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Summary: Jack overhears your daughter calling him dad, and his world seems to widen, to make sense. But there are always some bumps in the road when starting a new family, reassurances to be made.
Word count: 2k
Warnings: Girl dad!Jack fluff mostly, a tinge of angst and hurt/comfort, adjusting to new family dynamics
a/n: More girl dad weeee!! This is a sequel/part of the universe for this fic :) I know I posted it literally yesterday but I'm obsessed rn so you get another fic super fast 🏃♀️ Enjoyyy thank you for reading 🩷
Masterlist
~~
Jack tucked his keys into his pocket as the school bell rang, remembering the room number by heart. Your request to pick Penny up from school had been cloaked in several apologies and promises to make it up to him, but Jack had hardly considered it a favor. He had a day off, and he loved feeling part of the groove of your life.
Groups of kids with oversized backpacks tripped over each other as they tried to form lines, some with lunch boxes falling at their feet, others gently swaying and ready to go home. Jack expected Penny to be the latter; she was so like you in that way—always prepared, always listening. She was perfect, if Jack had to offer his professional opinion, but he considered that he might be biased.
When he found room four, his assumptions were confirmed. Penny was in line with the rest of her kindergarten class, speaking animatedly with a boy beside her while firmly rooted on the numbers painted on the floor. She was excited, but Jack could tell she was putting considerable effort into staying right where she was supposed to be. He had to fight the smile that crept up on his face.
“Your daddy’s a manager?” Penny asked, tugging on the straps of her backpack. “Wow! What does that mean?”
The boy next to her raised a brow. “I don’t know. I think he tells people what to do. He has a computer.”
“What does he tell them to do?”
“Work more! He always says everyone is a lazy piece of—”
The teacher in the hall clapped her hands, drawing the class's attention. “Let’s make sure we are using kind words while we wait to go home.”
A long drone of “Yes, Miss Cindy” reset each conversation in the line, but Penny clearly wasn’t done. Jack took a few steps closer and nodded at Miss Cindy in greeting, content to wait until Penny turned and noticed the surprise. You hadn’t told her Jack was picking her up, and Jack loved how Penny got when she was surprised.
“Well, want to know what my daddy does?” Penny posed, bouncing up on her toes.
Jack paused.
You never talked about Penny’s birth father. You’d offered a simple explanation the first time Jack skirted around the topic: he was there for the birth, and then he never was again. You never tried to fight for child support, not wanting to drag Penny through messy custody battles or inconsistent relationships. Penny knew she had a dad, just like everyone had a dad, but you tried hard to make that hole feel small. Jack thought you did a damn good job.
And he hoped he played a role in that, as well.
Jack held his breath as the boy nodded excitedly, and then he felt like he was free-falling as she answered. “He’s a doctor for emergencies! He works when everyone is asleep so he can help people during the nighttime.”
“But how are there emergencies if everyone is asleep?”
Penny puckered her lips as she thought. “I don’t know. I guess if they wake up, maybe.”
Jack tried and failed to settle the grin that had taken over his face. Penny had never called him anything but Jack. He hadn’t wanted to ask you for more when it came to your daughter, and he wanted Penny to be comfortable, but Jack felt like Penny’s dad. Penny was his girl. You’d been engaged for a few months, and he couldn’t ask for more than he had, even if he only had the feeling, not the title. He couldn’t be greedy.
Hearing Penny call him dad made Jack feel greedy.
He leaned over behind Penny and tugged on her sleeve, raising his brows as she spun and let out a gasp. It was only a tick of a second before she launched herself at him, exclaiming a loud “Jack!” that now held a different meaning for him. He wondered how many times she’d talked about him and called him something different.
Jack grunted as he lifted her to his hip, trying to find her eyes with her arms clutched tight around his neck. “Hey, Penny girl. Is it alright if I take you home today?”
Penny squealed and nodded against him, but then became serious as she leaned up. “Does mommy know? She told me to never go home with strangers.”
Jack raised a brow, both of his girls overcautious and full of rules, as always. “Am I a stranger now?”
Penny threw her head back in a giggle. “No! But no one else has ever picked me up from school before.”
“First time for everything. It’s exciting. We can get something up for mommy on the way home.”
“Like flowers?”
“How’d you know?”
“You always get mommy flowers.”
“You want some too?
Penny blew a raspberry as they finally made it to his truck. “What am I gonna do with flowers? They just sit there. That’s so silly, Jack.”
“How about a toy, then?” Jack offered, tapping Penny’s nose after buckling her in. He rested a hand on the door and shifted the car seat around to make sure it was locked in place. You were rubbing off on him, clearly. “What do you think?”
Penny tapped her chin. “I’ll consider it.”
~~
When you finally got home that night, looking frazzled and far too apologetic for Jack’s liking, Jack had a towel on his shoulder and a pot simmering on the stove. He’d stayed at your place despite you insisting that the neighbor could watch her for an hour, so he figured starting dinner was the next course of action.
You hadn’t moved in together just yet. For Penny’s sake.
You sighed when you spotted him, putting your bags down with a defeated sound. “You really didn’t have to stay,” you almost whined. Jack was already on you, hands on your hips and gaze locked on the furrow of your brow. “The lady next door loves Penny. She could have watched her.”
“Yeah? Well, what if I love Penny?” Jack countered, pressing his lips to yours. He saw another argument brewing, so he squeezed your cheeks and kissed you again. “Seriously. I’m gonna be the one picking her up on my days off soon. Let me practice.”
You shook your head. “You do not have to do that. You work all the time, Jack. I wouldn’t make you take care of Penny when you finally have time to rest.”
“Make me take care of her?”
“Yeah. You have enough on your plate and—”
“Hey,” Jack softly called, tugging you in closer. “When I asked you to marry me, I meant that I wanted both of you. You aren’t making me take care of her. I want to.”
You looked up at him, hands resting on his chest, and Jack saw the conflict raging in you, the fear that this would be too much. You didn’t talk about Penny’s birth father, but Jack could pick apart the damage that was done by him. He could see it in every anxiety-fueled phone call about Penny and in all the things you tried to take on alone. You wouldn’t accept help, not fully, but Jack was ready to fight you on that. For the rest of his life, if he needed to.
“Was she okay for you?” you asked, because Jack was pretty sure you knew he would fight you on that.
“She was perfect,” he answered, his hands holding your head steady as he leaned down to look at you. “Like her mom.”
You scoffed out a laugh. “Don’t try too hard, Dr. Abbot. The ladies like mystery.”
“Yeah? Well ignore the flowers in the kitchen then. I want to be mysterious about them.”
Your smile was soft and vulnerable as you leaned up to kiss him, and Jack backed away only because the noodles in the pot were going to stick together if he didn’t stir them, and Penny was entering a picky eating phase. He could handle a picky eating phase, along with everything that came after.
And later in the night, when Penny fell asleep over Jack’s legs and Mulan played softly in the background, he thought to bring it up. Casually. More as a curious pondering than a request, because he didn’t want to ask for too much. You played with Penny’s hair as the Huns fought to invade China, and Jack threw his thoughts into the air.
“Does Penny—” he paused. You lifted your head from his shoulder, and Jack caught your engagement ring glinting under the dim living room light. “Does she ever… call me anything when I’m not around? To other people?”
You became still, gaze falling to Jack’s chest. “I’ve talked to her about that. I didn’t want you to feel like you had to… be anything you didn’t want to be. Like if you wanted things to be more separated. But sometimes—you know, she’s just a kid—so sometimes—”
Jack gently shushed you, taking your hand in his because that was the closest thing he could read. “What’d I say earlier, huh? I was asking because I don’t want things to be separated. And she always just calls me Jack, so I was wondering—”
“She calls you dad all the time,” you revealed, looking down at Penny’s face smushed against Jack’s thigh. “To her friends, her teachers, a random guy in the grocery store.”
Jack huffed out a breathy laugh. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. She loves talking about you.” You looked back up at him. “Are you okay with her calling you that?”
And for some reason—Jack would blame it on the sentimental music in the movie—tears welled in his eyes at the question. At the gentle way you looked at him. Jack cleared his throat of the sticky emotion and nodded, his brow twitching.
“Yeah,” he almost whispered, voice sounding hoarse. “Yeah, if she wants to.”
“I think she was waiting for permission. To make sure it was okay.”
“You two and your rule following,” Jack gruffed, tugging you closer and kissing your temple to hide his misty eyes.
Jack had a talk with Penny a few days later, after she slipped up and the echo of the word dad bounced around in Jack’s truck. He’d had to pull over to ease the tension that wound up Penny’s expression, sitting her on the tailgate in some gas station parking lot as you stayed in the passenger seat.
Jack watched as Penny wound her small fingers into a knot on her lap, and he covered them with one of his hands, tipping her chin up with the other.
“I’m not mad at you,” Jack assured, paying attention to each grimace she tried to hide.
“But I’m really sorry,” Penny edged out. “Because I know my daddy isn’t here anymore, and my mommy says that’s okay, and that you are kind of like a daddy but that sometimes people—”
“Penny girl,” Jack softly interrupted. “It’s okay, alright? You know how your mom and I are getting married?”
Penny nodded.
“Well that means that we’re family. You, me, and you mom. All of us. And I know your daddy isn’t around, and I know you’re too smart for your own good, but sometimes mommys and daddys can be new people.”
“I was gonna say that next,” Penny mumbled.
“I know you were.” Jack smiled in the empty parking lot and brought Penny’s gaze back up to him. “I love you, kid. You can call me anything you want. And before you ask, yes, your mom is okay with it. I asked her myself.”
“You asked mommy if it was okay to be my daddy?”
“Of course I did. Gotta make sure I check all the boxes with you two.”
Penny seemed to think about it, the tension leaving her and being replaced by contemplation that didn’t quite fit her five-year-old expressions. But the title was already there, Jack was already her dad, it just took a second to stick.
32k || All my content is 18+ MDNI || CW: Reader has a stalker; angst; anxiety; fear; depression; sadness; terror; panic attack; self-hate; self-blame; feelings of worthlessness; regret; bodily injury (semi-ish described, less graphic than what's on the show); torture (ish) (actual acts not described); burns; the quickest, briefest implication of future SA but nothing happens and it's a reading between the lines thing; quick mention of being sick; a gun; a knife; alcohol consumption (not excessive); kidnapping; fingering; PIV sex; literally the worst, most half-assed smut I've ever written I'm sorry; Jack helping Reader; yearning; a dash of idiots to lovers.
Summary: When you realize you're being stalked shortly after moving back to Pittsburgh you turn to the one person you know will keep you safe and help you. Your ex-boyfriend, Dr. Jack Abbot.
AN: I don't know. That's how I feel about this whole thing lol. I hope it's okay. It's definitely in my angst wheelhouse I think lol. I love a good stalker story and I don't think I've ever actually written anything where the couple are exes so it was nice getting to work with that for the first time. Reader is a professor who went to school at Oxford but what she studies and teaches is never defined. We're ignoring the realities of jobs in academia a little bit for the plot. Jack is explicitly not a widow in this universe. If you have any questions about the CWs please feel free to DM me! I really do hope it's okay and ends up being worth reading that many words! I know it's a lot so I really appreciate you taking the time to read if you do! Thank you so much for your support and for reading!! ♥️
“I’ll wait until you get inside to leave, Honey, you have a good night now, okay?”
You smile at your uber driver, appreciative of her waiting given that it’s 12:47 a.m. “Thank you, I appreciate that. Have a good night.”
The townhouse you rent is set off the street a good fifteen feet with a little front yard area so even with the porch light on you can’t immediately see the yellow 9 x 12 envelope waiting for you on your doormat. Your heart rate picks up a little when you see it but you try to tell yourself to relax. Someone sent you something. Maybe you ordered something and forgot. You have no reason to think the guy you went on a couple of dates with and then said no to a third date with who has been blowing up your phone would suddenly escalate to leaving you something weird or dangerous.
But when you pick up the envelope it’s not addressed. There’s nothing on it. There’s something in it though. A fair amount of something because it’s decently thick. You undo the clasp with shaking hands and pull out the stack of papers inside.
They’re not papers though. They’re photos. Of you. Everywhere.
You at the grocery store, you walking out in the city, you in other stores, you walking in and out of the building your office is in the morning and night, your office, you walking into your house. And then they’re of your townhouse. Inside your townhouse. Your bedroom, your pillow, your shower, your underwear drawer, your bras, your knife block in your kitchen. A gun on your coffee table. A knife held up by a gloved hand in front of your shower. A gun on your pillow.
Nausea and an intense dizziness overwhelm you as your entire body starts to match your hands and shake.
“You okay, Honey?” Your uber driver calls to you through the window she’s rolled down.
You shake your head and try to pull it together. You can’t go inside. You can’t be alone. Even a hotel doesn’t seem safe. He’s following you.
You don’t know many people in Pittsburgh. You only moved back to the city a couple of months ago and haven't reconnected with anyone you used to know, have only met people at work really. You consider yourself friends with them in a sense, but not for this. Out of the handful of people in Pittsburgh that you do know from before, fuck, out of all the people you know and have ever known in your entire life, you’ve only ever felt truly and completely safe with one of them.
Jack Abbot.
Who just happens to be your ex and soulmate and the love of your life.
You shove the photos back into the envelope and walk back to the car with it. “Can you take me to Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center? The emergency room entrance? I’ll pay you, I can venmo you or I have some cash I think. Just, if I request an uber again it might not be you and I can’t wait.”
“Don’t worry about it, Honey, just get in.” You do and she starts driving immediately. “Is everything okay? Are you hurt? Someone you know?”
“No,” you whisper. “I think I’m being stalked.”
“Oh shit! Do you know someone at the hospital? Who can help you and keep you safe?” your uber driver asks. The genuine compassion in her voice reminds you there’s some good left in this world.
“Yeah,” you say softly. “I do.”
You actually don’t know that for sure. On a couple of levels. You don’t know if Jack is working tonight. You don’t know if he’s still working nights. You don’t even know if he’s still working at the Pitt. You do know, however, that absent a huge shift in his personality and character and entire being, that if Jack is there or you can get in touch with him he will help you and keep you safe, no questions asked. Not even after five years.
MNeither you nor Jack had wanted to break up. You both thought you were going to end up married, knew the other was the one. But then the two of you turned into a classic case of right person wrong time. After going around in circles about it for years since you graduated college you decided to finally apply to a couple of grad schools, including your dream school, Oxford. You didn't think you had any true chance of getting in, though Jack knew otherwise, so you didn't really think you'd ever have to figure out what to do about you and Jack.
And then you got in. You got in and Jack had finally just gotten truly established and settled in the perfect position for him as the senior night shift attending and it's not like he could easily transfer his license to another country. You couldn't ask Jack to come with you and implode the life he'd made for himself and to do whatever he could until he could get his license figured out, if he could. And Jack couldn't ask you to give up your dream. It wasn't fair to the other and it would've caused problems in your relationship eventually, you were both sure.
So somehow you'd come to the decision to break up. You don't even really remember how you ended up there. Your four year anniversary was only a couple of months away when you did. You guys had been talking more seriously about marriage before everything happened. You didn't know it but Jack had been thinking about and sketching engagement ring designs for a good while, it was really the only reason he hadn't proposed yet, he didn't have the perfect ring. He still has the sketches.
Jack is the love of your life. You know it. You don’t bother denying it. You've dated other people occasionally knowing that if you ended up marrying them it would be a type of settling, no matter how much you loved them. Because they wouldn’t be Jack.
You’d debated reaching out to him when you moved back to the city but you couldn’t bring yourself to yet for some reason. As much as you wanted Jack to be happy and truly wished him all the happiness in the world, you didn’t think you could handle finding out he’s married, has a wife and kids. So you just let him be.
“Is this good?” Your uber driver interrupts your thoughts.
“Hm?” You look around. You’re right outside the entrance to the emergency department. “Yeah, this is perfect. Thank you so much.” You start digging through your purse to find some cash.
“Don’t worry about it Honey, just be safe, okay?” Your uber driver turns in her seat to look at you. “Seriously. Be safe.”
You stop searching through your bag and nod at her. The only reason you stop looking for money is because you realized you could just pay her by tipping her through uber, not that you say that, of course. “Thank you so much,” you whisper. She smiles at you and nods as you get out of the car.
If you weren’t so fucking terrified you could almost laugh at how chairs looks so different and yet almost exactly the same as the last time you were here over five years ago. People at the desk are all new though, which means getting to Jack might be harder.
“Hi,” you smile at the woman behind the desk. “Can I please speak with Dr. Abbot? Does he still work here? Is he on tonight?”
“You have to fill out paperwork and wait your turn just like everyone else, Miss.” She gives you an already annoyed look.
“No, I don’t need to be seen, I just need to speak with Jack, please. If he’s here.” You try to make your smile apologetic but it’s hard with how scared you are, and you’re concerned it’s coming across poorly.
“This isn’t really a place to come and just try to chat with a doctor. If you don’t need emergency medical treatment you shouldn’t be here, I’m sorry.” She gives you a somewhat apologetic smile. And you get it, you really do and you don’t hold it against her. This shit probably happens all the time.
“I know, just, is he working tonight, at least? Or could you just give Jack my name and let him decide if wants to come speak with me, please.” You give her a pleading look, bite your tongue and don’t tell her you don’t currently need emergency medical treatment and are trying to keep it that way and that’s why you need to speak with Jack.
Another woman in scrubs looks at you as she walks near the desk. You almost think she might stop but she doesn’t.
“Expecting company tonight Dr. Abbot?” Emery smirks at him as she walks up to him at the hub. Jack looks up at her from where he’s sitting charting and raises his eyebrows at her. “There’s a pretty woman in chairs asking for you. Doesn't want to seem to take no for an answer.” Emery shrugs.
“What the fuck?” Jack mutters, logging out and heading towards chairs. He really doesn’t need this tonight. His shift has been okay, things have been calm. He’ll never say or think the q-word about a shift while here but tonight is approaching that. So he really doesn’t need or want some former patient or former patient's mom or a woman he went out with once or twice showing up here and causing a scene.
Then Jack sees you and stops in his tracks, his breath catching in his throat.
You. The love of his life. The only one he’s ever really wanted to be with in any meaningful way. He’s had trysts and a few relationships, mostly short term, since you but he kind of gave up bothering to try after a while. You're the only one he really wants.
He'll never understand why he decided to actually let you go, why he didn't move with you. Why he didn't try begging you to stay. Really, he does know. However it would've happened, there would've been resentment at some point by one of you. Him for giving up being a doctor, you for giving up an incredible grad school and opportunity.
He thought about you all the time. He's pretty sure that he thought about saying fuck it and flying to you and trying to find you and get back together at least once a month the entire time you were apart, knows he thought about you and wanting you back every day. But as time went on he convinced himself that you'd probably found someone, were probably engaged, maybe married, more recently he's convinced himself that you might have a kid or kids even.
The years have been more than kind to you. You’re just as beautiful as you were the day he met you, more beautiful if anything. He forces himself to take in a breath. No ring on your finger. He finds that hard to believe because you’re a catch on every level. But it doesn’t look like there’s a tan line either. There's no way you can be single.
He wonders why you're here, in Pittsburgh in general and at PTMC. He wonders how long you've been here, how long you're here for.
The way he feels his heart rate pick up and butterflies in his stomach has him shaking his head at himself. All these years later and you still have that effect on him. You always did. Even after you guys had been together for years.
What if you're hurt? That spikes his heart rate even more. You don't look injured or sick or like you're in physical pain or discomfort. But there's absolutely something going on, he can tell by the look on your face and your body language.
“If you know Dr. Abbot well enough for him to want to come out to speak to you, why don’t you call him and ask?” The woman gives you another look.
In your fear that thought hadn’t occurred to you. “Oh,” you murmur. “Yeah, I could do that. Um, okay. Thank you.” You're not actually sure if you could do that because you're not sure if Jack has the same number, but it's your only chance right now you guess, unless you happen to see someone else you know from your Jack days and they let you in.
You start to turn around to find a chair so you can try calling Jack when you hear your first name being called in that deep gravelly voice you’d recognize anywhere. Jack.
You look back at the desk and he's there, leaned over just slightly to speak through the glass. It's your breath that catches this time. The years have only made Jack more attractive. He’s going gray and the salt and pepper curls look so good on him you could scream. Even through your fear your stomach twists in a good way at seeing him. God he looks fucking good.
Jack nods towards the doors, and starts walking towards them. You do the same and once the doors open enough for you to see each other the two of you stand there and look at each other for a couple of seconds.
As the doors start to close you remember yourself and walk through them over to Jack. “Hi,” you breathe, try and fail to give him a smile that doesn't reflect how scared you are.
“Hey.” Jack gives you a small smile. “Come here?” He holds his hands out a little wanting to give you the option about whether to hug. You let out a soft breath and step into his arms, the two of you sharing a tight hug that lingers just a little too long and tells everyone who’s watching you’re not just friends. You both note that the other smells the same.
Being close like this again feels too good for the both of you. You've needed this, craved this. Needed and craved each other. Neither of you wants to let go.
But you have to.
“Thank you for letting me in.” You smile at him as genuinely and convincingly as possible because even under the circumstances, you are glad you’re seeing him again.
He looks even better up close. The crows feet and other soft wrinkles five years have brought Jack suit him perfectly and you have to fight off the urge to hold his face still to get a good look at him. He was always unfairly handsome and is even more so now. The salt and pepper is even more devastating up close, suits the curls you adore perfectly. You wonder if he's graying everywhere. You hate the way you clock his ringless left hand and feel a tingle of hope in the back of your brain somewhere under your terror.
“Yeah of course.” Jack nods. “I’m not trying to skip all the seeing each other for the first time in over five years shit, but what’s up? I know you’re not okay.” He glances down at the envelope and then back up to you.
Of course he knows. He always knew. Jack has always been able to read you with just a glance. You both know it. The same is true of you with him though. You were always able to read him with a glance, no matter how stoic he looked to anyone else.
You look around at everyone watching the two of you and swallow hard, thankful Lena or Bridget or any other night shift regulars from five years ago aren't among them. “Jack,” you shake your head a little and drop your voice to a whisper, “I can’t. Not here.”
He nods slowly. “Okay. Come with me, yeah?” You nod and let him take your hand and lead you to the family room, your fingers lacing together automatically, like no time has passed. You can feel the tears start to form behind your eyes the second he shuts the door. “What’s going on Sweetheart?” He winces at the pet name slipping out. It’s all he used to call you. Robby and Dana teased him about it, would ask him if he even remembered your real name. He did of course. But sweetheart was just what he always called you. “I’m so sorry, that just slipped out.”
“It’s okay Jackie.” You give him the smallest coy smile.
“I, I,” you let out a breath. “I don’t even know how to say it and I know I might be being paranoid and probably am and am probably going to seem like some hysterical woman or something and you can tell me all of that and to get a grip and go but I,” you shift the envelope in your hands, “I think I’m being stalked. And I just moved back and don’t, don't have anyone really and, and,” you let out a sad laugh as a few tears finally run down your face. “And you’re the only place I’ve ever felt safe, the only person I’ve ever felt truly safe with and so I don’t know, I just…came here looking for you so I could feel safe, even for just a minute. I know you're busy and have to get back and that's okay, I just...”
Jack’s stomach twists painfully. You're not one to get shaken easily, so the fact that you are and that you tracked him down to feel safe even for a minute, tells Jack things are bad, that this isn't the first event. But even if you are being paranoid, which Jack sincerely doubts, just the thought of you worrying about being stalked makes him sick and anxious and has that protective side of him coming out hard. It doesn’t matter how much time has passed. He’ll always have that drive and need to protect you. You’re still the most important thing in the world to him. He’ll die before he lets anything happen to you.
And your tears break his heart. He always hated when you cried, hated when he couldn't protect you from the world and make sure you were only ever happy. He'd hold you so close, let you cry it out into him and then do whatever you needed to put you back together again, get a smile on your face.
This time is no different. Maybe it should be. Maybe he shouldn't do this, you aren't together, you've been broken up for over five years, he has no idea if you'd ever even entertain getting back together with him. But it doesn't matter. Even if you won't entertain it he still needs to take care of you.
"Okay, I've got you," he murmurs as he closes the distance between you and wraps his arms around you, pulls you close and holds you as tightly as possible. "You're safe here, I've got you."
"I'm sorry," you sniffle against his scrub top as you wrap your arms around him in return and hold him just as tightly. "I'm so sorry for this, I know it's unfair."
"No, it's not unfair, and you have nothing to apologize for, I'm glad you came to me, okay?" Jack rocks you as you cry against him.
It's intimate, the way he holds you, the feeling in the air, the way you're touching each other, the energy in the room. You've both missed this more than words could ever hope to say.
One of his hands comes up to the back of your head and cups it to keep you close and he must've held and hugged you like this thousands of times when you were together. It takes you right back there and for a brief couple of seconds you're not sure if you're crying because you're scared or because the wound to your heart and soul that was the loss of Jack has been torn back open even deeper.
"It's okay," Jack whispers. "You're going to be okay. We'll figure it out. I promise we'll figure it out."
"It's not your responsibility, Jack," you whisper back to him as you start to pull yourself together.
"I know, and I don't feel like it is, I promise." Jack goes to kiss the top of your head reassuringly and stops himself just in time. But that's how simple it is, how easy it is for him to slip right back into being your partner.
“I doubt you’re being paranoid. Why do you think you're being..?” He can’t get himself to say the word stalked quite yet. It terrifies him too much. “Because of what’s in the envelope?”
“Yeah,” you whisper.
“Can I see?” Again, he knows you're not one to think or say something like this lightly, that if anything you'd try to downplay it.
You nod, appreciate that he’s taking you seriously. You knew he would. You can already see the concern and worry in his eyes. He takes a seat and clears the table in the room, pats the seat next to him.
Jack pulls out a pair of gloves from one of the pockets of his cargo pants and puts them on before he takes it from you. He pulls the photos out and starts looking through them.
“What the fuck?” An instinctual and consuming protectiveness races through Jack as he looks at the photos. It feels like each photo gets worse and worse, tightens the knot in his stomach. “Holy shit.” Jack doesn’t feel a lot of genuine and nearly paralyzing fear anymore but he sure is right now. An overwhelming amount. Because whoever took these is threatening you. Wants to take you away and force you to be with them or hurt you.
“This…” Jack shakes his head as he finishes looking at the photos. He pauses for a second as he holds them to take a couple of breaths so that he can stay calm and reassuring, levelheaded so he can keep you safe. But it's hard to get rid of the lightheadedness from how fucking insane this is and this person is and he doesn't even try to get the nausea to go away.
He puts the photos back in the envelope and sets it on the table. Jack takes off his gloves and then takes one of your hands and looks at you. “This isn’t a maybe, or you being paranoid. Do you know who took these?”
"I think," you let out a shuddery breath, "I think this guy I went on a couple of dates with. I broke it off after the second date because he started getting weird and pushy. Honestly I should've done it after the first because I picked up on something and felt a little weird but I told myself that was just because he wasn't…" You trail off, realizing what you were about to say. It's obvious at this point though. You. "The second date was just…bad. He was a little creepy, felt a little obsessive." You huff at that and flick your eyebrows up. "I didn't think he'd go this far."
You'd jumped into dating shortly after arriving because you needed something to do and more than that you needed to try to take your mind off Jack. Like that was ever going to happen. You think secretly you kind of hoped he'd pop up on one of the apps and that would be your way to test the waters kind of.
Jack's ready to just go kill the guy and solve the problem but obviously knows he can't. "Is this the first thing that's happened or has there been more?"
You shrug. "Little things that were strange, a few that felt kind of creepy, blowing up my phone with texts and calls, emails. But nothing that explicitly makes it clear it's him and nothing that suggested… violence, I guess, the way the photos kind of do, maybe."
It's not maybe, Jack thinks to himself. "Okay." He lets out a long breath and runs a hand through his hair as he thinks. He has to keep you safe. You need to come back to his place. To your old place that you shared together. “Alright,” he nods slowly. There’s too many emotions swirling in him. Protectiveness, anger at the guy, fear, guilt, yearning. Love. “Just, um… You wait here. I've gotta go tell Lena and Shen that I have to leave right now and then I'll grab my stuff and we can go. I think it's probably better if you come to my place in case he's watching you or your place. Seeing you come home with another man could escalate him. I have a hoodie that you can wear and we can leave out a side entrance so he shouldn't pick you up and track you back to my place."
You breathe out a laugh and tilt your head at him, a watery smile on your face. "Jack, I, I, I can't, you can't do that. You can't just leave in the middle of your shift for this."
He shrugs, like it's no big deal when it absolutely is. "Yes I can. There's another attending on already even. We don't have to call anyone in." Jack gives you a soft, what he hopes is reassuring, smile. "I can and I'm going to."
"You don't have to Jack, really, it's okay. I'll be okay." You shrug, suddenly trying to play it off because you feel bad. You don't know what you thought would happen when you decided to come and try to find him, you never got that far in your mind. But the last thing you want to do is come back into his life out of nowhere and inconvenience him. "I just needed to see a familiar face and get some validation, I think."
"I know I don't have to, but I also do have to. I have to keep you safe." He squeezes your hand that he's still holding gently. He knows this must be terrifying for you, especially on top of feeling as alone as he's sure you do in a city this big. "Going back to your place, especially alone, is dangerous right now. He could be there. He could get in. We can't risk it, we can't risk your life or him doing something to you."
You need to know. You need to know what you're walking into when you get to Jack's place because you know you're going to end up there. You need to know if he's with someone. "Do you, are you… Are you with someone Jack? I don't want to fuck things up for you and bringing home your single ex long-term girlfriend isn't a good look."
He shakes his head. "I'm single. And even if I did have a girlfriend, if she didn't understand that I needed to help you with this, if she didn't want me to help you with this, then we wouldn't be together any longer so it would be a moot point."
You bite your lip for a second. "It's too much, Jack. For me to just show up after over five years and pull this shit on you and ask you to protect me and take me back to your place and let me spend the night."
"It's not too much, at all, not even close. And you're not asking. I'm offering. I'm insisting." For now Jack doesn't say anything about you staying more than just the night. He wants you to stay with him until this is resolved, but that's clearly a conversation for tomorrow.
"Jack…" you whisper his name, look around the room and then back at him. Your expression is so distressed and scared it kills him. "Are you sure?"
"I'm sure. I'm more than sure." He gives your hand another squeeze. "Wait here for me, yeah? I shouldn't be long."
"Okay," you murmur. Jack gets up and heads to the door and you call to him when his hand reaches for the door handle. "Jack." He turns to look at you. "Thank you."
"Always," Jack nods at you and steps out.
Walking into Jack's place is surreal on multiple levels. Because this used to be your place. You and Jack were living together when you broke up. When you left you never thought you'd walk back in here. You half expected him to have moved, to have not been able to live with the memories. But then Jack's always been sentimental, so it doesn't surprise you. And when you think about it, while it would be painful to stay and be surrounded by the memories, it feels like it would hurt more to move and leave them behind.
You smile to yourself at how it looks and feels almost exactly the same. Your influence on the space isn't there as prominently anymore obviously, though you can see a couple of things that he picked up from you, but it feels like Jack, it feels the way it felt before you moved in with him. You have no idea how to explain that but it just does. You can pick out some differences, some changes he's made, the most obvious being that photos of you and the two of you don't hang on the walls or live in frames decorating bookshelves.
"I'm gonna shower quickly," Jack tells you as he sets his backpack down and walks the bag of takeout over to the coffee table. "You should start eating. Everything's still in the same place in the kitchen. Help yourself to whatever of course."
You turn to look at him and offer a small smile as you start walking to the couch. "Okay, thank you."
"You need anything else before I jump in?" His eyes track you as you move to the couch. You're still in his sweatshirt he gave you to wear when you left the hospital and fuck Jack will never get over seeing you in his clothes.
You take in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "A bottle of tequila and a straw." You give him a wry smile as he chuckles. He's missed hearing you say that. You used to frequently. "No, but thank you for asking. I'll be okay." Once you're back by my side.
Jack can hear the unspoken sentence. This is about to be the fastest fucking shower of his life. He wishes he could just invite you in with him. "Okay. Come get me if you need anything though, yeah?"
"I will," you nod. "But I'll be okay, honestly. Enjoy your shower."
Jack nods at you and turns, walks back to his bedroom, the bedroom that used to be yours, that you used to share. Both of you are so fucking aware of it. Of how this used to be your place, plural, the home you shared together for nearly three years.
He's quick in the shower. He can't stand the thought of you out there alone and scared. When he gets out he haphazardly dries his hair and throws on a pair of sweatpants and a random t-shirt and makes his way back to you.
The familiar sound of Jack's crutches clicking against the tile has you biting your lip to avoid bursting back into tears. It's the silliest thing, you tell yourself, how a sound can feel like home, can make you feel safe. But it does. Just like his voice and his laugh and the sound of his heart beating steadily in his chest.
You give him a small smile as he reappears from the hall into the open floorplan of the living room, kitchen and dining room. Seeing him with wet curls and slightly flushed from the heat of the water has you throbbing between your legs and biting your lip even harder as you feel the tears start to sting. You miss getting to shower with him, getting to be close to him like that, intimate. Vulnerable.
Jack isn't prepared for it. He isn't prepared for the way you're perched on the couch close to the edge like you're afraid to sit on it all the way and interrupt his space with your presence. He isn't prepared for the way it makes it so clear it's his space and not yours, not a space you share. He isn't prepared for you looking like you think you're a burden or a bother or an interruption. He isn't prepared for the way you look like a stranger in your own home.
Former home, he guesses.
Jack isn't prepared for the wave of emotion that starts to pull him under, for the tears he feels start to form. He takes in a slow deep breath hoping to keep it as unnoticeable as possible, lets it out the same.
"Drink?" he asks, stopping by the fridge.
"Uh, sure yeah," you nod. "Just whatever you have that's easiest."
While Jack gets drinks from the fridge you start pulling the takeout out of the bag and setting it on the coffee table. The coffee table you and Jack picked out together.
Jack crutches back over and pulls out a drink for himself from one pocket of his sweatpants and a bottle of your favorite drink for you.
An amused smile pulls on your face when you see it. "You have that in there for the last five and a bit years?" you laugh teasingly.
The sound goes straight to Jack's cock, followed by his heart and creating an intense wave of longing that makes his whole body ache. "No," he draws the word out. "I have one from time to time." To remind myself of you. "Wanted one the other day and bought it but hadn't got around to drinking it so I happened to have it in there." But then couldn't bring myself to drink it. You hear what he doesn't say.
Jack settles on the couch and pulls the coffee table closer. "You should've started eating without me."
You shrug at him. "Felt rude."
"Did you go through my shit?" He smirks at you as he hands you the container with your food.
You roll your eyes at him playfully. "It looks almost exactly the same, Jack, I doubt there's much new for me to even go through. I was always the collector and shopper."
"Hm, yes you were." He wants to say that he loves it, that he loves that about you, that he misses it, going shopping with you or seeing the little things you'd find randomly and buy for the place or for him. But he doesn't.
The two of you continue to talk as you eat but it's all surface level, random stuff, nothing about the last five years of your lives. Jack picks up on the way you're slightly out of it, knows you're not in the headspace to talk about that right now and that you're tired and mentally fried. You know he knows and is deliberately not asking and you appreciate it more than you could hope to express to him.
"So," Jack starts as he hands you the now empty takeout box his food was in, "I'm guessing I should call you Doctor now?"
You laugh softly from the kitchen as you throw the empty takeout boxes from dinner into the trash. "Yeah," you nod slowly as you walk back toward the couch. You shrug as you get closer. "Well, you can. You don't have to."
"Yes I do." Jack beams at you, absolutely fucking beams and looks so proud of you it's palpable. He stands, keeps the finger tips of one hand on the armrest of the couch to help balance as he holds his other arm open.
You shake your head at him but smile, walk over to him and give him the hug he's seeking. Jack wraps his arms around you tightly, trusts you to help him stay balanced like you've done thousands of times before.
"I am so, so fucking proud of you Sweetheart," he murmurs, the pride in his voice dripping off each word. Without even truly realizing it Jack kisses the top of your head and nuzzles his nose in your hair as he holds you tight, just like he always used to. "So fucking proud."
The hug is perfect. It's Jack. You never want it to stop. And yet it's the hardest thing in the world right now. Because as real as this hug is, it's not real the way you want it to be. You and Jack aren't together. This isn't your boyfriend hugging you.
This is the love of your life, your soulmate who you're no longer with hugging you. This is a dream, this is what you missed and thought about and wanted and imagined and fucking yearned for. This is all you wanted when you walked out from defending your thesis, when you got your dream job, when you graduated, to be walking into Jack's arms and held tight while he kissed the top of your head and nuzzled his nose in your hair and told you how proud of you he was. All you wanted was Jack.
And you didn't have him.
And you don't have him.
Not really, anyway. Not how you want him. Not how you need him. Not in the way that would fix your broken heart and soul.
But you're here with him in this moment and getting this hug, hearing how proud of you he is, feeling it in the way he holds and touches you. So you let yourself have it, or try at least. On top of everything else tonight it's just making you more emotional.
"Thank you, Jackie," you whisper so quietly it's just the three words coated in a sorrow and longing Jack is sure he recognizes all too well. Fighting back the tears is hard, but you have no real reason for them in the moment, no reason that isn't you miss Jack and want him to be yours again, no reason you could use to explain them that wouldn't guilt trip him or make him feel forced.
Jack isn't unaffected by all of this, by hugging and holding you like this, by having you back in his life and seeing you again and knowing you're here in the city and single. All he wants to do is kiss you and ask you to be his again, apologize for ever letting you go and keep you safe in his arms, tucked against his chest where you belong. But Jack's not sure if you want that, any of that.
And more than that Jack doesn't want you to feel forced. He doesn't want you to think that you have to be with him or give yourself to him to have his protection and help because that could never, ever, be the case. You could actively hate him and treat him as such and he'd still protect and help you. Deep down, Jack knows you could never think that, that you know him too well. But still. There's also some part of him that feels like trying to get back together right now would be taking advantage of you and your vulnerable and heightened emotional state. So he doesn't try as much as he wants to.
