#difference between cloud and virtualization

💞Tags/Warnings💞: brief mentions of 9/11, war, PTSD, recovery from war, hurt/comfort, (pls read at your own risk!), exes back to friends to…. Maybe lovers? 🤭, slight fluff, no major age-gap, angst (you’ve been warned lol)

💞Plot💞: In Jack Abbot’s past life, he had it all. Y/N, a future in medicine, and a set of long-term goals. But life had other plans…

💞Characters💞: Jack Abbot x Fem!Reader

💞Title💞: Years

💞A/N💞: I’ve got, babes! I really really hope you enjoy!! 🤭 because I enjoyed writing this..

((Requests are ALWAYS open))

Masterlist

~ September 11th, 2001 ~

“Severe clear skies await us today, Pittsburgh. Just truly some unlimited visibility. The day will feature bright, deep blue skies and virtually no cloud cover with highs reaching the Mid-70s, so if there were any summer plans you thought you couldn’t squeeze in, now’s your chance…”

Y/N smiles to herself as she brushes her teeth, listening in on the loud tv in the living room of this studio apartment that belonged to the man now engrossed in said news broadcast. Rinsing her mouth and then setting her toothbrush in the plastic cup being used as a holder, she decides it’s only right to grab her boyfriend of one year’s attention.

Placing her hands together firmly, she brings her thumbs towards her lips and mimics a loon whistle, making Jack smile as he gets the hint, muting the tv so he can do the bird call back. It’s their thing. Has been since their first ever date. A picnic in the park by their campus that consisted of bird watching.

She giggles as she does the call again. He looks at her lovingly from his spot on the couch. “Come over here!” She jokingly calls out finally, playfully giving up. She’s still in his t-shirt from last night.

“Too lazy..” Jack jokingly complains as he throws himself back on the couch, always a goofball. It makes Y/N roll her eyes as she walks over to the couch.

She was always the one to give in.

Jack smiles proudly at winning this lighthearted game of tug of war for attention, his eyes bright, his brown curls a mess from just waking up about ten or so minutes ago.

“I have to go to the library today.” Y/N notes as he reaches up and grasps her hips to yank her down on top of him.

“Do you really?” He jokingly asks as if that can be debated. Y/N snorts at that, shaking her head at him as her arms wrap around his neck.

“I have to study.” She points out as he hums, nuzzling into the cork of her neck and arms wrapping around her waist.

“You can study here…” He mumbles against her skin.

“You’ll distract me!” She giggles, not falling for that offer again. Last time, she was lucky to have gotten a 90 on her test with how little she got to study.

“Those glasses distract me!” Jack defends as he looks up at her. “I’ll behave this time.” He promises as she playfully covers his puppy dog eyes with her hand.

“No!” She fusses lightheartedly, not wanting to give in. He laughs and moves them effortlessly so he’s now on top of her.

“No! No!” Y/N playfully cries out through laughter as Jack grabs her wrists to pin. “Not the eyes!” She giggles, knowing she’ll give in if she looks at him.

“Look at me! Look at my eyes!” Jack jokingly orders dramatically as they play fight on the couch. “Come on, Snoop!” He laughs as she turns her face away. There it was. Her dear nickname.

Snoop.

As in Snoopy.

God he was a dork, but she had to stay strong!

The laughter is cut short though with a sharp gasp as Y/N catches the scene playing on the tv screen. Jack stops his tickling and play fighting when he sees the look of horror on her face. He opens his mouth to speak but instinctively follows her eyes, freezing up too as he sees the chaos unfolding right now.

“Oh my god..” Y/N whispers as Jack sits up more, unmuting the tv now. She sits up too and the news reports everything that’s known so far. She shakes her head.

“Those people..” She breathes out in horror before a new thought sinks into her heart like a red hot dagger. She slowly looks at her military boyfriend.

“Jack. What does this mean?” She breathes out as he stays quiet, the question also sitting hard on his shoulders. His jaw clenches.

“Jack, what does this mean?!” She repeats, louder.

* * *

~ December 13th, 2001 ~

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

Y/N stirs awake, confused and annoyed by the home phone. Sitting up in bed, she grabs the telephone without checking caller ID. Hell, she doesn’t even check what time it is. She knows it can be anything from Jack calling her on base to a friend who drunkenly needs a ride home from the bar. It’s Saturday night after all, and all Y/N knows now is life indoors. She didn’t wanna miss a phone call from Jack. Or a letter either. If it wasn’t class, she wasn’t going.

“Hello?” She mumbles, voice coming out gruffer than she intended.

“Ms. Y/L/N?” A man asks on the other end to clarify. Y/N pauses at the formal tone. A lump begins to form in her throat.

No.

“Yes..” She whispers.

“This is Liaison Officer Johnson-“ Y/N’s heart sinks.

“No.” She says fast as she throws the phone on the bed like it burned her palm. If she didn’t pick it back up… If she didn’t listen to what this man had to say… Maybe it wouldn’t be real. Maybe it wouldn’t be true. She shakes as she gets out of bed, pacing. She could hear the muffled sounds of a deep voice on the phone laid on the bed she’d shared with Jack just two months ago before he had to ship out.

It was like a demon taunting her.

She slowly moves closer to the phone, heart pounding in her chest as she can make out only a few words. ‘Hospital’ and ‘alive’ are the ones that make her swallow her fear and snatch the phone back up.

“What happened?” She whispers, voice squeezing out of her tight throat as tears spill over.

*

*

*

That night is a blur.

One filled with talking to military officers and case managers alike, but all she can stare at is the love of her life, lying in a hospital bed, tubes and wires everywhere.

The murmurs of a nurse pulls her back to her reality. It’s 4am, and she’s in a hospital room. It’s December 13th, 2001 at 4am… And she’s in a hospital room. Watching machines beep and wheeze as snow falls beyond the bed and pass the fifth floor window.

It’s like she’s in some sick snow globe.

