C A T ᖭ༏ᖫ

At six fifty-eight in the evening, the day shift and the night shift occupy the emergency department at the same time.

The overlap lasts only a few minutes. It smells like antiseptic, old coffee, and the rain drying on everyone's coats. Monitors keep calling from curtained bays while Dana flags the problem rooms and your fathers stand on opposite sides of the desk pretending their lives don't fit together everywhere else.

Robby is finishing a note when Jack walks in. Your papa carries coffee in one hand and his bag in the other. His gait is almost perfectly even unless someone knows what to watch for.

You know.

His right step lands more deliberately when he's tired. Tonight, he shifts his weight off the prosthesis beneath his scrubs and pauses for half a second before turning toward the desk.

"Long day?" Jack asks. He sets the coffee beside Robby's keyboard.

"Long enough," Robby says. He drinks without checking what's in the cup.

Whitaker, Javadi, Mel, and Santos watch nearby. For weeks, they've mistaken the handoffs and bickering for professional distance. None of them noticed the same travel mug changing hands each evening, the lunches packed in matching containers, or the way Robby always leaves before Jack settles fully into the night shift.

You step through the security doors with your backpack hanging from one shoulder and your school jacket tied around your waist. At fifteen, you're old enough to take the bus from the library to the Pitt. Your fathers still make you text when you leave, when you transfer, and when the hospital comes into view.

"Dad," you call, weaving around an empty stretcher. "You left your phone charger in the car again."

Robby turns toward you. So does Jack.

The silence behind them is immediate.

You hold up the charger. "I meant the one who forgets things in daylight."

"That clarification was rude," Robby says. He takes it from you, then hooks an arm around your shoulders and kisses your hair. You lean into his side for the length of the kiss and squeeze him around the waist before pulling away. "How was the library?"

"Quiet until Papa texted me seven times to make sure I was coming straight here." You pull out your phone and tilt the screen toward Robby. "He sent a map of the route I've taken since seventh grade."

Jack's eyebrows rise. "Pittsburgh is dangerous."

"The bus was full of grandmothers."

"Organized crime has excellent demographic reach."

Santos stares between him and Robby. "Wait. Papa?"

Robby closes his eyes briefly. "Please don't make this weird."

"You're together?" Whitaker asks. His face brightens with the horrified delight of someone realizing he's misunderstood months of evidence.

"They've been together since fire was discovered," you tell him. You pull a container from your backpack. "Also, Papa, you forgot your dinner on the counter. Dad made me turn around for it."

"I was going to buy something here." Jack takes the container. His free hand catches gently at the back of your neck, drawing you close enough for a kiss to your forehead, but Robby catches his wrist before he can pull away.

Robby's fingers settle against Jack's pulse in a touch so practiced it almost looks accidental. His thumb rests there for two beats before it slides to Jack's wrist. "Your leg?"

"Socket's irritating me," Jack answers quietly. "I'll fix it upstairs."

"Text me if the skin's broken. Don't wait until midnight."

"Yes, doctor."

"I mean it, Jack."

"I know." Jack's expression softens. He leans in and presses a brief kiss to Robby's temple. "Go home. Our kid has a chemistry test tomorrow, and she thinks staring at the textbook while watching videos counts as studying."

Behind them, Santos makes a strangled sound.

You barely hear it.

Your attention drops to Jack's right pant leg. Most days, the prosthesis belongs to the background, carrying him through school concerts, parent meetings, Sunday walks, sleepless nights, and countless hospital corridors.

Tonight, the careful angle of his foot and the protective set of Robby's mouth return you to the first time you saw it.

You were six years old. You still believed coming home meant everything frightening was over.

Robby told you Jack was coming home on a Tuesday.

He sat across from you at the kitchen table while rain pressed against the windows. Your grilled cheese had been cut into four squares, and a green crayon lay beside the plate where you'd been practicing the letters in Papa's name.

"Thursday afternoon," he said. He kept both palms flat on the table. "Papa's flight lands at two."

Your feet stopped swinging beneath the chair. "This Thursday?"

"This Thursday. Two more sleeps."

Jack had been gone for eleven months, which felt longer than the part of your life you could remember clearly. You'd crossed days off a paper calendar, taken drawings to the post office, and carried his last voicemail around on Robby's phone until you knew every pause in it.

The weekly video calls had stopped for three weeks after an explosion. Robby had called it an accident because you were five and the whole truth wouldn't fit into words you understood. When the calls returned from a hospital room, Jack smiled too much, tired before you finished showing him your pictures, and the camera never showed anything below his chest.

"For real?" you asked. Your fingers pressed dents into the bread. "He's not going to another hospital first?"

"For real." Robby loosened your grip on the sandwich one finger at a time. "He finished the first part of rehabilitation. That's the work he's been doing to get strong enough to come home. He'll still have appointments here."

You searched his face. Robby looked happy, but it was the careful kind of happy adults wore when they were trying not to scare children.

"Is he still hurt?"

Robby paused, choosing words that were honest without being frightening.

"Yes," he said. His thumb moved across your knuckles. "Papa got hurt very badly. The doctors had to take off the lower part of his right leg so the rest of him could heal."

You looked under the table as if the missing limb might be there.

"His whole leg?"

"From below his knee."

Your hand crept down to your own shin. You squeezed it through your pajama pants. "Did he say they could?"

Robby's mouth pulled tight. "Papa was asleep from his injuries when the surgeons had to decide. They did it to keep him alive."

The kitchen seemed to move farther away from you. Rainwater crawled down the glass, making the backyard bend and wobble.

"Does he know they did it?"

"He knows." Robby moved from his chair and crouched beside yours. His knees cracked, and the ordinary sound made the conversation feel even stranger. "He's got a prosthetic leg now. It's a special leg made to help him stand and walk. He's also bringing crutches because he's still learning how to use it."

"Will it grow back?"

"No, honey."

The answer landed with the weight of a door closing. You'd seen a lizard grow a tail back in a library book. You couldn't understand why people were worse at healing than lizards.

You pulled your hand from his and folded both arms over your stomach. "You said he was coming home all better."

"I said he was getting stronger." Robby stayed beside your chair. His eyes shone, though his voice remained steady. "I'm sorry if it sounded like I meant everything would be fixed. I wish I could make those mean the same thing."

"Can he still be Papa?"

Robby's face broke then. He gathered you against his chest and held the back of your head. You burrowed beneath his chin, and he rocked you once in his arms before pressing a kiss to your temple.

"Yes," he whispered into your hair. "He'll always be Papa. He might get tired quickly. Loud noises might scare him before he knows he's safe. Sometimes he might want us close, and sometimes he might need quiet. None of that changes how much he loves you."

You clutched his shirt. "What if the new leg scares me?"

"Then you can tell us." Robby wiped beneath your eyes with his thumbs. "You can be surprised or sad. You can look away and try again later. Papa doesn't need you to do this perfectly. He just needs you to be his kid."

"Can I still sit on his shoulders?"

Robby's face tightened before he smiled. "Maybe not right away. You can ask him when he's ready."

You considered that, then pushed one cold square of grilled cheese toward him. "You can have this one because you're sad."

Robby laughed into a sound that shook. He took a bite because you were watching.

The next two days made the house unfamiliar.

Robby rolled up the hallway rug, moved the coffee table against the wall, and installed a rail beside the front steps. He put a chair in the shower, cleared the shoes from the entryway, and moved the basket of your toys out of the path between the couch and the stairs.

You followed him from room to room with your stuffed rabbit tucked beneath one arm and growing resentment beneath the other. Every change felt like proof that a stranger was coming instead of Papa.

"Papa likes that rug," you said as Robby carried it toward the basement.

"The edge catches shoes and crutches."

"It never caught his shoes before."

"He didn't use crutches before."

You hated the answer because it was true. You kicked at the pale rectangle left behind on the floor, then burst into tears when dust caught on your sock.

Robby stopped at the basement door. His grip tightened around the rolled fabric.

"Before can't be the rule for everything," he said too sharply. He lowered the rug. "I'm sorry."

You stared at the blank strip of floor the rug had covered. "It doesn't look like our house."

Robby sat on the bottom step and drew you between his knees. Sawdust clung to his hair from drilling the rail into place. You picked a curl clean with careful fingers. He caught your hand and kissed your dusty knuckles before folding both arms around your middle. "I know. Papa needs room to find his balance. We can put some things back when he's ready."

"What if he hates it?"

"He probably will." Robby rubbed both hands down his face. "He hates anyone guessing that he might need help before he asks."

"You do too."

"That's an outrageous accusation." His tired smile appeared when you leaned into him. "It's also accurate."

You held the stuffed rabbit toward him. "She can sleep by the stairs so Papa won't fall."

"That might become another thing to trip over." Robby softened the refusal by kissing one floppy ear. "How about she waits on the couch and supervises?"

You placed the rabbit upright on the couch with strict instructions to watch the front door. By Thursday morning, you'd moved her three times because no place in the altered room looked safe enough.

On Thursday, you waited at the airport between Robby's knees, his hands resting on your shoulders. You held a folded sheet of construction paper that said WALCOM HOME PAPA in purple marker. Robby had offered to correct it. You'd told him Papa would know what it meant.

People came through the security doors in uneven waves. Suitcase wheels rattled over the floor, and every opening brought a gust of cold air. Each time a man in a dark jacket appeared, your heart kicked against your ribs before disappointment made it drop again.

"What if he missed the plane?" you asked for the fourth time.

"He didn't."

"What if they put him on the wrong one?"

"Papa can navigate a deployment. He can find Pittsburgh."

You didn't know what navigate meant, but Robby's hand was shaking on your shoulder, so you stopped asking.

Then Jack appeared.

He wore jeans and a dark jacket, with a duffel over one shoulder. Metal forearm crutches clicked in a careful rhythm. His right pant leg covered a shoe that looked almost ordinary, though the knee above it moved stiffly. He looked thinner than he had on the screen, and there were new gray threads near his temples.

The welcome sign slipped from your fingers. You ran three steps.

Then you stopped.

Jack stopped too.

His face emptied around your hesitation. For one terrible second, you thought stopping had made him sorry to see you.

Robby's hands left your shoulders. He didn't push you forward.

Jack lowered his duffel. "Hey, bug."

His voice was the same.

That hurt more than if it had changed.

Your eyes fixed on the crutches and the careful placement of his feet. "Where do I hug you?"

Jack's breath caught. He shifted both crutches to one side and opened an arm.

"Same place you always did," he said.

You crossed the distance more slowly than you'd started and wrapped yourself around his middle. Jack staggered once. One crutch scraped sideways, and Robby moved, but Jack found his balance before either of them touched him.

His arm closed around you hard enough to lift your heels. He smelled like laundry soap, airport air, and something medicinal. You pressed your face into the zipper of his jacket so you wouldn't have to look down.

"You're tall," Jack murmured against your hair.

"You're skinny," you said into his jacket.

A startled laugh broke out of him. It turned into a sound closer to a sob. His fingers spread protectively across the back of your head, and his chest shook against your cheek.

"I made you a sign," you said because you didn't know what to do when a grown-up cried.

"I saw it." Jack swallowed hard. "Best spelling I've ever seen."

Robby stepped in beside you. He touched Jack's cheek first, giving him time to see the movement. Then he kissed him.

The kiss was brief and trembling. Jack caught the front of Robby's coat and kept him close when it ended. He pressed his forehead against Robby's while Robby's free hand settled at his waist, not holding him up, only letting him know support was there. You stayed tucked against Jack's middle, surrounded by both of them.

"You moved the rug, didn't you?" Jack asked.

Robby's laugh carried a crack through the middle. "Hello to you too."

"Michael."

"Yes, I moved the rug."

"Traitor."

Jack kept one arm around you while Robby took the duffel. You bent to retrieve your sign, and Jack waited instead of hurrying you. Both of your fathers were close enough to touch again.

You thought that would make the fear disappear.

It followed you home instead.

In the car, Jack sat in the passenger seat with both crutches angled between his knees. You watched the back of his head from your booster seat. Every few minutes, he reached for Robby's hand near the gearshift, held it briefly, and let go before the next turn. At a red light, he reached back between the seats without looking. You placed your whole hand around two of his fingers, and he held on until the light changed.

When someone honked behind them, Jack ducked before catching himself. Robby lowered the radio without commenting. You stared out your window and pretended you hadn't seen.

Jack paused at the front steps. The new rail gleamed beside him.

"Subtle," he said. His mouth flattened as he looked at Robby.

Robby set down the bags. "The old rail shook."

"Are you two fighting?" you asked from the doorway.

Both men looked at you.

"No," Jack said. He set one crutch on the first step. "Your daddy is showing affection through unsolicited construction."

Robby stayed close without touching him. "Your papa is expressing gratitude through being unbearable."

Jack planted both crutches, lifted his left foot, then brought the prosthetic one up to meet it. He climbed one step, then another. Sweat appeared along his hairline by the time he reached you, though there were only four steps.

You held the door open with both hands. "I like the rail. It's shiny."

"Betrayed by my entire family," Jack muttered. He kissed the top of your head as he passed.

The first hour at home was filled with things that almost felt normal. Jack inspected the refrigerator, complained that Robby had bought the wrong coffee, and found the picture you'd taped beside his bed months earlier. Then he sat through dinner without eating much and flinched when your fork struck the plate.

That evening, after you were caught staring at the shape beneath his jeans for the fifth time, he asked whether you wanted to see the prosthesis.

Jack sat on the edge of the bed and rolled his jeans above his right knee. His crutches rested within reach against the nightstand. Robby sat on the floor beside you so he wouldn't tower over either of you.

Jack's fingers paused on the fabric.

"You don't have to look tonight," he said. He watched you from beneath lowered brows. "You can change your mind at any point."

You sat in the doorway with Robby's hand around yours and your stuffed rabbit pinned against your ribs. "Can you change your mind?"

Jack glanced at the floor. "About taking it off? Yes. About the leg being gone? No."

He lifted the edge of the suspension sleeve, released the prosthesis, and eased his residual limb out of the socket. Air entered with a soft sound that made you jump.

The limb ended below his knee in a shape your mind resisted. A thin liner covered the skin, and red pressure marks circled the widest part. You knew Robby had explained it, but the sight still made the room feel crooked.

Your grip tightened around Robby's fingers.

Jack set the prosthesis beside him. It stood upright with the empty socket open, more like a piece of equipment than a missing piece of a person.

"Does that hurt?" you asked.

"The red part does a little." Jack rubbed his palm above the irritated skin. "The rest gets sore when I wear it too long. That's why Daddy keeps asking me about it."

"He asks everybody if they hurt."

"Occupational hazard," Jack said.

"Can you feel the fake foot?"

"No. I can feel pressure through the socket, but if you touch the foot, I won't feel it."

You moved one small step closer. "Can I touch it?"

Jack nodded. "Gently."

You touched one finger to the smooth curve of the prosthetic ankle. It was cooler than skin and completely still beneath your fingertip.

"It doesn't look like a robot leg," you said.

"I requested lasers." Jack leaned back on his hands. "Insurance was unreasonable."

You looked up sharply. "Really?"

"No," Robby said before Jack could answer.

"Your daddy hates imagination," Jack told you.

You traced the edge of the shoe. "Are you still you when you're not wearing it?"

The humor left his face.

Robby squeezed your hand, but Jack answered.

"I'm trying to remember who I am," he said.

You climbed beside him, careful not to touch his limb. The mattress dipped under your knees, and Jack watched with uncertainty, tightening his eyes until you settled near his left side.

"Daddy said I could be bad at this," you told him. Your fingers worried one of the rabbit's ears. "I looked away before."

Robby made a quiet protesting sound.

"He said you didn't need perfect."

Jack looked at Robby over your head. Something passed between them that you couldn't yet name. Robby shifted closer until one knee rested against yours and covered your joined hands with his.

"He's right," Jack said. He placed an arm around your shoulders only after you leaned against him. "I looked away the first time too. None of us is going to be good at this right away."

You rested the stuffed rabbit in his lap. "She can practice too."

Jack touched two fingers to the rabbit's head. "Good. I could use the backup."

The first week taught you how many ways a person could be home and still seem far away.

Jack chose the chair that faced the front and back doors. He checked the lock before breakfast, after lunch, and again while Robby read your bedtime story. When a helicopter passed low enough to rattle the window, he dropped the glass in his hand and stared at the ceiling until the sound faded.

The glass didn't break. Water spread across the table and soaked the paper crown you'd been coloring for your stuffed rabbit.

"Papa," you complained. You lifted the dripping page by one corner. "You ruined her crown."

Jack looked down as if he'd only just noticed the water. His breathing was too fast, and one hand gripped the edge of the table.

"I'm sorry, bug." He reached for a towel, then stopped when the helicopter circled somewhere beyond the house. "I'll make her another one."

Robby came in from the hall. His eyes moved from the window to Jack and then to the paper in your hands.

"I've got the water," he said. He gave Jack room to decide whether the words were an offer or an instruction. "Can you take her to find another sheet of paper?"

Jack stood too quickly. His right knee stayed stiff above the socket, and the table jumped when his hip struck it.

You covered the rabbit's ears. "She's having a bad day."

"So am I," Jack muttered.

He heard himself and closed his eyes.

"That's not your fault," he said more gently. He crouched with one hand braced against the chair. "Do you think she'd accept a gold crown as compensation?"

You considered the question with the seriousness it deserved. "Only if it has purple jewels."

"Extortion runs in the family."

At the desk upstairs, he drew uneven jewels while you colored them in. His hand trembled whenever the helicopter passed again, but he stayed beside you until the crown was finished. He balanced it on your head first, declared you the royal inspector, and kissed your forehead when you approved it for the rabbit. When Robby brought up three mugs of cocoa, he rested his palm against Jack's shoulder. Jack turned his face into the touch for one quiet second before taking his mug.

Nights were harder.

Jack rarely slept longer than two hours. You heard the soft knock of his crutches after midnight and found him at the kitchen table in the dark. Sometimes Robby sat across from him, their hands linked between two cold mugs. Sometimes Jack stared at the back door alone, fully dressed as though someone might order him to leave.

On the third night, you dragged your blanket down the stairs and climbed into the chair beside him.

"You're supposed to be asleep," Jack whispered. He didn't turn on the light.

"So are you."

"I'm the adult."

"Daddy says adults need sleep too."

Jack glanced toward the stairs. "Your daddy has filled your head with propaganda."

You didn't know what propaganda was. You tucked the corner of your blanket over his left knee anyway. Jack rested his hand over the fabric and kept watch until Robby found both of you. Robby kissed the top of your head, then cupped Jack's cheek only after Jack leaned toward him. He sat on Jack's other side, and the three of you shared one blanket until your eyes closed.

During the day, he treated recovery like an assignment he could pass by doing every part perfectly. He stretched before breakfast, practiced stairs until sweat soaked his shirt, and counted each step around the block beneath his breath. If the socket pinched, he walked farther. If his residual limb shook, he added another exercise.

Robby responded by watching more closely.

Jack responded to being watched by becoming furious.

"Stop studying me," he snapped one afternoon.

Robby froze beside the kitchen counter with a bowl of apple slices in his hands. "You're favoring your left side."

"I'm aware of how I walk."

"Your socket's loose. You're going to damage the skin."

"I've got a rehabilitation team."

"You also have a husband who can see blood through the liner."

You stopped halfway down the stairs. A kindergarten worksheet was tucked beneath your arm, covered in rows of letters that leaned in every direction.

Jack saw you first. His anger vanished so quickly that it frightened you more than the shouting had.

"Hey, bug." He shifted his body to hide his right leg. "Why don't you take your crayons upstairs and pick a book? Daddy or I'll come read it in a minute."

"Are you mad?"

"Not at you." Jack gripped the back of a chair. "Never at you."

You climbed back upstairs because both of them were waiting for you to obey. You left your bedroom door open and sat on the rug with the book in your lap, listening to their voices move below you.

"I can't turn it off," Robby said.

"I don't need an attending at home," Jack answered. The words sounded scraped raw. "I need my husband."

The refrigerator opened and closed. Then the house went quiet.

"I don't know how to be one without trying to keep you alive," Robby said.

Jack's crutches shifted against the floor. "Start by believing I'm here."

You didn't understand why Daddy wanting Papa alive could make Papa angry. You only understood that neither of them came upstairs for a long time.

When Jack finally appeared, he'd changed into shorts and removed the prosthesis. A fresh bandage covered a rubbed place along his limb. Robby followed with an ice pack and the bowl of apple slices.

"We both promised a story," Robby said. He sat on one side of you and offered Jack the ice pack instead of pressing it into his hands.

Jack accepted it. "Then we're both staying."

They read one page at a time, passing the book across your lap. Jack's voice still sounded tired. Robby's shoulder stayed pressed against his. He kissed the crown of your head when it was his turn to read and brushed another kiss against Jack's temple before passing the book back. By the end, your head had fallen against Jack's chest, and his fingers had curled through Robby's.

It was a small peace. Your family built many of them before you learned what they were called.

The phantom pain came three nights later.

A strangled sound woke you. You carried your rabbit downstairs by one ear and found Jack on the couch, his prosthesis tipped against the coffee table. Both hands were locked around the end of his residual limb.

"Papa?" You hovered near the final stair.

Jack's head lifted. Sweat shone across his forehead. "Go back to bed, bug."

"What's wrong?"

"My foot hurts."

You looked at the prosthetic foot on the floor. "That one?"

"No." He dragged a breath through his teeth. "The other one."

You stared at the empty space below his knee. "But it isn't there."

"I know."

Fear turned quickly into frustration. You squeezed the rabbit against your stomach. "Then how can it hurt?"

"I don't know how to explain it right now." Jack bent over his limb as another wave tightened his face. "Please get Daddy."

Robby was already coming down the stairs in bare feet, his glasses crooked and one hand sliding along the wall.

"Phantom pain?" he asked.

Jack nodded once.

Robby stopped beside you instead of rushing forward. "What do you need?"

"A new nervous system."

"I didn't bring one home from work." Robby crouched several feet from the couch. "Medication, compression, massage, or space?"

"Compression." Jack's eyes squeezed shut. "And for both of you to stop looking terrified."

Robby retrieved the compression sock and Jack's medication. He placed both within reach, then waited until Jack held out a hand. Jack worked the sock over his limb with shaking fingers while Robby counted the minutes since his last dose.

You crept closer and set your stuffed rabbit near Jack's left thigh.

"She helps when my ear hurts," you said.

Jack's face tightened for a reason that wasn't pain. "Then I'd better borrow her."

He rested his palm on the rabbit's flattened head. Robby tucked a blanket around his waist without touching the painful limb.

"Your brain remembers your foot?" you asked.

"Something like that." Jack took a careful breath. "My brain has a map of my whole body. It hasn't drawn a new map yet, so sometimes it sends pain to a foot that isn't there."

You pictured the paper maps in your classroom with roads drawn in bright colors. "Can you erase it?"

"The doctors are trying to help me change it. It might take a while."

"Can you tell your brain you're home?"

Jack stared at you.

Robby lowered his face and pressed his knuckles against his mouth.

"I'm working on that too," Jack said. His voice wavered. "My brain's being stubborn."

"Daddy says you are."

"Your daddy says a lot when he thinks I'm not listening."

"You're always listening," Robby said. He settled on the couch only after Jack made room. "That's part of the problem."

Jack leaned against Robby's shoulder. You climbed into the armchair and watched until the lines beside Jack's mouth softened. When he opened one hand toward you, you climbed down and tucked your fingers into his. Robby drew the blanket around all three of you, kissed Jack's damp temple, and rested his cheek against your hair. You still didn't understand how an empty place could hurt. You decided brains were worse at maps than kindergarteners.

Two weeks after Jack came home, a baking sheet hit the kitchen floor.

It was early evening, almost dark outside. Rain tapped the windows while Robby stood at the stove reheating soup. You sat at the kitchen table with your stuffed rabbit in your lap, and construction paper spread around your elbows, building a hospital where the rabbit could recover from a serious case of a torn ear.