Below the self-created blindness and beyond the protective walls you're both imposing on yourselves that prevent you from consciously processing the other's obvious desperation and want and need and longing to get back together and to actively and overtly love the other again, you both know that the other wants reconciliation just as much. You both know that the other wants to get back together, wants to be a couple again. Yet neither of you will make the first move.
Your hug breaks and you both sit back down on the couch. Jack has to fight to keep the frown off his face when you remain sitting at the edge. He hopes you're just starting there to grab your drink and then will settle back in. But Jack knows you won't. He knows this has to be too much for you, all of it, the stalker, being back here, the familiarity juxtaposed with the lack of it in the place you used to call yours.
"You have a copy of your thesis for me?" Jack smiles at you, the pride still sparkling in his eyes in a way that almost has you squirming under his gaze in the best way because he's going to do his damnedest to make you accept that he's proud of you and to get you to be proud of yourself. You laugh and roll your eyes at him. "Hey!" He straightens his left leg out and nudges your thigh with his foot. "I'm serious. I want to read it."
You give him an amused, if not slightly disbelieving smile. You absentmindedly bring your hands to his foot that's still resting just a touch against your thigh and start rubbing it. Just like you always used to. It's a lightning bolt to Jack's heart but he covers it with the practice of someone repressing his emotions for the last five years. "Really?"
Jack smiles at you and nods. "Really."
"Okay, yeah," you nod back, your mind somewhere between unsurprised by his support and enthusiasm and flustered by the same and the way he's looking at you and the reminder that he can still make you feel like this. Easily. "Yeah, no, I can, I can get you a copy. But you really don't have to read it, Jack. It's not going to offend me."
"I know I don't have to. I want to." He shrugs like it's the simplest thing in the world and not one of those things that's everything to you because it's Jack reading something completely outside his field and world just because you wrote it.
"If you change your mind two pages in, that's okay too."
He chuckles to himself. "Noted, but I'm not going to. I'm looking forward to reading it."
You smirk at him and cock your head, scoot down the couch closer to him and finally settle back into it a little more just so that you can rest your thigh under his knees so his legs lay across your lap. It's all unthinking, instinctual almost, practiced. Something you've done a thousand times before when you were together. Something that's just wired into you even after over five years apart.
Your hands quickly untie the knot he'd put in the extra fabric of his right pajama leg to keep it from getting in the way of his crutches, slide the fabric up just enough and start massaging his leg, fingers using just the right pressure over his scar. Jack has to fight back a groan at how good it feels, especially after a string of on days and especially coming from you. And if he thought you rubbing his foot was a lightning bolt to the heart, you scooting up the couch just to massage his leg and keep things equal is a thousand at once.
Keeping the tears out of his eyes is hard. He hasn't had touch like this since you broke up and he never really thought he'd have it again, knew he'd never get close to someone the way he was with you, would never be in more than a casual relationship where maybe they spent the night sometimes, but wouldn't be close enough, intimate enough, for him to allow them to touch him there.
"You don't even know what it's about," you point out.
In fairness, Jack knows what you went to school for and you'd certainly discussed and bounced ideas for your thesis off him when you were applying since you had to send in some proposed ideas for your applications. But you hadn't set anything in stone so he doesn't know anything specific.
Jack doesn't even need to really think about his response and it makes it hit that much harder. "It's about something you're passionate about and care about and enjoy and love." He smiles at you and raises his eyebrows, tilts his head just slightly for a second. "That's more than enough for me."
There's something heart and soul shatteringly sweet about Jack's words. So much so that it's hard to formulate a response that isn't thank you and I love you. So all you can say is the first and leave off the last. "Thank you."
Jack knows. He knows how much it meant to, how truly thankful you are and how good his words made you feel. He can see it in your eyes, feel it in the way your touch becomes just a little more tender.
His eyes flit around your face taking in how exhausted you are at the same time you stifle a yawn. It's so fucking adorable he wants to just launch himself at you and start making out and begging you to be his again. Given that that's not an option he settles for giving you a soft, knowing smile. "I can tell you're exhausted. We should get you some sleep."
Jack is right. You need sleep. You're sure you won't be able to. You're scared about what's going to happen, how you solve a problem like this, how you deal with a stalker, if you'll ever be able to truly get rid of the guy and get him to leave you alone. You'll be missing Jack, will be so keenly aware of how close yet how far he is, of how he must be over you since he hasn't asked to get back together or even tried to start some sort of conversation about the two of you.
You want to fight it because you want more time with him. You're not really sure what the plans are past tonight, if you'll continue staying with him or what. But he's still right. "Yeah," you sigh. "Probably."
There's not really a discussion about where you'll sleep. This isn't you getting back together, something you both are well aware of despite both wishing it was you getting back together. So as much as both of you might like you to sleep in bed with him, neither of you say anything for a moment as you stand in the spare room and look at the bed together.
After a few seconds Jack clears his throat. "Did you want to shower first?"
"No," you murmur, shake your head. You don't think you could handle either of the options, using the spare shower or using the shower that used to be yours, not to mention having to use all his products and smell like him, not tonight at least. "But thank you."
"Okay. I can, um, I can get you something to wear, if you want?" he offers, a touch of awkwardness to it.
"That would be great, thanks." You really don't want to sleep in these clothes or in just your bra and underwear, and sleeping naked just isn't going to work.
Jack is gone for just a second before returning with a shirt and pair of boxer briefs thrown over his shoulder. He hands them to you silently and lingers as you murmur another, "Thank you."
"You're welcome." The two of you look at each other for another beat before Jack decides he has to just rip the bandaid off. "Wake me if you need anything and I'll see you in the morning. Goodnight."
You nod at him. "Goodnight."
He closes the spare room door behind him and all you can both think about is how much this fucking sucks. How much you both love and hate this. Being apart for longer than Jack showering finally gives you both time to start processing. You're back. You're in Jack's place, you're in your old place. You have a stalker. Your life is at risk.
You're frozen for a moment but then force yourself to undress and slip on Jack's shirt and boxer briefs and climb into the spare bed.
As you settle in the space is familiar but not familiar enough. It's soothing but not soothing enough for you to fall asleep. The shirt and sheets smell vaguely of Jack because of the laundry detergent and a few tears hit your eyes at the thought of him using the same laundry detergent all these years. God, you're so fucking in love with him.
Being this close and yet this far from him is torturous, but if Jack wanted you back you're right here. All he has to do is ask if you'll be with him again, if you'll be his again. You’re sure if he does after tonight it'll be out of pity for you, or some kind of fucked up trauma bonding, or for the comfort and familiarity, or just for stress relief. You also know none of this is that simple and that Jack does want to ask, that Jack wants you but has his own reasons for not.
It's impossible for sleep to find you despite how tired you are. You keep thinking about everything that could happen, how scared you are, how much you miss and love Jack. You lay awake for what feels like hours but is really only an hour and a half according to your phone.
You're not sure what it is but something about that little time passing and it feeling like forever breaks you and you finally start to cry, finally give in to all your emotions and let yourself cry and panic and be overwhelmingly sad and anxious. The problem is that then you can't stop.
You can't stop and you know how to get yourself to stop and you lay in the spare bed for as long as you can possibly stand feeling like this before you wipe away all the tears you can and try to pull yourself together at least a little so that you're not visibly shaking when you get out of bed and walk to Jack's bedroom door. The tears you've wiped away have long since been replaced but you're not choking on air anymore, so there's that at least.
"Jack?" you call his name as you knock on his door. Your voice is broken and raw and the tears immediately start to fall harder because you can't believe you're doing this to him, making him deal with this on top of everything else.
Jack only managed to finally get his brain to turn off enough to fall into a light sleep thirty minutes ago when you knock. And the only way he was able to do that was by telling himself that he needed to be at least somewhat rested to protect you the best.
But he jolts awake at the sound of you calling his name and the knock on the door. You sound upset, deeply so and it spikes his anxiety, has him wide awake and calling your name back in half a second. "Come in, what's wrong?" he rushes out as he sits up, dressed in only his pajama pants from earlier. "Did something happen?"
You open the door and take a step in as he turns his bedside lamp on and starts moving to get out of bed. "Nothing happened," you shake your head, almost squeak out the words. "I just can't stop. I'm scared, Jack, I'm really scared and I, I, I…" You can't finish that sentence. Can't tell him how you're feeling. Can't guilt him into being with you. "I started, started crying and panicking and now I can't stop and I didn't know what to do and I thought, I, I thought, maybe just being able to see you would help. I don't want to impose-"
"Hey, hey hey hey," Jack cuts you off gently, voice low and soothing. "Come here?" He stays sitting on the edge of the bed and holds his hand out to you, nods at the bed. "You wanna…?" Jack doesn't want to put any pressure on you. "Or I can stand or we can go sit on the couch?"
Maybe you should fight it more, tell yourself and Jack this isn't appropriate, that this isn't what this is, but you don't. "Are you sure?" you ask quickly, equally as concerned with pressuring him to let you into his bed and wanting to be in it just as much as he wants you to be in it. Your eyes flick to the bed just to confirm what you want.
He gives you a small smile and nods and it's all you need, your feet carrying you around the bed to your side where you slide in and under the covers so fast he laughs under his breath as he lays down on his back propped up just slightly and looks over at you. Big, wet eyes with tear clumped lashes stare up at him as your lips and chin shake and your breathing starts to become hitched. It's not an unfamiliar sight, Jack used to hold you while you cried all the time, but there's an edge here, one of true terror and fear that he's never seen before.
Jack will kill this asshole. On fucking sight.
Nobody gets to make you look or feel the way you do right now and live to tell the fucking tale, not as long as Jack's alive.
Jack knows that's all hyperbolic, something only in his dreams. Because if he killed the guy then he'd go to prison and that, him going to prison for you, would destroy you, regardless of your relationship status.
He holds his arms open for you in offering and tilts his head, silently telling you that you don't have to come into his arms, he just wants to offer. But there is quite literally nowhere else in the fucking world you'd rather be. As you almost scramble to shift and get closer to him Jack angles himself on his side just slightly so that he can hold you better with both arms and you can rest your head in the crook of his neck and shoulder and hide from the world easier. You fall into him and the position easily, burrow into him as much as you can and throw your leg over the top of him, cling to the warm skin of his chest and shoulders and back.
Once you're finally safe in his arms you start to sob again, cry into him, and in the moment it's hard to tell if you're crying because you're scared or because your heart is breaking all over again. It doesn't really matter, you guess, because you're here doing it, sobbing into Jack again like you used to when you were upset and it's so fucked up and unfair of you.
You're not sure how long you cry into him like that, aren't sure how long Jack holds you and whispers soft words of reassurance similar to the ones he used to when you were together and he'd hold you like this. There's a few he can't say anymore, that don't feel appropriate. I've got you. I'll always have you.
I love you.
Eventually you do cry yourself out, take a minute or so just resting in Jack's arms and trying to recover and get it together a little bit before you speak.
"I'm sorry," you sniffle. You take the tissue he offers you and wipe his neck and shoulder and chest before you clean your own face up and blow your nose. "This is so unfair of me Jack, dragging you into this out of the fucking blue and I feel so bad. I don't want you to think I'm using you and I don't know how you can think anything but that and I'm sorry, Jack," you start to get yourself worked up again, "I'm really sorry."
"Shh, shh, shh," Jack soothes you. "It's okay, I promise it's okay and I don't think that. Please don't cry over that, I promise you it's all okay. I know you're not using me. I know you came to me because you're scared and you didn't know where else to go and I'm glad you did." You try your hardest to believe him, are able to enough to at least stop yourself from losing it again, take in some big racked breaths against him. "Can you look at me?"
You nod against him and start to pull away and the way you move together to adjust your positioning so that you're on your sides and can see each other while still so close is painfully natural and practiced. Your legs tangle together like they did when you were lovers, the rest of your bodies following the same. Jack's top arm stays wrapped around you, his lower hand splaying out on your upper chest above your breasts so that you can feel him. You keep your arms tucked between the two of you, your lower hand resting on top of his on your chest, your top arm splayed on his chest similar to his hand on yours.
"I don't feel used or like you're using me and I don't think you're being unfair. I wish I could make you believe that, or accept it, maybe is the better way to put it because I know you know and believe that I wouldn't lie to you." He gives you a small smile and then looks away as he licks his lips, his face setting into something far more somber, something almost like grief and worry. "I'm glad that you came to me. I'm glad that you walked into my ED and found me, I'm fucking thankful." The word comes out as a breath almost, loaded with the feeling it labels and just slightly shaky.
"I'm glad that you didn't go inside your place and that you weren't alone." Jack's lips fall into a line and tremble slightly, his eyes growing glassy with tears. "Because the thought of this night going differently and you being wheeled into my ED and me finding you on a gurney in my trauma room barely alive is something I can't fucking handle. And it could've so easily been a reality if you hadn't come to find me. So no, Sweetheart," Jack shakes his head as best he can laying on his side. "I don't feel used. I feel thankful and grateful. I'm so fucking glad you did."
Your lips tremble harder than Jack's as his words wash over you while he says them, a couple of tears slipping from your eyes. "Jackie," you whisper, unable to come up with anything else.
"I know," he murmurs, blinks back his own tears somehow. "We're going to get through this, okay? I promise. We'll figure it out."
You shake your head this time. "No, Jack," you whisper. It makes him start to spiral. "You don't have to do this with me, you shouldn't have to. Doing this with me, that isn't fair. I just, I needed somewhere safe for tonight and I came to you because you're the only place I've ever truly felt safe and I knew you'd help me and I am so, so grateful, Jack and I hope this doesn't start to make you feel used. I'll, I'll go get some security stuff tomorrow, cameras and alarms or whatever and get them set up during the day and I'll be back out of your hair and you can have your life and home back. I never meant to make it feel like this was something you were going to have to deal with long term with me. I'm not asking you to take this on with me, that wouldn't be fair."
"You're not asking and I know I don't have to, that I'm not required to. And I never wanted you out of my hair to begin with." The second sentence is whispered. Jack almost feels bad saying it, like it's somehow pushy or seems like he's trying to blame you for what happened when he's not. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't either of your fault's. But he knows you and so he knows you blame yourself.
After a couple second pause Jack continues. "Cameras and even alarms aren't going to make it safe. This guy isn't going to care. He'll cover himself up so the cameras can't identify him or he'll just do it on camera and not give a fuck. And alarms might bring attention but there's still so much he could do in the time it takes for anyone to respond to them. I'm not saying that to scare you, I'm saying it because it's reality. You should stay here until we get it figured out and taken care of. You need to. Or, or," the thought hurts but Jack has to acknowledge it, "if you don't want to stay here then somewhere safe, somewhere truly safe that he doesn't know about."
"No, Jack, it's not that I don't want to stay here, it's not that at all," you reassure him. "It's just, it's a lot to as-," you catch yourself, "it's a lot to take on. And who knows how long it'll take." Jack doesn't say anything, just gives you a reassuring smile and a small shrug to tell you that it doesn't matter to him. "If it gets to be too much promise you'll tell me, Jack."
"I promise." He doesn't vocalize how that could absolutely never happen, but he sure thinks it. Jack takes in your face for the hundredth time tonight. With your eyes swollen and bloodshot from crying you look even more exhausted than you did earlier. "We can talk about everything more tomorrow, okay? Try to get some sleep."
"Okay," you nod. You roll with Jack to keep your positioning as he reaches behind him to turn the lamp off, the two of you resettling how you were just with you somehow burrowed into Jack a bit more, his bottom arm wrapping around you under your shoulder to hold you tighter. "Do you work tomorrow?"
"Nope," Jack pops the 'p', clearly very happy about it. "I'm off the next three days."
"That's good," you murmur, pause for a moment. "Thank you Jack. For everything."
"Of course, anytime." Jack gives you a sleepy smile and repeats what he said earlier. "Always."
"So, I guess we can do all the seeing each other for the first time in over five years shit now," Jack smirks, teasing himself for the words he used last night at the Pitt.
The two of you are sitting on the couch again, eating the breakfast that you made together. Well, that Jake made, really, your only contribution the toast and moral support you provided by being in the kitchen with him.
You laugh softly. "Yeah, I guess we can."
Jack nods to tell you he'll go first once he finishes this bite. "Should probably start with the most obvious. Why are you back and how long have you been back?"
You forgot that with everything that happened last night you never got around to telling Jack how long you've been back and why you are in the first place. "I moved back a couple of months ago." Jack's going to have a reaction to this next part, a big one. One you know he's justified in having but that you didn't let yourself have, would never let yourself have. Because somehow you bullshitted your way into the job and eventually it's going to catch up with you. Jack's going to call you on that too, the imposter syndrome. "I got a job at CMU. Assistant professor. Tenure track."
Jack is mid-bite when you say it, raises his eyebrows and widens his eyes at you as he smiles and chews faster. "Holy shit!" he laughs, beaming at you. "Sweetheart, that's fucking insane, holy shit! Congratulations! That's what you always wanted, and right out of school too, that's so fucking amazing. I'm so fucking proud of you. My-" Jack stops himself before the rest of that sentence comes out and hangs awkwardly in the air between you. My girl's a professor, that's so fucking hot. "I hope you're proud of yourself."
"Yeah, it's good," you shrug, trying to downplay it how you always seem to do with your achievements and successes.
A softer, crooked smile settles onto Jack's face at your reaction. It's what he expected but hoped he'd be wrong about. "I'm sorry the imposter syndrome hasn't gotten any better, but you deserve your position, Sweetheart. You didn't bullshit your way into it or trick them into giving you the job, and you didn't bullshit your way to a PhD. You're just truly that smart and intelligent and incredible. You should be proud of yourself, you deserve to be proud of yourself."
You've never been good at accepting compliments, never been good at accepting Jack's compliments. It's something he finds so incredibly endearing about you for some reason. It's just one of those things that's so you and so genuine, not an act to try and get more compliments. He can always tell by the bashful smile that pulls onto your face, like the one that is now, and the way you have to break eye contact with him, like you do now, that his words mean so incredibly much to you, are something you hold so dear, even if your brain struggles to let you accept them at first.
"Thank you Jackie," you murmur, looking down at your plate and glancing back up at him. He's still smiling so widely at you, his eyes sparkling with pride and adoration and something you know you recognize but think you’re making up. Love. Active, heart on fire, soul consuming, all encompassing love.
Neither of you can find the confidence to bring up getting back together. Because somehow neither of you are sure if the other would ever even want that. You're both scared to lose the other again if you bring it up and are rejected. You're both scared to rock the boat or make the other feel forced. There are so many reasons and while many of them are valid, they're also bullshit in a sense. You're soulmates. You both know it. You both know it was time and distance and circumstance that made you break up, that it wasn't your relationship deteriorating or deciding you were better as friends or any other reason. And yet neither of you will make any sort of real move. Slipped uses of Sweetheart and Jackie don't count.
You take another bite and Jack looks at you for another beat before he does the same, doesn't push you to say you're proud of yourself or anything. He never would.
Once you've finished that bite and taken a sip of coffee you look over at Jack again. "What about you, what have you been up to for the last five years? Or should I say who?" You try so hard to smirk when you ask it but it doesn't quite work. You want to care, think you should probably feel embarrassed, but you don't. You just need to know.
"Ha!" Jack laughs before he takes a sip of his coffee. "Hardly. There wasn't much going on there for me. I kept myself too busy."
Jack starts to ask, but doesn't have time to before you're volunteering the same information. You're not sure why you do, aren't even sure he would've asked. "Same. I was too busy for the most part. What did you do to keep yourself busy?"
You look down at your plate and miss the way Jack's head cocks just slightly. For the most part. What the fuck does that mean?
Despite how badly he wants to, Jack doesn't ask what 'for the most part' means. "Played doctor." You give him a look and he grins at you. "I did a little teaching of my own at the med school." You're almost dumbstruck as you think about Jack teaching, about Professor Abbot. Fuck. It's obscenely hot to you.
You pull yourself back to and continue listening to Jack. "Published some papers, went to conferences." Thought about flying to you and asking to get back together. He picks his cup of coffee up and brings it close to his lips. He knows you're not going to like this next one. "Went back to TEMS," Jack mumbles almost against the lip of the coffee mug and then takes a sip.
"Jack." You frown, concern flooding your face, an anxiety along with it that Jack hates seeing on your features. That look is exactly why he stopped shortly after you got together.
"I stopped, I stopped, I promise." He gives you a little smile, hopeful and playful, trying to get you to laugh or smile at him. For him. "I took up yoga in its place."
That gets him the smile he wants, amused and intrigued, your eyebrows raised, lips pressed together as you smile and bob your head to the side as you nod it at him once. "Yoga? Really?" He nods at you and you smile so beautifully at him Jack thinks his heart might stop. "Why yoga?"
He shrugs. "I lost a bet at work, a long story for another day once you've met some people, but I actually ended up kind of liking it so I went back and kept doing it and found I really enjoyed it." The two of you share a laugh and you nod approvingly at him, teasing smile on your face. "Maybe I'll drag you to a class or make you do it here with me. I don't do classes as much anymore. It's too difficult to work into my schedule with going to the gym and running."
"Maybe I'll let you," you smirk at him.
Jack rolls his eyes at you but then thoughts of you in tight yoga clothes hit him and he's shifting on the couch and moving his plate to conceal the semi he's getting that his pajama pants are doing absolutely nothing to hide. If you were still together, his answer would be obvious. Maybe I'll make you. But you're not together. It's one of those moments where it really hits him. You're not together. He does his best to not let it decimate his mood.
"I went on a big cooking kick for a while there. Taught myself all sorts of shit." Jack huffs a laugh. "Robby liked when I was on that kick. I'd make him come over to help me eat whatever I made."
You wonder if he ever cooked for another woman. If that's why he learned. It's so fucking ridiculous that this is where your mind goes, but it's where it goes. And then your thoughts devolve further.
Did he ever bring someone back here? To your place? Did he fuck someone else in your bed?
You immediately feel so nauseous you set your half eaten plate on the coffee table like you're done, sit back on the couch and pull your knees up in front of you like it'll protect you from any further hurt. You can't hold it against him if he did. It wasn't your place then. It isn't your place now.
You have no idea where Jack was planning on having you sleep tonight but you're not sure you could sleep in his bed with him, in what used to be your bed with him, if he fucked someone else there. But it's not your business. You have no right to ask. You try to distract yourself by thinking about what you did for the last five years.
Jack's eyes track you carefully, stay trained on your face trying to read your micro-expressions to figure out what's going on. "Something just happened."
Damn. You hoped he wouldn't notice, but it's Jack and even after five years he still knows you the way you know him. You furrow your brows anyway. "What?"
"Something just happened," he repeats, nodding at you. "You just thought of something."
You push your bottom lip out and shrug. You don't shake your head, you can't, because you can't lie to Jack. "I'm just full. And I'm trying to think about what I did. You did so much, it's kind of embarrassing for me."
Jack decides to let it go. For now. He'll circle back to it because you thought of something that distressed you enough to make you unable to eat.
"You earned a fucking doctorate." Jack laughs, raises his eyebrows as he smiles at you and sticks his head out a little in emphasis. "There's nothing embarrassing about that. And I'm sure you did some other stuff."
You grimace at him and shake your head. "I don't know, Jack, not really. A little bit of traveling but not enough. I was just busy with school constantly. I was TAing and studying for exams and writing and researching for my thesis." You don't say that the reason you didn't do much other than school was because you were too fucking depressed to do anything even when you did have the time. "And you know how I am." You shrug at him and smile. "Homebody."
Your stories of the last five years perfectly demonstrate how you and Jack react to that kind of depression that can threaten to consume you in such different ways. Jack tries to keep his mind busy, constantly doing and learning, even if it's learning how to clear his mind with yoga. And you shut down and revert into yourself a bit, throw yourself into school and your studies and let that consume you.
Jack hums in agreement. You can be a homebody and it's honestly something he loves about you and that was always so good for him. You balanced him, helped him slow down a little. And he balanced you, kept you from stopping completely. "That's true."
A comfortable silence falls between the two of you as Jack finishes eating. There's an edge to it though, something unresolved and not forgotten.
When he's done eating Jack sets his plate next to yours and grabs his cup of coffee before settling back on the couch. He looks at you and catches your gaze, holds it and raises his eyebrows slightly. "Are you going to tell me what you thought of?"
"No," you whisper. At least you're being honest. "It's one of those things that's none of my business."
"Try me," he says softly, giving you a warm smile that's really just the corners of his mouth quirking up.
You shake your head. Jack respects it, doesn't push you to answer or ask you again or try to guilt trip you somehow. But he does let the silence linger.
After a minute you sigh and look away. You're going to have to ask him at some point because, assuming Jack would want you there, you won't be able to get anywhere near that bed again until you know.
When you finally force the question out it's so quiet Jack almost misses it. "Did you sleep with someone else in that bed?"
He immediately knows exactly what you mean, exactly what form of ‘sleep with’ you're talking about and which bed is ‘that’ bed.
"No." The word is firm, clearly meant and truthful, but not harsh, not full of judgment for asking, not irritated or annoyed or put off by the question. "In both senses. I barely ever brought anyone back here at all." He gestures to the room so you know he's talking about the place in general. "I couldn't. It always felt so wrong."
You nod slowly, let yourself soak in his words and try to relax. You force yourself to look at him again. "Thank you. For answering."
"You're welcome." Jack's eyes flick down to your lips and he shifts in his seat so he's sitting up more and not leaning into the couch as much, sets his mug down on the arm table.
The romantic and sexual tension that's been building between the two of you suddenly triples when you mirror him, shift so that your knees are no longer bent in front of your chest opening you up to him more. When Jack's eyes find yours again there's something smouldering about them, glinting with something that feels almost possessive, his pupils a little wider than they should be in this much light. And you, you're doe eyed and looking far too innocent, your pupils as wide as his as you breathe a little too deeply for someone just sitting on the couch, chest heaving a little too much.
You think Jack's about to lunge for you and kiss you, run his hands over your body and take you back to that bed that's still yours and yours alone the way he did all the time when you were together. And Jack thinks you'd let him, thinks you'd happily give in, melt into him and let him worship you and apologize for ever letting you go and coax his name from your lips in the sweetest moans over and over.
But then you look away and clear your throat, convinced Jack wouldn't be doing it because he wants you but for one of a dozen other reasons your mind makes up. You reach for your phone on the coffee table and frown as you look at it and settle back into the couch. You won't let yourself look at Jack. You're not sure you want to see whatever it is that's written on his face, try not to think about all the things that could be.
Jack's face falls when you break eye contact with him, hurt and a kind of pain that cuts him deeper than he can admit to himself right now flashing over his features. He's not sure what he was thinking, why he thought now was the time. He just got caught up in the moment and convinced himself it felt right, that it was happening naturally and on both sides and could be the start of reuniting, of getting back together.
His expression turns to concern quickly though as he takes in your face while you look over your phone. "Everything okay?"
You swallow hard and shrug. You haven't looked at your phone since you went to call Jack when you first got to the Pitt. It's just not worth it. Looking at your phone has become more of a traumatizing ordeal than anything. Because your stalker just blows it up and it seems to have escalated dramatically now that he doesn't know where you are.
"I…" You shake your head and toss your phone at Jack because you don't even know where to begin. "Passcode's the same."
Jack shares another few seconds of eye contact with you before he grabs your phone. He can't see what the messages say yet but he sure sees the notification count. 738 messages. 243 missed calls. From one number.
Shaky fingers type in the passcode and start to go through the texts and Jack's head fucking spins at them all. They vacillate between threats and declarations of love and apologies and yelling at you and calling you names and asking you out on dates to make it all up to you.
"Jesus fucking christ," Jack breathes, runs a hand through his curls. After another thirty seconds of scrolling Jack locks your phone and sets it back on the couch between the two of you.
You're staring at the wall when Jack looks at you and he easily recognizes that you're completely and totally dissociated. He's seen you dissociate before of course, but there's something different about it this time that almost scares him. "Sweetheart?"
It doesn't break through and Jack lets out a strained breath. He's not irritated or annoyed or mad or anything like that. He's just worried, and his heart hurts at how badly he knows you're hurting and how scared he knows you are. And Jack knows there's no good way to get you back to him that won't startle you.
But he needs to.
He slides down the couch so he's next to you and grabs your hands, laces your fingers together with one hand and brings your other hand under his shirt and adjusts your fingers so that they're over one of his shrapnel scars a little above his hip and in. You and Jack had figured out this was the best way for him to get you back with him when this happened. You still startle but you calm much quicker with Jack's hand squeezing yours and your fingers feeling a scar you know is his.
"Sweetheart." Jack says it much louder, squeezes your hand hard but not enough to hurt you. This time it does get through to you and you flinch and take in an audible deep breath as a moment of disorientation and fear wash over you. "It's me, it's me. It's Jack. You're okay, you're safe."
Your eyes focus on Jack and you let the breath out slowly, nodding and squeezing his hand, your fingertips running over his scar. "Fuck," you breathe. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be," Jack shakes his head. The look in your eye and way you shrug tells Jack you don't want to dwell on it or talk about it and why it happened. So he doesn't ask or bring it up. "I know we talked about it a little at the hospital, but what's this guy doing? How far has he gone?"
"The phone stuff, blowing it up with calls and texts, emails. I block his number but he just gets a new one through google or whatever so it just doesn't stop." Your fingers stop over his scar and just rest there. It's so natural, something you did so often when you were together, trace his scars, that it doesn't really click in your mind how somewhat inappropriate it is for exes, for two people who are now just friends.
"Thinking back I swear I've seen him on campus once or twice, but I think that's just my mind looking for something else." You shrug. "Like I said, there's nothing that makes it explicitly clear it's him and nothing violent or that suggested violence like the photos maybe do." Jack bites his tongue to not interject that it's not a maybe. They suggest violence. They're a threat. A direct threat. "It was harassing and annoying and maybe a little scary, but it wasn't bad, I guess. Like I didn't go to the police or anything because there didn't seem like much of a reason. It just kind of escalated to… what was in the envelope overnight."
"When did you find it?" Jack asks gently, squeezing your hand. "And where?"
"Last night at my front door. I didn't go inside or anything," you shake your head. "I was too scared to. Luckily I had a really great uber driver who was going to wait until I got inside and when I told her she drove me to the hospital."
"Good," Jack nods. "Good. Do-"
"Jack, I'm sorry, but can we just… take a break? From talking about it." You look so mad at yourself after you say it and it kills Jack, as does you finally pulling your hands away from him. You shut your eyes and shake your head. "I know that's a shitty ask when I'm asking so much of you because of it. I should be willing to talk about it as much as you want."
"No." Jack squeezes your hand. "No. That's not how this works. You don't owe me anything or have to talk to me about it at length or when you don't want to."
You chew on the inside of your cheek for a few seconds and then look back at him. "Okay," you whisper.
Jack knows he needs a way to lighten things, to help get your mind off everything that's going on right now, or at least as much as possible. You guys can't, or shouldn't, really leave here and be out in public for too long, just in case. Watching TV doesn't really sound like enough right now and it's not like he can take you back to bed and fuck you and the two of you can just keep yourselves occupied in there all day.
But then it hits him and he gives you a lopsided smile. "You wanna do some yoga with me?"
Over the next few days you and Jack adjust to the situation you find yourselves in, both of you hesitant to call it a new normal, and your stalker continues to make it clear via text just how displeased and angry he is that he no longer knows where you live and isn't able to track you for long you once you leave school.
The biggest 'adjustment,' to put it lightly, is Jack switching with Robby to work day shifts until you figure this all out. It had come up that Saturday while you and Jack were having breakfast. Jack said he wanted to go see Robby and when you asked why Jack explained that he was going to see if Robby would switch and work nights for him so that he could be home every night with you. You said no at first. Absolutely not. That was way the fuck too much.
Internally, of course, you were fucking delighted at the idea and that Jack had the thought. It made you realize how much just the thought of Jack being home with you during the night relaxed you. But you couldn't ask him or Robby to do that, couldn't let them. It's just you. You don't deserve that kind of treatment, from anyone, much less them, especially after being gone for five years.
Somehow, though, Jack had brought you around. All he really had to do was let his true anxiety and fear about you being home alone at night show on his face and you were in. You couldn't stomach the thought of him being that anxious over you for his entire shift.
You know you can find ways to thank and apologize to and repay Jack and Robby for having to switch shifts and for fucking up their lives. There's absolutely no way to thank or apologize to Jack for making him suffer through that anxiety when he offered to do something simple to prevent it. There's no way you'd ever forgive yourself.
And so Jack and Robby switched shifts.
On Monday you start taking ubers to and from school, scheduled ones so that you know who the driver is in advance, and you've been going and will continue to go to the hospital every evening when you're done at school, regardless of whether Jack is working. You're able to find a picture of the guy and Jack makes sure everyone in the Pitt sees it, keeps a copy taped to the back of the break room door.
The hospital is a good place to get lost with all the entrances and exits and being able to be brought back into the actual Pitt by whoever happens to see you first. You switch where you enter and where you exit, leave wearing a different shirt or Jack's jacket and casual pants and shoes kept in his locker for you to change into. And Jack has been and will continue to be there each day to make the trip back to his place with you.
Your stalker blows your phone up even more. Every blocked number is so irritatingly and quickly replaced by a new one he gets from google voice. There's texts, hundreds and hundreds of texts spanning the spectrum of emotions, usually filled with anger and annoyance, but sometimes trying to be sweet and apologize like that'll work on you.
You haven't bothered blocking his latest number, have just turned off notifications for the number and let him go off. It's more work for you to keep blocking numbers. You know you can't delete the messages but you stop reading them because it just distresses you. But with your permission, Jack reads every single one each night.
The guy calls too, but less and less when he realizes you're not going to answer because he appears to realize he can't leave a voicemail, though you wonder to yourself how long that will last and when he'll start typing shit to have the computer read it out for him. He sends some stuff to your personal email and blows that up for a while, but seems to abandon it as you block each new email address so that he can focus on creating new numbers, and then never seems to pick emailing back up again after you just silence his current number.
Your stalker is smart enough to realize that he has to be a bit more chill at the school, probably realizes that you've talked with campus police and notices their increased presence around you and the building your office is in and the classrooms you teach in. But you can just feel him watching you at times when you're walking to and from class. A few times you've seen him, you know you have. By the time you can even pull your phone out for a photo, though, he's gone.
You're sure he knows by now that you went to the police. You and Jack went that Saturday after talking with Robby. You were able to go with an officer to your place on Saturday without Jack and pack some bags so that you had clothes and toiletries and things for work and your other electronics, and you're sure he was watching your place just hoping you'd come back alone.
It had been a whole elaborate thing on the way to Jack's to make sure the guy didn't trail you after you left your townhouse and end up finding out where you were staying and that you're staying with another man. You and Jack had decided it would be best to try and keep the guy from knowing about Jack's presence in your life for a number of reasons.
But other than that the police weren't particularly helpful. They told you that as of right now proving the identity of your stalker would require search warrants for google and ISPs and potentially reviewing hours and hours of security camera footage just for the guy to either never appear or be so well covered up you can't tell it's him. All of that takes time and manpower and this is Pittsburgh where the latter of those is in short supply, and with all the crime the city faces every day, your 'non-violent' and 'vaguely threatening' stalker isn't high on the priority list.
And you and Jack know it won't be unless and until you're injured or killed.
It absolutely fucking infuriates Jack.
Your stalker is unfortunately also smart enough to know that he can't outright threaten you constantly and that his threats generally need to be extremely subtle and written between the lines and phrased in terms that one could plausibly argue contain some other legitimate meaning. After the outright threatening nature of the photos he left you on Friday he doesn't explicitly threaten you again until Tuesday when you're walking accompanied by a campus police officer to the uber that'll take you to the hospital.
The longer you hide, my darling love, the longer my love will have to hurt you once I make you mine.
You only see it because it comes up as you're looking at your phone to confirm which car is your uber. And it's the only message you've received so far that you seriously consider deleting so that Jack doesn't see it because you know he'll lose his fucking mind over it.
And he does.
In a way it's adorable of him, how protective he gets, the way he paces to try and burn off some of the adrenaline and how he breathes harder with his jaw set and rolling, mouth in a line when he isn't voicing what he thinks about this guy and brainstorming ways to keep you safe. It's loving. It's how a boyfriend would react.
There's a couple of seconds there where you forget that you and Jack aren't together. This isn't your boyfriend pacing in front of you. You can't go fuck this out for lack of a better phrase, can't take him into the bedroom and help him relax and burn off that adrenaline and end soft and sweet and intensely intimate. You can't do anything other than try to verbally reassure him things will be okay.
It's around ten p.m. on Wednesday night and you and Jack are chilling on the couch and finishing up the bottle of wine you started while cooking and that you've been sharing since he got home. It was a long day for both of you, but especially for Jack. Today was Jack's first shift since you showed up at the Pitt on Saturday a little past one in the morning. It was his first day shift in he can't remember how long.
It was rough. Not so much the shift itself, nothing of great note happened and he enjoys his day shift colleagues, but the missing you and the worrying about you and the not being able to have his phone on loud and know he could run to you the second he needed to if something happened. That was rough, to say the least.
He held his breath every time Dana told him an ambulance was on its way, just waiting for the time she said a professor at CMU was viciously attacked or stabbed or shot. Sitting on the couch now he realizes he doesn't even know off the top of his head if CMU is in the Pitt's catchment, if you'd even be brought to him if something like that happened. He needs to find out.
The two of you finally got to the conversation about your love lives tonight, talked about what it was like for the last five years. You've spent the last hour or so sharing stories about the cringe worthy first and second dates you went on over the last five years. You'd touched briefly on your romantic histories at breakfast on Saturday but nothing overly specific. You both know far more now.
Jack didn't really consistently see anyone, didn't really try to. He'd go out on one or two dates, maybe three and inevitably break it off, a few developed into something closer to friends with benefits, with friends being a loose term. It was more someone known and safe where there was enough attraction and good sex. Jack doesn't tell you but he just couldn't do it. He couldn't date someone who wasn't you. It took him a while to be able to have sex with someone who wasn't you and it had to be with someone he didn't really have any feelings for, it had to be meaningless, about stress relief and feeling good and distraction and that's it.
