t ♡

Jack began to disinfect the cut. “I don’t know, kid. I think she’d want to know about this.”

You sighed, watching him prep a numbing shot.

“Just let her find out naturally. You gonna stitch me up?” You asked. Jack shook his head.

“Teaching hospital remember? Dr. Santos will do it, she doesn’t get the opportunity often.” You furrowed an eyebrow.

“Isn’t that like bad?” Jack chuckled, giving a reassuring pat to your shoulder.

“She’s awesome, you’ll be in good hands.” He assured you.

This Dr. Santos showed up a little after Jack left.

You watched her prep the needle and thread. “Walsh huh? That’s the last name of one of our surgeons here.” You smiled, grateful she was offering some small talk.

“Oh, yeah, she’s my—”

“I’m her wife. And you’re not doing her stitches.” There she was.

You knew she was pissed. She probably thought you were sound asleep at home, and now she finds out you’re here? Through the grapevine at that.

Santos stammered, “uh, Dr. Abbot told me to do her stitches.”

“I’ve only ever seen you do them a few times, my wife isn’t your test subject.” She doubled down. “Now give us the room.”

You shot her a look that said “be nice.”

“Please.” Emery added. Dr. Santos set down the needle and left.

Emery took her spot, sliding up closer to you. “You should’ve called me, texted me, something.” Her voice was low. She had every right to be upset honestly.

“I just knew you’d freak out— you do the whole calm on the outside going crazy on the inside.” You watched the needle pierce your skin and the thread loop the two sides together.

“But I am sorry. I know you were worried.” You apologized, bringing your uninjured hand up to stroke the loose strands of hair that fell from her ponytail.

Emery looked up from your hand, a more loving and concerned look on her face this time.

“Very. The fact you didn’t call made me think the worst. But I see you were trying to avoid my attitude.” You smiled a little, knowing you were still in the hot seat.

“Yeah, true. I am happy to see you though, I couldn’t sleep without you, which resulted in this whole mess.” Your words put a smile on Emery’s face this time.

“I’m coming home with you now. No need to try to cure your insomnia with stupid shit.”

You rolled your eyes. “No. I know you have work to do, I’m fine by myself.” Emery shook her head, her decision was final and you knew that.

She cut the remaining thread from your stitches. “Park can pick up my slack. I need to get my things from my locker, then we’re going home.”

And went home you did. Emery let you get in bed while she showered and scarfed down the food you cooked.

You felt a warm body slip in behind you, Emery wrapped her arms around you, slightly pulling you closer. You smirked when you realized she felt a little too bare.

You chuckled. “Are you naked, Em?”

“What’s it to you? Go to sleep before you hurt yourself blinking.”

The idea itself was strange, after all, you had never left the planet before. But you had to admit that it sounded exciting, and besides, trying alcohol from people living on other planets would have been an even bigger adventure.

When you said okay, Kara's eyes almost sparkled and she almost immediately started preparing for the trip. It was all so spontaneous, but you liked it that way, after all, it had its own charm.

It's worth noting that Krypto didn't want to be left out of this either, and although Kara agreed, she still forbade the dog from coming into the bar with you, which earned her a few whines, but in the end he was content to wait for you on the ship.

¯¯¯¯¯¯*¯¯¯¯¯¯

The bar of the place was full of aliens you didn't know. Some were taller, some were shorter. Most of them spoke a language you couldn't understand, but you didn't want to, after all, that's not why you were here.

A flood of red and yellow colors covered the place, and on top of the ceiling was a disco ball, from which green rays came out from time to time, which brightened up the atmosphere of the place.

Considering that it was a bar on an alien planet, it could be called quite solid, and at first glance it didn't look that different from Earth.

However, the alcohols on the alien planet were definitely different from Earth's alcohols. Now you understand what Kara was talking about when she said that alcohol from other planets was strong enough to make even her dizzy. Compared to these, Earth's alcohol was nothing.

The biggest difference wasn’t in their taste, but rather in the fact that even an average glass of drink had a lot more alcohol in it than an Earthly one.

Kara held your hand tightly as she led you to the bar and ordered you both some kind of alcohol, which you had no idea what it was. Kara simply explained that it was one of the less strong drinks they had here.

Although it would be worth learning exactly what the term ‘less strong’ meant on an alien planet first.

You were still an Earthling, so it was natural that alcohol would affect you much faster than it would affect Kara, who, although it was easier for her to drink here, still couldn’t reach that state as quickly as you.

This was exactly the reason you told her after the third glass that you weren’t drinking anymore, since it still felt like much more than it should have.

You weren’t drunk, but you were definitely more alert and energetic. You were aware of what was going on around you, but you felt much more relaxed. You were slightly dizzy.

Kara, on the other hand, wasn’t in the same state as you, but you could definitely tell that she had been drinking.

Somehow, seeing you so relaxed, so energetic, and so free warmed her heart.

She had always admired how hard you worked, how dedicated you were to your work and everything else that was important to you. However, she also knew that sometimes you didn’t manage your time well for breaks. That’s why it made her extremely happy to see this relaxed side of you.

An unfamiliar song was playing over the speakers in the bar, but the beat was rhythmic and fast enough for your brain to quickly process that it was music worth dancing to.

“I really like this music.” You commented as you leaned closer to her so she could hear better, as the noise of the other creatures and the music itself slightly drowned out the communication options.

