sage

“I don’t know about weird. Isn’t that. . .good?” Mel said. She leaned in to whisper. “But it is nice to see him look less uptight.”

“You’ve taken notice of his behavior? How thoughtful,” you teased, looking up at the board. “I’m picking up the concussion in Central 6. Join me?”

“Sounds fun. And Mel, amen, sister,” Santos said before falling into step with you.

“But as I was saying,” Santos continued, “either he won the lottery, is being blackmailed, or found a really nice lady to bang.”

“Okay, that is wildly inappropriate to even suggest,” you giggled as you led the way to Central 6. “It doesn’t do anything for us to speculate, either.”

“I’m just saying. But no complaints from me. I’ve been getting out on time for two weeks straight and I do not want to lose my streak now.”

You hoped your face wasn’t giving away just how interested you were in Robby’s business. Hell, the fact that you were Robby’s business. In the month you’d been seeing each other, people had been talking. Over nights out after work, morning coffee runs, mid-shift gossip. You’d heard all the buzz: Somebody had taken Doctor Robinavitch and virtually altered his brain chemistry.

Was it a promotion? Mysterious source of income? Were they finally hiring the staff to run the ER beds? Raising the nurse’s salaries? Or, of course, the fan favorite theory: Robby was seeing somebody new. 

He’d looked so much happier lately according to your colleagues. So much. . .looser. That usual gruffness was gone, replaced by a softer, almost sweeter demeanor, one that was much more digestible than the former.

It was getting harder each day to pretend you didn’t know the reason why. That you weren’t the reason why.

After shaking the thought off, you and Santos entered the room side by side, met by the sight of a woman with red locks and tan skin who was holding an ice pack to her head. You slipped a pair of gloves on and smiled, approaching the bedside.

“Hi, there,” you said to the woman, introducing yourself. “This is Doctor Santos. What’s your name.”

“Um, it’s Kara.”

“Hi, Kara. What happened to your head?”

“I was making dinner for my daughter. Slipped on some oil I dropped, and. . .”

“I see. Accidents happen. Do you mind moving the ice pack so I can see it?”

Kara removed the ice pack to reveal a large boil in the side of her forehead, pulling a small “Woah” out of Doctor Santos. You made a poorly hidden face of your own at the oozing wound.

“Um, okay, I see. What did you, um, fall on?” you asked as you probed it gently.

“The side of the counter. Then the floor.”

“Got it. That looks pretty severe for a hematoma.”

“A what?” said Kara.

“It’s a pool of clotted blood under the skin that can present as bumps or bruises on the surface. You likely had a smaller bump before you arrived here, but since you waited in triage so long. . .” you trailed off. “It might now be infected.”

Kara looked alarmed. “I- Is that bad? Can you fix it?”

“Yes, ma’am. It’s good that you’re here. We’ll need to drain the hematoma surgically to avoid further infection and provide you with some antibiotics,” you said. “Let me get my attending, Doctor Robinavitch. I’ll consult with him about next steps.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“Of course,” you said. You left the patient to Santos and did a quick scan of the ER as you approached the front desk. When you didn’t find him on your own, you signaled for Dana to come over.

“Hey, hun. What’s up?” said Dana.

“Hey! Have you seen Robby? I have a case to present to him.”

“Mmm, last I saw, he was in the break room. On his seventeenth cup of coffee.”

“Got it. Thanks, Dana,” you said, turning to leave. But before you could, Dana said, “Hold on,” signaling for you to approach the desk again.

Dana stepped around the desk and leaned in to whisper in your ear so that only you could hear her next words. “Please tell me he’s being good to you.” 

You were instantly alarmed at her comment, spluttering a frantic, “W- Wait, what?”

Dana looked amused by your response, chuckling. “C’mon, hun. The way Robby’s been looking at you? Hell, way he’s been floating like a damn unicorn ‘round this place. Wasn’t that hard to put two and two together,” she said. “You kids speculate too much. Us adults know the answer’s always right in your face.”

“Hey! I am an adult,” you said with faux offense.

“Really? Still look like a baby to me,” Dana smiled. Her tone went more stoic then as she tilted her head at you. “But, seriously, Robinavitch. He good?”

You nodded, unable to resist confessing. It was Dana of all people, and besides, it felt nice to finally have someone to talk to about your newfound relationship with Robby. “So good, Dana. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more loved.”

Dana smiled. “Good. Let’s keep it that way. I don’t want to have to bench him,” she said. “If he’s keeping our lovergirl happy, s’all I care about.”

You smiled at the familiar nickname that’d been bestowed on you after your first month at PTMC. For your empathy, your attention to detail, and above all, your empathy—the way you considered the people around you and cared for them accordingly. But since you’d started seeing the man who ran the ER that’d given you the endearment. . .it felt like it had an entirely new meaning.

“Thanks, Dana. You’re the best.”

“You got it, kid.”

You excused yourself and made your way over to the breakroom. Sure enough, there stood Robby in the blue quarter zip you’d picked out for him this morning, drinking a cup of joe by the coffee machine. You closed the door and cleared your throat.

“Robby?”

Robby turned to look at you, his face softening when you made eye contact. “Yes, sweet—uh, yes?”

You giggled at his correction, stepping closer to him. Memories of the meltdown you’d had a month ago that’d wound you in this relationship to begin with flashed in your brain as you took in the familiar room, the familiar scene, one that involved you and Robby alone within it. Only this time, the circumstances weren’t so devastating. This time, it felt safe.

“You can say it, Robby. It’s just us.”

Robby smiled and set his coffee down, pulling you in by the hips. “You never know. These walls aren’t that thick.”

“Well, I don’t care who hears. They’ll know you’re the best boyfriend ever,” you smiled, wrapping your arms around his neck.

Robby pressed a soft kiss to your lips and cupped your cheek with one of his large hands. “Did you lock the door?”

“Did I—yes, but—okay,” you tried and failed to tell Robby you hadn’t come in here for one of your stolen kisses, which had become routine since the two of you had started seeing each other privately. You lost your train of thought as he started to pepper kisses down your neck, the scruff of his beard tickling your skin.

“Robby,” you giggled, squeezing his shoulder blades. “You didn’t let me finish.”

He pulled back and kissed you again, smiling against your lips. “Sorry, my love. What were you saying?”

“I was saying that I didn’t come in here to kiss you,” you said, but, oh, fuck, the whiny furrow in his eyebrows at your statement made you really wish you had. “I came in here because I have a case. And you are still my attending.”

“Right, right,” Robby said, like he really didn’t remember. That was just the effect you seemed to have on him. “What’s the case, honey?”

“Infected concussion-induced hematoma. It looks like it could get serious if she doesn’t have immediate surgery. I want your thoughts.”

“Sounds like fun. I’m on it,” Robby said. He pressed his lips to yours one more time for good measure, then let you go with reluctance. “You have your granola bar yet?”

“My granola bar? No, not yet. Haven’t worked up an appetite.”

Robby raised an eyebrow. “We had breakfast, what. . .five hours ago? You need to eat, sweetheart.”

“I will! Soon.”

“Oh, I’ve heard that one before,” Robby said. He went into the breakroom fridge to find the lunchbox he’d packed for you, pulling both the bar in question out as well as a water bottle. “Don’t come out until you’ve had both things. Understood?”

You sighed, accepting both things with fake exasperation. “Yes, sir.”

“Good girl,” Robby hummed as he pressed a gentle kiss to your temple. “Where’s the case?”

“Central 6. Santos should still be there.”

“Great. Thanks, honey,” he said. Then he left.

That was the other thing about your new relationship with Robby. It hadn’t only been a month since your father called you and induced panic in you on shift, to which Robby had then played your knight in shining armor. It’d been a month since Robby had made true on his word to taking care of you. To being your father’s replacement. To doing whatever he could do. You almost hoped the no contact would be eternal, so that you could never forget what it was like to feel this way.

You didn’t take the bus anymore. Robby came and picked you up without a care for the distance. He made sure you ate before coming in to start the day and would bring you home when all was said and done, though most nights he was just sleeping at yours or vice versa.

He made sure your fridge was always stocked. That  your bed was made before leaving. That you had snacks on every shift. That your water bottle was always full. That you were tucked in at night. Doted on in the morning. He made sure you didn’t doubt his love for you, his complete and utter adoration, like a real father would. All while managing his own job as chief attending.

Robby felt. . .too good to be true.

You’d never seen this side of him. Didn’t even know it existed. It was no wonder none of your coworkers had shut up about his complete 180 in behavior. Behind closed doors, Robby had a heart so sweet you were starting to get cavities, ones you never wanted filled.

You finished up your granola bar and somehow swallowed down a full water bottle, before walking back over to Central 6.

“Nice of you to join us,” Robby said when you entered the room, like his hands hadn’t just been all over you. 

You nodded and put on another pair of gloves, feigning indifference. This secrecy act couldn’t work without equal contribution. “Thoughts?” you replied.

“You’re definitely right about the infection,” Robby said. “We’re going to need to drain this.”

“I’ll get some extra hands,” said Santos before leaving the room.

You approached the bedside again, smiling at Kara. “How are you feeling, Kara?”

“A little woozy. The room’s kind of spinning.”

“Side effects of the concussion. Don’t worry, we’ll get you some medicine for the pain,” you said. “Then we’ll get you comfortable for surgery.”

“Thank you,” said Kara.

“Of course,” you said. Your phone buzzed in your pocket then, and you would have ignored it if it wasn’t paired with a missed call and your noisy ringer. You muttered an awkward, “Sorry,” and quickly checked it, your heart dropping at the notification.

Missed call from Dad

Dad: “Hey baby”

Dad: “Call me when you get a second”

“Everything okay?” Robby asked almost immediately. You hated how quickly the man could read you.

“Yeah. Fine,” you said. You didn’t have enough willpower to make it convincing, but luckily, Robby couldn’t scrutinize you with a patient in the room. “Lay back, Kara. Let’s get you comfortable.”

“Take sl- slong sur?”

You did a double take at Kara’s slurred sentence, your eyes widening. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Surgery?” Kara said. “Long time?”

“Kara? Are you feeling okay?”

“Head. Woozy,” she managed to stutter, seconds before her eyes were closing, her head going slack against the bed.

“Oh, shit,” you exclaimed. “Um, I’m going to need some help in here! Get a surgeon!”

Santos came sprinting back into the room with Collins and Javadi in tow, beads of sweat coming down her face. Her eyes widened just as yours had when she caught a glimpse of your now unconscious patient. “Shit, what happened? I came as fast as I could!”

“Major dysarthria, could hardly get a word out,” you said. Robby stood and started to page for a surgeon on the speaker in the room. “I need everyone to prepare for surgery. This has to get drained now.”

As you commanded your colleagues and readied yourself for the procedure, you tried not to think too hard about your father’s sudden reemergence after a month of no contact. Did he need money again? Was he in trouble? Or was this another one of his routine check-ins so he was still eligible for the mediocre father of the year award?

But there was no time to think up the answer to any of those questions. Right now, Kara needed you, and you had a responsibility to be there for her.

“Why didn’t you get me sooner? This looks fucking serious!” Garcia yelled as she gloved up, ever the blunt, egotistical surgeon she’d always been. You’d’ve been too distracted to even notice her entrance had she not made it known.

You huffed as you slipped a pair of surgical glasses on, laying Kara back on the bed. “She was talking fine just a minute ago!”

“Oh, this needed to be treated more than a minute ago,” Garcia said.

“Well, you’re here now, right? So let’s get this show on the road,” you replied. Santos and Javadi shared a look of surprise at your attitude. It was completely unlike you to be so snappy, albeit it being a smaller comment.

“Fucking show,” she scoffed. “You think this is—”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Garcia!” you snapped. For real, this time. You felt every eye on the room upon you, Robby’s the heaviest of all, but you didn’t let up. You’d never been one to snap at anybody, especially not so brashedly—but right now? It felt like everything was getting under your skin, and you were one more incident away from a meltdown.