“What?” She whispers, voice thick with exhaustion. She could’ve sworn she’d already answered any and all questions hours ago.

She’d heard the story from officials. A landmine. It had been a landmine. And the sound of a low, breathy, loon whistle is what drew attention to him as he laid there.

Using his last moments of consciousness to make their noise.

“I said your partner is a hero.” The nurse repeats quietly, and Y/N just stares at her. An icy anger spreads through her veins as she lets the words cut into her skin. The nurse notices the twinge in her jaw, quietly apologizing before walking out.

Y/N wasn’t mad at the fact that Jack was seen as a hero. He is a hero. But he’s a hero in a fight that has nothing to do with him..

* * *

~ December 20th, 2001 ~

“I can do it.”

The phrase has left Y/N’s mouth more times than she can count. It’s been her go to phrase for seven whole days now.

Feedings? Y/N can do it.

Sponge baths? Y/N can do it.

Mental stimulations? Y/N can do it.

The staff had given up on trying to fight her on it. Those four words weren’t an offer. A suggestion.

No, they were a warning.

‘Back away, I’ll do it.’

With the speed and efficiency of a woman who has done this before, Y/N slowly stands from the chair that’s been her new home since December 13th..

Sponge bath time.

She’s done this every day. Usually around the same time. She had it all down to a tee now. She could do this on autopilot. And she has. She can recite what’s needed forward and backwards and she’s sure that even drunk off her ass, she won’t ever forget it.

To wash your love one, you’ll need 2 wash basins, mild soap, several washcloths, and at least 2 to 3 towels. Don’t forget the waterproof bed pads either, or the moisturizer. Y/N used a personal favorite. It smells of cinnamon and reminds her of all those times she’d fall asleep with her head on his chest.

Y/N tests the water without soap to make sure it’s warm enough before she begins with his face first. She’d given him a shave just yesterday, always favoring his smooth skin rather than the stubble. She recalls the playful arguments about it where Jack would complain about wanting to see how much he could grow. But he always shaved for her anyways.

As the rag rubs tenderly across his upper cheek, avoiding his eyes, she sees it. It makes her freeze. Had she finally lost it? Slowly, she wipes his other cheek. There! There it was again. A twitch. A twitch of his nose. Ever so slight but still a sign that he could feel the wet rag on his face.

His eyes move a bit from behind his eyelids, slowly squeezing as he begins to cough, the tubes down his throat choking him. Y/N gets up so fast from the edge of the bed that she nearly falls to the floor.

She’s quick to run out into the hallway, finding the nurses station and waving them over as jumbled words leave her mouth. The machines beeping faster helped prove her point. This wasn’t a drill. This was her boyfriend.

Back and alert..

The nightmare was over…

* * *

~ December 31st, 2001 ~

The celebration is somber, sure, but it is still had.

Live footage of New York City is played on the hospital room tv that’s in the corner of the private room. Sat on the edge of the hospital bed, Y/N’s tender kisses find any space they can make their presence known as Jack sits there, eyes shut in a moment of silent peace.

Cheeks, forehead, nose, chin. Repeat. Cheeks, forehead, nose, chin. Repeat.

Her hand stays on the back of his neck as she focuses solely on how every part of his face felt against her lips. She wanted it now burned into her frontal lobe. His hand twitches as he places it on her hip to keep her close. He’d be let out tomorrow morning, yet he was still quiet over how he felt about that.

Jack had grown up in the foster care system. No family was around to really help them with all that needed to be prepped for his return home. So Y/N used any time he was in therapy, physical or mental, to work with the case managers in the military and the hospital to make sure the apartment was up to standard. Sure, friends had come by too. The occasional family member on Y/N’s side called to check in.

But Jack and Y/N were entering the new year alone…

The tv had been muted. No point in hearing strangers countdown when all she wanted was to focus on Jack’s breathing. With a soft sigh, she rests her head on his shoulder, fingers playing with the curls at the nape of his neck. Outside in the hallway, celebration erupts and Y/N pretends to not notice how Jack’s shoulders jolt slightly when the nurses pop their tiny streamers..

Jack and Y/N were entering the near year alone. But this wasn’t.. Her Jack…

* * *

~ March 20th, 2002 ~

“I got called while I was in class…”

Y/N tries to keep her voice light as Jack focuses solely on using his crutches to walk himself to the couch. He grunts softly as a sign for her to continue as she focuses on cooking.

“You missed your therapy session.” She says.

“I didn’t have physical therapy this Monday.” He mumbles, deciding on playing dumb instead of facing the truth. He didn’t wanna go back to that damn office. He didn’t wanna think about his time overseas, and every time he sat down with Dr. Marcus, that’s all he wanted to discuss.

“Your psychologist appointment, Jack. You missed the session. Again.” Y/N says, voice a bit firmer now. Jack plops himself on the couch, wincing. The phantom pains were the hardest part of all of this.

Actually, the hardest part was whenever he’d wake up soaked in a cold sweat believing he was still lying on that forest floor, thinking he’d never get to see Y/N again.

“I couldn’t make it. I don’t know why they call you anyways..” Jack states finally.

“Because I’m on all your paperwork, and Dr. Marcus is worried about you..” Y/N begins.

“Oh come on…” Jack shakes his head.

“He’s concerned! He has every right to be!” Y/N defends over Jack’s growing voice.

“It’s bullshit!” Jack argues bluntly.

“He thinks you’re not getting better, Jack. And.. He’s got me thinking that too-“

“He gets paid either way, Y/N! Me being on his couch or not makes no damn difference! Now he’s got you all paranoid!”

“It’s not just him!”

“It is. He’s bothering you, and you’re letting him. It’s all a load of crap!”

“Where are your sleeping pills?”

She didn’t mean to blurt out the question, but.. it’s now heavy in the air. Refusing to be ignored, and for a split second, Y/N wants to go back on it. Against her better judgment, she stares Jack down as he sits on the couch of their studio apartment.

