𝖒𝖊𝖒𝖊𝖒𝖔𝖗𝖞𝖉𝖔𝖙𝖈𝖔𝖒™

𐙚 Multi/headcannons for multiple characters

⭒ Accidentally calling you his “Wife” | @therobbycuepitt

⭒ seeing reader wearing their scrubs | @lovebugism

⭒ 𝐎𝐡 𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐲, 𝐦𝐲 𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐲 | @croigealai

𐙚 Dr. John Shen

Hospital Barbie | @wackapedia

When you were assigned to “oBsErVe OpErAtiOns” as part of a vaguely defined Strategic Initiatives role (read: nepotism), no one expects much, least of all, The Pitt’s freshest attending, Dr. John Shen, who’s too busy keeping patients alive and admins at bay.

Midnight Oil | @duskbornraven

You get hurt trying to check out the local hot doctor who visits your coffee shop. He winds up checking you out as well.

Work Crush, Pt. 2, Pt. 3 | @dontcurbyourenthusiasm

Let Her Know | @yougotthat-write

Does John Shen know how to deal with heartbreak?

Change Of Pace | @marvelous-slut

Meet The Father | @/marvelous-slut

Rest My Chemistry | @silens-oro

John really needs to keep his mouth shut on quiet nights

Foot In Mouth Disease | @popcornpoppypop

You come home after pulling a double on your period, excited for your day off. John unintentionally ruins it.

Sugar, Yes, Please | @imaginesofwonder

Jealous Shen | @starlord-s

Imagine | @/starlord-s

Flirting | @skymouth

Answering his phone | @justalittlepitt

𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 | @martyrmurdock

revelations are made when john shen walks into the pitt without his usual iced coffee

The Magical Glass Tumbler | @boiohboii

Imagine | @youvebeenlivingfictional

in retrospect | @/youvebeenlivingfictional

over the counter | @theunsanctionedgoth

The Shens | @eden031

Javadi and Whitaker meet a hot headed neuro resident only to find out that she is not just that.

Wife surprise | @/eden031

Shen is assaulted during his shift and the night shift meets his emergency contact.

Understanding misunderstandings | @/eden031

Shen watches his favourite resident talk to Robby before shift change, later he hears the nurses gossiping about her crush on an attending. He comes to the only logical conclusion: she has a crush on Robby.

helping hand | @shawnsarmfreckles

So Easy (To Fall In Love) | @peterpparkrr

The new Night Shift Attending and the Night Shift’s Nurse Practitioner are both idiots.

space, and the absence of it | @whimsywho

or the one where a bit of distance makes the heart grow fonder

𐙚 Trinity Santos

Loathing | @/inlovewithquestionablecharacters

Your fellow intern Santos hates you….or does she?

BLOODY MESS - PART 1, part 2 | @/dreamingofagoodfic

a bar fight leads to trinity to treat jack abbott’s bloody-faced daughter (and maybe falls for her too…)

i care a lot | @gorgeys

it only took getting assaulted for you to find out trinity’s love language is violent acts of service

fix you up | @criminalyapping

mistaken identity | @/criminalyapping

accidents happen | @auroracalisto

making a fruit tray for your girlfriend goes really well, up until the moment you slip up and hurt yourself. under the impression it wasn’t really that bad, you get to the emergency room and, well, it’s the pitt. you’re lucky they had a bed open.

Blurb | @/auroracalisto

Bad Idea Right, Part 2, Part 3 | @thedilfydoctorshow

How was Trinity supposed to know that the cute vet student that saved her cat's life was her bosses daughter??? Robby's daughter!reader x Trinity Santos

Broken hand | @marvelslut16

Reader breaks her hand and meets the prettiest knight in shining armor doctor she has ever seen.

Complementary | @chrys-lism

Trinity adores Jack Abbot’s daughter.

SOFT-EDGED DOMESTICITY | @vamplvs

⭒ Masterlist | @thepencilnerd

⭒ Masterlist | @kilojulietsierra

⭒ The Pitt Masterlist | @ofstarsandvibranium

⭒ The Pitt Masterlist | @/miley1442111

⭒ the Pitt Masterlist | @brxtnxy

⭒ the pitt directory! | @rereadlibrary

⭒ THE PITT Masterlist | lovebugism

Jack makes a conscious effort not to dwell on the consequences of what, in hindsight, had been a truly abysmal series of decisions.

Best case scenario he’d be labeled as a pervert. Worse case, he’d lose his job and spend the rest of his life unable to show his face anywhere in the city of Pittsburgh without wanting to walk in traffic. 

And honestly, it would all be deserving. There are very few respectable interpretations of having his subordinate bent over the balcony railing where anyone with functioning eyesight could look up and catch them in the act. 

It’s made worse by the fact that every time his cock drives into you, another sweet little mewl spills out, each one louder than the next. It leaves him with a brutal urge to hear it again, makes him less careful than he ought to be. Makes the risk feel secondary.

He tells himself his coworkers on the patio are too drunk to notice. Most of them seem to be. They’d all been generously overserved at dinner, then even more generously self-served once they stumbled back to the Airbnb.

So drunk that he’s pretty sure Santos had Whitaker by the shirt at one point and shoved him straight into the shrubs bordering the patio while yelling something about George?

He hadn’t caught the rest. Hard to focus on much of anything when you’re clenching around him like the way you are now.

“Poor thing,” he says, leaning down close enough that his mouth brushes the soft shell of your ear. “You must’ve been so desperate for it to let me have you out here like this.” 

You let out a weak little whine, head lolling against his shoulder.

“S’your fault.” Then, more broken on the next thrust. “Y-You made me like this.”

He has no rebuttal for that. He is responsible for the behavior you’ve displayed on this trip. 

Desperate. Pent up, restless, a little spoiled from how thoroughly he tends to you when you’re home and no one else is around to interrupt. Usually, if you want him, you get him. In the kitchen. In the shower. Half asleep in his bed with his hand already between your legs before either of you say a word. 

But this trip has been one long exercise in frustration. Coworkers roaming in packs. Thin walls. Doors opening without warning. Someone always needing something stupid, always shouting down the hall, always appearing right when he gets his hands under your dress.

So when you finally get him alone on the balcony, all it takes is one look. One kiss. You settling into his lap while he sprawls back in the chair, drink loose in one hand, the other already sliding up your thigh. After that, there’s no stopping it. 

Now your panties are tugged aside, your dress bunched at your waist, and the obscene little sounds of him pushing into your soaked cunt disappear beneath the music and laughter below.

“Yeah,” he mutters. Soothing something he has no intention of fixing. “Know I did. Sorry, baby.”

Your fingers reach behind you for him, interlacing with the hand he has on your hip. 

“Jack… please, ‘m so close.” 

He reaches down through the slick heat between your thighs and presses two fingers to your clit, working you harder.

“That’s it. My good girl.” His voice drops lower. “Better be quiet unless you want everyone downstairs finding out just how good you take my cock. ”

And you do try. He feels it in the way your body tightens against him, in the way you bite down on the sound for half a second too long. 

But then your pussy clenches hard around him and whatever noise you were trying to swallow slips free anyway. Such a pretty sound it nearly takes his knees out from under him. 

Jack’s hand stays at the swollen bundle of nerves at your clit, working you through it because he’s selfish enough to want every shudder of your orgasm, every pulse.

He gives two more rough thrusts, maybe three, and then he’s done for too, climax hitting him hard and mean, his jaw going slack as he presses deep and rides it out inside you.

He stays folded over you after, chest heaving against your back, lips finding the strip of skin where your dress has slipped off one shoulder.

He tastes the coconut lotion there. Hint of tiare flower, half faded now beneath sweat and night air and sex. Summer in a bottle. It makes his head feel pleasantly blank all over again.

So he presses slow kisses there, then more, then drags them up toward the strap of your dress like he can’t quite stop.

His voice is still rough when he mutters sweet-nothings into your skin: Sweet girl. So good for me. Knew you could do it.

Then you’re turning in his arms as much as the angle allows, all wobbly and sweet, reaching back for his face. Your kiss lands crooked at first, more smile than anything, but he kisses you anyway, like he’s got all the time in the world. 

It is, briefly, a perfect moment.

Then he opens his eyes.

Robby, down on the patio, tips his glass toward him.

Jack closes his eyes once.

Fuck.

this fic was part of my 2 year celebration: maria's summer in santorini 𓆉°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ to learn more, click here!

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Jack Abbot has the nicest lips you’ve ever kissed. 

And yes, maybe that would sound more profound if you had a wider frame of reference.

What you do have to compare him to amounts to a few teenage makeouts under splintered bleachers, some smattering of questionable judgment calls at frat parties, and then essentially nothing once medical school dragged your life into an alley and shot it dead.

Still. Even a limited sample can yield a clear, uncontestable result, and the result is Jack. 

Jack, whose kisses arrive so confidently, like he has never once doubted where his mouth belongs, golden and fizzing, like champagne left to bloom in the heat of summer while your whole body hitches in open-mouthed amazement just to feel it.

Even now, even when the cool air whispers in through the balcony door and skims over your legs beneath tangled sheets, raising goosebumps in delicate lines along your thighs. 

Jack notices instantly, the faintest smile warning against your lips as he shifts closer, chasing off the chill and dimming everything else until he is all you know.

When he kisses you again, it’s slower, lush and lazy, every nerve in you waking and stretching toward him, and when he pulls back, it’s only far enough that his lips barely graze the corner of your mouth.

Waiting, poised, always right there if you need more.

And you always seem to need more.

“C’mon,” he urges, his voice raspy from sleep, infused with a smugness you’d like to resent — because he knows he’s won this round. “Tell me again how much better I am than everyone else.”

You laugh before he can kiss it back out of you, a warm burst of affection filling in the little space between you.

“Such an ego trip,” you mutter softly. “But, unfortunately for literally every other man on earth, you are kind of ruining the curve here, Dr. Abbot.” 

“That’s what I thought.” 

You roll your eyes, but you’re smiling anyway. “See, that confidence really shouldn’t be as attractive as it is —especially since you spent all last night watching Victoria and Samira scout alternatives for me.”

His fingers tense slightly against your waist, pulling you that much closer as his brows lift with genuine offense. “Should I have been worried?”

“Maybe a little,” you tease, unable to help yourself. “They were getting ambitious by the end there.”

He exhales, voice husky and low. “Let them get ambitious. They’ll just have to get used to being disappointed.”

You cant your head to the side and let your lips skim the sharp, firm line of his jaw, feeling the small catch in his breath as it happens.

That tiny lovely moment that reminds you all that swagger is something wonderfully human, something you can touch and affect and undo a little.

“They just don’t know the position’s already been monopolized.” 

“And it’s a position I’m extremely attached to, baby.” His lips twitch as his thumb keeps tracing small circles into your skin. “Although,” he murmurs, “there are a few other positions I’m equally invested in exploring with you.”

“Cheeky.”

The accusation loses most of its force when you can feel the tips of your ears burning.

You don’t wait for him to answer. That would only give him room to keep going, and he is very good at that, good at pressing exactly where you are weakest until you dissolve on contact. 

So you put a hand to him instead and guide him back, trading positions until his shoulders are against the mattress and he is looking up from the pillows.

He lets you do it without a fight (the only way you could manage it), only smiling as he runs his hands along your naked sides in long idle strokes until his palms settle against the valet of your chest.

After that you have to look away. Or rather, down. It’s easier to fold yourself against him than to hold his gaze when it gets like that, open and intent and almost too knowing.

Better to focus on the terrain of him. The freckles and beauty marks and scattered dark points across his skin that your fingers can follow and reorder into something legible. A constellation, naturally. Andromeda before they put her back up in the night sky where everyone could stare and nobody could touch. 

A sudden knock at the door jolts both of you apart, but you barely make it half an inch away from Jack before the door swings open anyway, accompanied by a voice you would recognize in any state of consciousness. 

“Babe, please tell me you’re awake, because we’ve all been dying to hear if you liked that guy from last night. Also, we found his Instagram and —” Victoria’s voice dies on the spot.

You make a tiny, strangled sound of pure horror.

Thankfully, Jack reacts for you, rolling you back into the mattress and yanking the sheet up over your head like that is somehow going to undo the last ten seconds instead of simply turning you into a very obvious person-shaped lump.

Which also doesn’t solve the larger issue, namely that there is a very naked senior attending what is meant to be your bed, in your room.

So much for plausible deniability.

“Oh,” Victoria says. Then, apparently finding that insufficiently expansive: “oh my god.” Beneath the sheet your face goes so hot it feels chemical. “Wow. This is —” She breaks off. You can practically hear the competing impulses at work: decorum on one side, unrestrained glee on the other. “I mean, congratulations, but also wow.”

Jack does not even have the decency to sound flustered. “Thanks.”

You sigh. At this point you’re not sure there’s really anything left to do but surrender gracefully to the smoking ruin of your secret. 

“Would you believe he’s just here for a really, really thorough rounds update?” you ask, peeking out from the sheets with what you feel is a very convincing amount of innocence. 

“On vacation?” she asks flatly. “Wow. Healthcare workers are getting more and more dedicated.”

Jack settles further back against the pillows. “Patient care never stops.”

Victoria presses her lips together tightly. It’s obvious she is fighting for her life not to laugh, and maybe not even fighting that hard.

“Right. Message received. I’m gonna give you two your privacy. Samira owes me forty bucks, so I need to go collect on that anyway.”

She slams the door shut behind her. 

You drop the sheet at last and look up at the ceiling, momentarily unable to imagine a more useful direction in which to direct your face.

“So,” you say, sitting up and giving Jack what you mean to be a stern glare, “I think the secret aspect of this relationship may be over.” 

He glances at you. “Did we even have a secret, really?”

“Maybe for like, a week.”

He kisses you again. The thesis remains intact. Jack Abbot has the nicest lips you’ve ever kissed, and now, apparently, that is no longer private research.

this fic was part of my 2 year celebration: maria's summer in santorini 𓆉°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ to learn more, click here!

It wasn’t on purpose.

When he was young, he was so deadset on becoming a surgeon that everything else became an afterthought. He maintained relationships here and there (he wasn’t a saint) but by the time he was an attending none of his girlfriends managed to keep up with his relentless schedule, demanding workload, and emotionally reserved nature.

Truly, he doesn't blame them. He wasn't exactly carving out the time for them either --- too focused on being the best and too single-minded in his career to put any relationship as a priority.

Long story short – good surgeon, bad boyfriend.

And then he woke up and he was 40 years old with a very pissed off mother.

When he reluctantly asked his friends about it, the warnings were immediate and repetitive.

Dating in the modern century is different now. The women are different. Difficult.

Too demanding. Too clingy. Too much.

By the time Yolanda sidelined him quietly with a proposition, he was already dreading the worst and preparing himself to disappoint his mother for the first time in his life.

You were a welcome (gorgeous) surprise.

Yolanda’s friend of a friend of a friend that she set him up with. Something about a ‘sweetie-pie that could just soften you up, big guy’.

What she failed to mention was the noticeable difference in years between the two of you.

He was never one to go for someone young just to compensate for a void in his life or make himself feel better about getting older. Even though he saw the appeal, it was never a requirement. If you had asked him before the date, he would’ve thought dating someone younger was more trouble than it was worth.

But watching you beam as he waits for you by the door of the café he had reserved a table for today’s date, holding a fresh pink bouquet of flowers just because Yolanda mentioned that it was your favorite, he couldn’t help but wonder if he was too confident with that assumption.

“Flowers on the first date? You’re winning me over already.”

He couldn’t help but frown in confusion, remembering a coworker's quip about not coming on too strong. Already feeling an unfamiliar feeling of minuscule panic creeping up his throat. “Is it too much?”

Your eyes widened, head shaking, “No! No, they're beautiful. It’s just – men don’t really – it’s less of a thing now.”

He hums, deciding that that was stupid. Especially when he saw just how beautiful the flowers looked when you held them --- like they belonged in your arms. He opens the door for you. “That’s a shame.”

You laugh, head back and so carefree. It warms something in his belly. “Yes. Yes, it is.”

The two of you continued a casual conversation as you lined up for your orders, an official introduction of sorts. Thankfully, it wasn’t as awkward as he dreaded, your cheerful disposition perfectly counteracted his restrained one.

He couldn’t help but notice you intimately checking out the pastries bar but not ordering any when you got to the counter. Thankfully, he was quick enough to take note of those that caught your eyes for longer than half a second, ordering it along with his drink and swiping his card for both of your orders.

As he pulled back a chair, he noticed the few seconds of shock on your face before you sat. A small touch on his bicep and a bashful ‘thank you’ had him concluding that this was also no longer ‘a thing’ in this generation.

If he were honest, he'd admit he was dreading this. It's been a while since his last proper date. He wasn't sure if he could muster up enough topics to keep the conversation going or accidentally say something rude or stupid that would turn this date into a humiliation ritual.

But you were pleasant company and a surprisingly great conversationalist. Picking up where he was prone to awkward silences. You carried the conversation with an ease that he admired. To his surprise, the conversation shifted from one topic to another, and by the end of the night, you somehow even managed to get him actually interested in the New York sports team you were dedicated to. A sport he had never given a thought to his entire life.

“You live in Pittsburgh.”

“So?” you giggle at his obvious accusation.

“Now, that’s just treason.”

That got an adorably loud laugh out of you that embarrassingly puffs out his chest – he knew he wasn’t exactly the funny type so to have you genuinely throwing your head back at his banter felt good.

Three drinks, 6 pastries, and too much caffeine later, he realized it had already turned dark outside and your friend (probably Yolanda wanting all the details) was already texting you incessantly about dinner.

“So, how much do I owe you?”

He looks down at you in confusion as he helps you put your jacket on.

“For what?”

A respectful palm gently leads you by the curve of your back and into his car, which was parked just a few feet from the café.

“Lunch.”

He shuts the door, still confused even as he pulls out of the curb.

“I asked you out, it’s on me.”

“Technically, you didn’t ask me out. We were set up.”

He rolls his eyes at that, huffing out a laugh. Cheeky brat.

“I’m the man. I pay for dinner.”

“That’s very old-fashioned of you, Brendon.”

“Well, I am 15 years your senior, baby." It doesn’t escape him how you press your legs together at that statement. Interesting. “I get to be old-fashioned, don’t you think?”

You turn your body fully toward him, blessing him with a shy, sweet smile.

“Old-fashioned enough to not to kiss on the first date?”

He takes a deep breath, pressing on the gas.

“Old-fashioned enough to ask first."

‘Busy morning and tied up in surgery this afternoon. I’ve got about 30 minutes for a call at 11:30 if you're free?’

‘Sounds perfect. Can’t wait <3”

“👍”

“What’s this?”

You flip the thick piece of paper back and forth as if the words were written in hieroglyphics.

He watches you register what he had just done.

“Tickets. For the Knicks game this weekend.”

You stare at him as if he just popped out a second head so he sighs and continues. “You said you loved them on our first date.”

“Brendon.”

“It’s the Eastern Conference Finals.”

“Brendon.”

“What?”

