Writing Student

Dana had not asked. She’d taken the slip of paper you’d written it on—you hadn't been able to say it out loud, you'd written it down at the workstation and handed it to her, like a child passing a note in class—and she had read it and folded it in half and put it into her breastpocket. She clicked her pen twice then set it down then picked it back up. 

“Okay, honey. I’ll see what I can do,” she’d said, and turned back to the assignment board.

You had loved her in that moment with a small, almost dumb, religious gratitude. You had loved her for not asking, You had loved her for the way she had not, in the eleven days since, looked at you any differently than she had looked at you in the years she had been your charge nurse. Except for one morning the previous week where she had passed you in the hall and put her hand on your forearm, briefly, in passing, and squeezed once, and kept walking. You had cried for thirty seconds in the supply closet about it. It was the only crying you had done that week.

You checked the schedule every morning. You did it on your phone, from the wrong bed, in the wrong apartment, the second after the alarm went off and before you’d even sat up. You checked it again on the subway. You checked it again at the workstation by the supply closet when you got in, the monitor you'd come to think of as yours because the rolling chair in front of it had a busted wheel that everybody else avoided. You knew it was pathological, yet you continued to do it. 

The next chart you did was a woman in her seventies with back pain. The next chart was a teenager with a probably-broken thumb. The next chart was a man in his forties who had cut his hand on a can of black beans and was apologetic about being there. You worked. Your hands worked. Your hands had been very good, the last eleven days, at working. You had begun to suspect that your hands had decided to take this one for the team.

At 11:14 a peds laceration came in. You heard it before you saw it. The The father saying that it was okay, over and over, the way fathers said it in waiting rooms, less to the kid than to themselves.

Dana looked at you from across the central desk and you looked at her. You did not know, in that moment, what she was asking. You found out about three seconds later, when she did not, after looking at you, hand the chart to anybody else.

She handed it to you.

You did not check the schedule again, which was the first thing your hand wanted to do. You opened the chart. Female, five, forehead lac from a playground fall. Vitals stable. Father in the room. Mother on her way from work. Tetanus current. No known allergies. Five-year-old's name was Lily.

You walked to the room.

The dad stood up when you came in, which you wished he wouldn’t, because people standing up when nurses or doctors came in always made you want to apologize. You told him it’s okay if he sat, so he did. He had the kind of fleece on that meant he had left the house in a hurry—half-zipped, the inner liner showing—and his phone was face-up on his thigh and the screen was lit and he was not looking at it. The father was almost always in fleece; you couldn’t pinpoint what it was about emergencies that made men reach for fleece, but in the four years, you’d seen it hold.

Lily herself was on the bed with a gauze pad to her forehead by her own small hand, and her tears were slowing down a little, all cried out. Her cheeks were the high red of a child who had been outside in the cold. She was wearing a pink hoodie with a unicorn on the front and the unicorn had a small smear of blood on its horn, and the detail of the smear on the horn was going to live in your chest for a long time. Your first thought, before you could stop it, was that’d need cold water to clean it. Your mother had said to you so many times that it had become, somewhere in your twenties, the only thing you knew how to think when you saw blood on cotton. 

The second thing you noticed was that Lily had a barrette in her hair shaped like a strawberry, hanging on by one clip, and that somebody had put that barrette in this morning, and the somebody was probably the woman currently crying in the hallway, and you were going to have to not think about that for the next forty minutes.

“Hi, Lily,” you said. “I’m your nurse,” and you said your name. You said it the way you said it to children, with your voice pitched a little higher than it sat. It had taken you a year to get it right. You were quietly, stupidly proud of it. It was the kind of thing you'd never told Jack about, because it was the kind of thing that sounded like nothing when you said it out loud, and you understood now that this was probably the category of thing your whole inner life lived in.

Lily’s tears continued to roll down her cheeks but she looked at you, which was a start.

“I’m going to do a couple of things really fast,” you said, “and the doctor’s going to come look at your cut, okay?” 

She nodded. The gauze on her forehead moved when she nodded, and the dad reached forward to hold it for her, but Lily re-pressed the gauze with the exact wrong amount of pressure and your own hand twitched to fix it and you did not fix it, because the holding of one's own gauze was a thing a five-year-old could do for herself and was, in fact, the first task she had been given in the long career of being a patient, and you wanted her to have it.

You took her vitals. You did them the way you did them. Temperature, BP—pediatric cuff, the small one with the cartoon giraffes—pulse ox, the clip on her index finger that she watched with something like interest because the red light fascinated her. Her vitals were good. Her vitals were the vitals of a five-year-old who had fallen off something and was scared but was not, medically, in any trouble. You wrote them down. 

You asked the dad the questions. Tetanus current — yes, he checked his phone for the date of her last well visit and read it off. Allergies — none. What she had been doing: monkey bars. Where she had fallen from: the third bar, he said, and looked stricken, and you said, "That's not high," in the voice that meant please put your face back together, and he did, sort of.

How long ago: twenty minutes maybe. Whether she had hit anything else on the way down: he didn't think so. Whether she had been unconscious: no, she had cried immediately, which he said with the specific relief of a father who had read the same internet article every father had read about head injuries. You wrote it all down. Lily watched you write.

“Okay, kiddo. The doctor’s going to be here any second to come look at it. They’ll probably want to fix it up so it heals nice. Can you keep holding that for me?”

She nodded, and her tears had slowed. 

Dana was at the central desk when you stepped out. “I’ll page,” she said, without looking up as though she could sense your presence.

“Page who?”

“Whoever can cover peds lac in the next five minutes.”

“Okay.”

“Go restock the suture cart.”

You went to restock the suture cart. The suture cart lived in the equipment alcove off the main hallway. You stood in front of it and you opened the drawers and you did the inventory. You counted nylon. You counted prolene. You counted the gauge of the needles. The act of counting was good. The act of counting was the kind of thing your hands could do without your brain. You let your hands count. Your brain did the thing it had been doing intermittently all morning, which was nothing, which was a kind of low gray hum.

You did not check the schedule. You wanted to. You did not. You had decided, sometime around the fourth drawer, that checking the schedule again would be the act of a person who was not okay, and you were going to be okay, you were going to be okay through this shift, you were going to be okay until you got home, you were going to be okay until you could close a door behind yourself and not be okay in private. The not-checking was an act of discipline. The not-checking was the only thing you had control over.

You restocked. You closed the drawers. You walked back to Lily's room with the cart.

You knocked once and pushed the door open with your hip.

He was in the room.

Jack had taken a chair with his weight foot forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped loose between them, looking up at Lily on the bed. He had positioned himself so his eyes were a little below the level of hers, a thing he’d clearly done on purpose, because the chair was lower than the bed and he’d wheeled it closer. He made himself, in the structure of the room, small. 

You had not realized, in the moment, that you thought the word ‘father’ until you heard it land somewhere behind your sternum. 

He turned his head when the door moved and saw you. His face went neutral, a deliberate-neutral that he had to will it to be.

“Hey,” he greeted softly, the way an attending greeted a nurse who walked in with a cart in tow. He said it in the voice he used at work, the voice that had nothing to do with you, the voice that was for any nurse who had walked through that door in the last fifteen years. The voice was a mercy. The voice was also a small specific cruelty, the way mercies sometimes were.

“Doctor Abbott,” you said.

You realized, cruelly, that you’d never used his last name since the fifth date. You said it now, flat and professional, the way you’d practiced it in case you ever were in this situation. You were proud of yourself for one second, then you immediately regretted it because Lily was looking at both of you with an alertness only a child can have and make it obvious. 

Jack turned back to Lily. “Alright, kiddo. This is who I was telling you about. She’s gonna help me.” When Lily tilted her head to the side with a small smile, Jack added, “She’s the best we’ve got around here. You’re lucky.”

You wheeled the cart in, parked it, set the tray up. Your hands set the tray up. Your hands knew what tray Jack liked, for they had been setting up trays for Jack for years, since before the dates, since back when he’d been an attending you’d worked with and gone home and thought about more than was appropriate. You set it up the way Jack liked it, with the needle driver on his left because he was right-handed (he liked to grab things cross-body), the forceps angled toward him, the suture spread out so he could see the gauges without rotating the pack. Your hands did all of this arranging and you did not, you realized, have any conscious memory of telling them to do it.

Jack didn’t look at the tray. He had, you suspected, watched it all go together in his peripheral vision in the same way a violinist heard another one tuning. He’d likely registered that the tray was just how he liked it and decided to stay silent about it.

“All right,” he said to Lily. “We’re gonna take a look. You’ve been doing such an amazing job with the gauze. Can you let your dad hold it for a second so I can see?”

Lily looked at her dad who nodded and took the gauze. Jack braced his right hand on the arm of the chair and stood—a motion he had developed, the half-second pause as he settled his weight before he moved—and stepped to the bedside and bent at the waist over Lily to look at the cut.

“Yeah,” he said. “You were having a good time, huh.”

“I fell.” 

“I heard. The third bar, right?”

She nodded.

“I would’ve fallen on the first one,” he said, pressing his lips into a straight line before shaking his head self-depricatingly. “Monkey bars were not my game. I had no upper body strength. I had—what’s the word—noodle arms.”

Lily, despite herself, made a small sound that was almost a laugh.

“Yeah, that’s funny,” Jack said, nodding as his lips spread wide. “I had noodle arms. Your dad probably also had noodle arms.”

“Hey,”  the dad said, with a softness of a man who had just been given permission to be in on a joke.

“Sorry,” Jack said, faux-shrugging.