“Do you care more about belittling me or saving the patient?” you finished. “For fuck’s sake.”

Garcia only scoffed in response, putting her own glasses on. Robby’s browns were boring into you without shame from across the bed, but now wasn’t the time to entertain his stare. Right now, it was time to get to fucking work.

By the grace of goddess, the five of you worked a miracle in restabilizing Kara—Robby was pulled away to work on another case—easing the hematoma on her forehead and sending her to surgery to have it completely removed. You didn’t say a word to anyone when the job was done; only took off towards the breakroom—this was starting to become a problem, you realized—to ignore the elephant in the room.

You closed the door behind you and took a breath when you found yourself alone. But like cosmic karma had been watching, your phone rang again in your pocket, the same contact filling the screen.

Dad.

You sighed. What’s the worst, right? It’s not like you could ignore him forever. Even if you wished you had the strength to.

“Hello?”

“Hey! You do know how to pick up.”

You sighed. “Funny. I’m at work, Dad. What’s going on?”

“I know, I know, you’re a busy girl. I’ll be quick,” he said. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

“What?”

“I’m in town.”

That gave you pause. Your father hadn’t come to visit you once since you’d moved to Pittsburgh a few years ago. “In. . .town? As in, here, in Pittsburgh?”

“Well, you’re not in San Francisco, are you? ‘Course I’m in Pittsburgh! Got some time off work,” he explained. You don’t know why or how he did, considering he still leaned on you to make due on bills. But, as always, you didn’t voice that to him as he went on. “I’d love to see you, baby. When are you free?”

“Oh, um. . .I don’t know. I’m really busy at the hospital, Dad.”

“Come on, kid. You can’t spare a second for your old man?”

You let out a quiet scoff. Like he ever did the same for you. “I just wasn’t expecting this, Dad. I don’t know when—”

As you were speaking, the door to the breakroom opened. Robby stepped through and closed the door softly behind him when he realized you were on the phone. He maintained his silence even more when he caught the ‘Dad’ part of your sentence.

You sighed. “What did you have in mind?”

“There’s a little diner I’ve been eyeing since I got here. Percy’s Place. You heard of it?”

“Yeah. That’s not too far from the hospital.”

“Okay, cool. So, we’ll meet there, then? You free after your shift?”

“If I’m not running late.”

“Great. See you then, baby.”

“Love you,” you said reflexively. The words tasted sour on your tongue.

“Love you, too,” he returned. You then hung up.

Robby put his hands in his pockets. “Well, I’d ask about your not-so-little bite at Garcia. But I think I can take a guess as to what it was really about.”

You put your phone away and shook your head, crossing your arms. “I can’t believe he’s in town and just. . .dropped it like that. With no regard for my time or schedule. And I still made plans to see him.”

Robby took a step closer. “He’s your dad, sweetheart. ‘Course you wanna see him. As much grief as he gives you, I know you miss him. And you never know. Maybe he’s ready to turn a new leaf.”

“I doubt it,” you said. You let your shoulders drop. “But I do want to try. Is that bad?”

Robby shook his head and stepped closer again, until your cheek was in reach and he cupped it with his usual softness, calming the rapid beat of your heart. “Why would it be bad, my love?”

“Because,” you shrugged. “I always tell you that I don’t think he’ll change. I still feel like it’s mostly true. But then I turn around and make plans with him? And then. . .”

Robby raised an eyebrow. “And then. . .what?”

“I have you now,” you said.

Robby smiled at you. He pressed a gentle kiss to your lips, letting his other hand rest against the small of your back. “You’re still my girl no matter what, honey. Nothing’s going to change that,” he said. “But I have no reservations about your dad. He’s your dad, biologically, anyway. And if you want it to, then that still counts for something.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely,” Robby said without question. “Let’s try to have a good rest of shift, yeah?”

You nodded. “Okay.”

“Oh, and try not to bump into Garcia for a while. She’s fuming.”

Robby had a point, because Garcia, who was basically always fuming, would probably strangle you if she could get you within reach right now. “Noted.”

After the punctual conclusion of your shift—you couldn’t believe you’d been subtly wishing you didn’t get out on time—you met Robby in the parking lot, hopping into the passenger side of his truck.

“Oh, look at you. My adorable girl,” Robby cooed at your cuteness. You raised an eyebrow as he pinched your cheek, considering said cuteness was the pink tank top that’d been under your scrubs and a pair of jean shorts you’d never bothered to take out of your locker.

“Robby,” you giggled as he cupped your cheek. “You’re so weird.”

“And you love it,” Robby replied triumphantly. “Where to, my love? Percy's Place, right?”

You nodded in response. Robby put the car into drive and settled a hand onto your thigh as he pulled out onto the road.

The drive was short, no longer than ten minutes. You’d come to this diner a few times with coworkers, especially considering they were open 24/7. Robby turned to look at you when the first red light came.

“You alright, honey? You nervous?”

You shrugged. “I haven’t seen him in a while. I don’t know. I have a weird feeling.”

“Like what?”

“Like this isn’t about wanting to see me. It never is,” you said. “This is the thing dads are supposed to do for their daughters. Check up on them, make sure they’re not on, I don’t know, the brink of death. Then they reserve the right to completely evaporate because their work is done, for now.”

At the realization of your ramble, you sighed and looked away. “Sorry.”

“You know you don’t have to apologize for anything. Not with me,” Robby said. “But I get it. You feel like an obligation, not a priority. And your father hasn’t done much to convince you otherwise.” Robby squeezed your thigh here. “Still, it can’t hurt hearing him out. You might regret it if you don’t.”

You took your hand in his. “You’re right. I know you’re right. I guess we’ll see.”

A few minutes later, you pulled into the parking lot of the diner. The family-owned business was characterized by fluorescent lights, hues of various pinks and reds emanating off the building. Out front was a light-up sign that read Percy's Place in all capitals, as well as retro decorations of things like milkshakes and fries.

“I’ll leave you to it, sweetheart. Call me when you’re ready, okay?” Robby smiled at you.

You pressed a kiss to his lips. It felt like cherishing the last moments of calm before the storm. “Okay. I will.”

Stepping out of the car on your own felt weird—Robby usually never let you open the door for yourself, but you hadn’t wanted your father to see him—but you did so anyway, walking up to the door of the place with false confidence. You shot one more look at Robby before going inside.

“Baby!” exclaimed an unmistakable voice from the bench beside you as the man atop it stood up to greet you.

“Hey, Dad,” you said with a nervous laugh. You let the man pull you into a hug. “Good to see you.”

“You, too. How are you, monkey?” he teased.

The childhood nickname instantly threw you off-kilter. You didn’t think you’d heard him say it in a long while. “Um, not bad. My shift went pretty smoothly. Got out on time.”

“Glad to hear it,” he returned. “Let’s grab a seat?”

“Sure,” you nodded.

After the waitress showed you to your table, you did a brief scan of the menu, but quickly decided you’d order your usual. You stared awkwardly at your father, who was browsing it for the first time.

“So many choices. Have you been here before?”

You nodded. “Plenty of times. Burgers are pretty good.”

“Noted,” he said. “So, what’s new with you? You like it here? The hospital?”

“I like Pittsburgh. And the hospital is chaos. But the work I do is good, and that makes it worth it,” you said. “Just started the social work aspect of it about three months ago.”

“And how’s that treating you?”

You went into detail about the work you did at the hospital. How you’d only been a doctor but were asked to shadow Kiara to take some weight off her shoulders. That you had the best of both worlds, and the newfound position had ultimately made you a better doctor. Your father listened with intent interest, and the thought of that made you feel good. But you couldn’t shake this weird feeling of déjà vu. Hadn’t you told him this story before?

“Yeah, that case was a wild one. But the parents should get to keep custody by the grace of goddess,” you were saying with a light chuckle. “I didn’t tell you all this before?”

“You might have. Not too sure,” he shrugged while he took a sip of his soda. You nodded. Right. When had he ever been sure of anything when it came to you?

“But I’m glad you’re doing good, monkey. I miss you.”

“Dad,” you said reflexively. You tried to swallow the lump in your throat that formed at the thought of reciprocating the notion. “I. . .miss you, too.”

“Why don’t you come home anymore, honey?”

Your eyebrows furrowed at the sudden query. “Why don’t I—you don’t invite me to come home, Dad. It doesn’t even seem like you want me there.”

“What? Honey, of course I want you home,” he said. “You don’t need an invitation. You’re my daughter.”

You wanted to laugh. You hadn’t known he was familiar with the concept.

“I know,” you said through gritted teeth. That poker face you were so familiar with was beginning to come through, because god forbid you be the villain in this. God forbid you be the one to blame. “But it feels like you don’t care sometimes. Maybe if you were actually around, I’d come home of my own accord.”

“I do care. Of course I care. I’m just so busy with work and. . .and other things that. . .it’s hard to find time. Balance.”

“Balance. Other things,” you repeated. “What, like your wife who lives on the other side of the globe?”

There was that, too. A detail you’d completely omitted to Robby. Your father had gotten married to a woman who didn’t even live on this continent—how it’d happened exactly, you hadn’t the faintest idea—but since they’d wed years ago, it felt like he’d always cared about her more than he did you. He flew out to see her, flew her in to see him, would call her constantly when you used to visit home, and spent what was likely half his income on her.

The audacity, the nerve, to ask you for money on top of that, had always left a bitter taste in your mouth.

“Sweetheart—“

“Don’t do that,” you interrupted. The waitress came back with the fries the two of you had decided to share, but your appetite was fading by the minute. “You can’t waltz back into my life whenever you want and pretend to be a father. That’s not how it works.”

Your father stayed silent as you spoke. You hadn’t known what’d gotten into you and quickly understood this wasn’t the place to be having this conversation, but your words were pouring from your lips like heavy rain on a dreary day, and it looked like the POP was 100%.

Forget the facade. Fuck the poker face. You deserved this. He deserved this.

“I need consistency, Dad. I can’t do this back and forth thing anymore. I’m tired,” you admitted. “You don’t call for weeks on end, then crawl back when you remember I exist. You do the occasional big gesture so I’ll forget your absence. And you think it’s enough. It’s not.”

“Listen, kid. I get you’re frustrated. And maybe I could pick up the slack sometimes,” he returned. “But it’s not exactly one-sided. You could pick up the phone and call.”

You scoffed. “And listen to you lie about how much you miss me, your empty promises to do better? Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll pass.”

You shook your head. Stood up from your chair. Soda and fries completely untouched. Appetite but a mere memory. So was any good thing you’d ever had going between you and your father.

“You know what? This was a mistake. I should go.”

“You can’t run from your problems.”

You slammed a $20 bill down on the table. “Well, guess what, Dad? I only have one problem. And he’s sitting right in front of me.”

He scoffed. “You’re not exactly daughter of the year. I try to be a dad, but you make it so hard sometimes,” he scoffed. It was here you realized that people were starting to stare, but it was too late to back down now. “You always want more from me. I can’t give you everything.”

“I don’t need you to give me anything, Dad. Because you were everything to me. And you couldn’t even hold onto that. You think I want your money? Your grand gestures?” you scoffed. “No. I want a fucking good morning text. Check-ins that don’t feel like routine. I want you to call me because you want to, not because you have to. Jesus Christ, I just want the bare minimum. And you act like it’s such a chore.”

“You make it a chore, honey. You want me to be honest? You’re a sad excuse for a daughter sometimes. You can never see things from my point of view. That’s the way it fucking is,” he snapped. “You’re right. This was a mistake. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

He stood up and brushed his jeans off. “I’m going back to Boston tonight.”

“Good! Leave!” you said. “It’s all you know how to do, anyway.”