Kara hummed in response. “I like it too.”

You smiled at that. “Then how about we dance to it.” you suggested, which sounded more like a statement than an actual suggestion.

You didn’t even wait for her answer, you rushed to the middle of the place and let the rhythm of the music take control of your body. A few aliens around you glanced at you and watched you dance energetically for a few moments. Some of them hummed something appreciative, and some of them were affected by your energy and let themselves get lost in the music more.

Kara’s gaze followed you. Of course she wanted to dance with you, but suddenly she felt like she was freezing as she watched your movements.

You were so graceful, so beautiful the way you moved. The smile on your face was visible, showing how much you enjoyed it all. It was a sight that caused a faint blush to appear on her face for a moment and something stirred inside her. It was simply beautiful.

In a few moments, she stood up, then came next to you and, like you, let the music take control.

Your smile grew wider as you saw her, so you wrapped your arms around her shoulders as her hands found your waist.

Giggles escaped your lips, and soft laughter was heard as Kara whispered something silly to you.

As the music and dancing continued, your gaze found hers, and after a moment your lips found hers.

Kara hummed contentedly into the kiss as she pulled you closer.

Your lips parted from hers for a moment, but then you pressed them to the side of her cheek and planted a few kisses there.

Kara enjoyed this immensely. It seemed like the alcohol had made you even more affectionate, and she couldn’t be happier.

“You’re so beautiful.” you murmured as you planted a kiss on her chin, and she hummed contentedly.

“Yeah?” she murmured, and you hummed in response and planted another kiss on her chin.

Kara’s hands slid under your clothes, her lips hovering near your ear as she spoke.

“I think it’s time to go back to the ship, don’t you think? I’m sure it’s a lot more fun there.” she grinned, and you nodded enthusiastically, letting her grab your hand and pull you towards the exit.

As you stepped out of the bar, the slightly cool air hit you, but it wasn’t cool enough to cool down the heat inside you two.

Arriving at her ship, you two wasted no time.

After the door closed, Kara pressed you against the ship's wall and pressed a firm kiss to your lips.

You moaned softly into the kiss, your arms wrapping around her neck again and pulling her closer.

Kara's lips parted from yours for a moment, then in an instant they found your neck and left a flood of kisses there. Her hands slid under your clothes and smoothed along the lines of your waist.

You tilted your head back, giving her more space for your neck, which she took advantage of, as her kisses moved closer to your chin and she kissed you a little harder.

"Kara..." you breathed out as her hands slid up.

"Fuck, baby, I want you so bad." Kara's voice came out as her lips left your neck, then lifted you with a light movement.

You let out a soft scream at the sudden movement, but your smile quickly returned, wrapping your legs around her waist and letting her carry you to the bed.

As she placed you on the bed, she immediately climbed on top of you and kissed you again.

Your hands began to roam as you ran them down her arms, then stopped at her shoulder and tugged lightly on her brown jacket.

Kara broke away from the kiss for a moment, then took off her jacket and immediately leaned back into you, her lips finding your neck again, kissing you harder, as soft moans left your mouth.

Her hands went under your clothes again and started to pull it up.

You were about to sit up so she could pull it off of you more easily when a loud barking sound rang out in the air, followed shortly by Krypto himself, throwing himself onto the bed, seemingly happy for you two to be back on the ship.

"Krypto, what-" Kara started in surprise, but couldn't finish as the dog started jumping on the bed, full of energy, as if waiting to be dealt with.

"You can't be real. Come on, buddy, why now?" Kara growled as Krypto successfully interrupted the two of you again.

Your mind was still foggy from the alcohol and the barrage of kisses, but you managed to make out that Krypto was practically jumping right next to your face.

Although you suddenly felt frustrated that the heated atmosphere was interrupted, you quickly smiled as the dog's face moved closer to yours and licked it a few times.

"Krypto!" you shouted as you tried to push the dog away from you, who finally listened and sat down on the bed with an innocent look, staring at the two of you.

Kara's eyes watched the dog's movements with boredom and frustration. She wanted to tell him to go to his place, but she didn't, as your arms were wrapped around her neck again.

"Hmm, then I guess we should rest." you stated.

Although Kara wanted to continue grumbling, she couldn't stop the grin that spread across her face.

"It seems so." she finally sighed, but her smile was still there, then she lay down next to you and wrapped her arms tightly around your waist, and you buried your face under her chin.

Krypto's barking filled the ship again, and then you felt him get comfortable on the bed close to you.

shauna, who could bury her face in your bush for literal hours!! she’s obsessed with eating you out for that exact reason, inhaling deeply from it as she lies between your legs…even as she lowers her mouth further down and starts licking through your folds, shauna keeps a hand there, absently stroking your hair while hungrily lapping up your arousal.

gp!shauna, who also has to keep a hand on your groin while you have sex….she runs her fingers through your bush, growling at the feel of it against her palm as she thrusts her hips back & forth and fucks you into the blankets/against the forest floor/you name it. even while fucking you from behind, shauna needs to have a hand shoved between your legs, its heel sitting comfortably against your pubic bone while her fingertips play with your clit.

