Fangirling Till Midnight

The tent did not look like much.

A length of faded cloth, patched more times than you could count, staked crookedly into the grass at the edge of the road. A charm of bones and dried herbs hung at the entrance, clinking softly whenever the wind stirred.

You had no interest in the fortune teller, instead wanting to spend the coin your father gave you at the market intending to buy a new doll. However, you had heard squeals of delight from the fellow noble ladies about the fortune lady and the amazing futures she had given them.

Your father mocked fortune tellers, calling them stupid and a waste of coin. Either they would tell you what you wanted to hear or they would try to frighten you. Your father would probably mock you once he learned of your visit.

But curiosity got the best of you.

You stood in front of the tent flaps, contemplating what questions you would want to know.

But you were interrupted.

"Come in, then," the fortune teller called from inside the tent. Her voice was thin but certain.

You hesitated only a moment before ducking beneath the flap.

The air inside was thick with the smell of smoke and crushed leaves and old roots left too long to dry. A small fire glowed between you, its embers low and red. The woman’s eyes caught the light strangely, pale and sharp as frost.

“You’ve got coin for me,” she went on, before you could speak. “Come, child. Sit.”

You did, depositing your coin into her outstretched hand. The woman took it from you, slipping it behind her, and grabbed your hand that was still in the air. Her grip was tight and hard, turning it this way and that, her fingers rough and cold. You couldn’t help but squirm in her grip.

Her thumb pressed into your palm and stilled. A frown tugged at her mouth.

“Ah,” she murmured.

Something in the sound made your stomach twist. “What is it?”

She did not answer at once. Instead, she released your hand as though it had burned her and leaned back, studying your face now instead of your palm.

“How old are you?” she asked. You told her.

"Mm." Her gaze lingered. Measuring. "Young, but old enough."

"For what?" you pressed.

The woman’s lips thinned. For a heartbeat, you thought she might refuse you altogether but then she sighed like someone already weary of what must be said.

"For sorrow."

The word settled heavy between you.

You scoffed. “I did not come for riddles. If you have something to tell me, say it plain.”

At that, she huffed a quiet laugh. “Plain, she says. As if the world were ever so kind.”

Still, she leaned forward again, close enough now that you could see the fine lines etched deep around her eyes.

“You will love,” she said. “There’s no stopping that. It’s in you already, same as breath.”

Your chest tightened despite yourself. That sounds good.

"And when you do," she went on, softer now, "you must remember what I tell you."

Her fingers closed around your wrist, sudden and strong.

"You may love him," she said quietly. "You may take his hand, lie beside him, whisper all your pretty promises in the dark."

You nodded, though your throat had gone dry.

Her fingers tightened around yours, not painful, but unyielding.

“But you must never kiss him.”

The words seemed to dim the little light that remained.

A hollow sound rang in your ears. “And if I do?”

For the first time, something like pity touched her expression.

“Then you will feel it,” she said. “The moment it happens.”

Your heart began to pound. “Feel what?”

She tilted her head, studying you as one might study something already lost.

“The end of him.”

Silence swallowed the tent.

You did not forget.

How could you possibly do that?

The smell of smoke still haunted your dreams. Sometimes you woke with it thick in your throat, as if you had just stepped out of that tent. Even now, years later, you could still feel the fortune teller’s grip around your wrist, tight, unyielding. You could still hear the certainty in her voice when she spoke of something as simple as a kiss.

For a time, you told yourself she was a crook.

That everything she said was nothing more than a trick to part foolish girls from their coin. That the heaviness in your chest afterward was your own doing. Some fear conjured from nothing.

You returned to your father’s hall that day with your coin spent and your thoughts carefully smothered. When your maids asked what the fortune teller had said, you laughed and gave them something harmless. A marriage to a handsome lord, perhaps. A child or two. A future that was soft and ordinary.

Something that would not linger long in your thoughts. But as the years passed, you could hear the woman's voice in your head.

You will love.

The first time someone tried to kiss you, you were twelve.

It meant nothing.

A boy, flushed with wine he was far too young to drink, caught your wrist in the gardens as you made your way back to your chambers. He was laughing, careless, loud, entirely unthinking, as he leaned in with all the confidence of someone who had never been denied.

You turned your head at the last moment.

His lips brushed your cheek instead. Close enough that you felt the heat of it. Close enough that your heart stuttered violently in your chest.

You laughed it off. Made it into a small, harmless joke. The boy never noticed the difference who barely noticed you slipping from his grasp at all.

But in that brief moment, just before he kissed you, something cold had settled in your stomach. Not because you thought he was your true love.

But because of the possibility. Because of how easily it could happen. Because of how quickly everything could end. The thought of this drunk boy's blood on your hands, as absurd as it was, made you feel faint.

After that, you were careful.

Not in any way that would draw attention. You were not foolish enough to make a spectacle of yourself by shrinking away from the world entirely. No, your caution became something quieter. Distance. It wore the shape of indifference.

Men called you charming at first. Then distant. Then, when they grew frustrated, cruel. You never corrected them. Cruelty was safer than curiosity. Cruelty did not invite closeness. After all, closeness could be dangerous.

As you grew into the lady that you were expected to be, suitors would come and go. Some were earnest, some arrogant, some so dull you would forget their names before the evening ended. None of them stayed for a proper courtship. You made certain of it.

There were whispers that would occasionally reach your ears. You were toying with their feelings, took pleasure in their confusion and that there was something wrong with you. But that was fine by you.

You had nearly resigned yourself to spinsterhood. The other option was that you could be married to some aging lord. That would be a rather safe option, because you couldn't see yourself falling in love with a man who could be your great-great-grandpa.

But your father, inconveniently, wished for your happiness. Which meant he would not force such a match, which meant, you would have to choose one yourself.

You found the solution at a feast.

The hall was too loud, too bright, with laughter rising too sharply and voices competing against each other to be heard. You moved through it with practiced ease.

By the second course, you had danced once, refused twice and excused yourself from three seperate conversations. A perfectly ordinary evening.

You slipped from the centre of the hall under the pretense of seeking cooler air, weaving between tables until the press of bodies thinned and the noise dulled to something distant.

And then you noticed him.

Seated at the far end of a table, half-shadowed, a cup dangling loosely from his fingers. His hair, silver-gold, caught the low light. The rest of him seemed to fade into the dark.

A Targaryen.

Of course, only a fool would not know what those locks of hair could be. And yet no one sat beside him. No one watched him. No one seemed to care. You might have passed him by, you probably should have. If no one was here it was probably for a reason.

“You look like you’d rather be anywhere else.”

You paused and turned.

He had barely moved, only lifted his head enough to look at you properly. His eyes were clearer than you expected. Not sober, no but not lost to the drink either.

You considered ignoring him. But he was still a prince.

“Is it so obvious my prince?” you asked.

“One learns to recognize the expression,” he said lightly. “It’s a familiar one.”

You stepped closer, though not too close, your gaze sweeping over him. The looseness of his posture, the wine staining his sleeve, the complete lack of ceremony in the way he occupied his place.

Prince Daeron, then.

It had to be.

“I could say the same of you,” you said.

“That would be accurate.”

You glanced back toward the hall, at the light and noise and expectation and found you had no desire to return.

When you looked back at him, he was still watching.

“Do you intend to stand there,” he asked, “or wait until someone comes to claim you?”

The bluntness nearly made you smile.

“Does that happen often?”

“Frequently enough.” He gestured lazily to the space beside him. “They assume you’ve been cornered. Or that I have.”

“And which is worse?”

“For you?” he said. “Probably me.”

You sat.

The silence that followed was… easy. Unexpectedly so. He did not ask your name, or your house or your purpose. He did not fill the air with politeness. He simply let you be there.

“You do not behave like a prince,” you said after a moment.

“No,” he agreed.

“You are not troubled by that?”

“It saves people from expecting more than I intend to give.”

Something in your chest settled at that.

“You do not intend to give much, then.”

“No.”

No apology. No pride. Just truth. You held his gaze a moment longer. And understood. Across the hall, someone called your name. You rose slowly, smoothing your skirts.

“It seems you were right,” you said.

“About what?”

“That someone would come to claim me.”

He lifted his cup slightly. “My condolences.”

You hesitated, just for a moment. “Enjoy your wine, Your Grace.”

“Always.”

You left him there, in the shadows, where no one watched. But your thoughts did not follow you back into the hall. They lingered behind. With a prince who asked for nothing. Who expected nothing. Who would never demand closeness. Who would never— You exhaled slowly.

Yes. He was perfect.

Your father did not interrupt you as you spoke. Which could have been worse. He listened just sitting there all silent with one hand curled around his cup.

“You are certain,” he said at last, “this is what you want.”

“Yes.”

“Prince Daeron.”

“Yes.”

He studied you carefully. “You have turned away better offers.”

“I have.”

“More advantageous ones.”

“Perhaps.”

“And now this.” A pause. “Why?”

You met his gaze evenly. “He is of high birth.”

“He is.”

“What could be more honorable than such a match?”

Your father’s eyes narrowed slightly but he did not interrupt.

“He is… suitable,” you added.

“Suitable,” he repeated.

“I believe he will not make an unsuitable husband.”

That, more than anything, seemed to settle him. At last, he leaned back.

“Very well,” he said. “I will not dismiss it. I will speak with his father.”

You inclined your head. “Thank you.”

The match was agreed upon within the next few moons. Your father told you that Prince Maekar had been… puzzled. But not opposed.

“You are certain,” your father asked you one final time, “that you will not regret this?”

For a moment, your mind drifted to a dim tent and pale eyes. To the voice that promise love as though it were inevitable. Then to a prince in the shadows who was so detached and distant from reality. Someone you could never truly fall for since you lived planted in reality. Someone you could never destroy.

“Yes,” you said. “I am certain.”

The wedding is quiet. Not in scale, there are lords and ladies, banners and vows, the weight of two houses that are neatly tied together. But quiet in the feeling.

When you were younger, before you had gone into that tent, you had looked upon your wedding date as if it could be a fairytale. That you would spend the week leading up to it, prancing about in your wedding dress out of anticipation. That you and your lord husband would share this longing for one another. There would be something undeniable between you.

However, standing in front of a large portion of the high lords and ladies, in front of the Septon and a husband who looked like he was just dragged out of bed, you looked back at your younger self and confirmed you were a fool.

After all, how many ladies actually got to marry for love? You had seen enough of the world to know how truly naive you were. Most marry for duty, for alliance, for the careful balancing of houses and expectations.

And you, you married for survival. Your duty was simpler than most. No alliances to secure, no great ambition to fulfill. Only this: That no no dies because of you.

Your wedding was sensible and safe.

At your side, Prince Daeron stands with an ease that borders carelessness. He does not fidget. He does not straighten his posture for the watching court. His cloak sits slightly askew, his expression calm, almost detached, as though this is merely another obligation to be endured rather than a moment to be cherished.

He does not look like a man in love. He looks attentive and maybe a bit curious in a way. He appeared to be an observer in a play, rather than actor in it.

In a way it steadies you. This is what you had wanted. You remind yourself of that, over and over like a prayer. This is what you chose. No longing, no affection, no risk of forgetting yourself in a moment of weakness.

No chance of leaning in and ruining everything.

When the Septon bids you take his hand, you do. Daeron's fingers are warm. Your contact is brief, proper and meaningless. You focus on the absence of feeling.

This is good, you tell youself, this is right.

But as the vows are spoke, as the words bind you together in the eyes of gods and mens, you feel something shift, not between you but within yourself.

A quiet, unsettling thought. It's not fear but something similar. A pitt has falled within you. That this man, this distant and careless prince you had chosen, is now yours and you are his. On this day till the end of your days (which if you kept your distance would be very long days).

You risk a glance at your husband then. And for a fleeting moment, something in his expression changes but like a thought passing, it was too quick to grasp.

You look away and steady yourself. You repeat your mantra again. This is what you wanted. This is safe. This is-

The Septon's voice rises and the audience cheers as you are now wed to Prince Daeron.

The feast stretches long into the evening. Longer that it surely needed to be. There is laughter, music and the steady flow of wine. Faces came up to you again and again offering their congratulations, some were genuine, some were very clearly disguising judgement.

You endure it all with practiced grace. You smile when required, speak when spoken to and allow yourself to be admired, assessed, weighed.

Beside you, Daeron does much the same. Though where you are careful, he is careless. Where you are measured, he is loose, leaning back in his chair, answering when it suits him, ignoring what does not. There is wine at his lips more often than not, but he never seems entirely lost to it.

Not tonight. Not like the stories say. Once or twice, you catch him looking at you. You do not linger on it.

By the time the hall begins to thin, your patience has worn thin with it.

It is expected of you to leave together. The thought sits strangely in your chest. Of course your septa had made sure you knew what was expected on a lady's wedding night. You weren't fearful as you should be.

Prince Maekar had decided there wouldn't be a bedding ceremony, so it was up to you and Daeron to walk up to your chambers alone. As you do, the halls get cooler and the noises fade until it's just the two of you alone for the first time since you met outside that feast.

Inside, the room is warm. It was well prepared by the servants. Candles were already lit, the bed was turned down and you saw a vase of lilacs on one of the end tables.

You stop just inside the doorway, not sure where to go or how this were to go. For a moment, neither one of you spoke.

“Well,” Daeron says lightly, glancing around the room, “this is terribly ceremonial.”

You almost smile. “Is that not the point, my prince?”

“I suppose it is.” He exhales, slow, unconcerned. “Seems a shame to disappoint them.”

Your pulse stutters. You turn to him fully now. Maybe you could avoid the consumation part.

“I think,” you say carefully, “we would both prefer not to perform for an audience that is no longer here.”

His gaze shifts to you, sharper now, a bit more present.

“And what would you prefer?” he asks.

The question lingers in the air. You choose your answer with care. Maybe if you just told him that you weren't looking for romance, you would save yourself from a kiss.

“Something… uncomplicated.”

A pause. You weren't sure if he would catch what it was you were trying to convey. Then, to your quiet relief, he nods. “Yes,” he says. “I think I would like that too.”

The tension in the room eases, just slightly. Enough for you to breathe again.

"But, it is our duties to consummate. So let's do that and we can move on, otherwise I won't hear the end of it until I'm resting in the grave."

He shrugs off his outer layers without ceremony, setting them aside with little care for where they fall. You turn away under the pretense of adjusting your sleeves, giving yourself a moment to gather your thoughts.

This is fine. This is manageable. There is no expectation here you cannot meet.

When you turn back, he is seated at the edge of the bed, watching you, not intently, not with pressure just watching.

“You look as though you’re preparing for a battle,” he remarks.

You huff softly. “Old habits.”

“Mm.” His gaze lingers. “Am I the enemy, then?”

“No.”

The answer comes too quickly. Too honestly. You hesitate, then add, more carefully, “You are… an unknown.”

“That sounds worse.”

“It isn’t meant to be.”

Another pause. Then, unexpectedly—

“It could be worse,” he says. “You might have married someone who expects more of you.”

You study him. “And you don’t?”

“No,” he says simply.

The word settles between you. Something in your chest loosens.

“Good,” you say quietly.

His mouth curves slightly, it wasn't quite a smile, but close. The rest unfolds easily after that. Easier than you expected.

You two speak little but do complete your duties. The little conversations you two had were nothing of consequence. At some point you laugh. And he laughs. Then it is over.

Nothing of consequence. Small things. Meaningless things. The kind of conversation that fills space without demanding anything of it.

When you finally lie down, it is with careful distance between you. It was deliberate. A boundary drawn without words. He does not cross it. not when the candles burn low or the room settles as the wolf hour takes shape. It doesn't take long for the prince to sleep. (He did grab a drink which was stashed in one of the under end tables, downed that and then went to sleep).

You stare up at the canopy above, listening to the slow rhythm of his breathing beside you. This is what you wanted.

And yet, as sleep begins to pull at you, you find your thoughts drifting. Drifting to your husband. You turn slightly, just enough to see him in the dim light. His eyes are closed but he looks very peaceful.

The next morning you wake up before him. For a moment you do not remember where you are and then flashes of the night before hit you. You are now a lady married.

Your husband lay next to you. Turning around, Daeron laid exactly where you remembered him being last night. You were a tad bit surprised because you had heard that it was rare for Daeron to stay in one place at night but he was there.

You saw 4 bottles of wine on the end table that were not there the night before. They were all empty meaning that during the night, while you were sleeping he must've drank all of them. That seems like a lot.

He had one arm thrown over his head and the sheets twisted at his waist. His hair was like a messy bird's nest and once again beads of sweat could be found all over his face. His brows were furrowed tightly. He seemed a lot more distressed in his sleep than when he was awake.

You sit up quickly and decide now that you have laid with your husband, you can move on. You doubt that Daeron would come back to your bed (just due to what you have heard before) and it wasn't like you had to have an heir. But if you did, hopefully one time was enough.

You slip from the bed quietly, tugging one of the blankets tight to your chest as you moved throughout the room to dress. By the time the servants arrive you are fully ready for the day.

The days that followed settled into a strange ordinary. Everything at Summerhall was just manageable.

You saw little of your husband outside of the hours that required both of you. Daeron disappeared often. Some morning he would sleep until midday, other nights he vanished entirely into the city or the kitchens or wherever restless princes went when sleep eluded them. You did not ask him anything. He did not explain.

The few times you interacted were pleasant enough you supposed. He would be asleep beside you at midday feasts or share one courtesy dance with you where the smell of wine attacked you. Sometimes he would randomly appear beside you during court functions, mumuring some random observations so dry and unexpected that it would arouse a laugh from you.

The set up suited you. Distance had always suited you.

But you found yourself smiling a bit too much when the prince graced you with his presence. Despite all his faults, Daeron was someone you were becoming accustomed to.

To the sounds of his boots dragging faintly on the chamber floors long after midnight, to the clink of bottles appearing where they weren't before, to him and his long limbs occupying every surface he touched.

You had learned a bit from your few days with your husband. He hated overly sweet wine, he never remembered where he placed his gloves, if he read books (which he did do on an odd day) he would always leave them open and face down and he was rather kind.

Not in obvious ways as he was never one to be gallant or particularly attentive. He did not shower you with compliments or grand gestures. At dinners, he noticed when conversation wearied you and interrupted before you could be trapped too long (before he would rest his head on the table). When court became unbearable, he appeared at your side with some flimsy excuse to pull you elsewhere. Once, after an especially dreadful evening, he handed you a goblet of wine without a word.

You stared at it suspiciously. “Are you trying to poison me?”

“If I were, I’d choose something sweeter.”

You took the cup despite yourself.

“You dislike sweet wine,” you observed after a sip.

“I dislike many things.”

“And yet you drink constantly.”

“That is because sobriety is intolerably repetitive.”

You snorted softly before you could stop yourself. His eyes flicked toward you then with brief surprised.

With how much you realized you liked your husband a panic seized you. You had chosen Daeron for a reason since he would ask you nothing in return for your relationship, which he hasn't. It's just been a civil and convienent companionship. He remained distant enough from you to be safe.

But that did not explain why your pulse quicken whenever he looked at you too long. Or why you had begin to anticipate his footsteps outside your shared chambers on the third night and fifth nights of the weeks (those were the days he always seemed to return to your rooms at some point earlier than usual).

One moment that haunted your thoughts was a rainstorm that had ruined a hunt you were forced to attend. The skies opened without warning, sending nobles scattering beneath cloaks and curses alike. By the time you reached shelter, you were soaked through entirely.

You stood near the entrance of the keep, dripping rainwater onto stone floors while servants rushed frantically around you. Daeron arrived several moments later looking only mildly inconvenienced by the weather. His hair clung damply to his forehead. Water ran down the line of his throat beneath an open collar. You looked away too quickly.

“You’ll freeze standing there,” he said.

“I’m aware.”

“And yet you persist.”

“You’re very observant today.”

“It’s the wine.”

“There is always wine.”

“Exactly.”

You should have gone to your own chambers then. Instead, somehow, you ended up in his. Perhaps because they were closer. Perhaps because neither of you wished to endure the fuss of servants just yet.

It was a mistake, a terrible one.

The room smelled faintly of cedarwood and spilled wine. Rain battered softly against the windows as Daeron shrugged off his soaked outer coat with visible annoyance.

“You know,” he muttered, “I begin to understand why dragons preferred flying.”

You laughed quietly while wringing water from your sleeves. His gaze lifted immediately toward the sound. That was becoming dangerous too, that look he got whenever you laughed around him. It was always slightly startled and pleased. As though he treasured it more than he should.

Your stomach tightened. You turned away quickly, moving toward the fire.

“You stare,” you said lightly.

“So do you.”

“I do not.”

“You looked at my throat for a concerning amount of time.”

Heat flooded your face instantly. “I absolutely did not.”

“Mm.”

Your heart stumbled hard against your ribs.

Daeron seemed to notice it too because his expression altered slightly. The teasing ease faded into something quieter. You took a step back instinctively.

The fortune teller’s voice rose from the graveyard of your memory so suddenly it made your skin prickle.

You may love him. Your throat tightened.

No. No, you thought fiercely. Not him. Anyone but him.

Daeron tilted his head slightly. “You’ve gone pale.”

“I’m tired.”

“That sounded unconvincing.”

You forced a smile. “Then it matches the day.”

For a moment, he simply watched you. Then, mercifully, he looked away first. The tension dissolved enough for you to breathe again. But only barely.

After that, you became careful again. You withdrew in subtle ways. You avoided lingering too near him, spoke less during dinners and retired earlier. You also declined invitations that might leave you alone together too long.

Daeron noticed. Of course he noticed. He simply did not mention it at first. But one evening, as you prepared to leave a feast early, his voice stopped you.

“Have I offended you somehow?”

You turned too quickly. “No.”

“You’re avoiding me.”

“I am not.”

“You are,” he said calmly. “Though I admit I’m fascinated to learn what crime I committed to you.”

“You committed none.”

“Then why do you look at me as though I’ve drawn a blade?”

The question struck too close. You looked away immediately. “You imagine things.”

“Frequently,” he agreed. “But not this time.”

Silence stretched. You could feel his attention resting on you steadily. He wasn't demanding or anything like that. Just was simply waiting for his answer.

Finally, he sighed softly and leaned back in his chair.

“Well,” he murmured, lifting his goblet, “if you decide you hate me, I’d prefer advance warning. It seems courteous.”

Despite yourself, a small laugh escaped you. Daeron’s gaze flickered toward you again. And there it was. That warmth. That unbearable gentleness hidden beneath all the carelessness.

Something inside you twisted painfully. You left soon after.

That night, sleep did not come easily. Because for the first time in years, you allowed yourself to admit the truth plainly.

You were beginning to love your husband.

And if the fortune teller had spoken true, you were beginning to fear him dying far more than you feared yourself.

The hour was late enough that the keep had gone quiet.

Not truly silent, never that. Somewhere distant, guards still changed shifts and servants still moved through hidden corridors like ghosts behind the walls. But the noise of court had long since faded. The laughter, the music, the endless performance of noble life all swallowed by the deep stretch of night.

You should have been asleep. Instead, you sat near the fire in your chambers with a book open in your lap unread for the better part of an hour. The fire had burned low, leaving the room washed in amber light and shadow.

Your thoughts, traitorous things, had drifted where they often did now. To your husband. To the way he had looked at you earlier that evening when you laughed at something one of the lords had said. To the brief touch of his hand against the small of your back while guiding you through the crowded hall. To the tiredness hidden beneath his usual dry amusement.

They were dangerous thoughts. You closed your book sharpley when a knock sounded at the door. Your frowned. Another knock followed, this one seemed less certain.

You rose carefully and crossed the room. When you opened the door, Daeron was leaning one shoulder against the frame.

His hair was loose and slightly tangled, silver-gold falling untidily around his face. One of the ties at his collar had come undone. There was wine on his breath, though not enough to make him unsteady.

His eyes lifted to yours. "You’re awake,” he observed.

“You are standing at my door in the middle of the night.”

“Yes,” he agreed after a pause. “That does appear to be what’s happening.”

Despite yourself, your mouth twitched. He noticed. His expression softened faintly at the edges.

“May I come in,” he asked, “or have you finally decided I’m intolerable?”

“You are intolerable.”

“But not enough to refuse me entry?”

“That remains undecided.”

Still, you stepped aside.

Daeron walked past you slowly, shrugging off his outer coat as he entered. He looked tired tonight. More than tired perhaps. Worn thin in some quiet invisible way.

You closed the door behind him. "You’re drunk."

“Only conversationally.”

“That is still drunk.”

He wandered toward the fire without ceremony before lowering himself into the chair opposite yours with a long exhale. For a moment neither of you spoke. You had become strangely accustomed to these silences with him. They no longer felt awkward. Merely… shared.

Daeron tilted his head back against the chair. “I escaped a meeting with father,” he said eventually.

"You shouldn't have done that."

"The meetings are so impractical. And inconvenient for me," He said with a pout, illiciting a smile from you. He groaned, "My head hurts as well."

“You could try drinking less,” you suggested lightly.

“That sounds dreadful.”

“You say that about most things.”

“Most things are dreadful.”

You shook your head softly, moving to pour water into a cup before offering it to him. Daeron accepted it without argument, which alone told you something was wrong. Your stomach tightened slightly.

“You’re quiet tonight,” you said carefully.

“That’s because I’m reflecting.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“It has been catastrophic for my mood.”

You sat back down slowly, studying him. His eyes remained fixed on the fire now, distant in a way you had begun to recognize.

“You shouldn't stay out so late if they tire you so badly,” you said after a moment.

“I’m aware.”

“Then why go at all?” It was a question that you really were curious about. You are aware that this is a question you probably should've asked him long ago, but better late than never.

He let out a soft hum. "I get to disappear for a while."

“But why?"

"It's calming. You should try it sometime."

“I consider it often.” That finally drew a real smile from him. It was small, crooked and beautiful.

Your pulse stumbled painfully. You looked down immediately. Everything about this was becoming dangerous.

“You know,” Daeron murmured after a while, “they still seem confused by us.”

You frowned slightly. “Who?”

“Everyone.”

“That narrows it down considerably.”

“In the halls, the visiting Lady Tarly asked if I’d threatened you into marriage.”

You blinked. “Charming.”

“I told her you were terrifying and I feared for my life.”

“That was wise of you.”

“I thought so.”

Another silence settled. Softer this time. The fire crackled quietly between you. Then, unexpectedly, Daeron spoke again.

“I still don’t understand it.”

You glanced toward him. “Understand what?”

“Why you chose me.”

Your breath caught slightly. He was still looking at the fire. Not at you. Which somehow made the words feel more honest.

“There were better men,” he said lightly, though the humor in it felt thin now. “Better princes certainly.”

You tried to answer carefully. “You are a prince.”

“Yes, but rather a disappointing one.”

“That is not true.”

His mouth curved faintly. “You’re kind to lie.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Aren’t you?”

Finally, he looked at you then. There was something unguarded in his expression now. Something raw beneath the wine and wit and carelessness.

“I know what people say about me,” he said quietly. “I’m not offended by it. Most of it is true.”

Your chest tightened painfully.

“They think I’m a waste,” he continued. “A drunk. A disappointment. Sometimes an embarrassment if they’re feeling particularly generous.”

“Daeron—”

“It’s fine.” He shrugged lightly though the movement lacked its usual ease. “I made peace with that years ago.”

“No one should speak of you that way.”

“But they do.”

His gaze held yours steadily now.

“And still,” he said softly, “you married me.”

The room suddenly felt too warm. You could hear your own heartbeat. You should say something safe now. Something distant. Something that restored the careful space between you both. Instead, you found yourself asking quietly:

“Why does that trouble you so much?”

For a moment, Daeron said nothing. Then he laughed tiredly.

“Because I think,” he admitted, voice rougher now, “you deserved someone better.”

The words struck you harder than they should have. You stared at him. This man. This impossible, gentle, aching man who thought himself unworthy of kindness. Something inside you cracked softly.

Before you realized what you were doing, you had crossed the space between you.

Daeron looked up slightly in surprise as you stopped beside his chair. Too close. You could smell wine and smoke and cedarwood. His eyes searched your face carefully now.

“You shouldn’t say things like that,” you whispered.

“Why?”

Because you are making it impossible not to love you. The thought nearly terrified you.

Your hand lifted before you could stop it, brushing lightly through the disheveled strands of silver-gold hair falling across his forehead. Daeron went very still. The air shifted instantly. Your breath caught. His gaze dropped briefly to your mouth. Everything inside you lurched violently.

No no no no— The prophecy crashed through you like ice water.

Your body reacted before your mind did. You pulled back sharply. Daeron froze. The warmth vanished from his expression so quickly it made your chest ache.

“I…” You swallowed hard. “I should sleep.”

The words sounded wrong the moment they left your mouth.

Daeron stared at you for one awful heartbeat longer. Then he looked away. And just like that, the walls returned.

“Of course,” he said quietly.

The distance in his voice was unbearable. You wanted to fix it immediately. To say something that would erase the hurt you had just placed there. But what explanation could you possibly give?

Sorry, I cannot kiss you because I fear it will kill you. Utter madness. So instead you stood there in horrible silence while Daeron slowly rose from the chair.

“I didn’t mean to keep you awake,” he said lightly again, though the ease no longer reached his eyes.

“You didn’t.”

He grabbed his discarded coat. At the door, he paused.

The words hit like a blade between the ribs. Then he left. And the sound of the closing door felt far too much like something breaking.

You did not sleep.

The room felt too large without him in it even though these were your own chambers. You lay still in the bed you had just shared, staring up at the canopy, listening for something that wouldn’t come.

No footsteps returned. No careless stumble of wine and habit. Nothing. Only silence. And with it, the memory of his face when you pulled away.

Not hurt, exactly. Worse than that. Resigned.

Three days passed like that. Three days of absence that should have been normal and weren’t. You told yourself it was relief. That this was what you had wanted; space, distance, safety restored to its proper shape. But the silence in the keep did not feel like safety. It felt like something had been removed and the world hadn’t decided how to fill it yet.

Daeron did not joing you in meals. He did not appear in passing corridors. He did not, as he sometimes did, materialize at your side with a dry comment that made the world feel briefly less sharp. Even the servants spoke of him less, as if the act of naming his absence made it heavier.

By the fourth day, you stopped pretending you weren’t counting.

One night, you decided you would disappear at night. You ventured into the gardens far later than you should be and enjoyed the fresh nightly air.

That was where you finally laid eyes onto your husband. He was stumbling in through one of the gates. You decided to strike up a conversation.

“Coming back so soon?”

Your voice stops him. Daeron stands a few steps behind you, one hand now braced against the wall, watching you with something unreadable in his expression.

“Were you following me?" he asks.

"No, this is pure coincidence."

The garden is now too small for the two of you to exist together.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” you continue, not really knowing what you hoped for.

“I haven’t.”

“You have.”

He steps closer. You don’t move.

“Why?”

You shake your head. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.”

“This was a mistake,” you say suddenly. The words come too fast, too sharp. His expression shifts.

“What was?”

“This,” you gesture vaguely between you. “Us. This marriage.”

A lie. A desperate, useless lie. You don't know what it was that got you speaking of such things. You did not expect to. Perhaps the nightmares of the curse you have been having have finally gotten to you. He studies you for a long moment.

“No,” he says quietly. “It wasn’t.”

You laugh but it’s thin, strained. “You don’t even love me.”

The words are meant to push him away. To make this easier. They don’t. His gaze sharpens.

“Don’t I?”

The question lands harder than anything else he could have said. Because you don’t know the answer. And that terrifies you.

His steps slow as he approaches you, as though giving you time to stop him. You don’t.

“Tell me,” he says softly, “what you’re so afraid of.”

You swallow. You could lie. You should lie. But you’re so tired of it.

“If I kiss you,” you say, your voice barely steady, “you’ll die.”

Silence. Not disbelief. Not laughter. Just quiet.

“And you believe that,” he says.

“I know it.”

A beat. “And you married me anyway.”

Because I thought I never would. Because I thought you were safe. Because I didn’t know—

“I didn’t think it would matter,” you whisper.

Something flickers across his face then. Something you don’t quite understand.

“Hm,” he murmurs. “That’s unfortunate.”

Your heart stutters. “Why?”

He steps closer. Close enough now that you can feel the warmth of him, the steady rise and fall of his breath.

“Because,” he says softly, “I think it does.”

Your pulse is deafening. This is it. You know this. You’ve always known this. The way he looks at you like— like you are something worth choosing.

“Daeron,” you say, more firmly now, “don’t.”

But your voice betrays you. It isn’t a command. It’s a plea.

He pauses and searches your face for any doubt, for any fear, for permission. He finds all three.

“If I walk away,” he asks quietly, echoing a moment that feels like it belongs to another life, “will you come find me again?”

You don’t answer. You can’t. Because you already know.

Yes. You always will. Even though you shouldn't. You should keep your distance.

A sad, knowing smile touches his lips. “I thought so.”

Another heartbeat. Another chance. You don’t take it.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper.

"I am too."

And then he closes the distance..

For one perfect, impossible moment he’s alive beneath your lips. He's warm, real and yours. This is not the kiss you had at your wedding ceremony. That kiss was between two strangers who knew nothing of each other. This kiss was filled with every emotion, every doubt, every worry, every piece of knowledge you had aquirred of each other.

You think— maybe the curse was wrong.

His hand rises, cupping your cheek at last.

And then you feel him still.

Your eyes fly open and you pull away. “Daeron?”

His forehead falls gently against yours. A breath leaves him.

It is soft and final.

The garden is too quiet and too still and you feel everything instantly. Just as she said you would.

The end of him.

Later, much later, you will remember everything in fragments.

The taste of wine on his lips, the fragrance of wood on him, the press of his hand around your waist. And voice, thin and certain:

You will try. You did.

You will fail. You did that, too.

And now, you are left with the silence. And the memory of the only moment that ever felt real.

Tears fell from your eyes as you felt his body slump against you. You knew you needed to call the servants. It was your duty to. To explain to Maekar why his eldest boy laid in your arms.

But for now, Daeron's body was yours to hold. And you did until it was cold to the touch.

Daeron Targaryen dreamed of death often.

Not always in grand ways. Some had dragonfire, some had battlefields, some were just quiet and ordinary.

Sometimes he is drowning in a cup he never finished. Sometimes he is lying beneath a ceiling he cannot name, listening to voices that refuse to become words. Sometimes he is simply walking, and then mid-step the world forgets him.

He never minds them. Dreams are honest in a way waking life is not.

So when the sickness first takes root in him, he does not recognize it as anything new. It begins, as most unpleasant things do, with inconvenience.

A heaviness behind the eyes. A warmth that does not belong to wine. Nights that stretch longer than they should, sleep arriving too easily and leaving too slowly. He tells himself it is nothing. The court is tiring. The air in Summerhall is stale. His father’s expectations are tedious enough to make any man feel ill.

He has always been good at explanations that do not require concern. That is what he tells himself.

That is what he tells you, too, when he can still stand long enough to joke about it.

“It’s only exhaustion,” he says once, leaning back in a chair as if the world has simply become less worth holding up. “Or possibly regret. Hard to distinguish the two lately.”

You don’t laugh. You are watching him too closely now.

That is new. He pretends not to notice.

The dreams worsen before the body does. In them, he is always near water. Not always drowning. Sometimes simply standing at the edge, watching it rise. Sometimes the water is red. Sometimes it is empty. Sometimes it is only a reflection of himself, and he cannot tell which version is real.

In one of them, he turns and sees you. You are not as you are now. You are as you were the first time he noticed you properly, half-shadowed, half-alive, looking at him like he is something you have already decided not to fear.

In the dream, he tries to speak. But his mouth fills with water before the words can form. He wakes coughing. There is wine on the bedside table when he wakes. He drinks it anyway. It does not help. Nothing does.

By the time the maester names it, Daeron has already stopped listening to his own body.

The Great Spring Sickness, he hears vaguely. Something that lingers in the lungs, in the blood, in the spaces between strength and collapse. Something that does not always announce itself with urgency.

He thinks that is rather polite of it. He does not tell you immediately. He should. He knows he should.

But there is something almost embarrassing about admitting that his body is failing him quietly. That it is not dramatic, not heroic, not even interesting. So instead, he continues as he is: half-present and half-elsewhere. Joking when it is required. Disappearing when it is not.

He becomes very good at hiding illness behind indifference. He has always been good at that. And then there is the other thing. The thing he does not name at all. The way you have begun to look at him. Not with fear but a sort of calculation. As though you are counting something he cannot see.

It unsettles him more than the fever. Because he cannot fix it. He is used to fixing things by leaving them alone.

The night before everything changes, he dreams again. This time, he is not alone.

He is standing in a garden he does not recognize, though he knows it is supposed to be safe. The air is too still. The flowers are too white. The sky feels like something pressed too tightly over the world. You are there. You are speaking, but he cannot hear you.

He steps toward you. You step back. He tries to say your name but nothing comes out. And then, very gently, you kiss him.

It is not like the real world. It is softer. Final in a way that feels rehearsed. Like something that was always going to happen, no matter how many choices were made before it.

In the dream, he understands immediately. This is how it ends. Not with sickness. Not with wine. Not with anything he could have argued with. With you. And strangely, he is not afraid.

He is only tired.

When he wakes, there is blood on his lips. He assumes it is a dream still clinging to him. It is not.

He finds you in the garden later. He does not remember walking there. That part is becoming more common.

You speak to him. He answers. It feels like a performance he is watching from a slight distance, like someone else is wearing his skin and doing a passable impression of Daeron Targaryen, drunk and polite and almost intact.

You ask him something about avoidance. He almost laughs. He almost tells you the truth. Instead, he says, “I haven’t.”

Because that is easier. Because that is still true enough to pass. But then you say something else. Something that does not fit into any of his practiced categories.

“This was a mistake.”

And something in him goes very still. Not because it hurts. Because it is familiar. This is how dreams speak. He has heard this tone before. When you say the curse out loud, he almost wants to smile. Of course it would be something like that. Of course it would be absurd enough to survive unchallenged for years inside you.

He wants to tell you that curses are rarely that polite. That death is rarely that specific. That if the world truly wanted him gone, it would not bother with rules like kisses. But he is tired. And you are shaking.

And he realizes, too late, that you believe it more than you believe him. That is the first thing that truly frightens him. The idea that you might already be mourning him while he is still standing in front of you.

