wherefore art thou

There was something … off about the Codys.

For one, they owed you fucking money.

Secondly, they were just…different. They didn't trust easily. They were known for stealing, lying, screwing people over. But they were also immensely private. That part you understood.

Most packs kept their closed doors, kept to their old grudges, their places at the table no outsider was ever going to sit. But the Codys were different even then. Their house always felt locked up tight, even when the gates were open, even when they'd throw huge summer parties.

And ever since two years ago when your father had introduced you, the Codys never gave in. You thought it was because your dad was an asshole, plain and simple. Because he was. And he'd gotten killed because of it.

But there was something else too. Something more curious. They often kept people out like it wasn’t only money they were protecting, careful and uneasy of any outsiders that sniffed too close.

Usually, you understood. But today, it pissed you off.

Because whatever rotten blood pact they had between them as a family, as a pack—it didn't mean they got to keep your cut of the money.

It was why, even though your body was screaming in a noxious, thrumming pain and your pulse was pounding through your head, and your gums felt itchy even as you chewed your wad of bubble gum, and your skin was too warm, and your thighs pressed together tightly in the driver’s seat—you were heading to the house anyway.

The gum had long become tough between your teeth, sugar and artificial strawberry turned flat, but you kept chewing because your jaw needed something to do or else the chattering of your teeth would drive you crazy.

Your cycle thrashed behind your ribcage, a wet and burning omega begging for something or someone , but still early enough where your head was on your shoulders and you could push it down.

Your back felt sweaty against the driver's seat of the Jeep, and you could feel the humiliating slick gathering, could feel the awful little pulse of it between your legs. Every part of your body seemed desperate to make that your problem instead of the dead-father, missing-money, Cody-family problem you were trying very hard to focus on.

But still, you were determined to get to the house.

Because fuck 'em. That's why.

Your dad had given them a job, had found the armored truck, had even gotten the head of security to sign off early for his son's birthday, leaving the coast completely clear for them to take it without being seen.

But he died. On the job.

So technically, the money was yours now.

Next of kin— all that.

The streets up from The Strand were always annoying, which only made your ire grow— flames licking up from your belly into your chest, fueling you as the pad of your foot stepped harder on the gas pedal of your open Jeep. The cooler air did help, if only a little. The breeze off the ocean cut through the hot early summer sun and cooled the sweat at your temples for one brief second before your body burned through it again.

Your Jeep took every climb and sharp turn easily, though it jostled you so hard it sometimes forced a moan from your throat. You did your best to bite the sound off behind your teeth as your thighs clamped together and the worn seam of your shorts dragged exactly where you needed it to—no, no you did not need. You did not. Though, at one point, stopped at a red light with one hand tight on the wheel and the other pressed hard against your lower stomach, you did have half a mind to shove your hand down your shorts right there just to take the edge off.

But you couldn’t. You weren’t quite at that point of humiliation yet, though the fact that there was a yet at all made your mouth twist around the wad of gum. You'd deal with it later. With your toys and your medication just like every other year of this hell.

Eventually you were pulling up to the wide gated house with your brows pulled together and a deep frown.

The gate opened for you without much question.

Huh. Wonder if they were expecting you.

Good. Maybe then they'd have your money ready and waiting, too.

You pulled the car into the driveway, only one Cody there waiting for you—the youngest, J. Smurf's grandson who'd had a lot to say about the family business ever since she passed away. Rest in hell, the mad woman.

You studied him long before cutting the engine completely. His tee shirt stuck to him from sweat and early summer heat, brows set, that usual glare typical of his face, though today it had your teeth clenching around your gum.

"Could smell you from a block away." J called as you hopped out of the seat, "what do you want?"

The dig only made your lip curl up, your teeth bared before you could stop yourself. Josh Cody was a beta, which surprised you, to say the least. Smurf made it her mission to raise alpha men, though you were never sure if it made any difference. Nature versus nurture, who could be sure. She’d barely known him most of his life, and maybe that was why he’d ended up almost normal. He had a normal designation, no biological need for territory or scent or reproduction. No physical need for it like the rest. His body would stay his own.

"Nice to see you too." you snarked. "Haven't seen you around much."

"Yeah, well" he said flatly. "Dead grandma, and all."

You clicked your teeth, "Aw, you seem really cut up about it."

The two of you glared at one another for a long moment. The sun was beating against your face now, your own scent climbing up around you in a way you could almost taste, sweet and cloying and too much. It made you want to crawl out of your skin, made you want to show your teeth at this asshole. Worse, it made you want hands on you so badly that your stomach cramped with it, and then the shame of that made your anger snap back into place even harder.

"Listen, I'm just here to collect my dad's cut. That's it. Then I'll be out of your—"

But then, the back gate was opening, and two of the Cody sons came walking out.

Oh, fuck.

You suddenly realized how much of a mistake this was. Coming here right before your cycle. J was probably right, you thought—that you stunk to high hell—your belly twisting on itself in instinctual glee while your brain still had enough hold on you to know that it was fear too. Three grown alphas lived here, two unmated. Their bodies coming toward you with the sun at their backs making your omega hindbrain—stupid little traitor that she was— lift its head and whine.

J's glare flitted around as they all formed a sort of half circle around you.

Craig came out first, tall and loose-limbed, his hair messy, his chest bare, tattoos showing against his skin. His smell invaded you, uninvited, unmated— smokey with the grain of beer, a heady press of alpha that made your nose want to scrunch.

Deran was beside him in a faded tank, his thick blond mustache pulling down around his mouth, shoulders already lifted with irritation. He smelled like salt water, malt and liquor cutting through the clean surf of him.

"It was my dad's job." you said, trying to force the ire in your voice as your heart began to pound harder in your ears, looking back at J, "and because you jackasses got him killed, the cut goes to me. His daughter."

"Your dad was an idiot who got himself killed." Deran cut in with a hard glare.

"Yeah, Deran?" you snapped, looking over to him. You only half saw Craig and J fidget in your periphery as you stepped into the mated alpha's space, "I think that maybe it's that mommy isn't here anymore to tell you how to actually do a job. Maybe you really are all brawn, no brain after all."

You heard snarls coming from around you, the men bristling at your sharp tongue as their rough, low voices scraped over air. It made you jump, it made your stupid omega brain want to keen and show your belly, but you refused even as sweat began to bead your brow. You needed to get your money and get the hell out of here as your heat blazed in your belly and down between your legs where slick was beginning to pool.

“We don’t owe you shit.” Craig growled from beside you. But you didn’t even hear him. Deran was glaring down at you, his shoulders shaking, his entire body vibrating with fury.

As he was the only one mated to his omega, Adrian, he posed less of a threat. Maybe that's why you pushed it even harder.

“What’s the problem, D?” you said, ignoring Craig. “Being the baby brother make it easy for the others to stand up for you?"

"You should go."

You heard his voice from your right, enough to make you look over to him as he walked up from the garage. Pope—Andrew. Dark, curly hair, broad shoulders under a black t-shirt. That tense way he carried himself. Not pissed like Deran, but ready. He smelled like rain and gunmetal, like fresh air through an open truck window with the leather seats warmed by the sun. But underneath all of that was salt and sweat and a mouthwatering alpha scent. You pulled it greedily into your lungs before you caught yourself.

On his neck were three nearly healed slash marks, as if an animal had fought him. His eyes—his pretty hazel eyes—were on you, his head tilted, pupils blown a little wider than normal.

You swallowed thickly before speaking again, hoping your voice would still sound steady.

"I think I'm owed some money, Andrew."

"God, you omegas really are so fucking stupid." Deran's laughed, and when you looked back at him, he had a mocking smile twitching his beard, "You come waltzing up here, just a little bitch in heat—"

The slap of your palm meeting his face cracked loudly between you.

Everyone was silent.

But Deran—

His eyes were changing almost immediately, blue blowing out wide—his body no longer only vibrating, but shuddering violently. His shoulders rose into his neck, his eyes focused on you with a newfound fury as his lips peeled back from his teeth. For a second, you thought it was just anger, that he was holding himself from hitting you back.

Then his jaw popped. A wet, terrible crack sounded under the skin, and Deran sucked in a breath that seemed too large for his chest.

“Fuck—” J muttered from behind you, and you felt his hand on the cup of your shoulder, pulling you away.

“Here we go—” Craig said with an eye roll that did nothing to hide the way his body had gone tense, “Deran, c’mon, chill, man—don’t be stupid—”

Pope was in front of Deran in an instant, pushing him back.

All the anger, the ire, the attitude you’d just had was fading quickly.

Because Deran was…was changing.

Pope barked over his shoulder, "Get her outta here, J!"

The youngest's hands came up to both of your shoulders now, pulling you back, but you wouldn’t budge. You watched as Pope pushed his brother through the back gates, the bones in Deran’s face shifting under his skin, his body curling up on itself but still getting bigger and bigger. Large, heavy huffs of breath that didn’t sound like him or his voice were heaving from him as his eyes stayed locked on you.

His hands hit the ground first, fingers spread against the concrete, and then the fingers were wrong too—stretching into dark claws that scraped against the patio with a sound that made your teeth hurt. His tank tore across the back. The muscles along his spine jumped in hard ridges beneath his skin, and then fur began to push through, thick and yellowed auburn, spreading over his shoulders and down his arms.

You shoved out of J’s hold as the back gate nearly swung shut, and you pushed through it. Call it instinct, call it the thanatos death drive, call it the worst timing in the world for your body to mistake danger for want—but you had to see.

Deran Cody was no longer between his brother's arms.

Instead, there was a creature. Sand blonde and thick coated with long snout with teeth that dripped with saliva as he snarled. But even as he watched you, you recognized the blue of his eyes. But he was terrifying. He looked close enough to a wolf and yet wrong enough that every other part of you went cold. The fur along his spine stood high. His lips dragged back over teeth that looked made for cracking bone. His ears were pinned flat to his skull, and every breath came out of him in a thick, wet huff that stirred the loose leaves near the pool drain.

He was beginning to thrash around, pushing at his brothers with a heavy shoulder. Enough to knock them off balance. The moment Craig’s head hit the concrete of the poolside, his body started to vibrate too.

“Craaaiiigggg—” Pope called out in warning. He glanced back at the gate, his brows narrowing at you. “You have a death wish, omega? Get. Out!”

His last words hit you differently. One moment, you were staring at Deran's figure as it began to lope towards you, but then as you heard Pope's voice go low and heavy, your eyes found him, your body trying to answer before your brain could. Your knees went soft, your feet beginning to move out towards the driveway again, but—but you couldn't.

Because Deran was already lunging for you.

And behind him, Craig's body was rearranging itself into a black mass of inky fur with bright, terrifying blue eyes to match. His back bowed and his jaw opened on a shout that broke apart into a snarl. Black fur burst over his arms and chest, glossy under the beating sun, and his hands slapped against the concrete, claws skidding before they caught. He was snarling and his back was arched like a cats as he fully morphed into the wolf— longer than Deran, darker, his ribs moving hard beneath all that fur.

You barely noticed sandy blonde wolf's jaw around your ankle before you were being pulled to the ground, dragged against the concrete hard enough to scrape against your back. Your arms flew out, pushing against him as he hauled on top of you, snapping at you. Though your blood surged with fear, there was something worse, too. Something old as time and instinct. That traitorous omega sung for him to take you like this. She loved the chase, the fight of it, even if you were scared for your life.

Your thighs opened instead of kicking him away, heat twisting low and stupid while your brain screamed at you to move, to fight, to get out from under him. He was mated. Adrian’s. That should have meant something to the dumb animal part of you, but it didn’t. It only knew alpha. It only knew the heat of his body, even if he was trying to eat you alive.

The shame of that burned almost as badly as the concrete against your skin.

Because the fever burned worse now, your heat in full effect, making you weaker and unable to hold him back. You cried out as your mind began to slip, the rubber band between who you were and whatever lived inside your body stretching thin. The panic and pain got tangled very quickly with want—slick gathering hotter and thicker between your thighs, humiliation only making it worse as the concrete bit into your skin and saliva dripped from his mouth.

You still forced your fingers to dig into his neck just to keep those gleaming teeth from the sensitive flesh of your face, your nails sinking into the thick ruff at his throat while your heel scraped against the ground, trying to find leverage, trying to remember how to kick.

But then, a wash of mottled gray and brown shoved Deran off of you, knocking him sideways so hard it felt like a train being derailed. You sucked in a breath so fast, leaning up, one hand flying to your chest while the other stayed braced on the concrete beneath you.

In front of you was the most insane thing you think you'd ever seen before.

Wolves, fighting with their teeth, a mess of fur and snarls.

Three True Alphas.

It was a rarity, an abomination.

A fairytale.

Everyone knew the stories—before designations and medical forms and dating apps and certifications. True Alphas—the wolf. The most base, most pure animal version of your kind. Something that had been hunted down in the beginning, tested on, killed, regulated. Too dangerous, too hungry, too close to animal for laws to control. So they became bedtime stories, then horror stories, then nothing at all. An extinct bloodline cut out of the world.

And yet…there were three here, now. In front of you.

Deran and Pope were still snapping at one another by the pool, the eldest on top, seemingly winning against the younger, more brutish alpha. Deran fought with fury, all teeth and shoulder and claws scraping hard against the concrete, but Pope knew how to fight. He drove Deran down with his weight, jaws locked around the thick fur at his neck until Deran cried out and bit at Pope’s legs, twisting under him with a violence that made your stomach turn.

You couldn’t watch.

But your eyes wouldn't look away, either.

No wonder you hadn’t been able to hold off your heat. Even now, your brain was turning molten, your core burning hot as arousal gathered steady between your thighs—you remembered the stories. That True Alphas had something innate inside of them, something old and animal, something omegas were made to answer whether they wanted to or not. And to have three of them around you at once, to have one so close in his truest form only moments before, on top of you with his teeth bared and his breath hot against your skin—it had shoved you into full-blown heat so fast you had no time to stop it.

Your stomach began to churn on itself, cramps threading your blood tight and your veins constricting. You had to leave, you had to go home, that last shred of humanity said. Go home to your toys and your medication. You thought of the cold tile floor of your bathroom. Your perfectly made bed with the pillows just right.

The pain was becoming unbearable in your stomach, your vision pulsing black at the edges. You closed your eyes, squeezing them shut through another bad wave of cramping.

When your eyes opened again to the smell of salt and old beer, you saw Craig standing over you, black fur and blue eyes, his body blocking out a hard slice of sun. Pope and Deran were still by the pool, panting heavily as Pope held Deran under him, thick growls still eminating from both of them. But Craig was pawing closer and closer, his claws clicking against the patio, his nose lifting. Licking his jaws. Black nose twitching and inhaling greedily.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

You keened, though nerves flushed a new wave of unease through you. He was so big, so long and lean and terrifying, all black fur and sharp angles and bright blue eyes fixed too tightly on you. His smell wasn’t right though. Too salty, too stale, old beer and smoke caught under the alpha of him, clinging to the top of your mouth wrong.

Your body still noticed him because your body was stupid now, because alpha was alpha when the heat got bad enough, but you had half a mind to know he wasn't for you.

“C-Craig—” you croaked, shaking your head, holding your hand out to try and make him stop in his path. You backed up until your shoulder blades hit the splintering wall of the makeshift bar beside the pool. “No, Craig—”

His head dipped, understanding, though he slowly brought his nose to your open palm, wet and rubbery as he breathed in deeply. His tongue, like sandpaper, licked at your hand. You sighed in relief, even as your belly cramped harder in need. Your head fell back against the bar, neck baring, eyes fluttering shut as he licked at your hand again, between your fingers, his teeth grazing the tip of your forefinger in a careful little nip. It felt so good, just the smallest touch of wet tongue, even if just for the moment.

Your core tightened, hips twitching, searching for more, your back arching a little as his coarse tongue licked carefully at the sensitive web of skin between each finger. You couldn't help the little helpless moans that fell from your lips, and Craig’s tongue pressed heavier with each sound, dragging slower over your palm, between your fingers, across the tender inside of your wrist. But when you mewled and keened, it wasn't for Craig. Or Deran. Or even for J—who stood at the back door, watching.

"An—Andy, please—"

Craig's teeth bit down hard suddenly on the meat of your palm.

You yelped, pulling your hand away, eyes flying open. Your skin felt too hot, your vision bleary and wet at the edges as your feet scrambled against the patio, trying to push yourself farther from the wolf in front of you. His eyes had gone harder now, bright blue and fixed on you, the skin over his muzzle wrinkling into a little snarl from the way you must’ve moaned his older brother’s name.

And soon you heard the crack of a thick growl coming from beside him.

The mottled gray wolf was coming back over to you, his head low, shoulders rolling under all that gray-brown fur. His snarl tore through the air at the same time Craig’s did when he noticed him, both sounds ripping over the pool deck, but neither of them lunged. They only stood there with teeth bared and breathing hard while the space between them and you seemed to shrink.

Across the pool deck, you saw the autumn blonde wolf limping away, Deran, tossing hard glares over his shoulder as he went.

You dropped your hand, your body trembling where you sat. A molten heap of nothing now, only want and need and burning. Your brain felt like mush as you looked at the two wolves, both still showing their teeth, until Pope moved forward and crowded your space, standing across your legs.

His fur of his belly tickled the tops of your knees, and you brought your face into his shoulder without thought, inhaling deeply. Yes, yes. He smelled so good. Gunpowder and rain, leather and sweat, and something you hadn’t noticed before, something clean in the thick of his fur. Almost like… pine. You inhaled so deeply it stuttered in your chest, your stomach pulling tight, your legs heavy beneath you. Your body was so strung out with need that the smell of him felt like the first thing that made sense, and you whined against his fur as the vibration of his growl faded under your cheek.

He turned his head toward you, letting you stay buried in his shoulder, his nose pressing carefully at your leg.

“I’m sorry,” you whined, your fingers curling into the fur at his side. “I didn’t mean—for all this—Andrew, I feel—you feel so warm, I—”

He was moving before you could finish, pushing his head under your arm to lift you up. Your arm looped around his oversized body, fingers digging into the thick fur over his shoulder blades as he helped you through the yard and toward the house. You heard the back gate clink shut behind you, the other two alphas slinking off across the pool deck. As you passed J’s hardened glare, you could barely make out his form through your hooded eyes, but Pope growled softly at him anyway, low and annoyed.

He guided you through until you were in the furthest corner of the house, your steps uneven beside the click-clacking of his claws as you made your way into his bedroom.

You blearily took in your surroundings: there was no laundry on the floor, no open drawers, nothing left out of place except a watch on the nightstand and a pocketknife set beside it, both placed perfectly straight. The room was dim, blinds half shut, every bit of it perfectly done. The bed had been made tight before you were shoved onto it, blanket pulled flat, pillows stacked square against the headboard.

But it smelled so good—like him. You rubbed your face into the pillow as he let you walk to the bed, and there was that pine smell— his detergent, then, you realized—mixing with the intoxicating scent of rain and leather again.

Your stomach cramped as the worst of your heat rolled through you, arms wrapping around your middle as you cried out.

You could vaguely hear Pope whining somewhere in the room—a low, thick sound that began to morph more human, breaking and heaving until it was a man’s breath, a man’s pain. When you opened your eyes again, he was there. Just Pope. Two-legged and naked as the day he was born, crouched on the floor by the door with his hands braced against the hardwood.

Scratches cut across his chest and arms, new claw marks fresh on his neck where Deran had caught him, red and raised beside the older scars you had seen before. Sweat ran down his temples, his shoulders shook. His freckled back arched over the floor as another wave of the turn moved through him, muscles jumping beneath his skin, bones threatening in pops and shifts.

He groaned through his teeth, head bowed, as if trying to hold onto this form with everything he had.

“D-don’t be scared,” he managed to whisper, though his voice was so rough, it was merely a scrape of sound. “I’m not gonna—” He sucked in a breath, eyes squeezing shut. “You can stay here until—until it passes, or until you can call somebody. I’m not gonna touch you. I’m not gonna—fuck, no, no, no—”

His back arched harder, bones rippling under his skin, and for one terrible second his jaw looked wrong—his shoulders rising, hands blanched into fists the floor. He cried out again as you watched his claws beginning to protrude from his knuckles.

But then he dragged in another breath through his nose, shuddered all over, and forced himself back down. Human, even if only barely. His eyes stayed fixed on the floor in front of him.

“Andrew,” you cried, your voice cracking, “I need you—”

You cut yourself off with another whine, your knees were pulling tight to your chest, teeth biting into your own arm as another wave of crippling, cramping pain pulled through you. You hated this part. Usually you prepared. Medication first, toys charged, towels and blankets laid out around the cold tile of your bathroom. You usually made sure to have your water and herbal elixir by the tub, phone plugged in on the counter playing something soothing. You had a whole system for surviving what your body did to you every cycle.

But now you were in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room, with a True Alpha on the floor trying very hard not to turn back into the wolf at the sound of your voice begging for him.

And fuck, your body sang for him like nothing you had ever felt before. A deeper heat than you'd ever felt, something ancient and searing opening in you. It moved through your belly and down your legs, slick coating your thighs, staining your shorts. Your mind was slipping from you, you knew that well now, hardly your own, lost in pain—but mostly into need and want. So, so much want.

Every now and then you'd feel the chill of the fever as your skin went clammy and hot again, each breath dragging more of that rich scent from him into your lungs.

“Please,” you whimpered, fingers twisting in your own shirt. “Please, it hurts.”

"Don't—" Pope croaked from the floor. "I won't do that to you."

“I neeeeeeed it,” you cried, rocking yourself against the mattress. “Please, I promise, I promise I want you. I’ve always wanted you.”

Tears began pouring down your cheeks—from the pain, the want, the need to make him understand. You writhed in his sheets, body twisting toward him because he was right there, almost close enough to touch, close enough to smell, and still not close enough to stop the awful cramping pull inside you.

Why wouldn't he come to you? The little, desperate omega in you wondered. Had you done something wrong?

Yes, you thought. All wrong, all teeth and nasty temper.

You remembered the driveway, the way you’d snapped at them, teeth bared, shoulders squared, all that ugly anger spilling out of you before you could stop it. You shouldn’t have come in so mean. You shouldn’t have slapped Deran. Maybe that's why Pope didn't want you, after all. Because what kind of omega were you? Not the normal, sweet, docile little things that put on their doe eyes for their alpha. You'd never been that kind of person, never wanted to beg a man for anything, least of all a stupid, ego driven, territorial alpha.

But that wasn't Pope. You knew that. You'd known it for a very, very long time. So, you tried. Tried to be docile now, knew the one way to get under the animal's skin.

"Please, alpha—"

"Stop—" he growled.

"Please, please, alpha—"

"No." it was a deep growl, as if he'd finally caught his breath, using that low, heavy voice that only his kind were privileged to have.

“Yes,” you retorted, voice breaking into a whine. “I swear, Pope. I promise I’ve wanted you. I came here today hoping you would be here—Andy, I swear it.”

His head snapped up to you.

Oh, oh his eyes were so pretty. His full attention on you felt like being bathed in a pretty sunlight, those hazel eyes, those pretty dark curls. You softened only a little, eager, opening your body a little.

You nodded fervently, tears dripping down your temple and onto the pillowcase beneath. “I swear it. My dad—he was an alcoholic, an asshole. He only got you that job because he thought he could steal from you. I hated him. Hated him, Andy. But I knew…I knew you might still be here. So I came over, pretending I wanted the money. But I knew my heat was coming. I knew it was close, and I still came. I’m so sorry—”

He was next to the bed so fast, you gasped.

His hand came to the crown of your head, pushing back the sweaty hair there. The touch was so careful, but it felt so good, your breath shakily exhaling from you.

“You’re okay,” he said roughly. “You’re okay, don’t be sorry."

God, his touch was like a salve. Just his hand in your hair made your eyes flutter, made the pain in your belly loosen for one breath before it came back worse.

Pope swallowed, watching you now with something pained and soft in his face.

“This was a dumb idea,” he murmured, his thumb dragging over your hairline. “Coming over here when you knew better. Didn’t you know better, little omega?”

You nodded again, silent, your eyes searching his face. So many scratches. Fresh red marks along his neck, his shoulder, his ribs. Marks that were there because of you, because of the mess your body had pulled all of them into.

"You smell so good, Andy—"

“We can't do this today,” he said, voice still low. “You're in heat, you'll say anything."

You shook your head quickly, reaching for him, your hand going to his neck before either of you could think better of it. He hissed when your fingers slipped into the curls at his nape, your wrist turning just right so that the soft gland there pressed against the one behind his ear. You hadn’t meant to do it. You only wanted to touch him so badly.

But the contact made you moan anyway, your scent and his folding together between you.

His head fell back on his neck, mouth parting at the feeling, his chest pulling in one deep breath after another. “Fuck,” he breathed.

You keened at the sound, whining for him, trying to use your hold on him to drag him closer. He came willingly, but not all the way. Not enough. His mouth stayed open as he breathed you in from your jaw, down the column of your exposed throat, to your shoulder, and then back up to the tender, spongy gland behind your ear. "You smell so good too."

Your eyes went wide when his tongue dipped out to lick at the mark there, the moan you made slipping out of you obscene and helpless. Your legs opened before you could stop them, docile suddenly, open, wanting, your body begging for him in a way that would have made your whole face burn if you weren't so deep into heat.

You heard him whispering, "Yeah…yeah…" he inhaled, exhaled, licking lightly as your scent flooded the room even stronger, "That's it, good omega."

His voice was warping between man and other, his breath deepening.

"Andy, please, it hurts."

He growled a little, his name on your lips just enough to push him over the edge. You could smell how strong his rut was hitting now, with you in his own bed, legs open and slick shining along your bare skin.

“If you want to keep any of these clothes,” he said, voice rough, “take them off. Now.”

You squirmed where you sat, hands feeling heavy, the air thick around you as you tried to move. Your body felt slow and clumsy with need, every thought narrowed down to him, his mouth, his hands, the heat of him hovering so close and still not close enough.

“Tell me it’s not just this,” he panted, his voice catching back into himself for a moment. “Tell me you want me. Not just because of this.”

“Andy, I’ve wanted you for so, so long,” you whined, trying and failing to push down your shorts with one hand, the other still hooked around his neck. He pulled back so he was looking down at your face. His eyes were blown black, barely any hazel to be seen. For a moment, he was as scary as he was as the wolf—intimidating, serious, the gleam of animal in his gaze.

"Tell me." he ordered.

While you still squirmed, his hand came down to cover yours, stopping your movement entirely. You whined and thrashed a little, impatient. But all he had to do was 'tsk his tongue against his teeth and you laid still.

"Back when—" you inhaled, trying to get your mind to form words, coherent memories, but your heat was so strong now that all you cared about was the fact he was here, and he was very naked, and he was looking at you. Looking at you like that. "Andyyyy pleaseeee…"

“Be a good girl and tell me, omega.”

You pouted, breathing hard through your nose. “When I met J—”

“—That was two years ago.” he said, brows furrowed a little.

You nodded quickly.

“I think about you every time,” you admitted, voice breaking around the words. “Every time I’m stuck dealing with this —this bullshit by myself. M-my toys, when I have to do it alone—”

His face shifted. “You don’t have anyone to help?” he asked, and there was something so genuinely concerned in his voice that it made your chest hurt through the fever.

You shook your head.

His expression softened, the hard animal edge easing back just enough for Pope to look like Pope again. “Okay,” he said, quieter. “Okay, I understand.”

“S’been so long,” you whispered, fingers curling weakly against his neck. “All I do is think about you.”

"Okay," he repeated, "I'm gonna help, it's okay,"

Your heart soared at his words, your legs falling wider, your neck craning to give him access before you could think to be embarrassed. You were helpless to the instinct of your kind now, making yourself soft and open and desperate for him. But you were desperate. You were deep in the haze of want, too far gone to care how needy you looked in his bed, how quickly you answered the smallest kindness from his mouth.

“Ohhh, please,” you breathed, fingers tightening in his hair. “Please, please, please.”

He leaned down then, and though you thought you were feverish before, the first press of his lips nearly broke you. Heat blazed between you like kindled fire. It was not gentle in the way you expected. It was careful, yes, because he was Pope and because he was still fighting himself with every breath, but it was eager too. His chapped mouth pushed against yours, hot and a little clumsy at first, and both of you moaned into the contact.

His shoulders, tense for so long, dropped with one heavy exhale. His breath fanned over your face as the hand holding yours rose to your jaw, fingers spreading to keep you close.

You opened your mouth easily when his tongue pressed forward, and whatever restraint had been left between you began to fray. Your hands pulled at him, his mouth moved harder over yours. He was still kneeling at the side of the bed, but then he shifted, pressing into the mattress, his weight dipping as he hovered over your open body.

He finally pushed your shorts down for you, panties following after, ruined and wet against your skin. He didn't take his mouth from yours until he had to, until your shirt caught at your neck and he pulled back only to drag it over your head. You suddenly realized you could feel him. Hot, pulsing, thick against your thigh, making you undulate where you laid.

"Oh, oh, Andrew—I need, I need it now."

"Sh, sh, sh," he cooed, still kissing you.

You whined and mewled for him, your hands eager now, too eager, needing more of him than his mouth and his weight and the hot press of his skin.

You reached between the two of you, and the growl that came from his throat had your lips detaching from his, your neck craning to the side before you could think better of it. Submission, easy, immediate and instinctual—your body offering it up at the first scary sound from him.

But he felt so good in your hand. Smooth and hot, pulsing against your palm, velvet soft skin over all the thick weight of his cock. Your hand moved up and down gently at first, almost reverent despite the fever, until your fingers brushed something fuller at the base, thicker skin beginning to swell there.

"Is that—?" you whispered.

He nodded, kissing your face like he couldn’t make himself stop, his mouth dragging over your cheek, your temple, the corner of your lips while he hissed and sighed and moaned at your touch. “My knot.”

"Oh," you murmured, blearily blinking.

His face pushed yours to the side, stubble scraping against your skin as he kissed your shoulder and down your neck. You felt the sound he made before you heard it, a low, vibrating groan pressed into your throat as your hand tightened and your wrist twisted, tugging him closer.

“I—” he tried, breath breaking. “I have to tell you—I might—ohhhh, fuck—”

You swept your thumb over the tip of him, thick beads of arousal coating the head, and your whole body clenched at the feel of it. You wanted a taste. You wanted him in your mouth, inside you, against you, anywhere he would let you have him. Anything. You would do anything right now.

“Listen,” he snapped, a rough growl tearing through the word as he pulled his face away from your neck.

You paused, startled, your hand still wrapped around him.

His face changed immediately. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, both hands coming to your hair as he leaned fully over you, his thumbs pressing carefully at your scalp. “I’m sorry, little one. Don’t be scared. I didn’t mean to—shit, I’m trying to tell you something.”

You nodded quickly, eyes wet, both of you burning hot where your skin touched.

“You need to know,” he said, forcing each word out slowly. “If I lose it, if my rut gets too strong, I might change back. I don’t want to. I’m holding it —him—down, but I could—”

“Okay,” you whispered, barely listening as you guided him lower, finally bringing him against the slick folds of your aching cunt.

Your eyes nearly rolled back from the pressure alone, from the hot drag of him through all that gathered slick. He sighed into a long groan, his hips jerking, pressing harder, before he caught himself, one hand tightening in your hair while the other braced beside your head.

“You don’t understand,” he gritted through his teeth. "I could hurt you—"

“It’s okay, Andy,” you breathed, trying to soothe him even as your hips lifted against him, grinding your hips against him, lathering his cock with your arousal. “It’s okay. You don’t scare me.”

He paused, eyes searching yours, hazel swallowed up entirely by the black of rut. His hand moved through your hair again, harder now, almost restless.

"Okay." he finally whispered, kissing you once again.

At first, it was all tongue and hunger in your mouth, the sounds he made almost too much to hear when your body was already wound so tight. You sang for him too, squirming beneath him, needing and needy, your hands catching at his shoulders, his neck, anywhere you could hold. You whined and shifted as his kisses moved from your mouth to your jaw, down your neck, licking into the dips of your throat and clavicle.

He kissed your breasts, giving each one a moment of attention before going lower. His mouth dragged down the soft rise of your belly, warm against your skin, then lower still until his breath fanned over your mound. You gasped when his lips touched the top of your hip, already about to whine over the loss of his body against yours.

But then your brain suddenly went white hot as his tongue flattened over your cunt and licked a long stripe from entrance to clit. Your back bowed in on itself, an arch so clean off the bed, your fingers catching for any relief. One in his hair, one on the bed. You moaned loudly, your hips undulating for more. His hands came up quickly, around your thighs, holding you down and open as he did nothing but eat.

The sounds he made filled your ears—rough, animal growls, whimpering moans, the obscene sounds of his tongue against your slick pussy. Slurping, licking, huffing breaths against you like he needed it too. It was too much. Your hips tightened, spine tingling, and it wasn’t long before your jaw opened, unhinging to let out a yelp of pleasure as your orgasm crested and broke.

It wasn't enough, but it brought small relief. You felt your body clench down around the need for more, your breath hissing through your teeth as he continued to lick through your orgasm. His tongue had been the gentle press of something human at first—warm, careful and gentle—but then it dragged rougher, closer to sandpaper, and your whole body jolted beneath him until it returned to the human softness.

He held onto your firmly, and you only just saw the prick of blood on your thighs where his claws were starting to protrude again. When you looked down at him, his brows were threaded so tight, his form not quite turned but the signs were there—his claws, his teeth sharpening when they nibbled on your clit.

When he rose from between your legs, panting, his hands were greedy as they pawed roughly at you, "How was that, sweet little omega? Feel better, hm?"

You thrashed and shook your head because yes, and no, and not enough. But you let him manhandle you until you were on your belly, your ass lifted a little, pushing back into him before he even had to ask.

"Mmmm…" he hummed, his face buring into the back of your head, inhaling, "Fuck, you're so good. What a good girl. Tasted so fucking good."

His hand dragged down your spine, stopping at your hip, holding you still while he breathed hard behind you. You could feel him close, hot and heavy against your skin, his body shaking with the effort of waiting.

“Gonna let me take you, baby?”

“Yes, alpha,” you murmured, voice thick and warbled.

He hummed, content, his hands rough on you, squeezing until you whined into the pillow. But you didn't want him to stop, you hoped he'd never stop. He felt so warm, his smell enveloping you as he laid across your back.

"Down." he ordered. His voice was so thick now, that human and not-so-human growl sitting behind every syllable, and it made you shiver all the way down. You listened. Of course you listened, blood thrumming hard with the feeling of the tip of his cock right at your entrance, gliding through the slick there.

You laid fully down on the bed, wiggling beneath him, trying to push back, but he laid down over you, face into your neck, lips at your ear. His breath hot and thick around the shell as he said, "Settle down."

Instinct had you whining, your eyes rolling, desperately pushing your hips back and then—

And then you were nothing.

His cock pushed into you, and your brain went flat line. Your cunt, so wet and wanting, let him in without fuss, your body opening around him like it had been waiting for exactly this. The stretch, the warmth of his thick cock. Your toys never felt like this. They never made you feel this full, this fevered, this sick relief in your hips and stomach and spine. They never made your body go quiet for one stunned second, all that pain finally given something to hold onto.

"Ohhhhhh, Andy—" you moaned, eyes rolling back.

"Yeah," he breathed, and you could hear how his teeth bared around the word, the vibrating groan that followed as he pushed completely into you, hips meeting yours, balls resting gently against your clit.

He wrapped his arms around you tightly, pulling you into him until you weren't entirely sure where you started and he began. Your chin rested in the crook of his arm, head turned just enough to feel his breath in your ear, to hear the rough scrape of him changing between man and animal as he began fucking you in earnest.

His moans in your ear were no less obscene, no less desperate, than the rhythm of his hips jolting you into the mattress while his mouth stayed at your neck, open and panting. The bed creaked under you, his and your moans harmonizing with the slap of skin that filled the room.

“Good girl,” he whimpered. “Good girl, take my cock. Doing so good, little omega. Fuck.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” you moaned, because you had no other words.

Your brain was slack, your mouth parted, drool pooling a little onto his arm where he held you tight. He made a low and pleased sound, his arm tightening under your chin so you could feel the tendon and his muscles flex with every thrust.

"Gonna take such good care of you," he promised through a groan, "Mine, mine now. All mine."

Your heart sang for him, your ass pushing back harder into his lap.

"Yes, Andy, please, please—"

He was whispering into your ear, words broken by his breath, by his teeth, by the animal pressing closer under his skin as he completely gave into his rut. My little pussy. My omega. Gonna keep you. Mine, mine, mine. Each one sank into you worse than the last, until your body answered all of them, slick coating him and you and the bed, your hips jerking back to meet every hard swing of his.

You cried out sharply when his angle changed, his cock pushing deeper, striking something that made your hands claw at the sheets. The headboard knocked into the wall with loud slams of wood.

You felt his teeth press at the back of your neck, the wet heat of his mouth right over the gland behind your ear.

“Oh, please,” you cried, one hand reaching back for his hair. “Please bite me—”

"Sh, sh—no—" he growled, only pressing the flat front of his teeth to the gland instead. Your blood still sang for it as you kicked your feet with petulance. The need to be taken, mated, kept, moved through you so fast it made your throat close. You wanted the bite. You wanted the hurt. You wanted whatever came after it.

“Please!" you sobbed.

“Shut up, little omega,” he growled, voice thick against your neck. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

You whined and kicked your feet even as he fucked you harder, his hips swinging in a desperate rhythm now, rougher with every breath. His fingers dug into your skin where he held you, and you felt the sharp prick of claws again that were not quite the stubby human nails anymore.

“You’re gonna take my knot just like you take my cock,” he said, the words pressed right into your ear. “Like a good girl. Do you understand?”

You nodded against his arm, sobbing around the movement.

“Say it.”

“I understand,” you cried. “I understand, alpha.”

“Mine,” he grunted. “Mine, mine, mine.”

“Yours, Andrew. Yours, I promise—please, please take me. Knot me.”

As his moans grew louder, you suddenly realized the shaking of the bed wasn’t only from the saw of his hips, or the stutter of your own heart in your ribs.

Pope was trembling all over.

Heat blazed off his skin worse now, his body burning against your back. His teeth were still bared along your neck, but sharper this time, the points catching when he dragged his mouth over your gland. His tongue dipped out, rougher than before, no longer the soft press of something fully human, and the scrape of it made you gasp so hard your whole body went limp around him, fully giving in.

You gasped as you heard his breath thicken and change, huffed through a mouth that did not feel shaped the same. His arm around you tightened, restricting your air so that you saw sparks in your eyes, his voice deep and not completely his own as he said, one last time: "Mine."

He came with one hard thrust, so rough it had you pushed deep into the mattress, and you felt too many things at once.

His cock swelled deep inside you, the pressure blooming as his knot caught and locked, stretching you around him until your mouth fell open in a silent cry. Warm ropes of spend filled you, one pulse after another, and your body seized around it, cunt clenching hard as your own pleasure tore through you all over again.

And then something wet pressed against your ear.

Your eyes went wide, spine locking as his breath huffed over the side of your face. His jaw was wrong around your neck, longer, rougher, the shape of him changing where he stayed folded over you. Your slackened brain keened for it anyway. Your body knew him. Man or wolf or whatever terrible place between, it knew him.

A wet, rough press of a nose to your ear. And a snout latching around your neck.

The bite came harder than you were expecting, different from what the other omegas had told you about. They told you it was as simple as teeth to the side of the neck, pain for a few seconds, then warmth, then the bond settling into place.

But this was not that.

This—this was entirely different. You were like a pup in the maw of his jaw, held down, taken, given everything. Held by the same teeth that could have torn through skin if he forgot himself for even one second. His jaw locked around your neck entirely, teeth on both sides, tongue licking long stripes as the gland burst for him.

He growled around your neck, panting hot against your skin as he came down from the high of his orgasm, each sound rolling through you from the bite to the knot locked deep inside. You felt, but couldn't see, the half change. Claws and teeth and snout, but not completely changed.

Pheromones, hormones, scent and sound and heat all burst white behind your eyes as his teeth sank in, flooding every part of you at once. You cried out, pulsing around his cock where he was locked inside you, your hand fisting in his hair as the bite burned and soothed in the same breath.

His deep, baritone growls rolled through your back, through your ribs, through the place where his body held yours pinned and full. They soothed you into stillness better than any words could have. You thought you could feel what he was saying anyway, even as the wolf.

Don’t be scared. Take what I give. Don’t be scared. You’re home now. You’re right where you belong.

It wasn’t until a little while later that Pope’s body was completely his own again. He had talked you through one more orgasm around his knot— voice rough at your ear, promising it would feel good, that it would help, and it did. It took over you slower that time, pulling the pain loose by inches until you were half asleep beneath him, cheek pressed into the sheets while he coaxed and cooed, telling you he knew best, telling you to breathe, telling you he had you.

By the time he pulled his spent, went cock from you, you barely had the strength to whine. He soothed you through that too, one hand spread over your hip, mouth moving along your shoulder in soft, messy kisses until the empty ache settled into something quieter.

Your breaths were even and in sync, chests rising and falling together. Your spine felt embedded in his chest where he stayed over you, his weight warm across your back, his mouth never stopping its little kisses and licks after the intensity of the True Bite. The sharpest part of it had passed, but the mark still throbbed under your skin, hot and alive with every beat of your pulse.

Your blood felt like it went through you, through him, and back to you. A circuit. A loop, always flowing. Your scents had mixed beyond telling now, salt and sweat and sex lingering in the sheets, rain and gunmetal pressed into your skin, your own heat softened just for now.

When his knot finally settled, he still didn’t move far. He only laid beside you instead of on top, pulling you in close as your body crawled toward him.

He took you again, like that. Side by side, facing him, your leg hitched over his hip and his hands holding you close. This time, it was slower. His rut was more controlled, though just as hungry, and face to face it felt even more intimate. More impossible to hide from. You could see every flicker of the change moving through him when his restraint broke—the dark pull of his eyes, the sharpening of his teeth, the way his breath came rough through a mouth that did not always stay shaped like a man’s.

But it didn’t scare you. You hadn’t lied about that.

The wolf was there, right behind his face, but so was Pope. Andrew. With his same careful hands, his certainty in the way he knew he could take care of you. And this time, you soothed him through it, your hands petting at his face gently when his muscles jumped, your fingers tracing over the long snout and through his curls. Even when his body changed, even when the shape of him moved closer to the stories than anything human, your omega brain did not see the thing from childhood warnings anymore. It saw him. Your alpha. Yours.

The second time he knotted you, there in his lap, your face buried in his neck, you breathed him in until your lungs ached with it. Pheromones, sweat, heat, the deep pull of the bond still settling between you. His hands clenched at the flesh of your backside, his body trembling beneath yours, and you turned your mouth to the gland behind his ear.

