Untitled

By the time exhaustion finally won, sunlight had already begun creeping through the blinds.

You’d fallen asleep sometime around seven in the morning, tangled together beneath the sheets, and hadn’t resurfaced until nearly three in the afternoon.

You stirred softly.

For a moment, you weren’t entirely awake. Just floating somewhere between sleep and consciousness, warm and comfortable enough that you didn’t particularly care which side you landed on.

Then memory slowly caught up.

Jack.

A small smile pulled at your mouth before you even opened your eyes.

The last time you’d gone to sleep at seven in the morning and woken up in the afternoon had been the first day of quarantine.

Back when you’d been sick, miserable, and convinced you were spending two weeks trapped with the most frustrating man in Pennsylvania.

The memory almost made you laugh.

How quickly things changed.

No—not quickly.

That wasn’t fair.

The last two weeks had changed quickly.

The rest of it had been happening for years.

You shifted slightly, blinking your eyes open against the muted afternoon light filtering through the bedroom.

Jack was still asleep.

That alone was unusual enough to earn a longer look.

His arm remained draped across your waist, face relaxed against the pillow in a way you rarely got to witness. The sharp edges he carried through the hospital weren’t here. The attending physician, the veteran, the man who always seemed to have a plan for everything—none of them existed in moments like this.

Just Jack. Your Jack. 

You studied him for a second before catching yourself.

A second turned into five.

Then ten.

God, you were becoming one of those people.

The realization should have embarrassed you.

Instead, it made you smile.

As if sensing the attention, he stirred slightly.

His brow furrowed before one eye cracked open.

Immediately finding you.

“You’re staring at me.”

His voice was rough from sleep.

You smiled innocently. “No, I’m not.”

“You’re literally on top of me.”

You glanced down.

Unfortunately, he had a point.

At some point during the night—or morning, technically—you’d migrated until you were half draped across him.

“Coincidence.”

“Mm.”

His eyes closed again.

You waited.

Then waited some more.

“That’s it?” you asked.

One eye reopened.

“What were you expecting?”

“I don’t know.” You propped your chin on his chest. “A grand speech about how beautiful I look in the afternoon.”

“You do.”

The answer came so fast you nearly choked.

Jack looked entirely unbothered.

You, meanwhile, felt your face heat immediately. “Oh.”

A faint smirk appeared without him even opening his eyes.

“Got you.”

You narrowed your eyes.

“You’re annoying.”

“I’ve been told.”

His arm tightened briefly around your waist, pulling you slightly closer.

“Has it really been fourteen days?” he continued, his free hand coming up to scrub over his face.

“Does it feel longer?”

He thought about it for a moment.

“Yes and no.”

You hummed. “I know what you mean. It feels like it was yesterday and also five years ago at the same time.”

“Yeah.”

A quiet settled between you.

“And now it’s time to go back,” you said.

The words hung heavier than you intended.

Jack’s gaze drifted toward the ceiling.

“Not sure what I’m gonna do without you here.”

Your head tilted toward him.

“Well, I mean, I can always come over after shifts.”

“Mmm.”

The sound was thoughtful.

“I don’t think it’s enough.”

Your brows shot up.

“What?” You pushed yourself up onto an elbow. “What, you want me to move in?”

That earned a snort.

“Whoa. Slow your roll there, buddy.” His hand landed on your hip, steadying you as he looked up with a grin. “I barely know you.”

You swatted his chest.

“Besides,” you said, rolling your eyes, “I can barely afford to pay Santos rent, let alone you and this giant house.”

“Sweetheart,” he sighed dramatically, “don’t offend me with the prospect of you paying your way on anything here.”

Your mouth fell open.

“Oh my God.”

“What?”

“You really are eighty.”

He groaned immediately.

“Here we go.”

“No, seriously. That was the most old-man thing you’ve ever said.”

“I am literally forty-six.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s not old.”