Like Jack you had a few friends with benefits, but yours were closer to true friends, guys from your university who were in your friend group or your friend group's orbit who were known and safe and you were attracted to enough for there to be good sex that was understood to be meaningless and for stress relief and to feel good and be distracted and nothing more. It had taken you longer to even try dating and to have sex than it took Jack.
But unlike Jack, you did consistently see a few guys long enough to reach the define the relationship conversation. Only one survived that conversation and was labeled a relationship where you called him your boyfriend and he got to call you his girlfriend. You were only together for seven or eight months, and when Jack asks you're candid and share that he told you that he loved you, but you never said you loved him because you didn't, and ultimately that's why you broke up. You knew you would never love him.
Still. It's hard for Jack to hear. It's hard to know that another man got to share a bed with you for seven or eight months, got to fuck you and make love to you and kiss you and hold you for seven or eight months. Got to call you his for five or six or seven or however many months. He knows he shouldn't be relieved that you didn't love the guy, that he should want you to be happy, whoever that's with. But he wants you to be happy with him. He can't help the jealousy that works its way through him.
And it's fucked up and Jack knows it but it hurts that you wanted that. That you were able to do it, to date someone who wasn't him, to be in a relationship with someone who wasn't him. It doesn't feel like betrayal or like you cheated on him, you very clearly weren't together, and he doesn't hold it against you or think anything less of you for it, he isn't hurt by you. He's jealous. And he knows it. He knows that's what he's feeling.
There's a lull in the conversation as you split the rest of the wine between your two glasses and both of you take a few sips.
Jack breaks the comfortable silence as he sets his glass down and watches you take another sip. "Can I ask you something?"
You smile at him softly and it's almost enough to make his mind go blank and reset. Almost. "Of course."
"Why didn't you call me when you moved back?"
It's a fair question. You know it is. And he's asking it with genuine curiosity, you can tell. He's not trying to be a dick, and while you can tell there's hurt to it and can hear the pain and self-doubt and sadness behind his words, and can put the pieces together fast enough to realize that your conversation helped bring this on, you know it's not meant to make you feel bad or to hurt you because he's hurting. It's not vindictive.
It's a question you've asked yourself a thousand times.
The worst part is that you don't have a great answer, you don't have any answer other than, effectively, you were a coward. You were too scared to. You love him enough that you wanted him to be happy and fulfilled and being actively loved and getting to love someone back even if it wasn't you. You were just terrified you'd find out that he was happy and in love with someone who wasn't you.
You were terrified you'd find out Jack had replaced you.
You were terrified you'd find out you were replaceable to the one and only person who ever truly mattered.
And that's not a fair characterization, you know, and it's not what it truly would've been, you know, but it's how your heart and your brain and your soul would've taken it and the move and total life upheaval again and all of the change had you even more fragile. So your mind just paralyzed you so that you couldn't. It didn't matter that you might have found him single and wanting you back, your brain in some sort of weird self-preservation wouldn't let you risk it.
You swallow your sip and set your glass down, take another twenty seconds to try to organize your thoughts and formulate an answer.
"I was scared," you finally whisper. "I was scared of finding you happily married, maybe with kids, or happily in a relationship."
Jack nods slowly. So it's not that you don't want to be with him again. That you just weren't interested. He's not sure if that would've hurt more or less because now he just kind of feels like he wasn't worth it. He wasn't enough. "Finding out I was single wasn't worth the risk?"
Your face falls and you tilt your head at him slowly before straightening it back out. It's another fair question. It's another fair question that's asked out of curiosity and not spite or to be mean and that's even more loaded with self-doubt than the first.
But it’s impossible for your mind not to read him blaming you into the question. "Don't. Please don't do that Jack. Don't blame me. Don't make me feel worse than I already do, about everything. I'm not asking you questions like that. It's not that you weren't worth the risk. It wasn't that at all. You were and you are and I, I, it's not that I didn't want to be with you again either, or that I don't want to, it's not, it's, it's… It's not that I didn't want to call you, I did, I constantly did. I was just paralyzed by my anxiety and fear. I couldn't, I didn't know if I'd survive finding out I'd been replaced. I was scared. I was fucking scared. I don't know how to explain it. I was frozen Jack. I couldn't, no matter how much I wanted to. I know I would've once I was feeling better, once I had come out of it a bit and was more settled, I just, I, I needed time. I needed time."
The question rolls off his tongue before he can stop it.
"How much time?"
It shatters you.
"I don't know Jack, I don't know. I don't know how much time." Tears hit your eyes and are so obvious in your voice and you know your reaction is out of proportion. You know it's not even him or his questions that are hurting you but your own internal voice and thoughts about yourself that the questions trigger. You know your reaction is ridiculous and dramatic and way the fuck too much but you just… have it.
"Please, Jack, don't. Please don't. I get it, I do. I know. I know I fucked up, I know I fucked up when I even started contemplating actually going over there, and then I fucked up more when I even contemplated it once I knew it would mean we would break up. I know I fucked up every day I didn't quit and come home to you. I know I fucked up by not calling you or trying to find you as soon as I got back, and I know I fucked up trying to see other people and landing us in this whole mess."
"I know I fucked up, I know I constantly fucked up, I hate myself for it all the fucking time, I don't need you hating me for it too. I wrote to you every single fucking day, Jack. I kept journals, diaries, but instead of 'Dear Diary' every entry was 'Dear Jack,'" your voice breaks over his name, tears finally starting to stream down your face, "and I have them all. Five years and however many months and days worth, I fucking have them all. You can read them, they're at my place, we can bring them over. I know how it must feel like I'm using you and how unfair of me it was to just show up and drop this all on you and ask you for your help and how unfair it is for you to take me in like a helpless stray and change your fucking work schedule, I know how unfair it was, it is, and I hate myself for that too. So please, Jackie, I know. I fucking know. I know and I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry for all of it. I, I, I know and I…"
You sniffle, wipe away the tears just for them to be replaced and then take in a deep shuddery breath and let it out. "I'm sorry," you whisper, just loud enough for him to hear. You sound crushed and defeated and resigned. You sound like you truly hate yourself like you just said. It makes Jack nauseous. He didn't want this. He didn't mean to cause any of this. "I'll get out of your hair as much as possible tomorrow, be out of here and take as much of my stuff as I can, come back for the rest at some point that works for you. Thank you for everything Jack and for how truly above and beyond you've gone for me, with all of this and when we were together. For whatever it's worth I really do, and will, cherish these few days we had together. I'll um, I'll leave my key under the mat."
Jack's eyes widen and his face falls as he takes in all of your words and watches tears start to fall and you rush toward the bedrooms.
"Woah, hey. Hey." He sits up quickly as he calls your name, grabs his crutches and starts standing to go after you. "Sweetheart! Please come back and talk."
He crutches forward a few steps but stops when he hears a door shut. You need space, some time to yourself before you talk again. He knows. He recognizes the signs. So as much as he's desperate to follow you and hold you and talk it out with you, he sits back down on the couch.
Jack feels awful. He truly does. He never meant for his original question to become this, to make you run off feeling awful and like you need to leave. That's the absolute fucking last thing he wants. But as he reflects on what just happened and what he said and how he felt when he said it, Jack realizes that subconsciously, yeah, he was probably trying to make you hurt a little bit the way that hearing you had a boyfriend, someone serious in your life who wasn't him, hurt him.
While he can honestly say it wasn't his conscious intent, he still should've caught himself, should've thought about his words and the context and how he was saying them and how they'd make you feel more than he did.
His head also spins with everything you said. He hates the fact that it seems like you think and feel, at least sometimes, like all you did was fuck up over the last five years. Like every choice you made was wrong. Like it was all your fault and you were the only one who made choices and decisions relating to your relationship and potentially getting back together over the last five years. Because it wasn't just you. It was him. He could've quit at the beginning or he could've quit and gone to you at any time.
He hates that you think this, coming to him and staying with him once your stalker escalated, is somehow using him and unfair. He hates that you hate yourself for doing it because he is so fucking glad you did, that he can help protect you. He hates that you think of yourself like a helpless stray, because you're not. You're so overwhelmingly not, and Jack really hopes that you don't think he sees you like that and that he doesn't make you feel like you are.
And Jack hates the fact that you hate yourself all the time, for anything, but especially for what happened between the two of you and you coming to him for help. He hates it so much his skin itches and it's almost hard to breathe. He can't stand the thought of you thinking about yourself like that, of you being in that much psychological and emotional pain, because Jack gets it, he understands what it's like to hate yourself. And he never wants you to hate yourself, never wants you to feel like that.
Then there's the journals. The revelation that you wrote to him every fucking day for the last five years and however many months and days. He is desperate to read them, wonders what you had to say to him every day, how you wrote to him when you were in a relationship, if your words will make him laugh or cry, if they're short little entries or longer ones. Jack ruminates on them while he gives you space.
You stare at the spare bed for a moment before walking over to it. It's made again. You haven't slept in it since that first night when you only did for a couple of hours. After that first night it was just one of those unspoken things like you sleeping in the spare room had been originally.
The justifications are unspoken, it's safer and it lets you both sleep better. You haven't cuddled like you did that first night, haven't been close like that and snuggled up together. Not deliberately or consciously, at least, but you always end up waking up curled into each other somehow, drawn to each other in your sleep.
You pull the comforter and sheets back and slide in, roll onto your side and curl in on yourself as you start to cry silently. All the things you said to Jack that you feel are amplified right now, swirling through your mind so fast all you are is one big ball of sadness and anxiety and self-hate and worthlessness. It's hard to even organize your thoughts with how loud they scream at you but somehow you're able to hear and feel every single one of them.
Tears are still streaming down your face intermittently when there's a knock on the door and a quiet call of your name. You don't say anything, a move that makes you feel like even more of an asshole and a childish one at that. Jack opens the door and uses the light from the hallway to look at you. Your back is to the door, your breathing fairly even. And you're still. Still enough that from the doorway Jack can't quite tell if you're asleep.
He leaves the hall light on for now and the door open a crack so just enough light trickles into the spare room. He crutches over to the empty side of the bed and sets his crutches aside, slides in behind you. You're awake. He can just tell now that he's closer to you. You're not necessarily pretending to be asleep, you're just being quiet and still.
Jack knows you'll tell him if you want him to stop so he feels comfortable getting closer to you. He slides further over toward you, his top arm wrapping around your tummy and pulling you back into him gently as he presses himself up against the back of you, spooning you from behind.
You don't respond because you don't know what to say. Instead you respond with touch, move your top arm and grab the hand of Jack's top arm that's wrapped around you, hold onto it and tuck his arm under yours, guide his hand to your chest and lace your fingers through the back of his and hold your hands there.
"I'm sorry," Jack whispers, kissing the top of the back of your head. "Please, please don't hate yourself Sweetheart. And please don't blame yourself, for anything relating to us and to this situation." The words are truly and genuinely begged. Jack is begging you. "I don't want that. I don't want that at all. I don't blame you and I certainly don't hate you. I never could."
"I never meant to make it seem like I blamed you for anything or like I resented you or like I wanted you to blame yourself. I know that doesn't mean I didn't make you feel like that and stir up those emotions, I just want you to know it wasn't intentional, that I wasn't trying to be mean. I'm very sorry my words hurt you and I can easily see how they would've made you feel like I was blaming you or thought you'd fucked up."
Jack takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "If I'm honest with myself I can admit that I think there was a piece of me that was subconsciously trying to be a bit dick-ish because I was hurting after hearing about your relationship. But I promise that I wasn't consciously trying to hurt you even though I know I did. I didn't think about what I said before I said it or about how I said it. I'm truly sorry and I hope you can forgive me."
"It wasn't you," you whisper. "It wasn't you. I appreciate you coming and apologizing and if you need my forgiveness I forgive you but it wasn't you, Jackie. You have nothing to apologize for, I don't feel like you have anything to apologize for. You didn't say anything mean, you asked simple questions. You didn't blame me. I was twisting your words because of how I feel. You and your words didn't cause any of this. I've been feeling like this and telling myself everything I just said or at least parts of it for the last five years. It's been constant since I moved back." You pause for a second and squeeze Jack's hand, his lips pressing another soft kiss over your hair in return.
"I know you don't blame me, but I blame me." You let go of Jack's hand and scoot away from him, roll over to your other side so you can see him, your bodies naturally coming together, Jack's arms wrapped around how you both need and want. You're teary and the small, albeit somewhat sad smile drops from Jack's face almost instantly. You take a shuddery breath in, lips and chin trembling as you shrug. "And I don't know how to forgive myself or let it go or move past it. I'm sorry Jack, I'm so so sorry. I'm sorry for everything, for all of it. I'm so sorry."
Jack brings his hand up to your face and wipes away some of the tears even though they're quickly replaced. He makes sure he has your eye contact or at least the best he can through your tears. "I forgive you," Jack murmurs firmly but with all the warmth and softness and love in the world. "I don't think you have anything to apologize for and I don't blame you for anything, but I know you need to hear this. I forgive you." He leans his head forward and kisses your forehead before settling back and looking at you again. "I forgive you and I want you to forgive yourself. And I'm going to help you get there."
Your tears finally become audible as you start crying properly again. You shake your head at Jack because you hate that you're like this, that you're just crying instead of talking more because your head is too fuzzy from your previous crying and the thoughts flying around and the wine.
"It's okay," he whispers. You know exactly what he means, that even though there's still more to talk about, it's okay that the talking has ended for tonight, that he knows it was a long day for you and it was for him too, that he knows you're both tired and struggling with your emotions more because of it and that it's better to continue this conversation when you're both fresher. "Come here."
Jack's arms wrap around you a little tighter and you naturally move further into him, your head tucked just under his chin as you cry into him again. He holds you through it, steady and unwavering as he rubs your back and whispers little reassurances and squeezes you to let you know he's there with you. That he's got you, no matter what you are to each other.
He gives you a couple of minutes of silence once you stop crying to let you settle before speaking. "Come to bed with me?" Jack murmurs. "Please."
You nod against him. "Yes please," you whisper back to him.
The two of you force yourselves to separate and make your way into Jack's bedroom. You both get ready for bed quickly and then turn off the lights and slide into Jack's bed, meeting in the middle. And just like that first night you snuggle into each other, little, if any, space between you. You fall asleep in Jack's arms again, the lines of what exactly you and Jack are to each other right now blurrier than ever.
Friday night finds you and Jack in bed laying on your sides chatting.
There hasn't been much change with your stalker and his behaviors. You and Jack are both thankful for that and that there hasn't been an escalation. Or at least not a provable one. You're sure he's been on campus watching you more but you can't prove it so it leaves you feeling like a paranoid mess, which is probably what he wants.
You try to ignore it once you get home, distract yourself with Jack and making dinner and baking him his favorites and anything to get your mind off it.
"So you're actually liking day shift?" you smirk at him, eyebrows raising a touch.
You both know there's probably something a little too intimate about laying in bed together like this on your sides and chatting, even with all the space in between you and the way you're not touching at all. You guys can't help it. You end up like this naturally. You did yesterday and nothing really happened so you tell yourselves it's fine, you're just talking, winding down before bed, only the soft glow of the warm toned light-bulb Jack keeps in his bedside lamp illuminating the room.
But unlike yesterday you both start to move closer to the other every time you speak. It's subconscious and not something either of you even realize is happening.
It's leading somewhere, to something even the universe is surprised has taken this long to happen.
"I am," Jack laughs. "It's been a refreshing change of pace."
"Yeah?" Your smirk deepens as you laugh with him.
"Yeah," he nods, laughter trailing off into a smile that steals your breath. "And I like that it gives me more time with you. Or at least it feels like it does right now."
"Jack," you giggle, "that is so not a reason to like a shift."
He tuts at you. "Abso-fucking-lutely it is!"
It's not that neither of you realize exactly what Jack's words about day shift giving him more time with you mean. It's that the meaning is so natural, so obvious and true and makes so much sense with what the two of you have together that it's just not something that strikes you.
But the thing is, you both seem to be forgetting the two of you don't have that together anymore. That you're not together, not a couple.
Since Wednesday night the tension between you and Jack has started to break like a sheet of ice over a pond, cracks forming just beneath the surface that strain to keep separation between water and air. Between you and Jack.
You roll your eyes at him playfully, close enough now that your legs tangle with Jack's. "You're ridiculous."
Jack continues moving closer, your thighs pressing against each other's and then your lower abdomens, and then your upper abdomens, the two of you pressed together and cuddling like you used to when you were lovers. You couldn't get any closer and still be able to easily see all of each other's faces as you chat. Jack pulls his lips down in consideration, raises his eyebrows, eyes glinting mischievously, but in a way that tells you he means it and is being serious. "Might ask Robby to make it permanent."
"You love the night shift." You shiver when Jack drapes his arm over your side and starts running his index finger up and down your spine. "You'd resent me for making you change after a while."
"You're not making me do anything. It would be my choice." Jack's head moves closer to yours and you rest your top hand along the crook of his neck, thumb brushing absentmindedly over his skin. "And we'd have to try to actually work it out, but if day shift gave me more time with you then I'd easily love it more than the night shift."
"Yeah?" you breathe, everything finally hitting your conscious mind at once. Your head only moves closer to Jack's in response.
Jack's conscious mind is hit by it all at the same time, his heart starting to race at how close yet how achingly far away his lips are from yours. "Yeah," he whispers as you both move your heads in to close the last of the distance.
Your lips hover a millimeter apart for a few seconds ghosting over each other with breaths that are hot against sensitive skin before they brush a little more firmly, something you can really feel as you both whisper another "yeah."
You and Jack finally kiss, soft and short and sweet. Your foreheads rest against each other's for a second before you both pull back just enough to look the other in the eyes.
And then the tension shatters around you, and you and Jack are finally kissing.
Kissing like you used to. Kisses that are gentle and achingly loving and lingering building into kisses that are hungry and needy and passionate building into kisses that are hard and consuming and possessive.
The first time Jack's tongue slides into your mouth and he lets out one of those groans from deep in his chest that says I love you so fucking much and always will just as loudly as it says I fucking need you and to be inside of you it's like everything falls back into place in your world, and it's exactly the same for Jack when you moan into his mouth and wordlessly say the same exact thing. Everything is okay again. Happiness feels real again. You think you could make it through anything again.
Jack lets you into his mouth, sucks on your tongue because he fucking can and because he knows you like it, nips and sucks on your bottom lip for the same reason. Your hands roam each other, rub and tease at all the right spots because you still have each other memorized. When your hand finds the curls at the nape of his neck and tug Jack needs more, knows you need more too.
It's natural the way Jack rolls you onto your back in the middle of the bed while still kissing you, still pulling the sweetest sighs and hums from you. Your legs wrap around him to keep him close and open yourself up for him further. It lets you both get more friction when your hips start to grind and roll against each other's.
After who knows how long you slide your hands under his shirt, let them glide over firm muscle that's covered by the perfect amount of softness that's always driven you insane, that you've nibbled on and sucked hickeys into hundreds of times. The fabric comes with you as you move your hands up Jack's chest and he gets the picture, shifts to support his body weight on his knees while your legs drop off him so that he can reach back and pull his shirt off like you're silently asking him to.
There's hardly any time to truly appreciate him and his body in earnest because his abs are strong enough that he can stay low and hold himself up without his arms to get his shirt off. You'd whine about it but Jack's lips are back on yours claiming you again, and his warm, smooth skin and the muscles you can feel rippling beneath it make it all better.
When you both need more air than you can get while kissing each other Jack moves his lips to your neck. As you try to catch your breath while he lavishes your neck with kisses it hits you.
You fucking can't. You cannot do this.
"Jack," you breathe out. You move your hands to his chest and push gently. "We, we have to stop, we can't…."
"What?" he asks in a breath of his own as he pulls his head from your neck. He sits back on his knees between your legs, always a man to stop and get off you first and ask questions second. "What's wrong?"
You look up at him and open your mouth to say something but no words come out. It's unusual, and it almost never happens, or it almost never happened in at least the last two years you were together, but Jack can't read the look in your eyes. He can't tell what this is.
Jack lets the confusion wash over his face, brows furrowed as he cocks his head at you and shakes it slightly. "I, I have condoms and I'm clean if that's what you're worried about."
You shake your head slowly, tears filling your eyes and something Jack easily recognizes as heartbreak and emotional pain pulling onto your face. "It's not that Jack," you whisper. "We can't because I, in the morning we'll, I'll…" You have no idea why you can't find the words to finish your sentence and explain how you feel.
But you don't need to say anything else. It clicks in his mind.
"Oh," Jack whispers.
Regret. That's the look in your eyes that he couldn't place, couldn't read, regret. Because you've never looked at him with regret, like he's something or someone you could regret until now. A pain so sharp he can't breathe for a minute hits his heart, his stomach in a knot and head fuzzy as the blow emotionally levels him.
"Wow," Jack finally breathes. You don't think you've ever heard him sound so hurt and it destroys you, tears falling immediately because you did that. You hurt him like that. You made him feel like that. Other than the slight creak of the bed and the sheets rustling as Jack moves away from you to the edge of the bed so that his back is to you the room is silent and still. Tears line Jack's eyes as he forces the words out. Forces himself to acknowledge it. "I didn't think I'd ever be something you could regret. A mistake."
"What?" you whisper, genuine confusion and horror in your tone.
"We have to stop and you can't because you'll regret this in the morning, that's what you were going to say. Regret being with me. Regret me." Jack thinks he might actually be sick as the tears start to fall, is so breathless and having such deep pain in his chest he's worried he might actually be having a heart attack. "Fuck, wow. That… That hurts."
"No!" you gasp, the shock still running its way through your system. "No. No, no, no, no." You sit up and scramble to sit on your knees next to him at the edge of the bed. "Oh my god, Jack no! No. That's not why, that's not why at all." You've started to shake, watching Jack's heart break in front of you something you'll never be able to unsee or unhear. When you broke up you'd both managed to keep it together until you parted, fell apart and let your hearts break in private. But Jack's just broke right in front of you.
Tears that match Jack's own stream down your face as you beg him. "Look at me, please. Please, Jack." It takes him a second but he does, looks at you without trying to hide a single emotion on his face because he knows it would be futile, that he couldn't right now. "Never," you breathe, shaking your head at him. You take his head in your hands and hold his gaze as intensely as ever. "I could never regret you. You could never be a mistake. Please know that. I'm sorry for making it seem and feel otherwise for even a second. I'm so sorry, Jackie. But that is not what I meant, I promise. There is no part of me that could ever regret you, regret being with you and loving you."
Jack's lips tremble and a cascade of tears fall down his cheeks before he leans his head into one of your hands, your words and how desperate and panicked you look for him to believe you reassuring him that this has been some sort of miscommunication.
"That's what I thought," he whispers. "That's how you always made me feel, like you could never regret me and that's why it hurt so badly. I shouldn't have assumed, shouldn't have put words in your mouth."
"It's okay," you murmur. Jack nods his head in the direction of the headboard and shifts, gets comfortable sitting up and leaning against it. You crawl onto his lap, wrap your legs around him between his back and the headboard and hug him. He hugs you back just as tightly, holds the back of your head to keep you close. "It's okay, Jackie."
The two of you sit like that for a while, soak up each other's presence and closeness and heal so many pieces that neither of you thought you'd ever be able to.
It's Jack who breaks the silence praying his curiosity won't ruin everything. "If it's not that… I respect you saying no and that we have to stop and I'm not pushing you for anything or to start again and I recognize you don't owe me an explanation so you don't have to answer of course, but why…? Why we can't do this again?"
You pull out of the hug and look at him, hopeless and helpless almost. You start to move and Jack thinks he's ruined everything but you just move back off his lap so that you're sitting between his legs, your calves still on top of his thighs.
"I just, I said we can't because… It's me, Jack." You shrug at him as tears hit your eyes again. "I'm not strong enough for this. I don't want you to regret this in the morning. And I don't want you to be doing this because you feel bad for me or feel bad in general or because you're tired and your judgment lapsed or because I'm here and comfortable and familiar and sex is good stress relief or because of some sort of trauma bonding thing that's happening and bringing us together for a short time."
You shake your head at him, crying and looking devastated in the most beautiful way that makes Jack want to sob. "I can't do this casually with you, Jack. I can't just be friends with benefits and two people having sex and almost playing house because of circumstance. I know we're halfway there and just the playing house alone is killing me slowly I think. I need the divide, the intimacy divide. So I can't do this and have there not be an us. I can't do this and not have you, for real. Like I used to. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, I just can't. I promise you it has nothing to do with regret though, Jack. I could never regret you."
"I just couldn't survive our casual arrangement ending and losing you again. I barely survived losing you the first time, Jack, and I never got over you." You sniffle, wipe away some of your tears just for them to be replaced. "I'm still hopelessly and completely in love with you Jack. So I can't do this, I can't be with you casually until all of this passes and then we just go back to strangers who know each other far too well. I can't do this and not be in a relationship with you, not be yours again and get to call you mine and show you and tell you I love you."
"And there's way too much going on for you to be able to decide with any clarity whether getting back together with me, truly getting back together, is something you'd want or would be good for you and your life. It's not fair of me to ask you to make that decision right now. So I'm sorry." Your lips and chin tremble as you take in a deep, shuddery breath and let it out, tears flooding your cheeks again as you do. "I'm so sorry, Jack."
It's quiet for a few seconds as Jack lets all your words sink in. And then he gives you the quietest breathed out laugh because this is so fucking silly of you and you're so fucking cute and precious and worried for no fucking reason and he gets it, he so fucking gets it because he feels the exact same way and he just loves you so much.
"Sweetheart," he whispers. Jack tilts his head at you and licks his lips before giving you an empathetic smile. "First of all, you never need to apologize to me or anyone else for having a boundary and setting it and enforcing it, okay?"
You nod and sniffle again, wipe away some of your tears as you try to pull it together. Jack leans forward and grabs his shirt from up near the other pillow where he tossed it after he pulled it off and offers it to you as a handkerchief. You huff a laugh and smile all watery at him as you take it and use it and Jack thinks he has to be glowing at how good and how proud he feels for making you smile and laugh, as small as they were.
"Second of all," he continues on, "I could never regret you either. You are the best thing I could ever do, will have ever done.” Jack gives you a little wink. "In all senses."
"Third, this, what we were just doing, kissing and working towards foreplay and sex, it was never casual or just sex to me. With everything else going on, how we were talking and interacting, how we have been since you moved back in," that's a little Freudian slip because you haven't really technically moved back in, "this was us getting back together. For me this was us getting back together. And I very much should've clarified that and asked you and not assumed you just knew and felt and thought the same way as me, but that's what this was. For me this was the start of you getting to call me yours and me getting to call you mine again."
"And fourth," Jack has to laugh a little at how adorable you are wiping your nose and face with his shirt and then looking at him so earnest and concerned and in love. "You think I'm not hopelessly and completely in love with you still? You really think there's any question in my mind about whether I want to be in a relationship with you again? A question about whether I want us again and to call you mine and be called yours?"
"Because there's not," he shakes his head, smiling widely at you, though it falters a little with tears you know are of love and happiness. "Wanting this, wanting you and us again, it's not because of trauma bonding or because you're here and familiar and comforting, though you are. It's because I am so goddamn out of my fucking mind in love with you. And I want to get to tell you that I love you again, get to show you again, and I want to wake up and have the privilege of loving you and on you every day for the rest of my life."
"I've lost over five years with you and I don't need to lose a second more thinking about whether I want you as mine again and whether I'm doing this for the right reasons because the answer is yes. You know how many times I thought about quitting or taking a leave of absence and going to you and begging you to take me back and for us to figure it out? Too many to fucking count. There hasn't been a single day that has gone by since we broke up that I haven't thought about you and haven't wanted you back."
Jack drops his voice a little, a heartfelt if not slightly anxious smile pulling onto his features. "But you have a lot going on too and it would be hard for you to make that decision with clarity. I don’t want you to feel like you have to or like I’m taking advantage of you and how you're feeling and where you're at emotionally. I respect you saying no. I don't want you to think you have to do this for me, have sex or get back together with me, in order for me to help you and protect you because you don't. You absolutely fucking don't. If you want to get back together, like you do with me, I want it to be for the right reasons and not-"
You toss Jack's shirt to the side and shift, climb back onto Jack's lap properly and shut him up with a lingering kiss that turns into several. "I love you too. I always have and I always will. There hasn't been a single day since we broke up that I didn't love you. I can show you the journals. I didn't always say it explicitly but I'm pretty sure it's there in the words," you murmur.
"I want to be yours again. I want you to be mine again. I never didn't want to be yours Jack, and the number of times I almost quit and came back for you is probably concerning," you laugh softly. "I wanted to find you as soon as I got back but I was too controlled by my fear of finding you with someone else or married with kids or whatever. I'm sorry I didn't call you the second I landed, shit, the second I took the job and knew I'd be coming back."
"I haven't said anything or tried to instigate something or anything like that because I didn't want you to feel forced or like any of the other things we talked about. But I've been dying for this, Jackie. For us to be back together." You kiss one of his cheeks. "For me to be yours again and you to be mine." A kiss to his other cheek. "For you." You kiss his lips chastely. "I've been dying for you, Jack."
"You want to be together again?" Jack just has to double check. "You want to be us again?"
"Yeah," you giggle, nodding at him. "To both. Do you?"
Jack laughs, his hands coming up to hold your face. "Yeah, I do."
You and Jack smile at each other for half a second and then your lips are on each other's again, picking up right where you left off. It's a little more hurried this time, each of you loving this but desperate for Jack to be inside of you.
He sits up onto his knees carefully and repositions the two of you so that you're beneath him again, your head comfortably against a pillow as he grinds down into you, his mouth claiming yours until you have to pull away from him a little to catch your breath. Jack uses the time you need to catch your breath to pull your shirt and pajama shorts off so fast you've barely processed your shirt coming off by the time Jack has your legs in front of him and resting against his shoulders as he pulls your shorts off and sets your legs back on either side of him like they were putting you on full display for him.
Jack's eyes run over your body greedily, his chest starting to heave because fucking look at you. "God, fuck!" he groans, palming his cock over his pajama pants as he stares down at you, at all of you. "All five years did was make you get even more beautiful for me. Look at you. Your beautiful face. Your fucking tits and pussy, so perfect just like the rest of you, fuck. I'm so fucking lucky."
"You're one to talk," you breathe out, eyes raking over the half of Jack's body revealed to you just as greedily. "You're so handsome it's almost painful Jack. And the salt and pepper and the white stubble."
"And the crow's feet?" Jack drags his eyes up to yours and smirks at you.
You laugh softly and lick your lips. "You won't believe me but yes. Fucking yes. I find them so hot, you have no fucking idea."
He teasingly rolls his eyes at you and goes to lean back over you to kiss you again and grind into you more but you stop him. "Nu-uh, Sir. Take your pants off."
Jack clenches his jaw, you calling him sir and the needy, desperate look in your eyes making him leak for you. "Anything for you, Sweetheart." He works his pants off and tosses them aside, gives you what you want and pushes up so he's standing on his knees and you can take him in.
Your eyes roam him just as greedily as his did yours, and you can feel yourself get wetter for him. "Fuck, Jack," you moan. "Look at you." Even with your legs spread enough to accommodate his frame you can start to feel your heartbeat in between them.
You lean up on one elbow and reach out with your other arm and take Jack's cock in your hand, stroke him up and down slowly, twisting at his head how you know he loves. He feels good in your hand and it makes you realize how badly you need him in your mouth.
"You, you gotta stop, Sweetheart," Jack groans a laugh. "I'll embarrass myself and come way too fast for you. Being inside of you again is already going to be challenging."
"I don't care," you hum, but let him pull your hand away from his cock. "Just as long as I get to feel you inside of me."
"You're very sweet." Jack leans back over you and goes to kiss you again, his hand wrapping around your wrist and pinning it to the bed. "But I care," he murmurs against your lips.
He moves his hand off your wrists and brings it down between the two of you, shifts so that he's on his side a bit, one arm planted and taking some of his body weight for you as the fingers of his other hand nudge your clit.
"Oh." The word is almost all air as Jack's fingers start playing with your clit, teasingly diving down closer to your pussy every few strokes. "Jack, fuck!"
"So wet for me already," Jack whispers at your ear as he starts to kiss your neck, suck and nip at it in the places he knows are the most sensitive for you. He starts circling one of his fingers around your entrance teasingly, will barely dip inside and smile against your skin when you buck your hips as much as you can to try to get him inside of you. He can feel how hard you clench when his finger starts to dip inside. "Relax for me, Sweetheart."
"Jesus Jack," you laugh through a moan. "How the fuck do you expect me to do that when you're teasing me with your fingers?"
"I believe in you."
You have absolutely no explanation for why that's one of the hottest things Jack's ever said to you but it sure fucking is, sends a bolt of pleasure up your spine and makes you clench even harder for a second. Your eyes flutter closed and you focus on relaxing, focus on staying relaxed when Jack's finger starts to push inside of you, your mind fixating on the praise you hope to earn.
"Mm," Jack hums in approval as he starts to pull his finger out. He starts to finger you properly, crooks his finger and drags it just where he needs to. His lips find yours for something soft, that barely counts as a kiss. "See, I knew you could do it." He gives you a kiss this time, followed by what you were so hoping to hear. "My good girl."
As he says it he slips a second finger inside of you with the first and you jolt for him, eyes flying open at the rush of pleasure his two thick fingers bring you when they work that spongy spot inside of you so insistently before starting to fuck you again. He keeps at it, works you so perfectly and has you teetering so close to the edge before he finally puts his palm flat for you and lets you grind your clit up against it.
"Jack," you pant, stilling your hips so your clit doesn't grind against his palm as hard anymore. "Jackie I'm so close, I'm so… You're so good, make me feel so good."
"I know you are Sweetheart." He kisses along your jaw, starts to suck and lave at one of the most sensitive spots you have just below and slightly behind your ear. "Come for me."
"No." You shake your head and wrap your hand around as much of his wrist as possible to stop his movements. "The first place I'm coming for you after five years is on your cock Jack Abbot."
Jack chokes out a groaned laugh, his cock throbbing against him and smearing precum over his abs at your words. "Jesus fuckin' christ, Sweetheart."
"Jackie," you pout, play into it for him a little. "Please! I need you inside me. Need your cock inside of me."
He shivers at the thought, can't believe he's about to be again and not just in his dreams. "Alright, shh, I've got you." Jack pulls his fingers from you, moans when he sucks them clean and gets his first taste of you in five years.
You can see it in his eyes, know what he's thinking about. "Later," you pant. "You can eat me out later. I need you to fuck me, Jack. No condom unless you want. I'm clean and still on birth control." Both you and Jack are struck by how inadvertently heady your words are, the thought of him fucking you raw and coming inside of you making both of you a little dizzy for a second. "I need you inside of me, need you back where you belong, please."
"I know," he soothes, "I know, I'm gonna give it to you, I promise. Tell me if you need me to stop or slow down, okay?"
You bite your bottom lip and nod and Jack adjusts both of you, slides his cock through you a few times to get himself slick. He notches himself at your entrance so all he has to do is press in steadily and claim you again.
Before he does he slides his arms under your shoulders and takes your face in his hands so gently. He holds your face like that and the two of you hold eye contact as Jack sinks inside of you, the stretch exactly what you remember, almost too much but also almost not enough, intoxicating and addictive, words that also describe how your pussy feels to Jack.
"Fuck Sweetheart," Jack groans, raw and vulnerable almost, so clearly holding nothing back and letting you hear exactly how you make him feel.
"Jack!" you gasp, your breath stolen by so many things, the size of Jack, the way he feels so familiar, how right it feels to have him sliding back inside of you, how good him just being inside of you makes you feel. "JackJackJack."
"Oh god, I missed you," Jack rasps, his chest heaving. He couldn't describe this, how good he feels, how right and perfect everything feels if he tried. "Missed you like this, so fucking much."
Jack's still, rests his forehead against yours as he gives you time to adjust and both of you time to just enjoy this, the feeling of each other, of being one again.
"I love you," he whispers through soft pants. He pulls his forehead from yours and looks down at you. "I never stopped, I could never stop. I never didn't want you." Jack leans down to kiss you and just that little movement of him inside you makes you both keen. "You've always had me and you always will. I'll always be yours. That's all I want in life, to be yours."
"Oh Jack," you whisper. Tears start to leak from the corners of your eyes and Jack's face furrows in concern and confusion. "They're good tears, Baby," you reassure him. You press your lips together hard and click your tongue against the back of your teeth before you speak again. "I just missed you. I missed you so much and I never stopped loving you either, I never didn't want you. I was and will always be yours too, and that's the only thing I'll ever need in life to be happy. You're the only thing I'll ever need. Just you." You lean up a little and capture his lips with yours, kiss him like you're trying to pour five years of missed love into his heart and soul, because you are. "I love you."
Jack's teary when pulls back to look down at you and hold your gaze as he says it back with the sweetest love drunk smile. "I love you."
Jack draws his hips back slowly, groaning low as he thrusts back inside of you at the same speed. He wants to make this last, wishes it could never end, this feeling of being reunited and finally home and how good you feel after over five years.
"I missed this," Jack groans, "I missed you, missed you like this, god I missed you so much." He can't stop going on about it because he did, he missed you more than should be humanly possible, your reunion underscoring the feeling for him.
"I missed you too. Love you so much Jackie," you sigh, the sound so pretty Jack chokes on his breath and has to clench his abs hard to make sure he doesn't lose it and spill into you far too early.
Jack continues to fuck you slowly, but hard, with his whole body, his back hunching with every thrust as he uses it to drive himself into you. With your legs wrapped around him Jack's able to hit deep, makes you feel like he's the only thing to exist in the moment as he steals your ability to think of anything but him.
You slip a hand into his curls while the other wraps under his arm and back over his shoulder, clawing at the muscle to help keep you grounded to something. Jack grunts in pleasure when your hand finds his curls. He loves the way you tug at them, scratch at his scalp before you get so fucked out that all you can do is pull on them.
Jack buries his head in your neck at first, whispers the sweetest little things. And then he starts sucking and kissing at your neck, nipping at it as he makes his way up to your jaw and then over until he's finally kissing your lips again.
