talia's mirage

Joel turns, the dimple-deepening, eye-crinkling smile that makes you melt even after all these years lighting his face. “Hey, baby, happy anniversary,” he greets.

You look past him, at the progress laid across the worktable. “How’s it going?”

“Good, just have to finish some of the detailing on the lid.” He holds up a piece of wood, turning it to show the grooves of what he’s been carving. “See, I’ve got the beveling mostly done, but the chamfer edges need a finer grit, and I can’t rush that part.”

You still don’t know what chamfer means. You’ve heard him say it a dozen times, and each time it sounds more like a type of wine than some sort of woodworking term. But the way his voice sounds, all low and assured when he talks about the wood, like he truly understands it, makes you want to listen to him forever.

“Then I gotta double-check the rabbet joints. If I don’t get the fit right, the whole thing’ll warp once any type ‘a humidity hits it. And then JJ’s gonna be without a toybox.

JJ.

Patrollers had found him three springs ago, left in the car off an old, abandoned highway. Barely even walking at the age of around two years old. You had been called into the clinic on that day, your and Joel’s second anniversary, to assess him. He was so small and helpless then, feverish, weak, and malnourished. Dina had been tasked with taking care of him at the clinic, bonding with him in that maternal way as she nursed him back to health, and she just couldn’t imagine her life without him. Now, the almost-five-year-old is the light of her and Ellie’s life, as well as yours and Joel’s.

You walk over to your handsome husband, brushing the more-gray hair from his forehead, pressing your lips against his warm skin. The memory shows only for a second: Joel’s battered and bloodied body dying in the street. A stranger then, just a patient you had to save. And now his hands are covered in sawdust, and he’s building a toybox for a boy who calls him Grampa. It’s a miracle. “He’s going to love it,” you say softly. “It’s perfect.”

He tilts his head, looks at you with those big, brown eyes of his. “Yeah?”

“Of course,” you assure. “You made it for him… and we all know Grampa Joel can do no wrong.”

Joel’s face softens, those furrowed eyebrows of his loosening. He sets the toybox lid down, runs a calloused thumb over the edge he just smoothed. “Still not sure if I like the dinosaurs on the front.”

“What’s wrong with them?” you ask, wrapping your arms around his shoulders, resting your head on one.

“Look a bit foolish, don’t they?” “They don’t. JJ’s gonna lose his mind. He’ll probably try to sleep in the thing.”

The rumble of Joel’s chuckle travels through your arms draped around him. “Gonna be breakin’ all the rules just like his mama.”

“And he’s going to be just as stubborn as his grampa,” you say, kissing his cheek. “Now, come on, we have a party to set up.”

—-

Joel’s yard is alive with the happy shouts of children, the casual conversations of adults, and the cheerful chaos of a five-year-old’s birthday party. Today is your fifth anniversary, a day that once would have been shared only by you two. But this is the life you’ve built, and JJ’s birthday happily takes precedence.

Ellie’s over by the wooden playhouse Joel built for JJ, hands on her hips, smiling as she watches her little boy and Benji play monkey-in-the-middle with Benji’s little sister, Stevie. They’re all shrieking with laughter, and Joel takes all of it in.

When Ellie watches JJ, he knows the look. It’s one he recognizes from somewhere he’ll never return to. He’s had that same look. The kind of look that only shows up when you’re watching something you’d die for. She laughs at something Maria tells her, and she looks so goddamn young and so goddamn old all at once.

He remembers the night Ellie and Dina told him. Him and you, sitting across from them at the dining table. The way Ellie’s voice wavered, like she knew she was handing him something fragile.

“We want to keep him,” she’d said. “We talked about it. We want—we want to be his parents.”

Joel sat wide-eyed, watching the way Dina had squeezed Ellie’s hand. His heart had cracked open, but it wasn’t painful. It was something else. Something that felt like a beautiful, hopeful new beginning that feels rare in this world.

“You sure?” he’d asked. It’s what you ask when someone tells you they’re about to love something that could be taken away.

Ellie had nodded the way she always does when her mind is made up.

“We’re sure,” Dina had said.

And that had been that. The next day, Joel started on the toddler bed, and you began knitting a blanket with his initials, JJ, in bright blue.

He never once thought he’d be standing in his own yard on a spring afternoon, watching Ellie’s son chase a ball across the grass. He’d taught her how to shoot a rifle, how to clean it, how to hold it steady when her hands were shaking. Saved her from a man in a hospital who wanted to cut her open for the sake of a cure that never came. He heard her screams and pleas to get up, to survive. He’d made it halfway across the country with her, carried her through snow and fire and blood and confessions, and he’d done it all with little thought to it, because he loved her.

It was all worth it.

You walk over, in one of your light, spring dresses, a pale green, flower-filled soft fabric that falls just below your knees. You’re smiling at him, and when he grins back, he knows he looks like a goofy fool still head-over-heels for his wife, even after all of these years.

“I think we throw a good party,” you say, finding that perfect crook of yours as he wraps his arm around you. “The kids are having fun.”

“Mm, it is,” he agrees, kissing the crown of your head, breathing in the sweet smell of you, happiness, and spring.

JJ runs across the grass, Benji and Stevie hot on his heels, they’re both covered in grass stains and dirt. JJ trips over his own feet, flies and falls into the dirt. Joel’s heart lurches for a second before the kid pops back up, laughs, and keeps running.

“Tough guy,” you say. “Just like his Grampa.”

Presents are before the cake, and Joel watches, your arm wrapped around him. Ellie sits cross-legged with JJ in her lap. The boy oohs and ahhs at every gift he gets, even if it’s a half-filled box of crayons someone was lucky enough to scavenge. The toy box sits in the corner of the porch, wrapped in an old quilt. He got it done right before the party, needing it to be perfect as he sanded the edges one more time. Both the T. rex and Triceratops on the front are carved, complete with horns and tiny arms. Dina pushes the quilt-wrapped chest forward, saving his gift for last. Joel doesn’t know why he’s nervous about it… there are dinosaurs on it, of course the kid’s going to love it.

JJ tears at the quilt, and Dina and Ellie help him with soft directions. The toybox shows itself, honeyed wood shimmering in the sunlight. JJ stops in his tracks, palms flat against the top of it as he assesses the carvings of his two favorite dinosaurs. He claps and starts giggling, bouncing in Ellie’s lap.

Joel feels the relief flow through his whole body. He double-checked every pivot and edge, sanded it down uncountable times… he would’ve thrown the whole thing out and started again if he didn’t think it was perfect.

Ellie lifts her head, and Joel thinks he sees tears brimming in her eyes before she blinks them away. She sends him a silent thanks in the way she looks at him, then looks down at JJ. Joel nods back, with something that feels like pride and a wish that he could’ve done a thousand more things for her, for all the years of her childhood lost to FEDRA.

The kids are back to playing in the yard with all of JJ’s new presents as you and Dina walk out on the porch, a large, lopsided cake in Dina’s hands, homemade by you and her. It’s not nearly as well done as what Seth would make, but there’s love in every sweet ingredient. It’s perfect.

Dina gets a small smudge of frosting on her wrist, and she doesn’t notice. Joel watches you reach over and wipe it off for her, casual like it’s something you’ve done a hundred times.

Family. That’s what that is.

He’s loved seeing your bond with Dina strengthen and turn into something just as unbreakable as his and Ellie’s bond. You took her under your wing, showed her the ways of the clinic, and now she’s a full-fledged doctor, in whatever sense the apocalypse can make of the title.

JJ’s family surrounds him as he blows out his five candles, and when he closes his eyes to make a wish, Joel’s sure the boy’s wishing for something as simple as a new toy truck or maybe a different episode of Bob the Builder on VHS. The luck of the kid, growing up behind these walls and knowing nothing else now besides a warm home, two loving parents, and a comfortable bed.

—-

You collapse on the couch next to Joel once all the dishes are put away, and the madness of the birthday celebration has quieted down to just some leftover handmade streamers and the birthday banner you’re too tired to take down.

“Well, I think this was a pretty good party,” you say, sinking into the cushions, head finding the familiar groove of his shoulder.

Joel hums a low, happy sound, his arm coming around you. You can almost feel the sunbaked warmth of today still on him. “And a good anniversary.”

You sit together in the beautiful shared silence for a while, letting the hush of the night take over, the only sound present is the tick of the clock and the swish of Jefferson’s tail hanging off of his cat tree. The whole house smells like frosting and cherry blossoms that have started to drop their petals in the yard.

“You know what,” Joel rumbles against your ear. “This wasn’t how I planned to spend our fifth anniversary, but—”

You tilt your head up to look at him. “It was perfect.”

He smiles, and the golden lamplight catches the silver that threads through his dark hair, the lines at the corners of his eyes, the softness in his dark brown eyes that now lives there permanently. “Every day with you is perfect, every single day,” he says, looking at you like you’re the one who made it all happen.

The feeling Joel Miller has always been able to give you- that immediate race of your heart, the butterflies that swarm in your stomach- explodes. You turn to him fully, your hand coming up to cup the raspy side of his face, thumb tracing the heart patch at his jaw.

You lean in, kiss him, slow at first, the way you’ve kissed him a thousand times before, and yet it never gets old, never loses that spark. His hand comes up to cradle the back of your head, and he deepens the kiss. Your mouth opens for him, and your body answers him like it always does, like it’s the only thing in the world that will ever make sense, because it does. Because he’s Joel Miller, and you’re his.

His fingers curl into the soft skin at the nape of your neck, pushing your lips firmer against his, his tongue seeking into your mouth. A soft, wanting moan escapes you, and he swallows it down, like he’s starving for you. He’s always starving for you.

You’re starving too. You move, swing your leg over his lap, and drape yourself over him.

“Baby,” he groans against your mouth, his hands finding your hips, gripping you through the thin fabric of your dress.

You straddle, then press down, just so you can feel him through the layers. Hard, thick, straining against his jeans already, even after a long day like today.

“Five years,” you whisper, rocking your hips down, earning you a hiss against your lips and thick fingertips digging into you.

“Five years,” he echoes.

You kiss him again, tasting the cup of coffee he just had, and the remnants of the small slice of leftover birthday cake you split in the kitchen. Your hands push under the hem of his shirt, palms sliding up.

Joel pulls away, eyes gone inky with desire, staring into yours. “Wanna do this in our bed, not on the couch.”

You nod, already sliding off his lap and helping him up. He stands with a grunt, and you lead him up the stairs, shucking your dress off at the landing, your bra in the hallway just in front of your office filled with medical journals and herbs, and your panties just outside the bedroom you share with Joel.

The bed is warm when you lie atop it, bare and ready for whatever pleasure your husband wants to gift you. Joel’s eyes sear your already heated body; he stands at the foot of the bed, fingers flicking open his belt and the fastening of his jeans. He’s studying you like he still can’t quite believe it, that you’re real. “You’re mine,” he gruffs.

You’ve never doubted that. Watching his hands move through each button of his shirt, you assure him, “I’ve always been yours.”

Clothes fall to the floor, flannel and denim pooling in a heap; the bright moonlight gilds Joel in a silver brilliance, the scars of his body glowing in the light as he makes his way towards you. He leans over the bed, hand running along your body. “Pretty thing,” he says, all rough and full of awe. “Always so pretty.”

His fingers trail higher, sliding between your thighs. “Joel,” you moan, shameless in the way your legs spread wide open for him, and it makes his eyes flash even darker. There’s no bashfulness in you anymore, not when the man you love knows every inch of your body, not after all you’ve lived through together.

There’s no rush in the way he moves. It’s an almost lazy exploration of pulling pleasure out of you. He’s so, so gentle with you, in the way he spreads you, two fingers parted, pressing them through your folds, feeling, feeling how slick and ready you are. You’re already clenching around nothing, needy for him, hungry for the fullness only he can give you.

“Joel,” you beg, desperation dripping in the way you moan his name.

His fingers start to circle you, and your hips tilt up automatically, greedy and impatient, always needing more from the man you love. He hovers over you, folding his body down across the bed, one palm pressed into the mattress beside your hip, the other between your legs, lazily stroking, almost teasing in the slow way the pads of his fingers drag through your wet, needy cunt. You open even wider for him, letting him see all of you in the moonlight, your limbs restless, almost shivering. Dark eyes drink all of you in, and you stare right back, mouth parted, eyes open wide, unable to look away even as the heat starts to pour through your body.

He watches you writhe and quiver for him, cocky grin glinting across his lips. “That’s it,” he husks, ragged and growled, “such a good girl for me.” His thumb drags across your clit, slow and greedy and circling, and you can’t help the way you grind against his hand, begging for more. “M’pretty wife,” he adds, and you melt and ache and arch.

The urge to feel him is too much, you reach for his cock, wrap your palm around the solid heft of him, thick and hard and heavy in your grip. He thrusts into your fist, can’t help himself, matching the roll of his fingers deep inside your cunt, back and forth, slick and slow as you stroke him. You give it to him the way you know he likes it the best, twisting your wrist, gripping his head tight just the way he loves. Joel’s head tilts back, neck strained, and an almost feral rip of your name leaves him before he snaps his head back down to look at you.

You clench around his thick fingers, and he leans over, mouthing at your throat, licking across your neck, before he bites the sensitive skin there, not sharp, but firm enough that you gasp and your hand tightens around his thick cock. You jerk him slow and steady, loving how he’s already trembling, loving that you can still make him like this. Each time your hand moves, he’s pulsing, throbbing, and when he angles his fingers in you and hits that gushy spot that makes you lose your breath, your hips lift off the mattress as you keen his name.

Tight, firm circles are pressed against your clit, and your world turns into just Joel Miller and the shattering pleasure of his hand inside you, the warmth of his body hovering over yours, and the always present grinding, hungry need shared between you.

He looks down at you, his lips parted, sweat shining on his brow. “You gonna cum for me, baby?” His voice hums through you, that low vibration that can only make you nod as your breath stutters.

“Atta girl,” he croons, thumb swirling your clit while his fingers fuck you open and wetter. You’re nothing but a frantic heartbeat, tight fist, and wet pussy when you crash into your orgasm hard. You collapse and rise over and over again, staring right into Joel’s eyes as he lets you ride your pleasure, thumb stilling against your clit, as he slowly slides his fingers in and out of your cunt.

When you finally settle down, gasping his name, heart racing, Joel pulls his fingers free and drags your slick along the heavy length of his cock. You watch, barely able to keep still, body trembling and gasping.

He grips his cock and sets the leaking tip against your lips. You open right up for him, tongue flat to take in the taste of you and him and the shared years of wanting. The hot weight of him pools heavily on your tongue when you wrap your lips around him and take him into your mouth. He fucks shallow, keeping searing eye contact as you moan around his dick. “Jesus Christ,” he grits, head tilting to the ceiling as you take him deeper and deeper, his thighs tensing under your palms. You swirl and lick, let him bob out of your mouth until you suck him back in.

There’s a grunt, Joel’s hips stutter, and he pulls free. “Baby,” he huffs. “My back is killin’ me after today.” He laughs, a little ruined, a little low.

You scoot, then coax him down till he’s flat and settled in the bed. His back is barely against the mattress before you crawl up his big, tired body and straddle him. “Comfortable?” you ask, bending down to kiss him, and he grunts an affirmative against your lips.

His tongue seeks into your mouth, hands spreading on your ass to pull you down even closer against him. You rock against him, sliding your cunt along his cock, letting the wet tease of you slip along his length. You angle yourself and can’t help the smile when the wide tip of him catches and sinks into you.

“C’mon baby,” he urges, all doe-eyed and in awe of you even after all these years. You slink yourself all the way down, gasping at how good Joel Miller always makes you feel. You rise and fall languid and savoring as he kisses you, letting the high-pitched, needy growls of his escape into your mouth. You swallow each one, answering it with a moan against his plush lips.

You move together like it’s what you’ve only ever known, your body meeting his, the shared intimacy and peace of knowing your forever in this way. When you sit up, hands bracing on his chest, nails digging into the golden warmth of Joel, you feel the beat of his heart hammering against your palm and the way it always answers to you.

He drinks you down, tracking every way your body moves for him. “Fuck, look at you,” he groans. “Most beautiful thing I ever seen.”

You’re lit by his praise and love, moving faster, grinding down, writhing and shaking, clutching his broad chest as you cum so hard you fall forward, nails digging into his skin. Joel catches your cries of his name with his mouth when he kisses you, swallowing every moan and keen he pulls from you.

The bed groans when Joel starts to fuck up into you with the power an old man like him still miraculously holds. You lean your head back, just so you can watch him fall apart for you. He’s heavy-lidded, plush lips parted as they groan your name over and over; blissed-out Joel Miller is the most gorgeous thing you’ve ever seen. He lets go of your ass only to clamp his hands on your hips, anchoring you so he can pull you down hard again and again, to take every last inch of him.

He cums with a long, guttural “fuuuuck,” fists balled tight at your hips, cock pumping and twitching inside your heat, as he loses himself in sweet, desperate pulses you can feel all the way through you.

You burrow your cheek into the warmth of his chest, listening to the hammer of his heart as his heavy hand slowly strokes your back. “Holy shit,” you gasp, and Joel chuckles a satisfied sound against your hair.

You roll off him and curl into the crook of his sweaty and sated arm, and he tucks you closer. It’s always so perfect, how easy it is to love your handsome, gruff Joel Miller. You could stay here forever, breathing in the smell of him, your home, and the fresh flowers beginning to bloom in the garden outside.

—-

The clinic is busy today. Joel steps in amongst the almost-full waiting room, nods at a few familiar faces, and turns left to take the familiar path down the hall to your office. He sits in his customary chair in front of your desk, and he waits and waits… a little too long than usual.

He peeks out of your office and catches Blake, the new nurse’s, attention. “She’s in surgery,” Blake tells him. “Complications with Mr. Lassiter’s appendix. She said it might be a while.”

Joel nods and returns back to your office, now settling into your chair, facing the door, the better to see you when you come in. Your desk is cluttered. Not messy, just lived and worked in. He picks up your notebook, leather-bound and soft, a rare find he was able to barter a couple of carvings for this past Christmas. Your name’s on the front, and he runs his thumb over the imprint of Miller.

The pages are already full of your handwriting, and he can hardly decipher it. There are whole sentences reduced to fragments he can’t parse. Perfusion adequate. Lateral incision. Diagrams are drawn, a torso with arrows, a hand with tendons mapped. There are plant names and measurements in the margins, long, complicated Latin words he couldn’t spell if it’d save his life. Each page is full of wisdom, and healing, care and dedication. He closes the notebook carefully, like it’s the most precious thing in the world. Jackson is lucky it has you. He’s lucky.

Time stretches, and Joel rests his eyes, but a busy clinic is no place for rest. He gets up, toes around your office, looking through the shelves full of books and journals. He finds a book on something called histology, flipping through it, his brain understanding not even 5% of what he’s seeing.

People pass the door, all with a place to go or things to do. Patients to exam rooms. Doctors and nurses to their next sick or injured case. But Joel doesn’t see you.

Until, finally, he hears the familiar soft, efficient cadence of your footsteps across the tile. You appear in the doorway. Sleeves shoved past your elbows, eyes a little sunken and hollow. The tired smile only comes when you see him.

"You're still here,” you say, surprise lining your tired words.

"Course I am.”

You close the door and lean against it, head tipping against the wood. "I'm sorry.”

"S’okay. Don’t apologize, baby."

“There were complications. But he’s stable now." You take a deep sigh. “His wife was crying when I updated her. It’s so hard when they cry.”

Joel stands and strides towards you, wrapping his arms around you, and you fall into him, forehead pressing against his collarbone. He smells the sweat and antiseptic on you, but underneath it there’s still the ever-present and sweet sage and vanilla.

"It’s been a long day," you whisper.

He kisses the top of your head, already feeling the way you let yourself unwind with him. He pulls back enough to look at you and meets your eyes. “You’re amazing.”

You blink. "I nearly lost him."

"But you didn't."

You softly nod, like you’re letting his words settle you.

Joel leads you to your chair, sits, and pulls you down into his lap. You fall into him willingly, melting against him.

He unwraps the zucchini bread Maria baked first. "Dessert first," he says. "You earned it."

You hum happily as he breaks off a piece and holds it to your lips. He feeds you another, and another, feeling the way you come back to life with each bite.

By the time you're both splitting the chicken sandwich, your voice already sounds peppier, and you’re yourself again, no longer the exhausted surgeon that walked through the door earlier.

When all the food is gone, Joel holds you, and you turn in his arms, head angling to kiss him. “I needed this. Thank you,” you whisper.

“Anytime, baby.”

You give him a final kiss before standing. “As much as I hate to leave, I should get back out there, it’s busy.” Your shoulders are already straightening, preparing to return to being a doctor.

He rises, and you leave him with a kiss before telling him you’ll see him later.

He grabs the empty tote and steps out of your office. Steven nods at him as he passes him in the hall with a patient. Wendy smiles and waves from the reception desk as she updates a chart. The clinic is still alive, people needing things, finding help, and you’re running all of it. He thinks of the nursery, the late tulips Sadie might have in the greenhouse. Something nice to surprise you, no occasion but this: you survived the morning, and he got to witness it.

He heads for the door and takes a left instead of a right to head to the nursery.

—-

You fight a yawn as you make your way out of the clinic. Joel’s in his customary spot, against the post with his arms folded. You’ve lost count of how many times the sight of him there has instantly soothed you after impossibly long days like today.

“Hey baby,” he greets, hand finding the small of your back like it always does as he leads you home.

The walk home is quiet. You’re out of work later than you wanted to be, but the sight of the sun setting behind the mountains and Jackson doing what it does every evening, winding itself down around you, helps remind your tired and weary self why hard days like this matter.

Your husband leads you to your big, white home, the sight of it is always a balm on days like these. Your pair of rocking chairs on the porch move in the gentle breeze, a blanket you knitted still draped over the back of Joel’s chair for the chilly spring evenings you share outside.

Joel helps you with your jacket as you kick your boots off. Jefferson jumps off the back of the couch and pads over to you. His soft meow beckons you to bend over and give him a couple of pets before you make your way to the kitchen to make a cup of tea.

You pause at the doorway when you see them.

On the kitchen table in a chipped blue pitcher are tulips. Their petals half-open, red and yellow. You stare at them and grin wide.

“Nursery had a few of them left,” Joel says from behind you, like it’s nothing. Like he didn’t plan it. “Figured you needed something pretty today.”

You turn, press your face into the broad, familiar warmth of his chest, and he holds you, chin against your hair.

“Thank you,” you say, muffled against his shirt.

Joel squeezes you tight against him. There’s something about the beautiful simplicity of his gift. A man buying his wife flowers, just because she had a bad day. The world ended, and yet moments like this remain.

Dinner is just what you needed, comforting, hearty, and warm. Stew and leftover biscuits eaten at the kitchen table, with the vase of tulips in the center. Joel lifts your feet into his lap, massaging them with one hand while he eats with the other.

When you’re done, you sit at the table for a while, both of Joel’s hands now tasked with massaging your tired feet. When you get up and reach for his bowl, he tells you to leave the dishes in the sink, that he’ll take care of them tomorrow.

You move to the couch, plopping onto it and sinking into the cushions. Jefferson’s instantly in your lap, lying across it, rumbling purrs as you pet him. Joel’s arm is around you, and you burrow even closer against him as Lonesome Dove plays on the TV. Gus and Call are somewhere in Texas, bickering the way they always do. You’ve both seen it enough times now to mouth the lines.

You used to fall asleep to the rustle of infected in the treeline, the sounds of FEDRA’s brutal control in the QZ, but now you fall asleep to Robert Duvall, a cat on your lap, and the steady thud of Joel’s heart against your ear.

—-

This spring has been high on the sweltering scale, the mountains do little to shield Jackson from the hot rays of the almost-summer sun during the day. Joel passes the construction yard, lifting his hand in greeting to some of his old workers who all look hot and miserable. Honestly, Joel’s a little happy you, and the rest of the family convinced him to retire last year. At first, he wasn’t sure how he’d manage with all of his newfound time, but his grandchild has certainly helped fill his days.

JJ’s hand is tiny in Joel’s, and the boy doesn’t stop yapping. “Grampa, have you ever driven a bulldozer?” Joel chuckles. “Reckon I have.” “Did it have a big scoop? Was it yellow? Could it pick up a whole tree?” JJ’s voice pitches higher with each question, his fingers tightening around Joel’s. “Yes, yes, and yes,” Joel says, remembering the old world with housing projects and cul-de-sacs—that old world that now just exists in stories for the boy who holds his hand.

JJ tugs him toward the fence, drops his hand, and bolts. Joel knows exactly where he’s headed. You’re on your knees in the dirt, tending Sarah’s garden, and the boy is shouting your name before he’s even halfway across the yard.

