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Their relationship begins as mentorship, layered with quiet admiration and mutual respect. But as years pass, unspoken tension simmers beneath the surface, giving way to a forbidden, powerful connection neither of them can deny. From stolen glances in trauma rooms to whispered promises behind closed doors, the two navigate an increasingly complicated emotional and physical bond, tested by hospital politics, personal ghosts, and the sheer intensity of loving someone you were never supposed to fall for.

word count: 29K Content Warning: Age-gap relationship, Power dynamics, Explicit sexual content, Auditory kink, PTSD and Trauma, Survival’s guilt,  Panic attacks, Grief and Death, Discussion of burnout, loss, and emotional repression, Medical Procedures, Graphic depictions of medical procedures, Blood. 

The Beginning Of The End

Dr. Michael Robinavitch 

Day One 

Silent Admittance 

The Quiet Fury 

Zugzwang

The Opening Gambit

Knight to E5

Check

Checkmate *

The Anatomy of Want *

The Long Shift *

Somatic Response *

Catharsis

Point of Care

Eros and Empirics

Auscultation

Uncharted Territory

Night Float Feelings

The apartment was quiet when they arrived back from Thanksgiving with Sheridan’s family. The usual hum of the city outside and the soft ticking of the clock in the corner of the living room made the space feel like a peaceful retreat, away from the hectic pace of their everyday lives. It was just the two of them now, Y/N and Robby, and the comfort of her apartment seemed to embrace them, as if the walls had always been meant for these quiet, shared moments.

You had already kicked off your shoes by the door, your coat tossed over the back of a chair. Robby hung his up and followed you into the kitchen. You had a soft smile on your lips as you moved around, untying your scarf and letting your wavy hair fall freely. The scent of cinnamon and roasting vegetables still lingered in the air, reminding you of the warmth you had just left behind with her family.

“Home,” You said, glancing over your shoulder at him, your voice light and content. There was something about the way you said it, like the word had taken on a new meaning for you both. Home wasn’t just your apartment anymore. It was wherever you found each other.

Robby leaned against the counter, watching you with a quiet affection. "You sure you want me here? I can always come back tomorrow."

You rolled your eyes, a playful smile tugging at your lips. “Stop. You’re not leaving. We have a whole weekend to ourselves.” You pulled open the fridge, scanning its contents. “What do you want for dinner?”

It was a familiar question, but this time, the sense of possibility in the air was different. It wasn’t just a casual question anymore; it was a gesture that symbolized something much deeper. A domestic rhythm that hadn’t existed before. It was yours.

“How about we cook something together?” Robby suggested, stepping closer to you.

You raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “Cook? You sure you can handle it?”

Robby chuckled. “I’ve been handling trauma cases for decades. I think I can handle a kitchen.” He winked, reaching for a knife from the block. "What are we making?"

“Chicken Parmesan?” you proposed, already pulling ingredients from the fridge. “We can make it from scratch. You can be in charge of the sauce.”

Robby grinned, stepping to the counter beside you. “Deal.” He rolled up his sleeves, his eyes softening with a touch of something that felt new for him. “Alright. Let’s do this.”

And just like in the ER, you fell into a rhythm. You would chop, and Robby would sauté. There was an easy, practiced flow to your movements, an unspoken communication between you, honed from months of working side by side. You moved around each other like a well-oiled machine, finishing each other’s sentences, anticipating each other’s needs. It was the same teamwork you shared in the emergency room, but now, it was in the kitchen.

“You’re not burning the garlic, are you?” you asked, glancing at him with a teasing smile.

“No, no. I’ve got this,” Robby replied, focusing on the pan in front of him. “I’m not that bad, you know.”

You chuckled softly, wiping your hands on a towel. “We’ll see. If the sauce tastes bad, you’re sleeping on the couch.”

Robby shot you a look of mock outrage. “You wouldn’t.”

“I would,” you said playfully, tapping him with the towel.

You shared a laugh, the kind of laughter that felt like a promise, light, easy, and filled with warmth.

As you moved through the evening, your tasks shifted. Robby set the table, then poured two glasses of wine. You stirred the sauce, checking the flavors one last time before plating the meal. You sat down at the table, your hands brushing as you passed each other food. The atmosphere between you was comfortable, easy. It wasn’t about grand gestures or flashy declarations; it was the simple act of being together. Of sharing a meal you’d made together, in the quiet of your apartment, with only the sound of soft music in the background.

You sipped your wine, glancing at Robby with a thoughtful expression. You seemed to be weighing something in your mind, your gaze lingering on him as if you were about to say something important.

Robby, sensing the shift, put down his glass and gave you a soft, patient smile. “What is it?”

You took a deep breath, a small but significant pause before speaking. “I want you to move in with me.”

Robby’s heart skipped a beat. The words were simple, but the weight they carried was heavier than anything he’d felt in a while. He set his glass down carefully, his eyes locking with yours. “Y/N...” His voice faltered, but it was only for a second. He tried to steady himself. “Are you sure? I mean..”

“I’m sure.” You interrupted, your voice steady and sincere. You leaned forward, your elbows resting on the table as you studied him. “I want to wake up with you every day. I don’t want to keep doing this... back-and-forth thing. I want us to live together. For real. For good.”

Robby was quiet for a long moment, processing your words. The idea of being with you every day, of coming home to you, felt like a dream he never thought he could have. But now, with everything you’d been through, everything you’d built, it felt like the most natural next step.

He let out a slow breath, his hand reaching across the table to take yours. “You make it sound so easy.”

Your smile was warm, genuine, full of affection. “It is easy. It just feels... right. Doesn’t it?”

He nodded, squeezing your hand. “Yeah. It feels right.”

You sat there for a while, just holding hands and basking in the shared quiet. It was the kind of peace that only came after years of chaos, the kind that had been hard won. And now, in this kitchen, with the promise of a future together, it felt like everything was finally falling into place.

Robby leaned back in his chair, his eyes soft with affection as he watched you. He felt an overwhelming sense of contentment, something he’d never thought he would find after all these years of holding onto his walls. But now, with you beside him, he knew for certain that all those walls had been worth breaking down.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy,” he said softly, his voice filled with a quiet awe.

You smiled, her eyes bright with understanding. “Me neither.”

And for the first time in a long time, Robby allowed himself to believe in something real. Something lasting.

Your old bedroom felt both familiar and foreign at the same time. The walls were painted a soft pink, adorned with pictures of family vacations and childhood memories. The bed was larger than what Robby was used to, with a thick comforter that seemed to swallow him whole. The room was an interesting mix of nostalgia and adulthood, and Robby, though still trying to get comfortable, couldn’t shake the feeling that he was intruding on something.

You, on the other hand, seemed right at home. You were already stretched out on the bed in an oversized t-shirt, your feet tucked under the blanket, a mischievous grin playing on your lips. Robby could feel your energy, the way you always seemed to be teetering on the edge of mischief. It was part of your charm, that unfiltered confidence, and tonight, it was impossible to ignore.

He sat on the edge of the bed, looking over at you with a mixture of curiosity and wariness.

“So, what’s the plan?” Robby asked, trying to keep his voice casual. “We’re just supposed to hang out? Watch some TV?”

You shot him a look, one that was equal parts playful and seductive. “You really think we’re just going to watch a movie, Michael?” Your voice dropped lower, and Robby could almost feel the shift in the air, as if a weight had settled between them. You were teasing him, but there was something else there too, something more intense.

He frowned, half-expecting you to do something absurd, like strip down and throw yourself at him, but instead, you just smiled, your eyes glinting with a mixture of mischief and affection.

“I think.” You scooted closer, your knee brushing his, sending a small jolt of electricity through him. “I think you’ve been way too good around me today.”

His heart skipped a beat. “What are you implying?”

You didn’t answer right away. Instead, you just leaned in, your lips brushing his ear as you whispered, “You’ve been so... careful, Michael. Like you’re worried someone’s going to walk in on us.”

The words were like a match to gasoline, and Robby could feel the heat flood his chest. “Well, someone is going to walk in on us if you’re not careful,” he said, trying his best to sound calm, even though his mind was racing.

You pulled back just enough to meet his eyes, her smile widening. “Are you really that worried?”

“I—” He stopped himself, his throat suddenly dry. “I just don’t want your parents to hear us.”

Your grin softened, but it was still full of that familiar, dangerous promise. “Robby, it’s late. They’re asleep. We’re fine.” You reached up, trailing your fingertips lightly along his jawline. “It’s just us.”

He knew exactly what you were doing. Slowly pushing his boundaries, seeing how much he would allow. And, to be honest, he was close to the edge.

Still, he hesitated. “I’m not... I’m not sure about this.”

Your eyes softened, and you leaned in again, this time brushing your lips against his in a gentle kiss. It was almost too tender, too sweet. Robby closed his eyes for a moment, savoring it, but the back of his mind kept flashing with the thought of your parents, the soft creak of the house settling around them.

You pulled back just enough to look at him. “You want to kiss me, Robby. I can see it. But you’re scared.”

He opened his eyes, locking with yours. “Not scared. Just... careful. We have to be careful.”

Your hand slid to the back of his neck, pulling him toward you, and this time, your kiss was deeper, more urgent. Robby let out a soft groan, his body responding instinctively, but still, his mind screamed at him to pull away, to be the responsible one.

But you weren’t having it. You pressed him back onto the bed, straddling him for a moment before grinding into him, your breath coming fast. “You can’t keep being the responsible one today Robby. Not with me.”

You kissed him again, harder this time, with an intensity that made his head spin. Every part of him wanted to give in, wanted to let the night unfold however it might. But even as your hands roamed to the hem of his shirt, Robby’s mind remained stubbornly anchored in the present.

“Sheri,” he murmured, his voice strained. “Your parents are down the hall.”

You didn’t miss a beat, her lips curling into a grin. “They’re asleep. You’re the one who’s worried about getting caught.”

Your hands traveled under his shirt, skin to skin, and the touch of you made him forget all about your parents, about the house, about everything but you. He couldn’t stop himself anymore, couldn’t fight the tension that had been simmering between them since the morning drive.

But as you continued to kiss, he pulled away for a moment, still breathless. “I... I can’t stop thinking we’re going to get caught.”

Your expression softened, but your eyes still held that spark of mischief. “Okay fine. I won’t push you but…..”

“Maybe, maybe we can still be naughty” you replied with a playful grin, your hand running up his chest.

——————————————

The thought of sneaking around your parents’ house, trying to be quiet, had him feeling like he was sixteen again, sneaking out of his own house to avoid getting caught. His gut twisted at the thought of being discovered, but you weren’t going to let him off the hook that easily.

The stairs creaked under your feet, the hallway was dark except for the faint glow from a lamp at the end of the corridor. As you reached the kitchen, Robby stopped and looked around, his eyes scanning for any signs that your parents might be awake.

“Okay, we’re in,” you whispered, grinning as you opened the freezer door. You pulled out a tub of ice cream, the vanilla and chocolate swirl gleaming in the soft light of the kitchen. “My parents always kept this stocked. It's the only thing that ever gets me out of bed in the middle of the night.”

Robby leaned against the counter, crossing his arms, his body still tense despite the playful atmosphere. “You really do this a lot?”

“Used to,” you said, your voice softening a little as you scooped a spoonful of the ice cream. “It was kind of my thing. I don’t know… I guess I liked the idea of being awake when everyone else was asleep. It felt like my little secret.”

Robby watched you, his gaze softening as he leaned closer, a smile tugging at his lips. There was something so tender about the way you spoke, something raw about you. You weren’t just playing around; you were sharing a part of yourself that you hadn’t even realized you were revealing. You handed him the spoon, and without hesitation, he took it from you, their fingers brushing briefly. It was one of those fleeting moments, but it sent a thrill through Robby nonetheless.

You moved back toward the table, and Robby, almost without thinking, took the spoon from your hand and leaned in, his lips brushing yours in a soft, lingering kiss. Your breath caught in your throat, and he could feel your pulse racing beneath your skin. For a moment, everything else fell away. There were no expectations, no boundaries—just the two of you, wrapped in the warmth of a shared kiss and the quiet intimacy of the night.

When you pulled away, there was a light in your eyes, something mischievous and knowing. “Let’s get back to the ice cream,” you said softly, your voice teasing but sweet. “Before we really do get caught.”

They spent the next half hour eating ice cream in silence, just enjoying each other’s company. There was no rush, no urgency—just the two of them in the kitchen, the soft sound of the fridge humming in the background, and the quiet rhythm of their quiet laughter as they shared the night together.

And in that small, tender moment, Robby realized that it wasn’t about the ice cream, or the stolen kisses, or the playful teasing. It was about this—about finding peace in the quiet, ordinary moments that made up your lives. With you.

Robby had never been to a Thanksgiving dinner like this.

The driveway was long and winding, the trees on either side stretching their bare branches toward the sky like hands reaching for the clouds. He had parked at the end, under a single light, watching as you walked ahead, your posture confident but the slightest hint of nerves in your step. It was the first time he’d seen you so unsure since you’d crossed the line between professional and personal. Usually, it was the other way around, he was the one second-guessing himself. But today, it was you.

Your hand brushed his for a second, a silent reassurance. He reached out and wrapped his fingers around yours, giving it a quick squeeze, the gesture a promise.

“You don’t have to do this,” Robby said, his voice low as they walked toward the front door.

“I want you to be here,” you replied, not looking at him, but your smile was soft. “I need you to be here.”

He could tell there was more behind those words than just simple affection. You were giving him more than he thought he deserved. Robby swallowed, feeling that familiar tightness in his chest, the same tightness he had when he thought about the people he loved most in his life, and how easy it was to break them, to lose them.

But today, he wasn’t going to lose you. Not now, not ever.

They reached the front door, and you took a deep breath before knocking. The door swung open before you even had the chance to touch the handle. A woman in her late sixties—tall, with a warm smile and brown eyes that mirrored yours—stood in the frame, a welcoming expression lighting up her face.

“Y/N” she exclaimed, pulling Sheridan into a tight hug, one that Robby could only watch. “You made it! And you brought Robby. It’s so nice to finally meet you!”

Robby was caught off guard. He had expected to be introduced with some level of distance. Not as a boyfriend. Not yet.

“Mom, Robby is my—,” you said, your voice steady, though Robby noticed the way your chest rose and fell slightly faster. “My… my partner.”

Robby held out his hand instinctively, shaking the woman’s with a firm grip. “It’s good to finally meet you, Mrs. Sheridan.”

Mrs. Sheridan’s eyes softened as she held on to his hand for just a second longer than usual. “Y/N’s told me so much about you. Please, come in. Dinner’s just about ready.”

Robby stepped inside, feeling like he was crossing into foreign territory. The house was beautiful in a way that was distinctly you—comfortable, clean, yet filled with little hints of personality. There were photographs on the walls of her as a child, laughing with a brother Robby hadn’t met, and a few older shots of her with her parents, always with that same earnest, kind smile.

