Booklover

“You’re shitting me,” Trinity says, her voice deadpan as she looks at the stick in her hand, the two pink lines present on the small digital screen. “You have to be shitting me. You’re pregnant?!” She looks up at you in disbelief, her eyes wide and gleaming with shock and yet a sort of pleasant glee. 

            “Is it that surprising?” you ask, your tone just slightly tense, just slightly offbeat, your mood high and happy and yet dark. You feel like you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop, for some bad news to arise. You feel like it’s going too well. 

            “No, not really,” she says, rolling her eyes even though the gesture is half-assed, still tinged with that shock running through those clear mahogany eyes. Those eyes that can never lie, have never been able to lie. Not to you. “You and Jack fuck like wild rabbits so one of those times you were bound to wind up a statistic of failed contraceptives.”

            “So, kind of you,” you reply, crossing your arms as you lean back against the bathroom sink, the granite top digging into your hip while she sits on the toilet seat lid, ankles crossed over ankles. 

            “Have you told Mr. Fiancé yet?” she asks and you sigh, gaze flicking up to the ceiling, the white popcorn texture shadowed by the light. 

            “I’m waiting until after his bachelor party. Don’t really want to spoil it and suffer through Robby’s whining all the way through to the wedding so…” you trail off, looking back down at her, at the way her lips are pursed as if she’s holding back a laugh, mirth glimmering in those eyes that you know almost as well as your own. 

            “You just don’t want to mess with Huckleberry’s first Vegas trip.” You can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of you, the way that Trinity knows you so well, has always known you so well. She knows you in a way that few people do—she knows every dark secret and thought that you’ve had and have, knows every fear and every dream. She knows because she’s been there since first year of medical school—eyebrow arched as always. 

            “Have you seen that boy? He could use some…exposure,” you reply and are delighted by the way her face twists into laughter, her body folding on itself as she snorts, head bopping in only the way she has, ponytail bouncing with the force. 

            “Well,” she says, regaining her composure, swallowing hard, her laughter and yours still echoing in the en suite bathroom. “You have to tell your mother at least. I am not putting up with Lena when she finds out you didn’t tell her right away. Because she’s vicious.” You sigh and glance down at your feet, at the socks designed to look like ice cream cones, a gift from Vicky for Galentine’s. 

            “How pissed would she be if I didn’t tell her until after the baby was born?” you ask and the only response you get is the choked snort of your best friend as it cracks into a belly laugh, the sound rich and deep as it echoes off the walls and the bathroom tiles, the echo making it octaves louder than it truly is. 

            “If you try that, you’re dead meat,” she tells you in between laughs, the stick still in her hand. 

            “Yeah,” you sigh again, one hand coming up and running through the strands of your hair with a violence that Robby would be proud of. “I was afraid of that.”

            You watch as your mom walks into the café, her bag over her shoulder, dark red hair pulled back in that ponytail she always has. You can see that her eyes are tired, bags under them from the lack of sleep, from the shifting of her hours for everyone else in the world but herself. But they still have that gleam in them—the one you remember from your childhood, the one that promised fun and love and acceptance. 

            You love her, your mom, Lena Handzo—the mother who chose you. You were a child abandoned by people who didn’t want you, put into the care of people who only took you in because they got paid to. You were a child who believed that they would never have anyone who chose them, who wanted them. You were a child that felt like a burden and then in walked a woman with red hair and a smile that spoke when she couldn’t. 

            “I’ve been waiting for my daughter,” she had said, crouching down before you, hands kept to herself as if she knew the fear and hope that had been warring within you. “And I think you found me.”

            And you thought she was right. You were her daughter—she chose you and you chose her. She wanted you; she loves you and she is here for you. 

            “Hey, sweetie,” she says now as she sinks down into the booth, her large bag moving to sit beside her, what appears like a change of clothes sticking out of the top of the old tote she’s had since you were a kid. “What’s up?”

            “If I tell you what’s up,” you begin, pausing, measuring your words carefully, thinking as best you can, a part of you ready to just blurt it out and another knowing this needs to be done properly. “Then you can’t freak out.”

            “Never a good lead up, kiddo,” she says, her eyes narrowing at you behind her black frame glasses, the size of which continues to get smaller the older she gets—she claims it’s an old lady thing. “But fine. Spit it out.”

            “I’m pregnant,” you tell her, laying your phone flat on the table, the screen unlocking with your face, the picture of the five tests that Trin made you take already up and there and visible for her. You can feel that tightness in your throat, that bit of anticipation as your heart rises into your throat, the muscles pulsing with every beat as you swallow, watching the way she takes in the photo. 

            In the fact that is displayed on a small little screen. 

            You can see when the knowledge settles on her shoulder, you can see the way she seems to melt, her shoulders sinking down and her lips quivering as they tilt upwards in a watery smile, her eyes glimmering with joy and tears behind her glasses as she looks up at you, drawing in a hard breath nasal breath, her nostrils contracting, pulled together as she flicks her gaze up and away for a moment, lips still quivering.

            “Mom?” you say, your voice cautious and tender and slightly fearful as her one lifts, shaking just slightly as she draws in another shaky breath, her hand going to rest over her mouth as a small cry escapes, echoing in the still air. “Say something, please.”

            “I’m so happy!” she cries, turning back to you completely, small tears falling from the corners of her eyes, trailing over her cheeks as she lowers her hand, taking both of yours in hers, the phone still sitting on the table. “I’m so happy for you, sweetie! How’s Jack? He happy?”

            “He doesn’t know yet,” you tell her, sighing, removing one hand from the warmth of her grip to run it through the strands of your hair, looking down at the stained and aged Formica tabletop. “I’m waiting until after his bachelor party. But I know he’ll be happy…right?” You look up at her, at your mother, finding peace in her smile as she nods, just once, the Mom kind of nod. 

            “Yes, sweetie. He’ll be happy, I’m sure. He loves you,” she says, her confident smile softening into a different kind of smile—the one a mother has when she is proud for her child, happy for her child. At peace because her child has the life she deserves. The love she deserves. 

            “Yeah, he does,” you say, a smile growing on your face at the thought of him, of Jack, your fiancé. At the image of him just this morning getting in, wearing his scrubs and a frown which brightened to a smile as he saw you, taking you in his arms and just holding tight to you, murmuring how much he loved you over and over and over. How lucky he was. 

            “Have you thought of names?” There is no waiting with your mother, she always cuts straight to the point, no dilly-dallying or hesitation. 

            “Mom!” you cry, sighing and rolling your eyes, wincing just a bit at the cluck of her tongue. 

            “I am your mother, do not roll your eyes at me, young lady!” And you can’t help the laugh that comes out, bubbling up your throat before entering the air, echoing through the coffee shop. Even more so when she joins in the laughter, her hand squeezing yours as the laughter turns to tears and she walks around the table to sit beside you, pulling you against her, tight and secure just as she’s done since you were a child. 

            Since she helped you beat the nightmares and the demons back with every time she said I love you, daughter-mine. 

            “This kid is gonna know—love,” you choke out around the lump of tears and mucus sitting in your throat, the one that makes it hard to breathe. “Right, Mommy?” You can feel her arms tighten around you as you cry soft tears with her, yours falling on her shirt and hers dripping into your hair, her chin on your head, your head on her shoulder. 

            “Yes. Yes, sweetie. Your kid is gonna know so much love that they’ll be…just sick of it. I know it, sweetie. You got so much love to give,” she says and you give one more choked sob, a thought rising and escaping from your mouth, voiced aloud and made real. Acknowledged. 

            “My kid will never have the feeling I did before you adopted me…they will always—always know they’re…wanted.”

            “See you in two days, Bluefire,” Jack says, pressing a kiss against your cheek, his hand resting on the dip of your waist, warm and sure and strong. “I’m gonna miss you.”

            “Oh, shut up,” you tease him, your hand finding his free one—the one not currently on you—and giving it a short, sharp squeeze. “You’ll be back before you know it and then we’ll be Mr. and Mrs. Handzo, right?” You can feel that sharp smile growing, the one that occurs when you’re teasing, when you’re analyzing, pranking or you know something no one else does. 

            “If that’s what you want,” he says, stepping closer, lifting your joined hands to his heart, “then that’s what we’ll have.”

            “Stop being so perfect!” you tell him, your voice only slightly irritated, mostly full of joy and happiness. A kind of happiness you used to think you’d never have, the kind that the fear of never being wanted said would be impossible. 

            Yet here you are—you have a mother and three best friends and a fiancé. Everything you thought you’d never have when you were five years old sitting on yet another bunk bed in the tenth foster home, your things in a trash bag tucked underneath the rickety metal frame, the sounds of other kids echoing, but not in a happy way. 

            Here you are, building a family. One step at a time. 

            And who knows. Maybe after your baby is born, you can do what you always wanted to do: adopt. Save kids just like you in the same way Lena saved you. 

            “Can’t help it, Bluefire,” Jack says again, leaning in and pressing a chaste kiss against your lips, yet still one that has the ability to steal the breath from your lungs at the same time that a horn sounds, long and loud and annoying. 

            “I think Robby has arrived,” you tell him as he pulls away, squeezing your hand one last time as he steps back and opens the door, stepping out onto the porch, a slight hitch in his step from his new prosthetic—after his old one cracked during a SWAT mission. “Have fun!” you call out after him, waving as he turns back to smile at you, taking a photo of you standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame. 

            “I will!” he replies, turning back around to Robby who has leaned across the passenger seat to pop open the door for Jack. 

            “Just not too much!” you yell out as your final note, crossing your arms, cold creeping into your body and down your spine the longer you stand on the porch. 

            “Love you too!” he yells and then the door is closed and Robby backs out of the driveway, turning onto the road and towards the airport. 

            “Thank god, they’re finally gone!” calls out an exasperated voice from somewhere behind you, the voice of one Victoria Javadi—your best friend since childhood. 

            “Wow,” you deadpan, turning back around to face her, one eyebrow arching as you look at her and her irritated expression. “I’m so glad my fiancé annoys the fuck out of you, Vicky. Makes me feel so great.”

            “Oh, shut it, kid,” your mom says, peeking her head out from the dining room, eyes narrowed at you in the way that only a mother has. “She wants to get on with your day.”

            “My day is like, nothing because I’m pregnant,” you counter, making sure to enunciate each word, clearly and cleanly for the both of them. 

            “That’s why she made me bring all of this shit,” Trin says, stepping out, her body half-behind Vicky and half-out, her hand holding a bag full of baby planning books. “Her goal is to pick your name options. Personally,” Trin says as you sigh, walking over to them, taking the first book that she hands you, “I think you should name this baby Trinity, but I’m just biased. Always wanted a kid named after me.”

            “Then have your own kid,” Vicky counters, the sentence making it impossible to stay straight-faced and the three of you burst out laughing as your mother clucks like a worried hen.

            “And here I was thinking you three had grown up,” Lena mutters and you can’t help but smile at her, the soft smile that you have—the one of daughter-mine as she calls you. 

            “We have, mother-mine,” you tell her, watching as her irritated face softens. “We just don’t always want to act the way we’re supposed to. There’s nothing wrong with staying young while you can. I’m not a mother yet.”

            The sound of the door opening was what woke you, the metallic clink of a key in a lock, a deadbolt sliding out of place, echoing through your living room, causing you to jolt to that state of conscious alertness, startled arousal. 

            You had fallen asleep while watching 10 Things I Hate About You, one of your comfort movies. The last thing you remembered was watching Kat dance drunk on the table, yet now the TV displays Mona Lisa Smile and your front door is opening, shuffled footsteps echoing in a way that makes your blood run cold. 

            You’ve dealt with too many patients, crying and shaking and aching in a way that will never really go away because of people who break into their homes, hurt them in not just physical ways, but the ones of the mind. The scars that never really fade, never really heal in any way that is true or tangible. 

            You don’t want that and it’s why you sit up, reaching underneath the couch for the baseball bat you keep there, something that can buy you time while you get to Jack’s safe, get his gun. You’re not going to be defenseless—if someone’s going to hurt you, they’re gonna have scars of their own. But as you tiptoe from the living room, through to the hall, baseball bat held aloft, ready to swing, to smash someone’s head in if you have to, you hear it. 

            The slurred words of a very drunk and very engaged man. 

            “Baby.” Your shoulders dip, the tension in your body unwinding, uncoiling, set back to normal as you let the tip of the bat fall, resting against your foot as you step out into the hallway, the sight of Jack further relaxing you in only the way that he has. 

            “Hey, Jackie,” you call out, leaning the bat against the hall wall, walking to him, ready to take his bag from him and help him struggle up the stairs, take his leg off and put on the cream, positioning the bucket by the bed so he doesn’t have to struggle with mobility when he’s sick. “Thought you were you were gonna take it easy.”

            “M’sorry, Diane,” he says, voice slurred, yet eyes open wide, focused on you, seeing but not seeing because that is not your name. That is the name of a dead woman. A woman who has had his love, who has been his love. A woman who is not you. 

            She was first and you are the one who comes after, but hearing her name leave his lips…hear her name from him as if it were yours makes you wonder if you’re coming after her at all. 

            Or if you’re just a living placeholder, a Barbie doll of wives. Dress you up and make you anyone. Dress you up and make you into the wife that was so that she can be again. 

            “Jack,” you whisper, your throat closing around his name, around your words as if it doesn’t want to let them out, doesn’t want to put truth to the fears. Doesn’t want to make them a reality. “I’m not Diane.”

            “’es, you are,” he says, stumbling forwards, falling just slightly but you’re there, right there, to catch him, arms under his armpits, looped up and around to his shoulders, palms flat on his back and even through the pain and hurt and anger running through you, his body is still warm, still solid and comforting. “You’re ma wife.”

            “Yeah, you’re right,” you sigh as his head rests on your shoulder, lolling just slightly as he laughs at nothing, walking with you as you lead him up and into your bedroom, setting him upon the bed, kneeling down before him and rolling up his pantleg. “I’m your wife.” You can’t say her name, can’t even put in your mouth, can’t feel the syllables. Not now. 

            Because it would feel too much like erasing yourself. So, instead you focus on removing his prosthetic, taking the ointment from the bedside table and applying it the end of his leg, right where the saddle for his leg rests, the adjustment period still ongoing, the skin rubbed red, making you wonder just how long he’s been on his feet, been drinking and dancing. 

            And for a minute, you wonder if there was anyone else he was calling Diane. Anyone else he mistook for her, the first woman he loved. 

            And the thing is, is you’re okay to be second place to her. You understand that he loved her first, that he loves her always. You like that, you like that he loves with all that he is, but that he has room for more. You just don’t want to be erased. 

            You don’t want to be a Barbie doll in your own marriage. You want to be yourself. Wholly and completely. 

            “Love you so much, Diane,” he murmurs, his hand coming to tangle in the strands of your hair, twining them round his fingers, watching the way they shift in the light. “O’ly one I’ll ever love.”

            And you bite your lip at his words, the sting of tears echoing through your body as your chest constricts with the held breath, lungs burning at the sob you hold back. Because Jack is tender, yes, but never like this. Never quite like this with you and even though you understand that Diane was his first love, his always love, you thought he loved you too. 

            Loved you in a way that matters. But maybe you were wrong…

            Or maybe it’s just hormones. You are pregnant after all and everyone knows that pregnancy does wild things to people. Especially in the first trimester. 

            At least, that’s what you tell yourself as you help him into bed, not bothering to help him change his clothes because you know that when he’s drunk, he’ll just fight you on it and think you want sex even though he can’t consent. So, all you do is roll his pantleg up, pinning it so that it doesn’t tangle, pull or hurt him. 

            And then you step back, lower lip wobbling, vision just a little blurry, a sob still sitting in the base of your throat, pressure on your lungs, on your windpipe, screaming to be let out. To be let out into the air, given weight in your reality. 

            But if you hold it in, then you can pretend this isn’t really happening. You can pretend that he’s seeing you when he looks at you with those perfect, warm hazel eyes and not her. The one who came before. 

            “Where you going, Diane?” Jack calls out just as you turn around, turn away, the tears slipping down your cheeks, rolling and stinging and drying you all the same. 

            “Gotta…uh get…cleaned up,” you say, the words thick and filled with quiet sobs as you swallow hard around the lump in your throat, swallow hard around the sob still waiting to be released. Still waiting for the fear to be acknowledged. 

            “Good plan,” you hear him murmur, the words not only slurred from alcohol but from sleep now, a fact confirmed when you glance over your shoulder, noting the way he’s dozing, half on his side, half on his back. “Love you, Di.”

            And that’s when you leave, shutting the bathroom door behind you as quietly as you can, the same bathroom where just three days ago you found out you were pregnant. The same bathroom where you, Vicky and Trin ended up the day Jack left, putting on face masks and coming up with names like Sammy if it’s a boy and Margot if it’s a girl. The same bathroom where you’ve been throwing up every evening, your morning sickness actually night sickness. 

            You stand at the sink, gripping the cold marble between your fingers, letting the tears fall and the sobs out, choked sounds echoing in the room. Choked sounds of not being seen. The sounds of someone still harbouring those fears of the child who thought they could never be wanted. 

            Who thought they didn’t deserve a family because they weren’t wanted in the one they should have had in the first place. 

            The sobs you let out rip from your throat, leaving it red and raw but my no means empty, the feeling of thickness and tears, mucus and despair still there as your eyes continue to water, tears sliding down your cheeks, salt tracks in their wake, your nose following suit as you sob. 

            Because you thought you’d found someone who saw you, but you can’t help but wonder if he ever really saw you at all.

            Or if maybe he saw Diane all along. 

            In the light of the morning sun, your fears don’t seem as heavy, don’t seem as possible. They seem like a hormonal pregnant woman overreacting, taking her childhood fears to adult ones with the snap of a finger because of one drunken moment. 

            You tell yourself it’s nothing as you set about brewing a pot of coffee, popping protein Eggos into the toaster after the two pieces of toast you’ve made for Jack, accompanied by the gallon jug of water and the mug of coffee. It’s waiting at his spot for him while you take in a deep breath, plating the waffles when the toaster dings, pouring your coffee into your cup, adjusting it the way you like it and waiting for Jack to emerge. 

            Which he does with stumbling steps, his eyes heavy and tired as he steps forth, squinting at the bright lights of the kitchen. 

            “Morning, Abbot,” you say, your voice purposefully loud, a sadistic part of you delighting in the way he flinches at the sound, his hands going to his temples, blocking out the light and noise. “How was Vegas?”

            “What happens in Vegas,” he says, his voice hoarse and husky, no doubt from the vomiting at 3 AM and the off-key singing he did at midnight, “stays in Vegas.”

            “So, I’ve been told,” you tell him, nodding at his spot at the table where he sinks, groaning at the comfort of the chair, but wincing at the sight before him—the food and hydrants. “Now, you’ll eat the toast and drink the water for sure. Coffee’s optional.”

            “You’re one cruel woman,” he mutters and if it had been any other morning, you would have laughed it off, but you can’t. Not today. Not after last night when the fears only feel a little bit too much, not entirely wrong. 

            Not entirely false. 

            “I have a question for you,” you tell him and he looks up as he takes a bite of the slightly burned toast, exactly the way he likes it, something you learned in the two years of being with him. 

            “Shoot.”

            “Do you want kids?” You know he’s hungover which is exactly why you’re asking now because he’s honest when he’s drunk and he’s honest when he’s hungover. He’s not always honest sober. 

            “What?” he asks, the word just slightly slurred from the toast in his mouth, the bread he’s chewing and swallowing, the path easily tracked down his throat. 

            “You heard me. Do you want kids?”

            “No,” he says and the response is fast in the way that truth is, not the way that conditioned responses are. “Diane and I missed our window so why would I have any now?” You know right then that last night was him being honest in the way he is when he’s drunk. 

            You’re his fucking Barbie doll wife. 

            Just dress her up and play pretend. You’ll almost never know she wasn’t your real love. 

            “What about adoption?” It’s the final card. The one you know will tell you what will happen next. The ball is in his court even if he doesn’t know it yet. 

            “What?! No…just…leave me be! I’m hungover. Jesus Christ.” And you nod, standing from the table, leaving your breakfast and coffee behind, trying to act as normal as possible as you press a kiss to the top of his head as you pass and he touches your hand gently and then you’re gone, locked in the main bathroom, your phone in your hand. 

            And you send one text into the group chat Vicky insisted on setting up three days ago—the one with her, Trin and your mom. 

            You send just one:

I need out.

            And this is why you love them. Why they are your family even when the idea of the family you were building is crashing down around you with the idea of being Jack’s fucking Barbie. 

            You love them because of many things, but mainly because they answer. Each of them. The same sentence. Just one. 

Then we get you out.

            To them it’s that simple: you need out. They’ll get you fucking out. Because they love you too and it’s a love that doesn’t let you down. It’s one that doesn’t pretend. Doesn’t play dress-up and lie and make you feel like you’re special when you’re just mannequin chosen to superimpose her image over you. 

            It’s not a love that is designed to erase you. 

            It’s one designed to shout your name from the rooftop. Do stupid shit for you. Make you known. 

            It was almost scarily easy how they got you out. Vicky made calls and your mom made calls, an immediate transfer passed, moving you to a New York City trauma centre ED, day shift. Trin showed up as soon as Jack left for a suit fitting, helping you pack you stuff up in boxes and get it out of the house, Dennis helping. 

            They packed you into a U-Haul and each took three days off to help you move, to help you shift your life into a different city, different state. Different everything. 

            But they left you alone enough to write your goodbye letter. The one where you told Jack everything about how you felt. 

            Just leaving out the baby growing within you. If he didn’t want children, he wouldn’t have one. He didn’t need to know. 

            It’s not like he would want to be a part of their life anyways. And then you took your engagement ring off and placed it on top of the letter, leaving it in clear view on the dining room table. Precisely where he’d find it when he came home. 

            And then you got the hell out of there. 

Dear Jack,

I’m sorry that it’s ending like this. I want to say I’m sorry it’s ending at all, but that would be a lie. It would be a lie because I’m fucking hurt. Because you don’t see me. 

I don’t know what you see when you look at me sober, but I know that when you’re drunk you don’t see me at all. You see Diane. I thought, at first, that that was the first time you saw her in me, but Dennis was quick to disabuse of that notion. He said it happened more than anyone would like to admit. 

When we first met, you called me Wildfire, remember? Called me that because I was feisty and strong and smart and ready to set people right when they were wrong. And I countered you and said that I wasn’t a wildfire because I was more controlled than that. I said that I was more like the hotter parts of fire, the one you can still see. The blue flame. 

And then you called me Bluefire. 

And when you did, I thought that meant you saw me, but I see now, I was wrong. You saw someone strong enough to not break when you made them your Barbie. Your Build-a-Bitch. Great song by the way, recommend it. But…you saw someone similar enough to her to become her in a way. 

And I’m not her. 

I’ve lived my life with this fear that I’m not enough. That I won’t get a family, that I don’t deserve it. That I don’t deserve to be seen. It comes from my past, from being that five-year-old whose grown up in a system designed to destroy. It comes from being abandoned by people who never wanted you in the first place but carried it through because it was the right thing to do. It comes from being someone who was never chosen…Until Mom, of course. But I live with that fear, even being chosen, even having that life, I still have that fear. It doesn’t go away. 

It can’t. It’s who I am, it’s a piece of me. I thought when I found you, that you understood. That you saw me, your Bluefire. Dr. Handzo. Me. But you didn’t. You saw her. 

I don’t begrudge you that, Jack. I just wish I’d known how much it would hurt to find out the way I did. I’m sorry for what it’s worth that it’s ending like this. But I deserve someone who sees me. 

And you deserve to see someone. It wasn’t me but they’re out there. For both of us. I know it. That’s another thing—you have hope when you’ve been on that bed with your stuff in a trash bag. You hope because it’s all you fucking have.

So, I hope they’re out there for us. I hope we find them. We deserve that. And don’t worry about the wedding costs. The venue paid us back, deposits there are returned until the actual day and your suit is returnable…unless you want to keep it for some reason. The ring is yours. Not mine. I took all my stuff; there’s nothing for you to do. I took care of it. 

Good luck, Jack. I love you. I think I always will…maybe…maybe you’re my Diane. Who knows. 

But goodbye. 

Good luck. Don’t hate me, please. 

Love,

Your Bluefire. 

            Jack came home to an empty house, the kind of empty that rings with the echo of a previous presence, a presence that’s now gone. Gone completely and totally. Irreversibly. He came home to a coat room that had none of your shoes, none of your coats. A living room that was devoid of your trophies and trinkets. A kitchen that had only his plain glassware and cutlery, all your novelty or special ones were gone. 

            Except the ones you’d given him. Like the mug which said Power tools? I think you mean arms, a picture of his bicep on it, one you made and one which made you laugh when you’d given it to him. Just laughed in a way that he loved, that he wanted to see always, that had rung through him. 

            He came home to a house that was empty of you. Everything of yours was gone, from the bedroom and the bathrooms and the closets. Every single thing that was yours was gone. 

            And that was when he found the letter. The ring. And he read it, every word, took note of every tear stain, of every place you’d written so hard that there was a hole. He took note of every emotion that must have been running through you as you wrote it. He took note of it all. 

            And then he lost it. 

            He lost it because you were wrong. So horribly wrong. He did see you, he always had. He just didn’t always know how to express that. He thought marrying you would show you, that being yours in name and body and soul showed you that. He thought that waking you every morning saying I love you did that. He thought everything he was doing was showing that to you. 

            Only for him to find out that it didn’t. 

            And to find out in a fucking letter. He thought he deserved a face-to-face conversation, a sit-down talk, one where you could reason through those things destroying you and him and the two of you, the us that you had. A talk where you could salvage what was, could see the truth. 

            The truth that he loved you. That he saw you. That he’d do anything to have you understand that, to understand just how much he saw you. Just how much he loved you. 

            Because he does, love you that is. With all that he is, with all that can be. He felt that life had been rote, just a set of actions that had to be done, death a grand temptation—until you. 

            You had walked into the ED on a stormy day, looking like the sun for all the world, like a blazing fire, warmth and light and life with a darker centre. A sharpness, a wildness. You had walked in and suddenly life didn’t so rote anymore. 

            It seemed worthwhile for the first time in seven years, for the first time since he held Diane’s hand as she drew her last breath, cancer having whittled her away to nothing. It seemed worthwhile because you made everything around you bright and warm and he had been cold for too long. 

            And now you were gone and the room was cold. The house was cold, the whole fucking world was cold and dark and he felt alone for the first time since that day three years ago when you walked in with that smile, the smile that made everything less. Everything lighter. 

            He reads the letter again, the tears pouring down his face, streaming, falling onto the paper, landing on the marks that were once yours, the last joining he’ll really have with you. And as he reads, he notices everything. It’s like he can see those instances before him as if they’re playing out before him. 

            He can see those drunken moments when past and present seemed to verge into one, becoming what was there. He can see those mornings when he was hungover and snappy and irritated. He can see those moments when it seemed like he looked through you and not at you. He can see the toll his mistakes took, the way you seemed to dim. 

            The way loving him took just a bit of your life away, a bit of your warmth. The way his love began to choke you, block the oxygen from your flame, slowly starving you away. 

            And he loses it, but not in anger. Instead, he holds your letter in one hand, the paper crumpling in his fist, the mug of his arm in the other, your laughter still ringing through the halls as he cries, tears fast and slow, hard and soft. He cries and lets the tears fall, his muscles spasming, pain shooting through the leg that was but never will be again. He cries and can feel the way his throat becomes hoarse, lungs start to burn and heart beat fast. He cries and it’s in those moments of weakness that the mug slips from his fingers and falls onto the porcelain, shattering. 

            The pieces of porcelain shatter into a million pieces, some large, some small, some so tiny that he can’t even see them. It’s then he understands. 

            The relationship didn’t break loudly like the glass, it broke in little ways, a million microscopic pieces breaking off amid every small little trouble and when it broke in a big way, like the way that made you leave, there is no putting it back together. 

            Because you’re missing all those little pieces that you didn’t even realize were gone. 

            Until you try to put it back together and nothing fits quite right. 

            “Lena! Lena, listen to me,” Jack yells, his voice echoing and cracking in his house, the house still ringing with your absence. “I need to talk to her! Lena!” He can feel that rage building in him, the helpless kind. The kind that chokes and kills and injures the one who feels it because it just seems to shut you down. 

            “Listen to me, Jack Abbot,” Lena says, her voice calm and low, quiet in an eerie, dangerous way. “I will be nothing but civil to you at work, but if you ask me about my daughter again, I will be going Mama Bear on you and you do not want to see my claws.”

            And then the line goes dead and he pulls the phone from his ear, looking at his lockscreen, at the photo of you that you didn’t know he had taken. A photo of you standing at the nurse’s station, caught midlaugh, looking for all the world like the sun. 

            His sun. 

            The light he took for granted never thinking it would be gone. 

            “Hi, Diane,” Jack whispers as he maneuvers himself to the ground, crossing his one leg, stretching out his prosthetic, taking it as he sits before the gravestone Diane had picked out during her hospice days. A simple arch, her name inscribed with her favourite quote—All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his act being seven ages.

            He had wanted something better, something that seemed more her, but she had fought him on it, asking him what was more of an English teacher than a Shakespeare quote. And he had said nothing because it was her grave, her death. Her remembrance.  

            You had said once that you wanted twin graves with whoever you loved. You said you wanted them like J.R.R and Edith Tolkien, the character inscriptions they had. You said you wanted people to know that in your life, you had love. The kind that lasts. The kind that heals. The kind that defies all odds. And then you had laughed, said that was impossible, just the ramblings of a hopeless romantic. 

            He had told you he loved you then. And then he had kissed you, the first kiss you two had shared, one sweet and unsure and unsteady, yet all the more perfect. One that tasted like the raspberry on your tongue. 

            A kiss he could still taste now. 

            “I know I’ve been gone a bit. I’ve been busy…planning my wedding that is now off. Remember when we were planning ours? How we decided it was too much hassle and just had a courthouse wedding? You wore a pantsuit and we didn’t even have our parents there…they were so pissed but we…we were happy. I remember that most of all. How you had laughed…how you smiled. I thought I was the luckiest guy in the world to have you smile at me like that. And I still do. I was lucky that I got to love you…but I don’t love you like I did then.

            “I fucked up, Di. I fucked up the relationship I had, the love I had because I feel guilty. I feel like I shouldn’t feel as much love for her as I do because of you…because…I had a love, you know?...I don’t want to…to make this, us, nothing, you know? But because of that guilt, I’ve fucked up a relationship that means everything to me. 

            “I feel guilty even saying that, but Di…I love her in a way I never loved you. I loved you like my equal, like my partner and I love her like she’s everything. And yet…yet I fucked it up because I felt so wrong for it, because I held onto you. I mean…fuck, I still have your ring around my neck on a chain. And she…she didn’t even care. She used to say she understood that you had been first, so of course I’d always love you. 

            “She’s fucking everything and I broke her heart because I couldn’t just talk to her. I lost her because I couldn’t communicate. I couldn’t tell her that I felt like I was betraying you or making our relationship…less. I broke her heart and yet she did everything she could to make her leaving even easier on me. How perfect is she, honestly? She seems impossible, like a dream but I know she’s real. I know she’s real because somehow she feels realer than anything in my life before.

            “And I fucked it up. And god…Diane…I don’t know what to do! That’s…that’s what I wish you were here for…so you could tell me what to do. How to fix it…because I think…maybe, I can’t. I wish you were here…not to love youthis time…but just so you could tell me what the hell to do! To do to get her back! Because Diane…I love her. So much. Impossibly much. And all I want is her back and I know one thing you would tell me to do so…I think it’s time, Diane. 

            “I think it’s time you have your ring back,” he finishes, the tears still pouring down his face, hot and heavy and drying as he removes the chain from around his neck, the one where he’s had Diane’s wedding ring resting since she’s been gone, that last bit he’s been unable to give up. 

            He digs into the ground before her gravestone, just deep enough that he can bury it again, laying the woven sterling silver band down and covering it with the dirt, a single red rose laid over to cover it. 

            And then he pulls your engagement ring from his pocket, slipping it onto the chain and clasping it around his neck. 

            “Bye Diane,” he says and then he rises, brushing the dirt from his knees, tucking the chain beneath his shirt and walking off, holding tight to the last piece of you.

            He just wishes he didn’t have to lose you to realize how much he loves you. 

            New York is a lot. 

            It’s big and busy and crowded and yet empty at the same time. It’s quiet and it’s noisy and it never sleeps yet is in bed by nine o’clock. It’s restless and reckless and yet overly cautious. And you love it. 

            You feel alive in a way you didn’t back in Pittsburgh. You feel alive because you’re home. 

            “I still can’t believe Lena never sold this place,” Vicky says, her hands trailing over the wall, her fingers marking every notch your mom made your first two years as her daughter when the two of you lived here, in this house. The notches of your height, your childhood playroom still filled with your toys and the photo albums of your childhood where every awkward phase is perfectly captured. 

            “Mom says it’s too special. It was her parent’s and now hers and…she wants it to be mine one day,” you reply, turning, two glasses of iced water held tight in your hand, perspiration slicking against your skin. “And I’m glad. I love this place.”

            “It’s home, right?” Victoria asks, her voice softer than normal. Delicate and fragile in a way she hasn’t been in a year. Not since Pitt Fest. 

            “Yeah,” you whisper, looking around the room, taking in every inch of the kitchen. The kitchen where your first full day as a Handzo had taken place, your mom asking you if you wanted to help her bake some cookies. 

            You had never been asked that before. You’d never had homemade cookies, period. 

            “Why?” Vicky asks you, her voice still fragile but with an undercurrent of anger in it. As if she’s angry that you don’t consider the place you really grew up, grew up with her, home.

            “Because this was the first place I had a family,” you tell her and you can see the way she softens, that small, delicate smile blooming as she takes one glass from you, her fingers brushing yours in a tender, familial way. “Pittsburgh was just the place where it got bigger.”

            “And New York is where you’re expanding it again,” she says and you can’t help the soft smile that blooms on your face as you look down at your stomach, the one just barely showing now at the three-month mark, your hand coming to rest on it, rubbing a small circle on the bump where your child grows. 

            “Yeah, it is. In the same place it started.” And you feel that lump in your throat, the one that’s never far away these days because you miss Jack. You miss the way he held you, his grip firm and soft at the same time, comforting and steady. Guiding when you felt like you were lost. 

            But guiding you to what?

            “How’s the ED here?” Vicky says, her voice enough to draw you from the slight image forming of Jack, his smile and the way his eyes though always tired seemed to gleam. 

            “Pretty good,” you tell her. “We get way more traumas through. Like…a lot. Maybe not like more, but a decent amount. And the other residents are awesome. Not like my Pittlings but…they’re pretty damn nice.”

            “Just don’t go replacing us, alright? Trin will kill you if she loses her godmother status to one of the New Yorkers,” Vicky says and you sigh, lifting the sweating glass to your lips and taking a swallow, the feeling of the ice water easily tracked as it slides down your throat, cooling your insides, causing a shiver to run through you. 

            “You guys are my family,” you tell her. “They’re just my friends.” And there’s nothing else you need to say because Vicky gets it. She always has, since the day you met her in the PTMC daycare—a crying two-year-old that exasperated the daycare attendants. The crying two-year-old that stopped when you cared for her. 

            The now twenty-one-year-old who still needs your shoulder when she cries. The sister you chose, the sister who chose you—whose shoulder is there for you. 

            Trinity gets it too. She gets it because she was the twenty-two-year-old M2 you ran into when you were late your first day who told you chill, I’ll get you where you need to go, kiddo. The older sister who just knew that you needed someone to look out for you, the way you look out for everyone else. 

            And Dennis, sweet little Dennis, understands too. Because he is your brother, the one you call your twin. The boy who asked you for your number after your first class together first day of med school and then blushed so furiously when he realized it seemed he was asking you out and he clarified that he needed a friend. 

            And you took him under your wing. How could you not?

            They understand because they know that family is not the blood, but rather the ties that bind and the four of you are so tightly woven that there is no untangling. 

            You’re bound for life. A family. 

            “Take a break, Jesus,” Antony cries out, his face twisted in exhaustion as he bends at the waist, hands on his knees, sucking in a deep breath. “How do you just keep moving?! You’re pregnant!”

            “As if I don’t fucking know, Ant,” you reply, one hand on your lower back, the other on your stomach, the weight of your bump growing heavier and heavier as the weeks go by. It’s one thing to objectively know that babies grow fast and grow heavy, but it’s another thing to experience it. 

            “Just saying!” he retorts, his eyes twinkling as he rises, his lips curving into a mischievous smile, one that you recognize as trouble. You’ve found that four months is enough to learn the language of someone’s smile. Especially someone as easy to read as Antony. 

            “What’s your aim here?” you ask him, taking the iPad that Charge Nurse Ava hands you, her head jerking in the direction of Central 2. 

            “I need someone to come with me to the gay bar on third! Just so I know if the guy I’m meeting with is going to kill me or not, pretty please,” he says and you glance at the iPad, taking note of the case—bowel issue—and back at him. 

            “Take this case for me and we’re good,” you tell him, giving him a sweet smile, one that’s saccharine with how sweet yet he doesn’t notice, simply takes it from you, mouthing thank you until he takes note of the chart. 

            “Shit,” he hisses, looking back up at you and shaking his head. “I’m never falling for that again.”

            “Too late.”

            Jack doesn’t even take notice of the sunset as he steps into the hospital, backpack over his shoulder. He doesn’t say hi to Robby or Dana or any of the Pittlings. He doesn’t do his old Nightcrawler chant. He doesn’t do anything he used to do. 

            Because the world is dark and cold and you are gone. Four months. Four months without your warmth, but he will go a lifetime without it so long as he can hold onto that little bit of hope inside of him. 

            The hope that you come back and he can win you over again. 

            “Jesus, Trin,” you hiss as you open the door, exposing her standing there on your porch, laden down with a bright blue bag so full that baby things are peeking around the zipper. “What the hell is all this?”

            “You’re having a boy,” she says, pushing past you, mindful of your five-month bump. “Which means we need to begin planning how to make him a good guy now. And I have to be the best aunt which means if I have to physically fight Crash, I will.”

