i love da pitt

Jack spins, keys in hand, eyes wild. “Perfect?! Syncope is not fucking perfect.”

You frown into the phone. “Okay, listen carefully. Don’t sit down. You want to keep the blood moving. Do twenty jumping jacks. Minimum.”

Jack barks a humorless laugh, throwing his jacket over one shoulder. “No. No, no, no. She did not just tell someone in cardiac distress to do fucking jumping jacks. This is it. This is how I lose my license. Not malpractice, not a board complaint, not even the Joint Commission. Marriage.”

You pace to the window, nodding solemnly. “Yes, even if you feel faint. Push through it. Sweat is how you know it’s working.”

“Sweat is not diagnostic!” Jack explodes, pointing at you. “You’re not Rocky training for a fight, you’re dying! Sit the fuck down!” He’s shouting toward the phantom patient now, gesturing wildly with his keys. “Sir... ma’am... whoever the hell you are, ignore my wife! Put the tequila down, sit your ass on the floor, and call 911.”

You wave him off again, lowering your voice. “Okay, now if you have a cat, put it right on your chest. The purring will regulate your rhythm.”

“A cat? You’re putting an animal in charge of defibrillation now? Babe, I swear to God—”

“Don’t listen to him,” you tell the 'caller.' “Doctors overreact. You’ll be fine.”

Jack’s voice drops into something dangerous, low and sharp. “I’m going to be an accessory to homicide via marriage vows.”

You turn, glare at him, still dead serious. “Honey, stop being so rude. I’m on the phone.”

Jack stares at you, slack jawed, like he might actually combust. “On the—baby, you’re telling someone in VFib to cuddle a fucking cat. You’ve lost your goddamn mind.”

You put a finger to your lips. “Shh. They’re concentrating.”

That’s it. He lunges across the room, snatches the phone out of your hand, and stares at the screen.

Silence.

You smile sweetly. “Trend.”

Jack just stares at you, breathing hard, chest heaving like he just ran. “You—” he chokes out, half laughing, half horrified. “Oh, fuck me. You had me packing a go-bag. Over TikTok.”

You’re already giggling so hard you can’t stand upright. “Your face—”

“My face? Babe, my soul left my body.” He drops the phone on the couch like it’s toxic, dragging a hand down his jaw. “That’s it. No more TikTok. Ever. It’s a public health hazard.”

You’re laughing so hard you almost topple. Jack catches you by the waist, steady and exasperated all at once, pulling you in against his chest. His voice is muffled against your hair. “Scared the absolute shit out of me,” he mutters, but his arms tighten like he’s never letting go.

“I’m sorry,” you giggle.

“No, you’re not.”

“Okay, maybe not.”

He groans, pressing a kiss to your temple like he’s punishing you with tenderness. “Christ, don’t ever do that again. My blood pressure’s in orbit. I just shaved years off my life.”

You grin, breathless. “Good thing you’ve got me. I know what to do with chest pain.”

Jack groans again, burying his face in your neck. “You’re sleeping on the couch.” But he’s still holding you like he’ll never put you down.

✧ 'Don't you wish you were more athletic?'

The twins are upstairs, monitor humming quietly on the counter, but Bean has decided the living room carpet is an Olympic arena. She’s in pajamas, hair sticking up, shrieking every time she leaps from couch to pillow pile.

You’re filming on your phone, barely holding in laughter, when you angle it toward Jack. He’s on the floor, one arm braced to keep Bean from actually toppling over the ottoman, the other holding his coffee. He looks maddeningly handsome, because of course he does.

That’s when you say it. Soft, teasing. “Don’t you wish you were more athletic?”

Jack freezes. Slowly turns his head toward you. His eyes narrow, just slightly, that Abbot patented I-know-you’re-fucking-with-me look. “More athletic?”

You bite your lip, trying not to grin.

He sets his coffee down on the table with care, like a man preparing for battle. Then he flexes his arm and the muscle jumps, defined even under the faded cotton sleeve. “You see this?” he asks Bean, ignoring you completely.

Bean nods, eyes wide. “Strong.”

“That’s right,” Jack says, deadpan. He turns back to you. “I carried a car seat in each hand yesterday while your eldest held onto my back. That’s not athletic enough for you?”

You choke on a laugh. “Jack—”

“And last week,” he goes on, over Bean’s delighted squeal, “I loaded two packs of Costco diapers, a bag of groceries, and the stroller into the Jeep.” He gestures with a finger. “That’s conditioning. That’s training. That’s—”

“Daddy’s strong!” Bean interrupts again, bouncing like she’s his hype man. Jack nods seriously. “Daddy is strong.” Then, to you: “But apparently not athletic.”

You’re laughing outright now, phone trembling in your hand. He narrows his eyes further, then, without warning, lunges across the carpet and plucks the phone out of your hand in one clean move. He angles the camera toward his face, raises a brow. “You want proof?”

“Jack—”

“Baby,” he says, voice low now, enough to make your cheeks warm. “My athleticism made three kids. Pretty sure that’s peak performance.”

You swear your face is on fire. Bean cackles like she knows something she absolutely shouldn’t.

“Stop,” you hiss, grabbing for the phone, but Jack holds it just out of reach, smirking, letting you flail. He finally drops it back into your lap and pushes himself up, stretching his shoulders like he’s just finished a set at the gym.

“Don’t you wish you were more athletic,” he mutters under his breath, shaking his head, but there’s a grin tugging at his mouth.

+

You tiptoe down the hall and find Jack in the kitchen rinsing bottles. His forearms flexing with each movement, a vein catching the low light. It’s unfair, really.

You’re halfway past him when he catches your wrist. Not hard. Just enough to stop you. “Remember earlier?”

You blink. “Earlier?”

His mouth curves slow, dangerous. “When you said I wasn’t athletic.”

You feel heat crawl up your neck instantly. “I didn’t say—”

“You did,” he cuts in, stepping closer. His eyes glint. “And now I can’t stop thinking about it.”

You laugh, nervous. “Jack, it was a joke.”

“Mhm,” he hums, leaning down just enough that his breath brushes your ear. “You still think I’m not athletic enough?”

You make the mistake of stepping back. His grin widens.

“You’re ridiculous,” you mutter, trying to pull away, but he’s already moving, fast in that way he always is when he decides on something. You squeal and dart down the hall but he’s on you in seconds. Training, conditioning, caring for three kids daily giving him stamina you can’t outrun. He scoops you clean off the floor and hauls you over his shoulder before you can even gasp.

“Jack!” you whisper shout, smacking his back. “Put. Me. Down!”

“Not very athletic of you,” he says. His arm tightens around your thighs as if you’re weightless. He climbs the stairs like it’s nothing, not even winded. “Meanwhile, I could carry you and all kids at the same time. Want me to prove it?”

You bury your face in your hands, laughing too hard. “You’re impossible.”

He adjusts you higher, smirking. “Impossible, but athletic. And, for the record…” His voice dips low, teasing, but threaded with something that makes your chest ache. “I’ve got enough stamina to give you another kid.”

You go silent. Your heart stutters.

He chuckles, presses a kiss to the back of your thigh. “Relax. Half joking.” A pause. “Half.”

Your face burns hotter. You can’t look at him. He laughs, full and quiet, carrying you straight into your room. Sets you down gently on the bed like it was all a game. Then he leans over, eyes sharp but so tender you feel like you’ll break.

“Still think I’m not athletic?” he asks, voice low.

And all you can do is shake your head, hopelessly flustered, because Jack Abbot has won. Again.

✧ 'Current husband'

The cart wheel squeaks every third rotation, and Jack already looks like he’s one bad turn away from filing a maintenance request with Costco corporate. He pushes it anyway as if a faulty cart can’t throw him off pace.

There are no diaper bags, no Goldfish crumbs, no Bean narrating Abbot family business to strangers like she’s got a press badge.

A few weeks back, after a night that stretched forever—Bub screaming with gas, Peanut refusing to settle unless she was on your chest—you’d collapsed face first on the bed. Bean had abandoned Duck on the pillows hours earlier, and the stuffed duck ended up squashed between you and the blanket, caught in the wreckage. Jack stood in the doorway, arms crossed, watching you with that soft, fond look he never gives anyone else. He leaned down, pressed a kiss to your hair, and murmured, “Duck’s lucky, they get to sleep next to the prettiest girl in the house.”

You’d swatted him for it, cheeks hot even through the fatigue. Bean had stumbled in half awake right as he said it. She froze in the doorway long enough to hear the words, long enough to file them away in that sharp little memory of hers.

Now it’s become a slogan.

Target last week, in the toy aisle, a stranger bent down and asked if Duck was her favorite. Bean nodded solemnly, patted Duck’s head, and declared: “Duck sleeps with the prettiest girl in the house.”

You nearly choked. The stranger’s eyebrows flew up. Now it’s a routine. At the park. At the pediatrician’s office. At checkout lines. Every time she introduces Duck, she tacks it on. Jack refuses to look even remotely embarrassed. He just smirks, shrugs, and says, “She’s not wrong.”

So today, with Bean and the twins at home under Dana’s watch, the aisles of Costco feel like quiet. No toddler announcing to strangers that her stuffed duck has the privilege of sharing your pillow. Just you, Jack, and rows of bulk everything.

Jack is parked in front of the wall of Premier Protein. He’s got one hand braced on the cart, the other tapping the boxes with his finger. Chocolate. Vanilla. Caramel. Cookies & Cream. He’s comparing labels like this is life and death.

“Alright,” he says finally, glancing over at you. “Which one do you want?”

You blink at him. “None. I don’t like them.”

Jack actually laughs, disbelieving. “Bullshit.”

You lift your chin. “I don’t.”

He straightens, one brow arched, expression cutting right through you. “Then tell me why every time I open the fridge, my vanilla stash has mysteriously dropped by two and there’s a half empty bottle shoved behind the ketchup.”

You feign innocence. “Coincidence.”

“Coincidence my ass.” He picks up the vanilla box, shakes it once like proof. “You drink them every morning in your coffee. Like it’s your own personal creamer supply.”

You shrug. “They’re… tolerable. In coffee.”

Jack smirks, the kind of smirk that says he’s already won. “So vanilla, then.”

“I’m not saying vanilla.”

“You don’t have to. Your caffeine habits already confessed.” He drops the box into the cart with a satisfying thunk. Then, softer, teasing: “Which flavor, honey?”

You roll your eyes, but your cheeks are warm. “You’re impossible.”

“And you’re predictable.” He nudges your hip with his. “Vanilla, final answer.”

You laugh under your breath, shaking your head as he starts pushing the cart again. He’s smug in that quiet Jack Abbot way. Not loud, not cocky, just the man who knows you too well to bother letting you squirm.

You walk a few steps in silence, passing stacks of vitamins and giant tubs of protein powder, before you say it. Casually. Like it’s nothing.

“Well, since you’re my current husband and all—”

Jack stops dead. Cart wheels squeak in protest. He turns his head slowly, like he needs to make sure he heard you right. “I’m sorry. Current?”

You keep your face neutral, inspecting the label on a bottle of vitamins. “That’s what I said.”

“Do you… have another one lined up? Should I be worried about Costco Husband Number Two swooping in with a better protein shake deal?”

You bite the inside of your cheek to keep from smiling. “Maybe.”

Jack steps closer, crowding into your space with calmness that always makes your stomach flip. He leans just enough so his words ghost your ear. “Say current again. I dare you.”

You glance up at him, finally letting the grin slip through. “Current.”

“Unbelievable.” He shakes his head, pushing the cart forward again with a muttered, “You’re lucky I love you.”

You laugh, trailing after him. “Lucky?”

“Yeah.” He shoots you a look over his shoulder. “Because otherwise I’d return you to customer service and ask if they’ve got a wife that doesn't steal my protein shakes.”

You shove his arm, still laughing. He doesn’t budge, doesn’t even stumble. He just smirks, eyes warm, like there’s nowhere else in the world he’d rather be than here, aisle seven, Costco, with you.

✧ 'You said you didn't want any!'

The table looks like a McDonald’s ad and a war zone at the same time. Bean is perched on her booster seat, Happy Meal nuggets lined up like surgical instruments on a tray. The twins are down for the count upstairs, the baby monitor silent for once, which means you and Jack have a rare stretch of semi peace.

Jack sits across from you, fries in their red carton parked directly in front of him. He guards them with the same intensity he uses in the trauma bay. His phone is facedown beside them.

You reach across the table.

He reacts instantly—combat reflex, doctor reflex, dad reflex, all rolled into one. His hand slams down over the carton.

“ABSOLUTELY THE FUCK NOT!” he bellows, voice so sharp it rattles Bean’s juice box.

Bean shrieks with laughter. “Daddy, you’re loud!”

“Damn right I am,” Jack says, eyes narrowing at you. “You think I didn’t see that hand creeping? You swore, swore, you didn’t want fries.”

“I was reaching for your phone, mine is dead,” you snap back.

Jack squints, unmoved. “Phone, fries. Doesn’t matter. Betrayal looks the same from this side of the table.”

“Oh my God.” You roll your eyes and grab the phone anyway, snatching it from beside his elbow. “Paranoid much?”

Jack doesn’t even flinch. He lets you take it, posture still hunched over his fries. “You can have my phone. I’ve got nothing to hide. Half the photos are you, the rest are you with the kids, and—” he smirks, “maybe one or two you’d kill me for taking. But the fries Untouchable.”

You shake your head and scroll through his phone. You weren’t even going to look long... until something makes you pause. Your finger hesitates, just a second too long, and Jack notices. Of course he notices.

“What’s that?” His tone sharpens immediately, eyes narrowing. “That pause. That guilty little hover.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Bullshit.” His mouth curls, slow and dangerous. “That was the gym pic.”

Your stomach drops. “It was not.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” He leans back, arms crossed, smug as hell. “It was.”

Bean squints at you. “Mommy’s red!”

You want the ground to swallow you. “Jack, stop—”

He grins, feral and delighted. “Say it. Out loud. You think I’m hot.”

“Jack!”

“Come on.” He tilts his head, eyes glinting. “Current husband privileges. Say it.”

You shove the phone back across the table at him. “Of course I think you’re hot, you psycho. You’re my husband.”

He takes it, smug as ever, and taps the screen like he’s filing evidence. “Exactly. My hot wife does my taxes, gives me three beautiful children, and apparently blushes like a teenager over my six-pack. God, I hit the jackpot.”

Your face burns hotter. “Can you not say that in front of our daughter?”

Bean pipes up: “Duck thinks Daddy’s hot!”

Jack slaps the table, triumphant. “See? Duck gets it.”

You groan, covering your face with your hands. “I can’t do this with you.”

Jack doesn’t let you hide. He reaches across, hooks a finger under your wrist, pulls your hands down until you’re looking at him. His grin softens at the edges.

“Don’t hide from me,” he says quietly. “I love watching you get flustered. Makes me feel like I'm trying to impress you all over again.”

You take a desperate sip of your Diet Coke, straw squeaking at the bottom. Then, without hesitation, you slide his drink toward you and start in on that too.

His face goes full betrayal. He throws his hands in the air. “UNFUCKINGBELIEVABLE! You finish mine AGAIN? I can’t have shit in this house!”

“You ordered Diet for me, don’t even.” Bean practically falls out of her booster from laughing so hard.

“Only because you drink all of mine anyway! For years I’ve ordered Coke like a normal man, but no—my wife drains every single one, bites the straw to death, and now I’m a Diet Coke guy for relevancy because my wife can’t keep her mouth off my stra—”

Your cheeks flame. “Jack!”

Bean throws her nugget like a mic drop. “Daddy wins!”

Jack slams his palm on the table in victory. “Damn right I do!”

✧ 'Babe, I can't pay the mortgage this month'

You’re on the couch with Bub draped across your chest, his tiny fist curled in your sweatshirt. Jack’s beside you, half reclined, Peanut settled in the crook of his arm.

The TV’s on low but neither of you are watching it. Every hour, you switch babies, because Jack read something on PubMed at three in the morning about equal distribution of tummy time preventing favoring and how with twins you need to rotate caregivers for early development. You think he’s out of his mind, but you do it anyway, because he looked so excited explaining it with Peanut in one arm and the medical journal pulled up on his phone.

Bean is with Heather and Robby today, off on some grand adventure to the National Aviary. The house feels both too empty and too full without her.

You lean your head against Jack’s shoulder, voice soft. “Babe… I can’t pay the mortgage this month.”

Jack doesn’t even look up. He huffs a quiet laugh, stroking Peanut’s back with his thumb. “That’s fine.”

“No, seriously,” you say, fighting to keep your tone straight. “Like… I can’t. It’s not gonna happen. Is that okay?”

That gets him. He turns his head, slow, one brow arching like you just told him the sky is green. “You can’t pay the mortgage.”

“Mhm.”

“You’ve—” he stops, squints at you. “You’ve never paid the mortgage. Ever.”

You blink innocently. “I could, though.”

“Sweetheart.” He shakes his head, grinning now. “You’re out here doing my taxes, color coding our deductions, building spreadsheets like they’re national security, and now you’re telling me you can’t pay the one thing you’ve never actually been responsible for?”

You try to suppress a smile. “So you’re saying you’ve got it?”

Jack chuckles, low, warm. “I’ve always had it. Mortgage, lights, heat, all of it. That’s the deal. You keep us out of jail with the IRS, I keep a roof over our heads. Division of labor.”

Bub shifts against your chest, making a soft squeak. You adjust him carefully, patting his back. Jack watches, his smirk gentling into something softer. “Look at you,” he murmurs. “Can’t pay the mortgage but you’re over here running a NICU rotation in our living room.”

You roll your eyes, but your chest warms anyway. “You’re ridiculous.”

He leans over, presses his lips to your temple. “Yeah, but I’m your ridiculous,” he says, voice low. “Current mortgage-paying, baby-swapping, still-madly-in-love ridiculous.”

Peanut stirs then, her tiny mouth opening in a sleepy protest. Jack shifts her higher on his chest, tucks his chin down like he’s shielding her from the world. “Shhh,” he soothes, hand spanning almost her whole back. “You’re fine, babygirl. Daddy’s got the mortgage. Daddy’s got everything.”

You bite your lip to keep from grinning. “You’re kind of hot when you’re spiraling, you know.”

He narrows his eyes. “Don’t distract me.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know you’re serious,” he mutters, rubbing Peanut’s back with big, slow circles. “You married me. That’s proof enough you’ve got a kink for chaos.”

“Maybe I just like the way you handle it.”

Jack looks at you then, eyes soft but sharp around the edges like they always are when he’s letting you see more than the sarcasm. “I handle it because you’re here. Don’t get it twisted.”

✧ 'We listen and we don't judge'

Jack’s on the couch in sweats, hair damp, hoodie sleeves shoved to his elbows. His prosthetic is leaned against the wall, like even it is grateful for a break.

You curl up across from him, legs tucked under you, and announce, “Okay. We listen. We don’t judge.”

Jack side eyes you. “Sounds like you’re about to interrogate me.”

“It’s a game.”

“It’s a trap,” he says immediately.

“It’s not a trap.”

“Fine. What’s the premise?” he mutters, but there’s a twitch of a smile at his mouth.

“We confess things. Stupid little things. The other person listens and doesn’t judge.”

Jack leans back, arms crossed. “So it’s Catholic confession but in our living room.”

“Exactly.”

“I knew being with you would eventually end in penance.”

You kick his shin lightly. “Do you want to go first or me?”

“You,” he says. “Ladies first.”

You pretend to think, finger on your chin. “Sometimes… when Bean wakes up at six and yells for pancakes, I pretend to still be asleep just to see how long it takes you to break.”

Jack barks out a laugh, too loud for someone with sleeping kids upstairs. “Oh, that’s fucked.”

“No judgment,” you say.

“You can’t hide behind the rules after admitting you make me the sacrificial lamb for a toddler.”

“Bean loves you more in the mornings.”

“She loves whoever makes the syrup flow fastest.” He shakes his head, still laughing. “Fine. My turn.”

Jack shifts, elbow on the back of the couch. “Sometimes when Bub won’t burp, I fake it. I pat his back, go, ‘ah, there it is,’ and hand him to you.”

Your eyes go wide. “Jack.”

“What? I said sometimes.”

“That’s—” You point accusingly. “That’s medical malpractice in your own home.”

“Delegation,” he corrects smoothly.

You groan, but you’re laughing. “Okay. Sometimes I use your razors.”

Jack’s head snaps toward you. “What?”

“They’re sharper.”

“They’re mine.” He sits up straighter, affronted. “Jesus Christ, that explains why I keep nicking my jaw. You’re dulling the blades on your—” he waves a hand at you, voice climbing, “—on your legs!”

“We listen, we don’t judge.”

“I’m judging the hell out of this,” Jack mutters, but his mouth twitches. “Fine,” he fires back. “Sometimes, I hide candy in the freezer so Bean won’t find it.”

“That’s not even a confession, that’s survival,” you shoot back.

He holds up a finger. “Let me finish.” His grin turns feral. “Sometimes I hide it from you too. And sometimes… I eat the last piece in the car before I come inside, and then I kiss you so you think you’re tasting your own imagination.”

You’re gaping at him, horrified. “Jack—”

He’s already laughing, doubling over. “You should see your face right now.”

You grab a throw pillow and hurl it at him. “That is actual psychological warfare!”

He catches the pillow with one hand, still laughing. “No judgment!”

“No judgment my ass—you’ve been Pavlov-dogging me for years!” you yell, but you’re laughing too hard to be angry. “Every time I thought wow, he tastes like chocolate, you were just covering up your crime spree!”

Jack wipes his eyes, still grinning like a menace. “Worked, didn’t it?”

You groan into your hands. “I hate you.”

“You love me.”

“Not after that.”

“Bullshit,” he says softly, smug but with that undertone of warmth he can’t hide.

You shake your head, still laughing. “Sometimes I take your T-shirts for pajamas because they smell like you and—”

Jack interrupts, smug as hell. “Sometimes I leave them out on purpose so you’ll take them.”

You blink, thrown.

