You followed shortly, his words making you crumble onto his bare chest as your eyes rolled in pleasure. You caught his lips with yours for a solid second, his stubble rubbing against your face. His arms ran up your bare back, and back down to your hips in a way that made you shiver, he forced you to continue your motions. You whined in overstimulation as you tried to slow your hips to a stop. Ryland groaned and held your hips in place, still inside of you.

“That’s it. So proud. So good for me.” He spoke, his face now inside the crook of your neck.

“You’re so good for me.” You argued.

Ryland lifted his head to look you in the eyes, he was practically drooling at the praise, his eyes lit up, you lifted your hand to push his glasses farther up his nose.

“Wow, the way you just lit up, leads me to believe I should tell you that more often.” 

“Don’t use this against me.” He quipped.

“Never.” You smirked, sending him a wink.

You shifted as he pulled out of you, his hands immediately pulling you into his chest, leaning back to lay down in the ship’s dormitory. You both stared up at the ceiling, the ropes crossed over each other to aid in travel when — unlike tonight — the centrifuge is not activated — It was strange, to think about — having sex in a spaceship years away from earth. 

You turned in his arms to look up at Ryland, who was already looking down at you with those annoying googly eyes. 

“Should we be doing this?”

“This?” He asked.

“Having sex, when we have a planet to save? I mean we are literally on the way back home now.”

Ryland squinted his eyes in thought, before concluding,

“Hey, intimacy helps clear our minds, helps us stay focused.”

“Right. Focused.” You imitated.

He gave your lips a peck. You stared at him for a second too long. You had only been sleeping together for a couple days, of course there was built up tension, and of course the logical explanation at the time was…well sex. But as you looked into his eyes, you couldn’t help but think about doing this forever. Being with him forever. Or for however long you could be.

“You okay?” He asked, catching your shift.

“Yea…I just hope Rocky’s okay.” You lied, kind of.

He pressed a kiss to your forehead.

“I’m sure he’s on his way home now.” 

“Yea, I miss him.”

He twitched his lips in agreement. 

“Now, let's get you cleaned up.” He said.

He sat up and you shook your head.

“No, you first.” You said, grabbing his shoulder to stop him.

Ryland rolled his eyes, leaned forward to kiss your cheek, and shook his head.

“Sweetheart, just let me take care of you.”

You grumbled, falling back onto your back. He walked over to the lavatory, grabbed a towel with some water from the small rations you both had, and leant down to you. He gently wiped the inside of your thighs, and let you wipe the rest of the area he had missed. Somehow things like that felt too intimate still. You watched him slip on his boxers, and walk back into the lab where the rest of your rations were abandoned.

When you were finished, he had one of his shirts in his hands, some juice he probably found in the rations, and the colorful mission quilt. He leant down again, pulling his shirt over your body, handing you the juice to drink.

“There we go, how are you feeling?”

“Like this is all not necessary.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yea I mean all the other guy’s I’ve slept with would never do this after we were done.” You said as if what Ryland was doing was ridiculous.

Ryland leaned down to sit on the mattress beside you, shaking the quilt out so it covered both of your bodies. You continued drinking your juice.

“Those guys are assholes, you deserve to be taken care of even after we’re done. Plus why wouldn’t I take care of you, you’re amazing, I feel so lucky.” He explained.

“I feel so lucky too.”

A beat. You discarded the juice you were drinking, placing the cup on the floor beside the mattress.

"Is there anything else you need right now, sweetheart?"

Ryland scrunched his nose at you, rubbing your back lovingly.

“Can we lay back and cuddle again, like we usually do?” You asked.

"Absolutely. Let's lay back." He pulled you to his chest again, laying down.

He laid on his back as you curled up again on his side, your hand and head attached to his warm chest that rose and fell as he breathed. His heart beat calmed your thoughts.

“Did I–nevermind.”

You tilted your head upward, shifting your position on his chest to look him in the eyes.

“No, spit it out.” You demanded.

Ryland’s cheeks blushed, and you giggled at his sudden shyness. 

“Did I…you know…do a good job?” He asked.

You pretended to think, and he rolled his eyes groaning in embarrassment. 

“Ryland, I think that was the best job you’ve ever done since we started sleeping together.”

“You make it sound so formal.”

You kissed his stubble, then leaned forward and kissed the bridge of his nose.

“You could make it less formal, if you just asked me to be yours.”

He smiled, placing his hands to cup your face. His comedically intense stare made you laugh, you took the glasses off his face and placed them on the crown of your own head.

“Will you be mine?” He asked.

“Yes.” You responded, it was exactly what you had wanted all along.

He leaned forward and captured your lips for a long moment, before you furrowed your eyebrows and remembered where you were. Ryland looked at your perplexed face, and he ran his thumb over your bottom lip.

“What?” 

“Do you think, when the whole world came together to make this quilt, they thought two unqualified astronauts were going to sleep in it after having sex?”

Ryland chuckled.

You panicked, reaching for your phone, your heart was beating fast. You began anxiously pacing back and forth, thunder clapping in the background as the sun began to go down. 

You could call him, but what would you say? ‘Hey, were you wanting to kiss me back there? Come over and kiss me then”? You shook your head, you groaned in embarrassment.

“He’s probably long gone by now.” You rationalized out loud. 

You laughed at the absurdity of you talking to yourself. You took a deep breath, and decided you were going to go downstairs to check the mail, before brewing yourself a cup of coffee, you'd figure this out later.

You picked up your keys that were on the kitchen island and headed to the door and began rationalizing again:

You would tell him how you felt next time you saw him, and if he didn’t feel the same then you could still be friends and you knew Ryland, he would be so sweet about it too, although it would be a little awkward—

You opened up the door and Ryland was pacing back and forth in your hallway. He was still just as drenched as you were. His yellow jacket that you gave back draped over his shoulders, his arms not in the arm holes.

His head jolted up to meet your eyes, and your heart sped right back up, he paused his pacing and walked a little closer to your doorway. His wet hair stuck to his forehead. His glasses were fogged up and now rested on top of his head, his hands were interlaced in front of him in thought. You could tell he was being shy, by the way he rocked back on his feet and ducked his head a little.

It was so endearing whenever he got shy, you were so used to the confident science teacher every student looked up to. 

Ryland had a way of turning his awkwardness into confident lectures, as if his awkwardness came from years of people not willing to pay attention to him. So he became confident when teaching because it was the one way he could actually talk about the cool science stuff he cared about. Because the students also genuinely cared.

“Were you…pacing back and forth just now?” You asked, too nervous to say anything else.

“Yea, I was." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I was thinking about this theory.” Ryland said, scrunching his nose.

“I think we might be thinking about the same one.” You barely whispered, hopeful you were right. “But you should share it with me anyway.” You said seriously, your keys now falling out of your hand, abandoned to the floor inside your doorway.

Ryland was now standing close in front of you, his hands moving as he spoke.

“My theory is that you wanted me to kiss you.” Ryland blurted out. “I could be completely wrong— or maybe I just wanted to kiss you—okay mostly I wanted to kiss you—”

Your heart shuddered in relief, you had in fact not read the signals wrong, he was falling for you too.

“Maybe you should run an experiment.” You said, your eyes lingering on his.

He paused, then his eyes lit up in recognition, you could hear his breath hitch as he nodded. He stepped closer toward you, placing his hands on the side of your arms. You shivered out of coldness, wanting him to be much closer than he was. Wanting him to warm you up.

“Let’s hope this experiment is successful.” He mumbled.

“I don’t see why it wouldn’t be.” You said.

He looked you in the eyes shyly, before leaning his head down to hover his lips over yours. You could feel his breath, his nose grazing your cheek. Until finally, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to yours. 

Your body relaxed as you lifted your arms to circle around his neck, pulling back from the kiss, just to kiss him harder, tugging at his hair between your fingers as you kissed him back hungrily. It was as if all the tension between you two came down to this, as if you had both been thinking about this for a long time, and you could feel his mouth upturn into a smile.

"I'm so glad you didn't leave, I was pacing back and forth thinking about this too." You admitted, kissing him again.

Ryland sighed, "Yea?" He asked, you could feel a smirk pressing against your mouth.

You pulled your hands from his hair, and ran them down over his clothed chest, and a groan escaped his mouth as he prodded at your lips with his tongue. His arms wrapped around you, running up your waist to your back, pulling you flush into his body. 

After a few minutes, you pulled back breathless, your forehead pressed against his, you laughed into his mouth. You could feel the slight burn on your face from his stubble, and you reached your right hand up to graze your fingertips against his face to feel it.

“I think your experiment was well executed.” You whispered, placing a chaste kiss on his upper lip.

“Wow—you are amazing, I mean I knew that already but—” Ryland said through the silence, stumbling on his words. “Why didn’t we ever do this before?” He asked.

“At least we’re doing it now.” You sighed.

The first time you almost revealed your relationship, you were drunk in the bar bathroom.

You swayed on your feet a few feet in front of Ryland, in the dim lighting, music sounded softly in the background, along with cheers from your medical team — doing shots off of the science teams bodies — you smiled at Ryland’s adorable face. 

You and Ryland had agreed to arrive separately to the party, so as not to cause any attention. You had gotten a few coolers to pregame before from Ilyukhina, so you were already pretty tipsy when you showed up. 

You spotted Ryland at the bar with Carl, he never really socialized much at parties, more of a lab socializer. But you knew Ryland got along with Carl very well. The bartender was cleaning the top of the bar behind them. 

You walked up to Dubois who was leaning against a table drinking a beer. 

“Hey! You’re here at last!” Dubois cheered, raising his beer at you. 

“I’ve been looking forward to it all day.”

“Yea? Med bay not treating you well?” Dubois asked over the music.

You barely registered the question. You pretended to look around, before casually locking eyes with Ryland, who was already checking you out. You looked back at Dubois who was looking at you expectantly.

“Oh, uh yea it’s kinda been a slow shift,” you sighed. Thinking of a way to get out of that conversation. “You know what I need? A drink.”

“Alright, make sure to get something strong then.” Dubois exclaimed. 

You nodded, patting his back before turning toward the bar and walking over to Ryland slowly. Casually as if you didn’t expect him to be there. 

“Hi Dr. Grace, how’s the research going?” You asked, just as Carl saluted you and walked away, you were attempting to hide your tipsiness.

“It’s going good, I guess,” Ryland mumbled, his eyes following to watch where Carl was headed before turning them back to you.

“I’m about to order a drink, what are you having?” You asked. 

“You seem pretty tipsy already, bad day?” Ryland asked.

You expected the question to be playful, but when you finally scanned his eyes, you remembered who he was. Genuine and caring, and genuinely interested in hearing about anything you tell him. Even when you were tipsy, and even in that packed bar with everyone around. 

You weren’t unfamiliar with his sweetness. Just unfamiliar with relationships.

You let out a sigh, Ryland’s presence already helping you unfold.

“Do you really wanna hear about my day right now?”

“Yea! I’ve been staring at Astrophage data for hours. Please.” 

“Alright.” You said.

“Thank you. Go ahead.” He whispered.

“Well it’s been kind of boring, I mean sure the coma research is interesting I just miss treating people.”

“What do you miss about it?” He asked, his attention fully on you despite the chaos behind you.

Your heart melted at his genuine interest. 

