#bottomless-pitt

Meeting Robby was the start of the best years of your life. He was, without a doubt, your better half. You spent months pining over him, a stranger who frequented the same bar as you, but you never imagined he’d be yours. Your romantic life had never been overflowing; you kept to yourself in hopes that the right man would eventually sweep you off your feet.

That had all paid off when a frosted winter storm brought you together. His bashful attempts at flirting were all you needed, that was the man you were going to marry. So two years later, eloped, moving into a newly renovated town-home within walking distance of the hospital, you thought the bond shared was unshakable. Michael had promised you the rest of your life, and you had every intention of following through on that. 

It was hard to pinpoint an exact moment when he stopped looking at that same goal, when he stopped looking for you in every room he walked through. It was slow at first, plenty of overtime at the hospital hides the truth, but by the time you had noticed that he had begun pulling away it was too late. 

Michael was an expert at deflection. He left hundreds of words unsaid on the tip of your tongue, waiting for the moment to unleash its concern. 

I’ll be back tonight, we’ll talk then. 

Then it’s-

I’m sorry Honey, I’m dead on my feet, let’s talk this weekend. 

And then it’s- nothing. He’s nothing, he stops asking how you are, stops inquiring about your hobbies, your work, everything. He’s a machine now, wake up, go to the hospital, come home, collapse. It was brutal, the pressure he was under, something you couldn’t seem to understand no matter how many times you asked him to let you in. 

You should’ve seen it coming, but you were younger, naive, blind with hope that eventually he’d take a deep breath and spill his feelings to you. You were the forgiving wife, letting him process how he needed, in hopes that the rubber band would snap soon and bring him back to you. It was supposed to be the monthly date night, he always had the first friday of the month off to spend with you, it was tradition. 

You should’ve suspected when he hadn’t answered your call earlier in the day. You should’ve just taken a half-day and come home. You should’ve caught him moving boxes of his clothing into the bed of Jack’s pick-up. You should’ve-

You should’ve done a lot of things, but nothing had prepared you for a dark home, all traces of your husband sterilized, and a thin folder of divorce papers sitting on the counter. He already signed them too. Your brain loves to remember the loopy illegible chicken scratch at the bottom of the page. 

And then it was the world falling out under your feet. He had promised the rest of your lives and he broke that promise as easily as he had everything else in your life. 

You’re not sure what happened next, not clearly at least. Just the feeling of your chest caving in and the overwhelming feeling of loneliness you had greeted like an old friend. The world was spinning, you're not sure how the world could possibly keep spinning, but it had. 

The first night was spent curled up on the floor of your newly renovated kitchen, one you had planned to fill with light and memories. You had hoped this space would bring him back to you, ironically serving as its final resting place. 

The thoughts swirling around you were drastic, how could he do this to you? How could he just leave like that? What had you said to him this morning? Was there someone else? 

Your brain ran through every detail picking at the past five years for clues of nefarious incidents. All you found was your husband had left you a long time before he placed those papers on the counter and you, as always, were left trailing behind begging him to understand the jagged pieces piercing through your chest. 

The first night was completely unbearable, only the uncontrollable emotional release and a threadbare kitchen rug to comfort you. It was completely pathetic, and borderline insane. It was incredible darkness, and you hadn’t felt this small in years. 

The cruelty continued with a sunrise peaking through the curtains of the bay window. In your distress you had wished for time to stop, to take away the pain and relieve the crushing weight of abandonment even for a moment. 

The world had responded in its own savage revenge, the world continued turning until the sunlight spilled over the horizon. Time passed and cemented the new reality, and whether you were ready it was pulling you alongside it. 

It’s a testament that you’re able to survive the fall from his grace. The feeling that lingered was hollow, echoes of pain radiated through you. Your body resisted the urge to move, waiting for someone to come out and shout that it was all some sick joke, that your life hadn’t been cut to pieces with the precision only a certain emergency room doctor possessed. 

Passively, a quieter voice, wondered if he was alright, if he was already working or if he was holed up somewhere shattered to pieces. If he was hunched over the on-call bed thinking of the memories he’d tainted with an exit so swift he forgot to leave his wife’s dignity behind. 

The first movement had been to reach for your phone, flipping it over. Part of you had hoped for something truly pathetic, maybe a missed call or even an I’m sorry. 

The lack of notifications had been a mockery. 

Would anyone notice if I was gone? 

You had to push the thought from your mind, selfishly he wasn’t allowed to be the reason. He was the selfish one here, he was the one in the wrong, and you needed to pull yourself together. 

You couldn’t help the thought from passing through your mind- what was it about me that made it so easy for him to leave?

The first few weeks had been an exercise in relearning. Relearning how to be a singularity. Relearning how to stand on your own two feet. Relearning to trust yourself. 

Michael had done a wonderful job in making you feel like you were blowing everything out of proportion. Ironic isn’t it. He had made everything steady so questionable, and now it was up to you to rebuild what was destroyed so spectacularly. 

It was empty days and emptier nights. It was the feeling that crossing paths again would be agony, would be suicide. Reprieved only by sleep and the occasional visit from the closest friends and family. 

He doesn’t deserve you.

He’s an idiot, you just need to move on.

It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay. 

Well meaning words, but none of them know the beauty that was being known by Robby. None of them had ever felt the warm foamy bubbles of making him blush over candle lit meals and the dizzy way he’d kiss you until he’d run out of air and then kiss you some more anyways. He was an all consuming wildfire lover who had burned you inside out, there wasn’t anything about deserving the love he gave you, it was about preserving it. 

It was cheap, the way people had explained moving on, like it was something that just happened. Or, it had felt that way until one day you looked up and it was happening before your eyes. 

The first month, leaving the house meant looking out of the corner of your eye for ghosts. A single ghost really, a poltergeist slinking just out of reach from your eye, plotting the ways to finally kill you off. Everywhere was a place where he had been, and every sense was on fire searching for another clue to where he’d been. In the absence of your husband your body seemed to cry out for relief, a relief that would simply never come. 

The frame of a stranger that looked a little too similar at the gas station could set off a spiral. It was better off avoiding everywhere that was a shared place, better rip the chance away. It wasn’t worth it anymore, you couldn’t spend the rest of your life chasing after a ghost that didn’t want to be caught. 

The isle of the grocery store a few blocks out of the way had become somewhat of a safe haven. Pursuing the ice cream pints like it was life or death without the looming thought that he loves the produce selection here- it was reassuring. 

You hadn’t hardly thought twice about the slight breeze of antiseptic alcohol smell when you turned in, and you could’ve walked by if the slightly familiar voice hadn’t called out your name. 

The blood in your head rushes out, making the world seem dreamy, and your body rivals the freezers that line the isle for icy temperature. The first thing that strikes you is that it’s so unfair for him to be reaching out, to be calling out your name. He should be hiding his head deeper in the ice cream stashes and hoping you didn’t see him. He shouldn’t get to stop you, to disrupt the equilibrium you’d only just seemed to find in your new routine. 

Jack looked tired, he stood with a painfully obvious lean, and every movement seemed to grate against his skin. The bags under his eyes seemed to rival the inky scrubs that still wrapped his frame. His hair was disheveled wild, in a way that contradicted the tense regimented posture he usually sports. He looked surprised too, to see you, and it seems like he’s surprised by his own action. He hadn’t really made a move towards you, and you wondered if you could pretend you hadn’t heard him. 

“How are you doing?” He asked gently, moving to close the chamber to the fridge. 

It’s a fair enough question, one you’d been asked more times in the last month than you had your entire life. It was the first thing anyone always asked, but it hadn’t made responding any easier. It’s a non-question, really, because if you’re asking it usually it means- you look like you’re not doing well, let’s talk about that. 

And suddenly it’s a completely unfair question. It’s a completely unfair question for your soon to be ex-husband’s best friend to ask you in the middle of the day in an ice cream aisle. It’s completely ridiculous to even be asking, and it sparks something that had been dormant inside for a long time, anger. 

Jack had really made you nervous when you first met. He was the first person Robby had asked her to meet, the only person he really cared about. He’d been around the bar when you met Robby, but he was always more interested in nursing his beer then walking home. You were convinced he was going to hate you. 

Robby, for all his reassurance, was convinced of the opposite. He spent days dispelling your anxiety leading up to the dinner he had planned for the only night off they both had all month. 

“He’s going to love you, Honey.” Robby placed chaste kisses across your hairline and down your jaw. “I’m pretty sure he already loves you.” 

“You have to think that Michael,” Your nose scrunches, and he leans in to kiss it, “You’re blinded by the honeymoon phase.” He silences you with a kiss. The wired tendrils of his beard brush softly against you as you melt into him. He tilts your head just right until he can deepen the kiss, just the way that made your stomach flip. 

He brushes the hair out of your face, savoring the taste of your sweet hums of approval. The grip of breathlessness creeps up your neck until it wraps its way across the base of your skull. You grip Michaels shirt, he squeezes you to him just until you think you might become dizzy from the lack of oxygen. Then, as suddenly as he was there, he pulls away and the pleasure of airflow is euphoric. It wraps around you like a warm blanket fresh from the dryer and you find a home in the crook of your boyfriend’s shoulder. 

“Jack’s going to love you because I do.” 

Your breath caught, a heat creeping up your spine, he loves you. He loves you. 

You love him back, so much it hurts. He smiles at you and it feels like finally, everything in the disorganized chaotic rotation of the stores makes sense. You were absolutely meant to spend the rest of your life with him. 

Jack did love you. Jack, over the years, became a friend. You conspired with him for Michael’s birthday gifts and confided in him when things at the hospital had been hard for your husband. He was always going on about how you two were a team, because ‘we both want what’s best for him’. 

You wonder now, what had changed, because you suddenly realized you were no longer on that team. Another identity stripped. It pricked at the back of your eyes, and talking was silenced. You were thankful for the cart between the two of you, perhaps the distance would disguise the urge to suddenly lay down and cry. 

“I’m…” Is all you can get out before you have to look away completely. “I’m fine.” 

You don’t attempt to elaborate. You know any information will only trickle back. You attempt to steel yourself to look him in the eye again. 

“That’s good,” It sounds patronizing and you glare at him “I’m glad to hear that.” He gives you a pathetic smile, and you consider walking away entirely. 

“I’ve been, um, meaning to call-” You can’t help but let out a humorless laugh, “to see how you’ve been holding up.” 

“I’m sure you have Jack.” 

“Seriously, we-I’ve been worried about you.” He scratches the back of his head in shame, he looks like a kid being sent to the principal's office. 

His stumble didn’t go unnoticed. The anger that had finally- finally- unsheathed itself was indiscriminate. It doesn’t matter what he, Michael, or anyone else thought about you anymore. You were in the middle of building your life when Michael came crashing into it, you hadn’t asked him to come up to you in a bar, you hadn’t begged him to take you out to dinner after, nor did you throw grand gestures of forever at him. 

He had done this, he had made that choice. The fact of the matter is Michael had made his choice, he was in your life and now he chose to leave it. He didn’t get to have anything to do with you. So for Jack to earnestly stand here in front of you asking how you were was ridiculous. 

Your arms repositioned the cart so there was even more distance between the two of you. You could see his jaw set, the hackles in him rising, he takes a step back, and for the first time he looks away first. 

“I’m not having this conversion-” You gesture wildly around you, “In a freezer aisle.” 

Jack raises his hands up in defense. 

“Fair enough.” 

Neither one of you move to say anything else. The burning fire, seeming less of a wildfire and more of a flash paper, dissipates in the silence. Indignance slips away leaving the evidence of a poorly healing wound, freshly opened by the proof of Robby’s existence. 

Until now, the memory of your husband felt similarly to death, he was here and then suddenly ripped from you. Your brain, in a sick attempt at comfort you’re sure, had almost detached reality from the truth that sat heavy in the back of your head. 

Michael was still out there, living, breathing, existing, and he wants to do it without you.

And that sober reality plays through on your face. It suddenly becomes useless to walk through the empty shelves to fill even emptier shelves at home. Being angry with Jack, picking fights with him, wouldn’t magically bring Robby back into your life. Even if it did, how could he possibly fix the gashes he left behind. 

Michael was still alive, people saw him every day, but not you. You were still alive and people would fly in and out your orbit, but the Michael who had promised to be a bright shining star had been more of an asteroid, just passing through. 

You don’t really bother saying goodbye. It really doesn’t feel like there was ever a hello, and you don’t have the energy for small pleasantries that might lead you to the new life your husband leads. So, abandoning the groceries in the middle of the aisle, you turn to leave. 

Jack makes no attempts to stop you. It hurts more than you’d expected. 

When you’re home that evening there’s a knock at the door, you hesitate to answer at first. You knew it couldn’t be Michael, it was before he’d be off for work. You knew that but you still hesitated, because now there will always be that ‘what-if’ behind every door. There will always be a small voice wondering if he was finally coming home. 

At your doorstep was the groceries you’d abandoned in the store, a small note tucked under one of the bags. Your head shot up to look for some evidence, just as Jack’s truck sweeps quietly around the corner out of the small street. 

It’s not until you’ve curled yourself in bed that you can stomach the thought of opening the letter left behind. Its edges jagged, like it was ripped from a spiral notebook, likely some sort of journal he kept for his cases. Robby had something similar, although you had never dared peak inside lest there was something far too private for your eyes. Maybe you should’ve peaked. 

The note was simple, clear, very like Jack. At first you wanted to rip it, or throw it in the antique fireplace at the foot of your bed maybe. You settled for letting it slip into the drawer of your bedside, and tried not to look at the eyes of your husband framed and hidden away until you can stomach boxing it up. 

You feel something lighten that night, but moving on feels a lot like lying to yourself. 

I’m still here anytime, Kid. 

Please keep taking care of yourself, I couldn’t handle seeing you in my Trauma room. 

I’m worried t

Jack

And then time goes on. You re-learn yourself, what you like, what you want, what you need from other people to feel safe again. You go to therapy, and while it’s slow and you constantly feel like you’re drowning under the weight of your own life, it helps. 

You don’t remember the last time you had this much time to yourself just to think. It leaves a lot of time to wonder about your husband. It leaves time to contemplate every option of recovery before you realize it’s all futile anyways. 

The only reprieve you get is short updates from a lawyer you had, one who communicated exclusively on Michael’s behalf. One that delivered far more agreeable terms than you had expected.

At first you were upset, thinking Michael can just throw his attending money around like it would soothe any of the burn. But you knew him, you knew deep down this was the only way he’d be able to sleep at night, if he can make sure you’re taken care of in some way. 

And, as much as you’d like to strike down your own vanity in favor of making a big scene, the money softens the blow slightly. Before meeting Michael, money was a precious good, hard earned, and rationed carefully. It would make you anxious, how much money was spent where and when and how and on who. Michael had shown you the benefits of attending money, he’d shown you the benefits of relaxing in it, enjoying it. 

The comfort it brings to know at least you would still have your life, your home, and the luxury of time was an unexpected kindness considering the frosty exit he had taken from your life. So, while the shame of a once perfectly happy couple communicating exclusively through divorce lawyers had its sardonic upsides. 

With every step forward in proceedings your friends and family made use of the financial upswings. Friends taking you out for drinks, ‘on him’ of course, and your family had encouraged you to redecorate some aspects of the shared home. 

