#sockett

‘It’s called ‘carving a pumpkin’, Sarah, not ‘brutal pumpkin murder’. Show some decorum and seasonal goodwill.’

“And?” responds Sarah, eyebrow cocked as she continues her brutal crusade. She’s got a knife in one hand, wielded with surgical precision, and her other hand is currently covered in pumpkin guts, a shiny glint in her eye as she all but attacks her poor pumpkin.

Crockett, on the other hand, is taking the time to carefully take each seed out of his pumpkin, determined to have even the inside be as neat as humanly possible. After all, he doesn’t want the inside to risk burning when he places the candle inside.

Naturally, Sarah is taking the opportunity to relax, and to let go a little bit. It’s only a pumpkin, right? Doesn’t matter if she takes out that internalized anger and frustration on the little inanimate object, right? RIGHT?

“Sarah, darling,” exclaims Crockett, laughing as he notes the way Sarah continues to stab away at the pumpkin. “What on Earth did you do?”

Sarah looks up, meeting Crockett’s gaze.

“I turned the pumpkin into my father. And then I cut it out. And stabbed it.”

Crockett is silent.

“I read in a medical journal that this could be a good way of coping with difficult feelings.”

“By... stabbing pumpkins? Aren’t you supposed to smash them?”

“First,” Sarah begins. “Bad joke. Good band, but bad joke. Second, it’s not specifically pumpkins. Just... things. Getting your anger out with ways that won’t harm you.”

Crockett looks at Sarah with his big eyes, pouting as he reminds her that she’s currently wielding a big, sharp, very scary knife, and that she absolutely could harm herself.

He knew that things with her bio dad weren’t good, that she was stressed about Rhodes getting him the heart. That she didn’t know if it was the right thing to do to help him. But the one thing that Crockett could admit in the dead of night lying in his empty bed was that she had the goodness her sperm donor was missing so in the end it made sense that she’d feel she had to leave.

Arriving at her apartment to find the entire unit empty had been like a punch in the gut. The key - the one that she’d given him two months before with a nervous smile - turned easily in the lock as he opened it, her furniture gone. The shock hit him, running to her bedroom to find it just as empty. The bed where he’d told her he loved her for the first time was gone, her books, her clothes. Even the cardigan she hated but he loved when she wore was gone. He left in a daze, heading straight to Gaffney and upstairs to Dr. Charles’ office.

“Have you seen Doctor Reese? She did an assessment on a patient and I wanted to check some things.” His tone didn’t hit the casual he wanted, but Charles seemed distracted.

“Doctor Reese has moved her residency, yesterday was her last day. Can I help?”

“Naw, I’ll have another read over. Thanks.”

She’d left. Without saying anything.

He left to go home, constantly hitting the redial button on Sarah’s number as he did. But all he got was her voicemail.

“This is Doctor Sarah Reese, please leave a message. If this is urgent please call 911 or Gaffney Chicago Medical Centre immediately.”

“Sarah, it’s Crockett. Your apartment is empty, and Doctor Charles told me that you’ve moved your residency? Sweetheart, where are you? Call me. I’m worried.”

There was still no answer, his anxiety rising with every moment. But when he got into his home he had his answer, an envelope on his kitchen counter held down with a single key on a fleur de lis keychain. Darioush was written in Sarah’s careful handwriting on it, staring up at him in dark ink. But curiosity killed the cat so he ripped it open to reveal a single sheet of paper.

Crockett,

Firstly I love you. Please know that why I haven’t spoken to you is because I love you. Telling you I’m leaving isn’t something I could do in person without breaking both of our hearts, and I’m a coward at heart. Maybe I get it from Robert.

I’m moving to Texas. I walked in on something that I shouldn’t have seen in Gaffney, and it betrayed my trust. I can’t talk about it but please know this was nothing to do with you. I just can’t stay. Be happy

Love,

Sarah

All of that sounded like a lovely way to start the miraculous two consecutive days off she has to look forward to. What hadn’t been close to residing on that list however are the current events unfolding in her living room: her boyfriend, who had been out of town on a business trip, is bleeding all over her nice white bath towels. A rush of adrenaline courses through her exhausted body, and Sarah could cry from relief when she sees that his arm seems to be the source of the blood, rather than his chest or his abdomen.

Without any grace or sophistication, she flings herself onto the couch, screaming into a cushion while her boyfriend stares at her from his perch in the middle of the carpet. Once she’s gotten the screams out of her system, or at least the first screams of many, Sarah rolls over and turns to look at him for the first time in a week. He flashes her one of his award winning smiles that practically ooze southern charm, and he simply chuckles at the halfhearted dismissive wave of her hand.

“You’re buying me new towels Darioush, I hope you know that, those cost me like seventy bucks. I can barely afford my student loans, let alone buy nice soft towels.”