He smiles softer now, brushing his thumb along your knee. “Because I like knowing you’re wrapped in me when I’m not there.”

Your chest goes warm. Quiet. For a second the room softens around you, the hum of the monitor, the low lamplight. You lean against him.

“Also sometimes,” Jack says, “I’ll drive the long way home from the grocery store. Even when I’ve got cold stuff in the back. Just to keep you in the car with me a little longer.”

You blink at him.

He shrugs, looking almost boyish in his shamelessness. “You talk different in the car. Softer. Like the world can’t get to you if the doors are shut. And I… I like having that to myself.”

“Honey,” you murmur, caught between fondness and being completely undone.

He grins, smug, because he knows exactly what he’s doing to you. “We listen. We don’t judge.”

“You’re impossible.”

“You’re obsessed with me.”

You sigh dramatically, but you’re already curling into him, blanket slipping as his arm comes around your shoulders. “Unfortunately.”

I get wet at the thought of you Being a responsible guy Treating me like you're supposed to do Tears run down my thighs

Of course you had a crush on Dr. Abbot when you first started your residency at the pitt. The first time you'd stepped in the trauma room with him he'd commanded it with precision, never barking at anyone, just delivering instructions while simulateously comforting the pediatric patient who'd been victim of a hit and run. Anyone would be attracted to his calm demeanour, and his ability to do his job well. And besides, he looked like that.

Defined biceps that seemed to be bursting the seems of every scrub top he owned. You had to resist the urge to bite down on your fist as you watch him move ultrasound probes across patients bodies. And yes you knew that the middle of a trauma room with an unconcious patient between you two was not the time or place to be horny, but the unevolved caveman part of your brain couldn't help it.

The first time he'd had to grab your hands and guide you through a procedure he'd been standing behind you. He'd pressed up against your back - close proximity was common during traumas - as his hand moved yours tho the correct spot, looking over your shoulder at the moniter. He was close enough that you could smell the musky scent from his after shave. You could feel his breath on your ear, tickling your neck. Your heart rate picked him when he leaned forward to get a better view of the monitor, pressing into your back.

He gave you some final instructions before he left, leaving you alone with the patient and a smirking Santos.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Someone has a cruuush," she sings.

You try to play it off, "No I don't."

"Oh thank you Dr. Abbot, you're so helpful, and smart and sexy," she mimics in a high pitch voice.

"I did not say any of that."

"You were thinking it," she hums, "It's written all over your face."

You can feel for face heat up. You've never been so glad that you can't blush.

"He's my -our attending."

"You say that like it doesn't make it sexier."

You narrow your eyes at her, "How you managed to get Garcia to go out with you I will never understand."

You yelp as you dodge the nitrile glove she launches at your face.

A little initiative can go a very long, long way Baby, just do the dishes, I'll give you what you (what you), what you want A little communication, yes, that's my ideal foreplay Assemble a chair from IKEA, I'm like, "Uhhh"

You get home from your shift, ache travelling all the way from your back down your legs. You're exhausted, and the thought of making dinner makes you want to scream. There's not even anything in the fridge for you to fill your stomach with - just some orange juice and cilantro that you forgot to use that's probably wilty and gross by now.

The smell hits you once you open the door. You don't know what it is, but you don't care - it's delicous. Your stomach growls as you set down your stuff in the entryway.

"Jack?" you call out. You'd forgotten until know that you'd given him a key last week, "Are you cooking in my appartment?"

No man has ever looked sexier. Standing at the stove stiring stuff in a pan. He's wearing his old man cargos and a plain back t-shirt. You wanna jump his bones so bad.

He looks up at you with a crooked grin, "Robby told me you guys had a rough shift. Thought I'd come over and make you feel better about it."

You give in, slumping against his body as you kiss him, "What'd you make."

"Something called 'marry me chicken pasta'," he says, blowing on a spoonful of sauce and letting you have a taste, "Saw the recipe on line thought it sounded good."

"Jack Abbot, are you proposing to me?" you tease, moaning as you try out the sauce, "Cause the answer is yes. That's the best thing I've ever eaten."

"Sweetheart, when I propose to you, you'll know."

He gives you another kiss before he shoos you away from the kitchen, "Go shower, it'll be ready once you're done."

"Okay I know I didn't have all the stuff for this. Did you go grocery shopping?"

"Of course I did," he scoffs, "No 'girl dinner' or whatever the fuck you kids are on about these days. There's enough for you to take to the hospital tomorrow, if you want, and I got some protein bars and other snacks you like."

He went grocery shopping for you? You have to cross your legs to soothe the ache between them.

"How much do I owe you for it?"

"Owe me?" his brow furrows, "Why the hell would you owe me?"

"For the groceries and stuff you bought."

"You're my girlfriend. When have I ever asked you to pay me back for something. This is a gift from me to you. Now go shower, food's almost ready."

You were gonna suck his dick so good later.

"Jack Abbot, will you marry me?" you ask from your place just outside the kitchen, "You're too good to be true."

"Nice try, kid," he chuckles, "Sorry, but I'm old fashioned, I'll be the one doing the proposing around here."

One shower and a fresh set of pajamas later, and you walked back into the kitchen to see the dishes washed and drying on the drying rack, a table cloth - which you did not previously own - on the table, and your sexy boyfriend sitting on the floor, giving your cat, Lumi, a squeeze treat in the middle of the room.

You're a little dizzy by how turned on you are.

"You picked up churus for her?"

"Yeah, I'm still trying to get her to like me."

"She likes you."

"She was sleeping on the couch when I came in. I tried to pet her head and she nearly took my finger off."

You can't help but giggle at the image, "It's not you I promise. She hates men in general."

"Hence, my bribery."

He gives her a pet when she finishes the tube. He pets her on the head twice before she realizes that she won't be getting anymore and she leaves.

"Your daughter is a user."

"Yeah she got that from me," you wink, sitting down at the table, "Hurry and take your portion before I eat it all."

After Dinner, Jack takes your plate and walks over to the sink.

"Jack you cooked, I can wash the dinner dishes," you say, trying to stop him.

He shakes his head, "You worked today."

"But I feel bad."

"Don't. I wouldn't do it if I didn't want to."

You watch from your spot, eyes glued to his biceps straining in his shirt. You watched the way his muscles moved as he worked, the sight doing nothing to stop the throb between your legs. If he notices your eyes on him, he doesn't say anything - diligently scrubbing each dish and putting them on the drying rack. When he's finished, he moves to get a dish towel, but you get up, pulling him down for a kiss. His hands rest just above your ass, you try to push against him to get him to move them lower.

"Baby," he pants when he pulls away, "Hang on let me finish putting these away."

"Let them air dry," you say, tugging at his shirt.

"I can just finish these now and then you can do whatever you want to me when I'm done. It'll take 10 minutes tops."

You ignore him, instead dropping to your knees.

"Sweetheart, you don't have to-"

"I wouldn't do it if i didn't want to," you wink at him, mimicing his earlier words, "Wanna thank you for dinner."

You work him out of his pants, giving him a few pumps before you like a stripe up the underside of his cock. Leans back against the counter, keeping a white-knuckled grip on it.

"You don't need to thank me for anything."

"One time in med school I went away for a 4 nights with my friends," you spit on your hand, using it to continue sliding up and down his cock as you look up at his through your lashes, "And I asked my boyfriend at the time to check up on Lumi for me. When I came back there were unwashed dishes in my sink that I didn't leave there - some of them had mold."

"Jesus, the bar is so low. Please tell me that's why you broke up with him."

You grimace, "I wish it was. I would have put up with it but then I realized he didn't scoop Lumi's litterbox the whole time either and that made me realize I couldn't stay with him."

"Enough about him," you say, squeezing the base of his cock, "Let me show you how much I appreciate you."

I get wet at the thought of you Being a responsible guy

One night after a hard shift you were sitting in the park across the street. Everyone else had cleared out. You were still sitting on the bench, beer empty, kees pulled up to your chest. You were resting your head on them, trying to find the motivation to get up and leave.

"You don't have to stay with me, Dr. Abbot."

"Yes I do. What kind of man would leave a young woman alone when its dark out?"

You look up at him. You don't know why you do it. Maybe it was residual adrenaline from your shift, or just plain idiocy but you you lean forward, gently pressing your lips to his.

As soon as you realize what you've done you jerk away from him.

"Oh my god I'm so sorry. I dont- I don't know what happened."

"It's okay. I won't tell anyone"

He doesn't move away. You sit there, staring at each other for a while trying to figure out what to do next.

"I'm 20 something years older than you."

"I know," you whisper.

"I'm your attending."

"I know."

"I'd be taking advantage of you."

Ugh, you know the fact that you're turned on by the way he acknowledges that your relationship would be inappropriate is a little fucked up, but you truly cannot help the warmth that sparks in your belly.

"That implies that I don't want you, because I do, Jack. I've had a crush on you since I first started here.

Of course Jack knew that you'd had a crush on him. He'd dealt with moony-eyed med students and residents before, once upon a time he'd been one himself. It made sense. You're young, nervous, and your attendings feel like gods sometimes, the way they pick up on things you haven't even thought of. Besides, he's not a narcissist or anything, but he knew he was good looking. It usually resolved itself over time. They'd fumble around for words for a bit around him, maybe drop a tray of sterile tools one or twice, but they'd get over it eventually when they realize that he's just a man.

Except this is the first time he has feelings back.

"I know that."

"You did?" If you thought you were embarrassed when you'd kissed him, boy did you want to drop dead on the bench right now. You groan, running your hands through your hair, "Was I that obvious? I'm gonna go stand in front of oncoming traffic."

"Stop being dramatic," he laughs, "You were always professional but we can ususally tell."

"We?"

"Me, Robby, Dana too. Shen's starting to get some now that he's an official attending. It just kinda happens sometimes - a lot more common with the med students, but residents aren't immune to our charms."

"Oh my god."

"Relax, would you? It's cute really."

"That's not helping the embarassment."

"The point is," he says, giving you mercy and changing the subject, "I am your superior it wouldn't be right."

He still hasn't moved from his spot next to you.

"No, it wouldn't."

You press your luck, leaning forward again.

"It's against every rule."

"Yes it is."

"You're young enough to be my daughter."

"Yeah, I am."

This time when you kiss him, he doesn't pull away.

Treating me like you're supposed to do Tears run down my thighs

You don't make it to the bedroom. Before you can even finish blowing him, he pulls you off him. You try to object, but he just gets you on your feet before hiking you up on the counter. He kisses down your neck, making you fall back on your arms for support as you wrap your legs around his waist, trying to get him impossibly closer to you.

He wastes no time, getting down on his kees, pulling your pants down just far enough give him acess. He groans at the sight of your bare cunt.

"You've sat there this whole meal just waiting for me?" he spreads your legs apart, kissing your inner thighs, stubble scratching along your most sesitive spots.

The sight of him looking up at you from between your legs is almost enough to get you there.

"Wanted to eat the food you worked so hard on," you sigh, running your fingers through his silver curls, "But was thinking about how much I wanted to fuck you the whole time."

"Insatiable," he mutters against your skin, "Worked a full 12 hours and all you want is sex."

You grin, "Are you complaining?"

"Not at all."

The conversation stops when he gets your legs over his shoulders, pulling you to the edge of the counter. He sucks your clit into his mouth, pulling a moan from you. He licks broad strokes up your pussy before sliding two fingers into you. Jack's fingers were thick, stretching you out. He knows your well by now, knows exactly how to crook his fingers, where to nip at your thighs, the way to bring you to edge without breaking a sweat.

"Kow you're close," he says, pressing a kiss to your thigh, "Gotta ask me."

"Jackie" you groan, throwing a hand over your face in annoyance, "c'mon."

"I want to hear your sweet voice," his fingers still inside you, "How am I supposed to know how to fuck you if you don't tell me?"

"You're so fucking annoying."

"Oh my baby's feeling fiesty today," he bites at your inner thigh, close to your cunt, "maybe she needs to remember her manners."

He drags his stubbled cheek along the spot he just bit, lighting your nerves on fire. You whine as he pulls his your legs even father apart some how, feeling the stretch in your lower body. He keeps eye contact with you as he spits on your cunt.

"C'mon, kid, she's so needy for me. You going to deny her?"

You know this is a battle you will not win. You can feel his hot saliva dripping down your pussy.

"Fuck, Jackie, please let me cum. I'm so close."

"All you had to do was ask."

A little respect for women can get you very, very far Remembering how to use your phone gets me, oh, so, oh, so, oh, so hot Considering I have feelings, I'm like, "Why are my clothes still on?" Offering to do anything, I'm like (Oh my God!)

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Mr. Mullings voice booms loud enough to be heard throughout the ED.

"Mr Mullings, I know you're upset-"

"Upset? I was upset when I hit the 4 hour mark in the waiting room. I am livid."

His face is turning a mildly concerning shade of red as he gets closer to you.

"I wait here for a full 8 hours and you're not even going to treat me?"

"Woah, woah, woah" you try not to visibly slump in relief when Jack makes shows up, "What's going on here."

"Finally, a real fucking doctor. This little liar here said she's not going to treat me after I've waited here for 8 fucking hours."

You take a deep breath, calming your nerves. "That's not what I said. I was explaining to Mr. Mullins that our tests conclude he only has the flu and will not be receiving antibiotics since they will be useless in this situation."

"Alright, so what's the problem."

"I don't know what sort of DEI requirements she fills but this little bitch is clearly doesn't know what she's talking about."

Jack straightens as soon as the word leaves Mr. Mullins lips, "Alright, I do not tolerate abuse against my residents so you will be leaving now. If you'd like to try your luck at another hospital then by all means, go ahead but they will just tell you the same thing she's already told you. Viruses like the flu are not affected not bacteria, therefore antibiotics will have no affect."

"She should have said that then."

You did. More than once.

Jack narrows his eyes, "It's time for you leave before you become admitted with more than just the flu."

"Are you threatening me."

Mr. Mullins leers over Jack, trying to use the few extra inches of height he has to intimate him. Jack is unfazed, stare unwavering.

"It's not a threat if I intend to follow through."

He crosses his arms, "Now, get the fuck out of my emergency department."

Oh you were gonna suck his dick so hard when you get home.

You don't make it home. Around 3 am there's a lull. No traumas, no screaming psych patients, no Myrna terrorizing the staff. It's slow enough that you can actually take a break, and so you end up in the bathroom by the elevators, pulling Jack through the door behind you.

"The hell has gotten into you?" he asks as you shove him against the door, shoving a hand down his pants.

"That was so fucking sexy," you respond.

"Gonna have to be more specific, doll." There's a very small counter at the sink. Jack helps you sit on it.

"Defending me like that," you give him a few pumps, awkward angle straining your wrist but working through it, "Against that racist motherfucker that thought I was an imbicile. Got so fucking wet watching you."

As if on cue, he gets a hand under your scrub pants, dragging a finger through your throbbing folds, "Fuck, you're not kidding, doll."

"Woulda let you bend me over in front of him," you say as he gets one finger in you, then a second, opening you up quickly.

"I'll keep that in mind next time."

You're short on time and he knows it. Someone could already be looking for him. He pulls his cock out of his pants, giving it a few good tugs before lining it up with your entrance. You groan at the stretch of his head.

"Gotta keep quiet, baby," he raises the fingers that were just indside your pussy to your mouth, "Can't have anyone hearing what a good fucking girl you are for your attending, now can we?"

You nod, tongue swirling around his fingers that taste like you. You adjust your hips so he has a better angle to slide all the way into you. He gives you a few moments to adjust before he slams his hips into yours. He gets one hand on your clit, rubbing quick circles and giving you the stimulation you need.

Your moans are muffled by the fingers in your mouth, "So fucking needy, can't even it through my shift without you begging for my cock."

You start panting as you near your release.

"Gonna cum, sweet girl? Gonna cum for me in the middle of the fucking hospital?" his words go straight to your core, making you clench around him involuntarily.

He lets out a deep chuckle, his head is burried against your neck, warm breath sending a shiver down your spine, "'Course you like being remided that you're easy for me. You're my good girl, aren't you."

"Mhm," you respond, still unable to say any actual words.

"Cum all over my cock, baby."

Thank god he Jack had the forsight to cover your mouth because there would be no mistaking the noise from any passersby. Your orgasm shoots through you, extended by Jack fucking you through it, rolling waves of pleasure taking over your body. He cums shortly after, hiding his groan with a bite to your shoulder.

You take a few minutes to gather make yourselves presentable before Jack gives me one final kiss.

"Give me a 5 minute buffer and then go and check on your patients."

The way he's flawlessly able to switch into attending mode almost has you pulling him back for round 2.

Bonus ♥️

"Jack are you blushing?"

When you look over at your grizzled, tough, veteran boyfriend his face is bright red as he drives the car. Jack has his taste in music, but he doesn't care enough to fight you over the AUX (not that he knows what that is), so you're always in charge of the music when you drive together.

"This song is obscene," he runs a hand over his face, "It took me a second. I didn't know why the song is so happy when she was crying so much that her tears ran down all the down to her thighs but the 'I get w-I get wet' line put it into perspective."

"Jack, you say way more obscene things to me every day."

"That's just between you and me! They didn't make music like this back in my day."

"Yes they did. People have been singing about sex since sex was invented."

"Not like this! Oh my god, putting Ikea furniture together turns her on? This poor girl needs to raise her standards."

You laugh, "You've heard the stories about my ex, men like you are getting harder and harder to find, hun."

His blush gets deeper.

"If you don't like it I can turn it off."

"No don't," he says "She's a good singer I just wasn't expecting the song called 'Tears' to be so... sexual."

"Oh you're going to love 'House Tour'."

“baby, i need some more,” you smiled to jack, hand reaching into the baggie full of bracelets. you had spent the past week crafting the goodies—we exchange them, jack! you had whined when he teased your about it.

but you’d given out just as many as you’d received—hell, jack had received some, too (“here! and one for your dad!” a tween said handing you two, you biting back a cackle).

as the night progressed, you sang and danced to the songs, even pulling jack up from his seat for a few.

“jack!” you gasped hearing the open chords of love story; it was the one song you said you hope she played.

sitting there, watching you bounce and sing along, jack had never felt so in love with you. if he hadn’t already bought a ring, the jewelry store would have been his first stop in the morning.

—

it’d been months since the concert, and even longer since jack had started planning out his proposal. something big, something small? somewhere public, somewhere private? should be hire a photographer? band? a sky-writer? the ideas rushed in and flooded out and changed on a near daily basis. his proposal to his late wife was the genius of a 22 year old soldier who didn’t want to leave his girlfriend when he moved post—yeah, she had said yes, and yeah, they were together for nearly two decades, but still.

robby and dana started out helpful in their ideas, but after the hundredth change of plans, they decided they’d rather give him shit instead.

“how about: putting the ring in the pleural cavity, and when she goes to put it a chest tube, boom, she feels it,” robby suggested over drinks one night. “wait, jack, no, that was a joke,” he rushed to add after not getting an immediate rejection. jack only considered it for a second, okay?

the perfect opportunity for the perfect proposal just never arrived. that was, until the night a kid arrived in the er at 4am.

—

she was 10, arriving via ambulance, sustaining a broken arm and mild lacerations after rolling off the top bunk in her sleep. she wore tear-stained cheeks, fluffy pajama pants, bunny slippers—and an eras tour tshirt.

jack was coming out of the trauma bay when he saw you sitting with the girl as the junior resident stitched her up. you were smiling at her almost as widely as she smiled at you. coming closer, he heard the topic of conversation: taylor swift.

he just chuckled from the doorway, turning to leave when you asked the patient what her favorite song was. the happy gasp you released when the kid said love story made him stay.

next thing he knew, you and the little girl were singing an a cappella rendition of the song as the resident reset the broken arm—neither of you would be winning any grammy’s, but jack was suddenly glad that he’d been hiding the engagement ring in his work locker.

—

after stepping out of the patient room, jack grabbed you by the elbow, offering a, “meet me on the roof in 5–no, 10 minutes,” before hustling away.

it was a little cold out for one of your late night trysts, but hey, if your hunky silver fox of a boyfriend wanted to rendezvous, you were game.

you gave jack exactly 10 minutes, waiting the last 90 seconds on the inside of the access door, soaking in the heat from the hallway.

the door gave a metallic creak when you pushed it open, almost loud enough to cover jack letting out a quick shit, fuck! as he fumbled to skip an ad playing through his phone.

you looked at your boyfriend with amusement, then up to the sky. the chilly pittsburgh night was illuminated by the nearly-full moon above, the roof accented with the soft warmth of the emergency lights.

your head snapped over to jack when you heard those familiar chords begin, the song you’d just been singing with the girl downstairs.

the sound became slightly muffled when jack slid the phone into his coat pocket, looking over to you with an unreadable look on his face—eyes wide, brows raised, mouth slightly agape, chest rising heavily; nervous? you thought.

walking until be was only a few steps in front of you, jack opened his mouth to speak, the word getting caught in his throat. clearing his throat, he tried again.

“i wasn’t—this isn’t what i planned. i don’t even know what my plan was anymore,” he started, speaking shakily. “but i can’t—i don’t want to wait—there won’t be a perfect time, so—“ he continued, reaching back into his coat pocket, pulling out a velvet box as he sunk to one knee.

“jack, wait, wait, wait. are you—“ you begin breathlessly, feeling tears well up in your eyes, your cheeks grow hot.

“let me propose, woman,” jack mumbled, smirk adorning his face. you let out a breath, flapping your hand as if to tell him to continue. exhaling, he does.

“i don’t have a big speech prepared, or a little one either. but i know that i’ve wanted to marry you for a long time, like don’t ask robby how long this box has been in my locker long time—“ you let out a laughing sob, “—and now i’m blanking on everything i’ve thought about saying to you, so i’ll stop embarrassing myself before you run away so—“ jack opens the box, stating your full name, then, “will you marry me?”

maybe forcefully rushing in to hug, and inadvertently tackling, the guy balancing on his one good foot wasn’t the greatest idea, but you were too happy to care.