gp!shauna, who loves to cum on it....? she’ll drag her cock through your folds, pushed over the edge just from feeling your labia enveloping her length!! shauna’s tip nudges your clit on every upward stroke through your cunt, which makes you squirm, too, and her slit ends up shooting ropes of cum all over your inner thighs, your stomach & your bush <3

gp!shauna who holds your hair back while fucking you from behind….

shauna pulled it into a ponytail as soon as she had you on all fours in your shared hut, wrapping it around her hand to give her full control over your head’s range of motion. she chuckles when you whine at the first pull, the hair tight in shauna’s fist, even as you throw your head back & arch your back into her. with how harshly she’s pulling that makeshift ponytail, you hardly feel the sting of her cock slipping inside, shauna’s grip tightening as she begins to thrust her hips. there’s no way for you to lower your weight into the furs, because she keeps her firm hold on your hair, forcing you to keep your head up even as she increases the pace, and your arms get weak. “that’s it,” shauna growls over the obscene sound of skin slapping against skin. “that’s it, fucking- take it!” if you ever so much as try to drop your head forward, there’s that sting again, a reminder that shauna is in control, even as she starts moaning & groaning herself, your cunt fluttering increasingly tight around her cock, proof that she isn’t the only one who loves this. shauna, who yanks you back by the hair when she comes, so that your back is pressed right up against her front and she’s fucking into you in short little thrusts, grunting into your ear as she starts cumming inside. she releases the ponytail, but runs her fingers through your hair all while she releases, loving the feeling of the strands between her fingers.

thinkingggg s3 perv!shauna who gets a little feral about your body hair in general, literally sniffing it, licking down your happy trail etc. etc……..

shauna, who literally uses it like a personal fidget toy 😭😭 sharing a hut with shauna, who stomps inside after mari got on her nerves all day long, demanding that you lie down for her. she’ll literally just shove her hand down your pants to run her fingers along your happy trail and through your bush, playing with it without even having the intention to fuck you. she just needs to relax a bit!!

The chapel at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center had never looked smaller.

You’d walked past it hundreds of times in your months as a pediatric emergency attending, usually with a chart tucked under your arm or your phone buzzing against your hip. Most days, it was just another door in the hospital. A quiet rectangle tucked between vending machines, consult rooms, and the kind of fluorescent hallway light that made everyone look sicker than they were.

Tonight, it felt like a challenge.

You sat in the front pew with your hands locked so tightly in your lap that your knuckles ached. Your scrub top was wrinkled. There was dried saline on your sleeve and a smear of iodine near your wrist that you hadn’t noticed until you were already sitting down. Your hair had slipped loose from the knot at the back of your head, strands clinging to your damp neck. You could still smell antiseptic on your skin, sharp and chemical, but beneath it there was something metallic your mind refused to name.

The chapel was quiet in the way only hospitals could be quiet. Not peaceful. Never peaceful. Just muffled.

Beyond the door, PTMC was still moving. People were still being transferred, called, stitched, scanned, sedated, pronounced, comforted. The hospital had absorbed the mass shooting the way hospitals absorbed horror, with protocols and blood banks and crisis teams and hands that kept working because stopping wasn’t an option.

Your hands had worked too.

Small hands had clutched yours.

Parents had screamed into your chest.

Teenagers had stared at the ceiling like they were trying to disappear from their own bodies.

You had made decisions with the awful speed pediatric emergency medicine required. You had spoken gently while doing brutal things. You had looked at children and seen airway, breathing, circulation first because that was the job, then seen their faces after, which was the cost.

And now you were sitting in a chapel, furious at God.

The thought should’ve scared you more than it did.

You’d been raised to believe anger at God was arrogance. Questioning was rebellion. Doubt was danger. You had grown up Southern Baptist in the thick, suffocating heart of it. Not the casual kind. Not Christmas and Easter with casserole dishes and polite hymns. No, yours had been Sunday school before service, Sunday morning worship, Sunday evening worship, Wednesday night prayer meeting, Vacation Bible School every summer, revival week when guest preachers came in red-faced and sweating to warn children about eternal fire.

You had memorized scripture before you understood half the words. You had won candy for reciting verses from the King James Bible. You had bowed your head over potluck tables while deacons prayed long enough for the fried chicken to go cold. You had worn dresses because modesty mattered, because stumbling blocks were apparently always girls, because your body had been treated like a loaded weapon before you even knew how to live inside it.

At twelve, you had signed a purity pledge in front of the congregation.

At thirteen, you had learned the word abomination from someone smiling.

At fourteen, you had prayed until your throat hurt because a girl in youth choir had tucked her hair behind her ear and you’d felt something so bright and frightening that you thought God must’ve seen it burn through you.

At sixteen, you had gone forward during an altar call and cried into a stranger’s cardigan while women placed hands on your shoulders and prayed for deliverance from things you had not named out loud.

At eighteen, you had left for college with a Bible packed by your mother, a handwritten note from your father, and a terror so deeply rooted you mistook it for faith.

You had spent years unlearning.

You had also spent years discovering that unlearning did not mean forgetting.

The cross on the wall above the small altar was simple. Dark wood. No body. No blood. Just an emblem, clean and bare and almost polite.

You hated it.

You hated that you still knew what you were supposed to do in front of it. Bow your head. Soften your voice. Search yourself for sin before daring to ask for comfort.

You hated that some part of you still wanted comfort from the God you resented.