Jack sat at the far end of the table sorting the mail. His prosthesis had been bothering him all afternoon, and one crutch rested against the chair within reach. Every few minutes, he pressed a thumb into the muscle above his right knee and tried to hide the movement.

"She needs a bed," you announced. You held up a folded piece of purple paper. "And a machine that beeps."

"No beeping machines at home," Jack said. He turned an envelope over without opening it. "That's my professional recommendation."

"She's very sick."

"Then she needs quiet and excellent snacks."

Robby glanced back from the stove. On his way to the counter, he bent to kiss your hair, then pressed another quick kiss to Jack's shoulder. "Listen to Papa. He's an expert in being difficult during recovery."

Jack caught Robby's wrist before he could move away and brushed his mouth over his knuckles. Then he threw a grocery-store flyer at him. It landed short and slid beneath the table.

You laughed. For a few seconds, the kitchen felt ordinary.

Robby reached above the counter for a bowl. The drying rack shifted when his sleeve brushed it. A baking sheet balanced along the back edge slid free, clipped the counter, and landed flat on the tile.

The crack swallowed every other sound in the room.

Jack moved before you understood that anything had happened.

His chair scraped backward. One hand seized your upper arm while the other caught the back of your shirt. He pulled you from the chair so hard that the table struck your hip. Your shoulder hit a drawer handle on the way down, then Jack dragged you behind the island and folded his body over yours.

The tile knocked the breath out of you. Purple paper scattered beneath the table. Your rabbit landed on her side near the refrigerator.

"Down!" Jack shouted. His voice didn't sound like Papa's. "Stay down. Don't move."

His prosthetic foot jammed against the cabinet base. The force twisted his knee, but he didn't seem to feel it. His fingers dug into your arm while his gaze jumped between the windows and the doorway.

For one confused second, you waited for the bad thing he'd seen to enter the kitchen.

Nothing did.

"Papa, stop." Your cheek pressed against the cold tile. "I don't like it."

The refrigerator motor clicked on.

Jack flattened you harder. Your shirt pulling against your shoulder, scraping beneath your sleeve.

"Contact left," he said through clenched teeth. "Keep your head down."

You didn't know what contact meant. You only knew you couldn't move your arm and Papa was hurting you.

"Let go!" You kicked against the floor and tried to twist free. "Daddy!"

Jack's hand locked tighter.

Robby turned around and stopped so suddenly that his sock slid on the tile. He saw the fallen sheet, Jack's abandoned crutch, the prosthetic foot trapped against the cabinet, and your face beneath Jack's shoulder.

The wooden spoon slipped from his hand. He didn't look at it when it struck the floor.

"Jack." Robby raised both hands. His voice was low, but you heard the fear he was trying to hide. "Look at me. You're in our kitchen."

Jack turned toward him without seeing him. Sweat ran from his temple. His eyes were wide and empty in a way you'd never seen before.

"Where's the exit?" he rasped. "I can't see the exit."

"It's behind me." Robby lowered himself one careful inch at a time. "There's no smoke. There's no fire. It's raining outside. You're in Pittsburgh with me."

Jack's gaze jumped to the window. His body remained heavy over yours.

"She's exposed," he said. "Get her down."

"She's already down." Robby's eyes flicked to the hand around your arm. "You're covering her. I need you to loosen your fingers so I can move her."

"No."

"Jack, listen to my voice. That's our daughter. She's six years old, and she's scared."

You started crying harder when Robby said it. You wanted him to stop talking and pull Jack away. You couldn't understand why he stayed across the kitchen with his hands in the air.

"Daddy, make him stop!"

Pain crossed Robby's face. He kept his voice steady. "I promise, honey. I'm right here."

Jack looked down at the sound of your crying. His eyes caught on your hair beneath his hand, then on your sleeve twisted in his fist. Confusion pulled at his face.

"Bug?"

His fingers opened.

You didn't wait for Robby to reach you.

You crawled out from beneath Jack's arm, slipped on the scattered paper, and struck your knee against the table leg. Robby called your name, but Jack tried to stand at the same moment.

The prosthetic foot stayed wedged beneath the cabinet. Jack's knee folded, and his shoulder slammed into the cupboard doors. Dishes rattled above him.

"Get it off." He clawed at the suspension sleeve. His breaths came too quickly for the words. "Michael, get it off me. Get it off."

Robby lunged and caught him before his head hit the tile.

You saw Robby's arms close around Jack.

Then you ran.

Your shoulder burned as you crossed the hall. You didn't go upstairs because Jack knew your bedroom. You squeezed into the coat closet instead, pushed past hanging jackets, and pulled the door almost closed behind you.

Darkness folded around you.

You crouched behind Robby's winter boots with both hands over your mouth. One sleeve felt wet against your shoulder. Your arm throbbed where Jack's fingers had been, but you were too afraid of making noise to look.

From the kitchen, Jack shouted once. The sound broke into a sob.

Inside the closet, you heard Robby's voice drop lower.

"It's caught beneath the cabinet. I've got to release it. Don't pull, Jack. You'll tear your skin."

Metal scraped across the tile. Jack swore and then cried out.

"It's off," Robby said. "Your prosthesis is off. Put your hand on the floor. Feel the tile."

"I hurt her."

Jack said the words so clearly that you pressed both hands more tightly over your mouth.

"I know." Robby's voice cracked before it steadied. "She ran out of the kitchen. I saw her moving. She's away from the noise."

"Where is she?"

"I don't know yet. I can't leave you while you're falling."

"Go find her."

"I'm going to. First, I need you to stay with me."

Something struck the cabinet. Once. Twice.

"Jack, don't." Robby's words sharpened. "Give me your hands."

"I put my hands on her." Jack sounded as though he were choking. "She told me to stop. I heard her, Michael. I heard her, and I couldn't stop."

"Give me your hands."

"Get away from me."

"I'm not going anywhere."

A broken sound tore through the kitchen. You curled tighter behind the boots and pulled one of Robby's heavy coats over your head.

You couldn't see Jack fold against him. You could hear it in the rustle of clothes and the hard knock of Robby's knee hitting the floor.

"I brought it home," Jack sobbed. "I brought it into the house. I hurt my kid."

"You came home to us." Robby's breathing was loud and measured. "You're in our kitchen. There's rain at the windows. My hands are on yours. Stay with me."

"Don't tell me I'm safe."

"Then don't be safe yet. Be here."

Jack's crying grew louder.

You'd heard adults cry before. Robby had cried when he thought you were asleep during the weeks Jack's video calls stopped. Jack had cried at the airport with his arm around you. This sounded different. His breaths tore out of him, sharp and uneven, and every one carried your name.

Robby kept answering.

"She's in the house."

"I saw her run."

"I'll find her."

"Breathe first."

You understood none of it.

Papa had grabbed you. Papa had looked at you without knowing you. Daddy was holding him instead of coming to find you.

You pressed your face into the wool coat until the fabric scratched your nose. The closet smelled like winter, dust, and Robby's aftershave. You tried to make yourself so small that no one could pull you out.

The kitchen slowly grew quieter.

Robby asked Jack to name things. Jack couldn't do it at first. He said words you didn't recognize, then your name again. Eventually, he managed, "Rain. Refrigerator. Green cabinets."

"Good," Robby murmured. "One more."

There was a long pause.

"You," Jack whispered.

"That's right. I'm here."

More time passed. Your legs began to ache from crouching, but moving felt impossible.

At last, Robby called your name from the kitchen.

You didn't answer.

He called again from the hall. His footsteps passed the closet and went upstairs. You heard your bedroom door open, the bathroom cabinet click, and the squeak of the floorboard beside your bed.

"Honey?" His voice carried down the stairs. "It's Daddy. You're not in trouble. I only need to know where you are."

You bit the inside of your cheek and stayed silent.

Robby came down more quickly. He checked the living room and opened the basement door. Jack said something from the kitchen that you couldn't hear.

"Stay there," Robby answered. "I'll find her."

The closet door shifted when Robby walked past it again. Light moved through the narrow opening and found a small red smear near the inside edge where your sleeve had brushed the paint.

His footsteps stopped.

He didn't pull the door open.

"I think I found you," he said from the other side. His voice was gentler now. "Can I sit here?"

You didn't answer, but you didn't push the door closed either.

Robby lowered himself to the hallway floor. You could see one knee and his hand resting palm-up near the opening.

"Papa's in the kitchen," he said. "His leg's off, and he's sitting on the floor. He isn't coming over here."

"Don't let him."

The words slipped out before you could stop them.

Robby's hand curled once against the floor. "I won't."

"Ever."

He took a slow breath. "He won't come near you until you say he can."

You pulled the coat away from your face. "You didn't come."

"No." Robby didn't try to explain immediately. "I didn't. I'm sorry."

"I called you."

"I heard you."

"Then why didn't you make him stop?"

Robby rubbed his thumb against the side of his finger. "I was trying to. Papa's brain thought he was back somewhere dangerous. He couldn't see the kitchen the way we could. I had to use my voice carefully so he wouldn't hold you tighter."

"But he was in the kitchen."

"I know."

"I was right there."

"You were." Robby's voice grew rough. "You were right there, and you needed him to know you."

You stared at his open hand. "Why did you hug him?"

"Because when you got away, Papa fell. His leg was trapped, and his brain still didn't know where he was. He was hitting himself. I had to keep him from getting hurt worse."

"I got hurt worse."

"You did." Robby shifted closer to the door, though he didn't cross it. "I saw your shoulder hit the drawer. I wanted to come after you. I chose to make sure Papa couldn't hurt himself or anybody else before I left him. That was my job as the grown-up, but it meant you were scared and alone. I'm so sorry you had to wait for me."

Your bottom lip trembled. "Do you like him more?"

Robby's face crumpled.

"No, honey." He put his other hand over his mouth for a moment. "I don't love either of you more. Papa needed my hands first because his body wasn't under his control. You needed me too. I couldn't be in both places, and I hate that."

You looked toward the strip of light under the closet door. "He was mean."

"He scared you and hurt you."

"Why?"

"Because something scared him so much before he came home that his brain sometimes thinks it's happening again." Robby kept the words simple, but they still didn't make sense. "The loud noise made him think you were in danger. He tried to protect you, but he couldn't see that he was the one hurting you."

"That's stupid."

"It doesn't make sense from where you're sitting." Robby nodded slowly. "It didn't feel like protection. It felt scary."

"I don't want his brain to do that."

"Neither do I. Neither does Papa. We're going to get more help so it doesn't happen this way again."

Your shoulder throbbed beneath the wet fabric. You moved your arm and gasped.

Robby's attention sharpened. "Will you let me look at where you're hurt?"

You backed farther into the coats. "I'm not coming out."

"You don't have to." He glanced toward the kitchen. "I'll get my bag and come back. Papa's staying where he is."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

He stood only after you nodded. His footsteps moved into the kitchen. Jack's voice came quietly.

"Is she hurt?"

"Her shoulder's bleeding. She's scared, and she doesn't want you near her."

The silence that followed seemed to fill the whole house.

"Okay," Jack said at last. The word broke in the middle. "Tell her I won't move."

Robby returned with his medical bag, a clean washcloth, and your blue cup filled with water. He opened the closet door only wide enough to sit in the gap.

"Can I turn on the hall light?"

You shook your head.

"All right." He set the bag beside his knee. "Can I move Daddy's coat off your head so I can see you?"

This time, you nodded.

He peeled the heavy wool away and laid it across the boots. His expression changed when he saw the blood on your sleeve, but his hands stayed careful.

"I'm going to touch your wrist first," he said. "Then I'll help you slide your arm out of the sleeve. Tell me if you need me to stop."

You gripped the blue cup with your other hand while he eased the fabric down. The scrape along your shoulder was shallow, but it stretched several inches. Purple marks were already gathering where Jack's fingers had held your upper arm.

Robby's jaw tightened.

"Is it broken?" you whispered.

"I don't think so. I want you to move your fingers for me."

You did.

"Now your wrist. Good. Can you bend your elbow?"

The movement pulled at your shoulder. You whimpered and stopped.

"That's enough." Robby rested your arm across your lap. "I don't feel anything broken. You've got a scrape and some deep bruises. Cleaning the scrape will sting."

"I don't want it to."

"I know." He opened an antiseptic wipe. "You can squeeze my hand, or you can tell me a story while I do it."

You put the cup down and grabbed two of his fingers.

Robby cleaned the wound in small sections. Each touch burned, and you cried into the sleeve of his shirt when he leaned close enough. He stopped whenever you pulled away and waited until you told him to keep going.

When the bandage was finally in place, he wrapped a cold pack in the washcloth and held it near your arm.

"Do you want to hold this, or do you want me to?"

"You."

Robby pressed it gently against the bruises. You leaned into his chest, still hidden behind the closet door, and listened to his heartbeat. He kissed your hair again and again, each one slow enough that you could feel him making sure you were really there.

"Can we make Papa leave?" you asked.

Robby closed his eyes above your head. "Papa's staying in the living room with me tonight. You can sleep in my room, and I'll sit outside the door. He won't come upstairs."

"I want you in the room."

"Then I'll be in the room."

"What if he gets scary again?"

"I'll keep you safe." Robby's arm tightened around you. "Tomorrow, Papa's calling his doctor and therapist. We're going to make a plan. Your part of that plan will be very simple. If Papa gets confused or scary, you run somewhere safe and call for me. You don't have to talk him better."

You frowned against his shirt. "You talked him better."

"That's a grown-up job. It isn't yours."

Robby carried you out of the closet because your legs had gone numb. You hid your face against his shoulder as he passed the kitchen.

Jack sat against the cabinets with his residual limb covered by a blanket. The prosthesis lay near the stove, and the fallen baking sheet had been pushed beneath the table. His face was swollen from crying. He held both palms open on the floor where you could see them.

He didn't reach for you.

"I'm sorry, bug," he said. His voice barely carried across the room. "You didn't do anything wrong. I scared you, and I hurt you."

You tightened both arms around Robby's neck.

"Don't call me bug."

Jack flinched as if you'd struck him. "Okay."

Robby didn't tell you to be kind. He carried you upstairs.

That night, you slept in Robby and Jack's bed with Robby sitting against the headboard beside you. Each time a pipe clicked, or the rain struck the window harder, your eyes opened.

"Is he coming?" you whispered.

"No." Robby checked the hallway and returned to the bed. "Papa's on the couch."

"Are you going to leave?"

"Not until you're ready."

You pressed your face into his ribs, and he kissed your forehead whenever your breathing caught. You finally fell asleep with two fingers locked around his. When you woke before dawn, he'd shifted lower against the pillows, but his hand was still in yours.

The next morning, the house smelled faintly of burned toast. Jack had tried to make breakfast from the living room and forgotten the bread in the toaster when a truck backfired outside. Robby unplugged it without comment.

Jack sat on the couch without his prosthesis. He looked smaller than he had the day before, his crutches laid flat on the floor so they couldn't fall and frighten you.

While Robby changed the bandage on your shoulder, Jack called his therapist. His voice shook as he described the baking sheet, the way he'd grabbed you, and how long it had taken him to let go. He didn't call it an accident and didn't soften the part where he'd hurt you.

"I need an urgent appointment," he said. His eyes stayed on the carpet. "And we need a safety plan for my daughter."

You didn't know what urgent meant. You knew he was telling someone what he'd done instead of hiding it.

Before Robby drove him to the appointment, Jack stopped at the far end of the hall.

"Can I say goodbye from here?" he asked. His hands stayed at his sides.

You looked at Robby.

"You can say no," Robby told you. He taped the final edge of your bandage. "You can also decide how close is close enough."

You didn't hold out your hand. You couldn't imagine touching Jack yet.

"You can say it there," you whispered.

Jack swallowed. "Goodbye. I'll come back with Daddy, and I won't come near you unless you ask."

"Okay."

It wasn't forgiveness. It was all you could give him that morning.

Recovery became less private after that.

There were more therapy appointments, different medication, changes to Jack's rehabilitation schedule, and family sessions in a room with soft chairs that made loud noises when anyone moved.

At the first family session, you sat in Robby's lap with your bandaged shoulder turned inward. He kept one arm secure around your middle and rested his cheek against your hair whenever the room felt too large. Jack chose a chair across the room. He'd left the prosthesis at home because the skin at the end of his limb had torn during the episode, and his wheelchair allowed him to keep both hands visible in his lap.

The therapist asked whether you wanted to tell Jack what you remembered.

You shook your head.

"That's all right," Jack said. His fingers tightened together. "You don't owe me the story. I remember enough."

You looked at the floor. "You didn't remember me."

Jack went very still.

"No," he said. He didn't ask Robby to rescue him from the answer. "Not the way I should've."

"Did you think I was somebody bad?"

"I didn't think you were bad." He pushed a trembling breath out through his nose. "I thought a bad thing was happening around us. My brain got stuck in an old place."

"Your eyes were open."

"They were."

"Then you should've seen me."

Jack's mouth pulled tight. "You're right. You were there, and I should've seen you."

The therapist didn't turn the conversation into a lesson before you were ready. She let you stay angry. She let Jack sit with what his actions had done without making you comfort him.

Robby drew the safety plan in purple marker because you'd refused the black one. He put three rules on a card and read them aloud.

"Get somewhere safe," he said, tapping the first line. "Find Daddy or another grown-up. You don't have to fix Papa."

You traced the last sentence with one finger. "What if you're at work?"

"Then Papa won't be alone with you until his treatment team says it's safe and all three of us agree." Robby slid the card into your backpack. "For now, I'm here."

Jack's face tightened, but he nodded. "That's the rule."

Grounding lists appeared inside kitchen cabinets and beside Jack's bed. Robby recorded his voice on Jack's phone for moments when he wasn't home. Jack practiced naming the date, the room, and what he could feel beneath his hands. He learned to recognize the warning signs that arrived before panic swallowed the present.

Robby practiced too.

He stopped touching Jack without warning, especially from behind. He learned that asking, "Do you want your husband or a doctor?" could make Jack laugh even on a bad night. When Jack chose his husband, Robby sat beside him without checking his pulse or counting his breaths aloud.

Jack learned to say, "I need both," before pain made the choice for him.

No one asked you to trust him quickly.

For days, you left any room Jack entered. You ate dinner beside Robby while Jack stayed at the other end of the table. You slept in your own bed again only after Robby moved a chair into the hallway and promised Jack would remain downstairs.

Jack kept every promise about distance.

He knocked on rooms that hadn't needed knocking before. He asked before sitting beside you. If a pan clattered, he moved away from you and placed both hands on the nearest solid surface while Robby guided him through the present.

The first time another baking sheet slipped in the drying rack, you ran to the hall before it even fell. Robby found you pressed against the wall with your hands over your ears.

Jack stayed in the kitchen.

"I'm at home," he called from where you couldn't see him. His voice shook, but it remained his. "I'm not coming toward you. Daddy's coming to you."

Robby crouched in front of you. "You did exactly what the plan said."

"Is he scary?"

"He's frightened, but he knows where he is. He's sitting down."

You peeked around Robby's shoulder. Jack was on the floor beside the table, one hand flat on the tile and the other gripping the edge of his shirt. He didn't look at you until you spoke.

"You didn't grab me."

Relief and grief crossed his face together. "No. I didn't."

That wasn't when you forgave him. At six, forgiveness wasn't one choice you could make and finish. It arrived in small pieces that often disappeared again.

It came when Jack packed your lunch and cut the sandwich into stars even though the points tore. It came when he helped with spelling words from the far end of the couch and didn't move closer when you got one wrong. It came when he fell asleep during a movie, and you watched his chest until you were sure his breathing was ordinary. It came the first morning you let him kiss the tips of your fingers instead of your forehead. He asked before every touch, even after you started saying yes more often.

Some days, the prosthesis stayed on until bedtime. Other days, Jack used his crutches or wheelchair without apologizing. He let you see Robby inspect his skin instead of turning away in shame, and Robby asked permission before lifting the liner.

The bruises on your arm faded from purple to yellow. The scrape became a thin pink line near your shoulder. Jack never looked at it without pain tightening his mouth, but he stopped making that pain your responsibility.

Weeks passed before you let him read a bedtime story again.

Jack sat on the rug outside your room while you stayed beneath the blankets. He held the book low enough that you could see his face over the top.

"You skipped a page," you said.

"I was testing you."

"You lost your place."

"Slander."

You giggled before you remembered you were still angry. The sound startled both of you.

Jack smiled carefully and returned to the missed page. He didn't mention that it was the first time you'd laughed with him since the kitchen. When he finished, you reached two fingers beyond the doorway. Jack touched two of his to yours, then left you tucked safely in bed.

The first time you walked to the park together, the sidewalk was still damp from morning rain. Robby stayed home on purpose. He told you that you could turn around at any point, then watched from the porch while Jack settled his forearm crutches and you drew a chalk line at the bottom step.

"That's the starting line," you explained.

Jack looked toward the corner. "Starting what?"

"The walk."

"You don't usually need a starting line for a walk."

"You do if it might turn into a race."

Jack's smile appeared, then faded. "No racing today."

You nodded as if you hadn't hoped otherwise.

For half a block, you matched the rhythm of his crutches. Plant, step, swing. Plant, step, swing. You didn't realize you were doing it until Jack stopped beside a cracked section of sidewalk.

"You don't have to walk like me," he said. Irritation sharpened the edge of his voice. "You can go ahead."

You stopped too. "I'm walking."

"You're waiting for me."

"Daddy says we wait for people."

"Not every second." Jack shifted his weight and looked away. "You used to run to the corner."

"You used to race me."

Pain crossed his face. He turned it into anger before you could understand it. "I can't be that Papa anymore."

"I know!" Your shout startled a bird from the fence. Tears rushed into your eyes. "I don't want old Papa. I want you."

Jack stared at you.

You wiped your nose on your sleeve. "But not scary you. Just you now."

His crutches sank slightly into the wet grass when he moved off the sidewalk and lowered himself until you were closer to the same height.

"Scary me is part of me now," he said carefully. "I'm learning what to do when he tries to take over. You never have to stand close while I do it."

"Is he going to go away?"

Jack looked toward the park instead of lying to you. "I don't know. I think he'll get quieter if I keep working."

You thought about the answer. "Can I still want you if I don't want him?"

Jack's eyes filled. "You can want whatever parts feel safe."

"I want the part that makes rabbit pancakes."

"That's one of my strongest parts."

You held out two fingers instead of your whole hand, leaving him room to balance. Jack looked at them for a long moment before closing two of his around yours.

"We don't have to race," you said.

"Good." He pushed himself upright with a quiet grunt. "Your short legs used to give me an unfair advantage."

"I won three times."

"Unverified."

You reached the park without racing. On the way home, you walked at your own pace. Sometimes that put you several steps ahead, and Jack didn't ask you to slow down. Robby was waiting on the porch when you returned. You climbed the steps first, accepted his kiss against your hair, then turned and held one arm out toward Jack. He joined you carefully. Robby wrapped his free arm around Jack's waist, and for one long moment the three of you stood pressed together beside the shiny rail.

Months later, you discussed Jack's return to the Pitt at the same table where Robby had explained the amputation.

The paper calendar covered nearly half the table. Robby had marked his day shifts in blue. Jack's proposed night shifts were orange. Your school days, therapy appointments, and Saturday swim lessons filled the spaces between them in purple stars.

Jack wore the prosthesis again, though his cane leaned against the table. He'd spent the afternoon walking the route from the staff entrance to the emergency department and back. By dinner, the muscles above his knee trembled whenever he stood.

"Nights make sense," Jack said. He rotated a pencil between his fingers. "Fewer administrators. Different rhythm."

Robby studied him over his glasses. "You also sleep badly at night and feel useful when everyone else is in crisis."

"I knew inviting you into this conversation was a mistake."

"You married the mistake."

Jack's mouth twitched. Then he looked at you. "What do you think?"

"Who's going to be home?"

The pencil stopped moving.

Robby reached for the calendar and turned it toward you. "If Papa takes nights, I'll keep days. He'll come home before you wake up. I'll leave after breakfast, and Papa will be here when you get home from school. I'll be back for dinner and bedtime."

