Kouvi.🧘🏾‍♀️

“Calm down.”

“I’m calm,” Rafe barks down the stairs, standing on the landing as he looks down at him. “Does it look like I give a shit?”

“Greatly.” Topper’s voice breaks, his eyebrows softening as he holds back a nervous laugh. Rafe rolls his eyes and pushes his sleeves higher on his forearms, his heavy feet pounding across the floorboards.

“Party’s over,” he shouts, banging his fist against JJ’s door, knowing there isn’t a soul behind it but keeping up the act like he doesn’t know exactly where he’s going or who he’s looking for.

He grabs the handle of the shitty bathroom door, shoulder checking it rough enough to pop the little brass lock open with barely any effort at all.

Your eyes go wide in the dark as you look back at him from your place on the bathroom counter, your lips pulling away from Peyton’s as he splits your thighs.

The light from behind Rafe sends his shadow across the floor, his shoulders rising and falling with every rough breath he takes.

“Get the fuck out.”

Your heart lurches as those four words leave his lips, making your stomach fall and your hands shake with adrenaline.

“Oh, sorry, buddy.” Peyton smiles, not quite gauging the temperature in the room or realizing that Rafe’s restraint is hanging by a thread. He catches on fast enough, though, the smile slipping from his face as he mutters uneasily, “Is the party over? I—”

“Get… the fuck… out,” Rafe repeats, slower and meaner, whatever buddy-buddy relationship they’d built from passing each other in the gym going out the window and fucking fast.

Peyton goes to help you off the counter, the confusion painted all over his face. “Don’t.” Rafe’s hand shoots out, grabbing Peyton’s and shoving it away before he can reach you.

His eyes stay locked on yours as you slip off the counter by yourself, heels clicking across the floor as you scoff, but he reaches out for you.

“What the fuck, man?” Peyton calls back when he sees Rafe stop you and you yank your arm away. Rafe turns toward him before he can say another word, chest to chest, his eyes tight and his jaw locked.

“Get the fuck out of my house—she’s not comin’ with you.” The words come out flat and final as you blow out a frustrated breath. Peyton’s head swerves to look past him, back at you, but you wave him away with a sigh.

“Just go, Peyton. I’ll—I’ll call you later,” you mumble.

Rafe grabs Peyton’s shirt, shoving him through the door before slamming it shut hard enough for the hinges to rattle on the frame. Your heart sinks, the corners of your lips trembling as you try not to smirk.

Because maybe this is exactly what you wanted to happen.

Your thumb flicks along the screen of your phone, opening the Uber app as Rafe looks down at you, and he laughs cruelly, reaching out to hook one hand around your waist, the other fisting your hair before you can get another word out.

He kisses you deep and rough, pulling you closer, stealing the breath out of your chest. You kiss him back just as hard, fingers curling into the front of his shirt until you pull away first, leaving him chasing your mouth before he finds it.

Crack. Your hand slaps him so fast and sharp his head snaps to the side. Rafe’s tongue presses against his cheek because he may have liked that a little more than he thought he would—and if he were in your good graces he’d probably beg you to do it again.

Rafe’s hand rubs across his sharp jaw as he chuckles, red blooming on his cheek from the slap.

He hooks his fingers into the waistband of his boxers, tugging it out far enough to look down. He blows out a little whistle, letting a smile tug at his lips. “That was a close one—almost came.”

“Fuck you, Rafe.” You try to walk past him, but he catches you, pulling you to his lips, kissing you so hard your back bends, his biceps flexing where your nails dig into his arms.

“You done yet?” he asks against your lips, his words humming against your mouth.

“Not really,” you whisper, and he huffs out a tight breath.

“Can’t believe you fuckin’ kissed him.”

“Can’t believe you wasted my fucking time,” you challenge him, his hold tightening on your hair, his grip strong on your body. “Again.”

“This is what you wanted, huh? My attention—you fuckin’ got it.”

“You think this was about getting your attention?” You smile against his lips, giggling with your soft exhale. “Baby, look at you.”

“The fuck are you hanging out with Peyton for anyways?”

“I don’t know,” you murmur, thinking it through just enough to piss him off some more. “Kinda into football these days.”

He doesn’t even have a response to that, his jaw ticking as he swallows hard. You lick your lips slowly, taunting him.

“Jealousy looks good on you, Rafe. Honesty would look even better.”

“The fuck are you talking about?” He steps into you, pressing you back until your back bumps the sink.

“You sure seem to care a lot for someone who doesn’t give a shit about me,” you whisper.

“Never said that,” he murmurs.

“Figured that part out on my own,” you whisper.

“Just get on your fuckin’ knees,” he mutters as he unbuckles his belt in one swift movement. Because you’re wrong—he cares way more than he wanted to, and now he’s in trouble.

“Say please,” you whisper.

He barks out a laugh, looking away from you as you stare up at him, but the only thing standing between him and the woman he wants is the word he fuckin’ hates.

“Say… please.” Your voice is so light and condescending he loses his train of thought.

“I’m not asking you again,” he warns, his head turning back toward you.

“Funny thing about that,” you whisper.

“Neither are you,” he mumbles. “Fuckin’ brat.”

“Holy shit, Cameron,” you breathe, and he holds his breath for a moment, waiting for what you’ll say next. “You’re not as dumb as you look.”

“Oh my god. Please.” He presses the word out fast. “Fucking please, okay?”

You hold his stare for another second, making him wait, before slowly lowering yourself in front of him.

“Mouth open. Tongue out. C’mon.” He doesn’t break eye contact, his glare searing right through you. Every inch of your skin prickles with lust. Your pulse races, and still you lean in.

Rafe holds himself just out of reach at first, savoring your momentary obedience, watching the way your mouth opens without hesitation, your breath held as you wait. His cock is heavy in his fist, precum beading at the tip, and he knows you want it. That’s half the point.

He slaps it against your outstretched tongue. “You’re so easy to read, you know that?” he lies as a soft moan escapes your throat.

His cock slides along your tongue as your lips wrap around him, his hand settling in your hair again, guiding you—using you.

“That’s it,” he groans, voice low and rough as his fingers tighten in your hair, dragging your head back just enough for him to watch your lips stretch around him before bringing you forward again.

“Couldn’t just make this easy on me,” he mutters. “Losing my shit downstairs. Is that what you wanted?”

You hum around him, lashes fluttering, spit slicking your chin as he starts to thrust deeper. You sputter but you don’t stop.

His hand pushes you down until you’re throating his dick, your jaw sore, eyes stinging, but you don’t pull back.

His other hand grips the counter, knuckles white—his hips give this messy little jerk every time you take him deeper, his breath catching.

He watches you, possessiveness thick in the air between you. “Look at you,” he mutters. “Such a fuckin’ slut for me,” he hisses, breath ragged.

You can feel how close he is—the way his thighs go tight, the way his breath snags every time your tongue catches him just right.

His head tips back as he forces your mouth down one more time, burying himself so deep you gag around him, tears spilling from the corners of your eyes.

Rafe drags you off with a rough hand, groaning as he strokes himself furiously, the head of his cock flushed an angry red as he gets so close to release he can barely speak. “Keep that mouth open for me,” he pants. “Wanna see it—”

And then he shudders, thick ropes spilling hot and messy across your tongue, your lips, your chin, dripping down your throat as you hold your position, eyes glassy and wide as the last of him pulses onto your waiting tongue.

“Look at this mess, baby,” he hums. “That’s mine. All of it. Just fuckin’ mine…”

He hauls you to your feet, his mouth crashing against yours in a wet, owning kiss. He spins you toward the mirror, still holding your hair, forcing you to look.

Rafe’s big hand splays flat over your stomach, pinning you tight to the cool counter, your reflection hazy in the mirror—your hair tangled, mouth parted, eyes wet as he stands behind you.

“Can’t even fight that fucking smile,” he mutters as his hand slides down your stomach and under your skirt, pawing down your panties in one harsh pull.

You bite your lip as a grin tips at the corner of your mouth, but you shake your head no. His forehead falls to your shoulder as he pushes out a sharp breath through his nose, his fingers gliding up your pussy, feeling how wet you are.

“This for me?” he asks, his voice hoarse with want and frustration.

You keep the yes to yourself, letting him suffer instead, the look on your face a subtle reminder that you didn’t come in here with him to begin with—the thought of you and Peyton locked away in his house before he stormed in nothing short of a nightmare to him.

“You’re impossible,” he mutters against your skin.

His eyes catch yours in the mirror as his lips press to your neck, trailing down. Then he bites hard, teeth sinking into you, your fingers bracing the countertop as he pushes his cock into your wet pussy in one rough thrust.

He goes completely still, his forehead dropping against you as both hands find your lower back. The breath that leaves him is long and deep, a drawn-out sigh of relief as he feels you around him, your body under his hands, your skin against his lips as he breathes in your perfume.

“Feels so—so fucking good, baby,” he mumbles against you, so fucked-out and gentle you almost don’t catch it.

He pulls back his hips, drawing out of you slowly enough that you hear it, shoving himself back in so rough you gasp, his hand reaching out to catch you as your palms slap against the bathroom counter.

He dips his head in again, his gold chain tumbling out of his shirt, the pendant with your initial landing against your shoulder—the playboy, so tremendously down bad you can’t help the teasing laugh that bubbles from your lips.

He gives you a look like he’s annoyed—like he’s tired of your shit but the feeling’s mutual.

“Tell me what you want, Rafe,” you sigh.

He rolls his eyes in frustration, and a laugh slips past your lips before his hand drifts up your neck, two fingers hooking into one corner of the mouth he just claimed.

The free corner of your lips curls into a smirk, and he blows out a breath, his eyes challenging yours before he breaks.

“Only you.”

You finally drop the fork and bring your hands to your eyes, press your palms against them as if pressure could block the tear ducts. A tear slips through anyway. Then another. You wipe them away hastily. How pathetic would it be to be jealous of a dead woman? Jack gave up his wedding ring for you. He chose you. You know that.

Still.

You feel like a shadow in his house. The walls are full of pictures of his happy days with her. A wedding photo front and centre on the fireplace mantel. Flanked by photos of his family and hers. You can see it from here. All the happy faces. Jack smiling a genuine smile. Not one laced with a perpetual low hum of melancholy like every smile you've seen on his face since you first walked into that ED.

You get up with a screech of the chair against the floor and walk upstairs, taking in the pictures lining the wall as you take one slow step after the other.

Jack and his wife at the lake house he took you to twice.

Jack and his wife celebrating their anniversary at their favourite restaurant. He took you there, too. Not the same table, though.

Jack and his wife with Robby and a woman you don't recognise at Mardis Gras. He hasn't taken you there. Yet.

Jack and his wife in a side-hug on the couch downstairs. A selfie from an age before selfie was a word.

By the time you reach the second floor your legs feel heavy, like you're fighting against glue every time you lift your foot.

Inside the bed room - Jack's bedroom, his wife's bedroom, a voice in your head corrects - you open the double-door closet. Neatly separated into his half and hers. You run a hand along the sleeve of one of Jack's hoodies. Soft. Worn in. If you pulled it out you'd see the logo of his alma mater emblazoned across the front. There is another one of these on the other side of the closet, smaller size, peeking out behind pretty dresses.

You reach for the violently red one. She was a beauty. Confident, outgoing, from what you've gathered from the snippets of her life you were allowed to see. She didn't mind if her dress attracted attention. You've never worn red in your life. And yet Jack gifted you one. Not quite as glaringly red as this one. One with floral designs.

You pull the dress out of the closet and lay it onto the bed - Jack's bed, his wife's bed. You wonder if this used to be the side she slept on, if you're taking her spot every time you sleep over. Or if Jack gave up his side for you so hers would remain untouched by another woman.

You shed your own dress and leave it crumpled on the floor. Step on it when you reach for the red one. It doesn't sit right. Not quite your size. Not quite your figure. You leave it on still.

You walk to the dresser. Open up your drawer. Close it again. Open up Jack's drawer. Stuffed full because he used to have two and gave up one for you. His wife's two drawers remain preserved like part of a living history museum. The top one houses a small wooden box. Floral design. You know what's inside. You open it anyway. Three rings. The larger dark one you've seen on Jack's hand for years, and a set of golden wedding rings. Fine lines, a single gemstone on the wedding band. Not a ruby, something that started with S, you believe. Ruby is the pendant hanging around your neck right now. Birthday present. Your fingers hover over the golden set. Don't do it. Too far. Don't do it. You pull back and shut the box again. You let your fingers glide over the relief of wooden petals, wondering what object was inside the box before Jack put the wedding rings in instead. What Jack did with it. Which museum exhibit it became a part of.

You go to sit at the vanity, frozen in time like everything else in this house. You recognise the purple perfume flacon. One of the first gifts you got from Jack. You didn't know then where he drew inspiration from for it. You add another spritz to the scent you already walked in through the door with. Not yours. But becoming yours, you suppose. Or you're becoming its. Its new canvas. Ersatz human flesh to keep the scent alive.

You carelessly drop the bottle in the middle of the vanity surface, the cap sitting to the side, not doing its job, allowing the molecules to escape from the glass and contaminate the air around it.

You finally glance up to the mirror. She stares back at you. Somebody that you used to know, you think. Is that from a song? You can't quite remember. Your hair is different now from what you're used to. You let it grow because Jack seemed to like it. The way he'd fondly smile at you when he'd get the opportunity to brush a loose strand behind your ear. You never got it to be as sleek and shiny as his wife's. You thought about dying it the same colour as hers once and dismissed the idea. You wish you had a pack of box dye now.

You move to the bathroom. There isn't as much stuff here that is obviously hers. But there are tiny embroidered flowers in the corners of the towels. Wavy lines that could be entwined plant stalks on the mat below your feet. You open the cabinet and reach for the pack of fresh razor blades you've been eyeing for weeks now. When your fingers touch the cardboard you freeze. What are you doing? This is Jack Abbot's house - and his wife's, the voice adds.

You close the cabinet out of habit and move back downstairs. You've been watching too many movies. Haven't been thinking clearly. Razor blades and bathtubs, what a cliché. You're a doctor. Jack's a doctor. His office is stocked with enough medical supplies to outlast an apocalypse. A 10-blade will be more appropriate.

You don't reach the office. You hear keys in the door and stop dead in your tracks. Why is he back already? You hear the blood flow in your ears, feel its rapid pulse. You should run upstairs, take off the dress, put everything back the way it was. But your legs won't move. Somewhere, in the back of your head, you don't want them to. Let him see, you think. Let him see what he's doing to you and correct course. Let him see and say how sorry he is and hold you until your tears run dry.

Jack is barely through the door when he freezes. Your breaths are short and fast and shallow now. He swings the door shut behind him with one hand, never looking away from you.

"What the hell is this?" he asks. Cold. Angry. Not loud.

There will be no holding, you realise, no apology.

"Take it off," he says with a calm that is chilling rather than soothing.

You give up.

Your breathing steadies.

Thoughts clear in a way they haven't felt in weeks. Months, maybe.

You take off the dress that isn't yours right where you stand. In the living room that isn't yours. In front of the man that isn't yours.

"Thought this was what you wanted," you tell him defiantly and abandon the red fabric at your feet just like you did with your own dress.

Jack watches you walk up the stairs, then walks over to carefully pick up the dress.

The razor blades are still there, the voice reminds you as you bend down to pick up your own dress, the bathroom door you left open inviting you in with a warm light. The blades are still there. Lock the bathroom door. He will need time to break it down. Not enough to end it, probably, but enough to scare him.

If he even suspects anything.

If he even comes upstairs to check on you.

You hold the dress in your hand and sit down onto the edge of the bed, deflated. Would it even hurt him if you were gone? Wouldn't he just find someone else to fill the mould his wife left behind? Your eyes drift to the dresser. You had assumed Jack took his ring off to show you he was ready to move on. Now that you see the pattern you realise it was because he didn't want to taint its sanctity while being with someone who wasn't her.

Jack is sitting on one end of the couch when you come downstairs, the red dress neatly draped over the backrest next to him. If you wanted to sit you'd have to leave the space free - for her.

When Jack sees you steer towards the exit he calls out. "We need to talk about this." Not soft. Not apologetic. Accusatory.

"Talk about it with your therapist," you say with an equal amount of reproach and walk out.

Images: Edgar Degas - L'Absinthe, The Pitt

You stood near a high-top table, nursing a beer and trying to undo the knot in your shoulders.

And then you saw Baran.

She was standing near the center of the room, talking to a couple of hospital administrators. You hadn’t seen her since you left The Pitt to go sign contracts, take specialized boards, and job interviews. She had traded her usual scrubs for a cream silk shirt and a dark skirt that hugged her legs well. Her curly hair down around her shoulders instead of pulled into her usual hair-do. She looked completely relaxed—a side of her you rarely got to see when she was on the clock.

Even without the scrubs she usually wore, she stood out. Calm, quiet, and completely unbothered by the noise around her.

You took a sip of your drink, watching her for a second before looking away. It had been four months since your rotation ended. Within those four months, you had learned each other’s habits, rhythms, expressions— basically everything except how each other felt. Eye contacts were shared for much longer than one would anticipate, fingers brushed more frequently that it felt deliberate, the way each other’s scents seemed to linger even when one of you are far across the floor. But seeing her, out here? If the word seductive was a person, it would definitely be her.

"Mind if I grab the spot next to you?"

You turned to see a guy in a gray suit holding two drinks. His name tag read Dr. Marcus Vance, Trauma.

"Go for it," you said, stepping back slightly to give him room.

"Marcus," he said, holding out a hand. "I caught your presentation earlier. Really practical stuff."

"Thanks," you replied, shaking his hand. “Honestly, I was just glad I didn't forget my own slides."

Marcus laughed, leaning an elbow on the high-top table to face you. "You did fine. Are you still staying at PTMC?"

"Yeah, I signed an attending contract last month."

"Nice," he smiled, leaning in a little closer. "Well, if you ever get tired of the ER, my department is always looking for good people. Or, at the very least, I could buy you a proper drink that isn't from an open bar."

You gave a small, polite laugh, about to answer, when a familiar voice cut in from right beside you.

"Is everything alright here?"

