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You promised yourself once, probably sometime during your teenage years, that you’d never stoop so low as to become the reason for another woman’s heartbreak.

You went through life with the quiet certainty that you were a complete girl’s girl, that men who willingly cheated on their wives or girlfriends were not worth a second glance, no matter how charming they were or how complicated they claimed their relationships had become. You believed there were certain lines decent people didn’t cross no matter what, and for most of your life, infidelity had been on top of that list.

You held onto that same belief well into adulthood.

You called out cheating boyfriends when you found out about them, sat with friends as they cried through entire nights and broke off friendships with women you’d known half your life because you couldn’t look at them the same way after finding out they’d knowingly become someone else’s affair.

From the outside, it always seemed pretty black and white to you. There was the person being betrayed and a person doing the betraying.

There were no shades of grey worth examining, no special circumstances capable of making it less cruel and no amount of loneliness that could transform it into anything other than selfishness.

Then you met Frank Langdon during a three-day seminar in Dallas and the moment you found out he had a wife and children waiting for him back home in Pittsburgh, everything that followed began to feel less like one terrible mistake and more like a choice that defined you for all the wrong reasons.

You couldn’t even pretend it happened accidentally, because it would’ve been a blatant lie.

It may have been an accident that you stayed at the bar after nearly everyone else had gone upstairs, too wrapped up in a conversation with Frank that you didn’t even notice most of your colleagues disappearing.

However, ending up in his room was not an accident. Ending up in his bed was not an accident either.

It was a choice, no matter how you put it. A blissful one, for the handful of stolen hours in which the rest of the world seemed to blur, and a devastating one for every moment that followed.

The organizers spent the entire weekend forcing everyone through ridiculous team building exercises, communication workshops and simulated trauma scenarios that seemed specifically designed to expose how poorly a room full of medical professionals handled their emotions.

By the time the final session wrapped up, most of you were exhausted enough to laugh about it. You’d spent three days surrounded by people who understood overcrowded waiting rooms, impossible staffing ratios and the peculiar kind of grief that came with losing a patient before you even learned their first name.

Your colleagues decided the end of the weekend needed to be celebrated properly and dragged you over to the hotel bar before you could come up with a convincing reason to return to your room. 

A few tables were pushed together by the hotel staff, until there was enough space for everyone, creating one loud, mismatched crowd of doctors, nurses and residents who spent the weekend pretending they weren’t all quietly assessing how dysfunctional every other hospital seemed in comparison to their own.

You grabbed one of the last few available chairs beside Frank. Both of you were seated at the ends of your respective groups, angled away from each other initially. But as you tried to squeeze past, he immediately pulled his chair closer to the table to make room for you, offering a polite smile as you settled beside him.

“There you go”, he’d said and you thanked him with a small grin. That was all there was to it at first, a simple act of politeness that shouldn’t have mattered.

You noticed the bottle of water he clung to like a lifeline before you noticed anything else and when the waitress stopped beside you, you ordered a Diet Coke for what you assumed were similar reasons.

Neither of you seemed comfortable drinking, even surrounded by people you were supposed to feel close to after years of working together and enduring the constant ups and downs of emergency medicine side by side.

Maybe that was the first mistake of the night, at least on your part, because being drunk would’ve given you something to blame later.

Not an excuse, because there was no good excuse for cheating and there never would be, but at least you could’ve told yourself your judgment was impaired, that the alcohol blurred something that should’ve remained painfully obvious.

Instead, you were sober for every second of it.

You remembered every glance, every touch of a shoulder as one of you tried to get out of your seats, every laugh as one of you accidentally listened in on the other’s conversations that’d turn into fragments of your own little debates and ultimately, every moment the spark between you began catching when it shouldn’t have.

As the evening progressed, the seating arrangement slowly dissolved. People from different hospitals drifted into smaller clusters, dragging chairs across the floor and listening in on whoever happened to be telling the loudest story. Entire groups moved to the bar. Others disappeared outside for cigarettes, returning several minutes later smelling like cold air and smoke while complaining about the weather.

You stayed where you were and so did Frank.

At first, the conversation remained safely impersonal.

People compared emergency departments and traded horror stories about staffing shortages, broken equipment and patients who somehow managed to arrive with injuries so bizarre that nobody would have believed them without seeing a CT first.

It was nice, in an unexpectedly comforting way, to hear how other teams survived the same chaos.

People spoke about difficult losses and the different ways they tried to process them, though everyone seemed to agree that none of the suggested coping mechanisms worked quite as well as hospital wellness committees claimed they did.

Someone asked how you managed not to take the job home with you and you laughed before realizing they were serious.

“I do take it home”, you admitted with a small nod. There was no point pretending otherwise. Even after years on the job, there were families you still remembered vividly, their faces surfacing at unexpected moments while you were folding laundry or standing in line at the grocery store.

You expected someone to make a joke about it, because that's how most of your colleagues coped.

Instead, a nurse from Chicago leaned back in her chair and told you that empathy was a gift, not a nuisance, and another person added that the day none of it affected you anymore was probably the day you should consider doing something else.

Someone from Frank’s hospital laughed loudly at that, leaning into the side of a blonde woman, whose name you remembered to be Dana. The two seemed close, weathered by the job and their experience, but the laugh that escaped the older man was hardly humored. 

You noticed the way Frank tensed up beside you. You didn’t mean to notice, but you ended up doing so when you glanced to the side. You automatically wondered if there was some sort of tension there.

But it wasn’t any of your business and the conversation continued regardless. 

You spent years trying to toughen yourself into something more suitable for the job, convinced that caring too much made you fragile and that the people around you found your softness inconvenient, so you didn’t need to play therapist for someone you barely knew or meddle in situations that barely deserved to be called such.

Frank had been quiet through most of the discussion, listening with his chin resting on his hand, but when the conversation shifted and several people wandered away from the table, he turned toward you.

“You remember them, don’t you?”, he asked, still gazing out into the bar, but his body was angled now. You knew he was talking to you, but the question caught you off guard anyway.

“The patients?”, you asked in return. You knew he meant the patients, it’s all you and the others talked about, the way some people stay with you even if good things came out of their visit; a tumor detected before it got dangerous, a final consult that led to a difficult decision being made for the wellbeing of a patient or a person that came in for a sliced hand and left with a diagnosis that explained symptoms they've complained about for months.

You discussed how it’s not only the sad moments that defined you as medical professionals, the trauma and grief you had to distance yourself from sometimes to stay above it, but also the relief and happiness of successful procedures that can save you on bad days.

“That was a stupid question, I apologize”, Frank sighed in defeat, pressing the butt of his water bottle against his thigh. He basically repeated the one question you and the others had been discussing in detail for the past hour, and to put it plainly, Frank felt utterly stupid.

You quirked a brow at that, glass still against your lip as you locked eyes with him once more, but your smile stayed gentle.

“Don’t even–”, you wave him off, sliding the empty glass back onto the table, “– getting it out of the system is good. We learned that, right?”

He chuckled at the memory of a very specific panel, where people either overshared, because they were supposed to, or started lying for the fun of entertaining others.

“Do you remember yours?”, you asked after a while. He hadn’t said much before, so you hoped he felt more comfortable now.

Frank nodded. “I keep a notebook.”

You tilted your head in amusement, because you were pretty sure keeping your patient’s information wasn’t standard procedure, no matter what state you’re in.

“Oof, that sounds ominous”, you teased, rushing to put your hand up as soon as you locked eyes with a waitress across the room, signaling for another diet coke.

“It’s not”, he looked down at the empty bottle still pressed against his thigh before continuing, his thumb playing with the cap. “I write down names sometimes. Just first names, dates, a few details. Nothing identifying enough to get me fired if someone finds it.”

The last part was delivered with enough dryness to make you laugh and he joined in reluctantly, almost as if he was surprised by how funny you actually found him.

Frank glanced over to the bar, where a group of other professionals started arguing about whether another round of shots was appropriate and why that was even a question when their employers paid for the entire trip.

He leaned back in his chair with an amused shake of his head when he found some of his colleagues, John Chen and Parker Ellis from the night shift, amongst them. They were clearly voting yes on more shots of whatever they were drinking, and it would be embarrassing to admit that Frank envied them sometimes.

You on the other hand, followed his gaze briefly, found the usual suspects in the form of your colleagues Zach and Chloe and grimaced, amused by the high five they shared as they successfully managed to convince the others on more shots. You were sure they’d complain about a massive hangover the entire flight home and you’d be on the receiving end of it all.

“I know it doesn’t change anything”, Frank pulled you out of your thoughts abruptly.

“Writing them down. It doesn’t help the family and it doesn’t make me feel any better. I don’t look at it often. I just…I don’t like the idea of someone’s whole life ending in a room full of strangers and then disappearing from everyone’s memory, just because we treat so many patients on a daily basis.”

You understood that more than you wanted to admit and the thought alone deserved your recognition, though admittedly, you still weren’t sure if that was the right way to go about it.

You looked at him for a moment. “Sorta defeats the purpose of professionalism at the workplace, don’t you think?”

That lured a startled laugh from him. The warm lighting softened his features, illuminating some strands of his dark hair and the faint lines around his blue eyes. He seemed to be your age, mid-thirties, but where you get comments on how you looked far younger, Frank seemed to carry this sort of energy that aged him. Not negatively by any means. But he seemed tired beyond a good nights’ sleep.

“Does your wife know?”, you asked before you could stop yourself. The question was harmless enough, at least that’s what you kept telling yourself, but it came out of nowhere, even to you.

Frank’s eyes lowered toward the wedding band on his hand. “No, I don’t think she’d understand”

You tensed at his words, not because he had a wife. You knew that already, hence the question.

He mentioned her during the first morning, along with his children, when everyone was forced to introduce themselves and share one supposedly interesting fact about their lives. You even heard him speak to one of the kids over the phone in the hallway earlier that afternoon, his voice softening into something paternal as he promised he would be home the following evening.

You’d never forgotten he was married.

But it was the first time the invisible woman back in Pittsburgh seemed to settle between the two of you like another person at the table.

“Don’t get me wrong, she knows me better than anyone”, he said after a moment, as if his answer needed correcting. “I just don’t talk about work much anymore when I’m home.”

You wondered then, how many things his wife had listened to before Frank began editing himself into someone easier to come home to.

You wondered how often people in your profession stopped speaking because everyone around them had grown tired of hearing about death.

That first morning, you introduced yourself with the fact that you wanted to become a baker once, then turned to medicine like it was a decision you made over a good cup of coffee. That, and the fact that the only one you came home to every night, was an orange cat with an attitude bigger than the worst patient imaginable.

It painted you as someone a little hopeless, but it saved you from the quiet heartbreak of losing yourself in your profession to a point you’re growing estranged from the one person that’s supposed to have your back.

“You can still tell her about the notebook, you know”

You watched Frank tense up, his jaw ticking as he gulped down whatever he was about to say, catching sight of the waitress walking over to you. He moved aside a little, preparing to hand over both of their empty glass bottles with a small thank you, but when she asked if he’d like a refill too, he shook his head.

“I could”, he continued as soon as the waitress left, nodding as he stared straight ahead. It felt like something he said to please you, instead of something he was actually considering.

“But you don’t want to”, you concluded with a heavy heart.

The conversation should have ended there, because you could read between the lines. You should have excused yourself or reminded both of you that there were certain kinds of loneliness a married man should not be discussing with another woman in a hotel bar.

But you never did. Another mistake.

You told him about a patient that still kept you up some nights, about the chaos and the question marks that remained long after their sudden death. You admitted to standing in a supply closet afterwards, one hand pressed over your mouth so nobody could hear your cries and how one of the senior nurses found you, told you to pull yourself together before your next patient arrived and how she saved you with her tough love.

Frank listened without interrupting. He didn’t even offer one of the empty reassurances people reached for when they were uncomfortable with grief.

The ease of telling him should have alarmed you, how quickly being beside him started to feel different from being surrounded by everyone else. They could all relate to some extent, there was nothing special about Frank that should’ve enticed you, not that that ever happened deliberately, just naturally.

When the conversation started again, it moved away from work. 

Frank asked where you grew up and you told him. You asked about Pittsburgh and he described it with the frustration of someone who’d spent enough years in one place to complain about it while becoming defensive the second anyone else tried.

He told you about his children in pieces, not with the exaggerated pride of a parent showing off, but through small stories that made them feel real. He spoke about them with an affection that made your guilt begin long before either of you needed it to.

You found yourself wondering what kind of father he was when there was no emergency department demanding his attention.

His wife came up as more of a by-product. Usually, you’d be the first to ask, to uplift women, uplift mothers, especially those with partners working in challenging professions or juggling their own on top of motherhood.

With Frank, hearing about her felt wrong, when it shouldn’t, under any circumstance, ever feel like that.

There was no bitterness in his voice when he talked about her, no suggestion that he was trapped or unloved. In fact, he spoke about her with so much adoration and gratefulness that with every pause, you’d expected a but that never came.

There was no cruel woman waiting for him at home. It sounded too good to be true, but that seemed to be the reality of it and you were sitting beside the man who belonged to it, enjoying his attention more than you enjoyed anything in a long time.

You noticed his wedding ring every time his hand moved, the way it caught beneath the low light. It became impossible not to look at and equally impossible to ignore the way it slowly started disappearing from your sight as the night progressed, almost as if crossing his arms or stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jeans meant something.

Hours passed without either of you acknowledging them.

The large, scattered group around you thinned until only a handful of people remained. Your colleagues said goodnight one by one, each of them assuming you’d follow soon.

Even Zach and Chloe hit the hay before you did, drunk and stumbling over with two of Frank’s colleagues that threw themselves at him in a similar, pubescent manner.

Chloe, the arguably less tipsy one of the two, pressed a kiss to your cheek and told you not to stay up too late, before she dragged Zach away with the promise of a good night call with his boyfriend back at home.

“I won’t, Chlo. Sleep well, say hi to Jer from me and let him know I’m driving you two buzzbees home tomorrow”, you called after her with a giggle. Frank did a subtle double take at the sound of it, having gotten rid of his colleagues a little easier.

He seemed more than content to stay behind for a while longer and so did you. The white lie you told Chloe came easily, because it never felt like one. You simply didn’t want your conversation to end just yet.

By the time the bartender announced last call, you and Frank were nearly alone and he glanced at his watch in slight surprise. “What time is your flight?”

“Eleven”, you replied, tugging your phone from out of your purse to check it, something Frank hadn’t done once since you started talking.

“Mine’s at 10”, he nodded.

“You should probably get some sleep, Doc”, you mused, brushing some hair out of your face as you straightened your back for the first time that night. For a health practitioner, your posture was probably terrible, and you’d definitely feel it in the morning, but the first few cracks of your spine were a welcomed relief.

Frank leaned back in his chair, looking around the emptied bar. “I don’t want to go upstairs yet.”

The honesty of his statement made your pulse jump, just like the moment your eyes locked again. You could have pretended not to understand, but you found yourself nodding anyway. 

“Neither do I”, you admitted, trying to gulp down whatever it was that made your throat close up so suddenly. You hadn’t done anything wrong, had you?

The temperatures have dropped noticeably by the time you stepped outside into the night air and your favorite season welcomed you in full force. The brown leaves rustled and fell from the trees around you due to the wind that picked up somewhere around midnight.

There was no destination, only the mutual unwillingness to end the evening. 

The conversation resumed almost immediately and Frank kept his hands in the pockets of his coat as he walked beside you, his shoulder brushing yours when the pavement narrowed.

“Are you happy?”, you blurted out after a while. It was an unfair question, you knew that the second it left your mouth and you bit your lip hard enough to punish yourself for it.

Frank’s steps slowed slightly. “In my marriage?”

You nodded.

He was quiet for long enough that shame began crawling up your throat. “You don’t have to answer that”, you followed up, “I was just thinking aloud, there were a lot of people here this weekend that–”

“I am”, he interrupted. The answer came without hesitation once he gave it. “I love my wife”, he continued. “I love my kids. I love the life we built.”

There was something desperate beneath his certainty. He gave you a direct answer to an indirect question, but it sounded like he needed the reminder just as much, which made a dozen other questions appear.

You swallowed hard, scrambling for words that could ease the conversation into a different direction, but came up empty. 

Frank looked over at you, glancing at the side of your face as he uttered his next words. “That doesn’t mean I’m good at it.”

You heard him, took in his words and their meaning, but continued walking regardless, staring ahead even if you felt his eyes on you now. “At what?”

“Being part of it”, he sighed and something was starting to find its way to the surface that you hadn’t expected in the beginning but gave you a bigger picture of what kind of man Frank was.

He explained that he missed things due to his long hours in the ER. Events that all pre-school kids are dying to have their parents attend, appointments, dinners he promised his wife he’d make it to.

He came home distracted and left exhausted. There were days when his children spoke to him and he realized halfway through that he hadn’t heard a single word because part of him was still back at the hospital.

“I keep thinking I’ll get better at balancing it all, then another year passes”, he said, followed by a rough exhale as he shoves his hands further into his pockets.

“You’re trying, they know that, your wife knows that”, you reassured him, but it sounded half-hearted even to your own ears.

No matter how good you perform under stress, you always find something to beat yourself up about, to do better next time, to tear into everything you’ve built. You’ve experienced it firsthand and so have most of your colleagues.

“Sometimes trying is what people say when they don’t want to admit they keep failing.”

You blinked a couple of times before you came to an abrupt halt. It took Frank another moment to process you falling behind and he whirled around just as another breeze ruffled through his hair.

“You’re not failing them”, you stated firmly, stepping closer without intending to, “I don’t know you enough to ever allow myself an opinion, but from what I’ve gathered you care far too much to let that happen. A man as aware and thoughtful as you could never fail his children.”

He looked at you for a long moment, while you became hyper-aware of everything else around you, of the distance between you that could be crossed in approximately three to four steps, depending on who’d be brave enough take them, of the rustling of trees nearby and the breeze that helped cool down your flushed cheeks.

One thing you couldn’t anticipate was how nervous Frank had gotten at the sound of your words, your praise, and how hard he fidgeted with the ring on his finger, his wedding ring, matching the one on his wife’s delicate hand.

For one ridiculous second, he glanced down at your empty hand. Unlike his wives’, your hand was rougher due to years of disinfectants no hand cream could ever compete with. He could relate to that.

His wife liked to complain about how rough his were but rarely praised him for how many lives those same hands had saved.

Frank had a hidden stash of lotions and creams she’d buy him on a whim, swearing they’d help with the dryness, only for his hands to burn worse every time he tried them out for her sake. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that heavily scented products rarely fixed any problems.

His hands balled in his pockets as his mind wandered.

All he could think about was how different your hands would feel on him, on his back, arms or even his neck. The way your nails could scratch his back in a way her rounded tips never could.

That was the first honest acknowledgment of something both of you were avoiding all night. Attraction. An undeniable spark.

 “Thank you, that’s really kind of you and I–uh, I appreciate that”, he muttered, before averting his eyes.

Frank didn’t step any closer and neither did you.

After a beat, you cleared your throat awkwardly, fishing your phone from your pocket, before checking the time. “We should go back”, you muttered and he agreed before you even finished your sentence, leading the way back to the hotel.

You kept enough distance that your arms no longer brushed. Frank’s hands remained inside his pockets, his shoulders tense beneath his coat. Neither of you spoke until the hotel entrance finally appeared in front of you.

The lobby was nearly empty and somewhere behind the desk, a young clerk glanced up and offered a tired smile. You and Frank crossed the marbled floors side by side, the sound of your footsteps too loud in the silence you’d created.

You stepped into the elevator together and before Frank could press a button, his finger hovered over a dimly lit seven. “This is your floor too, right?”, he’d asked carefully.

“Yeah, think we’re all scattered across seven, eight and nine”, you added, remembering someone talking about it earlier. A shocking five hours prior.

The mirrored walls made it impossible not to notice him, even when you kept your eyes forward. His reflection stood tall beside yours, close enough to touch but careful enough to not let it happen.

It couldn’t happen, you told yourself repeatedly. You hadn’t done anything wrong, this was where your ways parted, so why did you feel so damn guilty?

The doors opened to an empty hallway and Frank let you walk out first, analyzing your steps. His room was only a few doors to the right. Your own was farther down the opposite corridor.

It should have ended there. It really should have.

“Well…good night, Frank”, you said it first, but his name felt too intimate after hours of avoiding it.