Your teeth were flat and nothing like his, but still—when you bit down hard, Pope froze beneath you.

His mouth parted in shock as his head tilted back. A whimper slipped through him that felt like it wrapped itself around your heart, constricting.

And then, as his head dropped forward, you felt change take this time, his body shifting under your hands, under your thighs, until your mouth was full of fur and your fingers were buried in the thick ruff at his neck.

When you opened your eyes, he was the wolf.

A Rorschach of gray and brown and shadow, massive beside you, warm enough to steam the air between your bodies. Not quite like the wolves in zoos. Not quite like the monsters from the stories, either. His head was too broad, his shoulders too heavy, his eyes too knowing when they found yours. He whined low in his chest, almost the same sound you had made for him, and you answered without meaning to.

The two of you stayed tangled there, breathing hard, the bond pulsing between your marks. There was no place else for you, nor for him. Not ever.

You tried on the first outfit because it used to work. That was the problem with it. The fabric was familiar in your hands. Soft from too many washes, worn in at the seams, something you had reached for a dozen times before without thinking. It had been safe once. Easy. The kind of thing you could put on, glance in the mirror, and leave the house without negotiating with yourself first. Now, standing in front of your bedroom mirror after a full shift at PTMC, you looked at yourself and felt your stomach drop.

It didn’t fit the way you remembered.

Not badly, maybe. Not in a way anyone else would look at and immediately understand why your throat tightened or why your hands went cold at your sides.

But you knew.

You knew because you lived in your body. You knew the way it had changed. You knew the places that felt softer now, the places that pressed differently against fabric, the places your eyes went first, no matter how hard you tried to look somewhere else. You turned slightly, then wished you hadn’t.

“Nope,” you whispered.

You peeled the outfit off before you could think about it too long and tossed it onto the bed. The second one made your arms feel too visible. The third pulled wrong at your middle. The fourth was black, because black was supposed to be merciful, but all it did was make you feel like you were trying too hard to disappear. By the time your phone buzzed on the dresser, your bed was covered in clothes, and your chest felt tight with the kind of panic that seemed ridiculous until you were standing inside it. You glanced at the screen.

Jack: Awake.

Despite everything, your mouth twitched. A second message appeared.

Jack: That feels generous. Conscious.

Jack worked nights, which meant his day had started sometime around late afternoon, after a few hours of sleep and the kind of silence most people only associated with illness or grief. He had been asleep while you finished your shift, while you drove home, while you stood in front of your closet and tried to become someone who could go out for drinks. You sat on the edge of the bed, half-dressed and exhausted in a way sleep would not fix.

You: Congratulations.

Jack: Thank you. It was difficult.

That pulled a small breath of laughter out of you. Not enough, but something.

Jack: Shower. Coffee. Then I’ll head out.

You looked down at the pile of clothes on the bed. Then back at the mirror. For half a second, you thought about canceling. It would be easy. Too easy. You could say you were tired. You could say work drained you. You could say you had a headache, which wasn’t technically a lie, because your whole body felt like one by now. You could crawl into bed in old sweatpants, turn the lights off, and not have to be looked at by anyone. Not by your friends. Not by strangers.

Not by Jack.

Another text came through.

Jack: You still going?

Your thumb hovered over the screen. You looked back at the mirror. The woman staring back at you looked tired and uncertain and wrong in a way you didn’t know how to explain without sounding cruel. You hated that. You hated that your first instinct was cruelty. You hated that your body had become something you monitored instead of lived in. You hated that getting dressed for drinks with people who loved you had turned into standing half-naked in your bedroom trying to figure out which version of yourself would be the least embarrassing to bring outside. You swallowed hard and typed back. 

You: Yeah. I’ll meet you there.

Jack answered almost immediately. 

Jack: Save me a seat?

Your throat tightened for no reason.

You: Always.

Jack: Good.

A beat passed.

Jack: I like knowing where to find you.

You stopped, just for a second. The words sat there on the screen, simple and easy, and Jack in that quiet way he had. Not overly sweet. Not theatrical. Just sincere enough to find the places in you that were already bruised. I like knowing where to find you. You looked at yourself in the mirror again.

Your eyes went first to your stomach. Then your hips. Then the roundness of your face. Then the way your body took up space in the cardigan you had pulled on like a shield. The sweetness did not land where it was supposed to. It should have made you warm. It should have made you smile. It should have made you feel wanted, or at least remembered. Instead, it made your chest ache. Because Jack loved you. Jack wanted you. Jack touched you like he meant it. And lately, all you could think about when he did was whether he noticed.

Whether his hands felt the difference.

Whether he remembered the way your body used to be before it changed into something you could barely stand to look at.

You locked your phone and set it facedown. “No,” you told yourself quietly.

You were not doing this. Not tonight. You were not going to stand here and ruin the whole night before it even started. You were not going to make Jack’s kindness into something painful. You were not going to text Santos and cancel. You were not going to let one mirror decide whether you deserved to exist in public. You grabbed the fifth outfit. Jeans that fit, technically. A top that didn’t cling too much, if you adjusted it right. A cardigan you could keep on if you needed something between your body and the room. You got dressed slowly. The jeans buttoned, but you hated how aware you were of them. The waistband sat against your skin like a reminder. You tugged the top down, then hated yourself for tugging. You pulled the cardigan over your shoulders and faced the mirror again.

It was fine.

That was the word you landed on. Not beautiful. Beautiful felt too ambitious. Beautiful felt like something that belonged to a version of you who did not have to stand in front of a mirror and bargain with her own reflection. Fine, you could manage. Fine could leave the house. Fine could sit at a table. Fine could laugh at Robby’s dry comments and let Santos steal fries and listen to Dana talk about whatever chaos had happened on shift after you left.

Fine could wait for Jack.

You leaned closer to the mirror and fixed your earrings with fingers that were only a little unsteady. Then you stopped at the doorway. One more look. You hated that you needed it. You hated that you took it anyway. The mirror gave you nothing new. Same body. Same outfit. Same sharp, sinking disappointment. You adjusted the cardigan again, then forced your hand to drop.

Fine. Fine was enough.

You turned off the bedroom light before you could change your mind and left the apartment.

By the time you got to the bar, Santos had already claimed a booth near the back. You spotted her first because she was waving one hand over her head as if trying to direct aircraft into the room. Dana sat beside her, leaned back with a drink in her hand, while Mel was angled toward Robby, both of them listening to him tell some story with the grim resignation of a man who knew he was funny and hated that people kept finding out.

Santos saw you and lit up. “There she is,” Santos called.

You smiled before you could think too hard about whether anyone was looking at you.

“Hi,” you said, sliding into the empty space beside her.

Santos immediately bumped her shoulder into yours. “I was two minutes away from sending a search party.”

“I was changing,” you said.

Dana looked over the rim of her glass. “That sounds ominous.”

“It was,” you said lightly.

Mel’s expression softened just enough that you had to look away. She was too good at catching the things people tried to fold into jokes.

Santos leaned toward you. “You want a drink?”

“In a minute,” you said.

Robby glanced toward the door. “Abbot coming?”

“Once he finishes rejoining the living,” you said.

Dana smiled. “Night shift really does make people dramatic.”

Robby shook his head. “It’s Jack. He was dramatic before the sleep deprivation.”

You huffed a laugh, and for a second, it was easy. Not perfect. Not comfortable all the way down. But easier. The bar was loud enough to blur the edges of your thoughts. Warm light, sticky tables, music from somewhere overhead, people pressed close enough that no one had the space to stare too long. Santos was talking with her hands. Dana was telling Mel about a family member who had tried to bribe her with banana bread. Robby was pretending not to enjoy himself and failing. You could do this. You could sit here. You could keep your cardigan on. You could let your body be present without making it the center of the room.

Fine. Fine was working. Mostly.

Santos leaned closer under the noise. “You okay?”

You looked at her quickly. “Yeah.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“I’m fine,” you said, because that was better. Cleaner. It would be more convincing if you said it before she asked again.

Santos didn’t push. 

That was when Kyle slid into the empty chair at the end of the table. He was one of the X-ray techs, the kind of coworker everyone knew well enough to say hi to and not well enough to invite into anything intimate. He worked with half the ED, flirted with anything that answered him, and had a talent for talking like every room had been waiting for his commentary.

“Look at this,” Kyle said, already holding up his phone. “Found some ancient PTMC lore.”

Robby’s eyes cut toward him. “Why do I already hate this?”

Kyle turned the screen toward the table. It was an old photo from a night out a year or so before. Dana and Santos were in it, both holding drinks. Robby was in the background, looking irritated about being photographed. You were near the edge of the frame, laughing at something off-camera, one hand raised as if you were trying to block the picture but had failed. Your stomach dropped before anyone said anything. You remembered that night. You remembered that outfit. You remembered not thinking about your body every five seconds.

“Oh my god,” Santos said, leaning in. “That was after the power outage shift.”

Dana laughed. “I forgot about that night.”

You tried to smile back. Tried.

Kyle looked from the photo to you. Then he grinned.

“Damn,” Kyle said, loud enough for the table to hear. “Jack’s been feeding you good, huh?”

The noise of the bar did not stop. That was the worst part. Music kept playing. Glasses kept clinking. Someone laughed too loudly near the dartboards. The world kept moving like Kyle had not just reached across the table and put his hand around your throat.

But the table went quiet.

Not dramatically. Not all at once.

Just enough.

Santos stopped reaching for her drink. Dana’s smile fell. Robby looked at Kyle without blinking. Mel’s eyes moved to you, careful and quick. No one laughed.

Kyle’s grin faltered. “What?” he asked, glancing around the table. Kyle shifted in his chair. “I was joking.”

Robby’s expression did not change. “Yeah. Don’t.”

Santos stared at Kyle. “Seriously, man?”

Kyle looked uncomfortable now, his phone lowering an inch. “Okay, Jesus. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

You were already smiling. You could feel it happening, the automatic shape of it. Too quick. Too bright. A social reflex your body performed before the rest of you could catch up.

“No, it’s fine,” you said.

The laugh came next. Small. Wrong. Not even close to real. Everyone looked at you then, and somehow that was worse.

Jack’s been feeding you good, huh?

The words landed again, even though Kyle had stopped talking.

You waved one hand like you could clear the whole thing out of the air. “Seriously, it’s fine.”

Santos said your name quietly.

Your smile stretched harder. “I’m just gonna use the bathroom.”

Mel shifted like she might stand. “Do you want me to—”

“No, I’m good,” you said quickly. “I’ll be right back.”

Your voice sounded strange. Thin. Like it belonged to someone standing farther away. Robby’s eyes were still on Kyle. Dana looked like she wanted to say something else. Santos looked like she already knew you were lying. You could not stay there another second. Not with Kyle’s phone still in his hand. Not with the old photo still glowing on the screen. Not with everyone trying so hard not to look at your body that you could feel them thinking about it. Not with Jack’s name hanging in the air like that.

Jack’s been feeding you good, huh?

You turned before anyone could touch you. Behind you, Kyle cleared his throat.

“Anyway,” Kyle said awkwardly. “I’m gonna grab another drink.”

No one answered him. No one made room for him to recover the joke. No one gave him a way back in. You did not turn around to see him leave.

The walk to the bathroom felt too long and too short at the same time. Your body moved on instinct, through the noise, past the bar, down the narrow hallway where the light turned colder and less forgiving. You made it inside. Locked the single bathroom door. Then you saw yourself in the mirror. For a second, all you did was stare.

Your cardigan. Your top. Your face. Your body under fabric that had been fine ten minutes ago and now felt like evidence.

Your breathing went shallow.

Jack’s been feeding you good, huh?

The words came back in Kyle’s voice. Casual. Grinning.

Like he had not ruined anything.

Your hand flew to your mouth.

The first sob tore out of you before you could stop it. It did not sound like crying at first. It sounded like something breaking. Something deep and ugly ripping itself loose from your lungs, too sharp to swallow back down, too big to hide behind your hand. Your knees weakened. You turned away from the mirror, but it didn’t help. You could still feel yourself. The waistband of your jeans. The cling of your shirt. The heat in your face. The body you had brought into the room, and could not set down, no matter how badly you wanted to.

Another sob came, harder than the first. It bent you forward. It hurt.

God, it hurt.

Not like embarrassment. Not like a bad comment. Not like the quick sting of someone saying something thoughtless.

It hurt like grief.

Like your heart had cracked somewhere no one could see, and your body was trying to force the sound of it out through your chest. Someone knocked. You froze.

“Hey,” Mel said through the door, softer than you expected. “It’s me.”

You pressed your hand harder against your mouth and tried to breathe quietly. 

“I’m fine,” you said.

There was a pause.

“No, you’re not,” Mel said gently.

The gentleness in her voice made it worse.

Your breath hitched once, then again.

“Mel, please,” you whispered.

“I’m not coming in,” she promised. “I just need you to talk to me.”

“I can’t,” you whispered.

Your chest tightened around the words. You tried to breathe in, but the air would not go all the way down. It caught somewhere high and sharp, turning thin before it reached your lungs. You pressed your palm to your sternum like you could force your body to remember how to do this one simple thing.

In. Out. In.

It would not work.

The mirror was still there. Even with your back to it, it was still there.

“I can’t breathe,” you said, and the words came out broken.

Mel’s voice changed immediately. Not louder. Steadier.

“Okay,” she said through the door. “Okay, listen to me. You’re safe. You’re in the bathroom. The door is locked. I’m right outside.”

You shook your head even though she couldn’t see you. “I can’t go back out there,” you said.

“You don’t have to,” Mel said.

“I can’t have everyone look at me,” you said.

“I know,” Mel replied.

Your breath shuddered hard. “I can’t—” You pressed your hand over your mouth again, but another sob forced its way through. “I can’t.”

“I know,” Mel said again, and this time her voice cracked at the edges. “I know. Just breathe with me, okay?”

You squeezed your eyes shut. She inhaled slowly on the other side of the door, loud enough for you to hear. “In,” she said.

You tried. It scraped.

“Good,” Mel said anyway. “Out.”

Your exhale broke in the middle.

“That’s okay,” she said. “Again.”

You followed her voice because there was nothing else to hold onto.

In. Out. Again. Again.

The panic did not leave. Not really. It only loosened enough for you to speak.

“Please don’t make it a thing,” you whispered.

Mel was quiet for a moment.

“Okay,” she said carefully. “I won’t make it a thing.”

Another pause passed.

“But I’m not going to pretend it was nothing,” Mel added.

Your face crumpled again. A fresh sound broke out of you, smaller this time but no less awful. You pressed your knuckles to your mouth, trying to hold yourself together by force. Your phone lit up in your hand.

Jack: Heading out soon.

Your chest folded in on itself. “Oh god,” you whispered.

Mel shifted on the other side of the door. “What?”

“It’s Jack,” you said.

Silence. You stared at his name until it blurred.

“He’s on his way,” you said, your voice breaking. “What do I tell him?”

Mel did not answer too quickly. You loved her for that. Hated it too.

“You don’t have to tell him anything yet,” she said. “Not if you don’t want to.”

Your breath hitched.

“He’s going to get here, and I’m not going to be there,” you said.

“I know,” Mel said.

“He’s going to ask where I am,” you said.

“I know,” She repeated.

You squeezed your eyes shut so hard it hurt. The thought of Jack walking in, looking for you, hearing what happened, seeing everyone know that you were the girl who got humiliated and cried in the bathroom—

No. No, no, no.

You could not survive that. “Tell Jack I got sick,” you said.

Mel was quiet.

“Tell him I went home,” you said, swallowing against the lump in your throat. Your fingers tightened around your phone. “Tell Jack,” you said.

Mel exhaled, and it sounded like it cost her something.

“Okay,” She said.

“Please,” you whispered.

“I will,” Mel promised. “But text me when you’re in the car.”

“I will,” you said.

“And when you get home,” she added.

“I will,” you said.

“I mean it,” Mel said.

Your mouth trembled. “I know.”

For another few seconds, neither of you moved.

“I’m going to step back,” Mel said quietly. “When you’re ready, open the door. Just me, okay?”

You nodded, even though she couldn’t see. It took another minute before you could make yourself move. When you unlocked the bathroom door, Mel stood in the hallway with her arms folded tightly over her chest, eyes sharp and wet. Her face softened the second she saw you. You looked down before she could say anything.

 “I’m okay,” you said.

“No,” she said gently. “But you’re leaving.”

You nodded once.

Mel stepped closer slowly, giving you every chance to move away. When you didn’t, she lifted both hands and cupped your face with a tenderness that almost undid you all over again. Her thumbs rested lightly near your cheeks, nowhere near the tears, like she was afraid to wipe them away without permission.

“Look at me,” Mel said.

You forced your eyes up.

Her expression was fierce and heartbroken.

“You didn’t deserve that,” she said. “Not one word of it.”

Your face crumpled.

Mel held you there lightly, not trapping you, just keeping you from disappearing for one second longer.

“Okay?” Mel asked.

You nodded because you could not speak. 

Mel’s jaw tightened.

“Good,” she said.

Then she let go and stepped back, shielding you from the view of the main bar without making it obvious.

“I’ll cover,” Mel said.

Your throat burned. “Thank you,” you said.

“Text me,” she said.

“I will,” you said.

You left through the side door before anyone else could see you. Outside, the air was cool enough to make your wet face sting. You got into the Uber, gave the driver your address, and stared out the window as the bar slipped away behind you. The lights smeared across the glass.

Jack’s been feeding you good, huh?

You shut your eyes.

It was worse in the quiet. At the bar, the words had somewhere to go. Noise. Music. Other voices. Here, they had nothing to bounce off but you. Your phone buzzed again.

Jack: On my way. Save me a seat?

You stared at the message until the words blurred. Then you turned the screen facedown in your lap and cried the whole way home.

Mel stayed in the hallway until she heard the side door close behind you. Then she took one breath, wiped under one eye with the heel of her hand, and walked back to the booth. No one was laughing when she got there. The whole table had gone stiff and quiet, the kind of quiet that made the bar around them sound even louder.

Robby noticed her first. “Where is she?” Robby asked, sitting forward.

Mel slid into the booth, phone gripped tightly in one hand. “She went home.”

Dana’s face fell. “Alone?”

“She called an Uber,” Mel said.

Santo’s mouth tightened. “Is she okay?”

Mel looked at her. No one said anything for a second.

“No,” Mel said, shaking her head once.

Dana rubbed a hand over her mouth. “God.”

Robby looked toward the bar, where Kyle had disappeared into the crowd. “He gone?”

Dana glanced that way. “I think so.”

Santos’s jaw tightened. “Good.”

Mel looked toward the hallway. “She laughed.”

Santos nodded, jaw tight. “I know.”

“She laughed like it didn’t hurt,” Mel said quietly.

Robby looked down at the table. “Yeah,” Robby said.

That was all he said; somehow, that made it worse.

Mel’s phone buzzed. Everyone went still. She looked down.

You: In the Uber.

“She’s in the car,” Mel said, closing her eyes for half a second.

Dana exhaled. Another text came through.

You: Please tell him I got sick. Please don’t make it a thing.

Mel stared at the message.

“What?” Santos asked, watching Mel’s face.

“She wants me to tell Jack she got sick,” Mel said.

Dana’s expression crumpled. “Oh, honey.”

Robby looked toward the entrance. “Jack’s on his way?”

Mel nodded. 

“He’s going to know,” Robby said.

“I know,” Mel said.

She looked down at the message again, then typed back.

Mel: Text me when you’re home.

Your reply came quickly.

You: I will.

The table stayed quiet after that. Not peaceful. Just quiet. The minutes stretched. Dana kept her arms crossed over her chest. Santos stared into her drink. Robby watched the door, his face set hard. Mel kept checking her phone every few seconds. When it buzzed again, she nearly dropped it.

You: Home.

“She’s home,” Mel said, letting out a breath.

Dana nodded, eyes glossy. “Good.”

Mel started typing back when the door opened. Jack stepped inside with his jacket in one hand, hair still a little damp from the shower, his body carrying the quiet tiredness of someone who should probably still be asleep. He looked for you first. His eyes moved over the room, found the booth, found Robby, Dana, Mel, and Santos. Then your empty chair. Jack stopped. The change in him was small, but everyone at the table felt it. He crossed to them slowly.

“Where is she?” Jack asked.

Mel’s fingers tightened around her phone. “She went home.”

Jack’s face shifted immediately. “What? Why?”

Mel swallowed. “She got sick.”

Jack looked at her for half a second. “She got sick?” Jack asked.

Mel nodded once. “Yeah.”

His concern came fast, clean, and immediate. “Is she okay? What happened?”

No one answered quickly enough. That was the problem. Dana looked down. Santos’s mouth tightened. Robby’s jaw flexed. Mel looked at her phone.

Jack went still. His eyes moved from one face to the next.

“What really happened?” Jack asked.

“Jack,” Dana said softly.

His gaze cut to her. “What happened?”

Robby leaned back slightly, jaw tight. “Kyle made a comment.”

Jack’s expression changed.

“What kind of comment?” Jack asked.

Dana did not answer. Mel looked away.

Jack’s voice dropped. “About what?”

No one said anything. His face hardened by degrees.

“About her?” Jack asked.

Santos swallowed.

“About her body,” Santos said.

Jack did not move. For one second, he looked like he had not understood the words. Then his jaw shifted.

“What comment?” Jack asked.

Santos looked pained.

Jack’s eyes stayed on her. “Santos.”

She hated repeating it. Hated every word. But Jack needed to know.

“Kyle said, ‘Damn, Jack’s been feeding you good, huh?’” Santos said.

Jack stared at her. For one second, there was nothing on his face.

Then—

“What the fuck?” Jack said, low and stunned.

Dana flinched. Jack looked around the table like he needed someone to tell him he had heard wrong. No one did.

“Are you fucking serious?” Jack asked, voice sharpening.

Mel nodded once.

 Jack’s hand flexed at his side. The anger was immediate. Red-hot. Barely contained.

“Where is he?” Jack asked.

Robby’s voice stayed even. “He left.”

Jack’s jaw worked.

Robby watched him carefully. “He knew it didn’t land.”

Jack let out a humorless breath. “Good for him.”

For a second, no one spoke.

Mel watched him, careful and worried. “She asked me to tell you she got sick.”

Jack’s face shifted. The anger did not go away. It folded inward.

“She was crying so hard she could barely breathe,” Mel said quietly.

Jack closed his eyes for half a second. When he opened them, he looked more hurt than angry.

“She shouldn’t be alone,” Jack said.

“No,” Mel said. “She shouldn’t.”

Jack looked down at his phone and started typing.

Robby’s voice stayed low. “Take a minute before you go over there.”

Jack did not look up from his phone. “I’m texting her first.”

That made Mel’s face soften slightly.

Jack typed for another few seconds, then stared down at the message before sending it.

Jack: I know what happened. 

He paused, typed again.

Jack: I’m sorry he said that to you.

Jack stopped, jaw tight, then typed again.

Jack: I want to come over.

Another pause.

Jack: You don’t have to talk about it. You don’t have to explain anything.  

Then he typed what he wanted to say the most right now. 

Jack: I just don’t want you alone right now.

Jack sent the messages and waited. The whole table stayed silent. A few seconds later, his phone lit up. Jack read it.

“What did she say?” Robby asked.

Jack swallowed.

“She said she doesn’t know,” Jack said.

Mel exhaled.

“That’s not no,” Mel said.

Jack looked at her for one long second. Then he put on his jacket and turned toward the door.

“Abbot,” Mel said.

He stopped.

Mel hesitated, then said, “Be careful with her.”

Jack looked back. His face was still angry. Still hurt. But his voice was steady when he answered.

“I will,” Jack said.

Then he left.

You made it home because your body knew how to do that, apparently.

Even when the rest of you had gone somewhere unreachable, you got out of the Uber. You thanked the driver because manners lived somewhere deeper than humiliation. You walked up the stairs to your apartment with your purse clutched too tightly in one hand and your phone in the other. Your fingers shook when you unlocked the door.

Inside, everything was exactly how you had left it.

The lamp by the couch was still on. Your work shoes were still kicked near the entryway from when you had come home after your shift. The clothes you had rejected before leaving were still scattered across your bed like evidence of a trial you had already lost. The apartment was quiet. Too quiet. You closed the door behind you and locked it. For a second, you just stood there. Then you pulled out your phone and typed.

You: Home.

You stared at the message until the letters stopped swimming.

Her reply came almost immediately.

Mel: Okay. Thank you for telling me.

Another bubble appeared.

Mel: Do you want me to call you?

Your throat tightened. You could still hear her through the bathroom door. You didn’t deserve that. You squeezed your eyes shut and typed with one thumb.

You: No. I’m okay.

A lie. A big one. The kind people told when they had already taken up too much space. You locked your phone and dropped it onto the couch. You needed to change. That was the only thought your brain could hold onto. You needed to get out of the clothes. Out of the cardigan. Out of the top. Out of the jeans with the waistband that felt like it had been pressing Kyle’s words into your skin the entire ride home.

You made it to your bedroom. Then you saw the mirror. You stopped so suddenly, your breath caught. There you were.

Still.

That was the first terrible thing your brain understood.

You had left the bar. You had left the table. You had left Kyle’s stupid, careless mouth and the old photo glowing on his phone. You had left the bathroom with Mel standing guard in the hallway. You had left through the side door before anyone else could look at you.

And you were still there.

Your body had come home with you.

The thought hit wrong.

Hard.

Your breath went thin.

“No,” you whispered, but there was no one there to hear it.

The mirror did not care.

It gave you back everything you did not want to see. The cardigan you had chosen because it hid enough. The top you had tugged down so many times it had lost its shape. The jeans that technically fit.

Jack’s been feeding you good, huh?

Your face, blotchy from crying.

Your body, under all of it. Your body, still yours. Your hand went to your stomach before you could stop it, and the second you realized what you were doing, you yanked it away like you had touched something hot.

A sound broke out of you.

Small at first.

Then not.

It ripped up from somewhere deep in your chest, rough and ugly and too big for your throat. You bent forward with it, one hand braced on the edge of the dresser, the other pressed over your mouth like you could force the sound back in.

You couldn’t.

Another sob came. Harder. It tore through you until your ribs ached. This was not crying the way people cried in movies. This was not pretty. This was not a tear sliding quietly down your cheek while you stared out a window. This was your body trying to throw pain out of itself and failing because the pain lived there, too. You dragged in a breath. It did not go far enough. You tried again. It caught high in your chest, sharp and useless.

“No, no, no,” you whispered.

The room tilted slightly. You sat down hard on the edge of the bed, but sitting did not help. Nothing helped. Not the distance from the bar. Not the locked door. Not the quiet. Not being alone. Especially not being alone. Because alone meant there was nothing between you and the thought. The awful thought. The one that came so fast it scared you.

Not that you wanted to hurt yourself.

Not that.

Never that.

But for one breathless, horrifying second, if someone had offered you a way to crawl out of your own body and leave it behind on the bedroom floor, you thought you might have taken it. Not because you wanted pain. Because you wanted the pain to stop.

Because you wanted silence.

Because you wanted one second where you did not have to feel the waistband against your skin, or the shape of yourself under your clothes, or the memory of everyone seeing what you had been trying so hard to hide.

The realization terrified you. Your hands curled into fists against your thighs.

“I can’t,” you said, and your voice cracked down the middle. “I can’t do this.”

You wanted out. Not out of the clothes. Not out of the room.

Out.

Out of being aware of yourself. Out of the softness. Out of the shape. Out of the body that had followed you home because it was yours, and there was nowhere you could put it down. Your breathing broke again. Short. Too fast. You pressed both palms to your chest, trying to hold yourself together from the outside.

In. Out.

You could hear Mel saying it through the bathroom door.

In. Out.

But Mel was not here now.

No one was.

Your phone buzzed. You flinched. For a few seconds, you could not make yourself move. The phone buzzed again. Then again. Jack. You knew it before you picked it up. Your legs felt weak when you crossed the room. You grabbed the phone off the couch and saw his name.

Jack: I know what happened.

Your throat closed. The room went still around you.

Jack: I’m sorry he said that to you.

You covered your mouth.

Jack’s been feeding you good, huh?

The thought landed right on top of his name, and that made it worse.

Another message appeared.

Jack: I want to come over.

The tears blurred the screen.

Jack: You don’t have to talk about it. You don’t have to explain anything.

A final message came through.

Jack: I just don’t want you alone right now.

The sob that followed was quieter. Somehow worse. You sank onto the couch, phone clutched in both hands. You wanted him.

God, you wanted him.

You wanted his voice. His hands. The solid warmth of him. You wanted to put your face against his chest and disappear there. You wanted him to make the room smaller, quieter, less full of mirrors. But you did not want him to see you. Not like this. Not swollen-eyed and panicked. Not in the clothes that suddenly felt contaminated. Not in the body that had become the whole problem. Not when you were half-convinced he would walk in, notice exactly what Kyle had noticed, and be too kind to say it.

Your thumb hovered over the keyboard. You almost typed, Don’t.

Then you imagined him reading it. You imagined him stopping wherever he was. Sitting in his car, maybe. Or standing outside the bar with his jacket in his hand. You imagined him doing exactly what you asked because he was Jack, because he would never force his way in where you had told him not to be. And the thought of him leaving you alone with this hurt worse than the thought of him seeing you. You deleted the word. Typed something else.

You: I don’t know.

You stared at it. It was the only honest thing you had. You sent it before you could change your mind. For a minute, nothing happened. Then:

Jack: Okay.

Your breath caught.

Jack: I’m coming over.

Another message appeared.

Jack: I won’t use my key. I’ll knock. You don’t have to open the door if you don’t want to.

You pressed the phone to your chest and cried again. Not as hard this time. Not because it hurt less. Because there was no energy left for the sharper kind. 

You got up before he could arrive and forced yourself back into the bedroom. The mirror was still there. You turned it toward the wall. It was childish, maybe. Dramatic. Useless. 

You did it anyway.

Then you stripped out of the cardigan, the top, the jeans. You did not look down. You did not look at the marks the waistband had left on your skin. You did not let your eyes catch on anything long enough to become cruel again. You pulled on the biggest sweatshirt you owned and a pair of soft pajama pants. You washed your face in the bathroom sink. The water ran cold over your fingers. You patted at your skin with a towel, but your eyes were still red. Your mouth still looked unsteady. Your whole face looked like it belonged to someone who had been crying too hard to pretend otherwise. You turned the bathroom light off.

You sat on the edge of your bed. Then stood. Then sat again.

You checked your phone. No new messages.

Your apartment felt too small and too open at the same time. You wrapped both arms around yourself and tried to breathe.

By the time the knock came, you had gone numb in a way that felt almost worse than panic. Three soft taps. Not impatient. Not loud. You froze. A second passed. Then his voice came through the door.

“It’s me,” Jack said.

Your eyes closed. You walked to the door but did not open it.

“You know,” you said.

Jack was quiet for a second on the other side.

“Yes,” Jack said.

Your breath shook. “I didn’t want you to.”

“I know,” Jack said.

You pressed your forehead lightly against the door. The wood was cool against your skin.

“I’m not coming in unless you open the door,” Jack said.

Your face crumpled. A beat passed.

“But I’m not leaving yet,” Jack added, softer.

That was the thing that did it.

Not you’re beautiful.

Not it’s okay.

Not, please let me fix this.

Just that.

He was not leaving yet.

You unlocked the door with shaking fingers and opened it. Jack stood in the hallway, still in the clothes he must have put on for the bar. Jacket over one arm. Hair damp. Face tired from sleep and sharpened by worry. He looked at you. You felt yourself close around the look, bracing for it.

Jack’s been feeding you good, huh?

But Jack did not let his eyes drop. He kept them on your face. Only your face.

“Are you safe?” Jack asked.

The question went through you so gently that it hurt. You nodded once. Jack’s jaw tightened, but his voice stayed calm.

“Are you hurt?” Jack asked.

You laughed, but it broke before it became anything real.

“No,” you said, voice cracking. “Just humiliated.”

Something moved across his face. Not anger. Not first. Pain. Jack looked at you like he had found you bleeding somewhere no one else could see. Then he nodded once, slowly.

“Okay,” Jack said.

You stepped back. He came in. Jack stepped inside, and you immediately wished you had not opened the door. Not because you did not want him there. 

Because you did.

That was the problem.

Wanting him there meant he could see you. It meant he could look at your face and know you had been crying. It meant he could look around your apartment and see the clothes still thrown across your bed, the mirror turned toward the wall, the whole ugly aftermath of something you had tried to make small.

You shut the door behind him and folded your arms across your stomach.

Jack noticed. He did not say anything about it. He set his jacket over the back of the couch, then looked at you again. His hands stayed at his sides.

“You didn’t have to come,” you said.

“I know,” Jack said.

Your throat tightened. “I told Mel not to make it a thing.”

“She didn’t,” Jack said.

You let out a short, humorless laugh. “You’re here.”

Jack’s face stayed calm, but his eyes did not. “Because you said you didn’t know.”

You looked away. “That wasn’t yes.”

“I know,” Jack said.

For some reason, that made your eyes burn again. Jack took one small step closer, then stopped when your shoulders tightened. You hated that he saw it. You hated that he stopped. You hated that you were grateful he stopped.

“I’m sorry,” you said.

Jack shook his head once. “No.”

“Jack—” you started.

Your face crumpled around his name. You turned away fast, pressing one hand over your mouth.

“It was stupid,” you said.

“It wasn’t,” Jack said.

“It was a joke,” you said.

“It wasn’t funny,” Jack said.

“I know that,” you snapped, then immediately felt worse. “I know. I’m not saying it was funny. I just—”

Jack stayed quiet.

You wiped at your cheek with the heel of your hand. “I shouldn’t have reacted like that.”

“Like what?” Jack asked.

You gestured vaguely at yourself. The sweatshirt. Your red eyes. The apartment. The fact that he was standing there because you had fallen apart over one comment.

“Like this,” you said.

Jack’s voice stayed low. “You didn’t overreact.”

Your chin trembled. You hated how sure he sounded. You hated that he was not making it smaller. You hated that part of you wanted him to make it smaller, because if he did, maybe you could pretend you had not been crying so hard you could barely breathe.

You already knew Mel had told him.

You already knew he knew.

There was no avoiding it now.

“I didn’t want you to know,” you said.

“I know,” Jack said.

“I didn’t want you to hear that,” you said.

“I know,” Jack said.

“Especially not—” you started, then stopped because you could not even say it.

Especially not with your name in it. Especially not because of you. Especially not because what he said sounded like something everyone had already thought. Jack waited. He did not push. You dropped your hands and looked at the floor.

“It was true,” you said.

Jack’s jaw moved once. “You feel like it’s true,” Jack said carefully.

You laughed, but it came out wet and awful. “Don’t do that.”

Jack looked at you. “Do what?”

“Make it softer,” you said, your voice shaking. “Don’t do the nice doctor thing and make it sound less bad than it is. I looked in the mirror, Jack. I saw exactly what he was talking about.”

Jack’s expression changed. Not shock. Pain. You kept going because if you stopped, you would lose your nerve.

“I see it every day,” you said. “I know my body changed. I know I gained weight. I know I look different. I know clothes don’t fit the same, and I know people notice, and I know you probably notice too.”

Jack said your name quietly.

“No,” you said, shaking your head. “Please just let me say it.”

He went quiet again.

You swallowed hard.

“I hate it,” you said. “I hate my body.”

The words dropped between you. There was no taking them back. You expected him to correct you. You expected him to say don’t say that, or no, you don’t, or you’re beautiful, or any of the things people said because they did not know what else to do with that kind of ugliness. Jack did not. He just looked at you, and his voice was quiet when he answered.

“I know,” Jack said.

Your eyes snapped to his. That was worse somehow.

Kinder, maybe.

But worse.

A sob caught in your throat, and you pressed your fist against your mouth.

“I can’t get away from it,” you said.

Jack’s face tightened.

You shook your head, crying harder now. “I left the bar. I left the bathroom. I came home. I took the clothes off, and it’s still here.”

Your hand moved toward your stomach, then stopped halfway there.

“I’m still in it,” you said.

Jack did not move.

“I can’t get away from myself,” you said, and the words came out so broken you almost did not recognize your own voice.

Jack’s eyes closed for half a second. When he opened them, he looked wrecked.

“Not the same way,” Jack said carefully.

You looked at him through blurry eyes. “What?”

“I don’t know what this feels like for you,” Jack said. “Not exactly.”

You wiped your cheek, breathing unevenly.

Jack looked down for a second, then back at you.

“But I know what it’s like to wake up in a body you didn’t choose and have nowhere else to go,” Jack said.

You went still. Jack did not say it like a speech. He did not make it big. He said it as if it were something he had carried for a long time and did not bring out often.

“After my leg, I stopped looking at myself all at once,” Jack said. “I’d look in pieces. Face. Shoulder. Hands. Anything but the part that made me feel like I wasn’t who I used to be.”

Your throat ached.

Jack’s hand flexed once at his side.

“People tried to be kind,” Jack said. “Most of them were. But it didn’t always help. Sometimes it made it worse.”

“Why?” you whispered.

“Because they wanted me to feel better before I could,” Jack said. “And I couldn’t.”

You looked away. Your chest hurt. “Did it get better?” you asked.

Jack was quiet for a moment. “Some days,” Jack said.

You looked back at him.

“Some days I still hate it,” Jack said, his voice dropping.

The honesty knocked something loose in you. Not relief. Not exactly. But something like permission. You sat down on the edge of the couch because your legs no longer felt steady. Jack stayed where he was until you looked at him. Only then did he move closer. He sat on the coffee table across from you instead of beside you, close enough to be there but not close enough to crowd.

For a minute, neither of you said anything.

Then Jack spoke carefully. “I knew something was wrong,” he said.

Your eyes dropped to your hands.

“I didn’t know what,” Jack said. “Not fully.”

You picked at the sleeve of your sweatshirt.

Jack watched your hands for a second, then looked back at your face.

“You stopped letting me touch you the same way,” Jack said.

The shame came back hot. “I’m sorry,” you said.

“No,” Jack said.

“You noticed,” you said.

“Yes,” Jack said.

Your eyes filled again. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like I didn’t want you.”

Jack’s expression softened. “This isn’t about what I felt.”

“But it is,” you said. “A little. It has to be.”

He did not argue. You looked down, voice dropping until it barely came out.

“I still want you,” you said.

Jack went very still. You hated saying it. Hated how exposed it made you feel. But it was true.

“I still want you,” you said again, and your voice cracked. “That’s the worst part. I want you. So much, but then you touch me, and all I can think about is what you’re seeing.”

Jack’s been feeding you good, huh?

You wrapped your arms tighter around yourself.

“I’m scared to be naked in front of you,” you whispered.

Jack inhaled slowly. Not because he was angry. Because it hurt him, you could see it.

“Okay,” Jack said.

You flinched. “That’s all?”

“No,” Jack said. “That’s where I’m starting.”

You stared at him.

“I’m glad you told me,” Jack said, his voice low and steady.

You shook your head. “It’s humiliating.”

“It’s vulnerable,” Jack said. “That’s not the same thing.”

You let out a shaky breath and looked away. “I hate that you know.”

“I know,” Jack said.

“I hate that I’m like this,” you said.

Jack leaned forward slightly. “You are not something to apologize for.”

Your eyes burned. “You don’t know how it feels.”

“No,” Jack said. “Not the way you do.”

That should have made you angry. It didn’t. It was better than him pretending he understood everything.

Jack’s gaze stayed on your face. “I want you.”

Your breath hitched.

“I need you to know that,” Jack continued. “But I don’t want sex to feel like something you have to survive.”

You closed your eyes.

The words hurt.

They also went somewhere deep.

“I don’t want you counting the seconds until it’s over because you’re scared I’ll be disappointed if you stop,” Jack said carefully.

A tear slipped down your cheek.

“I don’t want you naked and terrified,” Jack said.

You pressed both hands over your face. Jack stopped talking. For a while, all he did was sit there while you cried. Not loudly this time. Just exhausted. When you finally lowered your hands, your voice was small.

“I miss it,” you said.

Jack’s eyebrows pulled together.

“I miss wanting you without thinking about myself,” you said.

Jack looked down. For a second, you thought you had said too much. Then he nodded.

“Then we start there,” Jack said.

You wiped at your face. “Where?”

“With wanting not having to become anything tonight,” Jack said.

You stared at him. Jack’s mouth tightened, but his voice stayed gentle.

“You can want me and not be ready for me to touch you,” Jack said. “Both can be true.”

Your chin trembled.

“You can want to be close and still be scared,” Jack said.

You looked down at your hands.

“You can stop me before I touch you,” Jack continued. “You can stop me after. You can change your mind. You can keep every light off. You can keep every piece of clothing on. You can say no to me for as long as you need, and I am still going to want you.”

You let out a broken sound.

Jack’s eyes softened.

“I’m not waiting for some other version of you,” Jack said.

You shook your head, crying again. “Don’t.”

He stopped. Not offended. Just listening.

You swallowed hard. “Please don’t tell me I’m beautiful right now.”

Jack’s face shifted. “Okay,” Jack said.

Your breath shook. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Jack said again. “I won’t.”

That made you cry harder because he listened. Because he did not try to force the word into you like medicine. Because part of you had wanted him to say it anyway, and another part of you knew you would not have believed him if he did.

Jack waited until you could breathe again. Then his voice changed. Not louder. Firmer.

“You don’t have to believe me when I say you’re beautiful,” Jack said. “Not tonight. Not when you’re hurting like this. I know better than to ask that from you right now.”

You looked at him. His eyes were steady on yours.

“But I need you to hear me on this one,” Jack said.

Your throat tightened. “Jack—”

“My name attached to that joke kills me,” Jack said.

Your face crumpled. Jack’s jaw flexed.

“Because he doesn’t get to use me like that,” Jack said. “He doesn’t get to take the way I love you and turn it into something cruel.”

You looked away, but his voice stayed with you.

“Feeding you, taking care of you, knowing what you like, making sure you eat after a shift — that has never been evidence against you,” Jack said.

You covered your mouth.

“And it has never, not once, been something I was ashamed of,” Jack said.

You cried then. Hard. Jack did not move closer. Not yet. He let you have the space to fall apart.

“It was true,” you said.

“I know it feels that way,” Jack said.

“It felt like everyone saw it,” you said.

“I know,” Jack said.

“Like you saw it too,” you said.

Jack’s answer came slowly. “I see you,” Jack said. “But not like that.”

You looked at him through tears.

He leaned forward, forearms on his thighs, hands open between you.

