It's kind of I don't know

When Jack parked in the driveway, Eleanor didn’t seem to realize they had arrived until he unlocked the doors.

“Alright,” he said quietly.

She blinked, startled back into herself. “Hmm? Ah—sorry.” She reached for her bag, fumbling slightly before slipping her heels back on. “I don’t know where my mind went.”

Jack watched her for a second longer than necessary.

“Thank you, Jack,” she said softly as she gathered her coat. “For tonight.”

And she meant it. Not with that carefully placed breathiness she used when she wanted something from him. This was smaller than that. Tired. Genuine.

“It’s okay, Ellie,” he said. “I had fun.”

Her brows lifted immediately “Liar.”

Jack laughed under his breath, the lines beside his eyes creasing.

“Alright,” he admitted. “Maybe not all the time. There were definitely moments when I considered shooting myself.”

Eleanor made a quiet ‘ah, there it is’ expression.

“But…” he added, shrugging slightly looking at her “It had its moments.” He didn't say, probably to not sound too forward, or eager, or just embarrassed to be vulnerable in front of his ex, but all the moments that made it worth it were by her side.

That earned him a real laugh. Soft. Familiar.

God, he missed hearing it.

She shook her head and reached for the door handle.

The click echoed softly in the quiet car.

And when Eleanor stepped out…

Jack did too.

Eleanor paused still  by the car’s door, confusion flickering across her face.

“…Are you coming in?”

There was something careful in the question. Uncertain. Something pondering in her heart, asking herself, did she want it him to come inside?

Jack stopped cold.

Because only under the weight of her voice, he realized what he’d done. What it looked like. 

He cleared his throat too quickly, gaze dropping briefly to the driveway.

“Just to grab my clothes.”

A beat.

“Oh.” Elenor said, and Jack was sure he was imagining the disappointment in her voice. She nodded once, fast enough to pretend it didn’t matter. “Right. Of course.”

Then she turned toward the house again, heels clicking sharper against the stone path.

Jack followed a few steps behind her.

The house greeted them with the kind of quiet his apartment in the city never had.

Eleanor slipped off her coat as soon as she walked in, draping it over the chair near the kitchen before automatically reaching for a glass.

“Do you want water?” she asked over her shoulder while filling it from the tap.

“I’m good.” Jack didn’t sit down. Didn’t loosen his tie. Didn’t make himself comfortable.

“Excuse me,” he murmured, already heading for the stairs.

She nodded, taking a sip while watching him disappear upstairs.

Then the house went quiet again. Except for the sounds above her.

Drawers opening. Closet doors sliding.

Familiar sounds that she had grown used to associate with him staying, were now just temporary.

Eleanor leaned back against the counter, fingers tightening faintly around the glass.

‘What if I asked him to stay?’ The thought arrived instantly. Uninvited. And almost immediately another voice answered it, trying to find excuses for what her sensible self was already planning on arguing. ‘Just for tonight.’ was the justification.

Nothing complicated.

Nothing emotional.

Just another person in the house again, warming the bed, someone she could lay in the chest, who would be the first to check if there was a noise downstairs. Someone who understood the rhythm of the place so well that silence didn’t feel uncomfortable around him.

Someone who used to belong here.

Her eyes dropped to the floor, cutting the unwanted fantasy.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

Still—

She exhaled slowly through her nose.

Upstairs, Jack shoved clothes into his duffel bag with more force than necessary. In and out. That was the plan. But his attention kept catching on things he shouldn’t have been noticing.

The old shirts he never came back to grab, still folded in the drawer. 

Their wedding portrait sitting on the table by the bed

The faint trace of the same lavender difuser clinging to the room they used to share.

His jaw tightened. ‘Get your things and leave’. Simple. Practical. Safe.

Then another thought slipped in anyway.

‘What if I didn’t?’

He stilled. Just for a second.

What if he walked downstairs and told her the truth? That tonight had felt dangerously close to normal. That seeing her laugh at the table had made something ache inside him all over again. That he misses home. And that she-

He shut his eyes briefly.

She looked too damn beautiful in that dress.

His grip tightened around the bag.

‘Bad idea.’

Because none of this fixed what had happened between them.

And he didn’t get to walk back into her life just because they could still pretend, for a few hours, that they worked.

Give her hope. Give himself hope. 

He was better. Doing his therapy, trying to establish limits, having a hobby. But it wasn’t enough. He knew it wasn’t.

So he zipped the bag shut.

By the time he came downstairs, his expression had settled back into something safer. Steadier.

“I should—” he started, gesturing faintly toward the front door. “I should get going.”

He took a step.

“Jack.” Eleanor hesitated long enough for him to realize she hadn’t planned what she was about to say. That alone made him look at her properly. Eleanor never lacked words.

“I think…” she began carefully, “I might still have leftovers.” A small shrug, like she was trying to make it casual before either of them could make it something else.

“It’s nothing impressive. But I could make you some lunch for your next shift.” She quickly bit her lower lip. “Probably better than that powdered cheese garbage you eat at the hospital.”

Jack almost smiled.

And the stupid thing was, the offer affected him far more than it should have.

“I don’t want to give you trouble, Eleanor,” he said carefully. “It’s late.” But already he could picture it. Real food. Her cooking. Jack could get around fine in the kitchen, but nothing compared to Eleanor’s cooking. 

She set her glass down. “Sit,” she said simply, already opening the fridge. “It’ll take five minutes.”

Jack hesitated, she was already moving, he didn’t want to be impolite. He left the bag beside the counter instead of keeping it over his shoulder.

“Alright.”

She moved around the kitchen with practiced ease, pulling containers out, checking dates, piecing together something from leftovers that somehow would still taste better than anything he’d eaten in months.

Jack avoided his usual recliner, sitting on the neutral space of the 70,000 dollar couch that still was uncomfortable. 

A small silence followed—but lighter now. Easier.

Eleanor closed the lid of the container with a soft snap, then lingered there for a second, fingertips resting against the marble counter as if she were thinking.

“My dad gave me a really good whiskey a few months ago,”

she said, trying for casual while drying her hands on a dish towel. “If you want a nightcap.”

Jack looked up from the couch. “You hate whiskey”.

She sighed “I know”.

“That’s a bad idea,” he said quietly.

Eleanor leaned back against the counter, folding the towel in half even though it didn’t need folding.

“Why?”

Jack leaned back slightly against the couch cushions, loosening his tie another fraction as he watched her. 

His voice alone was enough to make heat creep up the back of her neck. 

“What?” she asked, softer now, reaching for the cabinet “It’s just a drink.”

“You know it’s not.” 

The words settled low between them.

Eleanor reached inside anyway, fingers curling around the bottle.

It was expensive. Of course it was. If her father ever drank cheap whiskey, he had long forgotten it.

“He gave it to me…” she stopped herself with a small grimace. “Well. Technically he gave it to us. Told me to save it for a special occasion.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed faintly from the couch.

“We’ve been divorced for seven years.”

Eleanor let out a quiet breath through her nose as she turned the bottle slowly in her hands.

“I genuinely can’t tell if he forgot we were divorced,” she admitted, “or if he was doing that thing where he has some secret strategy and expects everyone else to magically understand it.”

Jack leaned back further into the couch cushions immediately understanding what she meant.

“That narrows it down to every interaction I’ve ever had with your father.”

A small laugh escaped her.

Because honestly, the more she thought about it, the less accidental the gift felt. 

Her father had always believed relationships required “guidance.” Small manipulations disguised as wisdom. Carefully staged opportunities. Eleanor could still vaguely remember being seventeen and rolling her eyes at him telling her that ‘Men are easier to negotiate with after two glasses of Macallan.’  she told him with all the words that was not appropriate to say to his 17 year old daughter, and he just shrugged it off, telling her that it worked fine for Evelyn. 

She stretched slightly onto her toes to grab two crystal glasses from the top shelf, and Jack’s gaze lifted automatically with the movement.

The black dress shifted against the elegant line of her back.

He looked away a second too late.

“Like the time,” A smile pulled at her mouth as she carried the bottle toward the island. “he tried to push you into proposing to me and you spent three days convinced he was terminally ill.”

Jack groaned immediately.

“Oh, don’t start.”

Eleanor was already laughing now, leaning one hand against the counter to steady herself.

“How was I supposed to know that wasn’t a dying man speech?” Jack defended himself, pointing at her with two fingers. “He sat me down in his office with a glass of bourbon and started talking about legacy and not wasting time with the people you love.”

Eleanor bit back a laugh. “And instead of proposing, you spent three days researching oncologists.”

“He kept sighing at the windows, Eleanor. What was I supposed to think?”

That finally made her laugh properly.

Warm and soft and impossible not to join.

Jack shook his head, smiling despite himself.

“When I finally asked if he was sick, your father looked offended for a full minute.”

“Well, ” Eleanor said, voice still threaded with laughter, “he was surprised you hadn’t bought me a ring yet.”

“He could’ve just said that.”

“He thought he was saying it.”

Jack dropped his head briefly with another quiet laugh, rubbing a hand over his jaw.

God.

This again.

This awful, easy familiarity between them.

Like no time had passed at all.

Eleanor poured the whiskey into both crystal glasses before walking toward the couch.

“You know,” she said, handing one toward him, “he still tells that story like it’s the funniest thing that’s ever happened to him.”

Jack took the glass carefully from her fingers.

“That’s because your father is a menace.”

“He likes you.”

“He likes causing problems.”

“Also true.”

Eleanor looked away first, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear before sitting at the opposite end of the couch instead of beside him.  A safe distance.  Even if neither of them liked it.

Jack took a slow sip of the whiskey, eyes still fixed on her over the rim of the glass.

“One drink.”

He said it sternly enough that it almost sounded convincing.

Ten minutes ago, he had been halfway to the door mentally, already telling himself it was smarter to leave before this strange fragile ease between them started feeling normal again. Before he forgot all over again that this was not his house anymore.

Now he was sitting on her couch with whiskey in his hand watching her tuck her legs beneath herself like he had not spent months teaching himself not to miss that sight.

“Oh,” she said, almost too innocently, “so no to the part where we take a shower together?”

He gave her a look.

Her mouth twitched immediately, pleased with herself already.

“C’mon, Jack,” she added, stretching one arm lazily along the back of the couch. “I’m not a teenage boy trying to get into your pants.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow.

That gained him a cold glance from her, which he ignored completely.

“Because you’re definitely trying to sweet-talk me.”

Her brows lifted slightly—caught, but not quite.

“I am not.”

“You are.”

A pause.

Eleanor scoffed softly, shifting further into the cushions as she brought the glass to her lips.

“Jack, if I were trying to seduce you, I’d put in significantly more effort than sandwiches and whiskey.” She took a sip of the whiskey and immediately regretted it, face tightening for half a second. 

“Mm.” He did not sound convinced.

Mostly because he was becoming increasingly convinced that Eleanor had forgotten she was exceptionally good at this.

Not flirting.

Taking care of him.

And that had always been infinitely more dangerous.

“Besides,” she continued, a little too casually now, eyes lowering toward her own glass, “it wouldn’t work anyway. I’m out of your range.”

His forehead creased immediately.

“What?”

A small shrug.

“I’m out of your range. By a few years.”

There it was.

Jack resisted the urge to sigh. He could tease his ex-wife, joke with her, slide into familiar banter without thinking, but he knew better than to agree with that. Eleanor was way  more than “a few years” older than the twenty-somethings she was indirectly referring to.  Both of them were.

To an extent, he knew that women got carved apart by age in ways men never were. And Eleanor had been quietly at war with aging since thirty-five. Tiny creams. Magnified mirrors. Complaints about microscopic imperfections no human being would ever notice without forensic equipment.

But he couldn’t stop himself from thinking the same thing, whenever this subject arrived: 

Bullshit.

Because Eleanor still looked devastating enough to make his brain short-circuit when she crossed a room barefoot in one of those black dresses.

Because he had spent entire evenings pretending not to stare at her mouth while she talked.

Because no exhausted twenty-something from whatever place could walk into a room and make him feel half as unstable as his ex-wife joking of them showering together.

Also, he was getting very tired of everyone around him treating having a “young girlfriend” like some kind of reward package men unlocked after forty. 

“Please don’t start,” he muttered, rubbing his jaw. “If I have to hear one more person preach to me about the benefits of having a younger girlfriend…”

He had the ER, a complicated relationship with his ex, his PTSD from his time in the military, SWAT stuff. He didn’t hate anyone that much to bring them up on this boat. 

Eleanor paused, turning back to him.

“…Anderson?”

He blinked. “How did you know?”

A small smile tugged at her mouth. “Oh, it’s been the talk of the evening. Especially since she didn’t show up.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. Twenty years of marriage and he still did not fully grasp how the doctor’s wives hive worked. “Is that bad?”

“Well,” she said, tilting her head, “it’s not great.”

He let out a short, incredulous breath. “Wouldn’t you and your friends eviscerate her if she had?”

Eleanor considered that for a second.

“…Probably,” she admitted, carrying two glasses of whisky to the living room, handing one to Jack and putting the other on the side table of the couch before sitting down. “But if you want to fly with eagles…”

She let it hang there. Sipping the drink, her face cranked immediately. God, she hated whisky. “What did he say?”

“Nothing that wasn’t bullshit.” Jack wouldn’t stay there telling all the pros Anderson careful detail for him and the other doctors. Not about sexy photos, sexy videos, text messages, non stop sex around the house. He was pretty sure Eleanor knew it. “Even Daniels called him out” He let that information slide, now that would call her attention because he was a hundred percent sure she didn’t know that 

“You are kidding me” Eleanor had to pretend that her jaw didn’t drop for five seconds. Anyone that knew Daniels and Marjorie, knew that the couple looked like they came straight out of a sitcom where husband and wife hate each other, but somehow there still was a weird love where they would go feral if anyone else talked shit about the other. 

“No, he actually said something about how he wouldn’t trade Marjorie who knew his routine to babysit someone who still gets carded” Jack said, finally drinking his whisky. His former father-in-law knew his taste. He didn’t regret the drink. 

“Wow, who would take Daniels as a romantic” Eleanor said leaning her back on the couch. If it was anyone else telling her, she wouldn’t have believed it. 

“Not on my card for the evening” He chuckled as she slowly nodded eyebrows up, still impressed. 

A small pause letting the information that still nonbelievers could be romantics sit, didn’t extend for long .

“What about you?” she said without looking at him, paying attention to the twirl of the amber liquid as she slowly twist her glass. 

Jack glanced at her. She was curled into the corner of the couch barefoot, one leg tucked beneath herself, her whiskey balanced carelessly in her hand. The lamp beside her softened everything gold. Her hair, her skin, the silk collar slipping from one shoulder. She looked unfairly beautiful for this hour of the night, for this stage of their lives. “What about me?”

She lifted her glass, but didn’t drink. “Do you have any opinion on the matter?”

It sounded light. Almost teasing.

But it sat there between them, heavier than it should’ve.

A small pause.

He let out a quiet breath, rolling the glass slightly between his fingers.

“I think…” he started, then stopped, like he was already reconsidering how much to say. He didn’t know if Eleanor had intentionally guided the conversation to where it landed. But it wouldn’t be off brand for her. 

She rarely went straight to the subject, unless something was truly bothering her. Usually she would guide the conversation until it ‘naturally’ got where she wanted it. 

“I think people talk too much,” he said finally. “About things that aren’t really their business.”

Her mouth curved faintly. “That’s not an opinion.” Eleanor shifted slightly beside him. 

“I don’t think it’s… impressive,” he added. “Or whatever Anderson was trying to make it sound like.”

Eleanor tilted her head. “No?”

“No.” He took a small sip. “If anything, it sounds exhausting.”

“Exhausting?” She furrow her brows, her finger dancing in the border of her glass.

“ Learning someone new. Pretending to care about stories I won’t remember.” He took another small sip, then added, more matter-of-fact “And not just that. It’s… everything else. Different pace. Different priorities.” A slight shrug. “You’re not even looking at the same future.”

She was far too interested in that topic. And he wouldn’t lie to her. But he also couldn’t tell her the truth. 

 Truth was there had been opportunities for him to move one. Nurses who light up the moment they got to know he was divorced. One anesthesiologist who had outright invited herself to his hotel room during a conference in Chicago, divorced friends of friends suddenly “checking in.”

No one else felt worth the effort. But admitting that would be looking like a loser to his ex wife. That he still was too proud to do.

Eleanor tilted her head, considering him. It was what she wanted to hear him say. A reassurance even if they weren’t together that he wouldn’t show up with any doe girl he picked in a random shift. 

‘That doesn’t mean he is sleeping alone’

 She bit her lip as the voices of her friends echo inside her head. “But maybe,” she said lightly, “They love to listen to  Springsteen on vinyl and think you are so profound for having lived a real life. Maybe they don’t even want something serious. Modern like that.” A small, playful lift of her brows. “Wouldn’t that be enticing enough?”

Jack looked at her for a second.

She always did this. Slipped questions inside jokes, tucked barbs beneath charm until he almost answered before realizing what she was truly asking. And Jack did not want to brag, but he could proudly say he usually caught himself before stepping into the trap.

Because it was not about young girlfriends. Not really. She was asking him if he would do that to her. 

Walking into some gala with a twenty-four-year-old on his arm. Some glossy thing with long legs and an empty laugh. Young enough that half of the people would immediately understand what he was trying to prove and the other half would be surprised, telling each other they didn’t know Jack had a daughter. 

Anderson practically handed him the script: find a hot coworker, let Eleanor see it, make sure everyone sees it. Let her sit there humiliated, thinking of how fast she’d been replaced. Let her feel old, difficult. Let others get to the conclusion of ‘Well, that’s what you get for being a materialistic bitch’.

Make her think she was the reason the marriage failed.

No, he couldn’t do that. Not out of pitty but because, who could he fool? It would never be enough.

Not after having a woman who could fill a room just by entering it. A woman who knew him so completely it sometimes felt surgical. Who could be crueler to him than anyone else precisely because she had once loved him better than anyone else ever would.

A twenty-year-old could flatter him. Admire him. Make him feel young for an evening. It would be fun.

But Eleanor had built a life around him. She had intertwined herself into every ambition, every humiliation, every version of him worth knowing. She knew his sighs from when he was angry versus exhausted. Knew when he wanted to talk or just be with her in comfortable silence. Knew how he liked his whiskey without asking. Knew why he couldn’t sleep with the closet door open. She knew things he never even told her, things she’s just picked up from their years together.

And worse, she had believed in him long before there was anything particularly impressive to believe in.

How the hell was anyone supposed to compete with that?

Jack forced himself to smirk back as Eleanor lazily traced her fingertip around the rim of the whiskey glass.

“Are you trying to introduce me to someone?”

He said it lightly enough to bend the conversation sideways. To steer it away from wherever it had almost gone before one of them said something impossible to take back.

Eleanor scoffed immediately, polished and dismissive in the exact way she got whenever she refused to admit she had been fishing for something.

“Yeah,” she said dryly. “Helen’s daughter. Just got a communications degree.”

Jack gave a low hum, leaning farther back into the couch.

“Perfect. Exactly what I need.”

Her brows lifted slightly.

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” he deadpanned. “A twenty-four-year-old explaining branding to me while I quietly die in the corner of a restaurant.”

That pulled the smallest smile from her.

“I’m sure Helen would love it,” Eleanor continued smoothly. “Her daughter calling you boyfriend in public while people try to figure out whether you’re dating the girl or her mother.”

Jack winced theatrically.

“Jesus Christ.”

“She’d absolutely introduce you to TikTok.”

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.” Eleanor was fully entertained now. “She’d film you making coffee in the morning with sad Billy Joel captions.”

“Absolutely not.”

“POV,” Eleanor continued, gesturing vaguely into the air like she was presenting an ad campaign, “‘emotionally unavailable older man learns to love again.’”

Jack’s short laugh finally broke into a real one.

And annoyingly, the image was vivid enough that both of them could suddenly picture it

The tension loosened just enough for him to breathe.

“Anyway,” he said, lifting his glass slightly, trying to keep the mood where it was, “who even has time to date? I barely had time for you when we—”

The sentence died halfway out of his mouth.

Too late.

Eleanor’s eyes lifted immediately.

He shouldn’t have said it. Entering that territory was dangerous. Not having time for their marriage was the reason there wasn’t one anymore. Joking about imaginary young girlfriends was fine, talking about their parents being insane was nostalgic, but bringing up topics from their marriage that never got resolved… it could turn a nice evening into a nightmare.

“Not dating doesn’t mean sleeping alone,” she said lightly. Like a joke. Like a passing observation. Like she had not been trying to figure out for the last twenty minutes whether he was sleeping with someone else.

Jack looked away first, exhaling softly through his nose.

“That’s easy for you to say.”