The tone wasn't loud, but it was direct.

You turned. Baran was standing right next to the table, holding a glass of wine. She looked completely composed, but you caught the tiny, instant shift in her expression as her eyes moved from Marcus's arm on the table to the small space between the two of you.

Marcus straightened up. "Dr. Al-Hashimi. Good evening."

"Marcus," Baran acknowledged with a brief, polite nod. "I see you've found our newest team member."

ah, she heard the news.

"Just congratulating them on their talk," Marcus said smoothly, though he took a subtle step back.

"It was a good talk," Baran agreed softly. Her dark eyes slid away from Marcus and locked onto yours. "Though we're supposed to meet the rest of the group across the room in a few minutes."

There was no group. You both knew it.

"Right," you said, picking up your glass. "I lost track of time."

"Clearly," Baran murmured.

Marcus cleared his throat, picking up his drinks. "Well, it was nice meeting you. I'm sure I'll see you around tomorrow."

"I’ll see you around, Dr. Vance." you said.

Baran didn't say anything, simply watching him walk away until he disappeared into the crowd. Once he was gone, she turned her full attention back to you.

“Nice to see you again, Doctor.” You greeted

“Nice to see you too. Heard the news, didn’t expect you to stay at PTMC.” A faint smile appeared on her face.

“Couldn’t get away.” You took a step closer, lowering your voice so it wouldn't carry. "So…Meeting the rest of the group?"

Baran didn't flinch. She took a quiet sip of her wine, her gaze steady over the glass.

"He was taking too much of your time, you ought to meet other people here." she said plainly.

"He was just making conversation," you replied, a subtle smile tugging at your lips.

"He was trying to pick you up," Baran corrected, her voice dropping into a lower, quieter register.

She shifted slightly, placing her body between you and the rest of the bar. Slowly, under the lip of the high-top table where no one else could see, her hand reached out and found yours. Her fingers slid between yours, her grip firm and surprisingly warm.

The contrast between her calm, composed face and the tight squeeze of her hand under the table made your pulse jump.

"Does it bother you?" you asked quietly.

Baran set her glass down with her free hand. Her thumb slowly rubbed the side of your wrist, catching the steady beat of your pulse.

"Doesn’t," Baran said, her eyes locked onto yours.

You looked at her, the noise of the room fading into the background. "Baran..."

"I'm going up to my room," she said softly, her thumb still tracing your wrist. "It's quiet there."

She let go of your hand, stepping back with her usual effortless composure. To anyone else watching, it looked like a normal, brief conversation between two colleagues.

"Don't take too long," she added, giving you one last, unreadable look before turning toward the elevators. She then grabbed a pen from the bar and held up your hand once more.

407

You stood there for a moment, feeling the lingering warmth in your hand, before finishing your drink and heading after her.

The elevator ride up to the twelfth floor felt agonizingly slow. The quiet hum of the cables was the only sound accompanying the floor numbers as they lit up one by one.

When the doors slid open, the carpeted hallway was silent, completely isolated from the dull roar of the ballroom downstairs.

You found room 407 down near the end of the hall. Before you could even knock, the door unlocked with a quiet electronic click and swung open.

Baran stood in the doorway, already having kicked off her heels. She had unbuttoned her cream shirt down to her xiphoid process— faintly revealing a black laced bra. The sharp, formal edge she carried in the hospital completely softened.

"You took your time," she said, though there was no real bite to her voice.

"Gave you a head start. So… Why am I here, Baran?" You replied whilst looking down her chest. You stepped past her into the room.

The door closed softly behind you, the latch clicking into place. The room was warm and dimly lit by a single lamp on the bedside table.

“Company.” Baran simply said.

Baran turned around, leaning her lower back against the heavy wooden desk near the entry. She folded her arms, watching you with that familiar, intense dark gaze—only now, there was no workstation between you, no charts to review, and no medical staff walking past.

"You could have stayed down there," Baran murmured, her eyes tracing your face. "Dr. Vance looked very interested in your career plans."

You couldn't help the quiet laugh that escaped you as you tossed your room key onto the dresser and took two slow steps toward her. "Are you really going to bring up Marcus right now?"

A faint, subtle curve touched the corner of Baran's lips—the rare, genuine smile that used to take your breath away in the department.

"What? Just stating the obvious," she said, her voice dropping into a low, quiet register. "You seemed interested."

"Hmm," You stopped right in front of her, close enough to smell the familiar, faint scent of cedar and vanilla that belonged only to her. "You jealous, doctor?"

Baran didn't deny it. Instead, her arms unfolded. Slowly, deliberately, she reached out and rested her hands on your hips, her long fingers gripping the fabric of your clothes. The touch was warm, solid, and entirely possessive.

She pulled you that last fraction of an inch closer, until there was no space left between you.

"He was standing too close to you," Baran repeated softly, her dark eyes locking onto yours, completely unshielded. "And I spent a long while standing three feet away from you when all I wanted was this."

“I missed you.” She added quietly.

Your heart did a familiar, sudden thud against your ribs. "Baran..."

Her hands shifted, sliding up your waist, her palms warm against your sides, until her thumb rested gently along the line of your jaw. Her touch was remarkably gentle, contrasting with the quiet authority she carried everywhere else.

"No more rules," she whispered against your cheek, her breath warm against your skin. "No more waiting."

When her lips finally met yours, the restraint of the past six months of your residency under her reign simply melted away. It was slow, deep, and deliberate—unhurried, but filled with an intensity that made your breath catch in your throat. You brought your hands up to frame her face, running your fingers through her hair as she deepened the kiss, her hands pulling you tight against her.

For the first time since you met her, Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi was completely yours, with no clocks to watch and nowhere else to be.

but she keeps going. she keeps telling you about the wonders of breast milk whether you want to hear them or not. she pauses and stares at you expectantly until you come up with some sort of question or thoughtful response that can allow her to delve deeper into the topic.

she teaches you the proper anatomy and processes that allow lactation to take place. she explains how lactation can even be induced in some women who haven’t gone through pregnancy, and she explains the ins and outs hoping you’ll finally take the hint — she wants you to want it.

you don’t take the hint. you are oblivious and tired from having to care for a brand new human being in this world. so one night when you have the house to yourselves, kids at baran’s parents, she finally walks up to you and just asks.

“do you want to try some of it?”

and you say yes, because what else could you say? because you can’t pretend like you haven’t thought about it before with the way she’s kept going on about the topic, how she’s been subtly pushing you in this direction for so long.

so she lies down in bed. she pulls off her shirt and bra and lets them fall away, pulling you to hover above her while she starts telling you in the softest voice that the real reason she’s asking is because she’s sore, she’s hurting, she can’t keep massaging the pain out alone. she needs you to help. she’s been needing it for a while now, hoping you would volunteer — there would be something in it for you at the end, of course.

“hands first,” she says when you start peppering kisses down the valley of her chest. “you’re so impatient.”

“yeah, well, I’ve been getting in-depth lectures on the glory of breast milk for the past seven centuries, so…”

“seven centuries?” she repeats. “are you some sort of vampire?”

“doesn’t it only count as vampirism if it’s blood? what would this count as, actually?”

baran pushes your head away and takes your hands in hers, moving them up to her chest before pulling you into a kiss.

this time, you do take the hint. with gentle touches you trail your fingers along her skin, pressing in and massaging gently until you hear her sigh contentedly beneath you. you feel her sinking deeper into the bed, the tension in her body finally dissipating to a degree that is manageable.

“better,” she breathes, closing her eyes. “that’s a lot better.”

you make to pull your hands away, but she catches them and brings them back to her chest.

“I didn’t say you were done,” she says.

a small smile makes its way to your lips. you nod and lean down, pressing a kiss to her collarbone, and you’re working on her right breast when you feel a trickle of something wet rolling down your thumb.

“baran,” you say, and you’re surprised at how greedy and thick your own voice sounds. “can I?”

she opens her eyes, blinks heavily. she almost looks like she might fall asleep. “go ahead.”

you lick up the underside of her breast, a soft sound slipping past your lips as you savor the taste of the liquid dripping down it. you wrap your lips around her nipple, running your tongue over it, and you hear her sigh above you.

an ache settles in the pit of your stomach, dipping lower. you hum against her skin, eyes fluttering closed, and she places a hand on the back of your head when you start to suck.

suddenly, you feel her shifting beneath you. you don’t have time to question it before you feel her thigh slipping up between your legs to press against your core, and you exhale sharply against her skin.

“go on,” she says, voice rough. “I can feel how much you want to. you’re sucking hard.”

“sorry,” you murmur.

“don’t be sorry. give me a show. since the baby, we’ve barely been able to—” she cuts herself off when she feels you grind down against her thigh. her hand on the back of your head pulls you closer to her chest and a low moan comes from the back of her throat. “good, just like that.”

you run your tongue flat against her nipple and then move to the other breast, pressing gentle kisses across her skin until they get needier and you can barely focus with how good her thigh feels.

And you were crazier. Not about him – well. Also about him. But crazier as a baseline condition, a factory setting. You’d woken him at three in the morning by sliding one of his eyelids open with your thumb because you’d dreamt that he was texting another woman and needed to check his phone while the wound was still fresh. He’d handed his phone over, half-blind, and you’d scrolled through it sitting on his stomach. When you found nothing, you’d flopped down onto his chest and gone straight back to sleep. 

It was, frankly, a lot of crazy to be on the receiving end of, and Jack – who’d spent much too long being the most even-keeled, unbothered man in most situations – had taken one look at your little feral devotion pointed square at him and thought that yes, he wants in on all of that.

He would gladly take that your whole storm wrapped up in a package, had done just that, and was not planning on letting go. 

Being loved by you was full-contact, hands-on, and all consuming. You bit and you climbed him on the kitchen while he was holding hot pans; you pulled his face around by the jaw when you decided his attention wandered. He let you, always, going soft-eyed and pliant the second your hands landed on him, and had long ago stopped pretending otherwise. 

That wasn’t to say that he hadn’t had his moments, especially when it came to his girlfriend. He was, in all senses of the word, protective over you.

He’d known enough men – had been a different man through each decade – to know that you in the wrong hands would have ruined someone, like you had him.

He’d considered himself lucky to have your devotion – a thing so pure, presented with such ferocity – pointed at him. The thought of it being pointed at someone else made him sick simply because he knew how difficult it was to not fall in love with your claws. He knew how it felt to have you scruff him by the collar and inspect him for another woman’s perfume that even you knew did not exist, how it felt to be counted and guarded and kept, and he knew there was no single man alive who could feel that and walk away sane.

He’d take a bullet before he let anything happen to you and consider it a fair trade.

Jack was nothing less than smugly, bone-deep, sure of you. And a man that sure, holding a jealousy that pretty, developed habits. He’d learned (through research he’d conducted, very selfishly, for his own benefit) exactly which levers produced the show.

A waitress lingering around him for a second too long; a squeeze of your hand going tight in his, and him spending the next thirty minutes in the parking lot outside the restaurant making up for another woman’s slow legs.

Mentioning, idly, that a pharmacutical rep had been ‘friendly today’; good for a whole evening of you cross-examining everything about him, her, her tone, his response. 

He knew the difference between small provocations and the premium ones, and he deployed them the same way he planned date nights. He would’ve gone as far as to say they were date nights, impromptu, functionally; every match he struck brought him an evening of you staking your claim with both hands, and then the long, sweet business of being claimed. 

He’d never once found the bottom of it. He’d never once thought to even look for one, where the jealousy cut off and turned inward. It had never once pointed that direction. Your claws faced outward, out at the world, never once you, carrying them.

He didn’t know there was a depth where that happened. It was why he poked the proverbial bear. 

When he’d gotten off his shift at seven in the morning, tugging his bag over his shoulder, he’d leaned his hip against the driver’s door and opened your texts. Some people had a cigarette after a shift. Jack had you, delivered in installments, and he stood there in the cold biting down his smile as he scrolled through the night’s yield.

( a photo of a cat that lived outside the bar; a voice memo at 1:30 he already knew was you narrating something you’d decided was urgent; a link to a lamp with no explanation, which meant ‘buy me this lamp’ (he did, immediately, Apple Pay and its joys of quick payment); a text at 2:47 that just said that your feet were cold; and finally, a goodnight! i love you! sent at 3:15 am )

He’d thought, not for the first time, that he was genuinely a lucky bastard.

After years of pagers and reports and envelopes, somewhere his correspondence had started to include a nightly paper trail proving that somewhere in Pittsburgh, you moved through your night with him present in it. They were simply dispatches you sent because things weren’t fully real to you until he’d been notified.

A man could be told he was loved a hundred ways, but there was no proof on earth like being your first call about nothing. 

If he were a better man, he would have told you about the name that had popped up on his message thread under yours the second he’d unlocked the phone – right there, sandwiched between your goodnight and a spam text about his car’s warranty, a name he hadn’t seen light up his screen in the better part of a decade. 

Diane: Hey stranger. In town next week for a conference - would be good to catch up if you’re around. Coffee? It’s been too long. Hope life’s treating you well. 

It was a strange sort of vertigo of a past life reaching out to tap him on the arm. Diane – Jesus. He hadn’t thought about her in years; it’d been long enough that the name landed without a hook. It was a faint mothball smell of a version of himself he’d long since folded up and put away. No, he had felt near to nothing for her name for the only one that popped up in his head was yours. 

Jack had spent months getting fat and happy on your jealousy; he’d learned there was no sweeter sound than you getting worked up over nothing.

Jack had, right there in the parking lot, a plan because Diane was – he’d assumed, for you – not nothing. No, Diane had history, and it was a real, verifiable history. If a stranger’s coffee order could get you draped over him like a bodyguard, then this – Jack immediately thought – was going to be a show.

Before he’d got in the shower to start his ritual of getting in bed with you – the shower, the hygiene of it all – he found you sprawled across the entire acreage of the bed with the blanket cycloned around your legs. He crossed over and crouched at the edge of you, heart beating gratefully at the sight, because this part couldn’t wait for hygiene. 

He settled for tucking the hair off your face – two featherlight fingers, hooking it back behind your ear – and your nose scrunched in your sleep before it turned into his hand.

“Hey,” he whispered, not to wake you (secretly hoping you would, anyway), and leaned in to press his mouth to your temple that made you make a tiny sound at the back of your throat.

Your fist unclenched from under the pillow and groped out blindly to his forearm, fingers curling around it without opening your eyes. 

Jack stayed crouched there a moment longer than his knee approved of, grinning down at you. 

“I know,” he murmured, working your fingers off his forearm one at a time and folding them back against your palm, pressing them there with a squeeze. “Ten minutes.”

When he tucked himself into bed beside you, arms instinctively falling over your waist to pull you flush against him, you were half-turning to him before you’d even surfaced. You made a tiny sound, unintelligible words – something about the temperature of his hands – and burrowed closer, one leg sliding under his waist and over the mattress, your cold feet immediately seeking out the warmest available part of him. 

“You’re cold,” you mumbled, not opening your eyes, wounded.

“I know, right,” he murmured, pulling you in closer to his chest. “You, though, are warm.”

You wrapped yourself tighter around him, hand finding its way under his shirt to flatten against his ribs. “You can borrow me.”

His hand moved up your spine, thumb catching each notch, and he pressed his cold nose to your temple just to feel you flinch and swat at him, which you did, gorgeously, with a wounded utterance of his name that made his entire body feel like it’d gone under the sun. “Missed you.” 

You smiled, tipping your face up, eyes still shut as your mouth searched. He met you there, pressing a slow, morning-soft kiss that just stayed. When you finally pulled back and sighed, boneless, he cradled you to him. 

“Hey, so,” he murmured, thumb still stroking your back, “old friend of mine’s in town next week. Reached out this morning.” 

“All your friends are old.” You hummed into his chest, still processing the words, and he felt your body still in his arms. “What old friend?” 

“Just an old friend, baby.” 

You lifted your head off his chest at that, one eye cracking open then the other, the sleep burning off you so quickly. He exhaled a sigh as he watched that beautiful, familiar spark catching behind your face. You propped your chin on his sternum and narrowed your eyes at him.

“This old friend doesn’t have a name?” 

“Mhm. Does.” He kept his face maddeningly neutral, thumb still sweeping your spine, savoring the little furrow in your brows and the way your hand had started gripping the side of his waist, staking a claim. He loved you. “Diane.” 

Your lips pursed as you processed the name, as if checking everything you know about Jack in real time. Then you shook your head a little, lips curving up into what he could only consider your angry-smile. “Who the hell’s Diane?”

“We go back a ways.” He shrugged easily, that confidence of having done this a hundred times and always getting sweet, sweet you packing up in him. “Dated, for a bit. Long time ago.” 

You took in a sharp inhale, snorting softly as your hands left him completely. He tried to bite down his frown from showing.

“Dated,” you said, through a small breath with wide eyes. “You dated and she texted you?” 

“She did.” Jack laced his hands behind his head and settled back into the pillow. “Wants to grab a coffee. Catch up.”

“Well, are you going?” You were up on your elbow now, the blanket pooling at your chest, as your brows went up to your hairline in thorough dissatisfaction. 

No, he wasn’t. The possibility hadn’t even crossed his mind. He’d read the text, and moved on to the far more interesting business of what it could do for this morning. The coffee itself was nothing; he had no interest in sitting across a woman who hadn’t crossed his mind at all to trade summaries of decades.

You existed. There was, now, no hour anyone could offer that beat an hour of you doing anything at all. 

He had sat through watching you decide whether or not you’d return a sweater for forty minutes; trying it on over and over again, the same sweater, then tucking it into parts of your existing clothes to test it (into jeans, out of jeans, under the jacket, sleeves shoved up, sleeves shoved down, “should i just cut the sleeves off?” with the scissors already located, and he’d told you “do the crime and you can’t return it,” and watched you reconsider, setting the scissors down). You’d kept it and worn it while sitting on the couch for the rest of the day, then never again. 

“Thinkin’ about it,” Jack said, hooking a lazy finger into the strap sliding off your shoulder and tugging it back up, a tending gesture entirely at odds with the trouble he was stirring. “Just coffee, angel. She’s only in town a few days.”