“I can sit with you while you hate the mirror tonight,” Jack said. “I can hate that you feel it and still not ask you to pretend you don’t.”

Your breathing hitched.

“But I am not letting him put my name on your shame,” Jack said.

The room went quiet after that. Not peaceful. Not fixed. Just quiet. You stared at him, exhausted and hurting and too full of everything to answer. Jack did not ask you to. He just stayed where he was, hands open, waiting for you to decide what came next. For a long time, neither of you moved. Jack stayed on the coffee table, close enough that you could reach him if you wanted to, far enough away that you did not have to. His hands stayed open between you. Empty. Waiting. It made your chest hurt.

He was giving you the choice.

You wiped at your face with your sleeve, then looked down at your lap.

“I still hate it,” you said.

“I know,” Jack said quietly.

Your throat tightened. “I don’t know how to stop.”

“You don’t have to figure that out tonight,” Jack said.

You let out a small, broken breath. “That doesn’t make it better.”

“No,” Jack said. “It doesn’t.”

You looked at him then. There was no argument on his face. No disappointment. No hidden expectation that you would turn the corner now because he had said the right things. He was just there. You hated that you still hurt. You hated that his gentleness did not erase it. You hated that part of you had wanted it to.

“I don’t feel better,” you whispered.

Jack nodded once. “Okay.”

You blinked at him. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Jack said again. “You don’t have to feel better for me to stay.”

Your mouth trembled.

Jack’s voice softened. “Can I sit next to you?”

You stared at him for a second, then nodded. He moved slowly, giving you time to change your mind. The couch dipped beside you, but he left space between your bodies. Not much. Enough that you could breathe. Enough that you could decide. You looked at his hand, where it rested on his thigh. Strong. Still. Familiar.

You wanted him to touch you.

You were scared of him touching you.

Both things lived in your chest at the same time, pushing against each other until it hurt.

Jack did not reach for you. He only sat there, quiet and patient.

“I don’t know how to do this,” you said, your voice small.

Jack turned his head toward you. “Do what?”

“Let you hold me without thinking about it,” you said.

His face shifted, but he did not look away.

“Then we don’t make it complicated,” Jack said. “We do what feels safe.”

You swallowed. “I don’t know what feels safe.”

“That’s okay,” Jack said.

“It doesn’t feel okay,” you said.

“I know,” Jack said.

You looked at him, frustrated and exhausted and close to crying again. “You keep saying that.”

Jack’s mouth tightened slightly. “Because I mean it.”

That undid you more than it should have. A tear slipped down your cheek. Then another.

Jack watched your face, his own pained and careful.

“Can I touch your hand?” Jack asked.

You looked down. His hand had not moved. He was asking before he even reached.

You nodded.

Jack held his hand out, palm up, and let you be the one to close the distance. You put your hand in his. His fingers curled around yours slowly. Not tight. Not claiming.

Just there.

The warmth of him made something in your chest buckle. You leaned forward before you could talk yourself out of it, forehead dropping toward his shoulder. Jack caught the movement, but he did not grab you. He only shifted enough to meet you, his other hand hovering for half a second near your arm.

“Is this okay?” Jack asked.

You nodded against him. “Yes,” you said, breath shaking.

Only then did his hand settle against your upper back. Not your waist. Not your stomach. Nowhere that made you feel measured. Just between your shoulder blades, warm through the sweatshirt, moving once in a slow, careful stroke. Up. Down.

Your breath caught.

Jack stopped immediately.

“I’m okay,” you said quickly.

His hand stayed still. “You don’t have to be.”

You squeezed your eyes shut. “I want you to keep doing that.”

Jack’s hand moved again. Slow. Steady. Up. Down.

You let your forehead rest more heavily against him. For a while, that was all there was. His hand on your back. Your fingers tangled with his. The quiet of your apartment. The sound of your own uneven breathing, trying to find something less painful. You were still aware of your body.

You hated that.

Even tucked against him, even with your face hidden, you could still feel the shape of yourself. The softness. The places you wished you could forget. The body under the sweatshirt. The body under his hand. A sob pushed up your throat again, smaller this time.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered.

Jack’s hand paused. “Don’t.”

You pressed your eyes tighter shut. “I keep thinking about it.”

“I know,” Jack said.

“I don’t mean to,” you whispered.

“I know,” Jack said.

His hand resumed its slow path along your back. Up. Down. Again.

You tried to breathe with it. It was easier than breathing alone. 

After a minute, Jack shifted slightly. You stiffened before you could stop yourself. He noticed immediately.

“Just getting more comfortable,” Jack said. “That’s all.”

You nodded, embarrassed. Jack waited until your shoulders eased before moving again. He leaned back into the couch and adjusted slowly, giving you room to follow or pull away. You followed. Not all at once. First, your shoulder against his chest. Then your cheek. Then the rest of you, carefully, like any sudden movement might make you remember too much.

Jack let you find the position. 

When your head finally settled against his chest, his hand came up slowly. You saw it from the corner of your eye and tensed. He stopped.

“Hair?” Jack asked.

Your throat closed. You nodded once. His palm settled lightly against the back of your head. Not holding you down. Not trapping you there. Just steady. His fingers brushed into your hair, careful and slow, smoothing it back from your face. The touch was so gentle it almost made you angry.

Not because it hurt.

Because it didn’t.

Because after a night of feeling like your body was a problem, there was this one simple place where touch asked nothing of you.

Jack’s thumb moved once near your temple.

You exhaled. It shook the whole way out.

“There,” Jack murmured.

You closed your eyes against his shirt. His chest rose and fell beneath your cheek. Slow. Even. Something you could follow without looking at yourself. His hand moved through your hair again. Then his other hand returned to your back. Not low. Not searching. Just your upper back, your shoulders, the place where your body had been holding everything too tightly for too long.

Places that did not ask you to be beautiful.

Places that only asked you to breathe.

You did.

Not well at first.

Your breath caught. Broke. Started over.

Jack did not comment. He did not tell you to calm down. He did not tell you it was okay. He did not ask if you believed him now. He did not ask whether you felt better.

He just held you.

Your body fought it at first. It stayed braced, like it did not trust softness. Like, even comfort was something it needed to prepare for.

Jack’s hand kept moving. Slow. Up and down your back. Through your hair. Over your shoulder. Back again.

Eventually, your fingers unclenched in the fabric of his shirt. Your jaw loosened. Your shoulders dropped by a fraction. Then another. 

It was not peace.

Not exactly.

It was exhaustion finding somewhere safe to land.

Jack pressed his mouth once to the top of your head. The kiss was barely there.

“You don’t have to do anything,” Jack said.

You swallowed.

“You don’t have to make me feel better,” Jack continued. “You don’t have to be okay. You don’t have to turn this into something hopeful before you’re ready.”

Your eyes burned again. “I don’t know when I’ll be ready.”

“Okay,” Jack said.

You let out a watery laugh against his chest. “You can’t just say okay to everything.”

“I can try,” Jack said.

That pulled another small sound from you. Not quite a laugh. Not quite crying. Jack’s hand brushed your hair back again. You listened to his heartbeat. It was steady. You hated your body less when you were listening to his. Not because the hate was gone.

It wasn’t.

But because, for a few seconds at a time, there was something else to notice. His breathing. His hand. The cotton of his shirt under your cheek. The warmth of his chest. The fact that he was still there. You shifted carefully, curling closer without thinking. Jack’s arm tightened by a fraction, then loosened again immediately, like he remembered to give you an exit even in the middle of holding you.

That made your throat ache.

“You can hold me,” you whispered.

His hand stilled in your hair. You felt the breath he took. Then his arm came around you more fully, careful and sure. Still high on your back. Still safe. He held your head lightly against his chest, his fingers threading through your hair again, and you let yourself sink into him by degrees.

One breath. Then another. Then another.

The mirror was still turned toward the wall in your bedroom. The clothes were still on the floor. Kyle had still said it. Everyone had still heard. Your body was still your body. You still did not know how to love it. But Jack was warm around you. Jack was not asking you to.

“I love you,” you said.

The words came out quietly, almost by accident. Jack’s hand stopped. For one terrible second, you thought you had said the wrong thing. Then his mouth pressed to your hair again, firmer this time.

“I love you too,” Jack said.

Your face crumpled against his chest.

“I love you,” Jack said, his voice rough.

You nodded because you heard him. You did not yet fully know how to believe all the things underneath it. But you heard him. 

And for tonight, that was enough.

His hand moved through your hair again.

Your breath followed his.

Slowly.

Unevenly.

Still hurting.

Still here.

The big ones, the important ones, sure. He remembered them all too well, even through the haze of pain and fatigue that often hung thickly around their reception. 

But there were too many to account for. To remember the particulars of each slash and burn and gunshot wound was a losing battle. He’d long since given up on keeping track of them. Little lines on the sides of his fingers, stretchmarks on the backs of his biceps, winged fans of a burn on the side of his thigh, a pale line along the point of his elbow that he might as well have been born with.

There were ones from further back, too. Scars that time and pain had eroded the precision of the memory, but not the feeling. Cigarette burns on his forearms, a necklace of animal teeth on his side, a craggy line across his hip, accompanied by the shadowy memory of hand reaching for him, and not being quick enough to duck out of the way. 

They all meshed together into the hard patchwork of scar and muscle his body had wrought itself into.

Almost none of them could be helped, out of his control, out of his hands.

They were a catalogue of his life, a story traced on his skin.

Stamped, more like. Branded. 

Survived. 

And soulmates shared scars. 

Their hurt was his; his hurt was theirs. Literally or metaphorically, he wasn’t quite sure. Simon had so many, spent so much time in pain, it was impossible to know if any of them didn’t belong to him originally.  

He didn’t like the thought of someone sharing his scars, having felt what he did. Possessive of them and the pain in a strange way. 

It’s ironic, then, that he should be able to find his soulmate more easily than the average unmarred person, and wanted to do nothing of the sort. Simon dismissed the whole thing as drivel a long time ago, anyway. If they did exist, if they weren’t just incredibly rare instances of luck, Simon was sure that he hadn’t been afforded one. 

There was guilt, too, settled somewhere deep inside him, that someone had to endure it alongside him. It was easier to believe he’d been left out of the whole thing. 

Better he was alone. 

The likelihood of finding that person was slim. It almost never happened. Eight or so billion people swanning around the planet would do that. A one in eight billion chance. 

A grand, cosmic joke. The unfairness of it drove some people crazy, drove them to do insane things to increase a probability that couldn’t be altered—to know that person probably existed somewhere and yet know that they would probably never run across them.

A trend of self harm cropped up online every few years, healed over self inflected wounds posted in forums of people seeking their other, fated, half. The presumption being that they were being desperately searched for in turn.  

Idiotic. Determined. Fallibly human.

And taboo. Most saw it as circumventing fate. 

Violently frantic for the thing Ghost had been unwillingly given. A way to find them, or, at least, easily identify them. And he never would. 

But, sometimes, he wondered. 

He tried to picture the imprint of a person somewhere out in the world wearing his wounds, suffering his losses. The thought would circle his brainstem in an unrelenting loop, a bright fish whispering around the perimeter of its bowl before it dissipated in lieu of something more pressing. 

It was always there, though, waiting to be grappled with again. 

He always came up blank. Nothing but a shadow in his mind where a person should be. Fitting, typical.  

It was a cruelty he couldn’t imagine, somehow. Someone being fatefully, inescapably afflicted with him. 

Simon didn’t want a soulmate anyway, and he was sure, if they existed, that they didn’t want him either. 

If there was someone out there, someone wandering around with his scars on their skin, he was certain they hated him already. 

He didn’t particularly believe in fate; life had taught him not to. He believed in himself, his capabilities, planning and contingencies. And Simon didn’t relish the thought of something he couldn’t control, someone holding the other end of his corded, deformed soul, like a leash they could tighten and use to yank him to his knees. Compromised, vulnerable. 

It wouldn’t happen; the margin for discovery was so small it was practically nonexistent. 

He blamed Soap, then, for tempting fate.

Ghost listened to Johnny yammer on, the sound of his voice louder than usual in the rattling dark belly of the transport plane home. The glow of green light, the roar of engines, the jangle of gear. 

It was an irritating, and sometimes endearing, quirk of Johnny’s that he couldn’t stop talking in the post-op cortisol and adrenaline drop, his words a smeared haze of jumbled thoughts spoken aloud for hours afterward.

The notion of a soulmate was at the front of Soap’s mind, not for the first time. He’d always seemed to enjoy the idea of it, and find some comfort in it, particularly after a close call. There was someone waiting for him, somewhere, after all, it couldn’t all come to nothing yet.   

Simon glanced out the window, watched the sea below morph into land. 

A yellow network of light winked below, a sea of reverse stars swimming in the black.

“Lucky that way, Lt,” Johnny declared with finality, finally winding down, sounding exhausted. “Findin’ ‘em will be easier.” 

Ghost glanced over, the first time in nearly an hour that he’d acknowledged the conversation beyond a hum and a nod. “What do you mean?” 

Soap gestured to his scarred chin, then his temple. “Know ‘em straight away, wouldn’t I?”  

Simon’s own thoughts spoken out loud; his hopes to never see his own scars reflected back at him turned on its head. 

Johnny made it sound like a good thing, instead of the nightmare it was. 

No, he thought for the nth time in his life, not that, not for him. 

But he’d always had an extraordinary knack for beating the odds. 

.

.

.

The base was a constant flurry of activity, a relentlessly buzzing hive of people. There were very few places that skirted away from the general chaos of life on a military base, but Simon had catalogued them all—the field behind the barracks when drills were not being run, the concrete service walkways beneath the base, crowded with spiderwebs and dust, the cool, sterile medical wing, and, the orderly administration offices. 

Each place had caveats. 

The service walkways were the most reliably quiet, but Simon hated being underground, hated the claustrophobia of it, like some part of him would always be clawing at black earth, and so usually avoided it. 

Soap had found him smoking behind the barracks once and now regularly joined Simon there. 

The medical wing could be crowded and frenzied, depending on the day. 

The administration offices were practically serene in comparison. Neat file folders, tidy desks, windows that let in the watery, gray English sun. Square offices with their doors propped open, conference rooms bathed in the light of glowing intel reports, data convergences, and map overlays, uniform gray walls and floors. 

The admin wing only occasionally spasmed into restless activity if an emergency op was underway or about to be, and if that happened, Ghost was usually already swept up in it himself, probably already long gone. 

A spare office stuffed away at the end of the hall with the name plate removed technically belonged to him. A mostly unused space he sometimes finished reports in but, more often than not, sat empty. 

He preferred to haunt the corridors, observe the more peaceful, inner workings of the military, breathing in the quiet air for five minutes at a time. It gave his perpetually over taxed nervous system, his forever-in-fight-or-flight-mode body, to relax, if even it was only an increment or two. The lightning was softer, the constant bark of orders and drills, the snap of gunfire, the general loudness of the rest of the place, was muted and far away.

Simon knew of all of the staff and their precuilarities—names, ages, birthdates, minor feuds among each other, immediate family members, previous posts, favorite foods, habits, complaints about the building’s irregular temperatures and the pervasive scent of diesel. It wasn’t information he necessarily collected on purpose. Gleaned over years of half heard conversations, glimpses of photos on desks. They, like the medical staff, didn’t often change, not like the revolving door of soldiers and operators. 

It was a regular, routine, quiet place. 

So it would be difficult for even the most oblivious person not to notice when the familiar order of the place was interrupted. 

Soft, dandelion light flooded the hall from a doorway that had always before been shut tight.

The scent of an unfamiliar perfume lingered in the hall in a feathery streak, oakmoss and lavender. It settled hard in his lungs, made his footsteps slow slightly, caution prickling at the back of his neck. 

The click of ceramic being sat on wood, the soft shuffle of files, tapping of computer keys emanated from within the now open office. The faintest notes of bubblegum pop floated by, at odds with the chill, still air. 

Inside, you were hidden behind two massive computer monitors, the very top of a pair of lilac headphones just visible over the rim. Plants in colorful painted terracotta pots lined the window to your left absorbing what they could of pale winter light, a thick blanket was thrown over the back of a chair in the corner, a jumble of bright, hand crocheted squares. A brass floor lamp with a circular shade sat behind your desk and drooped forward like the antenna of a giant radio, or a bug, casting a delicate halo of light around you like a protective ward. 

There was something. . .lambent that emanated around the room, that had nothing to do with the ridiculous lamp. 

Simon hovered in the doorway, in the shadow of the dim hall, just to get a glimpse of your face. Start a mental file on you, begin his careful catalog. Something to match the color and light to. 

It was a surprise to you both, then, when you glanced up and caught him at it. 

You stood hastily, headphones sliding down your neck when the cord jerked taut, the tinny sound of pop echoing loudly from them until you slammed your fingers down onto the keyboard and silence descended abruptly. “Sorry, sir. I didn’t see you there. Can I help you with something?” 

Simon could only stare at you, a curl of dread snaking its way between his ribs. 

Johnny was right, then, he would know his own scars anywhere. 

He would know his own face anywhere. 

He would, apparently, know you anywhere. 

Your face was a faded mapping of his own, the same scarring traced with a lighter hand. The same crack over your lips, a line drawn across your cheek, a faded check through your brow, the bridge of your nose bisected, the outline of webbed burn scars crosshatched at the edge of your jaw and shoulder. A jagged, thick line crossed your throat. 

Despite his legacy marring your face, you were pretty. Beautiful, even, with curious, cautious eyes, one side of your mouth pulled up into a half grin that tugged at the line across your cheek and somehow didn’t ruin the brightness of it. 

You were watching him watch you with a tentative gaze, brows drawing slowly together the longer he stood there staring at you, breathing around the newly minted cavern under his lungs. 

His eyes met yours again, and as soon as the realization settled in, something clicked violently into place inside his chest, like a missing rib bone had suddenly slotted into the cage around his heart. 

Pain bloomed hot and tight across his chest, so acute he covered his side, expecting to find a knife inexplicably lodged there. He grunted mutely. The discomfort receded as quickly as it had come, leaving behind a vast hollow just beneath his breast bone. Cavernous, lurching, undone. 

The hollow hardened into a solid brick of pain. 

Nausea swept into the back of his throat. 

“Are you okay?” 

He was frozen in the direct line of fire. Your eyes swept over him, fingers curling around a folder on the edge of your desk which you thumbed nervously. You began to lift your other hand, an aborted half movement toward your face that you dropped at the last second. But you didn’t avert your gaze. You looked past the mask, past him, and into his eyes. 

You saw him. 

Simon was not to be seen.

Ghost didn’t get caught, didn’t freeze. 

Didn’t feel like an animal trapped in a cage, pinned and weak and panicked. 

Not anymore. 

He was a ghost, a shadow, a silent—

The silence unspooled, thin and fragile as unraveling lace. 

Your smile widened, a slow, confident thing that stretched across your face crookedly, pulled at your scarred skin as you tilted your head. It was, maybe, the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. 

“Sir?”

Amusement threaded your voice; a laugh curled like a sleeping animal in your throat. 

Instead of answering, he faded back into the hall.

As he retreated an uncertain realization prodded at the back of his mind. One wonderful contingency. 

You had not felt the shift, the world turning horribly on its axis, the pain that radiated hot as a wildfire. 

You hadn’t recognized what he was. 

And he was going to keep it that way. 

.

.

.

It felt like there was a hook in his chest, slipped right between his ribs, a constant painful tearing that landed him again and again outside your office door. Like he was a fish on a line, and you held the reel in your fist, totally oblivious to it. 

He didn’t love you, that’s not how the soulmate bond worked. You were tied together, for some reason, though that reason remained to be seen. Resentment was all he felt, a burning desire to chew his leg out of this trap, to grip the line that bound you and run a knife through it. 

Better yet, through you. 

Sever the tie as cleanly as a blade through an artery. 

One sure way to free himself was your death. 

It was unusual, but it happened—headlines of a soulmate killing their pair because they couldn’t tolerate the connection. It was taboo, considering how rare the bond was. The link suffocated them, instead of comforting them. 

Simon understood the urge.

He thought of your office, the way your back was angled half toward the door, how easily he could slip in and slice your throat open. He had seen and done worse, but the thought of you lying in a pool of blood, let alone at his hands, was so abhorrent and wrong that he doubled over as an acute, sharp pain pinched between his ribs, like someone wriggling their fingers between the bars to claw at his insides. 

Which irritated him. Things like that didn’t bother him, not anymore. At the very least, he was better at handling discomfort than this. 

It did start him thinking about someone else doing it, though. Slipping quietly into your office and nudging a knife between your ribs, pressing a silenced pistol against your temple, Ghost left to find your cold corpse. 

It was wrong. 

He could feel your life wrapped around his fingers, tangled in little ribbons around his wrists. A pulsing, glowing, bright thing.  

The resentment doubled because he should not care. He didn’t know you, trust you; your death should mean nothing. You should mean nothing.  

Still, he found himself walking the administration wing again the following day, even though the sun was out and it’d be nice to sit behind the barracks and smoke and listen to Johnny rattle on about something or the other when he inevitably showed up. 

Your door was open again, gold light spilling into the corridor, the low flutter of too loud music in your headphones accompanying it. 

Simon would never admit it to himself, but he also needed to know that he could remain hidden from you. The shock of your eyes finding his still hadn’t left him. It had never happened before—not on an op, not about the base, not out among civilians. He blended in, he remained invisible, but you saw him, sensed him, and he needed to know if that was something he had to adjust to. Planning was survival, and you were an unknown factor he needed a method for handling.  

Simon stepped close to your door, out of the beam of light. 

Your office was bathed in soft, cream light but not from your antenna bug lamp. 

Your back was fully turned toward the door, face tilted into the scarce winter sun streaming in the window as you leaned back in your chair. Your eyes were closed, headphones over your ears as he suspected they were. 

Fuuucking hell. 

Couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, back toward the entry point of the room. 

Your life hung there, trusting, fragile as spun crystal. 

He waited, but you didn’t turn, didn’t seem to know he was there. Something in his shoulders uncoiled, tension slowly replaced with an odd sense of calm. The pain in his chest eased for the first time in twenty-four hours, fading to a tender ache. 

Your lunch, half eaten, laid abandoned on your desk. The blanket that had been on the chair in the corner was swaddled around your shoulders. 

You yawned, eyes still closed. 

He waited for you to sense him, glance up, but you seemed unaware of him. He wouldn’t admit it then, but he half hoped you would. 

Ghost backed away, left you to your peace. 

The weight in his chest intensified again.

He hated you for it. 

He went back the next day. 

And the day after that.

.

.

.

Anchor might be a better descriptor. 

Hook was too violent.

Simon knew what it felt like to have a hook between his ribs, and this feeling was not that. 

He was satisfied, after weeks of observation as late winter turned to a wet spring, that you did not have a preternatural sense of his presence. In the process, he learned other things. 

You hated the cold, and your office always seemed to be chillier than you would prefer, blanket perpetually tucked around your shoulders. He watched you fiddle with the radiator one morning, bottom lip caught between your teeth, sigh, and resign yourself to it. He waited for you to complain to your coworkers like everyone else did, to call maintenance to fix it, but you didn’t. 

You liked to sit in the sun, however you could, squinting against the glare of it against your computer screens just to have it on your skin. 

You hunched over your desk, and clearly had pain in your neck and back because of it. 

You often stayed later on base than many of the staff and walked out of the building alone late at night. 

You didn’t drink tea, but politely accepted the tea several different coworkers made for you with the very good intention of showing you a proper cup. You drank every drop as you chatted with them, even though you clearly detested it. It didn’t show, but Simon could tell. He didn’t like that he could, that it was instinctual and nothing else. 

They were also plying you with shit tea, of course you weren’t going to like it. He watched as one bloke let it steep for a full fifteen minutes and then presented you with what must have been the bitterest lukewarm tea to ever pass through the base. An older secretary took the opposite approach and handed you a cup of barely brewed tea with approximately four tablespoons of sugar in. 

Absolutely bloody foul. 

Horrific crimes committed in your name, and you swallowed them with a smile. 

And you smiled a lot. From the tiniest twitch of your lips when you were alone, to a grin so big he could see all your teeth, that your eyes squinched closed. 

You nearly always had headphones on—wired earbuds dangling from the collar of your shirt as you walked down the hall, or over ear headphones looped around your neck at your desk, usually pop, occasionally 70s rock or alternative spitting from the speakers. 

You talked a lot, and your voice carried. One of those truisms about Americans, you could be heard long before you were seen even if you weren’t being particularly loud. He didn’t need to be close to hear you, and he found himself thinking one afternoon good. It would be easier to keep track of you. 

He liked your voice, anyway, liked your laugh, liked to hear you say English phrases in that accent of yours that made them sound ridiculous. 

You could likely give Soap a run for a world record of useless chatter. Anyone who walked into your office was subject to your stream of consciousness if they lingered long enough. 

Lonely, he might have called it. But you were new, to the base, and to the country. Your only connections were those you were attempting to craft with stuffy intelligence officers who sometimes seemed to regard you as below them. 

He found his thoughts drifting to the sound of your voice once he’d left you for the day, replaying things he’d heard you say in the period of observation he allowed himself, like the tune of a lullaby. It calmed him. 

The resentment in his chest festered like a badly healed wound. You were nothing but a distraction, a thorn stabbed into his side, stealing his focus from nearly everything that was more important. 

That used to be more important. 

Now his every thought was asterisked by you. 

Distracted. 

He didn’t do well with it. 

He didn’t like that he could feel the newly rended hole in his chest corroding and throbbing when he wasn’t near you, suffocating him. He’d felt worse in his life, so he could mostly ignore it. 

Simon decided that the nature of the bond was at least neutral. You were not a threat.  

He was tired, anyway, of constantly thinking about your back to the door, your headphones playing too loudly. 

After you left one evening in mid spring, he moved your desk. 

Simon sat in your dark office for longer than he should have, letting the pain ease out of his chest. 

It was enough to be where you had once been. 

That was as close as he cared to be. 

He fixed the radiator before he closed the door again. 

.

.

. 

He went by Ghost, you learned eventually. 

His was a redacted, blacked out name in the files on your computer, so Ghost seemed less a name than a description. You briefly scanned the ops he had been on. It was a horrifyingly long list, most of them totally classified or excised beyond comprehensibility. And those were only the missions you could see, likely his involvement in many ops had been scrubbed entirely. 

It was clear that he was good at his job, though it left you to wonder what he had been doing in the administration wing of the base, let alone peering into your office like a silent wraith. 

It should have been terrifying to find him looming in your doorway. His massive frame had blotted out the corridor behind him. Mostly in black, a skull mask covering his face. You hadn’t been able to see his eyes in the low lighting. But you had only felt curiosity, apprehension, a delicate wrenching in your gut. 

Something that a different person might liken to butterflies. Absolutely absurd, but nonetheless true. 

Fear, afterward, of course, that you’d missed some kind of order or request. 

It had also been a while since someone stared so openly at you, since you’d felt the urge to duck your head, obscure the scars littered across your skin. You never had before, and you wouldn’t have started then. You wore them proudly. Most bore their soulmate’s scars better than their own, and you were no exception. 

It had become a rarity, really, in recent years that anyone spared you more than a glance. Being surrounded by military personnel who had seen worse, might have had worse on their own skin, meant you didn’t stand out.

When you mentioned the incident to Laswell, worried that some kind of disciplinary report, during your first month at this post no less, was headed your way, she had only shook her head. “That’s just Ghost. He probably didn’t say anything. You get used to it.” 

The base, especially among the operators, was filled with odd personalities with even odder quirks, so you decided not to question it. You had only nodded, and said, “Okay.” 

Laswell had smiled. “You’ll do well here.” 

You suspected you were being watched in the weeks following the incident, though you couldn’t say why at first. The suspicion was confirmed when you arrived one blissfully sunny spring morning to find your office warm and your desk moved. Your other furniture was rearranged neatly around it. You rounded it, dropping your bag as you went, half expecting to find a note. 

There was nothing, and you started to rotate it back, a bit irritated, when you paused and sat. The new angle gave you a clear view of the door and window. The sun hit your face without causing a glare on your screens. The monitors had been lowered ever so slightly so you could easily see over them.

You left your desk in its new position. It was better that way. 

Ghost appeared in your office that afternoon as suddenly as he had left it. 

You sensed that he’d been there for a long time when you finally noticed him in the doorway, that you were only seeing him because he wanted you to.

You smiled and turned away from a report. A welcome reprieve for your strained eyes and hunched back. 

“Hi. Something I can help you with, Lieutenant?” 

This time, he stepped into your office, grasped your offer with both hands. 

The room seemed to shrink and adjust to his size. He was more massive than you remembered, in height and breadth. His eyes didn’t leave yours, a deep blackened honey brown half hidden by skull. Neither of you looked away.

“Have I passed?” 

His head tilted ever so slightly. When he spoke his voice was like an iron rod shoved down your spine. Deep and jagged and rough, it settled between your ribs, in the pit of your stomach. “Passed?” 

“Your test?” 

“Think I’m testin’ you?” 

“You moved my desk.” 

He didn’t answer for a long moment, still not dropping your gaze. The silence lasted so long you began to think he wouldn’t answer at all. “Practically had your back to the door,” he said eventually, as though that explained it. 

It conjured the image of Ghost creeping around the base in the dead of night to adjust offices into more tactical configurations and you had to bite the inside of your cheek to keep the giggle in your throat from bubbling out.   

You nodded and then shrugged instead. “I guess I don’t think about things like that.” 

“Should.”

“Maybe.” 

“Especially in the field.” 

“I don’t do field work.” 

He nodded slowly and finally took his eyes off yours, glancing around the room again. When his lashes caught the light, you saw that they were a light blond. 

“Welcome to sit,” you offered, taking up a pen and a pad of yellow paper. “Ghost.”  

He didn’t sit, but he didn't leave either. When he remained mute and motionless, you looked back at your report and continued working, resigned to the new addition to your office. 

Minutes passed in silence, with only the scratch of your pencil over paper, the tapping of computer keys, for company. 

All at once, the room sighed, and when you looked up, he was gone. 

Ghost was strange, slightly off putting. 

You liked him.

Maybe, you thought, he’d come back. 

.

.

.

Ghost visited regularly after that. 

Sometimes he simply stood at the door and watched you work. 

His boots were so silent that you often didn’t know he was there until he was leaving again. It felt as though he often melted into nothing but shadow, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable feeling. 

You didn’t feel watched, so much as observed, minded.

But the lengthy silences began to wear thin, so you started talking to him.  

Talked at him, more like, about anything that came to mind. 

The shit weather and how cold you always were. Recounted phone calls with your sister and noted things you’d seen on your commute. You told him of your slightly creepy neighbor who would follow you occasionally down high street when you did your weekly shopping trip, but that was probably harmless.

You were sure he wasn’t actually listening, his eyes focused somewhere in the middle distance as he stood statuesque in the middle of your office.  

The visits were occasionally broken up by operations that could last days or weeks, once up to a month. Time passed either way, but you found it passed more easily when you could reliably count on a visit from Ghost. Hearing his voice in staticky communications wasn’t the same. A blinking green dot on a map that you tracked just a little more closely than the others. 

Ghost sat down for the first time toward the middle of a particularly miserable and cold spring afternoon. He sighed as he did, the only sign of any feeling. Almost a resignation in the soft cut of it. 

You didn’t comment on it, just chatted as you usually did, buoyed in a way that you could not explain. 

He started to bring you coffee, done up to your preference, always when you were hitting the midday lag. 

In exchange, you left offerings at the edge of your desk. Baked goods, protein bars, chips, sweets— which disappeared when you looked away from him. You noted what went first so you could invest in it. Chocolate went more frequently. 

But Ghost, whether he was listening or not, made you feel less alone. The ache of loneliness in your heart eased, and maybe that said more about you than him. 

If he was around, he usually slipped in while you ate lunch. He didn’t eat with you, the mask never moved, but you began cooking extra in the evenings, leaving tupperware containers at the edge of your desk in addition to brownies wrapped in waxpaper, chocolate chip cookies sprinkled with sea salt. “Don’t have to,” he always said. 

“Want to,” you answered, and then received the empty, clean container from the day before as though it were an offering.

Your office always smelled like tobacco and tea for hours after he left, a comforting combination that you began to wish you could bottle. 

He didn’t appear one day at his usual allotted, precise time. You figured something came up or he finally got tired of you, but he turned up instead late in the afternoon.  

“Sorry,” he said as he sat, without explanation, a paper cup of coffee steaming at the edge of your desk like it appeared there by his will alone.  

“Oh,” you answered. “You didn’t have to—“

“Did,” he said simply. “‘ave you eaten?”

“Yep. Got something for you, too.” 

He settled back. “Neighbor still botherin’ you?” 

You blinked in surprise, the slightly creepy neighbor had not spoken to you in a few days. “Oh. . .I—You were listening.”

He tilted his head. “‘Course I was, bird.” He leveled you with a look. “So?”

“Not recently. Not in a couple days.”

“Good. Let us know if he does, yeah?”

Then he sat back and waited, shoulders relaxed as though attending a sermon, but content with silence anyway. 

When you glanced up from a report a while later, for clarification on a mission detail that he happened to be on, his eyes were closed. 

It felt akin to having a wolf willingly curl up in your lap, blood wet maw dripping peacefully onto the floor.

.

.

.

When you turned from watering your plants one innocuous spring day, you found Ghost entering your office with a different mask on. A soft black balaclava. You could see his eyes and brows, the bridge of his nose and the thin, bruised skin beneath his eyes.

You froze and then smiled at him, tried hard not to stare. His eyes were always pretty but now you felt you could actually see him. Blond brows and lashes, his irises were lighter, amber honey in the yellow light of your bug lamp, as Ghost had called it one afternoon without a shred of humor. 

It was raining, and the dim light made the small space cozier than usual. The patchwork blanket was around your shoulders, a ward against the chill bleeding beneath the window. 

In his usual chair, you’d laid a gift. 

He pointed to the blanket you had carefully folded there earlier. 

“It’s for you. I knitted it.” 

He froze, hand half extended toward it. You swept past him around your desk again, inundated with the scent of black tea and cigarettes as you went. His was alternating black and dark blue squares to your brightly colored purple and teal. “Just in case you were cold. You’re always so buttoned up after all,” you joked. “And you fixed my radiator this winter. So it’s a thank you, too.”

Ghost only moved it to the back of the chair. You hadn’t expected him to take it, really, but his gloved fingers lingered on it for a moment, rubbing the fabric gently. “How d’you know it was me that fixed it?” 

“Who else would have?” 

He grunted. “You knit?” 

“When I can’t sleep,” you answered. “Keeps my hands and brain busy.”

His brows furrowed, and seeing even that small movement felt like seeing him naked, like seeing something he didn’t want you to. You averted your eyes, heat crawling up your neck. 

“Can’t sleep?” His fingers slid off the blanket and he sat.

You shrugged. “Must seem silly to you. You see it with your own eyes. But some of the reports. . . stick with me.” 

Ghost considered this for a long moment. “It’s not.” 

“What?” 

“Silly.” 

The way he grunted the word made you laugh. 

“Could I ask you something, Ghost?”

“Reckon you just did.” 

You rolled your eyes. “Am I allotted only one question?” 

“Just two.” 

It was. . . funny. You giggled and shrugged. “Guess I’m shit out of luck.” 

“And out of questions.”

You laughed again. 

He surprised you by laughing too. If a low, graveled grunt counted as a laugh. You certainly counted it, a cache of swollen pride bubbling in your stomach. “Go on, then.” 

“Where are you from?” 

The levity vanished. His brows lowered. “Why?” 

You shrugged. “Just curious. I’m not good with all the accents yet. Just can’t place you.” 

He relaxed back into the chair again, but didn't answer. 

The pinch of his brows, the tense line of his jaw, remained, his expression considering as he tilted his head back. 

“Why do you come here?” You asked instead. 

This question he answered readily. “It’s quiet.” 

“That’s one way to tell me to shut up.” 

He blinked and lowered his chin to meet your eyes. “Not the kind of noise I mean.” 

You decided not to take offense at being called noise. 

You snorted and reached beneath your desk, taking some pride in the fact that Ghost did not tense anymore than usual when you did, withdrawing your lunch. 

“Hungry?” You asked.  

“Tryin’ to see my face?” 

You smiled. “Never,” you answered, “Not sure I want to see what you’re hiding under there.” 

The rain tapped against the window as you popped the thermal lid off.  

“Why are you here?” He asked as you folded your legs beneath you on the chair and tucked the blanket around them. Ghost rose without asking and twisted the knob of the radiator beneath the window a bit higher.

You waved your fork, indicating the office. “Fairly positive I work here. But perhaps base security is more lax than I thought.” 

He sighed, a long suffering sound. “England, smartarse.” 

You smile and dig your fork into last night’s spaghetti bolognese. The steam caressed your face in a warm puff as you lifted a bite. “I’m on loan to Laswell.” 

“On loan?” He asked as he settled back into the chair, broad shoulders pressed to the wall behind him, against the blanket. It slid over his elbow a little, curled over his forearm. He didn’t move it. 

When you lifted your gaze to his, his stare was piercing, brows lowered, furrowed. You imagined he must be frowning.  

“Temporary replacement for whoever used to be in this office,” you explained. “She needed someone quickly, who she could trust.” 

Ghost folded his arms across his chest, something more tense than usual in the movement. “How long are you on loan for, then?” 

You shrugged, twisted your fork into the noodles. “It’s unclear. So, for now, indefinitely.” You smiled, “Hopefully not through another winter, though, I don’t think I’m cut out for the rain and cold.”

His shoulders eased, but only marginally. If it weren’t for all the hours he’d passed in your office, you weren’t sure you would have caught it at all. 

“From somewhere warm?”

“Warmer than here. Especially in the winter.” 

“Must be nice, that.” 

“Has its perks. But the summer is its own kind of hell.” 

“One you enjoy.” 

“But of course. I like feeling like I’m baking alive.” 

He snorted again.

You ate in silence for a bit. The quiet had become comfortable between you somewhere along the way, silken and gentle. 

When you were scraping the last bit of sauce from the bottom of the container, Ghost said, “Manchester.” 

“Hm?”

“Where I’m from.”

His voice was low; he wasn’t looking at you, eyes trained on the door instead. 

“Manchester,” you repeated, trying to place it on the map of the UK in your mind. “And do you all sound sort of like—“

You were about to say like you have gravel in your mouth but he makes an affected noise, that stiff grunt again. “Are you laughing at me?”

“It’s your fucking accent.”

“My accent?” You asked incredulously. “Have you heard yourself?” 

“Got a thick one, bird.” He imitated your voice. “Manchester.” The sharp rhotic r sound was like a gunshot in his mouth, each letter enunciated to the point of being butchered. 

You scoffed, not bothering to fight your smile. “Takes one to know one, I guess.” 

“Suppose it does.” 

“Fucking Brits,” you said, without any venom. “I can’t do anything right according to you all.” 

He tilted his head, something predatory in it. It made your heart flutter a little. “Who’s tellin’ you you can’t do something?” 

You sighed, long suffering. “My coworkers. Can’t make tea, apparently. I don’t care for it and everyone keeps insisting I just make it wrong.”

“They make it wrong too.” 

You groaned. “Not you too.” 

Ghost rose to take his leave as you snapped the lid back onto the now empty container. 

“I’ll show you how to make a proper cup sometime.” 

You paused, a warm surprise sweeping into your chest, and decided not to linger on this solitary acknowledgement that Ghost would return to your office. “Big fan?” 

“I love tea.” 

It made you laugh. “Of course, English afterall.” 

He nodded, just once, and started toward the door. “Ghost?” You called. 

Ghost turned and you slid another tupperware container across your desk. “For you.” 

He stared at it, for a moment too long, as he always did, like he was telling himself to leave it. “Didn’t have to.” 

“I know.” You nodded at it again and then then ducked behind your computer screens. “I always want to.” 

Ghost moved so silently that you didn’t hear or see him take it, but when you looked up again he and the container at the edge of your desk were gone. 

.

.

.

It should be a good thing. 

You would be gone soon enough, none the wiser of who Ghost was. Of what you were to each other. 

But it didn’t sit well. It was a new thing to nag at the back of his mind, finding your office empty, you becoming a ghost in your own right. He hated the ache in his chest, the thought of you so far away. He could only assume you’d be stationed back in the US.

The thought festered, burrowed. 

“Laswell.”

She jumped, hand going beneath her desk before she spotted Ghost in the corner of  her office. She sighed and closed her eyes, fingertips rubbing her eyes instead. 

“Ghost,” she sighed, “Don’t do that.” 

Simon said your name, and Laswell lowered her hands to look at him. “How long has she got?” 

“What do you mean?”

“Said she’s on loan. I want to know how long.”

Laswell considered him; Ghost waited. He wouldn’t explain himself, and Laswell knew that. 

“Maybe as long as a year.” She tilted back in her chair and asked anyway. “Why?” 

Ghost didn’t answer, slipping back out of her office and down the hall. 

You were still in your office, hunched over the desk, lavender headphones pulled down around your neck. He watched you for a long moment, eyes tracing over scars that belonged to him. It was jarring each time to see pain he experienced threaded over your skin. It made him feel exposed by proxy.

As he watched, you lifted a hand and rubbed your neck with a wince, fingers lingering on the long scar slashed at the base of your throat. The grimace faded from your face and your expression receded into the impassive, blank, focused slate it always settled into as you continued working. 

When he sat down in your office, you just shot him a tired smile and continued working. 

He walked you to your car around midnight. 

“Tell us if you’re here this late again,” he said, not looking at you. 

“Ghost,” you said. “It’s almost enough to make me think you like me.” 

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” he answered. 

You just laughed. 

.

.

.

“Tea?” 

You jumped, just as Laswell had, only your hand didn’t go beneath the desk. Nothing there to reach for, he knew, your vulnerability like a beacon, or a stain. 

It would need remedied. 

But first, this. 

It was the sixth time in two weeks that you were at your desk well past when everyone else had gone home.  

“Jesus Christ.” 

“Unfortunately not.” 

You laughed; his shoulders eased. “Ghost,” you said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” You tilted your head. “I’m starting to think you’re spying on me.” 

“What’re you still doing ‘ere?” 

“What are you doing wandering around our wing after hours?” 

Not a line of questioning he was keen on following. That just being near a place you had been earlier in the day was enough to loosen that fucking tether in his chest. That he was worried incessantly about you being alone at night.

“Offerin’ to make you a tea,” he answered. “Obviously.”  

“Obviously,” you echoed. “Of course.” 

“You’re supposed to tell me when you’re stayin’ late.” 

“Ghost,” you said seriously, lifting your brows, “I’m here late again today.” 

“Hilarious, you are.” 

