right here when you wake up,” he tells you, holding your weary gaze with a sterner one. “For you, it’ll feel just like blinking, okay? It’ll be over in a second. You won’t even know it happened—”

His words do little to comfort you. You can hardly hear him now over the heartbeat whoosh, whoosh, whooshing rapidly in your ears.

“Please don’t let me die…” you whimper as burning tears cloud your vision. 

It’s not the death part that’s so scary to you exactly, but rather the fact that the nursery isn’t even finished; and that the crib is only halfway done; and that you haven’t even decided on a baby name yet. There’s too much you haven’t done yet — a whole life inside of you that you haven’t gotten to hold between your hands.

“Please, don’t let me die, Jack. Please, don’t…”

You trail off. Your eyes grow glassy and distant, like you’re looking right past him. Your head grows heavy in his hands a second later.

“…Honey?”

“Is it the medicine?” Nazely asks from where she observes in the corner.

“No. It wouldn’t work that fast—”

Your neck jerks back, and your eyes flutter shut, never quite closing as they dance back and forth. The monitor starts beeping first — “She’s seizing!”Shen announces to the room. You begin trembling in his hold a half second later. 

“Get her on her side!” Robby calls through the surgical mask being tied around his scruffy jaw. 

Jack works with quick, practiced hands despite his racing mind. He cradles the back of your head in one palm, and your jerking shoulder with the other.

“Push another 10 of IV diazepam!” he commands. “Have another on standby!”

“Put the AP pads on in case of cardiac arrest,” Robby says as the crowd parts for him to make his way to your side. He flashes Jack a stern look from the opposite side of the bed. “I love you, brother, but right now, you either need to gown up or get the hell out of the way.”

Jack’s worried eyes snap to his. He inhales sharply through his nose, though the breath tries to hitch in his chest. He nods once to clear his head, then twice more in confirmation.

“Alright. C’mon. Matteo— Help me scrub in,” he commands and stands to full height again, shifting to doctor mode in a blink. He never quite takes his eyes off you as the nurse dresses him in sterile gear. 

Please, god, don’t take her, he finds himself praying to a god he’s not entirely sure he believes in. I only just got her back. You can’t take her from me now.

Recusitative hysterotomy in thirty-six seconds. The whole ED is talking about it.

You were V-Fib for two minutes. Your baby wouldn’t cry for five. It took a roomful of doctors to bring you both to life again. But all that havoc is gone now — your baby is in the NICU for more intensive monitoring, and all the doctors have moved on to all their other patients that need saving.

Somehow, the stillness feels more nerve-racking than the chaos.

Maybe because Jack never was the best at waiting. It’s a truth that lives deep in his bones, etched there from decades of sirens and split-second decisions, that hesitation can cost lives. To him, waiting has always felt a little like negligence — like standing still and watching everything else happen around him. But that’s all he can do for you now. Wait. And it feels a little like dying.

He sits at your bedside in a hard plastic chair with his elbows braced on the thin mattress and his trembling hands holding your limp one. He can’t bring himself to take his eyes off of you, scared to miss you for even a faint fraction of a second. The dim lighting of the recovery room casts soft shadows over the edges of your sleeping face. Machines whisper just next to you, in slow and rhythmic beeps that remind him that you’re still here — that your heart’s still beating.

He knows this. He knows sedation, and post-op recovery, and how to read every machine in this room. But none of it matters now. Because he can’t stop thinking about all the cynical what ifs — what if your heart stops beating when no one’s looking; what if your brain was starved for a second too long; what if the last thing you ever said to him was ‘please don’t let me die?’ 

Jack doesn’t think he could live with himself if that were the case.

When he hears the door swing open and shut behind him — when he hears the noise of the hallway swell and muffle again — he knows it’s Robby entering the room without having to look over his shoulder. Maybe because he knows no one else is brave enough to come talk to him in a state like this.

Jack’s eyes flicker to the monitor.

“BP’s 102/64,” he announces to the silent room. “Hemoglobin’s up to 9.”

“Good,” Robby nods slowly. “Baby Abbot’s stable down the hall— three pounds, seven ounces. Fifteen inches…”

Jack doesn’t say a word.

“You can go hold her if you want,” the older man presses.

Again, Jack stays silent. He doesn’t know how to say that he’s too scared to leave you, too scared to face that he’s a father without having you beside him, too scared to ruin a little life before it’s even begun.

Robby sighs hard through his broad nose and walks to stand at the man’s side. 

“You can’t stay in here like this, brother—”

“The hell I can’t,” Jack snaps with a hardened glare.

“You’re not her primary caregiver,” the man reminds him. “So, technically, you shouldn’t even be in the room— Gloria would have a fit if she found out you were treating your wife.”

“Well, good thing she’s not gonna find out, right?” Jack deadpans. “And I couldn’t care less if she did. I’m not leaving my wife.”

“It’s an ethical conflict, and you know it. We have doctors here that are more than capable of tending to her—”

“Robby, I—” Jack inhales sharply through his nose, eyes fluttering shut as a red-hot frustration swells within him. Through gritted teeth, he murmurs. “I love you, man. And I— I owe both my girls’ lives to you, but… Please don’t make me beat your ass on my daughter’s birthday. I really don’t think that’d be a great first start to fatherhood.”

Jack turns slowly to face the man beside him, his eyes glassy with the unshed tears he can’t seem to blink away. There’s less of a bite to his glare now, but it’s no less serious.

Robby knows this, so he nods in response and claps him on the shoulder. “Yeah. Fair enough…”

You wake forty-five minutes after Robby has left for the E.D. Jack knows this because he’s been taking your blood pressure every thirty minutes, and was nearing his hourly check of your IV line. He feels your fingers twitch in his hand first, right before you grumble an unceremonious “ow...” in the back of your gravelly throat.

Jack’s chair scrapes hard against the tile as he rises abruptly, reaching for you before you’ve even managed to open your eyes. He keeps your cold hand clutched in his left one, while his right hand cradles the top of your head — his thumb smooths over your temple without thinking, ‘cause he’s so used to massaging you there during your migraine spells.

“Easy, honey…” he coos, voice rough and frayed around the edges, when you shift on the thin mattress below — as if you’re momentarily confused as to why the bed you’re on now feels unlike your own.

Your lashes flutter when your eyes open. Even the dim lighting feels a little too bright. Your throat feels dry when you try to swallow, and your tongue feels a little heavy in your mouth. There’s a dull ache, too, that spans from your forehead to your ankles — and a burning sensation from your collarbones to your bellybutton. 

You remember the headache that sent you in, and the chaos that followed, but nothing after Jack burst into the room.

“Hurts…” you manage weakly.

“I know, honey. I know,” Jack hums sympathetically, and clears his throat when his voice breaks.

“My chest…” you choke out, features twisting in a quiet agony.

“Yeah, you’ve got some burn marks from the defib pads, baby— They should go away in a few days. I’ll put some more medicine on your bandages, okay?”

You don’t say anything in return, and Jack doesn’t totally expect you to. There’s a long beat where neither of you says a word. You just breathe, in slow and even inhale-exhales, and Jack just watches you. He almost thinks you’ve fallen asleep again until you shift once more on the mattress.

A hollow feeling has started to settle in your stomach. It feels empty, wrong, and creeps gradually up on you until it starts to feel like something has been carved out of you entirely. Your brows knit slowly together.

“Where…?” you start, though the whispered question trails before you can finish it.

“She’s in the NICU getting checked out,” Jack tells you, voice trembling as he blinks back burning tears. 

It doesn’t truly hit him until then — that he’s a dad now, that he’s got a family with you, the only girl he ever dreamed of having one with. He couldn’t let the thought truly settle until he was sure that you were okay.

“She’s perfect,” he adds, because he knows you need to hear that most of all. “She’s doing real well—”

“She?” you echo, voice small and disbelieving.

You find the strength to open your eyes then. They’re a little swollen from hours of induced sleep, but sparkling with newfound life all the same. Jack feels the look right in his chest, a sparkling red-hot feeling that makes him feel like crying.

“Yeah…” he says on an exhaled breath that’s supposed to be a laugh, though it comes out a little unsteady. “She. Three pounds, seven ounces, fifteen inches… Robby’s been trying to convince me that Robin is a perfectly good girl name ever since she got here.”

Your lip twitches faintly upward. A ghost of a smile breaks through the haze as your thumb smooths over the rough edges of Jack’s knuckles. 

“Can I hold her now?” you ask in a fragile voice.

Jack’s expression softens. Something warm and aching floods into his eyes.