“Goodnight”, he repeated, but neither of you moved for a few seconds. You waited for him to walk away first, while he waited for you to do the same and now you found yourselves waiting around like fools. He even reached into his pocket to grab his keycard, but he didn’t turn away yet.

The movement made you glance down, catching sight of his wedding band once more and you gulped. Then, with a small exhale, your hand moved, lifting past him.

“Off you go”, you try to joke, earning yourself a half-smile, but neither of you felt like laughing it off. Not when your thoughts were downright wrong. You stood there watching him reach his door, every part of you aching with relief and something far more shameful.

The lock flashed green.

You could have gone to your room, let the hallway stretch between you and carried nothing home except guilt over a conversation that became far too personal, yes, but still defendable.

Logically, you should’ve rounded the corner already, so you’d miss the way he gazed at you over his shoulder, but logic made it hard for you to breathe at the sight of him and your feet stilled. You should have known better.

Frank had one hand on the handle as he let the door fall open, his expression almost pained as you approached. He had to force himself to avert his gaze.

“Tell me to go”, you whispered and part of you wanted him to call you out, get mad at you for ever batting your eyes at a married man, insult you even, for thinking he’d do something like that to his wife and children.

But his jaw only tightened. The room behind him was dark, you saw it over his shoulder and Frank stared into it like the darkness might swallow him and save him from this decision. You couldn’t see the internal battle that was going inside him, his back was turned to you, but you sensed it, dreaded it even.

You stared at him, watching the way his head dropped forward.

“I don’t think I want you to”, he uttered and that was the moment you became the person you’ve always sworn you’d never be, not because you threw yourself at him and rushed to get into the room with him, because of your willingness to forget about his circumstances. You knew what awaited him in Pittsburgh, regardless of that, you’d watched him step aside to let you walk you in first.

When people think of cheating, they think of messy makeout sessions against walls, clothes sprawled out on floors and quick fixes. You used to think the worst of affairs too. But with Frank staring at you the way he did, afraid to do something wrong, when he was already doing something terribly, morally wrong, your head absolutely blanked.

The first kiss lasted four seconds, you counted them in your head. It wasn’t rushed, just brief. 

Then he moved again, first to turn on the bedside lamp, then to push your coat off your shoulders. You let him take control, because you felt like he needed it and when he kissed you again you finally allowed yourself to feel it.

He guided you over to the sofa, discarding more of his clothes on the way and when you settled into his lap in nothing but your underwear, he wasn’t thinking about anything other than how beautiful you looked on top of him, illuminated by the moonlight spilling through the hotel window behind him.

Neither of you expected to find a condom in your bag, but your old leather crossbody was as much of a surprise to you as it was a necessity in your daily life. You couldn’t even remember the last time you’d cleaned it out, so you took the win and handed it over with a trembling grip.

Originally, your gaze dropped to your own hands, the same hands that were usually so calm and steady, comforting patients with the utmost care even when you doubted yourself. Seeing them shake now felt like a painful jab to the chest, but it became infinitely worse when your eyes caught the gold band around Frank's ring finger as he took the condom from you.

You already knew it was there.

You'd noticed it a handful of times throughout the evening, heard about it all weekend whenever he mentioned his wife or children in passing, but somehow seeing it now felt different than all the times before. Like this was the absolute last chance to undo everything the two of you had started.

Frank followed your gaze without you uttering a word. What could you even say?

His eyes lingered on the ring for a long moment before he twisted it off his finger and set it down on the coffee table. The soft clink of metal against wood seemed impossibly loud in the stillness, but it was the only thing that could make you exhale.

Then he kissed you again, deeper this time, with his bare hands firmly pressing you against him. His lips traced the curve of your neck, feeling the frantic pulse beneath your skin and leaving wet open-mouth kisses until you pushed him back. 

He searched your face carefully, looking for the slightest trace of discomfort, uncertainty or regret.

Frank found none of that, only your own quiet need to kiss along the rough stubble of his jaw, to memorize the face you already knew you’d spend far too long trying to forget.

The regret would certainly set in. As soon as you were back home you’d feel it in full force, but for now, all you felt was calm as he wrapped his strong arms around your body and you finally sank down on him. The infamous calm before the storm.

It was the kind of pleasure that was better felt than heard, nothing like the loud, reckless, almost frantic encounters people always imagined when they thought of secret affairs, driven by impulse and the thrill of getting caught.

Neither of you chased urgency and neither of you worried about keeping your voices down. The possibility that someone might hear never crossed your minds, despite knowing full well that half your colleagues were probably still awake.

People in emergency medicine rarely slept when they were supposed to.

There were quiet sounds, of course. Soft sighs, whispered breaths and the occasional broken exhale, intimate enough to remind you the moment was real, but never loud enough to feel reckless. It wasn't desire that gave them life so much as the comfort of finally finding someone with whom loneliness no longer felt lonely.

You left no scratches across his back, no marks for his wife to question when he returned home, and neither did he, not that there was anyone waiting to question the ones on your skin anyway. 

No matter how gentle your touches were, they left behind something neither of you would be able to wash away that easily.

You didn't move things to the bed at first, not for anything other than sleeping a while later. You stayed on the sofa, which felt safer somehow, finishing in each other's arms, tangled together and pressed against one another so tightly it felt as though you were trying to keep a dozen shattered porcelain pieces from falling apart.

You just weren't sure whose they were.

As a woman, there were certain things to take care of after intercourse, and as two medical professionals, you and Frank were both painfully aware of the consequences of ignoring those responsibilities.

You knew it.

Frank knew it too.

You should have gotten up. Maybe if you'd done it sooner, you would've come to your senses, gotten dressed and walked out.

Instead, Frank held you a little tighter than before, waiting until you tucked your head beneath his chin to rub circles into your shoulder. There was an ease to the way he gathered you against him, a familiarity that made your chest ache.

He held you with a tenderness neither of you expected to find by the end of the night.

It came too naturally and you knew he'd done this countless times before, waiting for the woman he loved to settle against his chest after a night together. But you weren't her and accepting that tenderness just because he offered it so freely felt almost as unforgivable as everything else that happened prior.

Morning would come. Frank would fly home to Pittsburgh, back to his wife, his children and the life he'd built long before you ever met him. You would return to your own life carrying a version of yourself you weren't sure you recognized anymore.

There was no future tucked away inside this hotel room.

Maybe, somewhere deep down, part of you hoped that in a few weeks' time your body would hand you part of the punishment you felt you deserved. Something you could focus on recovering from instead of the guilt that was already beginning to settle somewhere far more difficult to heal.

Frank was the one who accepted that the moment couldn't last forever and the one to make sure that whatever it is you were expecting didn't happen.

Reluctantly, he eased you from his chest before you could fall asleep there, helping you off him with a quiet groan before nudging you toward the ensuite bathroom.

While you took care of yourself, Frank brushed his hair back with both hands, exhaling a long breath. After a beat, he forced himself to move and discard the used condom. Then he slipped beneath the clean white sheets spread across the hotel bed.

Part of you was convinced you'd open the bathroom door to find him standing there with his clothes back on, reality finally having caught up with him. Or worse, thanking you for the night before asking you to grab your stuff and leave.

When you stepped back into the room though, his eyes immediately found yours and he’d moved the duvet enough for you to understand he wanted you there with him.

You woke before the sun came up and for several disorienting seconds, you didn’t know where you were. The room was too cold; you’d never let your room drop to such temperatures.

Frank was still asleep next to you. It didn’t exactly surprise you per se, after all this was his hotel room, but now that you were awake before him, your mind began weighing the limited choices you had left.

He was facing away from you, giving you the perfect opportunity to get dressed quietly, bolt and hope you’ll never have to see him again. Instead, you stared at his back as shame settled over you so heavily that breathing became difficult and moving impossible.

After a few moments of counting the scattered moles across his back, Frank shifted beside you, moving to lay on his back with a small sigh. “You’re awake”

“So are you”, you replied, your tone painfully neutral. It needed to be, because you, for one, had no one to get home to. Frank did.

Nearly a minute passed before he sat up. He reached for the sheet, pulling it around his waist before settling forward with his elbows on his knees. You watched him stare down at the floor.

“I’m sorry”, he spoke. The words were barely audible, but you felt your eyes start to sting almost immediately.

“To me?”, you faltered, pulling your own sheet along as you sat up behind him. This was cruel, so cruel, but oh, you deserved every second of it.

Frank turned his head to glance at you, noticing the way your eyes grew glassy. Under other circumstances, if he hadn’t been married with children for instance, he would’ve pulled you into his side, soothed you into believing a long-distance relationship was possible.

He’d make it possible too, had he been a single man merely interested in a single woman, but with the hand he’s been dealt, Frank knew that wasn’t the reason for your tears and that you weren’t worried about any kind of distance. 

You were ashamed of the proximity you allowed yourselves.

“To everyone”, he corrected.

Somewhere in Pittsburgh, his wife was probably waking up alone, getting ready to make breakfast and answer all their kids’ giddy questions about daddy’s flight and how they could surprise him with balloons.

You wondered whether she trusted him blindly, whether she’d kissed him goodbye, or whether he told her he loved her before boarding the plane. The thought alone sent a shiver down your spine.

The moment you moved to grab your clothes, he moved too. There was no attempt to escape the room before either of you could fully acknowledge what happened though. He moved slowly, almost mechanically, picking up each piece, stuffing them into his bag and pulling out fresh ones.

There was no doubt in your mind his wife had folded all of them, maybe even packed his bag so he wouldn’t forget half of his stuff at home. Their home.

Both of you were fully dressed when Frank reached for his wedding ring on the coffee table, but he paused long enough for you to notice why, even if you were across the room, grabbing your bag that slipped between the sofa and a small sideboard.

He stared at it as if gathering the strength to pick it up.

You turned away as soon as he did, because you didn’t want him to see how your face changed. You knew you didn’t have the right.

The ring returned him to someone else. To the woman you helped him betray.

Frank sat down on the sofa, fully dressed now except for his shoes. The moment he did, you watched the realization flicker across his face. It was the very same spot where you'd held each other only hours earlier.

His jaw tightened as he scooted forward to put whatever distance between him and the memory, he thought he could. "I don't... do this"

Your lips automatically pressed into a thin line. “Apparently you do”

He absorbed your words without the need to defend himself. Despite barely knowing him at all, Frank hoped you knew this wasn't a pattern. That this was the first time he'd ever crossed a line like this and certainly the last.

“You’re right”, he sighed and the quiet acceptance almost made you wish he had argued. A fight would’ve made things a whole lot easier now.

"I'm sorry too", you murmured, swallowing hard as your fingers rubbed over your other wrist, a nervous habit that followed you since childhood and surfaced when you didn’t know what else to do with yourself.

Taking a careful step closer, you struggled to meet his eyes. "I shouldn't have followed you in here."

"I shouldn't have looked back", Frank countered, refusing to let you shoulder the weight of the night on your own. Whatever happened between the two of you has never been yours to carry alone, and he wouldn't allow you to rewrite it that way.

Silence settled over the room again, heavier than before, lingering long enough for both of you to realize there were still questions neither of you wanted to ask.

"Are you going to tell her?", you finally managed.

The question landed like a missile. You watched his entire body tense, his gaze focusing on something behind you.

"I– I don't know."

Your stomach twisted as you gave a small, almost imperceptible nod. His answer wasn't enough to settle your thoughts, but you couldn't blame him for not having one. You wouldn’t know what to do if it was the other way around either.

Part of you wanted him to tell her everything, because she deserved the truth, no matter how cruel it was. Even if the confession destroyed their marriage, it would be another consequence of the choices the two of you had made. Together.

But another part of you, one you hated acknowledging, desperately hoped she'd never even learn your name.

Because regardless of how it happened, regardless of the fact that neither of you planned an affair and that every choice has been made together, you already knew how the story would be told.

You would become the other woman. The one people blamed first and most.

"You should", you murmured eventually, but that was all you allowed yourself to say before shouldering your bag. Frank spoke your name before you stepped into the hallway, but you ignored it. You forced yourself to.

The walk back to your room took less than a minute, though it felt considerably longer. Your hands trembled just enough that it took two attempts before the lock on your door finally flashed green and you stepped inside.

Everything looked exactly as you'd left it.

The neatly made bed, your suitcase resting in the corner, your badge lying on the desk beside the notebook you'd spent the entire weekend scribbling in.

For the first time since arriving in Dallas, you couldn't wait to leave.

You spent years believing that a decision like this didn't happen overnight, that it required a certain mindset, a willingness to disregard someone else's heart that you were absolutely convinced you'd never possess.

You imagined affairs as calculated things, driven by selfishness, full of cheap excuses and careless people who never considered the damage they’d cause. You never imagined it could begin with two exhausted people finding something in each other neither of them had known they were missing until it was far too late.

By the time you boarded your flight, you forced yourself to move on like you’d do after a patients’ death. There was nothing left for you to do.

As Dallas slowly disappeared beneath the clouds, you held onto the certainty that you’d never see or hear from Frank again, because anything else would only make things even more unforgivable. You sat by the window, tuning out your coworkers’ complaints about their hangovers as your thoughts spiraled inward for the rest of the flight.

Two days later, Frank's name appeared in your inbox and it distracted you for the better part of your shift.

Every now and then, between patients, charting and hurried cups of coffee, your mind wandered back to the notification, trying to work out how he'd even managed to obtain your email address. You were certain neither of you had exchanged contact details or asked for the other's number. You would've remembered that.

You were sober after all.

It wasn't until halfway through your shift that it finally came back to you.

Saturday's lunch break, after another expert talk that ran overtime and taught none of you anything considerably new, leaving dozens of emergency physicians crammed around the same handful of tables before the afternoon lectures resumed. Someone brought up a recent study and you'd mentioned having the paper saved already. Within seconds people began calling out their email addresses, asking you to send it along.

Frank was one of them, invested in the topic of Professional Setbacks and Their Association with Psychological Distress, Burnout and Moral Injury in Healthcare Professionals.

By the time you finally left the hospital after another shift that had inevitably bled into overtime, trying to keep up on the charting, Frank's email remained exactly where you'd left it, opened, reread and still unanswered.

Made it home safely.

Hope you did too.

There was nothing that acknowledged Dallas. Anyone reading over your shoulder would've seen nothing more than two colleagues checking in after a conference, polite and easy. It was, to your relief, safe.

You should have left it that way, you know you should’ve, because anything beyond that became dangerous and maybe your internal battle, sitting in the car park, was exactly why it took you twenty entire minutes to write a reply that consisted of two short sentences.

I did.

I hope you're okay.

It took Frank seven minutes to reply, since your email appeared while he already had his phone in hand, halfway through texting his wife to ask if she wanted him to pick up some takeout on the way home. His thumb hovered over the email notification for a moment before the sound of Dana’s voice pulled him back into the emergency department. When he found the time to glance back down at his phone, he’d disregarded his text, deciding to reply to your email first.

You, on the other hand, didn't read his reply until later that evening. By then, you'd buried yourself in everything that usually marked the end of a workday, a scalding hot shower, preparing lunch for tomorrow's shift, double checking your alarm and finding one meaningless task after another, anything that kept your hands busy long enough to avoid looking at your phone.

When you finally did, you were already lying in bed.

I'm not.

You didn't realize how long you'd been staring at the reply until the screen faded to black beneath your hovering thumbs.

You promised yourself once, probably sometime during your teenage years, that you’d never stoop so low as to become the reason for another woman’s heartbreak.

You just never considered what would happen when becoming the other woman broke your own heart too.

This is my first time writing for The Pitt, one of my favorite shows this passing decade. I love Frank, but I do not condone or support cheating in any kind of way. Bare with me please (and send requests x)

Amor Fati ~ "Embracing everything - the good, the bad, the painful - as necessary parts of your story. It's not just acceptance, it's choosing to love what shaped you." ("Some things didn't happen to break you. They happened to build you.")

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Y/N wakes drowning; not in water, in heat.

The mattress beneath her creaks, followed by a low crackle of dying flame. The rain is no longer beating its frantic fingers against the roof, there’s no groaning at the door, no teeth trying to tear the flesh off her bones, no hands reaching for her.

Sweat slicks her skin, gathers at the hollow of her throat, dampens the hair at her temples. For one blind second, she thinks she is back in the grocery store, crushed between shelves, the dead crowding close enough to steal the air from her lungs.

Her body reacts before the cabin takes shape around her. Her fingers claw at the mattress as her heartbeat surges hard enough to hurt. A small, broken breath scratches its way out of her chest, before the world returns piece by piece.

Gray-gold light leaks through the boarded window, softening the ugly corners of the cabin. Dust hangs in the air, turning slowly, each speck catching fire for a moment before vanishing into shadow. Outside, birds are singing in the trees, their chirps thin and bright after a night that had felt determined to wash the whole world away.

Y/N stays very still. She is covered in more fabric than she remembers. Jack’s hoodie is still wrapped around her shoulders, but over it, there are more layers; his shirt is first, she realizes. Soft black cotton too large for her, smelling faintly of smoke, rain, and pine draped over her body along with a heavy and warm jacket. He must have placed it over her sometime during the night, carefully enough not to wake her.

Her first reaction is not gratitude, it’s fear. The spike of adrenaline is sharp, quiet and immediate as the realization hits her. She slept though him moving close enough to cover her, to touch her, and she didn’t wake.

Her pulse beats wildly in the hollow of her throat. She looks down at herself quickly, checking, cataloguing, searching for evidence of harm. Clothes are still in place, knife still within arm’s reach. Her body is sore, yes, but sore in the familiar way of injury and exhaustion, not the wrong way. There are no new bruises shaped like fingers, no blank, missing stretches of memory filled with dread.

Nothing happened.

It comforts her, eventually, but not before the knowledge of her own helplessness slithers coldly through her ribs. She pushes herself up on one elbow, slow enough not to anger her leg.

Letting out a heavy exhale, her eyes find her clothes are draped over the broken chair near the fireplace, positioned close enough to the warmth that the hems are no longer dripping. She reaches toward them, fingers brushing her shirt first. It’s dry, stiff with old mud and darker stains from blood, but dry.

The cabin is empty, she realizes. Jack is gone.

His absence brings no relief and no panic either, rather something far more embarrassing; concern. Concern over his whereabouts, concern over his safety, concern there's a small chance he has left her here to fend for herself; that he’s changed his mind and decided she’s more trouble than she’s worth.

Her throat feels scraped hollow. The bottle of water Jack gave her sits beside the mattress, right where she can reach it without standing. It wasn’t there last night, or, at least, she doesn’t remember placing it there.

Closing her fingers around it, she unscrews the cap and drinks too quickly, the water warm and metallic from the plastic, perfect against the scratchiness at the back of her throat. She forces herself to stop after a few gulps. The old world taught people to drink when they were thirsty, while the new one teaches rationing with cracked lips and headaches.

She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and listens; nothing inside, birds outside, and a faint creak of trees shifting after rain.

No Jack.

Did he actually leave?

The thought shouldn't bother her. He is a stranger after all…A half-naked stranger with a gun, a terrible sense of humor, and a talent for appearing close enough to stop her heart. He’s also a man who speaks in promises too easily and hides too much behind hazel eyes and a crooked smile. If he left, that means one less danger in the room.

But if he left, she is alone again.

Her gaze moves to the door.

Did he decide she does not fit his community after all? Did he spend the night watching her sleep and see too much? Did she talk in her sleep? Did she say something that revealed the dark, twisted little truths hiding deep inside her? The parts of her that have learned to survive without apology. The parts she carries like knives hidden under the tongue.

Maybe he noticed her darkness is too dark even for him. Maybe it frightened him. It frightens her sometimes.

Y/N braces one hand on the mattress and forces herself upright. Her leg answers with violence. Pain rips up from her calf, bright and vicious, so suddenly that her vision whites at the edges. The limb buckles, her body tilts, a strangled cry tears out of her before she can catch it.

A bitter laugh presses against her teeth and dies there.

No. Jack does not seem like a man easily frightened.

That makes it worse.

She slaps a hand over her mouth too late. Her heart begins thrashing, waiting for a groan to answer her scream as she stares at the door.

For half a second, she hears nothing, then all of a sudden, she hears footsteps outside; fast, heavy, coming closer with a speed alarming enough to turn her blood to ice.

The dead do not run, she reminds herself. The dead do not run.