You giggled again. “Are you really offering to make me tea?” 

He nodded. “C’mon then.”

You smiled and shrugged the blanket off your shoulders. He waited while you locked your computer and stood.

Simon allowed you to lead toward the breakroom where he’d observed the many cups of tea you’d politely swallowed from well meaning coworkers, who left it to steep for too long or too short, added too much sugar and milk, or left it totally plain. 

The overhead lights were too bright, a blue-white glare that made you frown and squint. Your nose scrunched up in distaste. There were circles beneath your eyes, exhausted loops that matched his own.  

“So,” you prompted, leaning against the counter, “How does one make a proper cuppa?”

“Not bad,” he said of your accent, lifting the electric kettle from the hook to fill with water. “Little posh.” 

“I’ve been practicing.”

He grunted, and put the kettle on, before rooting through the cabinet above the sink for tea bags. A grim selection awaited him, but he’d make due with what was available.

“Ah, so you boil the water. I was under the impression you could just stick it all in the microwave.” 

He involuntarily made a pained sound. “Fucking hell,” he muttered, “That your usual method?” 

You bit the inside of your cheek, poorly concealing a laugh. “I scandalized a data analyst with that joke.” You cup your chin in your hand, peer up at him from beneath a thick fringe of lashes. “I do know how to boil water, I’ll have you know.”

“Got a head start then.” 

You laughed again, shoulders shaking. Simon watched the corner of your mouth curl, and it eased something in his chest. You were painfully close, the woodsy, floral scent of your perfume curled in the air. Your elbow brushed his. He didn’t know how you could be unaware of the bond at that moment, when being that close to you felt like being lit on fire. He wanted to reach for you so badly that he had to clench his fist closed to avoid it. 

If someone were to ask him to move away from you right then, it would end badly. Bloody. 

The thin, needle sharp connection ached, begged. 

Simon ignored it.  

When you glanced up, he looked away. He could feel your eyes on his face, and didn’t mind the scrutiny in it. He didn’t mind you watching him, and wondered what you saw. 

“I like being able to see your eyes,” you said, just as the kettle clicked off. 

He met your gaze, disarmed by the declaration. Your features had softened, melted into a dangerous fondness. “Why?” 

“You have pretty eyes,” you shrugged. “And it’s hard to see you with the other mask.” You shifted, watching him lift the kettle, pour the hot water into a mug and over the teabag he’d dropped into it. 

“You can tell me to fuck off, if you want,” you began carefully, fingertips drumming nervously against the counter. “Why do you wear it?” 

Simon watched the teabag bob on the surface of the water, thin amber trails unfurling, coloring the water slowly brown. “Five minutes,” he nodded at the tea. “Don’t touch it. None of that dunking shite.” 

“Yes, sir,” you agreed. “Five minutes, no touching.” 

He huffed, and your smile widened. You bumped your shoulder against his. The contact only lasted a second or two, but the relief it provided was so intense that he nearly choked on it. 

The pain, softened by your proximity, returned immediately, crept down into the soft ligaments between his bones. He felt the loss in the roots of his teeth, the middle of his chest; it was like losing his breath in a different way, being suckerpunched in the solar plexus, knocked on his ass.

“To hide my face.” 

“Your identity, you mean.” 

“My identity,” he agreed.

“Why?” 

He released a long, slow breath, and thought about telling you to piss off, maybe even just to see how you’d take it. Were you as good as your word? Would you let the subject drop? 

Instead, he said, “There are a lot of bad people in the world, bird.” 

You pursed your lips, fingers toying with the teabag string, flicking the tab at the end with your nail. There was another question swimming in your eyes, but you let it go unasked, dropping your eyes from his instead. 

“You’ve seen more of them than most,” you said. “I would guess.” 

“Part of the job.” 

Your mouth curled a little, lashes fluttering against your cheek. “Hm. But y’know something? I think I’d know you anywhere,” you said, without a hint of shame or irony. “It’s all in your eyes.” 

Before Simon could respond, you hid a yawn in your sleeve and rubbed your hand over your face, exhaustion layered in thick rings beneath your eyes. “Even if this is gross,” you indicate the tea, “At least it will keep me awake.” 

“I take offense to that.” 

You laughed again. “Hm. Sorry, Lieutenant.” You leaned in, “It smells so nice, so why does it taste like shit?” 

He rolled his eyes. “I’ll make you a coffee if it’s shit.” 

“You’re kind.” This time when you leaned your shoulder against his, you left it there. The empty soreness like a bruise inside his ribs loosened again. For the first time in a while, he was left with the absence of pain.  

When the tea was done steeping, he did yours with a bit of honey. There was no way you’d take it plain and like it, but he drew the line at milk. Especially the blasphemy that was the military issued powdered milk in a canister that sat on the counter. Abso-fucking-lutely not. 

“There you are,” he said, “Cup of tea.” 

“A proper cuppa,” you tried again. It was a little less posh this time. 

He huffed. “Better all the time.” 

“And I have you to thank.” 

Your face creased as you took the cup between your palms, an unreadable expression flitting across your features. Then your mouth twisted to the side, a sure sign you were attempting to keep some emotion or thought in check. 

Your shoulder was still pressed heavily against his. 

“Thanks, Ghost.” 

“”S just tea.” 

You shook your head and lifted the cup, blowing gently on the surface before you took a tiny sip. He watched your face, watched your throat move as you swallowed, the flickering web of your lashes. A step up, at least, from all the shit tea from your coworkers that make your brows tense in an effort to conceal a grimace. “One good thing has come of this,” you said after a moment of contemplation. 

“What’s tha’?” 

“I know how to make tea for you now.” 

“Like it?” 

“I love it.” 

You briefly tilted your head onto his shoulder, then pulled away entirely. The flood of discomfort was worse than before. His muscles spasmed around it in a violent convulsion. “I mean that really.” 

He breathed out, through it. “I don’t take honey.” 

You studied the contents of the cup, tilting it one way and then the other, like something important laid at the bottom of the porcelain well. 

“Noted.” 

Sure enough, the next day, a hot cup was waiting for him, which he drank as you chatted from behind your computer, decidedly, pointedly, giving him the privacy to do so. 

.

.

.

Things settled into a pleasant rhythm. 

A regimented, regular existence that you had long ago learned to embrace. The base became home more than the tiny apartment you rented and spent only enough time to sleep, bathe, and cook in. 

You timed your days to the ebb and flow of the base, to visits to your office, debriefings and conference rooms, the restless energy of so many people in one place moving. You breathed around absences, the pockets of emptiness that sometimes cropped up. The loneliness that felt like an unfillable pit in your stomach. 

People often saw your scars and thought not to bother. Why would fate have marked you so heavily if you weren’t meant to find your pair? The scars meant nothing, really. They were no more significant than anyone else’s. Your chances of running into your soulmate was no higher than someone who had accrued no scars from their bond. 

You were a stopping off point, a bit of fun, but not someone to invest time and effort into, not when the reminder that someone else might come along and render it all moot was so visible, so literally in their face. To look at you was to be reminded of that bond waiting in the wings, for them and for you, and that you could only ever be temporary. 

It made friendships hard too. Some were jealous, others thought there couldn’t be room for anyone else in your life. You were important to no one.

It had been proven to you time and again, and you weren’t sure what kept you hopeful that someone would one day see past it. So when Sergeant Davies stuck his head in your office one Friday afternoon long after Ghost had departed your office for the day, and asked you out, you found yourself saying yes. 

“Would you like to go out sometime?” He asked, hand rubbing the back of his neck. “Just round the pub for drinks?” 

“Oh,” you said. “I—” 

It had been a long time since anyone took interest in you. You’d only talked to him a few times before, but Davies was handsome in a boyish way and sweet and you liked him well enough, you found yourself hesitating for half a second. To your horror, your mind flashed to Ghost, stomach lurching painfully, a knot of tension fisting itself in your chest. 

You looked at his usual chair, empty now, seeing his large frame sprawled there anyway, thighs spread wide, arms crossed over his chest, eyes steady and focused, locked onto you with an intensity and constancy you still weren’t used to.

Heat bloomed in your lungs, crept up your neck. You glanced away, back at Davies waiting at the door. 

“Yeah,” you answered firmly. “Sure.” 

“Brilliant,” he grinned. “How about tonight?” 

Your belly gave another sour squirm that you ignored; it had just been a long time, that was all. “I’m free.” 

“Brilliant,” he said again. “I’ll text you.” 

“Okay.” 

His grin was crooked and self satisfied as he exited your office. 

So you found yourself walking off the base with Davies later that evening. You found yourself laughing and hopeful in a local pub that you hadn’t gotten the chance to explore yet, busy as you were, the base a tide that tugged you back again and again. Like a magnet, you wanted to be there. 

And all of it came to nothing, the moment Davies saw the extent of the scarring when you took him home. It wasn’t just your face, it was your hands and arms and chest and belly. Your whole body was marked, dogeared for someone else. He looked down at you in your bed, his head framed by your ceiling fan and you saw the moment it clicked. The moment it wouldn’t work. 

“Someone out there is really looking for you,” he said. “You’re lucky.” 

“No more than anyone else,” you countered. “You know that’s not how it works.” 

“I know,” he said, pulling on his shirt. “I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” you said before he kissed your cheek and retreated. 

Still, you didn’t sleep, just laid on your side, half undressed, staring out at a sky that slowly lightened, stars fading, wondering if perhaps your truest fate was to be lonely for your whole life. 

You didn’t hate your scars, or your soulmate. But sometimes you thought it would be easier if you didn’t have one at all. 

.

.

.

Monday. 

There was a knife in Simon’s pocket. 

Not unusual in and of itself, he carried several at all times, slipped into his sleeves and belt and boot. 

The one in his pocket, though, was for you.

A gift, a contingency, and an offer all wrapped in one. 

The knowledge that it was yours was an uncomfortable weight in his chest. It meant admitting he cared enough to procure it, test it, hand it over. 

It wasn’t quite your typical lunch hour, but Ghost was headed to your office anyway. It was sunny, for once, and he expected to find you taking an early break anyway, leaning back in your chair with your headphones on, absorbing the rare rays. 

And, he wanted to be done with it, to stop tapping his pocket repeatedly, checking the blade was still there, like it might have run away. 

Soap had noticed his fidgeting as they all sat through a briefing on intelligence reports with Laswell that morning. Ghost had forced his hand still, exuded a forced calm, but Johnny’s eyes hadn’t turned away. 

When he arrived at your office, deliberately rustling against the doorjamb so as not to startle you, you glanced up and smiled tightly and his plan vanished. 

Something was wrong. The blinds were closed, your office an unusual sea of gray air. Your shoulders were caved inward protectively, your expression wan and closed. Your smile didn’t reach your eyes, your voice was rough when you said, “Hey, Ghost.”  

Simon took his usual seat, watching you type something, decidedly not looking at him. He watched you, the set of your mouth and eyes. He waited for your chatter to begin but it didn't. 

“All right?” 

“Hm?”

“You’re quiet.” 

“Oh, only one of us is allowed to be quiet?” You joked, but it came out a bit brittle, and worn.

There were, he noticed as he looked at you, circles beneath your eyes. “What ‘appened?” 

You looked up again, and shook your head. “I’m just tired.” 

“Try again.” 

Frustration crept into your features. “Who said I want to tell you?” With that, you ducked behind your monitors.

Simon waited, but you did not reemerge. 

He stood, and rounded your desk. You glanced up then, leaning back when you found him so close. “Jesus, Ghost—” 

“Nice weather.” 

“I can see that.” 

“And you aren’t out there sunnin’ yourself? Something horrible must have happened.” 

Your mouth twisted to the side and you glanced away. “I. . .I’m just being dramatic.”

“C’mon, then.” 

You blinked up at him. “Where are we going?” 

He didn’t answer, but you rose anyway when he tilted his head toward the door. Simon snagged the blanket you’d knitted for him months ago from its place along the back of his chair, finally with a proper purpose, and carried it over his arm. 

“Lunch.” 

You grabbed it and followed him down the hall. Simon shouldered open an external door and held it open for you, the scent of your skin, the warm brush of your body so close to his as you ducked under his arm like a beacon, a light he wanted to follow. 

Carefully, you nudged your shoulder against his as you walked. The familiar sharp, sweet pang whenever you brushed too close together settled in his chest. He wondered if you felt it too, if you felt that sickly flutter in your chest, or if his suspicion that he was holding one end of an untethered bond in his hand was right. 

Just his luck. 

Didn’t matter though. 

He ticked his elbow out a little, and after a moment, you pushed your hand against the inside of his arm. His shoulders loosened; his jaw unclenched. The pain in his chest settled. 

The absence of the ache was intense; he was so used to being in near constant pain. 

“So, what are we doing?” 

“Walking.” 

“I can see that.” 

“Why’re you askin’, then, bird?” 

You huffed but didn’t ask anymore questions as he led you down one concrete pathway. 

The sky was a flawless robin’s egg blue, only a wispy, thin line of cloud on the very distant horizon. The distant shouts of drill instructors snapped in the warm summer air. Your shoulders drooped as you walked, eyes fluttering closed for a few seconds at a time as you tilted your face to the sun, inhaling deeply. 

He led you around the last building in a long line of barracks and brought you to a halt. The only thing beyond was a chainlink fence that marked the edge of the base. A faint breeze coated him in the smell of your skin, settled deep in the well of his lungs. He took a breath, watched your lashes flutter. 

Your thumb stroked a pattern against the inside of his arm, lazy and slow. “You’ve got a soft spot for me, Ghost.” 

He didn’t deny it. 

“What are we doing back here?” 

Ghost pulled away from you with some effort and spread the blanket over the grass. He sat on the concrete steps that led to the back door of the unused barracks.

You sat on the blanket, started to open your lunch and then flopped back in the sun instead. “A usual haunt?” 

“Sometimes.” 

“Secret’s safe with me.” 

“Mind if I smoke?” 

“No.” Then, “I won’t look.”  

He grunted in acknowledgement, rolled the bottom of his mask up, carton of cigarettes and lighter pulled from the depths of a trouser pocket. Simon watched the rise and fall of your chest, tracing the latticework of scars over your face. They looked better on you, he decided. Not as noticeable as his own, faded and light, pencil through wax paper instead of the thick groves of his own. 

They glinted a little in the sun, like the scales of an iridescent fish. 

Your eyes remained peacefully closed, soaking up the sun like a long deprived plant. Sweat beaded along your forehead, and when you pushed up your sleeves, Ghost was reminded that all of you matched all of him.

He recognized a burn mark on your forearm that belonged to him, a cut that wrapped halfway around your wrist. He was pretty sure the burn mark was from a mishandled flare, the wrist scar from a rope that had gotten tangled and burned him. 

Simon wanted to reach down and cup the side of your throat, feel the soft, sun warmed skin beneath his fingers. He wondered if your scars felt the same as his own, rough and grooved. 

Probably not, they were imitations, ungenerous sketchings of his own. 

He’d like to map them all against his own, find out if he bore any of yours. He wouldn’t have noticed something small that you might have collected yourself. A childhood fall, a careless burn while cooking. 

He watched the delicate flex of muscle in your forearms. Your shirt was a little askew, more faded marks left like a tracery of veins on your chest and collarbone and shoulder. It was fucking awful, a wrenching feeling in his chest, to know all that had been inflicted on him, had fallen on you too. 

He wondered about the pain again, imagined you writhing with terror and agony and confusion, every gunshot wound and burn and slash he received an echo inside you. Cigarette burns dotting your arms and wrists when you were just a child, months of pain without end when he was captured and tortured and his life was irrevocably changed. 

Simon wanted to ask, needed to know just how much damage he’d inflicted. But the words stuck in his throat. A fear of knowing, if he asked about the pain, maybe he’d hear other things too, how much you must hate him and didn’t know it was the man in front of you your hate should be directed at.

When he stubbed out his cigarette on the heel of his boot and rolled his mask back down, you blinked into the sun and exhaled, long and slow, and then sat up, leaning back on your palms. 

“What ‘appened?” He asked.

Your mouth twitched into your usual, if a bit more sheepish, smile. “You’re like a dog with a bone, you know that?” 

“Affirmative,” he said. 

You rolled your eyes and set up straight, brushing your palms together before reaching for your lunch. “I brought something for you.” 

“Stalling.” 

“Pushy,” you countered, giggling, rummaging around in your bag. Your smile faded as you pulled free one of the usual containers, what looked like lasagne within. He watched the edge of your mouth curl, the scar slitted along one side pulling at your expression. “I went on a date this weekend.” 

Ice slid down his spine, curled in a viscous circle in his gut. “Bad date?” 

“No,” you said, shaking your head adamantly, staring down at the container in your lap. “No, it went really well.” You glanced up at him and then dug in your bag again, passing another one to him along with a fork. “Until he saw my—” You fidgeted with your sleeve and then yanked it down. The other followed suit. “My marks. My scars.” 

“He’s a prick.” 

“No, he wasn’t,” you shook your head. “It’s happened before. They see the extent of it, and it’s like something biological clicks. I’m off limits.” You sat your food to the side and wrapped your arms around your knees. “Even though I’m no more likely to find mine than anyone else.” 

You looked very small, and alone at that moment. 

“I know it’s not my soulmate’s fault,” you said quietly. “I know that. I know that. And I don’t blame them for it. But sometimes I get so lonely I just—I wish—I wish I didn’t have one. Sometimes I wish I could hate them.”

The chill spreads outward.  

It was confirmation enough. If you knew, you would hate him. All that repressed, sentimentalized resentment would come bubbling up the moment you were actually faced with the person who so fundamentally changed the course of your life. 

He looked at his scars winking in the sun on your skin and felt a self hatred so intense it nearly made him flinch. He wished he could crawl out of that grave and kill them all over again, slower, just for this. 

You glanced up and smiled tightly. “But I’m a hopeless romantic, and dramatic. It was just disappointing. I always have hope someone will see past it.” You ran your hand over the blanket and unfolded yourself to finally begin eating. “This helped, though,” you said. “Thank you, Ghost.” You nodded at the food in his hands, averted your gaze again. 

And even though you could easily glance at him, Simon pushed up his mask and popped open the lid of the lasagne still warm between his hands. 

You ate together for the first time, in silence in the sun. You closed your eyes, kept your face pointed up and away, a cool breeze ruffling your shirt sleeves. 

“Have you found yours?” 

Simon looked at you, the edge of your jaw, the soft shadows your lashes cast over your ruined cheek. “Don’t think someone like me is meant for one.” 

You nodded. “Me either.”

.

.

.

He walked you back to your office. 

You felt better, settled, but he sort of just had that affect on you, you were coming to find. 

Ghost smelled like sun and freshly mowed grass and cigarette smoke. His shoulder kept touching yours, something in your chest lurching each time, like a rib bone had come loose and was knocking against your heart and lungs. 

Ghost carried the blanket back, folded it and set it carefully along the back of what had become his chair. 

You sat and turned, expecting to find him already silently gone as was his way. 

Instead, he was very close and depositing something on your desk. 

Matte black, compact, deadly, cold to the touch. 

A folded pocket knife sat at the edge of your desk. Ghost loomed over you, his shadow curling around your edges. 

He slid it toward you, watched you fold your fingers around it. For a long moment, each of you was holding it. “What’s this?” You asked when he released it, gloved fingers sliding across your desk, back to his side.  

“A knife.” 

“Oh, really? I've never seen one before.” 

He rolled his eyes. “It’s for you. I’ll teach you how to use it.” 

“Why?” 

“In case you need to.”

“Is this about me staying late?” 

“No.” He did not elaborate. 

“You know I received firearm training. I can shoot a gun. Isn’t a knife a little—” 

“But you don’t carry a gun.” 

“No,” you agreed. “I don’t.”  

He nodded as though that explained it. “Right.” 

You considered it, flipped it open. Deadly, shiny blade newly sharpened and oiled and well cared for. It was odd to be given a weapon, and yet unsurprising where Ghost was concerned. You glanced up, watched his dark, intense eyes flick over your face. You weren’t sure what he was looking for, but his brows knitted the longer you stared at each other. Concern, weariness.

“Okay.”

His shoulders loosened. “Tomorrow.” 

“Tomorrow,” you agreed. 

.

.

.

If you thought you would receive one lesson in knifework and be done with it, you didn’t know Ghost very well. 

You only ran drills first, as though Ghost were making sure the physical fitness exam you had to pass once a year was up to scratch. You proved again and again that you could run without getting too winded, disassemble, load, and fire a service weapon. When he was satisfied with that, the real training began. 

You practiced with a rubber blade that bruised when stuck into your ribs. He did not go easy on you. You left the gym battered and bruised, sweaty and just a little bit resentful. But you could break a wrist lock hold, grapple and use your body and size to your advantage. The goal he repeatedly told you, was not to turn you into a fighter or a soldier, but give you an opportunity to get away, to run away.  

What kind of danger he imagined you getting into between the base and your apartment you couldn’t begin to imagine. But you enjoyed spending time with him, enjoyed being in the gym. You found yourself laughing when you were repeatedly slammed into the mat, knife wrested from your fingers. It was fun. And, it was good for you, you decided, even if you thought his intense insistence was a tad dramatic. 

Ghost was a bit dramatic about certain things, you were coming to learn.

This was one of them. You were, you thought with warmth, one of the things he was a bit dramatic about. For whatever reason, you’ve been tucked under his wing, into his shadow. 

On the third week of relentlessly brutal training, you arrived at the base gym, empty as it always was, to find him holding a length of rope. 

You eyed it warily and shifted from foot to foot, amused despite the discomfort. “What do you imagine is going to happen to me?” 

Ghost didn’t answer as you set your bag down and pulled off your sweatshirt. The room was warm, close and humid, the scent of left over dregs of soldiers clogging the room for most of the day. The scent of plastic, lemon disinfectant, and sweat is thick on the air, but when you stepped toward Ghost, his familiar comforting smell of tea and cigarettes washed over you in a vacuous, orbital cloud. 

You looked up just as his eyes slid away from you, blond lashes catching the light, skin pink around his eyes. You’d swear it was a blush if you didn’t know better. “Ghost?” 

“Better to be prepared, yeah?” 

“For what?” All the same, you turned with a sigh. 

After a painfully long moment he stepped close and pressed the dark material around your wrists. His body was warm behind yours for that brief moment even without touching you, like the glow of a heat lamp that made the rest of the room feel cold by comparison. 

His gloved fingers were carefully delicate against your skin. It sent sparks skittering up your arms. What would his bare skin feel like against yours? 

Rough, warm. Safe.  

It’s a thought that had curled its roots into your mind the first time you fell to the mat together and you felt his weight against yours, brief and heavy, but comforting somehow. It wasn’t supposed to be, he was playing predator, it should have been panic inducing. 

Stupid, silly. 

If your most recently failed date had shown you anything, it was that feeling anything for anyone that had seen your scars was a failing venture. And Ghost had seen more of them now, than most. Maybe you should start wearing a mask. 

“What’s the goal today?” You asked, feeling a little like you couldn’t breathe. His warmth and scent and the weight of his presence was overwhelming in a way that made you want to curl into him, gladly suffocate. 

“Same as always,” he answered drolly. “To get away.”

“Hm. I keep thinking you’ll challenge me,” you teased.  

“Not a game, bird.” 

“But what am I meant to do? I can’t fight.” 

“Get out of the bindings. Get to the door.” 

“Is that it?” 

You would swear he’s smirking. “Simple enough, aye.” 

It wasn’t easy. 

For the third time in a row, you landed hard on your back. 

Ghost’s weight was heavy against you, before it lifted away. Your sweaty skin stuck to his hoodie.

Your breath comes in hard, deep pants. Your wrists ached and panic had begun to set in. 

“On your feet.” 

Clumsy as a newborn deer, you stumble to your feet. You had to be faster than him, incapacitate him. “You won’t be getting away from me,” he’d said once, “so you’d have a chance.” It was a compliment; one that said you were doing good. 

It didn’t feel like you were doing good now. 

By the sixth time, you felt raw and helpless, wrists caught at an odd angle beneath you. It wasn’t fun; it wasn’t sparring. You couldn’t manage to wriggle out of the bindings and you were useless at anything he’d taught you without your hands. 

“You’re hurting me,” you gasped. 

He released you immediately and the pressure in your wrists eased. It hadn’t been pain, not really, just panic, just exhaustion. 

But you knew instantly that you’d made a mistake, that he would not take it that way. 

“Shit.” 

.

.

.

The window was open and you were not in your office. 

Simon paused in the doorway, noted your bag on the chair in the corner, the patchwork quilt trailing over the arm of your desk chair and spilling onto the floor. His was gone from the chair. You’d been wandering off without him recently. 

He turned and marched back down the hall. An administrative assistant pointed toward the external door. “Getting sun, she said,” he said. “Sir.” 

Ghost nodded and shouldered the door open. He found you behind the barracks, lying on his blanket, staring up at a patchy sky, slices of blue peaking from between low hanging gray clouds. 

When his shadow fell over you, you opened your eyes and squinted up at him. “Ghost, you’re blocking my sun.” 

“Not much sun to speak of.” You grimace and frown at the sky. “You weren’t in your office.” 

“Sorry, should have left a note.” You patted the blanket next to you. “Sit.” 

Simon sat on the concrete steps. “Where’s your lunch?”

“Forgot it.” 

Worry sprouted, blossomed along his veins, ubiquitous as the pain that accompanies it. 

“Canteen,” he said. “Let’s go.” 

“It’s okay—“

“Wasn’t a suggestion.” 

“You’re bossy,” you said but didn’t move, chin tilted up, eyes flitting shut again. “I’ll have a big dinner.” 

He sighed and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, content enough to wait you out and smoke. The clouds continued to gather, putting your beloved sun to rest for the moment. The air grew steadily thicker with humidity. 

“Gonna rain,” he commented. 

You ignored him, eyes squinching closed harder, like you could will the sun to return. He watched you, made himself look at the bruises on your wrists and forearms, he knew there were matching ones on your ribs. They were harmless, just the usual consequence of sparring, but the ones around your wrists—that’s a mistake he won’t soon forget. 

When a fat raindrop landed on your arm, you sat up with a grumble. “Ready now?” He asked, pulling down his mask again. 

“I can see you won’t leave it alone.” 

“Affirmative,” he said. 

You rolled your eyes and started to get to your feet, pausing when he held out a hand to you. You stared for a beat too long before gripping his hand in yours. 

Even through his gloves, it was like being electrocuted. 

You released his hand as soon as you could, eyes skirting his. “Your lead,” you said. “I haven’t had the privilege.” 

He grunted, followed you closely back inside. 

As Simon’s misfortune would have it, Johnny was still in the canteen. 

He lasered in on the pair of you immediately, a grin growing across his face as he approached. “Ach so this is where you’ve been off to LT.”

Ghost herded you into line, a raucous group of new recruits halting their conversation to ogle you before their eyes flicked to his and away, conversation continued at a more subdued level. He shifted closer, between you and them, though you didn’t seem to notice.

“Haven’t been off anywhere,” he grumbled. 

“Who’s this then?” 

You smiled and offered your hand and name. “It’s nice to see that Ghost has bad manners with everyone.” 

“John MacTavish,” Soap said, all charm as he practically bowed. “Call me Soap.”

“Soap,” you giggled. “I’ve seen you in my reports.” 

Soap’s gaze flicked over your face, sharp eyes making the quick calculations that had made Simon hope he wouldn’t be in the canteen. “Are they yours?” 

“Sergeant—,” Ghost said sharply, a warning in his voice. 

But you only laughed and touched your cheek with obvious pride as the line moved up. “No. None of them belong to me. They’re nice though, right?” 

Simon went very still, swore his heart rate slowed. You held out your arm, showed off a sliver flash.

“Very becoming, lass.” 

You smiled again and gestured to your own chin, the side of your head. “Yours?” 

“Aye, all mine.”

“Ah, luck.” 

“Lucky indeed.”

Johnny’s eyes shifted to Simon’s, brows raised, with a look that said he knew. Simon glanced away, gritting his jaw so hard it ached.

 “Am I going to get food poisoning from this?” You asked as a tray was handed over, eying warily what was ostensibly mash, peas and carrots, mystery meat. 

“Probably not,” Johnny answered cheerfully. “Been mostly fine.” 

“Yes, but I think you military people might have tolerance to low levels of poison.” 

“That’s for sure, bonnie.” 

“Bonnie,” you said, giggling. “Are you calling me pretty?” 

Soap covered his heart, balancing his tray with one hand. “You wound me. Simon only keeps us good looking bastards around.”

“Simon,” you said softly, glancing up at him. “I didn’t think anyone knew your name.” 

Ghost didn’t answer for a moment, glaring daggers into the side of Johnny’s head, ignoring the way his heart was clenched so tight it felt like it was in a vise. Simon, his name on your tongue—  

“It’s need to know,” he snapped. 

Your expression folded and you glanced away. “Right, of course. Sorry.”

Simon clenched his jaw so hard it clicked as Johnny shot him a look. “This way, lass,” he said, leading you toward a spot in the corner of the mess. 

“Oh,” you said weakly, “That’s all right. You don’t have to—”

Ghost couldn’t help but notice the anxious look you threw him, the thin line your voice had transformed into. 

Soap wasn’t listening, already talking your ear off, pulling out a chair for you. You smiled and sat and Simon was left to silently watch it unfold. 

.

.

.

“Fuckin’ hell,” Soap muttered when they’d safely returned you to your office where a contingent of lesser analysts awaited you. The corridor leading away from the now closed door seemed impossibly long. “D’ya know how many people would kill to meet their soulmate? You’ve got yours right under your fuckin’ nose and haven’t even told her yer name!” 

“She doesn’t need to know.” 

“Yer name?” 

Ghost leveled Soap with a stare. 

Soap gaped at him. “Steamin’ Jesus. You aren’t plannin’ to tell the lass at all?” 

“Stay out of it, MacTavish.” 

Johnny followed him down the hall, outside into a bleak, gray drizzle. “You know it can kill you?” Simon kept walking. “Simon.” 

He stopped, glanced at Soap with a warning in his eyes. “Do ya?”

“It won’t.”

Johnny continues anyway, urgently. “There’s a pain, they say, under the ribs when—“

“Stay out of it, Sergeant,” Ghost growled, that very pain growing as it always did as he moved further and further away from you. “It’s nothing.” 

“It‘ll corrode,” Johnny said to his retreating back. “She’ll feel it eventually.”

Simon ignored him. 

But he wondered as he walked away, if he died, if you’d feel the corded snap of his life floating away from yours.  

Somehow, being that sort of ghost, didn’t sit well with him. 

.

.

.

Johnny, predictably, did not stay out of it. 

He regularly and reliably began to show up in your office. More than once, he looped Garrick into accompanying him. Ghost had watched as the same realization Soap had snapped into place on Gaz’s face, and knew it was only a matter of time before Price knew too. 

Luckily, they were the only three on the entire base that could make the connection, that had seen his face, so at least it was done with. None of them said anything to him about it, but there were a lot of worried glances being exchanged. 

Ghost felt the edge of his sanity begin to wear thin the longer it went on, not that there was much left of it in the first place.

The disruption, the infiltration, the distraction grated until his insides felt raw with irritation. He hadn’t wanted anyone else to know, not because he was ashamed, but because you were his, and you didn’t deserve to be burdened by that. He would shoulder that horrible belonging for both of you. 

But the way you’d tenderly touched your cheek remains burned into his memory. The soft look in your eye. The gentle way you and Soap always spoke of soulmates whenever they came up, reverent and tender. 

You enjoyed their company, Johnny and Kyle, and seemed all the better for it. It was clear immediately how much you liked both of them. How much you desperately needed friends. 

Ghost was loath to admit there was a seed of jealousy wriggling in his belly. The easy way you got on with them proof enough that a wire had gotten crossed somewhere, that you were more cursed by him than anchored by.

Then, the gifts left at the edge of your desk began to extend to the lads and not just himself, and it felt vaguely as though he were losing a vital piece of himself to it. 

Then, you stopped coming to the gym. You were gone, office dark, before he could walk you to your car. You went on another date. 

He didn’t know what to do with any of it.

One Tuesday at the end of July you were in your office, but Soap was there before him, tearing into a packet of crisps, lounging in Simon’s chair, patchwork quilt flattened beneath him in a heap. It was hot, and humid, a fan in the corner working overtime, window propped open.

You were happily listening to Johnny explain the ins and outs of football. A match was playing on your computer screen which you’d turned back so both of you could see. 

Your eyes found Simon’s when he paused in the doorway, and you waved him inside, an unsure smile twitching at the corners of your mouth. “Hi, Ghost. Do you keep up with soccer, too?” 

A groan from Soap. “Bloody Americans.” 

“Sorry, sorry. You keep up with footie too, mate?” 

“Horrendous,” Ghost said flatly.

Your smile faltered then brightened again. It didn’t quite reach your eyes. “You should hear my Scottish accent. Soap said I offended every one of his ancestors.” 

“Aye and you did lass,” he said solemnly. “Yeh—” 

“Sergeant,” Ghost interrupted loudly. “Aren’t you due for PT?”  

“Ach, right,” he muttered, getting to his feet, “Thanks for the reminder, LT.” 

“Oh, Soap,” you said, “Hold on.” You rummaged beneath your desk for a long moment, then passed him a brown paper bag full of cookies. “Your favorite, as requested.” 

“You sweet on me or something, bon?”

You rolled your eyes and said, “Out of my office.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

Ghost took Soap’s vacated seat, watched you avoid looking at him as you moved things needlessly around your desk, twisted your monitor back around and muted the match. 

The silence was suffocating. 

“All right?” 

You froze, then shuffled the papers together and slid them to a corner of your desk. “I wanted to apologize.” Your voice hitched a little. 

He blinked, taken aback. He didn’t like that you could surprise him. “For what?” 

You bit your lip, fidgeted again. “Your name, I guess. You didn’t want me to know.” Your mouth twisted to the side. “And your team bothering you here—” 

“You’re apologizing for Soap?” 

Your brow furrowed. “Well I encourage it—”

“No.” 

“No?” You shook your head, “and that day in the gym—” You opened and closed your hands anxiously. “I think I upset you.” 

He stared across the room, toward your big, sunny window, all those little potted plants that have flourished through the summer months. Your bug lamp seemed to droop in the heat, sad and watchful. He’d hurt you, and you’d taken the blame. Something horrible lurched in his belly, heavy and unforgiving. “Didn’t. I should have been more careful.” 

“Right,” you said carefully. “So if it’s not that, why are you—” 

He shrugged, watched one of the emerald leaves sway in the warm breeze. “I like you to myself,” he admitted. “Not the best at sharing.”  

“Oh,” you said, voice tender. “Oh.” 

“Mm.” 

“I’ll make space.” 

He didn’t quite understand what you meant by that, but he liked the way it sounded. Space for him. 

“You’ll come to the gym later, yeah?” 

“Yes.” 

“Good.” He stood, deposited your knife, which he’d snagged early in the morning to clean and sharpen, back onto your desk, along with the new box of tea because he noticed you were out the night before. “And don’t tell bloody Soap.” 

“Aye, LT.” 

He chuckled. “Take care of that.” 

“Teach me how?” 

He nodded. 

“Thanks for the tea. I used the last bag yesterday afternoon.” 

“I know.” 

Your smile was soft, your fingers touched his. He breathed a little easier. 

“‘Course you do.” 

.

.

.

Simon couldn’t stop thinking about pain. 

His body functioned at a constant low level of pain, had for years. Maybe it had his whole life, so he tended not to notice it. But the ache you caused had only seemed to grow over time, tendrils spreading to the furthest reaches of his body, the tips of his fingers, the backs of his knees, places he didn’t think could hold pain. 

The intensity increased too, until he could no longer ignore it. It was like a whine, like a child begging to be seen to. 

He kept thinking of your voice, too, dreaming of it. You’re hurting me. Panic ridden, laced with fear.

You said he didn’t, after,  but he didn’t relish the thought of the possibility. Accidentally hurting you, hurting you on purpose. He thought of his mother, doing her best with a brutal man. He was afraid of unknowingly stepping into a cycle, to find himself standing above you one day, drunk, mean, angry. 

You’re hurting me.  

It echoed like a heartbeat. Inevitable. 

You might collect his scars, but he would not add to them with his own hands. He’d rather die; he’d rather be burned alive; he’d rather crawl out of a grave a hundred times over. 

He was afraid of it. Afraid that every terrible aspect of this bond between you could only bring you pain. 

His father loomed in the recesses of his mind, all the violent men he’d ever known, every bloody fist. Simon’s scalp ached, the memories swam behind his eyes. Long nights, wild animals, dead girls. 

There was one person who had a preoccupation with soulmates who was likely to know, who badgered him regularly about eroding the bond, about bond tears and pain. Simon could know, once and for all, if he was the cause of the indirect pain, at least. His own imposed on you, pushed into your skin like a punishment. He could cross that off his long list of sins. 

Johnny, when Simon finally tracked him down, was sat in the armory cleaning a rifle. He watched over his Sergeant's shoulder for a long moment. The methodical movement soothed him, brought his heartrate down a little. 

“Johnny.” 

Soap jumped and glanced around. “Spooky fucker. Should put a bell on ye—” 

“Does she feel it?”

“What—”

He exhaled long and slow. “My pain. If I’m shot tomorrow, would she feel it?”

Soap glanced around, brows raised. “Ye don’t know?” 

“Say I don’t.” 

“No, the lass doesn’t feel it.” Soap turned his wrist, pointed to a scar that was lighter than some of the others, a pale tracery that slipped from the inside of his elbow to mid forearm. “Not mine. Watched it fade in one mornin’. Didn’t feel a thing.” 

Ghost looks at the scar, and Soap lets him. “Tha’ why you haven’t—”

“No.” 

“Why?” 

“Deserves better.” 

Johnny nodded, continued cleaning the rifle. “Thing is, LT. She doesn’t. That’s the point.” 

Well, at least he only had to worry about becoming his father. 

Fucking perfect. 

.

.

.

Two months deployment.  

The pain in Simon’s chest was agonizing, a constant fire. He couldn’t sleep, pain meds did nothing for it. 

He could only wait it out, wait until he was back on base and hope you were in your office, that the solace of your presence in that warm yellow light would be waiting for him. The pain would recede. He needed a plan, though. Clearly it wasn’t fucking viable to just let it go on. It was too distracting and only getting worse. It was no longer something he could ignore. 

Maybe, he didn’t really want to.

Maybe, Johnny was right. 

He half convinced himself that the lancing ache was so bad because you’d been posted somewhere else the last two months and you were further away than ever. Your office would be empty. This was just an agony he would have to learn to live with. 

Finally, though, they were going home. Intel secure. One last building to sweep. Empty. A loaded silence that made the back of his neck prickle. 

Not as empty as they thought. 

Soap steps quickly into the last room ahead of him, gaze sweeping from one side to another before he lowered his weapon and stepped forward. 

Ghost followed quickly, lowered his gun when he saw what Johnny had. Civilians. One curled around the other, sobbing so hard she made no noise. 

When she lifted her face, Simon sucked in a startled breath. She looked like you, only without his scars. There was a mark slowly bleeding into place on her temple, one that matched the gunshot wound of the woman beneath her. 

The wail that suddenly pierced the air was distraught, horrible, a lurch and a bang. 

Soap was there, kneeling, looking for wounds that Ghost knew didn’t exist. Horror froze him for the second time in his life, your face swimming behind his eyes. 

“I thought you said they couldn’t feel it,” he barked. 

“What?” 

“Soulmates.” 

Soap looked at the pair with fresh eyes. 

“They can’t, LT,” Soap said without glancing at him. “It’s no’ that. It’s just—” 

Grief. The unbearable snapping of a fated cord. The tether in his own chest pulsed, ached. He thought of it breaking cleanly in two, as though it never existed, your light snuffed out, leaving him in total darkness again. 

It wasn’t pain she was feeling, it was the absence. 

“Ghost,” Johnny said sharply and Simon finally snapped out of it, went to his side. 

It wasn't worth it, he thought. None of this could be fucking worth it. He was left with the sinking sense that all he could ever do was hurt you. 

All the same, he felt an urgency to go home. To return to your side. To feel your pulse under his fingers. 

Just to be sure. 

It took them a long time to get her to leave the body. 

.

.

.

Task Force 141 was deployed for nearly two months. 

September and October passed slowly, in starts and fits that seemed to drag. 

You developed a pain in your side, a stitch from taking it too hard in the gym you assumed. But nothing seemed to help it. The pang became a prick became a small misery that the base medical staff couldn’t pinpoint the origins of. 

You missed Ghost, and Kyle and Johnny, tolerated the terrible tea your coworkers made for you, went on another series of failed dates, and finally became friends with your cross-hall apartment neighbor. Months of baked goods and hellos finally coming to fruition. Pieces of a life were falling together. 

Finally, they were coming home. You left your offer that night with the assurance that they were uninjured, that Ghost, and likely Soap, would be in your office by noon the next day. 

But Simon still managed to reappear as he always did, silently and without warning. A shadow crossed your back as you were locking your office near midnight, a hand grazed your back. You followed the series of steps you’d been taught months ago. Foot back, elbow out, knife in hand, open, turn—

Your wrist was caught by the flat of his palm, fingers of the opposite hand yanking it from your grip.  

You blinked and breathed out heavily, relieved. The tight tenderness in your side leveled off for the first time in a month. “Ghost,” you murmured, lowering your now empty hand, “You aren’t supposed to be back until tomorrow morning.” 

“That disappointed to see me?” 

No. Never. But he was still in full tactical gear. The skin around his eyes was still layered with eyeblack, exhaustion and an acid tension rolling off him in a thick wave. His gaze was heavy, but steady, assessing you in turn. He smelled like diesel and cigarettes and gun powder. You lifted your chin. “Surprised to see you. Glad to see you.” 

He only flipped the knife around and held it out to you. “Nice work.” 

You smiled as you took the blade and stored it again. “You’re making me paranoid, I think.” 

“Good. Paranoid keeps you alive.” 

His eyes flicked over you, looking long and hard, though for what you couldn’t be sure. He stepped closer, until you were forced back against the door. He towered over you, corralled you back against the cool wood. Soft, dark eyes like wells of ink in the shadow of the hood pulled over his head, searched long enough that you began to worry something was wrong. 

You reached out and rested your hand on his forearm. His body was so taut you could feel the tremble of exhausted, overwrought muscle. “Ghost,” you said gently, carefully. “Are you okay?” 

He inhaled deeply, so hard and fast it sounded pained. 

He looked at you again, eyes sliding over you slowly, like he was orienting himself, finding steady ground on which to stand. 

“Why don’t you cover ‘em?”

Your belly clenched. “Cover what?” you queried, silently begging him not to ask that question. 