“It’s in New York.”

He cocks his head at another pair of tickets sitting on his coffee table.

“Those are our plane tickets.”

“You bought plane tickets?!”

“Can’t exactly walk there, sweetheart.”

“You bought Knicks tickets, plane tickets, and planned an entire trip without telling me?”

“Well, such is the nature of a surprise.”

You actually let out a snort of laughter before jumping into his lap on the couch pressing kisses and ‘thank you’s’ on whatever skin you could reach. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You haven’t even heard of the restaurant reservation yet.”

Or the fact that he somehow tracked down a friend of a friend of a friend who is somehow dating someone working game day operations just to make sure the kiss cam landed on the two of you during half-time.

And they said he wasn’t a romantic.

It took Park 3 months in your relationship to realize … you have never truly slept over his place.

When you mentioned on your second date that you were a virgin and that you planned to wait until marriage, he was – for the sake of honesty – taken aback.

Not that there was anything wrong with it and you had bashfully admitted that you were willing to do some 'other stuff' as long as you didn’t go 'all the way'. Something about a vow with the women in your family that the only man who should be able to touch you is the one who is willing to commit.

It makes sense, in theory. But they never took into consideration that the man who plans to worship the ground you walk on is a stressed-out orthopedic surgeon in a trauma center whose only source of relaxation is in between your thighs.

So, yeah. He was a bit taken aback. And frustrated.

But he respected it.

(He was too far gone for you to let this minor complication stand in his way.)

Sucked it up like a man, met your parents, swore to them that this relationship would end in marriage once you were ready, and now added meditation to his workout routine so he wouldn’t pop a boner every time you lounged around his place in just his shirt.

“What are you doing?”

He asks from the en-suite bathroom’s door, finally ready for bed after a long day of bullshit in the hospital only to find his girlfriend quietly trying to book a taxi from his bed.

“Oh! I figured you’d be too tired to drive me back home so I was just going to book a car.”

He frowns in confusion. Quickly walking to where you were lounging in his bed to grab your phone and cancel it.

“Wha – hey!”

“I think we’re past asking permission to stay over.”

You open your mouth to protest before hesitating, choosing instead to crawl to the edge of the bed so you can sit by where he was standing. The fresh smell of his soap, body wash, and clean skin lights your skin on fire.

“I don’t have my skincare stuff in here,” you weakly protested.

He hummed, hands petting the back of your head.“Let’s go buy it tomorrow after brunch. It’s my day off.”

You beamed, gasping in glee. “Really?”

"Really." He can’t help but chuckle at your delight – so pleased with a couple hundred dollars of products. Seems he wasn’t doing quite a good enough job spoiling you, he plans to change that starting tomorrow. “Anything else I should know before our first official sleepover?”

You rubbed your cheeks into his hands like a cat before shyly nodding.

“I know you’re having a hard time with the … abstinence thing,” you pout your lips up at him, your chin digging firmly on his navel which definitely didn’t help.

He clears his throat, taking a beat to look up at the ceiling and collect himself before letting his hands cup your cheeks, “I’m a grown man, babydoll. I can handle sleeping next to my woman without pouncing on her.”

“I trust you, Bren,” you insist earnestly. “But it doesn’t mean I want to frustrate you any more than I already do.”

“Hey, where is this coming from? I’ll behave,” he pokes the tip of your nose to lighten your mood but you only bit your bottom lip in even more hesitation. “Or is there another reason?”

He wouldn’t want to push you if you were truly uncomfortable.

“The thing is,” you groan, cupping the hands holding your face. “I can only sleep naked.”

If he had to go back to the bathroom for five minutes to listen to the calming meditation exercise his therapist recommended to him, it would be something the two of you agreed to take to the grave.

“Alright, my eyes are closed, babydoll.”

He prepared as best as he could.

Lights are off, sleep mask on.

Now he just needs to not think about his girlfriend sleeping naked beside him for the entire night. His adorable, sweet, angel of a woman who is not wearing a stitch of clothing on her bo –

“Thanks for doing this, baby.”

He sucks in a sharp breath when he feels you press a kiss to his cheeks.

He grips the comforter so tight he swears his nails ripped through it. “Warn a man next time.”

Your giggle disappears under the duvet. He makes it a point to put a pillow between the two of you – for your sake and mostly his.

It’ll be fine. Everything will be –

-- fucked! He is so fucking fucked.

The nudity wasn’t the challenge – difficult, yes but manageable with the proper monk-like focus. What you have failed to disclose was that you slept like a possessed octopus. Something he himself only found out when he felt your entire body weight on top of him at 2:47 in the morning.

Once he felt the swell of your chest on his ribs his entire body instinctively flinched so quickly, he almost developed a cramp.

“S-Sweetheart,” he whispered, trying to see if he could jog you out of your sleep gently to save him from the suffering of having to push you back.

To his horror, you just whined, grabbing even more tightly to his biceps as you dragged your body up the length of his so you could push your face in the juncture of his neck.

The contrast of the warmth of your skin on his, the small puffs of air a siren’s call on his ear, and the plump of your lips grazing his neck as you sleepily mumble mindless nothings was torture to his already frazzled sense of self-control.

He grips his bedsheet tightly, knowing his willpower would snap if his hands ever got ahold of you.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“’luv yu’, Bren.”

He sucks in a breath. What the – did you just say – “Babydoll?”

“So nice to me,” you whimper the words on his neck. “Love you so much.”

That felt like a jagged knife of guilt to his heart.

The shame and responsibility you felt for what he could only believe other lovers saw as a drawback or a burden. It must’ve been a heavy weight to carry for his sweet girl.

He swears you won’t have to carry it anymore as long as he is here.

He holds his breath for 10 seconds and lets it out for 5. He thinks about surgical risks, antibiotics, anesthesia regulation, and proper post-op instruction. Thinks about Gloria on his neck, the pressure to live up to their expectation as the upcoming Chief of Surgery. He thinks about Robinavitch’s jealousy even though the both of them knew the pressure Brendon was in would eventually fling the ER attending from the roof he so often escaped to.

Anything and everything to keep his mind clear and disciplined as he refuses to be another weak man who resents your boundaries.

With a deep breath he finally gathers you in his arms, curling around you until his body threatens to swallow you whole.

Saying instead the words that always seemed to get stuck between his heart and his tongue whenever you looked at him. Reminding himself to repeat it tomorrow before you could say it first.

He’s an old-fashioned man, after all.

“I love you, babydoll.”

'Going to the gym but i'm gonna be busy all day. Text me '911' if it's an emergency and my assistant will track me down.'

'Go it. I'm planning to cook you steak for dinner tonight, can I use your kitchen?'

'DON'T SEND ME MONEY. It's my treat.'

'I know your fingers are hovering Brendon Park. Don't!'

'Fine'

'Fine <3'

'Check your jewelry box. I slipped a spare key to my place there.'

'Okay <3'

'Wait what.'

“Hi, babyyyy,” you jump into his arms as he drops his work bag unceremoniously on the floor.

Your text that said you were going to spend your day off going to the grocery store and preparing him a steak dinner genuinely was the only thing that pushed him through a long day of surgeries and consultations.

He lets you rope him into a kiss, sitting the two of you down on his couch as you continue to map out his face with your mouth.

“Missed you so much,” you mutter in between kisses. He smiles at your earnest confession. “Say you missed me too.”

You press a finger on his chest, and he glances down at it as if unconvinced. You squawk in offense and try to get off his lap but not before getting caught in his arms and flipped into the couch.

“You’re all I ever thought about all day, sweetheart.”

You hum, running your hand on his hair. “That’s a dangerous habit, doctor.”

“Don’t worry. I’m a professional.”

With one last deep kiss he lets you out of his arms and back into the kitchen. He prepares to stand up and set the table but you pressed a hand into his chest with an explicit instruction to go shower and relax.

“It’ll be ready when you’re out.”

By the time he was done, you were already getting the wine out of the chiller. “Oh, by the way, some important-looking envelope from your bank arrived.”

You point a finger at the side table by the door. He opens it, his eyes moving carefully with each line.

“Babydoll?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you give me your landlord’s bank details?”

A pause, he turns back to see you staring at him in bewilderment.

“Uh, what for?”

He drops the letter on the coffee table before walking towards you. “I need it to set up an auto-pay in my account.”

You blink up at him as he casually presses a kiss on your lips before sitting at his seat beside yours.

“Are you … moving?” You ask even though you had to admit how incredulous it was. Why would he switch his immaculate penthouse to your subpar building? Is he buying the building then?

“No, for your apartment, honey,” he continues patiently, taking your hand.

Your eyes widened, finally getting what he is implying. “What?! Why – you don’t have to do that! I-I know I complain a lot but I’m fine really!”

He presses a kiss on the back of your hand. “I know, sweetie. But I’m planning on moving you with me by the end of the year, and I want that transition to be as smooth as possible for you.”

Your mouth opens and closes in shock as he drops two bombs on you at once.

“Are … are you asking me to move in with you?”

He slices a piece of his steak before feeding it to you.

“By the end of the year,” he reiterates casually. “At least that’s the deadline I gave my realtor.”

You audibly swallow the barely chewed steak, pushing it down with large gulps of wine.

“I … I don’t want to make it seem like I-I’m a gold digger or something.”

His face hardens at that. “Don’t say that.”

“I’m serious. People talk.”

“Let them talk,” the reprimand was there but it was gentle. “I know why you’re here.”

That softens you.

“Because I’m funny and a good lay.”

You almost snorted your wine into your nose and he finally smiles hearing you laugh. He raises an eyebrow as if to say ‘see?’.

“Brendon –”

“Hey,” he takes your hand, pulling you closer and letting the chair screech in protest. “You’re allowed to like the things I do for you. I work hard, I make good money. And I’d rather spend it making you happy than letting it sit there in the bank.”

He holds your hesitant eyes, only letting a victorious smile appear on his face when you let out a resigned sigh.

You stand up and he automatically pushes his chair back so you can sit in his lap.

“Okay. Thank you. I love you and I will move in with you by the end of the year even though you technically didn't ask.”

“You’re welcome,” he whispers on your lips. “Also, that was your new credit card in the envelope.”

frequent flyer part 1 by @dolloebaby

stop making this hurt by @mercvry-glow

its never over by @mercvry-glow

i can't protect you from everything by @abbotjack

someone new by @quickestgold

strip her by @quickestgold

masterlist by @butyoudidthis4what

bruises series by @glamorizethechaos

all that is lost by @glamorizethechaos

postpartum by @glamorizethechaos

too much by @popcornpoppypop

honesty is the best policy by @moondustfairies

his little secret by @moondustfairies

night shift by @lilyswritings

steady hands part one and two by @springtyme

off day by @lovebugism

soldier boy by @sun-snatcher

conflict by @steamdeckaddict

you've ruined my life by @pencil-n-pen

unspoken conversations by @marvelous-slut

scar tissue by @inlovewithquestionablecharacters

emergency contact by @kalila

let me take care of you by @voidsagent

small is still forward by @optimisticplb

storm warning by @optimisticplb

doc, i think she's crashing out by @softundermoonlight

the jack rabbit and the junebug by @limeletters

petals for armor by @flowersforbucky

still my wife by @boiohboii

the tortured doctors department by @levanterhaze

a mans touch + human touch by @pope-codys

steady love by @pope-codys

old bets by @bitters-n-sweets

hate that i love you by @emotionallyintubated

breakin dishes by @emotionallyintubated

coming home by @emotionallyintubated

darkness got a hold on me by @se7entyrell

say it aint so by @somethin-sparklyy

When YN died, it was loud.

The aircraft came undone in pieces as metal and people alike shrieked through the sky. The sound carried, thin and swallowed by wind. The smell of fuel burned sharp in the air, thick and choking, mingling with the stench of burning wires. Fire bloomed where metal met ground as smoke clawed upwards into an indifferent sky.

It was chaos. It was catastrophic. It was final.

Jack was suturing a soldier’s arm when the lieutenant approached him.

The medical tent was suffocating, thick with the metallic scent of blood and antiseptic that never quite masked it. Outside, boots pounded over packed sand, radios crackled, and somewhere someone laughed too loudly at something that probably was not that funny.

“Sir.”

Jack didn’t look up at first. His hands were steady, gloved fingers precise as he guided the needle through torn flesh. “Hold still,” he murmured to the soldier on the cot.

“Sir,” the lieutenant repeated, voice tighter now. “There’s a personal message from command center.”

Personal.

Around here, personal never meant good news.

Jack tied off the final suture and cut the thread. He stripped his gloves off slowly, as if delaying his knowledge of the news might change it.

“I’ll take it." he said.

The lieutenant walked him across the base, the desert sun glaring overhead and the air shimmered with heat as sand shifted underneath their boots.

Inside the communications tent, a walkie sat on the metal desk. The lieutenant gestured to it gently, like it might explode if came too close.

“I’ll give you space, sir,” he said quietly.

Jack stepped forward as the younger man stepped out. For a second, he just stared at the device, his pulse was loud in his ears. And then, he picked it up.

“This is Abbot.”

Static crackled before a voice came through- calm, official and detached. Like he had delivered too many personal calls for him to be affected by them anymore.

“Doctor Abbot, I am Commander Reeves. I am calling in regards of your wife, Mrs. Yn Ln Abbot.”

Jack held his breath without realizing it.

“Yes?”

“There was an aviation incident early this morning. Flight 756. She was on the flight. There were no further updates after the mayday call, it was lost.”

Lost was military language for devastation, for saying that there are no proper coordinates where we can search, for saying that the last known location is beyond survival.

Lost was military language for your wife is dead and we will not say it plainly.

The noise outside the tent didn’t change- soldiers were still talking, guns clinked softly as they were cleaned and the wind pushed sand in restless whispers against fabric made walls.

But something inside him went quiet. Utterly and devastatingly quite. A silence so deep it felt like the world had been vacuumed hollow.

“We are so sorry for your loss, doctor.”

And with those words, his world collapsed. There was no dramatic reaction, no shouting and no begging. He just stood there, still holding the walkie, staring at nothing.

When YN came back to life, it was quiet. Too quiet. The roar of the crash had faded into a distant memory of fire and groaning metal as the hush of tide kept pulling it back from shore. And then the pain arrived.

Her shoulder was wrong- visibly, horribly wrong- as it was pushed out of its socket at an unnatural angle, her clavicle throbbed with the deep, sick certainty of a fracture, every breath sent a sharp, splintering agony through her ribs, and a long laceration along her thigh burned where blood had dried against her skin.

Her head rang like someone had dropped cathedral bells inside her skull and set them swinging. She laid on her back on wet ground, staring up at a sky that was impossibly blue. It was too calm, too beautiful.

She dragged herself out of the tide with the one functioning arm, nails digging into mud, body trembling with every inch gained as the ocean tried to pull her back as if claiming what it had been promised.

She cried out when she moved, raw, broken sounds ripped from her throat as pain flared through her body.

“Help,” she gasped.

Her voice disappeared into wind, then she tried again. Louder.

“Please!”

And again, and again. But no one answered. There were no sirens, no search teams, no hands reaching for her. No Jack. It was just the vast stretch of muddy grass and the indifferent sea.

That first night, she dragged a broken wing panel across the clay and propped it against debris sticking to the side of the bottom of a cliff to form a crude shelter. Every movement felt like she was tearing herself open again.

She knelt beside a rock, breath ragged, as she stared at her dislocated shoulder. There was no one else. And so, she pressed her shoulder against the stone and forced the joint into place. The sound it made was sickening and the pain was blinding- it tore a scream from her that echoed against empty cliffs before collapsing into silence.

She blacked out from it and when she woke, the stars were out. And she was still alone.

Jack buried an empty coffin.

He had been told that the ocean had swept away what was left of the flight. There had been no body to identify, no hand to hold one last time and no forehead to kiss goodbye. Just a polished wooden box filled with nothing.

“I’m so sorry for your loss.”

The phrase repeated so often that it lost meaning. People watched him carefully during the service, eyes tracking him like he was something fragile and volatile, like they expected him to shatter, to explode and to fall apart in front of the grave.

But he did not cry. Not when they lowered the coffin, not when the dirt hit wood with that final, unforgiving sound and not at the funeral reception where people whispered about how tragic it all was. He stood straight, he thanked people and he shook hands.

Three days later, he requested going back to base.

The house was the worst part, the silence there was different from the one in the desert, it wasn't just vast, it was intimate. Her shoes were still by the door, her mug still in the cabinet and her books marked halfway through chapters she would never get to finish.

And even years later, when he had exchanged the simmering, blinding desert for the cool white walls, he still hated the empty space on their bed and the way he still turned towards her side in his sleep. He saved lives in the ER like it was penance. Like every pulse he restarted, every wound he closed, every life he dragged back from the brink was a payment toward a debt he could never settle. Like he could restart her pulse and his own along with it.

Fourteen years was a long time for grief to stop being sharp and start being normal. It rooted itself into him, it influenced his decisions quietly and persistently; the shifts he took, the promotions he refused, the distances he kept from people who tried to get too close.

He built his life around her absence, he learned which memories he could afford to touch and which would unravel him completely. He never moved her books, he never packed away their photographs, he never erased her voicemail and he never took off his wedding band. It remained there, a thin circle of metal around his finger, a promise to a woman the world believed was gone.

Grief became his constant companion- silent, unyielding and unbearably alive.

Hunger teaches you humility. Yn had grown up in estates and private academies, she had worn silk and debated on real estate over wine. But the island didn't care; she learned how to split open a fish with a sharpened shard of turbine casing, learned how to trap small animals with vines, learned which berries blistered your tongue and which kept you alive.

She learned the sound of approaching storms by the way the birds vanished first and she learned how to stitch her own skin with fishing wire salvaged from the wreckage.

The first time fever took her, she hallucinated Jack’s voice. He was standing at the edge of the jungle, clean and pressed and furious.

“Yn,” he said in that controlled tone that always meant he was afraid.

She crawled toward him, but before she could get to him, he dissolved into light.

When she woke, her wound was infected and she had to burn it clean with heated metal. She did not scream, there was no one to hear her anyway, so instead she bit down on leather stripped from a seatbelt and let the smell of her own burning flesh sink into her bones.

She mapped the island in her head; freshwater spring to the north, jagged cliffs east, dense jungle that swallowed light and sound west.

She named nothing, because naming meant claiming, and claiming meant believing she had some control over this place. And that was hope- it was what made her wait for rescue that never came, it was what made her count days until she stopped feeling them at all.

Hope wasn't a lifeline, it was a wreckage- laying waste at the ocean's shore and scattered across unreachable cliffs.

At night she would sit on a cliff overlooking the ocean and press her palm against the hollow at her throat where her necklace used to rest. She pictured Jack the way he had looked the morning he left, half-dressed, hair still damp from the shower, leaning against the kitchen counter.

“I'll be fine,” he'd promised, he'd kissed her like every morning, like every time he was deployed and came back. He'd kissed her like he was so sure that he would come back and see her again. Only it wasn't him that didn’t make it back.