“What?” He asks, eyes averting and face growing guilty in a way to show he had, in fact, heard her. He just didn’t want to answer the question.

“Your sleeping pills. Where are they, Jack?” Y/N asks again, quieter now.

“I don’t need em.” Jack mutters with a shrug that tries to come off as casual but is clearly forced. He looks away and instead focuses on his crutches, trying to balance them by the arm of the couch so they were next to him.

“So where did you put them?” Y/N asks, not letting this go.

“I don’t know.”

“Jack.”

“I don’t know, Y/N!” He snaps a bit. “They just… I didn’t need em.” He lands on the same excuse.

Y/N watches him for a moment. The shell of the man she loves. So close to being her Jack. But so far gone.

Maybe her Jack was still in that forest…

“You flushed them.” She finally says, showing she knows the truth. Jack stays staring at his crutches, nervously picking at the top of his prosthetic as a little habit he’d picked up on in the hospital.

“I heard you last night.” She confesses. She’d heard the splash of the pills hitting the water. The toilet flushing them down. “Those are to help you sleep.” She says.

“I don’t need sleep..” Jack finally speaks, tone stiff.

“You don’t need sleep…” Y/N mutters it back as if testing that line on her tongue.

Tastes bitter.

“You don’t need sleep, you don’t need Dr. Marcus..” Y/N sighs as she turns back to her chopping board.

“What do you need, Jack?” She finally whispers as she turns to look at him from over her shoulder, her hair in her face. Jack can’t bring himself to look back at her.

Not right now.

Not like this.

Not when he can see the exhaustion clear on her face every single day. Juggling both med school and his needs without letting it ever spill over. And that was the problem. Because Jack Abbot couldn’t look at the love of his life… Without feeling like she was looking through him..

“I’ll tell you what I don’t need.” He mutters, voice rough. “A live-in nurse instead of a girlfriend. A therapist to bother me to go see a therapist.” He complains as she watches him, unshed tears clear in her eyes. That’s the one thing about Y/N that first stunned Jack. She could get misty eyed, sure. But she’d never let the tears fall. Her head would always be held high.

“I don’t need to wake up to a thousand questions everyday.” He continues, letting it all out now.

“‘How are you feeling?’, ‘what are you thinking?’..” He lists. “‘How’s your leg?’.”

That was the worst of the questions.

“Every fucking day it’s about the leg! How’s the leg, rest the leg, stretch the leg..” He argues as Y/N watches it all come crashing in on him.

“Can you stop asking about the fucking leg?! It’s a leg!” Jack snaps without meaning to. He freezes as he hears the echo of his voice ring throughout the modest studio apartment.

A cruel reminder of what he’d just done. Like his words repeated back to him.

He stares at Y/N now, feeling ashamed as he puts his hands on his mouth as if at a loss of words. He blinks a bit and shakes his head, but Y/N has already moved from the kitchen and over to the living room.

“I’m sor…” Jack gasps in a bit, voice choked up as he feels his chest tighten with mortification. Y/N stands in front of him as he rests his head against her stomach. “Sorry…” He pants out. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry..” He manages to wheeze out as she runs her fingers through his hair while his arms wrap tightly around her hips to hold her body in place in front of him.

As Y/N focuses entirely on tangling her fingers through Jack’s curls, she realizes bitterly.. That he was right. He didn’t need a nurse or a therapist. He needed his girlfriend.

And he needed time.

* * *

~ April 7th, 2005 ~

When Y/N had first heard the name ‘Adeline Parks’, it was seven months after she’d packed a bag and left Jack’s apartment to stay with her sister.

Mutual friends had tried hiding it at first, but during a hang out with a friend of a friend, it had slipped out due to no one warning that friend how major this news was.

Maybe Y/N had been childish to think Jack would reach out when he was ready. Maybe she shouldn’t have written him a letter without specifying that she still wanted him only. That she still wore the promise ring on a silver chain around her neck that he’d given to her on their six month anniversary. He’d won it in a claw machine.

Against their better judgement, and persistent warnings, Y/N made their mutual friends always share any and all big news between Jack and his new paramour.

And when Robby told her about the impromptu wedding… She knew she had to see Jack.

She just didn’t know why…

She didn’t know what she was doing here.

The house was decorated nicely. The wedding intended to be small and intimate. Being done in the backyard of Adeline’s parents’ home in upstate Pennsylvania. It had been about a three hour drive, but Y/N had been buzzing with anxiety and hit the road before the sun was even out over the horizon.

She had followed the caterers in through the back door through the kitchen and had now snuck upstairs. She didn’t know where Jack could be, but she knew he had to be in one of these five bedrooms. Hesitantly, she put her hands together tightly, put her thumbs close to her lips and blew. A low loon bird whistle travels through the hallway. With bated breath, she waited. Hoped. And then…

From the last door at the very end of the hallway came a low bird call back.

Jack.

Quickly, she rushed towards the door, pushing it open and freezing in the doorway as she took him in.

Jack Abbot.

In a very classy suit. His tie was still hanging loosely over his shoulders as he fully faced her, paling at the sight. That made two of them.

“Y/N…” Jack breathes out, stunned that she was in fact standing in front of him. She doesn’t move for a moment before finally realizing where she is and who she’s with. She swallows a bit, stepping into the room to close the door behind them.

Trying to shut out reality.

“I didn’t even get to say goodbye…” Y/N mutters finally, voice trying to remain playful, but the tears are already building as Jack’s shoulders slump at the truth.

They didn’t get a goodbye…

“What are you doing here, Snoop?” He finally asks, voice quiet as he watches her shift from one leg to the other. Something she does when she’s at a loss for words.

“I just…” The tears begin to seep down her cheeks without her consent. “I wanted to see if it was real.” She admits quietly. Jack looks down, guilt crossing his face as he listens to her try to hold back a sob, her voice quivering.

“A-And…” She takes a quick deep breath to regain some composure. “I think I wanted to… Talk you out of it?” She mumbles, as if even she doesn’t know for sure.

