love too many and too much

They replayed the police body‑cam footage—officers approaching a blood‑spattered bride sitting on the mansion steps, smoke still rising from the ruins behind her. When the officers asked her what happened, she gave only one chilling word:

"In‑laws."

The anchor continued, "They arrested Grace that day and rushed her to the hospital, where she was being held after her arrest. She was placed under police hold, sedated, and monitored, but somehow, she escaped the hospital and made her way back to the estate—back to the scene of the slaughter and killed herself."

The anchor closed the segment with a practiced, solemn tone:

Why would a woman with no prior history of violence destroy an entire family? Investigators argue the most straightforward explanation is: either she harbored a long‑standing vendetta against the family or that she suffered a sudden, catastrophic mental breakdown.

You exhaled in your apartment, almost laughing at the neatness of it all. Because you knew what the anchors didn’t. One of the families from the high council had clearly killed her, taken her body, and brought her back to the Le Domas estate themselves. They placed her exactly where she needed to be for the narrative to hold. They arranged the scene so investigators would find her in the perfect position, with the perfect weapon, wearing the perfect dress for a tragedy the public would swallow whole.

You whispered the final line along with the anchor, but with a knowing edge:

"Murder‑suicide."

You couldn’t help but wonder: Had Titus and Ursula won the seat back?

You were walking across the Columbia University campus, the early October sun casting long shadows across the quad, your bag slung over one shoulder. Midterms were looming, and your mind was halfway through your upcoming lecture when a voice cut through your thoughts and called out your name after the word 'professor.'

The voice was smooth, and you turned to find a tall man in an impeccably tailored navy suit, crisp white shirt open at the collar, no tie. His shoes were polished cordovan leather. His hair was dark, neatly combed, with just a hint of silver at the temples.

He smiled, a practiced but warm expression. "I'm sorry to interrupt. I was told I might find you here."

"I'm sorry, do I know you?"

He extended his hand. "Conrad Harrington. I'm Ursula's—" He paused when he saw your own eyes widen before you could stop them. "I'm Ursula's fiancé."

"Fiancé?" The word came out sharper than you intended. Hadn’t they called off their engagement years ago?

"I know this must be confusing." He glanced around at the students streaming past, the noise of the quad. "Is there somewhere we can talk? Just a few minutes."

You nodded, not trusting your voice. He pointed to a wrought-iron bench under a large tree, mostly empty in the afternoon lull. You both walked over and sat down. The iron was cool through your skirt. Conrad leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped.

"I'm sorry about your mother, by the way. She was nothing but kind to me when she worked at the estate," he said with complete sincerity.

A slow pressure gathered in your chest. "Thank you. She only had wonderful things to say about you."

He nodded, seeming to take comfort in that.

"Ursula and I got back together," he said. "About 3 months ago. We've been quietly... reconnecting."

Your first instinct was bitter: Why didn't Ursula tell you they had gotten back together? You knew you were being a hypocrite. And…the last time you'd seen her, she'd been calmly murdering her father. Not exactly a heart-to-heart moment. Hardly the occasion for catching up. Yet you would have expected something. A cryptic comment about "rekindling an old flame," maybe. Some dry observation only she would make. Instead: nothing. Her silence felt deliberate.

"And you're engaged now? Just like that?"

"Just like that." He let out a soft laugh, shaking his head. "I know how it sounds. But I've wanted to marry that woman since the first night I met her. She was the one who kept saying no when we were dating. Kept pushing me away." He looked at you directly. "Maybe you know why."

He was clearly gauging how much you knew.

"I know enough," you said.

He leaned back, crossing one leg over the other. "Well… she never wanted to put me through that…the chance of drawing the wrong card. She thought she was protecting me by breaking up with me."

"Then why did she change her mind?"

He looked away, across the quad, his eyes unfocused for a moment.

"I don’t know…but I’ve always told her I'd take the risk. I don't care."

"So you're willing to play? To possibly draw the card and end up—"

"I'm willing to take the chance," he interrupted, turning back to face you. "I’m madly in love with her. And in fairness, there are other games. Multiple. Not just the hide and seek. The odds aren't as bad as you'd think."

"And you’re willing to give your soul if you survive?"

"I would do anything to be with her."

Damn… Ursula must have some magic pussy, you thought.

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a cream-colored envelope. "We're getting married. October 24th. In Aix-en-Provence."

You stared at the envelope, not taking it. "October 24th? That's barely 2 weeks away. Are you serious?"

"I've waited 9 years for this. I'm not waiting any longer." He pressed the envelope into your hand. "I was in town for business. Ursula told me you teach at Columbia. I thought... I thought I'd bring this to you myself."

"Wait." You looked up from the invitation. "Does Ursula know you're here… or that you’re inviting me?"

Conrad's smile had a nervous edge. "No."

You felt the sting even though you didn’t want to. Ursula was getting married, and you weren't part of it. And that was fine, logically. People didn’t invite everyone to everything. That was normal. Except it didn't feel normal. It felt like you were standing outside looking in, and there was a whole version of Ursula you weren't going to get to know. You realized that maybe the 12 years of ignoring Danforth’s had done more damage than you thought.

"You want me to show up unannounced?" you frowned.

"It will be a surprise. A good one."

"Ursula hates surprises."

"I know." He said it softly, almost like a confession. "But look—" He leaned closer, his voice dropping. "I don't know what happened between you and their family. I know there was some rift…but Ursula loved your mother. She was devastated when she died. And with her father passing recently... she's trying to put on a strong face, but I think she would like it if you were there. I really do."

You looked down at the invitation. The gold lettering shimmered in the afternoon light. For a long moment, you didn’t move. Then a memory surfaced, unbidden. You were 19 again, sitting on the edge of Ursula’s bed at Danforth’s English estate. She was brushing her hair, telling you about her favorite place in the world.

"Aix-en-Provence", she’d said. The house there is the only place I have ever felt completely myself." You had never made it out there. You had visited the other estates—the sprawling manor in the English countryside, the villa on Lake Como, the chalet in the Swiss Alps, the schloss in Austria…but never Aix.

"I'll consider it," you finally said.

Conrad stood, smoothing his jacket. He looked relieved. "That's all I ask. The invitation has all the details. If you can make it... I think it would mean more to her than she'd ever admit."

He started to walk away, his shoes clicking on the cobblestones. You stood up, the invitation crushed against your palm.

"Conrad," you called out. He turned, and you lowered your voice, even though no one was close.

"Did they win the seat?"

He held your gaze. The easy smile faded. His eyes went flat for just a second, the mask slipping. Then he said, quietly, "If you come to the wedding, you can ask them yourself."

He turned and walked away, disappearing into the stream of students heading toward the library. You pocketed the invitation and started walking, the crunch of leaves beneath your shoes grounding you in the present. The news report replayed in your mind like a loop you couldn’t shut off.

Grace MacCaullay.

The Le Domas family.

Massacre.

Murder suicide.

You pulled out your phone, checked your calendar, and booked a flight to Marseille, connecting through Paris. The ticket was refundable. You told yourself you could always cancel.

But you knew, even as you typed in your credit card number, that you wouldn’t.

MARSEILLE, FRANCE

The hotel was charming in that way only a French boutique hotel could be—aged stone walls, wrought-iron balcony, the faint scent of lavender drifting in through the open window. You had barely slept. The connecting flight from Newark to Marseille had been delayed, and by the time you had checked in and collapsed onto the crisp white sheets, it was nearly midnight. The rehearsal dinner had been long over.

Now, at 1 pm, you stood in front of the full-length mirror in the corner of the room, the black dress hanging from the closet door.  You had bought it on a whim two weeks ago, something about the cut drawing you in with the high neckline, and the way it skimmed the collarbone. You liked that it left the shoulders bare in that subtle, architectural way, and that the slit ran just high enough to be alluring without being obscene. You slipped it over your head, the material cool against your skin. It zipped up the side (a hidden zipper that you managed on the third try), and turned to face the mirror to stare at your reflection.

What the fuck were you thinking? Ursula might actually kill you for this.

You reached for the glass of wine you'd poured ten minutes ago from a local Côtes de Provence rosé you'd grabbed from the minibar and took a long sip out of nerves. You picked up the invitation, reading the instructions for the hundredth time:

Arrival strictly between 2:30 PM and 3:15 PM. Present this invitation at the first checkpoint. Follow the drive to the second gate. A valet will direct you.

You grabbed your clutch, which was a small black satin pouch, just big enough for your phone, lipstick, and a compact. The invitation went in last, and you checked the room one more time, then grabbed your room key and headed out. The hotel concierge called you a taxi, a clean white Mercedes that pulled up to the curb. The driver was an older man, maybe sixty, with a thick mustache and a shrug that seemed permanent. You gave him the address from the invitation, and he raised an eyebrow.

He pulled away from the curb, navigating the narrow streets, and suddenly the city gave way to countryside with rolling hills covered in vineyards, clusters of stone farmhouses, the occasional glimpse of a distant chateau. The road wound upward, the vegetation becoming denser, more wild. After about 40 minutes, he turned onto a private road marked only by a small stone pillar with a wrought-iron gate. A guardhouse appeared. A man in a black suit stepped out, clipboard in hand. You rolled down the window and handed him the invitation. He examined it, glanced at you, then at a list on his clipboard. He nodded, handed it back, and the gate swung open.

"Ils ne rigolent pas," the driver muttered. This is some serious security.

"Apparemment," you replied. Apparently

The drive continued for another mile, winding through a forest of olive trees. The second gate was even more imposing, with iron bars at least twelve feet high, flanked by stone walls that disappeared into the trees. Another guard, another check. This one took longer. He scanned the invitation with a device, then made a phone call. After a tense minute, he waved you through.

The driver let out a low whistle. "Putain. C'est un château, pas une maison." Holy shit. That's a castle, not a house.

"Je sais…" you whispered in awe. I know

The house emerged from the trees slowly, deliberately, as if revealing itself on purpose. It was a sprawling limestone manor, three stories tall, with a mansard roof of blue-gray slate and tall French windows that caught the afternoon sun. Wisteria climbed the eastern facade, its purple blossoms hanging in heavy clusters. A gravel courtyard opened before it, already filled with ultra‑luxury European vintage cars. A fountain in the center of the courtyard featured a stone nymph, water cascading from an urn she held.

The driver pulled up to the entrance, slowing as clusters of elegantly dressed guests drifted toward the doors. He turned to you, his eyes wide.

"C’est un marriage," you said, forcing a smile. It’s a wedding.

He shook his head, muttering something about the rich as he helped you out. You handed him a generous tip (fifty euros), and he tipped his hat.

"Merci, madame." 

"Merci."

You stood on the gravel, the crunch of stones under your heels echoing loudly in the quiet. The front door was ajar, a butler in uniform was standing patiently nearby. You took a deep breath and stepped inside, your heart pounding in your chest. The foyer was a symphony of marble and light. A grand staircase curved upward, its banisters wrought iron with gold leaf accents. A crystal chandelier hung from a two-story ceiling, casting prisms across the walls. To the left, a salon opened up, filled with guests, champagne flutes in hand. The murmur of conversation washed over you, punctuated by occasional laughter.

As the gathering buzzed around you, a waiter appeared, offering a tray of champagne. You accepted a flute, grateful for something to hold, and glanced around at the familiar faces. Hazel, Ursula’s aunt, caught your eye first. She was a gaunt woman dressed in a navy silk dress, a string of pearls resting against her collarbone. Her husband, a portly man with a flushed face, stood beside her, engaged in conversation with someone you didn’t recognize. She seemed to notice you, her eyes flickering with recognition and surprise behind her gaze, as if they hadn’t expected to see you after all these years.

A few more familiar faces began to emerge from the crowd, and thankfully, you recognized a couple of Ursula's friends from that Nantucket trip. More people started to notice, and others who recognized you started to come over and strike up conversations. The usual barrage of questions had begun to flow, predictable, shallow, and almost anthropological in their curiosity. But what really got you was the look on their faces when you mentioned you lived in Harlem. It was as if they’d forgotten that Columbia University was in Morningside Heights, just next to Harlem—yet, here they were, acting as if the neighborhood were some distant, unfamiliar place. It was a curated ignorance that only the affluent could afford.

You noticed another family cluster: the Wainwrights, cousins of the Danforth’s, notorious for their real estate empire. The younger son, a man in his forties with a receding hairline, stared at you for a while before turning away. You took another gulp of champagne. Then another.

And then, across the room, you saw fucking Kip.

He was leaning against a marble pillar, a scotch in his hand, talking to two women in pastel dresses. Kip, who looked like a grinning predator in a tailored suit. You hadn’t seen him since his 'wedding,' which was fine because he had always found ways to corner you and whisper things that made your skin crawl during prep school. He was a piece of shit. He looked up, and his eyes met yours. A slow, knowing smile spread across his face.

You turned on your heel and walked in the opposite direction, weaving through the crowd, putting as many bodies between you and him as possible. You found a quiet corner near a window overlooking the gardens and pressed your back against the wall, your champagne flute now empty.

Your hands were shaking, and you set the flute on a passing waiter's tray and grabbed another.

Where was Titus?

You scanned the room, the clusters of guests, the winding staircase. No sign of him. Was he with Ursula? Getting ready? You fidgeted, adjusted your earrings, and smoothed your hair. You felt exposed, vulnerable, like a rabbit in a field of wolves…so you kept drinking, the champagne a thin shield against the rising tide of panic. Then the wedding coordinator stepped into the center of the foyer and clapped her hands twice. The murmur died down.

"If I could have everyone's attention, please. The ceremony will begin in five minutes. Please proceed to the garden through the south doors. Guests are requested to be seated." The crowd began to move, a slow tide of silk and cologne toward the open doors at the end of the hall. You followed, the champagne glass still in your hand, and set it on a small table as you passed.

The garden was breathtaking.

The aisle wasn’t strewn with petals; instead, a long strip of dark stone, polished to a mirror sheen, cut through the grass like a blade. At the end of it stood an archway of blackened iron twisted with deep‑red amaranth and dark olive leaves. The arch was set against a backdrop of the Luberon valley, the hills rolling in shades of green and gold under the late afternoon sun. Chairs (black iron with deep wine‑colored cushions) were arranged in neat rows on either side of the aisle. A string quartet was already playing, something soft and classical. The temperature was perfect. Maybe 66 degrees, the air carrying the scent of lavender and earth. The sky was a clear, endless blue.

You took a seat in the middle row, on the end of the left side, so you could be close enough to see but far enough from the aisle that you wouldn't be caught in the wedding party's sightline. You clasped your hands in your lap, your fingers cold despite the warmth. The officiant, a man dressed in a simple black robe, walked down the aisle and took his place beneath the arch. Almost abruptly, Conrad followed and walked down the aisle with his parents—they walked him to the altar, his father shaking his hand, his mother kissing his cheek, and then they stepped to the side, taking their seats in the front row. They hadn’t bothered with a wedding party, which you loved. No bridesmaids fussing with hems, and no shitfaced groomsmen. It was just Conrad, standing under the arch, his hands clasped in front of him, his eyes fixed on the house.

Then the quartet paused. The officiant cleared his throat.

The first notes of Bittersweet Symphony began to play, the strings carrying that iconic melody. The guests stirred. The officiant raised his voice.

"Please stand for the bride."

Everyone rose as the chairs scraped against the gravel, and you stood with your heart in your throat when the doors of the house opened, revealing Ursula emerging.

She was a vision in red. The dress was a deep wine, almost burgundy, with a fitted bodice that flowed into a full skirt. The fabric caught the light, shimmering like liquid fire.

"Wow, look at her in that dress," someone murmured nearby. "It's like she stepped out of a dream." Her hair was pinned up, with a few curls escaping to frame her face, and she wore a circlet of dark metal that caught the light, each garnet glimmering like drops of blood with every step she took as she moved.

But it wasn't only the dress that made your breath catch.

It was the man walking beside her.

Titus.

He looked devastating, wearing a perfectly tailored suit, and with a deep red pocket square that matched Ursula's dress. His arm was linked through hers, guiding her down the aisle. Your eyes burned, and as you blinked, a tear slipped down your cheek before you could stop it, so you brushed it away quickly, hoping no one saw.

Ursula looked beautiful. Stunning. And the fact that it was Titus walking her down the aisle, her twin brother, her other half—it made something ache deep in your chest. You wished Chester could have seen this moment. And, the most beautiful part, was Conrad's face. He was watching Ursula with an expression you had only seen in books or in movies. Complete and total awe. His eyes were wide, his lips slightly parted, and there was a softness in his gaze that bordered on reverence. He wasn't looking at his bride. He was looking at a miracle.

Titus led Ursula up to the arch, then paused and turned to face Conrad. For a moment, the three of them stood in a small triangle before Titus took Ursula's hand and gently placed it in Conrad's. That’s when you noticed he was wearing his father’s ring. You smirked, because you realized that it meant the twins had secured their seat back on the High Council.

Titus was about to take his seat when he paused, his eyes catching sight of you. Your heart stopped with them because there was something in his expression—something darker, something that made your blood run cold. He wasn’t happy to see you, and without a word, he looked away and took his seat, as if dismissing you. Regret flooded your mind…it was a mistake to come here. You sat there, rooted to your spot, your hands clutching the edge of your chair, feeling the weight of his displeasure press down like a heavy stone.

The words echoed quietly in your mind as the ceremony continued, the officiant's voice a distant drone, the lavender-scented air suddenly suffocating. You kept your eyes fixed forward, but all you kept thinking was:

You were not welcome here. Not by Ursula. And certainly not by Titus.

The ceremony ended in a blur. You stood when everyone else stood, clapped when they clapped, smiled when they smiled. But your body moved on autopilot while your mind churned in a dark spiral, replaying the look Titus had given you.

You needed a drink.

The bar was tucked in a corner of the ballroom (because of course this house had a ballroom), all dark wood and brass, staffed by a man who looked like he'd seen a hundred broken hearts and knew better than to ask questions. You ordered a whiskey, neat, and knocked half of it back in one swallow. The burn was grounding.

Ursula and Conrad were making their rounds, stopping at tables, accepting congratulations. You watched her from a distance, the way she moved through the crowd with practiced grace, her dress trailing behind her. You also noticed her look of complete shock when she noticed you.

She started heading straight for you, and your stomach dropped.

Ursula didn't slow down. She weaved through the guests with a smile fixed on her face, but her eyes were locked on you. She reached the bar, grabbed your wrist with surprising strength, and pulled you away before you could protest.

"Ursula—"

"Not a word," she hissed, dragging you through a side door, down a narrow corridor, and into a study lined with bookshelves.

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

You let out a breath, a nervous laugh escaping your lips. "Congratulations. You look stunning. The dress is—"

"Explain yourself."

You shrugged, feigning nonchalance. "Your husband invited me."

She looked ready to combust. "I'm going to kill him."

"You really shouldn't make jokes like that," you said, raising an eyebrow. "You know. Considering."

For a heartbeat, she stared at you. Then, despite herself, a smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth.

You pressed your advantage while you had it. "Look, I know why you didn't invite me. I wouldn't have invited me either." You held her gaze despite the way your heart was hammering. "But I didn't want to miss this. And I know my mother would have loved being here."

Ursula's expression shifted—the anger draining from her face like water through cupped hands. She turned away from you, her shoulders stiffening. For a long moment, she didn't speak.

"Don't," she finally said, her voice tight. "Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Use her as a distraction." She spun back around, and her eyes were glistening now, though her jaw was clenched hard enough to break teeth. "You don't get to—you can't just—"

"I'm not," you said quietly. "I'm telling you the truth. She would have been here if she could. And since she can't be, I wanted to be. For the both of us."

Ursula's hand came up to her face, and she turned toward the bookshelves, her shoulders trembling slightly.

"I can’t believe I’m married." You let the silence stretch for a moment, watching her shoulders gradually still. When she finally turned back around, her eyes were red-rimmed but dry since Ursula had clearly decided tears were not on the agenda.

"Neither can I," you said softly, and despite everything, she let out a short, surprised laugh. "Conrad seems like a really wonderful person. I can tell he’s madly in love with you.”

She studied you for a moment, then nodded. "He is. He looks at me, and it's like he already knows exactly who I am and loves me anyway." There was something almost vulnerable in the admission, like she was surprised by it herself. "He's... a much better person than I am. Which, granted, isn't a high bar, but still," she smiled sadly. "I love him so much it scares me. I'm still waiting for the universe to correct its mistake."

"It's not a mistake," you said firmly.

She tilted her head, one eyebrow arched in that signature way of hers. "Are we done with the feelings portion of the evening, or...?"

"Are you afraid?" you whispered.

"Of what?" She turned back to the mirror, smoothing down her dress with deliberate precision.

"Of what might happen tonight."

She was quiet for a long moment. "He won't pull the Hide and Seek card," she said with absolute certainty.

"How can you know that?"

"Because Titus made sure he wouldn't."

The words hung in the air between you, heavy with implication. What did that mean? Your mind raced.

"I have to go," she said. "Smooze with people. Total buzzkill."

"Good luck. Try not to commit any felonies."

"No promises." She rolled her eyes. "I also need to go find the wedding planner and tell her that some absolute nightmare of a person showed up uninvited, so she needs to hide you in the back somewhere near the kitchen.

You grinned. "I appreciate that."

Ursula was already moving toward the door, mentally preparing herself for the social minefield of in-law pleasantries.

"I'm happy you two won the seat back," you said, lowering your voice. Ursula paused at the doorway, turning back with a knowing smile.

"That was all Titus. He made sure of it. Made sure a lot of things happened the way they needed to."

For a moment, she looked like she might say something more, but then the sound of voices drifted down the hallway. She gave you a quick wink before disappearing past the door.

The ballroom had transformed into a glittering maze of conversation and champagne. You'd spent the last forty minutes circling through clusters of guests, your eyes perpetually scanning for Titus. You hadn't seen Titus since the ceremony. Part of you hoped he'd disappeared entirely, that you could slip away before dawn and pretend this whole night never happened. But you knew better. The weight of his stare from the aisle still clung to your skin like a brand.

You finally found him on the terrace, leaning against the stone balustrade that overlooked the gardens, a glass of wine in his hand. He was watching the sunset paint the valley in shades of amber and rose, his profile sharp and unreadable in the golden light. For a moment, you just stood there, taking him in.

Then she appeared.

She was young—couldn't have been more than 22, with the kind of effortless beauty that came from good genes and better skincare. She had red hair, the kind of shade that caught the light like it was made for it, and she was wearing a champagne-colored dress with piercing blue eyes. She materialized at his side like she'd been summoned, her hand already reaching out to touch his arm.

"Titus, darling," she cooed, her accent distinctly British, upper-crust. "I've been looking for you all evening. You simply can't hide away like this. It's terribly unfair to the rest of us."

"Hello, Margot," you overheard him say.

Of course her name was Margot.

You watched her laugh—a tinkling, practiced sound that probably worked on approximately 98% percent of the male population. She leaned closer, her fingers still on his arm, and you felt something hot and acidic crawl up your throat.

"I'm starting to think you're avoiding me."

"Hard to avoid someone who keeps finding me," Titus said, a slight smirk playing at his mouth. "Though I'm not complaining."

"Well, I'm terribly persistent when I want something,"

"I've noticed," Titus said.