She wondered how long they waited before they told him. She wondered if he heard the words of her demise on repeat in his head. She wondered if he thought she was afraid at the end.

Years blurred. Her body changed fast, adapting; muscle layered over old softness, scars mapped her skin- thin white lines, jagged seams, a puckered mark along her thigh from where an infection nearly took her. Her hands grew calloused and her voice grew unused- sometimes she would speak aloud just to remember what it sounded like.

“My name is Yn Ln Abbot.”

Once, a tree collapsed onto her shelter in the middle of the night, it pinned her beneath splintered wood, cold metal and mud as she laid there in the dark, ribs screaming, lungs struggling. And for a moment- just a moment- she considered letting it end.

But then she saw Jack’s face in her mind- not as he was, but as he would be, she saw him standing at a grave with no body.

She shoved the tree off inch by inch. Survival was no longer instinct.

It was defiance.

Every day since, she climbed the highest ridge where an old radio tower leaned like a monument about to fall.

She stripped wires, rewired circuits, reinstated metal from the plane’s grave, only for static to answer her every time. Until something came through.

“Mayday, mayday, this is Yn Ln Abbot. Survivor of Flight 756. If anyone can hear me- please.”

Static filtered back like always, and then a voice- faint and distant but a human voice, a pilot rerouting around bad weather and he heard her.

For the first time since she clawed her way out of the wreckage, she let herself feel hope.

The ED was busy, not just busy- it was alive. The kind of alive that glared in fluorescent light and pulsed through tile floors. Monitors beeped in mismatched rhythms, stretchers rattled across, voices overlapped in controlled urgency.

Jack was hands deep in chaos, working alongside Robby, gloves on, jaw tight, eyes steady.

Ever since he’d come to The Pitt years ago, he had spent more time here than at his own house. His therapist had told him it wasn’t good. He had used words like avoidance and displacement and healthy grief response. He even dared to suggest that he should move houses.

Move. As if his grief was tied to wallpaper, broken bedroom locks and a wooden hairbrush. As if the memories of her wouldn’t follow him like a second shadow. As if leaving the home they built together would erase the way her laughter once echoed off those kitchen walls.

He couldn’t remember the exact year he moved into the guest room, he could only remembered why.

The first few years after her funeral, he’d still slept in their bed- on his side- careful not to drift too far into the cold space where she should have been. He used to lie awake and imagine he felt the mattress dip beside him. He would cry quietly at first when he'd look at her side, then he learned to do it without sound. He tried to trick himself into believing he was doing fine.

He wasn’t.

He still bought her favorite tea brand from the grocery store- even though he didn’t drink tea- the boxes stacked quietly in the pantry like a ritual offering. He would dust her vanity and line up the products exactly how she used to, lipstick angled slightly to the right, make up brushes in height order. He’d spray her perfume across the bedroom some nights, standing there as the scent settled into sheets and curtains and for a few minutes, if he closed his eyes, he could pretend she had just stepped into the shower.

The universe, however, had never been particularly kind to him.

The perfume went out of production. He found out in a brightly lit department store aisle, holding the empty tester bottle in his hand while a teenager apologized that it had been discontinued.

Discontinued. Like her. After that, he couldn’t step foot into the bedroom.

Not when even the closest thing he had left to her scent was gone.

Jack was hands deep inside a patient’s abdomen, correcting a mistake made by an ambitious new med student.

“Careful." Jack muttered, voice controlled but edged.

The heart monitor beeped steadily. His phone buzzed in his pocket, he ignored it. Then it buzzed again, he exhaled sharply through his nose. By the third time, the vibration felt invasive.

“Can someone,” he said tightly, not looking up from the open cavity in front of him, “get that thing out of my pocket and answer it for me before I throw it across the room?”

Unfortunately for everyone, Ogilvie was the only one not gloved up. The tall med student fumbled awkwardly, fishing the phone out like it might bite him.

“Hi,” he answered, a little too casually for someone holding his attending’s phone.

Jack tuned him out, refocusing on suturing the bleeding vessel. There was a long pause from the med student as he listened to whomever was on the other end of the call. It was long enough that even through the surgical haze, something felt off.

Ogilvie’s posture changed first. His shoulders straightened as his expression shifted between confusion, curiosity and disbelief. And after a few seconds, he looked up.

“It’s the Pittsburgh Police Station,” he said, voice suddenly small in the quite room. “They’re saying that your wife is there.”

God, Robby wished he could physically push the kid out of the room.

Jack’s hand froze mid-motion but his head snapped up, the heart monitor spiked wildly as if it was connected to Jack.

Joy went rigid from across the table. She was ready to strangle Ogilvie herself. Sure, she wasn’t planning on staying in the ED long-term, it had never been her end goal. But Jack Abbot was the kind of attending students stayed for.

The first time she’d spoken to him, she’d teased him about his age. He’d shot back with something dry and self-aware, he even made a joke out of it. He was good, insanely kind in ways that didn’t feel performative. And she knew that if she ever changed her mind about emergency medicine, it would be because of him.

Everyone knew about his wife. Even her, the new med student who came in one month ago, and she was sure that the tall bonehead standing there holding the phone knew as well.

It was whispered through hallways, uttered between shifts and coffee breaks. Jack Abbot is still in love with his wife who died fourteen years ago. It was said with reverence and quiet heartbreak.

Joy respected him more when she heard about it, even if it hurt to see. It was sweet in a way that made your chest ache. Love like that wasn’t common and now Ogilvie had just torn open something sacred in the middle of a trauma bay.

Jack stared at him- not blinking, not breathing- with fourteen years of layered wounds threatening to spill down the center.

His mind rejected it instantly. Cruel joke. Mistake. Wrong file. Wrong Abbot. The monitor kept screaming its erratic rhythm.

“Repeat that.” Jack said quietly.

Ogilvie swallowed. “They’re saying your wife is at the station.”

Silence fell heavy over the operating table, even the chaos seemed to dull around them. Jack’s world tilted violently, his wife was dead, he had a funeral, he had stood over an empty coffin, he had memorized the date of her death like a second birthday.

Hope was not something he allowed himself anymore, hope was dangerous, hope destroyed people, hope ruined him.

“Go, brother. I got it.”

Robby was already moving, sliding seamlessly into Jack’s position, gloved hands steady as he took over. His eyes flicked between reassurance for Jack and a glare at Ogilvie.

Jack didn’t move at first, his chest felt tight, constricted, like something enormous was trying to claw its way out. Fourteen years of grief stood against one impossible sentence.

Your wife is there.

Alive wasn’t even a word his brain would form in relation to her anymore. If this was a mistake, it would shatter him in a way he wasn’t sure he’d survive. And if it wasn’t- he didn’t let himself finish the thought.

Because hope, after fourteen years, felt more terrifying than loss ever had.

The police station was painfully ordinary, fluorescent lights hummed overhead, printer spat out paper somewhere on the other side of the front desk, an officer murmured into a phone like it was any other shift, any other day.

The world was continuing. Jack felt like it should have stopped.

Interview room three.

His hand rested on the handle longer than it should have. It trembled, just slightly. He told himself this was a mistake, an error, a woman with the same name, a cruel prank that would gut him in front of strangers.

And then he opened the door.

She was sitting at a metal table, wrapped in a grey emergency blanket that did nothing to hide how much the years had changed her. Her posture was straight, almost guarded, and her hands rested on top of the table- scarred and calloused.

Yn Ln Abbot, alive and in front of him.

Her hair fell around her shoulders, uneven and rough at the ends. Her skin stretched over sharp lines and a jagged scar traced along her collarbone. She looked leaner, stronger, like she survived something that she wasn't meant to.

But her eyes- when she lifted her head and their gazes collided, the air left his lungs so abruptly it felt painful- those were her eyes.

“Jack.”

His name fell from her lips softly, but it hit him like a gunshot. It wasn’t a memory, it wasn’t the echo of a voicemail he refused to delete- it was real, it carried breath and warmth and tremor. For a second, he thought he might be hallucinating, that grief had finally split his mind open and that this was his punishment.

“You’re- ” His voice broke, he swallowed hard, but it didn’t steady him. “You’re dead.”

The words were jagged, disbelieving. A flicker of pain crossed her face, but she didn’t look away.

“I know,” she whispered.

He took a step forward without remembering deciding to, then another. His entire body felt foreign, heavy and trembling all at once.

“They told me you were gone,” he said hoarsely. “They said there were no survivors. They said-” His voice fractured. “They said lost.”

Her fingers curled against the edge of the table.

“I was lost,” she said quietly. “But I wasn’t gone.”

He stopped a few feet away, staring at her like he was afraid she might evaporate if he got too close.

“You have any idea what that did to me?” The words slipped out before he could stop them. They weren’t anger, they were agony.

Her face crumpled slightly, and that nearly undid him.

“I tried getting back to you, Jack,” she said, her voice trembling now, raw in a way that sounded unused to softness. “Every day, I tried. I climbed that damn ridge,” she continued, breath hitching. “I fixed that shitty broken radio tower over and over. I waited for planes. I lit fires. I-” Her voice broke entirely.

“I tried getting back to you, Jackie, every day, I tried.” she whispered. “I was screaming for you on that island. I thought- ” Her voice broke. “I hoped that if I screamed loud enough you’d hear me.”

His vision blurred. He saw it then, her alone on some endless stretch of a coastline, broken and bleeding, calling his name into a sky that never answered while he had been standing at a grave, sleeping in the guest room because their bed felt like a betrayal and spraying perfume that no longer existed just to breathe her in for a few seconds.

He closed the distance between them, hand lifted hesitantly, hovering near her face like he was afraid she might recoil. He touched her cheek; warm, solid, alive. She closed her eyes at the contact, and the small, involuntary exhale that left her lips nearly brought him to his knees.

“You’re real,” he murmured, more to himself than to her.

“I’m real.” she said, and her voice cracked on the last word.

That was when control abandoned him. He pulled her into his arms, not gently, not cautiously, but desperately. His arms wrapped around her like he could fuse her back into the past fourteen years by sheer force. She made a sound against his chest- a broken, relieved sob- and her fingers twisted into the front of his shirt like she was afraid he might disappear.

His hands slid up to cradle her face, thumbs brushing over skin that had endured more than he could imagine.

She gripped his wrists, holding him there like the universe might throw her back into that dark, lonely place. Her fingers found his left hand and traced the wedding band that still rested there.

“You kept it,” she breathed.

“Why wouldn't I? You were my wife. You're still my wife.” he said, and the simplicity of it made it devastating.

“I’m not the same,” she said.

The words hit harder than anything else. He pulled back enough to fully look at her- really look at her.

“Neither am I,” he answered immediately. "But you're here."

“Yeah, I am.” she breathed against his chest, like she needed to convince herself as much as him. He wrapped his arms around her tighter, almost painfully so.

“I started sleeping in the guest room,” he confessed quietly. “I couldn’t stay in our bed. I kept reaching for you in the dark. I’d wake up angry at myself for expecting you to be there.”

She made a broken sound at that and leaned into him further, the years between them felt both infinite and nonexistent all at once.

“I was sleeping on grass,” she said faintly. “Under a piece of wing metal. I would close my eyes and pretend I was back in our bedroom. I would pretend you were next to me.”

The symmetry of it nearly crushed him- fourteen years of parallel loneliness, fourteen years of reaching for each other across impossible distance.

He realised that she fit differently in his arms- harder edges, new scars- but she fit, her body trembled against his as she clung to him with a desperation that matched his own.

Robby doesn’t remember when the name carved itself onto his ribs. There was no lightning strike, no dramatic swell of music, no sharp inhale where the world shifted on its axis. It must have happened quietly, the way most irreversible things do. One day his skin was only skin, and then one day it wasn’t.

Unlike Jack’s name, he remembers a time where Yn’s wasn’t there. He has proof of it, actually; sun-faded pictures from beach trips, his chest bare and golden under the light, smooth and untouched, a blank stretch of skin that would one day become a promise, a canvas waiting for her to paint it. Back then it was just his body, sunburnt and shared with only one person.

He didn’t even know it was a her.

There was always a possibility, of course, a quiet, almost embarrassing thought tucked into the back of his mind. But as he got older and met people with the same first name- people with the same first name, loud and ordinary and undeniably male- he folded that possibility up and shoved it out the nearest window. It was easier that way, easier to believe the universe was predictable and easier to focus on whatever felt urgent at the time- school, friends, scraped knees, growing pains. (He can’t even remember what had seemed so important back then. God, maybe old age really is catching up.)

But hey. At least he met one of his soulmates.

Jack, on the other hand, remembers everything.

He was five, small hands, untied shoelaces, knees permanently dusted in dirt, but he remembers it like a scene paused on a screen. The sun was too bright and the pavement too rough. The training wheels had just come off his bike, and then it happened.

He swears he felt it before he saw it. A strange warmth blooming along the inside of his forearm, like ink sinking into paper. He looked down just in time to watch the letters etch themselves into his skin, slow and deliberate, as if the universe itself had careful handwriting.

He crashed immediately after.

He can still remember the sting of gravel and the way his mother screamed his name, but not because he’d fallen, because she’d seen it too.

There’s a video somewhere in a box at his house, burried deep in the closet, with shaky footage. His father’s voice going sharp with disbelief. His mother crying and laughing at the same time and his five-year-old self holding up his arm like he’s just discovered fire.

Having two soulmates wasn’t unheard of, it wasn’t even rare, but he was the first in his family. The first to carry more than one name and that made it monumental. It was something that split his life into before and after.

He can recall that moment second by second , the heat, the letters, the fall. Because in a way, that’s when everything began.

Robby stared at the CEO of the hospital like the man had just announced that the sky was green.

Disbelief sat heavy in his chest. He looked around at his staff- the people who had survived night shifts, code blues, and whatever brand of chaos the Pitt decided to serve that week- and found their faces mirroring his own shock. His eyes caught Jack’s for half a second.

God. They are so fucked.

“Now,” the CEO continued, smoothing down his white patterned shirt as if that might smooth down the situation, “with the possibility of whoever it is that’s responsible for the attack wanting a ransom, we have contacted the FBI. They will be sending a unit here.”

FBI?

Holy shit.

The word moved through the department like a match dropped into a dry forest. The crackle of panic spreading through the wildfire. An FBI unit coming here wasn’t common. Not even with the mayhem the Pitt regularly unleashed. Not even on their worst days.

“Wait, why the FBI? Does Westbridge have FBI with them as well?”

That quieted the department real quick, it was the kind of silence that feels forced and fragile.

“Yes,” the man answered. “There might be someone with the terrorist organisation in the hospital.”

And just like that, the silence shattered.

Interns began muttering to each other in tight, anxious clusters. Residents and nurses turned, almost instinctively, toward Robby. Looking for answers. For reassurance. For leadership. And Robby? Robby was glaring at the CEO and at the woman he had met not even seven hours ago. Even if Dr. Al-Hashimi looked genuinely surprised, his glare didn’t waver.

“I’m pretty sure we said not to disclose any information until we get here.”

The voice cut through everything. It wasn’t loud, it didn’t need to be.

Tailored suit, badge clipped neatly onto the breast pocket of his blazer, tie perfectly in place, like he had stepped into a press conference instead of a crisis. His expression was controlled to the point of frightening, sharp eyes, faint frown, authority radiating off him in quiet, suffocating waves. He gestured to the younger man and woman following him, and they set their bags on the floor without a word.

“Hello, everyone,” he said, voice gruff and steady. His gaze swept across the room, cataloguing faces, reactions and fear. “My name is Aaron Hotchner. I am the Unit Chief of the BAU, also known as the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI. Now that Mr. Norris has decided to let you all know why we’re here, you are safe. Special Agent Morgan and Special Agent Jareau are going to secure the department first and then search everyone-”

The murmurs began again. Louder this time. They were offended. And afraid.

“- Now, I need to speak to the head of this department.”

“Yes.”

“Of course.”

Robby glanced at his fellow attending, irritation slipping into his voice before he could stop it. “Haven’t you done enough?”

“This is your last shift, Dr. Robby. I will be-”

“So this is your first shift?” Agent Hotchner asked, cutting in smoothly as he turned his attention to the shorter female doctor.

“Yes, but I am-”

“Well, Doctor…” He let the word trail off, waiting.

“Dr. Al-Hashimi,” she replied, spine straightening. “Chief attending of this trauma center, who will be taking over when Dr. Robinavitch leaves.”

Aaron looked at the older man standing in front of him. For a split second something flickered across his face, a barely there expression- recognition. And then it was gone, smoothed over by years of FBI training.

“Well, no offense, Dr. Al-Hashimi. I’m sure you’re a great doctor and a great chief attending. But I need someone who has been here long enough to know the ins and outs of this department.”

His smile was professional. Polite and final.

Then he turned.

“Now, Dr. Robinavitch-”

“Robby, please.”

A pause. A shift almost too small to notice.

“Dr. Robby,” he corrected evenly, “would you mind telling Agents Morgan and Jareau every entrance and exit here? Along with any unused rooms or places that staff might take breaks in.”

The weight of it settled on Robby’s shoulders, responsibility layered over frustration, layered over the creeping realization that this day was not going to end quietly.

“Of course.”

As Robby walked the younger agents through corridors and back stairwells, pointing out exits and supply closets and the door no one used because it jammed in winter, Aaron stayed behind.

He answered questions, as many as he could anyway. Carefully measured and professionally vague where he had to be. He tried, and only half succeeded, in calming down the room.

“Agent Garcia, our Technical Analyst, is currently at Westbridge with two other agents,” he said, voice stead and controlled. “She’ll be working from there to get your system back as soon as possible.”

The words technical analyst and system back did little to soothe the tension.

James Ogilvie stepped forward, jaw tight. “If whoever did this is here, isn’t what you’re saying potentially helping them?”

“You worry about your job, I'll worry about mine.” Aaron replied evenly, not raising his voice, not blinking and not even looking at the med student's direction.

And that was that. The conversation ended not with resolution, but with silence- a thick, suffocating silence that seemed to soak into the shiny white floors and hum beneath the fluorescent lights. Everyone stood there, absorbing the reality of it all. FBI. Search. Possible insider. It was all too much. Too fast.

Robby turned, exhaling slowly, and made his way back toward Jack just as the two agents he’d been guiding finished strapping on their Kevlar vests, the sound tearing through the quiet. They checked their firearms with practiced ease before splitting off in opposite directions.

“Look who the cat dragged in.”

Agent Morgan’s voice boomed through the department, warm and amused and entirely too loud for the fragile atmosphere. Every head turned toward the entrance.

She walked in like she belonged there. Like she owned the space she stepped into. Duffel bag slung over her shoulder, face focused yet unbothered.

“Agent YN LN,” Morgan continued with a grin, “couldn’t even take a twelve hours off, huh?”

The world stopped. For Robby and for Jack, their world stopped. YN LN. Their soulmate. YN LN is a woman. Female. Despite the name, despite the years of doubt and despite every boy Robby had met and every assumption he had forced himself to accept.

And all they could do was stare.