He meant it as something almost flattering. A compliment on her beauty. ‘Men still look at you. You could have anyone you want’.

But halfway through the sentence resentment crept in quietly, the way it always did with them. By the time it reached Eleanor it no longer sounded like admiration.

It sounded loaded. Her eyes narrowed slightly. It sounded like a backhanded comment. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing.”

Too fast. Too practiced. Eleanor knew this tone the hesitation on how he didn’t look at her but focused on his whiskey instead, like the conversation itself was irritating him now instead of the fact he had started it. Oh, he was implying it.

“No,” Eleanor said. Calmly. “Say it. You already started.”

He dragged a hand down his face with a tired sigh.

“I’m tired, Eleanor.”

There it was. The retreat. The familiar tactic that somehow always positioned him as the exhausted reasonable one and her as the person insisting on conflict.

Eleanor let out a quiet dry laugh.“Then maybe don’t start things you don’t plan on finishing.”

His jaw tightened.

He should let it go.

He knew he should.

But there had always been something about Eleanor that pulled the ugliest insecurities out of him slowly, almost elegantly. Like she could make him feel jealous and guilty and defensive all at once without even raising her voice.

“I’m just saying,” he muttered finally, eyes still fixed on the amber liquid in his glass, careful with his tone “you used to spend entire summers outside in those tiny white bikinis while every  asshole in the neighborhood suddenly needed an excuse to stand by the fence asking about hydrangeas.”

Silence. Eleanor closed her eyes briefly. ‘There it was’. The problem didn’t lay in the words themselves, but The implication underneath them. The old accusation carefully dressed as an observation.

That she liked being looked at too much.

That she encouraged it.

That maybe some part of her enjoyed putting herself on display for other men.

When she opened her eyes again something in her face had hardened.

“There it is,” she murmured quietly.

Jack frowned.

“What?”

“Your suburban voyeurism complex.” Another dry little laugh, humorless this time. “I was wondering how long it would take tonight.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ.” He leaned back against the couch immediately, already defensive. “I’m not accusing you of anything.”

“You always say that right before accusing me of something.”

“I meant you got attention, Eleanor. That’s all.”

“That’s all,” she repeated softly.

Jack rubbed his forehead harder now, irritation building because he could already feel the argument slipping beyond his control.

“You know what I mean.”

“No,” she said sharply. “Actually I do not. Because somehow every time we have this conversation you act like I’m insane for hearing exactly what you’re implying.”

“I’m not implying anything.”

Another dry laugh escaped her.

God, he hated that laugh.

Because it meant she had stopped giving him the benefit of the doubt.

“You know what? Sure,” Eleanor said, her voice smoothing into something dangerously calm. “I’m clearly reading too much into it again.” She gave a small nod, like she was graciously accepting correction. “You’re obviously not implying that I spent summers tanning in my own backyard just to give the male population of our street something pretty to look at while poor you worked yourself to death paying for designer bikinis that your bitch wife modeled for the neighborhood.”

Jack exhaled sharply through his nose, irritated now that she had dragged the implication out into the open for him.

“That’s not what I said.”

“No,” Eleanor replied sharply. “You just heavily imply things and then act offended when I hear the truth beneath it.”

“And you could’ve tanned at the country club,” he cut it defensively.

Eleanor let out a disbelieving laugh, shaking her head as she couldnt believe what she was listening to. She didn’t believe fifteen years ago she didn’t believe it now. 

“And have everyone asking me where my husband was again? Making jokes about you never being home anymore?!” she shot back immediately. “Have them whispering that you clearly were having an affair. That it was sad to keep pretending everything was fine, that they felt sorry for me, that you didn’t deserve me because I was with you before med school, during your tours and shifts.” She had to stop. The memory of those comments were enough to make her nauseated “Do you know how humiliating that pity felt?” She shook her head. “No, thank you.

“I was working!” Jack snapped, the whiskey glass knocking harder than intended against the wooden coffee table as he leaned forward. “I was trying to provide you with the life you desperately wanted!”

“So was Anderson,” Eleanor replied. Almost calm. Which somehow hit harder than if she had screamed it.

The effect was immediate.

Jack went still for half a second, staring at her like he genuinely could not believe she had just said that out loud.

“Are you serious right now?!” A short disbelieving laugh escaped him, harsh around the edges. He leaned back against the couch cushions, shaking his head once like maybe distance would make the comparison less insane. “You’re comparing me to Anderson because I worked too much?!”

Eleanor held his stare.

“Anderson took his ring off and fucked interns in parking garages,” she said sharply. “You didn’t do that, fine.” Her jaw tightened. “But you acted like him.”

Jack scoffed immediately.

“Like being married was some unbearable inconvenience you regretted.” Her voice cracked harder now despite her trying to keep it steady. “You were just more sophisticated about it.”

“That is bullshit.” But there was something defensive in how quickly he said it.bSomething almost panicked.

Because Anderson was everything Jack despised. So hearing Eleanor put them in the same category felt insulting.

“You stayed late enough that everybody got the message without ever having to say it out loud,” she continued.

“There was no message,” Jack shot back instantly.

And that—

that was the last straw.

Eleanor stared at him for half a second in complete disbelief before shoving herself abruptly off the couch.

“Oh, bullshit,” she burst out.

She started pacing immediately, whiskey still in hand, too angry to stay seated beside him anymore.

“That is such bullshit.”

Jack watched her cross in front of the coffee table barefoot, one arm wrapping tightly around herself while the other held the glass.

She turned away first, dragging a hand hard through her hair like she physically needed to stop herself from screaming.

Then she spun back toward him again.

“What exactly is the point of saying things like that?” she snapped. “Seriously, Jack. What is the point?”

“There wasn’t a fucking message.” He repeated a bit louder 

“Oh my God.” She laughed once, sharp and exhausted. “Do you hear yourself?!”

“It’s the true.”

“Yeah?” Her smile continued pushing against her lips “So tell me what exactly do you think it looks like when a married man never goes home, Jack?” Her voice rose with every sentence now. “Volunteering for extra shifts? Staying after work for hours because apparently being in his own house was so fucking unbearable?”

Jack looked away immediately.

And that only made her angrier.

Because there it was again.

That low mumbling of someone who is exhausted 

. “For Christ’s sake, Eleanor—”

It came out low this time.

Not shouted.

Muttered under his breath with the exhausted frustration of a man who felt the argument slipping somewhere he no longer knew how to control.

And somehow that was worse.

That refusal to fully say the ugly thing out loud.

Like if he avoided the exact wording long enough he could still pretend he had the moral high ground.

“No, you listen to me!” she snapped over him instantly.

She pointed at him with the whiskey glass before pacing again immediately, too wound up now to stay still.

“You came home exhausted, miserable, barely speaking to me unless you wanted sex—” her voice cracked sharply there, years of humiliation catching painfully in her throat, “—and somehow I was still supposed to feel guilty because the neighbors talked to me over hydrangeas?”

“They were flirting with you!” Jack barked back.

“And what do you think those women were doing with you?”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“Why?” she fired back immediately, turning toward him again. “Because yours wore scrubs instead of golf polos?”

“Everyone knew you, Eleanor.” His voice sharpened defensively now, a dry scoff escaping him. “Nobody in that hospital was stupid enough to try anything.”

Eleanor laughed again. Meaner this time.

“That’s your defense?”

“It’s the truth.”

“Really?” She stepped closer now, angry enough to stop caring how close they were standing. “So none of them stayed late listening to you bitch about your life? None of them rubbed your shoulders after hard shifts? None of them sat there telling you how brilliant and exhausted and overworked you were?”

“Everyone needs to vent.” That was not really an answer. It was weak. Incomplete. And they both knew it. 

Maybe some women had done those things. Jack honestly didn’t know. He couldn’t remember, didn’t care enough to notice. That was the difference.

To him it had meant nothing. It was just tired people in an environment that requires too much of them. He still loved Eleanor, he never strayed. He would never do that. He was just too tired. 

To Eleanor it looked like intimacy he had stopped bringing home years ago.

“Right,” she said bitterly. “Very supportive coworkers.” Her voice turned uglier. “Did they blow you too? Little handjobs in the break room to help poor Dr. Abbot decompress?”

“Jesus Christ.” Jack dragged a hand hard down his face. “No one was doing that. You imagine stuff.”

“Oh, please,” Eleanor snapped immediately. “Just like you imagined me starring in some cheap porno with the pool boy?”

“They were being nice!” he shouted this time.

“And I wasn’t?”

“You were angry all the time!”

“Because I never saw my husband!”

“I was fucking tired, Eleanor!”

“So was I!”

The silence afterward hit like broken glass.

Both of them breathing too hard.

Too loud.

Jack looked away first, chest still rising heavily under the open collar of his shirt.

“So what did you want?!” he asked bitterly. “That I drop everything I built, everything paying for this life, so I could come home more and become your perfect husband?”

Eleanor stared at him.

And still he kept going.

Because once Jack got cornered emotionally he always reached for cruelty disguised as honesty.

“Because let’s be honest,” he said, voice rough now, exhaustion and resentment bleeding together, “if I stopped being the doctor you liked showing off, there wouldn’t be anything left you wanted from me anyway.”

The slap landed before she even fully realized she had moved.

The crack of it split through the room.

Sharp.

Immediate.

Jack’s head turned slightly with the force of it.

Silence.

For one horrible second neither of them moved.

Eleanor’s chest rose sharply, her hand still half lifted between them like she couldn’t quite believe it either.

Jack stared at the floor.

Not angry at first.

Just stunned.

The whiskey glass sat abandoned in his hand.

Then Eleanor looked away quickly, wiping at her face with the back of her hand in sudden furious movements.

Jack blinked once.

Only then realizing she was crying.

Tears kept slipping down her face no matter how irritated she looked by them.

And somehow that hit harder than the slap.

Because Eleanor hated crying in front of him now.

Like it offended her own pride.

Like after seven years divorced she still resented him having enough power to pull tears out of her at all.

He was going to leave.

Jack was still angry enough that his blood felt hot under his skin, still wound tight enough that if he stayed another five minutes he would say something uglier than he already had.

So he did what he had done for years whenever things between them became unbearable:

Leave first. Talk later. Or better: don’t talk at all. 

He pushed himself up too quickly from the couch, anger carrying him forward faster than the rest of his body could follow.

His balance buckled hard enough that he caught himself against the arm of the couch with a sharp curse.

“—fuck—”  

Pain shot violently through his thigh.

Jack shut his eyes briefly, jaw clenched so hard it trembled.

Humiliation washed over him almost visibly.

Perfect.

Exactly fucking perfect.

He couldn’t even storm out of an argument correctly anymore without his body betraying him halfway through it.

Across from him, Eleanor moved before she even seemed aware she was doing it.

One second she was still standing there furious, tears wet on her face, breathing hard from the fight.

The next she was already beside him.

“Jack—”

Her hand caught his forearm automatically.

And instantly, against her own will, her mind went somewhere awful.

If he had hit the coffee table wrong there would be blood everywhere. A split eyebrow maybe. Stitches.

And Jack, stubborn as ever, would insist he could do them himself one-handed over the bathroom sink instead of going to the ER like a normal person.

Or worse — they would end up at the hospital.

His residents seeing him like this. Whispers afterward about how Dr. Abbot came in bleeding after fighting with his ex-wife. The quiet humiliation of inventing some stupid story neither of them would fully commit to.

He slipped. Hit a cabinet. Dog accident. Anything except the truth.

The thought hit her so fast it shoved the anger sideways for one sharp second.

Her hand caught his forearm automatically, instinctively, steadying him before pride or anger could interfere.

And somehow that almost made it worse.

Jack pulled a short breath through his teeth, refusing to fully lean into her help even while his body clearly wanted to.

“I’m leaving,” he muttered.

“Yes, you are,” Eleanor said tightly, already kneeling beside the couch. “You’re just not driving like that.”

“I am fine.”

“You almost fell into my coffee table.”

Jack muttered something under his breath.

Eleanor exhaled sharply through her nose, frustrated with him, with herself, with the entire night unraveling exactly the way neither of them wanted.

“Let me help you,” she said more quietly, crouching in front of him as she reached for the prosthetic.

Jack’s hand caught her wrist immediately.

“I can do it.”

Her eyes lifted to his.

Still angry. Still hurt.

But underneath all of it there was something older than the fight. Older than the divorce even.

Instinct.

For a second neither of them moved.

Then he let go.

Eleanor slowly raised both hands in fake surrender as she straightened back up.

“Suit yourself.”

Carefully now, stiff with pain and humiliation, Jack started unclipping the prosthetic himself.

“I’ll grab the gel.”

“You don’t—” he started automatically.

“Take off your pants too,” she called over her shoulder before disappearing down the hallway.

In any other situation that might’ve sounded suggestive. An invitation. A late-night peace offering wrapped in Eleanor’s usual shameless delivery.

God knew she used to be good at that.

But judging by the slap mark still burning on his cheek, Jack suspected she currently had better odds of cutting his dick off than touching it willingly.

He had definitely blown that chance.

By the time Eleanor returned, he had pushed the trousers down enough to expose the irritated skin around the socket.

She walked back already unscrewing a small jar in her hands.

His cheek was still faintly red where she had slapped him.

Eleanor noticed immediately.

Looked away just as fast.

Jack gave a quiet scoff as she sat beside him.

“This is probably expired.”

They used to have dozens of those jars.

An entire shelf full of them in the bathroom beside Eleanor’s aggressively expensive skincare products with labels in French or Danish that everyone in her circle of friends swore by. 

Somehow she had never once mixed them up.

“It’s not expired,” she said flatly. Of course he still assumed half the things in this house belonged to him.

She spread the gel between her palms, warming it slightly before the sharp mint smell reached him.

“It’s for my plantar fasciitis.” She said quietly. 

Jack had forgotten about that. He huffed softly through his nose.

“You and those heels…” And despite himself, memory pulled at him immediately. He remembered when the pain first started.

The cold press of Eleanor’s feet shoved beneath his thigh, she used to say the heavy pressure made it better. 

The appointment with Álvarez,  Helen’s husband, after Eleanor finally accepted that the pain was not, in fact, temporary. X-rays. MRIs. They did everything until finally they got to the orthopedic consultation where she heard her terminal diagnosis:

“Eleanor,” Álvarez said with exhausted patience, “you need to retire the heels.”

Jack had warned her before that too. Didn’t matter.

Mrs. Abbot had plantar fasciitis, bunions, tendon shortening,  the entire collection earned by a lifetime spent balancing herself on designer heels.

“Couldn’t we compromise in kitten heels?” Eleanor had negotiated immediately. “Orthopedic heels?”

Jack still remembered silently mouthing a sorry toward Álvarez while Helen’s husband stared at Eleanor with the thousand-yard look unique to doctors treating rich women who had absolutely no intention of following medical advice. 

Álvarez recommended sensible shoes, physiotherapy and pilates.

And Eleanor did the physio, and took a liking to the pilates class. The shoes, well, she used them most of the time, until an event required heels, then she returned happily to the most violent shoes ever manufactured.

And in Alvarez's opinion. Torture device for the foot bones.

Extreme arch pitch. Narrow toe boxes. Four-inch stilettos that looked less like footwear and more like structural engineering failures.

Eleanor’s favorites because they made her leg look long and elegant.

He got pulled back to the present by the shift of the couch cushion beside him.

“Let me see the leg.”

“Elea—”

She didn’t wait.

She rubbed the cream once more between her hands before setting them carefully against his thigh.

Jack broke off with a low breath despite himself.

Because that was the problem.

Her hands still knew exactly how to touch him.

He broke off with a low breath despite himself, tension still locked tight in his jaw as her hands worked — sure, practiced, familiar.

She worked the gel carefully into his thigh, firm pressure easing slowly along the irritated muscle above the socket.

“Here?” she asked, pressing into a spot just above it.

His breath hitched.

“…yeah. There.”

She adjusted immediately, slower now, more precise.

“That’s where it’s pulling?”

“Mm.” A pause. “Gets worse when I’ve been on it too long.”

Her thumbs pressed again and his leg twitched under her touch.

“Too hard, baby—”

The word slipped out on pure instinct as his hand went to hold her wrist. It happened before long ago, when he his thumb would shift against her hand automatically, nudging her a little lower, a little gentler, an innocent but intimate correction just so she could adjust the pressure. 

It took a bit too long for him to take it back, the moment already settled between them.

She looked up to him, her hands frozen.  For one brief second, Eleanor looked almost startled.

Jack’s expression tightened almost immediately, like he hated himself a little for letting it slip. His eyes dropped away first, clearing his throat.

“…Eleanor. Sorry.” He released her wrist, returning the hand to his lap. 

The apology somehow made it worse.

Because it turned the moment into something they were no longer allowed to have. Like something that still remembered how to belong even when it no longer did.

And Eleanor felt it low in her chest anyway.

That old reflexive ache.

For years she had been Baby. Princess. Honey. Sweetheart. Doll. Nicknames that slipped out of him so easily she had stopped noticing them after a while. Little verbal touches scattered through a life together. The kind that made her feel loved in a way expensive gifts and grand gestures never really managed to.

They made her feel entirely his.

And sometimes he would deliberately choose the worst ones imaginable just to make her laugh.

Sweetcheeks.

Sugarplum.

Angel face.

Sweet Valentine.

God, there had even been a brief horrifying period where he called her Toots after watching old gangster movies for two weeks straight.

Eleanor used to groan and threaten divorce every single time while secretly loving every second of it precisely because he only did it to see her smile.

And now hearing it again felt less like comfort and more like pressing on a bruise to check if it still hurt. 

 It made her feel lonelier.

Her fingers hesitated against his thigh for the smallest fraction of a second before she forced herself to continue, slower this time, gentler.

“Here?” she asked quietly, like neither of them had noticed what just happened.

She tossed her hair back over one shoulder as she leaned closer, focused again.

Jack went very still.

That was the problem.

Not the pain. Not the cream. Not even the closeness of her hands.

It was the shape of her like this.

Head bent in concentration. Loose curls falling over one bare shoulder. Mouth slightly parted while she focused.

And the memories it dragged up before he could stop them.

Of course she had massaged the socket hundreds of times before.

Usually late at night.

Usually in bed.

Sometimes while teasing him through it, sometimes while talking absently about charity committees or neighbors or some ridiculous thing Marjorie had said in the phone.

And sometimes—

Christ.

Sometimes it led somewhere else entirely.

His body remembered that before his brain could stop it.

He forced his eyes back toward the wall.

This was not the time for those memories. He absolutely could not get hard with his ex-wife’s hands on his thigh five minutes after she slapped him across the face.

Eleanor would think he was a pervert. Or worse.

She would realize exactly how long it had been since anyone had touched him with any real familiarity.

That the closest thing he had to a sex life after the divorce was the occasional tired jerk-off to porn he barely paid attention to, or, on worse nights, old photos of Eleanor he should’ve deleted years ago and never managed to.

No. Absolutely not. Fuck.

He needed to think about literally anything else.

Her thumbs worked carefully along the edge of the scar.

Jack leaned his head back against the couch and shut his eyes briefly.

God.

He remembered these hands everywhere.

Straightening his tie in the driveway before hospital fundraisers.

Sliding beneath his jacket lapels at charity galas while she smoothed imaginary wrinkles from his tuxedo.

Curled against the back of his neck after overnight ER shifts when he came home too wired to sleep.

Now they touched him carefully.

Almost clinically.

Like she was trying not to remember too much either.

“You should’ve told me it was getting worse,” Eleanor said suddenly.

Jack opened his eyes.

For a second he couldn’t tell if she still meant the leg.

“You were busy.” She sighed, not wanting to pick another fight.

He watched her then.

Really watched her.

The black strapless gown still fit her like it had been sewn onto her body. Years ago she would already have stripped it off by now, complaining that formal dresses clung to her skin after parties. 

She used to kick off her heels at the door and wander through the house in corsets and tights without a second thought while talking to him about absolutely nothing.

God, he used to love that.

Now she sat barefoot beside him on the couch they used to share, mascara faintly smudged beneath her eyes, loose curls falling over bare shoulders.

Beautiful still.

Just sadder now.

“Do you really believe that?” she asked quietly.

Jack frowned faintly.

“What?”

“You said if you stopped being the doctor I liked showing off there’d be nothing left I wanted.”

Jack looked away immediately.

Because maybe Eleanor liked beautiful houses and charity galas and introducing him as her doctor husband.

Fine.

So what?

He was supposed to know her better than that.

Maybe she cared too much about appearances sometimes. Maybe she liked expensive things. Maybe she cared too much what people thought.

But he was supposed to know she was more than that.

He was supposed to know her.

Her hands slowed slightly against his thigh.

Eleanor shook her head once.

Maybe if a woman played a role long enough, eventually people stopped seeing anything underneath it at all. Even the ones who are supposed to know better. Even their husbands.