“Yeah,” he nods. “Soon. You just… You gotta get your strength back first, alright? She’s a little early, so… They wanna keep an eye on her for a bit.” 

You nod against the pillow, head heavy and tired. You blink slowly as you try to piece together what happened to you through the fog still clouding your mind.

“Was it bad?” is the first thing you think to ask.

Jack’s jaw stiffens slightly. He swallows hard, adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. 

“It wasn’t good…” he answers honestly, greying brows bouncing. He nods to himself and blinks away the unshed tears that burn the backs of his eyes. “But you’re okay now— Both of you. That’s what matters…”

You stare at him for a long moment, blinking slowly, as the words settle heavily upon you.

“Holy shit…” you whisper on barely a breath.

Jack’s chest stings. He exhales through his nose and bends at the waist to press a soft, careful kiss to your temple. “I know, honey—” he murmurs there, mistaking your tone, and preparing to soothe you through whatever wave of panic comes next.

But then you shake your head, just barely, as your brows furrow in an incredulous look.

“We’re parents now…” you murmur to yourself, voice still coated with leftover sleep. “We’re responsible for a whole human…”

Jack huffs a quiet laugh as he stands to full height again. He swipes an eyelash from the apple of your warm cheek and nods. “Yeah. That’s… That’s pretty terrifying, huh?”

“A lot terrifying,” you correct.

“Well…” he starts. “I’ve kept you alive this long, haven’t I?”

You flash him a look, weighed down with fatigue but still obviously playful. “Jury’s still out,” you quip drily.

Jack scoffs a laugh. “So she’s got a fighting chance, at least.”

Your chapped lips curl slowly into a tired, barely-there grin. Your heavy eyes flutter shut as something short of sleep threatens to drag you back under. “You’re gonna be such a good dad…”

“Based on what?” the older man quips. “My stellar bedside manner?”

Your head shakes weakly against the pillow as your fingers just barely tighten around his hand. “Based on the fact that the first thing you ever did for her was fight to keep her here…”

Jack feels his heart swell up into his throat. It makes him feel like crying. He shrugs a lazy shoulder in response, if only to deflect. “That’s kinda the job, honey,” he jokes with a sad sort of laugh.

“That was you…” you argue in sleepy slurs. “She’s lucky… Both of us are…”

Jack’s teary gaze falls to your entwined hands. He nods slowly with his lips pursed to the side of his mouth, until he’s sure he can speak again without his voice shaking. His words come out a little taut, even still.

“No, I’m the lucky one here, honey,” he tells you in a strangled, gravelly voice. “I promise.”

Six months of this. Six months of stolen glances during practice, his fingers brushing yours when he handed you a clipboard, late-night texts that started professional and ended filthy. Six months since the night he’d pulled you into his office, voice rough as gravel: “Tell me to stop and I will.” You hadn’t. You’d locked the door instead.

Now the secret was getting heavy.

“Yo, Doc!” Tyler’s voice echoed too loud off the cinderblock walls. The lanky freshman guard sauntered in, duffel over one shoulder, that cocky post-season grin plastered on his face. He’d barely played, but he’d watched you plenty. “You coming to the lake house blowout tonight? Whole team’s gonna be there. Beers, bonfire… me and you could finally have that conversation I’ve been wanting.”

You paused, tape roll in hand. “Tyler, I—”

“C’mon, you’re single, right? I see how focused you are on the guys during practice, but damn, the way you tuck your hair back when you’re wrapping ankles? Kinda drives me crazy.” He stepped closer, voice dropping like he thought it was smooth. “Bet I could make you smile more than Coach’s drills ever did.”

The words landed like a match on dry tinder.

You didn’t even get to respond. Steve’s frame filled the doorway, shoulders tight, jaw locked so hard you could see the muscle twitch. He wasn’t in coach mode anymore, he was something darker.

“Tyler. Office. Now.”

His voice was low, controlled, but every player within earshot froze. Tyler’s grin evaporated. “Coach, I was just—”

“I said now.” Steve’s eyes flicked to you for a split second, stormy, possessive, barely leashed. Then he turned and walked away, expecting obedience.

Tyler shot you a wide-eyed “what the hell” look and followed.

Your stomach twisted. You knew that tone. Steve had been unraveling for weeks ever since the Sweet Sixteen loss, ever since the pressure valve released and reality crept back in. You were graduating in a year. He had just re-signed for three more seasons. The age gap, the power imbalance, the very real chance the athletic director would fire him if anyone found out… it had all been simmering.

You gave it five minutes, then slipped down the hall.

-

Steve’s office door was already cracked. You stepped inside and locked it.

He didn’t give you time to speak. The second the bolt clicked, he had you pinned against the wood, mouth crashing down on yours. His hands were everywhere gripping your waist, sliding under your team polo, palming your breasts like he needed to remind himself they were his.

“You think that punk gets to flirt with you?” he growled against your lips, voice wrecked. “Tell you he’s been watching you? That he could make you smile?” One big hand shoved between your thighs, cupping you possessively over your shorts. “This pussy’s been full of my cum more nights than not for half a year. And he thinks he has a shot?”

“Steve—” You gasped as he yanked your shorts and panties down in one rough motion. “It was nothing. He’s just a kid.”

“He’s twenty. Same age as you.” Steve dropped to his knees, shoved your legs apart, and dragged his tongue through your folds with a groan that vibrated straight to your core. “And I’m the one who’s been losing my goddamn mind over you since the day you walked in here looking too innocent for the things I wanted to do to you.”

You moaned, fingers fisting in his hair as he devoured you sucking your clit, fucking you with two thick fingers, curling them perfectly. The wet sounds were obscene in the quiet office. Anyone walking the hallway could hear if they lingered.

He stood suddenly, spun you around, and bent you over his desk. Papers scattered. His belt buckle clinked, then the thick head of his cock was pressing against your entrance.

“Tell me who this belongs to,” he demanded, voice low and dangerous.

“You,” you whimpered. “Only you, Coach.”

He slammed in to the hilt in one thrust. You cried out, the stretch always bordering on too much even after months. Steve didn’t give you time to adjust, he fucked you hard, deep, hips snapping with punishing rhythm.

“That’s right. My good girl. My secret little cumslut.” His hand cracked across your ass, the sting blooming into heat. “Walking around my gym every day like you don’t have my marks all over you.”

Tears pricked your eyes from pleasure, from the intensity, from the fear that had been building in both of you. You pushed back to meet his thrusts, desperate.

Steve leaned over you, chest to your back, teeth grazing your neck. “Been thinking about this since Tyler opened his mouth. Wanted to drag you in front of the whole team and show them exactly who you go home to.”

The confession cracked something open inside you. “Then why don’t we stop hiding?” you gasped between moans. “I’m scared too, Steve. Every time someone looks at us too long I think this is it they know. You’ll lose your job. I’ll lose you.”

He faltered for a heartbeat, then fucked you harder, like he could drive the fear out. “You think I don’t lie awake every night wondering if some sophomore with less baggage is gonna steal you away? I’m thirty-one. Divorced once already because basketball swallowed my life. I told myself I’d never do this again, never risk everything for a girl. Then you happened.”

Your orgasm hit without warning, walls clenching around him as you sobbed his name into the desk. Steve followed seconds later, burying himself deep and flooding you with hot, thick pulses. He stayed inside you, panting, arms wrapped tight like he was afraid you’d disappear.

But the drama wasn’t over.

His phone buzzed on the desk, loud, insistent. The screen lit up: Athletic Director, Calling.

Steve cursed, still buried inside you, and answered on speaker so he could keep one hand on your hip.

“Harrington.”

“Steve, quick question, Tyler just left my office looking rattled. Said you pulled him in over some trainer girl? Everything okay down there? We can’t have any… interpersonal issues blowing up after the season we had.”

Your heart stopped. Steve’s cock twitched inside you, still hard, still leaking. His grip on your hip tightened hard enough to bruise.

“Everything’s fine,” Steve said, voice steady even as he slowly rolled his hips, fucking his cum deeper. “Kid was out of line. Handled it.”

“Good. And listen… there’s been some rumors floating around the department. Nothing concrete, but you know how it is. Keep things professional. Especially with the student staff. Last thing we need is a scandal right when we’re negotiating your extension bonus.”

Steve’s jaw clenched. “Understood.”

The call ended. Silence rang heavy.

He pulled out slowly, watching his release drip down your thighs with dark satisfaction. Then he turned you around, cupped your face, and kissed you soft this time, almost broken.

“I can’t do this anymore,” he whispered.