Lily did a snotty, half-cry, which was a laugh. You stood at the cart with a packet of lidocaine in your hand as you watched a five-year-old laugh at a joke Jack had made. You realized he had built this whole calibration for kids, probably years ago. He’d been carrying it all the time you’d been with him, and you had never once seen it deployed so thoroughly in front of you. Perhaps it came down to the fact that there weren’t many peds cases in the middle of the night, and as luck had it, today, the universe decided to play a cruel joke on you by putting you on one with him. 

You handed him the lidocaine with steady hands. You were so proud of your hands. Your hands were carrying you.

“Okay,” he said to Lily. “I’m going to put a tiny bit of stuff in the edges of the cut. It’s gonna pinch; I’m not gonna lie to you about that, ‘cause I think you can handle the truth. Can you handle the truth?”

She nodded solemnly.

“Good. So it’s gonna pinch. It’s like a bee sting but smaller. You ever been stung by a bee?”

“No.”

“Okay, so this’ll be your first bee. Congratulations. Some people would be good money for a bee this small.”

The dad made a small huff that was almost a laugh.

“Once it pinches, it’s gonna feel cold. And then in about two minutes, you’re forehead’s gonna feel super weird. Like—” He looked up, and you were almost certain he was pretending to think. “—Has your foot ever fallen asleep?”

“Yes.”

“Like that. But on your face. It’s a weird feeling. Some people don’t like it. I want you to tell me if you don’t like it, okay? So we know you’re being honest with us.”

“Okay.”

“And then once the numbing stuff is working, I’m going to clean the cut, and then I’m going to put some stitches in. The stitches are going to feel like pushing, and they’re not gonna feel like pain. If they feel like pain, you tell me right away, and I’ll stop, and we’ll fix it. Deal?”

“Deal.”

Jack blew out a breath, tilting his head to the side. “You are an excellent patient, you know that?” he said. “I had a forty-year-old in here last week who cried more than you, and he was getting a much smaller thing.” 

You couldn’t look at Jack, so you looked at the tray. You looked at the suture pack and the lidocaine vial sitting next to the sharps box. You looked anywhere but at his face, because his face, right now, was doing something you couldn’t afford to look at. 

Jack’s face was being kind and patient. His face was being good at being this; his face was one of a man who would have been an extraordinary father, and the face was standing six-feet from you in a fluorescent-lit ED room with a kid’s blood on the sleeve of his coat. You had to hand him forceps in approximately ninety seconds, and you couldn’t look at that face.

When he gave the lidocaine, Lily flinched and gasped but there were no tears. Jack said, “There it is, that’s the bee. You did so good. You did so good.” 

He capped the needle and handed it back to you. Your fingers brushed when you took it. The brush was less than a second, and neither of you reacted, except for his thumb, which was curled in, briefly, against his palm. 

Lily was hiccuping, and her had had his hand on her ankle. 

Jack stepped back from the bed to let the lidocaine work. He did not sit back down in the chair. He stood at the foot of the bed, one hand resting on the rail, weight on his left, which was his good side, the side he stood on when he had to stand for a while. 

His eyes didn’t find yours while the lidocaine worked. He looked at Lily, asked her about her hoodie. She told him about the unicorn. He asked the unicorn’s name. She said it was Strawberry. He said Strawberry was a great name for a unicorn. He said he had a stuffed animal when he was a kid named Bear, which he admitted was a low-effort name. Lily told him he should’ve named it something better.

The dad had relaxed by degrees watching this, like he realized their kid was going to be okay and he was allowed to stop bracing. He was watching Jack with something that was close to a love born out of appreciation. Parents fell in love with their kid’s doctors in moments like this; it was a small and clean version of love. It came out of realizing their child was being held by someone who could be trusted to hold them. 

You filed it down with the smear of blood on the unicorn’s horn, the muscle in his jaw, and the word ‘father.’

“Okay,” Jack said. “I think we're ready. Let's see if you can feel this.” He took the forceps from your hand — your fingers brushed again, the second time, less than a second, again no reaction. And he touched the closed end of the forceps very lightly to the skin a centimeter from the cut. “Feel that?”

“No,” Lily answered, voice bemused.

“Cool. Cool cool cool. That’s what we want. I’m gonna clean it up and then do the stitches. You can close your eyes if you want; some kids like to close their eyes, some like to watch.”

“Can I watch?”

“Absolutely. I have to warn you, it’s a little gross.”

“I want to watch.”

“Okay, brave girl,” he said, chuckling slightly as he exhaled through his nose. “Girl who’s also potentially a future surgeon, what do I know?”

You handed him saline. You handed him gauze. He blotted. He worked. He talked to Lily the whole time. He told her about the saline. He told her what the irrigation was for. He told her that the cut was going to need four stitches, probably, maybe five, depending on how it sat once he got the first two in. He told her that the stitches would dissolve, eventually, but for now they would look like little blue threads, like tiny pieces of embroidery floss. He told her she could tell people at school she had embroidery in her forehead. He told her, when she asked, that embroidery was a kind of needlework, where you made pictures out of thread on fabric. 

You watched his hands. You watched his hands because watching his hands was your job, because watching his hands was the thing a scrub nurse did, because you had to be ready to hand him the next thing he needed, because watching his hands meant you did not have to watch his face. His hands were the hands you knew. His hands were the hands that had held your hips in the kitchen during one of the worst three weeks of your life. His hands were the hands that had built you a stew thirteen days ago. His hands were the hands you had watched, for three years, do small competent things in your apartment like open jars, fix things, hold a coffee cup, work a buttonhole. His hands were doing small competent things now, on a five-year-old's face, the same hands, the same exact hands, and you watched them work the suture through the skin and you understood that hands were the cruelest organ a person had, because hands kept doing what hands did, regardless. Hands didn't grieve or pause for the convenience of the people watching them. Hands were just hands.

He did four stitches. He did them well. He did them in the time it would have taken a worse doctor to do two. He talked to Lily through every one of them. He told her when the next push was coming. He told her she was doing great. He told her, at one point, that her dad had been very brave to bring her in so fast, which was the kind of gift a doctor sometimes gave a parent in a room and which the dad in the corner accepted by closing his eyes for a second and exhaling.

He cut the last suture and stepped back. “You’re officially repaired. How do you feel?”

“Weird,” Lily said, dragging the word out. 

“Yeah, the numbing stuff is weird. That’ll wear off in sometime. Your forehead’s gonna feel normal again by dinner.”

“What’s for dinner?” the dad asked Lily with a wobbly smile at being handed his kid back.

“Don’t know,” Lily said. “Pasta?”

“Pasta sounds good,” Jack said nodding. “Try to keep her from running around for the rest of the day. She can run around tomorrow,” he said to the dad.

Jack went through the rest of the discharge, and the dad asked one or two questions. Jack was excellent at this. You knew that. You’d known that since the first time you’d met him as a nervous nurse, but this, this he was especially good at. 

You started cleaning up the tray. Your hands did the cleanup. You bagged the sharps. You wiped down the surface. You stacked the unused supplies. You did not look at Jack and Jack did not look at you. You moved around each other in the small room without contact, the way you would have moved around any colleague, the way you had moved around him in this hospital for years before you had ever moved around him in a kitchen, in a bedroom, in the small space between his side of the bed and the wall where you'd had to turn sideways to get past.

“Can I come back?” Lily asked Jack.

“We see you again, it means something bad’s happened. You can bring a drawing or anything you want, though. We put them on the wall.” He pointed to the wall by one of the desks where kids’ drawings were taped up in a gradually growing collage that nobody had ever taken down. “If you want to draw a picture, I’ll put it up.”

“Okay. I’ll draw Strawberry.”

“Send it in!” Jack said, smiling.

As the dad helped Lily down, the dad turned to you and said, “Thank you,” and said your name. 

“You’re welcome, take care.” 

Lily hugged you around the waist, briefly and fiercely, the way kids hugged near-strangers when they had decided in the last twenty minutes that the person was safe. You put your hand on the back of her head. You let her hug you. From the other side of the room, you heard Jack inhale, just once, audibly, like something had landed wrong in him. 

She let go. She took her dad's hand. They left.

You and Jack were alone in the room. You went back to cleaning the tray. There was almost nothing left to clean. You cleaned it anyway. You picked up the empty lidocaine vial and you put it in the sharps box. You picked up the suture wrappers and you put them in the trash. You folded the sterile drape and you put it in the linens bin. Your hands were moving very fast and very precisely. Your hands were doing a week's worth of cleaning in the next forty seconds because if your hands stopped, you didn't know what would happen.

Jack said your name, and your hands paused for a minute. 

You gathered yourself in a millisecond and picked up the cart’s handle to wheel it around. You moved past him to the door.

“Hey—” he said, voice so terribly soft. “Can I—”

You heard Jack stop himself, as he realized it was a question he didn’t have the right to ask. You knew that he realized asking was the cruelest thing he could have done in a room where he had just performed forty minutes of being the father he was choosing not to be, and you heard him try to take it back by going quiet.

You opened the door with your hip and you wheeled the cart out into the hallway and you let the door swing shut behind you and you walked.

You did not run. You walked. You walked at the pace of a nurse who had somewhere to be. You wheeled the cart back to the equipment alcove and you parked it and you did not, this time, restock it. You left it. You walked past the central desk and Dana looked up and Dana looked at you and Dana did not say anything, and you turned the corner past the central desk and you walked down the back hallway to the staff bathroom and you went in and you locked the door behind you.

You stood with your back against the door.

You walked into the far stall and closed the door. You sat down on the lid of the toilet with your scrubs on you and you put your hands flat on your knees and you bent forward at the waist and you put your forehead almost on your knees. It was what they taught you to do in school to do if you thought you were going to faint, the way you had done exactly once before, on your first day, after you’d witnessed your first death.