Jack opens his mouth to speak, but she’s quick to talk over him. “W-Which I can see now is… selfish.” She assures despite her quivering bottom lip.

Y/N eyes him up and down as she continues speaking after another deep breath in. “You’re here, and you’re ready, and you’re… You’re in a suit-“ Y/N’s voice gets caught in her throat as she realizes that minor detail.

Jack Abbot. A man who used to joke he’d rather die than wear a suit, who she’d fuss and fight with just to wear a button down.. That man was now in a suit.

“You’re in a suit.” She breathes out. Jack watches her with soft eyes, realizing too how that fact is heavy on both.

“How do I look?” He tries quietly, his eyes also tearing up a bit. Y/N hums softly. Tenderly, as she holds herself.

“You look good, Jack. I knew you’d always look good..” She admits quietly as she puts on a proud smile through the tears, nodding fast. Jack’s lip twitches into a sad smile before he steps closer..

“Snoop…” He whispers. There’s that nickname again.

“I just wanted to see you.” Y/N says quickly and simply as she steps back. “But I.. But, Jack, I don’t.. I don’t wanna ruin today. For you, so..” She pauses to take another deep breath to try and calm herself down. “So I should go.” She tries as she motions towards the bedroom door from over her shoulder.

“Y/N.” Jack tries again, but he doesn’t say much after that. He can’t say much after that. He doesn’t know what to say.

“I won’t ruin today for you, Jack. Not if you’re happy..” She whispers before feeling her heart ache. “Are you?” She asks quietly. Morbid curiosity getting the better of her.

Jack is silent as he watches her with soft eyes. He was different. His stance was different, his body was different. He had a beard growing now. She guessed Adeline liked his stubble…

“Are you happy, Jack..?” She repeats, voice barely audible. She doesn’t know why. Maybe it was a last ditch attempt at seeing if this was actually over. But he just stares at her.

She slowly nods, taking that as answer enough. She rubs her hands on her jeans and awkwardly turns towards the door before pausing yet again, turning her head to face him over her shoulder.

“Is she better?”

The silence that follows that question is sickening for Y/N. It’s too loud for her liking. She nods slowly and turns back to the door, turning the knob to leave.

“She doesn’t ask.” Jack finally answers, voice gruff with emotion. “About the leg.”

Y/N stops her movements for only a second before she leaves the room, shutting the door behind her. She leans against it for a moment, just to stop her head from spinning. She straightens up and then starts to walk back towards the stairs when she hears it.

“Psst.”

She slows her movements and turns her head, freezing as she sees her.

Adeline Parks.

The bride herself.

Adeline smiles brightly, peeking out from the crack of her old bedroom door that’s still painted the kind of pink a teenage girl would love. “How’s Jack?” She asks, blue eyes twinkling with excitement.

Y/N stares at her for a moment, mouth dry before she nods. “He’s good. Ready.” She whispers.

Adeline squeals excitedly at the news, sighing in relief with a giggle, hand resting on her chest over her heart. She then blushes as if remembering Y/N is still standing in front of her. “Oh. I’m sorry.” She chuckles as she fixes her hair a bit.

“Adeline.” She introduces herself, holding out her hand after opening the door a bit wider to officially greet her. She’s in a strapless, mermaid style wedding dress.

Y/N moves without thought, her hand slipping into Adeline’s, shaking hands formally. “Are you.. One of Jack’s friends?” The blushing bride asks curiously as they slowly release each other. Y/N nods a bit.

“Yeah. Something like that..” She mutters before taking a deep breath to suck down any emotion. “I’m not staying. I just.. I wanted to wish him luck..” She continues quietly. Adeline frowns softly at that.

“Did we forget to invite you? I’m so sorry. We can make room.” She tries politely, and Y/N shakes her head quickly.

Dear god, no.

“No, no. Really. I… Can’t stay.” Y/N says again, voice slightly tense as Adeline nods slowly, deciding not to push it. Y/N steps towards the stairs to leave, and then pauses yet again.

“Can I… Can you promise me something?” She asks Adeline. The blue eyed woman corks her head curiously before slowly nodding for her to continue.

“Can you just… Can you promise to just love him?” Y/N finally asks quietly. “Love him with just.. With just your whole heart?” She whispers.

Adeline smiles softly, humor and confusion clear on her face, but she still nods. “That’s the plan.” She states gently.

Y/N watches her with a mix of pain and gratitude, nodding slowly as she mouths a ‘thank you’.

Without another word, she leaves down the stairs…

* * *

~ August 7th, 2026 ~

“Holy crap..” Robby whispers as Y/N steps into the Pitt, fanning herself with a random flyer she’d taken from the front lobby of the hospital. “Either I need new glasses, or… Dr. Y/N has finally made her way back home…” He jokes as she smiles softly, moving over to hug her old friend.

“You two know each other?” Dana asks from the nurses station, genuinely curious.

“Oh yeah, before he was driving you all nuts, he was my reliable study partner..” Y/N teases a bit as she pulls back.

“One of her reliable study partners..” Robby corrects without a second thought. Y/N doesn’t have to question who the other one could be. She knew. The other reliable study partner had basically run her out of Pittsburgh..

Well, to be fair, she’d done that herself.

She needed Jack to stay in the past though, and it had seemed to work just fine. Fine enough for her to heal while out there and then take up a position here for night shift.

PTMC wasn’t the best hospital out there. In fact, Y/N had chosen this position over a New York City job offer strictly because she felt like it was time to just go home.

“I know you’re running this ship short staffed..” Y/N says gently as Robby sighs heavily as if that’s an understatement.

“I’m glad you got the position. Dr. Parker Ellis had to move off of night shift and on to day shift just to help..” Robby mutters as Y/N nods slowly. She’d only been briefed about the hospital being short staffed. How Gloria was desperate for a new hire and relieved for Y/N’s application.

