.Cricket.

“Staff injury, Trauma One.”

The overhead page cut through the ED’s morning buzz. Robby didn’t even look up from his coffee, but Dana was already at his elbow.

“Robby, elevators. Now.”

“Santos, McKay” He called on his way, sinking his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. He hated the reverence staff injuries had. It was a legal thing, he knew, they had an obligation to provide the best medical attention to the staff to avoid a negligence lawsuit, but he’d need all of the available fingers in the ED (attached or not) to count how many times he had taken time from a real emergency to check on an injury that needed two stitches tops. 

He leaned against the wall, waiting for the elevator doors to part. When they did, his annoyance vanished. A gurney. A code gurney.

So it was an emergency. 

Then he saw two nurses he found awfully familiar. He was certain to have seen their faces before.

“Doctor Robby” one of them said with a face that screamed it was something far worse than he thought.

He moved forward, professional mask snapping into place, until he saw your face. Pale, slick with sweat, eyes glassy with pain.

“Robby…” you murmured, your breaths hitching in gasps.

The frustration of moments ago was replaced by pure fear. “What the hell happened?”

He didn't wait for a hallway report. He pushed you straight into the nearest empty trauma bay, shouting for his team. “Dana, get the crash cart and a full trauma panel! Santos, McKay, I need vitals, now!”

The young nurse trailing the gurney looked shaken. “She—a heavy supply cart hit her, pinned her against the wall. I think her hip is dislocated. Posterior, I’m pretty sure.”

“I got it,” Robby said. He needed her to leave so he had room to work, so he could have room to breathe. He stepped into your space, his hand finding yours. Your fingers locked with his like a magnet.

He looked down. 

“Oh, God,” he breathed.

Your scrubs had been cut away to assess the injury. Your legs laid bare and a pretty set of pink panties still hugged your hips. The deformity was classic—your leg was flexed, adducted, and internally rotated. He felt bile coming up his throat at the sight of your injury, and at himself for being so recklessly distracted by your underwear.

“Robby?” your voice was muffled by the sheer force of the pain. “What’s wrong?”

He hovered, his fingers trembling millimeters from your skin. He didn’t want to touch it; he didn't want to hurt you further.

“I want her under general,” he barked at the room,radiating authority and deliberately ignoring your aching whimpers. “Get anesthesia down here.”

“No,” you wheezed. “Absolutely not.”

His jaw tickled as his eyes returned to your face. “You’re in shock, you aren’t thinking clearly—”

“What if I don’t wake up?” The crack in your voice silenced him.

“You will,” he promised, but it was closer to a dismissal than an oath.

“You don’t know! I can’t do that to the kids.”

He stared at you, his head tilting slightly as he processed the absurdity of your argument through the veil of his own fear. 

“They’d grow up with zero fashion sense. It would be a tragedy.” A ghost of a smile touched your lips. 

“You’re so god damned stubborn,” he sighed, his eyes hardening. “Santos, prep the ketamine. We’re doing a conscious reduction. You” His gaze returned to you, a commanding finger your way. “are staying with me.” 

“Is that a threat?” you whispered. You were fading, your pupils dilating as the trauma set in.

Robby leaned against the gurney, his posture dropping into that of closer doors you have had the privilege to see so many times. “You crashed into a supply cart? Really?”

Your eyes rolled back for a second—the ketamine kicking in—before snapping back to his. “Yeah.”

“Uncorrectable,” he murmured, his thumb brushing over your knuckles. He pressed a kiss to your forehead, then straightened, returning to the attending’s posture.

“The femoral head is locked behind the acetabulum,” he announced. “I’m going to reduce it. It’s going to be intense, but the ketamine will keep you from feeling the worst of it. Look at me. Stay with me.” There was no tenderness in his voice as he commanded you. But he found no space in his heart to feel anything other than fear and responsibility over fixing you. And if he had to order you not to die, he was ready to do it. 

“You’re too bossy” you complained, your stubbornness refused to be washed by the anesthesia.

He snorted. “Takes one to know one.” 

“It… it really fucking hurts,” you groaned.

“I know,” he said, pulling a stool over and bracing his knee against the gurney for leverage. “I’ve got you.”

“I hadn’t seen you from this angle in a while” you giggled as he kneeled one leg between yours. 

He looked up at you through his lashes, his hands already reaching for your leg and a blush creeping up his neck. “Yeah? whose blame is that?” 