When he kisses you, it is not what he expects. There is no sudden ending. No clean collapse. No divine certainty. Only warmth.

Only you.

Only the very brief, unbearable clarity of it.

And for one suspended moment, Daeron thinks: So this is it.

Not because he feels death arriving. But because it feels like the first thing in his life that is fully real.

His hand rises without permission. He touches your face as if confirming you are not another dream. You pull away. He should say something. He cannot find anything worth saying.

Because in the exact same moment, something inside him shifts not violently, not dramatically. Just quietly wrong. Like a bell that has been struck too many times finally deciding not to ring again.

He hears you whisper his name. He tries to answer. But the world has already begun to tilt away from him. Like sleep that has finally decided it will not let him wake again.

And as the garden fades, as your arms tighten around him, as the last shape of your face tries to hold Daeron thinks what a kind death the universe had bestowed on him.

Daeron Targaryen was the first noble in King's Landing to die from the great spring sickness. He had caught the virus while he was in one of his taverns on a night out. And after a few weeks of the virus corrupting him on the inside, it had finally chosen to be done with him.

The first time Egg realized his father was in love with his aunt, it came to him as most truths did in his childhood: carelessly and from the mouth of someone who should have known better.

The afternoon was hot, with the sun beating down hard on Egg's back, slicking it with hot droplets of sweat. It felt unbearable. Dust was also clinging to the air, to his skin and to the back of his throat.

He thought that squiring would be something finer than this. Something worthy of the stories and songs. Instead it was just weight. It was sweat. It was the sour, lingering scent of wine that followed Daeron everywhere he went.

"Seven save me," Daeron muttered, swaying as Egg struggled with the fastening at his shoulder. "Did they give me a squire or a stableboy?"

"I can do it," Egg said eagerly.

"You always can," Daeron replied, listing his cup. "And yet..."

He did not finish his thought. Egg bit down on his tongue and tried again. His fingers slipped. Until by chance or pure stubbornness, the buckle caught.

Egg stepped back and looked up at his perfect work, waiting for some well deserved praise. But recieved nothing. Egg groaned and looked up ready to complain to Daeron but the older boy was no longer looking at him.

His gaze had gone elsewhere, beyond the yard, beyond the garden hedges, fixed on something Egg could not yet see.

"What is it?" Egg asked, rising onto his toes, as though the height might grant him some assistance with the high hedge. It did not.

Daeron did not answer at once. He drank what remained in his cup, slow and unhurried.

"Have you ever noticed the way Father behaves around her?"

Egg frowned. "Around who?" (the boy was now jumping up and down to try and gain some view beyond the hedges).

"Our aunt. (Y/N)"

Egg blinked. "No?"

Daeron hummed softly. "It's nothing. Less than nothing."

Egg wracked his brain trying to come up with some possible answer to what Daeron was insinuating. "Does Father have some problem with her?"

Egg was worried then because you as well as your family were meant to come to Summerhall before coming with them to Ashford for a tourney.

"Quite the opposite." Daeron turned to Egg and wiggled his brows. Egg frowned, knowing what that meant. "That doesn't mean anything."

"No, it doesn't."

"She's married. To Prince Baelor."

Daeron hummed.

"Father wouldn't-" Egg stopped, the rest of the thought refusing to settle into something. "He loved Mother."

At that, something in Daeron's experession shifted.

"He did."

The words hung there, unfinished. Egg waited for more but none came. "She's our aunt."

"And he's our father."

Egg shook his head. "You're wrong."

"Perhaps." Daeron set his empty cup aside and crouched slightly, bringing himself nearer to Egg's height. "Just watch him. You'll see it, or maybe you won't. These sort of things aren't meant to be seen at all."

He straightened, clapping a hand against Egg's shoulder. "Come on. I'll need another drink before I pretened to be a knight again."

Egg followed, though more slowly. He told himself there was nothing. Daeron was just drunk and imagining things.

The second time Egg noticed, no one said a word at all.

It happened in the Great Hall, in the lull between courses, when the noise softened just enough to hear the quieter things. The scrapes of a cup against the table, the half whispers of conversations and all that. The portion of the night where everyone was relaxed.

Egg had not meant to watch. He told himself he wasn't. But Daeron's voice had settled somewhere in the back of his mind and it was impossible to ignore it. So he took Daeron's words to heart. Watch him.

So he did. Egg watched his father from his place at the dinner table next to Aemon (who had his head buried in some large textbook. Egg was slightly concered over his brother's potential future neck problems).

His father sat at the end of the high table by his brother and Egg's uncle. His posture was straight and his expression was carved hard. He spoke when spoken to, nodded whe required and drank very little. There was little to nothing strange about it.

Until, his Aunt (Y/N) laughed.

It was not loud, nothing that would turn heads or draw attention to it. (Y/N)'s laugh was a lovely one and a familiar one to Egg. (The laugh came from a joke that Matarys told her but Egg did not hear what it was. From what he knew of his cousin, Egg didn't think it was a funny joke and his aunt was just being polite).

But Egg saw it. The way his father had stilled. Not entirely or in a dramatic way. But it was as if the statue had been shooken. A breath that was being held onto for a second too long.

Egg frowned. His father did not turn, did not look, his gaze remained fix on Baelor as the two were in a conversation. Maekar did not speak right away. Baelor carried on, asking a question that was answered by some lesser lord sitting next to Maekar. His paused moment slipped past, unoticed by all except for Egg.

It meant nothing, Egg told himself. Less than nothing.

People paused all the time. People lost their places. It was not uncommon. Afterall some people just get lost in their thoughts. It was not-

His father's hand tightened slightly around his cup. So slight it might have been imagined. Egg watched however, as he took a measured drink and set it back down with too much attention than it required.

Still, he did not look. Not at you. Egg found his gaze looking upon you instead. Looking radiant in the red silks that were probably made in Dorne. You had now reached your hand over to your husbands to get his attention, and leaned in to speak with a soft smile.

Prince Baelor and Princess (Y/N). Future King and Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. They looked right. They looked happy. The very pitcture of what Egg thought a loving marriage would look lile. As though the world had placed them exactly where they were meant to be. Egg was content knowing they loved each other.

So Egg went back to his food and started to shift his peas from his plate to Aemon's instead. Content to pretend that he was overanalyzing his father's behaviour.

The third time Egg noticed, it was close enough to touch.

It happened in the gardens, where the air was softer and world felt far away from the Seven Kingdoms. Egg had not meant to follow. At the time it had felt like nothing at all. He was just wandering paths he knew well, doing his best to avoid the maesters and his lessons.

That was until he saw them. He stopped before he could be seen and hid behind a tree.

They stood beneath the shade of an overgrown arbor, where the light filtered through in fragments painting them in gold. It was rather close. Not close enough to be indecent or improper. Just, closer than what was necessary.

(Y/N) was speaking, though it was too soft that the words could not reach Egg. Instead he had to settle on watching the shape of them. As (Y/N) was speaking his father did not interrupt, did not look away. Just gazed at your face.

From the looks of it, you had finished speaking and there was a moment of silence between the two of you. Then, your hand had lifted.

It wasn't anything dramatic. Just brushing your hand against his sleeve. It should have been nothing because it was nothing. But again, his father had stilled. The way his breath seemed to catch, the way his hand at his side tightened just slightly.

He did not pull away, did not reach back, did not move at all. The two of you stood there, closer than what one would expect, with your hand on his arm. To Egg, it looked like a different sort of painting. One he had not seen at the dinner the other night.

Then you stepped back and distance returned. Whatever had just been there, slipped neatly back into place.

His father inclined his said, said something Egg could not hear but it was probably something drab (his father was a rather blunt speaker). Whatever it was, it resulted in a smiling (Y/N). Your smile was smaller and softer and gone quicker than normal.

And then it was all over again.

Egg did not move from where he stood, though he knew he should. He felt as if he was intruding on something. His thoughts felt tangled. Nothing had occured.

With that, he took a step back and starting walking back into the castle.

The fourth time Egg noticed, it nearly did not remain theirs alone.

It was not meant to be a moment at all. That was what made it dangerous.

The corridors were quieter at that hour, the castle settling into itself as the evening wore on. Voices dulled behind closed doors. Footsteps softened. Even the torches seemed to burn lower, their light unsteady against the stone. Everyone was preparing for bed.

Egg had been sent on some errand he no longer remembered.

It did not matter. He would forget it entirely, later.

What he would remember, what would stay, was this:

The turn of a corner. The sound of a voice, too low to make out. And the way he stopped before he understood why.

This time, from behind a corridor, Egg saw them at the far end of the passage, half-shadowed, as though the castle itself meant to keep their secret.

They were close. Too close. Much closer than before in the garden.

Once again you were speaking. Or not. Even in the dimmed hallway, Egg could see you were loosing your composure. The normal picture perfect you seemed frazzle in the dark corridor. Words were spilling out quick but quietly. As if it was something that had been held back for too long.

Egg could not hear them, only feel the shape of them in the air, sharp and unsteady. (He was thinking to himself that he should really work on his sneaking abilities so he could somehow find himself closer so he could properly eavesdrop).

His father said nothing. He only watched you. Not as a prince might. Not as a brother should. As though the rest of the world had fallen away.

Egg’s breath caught, though he did not know why. He should not have been there. He knew that. And yet he did not move.

You stopped speaking. The silence that followed was not empty. It pressed in, taut, waiting.

His father took a step forward. It was small, measured and hesitant. Enough to close what little distance remained between you.

Egg felt it then, that strange, tightening awareness, like a thread pulled too thin. Something was about to happen. Something that could not be undone.

Your hand lifted, hesitant, uncertain, as though you had not meant to do it at all. His father’s followed. Not touching. Never touching.

But close enough that the space between them felt like something real. Something fragile. Something one breath away from breaking.

And for a moment, the two of you didn't move.

Footsteps echoed from the far end of the corridor. And the spell shattered. Your hand dropped at once. His father stepped back just as quickly, the distance snapping into place as though it had never been crossed at all.

By the time the servants turned the corner, there was nothing to see.

It was just a prince standing where he ought to stand. A lady composed, untouched. Silence, neat and proper, where something else had been moments before.

Egg pressed himself back against the wall, heart beating too fast for something he did not understand.

No one noticed. No one said a word. And yet, Egg knew.

That it had almost—

He swallowed, the thought slipping from him before it could take shape.

It had been nothing.

A step taken. A hand lifted. A moment that came too close to becoming something more.

The fifth time Egg noticed, nothing threatened to happen at all.

There was no interruption waiting in the wings. No footsteps. No tension poised to break. Only certainty.

It happened in a corridor (the same one as before) and he was not meant to linger in, though he had long since stopped believing that mattered. The castle had begun to feel less like a place one moved through, and more like something that simply contained him.

He heard your voice first. And then his father’s.

Egg stopped before he saw you.

You stood facing one another, not hidden, not secret, simply… there. As though there had never been anything to conceal.

Your hands were folded neatly before you, composed and contorlled. The opposite of what you looked like the previous night he had seen the pair of you.

“I leave with Baelor at first light,” you said. Your voice did not tremble. It did not need to.

His father nodded once. “I know.”

No hesitation. No question. Only acknowledgment.

Egg watched the way you held his gaze for a moment longer than was necessary. Not lingering. Not resisting. Just, steady.

“As it should be,” you added quietly.

It was not said like a comfort. It was said like a truth that had already been lived. His father’s expression did not change. But something in him did.

Not outward. Not visible in any way that would matter to anyone else. Only Egg saw it.

The smallest tightening at the corner of his mouth. The faintest pause in his breathing. As though something had been set down carefully, something heavy, something once held too close.

“You will be well,” he said. It was not a wish. It was a fact he had chosen to believe.

You gave a small nod. “As will you.”

And that was all.

No step forward. No reach. No fracture in the space between you. Only distance, held deliberately in place. As if it had always belonged there.

You turned first.

Not away from him in avoidance, but toward what was waiting for you beyond the corridor. Beyond the castle. Beyond this moment entirely.

Duty, already ahead of you.

His father did not watch you leave. Not when it mattered. Not when it might have changed anything.

He simply stood there until your footsteps faded completely, until even the echo had gone soft enough to disappear.

Then he turned away as well.

Egg remained where he was. Not because he was unseen. But because there was nothing left to witness.

Only something he finally understood in full:

Not all loves ended in ruin. Some ended in choice. And in that choice, quiet, certain, unspoken they had already lost each other long before either of them ever reached for anything at all.

The one and probably last time Egg understood how truly doomed they were, it was at Ashford Meadow.

Some loves are loud enough to shake kingdoms. Others live and die in stolen glances, in half-finished sentences, in the spaces between what is felt and what is never allowed to be spoken.

The tourney had turned the world bright again.

Colour returned in banners and gowns, in the gleam of armor beneath the sun, in laughter that carried too far across the fields as though nothing in the world had ever been wrong.

For a moment, Egg believed in that brightness.

He had never seen so much life. Never felt so far from the boy he was meant to be. He had lost Daeron somewhere in a tavern’s chaos and shaved his head in reckless relief, as though shedding identity might make him freer. He had even met a hedge knight, Ser Duncan, before the crowd swallowed him whole.

Then the royal family arrived. And everything began, quietly, to fall into place.

Egg hid among skirts and passing legs as he watched them take their places. His aunt stood near the pavilion.

The wind caught at her dress, lifting it in soft, unsteady motion, and for a moment she looked less like a princess and more like something imagined, something almost too gentle for the weight of her name.

She smiled more easily now. Baelor lived. And so she could, too.

He stood beside her with easy warmth, speaking to those who approached them, his hand resting at the small of her back as though it had always belonged there.

She laughed at something he said, turning toward him, bright and unburdened.

It should have been enough. It was enough.

And still... Egg knew, somewhere deep and unspoken, that in another life, in another shape of the world, it might have been his father standing there instead.

Behind them, Maekar stood at a careful distance, speaking with a lord he was not truly listening to. His attention kept returning, again and again, to where it should not.

There was no grief in it. No rupture. No visible wound.

Only something quieter. Something held too tightly to be named.

Their eyes met once. His father’s. Hers.

It lasted no more than a heartbeat. And yet Egg felt it as something entire. A silence stretched between them, thin, precise, almost reverent.

Until Baelor spoke her name.

She turned. And the moment was gone. The world continued exactly as it should have. But Egg did not move. He watched.

Later, Baelor was called away. And Maekar stepped into his place beside her. It looked like nothing. It was nothing.

A conversation between in-laws. A passing exchange. A courtesy sustained by courtly habit.

But Egg saw too closely now. The ease that should not have been ease. The closeness that should not have existed at all. A handmaiden passed. Words were spoken too quietly to catch.

And then, Maekar offered his arm. She took it with no hesitation. It was a simple thing.

And yet the way her fingers settled there, the way his arm did not move away, the way neither of them corrected the distance. It felt like recognition. Like something remembered instead of chosen.

Too familiar to be coincidence. Too natural to be allowed. A blush rose faintly at his father’s neck. Gone as quickly as it came.

And for a moment, it felt almost right.

Until Valarr came running, bright and alive, breaking everything open again. The spell did not shatter. It simply… dispersed. Like smoke.

The world ended at Ashford Meadow.

It did not, of course.

The sun still rose over Ashford, pale and indifferent. The wind still moved through the fields, stirring banners that now hung heavy and dark. People still spoke, still walked, still breathed.

But something had ended all the same.

Baelor died.

The bells had tolled for what felt like hours, their sound low and unrelenting, echoing through the castle and out across the tourney grounds. Even now, standing among his family, Egg swore he could still hear them, like something lodged deep inside his chest.

They had chosen to burn him at Ashford. Egg wasn’t sure why that made it worse, but it did.

This place had been bright, only days ago. Full of laughter and colour and life. He could still remember it, the banners snapping in the wind, the roar of the crowd, the way everything had seemed so large and full of promise.

Now everything felt hollow.

Egg stood stiffly beside his father, his hands clasped too tightly in front of him. He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. He wasn’t sure he could.

His thoughts wouldn’t stop circling back. If only he hadn’t left Daeron. If only he had stayed. If only—The pyre crackled. Egg forced himself to look.

Flames climbed steadily, consuming what remained of Baelor’s body. The heat pressed against his face, sharp and unbearable, and still he couldn’t look away.

His gaze shifted. His aunt stood closest to the fire. She did not weep. She did not speak.

She stood as though carved from stone, her face pale, her expression empty in a way that frightened him more than tears ever could.

Valarr stood before her, shaking. Egg could see it even from where he stood. The way his cousin’s shoulders trembled, the way his head bowed forward as though the weight of it all might crush him.

Her hand rested gently in his hair. Not moving. Just there.

Behind them, Kiera stood still and silent, her presence quiet, almost ghostlike.

Egg swallowed hard. He had heard what happened. Everyone had.

Whispers had spread quickly, slipping through corridors and between servants like smoke.

They said she had been the first to reach him. That she hadn’t believed it. That she had demanded a maester, again and again, as though saying it enough times might undo what had already been done.

They said she had knelt beside his body, hands pressed to him, begging the Seven to give him back.

That she hadn’t seemed to notice the blood. That it had soaked into her sleeves, her hands, her skin.

Egg squeezed his eyes shut briefly.

They said Ser Duncan had tried to pull her away. That she had fought him. That she had screamed. Not words, just sound. Raw and broken.

And then his father came.

Maekar had been the one to pull her back. They said she had struck him. That her fists had hit his chest, over and over, as though he were something she could break. That she had cried into him like the world was ending.

Egg opened his eyes. He looked up at his father now.

Maekar stood beside him, unmoving. Rigid. Every line of him held tight, controlled, as though he had locked something inside himself and thrown away the key. Every line of him held tight, controlled, as though he had locked something inside himself and thrown away the key.

Egg wanted to say something. Go to her.

He didn’t know if he would have said the words aloud or not. He only knew the thought pressed against his throat, desperate and insistent.

Go to her. She shouldn’t be alone. Not now. Not like this.

But Maekar did not move.

He stood where he was meant to stand. He did what was expected of him. Nothing more.

Egg felt something twist inside him.

But he had learned, by now, where to look.

So he looked closer.

He saw the way his father’s hands were clenched at his sides, knuckles pale beneath the skin. He saw the tension in his shoulders, in his jaw, in the stillness that was not calm but restraint stretched too thin.

And then it happened. Briefly.

So brief Egg might have missed it, if he hadn’t been watching.

His aunt lifted her head, just slightly. As though something had pulled her attention away from the flames. Her gaze crossed the distance between them. And found his father.

Maekar looked at her. Not as a prince. Not as a brother. Just as a man.

Everything was there. Egg felt it, even from where he stood.

Grief, sharp and consuming.

Longing, familiar, aching, unrelenting.

Regret, heavy, suffocating, endless.

All of it, laid bare in a single look that lasted no more than a heartbeat. It was too much. Too intimate.

Her gaze dropped. Maekar’s jaw tightened. And just like that… It was gone.

The fire crackled. The wind shifted. The world went on.

And whatever might have been… didn’t.

Egg shouldn’t have followed her. He knew that.

Even so, he slipped from the hall, keeping to the edges where torchlight thinned and attention softened. He was careful, quiet and was left unseen.

He told himself he would stop at the doorway. He didn’t.

The hall was dim when she entered, curtains drawn heavy against the day. It felt smaller than it had before. Quieter in a way that pressed at the ribs.

She moved slowly, like each step had to be chosen in advance. Egg lingered just beyond the threshold, half-hidden in the corridor’s shadow.

She crossed to the high table to Baelor’s seat and sat down. For a long moment she did nothing at all. Then, carefully, she lifted her hands. Baelor’s rings caught what little light remained.

Egg’s throat tightened before he could name why. She turned one of them between her fingers. Over and over. Not fidgeting, holding on.

As though stillness might undo something. The door opened again. Egg went rigid. His father stepped inside.

There was a pause in him that Egg did not recognize. Not fear, exactly. Not hesitation either. Something closer to awareness. As though the room had become uncertain ground.

As though he was not sure he was allowed to cross it.

She did not look up. Did not acknowledge him. Did not move. For a moment, he only stood there. Then he crossed the room and sat beside her. Not close. Never close.

Silence gathered between them, dense and unyielding.

“I do not know where to begin,” Maekar said at last.

His voice was quieter than Egg had ever heard it.

She let out a breath that almost broke on its way out. “I do not know either.”

“I’m sorry.”

The words felt too small the moment they left him.

They stayed anyway. Unanswered.

“You know,” she said after a while, still looking at the ring, “my mother once told me not to love anyone more than my children.”

Maekar did not speak.

“I loved my children,” she continued. “And I loved my husband.”

Something in him shifted at that, barely visible, but real.

“And I loved you.”

The silence that followed did not feel empty. It felt held.

Carefully. Like something fragile that neither of them trusted to fall.

“(Y/N),” Maekar said at last, roughened, “there are no words—”

“You know,” she cut in, not unkindly, but with something steadier beneath it, “in a way, I wish you had meant to kill him.”

The air changed.

Maekar’s head turned slightly, as if the words had weight enough to move him. “How could you say that?”

“It would make things simpler,” she said. “For me. As selfish as that sounds.”

He did not answer. There was nothing to answer. A long pause. Then—

“Do you remember,” she asked, quieter now, “when Baelor and I were betrothed?”

A breath left Maekar that might once have been laughter. It wasn’t now. “Of course I do.”

A faint sound from her. Almost agreement. Almost nothing.

“You said you would burn your entire house down before you let it happen.”

His mouth tightened at the memory, something old and unguarded passing through him and gone again before it could settle.

“I was young,” he said.

“We were all young,” she replied.

Silence returned, softer this time. Less sharp. No less heavy.

Then she moved.

Slowly, she took one of the rings from her hand. Turned it once between her fingers. Twice.

And placed it in his palm.

“Here.”

Maekar looked down at it.

“I cannot take this,” he said. “He was your husband.”

“And he was your brother.”

That landed cleanly. Without argument. Maekar closed his fingers around the ring anyway. Not tightly.

Egg stepped back before either of them could notice him there, retreating into the corridor as quietly as he had come. He did not run. He did not linger.

Some things, he understood, were not meant to be seen all at once. Or spoken.

He understood then that some things were never meant to be spoken. Just simply known and lived with.

Max had finished third that day. Third. It was hardly a disaster. He had been annoyed about strategy, about balance, about a lock-up that had cost him time in the first stint, but when he came back to the garage and found you waiting there he had smiled.

He had pulled you into his arms, kissed your temple and muttered, “Long day.”

You had rubbed your hand over the back of his neck and whispered, “You still did amazing.”

He had grumbled something about not wanting amazing, wanting first, but he had leaned into you anyway. So no you didn’t think much of the comment.

The second time you noticed more.

Monaco was supposed to be fun. It was one of your favourite races to attend, even though Max always complained about the current celebrification of it all. You loved the narrow streets, the balconies, the impossible glitter of the harbour, the way the whole weekend felt like it existed in some strange, historic bubble.

Max had qualified poorly after a messy final sector. Then the race had been worse, you can’t overtake here at the best of times but the car looked like it wanted to fight him at every corner.

He finished seventh.

By the time you got back to the motorhome your phone was already burning with notifications.

You told yourself not to look.

@f1_tea: Max when his girlfriend is there: fighting for his LIFE

Max when she’s not there: untouchable

make it make sense.

@orangearmy: She seems nice but the stats are getting scary now.

@rbrupdates: Races attended by Y/N this season: P3, P5, P7

Races missed: P1, P1

Interesting…

@maximylove33: Red Bull need to ban her from the garage I’m sorry.

You stared at that one a little longer than the others.

Ban her from the garage.

Your chest tightened, but you forced yourself to laugh under your breath because it was absurd. It was social media. People said anything online. They blamed girlfriends, mechanics, fans, helmets, haircuts, cats, moon phases.

It didn’t mean anything.

Still when Max came into the room, damp-haired and exhausted, you locked your phone before he could see. His eyes flicked to the movement immediately.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” you said too quickly. “Just tired.”

Max studied you for a second, blue eyes narrowing with that sharp, quiet attention he always had when something felt off. He might have been blunt with the rest of the world, impatient with questions he didn’t like, but with you he noticed everything. The forced smile, the tucked-away phone, the way your shoulders sat too high. He crossed the room and sat beside you.

“What’s happened?”

You blinked. “What?”

“Don’t do that.”

You looked down at your hands. “It’s nothing.”

“Y/N.”

“It’s just stupid fan stuff.”

Max exhaled through his nose, already irritated, never at you, but at the invisible crowd of people who seemed to think loving him meant they owned every part of his life.

He reached for your phone. “Show me.”

“No.”

His expression softened at once, that was somehow worse, the anger you could handle but the softness made your throat close.

“Mijn liefje,” he murmured, quieter now. “What is it?”

You shook your head. “They’re just saying I’m bad luck.”

Max stared at you, then he let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” You didn’t say anything and so he shifted closer, his knee pressing against yours. “I could drive into a wall by myself and they would find a way to blame you if you were standing three countries away.”

You laughed, but it came out weak.

“I’m serious,” he said. “You’re not bad luck.”

“I know,” you said, but neither of you quite believed that you meant it.

The third time was Austria.

You loved Austria because Max loved Austria. Even before the weekend started he was lighter there, still intense and focused, still Max, but happier. The sea of orange in the grandstands always did something to him even if he pretended it didn’t.

You wanted that weekend to go well for him more than anything.

Instead qualifying was messy and then the race unravelled.

A poor start again then a strategy gamble that didn’t pay off. A late-race battle that left Max furious over the radio and fifth at the flag.

You didn’t need to check your phone to know what people were saying. You felt it before you saw it.

In the garage people were careful around you, no one was outright rude, you didn’t think anyone would dare be rude, not openly and certianly not around Max, but there were glances. Tiny pauses. Conversations that dipped quieter when you walked past.

You told yourself you were imagining it. Then you heard one of the junior PR assistants whisper, “It’s going to be a nightmare online again.”

Someone else said, “Honestly they should just keep her away for Silverstone. Not because it’s real, obviously, but the optics… the comment sections are getting brutal.”

The optics.

Your stomach dropped. You stood frozen in the corridor outside hospitality, one hand still on the door you had been about to push open.

The first voice replied, “Yeah. It’s becoming a thing now.”

A thing.

You were becoming a thing.

You're Max’s girlfriend. The person who holds his hands all night when he's too wired after races to sleep, the person who knows exactly what he needs before early flights, the person who watched him be too hard on himself again and again and loved him through it all.

Now you’re reduced to a thing.

A bad-luck narrative.

A problem to manage.

You stepped back before anyone could see you.

Silverstone was the next weekend. You had planned to go. Max had asked you three times if you were sure you wanted to come because he knew the British media could be brutal, and you had kissed him in the kitchen and said, “Of course I’m coming.”

He had smirked at that, pulling you closer by the hips. “Good. Then you can watch very carefully.”

Later, sitting alone in bed waiting for Max to finish on the sim you felt something inside you twist.

What if you went and he didn’t win or missed the podium again?

What if everyone was waiting for it?

What if even the team didn’t want you there?

By the time Max came to bed you had fixed your face. His hair was a mess and his expression stormy, but when he saw you the storm eased.

He came closer, his hand finding your waist automatically. “You okay?”

You looked at him, at the tiredness in his face, at the frustration he was trying to swallow because he didn’t want to bring it to you and you couldn’t do it. You couldn’t add yourself to the list of things he had to handle.

So you smiled.

“Yeah,” you said. “I’m okay.”

Max did not win Silverstone.

But you weren’t there. You watched from home, sitting cross-legged on your sofa in one of his hoodies your phone face down on the cushion beside you.

He finished second after a late safety car, close enough to make it painful.

When he called you afterward, his face appeared on your screen still flushed from the race, hair damp and eyes tired.

“You should've been here,” he said.

Your chest ached.

“I watched.”

“It’s not the same.”

“I know.”

He frowned. “Why didn’t you come again?”

You had told him you weren’t feeling well, it wasn’t entirely a lie. You had felt sick every time you imagined stepping into the paddock and seeing everyone wonder if you were going to ruin his weekend just by existing.

“I told you,” you said. “Headache.”

“For four days?”

“It was a very committed headache.”

Usually he would have laughed but he very pointedly didn’t.

“Y/N.”

You looked away from the screen. “Max.”

“What is going on?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re lying.”

You swallowed. “I’m just tired.”

He watched you in silence and for one terrifying second you thought he was going to push. Max was stubborn. He hated being shut out, especially by you, but then someone called his name in the background.

His jaw tightened. “I have to go,” he said reluctantly. “We’re going to talk later.”

“Okay.”

His voice softened. “I love you.”

You closed your eyes for half a second.

“I love you too.”

After the call ended, you turned your phone over.

You lasted eight minutes before checking socials.

@f1girlies: She wasn’t there and Max was back on the podium. Coincidence? 👀

@mv1nation: Not a win but better than last week. Keep the pattern going.

@paddockspy: Red Bull garage seemed calmer without Y/N there, just saying.

@verstappening1: I don’t hate her but if she loves him she should stay home until the championship is safe.

If she loves him.

That was the one that got you, because of course you do.

You loved him so much it terrified you sometimes. You loved him when he won and when he didn’t. You loved him when he was impossible after bad races, pacing hotel rooms and replaying overtakes in his head. You loved him when he was soft in the mornings, half-asleep and clingy, pulling you back into bed with a grumbled “five more minutes” even though he was always the one with the schedule.

You loved him enough to wonder whether loving him meant removing yourself.

The thought was unbearable so you did what people always did when something hurt too much you tried to make it logical, you told yourself it was temporary. Just a few races. Just until the noise died down.

Until Max won again.

And he did.

Hungary.

You stayed home again, claiming work, though you had finished everything by Friday afternoon and spent the entire weekend watching coverage with a knot in your stomach.

Max won.

Dominantly.

The internet exploded.

@f1tea: Y/N absent = Max win. Third time lucky. I fear the curse is real.

@orangeprophecy: Someone send her flowers and also keep her away from the paddock please.

@mv1updates: Max has won or come 2nd at every race she hasn’t attended this season btw.

@paddockwives: Imagine being such bad luck your boyfriend performs better when you’re not there.

You stared at the screen until the words blurred. You watched him smiling up there, happy and champagne-soaked, feeling like the whole world thought your absence had helped put him there.

Max called you after.

You didn’t answer.

Then he texted.

Max: Where are you?

Max: I wanted to see your face.

Max: Schatje?

Max: Are you asleep?

You stared at the messages until the screen went dark. Then you cried so hard you had to press the hoodie sleeve against your mouth to keep quiet even though there was no one there to hear you.

A few hours later you replied.

You: Sorry I fell asleep. I’m so proud of you. You were amazing.

The typing bubble appeared almost instantly.

Then disappeared.

Then appeared again.

Max: Thank you.

Max: I missed you.

You squeezed your eyes tight.

You: I missed you too.

Spa was where everything broke.

You weren’t going to go, in fact you had promised yourself you wouldn’t. Hungary had confirmed it, hadn’t it? He was better off without you there. But Max had been strange all week, he wasn’t angry or even mad, but he was quiet. He kept asking if you were coming, casually at first, then less casually.

“You love Spa,” he said over dinner one evening, pushing vegetables around his plate like they had personally offended him.

“I do.”

“So come.”

“I have some things to do.”

“What things?”

“Work things.”

“You can work from the hotel.”

You gave him a look. “Not everything can be done from a hotel Max.”

He leaned back in his chair, eyes fixed on you. “You sure?”

In that moment you hated how well he knew you. You hated that you had built a life with someone who could tell the shape of your lies before you even finished speaking. Excpet you didn’t really hate it, because really it was part of the million reasons why you loved him.

“I just can’t this weekend,” you said.

Max’s mouth pressed into a flat line.

“Okay.”

That was all he said.

Okay.

Later when you were brushing your teeth you heard him on the phone in the bedroom, his voice was low and irritated.

“No, I don’t care what they’re saying.”

A pause.

“I said no.”

Another pause.

Then, sharper, “Because she’s my girlfriend, are you stupid?”

You froze, toothbrush still in your mouth. His tone changed after that, quieter but no less furious.

“You think I don’t know what people are saying? Of course I know.”

Your heart slammed against your ribs.

“I’m not asking you to manage her. I’m asking you to shut it down.”

Silence.

Then Max said, “If anyone in the team has made her feel unwelcome I’ll find out.”

You stepped back from the door and a strange panic rose in your throat. Somehow instead of making it better, it made you feel worse because now he was worried and he was distracted. Now you weren't only bad luck you were also a problem.

So the next morning when Max left early for training you booked a last-minute flight to Belgium.

You told yourself you just needed to prove something to yourself. That you could be near him and not ruin anything. That the world was not actually keeping score.

You arrived on Saturday and stayed hidden. It was pathetic really, you wore sunglasses and a cap low over your face, sitting in a quiet hospitality corner you knew cameras rarely reached. You didn’t tell anyone except one security guard you trusted, who looked at you like he wanted to ask questions but wisely chose not to.

Qualifying went badly. Not catastrophically but badly enough. A mistake in Q3. A snap of oversteer. A lap that should have been pole but turned into fourth. You felt the garage change around you before the session had even ended.

Then you heard the buzz of a message, but it wasn’t to you. It came through on the screen of a team tablet someone had left on the table beside you, a notification from a group chat flashing bright before disappearing.

But you saw enough.

Is Y/N here? Because this is going to become a whole thing again.

Your whole body went cold.

A second message appeared.

Can someone please make sure she’s not around tomorrow? Max doesn’t need the distraction.

The distraction.

For a second you couldn’t breathe.

Not bad luck this time.

Worse.

A distraction.

You stood up so fast your chair scraped loudly against the floor but no one seemed to notice, or maybe they did and pretended not to. You left before Max got out of the car and by the time he called you were already on your way back to the airport.

“Where are you?” he asked, hearing the noise around you.

“At home.”

“No you’re not.”

Your silence betrayed you.

Max’s breathing changed.

“Y/N.”

“I came for qualifying,” you whispered.

There was a pause.

“What?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry? Where are you I’ll come—”

You closed your eyes, and the tears slipped out anyway. “I shouldn’t have come.”

Max went very quiet.

“What do you mean? Did someone say something?”

“No.”

“Please don’t lie to me.”

“Max, please.”

“Who said that to you?”

Your voice broke. “Everyone.”

The word came out small.

Humiliating.

And then you couldn’t stop.

“Everyone says it. Online, in the comments, in the paddock, your team, everyone. When I’m there, you don’t win. When I’m not, you do. And I know it’s stupid, I know it isn’t real, but then I come and something goes wrong and people look at me like I brought it with me and it feels real.”

Max said nothing.

You wiped your face with the heel of your hand.

“And then today I saw a message. Someone said to make sure I’m not around tomorrow because you don’t need the distraction.”

His voice, when it came, was low and rough.

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who, Y/N?”

“I don’t know, Max. I just saw it.”

Another pause.

Then he said, “Where are you right now?”

“The airport.”

“I’m coming to you.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“You have a race tomorrow.”

“I don’t really care.”

“Max this is exactly the—.”

“No,” he snapped, and you flinched even though he wasn’t angry at you. It was as if he felt it anyway, because his voice softened immediately. “No, listen to me. I care about the race. Of course I care but not more than you.”

“I don’t want to be something you choose over racing.”

“You’re not something I'm choose over racing,” he said. “You’re my world. That’s not the same thing.”

“But what if I make it harder?”

“You don’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do.”

“How?”

“Because I drive the car,” he said, blunt and immediate. “Not Twitter or the team or the fans. Me.”

A sob caught in your throat. Max breathed out shakily.

“Schatje,” he said, softer now. “You think I win because you stay home?”

You couldn’t answer.

“You think when I am in the car I‘m faster because you’re sad somewhere without me? You think I don’t put every single ounce of effort into the race no matter what.”

The words hit you hard enough to hurt.

“No,” you whispered. “I know you do”

“That’s not what you’re saying.”

You went still. “I just don’t want to hurt you.”

“You are hurting me by disappearing.” Max rarely said things like that, it wasn’t because he didn’t feel them, but because feeling them out loud had always been hard for him.

“You don’t answer after races,” he continued. “You lie about work. You say you’re sick. You look at me like you’re already leaving and I don’t know what I did wrong.”

Your chest caved.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then why am I being punished?”

You broke. Right there, in the corner of an airport lounge, with people walking past and announcements echoing overhead, you pressed your hand to your mouth and cried.

Max stayed on the phone. He didn’t fill the silence with useless comfort, he just breathed with you until you could speak again.

“I saw the comments after Hungary,” you admitted. “Everyone was so happy you won without me there and I was happy for you, I was, but I felt like I wasn’t allowed to miss being there. Like the best thing I could do for you was stay away.”

Max cursed softly in Dutch.

Then he said, “Do not get on that plane.”

You sniffed. “What?”

“Don’t get on it… please. I’m sending someone to bring you back.”

“Max, no.”

“Yes.”

“I can’t walk into that paddock tomorrow.”

“You can.”

“I can’t.”

“You can,” he repeated, steady now. “Because you’ll walk in with me. And if anyone has something to say then they can say it to my face.”

The next morning you woke up in Max’s hotel room. You had planned to come back, talk to him, then hide somewhere until the weekend was over.

Max had other ideas. He had met you at the hotel entrance himself, even though it was late, even though he had meetings, even though everyone would have told him rest mattered more. He was wearing sweats and a hoodie, hair messy, face tight with worry.

The second he saw you, he crossed the lobby and pulled you into his arms.

Hard.

You’d whispered, “I’m sorry,” into his chest.

He’d answered, “Stop saying that.”

Then he took you upstairs, gave you one of his shirts, made you drink water and got into bed beside you fully dressed because you were crying too hard for either of you to pretend sleep would come easily. At some point in the night you had woken to him gently taking your phone from your hand.

“No more,” he murmured.

“I wasn’t looking.”

“You were going to.”

You hadn’t argued.

Now in the grey morning light Max stood at the end of the bed already dressed in the team kit, watching you carefully.

“You don’t have to come ,” he said.

Your stomach dropped and he saw your expression change immediately.

“No,” he said, moving toward you. “Not like that. I just mean you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I would never force you, but please don’t not come because of them.”

You sat up slowly. “Do you want me there?”

Max looked almost offended.

“I always want you there.”

Your eyes burned.

“But I under—”

“I want to come,” you said.

His face softened.