“It is when you’re offering to financially support women.”

His eyes narrowed.

“I wasn’t offering to financially support you.”

“You absolutely were.”

“I was not.”

“You basically just told me I could squat here indefinitely.”

“That’s a gross mischaracterization of what happened.”

You laughed as he pulled you back down against him.

“Admit it. You’d have a heart attack if I tried to hand you money.”

“I’d survive.”

“Barely.”

His chest shook beneath your cheek with a laugh.

“Maybe.” 

“How the fuck do we proceed?” You sighed again. “You’re the attending. Attend.” 

He scoffed. “We proceed like any normal people would do in this scenario.” 

You glanced up at him expectantly. 

“You move in here permanently, we carpool to and from work, and eventually…” You hung onto his words, and he knew it. “…get a dog.” 

You couldn’t help but bark a laugh. “A dog.” 

“A dog.” 

“We work in the emergency room, you idiot. The fuck are we going to do with a dog?” 

“Have a lazy dog.” 

“You’re insane.” 

“That’s what my shrink says anyway.” 

You turned fully onto your side, tucking your hands beneath your cheek.

Noticing the shift in your expression, Jack mirrored you almost immediately, rolling onto his side so you were facing each other.

“Seriously,” you said. “When we clock in today at six o’clock, what do we do?”

“What do you want to do?”

You groaned.

You knew why he was doing it. After years of being your attending, years of holding authority over you, he was making a point to let you steer this.

It was thoughtful.

It was respectful.

It was also incredibly annoying.

“I don’t know,” you admitted.

Jack studied you for a moment before nodding.

“Okay.”

“We have two options,” he continued. “We face PTMC head on and basically confirm what everyone with functioning eyesight has apparently suspected for years.”

You laughed despite yourself.

“Or?”

“Or we keep it to ourselves.”

His voice remained easy.

Steady.

Like either outcome genuinely sat fine with him.

“I’m good either way, sweetheart.”

You believed him.

If you wanted to walk into the ED holding his hand, he’d do it.

If you wanted to pretend absolutely nothing had happened for a while, he’d do that too.

Neither option seemed to threaten him.

You, meanwhile, felt like your stomach was performing acrobatics.

“You’re being suspiciously calm about this.”

“I’m a calm person.”

You gave him a look.

“That’s a lie.”

“It’s not.”

“Jack.”

“Sweetheart.”

“Six months ago, you nearly argued with a cardiologist because he used the phrase ‘heart vibes.’”

His expression remained completely neutral.

“He was wrong.”

You barked out a laugh.

“He was trying to explain something to a patient.”

“He was explaining it poorly.”

The familiar banter softened the tension for a moment.

Just enough—before reality drifted back in.

“Robby’s going to know immediately.”

He nodded. “Robby already knows.”

“That’s fair.”

“Santos definitely knows.”

You buried your face in the pillow. “Oh, she knows.”

“She knew before we did.”

The thought made you groan louder.

Jack’s smile widened. “You know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think we’re putting too much pressure on one shift.”

You looked back up at him.

His expression had softened again.

“Nothing actually changes tonight,” he said. “We show up. We do our jobs. We save lives.”

His hand found yours beneath the sheets.

Easy.

Natural.

“Then we go home.”

Home.

As though there wasn’t any question where either of you would be going afterward.

His thumb brushed over your knuckles.

“We don’t have to solve the rest of our lives before six o’clock.”

You stared at him for a moment.

Then sighed.

“That’s annoyingly reasonable.”

“Thank you.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

“It sounded like one.”

You rolled your eyes. “Shen’s definitely going to know.” 

“Shen’s been asking me for years.” 

“What if I quit tonight? Then we don’t have to tell HR—” 

“No one is quitting.” 

Jack walked beside you like it was any other day.

No hesitation. No visible shift in posture. No performative adjustment to account for the fact that, technically, everything between you had changed in the span of fourteen days. 

