✨🧚‍♀️

A low, rumbling breath sounded above you, close enough that you felt it vibrate through your mask. 

“Still trying,” the Lizard observed, his voice rough, distorted, with a hint of thoughtfulness blooming through it. “Even now.” 

Your vision stuttered. 

The city blurred into fractured shaped beyond him: glass, concrete, flashing lights smeared into objects distant and unreachable. You couldn’t quite focus on his face, only the stretched outline of it, the gleam of teeth catching the light as his head tilted, studying you like a specimen in a lab. 

You tried to breath. 

It came shallow, uneven, catching midway on a part of your body that had shifted out of place. There was a wetness to it you didn’t like, a thickness that made every inhale feel borrowed. 

“Y-yeah,” you managed to grunt, the word breaking apart on the way out. Your grip tightened weakly around his arm, stubborn more than anything else. “Kinda what heroes do.” 

The attempt at humor fell flat even to your own ears, thin and strained, but you held onto it anyway. It was something familiar. Something yours to keep you going. 

He hummed, throat moving with the noise. 

“Fascinating,” he said. His grip sank into you lower, not enough to crush, but enough to remind you how little control you had here. “The human body is so fragile, and yet, you continue to persist.” 

Your suit clung too tight. Absurdly, you knew it couldn’t possibly or physically squeeze, but it felt heavier, like it was dragging you down, like gravity had doubled its pull. You realized why moments later. Heat spread across your abdomen, slick and persistent, soaking through the spandex that had never felt anything more than a second skin until now. Now it was suffocating. Now it was wrong. 

You swallowed or tried too at least. It hurt. 

“Yeah, well,” you wheezed, words catching the end of your breath. “You could—cold stop testing that theory anytime really.” 

A sharp exhale left him; halfway amusement halfway disbelief that you were still trying to make a joke of it all. 

“I already have my answer.” 

Your fingers slipped against his slick nails with the glide of your own blood 

You adjusted your grip, forcing them to hold, forcing yourself to stay present. You’d been hurt before. You’d walked off worse than this—or at least, that’s what you were telling yourself, clinging to the familiarity of injury even as your body quietly disagreed. You pushed against his arm, trying to create space, trying to force his nails out of you, to move—

Nothing. 

Your strength was gone. 

The Lizard noticed. Of course he did. 

“You weaken,” he said, almost conversationally, like he was commenting on Pittsburg’s weather. “Your movements slow. Your pulse—” His head dipped slightly, closer, as if listening to something only he could hear. “—erratic.” 

Your vision swayed. 

“Gonna—gonna need you,” you rasped, forcing the words out through a throat that didn’t want to cooperate, “to not narrate my death, please.” 

That got a reaction. 

His grip didn’t loosen, but his posture changed, interest becoming more intent, more focused in the way you writhed under him. 

“Death?” he echoed, the word rolling oddly between his sharp teeth and long tongue. “You already assume the outcome. How fascinating.” 

Your breath hitched again, weaker this time, your grip faltering just enough for your hand to slide an inch down his arm before you caught yourself. The motion sent a fresh wave of pain through you, the feeling sharp enough to make your vision go white for a second. When it cleared, the world didn’t quite come back the same. 

Everything sounded far away; the ringing in your ear overtaking what was normal. 

The city. The traffic. Even him. 

Like you were already stepping out the door—

No. 

No—you stay with it, stay with him. 

You forced your eyes open wider, forced yourself to focus, to see, and that was when it really hit you: how much blood there was. 

It wasn’t just the warmth anymore. It was movement. It was the steady, unstoppable spill of it, dark and heavy as it dribbled down, disappearing into a growing pool below you. You couldn’t even tell how deep his claws had gone, only that they were still inside, still anchoring you in place. 

Your stomach twisted. 

Not from the injury, but by the way you slowly realized that this wasn’t something you could shake off. 

“You still persist, little spider” he continued, almost musing now, like he’d forgotten you were anything more than a subject. “Even as your systems fail, the instinct to survived overrides logic. Overrides pain.” 

Your hand trembled. 

“Yeah,” you whispered, barely audible now, your voice thinning out as your strength followed. “Funny how that works.” 

You pushed again. 

Nothing. 

Your body didn’t answer. 

He shifted slightly, adjusting his grip, and the movement dragged through you in a way that stole what little breath you had left, your body jerking in response. A sound tore out of you, raw and crackling, and for a second—just a second—his attention sharpened again. 

“You should have fled sooner,” he said, all serious and not mocking this time. “You stayed. You chose to engage in a fight you never would have won. You chose this outcome.” 

Maybe you did. 

Or maybe you just hadn’t thought you’d lose. 

Your head dipped forward slightly, your mask brushing against the rough scales of his arm as your vision narrowed, dark creeping in at the edges. You forced yourself to hold on, to stay conscious, to stay here—

--but your body was slipping away. 

Home. 

The though came instinctively, the way it always did. Get out. Get somewhere safe. Patch yourself up. Breathe. Recover. 

You’d done it before. 

You’d always made it back before. 

“I’ve—had worse,” you tried, the words barely forming, more breath than sound now. It wasn’t convincing. Not to him; not even to you. 

Above you, he went still. 

“Have you?” he asked. 

The question settled somewhere deep, cutting through the haze with a clarity that hurt worse than anything else. Because even as the thought of home tried to take shape again, your body answer it with something colder. Something honest that made your heart clench. 

You weren’t getting out of this clean. 

You weren’t getting out of this fast. 

And whatever damage had been done when his claws went in, it wasn’t something you could tape up and ignore. You could feel it now in the way your limbs were starting to go numb, in the way your breaths were getting shorter and more rapid no matter how hard you tried to pull more air in. 

Your hand slipped against will. 

You tried to tighten it again, stubborn, refusing to let go, but your fingers didn’t listen this time, didn’t connect to what your brain was telling them. They loosened, inch by inch, strength draining out of them like everything else. 

You had to move. 

Now. 

You gathered everything you had left, every scrap of strength, every ounce of stubborn refusal to stop and push—

Nothing. 

Your grip gave out completely. 

The realization of the situation settled slow and heavy, coursing through the fading ends of your consciousness with a quiet, undeniable certainty that you weren’t going to win against this. That you weren’t even going to walk away from it. The city blurred further, sound draining until even his voice felt distant, like it was coming from miles away. 

“Remarkable,” he murmured, though you could barely hear him now. “Even at your end, you’re still refusing to give in.” 

Your head tilted back, scalp scraping against the rooftop as the rest of your strength bled out in quiet, unstoppable waves. 

Home wasn’t an option. 

Not like this. 

Not in time. 

The thought landed, final and immovable. 

You weren’t going to make it home.  

_______________________

The first thing Trinity noticed was the sound. 

Not loud. Not enough to set off any blaring alarms. Just a noise out of place, a dull uneven thud followed by a faint scrape that didn’t match anything in their apartment. She paused in the hallway, head tilting slightly, brows pulling together as she listened harder. 

“Dennis?” she called, raising her voice just enough to carry. “If that’s you, I swear—” 

No response. 

Another sound followed. Softer this time. Like something dragging. 

Her stomach tightened. 

“Dennis?” she tried again, sharper now, already moving toward the living room. “Did you drop something?” 

Still nothing. 

By the time she turned the corner, accusations of stealing avocados were already forming, but they died in her throat the second she saw you. 

For a moment, her brain didn’t process it correctly. It tried to fit the image into a normal picture, something explainable; someone in a costume, someone crouched low, someone not—

Blood. 

Too much of it. 

It soaked through your suit, dark and spreading, dripping onto their floor in a steady, horrific rhythm. You were half-collapsed against the wall, one hand braced weakly against it like it was the only thing keeping you upright, the other pressed uselessly to your side, knees buckled beneath your hunched form. Your head hung low, shoulders trembling with the effort of just . . . staying there.

“Oh, fuck,” came out barely above a whisper. “Dennis!” 

Her voice cracked on his name, the kind of sound that tore through the apartment and demanded attention whether he was ready for it or not. She was already moving before she even registered it, closing the distance too fast, dropping to her knees in front of you without thinking, hands hovering uselessly like she didn’t know where to touch, what would hurt you more. 

“Hey—hey, can you hear me?” she rushed, voice shaking as she tried to catch your gaze through the mask. “Oh my, fuck, you’re—there’s so much blood—” 

Your head lifted slightly at the sound of her voice, slow and heavy, like it took more effort than it should have. The movement wasn’t steady. Nothing about you was. 

“Trin—” you started, and even though the distortion of the mask, your voice sounded wrong in your ears. Too weak. Too thin. 

Her breath hitched. 

“Don’t talk,” she said, voice snapping with a waver only mixed through tears. Her hands finally settled: one on your arm, the over hovering near your side like she wanted to help but didn’t know how.

Footsteps pounded down the hall. 

“What—” Dennis started, breathless, but stopped just as abruptly as she had when he saw you. “Holy—”  

“Help me,” she snapped, the panic seeping through her words. “Dennis, help me—” 

“I—I got it, I got it,” he said quickly, dropping beside you on your other side, his eyes scanning over you in quick, assessing movements that didn’t quite hide the shock all over his face. “Hey, hey, can you talk? What happened?” 

You let out a weak, unsteady breath, your head bobbing forward before you forced it back up. 

“Need—” you swallowed hard, your hand slipping slightly against your side before you pressed it back, like you could keep everything in place just by holding it there. “Need a ride.” 

“A ride?” Trinity echoed, voice pitching higher. “No, no, we’re calling an ambulance—” 

“No.” The word came out sharper than anything else you’d managed so far, even if it cost you. Your shoulder tensed, your grip cupping weakly against nothing on your own side. “No ambulance.” 

“Are you serious?” Dennis shot back, incredulous. “You’re bleeding out on our floor—” 

“Pitt,” you forced out, cutting over him, your voice faltering but insistent. “Take me to the Pitt.” 

The two exchanged a look. 

“Why the Pitt?” Trinity demanded, her hands finally pressing down (too gently) against your arm like she was afraid you might break under the weight. “We can go anywhere, there’s a hospital ten minutes—” 

“Please,” you whimpered, stopping them both. 

You lifted your head just enough to face her, and even through the mask, there was something in the way you looked at her, a familiar gaze heavy with desperation.

“Please, Trinity.” 

Trinity blinked wildly. “What—” her voice dropped, confusion bleeding just as profusely as your side was. “No. You can’t—” 

Her hands moved before she could stop them. 

Up. To your face. To the mask. 

“Wait—” you tried, weak, your hand lifting like you were meant to stop her, but it didn’t fet far. It barely made it halfway before it faltered, dropping back uselessly to your side. 

“Trin—” Dennis warned, uncertain, but he didn’t stop her either. 

Her fingers found the edge of the mask, stopping only for a split second before gently grabbing the fabric to pull it off. 

Time didn’t stop, but it felt like it did. 

The world narrowed down to the space between you and her, to the way her eyes widened, to the sharp inhale she couldn’t hold back as recognition hit all at once, fast and brutal and undeniable. 

Your name came out broken. 

Disbelieving.

Your face, pale, drawn tight with pain, eyes unfocused and glassy as you struggled to them open, wasn’t something she could mistake. Not even now. Not like this. 

“Hey,” you tried, your mouth twitching like you meant to smile and couldn’t quite manage it. “Don’t—” A wheeze. “Don’t freak out.” 

“Don’t freak—” she choked, a hysterical sound breaking through as her hands, coated in your blood, hovered again, not knowing where to go, what to do. “You’re—you’re—” 

“The hero,” Dennis finished hoarsely, staring at you like he was trying to reconcile two completely different realities at once. “You’ve been—this whole time—” 

“Later,” you rasped, cutting him of as best you could, your head bobbing again in a fight you were quickly losing. “Explain . . . later . . .” 

“You’re not explaining anything later if you bleed out right here,” Trinity hissed, her voice cracking hard as tears finally spilled over, her hands pressing more firmly now in a desperate attempt to stop a rushing flood. “Dennis, we have to—” 

“I know,” he quickly said, shaking his head to force himself past the overwhelming shock. “Okay, okay, we have to move them. Carefully. We have the truck.” He glanced at you. “No ambulance?” 

You shook your head weakly. “No.” 

“Okay.” He swallowed thickly. “Okay. Pitt it is.” 

“Can you stand?” Trinity asked, already knowing the answer even as she said it. 

You tried anyway. 

Your hand pushed against the wet floor, your body shifting like you mean to lift yourself up, but the second you put any real weight on it, your elbow gave. The action had a breath tearing out of you in a broken sound that sent another wave of anguish through the roommates. Something internally, beyond what they could see, was wrong. 

So, so wrong. 

“I’ve got you,” Dennis said, arms catching you before you could hit the ground fully, your limp body sagging against him. 

“Careful,” Trinity muttered, moving to your other side, her arm wrapping around you as gently as she could manage, even as her hands shook. “Okay, okay; we’ve got you; we’ve got you.” 

Between them, you hung loosely, not even sure how much you could help drag yourself along. Everything felt like you were floating more than moving, your feet barely registering against the ground as they half-carried, half-dragged you toward the door. Every step sent a fresh wave of pain through you as your vision dipped in and out, mind fighting to stay conscious. 

“Stay with us,” Trinity kept saying, over and over, her voice right next to your ear now, urgent and breaking with each syllable. “Stay with me, okay? You’re okay. You’re gonna be fine. We’re going to fix you right up.” 

You wanted to believe her. 

You really did. 

The night air hit your face as the door opened, a contrast to the feverish shine that dampened your skin. However, the breeze didn’t clear your head in the way it should have. If anything, it made everything feel further away, like you were slipping out of your own body piece by piece. 

“Backseat,” Dennis demanded, already moving ahead to open the truck, his movements quick and efficient despite the way he was trying to hide how hard he was breathing. “Lie them down—watch their side—” 

“I know!” Trinity punched out. “I know, just—open the door!” 

They eased you in as gently as they could, but it still hurt. Everything hurt. Your body didn’t feel like yours anymore—too heavy, too distant, almost like you could feel it shutting down with every passing minute in pulses you couldn’t keep away. 

Trinity climbed in beside you, one hand still trying to press into your side, the other coming up to your waxen face, fingers brushing your hair back in gentle movements that made you ache, made you want to finally let tears spill.  

“Hey,” she said softly, her voice trembling as she tried to catch your ever shifting gaze. “Hey, look at me.” 

You tried, eyes barely being able to hold hers. 

“Stay with me,” she echoed. “Okay? Don’t—don’t you dare pass out on me.” 

From the front, Dennis slammed the door and started the truck in one quick motion, the engine roaring to life as he pulled out faster than he ever had before. 

“Hold on,” he warned, more to himself than anything. 

The truck lurched forward in a jerky motion before settling. 

The city blurred past the window in streaks of light and showdown, too fast, too disjointed for your eyes to track something properly. The motion made your stomach twist, the pain in your side flaring with every turn, every bump in the road. Your head lolled slightly, focus slipping. 

“Hey—hey!” Trinity’s voice cut through the winning fog; her hand lightly slapped your cheek to bring you back. “No, stay with me; talk to me. Say something.” 

Your throat bobbed under your suit in a thick gulp, saliva now tasting metallic. 

“Jack—” His name slipped out before you could stop it, quiet and broken. “Tell him I—” 

She froze. “Jack?” she asked, pure confusion now evident beyond her panic. “Tell him what?” 

You didn’t finish. 

Your eyes slipped shut for just a second in a fluttering blink—

--and didn’t open again right away. 

“No, no, no, no,” she whispered, terror surging all over again as she shook you lightly. “Hey, no, no stay with me.” Your name followed several times in that tone, wobbly and like she was barely holding on to one emotion. “Stay with me!” 

“Are they—?” Dennis started, glancing back briefly, his fingers curled white-knuckled around the wheel. 

“They’re not—” Trinity gasped through it, chest constricting as a pit sunk deep in her stomach. “Just drive faster!” 

The truck surged forward, engine pushing against the limits as the city rushed past in a blur. 

And in the backseat, you went motionless. 

_______________________

The truck hadn’t fully stopped before the door was wrenched open and Trinity’s voice broke across the ambulance bay, splintering the air with dread. 

“Help—please, someone help—they’re bleeding, and it’s not stopping—” 

Her words tangled over themselves as hand reached in, pulling you from the backseat in one practiced motion, lifting your weight like it didn’t matter that your body should have fought it, should have reacted, should have hurt. 

But your body remained still. 

There was no sharp cry, no instinctive recoil. Just the loose, unresisting drop of your head against someone’s arm, your mouth parting on a soft, unfocused sound that didn’t quite become a word. Blood had soaked everything: your suit, Trinity’s hands, the backseat beneath. It kept coming, dark and sticky, slipping between gloved fingers as they transferred you onto the stretcher. 

“All right, I’ve got them,” a new voice said—Mateo (the name faintly coming to the front of your mind)—calmly in a way that didn’t match the urgency of what he was doing. “Easy, watch the side, don’t shift them too much—” His gaze trailed over you quickly, already cataloging what he could see. 

The suit’s tear at your torso; the way the fabric clung too quickly, the damp squish and slosh of it; the uneven rise of your chest with one side lagging behind the other; the pallor creeping beneath what little skin was visible. 

“Hey,” he added, leaning in just enough for you to hear, though your glossed-over eyes weren’t really looking at any. “Can you stay awake for me?” 

Your lips moved, sloppy and uncoordinated, words slipping together as if your brain had lost the path between thought and speech. “M’fine . . . jus’—just tired . . .” you slurred. 

Mateo didn’t react to the words. He just nodded once, already pushing the stretcher forward, Dennis and Trinity following right behind, as the sliding doors opened up, and the ER swallowed you whole. 

Inside, everything accelerated. The fluorescent lights overhead streaked through your mask’s lenses, the fractures too fast for you to hold onto them for more than a second at a time. Voices overlapped, layered into an overwhelming and nauseating sound, until one rose above the rest, familiar enough in your ears that your drifting focus tried to latch onto it. 

“What’s coming in?” 

Jack. 

You didn’t see him clearly at first, just the shape of him stepping in with that oh so familiar gate of his. Then your head rolled slightly, your gaze catching on his dark scrubs, on the set of his broad shoulders as he moved closer, already reaching for you. 

And then he noticed that it was you in the stretcher and not just another ambulance call. 

The moment his eyes grabbed onto the red and blue spandex, his entire being locked up for half a heartbeat, recognition landing hard enough that it showed on his face before he buried it under clinical control. He couldn’t show it, not when you looked like you’d been swimming in a blood pool. 

“Status,” he said, already stepping into position as the head attending. 

“Penetrating trauma,” Trinity answered without missing a beat. “Significant blood loss, hypotensive, possible thoracic involvement. Lost consciousness on the way here.” She looked down at her soaked clothes. “Didn’t think they’d wake back up,” she whispered. 

Jack nodded once. “Go get changed. Trauma bay. Move. Lena, I need two bags of O-neg.”

The transfer into the trauma room happened in a blur of coordinated motion, the stretcher locking into place before they shifted you onto the bed with practiced efficiency. The moment your weight settled, though, the illusion of stability broke. Blood began welling faster where the pressure changed, the soaked fabric peeling slightly away from the wounds just enough to reveal what lied beneath: deep, jagged punctures at your side, just below the ribs, where something unknown had driven in with enough force to split the skin and muscle cleanly apart before hooking and tearing on the way out. The edges weren’t smooth. They looked ripped, uneven, and every second that passed seemed to draw more blood up from somewhere deeper. 

“Jeez,” Robby breathed under his breath as he stepped in, only on hour 2 of his double, already gloving up, his gaze flickering over the injury before he pressed gauze down hard. “That’s not shallow.” 

Mateo froze, eyes catching on the mask that obstructed everyone’s ability to check your pupils. “Um, what do we do about that—” 

“The mask stays on,” Jack said, his tone leaving no room for argument. 

Mateo looked over. “What if we need an airway—” 

“We’ll deal with it when we get there,” Jack huffed back. “For now, we work around it.” 

“Got it.” 

Scissors tore through your suit, the spandex giving way in long, uneven strips as they worked quickly to expose the full extent of the damage. What they found only made the room tighten. Blood pooled beneath you, spreading across the bed in a slow, relentless seep. 

And the wounds? The wounds told a story way worse the more they uncovered. They were deep enough to suggest internal, angled in a way that made it impossible to tell what had been hit without seeing inside. 

“BP’s dropping,” Mateo announced, glancing at the monitor. “Seventy systolic.” 

“I can see that,” Jack snapped, already reaching for the ultrasound. “Get me a view—now.” 

Cold gel hit your skin—or it should have felt cold—but your body barely registered it. The probe pressed down, sliding carefully across your abdomen as everyone leaned in just slightly, watching the small black and white screen. Jack’s expression pinched. 

“Free fluid,” he said. “A lot of it.” 

“Internal bleeding,” Robby confirmed, body twisting to grab the two blood bags from a passing nurse. He moved quickly to get one hanging up and flowing as fast as possible before pressing fresh gauze against the wounds again. 

Your breathing hitched shallowly, chest riding in short, incomplete movements that didn’t seem to draw in enough air. One side lagged behind, barely moving up and down like it was supposed to. Robby drew his hands away and grabbed onto his stethoscope, immediately drawing the rounded end across your chest. He hissed as he jerked it away. 

“Breah sounds are diminished on the left,” Robby added, lips curling downward. “Almost nothing.” 

“Collapsed lung,” Jack followed. “Likely from the trajectory of whatever went in.” 

Dennis, who had trailed silently, spoke up from by the doorway, “Its fixable, right? They can’t—” 

“We’ll do everything we can,” Robby tried to say, but none of his words were hitting where they should have been convincing. “You should get changed too; blood’s dripping from your pants.” 

You drifted through it all, awareness slipping in and out like a loose thread. Your eyes moved, unfocused and dazed, catching on faces without recognition, on lights that blurred and doubled. Your mouth moved again, forming a broken name.

“Jack . . .” you murmured. 

He stilled. 

“I’m here,” he said, leaning close despite everything else that demanded his attention. The top of gloved hand rested gently against your fingers, adding any type of comfort he could without further contaminating the latex. 

“Knew it . . .” you whispered, the words slurring even deeper together to the point everything dragged into one breath. “Y’fix it . . . know y’can.” 

His eyes drooped with the weight of keeping you alive. “I’ll do my best,” he said under his breath. 

Your head tipped slightly to the side, your focus slipping again as your body grew heavier against the bed, your limited breaths shallower, less effective. Where your eyes had been looking into Jack’s hazel, the lids slowly dragged down until all you could see what a dizzying black. 

“Respirator effort’s dropping,” Mateo called out. 

Robby’s hands cupped around your neck. “And they’re not protecting their airway. We’re going to lose it.” 

Jack didn’t hesitate. “We intubate then.” 

The room shifted with the action that was about to take place. 

Jack reached forward and pulled the mask away. 

There you were. 

Fully exposed now, your face pale, lips tinged faintly blue, eyes fluttering and unfocused as your breathing faltered. The disconnect between the person they knew and the body on the table hit harder like this, more immediate, more real.

“Fuck, Pokey,” Robby hissed, taking you and all your past excuses for injuries in. “Damn it.”

“Tube,” Jack ordered. 

The procedure was quick, precise. Robby tilted your head back, allowing your airway to visualize for the tube to glide in without resistance. Mateo counted as he pumped the plastic, blue ball, filling your lungs artificially now, forcing your chest to rise where your body had failed to do so on its own.  

For a split second, it seemed like that might be enough. 

Until—

The monitor changed. Subtle for a beat and then heading down faster than anyone could catch. 

“Jack,” Mateo snapped. 

“I see it.” 

Your pulse faltered. 

Dropped. 

Stopped. 

“Pulse?” Robby asked, already moving. “They’re in asystole.” 

Nothing. 

“Gimme a round of epi,” Jack snapped. 

The first dose went it and failed. 

“Start compressions,” Jack stated. 

Robby climbed into position instinctively, hands locking over your chest as he began compressions in that numbing hard and steady rhythm. Your body jolted under the force, head rocking slightly with each push, Mateo keeping steady to breath for you in between, sternum giving way slightly under the deep motion. 

“Continue compressions. Epi’s not going to work, fuck.” 

“Why?” Robby grunted between compressions. 

Jack shook his head. “Side effect of all this. They’re body burns through everything.” 

Time stretched, distorted by repetition. Compressions. Breaths. Again. 

The room grew louder, faster, the urgency building almost too big for the space. 

“Hold,” Jack ordered, fingers pressed firmly under your jaw. “They’re back but going tachy. Get the cart.” 

Mateo swung the cart around, grabbing the paddles after turning the machine on. “Charging.” 

The defibrillator whined, rising in pitch as panic built. 

“Clear.” 

Robby and Jack stepped away as he pressed the paddles against your chest. The shock hit your body all at once, arching you off the bed in a violent, unnatural motion before you dropped back down, limp again and unmoving. 

“Still tachy.” 

“Again.” 

Another rising whine. 

“Clear!” 

The second shock hit harder somehow, your body reacting just as violently, a brief jarring interruption in the stillness before it settled again into something far worse. For a moment, your heart steadied, and the room went still, waiting for something to go right before the same, buzzing flat line shrilled through the air. 

“Damn it!” Jack yelled. “Compressions again!” 

Hands were back on you immediately, pushing hard, Robby counting under his breath, forcing your heart to do something normal that it wouldn’t do on its own. 

“Come on, Pokey,” Robby muttered through the counts. “Come on, don’t do this.” 

Somehow, some way, the monitor came alive again. 

“Wait!” Mateo said, his fingers now digging into your neck. “Wait—hold on—” 

Robby stilled. 

“Stay with me, kid,” Jack whispered. 

The room drenched with silence before—

“There!” Mateo cried. “Weak, but it’s definitely there.” 

“Not stable,” Jack added. “We don’t have time to lose it again.” 

“OR’s ready,” Trinity called out despite not being on the clock. 

“Then we move,” Jack replied. 

You were lifted again, transferred with even more urgency now, the bed unlocking as they rushed you out of the trauma bay. Blood still seeped beneath you, slower now, but no less dangerous, your body pale and still beneath their attempts to keep you alive. 

Jack stayed at your side as they pushed toward surgery, his hand braced against the bed like it was the only thing keeping him grounded. 

“Stay with me,” he said even if you couldn’t hear them. “Just a little longer.” 

You didn’t respond. Didn’t move, didn’t fight like he was praying you would. 

And for a moment, Jack wondered if you’d even pull through.  

_______________________

The chaos that had followed you through the doors—the shouting, the movement, the constant urgency—broke apart the second you were taken upstairs. What replaced it wasn’t calm, not really. It was something heavier. Thicker. The kind of silence that wasn’t empty, but stretched tight with everything no one was saying. 

In the break room, Trinity sat first. 

She didn’t remember deciding to; one second, she was standing, pacing in small, frantic steps like she could march right on upstairs and scrub in, and the next her knees gave just enough that the nearest chair caught her. Her hands still felt stained even though she’d washed them enough for the skin to grow red and irritated. But she kept looking at them like they were streaked with your blood. 

Dennis hovered beside her for a moment before sitting too, elbows on his knees, hands clasped so tightly his knuckles had gone pale. He hadn’t said much since the trauma bay. Whatever he was processing, it was happening inward, but his foot wouldn’t stop bouncing: the only sign that he wasn’t nearly as calm as he looked. 

The two looked up with teary eyes as Robby and Jack slipped in. 

Robby was the first to break the silence with a shaky inhale, a shift forward towards a chair, his hands coming together like he was organizing his next words in his head before he spoke. 

“They got them to surgery fast,” he said. “That’s what we were needing, what we want in a case like this.” 

Trinity let out a shaky laugh that didn’t hold any humor. 

“Pokey—” she started, then stopped, her voice catching. “They died.” 

The word sat wrong in everyone’s chest. You weren’t someone capable of that. Robby didn’t flinch. 

“They coded,” he corrected, ever always the teacher. “That’s not the same thing.” 

“I know but,” she pressed, voice rising at the end. “The epi wasn’t working, and their heart just . . .” 

“And we got them back,” he added, firm enough to anchor her without shutting her down. “We got a pulse back before they moved to surgery. That what we needed, and it held long enough.” 

Trinity’s shoulder shook as she pulled in a deep breath. “But will it keep holding?” 

No one had an easy answer to that. 

Jack, despite the pain in his limb, hadn’t sat. 

He stood near the far end of the room, arms crossed tightly over his chest, gaze fixed on the mask he held between his fingers. He hadn’t spoken since they’d taken you upstairs, hadn’t acknowledged anyone directly, but he hadn’t left either. 

“You knew,” Dennis’s voice snapped him out of the stupor. 

His hazel eyes lifted slowly. “What?” 

Dennis licked his lips. “They said your name. In the truck. And you’re looking at that mask like you’ve seen it more than just them dropping patients off.” 

Jack let out a long sigh before answer. There was no point in denying it. “Yeah.” 

Trinity’s head snapped up. 

“You knew?” she echoed, exhaustion bleeding through. “You knew and didn’t—what, you just let them continue doing this?” 

“Trin,” Dennis cut, a warning on the edge of his tongue. 

“No,” she snapped back, shaking her head, pushing to her feet again despite the way her legs wobbled. “No, you don’t get to—do you have any idea what that was like, Dr. Abbot?” she snarled his name like it personally offended her. “Watching them lose against it all—” 

“I warned them,” Jack softly said. “I told them this would happen. That one day, they wouldn’t be able to shake it all off. That it wouldn’t be something they could just patch up and ignore.” Tears spilled down his cheeks. “They told me they’d come home . . . to me.” 

His words hit in more ways that they should, holding a deeper meaning. 

Trinity opened her mouth. Closed it. Her face melted into one of understanding. 

“That’s why Pokey asked for the Pitt,” she said more to herself, realization mixing with the breath. “To somehow get back to you because they couldn’t on their own.” 

Jack’s expression didn’t change. 

That somehow made everything worse. 

Time passed slowly, no one bothering to keep track of it. 

The break room lights stayed the same sterile brightness that made it impossible to tell how late or early it was getting. Nurses came and went, other families rotated through, the quiet hum of the hospital continuing around them like nothing had changed. 

Trinity and Dennis stayed put while Jack and Robby had to eventually go back into the Pitt, carrying on like you weren’t upstairs fighting for your life against more powerful outside forces. 

Eventually, something did change. 

The doors opened again, and this time, it wasn’t just someone coming in to grab a mediocre coffee. 

Robby walked in first, Jack right on his tail, his posture straighter but expression still set int the same grounding focus he’d had in the trauma bay. 

“Morning shift’s coming in,” he said, glancing between Dennis and Trinity. “We need to get a head of this.” 

Dennis frowned slightly. “Get ahead of what?” 

“Questions,” Robby replied. “They’re going to notice when Pokey doesn’t come in. Yes, they’re normally late, but they eventually show up. They’re going to ask why. And we’re not doing this piecemeal in the middle of a shift.” 

Trinity exhaled slowly. “So what, we just . . . tell them?”

“We tell them enough,” Jack stepped in. “I’ve already updated Dana with everything. But the rest, we’re not going to give details they don’t need, not anything that compromises—” He stopped himself briefly before continuing. “But they need to know what happened. And they need to know Pokey’s not coming in.” 

Trinity sank back into her chair, her energy draining as quickly as it had flared. “I don’t even know how to say it.” 

Robby nodded once. “Then I will.” 

_______________________

The shift change didn’t feel like one. 

It wasn’t the usual slow transition, the casual greetings, the quiet handoff of patients from one resident to another. There was a tension in the air as the day shift filtered into the room. Samira first, then Victoria, Frank Mel: each of them picked up on something being off before anyone said a word. 

Dana stood to the side, trying hard to keep tears at bay. 

“Where’s Pokey?” Mel asked almost immediately, glancing around like she expected you to walk in late like usual. “Or is she missing the team meeting?” 

No one answered right away, giving the new additions to take in how exhausted and worn the others looked. Something had happened during the night; they were all sure. Robby stepped forward instead, drawing attention with a quiet authority. 

“We had an emergency case come in overnight,” he said, voice as steady as he could manage. “Severe trauma. Multiple penetrations. Almost 30% blood loss. They’re in surgery now.” 

Victoria’s brows pulled together. “And that affects us how—” 

“It’s Pokey,” Trinity said, cutting in before Robby could soften the blow. 

Heaviness fell like an avalanche. 

“What?” Frank asked, blinking like he’d misheard. 

“They’re the patient,” Trinity repeated, her voice firmer this time even if it shook. “And it’s bad.” 

Samira’s expression melted, concern washing over through her pinched brows. “How bad?” 

Robby didn’t sugarcoat it. “Critical. They coded in the trauma bay twice, but we got them back. They went straight to surgery. We don’t have any updates yet.” 

Straight silence followed. 

Mel’s gaze dropped briefly, processing, before she looked back up. “What do they need from us?” 

Her question was simple and exactly the right one. 

“For now?” Robby said. “We do our jobs. We keep things moving, and we don’t get out of control. If someone asks, just say they needed a day off; don’t let speculation get out of control.” 

Victoria nodded. “Are they going to be okay?” 

Jack’s lips pursed. “We hope so.” 

The next few hours were daunting. 

This time, the wait settled down to their bones, making every second feel like it dragged just a little too slow. The sun settled in the blinds, pale and slow, turning the sterile lights into a softer, more alive warmth that made the exhaustion hit all at once. 

Trinity had stopped crying. 

Dennis hadn’t stopped watching the door. 

Jack hadn’t moved. 

The doors, contrast to the room, opened, revealing Emery Walsh, looking more exhausted than the rest. She pulled off her surgical cap as she slipped through, her expression drawing every eye in the room when she paused. 

The sitting two stood but stayed silent. 