It doesn’t ease her mind, for the living are far worse to deal with.

Her hand flies to her knife. She grips the hilt with clammy fingers, breath snagging as her body prepares for an attack, for hands, for Jack’s people, for whoever has heard her and decided the wounded animal inside is worth finishing.

The door slams open.

Y/N jerks back with the knife half-drawn as Jack fills the doorway, bare-chested, wild-eyed, hair mussed silver from sleep or rain or both. His hand is already on the weapon at his waist, shoulders squared, face tight with alarm.

Jack’s gaze sweeps over her quickly, almost clinical. He checks her face, hands, leg, the floor, windows, the door behind him. There’s no blood pooling, no walker, no attacker, just her, half-standing beside the mattress with nervous laughter coming out in bursts.

For one ridiculous, trembling second, she only stares, unable to move or utter a single word. Then, without a warning, a laugh breaks out of her, small and breathless and ugly with relief.

His expression shifts with bewilderment first, then exasperation, then relief so sharp he almost looks angry with it.

“Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” he asks dryly. The dryness is ruined by the way his chest is still rising too fast.

He cares, she realizes. In some twisted way, he actually cares.

She lowers the knife. “I forgot about my leg.”

The admission comes out meek, which makes her want to peel off her own skin and start over.

Jack stares at her silently for half a second. If someone had done this to her, she would be furious. She would snap. She might call them dead weight. She might decide then and there that anyone who screams over an injury they already know they have is too dangerous to travel with, too loud, too unsteady, too likely to get her killed. She’s cut people off for less.

Jack does none of those things. The tension leaves his face slowly, reluctantly, as if his body does not want to surrender it. His brow eases first, then the tightness around his eyes softens. His mouth, which had flattened into a grim line, loosens into a weary scowl. He looks at her too long, without a word passing his lips, and she feels it again… that strange tenderness she doesn’t understand.

It’s not pity she sees in his gaze. She knows pity. Pity looks down. Jack looks like he wants to put his hands around the throat of whoever taught her to expect cruelty after pain.

He has no reason to. She is nothing to him, a stranger, a woman he found cornered by the dead and felt obligated to save, because apparently, that is something he still lets himself do.

His gaze drops to the floor for a moment. He wets his lower lip, nodding once, more to himself than her.

“Your clothes should be dry,” he says, closing the door behind him.

Only then does she realize the hoodie has fallen open. The front hangs loose, giving him an unobstructed view of her bra, the absurd lace-trimmed Victoria’s Secret thing she had put on minutes before her life turned into running, blood, and a mall full of corpses. Of all the ridiculous remnants of the old world to survive on her body, it had to be that.

Heat floods her face. She grips the hoodie closed with both hands.

Jack’s eyes flicker up to the ceiling with almost comical speed, which would be comforting if he wasn’t also very, very shirtless.

“Aren’t you cold?” she asks, because apparently humiliation has chewed through her filter.

“I’m fine.”

His gaze slides toward the fire, where the embers still glow faintly. He must have kept it going, kept her warm, kept watch.

“Get dressed, sweetheart,” he says, voice rough with restraint. “We need to get back before my people start to worry.”

My people. The words gather uneasily in her stomach.

She nods and reaches for the clothes he has covered her with. The jacket first, then the shirt beneath the hoodie. She hands them to him cautiously, careful not to let her fingers brush his. She isn't ready for skin, not this early, not with sleep still clinging to her and old panic pacing behind her ribs.

“Thank you,” she says softly.

Jack takes the clothes. His fingers close around them, but he doesn't pull away immediately, as if he hears the extra weight in her voice.

“I know you were probably cold,” she adds, “despite all the bravado. The extra layers helped.”

The right corner of his mouth curves.

It's not quite his smirk. It’s gentler than that, a small, lopsided tilt that brings faint lines to one side of his face and makes him look, for a dangerous second, like a man from before. Like someone who could lean against a hospital counter with a bad cup of coffee and charm a room with a simple wink and a quick quip.

“You don’t have to thank me for basic human decency.”

“I do.” She looks down, thumb rubbing over the edge of the hoodie sleeve. “It’s a rare find these days,” she murmurs. “So let me be grateful. I don’t know if it’s something I’ll find ever again.”

Jack’s eyes deepen, the green-brown of them gone warmer and sadder at once. He folds the shirt over one forearm, watching her with a focus that makes her want to retreat and step closer in the same breath.

“Considering you’re coming with me,” he says, “I have a good feeling my community will prove you wrong.”

She lets out a breathless laugh and turns away to dress. “The more you talk about your community, the more worried I get.”

“Comforting.”

“It sounds too good to be true.”

Behind her, Jack exhales, loud enough to make his frustration known but not sharp enough to cut. “We’re not perfect,” he says. “But we’re not bad people.”

Y/N pulls her shirt over her head, bracing for the prickle of his gaze on her back. It never comes. When she glances over her shoulder, she finds him turned away. His hands are tucked casually into his pockets, shoulders relaxed, eyes fixed on the far wall as if it has become the most interesting thing left on earth.

A gentleman.

The thought slips in before she can bar the door against it.

A real one, maybe. A rare creature now. Rarer than antibiotics. Rarer than kindness without an invoice attached.

Jack seems to be the kind of man she would once have written into a book with a tragic backstory and too many scars, then criticized herself for making him too obvious, too magnetic, too fictional. The kind she might fight to protect.

That thought frightens her so badly she freezes in her spot. The last thing she needs is someone else to fight for. That is how good people die, and she is not ready to die…Not for herself, not for him, not for anyone.

She finishes dressing with numb fingers, then steps toward him. Her hand lifts before she decides what to do with it. It hovers inches from his shoulder.

There is fabric between them now, not skin. Just his shirt, which he has pulled back on, stretched across the hard line of muscle beneath. It’s a simple touch, a human gesture, a thank-you without words, a small bridge thrown across a ravine.

Her fingers tremble.

Jack turns his head slightly to the left, his eyes drop to her hand. He doesn’t move, doesn’t encourage, doesn’t withdraw. He simply waits, letting the choice remain where it belongs; with her.

“I won’t think less of you if you pull away now,” he says quietly. “And I won’t push your boundaries by pretending a hand on a shoulder means nothing.”

The lump at the back of her throat only grows in size with the gentleness of his words. They’re too gentle, sliding beneath the defenses she has spent years hammering into place.

She bites her bottom lip until she tastes the edge of pain. It is not skin on skin, she tells herself. Just fabric. Just a shoulder. He has already promised it will not become anything else. He has made it very clear he can stand still and let her decide.

She wants to touch him. That is the worst part. She wants to see what happens to his face when she does; whether the lines across his forehead smooth out, whether his jaw unclenches, whether that careful softness returns to his eyes, the one that makes her feel seen and cornered and less alone all at once.

But wanting is not permission. Wanting is not safety. Wanting has led women into rooms they had to crawl out of.

Lowering her hand, she steps back. Shame rushes in immediately, souring the almost moment. She turns away, grabs her backpack, and avoids his gaze like it might expose her completely.

Coward, something inside her whispers. Survivor. The correction arrives weaker than she needs it to be.

Jack doesn’t sigh, joke, or fill the silence with comfort she didn’t ask for.

“I’ll make sure the fire is out,” he says. “You can wait here or outside. Your decision.”

She nods once, heading outside. She needs air and the space to think. Opening the door, she slips into the morning.

The world after rain feels washed but not clean. Leaves glitter with drops, the ground is dark and soft beneath her boots. The trees stand in damp rows, bark blackened, branches dripping slowly as if the forest is still thinking about last night’s storm. Sunlight filters through, catching on mist that curls low to the ground.

There are no walkers, strange voices, or movement except birds and wind.

The door closes behind her. Only then does Y/N draw in a deep breath.

It hurts going down. She rubs her left hip, then her bad calf, fingers hovering over the place where pain has settled into a steady pulse. Her pants are darker near the injury, but in the dim light she cannot tell if it is mud, old blood, or new.

She should check, wrap more fabric around it, but she doesn’t. Knowing makes things real and she can’t deal with the truth of her wound right now.

The door opens again. Jack steps out, backpack slung over one shoulder, his jacket rolled and strapped down now. He gives her a pointed look, the kind of expression that says he has already noticed the way she is favoring her leg and is deciding how much argument he has energy for.

“Can you walk?”

“Yeah.”

The answer is too fast. His head tilts to the right, unimpressed. She lifts her chin.

Jack looks at her for one more second, then points down the trail. “Then let’s go.”

He takes off ahead.

She follows.

The morning walk is quieter than the day before. The forest is damp enough to muffle their steps, but not enough to hide the small sounds of life creeping back after rain; water dripping from branches, birds testing the air. Far away, something heavy is moving through brush and then stopping. Every sound reaches for her sanity.

Jack checks in occasionally, not too often, just enough.

“Leg?”

“Attached.”

“That’s helpful.”

“You asked.”

A while later: “Dizzy?”

“No.”

“That's very convincing,” he notes.

“I’m fine!”

“Sure you are.”

His sarcasm is lighter today, but threaded with attention. He watches without staring, slows without announcing it, walks close enough that if she stumbles, he can reach her, but not so near that her body mistakes him for a threat.

That care is almost worse than carelessness, because carelessness can be dismissed. This has to be survived.

By midmorning, embarrassment nearly kills her before the dead get a chance.

She slows. Jack notices after two steps and turns back.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

His brows lift. She looks away awkwardly, chewing on her lower lip.

He waits.

“I need to…” She gestures vaguely toward the trees.

Jack glances that way, then back at her.

“What?”

She can feel blood rushing to her face, flushing her cheeks.

“Nothing. Just keep watch.”

“For?”

She stares at him. He stares back, genuinely confused.

“Jack.”

“What?”

“I have to pee.”

Understanding arrives first, then amusement. His face changes in stages, the corners of his mouth twitching first, eyes brightening next, cheek dimpling slightly beneath stubble before he tries and fails to keep the laugh inside. It escapes as a low chuckle, warmer than the sun on her skin.

“Why didn’t you just say that?”

“Because I was hoping a tree would fall on me first.”

That makes him laugh again. He’s not mocking her, or teasing. He sounds delighted in a tired, quiet way that still sends color climbing her cheeks.

“Go,” he says, turning his back. “I’ll keep watch for anything dead, breathing, or dumb enough to interrupt.”

“Please don’t narrate.”

“No promises.”

She disappears behind a thick tree, wishing fervently for the earth to open and swallow her in a dignified fashion.

It doesn’t.

Instead, she has a typical post-apocalyptic experience of trying to pee quickly while gripping a knife, listening for walkers, and imagining the cosmic humiliation of having to run with her pants half-up because a corpse shambles out from behind a bush.

Nothing happens, which feels like its own miracle.

When she returns, Jack is exactly where he said he would be, back turned, knife loose in hand, gaze scanning the woods.

He doesn’t look at her until she clears her throat. When he does, his smile is smaller now; softer, still amused, but careful not to humiliate her.

“All good?”

“If you say one word, I’ll push you into a bush.”

“Oh! So terrifying.”

“I mean it.”

“I believe you.”

He does believe her, or he believes she would certainly try.

By the time the sun climbs higher, the forest begins to thin and more light breaks through the canopy. The trail angles upward, then bends along a ridge where the trees open just enough for Y/N to see something in the distance.

At first, she thinks it's another abandoned town, then she sees the walls. It’s not just crude fencing, stacked cars or nailed boards. It has real structure, timber and metal and old concrete worked together in clean lines. Beyond it, shapes rise between trees, reminding her of rooftops, solar panel, a wind turbine turning lazily in the pale sun.

Her steps falter. “Is that…”

“Yeah.” Jack looks ahead, then back at her, listening to her almost heaving for breath. “We’re almost there. Can you keep going?”

“Yeah.” The lie comes out automatically.

His brow furrows. She limps two more steps before he moves in front of her, blocking the path.

“Admitting you need help won’t make me see you as anything less.”

Her jaw clamps shut. “I’m fine.”

“And I’m Simba.”

The name snaps through her tension so absurdly that she almost blinks.

Jack’s expression doesn't change.

“Let me help you,” he says.

There is a slight tremor beneath the words. Frustration, maybe, or worry. She’s not entirely sure which.

Y/N stares at him. Her mind begins its cruel arithmetic. If she lets him help, the pain will lessen. She might reach the community with enough strength left to stand, to think, to defend herself if necessary. She might not collapse at the gate like a half-dead animal waiting to be judged.

But a helping hand is never just a helping hand in her memory. It is fingers around an arm, a man saying, come on, I’ve got you, a door closing, the smell of cheap beer.

Her skin goes cold despite the sun.

“Please,” Jack says quietly.

That single word nearly breaks her, not because it is forceful, but because it is not.

Her eyes sting. “I can’t,” she breathes.

Jack looks at her then as if he is finally understanding the size of this thing inside her. It’s not just nerves or stubbornness, or distrust as a personality trait. This fear has architecture, a foundation poured in blood.

“You have no reason to trust me,” he says. “I understand that. I do. But you’re hurt.”

“I know.”

“No, sweetheart.” His gaze drops to her leg. “You’re bleeding again.”

She looks down. He is right. Dark red has spread across the fabric of her pants, seeping through mud and old stains in a pattern too fresh to deny. The sight makes her stomach pitch, and not from blood. She has seen worse, done worse. It is the betrayal of her own body that rattles her. The proof that willpower is not enough, no matter how hard she clenches her teeth around it.

“The next half hour will drain whatever strenght you’ve got left,” Jack continues. His voice remains even, but there is strain in it now. “What happens if you lose consciousness? Or your ability to defend yourself? Is that not a worse fear than letting me help you now?”

The words slide cleanly into the part of her mind that still functions.

Damn him. He is right again.

Accepting help now may reduce the amount of help she needs later. It might keep her alert enough when they reach the gate, strong enough to assess his people, the walls, the exits, the weapons, the rules, strong enough to keep a final option tucked somewhere reachable.

Her heart trashes against her chest like a trapped bird, and her veins feel packed with ice. She sniffles once, angry at the sound. Then she nods, just barely.

“Okay.”

Jack’s eyebrows lift carefully. “Okay?”

She nods again. “Yeah.”

Her voice is thin enough to embarrass her. “How…” She swallows, “How would you… what did you have in mind?”

A small smile appears, not teasing this time… Encouraging, almost. The left side of his mouth lifts first, the right following slowly, and the warmth in it softens the hard planes of his face without making him look any less dangerous.

“Piggyback,” he says. “Familiar with the concept?”

She nods faintly.

His smile widens. “Good.”

He turns around and lowers himself onto his left knee, moving his pack so it rests against his chest instead of his back. The motion reveals the hitch in his right leg again, the careful angle of it.

She notices.

“Come on.”

Y/N stands frozen. The distance between them feels enormous.

Then Jack looks over his shoulder. “I can wait all day, sweetheart,” he says, voice dry as old leaves, “but I’m sure you’d rather take a shower and have a proper meal sooner rather than later.”

Shower. Meal.

The words hit embarrassingly hard. Her stomach twists with hunger, reminding her it exists and has been neglected for too long. She purses her lips, exhales through her nose, then steps closer. Slowly, shakily, she wraps her arms around his neck. The first point of contact sends a jolt through her.

His skin is warm beneath the collar of his shirt, solid, real. Too real. Her chest presses lightly against his back, and for a second she nearly bolts, panic roaring up with claws out.

Then his hands reach back. He pauses.

“Thighs okay?” he asks.

The question steadies her. “Yes,” she whispers.

Only then does he grip the backs of her thighs and rises.

She gasps making him freeze.

“Did I hurt you?”

The concern in his voice is immediate, laced with barely hidden panic, faking control for both their sakes.

“No,” she says quickly, breath brushing his ear. “No. You didn’t.”

Goosebumps rise along the exposed skin at the side of his neck. She sees them, stealing her breath away because he isn't unaffected by her either.

Jack clears his throat. “Hold on tightly.”

He starts walking. The first few steps are unbearable, not because of pain, because of closeness. She can feel the movement of his body beneath hers, the strength in his shoulders, the careful way he adjusts his grip to avoid jarring her injured leg. His hands are secure but not wandering. His breathing stays measured. Every so often his thumb shifts slightly, not as a caress, just a subtle adjustment of pressure to keep her from slipping.

Her arms tighten around his neck. “Too tight?” she murmurs.

“No.”

“You sure?”

“I’ve survived worse than being held by a pretty woman.”

Her face warms. “You say things like that to everyone?”

“Only when they’re bleeding on me.”

“So romantic.”

“I try.”

The humor settles over the raw edges of the moment like a bandage that doesn't quite stick but helps anyway.

They move through the thinning woods, the wall growing larger between the trees. Y/N tries to keep her head upright, tries to study the approach, tries to count guard posts, weak points, the angle of the road curving toward the gate.

But exhaustion has found the crack Jack warned her about.

It pours through her as the body, relieved of having to hold itself up, begins shutting down in stages. Her eyelids grow heavy, her grip loosens, then tightens again as she forces herself awake. The side of her face hovers near the back of his head, close enough to inhale him and it lulls her into a sense of safety she hasn’t felt in ages.

Her temple drifts. She catches herself just in time.

Then it happens again.

This time, her head slips fully onto his right shoulder.

Jack’s pace changes, just slightly.

“Sweetheart?”

“Y/N?” He calls for her again, louder this time, concern cracking the calm.

His voice reaches her through the fog. She tries to answer, but her lips won’t move.

Her fingers weaken around him, but his grip on her doesn’t.

Jack turns his head enough to see what he can of her face. Her eyes are closed, her mouth is parted slightly, breath shallow against his neck. She’s too pale, too warm and too cold at once. The blood on her leg has spread farther, dark against the fabric.

“Fuck,” he mutters.

The word is not forged from anger. It is fear, stripped bare for half a second. He adjusts his hold, one arm locking more securely beneath her thigh while the other braces her carefully against his back. His own bad knee complains, but he ignores it.

The wall is closer now. Close enough to see movement on the lookout platform, figures turning, someone raising a hand.

Jack pushes faster. He doesn’t dare to run for he cannot risk jostling her. But the restraint costs him. It shows in the hard set of his jaw, the way his breath deepens, the way his eyes stay fixed on the gate with the focus of a man aiming at something.

“You’ll be okay,” he whispers. The words are too quiet for the guards to hear, maybe too quiet for her.

He says them anyway.

“You’ll be okay.”

Again.

Then again.

Like a prayer.

Like an order.

Like the universe has any habit of listening to him.

The closer he gets to the walls, the more he feels panic wash away. Safety is too big a word now, too fragile and arrogant, but they’re nearly there and she is still alive. It’s all that matters now.

People appear on the walkway, armed and alert.

One of them calls for him, and he doesn’t answer at first.

His cheek brushes Y/N’s temple as he shifts her higher on his back.

“She’s hurt,” he calls when he is close enough. His voice is no longer teasing, no longer soft. It carries authority like a blade drawn clean. “Open the gate. Now.”

The gate ahead is reinforced with metal plating and old vehicle doors welded into the frame. Solar panels gleam beyond the inner wall, angled toward the sun.

The people above move quickly. No questions. No hesitation. That would tell her something, if she were awake enough to notice. Jack Abbot is not merely part of this place. They obey him.

The gate groans open. Jack steps through with Y/N unconscious against his back, her arms loose around his neck, her blood on his clothes, his borrowed hoodie tied around her waist where it had slipped during the walk.

Inside the walls, the air smells of soil, woodsmoke, and cooking food. Somewhere nearby, a child laughs. The sound is so out of place in the dead world that it might be holy.

Jack doesn’t look toward it. His focus stays on the woman he carried in.

“She needs medical,” someone says.

“I know what she needs,” Jack snaps.

For her.

The person falls silent. His expression flickers with regret, but he doesn't slow. He shifts Y/N more securely and lowers his voice again, not for the people surrounding them, not for the guards, not for the curious faces turning toward their arrival.

“You’re here,” he murmurs. “You made it.”

Her head rests heavy against his shoulder.

Jack swallows hard. His grip tightens. “You have to be okay,” he breathes, so softly it barely exists. “You have to.”

Then he carries her deeper into the preserved little city at the edge of Pittsburgh, past walls that should not exist and people who stare too carefully, into a place that looks like salvation from the outside.

And perhaps, if the world were kinder, that would be all it is.

But the world has not been kind in years.

--

The first thing Y/N hears is the sound of steady, soft beeping.