The decor screamed wealth—polished hardwood floors, an impressive chandelier overhead, and even the scent of the house—rich and almost intoxicating—spoke of affluence. Robby couldn’t deny the sense of unease creeping up his spine. He had always lived a life of simplicity. This was something different entirely.

“Baby, why don’t you take Robby to the kitchen? I’ll finish setting the table.”

Robby glanced at you as your mother bustled off toward the kitchen, and you caught his eye. There was something about the way you were looking at him, an almost shy smile on your lips, that made the tension in his chest increase.

“Let’s go,” you said, leading him through the house to the kitchen.

The space was stunning, a large, open room with marble countertops and soft, ambient lighting. Your father was at the counter, chopping something with precise movements, his back to them.

“Daddy,” You called out, her voice soft yet strong, a tone Robby couldn’t help but notice. “This is Robby.”

Her father turned around with a kind smile that mirrored his wife’s, but Robby could tell there was something more in his gaze. Like he was sizing Robby up. A quiet challenge that he didn’t know how to address. “Nice to meet you,” he said, shaking Robby’s hand without hesitation. “Y/N’s told me a lot about you.”

“Likewise, Mr. Sheridan,” Robby replied, his voice steady, even if his heart was racing. “It’s good to be here.”

They chatted for a few minutes as Mrs. Sheridan finished up in the kitchen, and Robby found himself settling into the easy rhythm of the conversation. It wasn’t awkward—not like he had feared. In fact, he felt comfortable, at ease in a way he hadn’t thought was possible when he first thought about spending a holiday with your family.

But every now and then, he would catch you looking at him—those moments when your eyes met across the room, and everything else seemed to stop. He couldn’t explain it, but something shifted in those moments. The way you saw him now wasn’t the same as before.

You weren’t hiding anymore. You had introduced him as your partner—not your mentor. And for the first time in months, Robby allowed himself to believe it. He wasn’t holding back. And neither were you.

Dinner was served with an easy familiarity, the table brimming with food, laughter, and the sounds of family. But through all of it, Robby couldn’t help but notice the subtle but undeniable ways your relationship had shifted. He couldn’t keep his eyes off you. Every little gesture you made, the soft laugh you let slip when your father told a terrible joke, the way you corrected him when he tried to grab your plate without asking.

She was home, and he was a part of it now. A part of her world that had been so carefully tucked away.

After dinner, as the dishes were cleared and dessert was brought out, you and your mother left the room, giving Robby a moment to speak with your father. The conversation felt easy, relaxed, but Robby noticed the lingering tension in the older man’s eyes when he looked at him.

“You’re good to her, Robby,” Mr. Sheridan said quietly, his voice almost conspiratorial. “I can see that. She’s been through enough. Don’t let her down.”

Robby swallowed, nodding. “I won’t.”

And then, as if the moment wasn’t heavy enough, Mr. Sheridan placed a hand on Robby’s shoulder. “You hurt her, and I’ll break your legs. Understand?”

It wasn’t a joke, and it wasn’t a threat. It was a promise. Robby respected that.

He didn’t answer, just met the older man’s eyes and nodded. But deep down, Robby was certain that this was just the beginning. He couldn’t just have you in his life, he was already in too deep. She was already his, and everything else, every piece of his life that hadn’t been hers before, was already shifting to make room for her.

Robby had already begun to feel the weight of her world, her family, the house, the wealth, and all that it implied. The evening had been a strange blend of feeling out of place and yet completely at ease, thanks to the small, quiet moments shared with you. It wasn’t the grandeur of your home that left Robby uneasy, though; it was the knowledge that there was more to you than what you showed the world.

The conversation had moved into a natural silence after dinner, and the family had retreated inside, leaving Robby and you alone on the back porch. The air had grown crisp as twilight settled in, and Robby found himself looking at you in a way he hadn’t before, your eyes soft in the fading light, your posture relaxed, but something about you seemed distant.

Your eyes were trained on the streetlight across the yard, but they were unfocused, as though you were seeing something far away. It was as if you had become someone else entirely.

“Sher?” Robby asked quietly, stepping closer, his voice threading through the cool air between them.

You blinked, as if snapping out of a trance, and turned to face him. “Sorry. I was just… thinking.”

“About?”

You hesitated, lips pressed together, as if weighing the decision to open up. Robby could feel you pulling away, not physically, but emotionally, and something inside him shifted. He knew that silence. It was the silence of someone preparing to say something important, something painful.

“I wasn’t always… like this,” you said finally, your voice quieter than before, as if you had just invited him into a room you had kept locked for years. “I used to be a different person. I used to be scared all the time. I wasn’t always so... steady.”

Robby nodded slowly, never breaking eye contact, his hand instinctively moving toward yours. “You don’t have to explain anything if you’re not ready,” he said, his tone soft but firm.

Your gaze fell to your intertwined hands, and then, after a long moment, you spoke again. “When I was ten years old, my brother died in a car accident.”

Robby’s heart tightened, the words hanging between them like an invisible weight. He had known there was something in her past, some unspoken tragedy, but hearing her voice the words brought a sharp clarity to the pain she had carried for so long.

“Ethan, He was eight” you continued smiling fondly, her voice shaking just slightly, but still, you pressed on. “My family, my parents, we were in the car, and we crashed. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but I remember the way the car felt when it flipped. The way it… crumpled.” You paused, your lips pressed together as if bracing herself.

Robby didn’t know what to say. There were no words for something like that. He couldn’t begin to understand the weight of what you were saying, the guilt she must’ve carried all these years. He moved closer, instinctively, his fingers brushing her hair in a silent offer of comfort.

“The worst part,” You said, your voice barely above a whisper, “is that I remember it all. I remember waking up, trapped in the car with him, and I remember how they weren’t moving. I was so scared, but I had to get out, had to get help. I freed myself, and I called for help.”

You let out a sharp breath. “But I couldn’t save him. I was just a kid. I couldn’t do anything but watch him die.”

Robby’s chest tightened, and a coldness spread through his limbs. Your eyes were closed now, like you were trying to erase the memory of it, to block out the flood of emotions that always threatened to resurface. He could feel the heaviness of the moment pressing on him, but he didn’t move away.

“You were just a kid, Sheri,” Robby said, his voice hoarse. “You did everything you could. You didn’t fail him.”

But you shook her head, her eyes opening to meet his. “I should’ve done more. I should’ve saved him. I couldn’t even hold him, Robby. He was gone by the time help arrived.”

The guilt in your voice struck him with the force of a fist. Robby knew then that what you had been carrying wasn’t just grief. It was guilt—painful, suffocating guilt that you had never been able to shake.

“I can’t imagine how that feels,” Robby whispered, his hand sliding from yours to rest gently on your shoulder. “But I do know this: you’re not to blame. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Tears welled in your eyes, but you quickly wiped them away, offering him a small, broken smile. “I don’t talk about it. My parents don’t either. They’ve never asked how I’m doing with it. I don’t know if they even think about it anymore.”

Robby’s heart ached for you. It was clear that her family’s way of dealing with the tragedy was to sweep it under the rug, but you had been living with it, trying to carry it alone.

“I can’t even imagine how hard that must be,” he said softly, his thumb brushing your shoulder, offering a silent understanding. “But you don’t have to carry it by yourself.”

You gave him a faint, grateful smile, your hand resting over his. “I’ve been pretending for so long, Robby. But with you… it feels like I don’t have to.”

He squeezed your hand tighter. “You don’t. You’re not alone.”

The words hung between them, heavy with unspoken promises. For the first time, Robby felt the full weight of your past—of your life before him—and he knew it wasn’t just about the trauma of the car accident. It was about the loss you had never fully healed from, the grief that had followed you in every step, every decision, every relationship.

And as the night deepened around them, Robby realized that the woman standing before him was more complex than he could have ever imagined. But she was also the woman he wanted to hold, to protect, to love in ways she hadn’t allowed herself to believe possible.

The ambulance bay doors slammed open with a gust of cold air and the harsh staccato of hurried footsteps. Dana’s voice was already crackling over the intercom: “Incoming GSW to the chest, ETA one minute. ETA critical.”

The ER stirred like a hive disturbed, controlled chaos, everyone sliding into practiced roles. And at the center of it, Dr. Robby and Dr. Sheridan stood shoulder-to-shoulder, charting orders with clipped precision. They didn’t speak to each other—not at first. They didn’t have to.

It had been two weeks since they’d gone public—HR paperwork signed, protocols followed, and a few quiet but surprisingly warm congratulations from the staff who had long suspected what was beneath the surface. Robby had returned to the role of attending with the same intensity, but something had changed in the way he looked at you now, softer, fiercer, admiration and love all at once.

The doors burst open.

It was bad.

The patient, a seventeen-year-old, had taken a close-range shotgun blast to the chest. His pressure was tanking, blood everywhere, airway unstable. A cacophony of voices erupted as the team moved as one, and at the center of it, Robby and Sheridan locked in, an instinctive orbit.

“Needle decompression now—”

“Sheridan, left side, second intercostal. I’ll intubate.”

“On it.”

“Chest seals and thoracotomy tray ready,” You said, your voice low but calm.

“Page CT and cardio,” Robby said at the same moment. Your eyes met.

Chest tube in. Airway secured. A heartbeat faltered—Robby was compressing while you yelled for epi. You didn’t hesitate when blood spurted from the chest wound and called for a thoracotomy—hands steady, voice clear.

“Let’s crack him.”

Robby passed you the rib spreader with something close to pride glinting behind his narrowed gaze. He would never get bored of watching you take the lead in a trauma this heavy, like you were made for it.

Fifteen minutes later, the boy had a heartbeat and two chest tubes draining blood. He was barely alive, but alive was enough.

And then the room emptied, the adrenaline draining like a tide receding from their skin.

For a moment, neither of you spoke. Just stood there, panting, bloody, side-by-side in the aftermath. The room echoed with the remnants of your orders and the quiet hum of machines.

Robby reached out and brushed a smear of blood off your cheek with his gloved knuckle. You blinked up at him, throat working as you swallowed, your expression unreadable but raw.

“You okay?” he asked softly.

You nodded, but didn’t look away. “You?”

“I’m not sure yet,” he said honestly. Then, quieter, “You were incredible.”

There was something in the air again, tension, heat, but not the reckless kind. This was earned, carved from the trenches they’d clawed through together, a rhythm born from trust, mutual respect, something deeper.

Dana poked her head back into the room. “You two should take a break. You look like shit, and I say that with love.”

Robby turned to Sheridan. “Come on. Ten minutes.”

You hesitated, then nodded. “Only if you eat something.”

He chuckled, warm and low. “Bossy.”

“You love it.”

“I do,” he said, too easily, too honestly. And when you smiled, small and tired and shining like sunlight through dust, it hit him like a second crash cart to the chest.

You were were still learning what this was, what you were, but in the trauma rooms, under pressure, you were symphonic. A single mind. A single heart. And maybe—just maybe—something that could survive everything.

————————————

The rooftop was empty except for the wind and the weight Robby carried like a second skin. He leaned against the metal railing, the Pittsburgh skyline sprawled beneath a slate-colored sky that threatened snow but never quite delivered. The air was biting, sharp enough to make his fingers ache.

Up here, the hospital didn’t feel like a machine. It was quiet. Detached from the beeping monitors, from the red trauma bays and screaming families, from the endless thrum of obligation. Up here, he could just be, and sometimes that was more terrifying than the trauma room.

He didn’t hear Jack come up until the door clicked behind him.

“You look like a man trying to forget something,” Jack said, voice casual but deliberate, cutting through the cold like it belonged there.

Robby didn’t look at him. “You ever forget?”

Jack stepped beside him, leaning elbows on the railing, like they were just two old friends admiring the view. He didn’t speak right away. He let the silence do its work. Jack always knew how to wait out Robby’s defenses better than anyone else.

“I heard about today. You and Sheridan. Open thoracotomy in Trauma Two.”

“She was solid,” Robby said quietly. “Didn’t flinch once.”

“You didn’t either. Dana said it was like watching a dance.”

A beat passed. The wind whistled between them. Robby stared at the fading afternoon light breaking through the clouds in bands of silver and blue. He hadn't meant to stay up here long, but once he was alone, it was hard to go back down.

“I remember when you first told me about her,” Jack said. “You said she was quiet. Soft-spoken. Too gentle for this life.”

Robby’s jaw tightened. “She proved me wrong.”

“She did more than that. You’re not the same man you were a year ago.”

There it was, the invitation to say the thing he’d been choking on for months. Robby exhaled, the breath curling from his lips like an exorcism.

“She’s not just someone I work with,” he said, barely above a whisper. “Not anymore.”

Jack didn’t respond right away. He just nodded like he’d known the answer long before Robby had found the courage to say it out loud.

“I tried to keep a distance. I meant to,” Robby went on, voice raw around the edges now. “But every time she looked at me with those eyes… like I was someone worth knowing, someone she trusted—I just… I stopped remembering why I was supposed to say no.”

He was unraveling, and it felt like bleeding out in the safest possible way. Jack said nothing, just waited.

“She’s not like the others, Jack. I don’t just want her. I think I need her. And that terrifies the hell out of me.”

The admission cracked something wide open inside of him. Robby wasn’t the kind of man who believed in soulmates or second chances. But he’d spent his whole life trying to be good, trying to make up for the people he couldn’t save, the friends who didn’t make it, the things he couldn’t forgive himself for. He had been living penance, not a life.

But then you had looked at him like he was something more, not something broken. And now he didn’t know how to go back to who he’d been before her.

“I’m fifty,” Robby said bitterly. “She could do better.”

Jack gave him a sharp look. “She chose you.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m the right choice.”

“You ever think maybe you’re exactly what she needs?”

Robby laughed, a low, tired sound. “I think about what I’d do to anyone who hurt her. Then I remember it might be me one day.”

Jack’s voice softened. “You won’t hurt her.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know you,” Jack said. “And I know you’d rather gut yourself than let someone you love suffer. That woman has been through hell, and you… you’ve seen enough of it to know how to walk her through the fire.”

The silence that followed was heavy, thoughtful. The wind pulled at Robby’s coat, made his bones ache like they always did when the weather changed. He looked down at his hands, old scars, new tension, the tremble that never quite left since Adamson died during COVID. His mentor. His anchor. His guilt.

“I think she’s saving me,” Robby whispered. “And I don’t know what to do with that.”

“Let her,” Jack said simply. “Let yourself be saved for once.”

Robby didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

Instead, he finally let himself exhale. The sky was dimming, the city lights beginning to glow like distant stars. Somewhere below, she was probably finishing up a consult, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear in that way she always did when she was concentrating. He could picture it too easily now, her hands, her voice, her soft laughter. The sound of her body pressed against his, whispering his name.

And suddenly, it didn’t feel so impossible. To be hers. To let her be his.