            “You sure are dedicated,” you tell her as you shut the door, locking it and sliding the deadbolt into place along with the safety chain and the special snib lock. “But you know I’m alright, right?”

            She looks back at you, one eyebrow arched and lips pursed in that expression she has that calls bullshit, but you can see the slight wobble in her lip and the sadness in her eyes. This isn’t about your son; this isn’t about being the best aunt. 

            This about you being gone. 

            “Come here, Trin,” you whisper, opening your arms wide and she doesn’t hesitate, just runs and wraps her arms around you, the only person she can be tender with, the person who knows all her scars and loves her not despite them, but because of them—because they’re a piece of her. 

            “I just fucking miss you,” she cries, her body hiccupping with sobs as she holds tight to you, her tears soaking into your graphic tee. 

            “I miss you too. So much.”

            “Mother,” you say, tone stern as Lena falls quiet. “I am fine. Please do not transfer up to New York. I am handling pregnancy quite well on my own.”

            “I’m taking two months sabbatical for your birth though. Non-negotiable. I will be there for you to break every bone in my hand. I will be there so you’re not alone, okay? You need someone and I’m not missing this, sweetie,” she says and you feel like crying because how did you get so lucky to get a mother like this. 

            “Deal,” you whisper around the lump in your throat. “I don’t want to be alone for it.”

            “And you won’t be.”

            What can Jack say about his life?

            It’s empty and it’s lonely and it’s cold. It’s dark and it’s cramped and it’s horrible because you’re not in it. 

            He’s realized these past seven months that he hadn’t seen you. Not really. Because he missed all the little things. All the small things you did that seemed to brighten a room. That seemed to warm it from the inside out. That seemed to fix it. 

            He realized that he’s only seen the outside part of you. The curated sunshine for everyone’s benefit. But as he overhears Santos and Javadi and Whittaker talking about you, about what they’ve done with you in New York, he realizes that he missed seeing a whole version of you. 

            He didn’t see you when he had you. 

            He’s only seen you now that you’re gone.

            “MOM!” you cry, your gaze locked on the puddle underneath you, the one glimmering in the lights, the one that’s sticky on your legs, caused by that contraction. “MOM!”

            “What’s wrong, sweetie?” she cries, bursting into your room, her hair coming loose from her ponytail as she takes in the puddle, in you and she just nods. “Okay.”

            And then she guides you to the car, grabs your go-bag and drives you to the hospital, guiding you into the wheelchair, wheeling you up to the maternity floor herself. 

            She’s there when they get you in a bed. She’s there as the contractions grow closer and closer. She’s there as they rip through you, her hand in yours, voice calm as she tells you that you’re wonderful and perfect and she loves you and she’s there. 

            She’s there as the doctor guides you through the birth. She’s there as you push your baby into the world. She’s there as you hear his first strangled cry. She’s there as they cut the umbilical cord. She’s there as you hold your son for the first time. She’s there for it all. 

            Because you’re her daughter. 

            Where else would she be but with you?

            Even when the only person you want beside you is the person who broke your heart in the first place, the person with those steady hazel eyes and the smile of a thousand stories. 

            You want Jack.

            “Sammy,” you whisper, lifting the bundled baby from his crib, his cries ripping through the still air of your house, where just you and him live. “Sammy, bud, Mommy’s here. Mommy’s not going anywhere.”

            It’s while you cradle him to your chest, his cries softening as you rock him and hold him and sing to him that you wish Jack were here, not for the first time, just behind you, his hand on your shoulder and the other on Sammy’s head as he whispers calm down, bub. We’re not going anywhere. 

            “He’s a little terror,” you tell Dennis as you lean back against the couch, your feet on Trinity’s lap, Vicky in the kitchen while Dennis plays with Sammy on the floor, race cars zooming around your chubby little son. 

            “He’s an angel,” Dennis counters—precisely as Sammy runs the car over his little toy with shocking force. Enough that Dennis cries out. “Maybe…a fallen angel.”

            “Not for me,” Trin says. “But that’s cause I’m a cool aunt.”

            “You’re not a normal aunt; you’re a cool aunt!” Vicky calls out as she steps into the room, Jones’ sodas held in her hands as she passes out the flavours, the four of you cracking them open and reading the fortunes in the lid while Sammy giggles at his race cars. 

            “’You will grow to love yourself’,” Trin says, snorting as she takes a swig of the cream soda. “I already did.”

            “’Take joy in the small moments’,” Dennis reads and he screws the lid back on, setting the bottle aside as he lifts Sammy up and onto his lap, looking over you and Trin and Vicky. “I think I am.”

            “’Understand that you are you’,” Vicky says and she sighs, leaning back in the recliner, smiling at the three of you. “I understand.”

            And you look at your fortune, heart stuttering just a bit at the words. “’Remember that perceptions in love matter. Not everyone sees it all the same’.”

            And you can’t help but think of Jack.

            Jack loves you. 

            That’s all he really knows these days. These years that you have been gone. He loves you, every bit of you, every scrap of an update that he over hears. Every piece that he remembers. 

            Every piece that was. 

            He just loves you. 

            And he’ll do anything to get you back. 

            The email sits before you, the job offer to be an attending back in Pittsburgh. Back in the PTMC at the ED. The place you’ve wanted to work since you arrived there with your mother all those years ago, your things in cardboard boxes in a professional moving truck, objects that belonged to you and not just clothes that you needed. 

            “What do you say, bud?” you ask your little boy, now turned two. “Should we move…home?” And when he claps twice and giggles you take it as a sign. 

            You accept it. 

            “Don’t worry about hand-offs this morning, kid,” Robby says, his voice familiar to you, the only ex of your mother’s that ever actually cared for you. “I know you don’t wanna see him.”

            “Robs,” you sigh, looking away out your window, the house you share with your mother since she insisted you needed help watching Sammy even as you’ve managed on your own in New York. “I’ll have to see him eventually.”

            “But you don’t have to on your first day back,” he counters and you can’t argue with him, simply shrug and look down at your interlaced hands, the baby monitor not far away as Sammy snoozes. 

            “Okay,” you say and then Robby is there, pulling you into a hug, one that’s strong and steady and reminds you of when you were ten and your mom had already been divorced twice and she was dating Robby and he understood. 

            He understood that you and Lena were a unit, that no one came before you for her because you were her child. And he put you first. 

            And now, as you return the hug with the first man whose been like a father to you, you wonder if he still is. 

            “Jesus,” you hiss, rolling your shoulders, the muscles aching from the day you’ve had. The day of rolling people and doing chest compressions and working within the small budget. “New York had way more tools.”

            “Only because you were at that fancy one,” Dennis reminds you and you can’t help but stick your tongue out at him as you lean against the counter, the two of you the attendings for the day, Trin off and Javadi still in residency. 

            She chose the ED when she had a pregnancy case. She told you she couldn’t stop wondering what if that had been you? Someone needs to be there for them. And she can be that. 

            “The fancy one was wonderful and god, I miss it,” you reply as you lean against the nurse’s station, observing the chaos of the Pitt, the day shift. “I’d be home by now with Sammy there.”

            “Can you shut up about New York?” he asks you and you look over at him, one eyebrow arched as you take in his appearance, the pinched expression and the sad gleam in his eyes. You know that New York didn’t just save you from seeing Jack, it also hurt the people that you love because you were always there and then suddenly you weren’t. 

            “No,” you tell him, sliding along the station to be right beside him, your arm up against his as you look at him, your brother for all intents and purposes, the one you can call at 3AM because you’re freaking out about a baby temperature. “Because it happened. I lived there, I worked there and I’m only just back, but Den…this place is home.”

            “Glad to hear that kiddo,” you hear Dana say and you glance over your shoulder, taking in your aunt—Dana Evans ne Handzo, one of three daughters. 

            “I literally told you that yesterday, Auntie,” you reply and all she does is let out that laugh of hers, the husky smoker one as she steps around to stand in front of you and Dennis, her lips curved up in that smile she has, the one that says I love you, you annoying bastards. 

            “It’s nice to hear it though,” Dennis whispers and then you can feel his arm around your shoulder and you lean into him, your head resting on his chest as you sigh just slightly, looking up at the display board, the time 7:00 PM and the names of patients in their bays.

            “Just tell me when you need to hear it,” you whisper and the squeeze on your upper arm from his hand tells you that he understands. “Now, where the hell is the night shift?”

            “Behind you, bitch.” You can feel a smile grow on your face, the one that you try to suppress but can’t, the full expression their as you take in the sight of Parker, their face twisted into faux-outrage, but really just happiness. 

            “Nice to see you too, Ellis,” you reply, crossing your arms over your chest and raising your brows as they drop their bag and step to you, arms open wide. In a gesture you return, the embrace calm and steady and everything you’d missed. 

            “Missed you,” they say into your hair and all you do is squeeze them in reply. Because you don’t think you can reply, you don’t think you can speak around that lump in your throat, the one that’s hard and salty like the tears that burn your eyes. 

            “Save some of that for me!” calls the voice of one John Shen. You pull back from Ellis and shake your head at him, before lifting one arm and gesturing him over, wrapping him in a hug, one that he returns with vigor, lifting you up and spinning you around. An overly flamboyant gesture for someone normally so reserved and chill. 

            “Jeez,” you say, your voice tight, just slightly choked around the lump in your throat, “you guys are gonna make me feel all special if you keep it up.” And when you pull back from John, you can see his face has shuttered into that serious expression he has. 

            “You are,” he says and those words themselves are almost enough to bring you to your knees, but you simply smile a watery kind of smile, waving your hand, washing away his statement. Ignoring it even as it rings through your bones and your heart. 

            “Deliver for Attending Physician Handzo,” calls out the familiar voice of your mother and you turn, taking in the sight of her holding the hand of a very small and chubby toddler with auburn curls and hazel eyes. 

            “Thanks, Mom,” you tell her, drawing in a sharp, nasally breath, blinking past the tears that have gathered in your eyes, instead waking to her and scooping Sammy up into your arms. “Hey, buddy. You ready to go home with Mommy?”

            “Yeah,” he says, his voice high-pitched in that frail toddler way, the kind of way that is soon to be gone, grown out of, just like everything else. Because someday he will grow up to be a boy. A boy who needs guidance to become a man. A boy will know the rights and wrongs, the struggles of the people that are not him. A boy you have to guide to become a good man. 

            “Then I shall leave the handoffs in Uncle Denny’s hands, right?” you ask him, wincing just slightly as his small, chubby hands find your hair, tugging on the strands with a force that’s all new of his terrible twos. 

            “Yeah!” he cries, one hand tugging on a strand with particular force as the other waves in the air, excited and fast. 

            It was then you heard the strangled sound, the kind that was deep and yet high at the same time. The sound of a man who has seen the most shocking thing, the most beautiful, the most miraculous and you knew. You knew it was Jack because you felt it in your bones, in your heart, in your mind. 

            It was like you had some sensor for him. Like you were attune to him. 

            You don’t know why you turn, only that you do and the sight is enough to knock the breath from your lungs because he looks awful. He looks like a man devoid of purpose, a man who is living life like a machine, doing this and doing that and not getting anything from it. Just doing it because it’s what’s supposed to be done. 

            A glint of light on his chest draws your eye down, your gaze snagged by the ring around the chain where Diane’s wedding ring always sat—where the engagement ring you left behind now sits, his hand drifting up to clutch at it as he looks at you and the baby on your hip. 

            The baby who looks a lot like him. 

            “Bluefire?” he whispers and even if the entire ED hadn’t fallen quiet, you would have heard him. Would have heard him ten thousand miles away because you still love him. You weren’t lying when you wrote that he was your Diane. He is the first man you ever loved—first person—and the first who broke your heart in totality. 

            But he is still the man who helped you fix the pieces of yourself that you thought were broken when you first met.

            And he is still the father of your child.

            “Hi, Jack,” you whisper, your voice barely audible, but from the way his face brightens, the way a gleam comes into his eyes, you know he’s the same as you. 

            He would hear you from ten thousand miles away. 

            He’ll always hear you. 

            Life has been rote, nothing and empty, just a house that echoes with your ghost, your image everywhere doing a million different things. He could see you in the living room, your legs thrown over the top of the couch, your head on the floor as you watch TV upside down. He could see you smiling at him from the chair in the den you turned into a library, knees up and textbook resting between them. He could see you in the kitchen making cookies, the recipe one of Lena’s, the first ones you’d ever made. 

            The first ones you’d ever had. 

            He could see you doing face masks in the bathroom, gesturing him over, trying to put one on him. He could see you with your gym bag, leaving the house and coming back, sweaty and tired but smiling. He could see you lying in bed, trying to meditate but really only sleeping. 

            And in all of those, there was always a hint of your smile, of your joy. Of your happiness. The smile that has been missing from his life for three years. 

            Three painful years. 

            Three years of watching your ghosts spin around his house. Three years of holding onto your hygiene products just to lift them up to smell them, hoping to capture your scent, but always missing that essential part—you. Three years of holding onto your engagement ring every time he missed you, wanted you, felt pain or anything at all. Three years of writing you a thousand letters that he had no way of ever getting to you. Three years of mourning you as if you’d died because in many ways, you had. 

            He was dead to you and so, in a way, you made yourself a living ghost in his life. 

            One that haunts him every day, so much that when he stepped into the ED and saw you lift a toddler up and place him on your hip, he thought he was hallucinating. 

            Seeing what he wanted. The future he had dreamed of, but thought was impossible. Something he didn’t get to have, something he didn’t deserve. 

            The guilt over moving on didn’t just apply to you but to that family he never got to build with Diane and seeing you now, with a baby, one with his auburn curls and his hazel eyes and his nose sends that shockwave through him. 

            The one that says that what he is seeing is a miracle. The one that says that what he is seeing is real in a way that nothing ever really has been. The one that says you need to grab hold of them, hold fast and protect them. 

            Don’t fuck this up again. 

            “Bye Jack,” you say and then he’s seeing you turn and begin to walk away, the baby babbling away, tugging on strands of your beautiful, perfect hair. 

            And he’s frozen, every muscle rigid.

            And he just lets you walk away. Because what else can he do?

            Seeing Jack hurt you. It felt like being stabbed in the gut over and over again destroyed over and over, your heart stomped on again and again and again. 

            It hurt you like nothing has before—not because the hurt of not being seen is still as strong, but because it felt like he did see you. 

            But only once you were gone. 

            “Mom watches Sammy while I’m work, you know this, Trin,” you tell her, the two of you walking in tandem towards the incoming trauma, the two of you running the Pitt as efficiently as possible, waiting for traumas as they were called. 

            “Yeah, but,” she says as the two of you pull on over-scrubs and gloves, glasses firmly in place. “You, Huckleberry and I never all work on the same days…This means that at least one of us is always available to watch Sammy. It would give your mom time to rest and me more time to…educate your son.”

            “He’s two,” you say, your tone deadpan and flat. “He doesn’t need his feminism education yet.”

            “It’s never too early to start,” she counters and you sigh, turning to her and fixing her with a glare, one that causes her to wince. 

            “When he can understand the words needed for a basic feminism education, fine. But he’s two. He cannot yet understand it; it’s enough that his bedtime story is Gender Trouble, okay?”

            “Who the fuck picked that?” she asks you as the EMTs arrive, wheeling the gurney holding the SWAT officer, blood dripping from him to the floor. 

            “You did,” you tell her as the two of you rush to assist the EMTs, the team awaiting in the trauma prepared, transferring him to the table and starting work on his two GSWs. 

            But what catches your attention is not the body before you but the man behind you, the one you caught a glimpse of in the glass, arms crossed, biceps bulging against his SWAT uniform, worry etched in every line of his face. 

            “Get him up to surgery!” you say, the resident whose name you haven’t yet learned and the new med student nod, assisting the surgical transport team as you peel the gloves from your hands and the over-scrub, dumping them and stepping out, your safety glasses coming off, tucked back into the breast pocket of your scrubs. 

            “We need to talk.”

            The words you’ve been dreading since you came back, since you first saw Jack. Since you started avoiding him, successfully for two weeks. The words that tell you that maybe you did fuck up by just leaving. 

            By not telling him that you were pregnant and giving him the opportunity to tell you the truth. By not giving him the truth. 

            The words still ring through you as you follow Jack to the on-call room, mind just slightly hazy as he closes the door, locking it, preventing any nosy Pittling (Trinity) from getting in and disturbing this. 

            Because this is the moment you need to tell him. It doesn’t matter how he looks at you, what he says or does or how he reacts. It doesn’t fucking matter because he deserves to know. And he deserves the chance to say he wants to be part of his son’s life. 

            And he deserves to know that he just can’t be a part of yours. 

            Because no matter how much you love him, you can’t go back to being someone who isn’t seen. 

            “Jack…” you whisper, but you don’t even get a full sentence out before you begin to cry, breath hiccupping as the tears fall fast and furious down your cheeks. And then he’s there, his arms around you in that grip that is steady and safe and warm. His arms locked tight around you as he holds you upright as you cry, your tears soaking his scrubs, knees buckling as every sob becomes harder and larger and more painful. 

            “Shh,” he whispers, one hand moving up and down your back in that rhythm he’s always had that calms you, rights you and tells you all will be well. The rhythm you’ve missed in your time apart. “It’s okay. I understand.”

            “But Jack,” you cry, pulling away from him, away from his touch, your arms going around yourself, holding tight to your abdomen as if it’s the only thing holding you together. As if you remove your arms, you’ll fall apart, all those loose pieces spilling and breaking even more. “You…you have a—son.”

            “I figured,” he says, his voice steady and soft in that way he has to comfort, never judge. “He looks like me.”

            “He…h-he really fucking does, doesn’t he?” you cry, your breaths still hiccupping and frail and fragile. You feel breakable in this moment, more than you did three years ago when you left him. When you chose yourself. 

            “Yeah. Minute I saw the hair, I had a guess,” he says and you can feel your knees buckle, give way and you sink down onto the couch, your head falling into your hands, elbows digging into your thighs. 

            “Jesus Christ,” you mutter, your mind running so fast that there’s a ringing in your ears and the world is blurry as your vision tilts and skews. “I didn’t think you’d be this cool about it.”

            “Sweetheart,” he whispers and you can feel the couch bend under his weight, dipping on his side as his hand comes to rest on your back as the hiccupping and burning starts again, the tears never far from the surface. “I understand why you didn’t tell me. I…I k-know I didn’t…see you so…I know what I did. I know what I said and I wish, god, I wish I’d never done those things, but I did. I can’t change them…but I can try to…to move forwards.” You lift your head to look at him, at the way his face is open, twisted in pain and sadness, tears marking his cheeks just like yours. 

            “You really hurt me,” you whisper and you watch as those words land, his face twisting in on itself even more. “But…but a part of me didn’t tell you because…because I didn’t want the first time you really saw me to be…to be with anger because you don’t fucking want a kid!”

            And in his eyes you can see confusion and then the dawn of understanding and he pulls you against him, tight and strong and fast, his arms steady and strong as you continue to cry and he does too, his tears falling on your head, on your neck, feeling for all the world like raindrops. 

            “I thought I was too old,” he whispers, his hand still rubbing your back in that soothing motion. “I thought I was too old…too fucked up…I didn’t think I deserved a kid. Deserved to have a family. I had this…fucking guilt that I had moved on and when you asked that day…about a kid. I felt so guilty that I said no, but baby, I wanted—want—everything with you. I want whatever you’re willing to give me.”

            You look up at him to see that quiet sincerity in his perfect hazel eyes, those eyes that tell you a thousand different things in a language you learned to read long ago. A language you can still read now. 

            “I need you to prove that you see me,” you whisper and watch as he pulls from his bag three large stacks of envelopes, the top ones addressed with your name in his tight, neat script. 

            “I wrote you a letter,” he whispers, setting the stacks between the two of you, a barrier of a different sort. “One for every day that you’ve been gone. 1095 letters, sweetheart.” His hand comes to rest on your cheek, palm cupping just gently as his thumb smooths across your cheekbone. 

            “Then let me take it one day at a time, Jack,” you reply and he nods, leaning forwards to press a soft and gentle kiss to your forehead. 

            “Take all the time you need, sweetheart. I’m not going anywhere.”

Day 1 without you

Dear Bluefire,

God, what am I even doing? You’re never gonna read this, never even see me again if I know you. And I do know you. I know how stubborn you are and how brave and how perfect and beautiful. 

I know you. Just you. But you may have been right, sweetheart. I think I was too choked with guilt for loving you more to really see you the way I should have. 

But it’s too late now, isn’t it?

Maybe one day I’ll send these, these letters to you. Maybe one day you’ll read them and know one thing: I love you. 

God, do I love you.

Love,

Your Jack.

Day 37 without you

Dear Bluefire,

I really fucking miss you. I miss the way you sleep, the way you pull me tight against you like a blanket. I miss the way you needed to cuddle after a hard shift. I miss the way you’d show up during my shift just to bring me something even when you should have been sleeping. I miss the way you used to say my name. 

I miss the way you sit and the way you read, your mouth silently speaking the dialogue, as if you’re acting it out like an actor on a stage. I miss the way you watch movies, the way you get so into it, exclaiming in outrage or delight or sadness. 

I just miss you. 

God, this is pathetic. But it’s true. Perhaps the truest thing I’ve ever written. 

Day 365 without you

Dear Bluefire,

One year. One whole fucking year you’ve been gone and all I can think about is you. It’s like the world is dark and you were the light and now you’re gone. And I can’t see anything before me without you. 

In case you can’t tell, it means I miss you. 

And all I’ve been thinking about is what you asked me that day when I was hungover. If I wanted kids. And I said no. But that’s not true and I worry that that’s what’s fucked our relationship up. 

The truth is…is that yes, I want kids. I want kids with you, it doesn’t really have anything to do with Diane except that I feel guilty that I’m happy and she’s gone. I want kids but I fear that I’m too fucked up for them, that I’d ruin them by just being me. And I don’t want that. 

But all I can see in the house, is you. As a mother. You coming home after a long shift and scooping up the kid that I’ve spent my day with while I change out and go. You coming home on a night I have off and we settle down in the living room with our kids (yes, I know. Plural) and watch whatever kids movie they want for the umpteenth time while we share looks over their heads about how much we hate it. 

God, I sound pathetic. But I love you, Bluefire. I love you so much. 

Day 730 without you

Dear Bluefire,

I don’t really know what to say. Only that I miss you and that life is harder without you. The only that’s keeping me going is that hope you spoke about. The hope that you’ll come back and rescue me. 

Can you be my knight in shining armor? I’ll play the damsel in distress so long as it makes you come back to me. 

Please, Bluefire. Rescue me.

I love you.

Day 1095 without you

Dear Bluefire,

I will write one of these every day that you’re not in my life. Because it’s manifestation, right? Isn’t that what Javadi talks about? Manifesting destiny?

While this is me doing just that. Manifesting us and our happy ending. Our marriage. One where I see you. Every inch of you. 

I will never not see you so long as you come back. See? Manifesting. I really fucking hope it works, sweetheart. Cause I need you. 

I love you more than life. 

Your Jack.

            The letters made you cry, made you sob and heave and buckle, the noise of your cries disturbing Sammy who would only calm down once you did and once you sang to him. Once you sang to him “Looking Through a Window.”

            The letters made you fall apart because in them, you heard him, Jack. You heard him realize how he fucked everything up, how he didn’t see you but he did now and how much he needed you. 

            And you took it a day at a time, reading his thoughts over three years. It took you a day. It took you one whole day in between caring for Sammy and occasionally calming your friends down over something stupid. 

            It took you a day, but it took you through three years. Three years of emptiness and loneliness and understanding.

            It took you through a life of a man who realized he had lost everything he ever cared for. 

            And you didn’t want him to stay lost. 

            “Sammy,” you say, lifting him from his car seat, settling him on your hip, turning and noticing Jack, standing stiff and straight in front of the Toys-R-Us. It’s his soldier posture, hands clasped behind his back, chest thrown out. “Let’s go meet your daddy.”

            “Hi,” he says when you get close to him and you can see the vulnerability on his face, the fear. Something you never thought you would see on his face. 

            “Hey, meet Sammy Rhys Handzo-Abbot,” you say and you watch with that beating in your throat, that pulse of your heart in the muscles of your voice, bated breath. You watch as Jack looks up at you hope, surprise and fear all warring in those perfect, forest eyes. 

            “He has…he has my name?”

            “Yeah,” you whisper, looking down at the cracked concrete beneath your feet. “I told Mom I thought it was a good idea for him to know who his dad is. To carry a piece of him with him so…we filled it out that way.”

            “Hey, bud,” he says, eyes still on you as his hand comes up to cup Sammy’s chubby cheek. And then his attention falls to the little boy in your arms who lets out a small giggle, crying, “Dada! Dada!”

            You watch as silent tears fall from Jack’s eyes, the kinds of tears that show more emotion than any angry or desperate cry does. Because these are the tears you try to prevent from falling in the first place. 

            “Do you want to hold him?” 

            “Can I?” He looks so surprised that you smile at him, a soft and sad smile as you nod. 

            “I read your letters, Jack. I read every word and…I want you…in our lives.”

*

            “Hey,” you call out as Jack steps into the house, your mom out at work, her second job taking her to spend the day helping with caskets. “How was the zoo? Was Sammy too much work?”

            “Do you know he insists on being fucking carried? He didn’t want to walk or use the stroller. He just wanted me to carry him. Do I look like his personal carriage?”

            “No,” you tell him, a laugh bubbling up and over your lips as Sammy toddles in, his hands holding tight to a panda plushie. “You just look like his dad.”

*

            “Come on,” he whispers, his hands holding tight to yours. “I don’t want to be away from you and Sammy and even if it’s the fucking guest room that you live in…sweetheart, just please. Move in with me.”

            “What do you see when you look at me?” you ask him as he lets go of your hands, instead his hands come to rest on your waist, yours looping around his neck, Sammy out for the day with Lena and Dana looking for Mother’s Day gifts. 

            “I see the love of my life, the mother of my child and my future. I see a woman who is strong and bright and brilliant and perfect. I see a woman who holds my heart in her hands,” he whispers, pressing his forehead against yours, his breath becoming your air. 

            “I don’t think I’ll need the guest room.”

*

            “Sammy!” you hear Jack yell, the life you’re building slow but steady. It started with dates, days with Sammy and now…a year later, living together. It was a fight with Lena but a necessary one. You told her that you needed to build your family. 

            And Jack was part of it. 

            “What’s he doing now?!” you yell, stepping out of the library, a book tucked under your arm as you see Jack run past, the giggles your son echoing from a room not that far away. 

            “He has a snake!” You step back into the library and move to shut the door. 

            “I’ll let you deal with that one, babe!”

*

            “Happy birthday, Sammy!” you whisper as you step into his room, watching as his still solid, chubby frame jumps up and runs over to you, his arms looping around your legs as footsteps sound behind you. 

            You can feel Jack place his hand in between your shoulder blades, your body automatically adjusting, leaning back as his other hand comes to rest on Sammy’s head. 

            “Happy birthday, bud. Mommy and Daddy are very excited for today.” He says it just like you always thought he would. 

*

            “God!” Jack cries as you press your lips against his pulse point, your tongue flicking out against it as he thrusts into you for the first time in four years. This is not sex the way it used to be, rather in every thrust in, in every kiss you share, every caress and touch and every time he brings you to your peak, it is an exclamation of I see you, I love you, I will always see you. 

            Every touch Jack gives you, every kiss, caress, lick and thrust is him telling you how much he loves you, just how much he regrets ever losing you in the first place. 

            And in every touch you give him, you tell him just how much you forgive him. 

*

            The dining room is empty, rather laughing echoes from outside as you step into it, a baseball cap on your head, sunscreen on your screen and in your pocket. It’s the day of the farmer’s market and you look forward to it every year, the ones in New York just not the same. 

            “We’re leaving in ten minutes!” you yell, knowing they’ll hear through the open kitchen window and you grab your two canvas bags from where you left them on the counter, a glint catching your attention. 

            It’s a glint on the table. The glint of metal catching light and you walk to it, taking notice of a gold ring set with three stones and a space for a fourth. You see your birthstone, Jack’s and Sammy’s and a space where it looks like a stone was left off or lost. 

            And that’s when you notice the papers.

            You’ve always wanted to adopt, wanted to save a child from the system, give a child the same chance that Lena gave you. You just didn’t think you’d do it, having Sammy and your career and doing it alone seemed like too much, but here before you are the papers to adopt. The ones you fill out to end up on adoption agency records and they’re already partly filled out. 

            The age marked as a child from anywhere from one to twelve. The names…Jack Handzo-Abbot and yours, the same…Handzo-Abbot.

            “Do you know what I’m asking?” Jack asks and you look from the papers to the ring and you do. You really do. 

            He’s asking you to marry him with a ring that’s prepared for your next kid. The one you adopt, just like you always wanted. 

            “You haven’t asked,” you tell him, throat thick as you lift the ring up just as Sammy jumps and hugs your legs, making you stumble just a bit, laughing as you right yourself. 

            “You always wanted to adopt and you don’t have to go any of this alone anymore so…will you marry me and not only make your husband and Sammy’s father but someone you trust to adopt a child with too?”

            “Yes! Yes, I will!” And then he’s there slipping the ring onto your finger and pressing a deep kiss against you, one that tastes of love and family but above all: second chances. 

            Because Jack’s right. You don’t have to go it alone anymore. You never did. 

            Just this time you get to do it all with someone who sees every piece of you and loves you because of them. 

At first you assumed construction or flooding because of the weather, but then smoke curled upward through the rain and your stomach dropped immediately.

Cars sat mangled across three lanes of traffic at impossible angles. One SUV had spun into the median while another sedan looked almost folded around the back of a delivery truck, its front end crushed so badly it barely resembled a vehicle anymore. Hazard lights blinked weakly through the storm while people stumbled across the interstate in shock.

Your body moved before your brain fully caught up.

“Oh my God.”

You were already unbuckling your seatbelt before the car completely stopped.

Adrenaline sliced straight through your exhaustion hard enough to make your hands shake as you reached for the trauma bag in the passenger seat. Rain hit you instantly the second you shoved the door open, cold water soaking through your clothes within seconds while distant screaming echoed somewhere through the storm.

Someone yelled that a driver was trapped.

Another voice screamed for a medic.

A woman near the shoulder sobbed hard enough she could barely breathe, blood running down the side of her forehead while a man beside her stood completely frozen, staring blankly at the wreckage like his brain had stopped processing reality altogether.

You were already running.

“I’m a doctor,” you shouted over the rain. “Move back and give me some room.”

People listened immediately.

The trapped driver looked somewhere in his forties, pinned awkwardly behind the wheel of the crushed sedan. Blood streamed from a scalp laceration down the side of his face while the airbags hung deflated around him. His breathing came too fast beneath the sound of rain hammering against twisted metal, panic beginning to sharpen around the edges of every inhale.

You crouched carefully beside the shattered driver’s side window, ignoring the glass biting through your scrub pants into your knees.

“Hey,” you said, forcing calmness into your voice despite the adrenaline roaring through your chest. “Can you hear me?”

The man blinked slowly toward you, dazed. “Think so.”

“Good. That’s good.” You adjusted the flashlight between your fingers while quickly checking his pupils. “What’s your name?”

“Leon.”

“Okay, Leon. I’m Dr. Y/L/N.” Your voice stayed steady automatically, years of emergency medicine taking over before panic had a chance to settle in. “Don’t move your neck for me, alright?”

A shaky breath of laughter escaped him. “Wasn’t planning on it.”

Despite everything, you smiled a little.

“You’re doing great,” you assured him quietly. “Stay with me.”

And he did.

His eyes kept finding yours every few seconds like you were the only stable thing left in the middle of the chaos.

Your hands moved automatically after that.

Pressure against the head wound. Monitoring responsiveness. Keeping him conscious and talking while you assessed what you could from outside the vehicle. Rainwater mixed with blood beneath your fingers while traffic backed up for what looked like miles behind you, headlights glowing dimly through the storm.

Leon kept looking at you every few seconds like you were the only stable thing left in the middle of the chaos.

“You work at the PTMC?” he asked weakly after spotting the hospital logo embroidered onto your soaked jacket.

“Unfortunately.”

That got a real laugh out of him, brief and pained but enough that relief loosened slightly in your chest.

“You always this calm when you see a car crash?”

You let out a tired breath through your nose. “No. I’m panicking beautifully internally.”

That made him laugh again.

Patients relaxed faster once they laughed. It was something you learned early in residency, fear loosened the second people felt human again instead of helpless.

So you stayed with him.

Even after the paramedics arrived.

Even after they started finishing the extrication, peeling back what remained of the driver’s side door while rain poured endlessly over the wreckage.

You stayed crouched beside him talking him through every step because shock was already creeping in around the edges of his expression, and every time panic threatened to overwhelm him again, his eyes found yours immediately.

“You’re okay,” you kept saying quietly. “Stay with me. You’re okay.”

The interstate blurred around you in streaks of red brake lights and flashing hazards. Rain soaked through your jacket and scrubs completely now, damp fabric clinging uncomfortably to your skin while your hair stuck to the back of your neck. The adrenaline that had carried you through the crash scene was already fading, leaving behind an exhaustion so heavy it felt physical.

An EMT looked up from the stretcher and did a double take.

“Dr. Y/L/N?”

You snapped back into focus automatically.

“Male, approximately forty-two. Restrained driver. Brief LOC reported by witnesses. GCS fifteen currently. Complaining of left-sided rib pain. Possible concussion. Neuro status intact for now, but keep an eye on him.”

The EMT nodded once while adjusting the cervical collar. “Got it.”

They moved quickly after that, securing straps, checking vitals, loading equipment through the rain while Leon tracked every movement with the wide-eyed focus of someone trying very hard not to think too much about what had almost happened.

Your knees ached from kneeling on broken glass. Your hands had started trembling slightly now that nobody urgently needed anything from you anymore.

But you stayed beside him anyway.

Leon caught your wrist weakly just before the paramedics closed the ambulance doors.

“Hey.”

You looked up immediately.

His face looked pale beneath the blood and rainwater, eyes glassy with pain and adrenaline, but there was something steadier there too.

Gratitude maybe.

“Thank you for taking care of me.”

The words landed somewhere deeper than they should have.

You swallowed hard before giving his hand one quick squeeze.

“Yeah,” you said softly. “Of course.”

For a second, you just stood there breathing.

The interstate still smelled like gasoline and smoke. Somewhere farther down the road another paramedic shouted instructions while tow trucks crawled through the rain toward the wreckage. Traffic in the opposite lanes slowed almost to a stop as people stared through fogged windows at what was left of the crash.

“You riding in with us?” one of the EMTs asked.

You glanced once toward your abandoned car still trapped in unmoving traffic nearly half a mile behind the accident scene. The thought of trying to get back to it right now felt impossible.

“Yeah,” you answered tiredly.

The ambulance doors shut behind you a second later, sealing you inside with the sharp smell of antiseptic, wet clothing, and adrenaline.

Leon talked for almost the entire ride to the hospital.

Nervous talking.

The kind trauma patients did when they were scared enough to fill every silence because silence meant thinking too hard about how close they came to dying. You’d seen it hundreds of times before. Some people cried. Some got angry. Some went terrifyingly quiet.

Leon talked.

So you let him.

He rambled about his job, about his daughter’s soccer game this weekend, about how his wife was going to kill him for wrecking the car because they still hadn’t finished paying it off. Every few sentences his voice shook slightly before he forced another joke out anyway.

You stayed beside him the whole ride, monitoring pupils and vitals while keeping him talking just enough to assess mental status without making it obvious you were doing it.

“You always pick up patients on the highway on your day off?” he asked weakly at one point.

You let out a tired breath of laughter. “Only the lucky ones.”

That earned another shaky smile from him.

The ambulance doors burst open, paramedics already rolling the stretcher down the bay entrance while rainwater dripped steadily from the wheels onto the floor.

By the time the ambulance rolled through the bay doors at The Pitt, you were freezing hard enough your teeth almost hurt. Your scrubs were soaked completely through, your shoes squelching against the floor while trauma staff moved around you in organized chaos.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” Santos called across the ER the second she spotted you climbing out of the ambulance bay. “Always a pleasure seeing you this early, Iron Woman.”

You groaned immediately.

You earned the nickname after accidentally mistaking a patient for Robert Downey Jr. during a twenty-hour shift.

To be fair, the goatee had been identical.

“Dana,” you called immediately, falling into step beside the stretcher. “What’s open?”

Dana barely looked up from the nurses’ station. “Trauma Two’s clear.”

“Perfect.” You pushed damp hair back from your face before glancing toward the department. “Whitaker, Javadi, you’re with me. Perlah, can you help set up Two?”

Perlah nodded immediately and disappeared ahead of the group while Whitaker grabbed gloves from the wall dispenser on his way past.

“You look cold,” Whitaker informed you conversationally.

“Thank you,” you replied flatly.

Javadi appeared beside the stretcher while all of you pushed through the trauma bay doors together. “What happened?”

“Restrained driver, approximately forty-two,” you answered automatically. “High-speed MVA during the storm. Brief LOC reported by witnesses. GCS fifteen on arrival, complaining of left-sided rib pain and worsening headache. Possible concussion.”

“Vitals stable en route,” one of the paramedics added while helping transfer Leon onto the trauma bed.

Whitaker immediately started attaching monitors while Javadi pulled supplies from cabinets with the frantic efficiency of someone still trying very hard to look calmer than she actually felt.

Then Jack looked up from the computer station.

And somehow, in the middle of the packed emergency department, everything softened slightly around the edges.

You caught the exact moment recognition crossed his face. The exhaustion behind his eyes shifted immediately into concern as his gaze moved slowly over you. Soaked scrubs, blood smeared across your gloves, rainwater dripping steadily from your hair onto the floor beneath you.

Jack crossed the trauma bay almost immediately.

“You okay?” he asked quietly. “What happened? I thought you went home.”

His voice grounded you in a way almost nothing else could anymore.