You make out for what feels like forever but isn't anywhere near long enough as Jack fucks you, moan and sigh into each other's mouths as you take all the pleasure you can from each other, show the other how much you love them with your bodies. When you break for air Jack pulls one of his hands from your face and slides it between the two of you and starts rubbing your clit perfectly.
"Fuck, Jack, you feel so good, make me feel so good," you start to babble, a little oxygen deprived on top of how fucked out and cock drunk Jack has you.
Jack picks up his pace, but it's nothing too fast, still very much love making as opposed to outright fucking. "Yeah, you feel so good too, pretty girl," Jack pants. "You're so fucking tight, so fucking wet for me."
You tug at Jack's curls hard, claw your fingers into his skin enough for it to give him the perfect little edge of pain that encourages him to pick his pace up just a little more.
"Jack," you breathe his name and he can hear it, can hear how close you are for him, can feel how close you are, how good he's making you feel. "Don't stop, please don't stop. Jackie, please… please, I love you, don't stop."
"Come for me Sweetheart," Jack murmurs, voice raspy from all of his groans. "Make me come." He gives you a lingering kiss and then nuzzles his nose against yours before looking you in the eyes as he pants out another instruction to you, uses the pet name he doesn’t use often to keep it special, the one he knows is simultaneously the one you find hottest when he calls you it in bed and the one that makes you tear up and get all mushy and lovey when he says it outside of bed. "Let me feel you, Baby."
And you do. You absolutely shatter around Jack, soundless with how hard your orgasm crashes into you. All of it, Jack's words and the look in his eyes and his cock and his fingers, is far too much for your system to handle in the best way.
"Jack!" you moan loudly, higher-pitched and needy. "Oh, god, Baby! Fuck- Jack, I love you," you pant, so obviously fucked out of your mind that you're struggling to remember how to catch your breath. "Shit I can't breathe, it's too much, you feel too good, can feel you everywhere."
"Fuck you look so pretty when you come," Jack nearly growls, pulling his hand from between you to give your clit a break, his pace picking up just a little more, fucking you through your orgasm and chasing his own. "Just like I remembered, just like I fucking remembered, could never forget my beautiful girl." The words drip off his tongue, pleasure slurred and nearly pained in ecstasy. "Shit, Sweetheart! I'm gonna come, fuck, fuck, I'm gonna come."
The thought of Jack coming in you brings you back enough to encourage him, to focus on him and how he's feeling and how it feels when he comes in you, your pussy clenching and fluttering around him at the thought. "Please, Jack, I need it. Need you to come, need to feel you come in me."
"Yeah," he pants, "yeah, I will. Claim you again, make you mine… yeah."
Jack comes with the most erotic groan of your name, the sound pure gravel and sex, lined with an adoration that screams how hopelessly in love with you he is and how much he loves that fact. "Oh, oh Sweetheart, fuck," he groans. "Oh I love you, I love you so fucking much, fuck, you feel so good, I missed you."
He fucks himself through it, his entire body trembling with the sheer amount of pleasure rushing through his veins, oxytocin and endorphins and adrenaline and dopamine flooding Jack's system as he slows, mumbling your name and "so good for me, you're so so good for me, thank you Baby, love you so much," over and over until he stills completely, keeps his cock buried inside of you.
"Jack," you whisper, staring up at him with eyes drowning in pleasure, airy smile on your face as the intoxicating afterglow of sex with Jack settles over you. "That was…"
"I know," he whispers back, his blissed out smile taking over his face far too much for him to give you the teasing, self-satisfied smirk he tries to. "I agree."
Jack leans down and kisses you, the two of you making out slowly as your heart rates return to normal, your breaks for air punctuated by kisses to each other's faces. When Jack starts moving his kisses down your neck and keeping them teasingly soft to tickle you, you tug gently on his curls.
"Come here, Handsome," you say softly, knowing he'll understand your request for him to lay on top of you and cuddle.
Jack nods, presses one last kiss against your lips. He looks down at you for a moment, eyes running over your face and then holding your gaze. "You really are my beautiful girl, you know that? You always have been, even thousands of miles apart and not together," he murmurs.
A lump forms in your throat and you can feel the tears start to threaten. You never thought you'd be one of those people lucky enough to be looked at the way Jack is looking at you, and it hits you that, while there is something special and particularly intimate about this moment that adds a bit of an extra edge, Jack is looking at you the way he always looks at you.
What you don't realize is that you look at him the exact same way. Always.
"Jack," you whisper, unable to come up with anything to say other than the only thing that matters to you. Him.
There's so much you want to say to him, so much that you need to say, to make sure he knows just like there's so much he wants and needs to say to you, to make sure you know. But it's not the time, both of you know that. So you settle on the words that say everything all at once but will still never be enough to truly express how you feel about him. "I love you."
He smiles at you, teasing and a little smirked, too handsome for his own good, and so genuinely and purely happy that you think time stops for you. "Yeah," he breathes out, lowers himself on top of you and buries his face in your neck, nuzzling his nose against you. "I know." You bite your lip and giggle quietly, barely let the sound out of your chest and Jack hums a laugh with you, moves his face and kisses just below your ear, sweet and tender and lingering. "I love you too."
The next two weeks go by surprisingly fast.
You're pretty sure the first of the two weeks went by so fast because your stalker seemed to keep intensifying and get more threatening without doing anything that would be enough for the police to get truly involved, and so you were just so scared that time was blurry. He continued to blow up your phone and you continued to do your best to ignore it. You know you saw him on campus each day, but still never got a picture. It was like he wanted you to see him and know he was there and watching you, waiting patiently for what exactly you weren't sure and weren't going to think about too hard.
You found little gifts outside your office door that first Tuesday and Friday. At first you thought the one on Tuesday was from Jack, a cute little plush of your favorite animal, a sweet note that it's there to keep you company until you're back together again. When you called Jack to thank him and he had told you that it wasn't him, that he didn't get you anything, and you realized it was your stalker you actually had to hang up on Jack and were sick into your trash can at work. Jack had called you back in a panic of course, but you reassured him you were fine and went about your day as much as you could with how distracted you were. When you saw the box on Friday you immediately texted Jack and when he said it wasn't him again you didn't even open it, just threw it away.
That Saturday you'd gone with a couple of Jack's friends to your old place and finished packing everything and getting it all out. Luckily you'd rented a furnished place since you were moving back from another country, so you didn't have a ton to move, mostly just personal stuff. It was a whole fucking ruse to get everything to Jack's while making sure you weren't tailed, but you all seemed to have pulled it off together.
You're pretty sure the second week, this past week, goes by quickly because it's so… quiet. You don't hear anything from your stalker that Sunday. You think it's strange and the silence is almost more disconcerting than anything but you try to rationalize that, as awful as it is, the guy probably found someone else, and so you try to be cautiously optimistic. Jack is less so. He doesn't like the sudden complete disappearance.
Because that's what happens. It stays silent. Your stalker disappears. You don't hear from him the rest of the week, don't find any presents outside your office, don't see him on campus or feel like you're being watched. He's just gone.
You'd been terrified when you went into work yesterday morning. Despite your attempt at being cautiously optimistic you couldn't help the pit that had formed in your stomach and told you something was wrong and was going to happen. You were sure you were going to walk to your office Monday morning and find something, that your phone would start to go off again with even worse and more threatening messages. But there was nothing waiting for you anywhere and nothing happened. It was a normal Monday.
And Tuesday starts normally.
Jack sits on the bed next to you and leans down, kisses your face and lips until you wake up for him. He has to leave to get to work on time far earlier than you have to leave for work, especially today. "Hi Sleepy," he greets you with another kiss.
"Hi," you hum against his lips. "You off?"
"Unfortunately," he sighs. He hates leaving you, even now that things have calmed down. The silence feels wrong. It feels like your stalker is trying to lure you into a false sense of safety.
"It'll be okay." You reach up and run your hair through his curls. "Just another day still sticking to the plan. I'll make sure I'm not alone and I'll come to the Pitt right after my last class, okay?"
"Okay," Jack nods slowly, biting his lip. His face furrows, lips pull down in a frown. "I'm not trying to be controlling, you know? It’s the thought of something happening to you, I, I-"
"Hey," you interrupt him gently, give him what you hope is a reassuring smile. "I don't think you are or are trying to be controlling, I promise. I know it's just that you love me."
"Good," he nods again, looking so serious for a few seconds before he lets out a long breath and manages to give you a small smile. "Good. Because I do and that's what this is, it's just me loving you and needing you and to keep you safe. I love you so much. I love you more than you'll ever know."
"I love you that much too, Jackie." You lean up on your elbows so you can kiss him. "I love you as much as you love me. And a little extra because I love you more."
Jack laughs softly against your lips. "In your dreams, Sweetheart."
You smirk against his lips, press a light kiss to them. "In my reality, Sir."
Jack pulls back and shakes his head at you, chuckling as you giggle for him. "Just text me yeah?" He raises his eyebrows at you a touch. "So I know you're okay. I might not be able to respond much depending on how things get there, but I like knowing."
"Of course," you nod. "And I'll call once I'm in an uber on my way to the Pitt. If I don't get you I'll call the desk."
"Thank you." Jack leans back down and wraps his arms under you in a hug and kisses you. And kisses you and kisses you and kisses you until he knows he has to pull away and finds the strength to do so. "I love you, Sweetheart. I love you so much."
"I love you so much too, Jackie." You steal one last kiss from him before letting him go.
Jack walks over to the bedroom door and looks back at you, heart aching beautifully at the sight of you already looking at him, curled up on his side of the bed with your head on his pillow. He smiles at you. "Bye. I love you."
You give him a beaming smile back, happy you were able to make him smile one last time before he really had to go. "Bye. I love you."
When you get to school you head to your office to get your stuff for your first class, check your email. There's nothing waiting for you outside the door and you feel some tension melt away. And when you get back to your office from your first class there's still nothing waiting, your phone still silent other than wanted texts from Jack. You lock your office door and spend the next few hours working until it's time for your second class, and then you go straight from your second class to your third when a couple of students stay after class with you and chat with you in the busy hallway.
After your third class you're relieved when you walk up to your office door and don't see any packages waiting outside for you. Another day without anything happening at school. You unlock the door and walk in, set the bag you use for all of the class shit you have to haul around with you in its spot and then go to grab your purse.
But that's when you see it. Another present, placed right on the center of your desk.
It's an oversized ring box that's intricately wrapped with what would in any other situation be a very beautiful bow. This present hits harder than all the rest for two reasons. One, it was quiet. You had over a week of silence. He was gone. He was supposed to be gone, your life was supposed to be able to go back to normal. And two, it was in your office. Your locked office. He had to break in to plant it. Sure it's not some biometric ultra secure lock situation, but still. He broke in. During the day. That's an escalation.
You scream at yourself not to open it, to do what you did with the last one you got and just throw it away. But there's just some nagging feeling you have that tells you that you should open it.
So, with shaky hands, you do.
You sit in your chair and then tear the paper off unceremoniously and throw it away before opening the box. What you find is so fucking cliché that in any other circumstance you'd laugh or roll your eyes at it. But right now, knowing it's from your stalker who has a gun it's anything but. It's a threat all on its own.
Where there would normally be a ring there's a bullet with your name literally engraved on it.
You stare at it for a solid minute before you're able to remember how to move your eyes and look at something else. A neatly rolled scroll of paper wrapped in dainty twine is wedged into the top of the box. At this point you don't want to look at it. You don't want to know.
But you have to know.
You pull the note out and get the twine off, unfurl it and start reading.
Make sure you have this with you when I get you from school. And don't worry, my love, as long as you finally behave and cooperate I won't use it anywhere fatal, just somewhere it'll hurt enough to teach you a lesson.
Your blood pressure skyrockets so fast so quickly that you think you lose vision for a moment, are able to feel your heart pounding in your eyes. You take in a gasping breath, hadn't realized you’d been holding it since you started to read the note.
You're frozen as your brain tries to process the last four minutes. Tears hit your eyes but they're not even for yourself. They're for Jack, for what you know this is going to do to him. You can already hear him talking again about getting out of the city while he hires a private investigator to prove it's the guy.
There's a knock on your door and you leap out of your seat and turn around, think all of this might not matter in the end because you're going to have a fucking heart attack and die right here on your office fucking floor. Your hand flies to your chest and you take in gasping breaths when you see it's just one of the campus police officers.
The officer looks horrified at the reaction he caused. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to scare you Miss."
"No," you shake your head at him, take a second for a couple of deep breaths before grabbing the box and closing it. You shove it in your purse and grab your phone. "No, it's me, I'm jumpy." You force a laugh. "I'll call the uber while we walk if you're okay waiting with me there?"
"Of course," he nods.
"Thanks," you give him a small smile that doesn't meet your eyes and walk out your door with him, lock it behind you and wonder why you're bothering when it's apparently so easy to pick.
Normally you chat with whoever's walking with you but not today. You can't. Your brain is way too consumed by what you just found. Ordering the uber as you walk is hard enough, but you manage to do it.
You're so in your head as you order it and walk that you don't hear the officer telling you to hold up, he has to go check on the kid that just crashed his god damn e-scooter and call for someone else to come.
So you don't stop walking.
You don't follow the officer over to where the injured kid is and hover close enough to be safe. You just keep walking by yourself to the area of campus always deserted at this hour because classes in these buildings finish much earlier, the usual desertion amplified by the threatening thunderstorm such that the area is nearly empty, only a few students in headphones with their heads down trudging along. You just keep walking until you're by yourself.
Alone.
You only notice when you go to look up at the officer and tell him it should only be three minutes. Your head turns sharply to the other side when you don't see him next to you, but he's not on the other side of you either. You turn all the way around hoping he's right behind you and you were just walking faster than normal. But no. He's not here. You're all alone.
You're all alone and you already know it's going to happen. It doesn't matter how you came to be alone, just that you are. Your stalker will capitalize on this moment of vulnerability, on your fucking mistake. How could you have let this happen?
It doesn't even occur to you at first that you're just standing out in the open and not at least continuing to move and get to where your uber is supposed to pick you up and where there will hopefully be more people. Your heart races again, just as fast as when the officer startled you but now it's sustained, it's tiring, mentally and physically.
And you're scared. You're fucking terrified.
It's the movement in the corner of your eye that makes you realize you have to start walking again. You turn your head in the direction to see if it's the officer, but it's not. You catch another glimpse of him before he's hidden by pillars supporting the building and you know it's him. You know.
Fight or flight finally kicks enough for you to take off at essentially a run. When you hear footsteps pounding behind you instinct tells you it's time to hide, that you're never going to outrun him.
You duck into the next building you pass, mercifully spot a single stall bathroom and run into it and lock the door. As you walk backwards until you hit the opposite wall and slide down it so you're sitting on the floor you clamp your hand over your mouth to try and quiet yourself so that maybe he won't know where you went to hide. You know that's unlikely because it's so fucking obvious, especially because you're sure the classrooms are all locked by now, but it's worth a try.
Time ticks by, your sense of it skewed, you're sure. But nothing happens. You don't hear a door to the building open or footsteps outside of the bathroom. Could you seriously have made all of that up? Seeing him? Being chased?
Tears sting at the back of your eyes now that you're not in quite the state of extreme panic you were when you were running. You start to stand to splash some cold water on your face when someone tries to open the door, pressing down on the handle and jiggling it, pushing the door against the frame and lock and clearly leaning their body weight into it.
Your stomach drops again as a jolt of panic and terror and fear rocking your system so hard everything goes blurry for a few seconds. You cover your mouth with your hand again and bring your knees in front of your chest like it's going to do anything to protect you.
Then it stops just as abruptly as it started.
You have no idea if the person walked away, couldn't possibly hear footsteps over the beat of your heart and how hard you're breathing. You're sure it's not over, tell yourself to be prepared for him to come back.
It's useless. You jolt just as hard again when they start playing with the door handle again, jiggling it and pushing against it like they had been. But then the noise changes and it dawns on you. It sounds almost like they're trying to remove the handle so they can get it.
"Yo!" The noise stops. "Wrong bathroom. We're here for the one on the second floor."
"Oh," a male voice from right outside the door calls back to the other one. "Makes sense. I wondered why this one was locked." When you hold your breath you can hear footsteps receding in the direction you know the stairs are.
The relief that floods over you is euphoric in its own way. You've never known anything like it.
Slowly you move your hand from your mouth and let yourself take in the big, panting breaths that you need to recover. Somehow your mind is still, almost feels empty and like pure fuzz as you get your breathing back to normal.
When the ability to think starts to come back you try to figure out what the fuck just happened. Maybe it wasn't footsteps pounding behind you, just the beat of your heart, or your footsteps echoing, or your mind imagining things. It doesn't matter, you chastise yourself, that's really not the thing to be focusing on right now.
You take a second to try and calm yourself down, sort a few things out in your head now that you're at least in a locked room. You can't leave. He could be counting on that and waiting right outside for you. Someone is going to have to come get you and it's going to have to be one of the officers you know, so that you know their voice and that it's really a campus police officer before you open the door. That sounds so fucking paranoid and you have to let out a pained laugh as you sit on the bathroom floor because this is your fucking reality.
Your hands, like the rest of your body, are shaking so badly that you fumble with your phone. But you're able to get it unlocked and your contacts unlocked and instead of calling campus police first like he'd absolutely fucking want you to, you call Jack.
"Jack?" you ask the second the ringing stops mid-ring and he picks up. "Jack, I'm so sorry but-"
"Guess again, Sweetheart."
And just like that three words bring your entire world crashing down around you.
Ice runs through your veins, your entire body going nearly numb in seconds as the unmistakable voice of your stalker comes through crystal fucking clear. As the unmistakable voice of your voice comes through Jack's fucking phone.
Which means…
"No," you whisper, barely audible, heart racing in a completely different way now. "No."
"Mm," your stalker hums, a laugh to it that almost makes you sick. "Yes. He's right here with me. You're on speaker."
You thought you knew what fear and terror were, thought you had experienced true fear and true terror, though you had felt both. Fuck, you thought you just did when the officer scared you and when you realized you were alone.
But in this moment you realize you had absolutely no fucking clue what true fear and true terror felt like and had never experienced them before. Because you're feeling both now and it's unlike anything you've ever felt before, suffocating and almost blinding in intensity.
This wasn't supposed to happen. He wasn't supposed to know about Jack, he never said anything about Jack. Jack was never supposed to be in danger. It wasn't something you'd even really considered because you thought he didn't know about Jack, were sure that if he did he would've texted something about Jack.
"No. No! No, please, please, don't hurt him, don't hurt him! Please don't fucking hurt him," you beg, breathless and trying so hard to come up with things to say or offer or do while your brain just uselessly sits there, too overwhelmed to do much of anything. "What do you want? Tell me what you want and you can have it if you'll let him go and don't hurt him." The tears finally hit and you stifle a sob. "Anything. Just please don't hurt him."
"You, my love. I want you." He says it like it's so simple. Like it's a choice you're going to make, him over Jack. And then you're leveled. "In the interest of honesty, and a bit to shut you up, you should know that it's a little too late for you to beg me not to hurt him."
"What did you do?" You've never heard yourself sound this way before, sobs and terror and fear transformed in a quarter of a second into sheer rage, quiet and calculated, the question snarled as you think about what you'll do to him if he hurt Jack and you get your hands on him, consequences to yourself fatal or not be damned. But then just like that another quarter of a second passes and your voice and brain and emotions are right back where they were. "Is he alive?" you whisper just loud enough to know your stalker will hear you.
"Yes, he's alive and… Well, he's alive. Here." Seconds that feel like an eternity pass and you feel your phone buzz as your stalker starts to speak again. "Check your texts quickly. I sent you photos to update you on his condition and prove he's alive."
You close your eyes and swallow hard. Selfishly, you don't want to look. You don't want to see what you caused to happen to Jack. But you have to. You owe Jack it if nothing else and he's the love of your life, you have to know how badly he's hurt, have to know just how alive he is, if he's alive but really closer to death than life.
You pull your phone from your ear and pull up your messages, click on Jack, the only person you have pinned. And while you know that you're not prepared for what you're going to see there's some part of your brain that tries to tell you that you are because that would mean it wasn't that bad.
But there is nothing that could've ever prepared you for what you see.
Jack is bound to a chair, forearms zip-tied to the armrests with his hands splayed out at the wider endings, upper calves just below his knees zip-tied to the front legs of the chair. He's naked except for his boxer briefs, his prosthetic removed and mouth covered in duct tape. Seeing him bound and gagged like that is bad enough but that's the easiest part of it all to look at if you had to pick an easiest part.
You torture yourself and flick through the photos. Once you save Jack you won’t survive this. You’ll never be able to live with yourself for causing him to be beaten like this, tortured like this.
Jack's right hand is definitely broken, swollen and bruised, and his right wrist isn't at quite the correct angle for the position it's in telling you it must be dislocated. He’s covered from head to toe in bruises, cuts and abrasions that you're not sure if they were made by a knife or some other weapon deliberately or if what he was hit with just happened to break skin. His left knee is disturbingly bruised and swollen and it spreads both up into his thigh and down into his calf and you know there's likely multiple fractures and torn ligaments.
Jack is littered in bruises and burn marks from what you're guessing is a cattle prod, and the longer you look the more you realize his one collarbone is swollen, the same shoulder being held a little too high leaving you assuming it's dislocated too. And he is bloody everywhere from the cuts to his skin and what’s dripped down from his face and head.
Because his face hasn't made out any better than the rest of him, one eye swollen and black, his nose clearly broken with how swollen it is, fresh blood still dripping from it down over the duct tape covering his mouth and onto his chest. Another bruise is blooming along his swollen jaw on one side, and he has to have a deep laceration somewhere on his scalp because while you know scalp wounds bleed a lot, this seems excessive even for that, his curls matted and one half of his face and neck and chest covered in blood that obviously originated at his scalp.
All of Jack's bruises are concerning and nauseating and dizzying, but for you the worst are the ones that are deep blue and purple, almost black in some areas. Because those ones, they cover the sides of Jack's chest at his ribs and are present on way too much of his abdomen and chest. You know most, if not all of his ribs have to be broken. And it's impossible to know if his bruising is truly from his skin or if it's reflective of internal bleeding deeper in his chest and abdomen. It’s impossible to know if it's reflective of Jack slowly bleeding out internally.
Words and diagnoses and brief descriptions of them that you haven't really thought about in five years suddenly pop up from memory just to terrorize you more. Hemothorax and pneumothorax and flail chest and punctured lungs and ruptured spleen and shattered kidney and lacerated liver and myocardial contusion and valvular disruption and hemopericardium and hypovolemic shock.
It's all too awful and horrific to even begin to describe, but the worst part is how exhausted Jack looks, how you can tell he's struggling to keep his head up because it's so much work for his body as it deals with the assault and his injuries, with the pain and the blood loss and the way he's not getting enough air because his mouth is covered with duct tape and his broken, swollen nose has narrowed his sinuses so it's hard to move air, a problem only compounded by his certainly damaged lungs.
The sob that rips from your chest is tortured, reflects the emotional and psychological fucking agony you find yourself in. It's a pain like nothing you've ever known.
"Oh!" You think it's screamed but it's strangled and choked out at best, barely audible because all the air has truly been knocked from your lungs and the little that's left struggles to find its way out. "Oh, Jack," you whimper. "Oh Jack, no, no." You put the phone back to your ear hoping he'll be able to hear you, that he's conscious enough to hear you say words that will never come anywhere close to enough. "I'm so sorry," you sob, barely comprehensible. "I'm so sorry, Jackie, I'm so sorry," you choke out. "Jack, oh my god, no. No, this can't be happening, this can't be happening."
"And yet it is Sweetheart." You can hear the smirk in your stalker's voice.
"Please," you whimper, "please don't, don't, don't hu-hurt him anymore! I'll do anything, anything, please."
"I take it you found my present?" You make some strangled sound of affirmation that's good enough for him. "Good. Why don't you tell Jack about it?"
"It," you're overcome by a huge wracking breath that you try to rush through so he doesn't get mad at you. "It, it was a, a," another uncontrollable wracked breath, "a bullet, and my, it," and another, "it has my name engraved on it."
Your stalker must be closer to Jack because even over the sound of your sobs and breathing you can hear a muffled reaction from Jack like he's yelling and straining against the zip-ties.
"The message is a little moot now, but I thought you should read it anyway since that last part is still so true. Read it out for Jack, hm?" he hums. There's a groan of pain from Jack and you know your stalker is likely pressing on one of his injuries or inflicting another one.
As you pull the box from your bag to get the message you force yourself to get control of your breathing, the shot of additional adrenaline that hearing Jack in pain and being desperate to avoid hearing again gives you helping you keep it together long enough to get the message out.
"Make sure you have this with you when I get you from school. And don't worry, my love, as long as you finally behave and cooperate I won't use it anywhere fatal, just somewhere it'll hurt enough to teach you a lesson."
"Very good," he hums at you. "Tell me, do you know what kind of bullet it is, my darling?"
"No," you whisper.
"We can't have that, Jack in particular must know! It's a nice 9mm JHP. These ones are specially made for me, designed for maximum damage. They're in the gun now," he laughs darkly, and you try to tell yourself it’s not what you think, but you hear the unmistakable sound of a gun cocking. "What do you think about that?"
There’s a vague ripping sound and then a voice that's barely recognizable as Jack's.
"I'll fucking kill you," Jack takes a wheezy and labored and clearly pained breath in, "if you even try," another breath in that sounds so painful it's hard to listen to, "to touch her."
"Is that so?" your stalker chuckles. "Look at you, Jack. You’re too weak to do anything right now. And she's going to hand deliver herself to me. So I think I will touch her, wherever and however I want. Maybe even in front of you." You can hear Jack say something in the background but can't make out any words because your stalker just talks louder. "I'm texting you our address to come to. Your life for the life of your dear Jackie."
"Okay!" you cry at the same time Jack's voice is clear in the background yelling as best he can, "Do not!"
"I'll be there." You sniffle, try to wipe your face off and pull it together because you have to do this. You have to do this for Jack. "I'll come, I promise, just give me time! Please don't hurt him, please don't hurt him anymore, I'll come, I promise."
"Do not!" Jack yells. "Do not come here!" His breath in is gasping and it somehow kills you even more inside. "You do not fucking come here!"
"As much as I'd like to kill him, I promise that I'll let him go if you come. At least I'll know he has to live knowing you're with me. That you chose me over him." You can just hear the smirk in your stalker's voice again.
"Okay," you whisper.
"Do not," Jack is so clearly forcing and straining out as many words as he can in one breath, his cadence punctuated by them. You'll never forget it. "Do fucking not!… Don't! Don't come here!… Don't do this, I don't… I don't want you to do this… I don't want you to trade your life for mine."
Your stalker scoffs. "He really is so dramatic isn't he?"
"Please," Jack has dropped his voice, his tone pleading and desperate and sad. "I love you… so much and I need you… to please do this… one last thing for me… and don't… don't come here, please Baby." As Jack gets the words out through labored breaths you realize what he's doing.
He's saying goodbye.
Jack asking you, pleading with you to do this one last thing for him and using that name while doing so absolutely fucking decimates you.
There is nothing left of the you that existed thirty minutes ago.
"I have to Jack, I'm sorry." You sniffle hard, tears pouring down your face again as your sobs return. "I have to. I can't let you die for me. I couldn't live with myself knowing I got you killed. Getting you beaten and, and tortured," you choke out the word, "is bad enough. I have to Jack, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry and I love you so much."
"There's an awful lot of talking going on and not very much getting in a car and getting to where I fucking told you to come going on," your stalker snarls, a much louder groan coming from Jack this time.
"Okay! Okay! I'm going, I promise! Please don't hurt him, I'm sorry!" You scramble to try and get up and on your feet.
As you try and fail to stand with how dizzy you get, you hear his voice again. "What? Wait- How did you get out-"
The next three things you hear are far too loud and clear for the circumstances, and knock the wind completely out of you, make your heart stop, and tear a scream from your chest in that order.
A scuffle, a gunshot, and a body hitting the floor.
Reader can't be the only one who's ever in mortal danger, right?
I really don't have much to say for myself. 😶
I have plans for a Part 2 obviously lol, as long as it's wanted. I'm not sure if we're over me and my cliffhangers and same species of angst. 😭 I just really love it, I find it so fun to write. 🫠 Thank you so much for taking the time to read, I know it was long!! I really do love hearing your thoughts and comments and reactions, they often make my day and week! ♥️ Thank you again for all of your support!! ♥️
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jack abbot x f!reader
Word Count: 12.2K (grab a lil’ snack)
Rating: E
Summary: You and Jack make up at his brother’s wedding.
Warnings: SMUT (18+MDNI), PT reader, y’all married and have kids, mentions of infidelity (not between reader and jack), medical trauma (essentially mentions of the loss of his leg), language, alcohol, smidge jealousy and possessiveness, horniness, makeup sex (slutty wedding sex), pet names, dirty talk, praise, unprotected p in v sex, spanking, clingy jack, domesticity up the wa-zoo, oral sex (f – receiving), married banter and flirting, reader has hair (no description of hair texture), i think that’s it, jack’s perfect (as per usual)
A/N: Can't believe we have 1 episode before the season finale, looking forward to seeing my man on the screen one more time. GIF found here. Thank you to all the awesome GIF makers, such as @timothyolyphant. dividers by @saradika-graphics.
2016 - Vermont, Lake Morey Resort
"You had lunch with who?" Robby practically shouted into the phone.
"You heard me," Jack muttered, rolling his eyes as he adjusted his bowtie in the gentlemen’s locker room. He was trying to sneak in a quick call before he had to step out and be the best man he was supposed to be. Tom and Elena were getting married about 25 minutes from Hanover, where his parents lived in New Hampshire, at a resort with classic lake-wedding energy. The resort sat right on the edge of a 600‑acre lake, surrounded by mountains and tall pines, with a horizon that looked almost painted with layers of blue and green.
Robby didn’t calm down. "Jack, come on. Amy? Seriously? After what she did to you?"
If there was anyone on earth who couldn’t stand Amy, it was Robby. Even when Jack and Amy were still together, Robby had never liked her. And when she broke up with Jack, when she walked away right when he needed someone the most, Robby’s dislike hardened into something closer to hatred.
Jack could still remember the look on Robby’s face the first time he saw him right after the injury—back when Jack returned to Boston, still trying to figure out how to exist in a body that didn’t feel like his. Robby had flown out on one of his only free weekends. Robby had known Jack before the deployment, before the blast, before the prosthetic. They’d met years earlier, when Jack was in his last year of medical school, and Robby was already an R3: older, more experienced, the kind of resident everyone respected and feared in equal measure. Jack had been assigned to a rotation with Robby, and somehow, between the long nights, the impossible cases, and the shared dark humor that only medicine could produce, they’d become friends. Best friends. The kind who stuck even though they didn’t live in the same city after Jack moved to Boston for his residency.
"Why are you shocked your girl is pissed off at you?" Robby snapped. "I could fucking kill you right now."
"W-what?" Jack stuttered.
"You heard me," Robby said, not letting up. "You have this gorgeous wife who is genuinely the nicest person I’ve ever fucking met, hilarious, grounded, and she gave you these awesome kids. Even if you randomly bumped into Amy, I don’t get it. I don’t get why you’d even entertain it."
"I wasn’t fucking entertaining anything," Jack growled. If it wasn’t obvious… Robby adored you. The first time you met, the two of you clicked instantly and became fast friends. Robby barreled on. "And let me remind you…she moved to Pittsburgh for you. For your job. You got that attending position at PTMC because I pitched you, and she uprooted her life. She had to find a new clinic, new coworkers, new patients, and new friends. She had to adjust everything. For you."
It had only been a few months since the move. Everything still felt new with the new house, new routines, new city. And through all of it, you’d been nothing but supportive. You never complained, not once. You kept telling him it was the right move, that it was good for your family, that you were excited about this career opportunity for him. But Jack knew, deep down, that moving farther from your own immediate family had been harder than you let on.
He knew all of that. He’d been thinking about it nonstop since you agreed to move. How lucky he was to have such a supportive partner like you. But the way Robby was talking…like Jack had done something malicious on purpose made something in him snap.
"Brother. You’re acting like I went looking for Amy. You know me better than that. You’re acting like I planned this. It was just as surprising for me to bump into her as it would’ve been for anyone else!"
"I’m not saying you planned it!"
"Then stop acting like I fucking did!"
"I’m not," Robby insisted. "But, I’m your best friend, and I’m just telling you how it looks. That’s it."
Jack blew out a breath, staring at his reflection (his bowtie still crooked), expression worse. "It wasn’t a big deal," he tried, but even he didn’t sound convinced.
"How would you feel if your wife had lunch with her ex?"
He would hate it. He didn’t even have to think about it. He hated your fucking ex.
His mind drifted back to the night you finally shared the full story with him. It was a few months into your relationship when things began to feel real, and you sat him down to explain everything. Jack had known the high-level basics…that your previous relationship had ended because your ex had been a jerk…but he hadn’t realized just how bad it truly was.
You had told him how you’d met this man towards the end of DPT school, how he’d seemed charming and normal. You’d bumped into him at a coffee shop, exchanged numbers, and soon started dating. Six months in, you were all in, thinking he was the kind of person you could see building a future with.
And then, out of nowhere, his wife showed up. You had no idea the asshole he was married.
She didn’t yell or cause a scene; instead, she quietly cornered you, calm and composed, with a kind of certainty that made your stomach drop before she even spoke. In that moment, it became clear that she already knew about you. Somehow, she had figured it all out, following the clues and coming straight to you with the truth he never had the decency to give. Jack remembered the way your voice shook when you told him, and how you tried to laugh it off like it was ancient history, even though he could still see the hurt lurking beneath your words. Since then, you’d only engaged in casual relationships…nothing really serious, and nothing that required trust. Jack was the first person you’d allowed yourself to open up to again.
He also knew how he’d feel if you ever had lunch with that fucking piece of shit. The thought alone made his face color at the possibilities, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that some unspoken jealousy was already taking hold. Fuck, why had he been so slow to put himself in your shoes?
Robby’s voice cut back in. "Yeah," he said, hearing Jack’s silence. "That’s what I thought."
"I really messed up, huh?"
"Yeah, man. You did. But it’s not unfixable."
"Fuck."
"I know you didn’t mean to fuck up. But intent doesn’t erase impact. And you’re at a wedding, for fucks’s sake. It’s literally the easiest place on earth to do something romantic and make up. Make it count." Jack nodded, even though Robby couldn’t see it. "And you still haven’t answered the question."
"What question?"
"Why you went to lunch with Amy?" Robby asked. "You told me it wasn’t planned. Fine. But you haven’t told me why you said yes."
Jack’s stared at his reflection for a brief moment, and then he finally answered.
Robby was silent for a moment, taking in what Jack had finally told him. When he spoke again, his voice had lost all of its edge. "Okay," he said slowly. "Yeah. That… actually makes sense. That’s a completely legitimate and valid reason. I guess I won’t kill you."
Jack let out a long breath, relief and dread mixing in equal measure. He glanced down at his watch. Shit. He was supposed to be downstairs five minutes ago. As if on cue, he heard his brother calling his name from the hallway outside the locker room.
"I gotta go," he said into the phone, already straightening his jacket.
"Yeah, yeah," Robby said. "Tell Tom congrats again for me."
"I will," Jack said, hand already on the door.
"And Jack?" Robby added.
“Yeah?”
"Make sure you tell your wife the truth."
Jack’s leg wouldn’t stop bouncing under the table. It wasn’t subtle either…his knee was going like a jackhammer, the kind of nervous tic he only got when he was seconds away from doing something he absolutely hated. You tried not to stare at him, but the movement was impossible to ignore. So, you glanced down at your phone instead, letting the screen give you something else to focus on.
A new photo from your sister lit up the display. She was in Spain…clearly drunk, clearly 22 (oh to be fucking young again), and clearly having the time of her life. She had a plastic cup of sangria, a hostel bunk bed behind her, and that wild, carefree smile she’d perfected the moment she graduated college. She and her friends were backpacking across Europe all summer before she came back in the fall to start medical school at Duke, and no longer have a life. When she’d told everyone last year, she was taking the MCATs, Jack had been the loudest supporter. Your father and stepmother weren’t exactly thrilled about her moving so far away from New York, but they couldn’t have been more proud of what she’d achieved.
You snapped your phone shut and looked back up, noticing that Jack’s knee was still bouncing with nervous energy. The maid of honor was wrapping up her speech at the front of the reception hall, her voice warm and emotional as she thanked Elena for twenty years of friendship. But Jack probably wasn’t hearing any of it. He kept glancing at the folded notecard in front of him like it might bite him. His fingers tapped against it, then stopped, then tapped again. He had a faint scowl on his face.
You knew that look.
Jack hated public speaking. Always had. It didn’t matter that he’d been through deployments, surgeries, his own fucking trauma, or that he could handle a crisis without any panic. Put him in front of a microphone with a hundred people staring at him, and he unraveled. And right now, he was unraveling, because he was about to go next. You watched his leg shake harder as the maid of honor lifted her glass for the final toast. He swallowed, straightened his bowtie (still crooked), and his eyes flickered back and forth between yours, before he looked abruptly away.
Seeing him so bent out of shape, and so anxious he couldn’t sit still, pulled at something in you that you couldn’t shut off. Because no matter how angry you were, you loved him. And you hated seeing him suffer, even in the smallest of ways. You gently rested your hand on his knee, and leaned in just enough that your voice reached him over the applause starting to rise around the room. His leg stopped bouncing instantly.
"You’re going to crush it," you said softly, caressing his face. He leaned into your touch, allowing himself to soak in your reassurance, but Jack’s head also snapped toward you like he wasn’t sure he’d heard right. His eyes widened because the two of you had barely spoken since the ceremony and family pictures. You’d only really seen each other for the first time today when he walked down the aisle with the maid of honor, and even then, it was a fleeting moment. You’d been too focused on snapping pictures on your cell of your daughter tossing petals with chaotic enthusiasm, and your son, marching down the aisle as the ring bearer in his tiny bowtie, taking his job way too seriously. Jack had caught your eye then, just for a second, and you’d smiled at the kids. Not at him. Even though he looked insanely hot in that fucking suit. You were still so physically affected by him after all these years.