With that, you spun on your heel and took off, storming through the door of Percy's Place. You realized you’d have to call Robby to come get you, but the thought of facing your boyfriend when you were struggling with your emotions probably wasn’t the best idea. He wasn’t a far walk, anyway. Maybe you needed to clear your head.

You felt so angry. Uncharacteristically angry. That’s what that little go at Garcia had been about earlier. It wasn't the heat of the moment. You were genuinely upset, furious, even. Because no matter how much you begged for things to be different, for him to be different, your father was what he was—a deadbeat incapable of change.

What was making you so angry was that you still had hope that he would.

Like you hadn’t gotten a good enough taste of cosmic karma earlier, thunder boomed loudly through the cloudy skies ahead of you. If you didn’t call your boyfriend, an Uber, or pick up the pace of your feet, then you were going to get soaked.

Your GPS told you Robby’s was a twenty minute walk. It was foolish to hold out hope that the sky would wait for you. But, what the hell, you already maintained plenty of that for the man who’d wound you in this situation in the first place.

When you finally arrived at Robby’s, rain water was dripping from every inch of your body. Your clothes were soaked through with the aftermath of the storm. To make matters worse, like a mockery, it’d cleared up as soon as you’d walked up to the front door.

Robby had his readers on when he opened the door. He let out a small gasp at the sight of you, immediately pulling you inside. “Sweetheart,” he said worriedly.

“It’s just rain, Robby. Don’t worry,” you said flatly. Your voice lacked your usual light.

“Just rain? You could get sick,” Robby said. He immediately felt your forehead, checking for a fever. “You’re back so early. Did you walk? You should have called me.”

“W- We finished early,” you said. You were trying not to break, but Robby’s consideration was eating your brave face away. “I’m going to go shower. I haven’t had one all day.”

“Just like that? You didn’t tell me how your day was. How it went,” Robby said with a slight frown. Even after spending hours together at work, you always debriefed your day with Robby, because that was just how much he cared about you. To break that ritual was his first sign that there was more to this.

“S- Sorry. I just feel gross. I’ll tell you all about it after,” you said. Your lip was starting to wobble like the absolute traitor it was, and if you didn’t get out of this compromising position soon, your facade was going to crack.

“What’s wrong, baby? You look upset,” Robby said. God, what kind of sorcery was it that he could read you like a novel only a month into being your boyfriend? 

Is this what unconditional love felt like?

“No, I’m fine,” you still tried pitifully, but tears were about to join the shake of your lip and tremble of your shoulders, and there was absolutely no hiding that amalgamation from Robby.

“Don’t do that.”

“Wh- What?”

“Act like your feelings aren’t important. Or like I don’t want to hear about them. It’s my job to listen to you, sweetie. You know that,” Robby said. “Tell me what happened.”

You sniffled as he cupped your cheeks, stroking them with his thumbs. He wiped every tear that fell, and his look of love made you feel like you could weep. You shook your head and let the tears fall, because you realized now that this was a safe space to do that. That it always would be.

“He was so mean, Robby. He said I was a sad excuse for a daughter,” you cried. Robby held the back of your head as you cried into his chest, stroking your hair.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” Robby whispered.

“He said i- it was a mistake to come see me. Th- That he’s trying so hard to be a dad, but having a daughter like me makes it hard,” you cried. “What did I ever do to him?”

“Oh, my sweet girl, you didn’t do anything wrong,” Robby cooed. He rested his chin atop your head. “You deserve so much better than that. He’s the sorry excuse for a father, making you cry like this. It’s not right.”

“I just wanted to be loved by him,” you sobbed against Robby. You must have been compartmentalizing these feelings for weeks, because it felt like your shoulders were lightening with every word you spoke. “Is that so bad?”

“No, not bad. Not bad at all,” Robby hummed. “And he should love you. You’re bright. Caring. You make the people around you smile. You love wholeheartedly, and that’s not easy to come by these days.”

You looked up at Robby as he cupped your cheeks again. “You’re a reliable friend,” he said, pressing a kiss to your forehead, “an even better doctor,” a kiss to your nose, “and a beautiful lover, inside and out,” he finished with a final kiss to your lips. “Don’t let anything he says convince you otherwise. Okay?”

You nodded. “Okay.”

“That’s my girl,” Robby said. “I promise I’ll love you in all the ways he couldn’t. I swear it, honey.”

“Pinky?”

Robby chuckled and looped your pinky through his. “Pinky.”

You let out a giggle, wiping your tears. “How bad do I look right now?”

“Absolutely terrible,” Robby smiled at you. “Kidding, my love. You’re beautiful. You’re always beautiful. Now, come on. Let’s get you freshened up.”

You nodded and held Robby’s pinky as he guided you up the stairs. This felt synchronous to the first time he’d brought you here, when he’d cared for you in your vulnerability and showed you how a real man should treat you. It felt all the more special knowing Robby didn’t make it feel like a chore.

Robby led you into the bathroom that was attached to his bedroom. “Just stocked up on that body wash you like. And your towel and washcloth are still here. I’ll go get you some clothes.”

You nodded. Robby returned with a shirt of his and a pair of shorts a few minutes later, setting them down on the counter. “Okay, angel. You let me know if you need anything.”

“Wait,” you said. You grabbed hold of the doorknob just before he could close it.

“Yes, baby?”

“Can you help me, Daddy?” you said, feeling silly as the words left your lips. But the thought of being alone with your thoughts again didn’t sound too enticing.

Robby, however, didn’t mind. He never did. He nodded and stepped back inside, and you noticed that his demeanor had changed. He looked what could only be described as protective, and that was no doubt due to the smallness of your tone, but also the fact that you’d never called him that name outside of bed. “Of course, honey. ‘Course I can.”

You lifted your arms so Robby could remove your shirt, then let him take your jean shorts off. You felt exposed when you were finally stripped naked, even though this wasn’t anything Robby hadn’t seen before. Except it’d never been this way, so vulnerable, so delicate.

You saw in the way he looked at you, that he knew it, too. Because there was nothing sexual in the way his eyes met yours. Nothing at all. It was everything to do with how enamoured he was by the woman he got to call his.

“My beautiful girl,” Robby cooed as he kissed your cheeks. “Let me get the water started.”

“Could you wash my hair, too?” you asked meekly.

“Of course I can, babygirl. What else am I here for? Come on, step in.”

After rinsing you off and getting your hair wet, Robby ran a bubble bath for you. You stepped back in and sank into the water happily, the warmth of it wrapping around you like a blanket.

“Comfortable, baby?”

You nodded. “Thank you, Daddy.”

“You’re welcome. Now let’s get your hair brushed, huh?”

Robby sat at the edge of the bathtub while he brushed through your hair, working out every knot that he could. You closed your eyes and tried to relax as it simultaneously washed your worries away.

“Sweetheart,” Robby said suddenly. “You know how special you are to me, right?”

You looked up at him and smiled. “No. Tell me.”

“I’d do anything for you. Anything. It kills me to see you sad. I want to protect you from every bad thing. Don’t want anything or anyone making you feel this way again. Hell, I think I’d die for you,” Robby admitted quietly. “Is that bad?”

You hadn’t realized you were crying until Robby wiped a tear from your eye. But you quickly shook your head. “No, it’s not. Not bad,” you said, using his usual words when you’d ask him such a question. “It actually scares me how much I’m falling for you, Robby. It feels so fast, and sudden. Too good to be true. But when I look at you, I see everything I ever asked for. And I know that you’re worth it.”

Robby’s teary eyes mirrored your own, and he nodded. “I think I needed to hear that.”

“I like a man in touch with his feelings,” you giggled through your tears. Robby chuckled and looked visibly looser as he started to brush your hair again.

“Oh, that makes me feel worlds better,” he laughed.

Robby was gentle with you as he finished washing your hair, lathering it with shampoo and conditioner and working out every tangle. Such a process was usually excruciatingly long for you, but Robby didn’t bat an eye. That fact that he never did was as terrifying as it was endearing.

He lathered lotion onto your body once he’d dried you off from the bath, then helped you put your—his—clothes on. When you reached your hand out so you could walk to bed together, he didn’t even take it. Only lifted you into his arms, pressing a kiss to your lips.

“Robby!” you laughed, wrapping your legs around his waist. “I’m too heavy.”

“Too heavy? No such thing,” he smiled. He opened the bathroom door and carried you to bed with ease, setting you down gently.

You cuddled up against him when he laid down beside you. He pulled you close to him, kissing your forehead.

“Did you get to eat at the diner?” Robby asked.

You shook your head. “Started arguing before that.”

Robby frowned. “I’m sorry, babygirl. You hungry?”

“Now that you mention it, I didn’t eat since that granola bar,” you said meekly.

“Then you definitely need to eat,” Robby said. “What are we in the mood for, princess?”

You felt your cheeks heat up. Robby had called you that nickname teasingly at first, but now he said it with a fondness that always had your heart lurching. “Um, pizza?”

“Sounds good. I’ll order it now.”

That was the thing about Robby. He never asked questions. Never made you second guess yourself. Sure, it was just pizza, but it was the simple fact of knowing you wanted it, that you needed it, really, that made him order it without hesitation. He did everything without hesitation.

Was it that difficult, Dad?

“All set. Should be here within the hour,” Robby said. “I got you some dessert, too. They have—princess? Y’okay?”

“What? Yeah. Fine,” you replied, turning your head to the side. Fuck. It was exhausting to be this in tune with your feelings.

“Thought we agreed on this, babygirl. No hiding feelings,” Robby said. “Look at me, sweetheart. What’s’matter?”

“It’s just. . .” you sniffled. “I don’t understand why he can’t do the things you do. Why I had to beg the universe to replace what I never had, and why I’m having such a hard time accepting it now that it’s finally here. I feel totally insane.”

Robby sat up when you did, rubbing your back. “You’re not insane, my love. And trust me, I know what it’s like. I really do. I tell people I don’t want another mother. . .” he trailed off. You looked at him, allowing him space to speak. “But the truth is, you never fill the void that forms when a parent leaves. You learn to jump over it, go around, cast it aside. But you never seem to close it.”

“That leaves you wondering, why me? Why not all the truly evil people in this world who deserve worse things? Who’d I piss off in a past life to deserve it?” Robby said. “But you drive yourself crazy with the questions, honey. None of ‘em have a good answer. Because the truth is? You didn’t do anything wrong. You showed up when he didn’t. You wanted to be a daughter and he didn’t take responsibility. That’s not on you. Don’t think for a second that it ever could be.”

“Robby. . .” you said with stray tears coming down your cheeks. Robby cupped them as he stared at you with blurry eyes of his own. Yet he didn’t wipe his own. He only catered to yours.

“I know, baby. I know. And I know you’re scared of this, with me,” he said. “But I can only say so much. I want to show you. I want to give you everything, because you are everything to me. I could tell you how badly I’ve fallen for you, how I fall more everyday. How you’re always on my mind, even when you’re not around me. How I want to spend the rest of my life making up every moment you missed with your father. But none of that stuff matters if my actions can’t attest to it. . .

. . .so be patient with me. Because I’ll always, always, always do the same for you. Okay?”

You nodded. “Okay.”

“That’s my girl.”

You didn’t say another word as you wrapped your arms around his neck, climbing into his lap the same way you had the first time. And right now? It felt like it did before. Safe. Secure. Vulnerable, but secure.

“My sweet, sweet angel. It’s going to be okay. I promise,” Robby cooed, rubbing your back. “Gonna keep you safe forever. Never letting anything bad happen to you.”

You felt the weight of Robby’s words around you like a weighted blanket. But there was nothing suffocating about the implication. It was all comfort.

When Robby finally shushed your tears away, he pulled back to look at you, pressing a gentle kiss to your lips. “Let’s get a movie on, baby. Lighten the mood a little, yeah?”