Maybe it was because he always sounded calm even during chaos. Maybe it was because after years together your body recognized him before your brain consciously caught up. Or maybe it was simply that exhaustion hit harder the second somebody else arrived to help carry it.

“I’m fine,” you answered automatically while stripping off your soaked gloves and replacing them with clean ones. “Probably need a head CT.”

Jack’s expression tightened instantly.

“For you?”

You blinked at him before realizing what you’d said. “What? No. For the patient.”

Behind you, Perlah had already started cutting away Leon’s soaked shirt while Whitaker attached cardiac leads to his chest.

“BP’s holding,” Whitaker called.

“Sinus tach at one-ten,” Javadi added while checking another monitor. “Probably pain and adrenaline.”

“Good,” you answered automatically before stepping back beside the bed.

“Where’s Robby?”

“Overdose in Four,” Dana answered from the doorway.

You nodded once and reached for your penlight again, checking Leon’s pupils carefully while rain continued tapping faintly against the ambulance bay doors behind you.

Santos wandered into Trauma Two looking personally offended. “Why does huckleberry and crash get invited? I can help.”

“You can stand there and look pretty while actual doctors save lives,” you shot back immediately.

Santos gasped dramatically. “Dr. Abbot, your girlfriend is bullying me again.”

“She bullies everybody,” Jack muttered.

But there was no heat behind it.

His eyes lingered on you a second too long.

You knew that look by now.

Jack had spent years in emergency medicine learning how to bury concern beneath sarcasm and exhaustion, but you still caught it every time. He noticed the dark circles under your eyes. The slight tremor beginning in your hands now that the adrenaline was wearing off. The way your shoulders sagged whenever you thought nobody was looking.

“You’re freezing,” he said quietly.

“You are correct. I am freezing.”

Without another word, Jack pulled his hoodie off the back of the nurses’ station chair and draped it carefully around your shoulders before you could protest. It was still warm from him, smelling faintly like coffee, antiseptic, and the cologne he only remembered to wear maybe twice a month.

Something in your chest tightened stupidly at the gesture.

Behind him, Santos gagged theatrically. “Oh my God. Romance in the trauma bay. I’m going to throw up.”

“Go chart something,” Jack said flatly.

Whitaker looked up from the monitor leads. “Actually, I think it's very sweet."

“You’re all miserable,” you informed them while pulling the hoodie tighter around yourself.

“No,” Javadi corrected while checking Leon’s blood pressure. “You two are just aggressively in love in public.”

Jack looked genuinely offended. “Aggressively? I don't get it."

Despite yourself, you laughed softly while stepping back toward Leon’s bedside.

Leon noticed the interaction immediately.

“That your boyfriend?” he asked weakly from the trauma bed.

“Husband to the emergency department,” you corrected while snapping fresh gloves on. “Boyfriend in real life.”

Jack rolled his eyes while typing orders into the computer. “Don’t encourage her, Leon.”

Leon grinned despite the pain. “You guys are disgustingly cute.”

Under the brighter trauma lights, bruising had already started blooming dark purple across his ribs beneath the rain-soaked skin.

“Headache worse?” you asked while checking his pupils again.

“A little.”

“You nauseous?”

“Not yet.”

“Good,” you answered. “Let’s keep it that way.”

Javadi palpated carefully along his left side while Whitaker adjusted the blood pressure cuff.

“There’s something strangely comforting about you people,” Leon admitted weakly after a moment.

“You say that now,” Javadi muttered.

That earned another tired laugh from him before he winced sharply afterward.

“There it is,” you said softly. “Still joking. Good sign, buddy.”

There was something oddly comforting about patients who stayed conversational. After years in emergency medicine, you learned to appreciate moments where humanity still existed between procedures and bloodwork and trauma assessments.

Sometimes those tiny conversations mattered almost as much as the medicine itself.

Jack stepped beside you while reviewing Leon’s vitals, his shoulder brushing yours briefly in the cramped trauma bay. The room smelled faintly of antiseptic, damp fabric, and rainwater now that Leon’s soaked clothing had finally been cut away.

“You should change,” Jack murmured quietly while adjusting one of the monitor leads. “I got this, baby.”

You barely glanced at him, still focused on the chart. “Don’t worry. I’ll survive.”

A tired look crossed his face immediately.

“That’s usually what people say right before passing out.”

You shot him a look over your shoulder, though exhaustion dulled most of the energy behind it. “You’re dramatic.”

“You’ve been awake how long now?”

“Eighteen hours.”

Jack stared at you flatly. “That’s not comforting.”

“You stopped at a major accident scene after an eighteen-hour shift?” Javadi asked incredulously.

You shrugged slightly.

And that alone made Jack’s jaw tighten, because that was exactly the kind of thing you always did.

The adrenaline carrying you through the crash scene had almost completely faded now, leaving behind exhaustion so heavy it felt physical. Your wet clothes clung coldly to your skin beneath Jack’s hoodie while every muscle in your body ached now that the immediate crisis had passed.

Jack exhaled softly through his nose before lowering his voice.

“You don’t always have to run yourself into the ground trying to save everybody.”

The words landed harder than they should have.

You focused instead on adjusting Leon’s blanket over his chest, smoothing the fabric carefully just to give your hands something else to do.

Jack knew you too well by now to push after saying something like that.

That was part of what made loving him dangerous sometimes. He noticed things you worked very hard to hide from everybody else.

He noticed the way your hands trembled after bad trauma calls once the adrenaline wore off. How you skipped meals without realizing it during difficult shifts. How every patient death stayed with you longer than you ever admitted aloud.

Jack had spent years in emergency medicine learning how to compartmentalize just enough to survive it, which somehow only made him better at recognizing when you weren’t doing the same.

His hand brushed briefly against the small of your back as he moved toward the monitors again.

“Don’t worry, Leon,” Jack said easily while checking the cardiac tracing. “You’re in good hands.”

Leon looked toward him before his gaze drifted back to you.

“I figured that out already,” he said softly. “She stopped on the interstate for me.”

You glanced up from the chart, slightly surprised by how steady his voice sounded now despite everything.

“You didn’t have to do all that,” Leon continued quietly.

You shrugged lightly, pushing damp hair away from your face. “Part of the job.”

“Maybe,” he answered softly, still watching you carefully. “But most people would’ve kept driving.”

Something warm and uncomfortable settled low in your chest at that.

Most patients never saw the moments in between all of this. They saw calm voices and steady hands. They saw competence because that was what they needed from you in moments like these.

They never saw the aftermath.

The exhaustion. The panic doctors swallowed in real time just to keep functioning. The way people occasionally locked themselves in supply closets for thirty seconds after bad cases just to breathe before walking back out like nothing happened.

But Leon had seen you kneeling beside twisted metal in freezing rain with blood on your hands while traffic screamed past only feet away.

He’d seen the human part too.

And somehow that felt far more exposing than expected.

Before you could answer, something shifted.

Subtle.

Small enough most people in the room probably would have missed it entirely.

But after years in emergency medicine, your body noticed changes before your brain consciously caught up.

Leon’s breathing changed.

One second it was slow and uneven with postictal exhaustion.

The next it caught strangely in his chest.

His eyes lost focus somewhere over your shoulder while every muscle in his body tightened beneath the blankets all at once.

Your stomach dropped instantly.

“Leon?”

Jack looked up from the monitor station at the exact same moment Leon’s entire body stiffened violently against the mattress.

“He’s seizing!”

Everything exploded into motion.

The seizure hit hard and fast, violent enough that the entire trauma bed rattled beneath him. His back arched sharply while his arms convulsed uncontrollably, knocking equipment sideways as monitors erupted into sharp screaming alarms throughout the room.

“Clock started,” Perlah called immediately.

“Two minutes on the seizure pads,” Whitaker added while grabbing suction.

“Turn him,” you ordered.

You and Javadi moved together automatically, carefully rolling Leon onto his side while his body continued jerking violently beneath your hands. Blood appeared at the corner of his mouth where he’d bitten through his tongue while every breath came in horrible choking gasps between convulsions.

“Airway’s clear,” Javadi said quickly, though her voice still sounded tight with adrenaline.

Across the room Jack was already pulling medication from the crash cart while Dana called CT from the doorway ahead of transport.

Then finally, slowly, the seizure broke.

Leon’s body slumped heavily back against the mattress drenched in sweat while ragged breaths tore unevenly from his chest. The room fell briefly into that strange silence that always followed emergencies, where everybody still moved quickly even though the worst part had passed.

For now.

“Let’s get a CT stat,” Jack said immediately.

You nodded once, trying to ignore the tremor beginning in your hands now that the adrenaline spike was crashing again.

“I’ll stay with him until transport.”

Jack hesitated.

Only briefly, but long enough for you to notice.

Something unreadable crossed his expression while his eyes flicked from Leon back toward you.

Concern maybe.

The same quiet tension he always carried after particularly violent trauma cases.

“You sure?” he asked softly.

You frowned slightly. “Yeah.”

Whitaker glanced briefly between both of you like he noticed something too, but before he could say anything Dana appeared in the doorway again.

“Trauma Three needs help now.”

Jack’s jaw tightened.

His fingers brushed briefly against your wrist before he stepped away toward the hallway, disappearing almost immediately back into the noise and chaos outside the trauma bay.

The room quieted afterward.

Machines beeped steadily while rain tapped faintly against distant ER windows somewhere down the hall. Whitaker and Javadi had already been pulled into another room, leaving you alone beside Leon while he lay motionless in exhausted postictal confusion.

You dimmed the overhead light slightly before adjusting the blanket higher over his chest.

“Hey,” you said gently when you noticed him beginning to stir. “You’re okay. You had a seizure.”

No response.

His eyes stayed fixed upward, unfocused and confused.

Postictal.

You had seen it hundreds of times before. Disorientation. Confusion. Agitation sometimes. Patients waking terrified because their brains had not fully caught up to reality yet.

Your shoulder ached dully now that exhaustion was settling deeper into your body again. You reached absentmindedly for the chart at the foot of the bed, mentally running through differentials and imaging priorities while waiting for CT to call back.

You missed the shift in him by less than a second.

One moment Leon lay motionless against the mattress, the next his eyes sharpened violently.

Not recognition.

Fear.

Pure terrified instinct.

Your stomach dropped.

“Leon—”

He surged upright before you could finish the sentence.

His hand closed around your throat with terrifying force, slamming you backward into the cabinet hard enough to knock the air violently from your lungs. Pain exploded across the back of your skull as your head cracked sharply against metal.

“Leon!”

The sound came out broken and strangled.

But he wasn’t seeing you.

That was the horrifying part.

His eyes looked completely wild now—unfocused, terrified, empty all at once. Pure neurological panic stripped entirely of recognition.

For one terrible second, training overrode fear.

“Leon,” you gasped desperately, grabbing his wrists instinctively instead of striking him. “Listen to me. You’re in the hospital. You’re safe.”

Nothing reached him.

His grip tightened harder around your throat.

Air stopped.

Panic slammed through you instantly now, sharp and animal and overwhelming in a way you almost never allowed yourself to feel. Your vision flickered violently while you clawed uselessly at his hands, trying desperately to drag in even one full breath.

You needed help.

Safe word.

Your mouth opened automatically.

“H—”

Nothing came out except a rasp.

Leon shoved you backward harder, your skull slamming against the cabinet again hard enough that white exploded across your vision.

The hospital safe word.

You just needed to say it.

“Hula—”

The sound collapsed into another strangled gasp as his fingers crushed tighter against your airway.

Your lungs burned.

Tears blurred your vision from pain and lack of oxygen while movement echoed faintly somewhere outside the trauma bay. People were still moving through the ER completely unaware of what was happening behind the curtain.

Your body was weakening fast.

You forced one shredded breath into your lungs and screamed:

“HULA HOOP!”

The entire department reacted instantly.

The trauma bay doors burst open hard enough to slam against the wall while voices shouted over each other.

Hands grabbed Leon, trying to drag him backward while he fought wildly in blind confusion and terror.

But before anyone could fully pull him away, he shoved you violently across the room.

Your shoulder struck the edge of the cabinetry with a horrible crack before the rest of your body collapsed hard onto the tile floor.

Pain tore through your arm instantly, sharp and wrong enough it barely felt real.

You couldn’t breathe.

Couldn’t think.

The room blurred violently while alarms screamed overhead and people shouted your name somewhere nearby.

And through all of it, through the pain and chaos splitting apart around you, your brain found one thing instinctively.

Jack.

You thought about the way he always found you in crowded trauma bays without even trying. The way his hoodie still smelled faintly like coffee and antiseptic around your shoulders. The quiet brush of his hand against your back only minutes earlier.

You wondered irrationally if he was going to blame himself for leaving the room.

That thought hurt almost as badly as the pain itself.

Your eyes slipped closed just as the world dissolved completely into noise.

Jack was halfway through finishing a chart when he realized he had not seen you in several minutes.

He looked up automatically, scanning the department for you out of habit more than anything else. Usually he could spot you immediately no matter how crowded the ER became. You moved quickly when you worked, sharp and focused and impossible to miss once he knew what to look for.

But you were nowhere.

“Hey, Javadi,” he called while signing off medication orders. “Have you seen Dr. Y/L/N?”

Javadi looked up so quickly, like she was a deer caught in headlights. “Uh… no,” she answered quickly. Too quickly. “I haven’t seen her since I left Leon. Sorry.”

Then she disappeared almost immediately toward another patient before he could ask anything else.

He pushed himself upright from the workstation, the familiar ache radiating faintly through his prosthetic. Long shifts always made it worse. The socket rubbed raw after enough hours on his feet, especially during busy trauma nights when he barely sat down.

Normally he ignored it.

Right now he barely felt it at all.

“Dana,” he called, already moving toward the nurses’ station. “Have you seen Y/N?”

Dana barely looked up from the chart she was reviewing. “Pretty sure she’s still with Leon. Why?”

Jack turned the iPad slightly toward her. “They haven’t gone to CT.”

That got her attention.

Her eyes flicked quickly toward the tracking board before settling back on him. “They’re probably backed up upstairs.”

“Maybe.”

But something still felt wrong.

Dana sighed softly. “Jack, she’s a big girl. She can handle herself.”

He knew that.

God, he knew that better than anybody.

You were one of the strongest people he had ever met. Smarter than most attendings twice your age. Calm during trauma activations that made residents freeze completely. You handled combative patients, pediatric codes, catastrophic MVCs, and grieving families with a steadiness that still amazed him after all these years.

But that feeling in his chest would not go away.

Dana pointed down the hallway. “I actually need you in Central Fourteen. Chest pain rule-out and Dr. Garcia wants another set of eyes before she calls cards.”

Jack exhaled through his nose, still staring at the tracking board.

“Right,” he muttered distractedly. “Yeah. Okay.”

He turned reluctantly toward the direction of Central Fourteen, adjusting his pace automatically as the prosthetic clicked softly against tile beneath his scrub pants. Fatigue had settled deep into the joint hours ago, making his gait slightly uneven now that the adrenaline from earlier trauma activations had worn off.

Then he heard it.

“HULA HOOP!”

Everything in his body stopped instantly.

The voice was barely recognizable.

Raw. Ragged. Strangled around obvious pain and panic in a way that made every hair on the back of his neck stand upright immediately. For one horrible second his brain refused to process it properly because it did not make sense. Not your voice. Not like that.

And then recognition hit him all at once.

The hospital safe word.

Trauma Two.

Jack’s heart dropped so violently it almost hurt.

No.

The thought hit him before anything else.

No no no.

Adrenaline detonated through his bloodstream hard enough to make him dizzy.

Then instinct took over completely.

“No,” he breathed aloud, already moving before the word fully left his mouth.

He pivoted so sharply pain shot violently through his prosthetic, the sudden turn grinding pressure through the socket hard enough that under normal circumstances it would have staggered him. But right now he barely felt it beneath the sheer overwhelming panic flooding his system.

Fear swallowed everything else whole.

Not the controlled fear he knew from trauma medicine. Not the clinical kind that sharpened your focus during codes and mass casualty calls.

This was different.

This was personal.

Jack shoved past a stretcher hard enough that the wheels screeched across tile while people all around him started reacting at the exact same time. Nurses turned toward Trauma Two instantly at the sound of the safe word. Dana’s head snapped upward from the nurses’ station. Santos was already running before half the department fully understood what was happening.

But Jack got there first.

The curtain outside Trauma Two jerked violently as shouting erupted from inside the room. Monitors screamed overhead loud enough to echo through the entire department while equipment crashed hard against the floor somewhere beyond the drapes.

“Get him off her!”

The words barely registered through the roaring in Jack’s ears.

His pulse was so loud now it drowned everything else out.

He hit the doorway hard enough that the curtain ripped halfway off the track as he shoved inside.

And then he saw you.

Lying on the floor.

Motionless.

For one horrifying second his brain simply stopped functioning.

You were crumpled unnaturally against the tile beside the cabinets, one arm twisted wrong beneath you while blood streaked across the side of your face from where your head had struck something hard enough to split skin open. Jack noticed everything all at once in the brutal hyperclarity trauma doctors developed after years in emergency medicine.

The bruising already forming around your throat.

The abnormal angle of your shoulder.

The way your chest barely moved.

And somehow that was the part that terrified him most.

You were not moving enough.

Leon was still screaming somewhere nearby while Ahmed and two nurses fought to restrain him against the opposite wall, his face wild with postictal confusion and terror. Somebody was yelling for sedation meds. The entire trauma bay had dissolved into complete chaos.

But Jack barely registered any of it.

Because you were on the floor.

And you were not getting up.

Something inside his chest seemed to cave inward violently.

“Oh, honey.”

Then he said your name, and the sound that came out barely resembled the steady, composed voice Jack used during traumas and codes and every impossible shift the hospital threw at him.

This was different.

There was no clinical calm left in him now.

Only fear.

Pure terrified fear.

He dropped beside you so fast pain tore sharply through his prosthetic as his knee hit tile, but he ignored it instantly. His hands shook hard enough he almost missed your carotid pulse the first time he checked.

Then finally.

There. Weak, but there.

Relief hit so hard it almost made him nauseous.

“Oh my God,” he whispered shakily, one bloodstained hand cradling the side of your face carefully while the other pressed against your neck searching for injuries. “Hey. Hey, stay with me. Come on.”

You did not respond.

Jack’s stomach turned violently.

Training forced itself back online in fragmented pieces despite the panic threatening to choke him alive. Airway. Breathing. Circulation. Neuro. He assessed automatically even while his brain screamed at him that this was you beneath his hands.

Not a patient.

You.

Blood pressure crash from trauma? Concussion? Cervical injury? Shoulder dislocation? Fracture? Internal bleed?

His eyes flicked instantly toward your throat again and rage flooded him so suddenly it nearly stole his breath.

Finger-shaped bruises were already darkening against your skin.

He hurt you.

The realization nearly made Jack physically sick.

“Jack,” Dana’s voice cut sharply through the chaos as she dropped beside him. “We need to move.”

But Jack could barely hear her.

Your eyelashes fluttered faintly for half a second before falling closed again and something inside him broke completely at the sight.

“No no no,” he whispered frantically, brushing damp hair away from your face with shaking fingers. “Stay awake. Baby, stay awake for me.”

His voice cracked hard on the last word.

That terrified him almost as much as the sight of you bleeding on the floor.

Because Jack Abbot did not lose composure.

Not during traumas, not during mass casualties, not while pronouncing deaths.

But right now panic was tearing straight through him so violently he could barely breathe around it.

And for the first time in years, he had absolutely no idea how to separate being a doctor from being the man who loved you.

“What the hell happened?”

Robby’s voice cut sharply through the chaos as he pushed into Trauma Two with Mohan directly behind him, but for half a second, both of them stopped cold.

The room looked catastrophic. Leon was still fighting violently against security near the far wall, his movements frantic and disorganized while Santos shouted for more sedation. Equipment littered the floor around the trauma bay, overturned trays and scattered supplies crunching beneath people’s shoes as alarms screamed overhead loudly enough to make the entire room feel claustrophobic.

And in the middle of all of it, you were lying motionless on the floor with Jack kneeling beside you.

Blood streaked down the side of your face and disappeared beneath the collar of his hoodie still hanging around your shoulders. Bruising had already started darkening visibly around your throat, ugly fingerprints blooming beneath the fluorescent trauma lights, while your left arm rested at an angle that made Mohan’s stomach immediately drop.

“Jesus Christ,” Mohan breathed.

“Security’s got the patient,” Dana snapped, already dropping beside you with Santos. “Probably postictal aggression after the seizure. He went after her.”

Robby moved instantly after that, years of trauma medicine overriding shock the second he reached your side. “Get her on a gurney now. C-spine precautions. Santos, I need vitals. Dana, page CT and tell them we’re coming immediately. Mohan, get me neuro and ortho on standby.”

Everybody moved except Jack.

He stayed frozen beside you on the tile floor, one hand still cradling the side of your face like he physically could not force himself to let go.

“Jack,” Robby said.

No response.

Jack was staring at you with an expression Robby had never seen on him before. Not panic exactly. Worse than panic. Helplessness, maybe, like his brain had short-circuited somewhere between doctor and boyfriend and now could not figure out how to function as either.

“Jack,” Robby repeated more firmly.

That finally seemed to pull him back enough to blink.

“She isn’t breathing right,” he said hoarsely, voice rough enough it barely sounded like him anymore. “He had her by the throat. Her head hit the cabinet, probably. Possible LOC. Shoulder’s definitely dislocated, maybe fractured too.”

The words came out clipped and automatic, pure trauma assessment forced through panic, but his hands were still shaking.

Dana and Santos carefully slid a backboard beneath you while Mohan cut away the remains of the hoodie around your shoulder to assess the injury better. The second the fabric moved, Jack saw the full extent of the bruising spreading across your throat, dark purple already beneath your skin.

“He squeezed hard enough to leave petechiae,” Santos muttered quietly while examining your neck. “Shit.”

Robby’s jaw tightened immediately. “We need airway monitoring. Neck trauma protocol.”

You stirred weakly then, letting out a broken sound somewhere between a gasp and a whimper as Dana stabilized your shoulder. Jack moved instantly at the sound.

“Hey,” he said, voice softening so fast it almost hurt to hear. “Hey, don’t move. You’re okay.”

Your eyes fluttered halfway open for barely a second before unfocusing again.

“She’s awake,” Jack breathed.

“For now,” Robby answered grimly while checking your pupils with a penlight. “Possible concussion. We’re not ruling anything out yet.”

Jack knew that tone. It was the same one they all used when things might be much worse than they looked initially.

Around them, the room was finally beginning to settle into controlled chaos instead of outright panic. Security had Leon restrained now while Santos pushed sedatives through an IV line with tight, controlled movements. Leon’s terrified shouting dissolved into confused, exhausted mumbling as the medication began taking effect.

“He didn’t know what he was doing,” Mohan said quietly, mostly to fill the horrible silence hanging over the room.

Jack did not answer. Rationally, he already knew that. Postictal aggression, neurological confusion, severe agitation after seizure activity. They had all seen it before. But none of it mattered right now, because every time Jack blinked, he saw your body hitting the floor again.

“On my count,” Santos said firmly while positioning herself near your head. “One, two, three.”

They lifted you carefully onto the gurney, and the second they moved your shoulder, a sharp cry tore from your throat despite your barely conscious state.

Jack physically flinched.

Robby looked at him immediately. “Jack, I need you with me here.”

But Jack still looked frozen. His prosthetic locked slightly as he stood too quickly, pain shooting sharply through the joint while exhaustion and adrenaline crashed violently together inside his body. Normally, he compensated automatically for it. Years of physical therapy had taught him exactly how to move through pain without thinking.

Right now, he barely noticed it. All he could see was you strapped to a trauma gurney instead of standing beside one, and somehow that felt profoundly wrong in a way his brain could not fully process yet.

Dana squeezed his arm briefly as she passed him. “She’s alive,” she said quietly, firmly enough that it sounded almost like an order. “So stay with us.”

Jack swallowed hard, then finally nodded once.

The second the gurney locked into place beside the trauma bed, the room shifted fully into trauma mode. Controlled chaos. Fast hands. Sharply clipped orders. Monitor alarms blending into the constant noise of the ER outside while everybody moved around you with the kind of practiced coordination that only came from years of emergency medicine.

“BP dropping,” Santos called from the monitor station. “Ninety-two over fifty-six. Heart rate one-forty. Pulse ox ninety-four.”

Robby swore quietly under his breath before stepping beside the gurney. “Dana, I need another large bore IV. CBC, CMP, coags, type and screen, lactate. Full trauma panel.”

Dana was already moving before he finished speaking.

Mohan carefully stabilized your cervical spine while Perlah adjusted the collar more securely around your neck. Blood stained the side of your face now, dark against pale skin beneath the fluorescent trauma lights, while bruising continued spreading visibly across your throat.

“She’s tachycardic from pain and adrenaline,” Mohan said quickly while palpating carefully along your ribs and clavicle. “Left shoulder deformity obvious. Could be anterior dislocation, maybe proximal humerus fracture too.”

“She hit hard,” Dana added grimly while cutting away the sleeve of your scrub top completely. “Look at the swelling already, poor baby.”

Jack forced himself closer finally, though every instinct in his body screamed at him to stop looking entirely.

Your shoulder looked wrong. Not subtly wrong, catastrophically wrong. The joint sat visibly displaced beneath skin already darkening with bruising while your arm rested protectively against your torso in unconscious guarding. Even barely responsive, your body was trying to protect the injury.

“Y/N?” Robby called firmly while shining the penlight into your eyes again. “Hey, stay with me.”

Your eyelids fluttered weakly, and your lips parted slightly before a small broken sound escaped you, more pain than words.

“There you go,” Dana said softly. “That’s good, hey sweetie.”

“She’s responsive,” Mohan confirmed. “Pupils reactive bilaterally.”

“Any obvious neuro deficits?”

“Hard to assess until she’s more alert.”

Jack swallowed hard. Normally those words would have sounded clinical. Routine. Hearing them about you made him feel sick.

Robby’s fingers moved carefully along your scalp before stopping near the back of your head. “She’s got a laceration here. Probably where she hit the cabinet.”

“How bad?” Jack asked immediately.

Robby looked up briefly. “Needs staples. I’m more concerned about intracranial bleed.”

Jack felt the room narrow sharply around him as his brain supplied every possibility instantly. Subdural. Epidural. Contusion. Diffuse axonal injury. Years of trauma medicine suddenly felt less like a skill and more like torture because now he knew exactly how bad this could become.

“BP’s still dropping,” Santos called sharply.

“Hang another liter.”

Dana connected fluids immediately while Mohan checked your abdomen carefully for rigidity and tenderness.

“She guarding?”

“Little bit.”

“Could just be pain response.”

“Or internal injury,” Robby answered grimly.

Jack closed his eyes briefly. Only twenty minutes ago, he had been teasing you for refusing to change out of wet scrubs. Twenty minutes ago, you had been standing beside him alive and exhausted and rolling your eyes at him. Now you were strapped to a trauma gurney while your coworkers discussed possible brain bleeds.

The trauma bay doors pushed open again.

“What do we have?”

Garcia entered already pulling gloves on, clearly expecting another routine consult before her eyes landed on the gurney. Then she froze.

“Is that...?”

Nobody answered immediately because suddenly saying it aloud made everything feel horrifyingly real.

Garcia moved closer automatically, surgical instincts taking over even while shock still flickered visibly across her face. Her eyes swept quickly across your injuries, taking in the bruising around your throat, the unstable shoulder, and the blood matted into your hair.

“Oh my God.”

Jack looked away sharply at the sound in her voice. He could handle panic, trauma, blood, failed resuscitations, and catastrophic injuries. But he could not handle hearing pity directed at you.

“What happened?” Garcia asked quietly.

“Postictal assault,” Robby answered while reviewing your vitals. “Patient seized after MVC. Became combative during recovery.”

Garcia’s jaw tightened immediately. Her eyes flicked briefly toward Jack, and somehow that made everything worse. Everybody in the hospital knew about the two of you. Not because either of you talked about it much, but because some things became obvious after enough years working together. The way Jack unconsciously searched for you in crowded rooms. The way your voice softened around him even during impossible shifts. The way both of you somehow always ended up side by side during difficult traumas without discussing it first.

And now everybody was watching him try not to fall apart while you lay bleeding in front of him.

“Y/N,” Garcia said gently while stepping closer to assess your airway. “Can you hear me?”

Your brow twitched faintly at the sound of your name.

“Good,” she murmured softly. “Stay with us.”

Jack finally moved closer again until he stood directly beside the gurney. For a second, he just stared at you. Really stared. At the bruises darkening beneath your jaw, at the trembling rise and fall of your breathing, at the blood drying against your temple.

Then very carefully, he reached down and took your hand.

Your fingers twitched weakly against his palm almost immediately.

Tiny movement. Huge relief.

“Okay,” Robby said firmly, forcing the room back into focus. “Let’s move. I want CT angio head and neck immediately. We’re ruling out intracranial bleed and carotid injury.”

Garcia nodded once beside him, already assessing your airway with practiced hands. “Neck swelling’s getting worse.”

Jack saw it too now that she said it aloud. The bruising around your throat had spread darker beneath the fluorescent lights while swelling gathered visibly beneath your jawline. Every breath you took sounded wrong now. Wet. Shallow. Strained enough to make every survival instinct in his body start screaming.

“Pulse ox is dipping,” Santos called sharply. “Ninety-one.”

“Jaw thrust,” Garcia ordered immediately.

Dana repositioned carefully at your head while Garcia leaned closer, studying the bruising around your airway with growing concern. “She may need to be intubated before CT if the swelling progresses.”

The word hit Jack like a physical blow. Intubated. His brain immediately supplied images he did not want. Ventilator settings. Sedation drips. ICU monitors. Neurological checks every hour.

“No,” he said automatically before he could stop himself.

Everybody looked at him.

Jack swallowed hard immediately, realizing too late he had said it aloud.

Robby’s expression softened slightly. “Jack.”

He hated the way Robby said his name right now. Carefully. Like he was one bad second away from falling apart completely.

“I know,” Jack muttered quickly, dragging a shaky hand down his face. “I know.”

But he didn’t. Not really. Because his brain kept splitting violently between two impossible realities. One side of him catalogued injuries automatically. Airway trauma after strangulation. Possible cervical instability. Hypoxia. Concussion. Internal bleeding. Shoulder fracture-dislocation. The other side could barely process the fact that you were lying here at all.

Your breathing suddenly hitched sharply.

Jack’s head snapped toward you instantly.

Your eyes fluttered weakly before opening. Confusion crossed your face immediately while you tried weakly to move, but pain flashed across your expression so fast it made Jack physically tense.

“Don’t,” he said immediately, stepping closer. “Baby, don’t move.”

Your gaze drifted slowly around the trauma bay like you were trying to understand where you were. The bright lights. The people surrounding you. The monitors beeping overhead. Then finally, your eyes landed on Jack.

Relief flickered there instantly. Small. Barely there. Enough to nearly destroy him.

“Hey,” he said softly, gripping your hand tighter without realizing it. “Hey, I’m right here.”

Your lips parted slightly, but nothing came out at first except a weak breath.

Jack leaned closer immediately. “What?”

Your brow pinched faintly in confusion.

“...Leon?”

The room went quiet for half a second.

Even now, barely conscious and injured and terrified, your first instinct was still the patient. Something inside Jack cracked painfully at that.

“He’s restrained,” Robby answered gently before Jack could. “You’re safe.”

Your eyes shifted again, slower this time.

“Hurts,” you whispered faintly.

Jack looked immediately toward your shoulder. “I know,” he said quietly, voice finally cracking despite how hard he tried to control it. “I know, sweetheart.”

Garcia’s eyes flicked sharply toward him at the sound. Jack almost never lost composure at work. Not like this.

You tried to swallow and immediately winced.

Garcia noticed too. “Throat pain?”

A tiny nod.

“Difficulty breathing?”

Another weak nod.

Garcia looked immediately toward Robby. “Airway’s worsening.”

Robby swore quietly under his breath. “We tube here or risk losing it in CT.”

The room shifted instantly again. More movement. More urgency. Dana reached for airway equipment while Santos prepared sedation meds with visibly tighter movements now. Mohan adjusted oxygen flow quickly while Garcia moved toward the head of the bed.

Jack felt suddenly frozen all over again.

Your eyes moved back toward him weakly, panic beginning to flicker beneath the pain now that you were awake enough to understand pieces of the conversation around you.

“Jack,” you whispered hoarsely.

His chest tightened violently. “I’m here.”

Your fingers curled weakly against his hand.

“Don’t...” Your breathing hitched painfully. “Don’t leave.”

That finally broke him.

Because you sounded scared. You, the person who stayed calm during pediatric arrests and mass casualty incidents and catastrophic traumas that made residents physically sick afterward.

Jack leaned down immediately, pressing his forehead briefly against yours despite the blood and chaos surrounding both of you. “I’m not going anywhere,” he whispered shakily. “Okay? I’m right here.”

Then your heart rate spiked sharply.

“One-fifty,” Santos warned.

Your oxygen dipped again.

“Eighty-eight.”

Garcia looked up instantly. “That’s it. We’re securing the airway.”

Panic flashed visibly across your face, and Jack felt your hand tighten weakly around his.

“Hey,” he said immediately, brushing damp hair carefully away from your forehead. “Look at me, sweetheart.”

Your unfocused eyes found his again.

“You’re okay,” he whispered, even though his own heart was pounding hard enough to make him nauseous. “Just keep breathing for me.”

Garcia stepped beside him carefully. “Jack,” she said quietly. “I need room.”

And suddenly he realized there was nothing else he could do. No medication to order. No procedure capable of fixing this himself. No trauma protocol separating him from the overwhelming terror flooding his chest.

All he could do was let go of your hand and watch other people try to save you, and somehow that felt worse than anything he had seen in his entire career.

And somehow that felt infinitely worse than any injury he had seen in his entire career.

The intubation blurred together afterward in fragments Jack knew would probably stay with him for the rest of his life.

Garcia’s voice turned sharp and clinical the second she stepped fully into procedure mode. “Etomidate ready?”

“Ready.”

“Succinylcholine?”

“Ready.”

“Pulse ox?”

“Eighty-seven and dropping.”

The room moved quickly around you after that. Packaging tore open, monitors screamed softly overhead, and Santos pushed medications through your IV with controlled precision while Dana stabilized your cervical spine at the head of the bed.

Jack stood rooted beside the wall, feeling completely fucking useless.

He had watched hundreds of intubations in his career. He had performed them himself during impossible traumas, with blood filling airways and families screaming outside the room. Usually, the procedure grounded him. Medicine always grounded him because medicine made sense. Algorithms. Protocols. Airway, breathing, circulation. Find the problem and fix it.

But this was you, and suddenly none of it felt clinical anymore.

Your eyes found his one last time before the sedatives fully took effect. Fear still flickered there beneath the exhaustion and pain, but so did trust. Complete trust. The kind that made his chest ache violently because you were still looking at him like he could somehow fix this.

Then your body relaxed beneath the medication.

Garcia moved immediately. “Going in.”

The room fell quieter for a second except for the ventilator alarms and the sound of Jack’s own pulse hammering violently in his ears. He watched Garcia guide the laryngoscope carefully while Robby monitored your vitals from beside the bed.

“Visualized.”

“Tube.”

“Advancing.”

Jack swallowed hard enough that it hurt.

You looked so small suddenly. That was the thought that kept repeating in his head while he stared at your motionless body beneath trauma lights that suddenly felt much too bright. You had always seemed larger than life somehow. Loud when you wanted to be. Brilliant. Sharp-edged. Impossible to intimidate. The kind of doctor residents followed instinctively because even during disasters, you carried yourself like you could handle anything thrown at you.

Now you were lying completely still while somebody else breathed for you.

“Tube’s in,” Garcia confirmed.

Relief swept through the room instantly, subtle but collective.

“End tidal color change confirmed.”

“Breath sounds bilateral.”

“Secure it.”

Dana taped the ET tube carefully into place while the ventilator connected with a soft mechanical hiss. Your chest finally began rising in slow, controlled breaths afterward, steady and artificial and horrifyingly impersonal.

Jack hated the sound immediately.

The ventilator transformed you from injured into critical in a way his brain could no longer avoid.

Robby was already moving again. “Okay, we transport now. I want CTA head and neck, cervical spine imaging, chest CT, trauma series. Somebody call ortho and tell them she’s likely got a fracture-dislocation.”

“She’s still hypotensive,” Santos warned while adjusting fluids.

“Pressure?”

“Ninety systolic.”

“Hang another liter.”

Everything continued moving around him after that, but Jack could barely process any of it fully anymore. The room had narrowed into snapshots burned violently into his memory. Blood staining the collar of your scrub top. Finger-shaped bruises spreading darker around your throat. Your hand slipping weakly from his when they rolled the gurney toward the doors.

He followed automatically beside the bed while they rushed you toward imaging. His prosthetic protested immediately beneath the sudden pace, sharp pain radiating through the socket with every uneven step, but he barely registered it now. His entire body had narrowed itself into one singular instinct.

Stay close. Do not lose sight of her.

Hallway lights blurred overhead while the gurney rattled violently across tile. Nurses moved aside instantly when they recognized who was lying on the stretcher, and somehow that silence hurt worse than panic would have.

People stopped talking when they saw you.

A respiratory therapist physically froze near the elevators before whispering, “Oh my God.”

Jack looked away immediately. He could not handle watching other people realize how bad this was.

Then suddenly, he was left standing alone in the hallway.

The silence hit him all at once.

He stared numbly at the closed doors for several long seconds before finally turning back toward Trauma Two because he genuinely did not know what else to do with himself.

By the time he returned, the room was mostly empty again. The chaos was over. Only the aftermath remained.

One overturned tray still sat abandoned near the wall where it had been kicked over during the struggle. Wrappers and syringes littered the floor beside shattered plastic packaging while a monitor continued beeping pointlessly beside an empty bed.

And blood.

Your blood was still everywhere.

Jack stopped walking.

For a second he just stood there staring at it. Tiny streaks across the tile floor. Smears against the cabinets where your head had hit. Dark fingerprints dried against the bedrail.