You turn, a big smile on your face, and goddamn, you still take his breath away. You wipe at your forehead with the back of your wrist, leaving a smudge of soil across your brow. Your eyes squint up at them both with that smile of yours… the one that still, after all these years, makes him forget whatever he was just thinking about. He doesn’t know how it keeps happening, how every single day you find some new way to make him feel like the luckiest goddamn man on earth.

JJ drops to his knees beside you, his little body pressing against yours. Your arm wraps around him in that loving, doting way you’re so natural at, and you kiss the crown of his head in greeting.

“Grampa drove tractors!” he excitedly tells you.

“I know,” you answer, glancing up at Joel with a smile. “He was a contractor, meaning he’d always drive construction vehicles and build really big buildings.”

“Contractor?” JJ asks.

Joel’s knees pop twice when he crouches down beside you two, and he lets out a short grunt at the second one. The boy’s eyes are wide and waiting, wanting to know as much as he can. “Contractor’s what they called somebody who built things. Houses, schools, sheds. Anything folks needed. You’d get a call, show up with your crew and tools, and you’d build somethin’ from nothin’. Just dirt and plans. Couple months later, there’s a whole house standing where nothin’ was before.”

JJ’s mouth hangs open. “You built a whole house?”

“Built a lot of ‘em,” Joel answers. “Everybody loved contractors.”

You chuckle and shake your head. “They sure did,” you say.

JJ reaches out, runs his hand along the blooms of lavender in Sarah’s garden.

“You want to pick some flowers for your mamas?” you ask.

JJ nods, reaching towards a bright purple flower. “Can I pick this one?” he asks.

“The aster? Of course, sweetheart,” you say.

JJ reaches for the purple bloom, but stops. A small, orange butterfly has landed in the center of it, orange and white wings fanned open. JJ goes still, and you put a gentle hand on his arm. Joel watches the butterfly and feels something inside his heart flow before he can name it. Sarah’s voice through the years echoes in his head from the first wails of her tiny lungs as a baby, to her sweet, little voice questioning everything, all the way to her smart, teenage pondering.

“It’s so pretty,” JJ whispers.

Joel’s caught in a memory from many years ago. His Sarah, around JJ’s age now, picking flowers out of the Adlers’ garden, a butterfly just like the one in front of him now, landing on a flower. Her bright, proud smile as she stayed perfectly still and watched.

You lean closer to JJ and whisper, “Don’t scare it, hun.”

The butterfly flutters its wings before it lifts off from the aster. Joel watches it leave. It’s her, but it’s not her. Just a memory of his little girl.

He wishes his Sarah could see him now. What would she think of him now?

He’s asked himself variations of it a thousand times over the years, but never while kneeling in the dirt of a garden dedicated to her with his grandson and his wife, the lavender in full bloom, the sun warm as it shines down.

He thinks about the man he was when she knew him. A father with an okay-paying job, a mortgage, a pickup truck, and a future.

He thinks of the man he became after. The one who traversed the world with a gun in his belt and blood on his hands. The man who couldn’t look at a kid without seeing his own dead daughter, who lost himself completely in that.

Until Ellie broke him open, and you saved him.

He doesn’t know what Sarah would think of the man he is now. But he thinks she’d finally see the man she knew. The man that loved her, that held her when she cried, that taught her how to ride a bike and spool a reel onto a fishing line. The man that now knows to love is to be vulnerable and honest.

Joel now knows the universe did the right thing when it let him live again. He wasn’t being punished for surviving, no, he was given a second chance to do it all over again. Every day, and every moment, he’s reminded of what you’ve given him… this beautiful life.

—-

You don’t really think about the future when you’re safe inside it like you are now. Years will pass, days will blend, and time will be marked not by disasters and survival, but by increments of joy and growth. By the changing height of JJ as he grows, the way the fence behind the house sags a little more each spring after the long winters, and by the amount of white in Joel’s hair and beard.

You and Joel will live and love and heal one another in the same quiet and unthinking ways you do now. Every morning, there is coffee and his scratchy voice, and every night, there is his palm against the small of your back as you head to bed and a goodnight kiss before he turns off the lamp.

You’ll spend the rest of your days behind the walls of Jackson, healing your neighbors and friends. You’ll come home to the large, white house with the cherry blossom tree that now has your and Joel’s initials carved in it. You’ll watch your family and friends grow older. Sarah’s garden will bloom, and the memory of her will thrive with each seed you plant for her.

JJ will start to talk in full sentences, then full-blown stories. At six, he’ll break his arm falling off the treehouse ladder, and it’ll be you who fixes him up, while Joel fusses and busies himself building a better, safer way up the tree. At seven, he’ll ask you to help him make Grampa Joel’s birthday card, complete with WORLD’S BEST GRAMPA written across the top. At eight, he’ll carve his first wooden dinosaur with Joel, and it’ll sit on the mantle next to the copy of Lonesome Dove and the picture Ellie drew of you and Joel for your first wedding anniversary present.

It was unsettling, to be sat among cushions and piles of blankets, soft white light from the lamp he’d flicked on for you hours ago. Outside, the sun was beginning to rise, a spill of dusky, deep purple lightening the horizon, like someone had overturned a paint can.  

His hands were curled into fists; his mask lay abandoned on the arm of your sofa. There was a basket of knitting to his left, a sweater sleeve unfurled over the side. Books lined several shelves, plants were gathered in the same terracotta pots as the ones in your office, in a neat fist beneath the window that overlooked the street. 

It looked and felt like a home. 

Simon couldn’t remember the last time he felt truly at home somewhere. He stayed on base when he could; his flat was little more than a bed and a kettle. 

He was watching the front door and listening to the domestic sounds of you puttering around the kitchen one room over. 

“Please,” you had said when he started to stand to follow you, fingers careful against his jaw, cradling his face as though he were something that deserved to be cradled. “You’re exhausted. Just stay here.” 

So he did. So he was. 

Patiently waiting for you to return, replaying the last few hours. Unwilling to admit it was with anxiety. 

Your presence was a tug behind his navel, an urging to relocate closer to you, a glowing point of light he needed to seek out, swallow. 

Simon wished things had gone differently. His own fucking fault for leaving things as they were, for thinking he could remain close to you, deal with the ancient pain in his chest because it was just another ache to add to the collection, with you never the wiser. 

It wasn’t fair to you. 

He had never particularly cared about fair before.

He wondered what it felt like to you. 

He couldn’t imagine you felt warmth. 

Ghost was a lot of things. Warm was not one of them. 

But he had spent the last several hours with you in his arms, your lips against his, tracing scar for scar, memorizing each of the marks you had given him somewhere in the chaos of his own.

Simon might not remember where every scar on his body originated, but he was going to know all of yours. He wanted to know where you laid on his skin, every mark he’d ever overlooked. He would have a perfect catalogue of knowledge. 

It was odd to be touched, and not exactly comfortable, not after so many years of covering his skin, insulating himself from any touch. 

Touch meant harm. 

It was a fact he’d learned very young, a lesson learned again and again, only compounded by life in the military where even friendly touch was tinged with roughness out of necessity. 

Your hands on his skin felt like being peeled apart, unzipped, insides poked at. He didn’t mind. 

Nothing could have made him pull away from you. 

Your fingers had traced the back of his neck, the soft, vulnerable space behind his ear. The touch was tentative. If he shifted even a little, you had retracted your hand. 

A floorboard creaked, he glanced up as you appeared in the doorway. 

“Simon?” 

You held out a hand. 

He stood and took it before his brain could catch up, all instinct. 

He had meant it, when he said you deserved better. But it was a commitment, a promise, too, when he said he was all you got. 

.

.

.

Captain John Price was standing in your office. 

You halted in the doorway with a cup of coffee, hot ceramic searing into your fingers. “Captain Price,” you said. “Good morning, sir.” 

“G’morning,” he answered with a nod. 

“Is there something I can help you with?” You asked, crossing the room to deposit your cup at the edge of your desk. “Would you like a cup of tea? Coffee?” 

He shook his head, “Thank you. Take a seat.” 

It felt wrong to sit behind your desk, so you dropped into Simon’s usual seat, tugging the black and blue blanket you’d knitted for him months ago into your lap. Price took the opposite chair. It had so often gone unused, aside from the odd analyst debriefing a too long meeting, until Kyle and Johnny began frequenting your office too. 

Price didn’t say anything for a moment, brows lowered, mouth a considering line. You fidgeted beneath his piercing stare. 

“Ghost told you,” you guessed after a few beats of painful, weighted silence. 

He nodded after another long moment. “We knew,” he admitted, eyes finally flicking away as he adjusted in the chair. 

“I guessed as much.”

“But,” he continued, sitting forward. “Now you know.”

You felt, suddenly, as though you were about to receive a lecture or a reprimand. You swallowed thickly, and nodded, chewing your lower lip. “It’s not ideal,” you acknowledged. “I know how bad it is.” 

He was quiet again, watching you. You shifted, uncomfortable under his scrutiny, not sure what you were being evaluated for or how to pass muster. “He had to tell you,” Price said eventually, not unkindly, “It was only a matter of time.” 

The words had to landed perhaps harder than Price meant them to. It had only been a few days since you saw Simon’s face, since you bonded, and you still felt wrong about how it had happened. You weren’t sure if you ever wouldn’t feel wrong about how it happened. You shouldn’t have kissed him; you should have been able to let him go. 

The knowledge hung like an invisible weight around your neck, that you were not something Simon wanted, but an unwelcome inevitability. 

The memory of his touch, his extended presence in your apartment that weekend, made you feel a little ill on reflection. You should not have touched him, shouldn’t have kissed him, probably should not have seen his face at all. It all felt like a choice he wasn’t allowed to make. 

You weren’t quite sure where you and Simon stood now. Inextricably linked but to what end? What were you to him but something to manage?

I didn’t want to tell you. I never wanted you to know. 

Your belly clenched at the memory of the words, the heavy weight of the admission in his mouth. 

Maybe that was all soulmates ever were, an inescapable obligation and nothing more. Maybe the whole thing had been romanticized to the point of becoming something amorphous and unrecognizable. 

But when you thought of what he was to you—

Mine, you thought immediately and unhelpfully, possessively.

It stung like salt in a wound.  

He was anything but. 

The warm glow of the newly stitched bond in your chest was accompanied by a different ache, a more mundane one. A bleak cloud of heartache.  

The cruelty of it, the unfairness, smarted. You’d always assumed that discovery would mean an end to the lonely isolation you’d felt your whole life, not an evolution of it. There was still nowhere for you to go, no safe place for you to settle, no person that wanted and accepted you. 

You thought of the torment of the untethered bond. It had been excruciatingly painful, and you had only bore it for a few hours. And Simon had hidden it from you for months. His dedication to keeping you out, at a distance, spoke louder than any words could. 

It was akin to sitting next to a muzzled dog. He was chained to you. On a leash he could never escape. 

But you’d gladly keep your loneliness, if it meant he wasn’t in pain. You just wished you didn’t have to; you wished you belonged. 

Maybe he’d left the bond too long and it had corroded, shorn down into a jagged point. It could never cause anything but agony between you. 

You pinched your palm. “Yeah,” you agreed. “He had to.”

Price cleared his throat, sighed. “It’s not just Simon,” he said, “that has to worry about you now. You’re a vulnerability to all of us, to my team.” 

“I know,” you said again, because it had already occurred to you. That you now knew exceedingly dangerous information, how easy it would be for someone to make the leap of logic that you were important. 

“Better, for now, that it stays between us.” His eyes met yours, intense, serious and steady. 

Though you knew he was right, though you’d already had a similar conversation with Simon, it still hurt somehow, still felt like what you imagined having a knife stuck through your ribs must feel like. 

The discovery of a soulmate was supposed to be something that was celebrated. Announced to family and friends, parties thrown, congratulations given. 

It was also, by nature of the rarity, something to fixate on. It had led to pairs being featured in the news, followed by throngs of people convinced that their proximity to a bonded pair alone would aid their chances of finding their own. 

You did not want that, but it would be nice to tell your cross hall neighbor that had become a friend, or your sister. It would be nice to be able to tell anyone. The pride you should feel was replaced instead with something closer to shame. 

You would only ever be a liability. Something to manage, something to hide. Not just for Simon, but for his team as well. 

You were holding something so rare, something most people searched for their whole lives, and instead of letting it lie in the palm of your hand like the extraordinary sun soaked pearl it was, you had to close your fingers around it, relegate it to the dark cave of your fist. 

“I understand, sir. I haven’t told anyone. I won’t tell anyone.” 

Price relaxed a little then, leaning back in his chair. “Good.”

You fiddled with the blanket in your lap, calmer for the scent that lingered in the fibers and sloughed off it in waves from all the time it spent behind Simon’s shoulders, tea and tobacco, the faintest hint of summer grass lingering between. All those times you’d laid on it in the sun, inhaling his scent blooming in the air around you, soothed, flashed through your mind. 

Those summer months seemed a lifetime ago. A different you. A different Ghost. 

You glanced out the window. 

The world beyond the glass was gray with autumn drizzle; the bright red and orange fan of changing leaves raked at low hanging clouds. The air was chilly, and already threatening a cutting, winter iciness. With luck, you wouldn’t be stationed in England for much longer, and then none of you would have to worry about your inconvenient bond. 

“If the lads haven’t said yet,” Price began as he stood, one broad hand landing on your shoulder heavily, “Congratulations. Glad Simon finally pulled his head out of his arse. I was beginning to worry.” 

You glanced up in surprise, lips parted. The small smile on Price’s face faded. “Simon. . .” he started, then stopped. He contemplated his next words carefully before he continued. “Simon is more sensitive than he appears. You’ll take care of him.” 

The notion of Simon needing anyone for anything, should have been a laughable one, but coming from Price, it felt like the world tilting onto your shoulders. The 141 were a strange little family in their own right, one you were now an unfortunate interloper of. 

They looked out for each other, now you were being tasked with the same. 

Price wasn’t asking a question. 

You answered anyway. 

“Of course I will.” 

He squeezed your shoulder once and let his hand fall away. 

Ten minutes later, your coffee cold and abandoned at the corner of your desk, you were still sitting in Simon’s chair, picking at the blanket and anxiously worrying at your bottom lip.  

It had just started to bleed, the tang of copper dripping onto your tongue, when Johnny and Kyle appeared at your door, Simon looming large and imposing behind them with Price in tow. 

You stood, wondering if you’d been that lost in your thoughts that you hadn’t noticed the hall outside lurching into motion around an op, when you noticed the cake box in Johnny’s hands. 

You frowned, glancing from the sergeants’ open faces to the box in Soap’s hands.

“What’s going on?” 

“Think we wouldn’t congratulate the pair of ye, lass?” Johnny said. 

He slid the box onto your desk and opened his arms which you found yourself readily stepping into. 

Your throat closed, a heavy knot choking you suddenly. You didn’t look at Ghost over Johnny’s shoulder, couldn’t. “Oh, well—that’s not—you didn’t have to—” 

“It’s not nearly enough,” Kyle interrupted, “But it’s the best we can do. Considering.” 

You had to blink back tears as Soap released you and guided you forward to flip open the lid. The cake was lavender, like your headphones and blanket. Words were scrawled with dark icing, along with misshapen blobs you supposed were meant to be flowers. The words were an illegible heap but it didn’t matter what it said; it mattered they’d gotten it, even if it was bittersweet. 

Perhaps you were being afforded a little celebration after all. 

“Had to do the writin’ ourselves, yeah? It—”

“It’s perfect.” 

You felt small, safe. 

It was not a bad feeling, even if it was a false one.  

You still didn’t look at Simon, afraid to know how he felt about it as he stepped into the room after Price.

“Their idea,” he would tell you later, softly, when half the cake was gone and all but Simon had departed your office.  

You could only nod, and wonder if that meant he hadn’t wanted it acknowledged at all. 

You didn’t ask, the answer would probably shatter your feeble feelings. 

Soulmates, ultimately, were supposed to be the thing their pair needed most, be it romantic, platonic, familial, even adversarial, in rare instances. There was no guidebook on figuring out which, or what came after, or what you were supposed to be. 

For so long, you had held onto hope. A romantic, dramatic hope that you would find your soulmate and be granted that. Understanding. Feeling like there was one place you actually belonged. Someone who could see past the scars that kept everyone else at an arm’s length, that made them believe they could never fit into your life. 

Not even, really, you thought, were you hoping to find that feeling with your soulmate. You hadn’t been delusional enough to think you would ever really find them. 

You had just—wanted someone who saw you, looked past the scars and decided you could be home, anyway. The many failed dates you went on were proof enough of that, proof of your hope and longing. 

But maybe this was why fate had stuck you and Simon together—your ability to understand that what he needed most was to be left alone. And you were already so good at being alone. 

You could give him the security of someone who needed nothing from him, of letting the bond lie dormant and cold, maintain his anonymity and the walls he’d built so carefully around himself.  

A sentinel fate, a sword of his name. 

You could give him that peace. 

Your fate, it seemed, was as you’d once guessed. 

You were meant to be alone.  

.

.

.

Simon adjusted your hips with a sharp jerk and then pushed his palm between your shoulderblades until you tilted them into an angle he was satisfied with. 

“Eyes forward,” he grunted. 

But you were giggling again, glancing over your shoulder with bright eyes and a genuine smile. A rare sight recently.

Had been since—

“Am I holding it right?” 

He glanced at your grip on the blade in your hand, and nodded. You turned back toward the target—a thick plastic training dummy littered with stab wounds. You had made steady progress over the last few months. 

Simon liked training you, it settled some latent anxiety he’d never admit to, to know that you could hold your own, at least temporarily. Just long enough, as he always stressed to you, to escape danger, not face it. 

But you were proving yourself to be surprisingly adept at sparring. 

You were fast, and seemed to enjoy running. Cardio didn’t seem to burn you out. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen anyone do as many jumping jacks in a row as he’d seen you do, seemingly just to do it. 

You took quickly to instruction, minor adjustments in form. 

You could wriggle out of ropes and zip ties. You could effectively parry, knew where the major arteries were and how to sever them. 

And, after a few failed attempts earlier in the week, you’d learned to compensate for the weight and balance of the blade, and seemed to be comfortable with throwing knives too. 

“Won’t have this much time to aim, bird,” he reprimanded when you only stood there, unmoving, your eyes sweeping over his face, brows knitted and serious. 

Your skin shimmered faintly with the dew of sweat. A faint gossamer sheen. He wanted to slide his fingers over the pulse in your throat, just to feel it kick. Maybe his teeth, too, to carve it out, hold the thread of your vein in his mouth. 

The soft murmur of your lips against his skin, babbling nonsense. 

The space between your shoulder blades was bare, the delicate lacing of a tattoo scrawled there. You didn’t share tattoos, that pain must not count as scars in the cosmic bind of the universe. 

The memory of that weekend together haunted him. How easily you’d fallen into each other, just to have it wiped away as soon as it was done. You bare legs in the kitchen, making tea, leaning against him as though it were natural, where you belonged. You stripped down to almost nothing, letting look at your scars as you carefully wiped the eyeblack from his skin, hands cradling his face. 

He was perhaps plagued by those moments when he wasn’t with you, the soft give of your body beneath his on your bed for two blissful nights, beneath him on the sparring mat, something of a distraction, something to sink his teeth into when sleep invariably would not find him. The memory of your safe touch. 

He still wasn’t used to being looked at so openly, directly, didn’t understand what you got out of it anyway. He couldn’t imagine what you saw, when you stared like you were trying desperately to preserve something as vital to you as air. He was right there, within reach and not moving away for once in his life. Not going anywhere. Never. 

This, bound to you, was where he belonged. 

But you seemed to keep skirting away. Pulling away from his hands, from him. 

He wasn’t built for this, relationships and emotions, for things that required a gentle touch and not the cold metal of a gun. 

Wasn’t good at it. He didn’t know if he had done something wrong, crossed some invisible line, and didn’t know how to ask either. 

Was this another thing he had to figure out how to earn? Was this just another thing he was destined to lose, had already?

The stiff concentration melted from your face, replaced with a smile, amusement he missed seeing the last few weeks sweeping over your face, softening your features. “But I have time now,” you said, before you suddenly pivoted and flung the knife, all in one fluid motion. Just as he’d taught you. 

The blade buried itself deep into the throat of the target. 

He raised a brow. “What were you aimin’ for, sweet’eart?” 

“The head,” you admitted, sounding surprised yourself. 

“Not bad, that.” 

“Thank you, LT,” you said sweetly. “Maybe one day I’ll be able to take you on.”  

He grunted, pressed another throwing knife into your hand and lifted your arm into position, cupped your elbow and drew it down a little. 

You were liquid gold in his arms, warm and trusting, allowing him to adjust the angles of your body without complaint. He could feel you breathing; not just the physical rise and fall of your lungs, though he could feel that too. Ghost could feel the tight, corded line of your soul stitched to his, the warm voracity of it like a glowing line of light, a thin strip of aurora borealis. This close to you, he could feel the softness of your breath, the delicate beat of your heart through it. 

He would probably never admit it to you, but Ghost missed the pain. He missed the watery, drowning ache in his lungs that meant you were on the other side of the glass, alive, waiting. The pain had been a constant reminder of your continued life. Being alive hurt, it only made sense, then, that the bond ached with your life. 

The warm glow it had transformed into was nice, but it was placating, an illusion that things would always be all right. The comfort and safety of it itched, made his fingers curl with the urge to peel up his skin, pinch the pain alive again with his own bloodied fingers just so he was sure you were there. 

You leaned back into his chest, the length of your spine laid against the bow of his body. Simon folded his fingers around yours, adjusted your grip on the handle, angled your wrist down a fraction. 

Your hand was small in his, the fragile bones of your wrist like a bird's hollow wing. He thumbed at your pulse, wished he had taken his gloves off. 

His nose brushed the shell of your ear, inhaling the sweet scent of your skin lavender and oak moss threaded with the animal salt of your skin. 

You shivered. 

“Not in this life or the next.” 

You laughed, a breathless catch in your throat. The vibrations of it again his chest like a half remembered song stuffed between his ribs. You turned your head and pushed your forehead against his jaw gently. He felt the shush of your breath against his throat. He wondered, not for the first time, why it couldn’t always be like this. Why had things felt like one stumbling block after another since you saw his face?

Wasn't it supposed to be easy? Wasn’t that the one thing soulmates were promised?  

He’s not particularly good at wanting things. Wanting meant asking for something he could lose, and he’d lost too much. 

But now he had you, he wouldn’t let go. 

The half completed residency paperwork in his, until now, underutilized office, was proof enough of that. It had been almost a year. You and Laswell had promised a year. A contingency, a plan for you to stay. 

You would stay. 

He wasn’t sure you would stay. 

Probably, he should talk to you about it. 

Simon wasn’t good at this.  

How hard could it be to ask his bloody soulmate to stay in the same country as him? 

Very, apparently. 

He’d rather almost anything else. 

He’d rather present you with the residence permit like a cat with a dead mouse, wordless and hopeful.

Unfortunately, there was a lot of red tape that required him and you to go through, not limited to slicing his skin open in a court to prove his scars showed up on you.  

All the fucking ones he’d already given you, wouldn’t count. 

Just because you were bonded, he was all too aware, didn't mean you would stay together. You could leave, die. Simon was the one to endure, he knew which of you would remain. 

The closer he got, the further you seemed to drift away, something tender and self actualizing in your gaze. But he’d had a year to come to terms with it. 

Maybe you just needed time to adjust to the idea of your soulmate being him. He wasn’t the kind of person anyone hoped for. 

“You wouldn’t let me win?” 

Simon didn’t want to imagine a world where you were on the opposing side of anything, where winning mattered. 

“Together this time, yeah?” He said instead, squeezing your wrist. 

“Not like I’ve got much of a choice.” 

“Want me to let go?” 

“No,” you answered quickly. “No.”  

“Aimin’ for the head again?” 

“The eye,” you clarified. 

He raised a brow. “Ambitious, that.” 

You nudged your temple against his cheek again, the flicker of your lashes through his balaclava like the delicate, furred wings of a moth. “I’m trying to be the best.” 

“Average might be a more achievable goal,” he said wryly. 

Your laugh echoed inside him again. “Affirmative,” you grumbled in a poor imitation of his accent. 

He squeezed your hip in slight reprimand. 

“But I think I can do it,” you continued in your own voice, leaning into his hand. “I just need practice.” 

“Mm.” He rubbed your wrist again, felt the steady flutter of your pulse against his fingers. “Just aim at something you can hit if you ever have to, yeah?”

Something you’d been over plenty, he still felt the need to repeat it. What do you imagine is going to happen to me? You’d asked once. A question with far too many answers. Bad things happened to people he cared for. 

“Promise,” you said easily. “I know where all the important arteries are, after all,” you murmur, teasing. 

He grunted, unimpressed. “Lot of good that’ll do if you’re aimin’ at the eyes.” 

You rolled your eyes and settled back into him, but you were laughing, reciting the names of said arteries under your breath. “All right, enough of tha’,” he muttered as he moved your arm through the motion once, before you swung hard and released the knife on the second pass. 