Margot laughed again (that same crystalline sound that made your molars ache). You realized that your nails were digging crescents into your palms. What infuriated you most wasn't that she was beautiful. It wasn't even that she was young and effortless and everything you'd expect the average man to want. It was that Titus was engaging with her. That he wasn't stepping back. That he was considering it, you could see it in the way his gaze lingered on her face, in the way he didn't immediately shut her down.

You moved toward them before you could think better of it. "Excuse me," you said directly to Titus, your voice cutting through the evening air like a blade. "Can I talk to you for a moment?"

Titus turned to you, and his expression shifted…and not in the way you wanted. His eyes, which had been warm moments before, went cool and distant, that familiar wall slamming down between you two. Margot’s head whipped around, her expression shifting from flirtation to indignation in half a second. She looked you up and down, dismissively, as if cataloging your outfit choice.

"We’re sort of having a private conversation," she said coolly. "Shouldn't you be tending to the bar?" she asked, her tone dripping with rudeness. "Or did someone send you to collect glasses?

What a cunt.

"Isn't it past your bedtime? Us adults need to have a little chat," you smiled, sweet as poison. 

Her face flushed crimson. For a moment, she looked like she might say something cutting.

"I'll find you later," Titus said, his gaze already shifting away from you, and towards her. "We just need to have a quick chat.”

Her hand found his shoulder, her lips brushing against his cheek in a kiss that lingered. "Don't take too long," she murmured against his skin, her eyes flicking toward you with unmistakable triumph.

Titus didn’t look at you right away. He just exhaled, and when he finally turned, his expression was carved from stone.

"I don’t really actually have time to chat," he muttered, already stepping away from you.

You followed him, pulse hammering. "I would’ve thought you’d be happy to see me."

"Why?" he shot back instantly, not even glancing over. "Since when is that the dynamic?"

He didn’t wait for your answer. He just kept walking, long strides carrying him back toward the house. As he moved, he slipped seamlessly into host mode—nodding to guests, offering clipped greetings, shaking hands. Each polite smile he gave them only highlighted how little warmth he had for you.

You trailed behind him, feeling like a ghost tethered to his shadow.

"Titus," you hissed, trying to keep up. "Why are you being this way?"

He stopped mid‑stride, turned his head just enough to look at you over his shoulder.

"What way?" he asked, voice flat. "You’re going to have to be more specific."

This was the man who once had looked at you like you were something dangerous and precious in equal measure. Who had touched you like he was afraid you'd shatter. Who had said your name like it meant something. You wanted to scream. Instead, you grabbed his wrist and tugged him down a side hallway that was currently empty, quiet, and far from the party’s hum. He let you pull him, but only barely, like he was indulging a child.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" you demanded, keeping your voice low. "You've been cold since the ceremony, and now you're—"

"I'm being what?" he interrupted, his tone deliberately measured in that way that made your skin crawl. "Honest?"

"You're being cruel."

He laughed—a short, bitter sound that echoed off the stone walls. "Cruel would be telling you what I actually think right now." He turned away from you, running a hand through his hair, and you could see the tension in his shoulders, the way his jaw was clenched so tight it looked like it might break. "So I'm being merciful, actually. You should thank me."

"Thank you for what? For ignoring me? For flirting with that vapid—"

"Don't." His voice cracked like a whip. He spun back around, and his eyes… God, his eyes were furious. "Don't you dare sit there and act territorial when you've been fucking that linguistics professor."

"How did you—" you started.

"Does it matter?" He stepped closer.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" you hissed, because you hadn’t told anyone about David. The only way he could know was if he was keeping tabs on you with the Danforth’s private investigator.

"I’m not. Kindly get the fuck out." He stopped himself, jaw working, clearly trying to regain control. "I can’t believe you’ve been letting him touch you. He’s beneath you. You could do so much better."

Suddenly, it all made so much sense. This was why he had been ignoring your phone calls and texts.

"I'm not—" You felt heat rise in your chest, exasperation mixing with something else. Something that felt dangerously like guilt. "First of all, we slept together once. I haven't done anything physical with him since I came to visit your father in Newport. And you don't deserve to hear this, but the only reason I slept with him was that I was trying to get over you. I ended things with him weeks ago." Titus went very still. "It's 2026," you continued, your voice shaking slightly. "A woman having casual sex is completely reasonable. Men do it all the time. I'm not going to apologize for it."

He scoffed, and your hand caught his jaw to stop him from turning away. Your fingers pressed into the sharp line of his cheek, guiding his face back toward yours.

"Titus," you said, breath unsteady. "Look at me." You stepped closer, closing the distance he'd been so carefully maintaining. Your hand was still on his jaw, but this time you didn’t stop there. Your other hand found his—the hand, the one with his father’s ring. His fingers twitched under your touch, like he wasn’t sure whether to pull away or hold on. "I'm happy you won your seat back. I'm happy the bride is dead if it means you're where you belong. I don't care how that makes me sound. I only care about you."

"That's—you can't mean that."

"I do. I'm in love with you, Titus. I don't know how any of this works. I don't know how to be with someone like you. I don't know if I'll fit into your world or if I'll burn it down trying. But I want to try. I want to be with you. If you'll let me."

Silence stretched between you, thick and trembling.

"I can't focus. I can't think. Every time I close my eyes, I taste you," he murmured.

"Then stop trying to think." 

He stared at you, his chest heaving, his hazel orbs searching yours for any hint of a lie. Finding none, his mouth crashed into yours, and he kissed you like he was drowning, and you were air. His fingers tangled in your hair, tilting your head back. You gasped against his lips, and he swallowed the sound, pressing you against the wall behind you. His hips pinned yours, and you felt the unmistakable hardness of him straining against his trousers.

You kissed him back with equal ferocity, your hands sliding up his chest, fisting the lapels of his suit jacket. He groaned, low and guttural, and hitched your leg up around his hip. The fabric of your dress rode high, exposing your thigh

"I don't deserve you," he gasped against your lips, and then his mouth was on your throat, teeth grazing the pulse point, tongue soothing the sting. You moaned, tilting your head back, giving him more access. His hand slid down your side, over the curve of your waist, gripping your ass through the thin material of your dress.

"I don't recall asking what you deserve."

He kissed you again, his mouth slanting over yours again and again until you were both breathless. Then he pulled back, his forehead pressed to yours, his breathing ragged. Titus grabbed your hand, and you let him pull you out of the corridor, through the grand foyer, past clusters of guests who barely registered as a blur of jewel tones and curious glances. His grip was firm, his pace urgent, and you followed without hesitation.

At the base of the grand staircase, you saw her. Margot stood near the bar, a glass of champagne frozen halfway to her lips, her eyes locked on you and Titus, and you saw the exact moment her composure cracked. Her jaw tightened, her knuckles whitened around the stem of the glass, and behind her carefully painted smile, something ugly and furious writhed.

You paused on the landing, met her gaze, and winked.

The fury that flashed across her face was almost violent, a mask slipping just long enough for you to see the raw, possessive rage beneath. You hated admitting that the taste of her jealousy was exquisite. You turned away, letting Titus pull you up the stairs, your heart soaring. He led you down a corridor lined with oil paintings and sconces casting warm pools of light, past doors closed and open, until he stopped at one near the end. He pushed it open and guided you inside.

His room stole your breath.

It was a vision of French European elegance with walls paneled in cream with delicate gold filigree, a crystal chandelier catching the dying evening light and scattering it like stars across the ceiling. The bed was massive, a four-poster draped in ivory silk and velvet, the sheets crisp and inviting. French doors opened onto a small balcony, the sheer curtains billowing in the warm breeze. A marble fireplace, unlit but stunning, dominated one wall, flanked by armchairs upholstered in pale rose damask.

Titus turned to you, his chest heaving, his eyes dark and hungry. He reached for the zipper of your dress, and you let him, your breath catching as the fabric loosened and slid down your shoulders. It pooled at your feet, and you stood before him in nothing but your heels and the delicate lace of your underwear.

"You're…" he made a low guttural sound, "the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." You looked at him…his eyes wild with want, his lips swollen, his composure shattered. The man who had guided his sister down the aisle with such grace now looked feral with need.

"Show me," you begged, taking off your heels.

He shed his clothes with rough, urgent movements—jacket, shirt, trousers, all discarded in a trail behind him. His body was lean and hard, muscles shifting beneath freckled skin, his cock already thick and straining, the tip glistening. He stepped toward you, his hands finding your waist, and he backed you toward the bed until your knees hit the edge. He pushed you down onto the mattress, the silk cool against your bare skin, and followed you, his body covering yours. His mouth found your neck, trailing hot, open-mouthed kisses down your throat, your collarbone, the swell of your breasts. When his lips closed around your nipple, you gasped, your back arching, your fingers tangling in his hair.

"Titus—"

"Say my name again." He suckled harder, his tongue flicking the sensitive peak, his teeth grazing just enough to send sparks through your nerves.  He moved to the other breast, giving it the same devastating attention, his hand sliding between your thighs. His fingers found you slick and ready, and he groaned against your skin.

"I missed you," you cried out.

"Me too, Angel,"

He pushed two fingers inside you, curling them just right, and your vision went white at the edges. You cried out, your hips bucking against his hand, and he watched your face with feral satisfaction.

"Please—I need—"

"What do you need, darling?" His voice was honey and gravel. "Tell me."

"I want to put my mouth on you."

And you did, you had been dreaming about it for months. He pulled his fingers out slowly, bringing them to his mouth and licking them clean, his eyes never leaving yours. Then he lay back on the bed, settling against the pillows, his cock standing thick and proud.

"Come here," he said, his voice rough. "I want to eat your pussy at the same time."

You crawled over him, straddling his chest, facing his cock, and then shifted forward. You lowered yourself slowly, feeling his breath hot against your cunt, and when his mouth latched onto you, you moaned—loud, shameless. You leaned forward, pressing your chest against his stomach, taking his cock in your hand, guiding the tip past your lips. His tongue found your clit immediately, circling, flicking, while his hands came up to grip your ass. He spread your cheeks, pulling you tighter against his face, and then—slap.

The first spank made you gasp around him, your eyes watering. The sting bloomed hot across your left cheek, and you felt him smile against your cunt.

"That's it, good girl," he murmured, the vibrations traveling through your core. "Take it. Take all of it."

You swallowed him deeper, your throat relaxing, taking him to the base. His cock hit the back of your throat, and you hummed, loving the way he groaned in response. His hands kneaded your flesh, then slap again—harder this time, on your right cheek. The slap sent a jolt of pleasure-pain through your body, his tongue working your clit with the same rhythm. You were drowning in sensation...the thick length of him filling your throat, the sting of his palm against your ass, the wet, obscene sounds of his mouth feasting on your pussy.

Your hips began to rock, grinding against his face, taking him deeper down your throat. He groaned against you, the sound muffled but satisfied, and his tongue pressed harder, faster, circling your clit with devastating precision.

"Fuck, missed the taste of you," he breathed, pulling back just enough to speak. You moaned around his cock, your eyes rolling back, your thighs trembling. His tongue grew more erratic, matching the building tension in your belly, each suck pushing you closer to the edge.

"Titus," you panted, "Fuck—"

"Come on my face," he commanded, his voice ragged.

The knot in your belly snapped. Your orgasm crashed through you, violent and blinding, your walls clenching as waves of pleasure wracked your body. You screamed around his cock, your throat convulsing, your hips bucking against his mouth. He didn't stop—he lapped at you through it all, drawing out every pulse, every shiver, until you were limp and gasping above him.

He pulled you off gently, guiding you to lie beside him, and pressed a kiss to your shoulder, his breathing ragged. "I don't want to come in your mouth," he said, his voice strained, thick with need. "I want to watch your perfect face and see your eyes when you come." Titus flipped you onto your back before you could recover, positioning himself between your legs. His cock pressed against your slick, swollen entrance, and he pushed inside you in one smooth motion, making you both gasp. Titus filled you so perfectly, stretching you, claiming you. He set a rhythm that was deep and slow, his eyes never leaving yours. Suddenly, he lifted your legs, placing one ankle on his shoulder and tucking the other in the crook of his arm.

The new angle drove him deeper, and you cried out, your nails raking down his back, leaving red trails on his skin. "Look at you," he breathed, his pace quickening. " You're mine. Say it."

"I'm yours."

"Whose pussy is this?"

"Yours. It's yours, Titus. Only yours."

He grunted, his thrusts becoming harder, faster, the sound of skin slapping against skin filling the room. The bed creaked beneath you, the headboard knocking against the wall in a steady rhythm. "And that fucking professor? Did he ever make you feel like this?" Titus wanted to own every part of you.

"No one has ever made me feel like this. No one. Just you."

His control snapped.

He fucked you harder, deeper, his hips slamming against yours, his breathing ragged, his sweat glistening on his chest. The room smelled of sex—salt and musk and the sweet, heady scent of your arousal mingling with his. The air was thick with it, with the sounds of your moans and his grunts, the wet, obscene sound of him driving into you again and again.

"I'm close," he growled. "Fuck, I'm so close. I need to feel you come again.”

The pressure built again, coiling tight in your belly, your walls clenching around him. You came with a sob, tears streaming down your cheeks, your body convulsing, your face contorted with the intensity of it. The pleasure was too much, too intense, a beautiful agony that left you gasping, your vision blurring. Titus watched you fall apart, his eyes locked on yours, his expression almost reverent. God, you were fucking gorgeous. His thrusts grew erratic, his breath coming in harsh pants, and you could feel him pulsing inside you, his peak approaching.

"I-I’m gonna pull out," he said, his voice breaking.

"Don't. It's safe. Stay inside me. Come inside me."

He groaned, a sound torn from somewhere deep, and you felt him release—hot, thick, and completely flooding you. His face twisted with pleasure, his eyes rolling back, his mouth falling open in a silent cry. His body shuddered above you, his hips pressing deep, holding himself there as he emptied into you. Titus collapsed on top of you, his forehead pressed to yours, both of you panting, your bodies slick with sweat, the air around you heavy and warm.

He pulled out slowly, and you felt his spend trickle down your thigh. He disappeared into the attached bathroom, returning moments later with a warm, damp cloth. He cleaned you gently, pressing soft kisses to your inner thighs, your hips, and your belly as he worked.

You checked your watch and sighed.

"Cocktail hour is almost over. We need to go back down."

Titus lay beside you, pulling you into his arms, his chest pressed against your back, his lips brushing your shoulder. "Just a few more minutes. I want to hold you a little longer."

You nestled into him, feeling his heartbeat slow beneath your ear, his arms wrapped around you like a shield.

"Titus?"

"Hmm?"

"I love you."

He was quiet for a long moment. Then his arms tightened around you, and he pressed a kiss to the top of your head.

"I love you too."

The words hung in the air, fragile and precious, a promise neither of you fully understood but both of you desperately wanted to keep.

You pulled back slightly, just enough to see his face in the darkness of the room. His eyes were closed, but you could see the tension in his jaw, the way his chest still rose and fell with controlled breaths.

"Titus?"

"Yes?"

"Why is Ursula so sure that Conrad won't pull the hide and seek card?"

He was quiet for a moment, his thumb tracing slow circles on your back. "When the bride was killed," he began, his voice low and measured, "Mr. Le Bail’s lawyer let us know that because we'd re-won the seat, we were allowed to adjust our family contract. The terms, the rules, all of it. Ursula and I had made a deal that whoever killed the bride would be the one to make whatever adjustment we pleased."

Your heart was already beginning to race, sensing where this was going.

"I requested," he continued, his arms tightening around you since he was still afraid that confirming that he killed her would make you look at him differently, "that our family continues to participate in the hunts. We're bound to this. To the High Council. To Mr. Le Bail. That's not something that can be undone, and I wouldn't ask for that. But I did ask that the hide and seek card...the game itself be removed from possibility. For future spouses. For spouses of future Danforth children. For generations to come in our immediate family."

He’d done what?

Titus paused, letting the enormity of it settle. "Ursula deserved to marry Conrad today without the fear of his possible immediate death.”

Your eyes burned. You pulled back to look at him fully, seeing the weight of what he'd done written across his features.

"You did that for Ursula," you whispered.

"She’s my sister. I would do anything for her… but I also did it for me," he said quietly, and the admission hung between you like a confession. You understood immediately what he wasn't saying outright—what he couldn't quite say, not yet. By removing the hide and seek card, he had secured something far more precious than Ursula's peace of mind. He'd secured the possibility of a future where he could have a wife without the constant shadow of that particular death sentence looming. Children who wouldn't grow up knowing their future spouses might be hunted down on their wedding day.

"I'm not asking for anything right now," he said quickly, reading what he thought was panic in your silence. "I'm not saying this to... I'm telling you because you asked."

But that wasn't quite the whole truth either, was it? You could see it in the way his eyes finally opened, in the way they searched yours. He was asking for something. Not explicitly, not with words...but with the architecture of his choices. He'd restructured his family's future, rewritten the rules of their darkest game for Ursula… and for his future wife.

"You killed the bride," you said slowly, "and made sure that if you ever had someone to protect, you could actually keep them. That makes a lot of sense to me."

He didn't say anything.

All the fear, all the darkness of this world you'd been pulled into, and here was Titus, this man bound by blood and obligation to a cult of monsters, using the only leverage he had to carve out a small sanctuary for the people he loved.

You emerged from the room together, your dress re-zipped, your hair smoothed back into something resembling order. Titus had a faint mark on his neck that you'd left with your teeth... which was a small claim staked in the landscape of his skin. Neither of you bothered to fix it.

The evening had shifted outdoors again for dinner. Long tables had been arranged in a horseshoe formation across the manicured grounds of the Danforth estate, strung with lights that transformed the darkness into something ethereal. A jazz trio played from a pavilion, their music drifting across the gardens. The air smelled of night-blooming jasmine and the rich aroma of the meal being served.

Titus's hand found the small of your back as you descended the stone steps; his touch was proprietary in a way that made several heads turn as you passed. The family table was positioned at the center of the horseshoe, and Ursula sat at the head, with Conrad on her right. His parents occupied the seats beyond him—his mother beaming with the particular radiance of a woman who'd just watched her son marry a woman she clearly found fascinating, his father nodding approvingly at something one of Conrad's siblings was saying. Titus guided you to the empty seat to his left, pulling it out for you and kissing your shoulder as you sat.

"Well, this is interesting," Ursula murmured, leaning forward slightly so only you and Titus could hear. Her eyes glinted with amusement, and Conrad grinned openly, as if he'd just won some private bet with himself.

Conversation flowed around the table with that easy rhythm, and you watched Ursula look so happy. Marriage seemed to suit her, or perhaps it was simply the absence of fear. Knowing that Conrad wouldn't be hunted, wouldn't be forced into a game where the stakes were his life, had carved away some essential tension from her shoulders. By the time dessert arrived (a decadent chocolate confection with edible gold leaf served under the stars), the evening had taken on the quality of a dream. The kind where terrible things existed in the margins but couldn't quite touch the center of the frame.

After hours of dancing, the other guests departed as the night deepened, taxis picking people up and cars winding down the long drive away from the estate. But the Danforth family remained—not just Ursula and Titus, but their uncles, aunts, and cousins, scattered across the grounds in small clusters, lingering over drinks and conversation. Tradition, after all, demanded their presence.

Pernella appeared with the ornate wooden box, setting it in front of Conrad with ceremonial precision. The room fell silent. Everyone knew what this meant. Or at least… they thought they did.

"The final tradition," Pernella announced. "A game must be played before the evening concludes." Conrad reached toward the box, and his fingers hovered over the cards printed with various games.

He drew a card, and his face went carefully blank as he looked at the card. Around him, the family leaned in with the hunger of wolves scenting blood.

"Chess," he said quietly, as if the word itself was a curse. "We have to play chess. You're going to destroy me."

"Almost certainly," Ursula agreed, her eyes glinting with the promise of violence barely concealed beneath civility. The family settled into chairs around the board while Ursula and Conrad took their seats. You moved to stand near Titus, your hand finding his, and his fingers closed around yours, anchoring you.

Conrad played competently, his strategy sound, his defense solid…but he was outmatched. You could see it in the way he began to frown slightly, the way his fingers lingered on pieces before moving them, as if he could somehow alter the outcome through sheer force of will.

It took 37 moves.

Ursula's final move was elegant: a bishop sweep that left Conrad's king with no escape routes. Checkmate. The word hung in the air like a benediction, and the assembled family erupted in applause. Conrad laughed, shaking his head in admiration, and reached across the board to kiss Ursula's hand.

Titus pulled you close as the family began to disperse, heading back to their hotels or respective homes. Ursula and Conrad were jetting off to the Danforth St. Tropez hotel tonight to begin their honeymoon. His lips brushed against your temple.

"Don’t go back to your hotel," he whispered. "Stay the night. Don't leave."

You turned to face him, seeing the vulnerability beneath the demand, the fear that you might vanish like some fever dream.

"Okay," you said simply. "I'll stay."

His exhale was relief incarnate.

FIVE YEARS LATER – MANHATTAN, NEW YORK

Titus sat propped against the headboard, his 3-year-old son nestled against his chest, completely absorbed in the story of Max and his wild rumpus.

The copy of Where the Wild Things Are (gifted by Auntie Ursula) was being read for what had to be the thousandth time. The original gift was a first edition copy for 'display only,' currently sitting on a custom-built walnut bookshelf with a note inside from Uncle Conrad that read: "If he spills juice on it, we’ll simply buy another. Childhood should not be constrained by scarcity." Your son, blissfully unaware of the book’s value, had once used it as a ramp for his toy firetruck.

"Again!" his son demanded as Titus closed the book, his small fists clenching with the desperation only a toddler could muster.

"You have school tomorrow, buddy. It's past your bedtime."

His son's face crumpled in protest—a perfect mirror of your stubborn expression, down to the exact furrow of the brow. Titus lasted approximately 6 seconds before caving completely.

"One more," he sighed, already flipping back to the beginning. "Just one."

Twenty minutes later, after a second book (a pop-up version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar), Titus finally managed to extract himself from his son's room. He kissed the boy's forehead, whispered goodnight, and quietly closed the door. He found you sitting up in bed, re-reading the De Occulta Philosophia libri III by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, hand resting on the swell of your belly. Titus found it intoxicating…the way you could lecture on ethics and consequence one moment, then move through the woods during a hunt with lethal grace the next. Your mind, your courage, your refusal to be intimidated by the world he'd been born into. There was something deeply, inexplicably sexy about it: the woman who taught the world about morality while living in its margins. The contradiction itself was arousing—the duality of you. He didn't know what he'd done to deserve you, and he suspected he never would.

The moment he entered, you looked up at him with an expression that could have frozen the Hudson River solid.

"Don't," you said flatly.

"I haven't done anything yet."

"You're about to have done something. I can see it on your face."

Titus held up his hands in surrender as he changed into sleep clothes.

"Storytime was longer than usual," you observed.

"I read him one more book. He gave me your eyes and deployed them as a weapon. I'm a weak man."

"You're a pushover," you corrected, turning a page with perhaps more force than necessary.