“Okay.”

“I’m scared.”

He sat on the edge of the bed and took your hand. “I’ll be there.”

You finally smiled, small and private.

“There she is,” he murmured.

The paddock noticed. Of course it did. You arrived with Max, his hand firmly intertwined with yours, his expression giving absolutely nothing away except the very clear message that anyone with an opinion should reconsider having it near him.

Cameras turned and whispers started and you felt them against your skin like heat.

Max did not let go of your hand when you passed photographers or when you entered Red Bull hospitality, or when two members of staff glanced at you and then quickly away. In fact he tightened his grip.

“Max,” you whispered.

He leaned closer, eyes forward. “I’m behaving.”

“You’re walking like you’re about to commit a crime.”

Inside the garage, the air felt strange. Then GP looked up from his station and smiled at you.

A geuine smile.

“Good to see you,” he said.

Something in your chest loosened.

“Thanks,” you said softly.

A few minutes later Laurent came over, his expression was professional, but gentler than usual. Max stood beside you like a guard dog.

“Y/N,” he said. “Glad you’re here.”

You weren’t sure if Max had spoken to him. Judging by the slightly haunted look behind his eyes he probably had. In fact you had a feeling he had a spoken to a few people.

GP cleared his throat. “For what it’s worth I’m sorry if anyone made you feel otherwise.”

Your throat tightened. “Thank you.”

Max’s jaw flexed. That, apparently, was him continuing to behave.

The race was chaos. Spa always was. Rain threatened, then disappeared, then threatened again. Strategy shifted every few laps. The start was messy, the midfield dangerous, the radio tense.

You stood in the garage with headphones on, heart pounding so hard you could feel it in your fingertips.

Max climbed from fourth to third.

Then third to second.

Then, with twelve laps to go, he hunted down the leader.

The garage barely breathed.

You watched the timing screens one hand pressed to your mouth as Max closed the gap lap by lap.

A defensive squeeze, and then Max went around the outside with the kind of impossible bravery that made your stomach drop and your heart soar at the same time and reminded everyone exactly why he was the best.

The garage erupted.

You didn’t move.

Not until GP’s voice came over the radio after the chequered flag.

“P1, Max. That’s P1. Great job mate.”

The sound that left you was half laugh, half sob.

On the screen, Max’s car slowed on the cooldown lap.

His radio crackled and his voice came through.

“Yes! What a race!”

Then.

“Is she there?”

The garage went quiet and GP glanced over at you, smiling.

“She’s here mate.”

Max breathed out.

“Good,” he said.

A pause.

Then, clear enough for everyone to hear he added, “Tell her she’s my good luck charm.”

Your face crumpled.

He had made sure they heard. He had made sure the world would hear too.

By the time Max got back, you were trying very hard not to cry and failing miserably. He climbed out of the car, pulled off his helmet, and looked for you before anyone else.

He pushed through the crowd and reached for you. He was sweaty and champagne-less, but the second he reached you none of that seemed to matter. He wrapped both arms around you and lifted you clean off your feet. Cheers erupted around you, cameras flashed, and for a moment it felt impossibly cinematic, like the final scene of a film. You buried your face in his neck, holding on as tightly as he was holding you.

“You’re incredible,” you whispered.

His hand spread across your back.

“We did it.”

You shook your head. “Max—”

“No.” He set you down but didn’t let go. His eyes locked on yours, intense and unflinching. “Listen to me. I don’t ever want to hear you say you’re bad luck again.”

Your lips trembled.

“I mean it,” he said. “If I lose, its because of racing. If I win, its because of racing. But you? You are the person I want to come back to after both.”

The tears spilled over. He wiped them away with his thumbs, not caring that cameras were catching every second.

“I’m sorry I disappeared.”

“I know.”

Later after the podium, after the anthem, after champagne and interviews and a hundred people trying to pull him in a hundred directions, Max posted a rare photo. It was a picture someone had taken in the garage just after the race. Max still in his race suit, arms around you, your face hidden against his shoulder while he pressed a kiss to the side of your head.

The caption was simple.

My good luck. Always.

The internet, predictably, lost its mind.

@f1tea: MAX SAW THE COMMENTS AND SAID ABSOLUTELY NOT.

@verstappenfiles: Curse broken. Everyone apologise.

@mv1nation: Never calling her bad luck again. I fear he will personally fight us.

@paddockspy: Max Verstappen hard launching a defence of his girlfriend was not on my bingo card but I support it.

@orangearmy: “My good luck” I’m crying he loves her so much.

You didn’t read most of them. Max made sure of that.

That night back at the hotel your phone stayed on the bedside table while you sat between his legs on the bed, his arms wrapped around your waist, his chin resting on your shoulder.

The trophy sat on the desk across the room. Max had barely looked at it.

“Do you want to celebrate?” you said softly.

“I am.”

“You’re sitting in bed.”

“With you.”

You smiled faintly. “Very wild.”

“I’m older now.”

“You’re twenty-eight.”

“Exactly. Ancient.”

You laughed and felt him smile against your neck. For a while neither of you said anything, then Max’s arms tightened around you.

“I need you to promise me something.”

You turned slightly. “What?”

“If you ever feel like that again you tell me.”

Your chest tightened.

“Max—”

“You tell me. Even if you think it is stupid. Even if you think I have more important things. Especially then.”

You looked down at his hands, warm and secure over yours.

“I didn’t want to distract you.”

“You’re allowed to need me.”

After a moment, you whispered, “I promise.”

He kissed your shoulder. “Good.”

You turned in his arms to face him. He reached up and brushed a strand of hair away from your face, his touch gentle in a way the world rarely got to see.

“You are the furthest thing from bad luck,” he said again.

This time you believed him.

“I know.”

His eyes searched yours and then he nodded, satisfied.

Outside somewhere far below, fans were still singing, the city was still buzzing. The internet was still doing what the internet always did, loud and frantic and hungry for the next thing to tear apart or worship, but in the quiet of Max’s hotel room none of it reached you.

There was only him. His steady hands and his heartbeat beneath your palm.

maxverstappen1 😏 ♥︎ by author

oscarpiastri and we will be cashing in on said promise!

⤷ yn oh, i bet 😉

⤷ ynmaxcar 🤨

fan oh ynmaxcar i will never be able to form a solid opinion on you

fan this friendship will always feel so random to me lmao

fan my faaaaves

f1gossip 👀

fan yn: this is my boyfriend max and his boyfriend oscar ♥︎ by author

⤷ fan NOT HER LIKING THIS HELLO

fan was that promise a threesom-

⤷ fan SCREAM

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫ .

texts from the love triangle (but better) gc

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫ .

liked by f1wagsoffical and others

f1gossip Excuse me, sir? Who has you looking like that? 👀

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fan no cause i could’ve sworn i heard a woman laughing

fan is he hiding a girlfriend???

fan i’d pass out if i was on the receiving end of that look 😮‍💨

fan whoever it is has him so blushy omg

fan is this the beginning of his soft launch era?

fan where is deuxmoi when you need her

⤷ fan 🙄🙄🙄

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫ .

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫ .

yn has added to their story

♫ The Blue Nile ・The Downtown Lights

caption: trying to sweat off our hangovers 🥲

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maxverstappen1 liked your story

maxverstappen1 can’t wait to see you guys tonight ❤️

⤷ yn we’re so excited!!

nicolepiastri liked your story

fan i’m here for it 😌

victoriaverstappen liked your story

fan did you mean to post this to your close friends? 😭

alexandrasaintmleux liked your story

fan bring back shame

logansargeant liked your story

fan odd way to get caught cheating

flavy.barla liked your story

fan hot.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫ .

maxverstappen1 has added to their story

caption: home ❤️ oscarpiastri yn

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oscarpiastri liked maxverstappen1’s story

oscarpiastri finally ❤️ ♥︎ by author

yn liked maxverstappen1’s story

yn missed you sooo much 😚

⤷ maxverstappen1 missed you more, baby ❤️

ediepiastri liked maxverstappen1’s story

fan umm…😭

charles_leclerc liked maxverstappen1’s story

fan do you not know that they’re having an affair or do you just not care?

sophiekumpen liked maxverstappen1’s story

fan OH. i think i get it. and i’m obsessed 😌

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫ .

race weekend

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redbullracing Did someone say something about heart eyes? 😍

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fan haha that’s funn-REDBULL RACING?!

fan what do you guys know…

fan admin i hope you don’t lose your job for this

fan cheating with his girl and then smiling in his face is CRAZY

fan plot twist: oscar’s cheating with both of them

⤷ ynmaxcar double plot twist: they’re a throuple

⤷ fan yeah, sure 🙄

fan they way he looks at him omg <3

fan ynmaxcar would make a hot couple why lie

fan yn in the likes…so shameless

fan oscar ‘heart eyes’ piastri strikes again

fan i want whatever tf they’ve got going on

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫ .

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫ .

texts from the love triangle (but better) gc

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫ .

liked by f1gossip and others

f1wagsofficial Yn has made it to the paddock!

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fan is she there for max or oscar lol

fan SHE’S SO HOT

fan she’s so unbothered

fan there are rumors she’s cheating with oscar, rumors MAX is the one cheating with him, and rumors that all three are dating each other and she doesn’t gaf about any of it 😭 #myqueen

fan this weekend is gonna be so entertaining

fan who invited the cheater 🫠

fan looking good 😍

fan i might not know what’s going on but i do know she looks good

fan guys have we considered the fact that whatever’s currently going on with her, max, and oscar is none of our business?

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫ .

liked by redbullracing and others

yn belgium, you were real 🖤❤️💛

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oscarpiastri best part was having you with us 🧡

⤷ maxverstappen1 what he said ❤️

⤷ yn ilysm 🫰🏼

fan gorgeous girl 💞

fan love when hot ppl date each other

fan i’m sorry for thinking you were crazy ynmaxcar

⤷ ynmaxcar forgiven

fan ya’ll got room for one more? asking for a friend 👀

hattiepiastri had so much fun judging oscar’s outfit with you

⤷ yn no cause wtf was that monstrosity 😭

⤷ oscarpiastri it’s called fashion!

⤷ yn osc…

f1wagsofficial this is the closest to a confirmation we’re gonna get i fear

fan i guess you guys are kinda cute…

⤷ maxverstappen1 we’re really cute ♥︎ by author, oscarpiastri

You follow her gaze without thinking.

He stands near the counter, scrolling through a chart on an iPad, stethoscope hanging loose around his neck like he forgot it was there. Curly salt and pepper hair slightly messy, the kind of tired that comes from too many night shifts in a row.

He looks up when someone calls his name, and the moment your eyes land on him, your wrist burns.

You suck in a small breath, instinctively looking down. There’s a red string looped around your wrist, thin, bright, and impossible to miss.

Your stomach drops so fast it makes you dizzy. Because what the actual fuck? No. Not here. Not now.

At some point, you’d convinced yourself maybe you simply didn’t have one. Maybe the universe skipped you.

The thread pulls slightly, like something on the other end just moved, and your fingers curl around it before you even realize what you’re doing. A voice in your head tells you not to look… but you look anyway. The string stretches across the room, weaving through people and stretchers and equipment like it doesn’t care about physics; it never has.

Your breath gets stuck in your throat as you follow it as it leads straight to him—Jack Abbot.

Your heart stutters hard enough that you feel it in your ears.

No.

No, no, no.

Lena is still talking beside you, something about assignments, but the words blur together. “…good with procedures, just don’t let him skip charting, he tries— Abbot!”

He looks up again, this time, at you. The string pulls tight between your wrists. For a second, neither of you moves. Then he walks over, casual, pumping sanitizer on his hands like this is just another shift, just another new nurse, nothing important happening at all.

He’s taller up close.

Tired-looking in a way that somehow makes him seem softer instead of intimidating. Curly salt-and-pepper hair slightly messy, sleeves rolled to his elbows, stethoscope hanging around his neck like he forgot it was there hours ago.

“You the new one?” he asks. His voice is warm and easy. Maybe a little rough around the edges from too much coffee and too many overnight shifts.

You force your brain to function.

“Yeah,” you manage. “First night.”

He nods once, then holds out his hand.

“Jack Abbot.”

Your hand hesitates for half a second before you take it. The second your skin touches his—the string snaps tight. It feels like something deep in your bones clicks violently into place.

Your pulse jumps hard beneath your skin, and for one horrifying second you think maybe he can feel it too.

But Jack just smiles politely, completely unaffected.

Because he can’t see it, not fully. The thread only loops faintly around his wrist before disappearing, incomplete and one-sided.

You swallow hard, “Nice to meet you.”

“Welcome to the Pitt,” he says. “Try not to run.” You let out a shaky laugh before you can stop yourself, “Too late for that.”

A faint smirk pulls at the corner of his mouth, like he likes your answer. By God, that tiny expression alone nearly kills you.

Then he shifts the iPad under his arm—and you see the ring. 

A silver band on his left hand.

Your entire body goes cold.

For a second, you genuinely can’t process what you’re looking at. Of course, he’s married. Because, yes, the universe would do something this cruel.

You force yourself to look away before your face gives you away—and that’s when you notice her.

A woman stands near Central holding a paper bag against her hip, looking around the department with the comfortable familiarity of someone who’s been here a hundred times before.

Waiting for him.

Jack notices her immediately, and his whole face changes. It softens enough for you to understand instantly how much he loves her. “Hey,” he says quietly, already walking toward her.

The incomplete thread around his wrist brightens faintly.

She smiles the second he reaches her, “You forgot dinner again.” Jack laughs softly, taking the bag from her, “I was busy.”

“You’re always busy.”

“Occupational hazard.”

She rolls her eyes affectionately, and he leans down automatically to kiss her cheek. It’s absent-minded and natural. The kind of intimacy built over years. Loving her is as easy as breathing. Suddenly, the red string around your own wrist feels unbearably tight. Because the universe already chose—it’s not you. Never you.

Lena nudges your shoulder lightly, “You good?”

You blink quickly, forcing your expression back under control before anyone notices the way your soul feels like it’s collapsing inward. “Yeah,” you say, your voice almost sounds steady. “Just jet lag.”

Lena nods distractedly and turns back toward the board.

Across the room, Jack says something under his breath that makes his wife laugh. The warm and happy sound carries across the department.

You look down at the string around your wrist one last time before pulling your sleeve over it completely.

You can do this—you’ve survived harder things than heartbreak.

You square your shoulders, take the iPad Lena hands you, and step fully into the chaos of the Pitt.

So when Jack glances back at you a moment later, smiling like you’re just another coworker starting a shift, you smile back, pretending that your heart didn’t just fall through the floor.

A FEW MONTHS LATER…

PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — NIGHT SHIFT

By the time the Pitt starts feeling familiar, it’s already too late. You know the rhythm of the department now, the same way you know your own breathing. Which monitor is about to alarm before it starts screaming. Which psych patient is one bad interaction away from throwing a urinal at security, or a resident is about to panic during a difficult intubation.

You know the trauma bay doors stick when it rains, and Lena hides the good coffee above the Pyxis because Ellis steals the decent stuff first, and the fluorescent lights over Hallway C flicker around three in the morning like they’re barely holding on, and you know Jack Abbot’s footsteps before you even see him.

Well, to be honest, that part happens slowly. Shift after shift. Trauma after trauma. Somewhere between your first week and your third month, working beside him stops feeling intimidating and starts feeling natural.

You know how he likes his trauma setups organized. You know he taps his pen twice against the desk when he’s thinking too hard. You know he rubs the back of his neck when he’s exhausted and trying not to show it. And worse—he knows you too.

“Lifeline!” Ellis’ voice cuts across the department as you walk out of Trauma Two carrying an empty suture tray. You stop mid-step. “You people are never letting that nickname die, are you?”

Ellis swivels around in her chair with a grin. “Absolutely not.”

The nickname started during your second week after a pediatric code that had gone catastrophically wrong.

A seven-year-old nearly drowned—no pulse on arrival. The room had dissolved into controlled chaos within seconds—respiratory trying to secure the airway while one of the newer residents nearly froze trying to place an IO line.

Shen, still early enough into residency that panic sometimes beat experience, had looked one second away from completely spiraling.

But through all of it, you had stayed calm.

You’d guided Shen through the tibial IO placement while simultaneously pushing epinephrine prep toward Jack and coordinating compression rotations so nobody burned out too early.

At one point, Ellis had looked up from the monitor and muttered, “Jesus Christ. She’s everybody’s lifeline in here.”

Unfortunately for you, the name stuck. Now, half the ED used it more than your actual name.

“Lifeline, Trauma Two,” Lena calls without looking up from the board.

“On my way.”

Jack steps out of the trauma bay at the same time you do, peeling bloody gloves off his hands. “You steal my nurse again?” he asks Lena.

Lena snorts. “You don’t own her, Abbot.”

“That’s not what I said.”

There’s something easy in the exchange that makes warmth spread unexpectedly through you.

Jack falls into step beside you automatically as you head toward Trauma Two.

“You eat yet?” he asks.

You glance at him suspiciously. “Are you asking because you care or because you need me conscious enough to survive this shift?”

“A little of both.”

You huff out a laugh. Because that’s the problem with Jack. He’s kind in ways that sneak up on you, a quiet attentiveness that drives you nuts. He notices when you haven’t sat down in seven hours or when your hands shake after a bad pediatric trauma and when you’re pushing yourself too hard, and casually hands you a granola bar like he didn’t specifically go looking for one because he knew you skipped dinner.

The kind of doctor who stays with family members after delivering bad news instead of disappearing the second the conversation gets uncomfortable, and the kind of man who wears his wedding ring like it means something sacred.

Which somehow makes all of this hurt even more. Because every soft look. Every quiet joke at three in the morning or moment beside him in a trauma bay—belongs to someone else.

And you know that.

The universe reminds you every single day that the red string hidden beneath the cuff of your scrub jacket pulls tight whenever he gets too close.

You’ve gotten good at ignoring it or pretending to.

TRAUMA ONE — NIGHT

Tonight’s MVA is a disaster. Twenty-six-year-old male. Ejected through the windshield. Hypotensive on arrival. The second EMS wheels him through the ambulance bay doors, and the department shifts gears instantly.

“BP seventy over forty,” Ellis says from the monitor. “Heart rate one-forty.”

“Breath sounds diminished on the left,” Shen adds quickly, trying to keep up.

“Alright, let’s move,” Jack says sharply.

You’re already there.

Trauma shears cut through blood-soaked clothing while respiratory preps for intubation. You place oxygen and start hanging fluids while Jack performs the FAST exam. Free fluid in Morrison’s pouch appears on the screen almost immediately. Internal bleeding, most likely splenic rupture.

“Call OR,” Jack says. “He’s going upstairs.”

“Already on it,” you answer, grabbing the phone before he even finishes speaking. Jack glances toward you over the patient. There’s blood smeared across the sleeve of his scrub top, exhaustion pulled deep into the lines around his eyes. Yet still—that small flicker of trust when he looks at you. He knows you’ll catch whatever he misses.

You hate how much that matters to you.

CENTRAL WORK AREA — NIGHT

By four in the morning, the Pitt settles into its strange version of quiet. You’re charting near Central when the elevator doors open.

Jack’s wife walks out carrying six pizza boxes stacked in her arms.

The entire department visibly brightens.

“Oh thank God,” Ellis says dramatically. “An angel sent from heaven.”

“You people are unbelievable,” she laughs.

Ellis immediately takes two boxes from her. “Respectfully, I would die for you.”

“That’s deeply concerning,” Lena mutters.

“You’re just jealous she likes me more.”

“I absolutely am not.”

You can’t help laughing softly under your breath. There it is again— that awful ache in your heart. Because she’s truly, genuinely wonderful. The universe could’ve at least made her cold, cruel, or difficult.

Instead, she remembers everyone’s coffee orders and asks about your family back home, and brings food for the night shift because she knows none of you remember to eat unless somebody forces you.

“You must be Lifeline.”

You blink, startled when you realize she’s suddenly standing beside you.

Up close, her smile is warm and effortless. You force yourself to smile back. “That obvious, huh?”

“Oh, very,” she says easily. “Jack talks about you all the time.”

Your heart stumbles painfully against your ribs.

Before you can recover, she continues casually, “Apparently, you’re the only reason this department functions after midnight.”

You laugh weakly. “That gives me way too much credit. Obviously, Lena holds everything down.”

“Have you met these people?” she asks quietly, glancing around Central. “I’m pretty sure Shen would eat expired yogurt if left unsupervised.”

“That happened one time,” Shen shouts.

“You were hallucinating by hour two,” Ellis replies.

You laugh again before you can stop yourself, and somehow, talking to her is easy. Isn’t that cruel? Because you like her immediately, she asks about the Philippines, about your family, and how you plan on surviving Pittsburgh winters.

You’re halfway through explaining that black ice feels like a personal attack when Jack walks out of Trauma Two. He tosses his gloves into the biohazard bin before sanitizing his hands automatically. His curls are damp with sweat at the temples now, scrub top wrinkled from the shift.

Then he looks up to find the two of you talking and smiles—soft around the edges in a way that makes your eyes water.

“Well,” his wife says immediately, “there he is.”

Jack points toward the pizza boxes. “You bribing my staff again?”

“Your staff?” Lena repeats flatly from across the desk.

Jack ignores her completely.

His wife gestures toward you. “Lifeline and I decided you’re actually the problem in this department.” You blink. “We did?”

“We did now.”

Jack looks genuinely betrayed, “That was fast.”

“She’s nice,” his wife says simply. Jack’s eyes flick toward you for half a second, warm and amused. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “She is.”

Your pulse skips hard enough you nearly miss it. Coward, coward, coward.

You look away first while his wife grins triumphantly. “See? I win.”

“You gang up on me constantly.”

“Because you’re easy to bully,” you say before thinking.

Jack stares at you in mock offense. “Wow. Okay.”

“You walked into that one,” Ellis says.

“You’re all terrible people.”

His wife reaches up automatically to straighten the collar of his scrub shirt. Such a small gesture, absent-minded and intimate. The kind of touch that only exists between people who know each other completely.

Your wrist aches beneath your sleeve as the string pulls tighter. Still connected to him. So very impossible and still wrong. But somehow, standing there laughing with both of them at four in the morning, you realize something infinitely more dangerous than loving him.

You’re becoming part of their lives.

CENTRAL WORK AREA — LATER

The shift slows near dawn as you’re charting near Central when Jack drops into the chair beside you with a tired exhale.

“You ever think about leaving emergency medicine?” he asks suddenly. You glance sideways. “Every shift.”

“That’s healthy.”

“I think about becoming a florist at least twice a week.”

Jack huffs out a tired laugh. “You’d last six days.”

“Rude.”

“You yelled at a surgeon yesterday.”

“He was wrong.” You pointed out.

“He was technically right.”

“He was spiritually wrong.”

That earns a real laugh from him, the low and warm kind. God. You hold onto sounds like that more than you should. Silence settles comfortably between you afterward—the kind that only exists between people who know each other well. Then, almost absentmindedly, Jack asks, “Have you met your soulmate yet?”

Your fingers stop over the keyboard. For one horrible second, your entire body forgets how to function. But your face stays calm, because years in emergency medicine have made you terrifyingly good at composure. You keep typing as you reply, “Nope.”

Jack glances sideways at you. “At all?” You shrug lightly, forcing your voice steady. “Might just not be in the cards for me.”

Something softens in his expression immediately. Jack looks at people like he wants to understand them, not fix them. “I doubt that,” he says quietly. You stare at the chart on the screen because looking at him feels too dangerous. The red string hidden beneath your sleeve suddenly feels impossibly heavy.

“I mean it,” he continues softly. “Whoever ends up with you is gonna be lucky.”

Your throat tightens painfully as you force a laugh under your breath before the emotion can show on your face. “Smooth.”

“I’m serious.”

The worst part is—he means it. You finally risk looking at him. His eyes are tired and honest in that devastating way that makes lying to him feel terrible.

“I hope whoever you love…” he says quietly, almost like he’s thinking out loud, “loves you back just as much.”

The cruel irony nearly splits you open. Because you already know exactly what loving him feels like. It feels like swallowing it down every single day, pretending friendship is enough because it has to be, while standing three feet away from your soulmate, while he talks about his wife with soft eyes and absolute devotion.

Your eyes sting suddenly, and you blink hard before he notices. “Me too, Jack,” you whisper. You mean it so much it hurts.

“Me too.”

2020, COVID PANDEMIC

PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — NIGHT

The world changes fast. One week, people are joking about a virus overseas between trauma calls and coffee runs, and then the next week, the Pitt is overflowing.

Then, suddenly, every hallway smells like bleach and sanitizer, strong enough to burn your nose through the mask. Every shift feels like drowning—N95s cutting grooves into your skin, face shields fogging every time you breathe, and isolation gowns crackling every time you move.

The emergency department transforms into something unrecognizable almost overnight. There are no visitors or waiting rooms full of family. Alarms, intubations, oxygen sats dropping, and the sound of ventilators become part of the background noise of your life. Everyone starts looking exhausted, and then everyone starts looking haunted. You stop recognizing your coworkers without PPE. Even you stop recognizing yourself.

Through all of it, Jack keeps working.

You think maybe the entire world could collapse around him and he’d still show up for trauma shift fifteen minutes early with coffee in one hand and exhaustion carved into his face. Some nights, the two of you barely talk beyond patient updates. There isn’t time. Not anymore. Every room is full, and the waiting room looks like a war zone; people are dying faster than you can process. But even through the masks and face shields and layers of plastic, you still know him.

You know the crease between his brows when he’s worried and the exhaustion in his posture. The look in his eyes when a patient reminds him too much of somebody else.

To add to that, around the beginning of the pandemic, his wife dies. Not from COVID, which somehow makes it more merciless.

Pedestrian versus drunk driver—DOA. The call comes in just after midnight. You don’t know it’s her at first. Female in her late thirties. Severe head trauma. Massive internal injuries. CPR in progress.

The paramedics wheel her through the doors while respiratory rushes to clear Trauma One. For one horrible second, before you even see her face, the red string around Jack’s wrist burns.

You freeze, not because you understand yet. Because something deep inside you already does. 

Then Jack steps into the trauma room, and everything stops. You watch recognition hit him in real time, the way his body locks up and how color drains from his face beneath the mask.

“No,” he says immediately, as if he says it softly enough, maybe reality will change its mind.

“No.”

Lena moves first.

“Jack—”

“That’s my wife.”

The room goes dead silent. Even with monitors alarming and compressions ongoing, along with Shen asking for another round of epi.

It all disappears under the sound of Jack’s voice breaking.

You’ve seen grief before—you work in emergency medicine, so you see it every day. But nothing prepares you for the sound a person makes when their entire life shatters in front of them. Jack tries to step forward, but Lena catches him immediately. “Jack.”

“No, let me—”

“Jack.”

“She’s still warm—”

His voice cracks apart on the words. The paramedic quietly says they found no pulse on scene. Prolonged downtime. Non-survivable head trauma. You can’t breathe—nobody can.

Jack looks at his wife lying on the trauma bed like he genuinely cannot understand what he’s seeing; his brain refuses to process it. Blood in her hair and on the sheet, with her wedding ring still on her hand. Suddenly, the red string around your own wrist pulls painfully tight—before snapping loose.

Jack stares at his own wrist instinctively. The string tied there—gone. His face crumples. All that’s left is a man realizing the universe just took something from him that it can never give back.

COVID restrictions mean none of you are allowed at the funeral. No gathering or reception. No sitting beside him in church or placing a hand on his shoulder in comfort; bringing food to his house while relatives fill the rooms with noise and stories and grief.

Only Zoom.

Fucking Zoom.

You sit alone in your apartment at three in the afternoon after night shift, still in scrubs because you were too tired to change, laptop balanced on your kitchen table.

Everyone’s little squares flicker on-screen. Lena is crying silently, Ellis is muted, while Shen is trying and failing not to cry. Multiple other night shift staff are trying their best to pull themselves together—to be brave for Jack.

While Jack is sitting alone in a black button-down shirt in a house that suddenly looks too empty.

He looks hollow. That’s the only word for it. Hollowed out from the inside. You realize halfway through the service that he hasn’t stopped twisting his wedding ring around his finger once. Maybe he believes that if he keeps touching it, maybe she’s still here somehow.

You cry with your microphone muted.

Afterward, nobody knows what to say. There are no casseroles or hugs. No standing together in shared grief. Only little squares blink off one by one until Jack is the last person left in the call.

You stay after everyone disconnects. “You should sleep,” you say quietly. Jack lets out a humorless laugh, “Yeah.”

But he doesn’t move, and neither do you. Finally, he says, “I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

There it is… the unbearable part, because she died instantly—no final words or closure. She was there one second—gone the next.

You press your lips together hard enough that they hurt as you faintly say, “I’m so sorry, Jack.”

He nods once because he’s heard it too many times already. Then his face folds inward suddenly, grief cracking through whatever fragile composure he’s been holding together. You’ve never seen him cry before, not really. Now he looks destroyed by it. 

“I keep thinking she’s gonna walk through the door,” he whispers. “I keep forgetting for like… five seconds.”

Your lungs ache so violently that it feels unbearable.

Because despite everything—despite the string and the guilt and all the ways you tried to keep your distance—you love him. And loving someone means you cannot stand there and watch them suffer alone.

Not him.

Never him.

So you stay.

At first casually, then constantly, you start checking on him between shifts. You bring coffee, he forgets to drink, and force him to eat crackers during overnight shifts because grief has hollowed him thin. You sit beside him in the break room when he can’t sleep between traumas.

Some nights he talks, and there are nights he doesn’t. Later on, you learn grief has moods. Some days he’s numb, and some days he’s angry. Or days, a patient wearing the same perfume as his wife nearly sends him spiraling mid-shift. Once, after losing a COVID patient around his wife’s age, Jack locks himself in the stairwell for twenty minutes.

You find him there eventually. Still in PPE with his face shield shoved onto the top of his head, breathing hard like he’s trying not to come apart.

You sit beside him without saying anything. For a long time, neither of you speaks. The stairwell is cold through your scrub pants, concrete hard beneath you. Somewhere beyond the heavy metal door, the hospital keeps moving. Monitors alarming. Phones ringing. Ventilators hissing.

Life continued like his world didn’t just end.

Jack sits one step below you, elbows braced against his knees, surgical cap shoved halfway off his head. His N95 hangs loose around his neck now, leaving angry red pressure marks across his skin. He appears worn out in a manner unrelated to sleep. The type of tiredness that becomes bone-deep.

For a while, all you hear is his controlled breathing, but then, you know, if he lets himself lose control for even a second, he’ll never stop. Then quietly, without looking at you, Jack says, “I don’t know who I am without her.”

You nearly shatter at his confession, because it’s proof he loved her so completely. You saw it every day in small, ordinary ways. In the way his face softened when she walked into the department carrying takeout, or the absent-minded way he leaned toward her without realizing it. In the wedding ring, he twisted whenever he talked about her during quieter shifts. He loved her with the kind of certainty people spend their whole lives searching for, and somehow that only makes you love him more.

You look down at your hands, clasped tightly in your lap.

“At work?” you say softly after a moment. “You’re still Jack.” A weak laugh escapes him, humorless and tired, “Very inspirational speech.”

“I’m serious.”

You glance toward him carefully. Even now, he’s still wearing blood on the sleeve of his isolation gown from the code downstairs. His curls are damp with sweat, exhaustion carved deep into the lines around his eyes.

"When everything hurts," you say carefully, "you don't have to figure out how to survive the next ten years."

Jack finally looks up, with his eyes bloodshot, red-rimmed, and devastatingly tired. "You just find the next thing." His brow furrows slightly as you keep going, "The next cup of coffee that tastes okay."

A faint huff of breath leaves him.

"The next shift." You offer a small smile. "The next stupid joke Shen makes that isn't actually funny."

That earns the ghost of an eye roll—you take it.

"The next hour. The next day." Your throat tightens, but you push through it, "And eventually..." Your voice softens. "Eventually you realize you've made it farther than you thought you could."

Jack stares at you, fully paying attention and listening.

"The pain doesn't disappear," you admit quietly. "Some losses stay with you forever. But one day you wake up, and it isn't the first thing you feel."

The stairwell falls silent again, and you watch as Jack's eyes close briefly as if the possibility of hope hurts. When he opens them again, there's something unbearably raw there—something stripped bare. "You really believe that?" The question comes out almost broken, and you don't hesitate as you reply, "Yes."

Because you have to, for him, for yourself, and for every patient you've ever watched claw their way through impossible things.

"Yes," you repeat softly. Jack studies your face for a long moment—searching for something there. Maybe hope or permission. Or proof that somebody still sees him underneath all the grief. Then he gives one small, fragile nod, because he's trying very hard to believe you, too.

A softer shared silence settles between you again afterward. You remain beside him on the stairwell steps while the hospital hums around you. Two exhausted healthcare workers in the middle of a pandemic. One grieving the loss of the love of his life. The other grieving quietly beside him. Then, after a long time, you speak again.

Your voice barely rises above a whisper, "I don't think there's such a thing as a good goodbye." Jack doesn't look away, but you stare at the concrete floor.

"People say it gets easier. That you find closure. That eventually you make peace with it." Your fingers tighten together. "But I think losing someone just becomes part of you. You learn how to carry it." Your throat burns, "There are days when you think you're okay. Days when you laugh and work and breathe normally." You glance toward him. "And then something happens. A song, a smell, maybe a memory.” Blinking back your tears, you revealed, "The grief finds you again."

Jack's eyes shine slightly as you continue softly, "Not because you failed to move on." Your voice wavers. "But because they mattered."

A long silence follows. Then, quietly—"So what am I supposed to do?" When he asks the question, it sounds incredibly trivial.

You look at Jack—at the man who spent years helping everyone else survive. He stayed with frightened soldiers, and loved his wife so completely that even death couldn't erase her from him.

"Keep loving her," you say softly, and Jack's breath catches. "Just don't let her be the reason you stop living, too."

The silence that follows feels sacred, somewhere beneath your sleeve, hidden from the world, the red string wrapped around your wrist aches. Not because it hurts, but because for the first time since she died, you realize you would carry his grief with him for as long as he needed.

Even if he never knew.

2021

YOUR APARTMENT — NIGHT

By late 2021, you recognize the symptoms almost immediately. The exhaustion first. Not normal exhaustion—the kind every ER nurse carries around like a second heartbeat—but something meaner. The sort that becomes deeply ingrained in your bones and wears you out just by standing straight.

Then the fever, then it’s the cough that follows soon after, and the body aches that feel like somebody took a hammer to every joint you have.

You take the rapid test in your bathroom with trembling hands, already knowing what the result will be before the second line even appears.

Positive.

You stare at it for a long moment anyway, “Fuck.”

You’d been vaccinated months ago. Healthcare workers got priority access early on, one of the very few benefits of spending every shift neck-deep in a pandemic. And thank God for that, because without it, you’re almost certain this would’ve landed you intubated in an ICU somewhere.

Still—it hits you hard.

Your immune system has never exactly been reliable. Too many years of stress, skipped meals, night shifts, and pushing yourself past exhaustion had seen to that long before COVID ever existed.

So you quarantine immediately with no qualms or arguments. Immediately, you text Lena and Dana to tell them that you’ve contracted COVID-19. Then you lock yourself inside your apartment and prepare to wait it out.

The loneliness settles in fast after that. The first day isn’t terrible, but the second day is worse. By the third day, you genuinely feel like you’re losing your mind. Your apartment suddenly feels too small and too quiet. Every surface smells faintly of disinfectant and cough drops. Empty Gatorade bottles and medication wrappers clutter your coffee table because you’re too exhausted to clean properly.

You sleep in fragments. Wake up drenched in sweat. Cough until your ribs ache. Then fall asleep again, only to wake up disoriented an hour later. You try texting your family back home once, but hearing your mother’s worried voice over FaceTime nearly makes you cry, so you stop answering calls after that.

You tell everyone you’re fine. You’re not.

One particularly bad night, you sit on the bathroom floor wrapped in a blanket because the cold tiles feel good against your feverish skin, genuinely debating at what oxygen saturation you’d finally call an ambulance.

Ninety-three? Ninety-two?

You know too much…that’s the problem. You’re aware exactly how quickly patients can crash, and what respiratory distress looks like. You know what COVID sounds like when it starts settling deeper into the lungs. And alone in your apartment at two in the morning, feverish and exhausted and struggling not to spiral, you think: If this gets worse, I’m gonna end up at Presby or PTMC.

By day five, your phone is full of unread texts. Lena is checking in, Shen is sending memes, and Ellis is threatening to physically fight you if you don’t hydrate. But then there’s Jack calling twice… then three times.

You don’t answer any of them. Not intentionally. Your brain feels too foggy to function most of the time. Looking at your phone takes effort you barely have energy for. So when there’s suddenly a knock at your apartment door that evening, you frown from beneath your blanket without moving.

Probably the wrong apartment.

Another knock. Then—your real name, muffled through the door in a voice you’d recognize half-asleep.

“Hey.”

Your stomach drops.

No.

Absolutely not.

You push yourself upright too quickly and immediately regret it when dizziness crashes over you. You stumble toward the door anyway, coughing into your elbow before peeking through the peephole.

And there he is.

Jack Abbot. Standing outside your apartment in full PPE. N95. Face shield. Gloves. Isolation gown. Holding a plastic takeout bag in one hand. You stare at him in complete disbelief before yanking yourself back from the door. “Jack?!”

“Oh, good,” his voice comes through the other side, dry with relief. “You’re alive.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” you hiss through the door. “How did you even find where I live?”

“Lena told me… and Dana.”

Traitors.

You lean your forehead briefly against the door, exhausted. “You can’t be here,” you argue weakly. “You could get sick.” Jack snorts softly from the hallway, “Lifeline, we work in an emergency department.”

“That is not comforting!”

“Also,” he continues, ignoring you completely, “is there a reason you’ve been ignoring my texts and calls?”

You close your eyes briefly. Honestly, you hadn’t even realized how many messages you missed.

“Jack—”

“Open the door.”

You blink as you screech, “Are you fucking insane? No.” His voice lowers slightly then, gentler but firmer somehow. “Lifeline.”

Somewhere behind your ribs, the moniker settles heated and perilous.

“Open the door.”