This time it was at the right height, but off center. It hurtled by the target’s ear and clattered to the floor. 

“You’ll be turning enemy combatants into regular Van Goghs,” he said. 

“Very funny,” you nipped, digging an elbow into his ribs, but you were giggling again. “It was close.” 

“Was. Nice work.” 

You made a soft, self-satisfied noise, something near a purr in your throat. “Thank you, Ghost.” 

He nodded as he released you and stepped away to retrieve the fallen blade. Cold seeped in as he did, a bone deep chill where you had been touching him. A thready, pulsing warning to stay near. 

Moving away from you was no longer painful, but not exactly comfortable either. It was nice to be within the warm bubble your soulmate provided. 

He felt it now, the retraction of that pulsing sweetness, like the petals of a flower furling closed. The bond was dynamic now, malleable and yielding, nothing like the taut, fragile, painful thing it had been for so long.  

Simon felt it stretch, loop slippery coils around him as the tension popped like stiff joints. 

When he turned, you were across the room, sitting on a weight bench as you pulled on a hoodie and kicked off your trainers. Not his hoodie, though he’d left one at your flat, thinking, maybe, you might want something of his, the way you had given him the blanket. 

Done for the evening, then. The tightening in his chest he felt now had nothing to do with the bond; he could admit that. 

You were no longer smiling, and the permanent stitch that had sown itself between your brows shortly after you bonded, had appeared yet again.  

He collected the knives, approached you slowly, out of your sight line, watching the slant of your scarred cheek, the downward tilt of your mouth. You had been worrying at your lower lip with your teeth recently, and the crease in the middle of the plush bottom curve of broken skin was wet with the tiniest well of blood. 

Simon remembered what it had felt like to touch that soft flesh, kiss you, lick into your mouth. It had felt like—he couldn’t say what it had felt like. He didn’t have the vocabulary, the understanding of the tangled mess of emotions in his chest, snarled and guarded as a nest of snakes. Unraveling it seemed unwise, a fool’s errand. 

All he knew was that it hadn’t happened, that he had been safe with you, whether he could name the emotions or not. He also knew that it had not happened again, and didn’t know why. 

And wanted it to happen again—for you to stick your hands beneath the edge of his mask or shirt or anywhere at all and ask can I? 

He wanted you, he thought numbly, stupidly, to hold his fucking hand. 

It was sort of like being a lovesick teenager, only Simon wasn’t sure he’d ever been that. It was all new.  

If he could feel the weight of your proximity, you were able to feel the heft of his. But you didn’t turn as he approached, head bowed over the laces of your shoes as you coiled them around your fingers and tucked them under the tongue. 

The space beneath your eyes was swollen, discolored with sleeplessness. There was a bruise beneath the edge of your hoodie collar, more on your forearms and the sides of your knees. Defensive marks, sparring marks. 

To see them brought him a kind of fucked up satisfaction. 

Simon pulled off his gloves, slipped his hand into place on the back of your neck. 

You flinched just a little, and then settled. 

The memory of you lying in the grass behind the barracks in the summer sun surfaces quickly. How badly he had wanted to reach down and touch you then, touch his own faint, paper thin scars on your skin, the side of your throat, the hook of your collarbone, all those shining little reminders.

Now he could, he did, and you still felt far away, like there would always be something holding you at a distance. As though you were behind unbreachable glass, seen, but not heard, not touched. 

What had Johnny called all that pain? 

Bond corrosion. Erosion. 

Maybe he’d let it go on for too long, really had damaged something vital, by denying it for so long. Maybe Ghost had inadvertently taken the one thing that was supposed to be a solace to you, and twisted it beyond repair. Maybe there was no comfort on your side, just a rusted lock that could never be pried opened again. 

You tilted into his palm. 

He hoped it was voluntary. 

“Ghost,” you said softly. 

“Bird,” he answered, drawing the word out lazily, letting his hand slide away. 

Your mouth twitched into a half smile. “Hey,” you caught his hand and tucked it instead between your palms. 

He sat next to you, pushed his shoulder against yours. You fell against his side slowly, almost reluctantly. You laced your fingers with his.  

Maybe you were just disappointed. Once the shock of finding your soulmate faded, once that restless, prodding first night together was over—he wondered if you felt cheated, let down. Maybe the distance was protective. 

Maybe he should just ask. 

You sat together quietly, fingers threaded. He waited, hoping that if he waited long enough you would look up and smile and talk to him. 

But the well of your incessant chatter over the last year seemed to have finally run dry. 

Not only were you quiet, it was like you were lost, unsteady. “All right?” 

When you met his eyes, your features softened. “You’re not a bad teacher.” 

“Reckon that’s a compliment, yeah?” 

You smiled, settled more firmly against his side. Yours was a warm, welcome weight. He’d not relished the thought of anyone’s touch in a very long time, maybe hadn’t ever. Kind touch was never something in high supply. But if you never let go, it’d probably be all right, that. 

“Yes,” you agreed. “Very generous with compliments.” 

Ghost wasn’t sure those words, in that order or otherwise, had ever been applied to him before. 

He palmed your cheek, tilted your face toward his, peering into your eyes like he was examining you for injury. “You hit your head?” 

“Like you wouldn’t have noticed.” 

“Mm.” 

“Simon,” you said, his name careful and curling in your mouth, safe there. Your fingers were at the edge of his sleeve, the soft pads of your fingers against his bare wrist, sliding over the scars on his palms, defensive wounds that his mind refused to remember earning. 

He nodded and you pushed his sleeve up. 

“I think I found another,” you said. “Can I show you?” 

Simon didn’t remember how he got every scar on his body, but he was trying to become familiar with all of yours. You’d had trouble, though, deciding which actually belonged to you. Some of your scars were buried beneath his own, others were scoured so deeply on Ghost, that they appeared as though they could be yours on your skin. 

It was odd to be touched, and not exactly comfortable, not yet, but he held still and let you have your fill, because he wanted you to. His body wasn’t his in these moments, but belonging to you was all right.

Your fingers traced his forearm, sending skittering sparks of warmth along his skin, curled like shaved gold into his stomach. It was horrifying, really, the way you made him feel. Not like himself, too much like himself, or someone he should have been. 

The touch was curious, and cautious. 

“Here,” you pushed a finger into the middle of his forearm. The scar was barely visible on his skin, and buried beneath the black of tattoo ink. “I think I burned myself taking something out of the oven. It probably wouldn’t have scarred but I kept picking at it.” You held your arm alongside his. The mark on your arm was deeper, puckered where his was flat. But they matched. 

Your fingers wriggled inside his rolled sleeve and you traced a particularly deep gouge along the side of his bicep. 

Shrapnel, he thought, but you didn’t ask. 

He waited for you to ask. 

You both sat there cloaked in silence. 

He watched the side of your face, the way your mouth twisted to the side, the downward sweep of your lashes fluttering against your scarred cheek. 

“Anymore?” 

You shook your head and slid your hand up his chest instead, to the base of his throat. “Can—?”

The word hasn’t even left your mouth yet. Pathetic, he thinks, as he yanks the fabric over his head. He smelled of desperation, a deep need to be kept. 

You smiled, touched his cheek, his ear. Your fingers scraped over the close cropped sides of his head into the longer hair at the top. 

When your face tilted up, lashes fluttering closed, he met you halfway, tasted blood on your mouth. It was like coming home. Simon could feel his scar on your mouth, like you were echoes of each other, calling across something vast, receiving an answer anyway. 

His tongue slipped into your mouth as your hands fisted in his hoodie. You groaned quietly when he threaded an arm behind your back, pulled you into his chest. 

“Simon,” you mumbled, mouth traveling from his down his jaw and back, nails digging into his bicep. He’d never get tired of his name, known and coveted, in your voice. You made it sound real, almost sweet. 

He touched your jaw, your soft skin so different to his, the small of your back beneath your shirt. 

The knot in his chest seemed to unravel, flatten out like a dog showing its belly, deeply satisfied, asking to be picked—

You pulled back suddenly and sucked in a sharp, awful breath. “Jesus, I’m sorry,” you said. “I—“ 

Simon shook his head, cupped the back of your skull to bring your forehead to him. You breathed, eyes closed, for a long time. 

Eventually you blinked and met his eyes, searched until you found something that made your gaze close. A door shut in his face. 

“Well,” you said, retracting your touch slowly, fingertips drawing down his jaw. He told himself it was reluctance, even if he knew better. “It’s late. I should probably get going.” 

He wanted to hold you gently, but was afraid he might crush you instead. His unwieldy hands were not suited for this kind of work. 

“Mm. Walk you to your car.” 

Your smile flickered a little. “What if I said no?” 

Then he would follow you anyway. He would make sure you got there safely, anyway. He might not be built for care, but he was built for that. For teaching you violence, for making sure you were safe. 

“Then you go alone.” 

“Liar,” you said with a huff as you stood, bracing your hand on his shoulder. “I know your shadow now, Simon.” 

He just stood and held out a hand for your bag, tugging the mask back on with the other. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that declaration.  

You needed time, that was all, he thought again, for the disappointment to abate, for him to make himself useful to you. 

Eventually, he would see your flat again. He’d stand in your kitchen with a cup of tea and your smile would be real.  

Simon should know better, by now, than to hope for anything at all. 

.

.

.

The orders arrived one innocuous morning in November, passed to you by an administrative assistant on your way to your office, who smiled like the envelope was not essentially a live bomb. She was new to the base, her eyes bright and watchful. She had been in your office a fair few times, to pick your brain, she said. She wanted to work in intelligence some day, too, in more than a strictly secretarial role. 

You took it from her with great trepidation. 

“You alright?”

“Fine,” you smiled tightly as your stomach clenched. 

Her smile turned sympathetic. “Don’t want to leave?”

“I don’t know,” you answered honestly, flipping the envelope over in your hands. 

“Come now, I’d wager Ghost will be none too happy.” 

You furrowed your brows and glanced back up at her. 

Ghost was Ghost. You hadn’t realized any of the others noticed him in your office. They were a nosy, gossipy bunch, such were the ways of intel, and you were sure one of them would have mentioned it, even passively, at some point.  

“Don’t know what you mean.” 

She smiled and rolled her eyes as she turned back to her desk. “Sure.” 

You walked back to your office slowly, distracted, telling yourself it was something—anything—else. 

You were not being stationed elsewhere; you were not being sent home. 

You closed the door behind you and stood staring down at the all too familiar seal stamped next to your name. It didn’t feel like your name, like your hands curling around the edges of the paper, claws that were already starting to dig in, so you couldn’t be dragged howling away. 

For a long time, you could only stand there, vision tunneling, mind sluggishly trying to catch up to what your heart already knew. 

Eventually, you realized you were not drawing breath, and choked as you inhaled, the air thick with the scent of tobacco and black tea. Ghost, when you glanced around, was not there, but he had been. A cup of coffee was at the edge of your desk, steaming, still hot.

Because you still preferred coffee in the morning, despite having developed a taste for tea, and he knew that. He seemed to know everything about you.

It made you want to cry, but you crossed your office to your desk instead and sat. 

Delicately you slit the letter open along its seam, and read what you’d already known would be within. 

Home. 

Only the shape of home had long ago shifted.

Home was here. 

Home was the base and your softly lit office; it was your flat that you’d worked hard to make your own; it was tea with your coworkers and baking with your neighbor. 

Home was—

Home was—

It would be better for everyone if you went home, but the notion of leaving behind the little life you created so painstakingly over the last year tied your stomach in knots. You liked your apartment and the base and your neighbors. You liked your coworkers and hot cups of tea on rainy afternoons in chilly offices. You liked Soap and Kyle and Price. 

And Simon—

You liked having him in your life, in whatever way he let himself be. You liked when he visited you. You liked being close to someone, even if it wasn’t exactly in the way you wanted. You liked the quiet surety of your routine with him, even if it was unfair to both of you for you to be comforted by it. 

Your chest ached; your throat closed.  

It would be better for you to go. 

You did not want to go. 

You carefully pushed the letter back inside the envelope and thrust it into a desk drawer. 

It felt more like an execution notice. 

.

.

.

You managed to keep the information to yourself for two days. 

The tender bruise it left on you only seemed to deepen, that well in your chest that was meant to bring you comfort only serving to pinch. 

You wondered, again and again, if something had gone wrong. If you were not properly bonded, if Ghost had frayed the bond beyond repair like a dog chewing through its leash, if, perhaps, you had done something wrong. Maybe your disbelief has sown rot into your soul, an infected tether that poisoned both of you. 

It was raining again, a chill passing beneath the frame of your window, the lights dim and low. The last of your coworkers had long gone home and night had long ago fallen. 

You were curled in your office chair, your blanket and Simon’s tucked around your shoulders, when a gentle knock caught your attention. 

When you glanced up and found Ghost in your office doorway, you smiled, you forgot for a moment about that letter in your desk and everything it meant. 

“Ghost,” you greeted, unfolding your legs, blankets sloughing off your shoulders and into your lap. “Hey.” 

“Bird.” 

“It’s late.” 

“Is,” he agreed with a nod. 

He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him and the knowledge that you would be leaving this—him—soon clamped around you, seized something in your chest and squeezed. Fear and loss welled like twin heartaches, pooled in that hollow beneath your ribs that should only know warmth. 

He paused for only a moment before he rounded your desk, cupped your face between his ungloved palms and tilted your head up. He didn’t say anything, gaze trailing slowly over your features. 

Your chest tightened with the examination—bright, painful hope. To be the focus of your soulmate’s attention was like being buoyed, like sitting in the sun. It made you feel deeply settled. It was nectar sweet and confusing. You wanted to kiss him and felt as though you should ask for nothing and receive even less. 

And guilt. 

You felt guilty for not telling him as soon as the papers were handed to you. 

You expected the contact to be brief, but when he pushed his forehead against yours, he left it there for a long moment. 

He didn’t usually and it gave you pause. His eyes were closed when you opened yours again. You felt as though he were asking for something but you couldn’t understand the question. Exhaustion curled off him in waves. 

“Are you okay?” His eyes flickered open, confusion swirling in when he found you already looking at him. 

He tilted back and didn’t answer.

“You look tired,” you said carefully. “More tired than usual, anyway.” 

“What are you still doin’ ‘ere?” 

“Waiting for you to come make us a tea.” 

He made a soft huffing sound that you took to be a laugh. “Aye?”

“Mm.”  

He made a discontent noise and pulled away entirely. “Shite liar for someone who works in the shadows.” 

You smiled. “You just know me too well.” 

“Alright?” 

A heavy hand closed around your throat and you glanced away. “Yeah.” 

When he dropped into his usual chair, he tilted his head. You could read the words in his eyes before he said them. “Want to try that again?”

“I would actually like a cup of tea,” you said. 

“I’ll make you a cuppa if you tell me.”

You smiled, “Negotiating now?” 

“Always seem to be.”  

You frowned, not sure what he meant by that as you let your head fall back, wondering if you could put off telling him awhile longer. But Ghost’s suspicion was raised now. He looked relaxed, arms crossed over his chest, legs spread wide. His chin was tipped down, brows knitted together. You knew he was ready to go home, by the simple mask he was wearing and the dark hoodie he was swaddled in.

You thought of pushing the hood back, tugging the mask off, raking your nails through his hair as you had that day in the guy, and banished the image with a shake of your head. 

You fidgeted, plucked at the edge of your sweater with nervous fingers. He wouldn’t care, you thought, and you weren’t sure what would be worse: apathy or relief.

Simon said your name slowly, a dangerous warning hidden somewhere in the back of his throat. 

The sound seemed to take up space in your chest. 

He watched you, waiting for you to spit it out, shoulders stiffening, brows an unyielding, lowered line. 

You took a deep breath, bravely plucked the letter from its place in your desk drawer, and slid it across the tabletop toward him. 

Simon went very still, staring at the unassuming little envelope. You waited and watched him, watched his eyes and the slope of his unmoving shoulders.

Tension bled into the air so thickly you felt as though you might choke on it. You clenched your jaw so tight that pain lanced down your neck and into the top of your spine.  

Minutes passed and he didn’t so much as twitch. You weren’t sure he was breathing.

“Simon?” You said quietly, gently, as you could. “You okay?” 

He blinked, seemed to come back into himself, gaze locking onto yours as he reached for the letter with large, ungloved hands. His eyes only slid away from yours again when he pulled the letter out of its sleeve and glanced down to read it. 

“That’s all right,” he said after a moment, his voice even. 

Your belly lurched. So apathy it was, unmoved by the prospect of you leaving. 

“I know,” you said quietly. Your voice cracked under the pressure in your throat, as you willed yourself not to cry. “Nothing to make a big deal about. Just thought you should know—”

He shook his head and abruptly stood. “Ghost—?” 

He crossed your office in two strides and wrenched open the door before he disappeared through it.  

You frowned, wondering if you were meant to follow him, knowing that you never were. You settled back in your chair, tucking your legs in again, staring at the frost slowly creeping across the window glass, obscuring the fat yellow moon peeking from between parted winter clouds. 

Simon returned, to your surprise, a few minutes later, with a file folder. 

You felt a sense of dread as he dropped it on your desk. 

“What is this, Simon?” 

“I’ve already started it.” 

That did not answer your question. 

You sat forward and pulled it toward you, flipped it open and found a half completed residency application. Your fingers froze before you thumbed through the myriad pages. Forms filled in in chunky block handwriting. 

“What is this?” You asked again, attempting to quell the rising panic in your chest. “What did you do?” 

“The bond has to be officially recognized first,” he said, still not exactly answering your question. 

You swallowed. You’d heard about formal bond recognition and frowned at the last several instructional pages. Required photographic proof of bond pairing, and, an in person demonstration of proof of said bond—

You imagined it for a moment, the two of you before some faceless judge, Simon carving out another part of himself for the sake of you being able to remain when he didn’t even want you. Didn’t want you around, never wanted you to know who he was. And yet he was willing to shackle himself to you, toss the key away. 

Nausea welled, a heavy hand closing around your throat. A date was scratched in red at the bottom of the page for mid-April next year. Distantly, you realized it meant he had been working on this, thinking about it, for much longer than you had. It was. . .sweet. 

It should be sweet. 

You were suddenly aware of how much you did not know about him as you read through the pages. His birthday. His last name. If asked to fill out his half of the forms, you would not be able to. But it was all there in his own hand writing, information freely given for you when he had only given up his name by accident. He was giving up everything he kept close to the chest, that he kept from everyone. 

But your horror and revulsion won out when you turned the next page and found a scan of his military ID. His naked face stared blankly, uncomfortably out at you. 

What it all meant crashed down on you with the force of a toppled building. You saw yourself demonstrating the bond again. Simon unmasked, a wolf without its teeth, because you knew he would never let you be the one to prove the bond. He would stand there and carve himself up, wrench out a bone and lie it down as proof. 

Years of wishing you could protect the soulmate you didn’t know from further harm curled fingers through the bars of your ribs, prying loose that desperation. 

Now you could. 

His name, his face, his privacy, his sense of safety. 

You slammed the folder closed and shoved it away. “No,” you said, horrified. “No. Absolutely not.” 

His brows softened when you glanced up at him. His voice was maybe the gentlest you have ever heard. “I would do it, love—”

You made an involuntary, distressed sound. “Jesus Christ, Ghost. No.” 

All this effort was not his choice, and you couldn’t take anymore from him. It was pity and harm rolled into one. It was self flagellation; it was locking a weight around his ankle and jumping into a deep lake. 

You couldn’t keep burdening the people around you, anyway. Simon with the bond he had no interest in and was plagued and bound by, the rest of the 141 being vulnerable for it. 

Price had asked you to take care of him and you could. 

Ghost’s gaze was hard when you met his eyes. “Why not?” 

There was a dangerous edge in his voice, a fissure that said tread carefully. 

“Why would I ever want you to do this?” You fired back. 

Your voice was panicked and louder than you meant it to be. 

He shrunk away, at the same time that his shoulders seemed to widen a few centimeters. 

“I can’t do that to you,” you said, pushing the file back toward him. “I won’t do that to you.” 

“You aren’t going to try to stay.” His voice was flat and far away. 

Something lurched behind your breastbone. You rubbed at the spot but the pain didn’t fade. “I will not let you scar yourself for nothing!” You snapped. 

He was so still, his body a coiled spring. “Nothing.” His voice was hollow.   

You swallowed. “It’s easier this way, Simon,” you said after a long beat of silence. “It’s safer, if I just go.”  

He sat back, like you’d punched him and was struggling for breath. 

You watched the wall come down in his eyes, protective distance, that blank, far away, unreachable look he always used to wear when he first started visiting your office. 

“That’s what you want, yeah?”

You closed your eyes for a moment, and when you opened them again, he was gone, as though he’d never entered your life at all. 

The room seemed to reverberate with the loss of him. A warning in the still, cold air, a tragedy leaching into your lungs. 

You fucked something up, but you weren’t sure what or how. You paced circles around your office until you felt ill. You knew he wouldn’t come back, that you might have broken the fragile peace that existed between you. 

Maybe it was for the best. 

The pain didn’t recede. 

.

.

.

You used to have nightmares. 

Each night you would lie down, close your eyes, and drown for a few hours. Long, looping gray halls, faint outlines of fists knuckled into drywall. You would search, thread your way up and down staircases without end, flinging open doors that led to the same bruised walls.

You could trace the trajectory of Simon’s life through your scars. The child abuse he’d clearly endured, the abrupt way the regular tracery of pain vanished, and then slowly appeared again. In starts and fits, enough for you to know that he had endured and finally escaped, and perhaps had a dangerous job, or lifestyle. You imagined a boxer, an MMA fighter. You imagined a construction worker, a welder, a fire fighter, a soldier.  

For awhile, you were content, the dreams receded like nothing more than a bad memory. Mostly, he seemed to be safe, and that was enough. A new mark would occasionally be added to your skin, but it always seemed incidental, an accident or mishap. That you could handle. 

Then those awful months had come, where each morning there were fresh marks. Your fear was like a fist in your throat. You rarely slept, afraid of what your mind would conjure, afraid of all the ways you could never help. Your soulmate was being tortured, of that you were sure, and you could only watch. 

You would wake up—a plethora of new scars seared into your flesh, and a sense of pain, the impression of pain you should feel, lingering around you like a malignant cloud—and plead with anything, anyone that might be listening to help where you couldn’t. Your throat, chest, and back saw the most damage then. No more defensive scars on your palms, but thin circlets had formed around your wrists. No more bite marks but that awful corded scar had roped its way around your throat. 

The nightmares returned with vengeance clutched in their fists. Bloodier, more violent. 

Now, dreams of perpetual, unending silence. A life lived alone. Those same looping, gray halls filled with doors that you could hear other people behind, just out of reach, all locked. Most times, though, the dreams were more violent than that, blood on concrete, endless replays of dreams past, torture past. 

It filled you with a type of horror you thought long past you, that you thought couldn’t be felt anymore. 

But it was worse, now, knowing it was Simon that had inspired those dreams. It had been bad enough knowing only that it was the abstract concept of someone meant for you on the receiving end. 

You’re sure your dreams were only a whisper of what he experienced. 

The dreams seemed to be arbiters, harbingers of some tragedy, rewritten lines of a play long acted out. 

You missed him. 

Didn’t know how to check on him. 

How to apologize for ever having shown up in his life. 

It made you wish you’d turned down that transfer last year, that you had never gotten the one thing you always wanted. 

Soap, when he appeared in front of you, assessed your sleeplessness with an astute, bluntness you only felt numb to.  

“Ye look like shite.” 

“Thank you for that, John MacTavish,” you said, swerving around him and down the hall toward your office. “Is there something you need?” 

He followed you, situated himself as comfortably as he always did, firmly in Ghost’s chair. 

“You okay, lassie?” 

You clutched at the files as you hovered in the doorway and took a wincing breath. The pain hadn’t gone away. “Yes. Just tired.” 

“Ghost has been tired, too.” 

“It’s a good thing you aren’t a spy, Soap.” 

“Aye, but am not tryin’ to be.” 

You huffed, tightened your hold on the files and tablet. The pressure against your chest helped. “I’m getting transferred home.” You smiled but it felt awkward and false. “Good news.”

He tilted his head. “For who?”

“Simon,” you said easily. “And all of you. I’m a burden the rest of you have to bear,” you attempted to joke. 

Neither of you laughed. 

Johnny was uncharacteristically quiet, the silence like a shroud. 

“And you talked to the Ghost?” He asked after a long moment. 

“Yeah.”

Johnny frowned. “And he’s alrigh’ with tha’?”

You frowned back at him, fidgeted, plucked at the edge of your sweater with nervous fingers. “I can’t ignore orders,” you said simply, though you both knew there was a solution. The one Ghost had already thought of. 

Soap was still watching you, his head tilted to the side. “What d’ye want?” 

A strange choking feel raked up your chest, bound itself over your heart. If you could, you’d slip into Simon’s bloodstream. To be carried there, to belong. You wanted so badly to be wanted, to have somewhere safe. 