He slid into bed beside you carefully because these days, he moved around you like you were made of spun glass. Pregnancy had been harder on you this time with more aches, more exhaustion, more hormones. The family doctor had made the fatal mistake of using the phrase 'geriatric pregnancy,' and you had nearly killed him on the spot when he suggested you stay at home during this pregnancy. You had never wanted the traditional role. Titus had known that from the beginning. No staying home, no surrendering your career or your autonomy. But…Titus had begged you to start maternity leave at 4 months this time. After losing his mother in childbirth (who had been around your age), he was hyper‑vigilant, protective to the point of paranoia, and absolutely unapologetic about it.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Like I'm carrying a small person who has taken up kickboxing as a hobby," you said tersely. "In my ribs."

"She’s spirited," he said proudly. "Very Danforth of her."

You shot him a look that suggested his attempt at levity was not appreciated. Titus didn’t even blink at the look you gave him. He never did anymore. If anything, he seemed almost amused by it…like he’d long ago accepted that your hormones were a force of nature he would simply endure with gratitude.

Why wouldn’t he? You’d given him everything. Your loyalty, your brilliance, your son, and now your daughter. If the price of that devotion was absorbing every hormone-fueled barb you hurled his way, he would endure them all without complaint. Because you had surrendered your very soul to Mr. Le Bail and the traditions of the High Council, which most people would flee screaming from.

You had chosen him.

And Titus would never forget that.

"You know what Ursula and Conrad sent for the nursery?" he tried, pivoting strategies. "A hand-carved Italian crib. From the 1800s. Apparently, it was blessed by a cardinal."

"Those two are ridiculous," you sighed, accepting the privileges that came with being his.

"Completely ridiculous," Titus lied, because it was totally the type of gift he would give. He was Ursula’s twin after all, and excessive generosity ran in their blood. He reached over to gently place his hand on your belly. "But they're happy. In Paris. No kids. Just art and wine and each other, playing chess at midnight."

His sister had never wanted children. However, she adored being an aunt far too much. Spoiling your son was her sport of choice, and she played it with Olympic‑level dedication.

"Must be nice," you murmured. "Why did we decide to do the whole kid thing again?"

Titus's mouth quirked into that familiar smirk...the one that had gotten you into this situation in the first place.

"Well," he said, leaning closer, "the making them part is fun. Very fun, if I recall correctly. Especially how we made our daughter..."

"I seem to remember you being pretty enthusiastic about the idea," you rolled your eyes.

"Yes. I take full responsibility for participating in the act you initiated," he grinned, giving you a smug look.

You shot him a look… but it was true, because you had begged for his cock that night. Your daughter was conceived from an orgasm that had crashed through you without warning, a sharp, blinding wave that tore a cry from your throat while Titus filled you up, moaning your name.

He reached out, placing a warm hand on your belly. Your daughter responded immediately with a firm kick.

"You’re going to spoil her just like you spoil him," you exhaled, half‑annoyed, half‑fond.

"Oh, absolutely," Titus said. "I plan to be intolerable about it."

He leaned over carefully and kissed your forehead, then your temple, then your perfect belly. "Goodnight, my princess. Go easy on your mother." From inside, there was a kick against his palm.

"She says no promises," you translated dryly.

"Let’s get you a nice massage tomorrow."

"The one from that woman in Tribeca?"

Titus's smirk was slow and deliberate. He knew exactly which one you meant. The therapist who charged $3K per session and whose hands were legendary among Manhattan's elite.

"The one you said was 'obscenely expensive' last month?" His voice was warm with amusement.

You felt heat creep up your neck. "My back is killing me, and she's supposed to be the best for pregnant women. I've heard—"

"Say no more." He was already reaching for his phone. "I'll have it arranged for tomorrow afternoon."

"Titus, you can't just—"

"Already done." He set the phone down, that satisfied smile still playing at his lips. "3 o'clock."

You wanted to argue. You should have argued. There was a time when you would have. When you had practically cried moving out of your Harlem apartment, when you had fought him tooth and nail over every luxury he tried to press into your hands. You wanted to earn your life, not have it handed to you like some kept woman.

So he compromised. He sold his Upper East Side penthouse and let you pick the neighborhood—the charming $15 million brownstone in Greenwich Village you fell in love with at first sight. He let you design every room, choose every detail. Titus let you make it yours. And somewhere between fighting him and building a home with him, you had stopped seeing his generosity as weakness and started seeing it as devotion.

"You're getting soft," he murmured, watching you with those beautiful eyes of his. He reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear. "My queen, accepting her crown at last."

"I'm being practical," you corrected, but there was no heat in it. "My back hurts. The massage is medical."

"Of course it is." His hand drifted down to rest on your belly again, right where your daughter was growing. "And tomorrow, after your 'medical massage', we're having dinner at that new place in SoHo you mentioned.

That place was impossible to get into. "Titus—"

"Already booked." He kissed your temple. "You're carrying my child. You get whatever you want."

You should have protested. You should have reminded him about normalcy… but instead, you leaned into him and let yourself enjoy the feeling of being taken care of by a man who would move mountains for you and your children.

"You're going to ruin me," you whispered. He already had, but he didn't need to know that.

"Absolutely," he agreed. "That's the plan."

Masterlist | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | You're reading the final part

Thank you for following me on this journey! <3 I really struggled with this "finale", so I hope it delivered! I ended up using a scene I deleted and archived weeks ago. The writing process is a struggle. Also, let's pretend that Ursula and Titus told their family that you were allowed to stick around for the game since you're with Titus. Cause since reader isn't family... I don't know how possible that would have been, but let's just pretend lol. Readers dress: Sloane Black Dress | NADINE MERABI

BONUS: DAD TITUS! LOOK AT HIS SMILEY FACE <3. Thank you @wesandresons for these cutie shots of my husband.

So when they call you to go out for drinks, that they really want to apologise, that they deserve a second chance...you give in. And you decide not to tell Jack about it either. He's working, and if they disappoint you again, you don't want to hear the 'I told you so'.

The nice bar isn't outside of the city this time, but they still have to pick you up since it's on the other side of the city far from your home. Which should be the first sign that you are making a mistake.

It's nice at first but you realise almost immediately that you aren't having fun. You'd much rather be in bed reading your medical books or your fantasy books than being out with them.

And when the night starts come to the end, you aren't even surprised that they are drunk again. Yes, the drivers, too.

This time, you curse the hell out of them, and delete their numbers by the time you even get outside the bar.

You immediately pull out your contact list, but your finger hovers over Jack's phone number. He's not coming for you, not when he's at work.

Shit. And Trinity and all of your other day shift friends are already asleep. It's not like they have a day off like you tomorrow, well today since it's way past midnight already.

There's one more option of how you can get home. Jack's credit card... but then you would have to explain the Uber ride at 2 a.m. and that would be hard without revealing the reason.

You check the app anyways, maybe xou can pay from your broke account. And when the fifty dollar ride pops up, you decide that maybe walking doesn't sound too bad. Even if it's an hour walk to your apartment.

You open your map to see if it somehow isn't as far as you think it is, and the name of one street catches your attention.

Jack's house is barely a block away. You can just go there, sleep off the alcohol and then take a bus home before Jack's shift even ends. He doesn't even have to know about your stupid mistake.

And well, in your tipsy state that sounds like the best option. He's told you multiple times that you are free to come and go to his home.

He basically begs you to come and go to his house how much you want. He loves having you there because you make it feel like an actual home not just a place where he lives.

You know where he keeps his spare key because the one he's given you isn't in this purse you have.

You quick-walk to his house, and the relief you feel when it comes to your view is immediate. You run up the few steps of his front porch, and take the key from the flower pot.

You unlock the door and step inside. And that's when the loud house alarm goes off. You quickly run to the disabling system and punch in the code Jack told you about.

Well, so much for being discreet about this whole thing. Even if you know that you will have to tell Jack about this eventually, you feel heartbroken over the friendship and you don't feel like having Jack be upset with you, too.

With the alarm off, you head for his bedroom. You strip in the bathroom, take off your makeup (yes, Jack bought you your favourite skin care products for his house, too), and then you slip into one of his shirts and go to sleep.

The smell of Jack engulfs you whole, and you are asleep before you can even set an alarm for the morning bus.

-

Jack almost gets a heart-attack when the alarm notification goes off on his phone. He rushes to open the front door camera, practically dialling the police already when he sees you.

You in your going out outfit with the tipsy walk. His heart almost gives out for an entirely different reason. Because why the fuck are you sneaking inside his house in the middle of the night?

He doesn't need to think long. He knows, your 'friends' have been bugging you for weeks now, and he can bet that your soft heart finally gave in.

"Damn it, doll." He mutters under his breath.

He's not mad. You are an adult so you make your own decisions. He's just disappointed that you didn't tell him. Like what if something happened to you and he wasn't even aware that you were out?

God, the thought alone makes him want to keel over. And then the fact that you don't trust him enough to tell him this stuff just makes it worse.

He mulls over this the whole shift, his responses just the tiniest bit snappy and impatient.

-

You wake up to gentle hands rubbing your cheek. Your startle for a second before you realise where you are. Then you startle again.

So much for the bus.

"Morning." Jack says in gruff voice. And you, like the coward you are, keep your eyes closed.

"Hi." You whisper, covering yourself with the duvet as much as you can.

"You okay?" Jack's a patient man, but he's been worrying all night so enough is enough. He's not going to beat around the bush.

"I'm great." You lie. Your startling reaction to him being there makes it painfully obvious.

"Had fun last night?" He raises his brows at you. You sigh, preparing for the scolding. Of course, he knows. You should have known better.

"Go ahead, say it." You mumble out, voice the tiniest bit shaky.

"Say what?"

"The 'I told you so.' " You turn your head away from him, out of his reach.

And maybe if you'd just opened your eyes, you would see that there's no mocking or triumphant expression on his face. Only worry.

"There's no I told you so." Jack says softly, scooting closer to you but you move away again.

"Doll, c'mon look at me." He coaxes, giving you a second or two to do just that, but you shake your head. There are tears stinging at the back of your eyes.

Jack sees your panic immediately. "Hey, hey, hey, sweetheart. I'm not mad. I was just worried when I saw you stumbling home in the middle of the night. But I'm not going to say anything if you don't want me to. I just want to know that you are okay, yeah? Please just look at me."

Your shield of past experiences slowly lowers at his words and you peak at him from under your wet lashes. "I'm sorry."

"There you are, my pretty girl." You finally let him touch you again, and his hands cover your face, wiping away the small tears.

Jack is so gentle with you. He's never ever given you a reason to be afraid of his reaction, and it makes you feel like the biggest fool. Yet again.

"Nothing to be sorry for. Did something happen?"

"I'm just so stupid." You confess in a whisper.

"Not stupid, you are the smartest woman I know, sweetheart. You just need to learn when to say no." Jack says carefully, he doesn't want to say something to make you go back to your hurting shell.

You nod as fresh set of tears escape you. "They got drunk again. The bar was close to your house so I just walked here. I'm sorry."

"Sweetheart, stop apologising. You did everything okay, you can come here whenever you want. I just...you could have told me you were going out."

"I know, I just..." You give Jack a look, refusing to say it. It's all he needs to see to know that your previous boyfriends were real pieces of shit.

"Come here." Jack tells you in a hushed voice, pulling you up from the covers into his lap.

You bury your face into his chest, effectively wetting the fabric by your tears. But Jack doesn't give a shit about that. The only thing that matters to him is making sure that you are okay.

After a few minutes, you pull away, wiping away the remaining tears. "Fuck. I'm sorry you just got from your shift and here I am-"

"Sweetheart. No apologising, remember?" He kisses the sensitive skin just under your eye. Thenunder the other. "I'm just happy you are okay."

"I ruined your shirt." You suddenly say completely out of context.

Jack chuckles and he takes your words as a hint that you feel better. "Can I say something before we go get some breakfast?"

He nudges the tip of your nose with his, and you relish in his doting. "Yes."

"No more walking home at night. You have my card, sweetheart, so please use it. And if it's okay with you I'd like to know next time you go out. You got me so worried. "

"Of course, it's okay. I don't ever plan to go out again though. I deleted their contacts."

"Good girl." Jack says, finally earning a smile from you. He eats it up like a starved man. "Now c'mon, I'll make you hungover pancakes."

"I wasn't even drunk." You mutter as he tugs you after him, his hand never leaves yours. One thing you've learned over the weeks of dating Jack is that he is affectionate and isn't afraid to show it.

"Gosh, such a smart mouth. Just let me dote on my girl, will ya?" That finally earns a real laugh from you, your ex-friends quickly forgotten. And it's practically a music to Jack's ears.

He plans on making you laugh for the rest of the day. And maybe forever too, if you let him.

----------------------------------------------------

Jack turned to look at him. "You have to stop saying that. People are genuinely starting to believe it."

Robby smiled and said nothing, which was worse.

"What do you think Norris is gonna say?" Jack asked.

"Probably AI."

Other doctors two seats down snorted. Someone behind them laughed under their breath.

The hall lights dimmed. Director Trent Norris walked onto the stage, adjusted the microphone once, and started talking. Robby's guess turned out to be right. AI integration, optimized workflow, reducing diagnostic error. The usual speech was dressed up in a new language.

"Told you," Robby murmured.

Jack shook his head, a small smile pulling at the corner of his mouth despite himself.

"But that's not the only reason I asked everyone to gather this morning." Norris raised his arm toward the right side of the stage. "We're also here to welcome the new head of Trauma Surgery."

Genuine applause moved through the room. The trauma department had been losing attendings for months. The caseload was brutal, the hours worse, and the last two heads had both resigned within the year. A replacement this fast was either very good news or a very rushed decision.

"Another one?" Robby said under his breath. "How did they find someone that fast?"

Then a figure stepped out from the right side of the stage.

A woman. She walked toward Norris at an unhurried, even pace, and when she reached him the handshake was firm and immediate. No hesitation, no nerves. Just someone who had introduced herself to enough rooms full of strangers to stop thinking about it.

Jack saw her and went still.

He knew that posture. He knew the way she moved, the way her eyes swept the crowd without being obvious about it, the particular set of her shoulders that came from spending time in places where knowing a room was not optional.

He knew her.

*****

You had not slept enough. You'd flown in from Paris two days ago, gotten the confirmation call yesterday morning, and spent the hours between reminding yourself that you had walked into harder rooms than this one. A hospital auditorium was nothing. You'd introduced yourself to a tent full of combat medics in a war zone with someone else's blood still on your forearms. This was fine.

"Good morning, everyone." You kept your voice steady. "My name is Dr. Y/N, and I'll be your new head of Trauma Surgery. I'll keep this short because every second in a hospital costs something, and I'd rather earn your time than assume it."

A quiet ripple of laughter went through the room. The knot in your chest loosened slightly.

Then it came. That particular warmth on your right side, the irrational and very specific feeling of being watched by someone who already knew you. You had learned a long time ago to trust that feeling.

You glanced toward the right side of the audience.

Your breath caught.

Curly hair. Arms crossed over his chest. That expression, patient and unreadable, like he was waiting to see what you would do next.

"Oh, shit." It barely left your mouth but the microphone was still clipped to your lapel and the hall was quiet enough that several heads turned at once.

Robby had been watching. He noticed your gaze drift, followed the line of it to Jack beside him, looked back at you, then at Jack again.

"Do you two know each other?"

The corner of Jack's mouth lifted. "She used to yell at me. Back when I was in the army."

"What?"

Jack didn't elaborate. He was still watching you from across the room with that same unhurried attention, and there was something in his expression that was quiet and warm in a way that had no business being either of those things.

********

After the introduction wrapped, you stepped down from the stage and let Director Norris walk you through the hospital. Departments, key staff, the layout slowly building itself into something you could navigate from memory. The trauma bays were well equipped. The OR suites were clean. The staff nodded at you with the polite wariness of people who had seen new department heads come and go.

Then you reached the ER. 

"This is Dr. Robby, Chief of Emergency Medicine. He runs the day shift."

Robby offered his hand with a straightforward, easy warmth. "Good to meet you."

"You too," you said, and meant it.

"And next to him—"

"Dr. Jack Abbot." The name came out before Norris finished the sentence.

Jack smiled at that. Not wide, not showy. Just a small, quiet thing, like something that had been waiting.

"I work nights," he said, and offered his hand.

You shook it. "Great. Then I won't have to see you much."

His grip was steady and warm. It was just that his hands were exactly as you remembered them. Warm and certain, the kind of grip that had once pulled you back to focus in a field tent when everything around you was noise and blood and too much happening at once. The hand that had steadied your shoulder on your worst days without making a thing of it. You had not thought about his hands in a long time. You had tried fairly hard not to. You let go first.

Norris looked between the two of you with the careful expression of someone reassessing a decision. Robby had gone very still beside him.

"Are we going to have a problem here?" Norris asked.

"Not at all," Jack said. "We go way back. This is just how we are."

"You almost got us court-martialed," you said.

"That didn't happen."

"Because I stopped you."

Jack tilted his head slightly. "That is a very generous version of events."

You looked at him for a moment. He looked back, relaxed, patient, in absolutely no rush. He had always been like that. Completely unbothered in a way that used to make you want to throw things at him.

"Good to see you haven't changed, Dr. Abbot."

"Good to see you either, Doctor."

You turned to Norris. "Should we continue?"

"Yes, of course." Norris moved forward smoothly, the practiced ease of a man who had seen worse. "The attending lounge is just down the hall."

You followed without looking back.

Robby waited until your footsteps faded down the corridor. Then he turned to Jack with his arms crossing slowly over his chest.

"What was that?"

Jack was still looking at the hallway where you'd gone. There was something in his expression that Robby couldn't quite name, something settled and quiet, like a man looking at something familiar.

"That's just how we talk to each other," Jack said.

He let that sit for a second. "The two of you look like you're either one bad day away from strangling each other or one good day away from something HR would have a field day with. Which one is it, Jack?"

"We worked closely."

"She said you almost got court-martialed."

"She has a tendency to dramatize."

"Jack."

Jack looked over at him. Something moved behind his eyes, brief and unguarded, and then it was gone.

"She's good," he said. Quiet, like it wasn't up for debate. "Genuinely one of the best I've ever seen. Doesn't matter where you put her, field tent or operating room, she figures it out and she doesn't stop." He paused. "If she could survive a warzone she can handle this trauma department longer than anyone who's come before her." Another pause, shorter. "Don't tell her I said that."

Robby nodded slowly. He'd worked with Jack long enough to know that Jack Abbot did not hand out words like those easily or often. If he vouched for someone like that, without being asked, without any setup, it meant something.

"I believe you," Robby said.

Jack smiled, “You should.” He walked toward the exit, "Yeah," he said to no one. "This is definitely going to be fun."

*************

The ER was already moving by the time Jack pushed through the doors, bag still on his shoulder. Someone had taped a hand-drawn crown to the triage board. Dana was at the nurses station with the look of someone who had been waiting.

"The night shift saviour has arrived," she announced.

Jack pulled his bag off and dropped it behind the desk. "Dana."

"Hi." She leaned against the counter, arms folded, with the particular energy of someone sitting on information. "So. Why did I have to hear from Robby that you know the new trauma head?"

"News travels fast."

"So it's true." She smiled. "She's already made an impression, by the way. And she only started yesterday."

"She's already working?"

"She came in at seven in the morning on her first day and apparently the trauma department has not recovered."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean even Dr.Brandon Park went quiet around her."

Jack turned that over for a second. Then he smiled. "I would love to see that." He also got a text from Robby talking about you, ‘She’s good. Really good.’

Before Dana could respond, the doors swung open. Mateo and Ellis were already moving. “Dr. Abbot, we need you.” 

"Let's go," Jack said, and followed them into the trauma room.

The patient was a mess. Mid-forties, blunt abdominal trauma, pressure dropping steadily. Ellis rattled off vitals while Jack pulled on gloves, and it took about thirty seconds for everyone in the room to reach the same conclusion at roughly the same time.

The OR attending who had come down from upstairs stood at the foot of the bed with his hands at his sides and the expression of a man doing very fast math in his head.

"I can't take this alone," he said. He looked at Mateo. "Call Dr. Y/N."

Mateo was already reaching for the phone.

"She's not on nights," Jack said.

"She told us we could call her any time." The attending didn't look up from the patient. "Any time, twenty-four hours. Her words."

Mateo had the phone to his ear. A pause. Then, "Hello, Doctor? Yes. Yes, we have a situation." He put the phone down and looked at the room. "She'll be here. Keep him alive for ten minutes."

Jack raised his eyebrows.

Eight minutes and forty seconds later, you came through the door still pulling your hair back. You snapped on gloves, stepped up to the table, and assessed the patient in the span of about four seconds.

"That was fast," Jack said.

"I live nearby." You didn't look up. "It's convenient."

"Like the old days." The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. "You used to sprint to the tent like something was chasing you."

"Something was usually trying to kill us, so." You adjusted your angle, focused. "Similar energy. Except the floor isn't dirt and nothing is actively on fire."

You looked down at the patient. At the stabilization work already done, the lines placed, the pressure managed. You read it the way you read everything, quickly and completely, and you knew within about four seconds exactly whose hands had been here before yours.

You looked up at Jack. "Did you do the initial stabilization?"

"Yup."

You made a small sound in the back of your throat. Not a yes, not a no. Just acknowledgement.

"Silence means approval?" Jack asked.

"Don't get your hopes up, Dr. Abbot."

You reached for the retractor without asking where it was, your hand already open before Shen had fully registered the movement. He placed it in your palm and you repositioned without breaking your line of sight, two fingers pressing briefly along the patient's abdomen, reading something the rest of the room had apparently missed.

"He's got a bleeder behind the repair. Small. Nobody caught it." You didn't say it like an accusation. Just a fact, delivered to the room, already moving. "Shen, I need a second clamp. Don't hand it to me, just have it ready."

Shen had it ready before you finished the sentence.

Your hands moved with the kind of economy that only came from doing something so many times that thinking about it became a waste of energy. No wasted motion, no hesitation, no asking anyone to confirm what you already knew. You worked the way someone worked when they had learned their craft in places that did not allow for second guesses.

The monitor steadied.

Then climbed.

Shen exhaled through his nose, quiet enough that it barely counted as a sound.

You checked the monitor over your shoulder. "Vitals are stabilizing. Let's move him upstairs."

"Yes, Doctor."

The elevator doors opened and the patient was wheeled through. You pulled off your mask and gloves in the corridor, balling them up without breaking stride. Jack fell into step beside you, doing the same.

"You like it here so far?" he asked.

"I think so." You tossed your gloves in the bin by the door. "The trauma department needs work though."

"What kind of work?"

"The kind that comes with higher expectations." You hit the elevator button. "But that's fixable."

Jack put his hands in his pockets, watching you. The elevator opened and you stepped in, and he stayed where he was, and for a second before the doors closed you looked at each other with the particular ease of two people who had stood in much worse places together and survived them both.

Then the doors closed.

Shen appeared at Jack's shoulder from approximately nowhere.

"You know her?"

"Is it not obvious?"

Shen tilted his head. "The OR attendings are afraid of her." 

Jack looked over. "Really?"

"My friend up there texted me this morning." Shen pulled out his phone, scrolled briefly, and put it away. "Apparently she walked in on her first day, looked around the department, and said, and I am quoting directly here." He cleared his throat. "'This is a battlefield. You'd better gird your loins.'"

Jack pressed his lips together.

"She works fast too," Shen continued. "Like, very fast. My friend said they couldn't keep up with her."

"Yeah." Jack glanced toward the elevator. "She does that."

"How well did you two know each other?"

Jack was quiet for a moment, the kind of quiet that meant he was deciding how much of the answer to give.