His stomach twisted so violently he thought he might actually throw up.

Because the only thing left of you in this room now was blood.

Not your laugh echoing across the nurses’ station during overnight shifts. Not your sarcasm when Santos annoyed you on purpose. Not the warmth of your body curled against his after impossible shifts when both of you were too exhausted to even speak properly anymore.

Just blood.

Jack looked down slowly at his own hands. There was still dried blood caught beneath his fingernails from where he had held your face trying to keep you conscious. More stained the sleeves of his scrub top in dark rust-colored smears that made his chest tighten painfully every time he looked at them.

You were intubated upstairs while trauma surgeons searched your brain for bleeding.

The thought cracked something open inside him.

If he had stayed. If he had trusted his instincts. If he had checked sooner.

“Jack.”

Dana’s voice came softly from the doorway behind him.

He did not turn around immediately. For a second, neither of them spoke while she took in the scene around him. Dana had worked in emergency medicine long enough to understand what trauma aftermath looked like, not just physically, but emotionally too.

Jack looked wrecked. Not outwardly hysterical. That almost would have been easier. Instead, he looked hollowed out from the inside.

“You should sit down,” she said gently.

“I’m fine.”

The answer came automatically, immediate and empty.

Dana almost sighed because they both knew it was complete bullshit. She stepped further into the room slowly, careful with him now in the same way people approached trauma patients who had not realized how badly they were injured yet.

“You’re shaking.”

His hands were trembling badly now that the adrenaline had started wearing off, small uncontrollable tremors moving through his fingers no matter how tightly he clenched them into fists.

“I left her,” he said quietly.

Dana’s expression softened immediately. “Jack.”

“I left her alone with him.”

The guilt in his voice nearly hurt to hear.

Dana moved closer. “You could not have predicted postictal aggression escalating like that.”

“But I should’ve checked sooner.”

Jack laughed once under his breath, but there was absolutely no humor in it. Just panic and exhaustion and guilt twisting together so tightly he could barely breathe around it anymore.

“She sounded scared,” he whispered roughly. “Do you know how bad it has to be for her to sound scared?”

Dana’s chest tightened painfully because she did know. Everybody in that hospital knew how terrifyingly calm you usually were under pressure. You were the person comforting other people during disasters. The doctor residents looked for during bad traumas because your voice never shook.

But tonight it had.

Dana stepped directly in front of him then and reached up without hesitation, gripping the back of his neck firmly enough to ground him.

“Listen to me,” she said softly but seriously. “She is alive.”

Jack swallowed hard. “She squeezed my hand before CT.”

“Then hold onto that.”

His eyes burned immediately at the words.

For a second, he looked terrifyingly close to falling apart completely.

“She was looking at me like she thought she was dying.”

Dana’s face crumpled slightly at the crack in his voice because Jack Abbot almost never sounded fragile. Not after everything life had already put him through.

But this was different.

This was you.

“You know her,” Dana said quietly. “You know how hard she fights.”

Jack closed his eyes briefly because somehow that made this hurt even worse. He did know. He knew the exact stubborn determination living inside you, the way you worked through exhaustion and grief and pain because your body physically did not know how to stop caring about people.

And suddenly, the idea of losing you felt so catastrophic he genuinely could not imagine surviving it.

When you woke up, the first thing you felt was pain.

Not sharp at first. Not localized enough to understand. Just heavy.

A crushing ache spread through your entire body like every bone had shattered somewhere deep beneath your skin. Awareness dragged itself slowly upward through layers of medication and exhaustion while fluorescent hospital light glowed faintly red through your eyelids. For one blissfully empty second, your brain stayed blank enough that you did not remember anything at all.

Then your chest tightened violently around the ventilator tube lodged in your throat.

Panic hit instantly.

Your eyes snapped open as your body reacted on pure instinct, trying desperately to fight the foreign object forcing air into your lungs. The movement sent agony ripping through your throat and jaw so violently it nearly knocked you unconscious again. A horrible choking sound escaped around the tube while pain exploded across the side of your head hard enough to blur your vision immediately.

The monitors beside your bed erupted into sharp alarms.

Then suddenly Jack was there.

He moved so quickly the chair beside your ICU bed nearly tipped backward onto the floor. One second the room felt empty and terrifying and unfamiliar, and the next his hands were hovering carefully near your face like he wanted to touch you everywhere at once but was terrified of hurting you more.

“Hey, hey, don’t fight it,” he said immediately, voice low and urgent. “You’re okay. Breathe with it.”

You could see his mouth moving. Could see panic written all over his face.

But you could not hear him properly.

Everything sounded distorted beneath the ringing in your ears, voices muffled and warped together like you were trapped underwater. The ventilator hissed rhythmically beside you while your chest rose mechanically against your will, and the sensation was horrifying enough to send another wave of panic crashing violently through your body.

Jack kept talking anyway.

You recognized the cadence of his voice more than the words themselves. Calm. Steady. But underneath it there was something rawer now, something desperate he usually hid much better than this.

Your entire body hurt.

Your throat burned every time the ventilator pushed another breath into your lungs. Your jaw ached violently from the intubation while your left shoulder throbbed with deep nauseating pain that radiated all the way down your arm. Even breathing hurt despite the machine doing most of the work for you.

Then memory came back all at once.

The trauma bay. Leon seizing. Hands crushing around your throat. Your head slamming violently against the cabinet. The floor.

You started crying before you even realized it was happening.

Tears slipped silently sideways into your hair while panic clawed straight up your chest hard enough to blur your vision again. You could not stop shaking. Every instinct in your body still screamed danger even though logically you knew you were safe now.

Jack’s entire expression broke the second he realized you were crying.

“Oh, baby,” he whispered hoarsely.

At least you thought that was what he said.

He sat carefully on the edge of the chair beside your bed before reaching for your hand, avoiding IV lines and bruises with practiced gentleness. The second his fingers touched yours, you grabbed onto him desperately enough that pain shot violently through your injured shoulder again.

You did not care.

Jack was here.

And somehow that meant alive. Safe.

Your grip tightened harder around his hand while your breathing turned ragged around the tube again. Jack immediately leaned closer, his thumb brushing shakily across your knuckles while he tried to calm you before you exhausted yourself further.

“It’s okay,” he murmured softly. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

Only then did you really look at him.

And God.

He looked awful.

Dark bruising sat beneath his eyes like he had not slept once since this happened. His hair looked messy in a way that suggested he had spent hours dragging anxious hands through it, and there was something hollowed out in his expression now that made your chest tighten painfully.

You mouthed the question anyway despite the ventilator.

What happened to you?

Jack watched your lips carefully before understanding finally crossed his face. His throat worked once visibly while emotion flashed so openly across his expression it almost scared you more than the pain itself.

He still looked terrified.

Even now.

Instead of speaking, he carefully turned your hand over in his and began tracing slow letters against your palm with his thumb.

Patient attacked you.

The memory crashed back completely after that.

The pressure around your throat. Leon’s empty unfocused eyes. Your body hitting the wall. The terrifying realization that he genuinely did not recognize you anymore.

You jerked violently on instinct before you could stop yourself, panic surging through your bloodstream so fast your vision blurred instantly while the cardiac monitor erupted into another wave of alarms beside the bed.

Jack reacted immediately.

“Hey, hey, look at me.”

You could not fully hear the words, but you knew his voice. Knew the shape of it. The desperation underneath it.

Your breathing turned frantic around the ventilator while terror clawed violently through your chest again. You remembered thinking you were going to die. Not abstractly. Not distantly.

Really die.

And for one horrifying second, lying in this ICU bed unable to speak or breathe on your own, that feeling came rushing back all over again.

Jack kept one hand wrapped tightly around yours while the other hovered uncertainly near your face. He looked like he wanted to pull you against him and protect you from everything all at once but knew touching you too much would only hurt you further.

“You’re safe now,” he kept saying quietly. “He can’t hurt you. You’re safe.”

Safe.

Your eyes darted weakly around the ICU room instead. Machines. IV poles. Bandages. Your leg elevated and immobilized beneath blankets. Soft restraints loosely secured around your wrists so you would not accidentally pull the ventilator tube out while disoriented.

You felt trapped inside your own body.

The panic became unbearable.

Then your eyes landed on the PCA pump beside the bed.

Jack noticed immediately.

His entire face fell.

“Baby…”

You reached weakly toward the button anyway with trembling fingers.

Jack looked absolutely shattered watching you press it. Not angry. Not disappointed.

Heartbroken.

Because he understood immediately what you were doing.

You could not stop the fear. Could not stop the pain.

So you were choosing unconsciousness instead.

Medication flooded slowly through your bloodstream almost immediately afterward. Warmth spread outward in gradual waves, softening the sharp edges of panic first before the pain finally began loosening its grip around your body. The terror still lingered somewhere deep beneath everything else, but it no longer felt sharp enough to suffocate you alive.

Your grip weakened slightly around Jack’s hand as exhaustion dragged heavily at your eyelids again.

Jack stayed exactly where he was.

You could barely keep your eyes open anymore, but you still saw the way he looked at you while the medication slowly pulled you back under.

Completely devastated.

Like watching you choose sedation over consciousness hurt him almost as much as the attack itself.

Your fingers twitched weakly against his palm before your eyes finally slipped closed again.

The last thing you felt before unconsciousness dragged you under completely was Jack lifting your hand carefully toward his mouth and pressing one shaking kiss against your bruised knuckles.

The second time you woke up was somehow worse because this time you stayed conscious long enough to understand what had happened to you.

Pain existed everywhere now.

Not sharp anymore. Not even severe enough in one specific place to focus on. It had settled deeper than that, heavy and constant, wrapping itself around your entire body until even breathing felt exhausting. Every inhale pulled painfully against bruised ribs while your jaw throbbed in slow aching pulses that spread all the way into your skull. The medication dulled the edges enough to keep panic from swallowing you whole again, but not enough to make you forget.

Nothing let you forget for very long.

Garcia stood beside your ICU bed when your eyes finally opened again, flashlight moving carefully across your pupils while monitors hummed steadily around the room. The overhead lights had been dimmed sometime while you slept, leaving everything washed in pale blue-gray shadows that made the hospital feel strangely unreal.

“Hey,” Garcia said softly the second she noticed you were awake. “Welcome back.”

Your hearing still came and went in fractured bursts after the concussion. Some sounds arrived painfully sharp while others disappeared completely beneath the relentless ringing inside your ears. Voices felt warped and distant, like everybody speaking stood underwater somewhere far away from you.

You blinked slowly toward the doorway and spotted Santos hovering there awkwardly holding a bouquet of flowers that looked aggressively stolen from the hospital gift shop. Half the stems bent sideways beneath crinkled plastic wrap while one of the price tags still dangled visibly from the bouquet.

You stared at them for a second before a weak breath of laughter escaped you despite the pain immediately punishing the movement.

Santos looked so relieved at the sound she nearly seemed close to crying herself.

“You scared the absolute shit out of us,” she said quickly, like humor was the only thing keeping her from saying something genuinely emotional instead.

The ghost of a smile tugged weakly at your mouth.

Garcia stepped back after finishing the neuro assessment while Santos moved a little closer to the bed, still clutching the flowers awkwardly against her chest.

“Abbott threatened like six people,” she muttered after clearing her throat.

Your eyes shifted toward her slowly.

“He almost went through security trying to get back to Leon.”

Your stomach twisted instantly.

Leon.

For one horrible second you saw him again exactly as he looked before the attack happened. Pale and exhausted beneath ambulance lights while rain hammered against the windows around both of you. Laughing weakly through pain. Asking if you were always that calm. Looking at you like you were safe.

You swallowed hard against the sudden nausea crawling into your throat.

“What happened to him?” you asked quietly, each word dragging painfully through the ache in your fractured jaw.

Santos’ expression changed immediately. The sarcasm disappeared first. Then the humor.

“He’s okay,” she answered after a moment, voice softer now. “Physically, I mean.”

You closed your eyes briefly.

Santos hesitated before continuing more carefully. “He doesn’t remember anything after the seizure started. Robby thinks it’s the postictal state mixed with the head trauma.”

The room fell quiet after that.

Not awkward quiet.

Heavy quiet.

The kind that settled directly into your ribs and stayed there.

Because the worst part was that you believed her completely.

You knew exactly what postictal violence looked like. You understood the neurological confusion, the blind panic, the total loss of recognition that sometimes followed severe seizures. Rationally and medically, every part of your brain understood exactly what had happened inside Trauma Two.

But emotionally, it still hurt in ways you did not know how to untangle yet.

A strange grief wrapped itself around the fear sitting inside your chest because less than an hour before the attack, Leon had been sitting beside you in the back of an ambulance talking about his daughter and his wife and soccer games and stupid jokes while rain pounded against the windows. You remembered thinking he seemed kind, the sort of patient who apologized too much for being in pain.

You had liked him.

And then suddenly he became the person who nearly killed you.

Emergency medicine was cruel like that sometimes. One second somebody was human to you. The next they became trauma.

Santos stepped closer quietly before squeezing your foot gently through the blanket. “We’ll come back later, okay?”

You nodded weakly.

After they left, the ICU room felt unbearably quiet again. Machines hummed softly around you while rain tapped faintly against distant windows somewhere beyond the hallway. Pittsburgh looked gray outside the narrow ICU window, the city blurred beneath another storm rolling slowly across the skyline.

You drifted in and out for hours after that.

Sometimes nurses came in to check vitals and neuro responses. Sometimes transport arrived to wheel you toward imaging. Sometimes you only woke long enough to register pain before medication dragged you under again.

Then sometime deep into the night, consciousness returned slowly enough that you realized somebody was sitting beside your bed.

Jack.

At first you thought he was asleep.

His head rested bowed carefully against your hand where it lay on top of the blanket, broad shoulders slumped forward like exhaustion had physically crushed him downward into the chair. The dim ICU lighting softened the edges of him enough that for one brief second he looked strangely fragile.

Then you noticed he was shaking.

Your heart cracked instantly.

Jack was crying.

Quietly. Almost silently. But hard enough that his shoulders trembled every few seconds beneath the dim blue ICU lights.

The sight hurt worse than any fracture in your body.

You had seen Jack exhausted before. Angry. Burned out after impossible shifts and mass casualty nights and pediatric codes that left entire departments emotionally gutted afterward.

But you had never seen him like this.

Very slowly, ignoring the pain shooting through your ribs and shoulder, you lifted your fingers weakly toward his hair.

The movement alone was enough.

Jack lifted his head immediately.

His eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed beneath exhaustion so deep it looked painful. There was stubble shadowing his jaw now like he had not even thought about himself since this happened, and the healing cut near his cheekbone stood out harshly beneath fluorescent light.

Destroyed.

That was the only word your exhausted brain could find for the way he looked.

Jack Abbott was always the steady one. The person everybody else leaned on during disasters because he never seemed to break no matter how catastrophic things became around him.

Until now.

“I should’ve stayed.”

The words came out rough enough they barely sounded like him at all. Raw. Torn open somewhere deep inside.

You frowned weakly despite the pain. “No.”

“I knew something was wrong.”

“You couldn’t know.”

“I did.”

Jack stood abruptly then, pacing once across the small ICU room before turning back toward you like he physically could not force himself to stay still anymore. His prosthetic clicked sharply against the tile beneath his scrub pants while one trembling hand dragged hard through his hair again.

“I left you alone in there.”

“Jack.”

His face crumpled so suddenly it stole what little breath your bruised ribs could manage.

“When they pulled him off you...” His voice broke completely for one horrible second before he forced himself to continue anyway. “You weren’t moving.”

Your own eyes filled instantly.

Jack pressed shaking fingers hard against his mouth, trying desperately to regain control of himself and failing anyway.

“There was so much blood,” he whispered finally.

The confession hollowed the entire room out around both of you.

You reached toward him carefully despite the pain.

Jack moved back to your bedside immediately this time, like he physically could not tolerate distance from you anymore, and leaned down slowly until his forehead rested carefully against yours.

For a long time neither of you spoke.

Machines hummed softly around the room while rain tapped gently against the windows again. Jack’s breathing still shook every few seconds no matter how hard he tried controlling it, and you realized with sudden aching clarity that he had been holding himself together by force ever since the attack happened.

Probably for everyone else.

For the department.

For you.

Until now.

Finally, through the ache in your jaw and throat, you whispered softly, “You saved me.”

Jack closed his eyes immediately like the words hurt almost as much as the memory itself.

For a long moment he did not say anything at all. His forehead stayed pressed carefully against yours while his breathing shook unevenly every few seconds, and you realized suddenly that he was trying very hard not to completely fall apart in front of you. The effort of it sat visibly in every tense line of his body, in the way his fingers curled tightly around yours like letting go might physically destroy him, in the way his shoulders remained rigid even now like some part of him still expected another disaster to happen the second he stopped bracing for it.

“You almost died.”

The words came out so quietly you nearly missed them beneath the hum of machines surrounding both of you.

Jack pulled back just enough to look at you again, and the expression on his face made something ache deep inside your chest because he looked terrified still.

Not panicked anymore. Not frantic.

Just deeply, genuinely terrified in a way you had never seen before.

“I couldn’t get to you fast enough,” he admitted roughly, eyes fixed on your face like he needed constant proof you were still here. “I heard the safe word and I ran, but by the time I got there...” His throat tightened visibly. “You were on the floor.”

You swallowed painfully.

Bits and pieces still came back in flashes more than complete memories. Leon’s hands around your throat. The cabinet slamming against the back of your skull. The overwhelming certainty that your body was beginning to give out beneath you.

Then Jack.

Your eyes drifted slowly across his face now, taking him in properly for the first time since waking up. The exhaustion. The fear. The sleepless hollowing beneath his eyes. He looked like somebody who had been surviving on adrenaline alone for far too long.

“You did get to me,” you whispered carefully.

Jack laughed once under his breath, but the sound cracked painfully in the middle. “Barely.”

“That’s not true.”

His jaw tightened immediately.

You knew that look. The same one he got after bad outcomes. After losses he carried around long after everybody else moved on. Jack had always been harder on himself than anyone else could ever be, especially when the people he loved were involved.

And God, he loved deeply.

Even when he pretended not to.

You shifted your hand weakly against his, ignoring the ache radiating through your shoulder and ribs.

“Jack.”

His eyes lifted back to yours instantly.

“I’m here.”

Something inside him seemed to break completely at those words.

Jack lowered his head again, pressing one trembling kiss carefully against your bruised knuckles before holding your hand against his chest. His heartbeat pounded hard and uneven beneath your fingers, fast enough that you could still feel the leftover adrenaline vibrating through him.

For a while neither of you spoke again.

The ICU remained dim and quiet around you while rain continued tapping softly against the windows outside. Nurses’ footsteps echoed faintly somewhere down the hallway, distant enough that it almost felt like the rest of the world existed somewhere very far away from this room.

Your eyelids had started growing heavy again by the time Jack finally spoke.

“You scared me,” he admitted quietly.

The confession sounded small somehow. Honest in a way that made your chest ache more than the injuries did.

You looked at him for a second before squeezing his hand as tightly as your exhausted body would allow.

“I know,” you whispered.

Jack nodded once, eyes never leaving your face.

Then very carefully, like he was handling something impossibly fragile, he leaned closer and pressed a kiss against your forehead while exhaustion slowly began pulling you back under again.

This time, when sleep finally took you, Jack’s hand never left yours.

tuesdays were always training days.

every tuesday of the week, campers would flock towards the training ground, celestial bronze weapons in hand, picking fights with straw dummies in bronze armor. oftentimes, campers who grew bored of the non-moving, stationary strawmen flocked together and decided to use themselves as their own training dummies. this became a new, innovative method of melee fight teaching, and has carried on to the present day. 

this demigod versus demigod training brawls always happen on tuesdays.

it was an unspoken tradition, written in the minds of these orange-clad campers like it was law. tuesdays were always training days. for the rest of camp, it was a day to hone and develop new skills, to have a better chance at defending themselves against monsters that were prevalent outsidecamp half blood’s borders. it was because of this reasoning that the campers got far too carried away with their training. 

for the apollo cabin, it’s the worst day of the week. 

with the influx of injured campers—all with injuries ranging from pin-sized papercuts to almost amputations—the infirmary was almost always full. more often than not, training days meant that the apollo cabin had to be spread thinner to accommodate the number of people who needed medical attention. 

the apollo cabin holds a mild dislike for tuesdays. you do, especially. 

you often regretted saying yes. after leaving camp half blood years ago, you thought it’d be a nice few years in the mortal world—pursuing your education and bettering your skills away from the world of deadly prophecies and gods and goddesses. it would have been a nice break, until chiron reached out to you privately, asking for a small favor. 

according to him, before you left and for a while after, the tuesdays system was never this bad. apollo could manage it enough; they didn’t need to spread themselves out so thin to treat injured campers.

the system worsened after chiron asked percy jackson to train the campers in swordfighting. this led to a staggering increase in injured demigods. 

you thought it was a false cause—post hoc ergo propter hoc, or whatever. but, after you said yes to chiron’s plea to come back to camp and help apollo manage injuries, you saw with your own eyes that chiron wasn't just incorrectly assuming that because one event followed another, the first event caused the second.

you saw how the poor campers were tripping over themselves and nearly getting mauled because of their efforts in swordfighting. and—upon asking a patient with a finger that almost fell off—it wasn’t because of his methods of teaching. no, it was because the kids wanted to be like him so bad, they went to extremes just to get better, to be like their hero, percy jackson.

the apollo cabin held a mild dislike for tuesdays. you? you loathed them. 

this tuesday, however, is an exception. 

“jackson…” you pause. you have to chastise yourself. healers aren’t supposed to sound this horrified upon seeing their patients, no matter how battered, bloody, or bruised they are. they aren’t supposed to sound horrified at all. you try to mask it with a cough. “what…happened to you?”

threre’s a gash. no, not even that—to call it a gash would be an insult to the mere magnitude of it. it was an ugly, jagged line, the origin at the dead center of his chest. it curls around his pectorals, and you can see it end on a point between his armpit and his bicep. from a blunt weapon, most likely. blood is splattered on his chest like a bad watercolor painting, but thankfully, the wound isn’t gushing out any blood at all.

he’s led to the bed—thank you, you tell his companion—and when he’s sat down, the muscles of his abdomen flex ever so noticeably.

my gods, was his body always this defined? 

a traitorous, unserious voice in your head points that fact out, and heat immediately rushes to your cheeks.

he straightens at your gaze. 

“you should see the other guy,” he tells you, snapping you out of your thoughts. 

your eyebrows furrow, your mouth curls into a wince just thinking of all the healing you’ll have to do to this poor other camper. “i hope i don't get to see the other guy at all.” 

you glance at the pitcher of lukewarm water used to clean wounds. 

percy is the son of poseidon. the pitcher would be an easy way to heal him—you wouldn’t need to spend so much cleaning his large wound and sewing it up. you probably wouldn’t even need to consume the entire pitcher to make the wound disappear.

it’s convenient, the voice in your head says, but it comes at the cost of you not seeing or touching percy’s muscles.

it’s a moral and ethical dilemma.  

you shake your head and turn to the cabinet above you. from there, you pull out sterile gloves, cotton balls, antiseptic, a needle and thread, and some nectar. in the end, the traitorous voice prevails.

after you put the gloves on, you tell him, “i’ll start by cleaning your wound.” you douse the cotton ball in antiseptic. “your wound’s quite big, it might sting.”

he purses his lips and nods, as if steeling himself.

you circle the edges of his wound with antiseptic. once clean, you take a nectar-doused cotton ball and dab it gently against the open wound.

his stomach flexes at the contact. his arms brace against the bed frame, and you can almost see the same arms wrapped around you, same bare torso pressed against your bare back—

“did a kid beat you up this much?” you ask to rid yourself of those thoughts. and oh, how you prayed he couldn’t hear the small tremors in your voice. 

his head snaps around, and he throws a small glare at you. “i’ll have you know, i wasn’t beaten up by a kid.”

“i don’t know who you’re fooling,” you say. “the nymphs, satyrs, and chiron are the only things in camp older than us.”

percy shuts his mouth after, giving you the perfect opportunity to sew the wound closed.

you trace a line around the wound's perimeter.

“i’ll sew around here,” you say. at the look on percy’s face, you reassure him: “there’ll be nectar in the thread, don’t worry. it won’t hurt.”

after you’d sewn the wound closed, you dab over it with nectar for good measure.

“alright, that’s all you’ll need from me.” you hand him a spare camp shirt that—you assume—is his size. “the wound’s all closed up, and i made sure the thread’s fortified enough that the wound won’t open with strenuous activity. you can continue training; just don’t let any kids cut you up that bad, yeah?”

you turn your back to him. you dispose of the antiseptic and nectar cotton balls you used to clean his wound, wrap the needle in tissue and throw it, shelve the bottle of nectar and antiseptic, then tidy up your area. 

when you turn back, percy jackson is still sitting on the infirmary bed. 

he didn’t even put the shirt on. 

“why aren’t you leaving—?”

“you want me,” he says, blunt as the blade that slashed through his—defined, toned, muscled—chest. 

“what?”

shit. 

your heart is beating rapidly in your chest, loud enough that you can hear it roaring in your ears.

“i do not,” you state, crossing your arms over your chest in an attempt to lower your heart rate. it doesn't slow. 

“do too,” he replies. “weren't you checking me out a while ago?”

this was new. 

“i was assessing you. what’s gotten into you?”

“was it the blood, doc?” he smirks. he didn’t even answer your question. “you're into that?” 

you hate how much he sounds like he’s mocking you. 

and you hate how much he's right. 

“no. i’m not. i treat a lot of bloody demigods. every day of the week. there's no way i get aroused by blood.”

i’m into how the blood looks on you, the traitorous (and truthful) voice in your head says. 

then, you huff. “you lost a lot of blood back there,” you say. “you're delirious, jackson. delusional, even.” 

“y’sure, doc?” and you can see the shadow of a smile that stretches across his face when he says, “why don't we test that theory out, huh?”

suddenly, your lower back meets the wooden table. in one long stride, percy had crossed the distance between the two of you. 

there’s a soft smack as his hands land on the table, just right beside you, caging you in between his arms. he leans in enough that the low timbre of his voice reverberates through your bones and stirs the butterflies lying low. 

“you're soaked, pretty girl.”  

fuck. of course the son of the water god would know that. 

and, from the look on his face, the same son of the water god knew that you’d never be able to deny it. 

percy was hot—objectively, truthfully speaking. you knew this. especially now that you’ve seen his fine, god-esque figure accentuated by the sheen of blood. you doubt it was even the blood. it was just him. 

you won't deny, too, what you’ve been feeling—the warmth in your entire body and the unmistakable dampness in your panties—the moment he entered the infirmary. 

was it so wrong to give in to what you want, just this once? 

when you look back up at him, his sea green eyes are boring into your very soul. 

“have you made up your mind yet, doc?” he asks. 

and fuck it, you have. 

you lean in first, smashing your lips against his. 

and, to your surprise, percy kisses you back with as much vigor—if not more. 

the two of you waste no time in being careful. percy shoves his tongue in your mouth, you run your hands to his hair, tugging at the strands that get caught between your fingers.

you only register hands on you, then the loss of ground, before you’re lifted onto the wooden table. 

he leans in, his kisses sloppy, desperate, and downright greedy as he sucks on your bottom lip. 

he leaves your lips tingling for more as he kisses down, down, down, right at your carotid. he licks that very point, then hollows his cheeks and sucks. 

you let out a sound. it teeters embarrassingly on the edge of a yelp and a drawn-out groan.

immediately, your hand flies to your mouth.  

“don't do that, pretty girl,” he says, peeling your hands away from your mouth. he intertwines them, then presses another kiss there, mumbling against the soft skin: “wanna hear everything.”    

“but they'll hear us, jackson,” you whisper. 

the both of you are silent for a moment, until:

“wanna come over to mine?” he asks. “cabin’s soundproof. no one’s gonna hear a thing.”

the moments to cabin three pass in the blink of an eye. 

when you cross the threshold of the seasalt-scented cabin, none of you linger.  

with a sudden bout of newfound confidence, you pull him in by the hand, the kiss open-mouthed, wet—leagues away from your initial composure at the infirmary. there’s none now; you think you’ve lost it all. 

percy leads you to the bed. he makes himself comfortable, and the hand entwined with yours pulls you onto his lap. 

his one hand is everywhere. it cradles your face and deepens the kiss, it squeezes and grips at your waist, and, the next moment, latches on to it like a vice and pulls you impossibly closer to him.

your limbs are wrapped perfectly around him. one hand clings to his shoulders, locking him in place and feeling every oscillating wave of his muscles at every small movement. the other hand stays locked in his. 

your pussy’s weeping, downright throbbing at the taste of his tongue in your mouth. you couldn't help but think about how it’d feel inside of you—

ankles lock right behind him, trying to bring yourself even closer and closer to where you needed him most. your drenched panties catch on to the tent at the front of his shorts, and you have to hold back a sob. 

you think, in this moment, you’ve finally made up your mind. 

“i want you,” you murmur. “so bad.”

percy lets out a small, mirthful chuckle. “can feel you getting wetter over me, doc. ‘s like a damn waterpark.” 

before you can retort, percy’s hands grip your hips—not rough, not tight, but as if asking for permission—and only slightly lift. your fingers hook under the garter of your waistband and, with his help, you shimmy out of your shorts. 

percy doesn't have to try, and yet, every move of his arm is showing off and flexing his biceps for you to ogle at.

and, as the next piece of fabric comes down, he lets out a guttural groan. both of you watch—percy, transfixed—as a few stringy wads of your slick stick to the front of your panties.

oh, you really were so wet. 

percy continues to stare, a small smile stretching across his face and into a smirk. 

“don't–don't get cocky about it.” your legs inch closer together in an attempt to block out the pure intensity of his stare, when—

“dont.”

his middle and ring finger swipe a long, languid stripe up your pussy lips, pooling your slick onto his digits. 

your mouth drops into a little “oh!” as he starts to sink his middle finger into your pussy. and as if in a daze, he’s letting the second of his long fingers in. 

“jackson—you… fuck!” you're trying not to wail, to keep your voice low so other campers can't hear you—but, fuck, do percy’s fingers feel good. 

percy’s brows furrow and crease in the middle just as he watches your cunt swallow up his fingers. he moves them slowly, just a small wriggle side to side, before he feels the slight resistance—“fuck,” he whispers against your neck (he’s never felt so parched). “so tight around me, pretty girl,” 

you whine when he pulls his fingers out. sheeny slick coats them, a line of it keeping you two connected still. 

you miss the feel of percy in you for a few seconds, before he’s pushing his fingers back in, out, in. they were so vicious, so greedy, taking up all the space and swabbing at you. in, then out, then in.

“don't stop, please.”

“why would i?” he murmurs. his eyes aren't on you at all, but down, down, down.

he scissoring your entrance wide open with his roving fingertips to the point where you can feel his fingerprints against your soft insides. you shiver at the way he sinks them in again with a sluurp. 

percy leans in a bit more, pressing a kiss to your carotid, then clavicle. 

in that same moment, his wrist has found a newfound angle, one that somehow pushes his two fingers deeper in. hitting nearly the back of your pussy, pushing back and forth against your gooey walls. 

when you feel it, your eyes widen. 

he smiles. “found it.”

he hooks at your most sensitive gummy bundle of nerves. curves his fingers just right. 

your loose limbs start shaking at percy’s relentless back and forth with your g-spot– “jackson—think ‘m gonna—”

lewd squelches and your mewls of his name ring in the heady room as he speeds up his ministrations. A ruthless pace that has tears stinging your eyes, hitting that spot over and over and—

white-hot pleasure between your eyes. tension curling your toes. 

“cum f’me, pretty girl,” he rasps out. he squeezes in a third finger inside your tight cunt—

and you're seeing stars. 

he’s fucking you through your high, each thump of his fingertips against your g-spot and each glide of his long fingertips easing you down. 

again, and again, and again.  

right as the high bates, you feel an emptiness when percy’s fingers have pulled out of your weeping hole.  

you pull him in by the shoulders, kissing him just to get a taste of his lips and tongue. 

“give me more, jackson,” you mumble against his lips. 

“what?”

“you know what i mean,” you tell him. your hands snake to his belt loops, pawing at them in delirious desperation. “want more of you.”

percy groans. 

his feet land on the ground beside the bed. metal clinks against the floor. clothes ruffle as they're being discarded. 

“been wanting this for so long, pretty girl–” he lugs his boxers down, along with his bottoms, “felt like i was dying.”

his cock springs free and slaps against his abdomen. he was big—so mouthwateringly big; flushed your favorite shade of pink at his leaking tip, pulsing veins glistening in the dim light—every part of him was so unfairly pretty.

and, well, you just couldn't resist a taste. 

beding down in one fluid motion, you press a kiss to his weeping tip, drag your tongue all the way down the vein under his shaft, and his hand immediately flies to your hair.

“shit— hah- you don't have to—”

“shut up, jackson.”

and with that, you’re shoving as much of his throbbing erection down your throat. there’s a slightly salty taste on your tongue as you swipe at the droplets of precum pooling on his tip.

“shit, oh—yes, yes, yes–.” percy lets out a guttural moan. Fingers thread through your hair as he uses it as leverage to fuck himself slowly, deeper and deeper into your heavenly mouth, his hips stuttering and jerking with pleasure.

it was dizzying, the way he was pulsing in your throat, his scent filling your senses. beginning to move up and down in hasty, desperate bobs of your head. pulling such lewd gasps and moans from his lips.

his dick twitches in your mouth and your cunt clenches. you brace yourself, ready for his orgasm, when he stops.

and just pulls his cock out.

there’s a loud, lewd pop! that accompanies it that makes his dick twitch and your pussy ache. you’re about to retort, mouth opening to ask him why— but he beats you to it.

“don’t wanna cum yet,” he tells you. he grabs his cock, tugging it ever so slightly, when he says, “lean back for me, pretty girl.”

and that you don’t argue with.

your legs are spread in front of him, and the look on his sea-green eyes is so carnal, so hungry that you motion to close yourself up. he places your legs above his shoulders, eyes stil trained on your soaked core. 

he drags his reddened tip right through your swollen folds, catching maddeningly on your clit, teasingly pooling your slick on his leaking head. too slow.

you wiggle your hips just so that the tip just slides inside your hole. 

he curses above you, and you feel small spurts of precum lining your walls.

with newfound vigor, percy pushes his hips forward, groaning out your name. 

you could almost sob at the stretch as he presses in inch by inch. 

his cock was long enough that it kissed your cervix, and that the mushroom tip hooked just right against your g-spot. it didn't lack girth, too—it was thick enough that you could feel the veins pressing against your walls. 

deliciously painful, borderline addicting, and something you didn’t know you’d been craving until today.

and it’s almost like percy felt the same, cock hot and throbbing agonizingly inside of you, almost like his second heartbeat. 

he buries himself to the hilt and stays. he bows his body down until his damp forehead meets yours. 

“greedy girl,” he says. “so tight. gripping—hah–gripping me like a damn vice.”

he pulls himself out fully, just ‘til his tip is kissing your sloppy hole. you whine at the loss of contact, only for him to ram his cock all the way back inside your warmth. 

skin on skin, skin on skin. he starts fucking into you, the sheer tightness of your pussy sucking him in so greedily, like she never wanted him to part. 

“yes, yes—oh—just like that,” you moan out. 

“all–all of it‘s ngh—yours, my girl. yours,” percy says, his baritone voice now raspier above the sloppy squelches that immediately start pouring out of your pussy. 

slick gushes out of your cunt with every in and out, dripping down his length and pooling around his balls. they sting against your ass with every thrust in. 

“percy—fuck,”

and you feel percy freeze. the loss of movement makes you cry out. 

“why—?”

“say it again.”

“what? noo, just come on and fuck me—”

he thrusts once, then stills. “c’mon, my girl, please? lemme hear it one more time.”

oh. 

“mmfh—ah—okay, okay.” and one more thrust, harder this time. “oh—! percy, percy, percy! fuuck—”

he keeps the pace constant, rough, kissing your cervix with every in and out of his cock. 

“that’s so right, baby.” he presses a wet, open-mouthed kiss to the juncture where your neck meets your shoulders. “sounds—hah—sounds nice, right? better than jus’ jackson?” 

you lean away from the bed, hand gripping onto percy’s shoulder for support as you grab his face and kiss him. 

he continues thrusting his cock in and out of your poor walls, a sheeny white ring of fluid gathering around his base. 

you feel him so deep, he’s pushing your eyes to roll allll the way to the back of your head with the crown of his fat tip. 

it was intoxicating, inebriating—from the feeling of his cock throbbing inside you, fucking into you, his lips kissing ever surface he can reach, his teeth biting and marking what’s his. 

“m’ so close, percy,” you sob. 

percy’s large hand trails down where your bodies meet to draw frenzied circles on your puffy clit. “cum with me—please, baby.”

“inside,” you gasp out. “want you inside.”

and this orgasm seems to be stronger than last time, lightning hot pleasure zapping through your body faster. sobs escape your mouth. your back arches so much you fear for your spine. your body flinches every time he brushes against your clit. 

percy’s high comes right alongside yours, and he’s shooting thick, hot, strings of cum, painting your walls white with a low groan of your name. you feel it dripping out of your cunt and into the sheets under you before it's being fucked back in. 

when your highs bate, you flop unceremoniously on percy’s bed.

he lets out a small chuckle, before kissing your forehead. “i’ll be right back, okay?” 

you watch as his figure retreats to his closet and comes back with an armful of clothes. 

the towel in his hands is warm as he cleans going down, passing your stomach, before finally wiping down your inner thighs. he slips his boxers on you, then a shirt. 

when he finishes, he collapses right beside you. he pulls you closer, settling you right over his heart, draping an arm over your back. 

for a moment, both of you just stare. 

“you were amazing, percy,” you say. “i… i liked it. a lot. i'm glad it was you.”

percy presses a soft, chaste kiss to your lips. “i've liked you for so long. still can't believe i managed to kiss you, let alone…”

you let out a small laugh and snuggle closer. 

tuesdays were the worst days of the week, you think.

but maybe, just maybe—you brush a stray lock of percy’s hair behind his ears—tuesdays had a little bit of merit to them.  