You hated that after everything you had seen tonight, after the ambulances and the blood and the impossible phone calls, your mind had circled back to the same old fear.

You loved a woman.

You loved Emery Walsh.

And some ruined, terrified part of you still wondered if that meant you were damned.

The anger rose fast enough to take your breath.

You leaned forward, elbows on your knees, and stared at the cross until your eyes burned.

“Were You there?”

Your voice sounded raw in the small room.

No answer came.

Of course no answer came.

You laughed once, but it broke apart before it became anything real.

“Were You there when they came in?” you asked. “Were You there when we ran out of pediatric trauma bays and started making space wherever we could? Were You there when a little boy asked me if his mom was mad at him because he got blood on his shoes?”

Your jaw clenched so hard it hurt.

“Were You there when I had to tell a father to sit down before I could give him news because I knew his knees were going to give out? Were You there when I had to decide who needed me first?”

The chapel swallowed your words.

You wiped at your face with the heel of your hand, angry when it came away wet.

“I did everything right,” you said, quieter now. “I was good. I was so good. I sat still in church. I memorized verses. I prayed every time they told me to. I begged You to fix me before I even knew what I was asking You to change.”

Your throat tightened.

“I wanted to be clean.”

The word landed ugly.

You flinched from it.

Clean.

As if love were dirt.

As if wanting Emery were something that had stained you.

You pressed both hands over your mouth. The pew creaked faintly beneath you as your body folded in on itself.

“I hate this,” you whispered into your palms. “I hate what they did to me. I hate that I can hold a child’s chest open with my hands and still be scared of a sermon from twenty years ago. I hate that I’m a grown woman and I still hear my mother crying like I died when I told her I couldn’t be what she wanted.”

The chapel door opened behind you.

You froze.

The sound was soft, barely more than a shift in the air, but every muscle in your body locked around it. You didn’t turn around. You couldn’t. You were too exposed, too torn open, too full of old prayers and fresh grief.

The door shut.

Footsteps moved down the aisle.

Not rushed. Not hesitant. Measured, careful, familiar.

You knew that walk.

Emery.

She stopped at the end of your pew.

For a moment, neither of you spoke.

You kept your eyes fixed on the cross because looking at her felt impossible. You could handle anger. You could handle silence. You could maybe even handle God, though you weren’t sure about that yet.

You didn’t know if you could handle Emery seeing this much of you.

Her voice came low and quiet.

“Can I sit with you?”

The question hurt more than it should have.

No one in your childhood church had asked permission before touching you at the altar. Hands had descended on you like ownership. Prayers had been spoken over your bowed head like you weren’t a person so much as a problem.

Emery asked.

You nodded once.

She slid into the pew beside you, leaving a careful few inches of space between your thigh and hers. Not distant. Not absent. Just respectful. She smelled faintly of surgical soap and coffee gone stale. Her white coat was gone, and without it she looked less like the sharp, immovable attending surgeon everyone knew and more like a person who had survived the same impossible night you had.

A silver Star of David rested against the hollow of her throat, half-visible above the collar of her scrub shirt. You had seen it before, usually quick flashes when she bent over a chart or pulled her badge lanyard aside. Tonight, in the chapel light, it seemed brighter. Not flashy. Just present.

Steady.

You stared at it because it was easier than staring at her face.

“I didn’t know where else to go,” you said.

Emery’s hands rested loosely in her lap. “That makes sense.”

“Does it?”

“Yes.”

“I came here to be angry.”

“That also makes sense.”

You let out a humorless breath. “You’re being very agreeable.”

“I’m trying something new. Don’t get attached.”

Despite yourself, your mouth twitched.

Then it collapsed.

“I’m so tired, Emery.”

“I know.”

“No, I’m tired in a way sleep won’t fix.” Your voice cracked. “I’m tired in my bones. I’m tired in the parts of me that still think suffering is proof of holiness. I’m tired of being good. I’m tired of being scared. I’m tired of feeling like if I’m happy for too long, something is going to come collect payment.”

Emery turned slightly toward you.

At work, Emery Walsh didn’t soften easily. She was brilliant and biting and controlled. She could cut through an argument with one sentence. She could make residents rethink their entire career with a look. She could stand in a trauma bay and make chaos organize itself around her voice.

But here, away from monitors and blood pressure cuffs and OR lights, her edges shifted.

She didn’t become someone else.

She just stopped defending the soft parts.

“I don’t want to say the wrong thing,” she said.

That surprised you enough that you looked at her.

Her eyes were dark and tired, but focused completely on you.

“You?” you asked. “Not wanting to say something?”

“I know. Alert the media.”

You huffed a tiny laugh, and it immediately turned into a shaky inhale.

Emery’s expression gentled. “I’m serious. I don’t carry religion the way you do. I don’t want to pretend I understand the exact shape of this.”

You looked down at your hands. “You don’t believe in hell.”

“Not like that.”

“Not like me.”

“No.” Her voice stayed careful. “I grew up Jewish, but modern. Cultural, mostly. We did Shabbat dinners when my mother had the energy. My grandmother lit candles every Friday night whether she was angry, grieving, busy, or pretending not to be all three. We had Passover seders where every adult argued over the Haggadah like the fate of the world depended on footnotes. We went to synagogue on the High Holidays. I learned enough Hebrew to make my bat mitzvah tutor question her career choices.”

A weak smile tugged at you.