“Are you.. Sure you’re gonna be okay working here though?” Robby finally asks, voice softer as the two walk off towards the lockers so he could show her where her things go before every shift.

“Hey, this hospital may be low on funding and short-staffed, but I’m a big girl, Robby. I can handle it.” She chuckles as they get to an empty locker. She begins opening it.

“Oh, I know you are..” He chuckles before continuing. “I meant can you handle working with Jack.” He clarifies softly.

Her hand twitches on the handle of the locker. When moving back to Pittsburgh, Y/N had let the thought cross her mind. What if she bumped into him again. At a store or coffee shop. What would she say, how world she carry herself. But the universe was very funny for making him her coworker!

She’d lost tabs on Jack a year into moving away from Pittsburgh and away from any mutual friends. She couldn’t hear about him anymore. She focused on finishing school and her residency instead.

“I… Did not know that..” Y/N finally says slowly, keeping a mature composure about her. Robby watches her closely as she slowly opens her locker.

“It’s been 21 years, Robby..” She notes gently as she realizes the look he’s giving her. “I think enough time has passed.” She assures jokingly, but a small part of her wants to laugh out loud.

How much time can truly wash away a lover?

Robby nods, not seeing through her act as he squeezes her shoulder. “I’m glad you’re here. That you’re back for good. Pittsburgh was barely standing without you..” He jokes quietly as she focuses on the reunion with her old friend.

She’d deal with Jack when she got to that point…

In other words… She’d avoid being anywhere near him for as long as possible..

*

*

*

When Jack Abbot had first heard the words ‘Doctor’ and ‘Y/N’, he’d thought for sure he’d misheard Shen somehow. But then it sunk into the pit of his stomach.

Was she back?

He’d spent a good few hours of his night shift trying to find her for himself, just barely missing her most moments. It was like she was haunting this damn ED. Which was a step up from how she usually just haunted him.

He had watched a ghost documentary once that said the more you think about a person, the more power you feed their spirit to stay tethered to you. To haunt you. He’d found it interesting enough. Maybe he could think of Adeline at least once everyday. It’d keep her around longer. But then he truly thought about it. Because whereas he thought of Adeline once a day for the past ten years…

He thought about Y/N Y/L/N at least three times a day.. For the past 24 years..

So which ghost had more strength to haunt him? Maybe the woman he was now trying to find in every corner of this damn ED..

It’s 11pm when he finally takes a breather in a random hospital room. He needs it, honestly. Jack feeling so out of sorts was something he hasn’t felt in years. He had come to accept life, and death, and any trails and tribulations as apart of being alive. And had found balance. Between the ugly and the beautiful.

Sure, most days were harder than others. But Jack’s therapist had taught him a cooping technic that he used a lot. Name one ugly thing that happened today, then one beautiful thing. Because the universe will usually send you both.

So… Ugly thing. Okay. His ex was now his coworker.

Beautiful thing. Okay.

Jack pauses as only one thought comes to mind.

‘Y/N is back..’

He sighs softly, sitting on the edge of the hospital bed when the door opens. “There’s a free room right here…” Her voice stops along with her movements. She stares at Jack like a deer in headlights for only a moment. Then she blinks away the look, wanting to come off more.. Poised.

“Jack..” She whispers as if accepting this face to face. His eyes soften without any intention to do so.

“Snoop.” He says back.

“It’s been awhile…” She tries to chuckle as he stands from the bed. He nods back, solemnly.

“That it has..” He agrees. “You look good, Snoop. Real good.” He compliments gently as he debates on hugging her or staying these three feet apart.

Y/N smiles sheepishly. “Been staying active. Guess you can say the same?” She asks, nodding to the very obvious muscles under his uniform. Jack looks down at his body, smirking a bit.

“These old things?” He jokes, making her chuckle a bit. It takes the edge off.

A little bit.

“How um… How’s life been? How’s.. Adeline?” Y/N asks, just wanting to keep the conversation going mostly. Even if it turned into one consisting of his marriage and if he had kids.

“Life’s been… Life.” Jack nods certainly at that overview on it. “And Adeline is… She passed.” He continues gently. Y/N stiffens at that.

“Jack, I’m so sorry.” She whispers. It’s the first thing to leave her mouth before she’s even fully processed it. Jack smiles a bit at the genuine sadness of her tone.

She still had that big heart.

“Don’t be. Happened.. In 2010. We saw it coming, got to prepare for it. Not everybody has that.” He nods like a man who’s accepted this part of his life. Y/N smiles a bit at his newfound wisdom.

“What about you?” Jack asks after a beat of silence, eyes examining her hands himself as they rest folded in front of her. He can’t see a ring. It’s relieving in probably the most confusing way possible.

“Oh, uh-“ Y/N is cut off by the hospital room door opening behind her.

“We could use all hands on this one. Car accident. Got five people coming in at once.” Lena says before running back out. That jolts both of them back into work mode. With one more glance, Y/N is first to leave the room…

* * *

~ August 8th, 2026 ~

Jack paces the ambulance bay with breathing exercises coming in handy. It’s 1am and he was debating just calling it a night. Five patients came in, five were saved. Yet one would need a prosthetic, and those cases were still sore for Jack.

The automated doors sound from behind him, making him glance over his shoulder. Y/N sighs a bit as she leans against a pillar, clearly also needing air. Jack nods at her. “You did good in there..” He says, gruffly. The tension between them was back. Maybe because they were watching their past play out in front of them, their roles given to a young college couple.

Y/N nods slowly. “Finished speaking to Patient three’s girlfriend. She’s staying with him upstairs. Gonna speak with the prosthetist in the morning…” She mumbles gently as Jack nods, rubbing his chin a bit.

“Think they’ll be okay?” Jack asks after a moment of just listening to the city’s noises and the soft wind blowing. Y/N lets the question sit in the air for so long, Jack wonders if she even heard him.

“Is it possible?” She finally answers quietly. Maybe it’s the case, the exhaustion, the history. But those words leave her mouth and stab through Jack’s somberness like an hot iron rod.

