reading to hide from life

A week later, you are staring at the report in your hands, in a decidedly different location than your office.

It stares back at you.

You lose the staring contest, because right there, right at the top of the page, in the subtitle, it says ‘research conducted by Dr. Ryland Grace, United States,’ and you have to blink a few times to make sure that you’re reading it right. She did it, then. She read the paper, and she found him, and now he’s named astrophage and discovered how they reproduce. He is probably on his way to the aircraft carrier, right now, because when Stratt decides she needs someone on the project, they are scooped up and dumped here immediately.

This means two things: one, this will be the first time you’ve seen him in years; two, you are now wondering if he’s even thought about you in that time. He must have, because you do. Because you have the scar, and the pictures from the photobooth that have still managed to stick around in your purse, and the hole he left in your life.

--

science camp – between fifth and sixth grade

The university’s campus is so huge, you think, walking toward the welcome hall. Your mom had tried to come with you, but you had insisted that you could go by yourself, because you’re about to go into middle school and are therefore basically an adult. So you handle registration yourself, getting your nametag with a little blue dot on it, and you listen carefully as the front desk person tells you where you need to go.

Thankfully, it’s just across the open courtyard at the center of campus. You’re early, so there’s only a few other kids sitting at the color-coded tables, including one blond boy at the blue table. When you sit down next to him, you stick your arm out for a handshake—again, almost an adult, pretty much—and smile widely. “Hi. I think we’re on the same team.”

He turns to you and blinks at your hand before shaking it. Then he glances down at your nametag, looking at the blue dot, which matches the color of his eyes. “Cool! I’m Ryland.”

“I know. I can see your nametag.”

“Oh. Right.”

But you tell him your name, anyway, because he already looks a little embarrassed, and you think you heard your dad say once on a phone call that team chemistry was important for success. “What grade are you in?”

He puffs out his chest a little. “Sixth.”

“Wow. Do they really give you lockers when you get to middle school? I’ve been wondering about that, and if I should buy decorations and stuff.” You’d already drawn it all out: a cute little chandelier, a fluffy rug for the bottom, some magnets. But your mom said she wouldn’t take you to get any of that until you actually knew if you’d have a locker.

Ryland seems to deflate as you ramble. “…Well, I’m going into sixth grade, so I don’t really know.”

“Oh, that’s even better! It means we’re in the same year.” Your smile widens, and after a moment, his own returns, if a little shyly.

Some of your other teammates filter in, and you quickly decide that you like Ryland the best, so you stick to his side throughout the day, and each day after that. He’s crazy smart: he has the best ideas for the derby car, already knows stuff like air resistance and velocity, and he figures out pretty quickly that you’re the best kid on the team at art, so you get to paint the car. At lunch, in one of the college’s dining halls, he tests how high he can make his fro-yo—college is so awesome, and you can’t wait until you’re old enough to go—and he always shares it with you.

Your team wins the derby race at the end of the week of camp, which wasn’t really ever in question. Your mom makes the two of you pose for a photo as the other kids start leaving with their parents. At first, this is super embarrassing for you, but then Ryland gives you his mom’s email so he can have the photo, too. Science camp next year can’t come fast enough.

--

As you wheel the cart of lab equipment across the hangar bay, wincing every time one of the wheels catches on a divot in the floor, you wonder if Stratt is having you do this because she suspects that the two of you know each other. Well. Used to know each other, at least. Because why else would you have that paper, for what other reason would you send it to her in the first place? You can’t help but think this must be some kind of strategy or ploy. Or maybe she’s just trying to be nice, have him greeted with a familiar face—you don’t know, you don’t actually interact with her that much.

This is the last trip, anyway, and then you can go back to doing actual work, the kind that you are qualified for. Now that the astrophage could be reproduced, the issue of fuel was solved, and the engineering team could move forward with the design of the Hail Mary. You’d already drafted some preliminary sketches; these would probably be scrapped, because it was in such an early phase, but you liked having the visuals. Maybe you’d throw together some concept art of the living quarters, try to make it a little homey. It was the least you could do for the astronauts who would die there.

As you’re contemplating this, there’s two sets of footsteps that stop just outside the plywood and plexiglass room, and a familiar voice speaking. “Thanks. Er, right, Mandarin. Can’t say I ever picked that up. A thumbs up is universal, right?” It is not, but you don’t say so, because you are trying to busy yourself with the test tubes so you don’t have to turn around. “Oh. Hi. Wow, I see I have you to thank for the lab. It looks great.”

You clear your throat, because the anxiety simmering in your gut has started to crawl up your windpipe. “No problem. Let me know if there’s anything else you need.” You’re not sure why you even say this, because this really isn’t your job, and you don’t even know if you’ve set some of the equipment up correctly.

“Thanks. Uh—I’m Grace, by the way. Dr. Grace. Dr. Ryland Grace.” A thought pops into your head, then, reflexively: he still never landed on what he wants other people to call him.

It’s probably time to rip the band aid off, you think, get this over with and see if he even recognizes you, so you turn around. “I know.”

He just—freezes, then, staring at your face, and his mouth opens and closes a few times before he settles on, “What?”

“I might look a little different,” you say, as disappointment floods through you, “but—”

“No, that’s not. I recognize you, obviously I do, I just—I really was not expecting that it would be you, when you turned around.” His hand flexes by his leg, and he takes a step forward, and you think he might be about to hug you, but he stops at the look on your face. “It’s. Wow. This is just. Wow,” he repeats. “How are you? How have things been? Why are you—here?”

He falters on the last word. It’s as if he’s realizing that of all the questions he just asked, that is somehow the most obvious one, when it should be the other way around. “Well. I’ve sort of been involved in the design and construction of almost every NASA mission in the past decade. So. I kind of know how to build a spaceship. Which is the whole point of this project.”

“Right. That’s—yeah.” Ryland—because he will always be Ryland to you, because that’s how he introduced himself when you first met, all those years ago, at that blue table—looks immensely uncomfortable. There is a tiny, petty part of you that is glad for it.

“And I’ve been good. Just got promoted to associate professor last year.”

He nods and sticks his hands into the pockets of his cardigan. “I know. I saw that.”

Oh. He’s been keeping tabs on you, even after you gave up on doing the same for him. Then why didn’t he just call, or text, or email? Show up on your doorstep, like he did—“I see,” you finally reply, if only to stop your own train of thought. “Well, I’ll leave you to it. Welcome aboard, Dr. Grace.”

You start to walk away, and you make it out of the doorway when his voice stops you. “It’s still Ryland. You’ve never—I’m still Ryland.”

“Alright.” You don’t turn back around. “I’ll see you around, Ryland.”

--

science camp – between eighth and ninth grade

It’s the last day of science camp, ever, because it’s only for middle schoolers, but any sadness you might feel about that is washed away when Ryland tells you he’s going to Central starting next year, because you’re going to Central next year, too. And you have a phone, now, and he puts his number in so you can send him your class schedule when they come out.

Right now, you’re supposed to be at lunch. You are not.

Ryland takes his nametag off and stuffs it into his pocket. It says ‘Ryland’ this time, because for a couple years he decided to go by ‘Ry,’ but apparently he has now concluded that nicknames are a little too childish. You’re secretly glad about this, because you like his full name, to the point that you almost never called him Ry in the last two summers.

You’d like to point out to him that taking the nametag off isn’t really going to make the two of you any less obvious, because this is still a college campus, and you are very clearly soon-to-be high schoolers that are here for summer camp. You still take yours off, too.

“Score,” he says, smiling widely at you as the doorknob to the lab turns. “I knew they didn’t keep it locked.”

You have to tilt your face up a little to look at him. It’s weird, because you’re used to being taller than him, but a growth spurt must have hit over this past year. “I still really don’t think we should do this. We’re missing out on the fro-yo,” you whine.

Despite your hesitation, you still follow him into the room. “This is way more fun, though. I want to actually do stuff without everyone else crowded in here and getting in the way.” He hands you a pair of goggles and some gloves. He turns to you when he has his goggles on and gives you a gloved thumbs up. It looks a little funny, because his black, chunky glasses are kind of smushed underneath the plastic. It was a bit of a surprise to see him with those this year—he told you he had been getting headaches, and it turns out he badly needed glasses to look at things close-up. “And I can ask my mom to take us to get ice cream.”

“Sweet.” The two of you had hung out a little bit outside of camp, but nothing too crazy. Mostly it was meeting at the library or getting dinner with your moms after a day of camp. Ice cream, though—that felt special. The sort of thing that qualifies as a date. You can’t help the small smile that spreads on your face, the heat dusting your cheeks. “So—what do you want to do?”

Ryland takes a glass beaker out of the cabinet and then rustles around for some reagents, because evidently none of the people running this camp thought to lock anything up. “Actual science, not the kid stuff they’ve been showing us. I watched a video about titration the other day, I think I’d like to try that.” He sets up the beaker and the burette as he keeps talking. “Don’t worry, this is a super standard thing people do in labs. I won’t burn the building down. It’s just about using a titrant to figure out the exact concentration of the analyte. But I want to practice now, so I can get a headstart on being a world-famous scientist.”

You try your best to follow along and watch carefully as he pours two different liquids into the beaker, and then sucks up a third with the burette. “What’s that?”

“Hydrochloric acid.”

“Isn’t that a little—dangerous?” You ask nervously, though you don’t move away, still watching his hands carefully set up the titration.

He scoffs. “Hydrochloric acid is in household cleaners, I’m pretty sure. It’s used all the time for stuff like this in labs.”

You shift, a little anxious. “Just. Be careful, please.”

Ryland looks up at you then and smiles widely. It’s annoying how nice his teeth are, because you’re stuck with braces for at least the next two years. “I’m always careful.”

This is completely untrue, but you stay quiet and watch as he slowly lets the liquid drip in, and then gasp when the liquid in the beaker changes color. “Did you do it? Is that supposed to happen?”

“Yep. First try. I knew I could do it.” He goes to turn his body fully toward you, and then his arm hits a bottle, and neither of you realize that the bottle does not have a cap until there’s liquid on your arm.

Holy cow, it hurts, it hurts really bad, and you have to bite down on your cheek to keep from crying out as he drags you over to the sink and starts running water over it. “Oh my gosh, I am so sorry, it’s okay—I think I got it off in time—are you okay?”

You nod as tears start to spill down your cheeks. The skin is red and blistering, but the water is helping to dull the pain. “I’m alright.” Somehow you manage to laugh, and he looks at you, extremely confused, probably thinking that you are delirious from the pain, or something. “Of course I’m the one who gets burned.”

His face is red, and he almost looks like he’s about to start crying, too. “I am really, really sorry. I can’t believe I forgot to put the cap back on.”

“It’s okay. Maybe it will be a cool scar?”

He sniffles a little as he pulls your arm out from under the stream of water. You wince as the pain returns in full force. “I’m not sure. It doesn’t look super deep? I am so sorry.”

As he turns your arm carefully to inspect the burn, you notice that the pads of his fingers are also blistering. “Ryland, your fingers.”

He lets go of you to look at them. “Oh, yeah. I think I accidentally touched some when I pulled you over here.” Oh. Maybe that’s why he’s also been tearing up. When he looks back up at you, he smiles, his eyes a little glassy. “Maybe we’ll match.”

The two of you do not get ice cream later, because you both end up needing to go to urgent care, and your parents are pissed. The doctor tells you that it’s second-degree, and that you’re lucky, because it should heal on its own, but you’ll likely end up with a scar. Ryland fares a little better, he tells you over text: he’ll have some raised bumps, but they’ll eventually go away.

--

Dozens of schematics are scattered across your desk, and your fingers are starting to cramp from holding the pencil. Technically, you could just do this digitally, but you like the feeling of drawing it yourself, the tactile experience of bringing what will most likely be the pinnacle of human engineering into life on the page.

The main focus of the engineering team’s meetings so far has been the fuel tanks. This is rather boring, because you could probably design those in your sleep. But you’ve been dutifully sketching them out anyway, calculating how much material you would need, where the tanks would be connected to reduce stress on the ship and allow for the astrophage to be funneled to the engines. Apparently, they were bringing on a Russian scientist to make these, which meant there was only so much the team could do before that was figured out.

You’ve turned to your little side project in the meantime: designing gold plaques to go in the ship, akin to the Pioneer and Voyager plaques. The ship itself would be a message to any intelligent life that might stumble upon it, but it would be even better, in your mind, if there was some purposeful communication there. You’re looking over the sketch of human evolution when your stomach grumbles. You should really eat, but—you’ve been staying away from places where groups of people gathered. It feels childish, to avoid him like this, but you tell yourself that you’re just saving the two of you from the awkwardness of dealing with the fact that whatever place you used to have in his life is gone.

You settle for pulling a granola bar out of your bag and munch on it while you keep thinking. There should definitely be a plaque about the astrophage, but you would need to consult with some of the biologists on this to make sure the visual was accurate. Maybe you could—

A knock on the doorframe of your lab makes you jump. “Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?” You say, reflexively, and your lips pull into a small smile, despite the fact that it currently feels like you’re being punched in the chest at the exchange.

You swivel around to see Ryland standing there, balancing two trays on one arm. “Radon.”

“Radon, who?”

“Radon, man,” and he stretches out the word ‘man’ like a caricature of a stoner might, grinning widely. “I brought you lunch.”

“Why?”

He walks in and sets the trays down before dragging another chair over and sitting next to you. It reminds you of science camp, and high school, and getting dinner together after a quiz bowl tournament, and studying in the diner in college, and—and you force yourself to stop thinking about it. “I haven’t seen you in the mess hall at all. And then I asked around, and someone said you usually eat at your desk. So.”

You look at him for a few moments. His hair’s gotten a little darker since grad school, and he’s finally figured out how to grow a little bit of scruff out. It looks good, you think idly. Same wire frames, though. Once he figured out those looked the best—not that it was a very high bar, because the thick black ones he started with were pretty bad—he never changed the style. “Okay,” you finally say. “Thanks.”

“And.” His fingers drum on his thigh as he looks at his tray, then around your workspace, before finally settling his gaze on you, nervous and unsure. “I wanted to say sorry.”

“For?” This is not a real question. This is you letting that small petty thing inside of you win.

His mouth twists, just a little. You hate the expression on him. “For not calling. Or texting. Or—you know. Anything. I’m sorry.”

You don’t really know what to say. It makes something twinge in your chest, because it used to be that you never had to think about it, that you could say anything to him. And it feels ridiculous, too. Plenty of people fell out of touch with childhood friends. Sure, it felt like your friendship had been a little bit stronger than that, lasted longer, had been more, especially when. When. “It’s. I accept your apology.”

“And I know you’re—wait, what?” He blinks at you in surprise.

“It’s fine, Ryland.” You shrug and start unwrapping the plastic around the fork and knife. It is decidedly not fine, but you are trying to be the bigger person here. “You had a lot going on.”

He’s silent at that, just another thing that doesn’t fit into the picture you’ve kept of him in your mind. You’ve never known him to not have something at the ready, a witty response or a longwinded explanation, and it’s another reminder that you don’t really know him at all anymore. “I. That’s. Alright.” It seems he doesn’t know how to have this conversation, either. He looks at you for a little while before slowly grabbing his own utensils, and then his mind changes halfway through the motion, because then he’s picking up one of the schematics on your desk. “Wow.”

“What?”

The paper is slightly trembling as he holds it. Probably the adrenaline crash from coming in here, you think. “These look amazing.” He glances back up at you with a small smile. “You kept drawing.”

You try to return the expression as best as you can. “It comes in handy. I’m somewhat decent at it.”

“I know you are,” he says quietly. “I remember.”

--

tenth grade

God, Ryland is taking forever to come pick you up. At least it’s nice out, as you sit on your front porch. The autumn foliage has set in nicely. You pull your phone out to snap a quick picture—you had to beg your parents to buy you one with a halfway decent camera and a keyboard that doesn’t require hitting each number a billion times—since it looks like it would be good watercolor practice, you think, maybe a piece you could do for your art class. Because that was really the only time you had for art these days, what with robotics, and quiz bowl, and all of the studying you have to do for pre-calc on top of your other classes.

He finally pulls up in front of your house. You sling your backpack on your shoulders and bound down the steps, carefully opening the passenger door—if you pull too hard, the casing of the handle flies off—and slide in. “Took you long enough. I was afraid the thing had fallen apart on your way here.”

Ryland waits for you to buckle up your seatbelt before driving away. He gives a gentle pat to the dashboard. “Be nice to the old gal. She’s trying her best.”

You fiddle with the aux cord. It takes some adjusting, because it’s actually connected to a cassette tape, and the wiring has to be positioned just right to work. Finally, some music is playing from your MP3 player, although it kind of sounds like shit. Half of the speakers don’t work. “Have you come up with a name yet?”

“Not yet. But I’ve got some contenders. I’m thinking Leia. Or Daisy.” His fingers tap along to the music on the steering wheel, and some of his hair flutters around the glasses perched on his head. If he doesn’t keep them on his person, they will simply vanish.

“You are such a nerd. I’m assuming Daisy is because of Space Odyssey?”

He looks over at you and smiles while the car is stopped at a red light. “Bingo. Can’t do Hal, obviously.”

You roll your eyes and try to ignore the fluttering in your stomach. “It’s a car, it doesn’t have a gender. But also, you shouldn’t do Hal, because he famously tries to kill them all.” Then you glance over at the plastic casing rattling around the air vent. “Actually, maybe you should name it Hal.”

“Hey,” he whines, but he’s still smiling.