Emery touched the Star of David lightly, almost absently.

“I don’t keep kosher. I work on Saturdays, obviously. My relationship with God is less obedience and more ongoing litigation.” Her mouth curved faintly. “Very Jewish of me, actually.”

You let out a breath that was almost a laugh.

“But I don’t have what you have,” she continued. “I wasn’t raised with eternal punishment hanging over my head because of who I might love. Nobody told me my desire made me dirty. Nobody made me stand in front of a congregation and promise to become smaller so God would tolerate me.”

Your eyes filled again.

Emery saw it and lowered her voice.

“And I am so sorry they did that to you.”

The words hit deep.

You looked away quickly, but the tears came anyway.

“They thought they were saving me.”

“Maybe they did.”

“That doesn’t make it better.”

“No,” Emery said. “It doesn’t.”

You swallowed hard.

“My father used to say the narrow road was supposed to hurt,” you said. “He said if the world accepted you, you should worry about your soul.”

Emery’s jaw tightened.

You watched the muscle jump once near her cheek.

“My mother used to inspect my clothes before church,” you continued. “Too short, too tight, too worldly. She’d say, ‘You don’t want your body to lead someone into sin.’ I was ten. Ten years old, and already my body was being treated like a threat.”

Emery whispered your name.

You kept going because stopping felt worse.

“I was the girl who knew all the answers in Bible drill. I knew the books in order. I knew which verses to quote when someone asked about obedience, purity, sacrifice. I knew how to smile when the pastor preached about wives submitting to husbands. I knew how to bow my head when he preached about Sodom, even though my whole body would go cold.”

Your hands shook in your lap.

“And I still became this,” you said.

Emery’s face changed.

Not anger exactly.

Pain.

“No,” she said.

You glanced at her.

“No,” she repeated, firmer. “You did not still become this. You survived becoming yourself.”

The sentence broke something open in your chest.

You covered your face with one hand, but Emery didn’t let the silence turn empty.

“You were a child,” she said. “A child who wanted to be loved by her family and her church and her God. You did what children do. You tried to be safe.”

“I prayed so hard.”

“I believe you.”

“I prayed until I felt sick. I prayed for God to take it away.” Your voice frayed. “I made lists of sins in my journal. I fasted once because a girl from youth group hugged me too long and I thought maybe hunger would make me holy enough to stop wanting. I thought if I punished myself first, maybe God wouldn’t have to.”

Emery’s hand moved across the pew between you, palm up.

Not grabbing.

Not assuming.

Waiting.

You stared at her hand.

Then you took it.

Her fingers curled around yours with a steadiness that made your throat ache.

“I wish I could go back,” Emery said softly.

You looked at her.

“To you then,” she said. “That little girl in church. That teenager starving herself over a hug. I wish I could sit next to her and tell her there was never anything rotten in her.”

Your lips parted, but no sound came.

Emery’s thumb brushed over your knuckles.

“And I know that’s not how time works. Trust me, medicine would be significantly less frustrating if it did. But I can tell you now.”

Your tears slipped down your face unchecked.

“There is nothing rotten in you.”

You shook your head.

“You don’t have to believe me all at once,” Emery said. “Just don’t argue with me. I’m very tired, and I will win.”

A wet laugh escaped you.

“There you are,” she murmured.

The tenderness in it made you cry harder.

You leaned forward again, still holding her hand, and tried to breathe through the pressure in your chest.

“It’s not just my family,” you said. “It’s the whole structure of it. The hymns. The smell of the sanctuary. The way everybody knew everybody’s business but called it fellowship. The way women whispered prayer requests that were really warnings. The way men could be cruel and call it leadership. The way every part of me was trained to ask, ‘Is this pleasing to God?’ before I asked, ‘Is this hurting me?’”

Emery listened.

She didn’t interrupt. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t search for a neat answer.

“So when I started falling for you,” you whispered, “I felt it again.”

“What?”

“That old panic.” You turned toward her. “You’d hand me coffee after a bad shift, and I’d feel happy, and then immediately guilty. You’d text me something sarcastic and stupid, and I’d smile at my phone like an idiot, and then hear my mother’s voice telling me sin always disguises itself as joy.”

Emery’s mouth tightened.

“You’d kiss me,” you said, voice breaking, “and I’d feel like I had finally found a place inside my own body that didn’t hurt. Then afterward, I’d lie awake wondering if peace could be a trick.”

Emery closed her eyes briefly.

When she opened them, they were wet.

“You never told me it was that bad.”

“I didn’t want you to think I regretted you.”

“Do you?”

“No.” The answer came instantly. “No, Emery, never.”

She nodded, but her eyes stayed on yours.

“I regret that I’m like this,” you said. “I regret that loving me means loving someone who might cry in a hospital chapel because she can’t separate desire from damnation.”

“I don’t regret loving you.”

The words were quiet.

They stopped you cold.

Your breath caught.

Emery seemed to realize what she’d said at the same time you did, but she didn’t take it back. She just looked at you, open and scared in a way you had never seen from her at work.

The beginning of your relationship had been full of carefulness. The kind that came from two people with demanding jobs, long hours, and histories that had taught them caution. You were still learning the shape of each other. Emery knew how you took your tea after night shifts, how you went silent when you were overwhelmed, how you sometimes needed to sit in your car for ten minutes before driving home because pediatric death demanded rituals no one wrote into training.