She offered a tired smile, saying something to Morgan that neither of them could hear over the sudden thunder of their own heartbeats. She moved forward and pulled Agent Jareau into a brief hug, easy and familiar.

They took in every detail like they were afraid she might disappear if they blinked. Black half-sleeve shirt, tucked neatly into dark blue jeans along with black combat boots, worn but polished. Her badge clipped to the waistband, swaying slightly with each step. She looked steady. She looked real. She was real. Right in front of them.

“Morgan.” Agent Hotchner’s voice cut in, sharp enough to rein him back. He fixed his subordinate with a look before his gaze shifted to her, immediately softening. “Sorry to call you in. I know you’re tired, but we need you here.”

“It’s fine,” she said.

And God. Her voice. Steady with confidence, yet soft and kind. Controlled in a way that suggested she’d seen worse than this and survived it.

“Rossi filled me up to speed on the phone.”

She moved toward the two duffel bags already placed on the floor, adding hers to the small pile before crouching down, efficient and focused. She pulled out a Kevlar vest and secured it around herself without hesitation, hands practiced and precise.

“Everyone,” Aaron announced, drawing the room’s attention once more, “this is Agent YN LN. She will be searching everyone here, making sure that there are no weapons- that includes patients as well.”

And Robby could only stand there, pulse roaring in his ears, staring at the name he had carried on his ribs for years finally given a face.

The room started moving again.

Charts were picked up. Gurneys rolled past. Nurses resumed arguing over the location of manual charts in hushed, tense voices. If you squinted- if you deliberately ignored the two figures moving methodically from person to person- you could almost pretend this was a normal day at the Pitt. A normal day without a system.

Screw that. This was a mess.

The bold yellow FBI letters stamped across the back of Kevlar stood out too much, too sharp and too foreign. Not like Jack’s vest, the one they were used to seeing, the one that blended into the controlled chaos of trauma medicine. These were different. Federal and intrusive.

“Don’t worry.”

Yn’s voice cut cleanly through the small cluster of Dana, Robby, Jack, Santos, and Whitaker. Calm and gentle, entirely at odds with the tension curling through the department.

“It’s just procedure. I know none of the doctors or nurses have a weapon, but I have to follow protocol.”

Her tone softened further as she directed it toward Mel, who stood rigid with wide eyes and restless hands. Mel’s gaze darted instinctively toward her senior attendings and her charge nurse, silently asking if this was really happening.

“It’s okay, hon'.” Dana offered a reassuring smile.

Robby and Jack nodded in sync.

Yn offered Mel the faintest smile before moving on, efficient but careful, respectful in the way she patted down the younger girl's scrubs, understanding how violating it could feel.

“Doctor Robby.”

Aaron’s voice sliced through again, the sharpness of it made the young blonde tense where she stood.

“Can I have a word in private?”

It was shaped like a question but it wasn’t. He was already moving before Robby could answer, posture straight, steps purposeful, not bothering to look back. The expectation of compliance hung in the air.

“What’s this about?”

Jack stepped forward without thinking. He didn’t like the way Agent Hotchner expected Robby to simply follow. Didn’t like the implication of secrecy, and whatever this was, whatever could possibly require privacy, would reach his ears in ten minutes anyway.

Jack Abbot didn’t scare easy. Not before the military, not after, and certainly not when it concerned his soulmate.

“It’s something that concerns me and Doctor Robby,” Aaron replied evenly. “So, Doctor, if you would please cooperate with Agent YLN, it would be appreciated.”

Robby had caught it then. The flicker- the brief look that had crossed Aaron’s face earlier when he heard his government last name. The name that sat on her skin. The one that connected them on paper and on body alike.

“It’s fine.” Robby turned to Jack, offering a steady look. He was a big guy. He could handle himself. And an FBI agent wasn’t what had his pulse racing right now. At least not this FBI agent.

“He should join.” The finality in Robby’s voice was enough to make Aaron pause.

“You’d want him to join,” Robby added.

The break room door shut with a muted click. Robby moved automatically toward the coffee machine, muscle memory guiding him as Jack leaned back against the door, arms crossed, stance protective.

“I’m going to assume your name is Jack Abbot.” Aaron’s gaze settled on the war veteran.

“Yeah,” Jack replied flatly. “Now wanna tell me what the hell is going on?”

The reply was directed at Aaron but the question was directed at Robby, who still had his back turned, focused on pouring coffee into a paper cup.

“He wants to talk about Yn,” Robby said calmly, handing one cup to Jack before finally turning toward the third man. “Black?”

“No, thank you.”

Aaron exhaled slowly, composure still firmly in place.

“I do,” he confirmed. “And I’m sorry, but as long as this is an active case and Yn is here as part of the BAU, she cannot know that you two are her soulmates.”

Silence.

“The hell-”

“She wears her soul ring,” Aaron continued evenly. “She can’t focus on protecting everyone else if she’s too busy thinking about you two.”

Soul rings, an unspoken language. Not government-mandated, not institutionalized. Just something people had done for centuries, a quiet declaration to the world. A simple band, no designs and no stones- gold or black- worn on the left hand, any finger, it didn’t matter which. It meant one thing; I’m waiting, I'm not settling down without you. And when you meet your soulmate, wedding bands stack on top of it. A visible timeline of devotion, patience and hope.

The image hits them both at once.

Yn- tactical, composed, FBI agent Yn Ln- wearing a plain band because she’s waiting. For them. Only them.

Heat crawls up Robby’s neck before he can stop it. His fingers instinctively curl around the black band hanging from the chain beneath his scrubs. And across from him, his soulmate wasn't doing much better. Jack’s ears turn an unmistakable shade of pink as he twists the black band already sitting on his finger. God. They feel like teenagers, hormonal and ridiculous. And yet, Aaron’s words don’t sit right with them.

“No.” Jack shakes his head firmly. “We want to let her know now.”

“I can’t allow that.” Aaron’s tone hardens, expression sharpening into something immovable. “You’d be putting everyone at risk. Yn is here as a favor. She took down a serial killer on her own less than ten hours ago and still showed up. If she ever knows that you’re within a ten-mile radius of this hospital, let alone inside it, whatever energy and focus she has left will fracture.”

His jaw tightens slightly.

“That would put you at risk. It would put her at risk. And I can’t afford that.”

The firmness in his voice isn’t cold, it’s protective. And Robby and Jack both notice it, the familiarity in the way he says her name. Not possessive. Not intimate. But deeply accustomed, the kind that comes from years of partnership. The only thing that settles the storm inside is the black band wrapped around Aaron’s wedding finger, topped neatly with a silver wedding ring; he’s not waiting. He already found his, and right now he’s making sure Yn survives long enough to meet hers.

Back at the central station, Yn had the sudden, almost overwhelming urge to wrap Mel in blankets and sit her down with warm tea. She looked like deer in headlights, wide-eyed and frozen. Trying very hard to look calm while the world tilted just slightly off balance. Yn had already moved on to Santos, offering a quiet apology as she repeated the same procedure she’d done a dozen times in the last ten minutes.

“It’s okay,” Santos shrugged, straightening up yet acting like this was mildly inconvenient at worst. She looked bored, or maybe exhausted. Hard to tell in an ER. “Not my first time being patted down by a hot lady.”

The two new interns choked.

“Ohhh,” Yn chuckled, glancing up from where she was crouching down, checking Santos’s pant legs. “Careful, kid. I could be your mum.”

“Please,” Dana scoffed from beside them, handing a stack of files to a nurse who’d already been cleared. “You’re like, what - thirty? Thirty-five?”

Yn laughed. It wasn’t polite. It wasn’t restrained. It was full-bodied and warm and entirely too genuine for a department currently under FBI rules. The sound turned heads.

“Thank you,” she said, straightening up. “But I am way older than that.”

“Bullshit.”

“You’re good, Doctor,” Yn said lightly, stepping back and giving Santos a nod before turning toward Dana. “Try forty-five.”

“Shut up.” No one in the ER had ever seen Trinity Santos this stunned. “I wish I look like that when I’m old.”

Yn opened her mouth to reply, but before she could Robby’s voice carried across the floor, gruff and tired. Commanding in a way that didn’t need to shout to be heard.

“Okay, everyone, here’s how it’s going to work-”

Yn’s spine straightened automatically at the sound. She didn’t mean to tune him out. But she did. Because the moment his voice settled into explanation mode, calm, methodical, leading his people through crisis like he’d done a hundred times before, something in her chest shifted. She moved toward the left side of the station, focusing on unfamiliar faces. Doctors she didn’t recognize. A tech she hadn’t cleared yet.

“Excuse me,” she said softly, stepping in front of Jack.

God. That voice. Jack could fall asleep to it. Could let it pull him under into something warm and steady and entirely free of the nightmares that still woke him in the middle of his sleep.

“I’m gonna-”

“He’s clear.”

The interruption came sharp and immediate. Aaron Hotchner. Jack had never hated a man more in his life, not even the one who’d blown his leg off.

“Him and Doctor Robby are clear,” Hotchner added, already scanning the room for the next body to move toward.

Yn paused. Her gaze flickered between them.

“Um, sure.” She offered Jack a small, almost an apologetic smile before stepping back.

The distance felt wrong, too much yet not enough. She moved away, Jack watched her go and Robby kept talking. The department adjusted and the case continued.

It clicks then. You’ve seen a dozen doctors by now, so you hadn’t even known his name. Which is awful to admit for how great he was with your June the last time you were here.  

“Sorry, I’m late, kiddo. Didn’t know you were looking for me.”

“Neither did we,” Jesse chuckles dryly before shooting his gloves into the bin. He slips away without another word, probably eager to escape the room after the painful last half hour.

Dr. Abbot crouches down in front of you and June.

“Don’t tell me it’s your poor stomach again?” he asks her in a voice so sweet you can’t blame June for asking for him.

She shrugs her knobby shoulders into your neck. She’s still shaking, but a hell of a lot less than before.

“Think I could take a listen to your heart?” Abbot asks her gently. When she doesn’t respond, he sets the stethoscope in her unwilling hands. “Here, wanna give her a try?”

June’s fingers go limp beneath the device. A fresh set of tears boil on her bottom lash line.

Dr. Abbot loops the stethoscope back around his ears. He stretches the end of it to your chest. “Want mom to try first?”

You lean into his touch, his hand warm over your heart. It’s like a jackhammer in his ears.

But he beams, “Sounds good to me! Wanna listen?”

June shakes her head.

“Well, it sounds like this. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Real fast. Think yours sounds like that, too?”

“Come on, Junebug, let’s see.” You encourage her to lean forward on your thighs.

Dr. Abbot shifts the stethoscope to land on June’s left leg. It’s pencil thin next to his wide hand.

“That’s weird, I can’t hear anything,” he says.

June mumbles into your shirt.

“What’s that?”

“S’not my heart,” she mutters.

“It’s not? Where is it then? Did you lose it?” Dr. Abbot asks real serious.

“No, it’s here.” She thumbs the center of her chest.

He nudges her hand away with the stethoscope. “Here?”

“Yeah.”

He listens. “Oh, yeah. Look at that, you’re right. They should give you one of these, huh? Let you practice medicine.” His gaze lifts to see your grin as he taps his badge. He gives you a tight smile, the kind that’s wrinkled from a lifetime of them.

He checks her ears, her throat, presses gently at her abdomen, listens to her lungs. He’s calm, methodical, and so, so gentle. June’s a sensitive kid. It’s a real miracle she makes it through this free of tears.

“How many do you have?”

His eyes flick back to yours. “How many what?”

“Kids.”

“Oh. Zero.”

“You’re too good at this not to be a dad.”

His frown lifts, but the rest of his face stays serious. “I appreciate that.”

The squeal of sneakers behind him steals away Dr. Abbot’s attention. “Abbot, we’ve got an incoming MVC. Teenage male, intoxicated driver. Five minutes out.”

“On my way,” he calls calmly over his shoulder, voice softening as he turns back to you. “If you’ll excuse me. I’ll get a few tests ordered and be right back.”

You don’t even get out a thank you before he’s gone, the curtain swishing shut behind him.

The next time you see him, he’s a blurry shadow of scrubs in front of you. His arms are crossed like he’s been there for a while.

“Sorry,” you croak. It’s not easy to sit up when June’s a deadweight against your chest, and your neck’s screaming from how wrong you slept.

“Don’t be,” Dr. Abbot whispers, gloved hands clasping over his heart. “Sorry to wake you. How are you holding up, Mom?”

“I’m okay.”

He rolls over a stool and sits, and pretends not to notice your lie. He can only fix so many problems at once. “I’d like to ask you some questions, if that’s okay.”

You pull June tighter to your chest and pick her sweaty strand of hair off your cheek. “Of course.”

“June has been here, what— four times in the last three months?” Dr. Abbot glances between you and her chart. “All tied to eating issues or stomach symptoms. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“And her weight percentiles… down since the last visit?”

“I think so.”

“When did she start eating less?”

“She’s always been picky. Ever since she started eating solid foods.”

“What about gagging? The vomiting? When did that start?”

“Maybe at the start of this year? I’m not sure.”

“Was there a specific incident— think choking, getting sick, anything like that?”

“No, no, not that I remember.”

“Does she become anxious or upset around certain foods? Any tantrums at meal times?”

“Sometimes. I don’t know. I try my best.”

“I know,” he assures. “Based on everything you’ve told me, and all of her tests coming back great, I believe June has something called ARFID.”

“Is it bad?”

His head shakes, and his hands fold. “It stands for Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder.”

“An eating disorder? She’s not starving herself. She’s just a kid.”

“It’s not about her body image. For some kids, food just starts to feel unsafe. That can be because of texture, fear of choking, getting sick… sometimes their brains just file food under ‘danger.’”

You feel awful. Your mouth goes dry, and the back of your throat aches.

“It’s common,” he says quickly. “And it’s not caused by bad parenting.”

He can see the tears prickling. He reaches out and gives your shoulder a squeeze.

“What we’re seeing with June is that her safe foods are getting narrower. Her weight’s trending down. That tells me this isn’t just picky eating anymore.”

You nod, sniffling all the emotions back up.

“But the good news is she’s young. Kids her age respond really well to feeding therapy. There’s pediatric nutritionists. Sometimes play-based exposure to food can help.”

He waits for you to say something, but you don’t. Your head is spinning.

“I’m going to have someone from our nutrition team come talk to you. They’ll help figure out what she’s actually getting right now and where we can safely build from there. I’m also putting in a referral for a pediatric feeding specialist. They work specifically with kids who are afraid of food or have sensory issues.”

He watches June squirm into your collar.

“If her electrolytes come back off, we might keep her overnight just to give fluids and monitor her. But that’s just precautionary.”

You nod. You don’t know what else to do.

“You did the right thing bringing her in.”

You look him in the eye. He’s got pretty hazel ones. “Thank you, Dr. Abbot.”

He shakes his head. He hates this part. The thank yous like he’s some sort of hero. “Jack, please. And I’m just doing my job.”

“You’re the first one to take us seriously.”

His brain stalls, he’s weighing whether or not it's appropriate to say— “I’ll leave you my cell. Case you have any more questions or concerns.” Before you can get two words out, he stands and interrupts your praise. “It was good to see you. Both of you. Take care, okay?"

He makes a quick exit, leaving you suspended between relief and something heavier, something you can't even name.

You loll your heavy head to your shoulder to flash the man beside you an unenthusiastic, slow-blinking stare, from where he sits on the left side of the brick threshold. The rusted metal door, now missing a knob and refusing to open, sits between the two of you. Something about it feels like a metaphor.

“Because I knew you’d be a shitty husband,” you confess, perhaps a little more truthful than you need to be. “And, turns out, I was right, so…”

Langdon laughs at your honesty, though it comes out more like a punched-out breath. “Wow…”

With your head tipped back against the brick wall behind you, you turn back to face the golden blue sunset, made of a sea of milky pink and orange clouds. The view is far too pretty for the ugly day you’ve had, and for all the ugly you feel inside of you right now.

The music from the sports bar across the block swells distantly, in an unintelligible humming that blankets the momentary silence between you. The smoky scent of freshly cooked hamburgers fills the air, too, making your empty stomach grumble in a silent plea for a meal you haven’t gotten the chance to eat all day. You feel the early-evening chill down into your tired bones, piercing right through your black scrubs, which do little to cushion you from the cold, unforgiving concrete below.

“Gee, twist the knife, why don’t you…” Langdon hums cynically.

You meet his look of boyish offense — made of squinted blue eyes and a deep furrow between his heavy brows — with a narrowed gaze fixed into a firm glare. Sometimes, it’s hard to believe that this was the ever-oblivious asshole you spent four years of your life with, though that feels like a couple thousand light-years ago now.

“You’re selfish, Frank. You’ve always been selfish, even when we were kids. That was practically your whole thing,” you ramble with a lazy shrug. “You’re the kinda guy who thinks buying presents, cooking dinner once a week, and getting the mother of your toddlers the most high-maintenance dog on the planet is gonna make up for you never being home.”

The words of an instinctive argument die on Frank’s tongue when his eyes fall to his left hand, hanging off of his bent knee, and noticeably missing his gold ring. The thumb and forefinger of his right hand migrate to the top of his knuckle, twisting the pale tanline where his wedding band would usually be. The anxious tic is muscle memory to him now.

“Yeah, that was… That was a stupid move on my part,” he murmurs with a heavy sigh, and with his blue-eyed gaze averted to his bare ring finger.

Your eyes run over the sharp edges of his profile, bathed in soft shadows and orange sunlight. His chiseled jaw clenches until his temples shift; his brows raise until his forehead wrinkles; and his pink lips quirk into a cynical half-smile.

“And you know what the craziest part is?” he wonders with an emotionless laugh. “I’m pretty sure that’s the reason Abby left me… It wasn’t that I was never home. It wasn’t that I was working with my ex-girlfriend. It was the goddamn dog… And the sonofabitch doesn’t even like me—”

“It was all of it, Frank,” you tell him in a quiet, sympathetic lilt. “And you not understanding that is exactly why we never worked out.”

Langdon scoffs another half-hearted chuckle in response. He feels the ache of your words somewhere deep in his chest, like he’s feeling the pain of losing you all over again. It feels a little like being torn in two. He can’t recall the last time he felt whole since you left him, but he tries not to think about that.

“And what? You think you were the most innocent girlfriend in the world. Is that it?”

You roll your eyes with a chest-deflating huff and cross your arms over your bent knees. You could’ve seen this coming from a mile away. You learned long ago that Frank never learned how to take criticism without needing to hit someone where it hurt right back.

“That’s not what I’m saying—”

“Like you didn’t put me through the fucking ringer, too?”

“Frank—”

“You know what I did the entire time I was with you?” he wonders aloud, with a particular bite in his deep, melodic voice. He shifts on his weight, propping his left hand on the cool concrete as he turns to face you more. The dark strands of hair draping his forehead sway over his brows as he points to you with his free hand. “I worried that every single time I took my eyes off you, that you were gonna throw yourself off the goddamn roof—”

You inhale sharply through your nose, then click your lips against your teeth. “Wow…” you repeat in the same distantly incredulous murmur.