You followed the colors with your finger. "What if Papa's sleeping?"

"I'll sleep while you're at school," Jack said. He tapped the orange boxes. "When you're home, I'll be awake."

"What if his brain gets stuck?" you asked Robby.

Jack's pencil went still again.

Robby didn't tell you not to worry. "Papa hasn't had another episode where he lost the room. His therapist, his rehabilitation team, and both of us think he's ready to try being home with you. We'll keep the safety plan. You can call me at any time."

"Even if you're doing doctor stuff?"

"Even then."

Jack folded both hands around the pencil. "If you aren't ready, I can wait longer. The Pitt will survive without me."

You looked at him. "Do you miss it?"

"Every day."

"More than us?"

"Never more than you." Jack's answer came without hesitation. "Work is somewhere I know how to help. I want to find out if I can still do that."

"When will you see each other?"

"At handoff," Jack said. His eyes met Robby's. "Weekends. Stolen cups of coffee."

Robby placed his hand over Jack's on the table. "And every hour we protect on purpose."

You frowned at the calendar. "It sounds lonely."

"Sometimes it'll be," Robby said. "It also means one of us is here when you need us."

Jack turned his hand beneath Robby's and laced their fingers. "Coming home taught me that being present has to be more than an address. I want to do this right."

You slipped out of your chair and wedged yourself beneath Robby's free arm. He kissed the top of your head while Jack rested a warm hand against your back. You considered both of them. "I get Sundays."

"All of them?" Jack asked.

"Every Sunday unless somebody is dying."

Robby nodded solemnly. "A strict but fair policy."

"No hospital talking at pancakes," you added.

Jack glanced at Robby. "She's drunk with power."

"We created this administration," Robby said. His thumb moved across Jack's knuckles. "We have to live under it."

They built their schedules around that table.

On Jack's first night back, Robby packed his dinner twice. The first container held soup, bread, and apple slices. The second held spare prosthetic liners, skin wipes, medication, and a folded list of numbers Jack already knew.

"Michael," Jack said when he opened the bag. He lifted the emergency supplies. "I'm going to work, not crossing a hostile border."

Robby zipped the bag again. "Humor me."

Jack's expression softened. "That's what I'm doing by not unpacking it."

You sat on the bottom stair in your pajamas, holding the purple safety card. "Are you coming back before breakfast?"

Jack crouched with one hand on the rail. He stayed one step below you so he wouldn't block the stairs. "I'll be here before you wake up. If the night gets long, Daddy will tell you."

"Promise?"

"I promise I'll always tell you the truth about coming home."

It wasn't the promise you'd asked for. Robby had taught him to stop making promises medicine couldn't keep.

You held out two fingers. Jack linked his with yours. Then you leaned forward and kissed his cheek, and his eyes closed around the feeling. He stood and kissed Robby beside the front door.

Their kiss lasted longer than the airport kiss had. Robby checked Jack's face when it ended, and Jack rested his forehead against his.

"Husband or doctor?" Robby asked.

"Husband."

"Then come home safe because I love you."

Jack breathed out. "I love you too."

He came home at seven twelve the next morning, exhausted and carrying terrible vending-machine coffee. You ran from the breakfast table and stopped several feet away, suddenly remembering the kitchen.

Jack noticed the hesitation. He waited.

You crossed the remaining space and wrapped your arms around his waist. He kept both hands where you could see them until you pulled him closer. Then he gathered you against him and kissed your hair, holding on until you were the one who eased back.

"How was work?" you asked into his scrubs.

"Loud, understaffed, and exactly where I needed to be."

Robby stood in the doorway with his work bag over one shoulder. His eyes shone when Jack reached him. He touched your back as he passed, keeping the three of you connected for another moment.

"Welcome back, Dr. Abbot," he said.

Jack kissed him. "Go save daytime, Dr. Robby."

The arrangement was never as neat as the calendar. Emergencies ran late. School events landed between shifts. Jack's prosthesis still hurt, and old memories still followed him home. Some mornings, he removed the leg just inside the front door and crossed the room on crutches because one more step was too much.

He also learned to tell you when he was struggling.

"I'm here," he'd say, pressing his palm to the kitchen table. "My brain's catching up."

When you were little, you followed the safety plan and found Robby. As you grew older, you learned that you could choose to sit nearby without becoming responsible for Jack's recovery. Sometimes you talked about school until his breathing steadied. Sometimes you gave him quiet and let him call Robby.

Robby never stopped coming when either of you needed him. Jack never stopped reminding Robby that love wasn't the same as surveillance.

Their opposite shifts cost them things. They missed going to bed together. They learned to communicate through notes on the refrigerator and half-finished conversations at the Pitt. Their notes ended in cramped hearts, terrible drawings, or instructions for you to hug whichever father was awake. They protected Sunday breakfasts with the intensity of a medical protocol.

They gained things too.

One of them attended every parent conference. One of them sat through every school concert, even when Jack had worked all night, or Robby had spent twelve hours in the emergency department. When you woke from a nightmare about the kitchen, a father was always down the hall.

By the time you were fifteen, most of the Pitts' longtime staff knew the schedule, the marriage, and the daughter who sometimes arrived with a forgotten charger or dinner container. The newest trainees only saw Robby leave as Jack arrived. They mistook the space between shifts for the whole of your fathers' lives.

"You disappeared on us," Robby says.

The emergency department returns around you. Jack is watching from the other side of the desk, his dinner tucked beneath one arm.

"Just remembering," you say. You pull your backpack on again.

Mel glances between the three of you. "How long have you all been a family?"

"Long enough that she used to believe I was funny," Robby says. He reaches for your shoulder.

You step neatly out of range. "I've got no memory of that."

Jack points at you with his dinner container. "See? This is what your parenting has done."

"My parenting?" Robby turns toward him. "You taught her to pick locks."

"One lock. For educational purposes."

Javadi looks at Santos. "How did we miss this?"

Santos watches Robby straighten Jack's collar and shakes her head. "Apparently, we're bad at observation."

"Clinically concerning," Jack says.

Whitaker smiles at you. "So they really work opposite shifts to be home with you?"

You look at your fathers.

Robby's hair is grayer than it was at the airport, and Jack's balance is steadier. The years between then and now live in smaller changes too. Robby waits before reaching for Jack's sore leg. Jack says when he needs help before pain turns the request into surrender. Both of them listen when you say you're afraid without treating fear like ingratitude.

At six, you thought coming home meant nothing frightening could follow through the door. You thought Robby had chosen Jack when he stayed on the kitchen floor, and you thought Jack's open eyes meant he had decided not to know you.

At fifteen, you understand triage, trauma, and the way a brain can mistake memory for the present. Understanding hasn't erased the scar near your shoulder or the hurt of waiting in the dark. It has given the memory somewhere to rest.

Their life has made room for all of it beside chemistry tests, hospital schedules, bad jokes, and Sunday breakfasts.

"They always have," you say.

Whitaker looks from Jack to Robby. "So you barely see each other?"

"We see each other now," Jack says. He lifts the coffee Robby abandoned beside the keyboard and takes a drink from it. His face tightens. "Unfortunately, he still considers this drinkable."

"You brought it," Robby reminds him.

"An error in judgment."

Dana passes behind them with a chart in one hand. "They're unbearable at handoff. You've only just started noticing."

"Thank you, Dana," Robby says.

"Wasn't a compliment."

She keeps walking before Jack can answer. Mel tries to hide a smile and fails.

Jack shifts his weight again. You catch the brief tightening around his eyes.

"You good, Papa?" you ask.

His gaze settles on you. For a second, the emergency department falls away from his expression. Then he taps two fingers against the dinner container, taking inventory of the present.

"Blue scrubs," he says. He looks toward Robby. "Terrible coffee. Nosy trainees."

Robby's expression softens. He doesn't step closer until Jack angles his shoulder toward him. Then Robby places two fingers against the inside of Jack's wrist.

"Your husband," Robby says.

Jack's thumb brushes the back of his hand. "That too."

Robby glances at you. "Your daughter."

Jack smiles. "My daughter."

You move into the open space at Jack's side and slip your hand into his. Robby's arm settles around your shoulders, his other hand still resting against Jack's wrist. Jack leans into both of you without taking his weight off the prosthesis, accepting closeness instead of rescue.

He touches his free hand to his chest, then looks around the department that took him back and the family that taught him how to return.

"I'm home."

Trying the old fashioned way was the first step. You weren’t going to put thousands of dollars into regular sex unless there was a high success rate because there was also other factors, like adoption, or surrogates. You were open to anything. The end goal would always be a child. 

You talked with a gynecologist, and they talked about getting you both in the right direction. Checking Jack’s sperm count, checking hormone levels, checking your eggs. There was a lot of checking. 

And that’s how you’re here. Now. Sitting with a nice lady who has auburn hair and glasses on her face. Her name is Amy and she didn’t judge your age gap, acting as if it was completely normal. 

It’s a little awkward like this. She’s using harsh phrases and big words that you should be used to by now because you’re married to a doctor. But then again— she’s not your husband. 

You turn to look at Jack the same time he looks at you. Trying to decide if you should say “we can’t keep our hands or tongues off each other,” or maybe a more appropriate answer. 

You turn back to Amy, bashful smile on your face when you answer: “Often.” 

Amy nods and writes on that little clip board. Fuck it seems like that clip board is already the bane of your existence. 

“And are any of you on any medication that would prevent conception?” 

This time you turn to Jack before he can turn to you. Meaning he has to answer because he keeps track of most of your pill intake. 

“Not that I know of.” 

You picked a bad time to visit the doctors. The closest fertility specialist’s are at least an hour away from home. Jack’s wearing that tan polo shirt that’s just a little to tight around his biceps and chest area, he said he was trying to look professional even though he’s just wearing regular jeans for bottoms. Though his belt around his hips did make him look a little more distinguished.  

It’s safe to say your thighs squeeze together often when around him. The ovulation cycle making you particularly horny this week. Or maybe it’s the way Jack seems just the littlest bit nervous. 

You’ve zoned out for too long. Amy is talking but you hardly understand a word she’s saying. Jack will explain it all to you later at lunch, but for now she’s writing on her desk and opening up a drawer pulling something plastic out. 

“—and I’d like to take a semen sample for sperm count evaluation. If that’s okay.” 

She’s handing Jack a clear cup inside of a plastic bag. Asking as if he has a choice. Pathetically, Jack takes it. 

“Not a problem.” He half smiles. Almost like she didn’t secretly just say “I need a nice amount of your cum to study.”

“Great. There’s a private room just out the door to your left.” Amy points behind him before turning to you. “And while he’s doing that I’d like to draw some blood work and also get set up for a pelvic exam.” 

Jack turns to you, as if he’s about to get up to walk away. It’s hard to hold in the slight laughter because you know he’s about to go jerk off in a public place. Most places would throw you in jail for masturbating in public. But here it’s completely fine. 

Yet Jack still has those soft, caring eyes for you. “You gonna be okay?” 

Blood work— x-ray. Right now it sounds like a lot. But its not your first rodeo, you’re a big girl having gone to the doctors before. You can spend thirty minutes without your husband. 

“Yeah.” Jack gets up and presses a sweet kiss to your lips. Chaste, but still meaningful. “Go have fun.” 

Jack gives you a look, a small dead pan before giving you a wink. You watch as he walks out of the room. Keeping your eyes trained on his ass just like he would do for you. 

When you turn back to Amy she’s already standing. 

“Ready to go?” 

Your tests were fairly easy. A little needle prick and one ultrasound later, you were back in the room with Amy. 

“I’ll get those tests back in about thirty minutes and I’ll tell you the results.” 

You nod. And when you walk through the big doors, you see a certain missing husband has not returned. Both your brows furrow. But Amy shrugs. 

“Oh. He’s not back yet. It’s fine. I have some more things I’d like to go over with you.” 

Sitting back in your original seat you wait again, but your mind wonders back to Jack. You’ve been taking tests for thirty minutes and he’s still not back yet. It’s not weird. But it’s kinda weird. 

Amy sits down and pulls the computer closer to her. While she’s clicking on buttons and saying something like “I’m just gonna pull up your chart here…” You’re pulling out your phone. 

You click on Jack’s contact. It really has been thirty minutes and the more you think about it, the more you worry for him. 

Having fun in there?

You shoot the text. Sitting up straight in your chair you’re definitely not expecting a response back so soon when your phone buzzes on your lap. 

The most fun. 

You hide a smile. You can imagine him pulling down his pants half way with his dick hanging out and leaking. What you can’t imagine is why it’s taking so long. 

Then hurry up, we’re waiting on the test results to get back. 

About that…

Your brows furrow. You sneak a glance at Amy but she’s still looking at the computer screen. You can hear the clicking of the mouse pad. 

What did you do this time?

I can’t get hard. 

You want to gawk. Except not here, and not now in front of this nice doctor. But those words have only come out of Jack’s mouth maybe twice in your entire marriage. Your fingers quickly type against the keyboard of your phone.

You’re not that old yet. 

Idk what’s wrong! 

Jack, this is really ruining our baby making ability. 

Oh really? Sorry I was under the impression we didn’t need cum to procreate and the fucking storks were going to bring us a child. 

You can hear the sarcasm through the text. You can imagine the huff Jack would be letting out right about now and it makes you want to smile. 

Stay where you are. 

What?!?!

“So I’ve found—” 

You cut Amy off— bless her soul— and softly ask for the bathroom. She nods and tells you where, but your mind zones out. Because if you heard it right, there was a private room that Jack was inside and you were so going to tease him about this. 

Out the door, to the left, down a hall, and soon there is a door on your right with the words “private room” written on it. You knock rapidly a few times. Voice a little louder than usual. 

“Someone call for a sex worker?” 

Jack peaks his head through the door and lets his eyes wander up and down your body as if examining you. 

“Yeah, that was fast. We gotta keep this on the down low so my wife doesn’t find out.” 

You scoff, but only to hide your smile. Even after years of being married to him he’s still annoyingly funny. Sarcastic comments making a grin splay across your face throughout the day. 

You shove past him and into the room. It’s smaller than imagined and has a big worn loveseat with a small side table. There’s a rack full of playboy magazines hanging by the wall along with some lube, hand sanitizer, and tissues. Jack is gracious enough to close the door behind you and lock it. 

Picking one of the magazines up you show Jack the front cover. There’s a picture of a woman arching her back against the bed, sheet hardly covering her breasts. 

“This isn’t doing it for you?”

Jack looks at the cover but hardly for more than a few seconds before meeting your gaze. 

“You know I read that one through. There’s some pretty lingerie in that one and I think we should head to the mall after—”

You huff a breath and put the magazine back roughly, crossing your arms over your chest. Jack seems to get it now, this is serious. Or as serious as it can be when you’re told to jerk off in a shitty private room. 

“Why can’t you get hard?” 

“The stress— the pressure— is all a lot sweetheart.” 

Jack looks nervous, his ears are tinted pink and his whole posture is wound up tight. You’ll give him grace just this one time, letting your arms fall to your side with a small sigh. 

“Okay… what have you tried then?” 

Jack slides past you and sits on the couch, he sinks deep down into it and spreads his legs before handing you his phone. 

“Tried everything.” 

He looks a little disappointed, not meeting your gaze and when you open up his phone the first thing you’re greeted with was pictures of you. Looking like they could have gone on the cover of those playboy magazines. 

It’s so sweet you almost want to coo at him. Looking at your nudes he has saved. But your eyes dart to where the crotch of his pants are, where the stupid belt buckle rests, and there’s nothing there. 

“Did you think about the time on the cruise ship?” 

Jacks eyes bore into you. He sends you an almost death glare and you watch as his cheeks flame up into the lightest shade of pink. Though it fades fast. You know he’s really embarrassed when his voice changes a pitch higher when he throws his head back. 

“Yes. I thought about the time on the cruise.” 

You hum. He really is at a little bit of a dead end. But there’s still the real thing. Or as close as the real thing you can get. You sit down next to him on the couch. It’s still for a moment before your voice rings out loud and confident. 

“Let me take your clothes off.” 

Jack stares at you for a moment, his lips curve up into the prettiest smirk and you can see the gears turning inside his head. 

“At least ask me out to dinner first.” 

“I’m serious.” 

Your hand immediately goes under his shirt, lifting. He’s warm and relaxes under your touch a little bit before catching your wrist. 

“Sweetheart we can’t contaminate the goods.” He nods to where the plastic cup is on the tiny side table and you shrug. 

“I won’t.” 

Jack looks doubtful but lets you continue anyway with taking his shirt off. 

“Just close your eyes.” 

You whisper softly, and as soon as his arms are out of the holes of his shirt you wrap the fabric around his head, kinda as a makeshift blindfold. It starts to fall immediately and Jack laughs. 

“Shut up—” you tilt his head just so and make sure his shirt isn’t in the way of his nose or ears. Pressing a kiss to his cheek. 

“Just listen to me okay?” 

“I’m all yours baby.”

His words make you smile freely, stupidly. But your hands run down his chest. Over his pecks and down to his stomach. You glide your hands down his sides and to his v-line. 

You watch him shift his hips a little. Practically begging to become naked, and you relent. Undoing his belt buckle and the zipper of his jeans, he lifts his hips up and you pull everything down all the way to his ankles.

Trailing at a snails pace, you run your fingernails over his hairy thighs. You hear the slight change in breath but when you look at his cock it’s still soft. 

“Remember why we’re doing this.” 

You whisper as your hand slides closer and closer to his pelvis. Jacks head rolls back and his neck is out on display, scruff practically begging to leave little red welts on your face. 

“To get me pregnant, right?” 

Jack groans, it’s deep from his throat and you go to press a slow achingly desperate kisses on his neck. 

“Yeah. I— I wanna get you pregnant.” He begs, and you nod. Leaving an imaginary trail of kitten kisses from his neck to chest. 

Jack can’t see your hand, but his hand juts out. Fingers opened wide as if he’s looking for your hand. You give it to him graciously and he squeezes it three times. 

“I know you do.” You breathe, and finally you watch as his dick twitches the tiniest bit. It was almost too easy. “Wanna see me full huh? Walking around all helpless, with your baby.” 

Jack nods. Every once in a while you can see his eyebrows furrowing from under the shirt. You have a feeling he’s enjoying this. 

“Come on honey. Tell me about it. Tell me how you wanna get me pregnant.” 

Usually Jack is great with dirty talk. But right now, he’s licking his lips like his mouth is dry and at a loss for words. Your hand goes down to touch at his dick. He’s sensitive and you can feel the blood flowing down to it, making it warm and hard. 

“You’d be on the bed. Ass up face down.” 

“Mhm.” 

You hum. Nodding for him to continue. He has that slightly darker voice now, the one when he purposefully tries to make you all flustered. You twist your body just enough to grab at the clear cup. Undoing the top for it and in your other hand squirting some lube.

“Gonna rock your shit for hours. Spank that ass, because you know how much I love your ass.” 

As if to show you, his hand that’s not holding yours comes down, touching at your hip before going behind and gripping at the plump flesh. 

Your lubed up hand goes to touch his dick and Jack hisses. Giving a few tentative tugs, you feel him hardening in your palm. A soft moan slipping out of Jack’s lips. 

“Keep going baby.” 

You mumble and do a soft swing of your hips to edge him on. His hand travels down your body now. Grasping at all his favorite spots. 

“M’gonna make you moan loud. Beg for it. G’nna watch your little pussy take it all.” Jack’s hand squeezes at your sides before trailing up to your chest. Grasping at the heavy weight of your breasts. “Oh fuck I can’t wait till these are full.” 

When he’s hard enough you start to do slow tugs, smearing the lube around, up and down. Chastising him softly for the comment. “Jack.” 

“It’s true.” 

There’s no shame in his voice when you’re edging him on. He grips softly at your tits, massaging them through the layers of fabric.  

“Can’t wait for them to be heavy and dripping. Fucking wonderful you can feed our children with these. Can’t wait for you to be heavy and whiny. M’gonna be there baby. At your every whim.” 

You’re glad Jack has the blindfold on because you’re smiling wide. You’d like to believe this isn’t just dirty talk, and that he actually means all of it. That he really wants this baby just as much as you do. 

“Oh fuck— you’re a miracle worker.” 

Jack’s dick is now fully hard in your hand. Five minutes ago Jack thought he wouldn’t be able to get hard. Doomed to go home and have to jerk off and send all his swimmers through the mail. Which doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it is when you’re trying to have a baby and want one fast. 

You kiss Jack’s lips. Soft, with a hint of passion. He’s the sweetest. His hand drops from your tit and up onto your jaw, pushing your faces close together. Minds getting lost in each other. 

You feel Jack’s cock twitching in your hold with every up and down thrust and sloppy twist. You pull away, Jack follows because he doesn’t want to break the kiss. But you go back further than he can catch you. 

“Doing so good for me baby.” 

Jack wasn’t a huge exhibitionist. Probably why he couldn’t get hard in the first place. But if there’s a clearing in the trees, he’s not opposed to doing it in the back seat of his car. 

Jack groans again beside you. This time his hand comes down on-top of yours and guides you to go a little faster. “Nu-uh. You’re doing so good baby. Making me feel amazing— ohh fuck m’gonna give it to you so good when we’re home.” 

You bite your lip. He sounds wrecked and looks so pretty with the blindfold on his eyes and his mouth agape. Any other time you would use that to your full advantage, but not now. Not when it’s all about him. 

Wet squelches echo off of the small room walls, hitting your ears and making your thighs clench. Clit throbbing at the sight. You really hope he makes do with that promise about when you get home, because there’s definitely a damp spot between your legs.

You squeeze his hand that’s holding yours once, and Jack returns the gesture no matter how fucked out he is. You watch as his hips jerk up a few times, you want to let him ride it out. He’s so pretty like this, till you remember why you’re here in the first place.

“Uh… yeah, just like that honey.” 

You snatch the plastic cup from your side and position his dick down, pointing it into the rim of the cup. Jack doesn’t seem to know or even care. Quickly grabbing at the arm of the couch or digging into your skin. 

Jack rambles when he’s getting close, yet it’s the hottest thing you’ve ever heard, even when he’s repeating the same thing over and over. 

“M’so close—” it sounds like he’s struggling. “Right there baby. Gonna cum so hard f’r you. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck—” 

And finally with a groan you watch the tip of his dick spill white hot cum into the plastic cup. The first two spurts are rough, hitting directly into the jar, after that there’s less and it lands on his chest and on the ground no matter how hard you try to get it all in. 

“Good job honey.” You coo, slowing down your thrusts and making sure to milk every last drop from him. Watching as the hot liquid drips a few more times until Jack finally stops you with a hand on your wrist. 

Jack removes his blindfold— his shirt— and watches as you cap off the tiny cup. Putting it in the plastic bag for him. You look oddly pleased. 

“Well, seems like you got a little cleaning up to do.”

You gesture to Jack’s chest and he shakes his head. Still leaning back against the couch he looks like a painting. One you would buy in seconds for your secret sex room. If you ever had one. 

Jack waves his hand in a come hither motion and you don’t think twice. Meeting him halfway for another long, lung aching kiss. Stealing your breath for himself. The selfish bastard. 

When you pull away and look into his eyes, they’re half lidded like he’s suddenly tired. 

“Better than the cruise ship?” You ask softly. 

Jack scoffs. “Nothing beats the cruise ship honey.” 

Your eyes narrow, almost looking offended at his words and you slowly walk backwards to the door. 

“Do not underestimate me, Abbot.” 

Jack lifts up his arms in defeat. Yeah, definitely tired after one orgasm. Old man. He’s shucking up his boxers and jeans and redoing his belt as your hand touches the door knob. 

“I’m gonna go out first and then you can come in five minutes afterwards so it doesn’t look like I jerked you off okay?” 

“Yes ma’am.” 

“Oh, so you don’t want to get in my pants?” Jack cocks an eyebrow, glancing at you before moving his eyes back to the road. 