You tilted your head to the side, suppressing a smile that would reveal your admiration, and Ryland imitated you playfully, his shoulders lifting adorably.

“I just miss helping people, figuring out what exactly is wrong, things that aren’t immediately obvious. Now it’s head bumps and painkillers for headaches. On top of that, the coma resistance research team has been pretty hard on me lately.” You explained.

“I’ll be sure to be less careful in the lab then, to make your life more interesting..” Ryland teased.

You laughed.

“God no,” you said, “I don’t know what I’d do if you got hurt.” It came out playful, but hit truthfully.

Ryland must’ve seen the worry on your face at his words. 

“Hey, I know I was joking.” He said, slipping his hand discreetly to tug the bottom of your shirt.

Ryland began leaning closer to you, he moved his glasses to hang below his chin.

“You’re doing great work, don’t be too hard on yourself.” He reassured. 

“Thank you.” You sighed.

He shrugged like it was nothing at all.

“Also, you look really good when you’re not in scrubs.” Ryland spoke quietly. “Not that- not that you don’t look good in scrubs.” Ryland cleared his throat.

You blushed in response, biting your lip to suppress the laughter at his clarification.

“Thank you. No need for clarification I got it Ry. Not like you haven’t seen me out of scrubs before.”

“Just wanted to remind you.” Ryland stated.

You discreetly placed your hand on the bottom of his blazer. Your tipsiness pulling your guard down. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad — people knowing. But what you did know was that Ryland could leave you at any minute, you could be pulled off the project. There were so many reasons your relationship with Ryland could end. Keeping it to yourself, kept you safe.

“Nice blazer.” You whispered. “Keep the glasses on please?” 

He smiled, and pulled his glasses back up to his eyes. 

“I was given the blazer by my high school science teacher, he was like a mentor to me, I wanted to be exactly like him when I was a teacher.”

“I’m sure he’d think you were just as good of a teacher as he was.” You said.

He nodded proudly and you reached out to grab Ryland’s hand, feeling for the first time like you didn’t necessarily care about your guard coming down in front of him. Were you opening up? In a way you had never felt safe to do before?  

Ryland blushed, pulling his hand from yours.

“People are looking.” He reminded you.

“Alright, alright.” You chuckled. 

You resisted the urge to run your fingers through his hair. 

Ryland blushed again, looking around the room shyly. You loved how awkward he got when he was flustered, you had so much warmth in your heart for him, he was so sweet. You knew exactly what you needed, to kiss him.

“I miss kissing your face.” You whispered, pouting. “God you’re adorable when you blush.” 

“Well, why don’t you follow me into the bathroom in a minute.” He said, smirking. 

“Really?”

Ryland bit his lip shyly and nodded.

“Wow. Okay I didn’t know you were so risky.”

You didn’t get to hear his response because he pushed himself off the bar and headed toward the bar bathroom. You asked the bartender for a shot of vodka to stall, swung it back with a wince, and headed toward the bathroom too. 

The bathroom door swung open as you pushed the door, and you stepped into the empty bathroom. There were rows of about five stalls, and you smiled as you saw Ryland standing in front of the bathroom sink. When you stood in front of him, he automatically placed his hands on your waist, and your arms swung around his shoulders naturally. Sometimes, you couldn’t believe he had chosen you, he was so goddamn attractive, and so smart. He practically led the project. Then you remembered how awkward he was around you, and how you practically had to make the first move because he was so oblivious.

Ryland leaned forward so your noses brushed.

“I’ve been thinking about you all day.” He murmured.

You had only heard people say things like that, in that specific deep tone, in romance books. You couldn’t believe how much he seemed to care about you. Or even think of you.

You shivered and pressed your lips against his. A singular kiss, long and hard, before you pulled back and dove in to deepen the kiss, latching onto his bottom lip. You pressed him against the bathroom sink, and just as he was about to put his hand up your shirt you heard footsteps approaching the bathroom door.

You jumped, grabbing Ryland’s hand and pulling him into the bathroom stall on the end. You reached out to lock the stall, and you both looked around as you heard the bathroom door swing open. Ryland’s hands still grasped tightly onto your waist, and he leaned in again to kiss you, but you yelped away as you heard the footsteps approaching the bathroom stalls, and quickly stepped on top of the toilet seat, and kept your head low.

“What are you doing?!” Ryland half hissed half whispered.

“I don’t know!” You whispered back.

You both patiently waited for the individual — who ever they were — to finish peeing, you holding onto Ryland’s blazer for dear life, your knees shaking from crouching. And when they left the bathroom after they washed their hands, you let out a sigh of relief.

“So…any other plans tonight?” Ryland quipped.

You smacked him on the arm.

“Shut up.” 

You stepped off of the toilet, using Ryland to balance yourself.

“I will admit, that was a little fun.” Ryland sheepishly mumbled.

“Yea?”

“Yea really.”

You hopped off the toilet.

“Meet me in my room in ten then.” You said.

You sent Ryland a wink as you unlocked the stall and left the bathroom stall, then out back into the party passing the bar and past Dubois into the corridor.

The second time you almost got caught was when you woke up in Ryland’s room. 

You and Ryland had not planned to spend the night. But when you had mentioned you had a headache the night before, and when you didn’t really feel like going to your room on the opposite side of the boat, you inevitably ended up sleeping over.

You woke up to the sound of your alarm, it was 5:30am, the supposed start of your shift in med-bay. Your eyes shot open and you groaned as you felt Ryland’s biceps wrap tighter around you, pulling you closer to his bare chest. You turned in his arms to look at his sleepy face.

His blonde hair was a mop of messy, and his glasses-less face was groggy. He groaned as your alarm continued to go off.

“Ry, they’re gonna wonder why I’m late.” You mumbled. 

He shook his head silently, his eyes still closed from sleep. He leaned forward and kissed your mouth softly and barely, as if he was too tired to fully latch on. You sighed into the kiss, and kissed him deeper, eliciting a soft moan from his lips.

“God, you’re so perfect.” He whispered.

You whined as he began sleepily kissing up your neck. Sucking perfectly along your neck, biting gently at your jaw, before he kissed behind your ear. Your hands tugged at his hair, as you moaned softly. Your alarm was still sounding, but Ryland had you in a dangerous position. 

“I want to show you off so bad.” He whined.

“Not yet.” You sighed. 

It had been a month since you and Ryland had decided to keep your relationship a secret. You weren’t ashamed of Ryland, far from it. You were scared of sharing your relationship with everyone if you and Ryland were just going to be separated by the end. You were from different cities, with different professions, you just didn’t know where this was going. You were thankful that Ryland was so patient.

“I know, I’m just realizing how lucky I am that you chose me, I’d like to rub it in everyone’s faces when the time is right.” He mumbled, still half asleep.

You imagined what that would be like, realizing that if you really did want him in your future, if you really wanted pure love, then you’d have to open up a little bit more. You were working on it to say the least. 

“I gotta go.” 

He gave in and slumped back into his pillow. He loosened his grip on you.

You slid off of Ryland’s bed out from under the blanket, and hurried to pull your scrubs on, and grab your pager and phone, you turned off your alarm. When you turned toward the bed, Ryland’s eyes were closed. You walked toward him and pulled the blanket over him. 

You grinned, and checked your pockets, making sure your pen was still in there.

“Lunch with me at 2:00pm?” You whispered, planting a kiss on his head.

Ryland just nodded. 

You made sure to run your hand over your messy hair before you hurried out the door, and as you pulled the door shut, you ran into Carl walking by. 

“Oh sorry.”

“All good.” Carl said, he looked at you then at Ryland’s door number. He squinted his eyes at you. “You came out of Ryland’s room?” 

“Uh, yea I was just grabbing some…papers from him.” You fumbled over your words, it was 5:30am in your defense.

Carl nodded.

“At 5:30 in the morning?”

You knew what Ryland really wanted finally, was for you both to tell the truth. But you also knew Ryland would never say anything if you weren’t ready to. So you decided to keep going on the train of thought you were going.  

“What can I say, work never ends.” You laughed awkwardly.

“So where are the papers?”

Damn. You forgot about the logistics of this argument. You thought for a moment. 

“Oh-yeah, it turns out he didn’t have what I needed, said he left them at the lab and he’ll grab them as soon as he starts shift.” 

“Huh, I guess that makes sense,” Carl mused. “Well, cheers.” Carl waves slightly, before continuing down his path past you.

That was a close one. You let out a sigh of relief and hurried back to med-bay. 

The third time you almost revealed your relationship was in the lunch hall.

You and Ryland were sitting at a long table, next to Ilyukhina, and Dubois and Carl. Your lunch trays all lined up. You were sitting across from Ryland, and beside Carl. You were all eating the soup of the day.

The food on board the boat wasn’t good to say the least. But it was edible and filled you up. That was when you weren’t feeling especially motion sick that day.

You glanced down at your bowl of orange gloop, and twirled your spoon around before resuming your glance on Ryland — who was talking about who knows what.

Ryland moved his hands, spoon in one of them, deep in conversation with Carl.

“So then I ended up drawing up the data on these data analysis sheets that y/n showed me, and they fit information so perfectly right–” Ryland explained.

You were proud that you had offered him a good piece of advice. You had been using specific data analysis sheets you found on an online website for your coma resistance research, and thought they would be equally perfect for Astrophage data. You had been spending a lot of time in the lab with him, of course after hours. It was becoming easier to integrate yourself in those parts of his life. It made you begin to think maybe your relationship wasn’t so doomed. 

“Did you figure out the miscalculation you were talking about?” Carl asked.

Ryland nodded absentmindedly, you watched as he scooped up soup with his spoon and fed it to himself. A little bit of it dripped onto his chin, Carl laughed at the sight.

“You’ve got–” Carl began, gesturing to Ryland’s chin.

But before he could finish, you were already leaning forward and wiping off the orange soup from Ryland’s chin with a napkin. You hadn’t even realized you were doing it until the rest of the table went quiet, you turned your head to the rest of the table and pulled back from Ryland who’s eyes were slightly wider than before.

You laughed nervously, and shrugged your shoulders, you didn’t know how to cover this one up, so you went for,

“Hey, crewmates helping crewmates, am I right?” You asked.

The whole table burst out laughing, and you and Ryland both let out a sigh of relief.

“Try not spill soup below the neck region.” Ikyukhina exclaimed, her euphemism making everyone laugh, except for you and Ryland, who were mortified. 

Carl laughed before jabbing you in the side with his elbow playfully, and Ryland’s thigh grazed against yours under the table.

The fourth time was when you fell asleep in med bay. 

Ryland had been ready to see you when he walked into med-bay. Your almost daily visits were the highlight of Ryland’s time on the boat. Yes he loved spending time studying Astrophage, it had felt like he had been given a research opportunity he hadn’t been given in a long time. But seeing you was also a plus.

So when Ryland walked into the empty med-bay to find you asleep at your desk, he was a little disappointed. Although he was happy to see you sleeping for the first time in three days. The coma research was finally almost done, and you had been supervising the whole project — since Stratt promoted you.

You were slumped in your chair with your head on the desk, your face to the side and your mouth open. Ryland found you so adorable like that. Even more adorable than when you fell asleep in his bed, most of the time when you didn’t mean to.

He walked closer to your desk, and when he spotted yellow post-it notes beside you, it was like a lightbulb appeared over his head. He chuckled to himself, at his nerdy little prank he was about to pull on you.

