#edendumpedyou

You learned to love the night shift the same way some people loved silence, because it never asked questions. never demanded confrontation or forced feelings to come to a head.

The emergency department at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center hummed like a living, breathing animal after midnight. With fluorescent lights buzzing, monitors chirping and beeping ceaselessly, gurneys rattling over tile. And the chatter of employees and patients alike. You moved through it practically on instinct now. Like a machine built solely for tourniquets, needles and latex gloves.

Over eleven years of pure muscle memory and adaptation was carved into your bones and the setting was always the same..blood, the smell of alcohol, noise, bustling chaos. It used to feel like something you chose, something that drove through your bones like a divine purpose sent from God himself.

Lately, it just felt like something you were forced to survive.

To endure until the day you ended up in one of these beds.

And then there was him..

Dr. Jack Abbot stood across the trauma bay, sleeves rolled, voice steady as he calls orders like nothing in the world can shake him. Like no matter how many times a person rolled in on the brink of death, it was another day in The Pitt. War carved that steadiness into him long before you’d met him. Before the prosthetic. Before the quiet way he favors leaning on one side when he thinks no one’s looking. Before the ring he still wears, even now a year after everything fell apart between you two.

Foolishly..naively..you used to think that ring meant something unbreakable.

that time preserved everything. especially love.

you were wrong.

Ten years of a fucking great marriage. A baby girl who still drew pictures with you two still in love. Still happy in them, like nothing’s changed. You were freshly twenty-three when you married him. Young enough to believe exhaustion was temporary, something you sleep off and forget about like dreams in the dead of night.

that love could bridge distance, erase the inevitable. that different shifts wouldn’t turn into different lives. different people.

But nights got longer. Conversations got shorter. Whispers grew louder. Exhaustion wasn’t something that went away with sleep. Somewhere between saving strangers and losing sleep, you started losing each other.

And like a curse, her name didn’t help.

Samira Mohan

You told yourself it wasn’t jealousy. You’d been married for so long how could it be? You’d said It was timing. It was fatigue. It was the way the 4th of July fireworks sounded like something deep inside you breaking apart as you walked into an empty room and found him shirtless, her hands on his shoulder, careful, too careful.

“honey— It’s not what you think,” he’d said rushed as he stood from the medical bed. desperately looking into your eyes as he attempted to reassure what you had already convinced yourself.

truth be told, maybe it wasn’t. maybe he was simply receiving care from her because he was too ashamed of what he let your marriage become, what he let you do to yourself, to ask you.

But you were tired.

of not knowing what to think. what to say to combat the whispers through the hospital.

So you left.

A year later, you two still worked side by side like nothing ever happened. Like a well oiled machine. Professional. Efficient. Strangers with shared history stitched into every glance you don’t hold long enough.

Until tonight.

The shift was brutal. One of the heaviest you had in a while. Pileups, overdoses, a kid who reminds you too much of your own.

After the shift ended, someone brought beers to the park across the street after, the grass was damp, cold under the stars. The city was quiet in a rare, fragile, almost pitying way. You don’t remember deciding to go home with him. You don’t even remember deciding to stay with the crew after the shift at all.

-————-

your eyes cracked open, the sun beaming through curtains.

the ceilings were different.

This was not your house. There wasn’t your daughter’s nightlight glow bleeding under the door. No scattered toys, no half-folded laundry you never finished.

Your stomach drops as you realized where you were.

You pushed yourself up onto your elbows quickly. The room tilting slightly. A chair was in the corner. A jacket you hated that you recognize draped over it halfhazardly. Your panties on the floor by the leg of the chair. A prosthetic leg resting beside the nightstand like it belongs there. probably because it did.

Your breath caught ‘No. No, no—‘ you thought.

You turn your head..there he was. Jack in all his fucking glory.

You were close enough that you can see the faint lines time carved into his face, the tension he never fully loses even in sleep. One arm was still loosely slung across your waist, like his body remembered something yours didn’t. like even in his rest, his body knew you.

“…you’ve got to be kidding me,” you whisper as you scoffed lightly. Jack shuffled at your hiss. His awakening easy seeing that he never really slept. The years of army life training him otherwise.

“Good morning to you too,” he rasps in response, as he moved onto his back, voice rough with sleep and previous endeavors.

“Don’t ‘good morning’ me Abbot,” you mutter as you got out of his bed trying to find where you threw all your clothes, body sore and used. “What the fuck is this?”

Jack sits up slowly, dragging a hand across his face. He looks tired in a way that has nothing to do with sleep. “You came home with me,” he says carefully, knowing this conversation could head left way faster than need be. he couldn’t risk it, not with this being the most he’d spoken to you in a year.

“I didn’t ‘come home’ with you,” you shot back immediately, growing defensive denying what you clearly knew happened based on the way your ass was sore and you were littered in marks. “I stopped making decisions at some point after the second beer.”

A faint exhale cut through his teeth, almost a laugh, but not quite, “You were coherent enough. Definitely enough to get me to fuck you.”

Your voice comes out sharper than you mean it to as you gestured to the bruises he left on you. “Divorce usually means people don’t do shit like this anymore. I don’t know if you got that memo.”