Your stomach dropped. “Steve—”

“I can’t keep hiding you.” His forehead pressed to yours. “I’m in love with you. Have been since that first night. And if we keep sneaking around, it’s gonna blow up worse than this. Tyler’s a loudmouth. The AD’s already sniffing. I won’t risk your future or mine half-assed.”

Tears spilled over. “What are you saying?”

He wiped them with his thumbs. “I’m saying we come clean. Quietly. To the people who matter. I’ll talk to the AD myself, frame it as post-graduation, ethical disclosure, whatever it takes. I re-signed knowing this might happen. Because you’re worth it. We’re worth it.”

The drama that followed was brutal but necessary.

That night at the lake house, Tyler still stung, made one more comment in front of a group of players. Steve overheard. Words were exchanged. Not quite a fight, but close enough that rumors spread like wildfire by midnight. Someone snapped a blurry photo of Steve pulling you aside by the bonfire, his hand on your arm a little too familiar.

By morning, the AD was demanding a meeting.

You sat in Steve’s living room at 7 a.m., both of you exhausted and raw, while he laid everything out: how it started, how serious it was, how you’d kept it professional during the season. You added your side: consenting adult, no coercion, genuine feelings. The AD was furious but pragmatic. No formal investigation since nothing illegal had happened, but Steve received a formal warning, and you were reassigned to a different sport’s training staff for your final year.

It hurt. The team whispered. A couple players felt betrayed. But no one was fired. No scholarships lost.

-

Three weeks later, the dust had settled into something new.

You stood on the sidelines of the empty gym, watching Steve run a voluntary summer skills session with the returning players. No more hiding in plain sight. When practice ended, he walked straight to you in front of everyone, tugged you close by the waist, and kissed you slow, claiming, public.

Tyler, to his credit, muttered an apology weeks later and kept his distance.

Steve pulled you into his office that evening, the same office where it all began. This time the door stayed unlocked. He sat in his chair and guided you into his lap, hands gentle on your hips.

“Still scared?” he asked quietly.

“Terrified,” you admitted, smiling. “But I’m yours. Out in the open.”

His grin was devastating, the same one that had ruined you from day one. “Damn right you are.” He kissed you deeper, hands sliding under your shirt. “And tonight, when we get home, I’m gonna remind you exactly how much.”

Home. His place. Yours now, too, boxes already stacked in the corner.

The season was over. The secrets were over.

But the two of you were only beginning.

He texted you at all hours, the same way he had before, except now the messages weren’t just filthy teases. They were soft, too. You eat today, baby? after a 6 a.m. lift. Miss your voice at 2 a.m. when the arena was locked and he was still in his office watching film. He started leaving his apartment key in the pocket of your training bag during home games, a silent invitation. You used it twice that first month slipping in after curfew, finding him freshly showered and waiting on the couch with takeout and that crooked grin that still made your stomach flip.

The first time you stayed the whole night was the week after the tournament ended. The team had scattered for spring break. Steve’s apartment was a modest two bedroom in a quiet complex just off campus nothing flashy, just clean lines and basketball memorabilia on the walls. You cooked him dinner (chicken and rice, nothing fancy) while he sat at the island in gray sweats and a faded Hawkins High shirt, knee propped on a stool because the old injury had been flaring again from all the tournament travel. You’d taped it for him that afternoon in the empty training room, the same clinical movements as the very first time, except now his hand had rested on the back of your neck the entire time, thumb stroking slow circles like he couldn’t stop touching you.

After dinner he pulled you into his lap on the couch and didn’t let you up for hours. Not for sex at first just kissing, slow and deep, like he was trying to memorize the taste of you. He told you stories you’d never heard before: how the knee injury had ended his D1 dreams junior year at Purdue, how he’d spiraled for six months drinking too much and fighting with his dad, how coaching high-school ball in Hawkins had saved him. “Thought I was done feeling anything real,” he murmured against your collarbone, fingers tracing the line of your spine under your shirt. “Then you showed up with your clipboard and your smart mouth and ruined me for anyone else.”

You told him about your own ghosts in return: your mom pushing you toward physical therapy since you were twelve because it was “stable,” the way you’d always felt like the reliable shadow in every room until Steve looked at you like you were the only thing in it. He listened like he always did, forehead pressed to yours, breathing you in.

That night he carried you to his bed and fucked you slow for the first time. No desk, no risk of footsteps in the hallway. Just skin on skin, his weight pinning you to the mattress, hips rolling deep and lazy while he whispered praise against your mouth. So good for me. So fucking perfect. Mine. You came with his name, Steve, not Coach on your lips, and he followed right after, burying himself to the hilt and staying there while he kissed the tears off your cheeks.

It wasn’t all soft, though. The hunger never really went away. It just got sharper.

By mid-April the campus had emptied for the summer session. You were still on the books as athletic trainer through May, finishing your junior year requirements and prepping for the fall. Steve was already deep into recruiting film and summer conditioning plans. The secrecy was starting to chafe at both of you. He hated the way boosters still clapped you on the back at alumni events like you were just the helpful kid with the tape. You hated the way assistant coach Tommy kept asking if you were “seeing anybody” like it was casual. But the risk made everything burn hotter.

One Thursday night the arena was supposed to be dead. You’d promised Steve you’d restock the training room before the weekend, and he’d promised to “help.” You knew what that meant.

He showed up at 10:30 wearing a black hoodie and gym shorts, hair still damp from whatever workout he’d done at home. The second the door locked behind him he had you pressed against the counter, mouth on yours, hands shoving your polo up and over your head. You laughed into the kiss, breathless, giddy because this was the version of him you craved most: the one who stopped pretending he could keep his hands off you.

“Missed you,” he growled, lifting you onto the counter like you weighed nothing. Your legs wrapped around his waist automatically. “All fucking day watching you tape ankles and trying not to think about how pretty you look on your knees for me.”

You tugged at the drawstring of his shorts. “Then stop thinking and do something about it, Coach.”

He groaned at the title still his favorite dirty word and dropped to his knees right there on the training room floor. He ate you out like a man starved, two thick fingers curling inside you while his tongue worked your clit until your thighs shook and you had to bite your own wrist to stay quiet. When you came he stood up, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and spun you around, bending you over the same counter where he’d first kissed you months ago.

He fucked you hard and fast, one hand fisted in your hair, the other gripping your hip hard enough to leave marks you’d trace later in the shower. You came again with his cock buried deep, and he followed right after, spilling inside you with a low, wrecked sound that made your chest ache.

Afterward he cleaned you up with the same careful gentleness he always did, then pulled you into his lap on the bench and fed you Gatorade from the fridge like you’d just run suicides. You stayed like that for almost an hour, trading lazy kisses and talking about nothing, his friend little sister’s upcoming high-school graduation back in Hawkins, your summer class load, whether the new freshman point guard was actually as good as the film suggested. It felt dangerously close to normal. Like a real relationship instead of whatever careful, secret thing this was.

But normal was a luxury you didn’t have.

The Sweet Sixteen loss had lit a fire under the administration. The athletic director, Dr. Allen Grover, started calling Steve at all hours, strategy meetings, donor dinners, whispers about a possible move to a bigger conference if the next season went well. Steve hated it. He hated the politics, hated the way it pulled him away from the court, hated even more the way it pulled him away from you.

You felt the tension building in him like a storm. He was more possessive during your stolen nights, biting marks into your thighs, making you repeat I’m yours, Coach while he fucked you against the wall of his apartment. You didn’t mind. You craved the proof that this was real, that you weren’t just the convenient trainer who knew how to ice a knee and keep her mouth shut.

Two weeks before the end of the spring semester, everything nearly snapped.

Steve had been in meetings all day, Grover breathing down his neck about budget numbers and NIL deals. You’d spent the afternoon in the training room alone, reorganizing shelves and trying not to check your phone every five minutes. At 11:07 p.m. your screen lit up.

Steve: My office. Door unlocked. Now.

You went.

The arena was dark except for the security lights and the faint glow coming from under his door. You slipped inside and closed it behind you without being told. Steve was standing behind his desk in a white button-down, sleeves rolled to his elbows, tie already loosened. His eyes tracked you like a predator the second you crossed the threshold.

“Lock it,” he said, voice low.

You did.

He didn’t waste time. Three strides and he had you backed against the closed door, mouth crashing into yours, hands shoving your leggings down your hips. You kicked them off along with your shoes, desperate, and he lifted you like it was nothing, pinning you to the door with his body. His cock was already hard, pressing against you through his slacks.

“Been hard since the second meeting ended,” he rasped against your throat, teeth scraping your pulse point. “Thinking about this tight little pussy all fucking day while Grover droned on about donor retention.”