Michael’s old office that held copious medical textbooks had become a beautiful guest room for your parents to stay over. The hall closet that was storage for his old memorabilia he wasn’t sure if he wanted to display had been reorganized into a mini library of sorts. All the pictures came down from the hallway, slowly, like they melted down the walls, and replaced themselves with art. 

The only room that had remained untouched was the main bedroom. You had no intention of ever eradicating Michael’s touch from this space. It would be disrespectful to the touch he’d had on you in that space. His moody blue aura drowned here and you were desperate to keep the small reminders of him perfectly intact here. 

“You’re late.” Your voice called out to the figure stumbling through the hallway, his shadow silhouetted both in light and exhaustion. You can see his shoulders slump and he can hardly drop his bag at the doorway before he’s collapsing on top of you. 

“M’sorry, Honey.” He murmured into your sternum. Your hands wind through his hair and soothe his scalp. His body pressing deeper into yours, the soft cotton of his hoodie rubbing against the silk of your nightdress. 

“Today was just-” His hands brace themselves on your ribcage, pulling his body up until he can tuck himself into your neck instead. “Today was a nightmare.” 

You hum, giving him the space to talk if he wanted to. He only tries to bring his body closer into yours.

“I’m so sorry, Honey, you were waiting for me.” He presses chaste kisses to the skin in front of him.  

“It’s going to be ok, baby, you’re home.” You soothe.

After a few moments of comfortable silence, when you feel the wisps of the day start to leave him, you press his shoulder until he’s laying flat on the bed. He admires you, in the soft light of the beside lamp casting a warm glow across your skin, as you swing your legs across his hips. 

His hands anchor themselves on your hips, slipping under the gathers of your nightgown that pooled at the crease of your leg. The rough callus hands sweeping over your soft skin, his feet prop up forcing you to tip forward, giving him ample view of your cleavage. 

“You look so beautiful in this dress baby.” 

Your hands move to unzip his jacket, to expose more of his chest underneath. 

“Wore it for you Michael.” You let your fingers trace circles down his chest until your lips are hovering above his. “You’ve had such a long day, let me make it better?” 

The sound that escapes him is obscene. Your kiss is bruising and passionate, his mouth moves unforgiving against yours. He wastes no time trying to flip the two of you back over so he could look at you properly. But you had bigger plans. Distracted by the feel of your tongue tangled against him you take the hands once anchored to your hips and pin them down by his side. 

“Let me make you feel good.” You murmur against his mouth, before climbing off of him to strip in the lowlight of the bedroom. 

Michael, propped up, already out of his mind with lust popping out of his scrub pants, can’t take his eyes off of you. Not even when you reach for him to strip his clothes, he can hardly take the milliseconds you are out of view. 

Michael had always worshiped your body, he could hardly believe how lucky he was in your presence and made it known to you. The sight of his bare body propped against the large pillows of your shared bed had been so worthy of the worship. 

“C’mere baby, want to kiss you more.” He admitted, one hand propped up behind his head, the other lazily stroking over his erection. 

Michael kisses you reverently, pressing you into him, relishing in the sensation of your soft curves melding into his weary frame. The rough texture of his beard scraping against your skin was hypnotic, contrasted by the soft lips that soothed your aching burn. He was no stranger to using the different textures to his advantage, pulling you into him further and further. His hands trail up your legs to your ass, pressing you down, and another steady at the back of your neck, angling you just right to be worshiped with his mouth. 

“Want to kiss you, Baby.” You murmured against him. “Want to kiss you everywhere.” 

Michael hums against you, pressing his sturdy chest into yours, trying to catch your lips one more time. You turn your head, trailing kisses down his neck, to his chest, before you try swinging back to kiss down his stomach to where his cock sat ruddy and red against his stomach. 

“Won’t last-” His voice is cut off from the feeling of your hand wrapped around his aching erection. “Just want to be in you- please!” 

His desperation brings you to another level of arousal, and you can’t help but admire the sight laid out before you. Dr. Michael Robinavitch, Chief ER Attending, living breathing hero, laid out on your martial bed desperate for your touch. 

You don’t let him wait any longer, it would be a crime to make him wait any longer for the soft warmth and safety only you can bring him. When you sink down on him, the feeling of his thick shaft stretching you open is unlike anything else. He throws his head back whether it be from relief or pleasure, his hips buck up uncontrolled, he fills you completely. 

As you sit back adjusting to the feeling of being complete, of feeling completely filled, you can’t help but let out your own sigh of relief.

“Fuck, Michael!” You cry out, “Feels so good.” 

He lets out his own chuckle, his hands returning to anchor your hips to his own. “Feels like forever, doesn’t it Honey?”

A/N: Guys, I'm not sure how I feel about this one, but I have about 4k more already written, and I knew if I didn't put it out, I'd never do it. So please let me know if you like it, it's my first time writing for Robby, and it's like a lot less Robby in this than I intended.

If it sucks, I can scrap! But idk I went down a huge spiral in the last month, and this is all I could get out.

The thing about getting divorced is that it takes a long time. 

The thing about being in the process of divorcing Michael is that neither one of you is keen to keep the process moving, so getting divorced takes a really really long time. You can just imagine some divorce lawyer laughing at the two of you from his office, billing extra hours just for you both to chase your own tails about things. 

It’s not that you wanted to stay married to him. He had shown you just how fast he’d like you removed from his life, and you were not going to subject yourself to the further humiliation of grovelling for his respect. He’s been selfish and totally unfocused as a partner. He’s a billion things you never saw for yourself wrapped up in an entirely over-protective shell. 

He’s also the person you look for in every room. You come home from work and he’s still the only person you want to talk to. The misty fumblings of showing yourself again, of telling your secrets to someone new. The solace of quiet evenings alone whisked away like a dream and replaced the reality of starting over.

You still wished to come home and smell his signature chili he made for game days or hear the quiet bickering of him and his own brain circling an idea in another room. His idiosyncratic comforts that made these walls full of life and light were gone. And despite your resolution to move forward without it, the shadows crept tall here.

He’s refracted himself over every part of you, the imprint soul deep in your chest. 

It’s not that you ever wanted to be divorced from him either. 

The first six months of life without him was entirely spent in a haze. Seeing him, talking to him again, was a cold hard reality check.

You’d managed to scrape by– shoving him out of your mind. Somehow praying that when you checked back in on the body in your closet it would’ve decomposed. 

Now you’re well aware of the rot that’s taken place in the home you built. That now you’d spoken to him there was a nagging feeling that crept up your throat and made its home. Now that you’d made contact there were floodgates burst with longing. 

The fracture inside was healing but without the sharp focus of betrayal your mind was restless with want. Memories of nights spent in soft sighs and clarifying exploration, or tired moments shared in pure comfort alone with one another. 

All the build up and trust was for nothing in the end, because you were still left behind in some knotted confusion. Really the whole level of angst can be boiled down into one little sentence. One promise that your brain runs with like a frantic hamster trapped in some dinky cage. 

 I’m done running. If you ever want me again.

Spoken like a precious jewel presented to you, like it didn’t serve to drop your stomach from its cavity every time you recalled the interaction. Like it didn’t undo months of hard won life you’d clawed from his hands. Like it didn’t- wouldn’t- affect you. 

Truth be told, you were ready to be rid of him and the veil he’s thrown over your life like a thin settling of soot in an abandoned building. You were ready to be done, and then he said the one thing you were waiting to hear. 

Now, you weren’t so sure what you wanted. 

The Emergency Department was a gamble on a good day. Robby knew that, but the gamble seemed to be riskier every day he stepped through the heavy doors. He wasn’t the first doctor who felt the weight of the world on his shoulders, hell he wasn’t even the first doctor today. He’d spent more mornings up on the roof with Jack to recognize that in himself. 

He knew incoming traumas meant a new gamble, he knew what he was here for and usually it came as a comfort. 

It hadn’t felt like a comfort recently. Time had plucked his skin raw, the minutes spent down here were moments lost from him. He felt the weight of the time wasted on his bones, when his back ached after a long shift. When he can’t quite turn his neck the full rotation. When he endures the pops, strains, crackles, of his age. 

He was carrying the weight of the department on his shoulders, and he could feel the deterioration of his body– his soul. God knows it’s only a matter of time before he loses the traction from under his feet and the monumental task squash him like a bug. 

Or that’s what it had started feeling like. 

Days spent with back breaking work, saving some, losing others, always fighting an uphill battle. Then soft nights shared with his wife, nights he prayed would never end in favor of laying with their love cocooned. When dawn breaks he feels the impending doom settle down on him, it was only a matter of time before the cycle reset itself and stole him away from you. 

Days were hell, nights were heaven, but everything was a purgatorial wash in the end. It left Robby restless and choking on his own unspoken wants. 

He considered retiring more than once, but he hardly knew how to enjoy a day off, let alone the rest of his lifetime. He was built for this adrenaline nightmare of a job, it’s what he knew, so despite his own building resentment he took the gamble every morning. 

Just one more shift, then maybe it’ll all feel better again, one more day spent here and it’ll all go back to how it was before. 

Before Adamson. 

Before you. 

Before he realized he was running from something deep inside him, something that seemed to catch him around corners of his life. Something that scared him.  

Today was no different. Traumas come, people go, it was the natural way of things here. The chaos was no more chaotic than it was before. 

The sound of wailing from these rooms was not uncommon, not in the slightest. He’d watched Mothers lose sons, Wife's their husbands, Father’s their daughter more than he’d care to.

Pulling back the door in the private family room, he knew he’d be delivering the worst news. He knew there would be a memory etched into this woman forever, one where he’d dismantle her. He lived with the weight calmly, but it shook him deeply every time. 

“I don’t understand,” She wrapped her arms around herself, “He was fine this morning, we had breakfast this morning.”

“Cardiac events like this can happen very quickly,” He explained, taking a seat next to her. “We’ve done everything we possibly can. I’m so sorry, ma’am.” 

Her eyes shoot up to meet him, tears bubbling over her waterline. “I don’t-” She takes a breath, “I can’t-” 

He reaches to give her a tissue, she bats his hand away softly. 

“Who’s going to pick Conner up from school?” Her hands shook. “God, I have to call my sister.” she began rattling off a million different things. 

“I’m going to get you in touch with our social worker,” He began explaining, “She’ll help you with the transition.” 

“God, he was supposed to take him to get his permit next week.” She started digging in her purse. “I need to call his school.” 

As he left the room he made a round to the hub to check the chart, a standard practice, but the seeping feeling of dread slipped through him while he did so. 

Richard Fredricks, 66, presented with pain in the left side. 

He skimmed past the medical jargon to patient history. Had a heart attack last spring at his son’s football game. His son. His son without a father, a son who would be getting the news any minute. A wife who had just lost her husband. He couldn’t help but click through deeper. His wife, only 44. His son, barely 15. 

He pushed his hand down his face and fought to keep his mind from running to a darker place. Only a few years older than you would be –

The sound of another incoming trauma pulls him from the computer, but his eyes linger when he catches sight of the same woman with her head tucked into her hands. He watches for a minute, while Kirara walks her through the process. 

For a second she transforms, no longer is it a stranger in the family room, it’s you. He stutters in step, but when he collides with Mckay he pulls his eyes away. 

A few hours later, when the chaos seemed to hold its breath, for just a moment, his eyes trailed back to the small private room. A young boy, who couldn’t be more than 16 was sitting stoically, holding his mother’s hand while she cried. 

“This has to be some sort of a record Hon,” Dana reminded him, trailing a few steps behind, “I thought you were going home.” 

Robby could feel the tension in his neck and shoulders had advanced to a burning ache, his eyes were foggy and unfocused, and his ankles were starting to swell from the pressure of his own frame on them. He could hardly smell anything over the stale antiseptic that coated his hands. His senses are on hyperdrive, looking in every corner for a ghost to come out and put him out of his own misery. 

He settled for a fleeting twist of his neck to relieve the muscles, and a sarcastic smile.  

“Shen’s running late, car trouble.” He murmured as she looked at him over the rim of her glasses, “And you’re supposed to be home too.” 

“Alright boss,” She follows him to the ambulance bay outside. She lets several moments roll by them both. “Jack told me.” 

Robby laughed humorlessly, his whole body screaming for relief. His whole body urges him in one particular direction, so he can throw himself at your feet and beg for a moment of peace before he gives out for good. He settles for a cigarette. 

“Oh yeah, Jack’s a vault right?” He murmurs around the cig. 

“Robby, are you okay?” She’s looking so intensely at him. 

“M’fine.” Robby doesn’t elaborate. His lungs sigh at the acrid intrusion, but he can feel the euphoria claw up the back of his neck and wrap around the base of his skull. His shoulders sag for a moment, the noise quiets. 

“The Ms4 last week’d beg to differ.” 

Robby takes a long drag before rubbing over his eyes to quell the ache. 

“I apologized.” He knew he was being petty. 

“You should get out of here, before the next batch comes in.” She urges. He nods, but neither one of them moves to leave. 

“I know Jack thinks I’m wrong.” The words feel foreign on his tongue. 

“Sweetie, Jack’s worried about you,” She pats him on the arm, “We’re all worried about you.” 

The cigarette burns away in his hands, and he watches mesmerized. The peel away of embers to reveal the ash piling up at his feet. 

“I don’t..” He trailed off, snubbing it out against the brick facade. “She made it clear she didn’t want to hear from me.” 

“Can you blame her?” She asked sincerely. When he didn’t move, he felt her arm wrap around his soldiers until she could wrap around him tightly. “Gotta give her some time.” 

Robby nodded against her arm.

He didn’t really believe it, he knew he’d be an idiot to think it was that simple. It was nice to pretend for a minute that he wasn’t completely falling apart under the weight of himself. 

When he laid in bed that night, always thinking of you, he wondered selfishly if you still thought of him. If somehow, you’d both transcend his own stupidity and find each other in dreams, so that your longing will ebb and his might flow through you. 

Your body writhes under him. The sweat pools in the crevices he hasn’t licked away from. His touch is so delicate, exacting, like he’d been waiting for the chance to ruin you. 

“So pretty for me, baby.” The base of his pelvis smears touch across your clit, making each movement addictive. “Love to have you like this.” 

You moan out his name, letting your praise pour from your mouth indiscriminately. Your hands wander from his hair, down his spine, around his arms, his face, everywhere. They trace pathways and forge new tracks at every sensation. It burns a fire deep inside of him. 

His hips stutter forward, pull back rapidly, then forwards again like a man starved, breaking open freshly ripened fruit. His kisses are hot on your neck, searing a trail of possessive marks. He should be ashamed, an old man claiming you like this, but the twist of your legs around his hips keeping him corralled silences him. 

When he fills you, it feels a lot like coming home again. 

You wake with an ache between your thighs and memory heavy. Your hands shake with unleashed tension, you pray someday this feeling will fade.

When Michael wakes up, somewhere on the other side of the city, he reaches for your warmth in the sheets. The cold greeting is grief living between the spaces of his own longing. 

It was definitely ill-advised to be here. It was not your finest moment, for sure. You know that much. You’ve gotten maybe a combined seven hours of sleep the past few nights, plagued by the most explicit dreams. Dreams centering your ex-husband, your sexually fulfilling marriage, and the now painful lack of both of those things. 