You shook your head. “I don’t think it matters what I want.” 

It was unfair, though, that it didn’t. 

That you have never mattered. 

A sudden, intense burst of anger welled up in the back of your throat. “I’m starting to think the whole fucking thing is fool’s gold.” You ground your teeth together, “I think it’s all bullshit meant to give you hope. And nothing else. It never meant anything at all.”

Johnny looked pained. “Ach, bird—”

“No,” you interrupted. “No. I’m sorry. That’s not fair of me. I think I am uniquely fucked up.” 

A burst of warmth made you whirl toward the hall but no one was there. 

.

.

.

Once, Simon, without preamble, before you knew what he was to you, had abruptly asked one afternoon if you’d ever gone through RTI training. 

“Yes. I might not do field work, but I still know too much,” you’d answered and tilted your head curiously to the side. “Why?”

He had not answered, but looked marginally more at ease. 

“Were you?” 

“What?” 

“Tortured?” 

His eyes had flicked over you. “Think you know the answer.” 

You had nodded.

“They say to compartmentalize,” you said, curious. “That you buy time instead of trying to avoid talking. But I was never good with pain. What did you think of?”

In an odd bout of truth sharing he had said, “Dead now, what I thought of.” He settled into his chair more firmly. “Don’t think of anything you care to lose.” 

And that had been that. 

.

.

.

Simon didn’t say goodbye.

You weren’t exactly speaking, anyway. 

Silence had unspooled between you and him, thick and cloying, a rope that wrapped tighter around his throat with each coil. 

Ghost still checked on you, watched from the shadows as you began moving through preparations to leave your post. Cases handed off to other intel officers, your office slowly depleted of the things that made it yours. 

The potted plants in their terracotta shells disappeared and reappeared in other offices—in the break room, on a filing cabinet in the hall. The bug lamp vanished and so did your blanket and the lavender headphones, the stack of books in the corner. Your scent faded, that oakmoss and lavender that permeated the air seemed to falter more with each passing day. 

When he peered into your office, a wraith at the edge of your life once again, you worked in total silent stillness in the cold room. You had not touched his blanket, slung over the back of the chair as it always was. 

Things were moving too fast, and he was wasting time. You would be gone by the end of the year; it was already the middle of December. He knew, when he looked in on you before they left, that it would be the last time. He would return to the base and your office would be empty, bereft. 

Soap was staring at him from across the transport plane, his brows drawn down, fists curled loosely around the straps of his vest. His sergeant looked angry. 

The air was cold. 

Simon’s skin ached. That bloody pain was under his ribs again.  

He couldn’t stop thinking of your blanket. Why would you remove it first when you needed it? You were always cold, always sun seeking. Your blanket abandoned, his hoodie you wouldn’t wear. It was like you were abandoning comfort. 

“The lass seemed—”

“That’ll do, Sergeant,” Ghost cut Soap off quietly, a warning in his voice. If Gaz and Price were listening, they didn’t show it, huddled over a tablet together at the far end of the hull. 

Soap glanced away. “Was cryin’ before we left.” 

Ghost jerked his gaze back up. 

“Enough,” he snarled, and then felt exhaustion tug his anger back down. 

He closed his eyes and leaned back, letting the heaviness of his gear fall against his body, crushing even as his spine loosened.

It was enough. 

He didn’t need to be reminded of your misery, or your rejection. 

Domestic conflict didn’t suit him. He was afraid of it, had only ever watched it end with a bruised cheek, tears, a voice like knives. He already swore that he would never be that kind of man, that he wouldn’t become his father. 

Conflict that couldn’t be swiftly ended with a gun or a blade was out of his bloody purview. 

You deserved better, and that truth had never been more apparent or that you knew it too. 

Why would I ever want you to do this?

Fair enough question.

Mapping his own fear wasn't easy. It didn’t come naturally. 

He wanted nothing more than to scoop it out with a rusty spoon, put it on offer to you. 

But you didn’t want that, and he’d known that all along. 

The plane hummed and shook like it was in the fist of a giant, shuttling them through the sky, an overgrown child with a toy. 

“Aye,” Soap said, an unusual snap in his voice. “Maybe you were right, LT.”

Ghost opened his eyes. 

It was bait. 

They both knew it. 

Ghost asked anyway, his voice low and dark. “Usually am. Care to tell me what about this time?” 

“Maybe she deserves better.” 

.

.

.

Task Force 141 was deployed on an emergency op. They left three days ago, chasing some nightmare that they had dealt with before. Intel that you had pooled and passed off to Laswell without too much thought about it, turned out to be something they’d long been searching for. 

Price checked in with you. Kyle and Soap said goodbye. 

Ghost disappeared without a word. 

You caught a glimpse of his shadow disappearing down the administration wing’s hall before they had gone, warmth fading around you, and knew he had been outside your office. His involuntary monitoring only served to make your chest ache.

You knew that you weren’t likely to see any of them again. Your apartment was a sea of boxes; your office was bereft. It was unclear how long the op would last. 

You weren’t likely to see Ghost again, anyway, who had become as good as his namesake over the past few weeks. It was terrible, the way you waited and hoped that he would come back to you, just so you could say goodbye. He was impossible to hunt down when he did not want to be found. 

As it stood, you were alone, your office was empty for all but the equipment you were given on your first day and Simon’s blanket. You weren’t sure what to do with it. It wasn’t yours but leaving it behind to be tossed in with the trash or thrown in storage somewhere to rot, festering alone, eaten by moths, seemed wrong.  

Still, you had left it over the back of his chair. Maybe he would see it when he returned and finally take it with him. 

You did, however, keep the hoodie he had left in your apartment. No one had to know that you slept in it, felt comforted just by touching something that was his. 

Were you especially pathetic, or was that something all bonded soulmates felt? You couldn’t imagine Simon feeling that way about something of yours. It was hard to imagine him being comforted by anything besides a gun, a knife, his own violent hands.  

Maybe if you weren’t so upset, maybe if things had gone differently, you would have noticed you were being followed long before it was too late to do anything about it. 

You were walking from your car to your apartment, gym and work bags slung over your shoulder, sweat still drying between your shoulder blades when the unease settled around you. You felt watched, not in the way that you had become accustomed to. 

The back of your neck prickled, some long buried sense warning you that danger was near. When you glanced over your shoulder, the street was empty and blue in the waning winter light, the barest fanning of snow shimmering, fans of yellow puddled down the sidewalk behind you. 

But you could hear footsteps.

You didn’t change your pace, slipping your hand into the front pocket of Simon's hoodie instead, feeling the comforting weight of the switchblade gifted to you all those months ago. Cold, solid metal. 

It felt a bit like safety, wrapped in Ghost's fading scent, the knife he'd given you in your palm.

All those nights you stayed late on the base, Simon waiting patiently for you to leave, eyes closed, arms crossed before he walked you to your car flicked through your mind. 

The irony struck you now, of all those careful wanderings to your car, no one had ever been there along this route. The path from your car to your front door was barren, the moment of your day that you were most alone. 

When you glanced behind you again, still no one was there.  

You told yourself it was nothing, though every instinct was telling you that wasn’t true. Cold bled between your shoulders, snaked down your spine in a warning drip. 

The footsteps faded but the watched feeling didn’t. 

Once inside you locked the door behind you and made a beeline for your bed side table drawer where you’d stored Simon’s half completed residency application. You started to shred it with your hands before you realized that would not be enough. 

A thud on the landing outside made you jump, confirmed your worst thoughts. You were on your way out, all the case files and hard drives you had been trusted with handed back over to Laswell, debriefed a million and one times. There was only one thing someone could be looking for. 

You calmly carried the documents to your kitchen and threw them in the largest pot you had. It only took a moment for it all to go up in flame after you dropped a lit match in, suffocating his name and yours, the edges of the copy of his military ID going at the corners and then swallowing his face. 

You wanted to dig your hands into it, scoop the ash into your mouth, just to keep it all safe. 

For half a moment, as smoke curled around your kitchen, you felt stupid. It was probably nothing and you’d just erased the only memory of your soulmate’s face you had been allowed. 

Then, the front door exploded inward.

You were slammed into the counter, scattered remnants of the meager combat training you had received flicking through your head. 

But your body was faster than your brain, you wriggled loose and stabbed upward with the blade suddenly in your hand. 

You both seemed surprised when you made contact, slicing a long stripe along his cheek up to the corner of his eye. The point of your knife sunk into his eye, and when you ripped it back, blood sprayed across your ceiling. 

You had been drilled not to linger though, yanking back when he released your elbow, screaming and clutching his face. 

You dodged two more men whose fingers grazed you but didn’t catch. They seemed more surprised than you were that you avoided it, that maybe Ghost had been telling the truth when he said you were unreasonably fast. 

You flung your knife at the one in the foyer, and watched it sink to the hilt into his throat. 

You didn’t pause, flew down the steps to the road and wrenched down a black street and then a tiny alley that you hoped you could lose them in, that you could get lost in. The irritated crash of voices followed you as you zigzagged through the streets of the town that had become your home, and now had turned into a maze. 

Distantly, you realized they were speaking in Russian, footsteps pounding against the pavement behind you. The wind was bitterly cold, snow burning down around you. 

Ghost’s words fanned across your mind, you just had to be fast enough to run away, to hide, that was all. You held onto his voice, the memory of him guiding you.

All you had to do was run away. 

But you turned down another street and found the narrow close ended in a brick wall that you were not tall enough to scale. 

This time when you were pushed forward, your temple connected with brick, stars bloomed across your vision. Your arms were pinned immediately to your sides. 

You threw your head back, skull connecting with a crack against someone’s nose. 

“You fucking bitch—” 

Thick fingers against the back of your neck, slamming you forward into the brick again. This time nausea crawled into your throat along with pain and a thin trickle of blood, stars blooming across your vision. 

“Easy, easy! Nothing that will scar. Not yet.” 

You were shoved harder against the wall, an uncomfortable, heavy weight bowing your spine, but your captor was careful not to let your face rasp against the brick again. 

Blood licked warmly into the corner of your mouth, dripping lovingly into your mouth. A nerve throbbed behind your eye. You grunted, air squeezed out of your lungs when the man behind you leaned harder on you. “Careful, little rabbit,” he said. 

Footsteps sounded behind the pair holding you captive, slow and measured, a brutal, unhurried pace that eventually stopped to your left. 

“I don’t have to wonder what you were burning, but I think I can guess,” he said by way of introduction. “Let’s see her face.” 

The hand on the back of your neck cupped your jaw instead, yanked your face around so violently you felt it in your neck. 

A man’s face swims into your peripheral vision. Dark, sharply intelligent eyes met yours. Predatory, like looking into the teeth of a fox. You had seen his face before. And if he was here, the op the 141 was currently on was a decoy.  

Fear swam into your gut, adrenaline sweeping down your spine. 

“Ah,” he said, reaching out to stroke the back of his pointer finger down your cheek. “You must belong to Ghost,” he said. He drew a blade slowly from his trouser pocket. It sung as he flipped it open and held it to your throat, drawing it shallowly over your flesh. “No one else has so many scars.” 

You shivered and the blade bit deeper into your skin.

You felt blood pool warmly in the hollow at the base of your neck. “Yes, I think if I had Simon Riley here, you’d match, wouldn’t you?” His eyes flicked over you, watching you closely. 

You didn’t blink, despite how irked you were that he knew Simon’s name. Didn’t acknowledge the implication of your scars. “He won’t come,” you said, voice hoarse. “If that’s what this is.”  

“He will,” he said, withdrawing the knife, wiping it clean on a handkerchief he pulled from his pocket, swiping it neatly clean. “Simon Riley,” he said again, drawing out the syllables of a name you wanted to rip out of the air, stuff in your own mouth. “He tends to have this kind of bad luck with things he cares for. Don’t you agree?” 

You didn’t move, didn’t breathe. The lancing pain in your head was growing and thinking was a failing battle. The pressure on your spine was intense, your lungs crushed beneath the weight of the man holding you in place, a mouse beneath a paw. 

You closed your eyes. “He doesn’t care about me.” 

“That is not how soulmates work.” 

You laughed, a choked horrible sound to your own ears. 

The world tasted like blood. 

Like the copper tang of a penny pressed beneath your tongue. 

You could taste it on your teeth.

“Then you don’t know Ghost very well.” You said. “He doesn’t want me.” If anyone could overcome that instinct, that taboo, it was Ghost. He would not come for you, of that you were sure. It would be easier. “He won’t come. It’s the tactical choice.” 

“I suppose we will see, will we not? We will have fun together, you and I, in the meantime.” 

He disappeared from your view, footsteps disappearing back down the close.

Panic settled hard and fast in your stomach, what you were about to endure whether they killed you eventually or not.

You squirmed as the weight eased off your back, kicked backward desperately. Your sneaker connected with a shin before you were jerked around and slapped. You lunged forward, not sure what you were about to do when a sharp pain bloomed in the side of your throat and the world went dark. 

There was one thing you were certain of, though, as your consciousness faded and your body was hauled through the dark, the thickening snow. 

Makarov was wrong.  

Simon was not coming. 

And you, as always, were alone. 

.

.

.

Ghost couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. 

The base felt eerily silent as he tracked through it, hauling his kit, beelining for your office, the failed op like a warning bell in the back of his mind that he couldn’t ignore.  

It was your intel, Laswell said, that led them there.  

Your office was empty, dark. 

The only personal item left in the room was the blanket you had knitted for him all those months ago, left across the back of the chair he always sat in. 

He pressed gloved fingers against it and a chill curled in his gut. Your office, for so long a comfort, a warmth, a haven, felt barren, vacant. It smelled of dust, and he knew you hadn’t been there in a few days. The scent of your perfume no longer lingered in the air, your presence as faded as if you’d never been there at all. 

It did not help the feeling that something wasn’t right. 

An indescribable, irrational fear gripped him. Like talons hooked around his lungs, pulling them slowly from between his ribs. The pain had returned, settled as neatly behind his breastbone as if it had never left. 

Nausea wound tight in his throat. He pressed a hand against his chest but it didn’t ease. It lingered, seemed to pulse worse than it ever had before. He had heard you and Johnny, once, talking about the pain. There were cases where it had returned, when soulmates were separated against their will, or, if one was in danger, dying, hurt. 

Usually it meant the pair was dying, it was a warning, an easing into the snap of the bond being severed forever. 

Simon dropped his kit, kicked the door shut and yanked up his sleeves, the hem of his shirt, searching fruitlessly for a needle in a fucking haystack. 

It was faint, at first, because it was yours and not his, buried beneath pain and thick scarring and years of not taking care of those scars. 

He watched, for the first time, as a scar that wasn’t his bled into his flesh. 

A deep one, puckering the meat of his forearm in a new and disturbing way. It was not an accident. A message was being writ in your skin for him to see. 

It didn’t hurt, and that was the worst part. The ghost of pain seemed to linger in the air above it, pain he should feel and didn’t, the suggestion of torment like an electric current he desperately wanted to stick his fingers into, wrap around his wrists and yank away from you. 

An involuntary, nearly inaudible sound wrenched out of him.

It wasn’t just one. The more he stared, the more faint, flicking lines he saw, across his arms, his stomach. 

He knew what it meant. 

He didn’t know how to process what he was seeing, or the feeling that accompanied it. 

The uncertainty and fear you’d once described to him, of knowing that his soulmate was hurt but not how, of being helpless to watch, washed over him in a violent wave. 

He took a deep breath. 

Then another. 

Simon was gone. 

Price, he knew, would still be in his office. 

Jack leant over the counter at you, peering through squinted eyes. “Disappointment? I think you've just made my night.”

There was a blush on your cheeks as you looked away, studying the Pitt to find something to distract yourself with.

“You might regret that. We've got a lorry car collision, ETA ten minutes out,” you explained, dropping the granola bar into your scrub pocket. “I might just be your bad luck charm.”

Jack loved working with you. He loved getting your opinion on cases that didn't need a second opinion. He liked the quiet moments in the night shifts you covered where it was just the two of you and the night sky. He liked being able to make you blush, to make you laugh in the middle of the darkness.

Because there was a darkness lingering in you. The sort only the Pitt could latch onto a person.

He'd seen it in Robby.

He despised seeing it in you.

There were some nights you covered- because you were always the first to volunteer to do a double- you started with a sparkle in your eyes and ending the night in despair, dragging yourself home. You'd return hours later, not at all long enough to have had a good sleep.

Jack worried, but he liked having you around to keep an eye on you.

Jack shook his head. “Nah. The bad luck is this place. You're the good.”

You laughed, hesitantly.

Lena patted your arm, kindly, the way a mother did. “I'll go get the guy from trauma two moved.”

“You want some help?” you offered.

“No, sweetie, I got it.”

You looked around like you needed to make myself busy. Like you couldn't be alone with Jack. He'd seen it in the ED many times, even in the military, the need for people to stay busy instead of succumbing to a sort of numbness.

It had been him some years back before he managed to deal with his demons.

“Any interesting cases in the ED today?” Jack asked, following you around with his hands behind his back, restraining himself from guiding you through with a hand on your back.

“Well, we had a woman who didn't realise she was eight months pregnant who gave birth today. A priapism-”

Jack seethed. “Ouch.”

“- and a man with a toothbrush stuck up where the sun don't shine.”

“Double ouch,” he said, checking the side of you. “So you had quite an interesting day, huh?”

“You could say that,” you mumbled. “There's also a girl in five with Fancomi anemia. She came in four hours again and we're still waiting to hear from her parents. She has a half sister half way across the country that might be a bone marrow candidate that they've never tried.”

Jack nodded, listening and catching the far away look in your eyes. “You're doing everything for her,” said Jack. He didn't even have to ask to know you would be doing everything possible for the girl. Even if it meant exhausting yourself.

Jack nodded to himself, debating with himself if he wanted to know the answer to his next question. The devil and angel arguing on his shoulders. “A little birdie told me you had a date,” he said, the both of you knowing the little birdie was, in fact, Robby. “How'd it go?”

You sighed and stopped in the middle of the corridor.

He cut you off before you could start. “I'm just asking to check you're okay. That... that he was nice.”

You nodded slowly, not meeting his gaze as your hands rested at your hips. “He was- he was fine.”

Jack ignored the wince of pain as he crouched to get a look at you. “Just fine?”

If Jack couldn't have you, he loved you enough to just want you happy.

It was only four months ago you'd broken up with him, after seven months of beautiful moments. Of coming home to you in his sheets, making a coffee and waking you up to it. He wanted to steal every moment with you, choosing sleep when you went to work, spending the morning just watching you get ready. The lunch dates where he'd turn up to the ED, the place he could never escape, with a delicious home made lunch for you and sometimes extra for Robby who kicked up a fuss that he got nothing and had known Jack longer.

Jack missed the kisses in the night and the morning. He missed holding you when he had a night off. He missed when you'd think he was asleep and map his freckles, tracing I love you into his skin.

Because the tender moments were always there, yet gradually they began to hide themselves in the cover of night, when you thought he was sleeping.

Jack knew things weren't perfect. With both your schedules it was hard to balance but you tried to make it work. Then the light in your eyes started to fade and when you told him it isn’t working anymore, I love you, I'm sorry, he hadn't thought to keep your relationship alive. He'd just been fighting to keep you.

He was terrified he'd lose you.

Then what would he do?

He wouldn't survive it.

“Just fine?” he asked again.

“Don’t sound too pleased.”

“I’m not,” he denied but bit back a smile.

You looked up to him, shuddering a deep breath. “He was just... whatever.”

“Just a whatever kind of guy?”

“Why are you asking so much?” you asked, mildly annoyed.

Because he still loved you? Wasn't it painfully obvious? Weren't you just trying to act like you didn't know he was helpless for you to spare him embarrassment.

“Just, checking in on you.”

You looked down at your shoes, scuffing them on the floor. “It- he was nice but... I dunno, not what I wanted.”

Jack hummed. “No?” did you still want him? He'll be honest, he didn't think he'd hear about you going on a date. Least of all with some guy from Pedes. When you'd broke up with him he expected it had something to do with you wanting to focus on you. Rest up. The sort of stuff like that. Then he had to hear from Robby that you were going out for dinner.

There was only a small bite of anger before Jack felt sorry for himself.

“No,” you sighed.

There were deeper circles under your eyes than usual, sharp half moons dark in colour lingering there. Your eyes were dark and lifeless, scrubs hanging off you.

“Is there anything else going on?” he asked, tugging at your arm slightly to hide yourselves at a corner.

You looked up to him, lips pulled down in a frown as you shook your head. “Nope.”

His brows rose, eyes looking at you, pleading. “You can talk to me if there is, h-” the pet name he had no right to almost slipped from his lips. He gulped it down and felt it sting down his throat. “You can tell me.”

“We're...” you hesitated. “We're not together anymore, Jack. You don't have to do all this chivalry thing.”

“Can't help it,” Jack shrugged. “Not when it's you.”

Your hands wrung together and Jack looked down. There was flakes of dry skin on along your fingers. He knew the sanitiser in the ED could be harsh on your skin, but he also knew he'd replaced your hand moisturiser in your locker just two weeks ago and that you should have plenty. It was a nervous habit you had, to rub your hands together like so.

Jack remembered it from your first date. He’s used it as an excuse to reach over and take your hands.

“I'm just tired,” you mumbled.

Jack nodded, slow and listening. “That it?” he prodded gently.

He'd heard countless doctors slip those words out in answer to the everything okay type questions. He'd seen Robby break as the words chocked in his throat. You said them without emotion. Without even trying to prove your lie.

“Why don't you go home? Get some rest-”

“Ellis is-”

“- we'll manage,” he insisted. His hand had un-consciously started to move up and down your forearm in comfort.

You winced as you turned your head aside, thinking about it.

Jack didn't know how much he really wanted you to go home. He wanted you to rest, yes, but preferably in the family room with a blanket thrown over you where he could drop by and check in on you. Check you were okay.

Check you weren't doing something stupid.

He knew that not everyone felt like a ticking time bomb. That not everyone's mind would wonder as dark as his did sometimes.

But he feared you weren't far off.

“Go rest-”

At the same moment Jack spoke the ambulance doors were pushed open and two bodies were pushed through on gurneys, bloody and broken. Stats were yelled out and Jack was called for.

At the same time, Matteo popped out of five, calling for you.

“She's crashing!”

You rushed over, falling into the room with the young girl and Matteo.

With a heavy sigh, Jack followed the other path of emergency responders and doctors.

He and the team worked on them. A father and son involved in a lorry crash that ploughed right into the side. The kid was only seventeen with a broken leg and collapsed lung. The father was much better off. The boy would need surgery and Walsh was already down and wheeling him up.

It was all done in a quick blur of thirty minutes. He took care of it all clinically like ticking through a to do list, not looking to close at the kid to remember shades of hair or lines of the face.

By the time Jack was stepping out the trauma room, Crus at his side, you still had not returned to the floor of the ED.

“How does she seem to you?” Jack asked Crus, the two of them pulling off their gloves and gowns. He said your name in clarification.

“Hot!” said Crus with a shit-eating grin.

Jack glared at him. He should have known not to expect a serious answer from Henderson. Or at least he hoped that wasn't the serious answer.

“I don't know man, how do you want her to seem?” asked Crus.

“She seems tired. For a while now,” Jack noted.

“Aren't we all chasing sleep?” he asked him, leaving his side with a pat on his back.

Jack found himself at the nurses station, leaning over.

Lena's glasses slid down her nose, a chart in hand and her red hair messily pulled back. She ditched all efforts to seem busy however when he beckoned her over. “She's been in there the last thirty-five minutes,” she told him. “The little girl she'd been looking after crashed.”

“Nothing back?”

Lena shook her head.

Jack shook his head. “Shit.”

With a heavy heart he dragged himself to room five, already hearing the stillness of the monitor, the hard breathing and orders.

“Push another round of epi and charge to two hundred.”

The room smelt of septic cleaning products and the faint aroma of sweat. There was a faint burn smell from the defibrillators that had apparently already been charged and used.

Jack lingered in the doorway.

Your body was curved over the small girl, knees denting into the crappy hospital bed that hadn't been updated in years. Your hands were cupped over her chest, pumping down as Matteo pushed another round of epi. Catching Jack's eyes, he shook his head.

Jack tutted, quietly to himself. “Hold compressions, check for a rhythm.”

It took you a second but you stopped, looking to the monitor in hope.

There was nothing but a flat line.

Jack didn't tell you to resume compressions but you did anyway.

“Charge to three hundred,” you said to Matteo.

He was caught in the middle, looking toward Jack for confirmation.

Jack nodded and Matteo got the paddles, warming them and handing them to you.

Your grasped them in an all too familiar hold. “Clear!”

The small girls body lurched before flopping back on the bed. Everyone in the small room waited for a rhythm. There was nothing in answer.

Jack had no time to tell you not to carry on before you were. He took a slow step in, patting Matteo on the shoulder, in a silent gesture to have him leave.