You stick your tongue out and then lean your head against the window, closing your eyes against the chilly October air that comes in through the cracked window. It sort of sucks that quiz bowl practices are always on a Saturday, because this would be a nice day to walk around, maybe go to a movie, but at least it was another chance to hang out with Ryland.

He turns down the music a little, and you’re about to chide him for it, but he speaks before you can. “So. Homecoming.”

This makes your stomach drop and every muscle fiber in your body freeze. “What about it?” You say carefully.

“Have you thought about who you might want to go with?”

You have. You have thought about it quite a bit. You are currently making a poster to ask him, because you’re fairly certain he won’t do it first. None of this comes out, obviously. Instead, you reply, “A little. What about you?”

Ryland nods, and it’s a little nervous. “I think I might ask Krista.”

“Oh.” Alright. Well. Maybe you’ll just burn the poster and your entire house down with it. You clear your throat. “Krista? That’s—she’s the girl you’re tutoring, right? On the volleyball team?”

“Yeah. I know you think she’s dumb as rocks—”

You snort, trying not to cry or possibly throw up in his car. “She does have an F in geometry, so.”

“But she’s really nice, actually. And I was wondering—would you help me make one of those posters? To ask her? Since you’re so good at drawing and stuff.”

This is, actually, the worst. You feel like the side character in a stupid romcom, the best friend who helps the guy get the girl, who is vaguely implied to be a lesbian at the end of the movie, just to make it clear to the audience that she was never a love interest the whole time. “Sure. I can do that.”

It comes out flat, and he notices immediately, because he always does. “Are you sure? You don’t have to, if you’re busy or something.”

“No, no,” you rush out. You could never refuse him, even if you wanted to. “Sorry, it just made me remember—there’s a robotics competition the same day, and I forgot to tell Mr. Samson that I couldn’t go. We were supposed to do that earlier this week.” This is a lie, through and through, because he wanted you all to tell him if you weren’t going to the tournament this coming week. “I can make the poster. When do you want it by?”

He exhales in relief. “Maybe by next weekend? You’re the best,” and then he reaches over to squeeze your hand, unthinkingly, still looking at the windshield because he’s driving.

Quiz bowl practice is fine. You make the poster when you get home. The one you had started making for him gets shoved in the back of your closet.

Krista says yes.

Your team gets first place at the robotics tournament. He sends you a shitty picture of his glasses tangled up in his hair, because he recently switched to ones with a wire frame but keeps putting them on top of his head anyway, and he looks really nice in his tie and boutonniere.

They start dating for a while.

--

Ryland starts bringing you lunch nearly every day. You almost want to ask him if he truly does not have anything better to do, but that hour is so nice that you can almost forget that he went radio silent on you for years. So you let him do it, and you let him look through all your drawings, give you some suggestions for the plaque about astrophage. Sometimes he shows you what he’s working on, and at least this one thing hasn’t changed: he is still brilliant, creative, willing to try things no one else would ever even think of.

Some days he stays after lunch, simply watching you work, and you don’t know why he does it, because he gets fidgety almost immediately without anything to do.

Like right now, for example. He’s been alternating between clicking his pen incessantly and tossing a little crocheted ball back and forth between his hands. When he switches back to the pen, your eye twitches. “Ryland. Please.”

“Sorry.” He sets the pen down. You return your attention to your screen, because you’re trying to look over some of the designs for fuel cell eleven, but you simply loathe any and all CAD software with a passion. You do not get very far. “Who do you think would win in a fight,” he says suddenly, “Godzilla, or the big space fetus at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey?”

His mind is truly an enigma. The corner of your mouth lifts up. “Well. I think it depends—which Godzilla are we talking about? Like, Final Wars Godzilla, or the 1998 American one?”

“See, you always have the best follow-up questions to these.” You can hear him lean back in the chair and spin around in it as he thinks over his response. “Let’s say it’s the one from Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla.”

You have to rack your brain for a second, because it has been almost two decades, at this point, since he sat you down and forced you to watch all of those movies with him. Oh, right—that’s the kind of very cute looking Godzilla. Who fights the robot, but that part was obvious. “Okay. And how are we interpreting the end of Space Odyssey?”

He stops spinning, suddenly, and you turn so you can see his expression without even realizing that you’re doing it. His eyebrows are raised, and he’s looking at you as if he’s saying, seriously? “There’s only one correct way to interpret it.”

“There’s really not.”

“But there is,” he insists. “Bowman experiences time all at once, and then he’s lifted to the next stage of evolution, which is the star child—”

You interrupt him, if only to be extremely pedantic. “Okay, but you’re not addressing whether the star child is actually him or only a copy of him.”

He waves a hand. “That’s in the book, that’s not relevant.”

The conversation is giving you an overwhelming sense of déjà vu, because you’re pretty sure you’ve had this exact argument with him several times, in what feels like another life. “Okay, fine. I’m going Godzilla.”

“I think I have to go with the space fetus,” he sighs, as if this is the obvious choice. It’s not. He definitely would have picked Godzilla if you hadn’t answered first.

You snort. “All it does is influence human events. Godzilla literally has atomic breath. He’s giving that little baby radiation sickness, if he doesn’t just totally blast it apart.”

The way Ryland is smiling in disbelief and shaking his head is what you imagine he must do to his students when they’ve given a particularly nonsense answer to a question. “The fetus is literally in space, if it hasn’t gotten radiation sickness yet, it probably can’t. Also, I think ‘he’s giving that little baby radiation sickness’ is probably the first time those words have ever been put in that order.” He scoots his chair forward and puts his hands on the armrests of yours, looking way more serious than the topic demands. “And the baby could influence humanity to kill him.”

“No, that’s not fair, that’s bringing in a third party,” you shoot back, rolling your eyes. “We’re talking fisticuffs here.”

There’s a lock of hair hanging in the middle of his forehead. You don’t know when you started looking at it. “Okay, and the fetus would still win, because it’s literally larger than the entire planet.”

“You know the whole saying, ‘How do you eat an elephant? You take one bite at a time’? That’s what Godzilla would do.”

“And how would he even get to space to do that.”

“That just makes the whole argument nil, if we’re assuming that they have to get to each other first. No, for this question to even make sense, they already have to be in fighting distance.”

Ryland smiles, then, in a way that makes your throat seize up. “I missed this. A lot.”

You look at him for a long moment, studying the piece of hair still curved toward his brow, the way his eyes have softened almost imperceptibly, the soft dip of his cupid’s bow. “Yeah. I did, too.” That petty part of you wants to point out that neither of you needed to be in a position where you’d miss it, because it could have stayed the whole time. You do not. Instead, you say, “And you’re deflecting, because you know I’m right.”

“I am not.”

--

eleventh grade

If he doesn’t stop throwing the bouncy ball at your wall, you’re going to hurl him out of the window.

You’re both supposed to be studying for AP Calc, because the exam is in a few weeks, and God knows Mrs. Murphy wasn’t really preparing any of you well enough for it. What is actually happening is that you are studying, while he gave up about ten minutes ago, not because it’s hard—it is genuinely annoying how easily this stuff comes to him—but because he’s bored.

The door to your bedroom is closed. Your parents have stopped being pedantic about it, because it has become clear that, while Ryland is a serial dater, he isn’t going to try anything with you. It is sort of depressing that even your own family doesn’t think you can get any.

“You can leave whenever you want, you know,” you mutter, still looking at your textbook. “I’m sure you have a date with Stephanie, or whatever.”

“Nope.” He doesn’t stop throwing the ball. “We broke up last month, remember? And then I got back with Krista.”

You jot something down in your notebook. “You’re kind of a slut.”

The ball doesn’t hit the wall again, because now it’s being lobbed at your shoulder. “Rude. Not very third-wave feminist of you.”

“Well, if you stopped being a man-whore, I wouldn’t call you that.” The ball kind of hurt, actually, and you have to rub your arm a little to soothe it. “Anyway. Whatever, then, I’m sure you have a date with Krista.”

He walks over and scoops the ball back up, and then he starts bouncing it on the top of your head. You sigh but don’t do anything about it. “We’re sort of. On a break, at the moment.” This makes you snort. “Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“But you thought it.”

You are thinking it, but you won’t say it. They’ve been on-again, off-again since they first started dating. You still don’t really get it, and it is genuinely not just because you have been crushing on Ryland since the seventh grade, which is a fact that you have resigned yourself to accepting and tucking away. No, they just have almost nothing in common, and she’s kind of mean to him. Maybe he’s just a masochist. Another thought occurs to you as you consider all of this. “Wait. Who are you going to prom with, then? Isn’t it in, like, two weeks?”

He sighs and lays on your bed, staring up at the ceiling. “Dunno. She made it sound like we weren’t going together, and everyone else already has a date.”

“Bummer.” You close your textbook and spin around in your chair to face him. He’s now tossing the ball up in the air and catching it, and at one point it hits him square in the face, which is pretty funny.

And then, like the ball falling on his face has struck him with an idea, he sits up so fast that you’re worried he’s going to snap his spine. “Wait. You don’t have a date.”

“Uh-huh. Because I’m not going.”

He leans forward to grab the arms of your chair and drags you to the edge of the bed, and then he pulls his glasses up onto his nose and looks at you, extremely serious. “You haven’t been to a single dance. This is, like, the quintessential teenage experience.”

Normal teenagers don’t really use the word ‘quintessential,’ but you refrain from pointing this out. “I doubt I’m missing out on much. Also, I’m getting my braces off that morning, remember?” You’d had to keep them on for an extra year, because. Well. It is possible that you weren’t as diligent with the rubber bands as you should have been. And you’d purposefully scheduled it that day, so you had an excuse to avoid suffering through a night of watching him with someone else.

“What time?”

You sigh. He has set his sights on this, and he will not let go of it. “Ten.” It was, unfortunately, the only time available when you scheduled it, because the orthodontist’s office closed early on Saturdays.

His face lights up. “You’ll definitely be done in time. We can go together.”

It is difficult for you to describe the emotions that spike through you in that moment. Have you been desperately hoping he would ask you to be his date to a dance for literal years? Yes. Is it, genuinely, the worst freaking thing ever that this is in the context of being his backup date? Also yes. Are you capable of saying no to him? “…I don’t have a dress.”

He knows that this is a yes, that he has won, even though you never actually agreed. “That’s fine. We can go this weekend, I’ll need to match the color of my tie anyway.”

Ryland keeps his promise and takes you to get a dress. You pick a blue one, to match his eyes, and then the next weekend he’s picking you up, and your parents make you do the incredibly cheesy thing where you walk down the stairs, all dressed up, as they take pictures. He slips the corsage on your wrist, and you give him a tentative, nervous smile, with teeth.

He stares, and stares, and stares, and then he finally says, “You look weird.” So you punch him on the shoulder, hard, and he holds your waist as your parents take more pictures, and then he drives you to prom. It’s fine. High school dances are pretty overrated, in your opinion, although there is a photo booth there, which is pretty cool. The two of you never manage to take pictures in it. You try to let yourself pretend, just for the night, that you had been his first choice, and he dances with you during the slow song, and he says your smile looks nice. Pretty, even.

--

Slowly, the shape of your routine changes, because suddenly you are being brought along on trips to meet with other scientists, engineers, whoever, outside of the Vat, and of course he’s there, too, as the preeminent researcher on astrophage. You have a sneaking suspicion that he has something to do with this.

This time it’s a conference room in Geneva. Ryland is tapping away on his laptop, looking frumpy and annoyed, because the real-life astrophage breeding isn’t matching his simulations. It reminds you of the weekends in college you would get together—because even though you went to different schools, you both were in the Bay Area—and study for exams in a decrepit diner with shitty coffee and slightly better pancakes.

You push the thought away as a severe Norwegian woman walks into the room. A rather silly argument follows about his paper, which really wasn’t that bad, in your opinion, certainly not a ‘slap in the face to the entire scientific community,’ but then they’re leaning towards each other, and you simply cannot put yourself through this again.

Then you’re getting even more pissed off, because Dr. Lokken says, “…this was the only way to tell you a critical design flaw in the Hail Mary.”

“Excuse me?” You interrupt. “We have the greatest engineers on the planet making this thing, and you think there’s a ‘critical design flaw’ in it? Are you even an engineer?”

Ryland looks at you, slightly surprised, because you used to never snipe at someone like this, certainly not in a professional setting. The only person you would get snarky with was him. You almost want to throw it in his face. He isn’t the only person who’s changed. You’ve been through the hell that is the job market, getting tenure, dealing with decrepit men in charge of robotics labs that still aren’t sure women should be around machinery.

Dr. Lokken sighs, a touch exasperated, and takes some papers out of her bag. “The most important part of the ship is the lab, yes? None of the equipment you’ve listed here will work in zero-g.”

“Which we’ve already thought of,” you swiftly interject.

Stratt takes over, because apparently she hadn’t realized she had brought two hotheads along. “We’re having several companies around the world design zero-gravity versions of all of this equipment.”

The other woman scoffs. “You won’t have enough time to test it all. You need gravity.”

As Stratt says something about artificial gravity, it hits you: Dr. Lokken is building up to suggesting exactly that, artificial gravity, but not the sci-fi kind.

“She means a centrifuge,” Ryland says, and then he looks over at you, because somehow he can still tell, even after all these years, when you’ve reached a similar conclusion at the same time he has.

You look over the hastily drawn up schematics as they discuss the particulars. The design she’s brought is simple, but it’s sound, even if you can already tell it will require some tweaking. You look back up when Stratt is telling Dr. Lokken she has an hour to pack a bag and meet the three of you at the airport. Awesome. The person who essentially personally insulted your work is now going to be on your team.

Stratt leaves, and then Dr. Lokken does, too, because now she has about thirty minutes to gather up her belongings before being dropped on a ship in the middle of the Pacific. “Well,” Ryland sighs, spinning around to face you. “What do you think?”

“I think you all pretty much covered it. It makes sense.” You pack up your bag and stand. “It’ll make the crew more comfortable, at least. Spending that long in zero-g and then dying doesn’t sound super fun.”

He chokes out a surprised laugh at that as he gets up. “Yeah, probably not.” The two of you walk out of the room, down the long hallway, and then outside. Stratt is standing by one of the cars on the phone. You’re about to head over when Ryland stops next to you and grabs your arm. “Are you hungry? I’m hungry.”

“…I guess? I thought we were on a pretty tight schedule, though.”

“We’ve got thirty minutes or so, it’s fine,” and then he’s jogging over to Stratt, saying something you can’t hear and gesturing over at you. She waves a hand in dismissal, which is basically her way of saying yes. He walks back over and stands in front of you. “There’s a little grocery store down the street. Not exactly authentic Swiss cuisine, but, come on, let’s go.”

He tugs you down the sidewalk. He must have looked at a map on the way here, because he always does that before going to a new place, trying to memorize it to see if he can get around without needing directions. It usually does not work. This time, though, the convenience store is close enough that the two of you don’t get lost. Soon you’re sitting out on the curb, splitting a two-pack of those Lil Debbie cupcakes, looking extremely and unabashedly American. It reminds you of quiz bowl, you think, watching as a family bikes down the street, when he would get so antsy at practice before a tournament out of town that you’d sneak out so he could test his memory of the map he looked at.

You take a bite of your cupcake. Sweet, tooth-rotting sugary goodness. “You know, this reminds me of—”

“Quiz bowl?” He finishes for you. “I was just thinking the same thing.” His cupcake is almost gone already, because he’s basically been cramming it into his mouth. “Sometimes I really don’t know why you were friends with me for so long. I was kind of a jerk.”

“Was?”

He elbows you. “Hey now.”

A grin settles on your lips. “I’m joking, obviously. Teaching’s really mellowed you out, you know. Well. At least a little bit,” you tack on, because he did kind of immediately start arguing with Dr. Lokken back in the conference room.

“And thank goodness for that. I’m surprised I didn’t give you an ulcer, back then.” He dusts his hands of crumbs and then wipes at his lap. There’s a spot of cream on the side of his mouth.

You pull your sleeve up. “You did give me a scar, to be fair.”

He grabs your wrist and brings your arm closer to look at it, fingers brushing over the raised and shiny skin. You hate what the touch is doing to you. “And I have taken lab safety extremely seriously since then.” When he lets go, you raise an eyebrow at him. “Okay. Mostly seriously.”

“Anyway,” you continue, taking the last bite of your cupcake, “you weren’t that bad. I think if we hadn’t been friends, I would have been so boring. Never leaving the house, just studying and going to robotics tournaments. Probably would have failed orgo at Stanford, too.”

“Nah, you would have been fine.” He stretches his legs out a little into the street and brings his glasses to hang beneath his chin before leaning back on his hands.

The sight makes your stomach twist. He still never picked a normal way to take his glasses off but still keep them close by, you realize, and for a moment it is like no time has passed at all. You mourn the years that you missed out on, that he missed out on, because he had always made you feel like a better version of yourself, braver and more exciting, and you find yourself wondering who you would be now if he had simply kept in touch.

You clear your throat a little. The sound makes him glance over at you curiously. “What?”

“Nothing. You have some cream by your mouth.”

“Here?” He wipes at the wrong side. You almost wonder if he’s doing it on purpose. You roll your eyes and wipe it off for him, and then you lick the cream off for good measure. “Hey,” he whines, watching you with wide eyes, “I might have been saving that.”

You dust your own hands off, then, and stand, offering him your arm to help him get up. “You snooze, you lose.”