“They made it through surgery,” she said, not rushing and not dressing it up. “They’re finally stable enough to be moved to a room. They’re not out of the woods yet. The next hours are going to be critical, but we believe they’ll pull through and make a full recovery.” 

Trinity let out a breath that broke halfway into a sob. 

Jack’s shoulders dropped slightly. 

Dennis closed his eyes, allowing tears to spill over. 

Robby nodded once, sharp and contained, but his heart thudded wildly in his chest. 

Alive. 

Not safe. 

But alive for now. 

That they could work with. 

_______________________

Waking up didn’t feel like waking up. 

It felt like surfacing wrong, like coming through a crashing wave only to breath in saltwater on the way up. 

Your body lagged behind awareness, mind struggling to catch up with the simple act of being conscious after being under for so long. The senses came back in fragments; sound first, low and indistinct, voices blurred together like they were underwater; then touch, dull and distant, your body heavy in a way that didn’t feel entirely yours; taste, metallic iron long gone from deep in your mouth; and finally light, too soft to hurt but still but enough to make you squint beneath its glare. 

You didn’t move right away. 

Couldn’t. 

But when something tugged at your arm when you tried, a faint resistance that didn’t make sense in your muddled mind, you pried your eyes open until the room took shape around you in the hospital walls, pale and sterile, machines humming quietly to your right, a steady rhythm marking time in a way that you were able to catch onto. 

Your head turned slightly. 

And that was enough to send the room into motion. 

“Hey—” 

The voice came quick, thick with an accent you could place anywhere no matter what happened to you. 

Dana. 

She was already on her feet, chair scraping softly against the floor as she moved closer, her eyes scanning your face like she was checking for something she wasn’t sure she’d find. “Hey, hun, don’t—don’t do that thing from dramas were people wake up and then immediately pass back out again.” 

Her hand hovered near yours, unsure for a second before settling lightly against it, careful of the IV line taped there. 

The more you blinked, the clearer her and her golden hair became. Shapes that were blurred sharpened into pictures you could take in. That’s when you realized that the room wasn’t as empty as you’d originally thought. 

You tried to speak. 

It didn’t come out right. 

Your throat felt raw, like it had been forced open and hadn’t quite recovered yet even with the accelerated healing you possessed. The sound was rough, barely more than a vibration of vocal cords. 

“Easy,” Robby said, voice coming from the foot of your bed through the haze. “Don’t try to talk yet. You’ve got time.” 

You shifted your gaze toward him, his body just a fuzzy blur before he sharpened. His arms were crossed, posture relaxed in appearance only, his attention fixed on you in a way that said he hadn’t really relaxed at all. 

Trinity was next to come into view. 

You felt her truly before you saw her and the way the air shifted as she moved closer. Your ears caught the way she inhaled unsteadily like she was bracing herself for you to crash again. When your eyes finally found her, she looked . . . different. 

Her green eyes were still the same. Her cheekbones still high. Her hair pulled back into the iconic half-pony. 

But her expression, normally sharp and steeled against hard patients, had changed. Her eyebrows pulled together like someone had sewn them there. Her lips tugged down and shook in place. Her nose was bright red around the edges. 

“Hey, Pokey” she said softly, voice breaking around the name she’d given you all those shifts ago, full of reverence and fear she’d never get to call you that again. 

Dennis stood just behind her, one hand resting lightly at her back, his gaze on you like he was searching, like he was trying to burn this version of you—safe, alive—in his eyes rather than on the one he saw in his apartment. 

Jack caught your eye next. He was sitting finally; prosthetic having gotten too much to bear and now resting against the wall. One hand rested loosely at his side, the other braced on your ankle, his finger settled against the steady hum of the posterior tibial to remind him that your heart was going. 

He didn’t say anything, didn’t really need to. The way his eyes lingered said enough. 

Unlike your senses, memory came back all at once. 

The fight. The impact. The way the air had left your lungs when those claws went through you. The blood. The apartment. The car. The ER—

Your breath hitched. 

Pain followed with the flashes, present enough to remind you exactly where you were and why. 

“Hey, easy,” Dana cooed, her fingers gently rubbing across your hand. “You’re okay. You’re in a room; surgery went well. You’re not—” She stopped herself, swallowing the word down. “You’re gonna be just fine.” 

You, on the other hand, weren’t sure that was entirely true. 

Everyone was looking at you almost like they were waiting for something. 

You knew what. 

Your gaze shifted between them slowly. 

They all knew. They had to. 

Your fingers twitched weakly against the sheets, the movement small but enough to draw their attention. 

“You don’t have to say anything right now,” Dana started, softer this time, voice relaxing the longer you stayed awake. “We can—” 

“I—” The word clawed its way out of your throat, rough, gargled, stopping her mid-sentence. You swallowed, the motion careful, effectively wetting your throat enough for the next words to glide better. “I didn’t—mean for—” You paused, breath catching as you tried to piece the words together through the fog still clinging to your thoughts. “Didn’t—want you to find—out like that.” 

Trinity’s lips parted slightly, like she was going to say something, but nothing followed. 

Dennis looked down briefly, then back up, his jaw tightening just slightly. 

Dana kept a soft smile on her lips. 

Robby shifted his weight, just enough to indicate that he was still there, still listening. 

And Jack; Jack watched you. You could feel it even when you weren’t looking at him directly. 

“I was—going to—tell you,” you continued, spitting the words out slower than you wanted to, causing frustration to bubble.

You were a hero. You’d fought monsters. Saved lives.

And now you can’t even speak what you want. 

Your tongue ran across your lips. “Eventually. Just not like that.” 

Dana let out a quiet scoff. “That’s what you’re worried about right now?” 

Your eyes crinkled as a weak, almost apologetic attempt at a smile pulled at your mouth. “Timing’s—bad,” you admitted. 

A short, strained laugh slipped out of her before she could stop it, her free hand coming up to press briefly against her forehead. “Yeah, I’d say so.” 

The rest didn’t join in on the laugh. 

Trinity’s eyes stayed locked on you the entire time like you were a ticking-time-bomb about to explode in her face. 

“You were—” she started before pursing her lips. She tried again. “This whole time you were out there, getting hurt, and coming back to shifts like nothing happened?” 

You didn’t answer right away because there wasn’t a version of that question that didn’t have an answer she wouldn’t like. 

“Yeah,” you finally said. 

Her face crumpled. “You almost died,” she snapped, angrier at the situation than you. “On my floor in my arms. Do you—do you understand that we might not have made it in time?” 

“I do.” 

“Then why?” she pressed. “Why do you keep doing this if you understand what might happen if we aren’t fast enough next time.” 

Dennis’s hand stopped its circles at her back. 

You looked at her for a long moment before answering. 

“Because no one else will,” you said simply. “It’s my responsibility.” 

The answer wasn’t dramatic or defensive. Just the truth. But that didn’t make it easier for her to hear. 

“That’s not—” she started, frustration breaking through as tears now. “That’s not a good enough reason to just throw yourself out there without telling anyone—” 

“I tell Jack—” 

“That’s not enough,” she snapped, face growing red. “One person isn’t enough to make sure you come back, Pokey. You came to us, and we weren’t prepared. You aren’t giving people a chance to—” 

“To what?” you asked gently. 

She paused. “To pick up the pieces when you can’t.” 

Your heart clenched. 

Dana stepped in. “You’re not going to make this call by yourself anymore,” she said, grey eyes meeting yours directly. “Not after this. Not after you ended up on that table, and I had to get a call from Jack telling me that you might not make it out.” 

It was your turn to let tears fall down your cheeks. 

Robby nodded slightly from where he stood. 

“She’s right,” he added. “We don’t want you to stop being who you are. No one here is asking that of you. But you need to understand that sometimes you can’t reach all the wounds on our own.” 

You let your gaze fall back on Jack, who hadn’t moved, hadn’t interrupted. Your bottom lip wobbled. 

“I wasn’t trying to—shut people out,” you said. “What I do is dangerous. I just—I didn’t want you to have to carry the threat that something might happen.” 

“Too late,” Dennis said quietly. 

It was the first thing he’d said since you woke up. You looked up, and he held your eyes. 

“You showed up at our apartment bleeding out,” he continued, tone level but landing more than if he’d raised his voice. “We’re carrying it now. Because the moment you came to us first, you made that decision whether or not you wanted to.” 

There wasn’t anything left to argue with there. 

Dana’s hand squeezed yours lightly. 

“I put us all down as your emergency contact right after Abbot over there,” she said after a moment, her tone almost conversational, like she was easing them all into something more manageable. “You don’t get a say in that, by the way. It’s already on your file.” 

A faint breath of amusement slipped past your lips. 

“Figures,” you murmured, though there was no bite to it. 

Robby huffed quietly, a small, almost approving sound. “I’m going to have Dana adjust your schedule. Non-negotiable. You’re off until you’re 100%, and when you come back, it’s lighter shifts. You push it, I pull you right back out. I can’t have one of my best residents out for the count.” 

You didn’t argue even if you wanted to. 

“Okay,” you settled on. 

Trinity watched you for a moment longer, her expression still complicated, still trying to reconcile it all at once. Some of her sharpness had faded, the harsh lines being replaced by softer features. 

“You don’t get to do any of this alone anymore,” she said. “Like we’ve said—” Her neck turned for her to quickly glance at Dennis before looking back at you, “you’re always welcome if you need a place to stay. The couch is yours, or I can always kick Huckleberry out.” 

“Hey—” Dennis yelped, but his eyes were agreeing with whatever Trinity told you. 

You met both their gazes, head nodding as much as you could without getting dizzy. 

“Okay,” you repeated. “Thank you. I won’t eat your avocados. Promise.” 

Despite the solemness, a few giggled filled the air. And for the first time in a few hours, hope filled in along with the sunbeams that stayed even through the grief. 

_______________________

The room was quieter when they finally left. 

Not all at once though; there had been a slow tapering of voices, soft reassurances, one last round of we’ll be back later and try to get some rest, but eventually, the room settled enough that you could actually hear the machines beside you, the steady rhythm of your own monitored breathing filling the space where conversation had been. 

The door clicked shut. 

And then it was just you and Jack. 

For a moment, neither of you spoke. 

He didn’t move right away, choosing to stay seated at the end of your bed like he was recalibrating now that the others were gone, like the presence of an audience had been the only thing keeping certain things in place. Without it, his shoulders dropped, and his hand on your ankle finally lifted. 

You took this time to watch him. 

Really watch him this time. 

The exhaustion was clearer up close in the faint shadows under his eyes, in the tension still lingering in the set of his jaw, in the way he looked at you like he was still waiting for everything to go wrong. 

“Hey,” you croaked softly. 

Your voice wasn’t much stronger than before, but it was yours, less strained and stronger as your body was kickstarting again. And it was enough to pull him fully back to you. 

Jack’s gaze lifted, locking onto yours. 

“Hey,” he echoed, quieter. 

He gripped the chair’s arms as his leg pushed along the floor to scooch over until he settled closer to your head. His hand came up and rested against the edge of your bed before sliding just slightly until his fingers brushed yours. 

You didn’t hesitate. Your hand turned weakly against the sheets, threading into his as best as you could with the IV in the way, your grip soft but intentional. He tightened his fingers around yours immediately, almost like he’d been waiting for permission to do exactly that. 

The contact grounded you both. 

Just your hand in his. 

“You scared me,” he finally admitted. 

Your thumb shifted against his hand, a small, careful movement. “I know.” 

His jaw tightened. “No.” He shook his head once, a small, frustrated motion. “No, I don’t think you do.” 

Your eyes stayed on him. 

“I’ve seen bad cases,” he continued, barely holding back his tears now. “I’ve been in trauma bas where we knew from the second someone came in that we weren’t getting them back. I’ve watched people crash and not come out of it. I’ve had to call it more times than I can count—” 

He stopped. 

Swallowed. Hard. 

“And then you came in,” he said, his hand gripping yours tighter. “And I had to stand there and pretend you were just another patient while you were bleeding out on my table.” 

Your heart broke. 

“I wasn’t—” you started, but the words didn’t quite come together right. 

“I know,” he answered, shaking his head again. “I know you weren’t trying to end up here. That’s not the point.” 

He let out a shaky breath, tears finally running down to drip onto your bed. You gently took your hand out of his and rested it against his cheek, thumb brushing away the wet tracks. His hand rose and cupped it, holding you close. 

“I already lost the first love of my life,” he said, eyes glancing down to the ring on his left hand. “I can’t go through that again.” 

The room stilled around his confession.  

You felt it in the way his hand didn’t leave yours, in the way his eyes stayed trained on your face even as he said it, like he needed you to understand exactly what he meant. 

“This isn’t just about you being reckless,” Jack continued, looking back down into a blank space. “This is about me standing there, watching you die, and knowing that if we didn’t get you back, that was it. That was—” The rest caught in his throat, refusing to flow the rest of the way. 

You shifted slightly, the movement small but enough to pull his attention back to your face fully, to the way you were looking at him now. 

“I’m still here,” you softly said. 

“I know,” he replied. “I know you are.” 

But your words didn’t undo what almost happened, that much was clear. Your fingers curled slightly around his ear with a gentle pull that coaxed him closer. 

“Come here,” you murmured. 

He hesitated for half a second, like he wasn’t sure if he should, like he was still half in that clinical mindset where you were a patent first and everything else second, but then he gave in, leaning closer until he was right beside you. 

Your other hand lifted slowly, careful of the IV lines, finding the fabric of his shirt and curling there weakly, tugging him just enough for him to slowly lean down, like he was giving you time to stop him if you needed to. 

You didn’t. 

Your lips met his gently at first, soft and gently pressing, the kind of kiss that wasn’t about urgency or heat but all about reassurance, about proving something to the both of you that words couldn’t quite cover.

He responded quickly. 

His other hand came up to your face, fingers brushing lightly along your jaw, holding you there like you might disappear if he let go. The kiss deepened slightly, Jack still mindful of everything you’d just been through, but he put something else in it too, something that had been held back for too long before finally breaking through. 

Relief. 

Fear. 

Love. 

When he pulled, his breath was hot and heavy against your nose. His forehead rested lightly against yours, and he stayed there for a moment, not ready to put space between you. 

“Don’t do that again,” he murmured. 

You huffed out the smallest hint of laugh. “I’ll try to avoid being impaled,” you said, licks of teasing cutting through. 

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” he replied, pulling back just enough to meet your eyes again. 

“I know.” Your hand slipped from his shirt, finding his again, fingers lacing together properly this time. “But I can’t stop. Not completely. You know that.” 

“I do.” He licked his lips in contemplation of what to say next. “But you’re not doing it like this anymore,” he added, his tone firm and unwilling to bend. “You don’t stay out until dawn, you don’t just go back to your house, and you don’t end up half-dead on our residents’ floor because you thought you could walk it off after. And if you try, I’ll find some way to get your sticky stuff and keep you in my bed.” 

Your cheeks heated ever so slightly. 

“If you do, I’ll take your leg.” 

“Then we’ll both be stuck at home.” 

You rolled your eyes fondly. “How tragic, Dr. Abbot.” 

A whiff of a smile curled his lips. “How tragic indeed,” Jack echoed before pausing. “Move in with me.” 

His words were so straightforward, so out of left field, that it took you a second to process them. 

“What?” you asked, eyes wide. 

“Move in with me. Not part-time, not occasionally, not living out of the one drawer you already have. Permanently.” 

You blinked at him, thoughts catching up in once piece. “Jack—” 

“I’m serious,” he cut you off. “I’m not doing this again: waiting for a call at work, or worse, no call at all and finding that you’re somewhere bleeding out because you didn’t want to worry anyone.” 

“You being there won’t fix everything,” you pointed out gently. 

His eyes swam with something you couldn’t quite place your finger on. “But it means I’m not on the outside of it anymore. It means that when something does go wrong, because it will, you’re not dealing with it alone.” 

You looked at him for a moment, taking in the seriousness of it all, the weight behind what he was asking. You knew this wasn’t impulsive, this wasn’t just fear talking. This was Jack Abbot choosing something. 

Choosing you.

“Okay,” you finally said, the word settling between you in full. 

Relief flooded his features almost instantaneously. 

“Okay.” 

You raised a finger, a smile now fully stretching across your face. “But I want to join in on sunrise nude yoga.” 

He nodded, a matching smile mirroring yours. “Whatever you want, baby.” 

You shifted, excitement now replacing whatever dread had been left over. “Guess you’re stuck with me.” 

His eyebrows pinched in a funny way, like he just caught a joke he didn’t know he knew. 

“That was a pun, right? Cause you’re sticky—” 

“Just kiss me again, old man.” 

And this time, when he leaned in to kiss you, you finally felt alive.  

🕷️ AN: Yay! You made it to the end! Thanks for taking the time to read it all! Likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated! Please let me know if you'd like to be added to the tag list!

“I—I didn’t—” the man choked, his fingers clutching weakly at your wrist. “It just exploded—” 

“I know,” you cut in quickly, voice lowering to force steadiness into your tone even as sirens screamed somewhere too close for comfort. “I saw it. You’re fine, okay? You’re gonna be fine. I’ve got you.” 

“—this so-called ‘hero’ has yet to be held accountable—” 

You swallowed hard, adjusting your grip as you hauled him up more securely against you, ignoring the way he cried out when his weight shifted. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know—that’s on me. I’ve got you now. Just—hand on a little longer, yeah? We’re almost there.” 

“Wait,” he gasped, blinking up at you like he was trying to see past the mask, past the lenses, past whatever the city had decided you were. “You’re—are you—?” 

“Not important,” you cut, sharper than you meant to, because the sirens were getting louder and that meant time was running out. “What’s important is you don’t pass out before I get you to a hospital. Can you do that for me?” 

“—reports indicate multiple injuries linked to collateral damage during the incident—” 

“Hey.” You nudged him slightly, just enough to keep him conscious. “Stay with me. Talk to me. Tell me your name.” 

“. . . Aaron,” he managed, barely audible. 

“Okay, Aaron,” you repeated, breath catching as you shot a line of web and yanked both of you up onto the nearest rooftop in one smooth motion, landing harder than you wanted but not daring to slow down. “That’s good. That’s really good. You’re doing great.” 

“—law enforcement has stated they are increasing efforts to identify and detain the individual—” 

“Don’t—don’t let them take you,” Arron mumbled suddenly, his grip tightening with surprising strength. “They said . . . you’re dangerous . . .” 

For a second, just a second, your footing faltered. 

“Yeah,” you said quietly, more to yourself than to him as you adjusted your hold and kept moving, leaping the gap to the next building with practiced ease. “Yeah, they’ve been saying that a lot lately.” 

“—a public menace—” 

You exhaled sharply through your nose, pushing harder, faster, the skyline blurring as the familiar route burned itself into your muscle memory. The Pitt wasn’t far. It was never far. 

Not anymore. 

“Listen to me,” you said, forcing your voice back into something he could hold onto. “You’re gonna see a bunch of people when we get there, okay? Doctors, nurses—they’re loud, they’re bossy, and they’re gonna take really good care of you.”

“. . . okay,” he whimpered. 

“And you’re not gonna mention me,” you added almost absentmindedly as you swung lower, closer to street level, weaving through alleyways to avoid the flashing red and blue lights flooding the main roads. “Not because I’m dangerous,” you corrected, jaw tightening beneath the mask, “but because they’ll waste time asking questions instead of helping you, and you don’t have time for that.” 

“—citizens are advised—” 

“Hey.” Your hold tightened just slightly when his head lolled against your shoulder. “Aaron. stay with me.” 

“I’m still here,” he breathed, the sentence wheezing in his chest. 

“Good,” you replied, relief threading through the word as the familiar outline of the hospital came into view, lights blazing, chaos already spilling onto the street. “That’s good. That’s all I need from you right now.” 

Sirens continued to wail. Voices overlapped. Somewhere, a radio crackled with your description. 

Through it all, you didn’t slow, didn’t waiver. 

“Alright,” you murmured, more to yourself this time as you angled toward a side entrance you’d used a dozen times before, heart hammering for reasons that had nothing to do with the risk you were about to take. “Let’s get you somewhere safe.” 

Behind you, the city kept talking. 

Ahead of you, the doors were already opening. 

_______________________

The Pitt didn’t quiet down; it changed pitch. 

“—no, I don’t care if they’re stable, I need the beds,” Dana snapped, one hand against the nurses’ station as she balanced her phone between her shoulder and ear, her voice cutting clean through the layered noise of monitors, footsteps, and overlapping orders. “Then make space. I’ve got three more inbound and nowhere to put them.” 

“They’re lining the hallway,” Robby called from across the floor, already halfway through pulling on a fresh pair of gloves. “We’re out of gurneys again.” 

“The steal from somewhere that has them,” Dana shot back without hesitation, dragging the phone away from her ear just long enough to glare at the screen. “And where the hell are they—” She shoved it back. “No, not you. I’m talking about one of mine.” 

“Who?” Trinity asked, weaving past with a tray of supplies, her brow furrowed. 

Dana didn’t even look up. “You know who.” 

Jack did. 

He didn’t say anything at first, hands steady as he worked gauze into a patient’s side, but there was a shift, small, almost imperceptible, in the set of his shoulders. 

“It’s their day off,” he said finally. “You told them not to come in.” 

“I told them to rest, not vanish,” Dana fired back, already ending the call and immediately starting another. “With what’s going outside, we need all hands on deck.” She lifted the phone to her ear, pacing once. “Pick up,” she muttered under her breath. “Come on—pick up.” 

It rang. 

And rang. 

And rang. 

“Hey, this is—” 

“Unbelievable,” she exhaled, already dialing again. 

“Maybe they’re asleep,” Trinity offered, though she didn’t sound convinced. “Pokey’s always sleeping.” 

“Through this,” Dana gestured broadly, like the chaos itself should be loud enough to wake you wherever you were. “There are sirens going off every five seconds.” 

“Not everyone lives close enough to hear them,” Jack said, automatic and halfway a mutter. 

Robby snorted under his breath. “If they don’t hear this, I want whatever sleep they’re getting.”

“Seriously,” Trinity added, shaking her head. “They’ve been here nonstop all week. If anyone deserves to be dead to the world, it’s Pokey.” 

“Yeah,” Dana muttered, though her thumb hovered over your contact again anyway. “Well, I’d still like them alive enough to answer their phone.” 

Behind them, a monitor spiked. 

“I need help over here!” 

“Coming!” 

“Pressure’s dropping—” 

“Hang on—just—” 

The doors burst open hard enough to rattle against the wall. 

“Incoming!” a paramedic shouted, shoving a gurney through with barely controlled speed. “Female, mid-thirties, blast injury—” 

“Bay three,” Dana snapped, already moving. “Abbot.” 

“I’m on it.” 

Everything shifted again; tightened, sharpened, focused. 

Jack stripped his gloves as he crossed the floor, Robby falling into step beside him while Trinity peeled off toward the supply cart. 

“BP’s unstable,” the paramedic continued. “We couldn’t—” 

“We’ll take it from here,” Jack cut in, not unkindly but already assessing the damage. “On three—” 

“One, two—” 

They transferred him cleanly, practiced even in the rush. 

“How long ago?” Jack asked, hands moving without hesitation. 

“Ten minutes, maybe less,” the paramedic said. “There were others—her husband—” 

“But you could only bring her,” Robby finished, jaw tight. 

The paramedic didn’t answer.  

“Alright,” Dana said, already stepping back slightly to get back into the hub. “Let’s get going. I need—” 

Her phone buzzed, causing her to look down too fast with hope flashing bright and brief and melting away just as quickly. 

“Still nothing?” Jack asked without looking up. 

“Still nothing,” she said, accent tangy as she shoved her phone into her pocket like it had personally offended her. “I swear, when they finally show up—” 

“You’ll what?” Robby interrupted. 

“Put them straight to work.” 

“Yeah, that tracks,” Trinity muttered. 

The four followed the woman out as she was taken by surgeons on their way up to the OR. It seemed as though everyone was needing an attending, but a deafening noise quieted everyone enough for them to hear what came next. 

Across the room, another set of doors slammed open, but this wasn’t like the others. 

This one wasn’t controlled. It wasn’t coordinated. 

It was chaos. 

“Hey—” Ahmad started, voices rising. 

You dropped in through the side entrance like gravity had lost its patience. There was no clean landing this time as your foot hit wrong—slipped—caught on the threshold—but you didn’t stop, barely managing to keep the man in your arms from jostling too hard as you staggered forward, webbing still clinging messily around his torso, dark with blood. 

“Need—help,” you forced out, breath uneven beneath the mask, already pushing toward the nearest open space. “He’s bleeding out—” 

Everything froze just for a second. 

Recognition—not of you, but of what you meant—flashed across every face in the room. 

“Gurney!” Trinity snapped first, already moving. 

“Here—here!” Robby shoved one forward, clearing the space with his hip. 

“Get him down—careful—” Jack was there next, hands already reaching, already assessing, his voice dropping into that clinical doctorness that always bubbled when dealing with a patient. “What happened?” 

“Explosion,” you said quickly, helping guide the man down, your hands shaking just enough to betray the adrenaline still tearing through you. “Shrapnel, lower abdomen, he’s been in and out—” 

“Alright, we’ve got him,” Jack replied firmly, eyes flickered up to where yours were under the mask for just a fraction of a second. 

Too quick for anyone else to notice. 

Long enough for you to feel it. 

“Step back,” Dana ordered, already moving in. “We’ll take it from here—” 

Sirens wailed louder outside. 

Closer. 

Ahmad swore under his breath. “Cops are pulling in—” 

Your head snapped toward the entrance. 

“Shit,” you breathed. 

“Hey—” Robby started, half-turning toward you. 

But you were already moving. 

“Wait!—” Trinity called, reaching out instinctively. 

Too late. 

You were gone before the officers even hit the doors. They stormed in seconds later, eyes sharp, scanning around the ER quickly. 

“We’re looking for—” one of them began. 

Dana didn’t even let him finish. 

“You’re looking at a trauma floor that’s already overwhelmed,” she cut in not glancing up from where her hands were already back on the patients you’d brought in. “Unless you’re here to help, you’re in the way.” 

“There was an individual—” the officer tried again. 

“Yeah,” Robby said flatly, not looking at him. “There usually is. It’s called a city.” 

A beat. Tension stretched thin. 

“Did you see where they went?” the officer pressed. 

“No,” Jack simply said, voice rumbling with boredom. 

It wasn’t even hesitation. It was a decision. 

Across the way, Trinity shook her head. “They were gone before we even got him on the bed.” 

Another lie. 

Another choice. 

The officer’s gaze swept the room once more, searching, calculating, but still finding nothing. 

“Let’s go,” he muttered finally, jerking his head toward the others.

They left as quickly as they’d come. The doors swung shut behind them.

And just like that, the noise rushed back in.

“Alright,” Dana said, like nothing had happened, like everything had. “Let’s not lose him. Jack—”

“I’ve got it.”

But for a moment—just a moment—his hands slowed. Not enough for anyone to call it out. Just enough to feel the absence you’d left behind.

“Where the hell have you been,” he muttered under his breath.

No one heard it.

Except him.

_______________________

The doors had barely settled back into place after the officers left before the noise surged up again, filling every inch of the Pitt like it had only been waiting for permission to build. 

“I’ve been waiting in this room for two hours,” a man snapped as he walked toward the middle desk, voice cutting through the rhythm of monitors and movement. “Two hours, and every time I ask, it’s ‘just a little longer.’ How much longer is ‘a little longer’ supposed to be?” 

Trinity didn’t look up from the chart in her hands, her pen moving quickly as she finished noting something down before answer, her tone obviously already worn thin. “We’ve had multiple critical intakes come in back-to-back,” she said, flipping the page. “We’re doing the best we can to move everyone through safely.” 

“Yeah, well, maybe if that masked psycho would stop dragging people in here, you’d actually get to the rest of us,” he shot back, gesturing vaguely toward the entrance like the chaos itself had a face. “Whole place is backed up because of them.” 

Robby’s head lifted immediately, his expression flattening as he turned just enough to face the man fully, arms crossing loosely over his chest in a way that wasn’t aggressive but wasn’t dismissive either. “Those people getting dragged in are the reason we’re not pulling bodies out of the street instead. They’re alive because someone got them here faster than we could.”

“That doesn’t make them a hero,” the man muttered, the bite faltering from his voice. 

“No,” Trinity cut in. “It makes them braver than most, and that’s more than enough.” 

The man huffed as he stalked back to his room, but he didn’t argue again, the conversation dissolved back into the broader noise of the floor as another set of doors opened and a fresh wave of urgency rolled through the space. 

Jack didn’t look up right away, his hands still moving with practiced precision as he finished securing a dressing on a patient out in the hallway, but the tension in his shoulders hadn’t eases since you’d run, something tight and quiet under the surface as he worked. He heard it all: the complaints, the defense, the way your presence lingered in the room even after you were gone. And it settled low in his chest. 

“Jack,” Dana called from across the floor, back turned to him as she erased and rewrote patient’s names on her board. “When you’re done there, I need you to—” 

“I’ve got it,” he said, finishing the last adjustment before stepping back, stripping the latex gloves off and dropping them into the bin without looking away from the patient until he was sure they’d be okay. “Give me five minutes.” 

“You’ve got three,” she corrected, although there was no real resistance behind it, her attention already shifting to grab another resident as they passed. 

He nodded once and stepped away, moving through the hall with the same steady pace his prosthetic allowed. His path was clear like a thread he didn’t have to think about following, body already tugging it along as he went. 

The stairwell door gave slightly under his hand before swinging open, and the shift tin sound was immediate, the chaos dulling into a quieter and contained noise with a quiet that didn’t quite belong in the middle of a crisis like this. 

Jack found you almost immediately. 

You were sitting halfway down the steps, elbows braced against your knees, your mask pushed up just enough to free your mouth and nose, your breathing still uneven like your body hadn’t caught up with the fact that you’d stopped moving. There was blood on you—some dried, some not—and the small cuts along your hands and face stood out more clearly in the stillness; details that would’ve been easy to miss out on the floor. 

For a moment, he didn’t say anything, just took in the sight of you like he needed confirmation that you were actually there and not still somewhere out in the city pushing yourself past whatever limit you’d already crossed. 

“You look like hell,” he finally said, the words echoing through the empty stairs. 

Your head lifted at the sound of his voice, tension flashing instinctively before it softened the second you recognized him. Your posture gave away as you let out a breath that sounded like you’d been holding it in longer than you realized. “That’s . . . not new,” you murmured, dragging a hand down your face before letting it fall back to your knee. 

“No,” he agreed, climbing a couple of steps slowly until he was close enough to see the way your hands trembled when you didn’t think of keeping them still. “But it’s worse than usual.” 

You huffed. “City’s having a field day.” 

“Yeah,” he said, his gaze holding to the scrape along your cheek before settling back onto your white lenses. “So are you.” 

You didn’t argue with that, which was answer enough on its own. 

For a second, the two of you stayed silent, motionless, until he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small pack of gauze, hand holding it out without comment. You too, it without hesitation, your gloved fingers brushing his in the process, the contact brief but his warmth grounding as you peeled it open and pressed it carefully against the cut on your cheek, lips curling in a wince as you did. 

“They’re calling me a menace now,” you said after a moment, your voice quieter, more wore than it had been earlier, like the name had been sitting with you since you heard them. 

“I know,” he replied, just as quiet. 

You glanced up at that, searching his expression like you were waiting for something else to follow, but there wasn’t anything. No doubt. No wavering. Just the same steady certainty he always carried. 

“They think I’m making it worse,” you added, your grip tightening slightly on the gauze. “That I’m the reason everything’s falling apart out there.” 

“They’re wrong.” 

A slow breath dragged from your mouth as your head leaned back against the wall behind you, eyes closing for a second like you were trying to let his statement calm some of your nerves. “I brought the cops to the Pitt’s door,” you pointed out, not opening your eyes. “They were right behind me.” 

“They were already on their way,” he countered, tone matter of fact. “You didn’t cause that. You just got here first.” 

“That doesn’t really make me feel better, Jack.” 

“I’m not trying to make you feel better,” he said, voice sounding something close to reverent as he spoke your name. “I’m telling you what actually happened.” 

Behind the doors, something clattered loudly, followed by a voice calling for help, the sound carrying faintly through the door before fading again into the background. 

“They were defending you, by the way,” he added after a moment. 

Your eyes opened, your head turning slightly toward him as the lenses glitched. “What?” 

“Robby. Trinity. Half the floor,” he said, arms crossing over his middle as he shifted his weight. “Even the ones who didn’t say anything didn’t stop.” 

You looked down at your hands. “They don’t even know it’s me.” 

“No,” he said. “They don’t.” 

“And they’re doing that anyway?” 

“Yeah.” 

You shook your head faintly, almost like you didn’t know what to do with the Pitt’s newfound loyalty, and for a second the exhaustion of it all showed more clearly than anything else. The weight of the day pressed in now that you’d been stopped long enough for you to feel it everywhere. 

“I should get back out there,” you admitted. “Because if I don’t, no one else will.” 

Jack raised a hand and settled it against your arm, steady and grounding, his thumb brushing against the raised texture of the spandex once before he let it rest there for just a second longer than necessary, the contact just enough to keep you in the moment. 

“Come back when you’re ready,” he said, eyes glued to where yours were behind the mask. His voice had returned to a more neutral tone, more in line with everything waiting behind the door. “Or don’t. But please don’t push it past the point where you can’t come back to me.” 

You let out a small breath, pushing yourself up from the step, rolling your shoulders back as you leaned in quickly to press your lips into his. A startled noise erupted from his chest before he pressed back with just as much want. When you finally pulled back, your hands rose to adjust your mask, fingers pulling it down into place again. 

“I’ll be fine,” you said, even if it didn’t sound entirely convincing to you or him. 

“You better,” he replied, though it wasn’t agreement so much as acknowledgement. 