The nurse gave a sad look before leaving, closing the door gently behind him.

There was Jack and you over the girls body.

He said your name, slowly.

You didn't react.

“Honey, come on,” said Jack. “She's gone.” He could see the tremble in your arms from the compressions you hadn't given up on.

One. Two. Three. Four.

“Her parents aren't even here,” you said. “They didn't even pick up their phone when Dana called. We-we left a message. They deserve to see their daughter one last time.”

Jack nodded. “They will.”

You glanced up at him. “Alive.”

He clocked his head to the side. “That's not gonna happen. It's been forty-five minutes. She's gone.”

Losing kids were the hardest. Losing anyone was hard but kids weren't supposed to be found in hospital beds, tubes poking out of them. If they had to be found in a hospital, they deserved loved ones around them. Not strangers in black and blue.

Jack knew you were trying to do the right thing. Sometimes there was no right thing to do.

“Come on.” Jack was slow in moving around the bed to your side. He gave you time to slow down, to feel the exhaustion in your arms. His own hovered over you. “Come on.”

You shuddered when his arms fell over you, holding you softly as you slumped back into him, falling from the bed on feet that weren't ready to catch you. His arms were; strong where you were weak.

“It's okay, it's okay,” he mumbled into your hair, peppering kisses there. “You did everything you could.”

Neither of you knew how long you stood there in his embrace. Somewhere between the consoling you and you slowly leaving his arms- like it was paining you physically to do so- Jack called the time of death so you wouldn't have to, pulling the plug on the monitor to kill the sound of dying.

When he turned back you were stuck at the door, eyes downcast as if you couldn't bring yourself to look at the small body he pulled the cover over.

He returned to your side, hand gentle on your arm. “Go take some time in the family room.”

You shook your head, a tear betraying your words. “I'm fine.”

Jack reached up and cupped your cheek in the palm of his hand. He looked at you like you were still his whole world. You were. To him. His thumb delicately wiped the tear away as your gaze reached his. “Ten minutes, please. For me.”

It took some time, some great mental calculations sparring inside of you but you nodded and Jack led you from the room, closing the door behind him.

His hand was a gentle breeze against the small of your back as he led you out, giving a gesture of a nod to Lena about the room. It was enough for her charge nurse bells to go off as she nodded and sent someone over.

“Take all the time you need, okay?” Jack whispered to you.

You nodded, stepping out his hold and slowly walking to the family room.

Jack waited and watched closely, marking every step you took to the room. He only let out a sigh when he saw you close the door behind you.

“Everything okay?” asked Lena as he slouched over the counter.

His face scrunched up as he fought his own pain. Pain for the little girl but a greater pain chocked at him as he closed his eyes and pictured the heartbreak marring your face, taking over your entire body. He sniffed back his own grief. “No. No, not really.”

Slowly he explained the situation to Lena. He re-encountered the break up that had took the night crew by shock. They were all so sure it was happy ever after for the two of you. When Jack had to slowly explain the break up (he lied and said it was mutual, it was very much not) there were distraught faces as if the night-crawlers were all going through a parental divorce. He told Lena he knew something was going on with you. He told her about the girl that had just died.

“And I just-” said Jack, chocking on a cry that threatened to escape the lodge in his throat. “Sometimes when I see her, it feels like I'm gonna be seeing her for the last time.”

“Hey,” Lena whispered and reached for his hand, squeezing it. “None of that. She'll be okay.”

Jack nodded, repeating the words to himself. “Yeah, she'll be okay. Keep an eye on here?”

“Already on it.”

By the time Jack next had the spare moment to check his watch he found thirty minutes had flickered by since he last saw you. When he passed by the family room you weren't there. Instead Caleb was, talking to a family.

Jack went in search of you, checking the board for your initials. He didn't see anything up on there, nothing that jolted his heart with the usual sparks.

“Shen!” he called in passing. “Have you seen her?”

“Er, no, sorry.”

Jack cursed. He was turning around the ED, spinning on his heel and looking around every corner for you. You weren't by the lockers, weren't out in the ambulance bay. Trauma one was empty and trauma two had a large team in there already, devoid of you.

His heart beat like a drum in his chest, growing louder and louder, the thud of the bass growing the more time went on and he couldn't find you. Had you gone home without a word? Were you hiding away somewhere else?

Jack was losing hope, running on anxiety when he pushed back the curtain to fourteen hard enough to almost tear the thing.

You looked up at him from your place on the stool next to your patient, a middle aged woman with an ankle not as it should be.

“You're here,” he said, breathless.

“Er, yeah?” you said with a small chuckle. “I'm just telling Mrs Greene here about the surgery to reset the bone in her foot.”

Jack nodded, looking from you to your patient.

He wasn't an idiot. Your eyes were scratched and red, cheeks flushed. Yet you'd tried to put yourself back together. You'd scraped back your hair in a neater pin up, had clearly splashed cold water on your face, maybe even dunked your face in a bowl of it. You sat with your hands in your lap, a leg kicked over the other, caving in on yourself.

As soon as you left the room, chart in hand, Jack was hot on your heels.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

You startled, looking at him. “Yeah. Why wouldn't it be?”

“You lost a patient,” Jack reminded you, a small frown pulling at his lips. “It's tough on all of us.”

You glanced down to the chart, lifting your shoulders. “We lose people all the time. It's the job.”

He surveyed you as you slid into a seat, logging into the computer in front of you. No eye contact, distractions pulling at you. Jack knew your tactics; they were everyone else's. Ignore the pain till it went away before mounting up and crashing down at the worst time possible. Heck, he was chair of the club.

“Sure,” he mused. “Doesn't make it any easier.”

You sighed, pulling your lips up into a strained smile. “Jack, seriously, I'm fine. You don't have to worry about me.”

Jack leant over the counter. “Well, you want to know a secret?”

“What?”

“I'm always worried about you.”

“I don't think it's much of a secret,” you said, moving your fingers quick over the keypad.

He wondered if your hands were steady. Or even if you were writing anything with meaning, or just trying to occupy yourself. “If you need to go home-”

“- I don't-”

“- take some time-”

“- I don't want to take time,” you huffed.

“You’re starting to sound like Robby.”

“Now that’s insulting,” you huffed. There was a moment were you fell silent, your body slumping under the weight of the argument. You dragged your hands down your face. “Jack, please.”

When you're a kid they teach you that manners are an important basis in the human condition. A show of respect. A nicety. They don't tell you the effects the simple words hold when used on the tongue of a loved one. When someone you love is begging you to leave them alone, even against your better judgement.

Jack never liked to hear you beg as it was.

He hung his head in surrender. “I'm staying close.”

“You'll be loitering.”

“Observing,” he corrected.

He loitered around you the rest of the night. He checked your name on the board every time he passed. When the parents of the young girl arrived five hours later Jack spoke to them, he didn't even tell you they had arrived but somehow you knew. A silent nod of thanks was passed. The sun started to rise and Jack had counted three coffee's, two over your usual. The granola bar he'd handed you was left abandoned at your station and before Jack could find you to make sure you eat the rest, Crus had taken it in one bite.

Six am was a blessing. The night hadn't been full of patients, no more than usual at least but it had been more stressful to Jack.

Every time you moved and he couldn't find you he was worried. Even if it only lasted a minute or two. It was the same blind panic he'd felt the day Robby left for his sabbatical, yet the relief when he saw you didn't last.

Jack had left to go to the bathroom in the morning. When he came back Robby was there, fleece pulled up and talking to you. He couldn't tell what was going on, only that Robby's hands were clasped together in a prayer like motion.

Then he saw you nod and Robby sigh before giving you a high five and leaving.

“What was that?” Jack asked, falling at your side.

“What?”

“What were you and Robby talking about?”

“Er,” you hesitated. “Langdon can't make it, there's something at home, I don't know his kids are sick or something, Abbey's away visiting family.”

Jack was waiting for the other shoe to drop. “So?”

“He's asked me to stick around for a bit, help him out-”

“You've just pulled a double,” Jack snapped.

“It's only a few hours,” you shrugged, as if you weren't the walking definition of sleep. “Beats going home.”

“I'll cover.”

“Then you'll be pulling a triple,” you pointed out. “I'm younger, more spry.”

His jaw pulled tight, hands falling on his hips. “I'll talk to Robby.”

“I've told him I'll do it,” you said, firmly. “I don't want to go home and sit with this, I'd rather be here.”

“For how long?” he asked. “You gonna stay here forever now? You can't run away from this.”

“I can't sit with it either,” you snapped back, heat rising up your neck. “I'm not like you, Jack. I can't leave the shift at the door and go home and just sleep it off. I need to... I need to do something.”

Jack stood and listened. He knew you all processed things differently. He knew that you were never good at staying still, always rising early in the mornings even if you weren't working, cooking before he'd even said he was hungry. Siting still and thinking didn't work for you.

You took a deep breath and squeezed your eyes shut. It took you a couple moments to drag your eyelids open. “I'm gonna go sleep through hand over. I'll see you soon, okay?”

Jack didn't bother saying anything as he watched you go.

Your place was taken up by Robby. He looked down the way you'd walked.

“You had no right to ask her to stay,” Jack argued.

Robby chuckled low in his throat. “You have no right to be mad that she said yes. She's not yours anymore, Jack.”

“She's exhausted!” he grit.

“Then she wouldn't have said yes.”

“She wouldn't have said no, either!”

Robby grit his teeth and backed up a step. “Brother, I know you care about her. I'm only asking a couple hours to figure things out. She's a grown up. She knows what she's doing. I don't think you do.”

Robby walked off then, leaving Jack to it.

The worst part was, Jack knew he was right. He had no idea what he was doing.

It was two days later and Jack wasn't even supposed to be in.

It was only three in the afternoon, he had at least three more hours of snooze time, lying back in his bed, counting the flecks of paint in his ceiling- if he hadn't been out on the SWAT team.

A bunch of boys- punks really- were holding hostages for a total of six thousand dollars and a PS5. Considering the wars and losing his leg and the shoot outs it was a relative easy thing to deal with. Still, when the larger one of the trio took a run at him and landed his shoulder square in the chest, pushing Jack to the floor, it still hurt.

He'd pulled up his shirt, caught a glimpse at the bruising and thought it better safe than sorry. Best to get it checked out by your hands.

Any excuse really to feel your hands touch him.

“Hey,” he greeted, walking through the ambulance doors.

It was like walking into a morgue.

Dana and Javadi were at the nurses station, both turned to look at him in shock. “Jack, honey, what are you doing here?” she asked without her usual smile.

Jack clocked his head aside. “I took a tumble, thought I could get a look at, you know.” He was hoping she'd catch just who he wanted examining him without saying your name.

Javadi gasped at her side, hands flying over her mouth. “Oh my god.”

Jack looked to her. “What?”

He glanced around the Pitt.

Princess and Perlah were in the corner, talking in Tagalog quietly while glancing at him. Others were looking at him but Robby wasn't. He wasn't around. He counted: neither Samira, Whitaker, Santos or McKay were there.

Nor were you.

Dana slowed around the counter, lifting an arm to him. “Why don't we get some coffee? I can take a look at you-”

But Jack had already found trauma two, where all the doctors he was looking for were.

Robby stilled, gloved hands and gown covered in blood. At his side Samira was much the same, behind him Whitaker too. “Jack! Get out!”

It took him a minute to realise why everyone was looking at him, why the ED had felt colder than usual. Why you'd been missing from the floor.

The blood surrounding everything was yours.

“Jack!” Robby yelled.

You were on the gurney too still, so un-natural for you. Had he not been complaining you wouldn't take a break just forty-eight hours ago?

Jack looked to each face that was frozen, wondering what to do. Whether they should work on saving you or work on getting rid of him.

Jack made their choice for them, throwing off his jacket and pulling on latex gloves over the sweat of his palms. “Talk to me!” he yelled to anyone in the room.

Robby gave one un-impressed shake of his head and a groan. “We found her in the bathrooms. Stab wounds to the left chest, two to the belly, right and left upper quadrants.”

Jack was over you know, looking down.

You were pale, eyes dark and closed and not opening as he pressed a hand to the top of your head, feeling around just to be able to touch and know you were there. It was a relief to know as much as it was a nightmare to see you. He inhaled but it was shaky.

“She- she was stabbed?” he asked.

“We think it was a patient,” said Santos from behind him. “Or-or a relative of a patient, we don't know.”

Jack shook his head, brows creasing. “Oh god.”

“Pule ox eighty-two!” called out Donnie.

Jack snatched the central line tray away from Robby, lying it out and doing it all himself. He looked at you and saw a patient. For the sake of your life he was looking at you and cutting you open like he didn't love you. “Call- call someone,” he said.

“What?” asked Whitaker.

“Robby,” said Jack. “Call- call her emergency contact. A friend. A family, I don't know just get her someone! She-she doesn't like patients being alone so for gods sake, call someone!”

Robby was adamant to argue. It was evident in the lines in his face and the frown on his lips but Jack heard the sharp tug of elastic and the sound of him giving up.

He remembered how distraught you'd been when the little girl had no family with her. You weren't going to die- you weren't. But Jack wanted someone you trusted to be with you.

“BP's ninety over fifty!”

“Okay, c'mon, c'mon, honey,” said Jack as he carefully and skilfully intubated you, the bag going on. “Don't do this to me.”

Robby had pulled over the computer, logging in and typing away.

“Pulse ox is dropping!”

“Belly is distended,” said Whitaker. “Probably an intra-abdominal bleed!”

“Get four more units of O-neg in here!” ordered Jack.

“Pressure's down to sixty!” yelled Samira.

“Oh... god,” Robby uttered, staring intently at the computer screen.

There was a harsh beeping screaming through the room and everyone looked.

“We've lost her pulse!”

By the time Mohan had finished announcing it Jack had already climbed up, compressing down on your chest.

“No. No,” he said, harshly. “You are not doing this to me. You're not! Push a round of epi!”

There was another beeping that would haunt Jack for the rest of his life.

“She's in V-fib!”

Jack grunted. “Charge to one hundred!”

“Stop!” Robby called out. His head was hung low between his shoulders, one hand held up. “Stop.”

Jack did not stop pushing down to your chest. Over you, Donnie did not stop pressing down on the bag. Nobody was stopping. “Robby, What the fuck do you think you're doing?” he snapped.

Robby was pale, his eyes down cast as he turned his body to the room but didn't have the strength to look at anyone. He rested a hand on his hip, the other stretched out to the cart with the computer to steady himself. “Her chart. She's DNR.”

Jack didn't hear him, not right away. Or he did but didn't want to. He knew the letters DNR. Sometimes a mercy for the elderly that had lived a long, good life and wanted to go out on their terms. For the terminally ill who didn't want to live the rest of their life in pain.

You were young. You were healthy. You were not dying.

“What?” said McKay.

“You're kidding,” said Denis.

Robby shook his head, spinning the computer to them.

“Doctor Mohan!” Jack called, a silent plea for her to take his place. With steady hands, she did and Jack stumbled down next to Robby.

He stared at your name, your birthday. Your file sat there staring at him, the DNR mocking all the love he held for you.

“She's DNR, Jack, I'm sorry,” said Robby, a hand on his shoulder. “We have to respect that.”

His fingers moved around the keyboard till he highlighted the DNR.

You'd signed a DNR. You'd never said anything. Why had you signed a DNR?

Jack moved around on the keypad and did the only reasonable thing. Everyone behind him waited with bated breath.

Jack dragged his finger to the bin icon and deleted your file.

Robby stared at him in shock.

Jack looked away from the now empty computer screen and didn't so much as glance at Robby as he returned to your side. “Charge to one hundred.”

A wave of shock rippled through the doctors and nurses as Jack marched back to your side. There was disbelief that you, someone so young, would ever be a DNR. That Jack- who they'd all argue was a little bit more responsible than their own Doctor Robby- would erase a file!

Jack looked around at them all. “Charge to one hundred, now!”

Santos and Whitaker were the first to jump to attention, charging and handing over the panels.

“Clear!”

The waiting room was colder, quieter and whiter than Jack was accustom to. He was used to working down in the Pitt, with its white walls and ghosts but there was always noise. Always monitors going off and names being called, usually there were wails or cries of relief.

In the waiting room there was nothing.

Only lines and lines of chairs, a fish tank that last time he'd counter had a dozen or so goldfish and a clock that ticked by every second you lay under the knife.

Every second ticked away and nobody came to fetch him, to update him.

Every second Jack was left alone to guess why you'd have a DNR order.

The door creaked open and the only other waiting woman and child in the room looked up. As did Jack.

Robby walked in, boots shuffling, lips tilting up into an apologetic smile as he raised a hand to the mother and daughter. He found Jack. “Anything?”

He shook his head. He learnt almost two hours ago not to trust his voice from shaking anymore.

Robby settled in the chair next to Jack, stretching out his legs. Not to impose but just to press his boot next to Jack's and assure him he was there. It was a small move but none the less appreciated. “The guy was only came in for a headache,” he explained quietly in the silence. “We were waiting on a psych consult from some erratic behaviour-”

“- he should've been restrained,” said Jack, through eyes that were heavy in tears. He knew that most patients came in erratic, that they didn't always have to be tied down but he still he remembered your blood all over the trauma room, your blood on everyone's gloves.

Jack had to get a change of scrubs from the lockers just to get out of his clothes stained in your blood but as he looked down at his boots he found a spec of your blood.

“The guy had no infection, we've no idea how he got the knife. He ran after the attack. Word is he's at Westbridge being treated for schizophrenia.”

“How long?” Jack asked, a shake in his voice as he angled his head down to Robby. He gulped. “How long do you think she was lying there, alone, bleeding to death before anyone found her?”

Robby's own inhale was shaky, his body wracked with it. “I don't know.”

Jack's breath shuddered. He hunched over himself, resting his elbows on his knees.

Had you been conscious? Aware of the fact litres of your blood were leaving without being able to call for help. Were you trying to call for help but un-able to find your voice? The thought had Jack's stomach churning.

“What if-”

“Don't-” warned Robby.

“What if she doesn't make it?”

“She will.”

Jack tried to imagine a world without you but he couldn't. He tried to picture walking into work and not finding your face, smiling or on the verge of collapse. He imagined not being able to text you just to say he was thinking about you and for you to just reply, don't. He couldn't imagine the last photo he'd have of you on his phone was the morning you broke up with him, when you were sleeping and he thought you looked so beautiful and at peace that he had to capture the moment.

He wanted to tell you there'd be no peace on the other side. Not if you left him.

“Two stab wounds to the belly,” Jack sniffed. “Could've been the spleen.”

Robby didn't try to sugar coat it. He only nodded and listened. “It could.”

“It could've got the heart, she was stabbed in the chest.”

“Maybe.”

They sat in silence.

Jack saw Robby watch the clock for an entire minute.

“Do you know why?” asked Robby. “Why she had a DNR?”

Jack winced at the memory. The stamp standing out to him. It was offensive to him, that you'd do such a thing. He rested back in his chair. “No. She.... she never said anything about it, not to me.”

Robby nodded.

“She's healthy,” said Jack.

“Maybe... maybe it's something else,” Robby uttered.

Jack didn't need to ask what he might have meant. They knew it better than most.

Maybe it wasn't a want to die, but an indifference to live.

Yet, a DNR wasn't an indifference. It was a choice that if anything happened to you you'd never want to come back from it.

“I can't do it,” said Jack, looking down to his boots. He struggled to put the rest of it into words. “I can't... without her- I can't. And I want nothing more than for her to wake up. But... I'm so angry she's done this.”

There was grief, despair also behind that anger but the fury masked it.

“So am I,” said Robby. He was the closest thing to a mentor you had, someone to look out for you when Jack wasn't around. “When she wakes up-”

Jack shook his head. “We don't know that.”

Robby's body hunched over, focused on Jack. “When she gets out of that OR you get to argue with her first.”

Jack dared to hope in the silence that paraded between them. “You think she knows?” he asked. “That we brought her back?”

It seemed Robby didn't even have to think about it.

“She knows.”

There was another tick of the clock before the door opened again.

“Doctor Abbot.”

He shot up at the call of his name, pushing through the door with Robby following behind. Out in the hallway the lights radiated a ghostly white and Jack felt haunted already.

Garcia stood there, a mask lose around her neck.

“How-how is she?” he asked.

Garcia looked between them. “Recovering. There's a long road ahead of her, but she's stubborn. Far more stubborn than the two of you combined. She's going to make it.”

Jack let out a shudder of a breath of relief, his entire body curling. He felt the need to throw up all the words he'd wanted to say to you and hadn't. That coil in his stomach released and his last good leg trembled.

He felt Robby's hand on his shoulder and dully heard him and Garcia talk about what had gone on in the operating room but it was as if Jack was under water.

A score of surgeons started to wheel you out, pushing you into recovery.

Jack saw you in a new gown without blood, bandages around you. You were still asleep but that's all it was, a sleep. Your skin was still pale but there was the smallest bit of life in your cheeks. You moved so slow, or maybe that's how he was seeing you, trying to slow it down to memorise you.

When you disappeared Jack came back to with enough time to thank Garcia and rush off after you.

By the time you woke up Jack had gone through his mind a thousand times, trying to think of a way to approach the topic of you seemly wanting to die without coming off as angry and afraid as he felt.

You woke slowly with flutters of your eyes and your hand coming up to rub at the sleep only to be held down by the IV in your hand.

Jack jerked at the movement, claiming your hand and holding it in his, squeezing. “Hey. Hey, you're okay, it's okay,” he said, coaxing some comfort into you.

You turned to find him, eyes groggy as you blinked at him. Your lips parted, dry and chapped, just barely mumbling his name.

“Yeah, yeah, it's me,” he said with a watery smile as tears sprung to his eyes. “It's me, you're okay, you're safe.”

You glanced around the room in post-op. The blank walls with cards about various health hacks, at the monitors all around you, then down to yourself in a gown, the blanket that Jack had asked Robby to bring from his place gently tucked close to you. Selfishly, he'd wanted to keep just one thing when you left. You gulped. “What-what happened?”

Jack steadied himself. “You were- you were stabbed, one to the chest. Tw-two to the belly.”

You blinked, taking in the information. Slowly, your free hand rose and rubbed over your heart. “My-my chest-”

“Does it hurt?” asked Jack, ready to begrudgingly let go of your hand and rush to get someone.

You shook your head, closing your eyes and resting your head back in the cushions. “It... aches, a little.”

Jack knew the pain from other people winces. From the jutting of chests when they were shocked to the burn marks left there after. He'd seen your wince on hundreds of other patients, often described as a pain like being kicked in the chest.

He wondered if his heart breaking was a similar pain.

“Your- your heart stopped. We lost your pulse. We had to bring you back,” he said slowly, studying your face for any sign of grief. “We had to shock you.”

He waited.

You only slowly closed your eyes and opened them again. “Oh.” Your hand gave his a little squeeze.

Jack gulped down his troubles, shuffling closer and resting his arms on the bed, caressing your hand close to his chest. “We had to go against the DNR. Your DNR.”

You looked at him, a small knot of confusion between your brows before it quickly smoothed over. He watched you slowly avert your gaze, turning away to stare at the ceiling instead. You didn't cry- in rage or relief- you didn't say anything for a while leaving Jack to guess if you wanted him to bring you back.

“Why?” he asked, a crack in his voice. “Honey- why was there a DNR order on your file?” deep down he knew he should have been letting you rest, taking care of you and whispering soothing words but he couldn't see past the order on your file. He couldn't forget the way he watched your body lie still and bloody without breath and the dread that filled his chest when he found out you didn't want to be brought back.

You blinked a tear. “I don't know.”

Jack shuffled closer still, his knees digging into the bed. “Baby... honey, please. You-you can tell me,” he begged, holding the back of your hand to the stubble growing in stress. “Please, honey. I... I thought I was gonna lose you forever.”

His salty tears rolled onto the back of your hand and like it was acid, you cried, the sort that had your bottom lip jittering.

“I-I really don't know,” you uttered. “I guess I was young and-and stupid. I didn't want to die... didn't care much about living either. I just put there as a.... as....”

Jacks thumb slowly soothed your hand, resting it on his cheek as he listened. “As a what, honey?”

You glanced his way before your expression turned pain and you stared down at the blanket instead. “A failsafe. I didn't think anything would happen to me... but if I did I guessed it was life's way of telling me to be done.”

Jack took a deep breath that didn't reach deep in his lungs, it sat and burned. He knew it wasn't about him and he wasn't trying to make it so but he'd had a long time to think about life without you while waiting for you to come out of surgery.

Who else was he supposed to talk to if he didn't have you?

Who else was he supposed to laugh with if you weren't there?

Who else would take up all the love he had if you didn't have it?

“I did it ages ago, Jack, I swear, I forgot about it. Things were different, when-when I was with you. I just... I...”

He nodded, trying to hide his tears. He turned his head to wipe his cheek against his shoulder.

You squeezed his hand again.