“Mmm, I didn’t say that,” you twist your body towards him, leaning over the console between the two of you, pressing a lingering kiss just below his ear that makes his breath catch a little, “I plan on getting in them after,” 

You sink back into your seat, a cocky little smile on your face as you smooth down your dress. After pulling into a parking space near the market the two of you wait in the car for a moment while Jack’s hard-on dissipates. 

“You know this is your fault,” he says, entirely playful.

“Me?” You laugh, “how is this my fault?”

“If you weren’t wearing that dress we’d already be picking out peaches right now,” he grins, eyes tracing down your body again. 

“Plums,” you correct with a little smile. 

“Plums,” he agrees with a little eye roll. Another minute goes by before the two of you get out of the car, walking hand in hand towards the farmers market.

“We gotta go to Cato Corner Farm to get that sheep's cheese you like,” Jack says, squeezing your hand.

“Mm,” you hum in agreement, “the Zamorano. You’re so right,” you pull him towards you and place a kiss on his cheek, “you think of everything,”

He just smiles back at you, happy to be able to make you happy. As you wander through the stalls, leading Jack right to the Halfhorn's Farm booth to get your plums, Jack notices a pair of young men whose eyes are following you. You don’t seem to notice, slowing down near a stall filled with fresh cut flowers. You take in a deep breath and Jack turns back to you just as you start to bend forward to smell the peonies. 

“Woah, baby,” he says, putting his hand on your lower back, stopping you. You look up at him, wide-eyed and a little confused before he reaches down and grabs a stem of the fluffy pink flower and holds it out for you. Your expression melts into one of pure adoration, a small blush spreading across your cheeks as you hold the flower up to your nose, breathing in its sweetness all while keeping your eyes locked on Jack. You hold it up to him and he touches his nose to the soft petals, inhaling just like you had. 

“Think we need to get you some of these, pretty girl,” he says, voice low enough so only you can hear him. Your blush deepens, cheeks flushing red, as you take his hand. He turns to the woman at the booth and asks for twelve stems.

“Lovely choice,” the woman says with a warm smile, “the peonies are just gorgeous this time of year,”

“They’re beautiful,” you agree as she wraps up the bouquet in brown parchment paper. Jack hands her his card before she can even say how much they cost, “thank you so much,” you say, taking the bursting spray of flowers from her. Although Jack offers to hold them for you, you insist on carrying them yourself, looking down at them every few steps with the most precious smile on your face.

As the two of you meander down the shady path Jack sees a man standing with his wife and kid blatantly staring at you. Smartass thinks his sunglasses make him discreet but Jack can tell his eyes are fixed on you, right where your little dress cuts across your chest, pressing your tits together perfectly. Jack spots the Cato Corner Farm stand to your right, dragging you that way by your hand, placing you firmly in front of him, your back pressed to his chest, blocking you from that asshole's view.

The old woman at the cheese stand recognizes you by name as you greet her sweetly.

“Hi Ethel,” you smile, “how’s it going out here today?”

“I’m not sure it could be a more beautiful day,” Ethel smiles, and leans forward as if to tell you a secret, “or a more beautiful dress,” she gives you a knowing little wink. This one, of course, Jack doesn’t mind. Ethel always pays you a compliment, perhaps a little repayment for your kindness to her. You had brought her to the Pitt after she had a bout of vertigo about two years ago and she hasn’t stopped being completely gracious since. Plus, you found it endlessly entertaining how she always flirted with…

“Hi Dr. Abbot,” Ethel says sweetly, “looking very handsome today, as always.” You lean back in Jack’s arms, turning to him and beaming as he smiles at Ethel. She had become very smitten with him the day you brought her to the hospital and he treated her. Little did you know at the time, Jack paid extra attention to her because he wanted to spend more time with you, to take care of someone you cared about. He had learned later that you had really only known her in passing. It made him want you all that much more. 

“Ethel,” Jack says, squeezing you back against him, “how many times do I have to ask you to call me Jack?”

“Oh, psh,” Ethel waves him off, but she’s grinning like a school girl, “what can I get you today dear, half a pound of the Zamorano?”

“Am I that transparent?” You smile. Ethel turns and grabs a wheel of cheese, moving it to the cutting block. Just as she starts cutting, her grandson, Trevor, meanders over to where the two of you wait. Jack hates Trevor. Maybe he hates him because he would be a more ‘age appropriate’ guy for you, or maybe he hates him because he is always flirty with you, whether Jack is there or not. It’s probably that latter.

“This is a reserve gruyere with a little tomato tapenade,” Trevor says, reaching forward to hand you one of the little paper cups he’s been passing out before he noticed you, “really nice acidity from the tomato with the nutty flavor of cheese,”

Before you can even react Jack is reaching around you and taking the sample from Trevor getting enormous satisfaction from the way his face drops. Jack plucks the little slice of cheese from the cup, holding it out for you to try. You look at him with a little, sassy smile on your face, knowing exactly what he’s doing, and open your mouth for him. You take a bite of the cheese, leaving half for Jack, who smugly pops it into his mouth. 

“Mm,” Jack hums, nodding as if he’s seriously contemplating the flavor profile Trevor described. 

“It’s good,” you say, turning to Jack to see if he agrees. 

“Yeah, we’ll take a quarter pound of that Trevor,” Jack says, a cocky smirk on his face, “and the tapenade,”

Trevor turns, dejected, muttering to Ethel that you’d like a quarter pound of the gruyere as he hands her the block.

“Oh wonderful,” Ethel says over her shoulder. Trevor slinks away towards the van to sulk. 

“You’re such an asshole,” you laugh, whispering to him.

“Gotta make sure everyone knows who you belong to,” he murmurs in your ear. His words send a wave of warmth throughout your body. 

“Oh yeah?” You say, your voice lowered so only he can hear.

“Gonna show you too when we get home,” he says, squeezing your hips, pulling you back against his crotch where you can feel his cock hardening against your ass.

“Jack,” you giggle against him as he takes your bouquet of flowers from you, moving you to his side so he can hold the large bunch of flowers over his pelvis.

“Alright, here we are,” Ethel says, handing you two blocks of cheese and a jar of tapenade. 

“Thank you, Ethel,” you say, taking the provisions from her and putting them in your bag.

“Have a good day you two,” Ethel says, before looking at Jack, “and you better keep an eye on her today. Gonna have all the fella’s chasing your girl lookin’ that pretty.”

“I’ll do my best,” Jack smiles, taking your hand and walking you towards the Halfhorn's booth. 

Jack watches you with a little smile on his face as you contemplate the plums at the produce stand, a tiny, little line between your brows as you pick up the pieces of fruit one by one, turning each over a couple times before putting it in the little green, pulp fiber basket or placing them carefully back on the pile. You’re the most precious thing in the world to him. He loves the little concentrated face you make as you pick out stone fruit, it’s the same one he’d first noticed at the hospital when you’re focusing on something really hard. It makes his heart flutter that you take this fruit as seriously as the life and death situations you deal with at work. Just as you’re bringing one up to your nose, another patron at the stand sidles up next to you. Jesus Christ, Jack can’t catch a fucking break. 

“How do you know if they’re good?” He asks, nodding down to the plums. This guy’s closer to Jack’s age but it doesn’t make him any less pissed.

“Oh, um,” you look down at the plum in your hand, really considering the question more than the reason this guy’s asking you, “you gotta check for a little give, press near the stem, and it should smell sweet and… plummy…” 

The guy nods with a smarmy smile on his face and just as he’s about to open his mouth to try and keep talking to you, you turn in Jack’s direction and he’s already walking towards you to intervene.

“Baby,” you say, smiling as your gaze lands on him immediately, “if we got peaches for cobbler would you eat it? Or-” you take in a little gasp, resting your hand on his chest, “peach upside down cake. Do you remember? I made it last summer with your mom?” 

Jack looks at you with reverence as you look at him, your fingers toying with the little buttons below his collar. As much as he enjoys showing everyone who you belong to, he also knows he belongs to you just as much, and you’re just as willing to show that. He leans down and places a little kiss on your lips.

“You’re the sweetest,” he murmurs.

“Is that a yes?” You smile at him.

“Yes,” he says, grabbing another green basket for you to fill. 

The two of you wander back towards the truck with your haul, Jack carefully placing the peonies in the back seat so they don’t get squished. 

“Hey,” you say, making him turn towards you as he starts the car, “I love you,”

“I love you too,” he says, resting his hand on your knee, giving it a little squeeze, “but I think if you wear this dress outside again it’s gonna kill me. Too many guys checking you out… and Ethel…”

You laugh, shaking your head and resting your hand on top of his.

“You’re the only one who gets to see what’s underneath,” you say, dragging his hand up your leg slipping his fingers beneath the hem of your skirt. You pull your legs apart, head leaning back against the headrest staring at him. As he keeps his eyes on the road he moves his hand up your thigh until his pinky brushes up on where he thinks the seam of your panties should be. He turns to you and you have a little smirk on your face, your bottom lip between your teeth.  

“Oh my god,” he shifts his hand a little further, his fingers running up the center of your bare pussy. His eyebrows furrow and his mouth hangs open as he lets out a little groan, “fuck, baby, no panties?”

You let out a little giggle as he quickly brings his hand up to his mouth, sucking his ring and middle finger past his lips, coating them in spit before dropping his hand back down. He flexes his hand grazing over your core as you let out a small, breathy moan. 

“You made me make a mess,” you whine, moving your hand over his, pushing his fingers harder into the wetness between your legs, “touching me all day, grabbing me, making sure everyone knows I’m yours…”

Jack wants to pull over so badly, yank you over the console and stuff your pussy full of his fingers until you’re squirting all over his hand but he wants to fuck you right, so he keeps driving. He slowly starts rubbing circles on your clit, making you nice and ready for him.

“What would everyone think huh?” He says, voice condescending, “if they knew you were dripping down your thighs for me the whole time? Surprised no one could see in this tiny fuckin’ dress,”

“Only want you to see,” you whimper as Jack continues his slow, tantalizing pressure on your pussy, making you squirm in your seat.

“I know, baby,” he says, voice raspy with lust, “you’re so good for me,” 

“Jack,” you whimper, pushing your hips up against his hand, desperate for more friction. He tuts, making a mock sad face at you.

“I know you wanna come,” he says, “but I don’t want you to until my cock’s inside you, got it?”

“Ok,” you squeak. After what feels like eons, but is really only a minute of Jack teasing your poor little pussy, he pulls up in front of your building, pulling his hand from you making you let out a pissy little huff. Jack just smiles, getting out of the car, gathering your haul from the back seat before walking around to your door and pulling it open for you. Even with his arms full he still holds a hand out for you to take, which you do, dragging him inside. 

As soon as you’re in your apartment you’re taking things from Jack’s arms, throwing them on the kitchen counter before turning back to him. Your hands drop to his belt, working the buckle open and shoving your hand down his boxers, grabbing his hot cock, making him suck in a sharp breath of air through his teeth. He pushes his shorts and boxers down just enough to expose his cock which bounces up onto his stomach before grabbing your hips and roughly turning you around. He flips up the little skirt of your dress and bends forward, caging you against the counters between his arms, his shaft pressing against your ass.

“Who’s pussy is this?” Jack rasps in your ear, his breath hot against your neck.

“Yours,” you squeak, pushing your ass back against him, “it’s your pussy,”

 He straightens up, rubbing his cock against your slick hole, pushing in slowly as you both moan at the feeling of him stretching you out. He stays buried inside you for a moment, hips flushes to you as runs his palm over the smooth skin of your ass, flexing his stomach, making his cock push up inside you. You let out a small squeak at the feeling and he smirks. 

“Jack,” you try to move your hips, squirming against him. Slowly he pulls back, feeling you squeeze around him, wet and warm. He starts fucking you hard and fast, watching the little bounce of your ass as he pushes inside you over and over, your little white dress fluttering as he fucks in and out of you He grips down on your waist, squeezing your smooth skin in his callous hands. 

“Does my girl like when I fuck her greedy little hole?” He groans, gripping down on your hips so tight the skin under his fingers turns a shade lighter.

“Yeah,” you whine, “I- I love how your cock stretches me out,”

“Fuck, your pussy was made for me,” he groans, snapping his hips against you at a deep, relentless pace, gripping the flesh of your ass in his hands, pulling your cheeks apart so he can watch his cock stretch in and out of you. He spits down on you, the saliva landing on your asshole, using his thumb to spread it down to your pussy.

“I love the way you fuck me,” you whine, the force of his thrusts is making your ass jiggle with every move. He reaches around you, gripping your tits through the flimsy material of your dress, rubbing over your nipples until they’re diamond hard, poking against the white lace. 

“Love it when I can feel you squeeze around me,” he grunts.

You’re pressing your palms down on the counter, whimpering as he pounds into you. 

“You’re so fucking sexy,” he says, voice rough, “so sexy, taking my cock so good.”

A shiver runs up his spine, he’s not gonna last much longer, not with you against the counter looking like you do: eyes shut, mouth open, and flushed cheeks. He pulls his cock out of you and hauls you up by your neck, turning you around, perching your ass on the counter. Your fingers wrap around the edge of the cool marble while he gently pulls down the thin straps of your dress before yanking the neckline down, exposing your tits to him. He pushes back inside you hard, loving how your tits bounce, framed by the white fabric of your slutty, little sundress. He bends forward, sucking one of your nipples in his mouth, feeling it harden under his tongue as he fucks up into you. 

“Play with your clit,” he says, mouth full of your breast. You reach down between your bodies and start rubbing tight circles on yourself, “good girl,” he mumbles on your skin. 

“I’m gonna come,” you whine, your hand faltering slightly.

“Yeah?” He fucks in and out of you harder and faster, “say my name when you come, say who this pussy belongs to,”

“I-” you squeak out as your eyes squeeze shut, “Jack, Jack, Ja-ack,” you say as your mouth falls open, your pleasure overwhelming your ability to speak. 

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he says through gritted teeth, “my beautiful girl,” he says, balls slapping against your ass as he fucks you through his orgasm while his breaks in his stomach. 

“Fuck,” he groans as he pushes inside you one last time, hard, coming deep inside your pussy. The pair of you look down between your bodies where his cum leaks out of you around his cock still buried inside you.

“Oh my god,” you say breathlessly. He tilts your chin down so you’re looking at him. You stare at each other for a moment, chests heaving, he pulls you in slowly by your jaw and placing a lingering kiss on your lips.

 “I love you,” he whispers. 

“I love you too,” you sigh. You let out a small whine as he pulls out of you. Before you can get off the counter he bends down between your thighs, “Jack your leg,” 

His heart swells at the worry in your voice but right now he’s still a man possessed by your sweet pussy. Admiring your glittering wetness blended together, he licks it all up gently as you squirm and whimper above him. He stands back up, taking your jaw firmly in his hand, squeezing down so your mouth opens. Jack spits the blend of cum and spit into your mouth. He pushes your chin lightly so your lips close, dragging his hand down so it rests on your neck. You stare at him in a bewildered lust.

“Swallow,” he says, feeling your throat under his fingers as you gulp down, “good girl.”

Jack pulls his shorts up before gently moving his hands back to you, pulling the front of your dress up carefully, putting the thin straps back in place before smoothing down your skirt.

You spend another night in the hospital, and the next morning, 31 hours after the birth, you’re about to be released from the hospital.

As you slowly pack the last of your things up, Jack gets Birdie settled in her car seat. She squirms and whimpers, but he whispers soft reassurances as he buckles her in.

“I know the car seat’s not as warm as Mommy and Daddy are, Birdie girl. I know, but you’ll be okay,” he coos. “The car ride’s only gonna be about ten minutes. Ten minutes, then Mommy’ll hold you again. You might even get the boob.”

From your spot on the foot of the bed, you let out a soft snort.

“All ready?” Jack asks once he’s got Birdie settled.

You nod and stand to step closer to peek in the car seat.

“Aw, she looks even smaller in there,” you mutter as you reach out to adjust her onesie.

“Tiny but mighty,” Jack says, placing a comforting, possessive hand on your hip.

You look from Birdie to him and find him pulling the ‘#1 Dad’ cap on.

“Wow,” you laugh softly.

Jack furrows his brow. “Hey, Jerry got it for me, so I’m gonna wear it with pride.”

Yesterday afternoon, your mom and stepdad, Jerry, came to the hospital with lunch to check in on you and meet the baby. Jerry handed the baseball cap to Jack with about as much pride as you can imagine.

“Okay, babe.” You smile and reach out to adjust the cap. “You actually do look hot in it.” 

Jack grins, and you kiss his cheek, then a nurse comes in with a wheelchair.

“Ready to go home?” she asks, smiling cheerfully.

Jack dropped all the bags off in the car when he pulled it around, so the only thing left for him to grab is the car seat where Birdie is now sleeping soundly. 

On the way out, he walks ahead of you in jeans that hug his ass a little too well and a t-shirt that is fighting with his broad shoulders and his grays peeking out of the cap’s strap.

His forearm is flexed as he carries the car seat, and you’re positive this moment in time is going to live in your mind forever.

When you make it to the car, you peer over Jack’s shoulder as he secures the car seat. It’s not that you don’t trust him to do it properly; it’s just that you’d like to watch over your baby.

He steps back, accidentally bumping into you, then turns around and puts his hands on your hips.

“Hi,” he chirps, happy to see you there. “Wanna ride in the back with her?”

You cover his hands with yours and lean in to peck his lips. “Hi. And, yes, I do.”

Jack takes a step back and keeps his hands hovering near you as you settle into the backseat.

“Comfortable?” he asks as your brow furrows.

Your face relaxes, and you nod. He reaches over and lovingly squeezes your knee before he shuts the door.

The entire drive home, Jack maintains exactly the speed limit on every road. He gets passed at every chance, but he’s got precious cargo in the back, so who really cares if he’s driving like his 97-year-old grandma?

When you get home, he helps you out of the car, then pulls Birdie from her car seat and hands her to you before guiding you up the porch. He unlocks the front door and holds it open for you.

“This is your house, Birdie,” you coo down at the baby in your arms. “This is where you’re gonna live with Mommy and Daddy until we find a different house.”

“Should we give her the tour?” Jack suggests.

You nod at him, then look back at Birdie. By the time you complete the brief tour of the house, she starts to fuss.

“Okay, last room, Birdie girl,” you mutter to the baby as she starts rooting for milk. “It’s your room. Your daddy and Uncle Robby–-who you’ll meet when he gets back from sabbatical–painted the room for you.” You go to sit in the glider chair and start pulling your shirt up and undoing the nursing bra. “And Mommy sat right here while Daddy built the crib.”

Jack crouches down and smooths a hand over Birdie’s soft hair.

“Need anything?” he asks as you get the baby latched.

“Not really,” you say softly, smiling contentedly.

He nods and straightens up. “I’ll bring the stuff inside from the car.”

Then it’s just you and the baby in the nursery, the only sound being her soft suckling.

“We’ve got all kinds of stuff to do,” you say, speaking softly, but not exactly baby-talking. “Gotta make your baby wellness appointment, get you on the insurance, give you a bath. All real exciting, huh, baby girl?”

For a few minutes, you just rock in the glider and watch Birdie’s jaw move.

Jack comes back in and crouches in front of the glider again.

“You gonna want lunch soon?” he asks, slipping his finger in Birdie’s grasp.

“Yeah. I think there’s sandwich fixings and chips. Will you put extra turkey on mine?” you ask, reaching a hand out to caress his shoulder.

Jack nods and leans down to kiss Birdie’s head, then pecks your lips before he heads to the kitchen.

“Your daddy’s love language is physical touch. That’s how he shows us he loves us,” you say, one hand gently stroking Birdie’s hair. “He also loves words of affirmation. I think those two are tied. He also loves doing acts of service. Your daddy’s very talkative and passionate.”

You sigh and stay quiet for a few minutes, eyes just fixed on all her squirming and swallowing and blinking and clenching and unclenching of her fists. Eventually, she unlatches, and you reposition her to nurse from your other breast.

“You know, you’re a very good-looking baby, Birdie. You look like Mommy, except for your chin. I guess sperm donor 18645 gave you that. It’s not bad. And, hey, maybe it gets him all the ladies.” You slip a finger into Birdie’s grasp. “You’re an Abbot, no matter whose DNA mixed with mine to make you. It’s no one’s business, anyway, but just so you know, Daddy and I are going to do everything we can to make sure you don’t feel insecure about that. We don’t ever want you to feel like you don’t belong.”

//

The rest of the day is spent on the couch with just the three of you. You and Jack take turns holding the baby, shirts and Birdie’s onesie long forgotten in the interest of skin-to-skin bonding. She’s relatively quiet outside of the cries that tell you she’s hungry or needs a diaper change. 

When it feels like bedtime, Jack feeds her a bottle with the milk you pumped earlier while you take a shower.

You come out half an hour later–because Jack was adamant that you take all the time you need in there–wearing only a nursing bra and your postpartum diaper. You feel your most unattractive, yet Jack looks at you with awe when you emerge from the shower. 

This body carried his baby and labored for hours to birth her. So, maybe you feel funny about the current state of your stomach, but Jack feels lucky to get to witness it.

“You look so pretty and happy,” he says softly as he burps Birdie, the bottle completely finished on the nightstand.

You smile and lean down to kiss Birdie’s head.

“You’re a good-looking dad, baby,” you say as you sit down next to Jack on the bed.

Jack wraps an arm around your shoulders, the two of you staring down at Birdie in the crook of his elbow, her tiny mouth slightly agape as she sleeps.

“She took the bottle well,” he says softly. “A whole ounce and a half, like a champ.”

“Mm. You like giving her the bottle?”

“Yeah, I did. Good father-daughter bonding.” He turns his head toward you. 

“You’re tired,” you mutter softly, gently cupping his jaw. 

“So are you.”

You huff a soft laugh through your nose. “Go shower. I got her.”

Carefully, Jack transfers Birdie into your arms, then heads to the bathroom. When the door shuts, you pad over to your side of the bed where the bedside bassinet that Jack put together today is all set up.

“Okay, Birdie girl,” you sigh, gently lowering her inside. “This bassinet only has three full walls, so you can still see me if you turn your head to the right. I’ll be right here, and when you wake up hungry, I’ll put you right on the boob. If it’s a diaper situation, you’ll have to go to Daddy, though. He’s a good man, won’t let me do the stinky stuff.”

Birdie settles immediately, not disturbed by the transfer at all. You press a kiss to her chubby cheek, then get in bed and pull the covers over your body. 

A few minutes later, Jack emerges from the bathroom, and before crawling into bed, he stops by your side of the bed to kiss Birdie good night and whisper that he loves her. When he’s in bed beside you, he kisses you and whispers the same thing.

He holds onto you a little tighter tonight than he usually does. You don’t say anything. He presses another kiss to your cheek before he finally settles.

//

The next day, Birdie has her well-baby checkup in the early afternoon. 

Thanks to one of the copious matching sets you bought for postpartum, you feel put together enough to leave the house confidently. You hand Jack the ‘#1 Dad’ hat on the way out the door.

Jack’s a little quieter today. You can’t tell if he’s just tired or if something else is weighing on him. He has therapy today, though. 4:00, you’re pretty sure. Maybe at 5:00. It doesn’t really matter since it’s virtual. 

He pushes the stroller, walking a little slower than he would if a freshly postpartum woman wasn’t walking next to him, through the pediatrician’s office. He only talks when you get situated in the waiting room chair, asking if you’re comfortable. Still, in his quietness, he keeps one hand on the handle of the stroller and the other on your knee, ever protective of his girls.

Birdie’s name is called, and Jack follows behind you and the nurse with the stroller. Once you’re all inside the room, the nurse instructs you to strip Birdie down to be weighed.

She fusses as Jack undoes her onesie but settles when he wraps a blanket around her and cradles her in his arms while the nurse sets up.

“Alright, Dad,” the nurse sighs. “You can set her down.”

Birdie continues to fuss when the warmth is taken away again, but she gets through it.