You nodded. “I- I like the sound of that.”

Robby nodded and pressed one more kiss to your cheek before laying you down beside him again. He held you close as he flicked the TV on, picking a movie he knew you’d like before turning to cuddle you fully.

The two of you laid together in silence as the movie played. Some illy timed comedy flick that had you smiling your way out of the sadness that’d settled over you in the last few hours. But you could feel Robby’s eyes anywhere but the movie out of the corner of your eye.

They were entirely fixated on you.

“What?” you said playfully.

“Nothing. It’s just good to see you smiling again,” he said, stroking your cheek with his thumb. “You’re so pretty when you do.”

“You know what it does to me when you say stuff like that, Robby,” you giggled, unabashedly nuzzling into his touch.

“And what does it do, angel?”

You hummed. “I dunno. Makes me feel things.”

“Things, huh? Of what kind, I could never imagine,” he said just as playfully, but there wasn’t anything playful about the subtle slot of his knee between your legs, which had you shivering. “Am I on the right track?”

“Y- Yes, I’d say so,” you said with a little moan. You didn’t think you’d get here tonight all things considered, but now that you were, you realized how badly you’d been craving it.

You were still intimate with Robby, but not nearly as rough as before. You’d wanted it like that the first time you did it, desperately needing to forget the events of the day—but as Robby explored you, worshiped you, learned all the things that made you tick and burned them into memory, he was gentle, so, so gentle. He’d tell you how precious you were to him, how lucky he was to have you. How beautiful you were while he had you pliant and vulnerable for him.

You quickly realized that this was definitely one of those times. No matter how often you came to him in pieces, he’d always put you back together again.

“Tell me what you want,” Robby cooed. He was getting you to work on using your words—it was easy to feel so timid around him—so before he did anything with you, he always asked you the same question.

“Can you kiss me, Daddy?” you asked softly.

“Good girl,” Robby praised. He then leaned in to press his lips to yours. The closeness had his knee slotting even further between your legs, brushing against your clothed core.

Robby kept a hand on your waist as he kissed you, the movie filtering throughout the room as no more than background noise. As much as you loved sex, everything about kissing, especially with Robby, was arguably more alluring. The way his lips worked flawlessly against yours. The scratch of his beard against your chin while the two of you made out. All the ways he’d grab you while his tongue melted into your mouth. It made you impossibly wet every time, embarrassingly so. But that was the way Robby seemed to like you.

You ground helplessly against Robby’s knee, whimpering into his mouth with every rock of his thigh into your pussy. He loved to watch you take your pleasure, always cooing at how well you were doing, how much he adored when you showed him what you wanted. It had him rock hard every time, like he was against you right now.

You started to guide his hand downwards, trying to hint that you wanted more, but Robby only laced his fingers through yours, shaking his head.

“Ah-ah, sweetheart. Big girl words. You know that.”

“Daddy,” you whined.

“Don’t ‘Daddy’ me. You know better,” he said without malice, but the smug look on his face still suggested condescension. “Talk to your Daddy.”

“Mmm. . .want your fingers inside me. Okay? There, I said it.”

“Thank you. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Robby hummed. He slipped a hand under your shorts—his shorts—and tugged them down with ease, considering how loosely they settled around your hips. He rubbed his fingers between your folds and groaned at your wetness, which you might have thought was embarrassing if he wasn’t already used to how quickly you got worked up. “Now my girl can have whatever she wants.”

“Ah—thank you, Daddy,” you whined into his neck.

“Such a polite girl. Already can’t think, my love?”

“Um,” you whimpered against him, “maybe?”

Robby let out a chuckle, the sound making you clench around absolutely nothing. Yet. “S’okay, angel. Your Daddy’s gonna do all the thinking for you. You just sit there and take it, alright?”

You nodded at that. It felt good to not have to think for yourself. To let the worries of the day wash away while your boyfriend took care of you. And for once? You felt like you deserved it.

You whined as Robby teased you between your folds, rubbing your aching clit in little circles. The man now knew exactly what buttons to push and how to make you sweat, and you loved and hated that he got to use it to his advantage.

“Mikey. . .inside? Please?” you asked softly.

Robby usually reprimanded you if you used his name while he had you like this, but that new nickname of yours, Mikey, was just too sweet to correct. “Look at that. Someone does know how to use their words. So proud of you, babygirl.”

“You’re so mean,” you giggled, but it was short-lived as Robby began to spread you open with his fingers, before slipping one inside you. You let out a little gasp at the stretch, or lack thereof, considering your own juices were working as the perfect lubricant.

“Mhm. Tell me how mean I am, sweetheart,” Robby cooed, crooking his finger inside you, finding that spongy spot within your walls. “When I dote on you,” kiss, “buy you whatever you want,” kiss, “and fuck you the way you like. Mhm, tell me how mean I am.”

“I- I—” you whimpered, shaking your head. “You’re not mean to me. You’re so nice.”

“That’s right, babygirl. I am. And you should be nicer to me,” he hummed. He slipped a second finger inside you, picking up the pace ever so slightly.

“Sorry, Daddy. Promise I don’t think you’re mean,” you moaned. “You’re only nice t’me.”

Robby chuckled. It was true. As chief attending at the hospital, he’d always been on the gruffer side, upholding his stoic demeanor. But behind closed doors, you stripped him down to his soft center, the one he reserved for you and you only.

“Only you deserve it,” he replied. He pressed a little kiss to your nose, his thumb starting to flick against your clit now. “You’re special to me, honey. Want you to know that.”

“I do, Mikey, I do,” you panted. Your legs parted ever so slightly, allowing him to press his palm against your mound while his fingers worked inside you. You could explode at any moment now with his thick digits pumping in and out of you while his calloused palm rubbed the whole of your pussy. “Ah—feels so good.”

“Yeah? S’my little girl like that?” Robby cooed. He used his other hand to press against your belly, the pressure making your legs shake. “You feel my fingers in here, baby? Filling you up real good?”

You could only nod in response. This was the only part of sex where Robby didn’t mind you evading words.

“You’re doing so well, sweetheart. Just keep being good f’me.”

Robby’s praise and his sultry touch were starting to make your head spin. You were overwhelmed in all the right ways, and ready to go over the edge with him like you had so many times, but the pressure in your low belly was joined by another feeling.

Tears were starting to sting your eyes.

“Daddy, Daddy,” you whimpered into his neck. You let yourself cry softly into his shoulder, because you knew he’d hold you through anything—even when you were putting the most vulnerable parts of yourself on display. “Don’t stop, please, please. Want you. Want you to make me cum.”

“Oh, my sweet angel. I’ve got you, sweetheart, I’ve got you,” he hummed, pressing a kiss to the top of your hair. He worked his fingers inside you with renewed precision and equal pace, trying to bring you to your pleasure. “You’re doing so well for me. My good girl, my babygirl. Daddy’s right here, I promise.”

“Fuck,” you whispered into his neck. Tears were surely soaking the side of it, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care about that right now. All that mattered was every thrust of Robby’s fingers into your pussy, the way your legs were shaking with your impending orgasm, how your thighs were starting to close around his hand—

How he pried them back open as you finally gave in.

“Ah-ah, let Daddy see, honey. That’s it, there’s my girl—fuck, you look so pretty cumming for me,” he was saying. The words were making you dizzy with need as he fucked you through your orgasm, your pussy clenching around his digits. He slapped your pussy until your legs were trembling violently, watching your juices stir and spit off your core like a faucet. Only when you started to cry from the overstimulation did he stop, lick his fingers clean, and pull you in for a kiss.

You tasted yourself the slightest bit as his tongue slipped into your mouth. You threw your leg over his waist without a care for the mess he’d created, whimpering into his lips. You could feel Robby smiling against yours as he pulled you in by the small of your back.

“You did so well, princess,” Robby cooed finally, pressing one more kiss to your nose for good measure. “I’m so proud of you. You know that? For everything.”

You smiled and cupped his face, planting a peck of your own to his cheek. “I’m proud of you, too, Mikey. Thank you. For everything,” you repeated. You perked up suddenly when a thought struck you. “S’that pizza still coming?”

Robby chuckled. “Should be, angel. Maybe in the next, I don’t know, twenty minutes? Why?”

“Because I’m still hungry,” you smiled.

“That’s funny. Me, too. And we still have some time. . .”

You raised an eyebrow. “Robby, what are you—”

You didn’t get a word more in before he was settling between your legs without warning. You knew what his sudden ascension up your thighs would lead into—his beard scratching against your skin, and his lips pressing kisses up to your core. “Can’t leave you messy like this, babygirl. Need to clean you up before dinner.”

You let out a shaky laugh as you looped your fingers through his hair. “I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to have dessert after, silly.”

Robby chuckled against your thigh, and shook his head at your observation. “And you know me to be a rule follower?” Robby chuckled.

You shook your head. “N- No. I guess not.”

“Such a smart girl,” Robby cooed. He began to press kisses up your thighs again, savoring your pretty moans and the taste of your skin with every scattered suck. You were beginning to realize that between your legs was one of Robby’s favorite places to be.

Shit, scratch that—maybe his favorite place to be.

The ruggedness of his beard between your legs and lips against your inner thighs was driving you wild—but the second he latched onto your clit, you felt like an animal. You instinctively wrapped your legs around his head, sandwiching him between your thighs.

“F- Fuck. . .Mikey,” you whimpered while he started to suck on your clit. “You’re supposed to be—agh—cleaning me up.”

“Am I?” Robby muttered against your pussy like he really didn’t know. “Guess I forgot.”

“Daddy,” you chided.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” Robby said with a little smirk. He started to lap up the juices from your previous orgasm like he was supposed to be, but you knew he wouldn’t stop there when all was said and done. “Can’t help myself. Fucking love this pussy.”

“S’all yours, Daddy.”

“Damn right, it’s all mine,” Robby said gruffly in response. He continued to suck the evidence of your last orgasm into his mouth, cleaning you up like he was marking his territory—but just when you thought he was finished, he started to suck at your clit again, pulling a surprised moan from your lips.

Robby didn’t let you get another word in before he was slipping his fingers back inside you, your hole already wet and pliant from your last orgasm. You instinctively shut your thighs around his head, which only made him grip one hard as he started to eat you out.

“Daddy, fuck, feels so good,” you whimpered as his fingers curled into that sweet spot inside you. Any remnants of overstimulation had transformed into pleasure, filling your veins like the sultriest honey.

“Yeah, babygirl? Your Daddy making you feel good?” he cooed between your legs, though it felt more like he was talking to your cunt than he was you. “You’re clenching so tight around me, sweetheart.”

“Can’t help it. Love the way you make me feel,” you admitted without shame. With Robby, it was like you never had any.

“There’s my good girl, my sweet little girl,” Robby moaned against your pussy, licking languid stripes between your folds. The man had studied you like an art and learned exactly how to please you—what your breaking points were, the things that made you pant and whine for more. It was exhilarating to know he could now take advantage of the knowledge when he pleased. “You got one more for Daddy, sweetheart?”

You nodded rapidly, pulling him closer to your pussy. “Y- Yes, sir. I do.”

“Fuck,” Robby groaned. “That’s my girl.”

That being said, Robby latched his mouth onto your already aching clit, working with a renewed fervor to bring you to your pleasure. You took it without reservation, squirming on the bed and squeezing your thighs around his head the harder he fucked you with his tongue. It felt like your entire being was on fire, less from the stimulation and more from the way Robby was so drunk off your pussy, like he needed this more than you did.

Shit, like he was the one taking his pleasure.

Minutes of his restless attack on your pussy, filled with determined suckling against your clit and his calloused digits inside your weeping hole lead to you finally crying out a strangled “Daddy” as you release for a second time that night.