You knew Emery pretended not to care about birthdays but remembered everyone else’s. You knew she claimed to hate sentiment and still kept a photograph of her grandmother tucked behind her hospital ID. You knew she touched the mezuzah on the doorframe of her apartment so quickly you might’ve missed it if you hadn’t been falling in love with every small thing she did.

But neither of you had said this yet.

Not plainly.

Not here.

“You love me?” you asked.

Emery let out a breath, almost a laugh, but too fragile to be amused.

“Yes.”

The word moved through you like a wound and a blessing.

“I was going to tell you somewhere less aggressively symbolic,” she said.

A sob-laugh shook out of you.

“Maybe over dinner,” Emery continued. “Maybe after you made fun of me for pretending store-bought challah was a personal failure. Maybe not after a mass casualty event in a chapel under a cross while both of us smell like an emergency department.”

“You made challah?”

“I attempted challah.”

“That’s very different.”

“It was structurally unsound.”

You laughed again, and Emery smiled at you with such tenderness that the laughter dissolved.

“I love you,” she said again, quieter this time. “I love you in a way I did not plan for and cannot clinically justify, which is irritating.”

Your hand tightened around hers.

“I love how you talk to children like they’re full people, even when everyone around them is panicking. I love how you crouch so you’re not towering over them. I love that you put dinosaur stickers in the pocket of your scrub jacket and pretend you don’t have favorites even though the triceratops is clearly your emotional support dinosaur.”

Your tears kept falling, but your mouth trembled into something close to a smile.

“I love how angry you get when people dismiss children’s pain,” Emery said. “I love that you can be gentle and terrifying in the same breath. I love that you know exactly when to soften your voice and exactly when to make a consultant regret calling pediatrics dramatic.”

“You like that?”

“I find it deeply attractive.”

You laughed through tears. “That’s concerning.”

“I’m a surgeon.”

“Right.”

Her thumb moved slowly over your hand.

“And I love you here,” she said. “In this room. With this fear. With this history. With the parts you’re afraid will make me leave.”

You shook your head, overwhelmed. “You don’t know how much there is.”

“Then tell me.”

“It’s ugly.”

“Tell me.”

You stared at the cross again.

Your voice came out barely above a whisper.

“When I realized I loved you, really loved you, not just wanted you or admired you or felt safe with you, I heard my pastor’s voice. Not my current thoughts. His voice. Clear as anything. He used to say hell was separation from God, but he described it like fire. Endless fire. He said people chose it when they chose sin over salvation.”

Emery’s grip tightened, but she stayed quiet.

“And I thought, what if he was right?” you said. “What if all of this softness with you is rebellion? What if the safest I’ve ever felt is just me walking farther away from God?”

The words came faster now, pulled out of some deep place you usually kept locked.

“And then I hated myself for even thinking that because you’re not sin to me. You’re not temptation. You’re not some test I’m failing. You’re the person who makes me want to come home after work instead of sitting in my car until I’m numb. You’re the person I want to tell when I lose a patient and when I save one. You’re the person I think of when the world feels unbearable and I need to remember there’s still tenderness in it.”

Emery’s eyes shone.

You turned fully toward her.

“And if loving you means I’m condemned by the version of God they gave me, then I don’t want that God.”

The chapel seemed to hold its breath.

You were shaking now, but the words kept coming.

“I don’t want a heaven where I have to be empty to enter. I don’t want salvation that requires me to deny the one person who makes me feel like I’m not beyond saving.”

Emery whispered your name again, but you weren’t finished.

Your voice broke open.

“If I am damned to hell because I have fallen for a woman I love, I wish to burn for eternity if it means I get to live my life with you.”

Emery’s face crumpled.

Not completely. Emery Walsh did not fall apart easily. But enough.

Enough that you saw the precise moment your words hurt her because she loved you. Enough that you saw tenderness turn fierce.

She shifted closer, still holding your hand.

“No,” she said.

The word was soft, but immovable.

You blinked through tears.

“No,” she said again. “I need you to hear me. I need you to really hear me.”

You nodded, though your breath was shaking.

“You do not have to burn for me.”

Your face twisted.

“You do not have to imagine yourself suffering forever to prove your love is real. You do not have to make your pain noble. You do not have to offer yourself up to hell because someone taught you love and punishment belonged in the same sentence.”

Her voice trembled then, just barely.

“I will not be the woman you love at the cost of yourself.”

You covered your mouth with your free hand.

Emery moved carefully, then lifted her other hand to your cheek. She paused before touching you, giving you the chance to pull away.

You didn’t.

Her palm settled against your skin.

“You do not have to burn,” she said. “Not for me. Not for God. Not for your parents. Not for some pastor who scared children and called it righteousness.”

A sob broke out of you.

Emery leaned closer, her forehead nearly touching yours.

“In my family,” she said, voice low, “faith was not always soft. It carried grief. History. Survival. My grandmother used to say being Jewish meant learning how to ask questions even when the answers broke your heart. She said we wrestle with God because we’re still in the room.”

You stared at her, tears blurring her face.

“I’m not saying that to replace what you believe,” Emery said. “I’m not here to convert you or correct you or tell you what God is. That would be arrogant, and despite my reputation, I do try to limit my arrogance to clinical settings.”