The sound drifts toward her from somewhere outside the thick, gray fog wrapped around her mind. It slips through slowly, one note at a time.

For a moment, she is nowhere and then she is everywhere at once: a hospital hallway with flickering lights, a mall grocery store full of dead mouths, rain on a cabin roof, Jack’s voice against her ear.

You’ll be okay.

The beeping continues.

Her eyelids twitch. Something rustles beside her.

Y/N’s body reacts before she is awake enough to understand where she is: her fingers curl, her chest tightens, her breath catches in a dry, painful scrape, her tongue feels too big for her mouth, her throat's lined with dust. The air smells wrong, no longer rotten or damp like woods or mold or smoke…It smells clean…too clean

Antiseptic sharpness clings to the back of her nose like the impossible scent of civilization as if it has not been dead for years.

Her eyes snap open. The ceiling above her is white; not clean-white exactly, because nothing stays clean anymore, but close enough to make her heart stutter. There are square ceiling tiles overhead, one cracked down the middle, another stained faintly brown in the corner. Fluorescent lights hum softly, not all of them working, but enough to cast the room in a pale glow.

Her vision drifts right, finding Jack in a chair beside her. For one second, relief hits so hard it almost feels like grief, but then confusion clamps around it.

He looks exhausted.

Still handsome, damn him, still broad-shouldered and silver-haired and built like the apocalypse had been trying to ruin him and failed miserably. But there is strain carved into his features now. His jaw is rough with stubble; his hair is mussed with silver strands falling out of place as if he has run his hands through it too many times. His shirt is on, but the collar sits crooked, and one sleeve is rolled up to his shoulder.

Her gaze drops to an IV line taped into his arm. Red travels through the tubing. Her mind can’t comprehend the image at first, then her eyes follow the line. The tubing runs from him to her.

Fear arrives fully awake before clarity does. Y/N jerks, or tries to. Her arms don’t move right as something bites into her wrists. Her head snaps down only to find restraints wrapped around her wrists, secured to the stretcher beneath her. Her ankles are pinned too, not painfully, but firmly enough that when she tries to pull free, the whole bed gives a small metallic rattle.

No. No, no, no.

The monitor beside her begins beeping faster. Her eyes fly back to Jack, his hazel eyes watching her now. The look she gives him is not confusion anymore, it’s accusatory, filled with betrayal spreading through her bloodstream quicker than the panic.

She knew better, and still she had slept near him, let him carry her, let his voice become something steady inside her very soul. She let herself believe, even briefly, that his hands were not like other hands.

“Don’t,” Jack says firmly. “You’ll hurt yourself. Trust me.”

Her lips peel back from her teeth. “Trust you?” she spits. Her voice is ragged, hoarse, but the venom survives. “I knew you were full of shit.”

Jack lifts both hands, palms open in mock surrender, but the humor doesn't reach his eyes. “Calm down and listen.”

She thrashes against the restraints. The movement tears through her leg like a blade, sending pain and panic straight to her heart. A sound breaks from her, half gasp, half snarl, and she hates that he hears it, hates that the monitor tattles on her, beeping faster, louder, screaming the truth of her body while her face tries to lie.

Jack sees the pain and something hardens in him. He jumps to his feet, the chair scrapes sharply against the floor, and suddenly he is towering over her. Taller than she remembers, or maybe it’s different with her flat on her back, tied down, injured and weak. His shoulders block part of the light.

His voice cracks through the room, rougher than it had been before.

“Y/N, calm the fuck down!”

She obeys; not because she wants to, because the shout throws her somewhere else.

Her body empties of fight and fills with dread. Her eyes widen, fixed on him. Her breath stutters in short, shallow bursts. The machine beside her begins beeping wildly now, as frantic as she is. Her fingers curl against the restraints, not pulling anymore, just gripping air as her lips bruise.

For one awful second, she looks at him the way prey looks at death.

The anger in him dissipates instantly. The command remains in his posture, but the hardness drains out of his face, leaving something grim and regretful behind. He draws a slow breath through his nose, then lowers his voice.

“I’ll untie you once you calm down,” he says. “We put those on because I knew you’d react senselessly when you came to.”

Her lips tremble. She clamps them together.

The fact that he guessed right makes her furious. The fact that he guessed right means he paid attention and that makes it worse, because that means she’s predictable. Predictable people are easier to catch, easier to kill, and she’s worked so hard to become a challenge only to find herself back where she started.

Jack pulls the chair closer to her side and sits again, not too close, not far enough. His movements are smaller now, more controlled, like he’s approaching an animal caught in a fence.

“Can you calm down,” he asks, “or do we have a problem?”

Her breathing is still too fast as her chest rises and falls in uneven jerks. The monitor keeps betraying her, each beep too loud in the small room.

“I can calm down,” she says coldly.

The machine disagrees. As Jack glances at it, his left eyebrow lifts just enough to be infuriating.

Her jaw clenches so hard her teeth ache.

Instead of arguing, he licks his lips, then points toward his own arm.

“Look.”

Part of her considers disobeying, being defiant until the very end of whatever he has in store for her. Another part of her reminds her gently that playing the part he wants her to play doesn’t reduce her worth nor does it make her a coward.

So, she looks. Her gaze follows his finger to the IV in his forearm and the tape holding red-filled tubing. The connection she had already seen but could not process beneath the first violent crash of panic.

“What the fuck,” she breathes.

“You needed a transfusion,” Jack says.

He sits back, but not casually. There is too much attention in him for that. His eyes stay on her face, reading every twitch, every flicker, every place fear tries to hide.

“You passed out on me before we got here.” He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing visibly. “You scared the crap out of me.”

A faint attempt at his usual dry humor touches his mouth, but it wavers at the edges.

“Something you’re getting a nasty habit of doing.”

Her lips press into a thin, bloodless line. Last thing she expected was for him to care, at least not in the kind of way he’s caring. This is an oddity, something unheard of in the world they’re living, and it’s for her.

He’s helping me again. Of course he’s helping again. It would be easier if he were not.

“I couldn’t risk you ripping out your IV when you woke up,” he continues. “Or mine. Or cracking your leg open worse than it already is.”

Someone removed her knife that was safely tucked in her jeans, someone had touched her chest to place these leads, and that spikes her pulse again.

Her gaze drops down her body. She’s still dressed; her shirt is on, her jeans are still on, her boots are gone, but her socks remain.

The hoodie she wore is folded beside her, within sight. Her knife is not close, which sends a brief shard of alarm through her, but she pushes past it because the monitor leads are attached to her chest beneath the collar of her shirt.

Jack’s eyes sharpen immediately. “A nurse placed the leads,” he informs, answering the thought before she can spit it at him. “A woman. She took your blood, typed it, connected us. That’s it.”

Furrowing brows, she licks her lips. “I’m…”

“O negative?” His mouth curves faintly. “Me too. Hence the transfusion.”

She stares at him.

Of course the man is a universal donor blood. Even his veins are irritatingly useful.

Her attention drifts back to her jeans, to the dark stain around her injured leg.

“I didn’t let anyone take your pants off,” Jack says. He knows exactly where her mind’s going.

The knowledge should be humiliating. It is, but beneath that, something else opens: a tiny, miserable pocket of relief. It’s been two days, barely, and he knows her well enough to respect her boundaries. That’s a miracle these days.

“You’ll have to eventually,” he adds with a sigh. “Or I can cut off the pant leg. But I need a proper look.”

Y/N stares up at the ceiling tiles. The room swims slightly around the edges.

“I know,” she says quietly.

“I can get a nurse to -”

“No.” Her answer cuts across his before he can finish.

Jack pauses, waiting for her to explain.

“No one gets to touch me,” she says. The words leave no room for negotiation. Her eyes find his, and whatever he is about to say dies when he sees her face. She doesn’t blink when she continues. “Only you.”

Silence settles between them.

Jack’s lips press together. A pulse moves in his jaw, then disappears. He looks at her for another second, longer than a doctor should, not long enough for a man to admit what those two words have done to him.

Then he nods. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll do it myself.”

Her lungs loosen slightly.

“But we do have female doctors too,” he adds, because apparently he cannot help being decent even when she has made up her mind. “So if you -”

“No.”

“Okay, sweetheart.” His voice softens. “I’ll take care of you.”

She lets out a heavy breath and turns her gaze back to the ceiling.

“When will the restraints come off?” she asks. “Or is this something you’re into?”

The words surprise them both. Jack blinks once, shocked by her words before chuckling.

It is a low, startled sound, dragged out of him before he can make it pretty or measured. His face warms with amusement, the tension around his eyes loosening. The corner of his mouth curls into something almost wicked, not at all predatory, but definitely entertained.

“Why?” he asks. “Interested?”

Her cheeks grow warmer despite everything. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Too late.”

He reaches for her wrist, but stops just short of touching skin. The pause is small enough that he hopes she doesn’t notice, but she does. She notices everything about him; the way he moves with caution, how he watches her reactions and seems to memorize them for future use as he always acts accordingly the next time, the way he warms at her attempts to accept his help, and the warmth of his hands that send a chill down her spine, but not in a dangerous way. No…his warmth has a different chill, the kind where she worries she might get too used to it only to lose it all, and find herself lost in a never ending winter.

He works the restraint open carefully, his fingers close enough that she can feel that warmth of him even without contact. The pressure releases from her right wrist first, then the other. He moves down to free her ankles, glancing up once to make sure she is not about to kick him in the face.

She considers it, for a split moment it’s like an intrusive thought or some misguided survival instinct, but she lets him continue.

When she is untied, Jack stops the transfusion. He disconnects the tubing, tapes off what needs taping, then picks up a syringe filled with clear liquid.

Her body stiffens.

“What is that?”

“Pain medication.” He looks at her. “No allergies?”

“No, but I don’t want any pain meds.”

“Y/N -”

“No pain meds,” she repeats slowly and he sighs, shaking his head once before putting the syringe down.

“Can I start antibiotics, or are you too stubborn for that too?”

“You have antibiotics?” The disbelief comes out sharper than intended.

Self-sustaining. Hospital. Antibiotics.

Jack raises a brow. “We do. Can I give them to you?” He looks up to the clear liquid above her head and another tubing system, before his eyes rest on her once more.

She nods, unsure, but she allows him to attach it to the IV port.

“We have a hospital here. A proper hospital with a lab, meds, solar backups, sterilization protocols, the whole thing. It’s a self-sustaining community.”

The words stack up like impossible bricks. Y/N nods, but suspicion crawls beneath her skin. Things that sound too good usually are too good to be true.

Jack checks her IV, then reaches toward the monitor.

She uses her newly freed hand to remove the remaining restraint from her left wrist completely, flexing her fingers. They ache, and her skin is marked faintly where the strap had held her. Then she reaches for the leads on her chest.

Jack makes a low sound of disapproval.

She freezes. “What?”

“Keep those on a while longer, please.”

The please matters more than it should, softening her resolve until she pulls back.

“You just had a transfusion,” he continues, “and your labs are a mess. I need to monitor you closely for at least an hour more. Can you give me that long?”

Before she can argue, the door opens. A woman appears in the doorway, older than Y/N by at least twenty years, with graying hair tied back and a clipboard clutched to her chest. Her eyes move quickly from Jack to Y/N, then to the monitor, then back to Jack again.

“Doctor Abbot,” she says, “do you have a second?”

Doctor Abbot.

The name sounds differently with a title in front of it.

Jack doesn’t look up at first. He is already picking up a pair of shears from a tray.

“Can it wait?” His voice is clipped, not cruel, but unmistakably annoyed. The softness he has been using with Y/N disappears so abruptly she feels the loss of it like a dropped blanket. This is a different Jack, firmer, colder, the one who shouts orders and expects them followed.

The woman clears her throat. That draws his gaze.

Y/N sees the brief shift in him. Irritation first, then calculation followed by reluctance, because leaving now bothers him. It sparks something in his face that looks almost like concern about stepping away from a skittish animal he has spent hours coaxing closer.

He places the shears on the far table behind him, deliberately far out of her reach.

Jack moves toward the door, then pauses beside her stretcher.

“Lay back down,” he tells her, quieter now. “Rest up. I’ll be back.” His tone warms around the edges when he speaks to her. It doesn’t with the other woman. Y/N hates how much her heart jumps at the difference. And before she can stop him, he’s gone.

When the door closes, the room becomes too large, too quiet even when the monitor keeps beeping.

Y/N lies still, staring at the ceiling, one freed hand resting near the IV in her arm. She could pull it out, she could get up and find her knife. She could make it ten feet before her leg collapses, maybe fifteen if the adrenaline rush hits right when she needs it.

Instead, she stays, not because she trusts this place or the people that live here, but because Jack said he would come back. There’s no reason for those words to carry any weight with her, but they do, inexplicably so.

It’s not long before the door opens again. Jack steps inside with a smile on his face, and something small in her ribs unknots before she can stop it. He tosses something toward her. She catches it with absolutely no grace. It bounces off her chest, slips through one hand, and lands in her lap.

Wrapped in crinkled nylon packaging is a sandwich. For a second, she only stares at it.

Looking up at him, she exclaims. “No fucking way.”

Jack’s smile widens. This one’s brighter than the others; not polished or seductive on purpose. It spreads across his face with genuine satisfaction, deepening the lines beside his eyes and softening his severe features into something almost unfair. He looks younger when he smiles like that, less like a weapon and more like a man who has just remembered joy still exists and he’s allowed to relish in it.

Y/N tears into the packaging. The bread is soft, actually soft. She takes a huge bite. Her eyes nearly close.

It's not gourmet. It’s probably some preserved spread, a little cheese, maybe dried meat rehydrated. It doesn’t matter. It’s food that doesn’t come from a dented can eaten cold behind a locked door.

Jack laughs quietly and picks up the shears again.

“Oh, there’s plenty where that came from,” he says. “Just relax, sweetheart, and let me do my thing. Okay?”

The sandwich suddenly feels heavier in her hand. Her eyes drop to the shears, then flicker to her leg, realizing the food is meant to be a distraction.

Jack sees the fear return, he doesn’t pretend otherwise. Coming closer slowly, with no sudden movements or casual touches, he sets the shears where she can see them, then crouches near her injured side.

“I’m going to cut the fabric above the wound first,” he says. “The wrap you tied. Then the pant leg. No surprises.”

She draws in a shuddering breath and nods. “I’m ready.”

“Okay.”

He works carefully. First, he cuts through the makeshift strip of fabric she had tied around her calf. His eyes pause on the knot for a brief second, taking in the placement, the pressure, the way she had done it well enough to slow bleeding without making things worse.

“Nice job,” he murmurs.

She looks away. “Lucky, I guess.”

“Sure.”

The shears slide under denim next. He angles the blunt tip away from her skin, cutting with controlled, small movements from the ankle upward. Every snip sounds too loud and each one brings his hands closer. Her chewing slows as the sandwich loses taste in her mouth.

Jack keeps talking, voice even. “I’m cutting only the pant leg. Nothing else. You’re doing fine.”

She swallows a bite that feels like dry paper. His eyes flicker to her face, then back to his work. The denim opens around the wound.

Y/N tries not to look, but fails miserably.

The injury is ugly, worse than she allowed herself to imagine. A long, torn gash runs along the outer part of her calf, edges swollen and angry, skin bruised around it in yellowing purple and red. Fresh blood has soaked into the fabric. Dirt clings near the wound and the surrounding skin looks tight and inflamed.

Jack pauses, only for a second, but she catches the moment. He knows it’s bad, but he’s not saying it aloud. Rolling her eyes at how considerate that is and how sweet it is of him to want to keep her calm, she lets out a shuddered breath pass her lips.

It brings the doctor in him back. “I’ll have to touch you now,” he says.

Her fingers tighten around the sandwich. She blinks quickly, ignoring the way the room tilts slightly.

Jack waits. She cannot make herself answer, but she doesn’t stop him.

He reaches for her leg. The first contact is careful beyond reason. His fingers slide beneath her calf, supporting instead of gripping, but her entire body reacts as if he has struck her. Muscles lock from hip to ankle. Her stomach twists as nausea climbs into her throat. The sandwich turns unbearable in her hand.

She drops it onto her lap. Jack stops immediately.

“You okay?”

No.

The word fills her mouth and goes nowhere.

Her skin crawls where his hand supports her, not because of him, but because the body remembers without asking permission. It remembers pressure, restraint, helplessness. It doesn’t care that Jack’s touch is gentle or that his hands are steady and warm and doing nothing wrong.

Her body only knows she cannot get away quickly.

Jack’s face tightens with something that looks almost like pain. “I’ll go slow,” he rasps. “You tell me if you need me to stop. I mean it. I stop when you say stop.”

She nods, unable to speak, unable to look at him.

He lifts her leg just enough to slide folded fabric underneath, protecting the stretcher. The motion is slow, supported, medically precise. Still, her fingers clutch the sheet beneath her. Her teeth dig into the inside of her cheek.

When he lowers her leg, she lies back and folds both arms over her face, covering her eyes.

The darkness helps…A little.

Jack takes a breath. “First I’m cleaning around it,” he says. “This part may sting. Just the skin.”

Cool liquid touches her calf. Her whole body jerks.

“Sorry,” he murmurs. “I know. I’m sorry.”

The antiseptic burns. It’s not unbearable, but sharp enough to pull a hiss through her teeth. Jack works outward first, clearing dried blood, mud, and debris from the surrounding skin. He changes gauze often. She hears the soft discard of each piece into a metal tray. He doesn’t rush and doesn’t complain when her leg trembles under his hand.

“Good,” he says quietly. “You’re doing so good.”

“I’m not five.”

“No, you’re a stubborn adult who needs encouragement.”

She lets out something between a laugh and a sob.

His fingers pause. “I’m going to numb the area if that’s alright,” he tells her. “Local anesthetic, small needle. You’ll feel a pinch and some pressure.”

She presses her forearm harder over her eyes.

“Okay. You can use that.”

“Breathe in.”

She does.

“Out.”

The needle enters. Her hand flies toward the sheet, gripping it so hard her knuckles ache. The sting is brief but intimate in the worst way, another invasion of her already aching body. Jack moves methodically, injecting around the wound rather than into the worst of it, pausing between each point.

“You’re safe,” he says.

She hates the words, but she needs them desperately.

“Another pinch.”

She flinches.

“Almost done.”

Her breathing comes too fast again. The monitor picks it up, beeping quicker as if her heart hasn’t been making a song of its own this entire time.

Jack glances at the screen, then back at her hidden face.

“Talk to me,” he says.

“About what?”

“Anything.”

“Your hospital smells like bleach and trauma.”

A surprised breath leaves him. “Accurate review.”

“I give it two stars.”

He chuckles. “Only two?”

“No mint on the pillow.”

“We’ll put it in the suggestion box.”

She almost smiles under her arm.

The anesthetic begins to work after a few minutes. The sharpest pain fades into pressure and tugging, though some deep ache remains, pulsing stubbornly beneath the skin.

“I need to clean inside the wound now,” Jack says. “There’s debris. I’m going to irrigate first. You’ll feel pressure.”

Water or saline flows over the injury, or hydrogen if they have it. The sensation is strange, cold and forceful, making her leg twitch despite the numbness. Jack braces carefully, not holding her down, just supporting enough to keep the movement from tearing anything further.

“That’s it,” he murmurs. “Let it happen. Don’t fight your leg. I’ve got it.”

I’ve got it. Not I’ve got you. That sounds good. Maybe he knows the difference matters.

He irrigates again, then again. The tray fills with pinkish fluid and darker flecks she refuses to see. He works with tweezers next, removing tiny fragments of dirt and torn fabric. He tells her each time before he does anything.

“Small piece of grit here.”

“Pressure.”

“You might feel a pull.”

“Pause.”

The pause is not for him. It’s for her. He gives her time to swallow, breathe, remember where she is.

Then he continues. Debridement comes next, and even numb, she understands from the change in his silence that it is not pleasant. He trims away tissue too damaged or contaminated to keep, his movements precise, making sure all dead tissue is removed. A doctor’s hands cannot be too kind when infection is waiting for a chance to bloom.

Her leg trembles harder.

Jack’s voice roughens. “I know,” he says. “I know, sweetheart. I’m almost through the worst of it.”

He’s trying not to show how much her reaction bothers him. That hurts almost as much as the wound. She can hear it in the spaces between his words, in the way his breathing changes when she flinches, in the care he takes not to grip too firmly even when her muscles jerk.