The sound that came out of you was close to a sob; it was small, it was wet, it was almost a laugh. It came out of you and you put your hand over your mouth and you pressed hard. Then the sob came, and then another.

You cried for the dad in the chair with his phone face-up and the look he had given Jack. You cried for the way Jack had stood at the foot of the bed on his left leg, managing the load. You cried for the muscle in his jaw when Lily said your name. You cried because his hands had been the same hands. You cried because he had said your name behind you, in the empty room, and you had not turned around, and the not-turning-around was the kindest thing you had ever done for him and also the cruelest, and you didn't know yet which one it was going to turn out to be.

You texted Jack before you opened the door to the apartment. The apartment, not yours. Just a thing your sister’s friend had graciously offered while she was out of town. 

You wrote, hey - i need to come by for my passport. You sent the message before you could think twice about it and stood very still before your door as you watched the three dots appear, disappear, then reappear again. You did need your passport, but you also had to have this conversation with Jack. You wished you could live in this limbo state forever, the one where you can still be a tad unsure about what the two of you are, before you get a clean break and there’s no question that it was, truly and completely, over. 

You were going to have to see him on Mondays, or Wednesdays, or whatever other days you were put in the same rotation as him because that was out of your control unless night shift had found a new nurse that was available every night, every day of the week. 

His reply came in eleven seconds. Eleven seconds was, by your count, exactly Jack-fast. It was the speed of a man who had been waiting for the phone to do something and had decided, the moment it did, that he was not going to make you wait the social interval of pretending he hadn't been.

Of course. When works?

You wrote back, 2 PM today?

His response was quicker, the lag almost imperceptible. Yeah. I’ll be home. It seemed he had decided the same thing as you, and that was he was going to stop trying to make it small, because making it small was a thing the two of you had spent three years doing to bigger things, and he was—apparently—done. 

You put your phone down on the kitchen counter that didn’t belong to you. The counter was a butcher block, scarred where your sister’s friend had cut tomatoes directly on it for years. You’d been resenting the butcher’s block since Tuesday. The marble in your apartment with Jack had been wrong in its own ways, but at least it hadn’t been absorbent. You wiped a smear of something off the butcher block with your sleeve, because there was nothing else to do with your hand. You had not eaten since the day before. You had not eaten breakfast or lunch or the kind of in-between snack that would have made not eating breakfast or lunch a manageable thing, and you understood, looking at the butcher block, that the not-eating was going to become a thing you had to address before it became a thing somebody else had to address, but you were not going to address it today.

Jack was in the entryway. He’d been waiting in the entryway near the closet, and his hand was on the closet door, and he had—you understood, taking in the staging—positioned himself so he was doing something when you walked in. You guessed that he landed on which was the same flavor of stagecraft as him being at the sink eleven days ago when he had imagined, that time, you coming in. He had needed a thing to be doing. The closet was the version of the dishcloth.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

“You can—come in,” he said. The pause before come in was the size of him deciding whether to say come in or come home or come here. He had said come in. It was the most correct of the three available options and it was also, you understood, a thing he had picked from a menu.

You came in and closed the door behind you. You hadn’t let yourself lock it, because that would’ve meant something different. 

“I kept your passport on the counter,” Jack said, and you almost paused in your footsteps as you stepped through the entryway. Like he’d noticed, he added, “Not to—you know. Just, if you prefer not to—” 

He looked down at his hands, which were still on the closet door, and he took the hands off the closet door and let them fall, and the falling was the thing that told you he had given up on the staging. He had nothing to do with his hands and he had decided, in the half-second of looking down, that he was going to let them be empty.

You walked. You walked past him into the apartment because the walking was easier than the answering, because the answering would have required you to pick which of his unfinished sentences you were responding to, and you could not, in this entryway, pick. You walked. You felt him behind you not following.

You set your bag down on the bench. You set it down without thinking and it was only after the bag had left your hand that you registered the bench, that you understood your body had walked you to there because that was where bags went in this apartment, and three years of muscle memory had walked you to the bench and your brain had not been consulted. 

The bag was on the bench. Your bag. Where his bag had always gone when he came home and put his hands on your hips. You looked at your bag on the bench and you understood, with a small clinical clarity, that this was the last time anything of yours was going to be on this bench, and that the bench was going to keep existing after today, and that he was going to walk past it every morning for some number of years, and that the bench was not going to know.

You took your hand off the bag slowly. You took it off the way you took your hand off a patient's wrist after a pulse check, the careful release of a thing you were not going to be holding anymore.

You’d never let yourself imagine it all too deeply, but the imagining had happened anyway, in the soft margins of your brain where you didn’t keep accounts. Standing in this entryway you were aware of it the way you became aware of a bruise four days after it settled. You had imagined, you understood now, a girl. You had imagined a girl with his hairline and your hands and you imagined her on the bench by the door putting on shoes. You had imagined Jack sitting on one knee to do the laces, because you knew he would crouch even though it hurt him. He was a man who made himself smaller to help at the child’s height; he’d done it for Lily and you knew the small grunt his left knee would make and the way he would brace one hand on her shoulder to stand. 

You had imagined a second one, too, smaller, a boy or girl you hadn’t decided about, somewhere. You had imagined a kitchen—not this kitchen, a different one, somewhere with more light and up the river, a kitchen Jack had said yes to, with a backdoor that opened to something green. You’d imagined him older in that kitchen standing at a counter in that kitchen explaining something patient and slightly too complicated to a kid who was half-listening, and you had imagined yourself watching him do it from a doorway. The watching had been the feeling, and you had thought—when you let yourself think it, which had been rare, late at night, in a warm muzzy place between his arm and pillow—that you would be lucky. 

You had built a future in the warm muzzy place that you had never once dragged out into the kitchen and put on the counter and asked him to look at it. And you had now understood that he, in the same three years, had built a different one, and neither of you had shown the other the blueprint, and the blueprints had been incompatible the whole time, and the incompatibility had been sitting between you on every couch and in every bed and at every table for three years like a third person nobody was introducing.

You weren’t sure when you’d grabbed the passport, but it was in your hand.

“My sister’s going to come down to help me move the stuff next week, if that’s okay?” 

Because it was decided—you’d decided—that you’d be the one to move out. 

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Whatever works for her.”

It came out lower than he’d meant to. You could tell because he heard it come out, and his jaw moved once, a small adjustment, the kind of micro-correction he did when a sentence didn't come out the size he had wanted it to. He cleared his throat again.

“I can be gone, if you—she wants. The whole day. I’ll take a shift, I’ll—yeah. I can not be here.” Then, he added, “Or I can help. If it’s heavy stuff. Some of the boxes from the closet are—”

“I’ll let you know.”

He was nodding too much. He had been holding the nodding to the metered pace of the rest of the conversation and the pace had broken, somewhere in the last three sentences, and the nodding was running ahead of him. He noticed. He stopped. His hand came up to the back of his neck and stayed there.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay.” 

Don’t do this, you were thinking to yourself. Don’t make this any harder than it already is.

“And I’m sorry about the case—Lily. I wasn’t going to take it because you were on it, and it was peds, but Robby was busy—”

You were shaking your head because your eyes had started burning now, at the memory of it. “It’s fine, Jack.”

“I should’ve found someone else. I shouldn’t have walked in there. I knew you were on it and I walked in anyway and I—I am sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

You said it louder the second time than you’d meant to. The loudness almost echoed in the apartment as his lips pressed together to keep himself from saying more, and you stood there with your eyes threatening to spill over and you understood he was apologizing for a case because a case was the only thing he would apologize for. That was the only way he could apologize for any of it, and that letting him do that was a kindness you did not have inside you to give.

You couldn’t let him use a five-year-old with a forehead lac as the vehicle for the thing he actually wanted to say because the thing he actually wanted to say was too large and the vehicle was too small and the gap between them was going to break you if you stood in it any longer.

He kept his hand on the back of his neck. 

“You were good with her,” you said, voice softening an inch. You hadn’t meant to say it. “You were really good with her. That’s not—I’m not saying that because. I’m just saying.”

You weren’t sure if you’d said any words that resembled anything close to a sentence.

“Thank you,” he said, and closed his eyes for a second and held them that way. “I’m sorry I can’t be—that. For us.”

You closed your eyes, too at that, and the pressure caused a small, single stream to ripple down your cheek. Looking at him with his eyes closed without sleeping was a thing you were unequipped for, closing your eyes was the only available form of leaving the room without leaving the room. You stood with your eyes closed and the passport warm in your hand and you let yourself, for two seconds, not be in the entryway.

When you opened them he had opened his.

“Don’t—that’s not—you don’t have to be sorry for that. It’s a thing that—it’s just a thing. Don’t apologize for it.”

He pulled the corners of his cheeks between his lips as he nodded.

“But you should have told me. A long time ago.” Because I don’t know where I’m going now, without you. 

“I’m sorry. I’m—I am sorry,” he said, and his hand had come off his neck and he was fidgeting with the belt loops of his jeans, tugging on them harshly as though that was the place he was redirecting his words to. 

“I should go,” you said.

“Yeah.”

You stepped into him before you could decide to. Your body did it, the way his body had done the half-step at the closet, and you were halfway across the foot of air between you before your brain caught up and registered that you were doing it, and by then it was already done, your forehead was against his collarbone and your hand had found the front of his shirt and the passport was somewhere, you didn't know where, you had stopped holding it.

He stood still for half-a-second. He stood with his arms at his sides and you understood he was not going to assume he was allowed, that even now, even with you in his chest, he was waiting for the permission to be explicit, and so you pressed your forehead harder into his collarbone and that was the permission, and his arms came up.