Lighter giggles followed his question. “Why have I never been your doctor?” your voice was light, teasing and driving him crazy. If it wasn't for the obvious injury he was looking at, he’d be kissing that smirk right off your face.

He snorted. “Because I don’t have a uterus.” 

“Mmmm” your mouth pulled to the side, unsatisfied with the answer. “Maybe because you don’t ever let anyone take care of you.”

“Headshot” Dana announced in the corner, earning your sweet giggles and Robby’s killer stare.

Behind him, he heard Santos stifle a snort. 

“I want everyone but Dana out of here.” Robby didn’t turn around; his entire world was the space between his hands and your hip.

“Hold on.” You tried to sit up, a frantic, reflexive movement, before the pain sent you back against the mat. You looked at him—really looked at him—and his heart stuttered.

“Are you going to do it?” You looked terrified, your pupils blown wide from the ketamine.

“Of course, honey,” he said, his voice dropping into that honeyed cadence he used for you only.

You started crying; tears spilling over, hot and fast. Robby froze, his hands hovering over your hip. He was doing everything right—this time he was sure— why were you breaking down?

“Can’t… can’t anybody else do it?” Your voice creaked. “Cassie?”

“Why?”

The question came out sharper than he would’ve liked. It was irrational to feel stung—you were dissociated, intoxicated, and experiencing a painful injury—but the request hit him like a physical blow. He was the attending. He was the one who knew your anatomy better than anyone. He was your husband. Or he had been. Semantics.

Your lower lip wobbled. “It’s going to hurt,” you whimpered, a sound so raw it made his chest ache. “I don’t want you to hurt me.”

With the ketamine blurring your edges, the tough, high-powered doctor who bossed him around had vanished, and replaced by the soft, needy woman he’d once held in his home. It was a cruel irony: he’d spent two years trying to move on while fixing that he had broken, only to find himself standing over you in a trauma bay, forced to be the one to inflict you pain again.

He looked over at Dana. She gave a subtle, sympathetic shrug—a silent Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. 

Robby took a steadying breath, his professional focus anchoring him. He leaned in, his voice dropping to a low, intimate hum that only you could hear.

“I would never hurt you, sweetheart. But I have to do this. I’m the only one who can get it back in place properly.”

You shook your head, a tear tracking into your hairline.

“Do you trust me?” he asked, his voice steadying as he moved to set his stance. He braced his foot against the frame of the gurney, preparing the leverage.

“With everything I got,”

He felt a wave of relief so intense his knees nearly buckled. Was it the ketamine or raw truth hidden beneath your feud? He chose to believe the latter. He was moving to lock his grip, his thumbs finding the landmarks on your pelvis, when you spoke again.

“Can Langdon do it?”

Your eyes were glassy, floating somewhere miles away, but the name sliced through the silence. Robby felt a surge of jealousy so strong it made his vision darken. He wanted to bark, he wanted to leave the room, to let anyone else deal with this. But he took a deep breath and tightened his jaw until his teeth ached.

“No,” he said, his voice devoid of all softness now. “I’m doing it.”

“Misha, please” you whined.

A part of him wanted to yell at you for using that name—his Baba’s pet name—here, in the middle of a trauma bay. So unworthy of your intimacies, of your story, of your scars and his. You knew he had no other family left but you and the one you made, the one your hips breeded. You knew he had no other arms to curl into, and that he would have worshipped the ground you walked on simply because you had blessed it with your presence.

But beside the devotion he held for you, there was a wicked, primal, uncivilized part of him that still laid claim to you. He was still yours, body and soul. And those hips, which he held with the reverence of a cleric—those hips he had once called home—were his to fix. Only his.

His eyes snapped to yours, and he felt his composure splinter. He could have dropped to his knees right there, just to be closer to you, to soak up the tears clinging to your temples.

“Sweetheart,” he whispered. Closer to a beggar than a doctor. “Let me.”

Your eyes squeezed shut, a ragged breath hitching in your chest. “Is it… is it really necessary?”

“Absolutely.”

You swallowed hard, your throat working. “Okay.”

His fingers pressed into your skin—he hadn’t even bothered to glove up, the pads of his fingers ached to touch you again, he ignored the protocol to satisfy his primal need.

He locked his grip on your hip and hoisted your leg, hooking it over his shoulder to gain the leverage he needed to reset the joint.

The crack was unmistakable—a sickening, heavy thud of bone sliding back into place. But the sound that hit him harder was your sharp, fractured hiccup of pain.

He hated himself for being the one to cause it. To have caused it so many times before that it was recognizable.