“Well, your girlfriend is in town all days,” you said, swatting his hand away. “You can’t just get little catch-up coffees with women you fucking dated, Jack. That’s not – it’s not a thing people in relationships do.”

“No? But it was so long ago.” 

You’d pulled yourself upright now, cross-legged in the sheets, the blanket in your lap and the one strap already sliding down again. “Doesn’t matter, Jack.” You jabbed a finger at his neck. “You’ve got a girlfriend. A very good one –”

“Best one I’ve ever had,” Jack agreed, catching your finger and kissing the tip of it, entirely pleased. “I like her. Love her, even.”

“Then why think about it at all?” you asked as he tucked a piece of hair behind your ear, thumb grazing your cheek. 

“Just surprised, baby,” he said, shrugging. “We go way back. Before your time. It was – a real thing, for a while.” 

Your eyes quickly flickered down to his chest, mouth opening, then closing again. “How long were you together?”

He clicked his tongue, brows furrowing as he genuinely tried to reel back the memory. It was funny the way time did that.

“Couple years,” he murmured. “Give or take, three. Yeah. Around three.”

Your eyes had gone slightly wide as you looked at a spot on the blanket with your bottom lip tugged between your teeth.

“Three years,” you murmured, more to yourself than him, huffing slightly through your nose. 

Your eyes flicked up to him, and Jack’s hand went still against your spine. They eyes were wide, glassed, and lost, blinking up at him with some unguarded confusion. You looked at him the way you did when a word went missing on you mid-sentence (your fingers snapping restlessly at the air like you could catch it, ‘you know the one, Jack, the word – the – the thing,’ while he supplied guesses just to watch you swat them away), except there was no word being hunted now. 

“That’s – a long time, right?” you asked him then, tilting your head to the side, looking at Jack like he had some sort of conversion chart on what three years were ought to weigh. 

Jack’s eyes landed on your fingers tugging closer to him on the blanket, not landing on him. They stopped an inch short of his ribs, curling back into themselves. 

His eyes went from your fingers, to your face, which was still waiting for his answer. He sucked in a small exhale, buying a second, though he couldn’t have said for what. 

There was some low-grade, humming static on his skin, and he forced himself to override it, because you’d asked him so gently, and he always answered your questions. You asked him things at all hours, in all states, with your mouth full, from the other room, half-asleep on his shoulder blade.

( What’s the worst thing you ever ate? You’d help me hide it, right? What’s your favorite planet? If we were both dogs, who’d be walking who? Am I the funniest person you know? Would you still love me if I couldn’t talk, only hum? Who taught you how to drive? ) 

He’d answer every single one thoroughly, treating them all like he would’ve a question for boards, because early on he’d discovered your asking was an act of love; you collected his answers, kept them somewhere in that beautiful head, stored him. Nobody had ever wanted his mind so thoroughly before. 

So when you asked, he answered.

It was who Jack was to you. It was maybe his favorite thing to be, just Jack. Jack and all the little things he thought about all the little things he’d given little to no thought to. 

“Felt both long and short, if that makes sense,” Jack mused, wandering back into it, because you’d asked and the memory was a harmless thing to ignite. It was cold hearth, ash-dead, nothing in it did a single thing to a single fold of his brain.

“We took some trips – did two weeks through Italy one summer.” He shook his head slightly, blowing out a short breath at that fact of his life. “And her sister’s wedding in Maine.” 

“Italy,” you said, lips curving around the little word. Your eyes flicked down to his chest, then his torso. “You went to Italy?” You breathed in softly, and your head tilted again. Jack wondered if this was where the claws came out – Italy. “I didn’t know that.” 

“Lots you don’t know about my misspent youth,” he said, lips curling in a casual smile. His fingers reached out then to catch yours and folded them in his palm, bringing them up to his mouth to press a kiss to the knuckles. 

“What was it like?” you asked, brows rising slightly. “I’ve never – I don’t really know what it’s like there.”

“Rented this Fiat, did the coast. Amalfi, Positano – she had the Italian, so she handled the talking. I just drove and pointed.” A huff moved through his chest where he’d trapped your forearm. “She’d order. I’d eat whatever showed up.” 

He waited for the strike. She ordered for you? Then your fingers would go to his throat. Nobody orders for you. What did she order? Was it good? 

Your lips had made this small shape of an ‘o’ as your eyes had snagged on him as he spoke, criss-cross and those small inches away from him on the bed. 

“What’d she – where’d you even find the time?” you said through a short laugh, shoulders coming up slightly.

“We’d come out of residency and the schedules just –” He’d left your fingers for a second to lace his own loosely over his chest in the air, two combs of a zipper missing. “Lined up.” He retrieved your hand automatically, repocketing it to him. “Traded calendars at the start of the month, find the overlap. Italy was a big overlap we got lucky with. Had a little cash for once, and somebody said to go now or never go.”

The word ‘residency’ had barely left his mouth when he heard you take in a small inhale, your lips jutting out slightly.

Now? Jack wondered dumbly. Now you’d get mad, say something territorial, something pretty and unhinged about schedules. I’ll make your schedule. He readied his face for it, schooling the grin down in advance so you wouldn’t catch him enjoying it. He also would have let you make his schedule, had you asked, even though he wasn’t sure how that would’ve worked. He’d have found some compromise between his job and you. He’d have nodded along solemnly, and asked you when it was effective.

“I didn’t know you’ve been to Italy,” you murmured, almost musing, as your eyes went to the desk beside the bed, past his shoulder. He followed your gaze to the little basket where you kept your folder of documents he’d made you organize last spring. 

“Long time ago,” Jack said, because it was. It was a very long time ago, and he felt the need to clarify that. He didn’t know why he was elaborating like he’d been accused. He hadn’t. You hadn’t accused him. “Very long time ago.”

His palm tightened over your fingers – a small, reflexive press – and got no answering flex back.

Your fingers lay there in his hand, warm, accounted for – like Jack always needed them to be – but absent. Jack found himself pressing again, interrogatively this time, you in there?

“That’s –” you started.

Jack’s eyes snapped back you again, like a dog hearing it’s name. Your mouth twisted, working like you were deciding on a seed and what to do with it.

You gave a small shrug – one shoulder, half-mast – and reached over with your other hand to roll a little lint of fluff off the blanket around your finger.

“That’s really far to go with someone,” you said, softer. “Italy. That’s like – a whole thing to do.”

“It was,” he said, absentmindedly, though, as he watched you.

There was something about the set of you he didn’t quite like, though he couldn’t have said what. The way your shoulders had come in a little? The way you seemed all gentle and docile now, when a minute ago you’d been jabbing him in the throat?

Jack prided himself on knowing you; he’d taken it up as a personal study. Your spine, usually all insolence, all sprawl, had gone considerate. Even your knees, criss-crossed under the sheets, had tucked in closer. 

“You okay, baby?” he asked, feeling that need to poke at it directly.

“Mhm.” You nodded quickly and looked up at him with a smile.

His fingers immediately reached up to settle under the hinge of your jaw, as if to hold your smile there, thumb laid along your cheek.

“Yeah, I just didn’t know it was – so serious. That’s all. I thought it’d be, like, some girl you dated a few months.” You let out a little breath of a laugh. “Not an – Italy person.” 

Jack’s brows furrowed. He didn’t really know what an ‘Italy person’ entailed, but he didn’t like how it sounded in your voice. 

You sometimes said things that made him want to burrow into your mind. They were little nothings, coinages, a whole private mint going on up there.

( It feels like a July day, when it was very clearly December and you were snowed in; he’s looks like a Tuesday guy, about a stranger at the DMV on a Friday; my feet are homesick, which turned out to mean you wanted to go to the beach, and also somewhere deserted sometimes, and a hike. ) 

He never asked you to translate. Half the time, it was impossible for you to do so, anyway; the words just arrived to you whole, and he’d learned to hold them up in the light until they made sense.

They always made sense, for there was always a ‘you’ inside of them. And he’d found that whatever came from you, it was worth keeping to dig into. 

( Sometimes, it made sense days later. Like when you’d said, one night in the car, engine off, “I like you when you park.” 

He’d laughed and asked, “As opposed to what?”

You’d had no answer, but he understood, days later, that you liked Jack in-between things. You liked him with the engine off, day done, night not started, with nowhere to be just yet.

He supposed it meant you liked the little pockets of nothing that every life has and nobody claims; idling, as opposed to mid-shift, the one where there was no overarching function making him do something. He’d found he liked those little pockets of nothing, too. )

He supposed that ‘Italy person’ would turn out to mean something exact, too. 

He waited, again, for the claws. What am I, then? with a finger at his chest, and he’d catch the finger and kiss it again and tell you what you were – everything – and you’d pretend it wasn’t enough, and demand he phrase it better, and he would.

Jack would phrase it better then better than that, mouth at your knuckles, your wrist, working up the arm between clauses. 

Mine, obviously, don’t be stupid. You’d hum, and he’d say it slower – mine, ob-vi-ous-ly – and you’d call him useless, and somewhere you’d end up bickering about whether Italy even had good food. He’d take your side on, traitor to decades in under a minute, and your sulk would die of neglect without either of you watching it. 

“I don’t know what that means, sweetheart,” he said, trying to force a casual smile through a small, chuckle. He shook his head confusedly. 

Your lips pressed together as you shrugged. “I don’t, either. Not really,” you said.

Before Jack could respond, you reached over and patted his chest twice and said, “Long night?” 

It took Jack a second. He heard actual sound, cogs audibly changing gears, because you’d been in Italy, and now you were in his shift, and the border between those two had been crossed with no warning. He’d been asked this normal question a thousand times; it was a fine question, a normal one. He’d answered it a thousand normal ways.

“Uh, yeah – middling,” he said, hand now coming to find your waist where you sat and tugging slightly, getting you back down into him. “Don’t wanna talk about the shift, though.” You landed against his chest and his chin fell to your head, some unscripted instinct in him kicking in. “Wanna talk about you.”

“Me?” You laughed slightly. “Nothing to report here.” 

“Disagree.” His hand started running over your spine, pressing his mouth to your hair for a second, breathing you in. “Missed you today,” he said, almost in a whisper. “Listened to your voice memo twice on the way back.” 

“Really?” 

His arm tightened around you, bring you up closer to his face, where he could reach your temple without any work. He pressed one, then another, and another kiss against them slowly, mouth lingering against your skin on the last one as he waited. For what? He had no idea. 

Your hand traveled up from his ribs to his jaw, cupping it, then running your thumb against the stubble once against the grain, the way you liked. It usually came with commentary (you’d make such a good beach, Jack; this is my favorite texture on earth; Jack, keep it like this always) and tonight he got none of it.

Jack turned his mouth to it on reflex and pressed a kiss to the middle of your palm, and felt your fingers curl slightly on the contact, gathering the kiss like you were keeping it. 

“Love you,” you murmured. “Go to sleep, Jack.” 

“Love you, too,” he said.

He couldn’t ignore how you’d practically shut off right in front of his eyes. So, he asked, “You tired?” he asked, feeling some base need to clarify.

“Yeah,” you whispered between your faces, and you did sound tired. Tired, Jack knew how to work with. 

“Good,” he murmured, softer, relieved to hear it was that. “We’ll be tired together, then we won’t be tired.” 

Your breath billowed softly over his mouth, something like a laugh, and his hand slid down to your arm to find your hand, tucking the whole laced knot of it down between your chests where it lived. Your head ducked slightly to go under his, burrowing in his neck, and he smiled as his chin came to rest at the top of your head. 

“Sleep,” he said gently, with all of the command he could muster whilst three-quarters gone himself. “We’re gonna sleep the whole day away.” 

You did. Sleep – that is. Or stayed in his arms until his breath went long and even and unmistakably out. When you were sure – when that deep untroubled weight of him told you he was really under – you extracted yourself out of the bed.

You didn’t want to, but sleep wasn’t coming easy with Jack tonight. It sucked; sleep always came easy to you with Jack. Getting out from under him, too, wasn’t easy. He slept like he meant it now, all of his weight poured over you, one heavy arm slung across you like a seatbelt. 

You lifted his arm by the wrist, an inch at a time, and slipped out from underneath it. He stirred and made a rough sound of protest and reached for the warm gap you’d left, patted once, then again, searching, and you winced at the sight of it.

You hurriedly fed your pillow to his arms and watched him gather it against his chest, watched him settle, thinking it was you. 

You should have gone outside now, like you’d planned, and instead you leaned in over the mattress, drawn back down by some law you had never once repealed.

Because – even now – you couldn’t leave Jack Abbot undecorated, you weren’t functioned that way.

Every time you left his vicinity, you’d paid a toll at the door; a kiss to the knuckles, the shoulder, the one time you pressed his closed eyelid so gently he’d told you about it during breakfast, thinking he’d dreamed of it, that it’d felt nice.

You picked the stubbled jaw and pressed the smallest kiss there for half-a-second, and he hummed just as you leaned away. His arms pulled the pillow tighter.

You felt heat build up behind your eyes at it. Jack was, somehow, reassuring you unconsciously, four fathoms down. You blinked at the ceiling, because this was just Jack sleeping with a pillow. Normal girls do not cry about things like this. 

When you successfully made it to the kitchen to make some coffee, which you didn’t end up making, you scrolled through your phone absentmindedly for a few minutes.

Your teeth were digging into your lower lip, and you were sure they could’ve left a permanent dent on them because of how long you’d been sitting on the countertop next to the coffee 

You were being mature. You were being so very mature about this.

Any second now, the maturity would kick all the way in and you’d feel it; the maturity, the security, the calm, grown-up ease that’d let you hear about your boyfriend’s beautiful doctor ex-girlfriend and their beautiful accomplished Italian holiday and simply nod. Maybe you’d be glad he’d had love before you, had something great enough it’d taken a tour across oceans.

You wouldn’t be this.

She was three years to your year.

You’d been counting since the bed, some sick little voice in the back of your head clicking away – that’s longer than you, so much longer, it’s double! and then one more!

She got a whole coast and you? Every time you tried to set the voice down, it just picked itself back up and started again.

You had – after a year – found the one proof that you’d always been, cruel-to-yourself, looking for. Jack Abbot had lived a life before you, several lives, and he’d had love.

So much time she’d had with Jack.

When you reached for your enormousness, for the claws, for the whole arsenal, you found your armor completely empty.

She predated you; you had no way to be big at her. You couldn’t bodyguard Jack from his own past, though you wished he’d have been a bodyguard to it from you. It was an insane thing to wish. All he did was answer your questions, because you’d come knocking.

An unfair, childish, foolish part of you wished he’d lied and decided the truth was too heavy for you and carried it himself. 

She had Jack, and she let him go. You could hardly let Jack go for the length of a shower. You’d have died.

What did she know that you didn’t? What was it like, being a woman who could afford to lose him? She’d walked away from Jack and was whole; if you’d lost Jack, there’d be nothing left.

You knew it was dramatic, that it didn’t work that way. It wasn’t true, but it sure felt like it. Jack had filled your life completely, and you didn’t ever want that space ever again.

Nothing about that is romantic. You’re just a girl who bet everything she had on the first big thing she saw. 

Jack had lived a whole entire grown-up love – the real kind, the serious kind – with her.

Your cruel brain wondered if there were others. You’d never heard about Diane before, what was one more name he’d never mentioned? He had decades you knew nothing about.

It all happened before you’d ever set your eyes on him and thought he was the only man that existed. It had happened before you’d seen him and thought he could be the one, then wished that he would be the one. He’d had that before.

You’d always known that, abstractly. But the idea of years and years of Jack being loved by great women who understood his work, women his own age, women who’d been there for parts of him you never got to meet. That a door swung open all the way tonight. 

You were the latest in a line you didn’t even know the length of.

You’d never even thought about Italy – it was so far away, and you didn’t even think you’d said the country’s name out loud until tonight.

Italy was – you always thought – a thing that happened to other people. It happened, you understood, to Jack. Not your Jack, another woman’s Jack, back when he was somebody’s whole future instead of their past.

He had been loved over there. He'd been to Maine with a family who’d probably thought he was the one.

You were holding the frayed end of a rope whose length you’d never wanted to measure, because you’d assumed stupidly, sweetly, that the rope started when you’d grabbed it, that Jack began the night he met you.

Stop. You’re being crazy – like always. A part of you always had known Jack liked getting a rise out of you, and you liked giving him one. Get a rise out of him, the petty, young part of your brain supplied. 

You laughed softly to yourself, clutching your arms around your waist as you folded over, forehead dropping to your knees.

With whom? If you looked for ammunition, you found no Diane.

The guy before the last guy whose last name you couldn’t even remember anymore; a handful of small-time relationships that had lasted one season and ended not because they were wrong but because they were nothing.

You had no great, grown love in your belt that you cold hold up to the light and make Jack ache over. 

You had Jack. Jack was your Diane and Jack was your Italy – your three years, your coastline, and your entire globe, probably even more – the biggest love you’d ever had by a distance so vast it was hardly a competition.

Jack knew about your entire life and every supplementary information about you that held no weight on you, or only very little.

Jack knew about your first pet’s name, and its cause of death, and the movie you still couldn’t watch because of it. He knew your worst subject’s grade and, worse, the teacher’s name, and had once gotten angry at that man on your behalf.

He knew the reason you hardly talked to your family; he knew it all by now, because you’d kept handing out pieces over this year, and somewhere around the eighth month you’d realized he knew the story completely now. 

He’d learned it all, greedily, like each fact was worth having. You’d hand him a dusty nothing – a camp story, a recurring dream since seven, your opinion on cilantro – and watch it get written down somewhere behind his eyes. Weeks later, he’d produce it at the right moment. No cilantro, she hates it.

It had felt like Jack had opened your junk drawer and thought of it as treasure.

Your life was small and short enough to fit into his hands entire. It was a carry on. He held all of it and had room left over for more. You just didn’t have any more to give him.

Jack had finished reading you.

You’d been collecting him, too, greedy in your own right, thinking you were getting, at the very least, to the hallway. Now, you were wondering if you’d only just walked up the porch to the door.