Damn him.
"You’ve done harder things than this," you said, as if reading his thoughts. "Just look at Tom and Elena. You’re just talking to them."
He nodded, taking a deep breath. "Yeah, you’re right," he replied, the hint of a smile dancing at the corners of his mouth. "Thank you." his gaze was serious, and it stirred a warmth in you that spread from your fingertips to your heart.
"Just doing my job," you teased lightly, withdrawing your hand but not before giving his knee another reassuring squeeze. The DJ tapped the mic, announcing it was time for the best man’s speech.
With that, you pulled back, allowing him a moment to collect himself. Jack stood when his name was called, smoothing his jacket with a shaky exhale. You watched him walk toward the mic, and he tapped the mic once, winced at the feedback, then cleared his throat.
"Alright," he began, "I’m Jack Abbot. For those who don’t know me. I’m Tom’s older brother. I’ve had a front‑row seat to his entire life, and I can honestly say this is the happiest I’ve ever seen him." A soft wave of 'awwws' rippled through the room, people smiling at Tom and Elena. "Which is great, because I was running out of excuses for why he was still single before he met Elena."
The room laughed, and you felt some of the tension in his shoulders melt. He found his footing quickly, slipping into that perfect balance of teasing and heartfelt. You didn’t hear every word since your attention drifted between watching him and watching the crowd react, but you caught flashes:
"…Tom texts like our dad. Random capital letters, no punctuation, and he signs his name at the end. We know it’s you, man."
"…I’ve seen this guy cry exactly three times in my entire life: when he realized his favorite pizza place was closing down, when the Patriots lost the Super Bowl in 2012 to the New York Giants, and today when Elena said 'I do'."
"…Elena, on behalf of our entire family, thank you. You’ve done what decades of parenting, coaching, and bribery could not."
People were wiping tears from their eyes—some from laughing, some from the sweetness. Jack was killing it. Better than any of the practice runs you’d heard over the last few weeks. He was loose, charming, and confident. And then he reached the end of his speech. You recognized the setup because this was where he was supposed to say the line he’d practiced with you a dozen times. The one about 'marriage being a partnership' or whatever.
Instead, he paused, looked down at his notecard, and then set it aside.
"I guess this is the part of the speech where I’m supposed to impart wisdom or something about marriage," he said, earning another ripple of laughter. Then his voice softened, and he said something you didn’t recognize at all…something new, something he hadn’t rehearsed with you. As he looked at Tom and Elena, his eyes briefly flicked over to you, and you felt it deep in your chest.
"Marriage isn’t about being perfect," Jack said. "It’s about choosing each other. It’s about knowing when to put your ego down. When to admit you screwed up. When to say you’re sorry, and actually mean it." A few people murmured in agreement, nodding. "Sometimes you realize you didn’t handle a moment as well as you could’ve. Little choices you wish you’d thought through better. My advice is to notice that, learn from it, and show up better next time." Jack swallowed, eyes flicking to you again. "It’s about choosing your relationship over being right. Choosing the person you love over your own pride."
He let the words settle just long enough for you to feel their weight, then drew in a quiet breath and turned back toward Tom and Elena. Jack lifted his glass, "To Tom and Elena…may you keep choosing each other, even on the days it takes a little extra effort. Congratulations, you two."
The room erupted in cheers and clinking glasses.
But Jack’s eyes found yours one last time, soft and unmistakably apologetic, before he finally took a sip.
Your mother-in-law was surprisingly kind of hammered, but not sloppy or messy. She was just delightfully, unapologetically happy, practically making out with your father-in-law on the dance floor. It was honestly quite sweet to see two people their age still very much into each other, even though you could see Jack and Tom gagging at the sight. Eventually, your father-in-law gently pulled himself away and announced that it was time to head home with her and your kids.
With a laugh, he said, "We’re too old to make it to the afterparty. You two have fun," as he half-carried his wife toward the exit. You and Jack followed them outside, the cool night air a welcome relief after the heat of the reception. The kids were draped over their grandparents like sleepy little koalas, barely conscious as you helped guide them into the backseat. Your son mumbled something incoherent before immediately falling asleep against your father-in-law’s shoulder. You tucked a blanket around them, smoothing hair back from their foreheads and giving each of them a quick goodnight kiss. Jack leaned in too, softly murmuring something to the twins in his warm, gentle voice. The car door closed with a quiet thud, and your father-in-law gave you both a tired but happy wave before pulling away into the night.
You headed back toward the venue first, the music growing louder with each step. It was unintentional, but as you moved inside, you brushed past Jack without meaning to. It was just the natural momentum of going inside, of continuing with the night. To him, however, it felt like a door quietly closing in his face. He followed a few steps behind, watching you slip through the entrance without once looking back. Jack stopped just inside the doorway, the anxious flutter in his gut turning to a cold lump of lead as he watched you weave into the crowd. You weren’t being cold. But you were… distant. Warm one moment, gone the next. Reaching for him, then pulling away. Laughing with him, then shutting down.
He could handle you being angry that first night. Last night had been even worse, with the tension and the way every word felt like stepping on glass. But tonight? Tonight, he refused to be stuck in the same fight.
When he saw you during the ceremony, he couldn't help but stare. You looked stunning, the kind of beauty that made time stand still. You were wearing a soft baby‑blue dress, the slit running high enough to make your legs look impossibly long. The silk hugged your figure with effortless elegance, and the moment Jack’s eyes fell on you, his heart skipped a beat, making it incredibly difficult to focus on anything but you. Then he noticed the other thing…your left hand, fucking bare. It wasn’t entirely unusual; both of you had jobs that made wearing your rings impractical or sometimes even unsafe. You’d taken them off countless times for work, but outside of those moments, you both always wore them. It was a quiet, shared habit that didn’t need to be spoken about, something you both just knew and did.
So when he saw your hand without the ring, he felt like he had been kicked in the stomach. He tried not to panic, tried not to overthink it. He told himself it didn’t mean anything…maybe you forgot it, or took it off while getting ready, or perhaps it was sitting on the nightstand.
But the truth was, it frustrated him. Not because of the ring itself, but because you two were usually so good at communicating. You didn’t leave each other guessing or do silent signals or unspoken messages—that wasn’t how you operated.
And now, with everything already tense between you, the missing ring felt like one more thing he didn’t understand, one more thing he wasn’t sure how to talk about without making it worse. He tried to focus on the ceremony, on Tom, on the vows, on anything else. But his eyes had kept drifting back to your hand.
Jack finally made his way back into the venue, still feeling the tight knot in his chest from earlier. Almost immediately, his eyes found you, standing near the bar and engaged in conversation with one of Tom’s groomsmen. The man was clearly a little too drunk and a little too obvious in the way he was looking at you. You weren’t doing anything wrong. There was no flirting, no encouragement, no awareness on your part. You never noticed these things, and Jack had long since accepted that people couldn’t help but look at you that way. You were fucking beautiful, plain and simple, and Jack was proud of you and proud to be with you. He was always grateful that, out of everyone who noticed you, you’d chosen him.
But right now, that usual confidence, that calm he usually carried, was gone. Instead, something sharp and irrational twisted in his stomach. He watched the groomsman lean in a little too close, saw your polite smile at whatever he said, and then caught the way the man’s eyes drifted where they shouldn’t have.
And all Jack could see was your hand.
Your bare fucking hand.
He didn’t think; he just moved. Without hesitation, he crossed the room, the nervous energy within him manifesting into irritation.
"We need to talk," he said, once he reached you. His eyes were focused on only you, not wanting to acknowledge the fucking pest that was next to you.
You barely had a chance to respond before he reached out and took your hand firmly and gently guided you away from the groomsman, away from the bar, away from the noise. His steps were quick, his breathing a little strained, and the frustration seemed to radiate off him in waves.
"Jack, what are you doing?" you hissed, and Jack continued to pull you behind him, not trusting himself to say anything. You tried half-heartedly to pull your hand free, but he didn’t release it. He pushed open the door to one of the empty banquet halls and quietly ushered you inside. Inside, he spun around, causing you to stumble against the wall that he had trapped you against, his hand still lingering on your waist for a moment before settling there.
"What the fuck is this?" Jack demanded, voice low and shaking with anger he was trying to control. His hand moved from your waist to your cheek, lightly brushing your jawline as he looked into your eyes, searching for answers.
It took you a second to understand what he meant.
Then he pointed. At your left hand.
"I know you’re pissed at me," he said, hating that his voice sounded whiny, but the words came out of his mouth that way. "But are you trying to tell me something? Because if you are, I need you to say it. Not… this."
Your stomach suddenly dropped, a hollow feeling sinking in when you looked down at your bare finger. Today had been insane. Tom and the groomsmen, Jack included, had that ridiculous 7 a.m. tee time because Tom was a golf addict and insisted it was 'tradition.' Which meant Jack was gone before the kids were even awake. And after that? You didn’t see him again. The guys went straight from the golf course to the venue to get ready together, which meant you were on your own to handle the entire morning and early afternoon solo. Getting the kids dressed, fixing their hair, wiping faces, hunting for shoes that magically disappeared every five minutes.
And as if that wasn’t enough, your mom called. She found out that her boyfriend (a completely normal, shockingly stable man you actually adored) of five years was planning to propose. She discovered the ring in their shared bedroom, tucked inside his underwear drawer. And she was doing her usual spiral, convinced she didn’t deserve something good. So… you’d spent twenty minutes giving her a pep talk, telling her she did deserve a relationship with a good man, that she wasn’t doomed to assholes forever, and that she needed to stop running from happiness. Then, just when you finally had everyone ready and out the door, your original dress ripped straight down the side as you bent to buckle your daughter’s sandal. You’d scrambled to find something else to wear, changed in record time, grabbed your clutch, called a taxi because you were already late, and bolted out the door.
And in the middle of all that, in the back of the cab, digging through your clutch for lip stick, you’d looked down and realized your ring wasn’t on your finger. You felt naked without it, exposed, like something essential was missing, and even cursed under your breath, annoyed at yourself for forgetting it in the rush to get out the door. The twins called you out by screaming, "Swear jar!"
But you hadn’t realized Jack had noticed. And now, he was standing there, hurt, furious, and scared all at once. You hadn’t realized it mattered this much to him. In fairness, you would probably be feeling some type of way if he wasn’t wearing his.
"Jack," you whispered, staring at your empty finger, "I… just forgot it. It was just a crazy day."
His eyes narrowed, and his hand moved from your cheek to softly rub your arm, as if trying to soothe both of you. "You sure?"
"Jack," you said, your voice tight with hurt, "Babe… I would never take it off just because I’m mad at you. That’s cruel." You reached out, your fingers brushing gently against his wrist, grounding yourself in his touch.
His expression flickered, but you kept going, the sting of his accusation pushing the words out of you.
"I forgot it. That’s all. I’m not trying to send you some hidden message. I would never do that to you."
"I don’t like it when we fight," he murmured, rubbing his thumb along your forearm.
"I don’t either," you whispered back.
Jack exhaled, shoulders dropping as if he’d been holding himself rigid for hours.
"I’m sorry," he said, and this time he said it sincerely. "I shouldn’t have had lunch with Amy. I'm a fucking idiot. I don’t really know why I’ve been so defensive about it. It’s probably because it really did mean nothing to me. Like… nothing. And the fact that it blew up into this thing between us? I think I pushed back so hard because I don’t want you to think it mattered. Or that she matters."
You swallowed hard, feeling the weight of his words and the gentle pressure of his hand still on your arm. "I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have implied it was something more than lunch. I know it was a coincidence. But…" You hesitated, then reached out to gently brush your fingertips along his jawline, feeling the faint stubble. "I’m not going to apologize for how I feel—just for how it came out. I didn’t handle it well."
His eyes softened, and his hand moved from your arm to clasp your hand, linking your fingers together. "Baby, of course," he said quietly, almost like he couldn’t believe you thought he didn’t get it. “I would be livid if you told me you bumped into Xavier and ate lunch with him.”
The name alone made your eyebrows lift. You hadn’t thought of him in years. The last you heard, he’d managed to get some college-aged girl pregnant… all while married to his second wife, who had taken him for nearly every cent he had. And rightly so. Jack’s thumb brushed over your knuckles, and his other hand reached up to brush some hair away from your face, his fingers lingering briefly in the gentle caress.
"I know I haven’t really answered your question about why I said yes to lunch with Amy." The shift in his tone, the way he said it… it made your stomach drop with a nervous kind of anticipation, like he was about to open a door you didn’t even realize was there.
"A couple of years before I deployed, I picked up rock climbing at this local gym," he said, lifting your chin. "When I bumped into Amy, she mentioned that she heard from a friend that the climbing gym owner had recently passed away," Jack cocked his head to the side with a small, sad laugh. "He used to say climbing was 'good medicine' for people who lived too much in their heads. And he wasn’t wrong. I guess… it was nice remembering that there was a phase in my life when rock climbing was my thing. It was this hobby that kept me sane. When I could just go, clear my head, and feel strong in my body. The owner was such a nice guy…I’d show up after these brutal shifts, half-dead on my feet, and he’d stay late just so I could get a few routes in."
A small ache bloomed in your chest. It was mix of sadness for him and a sharp, unwelcome thought that maybe he missed doing it with her.
"Did you and Amy… stick to just climbing? Or did you guys ever boulder together?" you asked, because you had never climbed a day in your life. You were so uncoordinated you’d probably fall off the mat before touching a hold.
Jack scoffed.
"No," he said firmly. "She never came with me. Not once. Like I said, climbing was my thing. Something I did alone or with my buddies."
"Oh," you mumbled, biting your bottom lip.
"Hearing the owner was gone… it hit me harder than I expected. One minute I was making small talk, the next I was standing there feeling 26 again, chalk on my hands, sweat on my back, like I could take on anything." Jack couldn’t help but feel the weight of your fight still tugging at him. "It’s possible to do it as a below‑the‑knee amputee. People do. But it’s… so much harder. Everything takes twice the strength, twice the balance, twice the planning. And I’ve looked into it again recently—the adaptive gear, the training, all of it… but it’s complicated." His gaze travelled over your face, seeming to drink in the sight of you as if you were going to disappear. "I would love to be able to do that with you. Or with the kids. And I can’t… " he swallowed, and when he looked at you again, his eyes were raw in a way that made your chest ache. "I guess I miss climbing… a lot. A lot more than I realized."
You suddenly felt like the biggest bitch in the world. At the end of the day, you could empathize with Jack’s situation, but you would never truly understand what it felt like to live in his body, to carry his history.
"I’m sorry," you gasped on a sob, instantly planting your face against his chest, your fingers digging into his back in an attempt to bring him to you. "I’m so fucking sorry."
"Don’t be. Please don't apologize when I'm in the wrong here," he hummed and raised your face to nuzzle against your cheek. "I tend to block out everything from before the explosion," he admitted, cupping your face in his palm. "Because I don’t want to get sad. I don’t want to feel like I’m missing something. But I’m realizing… it’s okay to remember the cool stuff I did before, even if I can’t do it now." He paused then, imploring you with his eyes to trust him, to believe him, and to understand.
"We’ll figure it out," you told him, raining kisses over his scruffy jaw. "Let’s get you climbing again," you said, conviction threading through your voice. "There are adaptive routes, and ways to shift your weight so your prosthetic isn’t doing all the work, and I’ve seen people adjust their balance to make climbing easier, and—"
You were already slipping into full physical therapist mode, your brain firing off possibilities, training adaptations, a dozen ways to make it work. You could feel yourself ramping up, talking faster, hands gesturing as you started listing facts, strategies, and research—
And Jack just smiled, that smile that melted hearts and had certainly always melted yours, before leaning in and cutting you off with a kiss that was so impossibly sweet. Even after all this time together, you felt your head spinning in a way that made you feel light and breathless and delightfully dizzy. You loved kissing Jack.
"Also, when I went to lunch, I was just taking some hot girl's advice," he murmured against your mouth before he pulled away to press his lips to the curve of your shoulder.
"What?" you asked, trying to blink the confusion out of your eyes.
"This really sexy PT once told me that the best revenge I could ever have was to get to the finish line. She told me the best thing I could do was live the life I worked my ass off for."
"Oh, really?" A surprised laugh bubbled out of you, soft and breathless. "You know, I do remember telling some guy that."
"Maybe it’s immature," he admitted, eyes warm as they traced your face, "but it felt really fucking good having her see that I made it to the finish line." He leaned in, his forehead resting against yours. "And then it felt even better when I got to tell her I was married to this incredibly perfect woman who gave me the most wonderful family."
Your eyes stung, and you let out a shaky little laugh as tears gathered. You reached for him without thinking, fingers curling into the lapels of his suit jacket and giving a small, helpless tug.
"Is it weird," you whispered, smiling like a lovesick fool, "that I’m… kind of severely turned on that you’re secretly petty?"
Jack’s answering grin was slow and smug. His hands gripped your wrists tightly, flinging your arms above your head with an echoing bang against the wall, and a desperate sound came from his throat as his lips assaulted yours. He kissed you deeply, sliding his tongue into your mouth right away, and you responded by licking at his with your own.
He had missed you. Then it hit him like a wave: When was the last time you two had sex?
Work had been busy…relentless, really. Your schedule with your clients was packed, and every day seemed to spill into the next. Jack wasn’t faring much better; he’d been pulling doubles more often than either of you liked, coming home exhausted and leaving before the sun was fully up again.
And the kids’ activities weren’t slowing down either. They were little whirlwinds who needed rides and snacks and reminders and attention every second they were awake. Between school events, practices, playdates, the two of you were always moving… just never in the same direction at the same time.
He couldn’t even remember the last time the two of you had been on an actual date with just the two of you, no kids, no rushing, and no collapsing into bed already half-asleep.
A pang of longing surged through him, sharper than he expected. It was the way your tits looked in that dress that consumed his thoughts. The way the fabric hugged your ass made it difficult for him to think straight. His breath mingled with yours as he looked down at you, his gaze flickering to your lips. "You look breathtaking tonight, you know that?"
"Me? You look incredible. I still can’t believe I get to go home with you. You look like James Bond."
"I’ve missed you," he confessed, stepping closer and the space between you shrinking to nothing. "I miss your pussy, baby. God, it's been so long." The truth spilled out before he could censor himself.
Your cheeks warmed at his words. You could feel his desire radiating off him, and it stirred something within you as well. It had been almost 3 weeks. The longest you two had gone without having sex in your entire relationship. Before kids, you two basically had sex every day. After kids, you two had still been pretty religious about doing it at least 2 or 3 times a week. But life had just gotten so fucking insane recently.
"I miss you too," you started, but there was a part of your brain where warning bells were going off in the background. You knew you needed to stop, but it felt too damn good to be surrounded by him again. With urgency laced in your voice, you reminded him where you both were. That an entire wedding reception was just outside the door he had just locked. And he just kept telling you. "I don’t care."
He leaned in closer, his breath warm against your lips. "I’ve been neglecting my pretty wife," he murmured, his mouth dropping to your shoulder and his teeth sinking into your skin. "Is that why you’ve been so pissed off?"
"Maybe," you admitted, wetness seeping into your panties. "I've missed us having alone time together." Maybe you hadn’t really been that mad about his lunch with Amy (no, you had definitely been pissed off), but maybe you just also missed your husband's cock. The locked door behind you felt like a flimsy barrier against the muffled sounds of laughter and music from the wedding reception.
"It's my job to take care of you. I haven't been taking good care of you, baby."
It wasn’t fair for him to blame himself. You worked more predictable hours, and your weekends were mostly free. His world was nothing like that. He was an ER attending; his schedule lived and died by whatever emergencies came crashing through those doors. Some days, he’d be packing up to leave, ready to come home to you and the kids, and then a trauma would roll in and pull him right back.
You knew he wasn’t neglecting you on purpose. He was saving people.
"I guess, I am feeling…a little needy," you whispered, your voice breathy with longing.
"Go on, baby. Tell me how bad you’ve been wanting it," he groaned, bringing one of his hands down against the slit of your dress, and you watched as Jack's fingers went underneath the slit to trace the edge of your panties through the fabric of your dress, sending sparks straight to your core. His face twisted into a smug, heated smirk, eyes half-lidded as he watched your reaction—your mouth parting in a silent gasp.
"I feel empty," you confessed, voice breaking with raw honesty, and your face crumpling in vulnerability. You definitely had been masturbating way more often than usual. "It’s been torture. I’ve been aching for you every day," your words tumbled out in a breathless rush, brows furrowing in a desperate plea. You wanted to feel embarrassed, but you were just telling him the truth.
The scent of your arousal mixed with the floral lotion you used on your legs was a heady combination for him.
"Let me make it better, baby," he answered simply, leaning down to kiss you. His lips were hot and needy, pressed against yours, tongue slipping in to claim your mouth with a hunger that made your knees weak. You knew that your husband would apologize with his body. You could forgive with yours, too.
You broke away first, eyes filled with lust. "Fuck me, now."
He spun you around without warning, his broad body crowding you from behind as he pinned your palms against the wall, hard cock grinding against your ass through his pants. He didn’t bother dragging your panties down, he just nudged them to the side. He shoved your dress up over your hips, exposing your cunt to the air, the fabric bunching roughly, and you bit your lip, stifling a whimper.
His fingers delved between your thighs, sliding through your drenched pussy. "Fuck baby. Hardly even touched you, and you’re dripping for me." A moan escaped you when he finally dipped two fingers from behind, and your back instantly arched. The stretch was teasing, but not enough. You pushed back against his hand, completely needy, your face contorting with frustration and want, brows knitting together.
He chuckled low, withdrawing and leaving you feeling like you could die from not feeling his touch. "Good girls say please."
"Please," you begged, voice cracking. "Please, please, I need you."
So polite, he thought. It was such a sweet sound coming from your mouth. You heard him undo his zipper, the sound echoing in the tight space. Then you felt it, Jack’s cock, thick and hard, slapping against your ass before he lined up and guided himself into your tight hole.
"Jack," you whispered, your voice thick with desire, waiting in anticipation.
"Who’s gonna make you feel good?" he murmured, his breath hot against your ear, with a possessive bite, and his face pressed close.
"You," you gasped, your pulse pounding in your ears, turning your head slightly to meet his intense gaze.
"Yeah?" he pressed, his expression fierce, lips curling into a satisfied snarl. "Who’s gonna make you come?"
"You," you repeated, voice trembling with need.
Then with one forceful thrust, he buried himself deep. You slumped into the wall as he split you in two, a sharp cry tearing from your throat at the sudden fullness.
"Fuck," he whined, high-pitched and needy, hips snapping forward again. "Look at you. So beautiful, and all mine."
"Jack," you cried out, already overstimulated by his thick head dragging against your walls before plunging back in, filling the ache that had been building over almost 3 weeks. Your expression twisted into overwhelming pleasure, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes as you gripped the wall. He was so fucking big, it still sometimes surprised you. He set a brutal pace, pounding into you against the wall, licking his lips at how delectable your ass looked. He smacked it hard, the sting blooming into heat, and you let out a high-pitched yelp, fucking yourself back against his cock.
"A-again," you requested, and he couldn’t help but notice that so much of your wetness was soaking the hairs at the base of his cock.
"Feel that?" he slurred with another harsh slap on your ass, the sound echoing in the room. "You feel how fucking wet she is for me?" The sharp pain mixed with pleasure had you screaming his name, and Jack responded with an onslaught of forceful thrusts. Jack was past caring, sweat beading on his forehead, caught up in his own high. He didn’t give a shit if people heard. He was fucking his wife, and goddammit, it felt good. His dominance took over, one hand tangling in your hair to pull your head back slightly, the other spanking your ass a third time in rhythm with his hips. "This what you needed? Needed to get fucked?"
"Oh, fuck! Yes, yes, yes, that feels so good—"
"You drive me crazy. Fuck—I love you," he growled, voice rough, eyes locked on where you both were joined. "I love you so fucking much."
"I love you too," you whined and tilted your head to the side, searching for lips. He captured your perfect mouth into a desperate kiss, and your fingers found their way into his hair when you reached back with your hand, tugging gently, and he moaned softly as the kiss deepened. He pulled away to dip his forehead into your shoulder blade, his breath ragged and hot against your skin. His eyes screwed shut as he leaned forward, resting his head on your shoulder, his thrusts turning erratic.
Jack had currently gone nonverbal, devoting all his body and mind to worshipping your body. He was operating on pure instinct and muscle memory, completely possessed by the need to drag you over the edge with him. And, after 10 years together, Jack knew every part of your body like the back of his hand. He knew exactly what you needed and what you wanted. So, he adjusted his stance, tilted his hips, changing the trajectory of his strokes to hit deeper, rubbing that specific spot inside you that he knew so well. When Jack hit it, he heard you gasp, and then he locked on it, stroking it with relentless, focused pressure.
"There?" he rasped, the sound barely more than a vibration against your shoulder. It wasn’t really a question; he knew the answer by the way your body seized.
"Jack, I'm—fuck!" Your orgasm crashed over you, pussy clamping down around him, your face scrunching in ecstasy, mouth wide, and eyes rolling back as a strangled scream built in your chest.
That set him off. His voice croaked out some garbled gibberish as he emptied himself in you, and hot spurts of his spend flooded your perfect cunt. He stilled, buried to the hilt, both of you panting against the wall with his face still buried in your shoulder. You were both a mess, and his chest was sweaty and heaving underneath his dress shirt. After a moment, he pulled out slowly, his spend trickling down your thigh with a sticky warmth. He quickly walked to one of the tables, grabbed a linen napkin, and came back to clean you up while you sighed. He spun you around gently, kissing your forehead, his expression softening into tender affection "You okay?" he murmured. "I wasn’t too rough?"
"You were perfect," you smiled, legs still trembling, your face glowing with aftershocks. He started straightening your dress back into place with shaky hands. You took a slow breath, then crossed the room toward a mirror you saw. Your reflection looked a little wild, hair slightly mussed from the fuck you’d just shared. With quick, practiced motions, you coaxed it back into something presentable.
As you worked, Jack stepped up behind you and lowered his chin to your shoulder. His breath brushed your skin as he watched you in the mirror, his expression equal parts awe and affection. For a moment, neither of you said anything.
"You’re always trying to get into my pants at weddings," you teased, even though your heart was beating unevenly. It wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. You hoped it wouldn’t be the last. He had fucked you at your cousin's wedding a few years ago in the bathroom.
"I don’t have to try very hard," he answered simply, kissing your shoulder.
You giggled, as you fixed the last strand of hair. Then he slid his hands down your arms and gently turned you around to face him. Your hands instinctively looped behind his neck, fingers brushing the soft, silvery hair at his nape.
"That was hot," he said, smirk plastered across his insanely handsome face.
"I agree," you laughed softly, leaning into him.
“I know we’re busy with two kids. And it’s not like we have jobs that make it easier. But we need more alone time. We need a real date every week. No excuses."
You nodded immediately. "You’re right. I’ve been feeling it too. I miss getting dressed up and going out with you."
"And, we haven’t had a vacation…just you and me in a long while."
That was true too. And you missed that part of your life with him…the part where you weren’t just parents, but also husband and wife.
"What if I told you," he began slowly, "that I asked your mom and her boyfriend to come to Pittsburgh to stay with the kids… because I booked us a trip to Prague the last week of August."
Your eyes widened. "Shut up. No you didn’t. What about—"
"And before you start worrying about work," he added, "I already talked to your boss like a month ago. That week is cleared. You’re officially off."
Your heart swelled, and tears pricked at the corners of your eyes as the magnitude of his gesture washed over you. A single tear slipped down your cheek as the sweetness of it all overwhelmed you. "You’re incredible," you breathed, barely able to hold back a sob. "I can’t believe you did all of this."
Jack smiled, his heart visibly swelling at your reaction. "I’d do anything for you," he said softly, brushing the tear from your cheek with his thumb. He knew how long you’d dreamed of seeing Prague, you’d always been fascinated by architecture, and Prague had been at the top of your travel list for years because of that reason.
"Okay," you said finally, a smile breaking through your surprise. "Let’s do it," you whispered, a giggle escaping your lips
"Yeah?" Jack’s eyes sparkled with joy, and you couldn’t help but mirror his smile.
"Yes! Let’s fucking go to Prague," you threw your arms around him, laughter intertwining as he lifted you off the ground momentarily while you buried your face in his neck and planted it with kisses.
As he set you back down, Jack’s pulse was racing, and he couldn’t contain his happiness. "I love you."
"I love you, too, handsome. And…as much as I’d love to keep you all to myself, we should probably head back before Tom and Elena notice."
Jack chuckled as he leaned in, brushing his lips against your ear. "I guess we should get back to reality," he then grinned down at you before pulling you for a searing kiss.
You both eye fucked each other the rest of the night.
2026 – Pittsburgh
It was one of those mornings where you and Jack woke up naked and immediately started making out like teenagers. Last night, you could tell Jack had a long shift the moment he walked through the door. He tried to be animated with the twins at dinner, but you could tell he was tired. When he finally stepped into the shower to unwind, you followed him in.
You guided him to sit on the bench, and you worked shampoo through his hair with slow motions, the kind that always grounded him even if he’d never admit it out loud. Even after all this time, he was still terrible at letting anyone take care of him. Especially you. He closed his eyes, letting the water run over him while you rinsed the suds away. Then you took your loofah and gently ran it over his arms and back, and then the rest of his body, making sure to pay extra attention to his residual limb. He didn’t say much, just let out a quiet sigh, the kind that told you he was finally relaxing.
After your shower, you both didn’t bother to get dressed once you climbed into bed. He let you rest your head on his chest, let your hand settle over his heartbeat, let the silence wrap around both of you.
You murmured goodnight, and he pressed a slow kiss to your hairline.
"I love you," he said, voice low and tired.
"I love you more," you whispered, and the two of you drifted toward sleep.
Right now, it was all slow kisses and sleepy smiles and wandering hands. Time didn’t seem to exist… until your gaze drifted toward the clock on the nightstand.
You pushed at his chest, breathless and laughing. "Jack, I need to get ready for work."
He didn’t budge. Not even an inch. If anything, his arms tightened around you like he was made of Velcro.
"Take the day off," he mumbled into your neck, voice gravelly with sleep. He was off today, which made him even more impossible.
"I can’t," you said, trying to peel him off and failing miserably. "I have so many appointments today. And I especially need to see Javier today."
Jack huffed (an actual, dramatic huff) and still didn’t let go.
"Leaving me for another man," he growled, pure theatrics.
"He’s like significantly older than me," you snorted. "He’s older than my Dad."
"He’s still a man with fucking eyes," Jack insisted, tightening his hold like you might escape again.
You rolled your eyes. "He had rotator cuff surgery after taking a direct hit to the shoulder. He’s been so down about it. He finally got his pilot’s license after retiring, and he’s desperate to get back to flying."
"Oh yes. Must be so difficult for him," Jack said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Forced to spend an hour a week with a gorgeous and brilliant PT. Must be torture."
The truth was, Jack did still get insecure once in a while. Your job meant you spent your days helping people through hands‑on work, and he knew you got attention because of it. Hell, he fucking fell for you while he was your patient. You were only getting more beautiful every year. And the craziest part was that you had absolutely no idea. You thought that because you were getting older, you were somehow becoming more invisible. Meanwhile, Jack saw it constantly: the double takes, the too‑long smiles, the way people lit up when you walked into a room.
Therefore… every now and then, that old flicker of possessiveness showed up.
"Be honest with me," he said. "Is he attractive?"
You blinked at him, then let a slow, mischievous smile spread across your face.
"I mean…" you said thoughtfully, "he’s not unattractive."
Javier was 67, and it was obvious he’d never had trouble attracting attention when he was younger. Honestly, you wouldn’t be surprised if he was still getting laid. He was single, flirtatious, and he had that easy, confident charm some men just never lose—the kind that didn’t fade with age so much as settle in.
Jack dropped his head back onto the pillow with a dramatic thud.
"What can I say? A man who owns a plane is hot," you teased, as if you were contemplating it.
Jack’s head snapped back up, and before you could finish laughing, he lunged, fingers finding your ribs so that you crumpled in gasps and giggles.
"Take it back," he demanded, grinning as you writhed.
"Jack—stop—!" you gasped between laughs.
"Never," he declared, still tickling. "Not until you admit you prefer boring, safe, FAA‑approved travel over sexy little private planes."
"Alright, alright!" you gasped between giggles. "I’ll stick to commercial flights and middle seats for the rest of my life!" You finally managed to grab his wrists, breathless and smiling.
"Good girl," he murmured, before leaning down to kiss your lips. "I love you."
"I love you too," you mumbled against his lips.
He kissed his way down your neck, savoring the delicate curve of your collarbone, and you found yourself sinking deeper into the plush sheets as his lips continued their exploration. His hands were gentle but firm as they glided over your waist, and his kisses grew more insistent as he traveled lower, trailing soft kisses down the slope of your breast, whispering sweet words against your skin that made your heart race.
"J-Jack," you breathed.
You could barely say his name as he hovered over the soft skin of your inner thigh, his kisses trailing dangerously close to the heat pooling between your legs.
He chuckled warmly against your skin, the sound reverberating through you.
"Yes, baby?" As his lips kissed their way to your knee, he paused, trailing soft kisses along the way and looking back up at you with a teasing glint in his eye.
Your laughter mingled with a soft moan as his lips pressed against the tender skin of your thigh once more. His lips finally found their way closer, and he nipped gently at your thigh, drawing a gasp from your lips.
"Jack, please," you gasped, your voice barely a whisper as you looked down at him, your eyes filled with longing. That one word, uttered in desperation. He paused, his gaze locking onto yours.
"I thought you had to get to work," he teased.
"Don’t be mean," you begged, a desperate plea.
The corners of his mouth lifted into a sly smile as he moved back up your body, tracing soft kisses along your abdomen, taking his time, savoring every inch of you, every sigh you released. You could feel your resolve slipping away, your body arching toward him when he positioned his mouth closer to your wet, soaking pussy.
"Please," you breathed, your hands moving to tangle in his hair, pulling him closer. "Jack," you called out again, your voice thick with need.
He finally gave in to your pleas, his tongue dragged slowly against your most sensitive spot, the tip of his nose also making contact. His tongue glided over once, then again, before picking up speed and savoring your slickness. You gasped sharply, your back arching in response while he groaned at your taste, his strong shoulders widening your legs further apart. When his tongue finally exploded you deeply, a cry escaped your lips. One of your hands gripped the sheets, while the other had your fingers tightening in his hair, coaxing him onward, deeper.
"Fuck," he mumbled, the sound vibrating against you.
You lifted your hips and shamelessly started grinding them against his face, and he increased his pace, teasing you with long, languid strokes, then flicking and swirling against your clit. You squeezed your eyes shut and let him hear how good it felt with the loud wail that erupted from your throat. Thank God the kids were grabbing breakfast with Robby this morning before his shift and before they had to go to school.
He was so good at this. Jack was the first man that had ever been able to make you come from his tongue alone. The way he worshipped you was always so intoxicating, and you felt cherished and adored. He always went down on you like this was getting him off just as much as you, just completely lost in your pussy.
You could feel your core tightening, the familiar sensation building deep within you, your fingers tightened in his hair as you urged him closer, your hips instinctively arching to meet his mouth. "Fuck," you breathed, "don’t stop. Just like that." Jack was muttering unintelligible words into your cunt and lapping at you. He relished the way he was able to bring you pleasure, and the sound of your gasps was music to his ears. Jack had always liked eating pussy. Even before you, he liked making his partners feel good. But… there was something about your pussy that drove him wild. He always desperately wanted to eat your pussy until you were sobbing and weak from the pleasure. Jack thought you were the sweetest fucking thing he had ever tasted. Just when you thought you were nearing the edge, he slowed his pace, drawing the pleasure out, making the anticipation almost unbearable.
Then, without warning, he surged forward, his tongue flicking expertly over your clit in a rhythm that drove you wild. He increased his efforts, his tongue working with renewed vigor, switching from long, languid strokes to sinfully quick flicks.
"Oh—my fuck—" you whimpered, clutching the sheets, your manicured nails digging into the fabric, feeling so close to the edge.
Jack detached himself from your pussy, his mouth and chin smeared with your slick, watching your beautiful face as he shoved two fingers inside of you, knuckles deep, with no resistance.
"Come for me right now," he growled, low and dark. Then his mouth returned to your cunt, and with a final flick of his tongue and a gentle suck, you cried out, the sound raw and primal echoing in the room as the pressure finally released, and you were falling, lost in pure ecstasy. Your world shattered into a zillion starbursts of perfection, and you felt him smile against your cunt as he continued to work you through it with his mouth and fingers. He savored the moment…the way your body glistened and the taste that flooded his tongue.
In a haze of bliss, you collapsed back onto the sheets, panting as he finally pulled his fingers out, a satisfied smirk gracing him as he licked at his lips to savor the taste of your slick some more. He kissed his way back up your body, his warm hands cradling your face as he met your gaze.
"Good morning," he smirked, and you could feel the hard length of his cock pressing against your thigh.
You nodded breathlessly, a soft smile creeping onto your lips. "Good morning," you murmured, your heart still racing from your orgasm.
"Can’t live without your fucking pussy," he said, before molding his lips to yours in a kiss that tasted of you.
"Jack!" you shrieked at his vulgar words and playfully slapped his chest.
He laughed, grabbing his prosthetic by the bed before standing and stretching. The movement pulled his shoulders back, giving you a perfect view of his toned body—a not-so-subtle reminder of why you often found yourself desperate and horny for him all the time. He hissed as he slipped on some boxers over his hard cock.
"Come on," he said, offering you a hand. "If you’re abandoning me for another man, the least you can do is let me make you breakfast first."
He kissed your mouth softly, and then he felt your hand trail back down towards his painfully hard erection. He grasped your hand in his, stopping your descent.
"No worries, baby. I don’t want us to feel rushed. We’ll have fun later tonight during our date," he whispered against your lips.
"Ugh, fine," you pouted.
You both got dressed before heading downstairs. Since Jack was staying home, he didn’t bother with anything fancy. You pulled on a pair of leggings and zipped up your favorite Nike jacket, which was the one that had basically become your unofficial work uniform ever since you’d traded scrubs for athleisure.