You moaned, grinding down against him. “Then fuck me, Coach. Please.”

He didn’t bother undressing all the way. Just freed himself from his slacks, lined up, and thrust in with one brutal stroke. You cried out still so full, still so perfect and he swallowed the sound with another kiss, hips already snapping forward in a punishing rhythm. The door rattled behind you with every thrust. His forehead pressed to yours, breath hot and ragged.

“Quiet, baby,” he warned, even as he fucked you harder. “Anyone still in the building hears you screaming for Coach’s cock and we’re both fucked.”

You tried. You really did. But he knew exactly how to angle his hips to hit that spot inside you that made stars burst behind your eyes. Your nails dug into his shoulders through his shirt. Your legs locked tighter around his waist.

That was when his phone rang.

The sound cut through the wet slap of skin and your muffled whimpers like a gunshot. Steve froze mid-thrust, buried to the hilt, your back still pinned to the door. You felt his cock twitch inside you, thick and throbbing, as the screen lit up on his desk across the room.

Grover.

“Fuck,” he breathed.

You whimpered, clenching around him involuntarily. He hissed through his teeth, eyes fluttering shut for a second.

“Don’t you dare move,” he growled, low and dangerous. One hand stayed clamped on your ass, holding you in place. The other reached back, grabbed the phone, and answered on the third ring.

“Yeah, Allen. What’s up?”

His voice was steady. Professional. Like he wasn’t balls-deep inside you with your legs wrapped around him and your slick dripping down his thighs.

You tried to stay still. You really did. But your pussy fluttered again, greedy, and Steve’s jaw tightened. His eyes met yours, dark, warning, and so fucking turned on it made your stomach clench.

He started moving again.

Slow at first. Shallow rolls of his hips that dragged the head of his cock right over that perfect spot inside you. You bit your lip hard enough to taste blood.

Steve’s free hand slid up your body, over your shirt, until his palm covered your mouth completely. His fingers pressed firm against your lips, thumb stroking your cheek almost tenderly even as his hips snapped forward harder.

“Yeah, I saw the numbers,” he said into the phone, voice even. “We can adjust the NIL budget if we pull in another couple big donors this summer.”

He thrust deep. You moaned against his palm, the sound muffled into nothing. Your eyes rolled back. He fucked you harder, hips slamming into yours, the wet sound of it obscene in the quiet office. Every thrust punched the air out of you, but his hand kept it trapped.

You were going to come. Just like this, pinned to the door, his cock splitting you open, his hand over your mouth while he talked budget projections like he wasn’t ruining you.

Steve’s eyes never left yours. “Mhm. Exactly. Look, I’ve got a late film session going—can we circle back tomorrow morning? Eight sharp.”

Another brutal thrust. Your walls clamped down around him, orgasm barreling toward you like a freight train. You sobbed against his hand, tears slipping down your temples.

He smirked, dark, filthy, proud.

“Perfect. See you then.” He ended the call and tossed the phone onto the desk without looking. The second it hit the wood his hand left your mouth only long enough for him to growl, “Come. Now.”

You shattered.

The orgasm ripped through you so hard your vision whited out. You screamed, raw, broken but Steve’s hand slammed back over your mouth mid-cry, muffling it into a desperate, wet sound against his palm. He fucked you through it, hips snapping relentlessly, chasing his own release while your cunt pulsed and fluttered around him like it was trying to pull him deeper.

“Fuck—good girl—taking it so quiet for Coach while I’m on the phone,” he panted, voice wrecked. “Knew you could do it. Knew you’d be perfect. Gonna fill you up, baby. Gonna pump this pussy so full you’ll feel me tomorrow when you tape the freshmen.”

He slammed in one last time and came with a guttural groan, hips jerking as he spilled deep inside you. You felt every hot pulse, thick and endless, until it was leaking out around his cock and down your thighs. He kept grinding through it, milking every drop, forehead pressed to yours, breathing hard.

Only when you were both trembling did he ease his hand away from your mouth. He kissed you immediately, soft, reverent, the complete opposite of the way he’d just fucked you against the door.

“You okay?” he whispered, voice hoarse. His thumb stroked your bottom lip where his fingers had pressed. “Didn’t hurt you?”

You shook your head, boneless and glowing, still impaled on his cock. “No. God, Steve… that was—”

“Insane,” he finished, chuckling low. He kissed the corner of your mouth, then your cheek, then the tear track on your temple. “You’re gonna kill me one of these days, you know that?”

He carried you to the couch in the corner of his office carefully and sat with you in his lap, still connected, still leaking his cum onto his slacks. He held you while your breathing slowed, fingers combing through your hair, murmuring quiet praise against your skin.

“We’re getting reckless,” he said after a while, but there was no real regret in it. Just fact. “Grover’s gonna want more of my time this summer. Recruiting trips. Alumni shit. I hate it, but…”

You traced the line of his jaw with your fingertip. “But it’s your job. I know.”

His arms tightened around you. “Doesn’t mean I like leaving you here alone. Doesn’t mean I like pretending you’re just the trainer when all I want is to take you home every night and keep you in my bed.”

You swallowed, heart doing something complicated in your chest. “We’ve got the whole summer before I have to decide about senior year. And after that… I don’t know. Maybe we figure it out.”

Steve pulled back just enough to look at you, brown eyes soft in the low light. “Yeah. We will.” He kissed you slow and sweet, then rested his forehead against yours again. “You’re not invisible anymore, baby. Not to me. Never again.”

You stayed like that until the security lights outside flickered toward midnight. He cleaned you up with the same towel from the cabinet you’d restocked earlier, dressed you gently, and walked you to your car in the back lot like he always did. Far enough behind that no cameras would catch you together, but close enough that you could still feel his eyes on you the whole way.

Before you climbed in he caught your wrist one last time, tugged you close under the cover of the shadows, and kissed you like a promise.

“Text me when you’re home,” he murmured. “And lock your door. I’ll see you tomorrow night. My place. No phone calls this time.”

You smiled against his mouth. “Yes, Coach.”

He laughed softly, that boyish sound that still made everything feel possible. “Good girl.”

You drove away with his cum still slowly leaking out of you, thighs sticky, heart full, and the secret weight of everything you were becoming together sitting warm and steady in your chest. The future was still uncertain, graduation, his career, the constant risk but for the first time, it didn’t feel impossible.

Steve was not invisible.

He was thirty-one, everybody knew because the athletic department printed it in the media guide like it was a selling point and he still looked like the guy who used to own every hallway in Hawkins High. Same thick brown hair that fell into his eyes when he got frustrated, same crooked grin that made freshmen girls in the stands forget how to cheer. He’d played D1 ball for two years before a knee injury ended it, then coached high-school for a bit, and now here he was: youngest head coach in the conference, already turning a perennial bottom-feeder into a tournament threat. The players worshipped him. The boosters wanted to be him. You tried, for a long time, not to notice the way his polo stretched across his shoulders when he demonstrated a defensive slide or how his voice dropped half an octave when he got serious in the huddle.

It started with the knee.

Not yours. His.

Late February, last season. The team had just lost in overtime to Evansville and Steve was limping around the training room after everyone else had cleared out, jaw tight, trying to hide the fact that the old injury was screaming at him. You were restocking the fridge, pretending not to watch him in the reflection of the glass door.

“Need ice, Coach?” you asked without turning around.

He huffed a laugh that sounded more like a groan. “I need a new fucking knee, kid.”

You finally looked at him. He was leaning against the table, arms crossed, hair damp from the shower. The fluorescent lights did unfair things to the cut of his jaw.

“I can tape it,” you said. “Better than whatever half-ass job you did on yourself.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You offering to put your hands on me, sweetheart?”

The word slipped out of him like it was nothing just locker-room banter. But his eyes stayed on your face a second too long, and something electric crackled between you. You felt it in your stomach like a missed step on the bleachers.

You swallowed. “Only if you sit down and stop pretending you’re not in pain.”

He did sit. Let you roll his sweats up to mid-thigh, let you wrap the tape with clinical precision while your pulse hammered in your ears. His skin was warm, the muscle underneath hard as oak. When your fingers brushed the inside of his thigh he inhaled sharp through his nose, but he didn’t move.

“You’re good at this,” he said quietly.

“Practice,” you answered.

He watched your hands the whole time.

After that night he started staying late. Said he needed to review film, but he always ended up in the training room while you finished inventory. He’d lean in the doorway, arms braced overhead, and talk about the team, about the next recruit, about how the athletic director was breathing down his neck. Sometimes he’d ask about your classes. You were pre-physical therapy, carrying eighteen credits, and he listened like it mattered. Like you mattered.