He matches his stride with yours as you walk back to the car. “You know, you’ve changed, too.” There’s something to his voice that you can’t quite pin down. “Academia roughed you up a little bit.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Ryland holds the car door open for you. “I meant it as a compliment,” he says, almost as an afterthought, and then he closes the door.

--

college, sophomore year

“I just still do not understand pericyclic reactions,” you mumble, staring at the notes sprawled out on the table in front of you. Your drawings are perfect, they always are, but you feel like you’re simply regurgitating the figures without actually understanding them.

Ryland hums from the other side of the booth. He’s on his third cup of coffee, despite the fact that it’s almost one in the morning. “What don’t you get?”

You sigh and rest your head on your hand. “That’s the thing. I don’t even know how to word what I don’t understand. That’s how much I do not get it.”

He sets his pencil down and looks up at you. “Okay. Let’s start with the basics. What makes them different from ionic and free radical reactions?”

“Um…” You rack your brain sluggishly. “They aren’t affected by solvent changes, radical initiators, scavenging reagents, or electrophilic or nucleophilic catalysts. For the most part.”

“Good. That’s one,” he smiles. “There’s two more.”

You fight the urge to look down at your notes. “Okay. Second one…pericyclic reactions—they’re a simultaneous series of bond breaking and making within one kinetic step.” He nods and waits for you to continue. “And. Oh, the obvious one. There are no ionic or free radical intermediates on the reaction path.”

He gives you an enthusiastic thumbs up. “Exactly. Alright, give me the four principle classes.”

“That’s easy. Cycloaddition, electrocyclic, sigmatropic, and ene.”

“Perfect.” The praise makes you feel all tangled up inside. You watch as he tugs some of your notes free, then, and you try not to stare at his fingers for too long. “Point to a cycloaddition reaction.”

You tear your eyes away from his hands to skim the page. “This one.”

“And what’s happening here?”

“Uh. I don’t—I’m not sure,” you finally respond, embarrassed. “I don’t know. It’s fine, I’ll just try to go to office hours—”

Ryland shakes his head. “No. You know it. Just look at your diagrams. They’re really good, by the way.”

A tired smile tugs at your lips as you stare at your drawings a little longer. “I think. It’s…two pi-electron systems, and they combine…to form a new ring with two sigma bonds and two less pi bonds?”

“Yes! I told you that you knew it.” You have to duck your head to hide the warmth on your cheeks. “Now electrocyclic.”

This continues until you’ve gone through all of the different classes. Some of them take you a couple tries, but you eventually get it. “Thank you,” you whisper softly. “You know, you’d make a really great teacher.”

He rubs the back of his head sheepishly after setting your notes down. “I don’t know about that. I think I’d start arguing with a kid. Their parents too, probably. And I didn’t teach you anything, not really. Just helped you see that you already knew it.”

That’s kind of exactly the point you’re trying to make, but you let it go, because your phone lights up. You huff and roll your eyes when you read the text and quickly tap out a response. The reply makes you mutter, “Oh, my god.”

“What’s up?”

You set your phone back down. “Nothing. Just this guy I’ve been talking to. He texted me ‘you up’ and then asked me to come over with a winky face. Super subtle.”

He looks at you, measured and careful. When he speaks, his voice is a little strained. “And are you? Going to go over?”

“Probably not. I don’t know. He’s fine, I guess. A little. Well. He’s in a frat,” you admit.

“Oh. So he’s stupid.”

You laugh and start packing your notes up, because you’re not sure your brain can handle any more organic chemistry for the night. “He’s not that dumb. He’s in finance.”

Ryland snorts at that and starts putting away his own things in his bag. “So he’s really stupid. How’d you meet this guy, anyway?”

“A party,” you shrug. “I went with my roommate. His name’s Drew. The frat guy, not my roommate. But you knew that, you’ve met my roommate. I really need sleep.”

The two of you step out into the night air after paying your bill, and he walks you to the bus stop. He always stands there with you, just in case some creep comes up to you while you’re waiting for the bus to show up. “I don’t think you should go over there,” he blurts.

“Well, yeah, I wasn’t going to. It’s, like, two in the morning, and I have class at nine.”

“I don’t just mean tonight. I mean ever.”

You glance over at him curiously to find that he’s very purposefully looking away. “And why’s that?”

“You deserve someone who can hold a conversation with you. Who doesn’t just text you after midnight to come over. And who can count past ten.”

“I see. Anyone specific come to mind that fits those requirements?”

You’re goading him, and you know it, and you want to see if he knows it, too. The only sounds for a few moments are crickets, the odd car driving by, your footsteps against the pavement. After a while, he mutters, “I don’t know. Just—I don’t know.”

The two of you have arrived at the bus stop, and you just look at him for a second as the bus pulls up, surprisingly on time. “Alright. I’ll text you tomorrow. Thanks again for the help. With the pericyclic reactions.”

“Any time.” He does a little mock salute and then stays standing there while you get on the bus, as it pulls away.

In a fit of frustration, you tell Drew you’ll come over. He kind of is an idiot, but he is surprisingly attentive in bed, and you have to concentrate so your mind doesn’t wander to a different pair of hands, the color blue, the smell of coffee and sour candy.

--

Dr. Lokken isn’t so bad, the more you get to know her. There’s a bit of a cultural divide: she is extremely blunt, always saying the thing that she means even if it’s a little rude, but you find that you don’t mind it much anymore. She has good input on the design for the centrifuge, and she agrees with your opinion that the living quarters should be, well, actually livable for the crew.

At every turn, she makes her disdain for Ryland known. It is immediately obvious to you that she likes him, because you have dealt with the same condition for years.

Her plans to use the astrophage as a radiation shield are inspired, once she gets the advanced copy of the CERN paper confirming the microbe’s super cross-sectionality, and it’s easy enough to add a millimeter-wide layer of it to the ship’s design.

But Stratt insists that it needs to be run by Ryland first.

“So,” he says, looking over the schematics, “you want to add a layer of astrophage to the ship. Okay. So. One problem that comes to mind: they can be killed with a stick. An extremely small stick, to be fair, but a stick nonetheless.”

Dr. Lokken pulls out another stack of paper. “I had my friends at CERN run some tests. Even at near lightspeed, nothing gets past it. We won’t have to worry about physical trauma.”

He keeps looking over it all, and his hesitancy morphs into something akin to an impressed expression. “It wouldn’t take any extra mass,” he mumbles, almost to himself, “since it’s using the fuel itself. Hidden from anything that would make it explode, probably. Hopefully.”

She watches him take this all in until he looks up again. You stay silent, because you know it will work, because you’ve worked through all of this with her yourself, and this is merely a formality. “So? What do you think?”

“I think it’s genius,” he finally replies. She smiles and looks away. You are so tired of this, you think. But then he looks at you, instead of at her, and gives you a small thumbs up. It makes you think of blue gloves, and the scar on your arm, and the photos that still live in your purse, and the yellow lighting of a crappy diner.

--

college, senior year

The basement is positively dingy. Maybe three years ago, this would have been fine, but now it’s just kind of gross. Ryland seems to hold the same opinion. This was supposed to be your victory tour, after the both of you had gotten into grad school, after so many weekends of studying together in that crappy little diner, of keeping your promise to stay friends after going off to college. But the unfinished cement walls are just kind of sad, at this point.

“Proposal,” he murmurs into your ear, dipping his head down so you can hear him, “we take a shot and then we leave.”

“Deal.”

The only thing left is UV Blue. This used to be delicious. Now, you are pretty sure it will just make you throw up, but you down it anyway, shuddering at the way it slides down your throat. Ryland tugs you up the stairs and into the cool night air, and the two of you stumble all over each other on the way to the bar.

Another shot. “To us,” he says triumphantly, “to getting into the PhD.”

It goes down smoother than the last, and you lean against his arm once you’ve set the glass down. “I don’t know what I’ll do without you around,” you slur.

“You’ll be fine.” His arm comes around you, then, and you fight the shiver that rolls down your spin. “We should—let’s go sit down.”

As you slide into the booth across from him, you find yourself staring, at his hair, his glasses, the patchy scruff that’s coming in on his jaw. He’s wearing the periodic table shirt you got him for his birthday last year. When he catches you looking, you smile, wide and sweet and extremely drunk, and then your mouth suddenly twists. “I mean it. I—I just. I don’t know who I am without you.”

“You’re you,” he says simply. “And we’ll stay in touch. We have so far.”

It’s so assured, so definite, the way he says it, that it might as well be a law of the universe. You rest your elbow on the table and stick your pinky up anyway. “Promise?”

His finger curls around yours. “Promise.” You take a long sip of water, then, and glance at the side of the bar, where the photo booth sits. It’s usually out of order, but tonight, apparently, it’s working. He follows your gaze and then smiles. “Let’s do it. I think I owe it to you, anyway.”

You lean your cheek on your hand. You do not bother to hide the love and infatuation that shines out of your eyes. He’s never noticed it so far, anyway. “You remember?”

He snorts. “Of course I do. I think you asked to take pictures at prom, like, every hour.”

You let him tug you out of the booth and across the bar, behind the curtain of the photo booth, your hip pressed into his on the tiny bench. For the first photo, you both make absolutely ridiculous faces, and he gives the camera a thumbs up. The second, the two of you are holding up finger guns to each other. After a moment of consideration, you wrap your arm around his neck and smush your cheek into his for the third, smiling right into the lens. Finally, for the last one you stay smiling, pulling your face away a little, letting him pose however he wants to. You hope that he’s smiling nicely and not making a totally stupid face.

It takes a second for the photos to print once you step out. The first strip is in full color, and the second is in black-and-white. You stare at the fourth frame for a while, because while you’re looking into the camera, he’s staring at you, lips pulled into a wide grin, and you let yourself believe, just for a second, that it means what you want it to mean.

He takes the black-and-white version. “More vintage,” he explains, carefully tucking it into his pocket.

The booth is still open, so the two of you slide back in after getting another round, which will later result in you throwing up into your toilet. “I want a cig,” you mumble after a little while, mouth around the straw of your tequila sunrise.

“Absolutely not.”

You blow a raspberry at him. “No fun. Drew always lets me bum off him.”

His hand tightens around his glass. “Are you still seeing him, then?”

A pssh leaves your lips as you wave a hand. You are very drunk. “Nah. But the sex was great.” This is, most definitely, just to see what his reaction is, and you are extremely pleased when he rolls his eyes as he takes another sip.

“Yeah, I bet.”

The way he says it makes you pause and narrow your eyes at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Your words are sliding into each other.

“The guy was a dick,” he says, as if it is the most obvious thing in the world. He looks at you flatly. You are too busy staring into the blue of his eyes behind his glasses to care. “I doubt he was that concerned with making it good for you.”

“Like you care,” you mutter, swirling the orange liquid in your glass around with the straw.

His brows furrow. “I do. You’re my best friend. You deserve nice things. And that includes. Well.” He has to take a moment to think about what he wants to say next. “You know.”

You look up at him from half-lidded eyes. “I don’t, apparently.”

The next moment is extremely fragile, as you look at each other, as your chest feels like it is about to burst, until he downs the last bit of his drink. “We should head back.”

“…Alright.” So you leave, and he guides you down the uneven sidewalk, all the way to your apartment, and he holds your hair while you puke, and then you tuck him in on the couch before passing out in your bed, holding the photo strip.

--

The Russian scientist, Dmitri, arrives on the Vat. He’s a delight. Very enthusiastic, extremely intelligent, deeply excited to potentially blow things up. You consult on his spin drive design, and it’s ingenious, really. You tag along for the demonstration when it’s finalized. Ryland is incredibly reluctant to hand over some of the astrophage he’s been reproducing.

“You know,” he pouts, clutching the container to his chest, “that giving this much away is like losing out on double the amount next month.”

Stratt plucks it out of his hands and gives it to Dmitri, who happily replies, “This is a good day. Dr. Grace, now I show you my spin drive!” And then he smiles at you and nudges your arm. “Our spin drive. Your engineer, very smart.” Then you’re all bounding up the stairs, filing into the vacuum chamber. Ryland stands right next to you, his arm pressing into yours, as you look at the little spin drive.

Dmitri explains the design and confirms that the ship is far enough from land before ushering all of you out. The chamber is sealed, and then it fires, just for a second, and then it’s done. He has to stop Ryland from trying to go back into the chamber, because the little spin drive just fired off sixty thousand Newtons of force, which means the chamber is very, very hot. You’re glad it worked and that the entire ship hadn’t just been vaporized.

“Good,” Stratt finally comments. “This is the prototype, I assume? When will the real thing be ready?”

The Russian scientist points to the screen, where the video feed of the drive is displayed. “Is the real thing. We put one thousand and nine on the ship, for redundancy. Your engineer,” he says, clapping you on the shoulder, “calculate how many we need, the size that fit into ship but maintain functionality. Very good. I buy her a drink later.”

You almost try to tell him that the alcohol is pretty much free here, but he walks away to join the rest of his team before you can. Stratt leaves shortly after, and then it’s just you and Ryland, staring at a hunk of melted metal on the screen. “So that’s what you’ve been doing,” he finally mumbles. “Helping with this. For Dmitri.”

“It’s pretty cool, right?” You’re still looking at the spin drive, at this little marvel of engineering and pure energy. “He’s kind of a genius.”

He’s quiet for a few moments. “…Sure. A genius who could have caused a tsunami and killed everyone on board. I still want my astrophage back.”

You smile and pat him on the arm. “Our astrophage, you mean.” It’s meant as a stupid reference to that communism meme, but he huffs, because he’s been spending most of his time painstakingly breeding the little microbes. “Lighten up. That was pretty cool. And he needs the rest of it to test the spin drives.”

When you glance over at him, you find that he’s not looking at the screen anymore. “Let’s go get a drink,” he blurts. “To celebrate not being annihilated just now.”

“Sure.”

You follow him as he leads you to the lounge, and he orders you a tequila sunrise without asking. “Sorry. I don’t even know if you still drink these.” You don’t, really, but you take it anyway. “I imagine they don’t have UV Blue on here.”

Even the name of that alcohol makes you gag. “I hope not. I’d probably throw up just at the smell.”

He smiles and takes a sip of his beer. “What is your shot of choice, now?”

“I don’t really do shots at this point. Now that I’m not in school anymore.” He raises an eyebrow, peering at you over the tops of his glasses. “Okay, fine, um…” You glance over the shelves of liquor bottles behind the bar. “If I was forced to do one, maybe a green tea shot.”

Ryland gives you a mischievous smile and then waves the bartender over. The two of you down the shot, and you laugh as his nose wrinkles. “That,” he chokes out, “does not taste like green tea. At all.”

You giggle as you wipe your mouth. You can’t even remember the last time you giggled like that. “No, it doesn’t. But it’s still tasty.”

He looks at you flatly. “It really isn’t.”

“Sorry.” You lay a hand on his arm without really thinking about it. “I forgot I was talking to the guy who brewed mead in his basement once.”

“For science,” he clarifies. “Always for science.”

A couple more rounds are ordered. He tells you about his classroom, back in San Francisco, his students; and you detail your publications, working at JPL; and you can almost, almost forgive him for disappearing.

At one point, he’s staring at your left hand, holding his third beer. “I thought—weren’t you engaged?”

“I was,” you admit. The realization that he stalked your socials, just like you had with his for a while, gets pushed away. “That didn’t work out. Obviously. He didn’t want to relocate, when I landed the job.”

He searches your face for a moment. “His loss,” he murmurs.

You bring your drink to your lips, if only to have something to do. “What about you? Did you ever get back with—Linda, that was her name, right?”

The hand holding his bottle tightens, just barely. “No. We. No,” he repeats. “We did not. And I haven’t—it’s been a while.”

“Wow. Impressive.”

He scoffs. “What’s that supposed to mean.”

A playful smile dances on your lips as you mess with the rim of your glass. “Nothing, nothing. Just—you dated around a lot, for a while. I’m pretty sure I called you a slut for it.”

“And a man-whore,” he points out. “Which was—probably fair.”

The two of you are quiet for a little while, then, for the first time that evening. You hadn’t known that he’d never gotten back with Linda, because that had been after—well. It was around the time that he had stopped responding to your texts and calls. And he’d never been very good at updating his social media accounts. You’re fairly certain that the last time you’d checked his Facebook, it said they were still together. To be fair, that had been years ago. But. Still.

You desperately want to ask him the question that has been tormenting you this whole time.

You do not. “I should probably head back to my room. Not as young as I used to be,” you joke. “I’m already tired.”

He nods after a moment. “I’ll walk you back.”

And he does, all the way to your tiny shoebox of a room. He asks if you need to throw up. You do not, but you still laugh anyway, and then he closes the door behind him as he leaves.

The photo strip is still in your purse. You do not take it out.

--

grad school – ABD

God, there are so many things you need to do before this weekend—clean, grocery shop, plan activities, the list goes on—and he still hasn’t given you his ETA for Friday. It’s supposed to be the belated celebration for both of you passing your quals, and you want to make sure that it’s fun, particularly because you hardly get to see him anymore.

You decide you’ll start with cleaning. Maybe you’ll take him to the bar your cohort likes to go to every month, although it’s a little pretentious. Perhaps a weekend in would be better, rent some movies, pick up a bottle of wine (or two).

When you shut the vacuum off, you pull your phone out to see a notification from him. Perfect, hopefully this is him finally letting you know when he plans to start driving—

You stare at the text for a while. ‘Please don’t hate me, I got my dates mixed up and Linda wants me to meet her parents…’

This is fine. It is not, actually, but it’s fine. He does this a lot. He’s become much more scatterbrained since starting the PhD. It makes sense. It’s a lot of stress, and deadlines, and papers, and conferences, and. And.