So, it was definitely ill-advised for you to be sitting in the park just across the street from the hospital. Seriously, the new fresh-faced therapist strictly advised against it. It was even worse that you knew he’d be off shift any minute, and if he was still staying with Jack he’d come this direction. 

It was all a terrible idea. 

You just couldn’t take it anymore. Your days at work seemed to drag impossibly long, and your nights were neverending. Now with your family all somewhat healthy, there was no distraction keeping you from confronting the need that had been bubbling over. 

So now you’re waiting. It’s not like you have a plan, you just wanted to see him. You just wanted to put eyes on him, see if he’s taking care of himself. See if he’s still working. See if he’s ok. 

You wanted to snap out of it. To ride a wave of your own prolonged anger into scaring away the weird new phase of longing. 

It didn’t take long for him to show. His lumbering frame skirted along the horizon in a daze, and even from your bench you could see his shoulders slumped over in exhaustion. He didn’t have his tell-tale headphones in, nor did he seem to be aware of anything around him.  For a moment you think he’ll walk right by. That he might be so internally occupied that he’d walk right by. 

You wonder what that would give you. If that might be the kindest thing to do. To allow you to feel your righteous pain and let you forget him in return. That maybe if he did that he’d be closing this chapter for you, for good, and now you can walk into the next part of your life unattached. 

You feel the sudden urge to turn around and walk, to resolutely choose to walk away from him forever. To leave and to choose yourself.

If it were some movie you’d do it, you’d have the strength to see him there in front of you and walk away to some cool crescendo of music. It would feel good, and in most cases it would be right. 

But from the moment you feel Michael’s eyes on you, it feels less like a choice and more like fate. And the way his shoulders drop, his steps slow, and your eyes meet under the light of the street lamp, it feels right. 

You sit and wait quietly, picking away at your jeans before you feel him sit next to you. 

“Hi.” You surprise yourself when you hear yourself speak first. In the low light of the dusk you see his surprise too. His eyes melt and it makes your stomach twist. 

“Hi.” He returns with a whisper. It’s a delicate offering, and he looks gently at you like some fine rare artifact before him. 

“Hi.” You say again. He smiles quietly at you, and a zip of heat strikes through you. It’s only half embarrassing. 

“Hi.” He says again, leaning back onto the bench, and angling himself to watch you. The same hoodie he was wearing the last time you saw him, a reminder of the last conversation you had. You take a deep breath and remember. 

Remember how tired he looked that morning in the hospital corridor. How bloodshot his eyes were. How tired he looks now, like he’d been running on empty, passed empty, and ready to blow. It’s much harder to look at now. You have to stop yourself from reaching out and smoothing the worry that sits deep in his face. 

“I’m sorry I’m lurking outside your work.” 

“No, um,” He offers, pushing his mouth together to keep his emotions at bay, “I’m really fucking glad you’re lurking out here. I-” His voice betrays him, with a gentle wobble. “I’m really happy to see you.” 

His eyes are rounded with tears as he looks at you, and when he realizes, he moves quickly to try and shove them away. The warm lamplight disguises the blush in the setting sun. 

“I just,” You fiddle with the cuff of your jacket, trying to hide the weight behind the contemplation you’ve been carrying. “I don’t like the last time we talked.” You manage out. “I’ve been thinking about- I’ve been thinking a lot and I feel like I need answers from you.” You speak in broken fragments, dancing around your thoughts like it was a landmine. 

“Ok.” He waits. He waits, but you’re not sure what else there is to say. 

“Okay…” You trail. 

“I can’t answer those questions here.” He admits, scanning the surroundings. You notice now, littered amongst the few people milling through the park, a larger majority were uniformed for the hospital. Pockets of scrub-clad groups, a few admin staff, some patients, meandered around you. 

“No one’s listening, Michael.” Your jaw clenched watching the swirl of strangers around you. 

“I think this is a conversation best had in private.” He admits, with little room for discussion. It makes you feel small, a tiny twinge wiggles itself deep in your chest. A truth you know is true, but to give him the power of location seems like a loss, one you weren’t prepared for.

You hesitate, consider just cutting your losses and walking away again. But the weight of his eyes keep you pinned and primed for him. His own leaky desperation drips, floods, seeps into the air until you’re flooded with memories. 

Michael holding your hand across the table on your first date. Michael taking care of you when you caught the flu from some coworker with a toddler. Michael soothing your insecurities away. Michael holding you. Michael touching you. Michael loving you completely.

“Fine.” when you stand you don’t offer him direction, so he follows blindly a step behind.  “Did you drive?”

He shakes his head, “Nope. Bikes in the shop.” You narrow your eyes at him. 

“Add the bike to my list of questions.” You mutter humorlessly. He scratches the back of his neck like he’s a kid in trouble. 

Neither one of you says anything the rest of the walk home. 

The scratch of his coarse beard against your neck tickled perfectly, paired with his long luxurious kisses pressed deliciously. The draped white fabric washing over your skin, doing nothing to dull the feeling of his hands roaming your frame. The linen from his shirt pressing against your exposed skin kept you hypnotised. 

“I have to unlock the door!” You cried out, reaching again to twist the key. His chuckles press air against the new marks, and his hand trails up your side and over your hands. 

“Let me.” He offers, turning the key over and swinging the door open. You turn to look up at him dreamily. 

“First time crossing the threshold Mrs. Robinavitch.” He whispers, bending down to kiss you passionately. His hands come under your hips to support you as he lifts you up. Your arms scramble around his neck, as he lifts he’s smiling against your lips.

“Welcome home, Baby.” He puts you down just in the foyer. 

“Welcome me then.” you demand, hands already reaching behind you to unzip the dress to let it fall away from you. 

He leans against the, now closed, door. Watching you slip out of your heels, hair half shaken out, make-up sufficiently smeared from his many kisses throughout the night. And your dress, only held up by a single hand, pressed delicately to your sternum. 

He tucks his lip under his teeth and drops to his knees softly in front of you. “Welcome home, My wife.” He murmurs before lightly tugging on the bodice of the dress. 

You relent with a soft hum, letting the material slip over your bare breasts, exposing the soft skin and pert nipples. Your hand sliding through his hair, enjoying the way his sweet moans feel vibrating against your torso where he worships. 

“I can’t believe I’m this lucky.” He says, looking up at the woman before him. 

“I love you Michael.” You cradle his face softly, before he hooks your leg over his shoulder and begins kissing from your knee downwards. 

Michael lingered in the door, before he stepped over it. His body stopped like it had no access granted, like a thin shield kept him from coming in. He stands just looking at everything, tracing his finger against the wood grain door.

“Do I need to invite you in?”

“Maybe.” He shoves his hands into his pockets, but steps over anyways, shutting the door behind him. 

“You didn’t need an invite last time.” You meant to say it under your breath but the flush in his cheeks couldn’t hide the shame. 

“Touche.” He offered. “It does look nicer now. I was serious about that tour one day.” 

He followed you into the living room before sitting as far away from you as he could on the couch. His shoulders hunched over his knees, like he was trying to contort his body into as small a space as possible. 

“I’m not going to bite your head off for relaxing.” You sit with your knees tucked up protectively. He shoots you a pathetic look and you try your best to look less like a kicked dog. 

“Ok.” Your eyes ache as you rub over them, “I need to ask this, not because I even really believe it-” You let out a sardonic laugh, “But because I don’t know what else to really think about-” You break off and take deep breathes. 

“Was there-” You break off your train of thought. “Did I?” You try but it sounds stilted and broken apart. “Was there something I did? Or something I didn’t say?” 

He let out a long breath, his head shaking. He looks down with shocking sincerity. 

“No, God you-” He cleared his throat. “You’re perfect. It’s me.” 

You don’t know what the right way to respond to that is. You don’t even know what the right ballpark of emotions would be. Because, you had kind of assumed, after a while you let the dust settle and it’s clear it’s not you. You’re not a coward who walked out of this marriage without a word. 

You feel a hard dose of everything you’ve been feeling. The hurt, the anger, the loneliness, the insecurity, the sadness all muddle together. You can’t offer him any sort of explanation, you can hardly keep your head up from the cloud of emotions building behind your eyes. 

“It’s not you,” He starts. “I just can’t see you waste the best parts of your life with me when mine are so far gone.” He moves closer to you and it feels less like a lover and more like a teacher guiding you through a complex topic. The patronization, suddenly too much, shot you to your feet with no real direction. So, indignant and angry you stepped away without so much as a word.

“That’s bullshit.” You move to sit in the small side chair, anxious to be a distance away from him. “And hurtful.”

“It’s the truth.”

“It might be your truth that you tell yourself but it’s not the truth.” You cross your arms and look at him. “Tell me the truth. Don’t tell me the best parts of you are gone, because I fell in love with you here and now.”

He sighed and leaned back, his head tipping over the side of the couch before refocusing on you. He looked desperate, broken down, and tired. His eyes never wavering, even when he did. “I had this patient come in, a major cardiac event. It was a freak thing, but lifestyle made it worse and worse. He was 66.” He ran a hand down his face, “And I had to tell his wife, his 40 year old wife her husband wasn’t coming home. And she was still so young, she was barely holding it together. And I just saw the future playing out again and again.” His body couldn’t seem to comfort itself so he tugs at his golden star of David for clarity.

“They had a son that was barely 15, and he was practically propping his mother up, she kept saying she thought they’d have more time, he’d have more time. It would play on a loop in my head every time I saw you. You’re so young and you have so much ahead and eventually it’s going to be you. One day that widower at my bedside is you.” He buries his head in his hands. 

“If I could make you hate me, if I could give you the life you deserved with someone you could fully enjoy it with…” Tears don’t quite slip from his eyes but he rubs his eyes regardless. “I could live with you hating me, as long as you got to live.” He shook his head, the anxiety bottled up in him finally fizzing to the surface. 

“I just couldn’t stand myself knowing that’s where this is headed.” He admitted. 

“Did you think I didn’t know that was the reality when I married you?” 

He doesn’t say anything for a long time. The weight of a simple rebuttal seemed to fester in his chest, rotting his cynicism away. 

“I don’t doubt that,” He says slowly, “I just sit in a reality where no matter what– I have to leave you behind.” He pieces it together like he’s still holding onto the truth, that it’ll protect him, save him. “And then you started talking about kids and God I just-”

“Jesus, Robby, you could’ve just told me you didn’t want kids!” You snap back. 

“I didn’t want to take anything else from you!” Both your voices were ramping up. “I didn’t want to be the dirty old man who saddles you with three under three then fucking dies.” 

“I never said I needed kids! I just wanted to know where you were at!” 

“And what?” He rubbed down his face. “If I said I wanted kids you’d just say yes and we’d never talk about what happens when-” 

“You make it sound like I’m the one avoiding this conversation!” Your voice is thick with unshed tears and bottled anger. “You left without saying a goddamn word to anyone!”

“I couldn’t do it anymore,” He collapsed back against the cushions, “I never wanted to be like this. I never wanted us to become this.”

“Then let me understand.” You stand, not sure what else to do, not sure where else to go. “You don’t want kids, fine, let’s have that conversation.” 

“It’s not that I-” He grunts in frustration. “I’ve been the kid in this scenario and it’s not fair.” He shakes his head. “I’ve been the kid in the front row at the funeral begging for more time, and I never wanted that for-” he stops abruptly. “I never wanted that.” The whole explanation boring holes into your chest where he’d been a soothing balm. It’s a firm press to a bruise on a bruise on a bruise.

“I didn’t want you to have to start your life over in the middle of it,” He snapped. “I’m just terrified that one day I’ll be gone and you’ll regret choosing me.” His emotions bubbling over and spilling everywhere. He may not be crying now but he feels the self-loathing, the anger, the want creeping like ivy up his sides and wrapping around his throat. 

“You deserve so much more than me.” He chokes out, his body collapsing inwards, finally the release of emotions breaks free. His tears free flowing and thick on the contours of his cheeks. 

You don’t move to sit with him for a moment, you don’t run your hand over his back and bring him to you for peace. You let him escape in his own release. Only moving to sit close by when he puts his head in his hands. It’s heavy and thick in the room, but you know this conversation’s only going around in circles. Both of you exhausted, both righteous in your own reasoning, both needing the other and not reaching out. 

You would’ve expected more from yourself, if you had anything else to give. You didn’t have anything else to give. Now, finally seeing the full puzzle your brain hurts, it aches at the prospect of putting everything together again. Because at the end of the day you just don’t trust that he’s going to stick around long enough to see the end result.

And it should be a relief, it should bring you an ease. Now you have the picture you can walk away knowing what would’ve been. The acrid feeling of bile that creeps up your throat at the unspoken hurt reminds you what is lost here. The jagged cuts can’t hide the beauty beneath the carnage. A life shared with Michael would be beautiful, if he’d just let you have him. 

It should be an easy choice to stay or go, and maybe it is. Sitting here with him, listening to him, fighting with him, aching with him, letting him in for now just to give him back to the world could be easy. Walking away could be right for both of you, to ease the cavern that’s been ripped between you. 

But your hands find him somehow, in the tangle of his own grief. A measured pain lances through you with the tight squeeze he gives you, not physical but just as powerful. He was bracing himself for your final parting words, for you to do the real work and finish this once and for all. 

And then you’re crying, slowly at first, but ramping more and more and more. Then you feel him, he guides you into him so slowly, ready for you to push him away, ready for you to bite. 

Just as simply as he walked away he brings the two of you back together, and for the first time in months your body melts away. He holds you firmly, both your breaths labored and shaky, and there’s a bitter taste of something lost that is spit between the two bodies. It’s awash with salted sadness cleansing both cheeks of the one person you’ve been waiting for. It feels like home again. 

“I’m not ready to be done with you.” You admit, voice raw and shaky. His hands brushing under your eyes to swipe the evidence of his own guilt. “I still want you.” It’s a difficult thing to say. It’s choppy and shameful, and most of your body rebels when you say it but you know it’s the truth. There wasn’t a universe where Michael is holding you in your living room and you wouldn’t want him. 

“I don’t know how to live with myself after this.” he admits back, his own whispered vulnerability makes your hands shake with emotion. 

“I want to see a councillor together.” You sit away from him, trying to look him in the eye. His brows furrow and set low on his face. 

“And if it doesn’t work?” He says slowly, like he knows this song and dance. Like he’d been there before. Because he had. 

“Then at least we know we tried.” And it’s far more pointed than you mean for it to be, but the adrenaline is starting to wear off and your body sags for comfort again. 

When Michael murmurs a soft okay it feels a lot like a second chance. 

The dive was sticky, air thick with people too close and too far all at once. You sort of hated coming but you came back anyway to watch your best friend flirt shamelessly with the bartender. The music was always a little too old for you to really enjoy it and the billiard tables took up a little too much room in the space. 

So you settled for sitting at the bar top every Friday, in an outfit that sat uncomfortably against your skin. Despite how much your friends insisted you ‘looked amazing’ you felt less like a desire and more like a last resort. You’d spent more than a few weeks as the last girl standing, but you tried not to let it bother you. 

The whole Friday night tradition was to sit, look cute, sip on drinks, and wait for the two older men to saunter in through the side door and sit with a perfect view of the TV that sat just above you playing some mundane sports programming. 