Seeing her afraid is costing him something she can’t quite grasp. Maybe it’s because he wants her trust or maybe because he cannot stand the sight of someone bracing for violence when he is trying to heal. Maybe both.

Her fingers loosen and tighten around the sheet. She wants to tell him it’s not his fault, but the words don’t come.

When he is satisfied with the cleaning, he sits back briefly.

“Okay,” he says. “The wound is too contaminated and swollen to close fully. If I seal it tight, I risk trapping infection. So I’m placing a few loose interrupted stitches to approximate the edges and help it heal while still allowing drainage.”

Her arm shifts slightly off one eye.

“That sounds disgusting.”

“It is.”

“At least you’re honest.”

“Part of my charm.”

“I thought your charm was singing lullabies.”

“That too.”

This time, the smile almost makes it to her mouth.

He prepares the suture. “I’m going to start. You’ll feel tugging, maybe pressure. Tell me if any of it turns sharp.”

She nods. The needle passes through skin. She feels the pressure, the pull and the faint, nauseating awareness that something is moving through her flesh even if pain has been mostly muted. Her stomach rolls.

Jack watches her face as much as the wound. Every time her breath catches, he slows. Every time her fingers dig too hard into the sheet, he gives her a second before continuing. He places the stitches apart, each one neat, careful, intentionally loose. He ties them with quick, practiced motions, cutting the ends clean.

“One.”

She exhales.

“Two.”

Her body trembles.

“Still with me?”

“Unfortunately.”

His lips twitch. “Three.”

By the fourth, sweat has gathered at her hairline again. Her eyes burn behind her arm. She’s not crying, not on purpose, but tears leak anyway, sliding toward her temples. It’s humiliating.

Jack pretends not to notice.

Bless him. Damn him too.

Finally, he sets the instruments aside. “Done with stitches.”

Her arm lowers a fraction. “Done done?”

“Bandage, then done done.”

“Doctors are liars.”

“Only about how much something will hurt.”

“You’re not very comforting.”

“It’s not my job to be comforting.”

She manages a small smile. “Could have fooled me.”

When the bandage is secured, he lowers her leg gently back onto the stretcher. “There,” he says.

He applies antibiotic ointment, then sterile pads, then wraps the bandage around her calf with slow, even pressure; not too tight, not loose. His hands circle her leg with such care that the contact, once nauseating, begins to become something else by the end.

It’s still difficult for another to touch her, but it’s becoming almost bearable. Maybe because he keeps proving that touch can begin and end exactly where promised.

The word is soft, almost a sigh. He strips off gloves, disposes of them, then cleans his hands with sanitizer from a bottle on the tray. His jaw remains tight and his eyes are tired.

He pulls the chair back to her side and sits down with a bottle of water in hand.

“Hey,” he says quietly. “Y/N.”

Moving her arms away from her face, she swallows thickly. Her eyes are red-rimmed, she knows they are. And knowing how detail oriented he is, she also knows he notices immediately.

His expression doesn't shift into pity. That's the only reason she does not bite at him.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Fine.”

A lie. A bad one. He lets her have it.

“Need anything?”

“No.”

“Pain better?”

“Some.”

“Good.”

He opens the water and holds it out, not too close. She takes it from him. Their fingers don’t touch. For once, she almost wishes they had. That thought terrifies her enough that she drinks just to have something else to do.

Jack leans forward, forearms braced on his knees. The posture brings him closer without crowding her. His gaze stays on her face, not her body, not the bandage, not the monitor.

“You can’t put weight on that leg for a while,” he says.

She shuts her eyes briefly. “Of course.”

“I’m serious. No stubborn weight, no ‘I’m fine’ weight. No weight.”

“I understand.”

“And I know you’re already plotting how to disobey me, but this is a direct order. No weight, ” he repeats.

She opens her eyes again.

He continues, voice settling into professional clarity. “You’ll need IV antibiotics, at least to start. We’ll monitor for infection, repeat labs, keep the dressing clean. For now, you’re staying in the hospital. I’ll set up a place for you here until you’re stable enough to move.”

“A place?”

“A room.”

She studies him.

“And after? Will I be alone?”

Jack hesitates. That hesitation tells her enough.

“Most people share here,” he says.

Her stomach knots. “Who do you share with?”

The question slips out before she can decide whether it’s too personal.

Jack’s eyes flicker. For a second, he looks toward the door, not evasive exactly, but caught. Then he glances back at her. “No one.”

The man who runs toward screams and gives away his clothes and orders has a room to himself. Interesting. Lonely, maybe.

She looks down at the bottle in her hands.

“Thank you for helping me,” she says.

Jack’s face brightens with a smile that feels almost out of place in the sterile room. There’s no grinning this time, this is warmer, filled with relief, the kind that starts in his eyes before reaching his mouth. It makes the hard planes of his face soften in stages.

“I’m here for you.”

The sentence is simple, but it finds its target in her chest, constricting her heart painfully enough that she looks away.

“Do you need help sitting up?” he asks.

She huffs. “I’ll try to do this part on my own.”

“That sounds like a no.”

“Jack.”

“Fine.”

He stands and retrieves crutches from a rack near the wall. They look worn but sturdy, adjusted quickly with practiced hands. When he returns, he places them within reach and then offers his arm, palm open, not touching.

She stares at it, then at him.

He waits.

This time, after only a few seconds of internal war, she lets him help.

His hand steadies her elbow as she shifts upright. The movement pulls at her leg and sends a dull ache through the stitches, but the local anesthetic blunts the worst of it. Her good foot touches the floor first. Her injured leg remains lifted, awkward and heavy.

Jack’s hand remains light, there if she sways, gone if she moves away.

She notices. She hates that she notices everything about him.

“The room you’ll be in has a single bed,” he says. “Private bathroom. Shower. You’ll need to keep the wound dry. I’ll help you protect it before you wash.”

She shoots him a look. “I can do that part on my own. You’ve seen enough of me for now.”

Jack chuckles. The sound curls low in his chest, richer now that the worst of the procedure is over. His mouth pulls into that troublesome lopsided shape, eyes briefly bright with trouble.

“Not nearly enough.”

Her glare could strip paint. He lifts one hand immediately.

“Joke.”

“Was it?”

His expression changes then. The flirtation does not vanish entirely, because it seems threaded into the marrow of him, but he reins it in. His gaze steadies on hers. It’s honest, direct, a little too intense under the white lights.

“You’re pretty,” he says. “I’m not blind.”

Her breath pauses.

“But I’d never overstep,” he continues. “And I won’t push your boundaries. When I joke, that’s all it is. A joke. If it lands wrong, tell me, and I’ll stop.”

The room feels suddenly smaller. She looks at him for a long second, trying to find the manipulation tucked between the words. There might be some. People rarely know where their own manipulation begins. Charm itself can be a weapon even when the hand holding it doesn’t mean harm.

But he seems sincere. That is the inconvenient part.

“Okay,” she says.

His smile returns, smaller now, careful not to celebrate too much. “Okay.”

He helps her with the crutches, then leads her out of the treatment room. The hallway beyond nearly steals her breath.

People move through the hall, not many, but enough to make her nervous.

It’s not large, not like hospitals used to be, not endless and polished with vending machines and waiting rooms full of old magazines. This place has been built out of survival and memory.

White walls are patched in places, lights faintly flicker overhead. There’s a line of labeled cabinets, a nurses’ station reinforced with new wood, clean sheets stacked on shelves, a cart with supplies organized by type.

She notices a nurse with a headscarf in blue scrubs that don’t match, a man with a bandaged arm sitting on a chair, a child holding a stuffed rabbit missing one eye being led by an older woman and most importantly, she sees a guard near the exit with a rifle held low but ready.

Every stranger is a threat until proven otherwise.

Y/N’s body remembers that before her mind can argue. Her grip tightens around the crutches.

The hallway seems to stretch. There are too many eyes, too many hands, too many unknown rules moving beneath clean floors and painted signs. There are no laws anymore, no 911, no court, no consequence except what people can enforce and what they can hide. A hospital can heal a body, but it can also hold one down.

Jack steps slightly closer, not touching, just near enough that his shoulder cuts off part of the hallway from her view. He’s acting as her shield, whether he means to be or not.

People look at him, then look away, while some nod. One woman starts to speak, sees his face, and decides against it.

Y/N notices tenderness isn’t how Jack moves through this place. With others, he is quietly commanding, a man whose patience is available but not guaranteed. His gaze cuts through hesitation and his presence clears space. He doesn’t need to raise his voice for people to remember who he is.

But with her, his voice gentles, his steps slow, his hand hovers without claiming.

The difference comforts her. It also makes her wonder why.

They reach a small room near the end of the hall. Jack opens the door and steps aside.

Y/N hobbles in. Her jaw nearly drops.

Clean.

That is the first word her mind manages.

There’s a bed with white sheets, a pillow, a small table, a chair, a sink, a private bathroom with an actual shower behind a curtain. The room has a window, high and narrow, looking out over part of the community. Through it she can see a slice of greenhouses, rooftops, and the top of the wall beyond.

It smells faintly of soap. There’s no blood, no mold, no fear.

“Can’t I stay here forever?” she asks before she can stop herself.

Jack shakes his head, amused. The smile he gives her is gentle but tired, creasing the corners of his eyes.

“Unfortunately, we need the rooms clear when possible. You never know what can happen these days.”

That pulls the beauty back just enough to reveal the bones underneath. A hospital room is only empty until someone is bitten, until a child falls, until a guard comes back torn open, until the dead find a seam in the wall.

Jack places a pile of clean clothes on the bed folded neatly. A shirt, pants, socks, undergarments still sealed in packaging. He has guessed her size, and the realization makes her stomach twist strangely.

“I think I got it right,” he says. “But there are spares if I messed up.”

“You picked these?”

“I delegated the parts I figured would make you want to stab me.”

Smart. Detail-oriented. Dangerously considerate. He’s…undeniable.

He gestures toward the door.

“I’ll go get cleaned up and I’ll see you in a few, okay?”

He turns to leave and her hand moves on instinct. It catches his wrist making both of them freeze.

The contact is not much. Her fingers circle lightly over the warm skin. She doesn’t even know why she does it, only that the thought of him walking out cuts through her too sharply, and her body reaches before pride can stop it.

Jack looks down at her hand, then at her face. His lips part slightly. Surprise flickers across his features first, and then something warmer follows, something he tries to hide and fails just enough for her to see.

She releases him immediately, as if burned. “I, uh…”

Her hand retreats to the crutch. The room feels suddenly airless.

“You’re leaving?” The question sounds too vulnerable. She hates it the second it leaves her mouth.

Jack’s expression softens with such careful restraint that it almost hurts. “I have to, sweetheart,” he says. “Not for long.”

She nods too quickly. “Right. Obviously.”

“I’ll be back soon enough.” He points to the call button near the bed. “If you need anything, press that. A nurse will come in. They won’t bother you otherwise, okay?”

She nods again; once, twice, a third time for herself.

I’ll be fine.

The attachment forming in her chest is not real. It is not affection, it’s trauma finding the nearest warm object and mistaking it for shelter. Jack Abbot is simply familiar now. Familiar is not safe. Familiar is not permanent.

Familiar can still turn on you.

She can survive a few hours without him. She has survived worse than a clean room and strangers outside the door.

Jack heads toward the exit. Her throat tightens. A sound rises in her, embarrassingly close to his name, but she swallows it.

Jack stops at the door as if he hears the unsaid thing anyway. He looks back.

Their eyes meet across the room, and for a moment, neither of them performs anything. He isn’t joking and she isn’t glaring. The quiet between them becomes too honest to hold for long.

“You’ll be okay,” he says. “I promise.”

Then he leaves. The door closes softly behind him.

Y/N stands in the middle of the clean little room, balanced on crutches, one leg bandaged, one arm bruised from the IV, heart still unsettled by the shape of his wrist beneath her fingers.

Silence blooms; the kind made of distant footsteps, low voices through walls, a cart wheel squeaking somewhere down the hall. The sound of life moving around her without her permission.

She lowers herself onto the bed carefully, jaw locked against the pain. The sheets are cool beneath her hand. For once, she’s in a safe place, a room with a door, a call button and a doctor who promises to come back.

Her throat burns. She shouldn’t worry.

Jack trusts these people.

Jack is intelligent, observant, capable. He seems to know exactly what he is doing, and everyone here seems to know it too. If his community were cruel, would he bring her here? Would he give her blood? Would he keep others from undressing her? Would he apologize for brushing her skin?

Maybe.

People are unpredictable.

People can be kind in one room and monstrous in the next. People can save you from the dead and still expect payment for living. People can hold your hand through blood loss and later decide your gratitude belongs to them.

Jack is people. Handsome, yes. Kind so far, tender in a way that makes my chest ache. But still people. He can turn on me too.

The thought is ugly, destructive and necessary. It settles over her like armor. Because if she remembers that she is alone, truly alone, then her heart will stop reaching for Jack Abbot’s helping hand. It will stop replaying his soft gaze, his crooked smile, the way his voice roughened when he promised not to hurt her. It will stop waiting for the door to open and for him to come back.

She is alone. That is the only truth left in the world sturdy enough to lean on.

Y/N draws a breath, slow and shallow.

Outside the window, beyond the clean room and the self-sustaining miracle of walls and medicine, the dead are still wandering. Their bodies are still rotting through old clothes, their teeth are still waiting, their hands are still reaching for warmth.

Inside the walls, the living do worse.

She wipes the dampness from beneath one eye with the heel of her hand, angry at herself for it, then looks toward the closed door and waits despite herself.

--

Y/N dries her hair with a towel that smells faintly of detergent. The scent alone feels obscene.

She stands near the window in the clean hospital room, rubbing the damp ends of her hair between soft fabric while watching the community move below. The glass is narrow and reinforced, too high to climb through easily, but wide enough to give her a view of a world that should not exist anymore.

People walk without running. That’s the first thing she notices. A woman in a faded green jacket carries a basket of laundry across a paved path, two men repair a section of fencing near what looks like a chicken coop. Someone pedals a bike with a crate strapped to the back, and another person stops him to exchange something she cannot make out. Near the greenhouses, three children crouch around a raised garden bed while an older woman gestures to the soil with patient hands.

Children…alive, laughing, bareheaded in daylight. It’s been so long since she’s seen children. They didn’t survive long in the new world.

Sighing, she looks to the clock on the wall that says Jack’s been gone for two hours.

That is, if the clock can be trusted. She has not trusted clocks since the first month after the world ended, when time still mattered enough for people to say things like curfew and quarantine window and emergency broadcast at six. But this clock ticks with stubborn confidence above the door, and she has watched the thin black hand crawl forward while pretending not to care.

The first hour, she waited. Not like some abandoned dog with its nose pressed to the door, no. She arranged the clothes Jack left her, checked the bathroom twice, tested the bed three times, studied the call button without pressing it, and convinced herself every passing footstep in the hallway might be his.

By the second hour, she accepted he was not coming back. Then she showered.

The kind of shower with warm water that sputtered at first, then ran steady over her shoulders until she almost cried before touching the soap. She had to sit on a plastic stool and keep her bandaged leg awkwardly angled out, wrapped carefully in a cover a nurse must have left near the sink. Jack had said he would help her protect it, but Jack was gone, and pride, spite, and fear managed where coordination failed.

She cleans herself in pieces, slowly, carefully, with one hand braced on the wall and her heart hammering at every distant sound.

The water runs brown at first with dirt, dried blood, dust, mud from the forest. The old stink of terror leaves her skin in streaks. She scrubs until her arms ache, then forces herself to stop before she breaks open bruises that have not finished blooming.

The mirror is worse. The woman staring back is not a stranger exactly, but she is a version of Y/N the old world would have crossed the street to avoid. Her cheeks are almost hollow, eyes wide and guarded. Split lip nearly healed, but there’s a bruise yellowing along her jaw. Shadows beneath her eyes are so deep they seem carved there. Her hair hangs damp and darker than she remembers, but clean, finally clean, no longer matted with sweat and old smoke.

She cries without making a sound. The tears slip past her defenses before she can stop them, warm on a face she barely recognizes. She grips the sink until her knuckles pale, furious at herself for mourning something as stupid as shampoo.

But it's not about the shampoo. It’s about the person she had been before dirt became armor, before sleeping meant hiding, before her body learned to flinch faster than thought.

Now, dressed in the clothes Jack left, she looks more like herself. Feels more like herself too.

The T-shirt fits. So do the pants, though she has to cut the left leg wider around the bandage and leave the fabric loose. He got her size right, and she’s not surprised by it. He seems like the type.

The shirt is comfortable, clean, and soft against her skin. She wishes it had sleeves, not because she’s cold. The room is warm enough, but her arms are visible, and so are the bruises. Finger-shaped shadows wrap around one wrist, and there’s a greenish mark near her upper arm, scrapes along her elbow from the fall in the woods.

It’s evidence of what the world’s done to her, of the crimes she suffered and the crimes she committed. She hates evidence when it belongs to her. Still, she doesn’t complain. Complaining about a T-shirt in a world of corpses and starvation feels almost indecent.

When she came out of the shower, there had been a tray waiting on the table beside the bed with food and more water.

She had stared at it for a full minute before touching it, searching for some sign of poison, drugging, cruelty dressed as kindness, finding nothing but steam rising faintly from something homemade. Stew thick with vegetables, and a piece of bread. Next to it is a small piece of something sweet, crumbly and golden. And fruit; a small apple, slightly bruised on one side.

She devoured everything with a lack of grace that would have embarrassed her if anyone had been watching. The first spoonful of stew nearly undid her. Warm food in her stomach felt like a memory being returned by mistake. The apple was crisp enough to make her eyes burn again. The sweet thing, whatever it was, tasted of honey or maybe preserved sugar, and for a second the room became a kitchen from before, a memory of the world where dessert didn’t feel like theft.

It feels eerily normal. That’s what scares her most; not the walls, not the hospital, not even the strangers. Normalcy, because normal is seductive. It loosens the jaw, opens the hand, lets the body stop listening for footsteps, makes people leave knives across rooms and sleep with both eyes closed. Normal kills slowly at first, then all at once.

Y/N folds the wet towel carefully, though she has no idea where to put it.

A knock sounds at the door. Her heart skips at the sound, then slams against its bony confines.

The comfort she has nearly built around herself shatters under a rush of adrenaline. Her fingers tighten around the towel as her eyes snap to the door. Every muscle locks, the body bracing for impact before the mind has chosen a response.

The door opens slightly, a woman appears in the gap. It’s not Jack. Y/N’s stomach drops at the thought.

The woman is perhaps in her fifties, with blonde hair pulled into a practical knot and kind eyes that look tired in a way kindness often does now. A small smile rests on her lips, but it falters when she sees Y/N’s face.

Y/N knows what she must look like: cornered, ready to attack, half-feral in clean clothes.

The woman raises both hands slowly, palms out. “Hi,” she says. “I wanted to check on you, if that’s alright.”

Her voice carries an accent, but Y/N cannot place it exactly. Before, she might have asked. Before, accents were interesting. Now every unfamiliar detail is another item for the threat ledger.

Y/N swallows thickly. Her jaw clenches, the muscle jumping painfully near her ear. After a moment, she nods curtly.

The woman steps in, careful to leave the door partly open.

“I’m Dana. I work as a nurse here.” The smile returns, smaller now, less rehearsed. “Doctor Abbot said you’re not to be crowded, but I really need to give you your medicine.”

Doctor Abbot. The title sits between them like a lit match.

Y/N pulls back an inch on the bed before realizing she has moved at all. “Why can’t he do it?”

Dana pauses. She doesn’t seem offended. Curious, perhaps. “I’m not sure where he is. I expected him back an hour ago.” She glances toward the hallway, then back. “Must have a lot to catch up on.”

An hour ago.

The words slide under Y/N’s ribs and press.

So he was supposed to come back. He just didn’t.

Her fingers tighten in the towel again.

Dana approaches another step.

Y/N shifts back on the bed, the movement dragging a dull ache from her calf. The pain steadies her. Pain is familiar. Pain doesn’t pretend to be anything else.

“What are you giving me?”

Dana lifts the syringe slightly, keeping it visible.

“It’s to help with the pain.”

Y/N shakes her head immediately.

“Jack already gave me pain medication locally. I won’t accept anything else.”