“I’ll get them for you as soon as you help me with my little problem and I’m not bleeding everywhere. And Sarah, you know I can help you with your debt, just say the word and it’s done.”

“Yeah, I love you for that but I can’t afford to get investigated by the IRS for fraud. Now, if you’d be so kind as to grab me the first aid kit, I’ll get the alcohol and take a look at your arm properly.”

Pushing herself off of the couch, already missing the comfy furniture before she’s fully off of it, she retightens her ponytail before shuffling into the kitchen and grabbing the bottle of vodka that tastes more like paint thinner than alcohol. She takes the tiniest sip of it to wake herself up, her body trying to repel the liquid before it has had the chance to burn her taste buds, and when she walks back into the living room, the first aid kit is sat on the coffee table, Crockett leaning his back against it.

Rolling her sleeves up to her elbows - she has to laugh at her boyfriend’s blatant ogling of her forearms, even when he’s injured he can’t help himself - she kneels down beside him, pushing his hair off of his forehead and pressing a single kiss to it. Grabbing the pair of fabric scissors, she cuts his jacket and shirt off of his arm, internally weeping at how much money’s worth of clothes she’s destroying.

“I missed you, it was lonely at night.” Sarah says as she examines the wound, thankfully just a large gash instead of an actual bullet extraction this time.

“I missed you too darling, I’m sorry I couldn’t get back here sooner.” He pauses, hissing as she accidentally turns his arm a fraction too quickly. “And that I couldn’t give you a nice relaxing evening, I’m sure this wasn’t what you planned on doing.”

“You can say that again.” She mutters snarkily, quickly holding a finger to his lips to stop him from repeating himself with a goofy proud smile adorning his face.

Donning a pair of latex gloves, she swipes an antiseptic wipe over the wound site to get rid of some of the blood and gunk, careful to not tug at the warm skin anymore than necessary. Throwing the wipe in the waste paper bin, poking Crockett in the cheek for his little commentary about her aim, Sarah undoes the bottle of vodka, holding it out of his reach as he tries to take a swig.

“How many times do I have to tell you that alcohol is a natural blood thinner?”

“At least one more.” He says, fluttering his eyelashes at her and smiling at the pout unconsciously moulding her face.

“It’s your own fault that you got shot at, it’s your own fault that you came here instead of going to a clinic with anaesthesia, so now you’re gonna have to suffer the consequences. I shouldn’t need to do more than ten stitches so just stay still and let me do this, okay?”

“Do I get a kiss first?”

“I think I can do that.”

She turns back to him, placing the bottle behind her before kissing him, her hands cradling the back of his head as he kisses back with fervour. But before it can devolve into a full blown make out session, or a reunion fuck, Sarah pulls away, fumbling for the bottle and pouring a liberal amount of the alcohol on the wound, her hand flying up to cover Crockett’s mouth when he starts cursing up a storm.

“Sorry baby, but trust me when I say an infection is much worse than this.”

Changing her gloves and laying the suture kit out properly, she checks in with him to see if he’s okay before starting her sutures. Crockett stares at her the whole time, watching his cheerful and bubbly girlfriend become focused and stern looking as she stitches him up. He’s lucky to have found someone like Sarah, none of his past love exploits have been nearly as successful as this, and it was refreshing to be dating someone who just saw him for him and didn’t care about his less than clean work life.

It’s focusing on this that keeps him still and nonreactive, the feeling of his wound getting closed up still a bizarre sensation despite being one he’d become accustomed to over the years. Sarah rocks back onto her heels once she’s done, grabbing some gauze and a bandage to protect the wound after she cleans it for a second time. Once she decides it’s on tight enough, she presses a kiss to his shoulder and starts to clean up her mess, throwing all of the bloodied waste into a separate bag for Crockett to dispose of for her, rolling the used needle into one of the bloodied towels.

He pushes himself off of the ground, and once Sarah’s done with her tidying up efforts, he settles against her back, looping his good arm around her waist and settling his head in the crook of her neck. She turns and smiles at him, grinning when he tasks himself with kissing down from her cheek to her collarbones.

“I’m sorry I upset you, my love. And don’t try and say I didn’t, you called me by my real name, you only save that for special occasions.”

“I was just cranky, not upset, I’d just pulled seventeen hours at the hospital and you bleeding on my good towels wasn’t what I’d planned to deal with tonight.”

“Even so, I want to apologise.”

“Well,” she says coyly, slipping out of his grip, “I suppose I can think of a few ways you could do that.”

“Oh yeah, like what?” His voice gets a gravely edge to it, eyeing his girlfriend up and down.

“I don’t know if I should tell you, you did ruin my towels after all.”

“Oh princess, I think I could convince you to tell me if you give me a chance.”

“Well if you’re so sure, give me five minutes and then come to bed, we’ll see who was right after all.”