The first time you caught sight of them it was thrilling, like there was suddenly no air left in the room. Both handsome in their own right, but there was something undeniably sexy about the shy brunette with a beard. He always looked a little too tied up in something going on in his head to notice the multiple women making eyes at him. 

That first night you had no shame, letting your gaze linger as you scanned the crowd. It was nice to sit and imagine what it might be like, to imagine the dozens of ways he might be able to break you apart with just his overly long fingers. You’d never really think anything of the fantasies that swirled because they were just fantasies. 

Your lingered daydreams earned you gentle teasing and less gentle urges from your friends to make a first move. “Go get yourself a Daddy, girl!” Your friends had giggled at you, while pushing you out of your bar stool to say something. But you only shook your head and gave them a coy smile, enjoying their lighthearted affection. 

It was just a crush. And they had no reason to approach you really, so it was just supposed to be harmless fun. 

Despite the obvious pining from several patrons, you’d never seen either one of them approach anyone. So you settle for watching, waiting for perhaps another patron to catch your eye. Or for your friend to blow up her relationship with her bartender situation and declare the lowkey dive ‘off-limits’. 

There was nothing particularly different about this Friday. Maybe there was, it seemed like your friends were picked off swiftly tonight, Each scattered throughout the bar or in some vague undress in some stranger’s apartment. You’d figure this was your last drink before you make the trek home. Which was actually unfortunate because your favorite view had only just arrived, later than usual, and you were sad to miss the chance to make unreciprocated eyes at him. 

Downing the last watery sip of your cocktail you start gathering your things to leave when you feel someone lingering behind you. 

“Leaving so soon?” Their voice was dulcet and deep. It sends butterflies down your torso. You had a fleeting hope you let wash over you for a moment before tamping it down and turning to face the tall stranger. 

“Yeah my friends-” You stopped talking when you saw him. The guy, your guy. Your tall shy brunette that sits just perfectly every Friday, drinks two beers, then leaves. The object of all your fantasy and desire wrapped in one strikingly handsome case. 

“Would it be stupid if I asked to buy you a drink?” You could see the red flush creeping up his cheeks even in the bar lighting. “If that’s not creepy.” 

“Not creepy at all.” You return with a small smile.

When he slips down on the barstool next to you, you have to stop yourself from imagining what the rest of your life would look like if he stayed by your side. 

“My name’s Michael, by the way.” You give him a small smile, and tuck your lips under your teeth. Michael lets his eyes wander down your frame shamelessly before flagging down a bartender and ordering you a drink. 

It wasn’t until the next morning you managed to ask him how he knew your order. 

“You weren’t the only one watching, sweetheart.” 

Pittsburgh winter was brutal, but you liked the snow. You liked that you could bundle and burrow into soft fabrics and thick wool and still feel comfortable. You liked the chill that sat like a sting on the end of your nose, and even though it was inconvenient to deal with, you loved the ethereal blanket of snow that fell. 

It was long, the night settled over the city like a medieval curse. Everyone was a little grumpy or sick, but it was comforting to know there weren't a million things going on that you had to choose from. You enjoyed the simple routine of waking up, going to work, coming home, cooking something warm, and spending a night by the fire. 

This winter was slightly more eventful though. With the inclusion of weekly counseling for your now on the mend marriage, there was encouragement to break out of that cozy routine you’d adapted to every February.

Your therapist was understanding, but firm, about your hesitations and was keen on building a pathway to walk them together. So that was how you ended up at a nice restaurant on a Thursday with Michael. Bundled but cute, that’s what he said anyways. The harsh wind that stripped back the layers of your protection seemed to seep into every conversation until you felt flayed out at the dinner table. 

So the walk home was just as brutal as the weather had felt, holding the chance for ethereal magic but feeling more like brown sludge stuck to the crevice of your snow boots. Conversation had dwindled after dessert, and you could tell Michael was treading lightly on the sore feelings he’d accidentally stuck into over shared pasta. 

Crossing the threshold of your home you stripped down your layers both physically and emotionally until you were left in some slip dress that felt both too thin and too thick to be wearing. Michael followed suit, still finding the places he fits back into your life, still adapting to the spaces you grew to fill in his absence. 

The past three months have been hard won for the both of you. They’ve been twisted and clarifying all at once. A never ending code decoding itself in front of you both. It’s been hard to come back together, it’s been a challenge. 

It’s also been so incredibly refreshing. Michael has been so patient and vulnerable in a way you never thought was possible for you both. He’s been taking the assignments very seriously, and doing the work above and beyond what your expectations were. It sometimes strikes you as very silly that he was worried this would fail, because he’d taken to it so naturally. 

For all it’s worth, you feel like you’re the one dragging their feet now. Struggling to reconcile the intense hurt and betrayal from the past with the open vulnerable man in front of you as one and the same. But your husband is patient, and your husband is no stranger to complex emotions, plus the last thing he wanted to do was hurt you any more than he already had. 

Many nights spent with him holding your hand and begging for your forgiveness, only for you to smooth out his hair and soothe him. You had forgiven him a long time ago, maybe somewhere between the impromptu meeting in the hospital and his long overdue confession. You’d chosen to forgive him. 

It was just that it was a lot easier to forgive him than it was to forget it all.

You were slightly ashamed at the insecurity that bubbled up more and more these days. You were off put by the reassurance you needed at every step, that you had to check in multiple times just to get through the most basic romance. It was exhausting on top of exhausting, putting yourself back up on two feet. Michael never wavered though, he never blamed or bit out insults, or fought back really. He would sit with listening ears as you spill secret shames to him, until you were practically a puddle in his arms. 

Then he’d wrap you up, lay you down, and stay with you until you felt like you could hear him. Because he knew what it was like to be in that headspace, where you believe that no one is listening, that they couldn’t possibly be hearing you. It’s pure irrationality, but he bore it like no other. 

“I didn’t want dinner to end like that, I’m sorry.” He hangs his scarf over yours as he offers the apology. 

“No, I’m sorry,” You sigh, breath shallow and body buzzing to keep moving. “I don’t know why I’m even upset.” 

“I shouldn’t joke about things before you’re ready to talk about them.” He moved to stand in front you, hands in his pockets, shoulders raised. He looked so defensive, and it’s not the first time you’d seen him like that. 

It seems like more often than not lately, he’d be on the defensive. You’d developed a bad habit of snapping instead of changing the subject. It was something you’re working on both on your own and as a couple. It stung tears behind your eyes at the posture, you hadn’t wanted tonight to end like this at all.

Tonight was supposed to be the first night you and your husband shared each other again. Your councilor had suggested reintroducing some intimacy, and you’d been looking forward to seeing him again, to having him again. And from the racy innuendos he’d been hinting with all week, he was also looking forward to it. Now, you feel like you’d dashed both of your hopes by snapping your walls back up without warning. 

Your head was swimming as Michael danced around your emotions, settling in front of you, waiting for your cue. Your head burrowed into his chest as tears leaked out from your eyes. 

“It’s not your fault.” You murmur, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” Michael wrapped himself around you, ushering both your bodies over to the bedroom so you could lay down and relax. 

Once he had you on the bed and comfortable he slid in beside you. 

“Was it something I did?” His voice was small and frightened, it made you want to cry all over again. 

“No.” You brush your hand against his, keeping it tightly wound together. “You were perfect, I’m just a mess.” 

His frown deepened, and his eyes rounded out like small marbles. “Not a mess,” he brushes one of your tear stained cheeks with your conjoined hands. “Very pretty.” His head ducks down to press a kiss to the top of your head.

“I want to sleep with you.” you pout.

“We don’t have to baby, if you’re not ready then-” 

“I am ready!” He gives you a discerning look. “I really do. I want to sleep with you tonight I’m just…” 

He unravels your hands, giving you the space to process without having to soothe him in return.

“I’m not going to be upset if you’re not ready, baby.” His voice is like a secret between you. 

“It’s not you, I’m just having a hard time with myself right now.” You admit.

“What’s going on? Hmm?” He moves until you’re sitting across from each other, so he can see you. “You can tell me anything.” 

You nod and sit for a moment, trying to find the right way to say this. 

“I just feel like, by sleeping with you, I’m betraying the part of me that had to step up and pick all the pieces up when you left.” You don’t have to look up to see the weight of the sentence hit him in the chest. 

He brushes his palms down on his pants, trying to soothe his own anxiety, and just nods. He doesn’t say anything for a long time, lost in his own thoughts. 

“Thats…” He trails off, “understandble.” 

“I just think that’s why sometimes I flip a switch, like part of me is so scared that it just snaps because it’s waiting for you to leave,” Your voice shakes. “And maybe if I can just push you away then you’ll go.” 

His hands cover yours in a reassuring squeeze, and you hold on tight for his forgiveness. 

“And that’s not fair to you,” You try to catch his eyes, “I’m really sorry, I’m trying to figure out what I need to get that part of me to calm down.” 

He shakes his head, it sends shockwaves of fear through you. 

“You don’t need to apologize about that,” He brings the joined hands to his lips and drops a sweet kiss. “About how you coped with something I did, how you still have to. You don’t need to apologize, but I’m really glad you told me.” 

“I don’t think I knew how to articulate it before today.” He hummed a response. “I’m still sorry, because I love you and want to be with you. I want to trust you. I do trust you.” Your explanation is slow and choppy and difficult to articulate. Pride shoved aside for the naive hope of loving Michael.

“It’s good to know, because now when you feel like that I know I’m proving to you what’s true.” He lays back by your side, bringing you into him. “That I’m here, and I’m staying, and I love you too.” 

He says it so simply, so resolute. A small fracture in your armor deepens but doesn’t ache. Your mind is running a million miles a minute, but Michael is still here. You can try to scare him away, but he’ll still come back. That he’s a man who won’t make the same mistakes twice because this is the type of love people write movies for. All he wants is to make it the type of trust that you can hold onto like a liferaft instead of an anchor. 

“And that version of you that bites me back, the one who comes out sometimes, I love her too.” He adds, and it might just be the last straw before you’re climbing up to press your lips to his. You kiss him passionately, recklessly, and he meets you with stoic gentle precision. “We don’t have to do anything that doesn’t feel completely right.” 

You shake your head, snaking your legs until they’re bracketing his hips, you press yourself against him. “As long as you’re here, it’s right.” 

He smiles up at you, enjoying the view from above. You lean over ghosting your lips just above his before smiling. 

Your hair drops over the two of you, veil-like in the lowlight of the bedroom, something mystical shared. “Feels like forever, baby.”

A/N: PART 3 IS HERE! This was kinda a crazy one for me to write, and I think I have like 3 very different versions that I had to scrap because they just weren't working. THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR BEING SO PAITENT! I really wanted this to be good, and I hope you guys enjoy!!! Rip to the Google Doc I wrote in those 42 pages are for the history books.

The quiet greeting you at the threshold of the townhome had begun evolving. The daunting task of filling your nights without a husband had quickly washed away to reveal you had shelved your life in favor of your life together. Suddenly, after all these years the silence greeted you with opportunity rather than oppression. 

The world was your oyster, so long as you kept your mind active and your mind far from the memories that used to play out in this home. The haunting presence that Michael had imprinted here was slowly slipping away. His shadows cast away, in favor of soft fabrics and colorful rugs. 

When Michael lived here evenings were full of him, his emotions, his pent up energy, his lack of energy. Evenings had been a time for him to fully let it out before collapsing into bed and turning around to do it again the next day. When you really let yourself think about it, you didn’t miss the energy that it took from you. 

You don’t miss wondering, waiting to see which version of your husband walks through the door. Is he going to fuck you? Is he going to pick a fight? Or will he be so depressed he can hardly pull himself from the shower only to collapse on top of you. 

Maybe, you consider, missing him is the wrong word. You stop bracing yourself for the other shoe to drop. You stop waiting for a 6 foot savior in black scrubs to turn around and remind you why you’re alive. As comforting as the weight of your own grief is, you feel a lightness here, you could’ve never dreamed for yourself.

It hadn’t always been like that though, before things were too serious, nights spent with him were fun. He’d cook dinner with you, you’d dance and laugh. He’d pretend to care about whatever show you put on, as long as it’s not medical. And you had fun teasing him, talking to him, and sharing your time with him, because it really did feel like sharing. 

Towards the end of your marriage it was hard to see how exhausting it was, but you always thought he’d bounce back to the Michael you remember. The one who was lively, the one who lived for the moments he spent with you because he knew they were fleeting. 

It’d been a surprising development over the past few weeks, when the evenings started to feel like they were yours again. You breathe from the bottom of your lungs now, and it feels so good to have the space back. 

When you stumble into the waiting room of the PTMC Emergency Department you’re hardly aware of your surroundings. Your lungs seemed to calcify in the below freezing temperature outside, making every breath an olympic task. Half dressed in ratty pajamas in the middle of the winter, face swollen from crying, you had never moved so fast. In the fluorescent wash of the ED lighting, you couldn’t stop to think what you looked like, the chief attending’s ex-wife breaking down in chairs. 

Dana’s comforting presence guides you quietly and quickly enough to escape most of the whispers from staff, but it doesn’t stop your skin from crawling under their gaze. You see Jack standing next to a trauma room to the left. He looks you up and down twice, assessing you, before turning you both into the Trauma room that held your father. 

You felt an unsettling numbness creep up your spine. The sensations roll off your body quietly, and your focus tunnels – spirals – into complete external sensation. Cut off from your own soul, you brace yourself again for another goodbye.  

Your usual peaceful evening routine interrupted from the persistent ringing of the old landline Robby had installed. Your guilt for letting it ring through three whole times before Dana got a hold of you. Your panic as you heard her in jagged puzzle pieces, leaving you bloodied as you piece them together. 

Car accident. 

Your Father. 

It’s not lookin’ good, sweetheart.

His frame sallowed in the white lighting, the shadows crossing his skin in dramatic vignettes. You’re by his side in a moment, and you can’t shake the tremor of your hands, seeing the medical equipment surrounding him. The mechanical push of air whirled around you in tubes, wires, and screens, it looked suffocating. You brush your hands over some of the bandages lightly in disbelief, he was alive but only barely. 

The air from the room trickled out of your body until it felt like being closed in on from all sides. You feel the wet tears staining your skin, and the roughness of the hospital sheets under your legs, but everything else is knives. Your head screams for you to breathe, but your lungs are being crushed by the weight of sheer terror that grips your frame. 

Growing up you had this amazing tree, just at the edge of the local park. It was one of those sturdy oaks that planted deep and lived long. Your cherished childhood memories were splashed with fun in the ancient old oak. 

Your dad used to sit at the base and tell you stories while you swung through the branches the way only a wild child could. He’d call out to you, “Careful Monkey, you fall and hit your head we’ll have to leave.” 

And you’d only laugh wildly, “Monkey’s don’t hit their head!” and the game continued for hours. 

One summer, you’d tried to spend every single day at the park, climbing all the high branches and watching the birds build nests. Your father was waiting patiently at the base, whistling some old song he’d play too much in the car. He’d called you down twice, and was hardly excited to call down a third.

“I’m stuck!” You cried, having climbed too far into the thick of the tree to remember your path. 

“Monkey’s don’t get stuck!” Your father comforted, keeping the game alive while he peered into the branches to find you. “Just go slow.” He raises his hand to block the sun peaking through the dense leaves, but still, he doesn’t see you. 