“See you later tonight?” 

His lips curled upward ever so slightly. “Yeah. I’ll see you.” 

He stepped down and pushed the door back open, the noise rushing back in immediately. While he went in, you took the door that led back to the streets, back to the disorder of it all. 

_______________________

A couple hours and a whole bunch of patients later, the Pitt hadn’t slowed so much as settled into a different kind of exhaustion. The kind that bit and cut even though the criticals had worn down to a trickle instead of a roar. The kind where every movement cost a little more, and no one had the luxury of stopping long enough to feel it. 

“Vitals are holding,” Victoria said from the foot of a bed, glancing up from the monitor as she adjusted the IV line with careful precision. “Not great, but better than when she came in.” 

“I’ll take better,” Dennis muttered, pressing the back of his wrist briefly to his forehead before stepping away from the patients, his shoulders rolling like he was trying to shake the 10-hour tension out of them. “At this point, I’ll take anything that isn’t worse.”

“Careful,” Robby called from across the room without looking up. “You say that too loud, and the universe will hear you.” 

“Pretty sure the universe already has,” Trinity added, hands gripping the desk’s ledge as she stretched. “We’re just dealing with the consequences.” 

Dana moved through it all like a current, her voice cutting through the fatigue wherever it needed to. “I need turnover in bay two,” she called, not breaking stride. “Dennis, when you’re done there, I’ve got another one coming in.” 

“Of course there is,” he said under his breath, already turning toward the bay. 

Jack hadn’t left the floor again. 

He’d thought about it (once or twice), but every time the idea surfaced, someone else demanded his hands, his attention, his focus, and he let it. Staying in motion was easier than stopping to wonder if you’d come back, or worse, if you couldn’t. 

He didn’t want to think about that: you, trying to get back to him, bleeding and on death’s doorstep somewhere—

Yeah, no, he couldn’t dwell on that. 

You were still out there. You’d come back no matter what.

The doors slammed opened again. 

Throughout the day, he couldn’t even start to count the times that had happened. 

But, if he took the moment to think about it, this door slammed in a way that made everyone freeze. It was fast, uncontrolled, and urgent in all the ways that didn’t follow emergency protocol. The sound drew eyes before the next words even came. 

“Help,” you forced out, your voice rough beneath the mask as you staggered in, one hand pressed against your side, webbing clinging unevenly across your suit where something sharp had torn through it. “I—need—” 

You didn’t finish.  

Your knee buckled just slightly, but it was enough to throw your balance. However, out of sheer stubbornness, you kept upright, pushing forward with another step. As you walked, blood seeped through the makeshift seal you’d tried to hold yourself together like you had earlier in the day. The thick, dark liquid made small splatters against the tile floor, marking your path where you staggered. 

For a second, the room stilled as hearts plummeted at the sight of you. 

Victoria snapped first, already moving, her voice cutting through the air. “Someone get a gurney—now!” 

“I’ve got it—” Dennis shoved one forward. His hands hovered slightly near you, body staying still in hopes that through your pain and onsetting delirium, you’d at least recognize his voice. “Easy—easy—” 

“Sit,” Trinity ordered, not even waiting for any type of recognition, yet, her hands hovered as well, waiting for permission that you honestly didn’t have time to give. 

Your forearm held your body up against the desk with your body sinking in a downward motion to the floor, feet slipping in your own blood. 

“Don’t—” you started, breath catching as your hand slipped slightly against your side, pressure faltering just enough for pain to spike. “Please don’t call—” 

“No one’s calling anyone,” Robby cut in firmly, stepping closer, gloves already on his hands. “I promise. But right now, you’re hurt, and you need to sit.” 

Your head turned on a swivel despite his reassurance, white lenses scanning for something—or someone—unseen. The motion made you dizzy, but you had to make sure that the exit doors stayed closed, and the staff were the only additional ones in the room. 

“You don’t understand,” you wheezed, panic ebbing and flowing in a way that made them understand you were more worried about something else than the wound in your side. “They’re tracking me.” 

A beat passed. 

Someone did a full breath cycle: inhale and exhale. 

Dana’s head lifted. 

“How close?” she asked, already moving. 

“Minutes,” you snapped. “Maybe less.” 

That was all it took. 

“Then we don’t have time to argue,” she replied, accent getting heavier with concern only a mother could have. “Get them on the bed now.” 

Hands moved. 

Not rough. 

Not faulty. 

Just certain in the way they’d been trained with years in the making of doctors that didn’t hesitate to save. 

Robby’s strong arms slotted themselves under your arms, gently pulling you up and away from leaning against the desk. The others made sure no other body parts hit the metallic guardrails as the chief attending set you down with a gentleness you’d never seen before. 

Your strength gave out the moment you touched the gurney, yet your hand stayed pressed tight to your side like letting go meant everything would fall apart. 

“Let me see,” Victoria said, already working at the torn edge of your suit where the webbing was already saturated with blood. 

“No—wait—” you trued, breath hitching again with panic. 

“You’re already bleeding through,” Dennis spoke like talking to a spooked animal. You wondered if this was the type of voice he’d talk to his farm animals with. “Whatever you’ve got holding that together isn’t enough anymore.” 

“But the mask—please—” 

“It’ll stay on,” Trinity cut in, meeting your lensed gaze directly. “We just need to fix your side before it gets worse.” 

Something in the way she spoke made you still. 

“Okay,” you breathed, the word more exhale than anything close to confirmation. 

Dennis pulled up the metal bars and pushed slightly, moving the gurney toward an open room. 

Jack was there before anyone called his name, officially taking over as the head attending, leaving Robby to stay behind to watch. He didn’t rush, didn’t draw attention. 

But he was there, hands yanking the curtain closed once the gurney settled near the monitors. He snapped gloves on quicker than he ever had, focus clicking into place the second he saw the injury you had, the injury everyone had come in with since the morning news had started spewing. 

Shrapnel. 

Deep enough to matter and make life hard. 

The bits and pieces weren’t immediately fatal, but only if they moved fast enough to get them out before they sunk deeper. 

“Talk to me,” he demanded. “What hit you?” 

“Bomb,” you managed, your fingers tightening against the edge of the gurney as Victoria carefully peeled back the webbing. “Fuck! Green—Goblin—”

Victoria’s fingers softly nudged your side, her face leaning closer in. “Entry point is here . . .” she trailed. “I don’t see any exit wounds.” 

“Then it’s still in there,” Jack replied, his jaw tightening as he took over looking at the wounds. His fingers prodded against the skin, drawing a sharp hiss from under your mask. “We need to—” 

Behind the curtain, out in the lobby, the doors burst open again. 

However, this time, it wasn’t patients. 

“PGH!” a voice cracked through, sharp and authoritative. “We’re looking for—” 

Behind the desk, Dana didn’t even turn around. 

“You’re looking at a trauma floor in the middle of a mass casualty event,” she cut him off, her tone flat and unyielding. “Unless you’re here to assist, you’re in the wrong place.” 

“We have reason to believe the vigilante responsible for—”

“No one here is responsible for anything except keeping people alive,” Robby interrupted, voice louder and carrying into your room, making you freeze where you lied. He stepped over slightly, just enough into their line of sight to block the open door without making it obvious. 

Behind him, Trinity shifted intentionally, angling her body just enough to obscure the door further, her hands still moving like nothing had changed. 

Inside the room, Dennis didn’t look up from where he was monitoring your vitals. Victoria didn’t let your blood seep further, keeping extra gauze against your skin. Jack didn’t falter in his support. 

“Stay with me,” he said quietly, only for only the room’s inhabitants to hear. “You’re fine. We got you here; let Robby deal with them.” 

Your breath hitched deeply, causing a blip to appear on your oxygen stats. Frozen with fear, your eyes didn’t move past his shoulder where the voices were coming from, where a threat lingered that you couldn’t outrun this time. 

“They’re—right there,” you whispered back. 

“I know.” 

Not it’s okay. 

Not don’t worry. 

Just the truth in true Jack Abbot fashion. 

“I need you to just hold still,” he added, hands picking up specific instruments to start digging the shrapnel out. “Can you do that for me?” 

Your eyes locked on his. 

“. . . yeah,” you finally breathed, body melting back into the gurney. 

“Good.” 

Back in the lobby, the officers weren’t taking no for an answer.

“Did you see them come in?” one pressed, stepping further into the floor. 

“No,” Trinity snapped. 

“They were here earlier,” another added. “We know they favor this location—” 

“People favor hospitals when they’re injured,” Robby said drying, still not breaking his position. “It’s the point of an ER.” 

“We need to search—” 

“You need to not interfere,” Dana bit, turning just enough now to pin them with a look that had stopped stronger people in their tracks. “Unless you have a warrant, you are not permitted to search this hospital. So either, scrub in and start helping or leave.” 

Tension stretched as she eyed them down. 

And underneath, the quiet coordination held. 

A nurse moved a curtain. 

Another adjusted a monitor. 

Robby stayed put. Blocking. Redirecting. Protecting. 

“Almost there,” Victoria murmured, more to you than anyone else as her and Jack worked in tandem. “Just stay with us.” 

“Pressure,” Jack said, hands moving without thought. 

“Here.” 

“Clamp.” 

“Got it.” 

Your grip tightened, breath catching in white hot pain as Jack dug the clamp around in the largest wound. Your body tried curling in on itself before you forced it back. 

“Are you sure you don’t want anesthesia?” Dennis asked, growing more concerned with your heartrate every time Jack dug in before plucking metallic shards from your skin. 

“Can’t,” you hissed through another wave. “My body would burn right through it.” Another dig had your dizzy, body twitching and moving uncontrollably with pain. 

“Hey,” Jack called out low enough that it didn’t carry beyond the curtain. “Look at me.” 

Lazily, your head tilted in attempts to get your eyes onto his. 

“I’ve got you.” 

The officer’s gaze swept the room again, slower this time, more deliberate, like he could feel something just out of reach. 

“Sir—” one of the younger nurses stated, stepping into his line of sight with a clipboard in hand. “If you’re not a patient, I need you to step back. You’re going to contaminate a sterile field in the room to your left.” 

“I’m not—” 

“You will,” she said in a way that had him halting. 

That was the last straw. 

“Let’s go,” he muttered finally, jaw tightening as he turned away. “We’ll circle back.” 

The doors closed behind them, breaking the strung tension almost immediately. 

Trinity tucked her head in the room, curtain close to her body to not give way to any extra prying eyes. “They’re gone.” 

Only then did the room exhale. 

“Alright,” Jack said, already shifting to start on another wound. “Let’s get this done.” 

And he did. 

Through the again, through the exhaustion, through the weight of everything pressing in, you stayed where they needed you, your focus narrowing down to the sound of his voice as he updated you through the procedure, the steadiness of his hands, the way the Pitt’s hustle never quite reached you while he was there. 

Around you, they kept moving, kept making sure you’d pull through. 

Not because they knew who you were under the mask. 

But because they’d already decided that you were worth it all even without knowing. 

And for once, that was enough for you to stay. 

AN: Thank you so much for reading! Likes, comments, and reblogs are always appreciated! Please comment if you'd like to be added to the taglist!

“Sweetheart.”

Usually that word comes with sweetness. With sugar dripping from his lips as he would look at you with big, adoring eyes. Such fondness and love adorning his face sometimes it would make your heart ache in a wonderful way. But right now, as you’re standing the closest you’ve stood to each other in 2 years, it sounded more like a warning, impatient. Jack clenched his jaw as he took a deep breath, trying with everything in him to keep his composure. He couldn’t lose it. Not here, not on you. Not while you’re sitting on a gurney with a black eye in his ER with the only thing separating you two from the rest of the world is a thin curtain with an ugly pattern.

He hasn’t called you that word in a long time.

Not since before your divorce.

“Sweetheart.”

That tenderness. The aching gentleness that flowed effortlessly through not only his vocal cords but every limb and finger.

Every movement, every word would have any girl in a puddle at his feet. Usually, Jack had that power over you. Normally, you’d give in and let your body fall into him. Let his arms hold you, keep you together while you shake and cry.

But this isn’t normal. You’re not normal anymore. And you hate yourself as you sit here and stare at him, face blank, feeling nothing but anger and disgust.

You lost your baby. A surge of blood gushed out from you and into the toilet when you thought you just had to pee.

You failed your one job. You failed to protect your baby. Jack’s baby.

Maybe if the baby was someone else’s, not his, it would be here.

It isn’t your fault. It isn’t his fault. Logic tries to scream at you. Sharp, desperate, trying to cling onto any shred of sense you have in your brain to just listen. Listen to logic. Listen to Jack. Your husband. Let him in.

But you’re just not listening. You’re tunnel visioned in your grief and all you can seem to process is that you lost your baby and maybe it wouldn’t have happened with someone else.

Your grief has swallowed you whole. It’s been 6 months and you’re not the same person Jack fell in love with. And you’re completely convinced, looking at him now, you’re not in love with him anymore. You can’t even look at him without being overtaken with rage. You want your baby and he can’t give that to you.

“I want a divorce.”

Jack hung his head.

Your body tensed at the memory.

Jack Abbot was a fighter, and yet he let you go quietly, without a fight. He did whatever you wanted. He signed the papers, agreed to anything you wanted to keep, any amount of money you wanted from him. “It’s yours.” He had said in a meeting.

My heart is yours. My life is yours. Everything I’ve ever had is yours. You’re the only thing that matters.

You wanted him to fight, but you also know, logically, that if he did it would only anger you worse. You couldn’t even figure out what you wanted. You just wanted your baby, your family, for things to just be normal.

And it’s not normal. None of this is normal.

“You have to tell me what he took so we can help him.”

Him.

There was a him. There was an after Jack Abbot. A coworker’s friend. You were set up on a blind date, and he said all the right things. Marriage, babies, a pool in the backyard and a puppy to tear up your perfectly mowed lawn.

He wasn’t Jack. But he was offering you a new chance. A marriage not broken, hanging on by a thread with grief. No silence that screamed through the house and echoed off of the walls and made you want to crawl out of your skin.

He was offering you normal.

But it didn’t take long for normal to crumble again. You found out you were pregnant the day before you found out about his coke addiction.

You were so excited, clutching the positive pregnancy test in your fingers, heart racing in anticipation as you searched through his things for a place to hide it, hoping to surprise him by placing it somewhere for him to stumble upon. And that’s when you found it. Bags and bags of white powder shoved into a coat pocked in the closet.

Normal was ripped away from you again. Leaving claw marks behind as you tried your best to cling to it.

That was the first night he hit you.

 And it didn’t take long for his addiction to turn into infidelity, violence and abuse. There was a night where he beat you so close to unconsciousness that you nearly called Jack.

You cried in your daughter’s nursery that night while she slept, thankful she had been sleep trained. Fat, angry tears spilled from your eyes, soaking the rug beneath you with water, blood and whatever else was pouring out of you as you wailed in agony on the floor, arms wrapped around yourself, trying, and failing, to self-soothe. Desperate for any sort of comfort and soft touch. Your phone had been laying next to you, you could call him, you thought. But you didn’t let yourself. You broke his heart, you left him, wounded and bleeding and alone. Your sweet Jack, with more self-control in his pinky nail than your boyfriend has in his whole body.

The worst part was, you knew he’d be there in a second if you called.

You sighed. Shaking your head, one hand covering your eyes, fingers rubbing circles into your skin, forcing pressure into your eyes. You didn’t want to open them and see the look on your ex husband’s face.

Jack’s heart ached as he looked at you. Clothed in pink pajama pants and a green hoodie, terribly mismatched, obviously having left the house in a rush, holding onto your little girl’s hand as if she’d disappear if you let go. Your eye was a sickening black and purple, the lid so swollen he couldn’t even tell if you could see out of it. Your fingernails were bitten down to the nub, the skin surrounding them was torn and crusted with dried blood. They look like they hurt, and Jack just wanted to stop the hurt for you.

“I don’t want to talk about this in front of Luna.”

Jack leaned forward, just the slightest bit, a movement that would have gone unnoticed to anyone else. But you knew Jack too well, you knew he wanted to fight with you on this. That your boyfriend is a drug addicted abusive loser who doesn’t deserve his daughter to think highly of him.

“He’s still her father, Jack.”

As if eavesdropping, Dana pushed open the curtain.

“I’ve got a freezer full of ice cream, and I just can’t eat it all by myself. There happen to be anybody in here that could help me finish it off?”

Luna looked up at you, tugging on your hand, eyes wide with hope and excitement as she nodded. Jack felt like his heart was going to crawl out of his throat.

You knew Dana, of course you knew Dana. From your time spent being Jack’s wife, and even time after, having to take a few trips to the ER now and then for you or Luna, you would trust her with just about anything.

“Dr. Abbot, your wife is here.”

Jack froze. He doesn’t have a wife, but he knew it was you.

He didn’t care to look at who was talking to him, also not bothering to save his charts he had spent nearly an hour on before he was up, making a beeline to you. The room you were in was uttered by another doctor. He wasn’t looking, barely listening.

A tiny body on a gurney, chest compressions, orders being barked out, and you.

“Anaphylaxis.”

Your daughter was having a severe allergic reaction.

He didn’t care that you left him, that you moved on with another man for seemingly no reason. That you now had everything he ever wanted with someone else, leaving him to sit in his grief alone. You were shaking in the middle of an ER with your little girl being taken away from you.

He pulled you into his arms. He hated the feeling of you shaking, squeezing you impossibly tighter, one arm secured around your waist while his other hand held the back of your hand. Keeping you grounded, secure.

“Jack-“

“Doesn’t matter, okay? Breathe. Robby’s got her. She’s just fine.”

“Get me Abbot!”

Robby’s voice. He had to let go. He had to compartmentalize to assist his colleagues and save your daughter’s life. His arms felt heavy, almost glued to you as he unraveled you from himself. Before he could even think about what to do with you, like a saving grace, there was Dana. Arms soft but firm around your shoulders, leading you away to go sit somewhere quiet with her.

Jack saved Luna’s life that day, with being quick on his feet and ignoring the protocols from other doctors.

You never said thank you.

You nodded, letting go of Luna so she could run to Dana, the biggest smile, just like yours, painted on her face as Dana whisked her away, referring to herself as “Aunt D” while making hospital ice cream sound a lot more exciting than it actually was.

Jack selfishly wished that baby was his.

“Cocaine.” You sighed, once Luna was farther down the hall. “That’s all I know of.”

“Okay. Must’ve been laced with something. Cocaine alone wouldn’t do this. That information won’t help them now.’

You didn’t react, Jack wondered if you were even listening.

“The bruise?” He asked, cursing at himself as his voice failed him, faltering and breaking as he asked the question he was dreading. The question that made him feel sick to his stomach to even think about it.

“What would I have to say for you to believe it?”

Jack shrugged. You still wouldn’t meet his gaze. You didn’t glance in his direction, so he spoke up. “Don’t know.”

“Then I fell.”

You knew. You’re not stupid. You knew Jack would know that that’s a load of bull. You didn’t fall, you were punched. By the father of your child.

He said your name and your eyes fluttered closed. You’d missed the sound of your name on his lips.

“I don’t know what I ever did to make you hate me. Whatever it was, I’m sorry.” His voice sounded like it was being dragged across gravel, felt like it too. He coughed to keep the cry begging to escape down. Brinking profusely to get rid of the moisture rising in his eyes. “But, if you’re not going to leave for yourself, you need to leave for your little girl.”

Your eyes flooded with tears as you kept your head down, wet droplets splashing onto your finger tips as you picked at a fresh piece of skin, drawing new blood.

You could protect your daughter. You were handling it. He doesn’t dare touch her.

All things she was prepared to say as she picked her head up, only to be met with empty space.

Jack’s presence was suffocating, but his absence was heartbreaking. You wanted so badly to call out for him to come back, beg for his forgiveness, ask for help getting away from your boyfriend and gaining full custody of your daughter. But you just sat there, picking at your fingers.

Wishing you could go back to your normal.

-

Jack felt like ripping his own hair out of his head as Dana laid into him.

“There’s nothing I can do if she won’t be honest, Dana.”

The blonde woman scoffed. “Nothing you can do, Dr Abbot? You could maybe give a shit!”

Jack shook his head, his movements aggressive, almost as if trying to get water out of his ears.

“You don’t know what I give and don’t give.”

“You let her go back home to that man with a black eye, I think you’ve made what you give, very clear.”

Jack laughed, anything but humorous. Silence hung on the roof, heavy and thick. Out of the ordinary for the spot, usually loud with sirens, cars, and voices. Jack didn’t know if it was quiet or if he just couldn’t hear anything.

It’s been a week since you came into the ER with your boyfriend. A week since Dr. Robby was forced to save that man’s life. A week since you lied to Jack and he let you leave with him and Luna. He wasn’t avoiding Dana particularly; he was just in and out of work. Not even stopping to unwind  on the roof.

That is, until today, a little girl, not a day older than Luna, came in with bruises and self-defense injuries. She had to leave with CPS.

It was all too much.

And that’s where Dana finally found him, on the roof.

“You left her, and now look what-“

“I never left her.” Jack’s voice was low, not at all matching the rage he felt inside of him. He never was one to talk over a woman, but that had to be made clear.

Dana didn’t respond but Jack could hear a sharp inhale. “I didn’t leave her. She chose this. I have to keep my distance or I’ll never see her again.” His chin wobbled and Dana’s tense, intimidating stance deflated, her hands falling pathetically to her sides.

“Oh honey…”

“She was pregnant. We lost the baby-“ Jack folded in half, forearms resting on the railing, forehead pressed against the cool metal. His breathing was ragged. He realized then he hadn’t told anyone besides his therapist.

“She looked at me like it was my fault, I didn’t- I didn’t do anything to her. Not ever. God, I’d walk through hell if it meant she wasn’t hurting. Oh, god.” Jack’s voice was completely betraying him. His hand clutched his heart, as if that would stop it from nearly beating out of his chest.

He didn’t notice he was on his knees, hands planted firmly against the cement until Dana was right in front of him, hands tightly wound around his arms, telling him to breathe in and out in 3 counts. He didn’t notice he was dry heaving until a large hand was placed on his back, the presence so calming it stretched out on his skin like a healing balm. He felt like he could breathe.

“I lost my baby too. I lost my whole family and she won’t even look at me.”

His cries were gut wrenching. The kind of sound you never want to hear from a man. Especially a man who’s looked death and war in the eyes without a flinch.

A man completely undone.

“Breathe, brother.”

He nodded. If he was in his right mind, he’d be humiliated. A grown man, on all fours, having a panic attack, dry heaving on the roof of his place of work.

But he wasn’t in his right mind. This is not normal.

Robby broke the silence once Jack’s breathing went back to normal. “We can trust patterns and cycles. And if this pattern is true, Jack, she’s going to come back. And you can’t be crying on the roof when she does.”

“Screw you.”

-

“You ready for sabbatical, Dr. Abbot?”

Lena bumped his hip, a smile on her face. Jack rolled his neck, letting his head hang for a second before he nodded, fighting the urge to smile. He was really, really ready.

 3 months of no damn ED noise. Just 3 months of peace and quiet. He was antsy at the thought of getting to spend so much time completely alone, just him, his camper, and the essentials.

“Don’t say that out loud, it’ll hear you.”

“Who will hear me?”

Jack gave Lena a pointed look. She of all people should know the ED has a habit of jinxing you.

She had a playful smile on her face. She knew exactly what he meant.

“Just when you start to get your hopes up in this place it comes back to bite you in the ass.”

It’s been 5 months since he saw you. Robby’s voice rang in his head day in and day out.

“She’s going to come back.”

Your absence was making him crazy. More time on the roof, less time with patients. More time with his therapist, less time with friends. That’s when Robby suggested sabbatical. He wasn’t present. If Jack Abbot could barely be trusted with patients, something was seriously wrong.

“What if she comes back while I’m gone?”

Jack and Robby were sitting in the break room. Jack had just finally, reluctantly accepted sabbatical. Panic was evident, Robby could see it.

“Then I call you.”

“You gotta promise you’ll call me, man.”

“I promise.”

Under that agreement, Jack said fine. He’d go. But everyone in the Pitt ED knew if you came back the second he got in his car, he would get right back out of it.

Jack didn’t even make it to the end of his shift, let alone to the car, when you came back.

He felt a lot of things when he first saw you, relief, anger, betrayal, grief, to name a few. But all that was really running through his mind was that you looked… fine. No blood or bruising, just sheer panic on your face as your head whipped around in a million different directions, holding Luna in your arms.

What the hell were you doing?

Jack felt like he couldn’t stand straight when your eyes finally locked on him, tears immediately spilling.

And it unfortunately didn’t take Jack long to figure out why you looked so frantic.

Your boyfriend was barreling into the ED at full speed not far behind you.

Despite time in the military, saving men in the field, rushing to trauma bays, facing life and death situations, Jack genuinely believes he’s never moved so fast in his life.

He’s never seen Robby run as quickly as he is either.

Jack had to get to this guy first. He knew Robby would only try to stop him. Years of pent up rage was coursing in his veins and he almost felt sorry for the sucker that was going to be on the receiving end of this.

Almost.

This guy barely had a second to think when he collided with Jack, and he was down in less than a second, his face slamming against the ground as Jack held his arms back, legs straddled over him with his elbow pressed into his back.

“Abbot!”

“You so much as look in her or Luna’s direction again I’ll make sure it’s the last thing you ever do, are we clear?”

A warning. He has put his hands on you and he’s getting a warning.

“I think it’s best if you respond because I am being incredibly generous with this offer.” His voice was spitting poison. This wasn’t a threat it was a promise. He was going nowhere near his girls ever again.

He doesn’t even know how long he kept him there, enjoying (probably too much) the view of his bloodied face pressed against the dirty floor of the ER.

“Abbot the police are here, let them handle it.”

He was reluctant to let go, but unlike the man beneath him, he had self-control.

So, he nodded, and he got up. He let the police take over, handcuffing him and reciting his rights to him as they dragged him out. And as much as Jack wanted to stay around for the show, he had to find you. Luckily, Dana was there, always at the perfect moment, and was quick to lead him to the breakroom, where she decided to take you the second she saw Jack break into a sprint.

Dana didn’t let him in just yet. “Listen to me, Jack. And I mean listen. I took Luna to bed 3. She’s got finger shaped bruises on her arm.” Jack’s head whipped in that direction, but Dana laid a hand on his chest. “Hey. But your wife, is in here. She told me everything. He tried to take Luna and she didn’t let him. The second he grabbed Luna, she was out the door and in the car with her. Coming to you. He followed them here.” Dana’s voice was at a low volume, soft, as if you’d hear through the door and get offended.

“She’s not my-“

“That’s your forever, honey. I’ve got Luna. Go on.”

You were in there alone, pacing back and forth, tearing the skin off of your poor fingers. Seeing you up close, Jack could finally, really see you. And it made him sick.

Bruises of different colors, in different healing stages, littered your arms. Scars, old, new and healing, messily stitched, as if you did them yourself. A bruise around your eye was yellowing, your left eye was red where it should be white, blood leaking into it, caused from being struck.

“Baby.”

You felt so selfish but you nearly fell into him. You needed this. You needed him. You needed him like you needed air. You were missing a piece of you, a limb from your body that was Jack Abbot. You had been functioning without your soul and you needed him back.

“Oh, honey.” Jack couldn’t hold his tears as he steadied you, his hands ghosting over your skin. “God, what has he done to you?” His lip quivered, and he caught it in his mouth as he inhaled sharply, his heart broken clean in half at the sight of you.

“Jack I’m so sorry.” Your hands were frantic on him, clutching his scrubs, smoothing over the material, then grabbing at him again, staring straight at his chest as you tried to will away the ugly feelings.

Jack gathered you into his arms, holding you exactly how he knew you needed it and you cried. You apologized over and over, you told him you loved him over and over, and he just held you. He whispered “thank you” and “I love you too” into your hair.

“You were grieving too and I- oh gosh I left you. I left you and I wasn’t the only one that lost my baby.”

You were panicking.

“I was so selfish. I am so selfish. I couldn’t even see past my-“

Jack was shushing you, trying so hard to get you to stop talking so you would breathe. He peeled your face off of his chest, holding your head in his hands as he brushed your hair back. Just cooing and shushing and doing anything he could to soothe your panic.

“Jack I miss our baby.” You threw your hands over your eyes, much like how a little girl would when she would start to cry and Jack nearly sank to his knees. His trauma, his grief, none of that could compare to the searing pain he felt when those words came tumbling out of your lips.

“Oh, my girl.” Jack sank to the ground as you did. Holding you as if you were taking your last breaths and if anyone asked you, it felt like you were.

“My sweet girl. I know. I miss her too.”

Your cries were strangled, holding onto Jack like he was a lifeline.

Your baby girl. You never found out for sure, it being too early to tell the gender, but both of you just knew.

“But hey, you have a beautiful baby out there waiting for you. Probably scared, wondering where her mama is. You’ve got her, honey. Feel your grief but don’t let it take you. She needs you. I-“

Jack hesitated, unsure if you were ready to hear his words.

“I need you.”

You were quiet for a long time. He was being too easy on you. Too forgiving. You turned your back on him during his loss and you doubled it, making him grieve you too. Making him watch as you had the life he wanted to have with you, leaving him alone in a cold apartment with nothing but a bed and a table with one chair. He let you have the house. The house you lived in with him.

“Come back home.”

Jack exhaled as he looked at you, eyes glassy. He said your name and it confirmed that all you wanted was him.

“I can’t go back there, sweetheart.”

You should’ve known. Jack’s a good man, he wouldn’t just discard you, but he couldn’t be with you again. You went too far, hurt him too bad.

Almost reading your mind, he spoke. “You were hurting so bad. Buried in your grief. You could’ve stabbed me in the heart and I wouldn’t have blamed you for it. I was grieving too, that’s right.” His shaky hand pushed hair out of your face as you looked up at him, hanging onto his every word. “You deserve forgiveness for acting in your grief. And I’ve been waiting for an invitation back home for a long time. So, let’s do it the right way. Somewhere new.”

You wanted to weep at his forgiveness. Knowing you, you probably wouldn’t have been able to do what he’s done. Keep his head up, keep working, keep moving, save lives, and forgive.

Jack Abbot was a good man.

“You may have stopped being my wife, but I never stopped being your husband. You have all of me.”

“I don’t deserve it.”

“Maybe you don’t. But you have it anyway.”

-

“Daddy!”

“Hey, Lula, daddy’s here, baby.”

Jack always had softness in his voice. Usually used with you, or with scared female patients, or sick children. But the softness he used with Luna was something new. Something so delicate that was specially reserved for her.

Since living with Jack, Luna started getting nightmares about her father. Some scared her so badly she would throw up. Having so many of your own, it was triggering and becoming tiring for you to continue comforting her.

Jack wanted to do it, since the first time it happened, he wanted to do it. So when you finally caved, and let him jump out of bed to run to your room, he was ecstatic. Not that Luna was having a nightmare, but that he got to do this for her.

It quickly became a routine. If she’s sick or hungry, or had an accident call for mommy. If she had a nightmare or there’s an emergency, call for Jack. And eventually, calling for Jack turned into calling for daddy.

He had his baby girl. She may not look like him, but that was his baby.

“It was the scary man again.” Luna cried into Jack’s shoulder, little nails digging into his skin.

These nights didn’t get any easier.

“As long as I’m here nothing’s gonna hurt you, baby. Promise.”

The nights where he’d curse himself for not intervening earlier. For allowing you to walk out of the ER that night. For allowing this to happen.

“If it’s anyone’s fault, Jack, it’s mine.” You assured him as he climbed back into bed, voicing his thoughts to you.

“You had nothing to go off of. I lied to you.” You tried to play it off, but Jack heard your voice crack.

“Hey, come here.”

When Jack speaks, you listen.

You allowed him to pull your body on top of his. You allowed him to comfort you in the safety of his arms as he let his fingers drag up and down your back.

Jack Abbot, all man yet nauseatingly gentle.

“What have we talked about?” He asked.

“There’s no one to blame except for him.”

“That’s my girl.” He praised, pressing a kiss to your hairline.

Things were nowhere near perfect. Your PTSD pushed Jack away over and over, but he never walked away, and neither did you. Luna looked entirely too much like her dad, yet the spitting image of you, and all Jack when it came to mannerisms. Your house you were renting was small, but it was safe, and it kept the three of you close during an essential time of healing.

Not perfect.

The thrill of the catch—having an epiphany during an odd case, and grabbing hold of a diagnosis others were so far from discovering, made you feel invincible, and all the trials and tribulations thus well worth it in the end, however. You were saving lives. How many others can say the same about their occupation? Most otherwise work in trade or retail or from cushy corner offices. Which isn't to say that they're not all vital bees in the buzzing hive which is the world, but they're no Michael Robinavitch or Dana Evans or Jack Abbot.

Local rockstars to you they are. Or...were.

That began before long, too: burnout. Your days turning into a monotonous, psychologically draining cycle. No more do you walk out the Pitt's doors and it feels like you're coming back through them again, greeted not by smiles and welcoming sentiments, but by screaming, ungrateful patients who just keep dying.

Covid leveled your world and ripped the rose-colored glasses from your eyes that you once wore so happily. It ingrained such trauma within you that you didn't know where to put it.

There was no time for therapy.

Not that you probably would've gone had there been—making such an appointment was like accepting defeat; admitting that something had gone wrong with you.

That your brain was sick.

You power through the nightmares; the fleeting reminders of things you'd rather forget when a machine beeps a certain way, or an item of PPE flashes in your peripheral as a co-worker pulls it on. It'll move through you eventually, you tell yourself; work its way out of your system just like a virus or a nasty cold.

It won't last forever.

Or...you'd thought as much, anyway.

Lately, for the last few months, things have gotten exceptionally hard. You're both sleeping and not. When you get home, it's all you really want to do. As of late, you forgo dinner in favor of it. The scale in your bathroom reflects this change.