Robby pressed a few kisses to your sensitive cunt, a stark contrast from the somewhat rough treatment he’d given you prior. When he pulled back, his beard was marked with the evidence of his ministrations, a mix of spit and your own juices visible on his lips.

“You did so well, princess,” Robby cooed, the sappiest smile plastered on his face. You giggled.

“You know, m’starting to think you enjoy that more than me,” you teased.

“Oh, I plead the fifth,” Robby laughed in return. He pressed one last kiss into your skin, this time to your belly, before standing up. “Now we can really get you cleaned up.”

He returned minutes later with a small cloth, his face now wiped clean. He sat down on the edge of the bed and settled his hand between your legs again, only it was for a completely different reason. You shivered at the feeling as you were still recovering from the orgasm, but Robby only cooed at you, talking you through his movements.

“Shhh, s’okay, babygirl. Almost done,” he was saying. He made sure he carefully attended to every spot he’d touched, the thoughtful gesture making your cheeks heat up. When he finished, he discarded the towel in his laundry hamper, then climbed back into bed with you.

“Come on. C’mere,” he hummed.

Robby didn’t have to tell you twice. You curled up against him like a cat, laying your head on his chest. Robby rubbed the small of your back and pulled you close, pressing a kiss to the top of your head.

“Thank you, Mikey,” you mumbled sleepily. You hadn’t realized how tired you were until your body found comfort in the familiar sanctuary of his arms.

“No need to thank me, baby. That’s what I’m here for.”

You nodded. Then, without thinking—

“Mikey?”

“Yeah?”

“Is it bad if I think I love you?”

Robby only pulled you closer at that, chuckling. “No. Not bad,” he replied. “I think I love you, too.”

You closed your eyes and hummed in contentment at his answer. You felt even more elated when it struck you that you had an answer to your earlier query.

This is what unconditional love felt like. And Michael Robinavitch was ready to spend the rest of his life showering you in it.

“I'm looking at hotels to stay in till they figure it all out,” you said.

“Your insurance going to cover that?” he asked.

You peered at him through the sleep you didn't get. “You're funny this morning, Ken, you know that?”

“Well I got an early start.”

“Hey-”

At the call of Robby's voice, you straightened like you'd been caught doing something you shouldn't.

Frank laughed into his coffee mug.

It was embarrassing, really. How quick your body reacted to Robby and his call quicker than your mind could catch up. All he had to do was appear, say your name or catch your eye and you straightened, falling to his side and doing whatever he said. Somewhere along the way of working with him, he'd trained you.

“You're late,” he said, a small tug in the space between his brows. “Not like you, is everything okay?” Robby slipped in and Frank slipped out, pulling a face behind Robby, puckering lips directed at you.

“Sorry, sorry. My car's in the garage and the uber cancelled and I didn't really sleep much last night, it- it won't happen again.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Interesting night?”

You chuckled to yourself. “You could say that.”

Robby squinted at you before his eyes caught onto the pile of your stuff that wasn't there the last time he came in for a coffee. “Moving in?” he asked.

You laughed, a little more genuine then you had at Frank. “My apartment's flooded, they're just here till I can get a hotel.”

There was something heavy in the rise of his brows, in the way his expression morphed and his eyes widened only a little.

You tried to ignore it, because it almost looked like genuine concern. Not just for his resident that everyone claimed he had a soft spot for, but for the person behind the medical training. “They'll be moved by the end of the day.”

“You get any sleep last night?” he asked.

“Do I look that bad?” you asked with a pitiful huff.

“No,” Robby said at once. “Did you?”

“Couple hours. Those that were lucky enough not to wake up on the Titanic had a few sofas available.” You'd slept on Mrs Issac's sofa for three hours before you woke to her cat curled on your chest and your phone alarm blaring. It had felt as if your head had only just touched down, your dreams had only just started to form in mindless and faceless shapes before you were being brought back out of it.

Robby looked around at the staff room that was empty besides the two of you, peeking out the jutted open door. “We're pretty slow out there. South nineteen's empty.”

You nodded. “I'll look who's in chairs, get someone in-”

“Get some rest,” he said.

At some point Robby had come close to you, leaning his arm on the counter to support his weight. The tattoo hidden behind his watch peeking out at you. He stared down, studying you.

“I'm-I'm fine,” you said, un-sure what to do under his care.

Robby shook his head, lips tugged up slightly. “Fine isn't good enough for my best resident.”

Best resident. Somewhere along the way of working with him that title had been given to you; knelt on the ground, a sword going from shoulder to shoulder and there you had your title. Whenever he could, Robby slipped it into conversation with you, saying it more than your actual name.

“Thirty minutes,” he said.

Arguing with Robby was like arguing with a brick wall.

You sighed, imagining the scratchy blankets and hard bed but your body slumping at the idea of rest. “Thirty minutes. And get me if there's a trauma.”

“Which one of us is attending?” he asked, amused at the fight you tried to pull.

“You don't have best in front of your title though, do you?”

“I don't know, you tell me?”

“Hmm, only on Tuesday's.”

“Oh, Tuesday's are special days, huh?”

Tuesdays were special days because every Tuesday the two of you worked together. You don't know how you realised it, and maybe Robby didn't even know but every single Tuesday since you'd began the two of you had always been on shift together. Days off, weekends missed, long weekends and holidays but every Tuesday without a doubt, you and Robby were there.

Robby led you out, a phantom touch of his hand ballad up in the back of your scrub shirt before it was gone again.

“You'll wake me up?” you asked again.

He nodded his head once more. “I will wake you up.”

“And if somebody needs the bed?”

“I will personally throw you over my shoulder and put you somewhere else.”

You were suddenly glad your back was to him, so he couldn't see the blush on your cheeks at the very idea of being thrown over his shoulder. In your delirious state you picture the situation you'd have to be in to be thrown over his shoulder, the behaviour it would take to have him moving you around, hauling you about-

Thirty minutes of rest you could do.

“Hope you know what you're doing.”

Robby flinched at the accent and heavy smell of nicotine mixed with mint. He didn't even satisfy Dana by glancing back at her. “What?”

She chuckled. “Nothing. I guess.”

He shook his head and pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, checking the hotels around the area. There seemed to be three types: expensive, high-end and pristine. Dirty, still not that cheap or booked up. How long would you need the room for? Was your landlord or anyone going to help you out for it? He didn't know your situation exactly but he knew what it was like to be a third year resident and stuck with bills.

Dana leant on the counter next to him, smirking.

“I'm just trying to help,” he excused.

“Yeah, sure.”

He peered at her over the black rim of his glasses. “Something else to say, Evans?”

Her head titled. “Don't you have a spare room at yours?”

Yes, he did. It was plain walled and not at all decorated besides a map of Pittsburgh train lines framed and not hung up. Some old Christmas gift from Jack that he couldn't get rid of in fear of offending him. The bed was comfy because it very rarely got slept on, aside from Jack or Jake on occasion. Truth was Robby couldn't remember the last time he had a guest over.

“Cheaper than a hotel,” she added. “Unless your up-tight.”

Suddenly he was thinking about it. You, in his place. You'd been around maybe once before, he re-called, un-able to re-count the circumstances that had you around.

“You'd be doing the girl I favour, I bet,” she continued.

Robby looked at the screen then back to her. “Has she... said something?”

“Not to me, but hey, she's been asleep the last hour. What do I know?”

Robby looked back down to the time at the computer, the numbers flickering by. He knew it had been longer than his half-an-hour. Really, he had no interest in waking you from your sleep unless he really, really had to. And if he had time to sit and scroll through hotels, you had time to sleep.

He let out a breath. “Apparently everything.”

She laughed. “Hey, you said it, not me. But if you can't put her up think I heard Santos offering up a sofa.”

Robby looked around the space, trying to find Santos or Whitaker to confirm. He didn't see either of them.

It was decided in his head then that he'd have to ask you to take up his guest room. He'd act it was all under the pretence of making sure you were well-rested, had a decent bed and your own space to sleep in, assuring you could get the rest and come in bright eyed and bushy tailed. Deep down he'd know, just to himself, it was because there was a seething bite of envy at the idea of Santos having you waking in her apartment, going home with you at the end of the day.

He dragged his hands down his face as Princess called out his name, demanding his attention.

What was a couple days, anyway.

“I need to talk to you about something.”

You looked up from your tablet, handing it over to Jesse as you stepped away from exam room six.

Robby stepped in Jesse's place, hands deep in his pockets, shoulders lifted high.

“Two hours,” you said. “I was asleep for two hours.”

“Sweet dreams?” he asked.

Yes. There had been dreams and rest. The blanket hadn't felt so scratchy and as tired as you were the noises of the Pitt were muffled in your mind. By the time you woke up your body felt lighter, you could practically feel the bags under your eyes retreat. Then you stepped out and there were new sets of patients, a different lighting in the place and the hour hand had moved all away around the clock.

“I dreamt there was a long que of patients waiting for the room,” you said. “A line like at Disney, except without the pay off.”

“They fast tracked to another,” he excused. “Can I talk to you now?”

He seemed restless, fists balling up in his fleece pockets and glasses tucked away in the front. His hair was tussled slightly, as if he'd already done a full day of work while you'd slept.

You waited for him to go on, watching his mouth open and close before he shook his head at himself, a light chuckle leaving him.

“I did some research,” he said, dragging out his words, in the way he did when he was nervous. You'd seen it when he was trying to let down every one of his flings, scared it was gonna end up loud in the middle of his ER. “Hotels in the area are expensive, I have a spare room, got a bed, it's big, my place is spacious and I'm hardly ever there. No garden but there's a balcony-”

Robby listed aspects of his apartment like he was putting it up for sale.

It took some time for you to realise what he was saying. A spare room, yours, he was offering. You caught the fact he'd looked up hotel rooms and suddenly you were imagining him, phone pulled out with the glow reflecting on his readers. Was he frowning at the prices? Was he rubbing at his beard in frustration, thinking which you'd prefer.

Was he hoping to find you a room so he didn't feel obliged to give up his own?

“That's- that's very kind of you, Robby,” you said softly, letting yourself down gently. “I- I can't do that.”

He frowned. “Do what?”

“Take your room.”

“It's not my room, it's a spare.”

You blushed, thinking that he thought you were thinking about staying in his room. “No! No, I-I get that, I just- I can't put you out like that.”

Robby rocked forward on his heels. “You wouldn't. Really.”

“I'm sure I could find somewhere cheap-”

“- you can't-”

“- or I can check around with friends-”

“- Santos only has a sofa,” he said, raising his brows.

“I-I have other friends.”

Robby pressed his lips into a thin line. “Like me?”

He was insistent. Had someone put him up to it? Had he seen how tired you were and felt bad?

Every morning you woke and before walking into work you took a shovel to the feelings you held for Robby and buried them deep, deep down, plunging a sign that read remain professional into the ditch of your own creation. You called him boss and cap, reminding yourself that's what he was. Of course a friend was another title too, but calling him friend and invading his space wasn't going to do much for your feelings. Or your nerves. And you liked to think you'd done a pretty good job in keeping both in check.

Robby rocked on his feet again, almost jittering. “I don't charge rent, you'd be saving some money.”

How many more excuses could you come up with? How long could you stand here going back and forth?

“How many bathrooms?” you asked.

“Just one.”

“You live in a quiet area?”

“Very.”

“You don't have a cat do you?”

He shook his head with a small smirk. “No. I had fish but lost them.”

You nodded, arms hugging yourself. Admitting yourself into his hands wasn't just a jump, more a leap. Denying yourself had been easier in work, when glimpses of Robby between procedures and patients was all you could gauge yourself on. In his space, you'd become full.

“Say yes and I'll put your stuff in my truck.”

Future regret bubbled up in your throat.

“Okay, fine,” you said, earning a slump of relief from him. “But I'm paying rent while I stay.”

He shook his head. “I don't need it.”