“She invited me to Thanksgiving,” Robby said finally. “Meet her parents.”

Jack let out a low whistle. “Jesus. That’s serious.”

Robby nodded. “I think… I want to go.”

“Then go. And while you’re at it, start imagining a life where you let yourself have the good things.”

The wind picked up again. But this time, Robby didn’t feel the cold.

He only felt the steady warmth rising in his chest when he thought of her.

Robby woke slowly.

The moonshine filtering through her linen curtains was pale and gold, and for a moment, he forgot where he was. The sheets were too soft, the room too warm. And then he felt the press of a small body curled against him, her bare leg tangled between his, her breath steady against his collarbone. Y/N.

Her apartment.

Her bed.

His heart gave a traitorous twist.

It was early, maybe five, maybe earlier. He was used to it. The world always started for him before anyone else. But this morning, for once, he didn’t feel the need to move. He just wanted to stay. Absorb it.

Her.

She was tucked beneath the covers, face half-hidden, messy brown hair spilling over the pillow, one hand fisted gently in the fabric of his shirt like she wasn’t ready to let go even in sleep.

And God help him, he didn’t want her to.

Carefully, he slipped from the bed, trying not to wake her. Her sheets smelled like vanilla and clean linen. Her nightstand had a half-drunk glass of water, a novel with a cracked spine, and a worn tube of lip balm. Things so small and intimate it made his breath catch.

He padded barefoot into the rest of the apartment, soaking it in without the haze of last night’s heat between them. It was still quiet, early-morning hush over everything. Outside, the street was just starting to stir, birds, a garbage truck rumbling down the alley, a dog barking distantly.

Inside, her world was still.

He moved through the living room slowly. The details of her life were everywhere. Art books and first-edition novels, a framed psychology degree from NYU next to her coat hanging neatly on a hook by the door. A small vase of dried lavender. A Polaroid camera. A silk scarf draped over the corner of a mirror. Every detail was curated but unpretentious, lived-in. Personal.

He paused at the piano in the corner.

It was old, upright, chestnut wood with a few chips in the varnish, but well-loved. Music sheets were stacked carefully, tucked with bookmarks and scribbled notes. His fingers grazed the keys, but he didn’t press them down. Instead, he looked at the photo sitting on top of it: a younger Y/N, maybe seventeen, at a recital. Her hair was longer, pulled half-up, and she was smiling, really smiling, in a way he’d rarely seen in the hospital. Free. Unburdened.

He didn’t know if that version of her still existed. But God, he wanted to meet her.

There were more photos in the hallway, Sheri as a child with scraped knees and a gap-toothed grin, her parents in a vineyard, some older relatives at what looked like a christmas dinner. The more he looked, the more he realized just how much of her life she’d never talked about. Not because she was hiding it, but because she’d never been asked.

And now she was offering it to him, open-palmed and quiet and brave.

He lingered by the bookshelf, picking up a slim volume of poetry and flipping through it. A note was scribbled in the margin in her handwriting: for the days that hurt in silence. He stared at it for a long time.

When he finally returned to the bedroom, you were just beginning to stir.

Your eyes blinked open slowly, lashes fluttering against your cheek before you focused on him, shirtless, barefoot, leaning in the doorway with the moonlight at his back like some ghost she hadn’t expected to stay.

“You always wake up this early?” you asked, voice still rough with sleep.

He smirked faintly. “Some habits die hard.”

You stretched, a soft sigh escaping you as you rolled onto your back and pushed the covers down, bare legs curling into the sheets. The moonlight caught the dip of your waist, the slope of your collarbone, and for a moment he felt something primal twist in his chest.

But he didn’t move toward you yet.

Instead, he watched you.

“What?” you asked quietly, voice hushed in the still morning.

“I’m just looking,” he said honestly.

“At what?”

“At everything you are.”

You flushed. “Do I disappoint?”

He crossed to you then, kneeling beside the bed, brushing his hand through the mess of your hair. “You’re beautiful.”

Your eyes softened.

“I’ve never—” he started, then stopped. Swallowed. “I never let myself want this.”

“But you do,” you whispered.

He nodded, pressing a slow kiss to your shoulder, just above the curve of the sheet.

“I do. I want you. Not just your body, not just the secret, not just the adrenaline of getting away with it in a fucking supply closet—though, Christ, that too—but you, in this bed, with your stupid candles and your crooked piano and the way you write in margins.”

Your throat worked around a swallow. “You read my poetry book.”

“I want to read everything,” he murmured, kissing you again. “All of it. All of you.”

You leaned forward then, kissed him like you meant it, soft, slow, unhurried.

And in that morning light, tangled in sheets and sunlight and honesty, something in Robby settled for the first time in years. Not silenced, not quieted. But held.

—----------------------------------

The ER never slept, not even on days when the morning light broke in slow golden strands across the windows of the trauma bay. But this morning felt different. Calmer, somehow. As if the universe had paused for breath and let in something softer between the crash of stretchers and the clatter of coffee cups.

You stepped onto the unit just after 6:30 a.m., hair tied in a low ponytail, hoodie unzipped, and a takeaway tray in your hands. You moved with quiet certainty, your expression unreadable to most, but not to him.

Robby was already there, early as always, leaned against the counter outside trauma room two. He had a pen between his fingers, flipping it with the idle precision of a man who never really stopped thinking. He looked up the moment he sensed you.

Not turned. Sensed.

Your eyes met for a fraction of a second longer than would’ve passed for casual. Something passed between you, warmth, reassurance, the kind of intimacy that didn’t need to be loud to be real.

He said nothing. Neither did you.

But you handed him a second coffee as you passed, the exact way he liked it, no words exchanged. You wore a small smile and a steady step, and the minute Dana caught sight of you across the nurses’ station, the charge nurse pointedly raised one eyebrow and offered a slow, approving nod.

“Well, finally,” Dana drawled.

You froze mid-step. “What?”

Dana sipped her coffee with exaggerated calm. “You know what.”

You didn’t have to turn to feel Robby behind you, his presence like gravity, like the steady pressure of a star. He appeared at your side a second later, expression unreadable but eyes brighter than you’d seen in weeks. He looked like a man who’d exhaled for the first time in years.

“Morning,” he said to Dana.

“Mmm,” Dana said, her grin widening. “So… HR knows?”

“HR knows,” Robby confirmed, nodding once. “We disclosed it last night.”

You added quickly, “We submitted everything by the book. It won’t affect patient care. We’re both still professionals first.”

Dana held up her hands. “Hey. No judgment. Just… it’s about time.”

There was a short pause.

“Is there a betting pool I should know about?” Robby asked dryly.

Dana didn’t even blink. “There was. Santos won it. Said it would happen this quarter.”

Santos appeared from behind a curtain, pulling off gloves with a triumphant smirk. “I always knew you two were going to combust. But I didn't think it’d be in an alley. Bold move.”

You flushed from the neck up.

“I told you not to talk about it—” Robby began.

Santos grinned. “What, you think I didn’t recognize that look you had the next day? Man was walking like he’d been struck by lightning. And Sheridan couldn’t look anyone in the eye.”

Whittaker passed by with a chart, looking nervous. “Should I… come back later?”

Mel piped up from across the room, smiling gently. “No, Dennis. You’re witnessing love in a hopeless place.”

You buried your face in your hands. But Robby, for once, didn’t seem phased. He chuckled—a real, low sound—and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.

“All right,” he said. “Everyone gets one day to harass us. But then it’s business as usual.”

Dana lifted her coffee. “Cheers to that, Dr. R.”

You flushed, but Robby only gave a soft exhale that might’ve been amusement, might’ve been relief. There was something easier about the set of his shoulders this morning, something almost unrecognizable to the ones who’d known him longest. He looked... lighter. The storm behind his eyes was still there, but it had a quiet in it now. A steadying calm that hadn’t been there in months.

He turned to you and said quietly, just for you, “You ready for rounds?”

You nodded. “Always.”

You walked together toward the huddle, footsteps falling into rhythm. You didn’t reach for his hand. He didn’t touch the small of your back. But there was an unmissable closeness in how your bodies moved near one another. Not possessive, just connected.

At the patient board, the rest of the residents gathered: Santos with her sarcastic smirk, Whittaker with his usual nervous energy, Mel with her careful warmth. A couple of interns hung in the back, eyes wide, obviously new.

Robby cleared his throat. “Morning. Quick huddle before rounds. Interns, evaluations start today, make sure to shine with your seniors and show them what you’ve learned, and make sure you drink water, because no one else is going to tell you when your brain is turning to soup.”

Soft chuckles. Santos rolled her eyes. “He says that like he ever drinks water.”

“I hydrate,” Robby said, deadpan. “It’s just black and roasted and comes in a mug.”

A few more laughs.

His gaze flicked to you, just a second’s glance, but enough for her to feel it settle on her skin. He always saw you, not just in the obvious ways. He noticed the minute tension in your shoulders, the slight downturn of your lips when you were too tired to fake it. And now that they weren’t pretending anymore, he let that concern show in soft, quiet ways.

He handed you a protein bar later that morning, just before the next trauma came in.

“You didn’t eat,” he said. “You’ll start shaking again.”

“I don’t shake,” you said.

“You do when your blood sugar tanks.”

You took the bar. Your fingers brushed and then he held your hand. He held the contact and your breath caught in your throat.

Around you, the ER pulsed with life, alarms, footsteps, orders barked and nonstopped charting, but in that second, it was just the two of you again. The unspoken tether of months, years, threading you closer with each quiet kindness.

And it wasn’t all sweetness.

When a difficult peds trauma came in later, you took the lead without hesitation. You were measured, firm, voice steady as you called out orders, but Robby hovered just within your orbit—ready if you faltered, ready if you needed him. You didn’t. You never did. But the fact that he was there mattered more than you could admit aloud.

Afterwards, he pulled you aside, voice low. “You did good in there.”

You smiled, tired but grateful. “You doubted me?”

“Never,” he said. “But I worry anyway.”

Your heart tightened at that. Because that was him, always, the man who kept every worry locked tight behind those cool gray eyes, but who noticed everything. The man who fought the world with his hands and himself with his silence.

You stood by the trauma board, arms crossed, squinting at the cluster of cases lighting up in red. You were waiting for the next wave. They always came in waves.

“Quiet before the chaos,” came a voice behind you.

You turned slightly. Dr. Collins stood there, coffee in hand, her usual expression unreadable but not unfriendly. She was in scrubs, her red jacket slung over one shoulder, the picture of poised competence.

You gave a small smile. “You know, everyone says that, and it’s always true. Creeps me out.”

Collins chuckled. “You get used to it.”

“I heard about you and Robby.”

You stiffened. Just a little. Not enough to be obvious, but enough that Collins noticed.

“I’m not judging,” Collins added quickly, sipping her coffee. “He and I... that was a long time ago.”

You turned toward her fully now, brows raised. “Yeah?”

Collins nodded, leaning against the counter beside the trauma board. “Before you were even in medical school, I think. It didn’t last long. We were fire and ice—too much heat, not enough glue.”

You hesitated. “I knew it happened, but didn’t know why it ended.”

Collins smiled wryly. “We don’t advertise it. Didn’t end badly, exactly, just… ended. He was complicated. Still is.”

That made you laugh under your breath. “Yeah. I’ve noticed.”

Collins glanced over at you, eyes sharp but not unkind. “So… can I give you some unsolicited advice?”

You looked wary but nodded. “Sure.”

Collins shifted her coffee to her other hand, her tone growing quieter, less clinical. “Robby’s spent most of his life keeping people at arm’s length. It’s not because he doesn’t care. It’s because he cares too much. And somewhere along the line, he decided that if he let people in, they’d either leave, or he’d lose them. So he built walls. Really good ones.”

Your voice was soft. “I’ve seen them.”

“Then you know how hard it is to be let in. He’s let you in, hasn’t he?”

You nodded slowly. “Yeah. He has.”

Collins studied you for a moment, then said, “Then don’t waste it. But don’t expect it to always be easy. Loving Robby is like… like trying to hold onto something that doesn’t always want to be held. You have to be steady. Patient. And maybe a little selfish, too. You have to ask for what you need.”

There was silence between them for a moment. The overhead lights buzzed faintly. You leaned against the counter, mirroring Collins. “Did you love him?”

Collins didn’t answer right away. She took a slow sip of her coffee, then set it down gently on the steel counter. Her eyes went distant, thoughtful.

“I think a part of me did,” she said finally. “But I also think I loved the idea of fixing him more than I loved who he really was. And you can’t fix Robby. You can only choose to stay.”

You looked down, chewing on that. “I don’t want to fix him.”

Collins smiled softly. “Then you’ve got a chance.”

Just then, a trauma alert crackled through the intercom. You and Collins both stood a little straighter.

“Back to it,” Collins said, straightening her scrubs.

You looked at her, something flickering in your eyes. Gratitude, maybe. Or recognition. “Thanks. For saying all that.”

Collins gave a half-smile, already turning toward the trauma bay. “You’re welcome. Just don’t break his heart, Sheridan. He doesn’t have many lives left.”

You stood there a moment longer, the trauma board now lighting up like a Christmas tree behind you. But your mind was still on Collins’s words. On what it meant to be let in by someone like Robby. And what it meant to stay.

Robby didn't touch you in front of the others. Not once. But when you passed in the hallway near radiology and no one was looking, he let his knuckles graze yours. When you came back from the break room, jaw clenched from a phone call with a combative family member, he reached over and brushed a loose strand from your cheek.

“I’ve got your six,” he murmured, just low enough for your ears only.

“I know,” you whispered back.

Later, in the staff lounge, Dana caught Robby refilling your water bottle.

“You’re ridiculously smitten,” Dana said, not bothering to hide her grin.

Robby gave a weary exhale. “Don’t start.”

“I mean it. She softens you.”

“She grounds me,” he said.

And he meant it. Because whatever weight he carried—whatever ghosts still lurked in his chest from COVID, from Adamson, from years of holding back, you had become the one person who could coax him out from behind the walls he’d built.

You weren’t loud. You weren’t commanding. But you saw him.

And now, finally, he let himself see you back, not just as a resident, not just as a colleague, but as the woman who made him want more. Who made him remember what it felt like to want something for himself.

By the end of the shift, the teasing had faded. The work had taken over again. He let his hand rest lightly at the small of your back for just a breath. You stood at the computer terminal. Your brow furrowed slightly in concentration, but your posture was more relaxed than it had been before. More grounded. You hadn't been rattled. If anything, you'd been unnervingly steady.

Robby watched you for a moment. Something was different.

“You okay?” he asked casually.

You glanced up, then gave him that small, almost imperceptible smile he’d come to read like a pulse. “Yeah. Just tired.”

“Sure,” he said, but his tone was knowing. “Still… something’s on your mind.”

You hesitated, saving the chart and logging out. “Talked to Collins earlier.”