“Jesus Christ…” she murmured softly to herself.

Outside, rain had started sometime during the argument.

It tapped softly against the windows overlooking the dark manicured backyard.

Her fingers pressed higher into the muscle and Jack sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth.

“There,” he muttered despite himself.

Eleanor adjusted immediately, gentler now.

The movement pulled her slightly closer between his knees.

And suddenly Jack became aware of everything at once.

The cold empty whiskey glass abandoned on the coffee table.

The sharp mint smell of the cream.

The warmth of her skin.

The soft brush of satin against his bare thigh every time she leaned forward.

His gaze dropped before he could stop it.

Bare shoulders.

The elegant line of her throat.

The soft curve of cleavage above black satin.

God.

Eleanor noticed where he was looking.

Her hands hesitated only briefly before continuing again.

“You know what the worst part is?” she asked quietly.

Jack frowned faintly.

“I kept thinking maybe I never really stopped waiting for you.”

Her eyes stayed fixed on his leg, fingers still working carefully against the muscle.

“Sometimes it felt like you never actually came home from Afghanistan.” She swallowed once. “And I kept waiting for you so our life could finally start.”

That landed harder than the slap.

Jack stared at her.

For once Eleanor didn’t look polished or untouchable or socially perfect.

She looked tired. Not physically. Soul-deep tired.

Her words lodged somewhere deep inside him.

Because in Jack’s mind, he had come home.

Maybe not immediately. Maybe not completely.

But he had. Hadn’t he?

There had been nights that yes, he sat in the hospital parking lot for an extra hour because he couldn’t force himself through the front door yet.

Nights he picked up extra shifts because exhaustion felt easier than disappointing her in person, not being the husband she deserved, the husband she expected him to be.

Times he convinced himself that providing for her counted as loving her properly.

He thought she understood that.

Or maybe he had only hoped she did.

He felt the sudden coolness as her hands finally dropped away from his thigh.

His eyes lifted toward her face.

The baby blinked at her, wide-eyed, frowning, then reached immediately for the front of her dress, fingers catching on the fabric like he’d decided she belonged to him.

April laughed, a little too bright, a little too eager. “He likes you,” she said. “He doesn't  go to just anybody like that.”

Eleanor smiled, polite at first, but it softened, just a touch, as the baby let out a small, satisfied sound and settled.

“Well,” she murmured, bouncing him gently, “I’m very flattered, sweetie.” She said looking at him, like she was answering the baby.

April hovered, watching her with something like admiration, taking in the way Eleanor held him, the way she spoke, the ease of it.

“You’re real natural,” April said. “I was a mess with him at first. Still am, half the time. Even after two.” 

Eleanor glanced at her, a small, reassuring smile. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

“No, it is,” April insisted, laughing a little. “You make it look… easy.”

“That’s only because I’m holding him for a few seconds,” Eleanor said lightly, bouncing the baby once more. Her smile stayed soft and easy. “I wouldn’t be able to do half of what you do with three children and still look as good as you do.”

She shifted the baby slightly instead, tucking him closer as he grabbed at the cuff of her sleeve, fascinated.

April gave a small, tired smile and caressed the back of her baby. “It’s not easy,” she said, almost apologetically. “But I try.”

Eleanor’s expression softened. “You are doing it,” she said simply.

April looked at her for a second, then gave the smallest nod. “Thank you,” she said, quiet enough that it almost disappeared into the room.

At her side, Jack was watching, not obviously, he still had a glass in his hand, still nodded when someone spoke to him, but his attention kept pulling back, again and again.

He saw the way Eleanor’s posture changed, how the sharpness she carried seemed to soften at the edges. The way she let the baby lean into her and didn’t rush to give him back.

Then, the baby twisted suddenly, reaching past Eleanor.

Toward him.

Jack blinked, caught off guard.

“Well,” he said, a small, almost reluctant smile breaking through, “hey there, kiddo.”

He set his glass down and leaned in just slightly, offering a finger. The baby grabbed it immediately, grip surprisingly strong, taking it to his mouth.

April let out a tiny panicked laugh. “Don’t grab uncle Jack’s finger…sorry, Jack. He’s teething. You can give him to me if you want.”

“It’s okay, April,” Jack said, waving her off with his free hand, with no intention at all of depriving the baby of his new favorite chewing toy. The baby gnawed enthusiastically on his finger, teethless gums pressing with surprising dedication.

For a flick of second, Eleanor looked up at him. Their eyes met, brief, but enough. She smiled. He looked from her to the kid, smiling. 

Maybe they should start considering kids. 

“Oh!” Aunt Rose’s voice cut through, delighted, loud enough to turn heads. Sitting just in front of the couple. “Would you look at that.”

Shit.

There it was.

She leaned forward, eyes bright, taking in the scene like it was something she’d been waiting for.

“That’s a good look on you two,” she went on. “real good.”

Eleanor’s smile returned as Jack exhaled softly through his nose. He knew where this was going. Aunt Rose has been asking the same question since Jack and Eleanor came back from their honeymoon:

“When are we getting a little Jackie, huh?” 

Aunt Rose pressed, grinning. She didn’t quite understand the concept of enjoying married life. Not even Jack’s mom pressed him this way. But for Aunt Rose if there wasn’t a bun being cooked in the wife’s belly, then what was the point? 

A few heads turned. A few people chuckled, already anticipating it.

April laughed, a little too eagerly. “I was just saying—”

Jack blinked once, his voice colliding with April’s.  “We’re not—” 

“Oh, come on,” Rose cut in, delighted. “You’ve been married for how long now?” 

“Not that long, Aunt Rose” Jack muttered. 

“Long enough,” Someone else chimed in. Whoever it was, Jack wished he would get fucked. 

“Especially with her,” He couldn’t be sure if was his Uncle Ray, or one of his cousins’ husbands or even one of his cousins that added. “You don’t let that go to waste.” 

Laughter again. Louder this time. 

Eleanor smiled, a discreet red tint in her cheeks. She was more used than Jack of people asking about kids. About when the honeymoon is going to be over, that they shouldn’t take long if they wanted a second one or a third one before mid thirties. “Oh, believe me, he is not letting it go to waste” she said while bouncing the baby in her knee, giving a wink to Jack that the whole table noticed, while her husband shook his head drinking his beer saying under his breath “You are impossible”. 

 The cousin, whose name Eleanor could not remember, raised his hands in defeat. The rest of the table laugh.

“Oh, well honey, if you keep up like this “ the aunt gave the couple a look “when you least expect - boom”. She mimed a baby in her arms. 

Jack huffed a quiet breath. “Yeah, maybe, in the future.” Of course they had talked about kids.

Kind of. 

Well, not really. 

In the future, when Jack eventually looked back, he would realize how many things they didn’t discuss. At least not in the way people do nowadays, with spreadsheets and plans and constant negotiation. 

It was just… a constant understanding that life would go on in order: dating, marriage, a house, stability and children. The course of things. Eleanor felt like the kind of woman who would be a wife and mother, and Jack felt like the kind of man who would become a husband and father.

It was so easy. Life was easy.

 He had never pushed the question, and she had never raised it. It had just sat there between them, unspoken, like everything else that would eventually arrive once the rest of life was in place.

During his residency and fellowship, it was off the table, although thinking about it, he never did anything to prevent it. They haven’t used condoms since they went steady, around three months later after meeting for the first time at the gala for the inauguration of the new wing that one of the Donahues friends had donated to Jack’s med school. 

He never really participated or opinionated in how Eleanor managed to not get pregnant. It is not as if they were avoiding sex. But she would never let it happen if it wasn’t the right time. Eleanor was not the type of girl who needed to trap a guy by getting pregnant. And she wanted to be a good mother, not like Evelyn. And for that to happen, the baby needed to come at the right time. Their house already had an extra bedroom, and a beautiful backyard, it was close enough to the best private schools.  Jack just needed to finish his obligatory service in the military, to repay them for paying him to go to med school, then settle in an attending job.

Soon, he would have enough experience to open a private practice, or to get a position with better pay and less hours. Then it would be the right time.

Eleanor could see it as clear as a day: He at home in a reasonable hour, dinner together, their chunky little baby at her arms, him putting their baby to sleep. It would be perfect. 

“It will be a beautiful baby,” April said, almost to herself, watching Eleanor with that open, uncomplicated admiration she never quite hid. “With you both as parents? Something out of a magazine!”

Jack let out a small breath through his nose. He didn’t look up.

Eleanor played modesty shaking her head saying that April was being too kind. But, in her mind, she agreed: their kids would be perfect.

Kenny, Jack’s snarky cousin, and April’s husband, snorted, not even looking up from his plate, dragging his fork. “Yeah… give it about one month,” he muttered. “Starts screaming, shitting, breaking your shit, costing you money, real cute.”

April didn’t hesitate. She shifted in her seat, eyes snapping to him. “Like father like son, Kenny.” 

A few laughs, quick, cautious.

Kenny leaned back, spreading out in the chair. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he said, half-laughing. “ They are boys, what am I suppose to do? Braid their hair and talk about feelings? S’that your plan?”

“Shut the fuck up, Kenny,” April said, already turning away.

He raised his hands, grinning like that meant he’d won something. “Alright, Jesus.”

The baby, oblivious to all of it, had lost interest in Jack’s finger. He twisted in Eleanor’s lap, small hands reaching again, this time more insistently, grabbing at the front of her dress with determined, hungry focus.

“Oh, okay, sweetheart,” April said quickly, stepping in. “You are a hungry little man, I got you.”

She lifted him from Eleanor’s lap with practiced ease, settling him against her shoulder as he fussed, rooting clumsily.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” she murmured, already halfway out of her chair. “Give me a second, your dad’s being a dick as usual”

April and Kenny bickering was background noise here. It always has been. Same fight, different topic.

Eleanor got used to it. She still remembered Easter, the year Kenny forgot to hide the eggs for the egg hunt and April caught him drinking with his buddies around the barbecue grill. She tore into him like he’d ruined Christmas itself. This? This was light. This was teasing, playing. 

And for a moment, the table shifted back into itself, plates passed, someone asking for salt, a cousin laughing too loudly at something unrelated. The TV in the background, low and constant.

Eleanor smoothed the front of her dress where the baby had pulled at it, her fingers lingering there a second longer than necessary. Jack noticed because he noticed everything about her when he was trying not to.

Then she leaned toward him.

“I think I’m going to lie down for a bit,” she said quietly, just for him.

Jack turned immediately, all the noise in the room dropping behind the shift of his attention. “You okay?” His hand moved automatically over her shoulder, thumb brushing her skin.

She gave him that soft, patient smile that meant she was already trying not to be a burden. “Just a headache.”

He looked at her, brow tightening. For a second he thought of asking more, but she was already shaking her head faintly, hand touching his thigh under the table reassuring, the kind of touch that meant ‘stay where you are, I’ll be fine.’ It was the sort of gesture that could pass unnoticed by everyone except him. The secret language they shared since their early twenties.

“Stay with your family,” she said, before giving him a light goodbye kiss. 

She didn’t need Jack to come, besides the last thing Eleanor needed was his mother noticing she had “pulled” him away.

Since the couple arrived, Eleanor could swear, Elisa was waiting for the perfect opportunity to make passive aggressive comments about her. The only reason she wasn’t able to do it until now was all the last minute adjustments and cooking that Elisa would never let Eleanor, any of her in laws or even nieces help. 

It was pointless to offer help, Jack’s mom would refuse and thank Eleanor, and tell her to enjoy the festivity, just to later complain to Jack that ‘Ellie is used to people serving her and did not even bother’. Basically anything to call her a snob without openly calling her that. 

And fine, Eleanor was fine being called a snob by her mother-in-law. She had grown used to it. But if she came out from the kitchen door and did not see Jack at the table, and someone told her that he went upstairs because ‘His wife was tired’, Elisa would have a field day with the amount of ammunition she would have against Eleanor. And there was no way in hell or heaven that Eleanor would give her that.  

She pushed her chair back and rose with that same careful composure she wore like a coat.

“Excuse me,” she said to the table, offering a small smile.

A few murmurs followed—“Feel better,” “Already?”. Nothing that required an answer, she only wave to the baby that April took his hand and waved back at her “Say goodbye to aunt Ellie, sweetie”

Then aunt Rose, who had never once met a boundary she couldn’t lean over, brightened and said, “Oh, honey, might be a little Jackie already. You know, Jackie’s mother used to have killer headaches when she was pregnant with him. It runs in the family”

The laughter came fast, a little too fast.

Jack shook his head, exhaling through his nose. “Alright, aunt Rose, let’s ease on the wine for the night.”

Eleanor shook her head amused, already halfway toward the hall. She disappeared upstairs, and for a moment Jack’s attention stayed on the doorway where she had gone, the room dimmer without her in it. He couldn’t help but to be a bit worried, and worse: feeling her absence as a blow of cold wind in the air. 

April stood a little off to the side now, near where Kenny sat. The baby settled against her shoulder, bottle in his mouth as she rocked him gently.

Kenny’s smile sharpened, not amused now. Since he was a child, unfortunately, he liked being looked at, even when it was with annoyance.. It gave him an audience and he had never once known the difference between attention and respect.

“Yeah,” he said, louder now, “better lock that down early, right?”

A couple of the guys around the table laughed because they were conditioned to laugh first and never ask questions. April’s head turned slowly, her expression flattening with a tired sigh.

“Shut up, Kenny.”

“What?” he said, shrugging, already halfway into the bit. “I’m just saying—”

“Nobody cares what you think,” she cut in, adjusting the bottle in the baby’s mouth with practiced precision. “Truly. Not one person.”

Kenny leaned back again, dragging his hand over his mouth like he was deciding whether to behave.

“I’m just saying what everyone’s thinking.”

“No one’s thinking that,” April said, calm, almost bored. “Because no one here is that stupid.”

A few nervous laughs skittered across the table.

His eyes flicked toward the stairs where Eleanor had disappeared, then back to Jack. “What?” he said. “Guy’s got everything ” His gaze stayed on Jack now. “Might as well put a few kids in her,” he said. “Let her parade ’em around the country club, hand ’em off to the nanny when they start crying, lucky bastard won’t even have to deal with it.”

Jack didn’t react. He knew, as well as April, his cousin’s antics. And most of the time the remedy for it was what Jack was doing it right now: completely ignore it. 

When Kenny couldn t get a reaction, he would say something like ‘But what do I know?’ and move on.

“Like you do?”. April let out a short, humorless laugh.

Kenny’s jaw shifted. “Jesus, April what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means they’re your kids and I am not your nanny,” she said, not raising her voice. April was perfectly aware of what her husband was doing. He wanted to get a rise of Jack. And if she could avoid Kenny getting his ass kicked and later the never-ending talk before bed of how Jack was shit, she would gladly fight him by bringing up their top reason for fighting: Kids. “You could try to act like their father. Just once. See how it feels.”

Kenny scoffed, louder now. “Man, you don’t know shit—”

“I know I didn’t have three kids for you to act like their older brother,” she cut in. 

A couple heads turned. Kenny shook his head, smiling like it didn’t bother him. It definitely did. Kenny liked to pretend that he was this big macho man, but deep down, and April knew as clear as the day, that her man was the king of manchilds. 

“Yeah, alright,” he said. “I’m the bad guy. I’m always the bad guy.”

“Well, honey, you make it very easy,” April said with a laugh on her voice.

He pointed from her to Jack with his fork, leaning in. “You think this guy’s gonna be up at 3 a.m. with a crying kid?”

April opened her mouth.

“No,” Kenny said, not letting her. “He ain’t losing sleep, probably will get a fancy night nanny, nurse, maid, whatever rich people do.”

“Cut it out, Kenny,” Uncle Ray muttered, without taking his eyes from the TV. Kenny rambling and provoking Jack was just another celebration at the Abbot’s house. It has been years since the provocations actually led to confrontation, since they were teenagers, so no one actually bothered to actively stop Kenny. 

They trusted Jack would be the bigger man. As he always was.

“You’re embarrassing yourself.” April said with a light slap on Kenny’s shoulder

“Oh, I’m embarrassing myself?” Kenny shook his head, like he couldn’t believe it, a laugh slipping out under his breath. “Lets talk about something else then” 

Exactly the time when the noise on the tv filled the silence between the two. And Kenny took that as an opportunity. Even on Christmas tv wouldn’t stop about Afheganistan. 

“Didn’t they pay for your med school?” Kenny said. “When are you shipping out, hero boy?”

“Kenny!” Aunt Rose said, crossing the dining room with a glass of red in her hand. She gave his shoulder a light slap like he was a child acting out at a dinner party. “Behave.”

Jack didn’t answer. Just a small shrug, like it wasn’t worth touching the subject.

Kenny nodded like that confirmed something.

“Right. Still home. Still playing doctor in suburbia.”

April exhaled. “Kenny—”

He waved her off.

“No, I’m just really fucking curious,” he said, leaning forward now, elbows on the table, chin resting on his hands. “Because I keep seeing on the news they’re dragging doctors out to Afghanistan like yesterday.”

His eyes flicked to Jack.

“And you’re just… chilling. Brunches, tennis. Real patriotic stuff.”

Jack’s gaze sharpened. “What are you getting at?” 

He knew where Kenny was heading. And Jack couldn’t lie to himself. It was something that crossed his mind. He was working in a military hospital, paying his years after they paid for his med school. Left and right doctors were being deployed, he was active. So why didn’t he? 

Eleanor didn’t like talking about it, she said it would attract bad luck, and when she wanted to stroke his ego, she would say that maybe it was because he was too good to be sent anywhere else. 

She pretended that there wasn’t a few nights where she was restless, thinking that the call was coming. Nights that she had to take some sleeping pills. 

Kenny smiled like he’d been waiting for that.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe you’re just lucky.”

He took a slow sip of beer.

“Or maybe your wife called daddy and said, ‘Don’t send my husband to the sandpit, he’ll get sunburned!’” His cousin said, high pitching his voice,  a very bad imitation of Eleanor.

April look at him, you could feel the fire in her eyes, as she adjust the baby in her arms and hit him in the shoulder “Kenny, seriously—”

But Kenny wasn’t looking at her, because he knew her eyes would say that he need to cut the shit right now. But the thing is, he didn’t want to cut the shit. 

“It happens,” he went on. “Guy marries up, it could be the fucking ‘Nam and they wouldn’t deploy him. Weird how that works.”

Jack’s grip tightened slightly on his glass. “You got something to say, Kenny?”

Kenny grinned. “Yeah,” he said. “Just didn’t know if med school made you a pussy.”

April muttered, “Kenny, stop.”

He ignored her completely.

“Just saying,” he added, voice dropping a notch now, more pointed. “Your father-in-law’s a big shot. Wouldn’t want his little princess alone while her husband’s off playing soldier.”

Jack tilted his head.

“Say that again.”

Kenny held the grin,  but it was the type that you hold when you already got too far and could not bear to turn around. “I said,” Kenny repeated, voice rising, “Your bitch wife wouldn’t let her little lap dog get out of-oh shit” "

Kenny didn’t even finish the sentence. Jack jump out of his sit and with a single motion hit him in the mouth first—not a clean punch, not the kind you see in practiced fights, but something immediate and ugly, like he’d taken the insult and turned it physical before his brain could argue with it.

Kenny’s head snapped sideways. His grin finally broke apart.

For a fraction of a second, there was confusion—real, almost childish disbelief. Like he couldn’t reconcile that little Jackie was doing this, it went completely against the version of Jack he’d spent years remembering: the quieter one, the one who absorbed things, the one who usually lost ground in the old hierarchy of them.

Kenny swung back anyway.

It came from instinct more than precision, childhood mechanics. Backyard scraps that had never fully left their bodies. Kenny’s fist caught Jack high on the cheekbone, enough to turn him, enough to make the skin there flare with heat.

Jack stepped in.

That was the difference now. That was what Kenny didn’t account for.

They collided in the narrow space between counter and coffee table, plates jumped, glass shifted. A chair scraped back hard enough to scrape wood. Kenny grabbed at Jack’s collar to pull him off balance, and Jack answered by driving him backward again, shoulder-first into the edge of the counter.

Wood or laminate cracked under the impact.

Someone shouted “HEY—”

Kenny hissed through his teeth, trying to recover, trying to the old rhythm where he used to be quicker, sharper, always just slightly ahead. He brought his elbow up, clipped Jack’s ribs, once, twice, searching for space.

He ate the hit and grabbed Kenny by the wrist mid-swing, twisting it just enough to break the angle, just enough to ruin Kenny’s next strike. Then he shoved him down and forward in the same motion, forcing him off balance.

Kenny stumbled—caught himself on the counter

The baby cried somewhere behind them, unrelated but impossible to ignore. Just like April’s screams for Kenny to stop. 

The TV kept talking in the background, something about the Pentagon response about a distant war that suddenly felt like it had less violence than this room.