Jack gave you an appreciative once‑over as he tugged his shirt into place.
"Yeah," he said with a teasing sigh, "Javier’s definitely suffering."
You nudged him with your shoulder as you both headed toward the kitchen. But before either of you reached the kitchen, the quiet house suddenly wasn’t quiet anymore. It was interrupted by the sound of hurried footsteps.
"There it is," your daughter said with relief, grabbing her laptop off the dining room table. "I knew I left it here."
Your son followed behind her, holding the car keys to their shared Honda Civic, yawning dramatically. "Uncle Robby made us pancakes the size of our faces," he announced, dropping onto a barstool. "I’m still full. I might never eat again."
Good thing the twins hadn’t been here 10 minutes ago…
Jack snorted as he cracked eggs into a pan. "That man has no concept of portion control."
Your daughter slung her backpack over her shoulder. "What are you gonna do today, Dad?"
"Well, I was trying to get your mother to play hooky with me," he said, shooting you a pointed look over his shoulder. "But she refused to be corrupted." He slid the eggs around the pan, then added casually, "I’ll probably go rock climbing later."
Your daughter perked up instantly, her whole face lighting. "Really? Which route?"
"Thinking about trying that new one they set last week. The overhang with the red holds."
"No way! Can we go this weekend? Please?"
"Yeah, we can make that happen, honey," Jack nodded.
"Mom shouldn’t come. She’s terrible at rock climbing," your son said, still half‑asleep, and lifted his head just enough to smirk.
"Dude, I know," you sighed. The truth was, you wished you were better at it. Especially after 10 fucking years. But…climbing had never clicked for you the way it did for Jack and the kids. Where they saw puzzles and adrenaline and fun, you mostly saw sore forearms and a very real possibility of falling on your fucking face.
But you were grateful, honestly, that Jack had the twins to share that world with after he had missed it for so long. Watching them climb together always made you feel like you were witnessing something special, something that belonged to them. And you were happy to cheer from the ground.
You’d always been a New Yorker at heart. A city girl through and through. Your hobbies were like every other lifelong New Yorker’s: long walks through crowded streets, weekend museum trips, soul cycle squeezed between errands, the occasional yoga membership you swore you’d actually use this time… and, of course, a whole lot of dining out. New restaurants, tiny hole‑in‑the‑wall spots, rooftop cocktail bars with overpriced drinks. Now that was your comfort zone. Anything that involved good food, good company, and a great martini counted as a hobby in your book. If you were honest, Jack loved it just as much as you did. He loved watching you light up over a new exhibit or a new speakeasy, and even after all this time, your husband still made sure to spoil you. Signing the check always (as if you weren’t married), pulling out your chair, and planning reservations weeks in advance.
But being with Jack over the years also had nudged you into becoming more active (and more outdoorsy) than you ever expected. Things you never imagined yourself doing when you were younger. The kids inherited that side of him completely; they were born ready for adventure.
"Hey," Jack said, pointing the spatula at your son, "don’t be rude to your mother."
"I’m just saying—"
"She crushes all of us at tennis," Jack finished, giving you a proud little nod. "Watch your mouth."
"I’m sorry, Mama," your son said immediately. He only called you Mama when he was trying to get back on your good side. You couldn’t help smiling. You reached over, ruffled his messy hair, and pressed a quick kiss to his forehead. He tolerated it with the long‑suffering patience of a teenage boy.
When you turned forty almost 7 years ago, you’d had a full‑blown panic attack. The kind that left you sitting on the bathroom floor, staring at your reflection and reevaluating your entire life. Aging fucking sucked as a woman.
You decided to pick up tennis. At first, you did it quietly, on your own. You’d found a community center near your job that offered adult lessons, and it felt like the perfect low‑pressure way to try something new. You’d sneak out between patients, and spend an hour hitting balls and pretending you weren’t winded after ten minutes. Honestly… You were a little embarrassed. Jack was out there doing his daily three‑mile runs like it was nothing, and you were… very much not that person.
When Jack eventually found out, he’d been offended.
"Why didn’t you ask me to play with you?" he’d asked, genuinely hurt. "You always show up for the things the kids or I love. Why wouldn’t you think I’d want to show up for you too?" he continued, hand on his hip. "You think I wouldn’t pick up a racket for you?"
And he wasn’t wrong. You had hiked, camped, kayaked, skied, climbed which were all things that were very much his and the kids world. You’d done them because you loved your family, and because being with them made even the uncomfortable parts worth it.
Jack started joining you. And somehow, you got surprisingly good at tennis. Extremely good…that you were way better than him (which actually just turned him on a lot). Jack and you sometimes played doubles with Dana and her husband. It became your thing, the one hobby that started with you, grew with him, and settled into something that belonged to both of you.
Jack also really loved you in your little tennis outfits.
You took a seat at the island, glancing at your watch. "Alright, guys," you said, tapping the face of it, "you need to get going or you’re going to be late."
Your daughter groaned but grabbed her backpack. Your son slid off the barstool muttering something about how mornings were 'a violation of human rights.'
Jack turned off the stove and dumped a generous scoop of eggs onto a plate in front of you with a cup of coffee. "Eat," he said, nudging it closer. "You’re about to go deal with Javier. You need strength."
"Thank you, handsome."
Your daughter paused mid‑stride. "Who’s Javier?"
"Your new stepfather," Jack said.
"I’m sorry—what?" your son asked.
“Javier is my patient," you took a sip of coffee. "He’s retired. Great pension. Amazing dental."
Jack put a hand to his chest. "Dental? That’s what is doing it for you?"
"He gets senior discounts everywhere. Think of the savings," you lifted your fork, and said dryly, "And, not only does he have a plane, but he also drives a vintage convertible. I’m shallow. I have needs."
"Mom, you’re not allowed to get a new husband," your daughter pointed at you. "You can barely handle the one you have."
"Unbelievable," Jack gasped dramatically. "The disrespect in this house."
You shook your head, laughing as you took a bite of eggs. "Time to move. I do not want to hear your teachers calling me about tardiness again," you said, waving the twins toward the door.
They both groaned, but they shuffled toward the door anyway.
"Love you!" your daughter called.
"See you later!" your son added.
On her way out, your daughter detoured just long enough to wrap her arms around Jack’s waist in a quick hug. Your son lifted his hand for a high‑five, which Jack returned with an exaggerated smack. Then they both turned and waved at you from the doorway. You waved back, heart doing that soft little squeeze it always did when they left the house together like that. They scrambled out, and Jack leaned down to kiss the top of your head.
"Thank you," he murmured.
"For what?" you asked, confused.
He crouched a little so he was eye‑level with you, that familiar soft smile tugging at the corner of his mouth before he pressed a slow kiss to your lips.
"For taking me as your patient twenty years ago," he said quietly. "After I was a complete asshole to you the first time we met."
"Please don't remind me how old we are," you said tartly. "And, you weren’t actually an asshole. That takes actual commitment and follow-through. You were a dick. Impulsive and rude in the moment," you corrected, tilting your head.
It was so like you to pull out technicalities and to reclassify his worst moment. You had a gift for making him feel better without ever pretending he was perfect.
"I was." He chuckled. And he had told the kids. Jack never sugar-coated the story of how you two met. He once sat them down at the dinner table, arms crossed, shaking his head dramatically as he told them how rude he’d been, how patient you were, how you should’ve kicked him out on the spot.
He looked your son dead in the eye and said, "If you ever talk to someone the way I talked to your mom that day, I’ll disown you. Your mother should have never taken me as a patient." Then he turned to your daughter and added, "And you? Don’t you ever give some boy a second chance if he acts like that. Your mom only did because she’s a saint. You do not need to be a saint."
The kids had laughed, but Jack had meant every word.
"If you hadn’t accepted my apology…I wouldn’t have this life with you. I wouldn’t have them." His eyes flicked toward the door where the twins had disappeared. "Those beautiful kids? They exist because of you."
"They exist because of you, too. It takes two to tango," you winked.
"Yes, but you carried them for nine months." Jack’s lips made lazy patterns across your neck and along your jawline until he reached your chin. "You delivered them. You fed them with your body. You went through postpartum. You dealt with the hormones, the exhaustion, the cesarian recovery.... all of it. And, you raised some pretty incredible people, sweetheart."
He watched your face as he said it, the way you tried to brush off the compliment like you always did, as he placed small kisses on and around your mouth. He still couldn’t believe you chose him. That you built this life with him.
And the older the kids got, the more he saw you in them.
Jack once walked past your daughter’s room on his way down the hall and saw her sitting on the floor with a friend who’d come over after school. The girl was crying, shoulders shaking, apologizing over and over for 'being a mess.' Your daughter didn’t let her talk badly about herself… she just stayed beside her, legs crossed, handing her tissues and telling her it was okay to feel whatever she was feeling.
And Jack saw you in every bit of it.
Your son was the captain now for his high school soccer team, and instead of barking orders or showing off, he’d pull teammates aside and quietly walk them through plays, showing them how to get better without making them feel small. He’d stay after practice to help the kid who struggled with footwork, or run drills with the goalie who kept losing confidence.
That was all you.
Your kindness. Your empathy. Your patience. Your amazing way of loving people, even when they didn’t make it easy. He saw it every day, in a hundred tiny moments. And every time, it hit him all over again how lucky he was. God, he fucking loved you.
"They are pretty great," you said, nodding.
"Because of you."
"Because of you, my love," you said, bringing his hand up to your face to kiss his palm tenderly. And the way you said it, without hesitation, looking at him like he was the most precious person you had ever seen, was overwhelming. You always told him he was a good husband, a good father, a good man, and you always said it like it was a fact, not something he had to earn or prove. You loved him in a way that still surprised him sometimes.
He beamed at you before his lips pressed against yours.
Masterlist | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | You're reading the final part
Thank you for the peeps that joined me on this journey! I'm gonna miss these two lovebirds. If you want more 2026, a reminder that this mini-series is actually a prequel to the following one-shot.
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… jack’s reaction to reader crying during their first time doing it? not in a bad way, but because they’re overwhelmed with… feelings :*
18+ minors dni
it’s never felt like this. you’ve had many versions of sex: meaningless sex with a guy who picked you up at a bar, friends with benefits with your neighbour that ended when he moved out of town, even had sex with a woman to see if it’s true that women are better at knowing their way around the female anatomy (they are).
but this… this is different. jack’s kissing you like it’s the last time he ever will, hips rhythmically moving against yours. every thrust is sensual, and his cock drives into the spot that drives you crazy with every movement.
you knew jack abbot would be good in bed, but he’s insanely good.
you feel tears prick the corners of your eyes out of sheer pleasure. you get caught up in your thoughts of him, about how good he is and how he always puts you first. before you know it, the tears are rolling down your face.
jack pauses his movements, worry etched into his features. he swipes his thumb across your wet cheeks, frowning when he feels the tears, “honey, are you crying?”
“keep going,” you urge him with a whine. “it’s good jack, it’s so fucking good. never felt like this before. so good and so loved.”
you press your forehead against his and nod, giving him the all clear to continue. he thrusts into you again and you mewl against his lips, both of your breaths mingling together.
“i love you,” it’s the first time you’ve said it to him, but you know it’s true. you’re in love with jack, in love with the way he takes care of you and everything about him. “i love you, jack.”
“i love you too,” he responds like it’s second nature, followed by a deep groan. “fuck, baby. if you keep clenching around me like that, this is gonna be over a lot sooner than i anticipated.”
“maybe i want you to come,” you gasp out. “i want everything with you.”
I reblogged her late last year and my 2024 has been very satisfying work-wise and (secure enough to not stress out) money-wise so far. Money Snake is wise and good.
Summary: Jack's fiancée seems to be slipping through his fingers.
pairing: Abbot x Attending!reader x Robby.
Warnings: Reader is afab and an attending at the pedes department. Angst, neglected relationship, mention of cheating, mention of injuries, medical inaccuracies, jealousy, possessiveness, slightly suggestive content, angst (yes, double). Mean!Jack Abbot, Yearning!Robby.
word count:3k
Jack wasn't a careless man, or maybe he was, I just ignored the whole thing with the poor justification of the work keeping us, him, busy. I knew how demanding a hospital can be, the ER being one of the most tiring departments doesn't help either.
I just, in the back of my mind, wished it wasn't that way. I couldn't understand how can I have time for everything but he can't. I mean, pedes is kind of easy but not in the way they think it is. I do have to stay high hours, I do spend more nights on a gurney than in my own bed. but I managed to attend my house, our house. I manage to go to the OB appointments and work, and be a responsible soon to be wife with the wedding preparations and the dress, gym to lose some weight and everything. Jack, on the other hand, was around, at least from what I saw, but even though the police team and the hospital are a complicated combo, I couldn't figure out what kept him so busy. Well, I could see it, but I have to say, the police team is voluntary. Even so, he joined it, which made me think that he didn't want to spend time at home, even though I begged him every Sunday to sleep more.
obviously it wasn't alway like that, the first year was wonderful, missed morning at pedes just for staying a little bit more, calling in sick to stay the night with me, travels, joy and everything. The second year was also wonderful but our jobs started getting demanding and serious. The third year was exhausting, fights and job and sex and trying to be a couple again. I got pregnant and he asked me to be his wife and here we are four months after the third year. I was dealing with a lot of things, but I managed to distract myself with work and waiting for the baby in my belly.
──────୨ৎ──────
Pedes was struggling today; apparently, a vomiting and diarrhea virus is spreading through schools. I had an OB appointment so I took a break moment to go upstairs, Jack wasn't working until the night and what I knew is that he was at the PD making whatever he does there. Not that he tells me, He prefers to keep those things shut and I won't question it.
When I stepped into the elevator I notice a well-known face in there. "Oh, Dr. Robinavitch..." I smiled, tilting my head and placing a hand on my belly which was a little bit too big for having almost 20 weeks. "I swear to god...you call me like that again and I won't hold." His voice was gruff and tensed, making me giggle. Robby was a good friend of Jack and I. "Oh come on...you love it." I see him frown, a big hand rubbing his beard. "Only the hospital admin department call me like that...the banks...and my grandma." I laugh, patting his back softly.
Robby was always, somehow, there. He is Jack's old friend but I grew closer to him, I find him easy to talk and he's very collaborative. "And me...put me in that list, will be easier to predict...maybe your grandma sent me to keep the tradition." I did not missed the look on his face, they way his eyes gleamed and the tenderness on his wrinkles, made my heart skip a beat and drift my gaze away. I shouldn't be feeling flustered. "So...how's that little baby of yours? growing good?" "Yeah, I was just heading to OB, I have an appointment." I heard him hum, and my eyes moved back to him. "Jack isn't with you today?" I shake my head. "Would you like the company of this pitiful soul?" I smile softly, rolling my eyes. "If the ER doesn't burn..." I mumbled. "It won't...I can take a break..." "Okay...pity soul can come with me then."
We walk through the corridors of the OB department, where I sit on a bench waiting to be called. "So...do we know the gender already?" I shake my head in denial, glancing at him with a big smile. "That's why I'm here today." He lean forward to look at my face with surprise. "Oh, really? So I'll be the first to know? I feel honoured." I giggle, giving him a look "Yes!...you should be feeling really honoured...not even the own father will know first." I mumble that last part, hoping he doesn't hear me, but of course he does. "Is he treating you right? No more shit?" I nod effusively, his stern eyes felt heavy on me. "He is doing right, robby...I promise." I meet his gaze, trying to prove a point, he just nods. "You know you can tell me if he's bothering you, sweetheart." I sigh, interrupted by the sound of my name in the speakers. "Let's go."
────୨ৎ──────
The date is good, the baby is good and the best of all, the baby is a pretty boy. One thing stayed in my mind after the appointment. Robby's face. I swear I've never seen his face that tender and emotional, that man always act nonchalant and hard to break, except for today. I didn't know how to deal with it, it made my heart flutter and happy, seeing someone so happy for something I've done. Of course, Jack did not went forgotten, I asked robby to record everything for him and so he did. But I was sure that Jack would've never look at me that way, he would be happy, of course, (why not?). But Jack lacks of that warm and I don't know if its because of me or because he does not really feel warm towards anything.
I spent the rest of the day spiralling, busy with my thoughts and lacking of the needed focus to work. It was long and boring, threatening with tear me apart if I stayed one more minute on my feet. I don't even waited for jack to arrive ER, I had just left the hospital, hoping the breeze would help me breathe. Jack was there, I saw his car, and he wasn't alone. "Jack?" I called out for him, and just when he turned to face me I saw the other person face. "Sarah", I said and then She greeted me with a polite smile, before glancing at jack and leave us with a mumble. Sarah was one of the hospital members, worked night shifts with Jack and from what I've heard, they've known each other for long.
"I texted you." I said, stepping closer to him with a neutral expression. I didn't wanted to misinterpret, she is a good woman. "Yeah...I saw it but I was driving here so I didn't get to answer you, forgive me, love." I nodded, and just then I felt his hand on my belly. "How is this prince doing?" I smile briefly, sighing and shrugging. "Tiring as always...he drains me." "Well...you should try best, he needs you." I huffed a laugh. "Sure he does." "I should go in..." I nod, stepping aside to let him leave but he pulls me closer to kiss my forehead. "See you at morning, honey...Take care of yourself and this little soldier." I felt his big hand on my belly, and I smile at him, watching him step in the hospital and dissappear.
The smile lacked of it's usual warm, and I don't know if he noticed. Anyway, I just walked home, and yes, it was a lot of miles away. and yes, I said I couldn't be on my feet anymore, but I needed it. The fucking cold breeze of pittsburgh and the noise, the people and the grounding movement of the society far from the hospital. I think the baby also needed it, I felt light and more animated by the time I arrived the shared apartment. I cleaned, I made all the household, I even made a call with some friends and the evening just seemed to get really good. Ready for a movie and relaxation.
Of course, the plan was interrupted when I tripped over my own feet, hitting my hip on the floor and somehow managing to knock my head against the coffee table. I must have fainted, because when I next recovered my consciousness, I could heard the faint sound of water dripping. I put a bowl filling in the dishwasher for the pasta I was supposed to prepare. the room felt dizzy, my cheeks felt warm and wet. I was crying and I hadn't even noticed. my first instinct was to check on my body, my belly and if I had any injury. My head was bleeding a little but nothing I couldn't fix. I then stood up, sobbing and rubbing my hip. If someone else would be looking at me right now, they've said I was overreacting and that I looked ridiculous.
I debated whether to call Jack or not, but I just pressed the bottom and the deafening sound of dialing started ringing, but he never answered and my headache was getting worse and I started crying even louder so I just..."Robby?..." I heard the sheets rustling and his voice, hoarser than ever. 'Princess, what's wrong?' Are you crying? What happened? Was it Jack again? Do I need to—?" I interrupted him quickly, sobbing and mumbling. "No no!...It wasn't jack...I am alone in home and I fell and I hit my head and hip...My head hurts, robby." I cried, stumbling to the kitchen to stop the water and shaking. "Fuck...baby, listen to me, I'll go to your house, sit down and don't leave the phone...please." I whimpered, hearing him move around, closing doors and a car engine.
"How'd you fall, baby?...Is your baby okay?" He was trying to distract me, I knew that. Robby knew I couldn't handle pain. "I'm not sure. I was on my way to the sofa, and my feet got tangled up with something. I fell, and the baby…I think he's okay. I just bumped my head and hip." Robby let out a little sigh, his hands tightening around the steering wheel. "It's okay...I know you're doing right...just wait for me okay?...you know what to do with the bleeding, right?" I hummed, sobbing and walking towards the kitchen, feeling my feet getting wet with the dripping water. made me feel even more frustrated, the whole kitchen flooded. I hoped for nothing get wet, specially not something from jack belonging. I couldn't handle an argue with him over useless stuff.
────୨ৎ────
Robby arrived sooner that I was expecting, I heard the door being knocked so I opened and his hands greeted me first. All over my shoulders, looking for injuries until I stopped him and showed him my forehead. "Thank god...It's not that bad...just deep but, It'll be fine." I nodded, stepping aside to let him in. He noticed quickly the water flooding. "What happened there, princess?" I pressed my lips into a thin line. I wasn't used to Robby calling me sweet names; I think today was the first time he ever did it. "I was filling a bowl with water before I fell." I mumbled, frowning and nibbling my lips. "Okay...I'll clean your wound and then the kitchen, yeah? be good and sit down on the couch, I'll get the first aid kit."
My head was spinning, there was no way this was happening. Why would this happen to me? where's jack?. Despite all my doubts and questions, the only thing I know right now is that if I don't sit down, I'll faint again. Everything happened quick, Robby treating my wound, the sting of everything. The pain in my hip, Robby's hand massaging while the cold cream burned my skin. My sobs, the headache, the baby moving.
He left me sitting there, water bottle on my hand and a cold patch pressing both on my forehead and hip. My eyes drift to his figure, he was cleaning the kitchen now. Getting his pants wet and cleaning thoroughly. I curled on the couch after a while, still not sleepy but feeling the tiredness finally taking my body. The clock hit 2 Am when I felt the couch dipping at the other end. Robby has finished the cleaning and for a moment my heart ache because I've lost count of how my times he has been here with me when Jack wouldn't answer his phone.
"I am sorry..." I said, making him groan and shake his head, "No...Don't apologize, I told you not to apologize...I won't do this again if you apologize." That felt like a demand but he's right. He's told me several times not to apologize, He was more than please to help me and He wouldn't bare me apologizing. "He didn't answered..." I mumbled, feeling my lower lip trembling again. "Shh...It's okay...He must be working." And he better be Robby thought, helping me prop up and sit back down, allowing him to hug me and coo me. I just rest my head against his shoulder, clinging to his side.
We fell asleep, without noticing, We just fell deeply there on the couch. Only being wake up by one of my alarms ringing from the bedroom. Robby removed groggily, helping me stand up when the door opened and Jack appeared in sight. He looked at us confused, and what I recognized as angry. "Jack..." I mutter, moving away from Robby's embrace to walk towards him. "What happened?...Why is he here? Did you slept with him?" His voice was starting to raise, His hands gripping the sides of my arms and looking up and down through my body, like searching for something that would admit a crime I did not commit.
"She had an accident, Asshole...And you didn't answered the phone, She called me!" Robby barked, interrupting my attempt to explain. "I was working, Robinavitch." He bit back. "Yeah? Because from what I now, you take 10 minutes breaks every shift to watch you phone. Did you called back? Because, I've been here the whole night and didn't heard a ring of that phone of hers." Robby was mad, he gets mad every time Jack acts like a Jerk and I seem to know it's something far from sympathy. It's just that I don't want to acknowledge it.
"Get the fuck out of my house." Jack snarled, walking past by me, closer to Robby. As if trying to intimidate him. "Jack, please...Stop!" I try, holding his arm to pull him back but it's useless. "Don't worry, princess...I'll let this idiot alone." Robby's decision makes me relief, He doesn't want to cause me more troubles and I felt grateful with that. Robby grabs his coat and with a last glance to Jack, he lefts the apartment.
"Jack..." I start, feeling a discomfort in my chest. He seemed different, this wasn't him after a work night. "Where were you?" He just shakes his head, avoiding my question and looking at me. That's only more suspicious. "You weren't at the hospital?" "I'm gonna take a shower" He mumbles and just then I feel my world spinning. "Fuck you..." "What?" "Fuck you, Abbott!...I almost had a bad accident that could have hurt our son, and you just avoided me!?" I couldn't believe it. The man in front of, acting like a complete stranger. I felt more disappointed than ever, sad and mostly angry because I thought He was gonna change, but seems like it was all bullshit. "I was working, baby." "Liar!" Here he was again.
"Hey, listen to me!, You can't just call me and pretend me to answer!... You know how busy the ER keeps me." I sobbed, rubbing my face with both of my hands. "Is true? The thing that Robby said, are they true?" I leaned against a the table edge, needing something to support me. His scoff just made me angrier. "Are you gonna believe him?" "I don't know, Jack...Should I?...Why would Robby make that up?"
He seemed offended by my words, overreacting and spurting pure sarcasm. "Oh let's act like if we don't notice how in love is that man for you!...If you wanna fuck him, go on. Do it, then we're equal handed!" I went speechless, my face went pale and my ears started ringing. was this the man I married? this must be a fucking bad dream.
────୨ৎ───────
After a slap on his face, some more arguing and a cheating confession, I ended up showing on Robby's door with nothing but my last night clothes and an extra coat. "What are you-..." I cut Robby's words with a hug, a big and anxious one. I felt him shudder, I heard him sigh and he pulled me in. Closing the door and letting me sob against his chest. "He did it, Robby...He cheated." I cried, clinging to him with desperate sobs
"I am sorry to hear that, Sweetheart...You don't deserve it. You don't deserve anything that's happening to you." I melt into his arms, letting him embrace me in his warm arms and body. I knew Robby liked me, I knew he was down bad for me and I always tried to keep that in line. I always tried to let him know that it was no possible, I wasn't a cheater. Indeed, I am not. He told me hundred of time I shouldn't be with Jack but I was stubborn. I wanted to show everyone else Jack wasn't as bad to relationships as they think. Turns out they were right.
"I may have slapped him..." I said once settled in. He borrowed me clean clothes, He let me shower, he checked my wounds, he prepared me breakfast and now I am laying on his bed, resting my back. "I know he just deserves that." He chuckles softly, handing me a bottle of juice. "You can stay as much as you want, sweetheart." I looked up at him. Insecure of what to do or what to say. "I told him not to wait for me tonight...He said horrible things to me, Michael." He took my hand, squeezing it softly. "I won't tell you what to do, Angel...I've learn not to do that...I wouldn't bare another break of heart."
I knew exactly what he was talking about. That one time when I first had a fight with Jack, the very bad one. Robby stuck by my side the whole time, He advised me and all just for me to crawl back towards Jack once more. Unfortunately for Robby, I was carrying Jack's baby and my head was so infested of that man presence that I wouldn't doubt of me running back to him in the next days. I still hope of his regretting everything he's said.
Robby knows i'm not his, not because of me lack of feelings for him but because Jack. Robby knows Jack has the dominance of my heart and he'll have to live with that the rest of his life.
Pairing: Jack Abbot x ex wife!reader Word Count: 5.1k
Description: Years after your separation, life throws you back into Jack Abbot’s orbit in the worst way possible, carrying a devastating diagnosis that could be the reason your marriage fell apart in the first place: a tumor that may had erased the part of you that fell in love with him all those years back. And he’s not ready to lose you twice.
Tags/Warnings: Ex!wife reader, no specific age, ANGST, hurt/comfort (trust), talks about divorce, reader has big ex wifey energy, resulting in a bitter Jack, mentions of a tumor in the head and seizures but the medical aspect is very superficial, bad prognosis, suggestive comments and couple’s banter.
Note: This is the result of angsty thoughts invading my head at 2 am, so enjoy (it gets better trust) 🤍
Masterlist
My hand was the one you reached for all throughout The Great War.
There was a time where you believed you were tied to Jack Abbot by an invisible string.
Despite the crazy life he’d chosen, the long hours, the abrupt calls that took him away from you, the terrors of nightmares and traumas you couldn’t take away from him, you’d managed to love him through it all.
You loved him through the military years, and the consequences he carried home. Through the transition of losing a part of himself, and made sure that what was left wasn’t damaged by it. Loved him through the process of going back to emergency medicine. Through the night shifts and the missed holidays and anniversaries.
You loved him when his haircolor changed like the seasons. You loved the man in uniform and the man in scrubs and the man who sometimes came home too tired to even speak.
You loved and loved and loved him until…something snapped.
You…started calling him out more. For the hours and the absence and for the way he could be right there and still feel a thousand miles away. And Jack, who had spent most of his life learning how to stay calm under pressure, tried to be patient. Tried to love you through the sharpness, just like you’d loved him through his, even if he didn’t understand where yours was coming from.
He tried and tried and tried until…the invisible string between you snapped in pieces he couldn’t tie back together.
Time passed, and none of you survived the war you’d started in your own home. So you left. Sent out divorce papers that you never signed. You didn’t understand why back then, but now…you kind of do.
You take a deep breath as the ambulance bay doors slide open in front of you. People who take this entrance are usually bleeding, or screaming, or being rolled in on a stretcher, but you walk in with your head high and a pep on your step. Cashmere coat on, boots clicking the floor, a purse perched on your shoulder.
Seeing the ED after all these years hits you like a deja vu. From bringing Jack something he forgot in the middle of the night, to showing up at the ass crack of dawn still half asleep but smiling, waiting for him to finish charting so you could eat something together. Your memories are a little fuzzy these days, but there was a time where you knew this place almost as well as he did.
You reach the nurse’s station with a small smile on your face, only for it to widen when the face behind is not the one you expected.
“Well, what do we have here?” You say, coming to stop in front of her.
Dana looks up from the papers she’s holding, and her eyes go wide for a second. The look of surprise gets quickly replaced by one of her signature smirks, placing one hand on her hip.
“Well, I could ask the same damn thing, darling,” she says, amused.
That makes you laugh, and Dana’s face lightens up. Because despite everything, despite the years, despite the absence, you always had a soft spot for each other.
“I thought Lena was on the night shift,” you tease. Dana sets the papers down and huffs, looking at you through her glasses.
“Please. It’s not weird to see me covering someone for the right price,” she says, not being subtle about looking up and down at you. “Now what is strange as hell, is seeing you walk in here after all this time.”
“Why? I’m just here to see my hubby,” you say casually. “Is it a quiet night, or do I have to wait like the good old days?” You ask, feigning innocence with a single shoulder shrug.
“Oh, don’t you start! don’t you jinx my shift like that,” she says, almost offended, making you laugh harder. She narrows her eyes at you playfully, shaking her head. “You evil, evil woman.”
“So I’ve been told,” you snicker, checking something on your nails. “It’s good to see you, Dana,” you add after a moment, and she pretends not to notice the way you pick on the skin of your thumb.
“You too, hun,” she says fondly, trying to search for your eyes. “Now, are you going to tell me what brings you to my ED or do I have to waterboard it out of you?”
Before you can think of a way to evade the question, you hear a voice behind you that makes everything inside you stop.
“Let me know when the labs are back, Mateo.”
You turn to the source, and for a moment you can’t control the look on your face when your eyes land on him. Jack Abbot is walking out of Trauma Two with a nurse, too focused on pulling off his gloves to realize you’re standing frozen by the nurse’s station. You clear your throat and straighten up quickly, putting on that nonchalance mask back on again as Dana just smiles to herself.
Jack’s head finally snaps up and his mouth opens, probably ready to tell something to Dana, but stops dead in his tracks when he sees you there. He doesn't have a good time controlling his emotions either. He blinks a few times to make sure he’s seeing right, and that you’re not a cruel product of his imagination. It’s too early in the shift for that.
But you’re there. You are there. Wait–you’re there?
The confusion quickly gets replaced by anger. It’s been a long time. Three years of nothing, and this is how you show up? Looking polished, composed, infuriatingly beautiful, like you didn’t leave a hole in his chest he was never able to stitch back together.
“Are you lost?” The words coming out his mouth are sharper than he expected, but the coldness is familiar to you.
“Jack,” you say, forcing a plastic smile and tilting your head. “Is that the way to greet your wife?”
“My wife…” Jack mutters with an incredulous laugh.
He looks at Dana all scandalized, offended. She just shrugs unimpressed, not interested in getting involved in whatever messy drama is about to unfold.
She will totally watch, though.
“If you’re here to tell me you finally signed the papers, then you wasted a whole trip. You could've just mailed them,” he says sharply, too blinded to notice the way your smile faltered at that.
“I’m not here for that,” you say, holding tighter to the bag on your shoulder. “There’s-”
“You know you’re not supposed to walk in through the ambulance bay unless you’re dying,” he continues, before giving you a head to toe assessing look that ends with a bitter huff. “And by the looks of it, seems like the devil has taken care of his own.”
You chuckle, because it’s the only thing you can do at this point. Because if anyone in the world has earned the right to call you a devil, it’s Jack.
For the last year of your marriage. For every sharp word, every time you didn’t want to listen, every fight that left him standing there wondering when loving each other had become something exhausting instead of home. For the way you ended things. For how you walked away and never came back.
“Dr.Abbot?” A male voice coming from the trauma room breaks the tense moment between you.
You look at the doctor, one you remember seeing last as a first year resident, trailing behind your husband with a notepad and an iced coffee in hand. You can’t recall his name, but he looks like he got his attending position after all.
Jack turns to him, “I’ll be there in a second, Shen,” he says gently, then back to you, more impatient, “I’m busy. So if you’re done making your little grand entrance, you can leave the same way you came in. You seem to be pretty good at it.”
The way he talks to you shouldn't hurt this much. You deserve it, for how unkind you were with him in the first place. For how badly you hurt him. For how you ran his endless patience thin. Now, in hindsight, there are many things you wish were different.
But wishing won’t make the medical records in your purse change. And even though you’ve earned every blow he throws at you, you still square your shoulders. Shrug it off like it doesn't matter. Because it doesn't matter.
“I’m not leaving until I speak to you…privately,” you say, turning back to Dana with a smile. “Break room’s still the same way, right?”
“Down the hall to the left, sweetheart,” she says, shaking her head with a chuckle.
You blow her a playful kiss as gratitude, one she pretends to dodge, rolling her eyes playfully as she walks away to continue with her duties. You round the nurse’s station, and walk straight past Jack, close enough that the heavy fabric of your coat almost brushes his arm, but it’s your scent that hits him like a punch to the stomach.
Your perfume. The perfume. The one you wore to all your dates, the one you married him with, and the one he had to scrub off his clothes like a toxic chemical when he talked himself into getting you out of his head after you left.
Dammit.
He sees you stroll to the break room with that sway of your hips that used to keep him up at night, trying to gather the courage to invite you out when you first met. Fucking dammit. You ruined his life. You keep doing it.
“Dr. Abbot!” Shen calls again, a little sharper even for him.
Jack sighs deeply, turning undefeated to the trauma room, as the same question pounds his head over and over again.
What on earth could you possibly want?
The second you shut the door of the break room and you’re alone again, your shoulders sag and the mask slips right off. The exhaustion in your bones makes you take a seat as soon as you see it, placing your bag on the chair next to you and pulling out the black folder you’ve been carrying around for months. You place it on the table, and look away as if that would change the contents of it.
Your eyes meet your reflection on the microwave sitting on the counter, and you can’t help the sigh that leaves your lips. You did well making yourself look like the ex wife who’s thriving and has her life together.
What a joke.
You slump back into your chair, and wait.
Jack makes you wait a long time. You figure it’s his petty way of getting back at you somehow, or maybe he’s just trying to ease off his anger before he walks in. But hey, at least you were able to reassemble yourself. By the time he walks in, you’re sitting at the table with your legs crossed neatly, coat still on, folder placed in front of you. Composed enough to make him think that this is still some kind of performance.
You hate that your brain keeps telling you to push more. To make him snap. The string has been broken for a while. Why do you still feel the need to pull?
Jack doesn’t sit, even if his leg would thank him for it, he just stands with his arms crossed over his chest, looking at you impatiently.
“What, you’re not joining me?” You tease, pushing open the chair across from you with your boot.
“I’m not staying long,” he says flatly, ignoring the seat. “So whatever this is, start talking.”
You hum in feign amusement, leaning back a little. “Why? Seems like a quiet night for me.”
Jack closes his eyes, shaking his head, thinking about every single self regulation method his therapist had taught him. Five things you can see, four things you can–
“Relax,” you say.
Wow. How didn’t he think of that? Could've saved him thousands in therapy.
He realizes the only way to get this over with, is getting it over with. So he opens his eyes, and this time they land straight on the folder in front of you. Whatever restraint he was trying to hold on to, spills out in a humorless laugh.
“What is that?” He nods to it, “A list of what you want to keep?”
“Jack, that’s not–”
“I already told my lawyer you can keep everything,” he says anyways, letting the words spill, because he’s been bleeding over this for years and he’s sure as hell not stopping now. “The house. The cars. Even the goddamn bedsheets. You can keep it all, I don’t want any of it,” he says calmly, like he isn't still losing sleep over it every day. “I moved out a while ago anyway, it doesn’t mean anything to me.”
It gets harder to keep your resolve, especially with the sharp pain throbbing in your head. But of course he doesn’t want it. Why would he want the remnants of a home you poisoned? A marriage you turned sharp and miserable and impossible to hold together?
A lump forms in the back of your throat, but you swallow it down like every bad news you’ve heard over the course of the last months.
“It’s not about the divorce, I already told you that,” you say quietly.
Jack just stares at you, exasperated. Every second you’re in front of him burns his insides. Every second you share the same oxygen he can’t breathe. Every second of your presence is just a reminder of the greatest thing he’s fucked up in his life.
You just pick up the folder and hold it out to him. He hesitates at first, but you have no bitchy remarks left on you. The faster you get it over with, the faster it will all be over, so you shake it for him to take it, until he finally does.
Your gaze stays on him as he flips through the papers inside; lab results, endless consult notes, imaging reports. The annoyance doesn’t disappear right away, but his salt and pepper brows furrow together as his brain catches up with what he’s reading. He digs for the actual CT, and comes across a series of images that back up everything the reports say.
He instinctively steps closer to the chair, eyes still fixed on the papers, sitting down mindlessly as he spreads everything on the table. The only thing he can focus on is your name printed on every paper. Abbot here, Abbot there. When he finally looks up at you, all the color has drained from his face.
“What is this?” He asks. Because what the fuck kind of bad joke is this.
“Well,” you clear your throat, crossing your arms over your chest, “you did say I shouldn’t walk in through the ambulance bay if I wasn’t dying.”
“This isn’t funny,” he says, frustrated. God, you forgot how intense his eye contact was. “What is this? How–when did this happen?”
You play with your fingers on your lap, and sigh, “Ten months ago, I…I had a seizure at work,” you say softly, forcing yourself to keep going. “They did the scans, and it–it didn’t take long to find it.”
It.
Jack stares at it on the CT, then his eyes drift to the reports. Mass. Tumor. Inoperable. Terms that have always been technical to him, medical, now seem like the cruelest words ever written by man.
“I’ve seen a couple of neurosurgeons,” you continue, “and they all came to the same conclusion–”
“No.”