“yes! yes! yes!” you exclaim, smooching over jack’s face between each phrase. he just looked back at you with that rare jack smile.

the ring is perfect as he slips it on your finger, both standing back up.

wrapping your arms around his neck, his arms coming to wrap tightly around your middle, you let your happy tears flow. then,

“does this mean you’ll start rooting for the chiefs?”

“absolutely fucking not.”

———

jack gets woken up by a weight on his chest and a pair of pudgy little hands smushing against his face. on instinct he reaches up with one hand and grasps the offending hands and rubs his eyes with the other.

“papa get up.” a soft voice commands.

jack finally cracks an eye open and is greeted by the sight of his daughter perched expectantly on his chest, her wild auburn curls even more crazed from sleep. jack finally snaps out of his sleepy haze and looks over to you, still fast asleep and he lets out a sigh of relief. you hadn’t been sleeping well recently so despite his tiredness he’s thankful rosie woke him up and not you.

“rosie? what are you doing? why arnet you in bed?” he grumbles out, trying his best not to sound irritated.

“wan’ see papa.” she says, jacks grip loosened on her hands and she goes back to treating his face like dough.

jack had been called in to work a day shift today due to some staff being ill, meaning rosie didn’t get to spend as much time with him as she wanted. pair that with the recent transition to her own bed in her own room, she was bound to be missing him. jack missed her to. hed planned to spend a lazy day with the two of you cuddled up on the couch, but he also knows he shouldn’t encourage this lack of sleep.

“mmm. thats very sweet honey,” he mumbles, brain still adjusting, “but you need to be asleep. we can spend all day tomorrow together cos’ mamas at work.”

she pouts and looks away from jack for the first time. “papa said that n’ he w’eft.”

jack feels his heart break in real time looking into his daughters teary eyes. tears caused by him. because shes right. he did say hed be home today but then he left. of course shed be upset and not trust his words. he sits up straighter now cradling rosie against his chest, fighting tears of his own. he pulls her back slightly to meet her eyes again, brushing her untamed curls away from her big eyes.

“hey, hey dont cry. i know i said id be home today but…” how the fuck does he explain staffing shortages to his barely-two year old daughter, “there were lots of sick people today. so many that uncle robby couldn’t do it all on his own and needed papas help.”

she offers him a nod although her lips remain pouted and eyes wet.

“how about this?” she perks up at this, but looks confused when jack sticks out his pinky finger, “ill make you a promise.”

“pwomise?”

“yeah. a promise is…… its something you say and cant break, but only for important things. and it only becomes a promise when you lock pinkys.” he wiggles his finger at his daughter pulling a small giggle from her. she lifts her pinky finger up and wraps it around his much larger one.

“so i, papa, promise you rosie abbot, that i will stay at home with you all day tomorrow.”

its her turn to sit up straighter and he can see the cogs turning in her mind.

“n’ watch movies?” shes testing the waters.

“yes.” jack whispers never moving his pinky from her grip.

“n’ pizza?”

“yes.”

“n’ ice cweam?”

he chuckles, “yes rosie.”

“….. n’ cuddles bowie?”

“yes i promise… all of that.” jack chuckles, knowing that cuddles with your dog bowie are guaranteed anyways. once again she nods, though more confident this time.

“o’tay. i excited.” shes smiling now (unaware that jack would do all that and more for her no matter what). she snuggles back into jacks chest and grabs her stuffie that was hidden behind her getting ready to sleep.

“woah there trouble, you know you need to sleep in your big girl bed.” he reminds her.

the response she gives is the most powerful pair of puppy dog eyes that the world has ever seen that all but melt jacks effective parenting mindset. she knows exactly how to get what she wants and that her father is a pushover for her. knowledge that she uses to the best of her ability.

jack sighs, still riddled with guilt from leaving her earlier. “fine. but on one condition.”

———

the next morning you wake up to an empty bed and an eerily silent house.

you walk to rosies room only to be greeted with the sight of your husbands large frame crammed into her tiny bed, sound asleep with rosie cuddled up in his chest and drooling on him.

When you finally became an attending at PTMC, it felt like the last piece clicking into place. You waited to open the manila folder—the one with your future inside—until you were at Jack’s place. You wanted him to be the first to know. To be there for the moment. And when you unfolded the letter and saw those words—“We’re pleased to inform you…”—you practically jumped into his arms. Jack held you tight, a proud, steady smile on his face like he’d known it all along.

“I knew you could do it, sweets.”

He’d asked you out not long after that. A quiet breakfast date after your night shift—flowers already waiting on the table, a small wrapped box with a bracelet inside. Something simple. Something thoughtful. Something so very Jack.

Of course, there’ve been arguments. Small things—a forgotten dinner plan, a tense call on a bad day—but nothing that ever felt like it could undo you. Jack doesn’t raise his voice. He listens, then speaks. Calm, grounded, but never cold. He never makes you feel like you’re too much.

But what surprises you most about Jack Abbot isn’t his patience, or his discipline, or even his skill in bed.

It’s how romantic he is.

The kind of man who keeps a sticky note in his wallet with your coffee order. The kind who kisses your hand before work, like an old-school gentleman from a black-and-white movie.

You’ve been covering the day shift for three days straight, and today’s your day off. You’re planning to reset your sleep schedule to prepare for the night shift rotation starting tomorrow. You stayed up all night just so you could sleep together with Jack—but, of course, he texts that he’s going to be a little late. Hazards of being an ER doc.

Then, your phone buzzes. It’s your friend Diana.

Diana: How’s the attending life so far, doc?

Diana’s your best friend. You don’t live close to each other, and don’t text every day, but you have monthly check-ins with each other to catch up on each other’s lives. You smile as you read her text and press the call button.

“Hey!”

“Hey!” She replies with matching energy. “How’s my ER girlie doing?”

“Trying to survive.” You chuckle. “How about you? How’s work for my corporate girlie?”

“Busy as I’ll ever be.” You can practically see her roll her eyes. “But seriously, how’s life? Oh! How is Doctor Daddy doing?”

You glance at the door, you thought you heard a noise.

“Doctor Daddy’s doing fine,” you say, trying not to laugh. “And… yeah. Life’s good. I have no complaints.”

“Ooh you have that voice.”

“What voice?”

“The ‘I’m in love and I don’t know what to do with myself’ voice.”

“I do not!” You gasp, then pause. “Okay, maybe I do.”

“Oh my God.” Diana gasps. “You’re in love with Jack.”

You sigh, a smile etched on your face. “Yeah, I guess I do love him. Ugh, I mean, how can I not? He’s sweet, and good, and—God, Diana, I love him for—for the man he already is, and for the man he wants to be. He makes me feel like I’m home. Even when he’s being annoying, I still want him next to me.”

You laugh softly, running your fingers through your hair. “I’m really in love with him. I guess I’m doomed, huh?”

“Now why would you be doomed, sweets?”

You nearly jump out of your skin, turning around and clutching your phone. Jack’s leaning against the back of the couch, bag dropped by his feet, smirking faintly—curious and amused.

“Diana… I’m… gonna call you back.”

“OMG DID DOCTOR DADDY HEAR YOU—” Click. You hang up, but Jack’s already heard the nickname he apparently has.

You can feel your ears getting hot, and you’ll bet your face is red by now.

“How much did you hear?” you ask, not meeting his eyes.

He shrugs, stepping closer. “Only the important parts. Do you really mean everything you said?”

You freeze, fumbling. “Look, I know it’s early. Maybe too soon. We don’t have to talk about it. We can pretend you didn’t hear—”

“Say it again.” He steps closer.

You glance up. He’s right in front of you now, arms sliding gently around your waist.

Your hands rest on his chest, grounding yourself. “I—I love you.”

And then Jack pulls you in, a smile now on his face. “I love you, too.”

Then he kisses you like he’s never done before. Passionate yet slow, he’s taking his time to taste you, devour you, claim you as his. Because there’s no way he’s letting you go. Ever.

You pull away shortly after, breathless.

The smirk comes back to his lips and he teases you, “Doctor Daddy, huh?”

“Oh my God.” You groan, pressing your face into his chest. “Never speak of it again.”

“Call me that when we’re having sex and see what happens.” He whispers, voice low near your ear, sending you shivers.

Usually, it didn’t bother him. He let it fall off his shoulders as he showered his night off, ignoring all the shit people feel the need to say to him and anyone else. Tonight, it wasn’t falling off so easily. Robby had come to him, come to him about you. Warning him. Telling him not to get involved. Robby usually gave great advice but he’d missed the mark with this one. Sure, you were way younger than him. Sure, he was still healing from his divorce. Sure, it was probably stupid to think you’d ever want to be with an old fucker like himself, but it’s not like you didn’t drop hints. It’s not like you didn’t kiss him in the supply closet 3 months ago, and he hasn’t been able to look at you without smiling since. It’s not like you two have already been on 4 dates already. It’s not like you were in his bed as he showered, waiting for him. 

Obviously not. 

He shook his head, trying not to think about what Robby said. She’s a kid, Jack. Leave the girl to find someone like Langdon, or fuckin’ Whitaker, or something. She’s young. Too young, brother. He huffed as he pulled a towel around his body, balancing on one leg, before pulling his prosthetic on. That damn prosthetic. A constant fucking reminder of everything he wanted to forget. He didn’t want to think about Erik, who he had to stitch up in a fucking safehouse after they’d been hit with an air raid. He didn’t want to think about Tommy, who wouldn’t wake up no matter how hard he fucking tried to get him back. He didn’t want to think about Sam. That poor kid. He was fresh out of high school, but they sent him out, and he lost an arm on his first fucking day, and he begged Jack not to let him die. Them and the countless others. He hated it. Hated the war, hated the memories, but he hated the nightmares the most. That’s why he was thinking about it so much that night, it was your first night staying over. He'd told his brain not to think about it, so of course, it was all he could think about. 

“You alright in there Abbot?” you yawned from his bedroom, and a sense of warmth spread through his chest. God, he loved having you here. It felt so natural to have you here, with him. You’d been over a few times, coffee and a catch-up after you’d been gone to visit family, the odd takeout and talking session when he got brave enough to offer it, or those times you came up to take care of him when he got the flu. He still thought about how you silently took care of him, even doing something as intimate as washing his hair for him, and you two weren’t even together. He walked out of the bathroom with that stupidly attractive half-grin on his face, and you smiled. You watched him as he pulled on a pair of boxers and some sweats, then turned to you, took off his leg, and joined you in his bed. You cupped his cheek and smiled. “You alright?”

He nodded, covering your hand in his. “Alright.” He looked at you with something you couldn’t quite place, so you just leaned in and kissed him. It wasn’t urgent like it was in the supply closet. It wasn’t heated like it was on your second date. It wasn’t going to be interrupted like your first date. It was slow, like you were learning each other. The rising sun split through the gaps in the blinds, and cast a brilliant haze over the room as you climbed on top of him, your lips never leaving his. You pulled back finally, fully straddling him now, and pulled his your top off, your tits spilling out in front of his face. He groaned as you kissed him again, his hands planting themselves on your waist and guiding them against him as you both grinded like horny teenagers. 

“Is this okay?” you breathed out against his lips before kissing him again. He nodded against you and pulled at your panties to pull them down. You stopped for a second to get them off. As you started on his sweats and boxers, he froze for a second. Insecurity rushed through him as he realised what was happening. You’re really doing this. He told himself. You haven’t had sex in almost a full calendar year. What the fuck do you think you’re doing? She’s not going to find you attractive when- The air was knocked from his lungs when you took him into your mouth, one hand on what you couldn’t fit. “So big,” you huffed out around him, sending the most perfect vibrations up his dick, causing him to plant a hand in your hair. Sure, he knew he was above average, but he didn’t think it was by much. “Biggest I’ve ever been with.” You admitted as you took him into your mouth again, eager to please. Fuck, every swirl of your tongue against his cock had him groaning beneath you, and you just kept going. His insecurities melted away as your tongue swirled over his tip, filling his mind with profanities as he bit his lip to stop them from coming out. 

“Good girl,” he breathed out, pushing your head down on his cock. “S-so good for me. Right there,” he guided you to where he wanted you, and you moaned against his cock. He smirked. “That does it for you?” he asked cockily as you nodded on his dick. Fuck, he made a mistake looking down at you, because he was seconds away from cumming. “Eyes on me, good girl,” he cooed through gritted teeth, and you looked up at him as you continued to suck his dick like a champ. The sight alone almost pushed him over the edge. “Fuck, I’m close.” he warned, trying to hold off the inevitable. “I want it,” you pleaded, sucking him harder, faster, and he fell apart beneath you, cum shooting down your throat as he groaned, holding your head there, and making eye contact. His big brown eyes staring into your soul as he came down your throat. It was the hottest thing you’d ever seen. You sucked him through the orgasm, swallowing everything and he hurriedly pulled you up on his lap again, and kissed you feverishly. You tasted like him, and he loved it. “Fuck, you’re so hot,” you groaned out as you kissed up an down his neck. He shook his head, chuckling to himself, and slipped a finger between your thighs, feeling your wetness. “Oh fuck-” you moaned against his jaw. “Please.” 

You were soaked from sucking him off, and it went straight to his dick. He was somehow, already hard again. “You are such a dirty girl, aren’t you?” he asked in that gruff voice while he pushed a finger in, as you whimpered his name. “You get off on that?” he asked and you nodded dumbly, grinding into his hand. He chuckled as he picked up the pace, adding in another finger, feeling you clench around him. 

“Jack, just fuck me,” you whined against his lips, riding his fingers like you didn’t actually want him to stop. Still, he listened and pulled back for just a second, situating you underneath him. “Please,” you begged, hands cupping his face as you looked him in the eye. For a moment, everything stopped for him. The way you were cradling his face in your hands like he was fragile enough to not want to break, the way you were already pleading, the way that this was more than just sex. This was admitting that whatever was going on with the two of you was real, it wasn’t just a hookup, or just a few dates before it fizzles out. It was something you both wanted to pursue. “Jack-!” You groaned as he slowly teased your entrance with his tip, and swallowed your moans when he finally pushed in. He was big, bigger than anyone you’d ever been with, and he was completely splitting you open like it was normal. You clawed at his back, nails digging into the freckled skin there, and he just groaned. You were so full, so stretched, so fucked. 

When he started moving, you gripped onto him so hard he thought he was going to cum right then and there. His head dropped to your shoulder as he started to pick up the pace, chasing his own orgasm. “Fuckin’ perfect,” he slurred against your neck as he left kiss after kiss on the skin there. “All mine, right?” He questioned with a particularly mean thrust, one that had you arching against him with your eyes rolled back. He chuckled softly as you babbled against him, words entirely incoherent. God, he forgot what a power trip this was, he was fucking addicted to you now. “You close, baby?” he asked, reaching a hand between your bodies and playing with your clit. You responded immediately with a violent nod of your head and another few breathy moans (which drove him crazy), and he picked up the pace. “Look at me, sweetheart.” he asked, a hand cupping your cheek to make your eyes meet his. He dropped it once you made eye contact, which went straight to his dick.

That telling clench of your pussy around him made him nearly see stars, but he kept his cool as you whimper under him, cumming. “I’m cumming, I-I’m cumming-!” you moaned before swallowing his lips in a kiss. He kept fucking you through your orgasm, driving him to his own. He buried himself as far as he could and came inside you with a shudder, your eyes rolling back at the feeling of being full of him like that. You both just lay there for a moment, his dick softening inside of you, you coming down from the best sex of your life, and you both just smiled. 

After about 3 minutes of catching his breath, he pulled out and smiled at you. “Go pee and come back,” he instructed. You groaned in annoyance, trying to push him away, but he just wrapped you up in his arms. “You’re the one dating a doctor, so yes, you need to pee after having someone cum inside you.” You rolled your eyes, but got up (on shaky legs), as he watched, then you disappeared into the bathroom. He turned over and smiled, letting out a breath. He didn’t feel guilty like he thought he would. He didn’t feel bad about himself, hell, he felt good about himself. He felt good about the two of you, like you two could actually do this, and like you both wanted to. 

The battlefield is hot, it always is. There’s bodies. Bodies fucking everywhere. God, the smell of blood and shit is overwhelming, he has to cover his nose. Still, he pushes on, through the fog, through the haze, through the bodies. Who needs him the most? Everyone is screaming out for him. Everyone needs him. Fred is on the ground, he’s down. Riley is down too, that poor fucking kid. Rafael was supposed to go home last night but he deferred, shit he should’ve listened and gone home. Where’s Rafael? A noise hits him. When he wakes up again, he’s on the ground. He’s laying on other men’s bodies. Something in him recoils and he has to hold his breath just to stop himself from vomiting. Wait, why does his leg hurt so fucking bad, and why can’t he see anything, or breathe? What the fuck is the debris coming from? This was just supposed to be a med evac, for fuck’s sake they were going to get them home. Someone’s grabbing his shoulder, he shoves them off because it hurts. Don’t move me, he begs, it hurts. But they move him anyway, because he’s in the firing line, and if they don’t he’ll fucking die. He leaves something behind, a trail of blood and something else, something he can’t quite figure out. People are screaming. Men are crying. They load him onto the tank, but someone's still at his shoulder, pushing him, trying to get him to do something, trying to- 

His eyes open. You. His bedroom in Pittsburgh. His curtain with the stupid flowers his sister made him buy. His bed with his bedsheet, simple and plain grey. You, with wide eyes and his shirt on, cupping his cheek. But there’s a red mark on your cheek. 

And everything stops. No no no no no.

“Jack, come back to me, please,” your begging finally makes it through the sound of his own blood rushing through his ears. You cup his face in your hands and make him look at you, look at your eyes, shit, but your cheek- “You’re safe. You’re at home. You’re alright.” Of course you’re comforting him. You’re just too damn nice sometimes, it makes him feel bad. It makes him feel like he deserves it, which is dangerous.

“Did I-” 

“I’m fine,” you shook your head. You’re not fine. He wants to say, but the words don’t come out. They die in his throat when he realises he can’t fucking breathe. “You need to breathe,” You take one of his hands and place it against your heart, letting him feel your heartbeat. He takes a shaky breath in, his eyes still full of tears. Thump, thump, thump. Your heartbeat against his hand does a lot to help him calm down, more than he’d like to admit. He took in another shaky breath, in time with your own breathing. “Tell me five things you can see.” You whispered softly. 

He looks around his bedroom. “You,” he lists first, because of course he does. He always sees you first. What else is there to see? He searched the room frantically, eyes landing on those stupid curtains again. He pushed the words out. “M-my curtains, the bed,” he looked around again. “The fan, and my bedsheets.” 

“Good,” you smiled softly, bringing your thumb up and down his cheek soothingly. He wants to push it away, tell you he doesn’t deserve it, tell you to run away from him while you have the chance, but he doesn’t. He can’t, not when it’s the only thing tying him to reality. “Now four things you can touch?” 

He took in another one of those shaky breaths, then let out a sob. Your hands tightened. “You,” he listed, tears falling down his cheeks rapidly. “T-the bed, the breeze, and your heartbeat.” 

“Good, that’s really good baby,” you smiled softly, pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead. He leaned into your touch and closed his eyes, feeling himself calm, even only slightly. He took in another shaky breath. “Now can you tell me three things you can hear?” 

Fuck, he just wanted to curl up into a ball and sob. He didn’t though, he pushed through that because he wanted to come back to you. “Your voice,” he started. “The street outside, and my own breathing.” He took in another breath, less shaky this time. 

You smiled. “Amazing baby, nearly there alright? You’re doing great,” you pressed another kiss to the crown of his head, as his arm wrapped around your waist and pulled you tighter against him. You didn’t fight against him, just let him take what he needed. “Now two things you can smell?”

“You and me,” he gritted out, tears falling onto your shirt. “You smell like me.”

“I used your body wash,” You nodded. “Well done sweetheart,” the nicknames pulled at something in his heart. He didn’t deserve this, this kindness. Still, like the selfish bastard he was, he took it. “You’re doing so well. Just one last thing you can taste?” 

“My toothpaste,” he let out with a sigh, and buried his head into your neck as he calmed down. You held him. Neither of you knew how long, but you held him, whispering him encouragement and telling him how much you cared. He nodded and whispered back words of gratitude. Once the panic attack was mostly over, he pulled back and looked at your cheek, lightly brushing a hand over it. “Did I…?”

You took his hand off your cheek and held it in your own. “Jack, it was an accident. I’m not blaming you,” you shrugged softly, being more kind than he thought he deserved. He shook his head, closing his eyes, fucking unable to look at what he’d done to you. “Baby,” you cooed. “Don’t do that. Neither of us could’ve predicted this-”

“I could’ve!” he let out in that gruff voice. “I knew something like this was going to happen, you should’ve never stayed over-”

You cut him off with a gentle kiss, he kissed you like you were his saviour on the battlefield. He settled against you, becoming pliant beneath you, then you pulled back. “I’m here because I want to be. I want to be with you. Always. For everything. I want to stand with you at work when a thousand casualties come in. I want to sit with you in bed after a bad nightmare. I want to be with you Jack. I don’t care what happens.” 

He shook his head against yours. “You shouldn’t. I’m too old for you, too fucked up-”

“Fuck being old, shut up! You literally outrun all of the male nurses on our floor. And fuck being fucked up. I don’t want you to be perfect, I want you to be Jack Abbot, scars and all,” you smiled. “And anyway, it’s not like I’m perfect.”

“I think you’re perfect.” He admitted softly, pulling you over closer to him. 

“I’m not,” you chuckled into his hair. Part of you wanted to tell him exactly why you weren’t perfect, but the selfish part of you wanted to keep that a secret for as long as possible, because you’d surely lose him then. You cleared your throat.  “But neither of us are, and that’s what makes us human.” 