Kenny wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and saw red. He surged forward again, but this time it wasn’t careless. Something older clicked into place, something meaner and more deliberate. He feinted high, just enough to pull Jack’s guard, and then drove a fist hard into his ribs, right where he’d already softened him.

Jack’s breath hitched.

Kenny didn’t give him time to recover. He shoved him back hard, forcing him into the edge of the table this time instead of the counter. The impact knocked the wind out of him properly, a dull, heavy sound that felt different from the rest.

There it was.

Kenny pressed in, crowding him, one hand fisted in Jack’s shirt to keep him there. A quick hit to the jaw—not enough to drop him, but enough to remind him.

Enough to make it familiar again.

“C’mon, Jackie,” Kenny muttered, breath hot, voice slipping back into that old, taunting rhythm. “Play the little soldier now”

Another shove, keeping him pinned.

“Bet she likes you like this. Acting like a real man.”

That did it.

Not the hit. Not the shove.

That.

Jack went still for half a second, and then something in him snapped clean in a way that felt different from before. Not reactive. Not instinct.

Decided. Something about Kenny talking about Eleanor, dragging her into this made Jack see red. 

He surged forward with a force that broke Kenny’s hold outright, driving into him without hesitation, without rhythm, without anything resembling the old rules they’d grown up with. The movement was messier now, closer, harsher, less about landing clean hits and more about damage.

They slammed back into the counter again, harder than before. Something cracked. Kenny tried to swing but Jack got inside it, too close, turning it into a blunt collision of bodies and short, brutal hits.

This wasn’t sparring anymore.

Kenny felt it shift—and for the first time, there was something like uncertainty under his reactions. He tried to regain control, but Jack didn’t give him space to reset, didn’t give him distance to think. Every movement Kenny made got met halfway, shut down, redirected, crushed.

“HEY—!”

Uncle Ray’s voice cut through it, sharp and done with it already.

Neither of them stopped. That lasted exactly two seconds.

Then Ray was there, older, heavier, and completely uninterested in reasons and justifications, grabbing Jack first by the shoulder and hauling him back with a force that came from experience rather than anger.

“Jesus fucking Christ, every single time!” He snapped, already turning and shoving Kenny back with his other hand when he tried to step in again. “Cut it out!”

Kenny stumbled a step, breath uneven, chest rising fast. Jack strained forward once, just once, against Ray’s grip, not trying to break free, but making it clear he would if he had to.

“You talk about my wife again,” Jack said pointing his finger at Kenny, his voice low and breathless from the fight,  “I’ll put you on the fucking  ground.”

It wasn’t a threat thrown in anger. It was a statement.

Kenny wiped his mouth again, looked at the blood on his hand, and let out a short, dismissive breath, something like a laugh, but thinner now. Something like people do when they lost and don’t want to admit defeat. Something that Kenny was an expert. 

“Yeah, whatever, man.”

He turned away before it could sit any longer between them, already moving past it in the way people do when they don’t want to admit a shift happened.

“April!,” he called, like nothing had just snapped out of place, “get me ice or some shit!” April who had taken her distance from the fight, was back, but instead of ice, she gave Kenny a slap on the chest where it hurt, and what seemed a very angry speech in hush voice as they retreated somewhere else in the crowded space, 

Jack didn’t answer him again. Didn’t look at him.

He just pulled free from Ray’s grip, this time without resistance, giving his Uncle a look that said, he would’ve handle it. “Got get some air, kid” someone handle him an ice pack, as he headed for the door, the adrenaline still riding too high under his skin to stay contained inside that space.

Outside the temperature was low and the wind cold. Jack exhale, the adrenaline started to low as the pain started to rise. “Fuckin Kenny…”

“What happened?” Frank said the second he shut the car door behind him, grocery bag still in one hand. His eyes went straight to Jack’s face. “Jesus Christ, you got a black eye? I go out to get your mother milk and eggs for the pie and-“

Jack stood on the porch with an ice pack pressed against his cheek, jaw tight. “Kenny talking shit.”

“When did he ever do otherwise?” Frank muttered, already annoyed, but his eyes were still scanning Jack like he was checking for broken bones. Then his attention shifted, immediate and sharp. “Where’s Eleanor?”

Jack looked at him. “Upstairs. Headache.”

Frank’s expression changed at once. Not panic, exactly. Just concern, plain and unhidden. “She all right?”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “Just a headache.”

Frank nodded, visibly relieved by that more than anything else. “She took anything?”

“Probably yes” Jack winced “‘ ’Don’t know, Kenny kept me busy”

“Rule number one son: When your wife leaves you leave too. Nothing good happens when they leave.”

“She wanted me to stay.”

“She is too polite.” Frank made a low sound in his throat, already turning slightly toward the house. “I’ll bring her something in a minute. And you need to check on her.”

Jack’s mouth twitched.

Frank caught it and gave him a look. “What?”

“You worry more about Eleanor than me.”

Frank snorted. “Well, Eleanor’s easier to like.”

Jack laugh before he could stop it, then winced and lifted the ice pack back to his face.

Frank pointed at him with the hand holding the grocery bag. “And she shoots better than you.”

Jack shook his head, still laughing a little despite the pain. “Is that what you like about her?”

Frank didn’t even bother denying it. “Damn right it is.”

A beat passed, and the humor settled just enough for the worry to come back.

“Did Kenny say anything to her?”

“No. He waited ‘till she went upstairs.”

“Good.” Frank’s jaw tightened. He didn’t explain much, but Jack knew that if Kenny had pull any of his shit against Eleanor, Jack would not even have a second to respond, because Frank would send Kenny to hell as quick as a blink. Frank looked back at him. “So what did he say?”

Jack hesitated.

The wind pushed through the driveway, cutting the silence thinner.

“It’s nothing,” Jack said finally, too quick.

Frank’s eyes narrowed. “A black eye it’s not nothing. That dipshit hasn't got under your skin since you were fifteen.”

Jack exhaled through his nose, shifting his weight slightly like he could shake it off. He couldn’t.

“He just—” Jack paused, then forced it out more evenly. “He thinks I’m not going.”

Frank blinked once. “Not going where?”

Jack didn’t answer right away.

Frank’s expression changed before Jack even spoke again. “To Afghanistan?” Frank said slowly.

Jack’s jaw tightened.

“Yeah,” he said. “That.”

Frank let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “Jesus Christ. And he said that in front of people?”

Jack’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile. Not quite anything.

“He said worse.”

Frank stepped closer now, voice lowering. “What’s worse?”

Jack looked away toward the street, like it was easier than saying it to his face.

“That I’m still here because someone made sure I stay here.”

A pause.

Frank went very still. “And by ‘someone’,” he said carefully, “he means Ellie.”

Jack didn’t confirm it. Didn’t deny it either.

That was enough to answer it.

Frank let out a slow breath through his nose, shaking his head like he couldn’t decide whether to laugh or break something.

“That boy’s got a death wish,” he muttered. Then, sharper: “And Kenny doesn’t know a damn thing about how any of this works.”

Jack’s voice was quieter now. “Doesn’t matter if he’s right.”

Frank looked at him. “It matters if you believe him.” Frank keep looking at Jack “Do you?”

“I don’t know. I am active. Shouldn’t I be first in those planes?”

“That is not how it works Jack, you know this. What does Ellie say?”

“She doesn’t like talking about it.” He sighed, “And when we do, she always says that we are just lucky, and that in less than two years I will be out.”

Frank didn’t even consider Jack had maybe asked Eleanor to talk to her father to intervene in his case. He knew his son, and he knew that he didn’t raise a quitter or a coward. 

“Do you want to go?” Frank asked quietly.

Jack didn’t answer right away. He stood there a second longer than necessary, hands in his pockets, looking out into the dark like there was something to find there.

“No,” he said finally. Then, after a beat-“Eleanor needs me here. She-”

He stopped. The words didn’t land the way they used to.

“We’re building a life,” he tried again. “I barely-” He cut himself off, jaw tightening. Then forced it out, simpler. “But if I have to, I will. I don’t want to be protected because of who my wife is.”

Frank watched him for a moment, then sat down on the porch bench “Jack.” He lifted a hand, gesturing for him to sit.Jack hesitated, then sat beside him.

“If you want to stay,” Frank said, calm, even, “then stay. Maybe they call you, maybe they don’t. This isn’t Vietnam. People are lining up for it.”

A small pause.

“Build your life. Do your brunch weekends, or whatever she calls them.”

It wasn’t mocking. Not exactly.

“But don’t stay,” he added, turning slightly toward him, “if you’re going to turn around later and blame her for it.”

“I wouldn’t—”

“You say that now.”

Frank didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to.

“Then something stupid happens. You disagree over something that doesn’t really matter, it escalates. You see a guy that did a few tours at the hospital who you think you could’ve helped” A small beat. “And it slips out.”

Jack didn’t look at him.

“Before you even realize it,” Frank went on, “you’ve turned it into her fault. That she kept you here. That she made the choice for you.”

Another pause.

“That’s not fair to her. And it’s not true either.”

Jack swallowed, saying nothing.

Frank leaned back slightly, looking out into the dark now instead of at him.

“And if you want to go,” he said, just as steady, “then go. Make the request. Do what you think you’re supposed to do. Help those boys.”

He let that sit for a second. “But you already know what that costs.”

Jack’s jaw tightened. “You saw it,” Frank said. “With me and your mother.” His parents marriage was something he admired, but Jack did remember a few ugly arguments they had in his childhood, slamming doors and threats to leave, his mother crying in the bathroom with a half open door while his father was out. They managed to get out of the woods but it wasn’t easy. 

A longer pause this time.

“It’s not the distance that does it.” His voice dropped just slightly. “It’s the return.”

Jack finally looked at him.

“Coming back different,” Frank said. “To a place that stayed the same.”

 ——-

Jack didn’t stop in the living room. Voices carried, Kenny’s, April’s, something sharp and overlapping, but he walked past like none of it matter. The house smelled like dinner. Something familiar, he usually would be crawling out the windows of hunger by now, expecting his mother's food.But he didn’t turn. He wasn’t hungry. Instead, he went straight upstairs. 

 For a second, he just stood there in front of the white door of his childhood bedroom, hand still on the knob, like he needed that small barrier between him and everything else.

As he open it he could feel the warm in his cheek. The door clicked shut behind him, as he lay against it, taking a deep breath.

The room was lit only by the lamp on Eleanor’s side. He had changed some of it over the years, but it wasn’t entirely different. A few old football trophies still sat on the shelf, slightly crooked. Books had replaced some of the clutter. But the bones of it were still there.

He remembered the first time he brought Eleanor here. The first time she was meeting his family, they would stay for the weekend.

Back then, the room hadn’t been touched. Still frozen somewhere between his late teenage years. Paulina Porizkova and Christie Brinkley posters from Sports Illustrated taped to the walls, peeling at the corners. His jersey hung over a chair, cleats by the door, photos and trophies from his senior high school year.

She moved through it all like she’d stepped onto a television set: curious, amused, taking everything in with a kind of delighted disbelief. She had gone to a private school that looked more European than American: stone buildings, uniforms. They didn’t even have a football team.

Jack, on the other hand, had lived the familiar rhythm of a public American high school. Friday night lights bleeding into house parties, people showing up uninvited and staying anyway. Homecoming, prom, parking lots after dark, cheap beer, conversations that felt important until morning.

She couldn’t help but tease him.  He could still hear it light, delighted, just a little merciless. “You are such a golden boy, Jack.”

He’d rolled his eyes, but let her go on, watching her pick at it all with quiet amusement, like she was both entertained by it and a little fascinated, too. That the schools from the movies were real, and her boyfriend might have been the hot main football player from the teen romcoms.

He only stepped in when they were lying on bed, and she teased him reaching under his bed, already halfway through asking if she was about to find a stack of old Playboys. He remembered her asking if she would find any spread of a girl that looked like her in sticky pages.  He didn’t confirm it. Didn’t deny it either. His face got pink in embarrassment and caught her wrist, pulling her back before she could find anything. 

Eleanor was impossible back then. Impossibly hot, yes, but also, impossibly annoying. He didn’t know if she got better, or if he learned how to deal with her. 

Oh, he answered to himself, he definitely learned how to deal with her. On that weekend itself actually, when he noticed the way her gaze lingered just a second too long on his football stuff, the jersey, the photos of him in uniform, how she would bite her lip without noticing it.

After that, it became easy to stop her provocations. 

“What was all that noise, baby?” Eleanor asked, voice low, barely lifting her head, bringing him back to the present.

She was already in bed.

Her hair was loose, spread over the pillow, a small cool rag draped across her forehead and over her eyes. One arm rested above her head, the other along her side, her body slack in that way that meant she’d been lying there for a while.

Of course she heard. He had hoped she hadn’t.

Jack crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed, on his side, the mattress dipping under his weight.

“Kenny and I had a fight,” he said quickly, like  he could avoid Eleanor to process it “How are you, princess?”

She pull the rag down just enough to see him, a few blinks adjusting to the light she saw the contour of his face “Honey, your eye!” She pushed herself up slowly, the cloth slipping into her lap, her attention narrowing as she took in his face. Her hand found his, gentle but insistent. “Let me see.”

Her fingers were almost hesitant at first, mapping where it might hurt before she touched him at all. She lifted the ice pack carefully,  just enough to look without hurting him further. “That motherfucker.”

Under any other circumstance, he might’ve laughed. It was her favorite word to privately call people she hated. But Eleanor, soft, polished Eleanor, spitting out ‘motherfucker’ it always caught him off guard. Now it just made his ribs ache.

“It’s fine,” he said. “Looks worse than it is.”

Her gaze flicked lower, his jaw, the faint tension in the way he held himself, the way he didn’t quite straighten fully.

“Does anything else hurt?” she asked, softer now.

He shook his head once, dismissive. “Just the eye.”

It wasn’t convincing. Her fingers brushed lightly along his jaw anyway, then hovered near his ribs without quite touching, like she could see the ache there even if he wouldn’t name it.

“I just need some aspirin,” Jack added.

Her brows pulled together. Yes, he might be a brilliant doctor, but with himself he definitely underestimated his pain. “Baby, I don’t think aspirin’s going to do much for this.” Her hand settled against his back, slow, steady strokes.  “How are you even going to sleep?”

“How is the headache?” he asked, changing the subject to what mattered most.

“Better,” she said with a sigh. “Comes and goes, but… better.”

He nodded, like that was the part he cared about.

The room went quiet, silence settled between them easily, with only the sound of the fabric of his shirt being smooth by the slow, absent gentle strokes of her hands. Calming in a way nothing else was.

“Do you want to talk about the fight?” she asked after a moment, gentle, leaving space for him to decide. 

“Not really.” He exhaled, shoulders easing a fraction under her hand. Then, after a beat “Did you ever mention to your dad that I was working at the base because of the med school program?”

It landed oddly between them. Her hand slowed, perhaps even stopped for half a second, not enough to call it hesitation, but enough to notice if you were looking for it.

“Yeah,” she said after a small beat, thinking it through. “I think so. He asked me about your loans once, and I told him you didn’t have any because of the program.” Another quiet second. “Why?”

Jack looked down, rubbing his thumb against his palm. “Nothing.”

She let that sit. Her hand kept moving, quiet and consistent. “Why are you asking?” she ended up filling the space.

“Kenny said something.” He went to rub a hand over his face, wincing slightly when he forgot about the sensitivity of the area. “About me not being deployed yet. I just” He sighed “I don’t know. Thought maybe your dad might’ve… talked to someone.”

Eleanor watched him for a moment, her expression unreadable in that quiet, careful way she had.

“I see,” she said. There was a pause but no defensiveness. No rush to fix it.

Jack let out a small breath, leaning forward slightly, elbows on his knees. Her hand followed him without thinking, staying there, warm and steady against his back. Then, almost teasing, but not quite, he completed  “Well… that, and you not wanting to sleep alone.”

“I don’t,” she admitted, without hesitation. There was the faintest hint of a smile in her voice when she answered.

He slightly turned on bed to see her, she met his eyes “But that doesn’t mean I’d do something like that without talking to you first,” her tone was calm and confident, like there was nothing else to be said. “You know that.”

Her thumb traced a slow line along his back, almost absentminded again.

“Besides,” she went on, sighing, gentler now, “this whole thing is going to be over soon. My dad says it won’t last more than three months now. We don’t have to worry.”

There it was. That certainty. It sat somewhere between reassurance and hope, not quite anchored to either. Jack held her gaze for a second, like he was trying to find which one it was. 

“What if I went?” he asked. It slipped out quieter than he meant it to.

Eleanor didn’t pull away. “Baby… you won’t. We’re so close to you being out.” Was it two or one more year he had to do to fulfill his obligations? She couldn’t remember but they were close “And you’re doing such a good job at the base.”

She leaned in, pressing a light kiss somewhere near his shoulder, like sealing it there.

“They’re not going to send you.”

Eleanor reached to the nightstand and picked up the aspirin and the glass of water she had left there earlier, and when she sat back down again, she held both out without a word.

Jack took them, his fingers brushing hers, brief and warm.

She watched him swallow the pills, her expression still  worried, then looked at his face again, as if the swelling might have changed while she wasn’t looking. 

“I’m going to take a shower,”  he murmured. Now that the shock of it had passed, the rest of his body was making itself known in small, stubborn ways he had not bothered to mention.

“Mm.” Her eyes stayed on him. “Do you want to lay down first?”

He hesitated, glancing toward the bathroom door, then back at her “I should just—get it over with.”

Her hand returned to his back, slower this time. “Jack.”

He looked at her.

“Lay down for a minute.”

“I’m fine.”

“I know,” she said gently. “Lay down anyway.” There was no pressure in it. No insistence. Just that quiet certainty she had when she was asking for something she knew he needed.

He held her gaze for a beat longer, still resistant in that quiet way of his, before he gave in with the smallest sigh and lowered himself onto the bed.

Eleanor moved with him, but not the way she usually did. Tonight she did not curl into his chest or tuck herself against him. Instead she turned onto her side, facing him, one hand resting lightly against the pillow between them, as if she just wanted to keep watch. Her attention was entirely his.

The room went still again. Not awkward. Not empty. Just the same calm they always seemed to find with each other, even now.

Jack stared at the ceiling for a moment, jaw tight despite himself.

“You’re thinking too loud,” she said softly.

He turned his head to her “Am I?”

She scrunched her nose, lifting two fingers in a small pinch. “A little.” 

That almost got something like a smile out of him. Almost.

“It’s nothing,” he said, though it didn’t quite land that way.

Eleanor did not answer right away. She just watched him, her gaze moving over his face. The bruising along his eye was already darkening, the tension in his mouth, the way he was holding himself like he didn’t quite trust his own body not to give something away.

“It does not feel like nothing,” she said, almost under her breath.

Jack looked away.

Her fingers shifted slightly, brushing the back of his hand this time, a light, absent touch.

“If it is about Kenny,” she said after a moment, “or about what he said… “

He exhaled through his nose, neither agreeing nor denying it.

Eleanor did not push. She only stayed close, her hand still resting against his, patient in the way she always was when something hurt him and he did not want to name it.

Her voice stayed low “If you feel guilty, or if it is making you feel bad” she paused, as if choosing the right words, “We can do something.”

He looked back at her then. “What do you mean?”

“Something good.” Her voice warmed, quiet but certain. “A fundraiser. A donation. I can talk to a few friends, see what we can put together.” Her thumb moved gently against his hand. “Something that helps people,” she added. 

For a second, he looked like he might argue. Something in him tightened even as another part of him loosened.

Because he knew she meant well. This was how her world worked. And it would be useful. It would help people. It would mean something.

It would also be easier.

Part of him heard Kenny’s voice in his head. Heard his own. Heard the old, hard truth underneath it all: that maybe this was not the same as doing what he was meant to do. Maybe it was just a prettier way to feel less guilty. 

His fingers flexed once against the sheet, then stilled. He did not say any of that.

He looked at Eleanor instead. She was trying to make it better, just like she always did, like the way she handled the house, the dinners, the people, making sure everything ran smoothly before he even noticed it might not. Brushing it off when he told her she didn’t have to.

So he let the thought stay where it was, quiet and unresolved.

“You’d really do that?” he asked.

Eleanor’s expression turned tender in a way that made his chest ache. 

Rabbits came to see her, they sniff her skirts, hop around until they disappear. She reached for a few, scratching their backs and touching their twitching ears. At first, Love thought they were waiting, she tried to find the answer in their eyes. Nothing. 

Maybe she was truly getting exhausted after all the lovemaking. Usually she was much more intuitive with animals, and they rarely were as elusive as these ones had been. “If you don’t tell me what you want, I am afraid I will not be able to help, little one” she said to one that lingered by the French doors, before disappearing inside the palace. 