Robby's eyebrows lifted, just slightly. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You looked up at him now, her gaze direct but unreadable. “She said you’re complicated.”

Robby gave a soft huff of laughter, rubbing the back of his neck. “She would say that.”

“She also said you build walls.”

That made him pause.

He didn’t speak for a moment, just looked at you, searching your expression, trying to see what else might be behind those words. You didn’t push. You just let the silence stretch, comfortable in a way that still surprised him sometimes.

“Was she warning you off?” he asked finally.

You tilted your head, your voice soft but certain. “No. She was telling me not to waste the opportunity” Robby looked down, that answer hitting deeper than he expected. His voice, when it came, was quieter. “She’s not wrong.”

You reached for his hand, lacing your fingers through his. “I’m not going anywhere, Michael.”

He looked down at your joined hands, then up at you. And for a moment, everything, the years, the baggage, the ghosts fell away. There was just you. And the quiet certainty in your eyes.

“Good,” he said. Then softer, more to himself than to her, “Good.”

She squeezed his hand once more. 

“You want me to wait and walk out with you?” he asked.

You looked at him, smile soft. “Always.”

And maybe the world hadn’t changed. Maybe the hospital was still loud and unpredictable, and their jobs still unforgiving.

But the weight was different now.

They weren’t pretending.

They weren’t hiding.

They were them.

And for the first time, that felt like enough.

The HR office was tucked away in the admin wing, far from the chaos of the ER, far from the trauma bay and the noise of overhead codes. You had only been here once before, during your orientation. It smelled like coffee, printer toner, and bureaucratic permanence.

Robby walked beside you, his hand grazing yours occasionally but never quite closing the distance. They weren’t here for declarations or fireworks. Just a form. A conversation. A choice made real on paper. The HR coordinator, a polite woman named Marissa, greeted them with a curious smile when they entered. “Dr. Robinavitch, Dr. Sheridan, what can I help you with?”

Robby cleared his throat, but it was you who spoke first. Your voice was clear and composed.

“We’d like to disclose a personal relationship, in accordance with policy.” Marissa blinked. Then smiled with polite surprise. “Of course. Give me just a moment.” Marissa made a few notes. “And Dr. Robinavitch is not your direct supervisor for evaluations, correct?”

“He oversees me clinically during shifts, but my academic advisor and evaluation lead is Dr. Langdon,” you clarified.

“Good,” Marissa said, with an approving tone. “Then this will go in your file as a disclosed relationship with no formal conflict of interest. It’ll be flagged in case of any potential future issues—scheduling, assessments, anything like that. Transparency protects both of you.”

She handed them the forms, two copies each, standard hospital-issue. Disclosure, acknowledgment, consent. You signed quickly. Robby paused for just a moment before adding his signature.

When you were done, Marissa took the forms back with a practiced efficiency. “You’re all set. I appreciate you coming in. It speaks well of both of you.”

“Thanks,” Robby said, rising with a polite nod. You followed, the knot between your shoulders easing a little.

When you stepped out into the hallway a few minutes later, you bumped your shoulder gently against his arm. “So… that’s it?”

Robby nodded. “That’s it. You’re officially my HR-sanctioned problem now.”

You laughed under your breath. “And you’re mine.”

They didn’t kiss, didn’t hold hands, not here. But they walked back toward the elevators side by side, a little lighter, a little steadier. No more secrets. No more limbo.

Just them.

By the book. ---------------------------------

You celebrated by having a romantic dinner. It was a quiet corner table in a warm, dimly lit restaurant tucked between buildings older than either of you. The kind of place with flickering candles in amber glass holders and exposed brick walls soaked in years of laughter and whispered conversation. Outside, the city bustled in its usual rhythm, but in here, the world had narrowed to just the two of you, seated across from each other like the edge of a confession neither had fully spoken aloud.

You looked different now. Softer somehow, your long hair curled loose over your shoulders, cheeks touched with warmth that wasn’t just from the wine you’d shared. You were in a sweater that slipped a little off one shoulder, and jeans, and no trace of the badge that usually clung to you like armor. Robby couldn’t stop looking at you. Not in a possessive way, but in the way a man looked at something he’d convinced himself he could never deserve.

And yet, here they were.

The silence between them was comfortable now, not cautious. A shared peace that had taken months of slow-burning tension, half-spoken words, and stolen moments to arrive at.

“I think Dana’s onto us,” You murmured with a wry smile, your fingers gently circling the rim of your wine glass.

Robby let out a quiet laugh, his eyes crinkling. “Dana’s been onto us since last winter.”

You laughed, and the sound made his chest ache. He’d once thought he’d never hear you laugh like that, freely, without hesitation. It felt like a kind of miracle. Your voice belonged to him now in a way he would never take for granted.

He reached across the table and let his fingers graze yours. You met him halfway, linking your hands slowly, tenderly, like this was the first time all over again.

“I don’t want to hide anymore,” you said softly.

His thumb brushed the inside of your wrist. Your pulse was fast. So was his. “Me neither.”

“I mean it,” you said, eyes locked on his. “Not just sneaking around. Not just seeing each other when we’re off shift. I don’t want this to be something temporary or secret or… cautious. I don’t want to keep pretending like I’m not completely, terrifyingly in love with you.”

The words stunned him in the gentlest way. Not because he hadn’t known, he had. But because you’d said it without fear, without retreating. Just you, laid bare, offering everything.

He swallowed hard. “Jesus, Y/N…”

You didn’t look away. “I need to know if you feel the same. If this is just… something you’re trying not to regret. Or if you’re in this, really in it.”

He was quiet for a long moment.

Then he exhaled, and when he finally spoke, his voice was quieter than you’d ever heard it.

“I’ve spent my whole life living by rules I thought would protect people. Thought if I kept my distance, if I didn’t let anyone get too close, I could control the outcomes. No one got hurt. No one depended on me more than they should. I survived that way. But I wasn’t living. Not really.”

He looked up, and his eyes were glassy. “You undid me. In the best goddamn way. And now I don’t want to imagine a version of this life where you’re not in it.”

You blinked hard, your fingers tightening around his.

He added, quieter, “This isn’t just some late midlife crisis, some reckless mistake. You’re it, my sweet Sheri. You’re it for me.”

The candle between them flickered like it knew. You smiled slowly, radiant and soft and just a little broken open, and he thought you’d never looked more beautiful.

You sat there for a long time, fingers tangled on the tabletop, trading small stories about your first impressions, the awkward early days of your residency, the way Dana had teased Robby mercilessly after catching him staring at you one too many times during rounds. He told you he remembered your first shift like it was yesterday, the way you’d walked into the trauma bay with your tiny frame and enormous eyes, so quiet he’d nearly overlooked you. And then you’d stepped up to run a code with the kind of calm confidence that made him stop in his tracks.

You told him about all the nights you’d gone home aching because you’d wanted so badly to impress him, not just as your attending, but as a man you admired, respected, maybe even adored long before you admitted it.

By the time dessert arrived, something chocolate you didn’t really touch, you were leaning toward each other across the table, full of memory and warmth, the gravity between you undeniable.

You looked at him, your brown eyes soft, clear, and deeply certain. There was something about the way you were watching him, steadier than he’d ever seen, though your cheeks were flushed, and your lips slightly parted like you had something just on the edge of confession.

“Come home with me,” you said, gentle and sure.

The words pulled something from deep inside him, a jolt of surprise, not because he didn’t want to, but because it felt like stepping over another boundary he hadn’t let himself imagine crossing until now.

Her home.

Her life.

He hesitated only for a breath, and in that breath, your fingers gripped his tighter, anchoring him.

“It’s okay,” you added quietly. “You don’t have to. I just— I want you to see me. Not just in your apartment. Not just at work. I want you to know who I am when the day is over and everything’s quiet.”

And how could he say no to that?

He nodded. “Yeah,” he murmured. “I want that too.”

Outside, the night was cold, but when he pulled your coat around your shoulders and kissed your temple like a promise, you didn’t feel a thing but his hand in yours and the heat of the future unfolding in front of them.

Your apartment was in Shadyside, tucked on a quiet tree-lined street in a high-ceilinged brownstone with soft golden light spilling through arched windows. The interior was warm and elegant, mid-century furniture, thick rugs, bookshelves crammed with everything from poetry to medical journals, candles you actually burned, and little details that made Robby pause in the doorway as he took it all in.

It smelled like you. Soft floral notes and warmth. A place he already knew would haunt him if he ever left.

You watched him with a small smile as he walked the perimeter, taking it in. His fingertips skimmed a framed photograph of your family, you and your parents at a summer estate by the water, smiling in linen and sunlight.

“You’re rich,” he said after a beat, half-joking but not really. His brow arched. “Like, actually rich.”

You rolled your eyes, amused and unbothered. “My parents are.”

“And you live like this?”

“Yeah. Why?” you teased, tilting your head. “Worried I’m a little too high society for your taste, Dr. Robinavitch?”

He smirked but said nothing, stepping closer, his eyes roaming over the apartment with new context.

You were quiet for a moment, then shrugged as you slipped off your shoes and curled up on the couch. “I never wanted anyone to know. Not at the hospital. I didn’t want it to change how they saw me. I didn’t want you to see me differently.”

“I don’t,” he said, voice low as he joined her on the couch. “It’s just another part of you. And I want to know every part.”

Your breath caught for just a second.

Then, after a moment, you said softly, “My family does Thanksgiving big. My mom starts planning in September. My dad orders wines like he’s hosting the President. We get in fights about how to roast the turkey, and there’s always at least one person crying by dessert.”

Robby watched you.

“And I’d like you to come.”

His eyes widened slightly, and for a second, the old instinct kicked in, distance, retreat, stay safe.

But you reached for his hand again, and your grip was steady, your gaze open.

“I’m not asking you to meet them tomorrow,” you said. “But I’m not hiding anymore, and I don’t want you to hide either. If we’re doing this, we’re doing it.”

He nodded, then leaned in, pressing a kiss to your temple, slow and full of love. “We’re doing it.”

Later that night, he stood in the doorway of your bedroom as you changed into a soft T-shirt and shorts, your hair loose down your back, face clean of makeup. The quiet intimacy of it startled him more than sex ever could—watching you fold back the comforter, light a candle on the nightstand, and slide into bed with the ease of someone letting him in fully.

He joined you under the covers, unsure of the right way to exist in someone else’s space, but you turned toward him, warm and sleepy, and laid your head on his chest like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“You’re going to hate how early I wake up,” He mumbled.

“I already do.”

He laughed softly as he held you.

They stayed like that for a long time, limbs tangled under the weight of down and history and the kind of love that doesn’t always announce itself loudly, but settles deep, unwavering.And sometime in the early morning, just before the sun rose, Robby looked down at the woman sleeping against his side, her lashes dark against her cheek, her breath soft and even, and thought: This is it. This is home.

-------------

There was something sacred about the hospital at night. Something that softened the edges of the chaos, turned the sterile halls into cathedrals of hushed breath and quiet motion. The trauma bays slept in shadows. Monitors blinked gently. The nurses walked with a slower rhythm. You felt it in your bones, this silence between disasters. The aching calm before whatever came next.

And tonight, that stillness pressed against you like a second skin.

The worst part wasn’t missing Robby. It was the not knowing how to carry it. You still tasted him. Still felt the rough imprint of his hands on your hips, the bruising kiss he left behind your ear before he pulled away. 

You didn’t know if he was retreating into himself again or trying to protect you from the guilt he carried like a cross.

All you knew was that something had cracked open between you and neither of you had the language for it.

So you buried yourself in your night shift.

Labs. Charting. Consults. More labs. A few minor traumas. You sutured a boy’s eyebrow while his mother wept quietly beside you and you tried not to imagine what Robby’s hands would feel like again if they ever touched you like that, urgent and unafraid.

You were in the break room, half-asleep in a chair and nursing a terrible cup of coffee, when the door opened with a soft creak.

Jack Abbott didn’t say anything right away. He just leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, eyes steady in the way of someone who had seen too many sunrises in this place. He wasn’t Robby, but the resemblance in energy was there, the quiet gravity, the weariness that only came with decades in emergency medicine. And the loyalty. Jack and Robby had worked together for years. You’d always respected Jack, even when you were still terrified of screwing up under his supervision.

Now he looked at you like he already knew.

He crossed to the counter, poured himself a cup of coffee that neither of you would finish, and stirred in the powdered creamer without looking up.

“You’ve been quiet tonight,” he said.

You kept your voice light. “Just a slow shift.”

Jack lifted an eyebrow. “Mm. Sure.”

He took a long sip, then sat across from you with a sigh that seemed to stretch back a decade. His gaze was calm, assessing. Then, without preamble:

“I know about you and Robby.”

Your pulse stuttered. For a moment, you froze. Then your brain stuttered back to life, grasping for some kind of denial or excuse or cover.

You stared at your coffee cup, fingers curling tighter around it. “How long have you known?”

Jack gave a small chuckle. “Long enough. He gets this look when you walk into the room. Like a man who’s just remembered how to breathe.”

Your cheeks flared hot.

“It’s not—”

“Don’t insult my intelligence, kid,” he said, eyes kind. “I don’t care about rules or paperwork. I care that my friend, the most locked-down bastard I’ve ever met,  looks at you like he’s terrified and alive all at once.”

You tried to breathe around the sudden ache in your throat. “It’s not supposed to be—”

“I know.” His voice was quiet. Measured. “I know how he is. Robby lives by his lines. But even lines blur when someone makes you feel something you didn’t think you were allowed to feel anymore.”

You looked up at him then. He wasn’t judging you. If anything, he looked tired, like someone watching two people circle a truth they were afraid to touch.

“I never meant for it to happen,” you said. Your voice was barely audible. “I looked up to him. I still do. I didn’t expect—”

“You fell in love with him,” Jack said plainly.

You opened your mouth, but nothing came out. Your throat tightened. You didn’t say yes. You didn’t have to.

Jack leaned back in the chair, sipping his coffee like the answer didn’t surprise him. “He’s been different since you got here,” he said. “For a long time. Calmer. Quieter, in a way that matters. You ground him.”

Your lip trembled before you could stop it. “I think I’m just making things worse.”

“No,” Jack said, gently but firmly. “You’re just making him feel. He hasn’t let himself do that in a long time. Since before the pandemic. Since Adamson.”

The name hit you like a breath of cold air. Robby never talked about Dr. Adamson. But you knew the loss haunted him.

“I don’t want to be something he regrets,” you whispered.

“You won’t be,” Jack said. “He might fight it. Hell, he probably will. But what’s happening between you two? It’s real. And I’ve known him long enough to know when something real scares the shit out of him.”

Your silence was its own answer.

He smiled faintly, finishing the last sip of coffee. “Give him time. If he’s smart, and he usually is, he’ll realize that the only thing worse than crossing a line is spending the rest of his life wondering what it would’ve felt like to stay on the other side of it.”