Runway models should really invest in giving healthcare a go for awhile instead of diet pills, you think. It'd work faster.

When you do rest, however, it's fitfully. You toss and turn, toss and turn. No more does your head hit the pillow and it seems like your alarm is screaming at you to get out of bed to get back to it.

You're withdrawn at work. Talking expends energy. Effort, even. Not that you want to conserve it. You just don't much like people anymore.

They've changed. At once they were so friendly. Human beings you liked talking to. Now, you'd rather drink bleach than carry on any sort of conversation at length. The same kind of goes for patients. You've thus been faltering in your bedside manner, and little handout review sheets reflect it. Something new enacted by those at the top of the hospital.

There's no thanks for the good you do, only chastisement for the bad. Bad, bad, bad. That's what you are.

You think maybe others can see it: this grotesque thing that's broken inside of you. You can't fix it. Not when you're not wholly sure what it is. Just...a part that can't be reached, you suppose. It's okay, though, if people don't want you around. You've never been terribly good with them, you think. Always saying the wrong thing, or making the moment needlessly awkward by inserting yourself where you clearly were never wanted.

It's better now—you pulling away. Retreating. Retracting.

They're happier, it seems, with you removed from their everyday.

The thoughts begin as mere daydreams in time, since you find yourself with little else to do in the quieter moments: pills, razors, rope, a speedometer climbing well past ninety. You toy with them like a Rubik's Cube—turning them this way and that, figuring which best suits you.

It becomes sort of exhilarating, really—knowing that there's such an incredibly easy way out of it all. And that it's always there, awaiting you. Like a friend. Something you can both lean and rely on.

You like that fact.

That peaceful feeling becomes...very hard to escape once it's implanted itself within your mind like a hard to pull root from a noxious weed. As in, impossible.

It haunts your steps in the hall, sits with you in the staff lounge, visits with you at home... It even comes with you to the toilet, it's so prevalent.

You could always take a bottle of pills from work. Ones that would just let you drift off to sleep. Peaceful and painless. No better option, in your opinion.

You tuck the thought away for possible later use.

You throw yourself fully into your work and turn on blinders to anything outside of it. You let yourself become a machine—merely doing as you are bid without quarrel. It seems to please people when you go along with them; are at their beck and call and always of agreement with their opinions and assumptions. It's strange how different social hierarchy becomes when you've set aside any personality of your own.

But you're not perfect. Sometimes your mind becomes fuzzy. You think maybe it's atrophying. And that equates to the occasional mistake.

Abbot dislikes when you give a patient double the dosage of a medication of what he instructed you to. It made them a little sick—some vomiting and a seizure—but they survived. Meanwhile, he'd pulled you aside and you stared while occasionally blinking as he told you why what you did was so dangerous.

Bad, bad, bad.

At one time, he'd liked you. Gave you extra attention and often let his hands rest on your shoulders or lower back. One time he caressed your cheek, which had made it warm pleasantly in response. Now that you're no longer his shining star, though—having burnt out so long ago—you think he'd rather you weren't around.

You should do something about that fact.

"We cannot afford mistakes like that, Y/N. Do you have any idea what that opens us up to?" He questions. Pressing one finger to the other, he supplies you an answer so you don't have to come up with one. You're glad for that.

You don't think you could if you tried.

"Lawsuits, a revocation of your medical license, an inquiry by the Medical Board..." He trails off after counting off so many digits.

You nod. "I understand, Doctor Abbot," the girl devoid of light and life says. "It won't happen again. I promise."

He gives a smile and a nod, pats you on the shoulder—a gesture which you flinch away from since you really dislike being touched lately for some reason—and tells you that that's exactly what he wants to hear before walking away from you.

You should just kill yourself.

It's what you think anytime you screw up now. Drop and break a glass at home? Suicide. Get berated by a superior at work? Suicide. Take too long to go after a light has turned green and a driver behind you honks their horn? Suicide.

Such a burden you've become. Maybe you've always been? You're not sure. You hope not, but if so, you wouldn't be surprised.

You start making preparations before your big, metaphorical trip.

Typing away on a computer, you drown out the hubbub of your surroundings—choosing to instead focus solely on the digital chart before you. When your eyes begin to grow a bit blurry, however, you glance up and idly watch as individuals in blue and black and grey scrubs come and go.

You pick Doctor Robby to observe for a bit.

You'd adored him at one time. For awhile, actually. You liked how tall he was, and his neatly trimmed beard. His Carhart pants and how he commanded authority while still being gentle in instruction. The timbre of his voice reverberating through your ear canal when he stood close as you tended to patients sent chills up your spine. It was like finely ground coffee: dark, but nevertheless smooth and tempting.

When he started calling you by various pet names around the Pitt, you'd stupidly humored yourself by believing that perhaps he felt similarly—had a hidden crush, same as you. You'd become almost certain of it one night when he gave you a ride home because your car wouldn't turn over due to a corroded battery.

Your heart had rhythmically thumped away between your breasts as you watched his hands turn the steering wheel—half hoping he'd take you home with him like a stray.

He never did.

Now, he doesn't so much as give you a second glance.

Maybe it makes you a narcissist to have assumed there was a mutual attraction. Not everyone wants you. In fact, no one does. If only you'd figured it out sooner, you would've saved yourself so much trouble in chasing after those who only wanted to get far away from you.

You lower your head then turn to the left where Santos sits with a recorder, dictating her own patient's chart. You wait until there's a pause, then speak—take your first steps in making your plan a reality.

"Hey, Trinity?" You ask quietly.

Swiveling around in your direction from atop an office chair, she toys with her recorder. "Yeah?"

"Do you like records?"

Her brows furrow. "Yeeeah. Why?"

You shrug indifferently while typing a few more words. "I'm getting rid of my collection. I thought that maybe you'd like to have them."

Her brows raise in surprise. "I mean, how much are you asking?"

You shake your head while hitting the space bar. "No charge."

She scooches closer—sure that this is too good to be true. "Wait. Are you actually serious? I mean, vinyl is like stupid expensive right now. You wanna just give yours away? To me?"

You nod. "I don't listen to them anymore." Picking up your phone, you wave it haphazardly before tossing it down with a thud. "If I want to listen to music now, I just stream it."

You look at her over your shoulder. "They're just collecting dust. You can have them all. Do whatever you like with them. Keep them, sell them, gift them." You shrug. "Makes no difference to me."

She beams at the prospect of furthering her collection, and for entirely free, at that. "Yeah, hundred percent I want them."

You save the chart you've just completed. "They're in my trunk. I'll get them to you once our shift is through."

For the next two weeks, you continue on with offloading your life onto others. You give Samira your clothes in multiple garbage bags. Mel your books, McKay some decorative figures you kept on your bookshelves for her son, Javadi your jewelry and accessories, and the nurse's station your stationary in all its organized glory.

When Dana tries showing concern—asking as to why you're doing this, sarcastically asking if you're moving—you shrug it off and tell her it's just a bit of spring cleaning.

She frowns, knowing that it's the tail-end of summer.

Once your apartment is nearly devoid of any sign that you once lived in it, you cry from joy.

You're so close now. Just a few more loose ends, and you'll be ready to go.

Abbot is the first to go out of his way to speak to you. He deems it good—great, even—that you're in a better mood today. He's heard...troubling news. Spring cleaning, you'd called it to Dana. But sometimes people just choose to declutter their lives, right? Especially in this line of work, it's way too easy to let your living space become an absolute wreck because you can't be bothered to expend the energy to clean it up on a regular basis.

Makes it easier the less you've got to deal with. And when you practically live in scrubs... Well, who needs dress clothes, right?

Bumping his shoulder against yours, and sending your fingers flying across the keyboard you stand at, you begin backspacing to fix your typos.

He doesn't like those.

"You seem better today," he remarks. "That's good. Got some big plans after work or somethin'?" He asks curiously.

You smile with warmth. If you were the sun—which, here in the Pitt, at one time you were—he could stand within the light your rays provide for forever. "I do," you say quietly, with cheer.

He raises a brow and his lips tug into a smirk. "Oh yeah? What's that?"

You shrug. "It's a surprise."

He leans in close. "Not for me, is it?" He whispers.

You turn to him, and he nearly stumbles back. The tone of your voice and your general demeanor... They don't match the vacant look in your eyes whatsoever. They don't... They don't even look like they're yours.

"You're a good doctor, Jack," you say while gently resting a hand against his upper arm. "I don't think I've ever told you how grateful I am that I was given a chance to learn from you. PTMC is really lucky to have you here."

His brows furrow and the smile slips from his face. "Sweetheart, you're starting to freak me out here."

Couldn't even do that right, you think. Just further confirmation that you're indeed making the right choice. "I'm sorry," you say while stepping away. "It won't happen again. Have a nice evening, Dr. Abbot."

You give Mel an unexpected hug before she's due to head home for the day. She stumbles back, hesitates for a moment, then returns it with a feeble embrace. "Becca is really fortunate to have such a caring sister. It makes me happy you two have one another," you tell her with a squeeze.

She steps back while flushing and nervously adjusting her glasses. "Y-Yeah. Me too."

You part from her with a nod, and let her go on her way.

Later on, you catch Mohan at her locker and lean against your own. Yours, which can been completely cleaned out, minus your stethoscope. They'll open it eventually. You left a note to please give the item to someone who needs it. Or just...keep it in the inventory as an extra incase another's becomes faulty.

"I know Robby has been kind of hard on you lately," you say quietly.

She doesn't speak.

"But you have so much talent with patients. You take their feelings into consideration. A lot of providers let this job get the better of them and their care suffers for it." You gently grip her wrist. "Don't let him turn you into someone you're not."

Just as she turns to say something, you've gone.

Dennis has just slung his backpack over his shoulder when you jog to catch up to him by the ambulance bay's doors. "Hey," you say, settling a hand atop his shoulder.

He turns with a surprised look on his face.

"I wanted you to know that I think what you're doing for Amy and her baby is really...sweet. Commendable." You drop your hand and smile. "Are you happy?"

He grins and glances down to his shoes while nodding. "Yeah. I-I am. I think she is, too."

You turn your head to the right and watch as a truck pulls up outside. "Don't let her go, Dennis." You look back to him. "Family is important. Make sure you don't let this place become the only one you have."

He raises a brow and makes to step forward—to question what's going on—until you take a few steps back. "I gotta go, but you two drive safe. Okay?"

"I'll see ya tomorrow, kid," Dana calls from behind you.

Slowly turning round to face her, you look at Emma who's seated just to her side. "You've got a good teacher here," you say while nodding to the older blonde. "So you listen to her and soak up everything you can. Having Dana as your guide here in the Pitt is invaluable."

Emma nods with a toothy smile. "I will."

Your eyes flit back to Dana. "See you around," you whisper.

By the end of your shift, things feel different. For the first time in maybe years, you feel content. At peace. Could it mean that things are...worth a second try? You'd not even considered that such a thought would cross your mind.

But there it sits, like a gift waiting to be unwrapped.

Exiting through the sliding doors of the ambulance bay, you step out from beneath the overhead coverage that extends outward and stare up at the stars. You'd meant to be dancing amongst them tonight, but...plans can always change.

You look to the right, and find Robby strapping a bag to the rear luggage wrack of his motorcycle. Maybe... Maybe he can help? He'll know what to do, because you know this moment won't last. You have to reach out and ask for him to hold your hand through this while you've still got the mental fortitude at your disposal to do so.

Crossing your arms, you walk over to him. "Hey, Robby?"

Tightening a bungee cord into place, he raises a brow. "Hm?"

"Could I talk to you about something? It's—"

He sighs with irritation and runs a tired hand down his face. "I was really hoping to get going. Guess I didn't move fast enough." He turns to you with crossed arms as well, matching your stance. "Can this not wait until morning?"

Your eyes flit between his.

So much happens in that moment.

Your resolve shatters into irreparable shards which slice through any hope you'd had but a moment ago, and a confirmation is granted to you. Confirmation that you chose right all along.

What's meant to be will be.

And with the small orange bottle in your pocket, you'll make it so.

It's okay now.

You force a reassuring smile and shake your head. "Sure. It wasn't important. It doesn't matter." You take a step back. "I'm sorry for bothering you. Have a nice night. And—and drive safe, ok?"

He barely pays you any mind as he mounts his motorcycle and drives away.

Waiting for your Uber to arrive, you continue studying the stars. They just...look like they'd take such good care of you, y'know? Never would they let you fall or falter. They act as one.

But, so, too, are they already dead.

You suppose that's rather fitting.

"You need a ride?"

Glancing to your left, you find Frank watching you with a curious look on his face.

You shake your head. "No, thank you, I have an Uber coming."

He nods. "Car in the shop?"

You shrug and look away. You donated it to a local charity yesterday, actually. You'd been rather surprised to find out such things existed. They repurpose them for homeless youth and single mothers and the like. It'll go to someone in need.

That makes you happy.

Your phone dings that your driver is 5 minutes away.

Standing, you pad over to Frank. "I'm really proud of you for going to rehab, Langdon."

He tucks his phone away into his pocket. "Yeah, well, Robby didn't exactly give me another choice."

You chew your lip. "It was the right thing. For you...and your children." Meeting his eyes, you crook your head to the side. "They need their dad. Your sobriety is a big deal. You should be proud of it, too."

His brows furrow.

"This hospital needs you here. I'm glad you came back."

Tires crunch against asphalt, and a white SUV pulls up.

When you start toward it, Frank takes a small step forward. "Are—are you okay?"

After popping open the back passenger door, you look at him over your shoulder. "I am. I know what I have to do now."

He thinks to reach out for you. "I'll see you tomorrow, alright?"

You swing a leg inside. "Goodbye, Frank."

With that, you shut the door behind you.

An empty plastic bottle crinkles quietly between your shaking hands.

On the floor, a pill bottle lies on its side. It's contents currently dissolving in your stomach acid.

Looking around the nearly empty space you occupy, you tell yourself that you can't go back. There's nothing left. Even out in the hall sits yet another box of odds and ends you didn't know what else to do with. So you merely drew on the front of it 'FREE' with a smiley face and sat it next to your apartment door.

Someone will rifle through it and take what they like; give the things inside a second home.

Leaning back against the headboard behind you, you swallow thickly as hot tears practically singe your cheeks. The truth you don't want to admit now is that you're scared. You don't want to die like this: alone, and in what has now become a strange place.

What if no one comes in the next few days? You don't want them to find your body bloated and rotting; infested with flies and maggots that crawl inside your mouth and ears.

Fighting against how your head swims when you turn it, you reach for your phone. You grip it as hard as you can and jerk your unsteady limb back to you. Plopping the device onto the mattress you're seated upon, it takes four tries before you manage to punch in the correct pin code.

You dial 3 numbers, then wait.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

"911, what is your emergency?"

"Pleeease," you slur. "I changed my mind."

"—Female. Unconscious. Pulse is bradycardic and thready," the EMT informs Abbot and his team as he rounds the back of the van. "She told 911 about a half hour ago that she swallowed a bottle of Prozac."

Popping open the door, he turns back to Abbot and shoves the empty bottle into his hands. "She must've stole them, seeing as a man's name is on the bottle. We found it on the floor of her apartment. I figured you all would want it when you try to treat her."

Helping his partner get the gurney out of the van, the bottom wheels fall and clatter to the ground before locking into place.

"Oh my God," McKay exclaims before clamping both her hands over her mouth.

Having come back around to morning time, the rest of the day shift will soon be arriving.

Meanwhile, Abbot knows he can't leave now.

He'll work a 24 hour fucking shift if he has to.

When the other EMT exits the rig, he looks between the crowd of unmoving bodies. "You all know her or something?"

"She fucking works here," Toomarian replies before stumbling back.

Jack shakes his head, then begins firing on all cylinders as his body jumps into motion. "McKay, Shen, you two are with me. Henderson, get your ass inside and tell Handzo that I need a room cleared. We're going to intubate and then perform a gastric lavage."

He glances around. "I said now! Move your asses!" He shouts.

Standing outside, Robby watches as your body lifts off the hospital bed you've been transferred to. With numb, shaking fingers tangled painfully in his hair, he yanks tightly against the strands. Jack glances to the monitor, shakes his head, then commands McKay to try again.

"Please," he cries through clenched teeth. "Fuck," he curses. "It's all my fucking fault."

When he came in for his shift, your room was the first one he bothered peeking into, and it stopped him cold in his tracks before he barked at Whitaker to help him suit up so he could help.

A gesture which didn't last long when he backed into a tray of sterile instruments once inside, and thus sent them scattering across the floor. Panicking, he tried picking them up as a series of apologies spilled from his lips. Aimed toward you, Jack, or the team which was trying to save you, he's unsure. In the end, he sliced his hand open with a ten blade. As blood oozed from the wound, Jack shouted for him to get out. To have someone stitch him up while he otherwise kept his focus strictly on you.

"No, I-I have to s-stay. I can do it. We have to fucking save her, Jack."

Jack had leveled him with a glare. "I am going to do every goddamn thing I can to ensure that she doesn't slip away from us, but you have got to leave this room. You're breaking my concentration. It's already hard enough!"

Forcing her way inside, Dana shoved against his chest to guide him out of the room. Stumbling backward, Robby pointed at Jack. "You fucking bring her back. You bring her back to us or I'll never forgive you!"

Now, here he stands in the middle of a fast-moving ED with over a dozen stitches in a hand that's wrapped in gauze, praying to a God who stopped listening long ago to take him instead if it meant sparing you.

It's all his fault.

You had tried to talk to him. Had given living one last try. And he couldn't be bothered to spare five minutes.

The lump in his throat becomes too much to breathe or swallow over.

Robby starts choking on his own saliva.

His heart squeezes painfully in his chest and his knees buckle out from under him.

Falling to the floor, Dana runs to his side. "Hey, Rob, Robby, look at me. What's goin' on, big guy?"

He clutches at his chest. "MI," he pants.

"I need a gurney over here!"

A panic attack.

He'd hoped for worse, because then it would mean God had actually obliged his only request.

Sitting in a hospital bed with his head held hopelessly between his hands, he refuses to face the room that lies across the way. Peds.

So much horror its walls have bore witness to.

But also love and care.

Like the day of PittFest. Another moment which saw Robby at his lowest; collapsed in on himself like a dying star. You were the one who pulled him out of the darkness, though.

Caressing his face between careful hands, you swiped tears from his cheeks while telling him that you understood—had been where he sat so many times (why didn't he see it then?)—but still nevertheless needed him that day. That you both had essential work to do which you wanted him at your side for, and after is when he could break. In your arms, if that's what he required.

Did he kiss you then? Or was that an imagined dream he drew up in his muddled head?

Shoving off the bed he occupies with a huff, Robby does exactly that: gets to work. It's what you would want. And the only way he won't fall apart again. Because if he continues sitting there thinking up worst case scenarios, he'll never make it out of here alive.

The whole department has spent the day on-edge. Jack has assured them that the worst has passed, but until... Unless you woke up, you weren't totally out of the woods.

Practically everyone sticks around until well after their shifts are through—waiting with bated breath—to see if you'll open your eyes.

For what it's worth, piles of your things begin arriving in droves when people realize you hadn't just been cleaning out your apartment like you said.

You'd been preparing never to come back.

For the absolute worst of reasons.

They each take turns visiting with you. Apologizing. Or just telling stories.

Besides Robby and Abbot, Frank takes it the hardest. He was the last person you spoke to. He tells Jack over and over and over again that he should've stood in front of the fucking car if it meant making you stay. That he knew—he knew—in his gut what you had planned.

Mel has bumped into patients and coworkers alike so many times while passing by your room that 'sorry' has become her word of the day.

Dana stays quiet. She merely watches from beneath the board, awaiting the opening of your pretty eyes again.

Javadi quietly asks Jack when—not if—you wake up, he'll have you put on an involuntary psyche hold. He tells her that psyche will be called for a consult, but what happens from there will be out of his hands. All he knows is that he has to make sure this never happens again.

When his chin begins to wobble as he smooths hair from your brow is when she takes her leave.

When his shift nears 20 hours, Jack finally takes a seat at your bedside. Holding your limp hand between each of his, he presses it to his lips. "You have people waiting for you," he murmurs. "I am waiting for you. Robby is. Sweetheart," he cups your cheek and your head lulls to the side. "I love you."

He begins to cry. "Why the fuck I didn't say it sooner I—" He shakes his head. "I thought it'd be unprofessional. You were my subordinate." He lowers his head. "Goddamn coward." Lifting his head again, he kisses your fingertips. "I'm saying it now. I mean, how could I not fall for you?"

A knock sounds from the door.

Robby.

Pushing open the glass entrance, he steps inside. "Still nothing?" He asks quietly.

Jack shakes his head. "Not yet. But she'll wake up soon. She has to."

Seating himself on the side of your bed, Robby cups your cool cheek in his palm. "You came to me. You needed me and I wasn't there." He runs the pad of his thumb along the curve of your jaw. "But I am now. I will spend as much time as I have to fixing this; making it up to you."

Leaning down, he hesitates, then presses a soft kiss to your lips.

But that only works in the stories...

"Rest of my life if I have to."

Jack falls asleep slumped over in his chair—his head resting beside you and his fingers firmly intertwined between your own. Robby took up position at your side in bed. Holding you close to him with his hoody draped over your chest, he tucked you just beneath his chin before drifting off.

As long as your heart still beats, they've each something to hold onto.

Your awakening is sluggish; gradual. Pulling yourself from the primordial sludge which deigned to hold you meant fighting a battle you weren't sure you could win.

But when you stir quietly, and feel warm bodies on either side of you, accompanied by the sound of quiet snoring, you know you've come out the other side victorious.

"Welcome back," drawls a thickly accented, feminine voice from across the way. "Had a lot of people worried, kid."

The rumbling chest you're pressed against quiets, then shifts. Pressing your head back against the soft pillow beneath it, you stare up at Robby's tear-stricken face. He doesn't speak. He merely smiles before cupping your cheek in his palm and pressing his lips to yours.

You're far too exhausted to think on it.

You'd thought he didn't care. What else have you been wrong about as of late?

Your right hand suddenly released, Jack stands, then seats himself on your bedside. "We're going to take care of you. Alright? I promise."

Leaning down, he kisses you next.

Dana turns back to the nurse's station.

7:43 am. PTMC. July 4th. 

“Where the hell is my resident?” Robby tossed his hands out as Dana walked by. 

“She no called no showed. That’s why I called Langdon in.” She gave Robby a look that appeared to say: ‘I’m sorry, but not really.’

“That’s very unlike her.” He argued in a sing-song voice. 

Dana shrugged and turned back towards the nurses’ station, not her problem. 

6:09 am. Pittsburgh neighborhood. July 4th. 

You were running late this morning. You yawned as you anxiously jogged towards the T train you rode to work. You lived farther from PTMC than ideal. And when your car broke down three months ago, it was your last priority to get it fixed as a broke resident. So, public transportation it was. 

You didn’t mind it, in fact the train ride normally helped calm your nerves on the way to work. A mindless ride where you didn’t have to focus on other drivers or endless city traffic. 

You shouldered your bag as the crosswalk lit up with the ‘walk’ symbol. Without a second thought, you crossed the street, your mind focused on not missing the next train. As you entered the striped crosswalk, an SUV took a right turn too hard, not noticing you in the soft morning light. You went down hard. 

Your ears were ringing and your vision blurred. You briefly recall reaching for your head and the slam of a car door before everything went black. 

You woke in the ambulance, the loud siren enhancing the pounding in your head. 

“Try not to move!” the paramedic shouted as she leaned over you. “Can you tell me your name?” Her brows were scrunched and you inhaled sharply at the overwhelming surroundings. 

You were in and out of consciousness the rest of the ride, your brain fuzzy and forgetful. 

6:56 am. Westbridge Hospital. July 4th. 

The hospital closest to your apartment was not your place of work. As they wheeled you in from the ambulance, you could barely stay awake. You groaned as they pushed you into the unfamiliar trauma room. 

“Ma’am? Ma’am, can you tell us your name?”

They moved you onto the table and your face scrunched in discomfort. You wanted to answer them, but your mind was too muddled. You heard the paramedic continue. “We didn’t see an ID or anything at the scene. She has scrubs on, does she work here?”

“I don’t recognize her. Scrubs could mean anything.” The doctor, you assume, answers. 

Your eyes squeeze shut. No ID? Where was your bag? Fuck, your hospital badge was in there. 

“Stay awake, sweetie. Open your eyes for me.” A softer voice was saying. Your eyes watered when you opened them again. 

“My bag-” You coughed. 

“What? What was that?” The nurse asked. 

You groaned. Your body felt hard and stiff, yet gelatin-like at the same time. You could recognize the assessments they were performing even in your disoriented state- assessments you performed on a daily basis. Your neck and airway were observed, vitals announced, a bright light was shone in your face, and a superficial glance for wounds. You felt the cold blade of scissors as your scrubs were cut. Your body was rolled, orders were shouted. 

You felt completely overwhelmed. You were having trouble understanding and processing what was going on, and you could feel blood dripping from your hairline. 

“Pulse is rising!” A new voice shouted. “BP dropping.”

“She’s in shock.” The doctor’s voice was loud. “Definitely have some internal bleeding in the left abdomen. Someone page surgery.”

“Does she need CT?”

“If we can stabilize her.”

Your blinking was hard and you felt your eyes flutter before you passed out. 

9:53 am. PTMC. July 4th. 

“We’re getting all Westbridge reroutes!” Dana’s voice sounded through the ER. 

A collective panic and disappointment filled the department, but the day moved on as it always did. 

11:41 pm. PTMC. Two weeks ago. 

You were covering a night shift for Ellis. Only catch, she couldn’t switch shifts. So, here you were working a double. You yawned as you caught up on some charting. An open cup of hot coffee landed next to your keyboard. 

You glanced up and smiled at the attending. “Thanks.” You took a sip. 

Jack smiled and gave you a small nod. “Night shift misses you.” He quirked. 

You rolled your eyes playfully. “I do not miss the all-nighters.” You tried to keep your focus on the screen in front of you. 

“Ah, they’re not that bad. You get used to them. You would have.” He nodded. 

You had switched to the day shift last month after a long year on the night shift rotation. You loved the night shift staff, and working under Abbot and Shen taught you a lot- but the constant overnight shifts were killing you. Along with the butterflies that filled your stomach when your boss was around. You started picking up day shifts, and with Langdon’s absence the past few months, Robby finally let you fill in for a few weeks full time. 

“Maybe.” You sigh and lean your head back to look at his form standing over you. “Why? You guys miss me down here?” You joke. 

“Some of us more than others.” He smirks, and you try to hide the immediate blush his words ignite. You shake your head. 

Abbot was fond of you and he knew it was apparent. He respected your character and your work ethic immensely. He was hard on you when you needed a push, but he held a strong soft spot for you. And he liked to throw out the occasional flirty line that sent your stomach spinning. 

He laughs quietly and moves on with a tap of his fist to the counter. You watch him retreat to a patient’s room, eyes trailing over his hard back. 

12:46 pm. PTMC. July 4th. 

Robby was pulled into the second motorcycle accident of the day. Beds were filling up and it was a great relief when Dr. Jack Abbot showed up early for his shift. He’d heard about the Westbridge closure and assumed the pitt would need all the help they could get. He’d taken a moment to change out of some of his tactical gear when Dana announced, “Incoming trauma from Westbridge! Car accident victim.” 

Dr. Al-Hashimi got up from her spot at the nurses’ station. She nodded for Joy to join her, grabbing gloves and heading for the ambulance bay. When they arrived, the paramedics were more frantic than she expected. 

“Car accident victim. Young female- looks to be late twenties, early thirties. She was awaiting surgery at Westbridge, but her vitals tanked on the way here. We had to bag her.” The paramedic squeezed the intubation bag as they walked speedily into the ER. Al-Hashimi nodded along. The paramedic continued, “Internal bleeding of the abdomen, possible TBI, vitals unstable. And she had no ID on her. Westbridge went into lockdown before they could search the system. We got a Jane Doe on our hands.” 

“Put her in Trauma Two!” Dana shouted without looking up from her chart. 

Jack glanced up from the computer he was working at as they pushed you down the hall. His brows furrowed and denial filled him as he registered who was on the stretcher. There was no way. His stomach sank. 

“Woah, woah, woah!” He shouted, jumping up from his seat. Eyes across the ER fell to his jogging form as he rushed over. “That’s not a Jane Doe! Fuck-” he glanced up.

Dana looked up at the scene and cursed. “That’s why she didn’t answer.” Her voice was worried under her breath as she hurried over to help. 

“Would someone like to explain to me what’s going on?” Al-Hashimi asked as you were pushed into Trauma Two, Jack right at your side now. Joy stepped back at the commotion, letting the attendings work. 

You were moved onto the table. Jack was pale, almost robotic as he worked. 

He spoke, “She’s a resident here. My resident. She- she’s not a Jane Doe.” He spoke your name with full assurance and glanced at your bruised face. 

Jesse pushed into the bay and sobered his features as he got to work. “Vitals all over the place still. She’s hypotensive. She came in from Westbridge?” 

“Yes.” Dana replied as you were rolled, her hand squeezing your arm in comfort even in your unconscious state. 

“Internal bleeding looks bad. Page surgery- now.” Jack swallowed as you were assessed all over again, at your place of work this time. 

He mumbled under his breath, “You’re okay.” Almost a reassurance to himself. 

“Pupil response is slow.” Al-Hashimi announced as she flashed her pen light. “Get neuro, too.”

“Someone get Robby in here!” Jack was sounding more impatient as your symptoms were uncovered. 

“He’s in with the motorcycle accident-" Dana started. 

Jack looked up from your limp form and into Trauma One. Robby was speaking to Santos over their patient. 

“Fuck.” He cursed again. He swallowed hard and tried not to let his gaze linger on your marked body. 

“Surgery’s sending someone.” Jesse announced. 

Abbot took the ultrasound wand and carefully moved it over the intense bruising on your side. “This internal bleeding is not good. Westbridge seriously couldn’t get her into the OR?” The frustration in his voice was evident. 

6:48 am. PTMC. Two weeks ago. Same shift. 

You were exhausted. The 24 hours in the ED were getting to you, and a nauseous feeling had been lingering in your stomach since around 4 am. You were handing off your patients to McKay and Mel, going over their stats and needs. As soon as the opportunity arose, you booked it to your locker. 

The bags under your eyes were harsh and defined. Your hair was tangled and frizzy. You grabbed your bag and slammed the locker shut. Just as relief filled you at the idea of getting home, your boss’s voice came from around the corner. “You driving home?” 

You shook your head. “My car broke down. I’ve been taking the train.”

Abbot looked at you for a moment before holding up a finger, a silent gesture for you to wait. You sighed and looked up at the ceiling, obeying. He returned a moment later with his bag over his shoulder. “C’mon. I’ll drive you.”

“Drive me? Home?”

He laughed under his breath. “Do you have somewhere else you need to be?”

You sighed, and in that moment, accepted his help. “No.”

He nodded and gestured for you to follow him. He led you to his truck and held the door for you. The drive was quiet and you felt comfortable enough to lean your head back and close your eyes. 

“Here.” He spoke quietly when you arrived. 

You jolted up and blinked hard. “Thank you.” You yawned. 

“Anytime.” 

You grabbed your bag and hopped out. You paused at the curb, hand on the door. “I’ll think about it.”

His brows scrunched. “About what?”

“The night shift.” 

He smiled. “Please do.” 

You returned the smile, shyly, and thanked him again before shutting the door. 

12:57 pm. PTMC. July 4th. 

“Where the fuck is surgery?” Abbot’s calm demeanor was wavering. Al-Hashimi bit her tongue. You were apparently one of this department's resident doctors, and she understood the urgency in the matter. 

Robby finally caught Dana’s eye from Trauma One and his face flooded with confusion as he tried to read the distress on hers. He snapped his gloves off and left Santos in charge, stepping into the second trauma bay. His inhale was sharp and loud as he took in the scene before him. 

He grabbed new gloves and stepped in right beside Jack. “What the hell happened to her?”

Dana answered, “Car accident. She was at Westbridge- they transferred her here before surgery got to it.”

“That’s bullshit.” Robby worked beside his fellow attending. 

Al-Hashimi stepped back quietly. “I will page neuro again.” She spoke calmly before stepping out. 

“Neuro?” Robby asked. 

“Low pupil response.” Jesse answered. “Paramedics said possible TBI.” 

“Possible TBI, yet they decided to transfer her here? What the hell kind of show are they running at Westbridge?” Jack spat. 

The monitor spiked. “BP’s dropping again, quick.” Jesse announced. 

“She’s probably in shock.” Robby worked. 

Garcia finally pushed in. “What do we got?” She froze for a second. “Is that?”

“Yes.” Abbott snapped. 

Garcia closed her shocked mouth and stepped in. “What- what happened?” She assessed your form as she asked. 

“She was hit by a car.” Dana explained for what felt like the millionth time.

“Shit.” Garcia whispered. “I can’t take her to the OR in this shape. Has neuro seen her? Did she get a CT?”

“No and no.” Jack said. 

“She’s at risk of-”

“Okay, then get neuro in here.” He snapped, again. 

Garcia exhaled hard and pulled off her gloves. “Bring her to me when she’s been seen and stabilized. That internal bleeding needs to be taken care of.” She left. 

The next half an hour was full of waiting. Waiting for a neuro consult. Waiting for meds to kick in. Waiting for a CT scan. And Jack stayed by your side the whole time, even when he knew he should step back out and help others. 

Neuro cleared you with a grade three concussion and your CT confirmed what was obvious. Garcia admitted you to the OR, and only then did Jack make his way back down to the ED, where he was restless and irritable. 

“You sure you want to be down here?” Robby asked in passing. 