He nodded, burying his head in your neck. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered against your skin, feeling sinful to even touch you after what he did, but you didn’t push him off. “I’m so fucking sorry.”  “I’m not,” you ran a hand through his hair. “It was an accident. I’m fine, you’re fine, so everything's fine.” He wished he could’ve believed you, but the shame crept in anyway. How could he hurt you, even subconsciously? How could you let him off the hook? He should’ve made you leave so he could protect you, should’ve broken up with you then and there and kept you away from him. It swallowed him whole, it always did. He felt you fall asleep holding him, and he couldn’t trust himself to sleep again, so he waited. He watched as the day passed slowly, birds and bugs crossing the window as your chest rose and fell softly. He watched you sleep. He watched every little twitch in your movements, every little change in your expression, every little sigh. He saw it all. He watched as the bruise got worse, darkening as the minutes ticked by. It’s not like it was a black eye, but you had a bruised cheek and he felt sick to his stomach. It was his fault.

When you woke up, the bed was empty. You’d been on nights long enough to not need an alarm and have your body just naturally wake up 40 minutes before your shift. Thanks to it being summer, there was still a little bit of light in the sky. You got up, pulling on one of Jack’s t-shirts and grabbing your panties off the floor and putting them back on, then started to search. He wasn’t in the kitchen or living room, alright. He wasn’t in his office or the bathroom, strange. Had he left without you? Asshole, he was supposed to be your ride. 

Anyway, you pushed that back and started getting ready. Thankfully, before your shift yesterday, you’d packed a bag in case you’d stayed over, so you freshened up in his bathroom, got dressed, made a cup of coffee, and raided his cupboards for a protein bar, and left his apartment, locking the door behind you. He was probably just messed up after the nightmare. You told yourself. A walk would do you good. 

The ER was loud, but not loud enough. He couldn’t get last night out of his head, not the sex, not the nightmare, and certainly not the way you held him. He knew he shouldn’t compare, but his ex-wife would just lose her shit at him after nightmares like that, calling him ‘crazy’ and ‘dangerous’. You didn’t. You didn’t shy away, even after it had gotten you hurt. That scared him more. 

“Evening!” Your voice sent him into fight or flight, and he ran. He (practically) ran into a patient's room and ignored the sweet sound of your (far-too-chipper) voice. He put his head down and worked. 

“What’s going on brother?” Robby asked him when he caught him at the nurse’s station a little while later. “You’re firing on all cylinders, fuck, I’ve barely seen you sit down, and you came in 4 hours ago, early, I might add. Did something happen?”

Jack just grumbled in response, not interested in having this conversation right now. “I’m fine.” He shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“Woah! What happened to you, tiger?” Dana asked, cupping your face in her hands. Jack involuntarily looked, because of course he can’t keep his eyes off you. Shit, it looked worse. It was bruised, a little yellow and a bit purple. His stomach turned. He hated himself, hated his trauma, hated everything, for making him do that. He shook his head, unable to look at it again. Robby noticed. 

“I’m fine, just hit it off something.” You shrugged, smiling. She dropped her hands but gave you a look and you brushed it off, promising her you were fine. You knew you could’ve told them, and Jack wouldn’t have had an issue. You just didn’t want to put him in that position, having to explain himself. 

“Well, she is ridiculously clumsy so… who’s surprised?” Langdon asked, rushing by. You two had come up through med school together, and were always teasing each other like siblings. You kicked him in the shin as he went by, nearly toppling him. He just laughed as Dana rolled her eyes at the two of you. 

Jack focused back in on the man in front of him, wearing a dangerous expression. Robby’s voice was low and scary. “Did you do that to her?” Jack debated just saying yes to get himself in trouble, punish himself more. But your words made their way into his head. Jack, it was an accident. I’m not blaming you. He gulped. 

“Yes and no,” he breathed out. “It’s those fuckin’ nightmares again. She just got… hit in the crossfire. I’ve apologised a thousand times already I swear, and she said she was alright-” 

Robby looked at him skeptically, but he knew what kind of man Jack was. He loved you, it was clear as day to anyone in a 5 mile radius of the two of you. And knowing you, you definitely wouldn’t take shit from him. “You don’t have to justify it to me, once you’re both alright,” Robby held his hands up in surrender. God, had the ER always been this fucking cold? Jack crossed his arms as the pivotal question came. “But you’re still getting those?” 

There it was. It wafted through the air, turning everything sour. Jack rolled his eyes, a scowl settling itself on his lips. “Really, Mike?” He scoffed. “You’re really being a dick at,” he checked his watch. “9pm?” Robby sighed beside him, he knew it was a big deal when Jack used his first name. “Yes, okay, I’m still fucking getting them.” 

“I was just asking,” Robby said calmly, and it just made Jack angrier. “I thought things were going well with the therapist-”

“They are, healing isn’t fucking linear, Michael.” He gritted out before turning his attention back to his chart. God, he felt so guilty, but he knew you didn’t think it was his fault. He still thought it was. He hated when this kind of shit happens, he’d break a lamp, or he’d fall out of bed and tweak his back because of the dreams, but at least then, it’s only him being hurt. He held so much shame around the fact that his army days still had such an affect on him. Robby got over it. Erik got over it. Sam got over it. Yet he was just stuck. Maybe if he tried to explain it to Robby he might understand, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t do it. 

Robby’s eyebrow raised, but quickly fell back down, like he’d just realised something. “She slept over, huh?” Fuck, Jack knew he’d said too much, even he wasn’t immune to Robby’s teasing. “You two are that serious now, huh?” he questioned, irritating Jack more. “When were you going to tell me?” 

“When I wanted to.” He shrugged before dropping his chart on the desk and going after you. That goddamn supply closet, constantly giving space to the wildest conversations he could possibly have. 

“You alright-?” you started, a hand cupping his cheek, but he cut you off with a kiss. He was seeking comfort, clearly, and he knew you’d give it to him freely, even though he didn’t deserve it. God, he wished he was a stronger man, but the feel of your hands against his skin was something he wasn’t sure he would be able to give up. “Jack, HR-”

“Fuck HR,” he punctuated his sentence with a kiss, and wrapped his arms around your waist, resting his head on your shoulder. You were both quiet for a moment, just silent breaths and various questions going through your heads. “I don’t know what to say about last night,” he admitted, playing with the fabric of your scrubs. “No one’s ever done that for me.” 

You brought a hand up and ran through his hair, and you frowned. “Not even your ex-wife?” you questioned. He let out a chuckle and shook his head. Part of you wanted to ask because he always told you when you asked, but you didn’t want to overstep. “Well, I’m glad I was there for you, I wouldn’t want you going through something like that alone.” 

He was stunned. No one had ever shown him this kindness, well, his therapist, but that was because he was paying her and she had a PHD in PTSD. He pulled back and shook his head, his eyes transfixed on you. “Where did you come from?” He chuckled, making you laugh. 

You leaned in and pressed a kiss to his cheek, then pulled back and continued on with your task of grabbing gauze from one of the drawers. “Go back to work, loser,” you teased. “But don’t walk out on me again, alright? I want to walk home together.” 

He nodded, his expression falling a bit. “Sorry about that.” He cleared his throat. 

You just shrugged and smiled. “It’s alright, I just assumed you needed some space.” He grunted in return, and you just pressed a kiss to his cheek and left him in there wondering how the fuck he was going to survive you. Hell, he was already in love with you, and you were only making it worse by being perfect. 

He carded a hand over his face and through his hair, and took a deep breath. “Fuck.” He whispered out. He was a goner. 

the pitt masterlist

because truly, you are something else. jack’s seen you in passing during day shift sign-offs at seven pm, and occasionally walking to the lockers a touch early. reflecting back, while placing the yellow tupperware into his own locker, he thinks he’s even seen you as early as six-thirty in the morning some day, if not most days.

he can’t resist—who told you about his sweet tooth, he’s not actually sure—but he opens up the lid. just like you had told him before you walked away to start your shift, the round chocolate-chip cookies don’t have any sea salt on them, not that he minds.

he bites into one and chews on it while trying to remember what else he knows about you—all that comes to mind is your teary eyes day before last when he yelled at you over something he can’t remember right now.

it hadn’t been that big of a deal—there was a patient presenting with disrupted kidney function and you hadn’t discontinued their nsaids on your initial evaluation. the solution, usually, is a stern conversation and to inform you for next time. no ibuprofen for the guy with bad kidneys, something you would have figured out in the next hour even if they hadn’t immediately caught it.

but for some reason (he knows the reason, he thinks grimly) he had yelled instead. raised his voice, caused a scene. every nurse nearby had looked up and started whispering—and he knows how the gossip goes in this place.

even ellis had intervened and dragged you away, glancing back to give him a look something akin to what the fuck, man? 

because he doesn’t yell—it’s not hardwired in him to do so. he was raised in a loud house but he’d almost looked to avoid it everywhere he went, trying his hardest to not become like his father in that way. 

the realization that he never yelled when his wife was still alive hits him like a slap to the face every time. he can’t help it, and he’s sure everyone justifies it for him. even when he’d yelled at you and you’d stood in front of him like a kicked, teary-eyed puppy, he hadn’t realized he’d done it again—taken out his frustration on the nearest thing. he’s sure that parker’s with you in some corner, telling you how he usually never yells and it’s his week from hell and you’ll see the real abbot next week. 

that doesn’t take away from the fact that he made you cry, though. 

nor does it erase the fact that you made him cookies. quite frankly, delicious cookies. maybe the best ones he’s ever had. soft and chewy and made with semisweet chocolate chips. before he realizes it, it’s seven pm sharp and he’s eaten the whole thing, shoving his go-bag into the locker carefully on top of the container you gave him and going out to join you for sign-offs.

and he doesn’t realize it either, not until you stare at him for a moment too long, garnering a cough from mckay as she tries to tell you about the patients from the chairs, the ones that you’ll be following up on and taking care of for the rest of the evening. 

there’s chocolate smudged on his fingers, and he’s licking it off, trying to pay attention to robby—who looks at him confused, and then glances at you, and turns back to jack almost… knowingly—while you’re paying attention to him.

and jack, well, everyone knows about jack’s staring thing. they call it just that—he has a problem with overdoing eye contact. he doesn’t know when he picked it up, though he’s sure it’s another one of those military attributes he pretends he doesn’t have. what he does know is that he’s always been able to tell when someone’s looking at him, like you are now.

jack turns his head just to look in your direction for a moment and he finds you already facing in his direction. your gaze quickly goes from his eyes to his fingers and then back to cassie, and he doesn’t have to be near you to know that you’re flushed.

then he stops himself—he doesn’t have any business digging around in your thoughts, wondering what exactly made you look away, was it the fact that he turned to look or that he already knew you were staring—and for the first time all night, he tries to pay attention to robby.

fuck. is this what it’s going to be like for the rest of your time on nights? resisting the urge to turn and lock eyes with you, to make sure you’re there and make sure you’re looking, even when he knows you are? 

no, no. he’s not that guy. he’s not the guy who obsesses over the nice, pretty intern and accepts her cookies when he’s the one who made her cry to begin with. 

you have a place in this hospital, and it’s to learn and grow and better yourself under his guidance, not stay nestled in his thoughts that linger somewhere between inappropriate and really inappropriate.

no, what jack wants to do is get you alone somewhere quiet so he can apologize, and make sure that you believe him. 

rarely does jack abbot get what he wants.

you’re talking with mckay still, going on about something at a mile a minute, in more of a carefree tone that he’s never been on the receiving side of. every time he’d spoken to you the previous week, he’d been angry and you’d been dejected. it’s not how teaching is supposed to be, especially not jack’s teaching. he’s always been proud of how he treats residents, how they flourish under him, how they end up liking nights like john and parker did. 

he catches the ending half of your conversation with cassie.

“-but the recipe doubles really, really easily, so if you make them and you feel like you want more, because, i mean, i made them for a bake sale once-”

“and it’s always a crowd pleaser?” cassie asks, tilting her head at you, looking as focused as jack has ever seen her. he doesn’t know the context, though he’s sure it has something to do with harrison and his school. 

you, on the other hand, are completely engrossed in the conversation. as though cassie’s son and his school’s bake sale are the most important things on the planet.

“always! it’s so good. but just make a test batch—it’s so easy. half the recipe, try it out, and then if you like it, you can use the extras to let people try it before they buy it-” you’re interrupted, parker calls out your name somewhere in the distance.

the day shift has began to filter out. robby pats jack’s shoulder firmly before muttering i’m outta here, but jack stands frozen in place, wanting for some reason, to hear the end of your conversation.

he didn’t know people could be so passionate about baked goods—but he guesses it makes sense. for you, that is.

“actually, that’s not a bad idea. you sent me the recipe already?”

“yes, i texted it. but i can email it if you want, or i-”

jack actually laughs—you’re so eager to get cassie this recipe. he thinks you have more energy right now than he’s had all day.

he hears cassie thank you, and he gets a glimpse of you beaming at her, a bright, pretty smile, before the charge nurse calls out his name and his shift really starts. 

shen jumps on with him and he sees you somewhere in the distance, probably running through your game plan for some patient in the chairs with ellis. you smile brightly at her too, and for the first time in a long time, jack has a thought that he deems in the category of uncontrollable. 

he’s a disciplined guy, always has been. thoughts don’t consume him like wildfire, rather they run through a series of checks and balances before he even fully thinks them. last week his system had been all off, leading to you getting yelled at in the first place, and right now, the whole thing seems like it’s gone haywire, focused on one thing in particular.

what does he have to do to get you to smile at him like that?

+

the night shift is a place of routine. jack wants to get you on a trauma with him, wants to show you what he’s like when he’s of sound mind and not thinking about how last week, a couple of years ago, he had the worst day of his life. and then a couple years before that, another worst day of his life. 

he has an overpowering urge to show you what he’s like on a normal week. he can even picture it in his head—handing you gloves and asking you questions that help you run the trauma, to get you in the habit of approaching the cases like he does. the questions are to make you believe in yourself—if you know the answers, you could have run this whole thing by yourself. if you get something wrong or don’t know, he throws in an easier one next time. 

you might be a little worried at first but you’d get the hang of it. and then, after the patient was stable and he got to tell you good job, you’d do it. smile at him, beam up at him like you’ve been doing to the others. the kind that makes your eyes light up, makes little lines crinkle in the corners of your face, lets him see your lips—well, that’s not important.

what is important is that you realize that jack abbot is there to help you, not to make things worse. that’s the side of him he wants you to see.

but unfortunately, the night shift is a place of routine. interns are on chairs, getting every move double-checked by a senior resident. there’s enough hands on the day shift to allow first years to jump on every incoming but nights are not nearly as well distributed.

so, you and jack fall into a routine—you both show up early for your shifts, walk to the lockers together in silence. sometimes you stare and he catches you, and other times you catch him. you think about asking him what he thought about the cookies, or if you can get your tupperware back, but then you stay silent and head out into the chaos.

one day at six forty-five, he sees you looking at him while mel is trying to tell you something that you are decidedly not paying attention to. after he looks your way, you turn back to her and start profusely apologizing.

he turns back to robby, missing half of what he said. 

“you okay?” robby asks, gaze flickering towards jack, and then back at you, somewhere in the distance. jack nods. “how’s she been doing?”

he doesn’t have to say your name for jack to know who he’s talking about.

“fine. good. i haven’t gotten much of a chance to teach her, so-”

“right. teach.” robby says it and looks at jack differently—as if he’s amused. 

“what?” jack snaps, suddenly irritated by the line of questioning.

“nothing. this week’s probably gonna be her last on nights, just so you know.” before jack can respond, robby puts his hands up in defense. “don’t shoot the messenger. apparently we’re supposed to be cycling interns and r-twos so they all get to experience nights. something about equality and fairness. i don’t know but you can read the memo.”

“fairness?” jack grumbles, though it’s mostly to himself. he’s annoyed, and he knows why, and he doesn’t like the reason why. “they used to put us on nights for three months at a time and the only memo i ever got was too bad.” 

“careful, jack,” robby says, a little too sing-songy for his current mood. “you keep talking like that and she’s gonna think you’re an old grump.”

jack glares up at robby, wanting to reply but nothing biting comes to mind. 

“you have a good night, jack,” robby says and jack mutters back a yeah, yeah. he turns to watch robby leave, but somehow, his gaze still ends up back on you, like it always does. it’s harder still throughout the course of the night, nerves somehow taking over him every time he wants to tell you to drop whatever patient’s hand you’re stitching and jump on this trauma with him. 

the vision he’s been chasing, aimlessly at that, seems further and further away as the hours pass each night. your shift is filled with first degree burns and sprained ankles and kind-of, sort-of allergic reactions, when it should be spent by his side, learning everything he has to offer you before you’re back with the day shift.

because that’s why he’s so invested in making sure you’re on a trauma with him—because of how much he has to teach. parker and john haven’t said a bad thing about you, and even the day crew during passing exchanges—nothing besides wondering how you have so much energy at seven am without a cup of coffee in your system. 

that is why he’s so invested—right?

on your last shift of nights for this block, you show up a little extra early. you think you can avoid jack by doing so, but he comes early too, wanting to catch you alone, if just for a moment. 

you walk with your hands filled with more tupperware that he recognizes. the very same containers are sitting on his countertop right now, the contents mostly eaten. he doesn’t want to finish the last of your cookies even though they’ll get stale soon. and why that is, he pretends to not know the answer.

he follows you into the break room at six twenty-five while you open the lids and set out napkins. 

“oh,” you say, surprised when you hear the door click behind you. you didn’t think anyone would have noticed you sneaking in there. “dr. abbot-”

“listen, kid, i need to-” jack’s eyes, without intending to, fall from your confused expression to the table in the room. you have more cookies—maybe snickerdoodle—in the containers. “what’s this for?”

“it’s my last day on nights.”

“so you made cookies?”

“it’s to thank everyone,” you ramble on, like you have to justify the idea to jack. “for being so patient with me. interns are already so annoying and then on top of that when they’re not sleeping. i just thought it would be nice. and there’s no nuts or chocolate so it’s more allergy friendly, you know. i-i’m gonna stop talking now.”

“no-” he says, too quickly, and you look just as confused as ever. your eyebrows knit and your mouth opens a bit and he stares at you, while you stare at him. in fact, jack wishes you wouldn’t look at him like this—cute and confused and too nice for your own good. “no, i mean-” 

what does he mean? what he really wants to say is please don’t stop talking, but all that comes out is—

“that’s…nice. i’m sure they’ll appreciate it. and interns, well, they’re supposed to be annoying. that’s how you learn.” jack pauses, thinking he’s done well, that this is a good place to stop. “not that you’re annoying, that’s not what i-”

“thank you, dr. abbot,” you supply, smiling at him. and god, if it isn’t exactly how he thought it’d be—your bright smile feels like it sends a halo of warmth over the person you’re looking at, and this time, it’s lucky him. your face changes too, the confusion and concern melt away and are replaced with sheer joy, like you’re thankful for every bumbling word in a fairly awkward conversation. 

he’s never been like this, he thinks, or maybe the confidence that surged through him during every trauma had nestled somewhere permanently, constantly hitched along into his real life. he’s never considered himself a don juan but he’s not a stranger to women either—and he certainly doesn’t stutter through sentences and backtrack because he’s worried he’s offended you. that doesn’t happen to him. it’s never happened to him.

but he supposes, taking in how you smile with your entire face and what else he can do to get you to stay smiling, that there’s a first time for everything.

“you were saying something? when you came in?” you ask.

“yes, uh-” 

damn it. what was he saying? he can’t remember. it’s distracting—you, the cookies, your radiant smile, all of it. especially when he thinks about a week ago today, when you were standing in front of him with your wet eyes and wobbly chin, when he was angry about something he can’t even piece together right now. right—the apology. 

“i just wanted to apologize for my behavior last week. i-i hope you-”

but before he can finish the sentence the door opens. it’s dana.

“jack, robby’s asking for you. three incoming mvc’s and mckay left early for something with her son and no one else is here yet, and-” she stops, glancing between you, jack, and the cookies on the table. “hey, kid. you jumping in?” 

you glance to jack when dana asks that, big eyes staring at him for permission. you really shouldn’t have done that, because he thinks you’re only making all the rest of this much worse, whatever he’s been pushing down and burying for the last week that seems determined to hit the surface today. 

“tell him we’re coming,” jack says, and though he had more to say to you, he has to stop for now. on the walk to the trauma bay, jack recaps how he runs through traumas with you. he ties your gown while you pull gloves in his size, and then the ones in your size.

when you hand him the gloves, he gets a look into your eyes—pretty, nervous, excited. in that order.

“what do we have?” jack asks, and trail behind him momentarily, taking a big breath before walking out and following him into the trauma bay. robby jumps on the first ambulance with heather and leaves the second to you and jack. you see frank and mel walking towards the third one, still driving up.

the paramedic starts rattling off the vitals and the patient keeps speaking over him, thrashing up and trying to crane her neck despite the c-spine collar wrapped around it. 

you know what you’re trained to do in these situations—listen to ems, treat the patient, figure out what she keeps interrupting for after you’re positive that she’s not going to die on your table. but some part of you just can’t let it sit like that. you can’t stand when someone thinks you’ve ignored a part of their sentence, much less ignore them entirely.

“wait, wait,” you tell the paramedic as they’re wheeling the gurney into one of the trauma rooms. all around you, the nurses have started their work, setting up iv’s and rolling in portable x-rays. they set aside blood and wait by the phone to call for the surgical consult or to clear up ct as soon as you and jack decide the patient needs one.

“excuse me?” he replies, turning to look at jack with an expression that asks are we listening to her? and even jack looks at you a little confused while you get closer to the patient, until you’re in her line of sight and she stops moving so much. the noise around you will never fully go quiet, but it dims down for thirty seconds.

“you have to stop moving so much, ma’am. what are you trying to say?”

“i really think we should-” the paramedic interjects, but you snap your head towards him, trying to figure out how to say shut up without really saying it.

“can you please, just give me a second?”

“my daughter, my daughter, she’s hurt, please-” she responds, not thrashing anymore, just crying.

jack looks between you and the patient for a moment. this case is surgical—she practically went through the windshield. there’s glass that needs to be removed, a concussion, possibly a chest tube, and an airway if she crashes. 