“I’m not a Monkey anymore! I’m stuck!” You brace yourself against the branch to your right, feeling the fear build. You can’t seem to remember how you’d gotten here, you can’t seem to remember what you were supposed to do now. All you know is you can’t see your father, and you can’t see the comforting thick branch you usually stopped at. 

“Just hang tight, I’ll come get you.” You hear your dad call out. 

It’s too late though. The high branches of the oak weren’t quite as sturdy as the ones you were used to at the base, and they were more used to small woodland creatures rather than rapidly growing children. 

The first tell-tale crack was missed over the commotion of your breathing, that had become increasingly erratic. The second crack of the branch brought down the sturdy grip you had on the base of the tree, taking you with it. 

You don’t remember much about falling, it’s not the falling that scares you. The complete freefall you’d never really experienced before was almost exhilarating, or it would’ve been if there wasn’t a fast approaching end. 

When you hit the ground you understand the feeling of the breath being knocked out from you. Your lungs folded in on themselves somehow, the impact forcing every particle out. Your brain can’t comprehend the series of events, so it ends up completely rewired. 

There’s not much else you remember from that day, mostly you just remember that was the first time you had ever thought you were going to die. 

You felt it now, like a phantom memory gripping you. A weightless free fall and violent breathlessness. You can feel your chest constrict, expand, and constrict again, but your lungs don’t acknowledge the oxygen being pumped through them. You would never be able to breathe again, and you’d die here. 

You feel arms around you, squeezing you, and as though it was muffled from several rooms away you hear a voice speaking. 

“Jesus, Kid, breathe with me.” Jack appears in your peripherals. You grip his shoulders wildly, like a child turning to their parents for help, if he could just use some magic to snap and make this all better. He’s speaking but you can’t hear it, you can’t hear anything anymore. 

He rakes his knuckles roughly against your sternum, tilting your head to keep looking at him, you hear his voice again. “Keep looking, that’s it, breathe with me.” His doctor voice was commanding, but it served its purpose. 

Once your breathing starts back up he leans you until your head is firmly between your knees. He rubs your back quietly while you continue to cry. 

“I’m so sorry.” He murmured, his fingers squeezing your wrist, checking your pulse. “Your Mom’s on her way.” 

“Fuck, what do I do? Jack, what the fuck do I do?” 

He shushes you slightly, “Nothing, he’s stable, they’re going to prep him for surgery. We’ve got the best on this, there’s nothing more we can do for now.” He speaks simply, peaking his head down to catch yours. “He’s stable, okay?” 

You nod your head, and imagine you looked like a teenager more than an adult woman. Your shoulders tucked meekly, while Jack instructed you. 

“You’re mom’s on her way, do you want to-” 

“Holy Shit.” 

Your body, shaking with adrenaline and weary from panic, turns to ice. Somehow, in the panic of being here, of being in this situation, you hadn’t expected to see him. It sounds ridiculous in your head, but how could you possibly think of anything but getting to your father. It's not until you hear the voice, that you realize for the first time he would be here. The longing pull in your gut feels like a free fall all over again, but you can’t take another hit this time. 

“Robby, now’s not-” Jack starts to stand to usher him out.

“Get the fuck out of here.” You rasp, turning to look at him. 

It’s the first time you’ve seen him in 6 months. It feels like the first time you’ve seen him in years. It feels like you must be looking at a ghost, expecting him to suddenly walk through walls. That’s what it feels like he should be doing, rather than standing in the doorway with big doe eyes, red around the rim. Like he’d been crying. 

Like he’d been crying? 

You can barely bite back the bile when he speaks again. 

“Please, I- Please, Baby-” He runs his hands down his face to stop himself. He looks at you and you can see how much it wrecks him. You wish that would ease the way you wanted him to hold you and take this pain from you. It shouldn’t hurt to see the way he skirts his eyes over you with panic, but it topples something darker in your chest. 

“Get out!” You cut him off before you can suffer under his eyes. “I don’t want to see you– please!” you’re digging your nails into jack’s arm, where you had anchored for balance. 

“Ok, ok.” Robby, relented, retreating. You pretended not to notice him hovering by the room next door. Jack stood and pulled the curtains tight, shielding you from his view. 

A fresh wave of angst shoots through you as you’re cut off from him. It’s a new kind of agony to be so close but feel the cavernous distance all at once. You slump over the side of your father’s bedside.

“I didn’t think he’d come storming in like that.” Jack admitted, almost to himself. 

He toiled on the computer in the corner for a moment, you could feel him watching you while you looked over your father. 

“I’m going to wait to go over the extent of injury for when you’re with someone.” You run your thumb over your father’s knuckles. 

“I’m with someone now, aren’t I?”

“Someone you trust, kid,” He says quietly, “And don’t flatter me, I won’t be offended.” 

You nod, letting your eyes well up again. The never ending cycle of crying and dissociating begins again. The tendons around your ribcage begin to ache with overuse. The hiccuping breath creates a burning feeling up both your sides. “Thank you.” 

“I called him,” Jack says after a long moment of silence, “I called him. I didn’t know what else to do.” You can hear it in his voice, the shiver of uncertainty. 

“That’s bullshit.” You spit between bouts of crying. 

“This whole thing going on with him,” He peaked his head through the gap in the curtain, catching sight of Robby still lurking nearby, “Is bullshit.” You just sighed in response. 

“I didn’t know if you wanted to be alone,” He put his hand on your shoulder, “I didn’t know what to do, Kid.” And it’s the most distinctly loaded sentence he’s ever spoken. 

It’s like he managed to condense his entire thoughts and feelings from the last 6 months into one fragment. Your tender heart, barely hanging onto life, clings to this for hope. It’s a reassurance, that he hadn’t hated you, or pitied you, he didn’t understand. 

You didn’t understand it either, and you had no idea what to do anymore. 

Your Mom doesn’t make it to the hospital before the team comes to prep him for the OR. Before Jack has Dana take Robby for a walk so you can wait in privacy in the Family Room. She doesn’t make it before you’re curled up in the dimmed lighting, staring at the glass cubes in the wall. 

If you squint you think you can make out the broad shape of  man, leaned against the wall right across from it. If you let yourself wonder, you imagine it’s Robby, waiting for you to open your arms and bring him into you. If you let yourself dream, you feel his broad chest behind you, his arms holding you close, the tickle of his beard in your neck, and the steady beat of his heart thumbing against your spine. 

Instead you fall asleep alone on the cold grey leather of the couch, waiting to know if you’re going to need to iron the black dress that hangs in the back of your closet. 

The park between your neighborhood and the house was a hot spot for the two of you to spend mornings. When the two of you had the luxury to sleep in and enjoy the languid pace of contentment, you liked to walk the park. 

You always joke that you need to remind Michael about the sun. He teases that you’re just showing off your old rich boyfriend to all the soccer mommies that lounge out on the benches. And, well, both can be true. 

“God, I will not miss this heat.” You complain. 

“Ohhoho, I’m holding you to that this winter, Honey.” You love the way he promises more of his time so easily. It’s never a question that he’d be as in love with you now as he would be in another five weeks, five months, five years. 

You nudge him with your elbow softly, “And the only person you’ll be cockblocking is yourself.” 

“Touche.” He presses a kiss down at the crown of your head. 

You veer off to collapse in a shady bench, just across from a small gathering of children playing. 

“You’ll have to behave yourself, there’s kids.” He laughed, catching you ogling his biceps in the shortsleeve penguins t-shirt he was sporting. 

“I’m not the one that tried to grope me against a tree last time.” You lay your head against his shoulder. 

“For your information,” He swings his arm around you, bringing you into his side, “I was trying to be romantic.” 

“Super romantic.” You cackle, catching his eyes. He looks so relaxed and happy. You watch his eyes wander over to the kids across the path. He sighs, wistfully. 

“What are you thinking about?” You tangle your hands in his, squeezing his hand.

“How cute those kids are at that age.” 

“Have you ever thought of having kids?” 

Robby didn’t say anything for a long minute. He opened his mouth a few times before closing it again, trying to find the perfect thing to say. 

“I just never had the time,” He shrugged, “I dated a few women with kids, but never really…” He shrugged again. 

“I think a mini-robby would be some sort of super genius.” You joked. 

“Hm, maybe they would be.” He cleared his throat. 

“Or they’d kill us in our sleep.”

Michael threw his head back in laughter. 

You meant to revisit the topic again over dinner, maybe get a better answer out of him. But the idea slips your mind, and Michael is so good at keeping you distracted. 

You remember falling asleep, or you remember the feeling behind your eyes slipping away at some point last night. You knew, at least, that you were falling asleep in the family room.

You don’t know how you ended up twisted in your own bed sheets at home. 

You could almost pass the past twelve hours off as some sick vivid dream, and you honestly do for a moment. You would’ve rolled over blissfully in the attempt to forget the whole ordeal if you didn’t breathe in and suddenly smell the distinctly Robby smell coming from the covers. 

The memories came flooding in simultaneously to the realization. You had fallen asleep in the family room last night, and sometime after you had fallen asleep Robby had slipped in and taken you home. Not only that, Robby wrapped you in his jacket to shield you from the Pittsburgh frost, and took you home. 

He was in the home you shared. He could still be here. 

This had you shooting out of bed. You frantically snake through the rooms searching for him. The disappointment stings when he’s nowhere to be found. The eternal ghost in his own home. You know logically, if he had stayed, you’d be irate, but the image of him walking through the doors leaving you behind again feels like a dark stone pulling you down to the bottom of a lake.

In his wake, he left considerate care. Your phone plugged into the bedside, your slippers line up in the closet how you liked them, your bag on its hook. How could a ghost be so careful to make its presence known? 

Checking your phone was good, it was confirmation. Mom is with Dad, Dad’s stable still, In with the team now. I wonder who's on that team. 

There was another text, albeit more surprising than the rest, that popped down. 

You up yet, Kid?

Jack had sent that over an hour ago. Just as you’re crafting a response geared to deflect any conversation there’s a knock at the front door. 

You’re still in your pajamas, and Robby’s jacket, but the knocking continues. 

“Who is it?” You call out, and despite the sunshine outside it feels like an old cheesy horror film the way the tension spikes. 

“It’s Jack!” he calls back, “I have coffee and food.” He adds that makes a world of difference. 

You peek the door open slightly, trying to shield the jacket from his view. “Hi?” 

“Can I come in?” He lifts the coffee like it’s some sort of password. You blink at him before swinging the door open more. He doesn’t take any hesitation before coming in like he had a million times before. Because he had come in a million times before. “Thanks, I sorta thought you were going to shut the door in my face.” 

“Well you’re probably one of the only people that know what’s going on at the hospital.” You snatched a bagel from the bag. “Plus you brought breakfast.” 

“That always helps.” He concedes, joining you at the small table against the window. 

There’s a long moment where Jack just sits. He’s watching you – sure, but it seems like he’s also taking in the kitchen again. It’s hard to remember, but he too had missed the happy memories here. This wasn’t just a home for the couple that lived here, but it was a home for anyone passing through. It was more than once that Jack had crashed on the couch after a late night, or come over for breakfast after a particularly hard shift. 

“I uh-” He chokes down some coffee, “I wanted to know how you were holding up.” 

“Um, I’m not great.” You shrug. 

“Right, Yeah.” 

“Did you drive me home last night?” 

“No,” He hummed, “Robby sort of stole my truck.” 

“Right.” You can’t help but laugh, “Right, because that makes sense.” 

“He brought it back, but, technically-” 

“Did you come over to talk about my ex-husband stealing your car, because as you can see I don’t have it.” 

“Nice Jacket.” He smirks down at you. 

“You have terrible people skills,” You mutter, standing to pour yourself a glass of water, “I don’t know why they let you talk to patients.” 

“You’re right, you’re right.” He stretches his leg out unconsciously. “I did actually want to make sure you were okay. And if I can report that you’ve eaten and are functioning I might have a better shot at getting some rest this morning.”

You choose to ignore the spark that flares in your stomach, thinking of Robby thinking of you. 

“I’m fine.” You don’t believe it when you say it, he doesn’t either, but he doesn’t push it. 

“You don’t have to say anything, and you can kick me out if you want to,” He stands to get closer to you, not trapping you, but enough to know he’s deathly serious. “I’m sorry about Robby.” 

Your eyes blurred with fat tears, you hadn’t expected your body would have any moisture left to cry. You assumed it had all been expelled last night. Jack pulled you into a brotherly hug, and you were so relieved to have some comfort in the middle of your life’s grand unravelling. . 

Jack might be Robby’s best friend, but you and Jack were still on some sort of team. It was just a team for you now. You choked and sniffled pathetically into his shoulder while he patted your back. 

“I still don’t understand it Jack.” You finally admit. 

“I don’t either.” He acquiesces. He clears his throat to steady his voice, “He’s not been himself.” 

“I’m so tired.” You pull away, reaching for more water, slightly embarrassed to be breaking down in front of Jack twice in twenty-four hours. If Jack notices your discomfort, he doesn’t make it known. “How much more of this can I take?”

“You’re going to be fine.” He clears his throat, “Your old man’s going to pull through. And you’re already through the worst of-” He flounders for a moment. “The rest of it.”

He reaches back for his jacket and coffee. 

“I’ll probably see you later,” he scanned the surroundings. “I– uh, just wanted to say, Robby’s been an ass lately, but he’s not evil. He’s not going to bother you at the hospital if you visit.” Jack promises with a cross over his heart and a quick smile. 

“Thanks, Jack.” 

He turns to leave, but pops his head back in the door, “If you do get a chance to talk to him, give him hell, Kid.” 

You give him a small smile, before the door is shut and you’re left contemplating over coffee. 

It’s early afternoon before you can make it into the hospital. Spending your morning calling family on behalf of your mom to update them, and then collapsing into the hottest shower of your life. 

Your hair is still damp when you enter the bay, the overactive heater pushing stale filtered air through the vents sends chills down your spine. Or maybe it was the lingering feeling you were being watched. Taking comfort in Jack’s promise from earlier, you wondered passively what sort of conversation took place between them. Although any images you come up with feel more like an out of touch teen drama than a conversation between two adults. 

It’s a relief to be sitting in the room with your parents. It’s a relief when they don’t bring up Michael right away. It’s almost suspicious how everyone seems to be dancing around some taboo subject floating right outside the doors.

Maybe you’re the only one thinking about it.

Either way, it’s a relief that everyone lived through the night. The beds in the ICU were opening up soon, so that you could finally escape the groundhog day-esque punishment of waiting for Michael to suddenly fling open the doors to see you. 

It occurs to you that you might be slightly overreaching. He had seen you last night, maybe that was enough for him. Maybe he was slinking through the halls business as usual. He knew where you lived, clearly still had a key to get in, if he wanted to see you he would’ve. 

You squeeze your fathers hand to stop yourself from crying. He doesn’t move, but you feel a reflexive twitch in his hand as if to say, still here. It eases the self-induced hurt you’ve managed for yourself. 

You spend a better part of the afternoon sitting with your father, doctors and nurses filter in and out with small talk, none Michael, none breaching what they so desperately want to know. What the hell did you do to make him leave? 

You wonder, did you look as pathetic as it felt? Is this the image you project of a small shell-shocked child waiting for someone to grab your hand? 