Just calm, steady movement through the automatic doors like he belonged exactly where he was going.

Like you did too.

Everyone was already gathered in the center of the floor the way they always were at shift change—half-circle clusters around the board, voices overlapping in that familiar controlled chaos of PTMC handoff. Day shift finishing up last-minute updates, night shift filtering in, everyone half-listening while still trying to catch their own assignments.

The second you stepped onto the main floor, it happened.

Conversations tapered off mid-sentence. Mel paused with her pen hovering above the paper. Whitaker literally stopped walking, frozen halfway between trauma bay three and the board. Even Dana looked up from the desk with slow, deliberate recognition, as though bracing for something dramatic to unfold.

Silence that didn’t feel accidental.

It felt collective.

Like everyone knew something had changed.

Everyone was just waiting to see how it would announce itself.

Your stomach tightened immediately.

Jack didn’t slow down.

He adjusted his ID badge slightly and kept walking toward the board like nothing in the world was out of place.

Then, without even looking away from the updates being scribbled up front, he spoke.

“Are we going to stand around,” he said evenly, “or are we going to fill me in on what I’ve missed?”

That did it.

The illusion of restraint broke instantly.

A few people glanced at each other. Someone coughed awkwardly. An intern snapped back into motion a little too fast, shuffling forward with a chart like they’d been personally called out.

The tension in the room shifted from frozen anticipation to frantic professionalism in seconds.

Just like that, he had taken the room back.

Jack Abbot, attending physician.

Nothing more.

Robby cleared his throat, insulated cup in one hand and tablet tucked into his other. “Welcome back you two, you’ve been missed,” 

You stood slightly behind Jack for half a beat longer than you meant to.

Because you could feel it.

Every eye that had been waiting for confirmation was now actively searching for you instead.

And you suddenly became very interested in the floor.

From your peripheral vision, you caught movement.

Santos.

She leaned against the counter near the desk like she had been waiting for this exact moment since the beginning of time itself. Her arms were crossed, expression already sharpened into something far too entertained.

Her eyes flicked to Jack first.

Then to you.

And stayed there.

You felt your entire face heat up on instinct.

Absolutely not. You knew Santos had an effect on you that got you to sing like a canary, and you would not be doing this now. Or here. 

You dropped your gaze harder into the chart in front of you like it contained the secrets of the universe.

Jack, meanwhile, was already in full attending mode—calmly asking about a trauma admit, redirecting a resident, scanning the board like the last fourteen days had been nothing more than a brief inconvenience.

Professional. Unbothered. Infuriatingly normal.

Santos, however, was still looking at you.

You could feel it.

You risked a quick glance up.

Bad idea.

Her eyebrows lifted slightly.

A silent, devastatingly smug: Oh. So that’s what happened in quarantine.

You immediately looked back down at the chart.

“Okay,” Jack said, closing a chart with finality. “Let’s move. Who’s covering north—”

His words cut off mid-sentence.

His attention snagged on something past the nurse’s bay, gaze sharpening in a way that made the shift in the room immediate. You followed his line of sight.

The security office.

More specifically, the whiteboard inside it.

You saw it instantly.

Dozens of brightly colored sticky notes layered over one another in chaotic, deliberate organization—the unmistakable sign of a PTMC floor wager. Something that had clearly escalated far beyond anyone’s attempt to make it subtle.

Your stomach dropped.

A few people shifted uncomfortably. The air in the room changed again, this time from anticipation to something closer to collective regret.

Because now everyone knew exactly what was about to happen.

Jack didn’t say anything at first.

He just walked.

Slowly.

He didn’t rush. Just controlled, purposeful movement toward the office like he had all the time in the world to dismantle whatever he was about to find inside.

The room watched him go.

And then watched harder when he stepped inside.

You couldn’t see him for a few seconds, but you could feel it—whatever he was reading in there. The silence stretched long enough to become unbearable, punctuated only by the low hum of monitors and the distant beeping of a patient you weren’t currently thinking about.