After a little while, you slowly tap out, ‘no worries, I can check my calendar and see when another good weekend is.’

--

Ryland misses lunch. And then you find that he’s not in his lab, when you go to check on him later. No one’s seen him when you ask around, and you know that he’s not on a trip with Stratt, because you just saw her an hour ago.

You make your way to his room. He might just be sick, or catching up on sleep, because he hasn’t been getting a lot of that recently. When you get there, you rap on his door, three quick knocks, followed by two, then one, so he knows that it’s you.

After a few seconds, he calls out, “It’s open.”

He’s lying on his little bunk, in jeans and t-shirt, the one with the cat and the Golden Gate bridge that he’d bought from a tourist shop when you’d gone on college visits. It’s like he had gotten dressed and ready for the day, and then just. Laid back down to stare at the ceiling. “Everything alright? You missed lunch, and no one’s seen you, so I just—are you sick, or something?”

“No,” he exhales. “No. I’m fine.”

He is most definitely not. You cross the room, closing the door behind you, and sit on the edge of the bed to look him over. His eye bags are a deep purple. You’re not sure the last time he washed his hair. It’s taking a toll on him, you think, the comas and the planned suicides and Antarctica and paving the Sahara, because Stratt consults him on each and every one of these decisions. You haven’t had very strong feelings about her, really—she’s in a difficult position, and this was all about saving humanity—but in this moment, you kind of hate her.

You don’t tell him any of this. Instead, you run a comforting hand over his arm, and his eyes slip shut, causing a tear to slide down the side of his cheek. Something inside you urges you to wipe it away. You do not.

“You want to talk about it?” You ask, gently.

“Not particularly, no.”

“Alright.”

You keep rubbing his arm, because you don’t really know what else to do. After a while, he sits up, hunched over to keep his head from hitting the top of the bunk, and you scooch in a little so you can sit next to him. “Sorry. I’m okay. Really.” He wipes at his eyes with the heel of his palm.

“It’s okay if you’re not.” Your arm settles around his shoulder, then, and he leans his head against it gratefully.

The two of you sit there like that, until suddenly he laughs a little. “Sorry, I’m just—sometimes I still can’t believe that you’re here.”

The way he says it makes you think that he might be working up to finally explain why he vanished from your life. You don’t know how you know this, but you do, with complete certainty, and it makes you realize that you’re not even sure you want to hear it anymore. You were so angry, and sad, and frustrated, for so long, and you are simply tired, and you don’t want to be mad at him again, not when you’ve gotten him back. So you squeeze your arm and murmur, “Well. I am.”

He lifts his head, slow, so slow, and tilts it to look at you. The look—you know this look. And you cannot do this again. You cannot be the thing he settles for, the thing he goes to for comfort, because you still have only ever been able to say no to him once in your entire life.

“You should eat. Let’s go get you some food.”

You help him out of his bunk and walk with him to the mess, sitting with him while he eats, filling the air with nonsense chatter as the color slowly returns to his face. He goes back to his room after to sleep, and you go to yours, perched on the edge of your bed, staring at your purse.

--

postdoc

It is absolutely pouring outside, which means the gutter is probably flooding again, because the landlord still hasn’t fixed it. You cannot wait until you can find a new place for next year, one a little farther from campus, quieter and somewhat livable.

You close your laptop with a sigh. There are simply too many things to do: lab reports to look over, assignments to grade—because the postdoc came with a 1-1 load, and the teaching experience is nice, you suppose, but it’s a bit much—but it’s close to midnight, and you want to get up early tomorrow to prep for your meeting with the department head in the afternoon.

You’re standing in your crappy little kitchen, drinking a glass of water, when there’s a knock on your door. Probably some drunk undergrads, you think, so you decide to ignore it.

And then there’s three quick knocks, then two, then one.

You set the glass down with a shaking hand and slowly walk over to the door.

“Surprise?” Ryland says weakly. He is soaked to the bone and shivering, so you usher him inside and then run to the bathroom to grab some towels, all before you even say anything. “Thanks,” he mumbles as you wrap the cotton around him. “Sorry for. Well. Kind of. Showing up here without saying anything.”

You guide him to your thrifted couch and have him sit. For a split second, you think about laying another towel down, but it’s really not that great of a couch, so you decide not to bother. “It’s fine. What’s going on?”

He sighs and takes his glasses off, trying to dry them off with the edge of the towel. “Just wanted to see you,” he finally responds.

“…Okay?” You know that this isn’t the full reason, because even if he’s been pretty shit at responding to your texts recently, you know him, probably better than you’ve ever known yourself. But you don’t push for it, simply waiting for him to tell you.

Another sigh. “They want me to take an extra year. To ‘shore up’ my dissertation.” Oh. You knew he’d been starting to have problems, butting heads with some of the faculty, but you didn’t realize it was this bad. “Linda broke up with me, also.”

You carefully sit next to him and hesitate, just for a moment, before wrapping an arm around him, even though he’s already starting to soak through the towel. “I’m sorry. Did she give you a reason?”

He shrugs. The movement is utterly defeated. “Said I had my head in the clouds. Always thinking about something else, never really there. Which is true, probably.”

This was the one girlfriend of his that you’d never met, so you don’t actually know the full context, but it seems like an unfair thing to say to someone who’s trying to finish their dissertation. “Sorry,” you repeat. There’s not really much else to say. “Do you want to take a shower, or something? At least change? I think I still have one of your old shirts.”

“Yeah,” he nods. “That would be. Yeah.” When he looks at you, his eyes are bloodshot and puffy, and his lips are still a little blue from being out in the rain. It hurts, it’s always hurt to see him like this, so you stand and dig through your closet to find his old t-shirt that you stole back in undergrad, plus a pair of sweatpants that don’t fit you, and then you direct him to your bathroom.

While he rinses off, you dig out two wine glasses and grab a bottle from the back of your fridge. You give him a hefty pour, and then you shrug and give yourself one, too. There’s not really any snacks that would ‘pair’ well with it, so you settle for a bag of chips.

When he comes out, his hair is still wet because you’d only had one clean, dry towel left, and it drips onto his glasses and his shoulders. He plops down next to you and then downs the glass in one go before pouring himself another. “I hate to ask this after showing up here unannounced. But. Could I, possibly—”

“Yeah,” you answer, before he even finishes the question. “You can crash on the couch. How’d you get here, by the way?”

“Flew. Then took an Uber from the airport.” He starts to munch on the chips, washing them down with wine every few bites. Yikes. He is not doing great. Also, if he got an Uber, then why was he…? He must have stood outside of your door for a while, you realize, working up the guts to knock.

Well. This is an unexpected turn of events, and it feels awful to see him doing so poorly, but you are also, secretly, extremely happy to see him, so you take a long swig of your wine. “Want to watch a movie? Or play a game, or something?”

He leans back on the couch, evidently done with the chips. “You can put on whatever.”

You decide to pull up a show that you know he likes making fun of, but he barely ends up watching it, because he forces you to update him on everything that’s happened since you last saw each other. This takes a while—which makes something clench in your chest, because it means it has simply been that long—and between the two of you, the bottle is finished by the time you catch him up to speed, and a few mixed drinks on top of that, too.

Ryland’s smiling, and his cheeks are dusted red from the alcohol, and you have missed him so much. “Look at you, little miss JPL,” he grins. “Moving up in the world.”

“Like I said, it was just a good conversation at a conference. But. Yeah. I feel pretty good about it. Would be nice to be back in California.”

His grin turns into a sly little thing. There’s a flip in your stomach. “Yeah? How come?”

“Oh, you know. The weather’s pretty good out there.”

He starts tapping his fingers against his thumb on each hand, like he’s a crab. Oh, no, not this, you think with a smile. “There’s no other reason? None at all?”

You start to inch away from him on the couch as he moves closer, still holding his hands up. “The food is pretty good, too—no, not that, Ryland,” you giggle, because now he’s tickling you, and he knows all the exact spots that make you squirm and shriek with laughter.

“I’ll stop when you say the real—reason—”

“Never,” you gasp, and he intensifies his efforts. “Okay, okay! It would be nice to live in the same state again. There, happy?”

“Mm-hm,” he hums, hovering above you—you’re not even sure when that happened—and his hands are still on your sides. Blue eyes search yours as his glasses start to slip down the bridge of his nose. You think you could pick out the hex code of his eyes without even trying. “I missed you,” Ryland murmurs. “A lot.”

It’s. You think you understand what is happening right now. And you want it, so, so badly, because you have wanted it for over a decade, at this point.

But it’s—not like this. You don’t want it like this, when he is drunk, and sad, and freshly single. You cannot let down the young girl inside of you like that, who pined over him for years, who imagined some giant, romantic gesture, who only ever wanted to feel truly loved.

“You should sleep,” you finally say. Something breaks in his gaze, just before he closes his eyes and nods, sitting back on the couch. You grab an extra blanket and a pillow and tuck him in, just like you would when he would crash at your place in college, and you set a glass of water and an ibuprofen pill on the table for him to have in the morning. “Good night, Ryland.”

He’s already asleep, because he had definitely drunk much more of the wine than you had. You gently slide his glasses off and fold them up, putting them next to the water. Then you just—look at him, for a little while, at the way his lashes rest on his flushed cheeks, the slight parting of his lips, the way his chest rises and falls. An unknown amount of time passes like this before you head to bed.

It is the last time you see him.

--

You head to Baikonur ahead of everyone else, because someone needs to oversee the final phase of construction, make sure the safety checks go smoothly, coordinate with the engineers on the ground.

It is insanely boring.

Ryland emails you, at first, and then you think he must get Stratt to give him a satellite phone, because then he calls you almost every day. Most of the time it’s not really about anything at all, just talking about your days, random anecdotes from the time the two of you didn’t speak, reminiscing about high school or college.

You send him a picture of the finished gold plaques. It’s beautiful, he replies. Everything you make is always so beautiful.

Then, finally, the people that have stayed on the project arrive in Kazakhstan, and it is like he is a clingy cat that you’ve left at home over a vacation, because he is practically glued to your side. He comes with you for safety checks, and you hang out in his trailer to do paperwork, and sometimes he falls asleep on your couch.

Construction screeches to a halt during a particularly bad week of storms during the rainy season—it’s record precipitation, probably a consequence of both the astrophage as well as the methane the project released into the atmosphere when they nuked Antarctica—and the two of you are holed up in your trailer. On the first day of rain, all you could think about was your shitty postdoc apartment, an empty bottle of wine, a shirt and sweatpants neatly folded up in a pile on your couch. Now, after a few days, you can simply allow it to be rain and nothing else.

“What do you think you’ll do? After the launch,” you ask idly, because you have been staring at paperwork for so long that the words are starting to swim off the page. You toss the stack onto the table and kick your feet up.

He shrugs next to you on the couch, still looking at the paper in his lap and periodically writing something down. “Probably go back to my kids, keep teaching. You?”

You sigh thoughtfully and look out the window. It’s difficult to see anything further than five feet from the trailer. “JPL, I guess. But. I don’t know—I think I might have had enough of rockets and spaceships for a lifetime.”

“That’s…understandable.” He does one last signature before putting the stack on the table, shifting on the couch so he can face you, resting his elbow against the back cushions and laying his temple against his knuckles. “What would you do? Instead of that.”

“Might be nice to just do some art, for a while. Try to relax. I don’t know.”

You’re about to lightly comment that the Bay Area has a pretty good art scene, because you are not letting him leave your life again, but then he suddenly says, “I stopped because I’m a mess.”

“Um. Okay?”

He takes his glasses off and rubs his face. “Sorry, that didn’t. I meant to have a build up to that, which happened in my head instead of out loud, so that didn’t make any sense. Okay.” He takes a deep breath and looks at you, so earnest and open, that you can’t find it in you to say anything to that even if you wanted to. “I was a mess, then. Objectively speaking. And you—I was—when I—gosh, this is going terribly.”

You lean forward, taking your feet off the table, to put a soothing hand on his elbow. “You don’t have to—”

“But I do, though,” he interrupts, sharply, and your eyes widen a fraction. “Sorry, I’m just. You were doing so well. The dissertation award, and the postdoc, and JPL, and I was—I was being me, doing things before I was ready, and.” He has to clear his throat to keep speaking. “And I didn’t want to drag you down with me. Because that’s what I do to you.”

A few moments pass, while you wait to see if there’s anything else, before you speak slowly. “Alright. And it never occurred to you to ask what I wanted?”

He blinks at that and shifts uncomfortably. “Well. That’s not. I didn’t want to—you—no. I guess not.”

“Okay. It’s my turn to talk now, then.” Ryland nods, looking a little ashamed of himself. “I was devastated. Genuinely devastated. I almost got fired from my job, because I couldn’t sleep, and I stopped showing up to meetings, and—”

“I’m sorry,” he tries to interrupt, but you hold a hand up.

“Not done. I spent the whole time wondering what I did wrong, if it was because I didn’t let you kiss me that night, even though I would have hated myself for it, because—because—I have loved you, I have been in love with you, probably since middle school, and I could not let myself be the thing that you settled for, and that’s fine.” God, you’re starting to cry, and it is embarrassing and annoying. “I made peace with that, a long time ago, because I literally could not picture my life without you in it. And then you left.”

You would like to keep going, but sobs are starting to heave out of your chest, and he wraps you up in his arms as you shake. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he whispers, over and over again, into your hair. “You—you love me?”

“Ryland,” you sniffle. You wipe your snot on his shirt, because at this point he deserves it. “It is, quite literally, the most obvious thing about me.”

He gently grabs your shoulders, then, and pushes you back, just a little, so he can see you. His hands are shaking as he wipes off your tears, as he reverently holds your face, even as he brings you forward and kisses you, and it tastes like salt and coffee and sour candy.

There is a single moment where you let it happen, where you kiss him back, where you sigh into his mouth as his thumb smooths over your cheekbone, and then you pull away. “I’m not—I’m not doing this, if it’s not—”

“It is,” he rushes out. “It is.” Ryland breathes out your name, then, and it sends a shiver skittering down your spine. “It always has been. You. It’s just been you.”

“Then why? Why now, why not before, why—”

His hands start to smooth over your hair, your neck, your shoulders, as if they cannot stop touching you now that they have started, and it is both exactly how you imagined and entirely new. “Because I am an idiot. The world’s biggest idiot. If I could—I would do everything so different, if I just—I,” and then, apparently, he decides that words are simply not working for him, because he tugs you toward him again.

You let it happen, this time, kissing him as if everything inside of you is finally pouring out, and you don’t know how you’ve been keeping it all there this whole time. His fingers grasp at your shirt, and you bring your own hands up to slide them through his hair as you lick into his mouth. The sounds, the sounds he is making, you think you could live off of them alone and simultaneously never have enough of them.

It is not the most comfortable thing, when you clamber onto his lap, and you simply do not care. You need to be close, as close as possible, right now, because you have been waiting and waiting and waiting for this for two decades, and you cannot go a single second longer without it.

You whine into his lips as you grind down onto him. The groan he lets out sears itself into your mind, so you keep doing it, keep dragging yourself against him as his hands squeeze your sides, still kissing him, still crying a little, until he leans back. “I want—” He sucks a breath in through his teeth, then, because you’ve dropped your head down to bite and suck mark after mark onto his neck. “Bed, please, I would really like to do this on a real bed.”

Frankly, you would probably be willing to do this outside in the pouring rain if it meant that it would happen right this second, but you nod—after another mark—and he shifts around so he can plant his feet on the ground, grabbing your hips, and then he stands and carries you all the way to your bedroom.

When he lays you down, it is so gentle, so kind, so loving, that you think you might start crying all over again, but he climbs over you before you can, tracing his hands fervently over your body and sighing into your mouth. You tug at his shirt impatiently. There are still entirely too many clothes in this equation. He pulls it off, and then he tugs down your pants, and then he’s back to kissing you. It is messy and awkward: your teeth clack against each other, and his glasses are digging into your nose, and it is all so perfect.

One of his hands slowly slides underneath the hem of your shirt. It is like he is mentally mapping every curve and line of your body, but finally his fingers slip beneath your bra, pushing it up with the back of his hand. “Oh,” you gasp, as his thumb starts to gently circle over the bud of your nipple. “Please, I want to—just—please, Ryland.”

You never actually said what it is that you wanted, but he knows, of course, and he shakes his head as he starts to slide down, pressing his mouth against your jaw, your neck, your collarbone, lifting your shirt and bra up all the way. “No. I have been—for so long—I’m going to take my time.”

And he does, and it is infuriating and intoxicating, the way he slowly kisses and nips and licks your stomach, your ribs, your chest. By the time he’s laving his tongue over the peak of your breast, you are about ready to burst, but he still maintains this torturously slow pace. One of his hands dances down until it rests at the apex of your thighs so you can grind against it, a kind of peace offering for his unhurried movements.

It’s possible, you manage to string together in your mind, that you could come just like this, rutting against his hand and arching into his mouth. It is unclear—though it probably shouldn’t be—how he senses this, because then he starts moving down again until he’s resting in between your legs, pushing up his glasses so he can see the soft expanse of your body, even in the low light. “I’m ready, I swear I’m ready,” you beg, squirming against the sheets, “you don’t have to do this, we can just. Please.”

Ryland looks up at you as he pulls your underwear down, lifting your leg so he can slide it off on the one side, not even bothering with the other. His hands wrap around your thighs. “I told you, back then. You deserve nice things. Including this.” His head rests against your leg, and he stares at you pleadingly. “Please let me give this to you.”