Jack sat across from you, no rush in his movements. Just presence. Just understanding.

“I don’t think he knows what to do with it,” you said quietly. “With me.”

“He doesn’t,” Jack replied, without a trace of humor. “Robby lives in a world made of lines. He’s drawn every one himself. Ethics. Grief. Age. Shame. You’re the first person in years who makes him want to cross them.”

You didn’t speak for a long time.

“I don’t want to hurt him.”

“I don’t think you could, even if you tried,” Jack said, voice soft. “But he could hurt you.”

You nodded.

Jack leaned back in his chair. “So. Are you in love with him?”

You smiled absently, as if remembering a fond memory.

“I think I have been for a while.”

Jack didn’t smile.

But something in his eyes softened.

“He’s lucky,” he said. And you didn’t say it , but so were you.

-------

He should’ve known better than to think he could spend the whole day with you without making you fall apart in his hands.

But restraint had never been his strong suit when it came to you. Not since the first time you made a noise for him, soft, sweet, breaking against his mouth like something sacred.

Now it was an addiction. A study. A need.

He wanted to find out and he wasn’t going to rest until he tested his theories. 

You stood barefoot on the hardwood in his old college hoodie, sleeves swallowing your hands, hair messy from the pillows. He handed you coffee, one sugar, just how you liked it, and leaned against the counter, eyes dark over the rim of his own mug.

“Sleep okay?” he asked.

You nodded, lips parted around the rim of the cup, cheeks already flushed. You didn’t answer out loud. He took the cup from your hand and set it down, then stepped close and tilted your chin up gently with a finger.

“You don’t have to talk,” he murmured, voice barely audible. “But I’m going to find a way to hear every sound you’ve never made before.”

You shivered. And when he kissed you , deep, slow, the kind of kiss that unraveled time, you made the softest sound against his tongue.

He smirked.

That was one.

—---------------------------------------------

You had undressed to get in the shower. He followed you in.

You didn’t protest.

Water traced down your skin, he pressed your hands to the tiled wall and kissed down your shoulder, your neck, the space just behind your ear, and when his hands moved lower, you whimpered, biting your lip.

“Don’t do that,” he said against your skin. “Don’t hide from me.”

You didn’t. Not after that.

The way you gasped when he slid two fingers into you while whispering exactly what he planned to do later, you said his name like a prayer.

It was filthy. It was holy.

That’s two.

—-------------------------

Lunch was abandoned somewhere around the fifteen-minute mark.

You sat straddling his lap, the remains of a takeout container on the floor, your knees bracketing his thighs. He had his fingers hooked under the hem of your shirt, running the pad of his thumb in slow, lazy circles beneath the fabric while you tried to finish telling him a story about your intern.

Tried.

Failed.

Because every time you paused to catch your breath, he kissed just below your ear. Teased the edge of your bra. Bit lightly at your collarbone. Your voice faltered completely when he slipped a hand into your sweatpants and found you already warm and wet.

“You were telling me something,” he murmured, lips brushing your temple.

You arched into him. “I can’t, I can’t think, fuck Michael-”

He grinned into your hair. That’s three.

—--------------------------------------

He wanted to ruin you.

Not cruelly. Never that. But intimately. With admiration. Like someone learning how to worship.

He laid you out in the middle of his bed, the sun soft on your skin, your fingers tangled in the sheets as he edged you with his mouth over and over until you were gasping.

Your thighs shook against his shoulders.

Your hand fisted in his hair, tugging with helpless need.

You weren't quiet anymore.

You were begging.

“Please, Michael, please”

He gave in only when he was sure you’d never be able to forget what it sounded like when you broke.

You sobbed his name when you came. Loud, raw, completely unguarded.

That was Four. Five. Six. Maybe more.

He’d lost count.

—-----------------------------------

They were supposed to make dinner.

He kissed you up against the fridge instead. Your legs wrapped around his waist. His hands under your thighs. Your hair wild, your lips swollen, your breath caught in his mouth. You moaned into his neck when he pressed himself against you.

He leaned in, voice gravel-rough and low.

“Do you know how long I’ve wanted to fuck the shyness out of you?”

You whimpered.

“I’m going to make you say everything you’ve ever swallowed down. Every noise you thought you had to keep quiet. I want to hear them all, Sher.”

You kissed him hard, desperate, teeth catching on his lower lip.

He carried you to the counter without breaking contact.

Dinner was forgotten.

—---------------------------------------

They were watching some movie you loved. Or trying to. You curled beside him, worn out and pink-cheeked, your head tucked into the curve of his neck. But your hand had crept under the blanket to his thigh, and he couldn’t focus on a single damn frame.

“You’ve made your point,” you whispered, teasing.

He turned his head slowly. “No.”

His voice was velvet. Dangerous.

“Not even close.”

You smiled and leaned into his chest.

And he knew he was done for.

By the time you left the next morning, his bed still smelled like you, and he didn’t care that he’d have to walk into the ER like he hadn’t spent twenty-four hours losing his mind to the quietest girl in the hospital.

But you weren't quiet anymore.

Not with him.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------

You’d come in fresh from a day off, lips still swollen from his mouth, thighs still sore in the best way. You wore your hair tied back tightly, your pink hoodie unzipped, your ID badge not-quite-straight.

You told yourself you could be professional.

You told yourself he could, too.

But you hadn’t counted on the look in his eyes when you walked past him in the morning huddle, when he leaned over your shoulder to grab the chart out of your hands like it hadn’t been an excuse to let his breath skim your neck.

You hadn’t counted on the way his voice had dropped low and close when he said your name during rounds, or how your fingers clenched the chart too hard when he called you “Doctor Sheridan” like it was something filthy only he got to say that way.

You hadn’t counted on needing him like that.

Not again. Not this soon.

Definitely not here.

You’d just finished bagging a code, your hair was a mess, you smelled like adrenaline and blood and antiseptic, and he looked at you like he wanted to rip your scrubs off with his teeth.

You were trying to chart. You really were.

But then he came too close, leaning over your shoulder, watching the screen, one palm flat beside your hand. You could feel the heat of him at your back, the outline of his chest brushing yours.

“You missed a timestamp,” he murmured, mouth right near your ear.

You looked up at him, your breath caught somewhere between your lungs and your spine.

“Fix it for me, then,” you whispered.

His mouth twitched. “Don’t tempt me.”

You already had.

You’d gone into the supply closet for IV tubing.

He followed you.

Of course he did.

The door clicked shut behind him and you turned, and he was already there, backing you against the shelves, one hand braced beside your head, the other curling around your hip.

His voice was rough. Low.

“I can’t stop thinking about you.”

You swallowed hard.

“We’re at work.”

He kissed you anyway.

It was nothing like his usual restraint. It was teeth and tongue and possessive heat, his hands sliding up your scrub top, palm grazing over your bare skin. His fingers found the waistband of your pants. You gasped.

“Michael!”

“I need to hear you,” he growled against your neck, hand sliding lower. “Just one sound. One.”

You almost gave it to him. Your back arched. Your mouth parted. You were seconds away from moaning his name right into the collar of his scrubs when—

“Shit! someone’s coming.”

The sound of footsteps. Two voices, probably Santos and Whittaker, arguing over something like usual.

He didn’t pull away. His hand was still down your pants. His eyes locked on yours. His body flush to yours in that dark closet that suddenly felt too hot, too small. Your heart was pounding.

The voices passed.

Silence.

“Do it again,” you whispered, your hips jerking forward without permission. “Please.”

He groaned into your neck, kissed you like he couldn’t breathe without it, and pulled his hand back just as your knees nearly buckled.

“Later,” he promised, voice thick and dark. “I promise.” He barely made it through the end of the shift. Every chart blurred. Every trauma became a haze of motion and barked orders and adrenaline soaked in lust. You hadn’t looked at him once after that closet. Not directly.

But your hands were trembling.

And when you handed off the final signout sheet and turned toward the exit , you didn’t even ask.

He was already following.

------------------------------------------------------------------

His front door had barely clicked shut before he shoved you against it, mouth covering yours in something messy and starving. His hands were everywhere, under your shirt, fisting the fabric, tugging at your scrub pants, yanking your hair back just to see your face.

“You knew what you were doing,” he muttered against your neck, biting just hard enough to make you moan. “Walking past me in those scrubs. Talking back to me. Letting me touch you and acting like it didn’t drive you just as fucking crazy.”

You whimpered. “It did.”

“I know.”

He spun you then, pressed you against the wall with a hand firm at the back of your neck. His other slipped between your legs again, not tentative this time. Not cautious.

“You’re always so silent at work,” he said lowly. “So careful. Little mouse, let’s see what it takes to pull every goddamn sound out of you.”

And then he was on his knees.

Right there in his hallway.

You gasped. Tried to say his name.

He silenced you with his mouth.

Later, it was the couch. The kitchen counter. The edge of his bed, where he bent you over with your pants around your ankles and whispered, “You can take it, sweetheart. You’re mine to take.”

Every time you cried out, he bit back a groan like he could bottle the sound.

He needed to hear you come undone.

He needed to be the one to do it.

He didn’t even know who he was right now, just a man with shaking hands and a never ending hard-on that had been torturing him all shift, drinking down the sounds you made like they were water and he’d been parched for years.

And you, you took it all. Soft thighs spread for him. Fingers clawing at his shoulders. Voice finally breaking in gasps and pleas he never imagined he’d hear from your lips.

“Michael—please—don’t stop—”

He didn’t.

Not until you were shaking, legs weak and messy beneath him, throat raw from moaning his name into his mouth. Not until he knew no one else would ever get this. No one would ever hear you the way he had.

After, in the quiet, you curled into his chest.

You didn’t say much.

You didn’t have to.

Your body said everything, the way you reached for him without hesitation, the way your cheek tucked beneath his chin like you belonged there. He kissed the top of your head and joined you in deep slumber.

-----------------------------------------------------------

The days after felt like an aftermath.

She’d slipped out of his apartment before dawn, her clothes quietly tugged on in the living room while he lay half-awake in bed, painfully aware of the absence beside him. The air still smelled like her, like the soft press of skin and sweat and sex and shampoo, and when he exhaled, it clung to his lungs like smoke.

She left behind a note, curled in his coat pocket, a single word: Sorry, early shift <3

Two days later, you were all business.

No one would have guessed that he'd had his hands between your legs two days ago, whispering things into your mouth that made you gasp and claw at his shoulders like he was the only thing tethering you to the world.

But he knew.

He watched you from across the trauma bay, tracking the path of your lips as you spoke to a family. Noticed how your hands trembled slightly when you passed him a chart. You didn't flinch when your brushed shoulders in the hallway, but you did go quiet, eyes downcast, breath a little too shallow.

You were trying so damn hard to be good.

But he could smell the memory of you on his skin.

The first stolen kiss happened in the supply closet. He hadn’t meant to follow you in. You hadn't meant to linger when you saw him behind you. But the moment the door clicked shut and the lights flickered dim overhead, you turned, and he stepped forward, just once, deliberately, and that was it.

You exhaled his name like a secret. "Michael" soft and unguarded.

He cupped the back of your neck and kissed you like he was starving. Like he was claiming something he never should’ve touched.

Your fingers curled into his chest like you needed something to hold onto, and when he pulled back, just enough to see the dazed, needy look in your eyes, he leaned in again, mouth to your ear, and murmured, “You think I don’t remember the sounds you make at night? You think I haven’t thought about them every hour since?”

You made a sound then, somewhere between a gasp and a whimper, and he nearly lost it again. But instead, he let you go. Walked away with his hands clenched at his sides and your taste still on his tongue.

The second kiss was worse.

Because it wasn’t planned.

Because it happened in the stairwell behind the ICU where no one went unless they were falling apart or hiding something.

You had followed him, god, you shouldn’t have, but you did. Quiet footsteps. Your voice saying, “Hey, can we talk?”

He turned to you, already raw. Already ruined.

“Okay,” he said. And then kissed you.

Harder this time. Desperate. His hands braced against the wall behind your head, caging you in, while you reached for his collar and dragged him closer like you wanted to disappear into him. When he pulled away, you were flushed and panting, lips kissed raw. Your fingers still clutched the fabric of his shirt like you weren’t ready to let go.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” you whispered. 

Good.

“Welcome to the club,” he muttered, then ran a thumb across your bottom lip before backing away like a man on fire.

He thought about you all the time now.

Your laugh when you let your guard down.

The curve of your thighs in his hands. The way your voice broke when you begged for more, quiet, breathless, “please” like you were still too shy to say what you really wanted.

He didn’t want to just have you.

He wanted to ruin you.

Take that stoic, soft-spoken exterior and fuck it out of you until you cried for him. Until you stopped being careful and just was. Just his. And yet, he still called you Dr. Sheridan in front of the interns.

Still said, “Good work today,” instead of come home with me.

Still walked away when your eyes lingered a little too long.

But it was fraying at the edges now, all of it. And when you smiled at him over an iced coffee cup in the break room, cheeks flushed from a run to trauma, he watched the way your lips wrapped around the straw and thought.

You’re going to be the death of me.

Night shifts had always been where he could breathe again. Until you started haunting them. Now every slow hour past midnight just made him hungrier.

It wasn’t the first time he’d noticed how you moved in a dark hallway, how your scrubs clung too well to the shape of your hips, how you tugged your bottom lip between your teeth when reading charts like you were doing it just for him. But lately, he couldn't stop watching you. Couldn’t stop wanting you.

You had this infuriating habit of standing too close. Smelling like warm skin and hand lotion. Soft eyes. Softer voice. A steel core beneath all of it that only showed when you were pressed hard enough.

He lived to press you.

And now, standing across from you in the dim hallway outside of the on-call room, he could feel your tension mirrored in him, tight, coiled, waiting for something neither of them could hold back.

You turned when you sensed him behind you, still sipping your coffee like it wasn’t a loaded gun between them.

“You avoiding me, Sheri?” His voice came out low, almost rough. Unshaven and feral around the edges.

Your gaze didn’t waver. “I’m not trying to.”

“But you are.”

There was something in your expression then, guilt, want, defiance. You wanted him to chase it down.

So he did.

He had you against the door before he even realized his hands had moved. Your breath hitched in surprise, but you didn’t pull away. And when his mouth found yours, finally, finally, you gasped like you’d been waiting to breathe again.

It was a kiss that was simmering for the past four hours, and it landed with the weight of everything unsaid. His hands were in your hair, tugging slightly at your top to expose your throat, his mouth dragging down the soft column until you whimpered.

He felt you arch into him, seeking, trembling, and God, he wanted to fuck you then and there.

He backed you into the bed, lowered you onto it with a grip too firm to be tender. You let him, your eyes wide and dark, pupils blown with need. And still, you reached for him like he wasn’t the one unraveling you, like you were going to be the one to break him.

