#in.

why the fuck do you think? the frustrated reply is on the tip of his tongue. it's clear enough to jack that the answer is known already. he looks jealous because he is jealous. of how easy robby makes it seem to have these kind of connections. that he can hand wave it all away and not let some part of him linger on the what ifs. that for a time he's the fucking happiest that jack can remember. of the fact that it's always someone that isn't him that achieves that, however temporarily, for robby. any fucking one of those options. all of those fucking options.

it's not something he particularly wants to examine. there's a deep rooted suspicion he would not like the truth of the answer. that it will feel like a betrayal to delve into the wealth of memories and interactions that led him to this point and find that it happened sooner than it ought to have. his mouth twists as his finger reach to touch a ring he no longer wears, and that too feels like a betrayal. "i'm not sure there's an exact moment. i think... it happened gradually, in the little things over the years." particularly with dana. he's aware enough, despite his best efforts, that what he's held for michael has been too long. almost certainly even before —

"trounced is a strong way of putting it. is that what she's saying happened?" it doesn't really matter, nor does he really take any offense to the way the match is being presented. baran had beaten him, more decisively than he would have liked, though nowhere near as badly as he's beaten michael or emery in the past. but still...

this had been a busy street once, hadn't it ? she thought so, but her memory wasn't what it used to be. what wasn't riddled with holes had gone grey, as hazy and washed out as sea fog on the horizon. the basics were there, everything she ought to know about life, but the particulars only came to her in bits and bobs. like little pieces of debris, floating up from the ocean's depths to its surface. she remembered some places used to look nicer, before the bombs and the men with their heavy guns came, but were not all that nice themselves. she was fairly certain she remembered cars always racing up and down this way, fast enough that you could feel them whizzing by in the air if you wandered too close — that's right, her and her brother had walked this way once, she was positive. maybe one of their friends had been with them too. there had been no fireflies out that night ( or glow - worms, as bucket called them — maybe it was him that had been there too. ) only headlights.

“ it's an awful long way, but ... ” she began slowly, her voice quiet, a little flat in tone. however bustling it once might have been, now there were only a few stray vehicles, dotting the cracked asphalt here and there, long abandoned by their passengers. some appeared to have broken down mid - drive, others veered off into the overgrown grass. a few miles away, she could just make out what appeared to be two that had collided together, head - on. she did not want to linger too much on those.

it’s an inevitable thing really,  getting cornered by @pittbangs.  he’s spent the last few hours of this ‘accidental’ overtime successfully avoiding being cornered alone with the day shift resident.  partially through luck.  traumas brought in,  other residents presenting their cases and asking for opinions.  partially through skill.  a well known fact about doctor jack abbot is he’s always aware of the moving pieces in the department,  even when he is not at the helm of their struggling ship.  hard to pin down if he doesn’t want to be.  most people would leave him be after several failed attempts.  one of his and mckay's overlapping qualities seems to be a certain relentlessness and obligation to act on their observations,  much to jack’s annoyance. and robby’s delight,  he’s sure.  ( he can almost hear the gleeful ‘taste of your own medicine’ remark the man would enjoy leveling at him ).  

cornered because he’s been too slow in shedding his ppe, unable to retreat back to his preferred charting station at the hub ( where discretion was all but impossible given the proximity to certain nurses ) before she’s there.  he'd almost laugh at the fact he can tell she was waiting for this exact opportunity if it weren't for the headache threatening to split his skull in two.  he tries to ignore the ringing in his ears that has yet to fully subside,  and the way the brightness of the unyielding overhead lights leave him feeling nauseous as he lifts his gaze from the floor to glance at her.