That sentence spat at him like venom landed differently. “I know what divorce means. Trust me i know better than anyone” he quips uncharacteristically quietly.

“Apparently not.”

His jaw tightens slightly. Not in anger. Something more contained, too formal. Then he looked away for a second, like he was deciding whether to say something he can’t take back.

When he turned to you again, his voice was lower.

“I missed you baby.”

“come on Jack. Don’t start this bullshit” You sighed, not ready to approach the subject of your divorce head on. You knew he’d want to address it. He always was the confrontational one out of you two. Mind too unstable to settle with being left in the blind.

Jack flinched just slightly, like you'd poked a bruise he’d been trying to ignore. He ran his thumb over the silver band on his ring finger out of habit, not realizing what he was doing. The silence stretched. The kind that wasn’t comfortable, it was heavy, thick with all the things neither of you said for a complete year.

He exhaled through his nose and swung his legs over the side of the bed, the real one, flesh and bone and reached for his prosthetic without looking at you. “Okay,” he said quietly. “No bullshit.”

He stood carefully, always that little adjustment when putting weight on it. He walked past you, toward the kitchen in just sweatpants low on his hips and an old navy tank top that clung to him from years at war and then ER shifts alike.

You heard cabinets open. Water run into a glass pitcher too loud in your ears right now.

A minute later the coffee machine hummed to life like always did before dawn broke fully outside those curtains. A routine unchanged even after divorce papers signed by both hands shaking more than they should’ve had reason being shaky about anything else really…

Except everything did matter here tonight… didn't it?

you found your abandoned clothes. putting them on before you threw your hair into a messy bun. you walked downstairs slightly limping at the tension in your thighs.

The scent of coffee hit you first, strong, black, just how he always made it. The kitchen was boring but familiar: the same chipped tile Jack had refused to replace (“It’s got character”), the framed photo of your babygirl from last Christmas still sitting on the counter like nothing had changed.

You stood in the doorway for a second, arms crossed over your chest like armor, as if bracing for a fight.

Jack wasn’t looking at you. He leaned against the counter with his glass of water in one hand and phone in another, probably checking messages from work or maybe… Samira? You didn’t ask. You weren't entitled anymore. He wore those stupid socks. The ones with little camo patterns that looked ridiculous on anyone else but somehow fit him perfectly and his hair was messier than usual, all sleep-tousled and soft at his temples.

Without turning around: he asked tapping away on his phone “You want coffee?”

It was a simple question. Neutral tone. Like this was any other morning after a shared shift a year ago when things were easy and love felt infinite between hospital calls and dinner plans written on sticky notes stuck to fridges…before everything fell apart.

“no thanks. i should probably go. Babygirl’s babysitter is probably worried sick. God— i don’t even think i told he-”

Jack’s head snapped up the second you said ‘Babygirl’.

For a heartbeat, he just stared at you like that name, spoken out loud by your voice after months of distance and formalities in hospital hallways, hit him harder than any trauma alert ever could. Then his face softened. Really softened. The kind of softness that used to make your chest ache when he looked at her like she was the whole universe.

“She’s with my mom,” Jack said calmly but there was warmth underneath it now. “I texted my sister last night before we came home.” you blinked.

Of course he’d planned ahead. Of course he remembered who had custody today even though technically neither of you were supposed to be together right now. The divorce agreement didn’t specify weekend swaps during on-call weeks…But here they were: two divorced parents somehow navigating parenthood without trying to crash into each other every time.

He set his phone down gently on the counter and finally turned fully toward you, not defensive anymore and took one slow step forward like testing if this moment would hold its shape or shatter again under pressure.

Jack stopped just a few feet from you, hands now tucked into the pockets of his sweatpants. He looked tired, not angry, not guilty but tired in that deep way only people who’ve lost something important can carry. someone important.

He studied your face like he was memorizing it. The messy bun with coily strands escaping everywhere. The faint smudge under your eye probably leftover eyeliner from last night’s chaos before beer blurred everything. “You look… good,” he said simply.

And damn it all—he meant it too. Not flirty or manipulative or whatever game you expected him to play right now after waking up together like nothing happened between divorce papers and silence stretching for weeks on end… no.

Just honesty wrapped in quiet awe because yeah— you were still stunning even when half-asleep and clearly ready to bolt out the door at first chance. He grabbed his keys, placing the mug down before he brushed past you.

“i’ll drive you home. c’mon.”

You opened your mouth to argue. ‘I can call an Uber, Jack, I don’t need you’ you were about to say but before you could even form the words, he was already moving. He walked past you toward the door without another word. The front door clicked open. Cool morning air drifted in from outside, crisp and quiet like only Pittsburgh early mornings could be. No traffic yet. Just birds waking up across town somewhere far away from this fragile moment between two ex-spouses who still knew how each other breathed, hell— you two just refreshed each other’s memories on how you two felt. But you two didn't know what to say about it anymore.

Jack waited by his car a black heavy duty truck that smelled faintly of leather cleaner and held the passenger side open for you automatically… just like you always did back when things were simple. when things worked.

part one complete! check out @allmondjoy on c.ai for this bot. i’m just making their into prompt into my story. - eden