You stare at the wood for a long moment. Then, against every ounce of common sense you possess, you unlock it. The second the door cracks open, Jack’s eyes immediately scan over you clinically. You can practically see the ER doctor in him assessing your flushed skin, fatigue, and mild shortness of breath. The way you’re subtly bracing yourself against the wall to stay upright. In an instant, his face tightens.

"Oh," he murmurs. Somehow, that soft little sound embarrasses you more than if he’d outright said you looked terrible. You cross your arms defensively, “I look worse than I feel.”

“That’s concerning, because you look awful.”

You let out a tired laugh despite yourself, immediately coughing afterward. Jack’s eyes narrow behind the face shield, “How high’s the fever?”

“It’s fine.”

“Temperature.”

“One-oh-one earlier.”

“And oxygen?”

You hesitate half a second too long, and Jack notices immediately, “Lifeline.”

“Ninety-four. I’ve been checking my Apple Watch.”

His jaw tightens, “Okay.”

You step aside reluctantly. “There’s hand sanitizer and ethyl alcohol everywhere. I’ve been disinfecting the place whenever I can.”

Jack walks inside carefully, setting the takeout bag down near the kitchen counter. Your apartment suddenly feels unbearably small with him standing in it. Messy blankets on the couch. Medications scattered across the coffee table. Laundry you’ve been too sick to fold. You suddenly want the earth to swallow you whole. “Sorry,” you mutter. “It’s kind of a disaster.”

Jack glances around once before looking back at you. “I’ve seen residents cry over missing lab results. This is nothing.” That earns another weak laugh out of you while he pulls out one of the dining chairs and gestures toward it, “Sit down before you fall down.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“You almost passed out opening the door.”

Rude.

You sit anyway because standing suddenly feels impossible, and Jack immediately starts fussing. Taking your temperature again. Checking your pulse ox. Asking when you last ate.

In a manner that hurts your core, it's somehow intimate. After observing him in silence for a while, you gently inquire, "Why are you here?"

Jack pauses before he shrugs one shoulder like the answer should be obvious. “Because I know you.”

“You don’t have family here,” he continues quietly. “No roommates. No neighbors you’re close enough with to help if things go bad.” He leans back slightly in the chair across from you.

“You moved halfway across the world by yourself,” he says. “So yeah. I came to do a welfare check.” Something warm and painful twists in your chest all at once, so you try covering it with humor. “Am I that unlucky or just that special?”

Jack looks at you for a long moment. Then, softly, he replies, “Just that special.” The room goes very still while your pulse stutters painfully against your ribs. Jack clears his throat first, looking away. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine.”

He gives you a tired, unimpressed look immediately, “Don’t start with me.” You sigh, shoulders slumping. “I feel…” You swallow hard. “Honestly? Like I got hit by a truck.”

Jack nods once like he expected that answer. “My chest hurts when I cough,” you admit quietly. “And I’m exhausted all the time. Walking to the bathroom feels like running a 10k.”

Jack’s expression softens instantly to concern. “Okay,” he says gently. “That sounds about right for breakthrough COVID.”

You laugh weakly, “Reassuring.”

“You’re vaccinated. Your sats are holding. Fever sucks, but you’re stable.” His voice shifts into that calm doctor cadence you’ve heard him use with terrified patients a hundred times before.

“You’re gonna feel miserable for a little while,” he says softly. “But you’re not dying.”

The ridiculous thing is—you believe him immediately. Maybe because it’s Jack, he always sounds certain even when the world is falling apart. Or maybe because after spending almost a week alone in your apartment feeling terrified and sick and invisible—having somebody show up for you feels dangerously close to relief.

Somewhere beneath the fever and exhaustion and the red string hidden under your sleeve, you realize this is the first time since his wife died that Jack has willingly stepped into somebody else’s home again.

The thought nearly breaks your heart.

Grief has a way of shrinking people's worlds—you'd watched it happen to Jack in real time. After his wife died, he stopped inviting people over. Stopped talking about home or lingering after conversations that might eventually end with someone asking how he was doing outside of work. The walls had gone up slowly. Brick by brick. Most people probably never noticed, but you did. Yet here he is, standing in your cluttered apartment with a stethoscope in one hand and a grocery bag full of electrolyte drinks in the other.

"Drink."

You stare at the bottle he shoves toward you, "You're very bossy outside the hospital."

"Drink." He insists.

"Is this because I ignored your texts?"Jack gives you a look, the one he usually reserves for patients actively making terrible decisions. "Partly."

You sigh dramatically and take the bottle, "Happy?"

"No."

That catches your attention. You look up, and Jack is standing near the kitchen counter, arms folded across his chest. The concern on his face isn't hidden anymore. Hasn't been since he walked through the door. "You should've told somebody you were this sick." Your laugh comes out hoarse, "I did."

"No." Jack shakes his head, "You told people you were fine."

"...I was trying not to worry anyone."

"You had a one-oh-one fever and couldn't walk to your bathroom without getting winded."

You look away because when he says it like that, it sounds bad. "It sounds worse when you say it."

"That's because it is worse."

You can't help smiling, but that only seems to annoy him more.

"Why are you smiling?"

"You care."

Jack stares and then immediately looks away. Your fever-addled brain doesn't miss the faint flush creeping up his neck. "Of course I care."

The answer comes too naturally, and for some reason, that makes something warm settle beneath your body. The television murmurs faintly in the background, forgotten as Jack eventually disappears into your kitchen. You hear cabinets opening and then closing. A frustrated sigh leaves him, "How do you have absolutely no food?"

"I have food."

"You have soy sauce and olive oil."

"That's food-adjacent."

Jack pinches the bridge of his nose. "You work in healthcare."

"So do you."

"I know."

"Have you seen what doctors eat?"

He points at you from across the room, "Deflection."

You grin while Jack shakes his head again, but he opens the takeout containers anyway and pours you soup. Then make sure you actually eat it and wait until you're halfway through before finally sitting down. The quiet and unexpected realization sneaks up on him that somehow—he likes taking care of you. Because it shouldn't feel this good. It shouldn't feel this natural to be here. To fuss over your fever, refill your water glass, and check your pulse ox every twenty minutes because he doesn't trust you not to lie about your symptoms.

Yet every time he glances up and sees you curled beneath a blanket on the couch, alive and stubborn and complaining—something in his heart eases. The same feeling he gets when a trauma patient finally stabilizes. When someone he was worried about turns out okay. Only different. This time, it’s more personal and complicated.

You cough suddenly, and Jack is moving before he even realizes it, quickly handing you water. Waiting until the coughing fit passes. Your eyes lift toward him over the rim of the glass. It’s soft and sleepy. "Thank you." Your words are quiet and sincere.

And God help him—that does something to him. Something he doesn't examine too closely.

Because if he does—he might have to ask himself questions he's not ready to answer. Questions like why spending an afternoon taking care of you feels better than spending it anywhere else, or why your apartment already feels strangely familiar. Why did the idea of you being here alone all week bother him so much?

Instead, he focuses on something safer—annoyance. "You know," he says, sitting back in his chair, "your soulmate's doing a terrible job."

You blink at that, frowning, "What?" Jack shrugs, "If they're out there somewhere, they're slacking." A surprised laugh escapes you. "What does that even mean?"

"It means," he says, gesturing vaguely toward your blanket burrito state, "you're sick. Alone. Living on cough drops and spite."

"I had soup."

"You had olive oil."

"That was one time."

Jack rolls his eyes, "My point stands." A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "They should've shown up by now." The joke is spoken carelessly, and he doesn't know it nearly stops your heart.

You look away first, toward the rain-streaked window, literally anywhere but him. Because if you look at Jack right now—if you look at the man sitting in your apartment, taking care of you, worrying over you, complaining about a soulmate who never appeared—you might break.

The red string hidden beneath your sleeve suddenly feels impossibly burdensome. But Jack doesn't notice, he's too busy opening another bottle of water and making sure your fever isn't climbing again. Somewhere in the quiet warmth of your apartment, he doesn’t realize the irony. Jack is sitting exactly where he should be. Doing exactly what he was supposed to do, and somehow, he can’t see it yet.

2023

PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — NIGHT

Five years ago, you were the new nurse from the Philippines. Now you're simply part of the Pitt. Nobody really introduces you anymore. You're just there, part of the machinery. You know where everything is and everyone's habits. Or when Ellis is pretending to chart and is actually looking for the next best place to nap for her double. You know when Shen is about to spiral before he even realizes it himself. By now, you have memorized Lena's "I'm not mad, I'm disappointed" face is significantly more terrifying than actual anger.

Somewhere along the way—you became one of the safest places in Jack's life. Neither of you meant for that to happen.

It just did.

There are hundreds of tiny moments, none of which seem important on their own. But together, they're devastating. A patient's husband is screaming in the hallway after a failed resuscitation. Security is trying to de-escalate, family members are crying, and the entire department feels tense. Then, appearing devastated, Jack leaves the room but not in a noticeable way. Most people wouldn't recognize it, but you do.

You don't say anything; instead, you simply hand him a cup of coffee. Exactly how he takes it. He looks down at it, then at you. "Mind reader?" You shrug, "You looked like you needed caffeine." The corner of his mouth twitches, "Thanks."

Somehow, that small smile stays with him the rest of the shift.

Another night, it’s three in the morning. Everyone's fucking exhausted. You're sitting on the floor of the supply room because it's the only place nobody can find you for five minutes. Jack opens the door and stops. He finds you sitting there cross-legged, eating stale vending machine pretzels. "You hiding?"

"No."

"You are literally hiding."

You hold up a pretzel, defensive, "This is self-care." Jack stares at you, then, to your horror, he sits beside you on the floor. Like it's completely normal. "You know we're adults, right?" he asks.

"Says the man eating peanut butter crackers for dinner." Jack looks offended; he scoffs, "I had a protein bar." You roll your eyes at that, "Oh. Well, that's different."

His laugh echoes through the tiny room. It’s warm and unrestrained. The sound settles somewhere dangerous inside your chest. Then the days keep passing by, and then the days turn into months, then it’s another shift, another trauma.

Another impossible night.

A frightened little girl refuses to let go of your hand while waiting for stitches. You're sitting beside her bed, explaining every step of the procedure. Making balloon animals out of gloves while telling ridiculous stories.

By the time you're finished, she's laughing. You don't notice Jack standing in the doorway watching or the expression on his face either. The one that lingers long after he walks away. Because somewhere over the years, admiration has quietly become affection.

Affection has started becoming something else—something he doesn't have a name for yet. Jack's issue is that he doesn't immediately feel things. Without thinking, he simply begins searching for you first.

A difficult trauma comes in? His eyes automatically find yours. A bad shift? He looks for you at Central. A joke occurs to him? He wants to tell you. A patient reminds him of something sad? Somehow, you're the person he ends up talking to. 

It happens gradually enough that neither of you notices.

Until everyone else does.

"You know Abbot's gonna have a breakdown if Lifeline ever leaves, right?" Ellis says it casually while charting. You nearly choke on your coffee, "What?" Across the desk, Shen immediately nods. "Oh, absolutely."

"Parker."

"I'm serious."

You point threateningly, "Stop." Parker raises both hands. "Hey, I don't make the rules."

You refuse to acknowledge the strange warmth crawling up your neck. Because if you acknowledge it—you'll have to acknowledge the way your heart still skips whenever Jack smiles at you. After all these years, that feels pathetic.

2024

PTMC, MAIN ENTRANCE — DAY

The rain starts sometime around six in the morning. Not a drizzle—a proper Pittsburgh downpour. The kind that turns streets silver and pounds against windows hard enough to drown out conversation.

After twelve hours of chaos, the entire department begins filtering out toward the parking garage and bus stops. You finally clock out around seven—exhausted and half-awake, absolutely ready for sleep.

When you step outside, you immediately spot Jack standing beneath the small emergency department awning.

Watching the rain… alone with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket. Looking at him, you pause, "You're still here?"

Jack glances over, "My car's in the shop."

That explains it.

"How'd you get here?"

"Rideshare."

You look out toward the street, and the rain is somehow worse now. Jack follows your gaze, "Trying to decide how miserable walking home is gonna be." You glance over, "What happened to your ride?"

Jack lets out a tired breath, "Canceled."

"What?"

"Driver got stuck downtown." You wince at that, and he pulls his phone from his pocket and turns the screen toward you. The rideshare app is a disaster—surge pricing, long wait times. One estimate says thirty-eight minutes, while another says unavailable. Apparently, every exhausted healthcare worker in Pittsburgh had the same idea after shift. "You've got to be kidding me."

"Yeah." Jack stuffs his phone away again. "I've been refreshing it for ten minutes."

You look back toward the rain, then down at the umbrella dangling from your wrist, and then back at him. You ask, "No umbrella?"

"Nope."

You stare at him, then at the rain… and then at the very obvious lack of any workable plan. So, without thinking twice, you hold the umbrella out. Jack blinks, looks at the umbrella, and then at you. Then back at the umbrella. It's baby pink and covered in tiny Miffy rabbits. The ears are even printed around the trim—the thing looks aggressively cheerful.

"You serious?"

"Very."

A laugh escapes him, a real one. Low and surprised and completely unguarded. It's probably the first genuine laugh you've heard from him all shift, maybe longer. You feel absurdly proud of yourself as you snort, "Sorry about the color."

Jack studies the umbrella again, "I think I'll survive."

"You sure? Might destroy your reputation."

"My reputation was already questionable."

"Fair."

You press the handle into his hand without hesitation, because that's just who you are. Someone needs help, so you help; it's that simple. Jack looks genuinely baffled. "Wait."

You pause.

"What about you?" He asks, concerned. You shrug. The rain is cold, and the morning is gray. You've worked twelve hours, and your back hurts, along with your feet. But somehow none of that feels important. "I live closer than you do."

"Lifeline."

"Jack."

"You'll get soaked."

You smile, bright and softly. The same smile you've given frightened patients, overwhelmed residents, and grieving family members. You shrug, "It's rain."

His brow furrows, "You say that like hypothermia isn't a thing." You laugh at that, "I'm from the Philippines. Rain and I have a long-standing relationship."

"That's not remotely reassuring."

"It shouldn't be."

Jack shakes his head, but he's smiling now, which gives you a bit of peace. His eyes linger on you a second too long. Or maybe you're imagining it. You probably are—you usually are. Then you add quietly, "Besides, sometimes life is easier when you stop trying to avoid every uncomfortable thing."

Jack's expression softens, and you glance toward the rain. "Sometimes you just accept you're gonna get soaked and go home anyway." Neither of you says anything for a little bit. Because you both know that your words aren't really about the rain, neither of you acknowledges it. A laugh escapes him again, and he shakes his head, "You always have an answer for everything."

"No." You step backward toward the edge of the awning, and the cold rain immediately spatters against your scrub pants while you grin. "You just have to trust you'll be okay once you get there."

That gets another laugh out of him, the kind that reaches his eyes. You would do almost anything to keep hearing that sound. The umbrella remains clutched in his hand. Pink, ridiculous, and entirely yours. But for some reason, he can't stop staring at it. Or at you, standing in the rain, completely unapologetically yourself. No performance or hidden agenda. Only your kindness offered freely, as if giving away the only thing keeping you dry is the most natural decision in the world.

The thing is—Jack has spent years watching people take. Watching grief take, life and death take. And you...You are always giving… your time, your patience, and your terrible vending machine snacks.  Your heart, if someone needed it badly enough. Now, it’s your umbrella.

Something warm twists unexpectedly inside of him, and he feels tingling all over his skin, as well as his mouth begins to dry. You lift a hand in farewell, "See you tomorrow, Dr. Abbot."

Then you turn and jog into the rain, water immediately drenches your hair, and you laugh when your shoe splashes into a puddle. You keep running anyway. While Jack just stands there—watching, until you disappear around the corner. Long after you're gone, he remains beneath the awning with your pink umbrella still hanging from his hand.

The rideshare app was forgotten entirely, and the rain pounded against the pavement as the morning traffic crawled by. For the first time in a very long time—the thought of going home doesn't feel quite as lonely. He looks down at the ridiculous little umbrella again. Then, despite himself, he smiles. Because somehow the damn thing feels exactly like you.

2025

NIGHTCLUB, PITTSBURGH — NIGHT

The music is loud enough to vibrate through your ribs. Honestly, you're having fun, a rare occurrence these days. Between night shifts and overtime and trying to maintain some semblance of a social life outside of the Pitt, opportunities to be a normal twenty-something are increasingly rare.

So when a few friends invited you out, you said yes. You danced, drank, and laughed. You let yourself forget about work for a few hours, and somewhere between your second drink and the realization that your feet hurt, you discovered a very important problem.

Your apartment keys were gone—completely vanished, you checked your purse three times. Your jacket pockets twice, then the bathroom counter, next the bar, and still nothing. Which is how you found yourself sitting in a booth near the back of the club with your phone pressed to your ear.

Waiting for Jack to answer.

He picks up on the second ring, "Everything okay?" You immediately relax, which is probably a problem. "Maybe."

Jack sighs, the sound of a man who has known you far too long, "What happened?" You look mournfully into your drink, "I lost my keys." A pause on the other end, and then, "You what?"

"They're gone."

"Lifeline."

"They disappeared."

"Keys don't disappear."

"They absolutely do."

The music swells around you, and someone screams happily near the dance floor. Through the phone, Jack suddenly goes quiet. He asks, "Where are you?"

You blink, "Huh?"

"Where are you?"

You frown, then glance up at the neon sign hanging over the bar, "Oh." You tell him the club's name. The silence on the other end lasts approximately two seconds before you hear him ask, "How are you getting home?"

You wave a hand vaguely despite the fact he can't see you, "M'gonna Uber." The words come out more slurred than intended. Silence... a long silence, then you hear him sigh,  "Jesus Christ."

"It’s not that bad—"

"No."

You open your mouth to argue, but Jack beats you to it. "I'm picking you up." You immediately sober, exclaiming, "What?"

"Do not leave with anybody."

"Jack—"

"Do not get into a stranger's car."

"That's literally what Uber is." You throw back in response.

"Lifeline." The warning in his voice makes you sit up straighter. "I'm serious. Stay where you are."

"Jack—"

"I'm already grabbing my keys."

Your stomach flips unexpectedly as you point out, "You're working tomorrow."

"So are you."

"Jack."

His voice drops lower, gentler as he begs, "Please." And that ends the argument before it starts. You stare at your drink and reluctantly reply, "...Okay."

"Good." A beat and then you hear, "Don't hang up."

Twenty-five minutes later, Jack walks into the club and promptly forgets how to breathe, because he has never seen you like this before. At work, you're always in scrubs, with your hair pulled back, minimal makeup, and practical shoes.

Tonight—tonight you look nothing like the nurse who steals his coffee and argues with surgeons. Your hair is down, and your makeup catches the flashing lights every time you move. The outfit you're wearing should probably be illegal—at least that's what his traitorous brain immediately decides. Far too much skin and too beautiful—too distracting.

Jack stares for half a second too long, but then immediately hates himself for it. Because he's Jack and you're you. You're his friend, and he's forty-something years old and should absolutely know better. But the sudden realization that other people are staring at you, too, fills him with an entirely unreasonable amount of irritation. There are multiple reasons he hates that realization—none of them are good. You spot him immediately, and relief floods your face, "Jack!"

Somehow that's worse—because you're happy to see him, you always are. Jack pushes through the crowd toward your booth. He asks, "You okay?" 

You grin, a little tipsy and a little tired, "Hi."

"That's not an answer."

"I lost my keys."

"You mentioned."

You immediately point at him, "I looked."

"I believe you."

"I looked everywhere."

Jack softens despite himself, "I know."

Just like that, some of the tension leaves your shoulders. The amount of trust you've placed in him over the years—it sneaks up on him sometimes, along with the amount he's placed in you. Neither of you ever talks about it—it's just simply there.

"Where are your friends?"

You blink.

"Oh."

You glance toward the dance floor, where your group has completely disappeared into the crowd. One of them is standing on a platform dancing with a stranger. Another appears to be attempting karaoke despite there being no karaoke machine. Honestly, nobody looks remotely concerned about your whereabouts. You point vaguely, "Over there." Jack follows your finger, and immediately regrets it. "Jesus." 

You laugh, "They're having fun."

"They look like a liability."

"They are." A pause, then you smile warmly at him. The kind of smile that's become increasingly difficult for him to ignore lately.

"You ready to head home?" The question comes out gentler than he intended. Your expression softens immediately. "Mhm."

There’s no argument because the answer was always going to be yes. After all, it's him asking. Something in Jack's chest tightens unexpectedly. You climb out of the booth and wobble slightly when your heel catches on the edge of the floor. His hand is on your elbow before either of you thinks about it. It’s steady and instinctive—the contact lasts barely a second, but you both notice. Your eyes flick down to his hand, then back up to his face. Neither of you says anything, and Jack clears his throat first before he lets go, "You good?" 

You nod immediately, "Mhm. Yep." Then point at him. "I need to go tell them I'm not being kidnapped by you."

The laugh that escapes him is helpless, "You go do that."

You grin, "Okay.” Before turning toward the dance floor, you lightly tap his arm. It’s a small gesture, mindless and affectionate. The kind of touch friends make without thinking. Yet Jack feels it long after you've disappeared into the crowd. He watches you weave through the dancers. Watch you throw your arms around one of your friends.

You laugh at something that makes your whole face light up, and standing there in the middle of a crowded nightclub, surrounded by strangers and flashing lights and music loud enough to shake the floor—Jack suddenly realizes he's smiling. He's smiling because you're happy and somewhere deep down, in a place he has been carefully avoiding for a very long time—he knows that's becoming a problem.

You weave your way through the crowd, dodging dancers and spilled drinks, until you finally find your friends near the center of the dance floor. One of them immediately grabs your arm, "There you are!" You laugh, "Apparently, I'm leaving."

"What?" another groans theatrically. "Already?"

You point toward the edge of the club—toward Jack. Standing near the entrance with his hands shoved into his jacket pockets, waiting. The second your friends spot him, several heads swivel at once. Then all of them turn suspiciously slowly back toward you.

"Ohhh."

You immediately know that tone, you shake your head, "No."

"That's the doctor."

"No."

"The hot doctor."

You cover your face, "Oh my God." One of them leans closer, asking, "Is he your boyfriend?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Very."

"Because he definitely looks like he's here to pick up his girlfriend." Heat floods your face instantly, "No, he does not."

Across the room, Jack glances over, as if sensing he's being talked about. But when he spots you, his expression visibly relaxes. And unfortunately, your friends see that too. "Oh my God."

You groan, "Stop."

"He likes you."

"He does not."

"He drove here to rescue you from yourself."

"That's called friendship."

"That's called middle-aged pining." You nearly choke, "Please never say those words again."

Laughter follows you all the way back toward the entrance, and Jack looks mildly concerned the closer you get. "You okay?"

"Apparently not."

He narrows his eyes at your response, "What happened?"

"My friends are terrible people."

"Fair."

You point at him, "Don't encourage them."

"I'm not encouraging anybody."

"Liar."

The corner of his mouth twitches, and just like that, some of the tension leaves your shoulders. The simple fact that he's here has solved half the problem already. Then you take two steps toward the exit, but Jack is moving before he even thinks about it. One hand catches your elbow, and the other settles briefly at your waist, steadying you. The contact is innocent, but your breath catches anyway. It’s practical and necessary, at least that's what both of you tell yourselves.

"Whoa there." Jack says, and you blink up at him, then immediately start laughing, "I think the floor moved."

"The floor did not move."

"It absolutely moved."

"Lifeline."

"I'm just saying." Jack shakes his head, and his hand doesn't immediately leave your waist. Neither of you seems to notice. Or maybe both of you notice too much. "Come on."

You allow him to guide you outside, and the cool night air hits immediately. Rain lingers on the pavement, turning the streets into rivers of reflected neon. You inhale deeply, then sway again. Jack catches you before it becomes a problem. His hand settles more firmly against your side this time, and your body immediately relaxes into the contact like it's familiar.

Jack notices that too. "You good?" He asked, and you nod, "Mhm." A beat, and then you add, "The ground's still suspicious."

That earns a real laugh out of him, and you love that sound.

The parking lot isn't far, but Jack keeps his hand on your waist the entire walk there. Just in case… well, at least that's what he tells himself. Not because he likes the feeling of you beside him or how perfectly you fit there.

Just in case. That's all…. at least for tonight.

Jack sighs. The long-suffering sigh of a man who spends his life dealing with stubborn people. "Come on."

You allow him to guide you… well. at least until you nearly walk directly into a group of people entering the club. Jack catches your shoulder and redirects you gently, "Okay."

"What?"

His hand settles more firmly against your back, "Maybe we're graduating from independent walking." You gasp dramatically, "I am fully capable." But your words come out slightly slurred.

Jack raises an eyebrow, "You just tried to walk through three people."

"They were in my way."

A laugh escapes him. God. You're something truly special.

Now he has a new problem. Namely, getting you safely into his truck before you attempt something stupid.

The passenger-side door swings open, and you stare at it, then back at the seat. Jack immediately knows what's happening. "Need help?"

"No." A pause as you squint at the truck suspiciously. "Maybe."

"It's higher than it looked five seconds ago, isn't it?"

"It definitely wasn't this tall before."

Jack bites the inside of his cheek, hard, trying not to laugh.

"Okay."

Before you can protest, his firm hands settle at your waist, and suddenly you're being lifted just enough to get into the passenger seat. The whole thing takes maybe two seconds, except neither of you feels normal afterward. You freeze, and Jack also freezes. His hands are still on your waist, and you're looking directly at each other—far too close.

For a brief, dangerous moment, neither of you moves. Then Jack clears his throat, immediately stepping back. "Seatbelt."

Your brain takes several seconds to reboot, "What?"

"Seatbelt."

"Oh."

Of course, duh. You fumble with it and miss the buckle twice before Jack reaches over and clicks it into place. His face is suddenly very near again. Near enough to see the tiny scar near his jaw, and that your heart starts doing things it absolutely should not be doing. "There." His voice comes out lower than usual. You swallow, "Thanks."

Neither of you acknowledges how strange the moment felt and the warmth lingering where his hands had been. Or the way Jack has to grip the steering wheel a little tighter once he's behind it. Because some things are easier left alone. At least for now.

JACK ABBOT’S APARTMENT — NIGHT

The drive back to your apartment is quieter than the nightclub. The city has settled into that strange hour between night and morning, when the roads are mostly empty, and the traffic lights seem to change for no one. Rain taps softly against the windshield as Jack drives, one hand on the wheel, the other resting near the gearshift. You are attempting to stay awake. Attempting being the important word here. Every few minutes, your head tips toward the window before jerking upright again.

Jack notices every single time, "You can sleep."

"I'm not sleeping."

"You were asleep thirty seconds ago."

"I was thinking."

"You were drooling."

You gasp in offense, and Jack doesn't even look at you as he commands, "Go to sleep."

"You're mean." A laugh escapes him at your comment. He realizes that he’s been doing it a lot when he’s around you.

By the time you arrive at your apartment, you’re humming a song, trying to stay awake. Then Jack pats his pocket, and freezes when he realizes, "...Shit."

You blink, "What?" He closes his eyes, "I forgot your spare key." You stare, then immediately start laughing.

Jack groans, "Oh my God."

"You drove all the way there."

“Don’t.”

"You forgot the whole reason you picked me up."

"Don't." 

Your laughter gets worse, and for the first time in years, Jack lets out a full belly laugh too. He begins to drive to his apartment, and since it’s late, he offers for you to crash at his place. 

By the time he pulls into his apartment complex, you're visibly losing the fight against exhaustion and alcohol—mostly alcohol. The second you step through the front door, you kick your heels off exaggeratedly. One lands near the couch, and the other somehow ends up halfway down the hallway. Jack silently watches this happen. Then watches you attempt to unbuckle whatever complicated contraption is keeping your outfit together. "Okay," he says immediately.

"What?"

"Maybe let's not do that."

You frown at him, "Why?"

Because you're drunk—very drunk, and apparently completely unaware that you're standing in the middle of his apartment trying to peel yourself out of an outfit that has occupied far too much of his attention already. Jack suddenly finds the ceiling fascinating, the wall too. Actually, maybe the floor. Anywhere except you.

"Because," he says carefully, "you need pajamas."

"Oh." You consider this, then nod solemnly. "Pajamas are smart."

"Thank you."

"I am smart."

"You are." He nods, and you point at him, "I knew you'd agree."

Jack presses his lips together. God help him. Somehow, over the years, you've become one of his favorite people. A few minutes later, after much negotiation and several failed attempts to convince you that sleeping in sequins is a terrible idea, Jack disappears into his bedroom closet. He returns holding an old Army shirt—worn soft with age, the fabric faded from years of washing, along with a pair of boxers. You stare, then grin. "These yours?" Jack immediately regrets everything, "Yes."

"Cool."

Then, before he can stop you—you start changing.

"Jesus Christ."

You blink, "What?"

Jack is staring firmly at the opposite wall. "You could've warned me."

"Why?"

Because you're still drunk enough that embarrassment hasn't caught up with you yet. Meanwhile, Jack is discovering entirely new levels of self-control.

"Bathroom," he says.

"Right." You pause, then gesture wildly. "The bathroom."

"Correct."

Five minutes later, you emerge wearing the oversized shirt. The hem brushes your thighs while sleeves hang past your hands. The sight nearly kills him, because you look comfortable—like you belong here. Which is a thought he immediately shoves into a locked box and throws into the ocean. Nope. Not touching that. Absolutely not. That’s reserved for a future therapy session. Boy, is his therapist going to love that.

"Sit."

You immediately sit on the edge of his bed.

"Drink."

You obediently accept the water bottle, and Jack blinks, "That's new."

"What?"

"You listened."

You point at him, "You're bossy."

"Drink the water."

You drink the water, then he hands you a spare toothbrush and makes sure you actually use it. Then spends several minutes making certain you don't accidentally fall asleep face-first into the sink. By the time he's satisfied you're hydrated and functional enough not to accidentally die overnight, you're sitting cross-legged on the edge of his bed, wrapped in one of his old shirts and looking increasingly sleepy.

You dig through your purse. "There are makeup wipes in here."

Jack pauses, asks, "You carry those around?"

"My eyeliner smudges." You shrug. "My mascara too."

Jack shakes his head, "Prepared for everything."

"It's literally why we carry purses."

"Pretty sure that's not why."

"It absolutely is."

He finds the packet eventually and pulls one free, then gestures to you, "Come here." You blink, dazed, "What?"

"Your mascara's halfway down your face."

Well, that’s fucking mortifying—immediately you cover your face, "Oh my God." Jack laughs softly; the sound is low and warm. "You're fine."

"No, I'm not."

"You really are."

Gently, he pulls your hand away and carefully brushes the wipe across your cheek. His touch is light, patient, and unhurried. The same hands that place chest tubes and suture wounds and perform procedures under pressure somehow become impossibly gentle. They always do around people he cares about. You go strangely still, and the room suddenly feels too quiet and small. Jack is close enough that the details become impossible to ignore. The silver was woven through his hair. The exhaustion that never quite leaves his eyes. The traces of loss he carries with him even now. And still, despite all of it—or maybe because of it—he remains devastatingly, painfully beautiful.

"You've done this before." The words leave your mouth before you can stop them.

Jack's hand stills briefly, then resumes. "Mmm." His voice is soft, a little distant. "She hated taking her makeup off."

The ache arrives instantly—it’s deep and familiar.

"She'd fall asleep on the couch." A small smile touches his mouth. "Every time." His gaze drops to the wipe in his hand, "Eventually, it was easier to do it myself."

A tender silence settles over the room, and suddenly your eyes sting. Because even now—all these years later—he still misses her. Of course he does, he always will.

"Jack." He looks up, and you swallow hard. "I'm sorry." 

His hand pauses, and he asks, "For what?"

Your throat tightens painfully, "I know you miss her." The words come out small, but completely honest, and are barely above a whisper. Jack looks at you, and what he sees nearly unravels him. Because you're crying for him—not for yourself, or because you're drunk. You're crying because his pain hurts you. Because somehow you've always carried pieces of everyone else's heartbreak as if it belongs to you too.

A tear slips down your cheek, and before you can wipe it away, Jack reaches up, his thumb tenderly brushes gently across your skin.

The touch lingers slightly.

"Hey." His voice is impossibly soft, "Don't cry, honey."

The endearment slips out before he can stop it. The second it does, the room changes. Your breath catches, and Jack freezes. Neither of you moves. For one suspended second, the entire world narrows to that single point of contact. His hand against your cheek, your eyes locked on his. The silence between you is suddenly filled with things neither of you knows how to say. Then Jack does the only thing he can think of—he opens his arms, and you go willingly. The hug is immediate, warm, and safe. Your forehead presses against his shoulder, and his strong arms wrap around you while you melt into him without hesitation. Trusting him completely, the way you always have. Fuck—that might be the most dangerous thing of all. For a moment, neither of you lets go, because none of you wants to. Jack can feel your heartbeat through the thin cotton of his shirt and feel your breathing gradually slowing. He can feel himself becoming far too aware of how perfectly you fit against him.

He closes his eyes for a second.

A mistake.

Because the truth waits for him there—the truth that somewhere along the way, you stopped being just his friend and just his favorite nurse. Stopped being just the person he trusted most and became something he doesn't know what to do with.

Eventually, your breathing evens out. Then slows….then slows again. Jack glances down and realizes you've fallen asleep curled against him. Carefully, he shifts and lowers you onto the bed, pulls the blanket over you, and tucks it beneath your shoulder. The motion is automatic, and for a moment, guilt rises sharp and sudden. Not because you remind him of his late wife. You don't, and you never have. You never will. But somehow that realization doesn't hurt. It simply feels true. You are different—entirely your own person. Entirely your own place in his life. Jack stands there for a long moment, watching you sleep peacefully. Then quietly, he reaches for his crutches resting beside the nightstand.

The apartment is dark now, silent, as he pauses at the doorway, looks back one last time, at you sleeping in his bed. Wrapped in his shirt, breathing softly against his pillow, and despite every effort not to—Jack smiles. Then he switches off the light and heads toward the couch. Completely unaware that he's already fallen far deeper than he ever intended to.

JACK ABBOT'S APARTMENT — MORNING

The first thing you notice when you wake up is that you're comfortable. Suspiciously comfortable. Wrapped in sheets that smell faintly of clean laundry and something familiar you can't quite place. For a few blissful seconds, you remain exactly where you are, half-buried beneath the blankets, eyes still closed. Then your brain starts working slowly… like an old computer booting up. Your mouth is dry, your head hurts, and you have absolutely no idea where the hell you are.

You crack one eye open, and a ceiling you don't recognize stares back. Your stomach immediately drops. "Oh no."

Then the memories start returning. The nightclub, losing your keys, calling Jack… Jack picking you up. The drive to his apartment, the makeup wipes, and the hug. Oh God. The hug.

Your eyes fly open, fully awake now. Mortification floods your entire body with terrifying speed. "No, no, no, no..." 

You immediately bury your face in your hands. Maybe if you stay here long enough, you'll evaporate, and the earth will open up and swallow you whole. Maybe cardiac arrest—you'd accept cardiac arrest. Slowly, you peek out from between your fingers, and a glass of water sits on the nightstand. Beside it is a bottle of ibuprofen and a neatly folded note in Jack's handwriting.

Drink water before standing up.

Your heart does something deeply unhelpful as you groan, "Oh, my God."

Because that's such a Jack thing to do, he’s practical, thoughtful, and annoyingly sweet. You whimper and flop backward onto the pillow.

Unfortunately, reality remains—and reality is that you are currently in Jack Abbot's bed. His bed—his actual bed, the place where he sleeps. The place where—You immediately shove that thought into a dumpster and set it on fire. Nope. Absolutely not. Not going there.

You drag yourself upright before your imagination can make things worse. The oversized Army shirt hanging off your shoulders shifts as you move. Your eyes immediately drop. Jack's shirt. You are wearing Jack's shirt. You consider throwing yourself out of the nearest window.

The bathroom is somehow worse. Because now you're sober, fully sober. Which means you remember everything… mostly. You splash cold water onto your face repeatedly. Trying to wash away the embarrassment and the memory of crying. The image of him calling you honey and you falling asleep against him.

"Oh, I'm never recovering from this." You groan into the sink before you force yourself to look in the mirror. You survive trauma shifts and twelve-hour nights. You went through fucking COVID. So… you can survive breakfast. Probably.

After one final pep talk that accomplishes absolutely nothing, you step out of the bathroom and immediately stop. A framed photograph sits atop the dresser, Jack and his wife, both smiling. The picture looks old, well-loved, the edges slightly worn. Guilt arrives like a punch to the ribs. Because no matter how much time has passed, she's still here. In photographs, memories, and the quiet spaces, he doesn't talk about. You stare at the picture for a moment longer, then look away. The guilt lingers anyway.

The smell hits you before you reach the living room. Coffee, eggs, and toast, along with something frying in a pan. Your stomach growls traitorously, then you turn the corner, and nearly walk directly into a wall. Because Jack is standing at the stove, shirtless. You stop functioning completely. Gone. No thoughts. Head empty. Just panic. Because somehow, in all the years you've known him, you've never actually seen him like this.

At work, he's always covered by scrubs, layers, a jacket, and PPE. Now—now he's standing barefoot in his kitchen wearing nothing but athletic shorts and his prosthetic. Morning sunlight spills through the apartment windows. Across broad shoulders, freckled skin, and muscle earned through years of physical therapy, stubbornness, and sheer determination. The prosthetic is already attached as part of him, as familiar and unremarkable as breathing. You know the story and what happened, and understand now the work it takes to live with it.

Still—seeing him outside the hospital feels strangely intimate, and very human. Your jaw nearly hits the floor as Jack turns. He immediately catches your expression, and to his eternal satisfaction, you look horrified. Not by him, but by being caught staring. His mouth twitches, "Morning."

You blink once, then twice, and you begin rapidly looking anywhere else.

"Morning." Your voice cracks. Well, that’s spectacular. Jack's eyebrow rises, "Rough landing?" You clear your throat. "Oh, absolutely."

His smile grows slightly. "There are worse hangovers."

"Don't."

"You called me at midnight because you lost your keys."

"Jack."

"You accused the floor of moving."

"Jack."

"You tried to negotiate with a coat rack."

Your eyes widen as you sputter, "I did not."

"You absolutely did."

"Oh my fucking God."