He held you so carefully, the way you held a thing you had been told you couldn't have but had been given anyway, briefly, for a reason that wasn't going to last. One of his hands found the back of your head. The other one was at your shoulder blade, flat, and you could feel his thumb against you not moving, holding very still, the discipline of a man not allowing the thumb to stroke because stroking would have been taking.

His body shook. It was small. It was one tremor that moved through him from somewhere low in his ribs up through his shoulders, and you felt it because you were against him, and you would not have felt it from a foot away, and you understood that the thing about being held by him right now was that you were the only person in the world who could feel what his body was doing, and that you were never going to feel what his body was doing again after today.

“This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”

He whispered it into your hair very quietly. He said it at the same decibel of when he said things in the dark when he thought you were asleep, the small unguarded register he had thought, in those moments, was private, and that you had heard every time, and that you had never told him you had heard.

There was no answer that was the size of what he had just said and so you stayed against him and you let him have the silence.

He held you for a few more seconds.

He pulled back first and gently, with the carefulness of a man undoing a knot he had tied himself, and his hands moved down your back and around to your sides and stopped there, briefly, before one of them—his right— came up to your face, his own twisting slightly as he warred with himself over whether or not he was allowed to touch you this way. He put his palm against your cheek and cupped it. His thumb went under your eye where the tear had been earlier and was now dry, and he brushed the dryness with a shaky thumb, and it stayed there for a second longer than it needed to.

“I know you’ll find the right person.”

His voice had come back to almost level. He had spent the moment on the shake and the whisper and now he was using the last of the discipline he had to deliver this line, and you watched him deliver it, and you understood that he had been saving it. He had decided some time in the twelve days that this was the line he was going to give you on the way out, and he had practiced the steadiness of it, and the steadiness was working, and the steadiness was the gift.

You couldn't imagine loving anyone but him.

You were going to be thirty-one in three months and you were going to live in apartments that were not this apartment and you were going to walk past men on the street and on the train and at work and none of them were going to be him, and the not-being-him was going to be the central fact about every man you met for some long time you could not yet measure. You knew this with a clinical clarity that you kept to yourself. Voicing it would do nothing.

“You too, Jack.”

He smiled softly, like he knew you were offering him a kindness you couldn’t promise, a kindness he himself believed not to be true. His jaw set, the half-second readjustment that told you he had heard the lie and was not going to correct it. He was going to receive the lie the same way he was receiving the hug, carefully, gratefully, knowing he was not supposed to have it.

“Okay.”

His hand came down from your face and you stepped away, because being there any longer, in his arms, you knew, was not right for you. You grabbed your bag and cleared your throat before you said, “I’ll text you about the move.”

“Okay.”

“Probably Tuesday.”

You had walked into the apartment in your shoes and you were going to walk out in them and the not-taking-off-of-shoes was, you understood, a thing the version of you who had come through this door at 2 PM had decided about, the small protective instinct of a woman who had known she was not going to be staying.

You put your hand on the doorknob.

You turned around.

He was where you had left him. He had not moved. His hands were at his sides again, the kitchen-position, the position they had remembered. He was looking at you with his face mostly held but not entirely held. 

You let yourself look at him for a half-second longer than you had meant to, because the half-second was the last one you were going to have with him being someone you could love before he became your attending and just that; you wanted to know what he looked like at the end of it so you would remember the right face later.

Jack had decided that he wanted to let you leave clean, not prolong it any further. He’d given himself that opportunity for three years, and he’d let you leave cleanly now, with the small consistent excellence of a man who had decided what the standard was and was going to meet it. 

You were going to spend the rest of the afternoon, and the evening, and the night, and possibly the rest of your life, hating him for being good at it even now.

“Bye, Jack,” you said as you opened the door.

You couldn’t bear to turn around, but you heard a hitch in his breath as he said, “Bye.”

Jack had been the love of your twenties. He was never going to be able to tell you you were the last love he would have.

For a moment, neither of you speaks. The ER noise swells and recedes around you. Monitors, distant voices, the squeak of sneakers on linoleum. Jack watches the department the way you do when you’re exhausted but still responsible for everything, alert, present and steady. 

He reaches for the coffee cup he must have abandoned on the counter earlier in the night, frowns at it. It’s cold by now. He knows that, and so do you, warm coffee is a rare luxury when working in the ER.  

“How’s it been tonight?” you ask, eyes on the chaos down the hall.

He exhales slowly. “Busy, like always.”

“Yeah,” you murmur. “Like fucking always.”

“You’re off after tonight, right?” he asks.

“Yeah. Four days.”

“Good,” he says, immediate. “You need it.”

You give him a deadpanned look. One eyebrow lifts, unimpressed, exhausted, painfully aware of the irony. “Wow,” you say flatly. “What gave it away? The bags under my eyes, or the fact that I just almost began to chart on the wrong patient?”

He smiles, just a little, the kind of expression that makes him dangerous in the way he can break your focus with nothing more than a look. You are mature enough to admit to yourself that you have a crush on him, as immature as it feels, and as impractical as it definitely is. 

“You deserve it, is what I meant,” he adds, softer than before, like he’s correcting himself for your sake.

The words land differently. There’s no teasing in his expression now, no easy smirk to hide behind. Just that steady, unreadable look he gets when he means something and isn’t sure how it’ll be received.

You swallow, because somehow that is the thing that almost cracks you, the gentleness of it. Not you’re tired, not you look like hell, but you deserve a break. Like rest is something you’ve earned instead of something you have to justify.

“So do you,” you say before you can stop yourself.

He doesn’t answer that, he just studies you for a long moment, something unguarded flickering across his face before he reins it in.

“Yeah,” he says eventually. “Maybe.” It’s not dismissal, though it’s not agreement either.  

The moment stretches, at least as long as a moment can stretch in a place that never really allows stillness. 

You really are looking forward to a break from this place, four days for just you and your little girl. Four days of pancakes shaped vaguely like hearts. Of bedtime stories read twice because she insists she wants to hear it again. Four days where the world shrinks down to something soft and manageable. 

Your parents have been wonderful, they have her on the nights you work. The perks of working at night is that she is sleeping when you’re working, and you are sleeping when she is at daycare, and you get more control to pick your shifts, so some weeks you work a lot and others you have more days off, you guard those days like treasure. You can keep her home on those days and give her all the attention in the world.

It’s not the life you pictured once, but it’s a life that fits. Mostly.

Jack shifts beside you again, subtle, like he doesn’t want to startle you out of wherever you’ve gone. Then, with a faint tilt of his head toward the board, “You see bed twelve? They finally cleared it.”

“Thank God,” you mutter. “That guy was ringing his call bell every two minutes.”

Jack lets out a low breath that might almost be a laugh. “I swear, if one more patient tells me they ‘never wait this long at other hospitals’.” 

“I would start telling them to keep to that hospital,” you say dryly. “Sounds magical.”

That gets a real smile from him, brief but relieving. The spell breaks when the automatic doors slide open with a sharp hiss. The sound cuts clean through the noise. You both turn instinctively.

A little girl, dwarfed by the fluorescent lights is being rolled in, she is sitting up and is alert, which should mean it isn’t that serious, but the look of her still makes all the air leave your lungs for a second.  

Your heart stutters. She looks so small on the gurney, in her pink and white striped pajamas, a spot of dried blood on the breast pocket. She holds a butter yellow hand towel to her left brow like someone had told her to and she’s now taken it very seriously. She holds her other arm close to her body, like she is instinctively trying to prevent it from bumping into anything, like it’s hurting.  

You call out her name and her head turns, she peeks out from behind the towel. “Mommy,” she exclaims, voice breaking on the word like she’d been holding it in her chest the entire ride over.

You’re at her side in an instant. Your own mom is already right behind the gurney, her voice cuts through the noise before you even fully register her presence.

“She fell on the stairs,” she says breathlessly, one hand still gripping the rail like she’s afraid letting go might mean she loses sight of her granddaughter. “I woke up to the thud and her crying. She was supposed to be asleep—”

“Mom,” you say gently but firmly, the word grounding both of you. “It’s okay. She’s here, we’ve got her.”

Your daughter’s fingers tighten around yours the moment she recognizes you fully, relief flooding her face now that the pieces have connected. Grandma, hospital, you.

“I didn’t mean to fall,” she blurts out immediately. “I was trying to get my water.”

“I know, baby,” you murmur, brushing hair back from her damp forehead. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Nobody did.”

Jack is there without announcing himself. Of course he is. He steps in close enough that you can feel him at your back, steady and calm, his presence like an extra set of hands holding everything together. 

“Peds is clear,” Jack says quietly, already reaching for the side rail. Not rushed, not loud. He says it almost like this is just another patient, except the way his voice dips careful, betrays that he knows it isn’t. 

Your daughter looks up at him with wet lashes, half her face still covered with the tower, and her voice wobbles. “Hello,” she says, both a little shy and a little wary, her small voice barely audible over the hum of the ER, still clutching the towel like a shield.

Jack smiles at her and crouches slightly, bringing himself to her level. His voice is soft, steady, and deliberate. “Hey there, kiddo. I’m Jack. You took a pretty good tumble, huh?”

​​Your daughter glances at him, her wary melting away, though the shyness still lingers around the edges. You notice that he introduces himself as Jack, not Dr. Abbot, the casual warmth of it settles the room, as well as something within yourself. 

“Yeah,” your little girl says, her voice quieter now, the edge of fear softened by the calm way Jack crouches to meet her eye level.

“Can I see your forehead for a second?” Jack’s voice is gentle, and your daughter hesitates only for a heartbeat before slowly lowering the towel. 

Your heart twists as you see the blood on her little face. 