“Scars.” 

You went still, looking down at your skin. You had rolled up your sleeves earlier in the evening when furious typing had required it. They glinted silver in the low light of the hall. Pretty and delicate as dragon scales. 

It wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen before. 

Still, you fought the urge to cross your arms. You hated when he stared at them. 

“Why would I?” You rubbed your wrist. “I don’t want to. They belong to my soulmate.”

He glanced away from you, his jaw tight beneath the mask. “You actually believe in that shite?” His voice was harsh, aggressive in a way he had never spoken to you before. “It’s a bloody children’s tale.”  

You bristled, felt something hard and mean well behind your breastbone in a tight knot. The pain that had been kicking you in the ribs lately reared again, made you wince and cover your side. “Well,” you snapped, gesturing to yourself with your free hand, “these aren’t mine, so I guess I have to.”  

He scoffed and you felt your heart lurch, hurt settling in your gut, twisting an invisible knife that much deeper. You tried to side step him but he didn’t move, a terrible, solid wall of muscle and—anger? Irritation? You couldn’t tell. “What the fuck do you care? Maybe you’re ashamed of yours,” you said roughly, “But not all of us are.” 

His brows furrowed and he shook his head again. “Oh, come off it.” 

“What?” 

“You’re tellin’ me that if you came face to face with the bastard that did this to you, you wouldn’t hate him?” 

Indignation burned a righteous path up your throat. “You don’t get to do that,” you said lowly. 

“You didn’t deny it,” he said. “You would.” 

“No,” you interrupted vehemently, swallowing around the word like gravel in your throat. “No, of course I wouldn’t. It wasn’t done to me, it—” 

But Simon was determined, his mind set. 

“He hurt you, changed the course of your bloody life, whether you want to admit it or not. You’ll hate him for it, love.” 

“For something he went through?” You asked incredulously, defensively. “Do you know how scared I was?” 

Ghost’s eyes went blank, his stare suddenly flat and far away. His gaze drifted from yours, the weight of flinty amber lifted. “Of him,” he said viciously, like something terrible he’d always known had been confirmed. 

“No,” you snarled again, not sure why Ghost was fighting you, not sure why he cared about your scars suddenly. “You aren’t listening. For him.” Your ribs ached, your breath came in short bursts. He was too close, the clashing sensations of safety and agitation calcifying the tension between you into a solid, immutable wall. 

You inhaled shakily through the sudden distress. Your lungs hitched and spasmed before you could suck in a proper breath, feeling faint, glad for the wall behind you. 

He blinked, looked down at you again. “Hey—” 

“I was so scared I would lose him before I ever got to meet him. Ever since I was a kid I’ve had scars. Cigarette burns and scratches, bite marks. I used to hope he was older than me, so it wouldn’t have meant that he—so that he wouldn’t have been—” Agitation rises like a tide, all the nights you’d sat awake watching scars bleed into your skin. Your parents had been unable to look at you in the morning, wondering what the future held for you. What kind of person that child would grow up to be. 

The same fear Simon seemed to be holding onto so tightly. 

You stumbled over his concern, something prickling at the base of your neck. 

“Once,” you continued shakily, “they just kept showing up, day after day, for months. I didn’t know what was happening and there was nothing I could do. I thought he was going to die and I couldn’t help him. I was so worried and all I could do was watch.” 

You met his eyes, saw something so raw and wretched there that you flinched back, closed your eyes, breath caught. 

You aren’t sure when you transitioned to using he instead of they. 

It suddenly didn’t feel like you were talking about someone you hadn’t met yet. 

You thought of how strangely intense he was about you. How you had felt so strongly about him immediately. How the only bit of his skin you’ve ever seen has been around his eyes; the delicate veins at his wrists.

You thought of him making you tea and teaching you to defend yourself. You thought of him walking you to your car and pulling you into sunny days. You thought of all the cups of coffee and boxes of tea, the gentle way he handled the blanket you made him from cheap cotton like it was spun gold. 

You thought of Johnny asking after your scars the first time you met him. How not long after you’d been personally introduced to the rest of the 141 for no discernable reason. How they checked on you. How they were probably the only people that knew what Ghost’s face looked like. 

“No,” you whispered, pieces of a terrible puzzle sliding together in your mind. 

You opened your eyes.  

“Ghost?” you asked softly, tentatively lifting your hand. 

He jerked back. “Don’t do that,” he warned.  

You stepped closer, knowing you were playing with fire, that he might burn you, lash out like a dog with its leg in a trap. 

But if he was yours—

If he was yours, you would not be the one to inflict more hurt on him. 

He did not want this, he did not want you, that much was clear. 

You closed your hand and let it fall, pushed your fist against your heart instead. “I see you,” you said gently. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.” 

“You don’t understand,” he rasped.  

“You survived.” You backed away. “That’s enough. To know you’re okay.” 

The empty spot in your chest ached, seemed to grow tendrils that wrapped around your heart. A bond so close and not latched. Because you haven’t seen him. He has to let you in.

“When you’re ready. If you’re ever ready. I'm here.”

He finally returned his gaze to yours. 

“Did it hurt?” 

“Did what hurt?” You tilted your head but he didn’t answer, just stared at you with big, moon dark eyes, brows pinched inward, eyeblack creating a tiny white line there. “Oh, you wouldn’t know, I guess.” You shook your head, “No I was just scared. Just worried. It didn’t hurt. You’ve never hurt me.” 

He moved so quickly and silently that you jumped when his hand curled around your wrist. Light enough that you could pull away if you wanted.  

“You don’t have to. You never have to. I don’t want to take anything else from you.” 

Ghost hesitated, his chest rising and falling quickly. “Do I have any of yours?” The question was quiet, almost reverent.  

You nodded, “‘Course you do. I fell out of a tree when I was a kid. Gave me a nasty scar on the back of my elbow. I landed on a rock.” 

His eyes flicked away, like he was trying to imagine it. You twisted your arm, showed him the thick line of scar there, totally different than the lighter version of his on your skin. “See? You’ll have that one in the same spot but lighter. Maybe not even visible, since you’re so pale.” 

Your breath caught when he stepped closer, the pain in your chest was so intense it made breathing difficult.

“It’s not fair to you.” 

“What isn’t?” 

“To bloody leave it. Hurts, yeah?” 

You didn’t admit to the spasming in your chest; it wouldn’t help anything. “When have you ever cared about fair?” 

He made a pained sound. “Don’t.” 

“I’m okay. I don’t need anything from you. I don’t want anything from you.”

“You’re supposed to need things from me.”  

He peeled his gloves off, tucked them into his back pocket. The hall was still and silent aside from your combined ragged breathing. It sounded like you’d been running a marathon. “Ghost—” 

“Simon,” he said. “Please, call me Simon.” 

You closed your eyes, felt his hands graze your collarbone, your throat, before anchoring on your jaw, tilting your face up. “Look at me, sweet’eart.” 

“I can’t.” Your voice trembled, tears clogging your throat. 

“Can.” 

Very gently, he leaned down and pushed his forehead against yours. 

You shuddered and swallowed and stepped closer. Simon curled his arms around you, pulled you into his chest. He was so broad and tall, you felt swaddled against him, warm and secure. His scent wrapped around you like ribbons holding you together. “No point dragging it on, yeah? No point you being in pain.” 

“How long?” 

“The whole time,” he admitted after a moment. His voice rumbled against your cheek. It felt like home. “First time I saw you.” 

“You have had this pain for almost a whole year—” 

“Not your fault,” he interrupted, one massive hand sliding down your spine. “Not your fault.” 

You huffed, hooked your fingers beneath his tac vest. “I’m sorry anyway.” You pulled back, felt his arms tighten around you for a moment. He didn’t want to let you go. “Is there anything you need to take care of? Reports or debriefing or something?” 

“No.” 

“Would. . . would you want to come to mine—” 

He reached under your arm and plucked your keys out of the lock before you could finish, guiding you down the hall, his hand never leaving your skin. 

You had never seen Simon outside the base, you realized suddenly, and everything felt vastly more fragile. It also felt as though that hollow pulse in your chest would tear if you were asked to walk away at that moment, something real and physical would tear and drop out of you, an irreparable part of your soul. 

You weren’t sure how you drove home, Ghost huge in your passenger seat, your hands shaking each time he shifted his grip on you. 

In your apartment, you hesitated, not sure where you belonged in your own space anymore. Simon looked strange in your tiny living room, among soft blankets and years of collected books and knicknacks. An all consuming shadow. You wondered if this would end like all those dates, just another failure, another loss. 

When you started to step toward the lamp, Simon’s fingers curled around your wrist to keep you by his side. “No.” 

“Just turning on the lamp.” 

He released you.

As you stepped away, a hollow pulse in your chest retched with pain that made you gasp and clutch the edge of the sofa. It felt real, like something was breaking, jagged edges clawing at the inside of your skin. You wondered what Ghost’s self imposed distance might have done to the bond. There were stories, albeit few, of corrosion. The bond literally rusting out, slowly poisoning the soulmate and their pair. 

“Come ‘ere,” he muttered. “Sit down.”

When his palm cupped your elbow, the world became softer. Like purr instead of a shriek. He guided you onto the sofa. 

Your hands shook when he released you, making quick work of the lamp. The room flooded with soft yellow light. He glanced around. Art on the walls, forest green rug over hardwood floor, molding you had painted a delicate gold. You felt embarrassed of it all suddenly. 

“God,” you muttered. He didn’t seem to feel the pain at all, which made your chest ache in a different way and guilt pool heavily between your bones for it. You didn’t want him to be in pain, but you felt as though you were breathing water, choking on your own lungs. “How have you dealt with this?” 

“Worse now,” he said, though you felt it was his version of a kind untruth. 

He sat next to you, reached for you, then faltered, unsure. You closed the space, folded your fingers between his. The scars made a fucked up little mirror when you looked down at your hands. They matched exactly. “I’m sorry.” 

Simon didn’t answer, but stayed close to you, letting you hold his hand. Even the smallest amount of space between you seemed to burn, a brazier that flared hot and demanded attention. But it was better; just having his bare hand in yours helped. 

“Nothin’ t’be sorry for.” He said after a few minutes of uneven breathing, eyes trained on your hands, thumb running over the back of your fingers. 

“You don’t want me.” 

It wasn’t a question. 

He glanced up, something razor sharp in his eyes. You flinched a little, but his hand tightened on yours. 

“You don’t have to—We don’t have to bond,” you tripped over the last word. “It’s okay.” 

“Obviously it’s not, bird.” 

Your heart sunk and you glanced away. A one in eight billion chance was sitting under your nose for months, and he wanted nothing to do with you. He was being forced into it.

“I’m sorry,” you murmured again. “Ghost, I’m—”

“Simon,” he corrected.  

“Simon,” you echoed. 

He curled his hands around your wrists, lifted your palms to the bottom of his mask. He let your hands settle at the base of his throat, eyes never leaving yours. “I didn’t want you,” he said plainly. “I never wanted you to know.” 

You swallowed and nodded. “I’m s—” 

“No.”

You closed your mouth with a click of your jaw. You don’t expect a speech and he doesn’t give you one. “You deserve better,” he said. “But I’m all you get.” 

His knee touched yours. Your faces were tilted together, so close that the only thing you could see were the soft depths of his eyes reflecting the gold light.

It didn’t feel close enough. 

You wished it were all different. 

That he didn’t feel forced, that you were what he wanted. 

“I deserve you. Isn’t that the point?” 

He watched you for a long moment, an unreadable expression on his face, then nodded. 

“Go on, then.” 

Your throat felt tight as you tugged the mask upwards, heart lurching when you recognized the same scar on your throat on his. You pushed the fabric over his chin and mouth, up until you could pull it over his head. 

You looked at him, the same scar over his mouth, along his cheek, the bridge of his nose was nicked, the outline of burn scarring crossed the edge of his jaw and neck. When you looked past that, you saw him. Crooked nose, thick, furrowed brows, dark eyes you’d loved for a long time cast darker by the black around them, light eyelashes and hair, longer on top and curling. 

Something seemed to. . .snap then. A warmth broke between you, filled that awful, dark, pained well in your chest. It hurt, but the pain was brief, like stitches done by a seasoned medic. 

Breathing was easier. You could feel the pulse of him without the threat of imminent pain. It was a warm, comforting, safe thing in your lungs. You inhaled, attempted to stand, to give him a bit of space. “Should be able to separate now. Shall we test it—” 

You didn’t get a chance to move away, tugged suddenly from your seat and into his lap. You fell heavily against his chest, wrapped tightly in his arms, foreheads slanted together. 

“No,” he said, sounding, for the first time since you’ve known him, breathless. “No.” 

“I don’t want to.” 

“Good.” 

“Can I touch you?” 

“Can do anything you like to me, bird.” 

You stroked the side of his throat, felt him shiver. “Well, I won’t. Not anything.” 

He made a content noise of agreement. 

You touched his jaw, his cheek, the tail of his brow, the faded check through it that you’d never noticed matched your own. His arms tightened around you in increments until the pressure forced you to take shallow breaths. “You’re beautiful.” 

“Lookin’ in a mirror, are you?” 

“Sort of,” you answered. “A little.” 

His hands shifted, anchored on your hips, and pushed you back a little. 

Disappointment that it was over so soon pinched at your throat but you backed off, attempting to slide from his lap. His hand caught at your hip. “Stop trying to bloody move.” 

“What—” 

He was only taking off the vest, which probably should have been left at the base. It dropped heavily to the floor as he pulled you against his chest. It was warmer, softer like that, thick muscle coiled beneath your cheek when you rested it against his shoulder, heartbeat hard against yours.  

“No more pain?” 

“None.” 

“Good.” 

You pushed your face against his throat, felt him tense and then uncoil. One large hand cupped the back of your neck, holding you there. You brushed your lips against his pulse point, felt a scarred flutter against your mouth, a muted grunt.

“You’re all I want,” you admitted quietly. “I think I knew. I think everyone knew. I’m sorry,” you finally said, “that I’m not who you need.”  

His hand squeezes your neck and then he’s pushing you down against the cushions, pressing one massive thigh between your legs, hauling you closer like it could never be close enough. The space between your bodies would always be too large, because you couldn’t climb into his chest, nest among his veins. 

It would have to do then, his hand tilting your jaw up, his eyes searching yours as you part your lips. 

“You are, sweet’eart,” he said simply, mouth brushing yours before he kissed you properly. 

He tasted of black tea; his eyeblack rubs off on your temples. 

Already, he was leaving pieces of himself behind with you to mark safe.

“Simon,” you murmured against his mouth. Just to say it, just to be rewarded with a shudder.

The kiss slipped into something more desperate, your hands felt the skin of his back, your own scar on his elbow, and you thought, maybe, you could become what he needed.  

They finished handoff in under ten minutes. Robby gathered his things and headed for the doors. Jack followed. That was…unusual. Typically, he jumped right into his shift but tonight, he fell into step beside Robby, hands in his pockets.

The air outside was cool as he caught Robby’s elbow and pulled him off to the side and out of the way.

“She met me for breakfast this morning.”

“Did you tell her?” Robby’s voice came out rough, broken. “About how sorry I am? That I’ve started seeing Gemmill again? That I’m…Jesus, Jack, did you tell her I’m falling apart without her?”

Jack crossed his arms over his chest and nodded once. “I told her.”

“And?”

“She was going to walk out until I promised to stop talking about you.”

Robby stared at him. “What?”

“She says you have to make the effort on your own, without me being in the middle.” Jack’s voice was quiet, steady. “I won’t risk losing her, Mike. Not even for you.”

Robby felt something inside of him just collapse. A slow, inward crumpling of the little bit of hope he’d held that Jack could help him fix this. He dragged a hand over his beard. His hand was shaking and he stuffed it into the pocket of his hoodie.

“So, what do I do, Jack? How do I fix this?” The question came out small, pleading. He’d fucked up, lost his way, and he needed Jack to help him find the way out.

Jack huffed out a breath. “Well, first you need to quit trying to buy her affections.”

Pure white-hot panic shot through Robby. “I’m not…that’s not what I’m doing. Is that what she thinks I’m doing?”

Jack nodded. “You accused her of using us for our money and now you’re…well, you’re using our money to try to get her to forgive you. That’s not going to work, babe.”

“I just need her to talk to me,” Robby said, the words sounding pathetic even to his own ears. Pathetic but true.

Jack clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, try something else, because that’s not working.”

Then he was gone, heading back into the depths of the Pitt, leaving Robby alone in the ambulance bay. He walked home in the dark, and he didn’t cry. He was too tired for tears. He was tired and alone and the silence in his head was louder than any trauma bay had ever been.

A knock came at four in the afternoon when you were working on a spreadsheet for your grandfather’s foundation. You paused, saved and set your laptop aside. You knew what it was before you opened the door. Another delivery with no communication, no heart behind it. You sighed.

When you opened the door, you were surprised to be met with a wrapped bouquet on the doorstep rather than a careful display. It was the kind of arrangement that looked like someone had had gone into a field and picked whatever was in bloom. They were beautiful in an unrefined way, nothing like the formal bouquets that preceded them. You carried them into the kitchen, setting them on the counter while you filled a vase with water.

The note was tucked between two stems, folded in half. Your fingers found it as you started to arrange the flowers. Robby’s handwriting was unmistakable, a hurried slanting script that always looked like he’d been rushed through whatever he was writing.

I’m sorry.

Two words. Nothing else.

But it was enough to cause the slightest lift of the corner of your mouth. He was learning. The flowers had a personal touch finally and he’d written a note. A stupid, short note but it was a start. You set the note on the counter beside the vase and went back to work.

The next day, the knock came around lunch time. A teenager handed you a delivery of soup from the deli near the hospital that Robby favored. You opened it and inhaled the aroma of your favorite offering from there. You ate it standing at the counter, spoon scraping the bottom of the container. When you went to throw the bag away, you found the note in the bottom.

I miss you.

You set it with the first note and went on about your day.

The third delivery arrived the following afternoon. Pastries from your favorite bakery. Three of your favorite treats nestled inside the bag. This note contained only one word. Please.

You rolled your eyes and set the note with the others. The anger had burned itself out. The pain less sharp than it had been. You’d cried it away on your couch. Shouted it into your pillow. Let it run through you until there was nothing left but remnants. Jack had told you Robby was back in therapy. You’d turned the information over in your head for days. It changed the shape of things. Just a bit. Enough for you to acknowledge that he was aware that what he’d done was inexcusable. And that he was attempting to make certain it never happened again.

Understanding didn’t mean forgiveness. It was merely the first step toward a conversation you weren’t ready to have just yet.

Notes accumulated on your counter. I’m sorry. I miss you. Please. I’m thinking of you. I was wrong. Short. Unpolished. All written by Robby’s own hand. You’d read them all precisely once before adding them to the pile on the counter and returning to whatever task you’d been working at when they arrived. You appreciated the thought behind every bouquet, every meal, every cup of coffee. But thought wasn’t enough.

Not responding had nothing to do with punishment. It was about respecting yourself. You loved him. God, you loved that stupid, broken, beautiful man. But you loved yourself enough to wait for something real. The brief notes weren’t it. The flowers weren’t it. The rent most definitely wasn’t it. You were waiting for words that hadn’t come yet. The words that acknowledged not just that he was sorry but why. The understanding of what he’d done and how fundamentally it had hurt you. Of the damage he had done. You needed something deeper than a couple of words tucked amongst the flower stems.

He had broken you. He’d taken away the trust you had, the feeling of safety and security. The home you had with him and Jack. Until he recognized all of that, there was no room for him in your life.

The Luck of the Draw hummed with activity even on a Tuesday night. Sam’s endeavor was a success and you couldn’t be prouder of him. The customers had only increased since your livestream of Chelsea’s humiliation. Word spread fast that the owner was your bestie and he was enjoying the rewards. He’d begged you to pick up a few shifts until he could get another permanent bartender on board.

You moved behind the bar with the ease of many long nights working in the same spot, reaching for bottles without really looking. You mixed drinks and carried on conversations with the customers. Sam worked beside you, his dark hair falling across his forehead as he shook a cocktail vigorously.

“Take it easy, Reynolds.”

“Gotta put on a show for the ladies.”

You blinked at him. “No one is impressed by you shaking the hell out of a whiskey sour.”

Sam shrugged. “A man can dream.”

“Idiot,” you said, affectionately. All of your best friends were idiots, but they were your idiots.

The door opened and you glanced up only to freeze for a beat as your gaze landed on Robby.

He was still in his clothes from the hospital. His beard had gotten a little longer, or maybe he just hadn’t groomed it. You usually did it for him. He looked tired. No, he looked like a man who hadn’t properly slept in weeks. He took a seat on a stool at the far end of the bar, as far from you as he could, and set his elbows on the polished wood. Your eyes met his. One second, then two. And then you looked away and didn’t look back.

Sam’s gaze flicked from Robby to you and back again. His back straightened and you recognized that flash of protective instinct he’d carried for you since high school. The one that had gotten him suspended when he punched your junior prom date for trying to feel you up. He moved to you and leaned in.

“You want him gone?”

You shook your head. “No, it’s fine.”

“You sure?”

“It’s fine, Sam.” You poured two fingers of whiskey and handed it to him. “That’ll be his order.”

Sam studied you for a beat, then nodded and went to deliver the drink without a word to Robby. And you worked. You opened beers and made drinks and laughed at bad jokes from the regulars. Through it all you felt the weight of Robby’s eyes on you. You knew without turning exactly how he was sitting. Elbows on the bar, one hand around the glass he wasn’t drinking from while he watched you move through your world.

An hour passed, the customers changed out. Robby’s drink was still mostly full, he’d barely sipped at it. He’d just sat there, watching you. When he finally stood, you didn’t turn. You heard the stool slide back, watched from the corner of your eye as he left too much money on the bar top. Your gaze followed him as he left and you sighed as tension flowed from your shoulders.

As you were walking home just after midnight, your phone buzzed in your pocket. You waited until you got to your building to check it.

I’m sorry. I just needed to see you. I miss you. I love you.

You stared at the words as you rode the elevator up, too tired for the stairs. Your thumb hovered over the keyboard before you typed a response.

Laying in the bed that was too big without you or Jack, Robby stared at the ceiling. His phone vibrated on his chest and he grabbed it, fingers fumbling in his hurry.

I miss you too

His mouth curved just slightly. He read it again. And again. Elation rose in his chest. This was the first contact he’d had from you and it wasn’t telling him to fuck off.

But he was just as aware of what you didn’t say. Not I love you too. Not I forgive you. Just I miss you too. But it was a start. An opening he wasn’t going to mar with what wasn’t said.

He sent a message to Jack asking him to call if he had a minute.

The phone rang almost immediately. “What’s up?” Jack greeted when Robby answered.

“I went to the bar. I needed to see her.” He needed Jack to know but he worried the other man would be angry.

Jack’s voice was completely normal however when he asked, “Did you speak to her?”

Robby shook his head though Jack couldn’t see it. “No. I just…watched. Sent her a message after I left.”

“And what did you say?”

“That I’m sorry and that I miss her and love her.” The words were rough around the edges. “She told me she missed me too.”

“That’s good. She didn’t shut you down, not completely.”

Robby swallowed the lump in his throat. “Do you think she still loves me? She didn’t say it.”

“I know she does.” Jack’s voice was quiet. “But I’m pretty sure you haven’t earned her saying it yet, baby.”

There was a long stretch of silence. “Yeah. Thank you, Jack. I love you.”

“I love you, too. Get some sleep.”

Robby disconnected the call and looked at your message one more time before putting the phone on the nightstand. He went back to staring at the ceiling, hot tears leaking from his eyes.

He was back the next time you worked. Same stool, same tired eyes and hunched shoulders. Another glass of whiskey sat in front of him barely touched. He watched you for an hour before shuffling out the door to go home to an empty house. When he left, your phone buzzed with another message.

I miss you. I love you. I’m so fucking sorry.

This time you didn’t respond.

The third night, Sam came over, leaning against the counter beside you. “Should I be concerned that he always seems to know when you’re here?” He tilted his head toward Robby who was sitting in his usual spot, staring into his untouched drink. “He’s not stalking you, is he?”

That pulled a laugh from you. “Pretty sure he has more important things to do with his time.” You shrugged. “I shared my location with him and Jack months ago. Never changed it.”

Sam’s eyebrows went up. “Huh.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Just. It’s a very easy thing to fix. Couple of seconds on your phone and no more sharing if you were so inclined.”

You huffed in annoyance. “Well, I’m not so inclined so drop it.”

He raised his hands and backed away. “Understood.”

Robby had been sitting there for forty minutes, looking more forlorn than the last time he’d been in. You set down the glass you’d been drying, squared your shoulders and walked the length of the bar. He didn’t see you coming at first, staring at his drink, one finger tracing the lines of the glass. And then he did.

His head came up. His face changed. The tired lines around his eyes smoothed. His mouth opened, just slightly, like he wanted to say something but didn’t know what. Finally, he settled on, “Hi.” His voice was rough and he cleared his throat. “Hi.”

“You have to stop this, Robby.” He flinched at the name. You kept your voice low so only he could hear you. “You can’t keep coming here. Watching me. It’s…I miss you and this is too hard on me. Do you understand that?”

He nodded once, quick. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just…” He stopped, swallowed. “It’s the only way I can see you.”

You started to turn away. His hand came down to rest on yours where it sat on the bar top. His palm was warm, his skin dry and rough from the endless amount of sanitizer he used all day long. You looked at his hand on yours and then up to his face.

“I’m off tomorrow. Let me take you out to breakfast. Or lunch. Coffee. I just want to talk to you. Please.” The words spilled from his lips like he was incapable of holding them back, desperate to be heard.

You studied him. The gray in his beard. The shadows under his eyes. The desperate hope in his gaze. You could feel your resolve cracking, not because of the flowers or the notes or the rent money, but because of this. Because of the man sitting in front of you asking for a conversation, his hand on yours like he was afraid you’d disappear if he let go.

“I’ll think about you,” you finally said. “I’ll let you know.”

He nodded. Didn’t push. Didn’t say another word. His hand left yours, the absence leaving you cold. He stood, dropped too much cash on the bar as usual and walked out, pausing at the door to look back once. With a nod he stepped outside, the door swinging shut behind him.

A couple of hours after Robby left, you were moving constantly, serving a steady flow of customers. You didn’t see the fight start. One minute a table by the dancefloor was just a table. Four guys drinking and laughing about whatever. The next, there was shouting, the scrape of chairs and the unmistakable sound of breaking glass. A pint glass shattered on the floor in a spray of amber liquid and sharp edges.

“Hey!” Sam’s voice cut through the noise. “Knock it off!”

The two men, both large and at least slightly drunk, shoved each other, chest to chest, voices raised. You couldn’t make out the words, but you supposed it didn’t really matter. Another man soon joined the fray and then another. One of the tables fell over with a crash and people moved out of the way. Some headed for the door, others just the edges of the room.

Sam vaulted the bar in one smooth motion. “Stay put!” he yelled in your direction without looking back.

You ignored him completely, moving out from behind the bar intent on bringing up the lights and shutting down the music. The brawl spilled sideways as four guys became five which became seven as a couple of the regulars jumped in to help Sam break it up. You reached the switches and cut the music while you brought the lights up to full intensity. As you turned to check on the chaos behind you, a bottle arched through the air from somewhere in the melee.

You saw it coming. You registered it was going to hit you and you should get the hell out of the way. Unfortunately, your body was about half a second behind. The bottle hit you square on the head, just at the edge of your hairline above your left eyebrow. The crack was immediate and stunning, a sound you felt more than heard, followed by a sharp flare of pain that radiated out from the point of impact. “Motherfucker,” you shouted as your vision blurred.

Hands grasped your arm and tugged you back behind the bar. Kira, one of the waitresses, pressed a folded bar towel against the wound. Her hold was firm, insistent. “Hold this. Press. Hard. I’m gonna help Sam clear the bar.”

You did as she said. The towel was immediately warm and wet against your skin. Fuck. You could feel blood running down the side of your face.

On the floor, Sam had one of the fighters in a headlock and was dragging him toward the door. Two of the regulars followed behind with two other assholes. The remaining customers were closing tabs and gathering their things before heading for the exit. It took less than ten minutes for the bar to clear after that until it was just you, Sam and Kira left with the broken glass on the floor and the blood running from your head.

Sam came straight to you once the last patron was out the door. His face was flushed and he was disheveled from the fight. His hands were steady as he lifted the towel from your forehead.

His expression did the talking. His mouth tightened and his eyes shone with worry. “Sorry, beautiful,” he said, pressing the towel back firmly. His thumb brushed your cheek, wiping away a streak of blood. “Looks like a trip to see your boyfriend at the hospital.”

You wake to the sensation of soft kisses brushed against your skin—your forehead, your cheek, and your chin. It's the best sleep you've had in months, muscles warm and at ease. The feeling grows with each kiss as you're reminded of the fact that last night was real.

Jack loves you.

It wasn't just a vivid dream; the tender kisses he places on your skin confirm that. You're tempted to pretend to stay asleep just to enjoy more of this, but you instinctively scrunch your nose as his lips land on it, his scruff tickling you gently.

"Morning," he murmurs warmly, his voice husky with sleep, as he breathes against your cheek. You can feel his smile before your eyes fully open as he presses another soft kiss to your face.

Jack rests on one elbow, his hair tousled, with the soft morning light catching the strands that are more white than grey. God, he's handsome.

Yesterday, you might have convinced yourself that this look of adoration he’s giving you is just a figment of your imagination, but today, you know it’s real. He’s actually gazing at you like this, as if nothing else matters—not your messy morning hair nor yesterday’s mascara remnants around your eyes. He simply looks like he’s glad you’re here with him.

"Morning," you grin back, stifling a yawn into your hand.

His smile broadens. "Hi."

You chuckle softly. "Hi."

He keeps staring at you with a smile on his face. His other hand finds your waist, and your cheeks flush in response as he drags you closer. Although his touch isn’t new, the familiarity feels different now—seeing as you now know the intent behind it means what you want it to.

"What?" you ask, a bit self-conscious, rubbing your eyes in hopes of wiping away the stubborn mascara stains.

"Nothing," he shrugs, yet the grin on his face suggests otherwise.

"Jack." You pout at him and watch as his gaze drops down to your lips.

"I just..." he laughs lightly and shakes his head. "I can’t believe this is real."

You know exactly how he feels, and you hope he's able to see it in your eyes. If he doesn't, then you hope he feels it as your hand brushes through his wild strands. His eyes flutter shut under your touch, and when he opens them again, you’re convinced he does.

You both lock eyes for a moment before he leans forward. At the last moment, you turn your head, and his kiss lands on your cheek instead. He makes a comically disgruntled noise.

"I haven't brushed my teeth yet," you lament, though unable to suppress your laughter at his pouty face.

"I don't care," Jack says, placing a kiss against your jaw.

"Jack," you giggle louder. "I’m serious. My breath stinks."

"I've wanted to do this for months," he says, pressing another kiss to your cheek. "A little morning breath won’t stop me. Honestly, you could have rotten teeth, and I’d still kiss you."

"Ew," you grimace, but he just laughs and plants another kiss at the corner of your mouth.

You debate it for a second, then your cringe morphs into a grin as you lean in, stealing a quick kiss from his lips.

When you pull back, Jack stares at you with wide eyes. You can see when realisation hits him; his eyes darken, and he leans in quickly, giving you no chance to dodge him again. His mouth meets yours, soft yet persistent, each kiss lingering a bit longer than the last. He swallows your giggles with his lips, but he can't help but laugh, too.

Eventually, he presses his forehead against yours, and you stay there for a little while, wrapped up in each other, letting the reality of last night fully settle. The room is quiet except for your breathing, and for the first time since yesterday, the silence feels comfortable.

"I missed waking up next to you," Jack confesses, his voice low in your ear.

You press a kiss to his cheek before resting your head against his shoulder. "Me too."

You breathe in, nose buried deep in the crook of his throat, and his arms tighten around you when he realises what you're doing—breathing in the scent that's purely him. You've never been able to do this freely, and it feels surreal to be able to be this close with no excuses needed.

The moment's broken when your alarm rings softly. Jack shifts to turn it off while still holding you close, and makes no move to let you go or get up.

"We need to get up," you say after a minute, trying to pull back.

"Says who?" he answers cheekily, pulling you in even closer.

"Check-out, for one," you reply, pushing gently against his chest. "And I’d like to shower before we have to sit in an enclosed space for two hours."

"What if I like the way you smell?" he says, and usually, your stomach would be fluttering at a sentence like that, but you know him too well—

"—Fritos are my favourite chips," he continues. His chest bounces a bit as you playfully swat him.

"Rude," you grin, and this time he allows you to slip out of his grasp. "And you’re a liar. I know your favourite isn’t Fritos."

"Says who?" he repeats with a grin as he watches you sit up. You move to the edge of the bed, and he sits up to be able to see you better.

"Says the several bags of Doritos in your cabinets," you counter with a raised eyebrow. You move to slide off the bed, but he catches your arm, pulling you back over to him.

"Ja-ack," you laugh as you land against his chest.

"Those are for Robby," Jack says, and before you can argue, his mouth captures yours again. He keeps you there for another five minutes before your alarm blares again.

"Fine," he concedes when you pull back again. "Just leave me all alone here."

You shuffle forward, but pause at the doorway to the bathroom, meeting his eyes with a mischievous smile. "You could always join me."

Jack freezes, and you can see him process the offer—the way his eyes darken and the slight swallow as his gaze trails over you.

"Or not," you shrug, stifling a grin as you turn away.

He's got his crutches in his hands before your sentence finishes.

The checkout line is ridiculously long, and under normal circumstances, you’d complain about it—after all, how hard can it be to hand over a keycard and walk out? But with Jack’s arm wrapped around your waist and soft kisses peppered onto your hairline, you just can’t find the energy to care.

Even as Jack offers to give you his car keys, so you can wait in the car, you shake your head. You want to stay close to him despite the line barely moving. The lobby is crowded, and it really makes no sense for both of you to be standing here. Still, after spending weeks keeping your distance, torturing yourself, the thought of being apart now feels absurd.

Jack doesn’t push the issue; he simply nods and pulls you closer again. You're plastered to his side for the ten minutes it takes before you finally reach the desk.

"Hey," a warm voice greets you just as Jack hands over the keycard. Jeremy stands off to the side, a bag slung over his shoulder, sunglasses pushed up into his hair.

"Hi," you respond with a smile, stepping out of the queue to approach him.

He returns your smile. "I’m glad I caught you—you left before I could tell you how nice it was to see you again yesterday."

"Oh, sorry about that," you start, embarrassment flaring at the reminder of your jealous outburst. "I had—"

"We had some stuff to do," Jack interjects, slipping an arm around your waist again. He gives Jeremy a tight smile.

"Oh, don't worry about it," Jeremy responds. "Warren was asking about you, but honestly, I’m not sure she even remembers anything now." He leans in a little closer, lowering his voice to a whisper. "I had to extend her hotel room for her—she got pretty wasted after you left. The ushers had to escort her to her room after she threw up in the plants in the hallway."

"What? Really?" Laughter bubbles out of you. "Well, that's very professional."

Jack squeezes your waist admonishingly but still huffs an amused breath.

Jeremy grins. "Anyway, it was great to see you again. You’ve really done well for yourself, Sleepy." He nods at you, then glances at Jack, offering him a nod as well.

"You too," you say, and you mean it. Jeremy was a great guy in med school, even if he wasn't the best at relationships back then, but you're sure he's grown up more. You certainly have.

You're more certain of what you want, more certain of what you deserve, and somehow, that has landed you with Jack.

"Maybe we'll see you around," you finish. Presby isn't that far from PTMC after all.

"Yeah, I hope so," Jeremy replies, pulling his sunglasses down. He smiles at you one last time before he walks off. "Get home safe."

Jack grumbles something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like 'yeah, I hope so' as he steers you towards the exit. He keeps a neutral face until you're outside, where it turns sullen. A laugh escapes you the moment you’re near the car, and away from prying eyes.

Jack narrows his eyes at you as he pops open the trunk. "What’s so funny?"

Another laugh leaves you. "You're just a silly, jealous man."

"I'm not silly," he replies immediately as he places your bags inside the trunk before shutting it again.

"That's the part you focus on?"

"I'm not jealous," he insists, crossing his arms.

You tilt your head, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm not."

"Hey," you say, stepping closer. His arms drop the moment you gently press down on them. You curl your fingers into the front of his t-shirt. "You have nothing to be jealous of."

Jack huffs, staring at your hands.

"Jack."

His eyes lift to yours.

"I love you." The words still feel new in your mouth, but no less right.

His eyes search yours, still checking after everything revealed yesterday that you mean it. The tight line of his mouth softens when he finds a satisfying answer.

You draw him in closer. "Okay?"

"Okay." His hand slides to your cheek and you meet him halfway, your lips pressing together in a tender kiss.

A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth when he pulls back. "Let's go home."

Coming home feels strange.

Not in a bad way, but it feels different than it did when you left. The air has shifted inside, the furniture moved without being an inch out of place, and the smell is different, and yet everything is exactly the same.

Jack's sweater still hangs over the back of the dining room chair. Your blanket is still draped across the couch, unfolded in that way Jack always grumbles over, but never does anything about.

Everything feels new and somehow the exact same. The only different thing is you and Jack. There's finally nothing unspoken between you, with all cards on the table. No uncertainty, no wondering, no pretending.

There's still the question of what this means for you, but it doesn't feel pressing. It's just there in the background, waiting until the moment feels right. There's no rush to speak.

You're free to enjoy this moment for what it is. The pleasantness from the drive, where Jack spent the entire trip with his hand firmly planted on your thigh, carries into the house.

The bags get unpacked together, clothes thrown into the washer by four hands rather than two. You follow Jack to the bedroom when he puts the bags away; he follows you into the bathroom when you put your toiletries back. You make lunch together, hips nudging, shoulders brushing—a task that normally takes ten stretches into thirty because neither of you can stop talking and laughing.

He keeps looking at you like he still can't believe it's real. You can keep leaning in close to prove to him that it is.

The day settles eventually as you both curl up on the couch with books. The laundry tumbles quietly in the background as warm sunlight spills in through the living room windows.

You're leaning against his chest, reading, but more focused on the hand that's trailing slowly up and down your arm. Every so often, you glance at him out of the corner of your eye, catching the scruff on his jaw that's slightly longer than usual, the way he scrunches his nose at passages in his book, and how his face is relaxed in a way you haven't seen before.

As if sensing you, he glances over at you. His mouth immediately curves into a smile when he catches you swiftly looking away. He huffs a little cute sound, squeezing your shoulder.

You grin into your book, nudging his leg with your hand. You try to refocus on the pages, but it doesn't take long before you're blinking heavily. Without even really thinking about it, you slide down until your head is resting on his lap instead.

Jack's hand follows soundly, petting your head softly and lulling you to sleep.

By evening, neither of you has spent more than a few minutes apart.

Dinner comes and goes. The dishes get washed. The laundry gets folded. Around you, the house gradually darkens, shadows stretching across familiar rooms. You try to stay awake as long as possible, hoping to drag your sleeping schedule back toward something resembling normal before your next shift. By the seventh yawn in under a minute, Jack gives you a look.

"Okay," he says with an amused huff. "Time for bed."

You grumble half-heartedly but still let him steer you toward the bedroom. Blearily, you grab at clothes in the closet. Jack doesn't comment on the fact that you grab one of his shirts, just glances at it with a pleased smile before he heads into the bathroom.

When he's done, you brush past him in just his shirt and underwear that he can't see, biting back a smile at when he swallows harshly. You don't fight the grin once you're alone in the bathroom, letting the giddy feeling take over.

Your phone vibrates against the counter, just as you've put your toothbrush into your mouth.

>> Hello??? Are you alive?!

It's Olivia. Fuck. She's already texted you three times earlier today, and you'd ignored her, unsure of what to say that won't reveal everything immediately.

<< Yes

>> That's it??

<< Yes, I'm fine <3

You add the heart, toothbrush hanging loosely from your mouth as you try to act normal.

>> Uh huh. How did it go?

You can picture her narrowed eyes when you read it. Your thumbs hover over the screen for a minute, thinking of what to say.

<< It was fine. Nothing worth mentioning.

You can see her typing, deleting, then typing again several times.

>> And what about Jack?

<< He's fine, too.

You pause before adding:

<< We're fine. Things are okay again.

>> What does that mean??

You take too long to answer her, but her following text shows that it doesn't really matter anyway—she knows you too well.

>> oh😏

When you reemerge, you've decided to keep this to yourself until the morning. No need to reveal to Jack that the plan has failed immediately. This can still be just yours tonight.

He sits against the headboard, prosthetic off, and duvet covering his lap. He looks nervous. "Are you gonna—?" He gestures vaguely toward the empty side of the bed before clearing his throat. "I mean..."

The uncertainty in his voice surprises you. You'd just spent the entire day together, and he's unsure if you want to share the bed. It's kinda cute.

"Yeah," you say softly. "If that's okay?"

His answer comes fast. "Of course it's okay." He pauses. "I just didn't know if—" he shrugs, trailing off.

You climb into bed, into the arm that was waiting for you. You both sink down until your head settles against his chest, listening to the familiar rhythm of his heartbeat.

You guess this is as good a moment as any other to finally have the conversation.

"I...uh—" you start. "I have the divorce papers printed on my desk."

Jack goes very still.

"I also still have that apartment viewing on Thursday." You stare at a loose thread on his shirt. "I know we've done this in a weird order. Getting married, moving in together, and then confessing."

You force out a laugh. "If you want to do this properly, we can."

The room goes quiet. Jack's arm tightens around you. "Properly?"

"You know." You shrug. "Dating. Separate places. Normal people stuff."

For a moment, he doesn't say anything; then, he says: "Do you want that?"

The question catches you off guard. You hesitate but answer truthfully. "No."

Jack lets out a breath. Just a small exhale that sounds suspiciously like relief. "Oh."

You lift your head. "Oh?"

Jack's mouth twitches. "I don't either." He rubs the back of his neck. "But I don't want you staying because you think you have to."

Your chest squeezes. "Jack."

"You've spent months trying to make decisions based on what you thought I wanted." His fingers trace idle patterns against your arm. "I'd rather know what you want."

You stare at him for a second. "I want to stay. I want to stay here."

His eyes soften immediately. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay." A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "We don't have to rush to figure things out. I like having you here. We can't figure the rest out later."

"Yeah?"

"Mm," he hums, his grip tightening around you. "I slept like shit when you weren't here. I'd prefer not to do that again."

You huff a breath. "Me too."