His words pierce you right back. The memories within them, more so.

It was hardly Frank’s fault that you had spent your years together just waiting — waiting to be someone else, waiting to become the person you always thought you were on the verge of becoming, waiting for your life to start finally making sense.

You could never quite shake the constant feeling of abandonment; the nagging thought that the world was constantly gathering in a room that you were not invited in. And Frank’s love for you never felt like enough. You craved affection from him so badly that you began to detest it. And, on the off chance Frank was emotionally available enough to love you, it felt as hard to take as violence.

It took several years of unlearning the filth you had taught yourself — it took finding Jack and realizing that love didn’t always have to be so complicated — to finally feel at home on an Earth that felt like it was constantly leaving you behind. And that thought isn’t lost on either of you.

Frank, particularly, is now forced to live out the rest of his day burdened by the weight of not having been enough to save you — that being with him would’ve killed you; that you would’ve thrown yourself off the roof of the apartment building you used to live in together just to get away from him.

The old memories burn him like a fresh, white-orange flame.

“So, you know what? Maybe it’s a good thing we didn’t work out,” Langdon concludes with a slow nod as he settles back into place again, grimacing softly when the brick snags the fabric of his black scrubs. “Because we actually found people who could put up with all our fuckin’— neuroses… Well, you did, I guess…”

He turns to you again, with softer eyes this time, and with a solemn twist to his chiseled face that you don’t see ‘cause you no longer have the strength to meet his gaze.

The thin chain around your neck glitters in the golden hour sun. A gold wedding band hangs at the center of it, usually hidden beneath your scrubs, but now draped at your chest and staring him right in the face.

Jack had given you the ring a few years ago, after three years shy together and a not-quite wedding. You’d eloped quietly, then spent the three days you had off work together on a makeshift honeymoon. No one other than Robby and Heather — your only witnesses at the courthouse the day you got your marriage certificate — even knew you had gotten married until you and Jack showed up to work some days later, with a pair of matching rings hung around your neck.

Frank had a panic attack in the locker room when he found out, which he opted to blame on the unforgiving shift.

The ring feels particularly heavy around your neck now, made leaden under the weight of this unwarranted conversation, of which you know you should not entertain but can’t seem to help yourself otherwise. You pinch the gold band between your thumb and forefinger, dragging it absentmindedly across the thin necklace in a faint swish, swish, swish sound.

“Yeah…” you sigh, blinking away the tears that sting at the backs of your eyes, made perhaps more emotional than usual from the long day. “Because Jack would never say something like that to me…”

He meets your glass-eyed glower with a crooked grin, just like he always used to — back when he was still a starving med student, and all of his problems felt like the end of the world, which only really meant that all of yours couldn’t possibly be as serious in comparison.

Sometimes they weren’t, to be fair. Sometimes, not getting your hair to cooperate in the morning sent you into a spiral the rest of the day. Sometimes, all Frank could do was laugh and hold you tighter and wait for you to put yourself back together again. Other times, you felt unearthly, not at home in the world, and you needed him to really care, but he didn’t know how to.

“Oh, please,” Langdon scoffs. “Fighting is what we’re good at. I’m pretty sure it’s the only thing we ever did right… Other than the sex, obviously—”

“Oh, my god! Frank!” you scold, though a laugh sputters from your lips before you can stop it. “You can’t just say that stuff to me!”

“Hey, I’m not trying to hit on you or anything, alright? I’m just… making an observation,” he shrugs with a quiet smile and with his wide palms splayed in surrender. “We loved each other, we just… didn’t know how to show it—”

“You never loved me, Langdon,” you correct with a sad sort of smile, weighed down with a heavier reminiscence. “You loved the idea of me. You loved the idea of having someone that would’ve stuck around no matter what, even if we fought all the time—”

“That’s not true,” Langdon insists, with his ocean blue eyes narrowed into thin slits.

“Face it, Frank,” you laugh with a lazy shrug. “You want someone who will love you and be loyal to you, no matter how many times you hurt them—”

“No, that’s not—”

“Someone that’ll keep on loving you no matter how many times you fuck up—”

“Can you… Can you just let me talk—”

“You don’t want a wife, Langdon, you wanted a fucking dog!”

“No, I want you!” he hears himself shout.

His voice rings across the expanse of the concrete rooftop, forcing him to hear the words that he’d immediately take back if the universe allowed it. It might’ve been easier to take if you didn’t look at him like you were halfway horrified, flinching back like his words had pained you somehow physically. His cobalt-colored eyes widen in a similar look of alarm.

“I mean, I— I wanted you,” he stammers, stumbling over himself to get the words out. His hands flail wildly as he explains, like they always did when he was nervous. “E-Even if I didn’t exactly know how to treat you at the time. I did… I did love you, you know? And I… I think we could’ve been good together. That’s all…”

You open your mouth to speak, but nothing comes out right away.

Your breath hitches in your throat instead, as your mind races a million miles a minute. The knock that comes suddenly at the door beside takes you out of your stupor and makes you flinch — hard. You feel the two hard raps against the locked entrance in your burning chest. The familiar voice that accompanies it melts your heart into specks of ash that you can feel trickling down into your swimming stomach.

“Guys?” your husband calls, half-muffled from within the stairwell. “You up there?”

“Jack?” you call back on bated breath.

You share a wide-eyed look of apprehension at the man beside you, whose ocean-blue stare bores right into yours. Neither of you can shake the feeling that you’ve just been caught doing something horrible — and, in a way, you have.

You scramble to your feet and feel the blood rush back to your tingling legs almost instantly as you stand before the rusted door, resting your palms along the cool metal.

“How long have you guys been out here?”

“Too long,” Frank answers in a huff, still slouched against the concrete.

You scoff a breathy laugh despite the tight feeling in your chest. “How long did it take everyone down there to figure out we were stuck?”

“Yeah, I don’t think they have yet,” Jack chuckles. “I just got here, and Robby said you guys were getting some air, so…”

He trails off.

You can hear the smile in his gritty voice when he asks, “How’d you two idiots manage to get stuck up here, anyway?”

“The universe hates me,” you deadpan in a non-answer.

You hear Jack laughing from behind the heavy door between you, a sound more golden than the setting sun painting everything a flaxen shade of orange. It makes a wavering smile curl at the very edges of your mouth, though it’s weighed down by a more palpable dread that Frank can see from here, with his glittering eyes still trained on your profile.

“I’ll go tell maintenance, alright?” Jack tells you. “Just… don’t do anything else stupid up while I’m gone.”

“Yeah, no promises,” Frank jokes back with his own artificial grin that deflates the moment Jack’s muffled footsteps descend back down the stairwell.

He slouches back against the unforgiving brick with a heavy sigh, feeling the exhaustion settling heavy in his bones — the acknowledgement that, once he’s back inside The Pitt, he’ll never get to be alone with you like this again; and that he’ll have to spend the rest of his life pretending like he isn’t constantly grieving your absence.

You step away from the door with a trembling sigh. You try to turn away before Frank sees the emotion crumpling your face, but he catches it anyway — there’s nothing about you that he wouldn’t immediately notice.

“Hey, I… I didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t,” you snap, turning on your heel to face him. You wear a stern glare on your face that makes him falter as he rises from the cold concrete to stand to full height. The golden hour sparkles in your glassy eyes, wetting with unshed tears. “Just… don’t, alright? Because if you make this a whole thing, I’m gonna have to tell Jack—”

“Tell him what?” Frank presses, brows raised to his hairline until three fine lines wrinkle at his forehead.

His shoes scuff the pavement when he goes to take a hesitant step forward. You flinch back again, like he’ll burn you if he gets too close — like he already has burned you and like you refuse to be kissed by that flame again.

He stops short, splays his wide palms before him in surrender, and continues quietly, “That I’m right? ‘Cause I really don’t think this upset if I were wrong—”

“Of course, I’m upset!” you shout, voice cracking and ringing across the empty rooftop. A breeze rolls by, cooler than silk, rippling in your scrubs and billowing in your hair. “But that doesn’t mean that us not being together is the wrong choice! It’s just— Something we’re gonna have to carry!”

“Then why can’t we just have it out—?”

“Because we tried,” you agonize through a stuttering breath. “And it ended up like this! Every single time!”

Frank shakes his head, strong jaw clenched, too stubborn to listen.

“The only reason we were ever together is because we were…” you trail off, gaze darting wildly as you search for the right words. “Pathologically terrified of abandonment—”

“What are you? My shrink?” he scoffs cynically, biceps straining against the sleeves of his scrubs when he crosses his milky white arms across his chest.

“We knew, before we started dating, that we both were incapable of giving each other what we really needed,” you tell him, half-strangled, as you fight back the emotion wrapping itself around your throat. “And we did that because we knew that when we inevitably didn’t work out, neither of us would be at a totally substantial loss! I mean, why do you think we both moved on so quickly?”

Langdon flinches, chin jerking as his pretty face screws in offense. Your words find him like a punch to the stomach — they knock the breath from his lungs, make him feel like the world is swaying below his feet.

“Substantial loss?” he echoes with his brows raised in an incredulous look. He exhales an emotionless laugh and looks away. His tongue darts out to wet his mouth before he clicks his lips against his teeth, waving an accusatory finger in your direction. “No, see… See, that’s the difference between us. Because I was with you, because I actually loved you—”

“Key word here being loved. Past tense,” you snap with a clenched jaw, mirroring his rigid stature with your arms folded over your scrubs. “We were never gonna work out, Langdon. So whether or not we would’ve been good together doesn’t mean anything anymore, alright? It’s too late, so just… Just drop it.”

“So what?” he calls to you when you turn away again. “All those years we put each other through hell and back, that meant nothing to you?”

“It meant everything,” you confess tearily, knuckles blanching around the cold metal railing you lean against. You lack the strength to look over your shoulder at him, lest you see the boy you used to love in the man standing behind you now. “And it’s over now. And it’s been over for a long, long time…”

“Yeah, not for me…” Frank tells you, voice breaking into a fragile whisper. He clears his throat a second later, half-strangled by the words that’ve been stuck in his throat since the day you left.

Your head snaps over your shoulder, delicate features crumpling in a pained look. “You can’t say that to me,” you repeat, voice coated with tears this time instead of laughter. “You can’t just say that, Langdon—”

Your breath hitches as a sob swells in your throat. You hide your face behind your palms before he can see the way it twists at your face. Langdon feels your hurt like it’s his own, a burning somewhere deep inside his sternum, as he rushes to you on instinct.

“Look, okay? I-I know I’m not a perfect guy— I know that I’m not half as good as Abbot, alright? I know that—”

His fingers are long and warm when they curl gently around your wrists, urging your hands away from your face. You’re swaddled immediately in the warmth of his musky cologne, much stronger than Jack’s, but just as familiar to you.

He ducks his head to meet your gaze, navy-blue eyes glittering as they dart between both of yours. You peer up at him from beneath your lashes, which are now clumped together with unshed tears.

“But I-I’m different now. I am,” he tells you, nodding rapidly. “I wouldn’t be the asshole I was before. I’d be different— I’d be good for you this time.”

“You are, okay?” you choke out, pointing a stern finger at his chest, hands still caught in his unwavering hold. “You are a good man, and I am so grateful to you, and I am so proud of you, but we would be miserable together—”

“Don’t say that,” Langdon murmurs, chiseled features screwed together like your words have pierced him somehow physically. “Why— Why are you saying that?”

“Because look at us!” you laugh through the tears clinging to your lashes. “Love isn’t supposed to feel this way, Frank! This isn’t normal! I can’t even remember the last time Jack made me cry— I don’t even know if he ever has!”

Your words take the breath from his lungs. His fingers slip slowly from your wrists. His chin jerks back like he’s flinching. The hair draping his forehead sways as he shakes his head to himself.

“It always goes back to him, doesn’t it?”

“Of course it does…” you sigh, deflating as you watch him walk away again, going blurry from the warm tears gathering at your waterline. “Because that’s what love is, Frank… And even if you and Abby are done for good, you will find someone, okay? And she will worship you, and she will love you in all the ways you need her to. Just because I can’t give that to you, doesn’t mean you can’t love somebody else—”

“That’s exactly what it means…” Langdon concludes with a heavy sigh, slouching back against the brick again.

He drops hard to the ground and rests his arms over his bent knees. His teary gaze, painted a lighter blue, focuses on the golden skyline behind you, slowly dimming to a darker pink color.

You sigh and muster a sad sort of smile. “Self-pity is not a good look on you, Langdon.”

“I’m just being realistic,” he shrugs. “You and… You and Abbot will be together forever, and you’ll have kids, and you’ll move on, and… I’ll watch…”

“Frank—”

“Don’t. It’s— It’s okay,” he interjects with a foreign sort of tenderness about him, as his pink lips curl into a distant half-smile. “Cause I… You know, I’d rather have a piece of you than— than nothing at all, so… You’re right. I’m just too late…”

You exhale a heavy breath and turn away again, bending at the waist to rest your elbows on the metal railing a few feet from the roof’s edge. You prop your forehead in your hands, watching a heavy tear fall from your bottom lashes and splatter hard on the concrete below.

You have to fight back the urge to climb over the barriers keeping you from the ledge, physically shaking the thoughts of doing so out of your head — of how free it would feel to jump, to fall and reach an inevitable darkness. It would feel much easier than being trapped up here, on this roof, and in this life, and in this skin that doesn’t feel like yours.

The train of thought always has a way of finding you, no matter where you are, no matter how happy you are. Sometimes, you find yourself physically startled by your very existence — like it’s some great mystery to discover that you’ve survived at all.

And, like always, Jack’s is the voice that pulls you back from the abyss.

“Alright, losers— As you were!”

His low, melodic voice shatters the heavy tension blanketing the quiet rooftop. But if he notices, he doesn’t show it. And if he heard anything that came before, he doesn’t say so.

You hurry to wipe the warm tears from your cheeks, swiping your middle and ring fingers below your eyes to remove any evidence that you’d been crying. You spin on the heel of your shoe to face him, mustering a tight-lipped smile as the man walks out into the cool, orange-pink evening — biceps straining against the black sleeves of his scrubs as his hands grasp either end of the stethoscope around his neck.

Robby walks out just behind him, brown eyes darting around as if he were surveying the rooftop — undoubtedly searching for dead bodies after being told that you and Langdon were trapped up here together. His brows bounce in silent shock to find that neither of you had killed each other.

The maintenance workers in navy blue coveralls stand just behind the two of them, replacing the broken knob with a newer one less likely to snap in half in record time.

“See?” Jack hums. The golden hour shines in his salt-and-pepper curls as he turns his head to the man beside him. “Told you I wasn’t lyin’, brother.”

“Yeah, thanks for caring about us, Robinavitch,” Frank huffs, grimacing at the ache in his lower back when he rises to full height again.

“Hey, I thought you deserved the break,” Robby says with his calloused palms splayed before him in surrender. “I just didn’t realize you guys had been forced into having one.”

Langdon says nothing in response, just slinks back through the opened threshold to what should feel like freedom, but finds him more like a slaughterhouse.

Robby watches him go, brows pinching in a wordless confusion, before his eyes dart back to you. His dark brown gaze glitters with curiosity as he nods his head towards Langdon’s disappearing figure, scratching at the grey patch in his beard with his left hand.

“What’s his deal?”

“I’ve been asking myself that for years…” you sigh, trudging across the rooftop like your feet are made of nrick. You inhale sharply through your nose and just barely manage to find the strength to joke, “Just please tell me this cuts a half hour off my double?”

“No, it means you gotta work a half hour overtime. Obviously,” Jack scoffs, wrapping his strong arm around your shoulder when you’re close enough to reach.

You stumble hopelessly into his side, immediately blanketed by his innate warmth. You inhale deeply, and let his musky cologne fill your lungs — smelling of home in every sense of the word, and replacing all the remnants of Langdon (also in every sense of the word).

“Don’t worry, honey,” he croons in a low, gritty voice. “I’ll keep you company through the dinner rush, if you don’t mind bein’ stuck with me for the next twelve hours… And the twelve hours after that… And the twelve hours after that—”

“Alright, we get it…” Robby huffs, narrow features twisted in an only halfway playful look of disgust. “Go ahead and get it out of your system, you two. You gotta long night ahead of you…”

He follows Langdon back down the stairwell, footsteps echoing as he hurries back down to the main floor to help the day shift prep the night shift. The weight of his words remains long after he’s gone. You should feel preemptively fatigued by them, and in many ways you are, but just being in Jack’s arms now is enough to reinvigorate you — like a shot of espresso, or like sunshine after days of stormy weather.

You know you should probably be sick of him by now, ‘cause when you’re not working with him, you’re living with him. But even still, on the rare days your schedules don’t align, you find yourself missing him anyway. You’re always missing him. And every day you are with him, you can’t help but wish for a hundred more. A lifetime with Jack Abbot isn’t nearly enough, but you’re glad to have at least gotten this one.

“You know, I never thought that I’d say this, but…” you trail off with a heavy exhale as you melt into his side, smoothing your left hand up his spine. “After a half hour trapped up here, I wouldn’t exactly mind being stuck with you, Dr. Abbot.”

His thin lips curl into a quiet grin, though the expression glitters mostly in his hazel eyes, which crinkle softly at the edges. He can’t help but hold all his love for you there. You’ve never once had to guess where you stand with him, or if he truly cares about you, ‘cause he wears it all in his eyes.

“See, that’s the kinda spirit I’m looking for, my darling wife,” he lilts sarcastically and ducks down to press a chaste kiss to your cheek, before this sort of PDA becomes a strict no-go when you’re back in the trauma center together. His greying scruff scratches at your delicate skin there.

You only pray he doesn’t taste the salt on your cheek, from where your tears are still drying.

                            ★。＼｜／。★

it's starting to burn, and i wanna go home . . .

the pain was excruciating, so much so that you'd dragged yourself to the emergency room in only pajamas, hair still wrapped up in a scarf, and cramps tearing apart your abdomen.

you were dripping in sweat, and the majority of your night, including hands up your vagina trying to figure out what was the matter, then finally realizing the issue when one of the arms of your iud fell out, bloody.

because you weren't a doctor, you didn't want to speculate on how your iud got dislodged, but your best opinion was that jack fucked you so hard, that he did it. thinking back, it was great sex, enough for you to accidentally dream of the man when you went to sleep that night, imagining having sex with him again.

currently, you were sitting in one of the rooms of the ER, after an hour long wait in the waiting room. most of your time waiting was spent silently judging the other waiting patients and squeezing your eyes shut each time a bout of cramps rolled in.

a nurse escorted you inside the room and began asking you what the issue was.