By mid-season this year the tension was a living thing.

He started calling you into his office for “strategy sessions.” You’d sit across from his desk while he drew plays on the whiteboard, but his eyes kept drifting to the way your lips moved when you suggested a different defensive rotation. He’d drag a hand through his hair and mutter, “Jesus Christ, you’re smart,” like it pissed him off.

One night in November the power went out during a thunderstorm. The whole athletic complex went dark except for the emergency lights. You were alone in the training room, counting bandages by flashlight. Steve appeared in the doorway like he’d been summoned, rain still dripping from his jacket.

“Power’s out campus-wide,” he said. “You shouldn’t be here alone.”

“I’m fine.”

He stepped inside anyway. The door clicked shut behind him. The small room felt even smaller.

“You’re always here,” he said, voice low. “Last one out. First one in. You ever sleep?”

You shrugged, trying to ignore how the emergency light painted shadows under his cheekbones. “Someone has to make sure the tape doesn’t run out before you bench the whole team for stupid reasons.”

He laughed, soft. Took one step closer. Then another. Until he was close enough that you could smell rain and the faint cedar of his cologne.

“You keep looking at me like that,” he said, “and I’m gonna do something we both regret.”

Your heart slammed against your ribs. “Like what?”

Steve’s hand lifted. His thumb brushed your lower lip, slow, deliberate. His eyes were dark, pupils blown. “Like bend you over this table and finally find out if you taste as good as you smell.”

You didn’t breathe.

He dropped his hand like it burned him. Stepped back until he hit the door.

“Lock up when you leave,” he said hoarsely. “And for fuck’s sake, go home before midnight.”

He was gone before you could answer.

That was the first almost.

There were more.

December. After a blowout win. The team went out to celebrate, Steve stayed behind to watch film. You brought him coffee at 10:47 p.m. He was slouched in his office chair, tie loosened, top two buttons of his shirt undone. When you set the cup down he caught your wrist.

“Stay,” he said.

You stayed.

He pulled you into his lap like it was the easiest thing in the world. You straddled him, heart hammering, and he buried his face in your neck, breathing you in.

“Been thinking about this for months,” he muttered against your skin. “Every fucking practice. You in those little shorts, bending over the cooler. You have any idea what you do to me?”

His hands slid up your thighs, under the hem of your polo, thumbs pressing into the crease where leg met hip. You whimpered. He groaned like the sound hurt him.

Then his phone buzzed, assistant coach asking where the hell the game film was. Steve’s entire body went rigid. He lifted you off him like you weighed nothing, set you on the desk, and stood up so fast the chair rolled backward.

“Go,” he rasped. “Before I lock that door and ruin both our careers.”

You left on shaky legs, thighs slick, panties ruined.

January brought the real corruption.

You’d never been with anyone who made you feel small in the best way. Guys your age fumbled and asked permission for everything. Steve didn’t ask. He took. But he did it so carefully, so deliberately, that you felt cherished and owned at the same time.

It started with text messages.

Late nights. After curfew.

Steve: You still in the training room?

You: Finishing shoulder tape for Walker.

Steve: Leave the door unlocked.

He’d show up in sweatpants and a hoodie, hair messy from practice, and he’d lock the door behind him. Then he’d back you against the counter and kiss you like he was starving. Deep, filthy kisses that left your lips swollen and your brain fuzzy. He never let it go further than that, hands under your shirt palming your breasts through your bra, thumb circling your nipple until you moaned into his mouth. He’d grind against you, hard and thick through his sweats, letting you feel exactly what you did to him, but he always stopped.

“Not here,” he’d growl against your ear. “Not like this. You deserve better than a fucking training table.”

You started touching yourself at night thinking about his voice saying those words.

He knew. He could tell by the way you looked at him during practice, eyes glassy, thighs pressed together. Once, during a defensive drill, he blew the whistle and called you over to “check the ankle tape on number twelve.” While you were crouched in front of the player, Steve stood behind you, voice low enough only you could hear.

“Keep squirming like that and I’m gonna drag you into the equipment closet and make you come on my fingers before the next possession.”

You almost dropped the tape.

He was corrupting you slowly, methodically. Teaching you what it meant to want so badly it hurt. Teaching you to wait. To obey.

By March the tension was unbearable.

The team was 22-6. March Madness was two weeks away. Steve was in every headline, every podcast. And every night he was texting you things like:

Steve: My office. Now.

Steve: Wear the black leggings.

Steve: Don’t you dare touch yourself before you get here.

You obeyed every time.

That night, the night everything finally snapped, you showed up at 11:15 p.m. The arena was empty except for the security lights. His office door was cracked. You slipped inside.

Steve was sitting behind his desk, sleeves rolled up, forearms corded with muscle. The second the door clicked shut he stood up, crossed the room in three strides, and locked it.

Then he looked at you.

“Lock was open,” he said, voice rough. “Anyone could’ve walked in. You that desperate for me, baby?”

You nodded, throat dry.

He stepped close. Tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear with surprising gentleness. Then his hand slid into your hair and tightened, tilting your head back so you had to look up at him.

“Words,” he said. “Use them.”

“Yes,” you whispered. “I’m desperate.”

His eyes darkened. “On your knees.”

You dropped instantly. The carpet was rough against your leggings. Steve’s hand stayed in your hair, guiding but not forcing. He unzipped his slacks with the other hand and pulled himself out, thick, flushed, already leaking at the tip. You’d felt him through clothes a hundred times, but seeing it bare made your mouth water.

“Been dreaming about this mouth for months,” he murmured. “Open.”

You did. He fed you his cock slowly, inch by inch, until your nose brushed the dark hair at his base. You gagged once; he pulled back just enough to let you breathe, then pushed in again, deeper.

“Fuck, that’s it. Good girl. Just like that.”

You gagged instantly, eyes watering, but he held you there hand fisted tight in your hair, hips rocking just enough to keep you full.

“Fuck, look at you,” he groaned, low and filthy. “Taking every inch like you were made for it. That’s my good girl. Relax your throat. Yeah, just like that. Let Coach fuck it.”

He started to move. Not gentle. Deep, measured thrusts that made your nose brush the dark, trimmed hair at his base on every downstroke. Saliva spilled from the corners of your mouth, dripping down your chin and onto the front of your shirt. The wet, obscene sounds of your throat working around him filled the office mixed with his low curses and the creak of the floorboards under his shoes.

“You’ve been practicing, haven’t you?” he rasped, thumb wiping a tear from your cheek only to smear it across your stretched lips. “Touching that needy little cunt every night thinking about choking on me. Bet you come with your fingers in your mouth pretending it’s my cock. Such a filthy secret, baby. My perfect little trainer on her knees for the man who signs her paychecks.”

You moaned around him, the vibration making his hips stutter. He pulled out suddenly, strings of spit connecting your swollen lips to the glistening head of his cock. You gasped for air, but he slapped the wet length against your cheek once, twice then shoved back in, fucking your face harder now, balls tapping your chin.

“Gonna come down this throat one day,” he promised, voice wrecked. “But not tonight. Tonight I’m burying every drop in that tight little pussy you’ve been teasing me with for months.”

He yanked you off him with a wet pop. Before you could catch your breath he hauled you up, spun you around, and bent you over the desk. Papers and a clipboard clattered to the floor. Your palms slapped the wood as he shoved your leggings and panties down in one rough yank, leaving them tangled around your ankles. Cool air hit your soaked cunt and you whimpered.

Steve’s hand cracked across your ass sharp, stinging, perfect. “Arch your back. Show me what’s mine.”

You did, spreading your legs as much as the fabric allowed. Two thick fingers dragged through your folds, spreading your slick from clit to entrance.

“Jesus Christ,” he breathed. “Dripping down your thighs already. All this for Coach?” He pushed both fingers inside you without warning, curling them hard against that spot that made your vision white out. “So fucking tight. Been clenching around nothing for weeks waiting for this, haven’t you?”

“I have,” you gasped. “Please, Steve—”

He slapped your ass, sharp and perfect. “Coach. When my dick’s about to be inside you, you call me Coach.”

The word left your mouth on a broken moan. “Coach, please.”

He pumped his fingers fast, thumb circling your swollen clit in tight, merciless strokes. The wet squelch of your pussy filled the room. Your hips bucked back against his hand, chasing the orgasm that was already barreling toward you.

“Don’t you dare come yet,” he growled, smacking your ass again. “You come when I say. When my cock is splitting you open.”

You sobbed, trying to hold it back, but he added a third finger and crooked them just right. Your walls fluttered hard.