“you guys need hands in here?” you hear trinity ask from somewhere behind you.

jack knows you have a choice here, and he thinks, for a moment, you’ll tell her to find the daughter while you finish this trauma with him. it’s for your own learning, your education. it’s to show you what the some of the worst outcomes from car accidents look like, things to check for in the future even if your patient looks fine.

“i’m gonna find your daughter, okay? but i need you to stop moving so they can take care of you. because she needs her mom, too.” you turn to santos, and trinity jumps in while you walk out. jack catches one glimpse of you before turning to his patient, laying still and compliant, crying silently. 

an hour later, most of the day shift has gone home. trinity even stops at bed 19 where you’re suturing the little girl’s arm while she drinks a juice box and waits for a head ct in case she has a concussion too. 

“when is it gonna be my turn on nights? abbot is so cool. i put in the chest tube and got to bring her up to surgery.”

you get an uneasy feeling in your chest thinking about someone else on nights with jack in your position—not the yelling, but rather the apology he never got to finish. how sincerely he looked at you when you left to find the daughter instead of finishing up with your patient—maybe it was a mistake. maybe he’ll be upset with you, but it doesn’t matter, since it’s your last shift, anyways.

“and those cookies are fantastic. alright, thanks bubbles. i’ll see you back on days.”

“bubbles? wait, those cookies weren’t for you-” you call out after her, but she walks away without responding. you turn back to the little girl.

“there’s cookies?”

“yes,” you sigh, taking your seat again. her arm is nearly done, just needs a bandage. dad is on his way, the social worker is informed, and someone should be coming over to take over to watch her until ct is ready. “i can give you one after your dad gets here, if he’s okay with it. but for now you have to rest.”

she asks you if her mom is going to be okay, and in truth, you don’t know the answer. you should, but you don’t. you excuse yourself when one of the nurses gets there to monitor her, and try to find parker so you can move onto the next. 

jack must be in another trauma, because you don’t see him anywhere and though you’re not eager to get yelled at again, you do need to finish the conversation from earlier.

and you need your tupperware back.

you end up seeing six patients, getting four of them ready to be sent home and two waiting for beds upstairs and consults that are taking far too long. parker pulls you aside while she chews on one of your snickerdoodles.

“can you do nights more often? these cookies are great, bubbles.” 

“okay, when did this catch on? i know trinity likes her nicknames but this is the first time i’ve heard it. also, what the hell does it even mean?”

parker looks at you with a tilt of her head.

“seriously?”

“bubbles? maybe something like, i don’t know, crybaby, i would have understood.” you pause, hesitating, and then glancing up from the screen you’ve been staring at, your half-assed attempt at a proper note. “wait, how long has she been calling me that?”

“since your first day. but it doesn’t sound like nearly as much of an insult as it used to.”

at least parker will give it to you straight.

“can i ask you something? about dr. abbot?” you don’t know where the surge of confidence comes from, but you think you need to ride the wave to some answers before your shift ends. you glance at your watch while parker does the same. almost midnight.

“i’ll give you five minutes. by the way, he was in the break room if you want to ask him directly.”

“really?

“yeah. shoveling down cookies. you’re gonna give him pre-diabetes.”

“really?” and it’s hard to hide your smile, entire face lighting up. “it’s my favorite recipe. well, second favorite, i guess. my roommate in medical school had a nut allergy so i always made snickerdoodles for her, but those brownies i made for him are probably are my actual favorite-”

parker’s expression changes.

“you made him brownies?”

“yeah?” fuck. “it-it was to apologize. for last week, the nsaids thing.”

“he yelled at you.” she pauses, staring at you a little more quizzically. “he made you cry.”

“he was having a bad week?” you offer sheepishly. 

“right.” another pause. “what was your question?”

“i don’t remember. i’m gonna go see a patient now.” you save the contents of your note and decide to finish it later, during the three am lull with a hot cup of coffee and a cookie if there’s any left.

your question was going to be disguised with a ramble of some sort, asking ellis if she thinks jack abbot is the type to apologize for yelling at her or if there was something else he was going to tell her before those traumas came rolling in.

but lucky for you, you get your answer. four am, in the break room, running a little late on finishing your notes, behind on a schedule that you had invented in your own head. the last patient you saw had been really frightened of the hospital, as well as a language barrier that you had to wait thirty minutes to find a translator for at this hour.

you need a coffee, a cookie, and a computer to finish your notes. and then you need to leave the night shift and not be stuck in the hospital with jack abbot for twelve hours.

though there’s a smile on your face when you open the door, at the very idea that jack liked your snickerdoodles enough to shovel them down, or whatever parker had said. you look up and your smile gets replaced with surprise at the man standing in front of you.

it’s mental beetlejuice, or something. every time you think about him, boom, there he is. facing the counter, pouring black coffee into his steel gray tumbler.

“oh. hi.” how can you be so shocked that he’s in here? it’s four am with no incomings and it’s really not that big of a department. you passed the other two doctors on with you on the walk here—parker at central talking to a nurse and shen at a computer eating a granola bar.

“hey, kid. coffee? just made a pot.”

“yes, please.” you walk over, fetching your yellow mug from the cabinet. you glance at the table—your containers empty save for the crumbs of cinnamon sugar on the bottom. “was gonna have a cookie too. i should have made more.” jack pours you a cup and then hands you the creamer and the sugar. you notice that his own coffee is drunk just black though.

“it’s john, i’m telling you. he’s got a sweet tooth worse than mine. and don’t let parker fool you. i saw her in here three times tonight.” jack takes a seat in one of the chairs, but first he pulls one out for you.

you sit down and smile, laughing at his comment.

“well, she said that you were in here shoveling them down, so, i don’t know who to believe.”

“she said that?” you nod, taking a sip of your sweet coffee.

the coffee in the break room is notorious for being just fine. it’s never great, or even just good, it’s just fuel. but it tastes a lot better today.

“i’m gonna plead the fifth on that one.” 

you laugh again. you look over, realizing there’s one cookie left in the container.

“one left. but you can have it,” you say, the caffeine and this conversation doing wonders for your energy levels. “i had a bunch at home earlier today and i make them all the time, so-”

“nah, kid. we’ll split it.” jack breaks it in half and slides it towards you on a napkin, and you smile at him again—warm, generous, compassionate. 

a lot of big words to describe the smile of a resident he just got to know better this week, but he can’t turn it off. the radar in his head alerting him that the person he’s been thinking about for hours is sitting in front of him now, nibbling on half a cookie.

“that was a nice thing you did, earlier. with the mom and the daughter. she was completely compliant after.”

“i figured. i can’t believe the paramedic didn’t listen to her the whole ride in, though.” you take another sip of coffee before putting your mug down on the table. “not that he did something wrong. i know he was trying to help and they’re trained to focus on the patient and all that. but she was moving around in a c-collar, so i figured-well, i’ll stop rambling. they said the surgery went good so that’s all that matters, i guess.” you go quiet, taking another bite just so you stop yourself from talking too much again.

“both things can be true. he should have listened and he did his job. how’s the daughter?”

“good, good. i gave her stitches and she had some minor cuts. i think the mom thought she was bleeding a lot worse. dad’s with her, so…” 

“you had the chance to jump on the trauma but you left to take care of the kid.” jack doesn’t say it with any sort of tone, presents it to you plainly, like a statement.

“is this the part where you’re gonna yell at me?” you blink up at him, worried again.

“no, no. i just-” he pauses, thinking about his words carefully. he smiles, like he’s about to laugh. “it’s just the sort of thing i can’t teach, so-”

there’s a knock on the door, and you audibly sigh. is it the worst thing in the world to ask for some privacy for five minutes in this place, to be able to finish a conversation with your attending for once?

it’s john.

“incoming. three minutes out. aw, man, are those the last of the cookies?”

you do get to jump on the case with shen and abbot, though the man isn’t in bad condition at all. took a spill on his kid’s toys and bruised his tailbone, but his wife called for an ambulance. he waits for a head ct and x-ray and the room clears out, and you wonder if you’ll get a chance to finish out your conversation with jack abbot.

you don’t.

he stays behind to tell robby something and parker and john usher you out for a celebratory latte—decaf, obviously—to finish your first small taste of nights. you carry your empty containers in the tote bag you brought them in, and realize you didn’t even get a chance to tell him to bring your containers back.

(whether you want the containers or an excuse to talk to him again, you don’t know. it’s a can of worms not worth opening now that nights are done—though you’re sure he must have finished the contents by now. the idea of your yellow tupperware sitting on his counter or his kitchen table, well… it leads your mind to wonder about other things.

what does his place look like? did he sit on his couch with brownies and farmer needs a wife, like you had suggested? what about in his bed? jack doesn’t seem the type to have a television in his bedroom, or the type to eat in bed, though sometimes you’ll make an exception for dessert, and maybe he can be convinced.

and then you cut the entire thought out of your head, because it’s downright unprofessional and you have no business spending time wondering about his bed or his couch or anything else. stupid tupperware. and what’s even worse is going home with the realization you might not get to find out what jack was going to say to you in the break room, either time.)

+

if you ask a hundred emergency room doctors what the worst day of the year is, you’ll get a hundred different answers. halloween, thanksgiving, and new year’s are all up there. 

but jack abbot’s answer has never changed—fourth of july. 

a day littered with sunshine, grilling, and sparklers. to any emergency medicine specialist, it’s more about sun-poisoning, choking on hot dogs, and burn injuries from at-home fireworks. the hospital is flooded with back-to-back traumas, ranging from people passing out at the beach in the afternoon to full body burns by the evening.

you had always predicted the worst part is how a lot of the injuries are on children. they’re the ones left unattended while mom and dad drink themselves silly or let them play with firecrackers on the pavement, assuming they’ll be fine. you’ve done two emergency medicine rotations in school and you think you know what the fourth will be like, that you’ll be unnerved the entire day by the sound of crying children and trying to hold back anger on the irresponsible parents.

but walking through the doors of the hospital on your second week back on days, you realize you really don’t know much. 

like, for example, that jack abbot walks in beside you and mel at six forty-five. you look at him confused, and then turn to mel, who doesn’t match your expression but is also confused, you’re sure. jack is quick by the lockers—takes off his backpack and heads straight back out. 

mel speaks up first.

“i didn’t know dr. abbot does days,” she says, taking off her jacket and folding it neatly. 

“i didn’t either. do you know why?” it’s really an unnecessary question—it shouldn’t matter to you at all. but it does, and you’re terrible at burying things. it’s written all over your face that you want to know the answer why.

“well it’s likely just for overflow. i’m sure they’re expecting double the amount of patients today.”

“right. yeah, that makes sense.” 

“though it is surprising-”

“what is?”

“-that he didn’t take the day off, i suppose.”

“why’s that?” you ask, and mel shrugs.

“fourth of july is a usually tough day for a lot of veterans. when i was at the va hospital, some of the other doctors who had served would stay at home with their families. and the noise from the fireworks, too-”

mel goes on, but you have a hard time paying attention to the rest of her story. one thought washes over you, filling you with enough dread to last all day, making your blood feel icy cold in your veins. jack doesn’t have any family to spend the day with at home, so instead he’s here for the day shift, to help with the extra patients.

“i hadn’t thought about that.” you say quietly. you put your stethoscope around your neck and hold the familiar container in your hands.

“that’s okay, a lot of people don’t. i don’t think i did before my year there. wait, are those more cookies?”

it seems that robby shares some of your dread. you head out with mel, putting the star shaped sugar cookies with red and blue frosting in the break room. during sign-offs you tell parker and john to grab a few—just a few! leave some for the rest of us—before they head home. you smile politely at frank, who seems very concerned with making sure mel knows how hectic this holiday gets in the pitt and ask cassie how that bake sale went.

and then robby pulls you aside, leading you in front of central.

“i brought sugar cookies, i hope that’s okay. is something wrong?” you ask, gauging how robby is looking at you right now.

“yeah, everything’s fine.” he looks around distractedly, or maybe like he’s trying to make sure no one is eavesdropping. “listen, i know you just got back from nights-”

“are you sending me back? to nights?”

“what? no, no, we need you on days. i mean, you just finished nights and you were with abbot for a bit. how’d that go, by the way?”

“dr. abbot?”

“nights.”

“oh,” you say, feeling yourself flush. warmth spreads over you despite how cold it runs in the hospital. flustered, you continue. “it was good. um, busy and i learned a lot.”

“and you got to spend some time working with abbot, right?”

“yeah. some-uh, yes. i did.”

“great. because today is a bit of a weird day for him. he’s not used to days and we get overwhelmed pretty quickly. he’s here to help and it’s always great to have extra hands, especially his hands, but-” you zone out for a moment at the thought of jack’s hands. “-he seems a bit off and i want to make sure he’s doing okay, and he’ll just ignore me if i ask. so if you could—?”

robby trails off and you stare at him blankly, blinking after fifteen seconds of silence.

“if i could what?”

“just, check on him, y’know, throughout the day. just make sure he’s alright. thanks a ton kid, i knew i could count on you.” 

“wait, what-” but then robby is gone, and you’re left at central with dana behind you, handing you a tablet with a patient’s name on it and somewhere to your left is jack, immersed in a conversation with heather. you stare at him, and the he notices you looking, and looks back.

any other day, you’d turn and go straight to your patient, but not today.

today your attending has given you a task—check in on jack. make sure jack’s okay. and you are not the type of person to disappoint your superior.

you walk over to them, smile at both, and then watch as heather excuses herself. had robby told her about the task he’d assigned you?

“hey, kid. don’t tell me—america themed cookies?” 

you shirk under his gaze, the idea that felt very cute last night suddenly seeming exceedingly corny.

“it’s just festive,” you argue. “the frosting is made with blueberries and strawberries instead of food coloring. it’s healthier, i mean, it’s practically like eating fruit.”

“i don’t think you’re winning that argument, but sure, whatever you say. if parker and john left any for the rest of us.”

“i made a bunch this time. i figured there’d be more hands on deck today, i guess.”

(you hadn’t figured that. your logic with doubling the recipe and yielding twice as many cookies was that maybe there’d be some leftover for the night shift to take home with them—specifically one salt and pepper attending who already has two containers of yours at his home. what’s a third?)

“smart. we’ll need them. it’s gonna be a busy day.”

“that’s what i’ve heard,” you look up at jack again with a small smile—trying to disarm him without alerting him of your motive from robby. “how are you feeling, by the way?”

jack knits his eyebrows together.

“how am i feeling?”

“are you okay? do-do you need anything? i can go get you a cookie now, if you want, before they’re all gone. it’s not just the night shift, you know, trinity plows through them. and mel doesn’t have as much of a sweet tooth but since it has the fruit frosting, you know, i think she’ll like them.”

jack looks at you with a twinkle in his eyes, like he’s holding back a laugh, stopping it short at just a smile.

“i’m, i’m fine, kid. and that’s alright, i’ll go get one in a bit.”

“oh. okay. well that’s good.”

“are you okay?”

“yeah, why wouldn’t i be?” you lock eyes with him again.

“no reason. well, maybe we can go get that-”

“dr. abbot?” someone says, and you hold back the groan. it’s getting harder and harder to keep it inside. 

the people in this hospital really don’t want you to finish a conversation with your attending.

“yeah?”

he gets pulled up, and you do too—back to the chairs. it’s the usual residual patients from last night, but as the hours pass, you get more injuries related to the holiday. the allergic reactions and sprained wrists turn into burns from the grill and heat exhaustion. 

you find jack three more times in between seven patients—asking him he’s okay, how his patients are, if he wants that cookie now, or maybe water? all these people are dehydrated, it’s no good if their doctors are too, right? 

the next time you do it, he locks eyes with robby right after. you sneak your way past moving gurneys and crying patients, just to tap his shoulder and check in one last time before you sit down to debride a severe burn, one that’ll have you gone for at least an hour. 

“what the hell did you do, robby?” he asks, while they monitor a man who came in on the ambulance after setting half his body on fire trying to grill hot dogs.

“what do you mean? nothing.”

“that kid has-”

“did you try those cookies? they’re fantastic. no wonder you want her back on nights.”

maybe another two hours later, during a surge of ambulances, you realize you haven’t seen jack in a while. 

you pat your patient on the shoulder—a little girl with her mom who took a spill on the pavement while chasing her sister—and tell them you’ll send the nurse over with their discharge papers, and set out to find jack before sitting down with yet another burn—your tenth or so at least so far today. you close the curtain and look at the chaos in front of you—gurneys lined up against walls, patients crying and the entire place smelling of burnt flesh and salt water. 

dr. abbot is by the trauma bay, organizing patients as they come, and the whole thing feels more like a triage unit than it does an emergency room. 

you see trinity seeing the others from the chairs, heather jumping onto an incoming with robby. mel and frank are in one trauma room and jack is standing in the middle of everything.

is it the best time to ask him how he’s doing? no. that much is clear to anyone with a functioning frontal lobe.

but you are not just anyone, you’re you. you get slightly muddled in the head when it comes to jack abbot, and you definitely are not going to disappoint robby when he put you in charge of checking in on him.

you weave your way through the floor, avoiding nurses walking through with supplies in their hands and telling whoever you were supposed to be checking in with that you’ll be right back.

you dodge two gurneys that almost took your knees out just to get close enough to say his name and for him to hear you. you don’t see the one rolling right behind you.

“dr. abbot, are-” you’re interrupted by the sound of your own yelp, when jack reaches out to clasp his hand around your arm. he yanks you hard, pulling you out of the way, and suddenly, all the noises of the emergency room die down.

you hear the paramedic behind you, apologizing as he wheels the gurney out and back to the ambulance bay. you hear dana shouting from central to you—watch out, kid!—and even the wails coming from the trauma room robby and heather are in—a woman crying. 

but you don’t really hear any of it. your eyes are locked on jack’s hazel ones, his fingers still tight against your bare skin. his hands are softer than you’d imagined.

you blink at him stupidly, mouth falling open a little. you must look as dumb as you feel, almost getting hit by a gurney in the middle of a very busy shift. it’s like intern 101—things to avoid doing, especially in front of your attendings.

but jack doesn’t seem mad. he looks at you with concerned, pretty eyes, a focused expression. and then, at the same time—

“are you okay?” 

you both stare at each other for a while. you must look the equivalent of someone starstruck, staring with sparkling eyes, looking almost as grateful for him as you feel. that gurney would have taken you out of commission—at the very least you’d hit your head and be filling out paperwork under gloria’s watchful eye. 

but you’re fine, save for a large bruise forming on your upper arm with each second that passes by as you continue stare at jack.

“you two!” dana shouts over the other commotion, effectively snapping you out of it. all the noises return at once, making you wince, and what’s worse is that people are staring. “incoming, two minutes out. the rest of you, back to work-”

“come on, kid. you’re with me.”

you most certainly are.

+

at around quarter past eight on the fourth of july, you’re seated across from jack abbot at his favorite twenty-four hour diner. 

well, to be fair, you’re making more assumptions in the thirty minutes you’ve been sitting here with him than you have for the entire time you’ve know him. first—that this is his favorite diner. second—that he’s as interested in you as you are in him. and third—that you’ll finally get to finish the multiple conversations you’ve started with him and been unable to finish due to interruptions.

but there’s no interruptions here. post dinner rush, with a group of teenagers a few tables away and a couple in business clothes eating on the stools by the counter. there’s no nosy residents or gossipy nurses or incoming traumas. it’s just starting to get dark out, and you know the fireworks will start soon.

what you don’t know is if jack is going to be completely okay tonight. you don't care if you’re a temporary distraction from the noise, but you do care if you’ll be enough of a distraction for him.

the two of you order enough food to feed the entirety of the night shift at the hospital right now. the short staffing is the reason why you didn’t sit down to eat until seven forty-five, but it’s fine. as long as you’re here with him now.

you justify it mentally while jack steals one of your french fries—the ones he said he didn’t want half of when you asked—that you just need to finish the conversations from earlier. that it’s not wrong or inherently bad to order half the menu with your attending, one that was responsible for all of your anxiety three weeks ago. 

but staring at him like this, you wonder what you had been so worried about. in fact, over the last few weeks, you’ve realized he’s nothing like what you thought at first. 

“okay, i know this must be sound terrible,” you start, setting down your soda and reaching for another salty fry. “but that was amazing. like, the thrilling kind of amazing. does that make sense?” you stare at jack while you await his response.

“yes, it makes sense,” he says, but he can’t contain the laugh anymore. it comes out from his chest—unadulterated laughter, the rumble taking over his entire body.

“you’re laughing at me?” you ask, though you don’t actually seem upset about it. it’s hard to feel any sort of upset when you’re listening to what may be your new favorite sound in the world.

“no, no, i promise i’m not. you’re just so… you. even on a day like today.”

“what does that mean?” you reply quickly, sitting up straighter in your seat, expression turning deadly serious. “god, i’m so sorry. is that completely insensitive? i know it can be a hard day, i mean, well i didn’t know know. but mel brought it up this morning when we saw you and then robby told me to check on you and i thought i was helping until that stupid gurney almost took me out. but i just meant after that! the traumas and doing them with you. i-i hadn’t done any yet, with you, so i-” 

“when do you breathe?”

“sorry,” you sigh. “it’s a bad habit.”

“don’t apologize to me, please. it’s-” jack goes quiet, his mind searching to fill in the blank but coming up empty. 

it’s nice, he thinks. sweet. refreshing. funny. you’re all of those things and more. you don’t bite your tongue and hold back thoughts. you ramble until he can step into your thoughts completely—see it from your perspective like he’s inside your brain.

and jack—well, jack has friends. army buddies, guys he used to study with during medical school, a couple people from his residency that he stays in touch with. he has robby, though his friendship with him is going to be on thin ice after what he put you up to earlier, and dana. his parents are gone and so are his in-laws but he calls his sister when he really needs to talk about something and he checks in with his wife’s siblings once or twice a year, usually around the anniversary of her death.