You could produce Italy in your brain now; Jack against some sun-warm railing over water; Jack driving a little car on the wrong side of the road with confidence; Jack looking longingly at a woman who was speaking a language he couldn’t understand, holding him up.

Some parallel-Jack, out in the corner of your mind, who’d married the doctor.

Jack who was, right now, in some other version of this morning, drinking coffee, happy, whole, entirely fine. Jack, who was talking about some case from a journal – in his fluent doctor-language with someone who never needed the glossary – never pausing to translate English into – well, English. He was never smiling patiently and having to shrink his work down to a bedtime-story size like he did you. That Jack’s wife could meet Jack in the dark after his bad shifts instead of standing at the edge with a flashlight, calling in.

You couldn’t even imagine parallel-Jack lonely with something missing at his table. Your imagination – which loved him, which had only ever been able to love him – refused to even draw him sad. It kept handing you Jack complete; a whole finished Jack, out there in the corner of your mind.

This Jack’s completeness had to require your absence. It needed you to put yourself out of this world and into the crevice of your mind that hated you.

You had to widen your eyes on the floor. Your heels knocked the cabinet.

No. No. Your Jack – the real Jack – was thirty feet away and had never once been anything but certain of you.

Jack had never once not been certain of you. You were sitting on the countertop in his sweatpants right now. Your fingers were curled into the cotton of the pants, holding it like it was his hand, because Jack himself suddenly felt like too much to deserve.

You were getting homesick of him, getting jealous of women in your own head, grieving trips that had already happened, creating an entirely one-girl production in your mind that was only cruel to you, and the man who’d done nothing to put it there.

Go to him, you tried to tell yourself. Go to Jack. Wake him up. Talk to him.

He never turned you away. You had come to him with nothing, a whole lot of nothings, and he had never once turned you away. 

( You’d had a terrible dream that your childhood house was empty. It was the whole dream. You’d walked through it, room-by-room, and everyone was gone and the furniture was gone and your voice didn’t work. It was classic dream-physics. You’d woken up with shaky breaths, body tensing up over, well, nothing. Over the fact that the wallpaper was gone. You’d lain there for four minutes being reasonable about it, then you’d poked Jack. 

Poked him once, then again. Then again – his hand caught your finger, eyes still shut, reflexes working. He folded your finger in his fist and kept it there, on his chest as one eye dragged open, looked at the little digital clock, looked insulted, then looked at you. 

“What?” At your silence and the sight of your small pout as your body went still, both his eyes opened, everything in his face shifting around not making this worse. “What happened?”

“Bad dream,” you said, and because he’d wait all night without asking, you added, “My old house. Everything was just gone. It’s stupid, it’s not even –”

“Not stupid.” His arm had come up to haul you down onto his chest in a drowsy motion, your ear landing conveniently over the slow bass of his heart as his hand rubbed over your skin. “Empty house,” he murmured, clicking his tongue. “Yeah. That’s not a great one.”

He always agreed with you. Then, he added, “This place has got everyone we both need in it. Go back to sleep.” )

Your mind had, finally, gone quiet. Finally. Even it knew overkill when it saw it. 

Fuck, maybe you were fucking crazy. Jack should have gone running. If he had any sense, he’d have looked at you and walked calmly in the other direction. He hadn’t. He had stayed.

This morning your enemies included a hypothetical, a memory, and Europe al-fucking-together. 

He hadn’t let you go, you had to remind yourself. He’d kept you. Had, a few times, put a foot on the door to keep you there.

You slid off the kitchen counter to make your coffee, almost distantly. You made it this time, too. By the time the machine started its slow gurgle, you’d forced yourself to wrestle the whole thing back where it belonged, blinking your eyes clear and dry. It was the deal you’d made with yourself, you supposed, when Jack had said Italy and that she was a doctor, just like him. 

You weren’t going to be the crazy, young girlfriend who spiraled over an old flame. You were going to be so graciously secure about all of it that Jack would never, ever know the morning had touched you at all.

You’d nearly convinced yourself of it, too, as you settled on the couch with the mug on the little glass table beside you as you scrolled through your phone. Then, you’d heard the bedroom door, and the soft knock of crutches against the floorboards as Jack shifted his weight. 

You felt your heart drop at the sound of it, and had to force yourself to look up at the ceiling for a few seconds before he materialized, because you had never – not once – felt that feeling in your body in the three-sixty-five and a few more days you’d loved him.

No, you had to tell your body. We don’t feel this way for Jack. There’s no need to start now.

He came around the corner a second later, crutches under his arms and squinting against the light, hair flattened up on one side of his head from all of forty minutes on the pillow. His eyes swept across the room quickly and landed on you, face easing slightly.

“There you are,” he said, voice rough with sleep. He stayed there for a second looking at you, head-to-toe, checking. “Woke up to a pillow,” he said, one brow going up, dipping his chin at you in soft accusation. 

“Jack –” You pushed yourself up off, padding over to him on instinct, because you were you, it was now nine in the morning and he’d hauled himself out of bed after only one tiny blink of sleep after his shift. Every single step he was taking on those crutches was a step he shouldn’t have been taking. “What are you doing up? Go back to bed –”

“Could ask you the same, baby. You’re never up this early.” When you got close enough, his eyes immediately came down to yours and stayed, moving over slowly. Then, he flicked his gaze to the entirety of the living room behind you.

“You get lonely out here? Something wrong? Should’ve come got me.” he fired off at once, so quickly that your mind had to catch up to process it.

“Not lonely. Nothing’s wrong. You needed sleep – ” 

False. False. True. You were a liar more than half the time today, and you knew you were making this bed all by yourself.

“I need lots of things.” His hand came up off the crutch grip – balancing himself there on one – and reached out to you, knuckles first, dragging down your cheek slowly as his head tilted to look at you. The touch was so, so tender it almost undid the whole act you had running. “Sleep’s like – fourth.” 

You leaned into his hand before you could stop it, and his face flickered for a second – relief, there and covered – and his thumb pressed in to hold it, keeping it. 

“I just couldn’t sleep,” you said into his palm, because half-truths were easier to say to his palm. “You can, though,” you said quickly. “You worked all night. I’d already slept before you came home.” 

He appeared to weigh this, and when your eyes finally moved back to his face, it was tilted slightly to the side, lost. Like a dog, hearing a new sound. It was a new sound, you realized the second it left you. It sounded like exactly what you had decided you were going to be – reasonable and considerate – and you had never once been reasonable about Jack going to bed. Sending him off to rest, so generously, without you, sounded – to you and him both – like another person’s girlfriend talking. 

He took in a small breath, a chuckle dying in his throat, and his head dropped closer, the stubble catching in the light.

“Counter-offer?” he murmured. His hand slid from your cheek to the back of your neck, settling there. “Couch. Both of us. Nobody sleeps. Nobody does a single thing.” 

“Like gremlins,” you murmured. 

The crease in his brow lost a little bit of its altitude. “Exactly like gremlins, angel,” he said gravely, instantly. 

Your lips moved hesitantly, and your hands came up to his bare chest, pressing slightly. “You’ve been up all night, Jack,” you said through a short laugh, fingers skating around the breath of his chest to sit at his ribs, trying to turn him. 

“Stop it – please, no.” He stayed put, eyes flicking down to where your hands had come up and lips twisting in, what you could only describe as a snarl. “I’m not tired.”

It was such a bald, indefensible lie that you visibly shook your head at him. The evidence was all over his pretty face, the pretty, lying face. The curls were silvering mess flattened on one side and standing at attention on the other, and you had to physically stop your hands from going to them.

The morning stubble had come in along his jaw in that salt-and-cinnamon scatter you’d once spent a full minute petting against the grain while he sat there letting you, patient as a trained dog. Still, tired lived well on him. Everything lived well on him. You’d told him once, and he’d thanked you, because he’d found himself tired a lot and hadn’t quite found a way to ease it. He’d tried.

“Jack,” you tried, voice warming a touch.

“What?” he drawled, shaking his head at you now, like he was deciding to show how scandalized he was now by all of this. “I’m not allowed to sit with my girl?”

He started moving to the direction of the couch – crutches finding their rhythm – without giving you any time for defense. “Man works a night shift and isn’t allowed to sit with the prettiest thing he’s ever seen?” 

You huffed. “Thanks.” 

“Don’t thank me,” Jack called over his shoulder. “Come sit.”

You trailed after him, because what else could you do? Dig your heels in, tell him no? That would’ve been a tell the size of five fucking houses. The second you were in range, his arm left the cushion and hooked over your waist mid-step and hauled you onto his lap. Your yelp was swallowed by the drop, and you landed sideways across his thighs with his arm already snaked across your back. 

“Your leg, Jack – ”

“My leg’s thrilled.” His other hand collected your knees and folded them up toward his stomach, tucking you in closer, arranging you into the compact bundle he preferred, until you were sitting in the wide, warm bowl of him with nowhere to look that wasn’t him. His hand then came up to your back and pressed, instructively, until your cheek gave up and landed against his shoulder. He let out a long, slow breath at the contact, chin coming to rest on your hair. “There we go.”

You breathed in a lungful of air as you settled against him, his presence like fire and water over you right now. You were so scared of someday losing this, this exact thing. His chest hair scratching at your cheek; the weight of his head – carrying so much – on your head; the way he smelled like your soap because you’d asked him to once and he’d never gone back, and now this man walked around his emergency department smelling like pink fruit all day and let everyone at work deal with it.

It was so, so unbelievably simple to be with Jack, to be in this flowery presence of this gruff man, being his. Jack had come along and he’d made you put everything down – the checking, the second-guessing – and you had, you’d put everything down, and dumped both arms around his neck instead. 

“How do you wanna use our nights off today, hm?” he asked softly, moving his head to press a quick kiss to the top of your head. 

This was your event. You knew that was why he was asking, dangling it, because the planning was half the having for you and he’d learned to just hand you the whole day and watch you go. You always had opinions.

Before you’d tucked yourself into bed last night, you’d thought maybe you and Jack would go to the diner whenever you woke up, breaking fast in the afternoon like degenerates. 

Maybe the flea market afterwards, because Jack, at a flea market, haggled in such a nice, slow voice that made grown sellers fold like the lawn chairs they were selling. He’d followed you around from table to table for two hours, never once questioning why you were suddenly looking at doorknobs. You could’ve looked at gravel, and he’d have carried it. Then you’d come home, couch, a game on, his head in your lap – heavy, trusting, king of some small kingdom – while you messed with his curls.

It all seemed so unbelievably wrong now. It seemed nice at the same time, the same as before. But the diner. She probably never made him eat at diners. The flea market; she went to Positano. You had no idea what Positano even looked like, exactly. It was probably the most beautiful place on all of earth and Jack had stood in it, years before you existed to him, being well-loved, and you’d spent this morning secretly hoping it was ugly. 

You pressed your cheek harder into his chest and he hummed, appreciatively, and adjusted his arm to noodle you.

She got this, too.

You had to stop yourself from groaning at your own voice, from yelling at it altogether. The thoughts were just pushing you closer and closer to him, your cheek nuzzled against his chest, shifting slightly like the bare contact of his skin could just scrub it all out; your cure and disease were Jack. Every awful, awful thought sent you burrowing closer into his exact chest that had caused it, and he kept receiving you, warm and obliging, having no idea he, right now, was both your wound and bandage. 

You just wanted your day back. You couldn’t tell anyone how insane this was, least of all Jack. You’d have crawled inside his ribcage if it zipped.

You knew that Jack had been trying to get under your skin – you knew that he liked it – but you’d figured this game was one that was built for you to win. Every round was just Jack setting up an excuse to spend the afternoon demonstrating with his mouth, his eyes, his face, that there was no contest to even worry about.

Because you couldn’t very well go to Positano today, and because you suddenly felt like a kid handing over a macaroni necklace to someone who owned diamonds, you said, “I don’t know,” into his chest. “You decide.”

His thumb paused on your skin for a second, then it resumed.

“Me?” he murmured, chin tilting for a second to press his lips to the top of your skull again. “I wouldn’t have the first clue, angel.” 

“Try,” you said. 

He huffed slightly. “Alright, then. Bear with me – first day on the job. We stay here till noon, then the diner with your jams. Then that stretch by the river you like, lemonade from the good cart guy.” He squeezed your arm and pressed another peck to your head. “Home by dark and it’ll be the best outing in the world.” 

It sounded so perfect. You pressed your whole face down into his chest, even as you thought about how his outings were once grander, with people who’d done grander. With a doctor, no less. “Sounds perfect.”

For a moment, the two of you just breathed there. It may have been the fact that when it got quiet when you were with Jack – instead of quiet with just yourself – things seemed a little easier, but you found yourself saying, against him, “Jack?”  

“Yes?” he said instantly, chin lifting off your head and you felt his attention come down on you, whole and immediate, like he was summoned.

“Are you gonna get the coffee?” you asked. 

“Huh?”

“With her,” you said. “You know –”

Your words cut off as you shrugged, suddenly feeling stupid all over again. Saying it made it real again, and now you’d brought the topic to the couch. It happened on the bed, and you’d carried it to the kitchen, and now it was on this lovely couch. You were going to taint it all with it.

“You should probably go. To catch up.” You lifted your head up to meet his eyes, forcing your voice even. “I don’t mind.” It felt like it’d come out with steel; you almost winced at your own words. 

Jack blinked at you, then his head tilted, and the softest, most confused grunt left him. 

“Baby,” he started gently, amused, almost, reaching for the joke in it at first. His knuckles came up to brush against your cheek for one second. “I’m not going anywhere near that coffee – you’d have me chipped like a dog by Tuesday.” 

It was a gift, you could see his words wrapped and extended – him invoking your domestic insanity, holding it up like the reason the sky was blue – and all you had to do was accept it. The morning would become the, in all senses of the word, usual.

You would’ve preened at the portrait of you, and now you heard it from the morning’s new ears – he’s got an ex who speaks Italian and you think it’s fun to threaten him with 24 hour surveillance. 

“I wouldn’t, though,” you said quickly.

When his knuckles paused on your cheek, questioningly, you continued, “You should go. I won’t be mad at you.” Your lips pressed together for one second. “I promise.” 

Jack’s hands went to your hips and his jaw shifted from side to side, as he looked away from your face for a second. “Yeah. Okay. I’m not grabbing coffee with another woman.” 

“She came all the way. You guys are old –”

“Stop,” he interrupted with a laugh – disbelieving and no humor in it – as his head reeled back.

“Stop it – I don’t want this.” His hands flexed on your hips, then came up to wave in the general direction, then fell back down. He looked at you really, really upset, or baffled, or both. “Who cares how far she came? People fly places. I don’t want to have coffee with anyone.”

You shrugged, letting your head drop into his chest again. “If that’s what you want. You don’t have to do it because of me.” 

“I am absolutely doing it because of you.” His arm came around you, bringing you back close to him. “I’m not going ‘cause my girlfriend exists. That’s a whole reason. It’s a great one. So don’t talk me out of it.” He pressed his lips to the top of your skull. “Not your reason to give away. And you can get me chipped, if you like.”

You opened your mouth, then closed it. What could you even say to that? You felt him nod over you at the silence, felt some hesitance creep into his body, as he pulled you in. 

“Actually,” he said after a moment. “Let’s put a pin in the plan.” One hand lifted off you and made some small motion, you couldn’t see it but you felt the absence where it had been, before it came back. “We’ll do it tomorrow. Next week. River’s not goin’ anywhere.” His arm resettled around you, snugger than before. “Today we’ll stay in.” 

“Jack –”

“Blanket, couch, girl.” He counted your day off your spine, three soft taps of his fingers. When you made a sound of protest, his said into your hair, quieter, “I’ve got all I need. I’m not feeling the outside today. That okay?”

“No, it’s not – let’s go. I’m just tired right now. I’ll be up later.” 

You felt him breathe, then, the gust of air pooling into your hair.

“Then come to bed,” he tried weakly, and he sounded so broken you wanted to cry. You could hear him knocking at the door of you. “Sleep. Let’s sleep together, if you’re tired.”

“Not sleepy-tired,” you said, and heard how little it made sense even as it came out of you.

Then, you pushed yourself up off him, palms to his chest, trying to keep the motion casual. “I think I just need to wake up properly. Move around a little.” You stood, angling your face away, blinking fast as you looked at the dark TV screen. “I’m gonna get in the shower, if that’s okay?”

When you tried to look over your shoulder, he’d straightened up, palms falling down to his sides on the couch as he looked up at you. 

“Course it’s okay,” he said, hands following up then to settle for your hand, thumb passing over your knuckles. He gave your fingers the gentlest tug and pulled his head back, catching your eyes for a second before you could look away again, and the look on his face was so, so soft. “Do you want breakfast?” 

You nodded quickly. “Yeah – thanks.” 

He made a small sound, then pressed his lips to your knuckles, then let your fingers go one at a time. You made it four steps down the hallway with his gaze heavy on your back, and you couldn’t stand it.

There was a great, large, incessant bug in you that couldn’t stand Jack back there with his worried face and scared smile. So you half-turned over your shoulder, your eyes down at the baseboard, and called out, “Love you, Jack.” 

You’d told Jack you loved him at full speed, into his mouth mid-argument, into the phone before you’d even said hello, at grocery stores, at funerals, at red lights, six times a day minimum. It was the surest sentence you owned. This time, it went out like a paper boat, pushed onto the water with two fingers, and watched all the way across. 

“Love you, too,” he called back warmly, after what felt like a hundred years.

Jack had once spent a very, very long time to get you to believe that even if you held onto something good loosely, it won’t run away. He’d had to get you to believe that even if your grip on him loosened, even just for a second, even for a month, he would still be right there. Why was he feeling the need to hold you so tightly now? 

He set your plate at your spot, and his at his. He poured the coffee, saw the first coffee you’d abandoned on the counter, full and stone cold, and stood there looking for a second longer than the mug deserved.

He’d put on his prosthesis after plating the food, a part of him too large and hopeful – instead of its usual, content, un-worried hum – expecting you to come out of your shower wanting to do something, the diner, the river, after all, trying to change his mind.

He’d hoped you’d come out wanting to be carried somewhere on his back. He wanted to be ready, he always was now. He kept himself pre-approved for whatever you thought of next.