“I’m fine.”

“She’ll be okay. They’ll take care of her.” He squeezed Jack’s shoulder.

10:17 pm. Lucky’s Bar. Last week. 

You were out. You never went out. But it was an old friend's birthday, and you would feel too bad missing it. The night had been lively and fun, and the few drinks you’d had were feeling good in your system. 

You were leaning against the bar waiting for your refill. The bar was one you liked. A more lowkey, almost sports bar/pub feeling to it. You tapped your chipped nail against the counter when an all too familiar voice spoke up beside you. 

“So, this is why you don’t want to come back to the night shift?”

He was stepping up beside you, a half-drank beer in his hands. 

“Dr. Abbot.” You acknowledged with a smile.

He smirked and leaned against the bartop next to you. “You didn’t answer my question.”

You laugh, amused. “No, I did not leave the night shift so I could go to bars. It’s a friend’s birthday.”

He nods in understanding, but there’s a mischievous glint in his eye. “So, you left because…? And don’t say exhaustion again.”

You scoff and stand from where you were leaning. “That is why!” You laugh. “I can’t do it anymore. Maybe I’m finally getting old.” 

“So, what does that make me?” He raised a brow. 

You can’t help the laugh that escapes you. “I don’t know how you do it.” 

His smile was genuine as he shook his head. “Just think about it some more. Coming back, that is. Robby has enough of you guys on his hands.”

The bartender placed your drink on the counter then. You thank him and Abbot clears his throat. 

“I won’t keep you. Have a good night, doctor.” 

You raised your glass and said goodnight. 

Your friends wanted to leave soon after that, and you were putting your jacket on when you met his eyes across the bar. He looked like he was with some friends, all standing around a pool table. You smiled and lifted your hand by your side to wave, a silent goodbye. He paused his conversation and crossed the room to you. 

“You leaving?”

You nod. “Yeah, my friends all called it a night.”

“Do you have a ride?”

“Um, the train again.” You laugh. 

He glances at his watch. “It’s late.”

“Not that late.” You shrug. “You don’t have to drive me home, Jack.” His name slips from your mouth like second nature, and you feel the heat of regret and embarrassment fill you. “Abbot. Dr. Abbot.”

He laughs softly. “Jack’s fine. And I don’t think you should be walking or taking the T alone.”

“I’m a big girl.”

He scoffs lightly. “Let’s go.” He carefully grabs your elbow and leads you outside to his car. He opens the door for you. The ride is filled with the soft radio and the occasional question to fill the air. 

When you arrive at your small apartment complex, you clear your throat. “Thank you. I, uh, I appreciate it.”

“Like I said, anytime.” 

You nod but don’t move. When you glance back at him your breath is quick. “Goodnight Jack.”

He speaks your name softly, like a whisper. 

You swallow hard and lean closer to him. A subtle movement, but he notices. He notices everything you do. How when you suture, you bite your bottom lip. Or how you used to always make a coffee at exactly 3:45 am on the night shifts. Or how you would fight Shen on charting, and him too at times. He noticed how your face flushed when he joked. Or how you’d inhale at his touch. 

He noticed. And he was waiting for the time when you’d finally notice he felt the same. 

His eyes fell to your lips and he could hear your breath intake. He moved towards you. A silent game of meeting in the middle. He could feel your breath on his lips now. Your eyes shut softly and when his mouth met yours, you melted into it. 

It was soft at first. A toe in the water. He cupped your face softly as he moved his mouth against yours. The kiss grew, along with the heat in your stomach. Your hand reached into his soft curls and you pulled him impossibly closer. 

He exhaled roughly at the touch and his tongue glided across your bottom lip. You opened your mouth to him and moaned at the growing sensation. His other hand came to meet the back of your head and you desperately wanted to climb across the car’s console then. But in that moment, a car alarm rang out and you pulled back, startled. 

Both of your breaths were ragged and Jack’s hand lingered softly on your neck. You licked your lips and swallowed hard as you met his eyes. 

“I should probably go.” You whispered. 

He cleared his throat and nodded. “Okay.”

You sat back and opened the door softly. “Thank you.”

He nodded again. 

“I’ll see you Monday?” You try to ask casually. 

“Yeah- yes.” He gives you a tight mouthed smile. 

You hop out of his truck. “Night, Jack.”

He returns the sentiment and waits until you’re inside of your apartment before driving off, a hand dragging over his face. 

4:33 pm. PTMC. July 4th. 

When Jack noticed Garcia walk into the pitt, his heart jumped. Her eyes landed on him and she moved to meet him. 

“She’s okay. She’s in the ICU. She’s been stabilized and they removed the intubation tube. She’ll wake up on her own.” Her voice was authoritative and she got the information out before he could question her. 

He nodded, hard. “Thank you.”

She went to share the update with Robby while Jack moved for the elevators. His foot tapped against the linoleum floor, his anxieties surfacing. He had jumped right back into the chaos of the ED after you’d been taken to the OR. He needed that distraction, a reason to keep his mind from freaking the fuck out. 

He walked down the ICU floor with a purpose. The charge nurse recognized him, “She’s in 614. She’s okay.” 

Abbot thanked her and when he reached your room, his heart sank a little. You were still asleep. Your head was bandaged, your form still, breathing deep and slow. He pulled the chair close to your bed and sat. 

6:09 pm. PTMC ICU. July 4th. 

You groaned harshly as the pounding in your head registered. You reached a wired hand to touch it when a voice rang out. 

“Hey, hey. Careful.” 

You groaned again as the IV in your hand tugged. 

It was when he spoke your name that you realized it was Jack’s voice. 

“Jack?” You cough and blink. 

“I’m here, yeah.” He reached for the water on the table to help you take a sip. 

You coughed again after, and glanced at him. “What happened?” 

He placed the cup down and sighed. “You were in an accident. A car hit you.” 

Your heart monitor spiked. “What?” 

Jack moved closer. “It’s okay. You’re okay now. You were taken to Westbridge, but they went into lockdown. You were transferred here.” He finally reached over and squeezed your hand. 

“What’s wrong with me? What happened?” Your voice shook. 

“You have a grade 3 concussion and Garcia took care of your internal injuries. You’re okay now, I promise. I know it’s a lot.” His voice was reassuring and gentle. 

A tear rolled down your cheek and he didn’t hesitate to catch it with the pad of his thumb. “You scared me.” He whispered. 

“I’m sorry.” You mumble. 

He shakes his head. “No, no. Honey, please don’t apologize.” 

You exhale at the term of endearment, a calm washing over you. 

“So, I’m okay?”

Jack nods. “You’re okay.”

You squeeze his hand back. 

He sits with you before meeting your eyes with determination. “This just- this is making me realize a lot of things.” He glances down before continuing. “I care a lot about you, and I want you to know that. I don’t- I don’t want to beat around the bush anymore.” 

You exhale shakily but nod, tears forming in your eyes. “I don’t either.” 

He smiles softly, his hand reaching to comfort you. “Come back to the night shift where I can keep an eye on you.”

You laugh but groan when your abdomen clenches. “Don’t make me laugh.”

He laughs softly. “Sorry.” He continues, “We can make this work. And you can stay on night shift. You’re a brilliant doctor, and I don’t want you to hide away from me anymore on the day shift. I’d like my resident back. And I also want to ask her on a proper date.”

You smile at his words and nod, teary. “Okay.” 

7:43 am. PTMC. July 4th. 

“Where the hell is my resident?” Robby tossed his hands out as Dana walked by. 

“She no called no showed. That’s why I called Langdon in.” She gave Robby a look that appeared to say: ‘I’m sorry, but not really.’

“That’s very unlike her.” He argued in a sing-song voice. 

Dana shrugged and turned back towards the nurses’ station, not her problem. 

6:09 am. Pittsburgh neighborhood. July 4th. 

You were running late this morning. You yawned as you anxiously jogged towards the T train you rode to work. You lived farther from PTMC than ideal. And when your car broke down three months ago, it was your last priority to get it fixed as a broke resident. So, public transportation it was. 

You didn’t mind it, in fact the train ride normally helped calm your nerves on the way to work. A mindless ride where you didn’t have to focus on other drivers or endless city traffic. 

You shouldered your bag as the crosswalk lit up with the ‘walk’ symbol. Without a second thought, you crossed the street, your mind focused on not missing the next train. As you entered the striped crosswalk, an SUV took a right turn too hard, not noticing you in the soft morning light. You went down hard. 

Your ears were ringing and your vision blurred. You briefly recall reaching for your head and the slam of a car door before everything went black. 

You woke in the ambulance, the loud siren enhancing the pounding in your head. 

“Try not to move!” the paramedic shouted as she leaned over you. “Can you tell me your name?” Her brows were scrunched and you inhaled sharply at the overwhelming surroundings. 

You were in and out of consciousness the rest of the ride, your brain fuzzy and forgetful. 

6:56 am. Westbridge Hospital. July 4th. 

The hospital closest to your apartment was not your place of work. As they wheeled you in from the ambulance, you could barely stay awake. You groaned as they pushed you into the unfamiliar trauma room. 

“Ma’am? Ma’am, can you tell us your name?”

They moved you onto the table and your face scrunched in discomfort. You wanted to answer them, but your mind was too muddled. You heard the paramedic continue. “We didn’t see an ID or anything at the scene. She has scrubs on, does she work here?”

“I don’t recognize her. Scrubs could mean anything.” The doctor, you assume, answers. 

Your eyes squeeze shut. No ID? Where was your bag? Fuck, your hospital badge was in there. 

“Stay awake, sweetie. Open your eyes for me.” A softer voice was saying. Your eyes watered when you opened them again. 

“My bag-” You coughed. 

“What? What was that?” The nurse asked. 

You groaned. Your body felt hard and stiff, yet gelatin-like at the same time. You could recognize the assessments they were performing even in your disoriented state- assessments you performed on a daily basis. Your neck and airway were observed, vitals announced, a bright light was shone in your face, and a superficial glance for wounds. You felt the cold blade of scissors as your scrubs were cut. Your body was rolled, orders were shouted. 

You felt completely overwhelmed. You were having trouble understanding and processing what was going on, and you could feel blood dripping from your hairline. 

“Pulse is rising!” A new voice shouted. “BP dropping.”

“She’s in shock.” The doctor’s voice was loud. “Definitely have some internal bleeding in the left abdomen. Someone page surgery.”

“Does she need CT?”

“If we can stabilize her.”

Your blinking was hard and you felt your eyes flutter before you passed out. 

9:53 am. PTMC. July 4th. 

“We’re getting all Westbridge reroutes!” Dana’s voice sounded through the ER. 

A collective panic and disappointment filled the department, but the day moved on as it always did. 

11:41 pm. PTMC. Two weeks ago. 

You were covering a night shift for Ellis. Only catch, she couldn’t switch shifts. So, here you were working a double. You yawned as you caught up on some charting. An open cup of hot coffee landed next to your keyboard. 

You glanced up and smiled at the attending. “Thanks.” You took a sip. 

Jack smiled and gave you a small nod. “Night shift misses you.” He quirked. 

You rolled your eyes playfully. “I do not miss the all-nighters.” You tried to keep your focus on the screen in front of you. 

“Ah, they’re not that bad. You get used to them. You would have.” He nodded. 

You had switched to the day shift last month after a long year on the night shift rotation. You loved the night shift staff, and working under Abbot and Shen taught you a lot- but the constant overnight shifts were killing you. Along with the butterflies that filled your stomach when your boss was around. You started picking up day shifts, and with Langdon’s absence the past few months, Robby finally let you fill in for a few weeks full time. 

“Maybe.” You sigh and lean your head back to look at his form standing over you. “Why? You guys miss me down here?” You joke. 

“Some of us more than others.” He smirks, and you try to hide the immediate blush his words ignite. You shake your head. 

Abbot was fond of you and he knew it was apparent. He respected your character and your work ethic immensely. He was hard on you when you needed a push, but he held a strong soft spot for you. And he liked to throw out the occasional flirty line that sent your stomach spinning. 

He laughs quietly and moves on with a tap of his fist to the counter. You watch him retreat to a patient’s room, eyes trailing over his hard back. 

12:46 pm. PTMC. July 4th. 

Robby was pulled into the second motorcycle accident of the day. Beds were filling up and it was a great relief when Dr. Jack Abbot showed up early for his shift. He’d heard about the Westbridge closure and assumed the pitt would need all the help they could get. He’d taken a moment to change out of some of his tactical gear when Dana announced, “Incoming trauma from Westbridge! Car accident victim.” 

Dr. Al-Hashimi got up from her spot at the nurses’ station. She nodded for Joy to join her, grabbing gloves and heading for the ambulance bay. When they arrived, the paramedics were more frantic than she expected. 

“Car accident victim. Young female- looks to be late twenties, early thirties. She was awaiting surgery at Westbridge, but her vitals tanked on the way here. We had to bag her.” The paramedic squeezed the intubation bag as they walked speedily into the ER. Al-Hashimi nodded along. The paramedic continued, “Internal bleeding of the abdomen, possible TBI, vitals unstable. And she had no ID on her. Westbridge went into lockdown before they could search the system. We got a Jane Doe on our hands.” 

“Put her in Trauma Two!” Dana shouted without looking up from her chart. 

Jack glanced up from the computer he was working at as they pushed you down the hall. His brows furrowed and denial filled him as he registered who was on the stretcher. There was no way. His stomach sank. 

“Woah, woah, woah!” He shouted, jumping up from his seat. Eyes across the ER fell to his jogging form as he rushed over. “That’s not a Jane Doe! Fuck-” he glanced up.

Dana looked up at the scene and cursed. “That’s why she didn’t answer.” Her voice was worried under her breath as she hurried over to help. 

“Would someone like to explain to me what’s going on?” Al-Hashimi asked as you were pushed into Trauma Two, Jack right at your side now. Joy stepped back at the commotion, letting the attendings work. 

You were moved onto the table. Jack was pale, almost robotic as he worked. 

He spoke, “She’s a resident here. My resident. She- she’s not a Jane Doe.” He spoke your name with full assurance and glanced at your bruised face. 

Jesse pushed into the bay and sobered his features as he got to work. “Vitals all over the place still. She’s hypotensive. She came in from Westbridge?” 

“Yes.” Dana replied as you were rolled, her hand squeezing your arm in comfort even in your unconscious state. 

“Internal bleeding looks bad. Page surgery- now.” Jack swallowed as you were assessed all over again, at your place of work this time. 

He mumbled under his breath, “You’re okay.” Almost a reassurance to himself. 

“Pupil response is slow.” Al-Hashimi announced as she flashed her pen light. “Get neuro, too.”

“Someone get Robby in here!” Jack was sounding more impatient as your symptoms were uncovered. 

“He’s in with the motorcycle accident-" Dana started. 

Jack looked up from your limp form and into Trauma One. Robby was speaking to Santos over their patient. 

“Fuck.” He cursed again. He swallowed hard and tried not to let his gaze linger on your marked body. 

“Surgery’s sending someone.” Jesse announced. 

Abbot took the ultrasound wand and carefully moved it over the intense bruising on your side. “This internal bleeding is not good. Westbridge seriously couldn’t get her into the OR?” The frustration in his voice was evident. 

6:48 am. PTMC. Two weeks ago. Same shift. 

You were exhausted. The 24 hours in the ED were getting to you, and a nauseous feeling had been lingering in your stomach since around 4 am. You were handing off your patients to McKay and Mel, going over their stats and needs. As soon as the opportunity arose, you booked it to your locker. 

The bags under your eyes were harsh and defined. Your hair was tangled and frizzy. You grabbed your bag and slammed the locker shut. Just as relief filled you at the idea of getting home, your boss’s voice came from around the corner. “You driving home?” 

You shook your head. “My car broke down. I’ve been taking the train.”

Abbot looked at you for a moment before holding up a finger, a silent gesture for you to wait. You sighed and looked up at the ceiling, obeying. He returned a moment later with his bag over his shoulder. “C’mon. I’ll drive you.”

“Drive me? Home?”

He laughed under his breath. “Do you have somewhere else you need to be?”

You sighed, and in that moment, accepted his help. “No.”

He nodded and gestured for you to follow him. He led you to his truck and held the door for you. The drive was quiet and you felt comfortable enough to lean your head back and close your eyes. 

“Here.” He spoke quietly when you arrived. 

You jolted up and blinked hard. “Thank you.” You yawned. 

“Anytime.” 

You grabbed your bag and hopped out. You paused at the curb, hand on the door. “I’ll think about it.”

His brows scrunched. “About what?”

“The night shift.” 

He smiled. “Please do.” 

You returned the smile, shyly, and thanked him again before shutting the door. 

12:57 pm. PTMC. July 4th. 

“Where the fuck is surgery?” Abbot’s calm demeanor was wavering. Al-Hashimi bit her tongue. You were apparently one of this department's resident doctors, and she understood the urgency in the matter. 

Robby finally caught Dana’s eye from Trauma One and his face flooded with confusion as he tried to read the distress on hers. He snapped his gloves off and left Santos in charge, stepping into the second trauma bay. His inhale was sharp and loud as he took in the scene before him. 

He grabbed new gloves and stepped in right beside Jack. “What the hell happened to her?”

Dana answered, “Car accident. She was at Westbridge- they transferred her here before surgery got to it.”

“That’s bullshit.” Robby worked beside his fellow attending. 

Al-Hashimi stepped back quietly. “I will page neuro again.” She spoke calmly before stepping out. 

“Neuro?” Robby asked. 

“Low pupil response.” Jesse answered. “Paramedics said possible TBI.” 

“Possible TBI, yet they decided to transfer her here? What the hell kind of show are they running at Westbridge?” Jack spat. 

The monitor spiked. “BP’s dropping again, quick.” Jesse announced. 

“She’s probably in shock.” Robby worked. 

Garcia finally pushed in. “What do we got?” She froze for a second. “Is that?”

“Yes.” Abbott snapped. 

Garcia closed her shocked mouth and stepped in. “What- what happened?” She assessed your form as she asked. 

“She was hit by a car.” Dana explained for what felt like the millionth time.

“Shit.” Garcia whispered. “I can’t take her to the OR in this shape. Has neuro seen her? Did she get a CT?”

“No and no.” Jack said. 

“She’s at risk of-”

“Okay, then get neuro in here.” He snapped, again. 

Garcia exhaled hard and pulled off her gloves. “Bring her to me when she’s been seen and stabilized. That internal bleeding needs to be taken care of.” She left. 

The next half an hour was full of waiting. Waiting for a neuro consult. Waiting for meds to kick in. Waiting for a CT scan. And Jack stayed by your side the whole time, even when he knew he should step back out and help others. 

Neuro cleared you with a grade three concussion and your CT confirmed what was obvious. Garcia admitted you to the OR, and only then did Jack make his way back down to the ED, where he was restless and irritable. 

“You sure you want to be down here?” Robby asked in passing. 

“I’m fine.”

“She’ll be okay. They’ll take care of her.” He squeezed Jack’s shoulder.

10:17 pm. Lucky’s Bar. Last week. 

You were out. You never went out. But it was an old friend's birthday, and you would feel too bad missing it. The night had been lively and fun, and the few drinks you’d had were feeling good in your system. 

You were leaning against the bar waiting for your refill. The bar was one you liked. A more lowkey, almost sports bar/pub feeling to it. You tapped your chipped nail against the counter when an all too familiar voice spoke up beside you. 

“So, this is why you don’t want to come back to the night shift?”

He was stepping up beside you, a half-drank beer in his hands. 

“Dr. Abbot.” You acknowledged with a smile.

He smirked and leaned against the bartop next to you. “You didn’t answer my question.”

You laugh, amused. “No, I did not leave the night shift so I could go to bars. It’s a friend’s birthday.”

He nods in understanding, but there’s a mischievous glint in his eye. “So, you left because…? And don’t say exhaustion again.”

You scoff and stand from where you were leaning. “That is why!” You laugh. “I can’t do it anymore. Maybe I’m finally getting old.” 

“So, what does that make me?” He raised a brow. 

You can’t help the laugh that escapes you. “I don’t know how you do it.” 

His smile was genuine as he shook his head. “Just think about it some more. Coming back, that is. Robby has enough of you guys on his hands.”

The bartender placed your drink on the counter then. You thank him and Abbot clears his throat. 

“I won’t keep you. Have a good night, doctor.” 

You raised your glass and said goodnight. 

Your friends wanted to leave soon after that, and you were putting your jacket on when you met his eyes across the bar. He looked like he was with some friends, all standing around a pool table. You smiled and lifted your hand by your side to wave, a silent goodbye. He paused his conversation and crossed the room to you. 

“You leaving?”

You nod. “Yeah, my friends all called it a night.”

“Do you have a ride?”

“Um, the train again.” You laugh. 

He glances at his watch. “It’s late.”

“Not that late.” You shrug. “You don’t have to drive me home, Jack.” His name slips from your mouth like second nature, and you feel the heat of regret and embarrassment fill you. “Abbot. Dr. Abbot.”

He laughs softly. “Jack’s fine. And I don’t think you should be walking or taking the T alone.”

“I’m a big girl.”

He scoffs lightly. “Let’s go.” He carefully grabs your elbow and leads you outside to his car. He opens the door for you. The ride is filled with the soft radio and the occasional question to fill the air. 

When you arrive at your small apartment complex, you clear your throat. “Thank you. I, uh, I appreciate it.”

“Like I said, anytime.” 

You nod but don’t move. When you glance back at him your breath is quick. “Goodnight Jack.”

He speaks your name softly, like a whisper. 

You swallow hard and lean closer to him. A subtle movement, but he notices. He notices everything you do. How when you suture, you bite your bottom lip. Or how you used to always make a coffee at exactly 3:45 am on the night shifts. Or how you would fight Shen on charting, and him too at times. He noticed how your face flushed when he joked. Or how you’d inhale at his touch. 

He noticed. And he was waiting for the time when you’d finally notice he felt the same. 

His eyes fell to your lips and he could hear your breath intake. He moved towards you. A silent game of meeting in the middle. He could feel your breath on his lips now. Your eyes shut softly and when his mouth met yours, you melted into it. 

It was soft at first. A toe in the water. He cupped your face softly as he moved his mouth against yours. The kiss grew, along with the heat in your stomach. Your hand reached into his soft curls and you pulled him impossibly closer. 

He exhaled roughly at the touch and his tongue glided across your bottom lip. You opened your mouth to him and moaned at the growing sensation. His other hand came to meet the back of your head and you desperately wanted to climb across the car’s console then. But in that moment, a car alarm rang out and you pulled back, startled. 

Both of your breaths were ragged and Jack’s hand lingered softly on your neck. You licked your lips and swallowed hard as you met his eyes. 

“I should probably go.” You whispered. 

He cleared his throat and nodded. “Okay.”

You sat back and opened the door softly. “Thank you.”

He nodded again. 

“I’ll see you Monday?” You try to ask casually. 

“Yeah- yes.” He gives you a tight mouthed smile. 

You hop out of his truck. “Night, Jack.”

He returns the sentiment and waits until you’re inside of your apartment before driving off, a hand dragging over his face. 

4:33 pm. PTMC. July 4th. 

When Jack noticed Garcia walk into the pitt, his heart jumped. Her eyes landed on him and she moved to meet him. 

“She’s okay. She’s in the ICU. She’s been stabilized and they removed the intubation tube. She’ll wake up on her own.” Her voice was authoritative and she got the information out before he could question her. 

He nodded, hard. “Thank you.”

She went to share the update with Robby while Jack moved for the elevators. His foot tapped against the linoleum floor, his anxieties surfacing. He had jumped right back into the chaos of the ED after you’d been taken to the OR. He needed that distraction, a reason to keep his mind from freaking the fuck out. 

He walked down the ICU floor with a purpose. The charge nurse recognized him, “She’s in 614. She’s okay.” 

Abbot thanked her and when he reached your room, his heart sank a little. You were still asleep. Your head was bandaged, your form still, breathing deep and slow. He pulled the chair close to your bed and sat. 

6:09 pm. PTMC ICU. July 4th. 

You groaned harshly as the pounding in your head registered. You reached a wired hand to touch it when a voice rang out. 

“Hey, hey. Careful.” 

You groaned again as the IV in your hand tugged. 

It was when he spoke your name that you realized it was Jack’s voice. 

“Jack?” You cough and blink. 

“I’m here, yeah.” He reached for the water on the table to help you take a sip. 

You coughed again after, and glanced at him. “What happened?” 

He placed the cup down and sighed. “You were in an accident. A car hit you.” 

Your heart monitor spiked. “What?” 

Jack moved closer. “It’s okay. You’re okay now. You were taken to Westbridge, but they went into lockdown. You were transferred here.” He finally reached over and squeezed your hand. 

“What’s wrong with me? What happened?” Your voice shook. 

“You have a grade 3 concussion and Garcia took care of your internal injuries. You’re okay now, I promise. I know it’s a lot.” His voice was reassuring and gentle. 

A tear rolled down your cheek and he didn’t hesitate to catch it with the pad of his thumb. “You scared me.” He whispered. 

“I’m sorry.” You mumble. 

He shakes his head. “No, no. Honey, please don’t apologize.” 

You exhale at the term of endearment, a calm washing over you. 

“So, I’m okay?”

Jack nods. “You’re okay.”

You squeeze his hand back. 

He sits with you before meeting your eyes with determination. “This just- this is making me realize a lot of things.” He glances down before continuing. “I care a lot about you, and I want you to know that. I don’t- I don’t want to beat around the bush anymore.” 

You exhale shakily but nod, tears forming in your eyes. “I don’t either.” 

He smiles softly, his hand reaching to comfort you. “Come back to the night shift where I can keep an eye on you.”

You laugh but groan when your abdomen clenches. “Don’t make me laugh.”

He laughs softly. “Sorry.” He continues, “We can make this work. And you can stay on night shift. You’re a brilliant doctor, and I don’t want you to hide away from me anymore on the day shift. I’d like my resident back. And I also want to ask her on a proper date.”

You smile at his words and nod, teary. “Okay.” 

Easing the door open, you were greeted with a rubbery, sweaty smell. How enticing, you thought. You surveyed the gym. It was in one of those weird warehouses that seemed to always exist between a sketchy looking mechanic and a random flooring store. The garage door was open and the inside was probably as big as half a football field. It seemed much smaller on the outside. 

There were about half a dozen people scattered around the space, all of them already sweating, already moving like this was somewhere they actually wanted to be. The gym itself had exposed beams, concrete walls, and rows of worn black mats taped together. Industrial fans rattled overhead, pushing warm, stale air around. 

There was only one wall of mirrors, instead of encompassing the whole place. No shitty inspirational slogans. Just heavy bags thudding against the walls and the low, constant noise of bodies in motion. So far it was the only promising part of this place. Your physical therapist had fucking obnoxious posters on the wall you wanted to rip down about once a minute. 

One man near the center of the mats was hard to miss. Short, thick through the shoulders, built like someone had carved him out of a block of stone and forgotten to include the roundness most humans had. He was barefoot, warm brown hands wrapped, quietly correcting another guy’s grip. His shaved head gleamed under the fluorescent lights; he had a mole above his right ear. Despite the fact he hadn’t looked at you yet, you had the uncomfortable feeling he already knew you were there.

Off to the side, in the weight area, a freckled, silver-haired man was finishing a set on the bench press. Middle-aged, fit, and clearly disciplined. He was missing his right leg. Next to the bench sat a wheelchair, scuffed with a single “Go Army” sticker. When he sat up and transferred into it, he did it smoothly, without hesitation. You were jealous of his ease and competence, thinking back at how your crutches had been caught less than five minutes ago. He caught your glance and gave a brief nod, neutral and unreadable, before rolling toward the dumbbell rack.

Two women were drilling on the other set of mats nearby. One tall with alabaster skin, her braid swinging as she corrected her partner’s foot placement. The other was shorter, sturdier, with dark brown, almost black skin, moving slowly through ground transitions, clearly in insane control of every muscle and joint in her body. Even the before-you couldn’t do that. Neither of them stared at you. They barely acknowledged you at all, which was a relief.

The rest of the men filled out the space in various stations—one shadowboxing and an older guy stretching his hips with a bright pink foam roller. 

You tightened your grip on your crutches, your left leg already burning in that familiar, irritating way. Of course this place was smelly and too hot. Of course it was full of people who looked like they actually wanted to move their bodies. Filled with people whose bodies hadn’t betrayed them. At least the silver fox wasn’t stuck with the crippling pain you were dealing with. 

A voice finally cut through the noise. “You can leave your stuff over there. Shoes off and keep your water.”

You looked up to see the short, muscular guy nodding toward a battered wooden bench lined with gym bags and water bottles. You suspected this was Romero. His tone was neutral, and he pointed to a tilted cubby shelf. You didn’t bring much, so you took off your sweatshirt, slowly removed your shoes, wincing, and shoved them and your phone into a shitty cubby. 

You made your way toward the bench, every step a sharp pain from your nerves. No one hovered or even looked at you. They just kept doing what they were doing. It was the first time no one paid attention to you. 

It felt weird. You didn’t want pity…well, maybe you wanted a little bit of pity. You certainly felt pitiful. 

“I’m Romero,” he said. His voice was low and gravely. He held out his hand. You shook it. You might be a simmering bottle of anger, but you were still polite. 

“This is the regular crew. Marci and T’neysha are sparring. Gregory is over there on the bag. Richard is stretching is old man body—”

“Fuck off!” Called Richard. He was the man on the pink foam roller. 

“—and Jack is over there by the dumbbells. He’s a talker and it’s all weird.”

“I don’t pay the gym fees to get bullied,” Jack said good naturedly. 

“At some point I’ll have you working with him on a few things. He’s been without a leg for a while and I’m sure he’ll have some tips for you,” Romero continued, barely cracking a smile. 

“Because all cripples want to know each other,” you grumbled under your breath. Romero probably didn’t hear but you muttered a quiet, “Sorry,” just in case. 

“Look, your PT is a friend of mine. He gave me the overview of what you’re dealing with. You will always be in pain, and if you don’t accept that now you’ll just be making it harder on yourself. Take the resources, and do that work. It isn’t fair, but it’s the hand you’ve been dealt. I don’t tolerate self-pity.”

You narrowed your eyes at him. 

“Fine,” you said. “I’ll keep the pity with my keys.”

“Good. First thing I’m going to do is teach you how to fall.”

You followed him to the edge of the mats, irritation simmering just under your skin. The floor looked soft until you actually sat down, the dense rubber immediately upsetting your hips and spine—both of which were far more sensitive after your accident.

Romero dropped down across from you with the kind of ease that made your joints feel like shitty bargain basement acquisitions and not a part of your body evolved to actually work.

“The most important thing for mobility disabilities,” he said, “is learning how to fall and get off the ground without hurting yourself.”

You snorted. “Bold of you to assume I’m not already an expert at falling.”

He didn’t smile. “The kind of falling that won’t cause you searing pain.”

Even to your grumpy, pissed off brain—that didn’t sound bad. 

He showed you how to lower yourself to one hip instead of collapsing straight down, using your hands to guide the motion and keep your weight off your bad leg, and how to do it without hurting your wrists or arms. He showed you what to do when your leg gave out or when you lost your balance. 

“Lean away from your bad side, catch yourself with your arms. Keep your head up.”

You tried it. Your left leg complained immediately, but the movement didn’t send pain shooting up your body like usual. That was…fucking annoying. You had been prepared to hate this more. Unfortunately, it was turning out to be useful. 

“Again,” Romero said.

You did it again. Less wobble this time. For the next thirty minutes Romero had you fall, slide, and one time he even pushed you, all to make sure you could land without hurting yourself. Next, he had you practice rolling onto your back from your side without twisting your leg. Then rolling back up again, using your arms and core instead of momentum.

“Your legs help when they can,” he said. “Your upper body does the rest.”

You gritted your teeth through the burn in your arms. At least arm pain felt earned instead of appearing without warning and ruining your day. 

After a few minutes, Romero demonstrated a basic breakfall—slapping the mat with his arm as he leaned back to disperse the impact. It was more technique than what you started with. 

“You’re not landing flat,” he clarified, already anticipating the glare you were giving him. “We’re training muscle memory. You don’t want to think about it when it happens.”

He had you practice the arm movement alone first. Then the lean. Then the controlled descent, stopping well before your back hit the mat.

“Chin tucked. Don’t let your head whip.”

You followed his instructions, stiff and suspicious, but nothing screamed in protest. No sharp pain. No electric fire down your leg. Just the dull, familiar burn that never really left.

Romero watched your form. “Good. This will help make sure you don’t reinjure yourself.”

He moved on to showing you how to shift your weight on the mat, how to scoot backward using your hands, how to turn without twisting your knee, how to get from sitting to lying down without feeling like gravity was personally singling you out.

The work was deeply unglamorous. Ilya, your physical therapist, had insisted that martial arts would help your body. Maybe it would help it heal, but more likely it would just help you learn how to live in your new reality. Illya, in his slight Slavic accent had said, 

“I helped you walk. Romero will help you run, metaphorically. I don’t recommend running right now.”

“I’d rather die,” you snapped. 

“But then you’d ruin my hardwork,” he pouted and you couldn’t help the small snort. 

By the time Romero finally nodded and said, “That’s enough for today,” your shoulders ached, your leg burned, and your patience was hanging by a thread.

“That’s it?” you asked.

“For day one,” he replied. “You learned how to fall and with one fucked up leg, you’ll be falling a lot.”

Rude. You thought.

You reached for your crutches, irritation simmering in your chest. You weren’t inspired. You weren’t grateful. You weren’t magically okay with any of this, but at least the next time you fell you wouldn’t need help getting up. 

As you gingerly limped back to your car, you heard someone call your name. You paused and looked behind you. Jack was rolling up beside you. He had a gym bag in his lap and was covered in a thin sheen of sweat. 