Jack laughs—there it is again, a little lighter than it used to be. "Come eat." You hesitate, still standing awkwardly in his shirt, and painfully aware you're in his apartment—his space. Then Jack glances over his shoulder, "You need food before your headache gets worse."

There it is. His doctor voice—the one that brooks absolutely no argument. You sigh dramatically and obey. Because apparently that's become a habit. Jack places a plate in front of you. Eggs, toast, fruit, and a giant glass of water.

You stare, and then at him, then back at the plate, "You made breakfast."

"You sound surprised."

"You made breakfast."

"You were hungover." You blink because he says it so simply, as if taking care of you is the most natural thing in the world, and maybe that's what gets you. It's how easy it seems for him—the quiet way he shows up. Again, and again. So instead of saying any of that, you pick up a piece of toast. "Thanks." Jack glances up from his coffee, his expression softening almost imperceptibly. "Anytime, Lifeline."

You lower your gaze quickly and focus on your breakfast instead. Unfortunately, that only makes things worse because now you're sitting at Jack's dining table, in Jack's apartment—wearing Jack's shirt.

Eating breakfast, he made for you. The domesticity of it settles wrong inside your conscience. Not because you or him have done anything wrong. But because it feels like you're standing in a place that once belonged to someone else. Your eyes drift toward the bookshelf across the room. A framed photograph sits among the books, showing Jack and his late wife. They’re smiling and happy.

The familiar guilt immediately curls around your throat. You look away, and your appetite suddenly harder to find. Jack notices and asks, "You okay?"

You force a smile, "Mhm." Jack raises an eyebrow. The same look he gives patients who claim their pain is a three out of ten while actively dying. "Lifeline."

You sigh at being caught, again. "It's stupid."

"If you're saying that, it probably isn't."

The concern in his voice makes the guilt worse. You stare down at your plate, picking apart a piece of toast. "You've done so much for me."

Jack frowns immediately, "Okay."

"And I kind of crashed into your life last night." 

His confusion visibly increases as he points out the obvious, "You lost your keys."

"I know."

"You called me."

"I know."

Jack waits as you groan softly because this sounds ridiculous out loud. "It just feels like I'm imposing."

Jack's expression softens as he says, "Lifeline." You hate it when he says your nickname like that—as if he's trying to talk you down from something.

"You are not imposing."

You look away, stubbornly mutter, "Still."

"No." His answer comes immediately.

You glance up, and Jack is looking directly at you now. Completely serious. "You called because you needed help. That's what people do."

"But—"

"It's not a burden."

You open your mouth; however, Jack cuts you off again. "You would've done the same thing for me."

And unfortunately—he's right. You would've, without hesitation. At three in the morning, or in the middle of a thunderstorm. Without a second thought.

Jack sees the realization cross your face. A faint smile touches the corner of his mouth.

"Exactly."

You look back down at your plate, suddenly embarrassed. Because he's making it sound so simple. Meanwhile, your brain is spiraling. You risk a glance upward and immediately regret it. Because Jack is leaning against the counter. Coffee mug in hand. Morning sunlight spilling through the kitchen windows behind him. Now that you're sober, you're trying very hard not to notice things. Like the freckles scattered across his shoulders. Or the way years of physical therapy and hospital shifts have built quiet strength into him. Maybe the fact that he looks unfairly good for someone standing barefoot in his kitchen at eight in the morning. Your eyes immediately dart back to your eggs because you’re a coward.

"So." Jack takes another sip of coffee. The amusement in his voice is impossible to miss. "You gonna keep staring at your breakfast like it’s inedible?"

You nearly choke, "What?"

"The eggs."

"Oh." Your face feels suspiciously warm. "They're intimidating."

Jack stares at you, then laughs.

Somehow and somewhere along the way, Jack stopped being your soulmate, the impossible person at the end of a red string, and became Jack. The man who remembers your coffee order, and the one who checked on you when you had COVID, who keeps spare electrolyte packets in his kitchen because he knows you're terrible at taking care of yourself. The man who made you breakfast because you were hungover, and the man who still loves his wife. The guilt returns instantly. You glance toward the photograph again. Jack follows your gaze this time. His expression changes subtly. The smile faded into something quieter, more thoughtful. Neither of you says anything for a moment. The apartment settles into a small, comfortable, sad silence. The kind that comes from old grief that never fully disappears. Finally, you clear your throat. "I'm sorry."

Jack immediately looks confused. "For what?" You gesture vaguely around the apartment. "Sleeping in your room." His expression somehow becomes even more confused. "Lifeline."

"I'm serious."

"Why?"

You stare at him, "Because it's your room."

"Correct."

"And your bed."

"Also correct."

You narrow your eyes because Jack is enjoying this. The asshole. "Jack."

"What?"

"I feel bad."

His expression softens immediately into a quiet gentleness. "It's fine." He replied. You shake your head, "But—"

"No." His voice is calm. "I wasn't going to wake you up so you could sleep on the couch." You open your mouth. Close it. Open it again. You try to rebut, "But—" Jack points toward your coffee, "You would've fallen asleep sitting upright."

"That's not true."

"It absolutely is."

"It happened one time."

"It happened three times."

"Allegedly."

Jack laughs into his coffee, and for a moment, just a moment, the guilt eases. Because he's looking at you like you're welcome here. As if your presence isn't an intrusion or that helping you wasn't an obligation. It was just something he wanted to do. That realization follows you for the rest of breakfast. Maybe that's why loving him has always felt so dangerous. It's the spare apartment key he keeps on his keyring. The electrolyte packets in his kitchen because he knows you're terrible at remembering to drink water. The bottle of ibuprofen is waiting on the nightstand before you even wake up. The way he remembers—he doesn't even realize he's doing it.

Eventually, breakfast ends, and you help carry plates to the sink despite Jack's protests. "I'm perfectly capable of washing a plate."

"I know."

"You sounded doubtful."

"I wasn't."

"You were."

Jack rolls his eyes, and you grin.

For a moment, it feels normal. As if this is something the two of you do all the time. Then Jack glances toward the hallway. "I should shower."

Your eyes immediately dart away.

Why are you suddenly embarrassed? You've seen this man covered in blood during trauma activations, and somehow, showering is what's awkward.

"Okay." Jack nods, then pauses, a small frown appearing. "You don't have clothes."

You blink, "Oh." You hadn't actually thought that far ahead. Your club outfit is currently somewhere in the apartment and likely smells like spilled alcohol, perfume, and poor decisions.

Jack disappears down the hallway before you can offer a solution. A moment later he returns carrying a pair of gray sweatpants and another shirt. You immediately recognize the Army logo faded across the front. "Here."

You stare at him, then back at the clothes. "I can't take your clothes."

"You're already wearing my clothes." Unfortunately, he has a point. You glance down at the oversized shirt hanging off your shoulders. Jack's mouth twitches, "The sweats have a drawstring."

"Oh, good."

"They should fit."

"Should?"

"Mostly." You narrow your eyes, but Jack looks entirely unapologetic. "You can keep the shirt." Your heart immediately forgets how to function, breathless, "What?" Jack casually shrugs, "It's old." You can’t fucking breathe, so you settle for, "Oh."

The thought of keeping it, taking it home, and sleeping in it. Smelling his laundry detergent every time you wear it is incredibly intimate. "Thanks."

Across his expression is as soft as his response,  "You're welcome." Then he gestures toward the hallway. "I'm gonna shower."

You nod, "Okay."

"The shower chair's in my bathroom, so I'll be in there awhile." The statement is matter-of-fact and unremarkable. The same way he always talks about it. Not because it doesn't matter. But because Jack long ago learned there was no point treating every accommodation like a tragedy. It's simply part of his life—part of him. You nod again, "Take your time."

Jack studies you for a second; he's checking for lingering hangover symptoms. Then apparently decides you'll survive. "I'll drive you home after."

"Sounds good." You agree. There’s a pause before Jack says, "Try not to break anything while I'm gone." Your gasp is immediate, "Rude."

"I know you."

"You wound me."

Jack laughs, then walks down the hallway. A few moments later, you hear the bathroom door close. The apartment becomes quiet—the one that only exists in the homes of people who live alone. You wander slowly—absolutely not snooping. You were observing, there's a difference. The apartment itself feels like Jack. Comfortable, practical, and unpretentious. Bookshelves line one wall of the living room. Medical textbooks, military history, and novels with dog-eared pages. A few framed photographs scattered throughout the apartment—friends, coworkers, and people who matter.

You pause near one shelf. A photograph sits there. Jack and his late wife, when they were younger, were laughing. The picture caught in the middle of a moment rather than a pose. She has her head tipped toward him, and Jack is looking at her like she hung the moon.

Your stomach lurches. Because even now—years later—she still belongs here. Of course she does. This was their home, their life. You gently set the frame back exactly where you found it. Suddenly feeling like an intruder again, your gaze drifts around the apartment. There are signs of her everywhere if you know where to look. It isn’t overwhelming or frozen in time. There’s a photograph, a ceramic mug, and a framed postcard tucked between books. Evidence that she existed, and you hate yourself a little. Because standing here, wrapped in Jack's clothes, waiting for him to finish showering, part of you wishes things were different. Part of you wishes you weren't standing in the aftermath of someone else's great love story. The guilt settles heavily, along with the red string hidden beneath your sleeve. You glance toward the hallway, and the sound of running water. Toward the man you've loved for years. Because no matter how badly you want him—you've never wanted to replace her. Not for a second. Never. You just...wanted him to be happy, even if it was never with you.

The drive back to your apartment is quiet, but not uncomfortable. You sit curled into the passenger seat, your folded dress resting on your lap alongside your heels. The sleeves of Jack's old Army shirt hang past your wrists, and the sweatpants are too big with the drawstring pulled tight enough to keep them from falling. You feel ridiculous, like a child playing dress-up. Outside the window, Pittsburgh drifts by in shades of gray. You keep your eyes fixed on it. Because every time you glance at Jack, your heart hurts. Especially after last night… the makeup wipes, the hug, his hand on your face, honey. You don't trust yourself anymore, not even a little. Beside you, Jack steals another glance. You're unusually quiet, and that alone is enough to make him nervous. Normally, even hungover, you'd be talking, making terrible jokes, or complaining about your headache.

Instead, you're staring out the window like you're already somewhere else. His fingers tighten slightly on the steering wheel as he asks, "You okay?" You nod immediately, humming, "Mhm."

A lie that Jack recognizes instantly, but he lets it go for now. When he finally pulls up in front of your apartment building, neither of you moves immediately. The truck idles softly as silence stretches, then you suddenly unbuckle. Before Jack can process what's happening, you lean across the center console and wrap your arms around him. The hug catches him completely off guard, and for a moment, he freezes. Then instinct takes over. His arms come around you automatically. Your face presses briefly against his shoulder. Jack's heart does something strange and painful. Because it feels like goodbye, and he has absolutely no idea why.

"Hey." His voice comes out softer than intended. You squeeze him once before you let go, because if you hold on any longer, you won't be able to leave.

"Thanks," you whisper. Your eyes sting immediately, but you force a smile anyway. "For everything." The words shouldn't sound final, but they do. "Anytime, honey." The endearment slips out effortlessly and naturally now. Neither of you acknowledges it. Jack studies your face, trying to figure out what's wrong, to understand why you suddenly look like you're trying not to cry. So he asks carefully, "I'll see you later at work, yeah?"

Your throat tightens while you nod. "Mhm." It's not technically a lie. The second you step out of the truck, you don't look back. You can't. Because if you do, you'll stay. So you practically run inside your apartment building.

Leaving Jack staring after you, confused, worried, and somehow strangely unsettled.

PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — DAY

Dana and Lena listen quietly. The three of you sit in an empty conference room before shift change. You make it approximately halfway through your explanation before you start crying. Not graceful tears, pretty tears, but the ugly kind. The tears you've spent years swallowing, "I'm sorry."

Dana immediately reaches for you, "Hey." You shake your head, "I'm sorry."

"Hon." Dana rubs circles against your back, her voice gentle, maternal. "Why are you apologizing?" You laugh through your tears because the answer feels obvious and impossible. "Because I'm in love with him."

The room falls silent as Lena and Dana exchange a glance. A look. One that says they already knew. Everyone always knows except the people involved. "It's just for a little while," you whisper while you wipe furiously at your face. "I just need some space." Dana's expression softens. She asks, "And what about your heart?"

That's the problem, isn't it? Your heart—your stupid, stubborn heart. You stare down at your hands, "Until it relearns how to stop beating for him." Then quietly you hear Lena ask,  "So you're not gonna tell him?" You shake your head immediately, "I can't."

Because how do you tell someone that you've been tethered to them for seven years? That you've loved them through a marriage, grief, and loss. Through healing. How do you tell someone that? Especially when he never chose you. So you don't.

THREE DAYS LATER…

PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — NIGHT

Three days later, Jack notices immediately, the second he walks into the ED, you're gone. No coffee sitting beside your workstation and sarcastic comments from Central—there’s no you. He finds Lena first and asks, "Where is she?" Lena doesn't even look up from her charting, "Where's who?” Jack stares, "Lifeline."

"Oh." She clicks something on her computer. "Day shift." His stomach drops, "What?"

"She switched."

"When?" Lena shrugs at him, "A few days ago." 

Jack blinks slowly. "Why?"

"Ask Dana." Suddenly, Lena becomes very interested in her chart.

A week passes, then two, and Jack begins losing his mind. Because you are avoiding him, deliberately and aggressively. You leave before he arrives, or arrive before he leaves. You disappear down hallways and take lunch at different times. Find literally any excuse not to be alone with him. The few times he manages to catch sight of you—you smile and wave.

Then vanish again, like smoke, as if you're afraid of him, and that hurts. Because Jack keeps replaying that night. The club, his apartment, the hug, and the morning after. What did he miss? What did he do? Did he cross a line? Did he make you uncomfortable? Did he somehow ruin the one friendship he can't bear to lose? Every answer leads nowhere, and every day you drift a little farther away. Three weeks later, during shift change, Jack finally spots you. Walking quickly through the corridor, badge swinging from the clip of your scrub pocket, and iced coffee in hand.

He immediately changes direction. "Lifeline." You freeze for a second, then keep walking. Fuck. Jack follows and calls after you, "Lifeline." Your pace somehow gets faster, and now he's genuinely irritated and hurt. "Hey."

Finally, you stop, turning around, with a careful smile already in place, too careful. But not him, never him, not until now. "Hi, Jack." The distance between you feels enormous as he asks, "What is going on?" Nothing. Everything. You force a shrug, "Nothing."

That’s bullshit, and Jack knows it's bullshit. You know he knows, but neither of you says it. Then somebody calls your name from down the hallway, and relief floods your face at escaping him. The realization dawns on him like a punch.

"I gotta go."

"Lifeline—"

"See you around." Then you're gone, again. Practically running.

That's when it happens—Jack stares after you, heart pounding, confused, angry, and hurt. Suddenly—pain flares around his wrist. It’s sharp and hot. He physically flinches, "What the—"

A red thread appears beneath his skin, bright and impossible, but all too real. Jack freezes as the world tilts. No. No. No. The string winds itself slowly around his wrist. As it has always belonged there, it was simply waiting.

His breath catches because he knows what it is; everybody knows what it is. His pulse begins hammering. The thread stretches down the hallway, past nurses, residents, and stretchers, straight toward—You. Jack stumbles, his hand slamming against the wall to keep himself upright as the hallway blurs and his vision tunnels.

No. No, that's impossible. His heart pounds so hard it hurts. The red string glows softly between his wrist and yours, unbroken. Years… all these years. Every conversation, every shift, every cup of coffee, and every moment. Every time you'd looked at him and then looked away, or when you'd disappeared when things became too close. All the times you'd chosen distance. The truth crashes into him all at once. You knew. Oh God. You knew, and somewhere down the hallway—completely unfazed—you kept walking.

While Jack stands frozen in place, one hand braced against the wall, staring at the impossible thread connecting him to the woman he's been desperately trying not to admit he's fallen in love with.

2025

6:00 PM

PTMC, CENTRAL WORK AREA — DAY

The emergency department shifts from busy to catastrophic in less than thirty seconds. One moment, people are charting the next—every television screen in the department lights up with breaking news.

There’s an active shooter at PittFest—mass casualty incident. Every healthcare worker in the room recognizes it instantly. The moment before impact… before disaster arrives.

"Hey, what's going on?" McKay asks.

Robby strides into Central, already moving and planning. Carrying the weight of what is coming. "Mass casualty at PittFest."

Samira looks up sharply, "How many victims?"

"We don't know." Robby's face is grim. "Expect the worst.” A terrible silence settles, while someone else immediately reaches for a phone. "Did the police find David?" McKay asks. Robby shakes his head, then raises his voice, "Okay, everybody, listen up."

Every head turns to pay attention to Robby.

"There is an active shooter at PittFest. As the nearest trauma center, we are going to be getting the majority of the victims." The room goes completely still. "We don't know yet how many we're getting, but we are instituting hospital-wide emergency protocols. We need to move every patient out of here. Either home, upstairs, or Family Medicine. Call your loved ones now if you need to."

Robby glances toward the windows, toward the city. Towards the disaster unfolding somewhere beyond it. "I can guarantee cell service will soon be overwhelmed. Eat something. Stay hydrated. Use the bathroom while there's time and meet back here for a full briefing in five minutes."

Then his gaze lands on someone entering through the ambulance bay doors, relief flashes across his face. 

"Brother." Robby exhales. "I'm so fucking glad to see you." Jack, carrying his backpack and wearing his black scrubs, briefly hugs Robby, "Heard it on the scanner."

Jack drops his bag onto a workstation. "How many are we expecting?"

"I don't know." Robby's expression darkens. "But it doesn't sound good."

After placing his things down, Jack looks up directly at you. The breath leaves your lungs. Already focused entirely on you.

Your stomach drops. Oh no. No. No. No. He knows. The realization slams into you so hard it feels physical. You don't know how or when. But something in his expression tells you immediately.

He knows about the string—your secret. The thing you've spent seven years burying. Your pulse begins hammering, and blood rushes up to your ears. Across Central, Jack doesn't look away; his jaw flexes, hard, angry. You know that look—you've seen it directed at negligent parents, reckless drivers, people who made choices that hurt others.

Five minutes. That's all you have before the briefing. Before the entire hospital erupts into chaos. Apparently five minutes is all Jack needs. The second he catches you alone, a hand closes firmly around your elbow. "Lifeline." You freeze, your heart immediately dropping into your stomach. "Jack—"

"We need to talk." The words come out low and controlled. He steers you toward an empty supply room. A narrow space lined with IV fluids and sterile procedure kits. The door swings shut behind you, and the silence is deafening.

You turn toward him, trying to keep your face neutral, and completely fall apart. "What's going on?" The question sounds pathetic even to your own ears. Jack stares, and for a moment, he says nothing. Which makes everything worse, because his eyes are furious.

Furious at being hurt and at being lied to. At realizing something important happened without him knowing. His jaw clenches, "You knew." Your vision immediately blurs, "Jack—"

"You knew." The repetition is softer, devastated. You feel your tears threatening already.

"Don't." Your voice cracks. "Don't look at me like that." Something flashes across his face—pain, but then anger returns to cover it. "So what was the plan?" His words come out sharp. 

"Jack—"

"What?" His voice rises, years of confusion finally boiling over. "What were you doing?"

You flinch, and Jack immediately hates himself for it, but he can't stop, not now. "Were you just waiting?" The accusation hangs between you, ugly, unfair, and born entirely from hurt. "Were you waiting for your chance?"

Your eyes widen as the tears come instantly, and suddenly you're angry too. Years of restraint snap all at once.

"No." The word echoes off the walls. "No." You step toward him, furious, heartbroken, and shaking. 

"I buried it." Your voice breaks. "I buried every part of it." Jack freezes as you keep going, "You don't get to stand there and act like I wanted this." The tears are falling freely now. It’s hot and humiliating. "I buried every chance of loving you so deep I could barely breathe around it."

The room goes silent as Jack stares while you choke on the next words, because they're true, every single one. "I buried my wanting for you." Your voice cracks again. "And don't you dare accuse me of waiting." The anger disappears, leaving only raw, ancient grief. "You don't get to accuse me of that when I respected it."

Jack's face changes back to confusion and regret. But you're not finished, "I respected her." The words nearly destroy you while you wipe at your face, failing miserably. "I respected both of you."

A photograph flashes through your mind. Then she laughed in the department, bringing Jack lunch, loving him. Being loved by him, the woman you'd genuinely cared about. The woman who had never done anything except be kind to you.

"She was brilliant." You laugh bitterly as another tear slips free. "Beautiful. And I knew I'd never measure up."

Jack physically recoils, as if you'd struck him. "What?" The word comes out strangled. You look away because you can't bear seeing his face. "I know that."

"No." Pain flashes across his expression. "No, you don't." You laugh again, broken, "I do." Then quietly, you add, "The first time I saw the end of the string." Jack goes completely still at your admission.

"The first time I saw it unfinished." Your voice drops, barely above a whisper. "I knew I was going to lose you either way."

Silence—absolute silence. Jack feels like the floor has vanished beneath him, because suddenly, he understands. All those years, smiles, retreats, your careful boundaries. How you'd chosen distance instead of possibility. You weren't waiting. You were grieving the entire time.

The supply room door suddenly swings open, and Robby appears, already halfway through speaking. "Abbot, I need—"

Then he stops, immediately, because you're crying, and Jack looks wrecked. The tension in the room is thick enough to choke on.

"...Whoa." Robby looks between both of you a few times, then decides he absolutely does not want whatever this is. "What the hell is—"

You move first, past Robby and Jack. Past all of it. Your shoulder brushes the doorframe as you leave. You don't stop, and can’t look back. Because if you do, you'll fall apart. While Jack just stands there, watching you go, understanding too late. For the first time in seven years, understanding exactly how much it must have hurt. Then, somewhere outside the room—an overhead page sounds. The first ambulances are arriving, signaling that the mass casualty has begun. However, the conversation isn't over. Not even close.

7:00 PM

CENTRAL WORK AREA — NIGHT

All at once, the emergency department is already overflowing. Trauma bays filled, hallways lined with stretchers, and blood smeared across floors that Environmental Services doesn't have time to clean. The overhead speakers haven't stopped paging for nearly twenty minutes. Victims keep coming. Gunshot wounds, shrapnel injuries, and crush injuries from the stampede that followed.

The air feels thick with adrenaline and fear. Every single person in the department is running on instinct, training, and experience.

You haven't looked at Jack since the supply room, not really. You can feel him occasionally, like a gravitational force somewhere at the edge of your awareness. A pull you refuse to acknowledge. Every time your eyes accidentally find his across Central, you immediately look away. You don't have the luxury of falling apart right now, because people are dying, you know that, and so does Jack.

So, whatever happened between you has been shoved aside by necessity.

"Let's go!" Langdon's voice cuts through the noise. Another victim on a gurney in Central. Male, approximately late twenties, multiple injuries, semi-conscious, and blood soaking through his shirt. Samira immediately moves to the stretcher, "Who do you have?"

"Semi-conscious. Responds only to pain. Decent carotid."

"Strip him." Mateo reaches for trauma shears, and so does Tim, "Let's go." The team descends immediately, beginning to cut clothing, assessing injuries, checking his airway, and breathing. Everything is moving with practiced efficiency. Then—something feels wrong. You don't know why, it’s just a feeling. A prickling sensation along the back of your neck.

The patient suddenly jerks, and the nurses yelp. A hand disappears beneath the shredded remains of his shirt. Langdon freezes, then shouts. "Whoa!" Everything happens at once.

"Gun!" The word detonates through Central. "Gun! He's going for his gun!"

Every person in the room reacts instantly; some hit the floor, and others dive behind workstations. The patient somehow manages to yank a handgun free. His eyes are wild, disoriented, and terrified. The muzzle swings wildly across the room and lands directly toward Robby and Jack.

Time slows for you as you watch. Later, you'll never be able to explain why you moved, whether it was instinct, training, love… or something much darker. A part of you wonders if maybe you were simply tired—tired of carrying this, of loving him, maybe of being afraid. You never figure it out, because your body moves before your brain does.

One second, you're standing near Central, the next you're running.

The gun fires, and the sound is deafening. A violent crack that echoes through the department. For one suspended moment—nobody moves or breathes. Then pain explodes through you, white-hot, blinding.

You stagger as your knees immediately buckle while the floor rushes upward. Somewhere nearby, people are screaming while others are shouting for security. The world becomes noise, blurred shapes, blood—too much blood. Then, you hear Jack scream your name, and it tears straight out of him. Raw, animal, nothing like you've ever heard before. The resident beside him barely has time to react before Jack is already moving. He’s running—ignoring everyone and everything. None of it matters, not anymore. Because you're on the floor, and you're bleeding. Suddenly, the worst thing Jack has ever imagined is happening right in front of him.Again.

He drops to his knees beside you, not caring that his stump is aching, hands immediately searching, assessing, locating the wound, trying to stop the bleeding while SWAT restrains the man who shot you. His trauma training takes over automatically, even while the rest of him is breaking apart.

"Pressure!" Somebody throws him gauze, Jack slams it hard against the wound. Too much blood—so much fucking blood, and the sight makes his stomach turn. "No."

Your vision swims, and you can barely focus. But somehow—somehow—Jack is all you see. Always him, maybe it was always going to be him. His face is pale, terrified—more terrified than you've ever seen him, and somehow that hurts worse than the bullet.

You manage a weak laugh, and blood touches your lips. Jack immediately hates the sound, "Don't." Your eyes find his, and for the first time in years, you stop hiding. "It was painful."

Jack freezes, "Lifeline—"

"When you looked at me." Your voice trembles, blood continues soaking through the gauze. "When you smiled at me."

"No." His hands shake, just slightly, but you feel it. "When you believed in me." Tears blur your vision. "It hurt."

Jack's face completely crumples because now he understands all of it.

"It tore me apart." The words barely make it out, and an unfiltered sob escapes him. Because you're dying, and he just found you. He spent seven years standing beside you without seeing it. "No." His voice breaks. "No, no, no."

Someone is calling for Trauma One and bringing a stretcher. The department is moving around him. But Jack doesn't care, because the world has narrowed to you—only you.

"I just got you." The words rip from his throat, his eyes shine, desperate, furious, and every bit terrified. "I just got you." Your breath catches. You love him, you always will. So maybe—maybe honesty won't kill you now. "I love you."

Jack closes his eyes, as if the words physically hurt. You smile weakly, doubling down, "I love you, Jack Abbot."

Silence for a moment, then, firmly, "No." The answer comes instantly, violently, as if he's rejecting reality itself. "No." His forehead presses briefly against yours. "You're not doing this."

Tears slide down his face, but he doesn't even notice. "You hear me?" His voice cracks. "You're not doing this to me."

The stretcher arrives, and Robby appears, blood on his gloves. Panic hidden beneath professionalism. "Jack." Nothing… Jack doesn't move. "Jack." Still nothing.

"Abbot!" Finally, Jack looks up, and Robby immediately understands. Oh. Oh no. "We need Trauma One." Robby's voice softens. "Now."

Jack nods once, then helps lift you onto the stretcher himself. Refuses to let go or step away. He refuses to leave your side as they race down the hallway. Trauma One is already being prepared. Blood products, thoracotomy tray, massive transfusion protocol—Everything and anything. Whatever it takes.

Dana meets them at the door, and one look at Jack's face tells her everything, every awful piece of it. "Oh, honey." Jack doesn't even hear her; his eyes never leave you, not once. Dana steps close, careful. "Jack." No response from him, so she tries again, "You need to let them work."

His jaw tightens, "No."

"Jack."

"No." His voice breaks again. Because he knows—he knows exactly how bad this is. Knows every possible complication, terrible outcome, and statistic. Every nightmare, and he cannot survive another one. Not you, God, please, especially not after all this—after finally finding you.

The trauma team begins crowding around the bed. Voices overlap, orders fly, blood pressure dropping, airway concerns, surgical consult from Garcia, massive transfusion. Yet, Jack refuses to move, standing beside your stretcher, his hand wrapped around yours. As if letting go might somehow allow death to take you, or sheer stubbornness can keep you here.

As if love might finally be enough this time around.

PTMC, ICU — DAY

The surgery lasts hours—too many hours, long enough for the adrenaline to burn away, and for exhaustion to settle into everyone's bones. Long enough for Jack to memorize every crack in the ICU waiting room floor.

The bullet had done catastrophic damage. A through-and-through gunshot wound with massive internal bleeding. Multiple units of blood transfused. Emergency surgery. Complications halfway through that had nearly sent the entire operating room into a panic. At one point, Robby had physically forced Jack to sit down because he looked seconds away from collapsing. Jack couldn't remember most of it afterward, only fragments. Your blood on his hands. Your voice. I love you, Jack Abbot.

The terror of watching your blood pressure disappear from the monitor. The awful realization that he might lose you before he'd ever gotten the chance to tell you—I love you too. But somehow, you survive. The surgeons manage to stop the bleeding and repair the damage. They brought you back. It feels less like medicine and more like a miracle. 

Three days later, you're still asleep, intubated, and hooked to enough machines to make the room hum softly around you. But you're alive, and right now, that's enough.

Jack hasn't left at all. Dana, Robby, Lena, and even Whitaker—all of them fail. Because every time someone tells him to go home, he looks at you lying in that hospital bed and refuses. The man is impossible when he decides on something, and he decided he was staying.

So he stays, wearing scrubs more often than not. Surviving almost entirely on hospital coffee and vending machine food, and sleeping in the uncomfortable chair beside your bed. If you could see him, you'd probably yell at him. Tell him he's being ridiculous, and that he should shower. To stop looking like a man who personally lost a fight against a tornado. Unfortunately, you're unconscious, which means nobody can stop him.

The red string remains, that impossible thread winding around his wrist before disappearing into yours, completely visible now. Neither of you is hiding anymore. Sometimes Jack simply stares at it, as if he's afraid it'll disappear—a chance he'll wake up and discover this was some cruel fever dream. Because for years he believed he'd had his soulmate, then he lost her. And now—now the universe has somehow handed him another sacred thing. A second chance he never expected. One he's terrified of losing before it even begins.

The ICU room is quiet that afternoon as sunlight spills through the window. Your face is pale against the white pillow. Your hair is messy, and there's bruising along your neck from procedures, tape securing lines, and dressings. Evidence of how close death came for you. Jack reaches forward, his fingers brushing gently through your hair. The movement reverent, as if touching something precious. Something fragile and almost lost.

His thumb traces softly across your cheek. "You scared the hell out of me." His voice is rough, sleep-deprived, and broken around the edges. You don't answer, but that never stops him.

The door opens quietly as Robby steps inside, coffee in one hand and concern written all over his face. He pauses immediately, taking in the scene. Jack slumped beside your bed, wearing his scrubs, faintly stained with blood—your blood. His hand wrapped around yours, and the red string was visible between them. For a moment, Robby says nothing, simply watches. Understanding settling over him piece by piece. Then finally, he asks, "How's she doing?"

Jack glances up. His eyes are bloodshot and exhausted. "Stable." The word comes out cautious. Because saying it too loudly might somehow jinx everything.

Robby nods, steps closer, looking down at you, at the monitors, then at Jack. A realization flickers across his face. "Is she also..." His voice softens. "...your soulmate?"

The question hangs quietly between them, and Jack's gaze immediately drops to your hand. To the red thread wrapped around both wrists. He can't speak for a little while, then he nods once. 

"I think so." The words sound ridiculous even now. "I didn't think..." His voice catches as he looks down at you. At the woman he'd spent seven years loving without understanding why it felt different. Not understanding why losing your friendship hurt more than it should, or why seeing you happy mattered so much. Why he'd kept showing up, again and again. "I didn't think it was possible."

The rRobby remains silent, letting him continue as Jack swallows. "I didn't think it would happen to me." The confession comes out almost embarrassed—he's admitting something shameful. Robby exhales slowly, nods. "There've been a few reports."

Jack glances up.

"A few studies." Robby shrugs. "The theory is that some soulmate bonds don't form immediately." His eyes drift toward the red string, toward your intertwined hands. "Sometimes they form after loss."

The room falls quiet, neither of them says the obvious thing. That his late had been Jack's soulmate too, and loving her had been real, complete, and true. That none of this erased her.

Jack looks back at your sleeping face, the rise and fall of your chest, and the steady rhythm on the monitor. Alive and still here. His fingers slide gently through your hair again, careful not to disturb anything, as his hand cups your cheek. The gesture impossibly tender. Robby immediately looks away, because some moments aren't meant for witnesses.

Jack leans forward, pressing a kiss against your forehead, lingering there for a second, eyes closed and relieved. Terrified and very in love. When he finally pulls back, his thumb brushes across your skin. And for the first time since the shooting, a small smile appears. Fragile, hopeful, like he's allowing himself to believe it. Just a little.

"Come back to me, Lifeline." His voice is barely above a whisper. The red string glows softly between your wrists, and Jack squeezes your hand gently, as if you're already listening. As if somewhere beneath the machines and medications and healing wounds, you can hear him. Maybe, for the first time in a very long time, he isn't asking fate for anything. He's only asking for you.

PTMC, ICU — DAY

The first thing you become aware of is discomfort, not pain, well, not yet anyway, just wrongness. A strange pressure lodged in your throat—something foreign. Your eyelids feel impossibly heavy, as if someone glued them shut. The effort required to open them feels monumental. Slowly, painstakingly—you manage it, and the world arrives in fragments. White ceiling, muted sunlight, the rhythmic beeping of monitors, and the steady hiss of oxygen.

A hospital room—your hospital room, and immediately your nursing brain starts putting pieces together. ICU, you're in the ICU, which means—Oh. Oh no, the shooting. Memory crashes back all at once: the gun, Jack, blood, Trauma One. I love you, Jack Abbot.

Your eyes widen immediately as panic flares. Because there is definitely a tube down your throat, a ventilator tube, and suddenly every survival instinct in your body starts screaming. You try to move—a mistake, as pain explodes through your abdomen. Pain that says somebody has spent several hours trying very hard to keep you alive. A strangled sound leaves you; your heart monitor immediately speeds up.

Then you feel it, a hand, wrapped around yours. You turn your head, slowly, and there he is… Jack. Curled awkwardly in the chair beside your bed, wearing his black scrubs, asleep. His head was resting against folded arms near your mattress, one hand tangled with yours, the red string winding quietly between your wrists. For a moment, you just stare because he looks awful. His curls are a mess, dark circles shadow his eyes, his jaw is covered in stubble, his scrubs are wrinkled because he hasn't slept properly in days, and he hasn't left. This whole time, he stayed. Your fingers twitch, weakly, barely enough movement to count. Then you squeeze his hand.

Jack jerks awake instantly, years of emergency medicine, and years of sleeping lightly. His head snaps upward, disoriented and confused. Then his eyes land on yours, and the entire world stops. For a moment, he doesn't move or breathe. Doesn't seem capable of either. He just stares, afraid you're another dream, or another hallucination born from exhaustion.

"Hey." The word comes out rough, barely audible, and your eyes immediately fill with tears. Because he's crying, relief floods his face so quickly it looks painful. His hand tightens around yours.

"My Lifeline." His voice cracks completely, and suddenly, tears are sliding down his cheeks, unashamed. Jack laughs once, a choked sound halfway between a sob and a prayer. "Oh, my God."

You try to answer, then immediately regret it, because the tube is still there. Panic spikes again. 

Jack notices instantly, "Hey." His hand cups the side of your face, gentle and grounding.  "Hey, hey." His thumb brushes your cheek, "You're okay." Your breathing becomes faster, the ventilator alarms immediately begin protesting. "You're okay." Jack is already reaching for the call button, never taking his eyes off you. "You're okay."

Within seconds, the room fills with people. Garcia arrives first. Followed by respiratory therapy, a nurse, and half the ICU, apparently. "Well, look at that." Garcia's grin is immediate. "About time." 

You want to roll your eyes, but unfortunately, you still have a breathing tube. The respiratory therapist immediately begins assessing and following commands. Checking your neurological status. Making sure you're strong enough for extubation. You squeeze hands, follow fingers with your eyes, nod appropriately. All while Jack hovers nearby. Trying desperately not to interfere, and failing miserably.

"She's ready." The therapist glances toward Garcia, and then Garcia nods. "Let's do it."

Jack immediately moves closer, instinctively. Like he physically cannot help himself. The ventilator disconnects, the securing device is removed, and the respiratory therapist gives instructions. You barely hear any of them; your entire focus is on the tube. Then—it's out. Immediately, you cough violently because your throat burns. Every breath feels strange and uncomfortable, but you're breathing on your own.

Jack is already helping support you upright, one arm behind your shoulders, the other holding a cup with ice chips. "Easy." His voice is impossibly soft. "Slow down."

You cough again, eyes watering. Jack looks ready to fight somebody on your behalf. Possibly the tube or the entire ICU. Eventually, the coughing settles enough for you to breathe comfortably, and the monitors stabilize, everyone visibly relaxing.

Garcia steps forward, professional mode fully activated. "Okay. The surgery went well." She begins carefully. "You sustained a gunshot wound to the abdomen." Jack's jaw tightens visibly as she continues,  "There was significant internal bleeding." Garcia continues. "We had to perform an emergency exploratory laparotomy."

Your nurse brain immediately fills in blanks, searching for damage, complications, and probabilities. Garcia notices this and says, "We repaired injuries to your small bowel and controlled several bleeding vessels."

Your stomach drops. 

Jesus.

"You required multiple transfusions." Garcia continues. "But you're stable now."

Stable—the most beautiful word in medicine. You glance toward Jack; he's staring at the floor, hearing the details physically hurts. Garcia notices that, too, a tiny smile appears. One that says she understands far more than she's commenting on.

"Recovery's going to suck." You manage a weak laugh; the sound comes out raspy. Garcia points immediately. "There she is. Don't make me regret taking that tube out."

For the first time since waking, you actually smile. Garcia gathers her chart and steps toward the door, then pauses, looking between you. Then Jack, the red string, then back again.

"Oh." A knowing expression crosses her face. "Right."

Jack immediately looks uncomfortable, which is almost impressive considering everything that's happened.

Garcia grins. "Try not to stress her out." Then she points at you. "And try not to get shot again."

The door closes behind her, and the room suddenly feels much quieter. Much smaller and more intimate. Silence settles; neither of you quite knows what to say. Because there are too many things, seven years' worth.