“It'll make me feel better,” you said. “I have to do something.”

Robby looked past you, thinking for a moment. “You cook?”

“Yes.”

“Okay then. While you're staying with me-” he jutted his thumbs at himself, like he was proud. “You can cook dinner, if you want.”

It wasn't a terrible service. More often then not you'd seen Robby slump his way out the place, mentioning something about a restaurant he was stopping by to pick up food that might last him a couple days. It would be like taking care of him and wasn't that what he was doing here? Taking care of you?

In a friendly way, of course.

“I will cook dinner,” you agreed.

“Great.” Robby seemed to relax in front of your eyes: his hands came out of his pockets, his shoulders shrunk and the crinkles at his eyes showed in a smile. “Your stuff's in my truck already.”

“Presumptuous,” you said, calling after him as he backed off slowly.

He shrugged. “Hopeful.”

But what did he have to hope for?

“Hey,” said Santos breathless and approaching you, moving your gaze from the pull of Robby's back to her. “I've got our labs back on that guy in seven.”

“Oh- er, great, great.” The tablet takes up your attention, but your mind lingers on the crows feet at Robby's eyes, the smile you saw briefly when you agreed to go home with him.

But Trinity Santos never missed a beat. “What was that about?” she asked in an uplifting teasing voice you were all too familiar with as she looked back at where Robby had disappeared to.

“What- what was what?”

“You and Robby, huh?”

“No. No me and Robby, don't make it weird.”

She smirked. “You're doing that all on your own.”

You carried yourself over to the nurses station, clocking Robby lingering in a corner, talking something over with Samira, so instead you distracted yourself with the tablet and charting. “He just offered me a place to stay.”

Santos's brows rose up high. “His place?”

You blushed under her analyses.

“Oh my god-”

“Don't- don't make it a thing-”

“It's already a thing,” she scoffed, leaning over and swatting at you. “You're staying at Robby's!”

“In his spare room, separate living completely.”

Santos leant back on the counter, looking around dreamily. “Suuurree, until you need the bathroom and just so happen to walk in on him, towel around his waist-”

“- Santos-”

“- it's all hot and steamy from his shower,” she continued. “And you just so happen to slip, right into his arms and- oh my- the towel falls.”

“You have too much time on your hands,” you said. “Go get Garcia for a surgical consult on twelve.”

Sulking, she did so, dragging her feet across the place while you were left to debate if the dent in your bank account was worth it to spare the dent in your heart.

A life with Robby was framed in different ways.

When you first stepped through his place, your case tugged in his hand and your bag slung over his shoulder along with his own, there was a thick layer of tension blanketing over everything, mystifying the tour he gave you. It didn't give in the morning when you both woke groggy from alarms, reaching for coffee. Through the day the tension sat between the two of you through patients and traumas.

It started to feel like a terrible idea.

Until you both went back to his that night and laughed about the couple that had super-glued themselves together, the teenage boy who got his head stuck in between balcony bars. You made mac & cheese, which Robby deemed the best he ever had but considering you only found kraft cheese boxes in his cupboards, you didn't think much of it.

Then the routine built, mugs of coffee in the morning, a hearty breakfast started by whoever was up earlier in the morning, taking turns in the bathroom with only the occasional awkward bump in to each other in between brushings of teeth.

It was one morning when he stepped out, a smudge of minty white toothpaste in the corner of his mouth.

“You've got a bit of-” you'd told him, gesturing to the corner of his mouth by your own.

He rubbed and missed it completely and your hand reached out first. It was like you were watching it outside of your own body, as your thumb swiped away at the corner of his mouth, scratching at his beard.

Every morning since then Robby had walked out with that same bit of smudged toothpaste and every time you spotted it, you got rid of it for him.

Feeling the heat of his breath dance along your fingertips.

The peppermint smell of him clinging like second skin.

The wet fall of his hair, droplets dripping down to your feet.

It made every morning harder, but made every one more the while.

In work, you had your own new routine between the two of you.

In the mornings everyone in the Pitt- including those that stuck around from night long enough- lingered to watch as you and Robby walked in side by side, heading straight for the fridge in the lounge.

There, Robby would pull out two containers of leftovers from the night before while talking about.... well, sometimes nobody could really tell what it was.

“- all I'm saying is that if it was real life they'd be shut down instantly,” Shen caught Robby telling you, shamelessly lingering in the door way with Abbot and Javadi.

“It's not real life, it's Disney.”

“It's a restaurant ran by a rat!”

“It's whimsy.”

Robby grumbled under his breath. “It's un-realistic.”

You laughed and as busy as you were laughing you didn't see the look Robby gave you, a smile of his own. A soft one, because when he was looking at you, nothing had to be loud. “Just wait till you watch Cinderella, the rats sew a dress!”

Abbot was first to clear his throat. “Good morning, happy couple.”

And Robby's expression dropped, passing a glare to his friend.

As distracted as he was with the glare, he didn't see the way your face fell. The disappointment that marred your features.

“Got anything fun for me?” asked Robby, clapping his hands and getting to business, taking the night shift attendings by the shoulders and dragging them out.

Javadi entered in, a sheepish smirk on her lips. “So, how's it going?” she asked with all the air of a girl needing gossip.

“It's fine,” you said.

It had been three weeks of living inside of his apartment, of his space becoming yours, of shows he'd never think about watching slowly enrapturing him.

“Just fine?” she asked. “Isn't this supposed to be the part where the two of you get together?”

It was a few beers kind of mistake to tell Javadi on your feelings for Robby. But she was a med-student harbouring hard feelings for Matteo and you'd been desperate to bond and suddenly it turned into Javadi shooting you looks across the floor whenever Robby got too close, and he was doing that a lot recently.

“No, no, that's crossing so many lines,” you excused.

“Yeah but, he invited you to stay.”

“As a friendly gesture.”

“And how friendly do we know Robby to be?”

With you, very. With others it was more a tough game to play to get Robby to show some sympathy.

Your mouth was left ajar, stuttering on words you couldn't even come up with when Princess drummed her knuckles on the door.

“Louie's in south nineteen, asking for you.”

Never had you been so thankful to be called away on a patient run, especially when it was one of your terribly concealed favourites.

But you didn't leave quick enough to not catch how Princess crowded in Victoria, asking her what the latest was.

You managed to skirt your way over to nineteen without any more fans asking you about your new living situations. You were more than happy to hide away with Louie.

“Hey, doc!” he grinned as you let the door shut behind you.

“Louie, it's been weeks, what took you so long?” you joked, taking the stool and wheeling over to him with a smile. Really, you'd been worried when he hadn't come in- counting two months down since his last visit. It didn't give you hope that he was doing better, it filled you with dread he'd given up entirely.

He chuckled. “Sorry, doc, been busy.”

“A good busy?”

“Always.”

It was one of those slow nights when Louie came in when you and Robby were working- a Tuesday night where you were just about to go home when you checked in on Louie one more time, finding him half way through a devastating story on his life.

You'd cried in the bathroom and Robby had silently handed you a tissue when you stepped out, cold water splashed in your face.

“Hold out your hand for me, Louie,” you said, watching him do so with a tremble you could have bet your money on. “Shaky, huh?”

“Well it is eight a.m,” he grinned.

“We'll start you with fifty of Librium, as always. Anything else bothering you, Louie?”

“I had some aching in my side, right there-” diligently he showed you the pain, wincing as he pressed down on the pain.

You tugged on gloves and did an exam, finding the are bruised.

“You been in any trouble recently?” you asked, knowing that if Louie ever was in a fight, it would never be started by him. He was happy to drink silently.

“Not that I remember, maybe with a stool,” he joked.

You smiled with him, testing out spots of his chest and asking him to breathe in, listening down the stethoscope. “Everything seems fine but we'll get an ultrasound in to check you over.”

He waved you off. “Don't rush, doc, I like to watch the people go by sometimes.”

You entertained him. “Course, I'll be back shortly.”

You got Perlah on the case, someone just as happy to see Louie as you were, the duo that took the best care of him. Then you were occupied with slowly ticking off the board, discharging simple cases, working harder on the demanding ones.

At some point in the morning Robby slid in next to you, taking his place casually.

“I think I win for most interesting case today,” he said.

Happily, you looked up from your charts. “I didn't realise it was a competition?”

“Competition keeps you young,” he said, head nodding side to side.

“I'm not the one that needs to be kept young,” you teased.

There was smirk of shock that gave way to darkening eyes and a straighter back when he pulled himself up.

“You wanna play that?”

“I'm playing that,” you said. “I'm surprised you don't have an old mans seat when you shower.”

“I didn't realise you thought about me showering.”

It took you so off guard your elbow slipped, taking down someone's abandoned coffee.

“Shit!” You cursed, clamouring to the shards and spilt liquid.

Robby was still chuckling to himself when he knelt next to you, collecting the bits of mug in his hands, taking what you had in yours to his also.

“I- I don't think about you showering,” you said, quietly. “Of course I don't, I just- I just meant- a joke. It was a joke.”

Robby inhaled, tilting his head to get a look at you. “Really?”

“Yeah, yeah, god, I-I didn't-”

Your name was cried out and the shards of China fell back to the ground as Perlah helplessly stood outside of Louie's room. Almost slipping on the coffee, you took off in a run, Robby hot on your heels as you burst through the doors.

“He just- he just started-” Perlah panicked among the blood.

He lay still, un-responsive and you didn't miss a beat in jumping up, pumping down on his chest with gloves, without a gown, just the need to save a life that had been drilled into you.

His blood got on your hands, under your nails as with every pump down on his chest, you pumped more blood out.

“Get an intubation tray, crash cart and suction, now!” Robby called as a flood of nurses assembled around you. He was intubated and a bag put in place, a nurse came in for suction and the heavy rolling wheels of the crash cart sounded.

It fell upon you muffled as your arms shook while pressing down on his chest.

“We can swap out,” Robby offered quietly from behind you.

“No, no, I- I got this,” you said through the gasps and slow bead of sweat beginning down your temple. “C'mon Louie, c'mon-”

Perlah stretched over, slamming down pads on his chest, under the gown that practically had his name on it from how often he visited. “Pads in place!”

“Hold compressions!” said Robby.

You backed up enough to get a reading, getting a dull feeling of Robby's hands on your arms as you trembled. “Still V-Fib,” you said, climbing off the bed. “Charge to two hundred!”

“Charged!”

“Clear!”

So it went on, maybe only for minutes, maybe for an hour. A continuous rhythm of your chest compressions, the push of epi, the constant let down of no pulse, the flow of blood. And Robby's eyes only fumble from you to check on Louie before returning to you.

Everyone in the room hung on the thread of the flatline.

“Do we push more epi?” asked Perlah.

There was a silence behind you but you could picture the slow shake of Robby's head. You'd seen it in dozens of patients, in several helpless cases.

“Robby?” you called out helplessly, without knowing what you were calling for.

He was slow in his approach to you but you could feel him closer, know he was reaching out. “We've done everything we can.” It wasn't harsh. It wasn't kind. It was fact and sometimes fact was neither thing.

His hand was gentle on your shoulder, not squeezing or pulling. Just there. It was enough for you to feel everything deep down in your bones, the pressure of trying to bring him back to life making you weak and Robby's touch helping you give up.

You didn't recall the calling of his time of death, or the stumbling out the room, the wiping down of his blood on your scrubs. You didn't know anything until you made it out to the ambulance bay, drinking in gulps of fresh air that seemed to poison you more then help.

It clamped down on your chest and choaked at your throat-

“Hey, hey- it's okay, you're okay-”

Arms were tugging at you, pulling you into a chest you'd grown knwon with.

You pushed back. “No, no, I'm bloody, I- I can't-”

“Shh-” Robby cooed.