“Alright,” Jack says as he takes a look at her split brow, the soft hospital light catching the worry lines on his face in a way that makes you realize how present he is, how focused, without being overwhelming. “Thank you for the look,” he then says before he straightens up again. “We are gonna take you to your own room now, so we can fix you up, is that okay?” Jack continues, his voice still soft, calm, like he’s guiding her through a storm she didn’t want to be in.

She nods with all the bravery a four and a half year old can muster, clutching your hand a little tighter. The gurney starts rolling. You walk alongside it, one hand never leaving your daughter’s. Your mom falls in step just behind. 

Your mom, who is usually a calming presence, seems just as tense as you are, her brow furrowed slightly. “I should have heard that she had gotten out of bed,” she says, and you know that she is just worried, and that she is blaming herself for an accident that isn’t really her fault, but her worry is slightly stressing you out. 

When the door to the pediatric room closes you feel it then, the way the room tilts just slightly. The collision of roles. Nurse, mom, daughter. All stacked too tightly inside your chest.

Jack notices immediately, of course he does. “Why don’t you sit with her,” he says quietly to you, though not really as a question. “Then I’ll run the exam.”

You hesitate, instinct fighting training, but he meets your eyes with that steady look that says I’ve got this. You don’t have to be everything right now. So you nod.

You take a seat on the edge of the bed, Jack lifts your daughter from the gurney, very mindful of her hurt arm, and places her on your lap. 

Your little girl practically melts into you, she settles against you like she’s been wound too tight and is finally allowed to loosen, her cheek pressing into your chest. You instinctively brace her with one hand at her back, the other cradling her carefully away from the injured arm. She’s warm, solid and here.

“She didn’t lose consciousness,” your mom says again, like she needs to say it out loud. “She cried right away.”

“That’s good,” Jack replies. “You did exactly what you should’ve,” he then says, his words now directed at your daughter. That makes her smile, and you feel your chest tighten with a rush of pride so sharp it almost hurts.

Your moms phone begins to ring in her bag, your mom startles, trying to find it with shaking hands. “Sorry, that’s probably your father, he dropped us off at the entrance,” she says, voice unsteady, already halfway apologizing for answering it.

“It’s okay, you can go find him,” you tell her gently. “I’ve got her.”

Your mom hesitates, eyes flicking between you and your daughter, guilt written all over her face. 

You soften your voice even more, the way you do when you need someone else to borrow your calm for a second. “Mom,” you say quietly. “She’s okay. I’m right here. Go find dad, he’s probably pacing a groove into the sidewalk.”

That earns a fragile, breathy laugh out of her. She exhales, shaky, then leans in and presses a kiss into your daughter’s hair, lingering there like she’s imprinting the moment.

“See you later, love,” your mom whispers, half to you, half to her. 

Your daughter nods against your chest, already half-burrowed into you again. 

The door closes softly behind her, and the room exhales. The silence that settles afterward feels earned.

Your daughter’s breathing evens out against you, small and warm and real, her weight anchoring you to the bed. One socked foot dangles, slowly swinging, the adrenaline ebbing out of her system now that the danger has been named and contained. She smells like sleep and soap and that faint metallic tang of blood that makes your stomach tighten if you think about it too long. Not because you aren’t used to blood, but because it’s hers. 

Jack stays quiet for a moment, giving the room time to steady itself while he gloves up. 

“Alright,” he says quietly. “I need to get a better look at your eyebrow now.” 

She nods again, trusting him with the kind of trust that feels enormous when you witness it. She shifts slightly in your lap but doesn’t pull away. One small hand fists into the fabric of your scrub top. The other stays tucked protectively against her side.

“I’ll be really gentle,” Jack adds. He leans in, gloved fingers steady as he cleans the dried blood away. He talks the whole time, narrating just enough to keep your daughter engaged, not scared.

Jack keeps his voice low and even as he works, like he’s smoothing the edges off the moment rather than rushing through it.

“This is just a little cold,” he tells her as the saline touches her skin. 

Your daughter huffs a tiny, indignant sound against your chest. “I don’t like cold things.”

“You know what?” Jack says solemnly. “Neither do I. Except for ice cream, of course.” 

Your daughter lets out a small, incredulous giggle against your chest, the sound soft but precious, and you feel it ripple through you like sunlight cutting through fog. “I like ice cream too.” Her little voice trembles a little with excitement and relief, and you feel a soft tug at your chest. 

She winces, just barely, at the saline and you murmur sweet nonsense into her hair. Soft sounds, familiar rhythms, the kind of reassurance that comes from instinct more than thought.

“That’s my brave girl,” you whisper.

Jack’s calm demeanor doesn’t waver as he glances at the now clean cut, more carefully. He kneels slightly to get a better look, his gloved fingers gently parting the edges of the gash.

“Alright,” he says quietly, his voice steady but soft, “this cut is a little deeper than I first thought. We’re going to need a couple of stitches to make sure it heals properly.”

Your daughter tenses, her small body stiff against you. She presses her face into your chest.

Jack glances at you over her head, a subtle question in his eyes, you okay? You nod, almost imperceptibly. He accepts that answer without pressing.

Then he refocuses on your daughter again. His voice drops even lower, gentle and steady.

“I’m going to be super gentle, and you get to hold your Mommy’s hand the whole time. I’m also gonna give you some numbing medicine, so your eyebrow won’t feel much of anything.”  

“Okay, then I think I dare,” she says,with a determined whisper, burrowing her face back into your chest. 

You can’t help but smile at her choice of language. You and Jack catch each other’s gaze for just a second and in that brief moment, it’s almost like the world outside the room disappears. 

She gets two small stitches. Jack moves with a quiet precision, each motion deliberate and measured. He listens, explains, lets her keep her dignity, in a way that makes something in your chest ache, sharp and reverent all at once.

Jack keeps his voice low as he works, steady enough that it becomes part of the room’s rhythm. He isn’t rushing, or indulgent, just present.

“Alright,” he murmurs as he finishes prepping. “I’m going to start now. You don’t have to do anything except keep sitting still and holding mom’s hand, okay?”

Your daughter nods once against you, solemn. Her fingers curl tighter into your scrub top, the fabric bunching under her fist. You feel the tiny tremor in her body before she stills again, trusting you to hold the fear for her. Hearing Jack mentioning you so naturally, so without hesitation, does something quiet and seismic inside you.

You are a mom, her mom. It’s a role he hasn’t seen you in before, up close, unguarded, instinctive. Something in your chest gives way at that. 

The first stitch goes in cleanly. She makes a small sound, more surprise than pain, and you immediately murmur reassurance, pressing your cheek to the crown of her head. Your hand moves in slow, familiar circles along her back, grounding both of you.

“That’s one,” Jack says softly. “You’re doing really well.”

Your daughter stiffens for half a second at the sensation, then exhales against you when nothing terrible follows. Her body loosens again, trusting the pattern now. Jack’s calm voice, your steady hold, the quiet truth that she is not alone in this.

You feel it in your bones, that trust. The way she gives the fear to you without ceremony, like it’s always been yours to carry.

“I’m gonna do the other now,” Jack sys gently, more for her than for himself. “Still doing great.”

She nods into your chest, a small, solemn movement, like she’s taking the job seriously. Her fingers flex once in your scrub top, then relax.

Jack works with the same careful precision, his hands steady, unhurried. He narrates just enough to keep her grounded, not enough to overwhelm her. The second stitch goes in as smoothly as the first.

She flinches, just a breath of movement, and then it’s over.

“And two,” Jack says quietly. “All done with the stitches.”

There’s a beat of silence where the words don’t quite register for her yet. Then. “Really?” she asks, muffled, the same way she always asks when she’s braced for more.

“Really,” Jack says, smiling. “You were incredibly brave.” 

He holds a hand up for a high five. She peeks up at him at that, lashes still clumped just a little, eyes wide and searching his face for confirmation. Then she lifts her hand on her noninjured arm and gives him a careful, deliberate high five. It lands soft, more ceremonial than forceful, but Jack treats it like it’s the most solid thing in the world.

“There it is,” he says, warmth unmistakable now. “Perfect form.”

A smile breaks fully across her face, crooked and proud and still a little wobbly at the edges, accompanied with the sweetest little giggle. She immediately turns and buries it against your chest again, as if embarrassed by her own bravery now that it’s been witnessed.

You meet his eyes. You mouth a thank you. Jack nods. It’s small, almost nothing, but it carries weight. He understands what you’re thanking him for. There’s no swell of music, no cinematic pause. Just the quiet aftermath of something tender having happened in front of both of you, something neither of you pretended not to see.

You realize, with a strange clarity, that this is the first time he’s really seen you like this. Not the competent nurse who can anticipate orders before they’re spoken, not the colleague who trades dry humor at the station to survive another night shift. But with your heart wide open and bleeding quietly behind your ribs while you hold your child together with instinct and love. 

He looks back to your daughter, instinctively, the way you do when you want to keep the center of gravity where it belongs.

“Alright, superstar,” he says softly. “I’m just going to clean this up and put a little bandage on. Then you get to keep sitting right here.” 

Your daughter hums sleepily in approval, cheek pressed to your chest, thumb rubbing slow, absent circles into your scrub top. The adrenaline has fully drained now, leaving only that heavy, boneless calm that comes after fear has burned itself out.

Jack finishes quietly. Gauze, a careful strip of tape, hands that never tug more than necessary. He peels off his gloves and disposes of them, movements efficient but unhurried, like he’s deliberately resisting the ER’s constant pull to rush. 

The calm doesn’t last long. Her arm still needs to be looked at. You inhale slowly, steadying yourself, and kiss the top of her head. “You did so good, baby,” you whisper, voice low and steady even as something inside you braces again.

Your daughter hums faintly in response, eyes fluttering but not quite closing. When she shifts, the movement is careful, instinctive, but the moment her hurt arm bumps against your side, she makes a small whimper. 