Your scrubs came undone with a rough tug. His hands slid under the thin cotton of your top, palms roaming over your waist, ribs, the soft undercurve of your breast. When he rolled your nipple between his fingers and bit gently at your collarbone, you made a sound that snapped something in him in two.

A low, breathless moan that was only for him.

He groaned into your skin. “You don’t know what you’re doing to me.”

“Yes, I do,” you whispered.

You didn’t make it to undressing fully. It was clumsy and fevered clothes half-shucked, your bare legs wrapped around his waist, his belt undone just enough. But it didn’t matter. He needed to be inside you more than he needed air.

And when it happened, when he finally slid into you with a desperate groan and you gasped his name into his neck, he swore he saw stars behind his eyes.

You were warm, tight, trembling beneath him. His hand cradled the back of your head, his other braced beside you, trying not to lose control. But it was no use. Your nails raked down his back, and he snapped his hips forward with a grunt, drawing another beautiful, breathy moan from your mouth.

He whispered her name like a curse. “Sher, fuck, sweetheart”

“Don’t stop,” you begged. “Please don’t stop.”

Like hell he would.

He moved rough and deep, dragging pleasure from you like it belonged to him. His mouth never left you, your jaw, your throat, your lips, like he couldn’t get enough, like tasting you meant keeping some piece of his sanity intact.

But he was losing it anyway.

You whimpered again when he bit down softly on your shoulder. A sharp growl escaped him, and he buried his face into your neck, thrusting into your core harder, rougher, deeper.

“I think about this every night,” he rasped. “I dream about the sounds you make. How I’d kill just to hear them again.”

“Michael” You moaned so sweetly, so shamelessly, and his rhythm stuttered.

He was gone.

You shattered together in the quiet dark, sweat-slick, shaking, breathless. He held you in place while he spilled inside you. And afterward, he held you close, your hair damp against his chest, your fingers tangled with his. He kissed your temple. Your cheek. Your lips, softer now, like a secret.

Neither of them spoke the words that hung in the air between their hearts.

But he knew them.

He was hers. He’d always been.

And he didn’t know how the hell to go back.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

He hadn’t meant to fuck you in the car.

Not like that. Not so unhinged, so fast, so goddamn desperate he couldn’t wait to even get you home. But there’d been something about your voice when you said don’t stop. Something about the way your eyes looked when you stopped being his resident and just became his.

He thought it would end there, the need, the ache. He thought giving in once would burn it out of his system. A single, catastrophic mistake. But it hadn’t burned anything out.

It lit a fuse.

And now, it wouldn’t stop.

He was a man made of fire and tension and shame, walking the ER halls with a permanent bruise behind his ribs. Not because they’d crossed a line, but because he was still standing on it. Wanting to leap again. Needing to.

It was the noises you made.

Christ, the noises.

That soft whimper when you're trying not to beg. The little gasp you let out when he touches you like he knows your body better than you do. The desperate please when you're on the edge. The ragged sound you made when you came around him in the car, like a prayer and a curse all at once.

It haunted him. 

He thought about them at inopportune moments, in trauma rounds, while charting. Walking past you in the hall. Teaching students. He’d glance up from a tablet and see you across the nurses’ station and remember the exact way your voice broke when you said his name mid-climax, and it would destroy him.

He wanted you again. Wanted to hear those sounds again. Only for him.

Not just once. Not just when it boiled over.

All the time.

In his bed. Against his door. Bent over the couch in his apartment, moaning into his neck because you couldn’t stay quiet.

In the ER, when they’re on night shift and no one’s around, his hand under your scrubs, your mouth against his shoulder to muffle every soft, broken sound you made while he touched you.

At a restaurant, his fingers under the table, your thighs trembling. Your jaw tight as you tried not to make a sound, and him waiting for the moment you failed.

He wanted to corrupt you.

He wanted your mouth open and gasping. He wanted you unraveled and aching, for him and no one else. He knew it was wrong. Every ethical part of his brain screamed at him, she’s your resident, she’s half your age, she trusts you.

But you wanted this.

You looked at him like he was gravity. And when you came apart for him, you gave him everything, your voice, your body, your trust and he wanted to keep it. Covet it.

Own it.

He’d lie in bed and hear you in his mind, every sound you’d made. The sound you made when you came, and again when he didn’t stop. The hitch in your breath when he kissed the underside of your jaw. The way you said Michael when you were about to come.

He used to think he was a good man. A restrained one, and now he wasn’t so sure.

The next time he saw you, you were sitting at a workstation, typing away at notes, lip between your teeth. Your hair was falling loose from its tie, your scrub top rumpled.

He didn’t speak. Just watched you. Imagined what your voice would sound like if he kissed the back of your neck right then and pressed you into the table.

You looked up suddenly, sensing him.

Your eyes locked. Your lips parted, just slightly.

And in that fraction of a second, he knew.

You were remembering the same things.

You looked away first, cheeks pink. “Hi.”

He swallowed. “Hey.”

His voice was rougher than it should’ve been. You caught it. Your eyes flicked to his mouth. He stood there, hands clenched, arousal and frustration bleeding into every nerve.

Jesus Christ.

Yeah. He was fucked. --------------------------------------------------------------

It was late, past midnight, his apartment was still, low-lit. He’d barely gotten out of the shower when there was a knock at the door. He knew it was you before he even checked.

When he opened it, you were standing in the hallway in an oversized t-shirt and sweatpants, your hair loose and messy, eyes red-rimmed with exhaustion.

“I couldn’t sleep,” you said softly, no apology in your voice. Just honesty.

He didn't ask you what you needed. He already knew.

Because he needed the same.

He stepped back. Held the door. Watched you move past him and into the warmth of his apartment like you’d done it a hundred times.

You hadn’t. You never had.

Their silence filled the room more than any conversation could. And then you said it.

“I don’t know how to stop wanting you.”

He yanked you forward and kissed you like a man starved. Your hands clutched his shirt, nails dragging over skin as he forced your mouth open and swallowed the sound you made. A gasp. A whimper. That same sweet little noise he hadn’t stopped thinking about since the last time he had you cornered and breathless.

He pushed you back against the wall, lips trailing down your neck.

“You’re too fucking quiet, Little Sheri,” he murmured, teeth grazing the skin under your jaw. “You come in here all shy and sweet, but I know what you sound like when I fuck you right.”

You whimpered, again, and that sound nearly made him snap.

“I think about it,” he growled into your neck. “All day. Every goddamn shift. What it takes to make you break. What it takes to make you loud.”

You clung to him now, legs wrapping around his waist as he lifted you off the ground, carried you down the hallway like you weighed nothing. Like he’d waited his whole life to do it again.

They didn’t make it to the bed.

He dropped you onto the couch, dragged your pants down roughly, and stripped you bare with hands that knew exactly what they wanted. There was no finesse. No soft pacing. This wasn’t tenderness.

This was him undoing you.

He knelt between your thighs and held you open.

“You want to be good,” he rasped, licking slowly, “but you love being ruined.”

And you did. He felt it in every tremble. Every moan.

When he finally pushed into you, you arched up with a broken cry, your fingers digging into his biceps, and he lost whatever control he had left. His rhythm was brutal, unforgiving, his hips snapping hard against yours as your body gave in to him over and over, each movement pulling another sound from your mouth that was just for him.

“God, listen to you,” he groaned. “You like it like this, don’t you?”

You couldn’t answer, you were too busy falling apart.

And he wanted more.

He flipped you over, dragged you to the edge of the couch, one hand wrapped in your hair as he drove into you from behind. You gasp, loud, and his hands grips your lower back,  pinning you to the couch.

“Stay still while I fuck you sweetheart,” The rhythm is relentless. Fast. Deep. Your hands tucked into you. Your forehead pressed into the couch. You’re so full of him, all you can do is sob as your orgasm crashes over you. He fucks you through it. Doesn’t stop. Doesn’t even slow down. Just grits out

“Say my name,” he demanded. “Let me hear you.”

“Robby. Fuck. Michael please—”

That did it.

He came hard, with a low, guttural groan that vibrated through his chest as he collapsed against you, mouth at your shoulder, biting down just hard enough to leave a mark.

Just hard enough to say mine.

They lay there in silence after, sweaty and panting.

He was draped over you like a blanket, temple to your back.

But something had changed.

He'd taken you apart and you’d let him.

No fear. No hesitation. Only want.

And now, he couldn’t stop wanting you.

There was an unspoken charge in the air that made everyone sharper, edgier, like a thunderstorm was coiled somewhere in the hallways. And at the center of it were Dr. Sheridan and Dr. Robby, both too quiet, too stiff, and too carefully avoiding each other’s eyes.

They hadn’t spoken since the alleyway.

Since the kiss.

Since the pull of years of restraint finally snapped and Robby had pushed you away, not because he didn’t want you, but because he did.

Now, under the clinical glare of the ER, everything they hadn’t said the night before was screaming in the space between them.

You stood at the workstation, hoodie off, stethoscope looped around your neck, typing through a patient chart. Calm. Focused. Barely a flicker of emotion on your face.

Robby walked past you to grab a tablet, not meeting your eyes.

Dana noticed it before lunch.

She was many things, charge nurse, ER gatekeeper, queen of organized chaos, but above all, Dana was observant. She noticed the way Robby’s voice dropped a degree colder when he addressed you that morning. She noticed the micro-expressions that flickered across your face whenever he gave an order, a clench of your jaw, a tightness in your posture.

And she noticed Robby, usually steady, controlled, slow to anger, snapping at interns and pacing like a caged animal.

At noon, she cornered Langdon.

“Something’s up with those two,” she muttered. Langdon raised a brow. “You think they finally—”

“I don’t know what they did,” Dana said, folding her arms. “But if they keep this up, someone’s going to bleed.”

She wasn’t wrong.

The trauma bay doors flung open, a GSW to the abdomen, male, 20s, hypotensive, intubated in the field. The trauma team mobilized fast. Robby took the lead, you beside him, Santos and Whittaker flanking.

“Prep for laparotomy,” Robby snapped. “He’s actively bleeding out.”

“He’s stable enough for CT,” you pushed, already reviewing vitals. “We need imaging, if we open him without knowing the path, we might waste time.”

“We don’t have time.”

“You’re not listening”

“I said we’re doing the laparotomy,” Robby barked, eyes sharp. His voice cracked across the trauma bay like thunder, silencing everyone in earshot.

You stepped back, stunned silent for a breath.

The patient’s blood dripped onto the floor. Nurses moved faster. Santos shot you a side glance that said do not escalate this here. And you, with your heart hammering, clenched your jaw and stepped back, swallowing the fury that rose like bile in your throat.

It wasn’t about the patient. Not entirely.

It was about you.

About what had happened. About what they’d let happen.

About everything he was trying not to feel. By the end of the shift, you were suffocating. You hadn’t eaten. You hadn’t breathed. You were sick of pretending you were fine.

He waited for you near the ambulance bay, leaning against his car like a shadow waiting to snatch you. You barely had time to process it before Robby caught you by the sleeve just outside his car.

He didn’t blink. “We need to talk. Get in the car.”

You stared at him, arms crossed, defiant. “I don’t take orders off shift.”

“That wasn’t a request.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------

The car ride was unbearable.

The tension was a noose. His hands gripped the steering wheel too tightly. Your arms were crossed, gaze fixed out the window. Not even the radio dared to play. For ten full minutes, nothing was said. Only the hum of the tires on wet asphalt and the storm churning between them. You sat beside him, arms folded, heart hammering. The air between you was too quiet, too dense. You could feel him there, the nearness of him, the warmth radiating off his body. It burned.

You finally exhaled. “Are you going to pretend forever that nothing happened?”

Robby pulled the car down and parked in the alleyway of a closed flower shop. The street was empty. The only sound was the ticking of the engine.

“I’ve spent three years telling myself I’m your mentor. Your advocate. Someone who’s supposed to keep you safe. And then I—” he stopped, exhaled, ran a hand through his hair. “And then I kissed you like I’ve wanted to do for the past goddamn year.”

You stared at him, throat tight. “So what now? You push me away again? Pretend it didn’t happen?”

“I’m trying to protect you from me.”

“Well, don’t,” you said softly. “Because it’s too late.”

You leaned toward him, voice low. “You think I don’t know? That you look at me like I’m some innocent thing you want to break?”

He swallowed hard.

“You already did,” you whispered. “And I’d let you do it again.”

He leaned into you like a magnet being called home. Your mouths met with bruising force, years of restraint shattering. His hands tangled in your hair, yours clawed at his hoodie. The windows fogged. His breath was ragged against your skin. You gasped when he kissed the space just beneath your ear, and he moaned your name like it was a confession.

Your hand curled around the back of his neck, tugging him to your mouth again. The kiss was messy this time, desperate. His hands found your hips, dragged you across the console like he needed you there, like he couldn’t breathe unless you were closer.

Your mouths moved in sync, raw and full of hunger. You moaned into his mouth when his hands slipped beneath your shirt, palms dragging up the warm skin of your back. His breath stuttered when your fingers dipped beneath the waistband of his pants.

His mouth trailed down your neck, and you gasped. “Michael…”

The sound of your voice, his name — not Dr. Robinavitch, not Robby, but Michael, it made something break open in him.

He groaned, forehead pressed to your shoulder, breath ragged. “We have to stop.”

You froze against him.

He was panting. Torn.

“If we don’t stop now, I won’t,” he said, voice gravel-thick. “And you deserve better than the front seat of my Subaru.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered against your skin. “God, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” you breathed. “Please. Please. Don’t stop.”

And he didn’t.

Their clothes were tugged, shifted, pulled aside in desperation. Your breath hitched when his hands slid up to cup your breasts, over your ribs, your chest. His mouth followed, teeth grazing, lips soothing. You clawed at his collar, fingers shaking. Your head fell back when he whispered your name against your throat.

When you reached down and freed him from his waistband, he groaned into your shoulder, hands trembling.

“This is insane,” he panted. “This is, fuck, Y/N—”

“I want you,” you said. “I want you,”

You guided him with a slow grind of your hips and he caught your mouth in his just as he slid inside. The sound you both made was guttural, shock and relief and need colliding all at once.

Robby held you in a tight embrace, had you constricted against him as he rocked into you, as you continued riding him. Your eyes shut and mouth open in a moan, you throw your head back to expose the long column of your throat. The windows fogged. The car rocked. Your gasps filled the small space like a secret song. He kissed you like he wanted to ruin you and worship you all at once, rough and desperate and sacred.

It wasn’t slow. It wasn’t pretty.

It was honest.

And when you came, buried in his shoulder, biting his neck, he followed seconds later, breaking with a sound he’d never made before. Like something inside him had finally cracked wide open.

When you finally pulled back, lips swollen, hair mussed, breath uneven, you met his gaze and asked quietly, “Now what?”

He rested his forehead against yours, breath shaky.

“Now?” he said softly.

“I try not to fall in love with you.”