He grabbed a sharpie, and started writing a few suggestive, and flirty notes, and walked around you before gently placing the sticky notes on your back. He leaned down and kissed the back of your head before heading out of the med-bay door. Satisfied with his work.

You were woken up by a shake of your shoulder, you groaned when you opened your eyes to see Stratt standing in front of you holding two massive binders. You sat up and Stratt placed the binders on the desk, you crumpled your nose.

“No time for sleep now, okay? I need these filled out tonight.”

You sighed, rubbing your hand over your face.

“Why tonight?”

“Because we don’t have time to work slow.”

You groaned again, that was the answer she gave for almost everything.

You opened the first binder to the first page as Stratt walked around you to grab something from one of the stations. Suddenly you felt her touch your back, you gasped as you jumped, before realizing she had pulled something off of your shirt. 

You turned around and saw her holding two sticky notes in her hands. Those were on your back?

“‘Came to see you, saw you were sleeping, come back to mine and I’ll help you relax’ winky face.” Stratt said, reading the sticky note.

Your eyebrows furrowed in sleepy confusion, and you yanked the sticky note from her hand, instantly recognizing Ryland’s hand writing. A blush rushed to your face.

“‘I think I might be Astrophage, cuz I’d eat your star anyday’–”

You grabbed the last one from her hand.

“I don’t even—what are these—I—no need to even continue—” You fumbled.

Stratt did not even laugh, just looked at you seriously.

“I did not know you were ‘seeing someone’ as they say.”

“I’m not. I’m not!”

“Funny. I saw Ryland come in here a few minutes ago.” Stratt pondered.

“He was borrowing some—” You started.

“Not important. Less talk, more work, thank you.” Stratt said, as she headed out the door.

You slumped your head in your hands, swearing you were going to get Ryland back.

The fifth was when a newly recruited scientist was flirting with you in front of Ryland. 

You had been feeling much more confident about you and Ryland’s relationship. You had begun the next couple steps into completing the project and there were only a few months until launch day. 

You and Ryland had talked privately about what you were going to do. You felt vulnerable enough to explain to him how much you cared about him and didn’t want to have to let him go. So you both decided to make plans to visit each other frequently outside of the project. You weren’t entirely sure how much you expected, or whether you were less afraid or less unsure than you were before. But again, you were working on it.

The next step was introducing the technology to scientists who were added to the crew for additional supervision during launch, just to make sure everything went as smoothly as possible.

So there you stood beside one of the new scientists in the lab — Dr. Cox. He was very clearly attempting to flirt with you, and at first it was enough to just shrug off. This astonished you, as you couldn’t believe this guy was more interested in flirting with you then paying attention to this planet saving information.

Stratt stood on the sidelines chatting with the astronauts, and Ryland was preparing the Astrophage for the final test of the tour of the lab — melting the cubic ton of metal. Ryland was preparing the Astrophage with Carl on one end of the spindrive.

“So what is your specific involvement in this project?” Dr. Cox asked, folding his arms over his chest.

Your mouth formed into an unimpressed line, maybe now he’d finally catch a hint.

“Oh, I worked on the coma resistance gene research to select our very inspiring astronauts, and I worked to perfect the coma inducing drugs, also I helped make sure the ship was fully stocked with medical supplies before it launches.” You declared proudly. “I don’t know how I even had time to socialize on board.” You laughed, at your own thoughts, not Dr. Cox’s.

Dr. Cox nodded, his eyes drifting up and down your body, you didn’t like the way he was looking at you.

“Oh nice. That all means you're single right?” He asked.

His directness surprised you, but you saw no regret in his face at asking.

“Uh, no it means that I’m the most qualified in this field.” 

Dr. Cox nodded, like he didn’t even hear a word you said.

You shifted slightly as you stood next to him, looking at Ryland, who very clearly was overhearing this conversation. His back was turned to you as he started to load the Astrophage inside of the spindrive. But his back was tense enough for you to understand what he was feeling and that he had heard every second of the interaction.

Dr. Cox shrugged his shoulders and said,

“I’m surprised a doctor like you has a body like that, I’d be all over you myself.”

He must’ve spoken just loud enough for everyone to hear, because just as his words finished, Stratt turned around at the same time as Ryland did. Both with strong expressions of shock on their faces. 

Ryland turned to Carl, whose face was in an angry expression directed entirely at Dr. Cox. Ryland handed Carl the vial of Astrophage and his glasses.

“Sorry, can you hold these?” He asked. 

Carl nodded without a word, taking the vial and glasses in his hands.

Ryland smiled politely as he walked across the floor away from the spindrive and toward you and Dr. Cox. 

Dr. Cox held out his hand expectantly, and Ryland took off his gloves slowly. Once they were off, he lifted his right fist and punched Dr. Cox square in the jaw. Your hands went to your mouth in shock.

Dr. Cox dropped to the ground, and you held back a laugh, and simultaneously a scream, as you stepped away from him.

Ryland sent you a fiery look, and you were overcome with this feeling of safety for the first time in a long time. 

Ilyukhina gasped, realization spreading across her face.

“You and Ryland are–”

Before Ilyukhina could finish her sentence Stratt chimed in.

“What exactly were you thinking when you did that?” Stratt asked, pretending to be annoyed, sending you a wink.

You were thankful Ilyukhina’s thoughts were interrupted.

Ryland straightened his back.

“I was thinking that I felt very strongly about our sexual harassment policies.” Ryland grumbled, the sexiest you’ve ever heard a statement like that be said. You didn’t even know that was possible.

It was like his protectiveness over you had finally convinced you that you were allowed to be less afraid. Less afraid of being hurt, less afraid of losing him. 

“Let’s start the demonstration!” Ryland exclaimed, like nothing had happened at all.

+1. When you finally revealed you and Ryland were together, it was an accident.

You and Ryland had been walking toward a conference room, where Stratt had asked to meet with Ryland. You walked side by side, your hands subtly brushing each other, but not intertwined, you finally reached the door. You were there to deliver the final pages of your coma resistance research to her.

You opened the door following Ryland inside, Stratt was sitting at a long table, staring out into the ocean as the boat moved. She smiled a little when she saw you both enter, Carl stood on the far end of the room.

“Hey guys, let's try to make this quick.” Ryland groaned.

Carl laughed in response, you rolled your eyes carrying your papers to the table.

“The meeting will be as long as is efficient, Dr. Grace.” Stratt said pointedly.

You had to admit, sometimes you liked how effectively she carried her authority.

“So this is the research summary, I think it needs some tweaking in the graph areas, since I didn’t update them since we last talked, but I will today.” You explained, placing the stack in front of her.

She nodded.

“Very good. Will you be joining Dr. Grace and I for the meeting?” She asked.

You shook your head.

“Just dropping him off.” You said with a grin, patting Ryland on the shoulder as he sat down.

Ryland grinned back up at you shyly.

“Alright, I’ll let you all get to it.” You said.

And the next thing you did surprised Ryland, and yourself. You leaned down and kissed his mouth absentmindedly, before pulling back. Ryland blushed and you wondered why he was so flustered, it was just a kiss? Until you realized that that was the very first time you had kissed him publicly.

After your initial shock, you realized how right it felt. How stupid it was that you were keeping this a secret. You cleared your throat awkwardly and were about to speak when Stratt let out a sigh.

“Thank god, now we can stop pretending we did not know.” She grumbled. “American idiots.”

You and Ryland gasped.

“You knew?” Ryland inquired.

“Man, we all knew.” Carl chimed in.

Ryland walked toward you, then started pacing, pulling his fox cardigan off and hanging it on the coat hook beside the door. He moved his hands sporadically, his glasses now pushed to sit on top of his head.

“One of them kept jumping up and down and interrupting, and another kept distracting me and insulting my haircut? I guess they had been studying hard though because every time they interrupted they understood the concept when I asked them to recite it back to—”

“Ry, I can’t–” You felt yourself crying as you spoked.

Ryland went quiet, and you laughed at yourself, at the absurdity that you were crying because of the pain of a simple headache.

He immediately stepped into the kitchen to stand in front of you, and placed his hands on your arms gently.

“Whoa, hey, sweetheart, what’s wrong, I’m so sorry, I didn’t even ask how your day was.” 

You laughed again, and he reached up to cup your face in both his hands, wiping the tears from your face. You admired him for a moment, admired the gentleness that was in the creases of his face. You shrugged as you reached up and pulled his glasses down back over his eyes.

“There we go, I can see you much clearer now.” Ryland chuckled. “Why are you crying, is it something I did? Did something happen when you went to see Adrian? I can try to talk to Rocky–”

“No, no! God no! I just have a headache, I think from trying to translate everything in my head. I kinda suck at Eridian.” 

“Hey, don’t say that, you’re still learning. It’s not exactly easy learning an alien language when you’ve been relying on a translator for years.” He spoke more quietly, adjusting to your needs.

You nodded and lifted your arms to rest on his shoulders and he moved his hands to your waist.

“I know we’re supposed to be immersing ourselves in culture, but it was so much easier when we had that stupid computer translating everything.” You sighed.

“Hey, that ‘stupid computer’ did nothing except recite code, I translated everything by hand in an alien made tunnel!” 

His quiet whispering exasperation made you laugh and you rolled your eyes playfully, feeling your headache shoot up again as your eyes lifted.

“And you did an excellent job.”

Ryland laughed, before a silence overcame you both and the attention was on you again.

“I’m glad your students are excited, I’m sorry I interrupted you.” You whispered.

Ryland's lips turned into a pout before he leant down and kissed you on the forehead.

“We can talk about that tomorrow,” He put his — surprisingly cold — hand on your forehead. “I’m going to go turn off those lights, and then I think I have an idea of a certain way I can help you.” He said with a sly smirk, he sent you a wink.

You blushed and leant up to kiss him understanding his suggestion, then pulled away. Ryland had always been so good at taking care of you.

“I think that might be exactly what I need.”

Ryland swiftly turned off all the lights in the house again, even the lamp you had previously turned on, then he was lifting you up in one solid motion. You buried your head in the crook of his neck, placing your raging forehead against his warm body as he carried you through the dark house and up the stairs into the, thankfully, very dark, bedroom.

He placed you gently on your back on top of the bed and he crawled to hover overtop of you. Your head resting on the pillows, relishing in some relief as your headache still rang through. 

Ryland grinned like a dork as he lowered his face so your noses were brushing, his glasses grazed against your face too. 

Then he kissed you softly, your lips moving at a slow and deep pace. You threw your arms around his shoulders, running your hands against his back. His tongue began working yours in between passionate kisses, and he ran his hands down the sides of your waist before exploring the back of your clothed thighs. 

“This okay so far?” He asked as he pulled back slightly.

You nodded, just wanting to kiss him again. So you did. 

He groaned into the kiss as you pulled your arms back to run your hands over his clothed toned chest, then down to grab his belt. You loved hearing him make noises, but why weren't you getting into the mood? You could tell Ryland was already there by the bulge that was poking at your thigh, so why weren’t you there too? When you thought about it more, you remembered the headache that was raging inside of your skull. Ryland was doing amazing, but you had to face the music — you were struggling to be in the moment.

You pulled back from the kiss, putting your hands on Ryland’s shoulders.

“Ry baby, um—”

You bit your lip in nervousness. 