The inside of your head was a busy little harbor, boats coming in at all hours, and he’d been granted a standing spot on the dock. You’d let him become the first to hear about octopus, cats, furniture, which part of your body felt cold, warm, or lukewarm. A year of receiving your pretty cargo and he’d never once been bored. 

He, decades your senior, had seen the world be made interesting again by you just narrating it at him. He had the sneaking suspicion he’d follow your voice wherever it went, into traffic, a dock, into old age, and the shower.

The water kept running. He wasn’t the kind of man that’d track your showers, but years of working in emergency and emergency-adjacent situations had honed up his internal clock eerily well, smoothened out his pattern recognition.

He had to tamp down the urge to deploy it, to use this innate, terrible, awful instinct in his brain on you – you, who he felt more than monitored, who he’d only ever read with love, no grains of salt, no instruments. 

You were the girl who rearranged things in his cabinets by feeling and left in it a system he still couldn’t crack and refused to fix. Opening a drawer looking for a spatula and finding your hair ribbons had become one of the small startling joys of his one life.

He’d been a clinician for so long, and you’d built with him a corner of the world where he was just a man, holding a girl, and being completely in love with her.

Jack, bring me the towel even though it’s right there. Jack, come look at this bruise. Did I not wash out the conditioner out properly? Jack – Jack, Jack, come and just sit with me while I shower.

His knee bounced under the table, and he stopped it. 

Your eggs had gone cold, glossy, and began settling into themselves. The toast had lost its heat, and the jam sat unopened with its little lid on – the grape, the good one – and the jam was a small purple fact that he could not find himself liking to sit across from. You’d have opened it by now and started walking the length of the place, spoon in your mouth, talking. 

A year of you had taught him what mornings looked like when they were going right. He knew this one had gone wrong so quietly and terribly, that he’d been able to hold you the entire time it was happening. 

It was the bitter feeling of the surge he’d had in his chest this morning at the thought of your instincts.

He’d read a woman’s name off his screen and come home with it like it was a match to your pretty fire. He’d carried it into bed with you, and all Jack knew was that at this morning, his girl had been in his arms so sweetly, and minutes later, her fingers were hesitant to press into his skin. The only thing that happened in between was his own mouth, having fun. 

Jack wasn’t sure when he’d stood up, but he was walking to the bedroom now, to the ensuite bathroom. A year ago, this hallway had been a hallway. Now, it was a museum of you mid-motion, and he moved through it with his heart going at a pace he hadn’t earned sitting down, past the bed still holding the shape of the forgery you’d left him in, a pillow. He had to look away from it like the sun. 

He told himself that the bathroom door being closed was normal. Steam, privacy, nothing; all of it were real things. 

“Hey,” he said to the door lightly, knuckles going in two soft taps. It was the same knock he used with the you in the bath going pruny as he was happily serving you wine. “You fall asleep in there? S’been a minute.”

He tried to force his lips into something close to a smile even though there was a door between you right now.

Perhaps it was because Jack – even now, even morbidly confused – knew you, and knew that the door would be locked before he confirmed it with his shaky fingers. 

( You, who talked to him through the glass of the shower, sat cross-legged on the counter while he shaved – you missed a spot, no, the other spot, how do you have a medical license, genius – and stole his coffee between critiques and made him laugh hard enough he’d nicked his jaw and you’d gasped like the injured party, then kissed it before pronouncing him stable.

You, who had once flung the shower door open mid-rinse to tell him that you’d figured out what you both were in a past life. He never got to hear the answer. You’d seen him standing at the sink in his towel and lost the thread altogether, and the past lives were never mentioned again, and Jack had walked around for the next twenty-four hours unreasonably pleased about being distracting at his age to you. 

A door had, simply, never existed in your relationship. )

The key was right there. He’d put it there himself, two summers before he’d ever met you, the day the door had swung shut at its own draft and locked an empty bathroom. He’d forgotten it existed, but his hand went up and found it first try, blind, and came down holding this tiny cold thing. 

His fingers were unsteady fitting it in, which was new. He’d threaded needles into people in moving vehicles. Now, in his home, his fingers trembled over a privacy lock like a first year, because on the other side of the door was the whole of his one life, in falling water, hiding from him – him – and every second the key took was a second you sat in there believing you had to do so. 

“I’m coming in,” he said to the door, softer than an announcement this large should’ve been, like some part of him was afraid of the wrong reaction at your response to it. “Just me. I’m coming in, okay?” 

His chest caved – folded in on itself, turned over – because there you were, on the floor of the shower, curled up under the pour of the water, your knees to your chest and your arms wrapped around them, your face hidden down against them. His girl – the loud one, the strongest person he’d ever let himself love – made small and quiet and hidden on the floor of the shower. He had seen you in this place a thousand times and never once, not ever, like this.

“Oh – baby. No, hey –”

Your head snapped up at his voice, and just that sharp little movement of you made him tilt back slightly. Your face – wet and swollen, eyes red at the rims, gone raw and young and caught in a way he’d never seen it – did something terrible when it saw him in the doorway. It crumpled then hardened, both at once, a door slamming behind glass, and you scrubbed the heel of your hand over your eyes like you could take back the last thirty seconds if you were quick enough about it.

“No,” you said quickly, the word cracking out of you with a sharp edge under the thickness. Your hand came up between you, a flat little barricade under the steam. “No – get out, Jack – I told you I’ll be – please, get out –” 

You didn’t push him. This wasn’t a thing that happened. You pulled – you reeled him in by the shirt, you climbed into his lap, you fought tooth and nail for every inch of distance he’d tried to keep, whose entire love was a set of hands hauling him closer, closer, closer.

He had spent all this time being pulled by you, gladly, helplessly, and he did not have – had never needed – a single instinct for being pushed. 

“Hey – hey, no – don’t –” His hand came out to the glass, pushing slightly. “It’s just me. It’s me. Look –”

“I don’t want it to be you right now,” you said, and the words were so awful and completely jagged.

You turned to face away, like you were trying to push yourself out of his sight entirely. “Please. Please, just go and get out. I don’t want you here – please, Jack.” 

“No, don’t ask me that,” Jack said immediately, voice breaking clean in half as his eyes went glassy and desperate. “It’s me – you don’t hide from me – we’re not that –”

“Please,” you said, voice barely audible over the running of the water, and his nose burnt as he caught sight of you shaking. “Please, just give me a minute – a minute. I’m – I’m asking you to leave.” 

Jack’s hand hung empty in the air as he looked down at you, heart in actual pieces on the tile, and he understood – quietly – that the only thing you were begging him for was the single thing he’d have rather died than do, to turn around and leave you crying. 

So – because you’d asked, because pushing past a plea like that would only carve you open worse, because loving you had never once meant taking what he wanted when it wasn’t what you needed – he made himself.

“Okay,” he said, voice coming out in ruins. “Okay, baby. Okay. I’m going – I’ll go.” He reached up and took your towel off your rail and set it closer to the shower. “I’m right outside. I’m not far – I’ll be right there and you come get me the second you want me, you hear? The second.”

You stayed silent, so Jack, clumsy with grief in a way his body never was, made himself turn his back on you. At the door, he paused, eyes pinching shut to make himself not look over his shoulder. Instead, he said, “I love you.”

He pulled the door behind him, left it breathing half ajar with the steam sighing out through the gap, and pulled himself to sit at the edge of the bed, facing the bathroom. Like you were going to run from him, like some part of him needed both feet under him and the door in his eyeline needed to be ready. For what? He couldn’t have said. To catch you, he supposed. To get you the second you’d let him. To not be caught sitting down when you finally opened the door and needed him standing. 

He sat there with his elbows braced on his knees and his hands pressed together against his mouth and waited, and it was the longest ten minutes of his recent life.

Every second of it was stretched unbearably, because he was learning there is this particular hell in loving someone past all sense and being made to sit on the other side while they hurt. He didn’t know what to do with this feeling, had never had to think it was a possibility between the two of you.

When the door opened, Jack was on his feet before he’d decided to be. There you were, towel-wrapped, hair dripping onto your shoulders, face swollen and turned just slightly away, eyes on the floorboards. You crossed your arms over your chest, gripping the towel closed.

“Hey,” he said, breathing through it, his voice half-ruined, shaking. He caught it and hauled it down a register by force, into the very low, sure place his voice lived when everything depended on it.

He made himself stay planted – made himself open his arms instead of using them, wide, a whole doorway of him – while every muscle strained against its leash, because his body had exactly one theory about you crying and the theory was to go, and he stood on that theory with all his weight. 

“Come here,” he said instead, begging with a steady voice, a whole vacuum sealed into two words. 

Your eyes climbed as high as his chest and gave up there, arms tightening. You shook your head dimly, water flicking. He nodded to himself, made himself stay standing, without letting an ounce on his face where you’d have to carry it. 

“One step. That’s all I’m asking.” His arms turned palm-up at the ends of his open arms, still, though nothing behind his ribs was. “You don’t have to talk. Or explain anything. Not tonight, or ever. I’ll die curious – but I’m standing here figuring out I don’t work right until I know how you feel in my arms and I haven’t known for hours and I am asking you –” His voice strained, and the words came out bare, “ – Please, I am asking you to come let me hold you.” 

You let out a small sound, eyes pinching shut, and he watched a whole war happen on your face. Jack thought, uselessly, hopelessly, that he’d have stood there through a winter or as the building came down, holding a door ajar in himself for as long as doors took.

You crossed, though. Your body came to him hard, all at once, like you were dropped from a height, and Jack caught you with one arm crushed around your towel-wrapped back. The other flew to your wet hair, his palm rounding the whole back of your skull, pressing you into his heart, gathering you in and in and in, past where space existed, trying to find one more setting past where proximity itself existed. He let out a sound that was – dangerously – close to sob into your hair, finding himself completely undone for the first time in a very, very long time. 

“There you are,” he murmured, rocking you slightly as his mouth pressed to the top of your dripping hair. “I’ve got you. Got you now.”

You shook against him, and Jack winced at the feeling of it, gently reeling both of you down onto the edge of the mattress, then back, then over, until he had you sideways across his lap, your knees folded over his thigh, your face tucked into the crook of his neck, his arms locked around you like a cage. The towel gave up at under your shoulder, so he pulled the corner of the blanket up over the bare curve of it – wrapping you precious – and then his arm closed the last of the circuit and locked. 

For a while, he simply let his hand move up and down your spine while you cried into his throat, and every shudder that went through you went straight through him, too. He pressed his lips to your temple and left them there and rode it out with you, breathing slow on purpose, loud enough for you to borrow the rhythm off of his nose, an old medic’s trick he was running on the only patient he’d loved past all sense. 

Somewhere in the middle of it, with your tears running down his throat and pooling at his collarbone,

Jack thought, helplessly, that even this was somehow yours and somehow beautiful; you cried like you did everything, with your whole body, holding nothing residual, generous, so generous, even in grief. You’d never given him a partial anything, and Jack tightened his arms around the full, shaking entirety of you and thanked the universe, genuinely, that when you’d finally fallen apart, you’d walked the few steps and done it on him. 

When your crying wore itself down, Jack made himself stay silent. The questions, fully formed, seventy versions of them and redrafted since the kitchen, he swallowed, because he had a feeling he had pushed enough for one simple morning. He’d pushed this morning smiling. He held you and let the question live in him like a swallowed stone and, apparently, he was less subtle about it than he thought.

Your voice came up out of his neck, waterlogged and small, as you said, “I know you want to ask.” Your fingers moved faintly against his chest, a fidget with no strength in it. “It’s okay. You can.” 

Jack had to close his eyes at your first full sentence being a door held open for him; you’d crawled out of your own wreckage to check on the driver. 

“I do,” he said into your hair, honestly. “But I’m not gonna spend your turn. So here’s mine first.” 

He felt you go still against him – attention gathering, a tiny tilt of your head at his collarbone – and he breathed in heavy, big enough to lift you where you lay, to pay up. 

“I got really scared today,” he said, voice going into a whisper as he leaned down to talk to you. “I woke up to you not in my arms and my whole chest felt – wrong. I do this for a living, I’ve got all the words. It wasn’t – wasn’t sick. It felt wrong, you not being somewhere you’re supposed to be. First time in – forever, if I’m being honest.” He tapped you skin twice, to hold himself. 

“And when I found you, I couldn’t reach you. And now – seeing you –” He felt you stiffen up at that, and he nodded in understanding, skipping over. “I’m thinking of getting rid of all our doors.” His hand kept moving down your spine, and he faced your head then. “Bathroom’s the priority. Bedroom might be load-bearing, but. Front door stays. Everything else is beaded curtains by Friday.” 

You made a small sound against his neck, and Jack had to stop himself from crushing you into the tightest hug at the bridge of a laugh. He pressed his mouth to your temple for a few seconds instead. “Another thing while I’ve got the floor. Telling me to go get coffee with an ex – don’t do that again. I’m not gambling with you. I’ve only got one of you. So, I’m never going to coffee with anyone else again.” 

“You’re allowed to cry,” he said, setting the joke aside. “I’m sorry I made you feel you couldn’t do it with me knowing about it. That’s mine, and I’m gonna find it and fix it if it takes me the rest of my life.” 

“You didn’t do anything,” you protested, sounding wounded. 

“It’s okay,” he murmured. “That’s mine. That’s what I felt today. You don’t have to give me yours.” 

His arms adjusted, and some helpless, incurable corner of him – the one that had flirted with you through every disaster you’d ever handed each other – added, “But, if you wanted to trade, I can make it worth your while.” 

You laughed at that again, and the two of you stayed silent again for sometime. Your fingers crawled up his chest, up over his collarbone, curling loosely around his neck, your palm settling in like you needed contact to speak. 

“You went to Italy,” you said. 

Jack’s brain did one, full lap around the words, and came back with nothing. He did the only thing he could when you handed him a coin he couldn’t read, which was holding it up to the light and keeping his voice soft and not dropping it. 

“I did,” he said, carefully. “Long, long time ago, baby.”

“Was it nice?” you asked, the words coming out so small. In the same breath, like a small dam breaking, you added, “Do you miss it?”

Jack never had to look for a trap in your words, not like this.

There was none now, either. You’d asked about Italy like you asked him about bad days, ready to receive whatever came back, your thumb doing a nervous sweep against his neck like you were comforting him in advance. You’d found the one grief in the world with his fingerprints on it and your first instinct was to ask if he wanted it back. 

For an ugly second, he thought he could have lied. No, it was overrated, beds were weird, bad food. You’d have heard it, and Jack thought that it would’ve taught you that you couldn’t survive the truth. 

“It was nice,” he said quietly, hands moving up and down your spine. “I was young. Younger, anyway. Whole trip was –” He exhaled, shaking his head as he tried to hunt for the honest size of it. “It was a trip, baby. It was nice.” 

He pressed his lips to your hairline. “I don’t miss it. There’s nothing in there to miss. Like –” He clicked his teeth, searching for the words. “Driving past a house I used to live in. Half the time, can’t even remember which window was yours. You just keep going, ‘cause everything you own’s at the new place now.” His fingers tightened on you. “Think if I’d known what this was, back then, I’d have kept missing this, there.” 

Your breath shifted against his throat, and you nuzzled your face into his neck.

“What’s got you worried?” he murmured. He closed his eyes, letting his head lean to rest against yours, palms moving from your waist to your nape, then down. “I can get us to Europe by Thursday, just say the word. I’ve got PTO and miles I’ve been sitting on for years. I think they were for this.” 

“I don’t wanna go to Italy,” you said, smiling against his neck. “I think this is something I have to get through myself. It’s not anything you’ve done to me.”

Jack felt that familiar twist in his chest. It’d come to him for the first time today, and it kept coming up and up and up, and he couldn’t help but want to claw at his own mouth for his selfish, cruel little game, for every grinning careless word he’d dropped on you like they weighed nothing. And now you felt that you had to deal with it yourself, like it was yours to carry alone, off in a corner, someplace he couldn’t get to. Because he had done this. 

You were, simply, acting like the two of you weren’t the two of you; you had spent a whole year proving to him that ‘by yourself’ was a thing that, now, never existed. 

He drew you back, fingers threading through the back of your hair, trying to physically take you back from wherever – whatever – this by yourself was. He put your face in the light, wet-lashed, trying so hard to keep it together, and his thumb swept the damp while his own face did whatever it was doing, open and scared and thoroughly past the point of keeping it in check. 

“You don’t have a ‘yourself’ anymore, sweetheart. I don’t have that anymore. You woke me up at three in the morning to tell me how you fell off the monkey bars in third grade – remember? You didn’t think twice about it.” His forehead came down, brushing your nose with his. “And now you’re gonna sit here and tell me this – the saddest thing that’s crossed that pretty head all year – this one you’re keeping alone?” 

“Jack–”

“What is going on in that head of yours?” he interrupted, words soft but pointed, suddenly having given up all pretense of coaxing and gone straight to needling.

He watched you open your mouth as you took in a breath, and maybe it was the closeness or the way his thumb kept moving along your jaw, but you said, “I don’t know if I’m the real one.”

Jack’s brows furrowed, feeling heat build up behind his eyes as he looked at you with a pained, confused expression.

“I don’t know if I’m the one you do it for real with, Jack, or if I’m just – the young one. The one you get before – or after – I don’t even know how it works.”

Your hands came up between you, aggravated at yourself, at him, at the lack of vocabulary. 

“You’ve done so much. You’ve got countries. Experiences. So many of them. And I’ve got –” Your shrug came out tiny. “– you. You’re my biggest everything. You’re my Italy and I feel like I’ve been with you for three years and my – you’re all of it, Jack. I’m terrified I’m just the person that came after your big thing.” 

You blinked, and Jack’s fingers reached up to catch the little tear falling over your lashes, his own eyes blinking furiously. Jack wanted, so badly, to reach to you and press your kiss to your mouth to stop this, to to kiss this whole wilted garden you’d created in your head out of you.

He shook his head. “I hope I’m not your – her,” he said, a wince in the words, finding it difficult to even get them out. “Or your Italy.”

