Sol-arium126

The first is a missing-scenes of Charlie Porter and Nico Silva from the Season 2 finale:

“Hey," Charlie says when Nico returns to his computer. "Do I need to do a neuro check on you, too? You sounded uncharacteristically excited about Pedrosa proposing to Nichols. Do you actually want them to get married?” “No! Of course I don't want them to get married. But I wouldn't be opposed to them getting engaged. That would just add to the drama when Nichols leaves him for Wolf. Can you imagine, they're standing at the altar ready to make their vows, but then Nichols looks out at the guests and he sees Wolf sitting there trying to be supportive and he suddenly, irrevocably realizes he can't do it and he shouts, ‘I don't!’ and everyone there just gasps--except for me, because I've been expecting it all along. That would be a story I would never get tired of telling.” “That's … kind of terrible, Silva,” Charlie says, though he can't suppress a grin. “Well, for Dr. Pedrosa, at least. I had no idea you were capable of such machinations.” “I'm capable of all types of machinations. And anyway, Beau would recover. He's super hot. I might even offer myself up to him for a little comfort sex right after the botched ceremony.” “So what you're telling me is, my plans to drunkenly hook up with you at the next work wedding might need to be revisited?” Silva gives him a meaningful look. “If you're planning to drunkenly hook up with me, you don't need to wait until the work wedding. Hell, we can skip the ‘drunkenly’ part too, if you want.”

This one is a future fic about WolfNichols (Oliver Wolf and Josh Nichols). Josh has moved into Wolf's house, they are engaged, and they've been talking about the possibility of children. It took over my brain after I saw the @jewsinfandoms "Converting" prompt.

Josh follows the strains of Bach into the fern room. Oliver is tending to Gertrude the Resurrection Fern and humming along to the music. Josh settles in next to him. The white rabbit’s foot fern he bought two days after announcing to Oliver that he wasn’t going to wait around for him any longer rests on the shelf just above the workbench, lush and green and so much happier than during those months Josh tried to stop being in love with the love of his life. Josh takes the fern down and wordlessly begins wiping dust from the leaves.

He wants to say something to Oliver, but he’s not sure what. He cleans and waits for the words to come to him.

About twelve notes into Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring (the irony is not lost on Josh), they start to take shape.

“Oliver,” Josh says, “do you ever wish you had a more religious upbringing?”

Oliver’s hands pause in their work. He looks up at Josh. “Why would I wish that?” It’s not dismissive. Just curious.

Josh shrugs. “I don’t know. I just … I wonder if our kids should have something.”

The gap between Oliver’s eyebrows narrows. “Belief in a god that may or may not exist?” Again, Oliver is not being dismissive, though this would not be obvious to anyone who didn’t know him well. He’s just perplexed.

“Maybe?” Josh says. “I think there’s something to say for having a community that’s larger than family or friends. A place you know where you belong.”

Oliver lets out a sound that’s a mix of exhalation and gasp and laugh. Okay, now he is getting cocky. “Churches are hardly famous for making people, especially people like us, feel like they belong. Pastor Garcia was an exception to the rule.”

Josh shakes his head. “I wasn’t talking about church. I meant raising them as Jewish.”

Oliver stares at Josh. He gets the same look on his face that comes to him when he’s struggling to piece together an unusual cluster of symptoms into a coherent diagnosis. “You’re serious.” It’s not a question.

Josh nods.

“I wouldn’t know how, Josh. I’m barely Jewish myself. I know how to get tipsy on Passover. That’s about it.”

Josh knows he’s going to lose this one. He’s not sure why he even brought it up. But still, he feels compelled to say, “It’s a place to begin.”

Oliver turns back to Gertrude. He pinches off a leaf, then contemplates it like it holds all the secrets of the universe. “It’s a place to begin if I wanted to begin,” he finally says. “But I don’t see the point. Have you ever been to a Shabbat service?”

The question stung, because the answer was no. Oliver was right to ask it, though. To remind Josh that whatever was going on with him was completely illogical. Josh shook his head. He was losing this argument so bad.

“Well, they’re two and a half hours long, mostly in Hebrew, and the kids are not paying attention. They’re running around the aisles to see who they can wheedle candy out of. I did fine during them when my grandparents took me because they bribed me with lollipops and I spent most of the time hiding under the bench trying to figure out how to read Hebrew from the transliterations in the prayer book. But I’m told I was an unusual child.”

Josh’s heart swells. Part of it is affection for Oliver. He can imagine a young Oliver doing just that--not just for two-and-a-half hours, but all day long if he was left to his own devices. But there’s another part that feels almost like nostalgia. It’s the idea of kids running around and making noise during a religious service. But it can’t be nostalgia, because it’s so unlike his own experience. He would have gotten a smack on the hand or leg for doing that at church, or at least a scolding. “So nothing happens when these kids run around? They don't get dragged out of the sanctuary?” Josh isn’t sure that’s the right word, but Oliver doesn’t correct him.

He just gives Josh another curious look. “Why would they?”

“Because they’re not behaving.”

“Oh.” Oliver leaves his mouth slightly open after completing the syllable, the way he tends to do when he’s surprised. “No. I mean, they can leave or their parents can take them out if they think it’s for the best. But noise and chaos are just part of it. Even the adults wander in and out and talk to each other through the whole service.”

Josh wonders if Oliver is exaggerating. His family only showed up late to church once or twice when he was a kid, and both times he felt like the entire congregation was staring at his family as they walked in shame to find an empty pew. But Oliver doesn’t exaggerate. “Even during the prayers?”

Oliver laughs. “Eighty percent of the service is prayers. So, yes.”

This news both unsettles and delights Josh. Unsettling because he’s a man who appreciates decorum. Delightful because it’s so unexpected, so outside his understanding of how the world works.

It’s kind of like the way he felt about Oliver in their first days working together. That feeling of not understanding Wolf, of having no mental template for a person like him, kept drawing Josh back to his new colleague in spite of himself. It was both crazy-making and exhilarating. He so desperately wanted Wolf to feel unsettled by him to the same degree.

“So let me get this straight,” Josh says. “People feel comfortable just … chatting with neighbors? Kids just do what they need to do to keep it entertaining for themselves?”

Oliver shrugs. “I guess you could put it that way.”

-The plot of Wolf treating Josh's dad. I think it really highlighted Wolf's empathy and what makes him such a great doctor. It gave some fun callbacks to previous episodes and lots of chances for Josh to look at Wolf with the biggest heart eyes

-Number One Wolf/Nichols shipper Nico's only concern being what this means for the Wichols "will they, won't they saga" and spilling the tea about Beau's proposal to Josh

-the whole scene of Dana finding out her rebound one night stand is Wolf's sister. Dana's "oh fuck" look, Erika dropping the files she's holding, Charlie and Nico's shared "omg girl" look, Charlie's adorable "God I love this job". Oh baby queers of Bronx General (and your token straight), I think I will miss you most of all

-Dana and Van helping Erika get the courage to talk to her probable birth mother. And being there for her when it doesn't go the way she wanted (it was also nice to see Van one last time)

-The baseball scene. Just all of it, but particularly the Charlie/Nico flirting and Josh finally getting recognition/support from his dad

And of course the big one - MY DADS ARE BACK TOGETHER (and fucking all over that hospital; the hyperbaric chamber one took me OUT)

The love confession scene had me so emotional