Thoughts and anxieties ebb from your father’s recovery to your husband, then flow back to your father again. An endless cycle of waves crashing, bringing new ways to hollow you at every turn. You settle for running errands to keep calm, the four walls of the trauma room squeezing your sanity out, wringing you for all your worth. 

You hardly make it five steps out of the ED into the main building before you hear someone call out your name. 

Any other day, any other circumstance you’d have just kept walking. Not dignify the man who stopped you in your tracks. But Michael was persistent – and faster than you. 

The hallway was eerily quiet. His voice, only slightly louder than normal, boomed through the corridor without discrimination, echoing off the walls until they rattled your skull. Any staff that had been walking through here was long gone, and it almost looked deserted if not for a few forgotten items at the desk in the bay. 

You take a long breath, you count to four in your mind, you imagine yourself anywhere else but here, and none of it brings you comfort. 

He catches up to you quickly, his hands gripping the ends of his stethoscope hanging from his neck. He reaches for a moment, to grab your hand before retreating to shove it in his pocket instead. You take a step back, and cross your arms. 

“You know, I distinctly remember Jack saying you were going to leave me alone while I visited.” He pursed his lips, inhaling though his nose to regulate. 

His eyes were still rimmed red, you weren’t sure if it was exhaustion or emotion. His beard was longer, but still tight to his face, it had definitely been a while since he’d addressed it. His hair, while thin, was waning more at the crown, making the lines in his face look even deeper. He looked like he wasn’t taking care of himself at all. It made your stomach roll in unsteady loops.

“The deal was the Emergency Department,” He murmured, red flush creeping up his face. He was acting like an idiot and he knew it. “Technically, this isn’t the ED anymore.” 

“Right.” You turn to walk away again, he slips in front of you blocking your exit. 

“Wait, I know I fucked up-” 

“That’s a disgusting understatement.” Your eyes shooting around to try and catch someone passing by. If he wasn’t going to leave you then you were going cause a scene. 

“There’s nothing I can say,” He runs a hand over his face and shakes his head, composing himself. “I fucked up massively.” He whispered it like he couldn't believe the carnage in front of him. 

You don’t respond, just crossing your arms tighter around yourself, the artificial heating in the massive maze of hallways did little to comfort you. Distantly, you know you should say something mature about how he made his choice and you live with that. You know you should, but you can’t, not when he’s desperate in front of you. You can’t say anything at all. 

“Seeing you last night,” he shuddered at the memory. You wonder if he’s imagining you curled over your father’s unconscious body, or if maybe he was picturing the way he laid you in the comfortable sheets he was supposed to be climbing into. He doesn’t elaborate, and you don’t ask him to. “I’m going fucking insane. I finally woke up from this nightmare and I have no idea how I got here. How could I do that to you? How I-” 

“I cannot believe we’re having this conversation about how you feel right now! Everything is always on your terms. Not this, not this time.” You raise your voice. If anyone passing by wasn’t listening, they were now. “Do I need to remind you why I’m here? Should I walk you through the entirety of the past year for me?” He lets out a gruff puff of air but ultimately backs down, knowing his place. 

“Welcome to the waking nightmare that I've been living in- that you put me in. I really hope you enjoy it.” You turn your head away, not wanting to watch his face creased with emotion, with stress, that he can’t fix what he’s broken. At least he can’t with a few pathetic apologies and explanations, you didn’t deserve that. 

“I’m sorry.” He fiddles with the chain around your neck, the chain you’d fondled on more than one occasion. 

“You have no right to come back into my life now,” You emphasize dramatically, “And play hero with me.” His eyes darted to make sure no one was walking by.

“We need- I need- can I come over tonight, to just talk?” He tries to speak slowly, like it might somehow make this whole thing easier. Like you were a pet he could soothe enough into submission, but it wouldn’t work again. You’d been on the other side of things, you knew his tricks. 

“I’ve been waiting for you to talk to me for months Michael,” You want to rip your hair out, you bury your head in your hands. “I can’t have this conversation right now, my Father almost died last night, I’m not having this conversation right now.” 

“I know this is completely unfair-” 

“You don’t want to have a conversation about fairness with me right now.” 

He scratches the back of his head, his eyes twisting over your face, searching for an ounce of sympathy. He finds nothing. 

“I’m so tired Michael,” You admit, the bitter edge of your voice is venomous, “I’m so tired of putting you first and not getting the same in return.” His shoulders slump over. 

He nods silently, and you can see the way his throat bobs with unshed emotion building up inside of him. The building pressure aches inside of you, it’s a mirror image of his own aching, and if you could you’d take his hand, but you think it would kill you to be burned by him one more time. 

You wish everything were different, you wish you were different maybe. Everything you want is bundled up in this complicated barbed mess in your chest and you wish you could take him into your arms and soothe it. You know if you did, you’d be the one pricked by the wire and he’d be gone before you could ask him to help you lick your wounds clean.

That was the problem in the end, you were sure of it, you loved him endlessly, and he only ever loved you for right now. 

“I won’t keep you then.” He steps aside, “I just wanted you to know I’m sorry for everything, how I ended up. There just isn’t enough I can say but I’m here, and I’m done running. If you ever want me again.” 

“I’m sorry too,” You peer over your shoulder at him, shoulders hackled to his ears, hands tucked into his pockets, his feet shuffling in your direction subconsciously. “I wish I could go back and change it, change everything.” 

“You have to know,” he admits, “I’d do anything to go back in time and change it if I could. I’m so–” His voice breaks and he tilts his head away to hide his emotions, you catch the glint of tears streaking down his cheeks. “So pathetically sorry.”

You hum, blinking away angry tears, “Me too.”

He doesn’t follow when you walk away from him, it feels like a punishment he’s earned. 

You tried not to visit your husband at work too much. You could always see the ticks of stress that seem to prickle him when he sees you amidst the chaos. It’s only been getting worse lately, he’s only been getting more anxious about you. 

But you had an appointment upstairs, and you had wanted to see your husband for a few minutes before you had to return to work. Plus, you enjoyed the chaos that his job brought, even if it was just a momentary crescendo before people scattered. 

“South 15’s open if you want to wait for him there.” Dana suggested over the rim of her readers. She’s accustomed to catching you sneaking off with your husband whenever you do visit. She wasn’t keen on catching her coworker with his tongue down his wife’s throat if she could help it. 

You bit your lip to suppress your smile before nodding and heading off in that direction. 

It’s only a few minutes before your husband is pulling back the curtain and locking the door behind him. He scans you twice before pulling the curtain closed again. 

“Hi.” You enjoy the sight of him in his element, commanding and broad. He never failed to turn you on, but here it was another level, he was positively edible. 

“Hi, Honey.” He cages you onto the examination table, an arm on either side of your thighs. His eye level is right at your ample cleavage. “What brings you in today.” 

“I’m aching really bad, Doctor.” You whine in a pseudo-baby voice, trying to pull his hand from the table to the apex of your thighs. The shameful blush spreads wildly against your husband’s face. “Won’t you help me?” 

He lets out a dark chuckle, “Miss, I’m sorry I’m a happily married man.” He lifted his hands to show off his wedding ring. 

“I won’t tell your wife,” You push your breasts together with the sides of your arms and tilt forward, until his gaze travels where you want it. “Promise.” 

“No can do, sweetheart.” He leans down pecking your cheek sweetly. “What brings you into the Pitt, Honey?” 

You wrinkle your nose at the name, “Just missed you,” You hummed, “plus I had an appointment upstairs. It would be rude to not grace you with my presence.” 

“Totally and completely rude.” he confirms. “How was your appointment?” 

You fiddle your hands in the zipper of his jacket. He tilts his head to the side, trying to gauge which reaction you’re avoiding. 

“They’re switching my birth control.” You mumble. 

“That’s good right? You felt like the last one was making-” 

“Makes me feel like I’m some sort of Hormonal Witch.” 

“I wouldn’t say that.” He brushes the hair from your face, enjoying the solace of having you pressed against him. 

He was being completely unfair to the mood swings you’ve been having. Sobbing one moment, raging the next, blaming him for everything in between. It wasn’t a great experience for either of you. You wondered if this is what pregnant women had felt, there were a few weeks you took pregnancy test after pregnancy test convinced something was wrong. Luckily for you Robby has access to foolproof medicine and a best friend on night shift who was willing to keep the teasing to a minimum. 

“You’re being too kind.” You laugh up at him, propping your chin on his chest, “They want me to wait a few weeks before starting another one.” You admit, he nods passively. “I was thinking, we should talk, like seriously talk, about kids tonight.”

He freezes against you, but you continue on. 

“I just mean, we’ve sort of talked but if we sort of decide something now might be the easiest time. I don’t know, I just want to know what you think.” He continues nodding. Looking not quite at you, but just to the side, like he was in deep thought. 

“Mhm.” You sigh against him, moving to open your mouth before there’s a knock at the door. 

“MVC 2 minutes out.” Dana calls through the door, 

“I’ll meet you in the bay.” You unravel your arms from him. Watching as he hardens, back to battle. 

“Talk tonight?” you affirm. He nods. You press a lingering kiss to his cheek. 

He’s out of the room before you can manage to say goodbye.

When you returned to the house that night with your mother, you had expected the same half lived in, half cleaned, limbo you’d left it in. A few dishes lingering, several boxes of furniture you’d been putting off on assembling, a pile of laundry you hadn’t had the stomach for. 

Opening the door it was like an entire cleaning crew swept through the place, except it wasn’t just clean, it was perfectly clean. Clean in the particular way you liked it, a clean only someone who had lived here long enough to know could notice.

The disturbing perfectly crafted home was accompanied with several bouquets of flowers lining the small kitchen island, all variations of bouquets you loved throughout the years. 

A small simple bouquet of wild flowers that looked an awful lot like the ones Michael brought you for your first date. A luscious pink arrangement from your engagement. Bursting orange fire lilies from the Honeymoon spent wasting away on a small tropical island. A single bursting burgundy rose with a satin white ribbon tied around its stem. Dangling from the flower was a short note, and a key.

I like what you’ve done with the place. It’s what we always dreamed.

I hope you’ll give me a tour one day. 

Please forgive me for dropping by without telling you. And for everything else. 

-Michael

Your mother waxes poetic about the arrangements, and you let your gaze drift through the apartment and find a small corner filled with assembled furniture pieces. Small ones, a side table, a shelf for the bedroom, a stool to reach the top cabinet since he wasn’t around anymore.

The key sat lifeless in your palm, a key you knew used to live on a dorky pittsburg penguins key chain, a key that used to bring your husband home to you. It’s the end of a chapter, the end of a wondering you hadn’t really realized you were doing. It was your place now. The divorce may not be finalized, but it was final in another way.

There’s a weight lifted, one you hadn’t realized was looming over you. You've seen him, talked to him, yelled at him, and all of it satisfied the anger. You always thought when the anger left you’d just feel nothing, like all you had left was your own indignance. 

When you lay down for bed, the feeling is a longing. A longing for the strength he’d given you, the happy years, the promise of more happiness. An unfair triumph over his ego had dashed your own righteousness, because he wanted you back and now you were the one pushing away. 

You might never find a love as great as the goodness he’d given you, and if you stand firm in your distance he’d always be the best years of your life. The only consideration now is, would you ever forgive yourself for letting this go? Or could you ever forgive yourself for letting him back in?

 When he crosses your mind that night before bed it feels a lot like an ache and less like a pain.

A/N: OK1 Angst train is almost over. i hope you guys like this part, I always struggle with the parts of the story where things are left unsolved. there's a lot of stuff in the air but I PROMISE a happy ending for these two and then a billion blurbs once part three is done!

 Don’t get your hopes up, Jackie.

His mom used to remind him when he’d get a determined way about himself. He was the perpetual knight in shining armor, always dashing headfirst into situations. He saved cats from trees, taught CPR classes on the weekend for the local Red Cross, and even mowed the lawn for the family next door when Mr. Handler passed away. His mom would get a sweet look on her face and remind him, “Don’t get your hopes up, Jackie. Don’t want you thinkin’ you can save the whole world by yourself.” 

When he was in high school, Jack rescued a dog he found in the gutter outside his house. He spent all night coaxing it out in the rain with little bits of cheese and hot dogs he scrounged up. When he finally managed to get the dog into the warm garage, he saw the extent of its life played out in injuries before him. He called out to his parents for blankets.

“Sweetie, he’s too cold.” His mom laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. He knew the sight before her was pathetic, him frantically trying to warm the dog up. 

“Please, Ma.” He felt ten years younger. Surely, he could save this dog, surely, there was something they could do besides wait for nature to take its course. He would do whatever he could to keep the small creature from that fate. 

His mom’s arms wrapped around him, bringing him to her, running her hands through his hair while he cried. Just a small kid against the unfairness of life. It was the first time he ever felt like he might have a purpose, and it was taken so quickly. She opened her mouth to remind him, but stopped herself. She just kept her son in her arms. When he woke up the next morning, sporting a cold and a broken heart, she had already given the dog a proper burial next to the family’s fish from a year prior. 

Jack hadn’t realized back then, but that memory returns to him often now, as the beginning of a long line of failures. Failures to himself, to his fellow soldiers, to his patients, and now failures to you. He wants to see you in a way no one ever let him before. 

The first morning, his legs carried him up the stairs slowly, with his prosthesis rubbing against his bone all night, all he wanted was to collapse into bed. But when he reached the top of the steps and rounded the corner to your apartment, he was met with eerie silence that only served to spike his blood pressure. 

Maybe she’s asleep. He let himself think, but your read receipts didn’t lie, he knew you were awake. He gently knocked, giving you a chance to let him in. It wasn’t until after the 3rd knock, he received the text. 

Don’t want to talk, I’m fine. You can go. 

His lips pursed, and he let out a frustrated groan at the front door. He readjusted his posture before knocking again. He could’ve been fooled that you were alright if it weren’t for the obvious shuffling sounds coming from the other side. 

“This wasn’t part of the deal, sweetheart.” He called out through the door, letting his frustration out. “I’m not going away until I get eyes on you.” He huffed, raising his hand to knock again. 

“I don’t want to talk.” Your voice murmured. You sounded so small, not petulant like a child, but the desperation of one. He let his forehead lean against the door and took a deep breath. He reminded himself of the days he’d rather not get out of bed, ashamed of the way he looked, ashamed of the way he acted, frightened by the thoughts swirling around in his head.

He also remembered the first time walking out of a VA meeting, it was the first time in months that he said what he was thinking out loud. It may not have taken the feeling away; it certainly lifted some of the weight bearing down on his shoulders. 

“I know,” he admitted, sounding much calmer than he had before. “I just want to make sure you’re alright, you don’t have to say anything. 

There was a long pause before he heard the door unlatch, and just half of your face came into view. Your eyes, bloodshot and swollen, your face is red and blotchy, and your hands are shaking. He understood all too well what you must be feeling on the other side. He didn’t push the door open, even though he wanted to. He just stretched his head to get a better look at you. 

“Thank you,” He put a hand on the door to prevent you from closing it, “Can I come in?” 

You shook your head immediately, closing the door as much as you could without hurting his hand. He let out a conceded sound to let you know his disapproval. 

“It’s messy.” You said simply, shrugging the one shoulder he could see.