Jack remains seated beside the bed, his hand never leaving yours, not once. He's afraid the second he lets go, you'll disappear again.

Your throat hurts—everything hurts, but somehow none of it matters right now. Because Jack is looking at you, really looking at you, and there are tears still caught in his eyelashes. Evidence of how terrified he'd been, your fingers tighten weakly around his. "Hi." The word comes out hoarse, barely audible. A wet laugh escapes him, disbelieving, and relieved. "Hi."

His thumb brushes across your knuckles, again and again. As if he needs the contact—he needs proof. Then Jack lowers his head, pressing his forehead gently against your joined hands, his eyes closing. Breathing shakily, and in that moment, you realize he was just as afraid of losing you as you'd always been of losing him.

Finally, Jack swallows hard, then asks quietly, "How long?" You know exactly what he means, not the shooting or the string. All of it. You stare down at your intertwined hands. At the red thread winding around both wrists, then back at him, and answer honestly. "Since my first day.”

Jack blinks, once and twice. He genuinely thought he'd misheard you, "Your first day?" You nod, a sad laugh escaping. "Yeah."

His mouth opens, then closes, and opens again. The physician in him is clearly attempting to process impossible information. Unfortunately for him, he's currently operating as a man in love, not a doctor, which means none of this is going well.

"Seven years?" The words come out strangled, and you give a tiny nod. Jack leans back in his chair, looking dizzy. "Jesus Christ."

A weak laugh escapes you. "That was more or less my reaction too." His hand tightens around yours to reassure himself.

"Why didn't you tell me?" The question is quiet, not accusing anymore, only hurt. He’s trying to understand. You look away first, toward the window. Because this part is harder. "You were married." The words are simple, obvious, and true, Jack's expression immediately softens. 

"You loved her." You smile sadly. "Of course you did." Because he had, you'd seen it, every day, in every smile or phone call, at the mere mention of her. 

"I wasn't going to be the woman who showed up and destroyed that." Your voice trembles. "I couldn't. It's why I never said anything." A tear slips free, and you don't bother wiping it away. 

"I respected her too much." Your laugh cracks. "And honestly?" You finally look at him, unwaveringly, you admit, "I loved you too much.” Jack closes his eyes, processing the truth of it all. "I knew you were happy." You smile weakly. "I thought… I thought if I couldn't be the person you loved, then I'd settle for being someone you trusted."

Jack stares at you, completely speechless. Suddenly, every memory makes sense, every retreat or careful boundary. You chose distance over possibility. You weren't waiting. You weren't hoping for his wife to die. Goddamit. The thought makes him sick now. You were protecting him—protecting both of them, at the expense of yourself, for seven years.

"That's insane." The words slip out before he can stop them. You blink, offended. "Excuse me?" Jack actually laughs, a wet, exhausted sound. "You loved me for seven years."

"You make it sound like a disease." You frowned.

"It kind of is."

You point weakly, "I got shot."

"Exactly." For the first time since waking up—you both laugh. The sound fades slowly, leaving only the truth behind. Jack shifts closer, his chair scrapes softly against the floor, until he's sitting right beside the bed, close to you, so that there's nowhere left to hide.

"I need you to understand something." His voice lowers, gentler now, and more vulnerable than you've ever heard it. Jack looks down briefly, then back up. "She was my soulmate." The words settle softly between you, simply true and not at all cruel. You nod, because you know—you've always known.

"I loved her." His eyes shine, "I'll always love her."

You squeeze his hand, "I know." Jack exhales shakily, then continues, "But somewhere along the way..." His voice falters, and you can’t recall if you've ever seen him this scared. His thumb brushes your cheek, the same way it did the night you almost died. "You became my favorite part of the day. The first person I wanted to talk to." Another stroke of his thumb. "The person I looked for first." His eyes never leave yours. "And when you started avoiding me..."

He laughs once, humorless and every bit painful. "It felt like somebody was ripping pieces off me." The confession steals the air from your lungs, and Jack leans forward slightly, and your heart starts racing.

"I thought I was losing my mind." A tiny smile appears at the corners of his mouth. "Turns out I was just in love with you."

Everything disappears—leaving just him and tears blur your vision instantly.

"Oh." It's all you can manage. Jack smiles, soft, beautiful, it’s entirely his. "Yeah."

Suddenly, you're crying. Because after seven years—after all that grief and silence and fear—he chose you. Not because of the string or fate. Or because destiny told him to. But because he loved you.

"You idiot." Your words wobble and Jack laughs, "I know."

"You absolute idiot."

"I've been told."

You laugh through your tears, and somehow, he wipes them away before they can fall. The gentlest touch imaginable, as if you're something precious. Then his forehead rests against yours, and neither of you speaks. You don't need to. The red string glows softly between your wrists, a silent witness, and for the first time—it doesn't feel like a chain. It feels like a beginning.

Jack's gaze drops briefly to your mouth, then immediately back to your eyes. Giving you every opportunity to stop him. Every opportunity to say no. You don't. Not even a little.

So, he kisses you, softly, as if you're something holy. Something he spent seven years searching for without realizing it. His hand cups your cheek, while yours finds his wrist. Right where the string wraps around him, the kiss is gentle and tender. A promise rather than a fire.

When he finally pulls back, neither of you moves very far, foreheads touching, breathing the same air. Jack smiles, the kind of smile you've spent years secretly collecting. "Hi."

A laugh escapes you, "Hi." Then his eyes soften, filled with something warm enough to last a lifetime. "There you are."

After seven years of loving him in silence—you finally get to stay.

End Notes:

Where do I even begin? This idea has been cooking in my head for MONTHS. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how I wanted this story to go. But then you know how things just suddenly click and fall into place? That’s exactly what happened.

It was absolutely euphoric—once I got the plot beats down, I just couldn’t stop writing lol.

I wanted you, the reader, to know how much you respected Jack’s wife and that you weren’t trying to replace her.

Also.. do you get it? Lifeline = Line = String…. Ha ha ha. You are his Line…

Everyone blame Noah Kahan for making me cry to Orbiter.

LOWKEY, wasn’t expecting a lot of people to read this… 

Taglist: @gennywennypenny @kneelforloki @unknownhuman102 @thebewitchingvagabond @danah-20 @i-do-not-care-bear @nerdgirljen @silksepia @rathatosy @proudlyvastlake @coconuthoneyandjaguars @acciotwinz @thefemininemystiquee @rei-scorpio @buckystwilight

"Uh, three." He clears his throat.

"Booth or table?"

"Booth please."

"And do we need any kid's menus?"

"Yes, one." He smiles.

The host grabs two plastic menus and a smaller paper one with crayons. "Follow me this way, Sugar." She leads him to a booth in the window and sets down the two menus and the kid's menu beside him. "Can I get you anything while you wait?"

"Coffee, black." He picks up the menu to look over the food.

"You got it." She walks behind the counter and pours him coffee from the drip. She serves it and goes to tend to other customers.

Jack rubs his hands together and looks out the window as he waits when he notices you walking with Miracle through the parking lot. He didn't think you could get prettier. It was a warm day so you were wearing a tank top and some denim shorts with sandals. Everything fit your silhouette, hugging every part of your perfectly. He takes a sip of his coffee to wet his dry throat.

Miracle jumps up on the sidewalk excitedly. You had put her hair in pigtails all over her head with rainbow rubber bands. She was wearing a frill white shirt with overalls on. She was like your little baby doll.

You see him through the window and wave with smile before you head towards the door. When you enter the diner, Miracle notices him too. "Dr. Abbot!" She runs over and leaps onto the booth seat beside him.

You stay standing next to the opposite booth seat, "Miracle, come sit beside me."

"I want to sit next to Dr. Abbot." She crosses her arms and pouts.

"Well, Dr. Abbot prefers the window seat, see." You point, "And you like that seat too. You won't be able to see through the window if you sit next to Abbot."

Miracle taps her chin then slides out of the booth and sits opposite of Abbot. You smile in triumph and sit next to her blocking her into the booth. Abbot gives you props with a subtle nod.

The waitress comes back over, "Hi, what can I get you ladies?"

"Coffee, with room and a kid's apple juice." You smile at the waitress.

She leaves and returns with your coffee and the juice in a kid's cup. "I'll give you guys a few minutes."

As you look over the menu, Miracle pats your arm, "Mommy… Mommy!"

"Yes, my love?" You set the menu down.

"Can I make your coffee how you like it?"

"Sure, do you remember what I like? It's—"

"Two white creams, and one blue sugar." She grabs the items and pulls your mug towards her.

"That's right, good job." You look back at the menu. You then look up at Jack, "Sorry, she is just super excited to be here."

"I am too." He rests his arms on the table, "So tell me, when did you move to Pittsburgh."

"Uh, Miracle was just two years old. I crossed several state lines by myself to get here. All for the PTMC job and 24 hour care. The endeavor of seeking a better life for the both of us." You lean back in your seat, "What about you? I assume the military wasn't all that it was cracked up to be."

He chuckles, "It definitely wasn't. A few tours in the middle east, lost my leg, discharged and bouncing hospital to hospital until I landed in The Pitt. An endeavor of seeking a happier life. I uh, I have to let you know— I would like for you to know— I was married once before."

"You had a wife?!" Miracle stands up on the booth seat.

"Miracle." You hiss. She sits back down quickly.

"I was but uh, she got sick." He purses his lips distracted by the wood grain on the table. He looks up and sees your soft eyes looking back at him in understanding.

"Thank you for telling me— us" You smile. You open your mouth to speak again before the waitress comes back around.

"Are we ready to order?"

"Yes, I'll just have bacon and eggs, sunny side up, and some white toast." You look at Miracle's menu, "What do you want, Baby?"

"I want the chocolate chip pancakes with bacon." She whispers to you.

"She'll have the chocolate chip pancakes with bacon and a cup of fruit."

"No Mommy just the bacon."

"Just eat some of them. Do it for me, please?"

She huffs, folding her arms over her chest and pouts out the window. You give an awkward smile and hand over your menu.

"And I'll have the omelette supreme." Jack hands back his menu.

"I'll have that out as soon as I can." The waitress takes the menus and leaves you alone.

"Supreme? What does that mean?" Miracle cocks an eyebrow.

"It usually means really big." Jack stretches his arms out.

"Really? You're gonna eat that all by yourself."

"I have to eat that much so I can get big and strong." He flexes his arms.

You and Miracle's eyes widen at the action. You avert your gaze feeling a bit flustered. Jack notices and bites back a smile of his own.

"I want my pancakes to be supreme!" She stands up again.

"Miracle, Baby, sit down." You pull her down.

"But Mommy!" She whines.

"Well, they say adding fruit and veggies is what makes it supreme too." Abbot leans forward like it's a secret

"Yeah?" Miracle leans forward.

He nods, "There are a bunch of veggies in the omelette I'm getting."

"Then I'm going to eat all my fruit!" She exclaims.

You stare in awe as he makes this up on the fly. "Are you sure you don't have any secret kids too?"

He shakes his head, "It was something I always wanted though. This is uh, my first date in a long time."

Right. This was a regular date. He was attracted to you, truly. This wasn't a play date with friends and their kids. He was in front of you talking because he wanted to be with you.

"Mommy," Miracle shakes you out of your thoughts, "When is our food going to get here?"

"We just ordered, Baby. It's going to take time to cook."

"But I want it now." She whines.

"Okay, how about while we wait, you tell Abbot the story of how you got your name?"

"Yes! Yes! Yes!" She practically vibrates with excitement. "Do you want to hear the story?"

"I'm all ears, Sweetie." Abbot leans back, getting comfortable.

"Go ahead." You sit back as well. She crawls into your lap and faces Abbot then clears her throat.

"When Mommy was pregnant with me, she was very sick with— what is it called?"

"I had preeclampsia." You say.

"Yeah that, and I had to be born early but I was still so small. I only weighed one pound."

"One pound five ounces."

"And I was put in a big box to help me breathe and I couldn't go home. The doctor said I might not be able to go home at all but Mommy never gave up, right Mommy?"

"That's right. I stayed with you all day and all night."

"But she didn't give me a name yet."

"I couldn't think of one that I liked. I was more worried about you getting better. Every time I would think about it my mind would just go blank."

"After months and months and months—"

"Just 3 months, Baby." You squeeze her cheeks.

"I got better! And one of the nurses called me a miracle!" She looks up at you giggling.

"That's right! And it was like a light bulb went off above my head. That nurse was right, you were a miracle. But not just any miracle."

"Your Miracle!" She smiles hard and spins in your lap to give you a hug.

You squeeze her tight and pepper her face in kisses. "My little Miracle."

Abbot can't help but smile at the end of the story. Tears welled up in his eyes as he listened. Miracle grabs the sides of your face and kisses you back then moves back into her seat. You notice Abbot and give a sympathetic smile, "It's her favorite story. She asks for me to tell it all the time. She'll know it by heart before a Dr. Seuss book."

"It's a beautiful story." He smiles in return, "Thank you for telling me, Miracle."

Soon your food arrives. First, you tend to Miracle's plate cutting her stack of pancakes and pouring syrup on it. You then focus on your own food and start to eat but after a few bites you notice Miracle is almost half way done with the cut stack.

Abbot seems to notice too. "Here, let me." He takes Miracle's fork and knife and cuts the rest of the stack. Your heart swells as you watch them. Both of them hyper focused on the plate as he cuts. "Is this how you look during emergency surgery?"

He looks up and chuckles, "This is a very serious situation. It needs my full attention." He takes the knife and hands Miracle her fork back.

"Thank you." You say as you continue to eat.

After you all finish, Miracle occupies herself with finishing the activities on her menu. Your plates are cleared and you sit and wait for the bill. "So, is this what you imagined for the first date?"

"I think it was a positive." He tilts his head, "Unless you thought otherwise."

You shake your head, "You have her mark of approval."

"What about yours?" He licks his lips.

"It's kinda hard not to lower my guard with you. You've been doing the same so it would only be fair."

"It wasn't just her was it?" He holds a serious tone.

You nod, "It was touch and go, after she was delivered, but we both pulled through. It was my wake up call. Get my life in order. I prayed to whoever would listen," You play with one of her pigtails, "if she got to come home with me, I would do everything in my power to keep her safe."

Jack feels his jaw tighten. You had the same distant gaze he had earlier. He reaches over the table and grabs your other hand. You snap out of it and squeeze his hand in response to the feeling of his palm on yours. He gives you a reassuring smile, "I hope I can do the same for you, if you let me."

Soon, the waitress comes over with the bill. You fish for you wallet in your purse but Jack puts his hand up to stop you. You pick up Miracle and all three of you head to the main counter to check out and leave.

Once outside, Abbot walks you to your car. It was an old beat-em-up Corolla. Old reliable for you. You put Miracle in her car seat and move to the back of the car to speak. "I had a nice time, Jack."

His heart squeezes at the sound of his name. "Me too. This won't be the last time, I hope."

"As long as you are okay with it being a play date again." You look into the back window to see your daughter playing with her doll she had left behind.

"Always. I acknowledge that you are a package deal." He nods, "Just as long as you know I prefer playing more so than the adult talk."

You swat his arm playfully, "I should have known. You were the one that was sabotaging the bathrooms and letting her sneak into your department."

"Yes, your theory was correct. It was all a part of the plan." He chuckles, "In all seriousness, I don't care what we do. Just let me see you again, not at work."

"Okay." You grab his hand, "I'm off on Saturday. If you'd like you come over for breakfast and cartoons?"

"Is breakfast the only meal we can have together?" He teases, "How about dinner, Saturday? How about pizza?"

"I love pizza!" Miracle shouts from her window.

"2 out of 3, I think that means a yes."

"Alright then, Saturday night." You hold one side of his face and kiss him gingerly. You lips feel plush against his. He makes a satisfying noise and holds your waist keeping you close.

Although it was only meant to be a courtesy, you didn't want to stop kissing. You move your hands as he deepens the kiss. You separate for air and bite your lip, "We'll, uh, we'll see you Saturday."

Abbot heads back to his car as he watches you drive off. He gets in and he can't smiling. The kiss replays in his mind over and over. He touches his finger to his lips before taking a breath to calm down. It doesn't work as he sits in the parking lot for a couple more minutes before driving off.

˖⋆࿐໋₊ ☆

tags: @cosmicneptune @ilocuras24 @lacy1986 @stardustworlds @a-true-janian-reply @amacphet @darknessofhell666-blog-blog @princess76179 @nyxmoretti @kidd3ath @lovehadlovelost @emmy626 @leeshy12 @evergreen9083 @flyinglama @heyyimmisunderstood @secretlyurfemmwife @sliverspringss @xxohsnapitspatxx @urgirl-jijiiii @sabrinathewitchh982 @luminaxs @1dhoe93 @melissa66orion @otteryougladimback @iloveeveryoneyoureamazing @1-800-bobcut @generation-zero @jas241 @swiftwerewolfknight @beebeechaos @imaginecrushes @gf4lwt @tlc3802 @blackirisesinthesunlight @plan3tch1ld @untilmynextstory @hista-girl @xh444 @closelyinsanewave @chattyotter14 @vivi-xne @uncertainblissss @teaspacebar @midnightalbatross @of-converse-books-and-chocolate @marcysbear

Abbot stands at the door and looks in either direction. He looks in either direction then Dr. Ellis quicksteps past him. "Hey Ellis, do you know if any patients are missing a kid?"

"A kid?" She backs up and looks in the room, "Definitely not. Should I get security?"

"Not yet. I'll find out more. Go ahead." He dismisses her and enters the room.

The girl hears his foot steps and looks up at him curiously. "Hi."

"Hi, I'm Dr. Abbot. What is your name, sweetie?"

"Miracle." She turns back to the fox on the wall.

"What a pretty name." He kneels down beside her on his good knee, "Are you here with your family?"

She shakes her head, "I'm here all by myself."

Abbot purses his lips in worry, "Oh yeah? How did you get here?"

"The elevator." She smiles, "I remember the fox from last time and came down all by myself."

"The elevator…" He thinks for a moment. He notices on her chest as a name tag. Similar to his badge was a photo of Miracle and the words PTMC childcare center. Miracle was not a patient or a child of one but a child of an employee at the hospital. He lets out a sigh of relief, "Well, this is a long way from where you belong isn't it?"

Miracle shrinks and clasps her hands together, "I didn't mean to."

"It's okay, sweetie but we'll need to take you back. Don't want your people to worry right?"

"Uh huh." She nods, "My mommy works in the hospital. She helps really sick people."

"You know, I do that too." He smiles, "Why don't we go sit somewhere and call your mommy? Let her know you are okay."

"Okay!"

Abbot stands up and holds out his hand for the girl to hold but she instead holds up both of her arms with the expectation of him to pick her up. He smiles and obliges, carrying her back to the main nurse's station. "I think I know where some stickers are that you can have. Do you like stickers?"

"Yeah!" She squeals.

Miracle had a smile that could melt the coldest hearts. As they walk, she rests her head on Abbot's shoulder. He tries to steel his resolve but his heart swells at the feeling of her little head on his shoulder.

"Oh my, who is this little one?" Lena smiles at the girl.

"This is Miracle. She is a long way from the daycare upstairs."

"Oh Geez. I heard the bathrooms are broke down on their floor so they have to go to a different one." Lena says, "No wonder this little lamb got lost." She pinches the little girl's cheeks. An infectious giggle comes from the girl as she squirms in Abbot's arms.

He sets her down on a stool and takes a look at her tag. It had her full name on it with a phone number underneath. He recognizes it as the ICU floor. He dials it on the office phone.

A soft woman's voice answers in a quiet tone, "ICU?"

"Hi, this is Dr. Abbot here in the ED. I have a sweet little girl named Miracle down here lost from the daycare."

"Oh my god." He can hear the woman panic. Faintly, she tells her colleague, "Thank you Dr. Abbot. I will be down in just a moment."

Before he can respond the line goes dead. It must have been Miracle's mother on the phone, "Good news, Miracle. Your mommy is on the way."

"What about my stickers?" Oh right…

He snaps and opens a random junk drawer and finds some stickers in the bottom. "Here you are."

She takes them from him and rips off one and places it back on his hand. He smiles down at the sticker.

Just a moment becomes a long while as Abbot and Miracle wait. Although young, Miracle was able to keep herself entertained at the desk. She ran out of stickers and Abbot's arms and face had run out of surface area. His staff laugh and take in the adorable sight of Abbot with the little girl.

"Miracle! Oh thank god, you're still here."

"Mommy!"

Abbot whips his head around and feels his heart leap out of his chest. You come flying down the stairs and jog over to the nurse's station. He can't take his eyes off of you as you come around and pick up your daughter.

"What were thinking coming down here all by yourself?"

"I wanted to play with this fox on the wall."

You shake your head and move your eyes to Abbot's sticker riddled body. "Hi… you must Dr. Abbot."

"You'd be correct." He holds his hands behind his back, "Miracle was keeping me company down here."

"I can see that," You giggle, "You have discovered her obsession with stickers. Sorry."

"Not a problem. Anything to keep her entertained."

"I appreciate it. I really do. She has gotten into this adventurous stage of wandering off and I can barely keep up. I'm glad you were able to keep her occupied." Your smile was just as criminal as Miracle's.

"She's welcome back anytime." He waves it off as he tries not to stutter under your sweet gaze.

"Alright then. Say bye to Dr. Abbot, Miracle."

"Bye Dr…. Abby." She giggles.

"Dr. Abby? You're so silly." You tickle her side then you look at him again, "Bye Dr. Abbot."

"Bye Dr. Abbot." Miracle waves as you carry her back up the stairs to the daycare center.

Abbot watches you go with a longing look. He looks down at his arms and chuckles before he starts to meticulously peel them off. It takes a few minutes to do, a few of the stickers leaving a mark.

He thought that would be the last time he would see you and Miracle. The next night, he looks in the Pedes room longingly before continuing on his way back to the hub.

He stops short just a few feet. Then backtracks and looks into the break room to find a familiar figure. Little Miracle was squatting down in front of the vending machine looking through the slot in the bottom.

"Hungry?" Abbot enters the room.

Miracle sheepishly withdraws from the machine and clasps her hands together. A tell that she did when she thought she was in trouble. She looks at the machine then back at Abbot.

"It's okay." He holds his hands out to her. She approaches him quickly and jumps into his arms. He lifts her and rest her on his hip. "It's a bit late for a sugary snack. How about… some goldfish?"

She nods quickly. He smiles at her and opens one of the pantries where some small snacks were available. He grabs out a package of goldfish and hand them to the little girl. Then he takes her back to the nurse's station.

"Little Lamb!" Lena smiles when she see the little girl then the smile turns shit-eating, "She's taking a liking to you, Abbot."

"She was just hungry. She probably saw the vending machine from the last time she was here." He sets Miracle down on a stool. "You are real sneaky, aren't you?"

Miracle shakes her head as she smirks. She continues to eat her crackers without a word. She was very cunning for her age. Able to get away from the daycare staff and get down to the ED without arousing suspicion of being alone. You must really have your hands full with her.

You were a single mother working as an ICU nurse. You transferred from an ICU clinic out of state due to your toxic ex, Miracle's dad. You had taken the job at the PTMC due to their 24 hour daycare program. You were able to spend time with your daughter during the day and without support at home, she would need to come to the hospital to sleep for the night. It was only a few nights a week so it was hard not to pass up.

Not that Abbot knew your situation. It wasn't like, after that night he met you, he asked one of the medical assistants about you during an ICU transfer.

He picks up the phone and dials the ICU line. "ICU?" It's you again. Speaking softly. A mental image pops up in his mind of you speaking that way to him in the morning.

"Uh, this is Dr. Abbot in the ED."

"Hi, are you looking for a bed?"

"No, actually, I have Miracle down here. She seems to have gotten away again."

"You're joking…" You grumble. You mutter to your coworker again. "i've gotta go… the ED… Miracle… yeah again… unbelievable i know…Are you still there Abbot?"

"I am."

"I'll be down in a minute. I am so sorry. See you soon." You say defeated.

"See you…" The line goes dead and Abbot turns his attention back to Miracle.

She spins on the stool without a care. She finished her goldfish while he was on the phone. He grabs an office chair and sits beside her, "Miracle, your mommy is on her way."

She beams at him, "Yay."

"Do you come down here because you like when you mommy comes to pick you up?"

Miracle shakes her head, "My mommy picks me up all the time. I like when you pick me up and we play."

He leans back, "I see. But Miracle, your mommy and I are busy working. We can't play all the time you know that, right? It's night time and you need rest. So while we work, you sleep."

"But I can only see you at night time. Mommy said so."

Abbot chuckles, "What did your mom say?"

"You work night time at the hospital so that means we can only see you at night time. We can't come in the day time."

"Do you ask to see me in the day time?"

She nods. "You are fun to play with."

"You are fun too." He boops her nose, "Do you like to draw?" She nods rapidly. "How about you draw something for us to put up back here?" He grabs some printer paper and some colored pens from the cup of supplies on the desk.

"You draw too." She hands a pen to him.

"I'd love to sweetie but remember what I said? I have to do my work. It's so I don't get in trouble. Ms. Lena will keep an eye on you."

Miracle pouts like a kicked puppy. It tears Abbot's heart to shreds to look at. He bites down on his bottom lip before looking away. Be strong, be strong, he repeats the mantra as he walks away.

It doesn't take long for him to return though and at the same time that he is back at the nurse's station you come jogging down the stairs. "Hello again," He smiles at you.

"Hi," You return the smile and look at Miracle, "She is going to become a permanent resident by the end of the week down here. C'mon little mama."

Miracle jumps from her stool and hides behind Abbot's legs. "No."

You let out a huff and smile awkwardly, "Heh, Miracle, sweetie it's time to say goodbye to Dr. Abbot."

"No." She grabs onto him. She touches a part of Abbot's prosthesis, she hesitates then moves to wrap both her hands around his other leg.

"God, this is so embarrassing." You mutter then you look up at Abbot, "I'm sorry, she is cranky at this point."

"That's okay." He chuckles, "How about I walk her with you to the daycare?"

"Oh, no it's fine. I'm sure they need you down here being the shift attending and all." You tighten your lips. You didn't mean to reveal that. You may or may not have asked a medical assistant about him during an ED transfer.

"It is not a problem. It's Lena that keeps this place running." He turns to Miracle, "If I come with you will you be good for your mommy?"

She nods rapidly and holds her hands up to him. He picks her up and smiles at you, "Shall we?"

"We shall." You lead them to the elevator. As you enter, you hear Miracle whisper to Abbot.

"What happened to your leg?" She cups his ear to whisper but she wasn't too discreet as you still heard her question.

"I got hurt in an accident. My leg was no good so they gave me a new one." He whispers back.

"Does it hurt?"

"Not anymore." He shakes his head, "I eat good and take care of myself to be big and strong." He tickles her side, making her giggle in his ear.

You can't help but smile. His patience with your daughter warmed your heart. It was something about him treating her like a small person and not a nuisance unlike someone you once knew. She was disrupting him at work but he didn't let it bother him. He seemed to enjoy it, actually.

As you walk back to the daycare, you notice Miracle has gone quiet. You look over and see she had fallen asleep on Abbot's shoulder. "That girl is something else." You shake your head.

"She gives you a run for your money." Abbot whispers.

"You have no idea." You sigh, "She has not been infatuated with anything ever until she met you. I've never heard her speak about someone so highly after meeting them once."

"So she says. She told me, she stays awake to play with me."

"All day, non-stop. 'Mommy, you should invite Dr. Abbot to our house to play.' 'Mommy, Is Dr. Abbot at the hospital yet?' 'I got a booboo, Dr. Abbot should help.'" You laugh at yourself then notice Abbot smiling at you. You avert your gaze and stop at the Pre-K door. "This is her." You scan your ID and open the door for Abbot.

He lays her on one of the cots with the other kids. You tuck her in and kiss her forehead. You apologize to the staff and they apologize too. The bathrooms should be finished by tomorrow so hopefully this is the last time Miracle elopes.

You walk with Abbot back to the elevator, "I really can't thank you enough, Dr. Abbot."

"Miracle is a sweetheart. Just as much as I left an impression on her she's left one on me." He holds his hands behind his back as he walks.

"Hopefully, this will be the last of her hijinks and my blood pressure will lower." You take a deep breath. Abbot purses his lips as his heart wilts. You stop in front of the elevator, "This is where we part ways. You've gotta go down and I've gotta go up." You hit the down button, "I'll take the stairs."

"I'll see you around?" He steps on to the elevator.

"At this rate? I'll be seeing you tomorrow." You joke.

You joke but Abbot hoped that it was a promise.

The next night, Miracle appears again. Abbot makes his rounds when he finds her curled up on the couch in the family room. He almost didn't catch her this time if it weren't for the door being propped open by the janitors. He enters the room quietly and sits beside her.

He rubs her back as he tries to rouse her from sleep. The little girl rises out of her ball like state and crawls into his lap and rests on his chest. He sighs and continues to rub her back and rocks her side to side. He pulls out his hospital phone and dials the ICU.

"ICU?" A firm voice speaks. It definitely wasn't you, "Hello?"

"Yes, hi, this is Abbot down in the ED. I've got Miracle down here and was wondering if her mother was available to pick her up."

"Uh…unfortunately she is unavailable at the moment. Are you able to keep an eye on her for some time? She is tending to a patient at the moment. I will pass along the message as soon as I can." There was a wobble of nervousness in the nurse's voice. It was always life or death in the ICU.

"Yeah, I can. Just let her know when you can." He hangs up the phone and continues to rock her. When he knows he has spent too much time he will carry her to the hub.

"Lena, occupy Central 6 for me." He points to the sleeping girl in his arms, "Her mom might take a minute."

"You got it." She opens a tablet and fills in some random information to occupy the room on the status board.

He lays Miracle on the gurney and tucks her under the covers. "Thank you for making me so special." He whispers to her then shuts out the lights and leaves the room closing the door. Through out the hour he keeps an eye on her.

You come down the stairs looking disheveled. Your eyes were puffy, it looked like you had been crying. Abbot approaches beside you and rests his hand on the center of your back, "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, sorry, where is Miracle?" You sniffle.

"Right in here." He leads you into Central 6. You lower the rail on one side of the gurney and pull up a chair to caress Miracle's face as she sleeps. He can see tears fall indiscriminately from your eyes. "Is everything okay?"

You let out a chuckle, "Is everything ever okay in our departments?" He sighs and pulls up another chair to be beside you. "Just before I come down here, every time, I've had to stabilize a patient, or at least try. A different person each time and afterward I'd come right down here and see the smile on my daughter's face like everything is okay. I have to act like I haven't just witnessed the scariest thing 5 minutes before coming to get her. I don't have to brave it when she's at daycare. In my mind, she seems worlds apart from the madness. Safe. I freak out thinking about her down here. What she might see. As if I didn't just watch someone die minutes ago." Abbot hears your voice waver as you speak but you laugh again, "But even still, with you, she is safe. She's so comfortable in your arms like she's known you her whole short life. You make it look so easy." You lean back in your chair and sniffle, "It makes me think I'm not cut out for this."

"Woah, that is a severe overstatement." He leans forward and takes your hand, "Had you not told me, I would have never known what you've done before coming down here. The first time you came down, you had this infectious smile on your face. And Miracle ran into your arms, you didn't falter for a second. Scooped her right in your arms. If you were scared you never showed it. You are her world. She knows you're there for her. You make it look effortless"

You look down at his hand on yours. He gives it an affirming squeeze. It's warm to the touch. "I bet you say that to all the single mothers." You bite back a smile and pull your hand away.

"Usually when they're here they are preoccupied with… you know an emergency?"

You giggle, "Really? None have made a move on you?"

"I fear that is day shift only. At this time of night, I only get the drunks playing grab ass." He sighs.

"Oh poor you," You rub his shoulder. "And here I thought you were like this dangerous and sexy combat medic that flirted with all the moms."

"Dangerous and sexy?"

"The other nurses on my floor say that, at least."

"So you talk about me to other people."

"I had to. I have to make sure the men in my daughter's life aren't dirt bags." You shrug, "They said you were a flirt too. Any defense?"

"I'm playful." He surrenders, "It's only to liven up this dreadful place."

"Right." You purse your lips into a thin smile, "Well, I should probably be taking her back to the daycare." You remove Miracle from the gurney and rest her on your hip, "You have a good rest of your night, Dr. Abbot."

He follows you out of the room, "I hope my playfulness hasn't scared you away from coming back to work."

"Only time will tell, I guess. Maybe I'll consider transferring to the ED and have some fun with you down here instead. " You shoot him a playful wink. He licks his bottom lip as he watches you walk to the elevator and back upstairs.

"She's got you whipped." Ellis shakes her head.

"Both of them do." Lena smirks, "Forget a work wife, he's got a whole work family."

"It's not like that." He waves them off, "Miracle is a troublemaker and her mom—"

"Is the hottest nurse you've ever laid your eyes on?" Ellis cocks an eyebrow, "You're not the only one with eyes, Abbot."

He averts his gaze to the status board, "Do you have anything better to do right now, Ellis? How does triage for the next hour sound?"

"Sounds like I should keep my mouth shut and get back to work." She leans over and mutters to Lena, "See how defensive he got. Whipped."

It had been a week since Miracle's escape attempts. The bathroom in the daycare was up and running again so there was no way for her to escape. Abbot stares at her drawing she had left behind. He missed that little rascal. He missed you too.

When things get slow enough, he decides to try and take a trip up to the daycare to check on Miracle. It was possible that she was sleeping but just seeing her would keep his spirits high. He tells Lena he's going to be out for a few minutes and hits the elevator button.

When the doors open his eyes widen in surprise. You stand there with a smile on your face and a look of surprise yourself. "Hey, I was just coming down to look for you."

"Oh? What for? Patient transfer?"

"No actually," You beckon him onto the elevator, "Miracle is having a hard time sleeping and misses her friend Dr. Abbot. I was wondering if I can steal you for a few minutes to put her to bed." You hit the button for the daycare floor, "Is that okay?"

"Uh yeah… I was actually going to head there."

"Felt a disturbance in the force, Jedi?" You chuckle.

"I just wanted to make sure she was alright."

"You've spoiled her." You say, "Now she can't live without you. It was inevitable, she's imprinted on you like a little duck. You are her mama now."

He laughs. It's a hearty laugh that warms your chest. You can't help but laugh too. The two of you walk out of the elevator side by side and enter the daycare. Miracle lays in her bed and beams when she sees the two of you from the window.

You both enter and sit beside her bed. "Okay, Miracle, this is a one time thing. Dr. Abbot can't come and go whenever you want while you're here." You explain as you tuck her in, "But he did say he missed you too."

She grins at him, "Do you still have my picture, Dr. Abbot?"

"I do. I look at it everyday." He grabs her hand and squeezes it tight.

"Maybe because you miss me we can play not in the hospital." She pouts.

You purse your lips and nod, "Maybe… But Dr. Abbot is super busy—"

"If your mommy says it's okay, I would be more than happy to."

You swivel your head at him in surprise, "You would?"

"Sure," He shrugs, "We can all play together outside of the hospital."

Your face is cooking as he speaks. Was he saying what you think he was saying?

"But that is for your mommy and I to talk about. You, little one, need to sleep." She nods and shuts her eyes. Your eyes are still on him. He notices and smiles, "Did you want to talk about that now?"

"Uh no I just… thought…"

"I was too sexy and dangerous? Or did you still believe I am too playful?"

You bow your head in defeat, "I guess I did."

After Miracle falls asleep the two of you leave. "I am going to be honest. I fully believed that this would be the last we saw of each other. We would go our separate ways, officially." You confess.

"I knew that wouldn't be the case after second time Miracle came to the ER." He chuckles, "I'd find a way to see you again."

"So were you the one sabotaging bathroom maintenance?" You giggle, "If you wanted to meet with me so bad you could have asked. Like you asked Edgar about me."

"You found out about that…" He winces.

"My good looks get me my way up there." You tease, "I'm kidding. When I asked about you he told me you had done the same. So I asked for more information."

"That's when you got the sexy and dangerous thing from."

"Yes, you are really stuck on that." You nudge him, "Don't believe it."

"I just like the way it sounds coming from you. You believe it."

"I do not."

"For a moment you did. In your mind, there was an image of me next to those words."

You cover your mouth as you refrain from laughing out loud, "Alright, what's it going to take for you to not bring that up anymore."

"When are you free?" He asks, "We can go somewhere and have breakfast after work? Or lunch? Go to the park for Miracle."

"Breakfast sounds good." You take out your personal phone, "How about you put in your number and I'll let you know."

"Promise?" He takes your phone and puts in his number

"If I don't you can put me on blast by calling the ICU and bug me. They all need something juicy to keep them entertained." You smile as he hands back your phone, "But I like you. So I won't keep you waiting too long. How does 10am tomorrow sound?"

"Sounds like a deal."

The two of you stop short of the elevator. You bite your lip before leaning in and kissing Abbot's cheek. "This is where we part ways." You hit the down button, "I'll take the stairs. See you at breakfast."

Abbot's cheeks burn as he watches you jog up the stairs. He tries to control his smile in the elevator as to not tip off the others to his glee. He didn't need them spoiling his fun just yet.

˖⋆࿐໋₊ ☆

thank you for reading! likes, comments, and reblogs always appreciated!

You and Robby met when he was in med school and you were in college. You were working at a food truck near the hospital during the lunch and dinner rush. You were interested in the business side of restaurants so you thought it was a good idea for the experience. It was a family friend's business that let you work while you studied. You needed the extra cash and every little bit helped.

However, since you started working there, the food truck gained popularity. From greasy slop to pretty formidable sandwiches the medical staff didn't feel terrible eating. It made you feel good when you'd see the nurses and doctors lined up for a sandwich.

That's when you met Robby. It was night and business was slowing down enough for you to finally rest your feet. You open the back of the truck and sit down with your homework to get as much done before you had to close up for the day. You scribble away in your notepad when you hear a noise at the window of the truck. "Hello? You still open?"

You peak around to see just a white coat—a doctor. You jump back into the truck and slide open the window, "Hi! How can I help… you?" Ba-dump! Not only was the customer a doctor. He was a handsome one at that.

"Uh, I've never been here before. I heard from some folks that this place is pretty good." He stuffs his hands in his pockets as his chocolate brown eyes are illuminated by the lights in the truck.

"Rumors are true." You shrug, "Practically farm to table."