Even though the apartment had been nicer than the others you'd looked at, you really didn't want to move. You're happy he feels the same as you do. Maybe it doesn't matter if you do this in an order that doesn't make the most sense—as long as it makes sense to you, that's all that matters.

The room quiets again until Jack speaks again. "Can I ask you something?"

Your chest tightens, but you still nod.

"Why Lily?"

You knew he was going to ask eventually, but it doesn't make it any less embarrassing. You sigh into his chest. "That day—" you don't have to specify which, he already knows. "The way you ran inside looking terrified—"

You swallow. "And how you yelled at me after..." The memory of it still stings now, even after his countless apologies. "It was the difference in how you treated me and her."

"I'm sorry," he says again.

"I know."

"No." His voice is quiet. "I need you to understand what happened."

You lift your head enough to look at him.

"I got there seconds after—" His jaw tightens. "I barely managed to pull you away. I was already petrified when I heard the code being called. I could only imagine you—" he stops, breathing heavily. "...I can't explain what that felt like."

He continues, "When I realised it wasn't you, I was relieved. And then I felt guilty for being relieved because someone had still gotten hurt, but all I could think about was how happy I was that it wasn't you."

The confession lands heavily between you.

"I was scared out of my mind. Angry at the patient. Relieved that you weren't hurt. Guilty that I was relieved. All at once. And I took it out on you. I'm sorry."

You squeeze his hand.

His eyes find yours. "It was never about Lily."

You believe him. Now, you do. But back then? Back then, you'd been drowning in uncertainty.

You shrug helplessly, revealing more of how you felt. "After that, I started noticing every little thing. The way you talked to her. The way she made you laugh."

"You make me laugh," he says firmly.

You roll your eyes at him, a slight smile tugging on your lips. "I think I was trying to make peace with losing you. If I wasn't the one for you, then she could be. She could be better for you. Kinder than me. Easier than me."

Jack's face falls. "Sweetheart..."

Your mouth twitches sadly, looking down at his shirt again.

"You genuinely thought that?"

You nod.

His hand comes up to cradle your cheek, lifting your gaze back to his. "Do you have any idea how much time I spent wishing you'd look at me the way I looked at you?" His thumb brushes across your skin. "It was always you."

You close your eyes, leaning into his touch. You sigh. "We wasted so much time."

"Yeah."

Moments stolen by fear and assumptions and bad timing. You think about every dinner that could have been a date. Every movie night spent pretending not to notice how close he sat. Every almost-confession. Every chance that slipped away.

But now, everything's finally out in the open. The conversation drifts after that. You talk about everything. The first dinner. The first kiss. The kiss cam. The bar. Every misunderstanding. Every moment one of you had walked away convinced the other didn't feel the same.

Sometimes you laugh until your stomach hurts. Sometimes you bury your face in a pillow because neither of you can believe how oblivious you've been. Sometimes there's silence while you mourn all the things that could have been.

By the time the conversation finally slows, pale morning light is spilling through the curtains. Your eyes burn with exhaustion, but your chest feels lighter than it has in months.

You don't know what happens next.

You don't know what being married and newly confessed and hopelessly in love is supposed to look like. But for the first time, that uncertainty doesn't scare you. You'll figure it out together.

Beside you, Jack shifts closer beneath the blankets until there's barely any space left between you.

His lips brush your hair. "I love you."

You smile immediately. The confession still feels unreal. "I love you too."

The smile you feel against your forehead is warm and content. And wrapped in his arms, with the future still unwritten and endless possibilities stretching ahead of you, sleep finally finds you both.

The next evening finds you faster than you'd like.

As you step in through the door to the hospital, side by side, it reminds you of the first time you walked in carrying a secret on your shoulders—only this time, your shoulders are light, and your stomach is fluttering with happy jitters.

Somehow, you manage to make your way to the lockers without meeting anyone. With your bags dropped, you sneak a brief kiss against the door before you reenter the Pitt. Jack's hand brushes yours, your pinky catching his for a second, before you take a step apart.

You try to bite back the smile that threatens to break through. If you want this work, you need to stop acting like a lovestruck teenager. It's incredibly hard, though.

Robby stands at the hub, tablet in hand and a frown on his face.

"Rough day?" Jack says, clapping his back. He leans against the counter as you trail closer.

"Yeah... Good luck." Robby rubs his face, dropping the tablet on the counter. When his eyes open, they narrow in on the space between you and Jack—or rather the lack of it.

You shift to the side, trying to act nonchalant, but Robby's a hound. His eyes follow the movement immediately, nose twitching as he tries to sniff out everything you're trying to keep quiet.

"How was the conference?"

"Fine," Jack replies, glancing up at the board. He taps his fingers rhythmically on the counter.

"It was?" Robby raises an eyebrow, staring at him. Jack nods at him, shifting his gaze away quickly. Robby watches him for a moment, then turns to you.

"Mm," you nod, offering a tight smile. "The usual."

Robby stays silent, shifting his gaze from Jack to you, and then he grins widely. He chuckles, "If you so."

"Yeah," Jack nods with an awkward smile.

"Well, that's good." Robby keeps grinning as he pats the counter twice. "I'll see you later." He salutes you, still smiling, then walks off without any further questions.

You stare at his disappearing figure with a sense of dread. With a hand around Jack's wrist, you pull him into a quiet corner, hissing: "He knows."

Jack frowns. "How could he? We were acting normal."

You stare at him. "Normal? If you call 'you not looking at him at all' normal, then yes. Very normal."

"I did look at him."

"For two seconds. Normally, you don't look away at all," you counter.

Jack crosses his arms. "Well...You gave it away to Olivia."

"I didn't—I told her nothing."

"Exactly!" Jack points out. "That's not normal for you."

You stare at him with pinched eyebrows and then sigh. "...Yeah, okay. Maybe I did."

Jack sighs, too. "I guess I did, too." He shrugs, a smile tugging at his lips as he leans closer. "But to be fair, I think we forgot that they've spent months dealing with our sorry asses. Of course, they know. They knew we were in love before we did."

"—Abbot, there you are! Stop hiding in corners with your missus—trauma incoming," Lena interrupts with a wink. She doesn't even look back as she disappears down the hallway.

Jack squeezes your hand briefly on the way out, sending you a soft smile. "See you on the other side."

You watch him disappear around the corner before you head after him. The familiar knot of anxiety never comes. For weeks, every shift had felt like walking a tightrope. Every glance from Jack had meant something, and every action had been dissected. Now, the uncertainty is gone.

The Pitt is still loud. Still chaotic. The same as it always was. It's you who is different.

Across the department, Jack glances back. Just for a second, but long enough to catch your eye. Long enough to smile, and then he's gone into a trauma room.

Jack Abbot knew what he was doing was wrong.

Well, maybe not wrong per se—but it wasn't typical attending behaviour. He knew for a fact he wouldn't guide Crus to an empty patient room if he caught him with a slight limp, knew he wouldn't touch Ellis' bare leg let alone fucking massage it.

The first time it happened he convinced himself that no, it was typical attending behaviour—he was concerned that your pain would affect your ability to treat patients. And yeah, there was a sliver of understanding as well—he knew how hard it was to ignore the physical ache, how once it reached a point it became an obsessive loop of pain, pain, pain.

Having an excuse to touch you, to get close to you—that was just a bonus, it wasn't the sole reason he was helping you. At least that's what he kept on telling himself, to convince himself that the professional boundaries were still there.

The second time he dragged you into an empty patient room, he was able to admit to himself that it wasn't typical attending behaviour. And while helping to relieve your pain wasn't wrong, the thoughts he had with your leg on his lap definitely were.

The thoughts he carried home with him after every shift with you, they were wrong. But, fuck, did they feel so right. Touching himself remembering how your skin felt under his hands, replaying your small pained whimpers and the look of relief on your face —he knew that was wrong. Moaning your name out as he came over his fist and stomach, he knew that was wrong. But no one would ever know—you would never know.

"So," he started, his fingers pressing into the spots on your calf he knew were the worst. "Any more first date horror stories?"

He didn't know why he was asking. He didn't want to know about you going out with other men. But it was on the long list of things about you that kept him up as he tried to sleep—the incessant thoughts about you spending your time with a man that was undeserving. Endless thoughts about another man's hands tending to your knee, hands that were allowed to drift higher and pull sounds from you he could only dream about hearing.

You placed your hands behind you on the patient bed, leaning back on them. "No, I've learned my lesson. Think I might get started early on that whole single, crazy cat lady thing."

His breathy laugh brushed across your bare shin. "Oh, yeah? How's that going?"

You pretended to think for a second with a hum. "I went to an animal shelter the other day, there was a cute three legged cat that I wanted to adopt."

He felt his chest crack open with something warm at the thought of you with a little amputee cat.

"Why didn't you?" His hazel eyes were tender when they met yours.

"Just…don't know if it's the right time. They're much less work than dogs, but it's still a pet—something that would rely on me." You shrugged, looking up at the ceiling because his eyes were too intense. A small wince left you as he worked on a tight knot.

"You're a very reliable person, I'm sure you could manage just fine. Plus, it's a three legged cat—those guys are adorable." He finished with a half smile.

You looked at him again, a small smile gracing your lips. "It sounds like you really want me to adopt this cat."

Jack was ready to go to every animal shelter in Pittsburgh to find that cat himself, if it guaranteed you wouldn't waste any more time on a man that wasn't him.

He finished off the massage with a soft pat to your shin. "If it means that you won't date any more assholes, then yeah, I want you to adopt the damn cat."

You were aware of the eyes on you and Dr. Abbot since he began helping with your knee. It was obvious when Ellis' and Shen's eyes trailed after you both as Abbot steered you towards South seventeen the second time he noticed your pained wince and limp. And it was especially obvious when Nurse Vivi came into what she thought was an empty room, intending to prep it for a patient from chairs.

"Oh! I'm sorry, doctors." She shot you a peculiar smile, her eyes flicking down to your exposed leg. "You okay?"

Dr. Abbot stood up and approached the door that Vivi was half standing in. "Yep. Just an old injury flare up." He said casually, like he did this for every one of his staff. He gave you a single nod before walking back into the ED.

The few hours until the end of your shift after that incident were full of raised eyebrows from Lena and Bridget—mainly directed at Dr. Abbot—and curious side-eyes from Ellis.

Lena approached you in the staff locker room as you grabbed your bag, Ellis doing the same at her locker next to yours.

"Hey, sweetie," she gave you a warm smile. "You know you can tell me if anything, if anyone, is making you uncomfortable, right?"

You felt heat rush up your neck—you understood what she was insinuating immediately. "Yes, of course!"

She tilted her head to the side, a look of suspicion pulling at her features.

You sighed, "it's nothing, really. I have an old sports injury that's been acting up, and Dr. Abbot has been helping when it slows me down."

Lena nodded slightly with a small smile. "He's a good man."

You didn't need the reminder. It was something that had you spiralling while trying to sleep more often than not lately.

"Let us know when it acts up again, okay? An ex once told me I have the hands of a masseuse." She ended with a wink before exiting, throwing a wave at you two over her shoulder.

The fourth and last time Dr. Abbot sat on a stool in front of you, it felt like you were under a microscope. You caught the double takes nurses did as they walked past the open curtain, and the small smirk on Ellis' lips had you wanting to shrink in on yourself.

You couldn't even enjoy the feel of his hands on your skin.

You couldn't enjoy the way his scrub sleeves were pulled taut around his biceps, the fabric straining against his thick muscles. You couldn't enjoy how every tendon in his arm tensed and moved while he massaged your calf, a sight that normally left you speechless—that left you with an ache you could only satiate with your hand between your thighs, imagining it was his instead.

Then there was the way Dr. Abbot looked at you in those brief moments you were alone—like he was memorising every detail about you. It made you want to crawl out of your skin. He was so goddamn attentive, catching every micro-flash of pain your face betrayed. And despite the sinking feeling that what you were doing was wrong, his hands on your skin felt so right—they left you feeling dizzy and flustered every time.

His voice was always softer, the rough edge of his professional doctor side falling away. He spoke to you almost as if you were a friend, and made it seem like this was something he often did with friends.

It was in that soft voice of his that he opened up about his own pain with his amputated leg—telling you the small things he did to help alleviate the pain, recommending you the cream he used, reminding you to take a small break whenever the chaos quietened enough.

"Can't have my best resident suffering," he mumbled, his eyes flicking to your mouth when one of your pained whimpers slipped free.

You chuckled through the tightness in your chest from his praise. "Don't let Ellis or Crus hear you say that—they might swap to the day shift in retaliation."

He let out a scoff. "Nah, they're too weird for the day shift," he gave you one of his signature winks. "Besides, I think Ellis would end up in a fist fight with Robby if she had to spend a full twelve hour shift with him. God knows how many times I've been close to punching him."

You threw your head back with a loud laugh, your body shaking from the intensity. You gave him a teasing smile after you caught your breath. "Isn't he one of your closest friends?"

Jack couldn't stop the full blown grin on his face, the sound of your laughter filling his body with a warmth he hadn't felt in a long time.

"And? You telling me you haven't wanted to cause your friends physical harm when they were being dicks?"

Another giggle slipped out of you. "Yeah, you've got me there. Santos has a photo of a bruise I gave her when we went out a few weeks ago." You held up a finger as his eyes shot up to yours, his eyebrows raised in surprise and his mouth parting to no doubt give you shit. "Before you say anything, she totally deserved it."

He shook his head with a small laugh, squinting his eyes at you. "I'm sure she did."

He finished massaging your leg, rolling your scrub pant down over your knee. He flashed you a small smirk before giving your calf a light pinch.

"I always knew you had a fiery side."

Fuck.

At the end of your next shift was when you realised how serious it really was. You were standing in the ambulance bay before morning rounds, catching a breath of fresh air when Dana joined you outside.

"I can already feel this is gonna be a long one," she huffed, pulling out a cigarette and lighter.

She lit the cigarette and took a long drag before looking at you with a glint in her eye. "You nightcrawlers are great at leaving a mess behind."

"Hey, that's not on me. I clean up after my weirdos." You crossed your arms over your chest and leaned against the exterior wall.

"You ever think about coming back to us, kid?" She flicked the butt of her cigarette, bringing it to her lips for another puff. "Step back into the light, you need the sunshine." She patted your cheek lightly.

You rolled your eyes fondly. "Always the mama bear, Dana. I get plenty of light, seeing as how my shift finishes when the sun comes up."

She let out a soft chuckle. "Touché."

She cleared her throat softly before taking a step closer and laying a hand on your arm. Her voice dropped low, soft. "Nurses, they like to talk. And you have been a hot topic lately, missy."

You tensed immediately, a nervous laugh slipping past your lips. "What—what are you talking about? Has my…work been called into question?"

She rubbed your arm with a squeeze. "No, no, nothing like that. People are just worried, maybe a little intrigued. Is there anything I should know, doll?"

"Is this about Dr. Abbot?"

She gave you a brief nod and you sighed, your head dropping forward. The exhaustion from the twelve hour shift was bordering on unbearable and all you wanted was to crawl into bed.

"I swear, nothing is happening. I would never do that, would never jeopardise my career like that. He just happened to notice my knee injury a few weeks back and has been helping when it hurts. I told Lena all this…" you trailed off, your voice dropping to a mumble.

She finished her cigarette, pressing the butt against the wall before chucking it in the bin next to her. She turned back to you, a look of understanding on her face and a glimmer in her eye.

"Okay, I just wanted to hear it from you." She pulled you into a side hug, squeezing tight. "I'll tell the rumour mill to pipe down, don't want you running off before you become an attending."

You both walked back into the ED, only one of you aware of the conversation that was happening on the hospital's rooftop.

The brisk morning air was biting on the roof, tingling Robby's cheeks as he pushed the door open and let it swing shut with a loud thud behind him.

Jack was leaning against the roof's railing, both arms braced against the cold metal with tension lining his shoulders. He didn't bother turning—there was only one person who knew to find him on the roof at this hour.

"What are you doing, brother?" Came Robby's gruff voice, partially swallowed by the early morning sounds from the city around them.

"Engaging in quiet contemplation. You?"

"Not what I'm talking about." Robby stopped beside his friend, resting his side against the railing with his hands in his pockets.

Jack shot him a side glance, "I have many talents; mind reading isn't one of them."

Robby raised his eyebrows, giving Jack a pointed look. "I'm talking about your resident."

"Crus? I've left him in charge for ten minutes tops, he can't have caused that much damage."

"Don't play dumb. It's not a good look on you."

"You're wrong, everything is a good look on me." Jack shot his friend a half smirk, the tension in his shoulders betraying his nonchalant behaviour.

Robby let out a frustrated scoff, growing tired of Jack's obvious deflecting. He straightened his posture and crossed his arms over his chest, showing his friend that he was serious.

"You know what's not a good look? Dragging your resident into empty patient rooms and massaging her fucking leg." Robby said, a sharp bite to his words.

Jack winced, dropping his head forward slightly. He didn't think word would get to Robby that fast.

"I'm just trying to help her." Jack grumbled, feeling like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "It's not a big deal."

Robby let out a loud incredulous laugh. "Tell her to go see a goddamn physio, Jack!"

Jack sighed and shook his head, growing frustrated at this conversation. Tell you to waste money seeing a physio? When he was more than willing to help, to provide the relief you need?

"I want to help her."

For a second, everything around them froze. The wind came to a halt, the sounds of early morning traffic dissipated. All that was distinguishable was the sincerity in Jack's voice, the conviction behind his words. And that's when Robby knew that this—whatever it was, whatever Jack was feeling—ran deeper than what Lena had insinuated to him and Dana the day before.

Robby shook his head with a small, disbelieving laugh. "You're fucking screwed, my friend."

Jack twisted his wedding ring around his finger, trying to ground himself. He didn't want to accept his feelings for you, didn't want to unlock the door that was clearly labelled 'DANGER' in bright red letters.

"I'm moving her to the day shift."

Jack's reaction was instant.

He pushed off from the railing, crossing his arms over his chest and levelling a cold glare at Robby.

"No. She's my best resident." His tone was sharp, his annoyance bleeding through.

"It's just for a week, while Whitaker is visiting his family." Robby sighed as Jack stood strong, his shoulders moving in a shrug that said 'why should I care'. "You know we need all the help we can get on the day shift—you nightcrawlers can survive without her."

Jack didn't believe that for a second. He needed you on the night shift with him—needed it like he needed air to breathe. The thought struck him deep in his chest, a cold realisation seeping into his bones.

Robby clapped him harshly on the back, throwing an arm over his shoulders as he pivoted them to walk to the rooftop door.

"You could be more grateful—I'm saving your sorry ass from a gruelling trip to HR."

When Robby told you they needed you back on the day shift to cover for Whitaker you were hesitant at first. Not that you had much say in the matter, but the timing of it felt suspicious—Dana had just questioned you about the Abbot situation, and not even thirty minutes later Robby was pulling you aside for a chat about your schedule.

It didn't help that multiple pairs of eyes were not so subtly watching your conversation with your chief attending. You tried your best to not let your surprise show, offering Robby a small smile and a "no problem". One pair of eyes was harder to ignore than the others—eyes that you fantasised about more often than not, eyes that you had to pinch yourself from getting lost in.

Eyes that followed you as you said goodbye to your colleagues, engaging in excited conversation with Mohan and McKay who were ecstatic to have you back on the day shift. Eyes that didn't care that their obvious staring had drawn unwanted attention.

Ellis was finishing up her notes on a patient, tablet in hand as she prepared to pass them off to Santos. She was watching her night shift attending with a small smirk on her face—his forlorn puppy dog expression making her disturbingly pleased. Santos let out a snicker beside Ellis, her own eyes clocking Dr. Abbot's yearning disposition.

Ellis turned to Santos, both sporting matching smirks on their faces with a mischievous gleam in their eyes.

"Want to start a new bet?"

Jack was furious with Robby.

Actually, he was angry with a lot of people lately. He was quicker to snap, his patience wearing thin—on track to lose his title of being the 'fun dad' of the PTMC Emergency Department.

Robby had told him that you were only going to be back on the day shift for one week, just to cover while Whitaker was away. It had been three weeks since Whitaker had returned to the Pitt, and you were still on the day shift.

The night shift had been surviving without you, though barely hanging on by a thread. The main issue they were having? Abbot's perpetual foul mood.

The only time the night shift ever saw a flicker of something warm cross their attending's face was during shift change. It had them all raising their eyebrows, looking at each other knowingly, and digging into their wallets.

"Thirty bucks on Abbot making a move after a paramedic hits on her." Shen murmured to the group gathered at the Hub during shift change, him and Ellis keeping watch in case you or Dr. Abbot appeared. He had witnessed a paramedic hit on you once before, right in front of Abbot. He thought he heard a bone in Abbot's hand fracture from how tightly clenched his fists were.

"Nah," Princess breathed out. "I'm putting twenty on them being together for at least a month."

Perlah hummed next to her. "You thinking they got together after that bad date?"

Dana peered at the group huddled at the counter over the top of her glasses. "Have you seen how he's pining after her? There's no way they're together."

Ellis let out a little whistle, the signal for one of you nearby. The group split off in different directions, Shen slipping a handful of cash into Ellis' hand as they passed each other.

Robby hummed from his spot next to Dana, eyebrows raised as he read over a chart. "You know you shouldn't be entertaining them…"

Dana scoffed, her eyes tracking you as you stepped into Central nine. "You're one to talk—I heard you bet fifty on him confessing after she gets hurt."

"I bet twenty," Dana gave Robby a knowing look, raising her eyebrows at him. "What? I know my friend and I know his white knight complex."

"Yeah," Dana murmured quietly, "that's going to catch up to him one day." She gathered a stack of papers on the counter, stamping them down on the surface to straighten them. Her eyes flicked back up to Robby. "You really think he's going to do somethin' before she becomes an attending?"

Robby sighed, dragging a hand down the side of his face—his beard audibly scratching against his palm. "He stopped wearing his wedding ring a couple weeks ago. I think he's been holding himself back longer than he'd ever care to admit."

The first week you were on the day shift, Jack found himself walking into the ED twenty minutes earlier than he usually did. By the third week, he was standing at the Hub over an hour before shift change. He quickly found out his early arrivals were both a blessing and a curse.

A blessing because it was an extra hour he got to see you; to hear you laugh at something Princess said, to admire you as you cared for your patients, to be by your side the second you let out a wince.

A curse because Santos was hell bent on torturing him. He knew she was doing it on purpose—she had a whole twelve hour shift to talk to you, to gossip about your personal lives, yet it seemed that whenever he was near you two all she wanted to talk about was your dating life.

"I know you're still pissed about Mark," Santos started, slinging an arm around your shoulder as you checked the board at the Hub. "But—hear me out—there's a pedes attending at Presby I want to set you up with."

Jack slowed down on the other side of the Hub, pulling up a random chart on a discarded tablet to act busy while his ears strained to hear the rest of your conversation with Santos. A pedes attending? Really?

You let out a disbelieving laugh. "You're joking, right? I am not going out with anyone you suggest ever again."

Santos groaned, throwing her head back dramatically. "How many times do I need to apologise? I'm sorry, okay—I promise Ben is the real deal, he won't make you pay for anything."

You shrugged her arm off your shoulder, turning to face her with your arms crossed. "Wow, that's a real high bar you got there, Trin. I feel spoiled," you drawled sarcastically.

She held her hands up in defence. "Fine, don't believe me. You're the one who's going to be sorry you let a catch slip through your fingers."

Her eyes glanced over to the other side of the Hub, catching the way Abbot was standing still with rigid shoulders and a frown pulling at his face. She couldn't stop the small smirk twitching her lips—he was definitely listening.

"Garcia can vouch for him, they did their residency together." She watched, delighted, as your arms loosened, your mouth moving side to side like you were considering it. "And," she dragged out, "he's exactly your type."

You rolled your eyes, but the small bite to your bottom lip gave away your interest. "What, emotionally unavailable?"

You watched as Santos eyes lit up, a slow smirk taking over her face as she subtly nodded towards where Dr. Abbot was standing.

"Old."

A rush of heat crawled up your neck and you elbowed her in the ribs. "Shut up," you hissed with wide eyes.

"You two done gossiping over there?" Dr. Abbot's voice barked out. "I'm sure your patients would love to know they bled out because you were busy planning a date."

You whipped your head to the side, your shocked eyes meeting his cold glare. His hands were gripping the counter's edge, his eyebrows raised as he gave you a pointed look.

You scrambled under his attention. "Sorry, Dr. Abbot, won't happen again." You shot Santos a sharp look before turning on your heels and hurrying towards the North nurses station.

Santos jutted her hip out and crossed her arms over her chest, levelling her superior with a knowing look across the Hub.

"What's the matter? You jealous, Abbot?"

He straightened up, clasping his hands behind his back. Everything about his posture screamed composed—except for the muscle that flexed his jaw.

"Get back to work."

Trinity turned back to the board with a hum, satisfaction thrumming through her veins. She was definitely going to win the bet.

The torture didn't stop there. No, that would have been too easy. Instead, Jack had to hear more about your dating life—this time at the end of a punishing twelve hour shift.

You were walking through the ambulance bay doors with Santos on your right and Mohan on your left. The three of you were fresh-faced in the early morning hours, each of you holding a cup of coffee in your hands. Jack's eyes were drawn to you instantly, catching the way the fluorescent lights brightened your eyes and highlighted the sleepy smile stretching your lips.

He was too busy getting lost in the mere sight of you to notice the sly look Santos threw his way.

"What is it that you like about older guys?" Trinity asked, nudging you with her elbow. Mohan let out a chuckle from your other side, suddenly finding her coffee very fascinating.

You shot Santos a bewildered look, your brows furrowing and mouth parting slightly. Before you could express your confusion, she continued.

"Is it the knee thing?"

"What?" You asked, a puzzled laugh lacing your words. "What are you talking about?"

"Do you bond with them over your upcoming knee replacements?" Santos asked with a cocky grin.

"Oh, shut up," you shove her shoulder lightly. "It's way too early for me to deal with your abuse."

The three of you reached the Hub, exchanging soft smiles and greetings with the night shift nurses. Your eyes flickered to Dr. Abbot briefly, his broad frame hard to ignore. He met your eyes for a second, giving you a small nod before turning to Lena.

"But seriously, I'm curious," Santos said, resting her elbows on the counter and cocking her head to the side. She didn't bother lowering her voice, gaining the attention of your colleagues scattered around the Hub—which, unbeknownst to you, was her full intention.

You narrowed your eyes at the mischievous smile on her face, a sense of dread tightening your throat. That look never meant anything good for you.

"How do you fuck your geriatric boyfriends when you've both got bad knees?"

A chorus of sounds echoed around the Hub.

Mateo snickered loudly behind his hand.

Samira let out a shocked gasp beside you.

Lena muttered, "oh dear."

Robby let out a long exhale, his mouth trembling in effort to not bark out a laugh.

"What the fuck, Trinity!" You exclaimed, slapping her arm harshly. Your response earned a few chuckles to sound out around you, causing the embarrassment you were feeling to clog your throat. Your wide eyes found Dr. Abbot's, his blank expression giving nothing away.

You quickly brushed past your amused coworkers, shoulder checking Santos on your way to the lockers. For a brief second, mortified tears blurred your vision. It was one thing for her to talk about setting you up on dates while working, but to make a joke about your sex life—in front of the unattainable attending she knew you had a crush on—was a step too far.

Jack watched as you bolted through the ED, a mix of emotions storming within him. He was irate with Santos, jealous about whoever these 'boyfriends' were, and concerned about you. He caught the flicker of hurt that crossed your face at Santos' question, the panic in your eyes when you looked at him.

And, he couldn't ignore the desire pooling low in his gut. Because it was something he had thought about—what position would feel best for you, what would guarantee you the most pleasure without hurting your knee. And he knew that if he ever was lucky enough to have you writhing under him, he wouldn't give a fuck about his leg.

Whilst Santos' jabbing was uncouth, it did confirm one important thing for him—you liked older men. Enough to want to fuck them.

That fact had his cock twitching in his scrub pants.

"You hear that, brother?" Robby murmured quietly, standing closer to Jack than he was a second before. "You might have a chance." Robby chuckled and gave Jack a pat on the shoulder before turning to the staff gathered at the Hub.

"Alright," he exclaimed, clapping his hands together once, "day shift, gather round."

The PTMC Emergency Department was a high stress, fast paced environment. You had seen multiple of your fellow coworkers take a tumble, faint from exhaustion, or be injured due to a patient's aggression. Every time it happened, Dana sternly directed them to the staff break room without fail. You had made it to your fourth year of residency without being dragged there once. That's not to say you didn't get injured, you just hid your pain better than others—one of the pros of living with chronic pain for so long (or a con, depending on who you asked). You were just two months away from becoming an attending, and you were determined to keep the record for the least amount of injuries endured during your time at PTMC—even if it was a record that you were the only one keeping track of.

Stupid Ogilvie and his lack of spatial awareness.

You let out a hiss as Dana pressed an ice pack against your knee. You were sitting at the small round table in the break room with your injured leg resting on one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs.

"Oh, hush, you big sook," Dana said with a small teasing smile. The faint line between her eyebrows gave away her concern, though.

A small rush of air left your nose—something that might've been a laugh if you weren't preoccupied with the unbearable throbbing in your knee.

Dana brushed a stray hair back from your forehead, fixing you with a pointed stare. "I need to get back out there or else the whole place is going to fall apart." She poked your forehead gently, "you need to stay put, missy. Understood?"

You nodded with a small pout. "Yes, understood. No more life saving today," you grumbled out.

"Good. If you need anything…you're Ogilvie's patient now," she said over her shoulder, throwing you a wink before closing the door behind her.

"I never want to see his face again," you mumbled petulantly to the empty break room.

With nothing else to do but sit, you grabbed the tablet off the table and started to catch up on charting—or what you could catch up on without a hospital computer. Twenty minutes later you were groaning with your head in your hands, your good leg on the ground bouncing impatiently. Ten minutes of doing nothing and you were already bored shitless. You could hear the symphony of a busy ED calling to you through the closed door—voices shouting over one another, an urgent page being called over the speaker system, a child with a healthy set of lungs screaming.

Back in the ED, Jack was ripping off his blood soaked gloves in Trauma two. He had just finished performing a clamshell thoracotomy on his buddy Officer Riveria, who had been shot in the chest from crossfire during an armed bank robbery. Jack walked the short path towards Central, tearing off his SWAT vest and dumping it on a chair in the Hub—barely paying any attention to Dana who scoffed at his appearance.

He could feel his t-shirt clinging to his skin uncomfortably, sweat soaking through to his SWAT uniform leaving visible patches—which he couldn't care less about in that moment. He had been in the ED for half an hour already, and he had yet to hear your voice. It was unsettling.

Even during the most adrenaline inducing, hectic shifts he could still make out your voice above the noise. And last time he looked at the schedule, you were meant to be working the day shift.

"Hello to you, too," Dana mumbled, raising her eyebrows at Abbot's swivelling head.

"Hi," he glanced at her briefly before looking at the board, trying to see if you were assigned to any patients. "Where is she?"

Dana chuckled, shaking her head. Of course he noticed you weren't on the floor. "Who?"

Jack responded with your name quickly, just as McKay stopped next to him at the Hub—letting Dana know a patient was ready for discharge.

"Oh," McKay snorted, "Ogilvie knocked her down with a gurney earlier."

"What?" Jack seethed, levelling a glare at Dana—why wasn't that the first thing she said to him?

"Take it easy, soldier." Dana gave him a sharp look. "She's in the break room, she's fi—"

Jack didn't wait to hear the rest of her sentence, darting through the ED in a rush to get to you. He flung the door open to the break room with force, making you look up at him with startled eyes.

"Dr. Abbot? What are you doing here?"

He ignored your question, making his way to you in two long strides and squatting down next to your injured leg. You watched as his nostrils flared and his jaw clenched tightly, an irritated huff leaving him. Your eyes wandered from his face to his shoulders, your eyebrows scrunching at his camo sleeves—was he wearing fucking SWAT gear?

"What are you wearing—"

"I'm going to fucking kill Robby," he seethed.

"Robby? What did he do?" You asked, your head swirling with more questions.

Dr. Abbot lifted the ice pack off your knee gently, drawing in a sharp breath at your red, swollen joint. His eyes snapped up to yours, a battle of concern and anger warring in the hazel depths.

"This wouldn't have happened if you were with me."

Jack realised his slip a second too late, watching your eyes widen in surprise at his words.

"If you were on the night shift," he mumbled quickly, his eyes darting back down to your injured leg.

A calloused finger pressed softly to the bottom of your knee, just below the swelling. A pained wince left you at the barely there touch.

"Fuck, sweetheart." Abbot whispered, his brows pulling together in worry. "This doesn't look good."

"I'm fine," you breathed out quickly, your heartbeat picking up at him calling you sweetheart again. "It's fine, it was an accident."

"It's not fine," he said sternly. "You're hurt."

"I've dealt with worse."

He let out a deep sigh, shaking his head at your stubbornness. He stood back up—his leg twinging briefly in complaint. He took a few steps back, leaning against the kitchenette and crossing his arms over his chest.

"Alright—if you say you're fine, stand up."

You met his raised eyebrows with a deadpan stare—your bruised pride fighting against the desire to submit to him, to let him take care of you.

You sucked in a breath, lifting your injured leg off the chair and placing it on the floor hesitantly. The pull of gravity had your knee aching in an instant, the swollen joint throbbing incessantly. You tried to keep your face blank as you braced both hands on the table, using it to support yourself as you rose to your feet. You put all your weight on your good leg, and Dr. Abbot clocked it immediately—his eyes glued to your legs as you tried to stand nonchalantly.

"Take a step."

That stupid stubbornness flared hot despite the agony you were in, not wanting someone—especially the attending you thought about obsessively—to take care of you. Well, the problem was how badly you wanted him to take care of you, and you refused to let that show—to be the damsel in distress.

You took a small step forward on your injured leg and crumbled in a second, trying to bite back a pained whimper and failing. Abbot was there before you could catch yourself on the table, one strong arm wrapping around your waist and a steady hand supporting your upper back.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," he mumbled low, his body so close to yours that you could feel his voice rumble through you.

Jack stood still, relishing the feeling of you in his arms. Your breath was warm against his neck, your curves soft beneath his hands, and he could feel you leaning into him. It was fucked up—you were injured, biting down your pain to try not be an inconvenience, and he wanted more. He wanted so much more.

Keeping his arm around your waist, he grabbed your bag hanging off the chair and hiked it up his shoulder. He grabbed his phone out of his pocket, drawing your attention to the gun on his hip—

What the fuck, since when was that there?

"What's your address?"

Your eyes snapped up to his face, your mind trying to process the sight of him in sweaty SWAT gear with a fucking handgun strapped to his hip. "Huh?"

He didn't look at you, thumb tapping on his phone. "I'm getting you an uber home. Give me your address."

"N-no, thank you, but I—"

He levelled you with a hard look, his eyes unrelenting. "This is not a discussion. Your address, now."

A thrill shot up your spine, his bossiness doing concerning things to your mind and body. You gave in, mumbling out your address—your body still actively aware of his thick arm wrapped around your waist, his warmth radiating through your clothes.

Jack grabbed your arm, slinging it over his shoulder and bringing you closer to his body—your perfume and something uniquely you cutting through the antiseptic and settling in his chest. His body screamed at him to turn his head, to bury his nose in your hair and inhale your scent like it was oxygen. His hand on your waist gripped tighter.

"What are you—" you started, shocked by his sudden closeness. The lines and freckles on his face were even more deadly this close.

"It's either this or I carry you. Your choice."

You slowly limped your way towards the door, consciously leaning as little weight on Dr. Abbot as possible—worrying about the strain you were putting on his prosthetic leg. Pain shot through your knee with every step you took.

"That's not gonna do, sweetheart."

He pulled you closer to him, essentially lifting you with every step. It took the weight off your leg, and had your breath stuttering at his strength.

Heat flushed throughout your body as you neared the Hub, your head dropping to ignore the curious and teasing stares from your coworkers.

"Hey, prince charming!" Dana's voice called over the rush of the ED. "This isn't your dumping ground!" Both your heads turned to see her holding his SWAT vest, shaking it with a pointed look before swinging her arm back and throwing it.

The hand steadying your arm on his shoulder lifted, catching the vest with ease. He handed it to you without a word, your free hand clasping around the slightly damp fabric.

It felt like it took hours to get to the ambulance bay, all the eyes on you two making you feel like an animal on display at the zoo. As you reached the doors, you faintly heard Javadi's voice behind you.

"Why didn't he grab a wheelchair?"

The uber was already waiting and Dr. Abbot helped you in the backseat before rounding the boot and getting in the other side. The door slammed shut, leaving you enclosed in the small space with your devastatingly attractive attending and crush.

"What are you doing?"

He grabbed your bag off his shoulder and the vest from your hand, putting them on the floor in front of him. His fingers clasped around your injured leg gently, lifting it and resting it on his lap.

"Making sure you get home safe."

The twenty minute drive to your apartment was quiet, the soft music droning from the car's speakers the only noise filling the uber. Dr. Abbot's hands rested on your leg the whole time, his thumbs rubbing absentminded patterns on your scrub covered shin.

Your brain stopped functioning approximately two minutes after the car pulled away from PTMC, when the first slow circle of his thumbs started. Instead of feeling the throbbing pain of your knee, you felt a throb grow north of it—slow strokes of fire coursing up your leg and gathering at the apex of your thighs. It was embarrassing, how desperately your body reacted to him and he wasn't even touching your skin.

You stared out the window the whole ride, despite how badly all the cells in your body ached to look at him—to map the lines of his face, to catch the way the sunlight coming through the window highlighted his stubbled jaw and changed the colour of his eyes. God, his eyes. You wanted to get lost in them, to watch them shift from honey amber to sunlit green—you wanted to know what colour they shifted to when dark with hunger, when dilated pupils eclipsed the sunburst irises.

Jack tried to keep his gaze locked on the seat in front of him, distracting himself with counting every individual stitch in the fabric. This was the fifth time he had placed your leg in his lap, but it felt different than the times previous. Maybe it was the protective anger curdling his gut—he had already drafted three carefully worded texts to Robby in his head—or the dangerous pull in his chest telling him that you were right where you belonged, next to him. All he knew was that the aching need to take care of you was now etched into his bones. Sitting next to you in the uber on the way to your place had nothing to do with him worrying about you as your attending—he was just a man needing to look after the woman he cared about deeply.

He couldn't stop his eyes finding the side of your face even if he tried—he was a moth to a radiant flame. He stored more details away in the overflowing file cabinet with your name on it; how the sunlight made your hair glow, how your lashes fluttered as you fought off fatigue, how despite the exhaustion and pain shadowing your face you still looked beautiful—ethereal. He wanted to worship at your altar.

Once the uber parked outside your building, he was quick to lower your leg—hands oh so gentle, again—and grab the bag and vest off the floor. He was out of the car before you could blink, opening your door and helping you out of the car with the strong hands you fantasised about daily. He offered the driver a quick thank you and it struck you deep in the chest—such a simple, kind act that you had watched men fail to do time and time again.

Your arm was back over his broad shoulders, one of his securely wrapped around your waist. It only hit you then how badly your body had missed the warmth of his pressed against you. And then something more frightening—exhilarating—hit you: Dr. Jack Abbot was going to be in your apartment.

Your step faltered, your heartbeat picking up in terror—or anticipation, only god knows.

"Thank you for your help—for the uber—but you should go—"

"No."

"Your shift is in a few hours, you should rest."

He let out a frustrated huff through his nose, turning his head to shoot you a hard look—his fingers on your waist tightening.

"Quit being stubborn and let me help you."

You opened your mouth to protest more, to say he's helped you enough, but the words died on your tongue before they had formed. You were sore and exhausted—that was the excuse you told yourself for letting your attending guide you into the building.

Your place was exactly how you left it—half a dozen medical textbooks littering your coffee table, your laptop still open on the dining table with sticky notes of varying colours covering the surface, a few dirty dishes stacked next to the sink. Your basket of clean underwear sitting on the couch waiting for you to put away. Because, of course the day Dr. Jack Abbot helps you home is your lingerie wash day.

Heat rushed up your neck as he helped you limp towards the couch, dumping his SWAT vest on the coffee table before grabbing the basket and putting it on the floor out of the way. You watched, intrigued, as red dusted along his neck and cheeks, his eyes looking everywhere but you.

His hand lingered on your waist as you sat down, before he cleared his throat and helped you get situated—placing a throw pillow under your injured knee and another behind your back. He started to take off your shoes, and it hit you at a dizzying speed how natural and domestic this all felt.

How nice it felt to have him in your home, taking care of you with no fuss. You can't remember the last time someone treated you with such care—the few times you asked your exes for help with your knee pain they made you feel like a burden.

Having Abbot treat you so gently, so delicately, only made the butterflies storming in your stomach increase tenfold. You were starting to feel sick, overcome with dangerous emotions at the hands of your attending.

You dropped your eyes to your hands fidgeting in your lap. "Thank you again, Dr. Abbot. For—"

"Jack."

You looked up at him to find him already staring down at you. Your hands started to shake.

"What?"

His voice was soft, low. "When it's just you and me, it's Jack."

You heart decided to find a home in your throat. "Oh…well, I appreciate your help," you smiled up at him softly, "Jack."

In that moment, Jack knew he was done for. He had noticed you only ever called him by his doctor title or last name, and now he knew why. His name sounded like it was made to slip from your tongue, like everyone else before you had said it wrong. He had to be careful—if you said his name with that little smile again, he was sure he would drop to his knees before you.

He stepped away from the couch, needing to do something else to distract his brain from the fantasy of you gasping out his name as he tasted you. He grabbed his vest and walked towards the kitchen—the open plan layout allowing him to keep an eye on you still.

You watched as he removed his gun from its holster, checking the safety was on before pulling the clip out, disarming it—the act alone sending a shiver racing up your spine. He didn't need to do that, but you figured he did it for your peace of mind—to ensure you felt safe in your own home. It had no right being that hot.

Your eyes landed on the gun and vest now sitting on your kitchen counter before you ran them over his sweaty uniform again, unconsciously biting your lip.

"So, you moonlight as a…SWAT medic?"

He started to look through your kitchen cabinets, pulling out a water glass. "My therapist said I needed a hobby."

"And all the men's shed's in Pittsburgh were at full capacity?"

He filled the glass with water, the side of his mouth quirking with a smirk. "Didn't meet the age requirement. I'll try again next year."

He brought the glass of water over to you, an amused glint in his eye.

"That where you scout for your dates? The men's shed?"

Your cheeks grew warm. "I am going to kill Santos," you muttered.