“Now,” he ordered, voice dark. “Come on my fingers like the desperate little whore you are for me.”

The orgasm crashed through you so hard your knees buckled. You cried out, muffling it against your forearm as your cunt clenched and gushed around his fingers. He didn’t stop, kept fucking you through it, drawing it out until you were shaking and oversensitive.

Only then did he pull his hand free. You heard the wet sound of him sucking his fingers clean.

“Sweetest fucking pussy I’ve ever tasted,” he muttered. Then the blunt, fat head of his cock was nudging your entrance, sliding through your slick. “Breathe, baby.”

He pushed in slow at first, letting you feel every thick inch stretch you open. You were still pulsing from your first orgasm, and the burn was exquisite. He bottomed out with a groan, hips flush against your ass, balls pressed tight to your clit.

“Fuck,” he hissed, forehead dropping to your shoulder. “So goddamn tight. Like you were made to take Coach’s cock. Feel that? Feel how deep I am?”

You nodded frantically, tears of overwhelming pleasure leaking from the corners of your eyes. He was so big stretching you to the limit, pressing against places you didn’t know existed. When he pulled back and slammed in again, the desk scraped forward an inch.

He set a brutal pace. Hard, deep strokes that made your tits bounce against the wood and your hips bruise against the edge of the desk. The sound of skin slapping skin echoed off the cinderblock walls, wet, filthy, loud. Every thrust punched the air out of your lungs.

“Take it,” he growled, one hand fisted in your hair, the other gripping your hip hard enough to leave fingerprints. “Take every fucking inch. This pussy is mine now. Gonna ruin you for anyone else. No college boy’s ever gonna fill you up like this.”

He reached around and rubbed your clit again fast rough circles that had you spiraling toward another peak.

“Come again,” he demanded. “Milk my cock while I’m still balls deep. Let me feel how much you need me.”

You shattered. The second orgasm ripped through you harder than the first, walls clamping down around his pistoning cock like a vice. You screamed his name Coach muffled against the desk, body shaking as pleasure bordered on pain.

Steve fucked you through it, hips snapping harder, chasing his own release. But he wasn’t done.

He pulled out suddenly, spun you around, and lifted you onto the desk like you weighed nothing. Papers flew everywhere. He shoved your thighs wide, hooked your knees over his elbows, and drove back inside in one brutal thrust. The new angle had you seeing stars, deeper, somehow, the head of his cock dragging right over your g-spot with every snap of his hips.

“Look at me,” he ordered, voice hoarse.

You forced your eyes open. His face was inches from yours, hair wild, sweat beading on his forehead, jaw clenched. Those big brown eyes were blown black, but there was still that soft, possessive tenderness underneath the dominance.

“That’s it, baby,” he panted, rolling his hips in devastating circles. “Eyes on Coach while I fuck this cunt full. You feel how deep I am? Gonna come so hard inside you you’ll be leaking me for days.”

He kissed you then messy, desperate, all tongue and teeth while he pounded into you. One hand shoved your shirt up, yanking your bra down so he could pinch and roll your nipple. The sting went straight to your clit.

“Again,” he growled against your mouth. “One more. Come on my cock while I fill you up.”

You were helpless to stop it. The third orgasm tore through you like lightning, long, shattering waves that made your vision tunnel and your toes curl. Your cunt fluttered and clenched around him, drawing him impossibly deeper.

Steve’s rhythm stuttered. “Fuck—baby—gonna come. Gonna pump this tight little pussy full of my load. Take it—take every drop—”

He slammed in to the hilt and stayed there, hips jerking as he came with a guttural groan that vibrated through his chest. You felt the hot, thick spurts of his cum flooding you pulse after pulse, so much it leaked out around his cock and dripped down your ass onto the desk. He kept grinding through it, milking every last drop, until you were both trembling.

For a long moment the only sounds were your ragged breathing and the distant hum of the arena’s emergency lights.

Steve stayed buried deep inside you, forehead pressed to yours. His hands gentled stroking your sides, your hair, your flushed cheeks. The dominance melted into something softer, almost reverent.

“You okay?” he whispered, voice wrecked but tender. He kissed the corner of your eye where a tear had slipped free. “Did I hurt you?”

You shook your head, boneless and glowing. “No. God, no. It was… perfect.”

He smiled, that crooked, boyish Steve Harrington smile that still made your stomach flip even after he’d just fucked you raw on his desk. He pulled out slowly, both of you hissing at the oversensitive drag. A thick trickle of his cum followed, and he watched it with dark, satisfied eyes.

“Mine,” he said quietly, almost to himself. He grabbed a clean towel from the cabinet behind his desk (the one you kept stocked for the team) and cleaned you up with careful, gentle strokes. Then he fixed your bra, tugged your shirt down, and pulled your leggings back up your legs like he was dressing something precious.

He dropped back into his chair and tugged you into his lap, arms wrapping around you tight. You curled against his chest, listening to the steady thud of his heart slowing down.

“We’re careful,” he murmured into your hair, echoing the words he’d said after the first time. “No one can know. Not yet. But this—” He squeezed your hip, thumb brushing the fresh bruise he’d left there. “This is real. You’re mine now, baby. All mine.”

You nodded against his neck, pressing a soft kiss to the sweat-damp skin there. “Yours, Coach.”

And he had smiled, something soft and worn, as if the world were pressing down on his shoulders, and after that, him and his daughter became a staple in your weekly story times.

You’d learned, as you were wont to do in your position as a children’s librarian, that his daughter’s name was Lexi (“Actually Alexis,” he’d said one day, “but she won’t answer to anything else.”) and her favorite thing in the world was monkeys. Stuffed monkeys, books about monkeys — though her grasp on the written language stopped and ended at being able to recognize her ABCs — and, of course, when her dad let her hang off his neck like a monkey.

(This is her primary mode of transportation.)

Really, Steve and Lexi showing up to the story times are as constant in your schedule as the sun rising in the morning and the sun setting in the evening. A staple in your day that you’ve come to look forward to. If it's a Saturday morning, there they are, sitting in the corner of the children’s section like it was the only place they could be.

As months pass, you start to notice things here and there. The way Steve’s eyes light up when Lexi laughs, the way he looks entirely unburdened when she turns to him to ask a question. You watch the way he carefully flips through each book she tosses into his lap with careless abandon, checking it over before bringing it to the counter to be rung out. You see how he throws himself wholeheartedly into whatever crafts you’ve prepared for the story time, never once flinching or getting mad when she screeches in his ear or gets glitter all in his hair.

(You notice the tan line on Steve’s ring finger.)

(You don’t pry.)

But you observe, too, the way he flinches when the other parents — all mothers, all women who stare at Steve with something akin to derision, as if it isn’t the nineties and times have changed — make snide comments. How they let sly remarks about women’s work slide from their lips, digs at how awful it must be for a young girl to grow up without a mother.

It infuriates you, but there’s nothing you can do other than redirect the conversation.

(There’s nothing professional you can do, anyway.)

And then things start slipping. A remark here, an utterance there, until—

“I don’t know where Lexi gets it from,” Steve says one chilly afternoon in the early spring. “The reading. God knows I’ve never been smart.”

You frown, hand paused midair as you stamp the due date onto the slip in the front of the book. 

“Definitely doesn’t get it from me,” he adds, casting a long, affectionate look towards his daughter who is furiously stacking blocks as if it were the most important thing in the world.

You lower the stamp back onto the pad and softly, gently, you reach across the circulation desk, covering his big hand with your own. “Hey.” 

He jumps at the touch, his brown eyes swiveling back to lock into yours.

“She gets it from you, Steve,” you say. “You bring her in every week and foster her love for reading. She gets it from you.”

His mouth opens and closes wordlessly, and you don’t miss the way his brows pinch together, as if he were holding back a well of emotion.

(You wouldn’t be shocked if he were.)

“Thank you,” he finally says, voice hoarse and thick.

You nod, squeeze his fingers once, and busy yourself with the copy of Guess How Much I Love You still waiting to be stamped. He doesn’t say anything as you stack up the books Lexi picked out for the week, and when you slide them across, you finally look back up, saying, “You’re a good dad, Steve. I mean it. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

His lips press together in a wobbly impersonation of a smile. “That… that means a lot.”

“Of course,” you say, because there’s nothing else you can say. “And… I’ve been thinking about hosting a children’s arts and crafts hour on Wednesdays, if you’re ever interested. Around five or six. Come whenever, I’ll have the stuff set up.”

“I’ll add it to our calendar,” he promises.

And when Wednesday rolls around and you stroll out of the break room to find Steve and Lexi already sat in the otherwise empty children’s section, with Steve smiling gently in your direction, you’re not shocked to find yourself gravitating towards their direction. 