You finally nod. You can’t say no to him. At least, in this, he is granting you some amount of mercy, because when he brings his mouth to your cunt, it is not slow or teasing. Your eyes squeeze shut as he utterly devours you, filling the room with the sounds of your moans and the obscene wetness of him sucking at your clit. It is—he is very good at this, and a thought momentarily flashes in your brain, that he’s done this, practiced this, with people that are not you. It does not take much effort to push that thought away.

One of his fingers slides inside of you, then a second, and you feel every inch, every centimeter of it, of the hands and fingers that you spent years staring at and fantasizing about. You clench around them, and he genuinely whines at the feeling. It makes you open your eyes and thread your fingers into his hair, grasping tightly, so you can grind against his tongue. “Just like that,” you gasp. His eyes flick up to yours, and you can still see the blue of them, even with the lights off. “I’m so—I’m already—wanted this for so long, it’s not my fault.” You’re babbling, at this point, but neither of you really care.

So he keeps going, and going, and going, licking and teething and sucking at your clit, never faltering in his rhythm, letting you guide his face against your wetness. He wants you to come, so badly, not just to give you this nice thing that you deserve, but also because he wants to know what it feels like to be buried inside of you. This is it, this is the thought that does it for you; your fingers tighten in his hair, and your thighs squeeze around him, and your head tips back against the pillow as you whine and cry out, and he keeps going through all of it.

In fact, he doesn’t stop, even after you start to come down from it. You twitch from the overstimulation. “Ryland—”

“I think you could come again,” he mumbles into your cunt, “just like this. Want to taste it.”

Jesus Christ. “Probab-ly, fuck, yes, I probably could, but it’s not. If you aren’t inside me in the next thirty seconds, I am going to lose it.”

The speed with which he moves and kicks off his pants and underwear could probably break the sound barrier. You sit up quickly to take off your shirt and bra, both because it is a little uncomfortable and because you’d like to feel every inch of your skin against his.

When he settles between your legs again, brushing his cock through your slickness, his eyes look like they’re watery again. “Sorry, it’s just—it’s a lot,” he huffs, wiping at his tears before bracing his hand against the bed by your hip again.

You grab his hand. “I know. I know.”

Ryland keeps looking at you, roaming over your body, blinking like he still can’t quite believe that this is happening. He brings his eyes back up to yours, and then, finally, finally, he is pushing himself inside of you, and you force yourself to keep your eyes open, to hold his gaze as his hips meet yours.

It is—it is—there is nothing, there are no words that can effectively communicate the feeling. It is just you, and him, and the rain pattering against the windows, his hand underneath yours against the sheets.

“Love you, so—so much, for so long,” he stutters and groans out, dragging against your walls, “since—I don’t even know when, that’s how long—please touch yourself, I can’t, I’m the same, not going to be able to—”

You bring your other hand to your clit, fingers trying to match the stilting rhythm with which he drives into you, over and over and over again. “Please, just like that, it’s so good, you are—I love you,” and you can feel him twitch inside of you at the words, can see the way his abdominal muscles ripple and tighten.

He leans down to kiss you—it’s barely a kiss, really, more just the two of you breathing and whispering and babbling into each other’s mouths—and you keep circling at that little bundle of nerves, and when he shifts your leg, just a little, a moan catches in your throat, strangled, because suddenly the angle is just right.

You come again, just like this, letting yourself get lost in the stretch of him, crying out into his mouth, and he swallows up every sound, telling you that you’re perfect, so beautiful, that you feel so good around him. “Come—here—” You choke out, even as your orgasm is still cascading through you, grabbing at his shoulders and tugging him down.

He wraps his arms around your torso and buries his face into your neck. His hips start to move again, and you slide one hand down his back and the other into his hair, mumbling and cooing and begging in his ear, telling him that you love him, that you need to feel him come inside you, just like this. “Oh, god,” he groans at that, and he does, he spills inside you just like that, with a broken cry muffled into your skin.

The two of you lay there for a moment, breathing in the other, slowly, reverently. He shifts after a while to lay on his side and pulls you with him, and he strokes your hair and kisses you, again and again and again.

“Not going anywhere,” Ryland murmurs into you. “I’m right here.”

He’s not. You will not let that happen again. So you nod, and then you roll him onto his back, because you have no plans to let him sleep tonight. It is the least he can do, after all the shit he’s put you through.

--

epilogue

Periodic table shirt, the one you got him for his birthday. Golden Gate Bridge shirt from the tourist shop. His canvas shoes that look like they haven’t been cleaned, ever. Skittles. Some pants. His little crocheted Earth.

All of it and more is put into the soft-sided container methodically, robotically, even as salty tears pour and pour and pour.

He is leaving. He has already left, really, and once again he’s done it without saying goodbye.

You carry it outside once it’s full. Your feet do not take you to the little makeshift headquarters. Instead, you go to your trailer, and you open your purse, and you take out the strip of photos, because his black-and-white version is hung up in his apartment.

Ryland wore a white tank top under a leather jacket with “Miami Vice Stunt Team” written on the back of it. With it, he wore light wash jeans, leather shoes, and a pair of sunglasses sat on his head instead of his usual metal rimmed prescription glasses.

Everything he wore screamed that either Ryland was going through an identity crisis, had a doppelganger, or was possessed. Even his usual stubble looked fuller, and darker, than usual, and his hair looked dyed rather than a natural blond—you scolded yourself for noticing even the tiniest discrepancies about your colleague.

“Ry…land?” You call again, uncertain if you should panic. He opened his mouth to respond when you hear another set of footsteps approach the classroom.

You instinctively turn, only to find Ryland. Your eyes widen while he calls your name, his hands resting on his hips. “Hey. Sorry, I was in the bathroom. What’s up?”

He seems to not notice the other presence in the room yet. That, or he’s okay with having a doppelganger. Ryland’s brows knit when he notices your gaze looking between him and the front of the room.

“Wh…?” He begins before following your eyes. His face falls just as his hands do. He begins walking with haste towards fake Ryland, who places “lava” back down and begins waving with a grin.

“What are you doing here?” He asks in a hushed tone between gritted teeth, though you can still hear him.

“You said I could come by anytime!” The fake Ryland exclaimed, still with a grin, and open arms.

“Not while I’m at work!”

“Come on, at least hug your brother. Don’t you miss me?” He places his hands on Ryland’s shoulders, then pauses. “Did you wash your hands?”

Ryland couldn’t help but scoff out a laugh, a smile appearing on his lips. “Stop it.”

He stretches out his arms to embrace his brother(…?), who taps his back twice in return before pulling away.

You hug the folder of your report to your chest as you slowly approach them. “What is going on?”

Ryland turns to you and rests his hands on his waist again, remembering that you have no clue of what is happening. He begins, “Right—”

“I’m so sorry. Where are my manners?” The other Ryland starts before the original can continue, holding out his hand as he approaches. “Colt Seavers, pleased to meet you.”

You take your report in one hand to shake his hand and absentmindedly introduce yourself as well.

“He’s my twin,” Ryland points at Colt before his hand returns to his waist. Your brows furrow again.

“How…?”

“The last names?” Colt voices out your thoughts; it was probably something often questioned. “We were sort of “Parent Trapped.” Difference is, our parents just separated and decided their pride was more important than us having the same last name.”

“Okaaay,” You respond and nod slowly, then turn to Ryland with a pointed finger. “How come I didn’t know you had a twin?”

“We don’t really get together often, he’s always off in other countries with…what’s his name?”

“Tom Ryder.” Your eyes widen.

“The Tom Ryder?” He nods, gesturing towards himself.

“I’m his stuntman.”

“I thought he did his own stunts? I heard he’s a dick,” your thoughts spill out of your mouth before you can stop yourself.

“I…legally, I cannot comment on that,” Colt remarks while nodding his head with a snort. You can’t help but chuckle at his ‘subtle’ agreement.

Ryland forces a chuckle while glancing between the two of you before his gaze settles on his twin. “Go home, Colt.”

“Home is in LA,” he retorts. “We’re shooting in town, I got a day off since Tom won’t be doing stunts today. Decided since I have nothing else to do, I was gonna visit my little brother!”

Colt reaches for Ryland to ruffle his hair which the latter quickly evades.

“Well, unlike you, I have work to do.” Ryland fixes his hair before motioning towards the stacks of paper on his desk. “So, you can wait for me at the apartment or…go somewhere else.”

He grabs his bag and fishes around for his keys, tossing them to Colt.

“You sure you don’t want me to wait for you?” Colt twirled the key ring around his index finger before grasping the keys in his fist. “The thought of you cycling home makes me sad.”

Ryland flashed a brief, fake smile. “Thanks for the concern, but I’ll be fine.”

“Which…I forgot—” He takes the keys back to get the keys for his bicycle.

“No, I wasn’t concerned,” He corrects Ryland as he is given back the keys.

“I actually feel sad for you that you only have a bicycle.” Ryland’s mouth falls before he rolls his eyes and turns away.

Colt cocks his head towards you while pocketing the keys, “What about you, gorgeous?”

Ryland faces his twin again and closes his eyes as his palms come together, the tips of his fingers pointing towards him. “Please don’t flirt with my colleagues.”

“I’m good.” You nod with a smile as you absentmindedly respond to Ryland. You snap out of it, drop the dazed smile, and shake your head before turning to Colt. “I mean, I’m good, Mr Seavers. I have a car.”

He motions towards you and whips his head towards Ryland. “See how they have a car? Just let me buy you one, Ry.”

Ryland shakes his head profusely while Colt returns his attention to you. “And please, call me Colt. In fact—!”

He walks towards Ryland’s desk to grab a pen.

“What are you doing?” Ryland follows him as he grabs one of the pieces of paper from the desk. “No—Stop, that’s my lesson plan.”

Ryland scratches his head as Colt pauses from his writing, looking at his twin with a guilty look on his face before continuing to write. He folds the paper to only show what he wrote, placing down the pen before giving it to you.

“Just call me.” He winks before patting Ryland on the shoulder. You can tell how heavy his hand was by how Ryland winced. “I’ll see you at home, Grace-y!”

Colt walks past you to leave the classroom while your hand remains raised, holding the folded piece of paper with Colt’s number on it. Your gaze trails his movements until he is out of sight.

Ryland sighs, looking at the paper in your hands while you turn back to him. “Now I’m gonna have to reprint that.”

“Cute,” you mutter while Ryland walks towards the other side of his desk, arranging his papers. His head immediately tilts up to look at you.

“Our mom says I'm definitely cuter,” he says like a child seeking validation from an adult.

“Oh, for sure.” You can’t help the surprised upturn of your lips; you were talking about the nickname, but you didn’t have the heart to tell him.

“You don't have to call him, by the way. He's just like that sometimes,” he mutters as if unsure of what he was saying.

You shrug, ready to tease, slowly walking towards his desk while looking at the piece of paper.

“I don't know. I might, after I submit our reports,” you ponder before looking at him. “Which, speaking of, you've done, l assume?”

He begins to shake his head before he’s even thought about it. “No, I'm not done. I need to revise mine, could probably take a while. I also need to reprint that page.”

You follow his gaze and look at the paper in your hands before you slide it into your pocket.

“Okay.” You raise a brow and hide your bemused smile behind your folder. “I'll just submit mine first, then.”

You turn on your heel to leave the room.

“Sure. Could I, uh, borrow your phone?” You pivot to face him again at the odd request. “My phone's dead and I just need to make a call or...block a number.”

You pretend not to hear his last words as he mutter them under his breath. Your eyebrows raise as you bend slightly at the waist to get closer. “What was that?”

He waves a dismissive hand and turns back to his paper as if the matter meant little to him. “Nevermind. I'll just borrow Colt's. Block you on his cell.”

You think Kara must have been taking it easy on you in the beginning, because as your relationship develops, you find it harder and harder to keep up with her in bed.

For instance, she was slotted between your legs, where she had been for nearly an hour. The room reeked of sex. You were dripping sweat, your hair a mess on the pillow behind you, in need of a break thirty minutes ago.

In between your thighs was a mess.

Kara was priding herself in how undone you were beneath her with simply her mouth and her fingers.

She kissed each of your thighs before making her way up your body, leaving a soft trail of kisses.

When she finally hovered over you again, she pressed her lips onto hours so harshly it made you gasp.

“Kara,” you breathed out, trying to get a word in.

“Mmhmmm,” she hummed, barely disconnecting your lips from hers. Her hand came up and squeezed your breast, making you arch up against her bare chest.

“Baby,” you placed your hand on her chest, pushing slightly, although you were no match for her strength, “I need a break.”

She immediately froze, tilting her head, “a break?”

Her hand was still firmly on your boob, she tended to keep her hands there often, so you didn’t think much of it.

“Yes, I’m going to pass out,” you threw your head back against the pillow, holding her gaze, “I came like four times in the past hour.”

“Only four?” She said with a smirk, making you roll your eyes.

“We haven’t even pulled the strap out yet, and you’re already bailing on me?” She asked with a smile.

You scoffed.

She leaned down and kissed your neck, “I think you can do one more for me,” she whispered against your skin, making you shiver.

She began kissing down your body, and before you knew it, she was back between your thighs.

You took a shaky breath as she smiled and licked her lips, her fingers touching your thighs lightly and teasingly.

Her finger grazed your wet folds and your body immediately jolted.

You would have been embarrassed for having such a physical reaction if you weren’t already so beat.

Everything was sensitive, every kiss, every breath, every word, was going right to your core.

She placed a hand over your lower stomach and looped her free arm under your thigh and gripped hard enough that you were held in place.

You were moaning her name softly before she even made contact with your core. The second she slipped her finger through your slick there were immediate fireworks inside you.

“Oh fuck Kara,” you whined, gripping the sheets until your knuckles were white

She hummed in response to the sound of her name on your tongue.

You could feel your orgasm building from the second she pressed her tongue to your clit. You jolted, but luckily for her super strength the lower half of your body didn’t move an inch. She smiled proudly at that.

The feeling of her tongue moving slowly up and down over your clit while her fingers explored the inside of your walls made you dizzy. The overstimulation of the past four orgasms was borderline painful, but in a blissful way.

Your body was trembling as she continued her pace.

“Kara, please, I can’t,” you begged. The coil inside of you had snapped so many times in the past hour you were sure to black out if it did it again.

Her grip on your thigh tightened, not letting it close around her head like you wanted it to, she stopped her movements and looked up at you, “you can, and you will.”

You whined, her voice was low and vibrated through you.

She didn’t leave any room for discussion, returning right back to what she was doing before. She worked harder with his tongue over your clit, again and again.

She released your thigh, allowing them to clasp against her, keeping them apart with just her head. Your eyes watched her movements, as her hand slipped between her body and the bed to touch herself.

Your moans and the mess between your thighs was driving her to a point of insanity that she could no longer fight. Her fingers rubbed over her clit, making her moan against you.

Your moans grew louder and more desperate as she curved her fingers, driving you insane. You arched your back and your thighs began to tremble even harder.

“Kara, god, if you keep doing that I’m gonna—”

before you could finish she slipped another finger inside of you causing you to nearly scream out in pleasure.

You carded your hands into her messy blonde hair, not sure if you wanted to push her off of you or hold her against you harder.

Your orgasm came over you like a wave and you clenched around her fingers as she continued to work them in out of you hard and fast. Her tongues pressed hard as she wouldn’t let your legs fully close.

“Kara! Fuckfuckfuck,” you screamed as your climax gushed out of you and you clenched so hard you would’ve broken any humans fingers.

You pressed yourself against her face, basically riding it and she continued touching herself and moaning against your orgasm.

Your body went slack and you saw stars, both of your legs falling to the side as she finally slipped her fingers out of you.

When you finally came to, you looked between your legs to find her smugly smiling.

“Told ya you could give me another one,” she said, her chin glistening with your release.

She crawled back up, pressing her bare breasts against yours, the sensation borderline perfect.

She laughed at your expression, completely blissed out and no words leaving.

She placed a soft kiss on your cheek, “I love you.”

You smiled lazily and giggled, “I love you.”

She moved to her side and pulled you against her, leaning in to whisper, “now I will let you rest.”

You laughed in response, allowing her bare body to hold yours and finally relax.

You could eat your boyfriend. Seriously. Maybe it’s the reading glasses perched on his nose. Or the way his fingers press so firm yet so gentle against the paperback novel he’s reading. Either way, it’s unfair.

He sits with his back to your headboard, brown eyes focused on the page, paying you absolutely no mind as you shuffle around your shared bedroom in your little white slip. Getting ready for bed, searching for your moisturizer, but definitely not focused on the task at hand.

Instead, your eyes wander, probably longer than they should. Robby notices, of course he does. He’s got that doctor’s sixth sense for being watched. But, unfortunately for him, his finely tuned instincts now had to be used on his girlfriend.

He glances up, crow’s feet crinkling slightly as he offers you the smallest, teasing smile. The kind that slips through when he looks at you, even when he’s bone tired from another brutal shift in the ED.

“You’re staring, sweetheart.”

Your cheeks flare, flushing a soft rose color. You don’t deny it, instead, you smile back.

“Can you blame me?”

A quiet laugh slips past his lips, shaking his head a little as he returns his attention to the novel, flipping the page with practiced ease. Used to your antics by now. That’s enough of a reply for him. But definitely not enough for you.