( .  .  . )

“told you you wanted me”

you grumble against his chest. “shut up.”

he only presses you closer to him. “i don’t know who you’re fooling, baby. i saw you skip that pitcher of water entirely.”

your eyes widen and snap up to meet his. then, feigned nonchalance. “i didn’t need it.”

“i’d have healed faster with it.” then, he grins down at you, canines and eye crinkles and all. “it’s okay, baby, i’d do the same so i could get in the pants of my hot, muscular, super handsome—”

you smush a pillow over his face.

“you wanted me first,” you protest. “you probably asked a bunch of kids to cut you up so you had an excuse to come see me.”

percy’s lack of retort—and movement—makes you sit up.

“oh my gods.”

“listen—”

“there is no way.”

he groans, burying his face deep into your hair. "you're never gonna let me live this down, are you?"

you only grin in reply, canines and eye crinkles and all. "never."

You make it through two full months with nobody finding out about you and Brendon, everybody in on it keeping their lips zipped and everyone else happily oblivious, but that changes one random day when you wake up feeling like shit.

“You should just stay home, baby,” Brendon murmurs as he watches you slog through getting dressed, clearly exhausted and feeling off. “The ED can survive without you for one day.”

You shake your head and insist, “All I need is breakfast and a coffee and I’ll be all set. Just didn’t sleep well.”

“Alright, I trust you,” he sighs, dropping down so he can tie your shoes the way he has every morning for more than 3,000 days. “Take it easy though. For me. There’s that nasty bug going around and if this is the start of it-”

“I’m fine, Bren,” you assure as he stands up. “You worry too much.”

He kisses your forehead and murmurs, “I know. I’m sorry.”

“You’re sweet,” you reply, nudging up to kiss him softly. You know he only worries about your health so much because he had to watch you nearly lose your life a few years ago; you’re sure you’d be ten times as bad if the roles were reversed. “Let’s go get the kids up, yeah?”

He nods solemnly. “I’ll start pancake duty.”

You pat his ass and push him toward the bedroom door. “Good boy.”

Annoyingly, though, you really aren’t feeling better by the time you’ve had your coffee and breakfast and snuggles with your mama’s boy. Still, you take a deep breath, get the little ones in their car seats, and head to the hospital with a determination to get through the day since you have the next two off.

You don’t even make it to lunch.

Your breakfast decides to make a dramatic reappearance out of nowhere, sending you running to the staff bathroom at code speeds. After puking, your skin is about ten shades grayer than usual while you slide down the wall next to the bathroom trash, head spinning and forehead shining with sweat.

The next person to push inside the bathroom is Dana, having watched you hustle away with an expression every mom recognizes when there’s a bug going around. When she spots you, she immediately drops down and touches the back of your clammy forehead. “You don’t feel feverish, but, Jesus, you look terrible.”

“Thanks for that.” You grimace as she grabs one of the little paper cups and fills it with water for you to sip on.

“You’ve gotta go home; you look like you’re gonna pass out. Can I call someone for you?”

Shit, you left your phone in your locker this morning. You manage to mumble out as much to her and say, “If you have your phone, I can tell you my husband’s number.”

He picks up on the last ring after excusing himself from supervising a more-than-capable resident, knowing an unknown number could easily be the kids’ school or daycare. “Hello?”

Your voice creaks through. “Hi, hon, I left my phone in my locker. Borrowing Dana’s. I think I’ve got the bug that’s going around. I’ve been throwing up for like half an hour.”

“I’m so sorry you’re sick, sweetheart,” he soothes softly. “You need me to come down and take you home?”

Dana’s head cocks to one side. That’s a familiar voice, but she can’t quite place it because she’s never heard it sounding sympathetic before.

“Yeah, I think so,” you reply, feeling defeated and exhausted. “This thing’s really knocked me on my ass. Literally, actually. I’m on the bathroom floor.”

Brendon’s voice gains intensity as it lowers in volume. “Are you okay? How serious is this?”

“I’m alright,” you reassure him, “just needed to sit down somewhere cool and quiet. Dana’s here with me being amazing. You’ll come down soon?”

“Yeah, baby, of course,” he sighs tenderly. You hear him shuffling things around, already reorienting his day at the first sign of you needing him. “I’ve got one more quick post-op and then I’ll grab you, okay? Can you find somewhere to hang tight until then?”

“Mhm,” you offer queasily. “I’ll wait for you in Occupational Health, maybe? I can lay down and get some meds there at least.”

“That’s a good idea. Tell them I want blood and cultures. Don’t forget that you want trimethobenzamide, not Zofran, for the nausea. Zofran always makes you too fatigued.”

“Yes, doctor,” you reply with an eye roll. But when the eye roll makes the world spin which makes your stomach flip, you groan, “Thanks, Bren.”

As she puts all the baffling dots together, Dana steps in and tells him, “I’ll bring her up to OT. She looks like she could go down any second, so I’m gonna stick with her.”

Brendon sighs. You know he’s pinching the bridge of his nose to stop himself from getting too upset that he can’t fix everything right away. “Thanks, Dana, I’ll see you both soon.”

Dana manages to get you to Occupational Health without catching any stray questioning stares. After being briefed on your symptoms, the OT nurse gives you a sympathetic smile as she preps her kit. “It’s probably the flu, but we’re going to draw some blood and take a couple cultures just to be safe, alright?”

Dramatically presenting your arm for the poke, you murmur, “As if my husband would let me leave without a battery of tests for a seasonal virus half a Pittsburgh has.”

She smiles knowingly. “Park definitely seems like the protective type.”

“Park the fuckin’ Shark,” Dana sighs, still disbelieving, as she shakes her head. “So tell me: Was he nice when you first met or were you mean?”

Seeing Brendon’s broad form in the corner of your eye, you turn toward him and sigh romantically, “He’s always nice to me.”

The moment he catches your eye, Brendon’s expression softens. Dana’s never seen that before. He strides quickly to your side and takes your free hand as the nurse does your blood draw. With a quick squeeze to your palm, he asks gently, “How’s the patient feeling?”

You tilt your head back and pout. “Supremely crappy. Sorry, baby, I know you told me to stay home this morning.”

Brendon shakes his head and presses his lips to your hair. “Never apologize for needing my help; that’s the job. You’ve been nauseous half of your adult life and you’re used to pushing through it. Shit happens. Let’s just get you home, baby.”

Dana watches the exchange with  befuddled eyebrows. Suddenly the mountain of a frown she’s come to know is a gentle giant, his eyes concerned and his expression tender. He’s had baby blue eyes this whole time? Jesus. She never would’ve guessed after avoiding eye contact so long. She gestures broadly and half-laughs as she asks Brendon, “You’re telling me all those precious angels she’s got covering the inside of her locker belong to you? The meanest man in the hospital?”

“Guilty as charged,” Brendon confirms as he once again kisses the top of your head. He’s rubbing your back, too, unable to stop touching you as a way of grounding himself. “We’ve been together almost ten years now.”

She whistles, impressed. Turning to you while the nurse disappears with your tests, she asks, “Any reason you don’t talk about him at work besides the fact that he’s undeniably awful?”

“I talk plenty about my husband,” you laugh softly, not able to muster much energy to tease, “you all just don’t think my cute stories could be about him.”

Suddenly recontextualizing countless adorable accounts, Dana disbelievingly says, “Brendon Park takes his girls to their father-daughter dances every year in a tie that matches their dress. Brendon Park writes notes for his kids’ lunchboxes and takes them all on dad dates so they don’t miss out on quality time with him.” She shakes her head and laughs, “No wonder he keeps his family a secret; I think you might be the sweetest man in the world, Dr. Park. I’m never gonna look at you the same way again.”

“That’s all hearsay,” Brendon snaps back through a chuckle. Then he sighs and tells her, “Look, surgery may be my life, but those kids are my world. Family’s everything.”

Dana can’t help smiling. “God, now I’m gonna be sick.”

You make kissy lips at Brendon and say, “I tell you guys all the time: My husband’s a huge softie.”

Brendon shakes his head and jokingly covers your ears with his hands. “She’s delirious; don’t listen to a word she says.” Then, while you get cleared to leave, he nudges Dana on the arm and adds, “Hey, don’t tell anyone about us, alright? We’ve got a whole bet going.”

And she gives the only response heard in the Pitt: “Can I get in on the action?”

Just as you’re about to go home after your first shift back a few days later, feeling much better after resting and hydrating as with Brendon’s mom coming over to dote on the kids, Dana touches you on the shoulder. Her eyes are sharp and her voice is low. “Do you have a few minutes?”

You glance at your watch. Brendon’s grabbing the boys from daycare, so you can spare a few minutes. “Now?”

She nods and you can see something serious hiding behind her eyes. Immediately you worry about the particularly fragile patient she assisted you with a few hours ago. “No time like the present.”

“Um, yeah, alright.”

She leads you into a private room and closes the door behind her. Inside, she picks up a chart and a few packets of paper she had waiting.

Swallowing hard as your mind easily supplies all sorts of horrible news, you check, “Is this about a patient?”

“Ah, kind of,” she replies, gesturing for you to sit on the bed. You hop up and she steps closer. After a deep breath, she hands over the clipboard – your chart from your visit to OT last week – and says, “No point beating around the bush, I say. You’re pregnant.”

The floor falls out from under you.

Your ears start to ring. Staring down at the litany of blood tests, your eyes settle on that firm POSITIVE next to a sky-high hCG level.

While your heart thuds its way into your throat, Dana adds softly, “I’m guessing you’re already well into your first trimester based on those numbers. Maybe 10, 12 weeks.”

Not quite processing, you blink fast and ramble out, “I- I’m so good about my birth control pills. Same time every day. Never miss them. With five kids, you don’t miss your birth control.”

“I read over your chart, honey,” she explains, standing next to you now so she can place a hand on your upper back. “One of the medications you’re on – the modafinil, for your sleep issues – reduces the effectiveness of hormonal birth control.”

Tears sting at your eyes as you scoff, feeling stupid and confused and jarred, “How did I not know that? I’m a fucking doctor.”

“You’re not a psychiatrist. If they didn’t tell you that, you should sue as far as I’m concerned.” She hands you a couple stapled packets of paper and a pamphlet. Studies, you realize. “Look, take a day and talk about it with your husband, whatever you need to do, but if you decide to stay pregnant, you’ll need to stop taking it because first trimester exposure can cause some complications and malformations.”

If the floor fell out of you at the first news, it’s the ceiling flying off this time. Your hand goes over your mouth as you choke back a sob. “Oh, god.”

“Don’t go panicking yet,” she soothes, rubbing your back how your mother would when you were little. “The chance is still low and you know as well as I do there are things we can screen for and most of them are fixable, treatable, or manageable even if they’re present. All your numbers look fantastic and you’ve got a nice long history of healthy pregnancies, right?”

You wipe the tears from your cheeks and take a deep breath, steadying yourself as much as you can. “Right. Right, yeah. Okay. Everything’s okay.”

Dana gives you a sympathetic, understanding smile. “Do you want a minute alone? Or I can walk you out to your car?”

You sniffle and try to force your face into a grateful expression, genuinely thankful she’s being so kind and taking the time to be supportive. “That would be nice.”

With her voice low and her arm slung protectively around your shoulder, Dana guided you out of the back entrance and to your waiting car. She says goodbye with a tight hug that lingers, promising you everything will be okay.

Then, alone in your car, your mind finally settled enough to relax, you feel that tiny little spark.

Underneath the shock, underneath the panic, underneath the confusion, peeking out like a sprout growing through a crack in the concrete, there’s that familiar bloom of pure love. That soft, sacred, quiet thing that grows unrelentingly inside of you when everything else threatens to crumble.

Love without boundaries, without conditions, without a name. The same love that has you sewing custom Halloween costumes, baking preschool graduation cakes, and wiping sniffly noses all cold season long. A love made from you and the man who’s rerouted and dedicated his entire life to making sure you and your children are safe and adored.

As you turn over the engine, you touch your lower abdomen and murmur softly, “We’re doing this again, aren’t we?”

You hate to say it, but you’re grateful when Brendon is pulled into an emergency surgery at the end of the day, sending his mom to pick up the boys at daycare. It’s nice to have some time to think while you make dinner and help the older ones with homework.

While everyone settles into the evening, you catch yourself watching the kids playing with each other, leaning in the doorway with a soft, far away expression. You’d felt so finished having kids after Felix, but suddenly you can see another baby to bounce as you chase the others around. You can see it so clearly that your eyes sting with tears. Even when you imagine that baby with any myriad of complications, you love it. You want it.

Late that night, all the kids in bed save your littlest one, Felix is half-asleep on your chest, his thumb in his mouth while you watch the TV on low. You just can’t bear to stop moments like this when you know they’re so fleeting. Running your fingers through his hair, just like Brendon’s downy waves,  you murmur, “What do you think about becoming a big brother, little man?”

He stirs slightly and gives you a heavy-lidded smile. With a half-giggle that always melts you, he muses, “Baby sister?”

“Baby something,” you confirm gently. “I just have to tell daddy.”

He nods as if knowingly, nestling his forehead into your side. “Daddy happy.”

“I hope so.”

“Know so.”

You’ve convinced yourself that you’ll manage to wait to tell Brendon until after he’s had a solid night’s sleep. But then he comes home. And, in a matter of minutes, you remember it’s impossible for you to keep a secret from him, especially one this big. That’s the problem with being married to your best friend; he’s the one person you want to talk about everything with, even when it’s not the best time.

“I got my bloodwork back,” you tell him tentatively as you watch him go through his bedtime routine from the bed, “and I don’t have the flu.”

After he finishes flossing, he heads into the closet and asks, “Norovirus?”

Your hands start to sweat. This feels very, very different from your other pregnancies. The shadow of Felix’s birth clouds you both. You swallow hard and squeak out, “Not quite.”

Stepping out in nothing but his boxers, a few droplets of water still on his chest from his recent shower, Brendon sits next to you on the bed and cups your cheek. With a furrowed brow, he urges, “I can read you like a book, angel. Spit it out.”

Searching his blue eyes for any islands to rest away from your anxiety, you whisper, “I’m pregnant.”

Every time you’ve told him before, he’s scooped you up into his arms and spun you around and celebrated. This time, the blood drains from his face. His palms go clammy. The world stills.

After a minute, he asks in a voice that’s jumbled up with fear and grief and love and hope and desperation, “You want us to keep it?”

“I think so,” you reply quietly, “but not if you don’t want another-”

“I’d raise as many kids as you’d give me, baby, that’s not what I’m nervous about.” Brendon turns to you, clutches your hands in his, and shakes his head like he’s trying to clear an Etch-a-Sketch. Through tears that just won’t stop falling, he whispers, “After everything last time, after almost- almost fucking lose you, I don’t know if I can- if I can handle it.”

You rush back, “That won’t happen again, Bren.”

“You can’t know that for sure.”

Brushing his wet cheeks with your thumbs, you remind him, “I can know it to 99.99994 percent based on the latest research. We both know the odds are astronomical that that complication would happen more than once.”

Unable to speak, Brendon buries his face in your shoulder and takes a deep breath. His arms wrap around your waist and he pulls you effortlessly into his lap to hold you as tight to him as possible.

You massage his scalp with your fingertips and soothe, “I’m okay, Bren. I’m just pregnant.”

“I know, baby, I know.” He pulls back and kisses your hand over and over with his eyebrows pinched together. “But you’re older now, and-”

“Sweetheart, I’m not even thirty,” you chuckle and shake your head. “The average woman hasn’t even started having babies by my age.”

“You’re really on one with the statistics tonight,” he half-laughs, wiping his tears and taking a deep breath. After a minute of studying your features the way he always has when he wishes he could read your thoughts, he checks, “Are you sure?”

You nod and give him the first secretive smile. “Completely.”

Brendon hugs you close once again and sighs out all his fears with his next breath. “Then I’m sure with you.” Sliding his strong arms beneath your ass, he offers a mischievous smile and asks, “Feel secure?”

You roll your eyes and grin and nod – and he hoists you up into the air. Letting out a needed laugh, you lock your legs around him and kiss him hard as he spins you around. With your forehead pressed to his, you giggle out, “We’re gonna have a baby.”

“I love you so fucking much,” he says, kissing across your cheeks. Once he’s got you laughing and thrilled, he flops you back on the bed and kisses your stomach. Finally, propped on his elbows next to you, that boyish smile of his blooms in full force. He says seriously, “At least this means we have some wiggle room for our ultimate frisbee lineup. Margot’s not exactly shaping up to be an athlete with all her musical theater.”

You snort run your fingers through Brendon’s hair as he rests his head on your stomach, eyes closed reverently as he once again reimagines his future with another baby. “Hear that, kiddo? Daddy’s gonna teach you to throw as soon as you’re out of there. Work extra hard on building up that right hook.”

“Nah, we need a Southpaw,” he corrects with the most adorable smile you’ve ever seen. Then he just shakes his head happily and snuggles closer to you, the picture of domestic bliss. As he softly kisses anywhere he can, he muses, “We’re gonna have to go ring shopping again.”

You poke him in the pec and balk, “You want me to wear a six carat diamond? My hand will fall off, Bren. We could send one of the kids to college with that.”

He holds up his hand to stop you in your tracks. “One carat per baby; that’s been my rule for a decade and I’m not about to betray my values now.”

With a snicker, you reach back and turn off your bedside lamp, getting cozy under the covers together. “I can’t even wear my ring to work.”

He counters, “But I like when you wear it on dates.”

“Because you like to show me off like some trophy wife.”

Dramatically, he sighs out, “God forbid a man be madly, spectacularly in love with a gorgeous woman and want everyone in a ten-foot radius to know.”

“Fine,” you relent, unable to stop smiling even in the dark, “six carats it is.”

Eddie still remembers the day he first laid eyes on you. Summer, going into his third senior year at Hawkins, you walked into Larry’s Auto Body Repair looking like something pulled from the pages of a half-burnt gothic novel left to rot in an attic trunk.

The heat outside had been miserable; thick, wet Indiana air that made grease cling to skin and tempers run short, but you arrived untouched by it all. Draped in black despite the July sun, lace sleeves swallowing your wrists, silver rings glinting like tiny knives beneath the fluorescent lights. 

Your perfume smelled faintly of clove cigarettes, old paper, and rain. Long dark hair spilled down your back in soft waves, and your eyes, God, your eyes, looked mournful in the way stained glass saints did. Beautiful enough to make a man confess every awful thing he’s ever done, truth or not.

Eddie had nearly dropped an engine part directly on his foot.

You’d stepped into the garage like you belonged in another century entirely, gaze drifting slowly across the room with detached fascination, lingering on rusted tools and oil stains as if they were artifacts in a museum.

Then you smiled at him. Not sweet, not shy, but devastating. Like you already knew every terrible thing about him and adored him for it anyway. From that moment on, Eddie Munson was ruined.

Years later, the people of Hawkins still spoke about the two of you in hushed, bewildered voices. The Munsons of the Creel House. The strange family on the hill with wrought iron gates, tangled in dead vines and black roses that somehow bloomed year-round. 

Children swore candlelight moved through the windows at impossible hours. Neighbors whispered about organ music drifting through storms and the silhouettes dancing behind curtains long after midnight.

The truth was far less sinister, mostly. You simply loved beautiful things that others were too frightened to appreciate. And Eddie loved you enough to follow you anywhere, even the old Creel House.

At first, he’d refused to even step onto the property. Too many memories. Too much blood soaked into those walls. Vecna. Chrissy. The Upside Down. Every rotten thing Hawkins tried desperately to bury lived in the bones of that house.

But then you’d walked through the front doors for the first time, black dress trailing over dusty hardwood, staring up at the massive chandelier with wonder glowing across your face like moonlight.

“Eddie,” you’d whispered softly, almost reverently. “It’s perfect.”

And that had been it. Because you looked at the house the same way you looked at him, not with fear, but affection. Like ruined things deserved devotion too. So he rebuilt it for you.

Every creaking staircase. Every shattered window. Every rotted inch of wallpaper. Together, you turned the graveyard of Victor Creel’s legacy into something warm, strange, and terribly romantic. A home, your home.

Corvina, your eldest daughter, drifted through the manor like a tiny phantom in velvet dresses, all solemn eyes and unnerving intelligence. She collected moth wings in glass jars and read Poe beneath thunderstorms while Eddie watched with equal parts pride and concern.

Meanwhile, Edward Jr, though everyone called him Teddy, was chaos incarnate. Wild curls, scraped knees, and his father’s crooked grin. The poor kid had inherited Eddie’s dramatic flair and your complete lack of fear, which meant most afternoons ended with him attempting something mildly catastrophic somewhere on the property.

Eddie had been hesitant about naming him after himself. Truthfully, he was terrified.

He remembered sitting beside you in bed while rain battered the windows, your newborn son asleep against your chest. Candlelight flickered gold across your skin as Eddie stared at the tiny little thing wearing his name.

“What if he ends up like me?” he’d asked quietly. You’d looked at him then with that same devastating softness you’d always reserved for his ugliest thoughts.

“My darling,” you murmured, brushing your fingers through his curls, “I should certainly hope so.”

And just like that, the fear dissolved. Because in your eyes, Eddie Munson had never been something to outgrow or overcome. He had always been something to cherish.

The Creel House came alive slowly in the mornings. Rain tapped softly against the tall windows that morning, the sky outside painted silver and gloomy in the way you adored most.

Eddie stood at the stove in silk pajama pants and a black robe hanging open over his tattooed chest, swaying dramatically to the music while making pancakes shaped vaguely like bats.

“Darling,” you called from your place at the kitchen table, long black sleeves draped elegantly around your coffee cup, “I do believe those are becoming progressively less edible.”

Eddie pressed a hand to his heart in mock offense. “Cruel. Wounded before breakfast.”

“You married me for my cruelty.”

“I married you because you looked at me like a Victorian widow cursed by the sea.”

You smiled over the rim of your mug. “And you looked like trouble wrapped in leather.”

“Mm,” Eddie hummed proudly. “Still do.”

Before you could respond, Eddie appeared beside your chair suddenly, dramatically dropping to one knee like a man overcome with passion. He took your hand delicately, pressing a kiss to your knuckles. Then another to your wrist. Then another just beneath your sleeve.

You laughed softly, tilting your head as his curls brushed your skin. “Edward Munson,” you murmured. “The children are awake.”

“Good,” he replied against your hand. “They should witness devotion.”

Right on cue, Corvina entered the kitchen carrying three books against her chest, long dark braid hanging over one shoulder. She glanced once at the scene before deadpanning:

“You’re disgusting.”

“Thank you, my dove,” you said warmly.

Corvina moved to pour herself coffee like she hadn’t witnessed anything unusual at all. Then came the sound of slower footsteps, Teddy.

Edward Jr. appeared in the doorway wearing his Hawkins High hoodie, backpack hanging off one shoulder, curls sticking up wildly like he’d been running nervous hands through them for an hour.

And immediately, both you and Eddie noticed the expression on his face, and Eddie straightened a little. “Whoa. What’s with the funeral look, Theodore?”

Teddy hesitated, then slowly held up a folded yellow slip of paper. Your brows lifted slightly while Corvina sipped her coffee with the detached calm of someone witnessing an execution.

“It’s a summons,” Teddy muttered.

Eddie blinked once, then dramatically pointed the spatula toward him. “What’d you do?”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“That’s exactly what I used to say,” Eddie nodded solemnly. “And I was usually innocent at least forty percent of the time.”

You extended your hand calmly. “May I see it, darling?”

Teddy crossed the kitchen and handed it over anxiously while Eddie abandoned the pancakes entirely to loom over your shoulder. His chin immediately dropped onto the top of your head while his arms wrapped around your shoulders from behind instinctively.

You unfolded the slip carefully:

REQUESTED PARENT CONFERENCE. PRINCIPAL HIGGINS. REGARDING: EDWARD MUNSON JR.

Eddie groaned immediately. “Jesus Christ. They started early this year.”

Teddy looked miserable. “Dad, I swear, I didn’t even do anything. It was those idiots from the basketball team—they kept messing with my stuff in gym, and one of them shoved me into a locker, and when I shoved him back, he started bleeding and—”

“Bleeding?” Corvina asked mildly.

“He ran into the trophy case!”

“Ah,” she nodded. “Natural selection.”

“Teddy,” you said softly, reaching for his hand. “Look at me.”

He did immediately.

And despite being nearly Eddie’s height now, despite the deepening voice and teenage awkwardness settling into his limbs, he still looked at you the same way he had as a child: like you could fix anything simply by speaking.

“You are not in trouble with us,” you assured gently.

Eddie nodded instantly. “Absolutely not.”

“But—”

“Nope.” Eddie waved him off. “Listen, kid, Hawkins High has been blaming Munsons for shit since before you were born. It’s practically a school tradition.”

Teddy huffed out a nervous laugh. You rose from your chair then, smoothing your hands over Eddie’s wrists where they rested around your waist. “We’ll attend the meeting.”

“Together,” Eddie added.

“And if your principal insists on being unreasonable,” you continued calmly, “your father does so enjoy making authority figures uncomfortable.”

Eddie grinned wickedly. “Baby, remember the vice principal in ‘89?”

You smiled faintly. “He looked moments from cardiac arrest.”

Teddy finally laughed properly at that, the tension melting from his shoulders almost instantly.

Without another word, Eddie reached over and grabbed one of the bat-shaped pancakes, shoving it onto Teddy’s plate. “Eat up, kid,” he said. “Nothing scarier than school administration on an empty stomach.”

Corvina glanced toward the stove. “Those are burnt.”

“They’re wonderful,” Eddie corrected.

You reached for his hand again, kissing his knuckles this time. “My talented husband,” you said softly.

Eddie practically preened under the affection, leaning down immediately to kiss you dramatically enough to make Corvina groan.

“Oh, my God.”

“Teddy,” Eddie said seriously against your mouth, “never settle for a love that doesn’t make your children physically ill.”

“Noted,” Teddy muttered through a mouthful of pancake.

By noon, rain had turned into a heavy mist that clung to Hawkins like a veil, which was the exact kind of weather you loved. The kind of weather Eddie insisted was “romantic as hell.”

The two of you walked through the halls of Hawkins High side by side like something entirely out of place amongst the fluorescent lighting and beige walls. Students slowed as you passed, conversations dipping into whispers almost immediately.

You floated through the hallway in a long black coat that brushed your calves, silver jewelry gleaming beneath the dim lights, while Eddie walked beside you in dark rings and leather, one hand firmly wrapped around yours, as if he physically couldn’t stand not touching you for more than a few seconds.

Which, truthfully, he couldn’t.

“Sweetheart,” Eddie murmured low enough only you could hear as you approached the office, “if Higgins pisses me off, are we thinking subtle psychological warfare or full public humiliation?”

You glanced at him calmly. “Let us see how brave he feels first.”

“God, I love when you threaten people poetically.”

The secretary barely looked up when you entered the office, though her expression tightened almost immediately at the sight of Eddie, still, after all these years. Eddie noticed too, squeezing your hand once before leaning casually against the counter.

“We’re here about Teddy,” he said.

The woman cleared her throat awkwardly. “Principal Higgins is expecting you.”

“Lucky him,” Eddie muttered.

You placed a gentle hand against his chest before he could continue, smoothing imaginary wrinkles from his jacket. “Behave, mon amour.”

Eddie looked down at you like you’d hung the moon itself in the sky. “For you?” he said softly. “Always.”

The secretary looked deeply uncomfortable. Good.

Principal Higgins’ office looked exactly the same as it had when Eddie sat in it at seventeen; stale coffee smell, ugly filing cabinets, school banners hanging crookedly on the walls.

Only now, Higgins himself had more gray hair and less patience. He didn’t stand when you entered. Instead, he leaned back slowly in his chair, eyes moving between you both with poorly concealed irritation.

“Mr. and Mrs. Munson.”

Eddie sat down across from him casually, slinging an arm immediately across the back of your chair. “Higgins,” he replied. “Still alive, huh?”

You rested one elegant hand atop Eddie’s knee beneath the desk, feeling him relax instantly under your touch.

Higgins ignored the comment. “Teddy was involved in an altercation yesterday afternoon.”

“Involved,” Eddie repeated. “Interesting wording.”

“He assaulted another student.”

“He defended himself,” you corrected smoothly.

Higgins finally looked directly at you then, expression tightening slightly. “And how exactly would you know that, Mrs. Munson?”

“Because, unlike this institution,” you replied calmly, “our son tells us the truth.”

Higgins folded his hands atop the desk. “Mrs. Munson, with all due respect, Edward Jr. has inherited certain… behavioral tendencies.”

There it was. Eddie’s jaw tightened instantly beneath the lazy posture he wore like armor. But you? You simply tilted your head slightly.

“What an unfortunate thing to say aloud,” you murmured.

Higgins shifted faintly. Eddie watched you carefully now, eyes practically sparkling because he knew that tone and knew it well. It was the same tone you used moments before verbally disemboweling someone.

“The Munson family,” Higgins continued carefully, “has had a difficult history with this school. Your husband, especially.”

Eddie gave a dry laugh. “Yeah, because this town treated me like I was carrying the plague.”

“You developed quite the reputation.”

“And your athletes didn’t?” Eddie shot back. “Interesting.”

“Eddie,” you said softly, not looking away from Higgins. You folded your hands neatly in your lap, expression serene enough to be unsettling.

“Our son,” you said carefully, “was cornered by three boys larger than him.”

Higgins opened his mouth, but you continued before he could speak.

“One shoved him into a locker repeatedly. Another destroyed his sketchbook. And when Theodore defended himself after being physically provoked, suddenly, he became the problem.”

Silence, and Higgins shifted again. You leaned forward slightly then, dark eyes steady on his.

“And now you sit before two former students who know exactly how Hawkins High operates and imply there is some sort of inherited defect in our child because his last name is Munson.”

Eddie looked dangerously proud beside you.

Higgins cleared his throat. “That isn’t what I meant.”

“No?” you asked gently. “Then perhaps choose your words more carefully.”

The office went quiet except for the rain tapping softly against the windows. Eddie finally leaned forward himself, rings clinking against the desk.

“Look,” he said flatly, “I know exactly what this place thinks about me. Fine. Whatever. But you do not get to stick that shit onto my son because some meathead couldn’t keep his hands to himself.”

Higgins sighed heavily. “No one is suspending Teddy.”

“Very generous,” Corvina’s voice drawled suddenly from the doorway.

All three of you turned. Corvina stood there holding a hall pass and looking deeply unimpressed.

“She followed us?” Higgins asked incredulously.

“She’s observant,” you replied.

“And nosy,” Eddie added proudly.

Corvina stepped inside without invitation. “Also, for the record, Tyler Bennett admitted in chemistry that he started it because Teddy wouldn’t let them make fun of that freshman girl.”

Eddie blinked. Then slowly turned toward his son’s principal with the most insufferably smug expression imaginable. “Huh,” he said. “Would you look at that?”

You reached over then, brushing your fingers lovingly along Eddie’s jaw.

“My darling,” you sighed softly. “It appears our son inherited your unfortunate tendency toward heroics.”

Eddie practically melted into your hand. “Baby,” he whispered dramatically, grabbing your wrist to kiss your palm, “you say the sexiest things to me.”

Corvina stood near the doorway with her arms crossed, entirely too pleased with herself. Eddie lounged back in his chair again, one boot hooked over his knee while he admired you with open, ridiculous affection.

Meanwhile, you remained perfectly composed, which somehow made you infinitely more terrifying.

“Well,” Higgins said stiffly after a long silence, “I believe this matter can be considered resolved.”

“How fortunate,” you replied smoothly.

Eddie snorted under his breath, and Higgins ignored him. “I’ll speak with the boys involved.”

“You should,” you said. “Especially if the school wishes to maintain the illusion of fairness.”

The principal’s jaw tightened faintly. Then, as though remembering something unpleasant, his eyes flicked briefly toward a framed flyer hanging beside his desk. 

Hawkins High Arts Expansion Fund: Sponsored by the Munson Mortuary. 

Eddie noticed immediately, as did you. A slow smile touched your lips. “You know,” you mused softly, rising from your chair, “Edward and I have always cared deeply about the arts.”

Eddie stood the second you did, naturally gravitating toward your side like a shadow stitched to your heels.

“The theater department,” you continued thoughtfully, smoothing the sleeve of your coat, “the music programs, student scholarships…”

Higgins straightened slightly.

“Hell,” Eddie added casually, “the new ceramics kiln was us.”

You turned your attention back to Higgins, expression warm enough to unsettle.

“It would simply devastate us,” you said gently, “if the environment here became hostile enough that we no longer felt comfortable continuing such generosity.”

Higgins cleared his throat quickly. “I’m sure that won’t be necessary.”

“No,” you agreed pleasantly. “I imagine it won’t.”

Eddie grinned beside you like the devil himself. God, he loved you. Loved the way you could flay someone alive without ever raising your voice. Loved the way people underestimated your softness right until the moment they realized it had teeth.

You reached for his hand, and he took it instantly.

“Well,” Eddie sighed dramatically, “this has been deeply irritating.”

As the four of you started toward the office door, Higgins spoke again. “Mrs. Munson.”

You paused, turning slightly. “I assure you,” he said carefully, “Theodore will be treated fairly.”

You held his gaze for a long moment, then smiled faintly. “I should hope so.”

And with that, you left. The halls quieted again as your family walked through them together.

Eddie’s hand remained clasped tightly with yours while Corvina drifted ahead in a sea of black fabric, entirely unbothered by the stares surrounding her.

The second the front doors shut behind you, Eddie turned toward you with outright admiration burning in his expression.

“Jesus Christ,” he breathed. “Marry me again.”

You looked at him calmly. “I would a thousand times.”

Candles flickered low throughout the house, golden light dancing against dark wallpaper while thunder rolled softly somewhere in the distance.

Dinner had long since ended, dishes abandoned in favor of the far more important activity of Eddie dramatically sprawled across the velvet chaise in the sitting room with his head in your lap.

“Darling,” he sighed as you lazily combed your fingers through his curls, “if I die right now, know that I died fulfilled.”

“You’re forty years old,” Corvina deadpanned from the armchair across the room. “Not a dying Victorian poet.”

Eddie pointed accusingly toward her without lifting his head. “Your mother encourages this cruelty.”

You smiled softly down at him. “I find it endearing.”

“That’s because you worship me.”

“Correct.”

Corvina physically recoiled. “Can you two act normal for ten minutes?”

“No,” both of you answered immediately.

Teddy snorted from the floor where he sat building something suspiciously dangerous out of spare radio parts. Then, the doorbell rang, and everyone paused. Corvina moved first, way too fast for her character. 

You noticed immediately. Eddie noticed immediately. Teddy noticed immediately. The three of you slowly turned toward her as she stood abruptly from the chair, smoothing nonexistent wrinkles from her black skirt.

“…Interesting,” you murmured.

Corvina narrowed her eyes. “Don’t.”

Eddie sat up slowly now, a grin already forming. “Oh, my God.”

“It’s probably nothing.”

“Corvina Lucille Munson,” Teddy gasped dramatically. “Are you nervous?”

“I will kill you.”

The bell rang again. Corvina moved toward the front door with all the rigid dignity of someone approaching their execution.

You and Eddie exchanged a look. Then, silently, both rose from your seats to follow.

The front door creaked open, and standing beneath the porch light was perhaps the least expected person imaginable. A boy. Tall, clean-cut, nervous beyond belief. Bright blue varsity jacket. Hair neatly combed. Holding flowers.

The poor thing looked like he’d wandered into the wrong horror movie. Corvina stared at him; the boy stared at Corvina. Then his eyes slowly lifted, and landed directly on you and Eddie looming behind her like two beautifully dressed vampires awaiting explanation.

His face drained completely of color. Eddie blinked once, then immediately leaned toward you and whispered with genuine awe:

“He looks like he says ‘yes ma’am’ unironically.”

You nodded thoughtfully. “How refreshing.”

“Mom,” Corvina warned.

The boy swallowed hard. “H-hi, Mr. and Mrs. Munson.”

Eddie lit up instantly. “Oh, I like him.”

Corvina closed her eyes briefly like she regretted ever being born. You stepped forward gracefully, gaze drifting over the bouquet in his trembling hands.

“How lovely,” you said softly. “Funeral lilies.”

“They’re her favorite,” he blurted.

Then you looked at Corvina slowly, while Corvina looked horrified. Eddie looked seconds from losing his mind entirely.

“Teddy,” he whispered sharply. “Your sister has a boyfriend.”

“I KNEW IT.”

“He is not my boyfriend,” Corvina snapped immediately. “He’s an experiment.”

The boy blinked. “An… experiment?”

“You’re studying social dynamics?” you guessed politely.

“Yes,” Corvina said quickly.

Eddie crossed his arms. “By holding hands with the quarterback?”

“Second-string quarterback,” Teddy corrected.

Everyone looked at the boy while he awkwardly raised one hand. “We lost regionals.”

Eddie burst out laughing. “Oh my God, sweetheart,” he wheezed to you. “She brought home a jock.”

“He’s not a jock.”

The boy tried to help. “I’m also on the debate team.”

You gasped softly. “How multifaceted.”

Corvina looked moments from throwing herself from the staircase.

Eddie grinned wickedly at her. “Baby bat’s got a crush.”

“I do not.”

“He knows your favorite flowers,” Teddy sang obnoxiously.

“I hate this family.”

The boy, still somehow standing there despite the obvious psychological warfare occurring around him, looked toward Corvina carefully. And to everyone’s shock, his expression softened.

“She talks about you guys a lot, actually.”

Corvina froze.

Eddie immediately clutched his chest dramatically. “Oh, my.”

“Dad.”

“She told me,” the boy continued nervously, “that her parents are… intense, but very in love.”

You smiled faintly. Corvina looked like she wanted the floorboards to consume her.

“And,” he added carefully, “that her dad still leaves dead roses on her mom’s pillow every morning.”

Eddie looked at you instantly, utterly smitten. “Baby,” he whispered emotionally, “our love is inspiring the youth.”

You reached up, smoothing your hand against his jaw affectionately. “We are deeply romantic.”