“I’m Jack,” he said. 

“Romero mentioned,” you replied. Your tone was short. 

“How long ago were you hurt?” 

“Seven months.”

“Ah, still angry at the world then?” He asked. 

“So what if I am?”

He held up his hand and said, “You should be. It sucks. But at some point that anger will eat you alive.”

“And how would you know?”

It was a dumb question and you both knew it. 

He handed you a piece of paper, and said. “Look, if you’re ever thinking about taking the exit lane from life, give me a call first.” 

“I don’t know you, dude,” you said. 

“You don’t, but I’ve been where you are. Sometimes, days like today even, it feels like a million knives are stabbing a leg I don’t have anymore.”

“You’re still in pain?”

“Phantom limb pain. The leg is gone, but the brain is having a hard time with it. Or that’s the theory. It hurts like a bitch.”

“Nerve injury from a car accident,” you said quietly. “Got hit by a soccer mom running late for school pick up.”

“Rough. Mine was war, so I have some great survivor’s guilt to go with mine,” Jack joked. You almost smiled. Hell, a corner of your lip twitched. “If you haven’t, a therapist is a really smart call after an injury like this.”

“I have one,” you said. 

“Well, look, I’m here most mornings after I get off work, so as you start coming more often, don’t be a stranger. We have to stick together.”

He rolled away and you couldn’t help but feel grudgingly charmed by the man. 

-- -- --

You didn’t become a regular overnight. For the first month, you showed up once a week, sometimes twice if Ilya guilt-tripped you hard enough. Romero never commented on the gaps. He just adjusted the session to wherever your body was that day. Some days it was still all about falling without panicking, learning how to hit the mat without sending lightning bolts of pain up your spine. Other days he introduced basic jiu-jitsu positions—seated guard, side control, simple grip work. 

You learned how to be present in a body you still hated. 

Romero and Ilya collaborated on a strength training and conditioning program. You found yourself stronger than the before-you. Your body looked largely the same. There weren’t crazy muscles or sudden weight loss, but you were stronger in practical ways—ways that made sure you wouldn’t make your already chronic pain worse. 

Your left leg didn’t get stronger the way people liked to romanticize. It still burned, still dragged, still felt unreliable. But the rest of you adapted. Your arms grew steadier. Your core tightened. Your balance improved. You learned how to shift your weight without thinking about it, how to lower yourself without fear, how to fall and roll and get back up without the humiliation of needing help. Pain didn’t disappear—but it stopped being your driving force.

By the third month, Romero trusted you enough to let you work with partners. Carefully chosen ones. Marci, with her ever present braid, showed you how to maintain control from the ground without relying on your legs. T’neysha demonstrated pressure techniques that used body positioning instead of brute force, most of which came from leg strength you didn’t have anymore. 

Your awareness changed in subtle ways. You stopped flinching every time someone bumped into you. You stopped freezing when your balance slipped. You learned where your limits actually were, instead of assuming everything hurt too much to try. Some days you left sore and irritated. Other days you left tired and quietly proud, which annoyed you more than the soreness ever had.

Your attendance crept up. Twice a week became three times. Three times became “whenever your schedule allowed”. Romero started adding real techniques—chokes from seated positions, grip breaks, defensive frames. He never pretended your leg wasn’t an issue. He just showed you how to work around it without making it your entire identity.

Five months in and you were still angry, still in pain more often than not, but going to the gym—seeing Marci and T’neysha, seeing Jack, Richard and Gregory, even Romero—it became the highlight of your day. Some days the pain was too intense and kept you home, but those days someone would always text you, keep you updated on whatever nonsense job Gegory had now or what weird post-retirement hobby Richard had picked up. 

Jack became part of your routine without either of you officially acknowledging it. He was always there after his shifts, stretching, lifting, or just sitting on the mat talking to whoever wandered by. Sometimes he rolled with you in slow, controlled sessions that focused more on what he jokingly-not-jokingly called “the legless technique”; you were never quite sure what was irony and what was genuine with him. Still, he never pushed you to move faster than you wanted. He never treated you like you were fragile, either.

“How’s the nerve pain today?” he asked once.

“Hurts,” you replied.

“Have you tried just not hurting?”

“Fuck off, Abbot,” you grumbled but even you could tell a tiny smile appeared on your face. 

By month six, your body felt different, like it was familiar again. You trusted it more. You knew how to fall. You knew how to protect yourself. You knew how to exist in physical space without worrying about what happened if your leg gave out on you. The gym no longer felt hostile. 

Your attitude softened in small, unremarkable ways. You still complained. Still swore. Still rolled your eyes at Romero’s blunt coaching style. But you also stayed after sessions sometimes. Sometimes, you and Marci would get coffee, or you and T’neysha would go to trivia. You laughed at Jack’s dry, self-deprecating jokes more often than you meant to. 

It all culminated into your terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. You were halfway through a slow, controlled sparring round when it hit. One second you were focused on your grips, on keeping your balance, on not letting your bad leg fold under you—and the next, a sharp, electric burn tore down your left side like someone flipped a switch inside your nerves. Your left leg went heavy, useless, pain radiating in jagged lines that steal the air from your lungs. 

You were kneeling and fell. Distantly you realized all the practice falling had paid off. Romero backed off and asked you something, but you couldn’t quite get your brain to piece together his words. You managed to say, 

“Bad flare,” before gritting your teeth as your leg twitched uncontrollably. The muscle had already locked up and all you could do was lay on the mat desperately trying to catch your breath. 

You felt Romero leave, probably going to get ice or heat or whatever you told him you needed when the pain got bad like this. That had been months ago and you don’t even remember what you said. 

Then you felt a cool, wet cloth on your face. In your vision you saw Jack…and maybe T’neysha but she had switched out her neon colored Bantu knots for her natural afro, so the darker color made it harder for your spotty vision to pick her out. Jack was saying something to T’neysha, who took over Jack’s spot and continued to cradle your head while keeping the cool cloth (compress maybe?) on your face. 

You weren’t sure where he went, but you felt a soft touch on your bad ankle. It was being lifted and repositioned, just slightly elevated. It took some of the pressure off your limb. Then you heard him say, 

“Hey, follow our breathing. You’re hyperventilating.”

It took, what felt like, an eternity. But slowly your breathing slowed and you felt your body relax. Your leg was still on fire, but you were able to sit up finally. T’neysha stayed close, ensuring you had someone to lean on if you needed. 

“Thank you, both,” you said. 

Romero re-appeared with your water bottle and a wheel chair. It was Jack’s that he kept in the back of his car just in case. 

“We’ll get you home so you can rest,” you didn’t like how soft Romero’s voice got. 

“Gross, don’t get sentimental on me,” you grumbled. 

Between the three of them, they helped you into the chair. You could have done it yourself, but you didn’t need to. Huh, it was the first time you could remember not feeling angry about needing help. 

“I’ll drive you, I need to get home anyways,” Jack said. 

“Anyone else, please,” you said, trying to joke. It came off too weak and breathy. 

“The rest of us have real jobs,” T’neysha said, with mock sympathy. Even though they had seen you collapse, they were still talking to you normally. 

“And what the fuck is a marketing specialist, T’neysha?” You asked with a strained grin. 

She laughed and said, “I’ll text you tonight.”

“It’s almost like you like me.”

She snorted and handed Jack your bag and crutches. “Need help transferring?” 

You thought about it and then said, “Yes please. You’re stronger than Jack.”

“Hell yeah I am,” she said. 

Jack just gave a long suffering sigh.

Together he and T’neysha managed to get you out to Jack’s car. An older, but well maintained Subaru. It had a hard shell case on the roof, and you couldn’t begin to imagine what it held. 

You told Jack your address and then focused on your breathing for most of the drive. The nice thing about being in a tremendous amount of pain, is that you didn’t have brain space to worry about how clean your apartment was or if you did your dishes the night before. 

Thankfully, you could use your crutches and get out on your own power by the time the car stopped, but Jack insisted on making sure you got inside. He unlocked your door and found himself in your apartment. 

It wasn’t the first time he imagined where you lived. Although, most of the time he was learning the layout in his mind's eye while fantasizing about your hands on him, his on yours, and maybe—if he was lucky—his name on your lips while he made you fall apart. 

But he knew you weren’t ready for romance. You were barely accepting of friendships. It had taken T’neysha and him both to strategize on how to befriend you. Maybe it was creepy there was a whole gym effort in becoming your friend, but the first couple months you had been in such a dark place. It radiated off of you. 

Even Richard, a man whose glasses were thicker than his finger, could see you were struggling. 

And it had worked. It took nearly six months, but you were friends now. And Jack didn’t plan on jeopardizing that. So instead, he helped you onto your couch, enjoyed peeking at your decor and the messy kitchen from the previous night’s dinner, and asked if you wanted him to get you anything.

“My muscle relaxers are on the counter by my fridge. Can you grab the bottle and something to drink. Help yourself if you want something.”

Jack did as you asked and even snagged one of those canned coffee drinks for himself. He was running on fumes about now. He sat down next to you with the pills and you said, 

“Feel free to take a second. You look exhausted.”

“Might as well,” he said. 

It was the last thing he remembered before jolting awake a few hours later. 

The TV was on but muted, playing some show he didn’t recognize. You had moved, sitting in the recliner with your laptop on a rolling desk in front of you. Your leg was still elevated, still twitching occasionally, but your color looked better and you seemed less fraught with pain. He glanced at the clock and realized he’d been asleep for almost five hours. 

It was nearly lunch time. 

“I’m so sorry,” he croaked. 

“Don’t worry about it. It was nice to have company,” you said softly. He wanted to read into that very badly. 

“I was about to order something for lunch, do you want anything?”

He wanted to go back home and go to bed, but the idea of staying here a little longer, continuing to be in your presence, a little longer. Well, it was impossible to say no. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he nodded. 

“I can’t say no to food,” he yawned. 

Once the food had been ordered, you pushed the desk away and stood using your elbow crutch. You had changed out of your workout clothes, leggings and a tshirt, into the shorts and shirt you wore now. It was the first time he had seen you in clothes other than the ones you wore to the gym. It was the first time he saw your leg. 

It was covered in surgery and trauma scars. No wonder you had so many issues. It was a miracle you survived, if the jagged red line over your femoral artery had anything to say about it. You were still slow on your feet, and he found himself asking, 

“Why don’t you have a wheelchair for days like this?” 

“Insurance won’t cover it,” you replied. “The evil healthcare overlords don’t think I’m disabled enough. My job pays decently well, so I’ll be able to save up for one over the next year or so.”

“Tale as old as time,” he replied. 

“You would know.”

“Ouch,” he laughed. “I’ll have you know I’m a very spritely forty-eight.”

“Ah, so your hair called it quits early then,” you said. 

“It liked the early retirement my leg took,” he replied deadpanned. 

You cracked a smile and Jack couldn’t help the welling of pride in his chest. 

“Well, I’m sure all your patients are comforted by your…experienced appearance,” you snarked back. 

“I drove you home and you’re bullying me?” He laughed.

“No, I’m bullying the man who fell asleep on my couch and snored like a cartoon character.”

“I do not snore.”

“I swear to god, Abbot, you honk-shoo-ed.”

“You’re lying,” he replied, eyes narrowed. You just shrugged. 

“You’ll never know.”

He couldn’t help the incredulous laugh. “You’re funny when you let yourself be.”

“Ugh, don’t say that weird ‘you’re too cool to be angry’ bullshit,” you warned. It was light, compared to some of your harsher comments but he winced nonetheless. 

“Sorry, I’m used to being the fucked up one,” he snorted. 

“You?” It wasn’t hard to hear the incredulity. 

“Compared to my coworkers, sure. I’m a widowed, amputee riddled with PTSD.”

“I didn’t know you were widowed,” you replied quietly. 

He frowned, “Did you think I hated my wife or something? I don’t act married.”

“I just thought you were hung up on the woman who left you,” you shrugged. 

“I can’t tell if you’re joking.”

You shrugged again. Is this what people felt like when they talked to him? No wonder they were unsettled. 

“Do you want to compare trauma then?” You asked a bit sharper. 

“No,” Jack huffed. “I’d win and that’s not fair to you.”

He knew the conversation had taken a turn you didn’t like, but even one of his more shitty jokes managed to break the tensions. 

“Congratulations, do you want a trophy? I’m sure I can get one engraved for you.”

“I’m going to say no because you seem like the kind of person who would do that.”

You just smirked at him. 

The conversation ebbed and flowed until the food arrived. You talked and snarked and by the end of lunch, Jack was full and happy. He was exhausted, but his heart felt warm in a way it hadn’t in years. 

“Do you want me to pick you up for the gym tomorrow? Your car is still over there.”

“Huh, guess it is. I can uber if it’s out of your way.” You said. 

“No, it’s not.” It was about fifteen minutes out of his way. 

“Well…sure, why not. My therapy homework was to accept help this week and if I’m not getting an A plus in therapy I’ll kill myself.”

“That does not sound like A plus reasoning.” 

“Beggars can’t be choosers. Either I’m actively suicidal or I care too much about being the best at therapy.” 

“Oh well, if those are the choices,” he snickered. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow, sound good?”

“Sure, thanks Abbot,” you told him softly.

That night, you couldn’t sleep and for the first time in a long time you couldn’t blame it on your leg. You kept thinking about Jack. You told yourself you’re just grateful: he didn’t panic, that he didn’t treat you like glass, that he didn’t pretend everything was fine or try to fix what can’t be fixed. 

Everyone else in your life either tiptoed around the truth or steamrolled you with optimism, like if they act hopeful enough you’ll magically feel hopeful too. Jack didn’t do either. He enjoyed getting under your skin and pestering you. He treated you normally.

And that was the problem. Because now, lying in the quiet with your leg still twitching and your brain far too awake, you realized you didn’t just feel supported, everyone was supportive—which is nice if not suffocating at times. You felt seen. You like the way he laughed at your sharp jokes instead of trying to sanitize you into the perfect disability example. He understood the days when the pain was so much and you were simply angry. 

You liked him. 

Which was deeply inconvenient, mildly terrifying, and absolutely not something you had the emotional bandwidth to deal with right now. 

Jack picked you up exactly when he said he would. Unfortunately for him, you had peaked out the window and saw his car about ten minutes previous to his text’s arrival. Your phone buzzed exactly at 7:30 on the dot. It was endearing and dorky. 

You managed out of your apartment and out to his car. He even got out to get the door for you. With narrowed eyes you said, 

“My leg is fucked up, not my hands Abbot.”

“And if my mom, god rest her soul, ever learned I didn’t open a car door for a nice woman, she’d haunt me. And she was mean.”

“Nice woman is an overstatement at best,” you scoffed. 

“Okay, slightly prickly but funny woman.”

You thought for a moment, “Yeah, alright.”

“So kind,” he grumbled. 

No one at the gym said anything about yesterday. They didn’t react or treat you any differently. Well, that’s not exclusively true. Marci made a joke about Jack taking you home the previous day and then both of you showing up together. 

Her long limbs were stretching out in downward dog. As Jack walked by her, he nudged her hip and sent her falling down on the mat. She laughed and made kissing noises at him. The ribbing seemed more focused on him than you, which you were grateful for. 

“What’s Jack like in bed, then?” Gregory asked. He was getting better about bantering with everyone. 

“He took me to my apartment, and fell asleep before anything could happen. Apparently, looks aren’t everything,” you replied. The group laughed and it was hard not to preen under the attention. You barely noticed you had called him attractive. There was a flush on Jack’s cheeks and you weren’t sure if yours or Gregory’s comments caused it.

The tittering stopped when Romero clapped. Thursdays were conditioning days which meant you were going to be on the ski machine for more time than you cared to acknowledge. The accommodations for your leg were trying, but it did mean you were close to nailing the pistol squat. 

It was weird being physically stronger than before your accident but overall still weaker. Just because you could squat on your good leg and bench press heavy weights didn’t take away from the fact a simple flare up took you down for an entire day, sometimes more than one. It was a weird juxtaposition you had difficulty reconciling. 

“How’s the leg today?” Romero asked. 

“More sore than usual, walking is about my limit today,” you said. 

“Got it, start at the ski machine,” he instructed. 

“Who could have seen that coming,” you mocked. 

Romero narrowed his eyes at you, but even his serious face chiseled from rock couldn’t disguise the hint of a smile. 

“I can see your smile.”

“Fuck off. Get to work.”

Conditioning days felt like eternity while you were doing them, a rotating cycle of machines and expertly accommodated Romero-approved suffering. The SkiErg, the kettlebells, the bars, the mat circuits that left your arms shaking and your good leg screaming for mercy. Jack always seemed to end up on whatever station was closest to yours, rarely ever looking your way. He was just always there. Everytime you spied him from the corner of your eye he wasn’t paying attention to you. But you swore you could feel his eyes on you. 

When you moved to resistance bands, he grabbed a set from the same rack. When Romero sent you to the sled, Jack was already loading plates on the lane beside you. It never felt deliberate enough to call out, but it happened too often to ignore.

You told yourself it was a coincidence. The gym wasn’t that big. The equipment wasn’t infinite. Jack wasn’t the type to trail people around like a lost puppy. Still, there he was—sweating through intervals, stretching on the mat a few feet away, and drinking water from the same beat-up fountain. He just existed in your orbit, like this was the most natural place in the world for him to be. And for reasons you weren’t ready to unpack, it started to feel natural to you too.

By the end of the session you had collapsed onto the mat, muscles quaking with on-purpose exertion instead of uncontrollable nerve pain. Jack walked by and handed you your water bottle. Grateful, you leaned up just enough to drink. His eyes stayed on you studying and almost…memorizing your sweaty face. 

“What are you looking at?” You asked. 

That seemed to snap him out of his reverie. 

“Sorry, uh, zoned out.”

“Whatever you say old man,” you replied. 

“Old man,” he scoffed, stomping away. You couldn’t help but smirk. 

-- -- --

You had been down and out for nearly a week. You had been in so much pain that even the strongest NSAIDs weren’t touching it. Your neurologist finally told you to go to the ER in an attempt for more controlled pain meds. It wasn’t something you were looking forward to; you had heard the horror stories. Moreover, you were so new to being disabled, you didn’t really know what to do or say. 

After a few reddit threads and changing into the nicest sweatpants you owned, you grabbed your bag and made your way to the hospital. The waiting room was a mess. It was overcrowded and full of people who should really be in urgent care. What you would give for the ability to go to urgent care. 

Checking in was easy. You weren’t asked any questions you didn’t know and they already had your chart. It was a specific choice on your part to go to the hospital where your neurologist was located—you didn’t know much about healthcare but you assumed that the files transferred easier. 

The first hour in the waiting room, you were able to distract yourself from the all encompassing pain. People watching in an ER waiting room felt like watching a soap opera. You were positive that the couple near the left corner of the room were one snarky comment away from breaking up, and the child across the aisle from you had watched the same seven minute episode of Bluey twelve times. Their parent was mouthing along to each line of dialogue. Perhaps the most interesting person to watch was the man in a full suit, calmly sitting and reading the paper. He kept looking around like he was hoping someone noticed him reading an actual newspaper. 

You quickly averted your eyes before he could see you staring. The first time you were called back was to get vitals and a quick history. The medical student looked exhausted, but they took your blood pressure–high–and your pulse—also high—before sending you back to the waiting room. 

Hour two passed much the same but the pain in your leg was starting to feel like molten lava was crawling up your shin. Much of that hour passed with you listening to your audiobook tightly clenching your fists to try and distract your overworked brain. No amount of breathing or grounding techniques were working for you. 

It wasn’t until the fourth hour that you were finally called back. They were kind enough to get a wheel chair for you. A few months ago you would have protested, but the leg had worn you down. It was no longer a hit to your pride to use mobility aids—it meant you were in less pain. You were in a curtained off section of the ER and with the crack in the curtain were able to watch people while mostly curled into a fetal position on your good side. 

“Good evening,” a soft voice said. “I’m Grace.” 

You looked up and a nurse was walking in. She asked you a lot of the same questions and you gave the same answers. Despite being new to this, you knew the drill—nothing was going to happen until a doctor saw you and that was still another hour away. At least in the bed you had a warm blanket and a bed to curl up in. 

It was only thirty minutes before your curtain opened up and a doctor walked in. To your surprise it was Jack. 

“I didn’t know you worked here,” you said, surprised. 

“I wondered why I haven’t seen you in a few days,” he replied softly. “How’s the leg doing?” 

“Well, I haven’t felt it, but I imagine this is what it would feel like if I dipped my leg in lava or acid maybe.” 

“Should I mark you down as a 10 on the painscale?” 

“Make it a 9, I feel like it could get worse,” you grumbled. He gave you a soft, comforting smile. You didn’t like it. You wanted him snarky. “Don’t be nice to me. I don’t like it.” 

“Oh, well so sorry,” he griped. “If your pain is only at a 9 I can’t believe you thought you needed to come in. Did you try deep breathing?” 

You snorted. “Thank you.” 

“You’re an odd patient. Should I put in your chart you only liked to be negged?” 

“Not from everyone, just you.” 

“Just me?” 

“You’re different. I don’t know what you want me to say,” you shrugged. 

He paused and you watched him swallow harshly. “Well, I’m touched.” 

“Please don’t be sincere when I’m considering cutting off my own leg,” you grumbled. 

That got a laugh from him. “I wouldn’t recommend it.” 

“I dunno, it’s looking pretty good.” 

“Well, I get a lot of the same pain and I have to deal with an expensive fake leg.” 

“Is that why you chose an ugly one?” You inquired. 

“You’re so mean,” he huffed, moving towards you. “You can request a new doctor if you want. I’ll have to inspect your leg.” 

“You’ve pinned me to the ground multiple times Abbot, I don’t think my fucked up leg is going to change much. Not to mention…I trust you, I guess.” 

“You guess?” 

“Don’t make me say it again.” 

“Alright then, take off your pants.” 

“Could at least say please first.” 

“Pants,” he stated. 

You rolled your eyes and uncurled from your fetal position. With a nurse's help you slid off your sweatpants. You suspected they were going to need to look at your leg, so you had on some spandex shorts under it, they didn’t cover much but they were better than sitting in your underwear. 

Jack lightly examined your leg ensuring that none of your scars or recent surgery sites had any physical indication for your pain. Once he had finished, you were able to put your pants back on. He sat on the stool next to you and said, 

“We’re going to give you a strong muscle relaxer and a nerve blocker. We’ll keep you here for an hour or so after giving you the medication, but you can’t drive home.” 

“I didn’t drive here. I could barely stand,” you scoffed. 

“I figured, but had to check. Grace will get you the medication and I’ll be back to check on you in a bit, okay?” 

“Yeah, thanks Jack,” you said softly. 

He squeezed your shoulder, saying, “No problem. Let us know if anything else feels amiss.” 

You curled back on the uncomfortable bed again. The sounds from the ER hadn’t washed over you again, so you heard a deeper female voice ask, 

“So that’s gym girl?” 

“Ellis, don’t you have patients?” You heard Jack ask. He sounded exasperated. 

“C’mon boss man, you gotta give me something. It has been a chill for a few hours.” 

“Get your adrenaline somewhere other than my love life,” Jack sighed. 

Love life? 

Before you could continue thinking about whatever the fuck that comment meant, Grace came back in an IV and two vials of medication. One for the muscle relaxant and the other being the nerve block. Within a few minutes, your body relaxed as the sharp, hot pain that had been radiating through your leg began to abate. It still hurt like a bitch, but now it wasn’t the only thing your brain could focus on. 

It made you sleepy and you began to realize how little sleep you’d gotten over the past few days. Moments after the pain became manageable, you were fast asleep, not even the cacophonous sound of a trauma alert roused you. 

Some indeterminate time later, a soft hand was rubbing your shoulder saying your name. 

“Hmm?” 

“You gotta wake up, I need to get you checked on and hopefully discharged,” Jack said quietly. 

You blinked heavily and wiped away the embarrassing bit of drool from your face. You would have cared more about it, but it was the first time in a few days you’d gotten any amount of sleep. Jack looked distinctly different than the last time you saw him. His shoulders were far more slumped and he had protective eyewear shoved up on the top of his head. 

“Sorry,” you mumbled. 

“Nothing to apologize for. You mentioned you hadn’t been sleeping. Frankly, I’m amazed you slept through everything.” 

“Everything?” 

“We got a nasty car accident after you got your meds. It was very loud in here for a bit,” he grimaced. 

“What happened?” 

“We lost a little girl,” he sighed. 

He sat heavy on the side of your bed. You weren’t sure what to do here. Did you comfort the man? Did you hold his hand? Nothing sounded like a good option so you scooted over and patted the bed. Jack gave you a skeptical look and you just shrugged. He surreptitiously peered back towards the closed curtain and then slid up on the bed next to you. 

You were both sitting shoulder to shoulder. It was a very tight fit, you were pressed against him, but he seemed to relax back into the bed. 

“Want to talk about it?” 

“Nope.” 

“Okay. What have I missed at the gym?” 

“Romero’s birthday,” he replied. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” You gasped. “I’ve never been more angry at this fuck ass leg than right now.” 

“Because you missed Romero’s birthday?” 

“Because I missed a chance to try and get a single facial expression from the man,” you said. 

Jack snorted. “Don’t worry. It didn’t happen. Richard brought a cake his wife made. It was vegan, but frankly, some of the best cake I’ve had in years.” 

“Damn. Anything else?” 

“T’neysha brought a girl with her one morning and I think Marci freaked her out.” 

“I thought T’neysha had a girlfriend?” 

“So did we, but this girl was new and about ten years younger than she is.” 

“Get it, T’neysha,” you replied. 

You were sure you had text messages from everyone about this, but along with being in incredible amounts of pain, you just haven’t had the energy to keep yourself alive and also reply. Thankfully, your friends would understand, but it was such a new feeling of grief brought forth by this disability. It shouldn’t hurt to miss such mundane things, but it did. 

“How are you feeling now?” Jack asked. 

“Almost back to baseline,” you told him. “Thank you.” 

“Just doing my job,” he replied. 

“According to the internet you were abnormally trusting,” you said. 

“Well, I also know you and your neurologist.” 

“You know Dr. Khandekar?” You asked. 

“He’s the only neurologist that picks up night-time pages in a timely manner,” Jack told you. 

“He’s scarily efficient,” you agreed. “How much longer is your shift?” 

“I’m done once I discharge you,” he said. You glanced at your watch. It was only 3am. You knew most days he worked until seven. Briefly, you wondered if the car accident that seemed to have rattled him so much was part of the reason. 

“How long will that take?” 

“Not long. I’ll grab the paperwork for you right now,” he said. 

Shortly thereafter, you paid—thank god for good insurance—and then Jack appeared to escort you out. 

“I’ll drive you.” 

“I can uber,” you replied. 

“I’m feeling antsy after today,” he pressed. You stared at him for a minute and then nodded. 

He helped you gather your bag, and then slung it over his shoulder with his own backpack, refusing to let you even try and hold it. It was a pointless argument, so you let him have his way and then followed him out of The Pitt. You were almost out of the ambulance bay doors when you heard a woman shriek, 

“He killed her! He could have saved her but he didn’t. She was talking when we came in.” 

You saw a woman being held by, presumably, her husband; she was sobbing and screaming while a nurse and another doctor tried to speak with them. 

“I want him fired!” she shouted. 

Jack tensed up next to you and suddenly puzzle pieces began to fall into place. Whatever happened while you had been asleep was going to haunt more than just the grieving family. The family didn’t see Jack and you suspected that was going to be for the best. So when he stopped moving, you lightly nudged him. 

It seemed to get his legs working again and he led you to his car. 

“Do you need a minute?” you asked when he slid into the car. 

“No,” he said shortly. 

“Okay.” 

“I’m fine.” 

“Didn’t say you weren’t.” 

“Your tone did.” 

“My tone did no such thing.” 

“I’m fine,” he stressed. 

“And I’m not asking if you’re fine or not. I’m asking if you need a minute before operating heavy machinery,” you said softly. 

“I don’t like it when you get soft and kind either,” he grumbled. You snorted. 

“Take a breath so you don’t kill us, Abbot,” you then said with more of an edge to your voice.

“I’ve driven a humvee while getting shot at,” he replied. 

“Before or after moving to Pittsburgh?” You asked. 

“I can’t believe I offered to drive you home,” he grumbled. You smiled. 

When he pulled up next to your building, he parked and turned off the car. You weren’t expecting that. Frankly, you had half expected to badger him into coming up with you. The idea of him going home alone when he was worked up like this didn’t sit well in your gut. Jack typically didn’t broadcast his bad days—he white knuckled them while silently lifting weights until his arms couldn’t move anymore. You had seen it enough times, though you’d been too wrapped up in your own shit to care.

He was a silent shadow as you unlocked the front door of the building and then the second door to the stairs. You’d lived in this building for years. At first you weren’t thrilled to be on the first floor, but now that you only had to go up a couple of steps, you were grateful. Unlocking the door, you let Abbot walk in first. 

Your place was a mess, as it often was after a flare up. 

“Have you eaten recently?” Jack asked quietly. “Eating will help.” 

“Not since dinner. I can make something,” you said heading towards the small kitchen. 

“I can do it. I don’t trust you to cook.” 

“You’ve never had my cooking. How would you even know?” 

“I just gave you hospital grade muscle relaxers. I’m not letting you near a stove.” 

“Oh my god, I’ll just order something. Christ.” 

Jack made a grumpy noise in the back of his throat but moved towards your couch. Normally, you might have made a jab at him making himself comfortable, but frankly, you wanted him to. As much as you both sniped at each other, you didn’t want him to leave so instead you said, 

“You’re hovering more than my roomba.” 

“Do you prepare these insults when you’re bored or something?” 

“You’re literally folding a blanket.” 

“I’m trying to clear off the couch to sit down.” 

“I’m so sorry my post-flare apartment isn’t clean enough for you,” you intoned. 

Jack didn’t respond, but did continue to straighten up your living room. It was kind of funny to watch him putter around. You had your pain flare set-up down at this point. On days where your leg was not cooperating, your couch was more centrally located than your bedroom, so you often made a cocoon of blankets and pillows there. You had a rolling cart of supplies stashed just beside it full of medication, gatorade, snacks, and icy hot patches. The patches never really worked, but sometimes they were enough of a placebo to give you a modicum of relief. 

“This is a good idea,” Jack said, putting back some of the medication on the cart. 

“Bound to have one at some point. The only things open are Chinese and some 24-hour burger place.” 

“A 24-hour burger place sounds like food poisoning,” he replied, still studying the cart. You suspected he was looking at your medication. It would feel nosy if he weren’t a doctor. Or maybe it should even if he’s a doctor. Maybe it didn’t feel nosy because he was Jack.

“Hard agree. Chinese it is,” you said. 

The pillows and blankets were placed on top of your recliner, and Jack had finally taken a seat in the same corner of the couch he fell asleep on the last time he was in your apartment. He had taken off his shoe and leg, placing his one socked foot on the coffee table and crossing his residual limb over it. It was nice to see him comfortable. 

You eased onto the couch next to him and extended your bad leg out on the couch. While sitting up there was a few inches of space between your foot and his hip. Keeping it extended seemed to help you the most so you tried your best when you could. Jack didn’t indicate he even noticed. 

“What do you want?” you asked. He rattled off an order and you hit submit, adding an extra tip for the late hour. 

The pair of you were silent for a moment until he said, 

“I’m not going to talk about it.” 

“Still didn’t ask you too.” 

“You want to.” 

“Sure, but if you wanted to tell me you would. I can just put on a shitty comedy show and we can sit here in silence until the food comes.” 

“Okay.” 

And that’s what you did. You were quietly relieved when he offered to get the food when it was delivered, and the two of you continued to eat in silence while the show played quietly in the background, neither of you paying much attention. 

“The girl crashed really suddenly,” Jack finally said. The TV was so low you didn’t feel compelled to mute it. 

“Did she come in an ambulance?” 

You didn’t remember much about your accident, but you were pretty certain you were in an ambulance at some point. 

“Yeah, we were looking at her and the next minute she’s coding. She wasn’t strapped into her carseat properly and when they were hit, we think she was knocked into something causing internal bleeding. She bled out without spilling a drop.” 

“I’m sorry to hear that.” 

You waited to see if he would bring up the screaming woman you saw while leaving. 

“Her mom…obviously was distraught. She thought her kid was fine. When Ellis and I suggested the seatbelt wasn’t secured properly, she lost it.” 

“God, that is rough,” you murmured. He paused, and then changed the subject,

“How’s your leg?” 

“Baseline,” you replied. 

“Does it hurt when it’s touched?” 

“Not often,” you replied. 

He placed his hand on your ankle, and began rubbing absent-minded circles with his middle finger on the bone. You wondered if he even realized he was doing it. 

“Have you had a parent blame you for their child’s death, recently?” he asked. You suspected it was meant to be a joke. But timing in combination with the way his voice wavered a bit at the end suggested that he was hitting his breaking point.

“Fuck it,” you grumbled. 

You maneuvered slowly, due to your own ability and to give him a chance to tell you to leave him alone, until you were seated next to him. Your bad leg propped up against the coffee table as well. Instead of staying like that, you wrapped an arm around him and pulled him against your shoulder. 

He didn’t cry. But he laid against breathing heavily. You made sure you had both arms wrapped around him. It couldn’t have been comfortable, but you got the impression he needed some kind of human connection. 

Eventually, he made a move to get up. 

“I’ve taken up a lot of your time,” he said thickly. 

“I don’t really like the idea of you going home alone,” you told him. 

“I’m not going to kill myself,” he almost snapped. 

“Not my concern,” you said simply. You really weren’t worried about him killing himself. You just didn’t want him to be alone. “You’ve had a shit day, you shouldn’t be on your own if you don’t want to be.” 