You shuffle closer, skincare be damned. He’s got your full attention now. Lifting your knee onto your side of the bed, you hoist yourself up beside him. Scooting closer… closer… until—

“You’re hovering.” He glances back up, peering at you over his lenses, painfully smug. You’re almost certain he’s not actually reading anymore. Just pretending, the way he sometimes zones out looking at charts at work when his mind’s elsewhere and he doesn’t want to admit that he needs a break.

“Am not.” Weak denial spills from your lips as you reach up and snatch the paperback from him, dog-earing the page and carelessly dropping it onto your bedside table.

Robby just stares at you, unamused in that dry, exhausted way he gets after fourteen-hour days. That long-suffering look he’s perfected over the years of working in emergency medicine.

But he’s not suffering at all. Not with you. Far from it. There’s a playful spark behind his weariness.

“You done, baby?” His voice is low, a little rough, almost condescending. The same tone he uses when he’s trying to talk someone (you) down.

A grin threatens to spread across your face. Already prepared with a sarcastic quip on your tongue, you tap your chin, pretending to think.

“Don’t think so.” You beam, entirely too pleased with yourself. “Besides, you obviously weren’t reading anymore.”

Robby lets out a tired sigh, dramatic and completely unnecessary, the kind he saves for when residents push their luck or when you’re being particularly bratty.

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters, but there’s no real heat in it. “You’re really on me tonight, huh?”

You shuffle even closer on your knees, the mattress dipping under your weight as you swing one leg over his lap, settling yourself on top of him like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

The hem of your slip rides up your thighs, cool air brushing bare skin, but you don’t bother fixing it. Not when Robby’s hands automatically find your hips, steadying you with that familiar, grounding grip. Fingertips pressed into the plush of your skin.

“…You know,” he says, “most people just ask for attention.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” You shrug, entirely unapologetic.

He tilts his head back against the headboard, brown eyes half-lidded now, the earlier feigned exasperation melting into something warmer, sweeter.

“You’re a pain in the ass,” he says, but his thumbs are already tracing slow circles over the thin fabric covering your hips. “You know that?”

You lean in, bracing your hands on his chest, feeling the steady thump of his heart beneath your palms.

“You love me,” you whisper, brushing your nose against his. Close enough to catch the faint scent of his bodywash.

“Admit it. You were just waiting for me to come steal your attention, pretending to read for the last twenty minutes.”

Robby’s lips twitch. He slides one hand up your back, fingers slipping beneath the thin strap of your slip and tugging it just enough to make it slip off your shoulder.

“Maybe I was,” he admits, voice low and rough. “Or maybe I was hoping you’d let me get through one goddamn chapter before you started.. this.” His other hand settles on your thigh, squeezing once. “But here we are.”

You laugh softly, the sound vibrating between you, and rock forward just a little, pressing your chest to his.

“Too late for that. Book’s on the nightstand. You’re mine now, Dr. Robinavitch.”

He huffs a quiet laugh, the sound tired but genuine, and cups the back of your neck, pulling you in until your lips hover just shy of his.

“Yeah? Prove it, sweetheart. I’m right here.”

Without a pinch of hesitation, you close the distance, kissing him slow and deliberate, savoring the way he melts beneath you almost instantly.

His grip tightens, a quiet groan rumbling in his chest as he kisses you back like he’s been waiting hours for this instead of minutes.

Your soft fingers thread through his hair, tugging gently, as he nips at your bottom lip in retaliation. The kind of playful bite that ensures that the night is only just beginning.

When you finally pull back for air, both of you breathing a little heavier, Robby rests his forehead against yours. His glasses are slightly askew. You reach up to fix them with a fond smile.

“Still think I’m hovering?” you ask innocently, tilting your head an inch to the left.

He chuckles, deep and warm, hands sliding down to grab a handful of your thighs.

“Baby, you’re doing a hell of a lot more than hovering.” His gaze drops meaningfully to where you’re settled against him.

“Keep it up and I’ll never finish that book.”

“Good,” you murmur, already leaning in for another kiss. “Wasn’t planning on letting you read anyway.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The thing about suddenly going from paycheck to paycheck, to joining the richest and most powerful family in the world, is that there will always be a part of you stuck in a mode of self-preservation. 

Alex tried to spoil you. Even though he was disconnected from his family, he still reaped the benefits of the Le Domas fortune, and he tried so many times to spend it on you. But you knew better than to let a man pay for your bills or buy you nice things, no matter how much you thought you loved him. The most you let him spend was on your wedding dress and well. Yeah that sure worked out. 

But with Titus...it’s forever. This isn’t some guy trying to charm you and lovebomb you into staying with him, making you dependent on him. This is the man you were destined for, you tied your blood to, sold your soul for. This is the only man in the world who has truly seen you. 

When he tells you to go out and buy something nice for yourself, he doesn’t mean throw $1000 cash on one little black cocktail dress from Dior. He means buy the entire floor display, right down to the shoes they put on the mannequin.  

“You don’t like it?” you ask with a frown, looking down at the lacy dress that hugs your curves perfectly. You’d put it on as soon as you got home, when he asked to see your haul. 

“Of course I do, Baby,” Titus sighs. “But...that’s it?” 

“Well it...” you hesitate upon the sight of frustration and almost...sadness in his eyes. “Titus, this dress was five thousand dollars. That’s more than I’ve ever spent on clothes at one time.” 

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” Titus says through gritted teeth. “But you’re a Danforth now. You don’t have to be...frugal about anything.” 

“Maybe I didn’t need anything else,” you mumble, twiddling with your fingers.  

“Need?” Titus snaps, looking up from his work papers to see you standing there, so pretty and forlorn. “It’s not about need. It’s about what you want. You’re acting like I can’t give you everything you want in the world, how is that supposed to make me feel?” 

“Are you seriously mad at me for not going on a million dollar shopping spree?” You ask, scoffing. 

“No, Baby I’m not mad,” Titus huffs, sighing out another long breath. He pushes himself up from his desk and makes his way around to you, taking your twitching hands in his, kissing each of your knuckles. “You went to what? Ten stores with Ursula today? You can’t honestly tell me there wasn’t a single other thing in all of those stores that you didn’t want. Hm?” 

“Well...” you trail off, lip worried between your top teeth as you look up at him through your lashes. “I mean...I don’t really think Dior is my style past this but...there were some things at Vivienne Westwood I liked...” 

“Yeah?” Titus asks, tipping your chin up with his thumb, forcing you to look at him, to see the hint of excitement in his eyes. “Tell me.” 

A heat pumps through your heart, like you feel the blush rushing through each of your veins, and you crack a small smile. Oh. You get it. You see it in the excited curiosity in his expression, feel it in the stutter of his breath against your cheek. 

“Well...there were a couple necklaces, and a jacket or two...” You say, voice growing light and airy. Your hands go to his chest, flattening against him, fingers playing with the buttons on his shirt.  

Titus licks his lips, pressing himself closer to you, eyelids shutting just a little. “Yeah?” 

“Mhm,” you nod. Now you can really feel it, how hard he’s getting at just the thought of you in these expensive pieces. You smirk up at him, rake your hands up his chest and over his shoulders, pressing down the lines of his suit. “And this...lighter. It’s shaped like her orb symbol...special limited edition release from some old design...apparently they only made like 100 this time around.” 

“Baby...” Titus groans. “Why didn’t you get it? You should have bought all of it. Don’t you have my Black Card?” 

You shrug. “Yeah...but I didn’t—” you stop yourself from using the word need again. “I guess I was just overwhelmed. Ursula basically made me try this on when we got to Dior and I couldn’t really say no when everyone was telling me how good I looked in it...” 

“You’re so beautiful,” Titus mumbles, voice gravely, as he kisses your cheek. 

“I couldn’t stop thinking about that lighter, though,” you continue. “Had this image in my mind of the two of us sitting right over there...” you glance at the chair behind his desk, the ornate wood carvings on the back. It used to be his father’s seat. “Me in your lap, maybe after a long day, you need to relax and all that. You pull out one of your cigars...I use the Vivienne to light it for you...” 

Titus’s hand tightens on your jaw, forcing you to look up at him again, expression full of intense desire, hunger. “You should have bought it, Baby. I want you to—" 

“You’re really turned on by the thought of me spending all your money?” You giggle, darting your tongue out to lick at his thumb.  

“Guess so,” Titus grunts, then suddenly, he grabs you by the waist and hoists you up on the desk, kicking your legs open with his so he can settle between them. 

You gasp into the biting kiss he lays on you, laughing into it as he presses his hard body against yours, forcing you on your back. He traps your hands above your head, holding you by your wrists, tight enough to leave bracelets of bruises. You hum against his lips, “Calm down sugar daddy.” 

His hips jerk into yours at that comment, teeth nibbling at your bottom lip. “Little Lamb, I’m gonna fuck you right here, keep that pretty new dress on for me. And then I’m taking you back to the stores to buy every single thing you wanted, I’ll make them all stay open until midnight if you want.” 

A flush of excitement ignites in your belly. How could you say no to such a delicious offer? “Gonna give me a budget?” 

“Budget?” Titus scoffs, disgust furrowing in his brow. “No budget. No limit. How about a minimum amount? You have to spend at least... Five hundred thousand dollars by midnight.” 

“Or what?” You tease, heart racing. 

Titus smirks. “What? You need me to threaten you to spend my money?” He laughs when you shrug under him. “Alright. Spend half a million by midnight, or I’ll spank you so hard you won’t be able to sit for a fucking week, Baby. Sound good?” 

And you’re about to say something about how that doesn’t sound much like a punishment at all, pussy clenching at the very thought of his thick hands leaving angry red marks on your ass. But who are you to argue with such an offer? 

+ 

That night, you ended up spending just over seven hundred thousand on dresses, jewels, bags, and a few pairs of shoes. Titus ended up sending it over a full million with a Tiffany pearl and diamond necklace. 

Then he made you put all the jewels on and fucked you in the middle of your bed, coming on your belly then your flushed face. He commemorated the moment with several polaroids of every inch of your body. 

It keeps going like this. 

Titus gives you his cards, opens a few in your name, and makes sure you always get everything your heart desires, no matter what. 

Any time you show the slightest hint of apprehension, he always tells you, “What’s the point of being the most powerful family in the world if you can’t take every single thing you want?”  

Even Ursula enables this behavior, which sort of surprises you since she always comes off as the more reasonable twin. But when she showed you the warehouse of vintage shoes and bags she’s been collecting since she was a teenager, you realized this truly is the life expected of you. 

Titus loves it.  

Any time you come home with piles of shopping bags, he’s on you. Begging to see what you bought, dick tenting his pants before you can even get through the first bag. 

It’s not just clothes, either. It’s everything. 

One time when the two of you were at brunch, you expressed your interest in a new car, since you’ve been driving the ones from the family’s private collection, you want one just for you. 

“Baby, if you came home with ten new hundred-thousand-dollar cars and the deed to a vacation home in seven countries, I wouldn’t even blink,” Titus says to you, face cracking into a bright smile as he sips his coffee. 

So a week later you came home with a custom rose gold Astin Martin DB9 convertible, with pink leather interior, and a custom plate that reads: LTTL LMB. 

Titus lays you out on the hood and eats you out right there in the driveway. 

He also loves it when you buy things for him. Whether it’s new hunting clothes or suits or watches, each time you toss a new box or bag and tell him to get dressed, it thrills him to no end. 

Sure, it’s his family’s money, but the fact that you’re the one picking things, the one dressing him up like your own personal Ken doll, that’s what makes him happy. He always liked to be spoiled, that’s not exactly a secret about the son of Chester Danforth. 

Little by little you warm to the idea that spending his money is not something to ever feel guilty about. You eventually stop all hesitation, and it’s not that you just buy every expensive thing, but that you don’t stop yourself from anything that you truly want. Sometimes, you scroll through GoFundMe and just finish out donations that people need, simply because you can. Because underneath all the glitz and glamour, you’ll always be that orphan girl who had nothing. 

Your metamorphosis into a true Blue Blooded Danforth, is solidfied in Titus’s mind the day you tell him that Penelope and Ursula convinced you to buy a new vacation home in Granada. 

Sitting in bed, Titus in his reading glasses that you find to be ridiculously sexy, scrolling through his phone, while you lay next to him, tapping your fingers in a light trail up and down his bicep. 

“Penelope and Elton have this adorable cottage, she was showing me pictures, but then Ursula mentioned that this big mansion just up the hill from them was going on sale...anyway we were looking at it online, and maybe I should have asked you to take a quick trip to see it in person first but...well Urse liked it too so I figured I’d just call the realtor up, put in an offer—” 

Titus cuts you off with a kiss, tossing his phone to the side carelessly, as he climbs over your body. You let out a delighted squeal at his touch, and he moans into your mouth, “Fuck, that’s my girl, you finally got it.” 

“You don’t think we should have looked at it first?” You ask playfully, running your fingers through his soft, silver hair.  

“Fuck that,” he grunts, grinding his already stiffening cock against you, breathing hitching at the feeling of your satin panties on him. He pulls them to the side, rubbing the head of his cock up and down your soaking cunt. “Now the first time we step foot inside,” he groans out the last word as he slides his cock into you, agonizingly slow, swallowing your whimper with a kiss, licking his tongue into your mouth. “It’ll be all fresh and new, we can explore it together, I’ll fuck you on every surface...” 

You lick your lips, whining when Titus pushes all the way inside, filling you up in that way that drives you crazy, makes you feel so deeply connected to him. He keeps mumbling in your ear as he fucks you, things about how proud he is of you, how much he loves you, how he loves taking care of you. You smile and take it, take his cock, accept his words, let him fill you, let him take care of you. 

It makes sense now, Titus’s obsession with you showing your wealth, his wealth. It’s not just some frivolous thing, it’s another way to show your status over the world, even if most people will never know how you got it. It’s another way for Titus to show everyone in their circle that you are his. 

“Give it to me straight, Doc,” you joked. One of his gloved hands cupped your chin, nudging your gaze up. The other dabbed gently at the cut to your forehead. “Am I gonna make it?”

There was a line of displeasure in his lips. “Not funny,” he mumbled.

“Sure it is.”

“No, it's not.”

You rolled your eyes before going back to focusing on him.

It was rare you got to watch him in his concentration. Usually you were in the middle of a trauma when he pulled out the serious face and things were moving too fast for you to even catch a glimpse. Now- his focus was all on you. You could study the creases at his brows and the flecks of grey in his beard.

“You ever notice you have these deep lines between your eyebrows when you're concentrating?”

“It's called age,” he said but there was the smallest hint of a smile there.

“Aren't you twenty-seven?”

This time he couldn't stop the smirk of amusement and finally you won.

Robby dabbed away the blood at your cut, changing the gauze. “Don't think you're distracting me.”

You hummed as he tilted your head into the light. “Distracting you from what?”

“Reporting him.”

You grew silent and looked away.

It was Robby's turn to stare at you, eyes without warmth, stern in ways he was with patients that didn't want to listen to good advice. You may be sitting on a bed in exam room four and you may have a chart written up but you were not a patient. “He was scared and confused-”

“ - he pushed you.”

“And I was the one that tripped and bashed my head.”

“He threw you down!”

You winced at his snap and then winced at the pain your wincing brought you.

Robby sighed with some sort of regret. His fingertips brushed your skin as he finished cleaning the cut and you couldn't help but think it was a deliberate move. He'd been so careful not to touch or apply pressure but suddenly the callous of his fingers were there.. “If we don't take care of ourselves nobody else will do it.”

It was the same thing Dana had said to you when she saw the patient push you down and run out the room in distress, hospital gown slipping on his shoulders. She'd taken you under her arm, stirred you to a chair. She was firm in both checking you were okay and that you were going to report him for hurting you.

You look past Robby, trying to see through the glass door. The Pitt carried on it's usual bustle but Dana kept a close eye out on you in the room. “Where is he now?”

“None of your concern,” he said. “The cut's clean, looks like you won't need stitches.”

“You've restrained him haven't you?”

Robby frowned. His head shook slightly in disbelief- like he couldn't believe you. “He hurt you. Jesus- you think I was gonna just tuck him back in bed- you think Dana was!”

You were used to the rise in Robby's voice, as attending it was his job to command everyone. You just didn't like to hear it risen at you. “He woke up, confused and startled.”

The patient was brought in un-conscious at the side of the road, a gash in his arm. Nobody knew his name but you'd admitted him and ran some tests while he was semi-conscious. He'd woken up as you were checking his IV and the next thing you knew hard hands were pushing you away. You'd taken the tray down with you and smacked your head in the process. Then he'd ran and then Robby had you in his arms, willing to pick you up and carry you off if it weren't for your insistence to walk to an exam room.

Robby's body heaved in a sigh as he put his hands on his thighs. “He hurt you,” he repeated, looking up at you through his eyelashes.

You slowly met his gaze as he got closer on the stall in front of you. “I've had worse.”

It wasn't supposed to be a dig but as his eyes met yours in a haze of dark anxiety you figured it came off that way.

Really what happened between you and Robby was ancient history. A whole six months since you'd stopped seeing each other; if that's what it could be called. It was really only one stupid kiss and several flirts that created the thick tension between you two. Nothing had ever been done to encourage it further, yet nothing had also been done to squash it.

Whilst his gaze remained on you, Robby got out his penlight and checked your pupil reaction.

“Any pain?”

“Well, the light's a bit bright.”

He put it down and with his gloved hands he slowly pressed around the small cut on your forehead, hands cupping your face tenderly. “Any pain?”

“No, you've done all this twice now.”

“It's procedure for any patient.”

“It's special treatment,” you grumbled.

Robby grabbed a bandage from the tray. “You're a special patient.”

The heat crept up your cheeks before you stared at the bandage.