You didn’t want to stop and disappoint him now that he was in the mood, but you knew your body, and what you were feeling. 

It’s not like you didn’t know how Ryland would respond, he was the most gentle person you had ever dated. The first time you had sex, Ryland had assured you many times it was okay if you changed your mind, and he always assured you of that fact. And the few times you did change your mind, you ended up cuddling in bed instead. You had only been together for a couple of months, so of course it made you nervous still to speak up.

Ryland smiled down at you, lifting his hand to stroke the side of your head.

“Yea sweetheart? Is this still okay? Do you want me to stop?”

“Yea, I uh, sort of changed my mind. This headache is killing me and taking me out of the moment.” You sighed, lifting your body to sit up. “I’m sorry.”

Ryland kissed your forehead.

“That's okay with me,” He said, as he changed positions to sit in front of you. “No need to apologize.”

“Really, is that okay? I mean, I could tell how excited about it you were, and you had a long day too–”

He reached out to grab your hands in his, rubbing your knuckles with his thumbs before lifting them up to press his mouth on them in a kiss

“It is more than okay. I can only help you feel better — in that way — if you’re in the mood, so let me just help you somehow else.”

You leaned forward and kissed him again, this time a slow, and less heated kiss, just a kiss that made you remember how lucky you were to have such an amazing boyfriend like him. 

In that moment you heard yourself in your head, reciting those three words you had never said to anyone before… the three words that had previously appeared in your head when you saw Ryland standing in the door frame one day after your walk, while the biodome illuminated his face, because even then you couldn’t believe how lucky you were. 

You swallowed the words down, unsure if that’s how you really felt, or if you could even say them, your headache fueling your uncertainty, instead going for,

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He replied, a blush spreading across his cheeks.

He scrunched his face at you goofily, and peppered kisses all over your face. You let out a howl of giggles, and groaned as his glasses ran along your cheeks. You brought your hands to run through his hair. Your headache was still pounding, but you knew you had an amazing person to help take care of you.

He pulled back and stood up with determination in his stance.

“Okay, so, I’m going to go get my cardigan because I know how much you love wearing it, and then I’m going to make you tea and find Armando for a pain killer and then we can take a nap — or I guess go to sleep.” Ryland said, matter of fact.

“Okay.” 

You watched him leave the room and you finally slumped back against the pillows, pulling yourself under the covers, sitting up against the headboard. 

When Ryland came up the stairs, back into the bedroom, with your favorite mug filled with steaming tea in his right hand, a painkiller packet clamped in his mouth by the teeth, and his cardigan in his left hand, it became so crystal clear that your feelings were true…it was so crystal clear that he was the person you could picture yourself being taken care of for the rest of your life, and you knew that that specific feeling was love.

“I love you.” You spoke out loud, half unconsciously and half consciously. 

Ryland paused his movements, then you watched as he rushed to put everything down. First putting your tea on the bedside table, then throwing his fox cardigan around your shoulders. 

You lifted your back off the headboard casually, letting him put the cardigan fully around you like you had said nothing of importance at all.

He sat in front of you, holding your hands again.

“I ruvv ru rooo.” He whispered, the painkiller packet still in his mouth. 

You giggled, as you watched him realize the packet was still in between his teeth, he pulled it out and handed it to you.

“I’m sorry, what was that? I didn’t catch that.” You said sassily, pointing to your ear.

“I love you too.” He said seriously, ignoring your sassy response.

“Oh thank god.” You responded, grabbing his shirt and kissing him passionately.

When you separated he lifted the mug of tea from the nightstand table and handed it to you.

“If you really love me, then you’ll drink some of this tea and take that painkiller.”

“I really do love you, and I’ll prove it by doing just that.”

You sat on a spinning office chair in the lab, you were spinning slowly in circles with your legs up to your chest. Ryland stood in front of you staring at a whiteboard of stuff on astrophage.

“Why do they go to venus?” He asked vaguely, his arms crossed in front of him.

“Maybe they are like birds.”

“What?” He asked, readjusting his glasses.

You continued spinning in your chair.

“I read an article that they found fossil of birds from 73 billion years ago with hatchlings and–”

“You know I love your tangents, but I’m sort of working on saving the world right now.”

You stopped your spinning and smacked his arm, rolling your eyes.

“They discovered that they went to the arctic to breed.”

Ryland rubbed his eyebrow in thought, bringing his glasses to hang below his chin.

“Okay? Birds migrate to breed, I taught that to my students all the– wait! You’re saying–”

“Maybe astrophage go to Venus to breed! Exactly!”

Ryland leant down and pulled you out of your chair, hugging you tightly, before running off to the corner to grab some duct tape.

The memory brought you to tears, mostly because it gave you physical relief, since it felt like you had been literally holding everything tight in your brain and you didn’t have the key to unlock it. But all the emotions from the memory felt so familiar to you. You obviously felt a strong sense of familiarity and comfort around Ryland, but now you knew a small part of exactly why that was. Of course it didn’t tell you exactly how you met, or how you ended up on Mary, but it was something.

When you rushed into the lab and brought it up to him, he told you he didn’t remember, and moved back to his work. 

To his defense, you could tell Ryland was trying so hard to remember, he really did want to remember. Throughout the day he tried to squint his eyes hard, even rubbed his forehead to try and simulate some neurons or something, and he felt extremely bad when you laughed at him in those moments. You couldn’t blame him, both of your memories were just waiting to bloom, it just was taking a bit of time.

Ultimately, despite him not remembering, your knowledge of astrophage helped you both remember why you were on the ship to begin with. 

After some time Ryland was beginning to stare into space instead of tracking the ship’s trajectory. You put your computer down.

“Ryland, you’ve been up for way too long, go take a nap.”

When he went down for a nap you began to log your memory into your tablet, you didn’t have much there yet. You groaned as your back ached, you hated the lab stools because they hurt your back, but it’s not like you had patients to tend to. So that was what you could do without Ryland’s supervision.

After an hour or so Ryland walked into the lab after his nap. You turned around at the sound of his feet on the floor, and when you saw him, your smile dropped as you noticed the tears in his eyes, his glasses long abandoned, and his stature falling. 

“Ryland?”

He crossed the floor immediately toward you and pulled you into a tight hug.

“What’s going on?” You asked as you brought your hands up behind him to run through his hair maybe instinctively, yet still nervously.

“My head hurts—you—you met me at—we stayed up all night together—we—” He stammered.

Your eyes widened and you rubbed his back comfortingly. His sobs made his body shake against you.

“I remember. I remember it all. You’re my best friend.”

You smiled into his shoulder, and let yourself for the first time tighten your arms around his waist. 

Two.

You stood in front of a whiteboard. Ryland sat on the floor in front of you beside Rocky. 

Ryland could tell you were excited by the way you kept swaying side to side and the giant grin on your face. He knew your passion was human biology, you had told him that everything about it fascinated you, which is why you became a doctor in the first place.

He asked you while you were both trying to get to know each other better in the mental health room, he remembered spending late nights in the lab with you, he remembered eating in the dining room on the boat with you, the jokes you’d make together, but he didn’t remember why you became a doctor. He knew you remembered and maybe told him already before, but insisted you tell him again anyway. And you insisted he tell you why he became a teacher. It was like watching a flower that had been planted last spring bloom again after the long winter.

However, because Ryland was a microbiologist and a biologist he knew as much about human biology as you did, but sometimes he’d pretend not to remember just so he could see the excitement on your face when you did.

Ryland knew, by the way you fidgeted and constantly reminded yourself of basic medicine by reading textbooks on the online database, that you missed medicine so much. So when Rocky asked Ryland to explain human biology and to explain what human doctors do one day while he was in the tunnel meeting Rocky for one of the first times — while you slept — he knew exactly who to talk to — you.

The whiteboard contained info about specialities that weren’t your speciality, but you felt were still important to take note of. You had written down, OBGYN, and neurology, and surgery, you were discussing surgery just then.

“Humans cut people open when there is a problem inside their bodies, that is what surgery is.” You explained.

“What problem, question?” Rocky asked, leaning closure curiously.

“Like…uh, heart problems. Or to get these harmful growths called tumours out of our bodies.” Ryland explained, he moved his glasses to rest on the top of his head.

“Bad bad bad! Human bodies inefficient statement.” Rocky squealed.

“They sure are sometimes.” Ryland groaned. 

You nodded and laughed.

“I was in emergency medicine before I was on this mission, and one time there was this guy who came in with heart issues,” You started explaining, your hands moving all over the place. “and we ended up having to crack open his chest, we cut his chest open so we could see his lungs and heart, and we found out there was air from his lung entering into his bloodstream. This is called an embolism–”

Ryland’s mouth formed into a smile, wide at you, a smirk on his face like he was about to laugh. He was just perplexed, some of the memories he remembered best were ones where you went on heated tangents in response to his questions. 

You paused when you noticed Rocky giving you excited jazz hands to laugh, then noticed Rylands gaze directed at you. You suddenly felt shy for the first time in front of him. 

Did you explain anything wrong? You admired Ryland for his intelligence, and you loved his tangents as much as you loved going on tangents. You were overcome with a desire to impress him constantly. But you sometimes worried you were getting things wrong when Ryland let you talk too much. There he was staring at you making you flustered?

He watched as you shyly bit your lip, clearly nervous.

“What?” You asked.

He shook his head and his lips moved to a more serious expression, hoping you couldn’t read his mind. He moved his glasses onto his face so he could see you more clearly, overcome with wanting to watch you more. 

Ryland pulled his legs in front of his chest and crossed his arms overtop his knees. 

“Nothing. I like watching you explain things.” He said.

You smiled in relief, and looked away.

Three.

When you woke up one morning, you found yourself becoming anxious at the sight of the stars out your window. You wanted desperately to revisit Earth, and you knew the one place to do it — the mental health room. 

You and Ryland had bonded in the mental health room twice before, he showed you all his favorite places on Earth — and also the places he wished he had visited — but Blip-A, or Rocky’s ship showed up before you got a chance to show him yours. You knew what you needed to calm your anxieties was to visit Greece, or Canada, or New York, or to see a tree for God's Sake.

You headed down the ship, toward the semi spherical room, climbing down the ladder leading down. When you jumped off the ladder and turned around you saw Ryland sitting on the platform, staring at a projection of the beach. 

“Hi.” You said.

Ryland turned around, lifted his glasses off his chin and looked at you.

“Hi.”

You walked toward the platform, stepped around him and pulled yourself down on the metal grate to sit on the left of him.

“Everything okay?” You asked.

He shrugged, he closed his fox cardigan further with his hands.

“Yea, I just missed the beach. I miss Earth.”

You tilted your head in a nod. 

“Me too.”

A moment of silence passed and neither of you interrupted it. You felt as though you might’ve been intruding on his peace and silence, on his moment of reflection. So you stood up.

“Alright, well sorry to interrupt, I’ll let you have your peace.” You said, stepping around him.

You felt his hand grab your wrist to stop you, you looked down at him. His face was comically almost in a pout, and his eyes stuck glued onto you. You couldn’t help but admit he looked well…attractive, in the lighting of the room. You brushed that aside as you stepped closer toward  him.

“Stay. I like this room better with you in it anyway.”

“I guess I have to stay then.” You fake complained, which earned you a chuckle from Ryland.