“You’re deeply weird,” Teddy corrected.

“Thank you.”

Corvina groaned. “Can we please go before they start kissing again?”

Too late. Eddie had already grabbed your hand dramatically.

“You wound me, little raven,” he said, pressing a theatrical kiss against your knuckles. “Your mother’s beauty simply overwhelms me.”

The boy stared. Teddy stared. Corvina pinched the bridge of her nose. And you, you simply looked at your husband with soft, endless devotion while thunder echoed gently overhead.

“Oh, mon amour,” you sighed lovingly. “You are still the most handsome thing this house has ever held.”

Eddie nearly died on the spot.

The house felt different when the children were gone. Corvina had vanished off to some poetry reading with her painfully polite almost-boyfriend, while Teddy was staying overnight at a friend’s house after aggressively insisting he was “old enough to survive one night without parental supervision.”

Eddie had looked personally offended by the statement. 

Now the evening rain had finally stopped, leaving the world outside soaked silver beneath the moonlight.

You stood in front of the bedroom mirror, fastening a pair of silver earrings, when Eddie appeared in the doorway, already staring at you like a man deeply unwell. His dark button-up hung half-open, curls still damp from the shower, rings glinting in the candlelight.

But his expression, my God. After all these years, he still looked at you like the first breath after drowning.

“Well,” he murmured, leaning against the doorframe, “there goes every coherent thought I’ve ever had.”

You smiled softly at his reflection. “You say that every time I wear black.”

“Because every time you wear black, I fall in love with you all over again.”

“You’re very dramatic.”

“You’re very beautiful. We all cope differently.” You laughed quietly as he crossed the room toward you.

The second he reached you, his hands found your waist instinctively, warm and familiar through the fabric of your dress. He buried his face briefly against your neck with a content sigh like “this—this right here—was the safest place in the universe.”

“Close your eyes,” he murmured.

You raised a brow. “Edward.”

“Please?”

Amused, you obeyed. You heard him moving around the room for a moment before something soft brushed across your palms.

Flowers. 

When you opened your eyes again, Eddie stood before you holding a bouquet of black dahlias and dead roses tied together with velvet ribbon, just like your first date.

“Oh,” you whispered.

Eddie suddenly looked shy beneath all the tattoos and bravado. “I know they’re a little wilted, but Gareth’s florist cousin said—”

“They’re perfect.”

The relief on his face was immediate. You reached up carefully, fingertips brushing his cheek while he melted into your touch on instinct.

“Do you remember,” you asked softly, “what you said to me the night you gave me flowers for the first time?”

Eddie grinned a little. “Yeah.” He leaned closer. “‘Most girls want roses. You looked like you’d appreciate something half-dead.’”

“And I nearly married you on the spot.”

“You definitely wanted me carnally.”

You laughed again and kissed him gently. Eddie hummed happily against your mouth, already chasing after another kiss before you’d fully pulled away.

“Come on,” he whispered. “I’ve got a surprise.”

The graveyard sat at the edge of Hawkins beneath enormous twisted trees, moonlight filtering silver across old headstones and damp grass. Most people found it unsettling, but you found it beautiful, especially tonight.

Your breath caught softly as Eddie led you through the cemetery gates hand in hand.

Because there, beneath the crooked oak tree where he’d taken you all those years ago, sat an entire picnic laid out atop black blankets and velvet pillows. Candles flickered inside lanterns. An old radio played something metal, low enough to blend with the wind.

Your favorite wine rested beside a basket overflowing with chocolate-covered strawberries and homemade pastries, which Eddie had very obviously burnt slightly. And in the center, a vase of black dahlias. Eddie rubbed the back of his neck suddenly, almost bashful. “I know it’s kinda stupid—”

“It isn’t.”

Your voice was so soft that it stopped him immediately. He watched as you stepped slowly into the little space he’d created, moonlight catching the emotion shimmering across your face.

“You remembered everything,” you whispered.

“Course I did.”

Eddie moved closer then, taking your hands carefully. “This is where I fell in love with you,” he admitted quietly. “Figured it deserved revisiting.”

Your chest ached. Because despite all his theatrics, despite the flirting and dramatics and endless teasing, Eddie loved with terrifying sincerity, always had.

You touched his face gently. “You never told me you loved me that night.”

“No,” he said softly. “But I knew.”

The wind moved through the cemetery trees around you, carrying the scent of rain and earth and candle smoke. Then Eddie suddenly dropped dramatically onto the blanket.

“Now,” he announced, patting the spot beside him, “come seduce your husband under the moonlight.”

You smiled helplessly and settled beside him. Immediately, he pulled you into his lap like gravity itself demanded it. You curled against him easily, fingers playing with the rings on his hand while his chin rested atop your shoulder.

For a while, neither of you spoke. You simply existed there together beneath the stars, wrapped in candlelight and old music and decades worth of devotion.

Eventually, Eddie pressed a slow kiss against your neck. “You know,” he murmured, “I was so scared to bring you here on our first date.”

You turned slightly. “You were?”

“Terrified.” He laughed softly against your skin. “Wayne told me if I took a girl to a graveyard, she’d think I was either a serial killer or possessed.”

“And instead?”

“You told me it was the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for you.”

“It still is.”

Eddie looked at you then. And suddenly he was twenty again; grease stains on his hands, heart beating too fast, staring at the most hauntingly beautiful girl he’d ever seen while wondering how someone so lovely could possibly want him back.

Only now, he knew, because you’d spent decades proving it.

His hand slid carefully against your cheek. “My sweet girl,” he whispered.

You kissed him before he could say anything else. Slow and loving, the kind of kiss built from years and years of choosing each other over and over again. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled softly again.

Eddie smiled against your mouth. “Think the kids are behaving themselves?”

You smoothed your fingers through his curls lazily. “Not our concern tonight.”

“God,” he sighed happily, pulling you impossibly closer, “I adore you.”

“Eddie,” you whispered, tilting your head as his lips brushed the side of your neck. “You’ve outdone yourself, mon amour.”

He hummed against your skin, the sound vibrating through you. “Only the best for you.”

You laughed softly, and the sound made him tighten his hold, one hand sliding reverently down your side, tracing the black silk of your dress. 

Eddie loved pleasing you more than anything, maybe even more than breathing. He lived for the way your breath would hitch when he touched you just right, for the way you looked at him like he was the only man in any world worth having.

His fingers found the hem of your dress and slipped beneath it, warm palm gliding up your thigh. “Let me worship you here,” he murmured, voice low and rough with devotion. 

You turned in his lap, straddling him, your long dark hair falling around you both like a curtain. The cemetery was empty, the night yours alone. You cupped his face, thumbs brushing his cheeks, silver rings cool against his skin.

“Then worship me, Edward,” you said softly, the command wrapped in velvet.

Eddie’s eyes darkened with hunger and endless love. He kissed you deeply, almost reverently at first, then with growing heat as your tongues met. His hands roamed, pushing your dress up around your hips. He groaned when he realized you’d worn nothing beneath it.

“Fuuuck me,” he breathed against your mouth, a crooked, adoring grin breaking through.

“Oh my love, I plan to.”

He laughed, the sound rich and warm, then lowered you gently onto your back atop the velvet pillows. The cool night air kissed your skin as he peeled the dress from your body, kissing every inch he revealed. Your collarbones, the swell of your breasts, the soft plane of your stomach. When he reached the apex of your thighs, he looked up at you with pure reverence.

He settled between your legs, curls brushing your inner thighs as he pressed open-mouthed kisses along your skin. His tongue found your center with devastating patience; slow, worshipful strokes that had your fingers tightening in his hair. 

He moaned into you like you were the finest thing he’d ever tasted, savoring every gasp and whisper of his name that left your lips.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” he murmured against your slick flesh, voice thick. “Let me hear how good I make you feel.”

Your back arched as pleasure coiled tight inside you, and Eddie watched it all unfold like a man witnessing divinity. When you came undone beneath his tongue, thighs trembling around his head, he held you through it, kissing you gently until the waves subsided.

Only then did he rise, shedding his shirt and pants with reverent haste. His cock was hard and aching for you, but he took his time, crawling over you, kissing you so deeply you tasted yourself on his tongue.

“I love you,” he whispered against your lips, lining himself up. “More than life. More than death. More than anything in this fucking universe.”

You wrapped your legs around his waist and pulled him inside you with one smooth thrust. Both of you moaned at the perfect fit; years together, and it still felt like coming home. 

Eddie moved with slow, deep rolls of his hips, savoring every clench of your walls around him. His forehead pressed to yours, curls falling around your faces as he gazed into your eyes.

“Look at me while I fuck you, baby,” he breathed, devotion dripping from every word. “Want to see those saintly eyes when you come on my cock again.”

The cemetery felt alive around you; the wind whispering through the trees, the distant hoot of an owl, the scent of earth and night-blooming flowers mixing with sweat and sex. Eddie’s pace gradually quickened, one hand sliding between you to circle your clit while the other pinned your wrist gently above your head.

You came again with a soft, broken cry of his name, pulling him over the edge with you. He buried himself deep, spilling inside you with a guttural groan, hips stuttering as pleasure wrecked him. Even then, he kept moving; lazy, loving thrusts to draw it out, kissing you through every aftershock.

Afterward, he collapsed beside you and immediately pulled you into his arms, tucking your head beneath his chin. His fingers traced lazy patterns along your spine while your leg draped over his hip.

Eddie pressed a kiss to your hair, voice hoarse with satisfaction. “I’d desecrate every grave in Hawkins if it meant making you feel like that.”

You smiled against his chest, fingertips playing with the silver strands beginning to thread through his dark curls. “If we keep this up, Corvina and Teddy may have a sibling.”

“Would that be so bad? Another mini-Munson running around, raising hell?”

You rolled your eyes lovingly, planting a few peppered kisses along his chest and jaw. “Poor Principal Higgins wouldn’t know what to do with himself with a third Munson.”

Dinner in the Creel-Munson House was rarely quiet. Not because anyone particularly tried to be loud, it was simply impossible for four Munsons to exist in the same room without the atmosphere becoming theatrical.

Thunder groaned outside while candlelight flickered across the dining room, illuminating velvet curtains, silver dishes, and the massive candelabra Teddy insisted made “every meal feel like a vampire intervention.”

Tonight, Eddie had been suspiciously smug since five o’clock, you noticed immediately. Corvina noticed immediately. Teddy noticed immediately. Which meant all three of you spent most of dinner staring at him with increasing suspicion while he fought a grin behind his wine glass.

Finally, Teddy pointed his fork accusingly. “You’re hiding something.”

Eddie gasped dramatically. “What a horrible accusation.”

“You’ve been smirking for an hour,” Corvina added.

“You also called the garlic bread ‘historic,’” Teddy said. “That means something’s wrong.”

You smiled faintly from your seat at the head of the table. “Darling,” you said gently to Eddie, “are you planning a crime?”

Eddie looked delighted by the question. “No,” he answered proudly. “Something better.”

Then, with all the ceremony of a man revealing the crown jewels, Eddie reached into his jacket and slapped four tickets dramatically onto the table. Silence.

Teddy squinted. Then his eyes widened so violently you thought they might leave his skull.

“No fucking way.”

“Language,” you corrected softly.

“No FUCKING way.”

Corvina leaned forward slightly now, dark eyes narrowing in interest. Eddie sat back in his chair with unbearable smugness. “Iron Maiden,” he announced grandly. “Indianapolis. Front section.”

Teddy SHRIEKED, like actually shrieked. The sound echoed through the dining room while Eddie burst into laughter.

“Oh my God,” Teddy gasped, grabbing the tickets with trembling hands. “Dad—Dad, are you serious?!”

“Your old man still has connections, baby.”

Teddy launched out of his chair instantly. 

You sighed knowingly. “Brace yourself, mon amour.”

A second later, Teddy practically tackled Eddie backward in a hug. “There he is,” Eddie wheezed dramatically as Teddy nearly crushed him. “My son. My flesh and blood.”

“You are the coolest person alive.”

“I know.”

Corvina, meanwhile, carefully picked up one of the tickets with much more restraint. But you noticed the tiny upward twitch at the corner of her mouth immediately.

“Dickinson is still performing?” she asked calmly.

Eddie clutched his chest. “That sounded almost excited.”

“It wasn’t.”

“She got the Munson concert gene,” Teddy informed you loudly.

“She absolutely did,” Eddie whispered emotionally. Corvina rolled her eyes, though there was the faintest flush creeping into her cheeks now. You watched your family fondly from your chair, chin resting against your hand.

This. This was your favorite thing.

Eddie glowing with happiness while the children inherited every loud, passionate, ridiculous piece of him without even realizing it. Teddy flopped back into his chair, grinning wildly.

“This is literally the greatest day of my life.”

Eddie pointed at him immediately. “That’s exactly what I said when your mother kissed me the first time.”

“You say that about everything Mom does,” Corvina muttered.

“Because your mother is extraordinary.”

You reached over and touched his hand gently, as Eddie looked at you like he’d been shot directly through the heart.

Then, Corvina cleared her throat, causing everyone to look at her immediately.

“…What,” she said flatly.

Eddie narrowed his eyes. “You’re about to ask for something.”

“I’m not.”

“You did the voice.”

Teddy gasped dramatically. “She DID do the voice.”

Corvina looked deeply regretful. “I hate all of you.”

You smiled softly. “What is it, little raven?”

A pause. Then, with visible reluctance: “…Could I possibly have one additional ticket?”

The room went silent, and Eddie blinked once. Then slowly lowered his wine glass.

“…For who?”

Corvina stared at her plate. “No one.”

“Corvina.”

Another pause.

“…Damien.”

Eddie’s entire body reacted as if he’d just been informed the government had finally collapsed.

“THE BOYFRIEND?”

“He is not—”

“The assistant quarterback?!” Teddy shouted.

“THE DEBATE CLUB ONE?” Eddie cried simultaneously.

Corvina groaned into her hands. You, meanwhile, were trying very hard not to smile.

“He likes Iron Maiden,” Corvina muttered.

Eddie looked genuinely betrayed. “The clean-cut child likes Maiden?”

“He listens to metal with me.”

Eddie stared at her for a long moment. Then suddenly leaned back in his chair, placing a hand dramatically over his heart. “Oh, my God.”

“What?”

“She likes him.”

“I do not.”

“She’s sharing music with him,” Eddie whispered hoarsely to you. “Baby, that’s intimate.”

Teddy looked horrified. “That’s like… sacred.”

“Exactly.”

Corvina looked ready to walk into traffic. You finally spoke, voice warm with amusement.

“Perhaps,” you said carefully, “she simply enjoys his company.”

Corvina nodded quickly. “Exactly.”

Eddie narrowed his eyes immediately. “Have you held hands?”

“Dad.”

“HAVE you?”

“No.” Too fast.

Teddy slammed both hands on the table. “THAT WAS A LIE.”

Corvina pointed at him. “You are dead to me.”

Eddie suddenly looked emotional again. “Oh, sweetheart,” he sighed dramatically, “your first love.”

“It’s not love!”

You stood then, gliding around the table toward your daughter. Corvina visibly braced herself for teasing. Instead, you simply smoothed a strand of dark hair behind her ear gently.

And very softly, you said: “If someone makes our little raven smile enough to frighten her this badly… we should like to know him.”

Corvina froze. Because despite all the drama and teasing, your family loved hard. Openly, and without shame, just like Eddie always had.

The house had long since gone quiet. Somewhere downstairs, the grandfather clock groaned past midnight while rain tapped softly against the windows of your bedroom. Eddie lay sprawled across your chest like an oversized cat, one arm wrapped tightly around your waist while you lazily played with his curls.

This had always been his favorite place to exist, right here, with you.

Even after all these years, he still sought you out instinctively. Every night, somehow ended the same way: his head in your lap, or tucked against your chest, or buried into your neck while he mumbled half-asleep nonsense against your skin. Tonight was no different.

“You know,” Eddie murmured sleepily, eyes closed, “I think Corvina gets scarier every day.”

You smiled softly, carefully winding one silver-threaded curl around your finger. “She is your daughter.”

“Exactly why I’m concerned.”

“You cried when she said she held his hand.”

“I did not cry.”

“You absolutely did.”

Eddie cracked one eye open. “I became emotional.”

“You gasped loud enough to frighten Teddy.”

“That was fatherly grief.”

Your laugh came soft and quiet in the dark. God, he loved that sound.

Eddie tilted his head slightly against you just to hear it again. Then your fingers paused suddenly in his curls, a tiny thing, barely noticeable. But Eddie felt it immediately.

“What?” he murmured.

You said nothing at first. Instead, your fingers carefully separated one curl from the rest, then another. Eddie finally looked up slightly, finding your expression softened by something achingly tender.

“My darling,” you whispered.

“Hm?”

You gently pulled something free: a silver strand, then another.

Eddie blinked once. “Oh,” he said.

There was no fear in his voice, just surprise. You held the strands delicately between your fingers, studying them beneath candlelight like they were precious threads of moonlight themselves.

Eddie suddenly looked sheepish. “Well,” he muttered, “guess I’m getting old.”

You looked almost offended by the statement. “Edward Munson,” you said softly, “you have survived.”

You slid from beneath him carefully, crossing toward the antique vanity near the window while Eddie watched you in sleepy confusion.

Then you reached for the little silver locket resting beside your jewelry tray, the one you wore nearly every day, etched with the letter ‘E’.

Eddie pushed himself upright slightly as you opened it carefully. Inside rested tiny fragments of your life together.

A pressed black rose petal from your wedding bouquet. A piece of the guitar pick Eddie used the first time he played guitar for you. A photograph so faded it barely showed two young people grinning in a cemetery beneath storm clouds.

Eddie went completely still.

You placed the silver strands gently beside them, like they were treasures. Then you closed the locket softly and climbed back into bed.

Eddie stared at you for a long moment after you settled beside him again. “…You kept all that?”

You looked genuinely puzzled. “Of course I did.”

“Baby, there’s literally a piece of an old guitar pick in there.”

“The broken corner because you were nervous while playing for me.”

His expression cracked instantly. “You remember that?”

“You dropped it three times before speaking to me,” you replied calmly. “You were adorable.”

Eddie let out a weak laugh, suddenly overwhelmed in the way only you could overwhelm him. Because no one had ever looked at the broken, embarrassing, vulnerable pieces of him and treated them like sacred things before you.

Your fingers slowly returned to his curls. “You know what I see,” you murmured softly, “when I look at these?”

Eddie shook his head once.

“A life.”

His eyes burned immediately, so you kissed his forehead gently.

“The silver only proves you stayed long enough to grow old with me,” you whispered.

And that nearly destroyed him. Eddie suddenly pulled himself over you completely, burying his face into your neck while holding you tight enough to make you laugh softly again.

“Jesus Christ,” he mumbled against your skin. “How are you real?”

You stroked your fingers through his curls carefully, silver strands and all. “I might ask you the same thing.”

“No, seriously,” Eddie groaned dramatically. “You put my gray hairs in a locket. That’s insane behavior.”

“You married me willingly.”

“I’d marry you in every lifetime.”

Your expression softened instantly. Eddie lifted his head, then just enough to look at you through the candlelight; older now, yes, lines at the corners of his eyes and silver threading through dark curls.

But still the same boy who fell hopelessly in love with a gothic girl in black lace all those years ago. Still yours, always yours.

“You know what the worst part is?” he murmured sleepily.

“What’s that, mon amour?”

“I still get nervous around you.”

You smiled. Then pulled him down into another kiss while rain whispered softly against the windows of your haunted little home.

AGH I HOPE YOU ALL LOVED ITTT:)))

Hell of a Summer pt.2 is currently in the works, GET EXCITEDDDD YUHHH

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The bullpen of the Behavioral Analysis Unit was unusually quiet, the heavy silence broken only by the low hum of the fluorescent lights and the rhythmic scratching of Spencer’s pen.

The rest of the team had finally drifted out, exhausted after a grueling three day geographic profiling case that had left everyone running on fumes.

Hotch had dropped the final mountain of federal case files -post mortem reports and bureaucratic standard operating procedures- onto the central table with a heavy sympathetic sigh, quietly asking Spencer if he could handle sorting the cross references by morning.

Spencer hadn't even hesitated, he had just offered a tired genuinely sweet smile, adjusted his satchel and quietly gathered the massive stack of folders.

You sat at your desk across the bullpen, your jaw tight as you watched him carry the heavy load back to his desk.

It felt so incredibly unfair, the rest of the team completely relied on Spencer's inability to say no to a cognitive puzzle. He was always the one cleaning up the administrative mess because his brain physically couldn't let an unsolved or disorganized file rest.

You wanted to say something, to snap at the universe for taking advantage of his good nature but you kept your mouth shut. You just watched him trudge into his glass walled office, looking every bit the self sacrificing genius everyone took for granted.

A little while later, you walked toward his office. Through the glass, you saw he wasn't trying to look composed anymore.

He was slumped back in his chair, his slender frame practically swallowed by the seat, staring at the mountain of paperwork with a look of pure quiet exhaustion, his fingers were pressed to his temples, looking completely overwhelmed.

You pushed the door open without knocking.

"Spencer?"

He jumped, his misaligned glasses nearly sliding off his nose as he scrambled to sit up straight, accidentally knocking a highlighter off his desk.

"Oh! Hey! Uh... hi! I... I didn't see you there, just... getting a head start on the geographic data and the cross logistics, very... very statistically engaging stuff."

"You’re a terrible liar Dr. Reid," you said, closing the heavy glass door firmly behind you.

You walked over to his desk but you didn't take the spare chair, instead you sat right on the edge of the desk, leaning back on your hands. You moved slowly, deliberately crossing your legs so that your skirt slid up your thighs, exposing a lot more skin than was strictly professional for a federal office.

Spencer’s eyes dropped instantly and he froze.

You saw the prominent apple of his throat move as he swallowed hard, a bright unmistakable shade of pink started creeping up his neck to his cheeks and his hands -which were resting on a file- twitched nervously.

"Is... is there a specific behavioral query you have?" He asked, his voice a full octave higher than usual. He was trying so hard to force his eyes up to meet your face but his gaze kept darting helplessly back down to your exposed legs.

"I think the question is… what do you need?" You teased, leaning forward so you were invading his personal space, the scent of your perfume cutting through the stuffy office air. "You look like you’re about to drown in these files. Why did you tell Hotch you’d handle all of this alone?"

"Well, mathematically speaking, my reading speed is twenty thousand words per minute with a ninety eight percent retention rate, so objectively, it’s the most efficient distribution of labor," Spencer stammered, his eyes finally meeting yours, looking utterly dazed. "I just... I want to be helpful to the team, it’s the logical thing to do."

"Is it logical to let yourself get stepped on?" You countered, your voice dropping to a low flirtatious hum. "You’re too nice Spencer, it drives me crazy."

Spencer let out a nervous breathless laugh, his fingers frantically twisting his pen. "Does it? I... I didn't realize my organizational compliance was a catalyst for... for cognitive provocation."

"It's not the compliance," you whispered, reaching out to toy with the corner of the folder right next to his hand, your fingers brushing against his skin. "It's the fact that you’re sitting here overwhelmed and you won't ask for help, so I'm offering… let me help you with these."

Spencer looked at the papers then back at you, he looked like he was struggling to form a coherent sentence, the sight of you sitting on his desk, looking at him with heavy lids and a knowing smile was clearly short circuiting his brilliant brain.

"I... I couldn't possibly ask you to stay late in the bureau under these fluctuating fluorescent lights," he said, his voice trembling slightly. "Studies show that prolonged exposure to high frequency flickering lights can cause visual fatigue and decrease cognitive focus by up to twelve percent. It's... it's not very fun."

"I agree," you said, leaning even closer. "So let's not stay here, it's loud, bright and the janitorial staff is going to start vacuuming soon. Why don't we take all of this back to your apartment? You can make me some of that ridiculously strong coffee you’re always talking about and we can actually get some work done in peace. What do you think?"

Spencer’s eyes went wide, he looked like a deer in headlights… but a very, very happy deer. "My... my apartment? Oh well... statistically, a familiar residential environment with controlled sensory stimuli would be far more... efficient. The environment would be much more conducive to... productivity."

"Productivity," you repeated, your voice trailing off suggestively. "Exactly."

"Right!" Spencer said, suddenly standing up so fast his lanky legs tangled and he bumped his knee hard against the desk drawer. "Ow... boy... right, let’s... let’s pack up. I have a fresh bag of dark roast from Kenya and... and some cookies, oatmeal raisin, very biochemically sustaining."

He started shoving files into his leather satchel with a frantic clumsy energy, dropping his pen twice and nearly knocking over his desk lamp.

You watched him from the desk, thoroughly amused by how completely flustered he was.

As you and Spencer walked out toward the elevator lobby, the heavy satchel swinging from his shoulder, a voice called out from down the hall.

"Hey! Wait up!"

It was Detective Harris, a local investigator from the field office who had been helping with the case. He was jogging toward you, looking tall, polished and overly confident in his tactical gear. He came to a stop right in front of you, completely ignoring Spencer, his eyes fixed on you with a hopeful arrogant look.

"Hey," Harris said, flashing a charming smile and rubbing the back of his neck. "I was just heading out. It’s late and I thought... maybe I could drive you home? Grab a late night coffee? You know, for safety and... just to unwind after a crazy case?"

Harris’s interest in you had been incredibly obvious all week, he was always hovering around your desk, trying to find excuses to talk to you. He was handsome in a conventional way but he wasn't the man you wanted to spend your night with.

You felt Spencer instantly stiffen beside you, he didn't say a word but he shifted his weight, stepping just a half inch closer to you, his shoulder brushing yours as his presence suddenly felt much heavier, his defensive instincts flaring.

"That’s really sweet of you Detective," you said, giving him a polite apologetic smile. "But I’m actually not going home yet, Spencer and I have some unfinished federal profiles to take care of."

Harris’s face fell instantly, he looked at you then eyed Spencer up and down, taking note of the worn leather satchel. "Oh... work? You’re... you’re doing paperwork at this hour?"

"Supervisors orders," Spencer chimed in, his voice suddenly losing its anxious stammer, instantly regaining that intimidating authority he used when profiling suspects. "We're heading to my apartment to synthesize the geographic data points before the morning briefing, it’s a critical federal deadline. If we don't map the comfort zone of the unsub tonight, the whole perimeter strategy fails."

"Oh," Harris mumbled, his shoulders slumping under his tactical vest. "Right... the profile... yeah, I forgot how intense you bureau guys are. Well... I guess I’ll just... head out then."

"Have a safe drive Detective," you said kindly.

"Yeah, you too," he muttered, sounding completely dejected as he turned on his heel and started trudging toward the exit.

Spencer waited until Harris was safely around the corner and the elevator doors slid open before he let out a long shaky breath, the sharp protective FBI facade cracked just a little as he stepped into the elevator with you, looking down at his feet.

"Was that... was that okay?" He asked, his voice dropping into a shy soft register. "I didn't mean to be... overbearing, I just... I didn't want him to think we weren't being completely serious."

"It was perfect Spencer," you said softly, reaching out to briefly squeeze his arm. "Now come on, I’m ready to see this 'highly efficient' apartment of yours."

Spencer beamed at you, his face flushing a violent pink all over again as the elevator descended. "Right... my car is in the lower lot, I... I hope you like your coffee strong."

The drive to Spencer’s apartment was a masterclass in suppressed energy, he kept both hands firmly at ten and two on the steering wheel of his old car, his knuckles white as he navigated the evening traffic with excessive overly cautious focus.

"I hope you don't mind the music," Spencer said, his voice a bit thin as a soft melancholic jazz track drifted through the speakers. "It’s Blind Willie McTell. Studies show that low tempo syncopated blues and early jazz rhythms can help lower cortisol levels and encourage synaptic clarity during high stress cognitive tasks. It keeps the brain from collapsing into a non linear state during data analysis."

"It’s fine Spencer," you said, shifting in your seat. You saw his eyes dart toward your legs for a split second before he forcefully yanked his gaze back to the road, his ears burning a bright red. "I actually find it quite relaxing, though I’m not sure linear is how I’m feeling right now."

Spencer swallowed hard, a deep flush creeping up from beneath his mismatched collar. "Well... almost there, just around this corner. It’s a very quiet neighborhood, low crime rate statistically speaking. Very predictable neighbors."

His apartment was exactly what you expected yet completely intoxicating. When he pushed the door open, the scent of old paper, worn leather, rich coffee grounds and a faint hint of cedar hit you immediately.

There wasn't a corporate immaculate inch to the place, instead towering slightly chaotic stacks of books lined the walls, mismatched antique chairs sat beneath warm dim lamps and his desk was covered in loose journals and pens. It was crowded, academic and deeply personal.

"Make yourself at home," Spencer stammered, fumbling with his keys as he set them into a small brass dish by the door. "I’ll just... I’ll take your coat and then the coffee."

As he darted into the kitchen, you looked around the warm dimly lit room. It was overwhelmingly full of his brilliant mind, a physical reflection of the man who lived there.

"Spencer?" You called out. "Since we have so many victim timelines and geographic maps to get through, maybe we should just spread out on the rug? It’ll be faster than trying to cram all these oversized charts onto that small coffee table."

You heard a sudden loud clatter of a coffee scoop hitting the linoleum floor in the kitchen.

"The... the floor?" Spencer’s voice came back, sounding slightly strangled. "I suppose... yes. From a spatial perspective, the hardwood rug area offers a vastly superior surface area for cross referencing multiple federal files simultaneously. I’ll... I’ll be right out."

You knelt on the plush patterned vintage rug and began pulling the files out of the bag. You sat with your knees pulled up toward your chest, a position that caused your skirt to ride up dangerously high. It left the full length of your thighs and the soft curve of your hips completely exposed to the warm lamplight.

When Spencer walked back into the room carrying two steaming mugs of black coffee, he stopped dead in his tracks. The sound of his breathing changed instantly, it went from the quick nervous rhythm of the car ride to something deeper, heavier and far more ragged.

His hazel eyes locked onto the sheer expanse of bare skin your skirt completely failed to hide. For a long moment he just stood there, the steam from the dark coffee rising around his face, his pupils blowing out so wide behind his glasses that his eyes looked almost entirely black.

"Spencer? The coffee?" You prompted softly, tilting your head.

"Right... yes... caffeine," he managed to choke out, his voice dropping an octave.

He sat down beside you on the rug, much closer than was strictly necessary for a collaborative profiling session. As he handed you the mug, his long slender fingers brushed against yours, the contact was electric. He didn't pull away immediately, instead his thumb lingered against your knuckles for a heartbeat too long, the heat of his skin matching the coffee.

"So," you said, trying to maintain a facade of professionalism as you flipped open a thick folder, leaning in. "The local field office completely skipped these cell tower data dumps. We need to cross reference these ping locations with the victim abduction timelines from last Tuesday."

"Right... Tuesday," Spencer echoed. He wasn't looking at the papers, he was staring intensely at your profile, his gaze tracing the line of your jaw, your neck and your lips. "I agree. Vital... structurally vital data."

For the next twenty minutes, you actually managed to get some work done. You were reading off coordinate numbers and he was marking them down in his neat cramped hyper precise handwriting but the tension between you was a physical suffocating weight.

Every time you reached for a map, your arms brushed, every time he leaned over to look at a data point, his shoulder pressed firmly against yours.

He was becoming bolder, his movements less clumsy and far more deliberate. He would "accidentally" let the back of his hand rest against your bare thigh as he reached for a red marker or his fingers would graze your waist as you both leaned in over the same page, his body heat radiating through his cotton shirt.

"I can't find the medical examiner's report for the third victim," you muttered, leaning forward over the scattered sea of documents.

As you reached across the rug to sift through a pile of maps, you leaned low, the neckline of your blouse falling away from your chest. It provided Spencer with a direct, completely unobstructed view. You stayed like that for a long torturous moment, pretending to be deeply invested in finding a piece of paper.

Beside you, Spencer made a sound, a low pained groan that he tried and failed to mask with a rough cough. He suddenly shifted his weight, pulling one of his long legs up and adjusting the way he was sitting on the floor, clearly trying to hide the undeniable prominent evidence of his arousal that was straining hard against his trousers.

"Did you... did you find it?" He asked, his voice was no longer that of the anxious genius, it was a deep gravelly rasp that sent a white hot shiver straight down your spine.

"Not yet," you whispered, slowly turning your head to look at him. Your faces were inches apart now, your breath warm against his cheek. "Maybe it's at the bottom of the pile Spencer. Do you want to help me look?"

Spencer didn't even pretend to look down at the papers, he was staring directly at your mouth, his chest heaving heavily under his starched button down shirt.

"I think," he rasped, his eyes burning into yours, "that I am experiencing a total cognitive overload… I am completely distracted."

Spencer was no longer looking at the reports, the polite clumsy boy from the bullpen was flickering out like a dying candle and the intense possessive mind of a profiler was rushing in to fill the dark space.

"What is distracting you Spencer?" You whispered, your voice barely audible over the soft jazz playing in the background. You let your gaze drop deliberately to his lips -slightly parted and trembling just a fraction- before dragging your eyes back up to meet his dark blown out stare.

"Maybe because," Spencer rasped, his voice dropping into a register so deep it felt like a heavy vibration in the floorboards beneath you, "my mind is currently occupied with a highly detailed list of exactly what I want to do to you."

A thrill of pure heat shot through your core as you leaned in even closer, the tips of your noses almost touching, your breaths mingling in the tiny charged space between you.

"And what is it you want to do to me Dr. Reid?”

He didn't answer with words, his mouth slammed into yours with a desperate starving intensity that made your head tilt back. He tasted like rich dark coffee and raw suppressed hunger, his tongue pushing past your lips, deep and demanding, as if his hyper fixated brain was trying to memorize the exact chemical taste of you in a single go.

You let out a muffled moan against his mouth, your hands flying up to grip his hair, pulling him closer until there wasn't a single atom of air left between you.

When he finally pulled back to breathe, he didn't let you go. His face was deeply flushed, his glasses completely discarded on the rug and his eyes were dark with a terrifyingly sharp predatory focus.

Without a word, he grabbed your waist, his fingers sinking into your skin and hauled you up and over until you were straddling his lap.

The friction of your thighs against his made your breath hitch, you could feel the hard thick ridge of his arousal pressing directly against you through the fabric of his trousers.

Spencer leaned into your ear, his lips grazing your lobe, his voice a lethal articulate whisper that had completely lost its stutter.

“I’ve been analyzing your micro expressions all evening," he murmured, his hot breath sending a shiver straight down your spine. "And I’ve come to the conclusion that this blouse is unnecessary. I think we need to remove it immediately. We wouldn't want any irrelevant variables getting in the way of our progress would we?"

You let out a shaky wet laugh, your head falling back as he started to trail biting bruising kisses down the sensitive line of your neck. "Is that so Dr. Reid? And what does the profiler suggest we do next?"

"The profiler," Spencer groaned, his teeth nipping sharply at the skin of your collarbone, "suggests a completely hands on behavioral assessment. I want to conduct a thorough analysis of every single inch of you… I want to observe exactly how loud your vocal cords can get when I completely shatter your restraint."

He didn't give you time to respond before his mouth was back on yours even more violently than before, it was a rough messy exchange of heat and saliva. He kissed you like he wanted to devour you, his lips never leaving yours for more than a second to gasp for air.

"I've spent the last six hours in that bullpen memorizing the exact millisecond your breathing hitches when my shoulder brushes yours," he rasped against your lips, his voice dropping into a filthy authoritative growl. "And now that I have you here… I’m going to make sure you’re making those same pathetic broken little noises for me all night long."

You let out a broken moan, your fingers clutching at the lapels of his shirt as you arched your back into him, yielding completely. "Yes... please Spencer... I don't want to think about anything but you."

"Good," he hissed, his teeth grazing your bottom lip. "Because I don't intend to let your brain process anything else."

His hands were everywhere. One was tangled deeply in your hair, tilting your head back to give him better access while his other hand slid down to your thigh, his palm hot against your bare skin as he squeezed, his long fingers digging into your flesh as he pulled your hips even tighter against his groin.

You didn't stay still, you reached down, your fingers fumbling with his tie and finally ripping it loose and tossing it onto the scattered case files. You moved to his shirt, popping the first few buttons so you could slide your palms inside, feeling the frantic hammering beat of his heart against your hands.

"Spencer," you moaned into the kiss, the sound swallowed by his mouth. "Please..."

"Please what sweetheart?" He rasped, pulling back just an inch, his lips still grazing yours. His voice was a lethal low vibration that made your toes curl. "You need to be specific with what you ask. Do you want me to stop acting like a gentleman? Is that it? Do you want me to show you exactly how rough I can be when I stop holding myself back?"

"Yes," you sobbed, your head thrashing back as his thumb traced the sharp line of your jaw. "Stop being good Spencer... please... just take me."

"Careful what you wish for," he growled, a dark triumphant glint in his blown out eyes. "Because I’ve been waiting a very long time to be very, very bad to you.”

He moved his hands to your waist, his grip firm, bruising and absolutely commanding as he began to shift your weight. He held you tight, guiding your hips to grind down against him in a slow rhythmic circle.

The sensation was overwhelming, every time you pressed down, he let out a choked off sound of praise, his hips bucking up slightly to meet yours.

"That’s it," he rasped against your lips, his voice thick with lust. "So good for me, look at you... so desperate for this. You’re making such a mess of my rug sweetheart."

He pulled back just enough to look at you, his eyes scanning your face, taking in your swollen lips and blown out pupils. He looked absolutely unhinged, his control beginning to fray at the edges.

"I’m going to fuckin ruin you," he whispered, a dark promise filled smirk tugging at his mouth. "I’m going to be so thorough that you’ll never be able to focus on anything ever again without thinking about how my tongue feels inside you."

He dived back in, his hand sliding up under your skirt, his long fingers finding the damp lace of your underwear.

You let out a loud piercing moan directly into the kiss, your body arching as he began to move his hips in time with yours, the friction reaching a fever pitch.