"The first time I saw her," he said, "she looked like a scared rabbit." He remembered it clearly. The medic tent, the dust, the way you'd been standing in the middle with your hands clasped in front of you and your eyes doing that thing where you were absolutely not going to cry and absolutely holding it together by a thread. "Brand new. First deployment. Completely out of her depth."

Shen absorbed every word of it quietly, filing it away with the particular focus of someone who had just stumbled onto information that nobody else in the building had yet. Ellis didn't know. Mateo definitely didn't know. This was valuable. This was currency.

He was absolutely telling them later.

"And I was the one who told her to keep up." Jack said it simply, like it was just a fact. Like he hadn't thought about it in a while and wasn't thinking about it now.

But his eyes were still on the elevator.

*********

FLASHBACK 

The tent smelled like antiseptic and heat.

You had arranged the instruments three times already. Scalpels in order of size, retractors grouped by type, suture kits at the right hand side where you could reach them without looking. It was the same thing you did before every shift back home, the same small ritual that told your hands the work was about to start.

It helped. Usually.

You had no reason to be nervous. You were a doctor. Two years of ER, OR rotations, a handful of volunteer deployments before this one. You had seen bad things and kept working through them. You knew how to do this. 

"Nervous?"

You looked up. The man watching you from across the tent was older, late forties, with the kind of weathered calm that came from having done this in places like this for a long time. His name tag read Clark. Special Forces Medical Sergeant First Class. He'd know the ground.

"Is it that obvious?" you asked.

"It's nice that you arranged everything." He glanced at his watch. "It'll be a mess in about forty seconds."

You looked at the instruments. Then at him. "Oh."

He gave you a small, not unkind smile, and moved to the other side of the tent.

You had exactly enough time to register that you had no idea what you had signed up for before the tent flap snapped open and the world came in all at once.

Soldiers. Three of them, then two more behind, and the noise and heat and dust came with them and suddenly the tent that had felt too quiet felt very small. Someone was screaming. Someone else was telling him to stay still. There was blood on the canvas floor and the instruments you had arranged so carefully were already irrelevant.

You stood there for one full second.

"You new?"

The voice was low and unhurried, and it cut through the noise with the ease of something that had never once needed to raise itself to be heard. You turned.

Salt and pepper curly hair. Sharp eyes that had already assessed you and moved on. He was in uniform, sleeves rolled to the elbow, and he was already moving toward the nearest patient with the focused calm of someone who had done this so many times it had stopped requiring thought.

"Yes," you said.

"Golden hour." He was already turning back. "You know what that means?"

"Yes."

"Then you know we can't miss it. Every second is a second we don't get back. Try to keep up kid." He didn't wait to see if you nodded.

You followed.

The next forty minutes were the most disorienting of your life. He moved between patients with a speed and efficiency that had no wasted motion in it, calling things out in clipped, precise language, and you scrambled to keep up and mostly did and twice almost didn't. Your hands knew what to do. Your training was there. But the pace was different from anything you had practiced for, a different rhythm entirely, and you had to let go of how you normally worked and just move.

You almost fell behind. Then you decided you weren't going to.

You matched him. Not perfectly, not gracefully, but you matched him.

At some point, between one patient and the next, he glanced over at you. Just briefly.

Then the soldier in front of you grabbed the edge of the table and looked straight at you and said, "Please. Please save me." And something in his voice, the rawness of it, the complete absence of any pretense, made your hands stop for just a fraction of a second.

"Hey."

You looked up. Jack was across the table, watching you. Not impatiently. Just watching.

"Breathe," he said quietly.

The tent was loud around you and somehow his voice landed through all of it anyway.

"In and out. Numb your ears. Your work is right in front of you." He held your gaze for one more second. "You've trained for this. So work."

You breathed in. You breathed out.

Your hands moved.

Something settled in your chest, not calm exactly, but something close enough to function. You stopped hearing the screaming as screaming and started hearing it as information, as a body telling you what it needed. You stopped thinking about the heat and the dust and the fact that you were very far from any hospital you had ever worked in.

You just worked.

And somewhere in the middle of it, without quite noticing when it happened, you found the rhythm.

*********************

When it was over, the tent was quieter in the specific way that came after something loud. Some of the soldiers were stable. The medical team moved in the low, efficient way of people coming down from an adrenaline they were used to.

You saw the body bag near the entrance.

You didn't say anything. You just looked at it for a moment, and then you walked outside.

There was a strip of shadow on the far side of the tent where the canvas blocked the worst of the sun. You sat down against it, pulled your knees up, and wrapped your arms around them. The ground was dry and hard and you didn't care.

Your heart was still going. You could feel it in your throat, your wrists, behind your eyes. The kind of heartbeat that reminded you that your body had taken everything very seriously even when you had been trying to tell it to be quiet.

You pressed your forehead to your knees.

"It was stressful wasn’t it?"

You looked up.

He was standing a few feet away, not close enough to crowd, holding two cans of Coca-Cola. He held one out. He had shed his combat uniform jacket somewhere between the tent and here, down to a black shirt and camouflage pants, and somehow that made him look less like a soldier and more like just a person who had also had a very long day.

You took it without thinking, and the cold of it against your palm was almost startling.

"It was a hard first day," you said.

Jack sat down against the canvas beside you, not quite next to you, leaving a foot of space between you like a reasonable person. He opened his can. "At least you didn't faint. Most volunteers faint. First week, sometimes second."

You thought about that. About the fact that you had not fainted, that your hands had kept moving, that at some point in that tent you had stopped waiting to feel ready and just started working.

The Coca-Cola was warm. You drank it anyway.

"Seeing wounded soldiers is hard," he said. "It should be. If it stops being hard, that's when you worry." He looked out at the open ground beyond the tent line. "But if you can get through it, it becomes like tying your shoes. You don't think about it. You just do it."

You didn't say anything. You turned the can in your hands.

What he said settled somewhere in your chest and stayed there.

It became your anchor. You went back into that tent the next day, and the day after, and the thing that had felt like it might break you started to feel like something you knew how to carry. Your nerves didn't disappear exactly. They just stopped running the show.

And then you started paying attention to how he worked.

That was where the arguments began.

His methods were fast and effective and sometimes made you want to put your head through the canvas wall. He improvised in ways that your training told you were wrong and his results told you were not. You told him so, loudly, on multiple occasions. He listened to about thirty percent of what you said and did whatever he was going to do anyway, and the worst part was that it usually worked, which gave you nothing to stand on and everything to complain about.

It usually started small.

"You're not going to suture it that way," you said.

"I am, actually." Jack didn't look up.

"That closure is going to dehisce in forty-eight hours."

"It hasn't yet."

"It will."

"You've been saying that for two weeks."

"I'm building a case."

He made a sound that was almost a laugh. You bit the inside of your cheek and kept working.

Sometimes it was his improvising. He had a habit of reaching for whatever was available, which was impressive in a way you refused to acknowledge out loud and infuriating in every way you did. 

The arguments became a fixture. The other medics stopped flinching at them. The soldiers started timing them.

"Where did you even get that?" you asked once, watching his hands.

"Supply tent."

"That is not a medical instrument, Dr. Abbot."

"It's doing a medical job."

"There are correct ways to do things."

"And incorrect ways that work just as well."

You looked at him. He looked back, calm and faintly entertained, which was the most irritating combination of expressions a human face could produce. The patient's vitals climbed steadily on the monitor behind him.

"I hate you," you said pleasantly.

"No you don't."

You turned away before he could see that he was right.

The arguments became a fixture. The other medics stopped flinching. The soldiers built a betting system around them, which you only found out about when soldier Diaz accidentally let it slip and immediately regretted it.

"It's a pretty even split," he offered.

From across the tent, Jack said nothing. He didn't have to. You could see his mouth doing that thing.

"Don't," you said, pointing at him.

"I didn't say anything."

"You were about to."

He looked at you with that slow, unhurried attention he reserved for things he found privately funny. "Even split is a compliment," he said. "To both of us."

You held his gaze one second too long. Then you found something else to look at.

The older sergeant at the far end of the tent sighed into his coffee. "When are those two going to stop with the foreplay?"

Nobody had a good answer.

Diaz studied the wall.

Jack picked up his chart.

You snapped on a fresh pair of gloves and went back to work.

Working with Jack Abbot could be infuriating. But you couldn't help it. He was a damn good doctor.  After a surgery that had gone long and difficult and finally, mercifully, well, you stood beside Jack at the wash station. The water was lukewarm. You scrubbed in silence.

You were looking at him.

“You’re staring.”

You blinked.

“I’m not.”

Jack finally looked up from the sink, drying blood from his hands with slow, practiced movements. There was sweat curling the silver at his temples, sleeves shoved to his elbows.

He looked unfairly calm for someone who had just spent the last three hours somehow refusing to let a man die.

“You are,” he said. “Been doing it for a while too.”

You crossed your arms immediately, mostly because suddenly you needed something to do with them.

“I was observing.”

“Observing?” One eyebrow lifted.

“Professionally.”

“Mm.” The corner of his mouth moved. “So. You’re impressed.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Kid,” he said, drying his hands, “you looked at me like I’d just split the ocean.”

You bit the inside of your cheek hard enough to ground yourself.

Because the annoying part?

He wasn't completely wrong.

“Fine,” you muttered. “It was good.”

“Good.”

You exhaled sharply. “Very good.”

That amused look again.

You hated that look.

“I’ve only seen that technique in textbooks,” you admitted quietly. “Nobody actually does it.”

“I do.”

“Apparently.”

He crossed his arms then, studying you in a way that made you suddenly aware of the noise in the tent. The shouting outside. The distant clatter of metal trays.

And somehow none of it felt louder than the silence between you.

“Stick around,” he said. “You’ll see more of it.”

Before you could answer, he reached out and squeezed your shoulder once, absentmindedly warm and entirely too familiar for someone who technically wasn't anything to you. The touch lasted barely a second, but somehow your brain decided that was long enough to make it a problem. 

“Stay alive, kid.”

*******

Present Time

The ER had finally hit a quiet patch. Jack grabbed his jacket and slipped out through the side exit, just needing a few minutes of air that didn't smell like antiseptic and floor cleaner.

He was halfway through his first decent breath when he saw you.

You were heading toward the parking structure, badge still clipped to your lanyard, jacket folded over one arm. Off the clock, or close enough.

"Doctor!"

You stopped. There was a small flinch before you turned around, the kind you couldn't help when a voice you hadn't heard in years suddenly came out of nowhere and called your name like no time had passed at all. Like he was calling you across a field tent in the middle of warzone. 

You turned around.

He was already walking toward you. And that was the thing that caught you first, not his face, not the fact that he was here, but the way he moved. Easy. Forward. No scanning, no checking left and right the way he used to in the field, that constant low-level vigilance that every soldier carried like a second skin. He just walked toward you like the ground between you was the most uncomplicated thing in the world.

It looked good on him. You were not going to think about that.

"I never gave you a proper welcome," he said, stopping in front of you.

"The auditorium this morning wasn't enough?"

"That was a spectacle. Doesn't count." He tilted his head slightly. "How are you? After coming back from there."

The question landed somewhere quiet. You both knew what there meant and neither of you was going to say it out loud on a Pittsburgh sidewalk at the end of a shift.

You were silent for a moment. The memories had a way of sitting very close to the surface when you weren't expecting them.

"When I got home," you said quietly, "I questioned every life choice I've ever made."

Jack huffed a soft laugh through his nose and nodded once. "Yeah," he said. "That happens to all of us."

You looked back at him. "Comforting."

"It's true."

You shook your head lightly. "You always made war sound like some terrible group project."

"It was." He shrugged. "Just with more explosions."

A reluctant breath of laughter escaped you before you could stop it. His eyes caught it immediately.

There she is.

"You used to be a crybaby, you know," he said casually. "I lent you my shoulder more than once."

Your head snapped toward him. "I am not a crybaby."

"You cried when you tasted your first MRE."

"That was a gag reflex."

"You spit it out."

"It tasted like salted cardboard soaked in regret."

"And then you got lost trying to find the bathroom."

"The base was poorly labelled."

"I found you behind the generator."

"I was taking a shortcut."

"You were completely turned around and too proud to ask anyone for directions."

"I was acclimating."

"For forty minutes."

"Dr. Abbot."

"Behind the generator."

"I will walk away from this conversation right now."

Jack grinned. Still infuriating. Still way too pleased with himself.

"Be honest," he said.

You narrowed your eyes. "What?"

"You miss working with me."

You scoffed immediately. "In your dreams, Abbot."

"Ah." He pointed at you with entirely too much confidence. "That one."

"What one?"

"Denial."

You rolled your eyes so hard it almost hurt and crossed your arms tighter over your chest. He stepped a little closer, hands moving behind his back, that particular smugness settling comfortably into place like it had never left.

"But deep down," he said, "you like seeing me again."

You should have ignored that. You really should have. You had a perfectly good parking structure forty metres away and a perfectly good reason to be walking toward it.

Instead you tilted your head and stepped closer too. Close enough to make him pause.

"What if I do?" you asked quietly.

That caught him. Just for a second, just enough. Something shifted behind his eyes, a small recalibration he covered quickly but not quickly enough.

You shrugged one shoulder, voice dropping into something dangerously casual. "Maybe I saw your picture in the Pitt brochure." His eyebrows lifted slightly. "Maybe my subconscious made me choose this hospital." You leaned in just enough to feel the challenge land between you. "Or maybe I just missed arguing with someone who thinks hospital policy is optional."

For once, Jack Abbot looked genuinely speechless.

Only briefly.

You stepped back before he could say anything else. "See you around, Abbot." Then you turned and walked away. Did not look back. Would absolutely not look back.

Behind you, Jack stayed exactly where he was. Hands sliding into his pockets now, watching you go with the particular stillness of a man whose brain was doing something his face wasn't quite ready to show yet. A little confused. A little entertained. And, if he was being honest with himself, far more interested than he had planned to be when he stepped outside for fresh air twenty minutes ago.

He stayed there until you disappeared around the corner.

Dana had just arrived, coffee in one hand, bag sliding off her shoulder, looking barely awake but somehow still observant enough to clock whatever expression Jack had on his face the moment she walked in.

"Dana."

She looked up. "Yep?"

Jack aimed for casual and landed somewhere near suspicious. "Could you check if Dr. Y/N is here yet?"

Dana paused. Slowly lowered her coffee. Looked at him. "You don't have her number?"

"Me and her," he said carefully, "are not exactly on those terms."

She stared at him for exactly one second too long. "Even the blind could see whatever that is between you two."

Jack huffed a quiet laugh through his nose. "Appreciate the diagnosis."

"You know what I mean."

"Probably," he said. "I won't discuss it after a twelve hour shift."

Before Dana could respond, Garcia appeared at the nurses station already in OR scrubs, a patient chart in one hand and a can of Coca Cola in the other, reading with the focused calm of someone who had made peace with early mornings a long time ago.

Jack looked at the can. "You're early."

Garcia sighed without looking up. "My boss gets here before sunrise. She's set the bar somewhere I can't see from the ground."

"No coffee?"

She lifted the can. "Higher caffeine." Then, after another sip, "Also free. From her fridge. She told the whole department we could take one whenever we want."

Jack went quiet for a second. A fridge full of Coca Cola. He didn't know why that was so completely consistent with you but it was.

"Huh," he said, mostly to himself.

Nearby, Robby had absolutely not been eavesdropping, which was why he immediately joined the conversation. "You know you could just go upstairs," he said, leaning against the counter with entirely too much amusement. "The OR is not a restricted area."

Jack looked at him. "I know where the OR is."

"Clearly not," Dana said.

Garcia snorted into her drink.

"It's not like she's going to bite you," she added.

Jack gave all three of them a flat look. "You all seem very invested in this."

"Oh, we are," Dana said immediately.

"Extremely," Robby confirmed.

Garcia pointed her Coke at him. "Honestly we just want entertainment."

"If she does bite you," Robby added, shrugging one shoulder, "we'll stitch you back together. We're very equipped for that."

Dana nodded. "Occupational hazard."

Jack looked between the three of them and decided he genuinely disliked everyone before eight in the morning. He pushed off the counter, straightened his jacket, and walked toward the elevator with the energy of a man dragging himself somewhere against his better judgment.

The doors closed behind him.

Dana turned to the others. "He likes her," she said. "Bad."

"Terrible," Robby agreed. "Did you see his face?"

Garcia took a long sip of her Coke. "They definitely have history. You don't look at someone like that unless there's unresolved emotional damage involved."

"Or unresolved something else," Robby said.

Dana pointed at him immediately. "That too."

Garcia glanced toward the elevator, thoughtful. "You know what's interesting though? She scares everyone in that OR. Nobody makes a sound when she's working." She paused. "But somehow he's the only person in this building who actually looks like he enjoys arguing with her."

Robby considered that for a moment. "That's either chemistry," he said, "or a psychological condition."

Dana snorted into her coffee.

"With those two," she said, "probably both."

*******

Jack knocked once before opening the door.

You weren't there. Which, technically, should have been enough reason to leave. Instead he walked in anyway.

Your office was colder than the rest of the floor. Cleaner too. Minimal, organized to the point of intimidation. Papers stacked with purpose. Surgical journals lined up in a way that suggested anyone who misplaced one would hear about it.

Then his attention landed on the fridge.

He walked closer. Coke. Coke Zero. Electrolyte drinks. Sports gels shoved into the side compartment like emergency field supplies. Full. Completely, absurdly full.

Jack huffed a quiet laugh through his nose. "Still terrible at breakfast," he muttered.

He remembered your first week in the field. Pale from stress, running on nothing, trying very hard not to look like you were about to pass out after your first brutal shift. He had handed you a soda without comment.

'Sugar. Sit down before you fall down, kid.'

You had looked personally offended. 'I'm not falling down.' Then immediately sat down.

His mouth tilted at the memory.

He looked around the rest of the office. Framed photos on the desk. One from the deployment, Clark in the middle, dust everywhere, half the team sunburned, and you standing next to Jack with your arms crossed while he looked entirely too pleased with himself. Another photo, a graduation. Another, a marathon finish line. Another, a triathlon. Then an Ironman medal hanging from the corner of the frame.

Jack stared at it. "You hated cardio," he said quietly to himself.

"Still do."

He turned around. You were standing in the doorway holding a chart against your chest, one eyebrow raised, expression unreadable in that particular way that made him feel like he was already losing an argument he hadn't started yet.

"You really like Coke," he said.

"It's efficient."

"That sounds suspiciously close to addiction."

You walked past him to your desk and set the chart down. "Endurance sports," you said simply. "Sugar keeps me alive."

He glanced back at the marathon photo. "You run now."

"As long as nobody is screaming at me to crawl through mud at five in the morning."

Jack let out a quiet laugh. "Military workouts built character."

"They built resentment." You pulled your chair out and sat down. "But sure."

"Yet somehow," he said, crossing his arms, "look at you now." His eyes moved across the photos, steady and unhurried. "You got stronger."

Your stomach did something profoundly irritating. You ignored it completely. "So," you said, gesturing toward the door, "what can I help you with?"

"No kicking me out first?"

"You willingly walked into my office." You tilted your head. "You must be desperate."

The corner of his mouth lifted. "There's a patient from my shift. Insurance is trying to deny the surgery."

Your expression shifted. "What happened?"

"Construction accident. Multiple fractures, internal complications. Trauma stabilized him but he needs reconstructive work." He paused. "Insurance is calling it non-urgent unless there's stronger documentation pushing back."

You stared at him. "And you came all the way upstairs because."

"Because," he said patiently, "you're terrifying."

"That's not an answer."

"It's part of one." His mouth twitched. "The surgical recommendation needs OR approval. Someone with enough authority to make administration stop pretending that recovery is optional."

"You want me to scare insurance into behaving."

"I want you," he corrected, "to professionally and legally explain why they're being idiots."

You crossed your arms. "And if I say no?"

"You won't."

That confidence. Still obnoxious. Still somehow effective. You looked away first, which you immediately resented. "You sound very sure of yourself, Abbot."

"I know how your brain works," he said. "You hate unfair systems."

Damn him. That landed harder than it should have, partly because it was true and partly because he said it like it was something he had known about you for a long time and never forgotten. You exhaled and held your hand out. "Give me the chart."

His eyebrows lifted. "That easy?"

"Don't make me regret it."

You took the file and skimmed through it. A beat. Then another. Your mouth flattened. "Oh, this is ridiculous."

"I know."

"You're right," you said. "This should absolutely be covered." You looked up. "I'll fix it."

Just like that. No ego, no bargaining. Jack studied you for a second. "Thanks," he said, quieter than usual.

You shrugged like it cost nothing. "You always overextend yourself for patients. Someone has to stop the system from making it worse."

His mouth curved slightly. "You do that too, you know. The impossible standards thing." A pause. "I'm starting to think you learned it from me."

You pointed at the door immediately. "Leave."

"There she is." He laughed softly but didn't move. Then, after a beat, his tone shifted. Less teasing, something underneath it that sat differently. "I sent you a letter. After we got back."

The room went quiet.

Your hand stopped halfway to the chart.

"Took me a while to get my head straight," he continued, shrugging once in that way people did when they were being casual about something they very much weren't casual about. "But I heard you were back in the States. So I wrote."

Your chest tightened in the most inconvenient way possible. Because you had waited. Checked your inbox more than you wanted to admit. Wondered, in the quiet hours, more than once.

"I think I gave everyone my dorm address," you said finally, looking down. "Which explains a lot."

"You never got it?"

You shook your head. "And nobody writes letters anymore."

"Well," he said dryly, "we didn't exactly exchange emails in a war zone."

"I'm not really a Facebook person."

"Yeah." You leaned against the edge of the desk. "I could see that. I deleted mine anyway."

He blinked. "You had Facebook?"

"My friend tagged me in an incredibly humiliating photo."

"Oh?"

"Beer. Karaoke. Terrible judgment."

"I suddenly need to see this." The corner of his mouth was doing that thing, and somehow after all this time he still knew exactly how to make you forget yourself for a second.

"Absolutely not."

"You brought it up."

"Mistake." You tried not to smiled but still he noticed. Of course he noticed.

"That look," he said quietly.

"What look?"

"Like you're about to insult me."

"I was."

"Missed that." And the way he said it was so genuine that something shifted in your chest before you could stop it.

You crossed your arms. "You're still insufferable."

"Yeah," he said easily. "But you missed me." He took two slow steps toward the door, then paused with his hand on the frame. "For the record? From our last conversation." His eyes found yours. "I liked hearing you admit it."

Then he left. And the office felt immediately different without him in it, which was information you had absolutely no use for and were going to ignore entirely.

You didn't notice him come back.

You were on the phone, half-turned toward the window, chart open on the desk in front of you. Jack had come back for something, some reason he had already half-forgotten by the time he reached your door, because you were speaking in a voice he hadn't heard before. Warm. Easy. The kind of relaxed that didn't show up at work.

"I'll see you in the afternoon," you said, and then softer, almost under your breath, "Miss you already."

Jack went completely still in the hallway.

He had heard every version of your voice over the years. Tired, sharp, half-asleep after a thirty hour shift, angry enough to threaten filing a formal complaint. But that? That was something else entirely. That was the voice of someone talking to a person who had earned something from you that most people didn't get close to.