The nurse declares that Birdie’s weight is in a good place, then measures her head and says those measurements are normal too. After all that, the nurse tells you the doctor will be in for the head-to-toe exam, then slips out.

Jack gathers Birdie in his arms, careful to make sure her whole body is covered by the blanket.

“Babe, are you okay?” you ask softly, leaning against the exam table, your head against his shoulder. “You’re pretty quiet today.”

He turns his head toward you. He shrugs and leans his head down to kiss your temple.

“Just tired. Guess all the adrenaline is finally gone,” he says softly.

You kiss his shoulder. “Hopefully therapy helps today.”

Then the doctor knocks at the door. She’s nice and performs the exam very well, in Jack’s opinion. 

Soft spots of the skull are good, no signs of hip dysplasia, collarbones didn’t break during delivery, femoral pulse is strong, no irregularities anywhere.

“Possibly the most perfect baby ever,” the doctor jokes.

You ask a few questions that you came up with on the drive over. The doctor explains your concerns away, and when you look at Jack, he seems to be in agreement with the pediatrician that everything is normal.  

“Alright,” the doctor says as Jack puts Birdie’s onesie back on. “That’s it for Birdie for today. Cute nickname, by the way. Remember to also take care of yourselves. You guys are a team, so lean on each other and help each other out.”

“Yeah, we haven’t crashed and burned yet,” you joke. “Thank you so much, doctor.”

The doctor smiles and shuts the door behind her.

“Wanna get lunch on the way home?” you suggest as Jack goes to open the door.

“Yeah, sounds good,” he says, following you out while you push the stroller.

//

When you get home, the three of you take a nap after you nurse Birdie. Jack sets an alarm so he doesn’t miss therapy.

By the time the alarm does go off, you’re still sleeping. As Jack puts his prosthesis back on, Birdie starts fussing. He glances at his phone and decides she probably needs a bottle after he checks her diaper.

He scoops Birdie up and sniffs her bottom. Nothing, but he checks more carefully while her bottle warms up. A peek tells him she’s all dry. Just hungry.

“You wanna sit in on therapy with me, Birdie?” he mutters to the baby as he grabs her bottle. “Yeah? Gonna do your best to be quiet?”

Birdie just stares up at Jack with her big, bright eyes, waiting for a bottle or a breast.

Once he’s signed into the virtual waiting room, sitting in your home office, he brings the bottle to Birdie’s mouth. For something so tiny, she sure is a greedy eater.

His therapist, Leo, joins the call, surprised to see Birdie in Jack’s arms. 

“I see we have a guest,” he remarks, smiling.

“This is Birdie. Her mom’s sleeping, and she needed a bottle. Figured she doesn’t understand anything besides milk, so she could sit in today, if that’s okay,” Jack explains.

Leo smiles, eyes clearly fixed on the tiny baby rather than Jack as he talks. “Yeah, of course, as long as you’re fine with it. Wow, the baby’s finally here. How’re you feeling?”

Jack shrugs. “She was born on the sixth, early in the morning. We got home yesterday, took her to the doctor earlier. I feel… I feel good.” He looks down at Birdie, checking in to make sure she’s still taking the bottle okay. “She’s amazing, looks just like her mom except for the chin. I guess that’s from the sperm donor.”

There’s a pause, so Leo takes advantage.

“How do you feel about that? Your daughter having biological ties to another man?” Leo asks, blunt as always.

Jack swallows roughly. “I knew what I was getting myself into when I got involved with my wife. I always knew that Birdie wouldn’t look like me. I actually was kind of expecting her to look exactly like the sperm donor, but she’s really more of her mom’s twin, so I guess that makes me feel better.”

“Would it be possible for you to feel insecure about it if your daughter didn’t look like her mother?”

Jack doesn’t like that question; Leo can tell. Maybe that’s what makes it an important one to ask.

“Guess it could be possible,” Jack says softly, eyes fixed on the door rather than Leo on the screen or Birdie in his arms. “I wouldn’t… She’s my kid, blood or not, so I… I don’t know. I don’t want to sound like an asshole.”

Leo shakes his head. “It’s perfectly natural to want your children to look like you. With Birdie, that’s impossible, but you were there when she was born, Jack. You were friends with her mother in the early stages of pregnancy, and along the way became her romantic partner. Birdie doesn’t know that you didn’t contribute to her DNA, and she doesn’t care. You’re the man holding her right now. Nobody else is. She’ll give you gifts on Father’s Day, and her first word will probably be ‘Dada’, and even though that’s more of a phonics and developmental thing, she’ll be looking at you when she says it.”

Jack sighs and scrubs a hand over his face, holding Birdie and the bottle with one hand for a moment.

“I caught her,” Jack says softly. “When she started crowning, I moved down between my wife’s legs, and I was there to catch my daughter when she was born.”

Leo smiles softly. “You’ve delivered babies before. I assume this one was different.”

“Yeah.” Jack nods and looks down at Birdie, still suckling. “This one… I took this one home. I signed her birth certificate. She’s got my last name. I had to hold back tears when I got my hands on her head. She’s mine.” He swallows roughly again. “I never thought I’d have this.”

“Right.” Leo sighs. “Have you expressed your past feelings about children to your wife?”

Jack sighs now and lets out a sniffle. “No, I didn’t really see the point, honestly. I don’t want her to get the wrong idea and start thinking I’m not happy with how things have turned out.”

Leo nods. “It’s not uncommon to go from being neutral on an idea to being 100% on board. You fell in love with your wife, and the baby came with her.”

“It’s not just that,” Jack says. “Helene didn’t want kids. I thought it was better for me to maybe regret not having kids than her regretting having a child. Now that Birdie’s here, I can’t imagine there ever being a reality where I’m not her dad.”

His phone buzzes just then, the distinctive ringtone he set for your texts filling the room. He glances at the phone and reads the message: I know you’re in therapy, but if you want, I can pop in real quick and grab Birdie.

“It’s my wife,” he says as he sends a message back: That’d be nice. Thx

“Is she okay?”

“Yeah, she’s coming in to grab the baby.”

Then there’s a knock at the door, and Jack tells you to come in.

Eyes a little puffy from sleep, hair slightly mussed, still in the matching pink sweatshirt and shorts set, and the world’s softest and prettiest smile on your face. 

His beautiful wife, mother of his perfect daughter.

Still on the bottle, Jack carefully transfers Birdie into your arms and whispers a soft thank you to you on your way out of the office.

Once the door shuts, Leo smiles. “It’s obvious your wife loves you, Jack. I’m sure she’d understand your feelings. Besides, now that Birdie’s here, how do you feel about her presence, your role in her life?”

Jack nods and swallows the lump in his throat. 

“I’m happy,” he says, his voice warbly. “I don’t… I feel like I can’t believe that there was a universe where I was going to miss out on this, on being a dad. But, y’know, I wouldn’t have this if I hadn’t lost Helene, so I feel kind of… I don’t know, maybe guilty? That I’m having this life that I wouldn’t be having otherwise and…really loving it.”

The adrenaline is finally wearing off, and Jack can finally stop and let his mind get consumed with the question of how he got so lucky with you and also how to rationalize his love for both Helene and you.

He always thought everything bad that happened to him–losing his leg, his and Helene’s infertility, Helene dying–was all punishment for every bad thing he did in his life, the things he did with the American flag on his shoulder that helped a younger Jack believe it was for the greater good.

That didn’t work for long.

“That’s a valid feeling,” Leo says. “It’s true that you wouldn’t have the life you do now if Helene was still here. Let me ask you this, Jack. Are you happy with where you are today?”

Jack sighs but doesn’t hesitate to nod his head.

“I am. I’m happy with my wife and with Birdie. I just… I look at Birdie…” He trails off, eyes squinting. He clears his throat, gaze fixed on a doodle you made on a sticky note next to the computer mouse. “I look at my daughter and wonder what I did that makes me worthy of her. It’s the same thing when I look at my wife, but Birdie… She’s two days old. She’s never done anything wrong in her entire life, and she’s so pure and loved, and I… I wonder if I deserve to be in their lives.”

Leo takes a moment to come up with a response. “Jack, from what you’ve told me, you’ve married a very intelligent and thoughtful woman. She gave up on men and was going to have Birdie on her own. Then she got to know you, and you’ve become her partner in all of this. If you’re feeling doubtful about your worthiness in your family, try thinking about your wife’s decision to involve you, how much you trust her.”

“Yeah,” Jack chokes. He clears his throat. “She’s great. Amazing woman, man, so fucking strong.” He can steer the conversation. “She didn’t get an epidural for about twelve hours. She managed to stay clear-headed the whole time. Like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

Leo doesn’t miss the avoidance, but one thing is for sure: Jack will talk about it when he’s ready, when he doesn’t feel so raw.

//

When Jack steps out of your office, he doesn’t join you and Birdie on the couch. You’re not upset; he just spent the better part of an hour talking about who knows what. He’s entitled to some alone time. You’re fine to sit on the couch with Birdie at your breast, the remote, water bottle, and a snack nearby.

It’s when nearly an hour goes by that you send him a text asking if he’s okay.

Five minutes go by, and he doesn’t respond, so you pad into the bedroom with Birdie in your arms.

He’s on the bed, back to the door, prosthesis near his nightstand.

You round the bed to put Birdie in her bassinet on your side of the bed, then crawl in next to him, leaving him some space. For someone who didn’t answer your text, he doesn’t seem to want the space as he pulls you toward him. You let him pull your left leg up and rest it on his hip as you bring a hand to his cheek.

“I love you, Jack,” you whisper as he pulls your head toward him so your foreheads touch. “I’m sorry if you’re feeling overwhelmed today, baby.”

He pecks your lips and sighs. 

“Baby, are you okay?” you ask softly, brow furrowed in concern, thumb rubbing back and forth across his cheek.

He nods softly and kisses your lips again.

“I’ve just got a lot on my mind, is all,” he mumbles against your lips. “Let’s just stay here for a while until Birdie needs something. Yeah?”

He’s probably got his entire life story leading up to this point on his mind right now. If he wants to process things on his own before he talks to you about it, that’s okay. You won’t argue against letting him hold you in his arms.

“Yeah,” you whisper back. “We’ll just chill for the rest of the day. Um, tomorrow, though, I wanted to take Birdie on a walk. I think it’d be good for all of us.”

“Sounds perfect, sweetheart,” he whispers softly before pressing another kiss to your lips.

//

As the next few days go by, Jack seems to relax a bit more, which makes you feel calmer, too. The two of you take Birdie on walks in the neighborhood with her fan attached to her stroller.

After the walks is when you shower since the girdle you wear during them creates a lot of sweat.

Today is day seven of being home, day eight since you’ve given birth. Jack has put Birdie down for a nap, so he watches you in the bathroom as you carefully remove the girdle.

“It’s not giving you trouble, is it?” he asks softly. “You feel okay when you wear it?”

You smile as you meet his eyes in the mirror. “I feel fine. It’s doing its job, making things a little easier.”

He nods along, his eyes flitting from your eyes to your still swollen middle.

“Okay, good.” He steps closer to you, his hip brushing your side. “Y’know you’re beautiful?”

You smile brighter, and you caress his cheek. “I do. Thanks for not letting me forget.”

He smiles softly, his gaze softening along with it. Pure would be a good word to describe the way he’s looking at you right now.

“I love you,” you say, rubbing your thumb back and forth across his cheekbone.

He kisses the juncture of your neck and shoulder. “I love you, too.”

He pulls back and you look him in his eyes. So full of love and adoration and peace. You wrap your arms around him, chest to chest, belly to belly.

“So much better without Birdie in the way,” you mutter, your voice muffled with your cheek against his chest.

Jack chuckles softly and kisses the top of your head before letting his arms fall.

When you get out of the shower, you find Jack on the bed with Birdie on his bare chest, a soft pink blanket over her back.

Skin-to-skin has become an addiction.

You walk to your dresser in just the postpartum diaper to put on a nursing bra before you join them on the bed. Jack holds an arm out to get you as close as possible. You sneak your left arm under his neck and cover his left bicep with your hand, your right hand going to Birdie’s fist. Jack’s right hand skates up and down your back, eyes fixed on Birdie like her lip occasionally twitching is the most bewitching thing he’s ever seen.

//

Jack has told you about his nightmares. He told you they didn’t happen very often anymore. You’re pretty sure the last one he told you about happened when you were 37 weeks pregnant, but he didn’t wake you up with his screams or his fingernails digging into your skin.

It’s almost 2:00 in the morning when you hear the sounds of Jack screaming. With the lack of sleep due to having a one-week-old baby in the house, you think it’s Birdie at first. Then you feel his nails dig into your thigh, and you know it’s him.

“Ow, fuck, Jack!” you whimper, whipping your head around in his direction to find his skin drenched in sweat, his left hand gripping your thigh like it’s personally offended him.

You vaguely remember a Google search telling you not to touch him or be too loud.

So you sit there in bed and start speaking in a calming voice.

“Jack, it’s okay,” you murmur. “Please wake up.”

Birdie starts crying in the bassinet to your left.

Your head turns back and forth between your daughter and your husband.

Birdie’s upset that she’s been woken up. Jack is fighting off metaphorical demons and taking it out on your thigh. Birdie’s going to have to cry it out for a second.

You lean your head down, your fists clenching as you fight the urge to caress Jack’s cheek.

“Baby, please wake up. You’re having a nightmare,” you say softly. “Jack, it’s okay. You’re safe.”

His eyes shoot open faster than you’ve ever seen. His grip on your thigh momentarily tightens, and you fight back your whimper while he shoots up in bed.

“Jack, it’s me. You’re safe. You’re in bed with me in our house,” you whisper, keeping your distance as you sit up.

As he comes to, all he can hear is his breathing and Birdie crying.

“I woke them up,” he mutters to himself. 

“Jack, it’s okay,” you say, but he barely hears it.

He finally looks at you, fear in his eyes. You’ve never seen him scared.

The hand he has on your thigh suddenly pulls back in toward himself as if he’s been burned.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, his eyes glazing over.

You shake your head. “It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

His eyes focus on the bassinet behind you.

“She’s crying,” he whispers, sounding as if the notion is bringing him physical pain. “Please, you gotta pick her up.”

You furrow your brow, unsure if you should keep your focus on Jack or rock Birdie back to sleep, but his intense gaze decides for you.

Birdie’s cries die down when you finally pick her up, your legs hanging off the bed, your back to Jack as you stare at the broken blood vessels on your thigh.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, finally getting his breathing under control. “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry. I haven’t… I haven’t had one like that in years. I’m so sorry I woke you up.”

You carefully lower Birdie back in the bassinet and turn back around.

“Jack, it’s not your fault. Everyone’s okay,” you whisper. “Do you want to go to the kitchen and have some water?”

He swallows roughly and eventually nods.

You slip out of bed and grab his crutch for him. He takes it and follows you to the kitchen. When you hand him the cup, his eyes fall to your thigh, the dotting on your thigh telling him something hurt you.

“Was that me?” he asks softly, guilt already seeping into his voice.

You chew on the inside of your cheek as you debate lying.

You land on staying silent as you wrap your arms around him. He melts into you, which is relieving. It could’ve gone either way, given his current state.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he sobs into your neck. 

“I know,” you whisper.

“You just had our baby,” he whimpers.

“It’s okay, Jack. It’ll heal in a day or two.”

“But I hurt you,” he reiterates. “You’re fragile, and I hurt you.”

“You didn’t mean to, baby. It doesn’t even hurt, I promise. I’m okay.”

You press a soft kiss to his cheek and scratch your fingernails up and down his bare back.

“I love you,” you whisper as you pull back slightly. “I’m okay. We’re all safe. Birdie’s asleep in our room, and you and I are having some water. I love you, Jack. I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

He nods, taking in your words, eyes fluttering shut as he tries to take some deep breaths.

“I love you, too, sweetheart,” he breathes.

“We can sit out here in the living room and talk if you need,” you offer. “Or we can go back to bed. Whatever you need.”

Whatever he needs.

Fuck, you just had a baby. He’s supposed to be telling you that. He’s also amazed you feel safe enough to go back to bed with him after he just about detached your skin from your quads.

Slowly, he leans in to kiss you. You reciprocate immediately, your hands flexing against his back.

“I love you,” he whispers against your lips.

Flashbacks of the nightmare play in his head. Helene sits in the middle of the bathroom floor as blood pools beneath her. You clutch a lifeless Birdie as you bleed out. It makes his stomach churn.

“I love you, too, baby.”

Jack takes in a shuddering breath and pulls back to kiss your cheek now, your temple, your forehead, then pulls you closer with one arm while he balances on his crutch with the other.

Eventually, you go back to bed. Jack’s conflicted between wanting to keep a safe distance from you and wanting to hold you in his arms to lull himself to sleep like he usually does.

You decide for him, wrapping your arms around him in a way that makes his heart ache.

He feels a little better as you rest your head on his pillow, your nose brushing against his neck, your fingers gently stroking the top of his hair, your other arm secure around his middle.

His heart breaks a little when he feels your tears rub against his skin. Your hormones are still a little all over the place, and your brain is finally able to catch up to what just happened. Jack is your strong and tough husband, and seeing him crumble like he just did hasn’t made you believe that any less; it’s just made you sad over the fact that he’s feeling anything other than content. 

You shift a little closer and kiss the underside of his jaw and gently tighten your arm around his waist.

Jack begins gently scratching his fingernails up and down your back, and eventually, your stroking his hair and his scratching your back lulls both of you to sleep.

When you get things moving for the day around 10:00 AM, the sadness in both your and Jack’s eyes lessens just a bit as Birdie lies between her parents in their bed.

He grabs her tiny fist and kisses it while she looks at you like you’ve hung the moon. And after how you supported him last night, Jack would have to agree with his daughter.

*reminder that you get side eyed hard if you're on one of these taglists and don't reblog

All works taglist:  @person-005 @tearsweetenedtea @canonisoptional @xoxoloverb @saralovesjoelmiller @rach2602

All Shawn Hatosy characters taglist: @realwhoreforfictionalmen  @ezmina98 @hehehehahahohohuhu @janeety @rumoured-whispers @1dhoe93 @dopeasope @itzpixiebabe @lacy1986 @messyyhairr @abzidabzy

Jack Abbot: @staygoldsquatchling02 @thehockeynerd30

Songbird taglist: @itsmycorneroftheinternet @laughsandlivia 

Cassie was sure she had the game in hand, judging by how nervously you fidgeted every time she was near. Well, no matter how much you love her bossy behavior, the urge to put her in her place was far stronger.

"Sit down, my love," Cassie says softly and languidly, pulling out a chair for you on the edge of the table, the closest spot to the window. You rest your forearms on the polished wood, interlocking your fingers as you wait for Cassie to sit directly across from you, her fellow doctors filling every available seat.

The food was wonderful. You enjoyed your portion, devoting more time to the actual eating process than Cassie, who spent most of her time talking with her friends, discussing various funny stories from work. You weren't bored, of course, but it was unbearably difficult to stop yourself from the little thought that popped into your head.

In the middle of a conversation about the emergency intubation of a man hit by a train, you move your chair slightly until your body almost flush with the table. You bite your lip, looking at the others, slowly lifting your leg, stopping just as it touches Cassie's ankle. You feel her gaze on you for a second before continuing. The toe of your shoe slides down her leg to her knee, then her inner thigh, teasingly, until you lean forward slightly, applying firm pressure to the length of her strap. Oh, the way she choked on her steak was unforgettable. Abbot, sitting next to her, immediately began clapping Cassie's back until she raised her hand to show she'd cleared her throat, quickly thanking him.

he raised a brow, then shook his head before he crossed the room in three long strides and climbed in behind you. his fingers went straight to the hem of the t-shirt you’d put on after finishing your makeup and pulled it over your head. you made a sound of protest, but lifted yourself up just slightly to let him do it. answer enough, you supposed.

he tossed it aside, and his hands were immediately on you, sliding down your ribs until one hand settled on your hip, fingers splaying, while the other dipped lower, cupping the curve of your ass and giving it a squeeze that made you inhale sharply.

“still mad?” he asked, leaning in for his mouth to brush against your shoulder blade. his hand kneaded at your hip, moving to the soft inside of your thigh.

“yes,” you said, but it came out weaker than before. “jack – ”

your words stopped as his hand moved from your hip to your breast, gathering the weight under his palms before his thumb came up to brush against your hardened peak.

“hello? cat got your tongue?” he said through a snort, pulling you flush against him, chin going into the curve of your neck. he ground his hips against you then, letting out a low breath through his mouth. he pushed a fist into the mattress by your ribs, caging you in. “what d’you wanna talk about?”

“i’m serious, jack,” you said, trying to force your voice even. “you wouldn’t call it a date.”

he hummed, fingers shamelessly sliding down as he said, “come on, baby. if you wanna keep talkin’ about this, you gotta do better than that.”

“do better – ” you let your neck turn back to face him, and he immediately tilted his head down, his tongue peeking out as he tried to bite back a grin. “ – my points are good enough.”

he ducked and caught your mouth, teeth nipping at your lip the same second his fingers slid under the lace. he smiled into the kiss, fingers running down your folds. you pulled away immediately, going to face the wall again.

“did this happen when you called me a smug asshole?” he circled the pad of his finger once over your clit, causing you to shudder slightly against him. “or when you decided i’m a liar?”

“jackass,” you muttered.

“real creative.” he shifted behind you, other hand going to shove his slacks further down his hips, freeing his cock. he pulled back slightly, and wrapped his hand around himself, stroking once – twice – before pressing the head of it to the curve of your ass. he exhaled once through his nose, intertwining his fingers through yours and moving them around him.

“i’ve been like this for the last twenty minutes,” he supplied casually, then groaned when your fingers instinctively moved around him.

“i’m still mad at you,” you said, but you were already moving your hand because you did also want him inside you. it’d been too long.

he rocked himself into your hand. “yeah – okay. let’s fix that, too, while we fix this.”

he moved to his side, lining himself up between your thighs before fitting himself in between. his fingers slid down your underwear again, fingers grazing over your folds before pressing down on your clit.

his fingers continued circling, while two others slid lower, the hard line of his cock pressing heavy against your ass each time he rocked forward.

“can’t call this a date,” you muttered, even as your breathing picked up.

“no?” he murmured. “this won’t do?” he nodded absentmindedly behind you, then his fingers came up just to slide down your underwear over the curve of your hips and down your thighs until the lace was sitting at your knees.

“two weeks – missed this,” he muttered, more to himself than you, and immediately pressed back into you, sliding his cock fully between your thighs now, the head of him dragging through your folds with every roll of his hips.

“also, it is a date – i’m takin’ you – ” he said, angling his hips so his head notched against your entrance. “ – as my date.”

“it’s not.” you pushed your hips back against him.

he tutted softly, hand holding the base of him as he pressed his tip against you, just enough to make you feel the pressure of the stretch starting, then pulled back.

“impatient,” he murmured, doing it again.

“we don’t have time,” you shot back. “just put it in – ”

“yes, ma’am,” he breathed out, amused, and angled himself to sink into you with one slow, sharp push. his entire body went rigid the second he bottomed out, a groan rumbling in his chest as the stretch hit you.

a broken sound came out of your throat before you could swallow it, after two weeks of nothing. your walls instinctively clenched around him, and his grip on your hip went bruising-tight.

“fuck, been so empty haven’t you?” his forehead dropped to your shoulder blade. “sorry, sweetheart. forgot you just needed me like this.”

you tried to glare, albeit at the wall, but your hips pushed back to take the last inch of him. “shut up.”

he just laughed softly, already pulling back to go again. “i know i’ve been thinkin’ about this every night.”

your teeth grit together to hold back the moan, your fingers twisted into the sheets as your body clenched around him on instinct, spine arching even while you fought to stay rigid.