He embraced you tightly, suffocating you into his chest like he was trying to tell the rest of the world to go away, to shield you from the hospital and ambulances would inevitably come by. Robby stood there, arms strong and protecting you. He rocked slightly, lips pressed to the top of your head like it was a natural thing to do. Like you'd never felt them there or anywhere else before.

“I'm sorry,” you sniffed into his chest.

“No, don't be- shh,” he whispered into you. “You did everything you could.”

“He's gone, he's gone,” you mumbled.

Robby held you until he felt he could let you go, which proved a while. By the time you'd dragged yourself back in, red faced and teary eyed word had spread about Louie. Robby remained behind you, a hand curling against the lower parts of your back as he guided you through to the scrub bin, daring anyone to stop and ask you what happened.

He was a dog ready to bite.

“Take some time,” he said in the same air he'd used to ask you to stay with him. With no room for arguments.

You changed scrubs, met Perlah in the middle of the nurses hub for support. When Louie's body was took to the viewing room, Robby stayed stuck at your side, fingers brushing yours as he let everyone who wanted to say goodbye, say it.

By your side he stayed for the rest of the day, with biting breaths and lingering looks. His touches became every other moment, every spare second he knelt next to you, checking in.

“I'm fine,” you told him repeatedly as the day went on, as new patient names clouded your mind and traumas stole your attention.

“We'll get out of here, tonight,” he promised, hand edging closer to yours. Closer to something he wouldn't be able to take back. “No cooking tonight, we'll pick something up.”

“I can- I can cook-”

Robby shook his head. “And you can pick the movie.”

You smiled, though it was tainted from the pain. “Even if it has talking animals?”

His eyes rolled playfully as he sighed, pushing himself up. “If you must.” His hands were gentle on your shoulders as he squeezed, moving by.

When you looked back up you weren't surprised to see the fleeing eyes of Dana over her glasses.

She knew you'd caught her but only turned and walked off. You didn't know how you knew she was still smiling, but you knew.

By the time you and Robby got home- back to his- the sky had darkened and the Thai was procured on the drive back.

He'd let you shower first, knowing you still felt the need to scrub the phantoms of the day from you. You'd been so desperate you'd left your own wash bag in your room, your own robe there. So you bathed in Robby's signature smell, washed your hair in his shampoo that wasn't a two in one.

You wrapped yourself in a towel that was fluffy and smelt like him, wiping down condensation from the window before letting yourself sit with the grief.

It was never a good idea, alone in your own apartment to let the day haunt you. In Robby's place, surrounded by a smell that was all his, you safely let yourself remember the wobble in your arms, the pain in your heart and ache in your body.

You stood, re-tucking the towel around you when the door burst open at once.

“Shit- shit-”

You grasped at the towel as it slipped down your body, clutching it to your chest before it could expose everything.

Robby stood, frozen in the doorway, his lips parted slowly. “Shit- sorry, I thought you were done.”

“I'm- I'm finishing up,” you gulped.

Robby nodded, hand clenched on the door.

You watched his eyes catch a glance past your shoulder, seeing something there that had a blush creeping up his neck and ears. Something that made him bashful and looking away.

A chill ran down your body, from the toll of the day, the lack of clothing around you or the look Robby gave you.

“I'll, er- just...” you trailed off.

Robby closed his eyes, breathing deep. “Yeah. Yeah.”

The door inched closed slower. Before it shut completely you were sure Robby paused, sure you heard him inhale and sigh before you caught the retreat of his footsteps.

You body sunk in on itself, catching the electricity buried under your skin by just being looked at by him. At the idea that he could smell him on you.

It wasn't until you turned, catching a glimpse of yourself in the wiped down mirror that you realised.

Wiped down.

When Robby glanced behind you- to the mirror- he'd blushed at the sight of that part of you left bare. The slope of your back, the dimples that sat just above your ass and the curve of you.

He'd got a glimpse of it. Not just a glimpse by the way he paused- an eyeful.

“Fuck.”

It was bound to happen, maybe, with how long the two of you had been in co-habitation. But the day had been messy enough. Navigating the corners of yours and Robby's changed relationship.... you didn't have the nerve, though it felt alight by his look.

Maybe he hadn't seen anything, you told yourself as you dressed.

He probably didn't even notice, you said as you threw your damp hair up.

Just don't bring it up and he probably won't, you repeated as you stepped out.

When you came back out Robby was hiding in the kitchen, tucking himself right into the counter as he set up several dishes of all the food you'd ordered. His head was tucked low but there was a new sheen of sweat at the expanse of his neck still poking out from his scrubs.

“Sorry for taking so long,” you apologised, slipping into a stool across from him.

He shook his head and shrugged without looking at you.

“Smells good!” you said, reaching for the food that lay between you.

Muscles in Robby's jaw moved. Tightening.

You watched his tongue run over the bottom of his lip before he stepped back from the counter, a finger running over his lips as he excused himself quickly.

It was just a glimpse you thought you caught, something tightening in his scrub pants exenterated by his hands trying to be discreet in covering it (and failing).

Only when you went back to the bathroom an hour later, to brush your teeth did you notice the very, very cold setting of the shower. But if he didn't bring it up, neither would you.

Robby was only supposed to be passing. It had been ten minutes since he last caught a glimpse of you and he decided that was nine minutes too long.

He couldn't pinpoint when exactly the obsession started, if he wanted to call it that. It could have been when your things started to pile up at his, your favourite mug that you drank from sitting comfortably next to his every morning, or the cook books you went back to like it was your bible. It might've been before you'd even effectively moved in with him. Maybe when he saw the way you commanded a room around a trauma, never once doubting yourself.

Whenever it began it only increased with every good morning he got, every night and gentle touch he felt.

And finding you in that bathroom, a blink and miss it moment when your towel started to fall. The expanse of everything behind you that you were so un-aware of.

Robby felt dirty for the erection he supported most the night, even after the coldest shower of his life and taking care of it in his bed when you were sure you were asleep.

It had taken every bit of taught and measure self-restraint to keep his hands off you. You'd had a tough day, Robby throwing himself at your mercy wasn't going to help.

But it had been a week since then, a week of near misses and close calls in the bathroom the two of you were treating like a battleground. The splotches of toothpaste he let linger on him got further and further along his mouth, the playing clueless became more silly. The brushed past each other in the kitchen when there was plenty of room became more telling.

It was all supposed to be going somewhere.

“ - while she is playing house with her boss,” he caught Santos saying, hers, yours and Javadi's backs to him as he slowed his approach.

“It's messy,” said Victoria.

“Oh, would you- the two of you stop,” you said. “It's not like that.”

“No?” asked Javadi.

“It's not like what?” he heard the teasing uplift of Trinity's voice.

“Like what you're trying to say,” you argued. “Robby and I are friends, just friends.”

Santos nodded, head lowering. “Sure. Friends. Friends with house mate benefits.”

“What are house mate benefits?” asked Javadi, looking over to you enough that Robby could catch a grin.

“Oh, use your imagination,” said Santos. “One bathroom, two people, trips to get water from the kitchen, in nothing but skimpy little-”

Robby could practically see the face you were pulling.

“Oh, can we not talk about this?” you said. “Nothing like that has happened, nothing like that will happen. We're friends, just friends.”

Robby didn't realise how badly he must have wanted it to be more until he heard you dismiss it out of hand. Until he heard the mocking chuckle of his doctors at what you were saying. That nothing was ever going to happen, essentially admitting you didn't think about the escapade in the bathroom as much as he did.

Why would you? You probably thought it was odd and gross how he lingered. How he acted the rest of the night- withdrawn and ashamed- probably didn't help.

What? Did he think that after spending more time with him, living with him, you'd grow to care in a way he had for you. In a way he'd tried to ignore for months?

Did he really think he stood a fucking chance?

He was hyper aware of himself, standing there like an idiot with the fading mark of his heart on his sleeve. Soon somebody would call his name, his game would be up and the three of you would turn to him, catching him there.

Robby cleared his throat and shouldered between you and Victoria, practically tossing the tablet down. “Guy in five needs a surgical consult on a blood clot.”

Santos held up her hands to be clear of it and Javadi was walking away at once.

Robby watched you take it and he left.

It was time to start re-building his heart.

“Hey,” you said, quick to follow him. “I was thinking of trying a carbonara tonight, do you like it?”

“Sure.”

“Okay. Cool. You know if we have parmigiana?”

“I have more pressing things to think about then what's in my fridge,” he said.

You were quiet for a moment and he hoped he'd scared you away. “Everything okay?”

“Fine.”

“Are you sure? Has something happened?”

“No,” he huffed, halting at the door to trauma two where a car crash victim was under the scope of three capable doctors. What was one more? “Now instead of pestering me can you go do you're fucking job?”

The flash of hurt in your eyes was almost enough to have him apologising. To have him cave and tell you he didn't want to just be friends, that he couldn't go a day without feeling you and being calmed instantly.

Almost.

Your lips pursed and you held the tablet up to your chest like it was a shield. “I will get right on that, boss.”

The tension that began at his house when you first joined him in the space of his walls falls returned, un-invited, with a vengeance.

After Robby's snap at you you figured it was a bad day, that things had piled up and him and he didn't want to talk about it. He still waited for you at the end of his shift, still drove you home but in a silence that was stale. He went to the bathroom first and you started on dinner, making two plates of the pasta you'd promised.

He never left his room that night and his dinner was still sitting on the counter in the morning.

It continued for three days. No blushing meetings outside of the bathroom, no movie's he'd fall asleep to and miss the end- though insisting he was only resting his eyes- it all stopped, quickly.

So quick you had no time to think of what had gone wrong.

“Hey,” said Victoria, lingering next to you as you went back to your search for cheap hotels that didn't have complaints of bug bites.

“Hey.”

“Your leftovers smell so good.”

“Thanks.”

“I didn't even pack lunch today,” she added, a small smile bitten back.

You huffed a laugh. “You can take Robby's, I don't think he's hungry.”

“Really?” she said. “He's usually very punctual about your lunches.”

He was, until a few days ago when you'd tried to find him to see if he was hungry, so you could sit down to your leftover together as you had done. But he'd brushed by you, telling you he wasn't hungry. He did so every day you asked.

“Has something happened?” asked Victoria.

Yes, something had clearly happened but you didn't know what.

“No, just.... Robby being Robby I guess.” You shrugged it off but the indifference hurt because it wasn't just Robby being Robby. You'd found a different Robby, the one that wasn't snapping and grumpy every day, the one who coaxed you to your room when you were too tired to move from the sofa, the one who let you hum along to the songs in the movies you'd pick, the Robby that made you coffee just the way you like. You'd never even had to tell him.

“Oh. I'm sorry,” she said. “You know if I didn't live with my parents I'd let you stay, of course.”

You smiled. “I know. Thanks.”

The hotel you settled on wasn't in the top ten in the city and it was nearly forty minutes out of your way. Earlier mornings were a small price to pay.

You let Robby drive you home without conversation, let him tirelessly switch from one radio to the other. Your fingers curled and un-curled against your knees in anxiety.

“My-urm- apartment is up and running again,” you said.

Robby's knuckles bleached white on the steering wheel. “Oh yeah?”

You nodded. “Yeah. I can get my stuff packed up and be out your hair.”

Robby didn't say anything. You glanced at him, seeing the tightness of his body and the eyes he kept plastered on the road. “It's late,” he said, mouth moving to say something else before he closed it again and thought. “I can give you a lift over.”

“You- you don't have to,” you said. The idea of one more tense car ride was enough to have you thinking about jumping out the moving vehicle. “I can book an uber.”

“It's late.”

Robby kept himself busy while you packed up the clothes you'd un-packed in the wardrobe in his room. He packed up your toiletries and your kitchen things that had slowly wound themselves in his cupboards.

You were already at the door, your case and bag standing next to you, your phone warming in your hand as you checked your hotel booking and uber confirmation.