“I promise, I’m not going to look at your apartment, I just want to talk for a minute.” He speaks slowly, like trying to diffuse a bomb. “Can I come in and sit at least?” He gives you such an innocent look that you feel something balloon in your chest. You’re nodding before you even realize you’re saying yes. 

After that, you’d talked for a long time, and he could tell you were finally releasing some of the bottled-up emotion you’d been storing for god knows how long. He let you talk, even shared some stories of his own, before you stiffly dried up. 

It had gotten easier, you opened the door smoothly, you were more at ease with him in your space. You listened to him, most of the time, but on particularly rough days, Jack found himself on the outs again. It was hard for him to constantly be fighting back and forth with your own emotions, but he understood more than anyone, healing wasn’t a linear trajectory. 

His life, which had once centered on the work he did at the hospital, was centering more and more on the time spent with you. And despite your back and forth, as your life evened out more and more, Jack found his thoughts about you began to wander.

He had no right to feel the way he did about you. It did absolutely nothing to stop it. Old enough to be her dad. His brain liked to remind him when he’d get lost in your eyes, picturing what you’d look like half-twisted in your obnoxious patterned bedsheets. He never acted on them before, of course, he didn’t want you to be uncomfortable! He wasn’t a creep, and you definitely never thought of him as anything other than a polite friend. 

“Earth to Jack?” You waved a hand around in front of his face. It had been a long shift, and rather than spending the extra energy climbing your stairs, he left the door unlocked and invited you in for breakfast. 

That was the newer development. After a particularly long night shift, Jack asked if you wouldn’t mind possibly meeting him at his place. You, half asleep, agreed only at the promise he made you a pot of coffee, which he was already in the process of making. 

When you arrived, in a comfortable, but well-worn set of pajamas, he almost shut the door in your face. It was like you were punishing him.

Your oversized boxy button-down top did little to conceal the fact that you had no mind to put on a bra before coming downstairs. He had to use all of his military training to keep his eyes from focusing on your nipples, which were poking through the soft cotton.

When you were distracted, he let his eyes wander down to your chest, slipping occasionally to admire your legs as well. He cursed himself when the blood began travelling south, trying to readjust his position.

“Is your leg bothering you?” You had asked him so sweetly, moving to kneel below him. His eyes nearly rolled out of his skull, and he had to take a long minute to control himself before nodding.

Then suddenly it was two routines in the morning. You would come downstairs, mug in hand, steal his coffee, and help him with his prosthetic. Which often left him aching in a far more dangerous place than his leg.

Your hands would peel back the different layers, being sure to keep his cane nearby, just in case he needed to walk anywhere. Not that he’d ever move away when your touch is the only thing he’d been looking forward to. When your thumbs massage over a particularly tender area, you look up at him sweetly. You were soft for him, and he had no choice but to melt in your hands.

You seemed oblivious to it, which he was eternally grateful for, but the morning routines lately have shifted more to be about him and his health than yours. He wondered if you were deflecting him from something, which made him anxious. Maybe she’s seeing someone.

His whole body shuddered at the idea that you might be spending your nights wrapped around another man’s body.

“Helllloooo?” You teased again, giving him another sweet laugh. This morning was just like any other, you were already on your knees for him. Jack’s already half-hard, trying to power through the morning until he can take care of himself in the shower.

“Sorry, zoned out.”

“Did you have a hard shift?” You gently brought his leg down before raising to join him on the couch.

“It’s always a hard shift these days.” He dropped his hand to pat gently on your knee. “Don’t worry about me, kid, how are you doing?”

You blushed at the nickname. “I’m fine, just tired.” You place your hand over his, and Jack has to take deep breaths to calm his heart that was suddenly beating out of his chest.

He cleared his throat. “You’re not sleeping well?” He started to assess you with his trained eye. He noticed you did look tired; there were small bags under your eyes. Your shoulders were tense, only slightly, but he knew you weren’t fully relaxed.

“I’m fine, honestly.” You shrug off, reaching for your empty mug on the coffee table before standing. “Just up too late thinking these days.”

“That’s not cryptic at all.” He snarks, turning his head to watch you move around his apartment with ease. “Talk to me, sweetheart.”

You sigh, clearly thinking too hard for your own good.

“I was honestly just thinking about your kitchen.” Jack flipped his body to look at you.

“My kitchen? What’s wrong with my kitchen? You spend more time in it than I do.” He quips, making you smirk at him.

“You only have one mug, Jack!” You’re feeling playful this morning, and part of him knows you’re deflecting still, but it’s been a few weeks since you had this energy about you. He wasn’t going to complain. “I’ve been to your place every morning for the last two months, and you still only have one mug!”

He never thought about it like that, he’d offered to keep some of your mugs down here once, but your face soured at the question, and you changed the subject. He couldn’t understand what the big deal about mugs was.

“I can buy you a mug if you really want me to, sweetheart.” He offered, slipping the sleeve back onto his calf.

“I don’t know Jack,” You blushed coyly, “Sometimes I wonder if you’ll ever have room in your cabinet for another mug.” 

He snorts, “Kid, just move the glasses over, it’s not rocket science.” His head tilts back to catch you in his kitchen light again. Looking more like a cat now, trapezing through his space, claiming the sunspots as your own, nesting this image into his memory forever. You roll your eyes, and he savors the sass, breathing in the ease of his morning routine. He lets himself get comfortable, imagining coming home to this forever. 

“No, c’mon,” you huff, “You're so independent. You’re a one-mug compartment; I don’t want to disrupt your organization if that’s the way you want it.” You talk in code. He searches his memory for what you could possibly be talking about. He settles for a confused look thrown your way, before slipping his prosthetic back on. 

“You can redo the whole kitchen if you want to keep a mug here, sweetheart.” He finishes the sentence, and then suddenly you’re beside him, helping him through his usual routine. It’s quiet for a long time, and the frown that sits on your face makes his heart rate spike. Had he said the wrong thing? 

“What if,” You drop to sit beside him on the couch, just close enough to feel his body next to you without touching. “I wanted to bring more than a few things for the kitchen?” 

“Like pans?” 

You let out a soft laugh, and he feels the red embarrassment creep up his neck. He feels like a stupid old man, with you talking like this, he’d much rather lay it all out and address what you wanted head-on. 

“Use your words,” He mutters, reaching down to massage his leg. “I don’t know what you mean.” When he looks up at you, you look ready to combust, but you don’t say anything for a long time. He nudges you with his elbow to spill, and you bury your head in the crook of his shoulder and his neck.

It wasn’t that you never touched. It was just that you very rarely did it outside of your normal routine. Never anything more than brushes of the hand or reassuring pats. You both saved it for times when one of you was upset, and Jack never wanted to overstep, so he rarely initiated. You had never really cuddled, and you definitely didn’t normally do what you were doing. 

Jack brought his hand around to your back, patting you in placid comfort, not really sure what else to do at that moment. You had your fists curled into his scrub top, hiding your forehead in his neck, breathing in the smell of his detergent. You grumbled something he didn’t pick up. 

“Slow down.” He tried to pull you out of your hiding place, “Talk to me.” 

“It’s so embarrassing,” you mumbled. 

“Life’s embarrassing.” He rebutted, “I promise nothing you say to me is going to be something I haven’t heard a million times.” 

“I don’t want to talk to Dr. Abbot, I want to talk to Jack.” You ripped your head from your hiding place, frantic energy dripping off of you. “I’m afraid if I never say this, I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering what happened if I did.” 

Jack swallowed. All he knew right now was suave ER Cowboy Dr Abbot. Jack was good at talking to people, but he wasn’t so good at pulling the MD curtain back. 

So, he’s stuck, because he’s not entirely sure what you’re about to say. He’s not entirely sure how he’ll react. If you told him you were in love with someone else, it would kill him. If you told him you were thinking of moving back home again, he might crumble into a million pieces. If you told him you knew about his lingering, embarrassing crush and had no interest returned, he might just die on the spot. 

“I’m in love with you.” His mind goes completely blank. Your eyes are squeezed shut, bracing for the pain of inevitable rejection. You couldn’t possibly know how much pure relief mixes into Jack’s chest. Your fists that still twist in the scrub top begin to shake. “I don’t expect anything in return, I know I’m a total mess still-“You gasp for air.

Jack returns to Earth only after realizing it wasn’t your hands that shook, but your whole body. The fear had finally caught up, and your eyes pricked with tears. You couldn’t look at him, not until he said anything.

Every moment that passed was a knife deeper than the last. You thought this would be the end. Suddenly, the weight of the secret kept safely to your chest seems light, because the crush of nothing in return sinks your hope. You unfurl your fist and let the tears fall.

“I’m so sorry, Jack.”

His head snaps up in awe, mouth slightly slack as he searches you for clarity.

“Don’t be sorry,” He catches your hand as you drop away from him, bringing his other hand to brush the tears away from your cheek. “Don’t be sorry, Sweetheart.”

You shake your head, feeling the suffocation creep into your chest. You can’t breathe, why can’t you breathe?

“I love you, too.” He whispers, and your eyes shoot open. Your lungs were finally granted access to the air previously absent. “I love you, too.” He repeats, mostly for himself, as reassurance.

He wastes no more time, finally pulling your face over, slotting his lips onto yours.

You had spent an embarrassing amount of time fantasizing about what making a move on Jack would be like. You had more than a few late nights where the thought of finally kissing him was enough to satisfy you. You had thought yourself an expert on the topic, but the theory of kissing him was a speck of nothing compared to the practice of it.

His hands were steady and heavy, guiding you through the moment of passion. One hand slipping from your cheek to your hair, keeping you pressed safely to him. The other is creeping around your waist, allowing you to throw your hands around his neck.

His lips moved against yours with quiet peace. He was in no rush to make any moves. His only focus was on keeping you as close to him as possible. The stubble on his cheeks keeps you grounded in the moment, and the hint of what was to come sends a wave of arousal to your center.

He groaned against you when you pressed up into him. He could feel your chest pressing against his. He could feel you, only the thin material of your t-shirt and his between them, he could feel himself slipping into insanity.

“Kid-“He breaks the kiss, you take the opportunity to dive back in, not wanting to do anything but jump his old bones. “Kid.” He braces your shoulders, and you make a sound of protest before pressing your lips to his neck instead.  

“Don’t call me that.” You kiss slowly up to his neck. You swing your legs over his lap, straddling him. “Am I a kid? Or am I your sweetheart?” You whisper in his ear, before moving down and sucking a hickey into his neck.

He moans loudly before wrapping his arm around your waist to steady you, guiding your mouth back to his for another kiss.

This kiss was all heat, where the other was sweetness. Jack wasn’t holding back anymore, brushing his tongue into yours, not minding the noises either of you made. He kept you just above him, avoiding contact with the two most sensitive parts of you.

“Where the hell is this coming from, Sweetheart?” You smile at the name, pulling back to look down at him. His lips are swollen and candy pink. His eyes boring into yours, pupils blown wide, searching for relief.

“I couldn’t take it anymore, Jack,” You admitted. He smirked back. “I’ve wanted to fuck you for months.” He couldn’t help but bark out a laugh.

“Why don’t you get set up on my bed? I’ll meet you in there.” He sends you off. You comply almost too easily, only looking back once to give him a coy smile before disappearing into the bedroom.

He’s up quickly, but has to steady himself. He hadn’t been this pent up since he was in basic training. How is this happening? He’s been ashamed of the thoughts he has when he’s desperate for sleep, mind wandering in every direction. He never allowed himself to believe this was possible, and now here he was following you to his bedroom. He felt like it was his first time, too nervous to be of any use to anyone.

You, on the other hand, were propped up on his bed. You had just dropped your shirt behind you, leaving you completely bare. If Jack had thought you were the picture of lust sitting above him on his couch, he didn’t have words for the carnal pleasure he was experiencing just from your bare form on his bed. He reached down and rid himself of his shirt before rushing into bed and climbing over you.

“Jack,” You moaned when his lips crushed against yours. You’d never been kissed with this kind of precision. Jack was lusty and brash, but he knew exactly how to attack you so that your defenses all crumbled. The smell of his cologne, almost faded throughout the night, was heady, mixed into your senses.

The pressure of his body on top of yours, brushing, controlled, and almost out of reach, was driving you insane. You never needed anything more than you needed Jack pressed into you.

He pulled back, looking at you, bottom lip tucked under his teeth. He looked predatory, like a lion licking its lips before dinner. His body was thick under your hands, smatterings of scars and freckles brushed his skin. You reached your hand to trace the freckles along his shoulder, mesmerized by the formations.

He leaned over and kissed your sternum, looking up at you for signs of protest, before he moved to the right and took one of your breasts into his mouth. The feeling of his tongue against your nipple was an electric shock right to your clitoris. He was reverent with you, leaving no space on your chest neglected. His hips finally lowered just below your center, so you could press your core into the meat of his stomach.

You didn’t hold back your moans, threading your hands into the curls of your partner, and pressing your hips upward on a particularly hard suck. He popped off your nipple with a knowing look in his eyes.

“Are you wet for me, sweetheart?” He teased, pulling away to see the evidence of your arousal pressed to the waistband of his cargo pants. “Hmm, looks like it.” He teases, moving his body back.

“No!” You protest, reaching for him to come back. He smiles, taking one of your hands and giving your knuckles a sweet kiss.

“Don’t worry, just want to taste you.” He watches as your head falls back, a flush creeping up your chest. You take a few deep breaths.

“Please, Jack,” You look back up at him, “It’s been so long.”

He wastes no time getting into position and placing an open kiss right above your slit. “Need me to fix it, hm?” He teases, watching you whine above him. “Need your doctor to make it all better?”

You nod frantically, feeling waves of pleasure already pulse through you without his touch. “Yeah, need you.” You buck your hips trying to encourage his mouth. He wraps his arm around your waist, keeping it planted on the bed. “Always make everything better, Jack.”

His chest puffs with pride. He leans his head down, keeping his eyes locked in on you, and licks your entire slit in one swipe. His tongue makes a sacred track through your pleasure. He’s an expert, listening to your sounds to find the places that have your toes curling.

He brings your hand to his head. “Let me know what feels good, sweetheart.” He winks from your thighs, and you feel a gush of arousal leak out of you. He smirks, lapping it up almost as soon as it appeared.

You can hardly focus on anything apart from the feeling of his mouth circling your clit. When his hand comes up, brushing one finger on your entrance cautiously, he doesn’t even need to look up to know your reaction. You pull on his curls, let your head drop back, and whimper with anticipation.

He wastes no time curling one finger in you, breaking away from your pussy to bring his thumb up to rub your clit. With his mouth free, he can finally let his mind wander with lust.

“So fucking beautiful.” He worships you, bringing another finger in slowly. Your head swims with the addition, there’s nothing in your mind except Jack, Jack, Jack.

He laughs, speeding up the circles of his thumb with quick precision. The coil in your belly tightens, and your walls pulse around his fingers.

“Gonna cum for me baby?” He teases, leaning over you to catch your mouth on his.

With a flick of his wrist, your orgasm crashes down over you. Your eyes squeeze tight, and you call out, still pressed against his lips. Your hips jerk upwards, caught against Jack, you feel yourself floating away. His hands slow, but don’t stop until you start to whine and twitch.