Love exhaled slowly, the breath leaving her heavier than it should have.

She drew her knees to her chest, resting her forehead against them, eyes returning to the horizon. Hours passed. She did not move. Morpheus did not come.

She did not blame him.

He was being measured. Careful. Avoiding a confrontation he knew, waited for him. Better to find Love when they were both cooled, when words would not cut quite so sharply.

Still…

Something inside her twisted at the delay. ‘Abandonment’, whispered something ugly in her head, and made her chest clench. She shut her eyes tightly. ‘This is irrational’. She knew it.

It shouldn’t feel like this. It was out of proportion. 

 She was the Queen of the Garden and Morpheus was King of the Dreaming. He was creator and shaper of his realm as she was of hers, of course he knew better than Love. Her role as Queen of the Dreaming was only recently put in practice, and for the past two weeks, she has only been executioning her matrimonial expectations. She gladly did it. But she didn’t have any real expertise in the threats that might have plagued the Dreaming. 

Surely, they happened during their marriage, but Eoster was never here. And when she was, Dream barely let her know anything of the realm. Let alone that they were under threat. 

So why—Why did she feel an excruciating impulse to refuse his judgment? Why did something deep inside her demand safety? Demand control? Why did she want—no, need—to see the vortex destroyed and ensure his safety. Her safety? And why did she felt as though the world was no longer secure? Why did she felt any reassurance Morpheus offered would not be enough? 

The thoughts pledge her head and no answer came. Just the sound of waves breaking in the shore, the ceaseless rhythm of currents. 

“May I join you?”

His voice was quiet. She had felt him long before he spoke. The shift in the air. The stillness that followed him. The way the wind seemed to hesitate.

She nodded, not looking at him.

For a moment, they simply watched the shoreline.

Morpheus stood beside her, hands clasped behind his back, black curls stirred by the wind. His pale complexion seemed almost luminous against the darkness of his realm.

A half-formed creature — all teeth and smoke — washed ashore and dissolved under the weight of the tide.

“This is where many nightmares are born,” he said. 

She quietly continued watching 

 “Most are half-imagined. Half-formed.” He continued,  “A gust of wind will break them apart.”

“I know.” Her voice was quiet, distant. “The Corinthian showed me sketches of curious shaped ones.”

That made him pause.

He always found odd the cultivated relationship his wife had with a few of his most dangerous nightmares.  Perhaps the oddest one being with the Corinthian. He was its creator and somehow Love knew more about him than Dream. 

Sketches? Dream never thought the Corinthian would be inclined to such contemplative hobbies. Perhaps he once wasn’t. 

But, even before he escaped to the Waking, Morpheus sensed that the nature of his nightmare was shifting dangerously. 

Jessamy used to spy, she would report  that the queen was always graceful dismissing salty comments from the Corinthian with justifications of that being just the ways of her lord husband and that patience and temperance were the best path in dealing with him. But even if her words were to keep peace, the more time the Corinthian spent with Love, the more rebellious he became.

The silence between the couple said more than any words. Things she learned, time spent, all because of his absence. 

“You always had kindness for nightmares,” Morpheus said at last, his tone thoughtful, almost curious. “And yet you deny it to a mortal woman. I fail to comprehend you, my dream.”

That made her turn.

Slowly.

Her eyes met his, and there was no softness left in them, only cold logic. “This mortal girl threatens our existence.” Her voice did not rise. It sharpened. “Nightmares don’t. Nightmares are part of your realm and they merely are as you made them.” She mumbled more to herself than to him “Too perfect sometimes for their own good.”

His jaw tightened slightly. “She is not a threat.”

“Yes, you told me this.” Love replied, almost gently.  “Yet, she walks on us. The Dreaming, your realm, your home. Our home” She stressed the last part. “ Offered no barriers, bowing to her as it does to you. How is that not a danger?”

 “She is not a criminal.” He replied

“She does not need to be.” The wind shifted, lifting her veil slightly, revealing the tension in her jaw. “She destabilizes our existence simply by being.”

“She did not know what she was.”

“And now she does.” Her gaze held his. Unflinching. 

“Knowledge is power. You handed it to her freely.” He kept watching her, the precise cold ancient calculation. No hysteria, no emotional fear. “I am the one failing to understand you, husband. Truly, you are Endless, there is no force equal to you but your own blood. But how can you give power carelessly?”

For so long he thought his wife was only inclined to frivolous court games, gossip and ministration from her sisters, but how wrong he was. She had the kind of mind that advised kings, and ended wars before they began.  He heard before, as did everyone, that it was a common trait between the Ladies of Emotions. From Happiness to Melancholy, they had the ability to have a high understanding of pieces in play, understanding even what Endless could not see. 

That was one of the reasons so many of them were courted by gods of war and ended up marrying them. It was not only because war gods wanted to have devastating beautiful wives by their side, but because they were one-of-the-kind war advisors.  He did not believe it until seeing it with his own eyes.

“She cannot control what she does not understand.” He argued. Morpheus heard himself as measured. Reasonable.

“She cannot be stopped if she understands.” Love did not raise her voice. If anything, it dropped—quieter, steadier. More dangerous.  “Others will teach her. Twist her. Turn her against us, against you. It is not difficult to make you a villain, my love. Not to those who know how.”

“It will not happen.” He said it with certainty. A kind of certainty that Eoster heard before in men’s tongues when they are so confident of winning a battle that they start to undermine their enemies. 

“You do not know that” There it was again—that tone. Not panic. Not desperation one might expect of a queen that look soft and delicate as Eoster looked, but cold assessment. Like she knew he was going to fail before he took action. Morpheus did not like to be contradicted, and at this stage, Eoster was not afraid of his reaction, but of him not listening to her.

“Matthew will watch her.”

Something flickered across her face then. “You would place that responsibility on him?” A soft scoff escaped her, but it held no humor. “On your creation?”  She turned her gaze briefly to the sea, needing distance.

Morpheus did not answer. He didn’t know what to say. He did not want to fight with Eoster. Not after being in such idyllic peace with her since the Solstice.

She turned her attention to the crash of waves. Letting the uncomfortable silence sit between them, so she could offer an uncomfortable solution that has been on the back of her mind. She promised to never resort to such tactics, that this was something her sisters did simply to overexert their power. 

But now, Love was wondering if she did not misjudge her sisters, and failed to considered all the variables in play.

 “There are ways.” she quietly said.

His gaze sharpened.

“My sisters, and your brother, the Prodigal, have done it many times. The law is clear: we do not touch mortals who are not active threats.” A pause. “But laws have always allowed… interpretation.”

“Eoster—” Morpheus was sensing where it was going. It was a fine line between playing with interpretations and bending the rules.

“Is it a crime,” she continued, her tone almost conversational, “if something unfortunate occurs?”

The sea roared beneath them.

“A coincidence.” He repeated. 

She met his eyes. “Accidents often occur to mortals. How unfortunate it is for the mistresses of my sisters’ husbands…” She let the words settle. “Even the Fates often admit ‘The universe always favors coincidences in the name of the Ladies of Emotion’”

“Would you kill a mortal girl under false pretense?” Morpheus frowned at it, puting in clear words what she was subtly implying.

“No.” Not hesitation. Precision. “Fate would. Casualty would.” The logic in her words, the simplicity of how she was putting it…. “It is not a crime simply because it benefits us.”

It made him stare. Not recognizing this version of her. “You are not yourself.” The words rolled out of his tongue before he could even think of how they sound.

Love felt it like a physical blow. Her expression did not break—but something behind it closed. She wanted to scream, to say that of course she was not herself, he was not acting like a king, a husband, or as an Endless should! But she knew that it would not make him listen, it only made him angry and resentful.

Slowly, she stepped closer. Close enough to feel his breath. Close enough to make him still. And then, precise as a blade she said “You punished Nada for less.”

He glanced at her. His expression darkened. “This is not Nada.”

“No,” she agreed softly. “This is worse.”

“She is a child.” He said instantly.

“She is a vortex.”

“She is afraid.” He defended it.

“She is dangerous.” They stood close now. Too close. Love searched his face, waiting for hesitation, doubt. For him to see her. To listen to her.

But nothing came. Only heavy immovable silence. Morpheus was good at that. 

She exhaled slowly. Something inside her recalibrated, her voice shifting, not softer, but steadier. “I admire your restraint,” she said. “Not acting rashly. As you have before.”

It sounded like praise. She wished it could be.

“But this is not the time to hesitate, and what you are choosing now…” She shook her head, fighting with her own words “Puts me in danger.” Her voice dropped. “Not just me. If I am not enough, Lucienne. Matthew. Mervyn. All your creations.”

In a movement she did not even predict, she reached for his cheek, her thumb brushed against his skin as she tilted her head slightly. It was soft and warm. “You”. How could he not understand, not see, that she couldn’t lose him now? 

And for a second, Morpheus almost leaned into it. Almost. A consideration of maybe Eoster was right. Maybe the course of action should spill blood now, to not spill more later. To act conservative, defensive.

But the moment passed.

Duty reasserted itself. The vortex was not a threat. Not yet. And he would made sure it would not become one.

The sea swallowed another unfinished thing.

Morpheus spoke at last. “I have agreed to help Rose find her brother and bring Gault back tonight.” Final. He would not consider it. He would not listen. 

Love stilled. Her hand lingered for half a second longer, then fell in defeat. the same one that settled in her shoulder, that made her lower her head, fighting the tears that burned behind her eyes. He felt the cold wind where her warm touch had settled a second ago.

She turned away, facing the ocean, back to the things that tried and failed to survive.

The wind caught her veil, brushing it against her cheek as if to hide what she would not show. Her arms crossed over herself, as if suddenly cold.

Morpheus watched her. He saw the withdrawal. He felt it. Waves receding into the sea. She would understand. Eventually. She would.

Very quietly, when she trusted her voice not to break “I hope you understand what you are doing, Morpheus.”

This time— he hesitated. Then stepped closer. His hands came to her arms, gently, as if to warm her. She did not push him away, although she didn’t lean to it, as she might have done earlier that day.

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Come inside, my dream.” 

He wished to put duty aside, to be back at the idyllic state from before, to return to the peaceful embrace. And Love knew that she might sound childish to let work and differences in governance cloud her judgment and interfere in what would certainly be a pleasant morning. But she couldn’t. She did not move. Did not lean into him. The wind lifted her veil.

She did not turn when he finally stepped away.

“I will stay a while longer,” she murmured instead, her voice quieter now, worn thin by the argument. “I will come find you later.”

There was a pause, one of those small, fragile silences where something might still be said, something that could soften the edges of what had just passed between them.

Nothing came.

Only the retreat of his presence. Not footsteps, not sound, just the absence of him, like the air exhaling after being held too long.

She sighed, sitting back on the floor, and as all her strength was consumed, letting her back lay against the cold floor, skirts spilling around her like pale foam caught on rock.

Above her, the sky churned.

The Dreaming did not keep a constant firmament, not here—not at the Shores of Night. Clouds moved too quickly, too heavily, folding over one another in bruised shades of violet and blue-black, as though the heavens themselves were restless. There were no stars.

She watched them without blinking.

The wind moved freely over her now, unimpeded by walls or arches, threading through her hair, lifting the edges of her veil where it had fallen back against the stone. It cooled her skin, though not entirely. There was still a lingering warmth beneath it, something unsettled, something that refused to quiet.

Below, another wave crashed.

She closed her eyes, imagining shapes in attempts, in quiet, desperate efforts to be something more than what they were. Each one failing in its own small way. Each one returning to the sea without ever quite understanding why.

The rhythm settled into her.

Wave. Break. Struggle. Dissolve.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Her breathing slowed to match it.

At some point—she could not have said when—her eyes grew heavy. Not with true sleep, but a drifting, a loosening of edges.

The sky above blurred, the movement of clouds smearing into one another, the dark and light folding together until they were no longer distinct.

The sound of the sea did not fade.

It deepened.

It drew her under.

Love did not realize when she closed her eyes.

—--------------------------

“Are you an artist, dear?” 

The Corinthian had not heard her approach. He flinched. Barely. A subtle tightening at the spine, a flick of the hand. The notebook snapped shut. When he turned, she was already there,  leaning just slightly over his shoulder, smiling, composed. The queen had the same annoying habit of Morpheus, just appearing behind, without walking and making sounds.

The Corinthian flinched. Barely. A subtle tightening at the spine, a flick of the hand. The notebook snapped shut.

“No.”

Eoster drifted around him as though she had not startled a nightmare. She seated herself opposite, gently reaching for the teapot, and pouring with mastery the red cinnamon-like smelled liquid in his cup.

“Well,” she went on lightly, “you certainly have the talent for it. Though I could not quite understand the shapes.” A pause, thoughtful, head tilting. “Is it a creature, or a thought?”

“Both”

She blinked, waiting for him to elaborate.

He did not.

Instead, he watched her for a moment longer than necessary, his expression unreadable behind the dark lenses. When he spoke again, there was something almost thoughtful in it.

“He never took you there, did he?”

The question caught her off guard in the smallest of ways. It always did, when her husband entered a conversation uninvited like that. The color rose faintly to her cheeks, and she lowered her gaze to the table, watching the pattern of the icing on top of the biscuits. 

“My lord husband is very busy, you know this” she said, with practiced softness. “I will ask Lucienne to take me there, if you would be so kind as to explain where ‘there’ is.”

The nightmare could sense in her tone of voice and see through her green irises, no matter how good she was in hiding it. And The Corinthian would admit: Lady Love was almost perfect in hiding her scars. One of the best he ever encountered. But nightmares were made to sense these things, to feed on that sadness, abandonment, loneliness, traumas, things they could use to distort and cause bad nights to sleepers.

Sometimes he wondered if this wasn’t a test. Morpheus putting her here just to see if nightmares would go against his order and play with the queen’s mind. It would be easy, far too easy, half of her fears she was already living and the other half was simplifying to make it even worse during her sleeping. Mistresses in her bed, bastards in her court, public humiliation, it was tempting by how colorful he could make it.

At the same time, however, even if he knew the worst of beings, he could not imagine that Morpheus would put someone like Lady Love in that position.  She was annoyingly caring, curious and seemed to crave for the affection she was evidently denied.

“ ‘There’ is the Shores of Night,” he said. “Where half-formed things wash up. Creatures that were never finished. Dreams forgotten before they could become anything. Nightmares that failed.”

Her attention returned to him immediately.

“They try to survive,” he continued. “For a while.”

“Are they your friends?” she asked.

“They don’t live long enough to be anyone’s friends.”

There was a pause, brief and thoughtful. A small crease formed between her brows.

“Have you ever talked to them?”

“No.”

“Then how would you know?”

There it was—that soft, disarming logic. The kind that didn’t challenge, only asked. Morpheus would never question that.

He raised his cup to her in a graceful defeat.

She raised her own cup in response, sipping her tea, before giving a small laugh, looking at the Corinthian, her hand in her mouth, she knew she had disarmed his train of thought. She usually did, and most of the time won every discussion they had. 

The Nightmare couldn’t help but smile, sharing a laugh. As if the Corinthian ever imagined sharing a laugh with the Queen of the Dreaming.

The laughter however distorts, in a way that made Eoster frowns. It stretches. Like tape pulled too tight. Or like signal interference in an old television. The garden flickers. Green becomes gray that becomes something else entirely. Sound drains, then returns wrong—flattened, distant, as though heard through walls.

It does not end, like dreams usually do. It fractures.

Until it is back. She is still there. But not precisely there. The perspective shifts. Not within her body. Outside it. Above. Behind. Removed.

She is watching herself now. Eoster seated at the table, hands folded around porcelain, speaking, smiling. And the Corinthian, across from her, head tilted, eyes hidden, listening more than speaking.

The angle was from above. There was a frame. A window. Distance. Observance. 

“My lord,” a voice says. She didn’t bother turning her head. She knew who it was. Jessamy.  The raven before Matthew. She didn’t fell strange watching herself from above. She felt wary.

“They don’t speak of any matter of importance. They garden most of the time.” Jessamy spoke, as if reporting the updates from the kingdom. 

Garden. The word lands strangely. It does not belong. 

“Garden?” The voice that answers is deep, velveteen, threaded with quiet disbelief and a tiny bit of condescending humor. It wasn’t near, close by, it wasn’t a voice in her head. It was her voice. But it wasn’t her voice. It was his.  Morpheus.

“Yes,” comes Jessamy’s reply, pulling her, or better, her husband attention back  “I was also surprised. But they plant,  talk, drink tea for hours, sometimes laugh.”

They were talking about her. About Eoster. She felt the curiosity but wariness of Morpheus as soon as Jessamy said “laugh”. Eoster could see and feel his thoughts, he was suspicious. He couldn’t understand.

Silence. Not empty. Measured. Morpheus didn’t feel bothered to feel the silence, he was pondering the possibilities, while watching the pair putting gloves and kneeling in the ground.

“She speaks highly of you, my lord,” Jessamy adds after a moment, testing the space between words. “I don’t think—”

“I am not concerned on what my wife talks about” Cold. Immediate. Final. For him it was obvious. His wife had nothing to add in any conversation. She would lie, twist, use her softness to make him bend to her will. Eoster wished she could screamed against Morpheus thoughts, but it was useless.

Jessamy lowers her head further. “Of course.”

“She has what she wanted,” he continues, voice even, almost detached. “A marriage surpassing her sisters’. Position. Permanence.” A pause. “She would not risk destroying this realm.” Another pause. “Nor herself.”

Jessamy shifted slightly, uncertain. “Then… what is your concern, my lord?”

Morpheus’ eyes narrowed imperceptibly. Two possibilities.

He weighed two possibilities, each as dangerous as the other. Either she moved with the natural force of her being, her influence spilling outward unconsciously, captivating, bending the Corinthian to her side. Perhaps a motherly bond? Maybe. Perhaps pure manipulation? Possible. The line was always too thin.  

Or it was the Corinthian moving deliberately, drawing her in, using her, shaping her soft nature to align with some plan Morpheus could not yet see.

Either she ensnared him, as is her nature or he ensnared her, which would be… worse.

Either way, the outcome was the same: influence. Attachment. Alignment.

Eoster could feel how it made sense to Morpheus. How no other possibility would be considered. How sure of himself he was. 

“Love does not require intent, permission” he said at last. His voice was low, more to the empty air than to Jessamy. “It binds, whether willed or not. It invades and refuses to leave. An invisible dependency.”

Below, the Corinthian’s posture had changed again subtly, but undeniably. Less guarded. He leaned closer to her, settling into the space she had made.

Morpheus felt the tug in his chest, a strange, bitter recognition. Love. It was the closest thing to addiction he had ever known. Not the sweetness he might have desired. Not the passion of a fleeting mortal affair. But the inevitability of her presence, the way she entered a space and altered it, the way she could reach into something and claim it without asking.

He did not trust her.

Not her intentions. Not her nature. Not her power.

And yet…

He could not look away.

“Shall I separate them?” Jessamy asked.

“No.” The word came slowly, final.

Love turned toward the reflection on the wall. For a moment, she saw only herself—then him, layered over her, watching. The fabric of the memory began to twist, to draw inward, tightening like something pulled too far. The edges warped. Sound thinned. The space collapsed in on itself.

Then—

the violent crash of waves.

She gasped.

Air tore into her lungs too fast, too sharp, her chest rising in a shallow, uneven pull as though she had been dragged up from deep water. For a moment she did not move. Could not. Her fingers twitched weakly against the floor, unresponsive, her body slow to remember itself.

“My queen—”

Hands, warm and insistent, at her shoulders. Elijah.

“My queen, can you hear me?” His voice was too close, too tight, the restraint in it barely holding. He had already dropped to his knees beside her, one hand braced at her back, the other hovering—uncertain whether to steady her or not, as if afraid she might break under too firm a touch.

Love blinked, but the world did not settle at once. It tilted—just slightly. The light wrong. Her stomach turned faintly, a hollow, unpleasant shift that made her press her lips together before drawing another careful breath.

“Elijah…” Her voice came softer than intended, thinner. She paused, swallowing, gathering herself piece by piece. “I am well.”

He did not look convinced.

His gaze moved over her quickly, too quickly, taking in the fact that she was on the ground, that she had not risen, that her hand still rested against the floor as though she needed its support.

“You were not answering,” he said, quieter now, but no less tense. “I thought—” He stopped himself. Reset. “My lady… you were lying here.”

Love exhaled slowly, closing her eyes for the briefest moment as she steadied the lingering dizziness. When she opened them again, she was more composed—but not entirely. Not yet.

“I must have fallen asleep,” she said.

“On the floor?” There was a faint edge to it—not disrespect, but disbelief. Poorly disguised concern.

She did not answer.

Elijah hesitated, then let it pass, though the unease remained plainly in the set of his shoulders.