Too late.

If the Pennsylvanian sky could talk, it would have warned them of the storm that was coming.

Before codes. Before traumas. Before paperwork and bleary-eyed residents and overworked nurses. Before you walked into the ER that morning with your hair down and your eyes soft and tired and quietly luminous.

Dr. Robby had been doing a damn good job pretending. Pretending how it didn’t affect him when you brushed past him before rounds, the side of your arm grazing his. Pretending he didn’t see it the curve of your lips as you turned the corner, just out of sight. Pretending his blood didn’t beat with a kind of ache he hadn’t felt since his thirties.

But today?

Today, he was done pretending. Because it was Dana’s birthday, and the ER was buzzing with cheap cake and caffeine highs, and Dana’s ever-classic demand that “you better show up to The Rusty Tavern or you're dead to me.” And you? You smiled at him like you were exposing a secret.

He couldn’t look at you.

Not without feeling like everything he’d spent years controlling was beginning to slip through his fingers.

So he worked. He over-ordered labs. Checked on consults that didn’t need him. Hid behind his charts and dictation notes, trying like hell to pretend you hadn’t smiled at him like you knew something. Like you had something to offer he was one second from accepting.

By the time he arrived at the bar, the party was in full swing. The Rusty Tavern was half dive, half ER sanctum, all fluorescent lighting and sticky tables. Langdon passed him a beer. Jack was holding court about the Penguins and their third-line defense. The music was loud, the air thick with spilled drinks and tension.

But all Robby could see was you.

Standing near the edge of the room, hair down now, soft curls catching the amber light. A drink in hand. Laughing too hard at something Santos said. The sound hit him low in the gut.

Because you never looked like that at work. You never let yourself. And tonight you were unshielded, eyes bright, posture loose, skin warm with color. Not sweet. Not soft.

Alive.

And god help him, he wanted to touch you.

Robby forced a laugh with Langdon and Jack. But his eyes, traitorous, hungry, kept drifting toward the edge of the room. Your dress wasn’t revealing, not really. But it was enough, revealing enough that it left the curve of your collarbone exposed, like an invitation. Enough to undo him.

He didn’t know how long he watched. He didn’t know how long you watched him back.

But then he needed air.

The alleyway behind the bar was quiet, shadowed, the air cool against your skin. He stood near the dumpster, shoulders stiff, hands in his pockets. When he heard your footsteps, he didn’t turn.

“Don’t follow me out here,” he said.

“I already did.”

He sighed, “This isn’t smart, Sheridan.”

“I know.”

“I’m your superior.”

“I know.”

“You’re—”

“Too sweet?” you cut in, voice quiet but sharp. “Too young? Too breakable?”

He closed his eyes, jaw tight. “Don’t.”

“Why? Because if you say it out loud, it makes it real?”

He didn’t answer.

You stepped closer.

“I’m not a kid, Robby. I know what this is.”

“You don’t—”

When he turned, you were standing five feet away. The alley light flickered overhead, catching the curve of your jaw and the wild, brave tension in your posture. Like you’d finally stopped running from the truth, and had turned to face it head-on.

“You’re angry,” he said quietly.

“No,” you replied, voice even. “I’m tired.”

“Tired of what?”

You took a breath. “Tired of pretending you don’t look at me like you want to set something on fire.”

He blinked.

It hit him in the gut.

“And tired,” you added, softer now, “of pretending I don’t feel the same.”

The air crackled.

Robby was frozen. A hundred images of you flashed through his mind, blood on your gloves, ink on your wrist, the quiet way you stayed with a trauma patient long after everyone else had gone. 

He stepped closer before he could think better of it.

“It’s not that simple,” he said.

“It never is.”

His fingers curled at his sides. Your eyes didn’t flinch.

“I’m too old for you.”

“I’m not asking for a timeline,” you whispered. “I’m asking for honesty.”

He could barely breathe. “If I start this...”

You took one step closer.

“I don’t think I could stop.”

Another step.

“Then don’t.”

His restraint shattered.

One hand at your jaw, the other gripping your waist like he was anchoring himself to you, and his mouth crushed down on yours like he’d run out of reasons not to.

It wasn’t sweet. It was desperate. Ferocious. Pent-up silence poured into heat, years of restraint unravelling in a second.

Your fingers clutched the front of his shirt. You felt the tension in him, not resistance, but fear. Fear laced with want.

He tasted like whiskey and winter. His hand slid to the back of your neck. You tilted your head, parted your lips, and let yourself fall.

Your hands were in his hair. His mouth at your jaw. Your body warm and pressed into him like you’d always known he would catch you.

He wanted to lose himself.

But then, he pulled back.

Breathing hard.

“No,” he said. “No, no, no.”

“Robby—”

“We can’t.”

“You already did.”

“That was a mistake.”

Your face crumpled, barely. Just enough for guilt to slam into him like a truck.

“I’m your attending,” he said, shaking. “I have power over you. I can’t, I won’t abuse that.”

“It’s not abuse,” you said, voice trembling.

“You don’t know that. I don’t even trust myself right now.” He turned away. “I want things from you I shouldn’t want.”

A beat.

“You mean you want me.”

He closed his eyes. “I want to corrupt you.”

Silence.

Then your voice, achingly quiet.

“Maybe I don’t want to be good.”

He flinched.

God help him.

“You should go back inside,” he rasped.

“What about you?”

“I’m going to stand here,” he said, “until I can trust myself to look at you and not want to do that again.”

You didn’t say anything else.

It started subtle, the way these things always do.

He’d never been the type to play games. Not at this stage of life. Not in the ER, where seconds mattered and outcomes lived or died on precision. But the shift began with that same hum beneath his skin, that low-frequency awareness of her. Dr. Y/N Sheridan, moving through the space beside him like a tide inching higher with every passing hour.

He’d spent weeks being pushed. Weeks biting down on restraint like it was a habit. Weeks pretending not to notice the way she murmured praise meant for his ears alone, how her hands lingered half a breath too long, how her eyes caught his when no one else was looking.

But today, something in him had shifted. Maybe it was the way she walked in wearing that quiet confidence that she thought could undo him. Maybe it was the way she said his name under her breath “Robby” when no one else was around.

Maybe he was tired of pretending he didn’t want to see her come undone.

So he pushed.

Just once, at first.

In the exam room, he leaned in a little too close when they reviewed an ultrasound. His arm brushed hers, and he didn’t pull away. She stilled like a wire pulled tight. He didn’t look at her, not at first. But when he finally did, her lips were parted ever so slightly. A breath caught. Her lashes fluttered just once.

That was all it took.

He’d found the edge.

And now he wanted to see what happened when he leaned over it.

The shift moved around them like synchronized dancing, crashing into codes, dislocated shoulders, lab results flagged red and urgent. But he didn’t miss a beat. Not with his patients. Not with his team.

And not with her.

She passed him a chart. He let his fingers brush hers, slow, deliberate, warm. She blinked, fast and shallow, and her grip tightened just slightly on the tablet, she didn’t look at him right away. But when she did, her expression had lost that cool detachment she always carried like armor.

It was cracking.

He wondered what it would sound like when it broke.

During rounds, he stood behind her, just close enough that his breath ghosted the back of her neck. She stiffened. Her notes faltered. He murmured, “You missed the third rib fracture,” too softly for anyone else to hear. She corrected herself. Didn’t speak. But he saw the flush rise up her neck like a flame.

He wanted to touch it. Trace the heat with his fingers. With his mouth.

But not yet.

Not yet.

In radiology, reviewing a pelvic CT, she leaned in beside him. Her body was a fraction too close, as it always was when she tried to fluster him. He let her linger there, let her think she had the upper hand for a moment.

But then he had turned his head suddenly, close enough that their noses nearly brushed and said arrogantly, “Careful, Sher. You’re starting to look like you need something.”

She swallowed. The motion of her throat was visible, sharp, betraying more than her eyes did.

“You’re projecting,” she whispered back, but her voice lacked the bite she usually wielded so effortlessly.

He didn’t reply. Just watched her eyes darken. Watched the tremor in her hand as she picked up the chart.

He found himself addicted to her reactions. To the way she tried so hard to hide the way her pulse fluttered at the base of her throat. The way her lips pressed together when he leaned in. The way her breath stuttered when he brushed his fingers across the small of her back under the pretense of moving past her.

And the best part?

No one else noticed.

No one else knew the war she was starting to lose right in front of them.

But he saw it. Every detail. Every crack in her composure.

Every tell.

By late afternoon, she was fidgeting. Only slightly. Only enough that someone like him, someone who’d spent years learning how to read microexpressions in trauma patients would see it.

The way she stood with her arms folded a little too tightly across her chest. The way she avoided eye contact after he praised her charting in that low voice he knew settled somewhere beneath her ribs.

“You’re sharp today,” he’d said after she rattled off a flawless differential. “Almost dangerous.”

She’d looked up at him then, eyes glassy with something she was trying like hell to smother. Her lips parted. Then closed again.

She said nothing.

It was the silence that told him the most.

In the supply room, he cornered her.

No one else was there. The lights buzzed overhead, and the smell of antiseptic filled the space between them. He didn’t touch her. Not quite. Just stepped into her space.

She froze.

“You’ve been slipping,” he murmured, eyes searching her face. “You okay, Dr. Sheridan?”

She looked up at him, jaw tight. “I’m fine.”

“No,” he said, voice dropping, “you’re not.”

She didn’t reply.

He reached past her, slow, his arm brushing hers again, and grabbed a roll of gauze from the shelf behind her. But he didn’t step back.

Didn’t give her room to breathe.

“You’ve been playing this game for weeks,” he said quietly. “Did you think I wouldn’t learn the rules?”

She blinked once. Twice. Her throat bobbed with a swallow. “I didn’t think you’d care.”

He leaned in, breath just touching her ear. “That was your first mistake.”

Then he stepped back. Left the gauze on the counter. Walked out without another word. And behind him, he could feel her unraveling.

By the time their shift ended, she was glass stretched thin, humming with static, lit from within and close to shattering.

She didn’t speak to him again. Not with words.

But she watched him.

Watched him with those wide, furious, hungry eyes.

When she finally passed him in the hallway outside the locker rooms, she didn’t say goodnight. Didn’t offer her usual soft sarcasm.

She just brushed her fingers against his wrist as she passed.

A soft, silent promise.

And Robby?

He didn’t move. Didn’t follow.

Just stood there, watching her go, breath shallow and skin tight with restraint.

She’d pushed him for weeks with careful hands and invisible strings. Now he was unraveling her one slow thread at a time. He hadn’t broken her yer, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to stop now.

The shift started like any other: chaos thinly veiled by protocol. A multi-car pileup on I-279 had half the ER running on caffeine and adrenaline before noon. Trauma teams rotated like gears, syncing movement with muscle memory.

But you weren’t here just to keep up.

You were here to test gravity.

And Robby? He didn’t know it yet, but he was already falling.

You saw him the moment you walked in. Standing at the board, stylus pen between his fingers, brown locks glinting at his temples under the harsh light. His scrub top was wrinkled, his jaw shadowed with a salt and pepper beard, and you had never seen anything more devastating in your life.

“Morning, Dr. Robby,” you said, soft and rhythmical as you passed him, your shoulder brushing his ever so slightly.

You weren’t just being polite.

You were starting something.

He didn’t look at you right away, but his hand paused. You saw the twitch of a muscle in his cheek. Heard the shift of his weight.

“Morning, Sheri,” he replied, low and even. But his voice had a rasp in it that hadn’t been there yesterday.

The trauma pager went off before either could say another word.

Room Four. Level One. Blunt trauma. Male. GCS 8. ETA three minutes.

They moved like a unit, you at his side, anticipating his decisions before he made them. In the resus bay, the air was dense with urgency, but your focus never wavered. Not on the patient. And not on him.

“Needle decompression,” you said confidently, your gloves snapping on. “Right side. You want to confirm, or do you trust me?”

You didn’t say it flirtatiously. That was the genius of it. You said it with that steady, cool voice you knew he liked, that made him respect you.

And you meant it. But still, your eyes flicked up to meet his as you said it. And you held them there.

He paused for half a second too long.

“I trust you,” he said finally and you nodded with a smile.

You worked like clockwork and when it was over and the patient stabilized, you stayed behind to clean up, letting the others filter out.

He lingered near the supply cabinet, reorganizing gauze.

You slipped beside him, close enough he could smell your skin, lavender and antiseptic.

“I like it when you let me take the lead,” you murmured, quiet enough that it was for him and only him. “It suits you.”

He didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

But you saw the way his fingers curled around the shelf. Saw the tight line of his jaw. The heat in his eyes when he finally turned to face you.

“That wasn’t the time to flirt,” he said gruffly.

“Oh,” you said, lips quirking, “was I flirting?”

And you left him there, too stunned to answer.

You moved through the ER with controlled grace, your expression calm but unreadable. Except he could read you. He’d known you long enough now to sense when you were holding something back. When you were leaning in instead of away.

You didn’t linger when you handed him chart updates. But your fingers always brushed his, and once, only once, your thumb skimmed his knuckle, deliberate and featherlight.

Long that he’d felt it for hours.

Later, you stood beside him as he dictated notes at the computer. You leaned in slightly, not touching, but close. He could smell the soft, clean hint of your shampoo, lavender and something warmer beneath it.

“Good phrasing,” you murmured under your breath when he dictated a particularly precise differential. The words were harmless. But your tone wasn’t.

You said it like a secret. Like a confession meant for him alone. His fingers hesitated on the keys. A flicker of heat curled low in his abdomen.

He didn’t turn. Didn’t look at you. Couldn’t.

Another trauma came in, motorcycle, late thirties, open femur fracture with significant blood loss. The room was loud, packed with motion, but Robby still felt your presence behind him as you prepped the surgical tray.

“IV established,” you said, then added softly, “I’ve got you covered.”

It should’ve been nothing. A reassurance. A common phrase.

But your voice lowered just enough that the words twisted into something else entirely, subtly charged. Personal.

He didn’t look at you then either. He couldn’t afford to. Not with blood on the floor and adrenaline humming through his veins.

But later, when the room emptied and he was washing his hands at the sink, he realized he was gripping the faucet too hard. Water too hot. Skin flushed.

And not just from the trauma.

The rest of the shift passed in a haze of carefully orchestrated tension.

You stood a little closer than necessary when reviewing imaging with him. Let your hand brush his forearm as you reached past for a chart. Tilted your head and gave that slight smile when he caught you watching him.

“You okay?” Mel asked once, nudging you while you reviewed a pelvic fracture.

“Yeah,” you said, eyes flicking toward Robby down the hall. “Just...trying something.”

Santos caught your look and grinned knowingly. “Poor man never stood a chance.”

You stood behind him again as you both reviewed a CT scan on the monitor. This time, your hand ghosted over the small of his back, not quite a touch. Just… there.