“Doctor Abbot left instructions.”

“Jack,” Y/N repeats, sharper than she intends.

Dana’s eyes flicker, then she nods once, accommodating the correction without comment.

“Jack left instructions,” she says. “I’m just trying to do what he told me.”

Y/N’s gaze locks on the syringe and the clear, harmless looking liquid. That means nothing.

“No.”

Dana’s expression softens, but her posture stays professional.

“I have your chart right here if you want to check for yourself.” She pulls a folded paper from her front pocket and offers it from a distance, not forcing Y/N to reach too close. “Medication list. Times. Doses.”

Y/N hesitates, then takes it. Her eyes scan the page quickly, over the list in neat handwriting. Antibiotics, pain control, fluids, labs, dressing changes. Jack’s name scribbled at the bottom in a sharp, impatient signature.

She recognizes enough medical language to know Dana is not inventing this. That doesn’t make letting someone inject her easier.

Her eyes return to the syringe and her stomach twists.

“I’m not in a lot of pain right now,” she tries.

Dana sighs quietly, almost sad.

“You have the right to refuse medication.” Her gaze gentles, but she doesn’t step closer. “But we really are trying to help.”

Y/N’s breath shudders out.

Help. Everyone loves that word. People can hide anything inside it.

“I understand,” Y/N says. “And I am grateful. But I’m fine. I don’t need it. Really.”

Dana studies her for a moment. Y/N holds her stare. The nurse must see the lie, the stiff way Y/N sits, the tension in her shoulders, the bruises on her arms and the sweat gathering near her hairline despite the clean clothes and washed skin. But Dana doesn’t press.

“Doctor Abbot won’t be happy,” she says, slipping the chart back into her pocket. “He was very clear on his instructions.”

Y/N’s mouth curves without warmth. “Wasn’t he clear on the ‘don’t bother her’ instructions too?”

For half a second, Dana looks surprised, before letting out a brief, bright laugh.

“I like you,” Dana says. “You have spunk.”

Y/N blinks.

Spunk.

The word is so old-world ridiculous it almost disarms her.

Dana points lightly toward her with the capped syringe. “Mark my words, you and I will get along just fine once you get used to this place a bit.” Her face shifts, humor settling into something more sober. “I understand the outside world is cruel. But it is easier to live within these walls.”

Y/N says nothing.

Dana doesn’t seem to expect an answer. She backs toward the door, still moving carefully, as if she understands too much sudden motion might break the fragile peace.

“I’ll note the refusal. If pain gets worse, call. If you feel feverish, dizzy, nauseous, or if the bandage bleeds through, call immediately.”

Y/N gives one stiff nod.

Dana leaves.

Y/N holds her breath until the latch clicks. Only then does air rush back into her lungs.

Her fingers ache from gripping the towel. She sets it on the table and stares at the closed door for a long time.

--

The next few hours crawl.

Y/N fights sleep like it is an enemy with hands. She sits on the bed, then moves near the window, and a few minutes after back on the bed. She studies every object in the room, deciding what could be used as a weapon: metal cup, IV pole, the chair if she can lift it fast enough. The crutches, obviously, are the best option. Useful for walking, better for swinging.

She checks the door three times.

It doesn’t lock from the inside. Of course it doesn't, because a hospital cannot function with patients barricading themselves in rooms. A trap cannot function that way either.

She can’t stand that both things are true.

The hallway remains active beyond the door. Footsteps pass now and then, voices lower themselves outside her room, as if everyone has been told not to disturb the feral new woman Jack dragged in bleeding. Once, a cart rolls by, one wheel squeaking in a rhythm that sets her teeth on edge. Once, someone laughs too loudly, and her whole body snaps tight before she realizes no danger follows.

It’s unsafe to sleep here. The door is unguarded, anyone could come in, anyone could inject her with anything, anyone could close a hand over her mouth before she fully wakes.

She knows her odds. Considering her injured leg, lack of knife and no real knowledge of the building’s layour or the number of people in it holding unknown weapons, and unknown rules, she wouldn’t make it. She could fight one person, maybe. Not two, not if they planned for it, not if they used sedatives. Not if the kindness is pretend and the real price comes later.

But Dana’s words keep circling too.

It is easier to live within these walls.

It might be true. Especially now. Outside, she wouldn’t last long. That is not self-pity, it’s math. Her leg is infected or close to it. She has stitches, antibiotics, food, water, and a bed only because Jack found her when he did. If he had arrived ten minutes later, the walkers in the grocery store would have torn her open. If he had not slowed for her in the woods, she might have collapsed before ever seeing these walls.

Doctor Abbot.

Dana called him that...The other nurse too.

And the memories, hazy but present, begin arranging themselves behind her eyes. Jack carrying her through the gate, voices calling out, his tone sharpening into command.

Open the gate. Now.

No one argued, or asked if he has permission. The way people in the hospital step around him, the way Dana speaks of his instructions as if they matter makes one thing clear: Jack Abbot is not simply a member of this place. He is high in the food chain. Maybe at the top.

That should make her feel safer, but it doesn’t. Power is power. It doesn't become harmless because the man holding it has beautiful eyes, a silver tongue and gave her a sandwich.

There is too much she doesn’t know about him or this community or the rules of entry he still needs to explain. This is a double-edged sword. He could be a friend or a foe, the cure or the poison.

Still, when the sky begins to dim, the ache in her chest is not only caution. Night drapes itself across the window slowly, turning the glass into a dark mirror. The community outside shifts from daylight movement to evening routine. Lamps flicker on along the path and warm dots of light appear in windows. Somewhere, smoke rises from a chimney, someone calls a child inside. The wind turbine turns and turns, patient in the dusk.

Five hours passed since she last saw Jack.

Her disappointment feels mortifying. It settles under her ribs with the weight of something she has no right to feel. He brought her here, he treated her, gave her blood from his own arm, left food, clothes, a room, instructions not to crowd her. In any rational version of the world, that should be enough.

But some part of her had believed him when he said he would come back. Some part of her had decided, foolishly, quietly, without any real cause, that his promise meant soon… That the man who looked at her like every tremor mattered wouldn’t leave her alone among strangers for this long.

Maybe he is busy. Maybe something happened. Maybe he is avoiding me because the intensity between us unsettled him too.

Or maybe I’m just another patient. A complicated one. A wounded woman pulled from outside, patched up, placed in a room, checked off a list. Nothing. No one.

Her lips tremble before she can stop them. She hates the feeling so much she nearly laughs. Part of her had thought he cared. There is no reason he should. He doesn’t know her… Not really. He has seen fragments among the blood, panic, sarcasm, stubbornness, a few ugly hints of a past she refuses to unwrap. None of that makes a person worth caring for. Not in this world, where caring is expensive and the currency is usually blood.

But if a man like Jack cares for me…

The thought is so dangerous she cannot finish it.

If he wants to protect her, truly protect her, she has a better chance of surviving. That is the ugliest truth. There’s no romance, no softness in it; only survival. A man like Jack, with authority, skill, weapons, walls, and people who obey when he speaks, could be the difference between life and death.

Wanting his protection feels strategic. Wanting his presence feels less forgivable.

When the clock shows ten, she accepts it.

He is not coming back tonight.

He brought her home, or what passes for home now, and left her in a place he believes is safe enough. That should be enough for him. Maybe it has to be. Leaders do not sit beside every patient. Doctors don’t hold every trembling hand. Men do not become responsible for every woman they save from the dead.

She knows all of this, and it still hurts.

Exhaustion finally drags her under. She lies down carefully, one hand near the crutch propped beside the bed. Her injured leg throbs beneath the bandage, but the pain has dulled into something heavy and distant.

She tells herself not to sleep deeply.

Only rest. Only a little. Only enough.

The dark takes her anyway.

--

Sometime during the night, she startles awake, no dream she can remember, just sudden violent consciousness.

Her body bolts upright before her mind catches up, breath tearing in and out too fast. The room swims in dim lamplight. Her hand shoots toward the crutch, fingers closing around it as her eyes search wildly, checking the door, the window, the bathroom, every chair and every corner.

Her gaze flickers back to the chair, realizing someone’s in it.

Dread drops like a stone into her stomach. A figure slouches in the armchair a few feet from her bed.

Her throat closes.

Someone got inside.

Someone entered while she slept, crossed the room, sat down, and she knew nothing. Her body floods with cold as her grip tightens on the crutch until her fingers hurt.

Blinking once, twice, the shadows settle, familiar and tender.

It’s Jack.

Relief leaves her in a shaky breath before she can stop it. He’s asleep. Actually asleep for the first time since they met.

His head tips back against the chair, throat exposed, lips parted slightly. A quiet snore escapes him every few breaths, soft enough that she might have missed it if the room were not so still. One arm rests across his stomach, the other hangs loosely over the side of the chair, hand relaxed but not entirely open, as if even unconscious he hasn’t forgotten how quickly the world can change.

He looks exhausted, but far from peaceful. Jack doesn’t seem built for peace. Even asleep, tension lingers in him. Worry lines mark his forehead, deeper in the lamplight. His brows draw faintly together, as though his dreams are full of problems that require solving. His jaw is shadowed with the same stubble, mouth softened by sleep in a way that makes him look less guarded, and somehow more dangerous to her heart.

He came back.

The thought is small and devastating. She lowers the crutch slowly. He’s wearing a white T-shirt now, something plain yet still extraordinary on him. The fabric stretches across his chest and shoulders, thin enough to hint at the muscle beneath without revealing everything. His arms are bare, and the dim lamplight loves them with indecent dedication. His biceps are solid, shaped by use rather than display. Veins run along his forearms, raised and blue-green beneath skin marked with a few fresh scrapes over his knuckles. His hands are large, nails cut short and clean, fingers slightly curled in sleep.

Doctor’s hands. Soldier’s hands. Hands that have killed. Hands that stitched me back together so gently I almost cried.

Her gaze travels lower before she can discipline it. He’s wearing camouflage pants, boots still on. The pants fit his thighs in ways that make her face heat even alone in the dimness. He looks absurdly capable sitting there half-crumpled in an armchair, like a man who intended to keep watch but could no longer fight the darkness from taking him.

Handsome is not the right word. Handsome is too tidy.

Jack is breathtaking even though he's scarred, tired, muscular, irritatingly observant, and asleep in her room because despite everything she told herself, he came back.

Her chest aches. Y/N lies down again slowly, careful not to jostle her leg. Her eyes remain on him.

She allows herself that luxury because he’s asleep and cannot catch her staring this time. She studies the angle of his nose, the relaxed shape of his mouth, the faint crease between his brows. She notices the way his shoulders still seem ready to move at the first wrong sound. She wonders what he looked like before all this, in a white coat, in uniform, laughing without checking exits.

She wonders what kind of man keeps returning to a woman he barely knows.

She wonders what kind of woman starts hoping he always will.

Jack’s quiet snore fills the space between one heartbeat and the next, and the room feels less like a trap with him in it.

It still doesn’t feel safe, not entirely, but she feels less alone.

Y/N lets her cheek settle against the pillow. Her breathing slows. The crutch remains within reach, the door remains closed and Jack remains in the chair.

Her eyes grow heavy.

The last thing she sees before sleep takes her again is his hand twitching slightly, as though even in dreams he’s reaching for something he refuses to lose.

Luciscura ~ "Light born from shadows" ("The inner light that grows brighter after enduring dark times, a reminder that even shadows hold wisdom.")

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The wooden path creaks under their boots. It is not a road anymore, rather a memory of a trail that no one took care of and elements have worn out, claimed as their own.

Narrow planks stretch along the edge of cracked asphalt, half-swallowed by wet leaves, moss, and weeds that have had years to patiently grow, returning it back into nature it once belonged to. The old highway runs beside them in broken gray strips, buckled where tree roots have pushed through, littered with rusted cars and pale streetlights.

Some of the vehicles still have bodies inside, some are walkers, others just remains strapped into seats by seatbelts no one ever unfastened.

The sky sits low and colorless above them, pressing damp air into Y/N’s lungs. She walks three paces behind Jack; not two, not four, exactly three, because three gives her enough distance to see his hands, the gun at his waist, his well-rounded ass, the line of his shoulders, and the slight hitch in his right leg that becomes more noticeable the further they get from the city. Three paces give her time to react if he turns too quickly, for they give her a clean angle for her knife if necessary. It also keeps her from looking too afraid... or so she hopes.

Every few minutes, he glances back over his shoulder, not long enough to stare, just enough to check on her, weigh her breathing, check the limp she is trying and failing to hide. His eyes flicker down to her injured calf, then back to the path, his lips most often pressed in a thin line beneath the silver-shadowed stubble on his jaw.

They have not spoken much since leaving the mall.

The first stretch had been silent, as they were too close to the city, too close to many broken storefronts and blind windows, to many alleys where the dead could gather and corner them.

Jack had led her through service roads, behind abandoned apartments, through a collapsed fence covered in ivy and old warning signs. He moved like someone who knows which noises matter and which ones can be ignored, rooted in years of experiences she lacks.

Once, he held up a hand and she froze so fast her bad leg nearly buckled. A walker dragged itself across a parking lot twenty yards ahead of them, both legs gone, fingers scraping along the pavement. Jack waited until it passed. He did not waste energy on stopping it.

That unsettled her more than killing it would have.

Mercy is rare now, though she wouldn’t call it mercy. Mercy would be cutting its existence short, but Jack didn’t do that. No…he thought about it for a second, only to put away his knife, choosing not to risk it.

A few hours later, the buildings thinned and asphalt gave way to damp earth and trees with black branches scratching at the sky.

The air changed in the woods, the scent of the dead was replaced by leaf mold, wet bark, mushrooms pushing through decay…natural, almost clean, grounding in a way that feels forbidden these days. It should have brought a sense of calm after everything she had seen so far, but it made her skin crawl instead.

Even now, she’s on edge, waiting for things to go awry, the way they always do. Somewhere deep in the trees, a crow screams. Y/N flinches before she can stop herself, holding her breath afterward, reminded that any loud noises can draw unwanted attention from both the living and the dead.

Jack’s head turns slightly. She glares at the back of his skull, daring him to look at her with pity, to underestimate her, to think of her as a bird with a broken wing needing someone to nurse it back to health.

There's no pity in him, only curiosity he sheds immediately, turning his attention to the road once more. His right leg drags again, barely, but she sees the fraction of hesitation before his foot lands clearly this time. He’s careful with the distribution of his weight. Whatever’s wrong with his leg is not fresh pain. He’s learned to live with it, to survive it, to carry it with an air of arrogance she can’t help but respect.

She studies him for another minute, waiting to see if he says anything himself, trying to keep the silence for as long as possible, but she’s always been too talkative for her own good. Finally, she caves.

“Are you hurt?”

Jack looks back. A wry smile pulls at one side of his mouth, carving a crease into his cheek. It transforms him in a way she resents, because the smile softens him, and with it, Jack becomes less of an ominous stranger, and more a man who knows exactly how much trouble his handsome face has caused in his lifetime.

“Are you worried about me, sweetheart?”

Y/N rolls her eyes so hard it nearly hurts. “I’m worried about how long this trip is going to take if you’re injured.”

His smile lingers, then he stops moving.

The sudden stillness snaps through her nerves. She halts too, fingers twitching near the knife at her hip. Jack turns just enough to face her, one boot still angled toward the path ahead. She asked a question, one he had asked earlier as well. There's no reason to stop, but he stops nonetheless. Part of her is years back in a different forest, watching a man make the same stop under the guise of a conversation, making her heartbeat quicken.

She tells herself Jack isn't the same man, that he deserves the grace of not being measured to lesser beings who had nothing but evil in their rotten hearts, but the wounded part of her cares not for what logic says. The parts of her that were broken and found themselves living in eternal darkness of a winter she nearly died in cannot forget, despite the needs a heart carries.

“Do you need a break?” he asks.

He studies her for a second, then steps aside, letting her catch up properly. It feels worse than him walking ahead, because it means he’s the one concerned now, waiting on her, giving her time to rest even if she didn’t ask for it.

She lifts an eyebrow. “Do you?”

Jack’s eyes drop to her mouth for half a second before he looks away. Not enough to be crude, but it’s enough to be noticed. He wets his lower lip, then shakes his head.

“We have a long walk ahead of us. Breaks only when absolutely necessary if we want to make it before night.”

“Before night,” she echoes.

“That’s usually when it gets dark.”

“I know what night is.”

“Good. We’ve established the facts.”

Her lips press in a thin line, suppressing a smile. She hates that some small, exhausted part of her wants to laugh, to connect with him. Humor is dangerous because it makes people seem less likely to hurt you, and she has learned that monsters can be funny when they want to be. Sometimes they are funniest right before they put their hands on you.

Jack starts walking again.

She follows.

The woods thicken around them. Branches interlock overhead, turning the afternoon dim and greenish-gray. Rain has not started yet, but she can smell it in the air. Her calf throbs with every step, pulsing constantly so much that makes the edges of her vision sharpen and blur in turns. She keeps her face blank, refusing agony’s request to escape, to be seen.

Pain is information, a warning sign to keep close to her chest. Pain tells her what she can still do and how much it will cost, but if she shows how much pain she’s in, it can also be used against her. Weaker she gets, the target on her back grows bigger.

Jack slows without looking back, not enough to insult her, enough that she realizes he knows exactly how much energy she spends on every step.

The irritation that rises in her is immediate, and easier to handle than gratitude. No one does anything out of the goodness of their hearts anymore, and the kinder he acts, the less she trusts it.

“So,” she speaks, because silence gives her thoughts too much space, “your group.”

“Yeah?”

“How many?”

“Enough.”

“Specific.”

“You ask everyone for population data after knowing them half a day?”

“Only strange men who lure me into the woods.”

He gives her an entertained sideways glance. “Lure is a strong word.”

“You did say there’s clean water and food.”

“Fair. That’s practically seduction now.”

She snorts despite herself, then regrets it when his expression warms.

A seed of something tiny and inconvenient slips into the space between them. It’s far from trust or comfort; perhaps it's the awareness that his humor has edges like hers, that his darkness does not hide in corners pretending it’s light. It lives in him comfortably, like an old scar under a sleeve, and she appreciates the honesty of it far too much.

It's easy to get lost in their similarities, comparing the little things until he endears himself to her, but she can't let her defenses fall yet. So, despite the way her heart thunders when his gaze meets hers, she looks away first.

Jack steps over a fallen branch. “Most of us have been together since the outbreak.”

“Since the beginning?”

“Yeah. At least half of us.”

“That’s a long time to keep people together.”

“People like walls, food, and not being dead.”

Raising her brows, she continues, “That’s all?”

“No. But it helps.”

She watches his shoulders as he moves; broad beneath the black T-shirt, steady despite the oddness in his leg. He carries his backpack like it weighs nothing. There is a tension in him that never fully leaves, not even when he jokes. His body is always listening, waiting for the other shoe to drop, much like her.

“Tight-knit, then,” she murmurs.

“Very.”

Her fingers rub absently over the handle of her knife. “And the entry rules?”

Jack does not slow this time. “Don’t worry about that too much.”

The woods seem to quiet as her heart drops and she stops walking. He takes two more steps before realizing she is no longer behind him. Then he turns.

Rain-dark leaves shift under her boots as she plants herself on the path, trying to swallow despite the sudden dryness in her throat.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” he replies, careful now, “it’s nothing to worry about before we arrive.”

Her heart gives an ugly kick under her ribs, warning her. “That’s a perfect time to worry.”

A dry chuckle leaves him, but it does not reach his eyes. “Having second thoughts?”

She gulps. The question is simple enough. Her mind begins moving faster than the trees, faster than the distant crows, faster than Jack’s steady gaze.

He is leading her to his people, but he has not told her what the rules are or where exactly they are going. He’s been vague the entire time, purposefully and he says it’s nothing to worry about as if they’re not living in a lawless world that has no safety measures in place for those who trust easily.

He saved her life, yes. He gave her water, slowed down when her leg started betraying her, kept his distance as if he understood coming any closer would spike her anxiety. Kindness is all he's shown her, yet she can't shake the feeling there's more underneath, and that unsettles her.

There are only two possibilities. Either the entry rules are simple, and Jack, for whatever reason, has already decided she fits them. Or the rules are atrocious, and if she fails, they cannot let her leave. Not with the location of their safe place sitting fresh in her head. Not with knowledge of the path, the distance, and the man who brought her. If she had walls, food, medicine, people to protect, she would not let a stranger wander away with a map tucked behind her eyes.