"Mm." His eyebrows raise in surprise. "So, what's good here?"

"That's like asking your doctor what kind of medicine you need before telling them your condition." You smile, "Which do you prefer beef or chicken?"

"Chicken."

"Do you eat your vegetables?"

"I do." He tilts his head in confusion.

"Are you afraid of getting that pretty coat dirty?"

"I can take it off. I'm off the clock."

"Okay then. A chicken caesar salad, with italian dressing on a italian bread."

"And that's a sandwich?"

"It is." You say as you get to work putting it together. "So, what made you come out here tonight of all nights?"

"Well, there was another rumor there was a pretty girl that worked at night." He purses his lips, "I had to see if it was true."

"What's your verdict? Is that one true?" You look over your shoulder.

"I would say so. I mean, dare I say, she's beautiful."

"Oh, you're a flirt." You laugh. You finish up his sandwich and wrap it tightly. "Here you are, Playboy."

"How much do I owe you?" He digs in his pockets for his wallet.

"It's on the house, Doc. You have a good night." You flash him a wink and go back to your studies in the truck.

On his way home, Robby takes a bite of his sandwich and moans at the flavor. It was the best sandwich he'd ever had. The chicken was seasoned to perfection and cut through the acidity of the dressing on the lettuce leaves. You had toasted the bread slightly giving it a little crunch and melts the parmesan on the inside. His mouth watered between every bite, wanting to savor the sandwich every time.

By the time he reaches his apartment he had gone through three quarters of the sandwich. He finishes the rest with sorrow as the experience was over. However, it did give him hope to see you tomorrow for dinner again.

It became routine for the two of you. He would arrive after his shift. Sometimes with some co-workers but often times alone. He would chat with you as you made his order and you would carry on with your nights. He began to learn about you.

"I want to own a restaurant one day." You say as you make his order; a toasted turkey pesto on ciabatta.

"As a head chef?" He asks.

"No," You giggle, "I'll take it as a compliment but I prefer cooking for family more than for customers. Also, I don't think I could handle a dinner rush leading other people. I want to be a manager. Source the ingredients, the finances, collaborate on a menu, and design the environment. The stuff the head chef doesn't want to do. Maybe I'll cook once in a while but only for the employees. They deserve a meal too."

"It sounds like you have it planned."

"Just waiting for the opportunity and graduation." You wrap up his sandwich, "What about you? What's next?"

"What's next… good question." He purses his lips, "I'm hoping to stay at PTMC emergency medicine for my residency but if not hopefully I match anywhere that will take me."

"Okay, I'm going to pretend like I know what any of that means." You hand over his sandwich, "Good luck and enjoy." His fingers brush over yours as he takes the sandwich from you.

"I'll see you around." You bid in farewell and get started on the next order.

You learn each other's name the next to you meet at the truck. You heard the nurses calling him Robby so it took you by surprise when you learned his first name was Michael. He preferred that you used the latter.

He doesn't always order a sandwich, instead just keeping you company until you closed up the truck. He's even walked you to the bus stop a few times. You wouldn't put any labels on the relationship but there have been times when you did hold hands and hug and maybe kiss a few times.

But like all good things, it was coming to an end. You were closing up the truck feeling down that Michael hadn't stopped by to get dinner. You cleaned the fryers, did some prep for the night, and cleaned virtually every other surface to stall but he still didn't show. Maybe he was done with you. Not the first time a guy used you for some food in his belly.

You turn off the lights and lock up the truck and start to walk through the park to the bus stop. As you walk, you hear someone call out to your name. You squint in the darkness and smile as you recognize the silhouette. "Hello Michael. You missed dinner."

"Sorry, I went out with some friends. Today was Match Day." He shoves his hands in his pockets, "I recommended one of the restaurants you told me about. The french cuisine place."

"Brise de Lavande?" You smile, "I didn't think you'd remember that."

"Of course I did." His smile fades.

"Match Day, you mentioned that once. So, did you get into the medical center?"

"No, I didn't." He frowns, "But I did get matched to a hospital… in New Orleans."

"Louisiana. Wow, I'm jealous." You hide the disappointment in your voice, "There's all that good food down there."

"Don't tell me you know some places there to?"

"Of course I do. It's one of the food capitals in America." You laugh, "I have to know."

The two of you continue to walk through the park. You chew on your bottom lip as you think of what next to say. Your hands fidget with your keys. "I can't say I'm not happy for your but I'm a bit sad you're going."

"Me too. I haven't tried every sandwich on the menu." He clicks his tongue.

"I'm being serious." You pat his chest, "I like you, Michael."

"I like you too." He stops in front of you.

"Like a lot." You step closer.

"I do too." He leans down.

You capture his lips in a gentle kiss. It's soft and gentle; a true confession of your feelings. "Go and enjoy yourself. Whenever you are feeling troubled just eat something delicious."

"I'll call you."

"I'll hold you to that." You smile. You continue walking and grab Michael's hand as you do. He swings your hands as you walk to the bus stop.

A few weeks later, you bid him farewell at the airport and later that week he calls to tell you about how he is adjusting to New Orleans. He's already tried a few of the places you recommended that were on the cheaper side. You already missed the smile on his face but you could hear it when he spoke. He missed you too.

He was one hour behind you so you had to stay up past your usual bedtime to talk. Not that you minded, you'd give anything to hear him whenever. The calls would go on and on. Your roommates loved to over hear your conversations with the kitchen line. The both of you new so you knew to keep it pretty PG.

Before winter break, you get the opportunity to take on an internship for hands on experience at a restaurant. Your heart swelled when the chairmen of your department said that it was located just outside the French Quarter of New Orleans. You immediately accepted the offer and rushed home to plan for the move. You didn't tell Michael wanting it to be a surprise.

When spring arrives, you hauled it to New Orleans. You were renting a dingy room near a university north of the French Quarter. It was convenient so you weren't going to complain too much. You hoped you won't be spending too much time there anyways.

One thing you were not complaining about was the weather, that was for sure. You were shadowing the manager of a restaurant that specialized in Creole fine dining. The restaurant was innovative with its menu. It wasn't just throwing a bunch of spices on french food and calling it Creole or Cajun. There was a dance happening on the plates with beautiful presentation. You were required to try a bite of every dish and had to stop yourself from trying more.

You were learning a lot in the first week, you felt like you couldn't catch a break. And to top it off, the manager wanted you to work three server shifts that weekend to understand how the job is handled. You didn't think it would be so bad until you found out you had to wear a 1-inch heel, a pencil skit with stockings, and a blouse-vest combo. You're make-up also had to be a particular way and would be inspected before shift.

The first shift was Thursday night; the quiet before the storm. It was slow enough for you to understand the flow and how to keep pace with the kitchen. The head chef was impressed with your orders having sold the most specials at the end of the day.

The next shift was Friday night; lunch rush, as it was not as slow as Thursday but not as chaotic as Saturday. You were definitely starting to feel the pressure. Your feet were hurting and you needed to use the bathroom and hour past when the rush started. You could complain but it was only your second day working. Some of these employees have been working here for years. By the end of shift you were craving a cigarette— having never smoked a day in your life.

Saturday night was called Dante's inferno and everyone in that dining room was a demon that was there to cause the employees pain and suffering. You never believed in anything more in your life. Substitutions up the ass, martinis being too dry or not dry enough, and orders being flat out wrong— according to the customer. You were at your limit. Just as you were about to call out for a smoke break the hostess lets you know you've been sat again with an eight-top.

You take a deep breath before approaching the table. You plaster a big smile on your face as you spoke, "Hi! welcome to Grand Héron. Have you taken a look over our cocktail menu or would you like a bottle of wine for the table?" You look around the table and see an all too familiar face directly opposite to you. Time seems to slow down as his eyes move from the menu to you. His mouth gapes and eyes gleam at you. Your fake smile falters as a real one reveals itself underneath. You almost forget how bad your feet were hurting. He tilts his head curiously but shuts his mouth, "I think a prosecco is fine for the table."

"Any prosecco?"

"Any will do. Pick one you like the most." He winks at you, "Dinner is on our great attending and he doesn't seem to be objecting."

An older man at the end of the table gives a flat smile, "And a scotch on the rocks should do."

"Sure thing." You take the drink menus from everyone at the table. "I'll be back with your drinks."

You return a few minutes later with glasses, the prosecco and the scotch. You walk around the table and pour everyone a glass. As you stand beside Michael, he stares at your face as you pour. He had never seen you with make-up before. The humidity in the truck with fryers would melt it off your face, you had said. He whispers, "You look beautiful."

"Thank you." You whisper back then finish his glass. You take everyone's order recommending the specials and explaining each one. Michael immediately orders one of the specials and with his confidence everyone follows suit. You knew it was because he trusted your taste.

There was no time to chat with his table. They seemed to be in their own medical world and you didn't want to interrupt. However, you did catch him staring at you through the kitchen doors. They finish eating their food and call for the bill, skipping dessert. Michael chews on his bottom lip as he watches you make the transaction at the computer at the waiter's station. You flick your eyes at him and blink slowly then smile.

You return with the older man's card and bid the table farewell. Michael is the last to get up, "What time should I be back?" He whispers.

"10." You whisper back. He flashes you a wink then leaves the restaurant. Your cheeks start to hurt from how hard you were smiling.

10pm rolls around and you immediately throw off your shoes and put on some sneakers from your locker. Everyone is complaining about the service but you could care less about it now. Your side work was done and you had someone waiting for you. You bid everyone farewell and rush out the back and around to the front of the building.

There he was, illuminated by the street lights. You run up to him and give him a tight hug. "Hi." He chuckles before hugging you back. "When did you get here? How long are you here for?"

"I got here a week ago and I'll be here for 6 months. I'll be missing graduation but this is worth it." You shrug, "I was going to surprise you by coming to the hospital but boss-man had me doing grunt work this weekend."

"I'm glad this was where you surprised me instead. You told me about this place, you know."

"I know. I didn't think you would go to all the places I'd recommend."

He chuckles, "Why wouldn't I? I'd go wherever you told me to because I like you."

You giggle, "Where are you living?"

"Central City. It's near the hospital."

"Oh I'm in the opposite direction," You pout.

"You're not if you come with me tonight." He holds you tighter.

"If you insist." You shrug and let out a sigh, "I won't argue."

"Good, because I was worried I'd have to carry you away."

"Is that still an option?"

You spend the night with Michael and learn he has two roommates. They were also doctors, one in the same department and the other was in Internal Medicine. They were from out of town coming from a school on the west coast.

The apartment was clean enough. What they lacked in furniture they made up for in spirit. Together, they made your belly hurt laughing. A playboy center fold was hung from a wall because it was the only thing they had that cover the plaster that had chipped away. They called the couch 'The Molester' because if you sat on it for too long the springs underneath with give your tush a little tickle. They're fridge was at least full of groceries. The IM roomie's mother stopped by before going on a cruise from the port.

Michael's room was the only one you got to see. And based off his room it was safe to judge the other two were not living like kings either. A beanbag chair in the corner, a stereo balanced on a milk crate. An old dresser with half the drawer handles broken and the rustiest bed frame you've ever seen. When you sat on the bed you could hear the springs scream under the weight.

"How do you sleep at night?" You look around in shock.

"Like a baby usually. Too tired to really notice." He flops on the bed next to you, the springs screech, "I was imagining that you and I would probably stay in a hotel when you'd come to visit."

"So I guess that means we aren't getting lucky tonight?" You lay down next to him. The bed agonizes again.

"Oh no." He leans in closer and whispers, "Any sudden movements and we'll have the neighbors calling the cops."

You laugh, "Then I'll just be okay sleeping beside you." You caress his face and brush your thumb over his lips. You admire his drowsy eyes as you rakes your fingers through his hair. "I missed you."

"I missed you too." He mutters. You continue to trace over the details of his skins down his back and up again. Soon, he can't fight the sleep and brings you close for warmth as you have now realized he had only a top sheet to sleep with.

Time goes on as you both live your lives in New Orleans. You'd work server shifts for extra cash and after a month, you moved in with Michael. You were a fourth roommate they didn't know they needed. By the 3rd month of your internship, you all weren't living in squalor. 'The Molester' was the first thing to go. Your landlord finally came around to covering the wall and last but not least you got a new bed frame from the neighbor on the cheap because they were moving.

Almost every night you would try to cook for the doctors. Coming home from your own shift at work, you would make sandwiches in case they were either hungry now or later. They all enjoyed them, especially Michael. Once you had woken up in the middle of the night for a glass of water and saw that he had eaten all three sandwiches. He was starving, apparently.

Your internship was going well but you could feel the existential dread the end drew near. Your manager was thoroughly impressed with your work as you managed as both a server and associate manager under him. He said he saw something in your future if you wanted something more long term. You agree immediately. Staying at the restaurant meant staying with Michael— and jump starting your career, of course. You'd no longer be working under him and instead would be talking directly with the restaurateur, and his business partner, the head chef. You'd be managing the front of house and he'd go back to his original job title of not a babysitter. He had a smile on his face as he spoke. He was proud of you.

You celebrate by cooking a proper dinner for the housemates and wait for them to come home. However, it isn't until late that they arrive. Michael and Howie, the other EM resident, come home silent and solemn. Howie lets you know Joey, IM roomie, was on-call and wouldn't be home tonight either. They don't even bat an eye at the food. Something must have made them lose they're appetite. You put away the leftovers and head to your room to check on Micheal.

He lays in your shared bed, face down. You sit on the edge of the bed and rub his back, "You okay?" You whisper. He turns his head away from you. "It's okay, you don't have to tell me." You continue to rub his back. You feel the tension slowly unravel in his shoulders until he relaxes. You lay beside him.

"There was a car accident." He still doesn't face you. "A woman was sideswiped and crushed in her car. We did everything we could to stabilize her."

"But she didn't make it?" You see his shoulders convulse as his face rests in the pillow. "It's okay, baby." You pull him into your chest and rub his back. You feel hot tears on your chest as you continue to comfort him for the rest of the night.

The next morning you wake up early and make breakfast for him. He comes out of his room dressed, he stops and looks at you in surprise. "What are you doing up so early?"

"I wanted to make you breakfast after a hard day yesterday. Something on the go." You hand him a breakfast sandwich. "A little bit of home to keep you going."

He smiles at the sight, "Thank you. Did you make one—"

"I made one for Howie too. Go ahead and take a bite."

He chuckles and unwraps the foil taking a bite. It was warm and perfect to fulfill him. Stuffed with egg, sausage, sharp cheddar and some spinach in the egg. "Sorry about dinner yesterday."

You wave it off, "It wasn't a big deal. It's in the fridge for tonight."

"What was the occasion?" He gulps down his bite.

"I got promoted at work."

His eyes widen, "Babe, that's amazing! Why didn't you say anything? Ugh, had I known—"

You throw you hand up, "It's fine. It was a big day for the both of us. Being in bed with you holding me was enough. Big spoon is nice once in a while."

"Well, tonight, we'll celebrate. I promise." He kisses your cheek. Howie comes out of his room changed. You hand him his sandwich and you bid them both farewell.

After that, Michael developed the habit of making things up to you. He tried to cook for you a few times but the only time it came out well was when you were in the kitchen with him. He bought you anything you set your sights on. Things you had mentioned in passing months prior to the purchase. He spoiled you but you were still a scrappy kid from Pittsburgh. No matter what shoes you wore or how much your outfit cost, the image of that girl covered in grease in a food truck never faded from his mind.

Soon it's June and the internship is over, and you had your Bachelor's of Science in Food Business Management. To celebrate, the Grand Héron closed for lunch and you got to celebrate with your friends and Michael. The head chef made all your favorite dishes. Everyone describing them the way you would to the customer. That's how they could tell which were your favorite. You can't stop smiling as you sat at the head of the table seeing everyone beaming back at you.

Michael has your hand in his and he's rubbing your knuckles. He hasn't touched his plate. You look at him worriedly, "Everything okay?" You whisper.

He snaps out of his thoughts, "Yeah of course." He gives you a flat smile. "Just so proud of you."

"Okay." You scan him suspiciously but your attention is called away by one of the servers. You slip out of his grasp and go to take some pictures with your friends.

Michael looked more nervous now that you weren't by his side. Your brows knit together in worry as you continue to talk to everyone around the table thanking them. When you return to his side, you grab his hand, "Are you sure everything is okay? You like something is eating you up inside."

"We can talk after dessert, okay? I promise nothing is wrong. Enjoy your party." He kisses your cheek. You huff before putting on smile and waiting for the next course.

Soon, dessert is served; Bananas Foster, your favorite. You liked to watch the pastry chef make it. The flair of when he lit the rum aflame excited you. The plate is set in front of you and the pastry chef comes up to light it. You squeal as the flame quickly burns out leaving the rum covered bananas and ice cream on display. Everyone claps as you smile. You wonder why everyone has now crowded to one side of the table. You look around to see Michael out of his seat and now down on one knee.

You immediately jump out of your seat and cover your hands over your mouth. In his hand was a box with a small ring inside. "I never thought you'd give me the time of day in that truck. Surely, a smart girl like you probably got hit on all the time and you would just blow me off like the rest. But you kept talking to me. You made me look forward to going to work just so that I could see you afterward. It made me sick to my stomach when I thought I'd never see you again. I don't believe in the divine but I do think it was fate. From walking to the bus stop, to never seeing you to us living together. It was always meant to be. Will you marry me?"

Tears are streaming down your face as you try to muster the words. You simply take a breath and nod holding out your hand. Every one cheers and throws confetti as Michael slips the ring on your finger and kisses you. You hold him tight knowing you'll never have to let go again.

You have a small courthouse wedding in the French Quarter a year later. A second-line procession leads you from the courthouse to the restaurant where the reception was. You couldn't ask for anything more.

You spend a few years in New Orleans. Grand Héron earns its very first Michelin star. Michael gets a fellowship with a different clinic in the area and applies for his state license. With recommendation from his attending in New Orleans and Pittsburgh he hopes to be able to obtain both Louisiana and Pennsylvania. You know as soon as there is an opening at the PTMC, he would love to move back home.

It doesn't take too long after his fellowship is completed that his former teacher asks for him by name to return to Pittsburgh. You let the restaurant know and everyone is devastated by the news. They thank you for you everything and hug you tightly. You were happy to have such an impact on the community. It was something you always wanted to harbor for yourself. The head chef pulls you aside and lets you know that he has a friend that is moving to Pittsburgh and setting up shop. You offer your services and exchange numbers.

It was sad to say goodbye but it felt so right for the both of you. It felt like the future was bright for the both of you as you take these large strides in your careers. The two of you drive a moving truck back to Pittsburgh. It was only about a day drive so split between the two of you, you would make it to your new home in no time.

As you're driving the first half, you speak, "I want to have a baby."

Michael's eyes shoot open and looks at you in surprise, "You do? Right now?"

"Not now, no but when we are settled. You get into a groove at the hospital and I get the restaurant on it's legs." You chew lip, "And then maybe."

"Okay, you went from a confident 'want' to a weaker 'maybe'" He cocks an eyebrow.

"I don't know. Sasha, the head chef, she's already talking about the menu and how we can get a Michelin star. She's already hit the ground running."

"Whatever you want to do." He smiles, "We've got time."

It's late into the next morning, when you arrive to the house. You both sleep in the truck until the sun rises and the movers arrives to help you unload the truck. You didn't bring much with you from New Orleans but your friends from the restaurant did offer you some parting gifts. Dishes, pots, pans, utensils, silverware, glasses, and a very nice knife set. They always claimed you could out cook the head chef but you never dared challenge him.

The house was nice, what attracted you was the large kitchen which was severely outdated. You'd have the funds to upgrade it piece by piece and it would be a fun project. Another thing was the spacious yard and deck in the back. Perfect for the outdoor events you were already planning.

Your life with Michael was finally coming together. He was an attending emergency medicine physician and you were a restaurateur like you dreamed. Your restaurants name was Fireweed. Sasha was into foraging and learned the native plant of the same name was edible and tasted good when roasted over a fire and garnished. She was a little unconventional but she wanted to retain the comfort that a hardworking city like Pittsburgh had. You were the one to help her with that.

Three years after opening, Fireweed received its first Michelin star. A benchmark you celebrated by going home and having unprotected sex with your husband. 9 months after that you would introduce the world to your baby girl, Mariah Robinavitch. And a year of living with her made you both believe that one baby was enough babies for you two.

As Mariah grew up, she started to like the things the two of you liked. She loved to be beside you in the kitchen as you cooked. You would let her chop vegetables with you and get first taste of what you were cooking. She also enjoyed "reading" with Michael. It was essentially her sitting in his lap as he read whatever medical journal he had.

Her favorite thing to do was visit daddy at work. One day, you were heading to Fireweed with her and decide to stop by the hospital to bring lunch to Michael. You enter the ED with her on your hip as she held the lunch pail. You came around to the hub and instantly see his eyes light up when he sees you. He gives you both a kiss and takes Mariah from you. "Hi, Rye." He moves her hair out of her face to kiss her cheek, "Having a day out with Mama?"

She nods bashfully as her presence has gained the attention of a few of the people around you. "Riah say, 'I made you lunch, Daddy.'" You rub her back to coax her.

"I made you lunch, Daddy." She holds up the pail. Michael takes it from her with a smile.

"Thank you, sweetheart." He sets it down, "I'll be sure to eat every last bite." He pretends to take bites of her. Her giggles are infectious as everyone around the nurse's station smiles.

You take her back from Michael, "We're going to Fireweed after this. I'll see you tonight." You kiss him gingerly. You say your goodbyes and leave back through the waiting room.

Dr. Adamson smiles, "Smells delicious in there."

"Oh, I am sure there is more than plenty in there for lunch and dinner. I'd be happy to share."

At night, you find the tupperware from Michael's lunch picked clean. Which was unusual as Michael never gave himself the grace to eat at work. A few bites here and there but never the full lunch. "You really ate everything?" You say as you clean the dishes.

"I shared some with Adamson. He thought it was delicious so eat ate half of my portion too."

"Your boss, who works more than you, ate more than you." You cock an eyebrow, "I think there is irony in that statement, but I'm not sure."

"I just don't have an appetite when I'm working." He shrugs.

"Don't let Riah know that, or she'll kick you butt." You laugh.

When Mariah started school, her visits to the hospital cease and the frequency of when Michael brought lunch decreases. Your visits also decrease to zero because you have no cute baby to bring around, what's the point of you being there. So, when he did bring lunch it was treated like a holiday. You knew it wasn't him eating his food because he'd come home famished and devouring dinner. You didn't say anything either because you were glad somebody was eating it at least.

Young intern Dr. Langdon feels like he is fading as he works. His eyes keep forcing themselves closed and he could topple over at any moment. He had a new baby at home, he could not get any sleep, and no time to eat. Michael knew the feeling all too well. "I can't have you working on patients if you are looking sick yourself." He pats his back and places his lunch pail in Langdon's hands, "Eat."

"Oh, Dr. Robby I couldn't possibly—"

"I'm not asking. Go eat." He pushes him towards the break room. Langdon walks there feeling defeated and sits at the table. He opens the pail to find inside a large insulated bowl inside with a note underneath:

"To whom is eating this lunch. Inside the bowl is a new recipe I am trying. Blackened Cajun Chicken Alfredo. While Michael was working in New Orleans, I spent a lot of time exploring the city on my own culinary journey as my restaurant was trying to compete with others. When you finish let him know what you thought so he can tell me his lie about it. Be specific, I can handle the critique. R.W."

R.W. Robby's Wife. He opens the bowl and is instantly hit with the scent of the Cajun spices on the chicken. His stomach growls ferociously as he attempts to stirs the sauce over the chicken. He takes the first bite and can barely contain himself. The creamy sauce made the seasoning of the chicken less intense. The crunch of the blackened chicken set it apart from plain alfredo. He loved every bite of it. He wipes his mouth and rinses the dish in the sink before putting it back in the lunch bag.

"That was delicious, Dr. Robby. I didn't know I needed that." He hands back the bag.

"Of course."

"Your wife is an incredible cook. I've never had anything like that. The sauce was really rich and enhanced the flavor of the chicken. It was a little hot but nothing my taste buds couldn't handle." He explains just like you had asked. Michael listens quizzically but doesn't stop him either.

"Okay…" He hands him a tablet, "Now that you're feeling better you can refocus right?"

The young man nods as he takes the tablet from Michael and heads to his patient. As he walks away, Collins watches him speed off from the computer, "Food is fuel, I guess."

"Not just any food," Dana chimes, "Robby's wife's food. She's an owner of a restaurant downtown. Two Michelin stars and she ain't even one of the chefs. It's notorious that if you are given the opportunity to eat from that bag. You do not take it for granted. You should give it a try."

The next time Robby brings his pail, he sets it on the nurses station as a trauma comes in at the start of shift. While he is distracted, Princess lets her curiosity get the best of her. She looks into the bag and sees a note:

To whom is eat this lunch. In the container are two halves of a meatball sub. Made with beef meatballs, melted mozzarella and provolone, and marinara sauce. When Michael and I were dating, I worked in a food truck parked across the street at the park. He tried every sandwich I made at least once. He never told me what his favorite sandwich was but I think it was this one because we exchanged phone numbers after his first bite. If you're feeling generous you can cut it into smaller pieces to share. R.W.

Princess grins with excitement before she puts the note back. When Michael returns, Princess places her hand on top of the bag, "Anybody claim it yet?"

"All yours, Princess." He chuckles, "Just leave it in the break room when your all done."

She hugs the bag to her chest and jumps around giddily. Perlah notices and sidles up next to her, "What's in it?"

"Meatball subs. We can split it about four to six ways if we cut them right." She whispers back. Perlah grins along with her before whispering to Donnie and Dana.

Around lunch time the four of them are each enjoying the gooey and saucy sensation that was the meatball subs. Even in their small sizes, it was very fulfilling. They were shocked at how formidable the bread was under the weight of the meat, sauce, and cheese. Michael catches them as they stuff their faces, "That good?"

"Delicious as always. Compliments to the chef." Dana wipes her mouth and hands as she savors the last bite in her mouth.

They raved about that lunch all week. Collins had to try this food out for herself. Michael comes in with the lunch pail and Collins nearly mows Langdon down to get to it first. He holds it out to her. "Enjoy," is all he says as he places it into her hands. At lunch she opens the the bag and reads the note:

Last night, we had Riah's favorite; Chicken Parmesan. When she was little, I had her read to me the instructions to me. She called it persimmon instead. It became an ongoing joke in the house when we'd have chicken persimmon. She kinda hates the joke now, being a teenager and all. But if she could eat one thing for the rest of her life, it would be this right here. Heat it up and enjoy. R.W.

Collins smiles before taking out the container and putting it in the microwave. She cuts it up when its finished stirring it into the noodles. As she takes the first bite, she smiles. It reminded her of what it was like being cared for by family. Although not her kind of cooking, she knew it was made from scratch and made with love. It made her a little homesick.

When she finishes, she hands the lunch pail back to Michael, "I needed that, thank you. You should have Mariah visit some time. Didn't you say she used to love coming?"

Michael's brows furrow at the mention of his daughter, "Uh, I'll see if she'd like to stop by after school or something…"

When he comes home that day, you are in the kitchen cooking and Mariah is in the dining room doing homework. "Hi Dad." She doesn't look up from her books.

"Hi Rye." He sits down beside her and watches her work.

"What's up?" She looks up quizzically.

"I wanted to ask if you wanted to come by the ED this weekend. Everyone misses you." He smiles, "You don't have to if you don't want—"

"That would be cool." She nods, "I kinda miss it too."

He pinches her cheek, "How about after school tomorrow, Mama can drop you off for a few minutes before going home."

"Yeah, sounds good."

He then gets up from the table and goes to the kitchen. You are at the stove stirring over a large pot. "Hi Handsome, I'm making soup." You look up from the pot and see him set down his lunch pail. "Good lunch?"

"Yeah, I'd say so." He leans against the counter, "Collins asked about Rye today."

"Oh yeah? I heard you in there asking about stopping by the hospital. She sounds excited to visit again."

"Are you putting notes with the lunches?"

"I thought you knew." You shrug, "I have no reason to be coming to the ED. And there's no time for me to be telling our life story, I write the notes. I mentioned Riah in the note today."

"Well, if you'd like to tell our whole life story, we could have a party here? Next weekend when it's warmer."

"Really? You'd invite your coworkers here?"

"You have you're cohort here all the time. I don't mind them seeing the place."

"You've just become a little more private is all." You defend, "I'd be more than happy to have them over."

That was the last party you had before the lockdown. You and Michael had a hard time as you were no longer working and he was working overtime. He chose to sleep in your guest bedroom out of fear of getting you or Mariah sick. He left for work early and came home late. Mariah would crawl into your bed scared for the well being of her father.

Even on his days off, he was still in fight or flight mode. You would sit next to him on the couch and he would tense up. He was hesitant to be near you. Always picking the farthest spot in the room to be.

You spent most of your time in the kitchen during the lockdown. Day in and day out you were in there cooking up a storm. You learned how to make sourdough, bagels, and baked goods. You cracked open some cookbooks and tried new dishes you had never made before. Mariah even helped you in the kitchen. She was getting to that age where she was considering what she wanted to do with her life. It was kind of hard for her to think about it when her dad was watching the world end at work every day. You told her not to worry too much and that it was your job to do it. Which meant you weren't doing a good job.

Late at night, Michael comes out of his room to use the bathroom. With the nightlight in the hall he sees on the floor your silhouette laying on the floor resting on a pillow and under a blanket. His brows furrow then he lays down beside you, "Sweetheart, what are you doing on the floor?"

"You won't sleep next to me." You mutter, "So I am sleeping as close as I can." His lip quivers as he gently rests his hand on your cheek. You kiss his hand and place your hand on top of his, "I don't want you to be scared in your own home. You can talk to me about anything."

"I know." He sniffles, "I'm just so scared."

"Then let's be scared together." You kiss him gently, "This is a scary time and I don't want anyone in this house thinking they have to do it alone."

"I love you." He smiles.

"I love you too." You kisses him again.

"Dad? Mom? What are you guys doing on the floor?" You look down the hall and see Mariah standing in her doorway confused.

"Worrying about societal collapse. Want to join us?" You lift up your blanket to offer her the space between you and Michael.

"Yes please." She steps between the two of you and lays down on the floor facing Michael. She wraps her arms around him, "I missed you, Dad."

"I missed you too, Rye." He kisses the top of her head. You cover both of them in your blanket as all three of your cuddle.

It was still hard for Michael as Dr. Adamson would later pass away from COVID-19. He was like a father to Michael. You'd have him over for dinner all the time and he had a gift for Mariah for every birthday. He was a kind soul in your eyes. Michael would lay with you and cry in your shoulder for a month after his passing.

Your food brought him comfort in the darkness. He always thought your cooking was delicious but now with all the time you had away from the restaurant you had improved greatly. You were honestly happy to see him put on the weight as he ate his feelings. He would talk as he ate. Complaining about the day or trying to find the good in it. Mariah helped him with that too. Seeing her change and grow prevented his heart from getting cold.

One autumn day, the two of them sit on the back deck and watch the leaves fall from the trees in the backyard. You made them some spiced apple cider to keep warm as they enjoyed the cool day. "You graduate in a year, are you nervous?" He asks.

She shakes her head, "No, I've got upper middle class parents. I should be fine."

He chuckles, "Have you thought about what you want to do? Where you want to go?"

"I think I want to do pre-med." She smiles, "I like chemistry."

"You want to be a lab tech?" He looks over at her surprised.

"Unless something entices me." She shrugs, "I might be interested in Internal Medicine or… Emergency Medicine."

"Whatever you want." He gives her a flat smile, "It's hard work."

"I know. I see you do it every day. That's why I want to do it too." She nudges him with her elbow, "Maybe."

He holds her close and kisses her forehead, "Whatever you want, Baby girl."

You are thankful for those days to be long behind you now. Mariah graduated high school class of 2022. Mariah chose to stay in the dorms her first year at Pitt declared as a chemistry major. The two of you couldn't be prouder. You all cried over chicken persimmon one last time before dropping her off at the dorm.

The following year, Fireweed reopened which made local news causing a surge of reservations, keeping you busy again. You introduced some new menu items from your time cooking at home much to Sasha's pleasure. Life was starting to get back into a groove you could enjoy without feeling the existential dread. It was still there, but subtler.

The ED was buzzing because there was rumors that the lunch pail was making it's great return this year. Dr. Mohan had no idea what anyone was talking about as everyone spoke in hush tones in anticipation. "Why are you guys whispering about a lunch box? Whose is it?"

"Robby's wife cooks him lunch and it is the best food you will ever taste. Restaurant quality of a home cooked meal." Langdon explains, "She's makes it fresh in the morning for him or it's last nights leftovers. Robby never has the appetite so whoever gets a hold of it has first dibs. Sometimes she makes enough to feed a whole family."

Mohan looks intrigued then remembers, "Oh! Robby gave me his lunch bag this morning. I thought he wanted me to put it away for him." Everyone sighs in defeat dispersing.

"It's all yours, Mohan." Collins pats her shoulder, "Enjoy it."

At lunch, Mohan opens the pail to find a note on top with sliced sourdough bread in a container and a small soup thermos. She proceeds to read the note:

Hello! I really missed making lunches for Michael. Our daughter just officially moved out of our home to live with some college friends. It was very heartbreaking. Michael bawled his eyes out all night. She has always been his little girl and he couldn't be prouder. She wants to be a doctor like him. I made this soup for the cold day. I used to make it for them on days like this and they would cuddle on the couch to eat together to keep themselves warm. It's a Cheddar Garlic Herb Potato soup. Please enjoy with the freshly baked sourdough I baked. It's a hearty meal to fortify the soul. With love, R.W.

Mohan's eyes well up with tears as she imagines Robby bidding his daughter farewell. Something she wished her own father could have been able to do with her. She opens the thermos and takes her first bite. A tear pricks her cheek as she chews. It's as if she could feel your love mix with the flavors of the soup.

When she finishes, she wipes her face, cleans the thermos and hands the bag back to Robby. "Was it good?" He asks. Mohan's resolve melts under his soft gaze.

"It was… delicious." She sniffles, "I wish your daughter good luck with her journey." She hands the note to him, "Seeing you and your wife talk about her makes me imagine how my dad would be with me if he was alive." She bows her head and walks away, wiping her face. Robby looks down at the note and smiles. You always had a way with stirring up emotions with your meals.

Your delicious lunches and notes brought smiles to each of the staff members in the ED. Which in turn brought a smile to Michael's face. He's even extended the lunch pail to Night shift, Abbot getting first dibs. There have even been a few times where a resident or two has come over to eat. You've had Langdon and his family over and even given him some of of Mariah's old toys for his kids.

You loved a good gathering. Michael always knew this. You loved hosting dinners at the restaurant for your employees. Bringing them over for dinner at the house. Sometimes he'd come home to the remnants and it was a pleasant sight to see such a warm smile on your face when you are surrounded by people.

It was tough for his cohort as residents and med students come and go through the months and years but they all know you would be happy to welcome them back anytime. His newest gaggle would have to be your personal favorites.

McKay is the one who tells them about the lunch. "She's like world famous. Maintains two Michelin stars and gets sick at the idea of somebody going hungry. You have the moral obligation to eat that lunch if its bestowed upon you. Don't waste the chance because anybody here would kill for it." She winks, "But it is that serious. Don't take that shit for granted."

Santos takes it as a challenge to get it first. She's chomping at the bit as she looks around for Robby and the famous lunch. Dana catches her snooping around the nurse's station, "It's not here." She states. "Try the break room." Santos plays it off before awkwardly walking up the north side of the ED towards the break room. When she enters, she sees Robby holding the bag just about to put it in the refrigerator.

"Can I help you with something, Santos?" He tilts his head at her, "Heard about the lunch, huh."

"Uh, nah I was just looking for something in here."

"Okay then, I'm sure Javadi or Whitaker would be happy to take this—"

"Since I'm in here, I mean, I might as well."

"Good answer." He hands the bag to her, "Enjoy." He walks away.

She sets it down and open the bag. A note rests on top of what she presumes is a sandwich wrapped in foil. The note reads:

Happy Meet-iversary! Just kidding, my husband and I do not celebrate that specifically. All I know is it is around this time of year that we did meet. This sandwich was the very first one he ever tried that I made. If you asked, he'd probably describe it like it was heaven on Earth. I think he's conflating the sandwich with meeting me and can't separate the two. I cut the sandwich in half so if you'd like you can split it with somebody…special. It's a good idea to share."

Santos chuckles at the note, "What a sap." She takes out one sandwich and unwraps it. It looked like a caesar salad on bread. What was so special about that? She takes a bite and closes her eyes. It could be really special actually. The bread was nicely toasted with melted parmesan. The dressing soaked into the bread but it's not too bad with the seasoned chicken. "Fuck, that's good." The last thing she says before devouring the rest of the sandwich. She grabs out the second one and drops off the pail with Robby. He notices the sandwich and points to it, "Is that what I think it is?"

"Your wife said to save it for later. Sorry, her rules." She puts it behind her pocket and walks backwards to Trauma One. Garcia walks out of the room and to the elevator. "Hey, I saved a bit of lunch. It's pretty good."

"Your leftovers? No thanks. I've got a bit of my own to finish upstairs." She gets on the elevator, "I'll catch you later though when you ditch the sandwich."

As the doors close, Santos sighs. She then looks over at Whitaker who is looking a little worse for wear. She walks over to him, "Hey, you hungry?"

"Famished." He pats his stomach. She hands him the sandwich.

"Here, Robby's wife made it so make sure you say thanks."

"Thanks." He takes it to break room.

After work, as they walk out of the ED, Whitaker speaks, "Everyone was right. Robby's wife is a really good cook."

"And a good judge of character." Santos mutters under her breath.

Javadi is next to get the precious lunch pail. There is a cute lunch box inside it with an ornate note taped on top:

It's our little Rye's birthday! Our daughter is turning 19! She's a little winter baby so she's ahead in her class year. She's currently at Pitt studying pre-med chemistry. She keeps changing her mind on whether she wants to go into patient care or not. I'm sure one of you can talk to her and give her some insight on the decision. I am just proud that she is as passionate as her father. This is her old lunch box that I used. I was online and saw the children's bento boxes in japan and decided to try my patience. I hope this heals your inner child or at least puts a smile on your face.R.W.