“I need you to move your foot, please,” he murmured, his voice thick.

You rotated your ankle, a small, natural movement that signaled the joint was clear. The tension in the room drained away, leaving only the sound of your uneven breathing.

Without a word, he dropped your leg and moved to your side, pulling you firmly against his chest. He didn't care who was watching; he just needed to hold you together. Your tears soaked through his scrubs, hot and fast, while his hands traced soothing, heavy circles across your back.

“It’s done, baby,” he murmured into your hair, pressing a kiss on your scalp.

He shot a sharp look at Dana, a silent command for the room to clear. She took the cue, pulling the curtain shut behind her. Only then did he allow his hands to tremble, cupping your cheeks with shaking palms.

“It’s done. You’re okay.”

He held you until the jagged rhythm of your sobs slowed into the heavy, rhythmic breathing of sleep. It was a natural physiological response—your brain, exhausted by the trauma and the chemical cocktail of the ketamine, simply surrendered to regenerate.

Technically, Robby knew the medical explanation. He knew the biology behind your fatigue. But he still chose to lie to himself, letting his heart believe that you drifted off on his chest because, even after all this time, it was still as much your home as your hips were for him.

So time went on. He grew taller and more quiet, as if that was even possible. The two of you grew into your bodies and your places in the world together. Never truly knowing what the latter was. It wasn’t a secret to you that your parents always pushed the two of you to date. “You already practically are!”, they would gush, “You two are quite the pair.”, your mother would whisper with a light elbow to your side. It was always met with a rolling of the eyes. Simon didn’t see you that way, you were certain of that. So when you both turned seventeen and he told you he was joining the military you have no real answer as you why you gripped the lapels of his school uniform and smashed your lips to his. He tasted of menthol. Ever the smoker, no matter how many packs of cigarettes of his you tossed away. Truly, you have no idea why you begged him not to go. To go to university with you. You knew he had always wanted to leave the shit hole town you grew up in. Then he placed his hands onto yours, peeled them off his shirt, placed a gentle peck to your forehead, not your lips, and walked away. 

That was five years ago. You had attempted to email him in those first few months without him. Knowing he preferred not to have a phone but cherished the laptop your parents bought for him on his sixteenth birthday. They always went unanswered. Always signed with an ‘all my love.’ or ‘hope to hear back soon.’, your older sister thought it was pathetic but you never cared much for what she thought anyway. 

Now though you had graduated university, started to find your place in the world, you had a decent job, a small apartment you adored dearly, even a cat! So as you crossed the rainy street, sparing a glance both ways you almost dropped your armful of goods when you saw the man leaving the cafe in front of you. He hadn’t seen you. He was on the phone, so he got a phone. And he was carrying a mesh bag, it looked like it was full of groceries. He had grown up so much. You suppose you had too but it often didn’t feel like it. “S–”, the words caught on your tongue. Felt sour and curdled. You tried again, “Simon?”, you said loud enough that he could hear you. Turning around with a furrowed brow he lowered the phone from his ear. 

That was how you became apart of each others lives again. He had been honorably discharged from the military. He had a friend group that you subsequently became apart of. The two of you spent more time together than not. His friends were sweet. A specific one in particular was especially sweet to you. You had moved on from the possibility of a relationship with Simon. Grieved the loss that of a relationship you never had. You two were friends. It was better that way. He had changed a lot while he was gone, for better and for worse.

So you felt no shame in flirting it up with Johnny, to saying yes to a date and then another date, then another. Felt giddy with excitement when the two of you moved in together. It felt right. You had been in relationships before, flings and one-night stands alike. But nothing like this. This felt real. This felt authentic. You felt loved, cherished, and respected. So in love that you had failed to notice Simon distancing himself from you and his best friend. So when Simon sent back the rsvp card to you and Johnny’s wedding, with ‘no’ circled, you felt at a confusion and anger like you had never felt before.

You two had never had a fight like that before. It was cinematic, truly. You both laid everything out. No holds barred. And in the end it got you nowhere. You wanted a relationship. A meaningful relationship. You where already twenty-eight and beyond the societal pressures to settle down and raise a family, you wanted that. You wanted a home with messy countertops covered in mail and sandwich crusts. A bathroom with colorful toys in the bathtub and an unknown paste clogging the sink. A living room with toys scattered about and crayons on the coffee table. Simon didn’t want that. He wanted you. Just you. He wanted a quiet life. You did not want that. So that ‘no’ never changed to a ‘yes’.