Your polite smile widens a little at the nickname. “You paged?”

“We’ve got a three-year-old girl. Suspected meningitis,” Robby briefs in a monotone, each word coated in a thick layer of fatigue. “High fever, lethargy, neck stiffness— labs are ugly, too.”

Your features soften instantly. “Oh, poor baby…”

Your eyes dart to the window. You catch only a sliver of the family through the edge of the curtain — young parents, likely in their early twenties, faking teary smiles for their sick baby, who sits in a too-big bed in a too-big hospital gown patterned with so many cartoon puppies.

“Parents are freaking out, obviously,” Jack adds gently, never once taking his eyes off of you. “We thought you could walk them through the admission process before we take her upstairs.” 

“Of course,” you nod, with a voice as gentle as you look.

Jack passes the clipboard over to you and allows his calloused fingers to brush your softer ones for a beat longer than probably necessary. Though if you notice it, you make no mention of it as you flip through the thin pages and follow behind Robby into the dim room. 

The chaos outside muffles when the door clicks shut behind you. 

A young mother — Nia, the form tells you — sits in a chair beside the bed with a wadded tissue clutched in her trembling hands. Her husband, Malcolm, sits on the edge of the hospital bed, wearing the long day all over, as his daughter curls lazily into his side. Ruby Turner is clammy with fever; her round eyes are heavy with it, too. And beneath her chubby arm, is a stuffed animal wearing a lab coat and a stethoscope around its long neck.

“Hi, there…” you greet in a gentle lilt, crouching beside the bed until you’re eye level with the toddler, who eyes your warm smile with a weary suspicion. “I have to say, that is a very serious giraffe you’ve got there, Miss Ruby.”

The girl blinks back at you with sleep-weary eyes; the same dark brown as her mother’s. “Pickles,” is all she can make out through her hoarse throat. The words came out like dry gravel, which rattles harshly in her chest when she coughs hard a second later.

Her dad pats her gently on the back with a wide hand and flashes you a tired smile. “She named him Pickles,” he clarifies.

“Pickles?” you gasp. “I had a dog named Pickles when I was growing up— He looked a little like that one there.”

You motion to the shaggy white dog on her hospital gown. The girl tilts her curly head down and begins pointing at each puppy herself, aptly naming each of them Pickles. It’s the first time the child has been moderately alert, or otherwise has been willing to engage, since she arrived some hours ago. Watching you work feels a little like watching a magic trick.

“Sorry. Hi. I should probably introduce myself,” you laugh warmly and rise to full height again, shaking both of the parents’ hands. “I’m one of the pediatric caseworkers upstairs— My job is basically helping families know what’s happening next. You know, all the boring insurance details, and making sure you guys aren’t going through things alone.”

The mother nods, wiping her nose with the crumbled tissue in her fist. “So what happens now?” she asks, voice teary and trembling.

You nod with a polite smile. “Yeah, so the pediatric unit is gonna start preparing a room for her upstairs, so our doctors can give her the full evaluation she needs— They’ll probably monitor her over the next few nights, too, just to make sure everything’s okay. And you’ll be able to go with her once transport comes, of course, we’ll just need to get everything squared away with insurance while she’s getting tested.”

“So she’s gonna be okay?” the father presses, half-strangled.

You never lie to families. Not ever. It was, as you saw it, the golden rule in any hospital. Jack noticed that about you, too — because he couldn’t help but notice everything about you. But he saw how hopeful you were without ever being dishonest, without ever making promises you knew you could not keep.

“She’s exactly where she needs to be,” you answer carefully. “And she has the best doctors I know taking care of her now. You guys made a great decision by bringing her when you did.”

The mother beside you sniffles. Her exhale leaves her mouth in a quiet sob, which she buries behind her hands before her daughter can see her crying. It’s not quite sad — certainly not as much as it had been earlier that day — but rather it’s a cry of distant relief; the first time all day she hasn’t felt like the worst mother on the planet.

Robby exhales quietly through his mouth behind you — scruffy cheeks puffing, obviously eager to leave. Jack, however, just keeps on staring at you, as you turn back toward the little girl with your voice now lowered in a feigned sort of seriousness.

“Now, Miss Ruby, I’m gonna need your professional opinion on this, okay?”

The girl blinks slowly back at you.

“…Do you think Mr. Pickles needs his own hospital bracelet, too?”

Jack sees the young girl laugh for the first time all day when you’re helping her wrap a plastic arm band around the giraffe’s stuffed leg. It’s basically your superpower, the way you make all the terrifying things feel halfway manageable. By the time you’re stepping back out into the hallway, with Jack and Robby at your side, the family is a little bit steadier than they were before you arrived.

Jack eyes you up and down for a moment, before leaning in to nudge your shoulder with his broader one. Your soft sweater grazes his bare arm, and he gets a faint whiff of your pretty perfume before he leans away again.

“When did you get so good at that, huh?”

Your head whips to the side. You blink like an owl up at him “…At talking?”

“Sure, yeah,” he laughs. “At talking people off the ledge.”

“Oh.” You bounce a shoulder in a lazy shrug, then reach to pull the neck of your sweater back up again when it slips off your collarbone. “I don’t know, I just… try not to sound like a hospital brochure, I guess.”

“Hear that, brother?” Jack quips, reaching behind you to clap Robby on the shoulder. “Try not to sound like a hospital brochure next time, yeah?”

The older man says nothing. He just lifts his hand and scratches at his temple with his middle finger, discreetly flipping him off.

You laugh under your breath and head back towards the elevator, pretty skirt swishing around your ankles. “Try not to traumatize anyone while I’m gone, alright?”

“Can’t make promises like that down here, Sunshine,” Robby calls back. “You know that.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to think we should just keep you down here permanently,” Jack says with a lazy shrug. His freckled biceps flex slightly when he crosses them over his broad chest, swaying back and forth on his feet. “You know, just— bring you into every room before the doctors go in. We’ll call you the Emotional Support Coordinator.”

“Oh, would you?” you scoff a faint laugh and hit the button for the upper floor. 

The doors part with a soft ding a second later. You step in through the threshold and turn to face him once more, giving him a much better view of the smile on your face.

“I mean, it’d certainly make me feel better,” he jokes.

“Well, you’re not the patient, Dr. Abbot,” you retort with a devilish grin. “I’m pretty sure you’ve got a few more years before your geriatric assessment, right?”

“A few,” he echoes sarcastically, light eyes squinted. “My opinion still counts, though.”

You shake your head at him despite the soft grin still dancing on the edges of your mouth. “You’re funny, Dr. Abbot,” is all you say, as you press the panel on the inside of the lift. The doors whir when they slide shut; your grin remains visible between them until hatch closes just ahead of you.

Jack drops his head with a chest-deflating huff when you’re gone.

Robby tries and fails to choke back his laughter. 

“You are officially 0 for 6, brother,” the man jokes. He claps Jack on the shoulder, hard, as his dark eyes squint under the weight of his smiling. “It’s honestly getting a little painful now.”

Jack turns to flash him a deadpanned look. “Shouldn’t you be clocking out now?” he wonders in a monotone.

“Not anymore,” Robby scoffs. “It’s just starting to get fun.”

The pediatric floor was quieter in the mornings, you found, after switching to the day shift some weeks back. It was never truly silent, exactly, but it was still a little bit softer, as the panic from the overnight patients faded into a calmer sort of quiet. 

Cartoon reruns play quietly behind closed doors, while lively children’s music can be heard from further in the main area, down the hall to your right. A softer set of lullabies, meanwhile, plays more distantly from the nursery behind the double doors to your left. And, somewhere within the soft sanctuary of it all, a wailing baby is fighting a losing battle against taking their liquid medicine.

It’s all confetti to you, really, from where you sit behind the reception desk with three different charts open on the monitors ahead of you. 

There’s a highlighter in your hand, a pen behind your ear, a paper cup of cooling coffee between your teeth, and approximately fourteen unfinished tasks glaring at you from the computer screen. 

You have not yet properly woken up — the same way the sun has not quite yet risen over the horizon. Your hair has been haphazardly dealt with, for one. Your cherry-colored sweater is bunched awkwardly at your waist, for another, while the white button-up you wear beneath it sticks out over top of your plaid-patterned bottoms. You vaguely noticed that your socks were mismatched when you slid into your scarlet flats, but were much too tired to bring yourself to care.

You don’t even flinch when the phone rings beside you. You reach for it with your free hand without looking, missing twice before finally plucking the plastic from the hook.