Then he stepped back out.

With something in his hand—a bucket.

Full.

And judging by the weight of it in his grip, absolutely not small change.

He looked at it once.

Then at the group.

“The hell is this?” he asked.

His voice had dropped into that controlled attending tone that meant someone was about to have a very bad time.

“I told ‘em to take it down numerous times,” Robby said casually from the side, taking a sip of his coffee like this was the least surprising development of his week.

Jack didn’t look at him.

“Take it down. Now.”

One of the security guys opened his mouth like he might argue.

Jack cut him off immediately.

“Don’t. This is not only unprofessional, it’s a violation of hospital policy. And if Gloria saw this, she’d have a heart attack before I finished the explanation.”

A beat.

“I said take it down. Now.”

Silence.

Then movement.

Immediate, slightly panicked compliance.

Around you, the group shifted uncomfortably, the earlier tension now replaced with the very real consequences of getting caught turning your personal life into a full-scale betting pool.

People glanced between you and Jack now with renewed intensity, like the stakes had somehow doubled.

Santos, of course, looked like she was enjoying every second of it.

You refused to look at her.

Jack walked back toward the board, still holding the bucket like it personally offended him. He set it down with a dull thud that made at least one resident flinch.

Then he finally spoke again.

“I’ll be keeping this. Are we done entertaining ourselves,” he said flatly, “or can we get back to doing our jobs?”

That snapped everyone back into motion.

You felt your insides warm at the way he’d just single-handedly shut down half the floor’s curiosity without even acknowledging what they were really trying to do. It wasn’t performative. It wasn’t for show. It was just Jack, doing what Jack did—drawing a hard line and refusing to let anyone turn it into entertainment.

You watched him for a moment longer as he moved through the night shift handoff, already back in control of the room. 

Like none of it had touched him.

A throat beside you cleared. 

Santos.

You didn’t even notice her approaching until she was already beside you. Denim jacket already on. Work bag slung over her shoulder. Expression determined in that way that meant she was absolutely not letting this go.

Here goes nothing.

“Hey,” you breathed.

“Been a long two weeks, huh?”

You let out a quiet sigh.

“Do we have to do this here?”

She raised a brow.

“Seeing as you’ve dodged most of my calls, yeah, I’d like to.”

Fair.

You leaned slightly against the counter, lowering your voice.

“If I tell you it’s because I was in fact very busy discussing the future of our relationship, will you drop it?”

There was a beat.

Santos blinked at you.

Like her brain had to reboot to process the sentence you’d just delivered with full sincerity.

“…Yeah?” she said finally, slower now. “Shit, I actually was only about, like, eighty percent sure you two would come out of this in a fucking relationship.”

You let out a breath that turned into a laugh despite yourself.

“How much did you bet, Trinity?”

She hesitated.

Which was answer enough.

“Doesn’t even matter,” she said quickly, pointing vaguely toward the floor. “Your damn boyfriend took the prize pot so I guess we all lost.”

Your head snapped slightly to the side at that.

The mention of ‘boyfriend’.

The word still hit you like you were some lovestruck teenager remembering her crush liked her back.

You followed her gesture instinctively.

Jack was across the floor near Robby, speaking in low, clipped tones as they reviewed something on a tablet. Fully in attending mode again. 

Like it was just another Tuesday.

You exhaled slowly.

“I can’t believe you people were betting on us,” you muttered.

Santos scoffed.

“Oh, please. It was the most entertaining thing that’s happened on this floor in months.”

“That is deeply concerning for patient care.”

“But deeply relevant to morale.”

You shook your head, but your mouth was still betraying you with a smile.

Across the room, Jack glanced up briefly.

Not long.

Just enough.

His eyes found yours instinctively.

Like it was second nature now.

He held it for a beat.

Then, he winked at you. 