“Jack, they said they can’t take it out–”
“No,” he cuts you off sharply, shaking his head. “That’s not–I don’t agree.”
“You don’t have to agree,” you don’t raise your voice, just smile sadly. It’s something you’ve been telling yourself over and over. “Guess the devil doesn’t look after their own in the end.”
“Stop, don’t…” Jack sighs, dropping the papers just to run his hands roughly across his face. “I didn’t mean that–fuck. I didn’t mean any of that–”
You haven’t even gotten through the worst of it, and you’re already exhausted. God, these timebombs suck your energy right off. You reach for the water bottle on your purse, and drink away the premature grief building in your throat.
Jack watches you carefully, and for the first time since he saw you again, he allows himself to see past the veil of hate he’d tried to see you through. He sees the crack in your smile, the shadows under your eyes, the real strain and exhaustion you can’t quite dress up with a fancy coat.
He sees he wasn’t there to hold you through it.
“Why didn't you call me?” He asks, and you fear it’s the most devastated you’ve ever heard him.
You sigh, and set the bottle down. Because how do you even explain that? What even was it? Pride? Shame? Guilt? Love?
Fear.
How do you tell the man you wrecked that you did think of him first? That even after years apart, even after every awful thing, he was the first person you needed when the ground fell out from under your feet?
“I didn’t want to bother you,” you admit.
I was scared.
“Bother me?”
“After everything that happened, I thought…I thought I should solve it on my own,” you shrug.
I didn’t think I deserved your help.
“You didn’t think that your husband, a doctor, would want to ‘solve it’??” he snaps. Offended, yes. Furious, yes. But underneath all of it…it’s the hurt that speaks.
“You’re not a neurosurgeon,” you laugh bitterly, more defensive than you want to. “Your opinion is not gonna change–”
“It’s not just my opinion!” He says, standing up because his frustration is going to make him burst if he stays still. “It’s–it’s me being there. You went through all of this alone.”
The only sounds in the room are both your heavy breaths. You keep your rigid posture, even if every part inside of you is breaking. Jack runs his hand through his curls, once, twice, then tugs a little on the third time.
“Jack…” you call out softly, but he doesn’t look at you. His gaze darts to other five things he can see, hands on his hips as he grounds himself. “I’m not here to fight. And I’m not here for you to solve it…there’s just something I wanted to talk about.”
He finishes his little exercise and looks at you again, bracing himself for an impact he’s not sure if he can take. You know he can’t. So you take another deep breath before speaking.
“The doctors said the tumor is in an area that affects behavior. Like my moods and personality. They said it may have been growing for years.”
There’s a tremble in Jack’s lower lip that makes you hesitate, you know he already knows what it means, yet you keep going.
“They think it might explain why I was so…particular these last few years,” you let out a broken little laugh, shaking your head quickly to try to fight the tears prickling your eyes. “I know it’s not an excuse, maybe it wasn’t that,” you sniffle, wiping your cheeks angrily. “Maybe I was just a bitch.”
“Hey–no, honey, don’t say that,” he says, the endearment falling out of his lips so naturally.
Jack doesn’t think twice to step closer and drop to one knee in front of you, groaning at this prosthetic but still reaching for your hands on your lap. You try to retreat back so fast your chair screeches against the floor, but he doesn’t let you pull back, instead he interlocks his fingers with yours, almost hissing at how cold you are.
You shake your head, tears flooding your cheeks now. “Don’t–don’t speak to me like that, you can still be mad at me,” you sob, but he keeps his warm grip firm. “You have every right to be, I was so mean to you, Jack. I snapped at you for everything. I made you feel like you were always doing something wrong. I turned our house into somewhere awful and I knew you were trying, and I kept pushing anyway.”
He has tears in his eyes now too, but he lets you get it out of your system. Lets the years of regret spill out of you all at once, god knows his therapist has heard him many times.
“Jack you’d come home exhausted and I’d always find something else to pick apart. Something else to be angry about. And you looked at me like you didn’t recognize me anymore, and I hated it because I thought you were wrong. Even then. I knew I was hurting you and I kept doing it. I made you carry all of it. So maybe now I deserve to carry all of this alone.”
There it is. Jack breaks completely at your confession. His hand comes up to cup your cheek, catching the tears that won’t stop coming.
“Sweetheart…you should’ve called me,” he says again, but he’s not angry this time. He’s grieving. “You should’ve called me.”
“I know.”
“You should not have done this by yourself.”
“I know,” you cry out, he just keeps caressing your cheek with his thumb. “My–my memory is not the best now and I just…I needed to tell you I was sorry while I still could.”
You try to smile through the tears, you really do, but he looks so frightened. So wrecked. Your hands fly to his wrists now, clinging instead of pulling away.
“I’m scared, Jack,” you confess.
He remembers you saying that on a holiday when he hauled you up deep into the sea, just so he could hold you in his arms. He remembers you saying that when he put on a horror movie just so you could hide behind his biceps. He remembers you saying that before trying a new dish at your favorite diner instead of the usual you ordered.
All those times were said with a laugh, or a cheeky smile. But this? This is pure, unadulterated fear. He is scared. He’s terrified. So he does what he always did best: hold you.
He lifts himself up just enough to wrap his arms around you. You let yourself go instinctively, realizing how much you’ve needed this the past few months. He holds you so tight, so desperate, one hand cradling the back of your head, the other rubbing your back. You bury your face in his neck and sob. You feel the way Jack shifts, pressing his lips to your hair while he whispers sweet nothings.
“I’m here. I’m here, honey. I got you.”
“I don’t–”
“Don’t tell me what you deserve right now.”
That makes you cry harder. He rocks you a few times, just like he used to on the worst nights. Just like he always vowed to.
“I loved you through all of it,” he confesses. “Even when I was angry. Even when I thought you hated me. I never stopped. I never stopped.”
“I’m so sorry,” you sniffle.
“I know, honey, I know.”
“I loved you the whole time too, I swear,” you keep going. “That’s why–that’s why I never signed the papers. My heart didn’t want to let you go. It never did.”
“It’s okay–“
“No it’s not.”
“But it is,” he insists. Firm and honest. “You were sick, and I should’ve known. I should’ve seen something–“
“No. Don’t blame yourself for this too,” pulling yourself apart from him enough to look into those beautiful hazel eyes. “Leave the regretting to me.”
“Sweetheart–“
“Jack.” You narrow your eyes at him, and it brings him back to all those times you won even the most pointless of arguments with just one look.
He huffs a teary laugh, dropping his head in defeat. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay,” he says, lifting his head again. There’s a new spark in his eye trying to make its way past the previous devastation. “Then you leave the rest to me.”
You look at him, eyebrows furrowed, but he just pushes a strand of hair from your face.
“I’m getting you admitted here,” he says, you immediately tense, but he speaks before you can refuse. “No, listen to me. We have some of the best neurosurgeons in the country connected to this hospital. I am going to pull every string I have, call in every favor I can, and get every set of eyes possible on this.”
“I can’t do this again,” you shake your head.
“Yes, you can.”
“I’ve already seen so many people, Jack. I’ve heard it all. I’ve made peace with it.”
“No you haven’t, and that’s okay. You came here because some part of you knew I would never let this go. So don’t ask me to. It’s offensive, honey.”
Well shit. Seems like your husband of years seems to actually know you better than you know yourself.
“I’ve accepted it, Jack. Memento mori.”
Liar liar pants on fire.
He grins. “Then I guess we’re both liars.”
You look at him confused, but he just sighs.
“I told you I moved out…but I didn’t,” he admits. “I still live in the house I built for you. I still sleep in our bed, on my side of course, cause I know you never liked the way I dipped your side of the mattress,” he laughs at the memory, making you smile. “Your books are still on the nightstand. I never moved them.”
You imagine all the things he never brought himself to move. The way time stopped running in a house that was once filled with laughter and love. So much love. Jack just does a helpless shrug.
“You left…but you never really left me.”
Yeah. That’ll do it. You’re crying again before you even realize it. Your hands go to cover your face, but he intercepts them midway.
“No, no, honey. No more hiding from me,” he says, so softly it doesn’t exactly help your situation. “We’re in this together now.”
You nod, his thumbs reach out to dry your tears.
“I know I’m not the type of surgeon you need. I know I can’t fix this with my own hands. But I’m still a doctor,” he explains softly. “And most importantly…I’m still your husband. So I will be damned if I don’t do everything in my power to figure this out. We are going to try. Oh honey we are going to ask questions. We are going to make the smartest people in every room look at this until they are sick of seeing my face.”
That makes you laugh. He delights at the sound.
“Jack…”
“I know you’re tired, my love,” he continues, his voice turning even softer. “I know you’re scared. I know you’ve been carrying this by yourself for too long and the idea of starting over with new doctors makes you want to crawl out of your skin. But you do not get to give up before I even get a chance to fight for you.”
The weight in your chest that has been dragging you down lately eases, if only a little, letting you breathe. Maybe he’s right. Maybe all of this would’ve been easier if he’d known from the start. Maybe it can be easier now. Even if he can’t solve it…you’ll let him try.
“Okay,” you whisper.
“Okay,” he nods. “You’re coming home with me tonight, and we’ll deal with this in the morning. We’ll start here, and if it doesn’t work there’s always New York, I can cash a few favors in Washington too–“
“But your job–“
“Can wait,” he states without hesitation. “Sweetheart, I've been here for a long time, and I’m going to use that to my advantage. Maybe it’s time for my sabbatical, yeah? That way I can take you everywhere you need to be. Wouldn’t you like that?”
“…a sabbatical.”
“Robby took one,” he shrugs. “Three months away and it didn’t kill him. I’m willing to take whatever time they allow me.”
“What about SWAT duty?” You push. He lets out a chuckle.
“I know you might miss the uniform–“
You slap his arm weakly.
“Alright, alright,” he throws his hands up in defeat. “Just–don’t worry about it, okay? I meant it when I said I got you, honey.”
You sigh, but it’s more out of relief than anything. How you needed to hear those words. How you needed him.
“And in the meantime, you can tell me your favorite memories of us…so I can keep them safe for you while we figure this out.”
Jesus Christ. How could you have ever walked away from this man? At this point you’re gonna have to sign the papers just to marry him again.
“Jack…”
“Come on, from the hip, give me one,” he says playfully, and you know he’s not letting this go.
You tap your chin and glance away, pretending to think. Your eyes light up when a very specific memory pops into your head.
“I remember our naked yoga sessions very fondly,” you say, completely serious, but it manages to get a genuine surprised laugh from him.
“Of course you do,” he laughs, throwing his head back at the memory. He still does it, at sunrise when he’s not working, with your mat still next to his. “You always ended up bouncing on me.”
“Jack!!” You say, heat creeping up your face in a way it hasn’t in a long time.
You both laugh about it for a moment, then fall into a quiet that could never be described as awkward. Not between you. Not anymore.
“I missed this,” he says quietly, those intense hazel eyes piercing into yours. You loved those eyes. You still do. “I missed you.”
You smile sadly, cupping his face with your hands. “You missed nice me.”
“I missed my wife.”
Your heart skips a beat at that. So many years he’d called you that, until you threw it all away. Or, well, the thing in your head did? Whatever. It is what it is.
Your eyes travel all over his face. Damp lashes, tension in his jaw even if he tries to hide it with a cheeky grin, all the wrinkles time has carved into him while you were apart.
“I missed my husband,” you finally say, just as soft.
He smiles at that. You loved that smile, you still do.
“Then let me take care of you, honey.”
We can plant a memory garden
Say a solemn prayer, place a poppy in my hair
There's no morning glory, it was war, it wasn't fair
And we will never go back to that bloodshed
Thank you so much for reading 🤍 feedback is always appreciated 💋
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It cracks me up that Joy Kwon, an American Korean who Western media loves to slot into that duty‑driven overachiever and tireless‑workhorse stereotype, be the one to triumphantly claim her right to clock off on time.
pairing: professor!Jack Abbot x f!psych phd student reader
summary: You’re a senior doctoral student in the clinical department, burned out and emotionally barricaded, just trying to finish your final few years when Jack Abbot—trauma researcher, new committee member, and unexpectedly perceptive—starts seeing through you in ways you didn’t anticipate
wc: ~6.4k
content/warnings: academic!AU, slow burn (we are still burning, I am so sorry), mutual pining of the most agonizing variety, emotional repression doing its absolute worst, discussions of clinical work/mental health, dissociation mention (clinical context), hurt/comfort, avoidant attachment being avoidant, internship anxiety, a hospital hallway that changes things, Samira being the patron saint of this narrative, angst, yearning, more yearning, a little hope at the end I promise, no explicit smut (yet/tbd but still 18+ MDNI, i will fight u)
a/n: thank you to everyone for your patience, grad school has been kicking my ass these past 6 months but here she is, i kept my pinky promise. (she was alive in my chest this whole time, i was just afraid to look directly at her 🤍)
The morning after you walk out of Jack's office, you wake up at 5:47 a.m. to a sunrise the color of a bruise and the particular sensation of having done something you can't entirely undo.
Not the elevator. You'd made your peace with the elevator—or rather, you'd sealed it in a folder labeled don't open until internship year, filed it somewhere between unresolved childhood stuff and papers to revise in Q2, and moved on. You were good at that. Filing. Moving on.
What you couldn't file away was the sound of your name in his voice.
Hey—
Just that. One syllable. Half a word, really. And then the soft thud of a door closing, and your own footsteps, and your hands shaking all the way down the hall like your body hadn't gotten the memo that you'd decided to be fine about this.
You lie on your back and stare at the water stain on your apartment ceiling—the one that's been there since October and which you've been meaning to tell your landlord about and somehow never do—and you think: this is the problem with being good at compartmentalization. You start to believe your own filing system.
Your phone lights up.
Samira [6:02 a.m.]: u awake
You stare at it.
You [6:03 a.m.]: unfortunately
Samira [6:03 a.m.]: ✨ come for a walk ✨
You close your eyes. Open them. The ceiling stain looks faintly like a sheep if you squint.
You [6:04 a.m.]: give me 20 mins
The farmers market isn't open yet when you get there, but the vendors are setting up—the man with the sourdough stacking loaves, the woman who sells honey she names after her daughters. Samira is already there with two coffees from the cart near the entrance, hair in a low bun, sleep still in the corners of her eyes.
You take the coffee without speaking. She falls into step beside you.
"You're doing the thing," she says, eventually.
You sip. "What thing."
"The thing where your jaw is very tight and your eyes are doing that scanning thing—"
"That's just my face—"
"—and you keep checking your phone even though no one's texted you." She glances at you. "The 'I made a decision I'm regretting but I'm calling it self-preservation' thing."
You exhale through your nose.
"He called my name," you say. "When I was leaving. And I just—kept walking."
Samira is quiet for a moment. Then: "Why?"
"Because." You watch a pigeon investigate a dropped strawberry near the sidewalk. "Because I didn't know what he was going to say, and not knowing felt safer than knowing and it being—" You pause. "Nothing."
Samira doesn't fill the silence. She's good at that. It's why you love her and occasionally find her terrifying.
"So you ran," she says finally. Not unkind. Just precise.
"I walked. Quickly."
"Right."
You both stop at the honey table. The jars are lined up in rows, amber and gold and deep brown, labeled in small cursive—Clara, Margot, Bea. You pick one up without really looking at it.
"I don't know what to do with it," you say. "I don't know what the it even is."
"Yes you do," Samira says, very gently. "You just don't know what to do once you admit it."
You put the honey down.
"He's on my committee," you say.
"I know."
"I'm leaving for internship in eight months."
"I know."
"It's literally textbook contraindicated."
"I know." Samira turns to look at you. "I also know that you came back from that conference and spent a week looking like someone had taken all the furniture out of a room you'd been navigating in the dark."
You blink.
"That," she says, quieter now, "is not nothing."
You look down at the ground—at the coffee cup in your hands, at the seam of your shoe on the sidewalk. The weight in your chest has shifted, not lighter, just differently distributed.
"I don't know how to do this," you say, for the second time in as many months. The second time you've said it out loud.
Samira bumps her shoulder against yours. "I know. But you said that about the dissertation defense outline too, and you handed it in six days early."
You almost laugh. Almost.
"That's not the same—"
"It absolutely is not." She links her arm through yours and starts walking again. "But the point stands. You figure things out. It's physically your personality."
The sun is just cresting the buildings to the east. The market is filling up around you—footsteps and laughter and the smell of something with cinnamon baking somewhere nearby.
"And if figuring it out means getting hurt?" you ask.
Samira is quiet for a beat.
"Then you'd have been brave enough to find out," she says. "Which is more than most people manage."
You say nothing. Hold the warmth of the coffee between your palms.
Some things you carry without answering.
The distance, when it comes, is nothing dramatic. No cold shoulder. No avoided eye contact. No sudden shortness in his emails.
It's subtler than that.
The cadence of your meetings shifts—back to once a week, crisp and functional, the kind of sessions that produce useful feedback and leave no residue. Jack asks about your analyses. You answer. He comments on your framing. You revise. He schedules the next meeting. You confirm.
It's fine. It's professional. It is exactly what your graduate school handbook would describe as a well-functioning mentor-mentee relationship.
It should feel like relief.
It doesn't.
You notice things in the space where something else used to live. The absence of the small aside at the end of a meeting—the stray observation about something you'd mentioned weeks ago, the dry comment about the department printer, the half-question that wasn't quite a question. They're gone. Not dramatically. Just quietly returned to wherever they'd come from.
Jack is still warm, in the way that he is warm—careful and deliberate and exactly as much as the situation calls for. But the frequency has changed. The wavelength.
You're both doing it, you think. Both retreating to the coordinates you know by heart. Both pretending the elevator was just an elevator.
The self-aware part of you—the part that has read every paper on defensive avoidance and could lecture for forty minutes on the behavioral inhibition system—recognizes it with clinical precision. Aversive conditioning of anticipated rejection. Avoidance as negative reinforcement. Classic extinction failure: the feared outcome was never actually tested.
The other part of you just misses him.
Quietly. Without announcement. The way you miss things you never quite had—the shape of a feeling rather than its substance.
You tell exactly no one. Even Samira gets radio silence on this front. Some things are easier to file when you don't keep talking about them.
November fades into December the way Pittsburgh winters do: fast, gray, and without apology. The light drops out of the sky by four o'clock. The Monongahela goes flat and pewter. The trees have been bare for weeks already.
You're in the thick of dissertation writing now—an all-consuming, existentially leveling process that at least has the virtue of leaving you very little bandwidth for anything else. You're on your fourth draft of the discussion. You've rearranged your integrative conclusion three times. You've developed a complicated relationship with the phrase taken together.
It's a Thursday when the clinical week falls apart.
Your practicum is at the university training clinic on Tuesdays and Thursdays, standard for fifth years. You've been carrying a moderate caseload: anxiety, adjustment disorder, one OCD case supervised closely by your practicum coordinator. This term you'd also picked up a new case under GM: a college student presenting with recurrent dissociative episodes, functioning well on the surface but fragile in ways that required careful, slow-moving work.
On Thursday afternoon, the session doesn't go the way you planned. Nothing goes wrong, exactly. Nothing catastrophic. But there's a moment—a long pause in the middle of a grounding exercise where your client looks at you with eyes that are there but not there, present but unreachable, and you talk them back gently while something in your own chest catches.
You go through the motions with professional competence. You close the session correctly. You write the note. You consult with GM on your way out.
But by the time you reach your car, you feel it—the hollow, bruised sensation of doing hard emotional work and having nowhere to put what it costs you. You sit in the driver's seat for five minutes before you can make yourself turn the key.
You don't go home. You end up at the lab instead—the quiet, familiar grid of your office—and just sit there for a while, lights on but not doing anything in particular.
He knocks at ten past eight.
You don't need to look up to know it's him. His knock has a particular quality—three times, evenly spaced, not demanding but not tentative.
"Hey," Jack says. His voice is quiet. He's in a jacket, not his usual button-down—must be heading out, or have just come from somewhere.
You manage something that's almost a smile. "Hey."
He reads the room. He's good at that.
He comes in without being asked, leaves the door cracked just slightly, and sits—not at the desk chair you use for supervision, but on the edge of the little couch along the wall, the one cluttered with journals and one forlorn stress ball someone left in 2019.
"Clinical?" he asks.
You nod.
He doesn't ask for details. Doesn't push. Just settles in with the quiet steadiness that has always been his particular way—not filling space, but not evacuating it either.
"Good session or hard session?" he says, eventually.
"Hard," you say. "Not bad. Just." You turn your pen over in your hands. "Heavy."
He nods slowly.
"She dissociated," you say. "Not dangerously. We got through it. But she looked at me for a second like I was—" You pause. "Like I was the only solid thing in the room. And I just." You exhale. "I wanted to be solid for her. I wanted to be enough."
Jack is quiet for a moment.
"You were," he says.
"How do you know that?"
"Because you're still here thinking about it." He glances at you. "Clinicians who stop caring don't sit in dark offices at eight p.m. asking themselves if they were enough."
The lamp on your desk makes a warm amber pool on the carpet between you. You turn your pen over again.
"I know." You look at the wall—at the print you'd pinned up there in your second year, a Magritte reproduction slightly askew that you've never straightened. "I know, academically. I just needed someone to say it out loud."
Jack doesn't answer right away. He leans forward slightly, elbows on his knees, hands loosely clasped in that posture you've come to recognize as his thinking posture—unhurried, turned inward.
"I had a case in my third year," he says. "Veteran. Chronic combat trauma. We were deep into prolonged exposure and he had a flooding episode—couldn't orient, couldn't regulate. I held the space, called it correctly, got him back. Textbook." He looks at his hands. "I went home and couldn't remember what I ate for dinner. Sat on my kitchen floor for about twenty minutes."
You look at him.
"It costs something," he says. "It should. That's not weakness—that's you metabolizing what it means to be in the room with someone else's pain." He meets your eyes briefly. "The trick is learning the difference between carrying it and drowning in it."
There's something in his voice that's older than clinical training. You hear it.
You don't say anything right away. The lamp hums softly.
"When did you learn the difference?" you ask.
His mouth does the thing—not quite a smile, but close enough. "Still learning," he says.
You exhale. It comes out longer than you intended.
You don't know when the distance shrank again—or when you stopped feeling the absence of what you'd been missing. Maybe it was the knock. Maybe it was before that. But the room feels different now. Not charged, not complicated. Just warm in the way of two people who have, without deciding to, become important to each other.
He stays for another thirty minutes. You talk—not about the case, not about the dissertation, just talk. About a book you've both read that you have opposite reactions to. About whether the department coffee machine is a metaphysical threat. About a conference you'd both attended in 2022 where the keynote fell asleep during a panel.
By the time you both get up to leave, the hollow thing in your chest has mostly filled back in.
In the hallway, walking toward the exit, the corridor is dim and quiet. Your footsteps echo.
"Jack," you say.
He looks at you.
"Thanks." You mean it completely. "For coming in."
He studies you for a moment—that careful, unhurried look you've catalogued more times than you'll admit.
"You'd have done the same," he says.
He holds the door open for you when you get to the exit. The night air is cool, and the parking lot is mostly empty.
You walk to your cars on opposite ends. At some point, you both say goodnight.
You don't touch. You don't linger at the threshold.
But when you pull out of the lot, you glance in the rearview mirror and see his headlights behind you, following the same street for two blocks before diverging.
And something about that—the parallel trajectories, the ordinary fact of it—makes the hollow thing seal over completely.
The distance has a half-life. This is not a metaphor; it's a measurable phenomenon, and you are an empiricist.
By January you've stopped counting the meetings where he doesn't say more than he needs to. By February you've started bringing coffee again when you come to his office—one for each of you, the exact order by now committed to muscle memory—and he takes his without comment but with that barely-there flicker at the corner of his mouth that you've learned to read as thank you and also you remembered.
The dissertation is moving. Your committee is satisfied. Your applications have all been submitted to internship programs across the country—ranging from dream (Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt, UCSF) to realistic (solid programs in the midwest and southeast you've made your peace with) to the one your program director submitted on your behalf as a safety that you will simply not speak aloud.
Match day is scheduled for the second Friday of March.
This fact exerts a low-grade gravitational pull on everything. Eight months of applications, interviews conducted over video call with your best blazer over pajama pants, reference letters and work samples and personal statements, and it all comes down to whether an algorithm decides you belong in Baltimore or Nashville or, optimistically, Boston.
It also means that in approximately four months, you may be leaving Pittsburgh.
You don't examine that fact too directly. You keep it in the same folder as everything else that doesn't bear direct examination.
Jack brings it up exactly once.
It's mid-February. Your meeting has run long—you'd gotten into it over a section of your discussion on affect labeling, the kind of argument that feels like sparring but productive sparring, where you end up sharper for it. He'd pushed back on your framing of emotion regulation as primarily effortful. You'd defended it with three citations and a pointed analogy. He'd conceded gracefully and suggested a small modification that you immediately knew was correct.
You're packing up when he says, "Have you started hearing back from programs?"
The question is casual. You match it. "A few. Three interviews so far. Couple more coming in."
"Strong ones?"
"Yes." A beat. "Hopkins. Vanderbilt. One in Chicago."
He nods slowly. "Those would be good for you."
Something in his voice. You can't name it. You glance up, but he's looking at his desk—not avoiding, just looking. His thumb traces that familiar line across his knuckle.
"Yeah," you say. "They'd be good."
The room is quiet.
You should say something else. Or he should. Something neutral and professional about internship match rates and placement history, something that closes the brackets on the conversation.
Neither of you does.
You zip your bag. Lift it to your shoulder.
"I'm going to miss this place," you say, and you intend it to sound light, offhand, a general statement about the building and the program and the years of your life you've poured into this particular institution.
But it comes out softer than that. More specific.
Jack looks up.
Your eyes meet for a moment. The lamp is on again—it's always on in winter, the days too short—and his expression is careful and unguarded in equal measure.
"I know," he says.
Two words, weighted like a full sentence.
You nod. And go.
March arrives the way it always does: grudgingly, the cold not quite releasing its grip, the sky still the particular white-gray of a city that has forgotten what it feels like to be warm. The trees are still bare. The Allegheny is running high from snowmelt. But there's something—just barely—starting to shift. A smell in the air. A degree or two of extra light in the mornings.
Match Day is a Friday.
You don't sleep well on Thursday. You'd known this intellectually—your sleep diary for the two weeks preceding shows the progressive fragmentation of your rest as clearly as any polysomnography readout—but knowing it doesn't prevent the 3 a.m. staring at the ceiling, the runaway iteration over best and worst case, the quiet inventory of what your life might look like in six different cities.
By 9 a.m. you're in the clinical training suite with the rest of the fifth years, all of you gathered around a conference table with laptops and coffee and the particular energy of a group that has been under sustained pressure for so long that near-release just makes everything worse.
Samira is beside you, her knee bouncing under the table—the only visible tell of her own anxiety, otherwise composed as ever.
"I'm going to vomit," she says very quietly.
"You're not," you say.
"I might."
"You won't." You slide the coffee cup closer to her. "If you were going to vomit, you'd have done it on Tuesday."
She breathes out through her nose. "Thank you. This is why you're my best friend."
The match results come through at 10 a.m. Eastern.
The room is very quiet when you open the email.
You read it once. Then again.
Boston VA Healthcare System, Primary Care Mental Health Integration track.
You sit with it for a moment. Just sit with the fact of it—the program you'd ranked fourth, the one you'd applied to thinking probably not but why not try. The one in the city where you'd done your first clinical rotation as an undergrad, where you'd walked the Charles River Esplanade in February with your coat zipped to your chin and thought: I could come back here.
Boston.
"Well?" Samira, beside you, voice tight.
You show her the screen.
She makes a sound that is somewhere between a gasp and a laugh and physically takes your face in both her hands. "Are you KIDDING me. Are you kidding me."
"I'm not kidding you."
"VA Boston—that's a phenomenal program—"
"I know—"
"Oh my GOD, you're going to be incredible—" She pulls you into a hug that is immediate and fierce and slightly complicated by the fact that you both still have coffee cups in your hands. Across the table, someone else whoops. Someone else exhales in relief. Someone else is very quietly crying, which turns out to be Robby's student Ben, who matched to his first choice at Duke, and the room shifts into something softer and loud and genuinely joyful.
You let yourself feel it. You let the reality settle into your body—the good reality, the one you'd practiced hoping for without quite letting yourself believe in.
Boston.
Eight months.
The department sends the mass email at 11:43 a.m., a congratulatory announcement from the training director, all matched students listed by name and placement with a brief note about what a strong cohort this has been. Standard. Warm in the institutional way.
You see your name in the list. Boston VA, Primary Care Mental Health Integration. It still looks slightly unreal in 11-point Times New Roman.
You're back at your desk by 1 p.m., the afternoon quiet settling around you, when a new message arrives.
The sender line stops you.
Abbot, J.
Not a reply-all. A separate message, written directly to you.
Subject: Congratulations
Boston is an excellent program—rigorous, well-resourced, strong supervisory model. You'll do well there.
Congratulations. You earned it.
- J.A.
You read it twice.
Nine sentences. Fourteen words if you don't count the sign-off. Entirely professional, entirely appropriate, the kind of email a committee chair sends to a student on match day.
He didn't have to send it separately. The department email covered it. Everyone got the announcement. He chose to write to you anyway.
You read it a third time.
You'll do well there.
Not it will be good for your career or strong placement or any of the other framing he could have reached for. You'll do well there. Second person. Present tense. About you, specifically.
You sit with that for a moment.
Then you write back.
Subject: Re: Congratulations
Thank you. For the email, and for this year.
I'll try to make it worth the committee hours.
You hover over send for approximately four seconds longer than necessary.
Then you close your laptop and tip your face up toward the window, and breathe.
The semester moves. You write. Jack reads. Your committee reconvenes. The defense date is set for early May—a milestone that your brain can only process in practical terms, as a series of calendar items and task lists, because if you let yourself comprehend its full meaning you will simply dissolve.
In the meantime, you are in Jack's office.
This is its own kind of milestone—you've been in this office more hours than you've spent in many other rooms you call significant. You know the slant of the afternoon light through the far window, the particular creak the second shelf makes when someone reaches the top, the way Jack leans back when he's about to disagree with you versus when he's genuinely thinking. You know his coffee order (black, no exceptions, one cup in the morning and one in the afternoon and a herbal tea at night that he will vehemently deny drinking if asked). You know the way his pen moves across a manuscript, the steady shorthand of his corrections.
You know the way the room changes temperature when something shifts between you.
You've spent most of this year pretending you don't know that.
It's a Thursday in late March. The forsythia trees outside his window are now legitimately doing something—stubborn yellow against the last of the grey, the first thing in Pittsburgh that remembers it's supposed to be spring. The late afternoon light is long and golden. You're going through the last chapter of your dissertation, which has taken on the quality of a strange old friend—someone you've been in close quarters with for long enough that you've stopped being able to see them clearly.
"The conclusion is too hedged," Jack says. He's looking at the page, not you. "You spend two pages caveating when you could spend one page claiming."
"I'm a scientist," you say. "We caveat."
"You're also capable of defending your argument with conviction. This—" he taps the page "—sounds like you're apologizing for your own findings."
You look at the passage. He's right. You hate that he's right.
"I always do this in conclusions," you say, more to yourself than to him.
"I know." His voice is matter-of-fact, not unkind. "You hold ground in an argument but retreat when you have to claim territory for yourself."
You look up.
He's still looking at the page, turning his pen in the same slow rotation. Like it's a simple observation about writing style.
"That's..." You stop.
He glances up. Something in his expression acknowledges that he said more than he meant to.
"That's specific feedback," you say, carefully.
Jack holds your gaze for a moment. The pen stills.
"It's accurate feedback," he says, equally careful.
The room does the thing it does. The hum under the surface, the change in pressure.
You look back down at the page. Your hands are in your lap.
"I'm working on it," you say. Your voice is quieter than you intend.
"I know," Jack says. Softer this time.
You don't look up. But something crosses your chest—a warmth, a recognition, the faint ache of being seen by someone who hasn't been asked to look.
You rework the conclusion.
He doesn't say anything else.
But when you read it back, voice low and a little self-conscious, he listens with his full posture—that lean, that attention—and at the end he says, simply, "There she is."
You keep your eyes on the paper.
But you're smiling.
The week before your defense, you dream about the elevator.
Not the way it happened—not the held hands, the charged silence, the doors opening. In the dream, the elevator doesn't stop. You and Jack just keep going up, floor after floor, the numbers above the door cycling past in amber, the two of you not touching, not speaking, just aware of each other in the way of people who have been circling the same sun for a long time.
You wake at 4 a.m. with the particular clarity of a mind that has processed something while the rest of you wasn't watching.
You lie there for a while.
Then you open your laptop and finish the final edits on your conclusion.
You send it to your committee at 6:15 a.m.
Jack responds at 7:02:
Jack [7:02a.m.]: Strong. See you Thursday.
Your dissertation defense is on a Thursday in the second week of May. The building is too warm. Your outfit is exactly right and somehow still slightly wrong. Robby brings a gift bag with a card signed by the entire clinical faculty that includes a pun about mixed methods you'd expect from him and will keep forever.
You stand in front of your committee in the small conference room with the recalcitrant projector, and you talk for fifty-three minutes about affective forecasting and emotion dysregulation and the particular ways people fail to predict their own future selves.
You claim your territory. Without apology.
Afterward, in the deliberation period, you sit in the hallway with Samira and Mel and two cups of terrible departmental coffee and try to remember how breathing works.
When Robby opens the door and says "Can we get Dr.—" using your full surname with theatrical solemnity, and then ruins it immediately by grinning, you feel something that you don't have a clinical term for. Not pride, exactly. Something more like the completion of a circuit you've been holding open for years.
The first hug is Samira, who says nothing because she doesn't need to.
The second is Mel, who says I'm so proud of you into your shoulder.
The third is Robby, who makes it weird in the best possible way.
You look for Jack in the room. He's at the window, standing slightly apart from the cluster of faculty who are milling about with champagne glasses—he must have gotten the sparkling grape juice, which he will also deny doing. He's watching you.
You cross the room.
"Thank you," you say. "For this year. For all of it."
He looks at you steadily. "You did it yourself."
"You helped."
"I offered feedback on your methodology and occasionally told you to go home when you were clearly running on fumes." He tilts his head. "That's the job."
You look at him. "Jack."
He holds your gaze.
"Thank you," you say again, and you let it land without hedging, without the reflexive self-deprecation, without the pivot to professional language.
Something shifts in his expression—small, almost undetectable, but you know his face too well now not to see it.
"You're welcome," he says. Quiet and direct and entirely without deflection.
Robby appears between you like a force of nature with two glasses of champagne, breaking the moment with the precise timing of someone who has absolutely no idea he's breaking a moment.
You take the glass. Drink.
Jack, across the room a moment later, meets your eyes once over the rim of his glass.
Something in his expression says: not yet. But also: eventually.
And that is enough, for now.
May becomes June. June becomes the last days before your departure.
The lab throws you a small send-off party—research assistants who are better at baking than you expected, a card covered in looping handwriting, a photo taken in your office with your degrees on the wall. You cry exactly once, into the bathroom sink, and then you go back out.
Your last formal day in the department is a Thursday, because of course it is.
You don't plan to stop at Jack's office. You have your bag, you have your keys, you've said your important goodbyes. The hallway is bright and summer-warm, motes of dust in the late afternoon light.
But you stop.
The door is half-open. He's there, which you somehow knew without knowing.
You knock on the frame.
He looks up from his desk, and the particular quality of stillness that crosses his face in the first half-second tells you something you've been trying not to look at directly for the better part of a year.
"Hey," he says.
"Hey."
You step inside, stay near the threshold. "I just—" You look at your hands briefly. "I wanted to say goodbye. Properly."
Jack sets down his pen. He folds his hands on the desk in that careful way, and looks at you with the full weight of his attention, the way he has always looked at you, the way that once made you recalibrate your entire emotional filing system.
"When do you leave?" he asks.
"Sunday."
He nods once.
The room is very quiet.
"I'm going to—" You exhale. You're going to do this. You promised yourself you'd do this. "I'm going to say something, and then I'm going to go, and you don't have to say anything back."
His expression doesn't change. But the quality of his stillness shifts.
You look at him.
"That night in the elevator," you say. "I've been trying to file it away for months. And I can't. I've tried every cognitive strategy I've ever taught a client and I can't, so I'm just going to say it: I don't think it was nothing. I don't think either of us thought it was nothing."
You breathe.
"And I know the timing has been terrible, and the ethics of it are genuinely complicated, and I'm leaving on Sunday to go five hundred miles northeast—" You stop. Try again. "I'm not asking you to do anything about it. I think I just needed to say it out loud. So that it's real somewhere outside of my head. So that—" Your voice is very steady, you're proud of it. "So I could be someone who claimed their territory."
The silence is not empty. It never is, with him.
Jack looks at you for a long moment. The afternoon light through the window. The slant of it across the floor.
He rises from his desk. Slowly, with the slight care of someone managing a prosthetic after a long day. He crosses the room.
He stops just in front of you. Close enough that you're aware of his presence in the visceral, full-body way you've been aware of it since October of last year.
"You're not the only one who couldn't file it away," he says.
Your breath catches.
He looks at you—not uncertain, not cautious. Just clear. That worn, grounded clarity that has always been his particular frequency.
"I called your name," he says. "When you were leaving. In November." His eyes don't waver. "I was going to—" He pauses, the smallest compression of his jaw. "I wanted to say something. I let you walk out."
"Why?" you ask. Your voice is barely a whisper.
He exhales. "Because you were leaving in eight months, and I was your committee chair, and I'd been telling myself those reasons were sufficient." A beat. "They weren't sufficient."
You look up at him.
"They're still true," he says. "The timing. The distance. I know that." He holds your gaze. "I just think you deserve to know that they were never the whole truth."
Your chest aches. Not painfully. Just full—the way of a thing that has been waiting a long time to be acknowledged.
"So what do we—" You stop. Swallow. "What does that mean?"
Jack looks at you with that quiet certainty—no hedging, no strategy.