She would be kind about it, maybe, make their death quick, but the death itself would be non-negotiable. Is that what awaits her?

She agreed to follow him, mostly because she knew her leg is slowing her down and it wouldn't be long before it takes her life, either through infection or simply making her an easy target for whatever crosses her path first after she can no longer keep going. However, the broken part of her whispers it was a mistake. Perhaps infection would be kinder than whatever they might do to her.

Y/N looks over her shoulder. The road is no longer visible except in broken flashes through the trees. The mall is hours behind them and the city is an open mouth at her back.

How long until dark? How far until shelter? Could she take off now, lose him in the woods, find some place to hole up before night swallows the trail?

Would he follow?

The hair on the back of her neck prickles.

She turns toward him again and he is inches away. A breath tears out of her in an almost scream, but dies down on the way from her lungs to her throat. The knife is in her hand before thought catches up; muscle memory…Blood memory. Her arm snaps upward, aimed for the soft place beneath his chin.

Jack moves faster as his hand clamps around her wrist, sparking a fierce pain that forces her hand open. The knife drops, hitting the floor with a hollow, echoing clatter that feels deafening in the sudden space between them.

Shaking, her gaze snaps from the fallen weapon up to his eyes, trapped between terror and the suffocating realization of how close she just came to killing him and how easy it is for him to overpower her.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he growls.

She cannot answer. Her chest heaves, air enters, leaves, does nothing. Her body is on a lockdown, all alarms blaring bright red with heart pounding aimlessly, her skin turns colder as her stomach twists with dread.

Her trapped wrist burns in his grip, and the pressure of his fingers sends panic ripping through her faster than the walkers in the mall ever could, because walkers do not look you in the eye… Jack does.

His hazel eyes are no longer amused. They are sharp, analytical, stripped of all flirtation. He stalks her backward until her spine slams into a tree. Rough bark bites through her jacket, pinning her. Before she can draw a breath, he presses in close, so close she breathes in his heat, overwhelmed by his sheer size and the suffocating realization of his strength; the living force of a man who could overpower her if he chose.

Her free hand curls, nails digging into her palm.

“What,” he repeats, quieter and more dangerous, “do you think you’re doing?”

Her lips part, but nothing comes out. They tremble instead and she hates herself for it. If she has to perish, why must it be in a cowardly way, showing fear in front of her killer, letting him enjoy it?

Jack’s gaze lingers on her shaky lips, and something in his face changes. He does not soften exactly, but she can see the gears turning behind those hazel hues. His grip remains firm, but the anger drains from his eyes by a degree, replaced by a grim awareness that’s heavier than fury.

“If I let you go,” he asks, voice low, “are you going to try to attack me again?”

She shakes her head once, quickly enough to ensure she means it.

“Good.”

His face is close enough that his breath grazes her skin and for once it’s not sour or rotten flesh of a wallker, rather warm, human, faintly minty from something he must have scavenged or chewed during the walk.

“Because I am not trying to hurt you,” he continues. Each word is controlled, measured, held on a tight leash. “But if you pull a knife on me again, you will regret it. Understood?”

She nods.

He releases her immediately. There’s no lingering pressure, no shove, no added punishment hidden inside the movement. He steps back one pace, then another, giving her room to breathe.

Y/N stays against the tree, wrist drawn close to her chest. Her skin still remembers his hand, the place where he held her throbs with her pulse. Her knife lies between them, small and stupid looking on the wet planks.

Jack drags in a breath through his nose, nostrils flaring as he visibly reins himself in.

“Why did you do that?” he rasps.

She stares at him, carefully picking her words. She's always so careful with him; it strips more anger from him, turning it to exasperation.

He looks angry, yes, but not at her. Not entirely. The frustration in him is pulled toward some invisible target beyond her shoulder, toward whoever taught her to react like that or whatever made a sudden nearness worse than the dead.

Clenching her jaw, she swallows thickly. “You took me by surprise,” she says through gritted teeth. “I swore to myself no one was ever going to take me by surprise again.”

The words make her sound smaller spoken out loud, hurt in a way that darkens Jack’s expression.

“Someone hurt you before?”

She nods. If she says anything, too much might come out: faces, the blood, begging, the weight of a hand over her mouth, the sounds of men laughing as they take what they want.

Jack’s jaw flexes. He looks away for a second, and she sees it then, the anger sharpening into something colder. This isn’t performative outrage nor dreaded pity. Jack is filled with a quiet, ugly rage aimed at ghosts he has never met.

That frightens her too. Everything does.

Crouching, he picks up her knife by the blade. Slowly, he turns the handle toward her as an offering, a calculated risk he’s willing to take.

“If that’s what you’re worried about,” he says, “don’t be. I…” He pauses, mouth pressing into a thin line, as if he hates what the next words are and he resents needing to say them. “My group doesn’t hurt women.”

She looks at the knife, then at him as her hand trembles when she reaches for it. Jack’s eyes drop to her fingers, then lift again, but he doesn’t mention it. She’s grateful for that small kindness too.

Takeing the weapon, she slides it back into place with more care than necessary.

“Everyone hurts women,” she states. The words leave her before she can soften them.

Jack bites his lower lip, not flirtatiously now, as if keeping something violent behind his teeth. He turns slightly, staring into the trees.

“Not us.”

She does not move. Her back remains pressed against the trunk, bark digging between her shoulder blades, keeping her upright when her legs would rather fold. He says his group does not hurt women, but she knows better than to believe any man’s clean version of himself.

“And what happens if I don’t meet the requirements for your group entry?” she questions. Her voice comes out steadier than she feels and she doesn’t regret it. “I don’t think you’d let an outsider walk away with knowledge of your location.”

Jack turns fully toward her. His head tilts left, just a fraction. “You think we’d kill you?”

She says nothing, allowing him to study her face, letting the silence speak for itself.

A muscle jumps in his cheek. “I won’t let anyone send you away,” he vows, the certainty in his tone making her insides ache.

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

“You can’t.”

“I can.”

“Why?”

For the first time since she met him, he does not have an answer ready. His eyes hold hers too long. There is something behind them now, something guarded and possessive and badly hidden beneath reason. It is there for only a second, but she sees it.

She always sees the thing men try to bury. It was a necessary skill to learn.

“I promise you,” he says, softer, “there’s only one thing you’ll need to worry about. And I don’t think it’s impossible to do.”

Her eyebrows knit as she pushes herself away from the tree and takes a cautious step toward him.

His gaze follows every movement.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Jack.”

He folds his arms behind his back, giving her an infuriatingly calm look. “I never do.”

“Must be nice, being that sure of yourself.”

“It has its moments.”

Her eyes narrow.

His mouth twitches, but the humor fades quickly. “You’ll be a good addition to the group,” he says. “They’ll see it, just like I do.”

“Like you do,” she repeats.

“Yes.”

“You’ve known me for a few hours.”

“I’ve learned a lot in a few hours.”

“Like what?”

“That you’re stubborn. Suspicious, which is not a bad thing. Good with knives… Bad at accepting help. Injured worse than you admit. Hungry. Tired. Smart enough to be dangerous and scared enough to be unpredictable.”

Her throat closes up at the accuracy of his assessment.

“As long as you haven’t killed anyone,” he adds, almost lightly, “it’ll be fine.”

Her stomach drops so violently she nearly sways and a nervous laugh bursts out of her.

“Yeah,” she says too brightly. “Great.”

Jack watches her. “What?” he asks.

“Nothing.”

“That didn’t sound like nothing.”

“It sounded like a laugh. Is laughing a crime in your group?”

“Right…a laugh….”

She gives him a smile with no warmth in it. “Lighten up. You really shouldn’t frown so much.”

His eyes do not leave her. For one horrible second, she imagines telling him the truth: that killing someone in the old world made you a murderer, but killing someone now means you get to live to see the next morning. That the first person she killed was not a walker, that she’s killed enough to never feel like her hands are clean, enough that she can hardly look at her own reflection.

But truth is not a coin she spends on strangers, especially when safety is concerned.

So she starts walking. After a moment, Jack follows, or maybe leads. It’s difficult to tell when neither of them trusts the other at their back.

They do not stop.

Jack keeps to his word. No breaks unless absolutely necessary, and apparently necessary means someone bleeding out, bitten, or dead. Her calf becomes a separate creature attached to her body for the sole purpose of tormenting her. The ache deepens, then sharpens, then settles into a grinding pulse that chews through every thought.

The forest goes on and on. Bare branches lace overhead, thin and black against the dark sky streaked with stars that light their way. Autumn has stripped most of the color from the world, leaving behind copper leaves turned slick with rain and mud that sucks at her boots. The temperature drops by degrees so subtle she notices only when her fingers stop bending properly.

Jack slows whenever she does. He pretends not to pace himself for her benefit, which only irritates her to keep walking out of spite.

That lasts until she slips on a patch of wet moss and goes down hard. Her knees hit mud first, then her palms. Pain flashes up her left leg, bright and vicious. For a moment she stays there, breathing through her teeth, hair falling out of her messy bun and around her face.

In front of her, Jack makes a sound. She looks up only to realize he is laughing, not loudly or cruelly, just enough to show he’s entertained.

She glares as he speaks.

“Careful. The ground’s wet.”

Her mouth falls open. “Oh, is it?”

“Thought you might’ve missed that.”

“You are a terrible person.”

“That sounds almost like a compliment coming from you, sweetheart.”

She pushes herself upright with as much dignity as mud allows, which is very little. Jack offers a hand she ignores. He leaves it there another second in case she changes her mind, then lets it drop, something unreadable crossing his features before he turns away.

Good, she tells herself. Better. Do not get used to his hand appearing when you fall.

The first raindrop lands on her cheek an hour later, then the sky opens.

Cold rain pours through the trees, thick and relentless, turning the path slicker beneath their boots. Within minutes, loose strands of her hair are plastered to her neck and her jacket is soaked through. Water seeps beneath her collar, trickles down her spine, slides into her boots. The chill does not just touch her skin, it invades, threads itself between her ribs, sits inside her bones.

Her teeth begin to chatter. She clenches her jaw until it aches. Jack glances back at her and she glares at him in response, before he can say anything.

He adjusts his pace again, matching hers while pretending the change is natural. He could go faster. She sees it in the impatient restraint of his stride, in the way his body angles forward and then checks itself. He is slowing down for her without complaining.

There’s no teasing now. He’s just doing it, without asking for anything in return. That small mercy scrapes against something raw and beaten bloody inside her, a wound she never quite knew how to heal.

The woods darken once rainy clouds fully cover the stars. Shadows thicken between the trees, the path ahead blurs into wet black planks and shifting leaves. Every branch becomes a hand, every stump becomes a crouched figure, every sound is teeth until proven otherwise.

A low groan drifts from somewhere to their left. Y/N stops breathing as Jack’s hand catches hers. The contact is sudden and firm, his palm warm despite the rain. She stiffens, but before she can yank away, he leans close enough for his voice to reach her under the downpour.

“Quiet.”

There is no flirtation in it, no softness, just a command. For once, she obeys without resentment.

Another groan sounds. A walker staggers between the trees twenty feet away, then another behind it. Rain slicks their ruined faces, making the gray rot shine. One has hair plastered over its skull in sparse strings. The other’s lower lip hangs in a torn flap, exposing dark gums and broken teeth. They drift aimlessly at first, drawn by nothing, then pause as if tasting the air.

Jack pulls her slowly backwards, not toward the path, but off it, and into the brush.

Y/N’s pulse turns frantic again, but she keeps her feet careful. Her fingers tighten around his hand before she realizes it. He glances down at the contact, then back at the dead. If he is amused, he hides it well.

The walkers shuffle closer to the trail, heads twitching, mouths closing around the rain. One slips in the mud and falls against a tree, leaving a smear of blackened flesh on the bark. It does not feel pain, does not understand weather, injury, exhaustion. It will keep moving until something destroys the brain or the body rots too far to obey the curse inside it.

Jack waits. Y/N waits with him. Rain drums over leaves. Her breath is trapped painfully in her chest, and her injured leg trembles from the strain of standing still, but she does not shift. She does not make a sound.

At last, the walkers veer away, following some noise deeper in the trees. Only when their groans fade does Jack move and he doesn’t let go of her hand. She tells herself it is because of the dark, because of the rain, because the path is slippery, because if he wanted to hurt her, he already could have.

None of those thoughts help as much as they should. The world becomes rain, mud, Jack’s hand, and the dull silver flash of his hair whenever lightning flickers somewhere behind the clouds. He leads her off the wooden path and through a narrow trail she would never have seen on her own. Branches claw at her sleeves, wet leaves slap her face. The ground dips unexpectedly, and she nearly falls again, but his grip tightens.

“Almost there,” he murmurs.

“You said that twenty minutes ago.”

“I lied for morale.”

“I have no morale left,” she remarks.

“Then it was for mine.”

Despite the cold, despite the pain, despite the fear sitting behind her ribs like a crouched animal, something in her chest twitches, a sliver of softness that annoys her as soon as it appears.

The cottage appears out of the dark. It’s small, crooked, half-buried in trees. Its roof sags beneath moss and fallen branches, windows boarded from inside except one narrow gap near the door. She would have walked past it in daylight. In this rain, it is a miracle or a trap, or possibly both. Most shelters are.

Jack releases her hand only to draw his knife. He gestures for her to stay back. She does, though every instinct rebels at having her between him and a closed door.

He checks the perimeter first with fast, practiced movements before returning to the door. He listens with one ear close to the wood, then pushes the door open slowly. The hinges complain and they both freeze.

There’s no answering groan, no shuffle, no wet, eager snap of teeth. Jack slips inside. Y/N waits on the porch, knife ready, heart hammering in her throat.

A moment later, his voice comes from within. “Clear.”

She enters. The cottage smells like damp wood, cold ash, and dust. It is a single room with an adjacent bathroom, mostly empty except for a stone fireplace, a few broken chairs, a stack of dusty crates, a small wardrobe and a narrow cot with no mattress. Someone has used the place before, recently enough that the fireplace is arranged with dry kindling beneath a tarp in the corner. Jack’s place, or maybe a stopping point.

Another thing he did not mention.

The door closes behind her while the rain batters the roof. For a few seconds, neither of them speaks. Then Jack sets his backpack down and starts undressing.

Y/N blinks. “What are you doing?”

“Getting dry.”

His jacket comes off first, heavy with water. He hangs it over the back of a broken chair, then reaches for the hem of his black T-shirt.

Her eyebrows shoot up. The shirt peels away from his body with a wet drag of fabric over skin. Her cheeks darken at the sight.

Jack is not merely fit. That would be too polite a word. He is built with the kind of strength that does not come from vanity. Those broad shoulders are broader without clothes, his arms are thick and his chest is defined by labor, adorned with light silver hairs. His stomach is firm, marked by the subtle lines of muscle that shift as he bends toward his pack. His skin is scattered with scars that catch the faint light from the doorway. A pale line cuts across one side of his ribs, another marks his shoulder. There is a small round scar near his upper chest that looks too much like a bullet’s old kiss.

The silver in his hair should make him look older.

It does not, nor does it lessen his beauty. If anything, it makes the rest of him more dangerous somehow. This is a man who has lived long enough to survive more than a few injuries and remained standing…a man who knows exactly what his body can do because it has already done terrible, necessary things.

Y/N’s mouth goes dry.

Jack crouches near the fireplace, bare back to her, and begins arranging the kindling. Muscles move beneath his skin with each practiced motion. His biceps flex when he reaches for the flint. Rainwater tracks down the ridges of his spine before disappearing at the waistband of his jeans.

She looks away, then immediately looks back. If she could look away, it would be far easier to pretend she isn’t attracted to him in every way humanly possible. It would allow her to cling to her fears and hatred for the humans that remains in this world, but he’s disarmingly charming and that is the worst thing he could be right now.

He strikes a spark once, twice and the kindling catches on the third try, flame licking weakly at first, then stronger as he feeds it. Orange light blooms across the room. It paints his shoulders gold, deepens the shadows along his scars, turns the cottage from corpse-cold to something almost livable.

When he glances at her over his shoulder, he finds her standing near the door, arms wrapped tight around herself, soaked through and shaking so hard her teeth chatter audibly. His gaze drops to her trembling fingers, then to the puddle forming around her boots.

“You can take those off,” he says. “I won’t touch you.”

Heat rises into her face despite the cold. “I don’t have a backup,” she replies, voice unsteady. “My backpack isn’t exactly waterproof.”

Jack shrugs one shoulder. The motion shifts firelight across his back. “Like I said, I won’t touch you.” He looks back at the growing flames. “I won’t even turn around the entire night if that makes it better.”

Y/N studies him. His face is angled away now, jaw set, gaze fixed on the fire with almost exaggerated discipline. The offer is meant to comfort her, she’s certain. Instead, it makes her soften and frustrated.

She can still feel his hand around her wrist, his warning at the tree, his anger, but she remembers his immediate release, his palm open around the water bottle, his grip steadying her in the rain. Nothing about him fits into one category, and that is what makes him dangerous. A monster is easier when it looks like one. A good man is easier when the world still has room for goodness. Jack is neither simple nor safe enough for either box.

Her shivering worsens, reminding her pride is not insulation.

“Don’t look,” she mutters.

“I’m not.”

“You better not.”

“I’m fifty, not fifteen.”

“That doesn’t make you blind.”

“No,” he says, a smile hidden in his voice, “just experienced enough not to get myself stabbed over curiosity.”

She pauses, then, despite herself, exhales a soft, breathless laugh. The sound is so small the fire nearly eats it.

Dropping her bag first, then jacket, the fabric hits the floor with a wet slap. Her fingers are clumsy on the buttons of her shirt, numb and stiff, but she manages to peel it off. Her T-shirt underneath is soaked beyond saving. It clings to her skin like a second layer of cold.

She hesitates, glancing at him. Jack remains facing the fire. He’s still. Too still, maybe, but he keeps his word.

Stripping off the shirt, letting her hair down, she stands in only her bra and damp, muddy jeans, arms immediately crossing over her chest. The cold bites harder without the wet fabric’s useless protection. Goosebumps rise along her skin, her teeth knock together.

Jack hears it. Without turning, he gestures toward his spot near the fire.

“You can take my place. It’s closer to the heat.”

She frowns at his back. “What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“That your medical advice?”

“Just trying to help.”

She should let him move, take the warm spot, keep distance, keep her knife within reach, keep every line clearly drawn. Instead, when he starts to shift away, something in her moves before sense can stop it.

Her hand lands on his shoulder. His skin is hot under her palm, solid, alive. It’s been so long since she willfully touched another human being, having no intention hiding behind it.

Jack goes still, so does Y/N.

The contact is a mistake, she knows it instantly. Knows it from the way his muscles tense beneath her fingers, from the way her own breath is caught behind her teeth, from the sudden vicious awareness of how close they are in this tiny room while rain pounds the roof and the dead roam somewhere in the dark beyond the walls.

“Don’t be silly,” she says, quieter than she means to. “Stay. Get warm.”

He does not look at her. His gaze stays fixed on the fire, flames reflected in his eyes.

“Are you sure?” His voice is rougher now. “I don’t mind.”

Something about his restraint, that careful refusal to take advantage of proximity, knocks against all the locked doors inside her. Not hard enough to open them, just enough to remind her they exist.

She should remove her hand. Instead, she lifts her fingers to his chin. The touch is barely there as the tip of her index finger nudges him gently, turning his face toward hers.

Another mistake, bigger, because now he is looking at her fully.

His hazel eyes are darker in the firelight, ringed with exhaustion and something more dangerous than desire because it contains patience. He is close enough that she can smell rain on him, smoke beginning to cling to his skin, and beneath it a clean, woodsy scent that reminds her absurdly of pine needles crushed under boots. They’re close enough that if either of them breathes wrong, their mouths might nearly touch.

Her heart climbs into her throat and sits there, reckless and loud.

Jack’s gaze drops to her lips, only for a moment, then back to her eyes, but he doesn’t move closer.

“Stay with me,” she says quietly, too quietly to be strategic, too honest for it to be safe.

Jack’s face shifts, the sarcasm gone now, all the charm burned down to something bare and watchful. His eyes search hers as if looking for the trap, which is almost funny. Both of them are half-frozen and armed, each wondering which one is the more dangerous animal.