Your chest tightens. Jack catches it immediately.

“Can I see?” she asks, voice small, tentative, like she’s not sure she wants the answer but needs to ask anyway.

“Of course,” you say, even though a part of you would prefer her not to, in case it will scare her. But you also believe that pretending something isn’t there is worse than letting her face it with you beside her. 

You take your phone from your pocket and turn on the front camera. You angle it so she can see without having to move much, your hands steady despite the faint tremor still humming under your skin. 

She studies the screen seriously, brow furrowed in concentration. Her free hand lifts, hovering over the bandage, before lowering it again. 

“You might get a little battle scar,” Jack says gently, finishing the thought with care. “But it’ll fade. And until then, it’s proof you were very brave.”

Her eyes flick from the screen to him, weighing that idea. “Battle scar?” she repeats, testing the words like she’s rolling them around to see how they feel.

Jack nods, solemn as if this is a matter of record. “Yep.”  

Then she nods once, solemn acceptance settling in like a decision she’s proud of. “Okay,” she says quietly. 

You watch the exchange with a tender kind of awareness that sits low and quiet in your chest. There’s a tenderness in the way he frames it, like he understands intimately that scars are not just marks left behind, but proof of surviving something that could have taken more. 

And of course he does. Because Jack knows what it means to carry proof on your body. 

“Okay,” he says softly, already moving back toward you. No urgency in his tone, but no delay either. “Let’s take a look at that arm now.” 

Jack pulls the stool closer again and sinks down in front of you, movements measured and familiar. He doesn’t rush the moment your daughter whimpers, but waits for her to settle first, for her breathing to even back out against your chest. 

When she finally feels ready, she sticks her arm out for him to look at. He examines her arm the same way he did everything else, slow and deliberate, hands light. He watches her face more than the arm, catching every flicker of discomfort. When she stiffens near her wrist, he stops immediately.

“Okay,” he murmurs. “Thank you.”

You already know what he’s going to say. You’ve seen this pattern a thousand times. Knowing it doesn’t make your chest feel any less tight.

“I want to get an x-ray,” Jack says softly, glancing up at you. Not alarmist, but not minimizing it either, just honesty.

The word lands quietly but solidly. You nod before he even finishes the sentence. There’s no debate in you about it, just that familiar, steady click of yes, of course, do what we need to do. You’ve lived on this side of decisions long enough to trust the rhythm.

“Yeah,” you say quietly. “I figured.” 

Your daughter lifts her head a little, eyes heavy-lidded but alert at the word she doesn’t recognise. “What’s an x-way?”

Jack shifts closer again, keeping his voice gentle, explanatory without being scary. “It’s like taking a picture of the inside of your arm,” he says. “So we can see if the bone got a little bend when you fell.”

She frowns, processing. “Does it hurt?”

“Nope,” he says immediately. “It doesn’t hurt, you just need to sit still for a minute.”

She seems to accept that, then adds, very seriously, “I can sit still.”

You smile despite the tightness in your chest. “Yeah, you’re very good at that.” 

Jack’s mouth curves, at that. Not a full smile, it’s something quieter. Respectful. Like he’s clocking the truth of it.

“Right,” he tells her. “You’ve been proving that all night.”

She looks absurdly proud of that, chin lifting a fraction before the exhaustion pulls her back down. Her forehead finds its place against your collarbone again, like gravity has finally remembered its job.

Jack straightens and looks at you, really looks this time. “I’ll have radiology come down here,”  he says quietly. “No reason to move her if we don’t have to,” he finishes.

Relief loosens something in your chest you hadn’t realized you were bracing. You nod once. “Thank you.”

Jack holds your gaze a fraction longer than necessary, like he’s checking that you’re still upright on the inside too, not just by habit. You offer him a tired smile and he returns it, subtle but real. 

“I need to go check on a patient,” he finishes quietly, already half-turning toward the door. Then he pauses, like something pulls him back. “I will call radiology first. And I’ll be close,” he adds. Not dramatic. Not a promise that needs weight, just information, just enough.

You nod. “Okay. Thank you”

Jack slips out, the door closing softly behind him, and the room settles into that in-between quiet that only exists when something hard has already happened and the next thing hasn’t arrived yet.

Your daughter is fully boneless now, the last of her adrenaline spent. Her breathing evens out against you, slow and warm, her forehead tucked beneath your chin like she’s found the exact place she belongs. One small hand still fists your scrub top out of habit, even in sleep.

You adjust your hold minutely, careful of her arm, careful of everything. Your body knows how to do this without being told. You press a kiss into her hair and let your eyes close for half a second longer than you probably should. 

You can’t help but think about Jack. You don’t try to stop the thought. You’re too tired to police it, and honestly, it’s been hovering at the edges of you all night anyway. The way he made space for both versions of you without comment.

You don’t let yourself spin this into anything more than it is. You’re good at restraint. You’ve had to be. But still, there’s something different about the way Jack sees you. Not in a sweeping, romantic way, but in the way that matters when things fall apart at three in the morning.

Your daughter sighs softly in her sleep, a tiny sound of contentment, and you feel it vibrate through your chest. You tighten your arms around her just a fraction, grounding yourself in the weight of her.

The door opens quietly again, and you don’t even look up at first. You know his footsteps now. You feel them before you hear them.

Jack pauses just inside the room when he sees your daughter asleep against you. His expression softens in that unguarded way you’ve come to recognize, the one he doesn’t seem aware he’s wearing.

“She out?” he asks quietly.

“Yeah,” you whisper back. “Finally.”

He nods, like that tracks. Like he expected it. He steps closer, careful, glancing at her arm, the bandage on her eyebrow, the way she’s tucked into you like she’s claimed you as her anchor.

Radiology’s already on their way,” he says. “They’ll be quick.”

“Okay.”

There’s another pause. Not awkward, just full.

“I’ll come back when they get here.” Jack doesn’t move right away after he says it.

He stands there for a beat longer than necessary, weight settled into one side. His eyes flick once more to your daughter, then back to you. It’s not dramatic. It doesn’t need to be. The understanding is already there, layered and solid from years of shared shifts and unspoken things.

Jack steps back out into the hall, leaving the door cracked just long enough that the sounds of the ER bleed softly into the room instead of crashing. Then the room exhales again.

You shift slightly on the bed, adjusting your daughter so her weight is more evenly supported. She makes a small noise in her sleep, a soft protest, then relaxes again. You get your phone out to text your parents, thumb hovering for a second before you type.

She needed a few stitches, she took it like a champ. Waiting for an x-ray on her arm just to be safe. She’s asleep now. I’ll update you soon. You add a heart you don’t usually bother with, then send it before you can overthink it.  

You tuck the phone back into your pocket, the bed creaks softly as you adjust again, instinctively shifting to keep her arm supported. 

The door opens again not long after, a soft knock, then the roll of equipment. Radiology, quiet and efficient. Jack is with them, of course. He catches your eye immediately, gives you a small nod that says I’ve got it, still.

Your daughter stirs a little in your arms.

“Hey, superstar,” Jack murmurs, keeping his voice low. “We’re just going to take that picture we talked about.”

Your daughter stirs more at the sound of his voice, blinks once, then burrows closer into you instead of pulling away. A sleepy whine ghosts out of her throat.

“You’re okay,” you whisper. “I’m right here.”

The tech explains things gently, positioning the portable machine with practiced care. Jack helps guide your daughter’s arm into place, his hands steady, never rushing her, never forcing the moment. When she whimpers, he pauses instantly, waiting until her breathing smooths again before continuing.

“That’s it,” he says softly. “Just like that.”

The image is taken quickly. The machine hums, then stills. The tech murmurs a quiet thank-you and slips out again, leaving the room with that same reverent quiet it entered with.

Jack stays where he is, eyes on the screen now, posture relaxed but intent. You don’t ask. You just watch his face, the way you always do. 

Jack studies the image for a long second, head tilted just slightly, the way it always is when he’s lining things up in his mind. The room feels very still around you, like everything has leaned in to listen.

“Okay,” he says quietly, turning back to you. “Good news.”

The words don’t hit all at once. They spread instead, slow and warm, loosening something deep in your chest that’s been clenched since the moment you saw her on the gurney.

“No fracture,” Jack continues, voice still low, still careful. “Just a sprain. It’s going to be sore for a bit, but nothing that won’t heal on its own.”

You let out a breath you didn’t realize you’d been holding. Your shoulders drop. You press your lips into your daughter’s hair, eyes closing for the briefest second as relief washes through you.

“You’ll get a splint to keep it comfortable for a few days,” Jack says, sitting back down in front of your little girl like he has all the time in the world. 

Her eyes widen with concern. “A splint?” 

You understand her concern immediately. “A splint, baby,” you murmur softly. “Not a splinter.”

Jack huffs a quiet breath that might almost be a laugh, catching himself before it becomes one, but he smiles. “Yeah, no splinters,” he says gently. “I promise.”

Your daughter blinks at him, processing through the fog of exhaustion. “Splinters are mean,” she informs him solemnly.

“They really are,” Jack agrees, like this is serious medical consensus. “But this is more like a glove. It gives your wrist a little rest while it feels better.”

“Oh,” she says, the word soft and sleepy, like the worry has already started to loosen its grip. 

You catch Jack’s gaze over her head, and there’s that quiet, steady reassurance in his eyes again. It warms your chest in a way that’s both familiar and unsettlingly tender. 

He gets the splint, it looks so small in his hands. “Alright,” he says quietly. “This is going to help your arm rest for a few days.”

She watches him with heavy-lidded seriousness, trust intact even through the fog of sleep. When he reaches for her wrist, he does it slowly, giving her time to register the movement before it happens. His touch is careful, practiced in a way that comes from long familiarity with bodies that hurt.

