Jack isn't looking when he rounds the corner. He's thinking instead: Central Six's potassium should be back. There are two patients awaiting discharge and one that's going to discharge himself AMA and that's both his problem and not.
Lena laughs, and someone laughs back, so he looks and—
She's not supposed to be here. She left a half hour ago. She worked for twelve hours and, from what he heard from Dana when he arrived, saved multiple lives. He doesn't doubt it; she's a year and a half into residency and already maybe the smartest person he knows.
She's got jean shorts on that fall a little bit below her knee, fraying at the edges like they were cut haphazardly. Jorts, his mind fills in. That's what Parker would say. Greying shoes, too, with a near-hole in the toe of the one he can see, and a cardigan that's beige and big on her shoulders. She must've forgotten something.
Lena says something else, and Mohan snorts.
He wants to cross the room. He wants to say something stupid so she snorts again. His mind comes up with possibilities, but none of them seem good enough. Maybe if he trips dramatically. He'd do it. Screw his good leg, it's worth it.
He wants to know where she got those awful shoes and how long she's had them and if she'd let him buy her new ones so they wouldn't be so ragged. He wants to buy her a coffee, ten maybe, that she'll forget about in the name of medicine. He'll buy her another when it goes cold. He wants to carry her groceries up however many flights of stairs there are to her front door, and he wants to open that door and never leave the space, and he wants to find out if she snores.
He wants that cardigan on the empty hook on his coat rack, and he has only ever wanted that hook filled once before. He can see it, too, is the thing, hanging there, rubbing wool fibers onto his coat so he'll have her with him later. If it's there, she's there, her feet in his lap and a journal open in her hands.
He'd say something silly and she'd snort again: there. That's the moment for it; that's how he'd get her to make that delighted, honest sound to him and only him.
Mohan doesn't notice him. She just grabs something off the table, waves a hand at Lena, and turns to go.
He has felt this way before. He doesn't want to feel it again. Didn't think he would, so he pushed the idea aside, and now it's here, and he doesn't want it. All ten fingers and five toes tingle.
He bends his knees — better blood flow that way — and he drags his gaze back to the board. Central Six's potassium will be back soon. Discharge two patients. One will go AMA. Jack Abbot is in love with Samira Mohan.
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