“so mad at me – shit, huh?” his fingers came up with some tremor to your shoulders, pulling you into him even further as he slid in. “just ‘cause you missed this, baby? should’ve asked hours ago instead of arguin’ with me about tonight.”

your hips moved back to bury him to the hilt, causing his palm to tighten on your shoulder with a groan. “no, i missed you,” you said sharply. “you, asshole.”

his breath shuddered, and you felt him nod against your skin. “makin’ such sweet words sound so mean.”

he punctuated his words by moving his hand down to your spine and shoving you forward, forcing your chest flat against the mattress. he followed you down, pinning you completely – chest-to-back, hips locked tight against your ass – prone. his knee nudged yours wider, letting him sink even deeper on the next stroke.

he blew out a sharp, deliberate breath into your ear. “can’t run that mouth so easy when i’ve got you like this, can you?”

“are you trying to shut me – ” you started, words coming out into the pillow.

“huh?” he dipped his head to the side to meet your smushed face, brows rising in amusement. his forearms came up to rest at the curve of the back of your neck. “sayin’ something?”

you twisted just enough to glare at him over your shoulder, still trying to form the argument – something about obligations and dates and missing him so much – but the words stayed half-formed when he pointedly drove in particularly deep and your breath left you in a sharp, broken sound.

he watched your face with a small, smug smile, not slowing.

“yeahhh, that’s what i thought,” he muttered and kept fucking you. his mouth brushed the shell of your ear. “poor thing, can’t even finish a sentence. needed this, huh?”

“i did not – ”

“mhm, lying now, too – ” his forearm flexed, fingers coming out to absentmindedly brush your hair out of your face. “thought i was the liar.”

“don’t touch me,” you muttered, turning your face into the pillow again.

“stop squeezing me so tight then,” he said through a rough pant, thrusting up once meanly.

“i’m not kidding – ” you said, firmer now. “it was a – fuck – shit thing for you to do.”

“mhm.”

“i’m not being unreasonable.” you had to grit your teeth together when one of his palm came down to knead the side of your hips. “a date is you and me – your being a shit boyfriend when i haven’t – ”

your words cut off with a sharp gasp as he rolled the two of you in one irritated motion, keeping himself buried as he put you on top. his hands clamped hard on your hips, pushing you down until you were seated fully on his cock.

the sudden shift punched the air from your lungs, and before you could steady yourself, he was already driving up into you.

“jesus, you just can’t let up,” he muttered, eyes locked on where you were taking him. “wanna look at you ride me while you keep running that mouth.”

“getting tired, old man?” you raised a brow.

he shook his head softly, fingers reaching out to rub over your clit.

“old man, shit boyfriend – m’fucking you and letting you argue.” he pressed a harder circle, pausing only to come down on your ass in a sharp slap suddenly, making you gasp. “giving you everything you need at once, and i’m a shit boyfriend.”

he reached out to press his palm flat just below your navel.

“can’t take me on a date – ” you used his chest to pull yourself up, then come down, “ – though.”

his eyes flicked up to your face with a small, strained smirk as his fingers pressed down firmer on your stomach.

“it is a date,” he said, as he drove up hard to meet you on the next downward slide. his other palm flexed on your hip to keep you down as he pushed up even further. “fuckin’ – nice event. you. me. dressed up.” he took in a sharp breath through gritted teeth as your nails dug into his chest. “sounds like a damn date to me.”

“it’s work,” you shot back. “you’re just calling it a date so you don’t have to feel bad about cancelling.”

“i didn’t cancel – anything.” his hand came up to push into your hair, pulling your face closer. “i invited you. you want me to leave you home, huh?” his jaw was tight as he tugged your hair back slightly. “things happen. plans change.”

“i don’t want to watch you work, i want to spend time with you,” you managed, surprised by how even your voice came out, considering.

“christ – ” he used the grip on your hair to keep you close, foreheads nearly touching. “actin’ like i signed us up for a week in the desert. it’s dinner. you don’t wanna go?”

he leaned to press your forehead against his. “don’t. imagine alllll the women who’ll try to talk to me, huh?”

“asshole,” you breathed out, nails digging into his shoulders now as you lifted and dropped again. “asshole.”

he snorted through his nose, tugging once on your hair before letting go, leaning back down onto the pillow. “keep ‘em coming, baby. keep punishin’ me for havin’ a job while you’re sittin’ on my cock.”

his hand went to your thigh, spreading on wider so he could push up even deeper.

“you want time with me?” he muttered. “this is time. right now. i’m in you. you’re on me, and you’re still finding ways to be pissed.”

he tilted his chin to catch your lips between his teeth. “you want me to yourself at dinner? i’ll fuck you in the bathroom if you want that, too.”

“this isn’t the same and you know it.”

“isn’t it?” he sat up further, both arms going around your back so your chests were flush. “because from where i’m at, i’ve got my girl riding me, calling me names, and still taking inch like she’s been starving for it. feels pretty damn close to spending time together.”

“principle – ” you tried to say, words cutting off as your hands got distracted to tug at the short hairs at the nape of his neck harshly.

“principle’s pretty shit when i can feel you’re close,” he murmured, mouth brushing yours.

“yeahhh,” he breathed out, feeling you clench on him as your thighs started to shake. “we’ve got ten minutes and if you wanna finish this fight, you finish it on my cock.”

“won’t make it better,” you said through gritted teeth, trying to push through the building pressure – chasing it, pushing it away. “you still – jack – made this whole thing about you – ”

your sentence broke off into a sharp, helpless moan as the orgasm crashed into you. jack didn’t let up, if anything he held you down tighter, hips rutting up against you as you came.

his eyes were trained to your face, pupils thoroughly darkened. “aw, i’m sorry,” he cooed, fingers coming up to brush the hair off your face. “you were in the middle of tellin’ me off. don’t let me interrupt you.”

you opened your mouth to keep going, voice still shaky, and jack’s arms slid up your back to pull you down flush against his chest, crushing you into him so your face was buried in his chest.

“please finish what you were saying,” he muttered against your ear, one forearm caging you in. he let out a soft snort when you only whimpered, then added, “i’ll help. you were saying i was making this whole thing about myself.”

“you always – always do this. make everything about you and then act like i’m being difficult,” you – well, lied.

jack groaned low at your words, only spurred on even more.

“i do? y’really think so?” he mused, almost conversationally. his hand slipped between you, fingers finding your clit and pressing there, holding the pressure while driving up in one-timed strokes that made you gasp. “i make everything about me?”

“you do – ” you started, but the words dissolved when he pressed his palm flat against your lower belly, the pressure from both angles sudden and overwhelming, making everything tighten impossibly.

you groaned into his neck, and he tilted his face to the side to press his lips along your hairline.

“yeahhh, clearly i do.” he pressed a kiss to your ear, almost tender. “it’ll make me feel better to know you’re sittin’ all mad throughout the dinner you don’t wanna go to filled with me.”

➶❥➶❥➶

Parker never really wanted kids.

Don’t get her wrong, it wasn’t something she felt strongly about, at least not in the way some people do. She didn’t hate kids, she actually really liked them. But she also didn’t feel strongly about having them, you know, like the kind of people with lists of baby names saved on their phones and timelines mapped out before they’re thirty. If anything, it was something she could take or leave. A hypothetical version of herself might have wanted them. Or not.

When she came out, the question drifted even further away. Kids belonged to another script, one she wasn’t following anymore.

Then med school swallowed what little space was left. Residency devoured the rest. Long shifts, overnights on call, and the bone-deep exhaustion that lived inside her permanently didn’t leave room for hypotheticals. Parker’s future became clear: rotations completed, exams passed, hours survived.

And then she met you.

Right out of college, when everything was still provisional and bright-edged. You were easy in a way nothing else in her life was. No games, no drama, no need to explain the sharp corners of her personality or the long silences she slipped into after difficult shifts.

You wanted the same things she did: partnership, independence, a life built by yourselves instead of inherited. A small condo that felt like yours. Shared groceries. Late-night takeout on the floor because you couldn’t afford a dining room table fresh out of med school.

Kids weren’t a loss. They just weren’t part of the plan.

And Parker liked the plan.

Years later, she still does: the quiet routines you’ve built, the ease of moving around each other in the kitchen, the way you reach for her all the time without looking. The life you’ve built is full and exactly what she’s ever wanted.

Which is why the tightness of her chest now feels so unfamiliar.

The backyard is strung with warm lights and the low hum of conversation. Someone has a speaker playing music near the sliding glass door, the music loud enough to hear but soft enough to not bother the neighbors. Laughter rises in pockets around the patio – people playing cornhole, the easy laughter of people who have known each other since they were barely adults.

Her college friends have aged into themselves the same way she has. They’re softer around the edges without the stress that came with higher education. One of them is arguing about grilling technique, another is balancing a paper plate and a sweating beer while telling a story Parker has heard at least three times in the last few years. 

She should be listening.

Instead, she’s looking at you.

You stand near the patio, half-turned toward the house, bathed in the amber glow spilling from the kitchen windows. Someone has pressed a bundled weight into your arms, small and wrapped in a pale blanket, and you’d accepted without hesitation, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

You don’t look uncomfortable, you’re not stiff or fumbling or awkward. 

You adjust, settling the baby against your chest as you sway without thinking to the beat of the music.

The baby’s fist curls into your shirt and you smile down at it, and Parker watches as you duck your head and your mouth moves as you say something to the baby with an animated expression on your face. 

“Careful,” a voice says from beside her. “You keep staring like that and people are gonna talk.”

Parker doesn’t look away from you as she responds, “I’m not staring.”

Tre chuckles quietly and bumps his shoulder against hers anyway. He’s holding two beers, handing one over to her without looking. 

“That’s my kid, Ellis,” he says. “You look like you’re planning a heist.”

Parker finally glances at him out of her peripheral. “Relax, I don’t even like kids.”

Tre snorts. “Yeah? Coulda fooled me.”

Across the yard, Hallie sets something on the patio table, keeping half an eye on you holding her baby the way all parents do – alert, and trying to hover without hovering. But she doesn’t move to take the baby back. You’ve gotten comfortable too easily, the sway of your body is absentminded and rhythmic.

Tre follows Parker’s line of sight to you.

“She looks real good with one, though,” he says casually. “A natural.”

The agreement leaves Parker before she can stop it. “Yeah,” she says softly.

Tre goes quiet. 

Parker feels it a second too late, the way it sounded. Intrigued instead of dismissive.

He turns his head slowly. “You two next?”

It’s meant as a joke, the same kind that’s been lobbed around her friend group for years. He isn’t the first to make jokes about Parker having kids. 

She opens her mouth to say something dry, something deflecting. Something that fits the version of her that her friends know and expect.

But then you laugh at something the baby does and the sound cuts through her like a wire pulled tight. 

The baby’s fist is still tangled in the front of your shirt, and your hand is spread instinctively over its back.

You look…

God, you look right. 

“C’mon,” Tre nudges her again with a laugh. “You’d be a scary PTA mom.”

Parker’s jaw sets. “I’d never survive the bake sales,” she mutters.

But she doesn’t say no.

Try studies her for another moment then tsks as he looks away, apparently satisfied with whatever it is he thinks he’s seen. 

“Hallie would lose her damn mind if she heard you even considering it,” he says. “She’s already planning playdates with babies that don’t even exist.”

Parker doesn’t answer because she isn’t thinking about playdates. She’s thinking about you, about the curve of your hands holding that baby, about the warmth in your face right now, about the way you adjust your stance without thinking to accommodate that baby.

About what you would look like –

She swallows hard.

No.

She takes a drink of her beer instead.

Across the yard, Hallie finally comes to reclaim her baby. You hand the bundle back with visible reluctance, but the smile lingering on your face. 

The rest of the party is a blur.

Parker answers questions on autopilot. She laughs in the right places, she corrects someone’s wildly inaccurate retelling of a college story, and nods through a half-baked debate about hospital administration policies with her med school friends.

But her attention keeps drifting to you.

To your hands when you gesture, to the way your shirt settles when you sit. To your stomach when you stretch.

Every time someone mentions the baby - sleeping schedules, daycare waitlists, pediatricians - something tightens in her chest instead of recoiling the way it used to.

She doesn’t understand it, nor does she try to. In fact, she tries not to think about it.

By the time you say your goodbyes, the sky is fully dark and the air has cooled.

You slip your hand into hers as you leave your friends’ house and she holds on tighter than usual.

The drive home is weirdly quiet. It’s not awkward or tense, or heavy, just…quiet.

The city lights smear across the windows as you drive. Parker sits in the passenger seat, her elbow braced against the window, clearly lost in thought. 

She hasn’t said much since you left.

You glance at her when you stop at a red, and she’s staring straight ahead.

“You okay?” you ask lightly.

“Yeah.”

Her answer comes too quick. You hum, unconvinced, and turn back to the road.

She’s been like this all evening, distracted and distant in a way that isn’t normal for her. At first you thought it was exhaustion, after all she works nights and she’s been up almost all day. But she doesn’t look tired, she looks like she’s thinking hard.

You catch her looking at you twice in the reflection of the glass. But not at your face, at something lower.

The light turns green and you start to go.

“You’ve been weird since the party,” you say softly. “Did something happen?”

There’s a long pause and she shifts in her seat. 

“No,” she says finally. “…but you looked real good tonight.”

When you pull into the driveway, the quiet is still just as noticeable.

Parker unbuckles her seatbelt but doesn’t get out of the car right away. The light in your kitchen that you always leave on glows from the second-story window and throws a warm cone of yellow light across the hood of the car.

You nudge her knee with yours. “C’mon, doctor.”

Inside, the air still smells a little like the candle you burned that morning. You kick off your shoes near the entryway, dropping your keys into the little ceramic bowl out of habit.

Usually, Parker would reach for you the second you were in the door. Maybe slide an arm around your waist, tug you in for a kiss. But instead, she lingers near the kitchen counter, her hands resting against the edge like she doesn’t know what to do with herself.

You follow her into the kitchen and lean back against the island, watching her.

“Okay,” you say gently. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

“Nothing.”

You raise an eyebrow. 

“Parker.”

You push off the island and step closer, caging her in against the opposite counter, you body pushed up against hers.

You tilt your head, studying her. “…was it the baby?”

Her shoulders tense up.

There it is.

Your eyes light up with recognition. “I knew it.”

She looks away from you.

“You’ve been weird since the baby,” you go on.

“I have not.”

“You have,” you insist, your hands settling on either side of her waist. “You went so quiet, you even stopped making fun of Tre. That alone was suspicious.”

“I make fun of Tre all the time.”

“Not tonight, you didn’t.”

She opens her mouth and then closes it again, still refusing to look at you.

You grin triumphantly. “Oh my god, it was the baby.”

“It was not the baby.”

You soften, your fingers digging gently into her shirt. “It’s not a crime to think babies are cute.”

Parker’s throat bobs as she swallows, her hands coming up to brush your arms just below your shoulders. Finally, she looks at you, but you watch in real time as her gaze travels from your face, down your neck, over your chest, and finally settles on your stomach. 

Your pulse kicks as you manage a, “What’s this about?”

She closes her eyes and exhales slowly through her nose, like she’s holding herself back from something. 

“It’s about you,” she says quietly. 

That shocks you.

“Me?”

One hand travels from your arm down to your side, before settling low on your abdomen. Her palm flat, the warmth from it heavy even through your shirt, fingers splayed just below your belly button.

Your breath catches in your throat.

Parker leans in until she’s right next to your ear.

“I care about you,” she mutters, “looking like that because of me.”

Oh.

The words are heavier than you’re used to hearing from her. There’s no teasing, no deflection. You feel it low in your belly.

“Are you serious?” you breathe.

Her thumb traces a slow, absent line just below your navel. 

“I can’t stop thinking about it.” Her gaze lifts to yours again, her usually warm brown eyes almost completely swallowed by black, pupils blown with lust. “About puttin’ a baby in you.”

“Parker,” you breathe, moving to stand next to her at the counter, though it doesn’t slow your heart rate back down.

Your deflection doesn’t go unnoticed. Parker’s lips part as her tongue darts out to wet them. 

“You like that?” she husks, watching you practically wither under her gaze as you do your best not to make eye contact with her. 

She moves to stand behind you and now it’s your turn, caged between her body at your back and the counter in front of you. Her hands find your hips and she pulls you back until your ass is flush with her.

“You want me to fill you up?” Her hand travels to your front, holding just under your navel again as she breathes into your ear, “You’d look so good swollen here with my baby.”

You let out a whine as your head tilts back and you grind against her. The heat in your belly has become a flame, her hands traveling over your waist, your hips, like she can already picture it. It’s not one-sided, either, Parker is pushing right back against you, her face buried in your hair just behind your ear, rubbing herself on your ass. 

“You wanna get me pregnant, Parker?”

She freezes behind you. 

Her hips stop moving, hands stop travelling, feet rooted to the floor as you can hear the little gasp she lets out.

“Don’t stop,” you whine, grinding back against her. “You’re gonna make me feel good, aren’t you? Gonna fill me up?”

That does it.

She moves so quick you don’t even register her hands popping the button of your jeans, only when she rips them down your body do you realize how fast she’s moving. With one hand between your shoulderblades, she practically shoves you down onto the counter, the other pulling your jeans and your panties down to your ankles. 

She drops to her knees without warning, burying her face in your pussy from behind. 

The yelp you let out at the sudden pleasure is loud and you’re grateful you have an entire floor to yourselves.

Parker drags her tongue from your clit to your hole, moaning as the taste of you floods her mouth. Her fingers dig into the sides of your thighs as her tongue alternates fucking into you and flicking at your clit and then repeating. 

“Fuck, Parker,” you cry out, your hand reaching back to fist the bun she’s tied her locs into. You know she’ll give you shit for it if you mess up her hair, but you couldn’t care less at this moment as you grind back onto her tongue. 

Her fingers trail up your inner thigh, slick gathering beneath them as she uses it to start circling your clit in tight little circles while her tongue pushes deep into you.

“God, fuck, P -” you choke on your own words as her tongue curls inside of you. “Gonna cum!”

Her mouth works overtime, licking and sucking like she’s starved for you, the circles her fingers were making becoming messy and desperate. 

The heat rises inside you, the burn of your release sending your mind reeling and when you come it’s messy – your thighs shaking desperately around Parker’s head as she pulls away from you, her face shining with your slick.

But she isn’t finished with you, a fact that she makes abundantly clear as she stands, arms wrapping around your middle and hauling you to your bedroom. She’s not gentle as she drops you to the bed haphazardly, and you scramble to rid yourself of the rest of your clothes, desperate to feel her skin against yours.

Your wife strips herself of her own clothes, but you only have a second to appreciate the sharp lines of her body before she’s turned her back to you, digging in a drawer for the strap. She retrieves the harness and deep brown silicone and slips it on in record time, desperation apparent on her face as she climbs onto the bed over you. 

You hold out a hand to her sternum, stopping her. Confusion flashes across her face before you push her down onto her back instead. She nestles comfortably into the pillows, a dark little smirk on her face as you climb on top of her.

You grind down against the fake cock, letting your slit rub over it until the tip bumps your clit deliciously. 

Parker groans at the sight, gripping your hips with bruising strength and pulling you up just enough to position the tip at your entrance before slowly pulling you down onto her.

Your head tilts back and you let out a sound that’s half-moan, half-sigh. Despite how wet you are, the stretch is overwhelming, the foreplay not opening you up enough for the size of Parker’s strap. Still, you slide down carefully until you’re fully seated on her, your lips parted and breath heavy as you try your best to focus on adjusting to the size with patience you don’t have.

Once the sting gives way to the feeling of fullness, you start to move. Alternating between circles with your hips and fully sliding up and down along the silicone, you’re slow as you search for that spot inside you, the one Parker always seems to find so easily.

“Fuck, baby, that’s it.”

Speaking of Parker, she lays below you, still holding onto your hips but not guiding you, letting you have full control. 

Your teeth catch your bottom lip as you struggle to find it, feeling good but not good enough, not as good as Parker fucks you. You whine loudly, your hands kneading at Parker’s breasts below you even as she starts to lift her hips to meet yours, fucking up into you.

The moment she puts in the effort, the strap rams into that spot immediately and your vision nearly whites out. You cry out loudly, your hips beginning to cant back and forth as you find a rhythm that keeps the silicone nudging that spot over and over.

“Fuck!” you moan, head still thrown back as that coil begins to pull taught in your belly once more. “Put a baby in me, please, Parker -”

You hear the gasp from underneath you, and it’s followed by a harsh grip on your waist as Parker manages to flip the two of you over without sliding out of you. You land on your stomach and Parker shoves her pillow under your hips for leverage.

She grips your ass, spreading you wide to get a good view of the faux cock sliding in and out of your cunt before setting a brutal pace.

“Takin’ it so good, gonna fill this pussy up,” she pants, somehow managing to keep her pace up and talk at the same time. The sight is driving Parker feral, dirty words beginning to flow out of her mouth like water. “You’re gonna look so good all swollen and full of me.”

Her words send shivers up your spine, pussy clenching tightly around the strap as a white ring begins to form around the base every time she pulls out. 

“Gonna be the prettiest baby mama I’ve ever seen.” Parker accentuates her words with a sharp smack on your ass, the crack echoing through the room accompanied by your squeal.

Her hips begin to stutter, momentum faltering just a fraction. Her clit has been grinding against the bumpher relentlessly, driving her toward her own orgasm, and she’s practically doubled over you, trying to force an orgasm out of you before cumming herself. 

“C’mon, baby,” Parker pants, pulling you back to meet her thrusts. “You’re gonna cum for me one more time, and then I’m gonna fill this pussy up.”

The movement from being pulled back and forth has your clit rubbing against Parker’s pillow underneath you and the slick sounds coming from between your legs grow louder as she drills into you at an unrelenting pace. 

Your body begins to shake uncontrollably as you cum again and you can’t stop the broken “Oh my god!” that falls loudly from your lips.

Parker’s thrusts never falter, the pace brutal as she continues to fuck into you, chasing the feeling of the silicone against her clit. 

“Fuuuuuck, baby, right there,” she groans, her thrusts dissolving into grinding as she nears her own edge. “Gonna – put a baby in you -”

It doesn’t take long before her legs lock up as her own orgasm overtakes her, grinding into the bumpher and nudging the tip of the strap into that spot inside you as overstimulation rears its head. 

She hovers above you, catching her breath, before collapsing onto the bed next to you, her chest heaving with exertion. 

Her attention is caught when she hears your muffled voice coming from your face-down form next to her.

“What?”

You lift your head just enough for her to see your exhausted grin as you let out a weak chuckle, “Think it worked?”

Parker huffs a breathless laugh. 

“Ask me again in nine months.”

➶❥➶❥➶

Enjoy this? Check out my Masterlist.

Of course, you had to be the one to catch him here, naked from the waist up, as he tried to self-medicate the wound on his back.

“Uhm- It was empty when I came in.” He glanced up at you for an instant before busying himself with the instruments on the tray in front of him.

You seemed lost for a moment, trying to remember the room your patient actually was in, before you finally focused on the scene before you.

“What happened to you?” You frowned.

You’d taken a step closer, and as embarrassing as it was, Jack couldn’t help but flex, trying to act nonchalant while all he could hear was the heart pounding in his chest.

“Bullet grazed my vest,” he shrugged, clearing his throat to prevent his voice from shaking. “Nothing serious.”

Your eyes widened at his words, and you hurried to look at his back.

“Jesus,” you breathed, inspecting the wound.

“It’s- it’s nothing really.”

“Doesn’t look like nothing.” You arched a brow, watching as he tried to bring the Q-tip over his shoulder, failing miserably.

You observed him struggle for a moment before wordlessly moving to close the curtain and put on gloves.

“What are you doing?”

“What you clearly can’t,” you smiled, taking the Q-tip from his fingers and getting to work on disinfecting the cut.

He stiffened the moment your hand found his back for balance, and shivers ran through him as you began taking care of him.

“Sorry,” you murmured, thinking he was reacting to the sting.

“I-I’ts fine.”

Huh. You really didn’t peg him for the type to complain about a little burning.

“Why do you do this?” You couldn’t stop yourself from asking.

I mean, why would anyone who’d already survived a war choose such a violent part-time job... not to mention someone whose main occupation was already stressful and heavy on its own.