(he hadn’t done it a few weeks ago, though, and he has trouble figuring out if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. but then he stares up at you, sipping your drink, patiently waiting for him to finish his sentence, before you, undoubtedly, ask him if he’s okay again. like if he tells you that he’s not—because really, he’s not—that you’ll make it your personal mission to make sure that he is. and that, well, what is he supposed to do with that?)

luckily the waitress interrupts the silence with the rest of the food—grilled cheese and waffles and whatever else sounded appealing in a hunger-driven craze—and he doesn’t have to finish the thought.

you two do talk about other things—how he’s sorry about yelling that week and how you completely didn’t deserve it. you tell him it’s fine and that he had a bad week and that you’re not upset, that it would feel wrong to hold that against him. he tells you about how good the brownies and the cookies were, and you beam at him with that smile again.

the conversations ebbs and flows—how it was nice of you to take care of that woman’s daughter. how great you did in the traumas today. how stupid robby is for asking you to check in on him—don’t listen to him ever again, just, come to me first next time. 

and then once the food is eaten and your drinks run empty, and the sound of fireworks is littering your eardrums, you just say it.

“i don’t think you should be alone tonight.”

“i’ve spent lots of july fourths alone, kid. i’ll be fine.”

he probably will be fine. he has noise cancelling headphones and though his apartment is close to the park where the fireworks are held—an oversight he didn’t think of when he moved in—he can distract himself enough to get through the night. he’s been doing it for years—taking care of himself when it comes to things like this.

“no, i-i know you will be. i just don’t think you should be alone.”

and then, for a split second, the force of your caring, of your affection for him hits him like a blow. it rushes over him—the feeling of how easy it might be to let you take care of him. to let someone else do it for once. reality seeps back in slowly, bringing his senses back one by one.

the first thing it does is remind him that you’re an intern.

“kid,” jack says firmly, sitting up straighter in the booth. he rests his elbows against the table, staring straight at you, boring into your soul like he always does. “i don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“why not?”

“well, for one, i’m your attending.”

“oh, who cares about stuff like that? it’s not like i’m gonna tell anyone,” you reply, as though the words had come to you quickly, like you really believed them. 

as if you’d already put some thought into your response before he’d asked you the question.

you don’t seem the least bit hesitant about basically telling him to spend the night with you—whatever that might mean to you. he doesn’t want to assume things, but it’s been a while since he’s done something like this. he doesn’t know what’s changed in the last decade and he certainly has never done something like this with a resident, much less an intern.

the whole thing is seeming much too bill clinton to him. he wants to express the thought to you, though it doesn’t make much sense—he’s not married and he’s not the president but you’re an intern and he was raised right so it feels wrong—and then he realizes it quickly. are you even old enough to remember that scandal? he shakes his head, as though he can dispel the thought by physically removing it.

“i care about stuff like that. there’s a power imbalance here, and-”

“i’m not even on nights anymore!”

“but you will be on nights again in the future. in a few months from now, when you’re a second year. you’ll do a whole month of nights in third year, too.” 

your lips curve up into a playful smile.

“getting a little ahead of ourselves, aren’t we?”

“kid-”

“i said you shouldn’t spend tonight alone. you’re thinking three years ahead. i mean, don’t get me wrong, jack, i’m totally flattered, but i think you should scale it down. one day at a time and all that.” his expression changes and so does yours—it’s the first time you’ve ever called him anything other than dr. abbot. “i’m sorry. is that completely unprofessional? oh my god, am i one of those people? is that harassment?” you whisper the last part, as though you’re worried he’ll leave to report you this instant.

jack wants to bang his head against the table. he thinks, not for the first time and certainly not for the last time about what he’s going to do with you. 

the waitress brings the check and he places his card in her hand before you can so much as glance at it.

“i… i just meant that, i think it’s a bad idea if you spend tonight alone. we can watch a movie or make cookies or whatever you want to do. it’s just-” you trail off, suddenly quiet.

“it’s just what?”

“if we both go home alone, i’m just gonna spend the whole time worrying about you, anyways. might as well worry about you while i’m sitting next to you.” you stare at the table the whole time you say it, and then your gaze flickers up at him before looking back down quickly. “that must sound crazy. i’m sorry-”

“stop apologizing to me, kid.” 

it’s hard on a regular day to resist the urge to listen to everything you say, to comply since he knows how good you are. made of a kind of sweetness that he really doesn’t know the first thing about—how you got to be this way, with an abundance of compassion, enough to make him feel like he’ll explode from the sheer strength of it.

what jack does know is that he wants to find out.

you both get up, and you put on your pullover from what can only be your alma mater, grabbing the containers you’d brought into the break room this morning. he swings on his backpack and you both walk outside. it’s dark now, and you can hear fireworks somewhere in the distance. the noise is loud and uncomfortable even to you, and you briefly wonder how it might sound to jack, and decide again that you really, really don’t want him to be alone tonight.

“listen, kid. i don’t want you to waste your night worrying about me. you should-”

“oh, trust me, it’s not a waste. i have an ulterior motive for wanting to go back to your place,” you say, nodding when jack tilts his head at you in confusion, wondering if he’ll bite.

“yeah? and what’s that?”

“i need my tupperware back.”

+

your back thuds against the wall beside jack abbot’s apartment door. you’ve never been here but you try to blink open your eyes to take it in, to see if it’s just as you thought it’d be while his lips—soft and wanton and kissing you—stay against yours.

it’s stupid—why are you worried about his apartment when your attending is kissing you like you belong to him? but then you remember something frank had once told you during your first week, something about adhd and how all of you probably have it, and then you start giggling against jack abbot’s lips.

his fingertips, which were brushing against the skin of your waist after sneaking under your shirt, tighten around the soft skin there. you can feel them digging in, but stupidly, deliriously, and a little light headed, you wonder if you’ll bruise if he pushes hard enough.

“y’know, kid,” he mumbles against your mouth, pulling away for just a second. his breath is hot against your lips and his touch makes goosebumps rise all over you, makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up tall. “i haven’t done this in a while but if you’re laughing, i must be doing something wrong.”

you should say something, say anything, so he stops talking and keeps kissing you, but nothing comes out besides another laugh. 

“i’m sorry,” you say, trying to catch your breath while jack’s hands hover over your hips. “i-” you glance up to lock eyes again, but when you see the way he’s looking at you, you stop laughing completely. 

“if you’re uncomfortable, we can stop. you don’t have to-”

“no! no, i’m not uncomfortable. i-i’m laughing because this is so funny. you’re my attending and now we’re kissing and i’m in your apartment and it looks, exactly how i pictured it. and you’re so nice to me, but it’s the fourth of july and i want to make sure you’re okay because-” 

jack interrupts you with another kiss, his lips pressing against yours. this time he doesn’t let up, his tongue slipping into your mouth while you collapse against the wall, knees suddenly very weak.

but it’s alright, because jack’s got you. he holds you up by your hips and your legs mindlessly wrap around him, his hands going to your ass to hoist you up and secure you around him. he lifts you up and starts walking, and you whine against him, impatient and fairly comfortable where you were.

it’s like he’s a mind reader.

“our first time is not going to be against a wall,” he mutters, mouth on the column on your neck, tracing kisses from your collarbone to your cheek and then back to your lips. you want to reply, you want to tell him that you would have been perfectly content against that wall, or the door, or the couch, or even the floor, but nothing comes out.

you pull away just for a moment to look at him in the dim light of his bedroom—flushed cheeks, breathing heavy, taking a moment to push a piece of your hair behind your ear before kissing you again. and then with his mouth on yours again, you realize that jack abbot has discovered some way to turn your brain off. 

his touch is rough on your skin—when your scrubs got peeled off of you, you don’t actually know. he throws them somewhere on the ground and you paw at his shirt until he gives in and takes it off. 

it should be slower, he thinks briefly, he should slow down and take his time and not even give in and slip inside of you until you’re already a writhing, aching mess. he’s out of practice but he knows how you are, knows what would make you fall apart piece by piece.

that’s what he thinks of when your hands go to the button and zipper of his pants. for everything he knows about you, you’re also impatient. and lucky for you, he is too.

jack is out of practice, but it doesn’t mean he’s forgotten everything.

“c’mon, kid,” he breathes against your collarbone, wrestling your hands away from and then pinning them over your head. “be patient.”

“i’ve been patient—!” you whine, but he doesn’t give in just yet.

“it’ll hurt, sweetheart. i have to stretch you out first,” he says, and you feel dizzy with lust. it washes over you and makes you dumb, and you, for everything you are, are not a dumb girl. at least—not normally.

jack skips the teasing this time, trailing fingers down your chest, between the valley of your breasts and over your stomach. when he gets to your leaking cunt, he collects the wetness there with two fingers, and when you start whining again, impatient and antsy and your entire body humming with want, he does it again.

reminds you to be patient, and then plunges a finger inside of you. a moan leaves your throat—choked and loud, but he wants you to be even louder. you don’t know when he adds a second, and then a third, but you feel the delicious stretch of your walls, how his palm stays in place for you to grind up against. your hips buck up and you’re ruining his sheets and crying for more though you don’t even know what you’re asking for.

and jack takes it all in. how wet you feel against his fingers, how beautiful the noises that you’re making are. so focused on you—the sheen of sweat on your skin and how responsive you are to his touch, the noises outside his walls get drowned out. 

“jack, jack, more—” you plead, but jack doesn’t listen. everything in your body feels ready to finish. your muscles ache, the knot in your belly tightens, and heat washes over you while your toes curl in anticipation.

and then jack just stops.

“no—” you whine, the rush disappearing all at once. “no, no, jack!”

“patience, kid.”

“you’re being unfair-”

“no, i’m not.”

“then why’d you-”

“because the first time i make you finish is going to be when i’m inside of you. understood?”

and for once, you’re silent.

+

“i would have gone to the roof, probably.”

you blink open your sleepy eyes. you’re pressed against jack’s chest, your head resting there while he trails his fingers through your hair. you’re wearing his shirt, sleeping in his sheets, a cup of water that he got you from his kitchen resting on the nightstand.

you can’t feel your legs, but that’s a problem for tomorrow—but at least you know now that you might have bitten off more than you can chew. 

“what do you mean?” you ask quietly. the fireworks stopped an hour or so ago, and the only noise you hear now is jack’s heartbeat thudding against your ear.

“the rooftop, at the hospital. i go there after my shifts sometimes.” 

a lot of the time—but you don’t need to know that. from the way you immediately sit up in bed, his sheets slipping a little and exposing more of your soft skin that you don’t seem to care about, he can tell you’re concerned already. 

his shirt looks good on you. 

“tell me it’s just for fresh air?” you ask, reaching your hand over to run your fingers through the hair near his temple. his eyes close when feels your touch there, and suddenly, it feels more intimate than it has all evening. jack takes a deep breath, and then sighs.

“something like that.”

“jack-”

“it’s just… i don’t know. i got used to it, i guess. at first it was just to see what it felt like being up there. then it just turned into something else. i go up there after a bad shift and look at all the people below and… decide if it’s still worth it, i guess.” his hazel eyes look towards you and jack nestles himself more comfortably against your hand that hasn’t left him. 

“what’s gonna happen if you decide it’s not worth it one day?” you ask quietly, wet eyes sparkling up at him.

teary-eyed and flushed in his bed, all for him. you feel your emotions so strongly that he can watch them flooding your body, taking their course, almost sense them radiating from you. 

that’s the second time you’ve cried because of him, and he decides he’s not going to let it happen a third time.

he takes the hand that you had extended against him into his own and presses a kiss against your palm. 

“i don’t think i have to worry about that anymore.”

+

you get back to your apartment around four in the afternoon—you have a rare day off today. jack’s back on the night shift at seven, and though he offered to let you stay the night while he was gone, you wanted to give him time to get ready before going into the hospital. everyone has a pre-shift routine, even if they don’t recognize it. 

now that you’re back on days, yours consists of waking up early to stretch and eat a big breakfast and leave enough time lay in bed for an extra ten minutes before you actually have to get up.

you don’t know what jack’s is but you’re sure you’ll find out soon enough. 

the two of you slept in, courtesy of his black out curtains. you’re more of a get up with the sun person, but exceptions can be made.

(you’ll be making a lot of them from now on. jack abbot made you cum three times in his bed and once in the shower, and then he washed your body with his soap, the one you can still smell on your skin now. he kissed you while making you breakfast—eggs and bacon—and then told you to stop apologizing every time you accidentally hit your foot against his prosthetic under his dining table. and finally, he gave you one of your containers to take back home, and said he’s keeping the other one here. why? you’d asked. insurance, he’d replied.)

so you go back home, make dinner for yourself and wash your singular yellow tupperware and text jack to have a good shift tonight. 

you set an alarm for five, get out of bed at five-fifteen and get ready for work, more giddy for a shift than you have been since your first day of intern year.

when you walk into the hospital, early like always, you see jack talking to parker. he looks in your direction and even parker can notice his gaze following something, but she doesn’t say anything. you look away before smiling to yourself, the grin being glued to your face the entire walk to the lockers as you recall memories of the last time you saw jack.

one of the perks of always being early is that there’s no one by the lockers when you arrive.

(you’ve never thought of it as a perk until now though.)

jack walks in behind you a few minutes later—right as you’ve tucked away your pullover and your bag and he stands beside you as you reach to pick up your stethoscope. 

“ah, hold on,” he says, taking the stethoscope of your hand and into his. he loops it around your neck carefully, setting it in place for you. “there you go.”

“really?” you ask with a laugh, closing the door to your locker. “when you walked in here i thought i was gonna get a kiss. wait, what did you tell parker-”

“c’mon, kid,” jack says, looking at you with an expression you’re not sure you could ever get tired of. “i’m not that obvious.” you stare at him. “yeah, okay. i told her to go finish the note from the last trauma.”

“lucky for you, i’m your best resident. these other chums don’t show up until much closer to seven. actually, one time, santos came five minutes late. so-”

and for the second time, jack interrupts you with a kiss. he leans in, pressing his lips against yours, and your hands go slack by your side. his mouth tastes like coffee and even after a twelve hour shift he still smells like jack, the way his sheets and his soap and his shirt had smelled when you wore it.

he pulls away, and your eyes blink open slowly, like you’re figuring out where you are. fluorescent lights and the smell of the alcohol wipes they use to clean everything lingers around you.

and, of course, your attending, the one who sneaks into the locker rooms before shift change to give you secret and likely highly forbidden kisses.

“my lips are sticky,” jack says, bringing a finger to his mouth and rubbing it against another. you can’t bear to look at his hands right now, so you look away, at the risk of being useless for at least the next hour.

“it’s this lip peptide thingy. i don’t know, it’s good for them, i think. better than chapstick and they have all these flavors. they say it-” you trail off, staring at jack while he stares at you. he licks his lips.

“tastes good, kid. see you out there.”

oh god. you lean against your locker and watch jack leave. a minute later, mel walks in with trinity.

“i don’t want to hear it, bubbles. i’m here extra early, and not just to prove a point-”

“well, actually, i think it is to prove a point, but not-”

“what’s wrong? did the cat finally get your tongue?”

“i never understood what that meant-”

oh god. it’s going to be a long shift.

and outside the lockers, robby finds jack.

“so?” robby asks, leaning against the counter while jack sorts through tablets. he hands one to parker and then another to john, and they go off to pass on their patients to everyone arriving. 

“am i supposed to know what you’re talking about?” jack replies, noticing you from the corner of his eye. 

you’re coming out with santos and king, a water bottle in your hand. he had filled it for you before you left his apartment, after you’d refused his offer of walking you home. you look in his direction, and then you both look away at the same time. jack picks up his coffee cup to take another sip—if he doesn’t get the taste of you and your lip peptide thingy out of his mouth, he’s going to have a freudian slip in front of robby.

“i’m talking about you and the kid.” jack sputters, choking on his drink mid-swallow. “woah. you okay?”

“f-fine. uh, what? me and the kid?”

“yeah. since the fourth, you know, are you two good again?” 

robby looks at him expectantly, waiting for him to fill in the silence with an answer. 

“uh, yes. yeah, of course.”

“good. that was my goal. she started on nights at a bad time, and uh, i mean no one blames you. but we don't want to scare away all our interns, either.”

“right.” jack looks back at robby. “anything else?”

“no.” robby arches a brow at him. “you sure you’re okay? because she’s back on nights soon, and i don’t want-”

“i’m good, robby.” 

“alright then. where are we with sign-offs?”

you on the day shift is something manageable. something he can handle, something that shouldn’t be too terrible for you two to figure out. you always come early and he always stays a little late, and he’s sure that it won’t look suspicious. 

if you’re on days, then he’s not the one primarily in charge of your post-graduate medical education. that falls to robby and heather and frank, and he can trust that none of them are going to accidentally interfere with you learning everything you need to learn to be a good resident. 

to be a great resident—because he knows you have it in you. you’re made of the stuff it takes to be teaching other interns one day—compassion and kindness and how to treat the person while you’re fixing the patient. 

robby and heather and frank can help you with that. but if you’re on nights, it’s an entirely different ball game. he’s responsible for your education, for approving your notes and questioning your decisions and making you jump onto incoming traumas and justify every choice you make. he’s also responsible for correcting you when you’ve made a mistake. making you drink a cup of coffee if he thinks you’re getting tired. waking you up if you fall asleep at your desk at three in the morning.

and that’s just the problem. for the first time, jack abbot wonders if he can do all of those things if you’re the intern he has to do them to. 

for god’s sake—he couldn’t even wake you up to ask how you wanted your eggs. 

that’s the conundrum he’s facing when you come back home that night, near seven thirty. he’s off tonight and back tomorrow night, which means he gets about eleven or so hours with you until you leave tomorrow morning.

“hi,” you breathe, when he opens the door to let you inside. you’re clad in your pullover and you drop your bag by the front door when you come inside. “it feels weird to not go straight home.”

“oh, sweetheart, you could have gone home. i could have met you there-”

“no, no, it’s okay. i have a noisy neighbor and, well-” you drift off, smiling up at him the way you usually do.

“well?”

“i’d rather wear your clothes anyways.” 

what’s he supposed to do when you say things like that? a couple of words that make him happier than he’s felt in years, lifting the storm cloud that’s been following him around since the conversation with robby this morning. 

but it’s an important conversation, one that needs to be had. jack is a lot of things, but he is absolutely not a meddler in the lives of pretty interns or in the business of hindering their education.

“did, uh, robby say anything to you today?”

“jack,” you start slowly, turning on the couch to face him completely. “he’s not a mind-reader, you know.”

“no, i know. i just meant—well, did he?”

“no. he was normal. he even apologized for giving me side quests on an already busy day.”

“oh. that’s good.” 

you bring your hand to his hair again, running your fingers through it. it’s almost an instinct to him now—jack closes his eyes for a moment and you watch his shoulders relax.

“what’s wrong? what’re you thinking about?” his pretty hazel eyes meet yours.

“i just want us to be careful-”

“hey, you’re the one who kissed me this morning-”

“i know, i know. i need to be careful, too. i don’t want-”

“i understand. i wouldn’t want everyone knowing i’m screwing the intern either. it’s kind of a cliche, honestly, we’re no better than-”

“what? no, no. i don’t want anyone to say anything that could hurt you, or for this to interfere with your education. it is a cliche, and i know you’re close with the others and people can act very differently when they think that-”

“jack,” you start, moving yourself closer until you can crawl into his lap. his eyes flick over you, settling to watch your lips before he locks eyes again.

“yeah?” he asks, his throat dry.

“in five minutes, i’m going to be wet and naked in your shower. you can either keep talking about this or you can come join me.” then you lean in to press a kiss to his cheek. “c’mon, i wanna hear all about how you spend your days off, old man.” 

and then you get up, peeling off your sweatshirt, and then your shirt, and leaving him a trail of your clothes that ends with your panties on his bathroom tile. 

jack is a lot of things. but stupid isn’t one of them—so he follows you in there and leaves the rest of the conversation for another day.

but that day doesn’t end up coming that quickly.

as it turns out, interns on day shift barely get to spend time with their attendings from the night shift. on top of that, he has no idea how anyone manages to have an affair with a resident—they’re at the hospital every single day, pulling eighty hour weeks and coming home, if jack is even at home, completely exhausted.

but he also learns that glimpses of you at shift change and sign-offs at seven am and seven pm are enough to sustain the two of you. 

it starts with conversations in the locker room before your shift starts. he makes sure his residents are distracted before sneaking away to get a kiss or two and leaning against the metal lockers like a lovesick high schooler.

“you know that patient i was telling you about yesterday? with the bleeder? well, i came to change my scrubs and trin was grabbing something and she saw me and asked if i was mauled by a bear.”

“oh, god,” jacks says from his position, watching you do the same thing you do every morning. put away your hoodie, grab your protein bar for later, tell him whatever you’ve been thinking about since he left you yesterday night. “what’d you tell her?”

you smile.

“something like that.” you laugh, so then jack laughs.

“that’s a little dramatic, no?”

“i also told her i’m clumsy, but i think she’s come to the conclusion that i’m a sex freak.” you close your locker, facing your boyfriend-slash-attending.

“well, i mean-”

“shut up. do not-” you start with another laugh, but your smile fades when you see mel walking in with frank.

“uh, make sure to check that with ellis, alright?”

“yes, i will, dr. abbot.” jack leaves, smiling politely at frank and mel and turning back to look at you once. he really shouldn’t but he’s gotten in a bad habit of it, even though one day, someone is going to notice.

“did you just tell abbot to ‘shut up’?” frank questions, and they both look at you, waiting for your answer.

“no! no, of course not. i was just telling him about something a patient said and, um, dr. ellis wants to document it. yeah, she wants, like, really thorough notes, so he was just telling me. about that. um-”

mel looks at you thoughtfully, before bringing her hand to frank’s arm.

“i have noticed that she writes her patient encounters in a very specific format,” she says, and you sigh without realizing it. you let her carry the conversation into how frank’s notes could use some work, and then the two tease each other while you quietly make your exit.

+

another morning, jack stands at central with dana and robby, filling both of them in on two patients who are due to come back in the afternoon and the three patients still waiting for a bed upstairs.

heather and frank are bickering next to the three of them like they always do, like they’re siblings fighting in front of the parents, when he hears what they’re talking about.