"What a filthy whore you are," Spencer rasped, pulling back just enough to look down at where his hand had disappeared beneath your skirt. His voice was no longer anxious, it was sharp, clinical and devastatingly dark. "Soaking through your underwear just because I dropped the polite facade. You’re such a needy, responsive little slut aren't you? So desperate for me to touch every inch of you."

"Yes," you sobbed, the raw intensity of his words sending a fresh hot bolt of arousal straight to your core. Your face was flushed, your breathing coming in shallow desperate hitches. "I’m pathetic for you Spencer... please... I need you."

"I see," he growled, his fingers hooking into the lace and tugging hard. "You’re a complete anomaly to my usual control. A total beautiful little mess... and I’m going to make sure you stay that way all night."

The unfinished case files were scattered all over the floor, forgotten and stepped on as Dr. Spencer Reid finally took exactly what he wanted. His hands -once so careful and gentle with administrative memos- were now firm and demanding as he gripped your hips.

He shifted his weight, sliding one of his thighs directly between yours so you were forced to ride high on his leg. The friction was immediate and staggering, you let out a sharp broken cry, your fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt.

"Not so fast," Spencer rasped, his voice sounding like gravel as he leaned in, his lips brushing against yours, teasing the entrance to your mouth. "If you cum like a good girl for me, I’ll give you exactly what you want… but you have to earn it."

He didn't wait for an answer before his mouth crashed back onto yours, it was a rough tongue heavy kiss that tasted like pure desperation. His hands moved to the buttons of your blouse but he wasn't being gentle, he was clumsy in his haste, nearly ripping the fabric as he shoved it off your shoulders.

When he moved to the clasp of your bra, his long fingers made short work of it. His eyes darkened to a near black as your chest was finally exposed to the cool air of his apartment and his heated gaze.

"Beautiful," he breathed, his brilliant voice cracking slightly. "Absolutely, breathtakingly beautiful."

"Spencer... please," you whimpered, your skin prickling under the weight of his intense stare. You reached for him, your fingers trembling as they grazed his forearms, your body humming with a desperate need.

"What do you want?" He rasped, his voice dropping into a lethal low register. "Do you want me to keep looking? Or do you want me to finally start the hands-on portion of this assessment?"

He didn't even wait for your answer. Before you could get a single word past your swollen lips, he leaned down, his mouth replacing his gaze. He claimed you with a sudden hungry intensity, his tongue swirling around the peak of your breast as his hand squeezed your waist, pinning you firmly against his thigh.

"Ah hah!~... Spencer!... Please!” You moaned, the contact was electric as he began to show you exactly how much he had been holding back all week.

He grabbed your waist and began to move you roughly against his thigh, the fabric of his trousers provided the perfect agonizing resistance.

You arched your back, your head falling back as a loud involuntary moan tore from your throat.

"I need an answer," Spencer murmured, his lips moving down to the sensitive column of your throat. "Who does this body belong to while we’re working late? Tell me."

You couldn't say a word, you were too far gone, your brain turned to absolute mush by the sensation of him moving you.

Suddenly he stopped, he went completely still, holding you firmly so you couldn't grind against him anymore. The sudden loss of friction felt like a physical blow.

"I didn't hear a word," he said, his voice dropping into that strict lecture-like tone he used when defending a thesis. He reached up, his thumb and forefinger finding your nipple and giving it a sharp punishing pinch.

"Ah!~... Spencer!" you gasped, your eyes snapping open.

"Answer me," he commanded, his hazel eyes boring into yours with total authority. "Who do you belong to right now?"

"Yours," you whimpered, your breath coming in short panicked pants. "Yours Spencer... always yours.”

"Good girl," he growled, as a reward he leaned down and buried his face in your neck, sucking a deep dark mark into the skin right above your collarbone.

You let out a shaky breath and the moment his teeth grazed the mark, he started moving your hips again, even faster than before. The pace was relentless, his hands bruising your waist as he forced you to take the friction of his leg.

You were becoming louder, your moans echoing off the book lined walls of his apartment, a sharp contrast to the quiet academic life he led.

"Tell me how it feels," he said, his voice a low vibration against your skin. "Is the sensory input sufficient? Or do you need more?"

You tried to speak but all that came out was a soft needy whimper as the pleasure began to peak.

Again, he stopped you. He pinned your hips down, denying you the release that was just seconds away.

"I can't take that as an answer sweetheart," he teased, his hand moving up to cup your breast, his thumb flicking over the tip he had just pinched. "Stop holding back and tell me what I want to hear... does it feel good having me this close?"

"It feels... it feels too good," you sobbed, reaching down to try and pull him back toward you. "Please Spencer… I’m so close... ahh!~... it’s perfect... don't stop."

"There she is," he whispered, rewarding you by leaning down and taking your nipple into his mouth again. He sucked harder this time, his tongue swirling around the peak as he started the rhythm again rougher this time.

The intense grinding of his thigh against you and the sharp heat of his mouth on your skin was completely overwhelming. You couldn't even think straight, let alone hold back.

You were screaming his name, your hands tangled in his brown hair, pulling him closer.

"Look at you," Spencer rasped, pulling back for a split second to catch his breath, his eyes dark and blown out, his hair completely wild. "Look at how desperate you are for me right now... absolutely begging for it.”

"Spencer... ah hah!~... please…” you sobbed, your back arching off the rug as he ground his leg upward again. "It feels... ngh!~... it feels too much!"

"It’s not enough," he countered, his voice a low hum. "Tell me, do you like how pathetic you look right now? With your blouse hanging off your arms and your legs wide open for me?"

"I love it... ahh!~... I fuckin love it Spencer!" You cried out, your nails scratching against his shoulders. "I've wanted... hahh!~... I've wanted you to see me like this for so long!"

"I know," he groaned, burying his face back into the crook of your neck, his teeth grazing your collarbone. “You’re so beautiful when you’re desperate... so incredibly loud... you’re so close aren't you?"

"Yes!... Ahh!~... I'm so close!..."

Your voice was becoming a series of broken high pitched keens as the tension reached a snapping point. You were grinding your hips down onto his thigh with a frantic rhythmic energy, your eyes squeezed shut.

"That's it... give it all to me," he rasped, his own breathing coming in heavy ragged gasps as he felt the tremors starting to take over your body. "Show me how much you need this… cum for me, come on."

The friction hit that final jagged point of no return. You cried out, your entire body shuddering as the climax crashed over you, your muscles squeezing tight against his leg in a series of rhythmic helpless spasms.

"Good girl," Spencer groaned, his voice a deep vibrating rasp against your collarbone as he felt the heat of your release soaking into his trousers.

"Hngh~... Spencer..." you sobbed, your head falling against his shoulder, your fingers still locked in his hair as the waves of pleasure continued to pulse through you. "Was I... was I good for you..."

"The best," he whispered, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin of your shoulder as he left a deep dark mark there. "I think you’ve earned a real reward for this."

Spencer didn't stop moving you until the very last tremor subsided, his mouth never leaving your skin, marking you over and over again as his own.

"You're perfect... absolutely perfect," he murmured, his tone softening just a fraction as he gathered you up into his arms. He pulled you tight against his chest, tucking your head under his chin as he let you come down from the overwhelming high of the climax.

The silence that followed your climax was heavy, broken only by the sound of your frantic wet breaths and the rhythmic ticking of a clock on the wall that felt far too sensible for the state of the room.

Spencer looked down at his lap, a large dark patch of dampness having soaked completely through the fabric of his trousers where you had cum.

"Look at this," Spencer rasped, his voice dropping into a sharp feigned sternness that made your skin prickle. "Look at what a mess you made, a complete disaster sweetheart. You’ve completely ruined a perfectly good pair of trousers."

You let out a shaky breathless laugh as you reached up, your fingers trembling as you brushed a stray lock of brown hair from his forehead before trailing your hand slowly down to his lips.

"I’m so sorry Spencer," you whispered, your voice still thick with the aftershocks of your orgasm. "How can I possibly make it up to you?"

As you spoke, you ran your palm down the front of his trousers, centering it right over the massive pulsing bulge that was straining hard against his zipper. You felt him jump, a sharp low hiss of air escaping his teeth.

"Do you have something specific in mind?" Spencer asked, his voice cracking as he reached down, his hand wrapping around your wrist. He didn't pull you away, instead he squeezed tight and started moving your hand, forcing you to rub him harder. "Because this… this is a very serious problem we need to fix right now."

"I have a few ideas," you murmured, your breath hitching as you bit your lip, watching the way his usual composure was completely fraying at the edges.

Spencer didn't say a word, he simply gripped your waist and lifted you, shifting his weight until he was sitting back on the couch behind him. His legs spread wide as he looked at you, his chest heaving heavily, his tie hanging completely loose around his unbuttoned collar.

"Well?" He prompted, his voice a gravelly low command. "Will you be a good girl and get me out of these? It's getting way too tight in here."

You knelt between his legs, your knees sinking deep into the patterned rug. Your hands flew to his belt, fumbling with the buckle in your haste. You were just as hungry as he was, your own body still humming with a shameless desperate need to see him lose that proper intellectual exterior completely.

You slid the zipper down, the sound incredibly loud in the quiet room and reached inside to free his throbbing hard cock from the suffocating fabric.

He was fully and agonizingly hard, the skin dark and flushed with a bead of precum already glistening at the tip.

"Don't just stare at it sweetheart," Spencer groaned, his head falling back. "I’ve spent all day thinking about exactly how your mouth would feel on me. Are you really going to keep me waiting?"

You leaned in, letting out your tongue to give the very tip a slow filthy lick, tasting the salt and the intense heat of him.

Spencer’s hand shot out, tangling deeply in your hair. He didn't pull you away, he gripped the back of your head, his knuckles turning white.

"None of that teasing," he growled, his voice dropping into a lethal register. "Take it... all of it."

You chuckled, a low vibration against his skin, thoroughly amused by how quickly he was losing his patience.

"Yes Spencer," you whispered, your voice shaking as you looked up at him through your lashes, completely exposed beneath his gaze. "I'll be a good girl and do whatever you want."

"God... you're a menace," Spencer groaned, his fingers tightening in your hair as he tilted your head back further. "Stop talking and prove it."

You opened your mouth and took him in, the heat of him filling you instantly. As your lips closed around his length, you let out a deep moan, the sound completely muffled by his throbbing shaft.

"Oh fuck… yes," Spencer breathed, his hips bucking up off the couch instinctively. "Just like that... such a focused little whore aren't you? So damn good."

He began to move his hand in your hair, guiding the rhythm of your head. He wasn't being gentle, he was directing you exactly how he wanted it, his movements rhythmic, demanding and intensely focused.

Every few seconds, just as you were getting into a perfect flow, he would yank you back by your hair, forcing you to pull away so he could look down into your dazed watery eyes.

"Tell me," he rasped, his voice a filthy whisper. "Is this exactly what you wanted? Answer me."

"Yes," you panted, your lips glistening in the dim lamplight. "Please Spencer… I want to make you feel good.”

"Good girl," he praised, his voice thick with unadulterated lust. "Such a talented mouth... I should have done this months ago."

He pushed you back down, deeper this time, his hips meeting your face with a rough needy force. He was taking his time, deliberately slowing his rhythm whenever he felt himself getting too close, determined to make it last as long as possible.

He would pull you away again, his long thumb rubbing over your bottom lip, dragging the moisture across your skin.

"Look at you... kneeling there like it’s your only purpose," Spencer rasped, his voice dropping into that dark heavy growl that made your stomach completely flip. "You’re so eager to please me aren't you? Just a helpless little thing who can’t wait to get her mouth on me.

The absolute intensity of his words hit you like a physical wave, the heat between your legs intensifying until you were practically vibrating against the floor. You leaned into his touch, your eyes blown wide and glassy.

"Yes... I’m yours Spencer... I want to be your little mess... please... just let me have more."

"Good girl," he hissed, his grip on your hair tightening for a brief sharp second before he guided you back down.

You opened your mouth wide, taking him back in with a needy wet sound. This time you were more confident, your tongue swirling around the head of his cock as you began to bob your head in a steady perfect pace.

You reached down, your hand wrapping tightly around the base of his shaft -the part your mouth couldn't reach- and began to stroke him in sync with your throat.

The combination was devastating for him. You could feel the lean muscles in his thighs jumping, his breath coming in jagged broken hitches as your hand and mouth worked together to milk every bit of sensation from his body.

You moved your head deeper, the back of your throat hitting the ridge of him as you hummed, a deep vibrating moan that echoed all the way through his core.

"God... ngh~..." Spencer groaned, his head falling back hard against the couch cushions. "You’re... you’re going to fuckin ruin me... such a... such a good little thing."

Just as he was reaching that edge of no return, he reached down and firmly pulled you back by your hair, forcing you to release him.

You let out a soft protestive whimper, a string of saliva connecting your lips to his glistening tip.

He leaned forward, his chest heaving as he brushed a stray lock of hair off your sweaty face with a surprisingly tender touch that contrasted sharply with the predatory darkness in his eyes. He let you take a few frantic gasping breaths, his intense gaze never leaving yours.

"Are you going to be a good girl and swallow every single drop for me?" He asked, his hazel eyes burning into yours with total possession. "I want to feel your throat swallowing it down… say it."

"I'll swallow it all," you whispered, leaning back in to take him again, your heart pounding. "I won't waste a single drop."

"Good... nghh!~... such a good obedient girl for me," Spencer groaned, his head falling back against the sofa cushions as his hips began to surge forward instinctively. "Fuck... your mouth... it’s so good sweetheart... nggh!~... right there... keep doing that."

He started to move with a sudden desperate hunger, his long hands guiding your head as he began to thrust his hips. Each movement was deep, purposeful and intense, he wanted to feel the very back of your throat and the tight wet heat of you surrounding him completely.

Spencer was no longer talking in full sentences, his vocabulary dissolving into broken guttural sounds of praise and raw demand.

"That’s... that's it... ahh hah~... t-take it all," he gasped, his voice a ragged broken thread. "I’m... hah~... I’m so close... don’t stop... fuck... your eyes... looking at me like that while... while you take me... so beautiful."

You let out a muffled moan, your hands moving to his thighs to steady yourself as you increased the suction, your tongue working frantically to keep up with his relentless pace.

"You’re... you’re going to… to be the absolute… death of me," Spencer choked out, his fingers digging into your hair as he finally broke.

His entire body went rigid, his lean muscles straining as he delivered several deep pulsing thrusts into your mouth, filling you with every drop of the release he had promised.

You stayed true to your word, your throat working rhythmically as you swallowed every drop of him, the intense heat of his release filling you up completely.

When he finally slumped back against the couch, you didn't pull away immediately. You pulled back just enough to look at him then leaned in to pepper his cock with gentle small kisses, starting from the base and working your way back to the tip.

"Beautiful," Spencer whispered, his hand resting softly on your head now, his voice full of a warm profound affection. "Absolutely incredible sweetheart. I think... I think we might have to do this every night."

Before the haze could even begin to clear from your head, his long hands were under your arms, hauling you up from the rug with surprising effortless strength and placing you onto the cushions of his couch.

You landed with a soft huff, your hair splayed out wildly against the fabric. You looked up at him with wide blown out eyes, your chest still heaving, your lips swollen and glistening from the effort of pleasing him.

Spencer leaned over you but instead of the harsh demand from moments before, he reached down and took your hand in his. He brought your knuckles to his lips, lingering there with a soft reverent kiss that sent a completely different kind of shiver down your spine.

“Look at you," he murmured, his voice a low warm hum of pure appreciation. "Absolutely breathtaking... you did a perfect job for me... truly incredible."

"Do you have any idea how many times I’ve sat at my desk, watching you walk across the room, imagining exactly this?" Spencer murmured against your skin, his voice dropping into a soft hum as he pressed a warm kiss just beneath your jaw.

He moved up slowly, his hands coming up to gently frame your face, his thumbs wiping away the flush on your cheeks before his mouth met yours in a soft deeply tender kiss.

There was no rush now, he just held you close, parting his lips to deepen the kiss with a slow sweet warmth that made your chest ache with affection.

You let out a soft breathy moan into his mouth, your hands tangling into the soft curls at the nape of his neck to pull him even closer. The heat between you was gentle and completely enveloping, making you feel entirely safe and cherished in his arms.

When he finally broke the kiss, he didn't pull away, his forehead resting lightly against yours so you could share the same warm breath. He looked down at you with a soft, incredibly sweet smile, his hazel eyes crinkling at the corners with pure adoration.

"Look at you," he whispered, his thumb gently smoothing over your bottom lip, which was soft and glistening from his kisses. "You are so perfect for me... I'm the luckiest man alive just getting to hold you like this.”

"You're... you're making me lose my mind Spencer," you breathed, your voice breaking into a needy whimper as your hands clutched at his forearms, trying to pull his weight back down toward you. "Please... I don't want to think... I need you so bad... please..."

Hearing your plea, the soft smile faded from Spencer's lips, replaced by a sudden sharp intake of breath.

You could feel the exact moment his gentle restraint snapped, his grip on your forearms tightened, his chest heaving heavily against yours as a wave of pure unfiltered desperation took over his features.

"You're killing me," he gasped out, his voice cracking slightly as he buried his face back into the crook of your neck, his kisses became fast, hot and breathless, trailing frantically up your jawline as if he couldn't get close enough to you. "I can't be gentle, I try... but I need to be closer... I need all of you right now.”

He began to trail hot wet demanding kisses down your body, his breath hot against your stomach as your clothes were slowly being undone.

He dropped to the floor, kneeling between your legs. With a swift efficient movement, he reached out and stripped you of your skirt and underwear, tossing them carelessly onto the floor.

He started at your inner thighs, peppering desperate open mouthed kisses all over the sensitive skin. He bit you, not hard enough to break the skin but hard enough to leave a stinging heat that made your toes curl into the cushions.

"You’re so responsive aren't you?" He chuckled, a dark low sound that vibrated intensely against your inner thigh. "So eager to be fucked."

He leaned in, his tongue darting out to lap up the evidence of your previous orgasm, his movements slow, deliberate and thorough as he ran his tongue along your folds, exploring every inch of you with an intense obsessive focus.

You moaned louder, your hips beginning to move involuntarily as the pleasure started to build again, faster than before.

Suddenly Spencer pulled back, he looked up at you from between your legs, his eyes glinting in the dim light of the living room.

"Listen to me very carefully," he commanded, his voice sharp and utterly unyielding. "If I ever ask you a question, if I ever demand an answer and you don't give it to me immediately, I will stop, I will pull back and I will leave you exactly like this. Do you understand?"

"Yes!... hahh~... yes please Spencer... just don't stop," you cried out, your hands reaching down for his shoulders.

"Good girl," he whispered, a dark satisfied smirk crossing his face. "Such a perfect obedient toy for me."

He leaned back down, his focus entirely consumed by the heat between your thighs. His tongue found your center with a desperate heavy intensity, tracing your folds with long deliberate strokes before centering his attention right where you needed it most.

The steady relentless friction was overwhelming, driving you crazy as your hips began to lift off the cushions instinctively.

Just as the sensation reached a fever pitch and you felt like you couldn't handle another second, Spencer shifted his weight. He let out a low groan against your skin, sliding two long fingers smoothly inside your tight heat.

The sudden deep stretch of him filling you after so much teasing made your breath leave you in a long broken scream, your fingers locking tightly into his hair as your body tried to adjust to the new fullness.

"You're so tight sweetheart," he rasped, his voice muffled by your heat as he began to hook his fingers upward, finding the sensitive spot inside you with exact precision. "Is this where you want me to touch? You're absolutely desperate for this aren't you?"

He began to apply a rhythmic heavy pressure, his knuckles rubbing against you in a firm merciless motion that sent white hot sparks behind your eyelids. Every time his fingers hit that exact spot, your hips jerked off the couch instinctively, trying to impale yourself further on his hand.

"Spencer!... Yes!... Ah-hahh!~... right there!... It... it feels so good!" You sobbed, your fingers digging into the fabric of the couch until your nails threatened to rip the leather. "Please... don't stop... I'm going to cum... Ahhh!..."

"I'm not stopping," he growled, increasing the speed of his fingers, his thumb coming down to pin your clit with a bruising force that matched the internal pounding. "I want to feel exactly how you fall apart when I use you like that."

You felt your internal muscles clenching tightly around his fingers, trying to milk him while your body finally betrayed every single ounce of restraint you had left.

You let out a high broken scream that echoed through the room, your back arching so sharply that only your heels and shoulders touched the couch cushions. You were shaking uncontrollably, your internal muscles spasming in tight rhythmic waves around his fingers as a second even more violent climax ripped entirely through you.

Spencer didn't pull away, he kept his fingers buried deep, mimicking the intense pulsing of your release and let out a low dark chuckle that vibrated heavily against your sensitive skin.

"Look at that," he rasped, pulling his face back just enough to observe the way your thighs were still uncontrollably twitching. "All that polite talk before and here you are... sobbing and leaking all over my furniture like a broken toy. You really are an incredibly desperate little thing aren't you?"

"Yes... ahh-hah!~..." You sobbed, your eyes rolling back as the aftershocks continued to roll through you. You felt completely exposed, your face burning with a mix of vulnerability and intense lingering heat. "I'm... I'm your toy Spencer... please... I can't even move..."

"Good," he smirked, his hazel eyes tracking the frantic way your chest heaved. "I didn't give you permission to move… I am not even close to being done with you.”

"Spencer... ah haah!~... please," you sobbed, your hands reaching out blindly to find his broad shoulders, your voice a thin, shaky thread of desperation. "I'm already... I'm so sens-... AH!... SPENCER!"

He didn't let you finish, before the word " sensitive” could fully leave your lips, he dived back down, his tongue flickering against your swollen pulsing clit with sudden sharp precision.

He was entirely relentless as he began to suck your sensitive clit into his mouth, creating a tight rhythmic vacuum that made your vision go entirely white.

His tongue was a firm muscular weight pushing against you, flickering over the most sensitive nerve endings with a dizzying speed.

Every single time you tried to pull away from the overwhelming agonizing intensity, his long hands clamped down on your hips like iron bands, pinning you in place so you had to endure every single flicker and swirl.

"Ngh-hah!~... Please!" You begged him, your head thrashing from side to side against the fabric. “Spencer!... It hurts…”

He completely ignored your pleas, his tongue flat and heavy as he licked upward then used the very tip to circle the center of your heat in a way that felt like he was carving his name directly into your skin. You were a shivering sobbing mess beneath him, your body completely at the mercy of his mouth.

"Tell me how it feels," he prompted, his voice a muffled vibration against your soaked skin.

You were entirely lost, your head thrashing against the cushions. "It... it feels incredible!... nghh~... Please... harder!"

"Harder? Is that an order sweetheart?" He stopped for a fraction of a second, his teeth grazing your inner thigh in a sharp punishing bite. "I don't take orders here, I set the rules. Now tell me exactly how it feels."

"I... ahhh~... I love it!" You screamed, your hips grinding down onto his mouth with a frantic uncoordinated desperation. "It feels... ngh~... so good... Fuck!... Please Spencer... ahh~... please... don't stop!... I'm so close again!... I’m begging you!"

He didn't give you another second to breathe. Driven over the edge by your begging, he dived back in with a dizzying rhythmic speed. He focused entirely on the sensitive peak of your heat, his strokes becoming faster and more relentless until the sheer intensity of the friction made your vision fragment into white spots.

"Good girl," he murmured, his tongue sweeping over you again in a long devastating stroke. "And do you like being worked over like this? Are you about to cum for me again?"

"Yes!... Ahhh!~... I'm right there!... hnghh~... Spencer... please! It's too much... ahh~... I'm going to... I'm close!... Please!"

He didn't need another word, he doubled his efforts, his tongue flicking faster, his fingers pushing into you with a rough demanding pace.

Every time you tried to close your legs, he shoved them wider, pinning your knees back with his shoulders so he had a completely unobstructed view of how he was ruining you.

"Keep them open sweetheart," he growled, his voice a dark vibrating rasp against your soaking skin. "Tell me... who owns this mess? Who are you begging for right now?"

"Spencer... ahh-haah~... please!" You sobbed, your head thrashing against the cushions.

He stopped instantly, the sudden lack of friction was a physical blow, leaving you suspended on a jagged agonizing edge.

"I don't like when you don't answer me," he hissed, his eyes dark, intense and focused as he looked up at you. "I asked you a question. Who owns you?"

"You!.. hngh~... you do!" You screamed, your hips bucking upward in a desperate frantic search for his mouth.

"Good girl," he murmured, diving back in with a punishing heavy lick that made you let out a strangled scream. He was relentless, his tongue swirling around your clit while his fingers hammered into you, hitting your g-spot with every thrust.

The overstimulation reached a fever pitch. Your vision went blurry, white spots dancing behind your eyelids as a new, even more violent wave of pleasure began to swell. You were grinding your teeth, your voice reduced to a high continuous keen that echoed off the walls of his flat.

"Spencer!... I'm... Ahh!~... I’m cumming!... I’m... ngh~... I’m cumming!" You cried out, the tears finally spilling over as the sheer intensity of his tongue became too much to bear.

You weren't just sobbing, you were frantic. Your hands locked onto the back of his head, your fingers tangling in his dark hair as you pushed him even deeper against your heat.

You were begging for mercy and demanding more all at once, your heels digging into his shoulders as you tried to consume his entire mouth.

"That's it... that's my girl," Spencer whispered, his dirty talk a constant filthy hum against your folds. "Look at how much you're leaking for me. You're so loud sweetheart... you're so beautifully, shamelessly loud."

Spencer didn’t pull away immediately. He stayed between your trembling thighs, his tongue moving in slow rhythmic laps to collect every bit of the slick sweet evidence of your release.

Even as you sobbed and shook, he kept his mouth right there, drinking you in, his tongue never wavering until the very last twitch of your muscles subsided.

"Spencer... it's... it’s too much!" you pleaded, your fingers locking into his hair as you tried to pull him closer and push him away all at once, your body completely overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the release.

"You’ve been a very, very good girl," he praised, giving your center one final lingering kiss that made your hips twitch helplessly.

He stood up then, the transition from the lanky academic to this predatory dominant force was absolutely intoxicating. He didn't break eye contact as he stripped off his shirt, the fabric fluttering to the floor to join the scattered papers.

He looked entirely energized, his eyes bright with a lingering deep hunger that made your heart hammer violently against your ribs.

He hovered over you again, the heat radiating off his body was completely overwhelming. He braced his long arms on either side of your head, his shadow swallowing you whole on the couch.

"You're doing so well for me sweetheart," he whispered, leaning down to capture your lips in a searing open mouthed kiss. "But we aren't quite finished yet are we? I still have so much more to show you."

"S-Spencer... wait... haah!"

You let out a sharp gasp as he reached down, his long hands hooking under your knees and lifting your thighs until they were wrapped tightly around his waist. The position was incredibly vulnerable and open, leaving you completely at his mercy.

He leaned in, peppering your neck with hot biting kisses, his breath hitching sharply against your skin.

"Be a good girl for me," he rasped, his voice cutting through the quiet room. "Do what I tell you."

Without another word of warning, he aligned himself and pushed his pulsing cock deep inside you in one deep unyielding thrust.

"AAAAHH!... Spencer!... Fuck!"

The scream ripped entirely from your throat as you felt the sheer size of him filling and stretching you open. It was too much and too fast, your head thrashed against the cushions as your body desperately tried to adjust to the sudden heavy intrusion.

"Shhh," Spencer groaned, his own voice breaking as he buried his face in the crook of your neck. "Just take it... take all of it... Fuck, you’re so tight... so perfect for me."

He didn't give you a single second to catch your breath as he began to move, his hips hitting yours with a heavy rhythmic thud against the couch. He was entirely relentless, his pace fast, demanding and consuming. His hands dug into your hips to hold you completely steady as he drove himself deep.

"Don't fuckin move," he commanded, his voice a low gravelly vibration against your ear. "Tell me you'll be good... tell me you'll take every inch of me."

"I... I will!... Ah-hah!~... Spencer... please... nghh~... it’s so deep!" You wrapped your arms tightly around his neck, pulling him closer as your body started to find the rhythm, your senses beginning to sing under the weight of his. "Ahh!~... yes!... Right there!"

"That's it... scream my name," Spencer encouraged, his movements becoming more frantic and more desperate, his quiet facade completely melting into raw guttural grunts of pleasure. "Tell me how it feels to have me inside you like this."

"It feels... hhah~... feels so good!" You sobbed, your voice breaking into a high needy keen as you pulled his face down to yours. You kissed him with a frantic messy hunger, your tongues tangling as you tasted the salt of his skin and the heat of his frantic breath.

Your moans were completely muffled against his lips, vibrating through both of your bodies as he hit that perfect sensitive spot deep inside you with every heavy rhythmic thud of his hips.

You were clinging to him like he was your only lifeline, your nails digging into his back as you tried to pull him even deeper, your body trembling under the sheer weight of his dominance.

"Good girl baby," Spencer groaned, his voice dropping into a lethal low register that sent a fresh jolt of electricity to your core. "Show me how much you need this... cum for me again, come on."

The friction was building rapidly, a white hot tension that threatened to shatter your composure again.

Spencer was still entirely energized, his stamina seemingly endless as he kept up the punishing deep pace, his chest heaving heavily against yours.

"I’m going to... ahh~... I’m going to cum... ngh!~... Spencer! I’m going to... Ah-hah!~..."

"Stay with me," he gasped, his long fingers tangling in your hair as he pulled your head back to look directly into your eyes. "Me too… fuck, me too baby!... Look at me... look at what you're doing to me."

He redoubled his efforts, his thrusts becoming shallower but incredibly fast, his hips grinding into yours with a frantic desperate energy.

You were both intensely loud, the small living room filled with the sounds of your joined ragged breaths and the wet rhythmic slaps of skin on skin.

"Spencer!... Ah-hah!~... Ngh~... now!... Ahh!~..."

"God... yes!... Hngh!~... Now baby!"

The snap came simultaneously, you let out a long piercing cry as the climax crashed over you, your internal muscles pulsing and clamping down on his length in a series of agonizingly beautiful spasms.

Spencer let out a deep guttural roar, his lean body going completely rigid as he drove himself into you one last time, pinning you firmly to the couch as he came deep inside you.

The sheer force of his release sent a final blinding wave of pleasure through your system, leaving you both trembling violently in the heavy aftermath.

He didn't pull back, he kept moving, his hips still bucking with a lingering desperate need to ensure every drop of his heat was buried deep within you, his weight grounding you completely into the plush fabric of the sofa.

You were both completely spent, your lungs burning as you fought for air, but despite the heavy exhaustion pinning your limbs down, you reached up. Your fingers shaking as you tangled them into the damp messy hair at the nape of his neck, you pulled him down with a weak needy whimper, seeking his mouth one more time.

The kiss was slow, messy and filled with the salt of your shared sweat, a quiet desperate acknowledgment of the absolute madness you had just shared.

You moaned softly into his mouth, a broken breathless sound of pure contentment as he kissed you back with a lingering protective hunger that was far softer than the man who had been breaking your composure only moments ago.

The silence of the apartment was broken only by the frantic thumping of your hearts beating in perfect sync against each other's chests.

"Incredible," he panted, a dark exhausted smirk finally touching his lips as he looked down at you. "Absolutely incredible sweetheart."

He moved with a sudden protective strength, pulling out of you with a soft sigh before gathering you up securely in his arms. He held you tight against his chest, shifting your weights so you were resting comfortably together on the couch.

"You’re okay baby?" he murmured, his voice dropping into a low comforting vibration that rumbled directly against your ear. "I’ve got you, just breathe for me."

You gave a small weak nod against his chest, your muscles feeling like lead. "Yeah..." you managed to whisper, your voice sounding far away and heavy with exhaustion as you leaned more into his chest, seeking the steady grounding thrum of his heart.

"There she is," he whispered, his voice returning to that soft melodic lilt but with a completely new raw layer of affection. "Such a good girl, you did so well for me sweetheart... absolutely perfect."

He reached up to caress your damp hair, smoothing the stray locks away from your face with a tenderness that made it hard to remember the dominant force from moments ago.

He tilted his head down, pressing a soft lingering kiss to your temple, his lips warm and dry against your skin.

“I know I was hard on you. I know I pushed your limits so far... but look at how beautiful you look… you’re such a good girl... my perfect pretty girl."

He pressed another kiss to the corner of your eye, catching a stray tear of overstimulation with his thumb.

After some time, your eyes fluttered open and you looked down at the floor. The case files were truly a disaster, scattered and forgotten after your night together.

"Ready to take a shower and get some sleep?” Spencer whispered against your hair. " I think we really need one right now."

"Yes please," you breathed.

He lifted you easily, carrying your spent frame down the hall to the bathroom.

In the shower, Spencer was incredibly gentle with you. He held you tight against his chest under the warm water, letting the spray sluice between your bodies.

His touch was slow and reverent, keeping you feeling completely safe and cherished even as your eyes traced the lean lines of his chest through the heavy steam.

Once you were clean and warm, he stepped out to grab a towel, drying you off with the same careful meticulous attention he gave to everything else. He walked you to the bedroom and went to his wardrobe and pulled out one of his soft shirts, pulling it over your frame until it hung halfway down your thighs.

He threw on a shirt and a pair of simple lounge pants himself, looking much more like the quiet academic again, though the dark marks on his neck told a completely different story.

"You look so good in my clothes," he rasped, his eyes darkening with a fresh quiet heat. “I might never let you wear your own clothes in this apartment again.”

He leaned in, capturing your lips in a soft lingering kiss that tasted of him.

You felt a flutter in your chest, your hands reaching up to weakly grasp the fabric of his shirt as you melted against his lean frame. You let out a small shaky breath against his lips, a tired but happy smile tugging at your mouth as you tucked your head under his chin.

He led you into the bed, the sheets cool and inviting. You collapsed into them, resting your head securely on his shoulder the moment he climbed in beside you, the sheer weight of the day and the night finally catching up to you.

"Spencer?" You asked, your voice trailing off into a yawn as you looked at him. "What is Hotch going to do when we show up at the round table with case files that aren't finished?"

Spencer pulled the heavy duvet up over both of you, tucking you firmly into his side. He let out a soft sleepy huff of a laugh and kissed your temple.

"That my love is a problem for future us," he murmured, his arms wrapping tightly around you. "And I suspect the rest of the team will be far too distracted by the timeline anomalies to look too closely at the state of the paperwork."

He tightened his hold on you, pulling you completely flush against his side. "Good night sweetheart."

You didn't answer, the rhythmic steady thrum of his heartbeat had already lulled your mind into a deep heavy sleep.

The first rule of pediatrics was that fear moved faster than pain. You had learned that early.

Pain made kids cry. Fear made them bolt.

Eli Mereiter had been trying very hard not to do either for almost twenty minutes.

He sat in the center of the peds exam bed with his knees tucked under the thin blanket, his left wrist cradled against his chest, his cheeks blotchy from the effort of pretending he was fine. His mother stood near the head of the bed, one hand on his shoulder and the other twisting the strap of her purse so tightly her knuckles had gone white.

“You’re doing great,” you told him.

Eli looked at the IV tray and swallowed. “No, I’m not.”

You crouched beside the bed so you were closer to eye level.

“You are. Great doesn’t mean you aren’t scared. It means you’re still here with me even though you are.”

His eyes flicked to yours.

The honesty helped. It usually did. Kids could smell a lie faster than adults could dress one up.

“It’s gonna hurt,” he said.

You nodded.

“It’s going to pinch. I won’t call it nothing.” You rested one hand on the mattress, close but not touching him without warning. “But it’ll be fast, and you don’t have to watch.”

His mouth trembled once before he pressed it flat. “I don’t want it.”

“I know.” You gave him a serious nod. “That’s fair. We can hate it together.”

Eli looked at you like that was suspicious. “You hate it?”

“I hate it when kids have to do scary things,” you said. “But I like when they get through them and realize they were braver than they thought.”

His mom made a quiet sound behind him.

You glanced up at her and gave a small, reassuring smile before looking back at Eli.

“How about this,” you said. “You pick where you look. Mom’s face, the ceiling tile that kind of looks like a potato, or me.”

Eli’s brows pinched together. “The ceiling tile doesn’t look like a potato.”

You looked up. “It absolutely does.”

He glanced up despite himself. For one second, his attention shifted. Not enough to make him calm, but enough to give him somewhere else to put the fear.

“That one?” he asked.

You nodded. “Very potato.” His mom gave a wet little laugh.

The nurse beside you finished prepping the IV with practiced quiet. You saw Eli clock the movement anyway. His eyes cut to the tourniquet. Then the alcohol wipe. Then the catheter.

His breathing changed. You leaned in slightly. “Eli. Look at me.” His gaze snapped back to yours.

You kept your voice low and even. “Can you breathe in with me?”

He tried. His breath caught halfway.

“That’s okay,” you said. “Again. Smaller this time.”

The nurse reached for his arm. Eli saw the flash of the needle. Fear got there first.

“No,” he said.

His mother tightened her hand on his shoulder. “Eli—”

“No!” He jerked backward, fast and hard, trying to get away from the tray, from the nurse, from the whole room.

“Hey, hey.” You moved with him. “You’re okay.”

But he was already twisting. His sneaker slid against the paper sheet. His hip caught the edge of the mattress. The bed rail was down on your side because you had been sitting there with him, and his small body tipped toward the open space between the bed and the floor.

You moved before thought could catch up.

Your hand caught the back of his gown. Your other arm shot across his chest, bracing him before he could fall.

For half a second, you had him. Then his weight hit your shoulder wrong. Something shifted. Not cracked. Not snapped.

Slipped.

White-hot pain tore through your shoulder and down your arm so violently that the room went gray at the edges. You made a sound you did not recognize.

Someone grabbed Eli from the other side.

“I’ve got him,” the other nurse said. “I’ve got him.”

Good, you thought. That was good.

You went down hard on one knee, your right arm hanging wrong, breath gone from your chest.

Eli was crying now. Not the scared kind. The guilty kind.

“I hurt her,” he sobbed.

You tried to lift your head. Bad idea. Pain slammed up the side of your neck and behind your teeth.

“No,” you forced out. Your voice sounded thin. Far away. “No, honey. You didn’t.”

A hand touched your back. “Don’t move,” someone said.