“My Lady,” he continued, more carefully now, “I have been looking for you. Lord Morpheus has returned, with Gault.” A brief pause. “She was… holding the vortex’s brother. No one seems to know with what intent.”

Eoster frowned slightly, slower than she should have, as though the words had to travel further to reach her.

“Gault…?” The name felt misplaced in the sentence. Wrong.

Hostage. Ill intent.

It did not fit.

The last time they had spoken, Gault had been quiet—fractured in a way that turned inward, not outward. Ashamed of what she was. Of what she could not change. A nightmare who did not wish to be one.

Dangerous, yes.

But not like this.

“I must see her,” Love said at last, the decision arriving before her body had fully caught up with it.

“The king has taken her to the throne room,” Elijah replied, rising as she did—but not stepping away, still close, still watching. “Lucienne said he would hear her.” A slight hesitation. “Though… with all respect, my lady, we both know how little the king is inclined to listen.”

——-

When the greats doors yield opening to Eoster presence, the judgement was already in session. Of course it was. Morpheus would not wait for her. He had not summoned her to it, nor sought her counsel beforehand. And, upon the most candid reflection, she could not claim surprise. Before Eoster, he had reigned for ages uncounted without a wife or equal at his side in such matters.  He had taken lovers, yes, affections, indulgences, fleeting devotions, but would he ever put them to make ruling decisions along his side? No. Not even her brothers-in-law were that stupid.  

He was learning, she told herself. Slowly. Painfully. And if there was some consolation to be found in that thought, it was accompanied, most unhelpfully, by another: that he had shown  capable of rapid improvement in bed, but not so much in politics. The recollection was so ill-timed that she dismissed it at once, though not without effort.

“Do you have any idea what his life is like in the waking world?”  The voice drew her fully into the present. Gault. Her voice trembling, her composure fragile but intact.

The queen ignored her husband, on top of his stairs, and Lucienne, on the bottom at his side. She barely glanced at them, closing the distance between her and Gault in seconds.

“Gault—”  Eoster reached her with both hands, gathering the nightmare into her arms with a force that spoke not of decorum, but of relief.

“My child…” she murmured, holding her close, as though to assure herself that she was indeed returned. “Are you hurt? Tell me—are you well?”

“My lady—” Gault clung to her, the remnants of her composure giving way beneath the gentleness of the address. “I am. I only wished—”

Eoster drew back just enough to see her face, her hands still firm upon her arms, searching, assessing, as she didn’t quite believe that the nightmare was back and whole.

“Did you take the child?” the queen asked, her voice low, gentle, yet requiring truth.

“No,” Gault answered at once, shaking her head. “No, my lady. He suffers. He is abused. I only wished to give him somewhere safe. Somewhere he might be… loved.”

At this, Eoster’s expression altered entirely. There was no suspicion in it—only recognition, and something very near sorrow. Her hand rose, brushing away the trace of a tear from Gault’s cheek, her palm lingering there in quiet reassurance.

“Of course,” she murmured.

“Humans are not meant to live in dreams.” Morpheus spoke without raising his voice, yet it settled over the room with the weight of conclusion.

Eoster did not release Gault.

But she turned.

“As long as he remained there,” he continued, “the child had no life, nor the chance for one.”

Gault looked to him now, though Eoster’s hand remained clasped in hers, as though strength might yet be borrowed from it.

“He is abused,” she said, more firmly now. “He suffers.”

“And you,” Morpheus replied, “used that suffering to fashion a realm of your own.”

Eoster’s hold tightened—only slightly.

“My lord husband,” she said, her tone still gentle, though no longer yielding, “Gault has never sought dominion. She has come to me often, without ambition, without artifice. You have seen it yourself.” A pause, measured. “In her heart, she wished only to become something kinder than she was made.”

“And you would encourage such a transformation?”

There was, if not accusation, then something very near it.

Eoster did not look away.

“No,” she said evenly. “I would not presume to alter your design.” Her voice softened, though her composure did not. “I only saw what was already in her heart, and sought to ease what suffering I could.” There followed a silence. Not the absence of sound, but the presence of something unspoken—held between them in the meeting of their eyes. It was not accusation, nor quite defiance, yet it carried a meaning no less distinct for its restraint.

In her gaze there lingered a quiet insistence—so fleeting it might have been missed by any less accustomed observer, that what she had offered the Nightmare had not been born merely of kindness, but of recognition.

As though she had known that suffering.

As though, once, she had wished, however vainly, to be eased of her pain, and had, in time, learned to do without it.

“I wished to be a dream,” Gault said, her voice trembling. “To inspire, rather than to frighten.”

Eoster’s gaze lifted fully to Morpheus. “Is there no nobility in that?” Hopeful, searching, as though the question might yet give light to his judgment. 

“The choice is not ours to make,” he replied. “We are not free to alter our nature. We are as we were created.” Eoster was still. Then, slowly, she released Gault.

“If that were true,” Gault pressed, her voice unsteady but insistent, “why did the others leave when you were gone?” 

“Not all of us chose to leave,” Lucienne said. “And nearly all have returned.” 

 “Do you think they returned out of love?”Gault echoed, with a sharpness newly found “Or fear of what you might do if they did not?” 

“Gault,” Eoster said softly, a warning wrapped in kindness, her hand tightening briefly around the Nightmare’s. Her gaze lifted once more to her husband. “She answered a suffering child, my love.” There was no defiance, only a plea—barely concealed in the slight inclination of her head, in the softness she allowed herself before him and no other. “Will you condemn compassion itself?”

He did not look at her.

He knew better.

It was not doubt that stayed him, his judgment had been formed, weighed, and found unalterable. And yet, there was in her voice a quality he had discovered in the solstice and yet learned how to disregard; a gentleness that did not oppose him, and was therefore far more dangerous than any challenge.

To meet her gaze would be to invite reconsideration.

Not because he was wrong, but because she would make him wish, however briefly, that he might be. And that, he could not permit.

“And you would answer that suffering,” he said at last, his voice even, untroubled by all that it concealed, “by removing him from his world.”

“By easing it,” Eoster released Gault’s hand then—not in retreat, but in resolve—and gathered her skirts as she ascended the steps. “By giving him what he has been denied.”

He heard the movement before he allowed himself to see it—the soft fall of fabric, the absence of Gault’s hand in hers.

Eoster ascending.

“By giving him what he has been denied.” One step.

It would have been nothing, to look, to meet her halfway, to soften, to allow even the smallest concession.

“That is not her purpose,” he said.

“And yet she chose it.” Another step.

Now he could feel her nearness, not touch, not quite, but something more insistent for its restraint. It pressed upon him without force, without demand. She did not challenge him. She did not defy him.

He looked then.

He should not have.

There was no resistance in her expression. No anger to harden him against her. Only that quiet, searching hope, unspoken, but unmistakable. It would have been easier had she argued. Easier, had she opposed him openly. He might have answered that. He might have stood firmer for it. He knew how, for thousands of years, they had done it. But this? 

this gentleness, this faith, asked something far more dangerous.

“That does not make it permitted.” His voice had a steadiness that was impossible to conceive.

“And intent?” She immediately replied. Love was close now. Close enough that the distance between them was no longer ceremonial. Close enough that he could see it plainly. The question she did not speak aloud.

Not ‘why’. She understood him too well for that.

But ‘must you?’

“Does it bear no weight in your judgment?” He saw her furrowing her brows. It did. It weighed more than he would ever allow to be known.

There was a pause, slight, contained, but real, and within it lay the full measure of what she asked of him. Not argument. Not reason. Exception.

For her. For what she believed. For what she felt.

He could yield. That was the danger. “Not here,” he said.

Nothing in his tone betrayed it. No hesitation, no fracture, only the same unyielding certainty. And yet he saw it, the way the words reached her, not wounding, not quite, but altering something nevertheless.

She held his gaze a moment longer, as though searching still, as though the answer might yet change if she remained. It did not. “If that is your decision…” Her head inclined in polite acceptness, not in agreement, but in acknowledgment.

And he accepted even that without movement, though he knew what it cost.

She stepped to his side. Her hands folded before her white dress he early conjectured protecting her from Rose’s eyes. And just as before she was composed and serene to all appearances. Only he had seen the effort of it, the brief fracture before it was mended.

Not because she yielded, but because she understood that he would not.

“I am not afraid,” Gault said, drawing breath, her eyes lifting toward Eoster, and finding there, perhaps not agreement, but something like sorrow—quiet, enduring, already turned toward farewell. She smiled then, faintly. “Better that than to make others afraid.”

“You should be,” Morpheus replied quietly.

He did not raise his voice. He did not need to. The words carried their own authority, as inevitable as the dimming of light at dusk.

His shadow stretched along the steps, lengthening as though drawn by will rather than the fall of any natural light, deepening the space between them even as he stood unmoving.  “ A Nightmare's purpose is to reveal a dreamer's fears, that they may face them.” 

The shadow moved, subtly, inexorably, as though answering the decree itself. Eoster pulled her veil to cover her face again “Perhaps a few thousand years in the Darkness will reveal your fears.”

Gault did not flinch. That, more than anything, made the decision feel complete. She stood her ground. “Even a Nightmare can dream, my lord.”

Love couldn’t watch Gault disintegrating. As the darkness closed over the nightmare, Eoster turned her face away, immediately remembering Pride’s voice: ‘A queen must show strength’.

 Her sister used to repeat it a thousand times. Even if Eoster rolled her eyes, and mumbled that she knew it already. And Pride used to always say ‘Yes, but you are too tender. You need to train your body and your mind, Love. There will be moments where your future husband will sigh lovely at your compassion. But there will be others where your excessive compassion might read as weakness or worse: defiance’. Eoster used to always nod, but think to herself, that her future husband would understand her nature. 

 Morpheus didn’t make any effort before, and now, he took his time noticing it. The slight turn of his queen’s head to the left. Not the kind of movement she usually allowed herself, especially not in front of subjects.

 Her body acted with repulse quicker than her mind and her manners could contain it. It didn’t carry grace or ceremony, she simply couldn’t bear looking at dear Gault, who only tried, who only cared, being punished, while the vortex kept running around free.

Her fingers curled faintly at her side. A breath caught, held longer than it should have been, before she let it go with quiet care, as though reminding herself, reclaiming the composure that had always come naturally to her. It should not have required effort. And yet it did. ‘Why?’ was another question that Eoster was pushing it to the back of her mind so she could focus on the current issues.

The silence that followed was loud and at the same time empty. Similar to when the only source of warmth from a room, is put out. Eoster didn’t move, besides from her fingers that were intertwined against her belly, her usual posture.

Morpheus broke it. “You feel her punishment was unjust?”  His tone was contained, the same stillness he carried in any other conversation.

 Eoster opened her mouth to somehow come with words that would be more gentle than what she was thinking. But when she turned, her voice died. His gaze did not fall on her. 

It fell on Lucienne. 

She straightened, fixing her glasses, her hand resting against the spine of her book, her expression composed but not untouched. There was no fear in her, no hesitation, but something quieter and edged with a kind of distant hope.

“I used to be something else, my lord” she said. “Before you made me your librarian. We all change, sir.” He gave no answer. So she continued, the hope for understanding or perhaps compassion evident. Eoster couldn’t help but to give the librarian a smile.  “Even you, perhaps. One day.”

The queen thought about saying that he already has, or was starting to. Give support to the librarian’s words, and maybe, Morpheus could rethink his decision. But, the bond made Eoster feel like it would be useless, or perhaps not so drastic, but not enough to make him change his decision. 

He descended the step of the throne with measured calm, each motion deliberate, unhurried, as though nothing in the world had shifted at all, raising his hand, offering it to Eoster.

She looked at his hand, and for a moment, just a second, she did not move. Something in her resisted, not in defiance, but in confusion. She was never in the end of the stick that was not being scolded, and now even if she defied him, went against his judgement, he still offered his hand to her as he would in any previous day before this vortex mess. 

Her pulse felt louder than it should have. Slowly, carefully, Eoster placed her hand in his. The contact was light, deliberate. 

Lucienne watched  the new dance between her royals. Could it be that this ‘change’ she spoke of, was not that far away? Could Lady Love in such a short period of time, already made such an impact in the Lord of Dreams?

“Lucienne,” he said, his hand closed more securely around Eoster’s, steadying her, as she moved with him with a small delay in her first step, thanks to her skirts. “I am aware that, in my absence, you were required to make decisions in my stead.”

“And I am grateful to you.”

The words settled into the space between them. They continued downward, the distance closing gradually between throne and floor, each step taken in quiet synchrony that did not quite erase the tension lingering at her side. Eoster did not look at him. Her gaze remained ahead, her composure carefully reassembled, though the effort of it had not entirely faded.

“But I have returned.” Only then did he lift his gaze fully to Lucienne. “You may go back to the library.” His voice did not raise, no edge of reprimand, and yet the shift was unmistakable. The allowance that had existed in his absence is over.

Lord Morpheus might have changed, but not for Lucienne, not for his subjects and the way he govern. No, that was the same. She merely forgot it, or got hope for a second, seeing him with Lady Love. He changed for his wife, not for his realm, not for his creations.

Lucienne inclined her head, receiving it as it was given. “As you wish, my lord”. She turned her heels, walking away from the couple. The doors closed behind her with a quiet finality.

“You should not have said that to Lucienne.”  There was no audience now. No need for stillness shaped for others. And yet the words came sharper than she intended, quicker than she would have chosen.

Eoster had not turned to him when she spoke, but he felt it immediately as he felt when she dropped his hand, walking a few steps away,  her back to him. The distance that threatened to form before it fully existed.

“Lucienne has done much,” he said, more quietly than before, the formality in his voice softening as he turned toward her. “I merely wished to ease her of her duties, my lady.” Morpheus didn’t lie to Eoster, so she knew he either believed it, or chose this was the better version to tell his wife, one that would make his actions not sound as dismissive as he knew they sounded.

Eoster let out a small, humorless breath.

“Don’t patronize me, husband.”

Now she turned. There was something unsteady in it, not in the defiance itself, for that she had always been capable of, but in its sharpness, its immediacy. It lacked the careful shaping she usually gave her words, the precision that made her in most of their arguments not lose her stance.

“You were reminding her that she is as you made her,” she said, her voice tightening despite herself. “That she might do well to remember it-”

A brief uneven pause, one that she did not predict and cut her speech in half mixed with a loud breath. Her gaze kept him searching, though for what, she did not seem to know.

“Are you going to do the same with me?”

The question slipped out before she could shape it, and once spoken, it lingered between them. Morpheus stilled. He knew that fear. And no veil and resilience could disguise it. Not because she had named it, but because he had made it.

For a moment, he said nothing. Then, slowly, he stepped toward her, closing the distance between them. His hand found hers again, more deliberately now, his fingers curling around it with a gentleness he recently learned.

He lifted it slightly, enough to press a quiet kiss to her knuckles, an old gesture, perhaps, but one he had not offered nearly as much as he should have.

When he spoke, his voice was low, gentle, almost like a velveteen whisper in her ears.

“I know you do not agree with me,” he said quietly. 

His thumb brushed once over her hand, absent, almost instinctive.

“I know,” he continued, his gaze steady on hers, “and nevertheless, I would hear you. I will always be honored to hear from you. Today and always.” That, too, was true. He had learned that much. Slowly. Imperfectly.

Eoster’s gaze softened, just slightly, not in surrender, but in recognition. In the quiet, unwilling awareness that this, at least, was not as it had been.

But Morpheus did not stop there.

“These matters,” he said, more measured now, “are not simple. They require distance. Clarity. The ability to act without being swayed.”

His eyes held hers, still gentle, still attentive, but firm in a way that did not yield.

“You feel deeply,” he added, and there was something almost like admiration in it, something that lingered warmer than the rest. “It is one of your greatest strengths. It is why you understand your creations, and perhaps even mine, better than I could ever do”

A pause. “It is also why you should not bear this weight.” His other hands, reach her cheek, underneath her veil, his thumb gently caressing her skin “You need not trouble yourself with such judgments,” he went on, his voice lowering again, as though to ease what could not be undone. “They are mine to carry.”

“You have your own domains,” he said. “The spaces where you bring a harmony this realm does not otherwise possess, but needs.”

She lifted her eyes to him, and he saw it immediately, the way they had turned slightly glassy beneath the veil. For Morpheus, it was evidence of how long she had been made to expect dismissal, correction, restraint, of how quickly her body still reached for that old certainty, even now.

And part of it could be that. It would explain the unsteadiness in her, the restlessness that had begun to linger in her presence these past days.

But it was not only that. It could be trauma, although Eoster did not feel like her reactions were entirely in response to it.  It was  Gault. It was the Vortex. It was Lucienne. She did not agree with his decisions there, she couldn’t see logic in it. Not in the way he had intended. To her, motive mattered. It always had. It shaped consequence, swayed judgment, gave meaning and context where he could see the situation in play. .

And yes—she might be overly cautious with Rose, but that happened because the threat was real. It was walking on them during their most intimate time, giving it enough time to mature, what else could it do?

She might be tender about Gault, her assessment could’ve been clouded by her own feelings, but she couldn’t understand why motive didn’t count to Morpheus. 

Motive meant everything. 

“My dream, you-” He began, but the words did not complete.

The door opened again.

“Loosh? You in here?” They both turned. Mervyn stood at the threshold, hand still on the door, blinking once as he took them in.

“Whoops. The door was unlocked.” He paused. Different from the days that had passed in the Dreaming, both Morpheus and Eoster were dressed properly, not completely naked,  folded into each other, completely lost in touches that haunted the staff. 

Dressed and composed, Mervyn had not anticipated. Perhaps, if it was enough to make the majesties put on clothes, the vortex thing might’ve been even more serious than he thought.

“Arun” she said kissing one in each cheek. 

“Eleanor, you know you would be perfect to work with an MRI machine” she stayed silent for a second, because she had no idea how to reply to Arun. She knew there was a joke coming in that she would not understand.

“Such a Magnetic presence”  Arun said with a sweet smile. Eleanor said an “ah” along with a polite laugh, and could hear Jack thinking ‘kill me now’ as he shook his hand, Eleanor  took a step to the side and went to say hi to Madeleine.

“Madeleine, darling” Eleanor said, kissing her cheeks.

Madeleine look apologetic “He loves to do that one, I am so sorry”  She smiled warmly. “I am so glad you came.”

“How could I miss it? Everything looks beautiful.”

Madeleine gave a small laugh. “I spent the entire week hoping you would say that.”

Eleanor tilted her head slightly.

“You know very well no one here hosts like you do,” Madeleine added, lowering her voice a little. “I was nervous the entire week planning this.”

Eleanor waved the compliment away with practiced grace.

“Nonsense. It’s lovely.” Eleanor and Madeleine leaned closer,  and then more conspiratory in low tone, Madeleine said “I cannot believe you made Jack come”

Eleanor shrugged “He knew it was important, sometimes you just need to put it in the right light”

“You are a miracle worker. Arun, as long as he can tell his jokes he doesn’t mind coming. But I do need to stir him away from the poor residents, who cannot take anymore of  his jokes ”

“You are the one that have a saint’s patience, Madeleine” Eleanor said impling having to endure the daily stand up show starredby her husband 

Madeleine waved like it was nothing.  “I got used to it. Besides it has its charms” Charms. Certainly. Charming to buy noise concealing earbuds.

“Can we go? Or I will put a bullet in my head” Jack whispered into Eleanor’s hair. 

“We are not going to steal your time anymore, let’s find us some drinks, dear” Eleanor said on cue, holding Jack’s arms. 

Eleanor leaned in as soon as they were out of earshot. “I suppose a thank you is in order,” she murmured, “for gracefully enduring Mehta.”

Jack let out a breath. “The guy is nice, but—Jesus. The jokes.”

Eleanor couldn’t argue with that. Another ten minutes of Arun’s jokes and she might’ve started pulling at her own hair. 

“Madeleine finds it charming,” Eleanor said.

Jack glanced at her. “She likes the jokes. She doesn’t tell you so you won’t judge her.” There was no teasing in it. No hesitation. Just certainty.  Eleanor looked at him, a faint crease forming between her brows. She was surprised that Jack had such insight. He wasn’t one for commenting on a couple's dynamic, usually it was Eleanor who poke him to notice something. “You think so?”

Jack gave a small shrug. “People don’t stay that long unless something about it makes them happy.”  He’d noticed it before—the way Madeleine always tried to soften it, brush it off, but never quite hid the smile when Arun told makes one of his remarks. No one stays that long together, or look at each other like Madeleine looks at Arun, just because she tolerates his humor. Tolerance doesn’t carry a long way into marriage. 

Eleanor exhaled softly, conceding the point with a slight tilt of her head. After thirty years of marriage and five of divorce, sometimes Jack still surprised her. She have always noticed how Madeline was always looking at other people searching from approval, or how she never said that Arun was a ‘doctor’ but a ‘neurologist’. But never that she wasn’t equally annoyed with the jokes as Eleanor or Jack or any other sane person would be.