“My therapist said I needed a hobby,” he joked humorelessly, his attention only on the way your touch was warming every inch of him... even parts that had no business reacting at the moment.

“Funny.” You huffed with a laugh.

Silence spread around the room as you continued your work on his skin, but as you did, your mind couldn’t help but start to wander- about him, specifically.

Now, the thing was, that you were about 90% convinced he was the hottest man you’d ever seen. He was handsome, strong, capable, calm, and just plain... hot.

You’d noticed it from your very first day here. I mean, it’s not like it would be hard for anyone to notice; he was the type of man who stood out.

And while the first year you resigned yourself to daydreams about hot, sweaty nights with him... Now you were an R4, you’d been working here for a while, and as the months passed, you couldn’t help but think that maybe acting out on your desire wasn’t that much of a big deal... quite the opposite, it would be a great idea.

Which was wonderful, if he wasn’t for the fact that he was so... weird around you.

“So...” you hummed, biting down a smile, “Is there a reason you don’t like me?”

You were never one to mince your words.

The reaction was immediate. He stiffened as if he’d just stepped into an ice bath, his breath getting caught in his throat.

“W-what?”

“I’m just wondering,” you explained. “Did I do something wrong, or is it just my vibe you don’t like?”

He was speechless, staring at the curtain in front of him as he tried to understand what was going on.

Why would you even think that?

“I’m not mad, I just wanna know,” you shrugged.

He didn’t have it in him to turn around and look at you; he feared the words about to come out of his mouth would die on his tongue if he did.

“I like you,” he stated timidly, his voice rough.

“Sure doesn’t seem like it,” you chukled softly. “You’re so... friendly with everyone else, and yet you barely talk to me.”

His breathing was starting to falter as he wished he’d never come to the ER today.

“I... I talk to you.”

“Mh-mh,” you nodded jokingly, “When we’re working on a patient, you do. But outside of that... I can’t even remember one time.”

Oh Jesus

Moments ticked by as he tried to think of what to say.

I mean, he sure as hell couldn’t say the truth. I don’t talk to you because every time you’re near, I start acting like a prepubescent teen around his first crush, didn’t seem like an appropriate thing to say.

“It’s ok, you don’t have to explain.” You surrendered after the silence went on for too long, your work on his wound done. “Could you pass me the bandage, please?”

It took him a second to snap out of the daze and do as you asked.

“Thanks,” you murmured, taking the plaster.

Your fingers connected for a second with the action, and Jack wanted to punch himself for the effect such a small contact had on him.

His old heart skipped a beat as the hair at the back of his neck stood up.

Fuck

Your hands were so soft against him, and his traitorous brain couldn’t help but imagine them touching you on a different occasion... one where your sweet voice moaned his name as he thrust himself into you over and over again.

Fucking damnit

Jesus Christ, this couldn’t be happening- he was getting hard.

“There, all done.”

“Already?” he blurted out involuntarily, causing you to smile.

“What, need me to kiss it better too?”

Heat crawled to his cheeks, and the image of your lips on him went straight to his dick.

He tried to think of something else, anything really, but then your fingers reached higher and grazed the hair at the nape of his neck, and he blanked.

“Fuck-”

You frowned, confused.

Was he still hurting? Did he get hit somewhere else?

“Are you-” You began asking as you started to get back in front of him, but then... Then you got distracted.

He tried to hide it. He tried to grab his shirt and yank it on his lap- but he wasn’t fast enough. You saw it.

You saw the tent in his pants and then the blush on his chest, neck, and cheeks, and even ears, and you... You could only grin.

“You weren’t lying.” You couldn’t help but tease, “You really do like me.”

“I-” was all he could master.

He was staring at his lap, desperately wishing to disappear.

“I’m sorry- I-I-”

Jesus, he could almost feel his brain melting and leaking out of his ears.

“I’m sorry, you’re just... I- Fuck- I didn’t mean to, you were just... I-”

“Jack,” You interrupted his rambling.

He swallowed the lump in his throat as he gathered the courage to look at you.

He raised his head, his eyes apologetic, resembling those of a kicked puppy.

He was prepared for you to be grossed out, to laugh at him- everything but what he found.

You were smiling, not in a mean way, but in a... intrigued way.

“Come with me.”

__  __  __

Jack’s breath was heaving as you guided him into the storage closet. But it stopped altogether as you closed and locked the door behind you.

“Sit”

He didn’t even hesitate for a second before obeying your command. The old gurney creaked with his added weight.

He stared at you as you began stalking closer to him, a sly smile pulling at your lips.

“What are we doing here?”

“I think you know what we’re doing here.” You tilted your head, close enough now to place a hand on his still naked shoulder.

God, he was broad.

You let yourself stare anabashedly at him, at the freckles on his skin, and at the few hairs covering his pecs.

“So this is why you avoid me?”

There was no point in denying it at this point. You had the proof of the effect you had on him plain as day before you.

“This doesn’t... I don’t...”

“Get hard every time I’m around?” you laughed softly, finishing his sentence as you undid your bottom scrubs and let them pool at your ankles, before stepping out of them. “I’d hope so.”

He froze at the sight, blinking mesmerized at you.

Wordlessly, you climbed onto his lap, feeling him stiffen, his body unsure how to react, and his lungs failing to work.

You grinned, your hand traveling to his lap so slowly he wondered if you’d put a spell on time.

You toyed with his zipper, reveling in the way his breath hitched, before undoing it and letting his dick out of the confines of his underwear.

He was big in that delicious way that wasn’t too overwhelming, but that could definitely take care of each and every need you would ever have.

“You just...” he breathed, his eyes on your mouth, desperately wishing he could feel your lips on his, “You make me dumb.”

You couldn’t help but chuckle.

It was fascinating how a man so sure of himself and borderline cocky with everyone else seemed to turn into the shiest little lamb when you were near.

And the funniest part was that you had no clue until now. You’d never understood why he treated you differently and had mistaken his shyness for hostility.

If only you’d known before... You would have made this happen years ago.

“’S that right?” A grin pulled at your lips as you started to gently stroke him. “You flatter me, Dr. Abbot.”

His mouth opened, but speaking actual words seemed impossible at the moment.

As he said, you made him dumb.

You shook your head, biting down a smirk as you pulled your panties to the side.

“Your shift doesn’t start for a little while, right?”

His shift? He completely forgot about his shift.

He could only nod, swallowing nervously as his gaze panned to the newer skin you’d uncovered between your tights.

Jack was sure he’d get a heart attack any moment now.

Good thing you were in a hospital.

“Good,” you breathed, unhurriedly sinking down onto his shaft.

While you tried to silence your moans and managed to bite them into small whimpers, Jack’s groans were deep and much too loud.

You were so fucking full of him- it was like he fit perfectly inside you.

Your eyes had closed in the moment, but then you felt Jack’s hands on each side of your head as his forehead fell to yours, and once you blinked, all you could see was him- his gentle brown eyes clouded with lust and desperation.

You were breathing heavily against each other’s mouths, trying to recover from the feeling... that was until Abbot couldn’t wait anymore.

He met his lips with yours with such need that he could have been starving.

It all started slowly, cautiously, until you lost all patience and let your tongue infiltrate his mouth, exploring him as he began exploring you.

You moaned into the kiss, and as heat spread down low, your hips couldn’t help but start to grind against him.

The sound that rumbled from his chest at that was so deep and so fucking hot.

You weren’t even thinking anymore; you were just a doll at the mercy of your body’s needs as you started to ride him.

The feel of his dick plunging into you over and over again was making you want to scream. His tip was hitting the deepest, most sensitive parts of you with each bounce, and he was still desperately kissing you.

“Y-you feel so good,” He breathed hoarsely, his head falling to where your neck met your shoulder.

The sound of your wet heat accommodating his girth filled the room with a nasty sound you prayed couldn’t be heard from outside.

“Fuck- you feel so good too,” you moaned, fingers going to grip his hair. “So big- so deep.”

He groaned something incomprehensible as his mouth connected with the skin on your neck, causing shivers to break out down your spine.

You were moving frantically now, desperately chasing your high as the gurney creaked beneath you and your breathing got more and more erratic.

Jack’s hand infiltrated underneath your scrubs to reach your tits, caressing your nipples gently and making you smile in bliss.

“Fuck, Jack,” you cried, your fingers fisting his silver locks as you unashamedly used him. “I can call you Jack, right?” you asked with a grin.

It took a moment for him to even hear you.

You see, the only thing on the poor man’s mind since he’d first gotten inside you was: don’tcomedon’tcomedon’tcome

He nodded, mouth back to yours as that familiar sweet ball of tension started building in your belly.

“Y-yes,” he murmured, out of breath even if he was doing nothing. “Please tell me you’re close.”

You grinned amusedly as you instructed, “Touch my clit.”

He obeyed the order as if you’d suddenly turned into his commander.

“Fuck” you gasped at the feeling.

Jack groaned at your walls tightening, but as much as he wanted to close his eyes and fill you up, he watched with amazement the ecstasy portrayed on your face.

He listened to the sweet sounds you made just for him, willing them to memory forever.

“Right there,” you murmured barely audibly. “Fuck Jack...f-fuck”

Your orgasm hit you like a truck. Your head fell back as you forgot all about where you were and moaned like a maniac.

While Jack... Jack had begun coming from the very first second you did- finally letting go. He growled onto the skin of your neck as he held you impossibly close.

You remained like that, holding onto one another as Abbot’s cock softened inside you and his come started leaking out of you.

It was you who regained consciousness first, taking a deep breath in as you leaned away enough to meet Jack’s half-lidded eyes.

Your lips pulled into a soft smile at the astonishment on his face- it was like he was still catching on to what had just happened.

Your mouth found his in a gentle kiss, “We should get going,” you murmured, finally standing back up again.

He was too disappointed by your leaving to tuck himself back in right away, but he eventually managed after you were dressed up again.

You were so goddamn beautiful even when your face was flushed, and your hair was messy, that he didn't know what to do with himself.

“You’re staring,” you eyed him, but his mind was elsewhere completely.

“What- what does this mean?”

The moment the words left Jack's mouth, he regretted ever having thought of them.

What kind of fucking question was that to ask?

He was standing in front of you now, forehead creased in a frown, heart still pounding.

“What this means...” You smirked, your fingers raking through his hair to try and fix them, “Is that we’ll do this-” You eyed the gurney “many more times... and we’ll figure the rest out as we go. Sounds good?”

“Good- great,” he nodded eagerly, causing a chuckle to flee your throat.

“Perfect,” you murmured with a quick kiss to his lips, “Now I think you should get started with your shift, Dr. Abbot.”

__  __  __

“You two found what you were looking for in the storage closet?”

The very last thing that Jack wanted was to talk to Robby right now. But he had no choice.

The day shift’s attending had a shit-eating grin stamped to his lips as he eyed Abbot knowingly.

“I keep my mouth shut when you and Whitaker sneak off in there.”

Robby’s smile only widened, presumably at the memories that small, dirty closet held.

The constant will-they-won’t-they between you was buried under layers of hierarchy, rules, and morals — under the unsaid understanding that whatever this thing between you was could never be acted upon. Not while you were his resident, anyway. 

The obvious power imbalance was a line Jack Abbot would not let himself cross, no matter how desperately he wanted to.

Only now, that wretched line isn’t there anymore. For the first time since he met you, you’re both on even ground. The world is your oyster, as it were; all the opportunities lie now at your feet. You need only to reach out and take it.

“First intubation as an attending,” Jack hums from the opposite side of the hospital bed, eyes glittering with amusement behind his safety glasses. “How’s it feel?”

You scoff a quiet laugh and shake your head. “That question got old about the fourth time you asked it, Dr. Abbot…” you deadpan, sewing the trachael to the unconscious patient’s neck.

Reggie Brice; thirty-two-year-old male; exhibiting crush injuries to the chest and pelvis from a gnarly car pile-up. Seven people, including this one, were rushed in requiring immediate assistance. The rest were brought in with sustained head injuries, concussions, or minor fractures that needed tending to. You know that there has been at least one confirmed death.

“Well, it’s a big deal,” the man scoffs. “Why do you think we all chipped in two dollars to decorate the break room? Those grocery store cupcakes actually mean something, you know?”

“Well, I am honored…” you sigh in a distracted monotone.

Jack squints. “Yeah, I can tell. You look downright emotional—”

You take a step back to assess, gaze flickering to the monitor at your side. You find the man’s blood pressure continuing to climb, which is less than ideal for the injuries he’s sporting now.

“Pressure’s too high. We gotta fix that, or he’s gonna crash,” Jack announces in a sharper tone, though it never quite loses its laid-back edge. He always works best under pressure, in truth. “We could always crack the chest, cross-clamp the aorta—  buy him some time till we get him a room.”

“What about preperitoneal packing?” you suggest, gesturing over the patient’s lean stomach with gloved hands. “We do a simple midline incision below the umbilicus, pack like hell around the bladder, keep the bleeding in check until we get him upstairs.”

Jack’s silence is less than reassuring.

You peer at him behind the glasses sitting low on your nose, stumbling over yourself as you brace for an inevitable rejection. “I know it’s more of an OR procedure, and I’ve only done it once, but—”

“Hey…” Jack cuts in softly, brows raised to his hairline. “You’re the boss here, kid. Remember? We’ll do whatever you wanna do.”

Your eyes narrow, despite the funny feeling flaring in your chest. His voice, all deep and gravelly and gentle, has always had a way of piercing right through you.

“I’m not a kid anymore, Abbot,” you remind him. 

So there’s nothing standing in your way anymore, old man, you’re really saying.

Jack grins wide, like he can hear it in your silence.

“Force of habit,” he shrugs. “Now, c’mon. Let’s do it your way, boss.”

You’re wrists-deep in the conscious man’s pelvis, packing the blood clot around his bladder while Jack holds the Deaver retractor in a steady head. You fall into a strange sort of rhythm together, the way you always do, moving with each other without ever having to speak. Though, for some reason, you can’t seem to stop your hands from shaking.

“This is good, right?” you murmur behind your mask, shoving more gauze beneath the man’s sliced skin.

“You’re doing great,” Jack praises muffedly, without missing a beat, though he flashes you a stern look behind his glasses a second later. “You’re an attending now— You know what you’re doing.”

You swallow hard with an unsure nod. “Right… Yeah…”

Jack smiles at your sheepishness — a stark contrast to how methodically your hands move — though the expression gets hidden behind his blue surgical mask. “Don’t worry. It’s always a little weird at first. You’ll settle in in no time.”

You scoff a harsh breath through your nose. “You’ve been uncharacteristically sweet to me today. You know that?”

“I’m always sweet,” Jack squints. “But I can always get meaner, if you want. You know, if my kindness isn’t impressing you.”

“Hm,” you shrug and swipe your gloved fingers under the fatty tissue of the fleshy linea alba. “Jury’s still out.”

“Well,” his brows bounce. “I guess I’m just gonna have to try a little harder, then, aren’t I?”

“What can I say? I have high standards, Dr. Abbot.”

Your concentrated gaze flickers from the incision to the man standing across from you. Something mischievous glimmers in your eyes, crinkling at the edges with a smile he can’t see behind your mask. The air between you charges in a flicker.

“You doin’ anything after this shift?” the man wonders suddenly, passing you another stack of gauze with his free hand. “You know, to celebrate?”

“I don’t know…” you sigh and turn away again. “I guess it depends.”

“On?”

“Whether someone can give me something better to do than collapsing face-first into my bed.”

“I think I could make a pretty strong case,” Jack quips.

“Ooh…” you hum. “Do tell.”

“Something involving food. Definitely,” he starts. “Maybe something a lot more filling than two-dollar vending machine snacks.”

“Very compelling start, Dr. Abbot…”

“And maybe— if you’re so inclined,” he croons drily. “Something where we don’t talk about work for an hour. At least.”

You flash him a deadpanned stare. “Well, now, that’s just way too far.”

“Hm. It was worth a shot,” he shrugs.

“I guess we’ll just have to see how the rest of your performance goes...”

His eyes widen in amusement at your sudden teasing, not nearly as shy as he’s grown accustomed to. “Oh, so I’m the one being evaluated now?”

“Yep,” you nod once, popping the p.

“And what happens if I pass?”

You meet his gaze once more, with something a little shier around the edges. “Then I’ll… let me take you somewhere for breakfast in the morning,” you shrug, trying to be casual, though your wavering voice gives you instantly away.

A smile curls slow at Jack’s mouth behind his surgical mask. You can see it squinting the very edges of his light eyes as he nods in response. “Looking forward to it—”

The glass door across the room swings open without warning. 

Your heads whip simultaneously, half-expecting to find a grey-scrubbed nurse standing there, hopefully with some information about the state of the suddenly flooded OR. You find a strange man there instead — late fifties, bearded, tall but with a beer gut that hangs over the top of his baggy jeans. There’s dark blood on his t-shirt and the collar of his beige jacket, dripping from a cut on his temple.

His narrow face is strikingly hollow; his eyes are painfully empty. You figure he must be one of the victims from the pile-up. He wears the shock of it all over, no doubt.

“This is a sterile room, sir,” Jack tells him, authoritative but never unkind. “If you’re family, I’m gonna need you to wait outside. I’ll have a nurse give you the details— and maybe take a look at the cut of yours.”

“I’m not his family,” the man says in an even monotone, with a gritty drawl that insists he’s from somewhere further south. There is little inflection in his voice, the same way there is little emotion on his bearded face. He just lingers there in the doorway, frozen still in a way that feels almost uncanny.

Your wide eyes flit to Jack, glimmering with apprehension. Your stomach twists with it, too.

Jack’s firm gaze never wavers from the stranger across the room. “Either way, sir, you can’t be in here—”

The older man’s weathered right hand reaches slowly for the inside pocket of his jacket. Something silver glints beneath the bright white fluorescents overhead. It takes you a second too long to realize what it is — a gun.

The world narrows in an instant. The oxygen gets sucked out of the room all at once. Your chest hitches for a breath it cannot take.

You don’t realize until then that you’ve never seen a pistol this close before — or at all. Your brain detaches in an instant accordingly, protects you now by convincing you that this is no longer your reality. That you’re only dreaming. That everything around you is just a movie you’re watching from faraway.

“Hey, hey, hey…” Jack cautions on bated breath, bloodied hands raised in surrender. 

His wide eyes dart between the man and the glass door, where the stranger is just out of view of the hallway. He swallows hard, adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, as he takes slow steps towards the assailant. 

“Let’s just— Let’s just take a breath here, alright, man?”

The monitor beside you begins to beep wildly when your hands freeze. Your body jerks when the sound fills the silent room. 

Your gloved hands move on autopilot, adjusting the Deaver retractor in Jack’s absence and continuing to pack the bladder with the remaining gauze. The work is the only thing anchoring you now — the glaring acknowledgment that, if you don’t finish up here, the man in the bed will die before he makes it to the OR.

“That man there…” the stranger says in a distant voice, like he’s not all the way here either. “He was driving the car that hit my wife… Blew a red light… Came out of nowhere…”

Jack’s expression shifts. He reaches for his jaw with slow hands, plucking the surgical mask from his right ear, and letting the left side hang by his chin — allowing the man to see his face. 

“I’m sorry to hear that, sir.”

“He killed her… On the scene…” the man continues, gravelly voice tighter now. “I was trying to scoop her brains back into her skull— Do you have any idea what the kinda shit does to a person?”

“That’s hard, man,” Jack nods sympathetically but stands his ground at the head of the hospital bed all the same, planting himself firmly between you and the stranger across the room. “I get it.”

“You don’t—” the man snaps, harsher now.

You flinch when his voice rings suddenly through the room, trying to pack the wound tight with half-numb fingers.

“You don’t just get to— to fix him like nothing happened. Like her life didn’t matter—”

“It does matter,” Jack assures with a rapid nod. “Your wife matters, I promise.”

“Then let me do something about it—”

Jack’s chest tightens when the man’s knuckles turn white around the gun. He holds it steady despite his troubled state, like he knows exactly what he’s doing with it. Jack understands, then, that if he lets that gun off, it’ll hit exactly whatever this man wants it to — wherever he wants it to.

“There are two other people in this room who had nothing to do with what happened to your wife, man,” Jack tells him. “And I know you don’t want anyone else to get hurt. I know that.”

“You’re right… I don’t want anyone else to get hurt…” the man nods, voice heavy and trembling. “So tell her to stop—”

The gun shifts over Jack’s shoulder, aiming right for your head.

A pained whimper sounds in the pit of your tightening throat. You can hardly see the incision below you as burning tears gather at your waterline. Your shaking fingers scramble for the sutures to stitch him back up again.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Jack blurts, stepping in front of the gun again without a second thought. He keeps his gloved hands raised, but his sympathetic stare turns stern in a flicker. “You’re talking to me right now, alright? So put the gun back on me— We’re gonna figure this out together.”

“I said— tell her— to stop!”

His thumb flicks the hammer of the gun with a daunting click. 

“I can’t!” you hear yourself whimper. “I can’t stop, Jack— He’ll die.”

“I know, kid…” he says without looking back at you, with a voice much more even compared to yours. “I know. Just keep going.”

“Stop!” the man bellows. “Or I swear to god, I’ll shoot you both in the goddamn head!”

Jack is not perturbed by his yelling. He wants him to yell, wants him to cause a scene so that someone’ll check in and call in a Code Silver. He just doesn’t want that gun to go off. So he keeps his voice calm as he counters gently, “And what happens next? If you kill us— If you kill him. What are you gonna do after?”

The man hesitates for a moment. His grip falters on the gun, as if he hadn’t considered the question until that very moment.

“I know you want your wife back… But this isn’t gonna make it any better.”

“Maybe not,” the man says. “But it’ll make it stop.”

He doesn’t elaborate on what ‘it’ exactly is, but Jack doesn’t need him to. He’s been where this man is standing — not physically, maybe, not with a gun in his hand; but in the deep, dark void reserved only for a special, gut-wrenching sort of grief. 

“It won’t. Trust me,” Jack says with a shake of his silver head. “I lost my wife ten years ago. Not like you did, but it still hurt like hell, man, I can tell you that…”

The man softens slightly. It’s the first time since the crash that someone’s tried to level with him, that someone’s actually understood. 

Jack takes a hesitant step forward when he catches the stranger’s resolve starting to slip.

“And I can tell you it doesn’t stay that way forever…” he continues. “Whatever you’re feeling right now, I know you think it’s never gonna stop. But it will. You just have to let it.”

Another step forward.

“You see the woman you’re pointing that gun at?” Jack wonders with raised brows, nodding his silver head in your direction. “I like her… I really like her. And I didn’t think I was capable of feeling anything again.”

Your chest aches at his words. Your glasses fog from the warm tears clinging to your bottom lashes. Your clammy hands fumble with the surgical needle.

The man’s finger loosens slightly on the trigger, and Jack takes another cautious stop. 

“And this is really bad timing, man, ‘cause I was gonna take her out after this,” he confesses with a not-quite smile. “But for that to happen, I need us to walk out of here. All of us.”

The beat of silence thereafter feels borderline suffocating. It wraps its cold hands around your neck and strangles you.

Jack almost thinks he’s gotten through to the man. He can see the cracks starting to fissure throughout his hollow face; the flicker of hesitation, the realization of what he’s doing — where his dark mind has led him.

“So you’re saying…” the man trails off and swallows hard. His drawl is much too soft for the words that spill from his mouth a second later. “…If I shoot her, you’ll understand how I feel?” 

Your blood runs ice cold in an instant.

Jack’s shoes squeak hard against the tile as he lunges for the man before you can blink. He pushes him into the wall with an aggressive thud and tries to shove his gun out of your direction. You bend over the bed on instinct, covering your patient without a second thought.

Two shots ring out.

You expect to feel both of them, or perhaps nothing at all, as your limp body hits the floor. You keep your eyes shut and your jaw clenched tight, bracing yourself for pain or certain death.