You tried to breathe through your nose. “Is he okay?”

“He’s okay,” she repeated, firmer this time. “We have him.”

Eli’s mother had him against her now, both arms wrapped around his shaking body. His face was turned toward you, wet and horrified.

You managed to focus on him. “Eli.”

His crying hitched. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I know.” You swallowed down nausea. “I know you didn’t. You got scared. That’s different.”

His face crumpled harder. You looked at his mom. “Tell him I’m not mad.”

“We will,” she said quickly.

You closed your eyes for half a second. “Please tell him.”

“We will,” the nurse said beside you. “But right now, we need to get you downstairs.”

You opened your eyes. “No, he needs—”

“He has his mom,” she said gently. “And he has Megan. We’ve got him.”

You wanted to argue. Your shoulder pulsed once, deep and sickening, and the rest of the sentence disappeared. Someone called down to the ED before they moved you. You heard pieces of it through the pain and the blood rushing in your ears.

“Staff injury coming down from peds.”

“Likely right shoulder dislocation.”

“Caught a pediatric patient who panicked during IV prep.”

“Vitals stable.”

“Severe pain.”

Nobody said your name. Or maybe they did, and it got swallowed somewhere between the exam room and the elevator. Either way, by the time they got you into a wheelchair, your scrubs were damp at the collar, your vision kept narrowing at the corners, and your arm had become a separate, terrible country you refused to look at.

You hated being the patient.

You hated it so much you almost missed the part where you were terrified. Almost.

The elevator ride downstairs felt both too fast and too slow. Someone kept telling you to breathe. Someone else kept asking your pain number. You gave a number that was probably too low because saying the real one made it feel more real.

The ED doors opened.

The familiar noise hit first. Monitors. Shoes. Voices. The distant roll of a cart.

Robby was already at the mouth of a bay when they wheeled you in, tablet in hand, chief-of-the-ER face on. Dana stood beside him with gloves already pulled on, calm and unsmiling in the way that meant she had already cleared the room in her head. Santos hovered just behind her like she could smell a procedure from three bays away. Princess was at the computer, and Javadi stood near the supply cart, trying very hard to look like someone who was not internally rehearsing every step of a shoulder reduction.

“Peds called down,” Robby said. “Likely right shoulder disloca—”

Then he saw your face. The chief of the ER expression dropped clean off.

For one second, he was not chief of anything. He was just your friend. “What the fuck, dude?”

You tried to glare at him. “Great bedside manner.”

Robby was already moving. He came to your side, one hand bracing the wheelchair arm, his eyes sweeping over your face.

“Look at me,” he said. “You with me?”

You blinked at him through the pain. “No, Robby, I thought I’d dissociate recreationally.”

His jaw tightened. “Answer me like less of a pain in my ass.”

You sighed. “I’m with you.”

“Good.” He glanced at the peds nurse behind your chair. “They called down a peds nurse. They did not say it was you.”

“Would that have changed your medical plan?” you asked.

“No.” His eyes flicked to your shoulder, and the doctor came back into him all at once. “It would have given me thirty more seconds to emotionally prepare for both my friend being injured and Jack killing me.”

“Jack is not going to kill you,” you replied.

Dana made a quiet sound. Robby pointed at her without looking. “Do not contribute.”

Dana lifted both gloved hands. “I said nothing.”

“You thought loudly.”

Santos leaned slightly to see your arm better. “Is it anterior?”

You swallowed through the pain. “Is Eli okay?”

Robby’s attention snapped back to you. Then he looked to the peds nurse. “Eli is the kid?”

The peds nurse nodded quickly. “Eight-year-old. Wrist injury. He’s okay. Megan stayed with him and his mom.”

Your eyes closed. “Did someone tell him I’m not mad?”

Robby went still for half a beat. His expression changed again. Softer this time. Worried in a way he could not hide behind sarcasm fast enough.

“Yeah,” he said. “They told him.”

“He won’t believe them,” you murmured.

Robby looked at you. “He might.”

“He’s eight.” Your voice thinned around the pain. “Eight-year-olds think everything is their fault.”

Robby looked at you for one second too long. Then he nodded once, like he was putting that away for later. “Okay,” he said. “We’re going to get you on the bed. Slow. Dana, support the arm. Javadi, do not look terrified.”

Javadi straightened. “I’m not terrified.” Robby looked at her.

Javadi swallowed. “I’m appropriately alert.” Robby nodded once. “Better.”

You hated how many people it took.

You hated the careful hands and the count of three and the way pain still broke through your teeth when they moved you.

You hated that Robby’s face stayed calm. That meant it looked bad.

Once you were on the bed, Dana slid a pillow under your arm with the clean precision of a woman who did not waste motion. Princess clipped a monitor to your finger. Javadi asked about allergies, her voice only a little too bright. Santos hovered at the foot of the bed, watching your shoulder with open interest until Dana glanced at her.

Santos lifted her hands. “I’m not touching anything.”

“Correct,” Dana said.

Robby looked up from your shoulder. “Pain number.” You hesitated.

He gave you a look. “Do not make me ask like I don’t know you.” You told the truth.

Robby’s mouth tightened. “Thank you for not lying to me twice.”

“I lied once,” you admitted.

Robby shook his head. “You lied badly once.” Your breathing hitched. “Did someone tell Eli?”

The peds nurse, still lingering near the curtain, nodded. “Megan did. His mom did too.”

“But did he believe them?” you pushed.

Robby braced one hand lightly on the bed rail. “Do not try to sit up.”

You looked at him. “I wasn’t.”

“You thought about it,” Robby replied.

Your eyes narrowed. “You can’t prove that.”

“I’m chief of emergency medicine,” he said. “I can prove anything if I chart creatively.”

A laugh tried to escape you. It did not make it past the pain. Robby saw that too. His voice shifted.

“IV, x-ray, then pain meds before we reduce it,” he said. “Let’s get films and make sure we know exactly what we’re dealing with.”

“Love being discussed like a broken chair,” you muttered.

Robby leaned over you, penlight in hand. “I have never met a chair this mouthy.”

Princess found a vein in your good arm. You looked away while she taped the line down. That felt ridiculous, considering you had started hundreds of IVs yourself, but today your body had decided to be dramatic, and you were not giving it more material.

Robby watched your face. “You okay?”

“No,” you answered honestly.

Robby almost smiled. “Good answer.”

Princess glanced up from your IV. “Do you want us to call someone?”

“Yes,” you said immediately.

Robby’s eyes narrowed like he already knew where this was going.

Princess kept her hands near the computer. “Who should we call?”

“Jack Abbot.”

The room did not stop. Not yet. Princess typed, then paused.

Her eyes moved from the screen to you. “Dr. Abbot?”

You breathed through your teeth. “Yes.”

The room went a little too quiet. You opened one eye. “What?”

Santos looked from you to Robby. “Night-shift Abbot?”

“How many Jack Abbots do you know?” you asked.

Javadi made the mistake of whispering, “Dr. Abbot is her emergency contact?”

“He’s my husband,” you said, like that explained the entire universe.

It did, actually. Just not to the room. Santos stared.

Javadi looked like someone had changed the laws of physics in front of her.

Princess’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. Dana, somehow, did not move at all.

Then her eyes narrowed. “The sandwich.” You closed your eyes. “Dana.”

Santos looked at her. “What sandwich?”

Dana didn’t look away from the monitor. “Shift change. Three weeks ago. Abbot was coming off nights. She was passing the desk with a stack of peds charts.”

Princess leaned around Javadi. “I remember that.”

“He had half a sandwich in his hand,” Dana said. “Tore the crust off without breaking conversation, held it up, and she took it on the way by.”

You breathed carefully through your teeth. “I was hungry.”

“You said thanks,” Dana added.

Santos blinked. “That’s it?” Dana finally looked up.

“That’s the point.” A beat passed.

Then Princess pointed toward you. “Wait. The parking lot.”

You opened one eye. “Please don’t.”

“I saw you two by the employee parking last month,” Princess said. “He switched sides with you near the cars.”

Javadi blinked. “Switched sides?” Princess looked at her like this was obvious. “The sidewalk rule.”

Javadi’s brows pulled together. “The what?”

“When the guy walks closer to the street,” Princess said. “Protective thing. Old-school. Very romantic if he’s hot.”

Santos made a face. “That sounds fake.”

Dana adjusted the pulse ox cord. “It’s not fake.”

Princess pointed at Dana. “Thank you.”

You stared at the ceiling. “Can we not analyze my husband’s walking patterns while my shoulder is in another fucking zip code?”

“And he had your bag,” Princess added.

“It was heavy,” you said.

She looked at you. “It had little strawberries on it.”

Robby’s mouth twitched. “Jack carried a strawberry bag?”

You gave him the best glare you could manage while lying flat with your arm attempting secession. “You are supposed to be my doctor.”

Santos’s face changed. “Oh, my god. The fire alarm drill.”

“No,” you said.

“You had his jacket,” she said.

“It was cold.”

“No.” Santos pointed, too delighted to stop herself. “He put it around your shoulders before you asked.”

Dana’s gaze sharpened with recognition.

Santos nodded hard. “And took your clipboard so you could get your arms through the sleeves.”

Princess looked at Robby. “You knew?”

Robby held up one hand. “I was at the wedding.”

The room shifted again. Javadi whispered, “There was a wedding?”

You stared at the ceiling. “I’m starting to think day shift needs hobbies.”

Robby looked at you, and this time his humor was gentle around the edges. “You married a night-shift attending and then wandered around this hospital accepting crustless sandwich halves like that was normal.”

“It is normal,” you replied.

“For married people,” Dana said.

Santos looked personally offended. “I am usually very good at noticing things.”

You swallowed through another pulse of pain. “Sorry my marriage was inconvenient for your brand.”

Robby pointed at you. “Pain has not made her less mean. Excellent prognostic sign.”

Princess was still looking at you like she had discovered treasure. “So Dr. Abbot is your husband.”

“Yes.”

“And he brings you coffee,” Princess added.

You inhaled. “Yes.”

“And the sandwich,” she continued.

“Yes.”

Princess’s eyebrows rose. “And the parking lot.” You closed your eyes. “I would like drugs now.”

Robby’s smile faded enough for his concern to show again. “Soon,” he said. “We’re moving.”

Then he held out his hand toward Princess. “I’ll call him.”

You looked at him. “You don’t have to.”

“I do, actually,” Robby replied.

“Why?”

Robby’s face softened around the edges, just enough that your chest hurt for reasons that had nothing to do with your shoulder.

“Because he’s going to be worried,” he said. “And if a stranger calls him, he’s going to scare somebody.”

You sighed. “Jack doesn’t scare people.”

“No,” Robby said. “But when he’s worried about you, he gets very concise.”

Dana hummed. “That’s true.”

You closed your eyes. “Tell him not to speed.”

Robby shook his head. “I’m not promising that.”

“Robby,” you said, trying to sound reasonable.

He sighed. “I’ll suggest moderation.”

Robby stepped a few feet away from the bed and tapped Jack’s contact. You watched him through the pain, sweat cooling at the back of your neck. He pointed at you without lowering the phone. “Try not to dislocate anything else while I’m gone.” The call rang once. Twice. Three times. On the fourth ring, Jack answered.

His voice came rough with sleep and irritation. “What, Robby?”

Robby glanced back at you. You were pale on the bed, jaw tight, your good hand fisted in the sheet while Dana adjusted the monitor.

“Your wife is in the ED,” Robby said. “She’s fine. I’ve got her.”

The line went silent. Then Jack’s voice came back low and awake. “What happened?”

“Right shoulder dislocation,” Robby said. “Peds incident. She caught a kid before he fell and took the force the wrong way. She’s conscious, stable, and pissed off, which I’m taking as a good sign.”

Another pause. Jack breathed out once, sharply. “Of course she caught the kid.”

“Yeah,” Robby said, softer. “That was my reaction too.”

You lifted your head an inch off the pillow. “Tell him not to speed.”

Robby looked over his shoulder. You stared back, sweaty and serious.

“She says not to speed.”

Jack was already moving. Robby could hear it through the phone: sheets, a drawer, something hitting the floor. “Tell her I’m coming.”

“Jack,” Robby said carefully.

“I heard her,” Jack said sharply.

Robby nodded once. “Good.”

“Thanks, brother. I’m on my way,” Jack replied.

Robby’s mouth softened. “Yeah,” he said.

He ended the call and came back to the side of the bed. “He’s coming.”

You let your head fall back against the pillow. “Good.” The word came out smaller than you meant it to. Robby heard that too. For a second, he was quiet.

Then he nodded to Princess. “Now give her the good stuff before she remembers she’s trying to be reasonable.”

Princess pushed medication into your IV. Warmth moved up your arm a few seconds later, strange and soft. The pain did not vanish, but the edges of the room began to loosen. The lights blurred a little. The monitor beep sounded farther away.

You blinked. “Wow.”

Santos leaned closer. “How’s that?”

You turned your head toward her slowly. “You have two faces.”

Robby’s mouth twitched. “Better?”

You inhaled. “I can still feel my skeleton making bad choices.”

“So, somewhat.” Robby grinned.

You looked toward the curtain. “Did someone tell Eli I’m not mad?”

Robby exhaled. “Yes.”

“I’m not mad,” you repeated.

“I know.”

You blinked hard. “No, but he needs to know.”

“He knows,” Robby replied gently.

You frowned. “You’re just saying that.”

“I am saying many things,” Robby said. “This one happens to be true.”

You tried to sit up. Every person in the room reacted.

Dana touched your good shoulder. “Nope. Stay back.”

“I should tell him,” you told her.

“You should keep your shoulder still,” Robby said.

You frowned at him. “You’re being bossy.” Robby shrugged. “It’s on the mug.”

“Jack has a mug that says World’s Sexiest Doctor,” you replied without thinking. The pain meds were softening things too much now. Words had started wandering into places you had not invited them.

Robby slowly turned his head. “I’m sorry. He has a what?”

You winced. “It was a joke. I got it for him when we were dating.”

Princess looked delighted. “And he kept it?”

You breathed through another pulse of pain. “He drinks out of it every morning.”

Santos stared. “Abbot drinks coffee out of a World’s Sexiest Doctor mug?”

Dana, dry as dust, added, “That explains more than I wanted it to.”

Robby pressed his fingers to his mouth like he was trying to hold in actual joy.

You glared at him. “You’re supposed to be my doctor.”

“I am,” Robby said. “And this is healing me.”

You narrowed your eyes at him. The ED lights drifted above you. Your body felt heavy against the bed, but your mind kept circling the same places. Eli crying. Your shoulder slipping. Jack coming. You blinked slowly. “Did someone tell Eli?”

Dana adjusted the blanket around your legs. “Yes.”

“Did someone tell Jack?” you asked.

Robby’s mouth twitched. “Yes.” You nodded, satisfied for exactly one second.

Then you frowned. “Which one is coming to see me?”

Robby stared at you. “What?”

“Eli or Jack?” you asked.

Princess turned toward the computer with suspicious speed. Santos looked openly delighted. Robby’s expression brightened with pure, terrible affection.

“Oh,” he said softly. “This is going to be a great drug for you.”

You frowned. “Don’t be weird.”

Robby patted the bed rail. “Try not to say anything incriminating before your husband gets here.”

Your eyes closed, but you could still hear the smile in his voice. “Jack already knows everything.”

Robby made a thoughtful sound. “Sure,” he said. “Let’s test that.”

Robby stayed beside the bed after Princess pushed the medication. One hand rested on the rail. His eyes moved from your face to the monitor, then to your shoulder, then back to your face again. He was not joking as much now.

You hated that. “Stop looking worried,” you said.

His mouth twitched, but it did not quite become a smile. “Stop giving me reasons.”

You blinked at him, the lights blurring softly around the edges. “Rude.”

“Consistent,” Robby said.

Dana adjusted the blanket over your legs, brisk yet careful. “That’s one word for it.”

The medication had made the room strange. Softer, but not kinder. The monitors sounded farther away, and the overhead lights had started to bloom at the edges. Your shoulder still hurts. Not as sharply as before, maybe, but it was there under everything, pulsing and wrong. You tried to shift away from it. Your body disagreed. “Bad,” you muttered.

Robby leaned in a fraction. “Pain?”

You shook your head. “Existence.”

He nodded once. “Fair.”

Dana checked the line of your IV, then glanced at him.

Robby’s eyes returned to yours, and something in his face softened. “Hey,” he said. “World’s Sexiest Doctor.”

You frowned. “What?”

“The mug,” Robby said, voice lighter on purpose. “You said he drinks out of it every morning.”

Your face softened before you could stop it. “He does.” Princess turned from the computer with immediate interest. Santos, who had been pretending not to hover near the foot of the bed, stopped pretending. Dana’s expression did not change, but her eyes flicked toward you.

Robby leaned one forearm against the rail. “Still can’t believe he committed to the bit.”

“It’s not a bit,” you said.

Robby’s eyebrows lifted. “No?”

You looked at him like he was missing the obvious. “It’s true.”

Santos’s mouth curved. Dana looked down at the monitor. Princess pressed her lips together like she was holding something very large behind her teeth. You blinked at the ceiling, dreamy and annoyed all at once. “He is the sexiest doctor.”

Robby drew back like you had slapped him. “Rude.”

You turned your head toward him slowly. “You’re right.”

His expression softened. “Thank you.”

“Ellis is pretty hot, too,” you murmured happily.

Robby froze. Princess made a sound and turned sharply toward the computer. Santos whispered, “Wow.”

Dana closed her eyes. Robby stared at you. “That was not the correction I was requesting.”

You considered him through the pleasant fog around your thoughts. “You have nice hair.”

Robby’s hand went to his chest. “That was devastatingly lukewarm.”

“It is nice.”

“Nice hair,” he repeated, wounded. “That’s what I get after years of friendship.”

“You’re my friend,” you said.

His expression shifted. For one second, the joke left his face. “I know.”

You watched him through the blur. “You’re a good doctor.”

Robby’s hand tightened slightly on the rail. “You’re on excellent medication.”

“I mean it.”

“I know,” he said, quieter.

Dana looked away first. Santos suddenly found the supply tray very interesting. Robby cleared his throat and straightened. “Okay,” he said, his voice returning to a steady tone. “Let’s get ready.”

The words landed wrong. Your smile faded. The room shifted back into medicine too quickly. Gloves. Positioning. Dana adjusting the bed. Santos watching Robby’s hands intently. Javadi standing too still by the supplies, trying to look prepared. Your stomach dropped through the medication. “Wait.” Robby looked back at you. “Yeah?”

Your good hand tightened in the sheet. “You’re doing it now?” His expression softened. “Soon.”

“No.”

Dana’s hand settled lightly near your good shoulder. Not holding you down. Just there.

Robby stepped closer. “I know.”

“No, Robby.” Your voice stayed even, but barely. “I don’t want to do it.”

Robby did not flinch. “I know you don’t.”

“I mean it.”

“I know you mean it.”

You swallowed hard, throat suddenly tight. “I don’t want it to hurt.”

Robby’s face changed again, not much, just enough to show you he hated this part too. “I’m going to be as gentle as I can.”

You frowned. “That’s what people say before they do stuff that sucks.” Santos muttered, “Accurate.”

Dana looked at her. Santos lifted both hands. “I’m validating.”

Robby ignored her and kept his eyes on you. “It is going to suck,” he said. “But the longer it stays out, the worse it’s going to feel. I want to get it back where it belongs.”

Your breathing went shallow. The medication had made everything loose except the fear. That stayed sharp. Clear. Mean. You looked toward the hallway. “Fine.” Robby waited. You glared at him, sweaty and medicated and angry enough to hide behind it. “I’ll do it if Jack is my doctor.”

The room paused. Dana looked at Robby. Princess looked at the hallway. Javadi looked like she had just realized this was not covered in any textbook.

Robby let out a slow breath. “Yeah,” he said carefully. “That’s not how this works.”

You frowned at him. “He’s a doctor.”

“He is.” Dana’s voice stayed calm beside you. “He’s also your husband.”

You looked at her like she had helped your case. “Exactly.” Robby’s mouth twitched despite himself.

Before he could answer, Jack’s voice cut through the department. “Where is she?”

Your head turned. Completely. All the thoughts in your brain scattered like startled birds. Jack was halfway down the hall, moving fast and trying not to look like he was moving fast, a hoodie under his unzipped jacket. His hair was sleep-rough on one side. His jaw was tight, his eyes already searching, already locked on the room. The second he saw you, his pace changed.

Your good hand lifted off the sheet. “That one.”

Robby followed your gaze. For the first time since the reduction tray came out, true humor broke through his worry. “Oh,” he said softly. “Okay.”

Jack stepped into the bay. You pointed at him, certain now. “I want that one.”

Jack froze for half a second. His eyes moved over you. Face. IV. Monitor. Shoulder. Robby. Dana. Back to your face.

Then he was at your side. “Baby.”

The word hit the room like a dropped instrument. Santos stared very hard at the floor. Princess pressed her lips together. Javadi’s eyes went wide, then wider, like she was watching hospital folklore become sentient.

You smiled up at him. “Hi.”

Jack took your good hand, his palm warm and familiar around yours. “Hi.”

His thumb moved once over your knuckles. You exhaled. You felt it happen before you could stop it. Your shoulders did not relax, not really, but your breathing changed. Your grip loosened from the sheet. The sharp edge of panic moved back by an inch.

Robby saw it. His eyes flicked to the monitor, then to Jack’s hand. “Interesting.”

Jack did not look away from you. “Don’t.”

“I’m observing.”

“You observe too loudly.”

Robby’s mouth curved. “I am her physician.”

Jack’s jaw tightened. “You are enjoying being her physician too much.”

“I was worried,” Robby said.

The joke thinned for a second. Jack looked up. Robby held his gaze. “Still am.”

Jack’s face shifted.

You squeezed his hand. “Don’t do serious faces.”

Jack looked back down at you. His thumb moved again. “Sorry.”

You studied him, hazy and affectionate. “You came.”

“Of course I came.”

You turned your head toward Dana, solemn and proud. “I picked that one.”

Dana’s mouth twitched. “So I’m hearing.”

Jack closed his eyes. “What did you give her?”

“Pain control,” Robby said. “Not enough to explain all of this.”

You tugged lightly on Jack’s hand. “He’s being rude.”

Jack looked at Robby. “Stop being rude.”

Robby pointed at him. “You weren’t even here.”

“I believe my wife.”

Princess turned toward the computer again, but not fast enough to hide her smile.

Santos murmured, “That was hot.”

Dana said, “Santos.”

“What? It was,” Santos replied with a shrug.

Jack ignored all of them and leaned closer to you. “How bad?”

“Bad.”

His face softened. “Yeah?”

You nodded, then regretted it. “Don’t let me do head stuff.”

“I won’t,” Jack promised.

You frowned. “Having a head is bad.”

“I’ll make a note,” Jack said with a soft smile.

Robby stepped closer to your injured side. “Okay,” he said. “We’re going to try Cunningham.”

“No.” Your response was immediate.

Jack’s hand tightened around yours. Robby did not react like the word surprised him. “I know.”

“No, I don’t want Cunningham. It sounds smug,” you told him.

Robby’s brow raised. “It’s a reduction technique, not a man at a country club.”

You frowned at him. “Still smug.”

Jack’s thumb brushed your knuckles. “Look at me.”

You turned your eyes back to him. “No.”

Jack’s eyes softened. “You’re already doing it.”

You glared. “That’s annoying.”

His mouth almost smiled. “I know.”

Robby looked between you and Jack. Then his eyes moved to the monitor again. A thought entered his face.

Jack saw it immediately. “No.”

Robby blinked. “I didn’t say anything.”

Dana adjusted the bed so you were sitting up more, angled slightly back against the raised mattress. The movement sent a pain-sparking sensation down your arm. “Fuck.” Your eyes squeezed shut. “Fuck, this is worse than my fucking IUD insertion.”

The room went silent. Jack’s thumb stilled against your hand. “Okay,” he said carefully.

You opened your eyes and glared at the ceiling. “I thought I knew pain. I was wrong.”

Dana’s mouth twitched near the monitor. Princess turned very deliberately toward the computer.

Jack leaned closer. “Baby.”

“No.” You turned your glare on him. “This is your fault.”

His brows pulled together. “My fault?”

“Yes.”

Jack blinked once. “How is this my fault?”

“Because,” you said, furious and medicated, “if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t know this was worse.”

Robby looked up. Jack did not move.

“I was doing fine,” you continued. “I was in my celibate phase. I was at peace.”

Jack’s face changed by exactly one dangerous millimeter. “You were not at peace.”

“I was close.” Your eyes narrowed. “Then you came along with your stupid handsome face and your stupid arms, and then I got the stupid IUD, and I thought that was pain. But no.”

Robby nodded slowly. “That is a clinically fascinating chain of blame.”

Jack did not look away from you. “So your shoulder hurts because I’m handsome.”

“And slutty with your forearms,” you added.

Jack’s jaw flexed. Santos whispered, “Slutty forearms.”

Dana did not look away from the monitor. “Do not repeat Mrs. Abbot.” Your face softened immediately.

Jack noticed. His eyes dropped back to yours, something warm cutting through the mortification. “What?”

You blinked up at him, drug-soft and suddenly pleased. “She called me Mrs. Abbot.”

Jack’s thumb moved once over your hand. “Yeah, baby.”

A small smile pulled at your mouth. “That’s me.”

Robby looked from you to Dana. Dana adjusted the pulse ox cord with perfect neutrality. “What?”

“You’re enjoying this,” Robby said.

“I am maintaining room discipline.”

“You called her Mrs. Abbot.”

Dana’s mouth barely moved. “That is her name.” Your smile widened.

Jack looked at Dana, then back at you, and his face softened despite himself. Dana glanced at the monitor. “See? Therapeutic.” Robby’s eyes dropped to Jack’s sleeve.

Jack saw it happen. “No.”

Robby smiled. “I didn’t say anything.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed. “You looked at my sleeve.”

“Clinically,” Robby replied.

Jack shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

You blinked up at Jack, still angry, still hazy, still betrayed by the entire medical system. “He does have nice forearms.”

Jack stared at the ceiling. Robby nodded toward Jack’s arm. “Roll up your sleeve.”

Jack looked at him. “Excuse me?”

“She’s tensing.”

Jack gave Robby a look. “You want me to roll up my sleeves.”

“I want patient compliance,” Robby corrected.

Jack looked at Dana. Dana glanced at the monitor, then at you. “It would probably help.”

Jack’s face went flat. “Not you too.”

Dana shrugged. “I’m practical.”

Robby looked delighted. “See? Medicine.”

Jack exhaled through his nose, then dragged one sleeve of his hoodie up his forearm. Your eyes followed the movement immediately. You hated yourself a little. Not enough to look away. His forearm flexed as he pushed the fabric past his elbow, tendons shifting under skin, the veins at his wrist standing out when his fingers curled once around the bed rail. Your mouth went soft.

Robby pointed at you. “There.”

Jack’s eyes cut to him. “Do not point at my wife while she’s objectifying me.”

“I am pointing at a response to treatment,” Robby replied with glee.

You looked at Jack’s arm. “Treatment is good.”

Princess made a strangled sound. Javadi stared straight ahead like a resident determined to survive rounds with her soul intact.

Jack leaned closer to you. “You are making this very difficult.”

You blinked. “Me?”

“You.” His thumb brushed your cheek. “Very stubborn. Very pretty. Extremely bad at being a patient.”

The giggle came before you could stop it. Soft. Helpless. Embarrassing. Jack’s eyes warmed. Robby looked like he had just discovered a new antibiotic. “Oh, that’s excellent.”

Jack did not look away from you. “Ignore him.”

“You think I’m pretty,” you said.

“I married you,” Jack replied.

“That’s not an answer.”

His mouth curved. “Yes, baby. I think you’re pretty.”

You melted. Completely. It was humiliating. It was also his fault. Robby adjusted your injured arm, careful and slow, guiding your hand toward his shoulder. The position made pain spark hot and immediate. “No.” You tried to pull back. “No, fuck this.”

Jack’s face sharpened. Robby’s tone stayed calm. “I need thirty seconds.”

“I don’t want thirty seconds,” you said, frowning.

Robby’s expression softened, “I know.”

“No, I want that one to do it,” you said, looking from Robby to Jack.

Jack leaned closer. “You have that one.”

“I want that one to doctor me.” Your lower lip jutted out.

Robby, far too cheerful, said, “We’ve covered the conflict of interest.”

You frowned at him. “Sexy doctor husband.”

Jack looked at Robby. “Fix her shoulder.”

Robby looked at Jack’s hoodie. Jack saw it. His whole body went still. “No.”

Robby lifted both hands. “I didn’t say anything.” Jack stared at him.

Robby smiled. “She responded well to forearm.”

“Forearm is not a drug,” Jack shot back.

Robby shrugged. “It is today.”

Jack dragged a hand down his face. “Fuck me.”

You, who had been blinking hazily at the ceiling, turned your head with alarming speed. “Yes.”

The room stopped. Completely. Jack’s hand froze halfway down his face. “No.”

You frowned, offended. “Rude.”

Princess turned toward the computer with the focus of a woman fighting for her life. Santos stared at the floor, shoulders shaking.

Dana checked the monitor. “Heart rate response noted.”

Jack looked at her. “Dana.”

She did not look up. “I report data.”

Robby pressed his lips together. “For the record, that was the fastest she’s oriented to verbal stimulus since the medication.”

You reached weakly for Jack’s hand. “Sexy doctor husband.”

Jack looked down at you. Your eyes were glassy from medication and pain, your good hand tight around his, your face still trying so hard to stay mad because scared was too vulnerable, and both of you knew it. His irritation lost some of its shape. “Fine,” he muttered. Robby brightened. Jack glared at him. “Don’t look so happy.”

“I’m a scientist observing results,” Robby replied, delighted.

Jack stood beside the bed and reached back, fingers catching the sweatshirt at the back of his neck. Your eyes locked onto the movement. He pulled it over his head in one smooth drag, the hem catching for half a second on the white T-shirt underneath. The shirt stretched across his chest and shoulders when he lifted his arms. His biceps shifted under the fabric. His forearms flexed as he dragged the sweatshirt free.

The room went very quiet. You stared. Completely gone. Jack paused with the sweatshirt in one hand. Just for a second. Long enough to let you look. His mouth tilted, barely. “Better?”

You nodded slowly. “Wow.”

Robby made a sound that might have been spiritual.

Jack dropped back into the chair beside you and took your hand again. “Eyes on me.”

You obeyed immediately. “Sexy doctor husband.”

Jack closed his eyes. “Good Lord.”

Robby looked at the monitor, then at Jack. “That was outstanding.”

Jack’s eyes opened. “Do not compliment me.”

“Clinically outstanding,” Robby corrected himself.

Jack’s gaze didn’t leave you. “Still no.”

Robby grinned. “You removed clothing, and her heart rate stabilized.”

“That is not what happened,” Jack replied with a sigh.

Dana glanced at the monitor. “It sort of is.” J

ack looked betrayed. “Dana.”

She shrugged. “I report data.”

Robby gestured toward you, far too pleased with the entire clinical situation. “Magic Mike: ED Edition.”

Jack’s head snapped up. “No.”

Robby’s grin spread slowly. “I don’t know, brother. You danced at your wedding. Pretty risky, if memory serves.”

Jack’s stare went flat. “Robby.”

“There was a certain Eminem song involved,” Robby continued.

Your head turned on the pillow. “Shake That.”

Jack closed his eyes. “Do not help him.”

Robby pointed at you, delighted. “That’s the one.”

Dana looked up from the monitor. “You danced to ‘Shake That’ at your wedding?”

“No,” Jack said immediately.

You turned toward him with surprising speed. “Jack.”

His eyes opened. “Baby.”

Your brow furrowed, “Don’t you dare deny that.”

Princess pressed both lips together and turned toward the computer as if it had suddenly become fascinating. Santos stared between you and Jack, openly thrilled. You lifted your good hand as much as the IV allowed and pointed at him. “That moment changed my brain chemistry.”

Jack looked toward the ceiling. “Good Lord.”

Robby nodded solemnly. “For the record, I was there. It changed several people’s brain chemistry.”

Jack’s head turned slowly. “You cried during the father-daughter dance.”

“You and your wife offended decent people everywhere with that dance,” Robby said.

You nodded, glassy-eyed and completely unashamed. “Yep. My grandma left.”

Jack looked down at you, horror flickering across his face. “Your grandmother left?”

You blinked up at him. “You didn’t know that?”

“No,” Jack said. “I did not know that.”

“She came back for cake,” you added.

Jack looked at you. “That does not make it better.”

Robby’s grin widened. “I’m just saying. It was a lot of wedding.”

Jack’s eyes cut to him. “You ended that night with half your shirt unbuttoned because a bridesmaid took your tie off with her teeth.”

Santos’s head snapped up. “With her teeth?”

Dana did not look away from the monitor. “Do not repeat wedding lore.”

Princess turned from the computer, delighted. “Did he go home with her?”

Robby pointed sharply at your shoulder. “We have a patient.”

Jack’s mouth curved, barely. “He did.”

Robby stared at him. “Betrayal.”

Jack shrugged. “You started this.”

“I started a medical discussion,” Robby defended.

Jack narrowed his eyes. “You called me Magic Mike.”

Robby frowned. “In a medical context.”

You looked between them, soft and dreamy now, the medication turning the memory warm around the edges. “It was perfect.”

Jack’s expression shifted. “Our wedding?”

You nodded. “You danced. I danced. Robby got slutty.”

Robby pointed at you. “For the record, ‘Robby got slutty’ is not medically relevant.”

Your eyes drifted back to Jack. You studied him for one long, medicated second. “You got slutty.”

Jack’s brows lifted. “I did not.”

You gave him a look. “Tell that to your hips.” You kept looking at Jack, still dreamy and deeply serious. “And hands.”

Jack closed his eyes again.

Santos made a tiny sound. “He got slutty.”

Dana did not look away from the monitor. “Do not repeat Mrs. Abbot.”

Your face softened immediately. Jack noticed. Of course, he noticed. His thumb moved once over your hand. “She called me Mrs. Abbot.”

“I heard,” Jack said, quieter now.

A small smile pulled at your mouth. “That’s me.” Jack’s expression softened before he could stop it.

Robby looked from you to Dana. “You’re enjoying this.”

Dana adjusted the pulse ox cord with perfect neutrality. “I am maintaining room discipline.”

Jack looked at you slowly. He looked down at you, and something in his expression changed. Not embarrassed now. Worse. Amused. “You know, baby,” he said, voice low, “I didn’t hear you complaining that night.”

Your mouth parted. For one blessed second, the medication actually managed to quiet you.

Robby looked delighted. “Oh, that worked.”

Jack did not look away from you. “Don’t.”

You blinked up at Jack, soft and glassy-eyed and deeply sincere. “I was thoroughly enjoying it.”

Dana closed her eyes. Princess turned fully toward the computer.

Robby pressed a hand to his chest. “That is a lot of marriage for a workplace.”

Jack’s jaw flexed, but his thumb moved over your hand again. “Trouble.”

You smiled faintly. “You started it.”

Robby pointed at Jack. “She’s right.”

Jack looked at him. “You started it.” Robby nodded. “Also true. Still worth it.”

Dana adjusted the bed, then looked at both of them. “Shoulder now. Wedding crimes later.”

You frowned. “They’re not crimes if everyone had fun.”

“Your grandmother left,” Jack said.

“She came back for cake.”

Robby nodded. “Strong recovery.”

Jack looked at him. “You are done.”

Robby smiled. “Brother, I have barely begun.”

Dana’s voice cut through, calm and final. “Robby.”

Robby lifted both hands. “Shoulder now.”

Jack leaned closer to you, resigned and soft all at once. “Eyes on me, trouble.”

You looked at his white T-shirt, then his face. “I am looking,” you said. “That’s the problem.”

For half a second, he looked like he might say something that would make the entire situation worse.

Robby must have seen it coming, because he clapped once, sharp and quiet. “Okay,” he said. “Shoulder.”

Jack’s eyes stayed on yours. “You heard the man.”

You frowned at him. “I don’t like the man.”

Robby adjusted his gloves at your injured side. “The man is hurt by that.”

Dana moved closer to the bed, one hand resting near your good shoulder. “Mrs. Abbot,” she said, calm and even. “We’re going to sit you up a little more.”

Your face softened immediately. Jack saw it again. His thumb brushed over your knuckles. “You like that.”

You blinked at him. “Like what?”

His voice went quieter. “Mrs. Abbot.”

A small, helpless smile pulled at your mouth. “That’s me.”

Jack’s expression changed. Not enough for anyone else to call him out on it, maybe, but enough for you to feel warmer than the medication could explain. “Yeah, baby,” he said. “That’s you.”

Robby looked at Dana. Dana kept her face neutral. “Therapeutic,” she said.

Robby nodded solemnly. “Marital nomenclature. Noted.”

Jack did not look away from you. “Do not note that.”

Robby shrugged. “I have a whole mental chart now.”

“Delete it,” Jack shot back.

Robby grinned. “HIPAA doesn’t apply to my thoughts.”

Dana raised the bed before Jack could answer. The motion sent your shoulder into a hot, mean pulse. Your good hand tightened around Jack’s. “Nope.”

Jack stepped in closer immediately. “I’ve got you.”

“Nope,” you said again, sharper this time. “I changed my mind.”

Robby’s voice stayed steady from your side. “You can hate it.”

“I do hate it. I hate the concept. I hate whoever invented Cunningham,” you groaned.

Robby nodded once. “Probably fair.” You went on, “I hate that his name is Cunningham.”

“It is a useful medical procedure,” Robby replied.

You turned your glare on him. “Don’t defend Cunningham to me right now.”

Jack leaned into your line of sight. “Look at me.”

You looked at him. Mostly because he was very close. Also, because the T-shirt was still doing hateful things across his chest. Jack’s eyes narrowed faintly, like he knew exactly where your attention had gone.

“My face,” he said.

You sighed. “Your face is also a problem.”

Robby glanced at the monitor. “Problem appears effective.” Jack turned his head a fraction. “Robby.”