“I don’t want to…” 

“I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t mean it. But if you really don’t want to stay that is fine, too. But I will be checking in on you in a few hours.” 

Jack sighed and you knew before he said anything that he planned on staying. 

“Fine,” he said. “But you need sleep. In a real bed and not on your couch.” 

“That couch is comfortable as hell,” you replied. 

“And I’m sure I’m about to find out.” 

You didn’t actually plan on letting him sleep on the couch, but side stepping his obnoxiously chivalry had to be done sneakily. So instead of responding, you offered to let him shower. Your bathroom had the same accessibility additions he needed. He had his workout clothes in his bag which he changed into once he was clean. Then you said, 

“You also need to sleep in a bed.” 

“No.” 

“No, what?” 

“I’m not sleeping in your bed and leaving you on the couch.” 

“I have a giant bed,” you began. “Humor me.” 

“It’s not…appropriate.” 

“Says who?” 

“Says every ethical mandate I’ve learned in the last thirty years,” he grumbled. 

“You’re not my doctor. And also, by treating me, you violated a couple of those mandates of yours.” 

He opened his mouth to argue, but then closed it. “How dedicated are you to arguing about this?” 

“So dedicated.” 

“Fine.” 

You tried not to smile victoriously. He really was a pushover at times.

He followed you into your bedroom. He removed his leg and leaned it against the side closest to the door. You pulled back your duvet and before getting in shimmied off your sweat pants, leaving you in just your shorts. Jack was wearing his athletic shorts and old Army t-shirt. He was stiff as he got into bed. 

Per your PT’s requirements, you did a couple stretches before getting in bed next to Jack. You weren’t lying about the size of your bed. It was massive and took up most of your bedroom. There was a person size gap between the two of you. 

“I can build a pillow wall if that makes you feel better,” you said with a smile. 

“Fuck off and go to sleep.” 

You snorted, and not long after closing your eyes managed to drift off. 

When you woke up Jack was still sound asleep. Out of the two of you, he tended to sleep during the daytime while you normally had work. You had, of course, called in sick that week. For a while you watched him breathe tucked on your side. Your leg was barely in pain that day. The nerve block was always the most effective way to silence your overactive nerves. You turned on your side to look at the man a few inches away from you.

He was slack jawed, messy hair and completely asleep. He looked, for the first time, relaxed. You hadn’t planned on letting anyone get this close, not after everything, not when your life still felt like a series of ugly scars, physical therapy, and countless accommodations. But Jack hadn’t pushed. He hadn’t asked for anything. He’d just showed up to exist next to you. And now, with the room still and your leg mercifully quiet, you realized the feeling curling low in your stomach wasn’t just gratitude or comfort or shared experiences. It was softer. Warmer. A little terrifying. You might actually like him—and not in the distant, theoretical way you’d kept everything else lately, but in the very real, inconvenient, this-man-is-in-my-bed-and-I-don’t-want-him-to-leave way.

A month ago the thought would have sent you into a tailspin, but that morning—or really early afternoon—it felt almost…inevitable. 

Staying alive had required more energy than you ever expected. The energy to go to the gym, the energy to stay in touch with friends and family, the energy to stay employed; it was a lot. Romance had never really seemed worth the allocation of your small reservoir of energy. Romance was exhausting and full of expectations, and you didn’t trust your body not to punish you for it.

The worst part was that you’d been bracing for the one-year mark of your diagnosis like it was going to knock the wind out of you, the official confirmation that this wasn’t just a bad recovery, this was your new reality. It passed a few weeks ago and nothing happened. There had been nothing monumental about the date. You acknowledged it, were angry for an hour or two, but then moved on because you had to make lunch for yourself and do your PT stretches.

Still, it was an adjustment and people still treated you fucking weird at times. It was either pity or bizarre inspiration. Neither felt comfortable for you. Yet, Jack was one of the only people to never make you feel that way. Not once. He was as close as you’d felt to normal since the accident. You could be sharp and tired and scared and he didn’t flinch, most of the time he pushed back.

And now that you let yourself notice it, you couldn’t unsee all the little tells. The way he always ended up on the station beside yours. The way he looked at you for half a beat too long sometimes. The way he swallowed and went still when you were too close to him. The way Ellis said “love life” and he didn’t correct her. The way he came inside when he could have dropped you at the curb.

The way he was sleeping in your bed right now because you asked him to, because you insisted, because he didn’t want you on the couch and you didn’t want him going home raw and alone. The space between you in the mattress was respectful; just two friends sharing a bed. It was something you’d done countless times with other friends. Even with that distance you felt his warmth. It was something that didn’t leave with him.

You stared at him longer than you should, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest, his face slack with sleep, silver hair mussed against your pillow. The thought arrived, finally battling through your pathological avoidance. You really liked him. You liked him in a way that made your stomach twist and your chest feel fluttery. You liked him in a way that made you imagine this—this exact scene—repeating itself until it was ordinary: the morning light, the stupidly big bed, and Jack only a short reach away from you.

You liked him enough that the idea of waking up with him a few inches away felt less like an added drain to your low energy reserves and more like something you wanted every day.

-- -- --

As Jack woke up, the bed felt softer than his own. He briefly worried he had gone home with someone. It didn’t sound like him, but he had been a mess. He remembered why he had been a mess and realized a few things in quick succession. He had gone home with someone, but that someone had been you. 

He remembered you lightly bullying him into sleeping in your bed. And even though he shouldn’t have, even though he thought it might hurt more than help, he agreed. You had fallen asleep almost immediately, but he had stayed awake for another hour, too wired to finally shut his eyes. Instead he watched you breath, relieved that for the first time in a week you were finally getting the rest your body needed. 

In a weak moment, when the clock ticked over to 0600, he gently brushed your hair out of your face, relishing in how your skin felt against his finger tips and how your hair moved just so, at his direction. He was gone for you not long after he realized you were his match in deadpanned, existential jokes. But truly getting to know you had ruined him for everyone else. 

There was no one on this earth who could compare with your grumpy, stubborn, and quietly kind person. Falling asleep next to you had probably been the highlight of his year. 

So when he opened his eyes, he was half expecting you to either be still asleep or already beginning your day. He didn’t expect to see you staring back at him. 

“How did you sleep?” you asked softly. Your hand was resting on the bed in between the both of you and it took his full strength not to reach over and grab it. 

He didn’t tell you that for the first time in a few months, he didn’t have slightly panic inducing dreams he couldn’t remember when he finally jolted awake. Instead, he slept in oblivion, waking up the best rested in a while. He always knew he slept a little better with someone next to him. He thought it had to do with his body feeling protected. But he was rarely comfortable enough with someone to do so. 

“Good,” is all he said. You didn’t move, so neither did he. 

“Do you have plans today?” you asked. 

“None,” he answered. 

You nodded and kept staring. It was a little weird. It was like you were looking for something. 

“And how are you feeling after your shift?” 

“What’s with the Spanish Inquisition?” 

“Answser the question, old man,” you shot back. 

“Not that much older than you.” 

“Question. Answer it.” 

“Fine, I feel unhappy about it but I have therapy tomorrow, so I’ll deal with it then. Don’t make me deal with it when I just woke up, you slave driver.” 

You gave him a rueful smile. “I just needed to check.” 

“For what?” 

“That you weren’t, I don’t know, emotionally vulnerable?” 

“For what reason?” He asked confused. 

“Did you know that you don’t make me feel inspirational?” you asked. 

“That feels like an insult,” he scoffed. 

“Well, it isn’t. God, ever since my leg got fucked up people have been so weird about it. They pity me, are overly helpful, or worse, tell me i’m inspirational as though I had a fucking choice,” you grumbled. 

“That sounds familiar,” he said. The urge to run his fingers over the edge of your jaw was becoming all encompassing. He needed to get out of your bed but he couldn’t make himself move. 

“I’m sure. But when I’m around you I feel the most normal I’ve felt since that fucking car hit me.” 

A pinprick of pride began to bloom in Jack’s chest at your words. “I’m happy to hear that, but why did you think you needed to check my mental status before you told me?”

“Because I also wanted to say I think I like you a lot and I wondered if you felt the same way. I suspect you do, since you’re sleeping in my bed, but I wanted to check.” 

Jack blinked. Once. Twice. Thrice. 

“Out of all the things you were going to say, I don’t think I would have ever guessed that,” he breathed. 

“That is not an answer to my questions and in fact, raises my stress level significantly,” you replied. 

Jack smiled and laughed, “I like you a lot, too.” 

“Like, romantically?” 

“Yes.” 

“Like, you want to kiss me?” 

“Ideally in the next few seconds if you’re amenable,” he replied. 

For the first time since he met you, he saw you grin. It was bright and made his heart skip a beat—not medically accurate, but exactly what it felt like in his chest. You played your cards close most of the time, although if the cards were annoyance or the urge to bully him—those were played pretty openly. So it was a rare treat to see such joy light up your face, especially when it wasn’t related to ribbing him. 

“I thought so, but it’s really good to hear you say it.” 

“C’mere,” he said, pulling you both to the center of the bed. He reveled in the little squeak you made at the movement. “Can I tell you something now?” 

“Can you kiss me first?” 

“No,” he said quietly. 

He smiled, as he cupped his hand over your jaw and stroked your cheek with his thumb. It was exactly how he hoped it would be. You were warm under his touch and he couldn’t help but grin back at you, at the contact, at this weird satisfied feeling he never thought he would get to feel. 

As much as he wanted you, you wanted him back. 

“Fine, hurry it up, though, Abbot.” 

“I’ve wanted to kiss you for months and before you joined the gym, I only went a couple times a week. I started going everyday just for a chance to see you.” 

If possible, your smile got bigger. “That’s pretty sweet. But you should kiss me now.” 

“Yes, ma’am.”

Jack shifted closer, the mattress dipped between you, the space closing until your knees brushed and your foreheads were almost touching. Your bad leg stayed carefully extended behind you, but your good knee bent instinctively toward him, anchoring you in place. The hand not resting on your cheek, wound under your ribs, holding you against his body.

His nose brushed yours first. He hesitated. Your hand curled into the fabric of his shirt at his waist. When his lips finally met yours, the kiss was soft and exploratory. Your mouths moved together slowly, learning the shape and rhythm of each other, all awareness shrinking to the narrow space of the bed.

His thumb traced a small arc along your cheekbone, while your free hand slid up to his shoulder, feeling the warmth of him. You stayed on your sides, bodies parallel, close. When he pulled back, just a fraction, his forehead rested against yours and his breath fanned warm across your lips.

“Worth the wait,” he murmured.

“Glad to hear it,” you replied, your voice steady even as your heart thudded against your ribs. You stayed there, inches apart, his knee brushing yours, his hand still cradling your face. 

Then suddenly he shot up, and began to roll over. 

“Where the fuck are you going?” 

“I want to take you on a proper date,” he announced. 

“Ugh, I don’t want to get up,” you whined. 

You saw Jack grab his leg and fiddle with his socket sleeve. There was a movement when he went to put on the prosthetic and then he let out a harsh sigh. 

“What now?” you asked. 

“My leg is too swollen to fit in my socket,” he grumbled. 

“Oh no,” you said, not at all sympathetic. “Now it seems like we can’t get out of bed.” 

He rolled back over to you and poked your side. 

“I’m going to take you on a date.” 

“And I’ll let you, but for now, just lay here with me and we can watch stupid TV and order unhealthy food.” 

“Can we kiss some more?” He asked. 

“Don’t need to ask me twice,” you said, leaning over to press your lips against his. 

-- -- --

Author's Note: for all my disabled besties who are pissed but continuing on. every side character in this was named after people who were instrumental in my (minor) disability diagnosis after not getting believed for most of my life.

✧ Join Taglist Here ✧ Leave Taglist Here ✧

He fumbled his keys, dropping them to the hardwood as he opened the door. Bending to retrieve them had an uncomfortable jolt of pain shooting up his spine. He huffed a tired sigh. He hadn’t even been able to sit for more than a five minute stretch and was utterly wiped. Usually the post-shift adrenaline would carry him through getting some food and a shower but even that seemed to have abandoned him leaving him with only a bone deep fatigue.

Soft yellow light spilling from his kitchen made him pause. He hadn’t left any lights on, he was sure of it. It was the last thing he always checked when leaving the house.

“Jack?” your soft voice called from the kitchen.

He closed his eyes briefly. Not now. Please, not now.

You appeared in the kitchen doorway with a soft smile. “Hey. Go get cleaned up. I made you some breakfast so you could get some food in you before you crashed.”

Jack closed the door, wincing as his prosthesis pinched when he shifted his weight. “What are you doing here?” The words came out harsher than he’d intended but he couldn’t summon the effort to soften them.

Your small smile faded but didn’t disappear completely. “I just wanted to take care of you. I know it was a tough night so I—”

“So, I can’t give you the attention you’re always begging for because I’m having a shit night so you show up here to get it in person?” Jack cut you off, watching your face fall with a detached sort of awareness. He knew he was being cruel. He knew he would regret it, but he couldn’t seem to stop the words from tumbling out. “I don’t have the energy to deal with you right now.”

Your shoulders climbed up around your ears as if you were trying to shield yourself from his words. “I wasn’t…I just wanted to help.”

“I didn’t ask for your help.” The devastation on your face should have stopped him. Instead, it spurred him on, as if your pain would somehow alleviate his own. “You can’t just show up here whenever you want. I need space. Quiet. Neither of which you are capable of giving me.”

You took a step back, your gaze falling to the floor. “I’m sorry, Jack. I just thought—”

“That’s the fucking problem. You’re always thinking about what you want. What you need. What about what I need?” Even as he said the words, he knew they weren’t true. You were nothing but considerate, always careful not to push too hard, always willing to give him space when he needed solitude. The guilt began to seep in but exhaustion kept it at bay. “I’m gonna take a shower.”

He brushed past you, catching a glimpse of your eyes shimmering with unshed tears. For a split second, he nearly turned back. Nearly apologized. Nearly pulled you into his arms and admitted he was being an asshole that he didn’t mean any of it. Instead, he kept walking. The bedroom door closed behind him with a click, leaving you alone in the hallway.

“Yeah, of course,” you whispered to the empty hallway. The sound of the shower soon provided a steady backdrop to your pain. You pressed a palm against your mouth, forcing back the sob that threatened to escape, and blinked rapidly to clear the blur of tears. It was happening again. You’d fucked it up again by being too needy, too clingy. What the fuck was wrong with you. One tear escaped despite your best efforts, trailing down your cheek before you angrily wiped it away with the back of your hand.

Your mother’s voice echoed in your head. You’re suffocating him. Men don’t like clingy women. Your father chimed in. Give the poor guy some breathing room. Then your sister. This is why your relationships never last. You’re just too much.

Too much. The words had followed you most of your life no matter how small you tried to make yourself. You glanced at the plate of bacon and eggs you’d made, hoping to get some protein into Jack’s stomach before he slept. You’d thought it a loving gesture, one full of concern but now you saw it for the invasion it was.

The shower continued to run in the background as you moved through the apartment gathering your things. There wasn’t much. You’d been so careful not to leave too many things at his place, not wanting to encroach on his space. But things had accumulated over the months just the same.

You pulled your overnight bag from the closet and began methodically collecting your things, as quickly and as quietly as you could. The spare clothes from the drawer he’d given you. The items from the nightstand on your side of the bed. Your gaze flicked briefly to the bathroom door, deciding to leave your belongings there so you didn’t disturb Jack any more than you already had.

In the living room you grabbed a couple of books before moving to the kitchen to grab your mug and the book on phantom limb pain you’d been reading while you waited for him to come home. You’d been so eager to help with his discomfort, to show you could be useful, that you’d spent hours researching. Just another example of you pushing yourself into spaces where you weren’t wanted.

You considered leaving a note. The pen hovered over the notepad on the counter. What should you write exactly?

I’m sorry for bothering you?

I didn’t mean to love you too much?

I’ll try to be less needy?

Each message seemed more pathetic than last. A further burden on someone who had already made it clear they didn’t have the energy for you. In the end, you sat the pen down without writing a word. A note would be just another demand for his attention.

You glanced around one more time, memories flashing through your head as you did so. Jack pulling you into his lap as you brought him coffee, his sleepy smile against your neck. The two of you lounging on the couch, legs tangled together under a blanket. When he’d given you his key, telling you to use it whenever you wanted. That he liked having you here. That he wanted you to feel safe, comfortable.

Perhaps you’d imagined the affection in all of those moments. Saw something you wanted to be there rather than the reality that Jack tolerated you more than he wanted you. Maybe you were overreacting. You knew his shift had been shit. Maybe he was just lashing out due to exhaustion and stress. Maybe you should stay, talk it through when he emerged calmer from his shower.

Then you remembered his words. I don’t have the energy to deal with you right now. Deal with. As if you were a chore, something to be managed or handled. You swallowed hard. Your family was right. You were too much. Too needy, too eager, too clingy. And now Jack had seen it too, just as you’d always known he would.

The shower was still running when you shouldered your bag and slipped out the door. You closed it gently behind you, careful not to make a sound. Your final act of consideration was to leave without disturbing him. To give him the space and silence he so desperately needed and you were apparently incapable of giving him. You locked the door with the key then slipped it into the mail slot, knowing he’d find it later, sure he’d be relieved he didn’t have to deal with you anymore.

Hot water pounded against Jack’s shoulders as he sat slumped on the shower seat. It did nothing to wash away that expression on your face when he’d snapped at you. Steam filled the bathroom, making it hard to breathe, yet he couldn’t bring himself to turn down the temperature. He deserved the discomfort. A minor penance for the words he’d hurled at you when all you’d done was try to take care of him.

“Fuck,” he muttered as he squeezed his eyes shut, but your face appeared in the darkness behind his eyelids. The way your smile had crumbled as you tried to make yourself smaller as if trying to disappear. You hadn’t even fought back. That was the worst part. You’d just accepted his cruelty as if you’d deserved it.

He'd been a fucking asshole of the first order. Exhaustion and pain had loosened his tongue but the words had been his own. He couldn’t blame them on anything but his own stupid embarrassment. He’d been embarrassed you’d seen him at his lowest, limping and exhausted. Embarrassed he couldn’t be strong for you. Embarrassed by his need for the comfort you were offering. And in his embarrassment, he’d lashed out.

You’d just wanted to help and he’d thrown it back in your face like your care was an imposition rather than the gift it was. As he rinsed the shampoo from his hair, his mind ran back over his outburst. I don’t have the energy to deal with you right now. Christ. As if your presence wasn’t the very thing that restored him during horrible shifts. Your smile, your humor, the way you seemed to understand when to talk and when to let him be silent.

He shut off the water and reached for a towel. He’d apologize. Make it right. You’d understand. You always did. Sometimes he wondered if you forgave his moods too easily. He wrapped the towel around his waist and used his crutches to maneuver to the door and opened it.

“Baby,” he called, his voice softer now. “I’m sorry about before. I was a dick.”

Silence answered.

He frowned, as he moved into the bedroom calling your name, louder now. “Are you still here?”

His eyes landed on the bed, taking in the details he’d missed when he’d passed through to take his shower. The bed was made with fresh sheets, the super soft gray ones you’d bought him. Lounge clothes were laid out on the bed and everything he needed to take care of his leg was arranged neatly on the nightstand.

He closed his eyes briefly before getting dressed as quickly as he could. He headed toward the kitchen, calling out for you again but knowing you were already gone. The breakfast you’d prepared remained on the table, covered with plastic wrap. A note should have been next to his plate. You always left messages whether they be funny or sweet or practical. But there was no note. His stomach sank.

He sat in the chair, staring at the food that had gone cold. His stomach rumbled reminding him he hadn’t eaten since a hasty protein bar somewhere mid-shift. Mechanically, he pulled the plate toward him and took a bite. Then another. He was certain the food was good, you’d always been an excellent cook, but it all tasted like ashes on his tongue. With each bite, his guilt intensified. You’d come over here on your night off to take care of him and he’d treated your sacrifice with contempt.

After finishing half the plate, he returned to the bedroom where he’d left his phone. He scrolled past notifications desperately hoping you’d sent him something. Anything. Finding nothing, he typed out a text to you.

I’m sorry.

It was woefully inadequate. There should be more but his brain was foggy with exhaustion and the right words wouldn’t come. He hit send. After a beat, he sent another.

Please call me when you can.

As he slid between the sheets, he checked his phone one more time. No response. Not that he was surprised, he’d hurt you badly.

Tomorrow, he promised himself as his eyelids grew heavy. He’d find you and make this right. He’d explain, apologize properly and beg if necessary. The thought of losing you, made his chest tighten with panic. But exhaustion won out. His last conscious thought was of your face.

Jack jolted awake, heart hammering against his ribs. For a moment, he couldn’t place what had woken him. He couldn’t recall a dream and no alarm was going off. Then the memory of that morning rushed back.

He fumbled for his phone, knocking over a bottle of moisturizer. The screen showed it was just after 15:00. More importantly, there were no missed calls or texts from you. “Shit,” he muttered, pushing himself up.

He dialed your number, pressing the phone to his ear as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed. It rang four times before going to voicemail. Your warm voice asking him to leave a message made his stomach clench.

“Hey, it’s me,” he said after the tone. “I…Listen, about this morning, I was a total asshole. Please call me back. I need to talk to you.” He paused, then added, “I’m sorry,” before hanging up.

Jack put on his sleeve and secured his prosthesis with practiced movements despite the slight tremor in his hands. Standing, his gaze swept the room only to pause when he noticed that your nightstand was empty. No book, no charger, nothing.

He yanked open the drawer he’d cleared for you in his dresser to find it empty. A glance in the closet showed your overnight bag missing as well. An uneasy feeling crept up his spine as he moved through the house, checking spaces where you’d left pieces of yourself over the months. The books you’d had on the living room bookcase were gone. That stupid mug with the cartoon dog that he pretended to hate but secretly loved was gone as well.

The only place there was any trace of you was the bathroom where he’d been showering when you left. “No, no, no, no,” he muttered, his movements becoming more frantic as he searched. This wasn’t you giving him space, this was you removing yourself from his life entirely.

He called again and again it went to voicemail. “Please pick up,” he said this time, not trying to hide the desperation in his voice. “I know I don’t deserve it, but please just let me know you’re okay.”

Jack ran his hands through his hair, tugging at the roots. “Shit, shit. Fuck,” he hissed as he paced the living room. You hadn’t just left, you’d erased yourself from his space. He needed to find you. His stomach growled reminding him he hadn’t eaten.

He wrenched open the refrigerator door to grab a protein shake and froze. Neatly stacked containers lined the shelves, each labeled in your handwriting. ‘Tuesday lunch,’ ‘Wednesday dinner,’ etc. Enough meals to last him through the week. He stared at these tangible reminders of your care. Several of the notes had small hearts or smiley faces drawn on them.

“God, what the fuck is wrong with me?” he whispered, closing the refrigerator door and resting his head against the cool surface. He’d been tired and in pain but nothing excused what he’d done. Nothing excused making you feel like a burden when you were anything but.

He needed to find you. Needed to explain. To make you understand. Jack dressed in cargos and a t-shirt, shoving a scrub top into his bag in case he didn’t have time to come home before his shift. The apartment you shared with Samira was a short walk away but his body still ached from yesterday’s shift so the truck it was.

Securing his keys and wallet, he headed for the door, freezing as the light caught something lying on the floor. A lump formed in his throat as he bent over to pick your key up from the floor. His hand fisted around it and a guttural yell escaped his lips. He almost threw it before stopping himself and putting it into his pocket instead. He’d need to give it back to you after all.

Twenty minutes later, Jack stood outside your apartment door. He knocked sharply, then again more gently, not wanting to piss off your neighbors.

No answer.

He knocked again, calling your name. The hallway remained silent except for the sound of a TV in another unit. He tried the doorknob. Locked, of course. He pressed his ear to the door but heard no movement from within. He stepped back, rubbing his hand over his jaw, the stubble rasping against his palm.

Where were you? At work maybe but you weren’t scheduled. Your family lived hours away (thank fuck for that). You could possibly be with friends, but he wouldn’t know how to start tracking you down.

Jack pulled out his phone again, thumb hovering over Samira’s contact. She would know where you were. She might even be with you right now. But if he called her, he’d have to explain why he was looking for you, would have to admit how badly he’d fucked up.

Pride warred briefly with necessity before he hit dial. The call went straight to voicemail. She was either working or had her phone off while sleeping.

He sent one more text to you.

I’m at your place. Please let me know where you are. I need to see you.

He slumped against the wall opposite your door. Neither you nor Samira were home and he had no idea where else to look.

He glanced at his watch. It was after 16:00. He had to be back at the Pitt for his sift at 19:00. The thought of working twelve hours not knowing where you were or if you were okay made his stomach turn.

Jack sat in his truck outside your apartment building staring at his phone as if it might suddenly reveal your whereabouts. His thumb hovered over Robby’s contact. He was expecting Jack to relieve him for the night shift but the thought of working tonight was impossible. He couldn’t focus on patients when his mind was filled with you, with the need to find you and fix what he’d broken.

He hit dial, pressing the phone to his ear. Robby answered on the third ring. “Brother, tell me you’re calling to say you’re coming in early,” Robby said in lieu of a greeting. “I’s a zoo here today.”

Jack closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the seat. “Actually, I’m calling to say I can’t work tonight. I’ll need to find someone to cover.”

A beat of silence. “Are you sick?” Robby asked, concern coloring his voice.

Jack gripped the steering wheel with this free hand. “I fucked up, Robby. I need to find my girl.”

There was another pause, filled with the background noise of the ED. Then Robby said, “She’s here.”

Jack’s eyes snapped open. “What?”

“She’s been here since noon. We had three call out with the flu.”

“She’s there right now?” he asked for confirmation, already turning the key in the ignition and putting the phone on speaker.

“Yes, I’m looking at her right now.” There was a shuffling sound then Robby’s voice became clearer as if he’d moved to a quieter area. “What the fuck did you do, Jack? She’s been acting weird all day.”

Jack winced, backing out of the parking space with more speed than caution. “I was an asshole after my shift. Said things I didn’t mean.”

“Must have been some horrible shit, Jack,” Robby remarked. “She’s doing this fake smile thing. And she called me Dr. Robinavitch. Twice.” He sighed. “Mohan’s been hovering as much as she can, but they’re on different cases, of course.”

So Samira was there too. That explained while neither of you had been at the apartment. “Don’t let her leave,” Jack said.

“She’s working her shift. I don’t think she’s just suddenly going to leave,” Robby grumbled, but his tone had softened. For all his gruff exterior, Robby had a soft spot for you. “Just get here and fix whatever you broke, Abbot. I hate seeing her like this.”

Jack ended the call and focused on getting to the hospital as quickly as possible without breaking any major traffic laws. His mind raced trying to decide what he’d say when he saw you. A simple ‘I’m sorry’ wasn’t going to cut it. Not when you’d taken all your belongings from his place and returned his key.

Twenty minutes later, Jack strode through the ambulance bay doors, scanning the ED for any sign of you. He found Robby first who motioned down one of the corridors.

Jack moved past the hub where Samira stood reviewing a chart. She glanced up, her expression hardening when she saw him. Whatever you’d told her about what had happened, had clearly painted him in the light he deserved. “I know,” he said as he passed without stopping.

He found you in the quiet corridor at the far end of the ED, your back to him as you studied a chart. Your shoulders curled forward like you were trying to hide when he said your name. You didn’t move. Didn’t acknowledge him.

“Baby, please look at me,” Jack begged, his voice low but urgent.

Your body went completely still but you didn’t turn around. “Please don’t call me that, Dr. Abbot.”

Jack made a sound low in his throat. Part protest, part pain. “Please,” he said moving closer but not touching you. “I’m sorry. I am so fucking sorry.”

Slowly, you turned to face him. The sight of your eyes, usually so warm and expressive, now dulled, made his chest constrict. You’d been crying, though he doubted anyone else could tell.

“You don’t have to be sorry, Jack,” you said, voice unsettlingly calm. “I know I’m a lot. I told you when you asked me out that I wasn’t worth the effort. I’m too pushy, too clingy, too needy. I’m too much.”

Each word sounded like an accusation, though they were directed at yourself rather than him. Jack reached for your hand, relieved when you didn’t pull away even though you didn’t return his grip.

“You’re not,” he insisted, ducking his head to try to meet your gaze. “You’re not too much. I was an asshole. I was tired and in pain and I took it out on you. There is no excuse for that. It’s not enough, but I am so fucking sorry.”

Your lips curved into a smile though there was no warmth in it. “It’s okay. I get it. I’ll be fine.” You gently pulled your hand from his. “I need to get back to work. Make sure you eat something before—” You cut yourself off abruptly. “I’m sorry. That was pushy. You know when you need to eat.”

“No,” he said firmly. “No. That is not pushy. That is you caring about me and I threw that back in your face like an ungrateful bastard.”

But you were already stepping away, creating distance between the two of you. “I really need to finish this chart,” you said, not meeting his eyes.

Jack watched helplessly as you walked away, catching the whispered “stupid” you directed at yourself. That single word told him everything he needed to know about how deeply his words had wounded you. Not just because they were cruel but because they’d confirmed your worst fears about yourself.

How was he going to fix this? He ran a hand through his hair remembering the only time he’d met your family. Your father’s barely concealed surprise that you were dating someone he clearly thought was out of your league. Your mother’s whispered warning that he’d heard anyway. “Don’t get too attached, sweetheart. Once he finds out how you really are, how much work you are…well, men like that have options.”

He hadn’t said anything then, though he should have. He’d been afraid of embarrassing you. You’d laughed it off at the time, but Jack saw now that you’d believed it on some level. You’d been waiting for him to realize that you were ‘too much’ and this morning he’d confirmed that fear in the cruelest possible way.

“Where is Renee?”

Jack's question echoed around the room as he asked it again. 

You wobble on your feet and fall against the door frame.

Robby is still doing his checks while hitting the nurse button over and over again to get the attention of someone who didn’t have a personal stake in this whole shit-show.

“Jack-Baby-” you breathed out, drawing his attention. But those big sad eyes held no recognition as they fell on you, they held nothing but confusion.

“You were in an accident.” Robby said, pulling his friend back onto the bed and forcing his attention, “You’ve been in a coma for over a month. Everything is a little confusing right now.”

Jack looked at his friend and your heart broke all over again, he had no idea who the taller man was.

Jack and Robby had met after Renee had passed, he moved to Pittsburgh after the funeral, needing a fresh start, that was five years ago on the brink of the Covid pandemic. 

“Do you know who I am?” Robby asked slowly, searching his face for something, anything that wouldn’t confirm the theory you were both formulating. 

Jack just shook his head, then something sparked in his eyes as he caught sight of Dana in the doorway, her handbag held against her as she too stood dumb-struck.

“Dana! Do you know where Renee is?”

Dana and Jack went back years, from some conference or another back when he was a resident in the Army, they had maintained a friendship over the years, and she had been the main reason he had headed to Pittsburgh after Renee.

“Oh Sweetheart,” Dana started, moving into the room, “What year is it?”

You had watched enough medical dramas to know this was a question coma patients were routinely asked but you felt your heart in your throat as you waited for the man you love to respond.

“It’s 2019, last I remember it was April.”

And just like that, any attempt at holding yourself together was gone and you removed yourself from the room, your knees buckling with every step until you collapsed into a chair in the hallway.

At the end of November 2019, Jack lost his wife. He had been at work in Boston when he had received the call and had rushed to the other side of the city to be told that it had been instant, one moment she had been standing in front of her kids explaining fractions and the next she had been gone.

He had never had a chance to say goodbye or to hold her hand. 

In the dark of the night, he had told you of his regrets regarding her, regretting how long he spent away from her in the army, of not kissing her goodbye as she left that morning, or not noticing if something could have been noticeably wrong (it hadn’t, you had asked Robby to tell you everything about brain aneurysms and their symptoms and he had explained that for Renee there was nothing anyone could have done).

“You okay Kid?” 

Robby makes you jump as he settles his long body in the tiny chair next to you, his long legs stretched out.

“He’s lost over five years.” A statement not a question.

“Yeah, five really heavy years.”

“I can’t go back in there,” you finally admit after a few moments of tense silence, you could hear Jack and Dana talking softly in the room behind you but couldn’t make out the words, “I can’t go into that room and tell him that Renee is dead and I’m his girlfriend.”

“Kid-”

“No, don’t kid me! He is going to look at me with disgust! Every issue and problem we have spent the last two years working through, all the work we put into our relationship, everything is just gone! It took him months to get over the fact I was in my thirties and it took six months before he thought he could tell anyone and that doesn’t include the fact that he knew his wife was dead!”

“But he’s alive.”

Alive.

Jack was alive and awake.

No matter what confusing thoughts were going around and around in your mind. Ten minutes ago you had been crying onto his chest letting him go.

And now he was awake.

So if this is the string that came from this miracle, you would take it. 

Because Jack being alive is the only thing that matters.

“He’s alive!” you repeated those words over and over again as you watched Jack's Doctor walk down the corridor, her own smile tense as she stopped in front of you both.

“I hear we have a miracle.” she said, nodding to the open door and Robby nodded, his hands raking through his hair and beard as he too tried to pull himself together.

“He’s lost the last five years.” you say with a surprising amount of calm, “Dana is in with him now but it appears other than the memory loss he is okay.”

The doctor nodded along before ushering you both back into the room.

Jack was sitting up now, moving his arms up and above his head at Dana’s instructions. He was still looking towards the door as if Renee was going to step towards it. 

“Hello Doctor Abbott, my name is Doctor Stein, and I am very happy to see you awake.” Her fake bubbly voice was grating and you almost smiled as Jack threw her a pathetic look of ‘lets move this along’.

“When can I leave?” Was his only response, still looking towards the door.

"We need to run some more tests, see how everything is going with the bruising and swelling you had and then there is the memory loss. I am not comfortable sending you home alone without a better understanding of where you are at.”