Jack nods slowly, a part of him wanting to just accept that as a statement and move past it, but he shakes his head instead, turning to face her.

“Could we have?” He asks, voice more curious than anything. It was just one of life’s biggest mysteries to him..

Y/N straightens up her stance as he crosses his arms. “If you hadn’t… If you hadn’t left.” He continues with a sheepish shrug.

Y/N pauses at that. “Left?” She asks quietly. As if he hadn’t pushed her to that point.

“Yeah. Left.” Jack says softly, as if not understanding the heaviness of that word. “Because you couldn’t handle me. Because you were scared..-“ Y/N laughs humorlessly at that.

“I could handle you, Jack.” She says shortly, calmly. “I could.” She repeats with a resiliently nod. Jack frowns softly as he watches her.

“And I wanted to. And you took that from me.” She states as it spills out now. “You did.” She says as she shakes her head.

Jack looks down, realizing this is always going to be a sensitive topic for them. He feels ashamed. For even bringing it up. He opens his mouth, but she continues on.

“You don’t know half the things I could’ve handled.” She states quietly. “For you…” She adds, emphasizing that one word. ‘You’.

For You.

As if every pain and tear and ugly moment would’ve been worth it. Because she’d have him.

Jack stares at her with soft eyes as she shakes her head in astonishment. Not at him. But the fact that she still means that with her whole chest.

Still.

After 24 years.

“You have no idea… The things I could’ve handled, Jack…” She finally ends on before turning to leave.

“Maybe I didn’t want to find out...” He finally admits out loud. It stops her movements, but she doesn’t face him. “Maybe I knew you deserved better.” He says as she stands with her back to him, still silent.

“I’m so sorry.” He finally says. Those words have been in his chest since he had turned around to find her standing in his room on his wedding day.

He was just finally man enough to say them.

Without another word, Y/N heads back inside, leaving Jack to be comforted by the sounds of the city life happening around them…

*

*

*

The sun is welcoming on Jack’s face.

He takes a moment to breathe in the scent of the freshly cut grass as he stands out front of the hospital. A new beautiful thing to add to his list. He’d survived the night at the expense of not being alone with Y/N again. The long stares though showed there was more that needed to be said. But the confrontation in the ambulance bay had let some of the pressure out.

He had handed over his patients and promised to text Robby later about his first shift with the woman who knew him before he’d shed his old skin. Now, it was just a matter of walking back to his apartment and calling it a day until 7pm again.

With one more deep breath, he fixes the strap over his shoulder and takes one step forward when a sound cuts through the cars and early morning chatter of the city.

A bird whistle.

A loon bird whistle.

Soft and precise. A request for attention. A request to wait.

It stops him in his tracks instantly, a small smile playing faintly on his lips as he positions his hands to do the whistle back..

!!The End!!

And thank you for 510

followers!!

Panel text: "My phone is a window into the horrors of occupation. // struggle to find the line between witnessing and doomscrolling. / So am playing a lot of Tetris." Panel image: a blue grid on a white background.

Panel text: played Tetris after watching the footage of Renee Good's murder from three angles. week later, paused a livestream on my phone of ICE agents in North about a mile away from my house. could see pops of light, clouds of tear gas illuminated by flashbangs, from my bedroom window. / played Tetris before going to bed. Two days later was in a virtual meeting when the shouts & car homs started. ICE was raiding the gas station on my corner. got my whistle. |played Tetris, my ears still ringing." Panel image: three different Tetris pieces serve as text boxes, with several more in the background.

He pulled his suitcase off the bus steps and stood on the gravel shoulder, watching the vehicle lurch away in a cloud of black exhaust. His mother had packed the suitcase. He could tell because everything inside was folded with a precision that bordered on punitive—each shirt pressed flat, socks rolled into tight cylinders, a handwritten note tucked between his uniform shirts that read: Focus on your studies. Don’t make things harder for Grandpa. He had read it once on the bus and then slid it under the seat cushion.

His grandfather’s house was a fifteen-minute walk from the bus stop, down a concrete path that narrowed into packed dirt. The old man was sitting on a plastic stool outside the front door when James arrived, peeling a pomelo with slow, deliberate hands. He looked up.

“You’ve gotten tall,” his grandfather said.

“Hi, Grandpa.”

“Your father was short at your age. Like a stump.” The old man returned to his pomelo. “Put your things inside. The room on the left is yours. Don’t touch the altar.”

James carried his suitcase through the dim hallway. The house smelled of sandalwood incense and mothballs and something older than both—decades of cooking oil soaked into the walls, maybe, or just the particular scent of a place where someone had lived alone for too long. The room on the left had a narrow bed, a wooden desk with a missing drawer, and a window that looked out onto the neighbor’s chicken coop. He sat on the bed and felt the springs push back against him like a grudge.

On his phone, there were eleven unread messages in the group chat. His crew sending clips of their latest practice, a new formation they were working on for the showcase. Martin had written: Bro when are you coming back?

James typed nothing. He turned the phone face-down on the desk and stared at the chickens.

•  •  •

The school sat on a slight hill at the edge of town, a cluster of whitewashed buildings with blue trim arranged around a concrete courtyard. A faded banner above the main gate read: PROPRIETY — RIGHTEOUSNESS — INTEGRITY — HONOR, the kind of slogan that meant nothing and everything simultaneously. Students in white shirts and dark trousers filtered through the gate in loose clusters, their voices carrying in the morning air with the lazy energy of people who had known each other since birth.

James stood at the gate with his backpack over one shoulder. He was wearing the school uniform his mother had packed, but something about the way it sat on him was different from the others. Maybe it was the way he carried himself—shoulders slightly rolled forward, chin down, like a person bracing for impact. Or maybe it was simpler than that. He was the only one standing alone.

The homeroom teacher, a stocky woman named Ms. Park, introduced him to the class with the breezy efficiency of someone adding a line to a spreadsheet.