“Well…It is very nice to have someone to laugh with and about the same things ” A small pause. It wasn’t a stretch. Those jokes—painful as they were probably brought joy to the couple. And there was some pretty good feeling of being able to laugh with the one you loved.

“God knows we do,” Eleanor added.

The words came easily, too easily. No edge, no calculation. Not the familiar, deliberate way she sometimes framed them as still married just to get a rise out of him or making the idea of get back together attractive enough.  This was something else. A mistake. A slip. Something that happens when it feels to comfortable and you say what you shouldn’t. Truth.

Jack stilled.

There it was.

Normally, he would’ve rolled his eyes immediately saying something dry, to cut any funny business she might be plotting ‘We’re not married anymore, Eleanor.’ or something that cut her antics. The words were right there. They just… didn’t come.

 And Eleanor felt it a second too late.

“Was,” she corrected quickly. A beat. “You know what I mean.” She turned her head to the other side, giving a few seconds to the red that crept into her cheeks to ease up. She hadn’t even had a drink, to blame it on the alcohol. It was an honest mistake! Why her body was responding like she was a dumb teenager girl? Making her wish she never said that?

Jack nodded too fast. “No—ves. Of course. I know. I understand.” The response came out wrong too, rushed, uneven. Not the easy annoyance he usually fell back on. Because for a second there, it hadn’t felt like a mistake. It felt like they had both simply… forgotten.

Robby would’ve had a field day with that.

‘That’s how she gets you’, he could almost hear him say. ‘You stop paying attention for five seconds and suddenly you’re back in it like nothing ever happened.’

Jack exhaled quietly, jaw tightening.

Where the hell was Robby now? Where was the running commentary about the price of her gloves? About dragging him to a dinner full of suits that don’t care about ER? About how she was already steering him across the room again without asking? All the bad parts that he always made sure Jack remembered?

Jack shifted his attention toward the bar, to not look at Eleanor, while she pretended to waive and look over the crowd for imaginary people. 

“Old Fashioned,” he said to the barman. “And a glass of champagne.” The words came easily. Automatically. The bartender nodded and stepped away.

Only then did Jack pause. Shit. He glanced sideways at Eleanor, the realization catching up to him. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I should’ve let you order.” Pure force of stupid fucking habit.

Eleanor tilted her head slightly, returning her attention to him, caught off guard. It hadn’t even registered as strange, she didn’t click at the moment why him ordering for her was something that wasn’t suppose to be natural anymore.

“It’s fine,” she said lightly. “You always know what I want.”

Jack looked down, a small smile tugging at his mouth, though he avoided her gaze. That was the problem.

He did know. Always had. What she liked, what she needed, sometimes before she said it. And she knew him just as well.

He shouldn’t be thinking of this shit. He was here because she nagged him to come. For the booze, the food, just to be her plus one and prove they were not that damaged, they could tolerate each other, be civilized.

He wanted to prove that he could accompany her to these events and not question himself why it all ended between them and what’s stopping them from trying again. Just companionship, free food, and drinks, back to his apartment in the city at the end of the dinner. 

That was it.

That was all.

The bartender returned with their drinks.

Jack reached for the Old Fashioned, but Eleanor took it first. The motion was neat, practiced. Something she had done a hundred times without thinking. She removed the orange peel. Eleanor knew he liked the taste, but hated when it brushed his lip.

Robby would’ve definitely given him that look. The one that said ‘she should not be touching your drink’ 

“You didn’t have to,” Jack said, gently, trying to put something, anything, back in place. A way gentler version of what Robby would want him to say, that would be in the lines of ‘You don’t get to do that anymore.’

“Consider it pampering,” Eleanor replied smiling, handing him the glass. “To make the night bearable.”

It was, annoyingly, a perfect argument. It always was with her.

She would’ve been lethal in a courtroom. Jack always told her that. All the lawyers were saved by her decision to take care of their home. 

Because if lawyers were sharks, all that precision, the way she built a point and left no room around it… She would’ve been the shark that dines sharks.

He let out a quiet breath, accepting it. “Thank you.”

Eleanor lifted her champagne, taking a small sip.

And then—

A voice cut across the room, sharp enough to make them both start slightly.

“Eleanor! Jack!”

Marjorie reached her first, already looping an arm through Eleanor’s like she owned the right. Her bracelets chimed softly as she moved. “We thought you weren’t coming,” she said, lips painted perfectly in red, voice bright with theatrical accusation. “And you even dragged Jack out of the ER?” She turned to her friend’s husband “I assumed you’d moved into the PMTC by now.”

“Marjorie, Lavinia,” Jack nodded.

Lavinia was just behind Marjorie, offering a small, polite smile, fingers smoothing the side of her dress, an unconscious gesture, like she was always checking if she was taking too much space.

“Well, he certainly could with all those empty beds upstairs”  Eleanor said lightly, a trace of exasperation in her voice. “ Though we all know why they’re empty.” 

Marjorie let out a knowing hum, already rolling her eyes. “Oh, don’t I know it, darling. Daniel has been insufferable about that since COVID. ‘How am I to get any patient satisfaction score if my patients are all with Robinavitch?’” she mimicked, dropping her voice into a grumble before flicking her hair back into place. “As if I personally fired the staff and perform reviews.”

Eleanor huffed softly “ With all the money we raise for them, and they keep those poor souls in the ER to save on nurses’ salaries.”

“Well,” Marjorie said, leaning in slightly, lowering her voice just enough to make it feel like gossip, “that’s exactly what I was saying to Helen. That pretty young wife has been suggesting we do something for the nurses for the next event.”

Eleanor blinked. “Who?” She couldn’t remember any pretty young wife worth noticing, not new hires either. And then it clicked. “I hope you don’t mean—”. She stopped herself. Mid-sentence. A flicker of awareness passed through her expression, as she slightly turned back to see Jack watching them talk, part paying attention, part lost in his thoughts. She turned back  to her friends. Both of them knew what her gaze meant. Some things were not for doctors’ ears. Not even his.

“Do you mind if we steal your wife for a moment, Dr. Abbot?” Lavinia asked, already gesturing gently, her tone soft, careful—like she was asking permission even when she didn’t need to.

Eleanor glanced at Jack.

“I’ll survive,” he said.

They had barely taken a few steps when Lavinia leaned in, her voice soft but edged with something almost conspiratorial.

“He didn’t correct me.” she said.

Eleanor looked at her. “What?”

“When I said ‘your wife’,” Lavinia clarified, fingers tightening slightly around her glass. “He didn’t say ‘ex’.” A small pause. Of course Lavinia would notice wordplay, semantics and grammar. Her mother occupied an English Literature chair in Penn State. 

Marjorie’s lips curved slowly. “Well,” she murmured, pleased, “that’s interesting.”

Eleanor didn’t answer.

But she didn’t dismiss it either.

“Finally,” Helen said, appearing as if she had been waiting for exactly this moment. She pulled Eleanor in, kissing each cheek with crisp precision before holding her at arm’s length for a second, assessing. “We were about to assume you’d retired socially.” Helen was a big shot divorce lawyer that was known to be ruthless. Once, a case got so ugly that the high profile ex-husband of one of her client, ran over her foot with his car. 

That was how she ended up in the OR, and amidst Morphine for pain, risk of amputation and blood everywhere, she fell in love with her current husband and orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Carlos Alvárez. She was also Eleanor's lawyer in the divorce.

“I wouldn’t miss Madeleine’s party,” Eleanor said, accepting the champagne flute placed into her hand, the previous one forgotten at the bar.

Marjorie didn’t waste time. She lifted her glass slightly, already mid-thought. “By the way, Charles had the audacity to ask if we needed help with the next committee event,” she said.

Helen’s mouth twitched.

Lavinia blinked. “Oh?”

“Yes,” Marjorie went on, eyes widening just enough to sell the offense. “Offered his help.” A delicate pause. “Which, of course, means hers.”

A ripple of understanding moved through the group.

“I told him no, of course" Marjorie continued smoothly. “I barely listen to my own twenty four years old daughter's opinion on decorations and guests. I’m certainly not taking direction from someone else’s side piece.”

Lavinia let out a small, startled laugh, immediately covering it with her glass.

Helen didn’t bother hiding hers.

Charles Anderson’s new girlfriend. The reason he got divorced with their friend Catherine. Catherine didn’t commit any serious crime to get served the papers. They had two kids, a beautiful house in the suburbs and a house in Capri where they vacation every 4th of July. Thirty six years of marriage. And perhaps it got boring with the routine. It often does. But did she deserve to found out through a tiktok her son showed her that her husband was with girl young enough to be his daughter?

She didn’t.

Good for her, amidst divorce, she got close with her tennis instructor, which she always innocently flirted with, and both of them are in the French Riviera.

Marjorie turned slightly to Eleanor, as if remembering.

“And let me clarify something,” she added. “I was not talking about Anderson’s child girlfriend. I knew that you immediately thought of her when I mentioned a ‘young wife. I saw the horror in your face. ” A subtle shift moved through the circle—shoulders angling, attention sharpening. “What does a girl like that know—or care—about nurses?” Marjorie continued, tone airy, dismissive. “Please.”

Lavinia, ever careful,  felt obligated to be fair. “Isn’t she a nurse technician?”

Marjorie glanced at her.  “She’s twenty-three, Lavinia.” A sip. “And she was an affair until five minutes ago.”

That settled it.

Helen exhaled through her nose. “And Charles wants us to legitimize her.”

“Over my dead body” Marjorie said with a snob scoff, like someone had suggested going to Olive’s Garden for italian. 

Eleanor tilted her head slightly, furrowing her brows “Then who were you talking about?”

“The Langdon girl,” Marjorie said.

Eleanor frowned. “Langdon? As in Frank Langdon? R3, day shift?” Helen’s eyebrow lifted immediately. Marjorie’s lips curved.

“Of course she knows,” Helen said, looking conspiratorially at Marjorie.

Eleanor rolled her eyes. “I know everyone in the ER.” She knew where this was going. 

“Yes,” Helen said smoothly, “but you don’t talk to all of them.”

A small ripple of amusement moved through the circle.

Eleanor took a sip, steady. “I don’t talk to Michael,” she said. “The rest are perfectly lovely, and quite interesting. Donnie, for example, he is a nurse and his wife is having a baby, I am even sending gifts. I don’t only pay attention to handsome doctors.”

“Interesting, so you do think he is handsome.” Marjorie echoed, delighted.

“I baked for the staff,” Eleanor continued rolling her eyes at Marjorie “He took a cupcake.”

“Of course he did,” Helen murmured.

“And we made conversation. He has two kids.”

“Of course you did,” Marjorie added, almost fond now.

Lavinia smiled into her glass. “And you just happened to notice he has two children?”

Eleanor gave her a look. “He showed me a picture.”

“Mhm,” Helen hummed.

 They didn’t push further. They didn’t need to.

Eleanor felt it, that light, practiced teasing that carried something sharper underneath. Not accusation. Just silly provocation because they rarely got things to tease her 

Marjorie lifted a hand, drawing the thread back. “Well, this Frank Langdon has a  wife. And she the one that suggested to me that we should do something for the nurses.”

A shift—quieter this time. More deliberate.

“She’s a bright young woman,” Marjorie added.

“So young,” Lavinia said softly, “and already building a home.”

“Two kids and a husband in residency, can you imagine?” Marjorie continued, almost indulgent now.

Helen took a slow sip. “And taking an interest in the hospital.” A small glance toward Eleanor. “Thinking of Langdon’s career, no doubt.” Helen always appreciated a woman who thought ahead.

“Well,” Marjorie said lightly, “charity and fundraising do make you look involved.”

Lavinia nodded. “And there is time so she can learn how we do things around here.” A small pause. “We could open the doors for fresh ideas.”

Helen’s lips curved slightly. “Within reason.”

This was not a group of women being gentle and opening their arms to new ideas, it was pitching a new member. 

All their eyes landed on Eleanor. She might not even be married anymore, and her ex was not one that worked in one of the most glamorous of specialties. Helen’s was an orthopedic surgeon, Marjorie’s anesthesiologist, Lavinia’s oncologist. But even if Jack was not the most prestigious doctor, he had the most glamorous ex wife, she had stolen that spotlight from day one. And all the others stir in her direction. 

“I don’t see why not,” Eleanor said finally after consideration. “We can invite her for an afternoon tea.” Then with a much more controlled tone, making the others lean a bit, she competed “ But let’s be casual about it. There’s no need to stir anything with Anderson.”

“I have no idea why he would care. Charles never once cared about the committee when Catherine was in it” Helen said.

“Come on, Helen, ‘no idea why’?” Marjorie said. “What does your daughter when you don’t let her go out?” Helen laugh waiting for Marjorie to finish the comparison already knowing it was going to be good “ She throws a fit at home. That is what Anderson' girlfriend is doing.” Eleanor could actually imagine that.  “Saying that everyone on work hates her. And since he never dealt with his own kids, let alone other’s people children...”

Eleanor complimented, as she knew were this was going “He thinks that moving her from technician to stay-at-home girlfriend is going to make any difference.”

Marjorie adjusted her bracelet, almost absently. “And Last thing I need is Charles whining to Daniel that we’re being unkind.”

Lavinia let out a quiet breath through her nose. “I do not think that is the wording he would use” Lavinia was too polite to say but Eleanor could already imagine the nice adjectives that were synonyms with ‘bitch’.

Men never understood this sort of thing. The structure of it. The standards. Eleanor could not say that Jack was any different. 

“She didn’t even come today,” Marjorie added, eyebrows lifting. “I don’t even know why Charles came” The group looked diescreetly to the other side where her husbands talked. 

Eleanor clicked that Jack was there. Why must he always be sucked in with those bad influences?

Helen’s lips curved. “To sell his new lifestyle, no doubt. ‘How having a barely legal girlfriend makes your life easy' propaganda ”

Eleanor laugh at the theatricals of the woman, advertising it like billboard. She also glanced back at the husbands' group and saw how eager Jack seemed to be listening.

Unfortunately for her, her friends noticed.

Helen was the first to pivot, her gaze settling back on Eleanor with quiet precision.

“So,” she said, “you managed to get Jack to come.”

Marjorie turned fully now, interest sharpening. “Yes, let’s discuss something actually interesting.”

Lavinia smiled faintly into her glass.

Eleanor lifted her champagne. “He understood it was important.”

Marjorie laughed softly. “Oh, darling. No one does anything for importance alone.”

“What did you promise him?” Helen asked, calm, direct.

“A quick tease before and” Marjorie added, raising an eyebrow. “ And the full package later?”

Eleanor took a slow sip with a smile. “I didn’t promise anything.”

Helen smirked, sounding completely unconvinced. “Please.”

Eleanor held their gaze. “He knew it mattered.”

Marjorie’s eyes flicked toward the bar. “He’s still very handsome.” 

Lavinia let out a small laugh.

“I wouldn’t mind giving him a party favor” Marjorie added lightly. “For good behavior”

Helen’s smile deepened.

Eleanor didn’t look toward Jack. She felt even if she glanced at him, they would know.

“Well,” she said, tone smooth, “I could invite him for a nightcap.”

That landed.

The circle leaned in—delighted.

“Oh, you are dangerous,” Marjorie murmured.

“But,” Helen added, cutting in, “you’d better play that hand carefully.”

Eleanor glanced at her.

“Jack isn’t handsome just for us,” Helen said.

Marjorie nodded immediately. “Oh, girls these days go mad for that.”

Lavinia shifted slightly. “Older men”

“With money, position,” Helen added. “Competence.”

“And that look,” Marjorie said, almost amused. “Like they know what they’re doing.”

Lavinia hesitated, then added softly, “It’s… comforting, I suppose.”

Marjorie let out a small laugh. “It’s not comforting, darling. It’s daddy issues.”

Helen didn’t even soften it. “They want someone who looks like their father, takes care of them—”

“And fucks them,” Marjorie finished.

Lavinia choked slightly on her champagne, laughing despite herself.

Eleanor’s smile didn’t falter—but it cooled.

“Jack isn’t like that,” she said. “He doesn’t—” a small pause, precise, “—he doesn’t have that kind of interest.”

Marjorie tilted her head. “Honey.”

Helen’s gaze was sharper now. “That was five years ago.”

“Turning fifty does things to a man,” Marjorie added lightly. “Perspective shifts.”

“Is he seeing anyone?” Lavinia asked, more tentative.

Eleanor didn’t hesitate. “Jack is not dating. He does not have the time.” That was one of the main things that made them divorced. Lack of time. Lack of attention. Lack of being present. Surely he didn't start to have a good work-like balance with a girlfriend. Not when he had thirty years to try with Eleanor.

The look they exchanged was immediate.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Marjorie said gently.

“Not dating,” Helen added with the annoying interpretation of scenarios and words, lawyers display. “doesn’t mean he sleeps alone.”

“As you might know,” Marjorie finished with a wink.

Eleanor smiled. Just enough. She didn’t correct them. Didn’t need their pity, or comments about how she needed to get laid. She didn’t want to explain that yes she could sleep with how many pool boys, gardeners, contractors, tennis instructors she wanted, it wasn't lack of flirtous comments from them, but she didn’t. She had, in fact, been sleeping alone.

And in an unintentional way she kind of assumed Jack was too. That he…missed her. Like she missed him. 

She realized how completely pathetic that sounds for a woman who knew how the world works to think that.

Marjorie leaned in just slightly, voice softening in that dangerous way. “You really think a man like Jack goes home alone every night?”

Helen didn’t look away. “In a hospital like that?”

“With residents?” Marjorie added.

“Long shifts,” Helen said.

“Late nights,” Marjorie continued.

“Shared call rooms,” Helen finished.

The images landed before Eleanor could stop them. She hadn’t pay attention until now. Yes, there were the middle aged husbands, but there were younger ones, men, women. And the women… One look at the place and you could tell: Young. Bright. Pretty in that effortless way youth allows. 

She could see perfectly in her head, one of them leaning over charts beside him, letting him get a glimpse of their bra under their scrubs, laughing longer at something he said, understanding him without explanation.

Marjorie’s voice slipped in again, softer.

“They look at men like him,” she said, “like he hung the moon.”

Helen added, almost clinically, “And he looks like someone who knows how to take care of them.”

Eleanor’s fingers tightened—just slightly—around the stem of her glass.

“They don’t want boys their age, you know” Marjorie went on. “They want someone established. Someone who can… guide them.”

“Teach them,” Helen said.

“Take control,” Marjorie finished.

The laughter this time was quieter. Or maybe Eleanor stopped listening clearly.

Something hot flickered—sharp and sudden.

Her grip tightened.

The champagne in her glass tilted—just slightly.

Enough.

“Oh—Eleanor, darling, careful—” Marjorie started, half-laughing.

But Eleanor wasn’t looking at her.

Not anymore.

“Eleanor.”

A new voice.

Cooler.

Closer.

A hand slipped gently—but firmly—around her wrist, steadying the glass before it tipped further. “May I steal my sister for a moment?”

Emery Walsh.

The circle shifted instantly. Attention breaking. The tension—cut. Eleanor snap out of her own head, as soon as she felt the cold fingers off Emery in her arm. 

“Emery! Oh—ladies, you remember my sister? Emery Walsh, she’s a surgeon at PMTC.” Polite smiles. A chorus of greetings. Emery nodded just enough to be courteous, already guiding Eleanor away with a light pressure at her elbow.

“If you’ll excuse us,” Eleanor added smoothly, not waiting for permission.

They didn’t speak until they were far enough that the laughter blurred into background noise.

Emery leaned in slightly, a small, satisfied smile tugging at her mouth. “You’re welcome.”

Eleanor kept her gaze ahead, lifting her chin. “For what?”

Emery gave her a look. “You were about two seconds away from baptizing them in champagne.”

“I did no—” Eleanor started, then stopped, exhaling through her nose. Her eyes flicked upward, conceding. “…fine. Maybe.”

Emery’s smile widened just a fraction.

“Thank you,” Eleanor muttered, softer now. “They kept saying… things.”

Emery’s brows lifted. “Am I going to regret asking what things?”

Eleanor slowed, then stopped altogether. She reached for Emery’s hand—an unconscious, grounding gesture—and looked down at it, thumb brushing over her sister’s knuckles.

“Do you think Jack…” She hesitated,  looking to the sides, confirming no one of importance was around, then rushed it out in one breath, “has a thing for younger women? You know—barely legal girlfriends…” She hesitated for a second, even the thought of it felt perverted “you know, daddy issues—”

“I immediately regret this conversation,” Emery cut in, deadpan, pulling her hand back.