“You didn't- you never said anything,” he mumbled.

You lips parted and hung open lamely. “I'm sorry.”

Jack shook his head again and looked at you with his best, un-stable, smile. “I just don't know what I would've done without you.”

Your finger tapped his hand, almost pityingly. “You'd have been okay.”

He scoffed. “Like fuck I would have,” he said, looking at you. “Do you realise how scared I was when I saw you in trauma? Do you realise what my life means without you? Nothing. Nothing, it means nothing.”

You frowned. “But I... I broke up with you?”

Jack shrugged. “So? You think I was gonna stay away long?”

You looked down at the blanket again, the one you'd picked up at a store- Jack couldn't even remember what store- he just remembered you'd seen it and said it would look good at home. At his. It was the first time you'd said his place as home and the first time he realised it could have been just that. “I dunno, I'm kind of a mess.”

Jack looked at you like you were the stars in the sky. “So am I, baby. That doesn't change anything.”

He thought to how sad you'd looked breaking up with him, like you didn't want to. All the extra shifts you'd been carrying, the silent pain. “You can't carry on like this. Being distracted, running from the pain. You have to... talk about it, face it.”

You swallowed, bitterly, as if even thinking about doing just that was the last thing you wanted to think about.

“If I hadn't been there today, I... I don't even want to think about what could've happened,” he admitted, quietly.

“How- how did you do it?” you asked. “Go about the DNR?”

Jack looked up sheepishly. “I deleted your file from the records.”

There was the smallest hint of a smirk on your lips.

“Gloria's not gonna like that,” you warned, pulling at his hand.

Jack chuckled to himself. “Gloria can kiss my ass.”

You laughed. It was small and pained but it was the first laugh from you Jack had heard in months.

He smiled at the sound.

“Jack?”

You pulled on his hand, beckoning him closer.

Jack hovered over you, checking where he could rest as to not hurt you. He rested his arm over yours, gently stroking back your hair while keeping your hand in his, resting it over your chest where the firm and promising beating of your heart lay.

“Thank you,” you said. “I don't... I don't think I'd want to have died. I know I act like it some times with... with all the work and the distance-”

Jack nodded along. It was a good start, a fresh one that he could build with you.

“But I want to be alive. With you.”

“Well that's good,” he said, tasting the own salt of his tears on his lips that were bitten down on in anxiety. “Because I want you to be alive. With or without me.”

You smiled up at him.

Jack stroked back your hair again. “But I'd prefer with.”

“So would I.”

Jack kissed you gently and slow, letting you set a pace of push him off. You did neither. Your lips puckered and were light against his but he grew solid then, an un-moving block at your side.

And you'd start again with each other, gentle and slow.

if you need help or related to the dark ideas in this fic, please talk to someone!

the first was that everyone else already had.

patients adored him. nurses laughed a little harder when he walked by. med students followed him around like ducklings.

even on the worst shifts, when the er smelled like antiseptic and stale coffee and exhaustion, frank somehow managed to make everyone breathe easier.

you were no different, and that was the problem, you only learned him in small pieces.

you learned that he would always rub the bridge of his nose right before opening difficult charts.

how he’d steal a few pieces of your chips without asking, only to replace them with a granola bar from the vending machine.

how he’d absentmindedly reach for your wrist whenever the department became too crowded, holding you with just enough pressure to guide you through the sea of gurneys before letting go like he’d never touched you at all.

it meant nothing, and you told yourself that every single time, because you always knew frank was like that with everyone.

“you’re staring.” someone said and you blinked.

jack didn’t even bother looking up from his computer.

“i’m reading.” “you’ve been reading the same sentence for three minutes.”

“…” “he’s talking to the new resident.” jack muttered.

even with your mind screaming at you not to look, you did anyway.

frank stood across the station, smiling at someone who was laughing so hard she nearly dropped her clipboard.

he leaned against the counter with his head tilted, eyes soft, and he looked happy. something unpleasant settled in your chest.

“stop doing that,” jack muttered as he finished up his chart.

“doing what?”

“breaking your own heart.” he finally said as he stood up, ready to take another case.

you swallowed, you heart aching as you felt a lump forming in your throat.

people assumed the two of you were together, they always had and it made sense. you spent every shift together, you knew each other’s coffee orders, you’d memorized each other’s handwriting.

he texted you when he’d get home after pulling doubles.

you’d remind him to eat, and maybe it looked like love from the outside, maybe that’s why no one ever asked, maybe that’s why neither of you ever said anything.

⋆˚꩜｡

“movie tonight?”

frank asked the question so casually that your heart betrayed you all over again. “sure.” you said, “my place?” he asked as he wrote on his chart, “okay.” you agreed.

“you pick.” he said with a smile “that’s dangerous.” you replied back

“i trust you.” he muttered, and you almost laughed, because trusting someone and loving someone were apparently two completely different things.

halfway through the movie, frank fell asleep, his head rested against your shoulder, his breathing slowed.

the apartment was quiet except for the television neither of you had been watching. and yet, you stared straight ahead.

if you moved, he’d wake up, if you stayed still you’d remember this forever. so you stayed, your shoulder went numb but you didn’t care.

you wondered if this counted as loving someone, getting hurt by things they never intended.

“why don’t you ever date anyone?”

samira asked during a lull in the shift.

you shrugged. “i dunno, i guess im too busy.”you said and she looked unconvinced.

“that’s a lie.” she scoffed, “it’s not?” you retorted. “is it langdon?”

you laughed too quickly. “what?” “is it him?”

across the department, frank looked up and your eyes met for exactly one second.

he smiled, the same smile he gave everyone. and yet, you smiled back anyway. “no.”

samira sighed. “you’re an awful liar.” she chuckled. “shut up, what about abbot, huh?” you said playfully as you accentuated jack’s last name.

her eyes widened, “oh my god- don’t say it out loud!” she shouted, whispering and you simple laughed as she slapped her hand on your arm playfully.

⋆˚꩜｡

there was a party after one particularly brutal week.

everyone drank, laughed, and pretended they weren’t carrying the weight of every patient they couldn’t save.

frank found you standing on the balcony, scrolling on your phone. “too loud?” he said, startling you a bit. “a little.” he nodded and stood beside you.

shoulders almost touching. close enough to feel warm, not close enough to be held.

“you okay?” “yeah.” another lie, he looked at you for a long time. long enough that you thought— “good.” then he looked away.

there were always moments that almost became something, the ways his fingers lingering around yours after handing over a chart.

late-night drives home where the silence felt too comfortable to ruin, the way he’d say your name like it meant more than everyone else’s.

and you called yourself pathetic for it, but you collected those moments, held them carefully, turned them over in your mind whenever you couldn’t sleep.

they were all you had.

you heard about her from robby “langdon’s seeing someone.” you smiled before your brain had time to react.

“is he?” ”yeah.” “…that’s nice.” “i think so.” the rest of the conversation disappeared into static.

that night, frank texted you.

coffee tomorrow? you stared at the message until the screen dimmed.

you typed. deleted. typed again.

can’t. family stuff.

a lie. another one. he replied almost immediately.

okay. next time.

there wasn’t a next time, since you kept finding excuses. different shifts. busy weekends. headaches. anything.

because loving him had always hurt, but watching him love someone else would’ve destroyed you.

weeks later, he caught you leaving after your shift.

“did i do something?” your hand froze on the locker. “…what?”

“you’ve been avoiding me.” you chuckled awkwardly and said,“i haven’t.” “you have.” he sounded…hurt. you hated that.

“frank—” you started, “just tell me.” you looked at him. really looked, tired eyes, messy hair, concern written all over his face.

you wanted to tell him everything, that you loved him, that every almost had become unbearable, that you were tired of wondering if maybe he’d reached for your hand because he wanted to or because it was convenient.

instead you smiled, small— the kind that didn’t crack.

“you didn’t do anything.” you paused, not knowing what else to say “i’m just tired.”

he nodded slowly, like he knew you were lying, like he was too kind to make you admit it. “get some rest.” “i will.”

he waited. maybe expecting you to say something else, but you didn’t. he walked away first.

months later, life looked exactly the same, except now there was a distance neither of you knew how to cross.

sometimes you’d catch him looking at you. sometimes he’d catch you first.

neither of you smiled anymore. just looked away. there were still moments though, always moments. they simply belonged to no one now. and maybe that was the cruelest part.

not that you loved him, not that he might never love you back.

but that somewhere between silence and timing and fear, there had been something waiting to happen. and the two of you had let it become another thing neither of you would ever say out loud.

it wasn’t intentional at first, distance never is. it started with little things. you’d switch shifts with no hesitation if someone asked. you took your breaks five minutes later than usual.

leave through the ambulance entrance instead of the staff exit. none of it was obvious and none of it should’ve mattered.

except somehow frank always noticed, “you already ate?” he’d ask. “yeah.”you hadn’t.

“heading home?” “just remembered i have somewhere to be.” you didn’t.

he’d nod every time, accepting every excuse with a smile that grew smaller each week. it would’ve been easier if he’d gotten angry.

instead, he shrugged it off. that was always the problem.

“you two fight?” robby asked while stocking the trauma room. you glanced up. “what?” “you and langdon.” “no.”

“then why’s he walking around looking like someone kicked his dog?” you laughed despite how you felt. “that’s dramatic.”

“i’m serious.” robby lowered his voice.“he asked me if i’d said something to you.” “…” “i told him no.”

you swallowed. “good.” “you wanna tell me what’s going on?” “nothing.”

robby sighed. “everyone in this ED is terrible at feelings.”

three weeks passed before the universe trapped you together. power outage.

half the hospital running on backup generators, the elevators shut down, patients everywhere, everyone scrambling.

you were reorganizing medications when frank appeared beside you, holding two flashlights.

“here.” he handed you one, your fingers brushed yet he pulled away too quickly.

“…thanks.” you expected him to leave, but he didn’t. for a few seconds, the only sound was the humming generator somewhere below your feet.

“i miss you.” the words were so quiet you almost thought you’d imagined them.

you looked at him. he wasn’t smiling. his eyes stayed on the floor.

“we see each other every day,” you managed. “that’s not what i mean.”

your chest tightened. “frank…” “did i do something?” again. the same question.

only this time there wasn’t anywhere to hide. you wanted to answer. instead a trauma alert echoed through the hall.

every doctor around you started moving. frank looked toward the doors. then back at you. “later?”

your mouth was already saying yes before your brain could stop it. “…later.”

later never came. a six-car collision flooded the emergency department. two surgeries. one code blue. a family that needed someone to tell them their son wasn’t coming home.

by the time the shift ended, the sun was rising. frank had already left.

samira found you crying in the supply closet. not sobbing. just reorganizing stuff in the storage room.

she didn’t ask why, she simply sat beside you after a minute she offered you half a granola bar, you took it.

“he loves you.” your head snapped up.

“…don’t.” “i’m serious.” “don’t do that.”

“i’ve watched him look for you every single shift.” “he doesn’t—” “he does.”

your laugh sounded more like a broken breath. “if he loved me…” you couldn’t finish that sentence, because if he loved you… he would’ve said something, wouldn’t he?

sam looked at you for a long time “maybe he’s just as scared.” that night you couldn’t sleep. instead, you opened your phone.

your conversation with frank stretched back years. pictures of terrible vending machine dinners. memes sent at three in the morning. complaints about impossible attendings. birthday messages. inside jokes no one else would understand. thousands of words.

none of the ones you actually wanted. your thumb hovered over the keyboard.

i miss you too. you typed it. read it. deleted it. and locked your phone.

frank stood outside your apartment for almost ten minutes.

he’d bought your favorite takeout after remembering you hadn’t eaten lunch. it was getting cold. he almost knocked. almost. instead he left the bag outside your door with a sticky note.

eat something. no name. he didn’t need one.

you knew his handwriting better than your own. you opened the door just as he stepped into the elevator. for one impossible second, your eyes met across the hallway.

you wanted to call his name. you wanted to tell him to stay. the elevator doors slid shut before you made a sound. by the time you found your voice… he was already gone.

the next day was painful, body aching, hands hurting, and the hospital lights were making your head spin.

the patient was twenty-two, gunshot wound, BP dropping, and everyone moved on instinct.

“i need another unit of o-neg!” “coming!” “where’s anesthesia?” “two minutes out!”

frank’s voice cut through the room “compressions.” you hesitated. “we still have a pulse.” “barely.” “frank—”

“compressions.” “you’re going to lose what pressure he has left.” he looked at you. “do it.” “no.”

the room went still. not completely. monitors still screamed. people still moved. but everyone heard it.

you had never said no to frank. not like that. he stepped closer.

“i’m running this trauma.” “and i’m telling you that’s the wrong call.”

his jaw tightened. “do your job, Dr.” something inside you snapped. “i am doing my job!”

silence. the kind that only exists for a heartbeat before chaos returns.

jack stepped between the two of you “enough. langdon, reassess. now.” frank didn’t move.

his eyes never left yours. for the first time since you’d met him… they were angry. real anger.

“fine.” he turned away. “prepare for thoracotomy.” the room came back to life. everyone moved again. no one looked at either of you.

the patient survived. barely. the adrenaline faded. the exhaustion settled in. you washed your hands three times before realizing there wasn’t any blood left on them.

the sink shut off. someone cleared their throat behind you. frank.

“what the hell was that?” you kept staring at your hands. “i disagreed.”

“you challenged me in front of everyone.” “because you were wrong.”

“you don’t get to undermine me—” “i don’t get to undermine you?” you laughed. it sounded ugly.

“that’s funny.” “what’s that supposed to mean?” “nothing.”

“don’t.”

his voice cracked. “don’t do that.” “do what?” “say ‘nothing’ when it obviously isn’t.” you finally looked at him.

months. months of swallowed words. months of pretending. months of walking past each other like strangers. they all rushed up your throat at once.

“why do you care?” he blinked. “…what?” he asked, “why do you care if i’m avoiding you?” you blurted out, “because we’re friends.” friends. there it was. the word that had haunted you for years.

you smiled. small. tired. “right.” he frowned. “don’t.” “don’t what?” you muttered, “look at me like that.” he said persistently, “like what?” “like you’ve already decided i’m leaving.”

you laughed again. “you already did.”“what are you talking about?” “you chose someone else.”

confusion flashed across his face. “…who?” you stared at him. “the resident.”

he was surprised, “…what resident? “the one everyone said you were dating.” he was quiet for exactly two seconds.

then— “…audrey?” you didn’t answer. frank let out one disbelieving breath.

“what?- no. no no. i don’t like her—”

“thats no what i see.”

“hey, no i swear. shes not— shes married.”

“…what?” “she’s married.”

your mouth opened. closed. opened again.

“robby told me—” “robby assumed.” “…”

“he assumed.” the room suddenly felt too small.

too warm. too bright. “i…” you couldn’t breathe. months. you’d wasted months.

frank rubbed a hand over his face. “i kept asking myself what i’d done.” your eyes filled before you could stop them.

“i thought…” “i know.” “no, you don’t.” his voice broke. “i do.” you shook your head. “no, frank. you don’t.”

“then tell me.” the tears came anyway. “ i loved you.” the words echoed through the walls.

“i loved you so much that I couldn’t stand watching you love somebody else.” frank stared.

“you idiot.” you laughed through the tears. “yeah, okay i deserved that.”

“what? no, no. i was- so do i” he stepped closer. “…frank.” “i’ve loved you since your second week here.”

your breath caught.

“you kept stealing my chips.” “i was flirting.” “i thought you were hungry.” “i was terrified.” he laughed once. a wet, shaky laugh.

“i kept waiting for you to notice.” “i thought the movies meant something.”

“they did.” “I thought you fell asleep on my shoulder because you were tired.” “i stayed awake for almost an hour.” you blinked.

“are you kidding me? my shoulders went numb.” “my neck did too.” despite everything, a laugh escaped you.

frank laughed too. it lasted all of three seconds before the weight of what had happened settled over both of you.

“we lost so much time,” you whispered. his smile disappeared. “i know.” another silence. this one heavier.

filled with every shift you’d spent apart. every unanswered text. every almost.

“i don’t want to keep wondering anymore,” you said quietly. “i don’t either.” “you’ll have to tell me when you’re scared.”

“i will.” “you’ll have to let me argue with you in trauma.” he snorted. “you were right.” frank muttered.

“i know.” you said proudly, “i’m never admitting that again.” you smiled for the first time in months. “i’ll take today.”

frank looked at you like he was memorizing your face. slowly, carefully, he reached for your hand.

“you know,” he murmured fiddling with your hand gently, “for two people who spend every day telling strangers the truth…”

“…we were pretty terrible at telling each other.” his thumb brushed across your knuckles. “yeah.”

outside the room, another trauma pager blared. the ED was calling them back. people were still getting hurt. lives still needed saving.

the world, stubborn as it was, refused to pause. frank squeezed your hand once before letting go. “after shift?” you smiled. “no almosts this time.”

he smiled back. “no almosts.” and for the first time since the two of you met— neither of you walked away first.

Five years later and your life with Harry looked the same, yet different altogether. You both moved into a bigger home, away from the city, but closer to his parents and yours. And two children became three, with hopes for another child. 

You ended up closing your chapter with the diner when Sammy—the youngest—was born five years ago. It had been a decision you didn’t take lightly either. The diner and the people there had become your family, long before Harry and long before Stevie. They saw you grow up, so when you decided to leave, it was an emotional goodbye. 

But it made sense. You wanted to be part of your children’s lives without worrying about missing special moments, and there were times that you wondered if Stevie ever resented you for it. 

Her siblings managed to get all of your attention—something she didn’t quite have the luxury of when she was younger. 

Yet, she never complained. Stevie was still the same sassy little girl that Harry met all those years ago, except now, she was just a couple of years away of being a teenager and it showed too. She wanted to spend more time with her friends, asked relentlessly for a phone so she can be like everyone else (Harry caved, like always), but she was still the same girl who had the biggest heart.

Because she’d help you around the house. 

She slipped into the role of being the big sister so easily too. 

Frankie admired her—wanted to do everything her big sister did. 

And Sammy—short for Samuel after the singer, Sam Cooke—was a sensitive little boy who was the spitting image of Harry, who just wanted to be part of whatever his older sisters were doing.

And Harry, he started working more, especially since his parents retired from the company and named him and his brother as co-CEOs. 

But he still made time for you, for the family you both created. Harry still looked at you like the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, would come home every night and hold you. 

Five years later, and everything just felt right. 

“Dad,” Stevie sighed, leaning against Harry at the kitchen counter. She yawned and rubbed her eyes, blinking up at him afterwards. “Can I try a sip of your coffee?” 

Harry looked down at her and smiled. “No chance, Stevie girl.” 

“But I’m tired,” she said. 

“Then maybe you should’ve gone to bed on time,” he said, gently tapping the tip of her nose.

Stevie huffed and then yawned dramatically. 

Harry narrowed his eyes. 

She blinked up at him. Pleading. 

He sighed. Harry could never say to no to her. 

“Fine. One sip.” 

Her eyes widened with excitement and she nodded, leaning up on her toes to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Yes, yes, of course. Just one sip. That’s all I need.” 

Harry narrowed his eyes and then set the mug down in front of her. He knew Stevie wouldn’t like his taste in coffee—black, no sugar or milk. 

“Don’t tell mom?” Stevie asked, reaching for the mug. 

“You kidding me? Of course not. I don’t want to get in trouble either,” he grinned. 

Stevie smiled and then brought the mug closer to her lips. She kept her eyes on Harry before she leaned forward to take a sip. Quickly, the dark and hot liquid hit her senses and she made a face. It was bitter. 

“Gross,” she said, turning around and spitting what she had sipped into the sink. “Why didn’t you tell me it wasn’t good?” 

Harry laughed, shaking his head as he looked at her. “Would you have believed me if I did?”

Stevie narrowed her eyes and shook her head. “Well, no…” 

“Exactly,” he smiled, gently reaching for her hand and kissing the crown of her head. “Had to let you figure it out for yourself, Stevie girl.” 

Stevie leaned against him. “Do all coffee drinks taste like that?” 

Harry wrapped an arm around her and shook his head. “No, just mine.” 

“So… I’m hearing that I might like mom’s coffee?” 

He chuckled. “Oh, I’m positive you will. She likes her coffee with lots of sugar.” 

Stevie’s eyes widened. She smiled. “Then, I’ll give coffee another try.” 

“Maybe when you’re older.” 

“I’m eleven, dad.” 

“Yeah, older,” he repeated. 

She huffed and then tried to reach for his mug, but he clicked his tongue and took the mug before she could get to it. 

“Fine,” she said. 

“I said one sip.” 

Stevie giggled. “I know. Figured I’d try my luck.” 

Harry smiled. “Nice try. I can say no to you.” 

“Yeah, sure… but you rarely do.” Stevie smiled, pulling away from him. “By the way, mom said it was okay that I stay after school today. Taylor’s mom will be bringing me home.” 

Harry narrowed his eyes. “Taylor?” 

“Yes.” 

“Have we met this Taylor?” 

“Dad,” she sighed. “He’s cool! We both like the same things and we’re volunteering to help clean up at the school. It’s fine.” 

“He?” Harry asked. “Taylor is a boy?” 

“Dad—”

“I’ll pick you up,” he interjected. “What time will you be finished?” 

She sighed. “Around four.” 

“Great. I’ll be there. To pick you up.”

“You’re overreacting.”

“Oh, Stevie girl… if I was overreacting, you’d know it. Now, go get ready for school.” 

She sighed loudly and then walked away from him, disappearing around the corner and down the hallway. 

“I love you!” He yelled out to her. Harry sighed, hearing the door shut as a response as he looked down at his coffee. Seeing Stevie grow up—seeing his other two children grow up too—have been such an amazing thing to witness, but he did feel sad about it as well.

There would come a day where they wouldn’t need him anymore and Harry was just trying to hold on as long as he could before that day came. 

Harry stepped in the bedroom and noticed you come out of the closet with a towel wrapped around your head and a robe covering your body. He bit his lower lip and walked over to you, wrapping his arms around you from behind. 

“Hey,” he whispered. 

You smiled and turned in his arms, looking up at him. Your hand moved to his cheek, gently brushing his facial hair. He had gone a bit more grey as the years passed, crows feet more prominent at the corners of his eyes. He aged, just like you did, but he still looked so damn good. If not better. 

“Morning, baby.” 

“I’m picking Stevie up from school later. After her… event or something.” 

“Oh, Taylor’s mom can’t take her home?” 

He sighed. “Did you know Taylor’s a boy?” 

“Yes,” you answered. “Harry, they’re just kids.” 

He shook his head. “I don’t feel comfortable with it.” 

“Okay,” you said quietly, nodding. “That’s okay. 

“Am I overreacting?” Harry asked, his lower lip jutting out unintentionally. 

You cupped his cheek and leaned forward to peck his lips. “No,” you answered. “You’re just a protective daddy.” 

Harry sighed and nodded, hands moving to your hips. “She’s not gonna need me anymore, will she?” 

“You know that’s not true.” 

“Feels like it.” 

You shook your head and walked away from him to shut the bedroom door, locking it behind you. With three kids in the house, you both started locking the door, especially when adult activities were happening. 

“Baby?”

You walked over to him and gently pressed your hands on his shoulders, pushing him to sit at the edge of the bed. He huffed quietly and unbuttoned his suit jacket, looking up at you as you straddled his waist and undid your robe to reveal your bare front to him. 

Harry cleared his throat. 

“You know that’s not true,” you repeated. “That little girl looks at you like you hung the moon, baby. She’s growing up, but she’s always going to need you.” 

“What if she doesn’t?” 

“She will.” 

“You’re trying to distract me,” Harry pointed out. “Trying to get me to not think about my little girl having a possible crush on a boy who won’t ever be good for her.” 

“She’s eleven.”

“You telling me you never had a crush at that age?” 

“Well, no…”

“Exactly,” Harry said, eyes dipping lower. 

“What will you do when she gets married?” 

His eyes narrowed. Harry wrapped his arms around your waist and slowly stood up only to lay you on your back with him above you. “She won’t.” 

You smiled and leaned up to cup his cheek. “I love you.”

“This isn’t amusing.”

“I know.”

“You’re looking at me like this is funny.” 

“Harry,” you sighed quietly, grabbing one hand and bringing to to rest against your chest. “She will always love you, okay?” 

“I know,” he sighed. “I know. I just—she’s my Stevie girl.” 

“I know, baby.” 

Harry bit his lower lip. “I should trust her, huh?” 

You nodded. “And trust me too.”

He nodded, moving his hand from your chest to your breast, covering it with his hand. Harry watched you gasp quietly, looking up at him with lips parted. “You’re good,” he whispered. “You know how to get me out of my head.” 

You smiled, grabbing his other hand and bringing it to your lips. You wrapped your mouth around the tip of his thumb, swirling your tongue around it as you felt him suddenly push into you. 

“Baby,” Harry groaned. “We’re gonna be late.” 