Ryland Grace had a way of saying the nicest things anyone had ever said to you. Your mouth formed a grin shyly, and you lowered yourself down next to him again, you playfully brushed your shoulder against his and you both laughed. Finally, you wagered against something blooming inside of you and the urge to rest your head on his shoulder, and shyly without looking up at him, lowered your head to rest on his left shoulder. 

The shy touch felt different than the touch you both usually shared before, and you almost wondered if you made a mistake. But when Ryland lowered his head to the left to rest on top of yours, you were filled with relief and a feeling you hadn’t felt since you were a teenager.

Four.

“Grace and Rocky teach y/n how to fly ship.” Rocky said matter of factly.

You were all headed up to the pilot deck, floating through the halls of the ship. You knew you had to learn how to fly it in case anything were to happen to Ryland when he grabbed the sample from Adrian. You were just nervous. You had very little driving experience, let alone flying experience.

As you floated with Ryland and Rocky into the control room and pilot deck, Ryland reached for your floating body and guided you into the pilots seat. His glasses floated off of his face beside him, before he reached and put them.

“Pilot detected.”

“Ugh.” You groaned in response to Mary as you lowered yourself into the chair.

“I know, but if I have to fly this hell machine, then you also gotta fly this thing.” Ryland responded.

You pouted up at him and a laugh tumbled out of his mouth.

Ryland helped you strap in, his hand brushing lightly over your body in the process, and it some how felt like the most intimate touch you both experienced. When he buckled you in he made sure to tighten the straps to your liking.

“Grace ready teach, question?” Rocky asked, his body moving enthusiastically in his geometric ball.

“Yea Rock, I think we’re ready, right?” Ryland grabbed your shoulders with his hands and looked at you for a response.

You could feel him scanning your face. Something in his expression reassured you.

You simply just nodded out of nervousness.

“It’s time go!” Rocky exclaimed.

“You mean ‘go time’, but yea.” Ryland mumbled.

He pushed Rocky toward a metal spot right beside you and clicked Rocky’s magnets to stay in place.

“Okay so you see that joystick thingy?” Ryland asked, floating beside you.

“Yea, that thing?”

You placed your hand on the joystick, Ryland grabbed onto the pilots chair and floated behind you.

“Yea, so I’m going to guide you the first time, since it’s sort of…sensitive. Then you can try on your own.” He explained.

You weren’t exactly sure what he meant by ‘guide you’, until he leaned down behind you so his mouth was close to your ear, and his right arm reached around you to put his hand overtop of your hand onto the joystick. You could hear his breathing, his breath on your ear. 

The touch was again, different than the rest. It shot up your body, and you tried your best to make it seem like it didn’t affect you. If anything it made you more nervous, but you trusted him to not let you make a huge mistake.

“Alright now, we’re gonna go slightly forward like this, smooth and steady.” He whispered.

You had to resist the urge to let out a laugh at the sensation of his breath on your ear. God, you were embarrassed by how much that was affecting you, and hoped he couldn’t tell. Afterall he was just doing what he did best — teaching.

“Careful!” Rocky chimed in, but you had barely heard it over the sensation of Ryland.

He guided both of your hands slowly to move the joystick forward, you gasped as you felt the ship move.

When you gasped, Ryland felt the way it affected his body physically. He had forgotten for a moment, how intimate this kind of touch was. The conventions were different in space. But the way you gasped, made sparks shoot up his body. He was suddenly aware of how close your skin was to his.

He watched you move along with him, and when your touch felt a little too similar to something unplatonic, he pulled back suddenly.

“Uh, that was great,” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Now, go ahead and try it yourself.”

He watched as you slowly moved the ship forward, and as you did, you turned to face him giving him an excited expression. After a few minutes of you attempting to navigate different maneuvers effortlessly, you stopped, and leaned forward to unstrap.

“How’d I do for my first try?” You asked.

“Much better than Grace first try!” Rocky said. “Grace almost make Rocky die!”

Ryland rolled his eyes, patting Rocky’s ball.

“A bit dramatic don’t you think?” 

“Well, I had a good teacher.” You responded. You met eye contact with Ryland that for — the first time — felt a bit awkward.

You unstrapped yourself and leaned forward to activate centrifuge.

“I’m gonna turn on centrifuge, since we still have a bit more work to do.” You said.

Ryland nodded, remembering he had found another case of the specific coffee you liked in the storage room. 

“I’ll make you coffee. When you’re ready in the lab.”

You watched him excitedly hurry down to the lab, and you activated the centrifuge.

Five.

Rocky finds Ryland on the floor of the lab.

Ryland laid in the fetal position groaning, his eyes opening slowly from sleep, trying to remember how far away Erid was. He placed his hand on the cold floor feeling for you in the spot in front of him, confused at your absence, he heard the sound of Rocky’s geometric ball rolling toward him. 

“Grace! Grace friend need help statement.” 

Ryland’s eyes shot open wide as he weakly pushed himself off the floor. He grabbed his glasses that laid on the floor and put them on. 

“Okay Rock, just give me a second to stand up.”

“Hold ball so no fall.” Rocky said. “Grace weak.”

Ryland just nodded his head, standing up and holding onto Rocky who led him slowly toward the lavatory. 

When he saw you on the ground he collapsed on the floor next to you.

“Grace here to help, statement, no worry.” Rocky reassured you.

“No more taumeoba, it tastes so bad.” You whined.

You could feel your ribs through your skin, you had lost a significant amount of weight when you started to run out of food on the way to Erid. You both knew it was going to happen, but you didn’t think it would happen so quickly. You hated the taste of taumeoba, but you and Ryland had been relying heavily on that for a while, careful to preserve enough for Erid. 

Rocky in particular was sure to feed it to you both, chastising you if you didn’t eat it. You had been taking care of each other well enough, until you secretly slipped away from your spot on the floor next to Ryland to throw up.

You leaned above the metal toilet and gagged again, dry heaving, tears stinging your eyes as you sobbed in pain. You refused to open your eyes, the lights were making your head spin. Your face was pressed against the toilet seat, you groaned.

“Why didn’t you wake me?” Ryland asked.

“You don’t want to see this.” You said vaguely waving your hand toward yourself.

“Rocky, go get my hoodie on the floor.”

“Where is, question?” Rocky asked.

“It’s in the lab I think.”

You heard Rocky scamper around away from you and Ryland. 

You felt Ryland’s arms slither around your waist as he sat behind you, he pulled you into him. You felt his glasses prod at your shoulder. Your eyes shot open, not because physical contact was not common between you two, but because you really didn’t want him to see this side of you. You shivered as you felt his cold fingers graze around you and above your ribs. 

The feeling of his fingers specifically now, made your heart speed up, him trying to hold you at your most vulnerable made something bloom inside of you.

“You’re trying to keep me warm, it’s not working, you’re cold too.” You struggled to say.

“Doesn’t mean I can’t try, you’re too important for me to lose.”

The words shot up your body, you assumed they weren’t that unusual to say, after all you were best friends, but it hit you differently just then, but soon they were immediately interrupted by your nausea.

You knew this moment was going to happen, you knew he was going to see you at your worst, he was your crewmate and your best friend and you were both dying of starvation. However, there were things you had felt you didn’t want Ryland to witness. You just knew you had never been that vulnerable in front of anyone in a long time.

Hell, from what you remember Ryland hadn’t even seen you drunk vomiting since you had no time to drink between your time in the lab and on the boat. If he had, maybe then you’d feel more comfortable with him witnessing you like this.

Despite what you felt, you grabbed his arms and pulled them away from you.

“Ry, go away, you don’t want to see this, I can handle it–” 

Another gag escaped your throat, and your spit dripped into the toilet. 

“Did you know–” Ryland gulped, his own reserve slipping. “if you don’t get enough nutrients when you’re starving, then you’ll start throwing up blood?” He leaned forward to whisper in your ear.

His voice was smooth and calming despite the pain you were both in, you laughed at him quoting you.

“I told you that.” You mumbled, head falling backward onto his shoulder, finally giving into him. You could feel him exhale in relief.

“Yes you did.”

Rocky scampered back, and you felt Rylands arms coming over you. He put his baggy hoodie over your head, and you tried your best to slip your arms into the arm holes.

You laughed as you wiped the spit from your mouth.

“You’ve only seen one side of me, this is something new I guess.”

He ran his hand over your forehead to wipe your hair away from your face.

“I’ve seen just about all sides of you.”

You turned around to face him, grabbing onto his shirt tightly, as if letting go of him would make you fall into space. Ryland picked up a pack of wet wipes beside him and started wiping your face gently. His eyes occasionally drifted to your mouth, and you caught it, you told yourself it was because he was wiping your face.

You stared at his face, the way he looked when he was concentrated — his eyebrows folded down, his glasses now askew, his tongue sticking out of his lips, and his eyes squinted — always made you smile. So you let your smile appear on your face, and admired your best friend in front of you. The only source of warmth in that moment was the warmth coming out of your chest.

“Now, stop acting so tough. Let me take care of you.”

Six.

When Ryland and you finally arrived at Erid, the Eridians welcomed you both with open arms for helping save Erid. Ryland and you got to meet Adrian for the first time when they launched a ship to attach to the Hail Mary. Adrian was able to quickly replicate some nutrients you both needed to get you both back to health before moving you down to the planet's surface.

Adrian asked Ryland and you individually where you wanted to live. Adrian began building separate houses under the same biodome. Ryland shyly insisted you live relatively close to each other, hoping you wouldn’t think he was creepy or clingy. He wanted you close, he knew he was going to miss sharing a space with you. You agreed. Adrian tried to make sure everything was perfect for you both.

Ryland stood in his kitchen, reluctantly eating the food Adrian had replicated, some kind of protein shake. He admired his home, he was amazed at what the Eridian architects could do, and wondered what your house looked like, how you asked it to be designed. He knew you were particular with those kinds of things, while at the same time, kind of a slob.

He put down the protein shake and looked out the windows, the day cycle was set to night, Ryland was usually very productive at night. So Ryland’s laptop was opened in the living room, he was focusing on working on a lesson plan for the Eridians that Rocky said wanted to be taught by him.

He reached to grab his glasses from the kitchen counter, when he felt a pain in his right arm near his scar. He winced and put on his glasses, he watched as the scar opened and blood started to pool. This had happened once before the weeks leading up to arriving at Erid — because of malnourishment the burn opened into a wound. This was probably waiting to happen, he had only just started to get the nutrients he needed.

“Fudge.” He whispered, trying his best not to fully look at the blood.

He turned to grab a rag from under the kitchen sink. He thought through all his options. He could wake Rocky or Adrian with a press of a button that Adrian designed if Ryland ever wanted to contact them. Or he could show up at your door, late at night, asking for help. He knew — despite not wanting to — that he had to go to you, you were a doctor. Eridians didn’t know about tending to human wounds the same way humans do.

He groaned, leaving his house and slamming his door on the way out. He walked to your house that was conveniently a few seconds away. 

He peeked into the window, he could see a lamp on but nothing else. He reluctantly raised his hand to knock on your front door. He heard some commotion before you opened the door.

“Hi.” Ryland said, waving.

By now the rag had turned from white to red, his blood seeping in.

“Hi what are you—whoa,” You grabbed Ryland’s arm with both of your hands. “It opened again?” You asked as you pulled him inside and closing the door.

He nodded silently. Shutting down at the memories from earlier.