It was familiar—this dance. Eleanor oversharing, Emery suffering through it. Although Evelyn tried her best to make Eleanor hate her half-sister, the more she tried, more the two got close. And since Emery’s problems were for the majority of the time related to studies and stress of the job, and Eleanor’s were about marriage, relationship, and always involved more angles and situations that require opinions, well, Eleanor always shared more. And Emery didn't mind, she found Eleanor problems something from a completely different reality, but liked to give her perspective anyway.

The problem was, Emery worked with Jack. And that means because of Eleanor she knew far too much about Jack Abbot, from really embarrasing and intimate things, to  details of complicated arguments and discussions.  

And God she wished she didn’t know half of what she knew. 

“Emery.” Eleanor’s tone sharpened.

“I don’t pay attention to Jack that closely,” Emery said, holding up a hand, “but no. No one’s ever said anything.”

“Any of the girls—” Eleanor continued

“Ellie, it’s a hospital,” Emery shot back, already grimacing.

“That’s not what I asked.”

Emery sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Jack is a nice guy. God, I hope he never hears me saying that. And when you’re fourteen hours into a night shift, a nice guy can sound… attentive.” Eleanor’s head snapped up, eyes narrowing. A slow, disbelieving once-over. What Emery thought would calm her sister’s neurosis (probably caused by her equally neurotic friends) sent her into premature conclusions.

That was the problem with women like Eleanor, they were so good at reading between the lines and understand double meanings, that when someone tells that a guy CAN SOUND attentive, they immediately think it is an eufemism for... 

“…God, is he fucking his resident?” Eleanor whispered, horrified.

“Jesus, Eleanor. No!” Emery grabbed her arm this time, as if she could physically stop Ellie to spiral.

“It’s Michael,” Eleanor went on, pacing a step, agitated now. “Michael and his goddamn influence! He had that thing with Heather Collins last year, didn’t he?" She didn't wait for Emery to answer. She knew he had.

Poor resident, seemed so bright and gorgeous, involved with that no-future man. Eleanor even got the word from Princess and Perlah that Collins wanted to be a mother. Poor girl.  "Probably filled Jack’s head with nonsense.” Anderson would have no effect on Jack, but Robby? Robby already convinced Jack of a lot of things. And this was not a hard sell. “Telling how easy it was, how good it was—”

“Hey.” Emery stepped in front of her, firm. “Jack treats his residents with respect. All of them. He would never cross that line. Ever.”

Eleanor opened her mouth only to be cut by Emery who has using her doctor’s voice with her, which even Eleanor's neurosis respected it. “And before you ask,” Emery cut in, pointing a finger at her, “not even if a med student threw herself at him in a bikini. He’d take her off his lap and refer her to psych.”

Eleanor blinked “…In a bikini?" And scoff with a smile  "He’s not that saintly.”

“Eleanor,” Emery said, but she was already smiling.

A beat passed.  She saw Eleanor regrouping herself. Not that if you look from the outside you would notice it, but from the inside Emery knew her sister long enough to know she was franatic. Then Emery tilted her head, studying her.

“…Besides, what is your deal with Robby?”

Eleanor stiffened instantly. “What deal? There is no deal.”

“You bring him up a lot.”

“I do not—”

“You do,” Emery said calmly. “Is there—”

“Oh my God, are you out of your mind?” Eleanor cut in, lowering her voice but leaning closer, scandalized. Pulling her sister away from the crowd. “Here? Where I’m convinced even the flowers are listening? If that gets back to the hospital I will die—die of embarrassment and Michael will never shut up about it.”

Emery folded her arms, unimpressed.

“And for the record,” Eleanor continued, breath quickening, “this is not some ridiculous enemies-to-lovers fantasy." Just like Emery knew Eleanor. Eleanor knew Emery to perfectly know what she was implying with those questions. Unbelieavable. " I don’t know what you’re reading between shifts, but there is no secret lust behind hate. I would rather set myself on fire. And him.”

Emery snorted.

“I hate him,” Eleanor finished, smoothing her hair like she hadn’t just spiraled, “because he has never once been polite to me.”

“Oh,” Emery said lightly. “So it’s because he doesn’t fall for your whole act.”

Eleanor blinked. “My—what act?”

“The helpless, breathy housewife with baked goods,” Emery said, ticking it off on her fingers. “The one who gets everyone to drop everything and cater to her. It works well with Jack and everyone at PMTC but not with your archnemesis.”

Eleanor stared at her, scandalized. “Oh, whatever, Emery.” Only her sister could make her sound seventeen again. “Between 9/11 and Michael,” Eleanor muttered, crossing her arms, “it was honestly a tight race for who ruined my marriage.”

“Not your husband being an adrenaline junkie?” Emery shot back.

“ I am one hundred and ten percent certain Michael encourages it.” Eleanor said “ Keep him playing ER cowboy instead of coming home at a reasonable hour, focusing on his career, his life.”

“Well,” Emery muttered under her breath, “he didn’t tell him to join SWAT.”

Eleanor froze.

“…I beg your pardon?”

Emery winced. “Shit.”

“The SWAT team?” Eleanor blinked rapidly, trying to process it. “The SWAT team, Emery?”

“It’s not a big deal,” Emery said quickly. “He’s just a field doctor sometimes—”

“Oh, wonderful,” Eleanor cut in, throwing up her hands. “Fantastic. At least now I know he’s not out having romantic picnics with co-eds on Sundays. He’s just getting shot at.”

She let out a sharp breath, then looked at Emery, really looked at her.

“You know what? You’re lucky.”

Emery blinked. “Sorry?”

“You don’t have to marry the handsome doctor and build your entire life around him,” Eleanor said, softer now but no less intense. “You are the handsome doctor.”

Emery huffed a small laugh. “Thank you?”

“I mean it,” Eleanor insisted, nudging her shoulder. “Stop wasting your time talking to me. Go flirt with someone fun. And not a doctor, please.”

Emery glanced around pointedly at the room full of them.

“…Ellie. This is a medical event.  Besides I am not interested in a relationship right now”

Eleanor’s expression changed as she looked at Emery—sharp, assessing—and then, suddenly, bright.

“Who said anything about a relationship?” she said, almost to herself.

Emery narrowed her eyes. “What?”

Eleanor leaned in slightly, conspiratorial now. “That cute waiter has been looking at you forever.”

“He is looking at you,” Emery shot back immediately.

“Please,” Eleanor scoffed, flicking her wrist, throwing her hair back slightly just in case “I know when men are looking at me.” Then her eyes widened just a touch, something mischievous sparking. “I bet he’s a struggling actor. Or a singer. Possibly a model. Calvin Klein model, perhaps. You should assess him in boxers, just to make sure.”

“Ellie—”

“You will thank me later.”

“Wait, wha—”

Eleanor tipped the rest of her champagne glass, straight onto Emery’s dress. There was a beat of silence. Cold, stunned silence.

“Oh my God—Eleanor,” Emery hissed, looking down at herself, hands hovering uselessly.

Eleanor gasped, beautifully, hand flying to her chest. “Oh, I am so sorry! I am so distracted—” She turned, already calling out, “Excuse me, could we get some help here?”

And, as if summoned by fate—or Eleanor’s sheer force of will— the cute waiter appeared.

Of course he did.

Eleanor’s smile turned dazzling.

“Thank you so much,” she said warmly, stepping aside. “I’m afraid I’ve made a mess of my sister.”

Emery, mortified, let out a low, “Oh my God…”

“This is my sister, Doctor Emery Walsh,” Eleanor continued smoothly. “She’s—” a tiny pause, then, with just enough innocence to be dangerous, “—quite wet now.”

“Ellie,” Emery muttered under her breath, horrified.

Eleanor just beamed turning to the waiter. “You’re a sweetheart, truly. I’m afraid I am getting a bit tipsy, I am going to go find my husband before I cause any more damage.”

As she stepped back, she caught Emery’s eye—subtle, quick—and mouthed: “Posture”. Then, with a tiny gesture at her own chest “Push up.”

Emery stared at her. Then very deliberately lifted her hand and flicked her the finger.

Eleanor’s smile only widened, a quiet shake of her head as she turned away.  She didn’t go far at first. Just enough to glance back. Emery was already being fussed over, the waiter attentive, earnest exactly as predicted.‘Still got it.’ she thought to herself, allowing a  satisfied small exhale before her gaze shifted across the room to Jack.

He was still with the group of doctors, exactly where she’d left him, but not quite the same. Eleanor stilled. It was subtle. It always was.

The way he leaned a little more into his good leg. The almost imperceptible shift of weight, then back again. The quiet adjustment that no one else would clock, not in a room like this, not with his easy smile still in place, his voice steady in conversation.

But she saw it. Years of paying attention to small details because Jack struggled to admit when his needs were different because of his amputation. Her expression didn’t change.

Eleanor knew how to approach Jack when he was tired. When something ached. When the night had gone on just a little too long. But she never did it in a way that made him small. Never delicate. Never pitying. She wouldn’t do that to him. Wouldn’t let anyone else see him that way, either.

So instead, she slipped into his space like she always did—natural, easy—her hand finding his arm, light but grounding, as if she simply needed him there.

As if she were the one who depended on him. 

—--------------------

Jack had been standing longer than he realized.

It started as a dull ache in his leg—the familiar pressure creeping upward until he shifted his weight again, subtle, automatic. Just enough to ease it. Just enough that no one would notice.

Around him, the laughter carried on.

Anderson had spent the last thirty minutes trying to convince everyone he was living in paradise with his new girlfriend. Casual, effortless, no obligations, no “boring luncheons,” no two-hour conversations about kitchen renovations, no overpriced couples therapist in Pittsburgh fixing problems Catherine would “make up.”

Thirty minutes.

Thirty long minutes of how a man ‘changes’ when a girl like his calls him ‘daddy’ in a breathy voice. Of his 'newfound stamina.' Of the photos, videos, and voice messages that made his—quote—'pants explode.'

“Why do I feel like this guy is always one sentence away from being fired for sexual misconduct?” Dr. Shen muttered, just loud enough for Jack to hear. Jack huffed a quiet laugh, eyes dropping to his drink. “Upstairs doctors. Too much time on their hands. They go looking for trouble.” He still couldn’t believe that Anderson called himself someone’s ‘sugar daddy’. 

“You should give it a try, Abbot.” The group turned toward Jack as soon as the words left Anderson’s mouth.

Jack looked up slowly, glancing to his side like he might find someone else the suggestion was meant for.

“That way Eleanor wouldn’t drag you to these anymore. You’d be free.” Anderson smirked. “No more ‘the divorce ruined my social calendar.’” He mimicked Eleanor’s voice on the last sentence.

A couple of them chuckled.

Jack didn’t.

“Don’t listen to him, Abbot,” Daniel, anesthesiologist and Marjorie’s husband cut in. “He’s just bitter because Cathy never wanted him at these even before the divorce.” If you knew this doctors, you would understand Shen's surprise glance, seeing Daniel defending marriage. Usually he was the guy that if the wife asked if he missed her, he would say "with every bullet so far".

“Please,” Anderson scoffed. “Catherine needed an audience. I just got tired of the performance.”

A few of the doctors chuckled.

Shen didn’t, he took a slow sip of his drink, eyes flicking briefly toward Jack before settling back on Anderson.

Anderson leaned slightly closer, lowering his voice like he was offering something valuable. Like he shared something in common with Jack. 

“Me and you, we know how it goes. They suffocate you, schedule your life, tell you where to be, who to smile at—” he gestured loosely with his glass, “—and when it’s over, they walk away with half your money and all the sympathy.”

Jack said nothing.

“You want to even the score?” Anderson continued. “It’s not complicated.”

Shen’s brow twitched, almost imperceptibly. Daniel rolled his eyes mumbling an ‘oh my god’ 

“Find yourself a young, pretty, eager thing impressed by everything you say. ” Anderson went on. “You have a ton of hot residents, won’t be hard” A faint smirk pulled at his mouth. “Bring her to one of these.” A beat. “Let Eleanor see it. Really see it, if you know what I mean.” His winked, his eyes sliding to Jack. “That’ll land better than any lawyer ever could do.”

Jack’s fingers tightened slightly around his glass. One of the things that Anderson did not understand was that the only thing in common between them was a divorce and their ex-wives divorce lawyer. 

Other than that, they were completely different people, living completely different lives. Even their marriages ended for absurdly different reasons. Charles was a womanizer, this was the first affair that led to a divorce, but not his first affair. Eleanor told him long ago that Catherine has been unhappy for ages. The problems that Charles said Cathy “made up” were very much real. They were, or better, Cathy was struggling for years. 

“Why would he come,” Daniel cut in before Jack could think of an answer to shut down Charles. The anesthesiologist was frowning, “if the whole point is not coming?” Anderson took too long to answer and Daniel took that as answer enough “ This guy. You see, you don’t think past step one,” Daniel added, gesturing with his hand. “That’s your problem.”

A couple of the doctors snorted.

Shen let out a quiet breath through his nose, shaking his head faintly into his drink.

Anderson rolled his eyes. “Daniel, sometimes I think all that isoflurane fried whatever was left of your brain.”

“Yeah?” Daniel shot back. “At least I didn’t trade in a whole twenty years of marriage just to babysit someone who still gets carded.”

That got a louder laugh.

Shen didn’t join this time, just pressed his lips together, gaze dropping briefly before flicking back to Jack again, checking.

Jack shifted.

The ache in his leg had sharpened now—heavier, pressing. Not quite pain, but close enough to demand attention. “I don’t mind coming to these,” he said, easy, neutral, like he was answering a different conversation entirely. “They’re a pain, sure. But she did a lot for me.” A small shrug. “All those years. One night’s not exactly a hardship.” He lifted his glass slightly. “I’ll leave the girlfriends to you guys. No drive for all that.”

“Preach,” Daniel said, pointing at him. “That’s a man who knows better.”

Anderson scoffed under his breath. “You don’t know what you are missing.”

Oh Jack knew. He just wasn’t interested. He barely stayed at home, Eleanor suffered because of this, he did not want another woman to have the same fate. It was exhausting. For both. Besides, it still felt weird thinking about someone else. Sleeping with anyone else. Not that he would tell it to these guys.

Daniel kept going, settling into it now. “You think I’m swapping Marjorie out?” he said. “For what? So I can start over? Learn a whole new set of complaints? New habits, new family, new headaches?” He shook his head. “No, thank you. I already broke this one in.”

A beat.

“Besides,” he added, completely unbothered, “she knows where everything is and where I like to eat, what I want for my birthday. And if I can’t handle the action, Marjorie won't make a four part story on social media like ‘Why my ancient boyfriend can’t get it up’ ”

That earned a few more laughs.

Shen huffed quietly this time, more amused at Daniel than anything else.

Jack glanced down, hiding the hint of a smile.

“Gentlemen,” Eleanor swipe into the group with an elegance that made the whole conversation held, slipping her arm through Jack’s.

The doctors turned.

“May I steal my husband away from you boys for a moment? I hardly saw him all evening.”

There it was. Light, playful, perfectly harmless.

To anyone watching, she looked exactly like what people expected her to be — the slightly possessive wife who liked to parade her husband around.

No one thought twice about it.

“Oh-oh, someone missed curfew,” Anderson called after them, grinning.

A ripple of laughter passed through the group.

She simply smiled and tugged Jack gently along, at first looking like she was taking the high road and completely ignoring Anderson.

“Come on, darling,” she added sweetly. “Let’s go find our seats.”

The doctors chuckled, waving him off.

Eleanor’s lips curved slightly, raising her voice a bit, as she was already turned from the group  “Send my best to Cathy and Tony, Charles. I heard their trip to the French Riviera has been very revigorating.”

As they passed Shen, Eleanor’s hand lifted briefly from Jack’s arm—just enough to give a light, familiar tap against his shoulder. A silent acknowledgement, a ‘thank you’ for keeping Jack’s company and avoid him to be sucked by the perverted bad influences of that circle. Shen glanced at her for a second, then gave a small, easy nod. Nothing more. 

By the time they reached the table, the strain in Jack’s leg had deepened into something sharper. He pulled out her chair out of habit, steadying himself in the motion, and only when he finally sat did the pressure ease. Eleanor took her seat at his side, smoothing the fabric of her gown as if nothing unusual had happened.

Jack watched her for a moment.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he said quietly.

She lifted her flute of champagne.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Eleanor.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“I wasn’t going to sit alone at a table while you entertained your friends,” she said calmly. “That would be just sad.”

Jack exhaled through his nose, half amused, half annoyed. “I am glad you rescued me from those.”

The servers arrived with the first plates. Without thinking, he reached for one and set it in front of himself. Eleanor didn’t move, continuing to sip from her glass.

Jack noticed “You’re not eating?”

“No.”

He glanced at his watch without thinking. “Still not eating after six?”

“Yes.”

Jack looked back at her. The answer was simple, the way it always had been.

He picked up his fork, then paused. “You don’t have to do that anymore, you know. You never had to.” 

Eleanor looked up. “Do what?”

“The whole no food after six thing.” He gestured vaguely toward the table. “We’re not… doing the country club dinners three times a week anymore.”

Her expression stayed neutral, lifting one shoulder lightly. “It’s a habit.”

“You can break habits.”

She lifted her glass of champagne to her lips, scoffing under her breath mumbling “And have everyone say I let myself go after the divorce?” 

Jack blinked. “What?”

“Oh please,” she continued, voice calm but precise. “You know how these women talk. If I gain five pounds it would become ‘Eleanor fell apart after Jack left.’”

Jack stared at her. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Of course it is.” She took another sip of champagne. “But they’ll say it anyway.”

A beat passed.

Jack watched her for a second. Eleanor had a lot of healthy habits, she exercised, wore sunscreen, cooked fresh food. But when it came to techniques to loose five pounds and keep her figure... “You used to complain about being hungry.”

“I was dramatic.” She waved a hand dismissively.

“Eleanor, you used to go to bed starving.” He insisted it.

“Well,” she replied calmly, “good thing I was already lying down. That way I wouldn’t pass out.”

“Eleanor.” He got that doctor tone with her, the one that sounded like he was condemning her habits and worrying about her.

She looked at him, then broke into a small smile. “I’m kidding.”

He didn’t look convinced.

“Besides,” she added, lifting her glass again, “if I eat now I’ll feel stuffed later.”

The word slipped into the air so casually that Jack didn’t even think about it. For thirty years, his reflex would have been immediate. ‘Well, you’re going to be stuffed later anyway.’ They always used to joke like this in those events. He used to save his dirtier wordplays and jokes to whisper in her ear when they were sitting at tables. She would bite her lip to not laugh out loud, her cheeks would turn red.

He stopped himself just in time.

Jack turned his head slightly, pressing his lips together as he hid the smile threatening to break across his face.

Eleanor narrowed her eyes, looking at her ex husband behaving strangely  “What?” she said.

“Nothing.”

“That was not nothing.”

He shook his head, still smiling. “It was nothing.”

She studied him for a moment, clearly suspicious. Then she paused.

Her expression changed.

“Oh.”

Jack groaned quietly.

“It was the stuffed thing, wasn’t it?”

“Eleanor—”

“Oh, Jack!” she laughed softly, leaning back in her chair. “You’ve become a dirty old man.”

He rubbed his forehead.

“You’re the one who said it.”

“I meant stuffed with food in my stomach! Bloated! Not whatever you turned it into.”

Despite himself, Jack laughed.

Eleanor shook her head, smiling into her champagne.

For a moment the tension between them softened, slipping easily into the old rhythm they used to have — teasing, comfortable, almost conspiratorial.

“Eat your food, Jack, you clearly need glucose to think better” she said.

He looked down at the plate, then back at her.

“Are you seriously going to sit there while I eat in front of you?”

“I have done it for thirty years,” she said calmly. “That never stopped you before.”

Jack muttered something under his breath and took a bite anyway.

Eleanor watched him for a moment, then asked lightly, “Do you want me to make you a proper plate when the buffet opens?”

He frowned.

“I can make my own plate.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Jack, you always put too much and leave half of it on the plate.”

He sighed.

“Fine. Yes.” He waited a bit. “But only because otherwise I will get stuffed later.”

“Jack!” Eleanor choked lightly on her champagne, coughing as she turned toward him, her hand coming up to smack his arm.

He laughed, low and unguarded, raising his hands in the air “You started it.”

“I did not—” she tried, but the smile betrayed her, the composure slipping just enough to show through.

They laughed together, quiet and easy, the sound folding into the soft hum of the room around them. For a moment, it was effortless. Familiar. Like no time had passed at all.

Eleanor reached for her glass again, still smiling faintly as she shook her head. “Honestly,” she murmured, more to herself than to him.

Jack glanced at her, something unreadable flickering in his expression before he looked back down at his plate. He took another bite.

She watched him for a second, the way he ate, the way he held his fork, all of it unchanged in the smallest, most ridiculous ways.