“Robby-”

In one hand he held a bandage, in the other a small spider-man plaster that he so obviously got from pedes.

You stared at him. “Really?”

His cheeks tilted in a small teasing grin. “All we have, I'm afraid.”

You seriously doubted it but tapped the spider-man plaster nonetheless. “I'm sure I could have done this myself, you know,” you said as he peeled away the plaster. “Or at least got one of the nurses to do it. I'm sure you're needed somewhere more important.”

He frowned again. “More important?”

“There's a guy that came in with a GSW to the chest ten minutes ago and you're saying you don't need to be there?”

Robby's hands fell to either side of your face, gently taking your cheeks. His thumb brushed the curve of your cheek bone. He could feign he was checking your pupils but you both knew better. “There's nowhere else I need to be.”

Six months ago you'd kissed in a bar ten minutes away from the Pitt. Every day since- you'd been fighting the urge to kiss him again.

At that moment, with his gentle touch and soft gaze, you wondered if he'd been fighting to.

“Look up,” Robby said with a clear of his throat.

You weren't sure what he was trying to check for anymore. Maybe he was just looking for an easy way out.

“I still want you to get a CT scan.”

“Now that's dramatic, I didn't expect that from you.”

“Any nasuea?”

You shook your head as Robby steadied you, sliding the plaster in place.

“Have you been drinking enough today?”

“Two cups of coffee count?”

Robby gave you a plain look as he yanked off the latex gloves, throwing them into a corner of the room. “Ten minutes rest, I'll bring you some food and water.”

You sighed dramatically. “Robby!”

He pushed himself up from his stool. “As you're attending I'm not asking, I'm-”

“Telling?” you guessed.

Robby hovered as you pushed yourself up back on the bed. You wouldn't say it but your head was hurting from the fall. Nothing more than a headache that some painkillers couldn't stop. If you told Robby that yes, you were in pain, you were sure he'd pull the curtain, change you into a gown and play doctor all day.

You lied back on the pillow as Robby plumped it and smoothed out the sheets under you. He was lingering and for a moment you thought of asking him to stay.

Your mouth had opened to ask when the door was nudged open.

“Robby, we got a car crash coming in five,” said Dana. She looked at you then, eyes crinkled in worry. “How you feeling, hun?”

“I'm fine, thanks Dana.”

She nodded once, offering you a small smile before leaving.

You looked up at Robby as his body lingered over yours, one arm stretched high above your head, the other lower. Your gaze flickered up and you could feel the warmth of his breath fan over you. “Ten minutes?” you asked.

“On the clock.”

“Then I'm free to go?”

His head tilted, a sly smirk playing around his thin beard. “I'm not keeping you a prisoner.”

You folded your arms over your chest, glancing away. “Feels like it.”

He chuckled lightly. For a moment his breath lingered over your forehead, closer than before.

When you glanced up he froze, hands clenched on the bed, his jaw taunt. It was as if you'd caught him in the act.

Suddenly you wished you hadn't looked up. You wished you'd let him do whatever he was going to do. Because once he'd been caught he straightened up and threw you an awkward thumbs up. “Ten minutes.”

You trace your finger over the plaster as you slowly left your room, creeping out like you were a teenager sneaking out of your parents to meet a guy. Except you were trying to avoid the guy.

“That was eight minutes!”

You looked up and found Robby at the nurses station, glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. “Were you timing me?”

Robby held up his phone, showing you the timer he had counting down as next to him, Dana snorted. “Have you had something to drink? Or eat?” he asked as you leant over the counter. He was still watching you eagerly, waiting for any sign you were in more pain then you let on so he could send you back to bed.

“Thought you were getting me a drink?”

He rolled his eyes before obliging, sliding away to get you a drink. He turned back only once. “Don't go near him!” he called, the both of you knowing who the he was.

You saluted him, watching him go before turning to Dana. “How is he?”

She peered at you over her glasses. “Terrible. He's been worried sick, was practically watching you through those windows. Didn't blink for a minute!”

“Not Robby, my patient. The John Doe.”

“Well that ain't your concern anymore," she said.

“I want to treat him.”

“He's awake now, we've restrained him in twelve but Robby wants you nowhere near him.”

“Robby is over-reacting,” you sighed.

Dana lifted her shoulders. “Of course he is, it's you. You think he's gonna react rationally?”

Nobody was supposed to know about you and Robby and the thing that lingered in the middle. But somehow, Dana always ended up knowing everything.

You backed away from the counter, assuring Robby was nowhere to be seen. “Twelve, you said right?”

Dana huffed but lucky for you there were a dozen more things she needed to do. “Fine! Go! But take security with you!”

You saluted and headed that way. Outside the door, Ahmed was already there.

“Hey, doc,” he greeted. “He's been asking about you, said he wants to apologise.”

You weren't scared like you thought you'd be, stepping into the room while Ahmed promised to stay outside, just a shout away of you needed him. Your heart wasn't pounding as you slowly moved the curtain, finding the patient lying on the bed, restraints around his wrists and tied down. He wasn't thrashing about. He was calm, clocking you as you walked in.

“You're the nurse?” he said.

“Doctor, actually,” you said, introducing yourself.

He smiled but it didn't reach his eyes or add colour to his face. There was nothing in his eyes anyhow. He was pale and the thin bandaging that had been done for his arm while he struggled was bleeding through. “I-I pushed you, I am so sorry.”

You were about to say it was fine, but it wasn't you shouldn't tell him it was. You could accept the apology but still acknowledge that whatever state he was in, you shouldn't have been hurt. “Do you know where you are?”

“The hospital?”

“That's right, PTMC. Can you tell me your name?”

He nodded, gulping. There was a thin layer of sweat over his skin. “David Brown.”

“And do you know what month it is?”

“M-March.”

“Okay, good,” you said, making a quick note of his name in his chart. You sat down on the stool, shuffling to the side of his bed. “Mr Brown-”

“David,” he corrected you.

“David,” you said. “You were brought in just under an hour ago with a pretty bad laceration to your lower right arm. You were found un-conscious. Do you remember anything?”

You watched the sweat bead at his forehead, his eyes scrunched as he tried to think. His breathing grew heavier, face morphed into pain as he tried to think. “It's okay if you don't.”

“I-I don't,” a stray tear fell down his cheek.

“That's okay,” you assured him. “I'm gonna order you a CT and a toxic screening just to rule out any drugs or alcohol in your system. Is that okay?”

David's head jerked in something like a nod before you door swung open, clattering on the other side of the wall.

Robby stood at the end of the bed, face red, hands at his hips. “What are you doing in here?” he snapped.

“Doctor Robby-”

He gave you no time to explain, jutting his head back. “Step outside please, doctor.”

You stood, slowly and walked out slower.

David called out after you. “I really am sorry!”

Robby looked back like he didn't believe him.

The two of you stepped out and you spoke before he could, beating him by a second. “I'm ordering him a CT and toxicity test. That gash on his arms needs to be cleaned and stitched up, it's bleeding out.”

Robby didn't care to hear it. He pulled the curtains over and closed the door as he followed you out. “What did you think you were doing in there?”

“Tending to my patient.”

“I told you to leave him.”

“He wanted to say sorry. Ahmed, didn't he want to apologise?” you said, looking to security for some help.

Ahmed held up his hands. “Oh- I want nothing in this!”

“If he wanted to apologise he could've wrote a letter. Told me to apologise to you,” he said, still holding onto his anger. “I told you to leave it, the guy attacked you!”

“Lightly shoved me from shock!”

“Have you seen what he did to your head?”

“Yeah, a small cut, doesn't even need stitches- that's what you said!”

“It's a wound! There was blood!” he yelled. “You are not to go anywhere near him from now on, do you understand?”

There was a new anger in Robby then, something you saw rarely in him. Dana had said he was worried about you but you saw none of that concern in him now, only anger. Anger because you hadn't listened to him not because of well fair.

“I'm a doctor, I'm supposed to be helping people,” you defended, your own anger not rising to his.

His hands balled into fists. “Help someone who's asking for it. I see you in with that guy again and you're on triage for a week, you understand?”

Where was that softness in his eyes? Where was that care he tended to you in the room all alone?

“You understand?” he snapped again when you didn't answer.

You knew if you turned there'd be several pairs of eyes on the pair of you. Watching, assessing, see how you reacted. Nobody had ever heard Robby speak to you like that because he'd never shouted at you before. “I understand, Doctor Robinavitch.”

“So you yelled at her.”

Robby thought he'd find solace on the roof, that with only him and the night sky he stood a chance at thinking things through logically, for once on the right side of the rail.

Then Jack's voice sounded behind him and the peace he was searching for fell further out of reach.

“Who told you?” he asked, head falling.

“Oh, you know,” he mumbled, shoes shuffling over the roof as he got closer to him. “Just everybody that was in attendance to your little show.”

Jack leant next to him on the rail, staring at him.

Robby could feel his eyes but looked out on the skyline that was more favourable to him. Jacks eyes felt like everybody else that watched him yell at you. He could call it worry- it didn't change the way your face dropped the louder his voice rose.

“You wanna talk about it?” asked Jack.

“No.”

“I heard she got attacked.”

“Or lightly pushed as she'd put it.”

“She's a soldier.”

Robby shook his head. “No, she's a doctor. Today she could have been neither if that man-” the words chocked in his throat. What if he had hurt you even more? Punched you? Strangled you? He'd seen it all in the ER and yes, you'd been hurt before but that didn't mean he needed to have you hurt again.

“I saw her when I was coming up, she seemed fine,” said Jack. “About to clock off, you sure you want to end the day on such a bad note.”

“She doesn't want to talk to me.”

“Come on, she always wants to talk to you,” said Jack. “And I only know that cause you always want to talk to her.”

Robby wished he could say that telling Jack about the kiss so many months ago was a mistake but he couldn't because that would mean kissing you was a mistake. The only mistake made with that kiss is that he hadn't pulled you back in, kissed you every day since. But he'd told Jack on one of those lonely nights when they'd each had one too many beers how much he missed you even if he saw you every day.

“I was so fucking scared, brother,” he admitted with a long exhale of breath. Robby slumped over the rail, catching himself. “Code hula-hoop was called and her name and I- I didn't know...”

Jack's hand was firm on his back. “I know.”

Robby nodded, head tucked down. He wouldn't cry, he wasn't sure how these days but he sure as hell felt like it. It had been a hell of day, worse when he couldn't join your side without you walking off.

“You were worried, you don't know what to do with that,” said Jack.

He could admit that much.

“You go home now, she goes home, you're carrying this weight to the next day and it'll continue,” he said, therapizing him. “You were scared you might have lost her?”

Robby glanced Jack's way. There was never any judgment, only a keen understanding he sometimes didn't like.

“You might lose her if you don't do something about it.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

Jack shrugged. “Apologise.”

Robby hesitated, the words 'I'm sorry' foreign on his tongue.

Jack chuckled low in his throat. “Is that really so hard for you?”

He nodded and Jack carried on laughing. By the end, even Robby was chuckling through watery eyes.

“Okay, okay, let's try,” said Jack, straightening up, encouraging him to do the same. “Repeat after me, I'm sorry.”

“Jesus-”

“Jesus, you can't even say it-listen we'll go slow, I'm-”

Robby's phone rung in his pocket, thankfully saving him from the embarrassment. “Dana-” he answered as he spotted Jack's phone going too.

“Get down here, now!”

“What's going on?” he asked, though his feet were already moving.

He didn't see the way Jack looked at him, he hardly heard how Dana said your name because when she did Robby dropped his phone and ran.

“Robby!” Jack called but he was off the roof and furiously pressing the elevator button. He managed to slide past the doors before they closed on him. “What did Dana say?”

But Robby couldn't speak. He heard Dana's voice re-play in his head again and again. That you had been attacked, that they needed him. He couldn't think beyond that. Beyond you and attacked there was nothing.

Jack was watching him closely. “Okay-” he must've known it was bad too. “Okay, Robby, we don't know what's going on down there but you gotta stay cool, okay? You gotta stay cool or leave us to it.”

He should've kept a closer eye on you, should've sent you home.

“Robby if you get in our way I'm taking you out of there, understand?”

The doors slid open and Robby ran out, Jack quick on his heels.

“Where?” he barked out. There were no faces around him he could figure out, no Dana, no Langdon- so everyone must have been in with you-

“Trauma one!”

Robby burst through the doors.

The chaos was everywhere and he paused. There were more bodies in the trauma room then he'd ever seen. In between them all a body that he could vaguely re-call as yours. Your trainers- usually white- were seeping in blood.

“Can you open your eyes?”

“No respond to command!”

“Two stab wounds to the left flank! First one L-two, second L-five.”

“Is it the spinal chord?” asked Whitaker.

“Can't tell it depends on the angle!” said Langdon. “Jesus- there's too much blood, I can't see a thing!”

You lied on the bed, blood splattered around your clothes, un-responsive to everyone around you. You were letting them prod, push and pull when you'd hardly let him asses your cut just hours ago.

Hours when you were teasing him and he was thinking about kissing you again.

What had happened.

If it was a papercut you'd be feigning death.

This was the closest you'd ever looked to dying and Robby couldn't feel his legs.

"Doctor Robby?" someone called in the room but it wasn't you. You weren't responding to anyone. “Doctor Robby!”

Jack moved past him, body knocking his. “I'm here!”

“BP seventy over fifty, pulse one-twenty.”

Jack moved around you, pressing the chest piece of the stethoscope to your chest. “Push in two litres of O-neg. Good breath sounds bilaterally.”

Robby's ears were ringing but he could feel himself shake his head. “She's not-she's not O-neg, she's B-positive,” he heard himself mumble.

There was a sharp beeping through the room and Robby thought it was a strange sound for his heart breaking.

“Pulse ox ninety-three!”

“Do we intubate?” asked Mohan.

Your body jerked and as if you were the puppet master tugging on his strings, Robby found his feet and moved to your side.

He moved around until he was the closest to you, replacing anyone else at your side. Others watched, un-sure if they should've told him to wait outside like he was family.

Jack gave them the nod and the room moved again.

“Give me ten by mask, no intubation. Send a trauma panel!” ordered Robby.

“We need X-ray for a chest!” yelled Jack.

“X-ray can come to us! I am not moving her!” he shouted. “Help me roll, let me see!”

The blood on the front of your scrubs was splashed but as they turned you, leaning you on your side Robby's body slumped, something like a chocked sob wracking through his body.

He couldn't see the puncture wounds through the blood that soaked you. Just as Langdon had said it was a mess. “Jesus chr- oh god.”

“Pressure's up to ninety palp!”

“Who did this?” he yelled out as they gently set you back.

“The guy who came in un-conscious earlier!”

Jack looked over at Robby.

Robby felt the muscles in his jaws work and he grunted. “I'll kill him,” he grumbled.

“Robby!” lectured Jack.

But he wasn't going to take back his words. “He's fucking dead.”

“He fled the hospital,” Langdon told him. “Left his knife in the room though, they'll find him.”

It couldn't have been a scalpel, it couldn't have been scissors. The guy came in, found a knife- or brought one from home- to harm you. If Robby ever saw him again he'd kill the guy and deal with the consequences that came.

“Toes are down going, no spinal injury,” said someone else in the room but he was losing all focus that wasn't you.

Garcia walked through the doors, joining the crowd of people around you.

“Tell me you've got an OR booked!” said Jack.

“With her name on it! How we doing in here?”

Santos pushed her way ahead, a small and un-characteristic tremble to her hands. There was another unit of blood pushed into your bloodstream and Robby was seconds away from hooking himself up and giving you his very blood. “Pressure's up!” she reported, lingering over you with a light. “Right pupil five millimetres and reactive -”

Suddenly your body jerked at the light. Your head thrashed side to side as you slowly returned to consciousness.

“Huh... I-wha-”

“Hey! Hey!” Robby pushed his way to you, looming over you and catching your eyes.

They were wild, looking around before settling on him.

“Robby?” you uttered, lips dry, dried blood at your neck. Your eyes were looking around like you couldn't quite see.

“Yeah- yeah it's me.” His hand flew to your hair, brushing it back as your eyes were going from him to around you, panic rising in your eyes. “Look at me, focus on me.”

“What-what?”

“You were stabbed,” he uttered.

Your eyes widened and he brushed back your hair again, doctors moving around the two of you. They could've been right on his back or a thousand miles away. All he focused on was you. Your hands waved around, getting in the way of tubes and the doctors.

Robby grabbed your hand, squeezing.

You focused on him and he tried to smile, tried to make himself convinced everything would be alright. He knew it was a grimace.

He'd never hated his medical training more. Because he knew this amount of blood loss was bad, he knew stabbing so close to the spinal chords was dangerous. He knew you were strong and hated staying still for too long and now you'd be forced to recover.

“My pressure?”

“It's up.” He watched as your eyes teared up, looking away from him again. “Good, that's good.”

Your hair sprawled out as you shook your head. “Am I gonna.... will I walk again?”

Robby hesitated. “Yeah- yeah we think it missed your spinal chord.”

Robby knew that but he couldn't help the tears that fell, couldn't help the small sob that ripped through his throat. You'd been calm at the cut with your head, damn right comedic. Now- you were quiet, whimpering and crying in pain and there wasn't anything he could do.

He was a doctor, he could help and check vitals and squeeze the bag of blood slow.

But he couldn't move from your side.

You nod before your back arched in pain and you yelled out.

“BP eighty palp!”

Robby got up, ignoring the ache in his knees as he loomed over you, trying to calm the pain. “Do something!”