“well, now i feel bad, ‘cause she’s mel’s friend, but i don’t even have that kind of energy after two red bulls, so-” frank starts, before heather interjects.

“it’s not about energy, it’s just a conversation about burn-out. candles don’t burn on both ends for a reason.”

“okay, you lost me with the metaphor.”

“you can’t be that nice to every patient forever. at some point you have to pick.”

“be nice or save their life?” frank supplies. “so basically, when is she gonna become like the rest of us?”

“i mean…” heather trails off, turning to dana. “what do you think?”

“i think they call her bubbles for a reason,” dana says, pushing up her glasses. she cranes her neck to stare at the screen of patients, looking for the next empty bed. “and i think north-two needs to be discharged, so if you two are done-”

“let me test our theory,” frank says. he waves over the lot of you coming in for your shift—you, cassie, mel, and trinity. you look over at jack, and he looks over at you, before you focus back on frank. “need someone to discharge this bed and then go grab the next patient from chairs. dana—?” he holds the clipboard and looks over at all of you, but it’s only half a second before you chirp up.

“i can do it,” you say brightly. you smile at frank and dana, reaching for the clipboard, while jack watches it happen.

“thanks bubbles,” trinity says, while the others dissipate. you make a slightly dampened face at the use of the nickname.

“one other thing,” heather asks. “when are we gonna get more cookies?”

“oh! i’m so glad you guys liked them. i guess another holiday, if there’s one coming up? or someone’s birthday? actually, i think there’s just labor day and i don’t know what kind of themed cookies i’d make. well, chocolate chip cookie day is in august, i think-”

“kid?” dana asks. “the patient? north-two?”

“right. i’m sorry. i’ll come check in after i bring the new patient back,” you say, still smiling when you walk away with the clipboard in your hand.

“what exactly were you testing?” heather asks.

“i don’t know, but she’s definitely doing whatever your metaphor meant. are we taking bets yet? i wonder how long she’ll last-”

“alright, enough,” jack snaps. “do you two not have anything better to do? who’s this helping?”

“jack?” robby questions, his eyes flicking towards dana, who looks back at him with a shrug.

“why would you want her to be jaded? isn’t it better for our patients that she stays like that for as long as she can? i thought you’d try to keep her that way, but i guess-”

“jack-” robby interrupts. 

“you two, go help somebody,” dana says to heather and frank, before turning to jack. “what the hell was that about?” 

jack sighs, not realizing when his hand had turned into a fist. probably when your name was brought up.

“nothing, i just- bad night. that’s all.”

“o-kay,” robby whistles. “you going up to the roof, or?”

“no. no, i’m going home.”

jack walks away, not in the direction of the door, but rather towards the beds on the north side, almost instinctively.

“what the hell’s wrong with him?” dana asks.

“i don’t know. since when does he just go straight home after a bad shift?”

“i have no idea.”

(that night at six-fifty, trinity pulls you aside before you two head home. you’re antsy since you want to get a couple of quiet minutes with jack before you have to leave, but when she starts talking, you forget all about it. listen, trin says, i’m sorry about the whole bubbles thing, i didn’t think it was bothering you. but collins told me that abbot was yelling at them about it and he was pretty upset, so i- but sadly, you don’t hear much of the rest of the conversation.)

you walk away from her after she finishes, reassuring her that you’re fine, before setting out to find jack. he’s putting his backpack under the desk at the hub, and you go straight to him, not entirely caring that people can see the two of you, supposing it’s fine as long as they don’t hear you.

“what’s the matter?” jack asks, and then much quieter—”everything okay, sweetheart?”

“you defended me?” you ask softly. you’re normally full of words but it feels hard to find them just now, your head feeling cloudy. 

“no, no, i just told them to knock it off.”

“was it something bad?” you question, your expression knitting into worry. 

this is exactly why he got upset—why he didn’t like their conversation from the jump, why he knew that he wanted frank and heather to stop talking before someone else overheard and jumped in and you found out what they were saying.

it’s not bad, even you wouldn’t think it’s bad. but jack doesn’t like it. he doesn’t like anyone speaking of you in any way that he doesn’t like and he especially hates the idea that you’d be upset when you found out. 

“no. i just-” jack trails off.

“you just?”

“i don’t like anyone talking about you. and i don’t like that stupid nickname, so-”

you smile at him, not the sort of innocent smile one casts at their attending—the result of being told good job on a case or have a good night on your way out. no, you smile at jack the way you do everything—with the full force of every emotion behind it, wearing your heart on your sleeve. 

and jack couldn’t look away from you, even if he wanted to.

(the two of you look like idiots—googly eyed and lovestruck and every other way to describe people who like each other a bit too much. this time it’s dana who sees the two of you. she does a double take on her way to hand a stack of tablets to the night shift charge nurse and blinks twice to make sure she’s seeing the right thing. jack abbot, a regular on the roof, and the intern who they call bubbles, looking at each other like the rest of the hospital has faded away into nothing. and then she walks away, and decides she’ll wait for robby to bring it up.)

+

it’s mel next—she’s incredibly observant as it is, but even more so when it comes to someone she considers a friend, someone like you. trinity jokes about the continual bear attacks that explain the hickies on your neck and chest when you change out of your scrub top and pull on your hoodie, but mel knows it’s more than that.

she’s always known you get to work early, but recently, every time mel comes in to put away her belongings, the space that you usually occupy is already empty. your things put away, locker closed and locked, your yellow water bottle already resting by the computer that you usually write your notes at. 

and after that, it’s just a game of paying slightly closer attention. you walk out from behind a curtained bed and come say hi to mel, ask her how her evening was, how becca is doing. but when mel glances up at the screen to see what patient you were with behind that curtain, it’s empty.

that bed was empty. and well, mel’s not much of an detective (though she has her moments), but it’s worth a shot. waste a few minutes, stare at that curtain to see if she can figure out what, or rather who is behind it. she’s almost about to call it quits, frank was running late but he’s here now and there’s an incoming so she should start moving and then—

dr. abbot comes out from behind that same curtain. he leaves it open, comes to the hub, smiles politely at mel and tells her to have a good day, dr. king, and then he walks away.

more specifically, he walks in your direction. the back of his head moves slightly in your direction. you beam at the tablet in your hands. and then—

“mel? you okay?” frank asks, and she’s snapped out of it.

(she could have figured it out ages ago, she thinks afterward, reflecting on how dr. abbot never used to tell anyone to have a good day or hum while finalizing notes or look up and smile in your general direction before looking back down at whatever’s in his hands. the first time she met him, she thought he was the type of person you categorize in the debbie downer sort of group, whereas from the moment she met you, you were clearly more of a chatty cathy. but you’re her friend. and when she had told you about her feelings for frank, you had listened and supported her and never made her feel that it was anything less than okay.)

so the next time she sees you at seven am, already out by your computer or walking back from around an empty corner, when she notices dr. abbot trailing behind you, she doesn’t say anything. when dr. abbot hangs around late finishing up a trauma and you go ask him for his opinion on whatever patient you’re seeing, even when robby is free just over there, she doesn’t say anything.

even when frank brings it up over dinner with her and becca, a side conversation while they eat spaghetti—you noticed anything different with abbot recently?—she doesn’t say anything. 

in fact, the closest she gets to saying anything is when dr. abbot comes in early—maybe around five-thirty one evening—because they’re getting swamped and heather and cassie have the flu and it’s been a terrible mess of a day.

you and mel have been running around the entire shift, barely stopping to drink water or eat something. when jack shows up and flocks straight to you and leans in to tell you something, your hand moves to touch his arm for half a second before you remember where you are and put it down. jack pulls out a granola bar from his pocket and leaves you with it to jump on the next incoming.

mel watches the encounter and puts her head down when you look her way, pretending that she’s drinking her water and staring at a tablet. when she looks up, you’re gone in another direction, but dana stares at mel, both with an understanding of what they just saw.

and then they go on with their shift.

+

it all comes crashing down, just as it had the first time, after a particularly terrible night shift. it’s always hard when someone dies in the first few hours, leaves a horrible, bitter taste in his mouth that makes him want to walk outside and not come back in. 

it’s even worse when he knows he did everything he could, that there was no way this patient was making it off the table. that the devastated husband and the crying kids were completely unavoidable, that he still has to go back and jump on the next case and start fresh and try to drown out those noises.

drowning, drowning, drowning. he’s always trying to drown out something. if it’s not the fireworks then it’s the kids sobbing over their dead parent, and if it’s not that, then it’s how he relives his own worst day of my life every time someone’s wife dies in front of him. 

it’s been one of those days. you’re due to start on nights in two shifts from now, and he still has no idea how he’ll manage to be any less obvious when it comes to you.

(the last thing he keeps trying to drown out is how wrong this is. the voice in the back of his head keeps reminding him, seemingly unable to stop, no noise being loud enough to get it to stop repeating itself. you’re still a while away from being a second year, but is that even any better? or is that another excuse he’s invented to stop feeling so guilty about the fact that you sleep in his apartment every night and leave cookies for him on the counter so he has something nice to come home to? jack doesn’t know.)

you show up at six-thirty, smiling sweetly at parker and john, telling them to grab a cookie on their way out. parker asks you why and you tell her just because, and you want five minutes alone with your boyfriend before he leaves.

you’re impatient, always have been and always will be, especially when it comes to any and all matters related to jack abbot. you’re eager to go back on the night shift because you think you’ll be able to appreciate it so much more now—learning under his tutelage, being able to discuss those foreign medical journals he shares with you over coffee at four in the morning rather than through his illegible, scribbled print on post-its and your neat handwriting in the margins. 

you want it all, and you want it now.

so you made more cookies—oatmeal raisin—to make jack’s apartment smell nice, and you pack several of them to have a valid reason to distract the others so you can get those five minutes, maybe ten, in peace.

“hi,” you sing, while jack stands in front of you, tablet in his hand and blood on his shoes. “how was your night?” he doesn’t look up, but you don’t wait for an answer. “i made oatmeal raisin last night and i put some in the break room so i think we have five minutes. i want ten but i won’t be greedy, i mean, we’ll be on nights together soon, so at least that’ll be-”

“we need to talk, kid,” jack says, looking up at you with an expression you don’t recognize.

“what’s wrong ja- dr. abbot?” a nurse walks by just as you start your sentence, changing it mid-way. 

“that,” he says, coming out a bit louder than he meant it to. “that’s what’s wrong.” 

“jack?” you say it quietly. he doesn’t mean it like that—he doesn’t want you to be upset and worried about him when you have a whole shift ahead of you, one that you show up early to with distractions so the two of you can have a few minutes alone.

it’s all of it—it’s the fact that you even have to do things like that to get five minutes alone with him. it’s that you can’t let someone overhear you calling him anything besides dr. abbot.

it’s the realization that you deserve much better than what jack abbot can give you. more than five minutes behind a curtain or a couple minutes in the break room or thirty seconds at central hub before the charge nurse comes in with another incoming. 

“come on,” he says, leading you away for a moment. you have twenty-five minutes before your shift starts and he has two senior residents who can run the show until robby walks in. he leads you to the on-call room, four walls enclosing four beds. surgery has rooms of their own, but sometimes the trauma surgeon on deck will crash in there waiting for the next page, so he checks the room before letting you into it, closing and locking the door behind him.

“i thought you were gonna yell at me. this is so much better,” you say.

your mouth has gotten you into trouble before, especially with dr. abbot. in fact, it’s what got you into this whole thing to begin with, but where you expect jack to laugh in the privacy of this room, he doesn’t.

“kid, we need to have a serious talk about this.”

“about what?”

“this. us.”

“oh, jack, come on-”

“no, i-i’m being serious. this is not okay, it’s not sustainable.”

“you’re upset because we don’t see each other? honey, i start on nights in two days, i think we can make it,” you say, coming in closer to bring your hand to jack’s shoulder. “what’s going on? really?”

“don’t you think that… what i’m doing is wrong? you’re an intern. this is about your education, i-”

“why do you think you’re disrupting my medical education just because you’re my attending? i know i get stupid around you but i promise, i’m not gonna stop paying attention to my patient because you’re standing near me. i am a doctor, you know-”

“kid, i-”

“no, stop. half this hospital is dating each other. robby is heather’s attending and i don’t see you storming them into on-call rooms to debate about his influence on her medical education-”

“that doesn’t even make sense-”

“it doesn’t have to,” you sigh, out of breath and a little winded from how loud you’re being. “we make sense. you and me. we’re good together. a lot of things in this place don’t make sense but we do. people die everyday and i don’t want to die wondering what could have been if i’d just-”

“don’t,” jack interrupts, his hands coming to your waist. they feel tight, like the first time he’d help you like this. he brings his face closer to yours, foreheads almost touching. “don’t say that.”

“oh my god. i am so sorry. that must sound so insensitive, i just meant-”

“stop talking.”

“but i-” 

and this time, he doesn’t give you a choice, pressing his lips against yours quickly. you mumble against else against his mouth, but he can’t make it out, choosing instead to ignore it. like always, jack’s mouth tastes like coffee and you take it in—your boyfriend, your attending, and whatever else jack abbot is to you, kissing you like he’s finally realizing that he belongs to you, just as much as you belong to him. 

jack’s fingertips travel under your scrub top, hands roaming the expanse of your back and then settling onto your waist again while you keep kissing, realizing that when you go back out there, you’ll be flushed and warm and your lips will be swollen.

and then you realize that you don’t care, and you let your body lean against jack’s. he pulls away for a moment, but you don’t let him get the chance to stop, leaning in to resume the kiss, desperate to feel his tongue against yours again. 

jack does pull away finally, holding your jaw with his hand.

“this is so much better,” you mumble again.

“kid, we can’t-”

“yes, we can. we have so much time, jack,” you say, trying your best to sound convincing. 

“it’s seven in the morning,” jack argues, though he doesn’t resist when you pull his navy shirt off and over his head, exposing his chest to you. you run your fingers down the exposed skin, pressing your mouth against his shoulder.

“no it’s not,” you reply, leading hot, open-mouthed kisses from his collarbone to his neck, back up to his lips. “it’s six forty-something.”

“someone’s gonna-”

“no one’s gonna,” you say, smiling in that way that you do, the way that makes it impossible for him to say no. “not unless you stop talking, old man.” 

“oh. that’s how you wanna do this?”

“i’m not doing anything,” you say, pulling off your own scrub top, and then your shoes. 

“you’re gonna kill me, kid,” leaves his mouth as your hands go to the tie of his scrub bottoms, undoing the knot. jack brings his hands to either side of your waist and lifts, bringing you down onto one of the beds with all of his strength, making you squeal as your head hits the pillow. 

he starts with a kiss to your jaw, and then your neck, trailing down between your breasts while he undoes your bra. your hands find his shoulders, gripping him tight while he works his way down, littering your stomach with kisses until he gets to the drawstring of your pants. 

his fingers work on undoing it while you whine, and then try to push yourself to sit up against jack’s weight on top of you.

“oh my god, this is so embarrassing. i didn’t know we were doing all this. i have so many matching sets of underwear for this very occasion and the one day-”

“sweetheart, i love you, but you really need to stop talking right now.”

“you love me?” you repeat back. “you love me. oh my god, i-”

you lean in, lips crashing together hard, until jack moves and he’s on top of you again. he slides off your bottoms first, his fingers dancing around the waistband of your panties—navy blue with lace on the sides and he thinks they’re awfully great so he’s not sure what you were talking about—and then you start giggling. nearly uncontrollable.

“kid, that’s twice now you’ve done that-”

“i’m sorry, i’m sorry jack,” you plead, trying to keep a straight face but being unable to stop laughing. “i can’t believe this is how we’re saying i love you to each other-”

“you’re the one who wanted to date your attending-”

you burst into another fit of giggles, which jack effectively silences by kissing you again.

“one day,” jack starts, tugging your underwear down until it’s discarded somewhere by your feet, or maybe somewhere on the floor next to your clothes. “i’ll get to take my time with you again.”

that sentence leaving jack’s mouth makes your entire body tense up, a flood of want washing over you until you feel loopy. 

you pull him in for another kiss, and you feel him against you, memories of the first time he stretched you out on his fingers running through your mind. you two don’t have enough time for that today, and you both know it, but it still makes your cunt throb with anticipation.

jack lines himself up against you, running his thick tip over your opening, collecting wetness and making pleasure course through your body when he bumps against your clit. it’s electric—like a live wire hitting your nerves and making everything feel like lightening.

your limbs already feel like jelly, and you let jack maneuver your legs up onto his shoulders, watching him while he looks down at where you two are connected. 

he pushes inside and you moan—loudly and unfiltered—feeling that ridiculously amazing stretch again, your toes curling and every muscle tensing. jack leans in to kiss you and swallow the noises you make, but you still think it might not be enough.

when he pushes all the way in, your eyes roll all the way to the back of your head. 

“i’m sorry, kid, we can’t be loud,” he breathes, followed by a groan. he uses his hand to cover your mouth, pulling out and then thrusting back in all at once. the bed creaks as jack starts fucking you with an intense rhythm, the thin wooden frame hitting against the wall repetitively. 

you lock eyes with jack, moaning against his hand, feeling how big he is like it’s the first time all over again. 

every ridge and vein makes you see stars while you focus on how full you feel—full of jack, how you want stay like this forever if he’ll let you—in a tiny on call room with the door locked and people looking for the two of you. 

you repeat it against his palm—jack, jack, jack—while he keeps fucking you with an intensity that makes the coil in your belly keep tightening. he’s so deep inside of you that you’re sure you won’t be able to walk after this, let alone finish your shift, but the thought drifts somewhere far away when he changes the angle slightly. 

jack pushes his hand against your lower belly and thrusts back into you, while your back arches and tries to fight him. maybe you’re trying to get away from how good it feels, that overwhelming sensation that the ground is about to give out beneath the two of you. you stare up at jack through teary eyes, taking in how he looks hovering over you, taking care of you and watching out for you and thinking about you first like he always does. 

and then it happens, the hot sensation in your belly tenses, and then snaps, and it washes over you like a current. you feel it—the ringing in your ears feels like it’s making its way through your entire body and your walls clench and pulse around jack’s girth. 

your eyes snap shut but when they open, you keep looking up at jack, finally forcing his hand away from your mouth. 

“jack,” you get out, your throat dry and sore and lips aching. “i love you too-”

you hear jack groan, a noise that makes your walls flutter, and then you feel it again—jack’s hips stuttering, his grip on you tightening, and then warmth filling you, hot streams of cum coating your walls until it’s leaking out of you. 

you take deep breaths, head hitting the pillow while jack collapses on top of you, and then rolls over until he’s beside you. 

the room is silent besides the two of you breathing, until of course, you speak up.

“i can’t believe this is how we said i love you.”

“you already said that, kid.”

“i know. i just really can’t believe it. i figured it would at least be outside of the hospital, but, i guess that wouldn’t feel right.” 

“sweetheart-”

“am i doing it again? the not knowing when to be quiet thing?”

“no, but i-”

“wait,” you cry out, sitting up immediately. “what time is it? oh my god-”

“don’t worry about that right now. i gotta get you cleaned up before-”

“jack, i have never been late for a shift before.” you sigh dramatically before you keep going. “i just knew it. this relationship is completely affecting my medical education-”

jack shuts you up with a kiss before you can finish the sentence, capturing your laugh against his mouth. 

he starts making half a plan in his head, though what he wants to do is take you home with him right now.

“i think i’m ready for you to be back on nights now.”

“yeah? why’s that?”

“because at least we can sleep next to each other if you-”

“jack!” he hears robby’s voice shouting from the other side of the door, followed by three pounds that rattle the wood. “do not tell me that my intern is in there.”

“fuck,” jack whispers, while you stare at him with wide eyes.

“what should we do?” you mouth, while jack gets up, finding your scrubs and pocketing your underwear while he pulls on his own clothes.

“stay in here,” he tells you quietly. “just take your time.” 

“okay,” you whisper back, leaning in for another kiss with a smile. “i love you.”

“i love you too.”

jack pulls on his shirt and unlocks the door, closing it quickly behind him as he steps out to meet robby on the other side. 

“you’re kidding me, right?”

“i can explain, robby. we-”

“i don’t want to hear it. the on-call room? that’s disgusting, you know.”

“robby, i-”

“go talk to hr before gloria gets on my ass about this.” robby walks away, shaking his head. 

you open the door, poking your head out, and jack turns back to look at you.

“gosh. i sure hope hr doesn't think you’re interfering with my medical education-”

But he looked terrified.

His eyes were wide and bloodshot.

Dark circles shadowed beneath them.

Before you could say a word, he asked, "Where are the kids?" his voice shaky.

"Baby?" you replied.

His eyes searched yours desperately.

He repeated the question.

You told him they were in bed. Then he asked if he could talk to them. Every line of his face seemed strained, his brows furrowed deeply, the creases around his eyes etched with worry.

Something was definitely wrong.

You gently pushed open your son's door. As you stepped inside, your eyes immediately landed on your daughter and son, seated on the floor, engaged in a lively game of Guess Who. They were giggling as they flipped down the characters.

You gave them a stern but gentle look. "Excuse me. I thought it was bedtime." Both your daughter and son instantly adopted puppy dog looks—big, pleading eyes that melted your heart.

You knelt down to their level, holding out your hand softly. "Your father wants to say goodnight," you told them quietly. They eagerly scooted over to sit beside you.

You tapped the screen, making sure Jack could see both of them clearly. As their faces fully appeared, Jack let out a visible sigh of relief. His shoulders relaxed, and he exhaled like a weight had been lifted.

"Hey, guys," Jack greeted softly, scanning their faces. "I miss you. What did you do today?"

Your children chattered excitedly about their day—your daughter describing the latest kindergarten drama at recess, and your son talking about his soccer practice. But you noticed Jack’s gaze lingered a little too long on their faces, his expression tense, almost as if he was afraid—like if he blinked wrong, they would disappear.

They could have been telling him that they had lit the house on fire, and Jack’s expression would have remained the same. He was gazing at them like they were the most precious treasures in the world.

After about 5 minutes, he said, "Alright, soldiers, it’s 8:00 PM. Time to get inside your actual beds."