“I’m gonna get discharge started so you can take her home,” Jack continues quietly, finishing the thought without urgency. “She’s earned her own bed tonight.”

“I’ll call my parents to come get her, I still have a few hours left of the shift.”

Jack huffs, something between a breath and a quiet laugh, and shakes his head once. “You take her home,” he says, gently but firmly, like this isn’t a suggestion. “Get your four days off started early.”

You open your mouth on instinct. It’s habit and training. A lifetime of swallowing your own needs before they inconvenience anyone else.

“Jack, I—”

“I know,” he says softly, already ahead of you. There’s no impatience in his voice, no edge. Just understanding. “You don’t want to leave the floor short. But we will be fine, there is someone who needs you more right now.”

He looks at you for a long moment. Really looks, past the scrubs and the composure you wear so easily at work. His gaze drops briefly to your daughter, then comes back to your face, softer now.

He doesn’t need to say anything, you feel it all the way into the marrow of your bones. The weight of his regard settles low in your chest, steady and grounding, just like the way his hands have been all night. It’s the look of someone who understands exactly what it means to keep showing up even when it costs you, someone who has learned, painfully, how to put other people first and live with what’s left over.

Something in your throat tightens.

He clears his own, subtle, like he’s catching himself before he says too much. “She needs you,” he repeats, quieter now. Not as an argument, but as a truth.

Your daughter shifts slightly, her forehead pressing more firmly into the hollow of your neck, her injured arm tucked safely between you. The instinct to stay with her flares so bright it almost hurts.

You nod once. “Yeah… I’ll take her home.”

“Good,” he says quietly. 

Something in your chest melts at the simplicity of it. No bravado, no dramatics. Just him, presentn and steady. 

He leaves to finish the discharge paperwork. You watch him go, the soft click of the door closing behind him lingering in the air. You call your parents to update them, your voice soft, careful not to wake the now sleeping girl in your arms. 

You agree that they should just drive home and that you take your daughter home with you. They will come over tomorrow afternoon to visit her. 

You thank them quietly for always taking so good care of her, keeping your tone low so it won’t stir your daughter. Tonight was not their fault, and you don’t want them to blame themself. And you really do appreciate them so much.  “I’ll text you when we’re home safe.”  you murmur as a last goodbye.

After hanging up, you pause for a moment, just holding her. Her little chest rises and falls against you, and the steady rhythm feels like the only thing that matters in the world right now. You press a soft kiss to her hair, brushing a loose strand from her forehead. 

A little while later, there is a knock on the door and Bridget peeks her head in. “Hey, I should say from Abbot that you’re cleared for takeoff.” 

You smile softly, careful not to wake your daughter, and whisper, “Thanks, Bridge.” 

“How’s she doing?”

You shift slightly, adjusting your daughter in your arms so she’s more comfortable, and glance up at Bridget. “Sleeping,” you murmur, a small smile tugging at your lips. “Everything’s fine now. Just tired from the excitement.”

Bridget nods, smiling as she glances at the little girl curled against you. “Good. Dr. Abbot said she handled everything really well.”

A warmth spreads through your chest at the mention of his name. You brush another loose strand of hair from your daughter’s forehead. “Yeah,” you whisper, voice soft. “She did. And he… he was really great with her.” 

Bridget gives a small, knowing smile. “I can see why,” she says quietly, almost to herself, before slipping out and closing the door gently behind her.

You stay for a moment longer, just holding your daughter, feeling the quiet steadiness of the night around you. When you finally shift to leave the room, you move slowly, carefully, like the world might crack if you rush it. You slide off the bed, adjust your grip on the sleeping girl in your arms, and ease the door open with your shoulder.

The hallway is dimmer now, the night shift easing into that early-morning calm where everything finally slows. Fewer voices, fewer alarms, just the low hum of the hospital breathing around you.

When you turn down the hallway heading towards the staff lockers, your steps are unhurried, instinctively measured to the rhythm of her breathing. 

A few coworkers pass you with gentle smiles and words, but no one stops you. The night seems to understand what you’re carrying.

Your shoulder brushes the wall as you adjust your grip again, careful of her arm, and you feel the weight of the last few hours finally settling into your muscles. Exhaustion, but also relief. The kind that leaves you hollow and light all at once.

When you pass a patient room, Jack steps out into the hallway, lifting his stethoscope back around back around his neck as he leaves the room. He looks up and stops. For a split second, he just watches you.

The lights catch the tired lines around his eyes, the ones you usually pretend not to notice. His gaze moves instinctively to your daughter, her small body slack with sleep against you, then back to your face. Something softens in him, something unguarded.

“Hey,” he says quietly, already lowering his voice.

“Hey,” you answer, just as soft.

“She still out?” he asks, nodding toward her.

“Completely,” you murmur. “Didn’t even flinch when we moved.”

“Good,” he says, like it genuinely matters to him. He steps aside without thinking, clearing your path. “You heading to the lockers?”

You nod. “Yeah. Then home.”

“And you’re okay?”

You take a breath, feel it all the way down. “I think so. Just… tired.”

He gives a small nod, understanding written all over his face. “Let me help grab your stuff.”

He doesn’t wait for you to argue. He just falls into step beside you, matching your pace like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

The locker area is quiet, Jack reaches your locker before you can even shift your weight to free a hand. You tell him your locker code without thinking twice, the numbers slipping out of you on instinct, like trust has already made the decision for you. 

He gets your jacket and your bag, the small, ordinary pieces of a life that feels anything but ordinary tonight. 

“Here,” he murmurs, holding the jacket open so you can slide an arm through. 

When you hesitate, balancing her weight, he steps closer, gently settling it around your shoulders. His fingers brush your collarbone for the briefest second before he pulls back, like he’s reminding himself where the line is.

“You’ve got it?” he asks softly.

You nod. “Yeah. Thanks.”

He slings your bag over his own shoulder without asking. “I’ll walk you out.” 

A part of you wants to protest, he has already spent more time than anyone could reasonably expect tonight, but the words never quite make it past your lips. You’re too tired to argue. Too grateful to try. And you know that he wouldn’t offer it if he couldn’t spare the time to do it. 

So you just nod, and let him. 

He doesn’t make a joke about favoritism or professionalism, or anything else that might fracture the quiet you’re carrying with you. He just stays beside you, steady and unshowy, like this is exactly where he’s meant to be.

He steps aside to hold the door of the employee exit open for you, then falls back in beside you as you head toward the parking lot. His gaze keeps drifting to your daughter, to the way her face is relaxed in sleep, her fingers curled lightly into your scrubs.

When you reach your car, he sets your bag down carefully and turns back to you. For a moment, neither of you moves. The space between you feels charged in a way that has nothing to do with exhaustion.

“Thank you,” you say quietly. The words feel too small for everything he’s done, but they’re the only ones you have.

He shakes his head a little, like he doesn’t want the weight of gratitude. “You don’t have to thank me.”

“I know,” you reply. “But I want to.”

His mouth curves into something soft at that. Tired, but real. He glances at your daughter again, then back to you.

He doesn’t have to utter a word. The way he looks at you is enough. Enough to say, I see you. I get you. I care.

He exhales slowly, like he’s grounding himself, then nods once. “She’s… incredible,” Jack says finally, voice low. His words are not clinical, nor polite, they are honest. “You’re doing a really good job.”

Your throat tightens. “Thank you,” you say, voice even lower than his. “You were amazing with her. Never too late to shift to pediatrics,” you add quietly, a faint smile tugging at your mouth. It probably would be too late, and you would hate if he wasn’t exactly where he is. 

He huffs a soft breath at that, something close to a laugh but quieter, more private. “I think I’d miss the chaos too much,” he says, then, after a beat. 

You know what he means. “Yeah, some people just thrive in chaos,” you murmur, letting the words trail off.

He nods slowly. For a heartbeat, there’s just the two of you in that parking lot, the world holding its breath around you. He shifts his weight, hands sliding into his pants pockets. He looks down at the pavement for a second. When he looks back up, his eyes are softer again, and gives a faint, almost reluctant smile.

“You should get her home,” he says gently. Not a dismissal, but a kindness. “Get some rest,” he then adds. “Both of you.”

“We will.”

You settle your daughter carefully into her car seat in the back before closing the door. When you straighten up again, Jack is handing you your bag. You take it with a soft smile before stepping to the driver’s side.

You pause in the car doorway, hand still on the handle, and glance back at him. He meets your gaze for a heartbeat longer than necessary, and in that look, something unspoken passes between you. Years of shared shifts, quiet understanding, the weight of your lives carried alongside one another, all of it rests there in that silent stretch. 

“She’s really lucky to have you,” he says finally, voice low, almost lost in the night air, but weighted with something that makes your chest tighten. Then, after a fraction of a second, like he’s correcting himself for your sake.

You swallow, the words settling in your chest like sunlight through fog. For a heartbeat, neither of you moves, and the air between you hums with all the things you’ve never said aloud.

You manage a small, tired smile, fingers curling around the handle of the car door a little tighter. “Thanks,” you whisper, voice barely more than breath, but it carries more than you could ever fit into a longer sentence.

“Get home safe…” he adds, letting the words hang just long enough to be felt rather than rushed. His eyes meet yours again, soft and steady, holding a quiet weight that doesn’t need to be named.

You give a small nod, a smile tugging at your lips despite the fatigue. “We will,” you reply softly, fingers brushing the handle of the car door like a quiet tether to reality.

As you pull out of the lot, you glance once in the rearview mirror. He’s still there, watching until you’re gone.