A quick, stolen moment—barely there if you weren’t looking for it. A subtle lift at the corner of his mouth, almost imperceptible.

A reminder that he was here. That he had your back. That none of this—the eyes, the whispers, the poorly hidden questions—was going to shake what had already been decided between the two of you.

Then he turned back to Robby as if nothing in the world had shifted at all.

You blinked once, caught between the absurdity of it and the warmth that followed it too quickly for you to properly process.

Across the floor, Dana moved past the edge of the group.

She was in her street clothes now. And in her hands—

The bucket.

Full of money.

She looked far too pleased with herself as she carried it like some kind of hard-won trophy, chin lifted just slightly as she made her way toward the exit.

Your brows knitted together.

Your attention snapped back toward Trinity.

“Uh,” you said slowly, still watching Dana disappear toward the doors, “what did Dana bet?”

Trinity followed your line of sight, squinting like she was trying to remember.

Then she let out a low laugh. “Oh,” she said, like it suddenly clicked into place.

 “She bet that it started the day you started working here.”

✶.◟ (akram has really grown on him but he won't admit that either)

✶.◟ and of course, he's still pretty rude to you

✶.◟ it's just far, far easier to be mean than anything else, especially when you've got him so confused—the other day he actually thought something quite nice about you and it caught him off guard

✶.◟ and earlier he caught you dozing off during work, and instead of yelling at you, the only thing that crossed his mind was the word cute

✶.◟ cute isn't even supposed to exist in his vocabulary outside of sarcastic jabs

✶.◟ so yeah, maybe he fancies you just a bit, but what the hell is he supposed to do about that?

✶.◟ unfortunately, carl probably tries extra hard to be mean to you once he does admit to himself that he has a bit of a crush

✶.◟ and god, he hates that word; it feels so childish

✶.◟ he looks for every little thing he can nitpick about you and then goes home more frustrated with himself for making you frown than anything anyone else has done all day long

✶.◟ this is an impressive feat because he's very good at being frustrated with everybody else

✶.◟ and even when he's trying not to like you by being so rude, he makes everything much more confusing for you because he's accidentally nice too

✶.◟ he doesn't even think about it when he grabs you a hot drink along with his own on particularly cold mornings (of which are many) until he sets it down on your desk and you give him a surprised smile

✶.◟ then he curses himself because he's done it again! you might start thinking he actually likes you

✶.◟ yesterday he said the words "good. good job," to you with real sincerity. they had just slipped out, but you grinned at him

✶.◟ and he grimaced because he couldn't decide between a frown or a smile of his own, because, what the fuck, carl? telling someone good job? and also, that smile is really very lovely.

✶.◟ so, without intending to, carl becomes quite adept at sending you the most mixed signals possible, and it's not until months of strange pining on his end and a few less confusing hints from yours that carl is able to clear things up for you

✶.◟ akram has told carl that you like him too. carl said, "shut the fuck up," and a few other not-so-nice things that included him denying you liking him and him liking you

✶.◟ but, of course, those words stay very stuck in carl's mind until he quite literally can't handle it anymore

✶.◟ so, he has resolved to, as one might say, make a move

✶.◟ what move? carl has no fucking clue. it's been a very long time since carl has attempted to initiate anything romantic, and he doesn't quite remember how

✶.◟ asking you to dinner seems dumb and cliche, but also like his only option, maybe?

✶.◟ he sits on it for over a week, awkward and brusque around you the whole time, until he overhears you telling rose that you're tired of half-assed homemade meals and cheap pub food, but that you can't bring yourself to pay for anything nicer these days

✶.◟ and instead of actually asking you out to dinner, he just tells you come with him one day after work

✶.◟ you assume he's making you follow a lead with him, and spend the car ride pestering him about what you're looking for

✶.◟ then he grabs a table for two, and you're furiously whispering at him, asking if you're supposed to be scouting the place out for suspects