Your children nodded, reluctantly gathering their Guess Who pieces. His eyes stayed on them, as if he was memorizing every detail. "I love you both so much. I can’t wait to eat breakfast with you tomorrow before school."

"Can you make us your special French toast?" your daughter asked.

"With Nutella and strawberries?" your son chimed in.

"You got it." Jack replied. "Goodnight, soldiers."

They waved their tiny hands goodbye at him. "I love you," they chorused in unison.

You gently brushed a stray lock of hair from your son’s forehead as he climbed into his bed. You leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to his temple, whispering, "Goodnight, bud. Sleep tight." He looked up at you with sleepy eyes, giving you a small, contented nod before pulling the blankets up around his chin. You softly closed the door behind him.

"Don’t hang up," you told Jack, who was still on the phone with you.

Turning toward your daughter’s room, you took her small hand in yours and guided her inside. She giggled softly, clutching her favorite stuffed animal as she climbed into her bed. You sat beside her for a moment, stroking her hair gently. "I’ll be right back," you said softly, "just need to keep talking to Daddy for a little bit. I’ll be back soon for story time, okay?" She nodded eagerly. You leaned over to give her a quick, lingering kiss on her forehead. She smiled and snuggled into her pillow as you quietly stood up.

You stepped out of her room and turned to face Jack on the screen, your eyes locking onto his.

He looked exhausted.

His face was tense.

You just looked at him for a moment, not saying a word.

"Jack, what’s wrong?" you finally asked.

He sighed, avoiding your question.

You could tell he was scared of saying whatever he was feeling out loud.

"I have to go," he said through the screen.

With no real emotion.

You’d seen this side of him at times over your relationship—moments when the weight of his job would push him to retreat inward.

To shut down.

You knew he wasn’t doing it to hurt you or to be distant. It was his way of coping, even if it made your stomach tighten with worry. You took a deep breath, reminding yourself that sometimes, he needed space to gather himself.

"I’ll see you in the morning," he murmured.

You nodded slowly.

You didn’t push, and didn’t want to press him.

"Okay," you responded simply.

"I love you," he murmured.

"I love you, too."

For a moment, neither of you spoke, just holding each other's gaze across the screen.

You took a deep breath, feeling the ache in your chest as Jack’s face faded from the screen after saying your goodbyes.

Turning away from the screen, your mind raced—there was a sudden urgency you couldn’t ignore. You quickly grabbed your phone again and dialed your neighbor’s daughter, Natalia, who was in high school and sometimes helped out when needed. The phone rang a few times before she answered.

"Hello, Mrs. Abbot," Natalia greeted.

"Hi, Natalia. Sorry to bother you," you said quickly. "Something came up and I just need to step out of the house for a little while—maybe an hour or so. Would you mind coming over? The kids are going to be asleep soon, so you won’t have to do anything. I should be back pretty quickly."

"No problem at all, Mrs. Abbot. I’ll be there in a few minutes."

"Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I’ll see you soon."

 You ended the call and waited.

You hurried through the hospital, the usual hum of activity amplified by just fucking chaos. The ER was packed—stretchers lined up in every available space, nurses rushing past with urgent expressions, and doctors darting from one critical case to another.

Your footsteps quickened as you made your way toward the nurse’s station, where Dana was standing behind the counter. She was scribbling notes on a clipboard.

"Dana," you called.

She looked up immediately.

"What’s going on?" you asked.

"There’s been a bridge collapse nearby. It’s a mess. A lot of injuries coming in."

"Jesus Christ," you whispered.  

"I think Jack is about to scrub in surgery with Robby, but I can page him and let him know you’re here if you need something urgent."

"No, that’s not necessary. I’m not here to see him. Just dropping something off in his locker."

"Got it."

You nodded and began to make your way down the corridor toward the attending lounge, your heart pounding. As you walked, the muffled voices of nurses floated to you from around the corner.

"It's so fucking hard seeing the pain in a parent's eyes when they hear their child won’t be coming home. No matter how many times, it never becomes easier," she said, wiping tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.

Another nurse’s voice responded grimly, "And to be the one to deliver that message—Dr. Abbot has had to break that news to several families tonight."

Your breath caught in your throat.

The words hit you like a punch to the gut.

Fuck…

You quietly pushed open the door to the attending lounge. Nobody else was here.

The room was quiet.

Your fingers were shaking as you approached Jack’s locker and unlocked it.

It was sparse—just a few personal items and essentials. The first thing that caught your eye was the photograph he had taped to the inside of the door from a couple of years ago: a picture of the four of you, taken during a weekend trip to Maine.

In the locker, there was his wallet, his keys, and his wedding band. An extra set of scrubs, folded neatly, along with his spare scrub cap.

Your eyes started to water as you stared inside this locker, the stark reality pressing in.

It wasn’t fair.

No parent should ever have to outlive their child. It wasn’t…in the natural order of things.

From the moment you saw Jack’s face on your phone screen tonight, you knew something terrible had probably happened at the hospital.

And you knew he was going to blame himself.

Carry his guilt quietly.

That’s just who he was—Jack always took on the burden, always asked himself what he could have done differently, what he should have seen coming.

He was probably replaying every minute of tonight’s chaos in his mind, wondering if he missed something obvious, if he could have been faster, more decisive.

And, tonight, he probably had seen more than his fair share of heartbreak. 

Your throat tightened and you could feel the tears springing back up, burning the backs of your eyes.

Your sister had gifted your daughter a Polaroid camera, and ever since, she'd been completely obsessed with it. Over the past year, you as a family had taken countless photos this way. You reached into your purse, pulling out a few of these instant pictures. They were simple pictures of your children—both of them caught in candid, mundane moments that somehow felt even more precious now. You gently taped these pictures on the inside wall of his locker, opposite the photograph of your family, hoping they might bring him some small comfort.

Reminders that they were alive…

Safe.

Loved.

You also fished out a pack of beef jerky you had brought along to put in his locker.

It was his guilty pleasure.

From your back pocket, you pulled out a small, scribbled note. Its ink was a little smudged, but the words were clear: I love you. Can't wait to eat French toast and Nutella with you.

You pressed it carefully into the corner of the locker, next to his wedding ring, and then gently closed the locker door.

The faint sound of footsteps climbing up the stairs gently reached your ears, soft but unmistakable. It was early, quiet—almost like the house was holding its breath before the new day began. Your eyes fluttered open, and you could hear the subtle creak of the staircase steps, each one deliberate, careful.

You picked up your phone and saw the time—6:07 AM shining on the screen. You knew you needed to get up soon—shower, get dressed, wake up the kids, and prepare for work. But for just a moment, you allowed yourself to lie still, listening to the familiar sounds of Jack moving through the house.

The door to your room nudged open slowly, and Jack appeared in the doorway. You saw him pause there, eyes flickering over your form—draped in one of his oversized T-shirts and a pair of old ratty sweatpants, the covers slipped from your body.

His gaze lingered for a beat.

Silent and searching.

Without a word, he stepped closer, reaching the edge of the bed. Then, almost instinctively, he lowered himself onto his knees at the foot of the bed and, and without hesitation, rested his head in your lap.

His eyes closed for a moment as he took a long, shaky breath.

You reached out, softly running your fingers through his hair. Jack's head rested heavily in your lap, his breathing ragged.

"Do you want to talk about it?" you asked.

"No. Not right now. I just... I don’t want to be in a mood when I drop off the kids at school."

"Jack, you just pulled a double. I’m fine taking them to school," you reassured him. Usually, when he worked night shifts, you were the one to take them to school.

"I’m driving them," he said, looking up at you.

His tone left no room for debate.

You nodded, recognizing that this was his way of trying to hold onto some semblance of control amid the chaos inside him. Without a word, he shifted, settling comfortably against your thigh. As he did, he reached into his scrub pocket and pulled out a Polaroid.

You looked down at him, eyes searching his face as he held the photo up for you to see. It was a picture you didn’t recognize at all—a shot of you on your tiptoes, reaching up for something in the kitchen. You wore a flannel shirt, long socks, were turned to the side, and caught mid-laugh.

"You know," he began, his eyes fixed on the small Polaroid he held in his hand, "you added all those pictures of the kids on the other side of my locker. But no pictures of you…"

He paused.

"I took this one—three months ago. Remember when my parents came to take the kids away for the weekend? We didn’t do anything special that weekend. Just stayed home. We drank wine and beer, ordered takeout, and did nothing but sit around and laugh and talk. It was simple. Perfect."

It had been perfect.

Sometimes it was hard having 'alone' time with your husband with two kids. He forgot to mention that it was also a weekend full of sex.

You had been so busy, barely seeing each other.

Work.

The kids.

Everything.

As soon as his parents left, you pushed him down to sit on the edge of the couch, and slowly started to sink to your knees. You wrapped your hand around him and brushed your thumb over the head of his cock, eliciting a throaty groan from him in response. He watched you lick his shaft, swirl your tongue along his tip, and then you dove in to complete your task by taking him down your throat.

You gagged a few times.

Because it didn’t matter how long you two had been together, you still had moments where you were still not used to having something so big in your mouth. The sight was too much for Jack, so he pulled you off him with a wet pop and let you know he wanted to come inside of your pussy instead.

He told you to get on your hands and knees on the floor, his hot breath moving down to your aching center, his tongue flicking up your clit before taking a long lick all the way back down, moaning into your pussy.

You were always the sweetest thing he had ever tasted.

He was addicted to your fucking cunt.

It was messy how he ate at you from behind.

It was relentless.

Your mind went blank.

Suddenly, you felt the head of his cock, thick and swollen at your entrance.

Then he filled you with one heavy solid thrust, both of you crying out at the tight fit.

He found purchase on your ass, grabbing it, as he relentlessly pounded into you, watching himself slide in and out of your wetness. He was filling you to the absolute brim with every roll of his hips, and you let out a high-pitched whine every time he slammed into that devastating spot he knew so well.  

Needless to say, your orgasm washed over you… traveling all the way down to your toes. Your spent cunt clenching so hard around him that his grip on your ass tightened as he let out a strangled groan, spilling inside of you and coming so hard he nearly passed out.

Jack’s eyes were still locked on the Polaroid picture of you.

You reached out carefully, your fingers trembling slightly as you took the picture from Jack’s hand. You gently pressed your thumb to the corner of the photo.

"You know. I felt guilty that weekend. For wanting to remember what it was like—before all this, before kids. It was the first time in weeks I felt like more than just a mom. I got to feel young again. I felt guilty for feeling that way, like I was betraying how much I love our life now," you admitted. "Then tonight, I go to the hospital, and I realize some parents have to say goodbye to their children forever, and that’s a heartbreak I can’t even imagine. It’s so unfair, so devastating."

You reached out and placed a hand gently on Jack’s shoulder. His head still rested in your lap, eyes closed, breath uneven. You hesitated for a moment, then whispered, "Jack—" his name sounded so desperate on your tongue. "we don't have to talk about all of this right now. But…I just... I want you to remember something." He opened his eyes slowly, looking up at you with that haunted, exhausted expression. You cupped his face gently, your thumb brushing over his cheekbone. "You can't blame yourself, and I just need you to know that."

Without a word, Jack lifted your shirt, leaned in softly, and placed a gentle, lingering kiss on your stomach. His lips felt warm and tender against your skin.

His forehead briefly pressed to your leg as he looked up at you. "I used to have another picture, but now I keep this picture in my scrubs, and every single shift, I take a moment to look at it. It keeps me grounded, keeps me going. It’s my way of holding onto the good, even when everything else feels like it’s falling apart."

You blinked—and felt a tear drop down your cheek.

You reached up to wipe it away.

Jack climbed up your body, then gently pushed you down to lie on your back. He closed his eyes for a moment and then lifted a hand to tenderly stroke your cheek.

"You, and the kids—you get me through every hard shift. Without you, I honestly don’t know how I’d get through it," he said fiercely. You wrapped your arms around his broad shoulders and played with his soft curls at the nape of his neck. He buried his face in your hair, and you could hear him inhaling your scent before he placed a soft kiss on your mouth, before pulling away.

His thumb brushed against your bottom lip.

"Thank you for my beef jerky. Robby tried to steal it."

"Did you at least share some with him?"

Jack looked at you with a tired smile. "Nope."

He then slowly pushed his forehead into your collarbone, kissing it delicately.

"Thank you for being you," he hummed, his mouth then lazily seeking yours out again.

After your shower, you grabbed your phone, instinctively reaching for it as you moved through the house. You were on a call with your colleague, who was providing you with an update on a client matter.

Meanwhile, Jack was in the kitchen, humming softly as he moved around, expertly flipping slices of his famous French toast. He had already laid out the kids school backpacks on the table, along with their lunchboxes. As you reached the kitchen table, you saw your kids sitting at the table, dressed neatly for school. Your daughter was munching on some eggs while your son eagerly tapped his spoon against his bowl of cereal. Jack was at the stove, carefully stacking slices of French toast onto a plate.

"Well, opposing counsel can kiss my ass if they don't like it."

Your daughter looked up from her eggs, eyes wide with innocence. "Daddy," she said softly, tilting her head, "Mommy said a bad word."

"Yeah, she's being a bad girl," Jack teased, winking at you.

You tilted your head, biting your lip with a smile, and gave Jack a gentle shove on his shoulder, making him laugh.

As you stood in the kitchen, finishing your call, your son rolled his eyes at his sister. "You're such a tattle tale," he muttered.

Your daughter puffed out her cheeks and stuck out her tongue at him.

"Sorry, honey. Mommy’s just joking," you said, leaning down to kiss both of your children good morning.

Jack carefully placed a slice of French toast on each of their plates, then took his seat and gently pulled your daughter onto his lap. She squealed happily as she settled comfortably.

Your daughter looked up at Jack with those big eyes of hers. "Daddy, can I have more Nutella on my French toast?" she asked him sweetly.

"Of course, honey."

You walked over to the coffee pot, pouring yourself a steaming cup as Jack noticed you glancing at your watch.

"Hey, sit down for a minute. Come have some breakfast."

You nodded.

Sitting down at the table, you couldn’t resist the smell. Jack really did make the best French toast— it was always generously stuffed with brown sugar and Nutella. You reached out and grabbed a warm piece from the center of the plate and added some strawberries on top of it. As you took your first bite, the toast melted in your mouth, a perfect blend of crunch and gooey sweetness.

You moaned.

Jack raised an eyebrow with a smirk, clearly pleased with your reaction. He leaned over your daughters head to kiss you on the lips.

"Ugh," your son said, scrunching up his face. "You guys are so gross."

"Sorry, buddy," Jack said with a grin. "Gotta grab kisses while I can."

"Ten more minutes. We’ve gotta get moving soon, so finish up your breakfast," you told the kids, savoring the last bites before you stood up.

After Jack’s shower earlier, you’d finally convinced him that you would drive the kids to school—you knew he was exhausted and he needed to rest.

After the kids finished their breakfast, they eagerly grabbed their backpacks and lunchboxes, chatting softly as they stepped out the front door to hop into the car.

Jack walked over to you, leaned in close, pressing a kiss against the lobe of your ear. "Have a nice day at work, sweetheart. I’ll pick up the kids from school."

"Thank you, baby. Enjoy your sleep. Rest up."

He began a delicious assault on your mouth, and you tried to stifle the moan that wanted to pour out of your mouth.

"Mmm, I think we should play mommy and daddy when you get home, don’t you?" His voice was low, husky, thick with arousal.

A shy smile curved your lips as your panties got impossibly wet. You would jump your husband’s bones at every opportunity that you got.

"Oh yeah?" you asked playfully, your hand sliding down over his belly, going past his drawstring, and cupping the growing bulge over his pajama bottoms.

You kissed a slow path up and down the column of his throat.

He gave you a gorgeous, broken groan.

Then, his lips found yours, his hands reaching up to cradle your face for a hungry kiss while he devoured your mouth.

He pulled away, and you let out a small whine.

Then, he rested his forehead against yours.

"Come back home to me," he panted over your whine.

"I will, Jack. I always will," you promised.

once jack saw the tags in your hand it was like a flip had switched. you were fairly new but you had never seen him so locked into a case, he’s usually observing, teaching. this one had him running the full code. he was trying everything three times to see if something could get the man’s heart to start again. in the end it is shen who finally steps in and calls time of death. you have quiet reflection with the team involved before everyone goes back to work.

you know that the family was the one to find him, and they were now in the quiet room waiting on an update. you don’t know who’s taking the notification, but you do know that it would not be fair for a family members last memory to be one with tubes and wires and crumpled sheets. you take it upon yourself to maybe add some dignity to the final moments. you start to remove the breathing tube and ekg leads when you hear a wailing sob come from outside of the trauma room. you have to bite your lip to keep the emotion in your throat bubble up. you’re just putting a final touch fresh sheet over the man and pulling out his arms so that his hands are visable.

when the door to the trauma bay is being open by jack, with the wife and two daughters following behind. you don’t trust your voice so you just give what you hope is a comforting look and sneak past jack through the door. you are removing your trauma gown when you hear jack that they can take as much time as they need.

when you get to the nurses station you exhale a breath and try to shake off the death. it’s never easy but you know it’s not fair to your other patients you have to look after, so after your two minute self reflection your back into triage and helping where you can.

you never really had a chance to check up on jack. new cases came in and your paths never crossed the rest of the night.

you’re debriefing with dana before heading to the locker room when jack comes up to the nurses station. “dana if robby is looking for me, tell him i’m just getting some air.” you find your eyes following him towards the elevator and you’ve never seen him like this, it had your heart feeling like it was in a vice. you turn back to dana after the doors close. “rough night kid?” you look up to the ceiling to collect your thoughts on how the evening went. “we had an army vet come in found unresponsive by his wife, we spent two hours coding him and dr. abbot spent another oh, i don’t know maybe close to three with the family as they said their final goodbyes.” dana lets a big exhale out at that information. “army vet, that would do it.” you just nod at her. “it was a rough one for sure.” dana gives you a pat on the shoulder.

“jack shouldn’t be alone on the roof.” she must see the look of panic you accidentally shoot her way. “he’s not going to jump, but his mind is going to run a mile a minute. he needs someone to slow it down. you two seem to have gotten close, he could really just use a friend up there” you release your bottom lip from your teeth. “he told you to tell robby he was going up there. i don’t want to upset him by going looking for him when he didn’t want me to.” dana raises an eyebrow. “he could have you up there, the pretty girl he spends two hours with after shift talking about who knows what at the park across the street.” you feel yourself get warm at her observation. “or he could have robby, the emotionally constipated old man, i think he’d appreciate your company sweetheart.” you nod your head still not convinced. “okay i will try.” with that you head towards the stairwell and up to the roof.

you get to the metal door and take a deep breath to calm your feelings before stepping out onto the roof. you approach him on the ledge like you would some sort of animal you didn’t want to scare. when you get to the metal guard you stop. jack has himself over the guard, but exactly as dana said he’s still a safe distance away from the actual ledge which makes you feel a bit better. you don’t know what to say so you just stay quiet. watching the back of his head hoping you can think of something. jack still hasn’t looked back so you aren’t too sure if he even knows it’s you who followed him out to the roof.

“what i don’t even get a good morning anymore?” he turns with his arms crossed expecting robby but is surprised to find your sheepish face. “what are you doing up here?” you shake your head a bit. “i honestly don’t know. dana sent me up here, i told her i thought it was a bad idea, i can just go and we can just pretend i was never here.” you slowly start to back away, turning on your heel. “wait, hold on. stay.” you turn back to look at him. “seeing you on the roof caught me off guard, its not necessary a place i would like you to know. only because this is for the hard days when it all feels too much. i would never want you to feel like the roof was your only option on a hard day.” you give him a small smile at that. “hmm so i should talk to someone else first, but you can come all the way up here by yourself? that doesn’t seem fair.” that earns you a small smile. “that one case hit me hard. veterans usually do, the ones who survive over there and come home and don’t make it here.” you find yourself nodding at his admission. “well i know you don’t need to hear it but you did everything that you could have done, and a little more.”

he turns back to face out looking at the skyline. “what you did for that family today, so their last memories didn’t involve a breathing tube and an iv, that was, unbelievably kind. leaving his hands out of the sheet, that was the first place they went. to hold them.” does he sound. choked up? you don’t push him to talk about it more, but you feel like you should explain yourself. “i had an instructor in nursing school who really painted a picture of how last memories can be, i always think what i would want in that situation, i think finding a loved one unresponsive is traumatic enough, getting rid of the tubes and wires is just trying to save one less bad memory from taking over a good one, you know?” jack can’t believe how compassionate you are without even really knowing it, this was all just apart of you. it didn’t matter if it was the 43 year old veteran or a 93 year old woman, you always made sure of last moments included grace. all without any of your other cases falling through the cracks. he thinks if the hospital could clone you and make 70 nurses like you ptmc would be world renowned for exceptional care and medical practices.

the silence is making you a bit nervous because you still don’t think you’ve done enough to talk jack off the ledge. you’re about to start some stupid story to distract him when he cuts you off.

“you know what could maybe turn this shift around?” you cock your head to the side with a small shake of your head. “if you let me take you to the diner down the road, it isn’t my usually first date spot but today reminded me life is short, i don’t want to waste any more time when you could be all mine, and i would be all yours.” you are a little shocked so you haven’t formed words yet. jack panics “unless i have been reading all our talks at the park and drives home wrong, if that’s the case then we can pretend I didn’t just-“ you don’t know where to interject and stop his rambling so you do the one thing you’ve wanted to do for a while and just pull him in by his collar and kiss him, nothing much just your lips on his just enough to shut him up for a second so you can tell him. “breakfast at the diner sounds really nice.” he smiles a smile at you that leaves you a bit dizzy staring at it. “yeah?” you nod a bit shy. “mhmm-“ thats all you can get out before he’s pulling you back in for another kiss. this one is a bit more passionate. each of you mapping out the others lips. it’s cut short by the sound of the door of the roof being shoved open and both of you pulling away quickly acting as if you weren’t just possibly caught in a compromising position.