Javadi smiles as she opens the bento box. It was masterfully done, little squid sausages, rice balls shaped like panda heads, and folded eggs. She almost feels bad eating it but with the effort that was put in how could she not. Her own mother never put this kind of effort into making a lunch but Riah had a mom that would make a lunch for a stranger.

When she finishes, she hands the lunch pail back to Robby, "Um, Dr. Robby, if it's okay, could I give you my number to give to your daughter? We're close in age and I would be more than happy to talk to her about med school and choosing patient care."

"I'd be happy to pass it along. I'll give it to her at dinner for her birthday."

"Right. Happy birthday to her." She smiles as she walks away.

The proverbial pail had made its rounds once again through the residents. Now it was anybody's game. One day, Robby comes in and curses to himself. "Sorry guys, I forgot the lunch."

Everyone groans in disappointment as he opens in phone. Dana looks over his shoulder, "Are you going to ask her to stop by?"

"Of course. Everyone wants a fair chance at the bag." He sucks his teeth, "And I think it would would be nice for her to meet this cohort."

"You left it on purpose." She slaps his shoulder playfully.

"Maybe I did. Maybe I didn't." He shrugs.

A few hours later, you arrive to the ED with the proverbial pail slung over your shoulder. As you pass by the nurses walking by you say hello until you arrive to the central nurse's station. Everyone's eyes are on you as they spot the pail. "Wow, this thing is more famous than I thought."

"I don't know babe, you're pretty famous." Dana mutters.

Langdon comes over and gives you a hug, "Hi, how are you?"

"I'm good, Sweetie." You rub his shoulder, "You look good."

Michael comes over with some new faces, "Hi hun." He kisses your cheek. He then introduces you to his newer residents and med students. R3 Mel King, R2 Trinity Santos, R1 Dennis Whitaker, and MS4 Victoria Javadi. You recognized Victoria's name from your daughter. You pull them each into a hug.

"It's nice to meet you all. I'm assuming you've each had some of his lunch at least once?" They all nod bashfully, "Good."

"I've been to your restaurant actually! With my sister." Mel chimes.

"Oh fantastic! Anyone from The Pitt is welcome there. Next time be sure to let your waiter know. You guys can get your meal compensated." They all gawk at the statement. "Perks of being one of the owners. Dana takes advantage of it for date nights. I'm surprised Michael has never mentioned it."

"It slips my mind." He shrugs.

You roll your eyes, "Well, I'm just glad you all enjoy my cooking."

They all start to talk over each other about your dishes. You get flustered and raise your hand to stop them, "I'm flattered, truly. I think the purpose of my visit with this is to invite you all to a dinner party. If you're all free sometime this week I'd be more than happy to cook you guys a grand meal."

"Really? That would be amazing!" Javadi pipes up excitedly.

"Of course. Work it out among yourselves and you let… Dr. Robby know. He'll tell me." You hand him the bag, "It's tomato bisque. I'm sure you can evenly distribute it." You walk out of the ED bidding everyone farewell.

During dinner service as you work, you receive a text message from Michael; Friday 8:30pm. You smile at the sight and begin to plan the dinner party.

Friday comes and you spend all evening cooking. Around 8pm, Mariah arrives to help set up. Victoria mentioned the dinner to her and decided she wanted to meet the rest of the EM residents. Michael arrives soon after letting you know they'll be all trickling in soon. He comes up behind you as you cook at the stove, "Smell delicious."

"I know." You hold the spoon to him for a taste.

He moans in delight, "Tastes good too. Rye, how is school?" He enters the dining room helps Mariah set up the candles and glasses.

Mel arrives first punctual at 8:30 sharp. Langdon follows after with Javadi trailing him. Whitaker and Santos come soon after that and McKay and Mohan come each bearing gifts of bottles of wine. Michael kindly accepts them and store them in your wine rack. Both of them look meekly at the rather large cabinet that was probably full of more finer tastes than they brought. Mariah shows them around pointing the bathroom and showing them to the backyard.

Langdon stays in the kitchen having been here several times and helps you bring out the dishes to the table. You follow with the rest and call everyone to the table. You all sit together around the table perfectly. "Alright, if I may, I would like to propose a toast. To the past love stories," You look to Michael beside you, "To the presence of friendship," You look around the table, "And the future of medicine." You raise your glass to Mariah at the far end. Everyone raises their glass with you, clinking them together before digging into their plates.

You look around the table and watch everyone enjoying they're food. "Beautiful as always, Honey." Michael smiles at you. You give him a chaste kiss in response before continue to enjoy the night.

˖⋆࿐໋₊ ☆

tags: @cosmicneptune

Abbot rolls his eyes as he halfheartedly listens to Shen. The med students don't seem all that amused either as they look at one another with out a care in the world, waiting to clock out of their shift. Rounds end after Shen's ghost story and night shift is on duty.

The night goes on without a hitch. Nothing too extreme happens and Abbot continues working throughout the night working at the hub for his students' convenience. That is until he sees one of Trauma One Room's doors open. He leans back to see a woman in a patient gown just standing there idly. She circles around the gurney that is in there before stepping out into the hall.

Abbot looks around and sees that nobody else is paying the patient any mind. Maybe a docile psych patient waiting for a bed. He checks his watch: 3 o'clock. He checks the status board but doesn't see any patients matching her treatment. They should be in beds waiting instead of walking around. He peaks around the wall to watch her continue to walk but she seems to have disappeared when he was looking. With his brows furrowed, he looks around again to see that still nobody saw the woman like he did.

He shrugs it off as possible sleep deprived hallucinations. He goes through charts a little more then sees the woman again. She walks right behind him and he feels a cold chill pass as she does. She stops at the ambulance bay doors and stares out into the darkness. Ellis comes up beside Abbot to present a case for him. She notices him not paying attention but when she looks in the direction he is, she sees nothing. "You okay, Dr. Abbot?"

"Yes," He snaps his head around, "What is it?"

As Ellis explains the case, Abbot's eyes wander back to the doors. The woman is gone. He shoots around to see she is back in Trauma One. He reverts his gaze back to the tablet then follows Ellis to her patient.

When he is walking back to the hub he looks into Trauma One but doesn't see the woman anymore. He goes to Charge Nurse Lena, "Do we have a psych patient down here waiting for a bed?"

"If it's not on the status board then its a 'no,' babes." She looks up for a second then goes back to the computer, "I don't see anything so I don't think so." He simply nods and continues about his shift.

The next night, she returns. This time Abbot is walking back from triage and sees her looking at the toaster over and coffee maker in the corner. He furrows his brows in confusion as he watches her. She stays completely still before turning on her heals and continuing down the corridor. Back to Trauma One, he thinks. Who was she? He racks his brain for a patient that looks liked her but nothing comes to mind. As he follows behind her, he sees her stop in front of the hub looking at the status board. Patients don't usually pay any mind to the screens. It doesn't make sense to the common man.

She looks both ways before walking to Trauma One just like he thought. Shen stands in the way of his line of sight at the counter. Abbot walks closer to get a better look but once again the woman is gone.

Time and time again this continues, the clock strikes 3 o'clock in the morning and the woman appears. She wanders the halls for the hour and by 4 o'clock she is back in Trauma One and gone for the night. Abbot did not want to tell anybody about what he saw but of course he did mention it to his therapist. If it was some kind of hallucination he wanted it fixed.

"Has she spoken to you?" His therapist asks.

"No, she doesn't talk." He sighs, "She just wanders around."

"But she comes and goes from your line of sight?" He scribbles down some notes, "Like she's on a track?"

"Yes, exactly. I don't have time to keep an eye on her but she's around."

"Have you tried touching her or acknowledging her?" He clears his throat, "This doesn't seem like an ordinary hallucination, Jack. It may not even be one. This woman seems to know her way around the ED, maybe even belongs there. From my understanding, some form of psych care especially for hospitals is to let them wander as long as there is no obstruction. Is it possible for her to have been a nurse or doctor?"

"She's wearing a patient gown and no shoes." Jack reminds him.

"Right of course. I don't want to push you out of your comfort zone and I wouldn't usually recommend this course of treatment but next time you see her, try to touch her; or at least speak to her. See if the pattern breaks. I think this will give us more insight and a better course of action if there needs to be treatment."

Abbot was nervous. He didn't really want to touch the woman. What if she was a ghost and attached herself to him? He squeezes his eyes shut trying to push the thought away. Ghosts are not real. If they were, he would be haunted by worse a long time ago.

At The Pitt, 3 am rolls around and just as Abbot checks his watch, paramedics enter with a patient on a gurney headed to Trauma One. "Harvey Thomas, 45, male. Car accident, found out the scene most likely ejected from his car. He was combative on the scene, we were only able to put on the C-collar and place him on the backboard. Vitals are 100/40 ,Respiratory Rate 28, Heart rate is 110"

Dr. Abbot follows after them, "He doesn't seem too combative now." He rubs his knuckles against Harvey's sternum but gets very little reaction. His eyes can barely open and is making small gurgling noises.Jack Abbot opens his mouth about speak.

"He needs to be intubated." That's what he was going to say. He looks over his shoulder at the woman. She is there beside him watching the professionals work around the patient. Who are you? He thinks before focusing on the patient again. "Ellis get ready to intubate." A nurse follows Ellis and remove the C-collar to stabilize his neck and head for the tube.

"His respiratory rate is increasing. There is pressure building in his chest." The woman speaks again. Abbot looks at the vitals. She was right. Was she a doctor here?

"He's going to need needle decompression and a chest tube. Pressure is building in his chest since he can't breathe on his own."

As they continue working the woman murmurs again, "His left foot is fractured, his ankle is turning blue." Abbot, looks down to see the discoloration. He pulls off the shoes and checks for a reaction, nothing. "Can I get a splint for this to alleviate the pressure."

"X-ray, CT. Several broken ribs. Pneumothorax. No head trauma. No pelvic injury." She speaks. She's going through the steps in her head but she can see everything without the machines. The portable X-ray comes in and the specialist repeats some of the same things the woman just did.

Once the patient his stabilized they send him up for his CT and get an OR prepped. Everyone takes off their gowns and clean up the sharps for the cleaning crew. All but Abbot leaves. He stays and stares as the woman watches the patient go to through the elevator. She blinks out of her daze and turns to see Abbot staring at her. Their eyes meet but the woman looks at him confused. She looks over shoulder then back at him. "Can you see me?"

You haven't been seen since… well ever. You were starting to feel hollow. You'd wake up at 3 o'clock in the hospital bed everyday. You'd watch the patients, the nurses, and the doctors all come and go. It was all noise to you. Not enough energy to care or desire to do anything but walk around.

You see yourself in the reflection of mirrors and glass but see a face you didn't recognize. For years since being trapped in this emergency room you had no idea who you were. What you were doing there. Or what your name was. At first you did try to get peoples attention. Anybody who would answer or look you in the eye. But it didn't take long for you to feel defeated in your attempts.

You chose to wander the halls instead. Everyday for eternity you would force yourself to walk around until you exhausted yourself. Which didn't take long these days. You felt so hollow. The only time you ever felt excitement was when a Trauma was happening when you were awake. It was rare but when it happened you'd get this random knowledge— which you had no idea where it came from— about it. It was like you were a doctor like the ones in the room with you. Your eyes would glaze over and you could see the patients bones, their muscle tissue, and the organs. You felt important without being able to do anything really to help.

Now, this doctor, the night attending was staring at you as you stand in the room. "Can you see me?" You point to yourself. You take a step closer but he takes a step back. "You can. You can see me." You laugh and jump around in delight. "You can see me! You can see me!" You turn back towards him and see he has left the room. You quickly follow after him, "Wait! Wait please!" He quickly hides in the men's restroom in a stall to catch his breath. You enter having no bounds to societal standards anymore. "I know you're in there."

"I'll respect your privacy but can you at least acknowledge that you can see me? Hear me?" You tap on the stall door. Abbot holds his head. This couldn't be happening. You were phasing through people in the hall. You could see things no one else could. He takes a deep breath. "Look I know it's scary but imagine how I feel. I've been dead for… I don't actually know how long. The years seem to blend together now. But I've been all alone until now. Please. You're— shit um— You're Jack Abbot, right? The attending physician for night shift? You lead the charge. I'm— fuck— I don't actually know my name. You can call me whatever you want but please tell me you can see me. Please."

The door swings open startling you. He's staring at you at again. "I see you." He says. He steps forward and analyzes you. You shrink a little under his gaze, "Why have I never seen you until now?"

"I don't know. I don't know how any of this works." You shrug, "But I'm happy you can see me. Maybe you can help me!"

"Help you?" He brushes past you and goes to the sink to wash his hands.

"I can't leave this place. The farthest I've ever gone is the waiting room. I can't use computers or possess stuff like in movies. But maybe you can help me find information about me?"

"I can't be very helpful if you don't even know your name." He clicks his tongue and walks out of the bathroom.

"But you can help! You have access to patient records and stuff like that, right?" You follow close behind but he doesn't answer. He stops at the hub to type up the patient report for the trauma. "Don't you want to know how I know all that in the trauma back there? I do. Who was I? Why am I stuck here? Why can't I remember?" Tears well up in your eyes as you sniffle. The lights begin to flicker. "Shit." You feel a shortness of breath. "I have to go." You stumble back to Trauma One. A new bed in its place. You lay down and this time Abbot watches as you fade into the fabric. He checks his watch: 3:55 am; 5 minutes before you usually disappear.

"She spoke to you?" Back in his therapist's office. He sits on the couch staring off in the window as his therapist sits across from his taking notes in his leather bound book. "She seems to know how to work in an ED."

"But I don't recognize her. She's not a resident or a med student I've seen working in The Pitt." Abbot rubs his hands together. "She's young though. Or she appears young? I don't know how any of this works. I feel ridiculous."

"It's okay to feel that way, Jack. What you are experiencing is… unnatural but your state of mind suggests you are not experiencing any other forms of hallucinations. She is interacting with the world not your mind. She respected your privacy by not entering the stall but still entered the men's bathroom. There is no suggestion of distortion or reality breaking. Just a metaphysical distraction. She's begging you for help but struggles to remember her own name. It all seems too elaborate."

"So, I'm not losing my mind?"

"No, you're not, Jack." His therapist takes a deep inhale through his nose, "Whatever is happening is deeply affecting you and I think the best course of action is to continue the way you have. I see no harm in what you have been doing and as long as you feel like it is not harming your mental state, you should be okay. But if you ever feel the need, I am just a call away." He assures.

3AM rolls around and you appear again. You've broken your pattern. You sit on the counter beside Abbot as he works. "Do you like working here?" You ask, "Blink twice for yes." He glares at you. You look away quickly, unnerved by his gaze. "Okay, some other time." You look up at the status board and let out a puff of air between your lips. "You should check on the pregnant asthma patient in North 5. She's probably finished her two nebulizers by now." You check your wrist as if you had a watch on.

Abbot narrows his eyes at the status board. You were right, she's been here close to an hour and was ordered 2 nebulizers but her status hasn't changed since. He grabs a chart and rushes to the room to find the woman still having a hard time breathing. He calls in a couple nurses, "Give her 75mg of methylpred and prep a BiPAP machine in here." He puts his stethoscope up to her chest to give a listen. Her breath was laborious and her lungs were squeezing for air.

The BiPAP machine is brought in and Abbot immediately alters the settings and puts it on the woman. "Let's call our OB down here to check on your baby and we'll call the ICU for a room for close monitoring." He explains to the woman. As he walks out of the room, you stand by the curtain with a smile on your face. "I was right."

He walks the opposite direction towards triage. "C'mon gimme the win here. We saved her life. Any longer and she and her baby would have been in serious danger." He enters the family bathroom and slams the door behind him. You stop short of the door for a moment before speaking, "Knock, knock?"

"Come in." He's quiet but you are close enough to hear him through the door. You phase through cautiously and smile at him. He walks past you to lock the door. "I don't like speaking to you out there when I am the only one who can see you." He paces around.

"You're talking to me. That's better than nothing!" You grin harder, the fluorescent lights seeming to glow brighter in the room.

"Calm down, or you'll get tired." He says sternly, "Don't you notice when you do that?"

"No, I do… It's been a long time since I've done it," You pick at your nails, "when it was dreary down here and I started to get… sad."

"You've been here a long time then." He sucks in a breath, "You caught that without even seeing the patient. How?"

You shrug, "I was just paying attention. I heard your intern present the case to you. I have nothing better to do so I am always looking at the status board."

"Were you a resident here?"

"I don't know. I don't know anything about myself." You look down at your gown, "I'm clearly a patient with these on…"

"Did you just learn from observing?" He looks a little surprised. An hour isn't really long enough to learn a lot of medicine. Especially with the acceleration of technology in medicine and the world as a whole in the past 2 decades alone.

"I always knew. I would blurt out answers and stuff when I could stick around longer. Before I gave up." You shuffle your feet then smile again, "That's not helpful. I'm sorry. I wish I could remember, maybe then I could leave."

"You've tried?"

"Yes, a few times. On a gurney, through the ambo bay, the coroner's, through the waiting room. I can't even step onto the elevator." You sigh, "Maybe you could um… look though, on a database?"

"Do you know how you died?" He asks. You shake your head. "Then it's going to take a very long and I have to still do my job as an attending."

You sigh, "What's a few more years of waiting? I'm just happy to be seen and heard. Thank you, Dr. Abbot."

Although he seemed reserved about you and slightly distrustful, he was also entertaining you. He gave you the space to talk. He didn't say much in response but he was glaring at you like he once was when you first met. You helped him keep an eye on his students and their patients like a ghostly babysitter. He was still hesitant to answer but he had no reason not to believe you.

However, you were using a lot of energy and towards the end of the hour, like a zombie, you slogged your way to Trauma One. Abbot checks his watch: 3:56. To do what the machines could, you were using a lot of energy and given less time to stay the full hour you usually do. He watches you fade away into the bed like usual.

"She's helping you." His therapist smiles, "And being medically accurate. This is incredible."

"I mean, she could still be in my head. It's stuff I know how to do."

"But without machines, she is seeing things you can't. You're not Superman but she seems to have his x-ray vision. An apparition version of him, if you will."

"You're really entertaining this?"

"Not entertaining, Jack. You are provided me the information and I am basing my assessment of the situation on those facts. So, unless you're withholding a truth here than I think what you're dealing with is a real ghost."

"A ghost…"

"There have been sightings at hospitals all around the country. It wouldn't be uncommon that the PTMC would be one of these hospitals as well." He shrugs, "There's nothing in the DSM-5 that could help us about your ghost situation. The best I can do is assure you that you're not out of sound mind and what you're doing is not a bad thing. Help her, Jack. She's already been helping you."

"Boo!" You pop up beside Jack at the north side nurse's station. He actually looks surprised to see you as it was 15 minutes before 3am. "Surprised huh? I couldn't sleep so I decided to wake up early."

"So you choose." He mumbles.

"I do. 3 AM is the witching hour, right? Things get kind of crazy so I wake up to see the excitement. It used to be like that back then but now it's gotten calmer."

"Why don't you wake up during the day?"

"What kind of ghost haunts during the day?" You laugh, "Day shift is too crowded anyway. One hour of that would give me a headache."

He laughs a little. The first time he's smiled at you. You smile back, "I think you actually like me around, Dr. Abbot."

"I don't need more knuckleheads bothering me."

"But I just got here?" An intern purses his lips as he stands beside you at the station with a chart in his hands.

"Sorry, I was talking about— Whatcha got?" Abbot hangs his head in defeat before giving the intern his full attention. You giggle before also turning your attention to the intern.

Later, Abbot notices that you're still around the ED. It's a little past 4 and you were still lingering. You catch his eyes on you and you tilt your head. He beckons you to follow him. You oblige cutting across the hub and several nurses and following him to the family bathroom.

Once inside he speaks, "You staying longer."

"Well, I'm happier now. Not so alone. I have a lot more energy." You bite your lip, "Something to look forward to."

"But I haven't even started looking for you."

You wave your hand, "It's fine. I'm happy with just this. You talking to me; hearing me. You didn't have to do that. Back when that guy came in from the car accident, you looked at me. For the first time ever, someone actually looked at me. Not through me or past me. You looked me in my eyes. I want to feel that every day."

Abbot feels an itch in his throat as he watches you smile at the ground. You were real. He's seen patients act the same way after finally getting their pain relieved and their conditions diagnosed. Finally being advocated for and looked after.

"Sorry,I know that sounds so silly." You kick your foot up.

"It's fine." He smiles warmly in return, "I'm going to help any way I can."

"Thank you, Dr. Abbot." You bow your head, "I have a few patients I want to check on before bed." You pass through the door. Abbot leaves moments later and watches you skip down the hall. He heads to the closest computer and begins his search on who you are.

You leave at around 5 AM this time around. Abbot is impressed with how long you could withstand it. 2 hours later, before he does rounds, he stands next to Robby and leans in, "Do you remember a resident that may have passed away here?"

Robby raises his eyebrows in surprise, "Uh no, I think I would know something about that if that happened, why?"

"No reason, a patient mentioned it. I didn't know if it were true or not." He shrugs.

"You don't seem to be the type to believe rumors."

"Just a question." He purses his lips.

"I think I remember this guy." You appear over Robby's broad shoulder examining his face. Abbot tries to control his emotions on his face as he witnesses you awake during the day. "Maybe? 'Michael Robinavitch.' No, not ringing any bells." You pout then look at Abbot and smile, "I like surprising you. Your face is priceless."

"Something wrong, Abbot?" Robby looks at him expectantly.

Abbot shakes his head, "Nothing. Just a long night. Better get home and get some sleep."

You nod, "Good night— er, good morning, Dr. Abbot." You wave as he walks out of the ED.

At home, Abbot continues his research. If you weren't a resident that worked at The Pitt, surely you were from somewhere else. He tries to google you. 'Young doctor passes away…' 'PTMC, Resident, dies, 20s…' 'Pittsburgh doctor passes away…' There were no hits sounding remotely like you. No pictures of you, no articles or anything. Which could mean you were a resident in the 90s when he was. That narrowed it down more. You mentioned it being dreary, a time when floors and ceilings were all the same color. Which meant you were probably as old as he was now, wandering The Pitt. It also meant you've spent about 30 years in the PTMC and most of that time you spent walking circles and sleeping in Trauma One.

"Do you see other ghosts?" He asks in the bathroom. You shake your head.

"Not in the time I've been here." You scratch your head, "30 years? It's really been that long?"

"It's my theory. I mean this place hasn't been renovated in a long time so not much has changed except for more screens."

"I guess I never noticed. I mean, I did but I didn't care. Things were changing but I was still a nobody, so why should I care?" You sit on the floor, "Did you learn anything else?"

He shakes his head, "But I am confident you are a doctor. You're too good at what you do now. You can read x-rays well and you're level headed in traumas. Even if you aren't physically here you still have a good head on your shoulders."

"Thanks." You smile, "I would have loved to hear that when I was alive." He blinks in surprise. Your brows furrow and your smile falters. "I… I don't know why I said that. It felt right to. That means something right?"

He nods, "We'll figure it out. Together."

"A resident from the 90s who died at the PTMC." Once again back at his therapist's office. He's pacing the room. "It's interesting that her subconscious revealed more about her. Your praise seemed to have stirred up some lost emotions."

"I can't shake the way she said it. Her face, her eyes were so distant and tired. I've seen it plenty of times."

"From other healthcare workers?"

"From vets too. The look of pure exhaustion; resignation."

"You're worried about her. Or what happened to her?"

"It might be a case of… that. And if it is, is she ready to face that fact?"

"Are you more afraid of her facing that fact or you?"

Abbot stays silent. The thought that you and him were once at the same level at the same time. That you could met once by chance during your time as residents. Or in the future, you could be by his side physically helping in traumas.

"Food for thought, Jack. You don't have to answer." His therapist adjusts himself in his seat, "This has taken up majority of your visits. Is there anything else you would like to talk about?"

Abbot sits back down to continue the session.

At work, he comes in to do rounds with Robby and do the hand-offs with the day shift crew. As they go through the rooms and the residents speak about the patients, he notices you standing behind everyone else in the group. Something about you was different. His eyebrows quirk together for a split second before he averts his gaze again. When rounds are over and the group disperses, he notices that you were no longer wearing a patient gown. You were wearing black scrubs like a doctor would. "You've changed clothes." He says.

You look down at the uniform and smile, "I woke up with them on! Nothing helpful came with it like a name tag though but I think we're getting close to solving the mystery."

"You seem happy."

"It's different is all." You wave it off, "I've got work to do." You walk away.

You were in a new pattern. One Abbot wasn't sure he liked. You had fallen into the rhythm of an alive doctor. You presented cases to him as if they weren't already presented by somebody else. You were using your powers more often and pretended to actually do charting but what it actually was, was you looking over the shoulder the true doctor on the case. You began to get frustrated with yourself when you tried to intervene in traumas. It was like you were forgetting you were a ghost.

It's not until you actually begin to affect the work of the real doctors that he says anything. It was close to midnight now and you were getting weary. He notices you standing in place staring at Trauma One. Your eyes roll back and the status board screens begin to pixelate and distort. Everyone stares confused at the confused except for Abbot, who watches you sway forwards and backwards. He takes a deep breath before walking through you.

You snap out of your daze and take a gasp of air like you were drowning. You look around to see everyone talking about the weird occurrence. Abbot stands in Trauma One before walking towards your meeting place in the bathroom.

"What was that?" He folds his arms

"I don't know." You shrink under his gaze.

"I think you should rest for the day. You've been up for hours, using your powers."

"No! I can do it! Please don't bench me!" You fall to your knees.

Abbot looks at you in shock, "Look at yourself. Look what you're doing to yourself. This isn't healthy."

"But I want to be a doctor! I get to be a doctor again!" Tears stream down your face and the lights flicker and dim, "I miss being a doctor!"

"Hey, you are a doctor." He kneels down beside you, "You are still a doctor." He wishes he could comfort you. Rest his hand on your shoulder or pull you in for a hug. Instead he sits beside you as you cry.

"I feel it. This emptiness in my heart. Something is missing and being here isn't enough. I need to work, I need to help people. I need to be a good doctor." You weep, "Why couldn't I have more time? How did I run out of time?"

Abbot sees your grief and swallows the tightness in his throat. His lip quivers as he holds out his hand, "We'll figure it out, okay?" You look down at his hand then up at his face. You place you hand in his. He feels your cool skin against his. There was no weight to it but he could feel the pinpricks of skin connecting in certain areas. The only way you two could truly touch. "Rest. You need to rest." He whispers, "Please, just rest for now. I'll take care of it, okay?"

"Let me watch. Let me watch the rest of shift." You whisper back. "I won't use my powers or say anything. I just want to finish a shift. Just one shift."

"Stay by my side the entire time." He looks you in your eyes. You nod in response before getting up. He follows suit, using a railing to help himself up. You follow him out of the bathroom and just like he asked you stayed by his side the rest of the night.

Before morning arrives, Abbot tries to search online for you. You sit on the desk beside the computer and watch him. He scrolls through the endless death certificates and find nothing notable. "Back to square one." He sighs.

"Why square one?" You look at the screen.

"I thought I knew how you died but now I don't think that is right."

"How?" You look at him hopefully.

He looks back at you regretfully.

"Oh," Your face falls, "But now you don't think so?"

He shakes his head, "No. I'm sorry."

"It's fine. For most of the time I've been here I thought so too. I thought this was my hell." You sigh. "Everyone kept calling it The Pitt."

He chuckles, "It's not so bad now, huh?"

You shake your head, "No it's not."

Day shift arrives and Abbot watches you disappear for the day. He leaves the building still feeling the pit of sadness from earlier. The misery on your face as you begged to work. Had it been something you've done in your past life too? He goes home and sits in darkness on his computer to find more answers online.

He spends hours looking but without much to go on he couldn't help. With every search was the articles upon articles of burnout in healthcare workers rising. Maybe you walked away in the middle of a shift? Got hurt and was sent to The Pitt. There weren't many other teaching hospitals in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area that have emergency rooms. Maybe Westbridge? Or St. Bernadette? Maybe farther.

He thinks back to you in the bathroom. The feeling of your hand on his. It feel like cold water resting in his hand. He wishes he could have engulfed his hand over yours. He thinks about what you'd be like as an attending. How you would react with the staff. How nice if you were able to. A small smile creeps on his face.

"It sounds like you like her." He was starting to think he was living at his therapist's office with how often he was visiting. Not that his therapist minded, anything to line his pockets, he figures. "Is this a possibility as why you've been a little slow on solving her mystery?"

"No."

"Sure," He doesn't push, "Well, based on her behavior it doesn't exactly sound like burnout… She maybe on the younger side. An intern maybe?"

"Year 2 or more." Abbot corrects, "I don't know if it's because of what she already knows or what she learned in The Pitt but she's not like an intern. Her pattern changed."

"She graduated." His therapist suggests, "Her time with you is making her evolve. Return to her former state. From a patient, an intern, a senior resident, then what?"

"Her memories completely return." Abbot blinks. "She gets to walk out of the ED."

"There's a chance she may not come back. Are you willing to let go?"

"I promised to help her."

"But does that mean you'll let her go when the time comes? Food for thought."

Abbot stares blankly at the tablet in his hands, he's mindlessly requesting the labs for a particular patient still thinking about what his therapist's question. When the time came would he be able to let you go? He finishes and sets the tablet on the desk for an intern to take back.

Over his shoulder he sees you behind the hub watching the staff walk by. He watches you look around before locking eyes. You smile at him and give a wave before walking around the wall out of his eye sight. His brows furrow before he diverts his attention elsewhere to give you space.

The two of you don't interact much during shift. Abbot's heart aches a little. Is this what not having you around will be like? He hardly saw you and he missed you. He's lost in thought at the nurse's station when he feels your presence next to him.

"I wanted to apologize about the other day, when I got upset." You chew you inner cheek, "I was overwhelmed and I was out of my mind."

He nods.

"I felt your hand under mine." You place your hand next to his. "It was warm. You make me feel so human that I forget what I can and can't do. I don't know if its a good thing or not. But like I said when we met, I'm just happy that someone can acknowledge me." He looks at you and smiles. He turns over his hand holding it palm up. Delicately, you runs your fingertips over his palm. It tickles his skin like cool water running over his palm. You trace the lines of his hand and up each of his fingers. You were surprised he was letting you do this.

"Hey, Abbot." Shen calls from down the hall. He closes his hand and looks down in surprise when he catches your fingers. You yank your fingers away startled. Both of you look to each other in surprise before Abbot looks back at Shen, "One second." He turns back around to see you missing. His brows knit together then he turns to Shen, "Never mind, what do you need?"

He's only half listening to what Shen is saying. The feeling of your fingers in his hand tingles. Like a buzz of electricity on his skin. When Shen walks away, he goes to look for you. He walks around the department until he sees you standing in front of one of the North curtain rooms. You stare into the room with your brows knit together in concern and a look of distraught.

Slowly, he approaches your side and look into the room. It is an older gentleman laying the bed with small reading glasses. He was reading the newspaper as he waited to be seen. He looks the two of you, "You know him?"

"I feel like I do." You shake your head, "He looks so familiar."

He grabs a tablet and pulls up the man's chart. "He's a doctor. Doctor Charon coming in for a check up after a fall. I'll find out more." He goes into the room. "I'm Dr. Abbot the attending physician for the night."

Dr. Charon chuckles, "Oh, I get the attending tonight, lucky me. Dr. Maury Charon. I'm retired now but I was doing Emergency Medicine for about 40 years. I taught at St. Bernadette for 30 years."

"That's impressive." He smiles, "Well, I actually have a question for you. It's a long shot but I had a friend who may have worked there in the 90s. We lost touch and she passed away when she was working there as a resident."

"I'm sorry to hear that." He purses his lips as he thinks to himself then he smiles, "Only one resident comes to mind. She was a bright young woman and had a lot of potential. She worked the day shift. She was resilient and had so much care for her patients. She left an impression on everyone she encountered, nurses, doctors, and patients. An all around hard worker." Abbot smiles as he listens and notices that you had stepped closer into the room, now beside him.

Dr. Charon's smile faded, "It was a shame what happened; It was a cold January and she was half way through her 3rd year of her residency in Emergency Medicine. She was going home from work. They say she fainted at the bus stop waiting. The snow was pretty bad so it took a while for an ambulance to arrive. They brought her here to save her. A brain aneurysm ruptured in her head. She always complained of minor headaches, a few dizzy spells but she chalked it up to menstruation. For weeks, she was suffering and had no idea. It was possible that due to the stress of her residency, it weakened her blood vessels causing the aneurysm and subsequently the rupture." Dr. Charon snaps out his daze, "Her name was (Y/N) (Y/L/N.) I think about her often. How talented she was. I don't give the compliment generously but she was a remarkable doctor."

Abbot's face softens and gives a small smile, "Thank you for telling me about her. I'm sure she knows how missed she is." He looks over at you. Your patient gown has returned and your nose was bleeding from both nostrils. "Sorry, please give me a moment. I'll have one of my senior residents come in and help you get out of here."

"Take your time, Dr. Abbot. I get emotional too sometimes." He nods.

Abbot grabs your hand covertly, a firm grasp that sends shock waves through your body. He's touching you, holding you. He pulls you into the bathroom and hugs you tightly. You don't move as you see yourself in the reflection of the mirror. "It was an aneurysm. I died from a brain bleed I didn't even know I had." You croak out the words, "I didn't even have a chance."

"I know, it's okay. You're okay." He rubs your back. Just when he's getting used the physical sensation of you in his arms, you phase through.

"I remember." Your breath is labored, "I saw myself on that gurney as they operated on me. I watched them drill a hole in my head in hopes to stop the bleeding. There was too much blood and I had a brain hemorrhage. I begged to stay. I wanted to live but I never stood a chance." You hug yourself, "I was already fading. How else would I have been able to be out of my body? I never had a chance to be anything."

"But did you hear what Dr. Charon said? You were incredible. You left a long lasting impression at St. Bernadette—"

"I'm not at St. Bernadette! I'm here, where nobody knows me. Nobody sees me."

"I see you." He grabs your hand. "I see the wonderful doctor you are. I feel you now too and I don't want to let go."

You look down at your hands and up at him, "You don't?"

"Never." He pulls you back into a hug. He rubs your back gently and feels the patient gown morph and change on your body. When he pulls away, your face is clean of the blood and you're wearing your scrubs again. This time a badge rests on your chest with your name and picture on it. It's a PTMC badge. "Look at that." He smiles.

"I guess this tiger earned her stripes." You smile back, "Thank you for being there for me, Abbot." You hands move down over his arms. He leans his head closer to yours.

"Of course. I couldn't ignore you forever." He whispers, "You were a beautiful ghost haunting the halls. I had to know more."

"Now, you do." You whisper back. You were centimeters apart now. You hesitate for moment before pressing your lips against his. You grip on his arms tighten as he holds you closer to him. He deepens the kiss pushing you against the wall. You moan against his lips letting his tongue enter your mouth. His hands move south to you hips and gives them a squeeze. When you pull apart, you're out of breath. You can feel his breath on your face. You move your hands to the sides of his face. You rub your thumb against his bottom lip. You feel the scruff on his face. He grabs your wrist and kisses the palm of your hand.

The rest of shift there is an intense air surrounding Abbot after he leaves the bathroom. He's antsy. Constantly looking over his shoulder, at something; at you. You had to stop your intense make out in the bathroom. You were controlling the lights and the sink started to make a croaking noise. He couldn't keep his hands off of you either. They would roam your body over every curve like he was trying to memorize your personal anatomy. His lips were on any exposed skin you had. Your hands, your lips, and your neck. Too bad he couldn't leave any marks. You push him away, "We have to stop. You have to go back out there." You vanished through the wall forcing him to also leave the bathroom.

"Hey are you okay?" Shen asks, "You've been acting weird today."

"Just hoping shift will go by a little faster." He mutters. He sticks his tongue into the corner of his lips. "It's been a long day." Shen pats his back and walks away.

You sit in Trauma One but you don't feel the need to rest. It usually comes quickly. Lay down and fade until the next night. You were tired but sitting on the bed brought you no comfort like the many nights before. You sit up and see Abbot still watching you. He fully turns his head giving you a look of confusion. What was the matter?

You walk over to him and whisper, "I can't sleep. I can't fade like I used to." He quirks his lips to think.

"Maybe you can leave now." He suggests. You look at the bay doors and purse your lips. "When shift ends we can try it."

It feels like a full eternity before the shift ends. You spend most of it pacing the doors. The last time you tried to leave you felt a searing heat and saw a flash of light blinded you before you found yourself back in Trauma One. Same for the front door to the ER.

Day shift arrives and the two teams do their usual rounds before night shift leaves for the day. Abbot grabs his bag and slowly walks to the door, his hand is in his pockets. You walk beside you and hook you arm around his elbow. "Ready?" He asks. You nods and together you walk through the threshold. You close your eyes expecting to feel the burning pain and bright light but instead you're still moving, away from the hospital.

"I'm out!" You pull on Abbot's arm and jump around, "I'm out of The Pitt! I'm free!" You let go of him and start to running around. He chuckles as he watches you practically bouncing around the parking lot. You walk ahead of him with a big smile on your face, "I can go anywhere I want now!"

He stops walking. He's made it to his car. "Will you?"

You turn back to him and see the sad expression on his face. You walk back to him and grab his hand, "I will."

He looks down at the ground.

"And I want to go where you go." You place your hand on his face.

His cheeks get a little red and he's squeezing you hand. You give him a peck on the lips, "I want to haunt you for eternity. If you're okay with that."

"I'm more than okay with it." He pulls you between the cars and hugs you tightly.

Epilogue:

Morning shift arrives for hand-off and Robby stands with Abbot when he notices a doctor he's never seen before walking around rather leisurely. Over his glasses, he watches he breeze past everyone effortlessly before standing in front of Abbot. "Can we sit by the river today?"

Robby frowns at her audacity to try and interrupt their conversation. He looks at Abbot who doesn't bat an eye and continues to talking. "Oh and then can we please go to the bakery so I can smell the donuts?" Smell donuts. Who was this chick?

"Excuse me, but the attendings are having a private conversation right now." He says sternly.

Abbot hangs his head and sighs. The woman's eyes widen at Abbot trail to Robby. "Can you see me?!"

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