You pulled him through your surprisingly clean house and sat him down in your bathroom, pulling a chair beside the sink. You pulled out medical supplies left over from the Hail Mary: suture supplies. a squeeze bottle full of saline, and gauze to hold pressure to your wound.

Ryland’s hands were shaking, he noticed how steady your hands were removing the rag and placing the clean gauze overtop. Once the bleeding stopped to a minimum, you removed the gauze and held the wound over the sink, you began spraying saline into the wound to flush anything out. 

Ryland felt how gentle your fingers were against his skin, watched you bite your lip in concentration. He couldn’t understand how you were so calm, he hated the sight of his own blood. When you finished you started preparing the materials for stitches.

When his burn turned into a wound on the ship, you were just as calm and collected as you were in that bathroom. The moment made him think about how starved you both were, how afraid he was of losing you, how much he really cared for you.

You looked up at him, and smiled, Ryland was surprised when one of your hands reached out to cup his cheek. He felt your thumb running over his stubble, the touch making him melt into you. Then he began crying. Uncontrollably. There was something about you that often made him come completely undone. Sometimes in an adolescent way, but sometimes in a way that made him wonder if he could have you for the rest of his life.

“I’m so sorry.” He apologized between sobs.

You reached out to cup your face into both of your hands, the tears he felt fall from his cheeks were being wiped away by you. His heart sprung at the idea of it all. 

“Hey, why are you apologizing?”

“I could’ve asked Rocky for help or I could’ve figured it out but–”

“Hey, we both know I have the most knowledge on human medicine out of anyone on this planet.”

Ryland laughed through his tears.

“I didn’t want to worry you.”

“It’s my job to worry about you,” You leaned forward and planted an innocent kiss on his cheek. 

Ryland blushed, and was thankful you missed his expression as you leaned down to grab the suture kit.

 “however…you’re going to hate me when I jab stitches into you without anesthetic.” 

Ryland grimaced.

Seven.

You had been with Adrian all day when you were rushing home.

You loved Adrian so much, you both had become attached by the hip, you loved gossiping about Rocky and Ryland…Adrian was insistent on the fact that you and Ryland would be perfect ‘mates’. You denied their statement over and over again, but admittedly, it was getting harder to rationalize to yourself why you weren’t falling for Ryland.

This day in particular was stressful. Adrian asked if you could try and teach a course for some Eridians interested in human biology. Adrian also just wanted to know what to do in case they had to take care of you or Grace when you got older.

Essentially, you were teaching a human CPR/first aid training course to a small group of Eridians.

You rushed home climbing the hill away from the beach, textbooks in hand, opening the door and dropping them on the floor. You slammed the door, and took notice of your house. It was a huge mess, papers were thrown everywhere, coffee mugs were gathered in the sink and your other Project Hail Mary jumpsuits were thrown on the floor.

You took it all in just as you heard a knock on the door, you groaned and turned around to open it expecting Adrian.

“Adrian I’m–”

It was Ryland. Your heart contracted at the sight of him, then panicked as you remembered your plans.

“Oh Ryland,” You sighed as you ran your hand across your face before dropping it to your side. “I forgot we had plans tonight.”

Ryland rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. 

“Is this a bad time? I can come back tomorrow.”

You shook your head, desperately wanting to spend time with him. 

“No, no, come in, I just need to clean up.” You blushed as you said it.

You and Ryland made plans constantly now that you settled in. You proposed that he come over every other day to have a productive evening, since you both now had lesson plans to work on. You also proposed that sometimes he comes over and you watch one of the many movies provided for you on the Hail Mary’s media system. You selfishly proposed this because you couldn’t handle not seeing Ryland everyday. You were relieved when he was as enthusiastic as you were. 

When Ryland stepped in you watched the expression on his face go from shocked, to serious in a second. His eyes scanned the mess carefully.

“Yea…I’m sorry, I’ve just been planning everything with Adrian today, and–”

Ryland placed a hand on your lower back, you blushed as he did, his touch had been making you more flustered than usual lately.

“Hey, it’s okay. Sit down, I’ll clean for you.” He said.

He leaned down and placed a kiss on your forehead, and you swore to god, you saw him blush as he turned away.

Eight.

One one of your movie nights, you and Ryland had found a stash of leftover vodka from the Hail Mary in his kitchen. You had long abandoned the movie playing in the background on the monitor Ryland had installed in his living room and instead you were sitting on his kitchen counter, Ryland standing in front of you taking turns drinking out of the bag of vodka.

The porch light shined through the darkness of the window, and the only light in Ryland’s house was coming from a warm yellow lamp and the slight flashes of Jurassic Park.

Ryland was admittedly intoxicated, his glasses askew on his face, and he could tell you were too. You both laughed at the mere sight of it. You had never been drunk together before, and now that you were just getting used to the food provided by the Eridians, you both had a much lower intolerance than anticipated.

“So then Adrian says to me,” You drunkenly explained. “‘Rocky always messy, Rocky always grumpy.’ and I’m like, that sounds like Ryland.”

Ryland watched you throw your head back in laughter. 

“Hey, you’re the messy one!” He responded, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Okay fine, I’ll give you that.”

A drunken silence overcame the both of you.The sounds of roars and voices emitted from the ‘tv’.

Ryland stepped closer to you instinctively placing his hands on your thighs. You shivered, the drunken clarity making you realize how much you wanted him. You took the glasses off of his face, to see him better.

“You’ve been spending a lot of time with Adrian.” Ryland barely whispered.

His eyes stared into yours, his mouth open. He grazed his thumb up and down your thigh, shivering as you placed your arms over his shoulders.

“Yea,” You pondered, then suddenly he watched as realization spread across your face. “Oh, I’m sorry I should’ve told you, Adrian said the Hail Mary is fueled, we can go home…I mean if you want.” 

“Rocky told me.” He said, his eyes drifting down to your lips, a question in his mind he didn’t realize he had been holding onto for a while.

Another beat of silence. And suddenly everything made sense for Ryland, you sitting on his kitchen counter, your head thrown back like a little kid, watching you bloom into this amazing person, it was all making sense. 

“Okay good.” You whispered, not waiting for a response, as if you both knew the answer already.

And as if you both came to the realization at the same time, you pulled each other both in and kissed each other's mouth. Hard and sloppy at first, but when Ryland moved his right hand to cup your face, you tilted your head to allow him to kiss you more passionately. His stubble brushed against your face, and you moaned as you deepened the kiss. You allowed yourself to melt into it, his arms reaching to skim your waist, then slipping his tongue into your mouth experimentally.

Ryland pulled away with a gasp, his face blushing, his breath ragged. You both stared at each other intensely, you waited for him to tell you that this was a mistake, that he was mad it came from Rocky instead of you, that he wanted to go home. But instead he said,

“I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life here with you, but if that’s not what you want then we can stop right now.”

Neither of you moved, your faces close enough that you could see the faint stubble growing on his jawline, the pure exhaustion in his eyes. 

“You alright there?” He asked, a slight humor in his voice. 

It snapped you out of your daze, steadying yourself on your feet. “Y-yeah, I should've watched where I was going.” 

He just smiled, the first one all shift to meet his eyes. “Hey, at least I was there to catch you.” 

It should have stayed just that, lingering touches, long glances when you thought the other wasn’t looking, but the ED was a pressure cooker. Long hours between shared adrenaline addicts. It was always the two of you paired together, you worked like you’d known each other for a lifetime. A well-oiled machine. Sometimes it felt like he knew you better than you knew yourself, passing you instruments wordlessly, bodies sliding against each other as if it were a perfectly choreographed dance. 

ER Ken and Barbie, lighthearted nicknames that Princess came up with after a particularly difficult trauma, the two of you having saved the patient by the skin of your teeth. Robby said no one else would have been able to do it, and it should have felt good. Instead, it ached. With every inside joke, every shared cup of coffee, and every early morning roof talk, something in you twists, something ugly. And every time his gold wedding band glittered off the fluorescent ED lighting, it felt like a warning flare. A painful reminder of the reality of his life. A part of his life that you’d never be in.

He was married, everyone knew that. He had a beautiful wife, two beautiful children, and he wouldn’t shut up about getting a dog. He was the perfect suburban husband, living a perfect nuclear life. There was nothing wrong with having a harmless crush, there’s no such thing as bad thoughts. You respected yourself, you respected your residency spot. He loved his wife, and you were reading into things too much, anyways. At least that’s what you told yourself with every glance, every touch. 

Until things began to shift. His behavior more erratic, his temper shorter with everyone but you. He didn't have to talk about it, for you to know something was wrong. He was the first one on shift and the last one out. Everything was laid out on the table in front of you after a long day shift. The Philadelphia weather was relentless, a storm raging outside. Rain pelted the ambulance bay, the wind whipping through the doors with every gurney that was pushed in. Traumas were appearing every 10 minutes like clockwork. A multiple-car pile-up keeping the Pitt bustling. 

Your patient was only 22, the driver of one of the cars involved in the accident. EMS called out, “Twenty-two-year-old female. MVC. Hydroplaned into a barrier. Hypotensive. Decreased breath sounds on the left. GCS nine.” 

You were following them into Trauma One immediately, Frank on your heels. Whittaker and Mel on the other side, observing. The girl looked young, blood matted in her hair, C-collar making her look small. You hear the sheers cutting off the soaked clothes, monitors being hooked up as multiple hands are fumbling around her. 

“Pressure’s eighty systolic and dropping,” A nurse behind you hollers out, while Mel checks her abdomen with the ultrasound. 

“Airway is compromised.” Frank said, his stethoscope against her chest, “We should intubate.” 

You palpate around her chest, Trachea midline. No obvious flail segment. But her left side is barely moving. “Left side’s tight,” you say. “Could be tensioning.”

“Tension pneumothorax?” Whittaker asks, while Mel pauses watching Frank ready the 14-gauge needle for you.

”Wait, shouldn’t we intubate first?” She asks. 

“We need to release the pressure in her chest before positive pressure, ventilation from intubation can worsen it,” Frank informs her, while you take the needle from his hand. 

“And the last thing we need is a cardiovascular collapse.” You continued his sentence. Your hands don’t shake, they never do, as you push the needle through the second intercostal space. Frank narrates for the residents, as they watch their older residents work in perfect tandem. 

There’s a small hiss of air, a brief improvement of oxygen saturation before it tanks once again. 

“Chest tube,” You ordered, starting to make the incision in her chest. The moment the scalpel drags across her skin, blood is pouring out. More blood than should have. Blunt dissect. Finger sweep, no adhesions. You advance the tube, and the blood pours more heavily. Dark and metallic, the front of your gown turning crimson. 

“Massive hemothorax,” Frank curses. “She’s bleeding out.”

Her pressure tanks again, monitors beeping rapidly all around you. 

“There was nothing on the ultrasound,” Mel questions, grabbing gauze to press against the cut. 

“Start blood. Activate massive transfusion.” You ordered, nurses rushing around you 

“Extensive air in the tissue overlying can sometimes disrupt ultrasound waves, limiting visualization of the underlying pleural space.” A voice spoke out, Robby materializing in the doors of the trauma room. “Or it’s a rare side effect of needle decompression typically caused by laceration of the internal mammary or intercostal arteries. Dr. Y/l/n has done dozens of needle decompressions, but there’s still an 80% fail rate.” 