“PTMC—” You falter when you realize you still have the paper cup between your teeth. You scramble to set it back on the desk with the hand not holding the phone. You clear your throat and try again. “PTMC Pediatrics— How can I help you?”

“Morning, Sunshine.” 

Jack’s low voice crackles from the other line. You can practically picture him downstairs in the E.D. just now — leaning against the workstation with a computer glowing before him; with his messy silver curls, and his tired blue-green eyes, and that stupidly handsome half-smile he gets every time he talks to you.

You’re smiling at the thought alone before you even realize it. 

“Dr. Abbot?” you answer. “Do you need something? What didn’t you just page me—”

“Weren’t you the one who said I can call just to say hi before you switched to the dark side?”

(The day shift, he means.)

You scoff quietly and lean back in your swivel chair. “Well, I guess, that is preferable to getting paged about sick babies, so… I’ll take it.”

“Wow…” Jack croons drily. “You always say the sweetest things to me, you know that?”

“Well, what can I say? I’m very charming before seven A.M.”

“I think you’re very charming all the time, Sunshine.”

You falter for a brief moment, unable to tell if he’s flirting with you or if he’s just being nice and you’re the weirdo for thinking otherwise. So you shake the thought from your head and change the subject entirely.

“You sound tired, old man— Isn’t it almost bedtime for you?”

“Almost…” His sigh crackles through the faint static of the landline. “But unfortunately, there’s this case manager upstairs who won’t stop distracting me…”

You exhale a frustrated huff, utterly oblivious as you begin to gossip with him under your breath. “Is Hastings bothering you, too? Because she’s been hounding me about clearing beds up here since I came in an hour ago.”

There’s a long beat of silence on the other line, filled by the sound of distant chatter from the E.D.

“…I’m talking about you, Sunshine,” Jack clarifies.

“Oh…” you trail off, face burning hot. Your brain scrambles further when the light starts flashing on your desk, another call waiting. “That’s, uh— Sorry. There’s— There’s just someone on the other line.”

“Oh.”

You tuck the phone between your shoulder and cheek, fingers whizzing across the keyboard as you type with practiced (only now slightly anxious) hands. “So if you wanna have a conversation, you’re gonna have to trek all the way up to pedes, unfortunately.”

“Damn…”

“Yep…” you hum absentmindedly. “It’s a real difficult journey. Very treacherous elevator ride.”

“Well, you’re making a pret-ty compelling argument here, Sunshine.”

“Goodbye, Jack,” you lilt with a big dumb grin on your face, that you hope isn’t as audible in your voice.

“See you soon, Sunshine.”

You think nothing of his words when you decline his call and take another. You hardly expect to see him now, not when he’s still wrapping up the long night and briefing the day shift that’s trickling slowly in downstairs. He’s about half an hour shy of going home and collapsing face-first into his mattress — and you’re hardly special enough to lose sleep over.

Jack, however, respectfully disagrees. 

And so does Dana, who saunters into the workstation to start her morning, only to find the man hanging up the desk phone with a lazy grin hinting at the edges of his mouth. 

“What’s that look for, huh?” she croons in place of a greeting, shrugging off the jean jacket she arrived in and spreading it on the back of her chair before her.

Jack looks up from where he’s shoving the phone back into its cradle. “What look?” he scoffs. “I don’t have a look.”

“Oh, you most certainly have a look,” she argues.

“I have a face, Dana.”

“Uh-huh,” the older woman deadpans, half-distracted, as she logs into the monitor ahead of her, with her glasses sitting low on her nose. “And right now, that face looks like you’re the main character at the climax of a Nora Ephron movie.”

“…What’s a Nora Ephron?” Jack wonders with furrowed brows.

The corner of Dana’s mouth lifts in a crooked half-smile as she peers at him over the top of her clear frames. “Go ask Little Miss Sunshine about it. She’ll tell ya.”

Jack’s light eyes narrow in a smug sort of look as he strolls slowly past her. “Thanks for giving me an excuse to go up there, Evans,” he quips. 

“Oh, please,” she scoffs. “You were already on your way.”

There’s a newfound skip in his step, along with a faint limp in his prosthetic from the long shift, as he makes the elevator ride up to the pediatric floor — where he’s greeted instantly by soothing lullabies, children’s laughter, and reruns of old cartoons.

He’s swaddled instantly by the dim lighting and the soft warmth — both of which are rare to find in the cold, sterile chaos of the unrelenting E.D. just a few floors down. It’s like entering a whole new world when he steps out of the elevator.

Jack hears your voice, distant at first, but growing louder the further he treks down the hall. “No, I understand the policy, sir. You don’t have to explain it to me again—”

You exhale an annoyed sigh when the man on the other line prattles on, anyway, talking in a slow monotone as if you hadn’t understood him the first time. Despite your irritation, you perk instantly when Jack enters your vision, still in his black scrubs from the night shift, with a new exhaustion etched across his scruffy face.

He greets you with a tight-lipped smile anyway.

Your chest swells with a funny feeling accordingly.

“Sorry,” you mouth apologetically. “Just— one second.”

Jack waves a hand in your direction. “You’re fine,” he mumbles and turns away, idling awkwardly some feet away with his hands in his pockets, pretending not to hover. He marvels at the paintings on the walls, vivid scribbles from children of all ages, as he shifts on his weight — trying to relieve the distant pressure in his artificial limb.

You return to your phone call some feet behind him: “Yes, I get that. But this is a six-year-old going through extensive leukemia treatment— Delaying authorization for inpatient care would—”

You grumble an annoyed breath and drop your head into your hand when the man on the other line speaks over you once more. Jack glances over his shoulder at you, features softening instantly.

“—No, why should his parents waste their time fighting insurance, which should already be in place, by the way, when they could be spending it with their son? How is that fair?” you continue, obviously angry, but still so soft in your way. There’s a few seconds of silence as the person on the other line responds. You nod wordlessly to yourself at whatever they’re saying. “Yes, I will absolutely call back when your supervisor comes in— and every day until this is handled. Alright? Great. Bye…”

You set the telephone back on the hook with a huff.

“…Asshole,” you grumble around your breath, then get all sheepish again when your eyes find Jack’s. You cower under his softened stare. “Sorry… This insurance company’s trying to deny extended coverage for one of our oncology kids— because apparently compassion is illegal now, so…”

Jack musters a weak smile as he closes the distance between you. “I’m sure it’ll all work out.”

“Hopefully…” you sigh, a little embarrassed now, as you shrink further in your swivel chair. “So, uh... H-How was your shift?”

“Better now,” the older man croons, folding his arms along the countertop ahead of you, and leaning in until you can smell the cologne lingering on his skin — a mixture of leather and sandalwood.

“You’re such a suck-up, Dr. Abbot,” you say with squinted eyes.

His face twists into a look of faux-offense. “Well, that’s not a very nice thing to say to someone trying to invite you out for lunch, now is it?”

You brighten instantly. “Wait, really? That sounds so fun! Are Shen and Ellis coming, too— I haven’t seen them in ages!”

Jack’s smile falters slightly at the edges. “Well… Well, no, ‘cause I.. I thought, you know, it’d be just us. You know, you and me. Like a date.”

You blink owlishly back at him. “Oh…”

“Unless— Unless you don’t want to—” Jack stammers, quickly losing his ground.

“Of course I want to!” you blurt, a little louder and a far quicker than you mean to. “I just… I didn’t— I didn’t realize that you, you know, that you… liked me.”

His brows lower in confusion because, to him, it couldn’t have been more obvious that he was into you. He’d spent months tripping over himself to get your attention, including the time he ran into a crash cart ‘cause he was too busy staring at you to notice that it was in his way.

A chuckle sputters suddenly from his mouth accordingly. “I’ve been flirting with you for weeks! I mean, I’ve been calling up here just to talk to you since you changed shifts!”

“I thought you just liked bothering me!” you giggle in return, face burning hot.

“Yeah, well,” Jack tilts his silver head. “I do like bothering you, actually.”

“I like when you bother me, too…” you murmur sheepishly, struggling to meet the man’s unwavering stare as you swivel anxiously back and forth in your chair. You catch yourself smiling wider than you realize when you tell him, “And lunch sounds great, by the way.”

“Great…” Jack exhales a breath he didn’t know that he was holding, that he feels like he’s been holding in for weeks now. “‘Cause Robby’s kinda been threatening to ask you out for me if I didn’t do it myself, so… Happy to save myself the embarrassment.”

Your eyes widen with a girlish sort of horror. “Wait— Robby knew?”

“Sunshine,” Jack grins. “I’m pretty sure the entire hospital knew.”