“You are –” you said, with so much conviction, chin coming up, ready to fight him for the honor of it, “you are – that’s what I’m telling you –” 

“I’m your Jack.” His hands tightened on your face, voice coming out slightly cracked. “I’d forgotten about this woman until this came up. I don’t want you to forget me. I’m your Jack and I’m the luckiest man for it everyday. So you pick a better word soon, and don’t take that title away from me.” He shook his head. “I like it. I like it a lot.”

You bristled slightly, your eyes shining into his as they went wide, the whole of you locking up at the words. He tapped his palm gently against your cheek once, then again, frowning as he thought he really ought to tell you this more, for a girl who kept a running tally of everything else.

You’d created a museum out of things he’d said, and somehow this one, the biggest one – the luckiest man of it – he’d been rationing. He’d been handing it over in the glances and over eggs, assuming it was arriving, that a girl who read him so fluently was taking what he’d said to you over and over again, so simply because it was just a fact. 

Never again. He’d tell you daily now, remind you of it while making you look him in the eyes. 

“I tried to make you jealous,” you said, the words coming out through a sad, shameful laugh. Something in his chest broke hearing you confess it like it was a crime. “I’ve got nothing, Jack. You won’t care about Sam, or Dave, or – I don’t even remember one’s name. That’s all. You had a doctor you went to Italy with.” 

His eyes fluttered for a second, the muscle in his jaw clenching as his fingers ran over your cheek. The nature of it all was too backwards. Jack had made a very sad sort of peace with himself – he’d known what he was – and somehow, at the end of all that, at the bottom of the ninth of his whole entire life, you’d walked into it glowing like something confiscated from heaven. You’d looked at the full of him, and decided you wanted him. You, dished out to him probably because of some fate-giver who’d been asleep at the desk, who had let the single best thing walk out to him.

If a single one of those guys had stayed awake one more hour, asked one more question, been at the right angle to see who was sitting across them, you’d be – Jack grimly, awfully thought – somewhere else right now. And Jack never would have known; he wouldn’t have known to miss you. You’d have been long gone and loved properly, early, by someone with the sense to do it. 

Jack would have worked his nights and run the bay, choosing every day to enter a new crisis, and never known the whole time that the best thing that would ever happen to him had happened to somebody else instead, on time, the way it properly should have. It was their loss, and he was going to make his entire life out of it. 

His arms moved before the thought even finished, hauling you in impossibly closer, resettling the whole, true warm weight of you against him. “Stay right here,” he murmured.

You did. Your lashes stuck wet in little points and your fingers resettled on his neck. You were wearing his shirt, drowning in it. Jack had been the steadiest set of hands in many rooms, he knew it without vanity. But nothing in his skill set covered you; steady hands didn’t win a girl who lit up rooms; being good in a crisis didn’t earn a woman who made every ordinary Tuesday feel like a celebration. He’d spent so long getting excellent at the exact things nobody falls in love with – triage, containment, blood – and you’d walked into his life and fallen for him anyway, for reasons he couldn’t successfully point to, and he’d stopped asking why out of superstition. You, he was not in the mood to reasonably place; Jack knew when a person was handed one, that they should keep showing up for a miracle, quietly hoping it stayed. 

Jack, falling apart at every seam of him, eyes hot and jaw aching, huffed. It was one, soft breath of a laugh, and your eyes snapped up to his, betrayed, and he shook his head fast, thumb pressing to your cheek to stay with him. 

“I’m not laughing at you,” he said, shaking his head softly, thumbs framing your face to tilt it up. “I promise. I’m laughing ‘cause you’ve got no idea what I’d give to have your problem.” 

You blinked at him, mouth curved into a frown. That one, he was sure, was aimed at him. His hands were shaking slightly against your jaw.

“I mean that I am very, very glad that you’ve got no Italy to wave at me. You think I want you to have another big grown love in your pocket? Some guy you crossed the country with?” His hands tightened on your face, eyes shining. “It would ruin me. I’d never sleep again. And I’m sorry for waving mine at you this morning, because I didn’t think it’d make you not sleep.” 

He held your eyes through it, taking his medicine looking at you. “I said it ‘cause I love you jealous. It makes me feel nice to know you care about me.” His lips curved into a sad smile. “I didn’t think what it’d do when I brought this up. I will be very, very sorry about that for a long time.”

When you smiled softly, eyes hooded as you looked down at his mouth, he nodded to himself.

“And I had a nice trip with a woman a hundred years ago, and it ended, and I have zero photos of it. That’s a thing that happened to me. You are not a thing that happened to me. You are what it was all for. All the years, the whole time, all the wrong turns. That was just me taking the long way to find you. You are my biggest thing – biggest one that’s ever happened to me – and I want you to know some pretty life-changing things have happened to me.” 

You stared at him, mouth open, tears going uncaught now, because Jack had gone completely still, needing you to see all his years on his face at once. 

He huffed, mind flicking through this haze of memories. He could reach back and find the years, the apartment, and it all came as nothing. He’d loved women, had meant it completely, with everything he’d had on hand, and he may not have been wrong. And now he can carry the tender knowledge that a person can feel absolutely certain there is everything to be felt and be off by a whole magnitude; he’d stood inside his biggest feeling and called it the biggest and had simply, innocently, not met you. 

“And since you told me yours,” he said, quieter, eyes going down because he found he couldn’t quite hold your gaze for this.

“I know what it feels like to think you’ve found what good love is, and then to find out how it is to love someone bigger. That the thing you could’ve sworn was everything was just – nothing, in the grand scheme.” 

He turned his face to the side as he held your face, suddenly finding the enormity of this simplicity pressing at the back of his eyes. Everything – he was sure of it – had just been the longest drive over to you.

“But you got this first. You’ve got nothing to check it against.” His thumb swept your cheekbone, and his eyes came back to you. 

“I know how big this is because I’ve got my whole life to look at it against. And you just have to take my word for it.”

He tugged his lip between his teeth, searching your eyes with question, checking whether the words were pushing through, whether they had the gap to push through. Your face was tilting toward him, listening with every feature at once; he could see the whole war playing out on your face you had never once been able to conceal from him. You had no poker face, at least to him, you didn’t.

“This is the one,” he said, nodding just barely. “There was never a morning I woke up and had to think about anything before you. You are the reason I know what you think is the big thing is small.” 

Your breath stuttered, and your chin trembled once before you caught it from gritting your teeth inside your mouth. 

“And sometimes –” He nodded, more to himself, as he forced himself to continue. “– I have felt a similar thing. I see you, and I wonder if you’ll think about some guy your own age, out there somewhere. Standard legs. Normal hours.” He shrugged. “No years of the stuff I’ve carried. And I think, someday, you’ll look over at me and think you settled for the –”

“That’s crazy,” you interrupted, the words shooting out of you instantly. Your fingers flew up to grip both his wrists. “That’s crazy, Jack – I don’t want – I would never. There’s no guy, I don’t want standard legs. I want your legs – leg – fuck, Jack.” Your voice broke off as you let out a small, pained groan. “I would pick you over any person who has ever lived.” 

“Yeah, see,” he murmured, a small smile coming up as he let the weight of your words land on him. “Can you see how it sounds crazy when it’s coming at you?”

He brushed his nose against yours at your stunned silence. “I feel the exact same way about what you said. It’s crazy.”

He had to blink over and over as he settled on the weight of your words, said so simply and furiously with no build up. The biggest sentences of his life just slipped out of you, unwrapped, and you had not the first clue what they weighed. Any person who had ever lived. God, you’d waved off the whole crowded history of the species in one breath to pick a tired man in Pittsburgh.  

“Let’s go,” he murmured, wrapping you up and pulling both of you back against the cushions, resettling you on his chest. Your ear was at his heart. The blanket was up to your shoulder. “We’re gonna lie here a while now. I think we both need it.” 

“It was a weird morning.” 

“Mhm.” His hand went to your spine. “Top five weirdest.”

And he should have let it be, but there was still something sitting in him. 

Jack pressed his lips together as he once again said, “I am sorry for this morning. I was –” He breathed in through his nose, fingers coming up to your head, tapping it twice to get you to look up at him. You did, chin pressing into his chest and your eyes tired yet focused. “Immature.” 

Your lips twisted slightly, then you tugged them with your teeth once and looked away, like you were trying not to agree. 

“I was,” he said, easily, agreeing for you. His thumb traced your hairline. “Good thing for me, I happen to be with a girl who likes getting her revenge. Even when I don’t think I did anything.” 

“You do –”

“I do. I do. You’re not wrong,” he said, the opposite of a complaint in it. “You know how to settle a score. And this morning I racked up a real big one. And you’ve just been sitting on it, being gracious.” His nose wrinkled, his fingers going to cradle the side of your face. “You keep that up, you’ll start minding your business and I’ll be living with a stranger.”

At your small, hesitant smile, Jack continued, “I know you don’t like the paintjob of my truck.” You nodded at that, honest as ever. “What I’m thinking is, you key it.”

Your eyes widened.

“Go nuts on the thing. Do some drawings. Write nice words. I drive it around after, everyone sees it. And when we’re good and done with that show and tell,” he continued, fingers threading into your hair, “we take it in. You pick a new color. Any color. Change the seats if you want, too.”

“People will think –”

“People will think a woman loves me enough to key my truck. Do we have a deal?”

Jack took a seat on the bench behind your locker, resting his leg.

You turned and faced him with a suspicious look on your face. "How early did you come in today?" You barely hid the concern in your voice, but he saw the way your eyes flitted down to his outstretched leg. Proof that he'd been here too long, long enough for it to start hurting and need a break.

Jack looked up at you. "Early enough to get bored waiting for you."

And you shook your head, closed your locker with a frown. "Very funny," you mumbled as you reached for the hair tie on your wrist, tying your hair into a ponytail.

You barely even looked at Jack as he stared at you. He always did this. Stare at you, wait for you, complain about waiting for you, like he wasn't an attending with responsibilities. He treated you like a kid, or at least that's what you told yourself.

It was better to pretend that he was treating you like a child rather than to think that he might just be actually missing you.

"I missed you."

You stared at him. "Jack, it's too early for this."

His name again.

"Never too early for anything. You should know that by now. You work the night shift." He grinned happily at you, and you only shot him a bored look in response.

It was those five minutes in the morning when no one bothered to find Jack that he loved so much. Everyone knew where he was. Same time, same shift, Jack Abbot was always waiting for you at the lockers. Everyone knew to then look for Shen as the attending and not Jack. People grew accustomed to this strange routine.

Everyone knew Jack liked you. Hell, you even knew it and so did he. He made no secret of it at all.

You fixed your ponytail. "Seriously, what time did you come in?" Your eyebrows were furrowed in concern and the frown wasn't going away anytime soon.

He shot you a look, before his eyes darted away again. "You're stubborn, you know that?" He finally stood up, lightly towering over you as you continued to stare at him.

"Six pm? Five pm? Four?" You scrunched your nose, trying to gauge what time it was, and only at four did his lips twitch lightly.

"Jack!" you shook your head. "What was it this time?"

Jack stared at you, eyebrows lifting, as if you got the nagging out of your system yet? Because i'm not answering.

You sighed. "Great," you mumbled, your voice filled with disappointment, and Jack couldn't help the light pang in his chest at that.

You fixed any remaining loose hair around your face in the small locker mirror as Jack watched you, heart squeezing when he noticed the dark circles under your eyes. Here you were lecturing him about his sleep issues, when you just hid yours better. He knew you'd only deny it if he ever pointed it out.

So he just said something other than what was really lingering on his mind.

"Come on sweetheart. You look as pretty as ever." He placed his hand on your lower back, shutting the locker mirror and promptly ignoring your frown. "Don't want any more patients flirting with you," he muttered under his breath.

He didn't like how that was the thing to plant a smile on your face. 

It wasn't until five hours into your shift that a lull hit. You were eating one of the muesli bars Jack had forced into your hands as he passed you by, with a pinched brow.

You typed with one hand while you stuffed your mouth with food with the other.

Crus dropped on a seat next to you, sighing loudly. You glanced, a smile forming upon seeing him. Quickly breaking off a piece of your muesli bar, careful to avoid the part where you'd taken a bite, you handed it it to the exhausted doctor, but then Jack swiped in.

"Uh, uh." He handed you the piece back. "Eat up."

You glared at him, taking the piece back from his hand, fighting the urge to insult him. You stuffed the piece in your mouth and swallowed. "Happy?"

"Delighted." Jack replied, the disappointment not having vanished from his voice yet.

Crus, meanwhile, was watching the two of you with a bored look. "Trying to stop your girl from being generous?"

Another glare was exuded from you, this time directed at the younger man. "Not his girl," you muttered under your breath, not loud for anyone but Jack to hear who was just close enough, as always.

You missed the way his smile faded for just a second, before he glanced at Crus. "There's a vending machine just around the corner."

"Did she get it from the vending machine?" Crus asked, pointing at you.

"No." Jack shrugged, already walking away from the two of you, spotting Nazely from a far, in need of dire help with a difficult patient.

Crus's stare lingered on you, and you turned your head, meeting his disappointed frown. "It's not my fault," you mumbled, around a bite.

Two hours later you were drenched in blood, trying to fix something you had no idea how to fix.

Shen was trying to help you out, and in your panic, you were completely missing the slightly helpless look in his eyes. Just a tiny shimmer of insecurity as he stared down at your position, how you were keeping the blood from spilling out.

You continued to press down. "Shen?" you squeaked, not bothering to hide the desperation for help anymore like you usually did, always keen on showing your competence.

And so Shen instructed you, if not insecurely, through it, eyes constantly darting up to the nurses to confirm every sentence that came out of his mouth.

In your worry, you didn't take note of Jack, missing the moment he walked in and took over Shen's position. You didn't realize your attending was standing there until he started speaking.

"More to the right," he instructed, and despite the clinical tone, Jack was never good at hiding the soft look in his eyes that he got whenever your eyes met his.

You startled, when you looked up and met hazel eyes instead of dark brown ones. You looked back over to the younger attending, and watched him move to the other side of the bed, helping one of the nurses instead of you.

Your eyes darted back to Jack and you watched Jack's eyebrows pinch together at the lack of urgency. Cautiously he said your name and that's when you shook your head, like you were waking up from a deep sleep.

Jack was unsure if the head shake was directed at yourself or him, but you turned back around and immediately got back to work, letting him guide you through every single step.

The rest went smoothly. Everything was fine. The patient was stable, and Shen gave you "a good job," a dunkin cup already in his hand to celebrate the win, to which you responded with a distracted smile.

You didn't look at Jack or acknowledge him, and he threw you a questioning look as he followed you out of the room.

Looking up at the screen to see which patient you could distract yourself with next, he followed, always one step behind you. Like always.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," you replied quietly, without one glance at him, and then you were off. Wandering in some room, which, with a look upwards, Jack realized was a simple nosebleed and a headache.

His brows drew together as he watched you greet the young kid with a smile. He looked away again, deciding not to mull over it too much. It wasn't your first time shutting down. You had a tendency of being quite shaky after a difficult case, even if it went well.

Jack rarely went home early. Too quiet, too lonely, too depressing.

But that had changed ever since he realized you took the bus. Now, he seemed to be incapable of going home late. So, he came in to work early, really early. Earlier than he used to before you moved to Pittsburgh, hoping that if he left early and came in early, that his conscience would leave him alone, let him live without the grating guilt in his chest for just one night.

He wandered to his locker, reaching for his bag and lifted it over his shoulder and waited and waited and waited. He wasn't sure how long he stood there, waiting for you.

It wasn't until Mel wandered in, startled by her attending leaning against the lockers, that he realized that you were taking concerningly long to finish up your work.

"Good morning Dr. Abbot," she smiled, polite as always.

He slowly shifted his gaze from the floor to the bright girl and nodded at her. "Morning," he greeted, fixing his bag at his shoulder, before remaining in his position.

"Uh—" Mel hesitated before Jack realized he was leaning against her locker. He'd never realized it was hers. He always left early enough with you to almost never see the newer day shift residents. "Thank you!" the blonde replied as he moved away, letting her finally start her work day.

Jack now hesitated, realization setting it as he noted that at least 15 minutes had passed of him standing here like some idiot. He turned, clearly intending on walking back into the ER when Mel hesitantly looked at him. She seemed like she was about to say something she knew she wasn't going to receive a good reaction.

And the moment she'd said your name, Mel had his full attention. He quickly turned around, hazel eyes meeting hers of the same color. "She's— she's out by the bus station. I saw her earlier."

And Jack walked out without another word, no goodbye, no nothing.

He should've listened to his gut feeling. He knew there had been something wrong. The look in your eyes — there had just been something different. Even as he had decades on you, he had no idea how to read you sometimes.

It didn't take him long to spot you, earphones in as your head leaned against the wall of the bus station.

Jack ambled over slowly. "Not up for company today?" he said, loud enough for you to hear him through your earphones.

You looked up, as if you'd expected him to be here. You plucked one earphone out, twirling it around your finger. "Yeah, I figured I'd go home early."

You looked back down at your earphones, purposely avoiding his eyes and he took note of it, never missing anything about you.

Jack walked over slowly, taking a seat next to you, not brushing up against you like he usually did. He sensed you weren't in the mood to be touched, especially not by him.

It was a cloudy morning, making it not as bright as a July day usually would be. The dark clouds seemed to form just above you as if they sensed your mood and were trying to replicate it.

You didn't bother setting the earphones back in your ears as if you knew that the attending wasn't leaving anytime soon.

"You okay?" he asked finally, deciding to just get it over with.

You hummed a small "yeah."

Jack leaned back, head hitting the cold wall behind him. He turned his head, his gaze landing on your profile. "Sweetheart."

You finally met his eyes. You had never been able to resist the sweet pet name anyway.

He leaned forward, plucking the second earphone out of your ear, before carefully rolling it the way he watched you do it all the time. He opened your bag, which was still sitting between you like a barrier, and positioned it so that the rest of your things didn't damage them.

He then grabbed your bag, lifting it over his free shoulder, before standing up and stretching out one hand. He wiggled his fingers when you waited for too long, but even that didn't help.

You continued to stare at him with vacant eyes, until you finally spoke.