“I’ve never failed one yet, and I don’t plan on today being the day.” You announced, grabbing the ultrasound.

“Emergency medicine, where nothing is cut and dry,” Whittaker mumbled, helping Frank intubate the patient. The ultrasound probe glided over her chest in your steady hands. 

“She’s full, even with the chest tube it won’t be enough output for her to go upstairs. She’ll bleed out.” You uttered, tearing your eyes away from the monitor to meet Frank. 

“Thorocatomy.” You both spoke in scary unison, Robby nodding in agreement. 

“But, there’s only a 9% chance of survival with an emergency room thoracotomy," Mel spoke, her eyes wide. There was no time to question, the scalpel was already in Frank’s hand. The rib spreader in yours, the two of you trading off tools while Robby narrated, the two of you focused on cracking open her chest cavity. 

“Chances are already higher than that with ER Ken and Barbie here.” Robby joked, his head heavy over your shoulder as he watched your hands guide through the bloodied flesh. 

Whittaker is suctioning, Frank’s hands are next to yours as you find her aorta, “Clamp.” 

Frank places it perfectly, and for a moment you almost let out a breath. The bleeding is slowing, but not before it turns upside down. 

Her rhythm deteriorates, Robby announcing V-Fib from the the way her heart quivered. You curse under your breath, readying the internal paddles. 

“Clear.” You yelled when they were charged, watching the organ jump. 

Clear, shock, charge again. Three shocks in and the heart wasn’t going back into rhythm. Sweat was pouring down your forehead into your mask, your bloodied gown sticking to you uncomfortably. The air in the room was thick, the monitor flatlining once again. 

“Charge again-“ 

“Call it.” Robby sighed, shaking his head. “We’ve been at this for too long. If there was gonna be a change-“ 

Frank cuts him off, loudly, “No. She’s trying. Charge again.” His fingers were steady, feeling the subtle shift in the myocardium under his fingers.

You glance at him, and his eyes meet yours through the plastic safety glasses. His jaw tight. That look again, one that says he sees it. That he sees you. 

Robby leans in closer, Whittaker suctioning faster, eyes all scanning for it. 

It’s there. A tiny, almost imperceptible rise in the anterior ventricular wall. It’s faint, but it’s there. A pulse returning.

“Told you,” you whisper.

“Yep,” he says, voice low but intense. “Charge again.”

”Clear!” You repeated, readying the paddle once again. Shock delivered. The heart quivers violently under the paddles. Then a narrow, chaotic rhythm emerges on the monitor. 

Robby shakes his head. “This isn’t-”

“Shh,” Frank snaps. “Don’t. Just let her-”

The flutter turns into a weak, organized beat. Not strong, not enough to sustain life fully, but enough to stabilize her vitals for transport at the very least. If she was going to die she was going to die in the OR, not beneath your hands. You were going to give her a chance. 

“She’s coming back,” you say, almost laughing through the adrenaline. Your hands were barely trembling now. 

“Get the OR ready!” Garcia shouts, another body you didn’t realize had joined the chaos. “Rapid transfer. Full team. She’s going up now!”

Hands are suctioning, flushing the thoracotomy site, while Frank closes the temporary clamp and chest dressing as best he can. Every movement is perfect, surgical, and deliberate as she’s prepped for transport. 

Within moments, she’s packed and stabilized enough to move. Just barely, luck of the draw you’d say. The room turns from crazed chaos to controlled chaos. 

“Like I said, ER Ken and Barbie,” Robby laughed in disbelief. “Good save.” 

All you could do was nod, the adrenaline beating so hard in your chest you were too focused on steadying your hands. 

“It was all her,” Frank said, his voice smooth as his eyes never once left your frame. Bloodied gloves were snapped off, gowns thrown into respective bins. The ED sounded like it was underwater, you could vaguely hear your fellow residents going back to the nurses' station, bragging about what they had just seen. Santo’s cursing as she missed it, Robby was already running off to another trauma rolling in. 

The bay doors are closing behind Mel as she leaves. It’s now just you and Frank, the storm is still raging outside. The faint sound is still echoing off the roof. But here, in this storm of adrenaline and blood you both stand for a moment, breathing, aware of each other, alive in ways that terrify and exhilarate you at same time.

”Are you okay?” His voice anchors you, making you snap your head towards him. 

All you can do is sigh, pushing your sweaty hair back. “Ask me once the room stops spinning.” 

He understands, he understands more than most. The way the adrenaline makes you feel alive. Some days it’s the only thing that gets him out of bed. Chasing yet another high. 

When you walk out of the room he follows, because he always does. You hear random coworkers' praises, and others passing by rushing into their patients' rooms. There was hardly a time to catch your breath, but you still ducked into the on-call room anyway. It was a tiny room, complete with a few beds, a sink, and a large set of drawers almost every employee had something shoved into it at this point. All of you practically lived in this hospital, it was no surprise. 

Frank washed his hands first, while you took your hair down. Brushing out the ridiculous knots that had formed hours ago. It was a comfortable silence, but the air still buzzed. By the time you get to the sink you’re splashing water on your face, willing your nervous system to calm down. 

Frank steps closer before you can reach for a towel. His hand comes up and cups the side of your neck with precision, his hand steady and warm. His thumb brushes a streak of blood away, one you didn’t even notice had smeared there. Occupational hazard, you wanted to joke. But no words came out. 

He swipes his thumb against your soft skin gently, carefully, but there’s an intensity in the motion that sets your nerves on fire. There was no more blood, just his skin against yours. An excuse to prolong the physical contact.  You pretend not to notice. Your heartbeat spikes again, your bodies leaning closer into each other without even realizing. 

You look up at him through your lashes, and that’s all the permission he needs. 

His hand drops slowly, his palm moving to cup the side of your neck. The cold chill of that ring makes you flinch, you both notice. 

Neither of you stops. 

He leans in slowly at first, and your breath catches. Then the space between you disappears. His lips are on yours, hard. 

Your back hits the edge of the sink with a dull thud, his grip tightening like you were going to slip through his fingers. 

You respond with the same ferocity, your hands fisting in his scrub top pulling him closer. He tastes like mint and redbull when he opens his mouth, your tongues meeting each other halfway. It’s desperate, and messy. Your hands roam up his chest, reaching up to card your fingers through his hair. There had been many long nights you ached to feel it between your fingers, and it was even better than you imagined. He makes a low sound in his throat when your fingers slide against his scalp, tugging. Your leg presses forward without thinking, closing the distance even more.

His hand slipped under your scrub top, his large palm cupping your chest through your sports bra. You arch into his touch, your teeth coming down to bite softly against his bottom lip. 

There was no planning for this, just two people coming down from their high, with nowhere to put it. 

His mouth leaves yours, and you miss it immediately. He moves down to your jaw, leaving open-mouthed kisses down your neck. 

“Frank.” You pant, but he knows it’s not in protest. Not the way you were practically rocking against him, mewling under each heavy touch. 

His hands slide lower, gripping your hips now, fingers digging in through the fabric like he’s grounding himself. Any semblance of control he’d pretend to have is gone, and has been gone from the moment your eyes met. 

He kisses you again, deeper, harder. His hand doesn’t stop moving, hovering over the tie of your scrubs. With no protests he slips his hand in, inhaling every exhale that left your lips. His fingers bypassed your underwear, heading straight to your throbbing clit. His fingers moved in expert precision against you, your wet folds welcoming him greedily when he slid his fingers inside. His fingers inside you, his tongue in your mouth, it was making your body tremble. 

“You’re so sexy with your hair down,” He mumbled against your lips, his free hand carding through the messy strands. 

“F-fuck.” You cried out, hands holding onto him for balance. 

A loud noise outside the door had you stilling, both of you getting broken out of the trance for a moment. Both of your eyes were on the door. It felt like cold water had been flushed through your veins, realizing you were still at work. 

Frank didn’t have the same reaction, his hand slipping out of you and moving to turn you around. Your hands gripped the sink with a grunt, your hair wild. His clothed hips met yours, his hard cock straining against his own scrubs. 

There’s no time for second-guessing, before you were pulling your scrubs down your knees. Frank following suit, pulling his down to his thighs, his skin is hot against yours. 

Your eyes meet in the tiny mirror, a warning. An acknowledgment of the choice the two of you are about to make. That there wasn’t much time, and if anyone walked in surely your lives would be ruined. Maybe your lives would be ruined anyway, but all of those thoughts left your head the moment his thick cock head slipped past your entrance. 

In that moment nothing else existed, it was just you and Frank. 

Desperate moans tore through both of you, your wet cunt pulling him in greedily. He slid in slowly, his thumbs rubbing small circles on your bare hips from where he gripped you. You didn’t need to see his cock to know he was huge, your mouth falling lax by the time his hips were flush against yours. 

“Fucking, shit.” You cried out, his chest pressed against your back. The image in the mirror was startling, his baby blue eyes were glossy, half-lidded in pleasure. Never once did his eyes leave your face in the mirror, watching each gasp of pleasure roll through you. 

“I know it’s good, but you gotta be quiet baby.” He grunted, his face nuzzled into your neck as the sound of skin slapping against skin echoed in the room. You’ve never been so thankful to work in the loudest place on earth. 

“K-knew you’d be cocky.” You cried, his cock hitting the spot inside of you that made you see stars with each thrust. 

“Yeah?,” He hummed, teeth nipping at your exposed flesh “You think about me like this?” 

“Shut up and don’t stop.” You panted, knuckles turning white from how hard you were gripping the porcelain sink. 

There was no way he’d stop, not with the way you were clenching around him. It was fast. His hands were bruising against your skin. He knew exactly where to touch, how to angle his hips. Just enough to have you covering your mouth with your palm, biting down as you came around him. Your thighs tremble through the strongest orgasm you’ve had in years. 

You moan his name like a prayer, letting him hold your body up against his. Using you as he pleased while his own orgasm approached, his hips stuttering against you.

His hand is in your hair again, pulling harshly as he cums. Whispering your name under his breath, his cum spilling deep inside of you.

The ring catches in your hair as his hand tightens, and the metallic glint flashes in his peripheral vision. 

His ring didn’t fit right, it hadn’t in years. Much like the marriage. 

You joked once that it was going to fall into a chest cavity and he’d be sued. Now it burned, strands of your hair curling around the dinged-up metal. How fucked was he for thinking about his marriage while his cock was softening inside of you. 

You feel it the moment he sees it, he pulls his hand away as delicately as he would with a patient. Slipping out of you without a word. You feel empty, in more ways than one. 

Clothes are shrugged back on without any words spoken. He’s out of breath, your body trembling with each shaky movement. 

“Y/n.” He speaks, his voice so soft. 

You shook your head, shaky hands putting the clip back in your hair. 

You couldn’t hear it, the apology, the excuses. You couldn’t hear the regret in his voice. 

“Don’t.” You breathed out, taking one last look in the mirror before slipping out of the room. Right back into the chaos as if nothing had happened. Your hands didn’t level out until your next patient, you were content to let Santos stitch up a head lac, ignoring Frank like the plague. Pretending like you couldn’t feel the ghost of him between your legs. 

You manage to avoid him for three days. Three days of ducking behind monitors, and slipping through doors in the middle of chaos. One of the three days was spent convincing Robby that you needed to help Donny on triage, on the one day the ED was slow and fully staffed. When you did talk, the tension was thick enough to be cut with a knife. 