"yes, i have an iud in, and yesterday i was sexually active, i think that caused it to fall out. but not fully, because i can feel it stabbing into my vaginal wall." the nurse gave you a polite nod, "okay, so in cases like this, i'll call in a doctor to come in and do a vaginal exam. from there, we'll decide whether or not it can be removed without surgery."

an irritated sigh seeped from your lips, but the nurse rubbed your shoulder gently, "give me a minute and i'll be back with our attending, dr. abbot and some medication."

waiting for dr. abott didn't do much but annoy you more, not to mention the waves of pain spreading down your belly and into your pelvis. you couldn't keep still, foot tapping anxiously against the ground.

the only thing that seemed to lessen the pain was sitting on the edge of the hospital bed and taking in deep breaths. in all honesty, you felt like you were in labor, waiting for contractions so you could push.

there was a knock on the door, and it pushed open, but you didn't bother to glance, "honey, this is dr. abbot, he'll be taking care of you for the rest of the night."

"can dr. abbot, give me some damn medicine? i can't even think straight." there was silence, and you finally glanced up, though you wish you hadn't, because standing there was jack, the very man who rocked your world the night before.

he stood there silently for a second, slipping gloves onto his hands, but then he gave you a polite smile, grabbing a chair and sitting down in front of you. "what did you do to yourself?" the humor in his voice made you scoff, wiping away the sheen of sweat on your forehead, "you did this to me! the day after you...my iud dislodged. i tried to get it myself, but couldn't."

jack hummed, fisting his scrub pants. you could see a love bite you'd given him sitting on the hollow of his throat, and if you weren't in so much pain, you would've blushed.

"well, i'm sorry." you matched his gaze, searching for the guilt, and it was there, but the tiny grin on his lips made you scoff. "is this really the time to smile?"

jack wiped the smile off of his and inhaled deeply, "so, i want you to change into a gown so i can see what's going on. do you consent to a vaginal exam?"

"you've seen plenty more, so yes." jack nodded slowly and pulled the curtain in front of the door, then handed you the patient gown. when he spun around to give you privacy, you smiled lightly, appreciating his professionalism.

"can you give me anything for the pain?"

"yep, right here." jack spun around and handed you a cup of chewable ibuprofen, then he circled you and grabbed the ties of your gown, fingers whispering against your spine.

"do you always sleep with patients?" you said it quietly, climbing on the bed and watching jack grab a speculum and lubricant. he sat in front of you, and pulled out the stirrups. "you weren't my patient a night ago." his curt answer made you suspicious of what he wasn't saying, but instead of digging, you nodded.

"the first thing i'm going to do is insert the speculum. you shouldn't feel pain, only pressure. and it's going to be cold." jack grabbed your feet gently, helping you lift them into the stirrups.

then he lifted your gown, but you were thankful to feel a lack of embarrassment considering the events of the other night.

staring up at the ceiling, you waited for jack to begin pushing in the speculum, flinching when it finally touched you, impossibly cold. "i'm going to push it in, slowly. if you feel any pain, let me know."

the soft, husky hum of jack's voice was calming, and thankfully, the ibuprofen began kicking in, so you had no problem relaxing.

"sweetheart, i see it. it's lodged into the superior vaginal wall, near your cervix. one of the arms is broken off." you let out a tiny breath, beginning to tense up as jack pushed a pair of forceps into the speculum, attempting to grab the iud.

"when i pull, you'll feel pain, but if it becomes excruciating, tell me." jack rubbed a gentle hand over your knee, face lost between your thighs. all you could hear was the beat of your own heart, but as soon as jack was finished, you sighed in relief.

he raised the bloody iud, "there's the little fucker." he gave you a lopsided grin, placing the iud aside, then he pulled out the speculum.

"hard part's over." you gave him a look, legs closing, "i thought that was it?" jack took your hand, pulling you up, "to be safe, would you like contraceptives?"

he was looking up at you, arms resting against your thighs. the sex flashed through your mind's eye, and you blushed heavily, reaching up to run your fingers through his hair, "yes, i do."

"what's the matter?" jack pulled you close, cheek pressed between your breasts as he inhaled your scent. any sane person would think the two of you were in a relationship, but you'd spent five hours of your life with him and he cooked you a meal afterwards.

"if i knew you worked here, i wouldn't have come." jack scoffed, though not unkindly, head lifting so he could meet your gaze. "it's no problem, sweetheart. matter of fact, why don't i come over after my shift and make you another meal?"

your lips pressed against his forehead, legs locking around his torso, "i thought this was a one-night thing."

Because you couldn’t even blame him.

Samira was incredible. Unstoppable. Undeniable. She worked harder than anyone, carried too much, deserved a break. Deserved to get laid. Deserved someone steady and sharp and kind enough to see all of her.

Deserved someone like Jack Abbot.

You were… you.

Good. Solid. Dependable. You earned your place quietly and honestly – came early, stayed late, never complained, never overreached.

You knew when to lead and when to defer.

Hopeful, not green. That was something you and Samira shared. Eagerness.

But eagerness wasn’t magnetic.

Jack Abbot was.

Oh, you noticed it.

You noticed everything.

The way Jack leaned just a little closer to Samira while she scrubbed in. How his voice softened when he asked her questions he already knew the answers to. The way his laugh came easier around her, like the weight he carried through the ER finally let him set it down.

And God, how could it not?

Samira moved like she belonged everywhere at once, like the hospital itself had learned her rhythm. Attendings tripped over themselves trying to keep up with her train of thought.

Jack never tripped. He matched her stride.

So you swallowed it. Choked it down. Told yourself he didn’t even see you like that, so why get upset at all?

You smiled when you caught them talking after hours. You joked about it with Samira like it didn’t lodge itself under your ribs every time Jack’s eyes followed her across the room.

You told yourself you were happy for her.

And you were, mostly.

It was just… sometimes Jack looked at you, too.

Asked for your input during a code. Backed you up when a consult pushed back. Remembered how you took your coffee without asking.

Those moments were the worst.

Because they felt like something.

The misunderstanding came quietly.

You walked into the locker room late one night, exhaustion clinging to you, and heard Samira’s voice through the half-open door. You were about to announce yourself when– 

“…I don’t know, Jack,” she said. “I don’t want to mess things up between us.”

You froze.

Jack’s voice followed, low and earnest. “It's not wrong to want more.” and you swore you heard emphasis on that word:

More.

Your chest tightened. You didn’t hear the rest. You couldn’t. You backed out silently before they could see you, heart pounding like you’d just run a code.

That was it, then.

So you pulled back. Not dramatically. Not angrily. Just enough.

You deferred more. Kept things light. Left the bar early – or stopped going altogether. You stopped lingering in Jack’s orbit.

Stopped hoping for something you’d clearly misunderstood.

You told yourself you were being professional.

But you were also colder than usual.

Jack noticed.

He cornered you during a rare lull at the nurses’ station, charts half-done, fluorescent lights buzzing.

“You okay?” he asked.

You smiled automatically. “Yeah. Just tired.”

“Bullshit,” he said, brows knitting – not angry. Worried.

You shrugged. “One of those weeks.”

He studied you like a problem he couldn’t solve. “Did I do something?”

Your heart raced, but you kept your voice even. “No, Dr. Abbot. Of course not.”

The title made his jaw tighten.

But he didn’t push. That was his way.

Which somehow made it worse.

Everything cracked open during a late-night trauma – alarms blaring, blood everywhere, adrenaline singing. You moved on instinct, seamless, in tune with him like you always were. When it was over – when the patient stabilized and the room exhaled – you smiled brightly.

And then you caught Jack watching you.

Not professionally.

Not distantly.

Something in your face must have slipped, because his expression shifted immediately.

Afterward, he stopped you in the hallway.

“Hey,” he said. “We need to talk.”

“Now?” you asked.

“Now.”

He didn’t take you to an office.

He took you to the supply closet.

The one where everyone makes out– Your brain says before you can stop it.

But you had learned hope was a dangerous thing for a woman like you..

The door shut behind you with a soft, definitive click.

Jack dragged a hand through his hair and exhaled hard.

“I don’t know what I did,” he said, voice low and wrecked, “but it’s fucking killing me. You’re fuckin’ killing me. What did I do wrong?”

“You didn’t,” you said quietly. “I just… wanted to give you and Samira space.”

He blinked. “Mohan?”

The disbelief was immediate – and sharp.

“Yes,” you said, suddenly unsure of everything. “I heard you two talking and I thought—”

“Wait–,” he interrupted softly. “So you started disappearing because–”

“I didn’t want to be in the way,” you finish, and move to angle yourself toward the door... out of here. Anywhere else other than under his intense gaze.

Suddenly the supply closet is too small.

Too narrow, too close, shelves stacked high with gauze and saline and things that smell faintly like antiseptic and latex. Jack doesn’t move toward you right away, and somehow that’s worse. He stands there, chest rising and falling like he’s been holding his breath for weeks.

Oh my God, he's angry. You think, mortified beyond words.

“Say it again,” he says quietly.

You had never felt so small.

You blink away tears. “Say what?”

“Why you pulled away.” He grits, and you swear he's shaking now.

You swallow. “I didn’t want to make things awkward. Or unprofessional. Or–” You gesture vaguely. “Be in the way.”

Something in Jack breaks.

He closes the distance in two steps, not rough but decisive, palms bracketing your hips like he’s anchoring you in place. Not trapping – never that – but making it impossible to pretend there’s any space left between you.

“In the way,” he repeats, disbelieving. “You think you were in the way?”

You nod, because this is the thing you’re good at: assuming you misread everything.

Jack exhales sharply and leans in until his forehead rests against yours. You're so confused, you let a tear slip.

You can feel the heat of him, the tension humming just under his skin.

“I have been walking around this hospital,” he says, voice low and wrecked, “trying not to do exactly this.”

Your breath catches. “Do what?”

His grip tightens – just a fraction. “Touch you. Be here, with you, always.”

That’s all it takes.

He kisses you like he’s done pretending. It’s messy and desperate and God it’s real, mouths colliding instead of aligning perfectly, like he needs to feel you now or he might lose his mind. You gasp, fingers instinctively grabbing at his scrub top, and Jack makes a sound – low adn rough – that goes straight to your spine.

One of his hands slides up your back, flattening you gently against the metal shelving. Gauze boxes rattle. Something clatters to the floor. Neither of you even flinches.

“Jesus,” he mutters against your mouth. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve replayed this?”

You pull back just enough to breathe. “You– what?”

His eyes are dark. Focused. Gone.

“Every time you walk past me like I don’t matter to you,” he says. “Every time you left this week. Every time you look at me like you’re bracing for disappointment.”

He kisses you again, slower this time, deeper. Controlled heat layered over urgency. His hand settles at your waist, thumb brushing bare skin where your scrubs gape just slightly.

“You don’t get to decide for me,” he murmurs. “You don’t get to choose yourself last.”

Your heart is pounding so hard you swear he can feel it.

“I just–” you admit, breathless, “I thought you wanted her.”

Jack pulls back just enough to look at you, his expression fierce and unmistakably certain.

“I wanted you,” he says. “I just didn’t know how to convince you I wasn’t imagining it.”

His mouth drops to your jaw, then your neck, not rushing but not gentle either—like he’s making up for lost time. Your fingers slide into his hair before you even realize what you’re doing, and Jack groans softly, forehead pressing into your shoulder like that did something dangerous to his self-control.

“You’re not second,” he says against your skin. “You were never second. You just never realized you were already chosen.”

The door rattles faintly – someone passing by. Jack stills for half a second, breath hot against your neck.

Then he smiles. Wicked. Unapologetic.

“Tell me to stop,” he murmurs.

You don’t.

He kisses you again, slower now but no less intense, hands steady, certain. Like this is exactly where he’s supposed to be.

And later, when your scrubs are wrinkled, and your pulse is still racing, and Jack’s thumb is brushing lazy circles at your hip, he presses his forehead to yours and exhales.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I’m done pretending.”

You smile, dazed. “Good.”

Outside the closet, the ER hums on like nothing happened.

But you walk back in together.

Every. Single. Morning.

Without fail, his bedroom door would creak open just enough for him to hear the soft shuffle of your footsteps. Half-asleep, he'd crack open one eye and catch a glimpse of you moving through his bedroom like some sort of fitness-obsessed ghost. Always dressed in workout clothes. Always carrying that absurdly large water bottle that was practically the size of a small child.

Where the hell were you going?

Because nobody willingly woke up at six in the morning unless they were being paid, chased, or clinically insane. Yet there you were. Every day. Gone before sunrise. By the time Dean finally dragged himself out of bed at a reasonable hour, you’d already returned. Usually flushed from exertion, a light sheen of sweat still clinging to your skin as you tossed your keys onto the counter.

Your leggings and fitted tank top would be slightly damp, strands of hair escaping your ponytail and sticking to your temples. And you always, always, had that weird green drink in your hand. The thing looked radioactive, Dean swore it practically glowed. "What the hell is that?" He'd asked one morning, staring suspiciously at the cup in your hand. "Matcha." You muttered taking a sip through the straw, eyebrows raised.

"It looks like liquid grass."

"It's tea, Dean."

"It's toxic waste, babydoll."

A laugh escaped you as you shook your head, completely unbothered by his judgmental stare while taking another sip. Sometimes you'd head out alone. Other mornings, Dean would hear even more movement in the hallway before dawn. Additional doors opening. Muffled voices. The unmistakable sound of people who should absolutely still be asleep. Then later that day, Garrett would stumble into the hockey house looking personally victimized.

"Wellsy left at six this morning." Dean barely glanced up from his phone. "Tragic." He teased, lips quirking up in his well-known cocky smirk. "I woke up and she was gone, all I know is that she took Grace and Y/N with her." Now that got Dean's attention. "Where?" Garrett groaned dramatically and collapsed down onto the couch. "I don't know." Across the room, Logan snorted into his coffee cup. "Join the club, G."

"Grace ditched you too?" Garrett pointed accusingly as Logan nodded. "Six fifteen," Logan confirmed darkly dropping down onto the couch beside Dean with all the suffering of a man personally betrayed, scrubbing a hand down his face. "I woke up because she kissed my forehead like she was shipping off to war." Dean looked between them, then slowly lowered his phone.

"Wait," Both men turned toward him, brows raised in silent question. "You both don't know where they're going either?" Both hockey players exchanged a look. Then Logan shrugged as Garrett shook his head. Dean stared at them, then started laughing. Because suddenly this wasn't just his mystery anymore, it was a goddamn conspiracy. Three women. Three clueless boyfriends. Zero explanations.

And suddenly the fact that all of them were somehow managing to sneak out before dawn without providing answers made Dean's curiosity became an obsession and made him even more determined to figure out what the hell was going on. Whatever was dragging you out of bed at six in the morning had to be really fucking important. Or incredibly weird. Either way, he was going to find out.

Which is why on Friday afternoon after multiple rounds of hot, mind blowing sex, is when he finally found the courage to ask. The two of you were sprawled across his bed, tangled in rumpled sheets that had long since been kicked down to your waists. The room smelled faintly of sweat and his cologne, what was left of the evening sunlight streaming through the partially closed blinds and painting lazy golden stripes across the mattress.

“Babydoll?” He asked, his hand halting from tracing absent-minded shapes on your bare back. You hummed softly in response, lifting your head from where it rested on his naked chest. Your chin settled on top of your folded hands as you peered up at him, still looking pleasantly dazed and entirely too comfortable. Dean shifted so he was facing you more directly, propping himself up on one elbow.

"Where do you go every morning?" You blinked, expecting anything but that question. "At a ix a.m.," He stated matter-of-factly. "Every day." The fact that you looked entirely too pleased with yourself made him even more suspicious. The corners of your mouth twitched as if you'd been expecting this conversation for weeks. "See? That right there, that's the face of someone hiding something." Dean pointed a finger at you.

"I'm not hiding anything." You caught his hand before he could continue accusing you, lowering it to the mattress between you. "You absolutely are." You laughed, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear while trying to pull off an expression of complete innocence. Unfortunately, Dean knew you far too well. His gaze narrowed further, there it was again: that smug little smile.

The one that usually meant you knew something he didn't. And Dean hated not knowing things. Especially when those things involved you. "You leave before sunrise," He continued dramatically. "You come back sweaty carrying that suspicious green drink and you've even somehow convinced Wellsy and Grace to join your secret society." At that, you actually snorted. "A secret society?" Your eyebrows shot upward in amusement.

"That's currently my leading theory." You folded your arms across your chest, trying, and failing, not to laugh. The smile threatening to break free gave you away instantly. Dean took that as encouragement. "Either that or you're all secretly training for the Olympics or preparing for some kind of a heist." He delivered the line with complete seriousness, making it impossible for you to hold back any longer.

You finally lost the battle and laughed outright, the sound filling the room. Dean tried not to smile but ultimately failed miserably. Because he loved making you laugh, even when you were laughing at him. "Dean, it's not a secret." Your voice carried the familiar warning that always appeared whenever he was being ridiculous. "The tell me.”He practically whined, green eyes narrowing. You bit your lip in response, a sure sign you were debating whether or not to answer.

However, instead of speaking, you reached over and patted his cheek, thumbs sweeping over his cheekbones. "Babydoll." His eye twitched. God, how you loved riling him up. "Yes, Dean?" You smirked, batting your eyelashes flirtatiously. "You're testing my patience." Your grin turned positively wicked. Then you leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to his lips, making sure to linger and slip in some tongue just long enough to be distracting. And the worst part? It almost worked.

Almost.

Dean caught your wrist before you could pull away completely, his fingers wrapping loosely around it as he shook his head. "Nice try." Your laughter softened, fondness replacing some of the mischief in your expression. "You're really that curious?" He groaned dramatically, dropping his head back against the pillow. "At this point? It's consuming my life." You stared at him for a second, studying his expression as if trying to determine whether he was serious.

The answer was obvious, he absolutely was. With a small shake of your head, you finally relented. "Fine." Dean immediately perked up, his head snapped back up so fast it nearly gave you whiplash. “If you’re so curious, just come with me tomorrow. Find out for yourself." For a moment, Dean just stared. Then a slow grin spread across his face. After weeks of wondering, and developing increasingly ridiculous conspiracy theories, he was finally going to get answers.

The following morning, Dean was drooling on his pillow when he felt you shift. The room was still dark, the early morning sunlight barely beginning to creep through the gap in the curtains. His brain hadn't fully booted up yet, leaving him somewhere between sleep and consciousness as he instinctively reached for the warm body beside him. Letting out a groan, he tried to pull you back into his chest, burying his face deeper into the pillow. But it was no use, you were already awake.

"Up and at 'em, Di Laurentis." He could practically hear the smirk in your voice. Dean responded with another groan, dragging the pillow over his head in protest. For a brief moment, he considered pretending to be dead. Unfortunately, you knew him too well. A second later, the pillow was yanked away. "Don't make me get the spray bottle Tucker keeps in the kitchen." His eyes cracked open. "You wouldn't." The grin on your face told him otherwise.

With a sigh worthy of an Oscar, he finally pushed himself upright, rubbing a hand down his face. That was when his eyes nearly bulged out of his head. You were bent over tying your shoes, already dressed and ready to go. The fitted workout set left very little to the imagination, the leggings hugging every curve while your matching top disappeared beneath one of his old hockey hoodies.