His breath caught. Brief, sharp. He said nothing.

But every nerve in his body lit like a flare.

At 7:02 p.m., as the shift wound down, Robby cornered you by the lockers. The hallway was empty, residents already changing, nurses clocking out. He stood close. Too close for it to be professional.

“You’ve been testing me all day,” he said, voice low and tight. “Why?”

You looked up at him, all wide eyes and innocent calm. “Testing you? I thought I was just doing my job.”

“Don’t play coy.”

“Who’s playing?”

He stepped closer. The tension coiled so tight between them it could’ve shattered.

But you only smiled. Tugged your pink hoodie from the locker. Brushed past him, one last slow, deliberate drag of your fingers across his hand.

And with a whisper in his ear, said, “But if I was playing, I think I’m winning.”

Then you left.

The diner smelled like over-fried oil and the ghost of a thousand shifts.

You sat in a cracked vinyl booth with your legs tucked under you, still in scrubs that smelled faintly of antiseptic and someone else's blood. The ER shift had ended an hour ago, but none of you had the energy to go home yet. This was the unspoken ritual: decompress over fries, talk about the traumas like war stories, pretend like you weren’t already thinking about your next shift.

Santos was sprawled sideways in the booth across from you, her ponytail falling out in chaotic waves. She stirred her milkshake with one straw while sipping with another like it was a personal vendetta. Next to her, Whittaker methodically dissected his grilled cheese with the focus of a surgeon. Mel had a coloring book open on her lap, not hers, you were pretty sure it was Becca’s, and was gently filling in a page with a stubby red pencil.

Your fries were cold, but you didn’t care. The whole day still clung to your skin like static: Whitmore’s smirk, Robby’s voice, the feel of the defibrillator pads in your hands, the weight of everything unsaid.

“I swear,” Santos said between sips, “my intern tried to intubate through the esophagus and chart it as a win. Said, ‘I felt resistance, so I knew I was in.’ I had to physically stop myself from going into a fetal position.”

“Mine tried to order dilaudid on a patient with a known fentanyl allergy,” Mel said softly, her eyes still on her coloring. “But she said please, so I guess that’s something.”

“I’m gonna start carrying a spray bottle,” Santos muttered. “Like, ‘No. Bad intern. Chart right.’ Spritz.”

Whittaker finally looked up from his grilled cheese. “I think mine cried. But quietly. So, you know. Growth.”

You snorted, resting your chin in your hands. “We’re the mentors now. God help them.”

“God help us,” Santos said. “Also, Y/N.”

You looked up, met her raised eyebrow.

“What’s going on with you and Dr. Dad?”

Your stomach did a slow, traitorous turn. “What?”

“Don’t ‘what’ me. The energy is palpable. Like, nuclear-powered smolder. You can’t fake that kind of tension.”

Mel looked up from her page and nodded. “You do hover near each other. A lot.”

Whittaker popped a fry in his mouth and said, almost absently, “It’s not tension. It’s containment.”

You scoffed. “What?”

Whittaker shrugged. “You two don’t look like people flirting. You look like people holding back so hard it’s gonna hurt.”

You didn’t answer.

Because he wasn’t wrong.

Santos leaned forward, milkshake abandoned. “Okay, so who’s making the first move? You or him? Because I have money on you, Sheridan.”

You played with your straw, not quite smiling. “You’re betting on me?”

“Hell yes,” she said. “You look calm, but I’ve seen you go full icicle when someone disrespects you. That’s not shyness. That’s control. Robby’s got the edge right now, but if you wanted to flip the power dynamic, you could.”

Mel tilted her head. “Do you want to?”

That stopped you. Not because you didn’t know the answer.

But because you did.

You sat back, watching the hum of the diner go on around you. A couple of night shift nurses were tucked into a booth in the corner. A med student was asleep face-down on a textbook by the counter. It was the kind of place where time stretched thin, where everything felt a little more honest under the flicker of cheap fluorescent lights.

You spoke slowly. “I don’t know where the line is anymore. Between admiration and... something else. Between learning from him and needing him. Between wanting to be like him, and wanting... him.”

Santos let out a low whistle. “That was poetic and deeply horny.”

Mel reached over and squeezed your arm gently.

Whittaker said, “You’re both too disciplined. Something’s gonna crack.”

You didn’t answer. Not yet.

Because something had cracked. Earlier. In the lounge. When Robby looked at you like he knew exactly what you were holding back and didn’t push, but didn’t look away either.

The walk back to your apartment was quiet.

Mel and Whittaker peeled off first, whispering about 6 a.m. alarms and laundry. Santos hugged you hard before disappearing into the Lyft she’d been tracking for ten minutes.

And then it was just you. Streetlights casting long shadows. The weight of everything still unsaid pressing at the base of your throat.

Your apartment was quiet in the way only a place lived in by a solitary person could be. No shoes by the door but hers. No dishes left in the sink by a roommate or partner. The kind of silence that wasn’t loneliness exactly, but close enough to touch it, if you knew where to look.

You padded barefoot across polished walnut floors, flicking on the low amber glow of a corner lamp. The living room stretched wide, too wide for someone who barely had time to sit in it. Built-in shelves held rows of medical texts, a few old paperbacks, and one pristine crystal decanter that had never once been used.

The apartment was high-ceilinged, clean-lined, full of soft grays and dusky blues. Everything was intentional. Tasteful. Understated. The only thing out of place was the worn duffel bag she dropped by the door, and the faded hoodie she tugged over her head as she headed to the kitchen.

There was a warmth to the place that felt carefully curated, like the way you wore inexpensive watches despite the Cartier one hidden in your dresser. Like how you kept driving the ten-year-old Honda you’d bought in med school even though your parents had offered you a Tesla last Christmas.

You didn’t flaunt the money. That was part of it. That was you. The quiet edges. The control. The intention.

And tonight, that control was fraying at the seams.

The diner had been too loud, too fluorescent, too full of things you hadn’t said. You loved them, Santos with her relentless teasing, Mel with her soft steadiness, Whittaker with his surprising wisdom, but they didn’t know the weight you carried around Robby. They didn’t know what it felt like to look at a man and want something so badly it made your teeth ache, but still fear the line between want and ruin.

You sat at the wide granite counter, absently sipping cold tea you didn’t remember brewing. Your phone buzzed. A dinner receipt from Santos. A meme from Whittaker. Mel’s sweet “thanks for tonight 💛.”

And then you stared at the screen for a long time. At the contact you didn’t dare label as anything but Dr. Robinavitch.

Not Robby. Not yet.

You unlocked your phone.

Y/N: Thanks for backing me up today. Not just with Whitmore.

Your thumb hovered over the message like it might explode if you sent it.

Then: click.

Seconds passed. A minute. You held your breath.

Then the typing bubble.

Dr. Robinavitch: Always. You okay?

So simple. So him. A fortress of restraint, hiding that slow, dangerous burn underneath.

Y/N: I will be.

Another pause.

Three dots.

Then they vanished.

That was him, too.

Careful. Controlled. Afraid of letting anything slip.

But you didn’t want to be careful anymore. You didn’t want to let fear keep writing your story.

You stood up and walked to the windows that looked out over the city, glass and dark steel, blinking lights, rivers cutting through the quiet.

You were twenty-nine. Top of your class. Fourth-year resident at one of the busiest trauma centers in the country. You’d lost patients and family and parts of yourself you didn’t think you’d ever get back. You had survived all of it.

But this. This man. This feeling.

You weren’t sure you’d survive that. Not if you kept pretending you didn’t want to reach for it.

For him.

You leaned your forehead against the cool glass, let your eyes flutter shut, and whispered to the night, “I’m not scared of him. I’m scared of what I’ll do when he lets me in.”

And then you made a decision.

You weren’t going to push him. Not overtly. You weren’t reckless. You’d come too far to gamble everything.

But you were going to lean into it. See what happened if you stopped stepping back. If you held his gaze for a second too long. If your fingers brushed his when you handed him a chart. If your voice went just a little softer when it was just the two of you in a trauma room, and the adrenaline had faded, and the silence grew thick with the heat of almost.

You weren’t going to make the first move.

You were just going to make him want to.

And if that broke something?

By 1:14 p.m., the ER had the brittle, caffeinated energy of early afternoon. The trauma bay had been turned over twice, a stroke alert rerouted to neuro, and the stack of charts on your tablet had reached an aggressive number. Your hair was falling out of its clip. Your lunch remained unopened in the lounge fridge. And your intern was flirting with a nurse during rounds.

James Whitmore was a fourth-year med student on rotation, assigned to shadow you for the next four weeks. Technically still a student, practically a problem. He had the kind of polished smile that belonged on an alumni magazine cover and the overconfidence of someone who had never been truly scared in a code room. You could already feel it,  that subtle entitlement, the lack of preparation, the empty glances when you gave instructions.

You had tried, the first two hours. Gently redirecting. Clarifying. Giving him room to prove he was more than charm and an upward trajectory. But he was more interested in chatting up the new ED nurse than examining his patient. More concerned with what you were doing later than documenting the rhythm strip you’d asked for.

“You know,” he said now, grinning like this was a meet-cute and not an ICU board, “you don’t look like someone who leads a trauma team. No offense.”

You didn’t answer. You didn’t even look up.

Instead, you clicked through labs on the tablet and murmured, “ABG’s back. Go interpret it. Present to me in five.”

He lingered. “You always this serious, Dr. Sheridan?”

You finally met his eyes.

“Only when someone’s dying,” you said coldly. “Which is usually.”

He gave a half-laugh, unsure if it was a joke. You didn’t clarify. You moved past him and toward Bed 6, where a patient was vomiting blood into a basin while her mother cried softly in the corner. Your pulse recalibrated, not with nerves, but with necessity. You could be tired later.

Whitmore followed, his stethoscope still around his neck like a fashion statement, it was getting harder for you to not roll your eyes. 

Later, as you updated notes in the hub, you caught a glimpse of him across the hall, leaned too casually against the counter near two of his intern friends. You weren’t listening. Not at first. But you felt it, a shift in the room. Dana stiffening behind the desk. A nurse's eyes narrowing. The slight drop in temperature that meant someone had said something wrong.

Across the floor, by the medication station, Robby was finishing up notes on a post-code debrief when he caught Whitmore’s voice, low and smirking, drifting toward the central hub.

“…yeah, she’s cute in that mean, icy way. You know, a challenge. I give it three shifts before she cracks. Bet she’s crazy once you get her to—"

He didn’t finish. Someone coughed, startled. A tech turned sharply. Robby’s hand paused mid-scroll over his tablet.

He blinked once. Then turned.

He was forty feet away, but he could already feel it like a fissure in the tile beneath them, the cold fury in your eyes, the way you were walking toward Whitmore with the unhurried precision of someone who had not yet decided whether to destroy a person publicly or in private. Your hands were calm. Your shoulders square. You didn’t yell.

You didn’t need to.

“Mr. Whitmore,” you said, voice flat as steel. “Step into the staff lounge. Now.”

The kid hesitated.

Wrong move.

Robby watched you disappear behind the door. Watched the team shift around the hub in respectful silence. No one said a word. Even the printers seemed quieter.

You closed the door behind you.

Then, still calm, still composed, you turned to your intern.

“I don’t know what kind of rotations you’ve done before,” you began, your voice quiet but sharp as frost. “But I am not here for your amusement. I’m not here to play games with you, or compete with your insecurities, or make your ego feel bigger when you get bored during rounds.”

He opened his mouth.

You raised a hand. He stopped.

“You are in an Emergency Department. You are a guest in my house, and if you can’t show basic respect to your patients or to your senior, then you can leave now. I’ll sign the damn form. But what you will not do is treat this place, or the people in it, like a frat party you wandered into by mistake.”

His face changed then. A flush of something like embarrassment, something like shock. You didn’t care which.

“I suggest,” you continued, eyes not wavering from his, “that you get with the program. Fast.”

He swallowed. “Yes, Dr. Sheridan.”

You nodded once. “Good. You’re on labs until further notice.”

You opened the door for him to leave, only to find Robby there, leaned casually against the wall, arms crossed. His eyes flicked between you and Whitmore, unreadable.

The student mumbled something, not quite an apology, not quite coherent, and headed toward the lab station like a dog with its tail tucked.

You didn’t speak. You moved to close the door again and turn back toward the lounge room. He waited a beat, then two. Long enough to give the illusion of space. Long enough not to look like he’d been watching. Then he followed.

He knocked once on the edge of the lounge door before stepping in. You stood by the sink, filling a cup with water, back turned. Your grip on the plastic rim was too tight.

"You handled that well," he said quietly.

You didn’t turn around. “Thanks.”

A pause. You took a sip, then set the cup down, your shoulders rigid.

Robby moved to stand beside you, leaving a careful amount of space between them. The hum of the fridge filled the silence.

“He won’t do it again,” you said, eyes fixed on the sink.

“I know,” he said. “Not if he values his career.”

You gave a short, humorless exhale, not quite a laugh.

He glanced at you,  then away. “You okay?”

Another pause.

Then you nodded, still not looking at him. “Yeah. Just annoyed.”

“Okay,” he said. “But if that changes…”

You looked at him for a long moment. Then offered the faintest curve of your mouth, not a smile, but something close. Gratitude maybe. Recognition.

“Thanks, Dr. Robinavitch.”

He gave her a smile in return. “Anytime, Sher.”

And with that, he stepped out, leaving the door open behind him. Just a crack.

Enough for her to breathe.

Whitmore was alone at the lab station when Robby found him. Still cocky, despite it all. The kind of cocky that didn’t learn until the lesson was painful.

Robby approached quietly.

“You got a minute, Mr. Whitmore?”

The kid turned, startled, then nodded. “Yes, Dr. Robinavitch.”

Robby didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t even look angry. That was the worst part.

He just stepped closer, lowered his voice, and said, “You ever speak about Dr. Sheridan like that again, and I will personally end your chances of matching into anything but urgent care in rural Alaska. Are we clear?”

Whitmore blanched. “Sir, I didn’t—”

“You did,” Robby said, cool and clinical. “And I suggest you use your remaining days here wisely. Listen. Learn. Show some respect. Because you’re not the smartest man in this room. And you sure as hell aren’t the toughest.”

Whitmore swallowed. “Understood.”

“Good.” Robby offered him a smile that wasn’t really a smile. “Now go run the troponins.”

Robby didn’t move for a while. Just stood there, hands in his pockets, watching the chaos of the ER reassemble itself. His gaze flicked to the patient board. To the rooms. Then, finally, back to you.

You were at the end of the hallway now, instructing a nurse, your voice steady again. Calm. Efficient. But he could see it in the way your fingers tapped against the tablet. The way your jaw stayed locked.

——————————————

Two chapters in one day!

I couldn’t help myself bahhahah I needed y’all to read this one. My toxic trait is buying the people I love presents and needing to tell them what it is or I’ll explode.