He stepped back from the door before you could turn around.

Back down the hallway. Elevator. Hands in his pockets, jaw set, trying very hard to convince himself he didn't care who was on the other end of that call.

By the time he stepped back into the Pitt the thought had followed him downstairs twice. Maybe three times.

He was deeply annoyed by that.

********

The next night Jack walked into the Pitt with a cloud over his head that was visible from the nurses station.

Robby, who was twenty minutes from the end of his shift and had known Jack long enough to read the signs, fell into step beside him. "You good, man?"

Jack didn't break stride. "Hmm? Yeah."

"Why doesn't that sound convincing?"

"Because you're determined to find a problem." Jack dropped his bag behind the desk. "I'm fine."

Robby crossed his arms. "You used to follow me around before my sabbatical asking questions about everything. You're allowed to return the favor."

"Your case was different."

"How?"

"It just was." Jack pulled up the first chart. "I'm fine, Robby."

Robby looked at him for a moment longer than necessary, then held both hands up. "Suit yourself."

The shift moved the way night shifts did, steady and relentless. Jack worked through it with his head down, which was fine, normal, completely unremarkable except for the fact that he was quieter than usual and Robby had noticed and Ellis had noticed and presumably the entire ER had noticed but nobody was going to be the one to say it.

Shen walked in late, coffee in hand, and immediately sensed the atmosphere.

"You're late," Jack said without looking up.

Shen raised both hands, coffee included. "I told you this morning I'd be late."

Jack said nothing. Just walked away to the next bay.

Ellis appeared at Shen's shoulder. "He's been like that since he walked in," he said quietly. "I think it's related to Dr. Y/N."

Shen looked at Jack across the ER, taking in the set of his jaw and the absence of his usual ease, the way he was moving through the shift like something was sitting on him.

"Follow me," Shen said.

They walked past Jack at a perfectly normal pace. Shen angled slightly toward Ellis and pitched his voice at a volume that was technically still a conversation but definitely also something else. "I saw Dr. Y/N outside running at night" he said. "Second time this week." A brief glance toward Jack. "She really likes to run."

Jack kept his eyes on the chart.

Why should he care. It was good. Staying fit was good. Healthy habit. Completely fine.

He stepped outside twenty minutes later for air, which he genuinely needed and had nothing to do with anything else. The side lot was quiet. The path that ran along the building was mostly empty.

Mostly.

You were at the far end of it, mid-stride, earphones in, moving with the focused rhythm of someone who did this seriously. Jack stopped walking. He should go back inside. He had a full board and a night shift that wasn't going to run itself.

He didn't go back inside.

You slowed as you looped back around and then stopped entirely when you registered him standing there. You pulled one earphone out. "Shouldn't you be in the ER?"

"Shouldn't you be home?"

"I run at night sometimes." You caught your breath evenly. "It's faster without traffic."

"You used to hate working out."

"Because the drill sergeants yelling at me while doing it," you said. "Turns out I just hated that part."

Jack opened his mouth to respond and then stopped. Because you were holding a leash. And at the end of the leash was a German Shepherd sitting with patient, upright attention, ears forward, looking at Jack with the particular focus of a dog deciding what to make of someone.

Something tugged at the back of his memory.

"Don't tell me," he said slowly. "Riot?"

The dog's tail swept the ground once, twice, and then he was on his feet with his front paws reaching for Jack's chest, the full enthusiastic weight of a very large animal who had apparently not forgotten him at all.

Jack grabbed him by the paws and laughed, low and genuine. "Hey, buddy." He scrubbed both hands behind the dog's ears and Riot leaned into it shamelessly. Jack looked up at you. "He's with you?"

"Clark gave him to me when I got back." You watched the reunion with your arms crossed, something soft in your expression that you weren't doing anything to hide. "He's enormous and emotionally fragile. Separation anxiety. I have to call the daycare every single morning just to get him to settle."

Jack looked back down at Riot, who was now leaning his full body weight against Jack's leg with complete contentment.

Every morning.

The phone call. The warm voice. Miss you already.

He felt something loosen in his chest that he hadn't realized had been sitting there for two days.

It was the dog. You had been talking to the dog's daycare. Not someone else. Just Riot, the scraggly half-starved shepherd they had found wandering the perimeter wire in the middle of a warzone and somehow both decided was their responsibility.

Jack looked up at you. You were watching him with an expression that said you knew exactly what he'd just figured out and were going to be gracious enough not to say it out loud.

He looked back down at Riot.

"Good boy," he said quietly.

Riot wagged his tail.

****

FLASHBACK

Before the fear became familiar, before the adrenaline somehow stopped feeling terrifying, you had been scared. Very scared.

Clark had called you into the medic tent one afternoon while reviewing supplies. "You have to prepare to go into the field," he said, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on his clipboard.

You blinked, pointing a finger at your own chest. "Me?"

"In case we’re short on personnel." He flipped a page on his clipboard, barely offering you a glance.

You stared at him, your stomach tightening. "Ready for what exactly?"

Before Clark could answer, a smooth, confident voice cut through the heavy tent air. "I got it."

You turned to see Jack walking in like he owned the place. He had dust on his boots, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and that annoyingly calm expression on his face—as if the world wasn’t actively falling apart around you both.

Clark simply nodded toward him. "He’ll get you ready."

"What do you mean?" your voice went a little higher than you intended.

Jack crossed his arms, leaning his shoulder against a support beam. A slow, infuriating smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. You looked between the two men, horror sinking in, before locking your gaze back onto Jack.

"Oh no," you whispered.

"I hate you."

"You don’t."

"Yes, I do," you muttered between ragged breaths.

The heat was unbearable, baking the dirt beneath you. Your muscles burned with a fierce, localized agony. You had already run farther than any reasonable human should be expected to run in military gear, and now, somehow, Jack had decided the torture needed a sequel.

You were flat on the ground doing sit-ups, struggling through the upward motion of each repetition. Jack sat right near your feet, using the weight of one hand on your ankles to keep you anchored like this was just a casual afternoon activity.

"Come on," he coaxed, his tone light. "You’ve got six more."

"You’re evil."

"Five."

"I’m reporting you."

"Four."

You threw a lethal glare at him as you pulled yourself up again. "I’ll never forgive you."

Jack leaned back on his hands, completely unfazed. "No, you won’t," he said easily, watching your struggle with a lazy tilt of his head. "But you’ll survive."

With a dramatic groan, you dropped straight back onto the dirt, letting your arms flop to the sides. "Shouldn’t I be learning self-defense or something?" you complained to the sky, your chest heaving. "Why am I doing sit-ups and push-ups?"

Jack shrugged, shifting his weight. "Because the battlefield doesn’t look like the movies."

You frowned, cutting your eyes toward him.

"Most people are running," he explained, his demeanor softening just a fraction. "Running to patients. Running from danger. Carrying people. Crawling. Hiding. If your body gives out, you just become another patient."

You hated his logic, mostly because it was completely unassailable. Rolling your head to the side, you gave him a defeated look. "But why me?"

Jack looked almost offended, his eyebrows drawing together. "You wrote 'running' as your hobby on your intake form."

You immediately pushed yourself up onto your elbows, your jaw dropping. "Because of that?!"

"Yes, because of that."

"That’s not what I meant!" you protested, tossing your hands up. "I run like three kilometers in the morning!"

Jack raised an eyebrow, silently prompting you to continue.

"And then," you added, your voice dropping into an incredibly serious, unblinking tone, "I sit at a café and drink coffee."

Jack stared at you for a beat. Then, a low chuckle escaped him, breaking into a genuine, bright laugh. "That," he said, shaking his head as he looked down at the dirt, "sounds like the dream."

You stared at him, suddenly finding it very hard to breathe for a completely different reason. You hated how unfairly attractive he looked when he laughed. Maybe it was the golden afternoon sunlight filtering through the dust, maybe it was your sheer exhaustion, or maybe it was just the fact that he looked so incredibly grounded in the middle of a war zone. Whatever it was, a strange, uncomfortable flutter bloomed low in your stomach.

You shoved the feeling down immediately.

"Are you scared?" he asked after a quiet moment, his eyes searching yours.

You didn’t even try to pretend. "Terrified."

Jack tilted his head, studying your face. "Hm."

"What?"

"Knowing you?" An enigmatic smile played on his lips. "I think you’ll get addicted to it."

You scoffed, wrinkling your nose. "To getting shot?"

His easy laugh returned. "No," he said gently. "The adrenaline."

"I’m not like you," you insisted, crossing your arms.

"Yeah," he murmured, his gaze dropping for a split second. "That’s what I told myself too." Then, his voice softened into something much quieter. "Don’t worry."

He stood up, brushing the dust from his trousers, and extended a calloused hand down to you. "I’ll be your shield out there."

You gripped his hand, letting him pull you to your feet. You told yourself later that it was just a platonic line, something soldiers said to keep the greenhorns from panicking. Nothing serious. Nothing worth thinking about.

So, naturally, you thought about it constantly.

Then the day came: the first deployment forward, the first time stepping outside the relative safety of the base medical station.

Nothing could have prepared you for it. Not the deafening noise, not the blinding confusion, and certainly not the way your pulse climbed straight into your throat every time an explosion rattled the earth too close for comfort.

You quickly lost count of how many times Jack’s hand yanked the strap of your tactical vest, hauling you behind a concrete barrier just in the nick of time. How many times he physically stepped in front of you, putting his broad shoulders between you and the chaos. How many times he glanced over his shoulder, his sharp eyes scanning you from head to toe just to ensure you were still intact.

"You good?" he’d bark over the din. Before you could even open your mouth to answer, he'd already be turning back to the street. "Stay close."

Always. Stay close.

It was utterly terrifying. And yet, somehow, as the hours bled into days, you realized you kind of liked it. Not the danger—never the danger—but him. You liked the way he instantly noticed the exact moment you froze, the way he never let you fall behind, and the casual, instinctual way his hand would find your shoulder to guide you through a crowd.

And Jack noticed the shift in you, too.

After one particularly chaotic afternoon, while the two of you were sorting through medical crates back at a temporary staging point, he glanced up at you with a knowing smirk. "Careful," he said casually, tossing a roll of gauze into a bin. "You might get addicted to this."

You scoffed, wiping a smudge of dirt from your forehead. "Me? No chance."

Jack just chuckled, shaking his head. "I said the same thing."

Later that evening, after the gunfire had finally ceased and a heavy silence settled over the camp, you heard it.

A tiny sound. Soft, weak, and distinctly miserable.

You froze in your tracks, tilting your head. "Did you hear that?"

Jack paused, a crate balanced on his knee as he looked over at you. "Hear what?"

Instead of answering, you were already moving, following the sound toward the skeletal remains of a damaged building nearby.

"Hey," he called out, his tone sharpening into alert military precision as he dropped the crate. "Where are you going?"

"I hear something under the debris."

"Careful," Jack commanded, his boots crunching quickly over the gravel as he caught up to walk side-by-side with you. His hand hovered near his holster. "Could be a trap."

You desperately hoped it wasn't. Slowly, carefully, you crouched near a collapsed pile of broken wood and shattered concrete. The sound came again—small, fragile, and desperate. Your heart squeezed tightly in your chest.

"Oh my god," you breathed.

Shifting a heavy piece of timber out of the way, you peered into the small hollow beneath. There, curled into a tight ball, was a tiny, filthy German Shepherd puppy. He was barely bigger than your hands, possessing ridiculously oversized ears and paws he hadn't yet grown into. His fur was completely grayed by dust.

The puppy blinked sleepy, frightened eyes up at you—and then immediately leaned forward to lick your cheek.

You gasped, a breathless laugh escaping you. "Oh, you are ridiculously cute."

Jack crouched down beside you, his defensive posture melting away into amusement. He propped his elbows on his knees. "Well," he said dryly, "guess we’re rescuing civilians now."

You shot him an offended look. "He’s a baby."

"That thing?" Jack pointed a finger at the puppy, who was currently trying to chew on your sleeve. "Looks like he pays taxes."

The puppy let out a tiny, high-pitched whine, as if understanding the insult.

Jack sighed dramatically, though the tough-guy facade was entirely gone. He reached out a hand, gently scratching the pup behind his massive ears. "Yeah, alright," he muttered, his voice softening. "You’re ugly-cute."

You smiled despite yourself, watching the puppy lean into Jack's touch. "What should we name him?"

Jack shrugged, not looking up from the dog. "You found him."

You looked down at the tiny creature now curling contentedly against your forearm. He was so small, yet he had survived all of this destruction. "Riot," you said softly.

Jack blinked, looking up at you. "What?"

"Riot," you repeated, your thumb sweeping over the pup's dusty head. "He’s tiny, but he survived a literal riot of a battlefield." You suddenly looked up at Jack, your expression shifting into an eager, pleading stare. "Wait. Can we keep him?"

Jack went quiet. He looked from you to the puppy, then back to you, letting the silence stretch just long enough to make anxiety creep into your chest.

Then, his features relaxed. "Of course."

You blinked, surprised by how easy it was. "Seriously?"

"The guys love animals," he said, standing up and offering you that familiar hand to help you up. "Nobody’s saying no to that face."

The radiant smile that broke across your face caught him completely off guard. You had dust streaked across your cheeks, sweat dampening your hair, and utter exhaustion written in the lines of your shoulders—but that smile brightened the entire miserable day.

Jack looked away first, clearing his throat and shifting his weight awkwardly. "C’mon," he muttered, turning back toward the camp. "Let’s get Riot home."

By the time you walked back into the main camp, cradling the puppy securely against your chest, Riot had already become everyone’s dog. Just as Jack predicted, no one stood a single chance against that face.

*****

PRESENT TIME

"Well," he said, casually crossing his arms as he took in your athletic gear, "look what military strength training did to you."

You rolled your eyes so hard it almost hurt. "Please. I survived those military workouts out of pure, unadulterated spite."

That wasn’t entirely true, of course. You had kept showing up day after day. You had kept running until your lungs burned like fire, nearly collapsing under the brutal sun while Jack stood there yelling at you to finish just one more lap. And maybe—just maybe—the frequent sight of him working out shirtless had contributed slightly to your sudden dedication. Very slightly. But you would rather walk into live gunfire than admit that to his face.

"The adrenaline," Jack said casually, shifting his weight and burying his hands deep into his pockets. "You missed it."

You scoffed, stretching your arms behind your back to look busy. "Hm. What about you? You joined SWAT as a medic."

Jack’s eyebrows shot up. "Oh?" A slow, knowing smirk spread across his lips. "You know about that?"

Shit. You cursed yourself internally, your muscles locking up. It was Garcia. Of course it was Garcia. She had mentioned it while gossiping over coffee one morning, dropping details about Jack being a certified adrenaline junkie who apparently still ran toward danger in his civilian life.

"I heard parts of it," you said quickly, tossing your head back to pretend the information meant absolutely nothing to you. "It's not like I care." Then, your voice dropped into something quieter, your gaze slipping down to his boots. "But try not to get shot."

Realizing how that sounded, you immediately snapped your head away, staring hard at a distant streetlamp. "And I really don't care."

Jack studied you for a second, his smirk softening into something genuinely amused. He huffed a short laugh through his nose. "Ah," he said, shaking his head. "Denial again."

You rolled your eyes a second time. "You’re insufferable."

"And yet," he pointed out, taking a half-step closer, "you keep talking to me."

Unfortunately, his proximity made your stomach do a deeply irritating little flip. You quickly glanced down at your sports watch, tapping the screen aggressively. "Great," you muttered. "I already ruined my running pace. I can’t ruin my record, too."

Jack tilted his head, watching your frantic tapping. "Oh no," he said dryly, his voice dripping with mock sympathy. "God forbid your marathon time suffers because an old man stopped you for five minutes."

You narrowed your eyes, looking up from your watch. "You’re not old."

His grin widened immediately, catching the light. "Well, that sounded weirdly affectionate."

"I take it back."

"Too late."

Before you could fire back a retort, Riot suddenly stepped closer to Jack. His tail began to thump heavily against your leg, and the massive German Shepherd looked one second away from trying to climb straight up Jack's chest.

Jack blinked, his expression softening as he reached down to let the dog sniff his knuckles. "He still remembers me."

"Of course he does," you said, watching the dog lean into the touch. "We both found him. Took care of him." You paused, the words tumbling out of your mouth before your brain could stop them. "Basically, we were..."

Oh no. No. Abort mission.

Jack’s eyebrows lifted immediately, a dangerous spark of amusement in his eyes. "His mom and dad?"

Your entire body went rigid. A fierce, sudden heat climbed straight into your face. Thankfully, it was dark out—hopefully dark enough to hide the flush creeping up your neck.

You crossed your arms tight over your chest, trying to salvage your dignity. "We adopted him together," you said, rushing the words. "Of course we are."

Smooth. Very smooth.

Jack chuckled softly, a low sound that vibrated in the quiet night air. Somehow, that was worse. He looked way too entertained, entirely too pleased with himself. Seeing you flustered after years of sharp, military-grade comebacks was clearly the highlight of his week.

"Wow," he said, shaking his head once. "I didn’t know we were co-parenting."

"We are not."

"You literally just said..."

"Goodbye, Abbott."

He laughed again, stepping back to give you room as you pointed your body down the path. "Tell our son I will play fetch later!"

"Oh my god," you muttered under your breath.

You turned on your heel and immediately started running again. You pushed yourself into a sprint this time, faster than your training schedule required, mostly because your heart was beating way too hard against your ribs. And it was definitely, absolutely definitely, not because Jack Abbott was still standing under the streetlamp behind you, smiling like he had just won a prize.

*****

The hospital charity gala felt strangely unnatural. It was too polished, too expensive, and crowded with far too many people pretending they weren't entirely exhausted. To your eyes, doctors in formal attire always looked vaguely cursed. It brought to mind that bizarre childhood sensation of seeing your schoolteachers at the grocery store. It was wrong. It was completely wrong.

Which was exactly why seeing Jack Abbott in a suit should not have affected you this much. And yet, unfortunately, it did.

The man who usually looked permanently sleep-deprived and mildly irritated had cleaned up offensively well. He wore a tailored dark suit that hugged his broad shoulders perfectly, and his salt-and-pepper curls were slightly messy in that annoyingly effortless way. It looked as though he had spent a grand total of five minutes getting ready and still managed to look unfairly attractive.

Damn it.

You snapped your head away immediately. No. Absolutely not. You were not doing this. Not today, and certainly not after a grueling twelve-hour rotation in surgery.

"You look concerned."

You looked up at the sound of the voice. Jack. Of course. He stood a few feet away, swirling a whiskey in his hand as if he had materialized out of thin air.

"Shouldn’t you be resting?" he asked, tilting his head as his sharp eyes scanned your tired face. "Twelve-hour shift is no joke."

You glanced at him, leaning back slightly against a nearby cocktail table. "Doctors tell patients to sleep eight hours," you said dryly, crossing your arms. "For us, even a nap feels like a luxury."

A quiet laugh escaped him, the lines around his eyes crinkling. "Fair."

He took a slow sip of his drink, his gaze dropping to the floor for a moment. When he looked back up, his expression shifted. It was a subtle change, but you caught it. It was the look of a man seeing you properly for the first time tonight.

And that was dangerous.

Because you had cleaned up, too. You had traded your scrubs for a sleek dress and high heels, your hair styled and your makeup done to perfection. There was a sharp elegance to your look, a striking contrast to your usual professional attire. You looked dangerous in a way he hadn't anticipated. Back during your deployment, you had always been the epitome of practicality: exhausted, covered in dust, with your hair hastily tied back. This version of you looked like trouble. The exact kind of trouble a smart man would actively avoid.

Unfortunately for him, Jack had never been particularly smart about things he found interesting.

A server stopped nearby, balancing a silver platter. "Whiskey, ma'am?" he offered, lifting the tray toward you.

Before you could even open your mouth to answer, Jack stepped in. "She can't drink," he said immediately, waving the server away with a brief motion of his hand.

You blinked, caught off guard. You looked up at him, your arms dropping to your sides. "You remembered?"

Jack gave you a knowing look, a slow grin pulling at the corner of his mouth. "Of course I remembered. Your drunk phase traumatized half the camp."

A breathless laugh escaped you despite your best efforts to remain poised. "Was it really that dramatic?"

"You almost gave Diaz a heart attack," Jack chuckled, taking a step closer into your space.

*****

FLASHBACK

It had happened after one of the absolute worst weeks of the entire deployment. The hours had been brutal, sleep was a forgotten concept, and every single soul in the camp was walking around like a ghost. To boost morale, someone had passed around a few warm beers near the supply tents.

Diaz had slid one into your hand, giving you a tired pat on the shoulder. "Drink up. You earned it."

You had hesitated, looking down at the condensation on the can, before popping the tab. You drank exactly one. One single beer. It should have been completely harmless. Anyone would think a single drink would barely register.

Instead, twenty minutes later, you stopped talking. Completely.

Jack noticed first, which was alarming in itself because under normal circumstances, the two of you traded sharp barbs at least twice an hour. When the silence stretched too long, he looked over and found you sitting unusually still on a wooden crate. You were quiet. Way too quiet.

He walked over, blocking the dim light of the lanterns. "You good?"

You blinked slowly up at him, your head tilting at a strange, heavy angle. "...Mm."

It was the least convincing sound he had ever heard. Jack immediately crouched down in front of you, his medical instincts kicking in. He reached out, wrapping his fingers around your wrist to check your pulse, then used his thumb to gently lift your chin, inspecting your pupils.

"Diaz," Jack called out, his voice flat and dangerous. "What the hell did you give her?"

Diaz looked up from across the circle, his face turning pale with horror. "...A beer?"

Jack stared at him, his brow furrowing. "One?"

"Yes, just one!" Diaz protested, holding up a single finger defensively.

Jack looked back down at you, shaking his head in sheer disbelief. Blackout drunk from one standard beer. It was statistically unbelievable.

And then, somehow, it got worse. Because within thirty seconds, you became clingy. Dangerously clingy.

Jack started to stand up, intending to get you some water, but he immediately felt a heavy resistance. You had lunged forward, wrapping both of your arms tightly around his bicep. Before he could react, you leaned your head heavily against his shoulder, sighing contentedly as if it were the most natural pillow in the world.

"You’re comfortable," you mumbled into his chest.

Jack went entirely rigid, his arms freezing at his sides. "...What?"

"Warm," you added, tightening your grip and burying your face a little deeper.

Diaz nearly choked on his own breath, quickly covering his mouth to stifle a massive laugh. "Oh my god," he wheezed.

Jack snapped his head around, pointing a threatening finger at him immediately. "Not a single word, Diaz."

Unbothered by the tension, you squeezed his arm even closer to your chest. "I like this one," you said sleepily, your eyes closed.

Jack looked down at the top of your head, looking deeply, profoundly tired. "Fantastic," he muttered to himself.

After that historic evening, you were unofficially, but very strictly, banned from alcohol by the entire medical unit. Forever.

*****

PRESENT TIME

You sighed, remembering the old times with a sudden pang of nostalgia, before quietly slipping some cash across the bar to the server. "Ginger ale," you murmured, keeping your voice low. "In a whiskey glass."

The server glanced down at the generous tip, his lips curving into an immediate smile. "Coming right up."

Jack watched the entire exchange, leaning his hip against the bar. A familiar, mocking smirk pulled at his mouth. "Still pretending you can drink, I see."