"You shouldn't have done that earlier," you whispered as the wind blew through your hair, nipping at your nose.

Jack frowned, confusion in his eyes as he set your bag back down on the bench, realizing this was going to take a while.

He took a seat next to you. Again. "Done what?"

"Just—just taken over Shen. Shen's an attending too. He can show me stuff. It doesn't always have to be you." They were harsh words, yet there was nothing of it in your tone. You were speaking in a quiet tone, like you didn't mean the words, like they were a cover-up for something else. Some other sentiment you were clearly trying to hide from him.

Your eyes watched the light patter of the rain that started as soon as you said the first words.

Jack looked at your face, seeing the faraway look and tried to gauge what exactly this was about. He wasn't hurt by your words, more so perplexed. And concerned. You seemed confused, scared even, if he was reading the pursing of your lips right.

"Shen was struggling," he spoke deliberately, as if explaining something to a five-year-old child. "The guy barely knew what he was doing."

You looked up. "That's not true," you replied, almost petulant, sounding exactly like the five-year-old girl he was so mindfully speaking to.

"Yes, it is." He studied your face with careful thinned lips, careful not to convey any emotion but neutrality. "What's this really about?" Your eyes continued to track every movement of his, not being able to look away even as he tilted his face closer. "Come on. You can tell me, honey."

You finally removed your eyes. "No." you shook your head, still speaking in the same quiet voice as if you told yourself not to let any emotion show.

You brushed a hand over your face, trying to fix whatever sadness was about to expose you in the form of liquid from your pretty eyes. 

How were you going to tell him that you couldn't handle it?

Couldn't handle the fact that he was everywhere. All the damn time. He was in your home when you were cooking, and you paused to think about whether Jack liked pasta. He was in your bed, when you were drowning in sorrow and self-doubt, and you'd hear his voice from the earlier shift, how he'd told you that you had done a good job, that you had nothing to worry about. He was there when you didn't know what to watch and looked for the channel he told you about during the one time the two of you left the ER to get coffee together.

Jack Abbot was everywhere and it was killing you.

You weren't capable of handling this. Crushes for you were overwhelming, sickening, and despite the seconds of bliss, it was nothing compared to the terrifying realization that Jack liked you the way you liked him, if not more.

You liked him, and he liked you too, and now what? Grown adults go on dates together, kiss, live together, and then get married.

The mundane cycle of life.

Nothing about it was mundane to you. To you, it was a roller-coaster, nothing rounding and repetitive about it.

It felt like you'd been plunging to a drop since the day Jack had driven you home and helped you fix a shelf in your room after pulling a double shift. You had stood in your apartment door, watching him get into the elevator with a smile, and then you'd stood there and stood and stood and realized that you were in love with Jack Abbot.

You didn't look at him as you spoke. "You should go home."

Jack stared at you, not exactly used to having you shut down this badly. There had been many instances where you'd fall apart, not look at him, not see him, but he always helped let go of it, adjust to it or cope with it. Usually with hands on your lower back that traveled up to the back of your head as soon as the first tear dropped, and you were sobbing into his chest. It had always been like this.

Jack felt his heart wrench. He wasn't sure what to do and he hated feeling this helpless. "Not doing that," he said, and he wasn't telling you what he expected from you, but you knew.

He wanted an explanation, otherwise he wasn't going anywhere.

"Jack please," you whispered, now finally meeting his hazel eyes. "I just—I need a minute."

Your eyes didn't have tears in them, but you knew it was just a question of sooner or later. Even Jack knew it.

"You can have a minute in my car. Up." He finally regained his attending voice, the authorial voice that usually helped you do everything flawlessly in the ER. He grabbed your bag and walked away.

Without another word you followed to his car and watched him open the passenger door, setting your bag in front of your seat. You took a seat on the warm plush, hating how the smell of it, the smell of him comforted you immediately, making the burn behind your eyes a bit easier.

You hated how he made you feel better. You hated there was someone out there who had this much control over what you felt without knowing that there was so much control.

You hated everything.

He got into the car and the rest of the drive was silent. Jack knew he had pressured you plenty and that you were in very well need of a break. He hated being cornered just as much as you did, so allowing you to sit there silence was the very least he could do.

When he arrived at your apartment, you stayed in the car, regret now flowing through your veins. Regret and humiliation. You felt ill as you closed your eyes and sensed his eyes boring into your profile, trying to figure out how he could find out what was wrong with you without grilling you again.

"I think I'm in love with you."

You knew Jack had never, with all of the thousand thoughts rushing through his mind, expected this, expected that to come out of your mouth. He froze, his hazel eyes which had been filled with worry now turning into surprise and then dread, realization hitting him as he realized the very reason you were this sad was because you had realized your love for him.

The rain continued to patter down on the car, as Jack stayed silent.

You had to tell him. This way, he would tell you that this wasn't going to work, that you had just been a distraction at work, someone young, someone pretty to talk to while he worked the worst job in the world. You were merely a tool to him. That's what you were about to hear, what you needed to hear.

"Yeah?" he asked quietly. He worried that if the words I'm in love with you too left his lips that you'd fall apart completely.

You were barely even holding on, fingers gripping your jeans as tight as you could, your nails on the edge of breaking.

"Mhm." you nodded, lips in a thin line, as you continued to stare out front.

"You think or you know, honey?" he asked quietly, this time asking for himself. The desperation, he usually hid so well, floated to the top, exposing how much he wanted to know if what you were saying was really true to you, that you meant it, that he hadn't been imagining it.

It took you a while, thoughtfulness entering your face replacing the deep troubled sadness for just a second before your lower lip trembled. "Know."

Jack let out an exhale, unable to hide the relief in it, pressing his head against the car seat.

Minutes of silence passed. Both of you watching the rain tapping on the car, the window obscuring the view of your apartment, drifting far away almost.

"You want me to say it?"

You shook your head. No, you didn't want him to tell you that he was in love with you too.

"Okay," he pressed his lips together, as if holding the words in. He took a look at you, your shaken state, how your knees were pointing in his direction, not the door, as if your body had decided that despite your mind fighting you, you didn't want to leave, leave him.

"I'm taking you to my place, that okay?" he asked quietly, fingers tapping lightly on the steering wheel.

You turned your head to your window, lips quivering as you thought about the grave mistake you were making, before letting out a small "Okay."

The drive was just as silent as before, though Jack was sure that the tears were now finally streaming down your face, though you kept your face away from his view until he arrived at his house. Parking the car, he made sure to avoid looking at you until you stopped sniffling.

He quickly got out, rounding the car until he was next to your door, opening it for you like the gentleman he tried so hard to be for you.

You grabbed your bag, still keeping your eyes on the ground, but when you stood up, Jack couldn't grant you the privacy he had earlier, anymore. He needed to show you that he cared and that he was here for you no matter what happened.

Carefully raising his hands, so slowly that you had time to pull back, his thumb gently stroked the wet skin under your eye. Just as gently, he did it on the other side too, and then he let his hand wander to the back of your hair, brushing it softly away from your face, before tilting his head downwards to catch your eyes.

Your red rimmed eyes finally met his, now with the cloudy weather, brown ones. You preferred them more when they were hazel and almost green. Now they just looked as pained as yours.

"We'll figure it out," he whispered as gently as possible, fingertips brushing one more time across your soft cheek.

You didn't nod or speak, or show any signs of agreement, but Jack still decided to take your silence as a yes. He reached for your bag and lifted it upon his free shoulder, before reaching for your hand.

Reaching out just like he had earlier, but the teasing was gone, no wiggling fingers, no smile, no nothing.

It was almost comical how tightly you gripped his hand, as if you needed something to hold on to because everything else was slipping away.

The two of you remained silent as you followed Jack to the entrance of his house, letting him pull you towards the charming residence, trying to ignore how small he made your hand feel in his, and how warm.

The rain didn't even feel like it was touching your skin, all you felt was the scorching heat of Jack's hand engulfing yours and for a moment you wished this would be the only thing you'd ever feel for the rest of your life.

He somehow managed to continue brushing his thumb over your cold knuckles, in what he hoped was a comforting gesture, as he opened the door.

Inside it was dark, and Jack was quick to turn on the lights, somewhere in the back of his mind, remembering that you'd once mentioned being scared of the dark when you were a kid.

He hung his bag up, taking yours from your hand without asking, before hanging it up next to his. The two of you silently stared at the bags next to each other just long enough that it was a moment, a thing, an unspoken thing nonetheless.

It came to no surprise to both of you that you were the one to interrupt the moment, quickly taking off your shoes, this time deliberately not glancing down, not wanting to acknowledge how they looked next to his.

He, still silent, walked into the living room, before turning a corner, listening to your socked feet on the floor, quickly following him into the kitchen.

Quick to turn on all the lights, he opened the fridge, and you watched him take out all the things you liked, and you let out an incredulous puff of air, making him turn around immediately.

"What?" he said, unable to resist the smile that formed on his face, upon seeing something other than grief in your face.

"How do you—just— remember everything?" you asked in disbelief.

"Doubting my intelligence right after confessing your love to me oof." He pressed a hand to his chest, grinning from ear to ear. "That hurts sweetheart."

You shot him a look, swatting at his bicep with your palm, but not quite letting go as you took a peek into his fridge.

Jack felt himself get warm by the way your hand was still wrapped around his bicep, not letting go. His eyes wandered from your hands to your profile, observing the way your nose scrunched up as you came to a conclusion you didn't like. His heart squeezed with joy when he took notice of the spark in your still red-rimmed eyes returning, the one that said you were about to insult him in your usual lighthearted way.

"No chocolate, no sweets, nothing unhealthy." You looked up at him, dropping your hand from his bicep with a startle before getting a hold of yourself again. "You have a boring fridge, Jack."

"I'll get you chocolate, don't you worry about that." He shook his head, incredulous over the fact that this was your first proper sentence in the last thirty minutes.

You didn't reply to that, and he realized too late what he had implicated. He took a look at your face and, just as he had feared, you'd shut down again, brutally reminded of what had occurred in the last few minutes.

He turned around, grabbed what he needed to make a sandwich and started cutting. "Sit," he mumbled and decided not to comment on your sorrow, nodding towards the counter next to him. You complied without another word.

You watched his hands cut the bread the way you liked it. Small pieces to make it seem bigger.

A habit from when you were a child and your mom would hand you chocolate. You would always end up tearing all the pieces apart, so you felt like you had twelve pieces instead of one block. A mind trick was what you used to tell your friends.

And, now here you were, grown and an adult watching Jack Abbot do the thing you haven't done in years, for you. Simply because you had mentioned it once. Once, during a shift, you didn't remember.

Your eyes flickered up to his face. His gray hair was as pretty as ever, had always been one of your favorite things about him, curling over his forehead, and you could see the red-brown peeking through. He looked tired, lips lightly curling downward, which usually meant he was tired.

But he never rested. He always needed to be in action doing things. Like right now.

You were probably just another thing on the list. The girl he distracted himself with during lulls in the shift, the girl he talked to in the car, so he wouldn't have to drive home alone with his thoughts, the girl he invited over, so his apartment felt less quiet.

You were a tool to keep his thoughts far away.

Glancing down at your hands, you finally noticed that you had been picking at your nails the entire time. Bad habit that you still couldn't seem to get rid of. The only growing up, the only bad habit you've overcome, was apparently not cutting your sandwich into small pieces anymore.

Feeling a prickle of pain at the top of your head, you reached your hand up, swiftly slipping the hair tie out of your hair, releasing a cascade of softness around your shoulders. You didn't notice the way Jack halted the knife to watch you. He watched you ruffle your hair with a relieved sigh, and his eyes followed every movement until they locked with yours.

You stared back, and your nose scrunched in light embarrassment.

"You're a pretty girl." He gave you a smile, embarrassed for being caught staring. Shaking his head, he looked back down at his knife. "And yet you're here making yourself sad over some old guy."

It wasn't self-pity, even if you knew that. It was a statement, even a complaint, if you thought about it for too long.

To him, you were too young, too pretty, too kind, to destroy yourself over something as simple and boring as him.

You glanced up at him noting the way he was cutting up the bread slower, clearly waiting for your reply. Maybe it wasn't all not self-pity. Maybe some insecurity did linger there.

"I think you're pretty nice for an old guy," you mumbled, swinging your legs until they hit the wood below you, and you suppressed a groan of pain.

He chuckled, not having missed what you had just done, and glanced up at you, mouth curved upwards, before looking away again.

This was domestic. Too domestic even.

It made you feel nauseous, and you gazed down at his hands, tracking the way he was carefully fixing your sandwich with ingredients you liked. You brushed a hand over your eyebrow, fingertips rubbing hard into your eyes until stars were bursting hard, replacing jack temporarily.

You wished they could replace Jack forever.

He paused his knife on the counter, setting it aside, before stepping in between your knees and removed your hands from your face.

"Not that nice after all, huh?" he asked quietly, heart breaking when your eyes met his. It seemed, that tonight, the sadness wasn't going away anytime soon.

You didn't have the strength to muster up a weak smile. Too tired and too sad as you met his hazel eyes, the eyes that knew you too well and that saw too much. You looked down at the way his fingers were still lightly curled around your wrist. His hand fit so well around yours, the perfect temperature, the perfect size to calm you down.

"Crap." you finally whimpered, and you dropped your head forwards, letting yourself fall right into the crook of his neck. Jack, without another word, let his hand lift to the back of your head, fingers curling into your soft hair as he brushed gently through it.

Jack knew you. It was as simple as that.

He knew you were scared. He'd seen your expression when you came to work one day. You had been scared of something and he saw it. He saw the way your fingers would twitch on the counter, desperately wanting to touch him, and when he let his fingers brush up against yours, you'd stay for five seconds before taking it back abruptly, like you had been electrocuted, like it had been a mistake.

Eventually he just knew. You were in love with him and you were scared.

His other hand came up to brush against your back, rubbing your shirt gently, bunching it up, lifting it until he was able to rest his hand on your bare waist, hoping the heat of his fingers would finally warm your freezing skin up.

You pressed your face further into his neck, though your hands remained on your sides. You were craving him, but fear still lingered.

It lingered in every part of your body. In your hands, where it wouldn't let you reach for him the way you wanted to. In your chest, where it wouldn't let you press up against him fully. In your heart, where it wouldn't let him in.

Jack didn't even have the strength to think about how soft you were in his arms, how much he had craved to touch you. You were too cold for it all.

He pressed his palm harder to your naked lower back, hoping that if his entire palm was pressed up against your spine, that maybe, just maybe he wouldn't feel like he was touching ice.

"Let's get you into some warm clothes," he mumbled, not yet removing himself from your hold, waiting for your cue.

You pressed your face further into his neck, turning your head, so your cheek was on his shoulder now, gazing towards the side of his kitchen where his empty fridge was. "Don't think I should stay," you mumbled quietly.

"Too late. You're here now," he replied, now deciding that it was the right moment to pull back before you did, completely.

His hands drifted to your hips, helping you off the counter, and then he grabbed the sandwich and set it on a plate. "Eat."

And then he wandered away to his room, hoping that he'd find something warm enough for you. It seemed like right now there was nothing warm enough. Not even he was warm enough for you. Looking through his closet, he managed to find one of the few long-sleeved shirts he had.

Everything else was clothes for work. He didn't have much interest in buying things for himself. He didn't like to think about why, that he didn't deem it necessary, that he didn't want his home to pile up with things, in case one day he didn't come home.

His hand tightened around the fabric, tearing it off the hanger before he trudged back into the kitchen, heart squeezing at the sight of you pressing what seemed to be the third piece into your mouth as you stared into nothing.

"Here. This will keep you warm." Jack held out the long-sleeved shirt, and you raised an eyebrow, taking another piece of the sandwich.

"That's big," you mumbled around a bite.

He huffed. "Well, yeah sweetheart, it's mine."

You shot him a look, not appreciating the condescending tone, but he just shot you a grin and you shook your head. "Hand's greasy." you mumbled.

You turned your back to him and he quickly got the idea. 

Carefully setting his shirt on the counter, he reached for the fabric of yours. You raised your arms and let him help you out of the soft pink cotton. He didn't dare glance anywhere, keeping his eyes locked on his own black shirt. If you were okay, right now, with being vulnerable, he wasn't going to take advantage of it, even if he had a feeling you wanted to.

He helped you into the shirt, his eyes still not lingering anywhere inappropriate, and let it swallow you whole.

When you turned, he carefully extricated your hair from your collar, letting it drape over your back, while you continued to watch him with lifeless eyes. Or you would have liked to be looking at him with lifeless eyes. In reality, you were torn. You knew you were being weird. Pulling away, but then reaching for him again.

You realized, with a startle, how awful you were being, how mean, how selfish. You looked at your plate, seeing the small bites and then wordlessly turned to the sink, washing your hands off the grease, washing them off of anything that was Jack.

You needed to get out of here.

When you turned, the apology was ready. "I'm sorry." you shook your head, toying with the edge of the sleeve of his shirt. "I—I'm being a lot right now." you said quietly. "And I—"

But Jack was already shaking his head, reaching for your hands and pulling you towards him, right into his chest.

"Hey, none of that." he mumbled, fingers reaching up to brush your hair out of your face, while his other hand remained around your waist, keeping you close to him. "You're not being a lot. And I want you here."

He shot you an almost disappointed look for thinking the opposite and then brushed a thumb under your eye as if making sure you didn't cry while he had been grabbing the shirt. You didn't.

"But—as difficult as this is— we need to talk." He continued on quietly, in the same low voice, and he felt you freeze up under his hand. As if it was a surprise to you, like you hadn't known the moment the words I'm in love with you had stumbled out of your mouth, that the two of you needed to talk.

His palm remained on your cheek as he waited for any sort of compliance or agreement and it took a while. Your eyes bore into his shirt as you stood there silently, before turning your head, eyes glancing back at the plate, sorrow clouding your features again.

"Hey." Jack used a small amount of strength to pull your face back to him, tapping his index finger against your skin. "I'm serious," he added quietly, and for a second he thought about saying it, saying the words plain out loud that he was in love with you more than you'd think, but you were like a deer, and he was terrified that at the smallest sound of affection you'd run away.