Your hair was already pulled back into a ponytail, looking far too awake and put together for an hour that should've been illegal. Dean stared, brain completely short-circuited. He was half tempted to drag you right back into bed and forget this entire mystery existed. Curiosity, however, was the only thing stronger than his desire to go back to sleep or have hot morning sex.

Barely.

Sluggishly rolling out of bed, Dean shuffled toward the bathroom. The floor was cold, his eyes burned, and his soul hurt. Five minutes later, after splashing water on his face enough times to resemble a functioning human being, brushing his teeth, and throwing on a pair of gym shorts and a fitted black t-shirt, he emerged from the bathroom looking considerably more awake. Not happy, but awake.

You looked up from screwing the lid onto your giant water bottle, your gaze traveling slowly. Dean immediately noticed. The tight black shirt stretched across his shoulders and defined the muscles in his chest and back, while his shorts sat low on his hips, exposing powerful thighs built from years of hockey practices, conditioning drills, and games. You blinked. Once. Twice.

"You're droolin', babydoll." The smug grin that followed was absolutely insufferable. Snapping out of your thoughts, you rolled your eyes and grabbed your freshly refilled water bottle from the counter. "Please. Your ego doesn't need any more encouragement." Dean gasped dramatically. "That was rude." You simply headed toward the door. "Come on, Dean." You coaxed, hand firmly on your hip leaving absolutely no room for discussion.

He followed behind with another exaggerated sigh, shoving his feet into a pair of sneakers as quickly as possible. "They'll charge us if we're late." That made him pause. One hand still on his shoe, Dean slowly looked up. "Hold on." You were already opening the apartment door. "What do you mean they'll charge us?" A suspicious feeling settled in his stomach. For the first time all morning, Dean wondered if maybe, just maybe, following you had been a terrible idea.

Sure enough, when you led him through the doors of The Pilates Lab, Dean knew he was fucked. The realization hit the second he stepped inside. The studio was bright, spotless, and somehow intimidating despite the soft instrumental music drifting from hidden speakers. Floor-to-ceiling mirrors lined one wall, reflecting rows of sleek reformer machines arranged with military level precision.

Natural light poured through massive front windows, illuminating polished hardwood floors and cream-colored walls that somehow made the place feel both welcoming and terrifying. Terrifying mostly because every person inside looked like they belonged there. Dean, however, did not. The scent of eucalyptus and expensive cleaning products hung in the air. A small reception desk sat near the entrance beside shelves stocked with water bottles, protein bars, grip socks, and enough workout accessories to bankrupt a small nation.

You, meanwhile, looked completely at home. "Morning!" The receptionist greeted cheerfully as you approached. "Morning, Claire." Dean glanced around while you checked in. Women. Everywhere. A few men too, but mostly women. All of them looked suspiciously fit and flexible. Very, very flexible. One woman was casually stretching with her leg resting on a barre at a height Dean was pretty sure violated several laws of physics.

His hockey injuries hurt just looking at her. Then to make matters worse, he noticed the reformers. Rows and rows of reformers. Metal frames, straps, springs, moving platforms. They looked less like exercise equipment and more like devices designed specifically for torture. Dean pointed toward one. "The hell is that?" You followed his gaze, biting back a smile. "A reformer." You replied nonchalantly. "It looks dangerous." The smile at your lips widened at his tone which oozed discomfort.

"It's really not."

"You hesitated."

"I didn't."

"You absolutely did."

You laughed, reaching for his hand and tugging him farther inside to where you usually worked out. Only the deeper you ventured into the studio, the worse his feeling became. As you set your water bottle down beside your reformer and tugged off his sweatshirt, revealing your fitted workout top underneath, Dean stood there questioning every decision that had led him to this moment.

Then his gaze landed on the instructor, the woman looked approximately five feet tall, and somehow absolutely terrifying. The kind of terrifying that came from smiling too much while planning your demise. "Good morning, everyone!" Her voice carried easily across the room as the class immediately began moving toward their reformers. Around him, people adjusted springs, grabbed resistance bands, and clipped straps into place with the confidence of seasoned veterans.

Meanwhile, he was still trying to figure out what half the equipment even did. You noticed the shift in his demeanor next to you as you offered his forearm a reassuring squeeze. His eye twitched, which nearly made you laugh again. "You're going to be fine, Dean." The confidence in your voice wasn't nearly as comforting as you intended. Dean looked around the studio one more time. At the springs. The straps. The weights. The machines. The terrifyingly cheerful instructor. Then finally back at you.

"Babydoll, I think we have very different definitions of fine." It's not like he could leave. Not now. Not when half the class had realized a six-foot-two hockey player was standing in the middle of their Pilates studio looking like he'd accidentally wandered into enemy territory. Huffing, he turned towards the rack of weights lining the mirrored wall, barely hesitating before reaching for the heaviest pair available. The movement immediately caught your attention.

"You're gonna regret that." Dean scoffed, looking personally offended by the suggestion. "Babydoll, please, I bench two-thirty. I can easily handle twenty-pound hand weights." As if to prove his point, Dean was too busy rolling his shoulders and casually curling one of the dumbbells, looking far too pleased with himself. You looked at the weights, then at him, trying, and failing, to hide a smug smile since you already knew exactly how this was going to end for him.

The first five minutes weren't terrible. At least, that's what Dean told himself. The instructor began with slow, controlled movements that looked deceptively simple. Around the room, springs clicked softly against metal frames while reformers glided back and forth with smooth precision. Dean found himself settling into the rhythm quickly enough, or so he thought. Then, the shaking started. It began in his thighs. A subtle tremble at first, barely noticeable.

Then came the burn. The kind of deep, relentless burn that didn't make any sense. He was a Division I hockey player. He spent hours in the gym. He could squat absurd amounts of weight. Yet somehow a tiny movement performed on a sliding carriage had his legs vibrating like he'd just skated three periods back-to-back. Across the room, you looked annoyingly graceful. Dean, meanwhile, was fighting for his life.

Thirty minutes in, the black t-shirt clinging to his back was soaked through. His hair stuck to his forehead. Every muscle seemed to have discovered entirely new ways to suffer. The instructor floated around the room like an executioner disguised as a yoga mom, offering gentle corrections that somehow made every exercise twice as difficult. Whenever Dean thought a set was ending, another variation appeared.

Another hold. Another pulse. Another ten seconds.

Those ten seconds felt like years. At one point he became convinced time itself had stopped moving. The mirrors surrounding the studio only made things worse. Everywhere he looked he could see himself struggling. See the tremor in his arms. The shake in his legs. The tightening of his jaw. And every time he considered lowering a weight or taking a break, his gaze inevitably landed on you. You looked focused. Determined. Completely in your element.

There was a concentration on your face he rarely got to see outside of moments that truly mattered to you. That alone kept him going. That and his pride. Mostly his pride. Because there was absolutely no chance he was quitting before any of the women around him. By the forty-five minute mark, however, Dean was beginning to reconsider several core beliefs. Including his understanding of physical fitness. And maybe even reality itself.

The studio had grown warmer as class progressed, bodies moving continuously beneath the bright overhead lights. Sweat rolled down the back of his neck, his shirt felt suffocating. Eventually he gave up. During a brief transition between exercises, he grabbed the hem of his t-shirt and pulled it over his head before tossing it toward the cubbies lining the wall. A few heads turned. Not many. Most people were too busy suffering.

However, your attention certainly did, so much so that for the briefest moment, your focus slipped. Your eyes tracked across his broad tanned shoulders, defined abs, and muscles earned through years of hockey training. The sight was familiar, yet somehow still distracting. Heat immediately crawled up your neck, luckily Dean didn't notice seeing as he was far too busy trying not to collapse. The distraction lasted only seconds before the instructor was directing everyone into another movement.

The class continued and somehow got harder. The final thirty minutes became a blur of shaking muscles, controlled breathing, and pure stubbornness. At that point, Dean's arms trembled. His core burned. His legs felt like overcooked noodles. Several times he caught you sneaking amused glances his way. Several times he returned them with a look that promised revenge. By the final series, every movement required concentration. The studio had fallen quieter now seeing as no one had energy left for anything else.

When the instructor finally announced the last stretch, a collective sigh swept throughout the entire room. Dean nearly collapsed onto the machine. His entire body felt spent. Not the satisfying exhaustion of hockey. Not the familiar ache of lifting. Something entirely different. Every muscle felt worked. Even muscles he hadn't known existed. As everyone began cleaning equipment and gathering their belongings, Dean remained exactly where he was for a few extra seconds, staring at the ceiling.

Humbled. He was completely, utterly, humbled.

Humiliated by a workout he'd walked into thinking would be easy. Yet despite himself, despite the suffering, despite the shaking, despite the fact that he probably wouldn't be able to sit down tomorrow, a reluctant smile tugged at his mouth. Because somewhere between the torture, the challenge, and stealing glances at you throughout the last ninety minutes, he'd actually had fun. Only he would never admit that part to you out loud.

As a chorus of applause rang out throughout the studio, Dean stayed flat on his back atop the reformer, bare chest glistening with sweat as he fought to catch his breath. The bright overhead lights blurred slightly above him while every muscle in his body protested the simple act of existing. Around the room, people began climbing off their machines, gathering water bottles and towels while chatting casually as if they hadn't just endured ninety minutes of pure torture.

Dean genuinely didn't understand how they were all standing. "You did it!" Your smile was warm and impossibly proud as you leaned down, pressing an encouraging kiss to his sweaty forehead. The simple gesture somehow felt more rewarding than surviving the class itself. You handed him your water bottle and for once, Dean didn't make a single joke about it. He simply took it immediately, drinking like a man who'd just crossed a desert. Cold water hit his throat as he gulped down several desperate mouthfuls.

"I'm so proud of you, baby, you completed your first Pilates class like a pro." He was almost certain you were fucking with him. There was absolutely no way he'd looked professional while shaking like a newborn deer for an hour and a half. Yet despite knowing that, he still preened under the praise. Because it was coming from you. And Dean was embarrassingly weak when it came to anything involving you. A grin tugged at the corners of his mouth as he finally accepted your outstretched hand, fingers wrapping around yours while you helped haul him upright.

"So," You grinned, raking your nails through his sweaty blonde curls, pushing them away from his forehead. "Have I officially turned you into a Pilates princess?" Dean scoffed, yet his hands on your waist tightened as he pulled you closer, refusing to surrender what little dignity he had left. "Not a fucking chance, babydoll." He shook his head firmly, yet the look on his face made it clear he wasn't finished. "But, I wouldn't be opposed to seeing you in tight workout clothes more often." You instantly swatted his shoulder, which made his sore muscles jump.

The motion lacked any real force, mostly because you were trying not to laugh. Dean's grin immediately grew knowingly. The post-workout flush coloring your cheeks wasn't helping his concentration either. Not that he'd been concentrating much to begin with seeing as he made absolutely no effort to hide the way his gaze lingered. Not when you looked this good. Not when you were smiling at him like that. Not when you were still standing close enough for him to loop an arm around your waist and pull you closer.

You made no effort to move away as he dipped his head, pressing a playful kiss against your neck before blowing a raspberry against your damp skin. The sound echoed loudly enough that your laughter filled the studio as you swatted him again, the bright sound instantly pulling his attention back to you. And just like that, he realized something. He'd willingly gotten out of bed before sunrise. He'd survived ninety minutes of what could only be described as organized suffering. His entire body hurt. Tomorrow would probably be far worse.

The boys were absolutely going to roast him alive when they found out he willingly attended a Pilates class. Yet somehow? He didn't care, not even a little. Because throughout the entire class, every time he'd wanted to quit, he'd looked over and seen you. Smiling. Laughing. Thriving. Happy. And apparently that was enough to make him push through burning muscles, wounded pride, and an instructor who was definitely some kind of sadist in brightly colored workout clothes.

As you gathered your things and reached for his hand, Dean intertwined your fingers without hesitation, thumb brushing across your knuckles as you walked toward the exit together. Maybe he'd never admit that he'd actually enjoyed Pilates. But if it meant spending mornings with you? Dean would survive the teasing, the early alarms, hell, he'd even drink your radioactive green juice. Because when it came to you, Dean was hopelessly, irrevocably gone. And honestly, he wouldn't have it any other way.

it wasn’t new to have patients rerouted. but it wasn’t something they’d ask for. especially by someone this kid's age. if his condition was worse, they would’ve taken him to Presby. no hesitation. 

“his name?”

“Henry— didn’t get the last. we were trying to get his heart rate down, his adrenaline was high.“ the medic explained. “besides his request to come here, he didn’t talk much after that. I assumed he was still in shock from the pain.”

“and the neighbors didn’t say anything else? where his parents are or where they work?” robby needed something. the medic shook his head. “not to me.” his head turning over to his partner. “Pzsonyi— did the couple tell you anything about the parents?”

“said they were doctors.”

and he was adamant about coming here.

“that should narrow it down. not like we have a hospital full of those—” robby said sarcastically. “we got it from here.”

robby turned and walked towards where the nurses were. the blonde already fixed on him as he approached.

“you good?” dana asked as she watched over the rim of her glasses.

Robby’s hands went behind his neck as he blew out a breath. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

he then looked over his shoulder where the boy was across the floor of the department. “the 11 year old patient that just came in” his head gestured back. Dana’s eyes following. “would you be able to work your magic and get his emergency contacts? came in without anyone. according to the EMT, his parents work here.”

the charge nurse's eyes pinched a bit. 

"they work here?" 

Robby shrugged. “I’m not for sure,” Dana gave him a look, rolling her eyes.

“one of the medics said his parents were doctors and the other told me the boy was insistent on coming here. It’s a long shot but I could only assume.” robby scratched his beard. Dana gave him a nod. “I’ll see what I can do.”

His hands clapped together, grasping one another as he gave her a tight lipped smile. A silent thank you before he turned to leave. heading over to where Henry was.

Jesse was with him. A smile on the boy's face despite his damp cheeks. 

“Henry, right?” robby started as he grabbed some gloves. blue eyes stared back at him, then a nod. a quiet ‘yes sir’ given.

it was a small movement. the corner of Robby’s mouth lifted up. 

Respectful.

his attention turned to Jesse. “500 mg of acetaminophen, 350mg of ibuprofen. and let’s get him in for xrays.” Jesse nodded as he gets the meds ready.

“We’re gonna get a hold of your mom and dad, Henry– let them know you’re here.” robby circled back to the patient. The attending watching. The boy’s lips parting before licking the bottom. almost as if it was on the tip of his tongue and he decided against it. “Okay.” 

“I hear they’re doctors here, any chance I might–”

“Robinavitch.” Dana peeked in. Robby glanced up. The charge nurse's head tipped the other way. “a word.”

Robby gave Henry’s shoulder squeeze. “I’ll be right back, in the mean time, Jesse here,” hand motioning to the tall male nurse, “aaaand” Robby’s head swiveled. eyes catching two of his students.

Student and first year resident.

“Whitaker. Ogilvie.” 

the two turned when they heard their names. Robby signaling them over.

“Dr. Whitaker and Dr. Ogilvie,”

“Student Doctor.” James interrupted with a finger up. Robby paused and nodded. “Right– are going to assist.” 

“Dr. Robby, we don’t–” whitaker’s words fell short as the older man delivered a shoulder pat. “You got this.” gloves snapped off as he sailed out. The blonde was standing in the hall with pressed lips, tablet held to her chest, and an amused glint in her eyes.

“Did you work your magic?” 

A smile stretched across Dana’s face. “I feel like you’re gonna regret asking me.” she laughed. “I did— and you’re never gonna guess who mom and dad are.” 

Robby eyed her. “Who?”

Dana flickered her sight a few feet away to where the boys were. her finger pointing to the younger one who sat on the hospital bed.

“you’ve got a baby shark in there.”

Robby blinked. then let out a laugh.

not a nervous one and not an amused one. It was one someone gave when they were just given information they couldn't fathom. Or really, didn’t like. Almost like not wanting to hear what they were just told even if they asked for it and now they were suffering the consequences.

that kind of laugh. 

“of course they are.” hands rubbing his eyes as he fell back onto the heels of his feet. “Are we sure?” he squinted as he crossed his arms over his chest.

Dana grinned. “Oh, I’m sure.” 

“Did you already let them know?” robby asked.

“And what? risk the chance of there being blood in the water because I waited to tell them that their son was down here. What are you fucking kidding me? Of course I told them.” the charge nurse gave him a wide look as if not believing he really just asked a stupid question. 

He was a man afterall. 

Robby blew out a breath. “Fuck– okay. When are they–” his question answered when you guys approach. 

“Park.”

It was rare to see you both down here at the same time. Not that it never happened, it was just unexpected. The interns said it felt wrong. like seeing a shark itself in the shallow waters.

You hadn’t even acknowledged robby; passing right by. Brendon barely sparing a nod. 

“Better not have anyone incompetent with my son.” 

Henry looked up when he heard his dad. A wide smile stretching when he saw his mom. 

Your persona was washed off. Not at all caring that you were completely exposed. Out in the open. Your hand caressing his cheek, his smaller one on top. 

“Are you okay?” a quiet ask. eyes watching him as he nods. “I’m okay.” 

A satisfied smile before you press a kiss to his forehead. Squeezing his cheeks in your grasp.

Whitaker and Ogilvie just stared. One not wanting to interrupt and probably too scared to do so, while the other stood with wide eyes. His mouth parted like a fish out of water.

Brendon pressed another kiss to the other side of his head. before his eyes lift to his boy's foot. an ice pack resting on his ankle.

“is he on meds?” Brendon asked as he leaned up. his hand brushing against his son’s hair before pulling gloves out of his scrub pocket. snapping them on.

“500 mg of acetaminophen– 350mg of ibuprofen.” Robby clarified. arms crossed as he nodded.

“iced the area to—” “I’m not blind.”

Whitaker closed his mouth.

“dad.” brendons eyes caught his sons. the boy giving him an unimpressed look that you knew he inherited from the man in front of him. “don’t interrupt.”

your suppress a smile. his words sounded familiar.

brendon cleared his throat. “finish.” gaze on the r1 for a split second before he diverts it.

Whitaker looks to robby, then looks to you then the young boy. he knows now how Ogilvie felt. only this time it was a little more reassuring knowing the kid had his back. he didn’t know if that made him feel better or worse.

“We uh— just iced to reduce the swelling, elevation above heart level. bp now, 105/61, HR 89, 99 on room….” his eyes finding Henry’s. the youngest park giving him a thumbs up.

“xray?” you asked from the side. "dr. robby already had them in order.” whitaker verbalised.

“we’re still waiting to get him in.” the attending intervened quietly. you slowly peeled yourself away from your son. "I'll be back— make sure dad doesn't kill anyone." you joke drily as you leave.

it earns a giggle from the kid.

Ogilvie, who had been surprisingly quiet, turns to where you just left. eyes wide as his head spins. “was she being serious—”

"It was just one time." Henry shrugs.

"One?” Whitaker and Ogilvie echo. Robby’s lips pursing as he watches in amusement. head shaking at how easy it was to reel them in.

the kids lip lifts up at the corner.