“This is Zhao Yufan. He’s transferring from Taipei. Make him feel welcome.” She gestured toward the rows of desks. “There’s an empty seat next to Y/N. Fourth row, by the window.”

Thirty-two faces turned to look at him. He felt their gazes like small pinpricks—curious, appraising, already deciding things about him. He walked to the fourth row without making eye contact with any of them.

You looked up as he sat down. You were smiling—the kind of smile that appeared so quickly and so fully that it seemed rehearsed, like a reflex you had trained into yourself. You moved your pencil case to make room for his elbow on the shared desk.

“Hi,” you said. “I’m Y/N. I’m also new, so we’re in the same boat.” You said it lightly, as if being new were a charming adventure and not the specific kind of exile you both privately knew it to be.

“Yeah,” James said. He took out a notebook and opened it to a blank page.

You waited a beat, perhaps expecting more. When nothing came, your smile didn’t falter—it simply reset, like a screen returning to its default display. You turned back to your own notebook, where you had already written the date in careful, rounded handwriting, and underlined it twice.

•  •  •

Over the next few days, you tried. That was the most precise way to describe it. You tried the way a person tries to open a jar that clearly does not want to be opened—with persistent, cheerful force.

“Do you want to borrow my notes from yesterday? You looked a little lost during the chemistry lecture.”

“I’m fine.”

“The canteen gets really crowded at lunch. If you want, I usually go early—”

“I’m good.”

“Ms. Chen said the history essay is due Friday. If you need—”

“I got it.”

Each time, you received his refusal with the same unbroken smile, as though his curtness were a weather pattern you simply had to wait out. You did not take offense, or at least you gave no sign of it. You had spent years learning not to take up space, not to register as a burden or an inconvenience, and James’s indifference fit neatly into a framework you already understood: you were not wanted, and you should try harder, or you should disappear. The two impulses warred inside you constantly, and trying harder usually won, because disappearing—the real kind, the permanent kind—was something you had promised a doctor in a bright office that you would stop attempting.

James, for his part, was not cruel. He was simply closed, the way a fist is closed—tight, complete, admitting nothing. He sat through classes with the barely concealed restlessness of someone whose body had been trained to move and was now being asked to be still. His right knee bounced under the desk in complex rhythms. His fingers tapped patterns on his thigh that you, if you had known what to look for, would have recognized as eight-counts. Sometimes, during a particularly tedious lecture on classical poetry or agricultural policy, his eyes would glaze over and his lips would move fractionally, counting beats to a song only he could hear.

He ate lunch alone, sitting on the concrete steps behind the equipment shed where no one went. He spent his evenings in his grandfather’s courtyard, practicing isolations and footwork on the packed dirt until the mosquitoes drove him inside. His grandfather sometimes watched from the doorway, saying nothing, occasionally confusing James for his father or for a stranger entirely. On bad nights, the old man would call out names James didn’t recognize and ask why dinner wasn’t ready when dinner had been eaten two hours ago. James would guide him back to bed and lie awake afterward, listening to the cicadas and the distant buzz of scooters on the main road, feeling the distance between himself and his real life like a physical ache behind his sternum.

He called his mother once a week. The conversations were brief and transactional.

“Are you eating enough?”

“Yes.”

“Is Grandpa okay?”

“He’s fine.”

“Your brother got first place in the math competition.”

“That’s great.”

She never asked if he was dancing. He never mentioned it. The omission sat between them like furniture they both walked around without acknowledging.

•  •  •

Your room in your aunt’s house was small and meticulously clean. You made your bed every morning with hospital corners, arranged your textbooks by subject in a color-coded system, and kept a planner where every hour was accounted for. The discipline was not personality; it was architecture—a structure you had built around the empty space inside you to keep it from collapsing inward. If you stayed busy enough, organized enough, useful enough, then the thing that lived in that empty space couldn’t reach you. That was the theory, anyway.

Your aunt and uncle were kind in the way that people are kind when they have been given a task they didn’t ask for. They fed you well, asked about your schoolwork with genuine interest, and never mentioned the reason you were here. Your aunt had told the neighbors you were a distant relative from the city, staying for the school year to “experience country life.” It was a lie so flimsy that you suspected everyone saw through it, but no one in the town was rude enough to press. You were grateful for that, at least.

You spoke to your parents every few days. Your mother’s voice was always bright and strained, like a string pulled too tight.

“How are your classes?”

“Good. I’m top of the class in math and literature.”

“Of course you are.” A pause. “Your father says to keep it up.”

“How is everyone?”

“Fine, fine. Your cousin Yi-Ting got into the honors program. Oh, and Mrs. Huang asked about you—I told her you’re studying abroad, at that preparatory school in Vancouver. She was very impressed.”

You pressed your thumbnail into the pad of your index finger until it left a white crescent. Vancouver. You had never been to Vancouver. Somewhere in the city, a version of you was thriving in a prestigious foreign school, impressing the neighbors, making your parents proud. That version was a ghost, and you were the thing the ghost had been invented to replace.

“That’s nice,” you said.

After hanging up, you sat on your bed and stared at the wall. The planner was open on the desk. Every hour was filled. You closed it and put it in the drawer, then took it out again and put it back on the desk. Then you opened your math textbook and worked problems until your eyes burned and the numbers began to swim, and you could feel the structure holding, just barely, like a dam with a crack you kept patching from the inside.

•  •  •

The shift happened during a math class, three weeks into the semester.

Mr. Tsai, the math teacher, was a wiry man with wire-rimmed glasses who taught with the quiet intensity of someone who believed that calculus was the language of the universe and was personally offended that most of his students didn’t speak it. He had a habit of calling on students without warning, treating the classroom like a minefield of potential embarrassment.

“Zhao Yufan. Problem twelve. On the board, please.”

James stood up slowly. He walked to the chalkboard with the energy of someone approaching a gallows. Problem twelve was a derivatives question involving chain rule, and he stared at it the way one might stare at a document written in a language one had studied briefly and then abandoned. He picked up the chalk. He wrote the first line of the solution. Then he stopped.