Robby walked out from the bathroom, your toiletery bag in hand.

“I've got an uber booked,” you told him, quickly. “It's been a long day, I didn't want you to have to drive anymore.”

He nodded, slowly, handing you the bag. “Okay.” His hands retreated back to his pockets.

You loitered. You still had ten minutes before your uber on the way. “I'm sorry if I out-stayed my welcome.”

He shrugged, shaking his head. “However long it took to get your place fixed.”

“Still, I didn't mean for it to take this long.”

Robby didn't reply and his gaze faded away from you.

It was a heavy goodbye. The longer you'd stayed with him the little time you gave to thinking how leaving would work. You wouldn't be escaping him, no, he'd be stuck in your mind and lingering in the corner of your gaze. You'd still remember how he looked when he was falling asleep, how his shower smelt and the way he stretched in the morning.

They'd all be happy memories of another time.

You took it with you like extra baggage into the uber and into the two star hotel.

Robby knew he was ingraining himself into the night shift longer than he needed to but since you left a week ago his apartment was cold, empty and he loathed it.

He hated that there was no other noise, no other mug sitting next to his, nobody to talk to. Hated it so much he was choosing the taunting walls of the Pitt over heading back.

“You thinking of joining the night crawlers?” Jack asked, finding Robby stretching at the hub of the Pitt.

“Nope.”

“Oh. It's just, you're still here, so I assumed,” Jack teased.

“I get it,” said Robby in a sing-song voice.

“It can't be that bad, can it?” asked Abbot. “You see her tomorrow.”

Robby wished he could say he didn't know what Jack was talking about but it was painfully obvious to everyone that he couldn't deny it himself. There was no more coming in together, in fact, you'd been coming in late but he was doing his best to avoid you he couldn't talk to you to find out why. He no longer had a tub of well-cooked food or your teasing invitation to eat with you.

It felt like he had nothing all over again.

He looked down to the nurses counter, picking at a mark on there. “It's just...” he trailed, trying to think of a word to sum it all up.

“Yeah?” asked Jack, leaning next to him.

“Quiet.” He decided on.

Jack nodded, slowly. He glanced away before frowning at whatever he'd found. “What happened anyway? The pipes at her place were fixed so you just kicked her out?”

“No, she wanted to leave.”

“So you guys can't just, hang out?” he asked, holding his hands behind his back.

Robby made a pfft noise. “Hang out?”

“Well, Dana says-”

“- Dana-” he scoffed.

“Dana says the two of you can hardly look at each other,” said Jack. “Seems to be a change from what I'd heard before.”

Robby looked at him. “And what did you hear before?”

“You laugh,” he said, like it was a rare phenomenon. “Heard you joke. Saw you smile. Saw you happy.”

He thought about you, grinning with Santos and Javadi as you told them you were just friends, that nothing had happened and nothing was going to happen. He remembered how you looked at him first thing in the mornings and last thing at night, how you were- and still- were on his mind as he laid his head down and pushed himself up in the morning.

“She... she made it clear that nothing was going to happen between us,” Robby admitted.

“And you wanted more?”

Robby was still, the flecks of the stain coming off under his nail.

“Want more?” Jack corrected.

He nodded.

“And did you tell her that?”

It was rather annoying, sometimes, how well Jack knew him.

“I didn't have to.”

“I think you did. You still do,” said Jack. “Just talk to her man, tell her how you feel-”

Robby shook his head at once. “- no-”

“Robby. Brother,” said Jack with a firm pat on his back. “I've seen how you look at her. I've seen how she looks at you. Take it from me, it would be a waste to let that go.”

He didn't want to let it go, but Robby didn't know how to hold on either.

“Hey, big bosses!” Lena called. “Got major trauma's coming, hotel caught fire. We're the closest hospital, Westbridge can only take two traumas and ten minors.”

“Send them our way, I'll round up the crawlers!” said Jack already sliding into his professionalism.

“I'll hang around then,” said Robby, almost spitefully proving a point to Jack. That he didn't need to go home.

“I'm giving you an hour.”

An hour was all he needed.

A flood of people, most in their sleep wear, robes hastily thrown and tied up flooded in. Many were covered in ash, faces grey or pale. They were checked over for smoke inhalation, nobody got through without a stethoscope to their chest and back. There was a family of four who's father was being treated for bad burns. An elderly man with cancer that was put up to south eighteen, chefs from the small hotel kitchen that were being seen for burns, damage to their lungs and everything else.

“I told you! I told you!” one of them shouted, accent foreign to Robby. “That place is a death trap! It was just waiting to go up in flames!”

Robby stepped out and decided to let them argue, tugging of gloves and fetching another pair from the always stocked box on the wall. “Is that everyone?”

“Just one more, pulling up now!” said Lena, yelling over the chaos the ED had turned into to.

Just one more. That heavy set of exhaustion was starting to settle in his feet, making them ache. It was nearing one in the morning, in five hours time he'd need to be up and heading in.

He thought it was the need for sleep that had him hearing your voice.

“Mark Tellon, on his seventies, severe smoke inhalation and asthma attack. No signed nasal hair, his pulse ox is at eighty-four wet crackles bilaterally!”

There was no such thing as dreaming.

Robby stumbled at the sight of you in bottoms that were too long for you, in a cartoon character he couldn't name, in a shirt that drowned you. He guessed it was once white but was stained in ash and smoke, as was your face and hair.

You wheeled in the man with the paramedics and Robby stepped just ahead.

“What the hell happened?” he demanded.

“Hotel caught fire, quick evacuation, this is everyone,” you listed, clinically.

“You were there?”

You glanced up at him as the bed of the old man was wheeled by the two of you. He watched your face fall, smudging ash as you wiped at your forehead. “Er-”

Robby didn't care for the answer. Well, he did but not when your eyes were hazy, skin clammy and smoke and ash covered you. His hands climbed at your cheeks, holding you there and looking into your eyes. “Have you been checked over?”

“Urm, no I'm fine-”

“C'mon-”

“What? Robby!” you protested even as his fingers wrapped around your forearms, dragging you across the floor and past patients waiting for consults and doctors and nurses clearly rushed off their feet.

There was no spare room available but the family room so Robby took you there, where it was empty, and closed the door behind him.

You were stuck, again, alone with Robby. Exactly the place you'd tried not to be. But he'd closed the door behind him, zoned in on you with that tight crease of worry between his brows.

You stood there, holding onto yourself.

Robby made you follow his finger with your eyes, his other hand steadying your cheek as he watched you. “Any dizziness?”

“No, I'm fine.”

He took his penlight out from his pocket of tricks next, shining the light and checking your pupil response, you knew how it all worked and let him go through the motions. “You inhaled smoke?” he asked.

“Probably. I was trying to make sure everyone got out, first.”

There was a tut from his lips but a small upturn in his cheeks.

“Course you were,” he mumbled, ditching the pen light when he was done with it.

“Honestly, I'm fine, I'll just need a shower.”

Robby was already making his way behind you, warming up the drum of his stethoscope in the palm of his hand. Still, when you felt the brush of his rough fingertips skirting over the skin of your back and the metal pressing along, you shivered. “Breathe in.”

You took a deep breath in, Robby's eyes burning a hole in the back of your head.

“Breathe out.”

You did everything he said.

He moved so he was in front of you, sliding the stethoscope down the front of your shirt, closer over the drum of your heart.

Robby's eyes remained lower, not meeting your gaze. “Breathe in.”

Your chest expanded into his hand.

“Your heart's racing,” he observed.

You swallowed down the feeling of him so close. “Yeah. Probably. Been a crazy night.”

Gently his hands smoothed down your arms, sitting you down on the leather chairs as he set himself on the small coffee table in front of you.

“Want to tell me why you were at the hotel to begin with?” he asked, elbows rested on his knees and hands clasped together. “Cause I can come up with my own ideas and I don't like them.”

Lying to him had proved a silly task time and time again.

“My apartment isn't actually ready to be lived in yet,” you admitted, low in your throat and looking down to his hands. The only update you had from your apartment was that it would take another week, followed by a hopefully.

“No?” he said in fake disbelief.

You shook your head. “I just guessed I'd out stayed my welcome, you wanted to be alone.”

“No,” he said. “No, you didn't. You could've stayed.”

You eyed Robby. “You didn't really seem like you wanted me there anymore.”

You watched as he sighed, shoulders slumping.

Robby's fingers thread and un-thread. “It wasn't like that.”

“I mean did I- did I do something?” you asked, a spew of words ready at the barrel of your gun. “I thought we were okay.”

“So did I,” he said, bringing up his gaze and taking a deep, shuddering breath. “So did I.”

“Then what?”

Robby pushed himself up, hands flying to the back of his head and patting down his hair. His boots scuffed against the floor as he paced the area small and not built for pacing. “I thought things were going really well,” he admitted, hands making a weak gesture between the two of you. “I thought there were moments.”

“There were!” you opposed, quickly.

Was this a chance you'd been looking for? Was he wanting you to say there was something more? That the touches and everything else meant something.

He looked at you, arms pulling over his chest. “But we're just friends, right?”

There was a way he was saying it, a bite to his words like a dog barking, trying to make a point. Just friends.

With your head spinning you remembered another time of saying those words. You remembered Santos's teasing (really it was hard to pick one particular moment out from it all) and Javadi there too. You remembered their teasing grins, asking you about benefits-

And how Robby forced the tablet in between the three of you.

Your head hung, hands wiping away the stress. “Oh god.”

Robby waited.

“Oh god,” your voice came out muffled by your own hands. “Robby-”

“Yeah, I started to like you,” he said, trying to make it all seem like it was no big deal, body moving to shake it of. “I shouldn't, I know. I'm your boss, you're the resident, you were staying with me as a guest.”

“Robby, I-” you pushed yourself up, making your way around the table.

“- and you made it very clear to Doctor Santos and Doctor Javadi-”

“- they were teasing me, it was- it was nothing. I didn't mean it! I mean, they'd been teasing me for weeks, they were just annoying me.”

His body moved in his breath as looked at you. “You don't have to lie.”

“I'm not!”

“You lied about your place. Instead you chose a hotel, one that was a death trap, apparently.”

“I thought you hated me!”

“No, I want you!”

“And I want you!” you yelled.

“You didn't tell me.”

“Well, you didn't tell me.”

Robby scoffed. “Yeah, I'm the one who's supposed to have communication issues, sweetheart.”

Within seconds you had thrown yourself into Robby's arms, practically leaping atop him and kissing him. His lips were frozen, body waking up slowly as his arms curled around your back, holding you in. You could feel the scrunch of his noise and the scrape of his beard as he didn't kiss you back.

You pulled away, keeping your eyes down.

Just because he wanted you, because you wanted him didn't mean throwing yourself at him (literally!) was going to work.

“I-I'm sorry, I thought-”

His hands drowned your face as he pulled you back in, head dipping low to lick his tongue into you. He pressed his mouth into your, letting his tongue in your mouth. His hands tilted your head back, thumbs brushing your cheeks as he reacted to you at once.

Your hands tugged a hold of his hoodie, bending him further along you while his hands slowed down your body, cupping your backside and digging his fingers in.

Some noise made its way out the back of his throat, groaning into your mouth.

“Are we-” you said against his lips. “Mmp; are we doing this right now?”

“Doing what?” He mumbled, tilting his head to nudge your mouth open deeper.

You smiled against him. “Making out in the family room?”

“God, I hope so.”

His mouth was open, warm and welcoming as he kissed you harder, finding parts of you nobody had ever found before.

“I meant it,” said Robby against you, his tongue running over the tip of your lip. “I want you.”

You nudged your nose with his, arms coming to wrap around the back of his neck. “I mean it. I don’t- we’re not just friends, Robby.”

“Yeah,” he sighed, smirking. “I don’t think think friends kiss each other the way I’m about to kiss you.”