“I’m kidding— it was my mom.”

Brendon laughs loudly.

As they’d watch you raise a brow at Brendon before huffing a quiet, “Don’t be such an arrogant asshole”

Only to see you send him a wink before he’d leave. 

Watching how his eyes would soften at the sight of you. 

It had all begun to make sense now. As those in the Pitt would pick on the little things. 

The little facts that alluded to your connection with Brendon. To the point they couldn’t believe how they were so blind to your relationship.  

How you’d never speak badly of him when he wasn’t around. 

How he’d check in with you every now and again. 

How your exact coffee order would appear just when you needed it. 

By all accounts you were overjoyed and so completely fulfilled by your home life. 

It simply left your coworkers wondering…

How did you manage to make Park the Shark so soft hearted for you...and why?

Whilst going over some notes, sipping on your coffee, Santos had wandered up to you. Leaning upon the desk as she peered at you. 

Those passing, stop by as they hear the question leave her lips.

Curiosity getting the better of them. 

“So…why Shark?” 

You glanced up at her, arching your brow in question. A little taken aback to see Santos, Javadi, Mohan and Whitaker all looking at you. 

“Uh–”

“Yeah,” Javadi nods, before asking, “If he’s so considerate why do you fight with him during consults?” before muttering, “Not that we blame you for that…”

You let out a soft laugh. 

Ever since the revelation you had been fielding questions like these. 

Left and right. 

“Well–that’s just kind of the way our relationship started back in college…” you had said. A soft smile gracing your features as you get taken in by the memory of how you had first met. 

…

Brendon Park wasn’t smooth by any means. 

In fact, when you had first met him. 

He was all jagged edges and rough remarks. 

You had only known him through word of mouth, through mutual friends, using the term friend loosely. You had crossed over a few times through shared classes. 

But had never once had a conversation with him. 

Always trying to be the best. 

Always with something to prove. 

Keeping everyone at an arms length, at a distance. 

Due to his drive to be the best. He failed to remember to be nice. 

He saw no benefit to it unless it was being nice to the professors and demonstrators.

But even that didn’t save them from his steely gaze at times. 

Most conversations that revolved around him wouldn’t go any further than simply describing Park as cold blooded. 

Ruthless. 

Blunt. 

Earning him the name Shark. 

A name that would stick with him through the years. 

And in the midst of med school. You did not have the time or energy to put up with his bullshit. 

Never once thinking meeting him would lead you to the life you had now. 

If someone had told you years ago. 

That the man you had called an arrogant asshole upon your first meeting just before being forced to work together on a project. 

You would’ve brushed them off. 

You would’ve told them they had to be fucking lying. 

That there would be no way in hell you’d ever be with a guy like Brendon…

Disgruntled as you worked alongside him. How he’d be curt in his responses. Clipped. Brusque. 

But little by little you had chipped away at his steely facade. 

The way you’d make little jokes, for no one's benefit but your own. 

Little references slipping into the conversation, even if he didn’t understand them, you’d simply laugh at your own words. Amused as a smile would form on your features. 

How you were so unapologetically you. 

Fearless. 

Smart. 

Funny. 

And beautiful. 

I can't stop this feeling

Deep inside of me

Girl, you just don't realize

What you do to me

Whatever it was. 

You had made his head spin. Had made him crave your company. 

You had him hooked. 

To the point that Brendon. 

Who usually had nerves of steel, were now as brittle as the bones he was aspiring to fix. 

Had asked you out once the project was completed. 

Not ready for his time with you to be over.

Hopeful. Watching you. Waiting for what was to come. 

…only for you to squander it, not cruelly. Not in any way menacing. 

Just a plain and simple turn down. 

Stating that. His cold nature was something you couldn’t imagine being with. 

And instead of pestering you. 

Instead of insisting it wouldn’t be an issue. 

He had taken it well. 

…

“You rejected Park?” Mohan asked. The others hang onto your every word. As more and more began to listen in. 

“Well, yeah–he was kind of a douche back then–” you shrugged. 

Santos scoffed, sharing a look with Whitaker before meeting your eye once more, “Back then?” 

“Trust me, the way Brendon is now is nothing compared to the way he used to be,” You huff out a small laugh. 

Knowing full well he only kept up the clipped facade when coming down, a running gag that had circulated amongst those from the surgical department. 

Simply enjoying poking a little fun at those in the ED. 

Knowing full well that within the OR, Brendon was professional as can be. Was thoughtful and never once demeaning with his immediate colleagues. 

“Anyway–he took what I said seriously…” you continued your story. 

…

Had instead taken your words to heart. 

Had taken what you said. 

And channeled that into being better. Into recognising his own patterns. Into noticing how his brash behaviour was hurting his own life. Was stalling him from achieving. 

In trying to be the best, he failed to be good. 

This wasn’t to say he was instantly nicer. Instantly the friendly easy going guy. He was simply trying to be better. 

Life had carried on. Assessments came and went. Coffees guzzled to try and pull through those all nighters. Hours poured over studying. 

When one evening, while Brendon had been walking home after picking up a pizza, ready to get stuck into studying once more. 

He had stopped short. 

Catching a glimpse of you seated beneath the moonlight. Your face turned up to the sky, eyes shut as you breathed in the crisp cool night air. 

Usually Brendon wouldn’t fuss. 

Wouldn’t think anything of it. Would simply keep walking, mind his own business…

But for some reason. 

As though pulled by the magnetism of you. 

His feet moved. Until stopping before you. 

“Do you mind if I sit?” his voice deep, rounded off with a slight hesitance. 

Blinking as you met his eye, head tilted in question. 

And for whatever reason.

One Brendon wasn’t willing to question. 

You nodded wordlessly, shuffling over slightly to let him sit next to you. 

Any sense of arrogance had long since melted from his demeanour. Something you had noticed over the weeks. 

How he had tried to be better around his peers. Actively learning instead of ridiculing – unless he was toe-to-toe with an absolute idiot. 

You had noticed it all. 

And maybe that was why, as he opened the box of pizza, asking so gently “Do you want some?” Not expecting anything in return. 

Maybe that was why you hadn’t stormed away. 

Why you had instead stayed seated beside him. 

Talking mindlessly. 

About anything and everything that crossed your minds. 

Just letting the hours pass by in your company. 

A friendship had begun. 

Whilst you wagged a finger in his face, half heartedly joking, “Now don’t go catching feelings for me” 

…Not for one moment thinking that it would be you who would be catching feelings for him…

Soon those jokes you used to make for your own amusements now managed to make a laugh rumble from within his chest. 

With evenings spent studying together, soon shifting to binge nights as you made him sit through your favourite films, even if they were random animated children's films Brendon wouldn't have as his first pick.

Like why was there a movie about a fish pretending he kills sharks? and what is with the Mafia shark mob?...

You had made him watch through your treasured box sets. And he watched happily beside you.

Brendon might not have understood it all. But he enjoyed it nonetheless.

Soon he began to understand the references you made. 

Beginning to make his own. 

Just to feel a warmth bloom in his chest from the sight of your smile. 

In shared classes you’d both begun to save a seat for the other. 

During those early morning lectures he would be in the prime spot, with your exact coffee order waiting for you. 

A gesture he brushed off as the least he could do. 

How the gentle brush of his fingers against yours whilst he passed the coffee to you would send sparks through you. 

Yes. 

It was true. 

That the very person you had once deemed as an arrogant asshole upon your first meeting. Was now etching himself into your heart.  

Growing closer and closer with you, revealing the most intimate details of his life. Why he felt like he had so much to prove. Why he felt the need to keep everyone at arm’s length. 

He let down his guard. 

Letting you see a side to him that was vulnerable and open.

It was a true privilege.

Being able to be his safe space. 

With his step into being vulnerable, he had made you feel comfortable to let down your walls. Had made you feel supported. And never judged. 

…

“So did he ask you out again?” Javadi interrupted. 

Whilst Santos groaned, “Let her talk–”

You chuckled slightly, amused by their deep intrigue. 

“Neither of us really knew where to go from there–I had already clearly stated that I wasn’t interested. So he didn’t want to ask me in case it came off as pressuring, and I can be very stubborn. Especially back then. So we were at a bit of a stand off.”

“So then what happened?” Whitaker probed. Fully enthralled by your story. 

“It had all changed when we went to this party…” 

…

You can’t say that a college party was something you loved going to. 

In houses too small, with far too many people. 

Cheap perfume in the air, swirled into the scent of beer and the heat from moving bodies. 

All conversation drowned beneath the loud beating music. 

Your senses flooded by the sheer overwhelming amount of things happening around you. 

It was safe to say you preferred a nice night in, curled up onto the couch with whatever show you were fixated on at the time playing on tv. 

But your friends had insisted you come. 

And in turn you had insisted on dragging Brendon to the party. 

Leading to you, nursing a red cup filled with whatever beer Brendon had managed to snag for you. Just trying not to throw it up with each sip. 

Friends now lost in the crowd. 

Lights dim as brightly coloured flashes strobe around the room. 

You stand beside him, making little jokes as you people watch those around you. 

“Didn’t realise Scotty was such a fan of Irish river dancing,” he joked, voice low, eyes scanning the crowd to point out things he thought you’d find funny. 

The alcohol makes your laughs louder, makes your smile wider. 

And makes your eyes wander. 

Tracing the features of Brendon’s face. 

Was he always this handsome…

Noticing the sharpness of his jaw. 

The clarity of his blue eyes. 

The fluffiness of his hair atop his head. 

…so fluffy you just wanted to reach out and card your fingers through those brown locks–

“Heyyy, Y/N” 

Your attention was snapped away from admiring Brendon. 

“You’re-you’re looking good tonight”

Adam, you think his name was–you couldn’t quite remember. Maybe it was Alan? Whatever, this guy you think you shared a physiology class with had sauntered up to you. Pretty sure that his name was Adam. 

His eyes scan you from head to toe. With a small lick of his lips. Wolfish smile upon his lips.

His intentions, well and truly out there plain to see. 

Brendon had tensed up beside you. 

Whilst you looked at the guy expectantly. Unamused, brows settling into knitted confusion, “Can I help you?” 

Tone so uninterested. 

You might as well have said, fuck off. 

“Why’re you hanging out with this asshole?” he had jabbed a finger to Brendon’s chest, “I can show you a better time–might even make your pretty face smile”

He had grinned so widely, words slurring at the edges. With a confidence he had no right to possess. 

Brendon had raised a brow. 

It took everything within him to not simply slap the guy’s hand away. To not rip into him and bite back. 

But he clenched his fist, he buried his discontent. 

Eyes flickering down to you. 

Not once anticipating your next move. 

Shoving your cup into Brendon’s hand, you stalked up to the guy, jabbing a finger to his chest. Your words punctuated with each jab. 

“Watch what you say you shithead,” you said sharply.

As the guy practically growled beneath your comments. 

…

“You didn’t!?” Santos said in utter shock. 

Whilst you nod with slight smug satisfaction, “Oh yes I did” 

“He sounds like an asshole,” she added. 

“He was,” you agreed, before saying, “Now where was I?...”

“The guy was totally about to do something he’d regret,” Dana offered, passing by, without looking up from what she was doing. 

Amused by your story, even if it wasn’t the first time he had heard it, it never failed to make her grin. 

Snapping your fingers, “That’s right, he called me a–”

…

“Fucking bitch–I’m just saying you could do better than Shark–all he fucking does is brood–”

You shove him back, anger bubbling through you, unable to keep a lid on it as the cheap beer weakens your inhibitions. 

“He’s a lot fucking nicer than you!” You retaliated. 

And just as you’re about ready to throw hands with the guy, Brendon’s strong arms curl around you, pulling you away, while others hold back the other guy. 

You struggle against his grasp, shouting over your shoulder back to the asshole. 

More than ready to finish the fight that had begun to brew. 

Senses coming to a shock as the muggy evening air envelopes you. The sense that summer was beginning to set in. The way Brendon’s arms hold you so completely. 

So assuringly. 

Calming your senses. The rushing of anger coursing through your blood now fading, morphing into something different. 

Something you had worked so hard to ignore over the past few weeks.  

When you hold me

In your arms so tight

You let me know

Everything's alright

Brendon’s hands shift, letting you go slightly only to clasp your shoulders, ducking slightly to meet your eyes. 

“Okay, calm down spitfire,” he said soothingly, not condescendingly, just steady. Before asking, “You okay?” 

Eyes softening as he gazes at you. Concern filtering into his features. 

Nerves set on fire. Fizzling beneath your skin. 

Whether that was from the adrenaline from being about 2 seconds from punching the other guy. 

From the alcohol in your system. 

Or from the way that with one look from Brendon had made you feel so lightheaded and dizzy. 

For any number of reasons you had leaned in. Eyes fluttering shut as your lips collided with his. Noses bumping slightly. 

His eyes widening for just a fraction. 

You had caught him off guard. 

Completely stunned by your action. 

And before you could pull away, his hands drifted to cup your cheek, whilst the other traced around to the small of your back, pulling you closer to him. His eyes closing as he soaks in the feel of you. 

The scent of him invading your senses, subtle and yet so addicting. 

The slight saltiness of his lips. 

Your hands shifting to reach around his neck, threading through the hairs on the nape of his neck. Just as soft as you had imagined.

Finally acting on the impulse you had pushed aside. 

Finally acting on the desire to kiss him. To cross that line between friendship and the something more you were craving from him.   

I'm hooked on a feeling

I'm high on believing

That you're in love with me

Pulling away breathless. 

Barely parted, mere inches from each other’s face, your eyes peered into his. 

“I think I’ll take up the offer on a date if it still stands?” you asked cheekily, a glint in your eye. 

While a smile curled at his lips, pressing a soft kiss to the soft skin of your cheeks, huskily mumbling with such revere, “The offer never left” 

…

“...And that was how Brendon and I got together,” you said with satisfaction. 

“I did not expect that,” Javadi stated, eyes wide. 

All of their mouths agape. 

Stunned. 

Mohan furrowed her brow, “You mean to tell me that you rejected him only to become friends with him and then practically get into a fist fight over him?”

“Uh yeah–but I like the way I tell the story just a bit better,” you remarked with a smile. 

Langdon comments, “I would never have imagined it was you with the short temper”

Throwing your hands up in slight defense, “Hey, you know. Nobody’s perfect. And if I can add that that guy definitely had it coming” 

Before they can dig any further you’re all pulled away as Robby stops to stand by you, sending everyone a raised brow, a silent question as to what they were all doing. 

Causing them to disperse immediately beneath his gaze. 

Before he turns his eyes to you. 

“What did you do to make practically the entire ER stop?” he asked, a slight twitch at the corners of his lips. 

Shrugging, with a grin you replied, “Just told them how I met Brendon.”

He clicks his tongue in understanding, “Ah yes. How you called him an asshole upon first meeting?”

Nodding you tidied up the notes, averting your gaze. 

“And did you mention why you called him an asshole?” he asked pointedly. 

Feigning ignorance your replied, “I don’t know what you’re talking about”

“I distinctly remember Park telling me that you had called him an arrogant asshole because you had rounded the corner only to bump into him spilling coffee all over yourself” 

You bit the inside of your cheek. 

“And that you practically seethed at him…even if it wasn’t really his fault”

Not once meeting his eyes. 

“Did you happen to say that?” 

“What they don’t know won’t hurt them,” you retorted. 

“Right,” he nodded in false agreement. 

Whilst you claimed, finally looking up at him, “If you’d have been there you would know that it was his fault”

He huffed out a laugh with a shake of his head, “And you called him the asshole”

You sighed, muttering lowly, “Fucking liar”

Before shooting him a glare, “Don’t even think about telling the others–if you do, then you’re not invited to the next barbecue we host,” you threatened. 

“Oh, I’m so scared,” he mocks lightly. 

“Fine, your loss,” you said innocently, “I’ll just have to tell the kids that Uncle Robby just didn’t want to see them.”

“You wouldn’t”

“Oh yes I fucking would,” you smirked. Full well knowing that you had won. 

“This ain’t over,” he says pointedly before walking away. 

With a satisfied grin, “I think it is” 

Dana stops to stand by you with a knowing look, “You wouldn’t do that”

Laughing lightly, you whisper to her, “Yeah, I wouldn’t. But Robby doesn’t know that”

She shakes her head with a laugh, before patting your shoulder. 

Smiling softly, you went back to work. Comforted by the memory of how you met your now husband. 

It may have been a rough start. 

But with time it had completely softened and settled into a peaceful comfort. 

Like a sharp piece of glass, with pointy edges and rough surfaces, dropped in the midst of the ocean, as the waves rolled over it, as time passed, it had polished over time. 

Before becoming a piece of sea glass so smooth it would make anyone look at it in awe of its glinting beauty. 

That was the way yours and Brendon’s relationship was. 

You had made it through life’s toughest problems. And had come out stronger together. 

As Brendon stops by at the end of your shift, his hand instantly grasps at your bag shedding its weight from your shoulders, while his other hand moves to hold yours, lifting it to his lips with a gentle kiss. 

Your heart melted once more by his thoughtfulness. 

His consideration and kindness. 

All reserved for you. 

And the three little sweethearts waiting for you both at home. 

Wrapped up in a mass of hugs and happy hellos, whilst Brendon lifts both Frankie and Finn, bright giggles ringing out in the house. 

While you wrap up Lenny in your arms. 

How serious Brendon took the bedtime routine. Making sure each of your kids were doted over and given his full attention. 

That they knew how loved they were. 

Reading them a bed time story before tucking them into bed, as you both press a goodnight kiss to their foreheads. Murmuring softly as you wish them pleasant dreams. 

And as the quiet of the night would embrace you both, Brendon would sigh, arms curling around you pressing sweet kisses to your face. Sighing as he breathed you in. 

Having missed you. 

Even if you had only been apart for a day. 

He always longed to have you close, to only be within arm’s reach of you, just so that he could show you just how much he loved you.

Because his love for you was endless. As deep as the sea. 

And so unbelievably grateful that you had given him a second chance all those years ago.

Now in a home so filled with love, laughter and joy. 

Neither of you could fathom that it had all begun by you calling him an arrogant asshole…

An arrogant asshole who had become the love of your life.

It was funny the way things worked out. 

And you wouldn’t have it any other way.

…

Well, not exactly. 

You might’ve enjoyed landing at least one hit on Adam. 

But everything else. 

You wouldn’t change a single thing.

Park the Shark, well and truly had your heart.

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed. It was super fun exploring more for these two!! (I am now inspired to possibly write a third part, going a little more into Brendon being a good dad to his trio of kids - definitely picturing playing tea party vibes) I just loved the idea of it sort of being enemies to friends to lovers just ughhh!! (Dana and Robby have totally heard this story before and they find it amusing each and every time) loved writing this one so I hope you enjoyed! (May or may not have had hooked on a feeling stuck in my brain whilst writing🫠) Let me know what you think! ✨ Comments, Reblogs and Likes are welcomed and appreciated 💕 Feel free to check out my Pitt Masterlist here!