“I know,” you giggled, pulling his thumb from your mouth as his hand continued to massage your breast into his palm. “Mmm, don’t see you trying to pull away.” 

“God, how can I? Look at you.” Harry cleared his throat as he pulled away from you, standing upright between your legs as you remained on your back. “How much time do we have?” 

“About half an hour.” 

He grunted. “Can you stay quiet?” 

You grinned. “You know I’ll try.” 

Harry smirked, reaching down to undo his belt, followed by unbuttoning his slacks and lowering his zipper. He pushed his pants and boxers down to his ankles as he spit into his palm before wrapping a hand around himself. “Oh, I know what you want me to do.” 

“Yeah?” You asked, biting your lower lip as you parted your legs for him even further. 

“Yeah, baby,” Harry said, eyes taking in every inch of your bare frame. He leaned forward, rubbing the tip of his manhood along you, applying pressure to your clit. “You always did like it when I covered your mouth.” 

A strained whimper escaped your lips. You felt him slide the length of his hardened member along your lips, gathering your arousal with each movement. He was hot, throbbing against you lower half and you impatiently reached down to grab a hold of him. 

“And you always liked to take your time,” you whispered, guiding him to your entrance. “Please, Harry…” 

“God, I love it when you beg,” he smirked, sliding into you in one full thrust. Harry’s eyes fluttered—like it always did whenever he slid into you. Your walls were tight and wet, wrapping around him and sucking him in with each movement. 

When you felt him fill you to the hilt, you let out a relieved moan. It always felt like your first time with him—even five years later, you still looked at each other like you both just realized you were both in love. 

“Hmm, I’ll beg anytime,” you whimpered, sitting up just so you could remove the robe and the towel from your head. Now completely exposed for him, Harry delivered a rough thrust, causing your body to jerk upwards. 

“You promise?” He asked, hands moving to grip your hips. Harry was still in his jacket, dress shirt and tie, but he was completely bare from his lower half. He watched himself slide into you with ease, his length glistening with your own arousal. Harry tried to keep it slow, tried to force himself not to just hammer into you, but it was hard. He never could control himself around you. 

“H—Harry,” you moaned, hands moving to grip the end of his tie as you slowly pulled him down. 

He grinned and leaned down, brushing his lips along your own. Harry rolled his hips into you, savoring the feel of himself sliding along your walls. “Feel so good, baby.” 

“Fuck,” you moaned. The grip around his tie tightened, but he grabbed your hands only to pin them above your head. 

“Can’t have you ruining my suit,” he grinned. “Because if you do, I’ll have to change and I—” Harry groaned, one sharp thrust into you. “I actually like this one.” 

“Oh fuck,” you said loudly, his free hand coming up to cover your mouth. It was still early, and he certainly didn’t want any of his children barging in either. 

“Look at you… at my fucking mercy,” he said, his hips speeding up but being very careful in ensuring he didn’t make too much noise either. 

Your moans muffled against his palm, legs loosely wrapped around his hips as you arched your back. He wasn’t going as fast as you’d like him to, but he was still hitting that spongy part deep inside of you with each hard thrust. 

“How am I supposed to go to work now?” He asked, growling lowly under his breath. “When all I’ll be thinking about is how good you fucking feel around me, baby.” 

You moaned again. 

He pressed his hand over your mouth more firmly. 

“Gonna let go of your hands now, okay? Be a good girl and grip the sheets if you need to,” Harry smiled, releasing your wrists only to bring the same hand between your legs. 

Your hands needed to hold onto something, especially when you felt him begin to apply pressure to your clit and rub it in circles. Instantly, your hands flew to the sheets, gripping them tightly as Harry continued his movements. 

He wouldn’t ever get tired of this, of you. You were an absolute dream. The way you looked as you were nearing the peak of your climax—he’d commit it to memory every chance he could get and still, it felt like it wasn’t enough. 

“Harry,” you mumbled into his palm, tightening your legs around his hips to pull him closer. 

He grinned. Harry was close too. He sped up his thrusts, but still remaining careful to not make it sound like skin slapping against one another. 

You were moaning against his hand, gripping the sheets even tighter, as you felt the pressure build and build until it finally spilled over. Your legs pulled him in, body trembling against the bed, as Harry smirked down at you. 

“Fuck,” he groaned, pulling out to his tip only to slide back into you with ease. He could feel how fucking wet you were, how tight your walls were sucking him back in. He moved both hands now to your hips, hearing you gasp loudly as he gripped you tightly. 

You bit your lower lip—hard. You couldn’t moan or make any noise as you normally would, but you knew that Harry was close too. You could feel it in the way he gripped your hips, could see it in his face too. 

His hips stuttered, eyes shut tight once he felt himself get closer and closer to the edge. Harry’s hands on your hips tightened even further, fingertips digging into your flesh. 

Then suddenly, after a few more rough thrusts, Harry slammed into you and came. Hard. He dragged his fingertips down your hips to the side of your legs and back up, growling under his breath as he filled you with his come. 

You smiled up at him and sat up, careful not to wrinkle his shirt or his jacket as you tugged on the edge of his tie to pull him down. He groaned quietly, rolling his hips slowly before pulling out, biting his lower lip as he looked down between your legs. 

“Fuck,” he muttered. 

“Morning, baby,” you teased, leaning up and pecking his lips. “Gonna feel you all day now.” 

Harry’s eyes narrowed down at you. “I love you.” 

You chuckled quietly. “I love you too. Help me clean up?” 

“Always,” he said softly, licking his lip as he looked down to see his come trickle out of you. “God, you’re fucking beautiful.” 

Then, he stepped away and pulled up his boxers and pants, walking to the bathroom afterwards to grab a small towel to clean you up. 

“You ready for the day?” You asked, teasingly. 

Harry chuckled and nodded, stepping back between your legs and carefully cleaning up the mess that seeped out of you. “I am now, yeah.” 

“Good.” 

“But I’m still picking Stevie up,” he said. 

You smiled. “I know, baby.” 

Then, the both of you heard quiet sounds of footsteps down the hallway. You both looked at each other and smiled. 

“Guess the other two are now awake,” you said. 

Harry smiled. “Come on, baby. Let’s get the cavalry ready for school.” 

Later that morning once all three kids were dressed and ready for school, the three of them sat at the kitchen table each with a plate of pancakes. Harry smiled to himself at the sight of the three of them, keeping an arm around your waist. 

“Mama,” Frankie said, looking up at both you and Harry. “We’re going to the park after school today, right?” 

“How about we go after we pick up Stevie? That way, it’s all of us.” You replied, walking over to her and kissing the crown of her head.

“And we get pizza?” Sammy, your youngest, asked. You looked across the table at him and grinned—deep brown eyes and dark curls that matched Harry’s.  

“Oh, of course,” Harry chimed in. “It’s pizza night.” 

Stevie couldn’t help but smile. “I guess… it’s okay that you pick me up then, dad.” 

Harry sighed in relief. “Oh good,” he said, walking towards her and kissing her cheek. “I’m glad I have your approval, Stevie girl.” 

Frankie giggled and looked over at her older sister. While Stevie had always cared about dressing up and doing her hair now that she was older, Frankie was the complete opposite. She was messy—like Stevie had been at the same age—but she didn’t like dresses or putting her hair in bows. She liked sports, always managed to get dirty and giggle about it too. 

Sammy had finished his pancakes first, sliding off his chair and walking towards the kitchen to put his plate away. Harry looked over at him and smiled, following him and picking him up into his arms. “You’ve got syrup all over your face, Sammy.” 

The younger boy giggled and then stuck his tongue out to try and clean his mouth. “Mmm, still good!” 

Harry chuckled and shook his head. “Let’s wash our hands and face, buddy.” Then, he held Sammy at sink level for the younger boy to reach. While Stevie and Frankie had the same attitude and features as you, Sammy had reminded Harry of himself when he was younger. A sensitive boy who felt so many emotions, but still had the biggest heart like his two older sisters. 

“I think I’m clean now, daddy,” he smiled, turning the sink off and reaching for a towel to dry off his hands and face. 

“Good job, buddy. You ready for school?” Harry asked. 

Sammy nodded. “My teacher said I’ll be able to write my name soon.” 

“Oh yeah?” Harry smiled. “You excited?” 

The young boy grinned. Dimples appeared at his cheeks. “Yes, then I can start writing you and mama letters too.” 

“You’re so sweet, buddy,” Harry chuckled, kissing the tip of his nose. His attention was pulled briefly when he heard laughter coming from the kitchen table, glancing over to see you, Frankie and Stevie giggling amongst one another.

And he stared at you for a few seconds longer. 

Still, you were as beautiful as the day he met you. 

You and Harry stood in front of the school as you dropped your children off. It was Stevie’s last year at this school before moving onto middle school next year, but still, it was convenient that all three of them were under the same school for now. 

“Frankie,” Harry said, kneeling down in front of her. “Is it basketball or soccer today?” 

Frankie grinned. “Basketball,” she answered. “I think I’ll beat the boys this time.” 

He smiled and leaned in to kiss her forehead. “Give them hell, babygirl.” 

“Harry,” you chuckled, moving a hand to his shoulder. 

Frankie giggled and then wrapped her arms around Harry, turning her head to kiss his cheek. “Love you daddy! Love you, mama!” 

“Have a good day at school, baby,” you said, leaning down to kiss the crown of her head before she turned on her heel to go into the school. 

Sammy bit his lower lip. This was his first year in school and he was still trying to find his footing, trying to make friends. 

“Mama?” He called out. 

You knelt down in front of him. “You’re okay, baby.” 

Sammy nodded. “You’ll be here when school is done?” 

“Yup, me and daddy will be here.” 

“Okay,” he said softly. “I’ll see you soon?” 

You smiled and gently cupped his cheek. “I’ll see you soon, baby.” 

“Love you,” he mumbled, wrapping his arms around you before moving onto Harry to do the same. 

“Love you, Sammy,” Harry said, kissing the crown of his head. 

Once Sammy walked into the school, Stevie was already about to turn on her heel before Harry gently tugged on her backpack. 

“Um, hello?” He said. 

You smiled and watched Stevie turn around. 

“Dad…” 

“Give us a hug and tell us you love us,” he said. 

She rolled her eyes playfully. “But my friends—”

“Will see how much you love us,” Harry finished for her. “Isn’t that a great thing?” 

You let out a quiet laugh and then gently pulled Stevie into your arms. “Have a good day at school, Stevie.” 

She let herself relax in your arms for a second. It felt like she was that same five year old all those years ago. Then, almost like she remembered where she was, Stevie pulled away. 

“Okay, my turn,” Harry smiled, tugging Stevie into his arms. “Be good, Stevie girl.” 

“I always am,” she smiled. 

“See you later, okay?” 

Stevie nodded and pulled away to look between the both of you. 

“You really will pick me up?” Stevie asked. 

Harry answered without pause. “Yes, Stevie girl.” 

She nodded and then heard her name being called. She bit her lower lip and then noticed the both of you nod once. 

“I love you guys,” she said. 

Harry grinned. 

You smiled. 

“We love you too,” you said, leaning against Harry. 

“I love you, Stevie girl.” He repeated. 

Stevie smiled and then turned on her heel, jogging to catch up with her friends as she walked into the school with them. 

Harry sighed and looked down at you. “Why does drop off feel so sad now?” 

You looked up at him. “Because our babies are growing up,” you answered, turning around with him to begin walking back towards the car. 

Harry nodded in agreement, keeping one arm draped over your shoulder. “Growing up too fast,” he added. 

Now that all three kids were in school, you had plenty of time to yourself when Harry was at work too. You had been so used to working that it took a very long time to get used to this. Even Harry had to constantly remind you that it was okay, that he wanted you to stay home. It was his way of taking care of you. 

And everyday, you’d show up to his work with lunch. It was ironic, how you were now the one to make sure he was eating during his lunch break when he used to do it for you. 

As you walked toward his office with the food you cooked, you heard Peter from behind you. Turning, you looked over to see the other man who was grinning at you. 

“My brother’s lucky,” Peter said, now walking alongside you. “I should convince Charlotte to visit me during my lunch.” 

You laughed quietly and shook your head. “Charlotte’s seven months pregnant. You’d be cruel to have her come here,” you teased. 

“You’re right,” Peter chuckled. “I should be going home to her to make sure she’s resting.” 

“Second pregnancy tough on her?” You asked. 

He nodded. “Yeah,” he sighed. “That and it took a while for us to get pregnant a second time.” 

You nodded in understanding. Both you and Harry were experiencing your own troubles with getting pregnant again. “Well, just make sure you’re there. I’m sure she appreciates it.” 

“What about you and Harry? Trying for a fourth?” 

You smiled. “Trying, yeah. No luck.” 

Peter gave you a look of understanding. Then, he reached to rest a hand over your shoulder comfortingly. “Well, you guys will figure it out. You always do.” 

You nodded and then glanced over at Harry’s office door. “Is he overworking himself?” You asked honestly. 

Peter shrugged. “We’re co-CEOs, but I feel like since Charlotte got pregnant, he’s been taking more of the responsibility.” 

“So… that’s a yes. He’s overworking himself.” You bit your lower lip. 

“I tried to tell him I can handle it,” he whispered. “But—”

“He doesn’t want to burden you,” you finished for him. Then, it was your turn to reach out to rest a hand on his forearm. “Just look out for him when you are here, okay?” 

“Always will,” Peter smiled. He reached out and knocked lightly on Harry’s door. 

Within seconds, Harry opened the door and you noticed the look on his face before he turned to look at you. You could tell he was stressed—noticed it in his features and his posture too. 

“You’re here,” he said, a hint of relief in his voice. 

“Did you forget?” You asked. 

Harry shook his head. He glanced over your shoulder at Peter and nodded. “Lost track of time.” 

“Take a long lunch,” Peter said. “I’ll get to the next meeting.” 

“You should be going home,” Harry replied. “Charlotte is—”

“I can handle one meeting, Harry,” Peter interjected. “I’ll go home after that one, that okay with you?” 

He sighed. Harry glanced at you and felt the tension in his shoulders loosen just at the sight of you. He finally nodded at Peter and gently reached for the bag of food you were carrying. “Okay, sure. Yeah, thanks,” Harry said. “But if you need to go—”

“I’m fine,” he interrupted. Peter gave you a hug before leaving both of you at Harry’s office. 

“I’m sorry, baby, come in, come in,” he said, opening the door further for you to step inside. Once you were, Harry shut the door and locked it, bringing the food to the coffee table where the couch was at. 

“How many cups of coffee have you had?” You asked, biting your lower lip. 

“Three.”

“Harry.”

“It’s fine, I’m fine.” Harry removed his blazer and set it against the back of his office chair before he walked back over to you, wrapped his arms around your waist. “Missed you, though.” 

“You need a break,” you sighed. “You’re… overworking yourself, baby.”

Harry shook his head and leaned in to kiss your cheek. “Just making sure this company doesn’t go under. My parents trusted me—”

“Trusted both you and your brother,” you corrected. 

“He’s got a baby on the way,” Harry sighed. 

“And you have a family too,” you replied. “You know, if your mom ever found out how much you’re working, she’d—”

“She wouldn’t let me hear the end of it,” Harry interrupted quietly. “Yeah, I know.” 

“Can you just—try to take it easy?” You asked. 

He bit his lower lip. “Okay,” he answered. “I’ll try.” 

“Promise?” 

Harry nodded and moved a hand to your cheek. “Yeah, baby. I promise.” 

“Good, now, let’s eat?” 

He smiled and leaned in to peck your lips. This time, he lingered though. “What if… what if I want to do something else before we eat?” 

You hummed against his lips and moved your hands to his shoulders. “Is that why you locked your door?” 

He chuckled and nodded, moving his lips to your jawline now. “You’re my stress relief,” he whispered. “Whenever you’re around, I don’t feel the weight of this company on my shoulders. Feel like I can breathe.” 

“Maybe I should be here more often then,” you teased. 

Harry pulled back to look down at you. “Really?” 

“What would I even do here?” You asked. 

He shrugged. “Just… stay in my office? I don’t know.” 

“How about… when you feel like the walls are closing in on you, you send me a text and I’ll make my way over here?” You suggested. “Or… you can pencil me in everyday and we can take a walk in the park every morning.” 

Harry nodded. “How about both?”

“Yeah?” 

He leaned in and rested his forehead against yours. “I just… feel better whenever you’re around.” 

“Okay,” you said softly. “We’ll take a walk every morning—does ten sound good?” 

Harry kissed your cheek before releasing his hold on you to go back to his desk where his computer sat. He pulled up his calendar and nodded, setting a daily meeting every morning at ten. Now, his assistant would know to never schedule a meeting at that time. 

“Ten in the morning. Everyday. You and me,” Harry said. 

You smiled and then reached for his hand once he made his way back over to you. “Good. For now, you need to eat.” 

He nodded and sat on the couch, tugging you onto his lap and holding you there for a few seconds longer. “I love you, baby.” 

You smiled and draped an arm around his shoulders, leaning in to kiss his temple. “I love you too, Harry.” 

He stared at you and let the corner of his lips. He rested his head against your shoulder as you reached for the Tupperware, opening the lid and handing it to him. 

He knew he had been working a lot lately. More so than usual. But since his parents had retired and named him and Peter as co-CEOs, he had taken his role seriously. Harry had lots of ideas to expand the company, to make even more money than his parents could ever dream of, but he didn’t want it to be at the cost of his relationship with you or his family. He was still trying to balance work and his home life. 

Stevie was the last one to be picked up after her after school clean up with other kids, especially Taylor. Harry watched his little girl come out of the school building with a young boy standing next to her and he could have sworn he had never seen her this smitten before. The boy was inching closer to her and Stevie bit her lip from smiling. It wasn’t until she looked up that she saw Harry with his arms crossed over his chest and his brows pulled together. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Taylor,” Stevie smiled. 

“Oh,” the boy said. “Okay. Thanks for volunteering with me.” 

She nodded. “I’m always happy to help.” 

The boy stopped walking and looked at her with nervous eyes. “Do you think—do you think I could sit with you tomorrow at lunch or something?” 

Stevie’s eyes widened. Her smile grew. “Yeah, I think that’d be cool.” 

Taylor grinned. “Cool, yeah, that’s… that’s awesome.” Then, he leaned in and gave her a one armed hug before he pulled away abruptly, turning on his heel and jogging to where his mother was parked. 

Stevie could feel the warmth in her cheeks as she walked over to Harry, noticing that you were seated in the passenger seat of the car behind him. 

“Dad…”

“He hugged you,” Harry said. “Was that okay with you?” 

“Yes,” she answered. “Can you… not make a scene? In case he’s looking,” Stevie whispered, turning to look over her shoulder in time for Taylor to wave at her. She waved back and then turned her gaze back on Harry. “Please?” 

Harry sighed. He had been stressed at work. He didn’t want to be stressed about this too. So, he gently reached out and took Stevie’s backpack from her. “Okay, I can be… cool.” 

“Are you sure? It looks like you want to say something.” 

“I just—it’s nothing.” 

“Dad.” 

Harry sighed and gently took her hand, pulling her to his side as he let out a breath of relief when Stevie leaned into him. “You’re just getting bigger,” he said. “One minute you’re that same five year old girl who wanted to be around me all the time and now you’re… you’re a preteen with a crush.” 

“I do not have a crush!” 

Harry chuckled. “Stevie girl, touch your cheeks. They’re warm, aren’t they?” 

“So?” 

“So… you’re blushing.” 

She sighed. “For the record,” Stevie said, opening the door to the car once they were close enough. “I still want to be around you all the time. You’re just… busy with work.” 

Then, she climbed in and Harry felt his heart drop. He heard the muffled sounds of greeting as the door shut, biting his lower lip. Stevie had noticed it too. And if she noticed his stress, he was sure Frankie and Sammy did too. 

Harry set her backpack in the trunk before rounding the car to the drivers side. He pulled his phone out and texted his mom. Simple, two words that meant so much more. Meant that he was struggling, meant that he was lost. 

HARRY: Need advice. 

His mother didn’t waste a second to reply. He looked down at his phone at her response. Harry let out a breath. She replied and said that she’d come by the office tomorrow. 

After the five of you walked Central Park, Harry kept a tight hold on your hand as your three kids walked ahead of you to go to the same pizza shop that you had been going to with Stevie when it was just the two of you. Marco was like family now, watching your family grow over the years. 

“Stevie noticed that I’ve been busy at work,” Harry said with a sigh. “Do I make it that obvious?” 

You looked over at him, tightening your hold on his hand. “You just… wear your heart on your sleeve and your expressions say everything.” 

“I expect you to notice that, but Stevie?” 

“Harry, she’s always been aware of your emotions. Mine too. Even at a young age,” you answered. 

He sighed. You were right. Stevie was such an empath—always noticing and feeling other people’s emotions. “I should get better at hiding it.” 

You shook your head. “Hiding it doesn’t fix it.” 

He bit his lower lip. “Right.” 

“Will you at least reach out to your mom?” You asked. 

Harry squeezed your hand. “Already did, actually. She’s coming by the office tomorrow.” 

“Good,” you said, leaning up to kiss him cheek. “She did this before too, you know. Both your parents.” 

“I know.” 

“You don’t have to be perfect,” you whispered. “Not for the company. Not for us.” 

Harry’s eyes softened down at you. “It’s hard,” he answered honestly. “I just want the best for you guys and for the company.”

“We’ve got it already,” you answered. “We’ve got you, baby.” 

The corner of his lips lifted. “You know all the right things to say.” 

You smiled proudly. “I learn from the best. Not too long ago, you were the one saying all the right things.” 

Harry looked down at you. He noticed the age in your features now, the subtle strands of grey streaked in your hair. You were still younger than he was, but having three kids did tend to age you a bit. 

And yet, you still looked like the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. 

“I love you,” he said quietly. “Thinking when we get back home, after the kids are asleep, we can have more alone time?” 

You smiled. “I think I’d like that.” 

Harry smiled and kissed your temple. “Good.”

As the five of you approached Marco’s, Sammy was the first one to speak. 

“Cannoli?” Sammy asked, looking over his shoulder at both you and Harry. 

You smiled and nodded. “After dinner though, baby.” 

Harry pulled you closer, releasing your hand only to wrap an arm around your shoulders. “Just like Stevie,” he mumbled with a quiet chuckle. 

“I think Frankie’s the only one who isn’t too big on sweets like the other two,” you smiled. “Our little athlete.” 

The three of them jogged inside with excitement in their eyes. Harry chuckled and kissed your temple, nodding over to the same table. “I’ll grab the food.” 

“You sure?” 

“Yeah, baby,” Harry said, hand moving from your lower back to give a gentle pat to your ass. “Now, go. Sit down.” 

“Naughty, Mr. Castillo.” 

He grinned. “You like it, Mrs. Castillo,” Harry winked. He walked into the pizza shop as you moved to sit at the table, smiling to yourself as you watched the four of them with loving eyes. You couldn’t believe that five years ago, you and Harry shared a pizza on the very first day you met. 

And now, here you both were, five years later. Married. With three kids. 

Sammy ran outside and climbed into your lap, snuggling closer to you as the two other girls remained inside with Harry. 

“Hi, baby,” you said, cradling Sammy in your arms. “How was school?” 

“Good,” he answered. “I made a friend.”

You grinned. “You did? That’s amazing, baby.” 

Sammy smiled to himself. “Yeah, he’s nice. He’s new to the school.” 

“Oh, yeah?” 

Sammy nodded. “I volunteered to help him in class.” 

You looked down at him and cupped his cheek. “You’re so sweet, Sammy. I bet it was nice of him to not feel alone on his first day.” 

“He said he was sad,” he said. “Because all his friends were back home where he used to live.” 

“And now he’s got one friend here,” you said, gently tapping the tip of his nose. 

Sammy grinned and nodded to himself, nuzzling his cheek further into the crook of your neck now. You held him closer to your chest and shut your eyes, reveling in the sounds of the city. 

“Alright, Frankie, Stevie, what are we getting?” Harry asked, keeping a hold on Frankie’s hand as she slid her own into his. 

“Pepperoni,” Frankie answered, looking up at Harry with a grin. 

Stevie nodded in agreement. “And cannolis.” 

“And breadsticks!” Frankie added. 

Stevie giggled. “Yes, breadsticks.” 

Harry smiled. “Okay, so the works. Got it.” He glanced at Stevie for a moment and noticed her pull out her phone that he had gotten for her a few months ago before she left the pizza shop to go sit outside with you and Sammy. He sighed and then scooped Frankie into his arms. 

“How was school, babygirl?” 

Frankie leaned against him. “Good. Our team won the basketball game during recess.” 

“Ooh,” Harry smiled. She was so different than Stevie and it had been great seeing the different personalities each child had. “So, mama and I were thinking… do you wanna join a sports team or something? You know, outside of school.” 

Her eyes lit up. “Really?” 

“Yeah, Frankie. You’ll get to go to practice, play games on the weekend. That sound like something you wanna do?” 