A broken laugh slipped from you.

“But I can tell you what I see,” she continued. “I see a woman who has spent her life healing children while carrying a wound no one bothered to treat gently. I see a woman who learned compassion in a place that did not always give it back. I see a woman who is angry because some part of her knows she deserved better.”

Her thumb brushed your cheekbone, catching a tear.

“And I see the woman I love.”

You closed your eyes.

The word love was still new between you, bright and fragile, but Emery held it like she meant to protect it.

“I don’t know how to stop being afraid,” you whispered.

“You don’t have to stop tonight.”

“I want to.”

“I know.”

“I want to be with you without flinching afterward.”

“We’ll work toward that.”

“What if I never get there?”

“Then I’ll keep holding your hand while you flinch.”

Your eyes opened.

Emery looked directly at you.

“I won’t pretend it won’t hurt sometimes,” she said. “I’m not that generous or that naive. It will hurt to see you afraid of something between us that is good. It will hurt when the voices that harmed you get a seat at our table. But that doesn’t mean you’re too much. It means we name them when they show up, and we don’t let them pretend they’re truth.”

You swallowed hard.

“What if I start believing them again?”

“Then I’ll remind you.”

“What if I push you away?”

“I’ll ask whether you want space or whether you’re testing if I’ll leave.”

You let out a shaky breath.

“And if I don’t know?”

“Then I’ll sit on the floor outside the locked emotional door and make sarcastic comments until you open it.”

You laughed, really laughed this time, though it came through tears.

Emery’s mouth softened.

“There,” she said. “That sound is very inconveniently important to me.”

“I hate that you can still make me laugh right now.”

“No, you don’t.”

“No, I don’t.”

For a moment, the chapel was quiet again.

You looked toward the cross, then toward Emery’s Star of David. Two symbols in the same small room. One that had been used to terrify you. One that rested against the chest of the woman holding you through the terror.

You reached out with your free hand, hesitant, then stopped.

Emery glanced down. “You can touch it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Your fingertips brushed the small silver star.

It was warm from her skin.

“I noticed it the first time we kissed,” you admitted.

Emery’s eyebrows lifted. “That’s what you were thinking about?”

“I was thinking a lot of things.”

“I should hope so.”

You smiled faintly.

“I thought it was beautiful,” you said. “Then I panicked because I remembered a sermon about being unequally yoked.”

Emery groaned softly. “I’m going to have words with every adult from your childhood.”

“That’s a long list.”

“I’m efficient.”

You traced the edge of the pendant once before letting your hand fall.

“What does it feel like for you?” you asked.

“Being Jewish?”

You nodded.

Emery thought for a moment. She didn’t rush. You loved that about her more than you knew how to admit, the way she could be brutally fast in medicine and deeply deliberate in intimacy.

“It feels like family first,” she said. “Even when family is complicated. It feels like my grandmother’s hands covering mine when I was little and she taught me the blessing over the candles. It feels like my mother telling me stories in the kitchen while pretending she wasn’t crying over onions. It feels like arguing, food, memory, stubbornness.”

Her eyes drifted toward the small altar, but not the cross exactly.

“It feels like grief I inherited and joy I inherited too. Bagels after services. My cousins getting too loud at seders. My aunt insisting every illness can be improved with soup. Lighting yahrzeit candles and not knowing what I believe happens after death, but knowing remembering matters.”

You listened, held still by the intimacy of it.

“It doesn’t feel like fear of hell,” Emery said. “I don’t have that architecture inside me. I have guilt, because apparently no Jewish family lets you leave childhood without some, but not this kind. Not terror that love could condemn me.”

“I envy that.”

“I know.”

“Does that make me awful?”

“No. It makes you honest.”

You looked down. “Sometimes I think I don’t even want faith anymore. Then something terrible happens, and I find myself looking for God like a child looking for her mother in a crowd.”

Emery’s expression softened with recognition, not of the theology, but of the ache.

“That doesn’t make you weak.”

“It feels weak.”

“It sounds human.”

You leaned back against the pew, exhausted now in a different way. The rage had burned hot and fast, leaving ash. Beneath it was grief. Beneath that, a kind of stunned tenderness you didn’t know what to do with.

“I don’t know what I believe,” you said.

“That’s allowed.”

“Not where I come from.”

“You’re not there right now.”

The simplicity of it made your breath catch.

You looked around the chapel again. Small altar. Simple cross. A few rows of pews. A box of tissues on a side table. A battery-operated candle flickering near a book of prayers written by strangers.

You were not in the church of your childhood.

No one was waiting at the door to report you.

No pastor was asking if you had surrendered.

No parent was crying because you had refused to disappear.

There was only Emery.

Emery, who loved you.

Emery, who touched the mezuzah at her apartment and cursed in operating rooms. Emery, who knew the prayers over candles but did not keep kosher. Emery, who argued with God as inheritance rather than feared Him as executioner. Emery, whose hands could cut into a body to save it and now held your face like you were something holy.

“I don’t want to lose you,” you said.

“You haven’t.”

“I might be difficult.”

“You’ve just come off a shift that would break most people, and you’re sitting here trying to make sense of everything they taught you to fear. I think ‘difficult’ doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

You gave her a look.

“What?” she said. “I’m validating you.”

“That’s not what validation sounds like.”

“I’m new to this.”