"I know you are," you mumbled, and he had to suppress a smile at your petulant sound.

"Okay then," he replied, trying to sound cheery. "I'd like to take you out on a date."

Your face fell completely, the color draining out of it and Jack realized this was going to be much harder than he expected.

Not in the way you feared it to be, no.

He had no problem convincing you of his love for you. The hard part was having to watch you be this much in pain. The only reason, the only doubt lingering in the back of his mind, was that he wasn't sure he could watch you go through so many cycles of sadness because of him. It made him feel selfish, made him think that maybe he was doing this for himself, to not be so lonely.

But with one look at your pretty face, he knew it wasn't true. He wanted you. When he looked at you, he didn't think about the ways his house might sound less empty, and his thoughts less frigthening.

He just wanted you in his house. He just wanted you around. He just wanted you.

"Need a response, pretty girl," he said quietly, tilting your head to catch your eyes, and you graciously let him. Your pretty eyes lifted to meet his.

He brushed a thumb over your cheek, encouraging you for a response and it worked. "Where?" you whispered.

And he smiled softly, knowing in the back of his mind to not take it as encouragement, you were still too hesitant. "A real expensive restaurant, that has all the sorts and types of pasta you like." He smiled softly, tilting your head up just for a fraction, so your eyes met his properly, so that he was your entire view. "Even has tiramisu."

Your lips twitched. "When?"

Going through W-questions, he realized. "Whenever you want," he twirled a hair strand around his finger, now realizing again that he was touching you. Really touching you and you seemed to like it.

He brushed with the pad of his thumb over your hair. Soft. He had expected it to feel like this. His hand on your waist wandered under your shirt, under the pretense that he was checking your temperature, but he knew he was lying to himself. He just wanted to touch you.

You seemed to be warmer than before, not yet warm, but not as cold as before.

You nodded slowly and on you went to the last W-question. "Why?"

Jack squeezed your waist gently. "Because I like you." A frown formed on your face and Jack knew why. Tapping his index finger against your temple, he added in a quiet voice. "Don't think you're ready to hear it yet."

The form turned into the expression of someone who knew they'd been caught. You wanted to hear the same words you'd uttered in the car earlier, but Jack knew you better. The confession would make you feel better temporarily before the fear caught up with you and you would crumble. And despite how the word pushed against the tip of his tongue, how his heart seemed to be bursting at the seams, wanting to just say the words and have you finally acknowledge them, he knew the disaster would be much worse.

You hummed, the only way you'd agree, before shuffling your feet on the floor, and he knew you wanted to get closer without actually making the first step. So he pressed his hand firmer into your waist, pulling you in, until your forehead hit his chest and then your cheek. You tilted your head until your cheek laid against his racing heartbeat. He felt your exhale against his body, and your fingers curling into fists at your sides, desperate not to cling onto him, and he let you have that last piece of resistance.

His chin rested against the top of your head as he brushed a hand over your back.

"What are you scared of honey? Hmm?" he mumbled, letting his lips linger in your hair even as you burrowed closer, trying to hide from both the question and the answer. "I'm not going to hurt you," he whispered, deciding to just lay it out in the open. If you weren't going to talk he would.

"Can't know that." you muffled against his chest.

"Yeah, I can," he replied, pressing you closer as if to prove it.

"No, you can't," you mumbled, trying not to take too much pleasure in the way his fingers were untangling the knots in your hair.

He sighed, lifting his head to stare up at the ceiling as if praying for the universe to finally make you listen to him for once in your life.

You leaned back, eyes lifting to his face. "You're annoyed," you stated, trying your best to disguise the hurt that was trying to creep into your voice.

"Thought you knew me better than that," he mumbled, fingers drifting to the waistband of your pants, letting it snap against your hip, and you let out a small "Ouch Jack!" before he shot you a grin. "Not annoyed," he finally said. "Just unsure how to make you believe me."

"I won't," you stared at him, as if it was silly that he thought that you would in the first place.

"Why?" and finally he got tired, tired of standing for this long. He dropped his hands, reaching out to grip yours instead and lead you to the bedroom.

"Because—there's no guarantee that you won't hurt me. You can't know. It's all empty promises." You hesitated at the bedroom door, but then curiosity took over as you stepped in.

Jack didn't plan on asking you to stay over in his bed, because he knew your response would be no. He pushed the covers away, ushering you into the bed, and you sat there silently, before mumbling something about not wanting to sleep in jeans, trying to ignore the fact that he still hadn't replied yet.

He reached for some boxers in his closet, handing them to you, and you walked into the adjoining bathroom.

"It might seem like empty promises to you," you heard through the door as you carefully folded the jeans. "But they won't be," he added, trying to put as much care into his words as possible.

He knew it was more than important to watch his words now. Everything could be too much or not enough for you right now, and he wanted to be neither.

You came out of the bathroom, standing in front of him like a wet puppy, drowning in his clothes. "Jack—" you whispered, and he smiled sadly, already aware of what you were going to say.

He knew you like the back of his hand, and you wished oh so desperately that he didn't.

You didn't fish the sentence. It doesn't matter what you say, I won't believe you.

"Get into bed," he ordered quietly.

You followed without a word as he guided you onto the soft mattress with a hand on your back, and settled against the headboard.

"Scoot over ,pretty," he added, and you did until you were in the middle of the bed, watching him join you, settling against the headboard, but not without bending down and getting rid of the prosthetic. He settled the metal against the bed, before letting out a sigh of relief, finally resting against the headboard.

"Were you in pain the entire time?" you asked, startled over the fact that his face had taken on a relieved expression.

"No," he lied, and he felt the stiffness in your body at the response.

You knew he was lying.

Maybe you were able to read him better than he thought. At least when your insecurities weren't clouding your judgment.

You pressed your lips into a thin line, clearly not fond of what he had done.

Setting his pain aside to take care of yours.

He always did this, and he wasn't sure how to fix it either. He just worked like that. Fixing other people's pain was easier than fixing his.

His arm stretched out until it was behind your waist, and then he drew you in slowly. He was relieved to hear no protest from you, no push back, no nothing. Just like in the kitchen, you wanted him to touch you, you just didn't want to be the one reaching out. He pulled you in until you were right under his arm, having no choice but to rest your hand on his chest.

"I can't promise you I won't make any mistakes ever," he mumbled against the top of your head. "But I can swear that I'll try not to."

Your fingers bunched his shirt under your fingers, and you lifted your head to look into his eyes, his pretty hazel earnest eyes. You stared and stared and then smiled weakly.

"I know," you whispered and squeezed your eyes shut, and then you decided.

This was as bad as it would get.

You could see in his eyes how desperately he wanted you, and the panic coursed through your veins, making you squirm in his arms for a second. But you knew it would be there nonetheless, whether he would be in the ER far away, or here, promising to always take care of you.

So why not just tell him? It wouldn't get any scarier or easier.

You sat up slowly, and then, before Jack knew it, you were settled in his lap. It startled him, you could see it in the way his eyes widened before keeping his composure, clearly trying not to showcase too much happiness, to not scare you off that he was taking this moment as something.

"I like you—I like you a lot," you said quietly, and Jack's heart squeezed once again upon hearing the words. He could hear them again and again and never get sick of them. "But—this is scary for me," you whispered. "I don't want to get hurt, and you can't promise me you won't. There's always going to be some way for you to accidentally hurt me or do something I wont like. And there are so many easy ways to hurt me, Jack," you whispered. "And I leave. When I get hurt, I leave. And I don't want to leave you."

Ah.

Jack was at a loss of words. He hadn't expected that to be the answer to everything. That you were so scared of being hurt that your real fear was that you would be led to do something irrational, something that would hurt you even more in return than the initial thing.

"I like being with you," you mumbled quietly. "And I know myself. I know that if I ever get scared, that I'll leave, and I won't come back."

One tear managed to escape and Jack brushed it away with his thumb, before letting his hands go back to your hips, his boxers.

"And I'm not easy to deal with," you let out a small laugh. "Obviously," you gestured at the two of you. "I'm an exhausting person to be around and no one wants to be around someone they're constantly worried about hurting." You were now toying with the fabric of his shirt, toying with a loose strand.

Jack watched your fingers, before slowly taking your hand in his. "I want to." he replied in the same quiet voice. "I want to be around you."

Your eyelashes fluttered at that, as if exposing the very thing you were trying to cover up with your words. "But I leave. I'm someone who leaves," You whispered. "And you—you try so hard to not be alone, and I'm going to—I'm going to be the reason you'll be alone." Another tear escaped and Jack was devastated at the sight of it.

You were worried about him?

He would take every ounce of loneliness and heartbreak just at the idea of being able to have you in his arms. Even if it was one night, even if it was just tonight.

"You don't have to worry about me, sweetheart," he mumbled, sitting up straighter, mindful of the way you were in his lap. He wanted to face you properly even if the cost of that was the sight of your glistening eyes.

"Can't help it. You make it hard not to," you replied quietly, biting your lip, suppressing the shakiness of it all.

And you were right. He had made it hard on you. He got shot at in his free time, he went to the roof at least once a month, and he didn't sleep and worked too much. How could you not worry about him?

He felt the guilt flash across his face, and his mouth set in a hard line, realizing the weight you'd been carrying all because of him.

"I didn't mean—I didn't mean to make you feel bad. This isn't—" you pressed a palm over your mouth, trying to gather the words. "Jack, this just—this won't work." You finally managed out under more tears, and both hands were now clinging onto him, gripping his shirt tightly.

"We haven't even tried," he replied breathless, worried he was losing you, worried he was ruining something that he was trying to fix.

"We shouldn't." You shook your head as if to confirm again that you were right about this.

"I want to," he finally said, hoping that maybe if he was selfish you'd let him.

"You shouldn't," you replied, even more sad.

It was getting tiring to watch the heartbreak unfold in your face all because of him. It had always been so important to him to protect you, to protect you from horrible patients, nasty attendings and hurtful comments.

Yet here he was.

"Sorry to disappoint sweetheart," he whispered, brushing a hand over your thigh, his thumb halting on a scar there, brushing over it gently.

Your eyes snapped down to the scar, watching him touch the scar tenderly and your eyes hung on the way his eyebrows furrowed as if he was experiencing the moment when you received the scar. It had just been a small fall of a skateboard when you were ten, trying to be like the cool girls on TV. No big deal, yet Jack touched it like it happened recently.

You watched the way his curls fell over his forehead, how tired he looked, but how the determination just wouldn't leave his face. He wasn't letting this go anytime soon.

"Jack," you whispered. "I'm serious."

He looked up, and he looked prettier than he had ever before, and you almost came to regret the decision you were making until he spoke. "I'm in love with you."

He brushed a hand over your scar, and you shivered, both at the tender touch and the words. You hated how your heart fluttered, how you wanted to just fall into his arms and never leave his lap again. But this was all scary. Terrifying, you felt nauseous as the words bounced around in your head. I'm in love with you.

Jack Abbot was in love with you.

"And I want to try," he said quietly. "And if I hurt you— if you leave— I'll be here. I'll wait for you."

Your eyes flickered across his face, as if it was some joke. The nausea tripled as you stared at him. You weren't sure how he'd found the exact words you'd looked for all your life, the words that managed to balm the wound that was so deep-rooted in your soul, you knew it was never going to be fixed. And you knew that if you got up from his lap, the bubble would burst. The words wouldn't seem as comforting as they did now. But still, you couldn't resist.

"What if I never come back?" you whispered, worried that this would make him take his words back completely, tell you some excuse about how he'll wait for a month or two.

"Then I'll just love you from afar," he replied, his hazel eyes meeting yours. "And I'll keep waiting."

Jack had hope that you'd come back. He knew you'd leave. He knew he wasn't perfect. He knew he'd hurt you. He was someone who hurt by trying to do the exact opposite.

But he knew you'd come back. He just knew.

And maybe you knew too, sensed that your soul would always be tethered to his in some way, that some invisible string would always pull you back to Jack Abbot.

"Okay," you whispered, and you let yourself fall into his arms and into the dark abyss you had always been so scared of.

jack looked at you in confusion. he couldn’t tell if you were being sarcastic or not. “a singular rose?”

“yes! it was so nice of him.” you confirmed, smiling brightly at him.

he looked at you like you were crazy. since when was a single flower such a thoughtful gift? roses weren’t even your favourite flower. you had mentioned a few months ago that tulips were your favourite and that you thought roses were overused as romantic gestures. had you forgotten about that whole conversation? because he certainly hadn’t.

he didn’t speak until you both reached the central station to look at the patient board. “where did he take you?” jack asked with skepticism in his voice.

you shifted and shook your head. “that doesn’t really matter, does it?” you laughed awkwardly, which jack didn’t find amusing.”

you sighed with a shrug. “he brought me to his apartment.”

jack scoffed and turned to face you fully. you couldn’t have been serious. “he brought you to his apartment for your first date? and you think he’s amazing?”

the disappointment in jack’s voice made you frown, the conversation had taken a turn you hadn’t expected. you thought jack would be happy for you, not this.

“can we just get back to work?” you mumbled before quickly hurrying away. jack silently followed after you with a grimace.

the next few weeks were filled with you begrudgingly telling jack about each thing this guy did for you and him being disappointed each time.

the one thing that made jack realise he had to act was when the guy told you he didn’t want to see you that night after your shift because you ‘were too much’.

jack had never been more furious in his life.

you had spent the rest of your shift quiet and keeping out of the way from everyone. your energetic mood had been missed by everyone around you, especially jack.

you slipped out to the locker room as seamlessly as you could, planning to go home and cry until you had to work again.

jack had noticed the way you left without bothering anyone. he made sure to get to you before you could leave without a word.

he found you pulling on your jacket with your hair down over your eyes. he knew you well enough to know you were hiding your tears.

“sweetheart? are you okay? you didn’t say goodbye.” jack approached you, leaning against the locker in front of you.

you nodded and met his eyes with a glance. “i’m fine. and tired.” you muttered, fixing your hair with a shaky sigh.

instead of pushing, he straightened up and nudged your arm. “wear something nice at 5 pm tomorrow.” he told you, walking back into the ER before you could question his request.

you had spent majority of the next day crying and feeling miserable. you had to drag yourself out of bed to get ready for whatever jack had planned.

you wore a dress and kitten heels. you didn’t feel like dressing up, but you didn’t want to be underdressed either way.

it took half an hour for jack to knock on the front door of your apartment. you answered the door while pulling your purse over your shoulder, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear in nervous anticipation.

the sight of jack in an expensive looking suit with his salt and pepper curls laying neatly atop his head made you freeze on the spot. he looked heavenly.

“u- uhm, hi.” you stuttered, looking him up and down.

jack smiled softly, reaching to take the door handle from you to allow you to stand properly. “hi to you too. you look beautiful.” he commented, closing the door behind you.

jack’s outfit made you think you were underdressed. you shifted uncomfortably in fear that you would look completely out of place.

he noticed your tense posture and immediately frowned. “what’s wrong?” jack asked you with concern, his eyes searching yours for an answer.

you shook your head at his concern. “i just don’t want to be underdressed or anything. i don’t even know where we’re going.” you told him, looking down at the floor as you spoke.

the tension immediately relieved from jack’s shoulders as he realised you weren’t uncomfortable being with him.

“you’re dressed perfectly. and even if you weren’t, your face makes the outfit.” he told you seriously, giving you a comforting smile.

the compliment was like none other you had received before. the only kind of compliments you’d ever gotten from guys were ’your tits look great in that shirt’ and ’you look incredibly sexy’.

you mirrored back the smile to jack, straightening up and feeling more confident now. “are you going to tell me where we’re going yet?”

jack huffed out a laugh. “still a surprise, sweetheart. wait and see.”

the walk to the restaurant felt light and normal just like you were in work. you both smiled and laughed so hard that your cheeks had started to hurt.

you didn’t realise how much you needed something like this, how much time you could have spent hanging out with friends was taken up by being in some guy’s apartment and wallowing afterwards.

when you both reached the restaurant felt light, you were confused when jack had stopped walking. you were in front of a very high end place that you had never been to before. you looked at jack in confusion.

“what are you doing? do you need a break?” you asked him, glancing down to his bad leg.

jack simply shook his head as he stayed in place. “you’re about to walk right past our reservation.”

you froze. there was no way he was about to bring you here, was there? you immediately began to deny it. “no, i am not going in there. it is way too expensive!”

“i’m an attending doctor, i’ll pay for it.” jack shrugged like it was obvious.

after ten minutes of back and forth, jack was holding the door open for you to walk in before him.

you were both greeted by a waitress in an expensive looking uniform who spoke to jack about the reservation before guiding you to an isolated table with a beautiful view.

jack tutted as you reached for your own chair. he pulled it out for you, pushing you in to the table carefully when you were sat. he helped you guide your jacket off of your arms and draped it over the chair behind you neatly.

that gesture alone was more than you’d ever received on a date.

the next few hours spent eating was the most fun you’d had in months. jack was even more charming outside of work, which you already knew, but it felt different considering the setting you were in.

jack listened to you speak without interruption with pure interest on his face, asking genuine questions when you told him about your hobbies and interests.

by the end of the night, you were giggling and slightly tipsy while jack walked you home. he noticed you were shivering as you talked and shrugged off his jacket to slip it onto you without hesitation.

when you approached your door, you realised that was the best date you had ever been on in your life. jack had done so many little things for you that you wouldn’t have even considered to ask a man to do for you, but they had all meant the world to you.

“i, uhm.. i had an amazing night. thank you, jack.” you thanked him softly as you searched through your purse for your keys.

“of course, sweetheart. i’ll see you when you come back to work, okay?” he said lowly.

you nodded and reached up on your tippy toes to kiss his cheek. “thank you again. i had so much fun.” you whispered before turning and entering your apartment, waving to jack as you closed the door.

by the time you realised you were still wearing jack’s jacket, he was gone. you sighed and searched through the pockets to make sure he hadn’t left anything important, but you found a folded sticky note instead.

your curiosity got the better of you and you opened it, reading it and quickly realising you were supposed to find it.

in jack’s neat handwriting it read, ’you deserve the world, never settle for anything less. you are perfect as you.’