She nodded quickly. “Yes!” 

He smiled to himself. He didn’t know where Frankie got her athleticism from, but it excited him—getting to go to soccer or basketball games every weekend to cheer her on. 

“But first, pizza?” She asked. 

Harry chuckled and nodded, kissing her temple. “Yeah, babygirl. First, pizza.” 

Frankie smiled and then rested her cheek on his shoulder, holding onto him tightly. Just like Stevie, Frankie was a daddy’s girl. Wherever he went, she wanted to join. 

Dinner lasted for about an hour and a half before all three kids yawned, signaling that they were ready to go home and get ready for bed. Harry looked across the table at you, still cradling Sammy in your arms as Frankie leaned against your side, blinking slowly. 

Harry glanced at Stevie, seated to his left who had her eyes glued to her phone. 

“I think your screen time is done for the day, Stevie girl,” he whispered. 

Stevie looked up at him and nodded. “Okay, dad.” 

“Been glued to that thing ever since I got you it,” he said. 

She shrugged. “Just texting my friends.” 

“Friends?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Yes, friends.” 

Harry arched a brow. “Taylor being one of these friends you’re texting?” 

Stevie rolled her eyes playfully and put her phone away, shaking her head. “He doesn’t have a phone.” 

“Oh? So, what I’m hearing is that kids your age can live without a phone.” 

“What? No…” 

He chuckled quietly and wrapped an arm around her. “Uh huh,” he teased. 

Stevie leaned against him then looked across the table at you. “Mom?” 

“Yeah, baby?” You said, looking over at her. 

“Can you… can you curl my hair tomorrow?” Stevie asked. 

Harry arched a brow. He looked at you and noticed your gaze shift to him. You gave him a look, one that said not to say anything. He sighed quietly and looked back down at Stevie. 

“Yeah, of course, baby. You gonna wake up early enough for me to do your hair though?” 

Stevie nodded. “I’ll be up and ready, I promise… but if I’m tired, can I get a sip of your coffee?” 

Harry looked over at you. 

“Coffee?” You asked. 

Stevie glanced at Harry. “Yeah, coffee.” 

Your eyes narrowed suspiciously between the both of them. “Stevie, I don’t think you’d like coffee, baby.” 

“Only one way to find out, right?” 

You shook your head. 

Harry cleared his throat. “Alright, should we get going?” He interrupted. 

You arched a brow at him. “You’re acting… suspiciously weird, Harry.” 

“What?” 

Stevie gently elbowed his side. He looked down at the younger girl. She gave him the same look you’d give him—don’t say anything. He let the corner of his lips lift before he shook his head. “I’m fine, baby. Those two are ready to pass out and this one needs to sleep early so she’s not sleepy when she wakes up tomorrow.” 

Stevie giggled. 

Sammy stirred in your arms. 

Frankie rubbed her eyes. 

“Okay then,” you said, looking between Harry and Stevie again. “Are you two hiding something?” 

“Nope!” They both said simultaneously. 

Harry smiled and then stood up, gently reaching for Frankie and pulling her into his arms. “Ready to go, baby?” 

You nodded slowly, standing from the seat as you reached for Stevie’s hand with your free one. “What are you guys hiding?” 

“Nothing,” Stevie giggled, leaning against your side. 

Sammy buried his face against your neck and yawned, his eyes now falling shut. 

Harry walked ahead of you, whispering into Frankie’s ear as she giggled quietly. Her tiny arms tightened even further around his neck as her cheek rested against his shoulder. 

“So, curled hair tomorrow, huh?” You said, looking down at Stevie. 

She nodded. “I—uh, I’m having lunch with Taylor tomorrow, so I don’t know. I just want to look nice.” 

You smiled and adjusted Sammy against your hip before your released Stevie’s hand only to wrap your arm around her shoulders. “Oh, baby, you always look nice.” 

She sighed. “Okay, I want to look nicer.” 

You nodded and leaned down to kiss the crown of her head. “My baby’s got a crush.” 

She rolled her eyes. “He’s just… he’s nice.” 

“Yeah?” 

Stevie bit her lower lip. “And he’s friendly… and kind to everyone.” 

You smiled and held her closer. “Good, baby. That’s really good.” 

“And you know his mom, so…” 

“Yeah, she’s kind too,” you said softly. “Sometimes, I forget that you’re eleven. To me, you’re still that same little girl who would get syrup or ice cream all over her face. For a long time, it was just you and me, you know?” 

Stevie looked up at you and nodded. You reached up and gently stroked her hair back and away from her face. “I love you, mom. Our family… I love it. It’s what I always dreamed of.” 

“And daddy? You know you’ve got him wrapped around your finger from day one,” you smiled. “But that doesn’t mean you get to take advantage of that now that you’re older, okay?” 

“I know,” Stevie said. 

“So, what’s this about coffee? Hm?” 

Her eyes widened. “Nothing.”

“Uh huh.” 

She giggled. “I asked for a one sip,” she admitted. “I didn’t like it, but dad said that I might like yours… because you have sugar in yours.” 

You laughed quietly and shook your head. “You know, I don’t like daddy’s coffee either.” 

Stevie smiled. 

Then, you continued. “Also… he’s going to be overprotective, okay? You’re his little girl. To him, no one’s good enough.” 

Stevie nodded slowly, glancing over at Harry who kept Frankie close to his chest. “I know,” she whispered. 

“You know, he’d give you the world if he could,” you said, smiling to yourself as you crossed the street to walk towards the car. “So… if he’s overreacting, it’s coming from a place of love… and fear.” 

“Fear?”

You nodded, tucking a few strands of hair behind her ear. “Yeah, baby. Us parents… when our kids get older, we think that they won’t need us anymore.”

“I’ll always need you, mom. And I’ll always need him too,” Stevie said quietly. 

Stevie gave you a quick hug before jogging towards the car after you all crossed the street. Harry buckled Frankie into her car seat before he felt Stevie collide against him, her arms snaking around his waist as she held onto him tightly. 

“Hey…” he said quietly, his arms coming to wrap around her too. “Everything okay?” 

Stevie looked up at him and nodded. “I love you,” she said. 

Harry’s eyes softened. “Aw, Stevie girl. I love you too.” 

She buried her face against him and tightened her hold. “Daddy?” 

He felt his heart rate pick up. Stevie had stopped calling him daddy for a while now and started calling him dad—just another sign of her getting older. 

“Yeah, Stevie girl?” 

“No matter how old I get, I’m always going to need you.” 

His eyes watered. “Yeah? Even when you’re adult and you have a family of your own?” 

Stevie nodded. “Yes, even then. Especially then.”

Harry smiled and wrapped his arms around her even tighter. He kissed the crown of her head and sighed quietly, looking up to see you set Sammy in his own car seat. He knew this was your doing, so he mouthed thank you before you shut the door. 

Later that night, after the kids were asleep, you climbed into bed where Harry was seated against the headboard. Before you could even move to lay on your side of the bed, he reached out for you and tugged you onto his lap instead. 

“Hey,” he whispered. 

“Hi, baby,” you said softly. “Dinner was great tonight.” 

Harry nodded and rested his hands on your hips, leaning forward to peck your lips lightly. “You talked to Stevie.” 

“I just… reminded her, that’s all.”

“You didn’t need to,” he said quietly. 

“I know,” you answered. “I wanted to. She’s going to get to that age where she’ll want nothing to do with you or me… but I just wanted to make sure she knew that we’re still her parents.” 

Harry nodded. “She called me daddy tonight. I don’t think I’ve heard her say that in a long time.” 

“She’s always gonna be our little girl, Harry.” 

“I know that,” he whispered. “Just wish time would just freeze, you know? Keep them little forever.” 

“I know, me too,” you sighed. “But hey, we’re doing this together.” 

He smiled at that. His hands moved from your hips to your ribcage, sliding his hands under your shirt. “Have I told you today how lucky I am?” 

You shook your head. “Ah, I knew you were forgetting something.” 

Harry chuckled quietly. “I’m gonna do better, okay? I don’t… want to miss anymore moments.” 

“Okay,” you whispered, leaning forward to pepper kisses along his jawline. “Maybe I should just show up at the office unannounced to distract you.” 

Harry felt his manhood stir beneath you. He tilted his head back against the headboard and shut his eyes, moving his hands further up your body until they covered your breasts. He brushed his thumbs of your nipples as you rolled your hips into his, lips moving down the side of his neck. 

“Hmm, that could work,” he mumbled, letting out a quiet groan. 

You felt his hardening length against your core, grounding your hips further into his. “I love you, you know that?” You asked, pulling back to look down at him.

He looked up at you and smiled. “I know, baby. I love you too.” 

“So… will you let me take care of you?” 

His brow arched. “What?” 

You pecked his lips and then slowly climbed off his lap only to settle himself between your legs. You palmed the center of his boxers, his hardened manhood against your palm now. “Just sit back… let me do all the work.” 

Harry groaned and nodded. He looked down at you and bit his lower lip. He couldn’t believe that this was his life. Today was a wake up call for him—he hadn’t been present in his kids’ lives and he certainly hadn’t been present for you either. 

“You spoil me,” he mumbled. 

“Good. I’m trying to return the favor,” you grinned, moving your lips now to brush against his clothed manhood. 

Harry’s hand darted out immediately to hold your hair back, biting his lower lip in anticipation. “Maybe… maybe you should do this every night,” he suggested. 

You smiled up at him and pulled down his boxers, watching his manhood twitch against his lower half. “Yeah? I wouldn’t mind that,” you grinned. 

“God,” he groaned, watching your lips wrap around the tip of his manhood. Harry cleared his throat, your eyes still locked with his. “Fuck, baby.” 

You pulled back and ran your tongue around his leaking tip. A smile still lined your lips. “Harry?” 

“Yeah, baby?” 

“I fall in love with you every day,” you said. 

Harry grinned. He reached out with his free hand to cup your cheek. “Oh, baby… I fell in love with you five years ago and I haven’t stopped falling since.” 

Before he could continue though, you wrapped your mouth back around him and began bobbing your head slowly. Harry tipped his head back and reveled in the way your lips felt around him, your tongue swirling around the base of him. 

“Fuck, baby…” Harry’s hand around your hair tightened as he slowly lifted his hips off the bed. “Wanna try for another baby, hm?” 

You nodded, but with his length in your mouth, caused you to just bob around him. He growled before he pulled out of your mouth, his free hand moving from your cheek to grab hold of his base. 

“Take off your panties,” he said, licking his lower lip. “And then sit on it. Take what you need, baby.” 

You nodded quickly. You were already throbbing and wet between your legs, sliding your panties off like he said before you straddled his hips yet again. 

Slowly, you lowered yourself onto him, feeling his tip breach your opening first followed by the rest of his girth, stretching you slowly. 

Both of you moaned. 

You stared into his eyes.

Harry stared back. 

“Gonna fill you up,” he whispered. “So much that I’ll be dripping out of you in your sleep.” 

You gasped, lifting your hips before sliding back down. “Get me pregnant, Harry,” you added. “Please.” 

Harry smiled. Both of you had been wanting to expand your family, but this time, it wasn’t easy. At least not as easy as it had been with Frankie and Sammy. 

He gripped your hips and pulled you firmly down onto him. As you sat firmly on his lap, his entire length filling you to the hilt, you both stared at each other and let out a breathy sigh. 

“I love you,” he whispered. 

“I love you too,” you replied, leaning forward to press your forehead against his. 

It had been a while since you and Harry had sex twice in one day. You both just hoped that it was a sign that you’d end up pregnant this time around. 

Right now, that rhythm was being tested to its absolute limit on a patient crammed into the makeshift overflow area near the ambulance bay. The man on the gurney was large, aggressive, and reeked of cheap bourbon and woodsmoke, his upper thigh torn open by a jagged piece of shrapnel or a ricochet from the festival grounds. He was thrashing, his eyes rolling back in his head as he roared obscenities, fighting the very hands trying to save his life.

Frank was leaning over him, his broad shoulders tensed as he applied heavy, two-handed pressure to the femoral artery, his face a mask of fierce, locked-in concentration. You were positioned just opposite him, your fingers deftly trying to establish a secondary IV in the man’s uninjured arm while the chaos of the ER swirled madly around you.

Just a few feet away, Dr. Abbot was shouting orders, his voice cracked with exhaustion as he directed a trauma team toward a crashing teenager. Dana was somewhere down the corridor, her authoritative tone echoing as she managed the triage nightmare at the front doors. Everyone was stretched to their absolute breaking point, operating on instinct and sheer willpower.

"I need that line running now!" Frank barked, not out of anger toward you, but to be heard over the deafening noise of a nearby heart monitor screaming and the desperate sobbing of a girl two bays down. "He's losing his pressure. We don't have time for him to be fighting us."

You nodded quickly, your voice calm and steady as you spoke to the thrashing man. You told him he was safe, told him that he was at the hospital and that Frank was going to fix his leg, but the words didn't seem to penetrate the thick fog of his intoxication and terror. The man gave a sudden, violent heave, his free arm flailing out wildly. His fingers clawed frantically at the heavy tactical waistband of his cargo trousers, diving beneath the blood-stained fabric of his shirt.

It happened in a terrifying, fragmented blur that defied the frantic speed of the room. You saw the dark glint of steel before your brain fully processed what it was, a compact handgun snagging on his belt as he yanked it free in a blind, paranoid reflex.

"Gun! He’s got a gun!" someone screamed from the corridor. It sounded like Robby, his voice cracking with a raw, primal panic that instantly silenced the immediate vicinity.

Time seemed to violently liquefy. Frank’s eyes widened, a sudden, horrifying comprehension dawning on his features as he instantly let go of the wound, lunging across the gurney in a desperate, instinctive attempt to smother the weapon or shield you. The patient fired blindly into the air, the deafening roar of the gunshot exploding inside the enclosed space, shattering a nearby fluorescent light fixture in a shower of sparks and white dust.

From down the hall, the immediate, instinctual response was instantaneous; voices shouted to get down, and a chorus of bodies hit the linoleum floor as medical staff and ambulatory patients dropped to seek whatever cover the flimsy privacy curtains and stainless-steel carts could provide.

But the man’s wrist snapped sideways as he recoiled, the weapon discharging a second time before Frank could pin his arm to the mattress.

There was no grand explosion of pain, just a sudden, violent impact against your ribs that felt like being struck full-force by a swinging baseball bat, knocking the breath entirely out of your lungs. The momentum threw you backward, your feet tangling in the stool behind you, and you went down hard against the cold, hard floor, the bag of saline you had been holding bursting against the metal leg of the gurney.

For a second, the world went completely silent, the ringing in your ears drowning out the screams, the shouting, and the heavy thud of security guards finally tackling the gunman to the ground just inches away from where you lay. You stared up at the cracked ceiling tiles, wondering vaguely why the air felt so thick, why it was suddenly so incredibly difficult to draw a single breath.

Then the silence shattered, and the world rushed back in with a terrifying, agonizing roar. Frank was on his knees beside you before you could even register that you were on the floor, his hands trembling in a way you had never seen before as they hovered over your chest. His face was entirely drained of colour, his lips parted in a silent gasp of horror that quickly transformed into a frantic, breathless plea. "No, no, no, please, God, no," he muttered, his voice stripped of all its usual authority, sounding entirely small and broken.

His palms came down hard against the left side of your upper abdomen, just beneath your ribs, and the sudden, searing agony that ripped through your torso made your back arch off the floor, a choked, ragged scream tearing from your throat. The fabric of your scrubs was already turning a deep, heavy crimson, the warmth of your own blood soaking through his fingers as he pressed down with everything he had.

The immediate area exploded into a frenzied, chaotic scrum of activity, but this time, the emergency was you. Robby was there in an instant, his face pale and eyes wide with shock as he dropped to his knees on your other side, "I’ve got the back, Frank, I’ve got the exit wound, keep pressing!" Robby yelled, his voice shaking as he tried to stabilize your writhing frame.

Jack appeared above you, his authoritative calm momentarily cracking as he took in the sight of one of his own nurses bleeding out on the floor. "Get a gurney over here now! Someone get me a chest tube tray and two units of O-negative!" Jack roared, his commands snapping the stunned onlookers into motion.

Samira was right behind him, her hands steady despite the visible tremor in her jaw as she ripped open a pack of trauma dressings, quickly tucking them under Frank’s straining hands. Dana was on the radio, her voice cutting through the hospital page with a sharp, trembling urgency, calling for an immediate surgical consult and clearing a path straight to the operating theatres.

You tried to speak, but all that came out was a wet, shallow gasp and the sound of it seemed to fracture something deep within him. "Stay with me, do you hear me? Look at me, sweetheart," he begged, leaning down so close that his sweat-dampened hair brushed against your forehead. His eyes were wild, swimming with tears that he refused to let fall. "Don't you dare close your eyes. You breathe for me, come on, just keep breathing."

The vulnerability in his voice was terrifying; this was a man who stared down death every single day without flinching, but looking at you, he looked utterly defeated, stripped entirely of his medical armor.

With a coordinated heave, Frank, Robby, and Jack lifted you off the blood-slicked floor and onto a clearing gurney, the sudden movement causing the agony in your chest to flare into a blinding, white-hot sheet of pain that threatened to turn the world completely black.

You gasped, your fingers clawing blindly at the air, and Frank instantly caught your hand in his own, his grip incredibly tight, almost crushing, yet it was the most comforting thing you had ever felt. He didn't let go, not even as Jack began cutting away the remnants of your ruined scrubs, exposing the neat, horrific puncture wound where the bullet had torn through your muscle and bone.

“Shit, this doesn’t sound good," Jack muttered, his stethoscope pressed firmly against your skin, his expression grim. "Dr. Mohan, give me that scalpel, we need to drop a tube now before they arrest."

"Frank," you whimpered, the word barely a whisper, your vision beginning to tunnel, the bright fluorescent lights of the ER fading into a hazy, shimmering blur.

"I'm right here, I’m not leaving you, I swear to God I’m right here," Frank cried, his voice breaking completely as he used his free hand to wipe the blood from your lip, his thumb caressing your cheek. He looked up at Jack, his eyes blazing with a mixture of terror and fury. "Do it fast, Jack, please, just do it fast."

You felt the sharp, sudden sting of the local anesthetic, followed almost immediately by the heavy, suffocating pressure of the chest tube being inserted between your ribs. It was an invasive, brutal sensation, a choked sob tearing from your throat as you tried to pull away from the pain.

Frank held you steady, his strong arm wrapping around your shoulders to keep you pinned to the mattress, his face pressed against the side of your neck as he whispered frantic, broken promises into your skin. "You're okay, you're doing so well, just hold onto me, sweetheart. I've got you."

As the tube found its mark, a dark, heavy rush of blood and trapped air hissed into the collection chamber, and suddenly, a massive, cooling relief washed through your lungs. You could breathe again, the suffocating weight lifted from your chest, even as the profound exhaustion of blood loss began to pull you down into the dark.

The gurney was suddenly in motion, rattling violently as it was pushed out of the trauma bay and down the long corridor toward the elevators. Dana was there at the doors, holding them open, her face pale as she reached out to briefly touch your leg, her voice fierce as she looked at the surgical team waiting for you. "Take care of them," she ordered, her tone leaving absolutely no room for negotiation.

Frank walked alongside the moving bed, his hand still locked in yours, his eyes on you, his thumb tracing endless, soothing circles against the back of your hand.

When they finally reached the double doors of the surgical suite, the anesthesia resident stepped in front of him, gently but firmly placing a hand on Frank's chest. "Frank, you need to stay here. We've got them, we're going to take care of them, I promise."

Frank stopped, his sneakers skidding slightly on the polished floor, his chest heaving as he fought the urge to push past the man. He looked down at you, his eyes red-rimmed and filled with a profound, terrifying helplessness, his grip loosening only when the momentum of the gurney forced your fingers to slide apart.

"I'll be right here," he called out, his voice echoing down the sterile hallway as the heavy doors began to swing shut, separating you from his sight. "Right here when you wake up. I love you, do you hear me? I love you!"

As the darkness finally took you, the smell of antiseptic and the bright, shadowless lights of the operating room fading into nothingness, the last thing you felt was the lingering warmth of his hand against your skin, and the steady, unbreakable promise of his voice.

Everything felt incredibly heavy, as though your limbs had been poured full of wet sand, and your throat was dry and parched, tasting of stale plastic from the oxygen cannula resting beneath your nose. For a long moment, you simply drifted in that twilight space, aware of a dull, throbbing ache radiating across the entire left side of your chest, a deep-seated soreness that flared into a sharp pinch every time you tried to take a deep breath.

But beneath that pain, and the overwhelming exhaustion pulling at your eyelids, there was a profound, grounding warmth enveloping your right hand.

Slowly, with an effort that felt almost monumental, you forced your eyes open. The harsh, chaotic glare of the emergency department was gone, replaced by the soft, dimmed shadows of a private recovery room in the intensive care unit. The blinds were drawn against the morning light, casting long, quiet bars of grey across the linoleum floor. And sitting right beside your mattress, his frame uncomfortably curled into a stiff hospital armchair, was Frank.

He looked entirely shattered. He was still wearing his scrub trousers, though he had swapped his blood-stained top for a faded, oversized grey university sweatshirt that looked as though it had been pulled from the bottom of his locker. His elbows were resting on the edge of your mattress, his face buried in the crook of his arm, his fingers tightly, desperately interlaced with yours.

As you shifted your weight slightly, trying to ease the pressure on your chest tube site, a soft, involuntary whimper escaped your lips. The sound was barely audible, but it acted like an electric shock to Frank. His head snapped up instantly, his eyes bloodshot, dark shadows bruising the skin beneath them. For a fraction of a second, his expression was blank with a raw, lingering terror, but as his gaze focused on your open eyes, his face cracked, a look of profound, overwhelming relief washing over his features.

"Hey," he whispered, his voice incredibly thick and hoarse, rough from hours of silence and unshed tears. He shifted instantly, his thumb brushing over your cheekbone with a tenderness that made your chest ache for reasons completely unrelated to the bullet wound. "Hey, beautiful. Don't try to move too much, alright? You're okay. You're safe."

"Frank," you croaked, the word catching in your throat, sounding small and entirely broken.

"I'm here. I'm right here," he murmured, his touch lingering against your skin as if he needed the physical contact to completely convince himself that you were truly alive. He reached for a small plastic cup on the bedside table, dipping a pink foam swab into some ice water before gently pressing it against your cracked lips. "Just a little bit, sweetheart. Your throat's going to be sore from the ventilator, just let it sit there."

The cool moisture was an absolute blessing, and you closed your eyes for a moment, letting the relief wash over you. When you opened them again, you looked down at the heavy, white dressings taping the chest tube firmly to your ribs. The memory of the gunshot, the sudden, violent impact, and the terrifying sight of Frank kneeling over you in a pool of your own blood came rushing back with a vividness that caused your heart rate to spike on the monitor.

Frank noticed the rhythmic acceleration of the beeping instantly. "Hey, look at me, honey," he commanded softly, squeezing your hand a little tighter. "The guy's gone. Security took him down, police have him. The hospital is secure. You are out of danger, I promise you."

"You... you look terrible," you managed to whisper, a faint, weak attempt at a smile touching the corners of your lips.

A ragged, wet laugh spilled from his chest, his shoulders dropping as he leaned his forehead gently against your shoulder, his breathing heavy and uneven. "I have never been so terrified in my entire life," he confessed into the fabric of your hospital gown, his voice trembling in a way that made your throat tighten. "I’ve seen a lot of things in that department. A lot of blood, a lot of close calls. But when you went down... when I saw what that bastard did... I froze. My brain just stopped working because the only thing that mattered was that it was you."

You squeezed his hand back with what little strength you had, your heart swelling at the raw vulnerability in his tone. "You didn't freeze," you murmured softly. "You caught me. You held me."

"Because I couldn't let you go," he said, pulling back to look down at you, a single tear finally escaping and tracking down the rugged line of his jaw. "Robby, Jack, Samira... they all practically had to drag me out of the operating theatre doors. Dana sat with me in the hallway for four hours while you were under. She kept telling me to go home, to wash the blood off my clothes, but I couldn't leave this building knowing you were in there. Collins kept checking the surgical log every fifteen minutes just to give me updates. Everyone's been by, sweetheart. They’re all terrified for you, but they're all waiting to see you."

"Tell them thank you," you whispered, the exhaustion beginning to pull at your consciousness again, your eyelids growing heavier by the second as the hospital pain medication kept you drifting.

"I will. I'll tell them all," Frank murmured. He leaned down, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to your forehead. "You just rest now. I'm not going anywhere. I’ll be right here when you wake up again, and I’ll be here when we finally get to go home. I love you so much."

As the darkness drifted back in to claim you, softer this time, devoid of the terror and the pain of the ER, you let yourself sink into the mattress, completely enveloped by the steady, protective warmth of his presence and the quiet, reassuring beat of his heart right beside you.

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