“You’re doing okay.”

“High praise.”

You smiled, then sobered.

“I’m serious,” you said. “I don’t know how to be loved without bracing for the cost.”

Emery’s eyes searched yours.

“Then let me start small.”

“With what?”

“With no cost tonight.”

Your brow furrowed.

“I’ll sit here with you,” Emery said. “No fixing. No demands. No expectation that you become less afraid because I said something tender and useful. No punishment because you cried. No disappointment because you’re not healed on schedule.”

Your lips trembled.

“You’ll just sit here?”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“As long as we can before the hospital remembers we exist.”

You nodded slowly.

Emery shifted closer, and this time the space between you disappeared. Your knees touched. Her shoulder brushed yours. She released your hand only to wrap her arm around you, and you went into her carefully at first, then all at once.

Your head found the curve of her shoulder.

Her cheek rested against your hair.

You could feel the Star of David between you, pressed lightly against your temple through the fabric of her scrub top.

For reasons you couldn’t explain, that undid you almost as much as the cross had.

Not because it accused you.

Because it didn’t.

It simply existed there with her. A piece of her history, her people, her family, her way of making meaning. It didn’t demand that you abandon your questions. It didn’t ask you to be less wounded. It didn’t compete with the wreckage inside you.

It was just there.

So was she.

“I love you,” you whispered.

Emery’s arm tightened around you.

“I love you too.”

“I’m scared.”

“I know.”

“I’m angry.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to forgive them yet.”

“Then don’t.”

You pulled back slightly to look at her. “Isn’t that the part where you’re supposed to tell me forgiveness is for me, not them?”

Emery’s mouth twisted. “Do I look like a throw pillow with a quote stitched on it?”

A laugh escaped you.

“No.”

“Good. Then no. I’m not going to rush you toward forgiveness because it’s tidier. Some anger is information. Some anger is proof that a part of you understands you were harmed.”

You stared at her.

“And maybe someday forgiveness means something to you,” she said. “Maybe it doesn’t. Either way, it’s not tonight’s assignment.”

“What is tonight’s assignment?”

“Breathing. Water. Maybe sitting with your head on my shoulder until one of us loses feeling in an arm.”

“That’s very medical.”

“I’m a doctor. I like measurable outcomes.”

You leaned into her again, the laugh fading into a long, shaking exhale.

“I thought this room would make me feel closer to God,” you said.

“Did it?”

You thought about lying, but Emery deserved better.

“No.”

“What did it make you feel?”

“Angry. Small. Like I was fifteen again.”

Emery’s hand moved slowly up and down your back.

“And now?”

You listened to yourself for a moment.

Your heart still hurt. Your body still felt wrung out. The old fear hadn’t vanished. No miracle had happened. No divine voice had softened the cross or rewritten your childhood.

But your breathing was steadier.

Your hands had stopped shaking.

You were warm against Emery’s side.

“Still angry,” you said. “But less alone.”

Emery kissed your hair.

“Good.”

You closed your eyes.

The chapel was still too small for everything you brought into it. Too small for the shooting. Too small for the children. Too small for the parents. Too small for the God you wanted and resented and feared and missed.

But it was big enough for this.

Two women in wrinkled scrubs.

Two exhausted doctors who had spent the day trying to keep death from taking more than it already had.

A cross on the wall.

A Star of David at Emery’s throat.

Your grief.

Her hand.

Your fear.

Her answer.

You did not know what salvation meant anymore.

You did not know if you could pray without tasting old shame.

You did not know how long it would take to stop hearing hell in the quiet moments after joy.

But you knew Emery’s arm around you was real.

You knew the love in her voice had not demanded you become painless first.

You knew that when you had offered yourself to fire, she had refused to let love be another altar where you burned.

For tonight, that was enough.

You let yourself rest against her.

After a long silence, Emery murmured, “For what it’s worth, I don’t think the divine, if there is one, is nearly as cruel as people like to be on its behalf.”

Your eyes opened.

You turned the words over carefully.

“They’d call that blasphemy where I come from.”

“I figured.”

“You said it anyway.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Emery looked down at you, her face open in the dim chapel light.

“Because I love you more than I’m afraid of being wrong.”

Your chest ached.

You reached for her hand again, and she gave it to you immediately.

The chapel stayed silent.

This time, the silence did not feel like abandonment.

It felt like space.

And in that space, with Emery beside you, you let yourself imagine something you had once thought impossible.

Not certainty.

Not instant healing.

Not a faith scrubbed clean of all its wounds.

Just a life.

A life where love did not have to apologize for existing.

A life where your body was not a sin.

A life where joy could be trusted slowly.

A life where you could be angry in a chapel and still be held.

A life with Emery Walsh, who wore her Star of David against her chest, argued with God like family, and loved you without asking you to burn.

You lifted her hand and pressed your lips to her knuckles.

Emery’s breath caught.

It was the smallest kind of vow.

Not forever, not yet, not spoken in a way either of you were ready to define.

But real.

“I want that,” you whispered.

“What?”

You looked at her through the last of your tears.

“A life with you.”

Emery’s face softened until it hurt to look at.

“Then we’ll start there,” she said.

You nodded.

Outside the chapel, PTMC kept breathing through its wounds.

Inside, you stayed exactly where you were.

Not healed.

Not certain.

Not free of every old fear.

But loved.