"It means," he says, "that you're going to be extraordinary in Boston, and you're going to do things with your research that you can't fully see yet." He pauses. "And it means that when you come back—"
"Jack—"
"—whether for a conference or a visit or for good," he continues, steady, "I'd like to take you to dinner. Not as a committee chair." He holds your gaze. "If you'd want that."
You look at him.
The afternoon light.
The familiar room—overcrowded bookshelves, the annotated manuscript stack, the office that has felt like a bunker and also, somehow, over the course of the last year, like one of the steadier places you know.
"If I want that," you repeat.
"If you want that," he confirms.
You breathe.
"That's a very open-ended variable," you say. Your voice comes out unsteady in a way you don't entirely mind.
The corner of his mouth shifts—not a smile, but very close to one.
"I'm a fan of longitudinal designs," he says.
A laugh escapes you, broken and genuine. The tension in your chest doesn't release, exactly, but it transforms—into something lighter. Something that feels like the particular relief of a hypothesis finally tested.
"Okay," you say. Softly. With intention. The way you said it once before, in this office, when he told you your argument was brilliant and held your gaze until you believed him.
"Okay," he echoes.
You stand there for a moment—the two of you, in this room, on a Thursday afternoon in June with the trees finally fully green outside his window and the semester over and your whole enormous future waiting on the other side of the weekend.
You don't touch. The moment is too careful for that, too deliberate, balanced on the edge of what's been said and all the room that the future holds.
But when you finally turn to go—when you lift your bag and step toward the door and feel the familiar threshold of this hallway under your feet—he says your name.
Not hey— and a trailing off. Not a half-word swallowed by a closing door.
Your name. Fully. Quietly. Like he means it.
You stop.
You turn around.
He's standing where you left him, hands loose at his sides, his expression unhurried and unguarded in equal measure—the face he makes when he's not performing composure, when the careful architecture of his restraint has, just briefly, stepped aside.
"Safe travels," he says.
You hold his gaze.
"I'll see you," you say. And you mean it completely.
He nods once.
You walk out into the hall, and this time when the door closes behind you, your hands don't shake.
On the drive home, the radio plays something instrumental—no lyrics, just a pattern of notes rising and resolving. You have the windows down because it's June in Pittsburgh and the air is finally, genuinely warm, the kind of warm that feels earned after a winter that long, and it smells like cut grass and something green and the river not too far away.
You think about fear extinction. About what you told your client, back in October—the point isn't to trick you. It's to see what happens when the threat isn't real. When it's safe.
About what Jack said, once, in the dim warmth of your office: you just have to let someone sit with you in the silence.
About the elevator—the held hands, the held breath, the careful way you'd released his fingers. The doors closing. The look through the narrowing gap.
About all the small exposures between then and now. Every meeting, every hallway, every 8 p.m. quiet, every morning coffee remembered and carried. Every moment you'd stayed instead of filing it away. Every moment the feared outcome—rejection, exposure, the cost of being known—simply did not arrive.
You think about what it means that you know this already. That you understand, at a structural level, exactly what has been happening. The learning theory of it, the neural underpinnings, the way the amygdala recalibrates when a stimulus is repeatedly encountered without the expected aversive consequence.
You think about how understanding it doesn't prevent it. Only living it does.
And you think—window down, June air moving through your hair—that this is what the last year has been. Not just a dissertation, not just an internship match, not just the careful navigation of an impossible professional-emotional situation.
It's been an experiment. An extended, uncontrolled, deeply personal study in what happens when someone offers safety and you, eventually, believe them.
Not because the risk went away.
But because you kept showing up anyway.
The music shifts. The resolution of the phrase opens into something new.
Boston waits on the other side of Sunday, and internship, and the year ahead—all of it unfamiliar and enormous and full of the kind of uncertainty that you used to hate and are beginning, slowly, to hold differently.
And somewhere behind you, in an office with too many books and not enough daylight, a man with careful hands and a worn voice and a slow, particular way of seeing is going to go home tonight. He will hang up his coat. Place his keys in the ceramic dish. Fill the kettle.
He will think of you.
You know this.
And for the first time, the knowing doesn't make you want to file it away.
You tip your head back against the headrest. Let the warm air move.
Fear isn't erased, he'd told a lecture hall once, without looking at you and entirely for you. It's overwritten.
You close your eyes for one red light.
When it turns green, you go.
to be continued in part III
p.s. she emailed him from the airport on Sunday. something small, ostensibly practical. a forwarded article about VA research initiatives, maybe, or a note about her flight delay. plausible deniability in a subject line. he replied before she boarded. she read it twice at the gate. i'll let you decide what it said.
summary: with growing resentment towards the job, one special person brings a lightness to you life amid the dark.
warnings: reader is sad and overwhelmed from work, no details pertaining to reader age, gender, appearance, etc., aside from the mention of hair, grammar errors (im sure).
word count: 820
pitt work at the bottom of list
the ED was beginning to crescendo like a haunting symphony. the kind that lulls in the background of a film and unknowingly causes your heart to race.
it was the clicking of the keyboards. the whooshing of the automatic doors followed by the slight squeak of the back left gurney wheel. sobs racking through the body of a mourning wife in trauma room 1. the screech of the hand sanitizer dispensing and sanitizing the hands of a nurse who just finished an IV.
it was suffocating.
you used to find it comforting: the heart rate monitor or the sound of orders being demanded out by your colleagues. but, it was becoming too much. and you couldn’t pinpoint when the passion and excitement dwindled.
you escaped to the viewing room. as odd as it may seem, there was some comfort being in the room that, for the last time in the hospital, honors the dead.
the taunting symphony now played softly in the background as your head hung between your knees. thoughts, any thoughts, whirled in your mind, desperate not to think about the disdain towards work building up. it’s painful to think that something you’ve dreamed about for so long to no longer be your dream. the sounds, the way your scrubs itch against your skin, the beep when you swipe your ID into the computer. it was overwhelming.
you didn’t need to raise your head up to know who opened the door. it was weird, every noise you heard today was grating, but not the sound of his heavy steps.
he sighed. “heard you were in here.”
you hummed, slightly lifting your head only to see his hands dangling by his side.
dr. abbot had this presence that lingered even when he was off shift. he was driven and logical. intelligent and empathetic. stern yet soft. his work ethic often rubbed off on others, and you could attest to that. working with him made you want to work more, research more, just overall be a better doctor. his wisdom and knowledge for medicine, hell, just the world around him, was inspiring.
"y'know. there was a time when i thought this job was too much. i found myself wandering to the roof more often than not. and it's strange, there was always one person who seemed to find me. always had the right words to say."
your lip twitched upwards, finally moving to lean back. abbot looked to you, neck slightly screwed to the left and eyes locked on yours. it was silent as you thought back to finding abbot on the roof for the first time.
it was late and windy, the chill nipping at your skin. abbot was leaning against the metal railing, looking out into the city. slowly, you approached, although he could already sense you were there. gently you placed your palm between his shoulder blades and you felt his muscles relax.
abbot shuddered slightly. he didn’t need you seeing him like this. he didn’t want you seeing him like this and yet his body folded into your side as you slung your arm around his shoulder.
“i’m sorry.”
“there is nothing you need or have to apologize for, abbot. emotions are normal. taking a moment for yourself is normal. i am here for you, always. we can talk, we can cry, we can stand here in silence. if you want, i can leave-”
“no,” abbot interjected quickly now turning his body towards you, “i want- need you here.”
you smile softly at the older man before you. always so stoic, sporting a guarded demeanor, now softer around the edges and a glaze to his eyes.
a faint whisper slipped from your lips ‘okay’, as you gently held his face that lulled into your palms.
so, here you are now, replacing the roof with the viewing room. abbot snaked his hand in yours and shook it slightly to break the haze.
“hey-,” he said softly before throwing your very words back in your face, “taking a moment for yourself is normal. i am here for you, always.”
suddenly your bottom lip began to wobble and abbot felt his heart surge. he kneeled in front of you, placing one hand on your knee and the other grasping your hand.
“hey, hey, hey-,” it was gentle, “you have me. you always have me and you always did. i want to be the one you can turn to. when your happy, sad, mad, whatever it may be. i will be by your side until you tell me to leave, okay? and…if i’m being honest with you…i don’t ever want to leave your side.”
it was now your turn to fold into his arms as you slide off the chair to kneel in front of him. arms encapsulating you as he pressed a kiss into your hair.
and since this moment, the tormenting echo of the symphony seemingly faded into a much lighter melody.
between blood and daylight (jack abbot x resident!reader)
author's note: hey hey! hope everyone has had a nice weekend. this one I am so so excited about, and really enjoyed writing. written for the lovely @lanalastname based on this request:
"heyyy can i request a jack abbot x reader! reader is his wife of a few years who works as a surgeon resident upstairs in PTMC (think of the residents of greys anatomy lol). when the mass casualty happens with pitt fest, the reader is inundated with surgery’s. later when things have calmed down, jack wants to check on her and finds her slumped against a wall and taking a breather. jack comforting and protective jack!!! thank u queen"
as always all support is appreciated so so much, i love you all. kiss me thru the phone.
word count: 4.6k ish works
warnings: some canon the pitt inaccuracies, like timings and stuff around season one, medical inaccuracies, pittfest fic so mass casualty situation and descriptions reflective of that, hurt/comfort, slightly angsty, female reader (described as she/her, descriptions of hair tied back)
songs i listened to while reading: free now by gracie abrams, strawbery wine by noah kahan, you're gonna go far by noah kahan, favourite by fontaines DC
description: you and jack built a life in the spaces between shifts, but when pittfest turns into a mass casualty, you're forced to find each other again in the aftermath
You and Jack got married on a Wednesday morning in a registry office in downtown PA. It was around 11am when you signed your marriage license with a BIC four colour pen, clad in a white, vintage slip dress you found at a Goodwill for $24. Robby and your best friend, Sarah, stood beside you as witnesses, and your husband (who was out of work maybe 4 and a bit hours) joined your pinkies together under the table as you signed your name in block capitals and then in a looped cursive. Sarah cried into the small bouquet of sunflowers she had brought you, and Robby squeezed Jack's shoulder as you laughed over how long this had been coming and how obvious it was that this was exactly how things were going to go - you, and your favourite people in the middle of the week, marrying your best friend in a room that smelled like gym socks.
You shared pancakes and bacon right after, a tangled mess of ankles and prosthetic leg under the table of a random diner a 5-minute walk away from the PTMC. You had joked about the inevitability of pancakes being your wedding main course, and Robby told you he was happy for you both, like, really, genuinely happy. And although you thought Sarah had cried enough for the four of you, you had to join in on the tear fest because you couldn't quite believe your luck.
Not in the fairytale sense, although you loved a good Barbie movie.
More like, you had spent so long building a life that fit around chaos that finding someone who didn't just understand it, but moved with it alongside you, felt like you cheated somehow. Especially when you used to spend weekends crying over Gracie Abrams songs and thinking being a doctor meant that you'd have to just put that part of your life in a filing cabinet in your brain labeled 'for much much much later'.
It took a really long time before anything had changed between the two of you. There were months of shared shifts, months of you running after your mentor, Garcia, on surgical consults down in the emergency room. You just kept ending up in the same spaces. Trauma cases and overnight shifts. The strange overlap where sugery and emergency blurred into something messy and necessary.
When Garcia started telling you to call her Yolanda, she also started ferociously teasing you about your more than obvious weak spot for Dr Abbot.
When he asked you over for the first time, he had done it with the adrenaline of a man who received a pep talk from John Shen, hyper on caffeine in the break room. That night, you made him start watching The Office and popped butter popcorn in his microwave.
The first time he kissed you, it wasn't after a near-death save or a shift that broke you both open. It was in his kitchen, at two in the morning, while you were both standing in fluffy socks from your sock drawer, eating leftover Chinese food out of cartons. There was no big speech or declaration of unspoken love, just like something finally clicked into place. He just looked at you, whispering a soft, "come here," and that had been it.
You had laughed against his mouth the first time, at the complete Jack Abbot of it all. You paid for it with strong, calloused fingers reaching under your tee to tickle across your sides.
Marriage, for the two of you, had been kind of, well, simple. It wasn't easy, or light, but it was a certainty. A quiet, mutual understanding that this wa not something either of you were ever going to risk losing. So you signed the papers and you went back to work at 7pm that night.
The day that the PittFest shooting happened, you were three years into being married. You were also on your second cup of coffee that had gone cold somewhere in the operating lounge.
It had been one of those shifts from the start, one of those exhausting, debilitating ones that settled into the marrow of your bones. The kind of day where surgery felt less like a speciality and more like controlled drowning. Upstairs at PTMC, the OR floor had it's own rhythm, one that ususally felt seperate from the craziness of the emergency department below. The craziness here was more contained. Everything narrowed in surgery, became a line, an incision. A set of glovef hands trying to keep a body from slipping somewhere irreversible.
It was just after six when the tone changed. You noticed it in the same way everyone else did, the slight shift in the air before there was any official announcement. A circulating nurse, Ricky, had paused mid-step after checking his pager, and how Yoyo had said ,"what was that?", stepping out of the scrub room. The answer hadn't even landed yet. Then the call had come over the system, and you tightened the strings on the pants of your scrubs.
Every elective case was halted. Every available surgeon, resident, scrub nurse, anaesthesiologist, and OR tech was redirected. The neat order that you loved dissolved into blood availability and damage control planning. Dana had called from downstairs before the line was even fully staffed, her voice clipped and too calm in that way she got when things were seconds from going bad.
"Multiple GSWs incoming. We're sending them up as fast as we can clear them."
You were pulling your hair back tighter, pulling on a fresh gown and scanning the room for what you'd need. You were far enough into your residency to not have to be asked if you were ready. You had to be ready.
You were a fourth-year surgery resident. Not in charge, but you were senior enough to be expected to move like you were. One of the interns looked green around the mouth as she struggled into sterile gloves.
"Breathe," you told her, firmly. " You were chosen for this program for a reason. Time to prove it, okay?"
She nodded too fast.
The first patient hit your OR three minutes later. Teenage male, gunshot to the abdomen, pressure crashing despite multiple tranfusions, abdomen rigid, skin waxy in that sick, terrifying way.
You took one look at your attending and said, "We're opening."
The rest of the night ceased to exist in any normal way after that.
Time lost its shape. It became measured in clamps and suction and blood units hung and discarded. In room turnovers were too fast and yet not fast enough. Your fingers and palms burned from the scrubbing of antiseptic and they were gone an uncomfortable pink colour. You were fairly certain you'd hit the dermis.
You tuned your thoughts out as you treated a woman in her twenties with a chest wound and a liver injury. You performed a solo surgery on a boy barely old enough to shave with a shattered femur and an arterial bleed.
At some point, Emery shoved a sandwich into your hand, and you realised only after your second bite that you were still wearing bloody gloves. You dropped the sandwich and a poor environmental tech sweeped it up instantly with the biggest sweeping brush you'd ever seen.
You couldn't let yourself think of Jack downstairs; there was nowhere in your body left to put want.
You knew he'd be there. Even before you'd married him, before you knew the shape of his silences and which shirts he slept best in and how his hands always found your waist in the kitchen like they belonged there, you'd known this about him: if disaster showed up, Jack Abbot moved towards it.
And inevitably, so did you.
That was the problem, some people might've said. Two people married to medicine before they'd ever signed the paperwork to marry each other. But it worked because you understood the call of it. The terrible, relentless insistence of being needed somewhere all at once. It worked because neither of you ever asked the other to choose.
The first time you looked up and really registered how tired you were, it was nearly eleven, and you were standing at the sink outside OR three scrubbing blood out from under your nails that wasn't yours. Your shoulders ached, and your lower back felt like somebody had driven a spike through it.
Dr Shamsi came through the corridor and paused when she saw you.
"You done?"
You looked at her blankly for a moment, and then suddenly remembered what the English language was.
"For now," you replied, smiling weakly at your superior.
She nodded toward the board. "Trauma load's easing. ER's still got a few minor cases downstairs, but we're catching up. Everyone's heading home, you should too."
You nodded and headed towards the lounge for water, or coffee, or maybe just a wall to lean against without being spoken to for thirty seconds. The hall outside of surgery felt eerie in comparison to the hours before. It was still busy, still bright, but with the edge dulled. The worst had happeed, and now everyone was in the long, ugly work of stitching the world back together badly enough that it might just hold.
You made it halfway down the back corridor before your body made the decision for you.
There was an alcove near the service elevators where extra linen carts sometimes sat. It was empty now, quiet. Out of line of sight of anyone moving with purpose. You stepped into it with the full intention of staying there for maybe ten seconds.
Instead, your shoulder hit the wall, and something in you gave way all at once. You had the sudden, humiliating awareness of how hard you'd been holding yourself upright. Your legs bent. You slid down the wall until you were half-sitting, half-folded against cold tile, one knee up, one arm thrown over it. You scrubbed a hand across your face and came away with the sting of dried sweat and the faint smell of chlorhexidine still clinging to your skin.
You weren’t crying.
You weren’t even close, you told yourself.
You were just breathing.
In.
Out.
Trying to coax your body into remembering that standing still no longer meant someone would die.
The hallway beyond the alcove hummed faintly with distant motion. A phone rang somewhere. Wheels rattled over linoleum. Overhead lights buzzed with the same sterile indifference they always had.
For one selfish, exhausted minute, you let yourself feel it.
The weight of all those open bodies.
The hot, metallic smell of trauma blood.
The way a teenager’s hand had twitched once against the drape just before anesthesia deepened.
The mother in OR Two whose wedding ring had left a pale circle on the prep tray after someone removed it and set it aside.
The intern whose gloves you’d had to retie because her fingers were shaking too badly to manage it herself.
You leaned your head back against the wall and closed your eyes.
And somewhere downstairs, because your mind was apparently cruel enough to supply it now that there was room, you thought of Jack.
Of his face under trauma bay lights. His voice when he was one step from snapping and therefore at his calmest. The fact that he would have gone all evening without eating if someone hadn’t forced something into his hand. The little line that appeared between his brows when he was worried and pretending not to be.
You wondered if he was still in the ER. Wondered if he’d seen things as bad as the things you’d seen. Wondered if he’d asked after you and been told, vaguely, that surgery had her and surgery still has her and surgery isn’t letting go yet.
You wondered if he was standing somewhere under fluorescent lights, tired to the bone, thinking of you too.
The sound of footsteps reached the alcove before the person did.
Your eyes opened slowly.
Jack appeared at the mouth of the corridor with all the quiet force he seemed to carry naturally, even exhausted. He was still in dark scrub pants and his black undershirt, trauma vest gone, sleeves pushed up, his face lined with the kind of fatigue that made him look older and sharper all at once. There was dried blood on one shoulder that might have been his but probably wasn’t. His hair was flattened in strange places from too many hands run through it over too many hours.
He stopped the second he saw you and something in his face changed.
He took you in all at once: your scrubs wrinkled and stained, your hair half-falling from its tie, the way your hands were hanging loose between your knees because apparently you’d forgotten what to do with them.
He came closer, slow enough not to startle you, and crouched in front of where you sat against the wall.
For a second neither of you said anything.
Then Jack asked, his voice low and rough around the edges, “You hurt?”
That was so Jack that you almost laughed.
Not hello. Not are you okay. Not Jesus Christ, there you are.
You shook your head.
“No.”
He searched your face like he didn’t believe you.
Maybe he shouldn’t have. There were things that counted as hurt that weren’t visible.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
Another pause. Then, quieter, “You faint?”
The corner of your mouth twitched despite yourself. “No.”
“You look like you did.”
“Thank you.”
“You know what I mean.”
He stayed crouched in front of you, one forearm resting loosely on his knee, his eyes on your face in that uncomfortably direct way of his. Jack had never been the sort of man who filled silence because he was afraid of it. He let it sit. Let it ask its own questions.
You looked at him properly then. Really looked.
There was blood at the cuff of his shirt. A shallow scrape across one knuckle. A shadow of stubble that said the shift had outrun normal time.
“You check on everyone like this?” you asked.
His gaze didn’t move. “No.”
The answer landed somewhere deep.
You swallowed.
“You done down there?”
“For now.” He tilted his head slightly. “You?”
You laughed once, but it came out thin. “Apparently.”
Jack glanced down the hall, then back at you. “How many?”
The question didn’t need clarifying.
You rubbed your hand over your jaw and stared at the floor between his shoes. “Five. Maybe six, depending on what counts.”
He absorbed that without a flicker.
“How bad?”
You let out a breath and looked away toward the far wall.
Jack waited.
Eventually you said, “Bad enough.”
His jaw worked once.
There were versions of this conversation you could have with almost anyone else in the hospital. Surgical shorthand. Clinical phrasing. Detached language. Through-and-through. Ex lap. Massive transfusion. Non-survivable. Saveable. Lost on the table.
With Jack, the words always felt different. Because he knew exactly what was under them.
“I feel like - like they were all were so young,” you heard yourself say.
Jack’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes softened by a fraction.
You looked down at your hands. “One of them had a festival wristband still on. Bright green. I kept looking at it while I was retracting and thinking she probably picked out an outfit for tonight. She probably fought with her friend over eyeliner. She probably thought the worst thing that was going to happen was a bad hangover tomorrow.”
Your voice had gotten quieter without your permission.
Jack didn’t interrupt.
“There was this kid,” you went on, words coming a little uneven now that they’d started. “Not a kid, really. Seventeen maybe. We had him open for nearly two hours and every time his pressure came up I thought, okay, good, there you are, stay with me, stay—”
You stopped.
The rest of the sentence stayed lodged behind your teeth.
Jack reached out then, slowly enough that you could’ve moved away if you wanted, and put his hand over yours where it rested against your knee.
You looked at it first, then at him.
His face had gone very still in the way it did when he was feeling too much and letting almost none of it reach the surface.
“You did your job,” he said.
The words should have felt too easy.
They didn’t. Not from him.
You laughed softly, once. “You sound like a motivational poster.”
“Yeah, well.” The corner of his mouth twitched without quite becoming a smile. “Long night. Lowered standards.”
That got a real breath of laughter out of you, thin but genuine.
Jack squeezed your hand once before letting go. Then, after a pause, he shifted from his crouch to sit beside you against the wall like it was the most natural thing in the world for an attending to end up on a hospital floor in a half-hidden hallway.
His shoulder bumped yours lightly.
The contact nearly undid you more than anything else had.
For a minute the two of you just sat there.
The city beyond the walls kept moving. The hospital kept humming. Somewhere downstairs the Pitt still carried on, because it always did.
Jack tipped his head back against the wall and shut his eyes briefly.
“You eat?”
You turned to look at him. “Did you?”
“That’s not an answer.”
You smiled tiredly. “I had two bites of a turkey sandwich in between ORs.”
“Two bites.”
“It was a very stressful two bites.”
He made a low sound of disapproval. “I had crackers.”
“That’s worse.”
“I’m not the one slumped on the floor.”
You looked at him sidelong. “You found me in under ten minutes.”
"I know, we're chemically bonded or whatever the hell that instagram video told you”
“That is absolutely not what that-.”
“Shush. I think my brain turned off around hour three.”
You glanced at his hands. There was dried blood in the cuticles. “How bad downstairs?”
Jack was quiet for a second.
Then he said, “Bad enough.”
You huffed a soft laugh through your nose. “Wow. You really did steal my line.”
“It was a super good line.”
“It was lazy.”
He looked at you then, actually looked, and there was something in his face you only ever saw when the shift had carved him hollow enough to let tenderness show through.
“I was looking for you,” he said.
Your breath caught on that, stupidly.
“I figured.”
“No,” he said, and the roughness in his voice had nothing to do with exhaustion now. “I was looking for you.”
The distinction settled between you.
Not a head count. Not a casual check. Not a vague, eventual thought that he should probably find his wife before the night ended.
He had been looking. Your eyes burned unexpectedly and you immediately hated that.
Jack noticed, of course he did, but he didn’t call attention to it. He just reached up and pushed a loose strand of hair back behind your ear, fingers brushing your temple in a gesture so gentle it made your throat ache.
“You don’t have to stay up here by yourself,” he said.
You swallowed. “I know.”
His hand lingered for a second before dropping. “You want to talk about it?”
You considered the honest answer.
Not really. Not in details. Not all of it. Not the way it would sit inside you later anyway, no matter how many words you gave it now.
So you shook your head.
Jack nodded like that was an answer worth respecting.
“Okay.”
You rested your head back against the wall and looked at the ceiling. “I think I just needed one minute where nobody asked me for anything.”
He was silent for a beat.
Then, with faint dry humor: “You picked the wrong building.”
You laughed again, softer this time, and leaned your shoulder against his fully.
The roof door wasn’t far from where you were sitting. A strange impulse came over you then, sudden and simple.
“Come on,” you said quietly.
Jack frowned. “Where.”
“The roof.”
He looked toward the stairwell door. “Now?”
“Yes.”
“You can barely stand.”
“Rude.”
“Accurate.”
You pushed yourself up anyway, using the wall for leverage. Your knees protested immediately. Jack rose in the same motion, one hand already at your elbow before you could pretend you didn’t need it.
“I’m fine,” you murmured.
“Sure.”
But he kept his hand there until you were steady.
The two of you took the stairs slowly, not because either of you said to, but because there was no rush left in either body. The hospital stairwell smelled faintly of concrete and bleach and old air conditioning. Somewhere on the third landing, you realized your hand had drifted to the railing while his was still lightly braced at the small of your back.
He only took it away when you reached the roof access door.
The night air hit cool and damp after the climate-controlled dryness inside. Pittsburgh spread below you in scattered gold and white, the city lights trembling faintly against low clouds. Somewhere far off, you saw fireworks flaring out, a small victory of celebration, muted by distance into soft blooms of red and silver over dark buildings.
The roof was mostly empty.
It always felt different up here. Like the hospital stopped being a machine for a second and became just a place, perched over a sleeping city full of people who had no idea how many lives were hanging in balance below them at any given moment.
You moved to the low wall and braced your hands against it, breathing the air in like it could scour the smell of the OR out of you. Jack came to stand beside you, close enough that his sleeve brushed yours when the wind shifted.
After a while you said, “When I was retracting on that liver case, I kept thinking about how weird it is that people can be having the best night of their lives one second and then…” You lifted one shoulder. “Everything changes because somebody decides to turn the world ugly.”
Jack’s gaze stayed forward. “Yeah.”
“I hate that they came to us like that.”
He didn’t say anything for a minute.
“I know.”
You turned your head and looked at him. The wind pushed a strand of his hair across his forehead. He looked older in rooftop light. Softer too.
“I was thinking about you,” you admitted quietly.
That got his attention. His eyes came to yours.
You shrugged, a little embarrassed now that the words were out. “Every time someone came up from the ER, I thought, okay, he probably saw them first. He probably touched the gurney. He probably heard whatever they said before they came under. I kept wondering if you were alright.”
Jack held your gaze for a long second.
Then he looked back out over the city and said, very softly, “I was thinking about you too.”
It should not have mattered. You had been married for years. You shared a home and a bed and bills and Sunday groceries and all the unglamorous little domestic rituals that make up an actual life. You already knew he loved you. Knew it in all the ordinary ways.
But there was something about hearing that in the aftermath of a night like this, here, with blood dried into both your sleeves and the city moving below you unaware, that made it feel newly precious.
You looked down at your hands and smiled a little helplessly. “This is stupid.”
“What is?”
“That we have to nearly work ourselves into the ground to remember to say obvious things to each other.”
Jack huffed a sound that might have been a laugh. “You know I’m not good at obvious.”
“You really aren’t.”
“Didn’t stop you marrying me.”
You glanced at him. “One of my more questionable decisions.”
“Yeah?”
“Mm.”
The corner of his mouth moved.
Then, because the night was already cracked open enough for honesty and you were too tired to guard yourself from it, you said, “When it gets bad like this… I’m always glad it’s you.”
He went still beside you.
You pushed on before you could lose the nerve. “Not because I want you hurt, or dragged into every awful thing that happens in the city, but because if I have to do nights like this, if we both do, then…” You swallowed. “I’m glad it’s with someone who understands what it costs.”
The wind moved between you.
Jack turned toward you fully.
There were a lot of expressions he wore well, dry amusement, clinical focus, irritation, exhaustion.
This one undid you most. The rare, unguarded tenderness that made him look almost startled by his own softness.
He reached up and cupped the side of your face with a blood-roughened hand, thumb brushing just beneath your eye.
“You found me,” he said quietly.
It took you a second to understand. Then your throat tightened.
He was not a man for speeches. He was a man for distillation. For taking all the impossible, sprawling mess of feeling and reducing it to the one sentence that mattered.
Not I love you, though it contained that. Not thank you, though it contained that too.
Something steadier. Older. The sort of truth people carried in their bones long before they knew how to say it.
You leaned into his hand without thinking.
“And you found me,” you whispered back.
A real smile touched his mouth then, tired and small and completely for you.
“Yeah,” he said. “I did.”
He bent and kissed your forehead first.
It was such a Jack thing to do that your eyes stung all over again.
Then his hand slid to the back of your neck and he kissed you properly, slow, tired, and so careful it made your chest ache. There was no urgency in it, none of the rough edge you’d gotten from him on better nights and easier days. This was something else. A quiet claiming. A pause pressed into skin. A reminder.
You kissed him back with your fingers curled into the front of his shirt, the hospital far below and all around, the city still lit and moving, the worst of the night finally beginning to loosen its grip.
When he pulled away, he rested his forehead briefly against yours.
“You should go home,” he murmured.
You laughed softly. “With what energy?”
“I’ll drive.”
“You drove here?”
“I usually do.”
“No, I mean, you knew I drove here and that we'd probably be going at the same time?”
He looked at you with mild impatience. “I’m not asking you to parallel park under emotional distress.”
You smiled. “Such a romantic.”
“Don’t start.”
You rested your cheek briefly against his shoulder, letting yourself have the weight of him, the realness, the fact of being known this well and still chosen.
After a minute he said, “Come on.”
Reluctantly, you stepped back from the wall.
The city stayed where it was. The hospital kept humming below. Somewhere a siren moved through the streets. Somewhere someone was still dancing off the remnants of a night that had become a nightmare for too many others.
But your body felt steadier now. Not whole. Not rested. Just steadier.
Jack put a hand at the small of your back as you headed for the door.
Not because you needed steering.
Just because he could.
And when you looked back once before stepping inside, at the city, at the roof, at the strange thin line between grief and survival that hospitals lived on, you felt it all over again, that impossible, terrible gratitude for the person walking beside you.
Not because the world was kind.
But because somehow, inside all that unkindness, the two of you had still found each other.
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Summary: "Are you embarrassed by me?" "Duckie what the hell are you talking about?!" His gaze sharpens.
Or
Reader thinks Abbot's embarrassed of her
Warnings: reader is said to be 26, not really angsty. overthinker!reader, lowkey jealous reader,
"Alright all done! Just hold off on eating for the next 30 minutes, just to let the cement full harden." You instructed the patient, taking off your gloves and pulling your mask down, "Emily will take care of you and get you up to the front." You smiled at the assistant before standing up and walking out the operatory.
Walking down to your office to start charting your notes. A content sigh leaves your mouth before looking down at the clock letting out a huff, 12:55 pm taunts you. Longest day ever for a short day of work.
"Dr Y/N?" A knock at the door causes you to hum not looking up from your notes, "want to go over Eli Murphy's case? We meant to talk about it yesterday but it seems we lost track of time." Dr Hutchins chuckles sitting next to you pulling up the patients x-rays.
He starts yapping away about all the restorations and root canals the patient would need as you pretend to listen nodding your head and agreeing to what ever the older man would say. Your mind started wondering off to Jack, a small smile makes it way to your lips as you remember the night before.
"Jack!" You giggle as your back hits the sofa the soft plush cushions you as you throw your head back in laughter, his fingers softly digging into your sides and lips pressing small kisses on your neck.
"Missed you mama." He sighed plopping his full weight on you, you let out a puff of air.
"You think they'll ever switch you to day shift?" You frown running your fingers through his hair, Jack stills at the question his body turning a little stiff before he hums.
"Uh I don't know duckie," he shifts up and sits on the couch rubbing his neck, "don't know if I want to leave night shift to be honest."
"Well I'll get the girls to schedule him for the cleaning first and then we can start with number 4 root canal." Dr Hutchins smiles at me before getting up to pack his bag. "See you tomorrow Dr. Y/N."
1:00 pm
"Yes, see you tomorrow Dr Hutchins!" You get up closing your laptop and packing it in your bag, quickly shifting out of the room. You pull out your phone notifications lining up, one catches your eye.
Jackie:
Ended up at the PTMC early. Things went sideways in a robbery. Got grazed by a bullet, see you at home duckie. Love you.
Your eyebrows shoot up as a gasp leaves your mouth, clicking on his contact you pull the phone to your ear, hearing the phone ring and ring eventually leading to voicemail. Motherfucker. You bolt to your car worry filling your heart, stomach knotting with a nasty feeling, hands coating in a sleek layer of sweat.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe
A shake breath leaves your lips as you put the car in drive and speed out of the parking lot, eyes glossing with tears. I told that jackass not to join the SWAT team and he goes against me and this fucking happens. Nerves shake throughout you as you pull into the ambulance bay, looking for a quick parking spot you watch as a car pulls out of its spot and press the gas before putting the car in park. Leaving the car you start a fast walk over to the door, and go straight to the ward clerk.
"Name?" She ask pulling a clipboard clipping paperwork and a pen to it.
"I'm here to see my...um my boyfriend." You say out of breath putting your flyaways behind your ears.
"Okay what's the patients names honey?"
"Well he works here but also is a patient? I'm not to sure of the details but his name is Dr. Jack Abbot." You give her a nervous smile as her eyebrows shoot up in surprise.
"Donahue! Abbot VIP," she says behind her, "Here honey fill this out and wear it when you go in." She hands you a visitor sticker, quickly filling it out she directs you to the double doors. You walk into what you could only describe as the mess after a tornado, people running up and down the halls, loud chatter and people littered in every crevice.
You walk up to the nurses station, a blonde woman spots you immediately and gives you a lopsided smile, "Looking for someone sweetheart?" Her yinzer accent is prominent.
"Yes ma'am, Dr Jack Abbot have you seen him?" You smile back and her eyebrows furrowed.
"I didn't know Abbot had any kids?"
Your face flushed, "He's my uh boyfriend."
"Sweet baby Jesus! Sorry sweetheart, I shouldn't go 'round assuming things." She chuckles, before pointing to a room off on the side, "think I saw him in there."
Giving her your thanks, you walk over to the room. As you near you hear two voices.
"Okay, our little secret." A woman says, you step into view and see Jack shirtless and a beautiful woman behind him a gasp leaves your mouth. His head shoots up and his brows furrow before he looks you in the eye. "So sorry! I think i got wrong directions." You lie with ease stepping back, running your hands through your hair.
Knowing Jack doesnt like to tell people his business and with what the nurse said earlier everything clicks and it stings, you'd hope you wouldn't have been an embarrassing secret. Nasty thoughts fill your head he's embarrassed to tell anyone who he's with. You have a PhD. You are a doctor. What's there to be embarrassed by?
"Duckie," Jack appears in front of you worry etched on his face, "what're you doing here?"
"You okay?" Tears swell in your eyes as you sniffle.
"Yeah baby, 'm fine." He smiles softly at you, "are you?"
"I dunno anymore." You croak out.
"What do you mean anymore?"
"Are you embarrassed by me?"
"Duckie what the hell are you talking about?!" His gaze sharpens.
"Jack I know you like a private life, but why am I a secret? I thought we didn't care about what people said about how we live our lives!" You spat hurt deep in your voice.
He frowns, confusion mixing in his eyes, "We don't! Where is this coming from, Y/N?"
"The nurse at the nurses station thought I was your daughter," you laugh shaking your head, "ward clerk looked shocked you had a girlfriend, and I don't even know what the fuck I walked into two seconds ago. We've been together for months now, and I haven't met any of these people before, you know everyone in my life why am I not known in yours?"
"Y/N, i'm-" he glances around people walking around us before he grabs your hand an pulls you towards what you assume is a break room, "sit." He points to a chair, doing as he said you sit and he takes a spot in-front of you.
"I am not embarrassed by you. You are a beautiful, intelligent, funny, amazing woman. You're right I do value my private life, I like having control over who knows what about me. It's my fault I've never thought of considering your feelings, because your feelings matter to me. I guess I never thought of telling people or bring you to outings because I liked having you to myself in my bed eating Chinese take out rather than going to bars and telling everyone our whole story. I value our story more than anything you have to know that baby. And with Samira, she was just helping clean my wounds she's a R4 nothing going on with her I swear. 'M so sorry if you feel like i'm embarrassed because that is not one of my feelings towards you in anyway. Who would be embarrassed dating a 26 year old dentist, huh?" He smiles as you giggle and nod.
"Sorry of accusing you Jackie, I just didn't realize so many people of your life dont know me." You smile sadly, the door to the break room opens and you go ridged. A man wearing black scrubs and a green undershirt, dark brown hair and a beard walks in.
"Oh, didn't mean to interrupt. Came for a coffee." He chuckled moving towards the kettle.
Jack smiles before standing up and patting the man on the back, "Brother, I want to introduce you to someone," Jack turned the man around and pointed to you. "This is DMD Y/N Y/L/N , but most importantly my beautiful girlfriend, Y/N this is Michael Robinavitch."
You stood up and walked towards him with a smile sticking out a hand, "Hello Dr Robinavitch, it's nice to meet you."
"Please call me Robby, i've heard about you Dr Y/N."
Your eyes widen in surprise, "oh!" You turn and look at Jack smirking.
"He actually wont shut the fuck up about you, truly its endearing." Robby laughs.
Jack walks over throwing an arm around your waist, "can't help it you see this beaut?" He presses a kiss to your check, "I gotta go home and sleep before my shift brother, see you at hand offs."
Grabbing you hand he escorts you out of the room and into the hectic mess of the ER, "Don't know how you do it baby." You say shaking your head as you both make your way outside.
"The rush makes me feel alive I guess." He chuckled, "just like you duckie."
A/N: fist abbot fic 🤭 anywho send requests this one was a quick one off the dome fr. Lowkey think we need a back story for why he calls her duckie dont we
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