Outside, something groans in the rain. The sound drags itself along the walls.

Y/N’s hand falls from his chin. Jack turns his head toward the door and the spell breaks, but not cleanly. It leaves a residue behind, heat where her fingers touched him, awareness where distance used to be.

Another groan follows, scraping closer now.

Jack rises smoothly. One second he is beside the fire, too close, his eyes still caught on hers. The next, every part of him changes. His spine straightens, his head angles toward the window, his expression hollows out into focus as he’s reaching for his knife.

“Stay behind me,” he murmurs.

This time, she does not argue. She grabs her own blade from where she left it near her bag, bare skin prickling in the firelight, body caught between cold, fear, and the echo of a memory too painful to cling to. Y/N’s fingers close tighter around the knife. Her body is already ahead of her, heart climbing hard against her ribs. The borrowed warmth of the fire is gone from her skin in an instant as fear opens its black umbrella inside her chest.

The dead are outside, the man is inside, and somehow, Y/N is no longer sure which danger will change her more.

Jack lifts one hand in a command without sound.

Stay.

He steps closer to the window, bare feet soundless against the floorboards, knife held low at his side. The firelight plays across his back as he moves, cutting amber over muscles and scars, then losing him to shadow. He approaches the narrow gap between the boards and leans just enough to look out.

The groan comes again, closer this time.

Y/N does not move, not because she is obedient by nature. She is not. Obedience was one of the first things the new world punished out of her. But Jack does not panic, and that gives her something solid to press her own panic against. If there is anything she has learned in the hours since the grocery store, it is that Jack knows how to survive. He understands when to move, when to wait, when to kill, when not to waste the effort.

If he is not alarmed, she refuses to unravel first.

Still, her body does not get the message. Her pulse flutters at the base of her throat, her shoulders pull tight, waiting for the dead to strike.

Jack looks through the window for another few seconds, then lifts his index finger to his mouth.

Quiet.

The gesture should annoy her, but it doesn’t. She gives one small nod.

Outside, the walker passes in front of the cabin. She sees it through the gap. Only pieces at first; a gray hand sliding along the wall, nails torn down to black crescents, a soaked sleeve hanging from an arm too thin to belong to anything alive. Then its face drifts into view, pale and collapsed beneath strings of hair plastered to its skull. Rain runs over its slack mouth, its lips have peeled back enough to expose dark gums and teeth that snap lazily at nothing. One cheek has rotted open, so when its jaw opens, Y/N can see the tendons moving like wet cords.

It doesn’t know they are inside.

Its head sways, cloudy eyes rolling without sight, nose twitching as if the body still believes smell can save it from death. The dead in this world do not hunt with intelligence, they do not plan, they do not hate. That might be the worst part. At least, hate would make them human. This is only hunger, endless and stupid and patient.

The walker bumps against the cabin wall. Y/N’s breath snags. Jack glances back. Their eyes meet across the room. His gaze is steady, calm, practical, asking something of her without words.

Breathe quieter.

She tries. It scrapes her throat raw.

The walker lingers near the wall, groaning into the rain. Its fingertips drag along the wood, leaving streaks of mud and something darker. A second sound rises farther away, another dead voice answering from somewhere among the trees. Then the first walker turns, distracted by its own kind, and begins to stagger away until its outline dissolves into the rain.

Jack waits longer than she expects. He doesn’t relax when the noise fades. He stays by the window, listening, his knife still in his hand, his shoulders lifted with controlled tension. Only when several minutes pass without another sound does he lower the blade.

Slowly, he comes back toward her.

Y/N’s gaze betrays her as it falls to the scar just beneath his left clavicle. The fire makes it clearer now. A small, pale mark set into his skin. It’s not a clean line from a knife, it’s rounder, old, damage that closed over but wasn’t erased. It pulls at her attention with a strange gravity. Definitely a bullet, she concludes and she wonders who put it there. More importantly, she wonders if they survived him.

Jack catches her staring.

Her eyes snap away, but too late. Heat floods her face, climbing up her neck, filling her cheeks with embarrassing warmth that has nothing to do with the fire. She fixes her attention on the floorboards as if they have suddenly become fascinating.

Jack’s mouth shifts as he looks away swiftly as promised. He presses his lips together, but the shape of a small smile still shows, self-satisfied, almost boyish, a smirk he is trying not to let off its leash.

The fact that he is pleased makes her want to throw the knife at him. The fact that she might miss because her hands are shaking makes her want to sit down.

“This cabin is pretty secure,” he whispers, settling near the fire again. “We just have to stay quiet.”

She gives a curt nod. Then she turns her eyes to the flames, because looking at him is apparently making itself into a poor survival strategy.

The fire snaps softly, eating through the kindling, throwing shadows up the cabin walls. It should be enough to warm her, but it’s not. Her body is still soaked; her wet jeans cling to her legs, her bra feels like ice against her skin. Goosebumps pebble across her arms, and every few seconds, a shiver runs through her hard enough to hurt.

Jack notices. He sighs through his nose and stands. Her gaze follows him despite herself.

He crosses to a small wardrobe on the far side of the room. It is tucked half behind a stack of crates, warped from how old it is, one door hanging crooked on a rusted hinge. He moves with his usual careful purpose, but she cannot stop herself from tracking every motion. The anxiety in her skull whispers that his back turned could be a trick, that the cabinet could hold rope, drugs, a second gun, something worse.

She tries to make the watching look casual, but nothing feels casual when a half-naked man with a soldier’s posture is rummaging through a wardrobe in a cabin he never mentioned.

Jack looks inside, and pulls out dark fabric. He turns back and she stiffens.

He approaches slowly, because he knows now that sudden movements have already cost him once. When the fabric touches her shoulders, she nearly jumps out of her skin.

It is only a hoodie, soft from age, dry, faintly dusty. But his fingertips brush the bare skin near her collarbone as he drapes it around her, and the brief contact travels through her like a lit fuse. Her breath falters, her heart kicks painfully, every nerve wakes at once, not knowing whether to reach toward him or scream.

Jack pulls back instantly.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, hands lifting away from her as if burned. “I should have asked. Or warned you.”

“No, no.” She shakes her head too quickly, swallowing against the tightness in her throat. “I’m just jumpy. It’s me -”

“No.”

The word cuts gently, but firmly. Her gaze finds his. That is almost another mistake for his eyes are soft, and not in the way men force softness to seem harmless, and they’re not filled with sympathy or someone pleased with themselves for doing the bare minimum…No. This is rougher around the edges, almost reluctant. It makes him look less like the man who hauled her over shelves and pinned her wrist to keep from being stabbed, and more like someone who knows exactly how a body learns to flinch.

“No, it’s not,” he continues. His voice is low enough not to frighten her. “You can’t help it. This one’s on me. I’ll try to do better.”

Something in her chest tightens so sharply it feels like pain. There are responses to that, clever ones, defensive ones, cruel little jokes she could use to cover the way his words have found a crack in her armor and slipped through like smoke.

None of them come.

She inhales, the breath shallow and unsteady, then nods. “Thank you,” she whispers.

The words feel unfamiliar. Jack’s expression flickers, almost like he wants to say something else. He doesn’t, choosing to return his focus to the fire, giving her his back again with deliberate care.

Y/N wraps the hoodie tighter around herself once she realizes the zipper is broken. It smells like the cabin at first, like dry wood and traces of old dust, but beneath that, something else rises with her warmth; pine, smoke, rain.

Jack.

Her throat bobs. She glances at him from the corner of her eye. He crouches beside the fire and adds another piece of wood with almost no effort, the muscles in his arm shifting as he nudges the log into place. Sparks lift, bright and brief, before vanishing into the chimney’s black mouth. He stares into the flames as though they are telling him something he does not want to hear.

It has been a long time since anyone has acted as if her comfort matters. That thought is dangerous enough to make her hold the hoodie tighter, because she has met men who know how to pretend, men who lower their voices, men who offer food first and ask questions later, men who understand that a woman with no sleep and no safe place to go can be handled better with patience than force.

She cannot trust Jack.

Not yet.

Not because he says the right things. Not because he keeps his back turned. Not because his hands retreat when she flinches. Trust is not a match struck once in the dark. It is consistency; it is earned with repetition, the same choice made again and again when no one is applauding.

Still, the hoodie offers warmth now. That is proof of something, even if she refuses to admit it.

“Are you warmer?” he asks. The gentleness in his tone is so careful it almost hurts to hear.

A small smile appears before she can stop it. It tugs at one side of her mouth, uncertain and unused, as if her face has forgotten the movement and is testing it slowly.

She nods. Then her eyes drop to his bare torso. “Are you?”

Jack looks down at himself like he has forgotten he is shirtless. The absurdity of that almost makes her smile again.

He licks his lips, firelight catching on the faint moisture there. “Don’t worry about me. Get some rest, if you can. I’ll keep watch.”

Her brow furrows. She looks toward the back of the cabin where a thin mattress lies against the wall. It is stained, sagging, and probably smells like mildew. Still, after months of floors, dirt, car seats, and one memorable night curled inside a bathtub with a dresser shoved against the bathroom door, it might as well be luxury.

“I can keep watch,” she starts.

“No.” The word is immediate.

Her eyes narrow.

Jack catches himself, then tries again, less commanding.

“You haven’t slept in a while.” One brow lifts faintly. “You’re starving, cold, dehydrated. I gave you water, but I don’t have anything else to keep you going right now, and we’re still hours away from a steady source of all the things that will be keeping you upright.”

His gaze dips briefly toward her leg. “You’re injured. And you’re stressed with me here, which is fair, but I promise you, I’m just trying to help.”

She watches him. The fire crackles between them, small and bright and too fragile for the conversation around it. Her hands tighten inside the sleeves of the hoodie. They are too long, swallowing her fingers. That makes the garment feel even more like his.

“You got all that from today?”

Jack looks away for a fraction of a second. It is so quick she might have missed it if she were not always searching for the hidden blade beneath the visible one.

Then he nods.

“I’ve got more,” he admits. “But that’s a story for another day. Right now, you need rest.”

More. Of course he has more. This man reads her far too well. It should make her feel seen, and it does, but it also makes her want to hide every exposed thought under her tongue.

Her eyes flicker to the mattress again and dread curls low in her stomach. Sleeping near someone is a kind of surrender. Sleeping near a man is worse. Sleeping near a man she finds attractive, frightening, useful, and impossible to categorize is madness.

Jack follows her gaze. “You’ll be safe,” he says.

Her mouth opens, but no sound comes.

“If you’re worried you’ll be cold,” he adds, “I’ll drag it closer to the fire.”

She doesn’t answer right away. Her mind begins its usual frantic inventory of all the ways this could go wrong, angles of attack, distance between the mattress and the door, his knife, her knife, his gun, her injured leg, the walkers outside, the rain, the fact that even if she runs, she may not make it half a mile before collapsing in the mud.

He is right.

She hates that the most.

She is exhausted, starving, barely functioning on instinct and sheer stubbornness. Her body is starting to feel distant from her, like something she is operating through a delay. Her leg throbs so loudly it seems to have its own heartbeat. If she does not rest, she will slow him down tomorrow. If she slows him down too much, she may die before ever seeing the group she is not sure she wants to find.

“Can you bring it closer?” she asks quietly.

The uncertainty in her own voice irritates her. She sounds small, demanding and apologetic at once, as if asking for warmth is an offense.

A gentle smirk appears upon his lips, nothing sharp in it this time. It begins at one corner of his mouth, tugs slowly, then settles into something almost reassuring, like approval he is trying to hide because he knows she will retreat if she sees too much.

“Yeah,” he says. “I can do that.”

Standing up, he crosses the room and to the mattress. It doesn’t take him long, as he grabs one side and pulls it across the floor with an ugly scraping sound that makes them both pause and glance toward the door. No answering groan comes from outside. Jack finishes dragging it near the fire, close to his seat but not touching.

Close enough for heat. Far enough for her to pretend this is safe.

“I don’t have pillows or blankets,” he says, almost apologetic.

Y/N looks at the mattress. The fabric is worn, the edges are torn and one corner bears a dark stain she chooses not to investigate.

Compared to the ground, it is paradise.

“I know I don’t look like it,” she mutters, “but I’m not high maintenance.”

Jack chuckles. Actually chuckles.

The sound catches her by surprise. It is low and warm, roughened by fatigue, not polished enough to be charming on purpose. It fills the tiny cabin for a second, startlingly human. His eyes crease at the corners, his mouth opening just slightly before he presses the laugh back down, his teeth sinking in the bottom lip.

Y/N stares before she can stop herself and she wonders what his unrestrained laughter sounds like. The thought arrives so suddenly, so innocently, that it embarrasses her more than staring at his scars did. Worse, she wants to be the one who pulls it out of him one day.

That is how trouble grows roots.

She sits on the mattress, testing it with suspicion as it dips beneath her weight. Then she frowns.

“What if I stain it?”

Jack lowers himself beside the fire, close enough that the light cuts gold across his jaw. “With what?”

“Mud. Blood. Whatever else I’m covered in.”

He leans a little closer, forearms braced on his knees, and his eyes move over her face in a way that feels too attentive to be casual. He’s not leering nor invasive, for it seems more like he is trying to understand the strange little places her fear chooses to live in.

“I’m sure we can find a new one someday,” he says. “Don’t sweat it, okay? Just sleep.”

She hesitates. Then, slowly, she lies down.

Her body reacts before her mind does as a small exhale slips out of her, almost a sigh, almost like surrender. The mattress is thin, uneven, and old, but it receives the weight of her bones instead of punishing them. Pain blooms across her back as soon as she relaxes, and she realizes with bleak surprise that she hurts everywhere. It’s not just her calf, it’s her hips, shoulders, neck, wrists, ribs. It feels as if she jumped from a second-story window and only now has time to regret the landing.

She curls slightly on her side, head angled away from Jack at first. Then, because she is apparently determined to betray herself in stages, she turns enough to study him.

His profile is cut clean by firelight. She notices his nose. It is ridiculous, the detail her brain chooses. There are walkers outside and a strange man inside and her body is one bad decision away from shutting down, but there it is. His nose is strong, the bridge distinct, slightly narrow toward a defined tip that sits evenly above the line of his mouth. It gives his face a severe kind of balance. Combined with the chiseled jaw, the stubble, and the concentrated set of his eyes, it makes him look commanding without trying.

Annoyingly handsome.

No.

Worse.

Compelling.

He rubs his right knee absently, thumb pressing into the side of it like he is trying to shut out an old ache. The earlier hitch in his stride returns to her mind. He had walked for hours on that leg and still slowed for her, still hauled shelves, dragged mattresses, kept watch.

“You’re staring,” he murmurs without looking at her. “Sleep, sweetheart.”

Her face warms again. She pulls her knees toward her chest.

“It’s not that easy to fall asleep.”

Now he looks over. His lips part with quiet amusement, the expression softening the severity of his face by degrees. His eyes dip over the hoodie swallowed around her shoulders, the way she has tucked herself into it like a defensive animal inside a lair.

“Would you like a lullaby?”

She rolls her eyes and pushes herself up onto one elbow. “And if I say yes?”

Jack’s mouth curves, then he winks playfully. “I’d sing for you.”

A snort escapes her. It is inelegant and immediate and not nearly as guarded as she would prefer.

Jack’s brows lift. “I would,” he insists. “It might scar you for life, but I would sing for you.”

“Good to know I can count on you.” The words are dry, but there is no sharpness behind them. It’s progress.

His smile fades into something quieter. The corners of his mouth remain lifted, but his eyes sober, hold hers over the small distance between them.

“I told you before,” he says. “You can count on me. I won’t hurt you. I made you a promise I intend to keep.”

Her throat tightens. Outside, rain taps over the roof in endless fingers. The cabin smells of smoke, damp wood, old fabric, and him. The world beyond the walls is full of teeth, but the world inside is full of a different danger entirely.

“This world is full of broken promises, Jack,” she says. “Don’t blame me for finding it hard to trust yours.”

“I don’t, sweetheart.” His answer comes without hesitation. “I really don’t.”

The softness of it unsettles her more than any sharpness could have. He looks toward the door, then back at her. His jaw clenches once before he speaks again.

“I wish you’d been with me when it all started.”

The words sound strange, too intimate. He seems to realize it at the same time she does, but he does not take them back.

“It wouldn’t have been easy,” he continues, voice rougher. “Nothing was. But you would’ve been a hell of a lot safer than you were out there on your own.”

She swallows as her fingers curl around the edge of his hoodie.

Jack’s gaze lowers to her injured leg. His expression shifts into something almost professional, but not cold. More focused than tender, as if caring is easier for him when it has a task attached.

“We have resources to help with that,” he says. “I’ll fix it, okay?”

She nods, barely. Exhaustion begins to drag at her from below. The fire blurs, then sharpens, then blurs again. Her eyelids feel weighted. Her body, now that it has found warmth and something softer than dirt, is trying to shut down without permission.

“Who were you before all this?” she asks.

Jack stills. The softness in his face retreats, replaced by a haunted look that makes her ache. She could have sworn she saw a flicker of guilt there too.

“A doctor,” he says quietly.

That fits, she realizes. She can imagine him in a white coat and scrubs, barking orders, the way he saw she’s injured before she mentioned any pain, the way his voice changes around fear, firm enough to hold a person together. But it doesn’t explain how skilled he seemed in the mall. She had to learn some skills in this world, but she’s not on his level, not even close.

Then his mouth tightens with restraint, and she realizes he’s not done.

“A soldier,” he adds. The fire pops and he looks down at his hands. “Someone who should’ve died a long time ago.” A humorless breath leaves him. “But I’m still here. For better or worse.”

Y/N watches him through lashes grown heavy. The word soldier sits differently on him than doctor. Doctor sounds like a life he enjoyed, while the soldier sounds like a wound. She does not press. Some things should not be dragged into the light just because she’s curious.

Her eyes close.

Jack notices and says nothing. Just as he seems to think she has drifted off, her voice slips out, soft and tired.

“I’m sure you were a very handsome doctor.”

Jack snorts. The sound is quick, surprised, and unguarded enough to make her want to open her eyes. She opens one.

He is shaking his head, but there is a smile there now, pulling wider than before. It changes his whole face. Not erasing the years exactly, but loosening their grip. The hard lines ease, his eyes brighten with something sly and almost boyish. The silver in his hair catches the firelight, and instead of aging him, it makes him look like a man the world has tried very hard to ruin and failed to make dull.

“Some would say I was charming too,” he says.

Her own smile comes easier this time. It curves slowly, tugging warmth into her cheeks, softening her mouth before she can hide it. The expression feels strange on her face, almost vulnerable from lack of use.

“Cocky, definitely.”

Jack grins at her properly then. A pointed look accompanies it, one brow lifting as if to say she has just proved his case. His grin is lopsided, pleased, and far more dangerous than the smirk. The smirk is armor. The grin is a door left carelessly open for half a second.

Y/N sees the kindness through it. Then it is gone, replaced by the watchful man beside the fire, but the imprint remains.

Doctor makes sense. Soldier explains too much. She would not have guessed that exactly. Cop, maybe, security, someone used to weapons and orders, but a doctor-soldier combination explains the contradiction sitting beside her. Healing and violence, precision and force, a man who knows both how to keep a body alive and how to end one quickly.

It should make him more frightening. Maybe it does. Maybe that is why her next thought feels so clear.

There are two things she knows about Jack.

The first is obvious: she is defenseless against him in every practical sense. If he wants to overpower her, he can. He has the strength, the training, the reach, the experience. Her knife would only matter if he lets it matter. Her bad leg makes running a joke the world would laugh at. He could take whatever he wants from her if he chooses to become the kind of man she fears.

The second thing makes no sense: he will not. She cannot explain it to the restless heart underneath her ribs, cannot justify it with facts, not enough of them and cannot place it neatly beside all the evidence that humans are still the worst thing left walking. But the certainty sits there anyway, quiet and immovable.

Jack will not physically harm her.

Not tonight.

Maybe not ever.

Her body believes it before her mind dares to and that is enough for now. Her eyelids lower again. The fire crackles beside her. Rain whispers over the roof. Jack shifts slightly, settling in for his watch, his silhouette steady between her and the door.

Y/N listens to the cabin, to the storm, to Jack’s slow, measured breathing, and then, wrapped in his hoodie and the fragile shelter of his promise, she finally lets go.