You crossed your arms, lifting your chin defensively. "I can’t exactly look weak in front of the new hospital staff."

Something about your stubborn pride made Jack’s sarcastic expression soften, the sharp lines of his face relaxing. "You were never weak," he said quietly.

The weight of his words landed surprisingly hard, sending an annoying little jolt straight through your chest. But before you could even process it, he offered that familiar, stupid smile, turned on his heel, and walked away. You stood entirely still, watching his broad back disappear into the swirling crowd of the gala. It was deeply inconvenient how much an abrupt exit like that still had an effect on you, even after all these years.

You were still staring blankly into the crowd when Dana appeared at your side. Unfairly, she looked absolutely incredible tonight, carrying herself with the effortless grace of someone who actually belonged in a room filled with expensive champagne and high society. She glanced in the direction Jack had vanished, then slowly turned her head to look at you, her eyes narrowing with deep suspicion. "Hm."

You already knew exactly what that sound meant. "No," you said immediately.

"I didn’t even say anything."

"You were about to."

Dana plucked a fresh glass of champagne from a passing server's tray, taking a delicate sip. "I’m just wondering," she said casually, "whether you actually hate him or secretly like him."

You caught your breath, nearly choking on absolutely nothing. "What?"

"Because," she continued, waving her glass vaguely toward the crowd, "from an outside perspective, the chemistry between you two is exceptionally loud."

You snapped your gaze away, staring hard at the floor. "There’s no chemistry."

Dana gave you a flat, deadpan look. "Sure."

You let out a long, defeated sigh, your shoulders dropping. "It’s complicated."

"Oh, good," Dana said, her eyes lighting up. "My absolute favorite kind of answer."

Your fingers tightened around your whiskey glass of ginger ale. "It’s just... back in the army, he used to tease me constantly."

Dana raised an eyebrow, tilting her head. "Like, maliciously?"

"No." You shook your head once, trying to find the right words. Trying to explain the military version of Jack Abbott to someone who only knew him as a civilian doctor felt entirely impossible. "More like... he liked reminding me that I was younger. The senior staff always teased me." You paused, your voice dropping into a softer, quieter register. "Though nobody else really ordered me around."

"Why not?"

You looked down into your drink, swirling the amber liquid. "Because Jack usually got there first."

That admission made Dana’s eyebrows shoot up. "Oh."

You instantly hated that tone, the one that signaled sudden, unwanted realization.

"Do you like him?" Dana asked, her voice turning much gentler this time.

You went entirely quiet. It was the heavy kind of silence that usually answered a question far better than words ever could. Finally, you swallowed the lump in your throat. "I liked him," you admitted softly.

Dana blinked, picking up on the tense. "Past tense?"

Before she could press further, you let out a quiet, self-deprecating laugh through your nose. "The truly annoying part? I liked him before he even noticed me. It just made me more irritated."

Dana stared at you for a long beat, her expression softening into pure sympathy. "Oh, you are in so much trouble."

You frowned at her. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means," Dana said simply, "you never actually got over him."

She paused, clearly waiting for you to fire back with a fierce denial. Instead, you slowly set your glass down on a high-top table, your fingers lingering on the crystal. "I never said I was."

"If you liked him so much," she asked carefully, stepping closer, "why didn't you two ever...?"

The words trailed off, and the ambient music of the gala suddenly felt too loud, yet miles away. Your chest tightened. "Something happened," you said eventually, your voice barely audible over the chatter of the room.

Dana waited, keeping her gaze steady on you.

You looked down at your hands. "The explosion," you whispered, the memory hitting you with a cold wave of familiarity. "It took a part of us with it."

Jack losing his leg. The soldier you hadn't been able to save. The crushing weight of the guilt, the agonizing silence that followed, and the permanent distance that grew between you. Everything had changed in a single afternoon.

Dana studied your face for a second, seeing the ghosts in your eyes, and nodded once. She didn't ask any more questions. She knew where the line was.

You really should have gone home. That would have been the smart, professional thing to do. Instead, your eyes helplessly wandered across the crowded ballroom until they landed on Jack.

He was standing near the bar, deep in conversation with Dr. Al-Hashimi. They weren't standing too close, not inappropriately so, but there was an undeniable comfort to their posture. They looked easy together, like two people who shared a history and truly understood one another. For some deeply unreasonable reason, the sight made a sharp spike of irritation flare in your chest.

Dr. Al-Hashimi laughed at something he said, throwing her head back. Jack leaned a fraction closer, tilting his ear toward her to catch her words over the booming music.

You snapped your head away immediately. You did not care. You absolutely did not care.

Dana noticed anyway. "Oh," she said carefully.

"What?" you snapped, hating the pity in her voice.

"Jack and Dr. Al-Hashimi sometimes grab drinks after shifts," Dana said, keeping her tone light and casual. "She used to volunteer with Doctors Without Borders, too."

You blinked once, the words stinging more than they should have. "Oh. I see." Your voice sounded remarkably normal, which was a minor miracle given the unpleasant knot twisting tightly in your chest.

Doctors Without Borders. Field medicine. War zones. A shared history. It was funny, really, because you had all of that with him, too. You had worked directly beside him, followed him into active danger, stitched him up when he was bleeding, and trusted him with your literal life. So why had he never asked you to go to a bar?

The real whiskey had been sitting on the table for ten minutes, untouched and deeply tempting. You stared down at the amber glass. It was a bad idea, a truly terrible idea, but your emotions were entirely scrambled. Surely, now that you were older, a single drink wouldn't completely destroy you. You reached out and picked up the glass.

Across the room, Jack stood in the middle of a conversation he had entirely stopped listening to. Someone from hospital administration was drone-delivery a speech, Dr. Shen had just made a sarcastic remark, and a few people laughed. Jack nodded automatically, his mind completely elsewhere.

He frowned, a sudden prickle of unease washing over him. His eyes began to drift across the room, scanning the faces without even thinking about it. Where were you? The last time he checked, you were standing near the pillars with Dana. He scanned the crowd a second time, but came up empty. There were no sharp comments cutting through the air, no crossed arms, and no familiar looks of judgment aimed in his direction.

It felt entirely wrong. Without fully meaning to, he excused himself from the group and started walking. He pushed past the bar, navigated around the silent auction tables, and then he finally spotted you.

He stopped dead in his tracks.

Everyone else at your table was standing, laughing, and socializing. Meanwhile, you were slumped in a chair. One of your elbows rested heavily on the white tablecloth, your head leaning lazily against your palm. Your other hand was slowly dragging a silver fork back and forth against the fabric, your eyes completely glazed over and distant.

It was a look Jack recognized instantly. It was far too familiar.

Jack let out a heavy sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. Oh no. No. Absolutely not.

He stormed over to the table immediately. Dana looked up first, her eyes widening slightly. "Oh, hey, Jack."

Jack didn't even look at Dana; his sharp gaze was locked entirely on you. "Did she drink alcohol?"

Dana blinked, caught off guard. "Just a little bit."

Jack closed his eyes briefly, inhaling sharply, before letting out the long, exhausted sigh of a man who knew his night had just been hijacked. "She can't drink," he said flatly.

Dana frowned, crossing her arms. "What, is she allergic or something?"

"Worse," Jack muttered, stepping closer to your chair. "Alcohol is basically a neurotoxin to her brain chemistry."

Before Dana could ask for a medical explanation, you moved. Your movements were slow and fluid. You dragged yourself up from the chair, swayed slightly, and then leaned your entire weight directly against Jack's side. Your hands reached out, wrapping securely around his bicep, holding his arm tight against your chest as if it were a security blanket. It was pure muscle memory.

Jack went entirely rigid, his breath hitching. Dana froze, her jaw dropping slightly. Even Garcia, who had appeared out of nowhere holding a soda, stopped mid-sip and nearly choked.

You looked up at him, your eyes completely stripped of their usual sharp defenses. They were soft, heavily lidded, and quiet. "Jack," you murmured.

The entire table fell into a stunned silence. Jack looked down at you, his chest rising and falling heavily. For one ridiculous, terrifying second, his heart did something deeply inconvenient against his ribs. It had been years since you had said his name like that.

No "Abbott."

No biting sarcasm. No professional coldness.

Just Jack. Soft, familiar, and sounding exactly the way you used to when the chaos of the field got too loud.

Dana pressed her lips tightly together, desperately trying to stifle a massive grin. "Ow," she muttered under her breath, covering her mouth with her hand as she watched the display.

Jack snapped his head up, glaring at her. He did not appreciate whatever romantic narrative she was constructing in her head.

"Well, she obviously can't drive," Dana said, her voice shaking with suppressed laughter. "Take her home, doctor."

Jack looked back down at the top of your head, your face still buried contentedly in his suit jacket. "I could," he admitted slowly, "if I actually knew where she lived now."

Garcia raised her soda can, pointing toward the chair. "Check her bag."

Jack shifted slightly, trying not to dislodge you. "What's in the bag?"

"She keeps an emergency ID card in the side pocket," Garcia explained, her tone turning practical. "Emergency contacts, current address, medical info. She told us after a rough shift that if anything ever happens to her, it makes things easier for the paramedics."

Jack blinked, a quiet appreciation washing over him. That was incredibly smart. It was entirely, uniquely you.

Dana crouched down, unzipping your clutch and rummaging through it for a moment before pulling out a neatly laminated card. She handed it over to Jack.

Jack took the card, scanning the crisp text, and huffed a quiet laugh through his nose. Your apartment was barely a few blocks away from the hospital. No wonder you always managed to show up to emergency pages faster than anyone else. Strangely, holding the small, laminated piece of plastic reminded him vividly of military dog tags. It was simple, practical, and entirely prepared for the absolute worst. Very military. Very you.

He glanced back down at his arm. You were still clinging to him, completely unbothered by the conversation happening above your head, acting as if leaning against his chest in a crowded ballroom was the most natural thing in the world.

Jack slipped your ID card into his pocket and wrapped a steady arm around your waist to keep you upright. Yeah, this was definitely his problem now.

******

By the time Jack got you up the stairs to your apartment, you were barely conscious. You were half-asleep, leaning almost entirely into his side, and occasionally mumbling incoherent things that made absolutely no sense.

"You still alive there?" he muttered, shifting his weight to adjust his grip on your waist.

You let out a soft, garbled sound that could have meant yes, or perhaps no. It was entirely hard to tell.

Jack used his free hand to punch your emergency access code into the keypad, reading the numbers straight off the laminated ID card he had taken from your bag. The very second the door clicked open, a massive blur of fur came barreling down the hallway at full speed.

Riot.

The giant German Shepherd nearly crashed directly into Jack's shins, his tail wagging so violently that his entire hindquarters swayed with it.

"Well," Jack huffed, bracing himself against the doorframe to keep his balance. "Guess somebody remembers me."

Riot whined excitedly, pushing his wet nose right against Jack's knuckles. Jack crouched as low as his prosthetic leg comfortably allowed, using his fingers to scratch behind the dog’s oversized ears.

"How are you, buddy?" Jack murmured, a genuine warmth filtering into his tone.

Riot pushed even closer, leaning his heavy chest against Jack's knee. Still dramatic. Still clingy. Still the exact same Riot. Jack glanced up at your drooping form, still propped against his shoulder.

"I'm bringing your mom home safe, alright?"

Riot let out a short huff, sitting back on his haunches as if he thoroughly approved of the mission. Or perhaps he was judging the state you were in. It was hard to tell.

Getting you into the bedroom proved to be a much larger logistical challenge than Jack anticipated, mostly because your drunk self had completely abandoned all concepts of human coordination.

"You are completely impossible," Jack muttered, carefully guiding you downward until you sat heavily on the edge of the mattress.

You only blinked slowly up at him, your head tilting back. You were sleepy and quiet, looking nothing like the sharp, formidable surgeon who usually held court in the hospital hallways. Jack crouched down to slide the high heels off your feet, setting them neatly side-by-side beside the bed.

"There," he said quietly, straightening up. "You survived the gala. Barely."

He reached down and pulled the heavy blanket up to your shoulders. As he began to step back, your hand moved weakly across the mattress. Your fingers brushed blindly against the sheets, searching for something, a familiar restlessness taking over.

Jack frowned, pausing in the dark room. "What are you doing?"

Then, the realization hit him.

Back then. The military. You used to do this exact same thing. After the terrible nights, after the high-casualty shifts when the exhaustion became too heavy to carry, you would quietly steal his arm and use his bicep as a pillow, falling asleep right beside him while sitting on the dirt floor of the tent.

The memory hit him unexpectedly, soft and dangerously disarming. Before he could pull away, your fingers brushed the fabric of his sleeve, lightly tugging at the cuff of his suit jacket.

"I'm sorry, Jack," you murmured, your voice cracking with sleep.

His expression changed instantly, his jaw tightening.

You shifted your head slightly against your pillow, your eyebrows knitting together in distress. "I couldn't save you."

An absolute silence fell over the bedroom. The walls suddenly felt smaller, suffocatingly close. He knew exactly what you meant, even after all this time. The explosion. His leg. The blood on your hands. The chaotic aftermath and the crushing weight of a survivor's guilt that you never, ever talked about in the light of day.

Jack swallowed hard, the lump in his throat tighter than he expected. Even after all these years, you were still carrying the blame for something you had no power to stop. Something in his chest twisted painfully.

Slowly, he reached out, his thumb gently brushing a stray lock of hair away from your face. You looked younger when you were asleep, stripped of your armor, less guarded, and less angry at the world.

"I never blamed you," he said, his voice dropping to a rough whisper in the quiet room. His hand lingered against your hair for one brief, bittersweet second. "It was never your fault."

The words came easy, but they were entirely too late. Your breathing had already shifted into a deep, rhythmic pattern. You were fast asleep.

Jack stood there for a long moment, simply looking down at you and thinking. Maybe one day, when the ghosts finally stopped chasing you and you were truly ready, the two of you could finally talk about it properly.

Eventually, he turned and slipped toward the door, careful not to let his boots make a sound on the hardwood. "Alright," he muttered to himself, rubbing the back of his neck. "Time for me to get a cab."

A sudden, sharp tug at his trousers stopped him in his tracks. Jack looked down.

Riot had the cuff of Jack's suit pants clamped firmly between his teeth.

"Buddy," Jack warned, looking down at the dog.

Riot gave a low, muffled woof around the fabric.

"I have to go."

Riot only pulled harder, digging his paws into the floor.

Jack let out a long, defeated sigh. "You are unbelievably stubborn, you know that?"

The dog did not care in the slightest. In fact, he gave another firm tug, stronger this time. Jack nearly laughed out loud. Between the dog and his owner, it seemed stubbornness was a highly contagious disease in this apartment. Still, a quiet part of him had deeply missed this, the weird comfort of Riot's antics, a living reminder of a time before everything went wrong.

Eventually, he threw his hands up in surrender. "Alright. Fine. You win."

Riot released the fabric immediately, a clear look of victory in his dark eyes. Jack pointed a finger toward the living room. "I’m sleeping on the couch."

Riot offered a single, affirmative bark. A second later, the dog disappeared into the kitchen, returning moments later while dragging a spare throw blanket tightly in his jaws.

Jack blinked, completely stunned. "You're kidding me."

The dog dropped the blanket directly at Jack's feet. Jack looked genuinely touched, a soft smile breaking through his exhaustion. "You are way more considerate than your mother."

Riot gave a soft huff, as if agreeing, then turned on his heel and walked straight back into your bedroom. He leaped effortlessly onto the mattress, curling his large body into a protective circle right beside you.

Jack stared through the open doorway. "Traitor."

Riot cut his eyes back to him once, letting out a faint whine.

Jack narrowed his eyes at the dog. "I thought we were having guy time."

Another soft bark echoed from the bed. The translation was abundantly clear: Absolutely not. My shift is with mom.

Jack shook his head, a chuckle escaping him. "Fine."

He settled his frame onto the small living room couch, his prosthetic leg aching slightly from the long night. His expensive suit was entirely wrinkled, and his neck was going to be furious with him tomorrow morning, but as he pulled the dog-hair-covered blanket up to his chest, he realized he didn't really mind at all.

*****

Morning arrived with a painful, blinding vengeance. Your head throbbed to the rhythm of a steady pulse, and you groaned loudly, burying your face flat into the pillows to block out the sunlight. Why did your skull feel like an active construction zone?

Then, the memories began to patch themselves together. Your eyes snapped open.

Apartment. Bedroom. Riot.

Right. The charity gala. The single, solitary drink.

Oh no.

How exactly had you gotten home? Had Dana called an Uber? Had the hospital administration arranged transport for an incapacitated surgeon?

You sat up slowly, immediately regretting the sudden movement as a wave of nausea washed over you. Riot jumped off the bed, shaking his fur out, and followed closely at your heels like a furry, loyal bodyguard as you stumbled out of the bedroom.

You walked into the dining area and froze completely.

Sitting on the table was a fresh cup of coffee and a neatly closed takeout box from the bakery down the street.

"What?" you whispered to the empty room.

You stepped closer, your eyes catching a bright yellow sticky note slapped right onto the plastic lid. You picked it up, squinting at the sharp, masculine handwriting.

Since your fridge contains absolutely nothing useful, I bought breakfast. P.S. I put my number in your phone. — Jack

You stared at the paper, then stared harder, your brain struggling to process the signature. Jack? Jack Abbott had brought you home?

You grabbed your phone off the counter immediately, holding it up so Face ID could unlock the screen. "Oh my god," you muttered, realizing how he must have gotten into your device last night by holding it up to your sleeping face.

You tapped into your contacts, scrolling furiously down to the 'A' section. You paused, and then a helpless, breathless laugh burst from your chest.

Somehow, Jack had saved his own contact details under a very specific name:

🚑 Captain Chaos

You covered your burning face with both hands, shaking your head against your palms. "Oh, he thinks he's hilarious."

But unfortunately for your dignity, you were smiling.

Meanwhile, outside the main entrance of your apartment building, two nurses from the emergency pit slowed their steps on the sidewalk. They stopped entirely, their jaws dropping in unison.

Because walking out the front doors was none other than Dr. Jack Abbott.

He was wearing the exact same dark suit from the charity gala the night before, only now it was heavily wrinkled. His salt-and-pepper hair was significantly messier than usual, a paper coffee cup was clutched in his hand, and he looked suspiciously comfortable for a man walking out of a residential building at seven in the morning.

The two nurses exchanged a wide-eyed, terrified look of pure excitement.

"Oh my god."

"Absolutely not."

"Do you know who lives in this building?"

"Dr. L/N," the other whispered.

A heavy, thrilled silence hung between them for a fraction of a second.

"Oh, this is premium gossip."

And just like that, the rumor mill began to spin.

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Dana had just arrived, coffee in one hand, bag sliding off her shoulder, looking barely awake but somehow still observant enough to clock whatever expression Jack had on his face the moment she walked in.

"Dana."

She looked up. "Yep?"

Jack aimed for casual and landed somewhere near suspicious. "Could you check if Dr. Y/N is here yet?"

Dana paused. Slowly lowered her coffee. Looked at him. "You don't have her number?"

"Me and her," he said carefully, "are not exactly on those terms."

She stared at him for exactly one second too long. "Even the blind could see whatever that is between you two."

Jack huffed a quiet laugh through his nose. "Appreciate the diagnosis."

"You know what I mean."

"Probably," he said. "I won't discuss it after a twelve hour shift."

Before Dana could respond, Garcia appeared at the nurses station already in OR scrubs, a patient chart in one hand and a can of Coca Cola in the other, reading with the focused calm of someone who had made peace with early mornings a long time ago.

Jack looked at the can. "You're early."

Garcia sighed without looking up. "My boss gets here before sunrise. She's set the bar somewhere I can't see from the ground."

"No coffee?"

She lifted the can. "Higher caffeine." Then, after another sip, "Also free. From her fridge. She told the whole department we could take one whenever we want."

Jack went quiet for a second. A fridge full of Coca Cola. He didn't know why that was so completely consistent with you but it was.

"Huh," he said, mostly to himself.

Nearby, Robby had absolutely not been eavesdropping, which was why he immediately joined the conversation. "You know you could just go upstairs," he said, leaning against the counter with entirely too much amusement. "The OR is not a restricted area."

Jack looked at him. "I know where the OR is."

"Clearly not," Dana said.

Garcia snorted into her drink.

"It's not like she's going to bite you," she added.

Jack gave all three of them a flat look. "You all seem very invested in this."

"Oh, we are," Dana said immediately.

"Extremely," Robby confirmed.

Garcia pointed her Coke at him. "Honestly we just want entertainment."

"If she does bite you," Robby added, shrugging one shoulder, "we'll stitch you back together. We're very equipped for that."

Dana nodded. "Occupational hazard."

Jack looked between the three of them and decided he genuinely disliked everyone before eight in the morning. He pushed off the counter, straightened his jacket, and walked toward the elevator with the energy of a man dragging himself somewhere against his better judgment.

The doors closed behind him.

Dana turned to the others. "He likes her," she said. "Bad."

"Terrible," Robby agreed. "Did you see his face?"

Garcia took a long sip of her Coke. "They definitely have history. You don't look at someone like that unless there's unresolved emotional damage involved."

"Or unresolved something else," Robby said.

Dana pointed at him immediately. "That too."

Garcia glanced toward the elevator, thoughtful. "You know what's interesting though? She scares everyone in that OR. Nobody makes a sound when she's working." She paused. "But somehow he's the only person in this building who actually looks like he enjoys arguing with her."

Robby considered that for a moment. "That's either chemistry," he said, "or a psychological condition."

Dana snorted into her coffee.

"With those two," she said, "probably both."

*******

Jack knocked once before opening the door.

You weren't there. Which, technically, should have been enough reason to leave. Instead he walked in anyway.

Your office was colder than the rest of the floor. Cleaner too. Minimal, organized to the point of intimidation. Papers stacked with purpose. Surgical journals lined up in a way that suggested anyone who misplaced one would hear about it.

Then his attention landed on the fridge.

He walked closer. Coke. Coke Zero. Electrolyte drinks. Sports gels shoved into the side compartment like emergency field supplies. Full. Completely, absurdly full.

Jack huffed a quiet laugh through his nose. "Still terrible at breakfast," he muttered.

He remembered your first week in the field. Pale from stress, running on nothing, trying very hard not to look like you were about to pass out after your first brutal shift. He had handed you a soda without comment.

'Sugar. Sit down before you fall down, kid.'

You had looked personally offended. 'I'm not falling down.' Then immediately sat down.

His mouth tilted at the memory.

He looked around the rest of the office. Framed photos on the desk. One from the deployment, Clark in the middle, dust everywhere, half the team sunburned, and you standing next to Jack with your arms crossed while he looked entirely too pleased with himself. Another photo, a graduation. Another, a marathon finish line. Another, a triathlon. Then an Ironman medal hanging from the corner of the frame.

Jack stared at it. "You hated cardio," he said quietly to himself.

"Still do."

He turned around. You were standing in the doorway holding a chart against your chest, one eyebrow raised, expression unreadable in that particular way that made him feel like he was already losing an argument he hadn't started yet.

"You really like Coke," he said.

"It's efficient."

"That sounds suspiciously close to addiction."

You walked past him to your desk and set the chart down. "Endurance sports," you said simply. "Sugar keeps me alive."

He glanced back at the marathon photo. "You run now."