His large doe eyes stared at you every time you turned around, silently begging, pleading for you to talk to him. He tried many times, but you refused. Keeping your words clipped, only talking when it was medically necessary for the patient. 

You couldn’t talk to him, not without remembering how you were so close to having him how you wanted him. But you never would, so it was useless to pretend. Adrenaline made you do stupid things. It was biological. That was all.

The real slip happens on a Saturday morning, both of you still walking on a tightrope around each other. There’s a patient with sepsis, pressure dropping fast. Both of you want to bark out orders, leaving the room silent for the other. Instead, there’s just silence, the two of you avoiding each other. Samia snaps her fingers, barking out the need for pressors. It was 19 seconds of silence, you counted it. 19 seconds here was a lifetime. Time that you couldn’t get back if the patient went south.

Robby gets word of his two best residents clamming up, immediately cornering you two in the hall. It’s the closest you’ve been in proximity to him in days. If you nudged over just a bit your shoulders would be touching. 

“Get it together,” Robby says, directly but not unkindly. Not yet. “You two used to move around like one brain, now you barely talk. This doesn’t work unless you’re a team.”

”We’re fine.” You both say at the same time, making you flinch. 

There’s a look in Robby’s eyes, unbelieving. “Whatever disagreement you two had, leave it outside of my ER.” 

He doesn’t bring it up again for the rest of the shift. You don’t see Frank again either. 

You’re walking through the dim parking garage when a hand wraps around your wrist, before you can scream Frank places his hand over your mouth. Stifling your yelps. 

“What the fuck?” Your muffled voice comes out, his eyes pleading. 

“We need to talk.” He said, unwilling to let you ignore him any longer. You bite down on the skin of his palm making him wince, dropping his hand. 

“So you attack me?” You scoffed, taking a shaky step back. “Jesus, be fucking normal.” 

“I didn’t know how else to get your attention,” He frowned, “Come on, we need to talk.” 

His car was parked a few feet away, closer than yours. He clicked his key a few times, the beeping echoing through the lot. Night shift had just settled in, and it was unsettlingly quiet. Still you found yourself grabbing his door handle, sliding into the passenger seat. 

“Are you gonna drive off and take me across the border or something?” You couldn’t help but joke, his head hitting the headrest with a thud. A dopey smile formed on his face. 

“I missed that.” He sighed dreamily. 

“What?” 

“You, talking to me. Your terrible jokes.” He admitted, making your eyes roll. 

“My jokes aren’t terrible.” You argued back. ”And we’ve talked.” 

“Right.” It was his turn to roll his eyes, “Listen-“ 

“I don’t really wanna talk about it.” You barked, picking at a hangnail obsessively. “We can just pretend it never happened.” 

His mouth straightened into a fine line, “Is that what you want?” 

You nodded, still avoiding his gaze. 

His fingers reached out, grabbing your chin forcing your gaze on him. “Will you at least look at me when you say it?” 

Your mouth went dry, anger building up in your chest. “How’s your wife?” 

His fingers still, grip still tight on your face. Your question lands exactly how you want it, good. You try to pull your chin out of his grip, but he doesn’t let go immediately.

“She’s fine,” he says, voice even.

“Fine,” you repeat flatly. “That’s good. Glad she’s fine.”

You finally wrench your face free, folding your arms across your chest like armor. 

“Don’t do that.” He whines, like a child. 

“Do what?” you snap, your patience close to snapping. 

“Turn this into something ugly so you don’t have to answer me.” He sighed, “You want so badly to storm out of this car. I can see it on your face.” 

Your laugh is short and humorless. “You grabbed me in a parking garage, Frank.”

“I panicked!”

“You panicked?” Your voice climbs. “You could’ve just used your words like a normal adult.”

“I tried that,” he shoots back. “You’ve been avoiding me for three shifts, Y/n. You are the one who refused to talk to me after..” He trailed off, he couldn’t even say it.

 The thought had you scoffing. 

“I just know pretending it didn’t happen doesn’t fix it,” he continues. “It’s making it worse. It’s impacting our work.”

You ignore him, your mouth clamped shut. 

“Is that what you want?” he asks. “To forget it?”

You open your mouth, then close it just as fast. 

Forgetting would be easy, but you knew deep down in your bones that it would never be possible. Every decision in that on-call room changed both of your lives. There was no going back from that. 

“Last night we had takeout, Tanner decided he doesn’t like vegetables anymore. He cried so hard that Penny started crying. Trying to put two crying kids down for bed was harder than the thoracotomy we did the other day.” He kept speaking, like the silence was his enemy, “We argued about whose turn it was to do dishes, she went to bed without me.” 

You closed your eyes, shaking your head at him. “Why would you tell me this-“ 

“You asked, about her.” His brows were furrowed, “And I’m telling you while all that happened, all I could think about was how you wouldn’t talk to me. How I missed you. How there was something missing in my life without you. Do you know how fucking horrible that made me feel?”

“Oh, fuck you.” You laughed, spitefully. “You fuck me, then go home to your wife and have the nerve to say you feel bad because I ignored you? Some fucking nerve.” 

He flinched, physically recoiled from your words his elbow hitting the door as if you’d hit him. “Jesus, Y/n. What I’m doing is I’m being honest with you.”

”Honest?” you say, and it comes out sharper than you mean it to. “What do you want from me, Frank? To congratulate you on feeling guilty while blowing up my life?” 

“Our lives.” He corrects, which only makes your hands shake. 

“Our lives,” You laughed dryly, “No, Frank. Don’t. Don’t make this some tragic, mutual downfall. You have a home to go to, Frank. You have a wife. Kids. A whole life that still stands when this,” you gesture between you, furious and shaking “when this inevitably blows up in my face.”

“You think I don’t know that?” he says. “You think I don’t wake up every morning knowing exactly what I’m risking? I love my family. I’m not pretending I’m the good guy here.”

”What you’re risking? What about me?” you press, your voice cracking now despite your effort to keep it level. “What am I left with, Frank? A broken heart? A reputation as the homewrecker? The girl who couldn’t keep her legs closed for her senior resident?”

“We are still both residents, one year apart is not prohibited I am not your supervisor-“

”You’re not getting it!” Your hands are pulling at your hair now, frantic and wild.  “You’ll survive this,” you say, the words tasting bitter. “You’ll still have your life.”

He shook his head, “That’s not true, she could very easily leave me and take the kids away from me. Y/n, I’m risking losing my children.” 

“She’s a good person,” The words tasted bitter in your mouth, “She won’t do that, and you know it. But, there’s not a version of this where I come out unscathed. Call me selfish I don’t care.”

The silence stretches, heavy with the understanding that neither of you can fix this without destroying something else. 

And still. Neither of you moves toward the door. Neither of you do the right thing.

Frank is staring at the dashboard as if it’s personally offended him. Then he laughs, it’s small and heartbreaking. “I don’t know about you, but I can’t do it.” 

“Do what?” 

“Pretend.” He looks at you now, and there’s no defense left in him. “I can’t keep pretending this is manageable. I can’t go back to acting like you’re just someone I work with,”  he says, and this time there’s no edge to it. “Not when you know me better than anyone else.”

“I can’t pretend I don’t want you,” he continues, voice low and unsteady. “I can’t pretend that when you walk into a room it doesn’t shift everything for me. And I definitely can’t sit here and act like you don’t deserve better than this because, God, you do Y/n.” 

“This isn’t fair.” You breathe out, but it comes out more like a whimper. Your chest feels like it’s caving in when you turn to look at him. Unshed tears in his baby blue eyes mirror yours. What a mess. “You’re not being fair to me.” 

“I know I’m not.” He whispered, opening his arms slowly, “And I’m so sorry.” 

You don’t trust your voice anymore, so you move instead.

Slowly, without breaking eye contact, you brace yourself on your knees. His gaze flickers down, confused for half a second, until you shift forward, bracing a hand on the center console.

“Y/N…” he starts, but it’s barely more than your name.

You swing one leg over the cup holder, awkward and graceless in the cramped space. Your knee knocks the steering wheel. You almost laugh through the tears gathering in your eyes at how absurd it is, two grown adults, successful, intelligent, reduced to climbing over a center console like teenagers in the parking garage of your work. 

“Careful.” He whispered, catching your wobbling frame as you settled on his lap. Your work scrubs wrinkled, both of you wearing the weight of the shift and each other’s words like a stench you couldn’t wash off.

His arms wrap around you with zero hesitation, your head nuzzling into his chest. His hand rubbing smoothly up and down your back. 

“When you’re not here,” he says softly, “it feels like I’m holding my breath all the time. And when you are,” His forehead rests against your head. “When you are, I can finally breathe.”

You wrap your arms around his neck and bury your face there, breathing him in like you’re trying to memorize it. He holds you tighter, like he’s afraid you’ll dissolve if he loosens his grip.

His phone is vibrating in the cup holder, there’s no need to ask who it is by the way his eyes close tightly. You can feel the tension rise in his chest underneath your palms. 

When he speaks it makes goosebumps rise on your skin, “Is that gonna be a problem?” 

You’re silent, cursing yourself in your head over and over.

“You can say yes,” His voice is shaky, “God knows you should probably say yes.” 

You should say yes it is a problem, you should storm out of the car like you’ve been aching to do since you got in it. 

“You don’t want me to.” You spoke softly, a voice only reserved for him. 

His jaw clenches, “I’m a very selfish person Y/n Y/l/n.” 

“That you are, Frank Langdon,” You give him a sad smile, your hand still finding his in the dark. 

He wasn’t offering to pack his bags tomorrow, to leave his wife and kids in the dust for you. There would be no rose petals, no declarations of love. He’ll still sit at a dinner table that has no place for you. He’ll still sleep next to the mother of his children, his wife, and pretend this isn’t happening.

You’ll still go home alone. 

But what he is offering is the feeling of being so known it feels chemical, instinctual. He was offering the pieces of himself he still had to give. The parts of his life he still had control over. Sex in on-call rooms, a spot in the backseat of his car, a place with him that was just between the two of you. 

You think about his wife for a brief moment. His kids, their kids together. About the life he goes home to. About the version of him that exists outside trauma bays and cracked ribs. A version that you’ll probably never get to meet. While you’re here with a version of him she’ll never see. A version she’ll never understand the way you do.

Something twists in your stomach before you speak, a feeling of regret crawling up your throat. This was a horrible idea, and both of you knew it. But it felt too good to stop, it was something neither of you were willing to give up. It feels like electricity under your skin. Choosing the burn because you’d rather hurt than not feel anything at all.

And you hate how that feels like just enough. Just enough for the broken girl who’s only felt seen under his gaze. For the girl who’s been in love with him since the first week of her residency all those years ago.

“You’re gonna break my heart.” You say it flatly, a statement. An acknowledgment of the future that’s yet to come.

His expression fractures, brows furrowed. “I don’t want to.” 

“It’s a little too late for that.” You lean in again, hands threading into his hair, pulling him back to you like you’re claiming something you already know you can’t keep.

Before he could speak, you kissed him. Hard. 

It’s desperate, it’s two twin flames clinging to each other in the dark. Sealing their mistake with a kiss, one that you’ll never be able to undo. And when he kisses you back like he’s already mourning you, you realize the worst part isn’t that this will ruin you.