Jack moves up, satisfied at the sight of you ruined from just a few pretty kisses and his fingers. Your body was lax against the surface of the mattress, flush and sweaty from your first orgasm of the day.

He moves off of you for a better sight, he has half a mind to take a picture of you, to keep the image forever. His body sags with anticipation, pleasure mixing into his sore body like an antidote. You lift your head and furrow your brows, pulling him back to the bed before flopping over him.

With his back pressed against his bed, your hair creating a halo around your face. You brush your hand over his jaw, through his hair, and lean your lips over his.

“It’s my turn to take care of you, Dr. Abbot.” You crash your lips down to his, before bringing your hand to his chest to push him into the mattress again.

“Knew you had a thing for Doctor’s sweetheart.” He teased you. You crawled down his body, stopping at his zipper. You let your hand delicately trace patterns over the bulge he was sporting.

“Sit up for me?” You asked sincerely, and he obliged, maneuvering until he was sitting at the edge of the bed, with you standing between his thighs.

“You want to take care of me?” He asks, feeling your confidence waver slightly, with the newfound control. “You’re too sweet to take care of an old man like me.” Your brows furrow down at him.

“You’re not an old man.” You protest.

“Oh yeah? Want to remind me?” He flashes a flirty smile, and you return it, leaning down to kiss him again. He catches you, allowing you to kiss him as long as you please.

Once satisfied, you dropped away from his mouth and knelt between his knees, before him. You were already comfortable between the,m and the angle had his eyes dropping closed in satisfaction.

“You have no idea how bad I’ve wanted to get you between my legs.” He confessed to running his hand down your cheek to your chin, tilting your head back up to look at him. You flash bright red, darting your eyes away. “What?” He caught your gaze again. You had a mischievous little smile planted on your lips.

“Well,” You giggle, “I maybe had a little idea.” Peeking a look down at his very clear boner, hiding nothing away from her eyes.

“Oh Fuck,” He throws a hand over his eyes in embarrassment. Of course, you noticed. He can’t believe you haven’t said anything. “I promise I’m not a creep.”

“Definitely not creepy,” You affirm, reaching for the button of his pants. “Flattering honestly.” You confess, and when you look up at Jack, it’s overwhelming. He was staring down at you with such adoration. It was so unfair how charming it looked on him.

“I hope so.”

You had to actively focus on getting his pants off without getting distracted. Taking the time to remove his prosthetic again, quicker, but no less gently than before.

Once, and only after, he was comfortable and free from the metal extension, did you allow yourself to focus back on the task at hand.

Jack was sitting, almost politely, waiting for you to decide what to do next. His black boxer briefs, tight against his hips, revealed every ridge and bump of his erection. It left your mouth dry at the size, but despite its obvious desperation, Jack remained calm and focused on your control.

You wondered if this was what he was like as a soldier. Quiet, contemplative, and obedient at his core. You straddled his waist pressing the heat of your pussy against the slick spandex material. Wasting no time in experimentation, you rock your hips forward over him and are rewarded with a responding buck of his hips. His breath is staggered with pleasure, but his hands are still pliant at your hips.

“I want to fuck you sweetheart.” He admits, taking the moment to flip you back over, his hips securing you to the new position with ease. His lips attack your neck with fervor, trailing down again.

“Jack, wait-“You’re cut off by a press of his hips to yours, still separated only by the thin material around him. You tug at the waistband. “I want to return the favor.” You expect him to peel himself away, but he only groans and pulls away.

“Next time, baby,” He concedes. You pout and bring your hands to press against his cock. “I’m gonna cum way too fast.” You tug at his briefs in protest.

“That’s kinda the whole point.”

“Not when I want to cum inside your cute little pussy.” He retorts, and suddenly you can’t remember what you were arguing for.

He finally tugs himself free, and you see him completely for the first time. Your mouth goes dry at the tidy cock that springs free from the underwear. Thick, not too long to enjoy, but ruddy and ready for pleasure.

Jack’s cock, like Jack, stood proud under your reactions. Your hips bucking up to press against the beast, and your sounds going even more breathless. He leaned over to kiss you again, looking in your eyes to check in.

“We’ll go slow, yeah?” You nod, opening your legs further. “Know it’s been a while.” He kissed your cheek sweetly when you scoffed at him.

Just as soon as he had lightened the mood, he brought the head of his cock to your entrance, pausing to look up at you. He pushed in, bouncing his gaze from your face to the opening stretching around the head of his dick.

His head seemed to push all the air out of your body with ease, your jaw dropped at how full you felt with just the small portion inside of you. His hand came down to reach for your clit, rubbing it in circles as some sort of added distraction from any discomfort.

“Keep breathing for me, sweetheart.” He encouraged, continuing his descent inside you. Your back arching off the bed, peaking your nipples back up to him, and he took pleasure in catching one of them while pushing in even more.

“Holy shit Jack!” You called out when the base of his hips finally pressed against you. He popped off your breast to catch you in another small kiss.

“You ready?” He pressed his forehead to yours, and you nodded.

Your walls pulsed around him as he pulled his hips back, and shook when they snapped forward again, gently. He watched you as his hips pulsed against you. The sounds are growing in volume, and when he brings your leg over his shoulder for a new angle, he knows he’s found it.

Pistoling into your g-spot, he allowed himself to slip into the pleasure of you completely wrapped around him. He felt his heart burst with joy, mingling in with the lust, you were completely surrendered to him. This woman, who had allowed herself so little trust and love, has completely surrendered to him.

His sole focus is your complete pleasure. He watched, keeping perfect time with his thrusts, he admired you on him. “You’re so brave, sweetheart.” He murmured, his mouth working faster than his brain could process.

“Jack!’ He presses into your G-spot, grinding down on it repeatedly.

“Such a brave girl, telling me how you feel.” He folds your body in half, continually rutting against you. “So proud of you.”

That’s when your body shakes, plucking out another orgasm at Jack’s praise. Your eyes roll into the back of your head. You can hardly feel anything other than the overwhelming pleasure coursing through your veins. Jack’s hips steady against your body but growing sloppy with the grip you have on his cock.

“Where do you want me?” He asks, hands coming down to smooth the hair at the crown of your head. “Where should I cum, baby?”

“I-Inside.” You manage to get out before he’s thrusting wildly. He buries his face in your neck before releasing inside of you, painting you with his seed wildly.

You’re practically jelly by the time his hips come to rest against yours and he collapses on top of you.

He lifts his head, tucking one of the sweat-soaked hairs at your hairline back. “I’m gonna get you so many mugs to keep here.” He promised.

“As long as you’re going to be here to make the coffee.” You press a kiss to his cheek and rest your head against him.

You’re in bed, laptop huddled onto your lap, while the TV displayed a video about some true crime case. The usually relaxed, or even sleepy, morning routine is replaced with desperation. You don’t even realize your husband’s made his way home until he’s in your doorway. 

“Honey?” His bewilderment was clear, “What’s goin’ on?” 

“Jaaack” your whines are petulant and desperate. “I fell down such a weird rabbit hole last night.” He laughs at you while walking over to the shared bed. 

He reaches to pause the TV before climbing in the bed, careful to keep his feet off. “What kind?” He starts slipping his shoes and prosthetic sleeve off. 

“Some random lady-” You hear him grunt in amusement before you go on about the video you’d seen on your friend from college’s instagram story. Which, then you looked up online and found articles, tweets, documentaries, commentaries, and forums about every minute detail. You recap the major events, adding your own opinions on top for dramatic effect.

“Whaaat?” He played along, enraptured by the performance recap of your hyperfixation. “What’d they do to her?” 

He listened attentively, sprinkling in questions and adding his own colorfully tired interjections, while doing his nighttime routine. Laughs come from the bathroom while the buzz of his electric toothbrush shuts off, circling back to watch you between each step.

“Can you believe that?” You exclaim. 

“That’s like last month,” he pulled his scrubs off, “When the lady came in with the-” 

“Dog squeaker stuck in her throat! That’s exactly what I was thinking too!” He pulled the curtains closed to block the incoming sunlight before coming to bed.

“You got all that from a tiktok?” He laughed, peeling back the covers and dropping his cane at the nightstand. 

“Kind of,” you shuck your laptop away and cuddle up to him. “It was on someone’s instagram.” He swings his arm behind your head, settling you against him for the night. 

“Any good reels?” He murmurs quietly. You chuckle at his quiet question while you show anything interesting you’d found while he was away.

In just the same way your habits had grown around him, he’d done the same. He’d never admit it, but he enjoyed watching the silly videos you’d saved to show him. He’d even set up a private account so he could send a few back and forth when he was on a rare break. 

You were never the kind of person who could sit at a bar alone.  You were never attracted to the dim light, sticky countertops, and endless top 20 hits. You weren’t built for that, but tonight, tonight- you were going to sit on the very far end of the dingey dive a block and a half away from your apartment, and you were going to nurse a lukewarm shitty cocktail as long as you wanted. You were going to finally stop putting everything on hold, and you were going to re-join society.

Jesus Christ. Please get it together.

You were a grown woman, who had accomplished things, you don’t live with your parents, you pay your own bills, you generally try your best to take care of yourself. The only thing you couldn’t seem to figure out is your job. The repetitive cycle of waking up, spending 8 hours a day mindlessly droning through work, being too tired to move, going to bed, and repeating again was unbearable. So, one random Friday morning, with too little in your savings account and even less left of your soul, you decided enough was enough.

There wouldn’t be any more morning chats by the coffee maker, useless one-on-ones with management, or special projects dumped on your plate. You were done. And it wasn’t the lingering fear of your own impulsivity or failure that greeted you when you walked home that night, it was the realization you had nothing else to show for yourself.

There were no boyfriends to come home to, or kids to raise, or really anyone to call except for a few old college buddies that were nudging you to get yourself out there for months. The reality was finally dawning, you had put your entire life on hold for a job, and it hadn’t given you anything in return.

 So here you were, half-exhausted, half-terrified, begging the universe for a second chance to shape yourself into something. The stale lifeless reflection staring back was not the picture of happiness you were hoping would follow you home that afternoon but, rather than wallowing in your own mistakes, you decide to go out.

The walk to the bar had been nothing short of rejuvenating. The dulcet sense of your own freedom grounded the moment. Sunshine setting on your face reminded you of summer breezes flitting by and warm evenings under the stars. It had been years since you had allowed yourself this pleasure. It was a firm anchor; the golden cast made the world vibrant again. You couldn’t help but stop for a moment, pressed against the brick facade on the corner of your street to feel the pulse of the city around you. Nothing seemed to move until the sun was tucked behind the tree line

The bar itself is something that had never really tempted you before that night. The music always skewed a little too country for your liking, and the patrons always seemed to be on the wrong side of leering versus gawking. There was a clear view of a pool table in the back and the dark wood seemed to match the deep whiskey bottles that lined the back of the bar. At least, that’s what you could tell from the few moments the door was left just open enough for you to peek in when passing by.

Now though, now you had an unabashed view of the entire bar, and it was enough to remind you why you’re not usually in places like this. The crowd itself wasn’t too dense for a Friday, but you could tell it would only grow as the night went on. There were patrons scattered around, some sitting in booths exchanging stories of their weeks, others leering from dark corners. You scanned the room quickly, opting for a seat on the closer end of the bar, right against the wall. Completely isolated, a little pocket of stillness, you settled in for a night of true transformation.

-----------

It wasn’t long before you realized you were probably a little in over your head. The thing about going out is, you’re sort of stuck with yourself when you get there. Your brain supplies the helpful commentary.

After sipping on a drink for a little over twenty minutes it was starting to feel like you were waiting on something to happen, that wasn’t going to happen. There wasn’t going to be a divine intervention nor was God going to part the crowd and hand you over the ideal life. You had hoped maybe someone would sit within three seats of you, or perhaps you’d get a chatty bartender. There had been no such luck, and you wondered if you were the person making everyone else feel weird.

Had the doe-like naivety and melancholy so damaged your persona that people physically recoiled from your space? A million thoughts run through your head, and the ever-mounting urge to run home with your tail tucked between your legs only grows. As the clock struck eight behind the bar, more people wander in. A steady crowd from the area seem to flock to the scene of your shame.

“Want another?” The bartender asks. It’s really a simple question, and this poor guy is really just trying to do his job. Frankly you really think you shouldn’t but just on the other side of the bar something catches your eye.

A man settles in your direct line of sight. A very attractive man. A very attractive, older man, who is definitely watching you. You feel your jaw go slack and your back straighten like you were alert to the danger lurking. Your eyes darted to meet his, then away, then back again in a cycle of curiosity and embarrassment. The man only smirked. Fuck me.

“Another round?” The bartender asks again. This time, you don’t even try to say anything, you just nod dumbly. You knew you were out of practice, but you weren’t expecting to be so bothered by a stranger just looking at you. You let your eyes peel from the bar top in front of you to settle on his again.

Even in the smoked room you can feel the depth of his gaze. He wasn’t staring at you, he was devouring you. You couldn’t remember the last time someone had even wanted to talk for longer than twenty minutes, let alone devour you. Hell, you’re not sure if anyone had ever wanted that in the first place.

He seemed to enjoy the way you squirm under his watchful eye. He takes a sip of his beer slowly. Where the hell has this guy been? He’s gruff, the stubble tracing his cheeks only accentuate the sharp lines of his Jaw. You feel your thighs press together, imagining the tender sting that he could make between them. He sits at the bar like he was made for it, and when he gives you his attention, you’re glued to it.

This man is a stranger. It’s meant to be a warning, a moment to pause and reconsider if that second drink was worth it. To turn back while you can, because you know if this man comes over, you’ll be going home with him.

And yet, it has the opposite effect. This man, this stranger, has you more interested than any of your past partners had. The heat that had begun with small licks to the back of your neck were sweeping through your stomach and settling in for the night.

It's unlike anything you had ever experienced. It can’t compare to past exploits of half-interested fraternity brothers or the safe friend of a friend, it’s a wholly new sensation. It’s carnal, the need that floats to the surface. Years of pushing down the most basic desperation in favor of practicality suddenly shoots to the surface. You smile to yourself; this might be the most exciting thing you’ve done in years.

You feel him before you see him. He’s stalking you from across the bar, closing the distance easily. You can’t help but lean against the wall to steady you, but his presence alone is calm and clear. His confidence revealing a predation, a swagger that comes when the cat gets the canary.

“What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?” He asks, a boyish smile racking across his face. The line hits you in your stomach, because what the fuck? You let out a laugh, and it wasn’t even that funny, but the shock settles in. You feel your shoulders drop and the moment relaxes. He tilts his head to look at you, and from this angle you can see the hazel flecks in the bar light.

“Ok, maybe too cheesy.” He concedes, accepting it with a lightness that drips with charm. The blood rushing through to your head drops away all at once. What is he so handsome for?

“Not too cheesy.” You peek up at him through your lashes, thanking your younger-self for fleeting interest in Vogue advice columns. “And for the record, I’m not usually in a place like this.” He watches with vested interest, as you gesture to the bar’s surroundings.

“Well, I’m lucky. I caught you passing through.” He lets his eyes rake downwards without shame, and it leaves you twisting your legs tighter to keep your legs from dropping open.

“What’s your name?” He asks, and hums it to himself when you finally manage to get it out.