“Robby!”

He looked.

You'd drained the blood dry.

“What?” you uttered, voice trembled in terror.

“Okay she needs to go up, now!” Jack called out.

“Let's get her moving!” yelled Garcia.

You groaned in pain. “What's going on?”

Robby didn't know what to do. It wasn't a conversation of telling a patient what was going on or what wasn't. It was telling you. He stuttered lamely, lost as another tear slid down his cheek. You hadn't even cried yet and he was close to blubbering.

His head bowed to you. He was mumbling, he thinks he was praying.

“Robby-” your hand waved out in front of him and he grabbed it, squeezing. “It hurts.”

“Okay, okay, we're gonna-” what was he gonna do? He pressed your hand to his lips, holding it there.

“Hey, honey,” Jack appeared at your other side and your eyes moved to see him but Robby didn't let go. “Hell of a way to get into the night shift.”

“Jack-” you winced.

Jack looked from you to Robby, the same way he looked at the family of unfortunate patients. “We're taking her up to the OR now.”

Your fingers wiggled in Robby's grasp and he looked back to you. “It's bad huh?”

“No, no,” said Robby smoothing back your hair again.

“Your losing a lot of blood, and your foley output is bright red,” said Jack. “But we're gonna sort it and you'll be fine. You trust me?”

Your breathing was shallow, hard breaths hardly coming out. Still, you tried to smile. “Do I- do I have a choice?” your voice came out through seethes of breath.

Robby closed his eyes tight, as if he could feel the own stabbing in his heart.

“Robb-Robby?”

He glanced at you, your eyes fluttering shut. The little hold you had on his hand weakening. He fumbled up, hands holding your cheeks. “Woah-woah- open your eyes! Look at me- look at me!”

You mumbled, head lulling.

“Going up!”

“Look at me, open your eyes!” he all but shouted at you as your eyes were still rolling to the back of his head, wavering between waking and whatever else was on the other side.

“Robby!”

Robby held onto the side of your bed as the team around you wheeled you away and through. There was a stutter of shock waving through the crowd, fear chocking them, shock eating at them. There was police around, all trying to get a look.

“Talk to her, Robinavitch!” said Garcia.

He didn't talk to patients, he evaluated them, stitched them up when he could.

Robby looked up at Jack, hoping for help. He looked grave, watching Robby un-sure but people came back from worse. You'd come back. “Hey, hey look at me,” he uttered and squeezed your hand. When that didn't work he pulled at your eyelids and finally you responded with a grumble.

The elevator doors slid open and you were hauled in, Robby squeezed in too.

“Wh-what?”

He got a flash of your eyes before they closed again.

Your lips were dry and chapped but Robby kissed you anyway, pressing his lips to yours soft, not pushing afraid he'd hurt you but he wanted you to know he was there.

He smiled. He'd never seen you first thing in the morning, he imagined this is what it was. Groggy eyes, words hardly there but with less pain and blood. Robby pulled back and ignored the blood drying in splatters on your neck. “Are you with me, honey?”

You blinked and groaned in pain. “I don't-I don't know.”

“You're with me, yeah you are, you're with me,” Robby mumbled. “You look very pretty, even covered in blood, you know that?” he mumbled, trying to say it so only you could hear.

There was a huff of a smile followed by pain.

“You can't flirt with me while I'm dying, Robinavitch.”

Your eyes fluttered shut.

Robby grabbed your face, smooching your cheek maybe a bit too harsh. “You're not going anywhere.”

“You've pushed four bags,” you whispered. “You're gonna push a five.”

There was a huff of laugh from Jack.

Robby sniffed. You were too good at your job sometimes, ignoring the ache in his back as he leant over you. “You shouldn't be counting.”

“What can I say I'm over-qualified,” your eyes shut again but your lips moved in mumbles.

“What is it? What are you saying?” he asked, a crack in his voice. “What? Tell me.... tell me.”

But you weren't really there anymore. You were incoherent, eyes not really there. None of you was really there. “Robby.... Rob.... please, Robby.”

“What? I'm here, I'm right here, okay? Okay, honey?” Robby felt his chest cave in. “What's taking this elevator so long?” he snapped.

“It's bad, I know,” you said, fingers drifting soft over his arm before it dropped. “I can't- I can't-”

The doors slid open, a team waited on the other side.

Garcia pushed you ahead into the team, spouting who she wanted to scrub in, telling them all who she wanted out front watching. Your condition was a perfect teaching sort.

You weren't for teaching. You were for saving!

Robby wanted to tell as much as the team wheeled you away and Jack's arm came out to stop him.

“You can't go in there man,” he said.

“Like hell I can't!”

“No, you can't!” said Jack.

Any other time Robby would have argued more but he had nothing to say. He needed to be there, he wanted to be there but as soon as they cut you open he'd break. As soon as he saw inside your body he'd tie himself to you.

He'd seen over a hundred bodies cut open in his time but yours might break him.

Robby nodded, hands going to the back of his head.

Someone in the room cried and it took him a moment to realise it was him.

“Hey-hey-” Jack embraced him and Robby couldn't reach to hug him back but he could let himself down. “I will go in, I will be there, you know I will do everything to save her. We will save her.”

“Abbott!” Garcia shouted. “If we're moving, we're moving now!”

To save your life, Robby let him go and stood alone. He looked down at his hand as if he could feel the ghost hold of you still there. When he looked down, all he saw was the hair on the back and the tremble of his fingers.

Robby- for the first time since he was a boy- learnt how to cry.

He tried- boy did he try- to get back into the swing of things. Robby walked into the Pitt with red, blotchy eyes and a waver in his voice. He looked at the board, picked up a sixty year old patient with migraines.

“Hello I'm Doctor Robinavitch, everyone calls me Robby. What seems to be the problem today?”

That was as far as he got before Dana walked in.

“No, no, no, no!” she said, putting the chart down and dragging him out. “I am so sorry Mrs Klepton, we'll get Doctor Shen with you in just a moment. Come with me.”

He was dragged out like a scolded child and shoved into the lounge.

“What do you think you're doing?” she'd snapped.

Robby had put himself in the corner, crowding himself in, arms over his head. What was he doing? Trying to be useful. You'd be up in the OR lord knew how long. If he sat and waited he'd go mad.

Dana leant on the counter. “What'd you think you're doing here, Robinavitch? Get outta here, go home! Better yet go wait for her.”

“I-I can't.”

“Robby.”

He could feel the tears start again. Didn't the human run out of tears eventually? They didn't teach that in med school. “I- I can't. I'm useful in-in here, I'm not- I'm not-”

“Right now there's only one person you can be useful to, so go to her.”

That's how he ended up in the OR waiting room, alone, not flicking through the magazines provided, not even watching the fish in the tank. He was just sitting.

Waiting.

At some point he'd taken the clock down to not watch the hands turn but eventually the sun rose and he was terrified like no other day.

It was going on 05:00 am when the door slowly pushed open. It wasn't with a rattle of relief or with a cheer, it was a slow push.

Robby thought his heart was broken before.

He was hunched over himself, elbows balanced on his knees as he hid his face in his hands and slowly rocked himself. “No... no... no...”

“Robby,” Jack said quietly. His steps were slow but he felt his hand on his back.

Robby flinched, shrinking into himself.

Where was the knife so he could stab himself?

“Robby- she's okay.”

There was a crack in his neck from how quick he looked up. It wasn't enough to convince him, his clinical trained mind wondering all the what would comes? Had it got into your spine? How much blood had you lost.

But Jack listed it off like he knew what Robby needed to hear first. It hadn't hit an aorta, it got an artery hence the bleeding but they'd stabilised it with more blood than they would have liked. But you were alive, though sleeping and they had no worries for you at the moment.

Robby nodded when Jack finished. He must have come right from the OR to tell him because he was still in scrubs and covered in blood. Your blood. “Can I see her?”

You didn't look peaceful. Robby had never thought how uncomfortable the hospital gowns must have been until he saw you lying in one. There was oxygen tube in your nose and an IV in your hand. There was some bruising he hadn't noticed before on your arms from the fall you took.

“What do I do now?” Robby mumbled. He was good at the saving lives part, he just wasn't sure what to do when they hung in limbo.

Jack patted his back, leading the way in the room. “For a doctor you're pretty clueless. You sit with her.”

Robby followed in, un-sure what to do with himself so he held onto either end of his stethoscope.

There was a chair already pulled up to your side as Jack busied himself on the other, checking your IV and BP- all looked good.

Robby had caught you napping at your desk once, fallen asleep while charting. He'd admired you for a moment before slowly waking you with a pen poked in your head. You'd looked so peaceful then- nothing like it now.

“Is she cold?”

“No- I don't think so.”

Robby slowly sank down in the chair and picked up your hand again. It stopped the trembling in his at once.

“I gotta get off, I'll cover the day, do something about the nights. Stay with her, call me if there's any changes,” said Jack.

“Thank you, brother,” said Robby.

There was a dull drumming in your head. Your back was aching and even moving your eyes hurt. Beyond all of that there was something else, something heavier.

Your eyes opened slowly and you found the lights ahead. They burned brighter than the sun, like every morning when you walked into PCMT. You tried to hide, to shield yourself with your hand but you couldn't move it.

Panic coursed through you. Why couldn't you move it? Why could you hardly feel your hand? Dear god-

“Hey,” a gentle voice greeted and you searched for them.

Jack stood over you, leaning at you bed.

Your mouth was parched as you tried to speak.

“You're okay,” said Jack in a whisper. “You remember what happened?”

Step by step you thought back. You were leaving, only checking on David once more before sharp pain hit you in the back and you were shoved. When you came too again faces blurred together and pain blinded you to them all.

There was Robby. Somewhere in all of that.

“I was... stabbed?”

Jack nodded, a small trembled in his chin. “Yeah you were. But you're gonna be okay, there was no injury to your spine.”

“I'll walk?”

“Twelve hours time we'll get you up.”

When you focused you could feel the ache in your arm as if someone was pulling it. There was something heavy at the end like someone was holding it, tight.

Robby was at your other side, lying on your arm and holding you down. His body was curved over, head turned away as his back moved in soft breaths.

“Thought I'd let him sleep. He's been up watching you since you came out the OR,” said Jack.

Robby. He'd stayed.

Had you asked him to? You'd wanted him to. Maybe he understood that.

“Thank you, Jack.”

Jack shook his head. There was no need to thank him, you knew that, but you were thanking him for the life you'd put in his hands and that he'd let Robby be at your side. “You want some time?”

You nodded stiff, feeling the ache in your back more and more. You knew you had months ahead of you of pain but you didn't want to dull it with drugs just yet.

Jack petted down your hair once before taking his hoodie off the back of the chair and leaving, closing the door gently.

In the silence you watched Robby a moment longer, matching your new breaths with his. The weight of him on your hand made you tingle as you slowly worked your fingertips back to life.

You tried to move your hand out from his weight but he stirred.

Groggily he turned and looked around the room, waking up more confused then you were.

“Robby?”

His eyes widened.

Robby moved up at once, looming over your bed as you tried to push yourself up. “Hey, hey, take it easy,” he fretted, eyes raking over your body like he was checking all of you were there. “Are you okay? Are you in pain?”

“Robby-” you tried to protest.

“BP is hundred over eighty.”

You tried to entertain him, just as you had with the cut on your head. If you let him go through the motions just might just end up holding his hand again. So you let him try your nerves, let him ask if you were in pain. You let him ask you to wiggle your fingers and toes. You let him lift one leg and the other as high as he could before you winced in pain.

“Can you stop being my doctor for a second and sit back down?”

Robby seemed startled but hid it quickly. He realised Jack was out the room. “He should've woke me, checked you over.”

“You were resting, he said you'd stayed.”

He looked at you, astonished you'd think he'd go anywhere else.

You watched him sink into his chair, clasping his hands together and wedging them between his knees. Your fingers ached to hold him but your body was weak even talking. “You look tired.”

He chuckled low and smiled. His face was pale, eyes red, hair a mess. His entire body was slumped. “I look tired?”

“A nice tired, a handsome tired.”

You focused on your hand, lifting it enough. You watched as Robby looked down and took it without hesitation, he held it tight, grasping it between his big hands and bringing it to his lips.

You felt him kiss your palm.

“I was stabbed?”

Robby nodded, slowly. “Two puncture wounds, missed the spinal chords, nicked an aorta, bled out. That was our biggest worry but-”

“But I'm okay now?”

Slowly, he nodded.

You groaned, shifting your head aside. You'd have rolled over to show your protest but you had a feeling you'd be putting as little pressure on your back for a while. “Is Mr Brown?”

“The police are looking for him,” said Robby, without letting you even work out just what it is you were trying to ask about.

You nodded slowly, looking down to where your hand disappeared in his. “I'll report him this time, I promise.”

Robby stared at you, eyes wide with something you couldn't name. “I just want you to focus on getting better. On coming back... coming back to me.”

You didn't think, even coming out of an op and the haze of pain, that you could ever be where he wasn't. You think, no matter how terrible it seemed, that it was meant to happen this way. The stabbing and scarring that would no doubt end up on your back might have been the best thing to ever happen to you.

“Robby,” you whispered.

He must have heard something in your voice as he slowly stood and hunched over you, a hand lying on the top of your head.

His eyes were watering with tears.

You could remember faint images of this happening before, as you were slowly lulled to sleep by drugs. His hand combing back your hair felt like it had always been doing it. Like you'd always woken to him.

“Did you kiss me?” You didn't know where the memory came from, or even if it was a memory. It could've been a dream.

To his credit Robby didn't startle or flinch. He slowly nodded, leaving room for objection. He leaned over close to you, another hand cradling your cheek. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

Robby inhaled sharply. “I wanted to. I wanted to kiss you months before I did. I wanted to kiss you last week and two minutes ago when you woke. I wanted to kiss you covered in blood and... I want to kiss you now.”

You smiled and it brought you no pain. “If my back wasn't in pain I'd be kissing you right now,” you chuckled and then the pain came.

Robby leant down to you, his eyes searching yours. Close enough you could see what was in his eyes, what he'd been hiding. Warmth. Admiration.

His large nose brushed yours as he kissed you slow with no rush of need. His hand was soft as he angled you so he could explore every line and curve if your lip.

Your own hand slowly wound up, around his head, stroking the back of his hair and resting there. He didn't mind the oxygen tube or that she couldn't reach up to meet him. In fact he kissed her like he'd planned it like this a hundred times.

When there was an alarming beep from the machines Robby pulled away quick, studdying them.

“It's just my heartrate,” you said. “Might have been beating a little faster there.”

He agreed but seemed solemn to do so.

You watched the crease between his brows appear again. “You know, if I knew I just needed to be stabbed to have you kiss me again I'd have-”

“Don't even think about finishing that sentence.”

For the sake of his nerves, you didn't.

“You know if I'd have known that it was just gonna take me getting stabbed for you to sell that motorbike, I'd have got stabbed a lot sooner,” you said teasingly as Robby pulled into his new designated parking space outside the ED.

It had been a month since the incident but you were still reaping the small benefits that came with it. Like Robby insisting you stay with him to get the best care, like him getting rid of his motorbike to get a better car that was more comfortable on your back.

Like having so much time with him.

Mornings where he dedicated time in messaging the sore spots of your back and spreading an oil that was going to help the scaring. Like the dinner times when you read him a recipe that he never followed to the t. Like the kisses you stole in the night when he'd watch you and kiss you without straining to go forward.

Robby parked the car and turned off the engine. “If I had a dollar every time you said that,” he grumbled, picking up his bag and exiting.

You were still moving slower, still kept a crutch with you to keep weight off your back. You were coming back to work with a much lighter work load and you were sure Robby would be glued to your side all day like he practically had the month you'd took to recover.

Even before you could open the door Robby was there doing it for you, your own bag in his hand.

“You think anyone's gonna want to see the cool scars I've got, they kind of look like stars,” you said as Robby stayed close by your side, walking in with you.

“You sent them all pictures,” he said, mildly irritated. You and everyone around you seemed to try to crack jokes about the thing. He felt sometimes he was the only one who saw the near death wound for what it was.

“Excuse me- most of them asked for pictures.”

“Completely inappropriate.”

A few ambulance workers saw you, greeting you with smiles you returned while Robby waited next to you, holding up a polite hand in greeting.

It dropped, grazed yours and picked it up, holding on as the two of you walked in.

Usually Robby liked to walk in through triage, get a feel of what was happening but he wasn't risking that many foreign bodies next to you even though they caught David Brown and he was being charged.

Robby had something to live for, had something to protect. Nothing was happening to it. To you.

“It's good to have you back,” said Lupe as the two of you passed her at the door.

“Do you think that was a pun?” you uttered to him, rewarded with the smallest tint of his lips as he pushed open the door.

Loud clapping greeted you with some cheap, paper, party poppers when you walked in. Thee was cheering to and a large banner was hooked up, saying 'welcome home!'.

A place that could have held such terrible memories was brightened up as you jumped from one smiling face, to another.

Next to you, Robby stepped back, blending into the admiring crowd and started to clap too with something more than fondness in his smile. Love. A word that had woven its way into your vocab since moving in with him to get help for your wounds.

A word that summed up so much of what you had.

“You did this for me?” you asked.

“It was all Robby's idea,” said Jack, leading the cheering.

You didn't have to even move. Like he knew what you wanted Robby stepped over to you and kissed you. He always kept his lips irritatingly light, encouraging you to stretch out muscles in your back to join meet him.

You grinned against his lips. “I should be stabbed more often.”