“I won’t be home alone, I'll have Renee.” he said sitting further up, “She was a nurse before she was a teacher,” you cringed remembering just how fantastic Jack's dead wife had been, “She will look after me.”

A pin could have dropped in the room and someone down the hall would have heard it. 

No one wanted to blurt out when needed to be said, Dana had gone white as a ghost and Robby was staring at the wall as if the off white plaster had all the answers.

A fat lot of good you two are, you thought to them before stepping forward.

Jack watched as you walked up, his eyes tracking you as you dragged a chair closer to the bed and sat down. You didn’t dare reach across the bed and grasp his fingers, fingers you knew better than your own. 

“Jack, do you know who I am?” Your voice was low and calm, as if you were talking to a child and you cringed as he just glared back at you.

“No, are you a social worker?”

“No Jack, my name is-” and you barely croaked it out before tears threatened to fall and you took a moment, leaning back in the chair and blinking away tears, now wasn’t the time for you to lose it again.

“There was an incident and -”

“Dana just told me about the accident.”

“Not the accident that brought you here. With Renee, she had a brain aneurysm in 2019, and she passed away.”

You wish you had the words to tell him more gently, more time to hold him in your arms and nurse him through the grief he had already experienced. 

 “She died?” Jack was still, his voice was so low you almost hadn’t heard him but you nodded and an apology fell from your lips.

“How?”

“A brain aneurysm,” you said again, “She was in class, she stood up in front of the white board and collapsed. You told me, and Robby confirmed, that she felt no pain, she would have not even known it had happened. One moment she was there and the next she-”

“Was dead.”

“Yes.”

You looked behind you at Dana and Robby, Dana had moved to hold on tight to Robby's arm and the older man was clinging to the nurse as if they were each keeping the other standing.

Every emotion ran across Jack's face, from disbelief to anger and then a calm that you had only seen when he had gotten home from a really bad shift and he was packing the emotions away into a little box until he was ready to deal with them.

“Who are you?”

Your brow crinkled and you looked back at the doctors, had Jack just forgotten what you had just said. Was his short term memory loss as bad as his long term?

“My name is-”

“Yes I have your name, but who are you? Why are you in this room?”

It wasn’t malice in his voice, or anger, but curiosity, he was putting all the pieces together and you were the odd one out.

“I’m a friend of yours.”

“Are you a doctor?”

“No.”

“Army?”

“No.”

“Medical professional?”

“No Jack, we met outside of your work.”

“Where?”

“A cafe, you interrupted me working to make fun of my spelling.”

“Why?”

“Because I really can’t spell-”

“No, why are we friends?”

“Jack maybe we shelf this-” Robby tried to say, his large hand gripping your shoulder as you had tense up, the line of questioning setting you on edge.

“You are a doctor right?”

“Yes, I work with you in the ER and I like to think we are friends.”

“Yes, that makes sense, and Dana makes sense. We are friends. But she doesn’t make sense.”

You nod and get up from the chair, your whole body shaking as you try not to scream.

You did make sense, the two of you worked. It just took time to get here, time that was now all gone.

“I should go,” you hear yourself saying, gathering your bag and your jacket before making for the door, “Robby, I’ll call you later.” you try to promise but Doctor Stein cuts you off.

“You can’t leave, you are his Attorney and Guardian. While he is not compos mentis you are in charge of all decisions.”

Oh Shit! 

“She’s my medical proxy?”

“Can I give it to Robby?” you both spoke at the same time, then turned to look at each other. Jack’s face is filled with confusion and you blink away tears.

“You’re my girlfriend?” 

“Jack-”

“It's the only way I would give a stranger my proxy-” he said musing to himself, once again trying to get himself out of the bed before giving up as you saw him fighting off the exhaustion that he must be feeling.

“Please stay in bed-” you try to say as he cuts you off, looking at you with disgust.

“I am dating a child!”

“I’m thirty three! I’m not a child Jack! Jesus!” You yell forgetting that you are currently in the middle of the coma ward, “I need to go-” you say to everyone else, throwing one last look at Jack before rushing from the door ignoring everyone's protests.

-----------------

You don’t think of anything as you catch the three buses form the hospital back to your house. 

You don’t even realise until you put the key in the lock that you had driven to the hospital and your car was now an hour away.

Fuck

Fuck 

Fuck

You just let yourself in before sliding to the floor of your hallway.

You can’t get the look of Jack in that hospital bed. He looked so much older sitting up with all the grief of his wife etched onto every crinkle and wrinkle.

You had left home today prepared for another day of waiting, and then you had said your goodbye, told him to go.

You can go Jack- Renee is waiting

The words are an echo you can’t unhear.

You should be happy, you should have stayed in that hospital room and calmingly explained the situation. You should have shown him pictures of the life you had together.

Had together

Even your own subconscious had put your relationship in the past tense. 

You let yourself wallow in your grief, your heart ripping in your chest as you smacked your head back against the wooden door.

You want to fall against the cold concrete of your entryway, the floors still not done in this part of the house.

Your phone ringing in your bag pulls you from your despair and on autopilot you bring it to your ear, your voice unable to provide a greeting.

“You okay Kid?” It's Robby and you let out a sob.

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“Did-” you hiccup, “Did the doctor say if this is permanent?”

There is a pause and through the phone you can hear Robby leave the room he’s in and close a door.

“Kid- Dana’s with me now. We spoke with his doctor-”

“He’s not going to remember is he?”

“We got the scans a few moments ago, and there are shadows in the hippocampus, that's the part of the brain where mem-”

“I didn’t completely fail human biology!” you snapped and then immediately apologised to Dana.

“It's okay, this is a very stressful time,” the older lady said over the phone and you swallowed more tears. How much more could you cry before your body just dried into a husk.

“The shadow could just be a shadow, or it could be bruising, or dead cells. We won’t know for some time but they told us not to hold our breath.”

You nod, forgetting it's a phone call and then gasp out an acknowledgement.

“Robby?” 

“Yeah Kid?”

“What do you think we should do?”

There is a pause and you could almost see it, the look between Dana and Robby as they search for the right answer.

“I think we just give this time, and you do what you need to do.”

“I need Jack.” you say before even realising and you can’t pull the words back, every word laced with pain and grief that you can’t unsay.

You grabbed his sock and did the same, pulling it up and over the liner, ignoring Jack's stare. He really was not happy that you'd be driving tonight, had tried to talk you out of it all afternoon. He was headed to PTMC for the night and you were meeting a couple of friends downtown for dinner.

You grabbed his prosthetic from your side and lined the socket up with his leg and then gently tugged the suspension sleeve over the sock and liner, all the way up to his thigh. Then you pulled his scrubs down over everything before smiling up at him, "There you go."

Jack still had a furrow between his brows as he looked down at you. He tugged you up to standing by your arm and then pulled you towards him, gesturing for you to straddle his lap. You obliged, setting a knee on either side of him, his hands coming up to caress your back, "What's the rush? Didn't you hear me when I said 'black ice'? Do you know how many accidents I've heard on the police scanner today?"

You sighed and bent your forehead to his, "Yeah, seven. You told me ten minutes ago."

He raised his eyebrows, "So you do listen to me."

You smirked, nudged your nose against his, "I'll be fine, Jack. I'll drive really slow and I'll text you when I'm there and leaving and when I get home. Okay?"

His hands slid down to your ass as he pushed his mouth up into yours, the smell of his aftershave warm and familiar.

"Please don't drive," He whispered into your mouth, one hand slipping through your legs from behind, "please?"

You squealed as his wandering hand rubbed over your center, pulling your mouth from his, "I can't believe you're trying to manipulate me with sex." You said feigning offense.

"Is it working?" His smirk was cocky as he ran his hand over you again and your eyelids fluttered.

You groaned and then, with effort, pushed yourself off him, "No," you said, "I'm sorry baby, I'm gonna drive."

He sighed and then stood, "Well, it was worth a shot." He kissed your head as he passed you and playfully smacked your ass, "I want you to call me when you get back home, please. And if I don't answer, call the nurse's station."

"Yessir," You mock saluted him and then went to get ready.

Things had been better between you and Jack, after Robby had shown up. For a few days afterwards, things were tense, but it had brought out of him a sort of jealousy you hadn't seen before.

You felt awful and still filled with guilt that it had hurt him. Part of you had thought he wouldn't care all that much. You thought there had been an unspoken understanding between you, that he loved you, but not like his wife. And you loved him, but not like Robby.

But after he had found you and Robby on the porch that night, he had become more attentive. It wasn't that you had ever felt neglected with Jack, but he was far more physical with you afterwards. He always had a hand on you in public, especially at work where Robby could see.

You felt guilty about that, too, but ever since Robby had shown up on your doorstep in the middle of the night, drunk, he had been pretending as if you and Jack didn't exist.

"I don't want to be the reason you and Robby aren't friends," You had said after watching them do handoffs as if they had never met before that moment.

"You're not," Jack had said casually, "He just needs some space, things'll be back to normal before you know it."

He seemed sure and so you tried not to think about it and most of the time you were successful. Until you'd accidentally walk right into Robby's chest, his warm hands steadying you along with rushed apologies before he was hurrying along. Desperate, it seemed, to be away from you.

And fine, that was fine. Because you needed to stay away from him, too. So you drowned yourself in Jack, in the way he tasted, in the way he smelled, in the fondness in his eyes when you made a joke.

Things were good. If you played it right, you could convince yourself the pain in your chest whenever you saw Robby was just heartburn.

But that was before the accident. You should've listened to Jack when he told you not to drive.

***

Robby's breath clouded in front of him as he walked home from shift, bone tired and miserable. This had become the norm since you had gotten married. Since you had gotten engaged really, and it had only gotten worse after Jack saw the two of you post kiss on your porch.

Now he felt like he had lost Jack as well. Though, Jack hadn't seemed all that upset afterwards, which Robby couldn't comprehend. If it were him who had you and Jack who had touched you like that on his own property, Robby thought it likely he wouldn't have been satisfied until he'd set fire to Jack's house.

But only a few days later, Jack had shown up at Robby's door, calm and indifferent, "I'm not angry and I don't want to talk about it." Jack said immediately when Robby began launching himself into apologies.

"What's done is done. I'm not delusional," Jack ran a hand along his jaw absently, eyes dropping to the ground, "I know what I signed up for. But I'm asking you to please let her go, if not for me, then for her. You weren't the one who picked up the pieces when you left her, I did." He looked back up at Robby, "I don't want to see her like that again. So, please," Jack started backing away from him, "leave her alone."

Somehow it was worse than if Jack had shouted at him or bashed his car windows in.

So Robby was doing his absolute best to stay away from you, and by default, Jack. You had been moved almost entirely to the night shift and he wasn't sure if it was Jack's doing or yours. It didn't much matter, though. The result was the same. It didn't matter that he could still taste you and smell your shampoo if he closed his eyes.

You weren't his, you would never be his again, and it was his own fault.

It wouldn't stop him from running over the whole relationship in his head every single night, trying to find different reasons for why it ended the way it did. He constantly picked at the scab, tearing the wound of your love open again and again. Maybe this time it'd heal correctly. But it never did.

He was thinking about which bar he'd stop at on the way home for a beer when he heard it. The unmistakable screech of tires trying to brake, a last prayer to avoid collision, but the sickening crunch of metal that followed was inevitable.

Robby's head whipped around to the intersection. An otherwise empty stretch of road, the green glow of the streetlights turned yellow and then red as he tried to absorb what he was seeing. A car had been T-boned on the driver's side, it seemed, as the other car had tried to run the red. Maybe incorrectly thought the intersection was empty. And now the hood of their car crumpled up like an accordion against the familiar sea foam green of— Oh no. Oh fuck.

Heart in his throat, Robby took a step forward, eyes darting to the license plate—Please don't be—It was your car.

His backpack slid from his shoulder and then he was running. He couldn't think, he couldn't breathe, all he knew was he needed to get to you. The other drivers were yelling as he approached, and for a moment anger pulsed through him. They were able to scream and get out of their cars.

He leaned against the passenger door, peered through the window at you and banged the heel of his hand against the window. But you were slumped forward in your seat, unresponsive to his knocking and yelling of your name.

He didn't remember asking the other drivers for their tire iron, just that one moment he was empty handed, and the next he was bashing in your passenger window.

He didn't feel the jagged cut of the glass in his arm when he reached through the shards to open the door.

"Hey," he crawled onto the passenger seat, glass crunching beneath his knees, "Hey, sweetheart, come on, please—" his voice was broken as he reached for you, fingers searching for a pulse—

And then he felt it, the steady thrum of blood beneath the pads of his fingers just as a groan fell from your lips. God, God—was there a God? Was He in this fucking Toyota Corolla with you? This stupid goddamn death trap with no side door airbags he told you so many times to get rid of—

"Robby?" You coughed weakly and blood oozed out of the corner of your mouth, "Am I dead?"

He took a shaky breath and shook his head, his eyes and hands beginning to assess you, "No, no you're okay. We're gonna get you out of here." His hands came up to your cheeks, "Where's the blood in your mouth coming from?"

"Think… Think I bit down on my tongue when I got hit. Feels funny." Tears began to pool at the corners of your eyes, "Jack's gonna be… so mad at me."

Robby shook his head, "No he is not."

As he unbuckled your seatbelt, you winced, "You're probably pissed too… Told me to get rid of this car years ago."

"Baby, no one is upset with you right now. Can you climb out of the car with me?"

You shook your head and he saw the confusion cloud your eyes, "What're you doing here anyways?"

"Sweetheart," Robby said slowly, gently, "Need you to focus, can you do that for me?"

You blinked, "You shouldn't call me that."

Jesus, you were stubborn, "Can you move your legs?"

After a moment he watched you try and shift from your waist. You whimpered and tears finally overflowed onto your cheeks, glistening in the neon green light from the traffic lights above you, "Something—" you gritted your teeth against the pain, "Something's wrong, might be broken, it hurts. A lot."

"Okay," he nodded as he thought it through, thought it likely based on the impact that your pelvis had fractured. It could be unstable, could be causing other internal injuries that he may make worse if he forced you to move and crawl out the passenger side. Sirens pierced the air and the red traffic light cast eerie shadows across your face.

"They'll have to pull you out the driver's side then." He said, his voice raising to compete with the sirens as they drew closer.

You blinked furiously at the tears and gave a small shake of your head, "I don't think they're gonna be able to get the door off."

"Hey," Robby said as the ambulance and firefighters pulled up next to your car, "It's gonna be fine, okay? We're gonna figure it out."

He began to pull out of the car when you grabbed his hand, and he turned back to you, his heart a wild, galloping thing in his chest.

"Don't—don't leave," you stammered, "please."

He shook his head and squeezed your hand, "I'll be right here, not goin' anywhere, promise. But I need to get out of their way so they can get to you, alright?" Your chin was wobbling and his free hand twitched, longing to grip it and steady you like he might have years ago. Before he broke your trust and ruined everything. He swallowed, squeezed your hand again before letting it go, "I'm right here." He said again and backed out of the car.

Robby stood outside the car, arms crossed, occasionally shouting direction at the EMTs like he would his residents. In the end, the firefighters were able to pry off your driver's side door and the EMTs gently slid you onto the stretcher. You were still conscious and not showing any signs of decline, but Robby still bounced on the balls of his feet. He still was short with the EMTs when they jostled you too much.

"We're taking her to Presby," one of the EMTs said to Robby as they finished loading you up, "you coming?"

He almost laughed as he pulled himself up into the ambulance, "You're taking her to PTMC."

"PTMC is farther—"

"Look, you can bring her to Presby, but you'll have to hear from the ex-military, emergency care attending at PTMC when he finds out you brought his wife to a different ER."

The EMTs all went quiet as they looked at you and then back to Robby. Finally, one of them sighed and handed Robby the phone, "Fine, but you call it in."

When the night shift charge nurse answered the phone, he was resting his hand on the back of his neck, squinting one eye closed as he turned away from you, "Lena, it's Robby. Could you grab Abbot for me?"

"Robby? He's with a patient—"

"Patch me through."

"I—Should we be prepping for incoming—?"

"Just—Patch me through, please, Lena. Abbot will let you know how to prep after I talk to him."

There was a heavy sigh on the other line, a muffled complaint about entitled doctors, and then the line began ringing again.

***

Jack had his hands deep in a patient's chest cavity, bickering back and forth with Emery about how best to stabilize when Robby was patched through.

"Dr. Abbot—"

"What?" He snapped, then immediately felt guilty as he looked up and saw Mateo across the room with the phone to his ear, "Sorry, Mateo, what is it?"

"It's Robby, says he needs to talk to you."

Jack shook his head slowly, looking back down into the patient's chest. He didn't want to hear anything from Robby. There weren't adequate words to describe the relationship between him and Robby, decades of working side by side. There weren't many people he would drop everything for if they asked, but he would have for Robby. Still would have, probably, even if the thought of him having his hands on you and his tongue in your mouth made his blood boil.

Jack tried to remind himself that you were Robby's first. In fact, Jack regularly fought the pushed down guilt that if he had just given you and Robby more time, you would have figured it out eventually. Instead, Jack had coaxed the wounded bird into a gilded cage, padlocked the door and tucked the key away. He knew when he did it he didn't have the right skills to heal your wings just right, that there would always be an ache when he was around, when he looked at you with his big brown eyes. But Jack convinced you anyway that it was right, that it could be enough, just because he was lonely. He was endlessly fighting the feeling that it was wrong, that he was the one who had betrayed Robby.

He didn't want to talk to Robby anymore, could barely look at him, not just because he knew you still loved him. But because Robby was clearly in so much pain and Jack had done nothing but make it all worse by sweeping you off your feet and forcing him to watch. He didn't think Robby would've done this to him, if he and his wife had gotten divorced. And that thought haunted him every time he kissed you, took you to bed, whispered that he loved you, ran his thumb along the cool metal of your wedding band.

Jack blew out a slow breath from behind his mask, "Put him on speaker," he called back to Mateo.

"Got my hands full at the moment, Robby, you're on speaker. What is it?"

The faint call of sirens came through distorted on the speaker, "I, uh, have an incoming for you, two minutes out. MVA, female, early thirties got hit while another car ran a redlight, driver's side took the full impact. Vitals are stable and patient's responsive. Possible head trauma, car had no side door airbags so I'm thinking pelvic fracture is likely, she reports a lot of pain in that area."

Jack frowned, "Are you in the ambulance with the patient?"

"Yep."

"Why?"

"Saw it happen while I was walking home, look—I really need to talk to you privately for a second—"

"Anything you want to say you can say to the room, Dr. Robby, so spit it out."

The line crackled as he sighed heavily into the receiver, "The patient—" Another pause, "She's—It's your wife."

Immediately, the blood was thrumming in his ears, everything around him muffled. A million thoughts seemed to pummel one another, fighting to be at the forefront of his consciousness. His wife, you, in an accident. But when Robby had said it like that, his thoughts had turned to his late wife, of a similar call he'd gotten in the middle of the night years ago. But she hadn't been alive and responsive, there had been nothing he could do for her. She was already gone before he picked up the phone.

He couldn't afford to think about that now, though. You needed him. The trauma room had gone deathly still, only the beeping of monitors and faint sirens from the phone speaker.

Jack cleared his throat, "Walsh, you got this?" He asked quietly.

She nodded, no snide retort as she looked at him, "'Course."

He pulled his bloodied hands from the patient, began stripping his gloves and trauma gown, "I'll see you in a minute, Robby."

He walked back out into central, feeling dizzy and a touch nauseous when he shouted to Lena to keep trauma one open. He didn't have much time to think between pulling on new gloves, tying on a new trauma gown, and meeting the ambulance as it pulled into the bay.

He thought he was prepared to see you on that gurney, grimace on your face and a blood dripping from the corner of your mouth, but he wasn't. This wasn't supposed to happen again, and it wasn't, he reminded himself fiercely, it wasn't. You were awake and crying quietly and alive and he wouldn't let anything else happen to you. Christ, if you had just listened to him when he asked you not to drive—

You looked up at him as they wheeled you inside, eyes glassy, and even though you were clearly in pain and maybe shock as well, you quipped with him, "So I guess that makes eight accidents, today?"

Jack shook his head, but his lip tugged up into a smile anyway as he looked back down at you, "Would be in poor taste to say 'I told you so' wouldn't it?" he winked at you after he said it and you gave him a shaky smile in return.

"I'm sorry," you said hoarsely.

Jack shook his head, placed a gloved hand to your forehead and smoothed the hair from your face, "Nothing to be sorry for, okay? You're just fine." He turned his attention back to the rest of the room, registering that Robby was on the other side of your gurney, staring at you intently. His hands whiteknuckled the bars of the gurney and Jack knew it was because his hands itched to touch you. That he wanted to be in this room with you so badly, but was barely containing his need to touch you.

Jack also noticed as he turned away that you had turned your face towards Robby, a tenderness in your expression that he hadn't seen directed towards Robby since before he left you. He ignored it.

"Ellis, I want you on the eFAST before we do X-Rays."

"You got it, boss."

Jack noticed when you started slipping, your hand in his grew slack and your eyelids fluttered. Before the alarms could alert anyone to the iminnent crash, your voice sounded far away when you said, "something's… wrong…"

"She's hemmorhaging," Ellis shouted over the alarms on the monitors.

Sure enough, the eFAST showed blood pooling in your lower abdomen, likely a slower bleed caused by the pelvic fracture Robby suspected you had.

Jack's brain seemed to short circuit, it endlessly buffered as he stared at the screen that said you were bleeding out in front of him. The alarms on the monitors connected to you were distant and muffled. Was it happening again? There was a voice in his head that sounded just like Robby's, Jack…Jack, she needs you, get it together—

"Jack!"

Jack's eyes snapped to Robby's frantic ones and he realized Robby's voice hadn't been in his head, he'd been shouting at him. Jack swallowed and shook his head sharply, clearing the fog and the panic, "Someone get Walsh in here, now!"

It took them a few minutes to stabilize you again with Emery's help. When Jack's hands shook almost violently before making a cut, Robby covered his hand with his own without question, steadied him. The guilt compounded him, that Robby could keep it together because it was you on this table and that was what you needed, and Jack couldn't stop the paralyzing terror of the idea of losing someone else. That he wouldn't, couldn't save you. That not only would he lose you, likely lose himself in his own self loathing, but also Robby.

Robby would never forgive him if you bled out on this table. And that version of the world just wouldn't make sense to him anymore, how could it? He mulled over conversations with Robby after his wife died on the roof, about the purpose of anything. If he lost you, Robby wouldn't be there to talk him down from the roof. Neither would you. There'd be nothing left.

But you were still with them, stabilized enough that you regained consciousness and Emery was getting an OR ready for you once you got X-Rays and CTs done.

Jack could tell you were a little confused as you came out of it. He took a steadying breath and took off his gloves, so he could hold your hand properly, and then he forced a smile when he looked down at you. Hoped you couldn't see his fear.

"Scared the hell out me for a minute there," Jack said, voice hoarse.

And you looked up at him, disorientation clouded in your eyes, and said nothing. You said nothing, but you turned your head to the other side of the gurney, tried to raise a hand towards Robby as you mumbled his name with a tenderness Jack couldn't recall you ever directing towards him. It reminded him of the way his late wife used to say his name.

Robby stopped himself from touching you, his eyes darting to Jack in panic.

"Jack—"

Jack sniffed and dropped your hand, stepped back from the table, "I'm gonna step out for a minute, Mateo, you'll take her up to imaging?"

Mateo nodded and Jack turned away from you and tore off his gown.

"Jack." Robby said again, pleading, but Jack continued to ignore him.

"Page me if she worsens again." He tossed over his shoulder to no one in particular and then quickly left the room, pushed the door open to the stairwell that led to the roof.

***

You knew how it looked when Robby had to forcefully guide you out to the ambulance bay, tears streaming down your face, hyperventilating as you begged him to give the relationship another chance. Robby was far from immune to your tears, but you were creating a scene that he knew you would come to regret later.

It had been a week since he had told you to grab your things and get out of his house, a move that seemed unreasonably cruel and had forced you to stay in a hotel as you searched for a new place to live. All while you were still working and desperately trying to keep your sanity.

"Don't—Get your hands off—" You shoved him away from you when you were out in the ambulance bay and he backed away from you, hands up in surrender.

His eyes were red rimmed as he looked at you, but otherwise, any emotion he felt while looking at you like this was well containted, "I want you to go home—"

"I don't have a home anymore, Robby, in case you forgot." You said sharply.

He scoffed and ran a hand over the back of his head, "You have friends you can stay with—"

"Oh, fuck you." You spat, "We were together for five fucking years and in one night you kicked me to the curb like you were taking out the trash and somehow I'm the crazy one—"

"It was more than one night, you know that," He said, frustration spilling into his words, "it was months of fighting and I was the only one strong enough to cut the cord—"

You laughed and shook your head, "Okay, that's how you want to frame it? Like you did me some fucking favor by abandoning me—"

He closed his eyes and shook his head, "I didn't—"

"Yes. You did."

Robby sighed and let silence fall between the two of you for a few moments, the air around you taut with tension and hundreds if not thousands of unresolved arguments. This would be added to the docket shortly.

"Go home." Robby said again, "Take a few days, however many you need, and come back when you're ready."

He walked back inside without waiting for a reply.

It had only been about an hour into your shift and you wandered aimlessly for a while, tears free flowing down your cheeks, not wanting to go back to the hotel but not quite sure where else to go.

That was when you found Jack sitting on a park bench that faced the river. Embarrassed and not wanting him to see you like this, you turned to walk away— But heard him call out your name as you were trying to escape.

Sighing, you turned back toward him and gave a short wave and he gestured for you to join him on the bench. You thought about just pretending you hadn't seen and hightailing it out of there. You were embarrassed and, more than that, the grief you were feeling felt small in comparison to what you knew Jack had gone through just over a year ago when his wife passed. In short, you felt ridiculous letting him see you cry.

But after you had stood there for too long, deciding how best to get out of this, he again gestured for you to come sit next to him and you realized there was no way out of it.

"Hey," he said as you sat down beside him, "didn't I just see you at handoffs?"

You took a shaky breath and stared ahead, avoiding his prying eyes on the side of your face, "Yeah. Robby sent me home."

You wiped at the wetness on your cheeks, noticed how he averted his gaze when he realized you'd been crying.

"You know, he's… Robby… he'll change his mind. I don't think he meant it, breaking up with you."

Despite your best efforts, your face crumpled, "You didn't hear him when he kicked me out. The things he said." You shook your head, "he's done with me."

Jack turned back to you, "He kicked you out?"

When you nodded slowly, still carefully not looking at him, Jack sighed and then wrapped an arm around your shoulders, pulled you gently into the warmth of his body. You felt him rest his cheek, scratchy with stubble, against your head.

"I'm sorry," you said through your tears, "must seem like such a baby, crying to you over a stupid breakup, when you're—your wife—"

You felt him stiffen for only a moment before his muscles softened again and he ran a hand soothingly up and down your arm, "I don't think it's comparable, really. I mean it's… losing her has been… the worst pain I've ever felt in my life," He said, and you heard it when he got choked up, "But… my wife didn't choose to leave me. That's… a different sort of hurt, I think. And I don't envy you for it."

The ache in your chest deepened, but you were soothed by his touch and his empathy. He meant what he said, you knew, he wasn't just saying it to make you feel better. Jack Abbot never sugarcoated anything.

You nuzzled your face deeper into his side, "thank you," you said softly.

He held you like that for a while in silence, until your tears had dried and you suddenly felt exhausted rather than angry or wrought with grief.

"Where're you staying?" He asked eventually.

You sniffled, "I have a room at the Priory for now, until I figure out where to go."

He frowned and pulled away from you slightly so he could see your face, "You're staying at a hotel?" when you nodded he scoffed and shook his head, "Look, this isn't—I know you think I'm about to offer out of pity, but… I just… I have a perfectly good guest room and… It's been difficult staying in that house alone anyway since—You'd be doing me a favor, if you would stay with me."

You gave him a knowing look, narrowed your eyes at him, "Jack, I don't want to be a burden—"

"You can pay rent if it would make you feel better. Or buy the groceries. Or whatever, I don't—It'd be good for me. To have someone else at the house. I mean it."

He seemed sincere and you bit your lip in thought as you looked into his eyes. If you were honest with yourself, though you knew Jack was Robby's best friend and that he'd never cross a line with you, there was a vindictive piece of you that felt a bit thrilled at the idea of Robby finding out Jack was your new roommate. And maybe Jack would be good for you, the way he had been just now. The calm in the ever destructive storm in your mind.

And maybe… Maybe… You could be good for him too.

So eventually, you nodded and the two of you walked to his house to get his truck so you could get all your belongings out of the Priory.

***

When Robby pushed the door open to the roof, Jack glanced over his shoulder at him, and then back to the Pittsburgh skyline.

"I don't wanna talk to you," Jack said as Robby approached.

Robby lasted standing there in silence just behind Jack for about twenty seconds before speaking, "She was disoriented and had just woken up, she was confused, she didn't mean it—"

"That's exactly why I know she did mean it," Jack said, "when she's not aware of her surroundings, when she's confused and vulnerable and her guard's down, she reaches for you. Not me."

"Jack," Robby said softly and sighed, "you can't hold her accountable for something she doesn't even know she did—"

"I know that, alright—" Jack said softly, "I'm not angry with her, I'm just—" he shook his head and looked down at his hands, "I don't know what I am. She was on that table bleeding out and I just thought—I thought it was happening again and then—Then I was so relieved when she was okay and—"

He choked on his words, paused as he felt the burning in his eyes ready to overflow, "—and I wanted so badly for her to be my wife, my first wife, that in my head for a minute I was saving her instead—and then when she looked at you and said your name—"

Jack inhaled slowly and then blew out the air through his lips as he shook his head, "It's not fair. None of it's fair. I don't want it to fucking feel like this anymore."

Robby stood there silently for a few minutes, allowing the coolness of the night to soothe his friend, as it always had. He didn't know what to say to any of this. Everything had somehow gotten so fucked up the last couple of years. There didn't seem to be an easy path out of it, for any of them. All this suffering between the three of them, and for what? It all seemed pointless and he felt the apathy overtake him, felt it sweep through him, and it felt like relief.

"When she comes out of surgery, it's you she's gonna wanna see. Not me. So focus on that, hm?" Robby clapped Jack on the back and then guided him firmly under the railing and back towards the door that led back down to the pitt.

***

Weeks passed and you were at home recovering now. Robby overheard Jack reporting to Dana and Lena almost every morning about your status, so he knew you were using a walker now to get around the house. Still relegated to the first floor of the house since you couldn't do stairs likely for another few weeks, if not months.

Robby hadn't spoken to you or Jack since that day and while he didn't know what was going on behind closed doors, there was something about Jack's tone when he spoke about you that felt to him like things were strained. It could just be caretaker fatigue, but he thought it was likely something else.

He walked by yours and Jack's house everyday as it was in his direct path to and from the hospital and every day, he contemplated knocking on the door to check on you. It had to be difficult, not really being able to leave the house after the accident as you were ordered on bed rest. Now you could finally move freely, but still no stairs. Even the couple of steps down from your porch was too much. And Robby had overheard Jack telling Dana that even if you could, he doubted he'd be able to get you into a car for the forseeable future. He said that you were still having vivid nightmares of the accident.

Whatever it was, be it pride, or ego, or just that this was the longest he had gone without laying eyes on your face in years, he found himself on your steps ringing your doorbell one day after shift.

It took a long while for you to get to the door, and he felt bad about that, but when you swung the door open he felt almost giddy seeing you stand there, holding onto the walker. You looked rumpled, in a sweatshirt and sweatpants, deep circles under your eyes. But still, it was good to see you like this, when the last time he had seen you had almost bled out in front of him.

"Hi," he said breathlessly.

You stared at him blankly, "What're you doing here?"

There was no fire in your tone, no anger, no exciteness, no devastation, no emotion at all. He had never heard you like this.

"I was just in the neighborhood, I just… Thought I'd see if you needed anything?"

You stared at him blankly and then shook your head, "What makes you think I'd want anything from you?"

Well, there was at least a little taste of that anger. This he could work with. This didn't scare him as badly as the nothing that was behind your eyes just moments ago.

He shrugged, "I just wanted to see if you were alright—"

"You wanted to see if I'm alright?" You laughed humorlessly, "You've taken everything from me, even Jack, the one good thing I had left, and you want to know if I'm alright?"

Robby frowned, willed you to see how confused he was, "What're you talking about?"

Your lip wobbled and you wiped a tear from under your eye as you looked away from him, "I don't remember much from after the accident, between when they loaded me into the ambulance and when I woke up in recovery. But Jack won't even look at me anymore. And when he does I—I get this feeling that he hates me. But no matter how I beg he won't tell me what the fuck happened. Says it's all in my head and nothing's changed. And I don't know what you did or what you said, but I know it has something to do with you."

Robby scoffed and ran a hand over his beard, "Oh, yeah? And how do you figure that?"

"You," you were nearly shouting now, "are responsible for every bad thing that's ever happened to me in my adult life. Every single terrible, awful moment I've had you're always at the scene of the crime. So what the fuck did you do?"

Robby shook his head, "I know it's been a hard few weeks for you, but it's not my fault your sham of a marriage is falling apart—"

"Oh, fuck you—"

"You chose him when he doesn't even love you. I've been begging you for another chance—I would crawl through Hell for you—"

You laughed cruelly, "What, you think you're fucking Orpheus or something? You wouldn't and you didn't. I crawled out myself. You only fucking want me now because you've seen that I can do it without you."

He scowled at you, "And this is your version of doing it without me?"

Your upper lip curled as you stared at him, "Leave me alone. Don't come back here again, or I'll call the cops."