"As long as nobody is screaming at me to crawl through mud at five in the morning."

Jack let out a quiet laugh. "Military workouts built character."

"They built resentment." You pulled your chair out and sat down. "But sure."

"Yet somehow," he said, crossing his arms, "look at you now." His eyes moved across the photos, steady and unhurried. "You got stronger."

Your stomach did something profoundly irritating. You ignored it completely. "So," you said, gesturing toward the door, "what can I help you with?"

"No kicking me out first?"

"You willingly walked into my office." You tilted your head. "You must be desperate."

The corner of his mouth lifted. "There's a patient from my shift. Insurance is trying to deny the surgery."

Your expression shifted. "What happened?"

"Construction accident. Multiple fractures, internal complications. Trauma stabilized him but he needs reconstructive work." He paused. "Insurance is calling it non-urgent unless there's stronger documentation pushing back."

You stared at him. "And you came all the way upstairs because."

"Because," he said patiently, "you're terrifying."

"That's not an answer."

"It's part of one." His mouth twitched. "The surgical recommendation needs OR approval. Someone with enough authority to make administration stop pretending that recovery is optional."

"You want me to scare insurance into behaving."

"I want you," he corrected, "to professionally and legally explain why they're being idiots."

You crossed your arms. "And if I say no?"

"You won't."

That confidence. Still obnoxious. Still somehow effective. You looked away first, which you immediately resented. "You sound very sure of yourself, Abbot."

"I know how your brain works," he said. "You hate unfair systems."

Damn him. That landed harder than it should have, partly because it was true and partly because he said it like it was something he had known about you for a long time and never forgotten. You exhaled and held your hand out. "Give me the chart."

His eyebrows lifted. "That easy?"

"Don't make me regret it."

You took the file and skimmed through it. A beat. Then another. Your mouth flattened. "Oh, this is ridiculous."

"I know."

"You're right," you said. "This should absolutely be covered." You looked up. "I'll fix it."

Just like that. No ego, no bargaining. Jack studied you for a second. "Thanks," he said, quieter than usual.

You shrugged like it cost nothing. "You always overextend yourself for patients. Someone has to stop the system from making it worse."

His mouth curved slightly. "You do that too, you know. The impossible standards thing." A pause. "I'm starting to think you learned it from me."

You pointed at the door immediately. "Leave."

"There she is." He laughed softly but didn't move. Then, after a beat, his tone shifted. Less teasing, something underneath it that sat differently. "I sent you a letter. After we got back."

The room went quiet.

Your hand stopped halfway to the chart.

"Took me a while to get my head straight," he continued, shrugging once in that way people did when they were being casual about something they very much weren't casual about. "But I heard you were back in the States. So I wrote."

Your chest tightened in the most inconvenient way possible. Because you had waited. Checked your inbox more than you wanted to admit. Wondered, in the quiet hours, more than once.

"I think I gave everyone my dorm address," you said finally, looking down. "Which explains a lot."

"You never got it?"

You shook your head. "And nobody writes letters anymore."

"Well," he said dryly, "we didn't exactly exchange emails in a war zone."

"I'm not really a Facebook person."

"Yeah." You leaned against the edge of the desk. "I could see that. I deleted mine anyway."

He blinked. "You had Facebook?"

"My friend tagged me in an incredibly humiliating photo."

"Oh?"

"Beer. Karaoke. Terrible judgment."

"I suddenly need to see this." The corner of his mouth was doing that thing, and somehow after all this time he still knew exactly how to make you forget yourself for a second.

"Absolutely not."

"You brought it up."

"Mistake." You tried not to smiled but still he noticed. Of course he noticed.

"That look," he said quietly.

"What look?"

"Like you're about to insult me."

"I was."

"Missed that." And the way he said it was so genuine that something shifted in your chest before you could stop it.

You crossed your arms. "You're still insufferable."

"Yeah," he said easily. "But you missed me." He took two slow steps toward the door, then paused with his hand on the frame. "For the record? From our last conversation." His eyes found yours. "I liked hearing you admit it."

Then he left. And the office felt immediately different without him in it, which was information you had absolutely no use for and were going to ignore entirely.

You didn't notice him come back.

You were on the phone, half-turned toward the window, chart open on the desk in front of you. Jack had come back for something, some reason he had already half-forgotten by the time he reached your door, because you were speaking in a voice he hadn't heard before. Warm. Easy. The kind of relaxed that didn't show up at work.

"I'll see you in the afternoon," you said, and then softer, almost under your breath, "Miss you already."

Jack went completely still in the hallway.

He had heard every version of your voice over the years. Tired, sharp, half-asleep after a thirty hour shift, angry enough to threaten filing a formal complaint. But that? That was something else entirely. That was the voice of someone talking to a person who had earned something from you that most people didn't get close to.

He stepped back from the door before you could turn around.

Back down the hallway. Elevator. Hands in his pockets, jaw set, trying very hard to convince himself he didn't care who was on the other end of that call.

By the time he stepped back into the Pitt the thought had followed him downstairs twice. Maybe three times.

He was deeply annoyed by that.

********

The next night Jack walked into the Pitt with a cloud over his head that was visible from the nurses station.

Robby, who was twenty minutes from the end of his shift and had known Jack long enough to read the signs, fell into step beside him. "You good, man?"

Jack didn't break stride. "Hmm? Yeah."

"Why doesn't that sound convincing?"

"Because you're determined to find a problem." Jack dropped his bag behind the desk. "I'm fine."

Robby crossed his arms. "You used to follow me around before my sabbatical asking questions about everything. You're allowed to return the favor."

"Your case was different."

"How?"

"It just was." Jack pulled up the first chart. "I'm fine, Robby."

Robby looked at him for a moment longer than necessary, then held both hands up. "Suit yourself."

The shift moved the way night shifts did, steady and relentless. Jack worked through it with his head down, which was fine, normal, completely unremarkable except for the fact that he was quieter than usual and Robby had noticed and Ellis had noticed and presumably the entire ER had noticed but nobody was going to be the one to say it.

Shen walked in late, coffee in hand, and immediately sensed the atmosphere.

"You're late," Jack said without looking up.

Shen raised both hands, coffee included. "I told you this morning I'd be late."

Jack said nothing. Just walked away to the next bay.

Ellis appeared at Shen's shoulder. "He's been like that since he walked in," he said quietly. "I think it's related to Dr. Y/N."

Shen looked at Jack across the ER, taking in the set of his jaw and the absence of his usual ease, the way he was moving through the shift like something was sitting on him.

"Follow me," Shen said.

They walked past Jack at a perfectly normal pace. Shen angled slightly toward Ellis and pitched his voice at a volume that was technically still a conversation but definitely also something else. "I saw Dr. Y/N outside running at night" he said. "Second time this week." A brief glance toward Jack. "She really likes to run."

Jack kept his eyes on the chart.

Why should he care. It was good. Staying fit was good. Healthy habit. Completely fine.

He stepped outside twenty minutes later for air, which he genuinely needed and had nothing to do with anything else. The side lot was quiet. The path that ran along the building was mostly empty.

Mostly.

You were at the far end of it, mid-stride, earphones in, moving with the focused rhythm of someone who did this seriously. Jack stopped walking. He should go back inside. He had a full board and a night shift that wasn't going to run itself.

He didn't go back inside.

You slowed as you looped back around and then stopped entirely when you registered him standing there. You pulled one earphone out. "Shouldn't you be in the ER?"

"Shouldn't you be home?"

"I run at night sometimes." You caught your breath evenly. "It's faster without traffic."

"You used to hate working out."

"Because the drill sergeants yelling at me while doing it," you said. "Turns out I just hated that part."

Jack opened his mouth to respond and then stopped. Because you were holding a leash. And at the end of the leash was a German Shepherd sitting with patient, upright attention, ears forward, looking at Jack with the particular focus of a dog deciding what to make of someone.

Something tugged at the back of his memory.

"Don't tell me," he said slowly. "Riot?"

The dog's tail swept the ground once, twice, and then he was on his feet with his front paws reaching for Jack's chest, the full enthusiastic weight of a very large animal who had apparently not forgotten him at all.

Jack grabbed him by the paws and laughed, low and genuine. "Hey, buddy." He scrubbed both hands behind the dog's ears and Riot leaned into it shamelessly. Jack looked up at you. "He's with you?"

"Clark gave him to me when I got back." You watched the reunion with your arms crossed, something soft in your expression that you weren't doing anything to hide. "He's enormous and emotionally fragile. Separation anxiety. I have to call the daycare every single morning just to get him to settle."

Jack looked back down at Riot, who was now leaning his full body weight against Jack's leg with complete contentment.

Every morning.

The phone call. The warm voice. Miss you already.

He felt something loosen in his chest that he hadn't realized had been sitting there for two days.

It was the dog. You had been talking to the dog's daycare. Not someone else. Just Riot, the scraggly half-starved shepherd they had found wandering the perimeter wire in the middle of a warzone and somehow both decided was their responsibility.

Jack looked up at you. You were watching him with an expression that said you knew exactly what he'd just figured out and were going to be gracious enough not to say it out loud.

He looked back down at Riot.

"Good boy," he said quietly.

Riot wagged his tail.

****

FLASHBACK

Before the fear became familiar, before the adrenaline somehow stopped feeling terrifying, you had been scared. Very scared.

Clark had called you into the medic tent one afternoon while reviewing supplies. "You have to prepare to go into the field," he said, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on his clipboard.

You blinked, pointing a finger at your own chest. "Me?"

"In case we’re short on personnel." He flipped a page on his clipboard, barely offering you a glance.

You stared at him, your stomach tightening. "Ready for what exactly?"

Before Clark could answer, a smooth, confident voice cut through the heavy tent air. "I got it."

You turned to see Jack walking in like he owned the place. He had dust on his boots, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and that annoyingly calm expression on his face—as if the world wasn’t actively falling apart around you both.

Clark simply nodded toward him. "He’ll get you ready."

"What do you mean?" your voice went a little higher than you intended.

Jack crossed his arms, leaning his shoulder against a support beam. A slow, infuriating smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. You looked between the two men, horror sinking in, before locking your gaze back onto Jack.

"Oh no," you whispered.

"I hate you."

"You don’t."

"Yes, I do," you muttered between ragged breaths.

The heat was unbearable, baking the dirt beneath you. Your muscles burned with a fierce, localized agony. You had already run farther than any reasonable human should be expected to run in military gear, and now, somehow, Jack had decided the torture needed a sequel.

You were flat on the ground doing sit-ups, struggling through the upward motion of each repetition. Jack sat right near your feet, using the weight of one hand on your ankles to keep you anchored like this was just a casual afternoon activity.

"Come on," he coaxed, his tone light. "You’ve got six more."

"You’re evil."

"Five."

"I’m reporting you."

"Four."

You threw a lethal glare at him as you pulled yourself up again. "I’ll never forgive you."

Jack leaned back on his hands, completely unfazed. "No, you won’t," he said easily, watching your struggle with a lazy tilt of his head. "But you’ll survive."

With a dramatic groan, you dropped straight back onto the dirt, letting your arms flop to the sides. "Shouldn’t I be learning self-defense or something?" you complained to the sky, your chest heaving. "Why am I doing sit-ups and push-ups?"

Jack shrugged, shifting his weight. "Because the battlefield doesn’t look like the movies."

You frowned, cutting your eyes toward him.

"Most people are running," he explained, his demeanor softening just a fraction. "Running to patients. Running from danger. Carrying people. Crawling. Hiding. If your body gives out, you just become another patient."

You hated his logic, mostly because it was completely unassailable. Rolling your head to the side, you gave him a defeated look. "But why me?"

Jack looked almost offended, his eyebrows drawing together. "You wrote 'running' as your hobby on your intake form."

You immediately pushed yourself up onto your elbows, your jaw dropping. "Because of that?!"

"Yes, because of that."

"That’s not what I meant!" you protested, tossing your hands up. "I run like three kilometers in the morning!"

Jack raised an eyebrow, silently prompting you to continue.

"And then," you added, your voice dropping into an incredibly serious, unblinking tone, "I sit at a café and drink coffee."

Jack stared at you for a beat. Then, a low chuckle escaped him, breaking into a genuine, bright laugh. "That," he said, shaking his head as he looked down at the dirt, "sounds like the dream."

You stared at him, suddenly finding it very hard to breathe for a completely different reason. You hated how unfairly attractive he looked when he laughed. Maybe it was the golden afternoon sunlight filtering through the dust, maybe it was your sheer exhaustion, or maybe it was just the fact that he looked so incredibly grounded in the middle of a war zone. Whatever it was, a strange, uncomfortable flutter bloomed low in your stomach.

You shoved the feeling down immediately.

"Are you scared?" he asked after a quiet moment, his eyes searching yours.

You didn’t even try to pretend. "Terrified."

Jack tilted his head, studying your face. "Hm."

"What?"

"Knowing you?" An enigmatic smile played on his lips. "I think you’ll get addicted to it."

You scoffed, wrinkling your nose. "To getting shot?"

His easy laugh returned. "No," he said gently. "The adrenaline."

"I’m not like you," you insisted, crossing your arms.

"Yeah," he murmured, his gaze dropping for a split second. "That’s what I told myself too." Then, his voice softened into something much quieter. "Don’t worry."

He stood up, brushing the dust from his trousers, and extended a calloused hand down to you. "I’ll be your shield out there."

You gripped his hand, letting him pull you to your feet. You told yourself later that it was just a platonic line, something soldiers said to keep the greenhorns from panicking. Nothing serious. Nothing worth thinking about.

So, naturally, you thought about it constantly.

Then the day came: the first deployment forward, the first time stepping outside the relative safety of the base medical station.

Nothing could have prepared you for it. Not the deafening noise, not the blinding confusion, and certainly not the way your pulse climbed straight into your throat every time an explosion rattled the earth too close for comfort.

You quickly lost count of how many times Jack’s hand yanked the strap of your tactical vest, hauling you behind a concrete barrier just in the nick of time. How many times he physically stepped in front of you, putting his broad shoulders between you and the chaos. How many times he glanced over his shoulder, his sharp eyes scanning you from head to toe just to ensure you were still intact.

"You good?" he’d bark over the din. Before you could even open your mouth to answer, he'd already be turning back to the street. "Stay close."

Always. Stay close.

It was utterly terrifying. And yet, somehow, as the hours bled into days, you realized you kind of liked it. Not the danger—never the danger—but him. You liked the way he instantly noticed the exact moment you froze, the way he never let you fall behind, and the casual, instinctual way his hand would find your shoulder to guide you through a crowd.

And Jack noticed the shift in you, too.

After one particularly chaotic afternoon, while the two of you were sorting through medical crates back at a temporary staging point, he glanced up at you with a knowing smirk. "Careful," he said casually, tossing a roll of gauze into a bin. "You might get addicted to this."

You scoffed, wiping a smudge of dirt from your forehead. "Me? No chance."

Jack just chuckled, shaking his head. "I said the same thing."

Later that evening, after the gunfire had finally ceased and a heavy silence settled over the camp, you heard it.

A tiny sound. Soft, weak, and distinctly miserable.

You froze in your tracks, tilting your head. "Did you hear that?"

Jack paused, a crate balanced on his knee as he looked over at you. "Hear what?"

Instead of answering, you were already moving, following the sound toward the skeletal remains of a damaged building nearby.

"Hey," he called out, his tone sharpening into alert military precision as he dropped the crate. "Where are you going?"

"I hear something under the debris."

"Careful," Jack commanded, his boots crunching quickly over the gravel as he caught up to walk side-by-side with you. His hand hovered near his holster. "Could be a trap."

You desperately hoped it wasn't. Slowly, carefully, you crouched near a collapsed pile of broken wood and shattered concrete. The sound came again—small, fragile, and desperate. Your heart squeezed tightly in your chest.

"Oh my god," you breathed.

Shifting a heavy piece of timber out of the way, you peered into the small hollow beneath. There, curled into a tight ball, was a tiny, filthy German Shepherd puppy. He was barely bigger than your hands, possessing ridiculously oversized ears and paws he hadn't yet grown into. His fur was completely grayed by dust.

The puppy blinked sleepy, frightened eyes up at you—and then immediately leaned forward to lick your cheek.

You gasped, a breathless laugh escaping you. "Oh, you are ridiculously cute."

Jack crouched down beside you, his defensive posture melting away into amusement. He propped his elbows on his knees. "Well," he said dryly, "guess we’re rescuing civilians now."

You shot him an offended look. "He’s a baby."

"That thing?" Jack pointed a finger at the puppy, who was currently trying to chew on your sleeve. "Looks like he pays taxes."

The puppy let out a tiny, high-pitched whine, as if understanding the insult.

Jack sighed dramatically, though the tough-guy facade was entirely gone. He reached out a hand, gently scratching the pup behind his massive ears. "Yeah, alright," he muttered, his voice softening. "You’re ugly-cute."

You smiled despite yourself, watching the puppy lean into Jack's touch. "What should we name him?"

Jack shrugged, not looking up from the dog. "You found him."

You looked down at the tiny creature now curling contentedly against your forearm. He was so small, yet he had survived all of this destruction. "Riot," you said softly.

Jack blinked, looking up at you. "What?"

"Riot," you repeated, your thumb sweeping over the pup's dusty head. "He’s tiny, but he survived a literal riot of a battlefield." You suddenly looked up at Jack, your expression shifting into an eager, pleading stare. "Wait. Can we keep him?"

Jack went quiet. He looked from you to the puppy, then back to you, letting the silence stretch just long enough to make anxiety creep into your chest.

Then, his features relaxed. "Of course."

You blinked, surprised by how easy it was. "Seriously?"

"The guys love animals," he said, standing up and offering you that familiar hand to help you up. "Nobody’s saying no to that face."

The radiant smile that broke across your face caught him completely off guard. You had dust streaked across your cheeks, sweat dampening your hair, and utter exhaustion written in the lines of your shoulders—but that smile brightened the entire miserable day.

Jack looked away first, clearing his throat and shifting his weight awkwardly. "C’mon," he muttered, turning back toward the camp. "Let’s get Riot home."

By the time you walked back into the main camp, cradling the puppy securely against your chest, Riot had already become everyone’s dog. Just as Jack predicted, no one stood a single chance against that face.

*****

PRESENT TIME

"Well," he said, casually crossing his arms as he took in your athletic gear, "look what military strength training did to you."

You rolled your eyes so hard it almost hurt. "Please. I survived those military workouts out of pure, unadulterated spite."

That wasn’t entirely true, of course. You had kept showing up day after day. You had kept running until your lungs burned like fire, nearly collapsing under the brutal sun while Jack stood there yelling at you to finish just one more lap. And maybe—just maybe—the frequent sight of him working out shirtless had contributed slightly to your sudden dedication. Very slightly. But you would rather walk into live gunfire than admit that to his face.

"The adrenaline," Jack said casually, shifting his weight and burying his hands deep into his pockets. "You missed it."

You scoffed, stretching your arms behind your back to look busy. "Hm. What about you? You joined SWAT as a medic."

Jack’s eyebrows shot up. "Oh?" A slow, knowing smirk spread across his lips. "You know about that?"

Shit. You cursed yourself internally, your muscles locking up. It was Garcia. Of course it was Garcia. She had mentioned it while gossiping over coffee one morning, dropping details about Jack being a certified adrenaline junkie who apparently still ran toward danger in his civilian life.

"I heard parts of it," you said quickly, tossing your head back to pretend the information meant absolutely nothing to you. "It's not like I care." Then, your voice dropped into something quieter, your gaze slipping down to his boots. "But try not to get shot."

Realizing how that sounded, you immediately snapped your head away, staring hard at a distant streetlamp. "And I really don't care."

Jack studied you for a second, his smirk softening into something genuinely amused. He huffed a short laugh through his nose. "Ah," he said, shaking his head. "Denial again."

You rolled your eyes a second time. "You’re insufferable."

"And yet," he pointed out, taking a half-step closer, "you keep talking to me."

Unfortunately, his proximity made your stomach do a deeply irritating little flip. You quickly glanced down at your sports watch, tapping the screen aggressively. "Great," you muttered. "I already ruined my running pace. I can’t ruin my record, too."

Jack tilted his head, watching your frantic tapping. "Oh no," he said dryly, his voice dripping with mock sympathy. "God forbid your marathon time suffers because an old man stopped you for five minutes."

You narrowed your eyes, looking up from your watch. "You’re not old."

His grin widened immediately, catching the light. "Well, that sounded weirdly affectionate."

"I take it back."

"Too late."

Before you could fire back a retort, Riot suddenly stepped closer to Jack. His tail began to thump heavily against your leg, and the massive German Shepherd looked one second away from trying to climb straight up Jack's chest.

Jack blinked, his expression softening as he reached down to let the dog sniff his knuckles. "He still remembers me."

"Of course he does," you said, watching the dog lean into the touch. "We both found him. Took care of him." You paused, the words tumbling out of your mouth before your brain could stop them. "Basically, we were..."

Oh no. No. Abort mission.

Jack’s eyebrows lifted immediately, a dangerous spark of amusement in his eyes. "His mom and dad?"

Your entire body went rigid. A fierce, sudden heat climbed straight into your face. Thankfully, it was dark out—hopefully dark enough to hide the flush creeping up your neck.

You crossed your arms tight over your chest, trying to salvage your dignity. "We adopted him together," you said, rushing the words. "Of course we are."

Smooth. Very smooth.

Jack chuckled softly, a low sound that vibrated in the quiet night air. Somehow, that was worse. He looked way too entertained, entirely too pleased with himself. Seeing you flustered after years of sharp, military-grade comebacks was clearly the highlight of his week.

"Wow," he said, shaking his head once. "I didn’t know we were co-parenting."

"We are not."

"You literally just said..."

"Goodbye, Abbott."

He laughed again, stepping back to give you room as you pointed your body down the path. "Tell our son I will play fetch later!"

"Oh my god," you muttered under your breath.

You turned on your heel and immediately started running again. You pushed yourself into a sprint this time, faster than your training schedule required, mostly because your heart was beating way too hard against your ribs. And it was definitely, absolutely definitely, not because Jack Abbott was still standing under the streetlamp behind you, smiling like he had just won a prize.

*****

The hospital charity gala felt strangely unnatural. It was too polished, too expensive, and crowded with far too many people pretending they weren't entirely exhausted. To your eyes, doctors in formal attire always looked vaguely cursed. It brought to mind that bizarre childhood sensation of seeing your schoolteachers at the grocery store. It was wrong. It was completely wrong.

Which was exactly why seeing Jack Abbott in a suit should not have affected you this much. And yet, unfortunately, it did.

The man who usually looked permanently sleep-deprived and mildly irritated had cleaned up offensively well. He wore a tailored dark suit that hugged his broad shoulders perfectly, and his salt-and-pepper curls were slightly messy in that annoyingly effortless way. It looked as though he had spent a grand total of five minutes getting ready and still managed to look unfairly attractive.

Damn it.

You snapped your head away immediately. No. Absolutely not. You were not doing this. Not today, and certainly not after a grueling twelve-hour rotation in surgery.

"You look concerned."

You looked up at the sound of the voice. Jack. Of course. He stood a few feet away, swirling a whiskey in his hand as if he had materialized out of thin air.

"Shouldn’t you be resting?" he asked, tilting his head as his sharp eyes scanned your tired face. "Twelve-hour shift is no joke."