Your phone vibrated in your pocket and you pulled it out to see multiple texts from Santos. Speak of the devil.

Trin: (412) 858-5725 Trin: Ben's phone number Trin: If your knight in sweaty swat gear doesn't make a move

You put your phone away quickly, grabbing the glass from the coffee table and taking a deep gulp to try soothe your nerves.

"Where do you keep your pain meds?"

Jack was still standing next to the couch, looking down at you with his hands in his pockets.

"There's a box under the bathroom sink," you told him. "First door on the left."

Jack returned less than a minute later, carrying your overflowing plastic container of pain medication—an eyebrow raised in surprise.

"Should I be concerned you're going to start a meth lab with these?"

"Medical textbooks are ridiculously expensive."

He chuckled in response, putting the container on the kitchen counter and grabbing a handful of pills for you. You accepted them with a small thank you, watching as he sat on the small armchair diagonal to you.

He nodded towards the textbooks splayed out on your coffee table. "How's the studying going?"

An involuntary sigh slipped out of you. "It's going fine, I guess." His furrowed eyebrows prompted you to elaborate more. "I'm—being on the day shift, I'm struggling to find the time to study." You watched his jaw clench and you quickly backpedalled. "I mean, that's not an excuse—I'm not trying to blame being on the day shift! It's my own poor time management, Samira seems to be doing fine. I just think the night shift suited me more…I miss you—it. I miss the night shift."

Your face was a furnace by the time you finally shut your mouth, refusing to look at Jack and instead glaring at the textbooks on the table like they had caused you grave pain.

"We miss you too."

Jack was struggling to control his breathing, feeling angry at Robby for keeping you off the night shift for the past month. Angry at himself for not pushing harder to keep you with him. It was obvious the day shift was not what was best for your well-being; here you were in front of him injured—by a day shift intern—, exhausted from the long shifts, and barely finding the time to study for your attending boards. He would bet his good leg that the only thing in your pantry was packets of ramen.

He took the lull in conversation to look around your apartment properly, a faint smile curving his lips as he spotted the decorations and trinkets that were very you. Something fond gripped his chest at the photos on your bookshelf. There was one of you and Santos on a night out—tipsy smiles and arms slung over shoulders—another of you and Ellis in your scrubs pulling the finger at the camera, and one on a higher shelf that had his heart tumbling.

It was of the night shift, everyone crammed into a small diner booth after a particularly rough shift. You two were sat next to each other, his head leaning back on the booth seat as he slept and your head turned to him with a soft smile on your face. He remembered the day it was taken—everyone called him grandpa for a week afterwards for falling asleep—but he didn't remember you looking at him like that. Like he hung the moon and the stars.

He cleared his throat, trying to get rid of the emotion clogging it. He opened his mouth and said the first thing he thought of. "No cat?"

You lifted your head, looking at him quizzically. "I've never had a cat."

"What about the one we talked about?"

"Oh, that cat." You shrugged, "someone else adopted the little guy before I could."

"That sucks." And because his jealously won out over his logical mind when he was near you, he continued. "Does that mean you're still dating assholes?"

You laughed nervously, crossing your arms over your chest. "Do we have to talk about my sorry excuse of a dating life?"

Jack stayed quiet, not sure how to downplay his interest in your dating life—in you.

You sighed. "No, I'm not dating assholes—I'm not dating anyone at the moment, despite Trin's persistence."

Jack let out a gruff hum, feeling both pleased that you're not wasting your time dating and annoyed at the reminder of Santos' terrible matchmaking. "So I've noticed."

You winced. "Sorry, I'll tell her to stop talking about it at work. Not that she listens to anything I say, but it's unprofessional."

Jack dragged a hand along his scruff, tempted to tell you that it was the jealously souring his gut that bothered him, not the unprofessionalism.

"How's your knee?"

You shifted your injured knee on the pillow, relieved when you only felt a dull ache instead of sharp throbbing. "Stiff, but the meds are kicking in at least."

"Did you get that cream I recommended?"

You started to get up from the couch, lifting your leg and clenching your teeth when the pain came back."Yeah, but I can go get it. You've done more than enough, you should—"

Jack was by the couch in less than a second, putting a gentle but firm hand on your shoulder to keep you seated. "If you tell me to go one more time, I swear to god."

 You looked up at him, your breath catching at his broad frame towering over you.

"I don't want you to think I'm a burden." Your voice was smaller than you would've liked, a crack lacing through.

Jack's heart fractured at your words, his walls starting to crash down. "You're not a burden to me. I want to help you."

The sincerity in his voice made yours shake. "Why?"

He took a deep breath. "For reasons I shouldn't say out loud."

Your heart stumbled before picking up, feeling like it was going to beat out of your chest.

"Jack…"

"Don't. Don't say my name like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you have no clue what you do to me."

But, you didn't know what you did to him. This was the first time you were aware he might've shared a fraction of the feelings you had for him.

"Let me take care of you and then I'll go, okay?"

You gulped, now feeling unsure of where you stood with your older attending. You gave him a small nod.

"Okay."

He stepped back, looking both satisfied and torn at your response. "Good."

"The cream, it's in my bedroom—but I'll go get it."

"No, you can't even walk by yourself. Stay there, I'll get it." He raised an eyebrow at the panicked look on your face. "Unless, you don't want me in your bedroom. You hiding dead bodies in there or something?"

That got a small laugh out of you, and he felt his shoulders relax the slightest—some of the tension from his almost confession dissipating.

Jack Abbot in your bedroom was a thought you had way too frequently, but that wasn't what had you stubbornly trying to stop him from getting the pain relief cream. It was because you knew the cream was in your nightstand—the same one your small collection of vibrators were in.

You were an adult. Owning a vibrator or two was normal. Jack was also an adult, you're sure he's seen sex toy's before. So, you sucked in a breath and put your big girl pants on.

"No, it's fine. I just—the cream's in the top drawer of the nightstand on the left."

Jack found your bedroom easily in your small apartment, your perfume and scent hitting him hard as soon as he pushed the door open wider. He stood still for a second, breathing in a deep lungful and feeling himself get even more addicted—if that was possible. He beelined for the nightstand, opening it and finding the cream he had recommended to you what felt like a lifetime ago. His hand faltered, his gaze finding the toys next to the cream—sticking out like a sore thumb. Your hesitation about him coming into your room suddenly made complete sense.

His cock twitched in his pants at the sight of them alone, and his traitorous mind didn't take long to supply him with the fantasy of you using the toys on yourself—laid out on your bed in front of him, listening to his commands as he told you how to fuck yourself.

He adjusted himself in his pants, shaking his head to try rid himself of the thoughts before walking back into your lounge.

You watched as Jack came back with the cream in hand, nerves tightening your throat at the deep red covering his neck and cheeks. He definitely saw the vibrators.

He didn't say a word, just waved the cream at you and sat on the other end of the couch—moving the pillow under your leg aside so he could move closer and rest your leg in his lap. Despite this not being the first time he's helped with your knee, it felt entirely different. Maybe it was his half confession lingering in the air, or the fact that you've been wound tightly for so long. Either way, the first touch of his fingers on your bare skin as he rolled your scrub pant over your knee had your core clenching desperately, embarrassingly.

The late afternoon sun streamed through your sheer curtains softly, painting your apartment in a dreamy haze that softened the edges of your mind. Neither of you spoke, the soft sounds of your breathing filling the room. His touch was featherlight on your knee, gently prodding to assess your pain—his intense gaze never leaving your face.

The first slide of the cream on your inflamed joint offered a small reprieve, a small sigh leaving your lips.

"This okay?"

You nodded, staring down at his hands on your leg—noticing the absence of his wedding ring. They drifted higher, rubbing the cream into the tight thigh muscles above your knee. A gasp slipped from you as his fingers pressed deeper, rolling a knot that had formed due to the tension from your injury.

Your eyes flicked up from watching his hands, finding his glued to your parted lips. They stayed there for a second longer before meeting yours and your breath caught in your throat. You could see where the amber bled into green, the faint blue ring on the edge of his irises. You watched his pupils dilate, his eyes darkening like a storm rolling through a forest.

Your eyes dropped to his lips, the soft light highlighting the stubble framing his face and making the cupids bow on his top lip stand out—looking incredibly enticing and kissable.

You both leaned in slowly, the thread between you pulling tighter. His breath brushed against your lips and the tension you'd been harbouring for months—years, even—snapped. You closed the distance, pressing your lips to his in what you wanted to be a tender kiss but was anything but—your desperation bleeding out of you.

He breathed in through his nose sharply, his hands on your thigh tightening before he returned your kiss slowly. One of your hands bunched the fabric of his SWAT top, the other sliding up the back of his neck and finding its place in his silver curls. You pulled him closer, kissing him with more urgency.

A moan rumbled in Jack's throat at the feeling of your hand tugging his hair, and he brought a hand up to cup your jaw—losing himself in the press of your soft lips against yours. His hand on your thigh gripped tight and pulled you closer, briefly forgetting that you were in pain.

He sucked your bottom lip between his, nibbling on the plump flesh and drawing a soft whimper out of you—your hips trying to rock despite the awkward position of you half pulled onto his lap.

The sound had Jack's cock jumping eagerly, still half hard from thinking about you fucking yourself with your toys. His hand on your jaw slipped to grasp the back of your neck, tilting your head back. His tongue ran along your bottom lip and you opened for him without hesitation. The first caress of your tongue's against each other drew matching, low moans from both your chests.

You felt your core grow wetter and you needed more, your hand fisting his top travelling down to slide under his layers of clothes and touching his solid, yet soft, abdomen.

The feeling of your hand touching his skin had reality crashing down on Jack, making him pull away from your lips with visible effort. Your mouth chased after his with a small whine, the hand in his curls trying to yank him back to you.

"We shouldn't," he panted, his breath hot against your lips.

"Please," you whispered, not caring how desperate you sounded.

He dropped his forehead to your collarbone, a shaky moan leaving him at how needy you sounded and the intoxicating scent of you wrapping around him.

"You're injured, I'm your attending, this is—"

You grabbed his hand clutching your thigh, dragging it up until his fingers grazed your scrub covered core. All logic and reasoning faded from his mind as he felt the heat radiating through your clothes. He was shocked for a brief moment, that your aching need for him matched his own for you.

"Touch me, please. Make me feel good."

Jack thought he had died and gone to heaven—those sweet words whispered into his ear sounding even better than he had dreamed.

"Fuck," he breathed into your scrub top, his hand moving and cupping your core. A gasp shot out of you and you ground your hips against his hand.

His head lifted and he peppered light kisses on the side of your neck—his stubble scratching your skin lightly. You pushed his head harder into your neck, desperate for him to take more. He let out a chuckle at your eagerness.

"You always this needy?"

His teeth sinking into your neck stole any response you may have had, a moan leaving your lips instead. His kisses grew in confidence, his mouth leaving trails of spit across your skin as he relished in the sounds he was pulling from you. His hand on your core moved, his palm pressing harder against your clothed clit—your hips rocking faster in response.

You pulled his head from your neck, his dark eyes meeting yours before he lunged for your mouth, his kisses turning punishing—teeth clashing, tongues fighting for dominance, stubble scratching and burning your skin.

The warmth in your core transformed into a raging fire—you had never been this turned on by a kiss before. You could feel slick oozing from your cunt, your underwear sticking to your core where his hand was moving against you. You were sure you were leaking through your scrubs, and you might've been embarrassed if it weren't for the lust lighting up your body.

Jack pulled back, his hand stilling against you causing you to let out a displeased whine. He looked down at his hand, an expression of awe on his face as he saw his palm with a light sheen of wetness and the dark patch on your pants.

"You're wet." He said, like it was a miracle.

You nodded, both hands gripping his jaw to pull his lips back to yours. He turned his head, still looking at his hand in amazement. It had been a long time since he last touched a woman, but he didn't remember them getting this wet from some kissing and light groping.

Your lips found his neck, lavishing the wrinkled and freckled skin with the same attention he gave you. You bit along his jaw gently, soothing the bites with a wet glide of your tongue. His chest vibrated with a deep groan and you doubled your efforts, sucking on a spot below his ear. The sounds he was making made you even more wet, small whines getting stuck in your throat as your need for him ricocheted.

"Fucking hell, sweetheart." He groaned, his dick starting to leak from your mouth on his neck and the little sounds you let out. "You're gonna make me come in my pants if you keep doing that."

His words stroked the fire in you higher, your nerves singing with pleasure at the fact you were unravelling him just as he was you.

He pulled you away from him and stood up, watching as your hazy eyes blinked up at him unfocused, a small frown pulling your kiss swollen lips down.

He hooked an arm around your back and the other under your thighs, lifting you off the couch.

"Jack, your leg—"

"Is fine. Let me do this."

He ignored the strain on his amputated leg, carrying you the short distance to your bedroom. He laid you down on your bed gently, taking extra care to not jostle your knee.

You sat up on your elbows, biting your lip as he stood at the edge of your bed—not moving, just staring down at you with his mouth slightly agape.

"You have no idea how long I've thought about this. How long I've spent wanting you."

Your chest stuttered at his admission, heat licking up your spine at the raw want in his voice.

He leaned down, placing his hands either side of your head and kissing you slowly, tenderly. Your hands settled in his curls, your lips responding in kind—your chest aching with something far more dangerous than need.

He trailed kisses down your jaw and neck, nuzzling his nose into the junction where your neck met your shoulder and inhaling deeply. An almost pained groan tore from his throat and it made you arch up into him in need.

His hands gripped your hips and lifted you further up the bed, your head resting on your pillow. His thumbs rubbed on the sliver of bare skin your bunched scrub top exposed, his questioning eyes meeting yours. You lifted your arms up before he could ask, and he pulled the fabric over your head—throwing it somewhere behind him.

His eyes dropped to your chest and he licked his lips, his hand slipping behind your back to undo your bra clasp. He pulled your bra straps down your shoulders slowly, like he was unwrapping a delicate present.

"Jack," you breathed out, impatience lacing your tone.

He dropped his head, kissing along the swell of your breasts.

"Didn't know my name could sound so sweet until you said it." He mumbled into your skin.

He finally pulled your bra away, throwing it in the same direction as your top. He sucked in a sharp breath at your exposed breasts, his eyes closing briefly as he gathered himself.

"You're beautiful."

Then he latched onto one of your nipples, sucking lightly and pulling a gasp from you. A large hand cupped your other breast, his thumb rubbing circles around your nipple—the dual simulation making fire sprint down your abdomen to your core. Your hips rocked underneath him, and he chuckled at your desperation—the sound vibrating through your body.

Your hands found the hem of his SWAT top and pulled, wanting to see the thick muscle he hid underneath scrubs. His touch left you for a second as he pulled his top off, exposing the black t-shirt underneath. And you swear you'd never seen a simple t-shirt look so hot before. It was tight around his bulging biceps, his muscular abdomen pressing through the fabric. You only had a second to ogle before he was stripping it off as well, leaving you with a sight you had only dreamed about.

The only word in your head at that moment to describe Jack Abbot was thick. You knew he was big, but seeing it without clothes felt surreal. You ran your hands over his bare chest, marvelling at the muscles jumping beneath your touch. His skin was dusted in freckles, a patch of light hair covering his chest that was soft under your fingers. His shoulders were broad and your jaw ached to cover the sturdy flesh with bites.

You gripped his shoulders and pulled him down, your lips meeting in a desperate kiss that had you both moaning. Your hands travelled down his shoulders to his back, pulling his bare chest down to meet yours. The feeling of his pecks against your breasts had you sucking his bottom lip with need.

You slid a hand down his bulky abdomen, revelling in his body jerking under your hand. You dipped a finger in the waistband of his camo pants, pulling slightly before moving your hand down and cupping his hard cock through the fabric. The feel of him had your core clenching—he was big, bigger than you had ever taken. It sent a thrill coursing through you and you gripped him harder.

"Shit," he hissed, grasping your hand and pulling it away from him. "Not today, sweetheart. It's all about you now, okay?"

He kissed down your chest, lavishing at your breasts again and you let out an impatient whine, pushing his head down to where you needed him most.

"Stop teasing."

You could feel his lips curve into a smirk against your skin. "But you sound so pretty."

He sucked harshly on your nipple, pulling it between his teeth and biting down. Your hips shot off the bed with a gasp, your knee throbbing from the sudden jolt but you didn't care. He repeated his ministrations on your neglected nipple before—finally— his kisses travelled down your stomach and stopped at the waistband of your scrub pants.

His lips sucked light marks along your lower stomach and hips, his fingers toying with your waistband and dipping under before tracing the marks his mouth left.

"Jack, please." You whined, your need echoing in your quiet room.

"You sound so good begging, baby."

He pulled away, hooking his fingers around your pants and underwear—slowly pulling them down your legs like he had all the time in the world. A groan rumbled out of him at the sight of your slick clinging to your underwear, a line keeping them connected to you until they reached your knees. He doesn't think he's seen anything hotter.

He was careful pulling your pants down over your injured knee, pressing a light kiss to your inflamed skin before your pants were finally off of you. He grabbed a spare pillow near your head, propping it under your knee and adjusting you so you were comfortably spread open with no weight bearing down on your knee. He kept his eyes on your face the whole time, checking for any hint of discomfort.

"You tell me if it starts to hurt, okay?"

You nodded in response.

"Words. I need words, sweetheart."

"Yes, I'll tell you, Jack. Just touch me already, please."

His eyes left your face, travelling down your heaving body and ending at your core. Your need was glistening all over your mound and a moan vibrated through him at the sight. He brought a hand to your core, his fingers lightly trailing down your wet slit making your hips jump off the bed. His other hand pressed flat against your lower stomach, his weight holding your hips down.

"You're fucking soaked. This all for me?"

You nodded quickly, your breaths coming quick—pent up from months of wanting and his merciless teasing.

"Yeah? I get you this wet?"

"Yes, Jack—only you. Been wet since I saw the SWAT uniform." The confession slipped from you, need obliterating your filter.

His face morphed into a shit-eating grin. "That right, pretty girl? I'll make sure to wear it more often."

He pulled away from you and you groaned in annoyance.

"What the fuck, Jack!"

He chuckled at your impatience, a cocky smirk plastered across his face. He sat on the edge of your bed, quickly pulling the leg of his pants up to take off his prosthetic leg and leaning it against your bed. He turned back to you, lowering himself between your legs—the feeling of his breath against your core making your thighs twitch.

"Just getting comfortable. No more teasing, promise."

And then he was licking a long strip up your dripping slit, his dark eyes holding your gaze captive. You threw your head back, a sigh of relief leaving you. One of his hands gripped the thigh of your injured leg, keeping you steady as the other pressed down on your lower stomach again. He licked torturous and slow, his eyes closing as he made out with your lower lips.

"Taste so fucking good, better than I imagined." He moaned into your core, eliciting a gasp from you.

Your hands found his soft curls, gripping tight as he feasted on you. You tried rocking your hips to chase the friction but his strong hand kept you still, making you whine pathetically.

His tongue found your clit, alternating between flicking it and drawing circles around it. Fire built up in your core quickly, gasps of his name and please falling from your lips.

Jack's cock was painfully hard, precum leaking and dampening his pants as he listened to the sweet noises you let out because of him. He knew this was going to be ingrained in his brain forever—you panting beneath him, all desperate and needy, his taste buds overloaded with your delectable nectar. You were better than any drug and he was irrevocably hooked.

His tongue dipped down to your entrance, circling it twice before plunging inside your walls. Your core clenched down at the intrusion and he moaned into your core—delicious vibrations spreading up to your clit.

"Yes," you gasped, hips trying to chase the pleasure his mouth was unleashing. His tongue started to thrust in and out of you and a hand left his hair to grip his hand on your stomach. "Please, feels so good."

Obscene slick sounds filled your room, your core drenched from your arousal and Jack's spit. His tongue went back to your clit, the hand on your thigh moving up and tracing light fingers around your entrance. Jack watched in hunger and fascination as your core clenched in anticipation.

"You want my fingers? Be a good girl and tell me how bad you need them."

Your whole body lit up at him calling you a good girl. You opened your eyes to see him already staring at you, his gaze heavy and hungry.

"Yes—fuck, please—Jack I need them so badly. Want you to fuck me with them, please."

You didn't need to beg for long, one of his fingers dipping into you and curling against your walls. A moan slipped out at you, your walls clamping down on the single digit.

"Fuck, you're tight." He moaned into your clit, sucking it into his mouth harshly. You let out a wanton moan, your hips pushing against his hand holding you down. Another finger slipped inside you and he pushed them deeper, thrusting them against the spongy spot that no other man cared to find. You mewled, embarrassingly needy as a familiar tension built in your core.

"Oh my god, right there," you moaned out and his fingers picked up their speed, curling to stroke against that spot over and over. A third finger joined in and your eyes shot open at the stretch. His mouth doubled down on your clit, sucking harshly and nibbling gently.

"You gonna come for me?"

Incoherent babbling spilled from you—his name, please, and fuck being the only words your brain seemed capable of forming.

Jack was grinding his hips on your bed, feeling like a teenager ready to bust from the first moan that you let slip free. His cock was pulsing in his pants, so close to coming already.

"Yeah, that's a good girl. Come on my fingers."

The hand on your stomach pressed harder and the tension in your core shifted, still familiar but also different—tight and overwhelming. One last sharp suck to your clit had you soaring off the edge, your whole body tensing and head throwing back as pleasure rushed through you like a roaring fire. You came with a loud cry of his name, your ears ringing and white spotting your vision. You felt wetness gushing from your cunt, warm and sticky—amplifying and drawing out your release until it bordered on painful.

Jack groaned against your core as you gripped his fingers tight, sucking them in deeper as you squirted over his face, his hand, your bedsheets. Your fingers in his hair pulled as you panted and heaved beneath him. He pulled his mouth off your clit, moaning out your name as he spilled in his pants—your release making him come untouched. He continued moving his fingers inside you, drawing out your orgasm with his eyes focused on where release was squirting out of you with every thrust of his fingers.

"Good girl. You did so good."

Your fingers in his hair trembled, yanking softly as you tried to squirm away from his touch. "It's too much, Jack." You whined and he finally relented, drawing his fingers out of you with a loud, sinful pop. Your half open eyes met his, watching through a hazy fog as he lifted his soaked fingers to his mouth and sucked them clean—a deep groan tearing through him and you almost moaned at the sight.

He kissed up your body slowly, sucking and biting on a nipple and drawing a yelp out of you—your overstimulated body shaking underneath him.

"That was fucking incredible," he whispered into your neck, sounding starstruck. "You're incredible."

You giggled softly, his stubble tickling your neck. "That was all you." One of your hands brushed along the broad expanse of his shoulders, the other toying with the curls at the top of his neck. "I've never done that before," you admitted in a small and dazed voice.

He continued to nibble on your neck. "What, hook up with your boss or squirt?"

You slapped his shoulder lightly. "Both."

"Pleasure was all mine, sweetheart."

He removed his head from your neck, soft eyes gazing into yours before he leaned in and kissed you sweetly. His arms wrapped around your back, pulling your chest to his as he kissed you deeply—pouring everything he couldn't say yet into the kiss.

He pulled back, his eyes roaming around your face trying to memorialise this moment in his brain. He caught sight of the clock on your nightstand, a frustrated groan vibrating his chest as he saw he had to be at work in just over an hour. He dropped his forehead to yours for a few seconds, before pushing himself off of you with pained effort.

"I gotta go get ready for work. I—uh, need to clean myself up."

You furrowed your eyebrows in confusion before looking down, finally spotting the dark wet patch on his camo pants.

"Oh."

He put his prosthetic leg back on, standing and looking back at you still naked on your bed—spread out and glistening in your own release. He quickly walked to your bathroom, grabbing a clean towel from the cupboard and wetting it in the sink. He returned to your room, hit with the overwhelming smell of you—your perfume, your natural scent, your release. It had him debating calling in sick to lay tangled in the sheets with you, making you feel good until you passed out.

He cleaned you up gently, the soft press of the damp towel on your sensitive cunt making you twitch and flinch away.

"Easy, baby. Almost done."

He pressed a kiss to your forehead once he was done, a thumb brushing across your cheek.

"Okay, now I really have to go or Robby will send out a search party."

You bit your lip, your come down leaving you feeling exposed and vulnerable. "What…what does this mean?"

Jack didn't want to leave you alone, the uncertainty in your eyes making his chest ache. "We'll talk about it properly later, yeah? Just rest now—I'll order you some food."

He grabbed you some pyjamas out of your dresser, leaving them folded next to you on the bed. He left you with instructions on how to look after your knee—despite your insistence that you had been living with the pain for over a decade and you were a doctor as well, you knew how to take care of your injury.

After your front door clicked softly behind him you stared up at the ceiling for what felt like hours, your mind still not comprehending that you had hooked up with Jack Abbot—and he had made you come harder than you ever have in your life. So much was still left unsaid, but there wasn't a cold ache in your heart like you expected at the uncertainty. You trusted Jack, and you trusted that he wouldn't leave you spiralling for too long.

Just after seven pm your phone lit up with a text from Robby.

Robby: You're back on the night shift once your knee is better. Rest up.

A smile took over your face, a sigh of relief leaving you. You knew Jack was responsible for the shift change, and it had warmth spreading through your body from your chest.

Not even twenty minutes later, your screen flashed with texts from Trinity.

Trin: DID YOU AND ABBOT FUCK Trin: Don't even try to lie to me

You: We didn't fuck

Trin: Then why is he smiling like he won the lottery

Your lips stretched into a grin.

You: Maybe he did?

Trin: Tell me what happened right now Trin: I'm gonna be pissed if Robby won the bet

You: What bet, Trinity?

Trin: Shit gotta go! Someone's dying

You: Someone is always dying. Did you guys make a bet about Jack and I?

Trin: SMS ERROR: The phone number you are trying to reach is no longer in service. Trin: …did you just call him Jack?!?!?!?

You were drafting a profanity filled response to her when a text from Jack came through.

Abbot: Dinner is 10 minutes away. Hope Vietnamese is all good. Abbot: Ice your knee afterwards.

You didn't see Jack for seven days after that. He text you throughout the week, checking in and assuring you that you would talk but not over the phone—that you deserved more than that. The swelling in your knee eased by day three, and by day six it barely hurt anymore. You were under strict orders to not even think about the hospital, and you only left your apartment to go for walks around your neighbourhood—you didn't even go to the grocery store, there was no need to when Jack arranged groceries to be delivered to your front door.

He called you a couple times after a long shift, just wanting to listen to your voice as he struggled to sleep. He sat on the phone while you studied for your boards, giving his input when you started to ramble and spiral about a topic you thought you didn't understand—to which he reminded you that you were one of the most capable residents he'd seen walk through the PTMC doors. His confidence in you helped with the spiralling, and only made your need for him build to dizzying heights.

Neither of you brought up what happened at yours, both silently agreeing that it was a face to face conversation. It didn't stop you from thinking about it every night though, about him. You didn't ask him to come over before or after his shifts, not wanting to come on too strong despite how badly you wanted to see him again.

It was on day seven of not seeing him that you said fuck it. You were basically climbing the walls by that point, growing restless from doing nothing but sitting and studying and dreaming about all the ways Jack could fuck senseless. You knew it was his first scheduled day off in two weeks and while you should've let him rest, the demon he had unlocked inside of you didn't care.

You made it to mid afternoon before you sent him a text.

You: Hey, you busy?

Jack: No. What's up?

You: Think you could come over so we can have that talk?

Jack: I'll be there in 30.

True to his word, Jack knocked on your door twenty-eight minutes later with a takeout bag in his hand.

"Hey, I got us some sandwiches from the new deli on—"

You didn't give him time to finish, yanking on his sweatshirt's collar and dragging his lips down to yours. A shocked noise sounded in the back of his throat before he responded in earnest, his free hand wrapping around you waist and pulling you into his body. He staggered into your apartment, blindly closing the door behind him as you kissed him with a bruising intensity.

He pulled back to catch his breath, his chest rising and falling rapidly. You moved your mouth to his neck, sucking and nipping his neck as the desperation you'd been feeling for the past week clawed at your chest and core. You slipped your hands under the hem of his sweatshirt, relishing in the heat of his bare skin beneath it.

"Slow down, sweetheart." He chuckled, his hand moving from your waist to grip your jaw and pull you back. You let out a small whine, your brows furrowing in annoyance. "Did you ask me to come 'round for a booty call?"

You huffed. "No—I mean yes, but I wanted to talk too." You stepped back from him, feeling a drop of embarrassment for how you pounced on him. You took the takeout bag from his hand, offering him a soft smile. "Thank you for getting food."

"Of course."

He followed you as you made your way to the kitchen, putting the food on the counter and turning back to him with a sheepish expression.

"Thank you for everything this past week. The groceries, the late night—for you—study sessions. It…means a lot."

He stepped forward, resting his hands on your hips before pulling you into a hug—his strong arms wrapping around your back making you melt into his embrace. Your arms wrapped around his shoulders and you nuzzled into his neck with a soft, content hum.

"Anything for you, sweetheart." He mumbled into your hair. Your heart soared in your chest.

He felt the tension from the last week dissipate from his body now that you were back in his arms. He hadn't realised just how stressed he was until that moment.

He pulled back slightly, keeping an arm wrapped around your back as a hand cupped your jaw. He leaned in, kissing you softly before resting his forehead against yours.

"Hi."

You giggled in response. "Hi."

"I haven't stopped thinking about you, about this."

Your hands gripped his curls, pulling him down for another bruising kiss. His hands slid down your back before resting on your ass, giving it a light squeeze and making you sigh into his mouth. You traced your tongue along his lips and he opened willingly, his moan ringing throughout the kitchen as he tasted you again. You pushed your hips flush to his, grinding against the hard length you could feel growing in his pants.

You whimpered into his mouth. "Please, I need you."

He pulled his mouth back from yours an inch, his hands still groping and squeezing your ass. "Thought we were gonna talk?"

"After."

He laughed, the wrinkles on his face deepening. "You're a little minx, you know that?"

"Only for you."

He raised an eyebrow. "Oh, really?" He pressed a kiss to your cheek, another to your jaw, a line down your throat. "I heard you've got a thing for old men."

You sighed, tilting your head back to give him better access. "Thought I did, but I think it's just a thing for you."

He groaned against your throat. "You can't just that, baby."

"Why not?"

Jack's mouth moved to your ear, catching your lobe between his teeth and tugging. "Makes me want to skip the talking." He whispered low into your ear, your body wracking with shivers.

"Jack Abbot, you're a goddamn tease."

He pulled back fully, hazel eyes swirling with desire locking onto yours. "If we do this, it changes everything. I'm not—you're it for me. I'm not letting go of you."

"Fine by me."

He smiled, shaking his head lightly before diving back down to kiss you. He walked you backwards through your apartment, leading you to your bedroom like he had done it a thousand times before.

"How's the knee?" He mumbled against your mouth, pushing you back against your bedroom door once he closed it.

"Better. Swelling's gone, minimal pain."

He pulled back, squinting his eyes at you. "And you wouldn't be lying to me?"

"Never."

His mouth quirked up, an appraising look in his eyes. "Good girl."

A whimper slipped out of you and his eyes lit up.

"You like that? You like when I call you a good girl?"

You nodded, one of your hands gripping his shoulder and the other slipping into his curls. He gave you a peck on the lips before moving down to kiss your neck, mouthing at the spot below your ear that had you unleashing sighs and soft moans. One of his thick thighs slotted between your legs, pressing against your core and making you dizzy.

His hands grasped your hips, dragging you back and forth on his strong thigh. Your hips followed his lead, sparks shooting throughout your body from your clit. You could feel the wetness starting to leak out of you, making the friction even more delicious. Breathy pants and sighs slipped from your lips, your hips rocking faster as your body lit up under his touch. His fingers pressed harder into your hips, grunts tickling the skin of your neck as he got achingly hard from you getting yourself off on his thigh.

"Yeah, like that, pretty girl."

He latched his mouth onto your pulse point, sucking hard and making your head drop with a thud against the door.

"Jack," you breathed out. "Please."

"Tell me what you need."

Your hand on his shoulder trailed down the front of his sweatshirt, landing on his hard bulge and squeezing. His broken moan sounded in the quiet room.

"You. Fuck me, please."

"You need it that bad, huh?"

You nodded eagerly, giving him another squeeze before his hand gripped your wrist and pulled it away.

"Shit—yeah, okay. I'll give you what you need."

He spun you around, walking you towards the bed and pulling your top off. He let out a groan as he saw you were braless, your already hard nipples ready for him to feast on. He pushed you down to sit on the bed, pulling his sweatshirt over his head. Your hands grasped the waistband of his pants, trembling with anticipation as you worked the button open and zipper down. His hands found yours, pulling them away from him and you huffed in annoyance.

He moved his hands to the waistband of your leggings and pulling them down slowly. You fought back the frustrated groan working it's way up your throat—you didn't need his slow hands, you wanted him to fuck you dumb.

He ran a finger down your underwear, a damp spot already formed. He pressed down on it, earning a soft moan from you and his cock twitched in his pants. His finger moved faster, more slick soaking your underwear and he became addicted to the sight—addicted to the way your hips moved forward eagerly. He gripped both hands around the fabric and pulled them down your legs, much to your relief.

"No foreplay. Trust me, I'm already wet enough." Your desperate voice sounded out, your hands making their way back to his pants. He let you pull his pants and boxer briefs down to his knees, your wide eyes latching onto his cock as it sprung free against his stomach.

You were right. He was really well hung; thick and long, curving slightly to the left. You felt your mouth watering, wanting nothing more than to choke and drool on his length. Maybe next time.

"Did you pop a viagra before you came over?" You teased, your lips curving into a smirk as your eyes met his.

He squinted at you, giving your thigh a light smack. "Watch it, sweetheart."

Your nerves sang from his smack, and you felt the strong urge to roll over onto all fours and ask him to slap you again—though you knew he would just flip you back over because of your knee.

He toed his shoes off before pulling his pants off all the way, giving you a good look at his stupidly big thighs and his prosthetic leg. Your breath caught at him standing fully naked before you—he was beautiful; his freckles, wrinkles, and scars telling you a story of a long life that you hoped you would continue to be a part of.

"Don't need a little blue pill when I've got you. Just need to think of you and I'm already half hard."

"That was strangely sweet."

He leaned down, capturing your lips in a searing kiss. One of your hands found his cock, using the precum leaking from the tip as lube to slowly drag your hand up and down his length. He groaned into your mouth, his hips jerking forward into your touch.

He pushed at your shoulders, encouraging you to lay back on the bed with your legs dangling off the edge. He grabbed a pillow, slotting it under your hips so they were tilted up.

"I'm gonna take the leg off, okay?"

"Whatever is comfortable for you, I really don't mind."

He took his prosthetic off, the process quick and like second nature. He rested his amputated leg on the bed beside your thigh. "There might be a bit of adjusting, but we just need to communicate. That okay with you?" You nodded your agreement.

He leaned over you, one hand next to your head as the other came up to squeeze your breast and roll your nipple between his fingers. He kissed you passionately, his tongue slipping into your mouth and stubble scratching your skin. You moaned into his mouth, grabbing his cock and tugging it slowly, teasingly.

His kisses grew sloppy as your pace picked up before he pulled back, resting his head on your collarbone.

"You got a condom?" His warm breath elicited goosebumps across your skin.

"I'm on the pill. And clean."

His cock jumped in your hand at your insinuation and he stood back up to get a good look at you. His sweet girl laid out on her bed before him, telling him he could fuck her raw. Yeah, he was pretty sure he had died and gone to heaven—or hell, either worked.

"You sure?"

"Please," you breathed out, dark and lidded eyes gazing up at him desperately.

"Fuck, don't know how I got so lucky."

He brought his cock to your soaked core, dragging it back and forth with ease—the tip catching on your clit making you gasp. He repeated the motions until you were writhing under him, pretty mouth falling open and moaning out his name.

"Tell me you want this. Tell me you want me." He rasped out, his control thinning by the second.

"God, I want this so badly. I want you—I have for so long, please." You whined, snapping his restraint.

He grabbed your legs, resting your ankles on his shoulders in the butterfly position. He gripped your hips before he brought his tip to your entrance, captivated by your tight hole clenching at the slight press of him. He pushed in slowly, a guttural moan leaving him as your walls gripped tightly.

"Shit—fuck, you're tight."

You let out a whine, your cunt stretching to accommodate his girth. Your chest heaved with heavy pants, your core lighting up with pleasure and only half his length was in you. Your hands found his forearms, your fingers digging in as he pressed into you more. A wail left you once he was fully in, your walls clenching impossibly tight. You both stayed still for a few seconds, both your staggered breaths filling the room. You squeezed around him and he let out a pained groan.

"That's—you feel so fucking good."

"Move, please." You begged.

He pulled his hips back, leaving just the tip in before he thrust back in harshly.

"Fuck!" You yelled, his cock hitting against your sweet spot perfectly. He picked up the pace, his hips alternating between slow, dragging thrusts and harsh, quick thrusts—his eyes watching your face carefully, learning what made you whimper and your eyes roll back. His grip on your hips tightened, tilting them up as he delivered a harsh thrust that had a cry leaving your lips.

"You like that? Does that feel good?" You nodded mindlessly, pressure building in your core as your room filled with the sounds of your pleasure and skin slapping against skin.

"Don't stop, Jack—oh, god—"

He groaned out as you squeezed even tighter around him, his release nearing embarrassingly fast. Your nails dug into his skin, a hiss leaving him at the burning sensation. He moved a hand from your hip to your core, rubbing tight circles on your clit. Your back arched as a loud moan escaped your chest, echoing throughout your room and probably being heard by the neighbours.

He kept his pace on your clit as his thrusts sped up, the effort making his face shine with a sheen of sweat.

"That's a good girl. You close, sweetheart?"

You mewled at his praise, nodding your head and uh-huhing as the fire licked higher. Your stomach clenched as your orgasm built, and you could feel Jack's nearing—his thrusts starting to lose rhythm.

"Come inside me. Please, Jack." Your eyes shining with tears met his as you begged, and he almost blew his load right then.

"Tell me you're mine," he gritted out through clenched teeth.

"I'm yours—only yours," you gasped out.

"Fuck, I'm gonna come. Shit, sweetheart—oh fuck." Jack moaned out, and the sound combined with the dual simulation on your cunt had you coming with a sharp cry—warmth spreading out from your core, your body feeling weightless and mind going fuzzy with pleasure.

You clenched down on his cock as you came, your slick walls keeping him locked deep and he rutted two times before coming—spilling in you with a long groan.

He brought your legs down from his shoulders and collapsed on top of you, peppering your chest with kisses as his cock softened inside you.

"That was…" He started.

"Yeah," you laughed softly, your arms wrapping around his shoulders and holding him to your chest. "Pretty good for an old man," you couldn't help but tease him, earning another smack to your hip.

"Smartass."

After showering and eating you found yourself back in bed with Jack, lying next to him with your head on his bicep, one leg slung over his hip and a finger lazily tracing his chest—mapping his freckles like constellations. His free hand was running a path up and down your thigh and hip, goosebumps erupting from his touch.

You turned your head slightly to look at his face. "Did you know there was a bet about us?"

He turned to give you a bewildered look, before realisation slowly dawned on him.

"Well, that explains Robby pestering me with questions all week. Kept asking if I was getting laid, apparently the smile on my face was concerning."

You laughed softly, your heart glowing at the fact he was caught smiling at work because of you. "What did you tell him?"

"That I'm flattered but don't see him that way."

So you let him have it. You were on the couch, the cold end, your feet tucked under his thigh the way you did when the house ran cold, and he had an arm around you—around your shoulders, the weight of it there but not gathered or pulling. His hand rested where it landed and didn’t do anything to you, the way you’d drape an arm over a couch you happened to be sharing. You’d noticed you noticed that now. You’d started keeping a tally of how Jack held you, which was a thing you’d never done in the years when how he held you wasn’t a question. 

“Robby asked if we wanna come to Jake’s birthday-thing,” you said after a while, fingers absently drumming over the side of his waist. “It’s on Saturday, I think.”

“Mm.” His eyes stayed on the game. “You working?” 

“I’m off. You’re working that night, I think.” You watched the side of his face. 

He took a slow pull of his beer. “Might pick up a SWAT thing, too. Maybe. They’ve been short on the call list.”

You stopped drumming your fingers. “You’re already working, anyway. You wanna do both?”

“If they need it. It works.” 

You knew he didn’t pick up SWAT for the money or the fact that it fit into his nocturnal schedule; he picked it up the same way other men went to the garage, except a garage would never page him at three in the morning and tell him he was the one thing standing between somebody and the worst night of their life. You’d worked that out years ago and never said it. 

“It might be nice to go to Jake’s, though. I think Robby’d like you coming.” You drummed your fingers once against his side and made yourself stop. “Just for an hour. You’re allowed to be in a room with people who aren’t actively dying, Jack. It’s not against the rules.”

You waited for the huff, the half-laugh, the one sound on earth that still told you he was listening and found something he enjoyed from you. It didn't come. His thumb didn't move on your shoulder. He watched a man on the screen miss a free throw.

So you reached again, because the quiet where something else should’ve been was unbearable, and it had been creeping up more often than not into your life. “We haven’t been doing much with people lately. I just say you’re busy. It’s getting to be most of what I say about you.”

And he reached forward and set the beer down on the coffee table, slow, and the arm came off your shoulders—lifted away and retrieved—as he said, without looking at you, “Can you not, tonight?”

“Not do what?” you said, trying to keep your voice even—quiet. Your feet were still tucked under his thigh, still warm there, and you hated that you could feel exactly how warm.

“That.” He took two fingers of the armrest, a small motion at you, the air, at the whole thing you’d been doing. “The—needling. I’m tired. I just wanna relax.”

You caught your bottom lip between your teeth. “I’m not needling you. I asked you to come to your friend’s step-son’s birthday party.” 

“You’re—every time there’s a little—” He stopped and pressed his lips together. “It’s fine. Forget it. I’ll come to the party.”

“I don’t want you to come because I nagged you into it.” 

“Then I won’t come. Great.” He picked the beer back up. “Either way you’ve got something to say about it.”

He said it tired, with no heat in it at all. Jack never gave you heat anymore, heat you could’ve matched, that would’ve meant he was still in the room with you. He only turned back to the screen like the conversation was a thing he’d set down when he picked up his drink, like you were weather. Like being married to you was a low constant noise he’d learned to watch TV over. 

You took your feet out from under his thigh. Your body did it, the way it had started doing things lately, retreating on its own recognizance, and you felt the cold come back into them immediately, the apartment's cold, the cold you'd been borrowing his warmth against for eight years like it was yours to borrow, and you tucked them under yourself instead, away from him, and he noticed—you saw him notice—and he didn't say anything, and that was the worst part, that he watched you take your cold feet back and just let you, let the small thing go. 