The harsh ringing in your ears is slow to fade. When your hearing finally returns to you, and your eyes peek slowly open, you find a sea of bodies crashing into the room like a tidal wave — and you, yourself, still standing.

Your head swivels on your shoulder, still half-hunched over your patient. Your gaze drags unwillingly past the blur of bodies and dark scrubs until it finds Jack, lying flat on the ground instead of you.

It takes your brain a long moment to make sense of it — the strangle ngle of his body, the stuttering of his chest, the tear in his shirt from the bullet, and the wet crimson darkening the tile beneath him. The sight doesn’t fit, doesn’t belong. Not to Jack, anyway; not to the man who’s far too steady, too solid, to ever look like this.

And the worst part of it all — the part that will follow you long after this moment ends — is that that bullet was meant for you, and that Jack didn’t even hesitate to take it instead.

The ED descends into a different sort of chaos than you’re used to. The PTMC fractures, splinters into something unrecognizable, as voices overlap and distort in your ears. “Gunshot wound— Attending down!” you hear someone shout, followed by a quieter, “Help me get him up,” and a harsher, “Someone get me a fucking line!” 

None of it feels all the way real. 

It’s like looking through the rest of the world through a fishbowl, where everything is blurred and warped and muffled. You can see armed guards detaining the crying gunman in the foreground of it all, along with Jack’s body being transferred to a stretcher, right before Samira ducks into your tunnel vision.

Her dark brown eyes are lined with exhaustion from her double shift as they dart attentively across your face — the first person to reach out for you in the midst of all the chaos.

“What do you need me to do?” is all she says.

Your voice comes out strangled. It sounds like it’s coming from somewhere else entirely as you choke through panted breaths, “F-Finish up his— his sutures, and… and get him to the OR... Walsh has a… has a room ready for him, I think—”

Your legs feel half-numb as you step back from the patient before you, left totally unaware of the chaos surrounding him. You stumble for the entrance, peeling off your stained gown and bloodied gloves as you go, and follow Jack’s body as they lead him out of the room. 

You migrate to his side like it’s muscle memory to you, struggling to find your footing in the midst of the growing crowd as the doctors rush the gurney to the elevators. For every step you take, Shen and Crus seem to take three more. It makes it nearly impossible to keep up in your stupor.

You crane your head to catch a peek of the man from behind the towering bodies before you. “I-Is he okay?” you wonder breathlessly.

The gurney jerks too hard around the corner, scraping the side of the wall.

“Motherfucker!” Jack groans.

“Well, shit— He definitely sounds the same,” Parker quips from beside you.

“How are you feeling?” Crus calls from the man’s side. “Talk to me, Abbot— You’re still with us, right?”

“Not unless you two learn how to maneuver a goddamn gurney,” Jack jokes through gritted teeth.

“Page Walsh,” Shen tells Lena with a stern nod, pushing the button for the lift. “Make sure she’s got a room open.”

The doors part with a ding. They wheel the stretcher inside, and you make sure to squeeze in with them, elbowing past the attendings and nurses to get to Jack’s side.

He’s clammy and pale when he comes into view, writhing in place as he clutches at his ribs. His black scrubs are stained a darker color from the blood spilling from the wound, which turns the white towel pressed there a deeper shade of scarlet than you think you’ve ever seen.

Your trembling hand reaches for him on instinct. You press your palm over his bloodied knuckles — keeping some pressure there, reminding him that you’re still here.

“Jack?” you call to him in a voice taut, as your teary eyes dart wildly across his scruffy face. “Jack? A-Are you okay?”

He swallows hard, adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. His head turns slowly, just enough to find you, and he blinks wildly to clear the blur in his vision. The corner of his mouth twitches in a faint hint of a smile when he spots you standing over him.

He clears his throat, but his words still come out a little gravelly as he arches an expectant brow and says, “Told ya…”

You shake your head, features screwing in confusion. “Told me what?”

“That I’d make a good case…” 

Your chest flares. Something wells suddenly in your throat, though you can’t be sure if it’s a laugh or a sob. You just scold him instead. “It’s not funny, Jack—”

“Hey. You’re the one who said you had high standards, kid…” he rasps. 

His eyes fall over your form, trying to assess you despite his dwindling vision. You watch his scruffy features twist with concern a second later. His chest stutters as he questions breathlessly, “Whoa— Is that… Is that my blood? Or yours?”

You tilt your chin to follow his gaze. Only then do you feel the warm blood trickling down to your elbow; only then do you feel the white-hot, searing pain of the bullet that had grazed your shoulder. 

You feel very suddenly like the world is spinning around you. 

The stares you get return, as everyone else seems to notice too, only adds to the dizziness. 

“You’re bleeding,” Shen observes sharply. “Why didn’t you tell anyone you got hit?”

“I-I’m fine,” you insist despite the waver in your voice, shaking your head to fight the lightheadedness away. “I can’t— I can’t even feel it, okay? I swear.”

“Get someone to take a look at that when we get upstairs, alright?” Shen commands with a stern glare. “I mean it.”

Your wet eyes harden in an instant. “I’m not leaving—”

Jack’s hand, still weak on his side, twists over the damp towel to grab yours. His bloody fingers are cold and trembling as they struggle to find purchase on your smaller ones. You hold him with enough strength for the both of you.

“You got hurt ‘cause of me, kid. At least let someone—”

“Hey,” you snap, meaner than he’s ever seen you. “That was not your fault.”

“Let ‘em take a look at you, alright?”

You shake your stubborn head. “I need you to focus on yourself right now—”

“I am,” he insists. His gravelly voice never loses its humorous edge, and neither do his glassy eyes lose their tenderness as they flit back and forth between yours. “And I’m not gonna be okay if you aren’t, alright? So just… please.”

Your features crumple at the pleading look he gives you — with his eyes all squishy around the edges, and glazing over with unshed tears.

The elevator stills with a ding, shattering the tense moment. It jolts faintly, just enough to make your swimming stomach feel sicker. You catch yourself nodding despite your better judgment. 

“Fine…” you tell him in a fragile voice.

Jack tries to smile but finds the strength to slowly leave him, a little like the blood trickling from his side.

“I’m in good hands,” he assures you, then turns to the attending on his left. “Right, Dr. Shen?”

The younger man’s brows lower. “Didn’t you just call me a motherfucker?” he quips.

Jack’s weathered face twists as he’s wheeled out of the elevator. “…Did I?”

Your hand slips from his as you watch him go. Something about it feels wrong, though you can’t exactly place why. You just know it feels like something ripping in two — like the torn skin of your bloody shoulder, times a thousand.

The room they put you in is achingly quiet; the kind of quiet that makes everything else seem ten times louder. The green-white fluorescent bulb clicks and buzzes mercilessly over your head, drilling straight into your skull. The AC hums gently alongside it in a mundane sort of symphony that matches the empty room you’re in — where only one hospital bed sits beside a shuttered window, in front of a porcelain sink and mirror.

Everything smells like stale air, sharp antiseptic, and metallic blood.

You stand before the cloudy mirror with your scrub sleeve pushed up your shoulder, kept awkwardly in place by your chin. You struggle to do your sutures with a hand that won’t stop trembling. 

You don’t realize how ardently you’re still shaking until the needle slips across your skin — not enough to do any real damage, but enough to make you hiss through your teeth when it stings. You clench your jaw and pull the thread through, until the raging skin around the laceration pinches together again. Your features flicker as you try and fail to ignore the dull burn that spreads up and down your arm a second later.

The fiery sensation is the only thing keeping your mind distracted from all the rest of it — the way the gunshot made your ears ring; the way Jack’s body jerked before it hit the ground; the way the man called out for his wife when security pinned him to the floor.

You tug the sutures harder, relishing in the sting. You push the needle through once more, harder than necessary, and let it slip a little sloppier than you should — anything to take your mind off of it.

“Careful…” a voice cautions from the doorway.

Your head whips over your shoulder. You blink rapidly as your brain struggles to catch up — like you half-expect to find yourself back in that room; like you half-expect to find the man from before standing there.

You feel a little like the ground has been pulled from underneath you when you find Robby there instead, rubbing disinfectant between his calloused palms.

Someone downstairs must’ve called him about Jack, and about the Code Silver currently turning the PTMC to shambles. And, based on the surgical mask sticking out of his jacket pocket, you figure he must’ve just gotten back from checking in on him in the OR. 

His dark eyes flit from your face, to your shoulder, and to the supplies scattered across the sink before you.

“They said you were supposed to be getting looked at,” he says. “Not playing DIY surgeon.”

You huff out a breath that would’ve passed for a laugh any other time. 

“Everyone else is busy… At least I can make myself useful this way…”

You can’t bring yourself to meet his gaze. You can’t stand the way he’s looking at you now. His gaze is too sharp, too focused. It’s like he’s studying you, cataloging, assessing — the same way you do with your patients. The thought of being so helpless makes your stomach twist. 

Robby doesn’t argue, but instead lets his eyes linger on the slight tremor in your hands. The leftover adrenaline is likely buzzing like electricity in your veins just now. You’re bound to crash at any second.

“I know you don’t want my help,” he starts slowly, sauntering further in with his arms crossed over his chest. “But at least lie and say I did your sutures— so Jack doesn’t try to kill me when he wakes up.”

“I think he’ll know you didn’t do ‘em when he sees how neat they are,” you joke drily.

“Rude…” Robby scoffs, sneakers scuffing as he plants himself at your side. You can see the leftover slumber in his swollen eyes more clearly now, as he ducks down to look at you. “Want me to get you something for the pain, at least?”

You shake your head instantly, not trusting your voice enough to speak without wavering.

“You sure?” he presses.

“I’m fine,” you snap. “I’m not the one in surgery.”

He is not dismayed by your anger. He knows it’s not meant for him. 

“Well, Jack’s doing just fine. Walsh is finishing up with him now,” he tells you. “Honestly, I think the hardest part is gonna be keeping him off his feet for the next little while…. ‘Cause there’s about a hundred percent chance he’s gonna want to come back to work when he’s discharged.”

You exhale sharply through your nose in place of a laugh as you tie the sutures and cut the excess with a pair of small medical scissors. 

You just barely catch sight of your delirious smile in the cloudy mirror before a chuckle sputters suddenly from your mouth. The sound of it fills the quiet room as you tumble into a fit of half-drunken giggles, bowing your head and propping your gloved hands on the porcelain sink.

Your shoulders shake as your laughter turns quickly into sobs.

Robby softens instantly. “Shit… I’m sorry…”

“I’m fine,” you blurt once more and shake your head. Your voice is strangled through the tears in your throat, but you dismiss him anyway. “I’m fine. I-I don’t even know why I’m crying, so..”

“You went through something traumatic tonight,” he coos. “Everything you’re feeling is completely normal.”

You shake your head again. “I should’ve gone with him— I should be helping in there—”

“You’d just be a liability,” Robby shrugs, a little blunt but not entirely unkind. “You’re still in shock. Your hands are still shaking— I wouldn’t let you anywhere near an OR like this… You’re better off here, and you know it.”

You turn your head to flash him a teary-eyed look. Your chin quivers as your taut voice trembles, “He asked… He asked me if I wanted to go out with him when we got off,” you confess in a strangled whisper.

Robby’s brows raise to his hairline. “Did he?”

You nod slowly. “And I was gonna say yes…”

“Good…” the older man nods, lip flickering into a smile beneath his beard. “About time…”

“So he can’t… He doesn’t get to…” You stumble over yourself to get the words out. “He doesn’t get to not come back after that.” 

Robby’s sympathetic grin widens at the stern, wet-eyed glare you give him. He takes a slow step closer and splays a warm, comforting hand along your back.

“Jack Abbot is the most stubborn son of a bitch I’ve ever met,” he tells you. “If there’s even the slightest chance of him coming out of that OR just to take you out, then… He’s gonna take it. Trust me.”

“Yeah,” you quip drily. “He better…” 

Jack wakes after surgery to a tingling ache in his side and a heart monitor beeping faintly overhead, pervading the strange silence surrounding him — a silence he doesn’t usually allow himself.

His eyes crack slowly open, dry and unfocused for several long moments. They dance across the ceiling tiles as he blinks the haze of sleep from his gaze. He struggles to recall how he got here — in this dim recovery room, which he had never seen as a patient until now. He remembers the stranger with the gun first, the warmth of the blood that came spilling from his side second, and the way you cried from him third.

Your name spills from his dry mouth like it’s the only word he remembers.

“Great. Now I owe Crus twenty dollars,” he hears a familiar voice joke from his side. Jack’s head swivels until he finds Princess standing there, checking the IV hanging by his bed. She smiles softly down at him and quips, “He said the first thing you’d do is ask for her. I thought for sure you’d want a beer.”

“Yeah…” Jack rasps, then clears the gravel from his throat. “I could go for that, too…”

“Want me to go grab her for you?”

He hesitates. “Is she… Is she okay?”

“She’s great. Last I heard, Robby was patching her up,” the woman grins. “And, for what it’s worth, she was asking about you, too…”

The anticipation of seeing you again was somehow worse than the pain, blooming something sharp in his abdomen, and only slightly ebbed by the morphine drip. 

The minutes drag on. The heart monitor at his side counts the seconds instead of his pulse. His fists curl against the stiff hospital sheets when he remembers the sticky red blood that had dripped slowly down your arm — the way you so easily brushed it all off, the way you so desperately wanted to stay at his side.

The door creaks softly open.

Something tightens in his chest.

You linger in the doorway for several long moments, as if you aren’t allowed to come any closer just yet. You’re bathed in the shadow of the lamplit recovery room and backlit by the too-bright hallway outside. He can only vaguely see the outline of your features from here — weighed down with fear and exhaustion and relief. 

The laceration on your arm has been cleaned and sewn. It’s still raging a little around the marred edges, but will heal into a thin scar in a few weeks’ time — a story you’ll tell for years to come.

Jack grunts as he struggles to sit further up on the raised bed, but hides it by clearing his throat. “You look good…” he observes in a rasp.

“Are you flirting with me, Dr. Abbot?” you joke with narrowed eyes.

“I am,” he quips back. “Thanks for finally noticing.”

You scoff a faint laugh and shut the door behind you with a quiet click. You can’t help but feel a little like the air has thinned as you walk further inside. You focus on your wringing hands the entire way to his bedside. You don’t have the strength to meet his unwavering stare, still puffy from a medically induced slumber, but never once straying from your face.

“You okay?” he wonders aloud, shattering the silence between you.

You huff a weak laugh. “I’m not the one who just came out of surgery, Jack…”

“Fair point…” he nods.

“But yes… I’m okay,” you add, if only to appease him. “What about you? How do you feel?”

Jack exhales a heavy breath, chest deflating behind his thin hospital gown. “…Like I got shot.”

That almost gets a real laugh out of you. 

“Yeah. That— That makes sense…”

You flounder in place for a moment, before reaching for the chair by the curtained window and dragging it closer to his bed. Jack is able to eye you more clearly when you settle into the cushioned seat by his side. He can see the redness in your eyes, the tension in your jaw, the way your clammy hands hover like you’re not quite sure what to do with them. 

Whatever closeness you had before those shots rang out is long gone now. You orbit around him like he’s a stranger to you, like you’re not quite sure what to do with him, like you’re too scared to get any closer.

He bows his head, made of mussed silver curls, in a feeble attempt to meet your stare. He silently begs you to look back at him, but you never do.

“I’m okay, you know?” he coos to you, equal parts because it’s true and because he knows you need to hear it from him.

“No, I know, I just—” You cut yourself off when your fragile voice finally breaks. You shake your head to yourself and swallow hard, picking at the skin of your thumb until it starts to bleed. The scratch there blurs as burning tears gather once more in your gaze. “I can’t stop thinking about it, you know? If you wouldn’t have— have gotten as hurt if… you know, if you weren’t standing in front of me like that—”

His chest twists at the thought of you blaming yourself for it. The burning sensation there hurts him far worse than the one at his side.

“You would’ve gotten it a lot worse if I hadn’t.”

Your eyes snap finally to meet his gaze, though your stare is much more hardened than he’d like.

“But what if something worse had happened to you? Huh? What if you died, Jack?” you scold in words that spill faster from your lips than you can stop them. “Were you even thinking about that?”

“No.”

His honesty stops you cold as much as his lack of hesitation.

“I guess I was just thinking about you…”

The room goes eerily quiet, saved only by the even beeping of the monitor at his side and the distant voices talking in the hall. 

Jack holds your gaze even as it weakens around the edges, even as it glazes over with burning tears you can’t seem to keep away. A rogue droplet clumps your bottom lashes together when your eyes flick down to his abdomen, to the place beneath the blanket where you know the damage lies.

“You’re not supposed to do that to a person, you know?” you whimper. “It’s cruel.”

Jack’s brows furrow. “Do what?”

“Make someone like you, and then— And then get yourself shot,” you stammer, gesturing wildly with your anxious hands. “Make someone almost lose you before—”

Your breath hitches.

Jack leans further in. “Before what?” he presses gently.

“Before they’ve even gotten to have you…”

His lip flickers with a weak smile. “You do have me,” he assures. “You’ve had me way before I ever asked you out— You know that.”

“Yeah,” you scoff with a grin of your own, much sadder in comparison. “So much for that date, huh?”

Jack’s eyes narrow in a challenging stare. “And what makes you think it’s not happening?” 

You blink owlishly back at him. “Do you want a list, or…?”

That earns a weak chuckle from him, until he winces at the ache it puts in his side a moment later. He cradles the bandaged wound with a grimace, and your chair scrapes the tile when you stand. “I’ll tell Princess you need more morphine,” he vaguely hears you say, though he reaches for your hand before you can stray too far.

You still in place. Your wide eyes fall to the fingers around your wrist, warm like a furnace, and calloused like softly textured velvet.  

“I’m okay,” he tells you, then takes a wavering breath in before repeating more firmly. “I’m okay— And you’re not going anywhere— And I’m not missing our date for the world, alright?”

Your features screw, hardly convinced.

“We’ll order something here,” he shrugs. “Hell, we can eat the cafeteria food for all I care, just… Don’t leave. I mean, I kinda got shot, so…The least you could do is indulge me a little…”

You cave instantly under the weight of his light-eyed stare. Your chest hitches with a quiet laugh. “It’d be a pretty grim first date…” you quip.

“Yeah, well…” he trails off, smoothing his thumb over your knuckles. “I plan on having plenty more, less grim ones with you, so…”

Your eyes narrow in a cynical squint despite the smiling tugging at the edges of your mouth. “That’s very presumptuous of you, Dr. Abbot…”

“Well, you could always so no,” he croons drily.

“Not a chance,” you argue without pause, gripping his hand with great strength — an unsaid promise. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

“Getting rid of you?” Jack echoes with a scoff, wincing when it hurts him but smiling up at you anyway. “That was never a part of the plan, kid— I took a bullet trying to keep you, in case you forgot."

Your nose is buried in psychology books and notes when your pager goes off

‘PSYCH CONSULT, EMERGENCY DEPT’

You slide it back into your pocket and make your way to the elevators, pressing the down arrow to take you to the pitt.

As a psych floor nurse, you accompany the psychiatric team whenever there’s a consult, whether that's during it or finishing it up. When you’re not on the move to consults, you’re tending to the patients already on the psychiatric unit floor or studying for class.

You’re in the final year of your Master’s of Arts in Psychology. As much as you love nursing, you’ve always had a passion for wanting to help people in the realm of counseling. Between your nursing job and volunteer clinical hours, you’re almost to the finish line. Of course you wouldn’t have been able to do it all without the support of your husband Brendon and your Pitt family.

Speaking of Brendon, you hadn’t seen him all day. Not even in passing.

He must be slammed with surgeries and consults.

‘I’ll text him after this consult’ you think as the elevator doors open up to the emergency department.

“Mrs. Park, it’s so good to see your gorgeous face!”

You smile wide as you approach the nurses station.

“It’s always good to see you too Dana. Where’s this consult that I’ve been summoned to?”

She nods her head towards the left “Room 4. Your boss already swung by so, just need you to go over the paperwork with em, administer some meds and then we’ll get them sent up to you guys.”

You pat her arm as you walk away “Thanks D, you’re the best!”

Walking into Room 4 you pick up the chart.

“Good afternoon…” you glance down for a name “James. I’m nurse Park and I’ll be getting you ready to head upstairs in a little bit, okay?”

James nods his head with a calm neutral expression.

“Alright, so… I see you have some medicine you normally take. Unfortunately I don’t have them in pill form so I’ll just push the liquid version through the IV today.”

You take a syringe and pull from the first bottle of medicine that the chart lists he needs.

“It may sting at first but y–”

Your back is slightly turned to James so you don’t see him move. And you don't expect it when he wraps his arm around your neck, putting you in a chokehold.

The sudden movement makes you drop the syringe and immediately try to pull his arm away but he’s got a strong grip on you.

“J-Ja-ames. Pl-ea-see.” you struggle to speak

Struggling, you manage to pull him to the floor with you and throw him off balance. You both crash into the instrument table, causing a loud crash as its contents hit the floor.

James then releases you but only to hover over you, trying to choke you with both hands.

You both struggle against each other until you see arms wrap around him and he’s quickly pulled off of you.

Your adrenaline is still pumping, your heart racing as you close your eyes for a minute now that the immediate danger is gone.

“Hey kid, don’t close your eyes. Look at me Park!” a voice says while lightly tapping your cheek.

You look up and see Jack kneeling beside you.

“J-Jack?” you wheeze out, voice rough from the chokehold.

“Shhh kid, I gotcha.” he helps you sit up and gently examines your neck. “You’re gonna have a hell of a bruise. Want me to get Brend–”

“No. No, don’t do that.” you insist.

Jack looks at you with a raised eyebrow “Are you sure? You know he’ll be down here in a breath at the mere mention of you.”

You shake your head as you touch your throat.

“Gentle, Park” he warns as he grabs your hand lightly.

“Yeah, no. It's fine Jack. I’ll tell him later.”

He lets out a sigh “Okay kid. Let’s get you some ice and back up to psych.”

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

Before you know it you’re back on the psych floor studying again to hopefully make the last few hours of your shift pass faster.

Your neck and throat ache from the earlier altercation.

Only an hour passes before you hear the sound of shoes hitting the floor at what seems to be a jog. You already know who it is. It was only a matter of time.

Looks like Brendon found out.

You look up as his large frame appears in the doorway of the staff desk area as his chest heaves from how fast he was moving.

He silently looks over you from where he is and moves to kneel in front of your chair.

“Bren look, I–” your words are stopped short by him gently pushing your chin up and examining your already bruising neck.

He ever so carefully runs his fingers across the tender skin and places a gentle kiss right at your jawline.

After a few minutes of charged silence he speaks.

“Care to tell me why I had to find out from Abbot that my wife got choked out by a patient almost two hours ago and I wasn’t notified immediately?”

The words are direct but gentle in tone because as upset as he was with no one telling him and finding out that someone laid hands on you, he'd never raise his voice at you.

You cup his face as you lean your forehead against his as he stays kneeling.

“You were working, baby. And I'm okay. Psych is always a bit more risky with patients.”

He huffs and grabs your waist gently pulling you and the rolling chair a little closer.

“I’m never too busy for you, sweetheart. You and everyone in this building know that. If something is happening with you, good or bad, I want to know. I want someone to bother me when it's about you. Work can wait.”

Oh this man.

Your heart swoons at his words.

“I love you, Bren” you kiss him briefly “so damn much.”

He pecks your lips with a smile “Love you more.”

“I’m about to head out in a few minutes," he says as he stands up "What do you want for dinner? I’ll go home and make it and then come pick you up in a few hours when your shift is done.”

“Bren, that’s too much.” you groan dramatically.

He scoffs with a smile, shaking his head.

“Text me what you want in the next ten minutes so I can stop by the store on my way home. See you in a bit, sweetheart.” he winks.

“Bye Bren” you say before blowing him a kiss.

He catches it and holds it to his heart with a smirk as he backs out of the room, leaving you alone.

You shake your head in amusement as you turn back to your textbook 

“Goofball” you mutter with a smile.

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・