You glanced at him, leaning back slightly against a nearby cocktail table. "Doctors tell patients to sleep eight hours," you said dryly, crossing your arms. "For us, even a nap feels like a luxury."

A quiet laugh escaped him, the lines around his eyes crinkling. "Fair."

He took a slow sip of his drink, his gaze dropping to the floor for a moment. When he looked back up, his expression shifted. It was a subtle change, but you caught it. It was the look of a man seeing you properly for the first time tonight.

And that was dangerous.

Because you had cleaned up, too. You had traded your scrubs for a sleek dress and high heels, your hair styled and your makeup done to perfection. There was a sharp elegance to your look, a striking contrast to your usual professional attire. You looked dangerous in a way he hadn't anticipated. Back during your deployment, you had always been the epitome of practicality: exhausted, covered in dust, with your hair hastily tied back. This version of you looked like trouble. The exact kind of trouble a smart man would actively avoid.

Unfortunately for him, Jack had never been particularly smart about things he found interesting.

A server stopped nearby, balancing a silver platter. "Whiskey, ma'am?" he offered, lifting the tray toward you.

Before you could even open your mouth to answer, Jack stepped in. "She can't drink," he said immediately, waving the server away with a brief motion of his hand.

You blinked, caught off guard. You looked up at him, your arms dropping to your sides. "You remembered?"

Jack gave you a knowing look, a slow grin pulling at the corner of his mouth. "Of course I remembered. Your drunk phase traumatized half the camp."

A breathless laugh escaped you despite your best efforts to remain poised. "Was it really that dramatic?"

"You almost gave Diaz a heart attack," Jack chuckled, taking a step closer into your space.

*****

FLASHBACK

It had happened after one of the absolute worst weeks of the entire deployment. The hours had been brutal, sleep was a forgotten concept, and every single soul in the camp was walking around like a ghost. To boost morale, someone had passed around a few warm beers near the supply tents.

Diaz had slid one into your hand, giving you a tired pat on the shoulder. "Drink up. You earned it."

You had hesitated, looking down at the condensation on the can, before popping the tab. You drank exactly one. One single beer. It should have been completely harmless. Anyone would think a single drink would barely register.

Instead, twenty minutes later, you stopped talking. Completely.

Jack noticed first, which was alarming in itself because under normal circumstances, the two of you traded sharp barbs at least twice an hour. When the silence stretched too long, he looked over and found you sitting unusually still on a wooden crate. You were quiet. Way too quiet.

He walked over, blocking the dim light of the lanterns. "You good?"

You blinked slowly up at him, your head tilting at a strange, heavy angle. "...Mm."

It was the least convincing sound he had ever heard. Jack immediately crouched down in front of you, his medical instincts kicking in. He reached out, wrapping his fingers around your wrist to check your pulse, then used his thumb to gently lift your chin, inspecting your pupils.

"Diaz," Jack called out, his voice flat and dangerous. "What the hell did you give her?"

Diaz looked up from across the circle, his face turning pale with horror. "...A beer?"

Jack stared at him, his brow furrowing. "One?"

"Yes, just one!" Diaz protested, holding up a single finger defensively.

Jack looked back down at you, shaking his head in sheer disbelief. Blackout drunk from one standard beer. It was statistically unbelievable.

And then, somehow, it got worse. Because within thirty seconds, you became clingy. Dangerously clingy.

Jack started to stand up, intending to get you some water, but he immediately felt a heavy resistance. You had lunged forward, wrapping both of your arms tightly around his bicep. Before he could react, you leaned your head heavily against his shoulder, sighing contentedly as if it were the most natural pillow in the world.

"You’re comfortable," you mumbled into his chest.

Jack went entirely rigid, his arms freezing at his sides. "...What?"

"Warm," you added, tightening your grip and burying your face a little deeper.

Diaz nearly choked on his own breath, quickly covering his mouth to stifle a massive laugh. "Oh my god," he wheezed.

Jack snapped his head around, pointing a threatening finger at him immediately. "Not a single word, Diaz."

Unbothered by the tension, you squeezed his arm even closer to your chest. "I like this one," you said sleepily, your eyes closed.

Jack looked down at the top of your head, looking deeply, profoundly tired. "Fantastic," he muttered to himself.

After that historic evening, you were unofficially, but very strictly, banned from alcohol by the entire medical unit. Forever.

*****

PRESENT TIME

You sighed, remembering the old times with a sudden pang of nostalgia, before quietly slipping some cash across the bar to the server. "Ginger ale," you murmured, keeping your voice low. "In a whiskey glass."

The server glanced down at the generous tip, his lips curving into an immediate smile. "Coming right up."

Jack watched the entire exchange, leaning his hip against the bar. A familiar, mocking smirk pulled at his mouth. "Still pretending you can drink, I see."

You crossed your arms, lifting your chin defensively. "I can’t exactly look weak in front of the new hospital staff."

Something about your stubborn pride made Jack’s sarcastic expression soften, the sharp lines of his face relaxing. "You were never weak," he said quietly.

The weight of his words landed surprisingly hard, sending an annoying little jolt straight through your chest. But before you could even process it, he offered that familiar, stupid smile, turned on his heel, and walked away. You stood entirely still, watching his broad back disappear into the swirling crowd of the gala. It was deeply inconvenient how much an abrupt exit like that still had an effect on you, even after all these years.

You were still staring blankly into the crowd when Dana appeared at your side. Unfairly, she looked absolutely incredible tonight, carrying herself with the effortless grace of someone who actually belonged in a room filled with expensive champagne and high society. She glanced in the direction Jack had vanished, then slowly turned her head to look at you, her eyes narrowing with deep suspicion. "Hm."

You already knew exactly what that sound meant. "No," you said immediately.

"I didn’t even say anything."

"You were about to."

Dana plucked a fresh glass of champagne from a passing server's tray, taking a delicate sip. "I’m just wondering," she said casually, "whether you actually hate him or secretly like him."

You caught your breath, nearly choking on absolutely nothing. "What?"

"Because," she continued, waving her glass vaguely toward the crowd, "from an outside perspective, the chemistry between you two is exceptionally loud."

You snapped your gaze away, staring hard at the floor. "There’s no chemistry."

Dana gave you a flat, deadpan look. "Sure."

You let out a long, defeated sigh, your shoulders dropping. "It’s complicated."

"Oh, good," Dana said, her eyes lighting up. "My absolute favorite kind of answer."

Your fingers tightened around your whiskey glass of ginger ale. "It’s just... back in the army, he used to tease me constantly."

Dana raised an eyebrow, tilting her head. "Like, maliciously?"

"No." You shook your head once, trying to find the right words. Trying to explain the military version of Jack Abbott to someone who only knew him as a civilian doctor felt entirely impossible. "More like... he liked reminding me that I was younger. The senior staff always teased me." You paused, your voice dropping into a softer, quieter register. "Though nobody else really ordered me around."

"Why not?"

You looked down into your drink, swirling the amber liquid. "Because Jack usually got there first."

That admission made Dana’s eyebrows shoot up. "Oh."

You instantly hated that tone, the one that signaled sudden, unwanted realization.

"Do you like him?" Dana asked, her voice turning much gentler this time.

You went entirely quiet. It was the heavy kind of silence that usually answered a question far better than words ever could. Finally, you swallowed the lump in your throat. "I liked him," you admitted softly.

Dana blinked, picking up on the tense. "Past tense?"

Before she could press further, you let out a quiet, self-deprecating laugh through your nose. "The truly annoying part? I liked him before he even noticed me. It just made me more irritated."

Dana stared at you for a long beat, her expression softening into pure sympathy. "Oh, you are in so much trouble."

You frowned at her. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means," Dana said simply, "you never actually got over him."

She paused, clearly waiting for you to fire back with a fierce denial. Instead, you slowly set your glass down on a high-top table, your fingers lingering on the crystal. "I never said I was."

"If you liked him so much," she asked carefully, stepping closer, "why didn't you two ever...?"

The words trailed off, and the ambient music of the gala suddenly felt too loud, yet miles away. Your chest tightened. "Something happened," you said eventually, your voice barely audible over the chatter of the room.

Dana waited, keeping her gaze steady on you.

You looked down at your hands. "The explosion," you whispered, the memory hitting you with a cold wave of familiarity. "It took a part of us with it."

Jack losing his leg. The soldier you hadn't been able to save. The crushing weight of the guilt, the agonizing silence that followed, and the permanent distance that grew between you. Everything had changed in a single afternoon.

Dana studied your face for a second, seeing the ghosts in your eyes, and nodded once. She didn't ask any more questions. She knew where the line was.

You really should have gone home. That would have been the smart, professional thing to do. Instead, your eyes helplessly wandered across the crowded ballroom until they landed on Jack.

He was standing near the bar, deep in conversation with Dr. Al-Hashimi. They weren't standing too close, not inappropriately so, but there was an undeniable comfort to their posture. They looked easy together, like two people who shared a history and truly understood one another. For some deeply unreasonable reason, the sight made a sharp spike of irritation flare in your chest.

Dr. Al-Hashimi laughed at something he said, throwing her head back. Jack leaned a fraction closer, tilting his ear toward her to catch her words over the booming music.

You snapped your head away immediately. You did not care. You absolutely did not care.

Dana noticed anyway. "Oh," she said carefully.

"What?" you snapped, hating the pity in her voice.

"Jack and Dr. Al-Hashimi sometimes grab drinks after shifts," Dana said, keeping her tone light and casual. "She used to volunteer with Doctors Without Borders, too."

You blinked once, the words stinging more than they should have. "Oh. I see." Your voice sounded remarkably normal, which was a minor miracle given the unpleasant knot twisting tightly in your chest.

Doctors Without Borders. Field medicine. War zones. A shared history. It was funny, really, because you had all of that with him, too. You had worked directly beside him, followed him into active danger, stitched him up when he was bleeding, and trusted him with your literal life. So why had he never asked you to go to a bar?

The real whiskey had been sitting on the table for ten minutes, untouched and deeply tempting. You stared down at the amber glass. It was a bad idea, a truly terrible idea, but your emotions were entirely scrambled. Surely, now that you were older, a single drink wouldn't completely destroy you. You reached out and picked up the glass.

Across the room, Jack stood in the middle of a conversation he had entirely stopped listening to. Someone from hospital administration was drone-delivery a speech, Dr. Shen had just made a sarcastic remark, and a few people laughed. Jack nodded automatically, his mind completely elsewhere.

He frowned, a sudden prickle of unease washing over him. His eyes began to drift across the room, scanning the faces without even thinking about it. Where were you? The last time he checked, you were standing near the pillars with Dana. He scanned the crowd a second time, but came up empty. There were no sharp comments cutting through the air, no crossed arms, and no familiar looks of judgment aimed in his direction.

It felt entirely wrong. Without fully meaning to, he excused himself from the group and started walking. He pushed past the bar, navigated around the silent auction tables, and then he finally spotted you.

He stopped dead in his tracks.

Everyone else at your table was standing, laughing, and socializing. Meanwhile, you were slumped in a chair. One of your elbows rested heavily on the white tablecloth, your head leaning lazily against your palm. Your other hand was slowly dragging a silver fork back and forth against the fabric, your eyes completely glazed over and distant.

It was a look Jack recognized instantly. It was far too familiar.

Jack let out a heavy sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. Oh no. No. Absolutely not.

He stormed over to the table immediately. Dana looked up first, her eyes widening slightly. "Oh, hey, Jack."

Jack didn't even look at Dana; his sharp gaze was locked entirely on you. "Did she drink alcohol?"

Dana blinked, caught off guard. "Just a little bit."

Jack closed his eyes briefly, inhaling sharply, before letting out the long, exhausted sigh of a man who knew his night had just been hijacked. "She can't drink," he said flatly.

Dana frowned, crossing her arms. "What, is she allergic or something?"

"Worse," Jack muttered, stepping closer to your chair. "Alcohol is basically a neurotoxin to her brain chemistry."

Before Dana could ask for a medical explanation, you moved. Your movements were slow and fluid. You dragged yourself up from the chair, swayed slightly, and then leaned your entire weight directly against Jack's side. Your hands reached out, wrapping securely around his bicep, holding his arm tight against your chest as if it were a security blanket. It was pure muscle memory.

Jack went entirely rigid, his breath hitching. Dana froze, her jaw dropping slightly. Even Garcia, who had appeared out of nowhere holding a soda, stopped mid-sip and nearly choked.

You looked up at him, your eyes completely stripped of their usual sharp defenses. They were soft, heavily lidded, and quiet. "Jack," you murmured.

The entire table fell into a stunned silence. Jack looked down at you, his chest rising and falling heavily. For one ridiculous, terrifying second, his heart did something deeply inconvenient against his ribs. It had been years since you had said his name like that.

No "Abbott."

No biting sarcasm. No professional coldness.

Just Jack. Soft, familiar, and sounding exactly the way you used to when the chaos of the field got too loud.

Dana pressed her lips tightly together, desperately trying to stifle a massive grin. "Ow," she muttered under her breath, covering her mouth with her hand as she watched the display.

Jack snapped his head up, glaring at her. He did not appreciate whatever romantic narrative she was constructing in her head.

"Well, she obviously can't drive," Dana said, her voice shaking with suppressed laughter. "Take her home, doctor."

Jack looked back down at the top of your head, your face still buried contentedly in his suit jacket. "I could," he admitted slowly, "if I actually knew where she lived now."

Garcia raised her soda can, pointing toward the chair. "Check her bag."

Jack shifted slightly, trying not to dislodge you. "What's in the bag?"

"She keeps an emergency ID card in the side pocket," Garcia explained, her tone turning practical. "Emergency contacts, current address, medical info. She told us after a rough shift that if anything ever happens to her, it makes things easier for the paramedics."

Jack blinked, a quiet appreciation washing over him. That was incredibly smart. It was entirely, uniquely you.

Dana crouched down, unzipping your clutch and rummaging through it for a moment before pulling out a neatly laminated card. She handed it over to Jack.

Jack took the card, scanning the crisp text, and huffed a quiet laugh through his nose. Your apartment was barely a few blocks away from the hospital. No wonder you always managed to show up to emergency pages faster than anyone else. Strangely, holding the small, laminated piece of plastic reminded him vividly of military dog tags. It was simple, practical, and entirely prepared for the absolute worst. Very military. Very you.

He glanced back down at his arm. You were still clinging to him, completely unbothered by the conversation happening above your head, acting as if leaning against his chest in a crowded ballroom was the most natural thing in the world.

Jack slipped your ID card into his pocket and wrapped a steady arm around your waist to keep you upright. Yeah, this was definitely his problem now.

******

By the time Jack got you up the stairs to your apartment, you were barely conscious. You were half-asleep, leaning almost entirely into his side, and occasionally mumbling incoherent things that made absolutely no sense.

"You still alive there?" he muttered, shifting his weight to adjust his grip on your waist.

You let out a soft, garbled sound that could have meant yes, or perhaps no. It was entirely hard to tell.

Jack used his free hand to punch your emergency access code into the keypad, reading the numbers straight off the laminated ID card he had taken from your bag. The very second the door clicked open, a massive blur of fur came barreling down the hallway at full speed.

Riot.

The giant German Shepherd nearly crashed directly into Jack's shins, his tail wagging so violently that his entire hindquarters swayed with it.

"Well," Jack huffed, bracing himself against the doorframe to keep his balance. "Guess somebody remembers me."

Riot whined excitedly, pushing his wet nose right against Jack's knuckles. Jack crouched as low as his prosthetic leg comfortably allowed, using his fingers to scratch behind the dog’s oversized ears.

"How are you, buddy?" Jack murmured, a genuine warmth filtering into his tone.

Riot pushed even closer, leaning his heavy chest against Jack's knee. Still dramatic. Still clingy. Still the exact same Riot. Jack glanced up at your drooping form, still propped against his shoulder.

"I'm bringing your mom home safe, alright?"

Riot let out a short huff, sitting back on his haunches as if he thoroughly approved of the mission. Or perhaps he was judging the state you were in. It was hard to tell.

Getting you into the bedroom proved to be a much larger logistical challenge than Jack anticipated, mostly because your drunk self had completely abandoned all concepts of human coordination.

"You are completely impossible," Jack muttered, carefully guiding you downward until you sat heavily on the edge of the mattress.

You only blinked slowly up at him, your head tilting back. You were sleepy and quiet, looking nothing like the sharp, formidable surgeon who usually held court in the hospital hallways. Jack crouched down to slide the high heels off your feet, setting them neatly side-by-side beside the bed.

"There," he said quietly, straightening up. "You survived the gala. Barely."

He reached down and pulled the heavy blanket up to your shoulders. As he began to step back, your hand moved weakly across the mattress. Your fingers brushed blindly against the sheets, searching for something, a familiar restlessness taking over.

Jack frowned, pausing in the dark room. "What are you doing?"

Then, the realization hit him.

Back then. The military. You used to do this exact same thing. After the terrible nights, after the high-casualty shifts when the exhaustion became too heavy to carry, you would quietly steal his arm and use his bicep as a pillow, falling asleep right beside him while sitting on the dirt floor of the tent.

The memory hit him unexpectedly, soft and dangerously disarming. Before he could pull away, your fingers brushed the fabric of his sleeve, lightly tugging at the cuff of his suit jacket.

"I'm sorry, Jack," you murmured, your voice cracking with sleep.

His expression changed instantly, his jaw tightening.

You shifted your head slightly against your pillow, your eyebrows knitting together in distress. "I couldn't save you."

An absolute silence fell over the bedroom. The walls suddenly felt smaller, suffocatingly close. He knew exactly what you meant, even after all this time. The explosion. His leg. The blood on your hands. The chaotic aftermath and the crushing weight of a survivor's guilt that you never, ever talked about in the light of day.

Jack swallowed hard, the lump in his throat tighter than he expected. Even after all these years, you were still carrying the blame for something you had no power to stop. Something in his chest twisted painfully.

Slowly, he reached out, his thumb gently brushing a stray lock of hair away from your face. You looked younger when you were asleep, stripped of your armor, less guarded, and less angry at the world.

"I never blamed you," he said, his voice dropping to a rough whisper in the quiet room. His hand lingered against your hair for one brief, bittersweet second. "It was never your fault."

The words came easy, but they were entirely too late. Your breathing had already shifted into a deep, rhythmic pattern. You were fast asleep.

Jack stood there for a long moment, simply looking down at you and thinking. Maybe one day, when the ghosts finally stopped chasing you and you were truly ready, the two of you could finally talk about it properly.

Eventually, he turned and slipped toward the door, careful not to let his boots make a sound on the hardwood. "Alright," he muttered to himself, rubbing the back of his neck. "Time for me to get a cab."

A sudden, sharp tug at his trousers stopped him in his tracks. Jack looked down.

Riot had the cuff of Jack's suit pants clamped firmly between his teeth.

"Buddy," Jack warned, looking down at the dog.

Riot gave a low, muffled woof around the fabric.

"I have to go."

Riot only pulled harder, digging his paws into the floor.

Jack let out a long, defeated sigh. "You are unbelievably stubborn, you know that?"

The dog did not care in the slightest. In fact, he gave another firm tug, stronger this time. Jack nearly laughed out loud. Between the dog and his owner, it seemed stubbornness was a highly contagious disease in this apartment. Still, a quiet part of him had deeply missed this, the weird comfort of Riot's antics, a living reminder of a time before everything went wrong.

Eventually, he threw his hands up in surrender. "Alright. Fine. You win."

Riot released the fabric immediately, a clear look of victory in his dark eyes. Jack pointed a finger toward the living room. "I’m sleeping on the couch."

Riot offered a single, affirmative bark. A second later, the dog disappeared into the kitchen, returning moments later while dragging a spare throw blanket tightly in his jaws.

Jack blinked, completely stunned. "You're kidding me."

The dog dropped the blanket directly at Jack's feet. Jack looked genuinely touched, a soft smile breaking through his exhaustion. "You are way more considerate than your mother."

Riot gave a soft huff, as if agreeing, then turned on his heel and walked straight back into your bedroom. He leaped effortlessly onto the mattress, curling his large body into a protective circle right beside you.

Jack stared through the open doorway. "Traitor."

Riot cut his eyes back to him once, letting out a faint whine.

Jack narrowed his eyes at the dog. "I thought we were having guy time."

Another soft bark echoed from the bed. The translation was abundantly clear: Absolutely not. My shift is with mom.

Jack shook his head, a chuckle escaping him. "Fine."

He settled his frame onto the small living room couch, his prosthetic leg aching slightly from the long night. His expensive suit was entirely wrinkled, and his neck was going to be furious with him tomorrow morning, but as he pulled the dog-hair-covered blanket up to his chest, he realized he didn't really mind at all.

*****

Morning arrived with a painful, blinding vengeance. Your head throbbed to the rhythm of a steady pulse, and you groaned loudly, burying your face flat into the pillows to block out the sunlight. Why did your skull feel like an active construction zone?

Then, the memories began to patch themselves together. Your eyes snapped open.

Apartment. Bedroom. Riot.

Right. The charity gala. The single, solitary drink.

Oh no.

How exactly had you gotten home? Had Dana called an Uber? Had the hospital administration arranged transport for an incapacitated surgeon?

You sat up slowly, immediately regretting the sudden movement as a wave of nausea washed over you. Riot jumped off the bed, shaking his fur out, and followed closely at your heels like a furry, loyal bodyguard as you stumbled out of the bedroom.

You walked into the dining area and froze completely.

Sitting on the table was a fresh cup of coffee and a neatly closed takeout box from the bakery down the street.

"What?" you whispered to the empty room.

You stepped closer, your eyes catching a bright yellow sticky note slapped right onto the plastic lid. You picked it up, squinting at the sharp, masculine handwriting.

Since your fridge contains absolutely nothing useful, I bought breakfast. P.S. I put my number in your phone. — Jack

You stared at the paper, then stared harder, your brain struggling to process the signature. Jack? Jack Abbott had brought you home?

You grabbed your phone off the counter immediately, holding it up so Face ID could unlock the screen. "Oh my god," you muttered, realizing how he must have gotten into your device last night by holding it up to your sleeping face.

You tapped into your contacts, scrolling furiously down to the 'A' section. You paused, and then a helpless, breathless laugh burst from your chest.

Somehow, Jack had saved his own contact details under a very specific name:

🚑 Captain Chaos

You covered your burning face with both hands, shaking your head against your palms. "Oh, he thinks he's hilarious."

But unfortunately for your dignity, you were smiling.

Meanwhile, outside the main entrance of your apartment building, two nurses from the emergency pit slowed their steps on the sidewalk. They stopped entirely, their jaws dropping in unison.

Because walking out the front doors was none other than Dr. Jack Abbott.

He was wearing the exact same dark suit from the charity gala the night before, only now it was heavily wrinkled. His salt-and-pepper hair was significantly messier than usual, a paper coffee cup was clutched in his hand, and he looked suspiciously comfortable for a man walking out of a residential building at seven in the morning.

The two nurses exchanged a wide-eyed, terrified look of pure excitement.

"Oh my god."

"Absolutely not."

"Do you know who lives in this building?"

"Dr. L/N," the other whispered.

A heavy, thrilled silence hung between them for a fraction of a second.

"Oh, this is premium gossip."

And just like that, the rumor mill began to spin.

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