A year ago he’d have caught your ankle without looking and dragged them back into the warm; two years ago he’d have done it mid-sentence, not even noticing he was doing it. Tonight he watched them go like watching a door shut three rooms away, registering but without the worth of the crossing.

You sat at your end of the couch with your feet under you and he sat at his with the warm beer, and the space between you on the cushion was maybe eight inches and it was the loneliest place you had ever been in your life.

Kevin was asleep on the floor in front of the dark TV stand, on his side, paws twitching at some dream where everything was still fine. He didn't feel the cold that had come into the room. He was the only one of the three of you who didn't.

When the game came back from commercial, he watched it for a minute. You looked at your phone without reading anything, and then you felt him shift—the cushion moved and he closed some of the gap—and his arm came around you again, his hand finding your shoulder, pulling gently. His mouth came down toward the side of your head. 

You pulled back just slightly then, turning so his mouth missed. You put a hand flat on his chest, and you didn’t have a word for it. Nothing except for the fact that you couldn’t—wouldn’t—do this tonight; you didn’t want his hands as much as you needed the rest of him. 

He stopped, and for a second neither of you moved. The arm that had reached for you came up off your shoulder and went into the air—a small, tired throw of it—and dropped to his knee. 

“Okay, then.” His voice landed flat at the end of it, the nearest thing to a bite he had left. 

Cruelly, embarrassingly, you’d wished for him to push, to fight the space between you instead of just giving it back. But he didn’t fight things, you knew that. You’d married a man who would let you go an inch at a time, politely, without ever once grabbing your wrist, and you were only now starting to understand it was far from peace. It was only the slowest way a person could leave.

You sat with your hand still warm from his chest and the want to take it back, to be a person who could just let him put his mouth on her neck and call it fixed.

“Jack,” you said, voice coming out quiet, almost wavering, as though you were stumbling upon saying your own husband’s name. 

He looked at you—looked—the first time all night. All week, maybe.

His jaw loosened a fraction as the line between his eyes went soft; his eyes dropped for half-a-second to your mouth and back up like he was checking the damage. The tired came off him in that half-second the way fog comes off a windshield, not all of it, just a clear patch, just enough to see that under the worn-down man on the couch there was still the other one, the one who could tell you he loved you and showed you he did.

“What is it?” he said, low, gentler than he’d been in months, the tiredness pulled off his voice for a second. “Hey. What is it?”

You were getting whiplash. It was the easiest way to describe it. Whiplash, because this was the man, wasn’t it? This was the whole problem in one cushion’s width; he could spend a month thousands of miles away and then turn his head and be here, soft-eyed, asking if you’d forgive it, and you’d forgive it.

You’d forgive all of it in the second it took him to look at you like that, and you hated how cheap you were about it. How little it took you; he’d been gone for weeks and then he looked at you like that, and your whole body wanted to close the gap and pretend you’d never moved at all. 

You held onto the space, though, because closing them—over and over—had walked you right here, to a couch where your own husband felt like a long distance.

“Am I doing something wrong?” you asked, the voice coming out smaller than you wanted. The sharpness had dropped somewhere in the last twenty minutes, and the question came out plain.

He didn’t say no at all for a second. He looked at you and there was a beat—a pause you’d miss if you hadn’t spent the last five years entangled in him—where was deciding something, sorting something. You felt the floor tilt.

“You hesitated.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did. I asked you a yes-or-no question.” You forced your voice even, which was itself a feat, saying something that would’ve had you screaming. “Just tell me. I’d rather—just tell me.” When he didn’t respond, you said, “You said I’m nagging you like ten minutes ago.”

“I didn’t say nag,” he said immediately. “I’d never say that about you.”

“But you meant it.” You watched him. “You meant something like it.” He picked at the label on the beer, the corner of it, a thing to do with his hands. “Just say something.”

Jack shook his head, eyes facing downward. “I don't know what you want me to say.” 

“Anything. Whatever you're thinking.” Your voice climbed up a small octave, fingers pressing into the fabric of the couch. 

“I don't—” He looked at the ceiling then. “I haven't got anything to give you. I'm not hiding anything—it's just empty. I—” He pressed his lips together. “I come home and there's nothing in me that wants to—" He stopped.

The wanting was the part that had gone. He heard it a beat after you did; you watched it catch up to him, watched him decide whether to walk it back, and watched him choose not to, because he wouldn't lie even by correction.

“Do what? Talk to me?”

“It’s not talking and you know that.” He rubbed at his jaw. “It’s never us just talking anymore.”

“Because you won’t say anything—”

“Because every time I do, it’s like this,” he said, voice not rising at all. “It’s like this.”

Your fingers intertwined in your lap, and you forced yourself to swallow. “I’m—I don’t know. What have I done to you?”

“Nothing,” he said fast, and almost soft, almost the right thing, and then he kept going. “You haven’t done anything. That’s not—it’s not a thing you did.” He dragged a hand down his face. “It’s just gotten—I don’t know. I’m not sure how to explain it. Hard, I guess. Being here.”

There was something you’d never felt before. It was like ice being slid across your already-freezing surface, a sharp, sharp cold that went in clean and announced itself only when it was already deep; a frostbite that came out of hearing a thing you’d suspected for months being said out loud, in the voice you married, in the voice you loved. 

Hard. Being here.

You turned the words over and they stayed cold, not even an inch of them growing warmer. Jack hadn’t said it was hard, the schedule; he hadn’t said it was hard, the hours. No, he’d said it was hard, being here—here being the apartment you’d painted the back bedroom of together, the place where your dog lived and the plant on the sill you kept alive out of spite. Being here meant where you were; being here meant you. 

You opened your mouth—to say what, you didn’t know, something to claw the night back from the edge it was tipping over—and that was when Jack’s phone went off.

The three-tone climb he’d set for the hospital years ago and never once slept through, the sound that could pull him out of the deepest part of a night like a hook under the sternum, the Pavlovian bell that turned your husband from a body in a bed to a man already reaching for his boots. You realized then that you’d come to hate that exact sequence of notes the way you’d hate a smell that meant something bad was coming. 

He glanced down at the screen at the coffee table. You watched him read it.

“—Hang on,” he said, holding up one finger.

You shook your head slowly, just once, the tiniest no you owned. Please, not now. Not this. Don’t you dare. You know he saw it and he picked up the phone anyway, thumbing it to his ear, turning his face a few degrees like that would make it a private thing.

“Abbot.”

You heard his half of it. There was a cruelty in one-sided calls, you learned then; your brain had to fill the silences and it almost always imagined the worst version of the other voices. 

“Yeah.” His free hand came up and pressed flat against his eyes, then dragged down. “How many?” Pause. “Jesus. Okay. What’s the—okay. How many are coming to us—”

He was standing now. You’d hardly noticed him lift off the couch, and there it was, the thing you'd spent a year too proud to name—the reserve tank, the four-minutes-to-alive, the whole second engine he swore up and down he didn't have left at the end of a day, roaring to life now, for them, in front of you, while the wreck of your marriage smoked on the cushion behind him.

“No, not on schedule tonight but—” He turned, caught your face, and looked away from it. “Yeah, no. I hear you. It’s a—okay.” He breathed in. “Give me twenty.”

He'd just told you he didn't want to do this tonight—couldn't, the conversation was too hard, being here was too hard, he was too tired, he'd been too tired for months—and he'd found twenty minutes and a full tank inside of thirty seconds, without any deliberation or drag, the yes leaving him as easy as breathing.

The thing he could not summon for the you in front of him—for the past year—he had handed to a dispatcher without it costing him a single visible thing.

He lowered the phone and for a second he stood still. You saw something go across his face, the brief animal awareness like maybe he was aware of the difference between leaving and leaving; like he knew exactly what he was leaving unfinished on the couch behind him and what walking out would entail.

You watched him set it down and reach for the keys in his pocket anyway.

“They got slammed,” he said, eyes focused on something past you. “Multi-vehicle. They’re calling all the ED doctors who can. I gotta—” He paused. “I have to go in.”

And you knew it was true. You’d heard half of the call and charted the rest; you knew a bus on the interstate emptied out every bay and then some, you knew they needed hands on those bays in the next twenty minutes more than they’d ever needed anything from you.

Ortho wouldn’t be paging you tonight; you’d be getting paged at dawn, to fix what survived him. You knew all of it. 

“No.” Your voice came out small, so small, and then not so small. “Jack—don’t go. Not right now. Please.”

Don’t go because I don’t know how to be here after you said this. 

He stopped with his keys out of his pocket, the metal of them catching the lamplight. He looked at you like you’d spoken in a different language.

Kevin lifted his head at the sound of the keys—he knew that sound, he knew it meant nothing good—and he’d come halfway across the room and sat, expectant, tail going, because this was just another part of the night where Jack left and came back smelling like a million different people. He had no idea. 

“What?”

“Don’t go yet,” you said again, and your hands found the hem of your shirt, folding it, the same anxious origami he’d watched you do the night before your wedding, every threshold you’d ever stood shaking on. “Stay. Please.”

“Baby, it’s—it’s a mass casualty,” he said gently, the same voice he used on families, on the newly bereaved, on people who needed the situation walked through slow.  “You know what that means better than the guy who just called me. They’re not pulling me in for fun—”

“I know what it is.”

“—they’ve got people coming in the door who are gonna die on the floor of the ED if there aren’t enough hands, and I’ve got hands, so—” He spread them, demonstrating, the same two hands that had set your wedding ring on your finger and stitched your eyebrow shut and held your hair in four different bathrooms over five years. Capable hands. Hands the world also had a standing claim on. “I have to be one of them. That’s the whole job. You knew that going in.”

He reached for that like a railing; it was the oldest defense in the marriage because you did know that going in; you’d met him through it. You also had known you’d married a man whose pager outranked you, and you’d thought, idiot that you were, that being outranked by the dying was a noble thing to lose to.

You’d thought you could share him with the worst nights of strangers and still be satisfied to have the rest. You only hadn’t thought about what was left of a man after the worst nights of strangers got first cut.

Fuck, you knew you were being unreasonable. He was right. He was always right; you could've argued his side better than he was arguing it, probably.

Being married to him meant being married to a man whose reasons were unimpeachable, who never once left you for something miniscule, who could meet every single word with something objectively more important bleeding out somewhere. You were just supposed to keep understanding and be reasonable, keep losing to causes too noble to resent.

You'd been so reasonable it had hollowed you out.

So yes, you were going to be unreasonable now, finally, on purpose, because reasonable had gotten you a husband who could hardly stand to be around you. You had nothing left to lose by being the villain for once.

“Be a little late for once in your life. For me. I’m not asking you to quit your job.” Your shoulders stiffened. “I’m asking you to stay here for ten more minutes. The department has over fifteen people who can run a bay. I have one of you, Jack, and you’re about to walk out the door in the middle of—” Your voice cracked down the center. “—of the worst thing we’ve ever said to each other. Right now I need you here.” 

He looked at you, and something pulled out; Jack never did outright anger, but it was a kind of strained disbelief—the closest thing he could muster up to anger—like you’d asked him to pick a paint color while a building around you burned. 

“You—okay.” He pushed a breath out through his nose. “There are people bleeding on a freeway right now. They’re loading them in the back of rigs as we’re here. And you want me to stay here so we can—what. Finish talking?” He tilted his head to the side, the words coming out slowly as though he wanted them to absorb through you. “If you can’t see the difference between somebody dying and us having a fight on a Sunday night, then I don’t know what to tell you.” He pressed his lips together. “I really don’t. There’s no version of me that picks the fight.”

You felt his words go through you like a blade slid between two ribs, clean, almost painless for a second before the wrong of it bloomed. 

You knew there was no version of him that picked the fight. You’d stopped wanting that one a long time ago. You wished—small and stupid and right down at the floor of you—that there was just a version of him that found it hard to go. You wished he’d hesitate at the door the way he never hesitated, that needed a second to move himself toward the stairs and away from you, that did you the basic mercy of looking like the choice was a choice. But his body always picked before his mouth could finish the sentence; there was no difficulty to perform because there was none. The going was easy, you learned; you were the only difficult thing in the room for him, and he was already past you. 

“Jack, I’m scared,” you said, voice raw.

He stopped. For a second he stayed still, and stopped reaching for the next reasonable thing to say. You thought you saw it cost him—the going, the leaving you alone with it—you thought you saw the door pull at him from the wrong direction for once. Then he breathed in, and you watched him decide it hadn’t.

“I’m scared,” you said again, quieter, and your hands stopped folding your shirt and went still. “You told me you don’t like being here with me. And now you’re leaving, and I can’t stay with that by myself all night, and I just—” Your throat closed and you forced yourself through it. “Tell me we’re okay. That’s all. Just—before you go, tell me we’re going to be okay and I’ll open that door myself for you. I swear to God I will.”

It would cost him nothing; he could have said it with half his body already in the hallway, he could’ve thrown it over his shoulder on the way to the elevator, the tiniest, silliest mercy, the cheapest possible thing of rescuing.

He was used to telling strangers they were going to be fine with their blood drying on his gloves; you’d seen him say it gently and sure of it, almost ten times a shift. It was a kind lie, a sort of verbal morphine he handed out for free to people he’d never, ever see again. And he came up empty when he tried to hand out the words to you, because to him they’d be a lie; because he’d just told you the truth and he would rather stand on it than lie to make you feel better.

“I’m not gonna lie to you,” he said, voice low and rough, like he wanted you to know it was the honesty that loved you.

A part of you came off its hinges.

In the second half after it gave, you saw the whole year at once, the sum of it, the way a column of figures you’d been adding wrong all night long finally totalled, and the total was obscene. The thousand small withdrawals you’d noticed and told yourself were the schedule, the hours, the fucking seasons, when all of it had only ever been you, and him backing out of the room so slowly. You’d spent a year making his leaving make sense so neither of you would have to hold the larger thing in your hands.

You were asking Jack who’d just told you the truth to please, please lie—begging him, downgrading the ask in real time, from ‘love me’ to ‘want me’ to ‘just pretend’—and he would not. You had become a thing not worth the mercy of being lied to. He’d rather be honest at you than kind to you, and he’d decorated it up as an integrity, and some animal part of you had to thank him for it.

You felt your own value drop in your hands like something you’d been holding too long without noticing the weight, and the relief of setting it down was indistinguishable from grief. 

“Okay.” You laughed, a wet and disbelieving sound. “Okay. Okay. Fuck, Jack—I don’t have to take this.” You swiped your palm under your nose, over your lips. “I’m done asking for things. I’ve been asking for things for a whole year.” You forced in a breath, because you felt your chest start to ache. “I don’t want them anymore. I don’t—I just really—”

“What—” He took a step towards you, the keys forgotten in his fist, because this he could read, the wild coming off you in a way he’d likely never seen before. “Don’t—what are you doing?”

“Nothing.” You were on your feet now, the whole length of you strung tight, vibrating. “You’re the one with somewhere to be. So go. I’m not going to make you feel bad about it for one more second—you’ve got a hospital full of people who actually want you there, so go.”

“Stop.” There was real fear in it now, and it was far from what he was used to. This had no protocol.  “You’re spun up, you’re not—just sit down a second. Sit down.”

“No.” It would’ve felt better if you could cry, but you were past it, dried out, and your voice had reached somewhere far away. “I’m not gonna sit down. I’m not doing any of this anymore. You don’t want to be here—fine. You don’t like being around me—fine. I heard you. I heard you, all right.”

You took in a breath. "I can't keep being a thing that's not fucking picked, ever." Your voice cracked. "You're supposed to be the one who picks me." You grabbed your phone off the couch, then. “I’m gonna go to my sister’s.”

“It’s almost midnight.”

You understood, with a tired clarity, that it was the closest he could come. That buried somewhere under the logistics and safety, he would let you walk out into the dark believing he only cared about the hour than say a single word that meant he wanted you to stay. 

“I know what time it is.” You said without looking at him. You couldn’t. And you didn’t have to anymore. “Go, Jack. I’ll get my stuff this week. We’ll—” Your throat worked. “We don’t have to make it ugly. You always said that, that we won’t make it ugly if it ever got to it.”

And you waited—not for him to fight, you were past expecting that—you just waited to see if he'd say anything at all. If he’d put it together, the keys in your hand and understand that you'd just left him, quietly, standing up, right now.

You heard him take in a breath through his nose. “And it’s got to it?” 

You finally looked at him, and it was a mistake. A bewildered kind of hurt marred his features, like he genuinely didn’t know, like he hadn’t just spent the last half hour telling you so, in a hundred soft ways, that it had gotten to it months ago and he just hadn’t had the words to say so until you put them in his mouth. 

“Yeah,” you said. “It’s at it.”

His face scrunched, brows pulling in and his eyes going to the middle distance like the information had been overloaded on him faster than he could handle it. He shook his head, a small movement more to clear water out of his ears. Then he closed the space you'd put between you, and his hands came up to your face—both of them, the whole rough warm span of them cradling your jaw the way they'd done ten thousand times, the way they fit there like the shape had been cut for them once—and he tilted your head up and pressed his mouth to your forehead.

You went rigid under it. You couldn’t help it. Every muscle in your body locked because you knew exactly what this kiss was—it was the one he gave you before clocking in and over the hoods of cars—and he was giving it to you now, over the corpse of your marriage, like this was simply another bad night he was stepping out of. His lips were warm against your hairline. You stood there and took it and gave him nothing back, your arms dead at your sides, because if you let yourself lean into it you would not survive it.

“Stay here tonight,” he said into your hair, hands still bracketing your face. “Don’t drive somewhere else so late and worked up. Just—stay. Sleep. We’ll talk when I’m back. Alright?” His thumb moved along your cheekbone, the worst kind of gentleness you’d ever been afforded. “I’m not gonna make this hard for you. I promise.”

Your breath hitched. You’d asked him, under all of it, pettily, to fight for the marriage, and he’d answered by being gentle about its disposal. He was already planning to be good at losing you—losing this—and you would have to force yourself to never wonder how long he had been planning it.

His hand slid back into your hair, tilting your face up, his mouth close enough that you felt the next words against your lips more than heard them.

“You’re not gonna have to fight me for one thing, okay? Whatever you want, it’s yours. You say it and it’s done.” A muscle ticked in his jaw as he met your eyes again. “I’ll give you whatever you ask me for.” 

You wanted to fight him. You wanted it to be the hardest, ugliest, most expensive divorce in the world. You wanted lawyers who hated each other and a fight over Kevin and a screaming match about a lamp neither of you even liked, because at least that would’ve meant there was something worth fighting for. You wanted him to be unreasonable. You wanted, God help you, to matter enough to be difficult to lose.

He stood there with his hands in your hair and his mouth a breath from yours and offered you the whole world on the way out the door, the place and the dog and the money and his good-faith signature on whatever you put in front of him—everything, anything, the entire estate of five years, yours for the asking—and the only thing you wanted, the single thing in the world you'd have taken, was the one thing the offer didn't cover.

“I don’t want anything from you,” you said, having to force your face out of his hands as you stepped back. 

His jaw worked. His hands had dropped to his sides and hung there, opening and closing on nothing.

Jack was right. He’d made the divorce as easy as possible. 

That was the thing you believed you could never forgive him for, the ease that seemed to come to him. He’d been a complete gentleman about the entire dismantling of your life. He’d signed where the mediator flagged without reading past the first page, waved off the better half of the furniture, told the woman with the clicking pen that whatever you wanted was fine by him in a voice so reasonable you’d wanted to come across the table. He’d shown up to every appointment five minutes early and dissolved five years like he was discharging a patient who’d done well. 

He had not once made it hard. He’d promised you that, and he’d delivered on it the way he delivered on every promise except the one that had counted. The keeping of it had been its own small daily knife; every easy signature had been proof there’d been nothing in it heavy enough to shake. 

There was a part of you that wondered if he was handing out all of these tiny grievances on purpose. A cruel man you could have hated, and hate would have been such a kindness to yourself; hate was portable, durable, and something you could build a new life on top of. But he’d held back from giving you a single thing to hate.

Hate would have been better than this, instead of loving a man you had no good reason left to love and no bad reason to stop. It wasn’t like he was keeping you on a leash; he’d simply let go of it, gently, and left you holding all this love with no one decent to blame for it.

You hated him anyway. You had to hate someone, and he’d left you no one but him, just the fact of him.

His hands had shaken at the wedding. You kept that fact like a stone in your shoe. He’d had to press them flat against his thighs through the vows, and afterward, in the awful relief of the receiving line, he’d told you it was the only time his body had ever flat-out betrayed him in front of an audience. Combat hadn’t done it. A femoral bleed at twenty-three hadn’t done it. You had done it. 

Five years on, those same hands had signed you away, and they hadn’t trembled once. You’d watched and later hated yourself for watching, waiting for the tremor that never came, and the steadiness of his signature told you everything the eight sentences at the altar once had, just in the opposite direction. 

So you’d done the avoiding part of it all, which was just an engineering of a hundred small choices that made sure to keep you two on opposite sides of any given wall. You took the dog hand-offs at the threshold and never once let him past the doorway and into your apartment. You made sure to avoid him in the case that you were on the ED floor during shift-change. You sent the rest of the paperwork by courier. You’d gotten really, really good at missing him on purpose, and you thought it as a proof of your healing, that it had started to take less effort.

That was how you’d talked yourself into this. After eight whole weeks of clean avoidance, you’d decided—with arrogance after not having been tested—that you were past the danger of him. You could stand in a room with Jack Abbot and feel nothing more complicated than the low civil ache of a thing concluded.

So you agreed to meet him at your marital apartment. The one you’d kept in the split and couldn’t live in—you’d lasted six nights in it before the wrong shape of him in the doorway drove you to your new place across town—and were now, finally, selling. The buyers wanted to close clean, which meant the last of the shared things had to go, the few heavy pieces neither of you had wanted to claim, the boxes in the hall closet that had sat sealed since before the wedding.

His name was still on the deed until Friday. There were papers that needed both your signatures and a key that needed to go back and a life that needed, at last, to be carried out the door in pieces. It required the two of you.

You were late, though. By ten minutes, but still late. 

He was already showing the place. He had his back turned to you when you came in, standing in the bare living room with a young couple, walking them through in a low, even voice. You stopped just inside the door, because you weren’t ready just yet.

“—gets the morning light on this side, good for plants if you’re into that. She kept one alive for years, don’t ask how—thing should’ve died ten times sooner.” He had his hands in his pockets, then put them behind his back. “Floors are original. We sanded them down ourselves one summer. There won’t be any problems with them.” he paused.

You felt something in your stomach lurch as you heard him describe the apartment through your marriage, selling it as a floorplan.

“About the light in the bedroom?” the woman asked. “We were here in the morning last time. I wondered about the evenings.” 

“Evenings are the good ones,” Jack said. “Back of the place faces west. Around six, six-thirty this time of year, the whole—” He turned, gesturing toward the bedrooms, and that was when he saw you. “—the back rooms go gold. She’d—”

His breath caught, the small hitch, the sentence falling off the edge of whatever he'd been about to say about you and the gold light and the evenings, a thing he hadn't planned on saying out loud and definitely hadn't planned on saying to your face. He hadn't seen you in weeks.

Then he cleared his throat. “You made it,” he said. “This is the couple. They’ve got questions about the back bedroom. You’ll do better on that than me.”

You did the back bedroom. You told the wife about the gold light yourself, since he’d choked on it. You did not tell her what he’d been about to say, which was that you used to read in there, because you had; you’d dragged the one good chair into the light and read until the gold went gray. Jack would come find you, stand in the doorway with his arms crossed, with a look on his face; you’d spent eight weeks trying to remember what it looked like. 

You gave the wife the color name and the square footage and absolutely none of that. She loved the room. She said she could see a nursery in it, one hand drifting to her stomach, and you smiled and agreed it was perfect. Jack went very still three feet behind you, and neither of you looked at the other, and the moment passed.

Then it was done, things like this—endings—were always anticlimactic. The realtor fanned the last papers across the kitchen island and the two of you signed in turn, passing the pen back and forth without your fingers touching. The couple shook your hands and thanked you, warm and oblivious, already half-living here in their heads.

The realtor passed her card onto you, like you’d ever need her for a thing again, and then the door shut behind the three of them and their entire unmarked future. 

It was just the two of you. The apartment swelled up, enormous around you, all that empty light, the bare floor, the nothing.

“God.” You crossed your arms, looking at the empty living rooms, the squares on the walls where frames had been, the indentations on the floor where furniture stood so long it left a mark. “I hate that someone else is gonna be living here.”

Your words came out flatter and uglier than the sentiment, and that was the only place you could’ve said it. You wouldn’t miss it, there was nothing soft, just the low territorial burn of it.

“Some other people. In the—rooms. She’s gonna put a crib in there and they’re gonna paint over my favourite color and they’ll never know we were ever—” You stopped, shrugged, hard, like you could shake the rest of the sentence off. “I don’t even wanna live here. I just hate that they get to.” 

“That’s not very nice,” he said, huffing. He went quiet for a second then, placing his hands behind him, looking at the same empty room you were. “Yeah. I don’t love it either.” 

You walked across the empty space, to the windows to look out of it. 

After a moment, he said, “Why couldn’t you just keep it?”

You let out a baffled, almost disbelieved laugh. “What? To bring the next guy into?” 

It landed so, so wrong. You felt him go still behind you once again. You hadn’t meant it as a weapon as much as you’d meant it as a deflection, a way to wave off the question, to make it into something easy and bitter you could swat down. You turned around to look at him. 

“Right,” he huffed, something close to a laugh as he looked at the bare floor. “You could’ve let him know the floor’s good for another thirty years. Somebody put a lot on that floor.”

He looked up at you, meeting your eyes. This was as close to the real thing as he could’ve said, but his eyes had gone dark and fixed, only looking at you.

You should have looked away. You should have made some dry thing back about the floor and let the joke work on the second try, let the both of you off the hook, walked it back to civil.

You weren’t sure when your body decided to, but you crossed the room. Your body was already moving while the smarter part of you was still standing at the window forming the objection. And then you were across the bare floor you’d built together and your hand fisted in the front of his shirt, pulling him down to your mouth before either of you could find a reason not to.

He made a sound against you—low, ruined, and completely off-guard—as he came apart all at once, eight weeks of gentleman dissolving the second you touched him. 

“Oh—” It broke out of him against your lips, half a word, breath more than voice. “God. Okay.”

His hands were on you before he’d finished saying it, both of them, one flat between your shoulder blades and one cupping the back of your skull, hauling you in like he’d been dying to do so.

He kissed you with nothing smooth in it, nothing of the easy unhurried Jack who ran the tempo in dark bars and made you ask twice; this was just want, naked and graceless, his mouth opening over yours and a rough noise climbing out of his chest. His fingers tightened in your hair. 

For a second, you let it be that. For one second, you let yourself have the whole of him, the heat coming off him, the give in him, the way his body curved down into you. Then his mouth gentled. 

That was the danger, it always had been with him. You could survive his want, for that was simply heat and you knew what to do with that. It was when the want turned careful, when his hand slid from your skull to your jaw and held it like something he’d been trusted with. His mouth slowed and deepened, it stopped taking and started asking.

The rough noise in his chest softened into something like relief, like he wanted you to know he’d missed you and was telling you so with his mouth because he’d not been able to do so with his words. You felt your own chest cracking along the seam of it. You felt the back of your eyes go hot.

You couldn’t let yourself have that. Tenderness from Jack would end you. Tender—especially here, in the emptied-out apartment with his hand on your face like the divorce hadn’t happened—would put you on your knees on the floor he’d built and you wouldn’t be able to get up.

You bit his lip hard, and dragged your hands down to his belt, trying to turn the whole thing back into the survivable one, the one with no feelings you could drown in. 

“Easy—” he said against your mouth. “Hey, easy.” He caught your wrists, both of them, gentling them off his belt. 

“We’ve got the place until Friday.” He pulled back just enough to find your face, his forehead dropping to yours with his breath gone ragged. His thumb stroked over the inside of your wrist, and his voice dropped. “Slow down, alright? Let me do this right. Not—not like this.”

“Stop. There’s nothing to do right.” You pulled your wrists free. “Look where we are.”

“I’m looking.”

“No, you’re—” You stepped back, enough to make him see it, the whole of it; the bare room, the emptiness, the bare walls, the gold light falling on nothing. “There’s nothing left to fuck up. We—we already wrecked all of it. There’s nothing left to protect here,” you said, words coming exactly as small as you’d meant them to. “So there’s nothing to do right.”

Five years filed down to an offer of just sex, the marriage reduced to a wrecked room you didn’t own anymore, said with a shrug in your voice so it couldn’t get its hands on you. 

He pulled back just enough to get your face in focus, and the heat in him guttered under something else, something winded and unhappy moving through his features. His brows pinched together.

“Fuck, sweetheart,” he said, murmuring. “Don’t say shit like that.” 

You felt your face go hard against it, the wall coming up like a reflex slamming in place.

If it got to be something you’d have admit why you'd crossed it, why you were really here, that you'd let eight weeks of careful distance go to pieces because you were starving for the one thing he could still give you even if it was the crudest, smallest version of it. And that wasn't survivable. So your eyes went flat and your jaw set and you looked at him like you dared him to push it.

His eyes scanned your face quickly, something close to understanding creeping into him. “This doesn’t feel right,” he said in a resigned tone. 

“It’s not right.” You held his eyes. “That’s the whole point.”

He let out a slow breath through his nose, and you watched him set it down. His hand left your wrist and found your hip instead, and his eyes came up to yours, tired but level. “You want this?” he said, hardly a question, just him meeting you down in the nothing where you’d planted your flag.

You nodded once. 

It took him a moment where his eyes held your own, then his mouth was back on yours, harder now. He done it the way you demanded; no questions, no relief, no slowness. His hands found the hem of your shirt and went under, before deciding to rid you of the fabric altogether. 

You lifted your arms, and the air of the empty apartment was cool to your skin where his hands had been. He got his own shirt over his head one-handed, that careless practiced pull, and you put your palms flat to his chest just to feel the heat coming off him, the familiar weight of him, the dog tags still there on their chain against his sternum even now, even divorced, and you didn't let yourself think about that.

Your hands reached down to his belt again, and this time he let you. You got the buckle open, the rough drag of the zipper filled the room, and his breath hitched against your temple. His own hands went to the waist of your jeans and worked them down with a single-minded efficiency that had no ceremony in it at all.

Nothing that resembled the thousand other times this had happened in this apartment with a ring on each of your hands.

He took you both down with an arm banded across your back, and then you were on the floor—the floor you’d built, the one thing the two of you had started and finished, five coats and a whole August of your knee cursing you forever—and here you were on a Friday on your knees one last time, in a room that stopped being yours by next Friday.

He settled over you, braced on one forearm, breathing hard, and for a second he just looked down at you in the long gold light. His hands hesitantly reached up, thumb pressing down against your bottom lip as he furrowed his brows. 

“So pretty,” he murmured, almost to himself, like the sight of you laid down on the floor was something being done to him. His thumb dragged along your lip, collecting the slick on the pad of his skin. “Shit. C’mere—I’m not—” A muscle jumped in his jaw. “Let me look at you a second. That’s all.”

You let him. You straightened your legs. His body towered over yours as he leaned up, and you went down, letting your back hit the floor. 

He settled himself between your legs, and his mouth found your throat, your collarbone, the dip of your sternum and his hand slid down your stomach and between your thighs. Your spine lifted off the ground an inch as his finger drew a line down your slit, before pushing in like he knew exactly what to do. He’d always known exactly what to do. 

“Quit rushing me,” he said, other hand pressing flat against your hip, stilling it when you tried to push it faster. His fingers worked deeper, curving inside just slightly to press up achingly well against your walls.  “Gotta get you ready first. I’m not trying to hurt you.” 

His mouth moved down off your throat to your sternum and pressed a kiss there, dead center, over the place your heart was slamming.

His free hand spread wide and warm over your lower stomach, holding you down into the floor, and the two fingers inside you kept going the same pace, the opposite of what you needed from him; he just sank them deeper, slow, pressed up, and went still there, letting you know exactly how much you wanted it before he’d give you anymore.

You tried to push your hips up into his hand. He pressed them flat again with the heel of his palm, so patient you could’ve screamed.

“I know what you want,” he murmured against your skin, almost amused at how hard you were rushing it. “Let me.”

His thumb found you then, moving in slow circles against the bundle of nerves, and he continued moving his fingers in the same rhythm. You could feel the boards against your spine.

Your body knew this floor. It had a memory of being here that had nothing to do with this, and his thumb pressed a fraction harder, and his mouth came back up to your jaw, and the wall in you started going whether you'd signed off on it or not.

He worked you right up to the edge like that, unhurried, his fingers curling into the spot that made your thighs shake, his mouth at your throat, and you felt the wall going—felt your own control sliding out from under you the way it always had with him, helpless, humiliating—and you bit down on every sound, gave him nothing, until you couldn't.

“Jack,” you said, name breaking out of you ragged. “I need—just—I need you in, please—”

His breath caught over you, and his hand left your hip to drop to himself, palming the length of his cock, a rough involuntary squeeze like he was ready to give you exactly what you needed right that second. His forehead dropped to your collarbone.

“Fuck,” he breathed. “Say it again.” 

You shook your head, already regretting it, already trying to climb back behind the wall—but he lifted up, found your face, and his eyes were dark and blown and desperate, not playing the tempo now, not running anything, just a man who'd heard the one thing he'd been starving eight weeks for and needed to hear it land twice to believe it.

“C’mon. You want me, say it,” he said, voice pleading.

“I want you,” you said quickly, the words coming out small and true. You hated how true they sounded, that he’d pried them loose, hated more that the relief on his face at the stupid words nearly broke you in half. “I want you, Jack. Just—now, please.” 

He made a sound—low, gutted—and then he was lining up and pushing into you, slow and deep and devastating, his breath sawing out ragged against your jaw, and the stretch of it punched the air clean out of your lungs.

You let out a broken sound at the familiar feeling, your spine arching off the boards to take more of him. You felt yourself clench around him, greedy, your own body giving you up.

He buried himself to the hilt and held there, shaking, his forehead pressed to yours, both of you breathing hard into the small space between your mouths.

“There,” he said. “There.”

His hands swept down and hooked under your thighs, hauling them up and around him. His grip went too tight, fingers digging into your muscle hard enough that a sound tore out of you, half pain and half the other thing, pleasure, impossible to separate.

He gentled instantly. “Sorry.” The grip eased, fingers smoothing over the marks even as his hips pressed you harder into the floor. “I’ve got no—can’t think straight.”

“S’ok,” you murmured. “Move.”

He pulled back slow, almost all the way, dragging out until you felt the loss of him, and drove back in hard, once, the single stroke punching a sound out of both of you.

For a second he just stayed there, seated to the hilt, his hand flexing on your hip like he was reining himself in by hand, gathering the pieces of his own composure back up off the floor.

You felt a shudder go through him, and then his forehead came back down to yours and he started to move like he’d decided to make it last.

He set a deep, unhurried pace that almost killed you right there, his hands hauling up your hips to meet every drag of him, the wet sound of it loud in the empty room.

One of his hands slid from your hips, thumb finding you exactly where you needed it, working tight, slow circles in time with the roll of him into you, because he had never taken his without giving you yours first. He knew the pressure. He knew the rhythm. He’d always known. 

You bit down on your lip to keep it in, all of it in. You couldn’t help but let your eyes latch onto his, hold onto the way he looked at you, like you were the only thing in the world worth looking at. It should’ve been the thing that saved you, looking at him, but it was the thing that ruined you.

The wall went; there was no piece of you that could hold it up, not with him looking at you like that, not with his thumb working exactly right and his hips driving up slow and merciless.

He felt it before you did, felt the first flutter of you going tight around him and his whole rhythm shifted to chase it. His thumb pressed harder and his hips shifted slightly to find another angle. A broken noise climbed out of you, the first one that he’d caught onto.

"There you go," he breathed, ragged and almost reverent, like he'd been waiting these eight weeks for that sound and would wait eight more. "I've got you. I've got you."

Your hands found his back and pulled him in past where there was room. You came apart him with a sound you’d never have let out if you’d had a single defense left. 

Through the blur in your vision, you could still make out how everything in him went still and open and almost stricken with it. His breath left him in a low broken rush, like the sight of you was a blow he was taking gladly.

His hands came up your back, your ribs, your face, gathering you, holding you through it like you’d come apart for real if he didn’t, and the sounds coming out of him and hardly reaching your ears over the ringing were ruined and reverent, your name coming out in pieces.

He didn't move for a moment after, didn't chase his own end, didn't do anything but look up at you in the gold light with his chest heaving and his eyes wet at the rims and his hands framing your face like he was holding a thing he'd been told he'd never get to hold again. Like you were the only holy thing left in an emptied-out room. Like he'd have stayed buried in you on the floor for the rest of his life if you'd let him, and counted it mercy.

His thumb swept under your eye, your cheekbone, reverent. And then it moved again, like he was wiping something away, and you realized with a sick lurch that maybe he was. 

“Help me.” He tilted his neck down, looking to you. “C’mon—I’m right there. Help me out,” he said, hardly a command. It was barely a breath, and his forehead dropped to yours as his hips moved in a drag; he was holding it, you could feel him holding it, rationing himself down to the dregs. 

“Jack—” His name cracked out of you. 

His hand found yours where it was fisted against his chest, over the dog tags, and drew it up to his neck. “Just this—”

Your palm dragged up his neck, letting the cold of it slide over the heat on his neck, to reach up to his cheek. He turned his face into your palm and pressed his mouth there, to the center of it, slow. It was a kiss you felt in your teeth, in the backs of your knees. He held himself there with his eyes closed, breathing you in off your skin. 

His hips picked up, a little faster, a little less careful, the restraint starting to fray.

“Talk,” he said against your palm. The words pressed into your skin. “C’mon. I’m close, just—talk to me. Anything. Say something—let me hear you.” 

And there it was, the thing he needed, the thing he'd never be able to finish without—not the friction, not your hand, you, your voice, the proof you were in there with him. Talk to me. The exact words you'd worn yourself hoarse saying to him for two years while he gave you silence, handed back to you now on a bare floor, his mouth against your hand, his hips going faster, a man who'd finally learned to ask for the thing too late to save anything by it.

“I know. I know—can feel it.” Your thumb dragged at his cheek, your voice gone soft and ragged and certain. “Just go. I’ve got you.” Your hand slid from his cheek to the back of his neck, holding him to you, your mouth at his temple. “You feel good, Jack.” 

His rhythm went ragged and deep and his breath punched out against your jaw. You felt the whole length of him go tight, and then he was coming apart with your name buried in his throat, that wrecked sound dragged out of him. His arms locked around you. 

You held him through it. You didn't think about it; your body just did it, your hand at his nape, your other arm coming around his back, your mouth still at his temple where you could feel his pulse going hard. He shook against you. He pressed into you like he was trying to get closer than the angle allowed, and you let him, and for the length of it there was no wall at all, just the two of you and the gold light and the floor and the thing neither of you would name afterward.

Then it was over, and the room got very quiet, and you could feel the exact moment it started to come back to him—the where you were, the what you'd just done, the apartment that stopped being yours on Friday—because his arms didn't loosen so much as change, the grip going from simply holding to holding on. 

His face stayed in your neck. The gold had gone amber on the bare walls. Somewhere below, you heard a car door, the ordinary world carrying on outside the empty box a room where you’d just undone yourself on a man you’d divorced. 

The haze started to lift, and with it the wall came back; you felt it rebuild itself brick-by-brick, the way it always did, the cold rushing back into places he’d warmed. You’d done it. You were lying there with his arms locked around you and his pulse under your palm. Eight weeks of avoidance, eight weeks of telling yourself the missing was getting easier, everything you’d built to prove you were past him. You’d dismantled it all in an empty apartment in under an hour. You weren’t anywhere near past him; you’d just proven it to the floor you’d built, with your own two hands, and there was no unknowing it now.

The regret came in slow and total, like cold water filling a room.

You weren't crying. You didn't do that, not really, not where it could be seen. But something in you went very far away, very fast, the way it did—you felt yourself leave, felt the distance open up between you and the room and the man holding you in it, and you stared past his shoulder at the dying light on the bare wall and grieved, hollow and silent, not him exactly but yourself, the thing you'd just learned you couldn't do, the trap you'd just watched yourself walk into with your eyes wide open.

“Hey.” He lifted up enough to find your face, and whatever he found there put the stricken look back on his face.

He huffed, brows drawing together in an expression that looked something like hurt. “That fast, huh?” His thumb moved under your jaw, gentler than the joke. 

You let out a shaky breath. You could feel yourself going, and you couldn’t stop it. The wall was already sealing the last of its seams, the cold settling back over you like a coat you’d taken off and now had to put back on in front of him. You shifted, and he let you—he always let you—and you climbed out from under him and found your clothes in the gray light, your back to him, your hands not quite steady doing up the button of your jeans. 

Behind you, you heard him sit up. Heard the quiet of him pulling himself back together, the rustle of denim, the small grunt as he got the leg under him the way he did. Neither of you said anything. The apartment had gone enormous again, all that empty air, the thing you'd done still hanging in it.

“That was selfish,” you said facing the wall. “I shouldn’t have—that wasn’t fair. To you. I shouldn’t have done that to you.” 

“Done what to me?” His voice came from behind you, low and level. You heard him cross the floor and stop, not touching, but close enough that you could feel the warmth of him at your back. “It’s that’s selfish, then be selfish,” he said after a moment when you didn’t respond. 

His hands hovered over your shoulder, and you felt them settle after a second and turn you around to face him. 

“You’re sorry it happened?” 

You made yourself hold his eyes, which was its own small punishment, because his were doing the thing—open, steady, waiting, the guard down in a way he never let it be with his clothes on. He'd left you the room to say no. He was standing there in the gray light with the dog tags still hanging against his bare chest, asking you to tell him this had been something, and the easy mercy was right there and you couldn't pick it up.

“It shouldn’t have.” Then, you added, “We’re divorced.” 

“Yeah,” he said wryly. “I was there. I signed it.”

You huffed—the ghost of a laugh leaving you—and it irritated you that he could still do that, pull the almost-laugh out of you in the middle of the worst of it.

“I mean it, Jack.” You stepped back, out of the warmth of him. “It can’t happen again.”

He never argued you; that was half the problem and had always been. He just looked at you, steady, his guard still down in a way it wouldn't be by tomorrow, and let the silence answer for him, because what you just said was exactly the thing that meant nothing, and you both knew it meant nothing, and he wasn't going to insult either of you by pretending to believe it.