The silence in the classroom was the particular kind of silence that teenagers produce when one of their own is failing publicly—half sympathetic, half grateful it isn’t them. James stood at the board with the chalk in his hand, and you could see the tension in his jaw, the way his knuckles had gone white around the small stick of chalk. You knew that look. You knew what it felt like to be watched while you were drowning.

“Take your time,” Mr. Tsai said, which was the math teacher equivalent of hurry up.

James wrote another line. It was wrong. He knew it was wrong. The whole class knew it was wrong. Mr. Tsai’s eyebrows performed a slow, disappointed migration toward his hairline.

“Sit down,” Mr. Tsai said finally. “Y/N, would you—”

You were already standing. You went to the board and solved the problem in four clean lines, your handwriting small and precise, each step following the last with the inevitability of water flowing downhill. When you turned back to your seat, you did not look at James. This was deliberate. You understood that being rescued was its own kind of humiliation, and you would not add to it by making eye contact.

But something changed after that. Not immediately—nothing between you moved immediately. It was more like a door that had been locked was now merely closed. During the next class, James glanced at your notebook for the first time. You noticed but said nothing. The day after that, he glanced again, and this time you tilted the notebook slightly toward him, just a few degrees, enough to make the equations visible without making a production of it.

On Thursday, he spoke first for the first time.

“What did he say about the second formula? I missed it.”

“The quadratic one? You use it when the substitution method gives you a polynomial in the denominator.” You said it neutrally, without condescension, without the eager helpfulness you had shown before. Something in you had recalibrated, too. You had stopped trying to pry him open and was simply leaving the door ajar.

“Okay,” he said. Then, after a pause so long you thought the conversation was over: “Thanks.”

It was one word. It cost him almost nothing to say. But you felt it land somewhere inside your chest with a weight that surprised you, because it had been a long time since someone had spoken to you without obligation, without the careful brightness of adults managing a fragile girl. He had said thanks the way you’d say it to anyone—to a normal person, a classmate, someone who existed in the ordinary way.

You nodded and turned back to your notes, and if your smile in that moment was different from the one you usually wore—smaller, less practiced, something closer to the real architecture of your face—neither of you mentioned it.

•  •  •

After that, a wordless arrangement took shape between you. It was not friendship, not yet—it was more like a ceasefire, a mutual recognition that you were both stationed in the same foreign territory and might as well share intelligence.

You began leaving your notes slightly angled on the desk, your solutions visible without being offered. James began asking questions—terse, specific, stripped of pleasantry, but questions nonetheless. He had a quick mind, you noticed, when he bothered to use it. He could follow a chain of logic once someone pointed him in the right direction; his problem wasn’t intelligence but attention, or rather the misdirection of it. His attention lived somewhere else entirely, in a place that had nothing to do with derivatives or classical poetry, and school was just the building where his body waited while his mind was elsewhere.

“You’re not stupid,” you told him one afternoon, apropos of nothing, while you were packing up after class. You said it the way you said most things—matter-of-factly, with a smile that softened the bluntness.

He looked at you. “Thanks, I guess.”

“I mean it. You understood that integration problem faster than anyone else once you actually looked at it. You just...don’t look at it.”

“Maybe I have better things to look at.”

“Like what?”

He almost said it. You could see the words forming behind his expression, pressing against the inside of his mouth. Then something closed, a shutter dropping behind his eyes, and he shrugged.

“Nothing. Forget it.”

You didn’t push because pushing was not part of whatever arrangement you had developed. Instead, you said, “The midterm is in two weeks. If you fail, Ms. Chen will probably call your parents.”

You watched his jaw tighten at the word parents. It was a small movement, barely visible, but you had spent years studying people’s faces for signs of discomfort—it was a survival skill, knowing when someone was about to turn—and you caught it.

“I can help you study,” you offered. “If you want.”

“Why?”

The question was genuine, not hostile. He was looking at you with an expression you couldn’t immediately read—not suspicion exactly, but something adjacent to it, as though he was trying to determine what you wanted in return. In his experience, people who helped you always wanted something. His parents wanted compliance. His teachers wanted performance. His crew wanted him back. Everyone operated on a ledger.

You considered the question. Why. Because helping was what you did. Because being useful was the only currency you knew how to trade in. Because if you were helping someone else, you didn’t have to sit alone in your room with the planner and the cracked dam and the empty space that kept threatening to swallow you whole.

But you didn’t say any of that. You said, “Because we’re desk mates. It’s basically an obligation.”

Something happened to his face then—a crack in the stonework, the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth that might, in another life, have been the beginning of a smile.

“Fine,” he said. “But I’m not doing the reading for literature. That stuff is useless.”

“The reading is half the grade.”

“Then I’ll get half a grade.”

“That’s not how grades work.”

“Sounds like a grading problem, not a me problem.”

You laughed. It came out before you could catch it—a short, startled sound, almost a cough, as though your body had forgotten the mechanism and was relearning it in real time. James looked at you with mild surprise, as if he hadn’t expected to be funny, or perhaps hadn’t expected you to be someone who could be surprised into laughing.

“Okay,” you said, composing yourself. “We start tomorrow. After school. The library closes at five, so don’t be late.”

“I’m always late.”

“Then be less always late.”

He picked up his bag and walked toward the door. At the threshold, he paused without turning around.

“Y/N.”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks. For the math thing. At the board. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know,” you said.

He left. You sat at the desk for another minute, listening to the sounds of the school emptying around you—footsteps in the corridor, someone shouting across the courtyard, the distant put-put of a scooter starting up. Outside the window, the mountains were turning amber in the late afternoon light, and the rice paddies were a shade of green so vivid it looked almost artificial, like someone had turned up the saturation on the entire landscape.

You opened your planner. Tomorrow, 3:30 PM, you wrote: Library. Study session with James.