On the backseat, your daughter stirs slightly in sleep. The road stretches ahead, quiet except for the hum of the tires, and for a moment, everything else falls away. And somewhere behind you, Jack is back inside the Pitt, bathed in fluorescent hospital lights. 

You glance back at the precious little girl behind you in the rearview mirror, her small chest rising and falling in soft rhythm, and your heart swells with a tenderness that feels too big for words. 

He was supposed to be mad, wasn't he? He should’ve yelled, maybe said the most lewd comment known to mankind.

But instead of a cutting remark, he’d blinked. Blinked and let out the smallest and most dangerous smirk you’d ever seen.

“Guess you’re not a morning person either?” He’d said.

You blinked, halfway expecting to be eaten alive. “Yeah, well. Your fault anyway” you had teased, trying to stifle down a giggle.

“Oh great, you’re delusional. You’ll fit right in” he teased, but he also had a soft little on his face - almost genuine. It made your heart swell.

And that was just the beginning.

The next day, you bought him lunch to apologise for the ruined shirt, and let’s be honest. Who was Gregory House to deny free lunch? Even Wilson didn’t treat him with such joy.

“Oh, I bet you find me irresistible,” He said with a smug little expression, before devouring like he hadn’t eaten anything for days.

You figured that was it. A weird - one-off moment. But it wasn’t.

He kept showing up. In the hallway, in your office. In that space just below the stairs, you liked to hide when things got too loud, too clinical.

At first, he acted like it was a coincidence. Like he just happened to need to pass through wherever you were. But House was many things, and subtle was never one of them.

“I’m beginning to think you’re stalking me,” you teased once, catching him for the third time that week loitering outside your office door.

“Oh please. If I were stalking you, you’d know it pretty face” he shot back, but his eyes lingered longer than they should’ve before he limped off.

Your playful and witty banter only carried on for so long before the tension between you shifted. One day, somewhere along the stolen lunches sarcastic quips over patient charts, House asked you out. Not anything fancy, emotional - just him, looking at you and asking you as casually as if he were ordering takeout.

“Dinner?” No punchline followed. Just that.

You were stupid not to agree. Dinner turned into breakfast, turned into weekends, which turned into toothbrushes left behind and arguments over who stole whose sweatshirt. (you obviously? you loved his clothes)

Now it’s just you, and him. No announcements no big labels, just the strange unspoken understanding of you being his person. Somehow, he’s yours too.

Which is why today, when you show up at work sniffling and obviously running on less than four hours of sleep, House doesn’t let it slide.

“You look like death,” he said in a chirpy voice, hoping to get a small reaction from you. “Stole Wilson’s lunch. Here” He continued, dropping a small lunch box and an orange juice in front of you.

You barely glanced at him. “Can’t. I have clinic duty, consults, and a paper that should be turned in by Friday”

He frowns and then moves quickly. He shuts your laptop down, earning a small “Hey!” from you. “Why’d you do that?!”

“Cause I can’t have you passing out during rounds and embarrassing me”

“Oh, baby. You’re such a romantic” You fret, rolling your eyes - Or attempting to do so. Your head pounded so much even that was difficult for you.

“And you’re—“ He paused, bringing his hand to your forehead to check your temperature. “You have a fever, sweetheart. Take the compliment and lie down before I carry you”

Trying to protest was useless. He’d always get what he wanted.

“You know I’ll make it weird, come on. Up you go”

You muttered something about abuse of power when he helped you to your feet, but the truth was that the room was already spinning, and you were grateful he held you.

“Where are we going?” you asked, leaning into him slightly as he looped an arm around your waist.

“My office. Big chair. Nap. You’re banned from thinking for the next few hours.” he said, leading you down the hall like it was routine.

“No - Not your office. Smells like sarcasm and regret” you mumbled.

“Exactly. Suits you”

When he settled you on the worn-out leather chair, he didn’t tease you about the way you curled up immediately, or how fast your eyes fluttered shut. Instead, he pulled his coat from the rack and draped it over your body.

He doesn’t follow after the team immediately. He sits back at his desk, grumbling as he twiddles with his cane.

“Unbelievable. I get you lunch, save your life and the thanks I get is… Are you sleeping? Tsk tsk, sweetheart” He grumbled, but his words held no anger.

From the couch, he heard your muffled, drowsy voice.

“Love you too”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. The small, rare smile tugging at the corner of his lips said it all.

After a few minutes, he walked over to you— placing a chaste kiss on your forehead. You were still warm.

“Goddamn hopeless romantic”

He stood there for a moment, just watching you. Your features weren’t totally relaxed— the crease between your eyebrows was still there. The sight made something in his chest tighten, some old reflex he tried not to name.

With a sigh, he turned back to his desk, settling into his chair and spinning lazily in it once before grabbing a pen. Diagnostics could wait a little longer. He pulled your laptop toward him, flicking it open despite your earlier protests.

“Clinic duty, consults, paper due to Friday” he muttered to himself, scrolling through your emails and files. “I don’t remember agreeing to date an overachiever”

Then, he started canceling. One email, then another - until your inbox and calendar were empty. But halfway through the process, Wilson walked in, probably ready to ask something - until his gaze landed on your sleeping form, curled up on House’s chair with his coat.

“Really?” He asked, eyebrows raised.

House didn’t look up from your laptop. “She’s sick”

“And you’re… playing secretary?”

He vaguely gestured with his pen, as if saying Go away. “She’s annoying when she’s dying. This is self-preservation”

Wilson chuckled, muttering a small “Whatever you say” before turning to leave.

“Oh and tell Cuddy if she needs rheumatology, she’ll have to drag her away herself”

“Fine, just don’t fall in love with her”

House didn’t answer. He just kept typing. Because if he had answered, he would’ve said something like, “Too late”

By the time you’d woken up, the sun had set and soft lamps were flickering in the office. You were groggy and unaware of how long you’d been sleeping, making House turn his attention to you the minute you shifted a little.

“Sleeping beauty is finally awake, hm?” He said softly, coming to sit near your feet.

“Yeah. How long was I out for?”

“Long enough for me to hack into your email account” He smirked, noticing how your expression went from sleepy to mortified.

“You did what?!” you croaked, sitting up straighter despite his coat being wrapped around you.

“Oh relax, you didn’t have any dirty secrets. Just a lot of boring consults and an unholy amount of calendar reminders. Honestly, it was more disappointing than I expected”

“You canceled my day, didn’t you?”

“Mhmm,” he popped a pill bottle open, handing it to you. “You’re still feverish,” he said softly, concern etched on his features.

You took the pills reluctantly, eyeing the water bottle he passed next like it had personally wronged you. “You know, you’re supposed to be the world’s biggest jerk. This is very off-brand for you”

“Oh, don’t worry,” he said, resting his chin on his cane while watching you sip the water. “I’ll go back to bullying residents and making interns cry the second you stop looking like a Victorian ghost.”

You sighed, melting back into the chair. “I was fine”

“No you weren’t, sweetheart”

You blinked at the endearment - voice sounding much more softer than usual. It always came up low and tired, like he couldn’t help himself. Like it slipped out from somewhere unguarded.

“I’m not fragile you know” You murmured, averting your gaze from him, focusing on his cane.

He gave you a look, deadpanned but affectionate. “You fell asleep on my chair, wrapped up in my coat like a burrito. Forgive me for assuming you’re not at full strength”

“Such a sap, Greg”

“Yeah, I’m such a catch” he drawled. “You’re staying at my place tonight”

“What? Why?”

“Which part of “you can’t stand up straight without help” don’t you understand? I’m not leaving you alone. You might spiral into working again”

“I have an apartment,” You said softly, even though deep down you wanted to be with him.

“Sure. But I have better snacks”

You tried to protest—really, you did. But your head was still heavy, your limbs achy, and the thought of curling up in his too-big clothes, in his bed that smelled like him, was more comforting than you’d admit.

“Okay, doctors orders,” you said, giving in. “But I’m taking your Princeton sweater”

He stood up, putting his cane aside just to help you up and take your bag. “Fine. But the movie’s on me. And if you fall asleep, I promise to take a picture and save it as my contact photo”

You sighed, pressing your fingers on your temple to stop the throbbing in your temples. “You wouldn’t dare”

“Sweetheart” He whispered when he saw your face contorting in pain. “I would”

He opened the door for you, watching every single reaction you had. And despite the pounding in your head and the burn in your throat, you smiled. Because somehow, being lovingly bullied by Gregory House was the safest you’d felt all week.

By the time you reached his apartment, you’d been dozing on and off in his car, head lolling with every turn he took. He didn’t comment on it. Just glanced every now and then, turning the music down.

Inside, the lights were low. His place smelled like burnt coffee and old books, and maybe… comfort. Tossing your bag on the couch, he headed to his room - emerging with a soft, worn-out t-shirt. No way he’d give you the Princeton hoodie. That would be saved for special occasions.

Without a word, House helped you sit on the edge of the couch - hands on your waist to steady you. “Arms up” he instructed.

He moved carefully—fingers brushing lightly over your fever-warm skin, gaze never straying lower than your face. When he slipped the shirt over your head, he smoothed it down your arms like he was folding something delicate.

You didn’t bother with pants—he wouldn’t care, and you were already sinking into the couch as your bones had dissolved. He followed a second later, dropping beside you with a quiet grunt. His hand found your back automatically, warm and steady, tracing gentle circles like it was second nature.

“You gonna pass out on me again?” he asked, voice quieter now.

“No, unless you feed me anything. Maybe soup and oh - maybe grilled cheese?”

He snorted. “You’re getting a cold sandwich and you’re gonna love it”

You buried your face in the crook of his neck, inhaling his scent. “You’re insufferable” you spoke, breath fanning over his skin. It almost made him shiver.

“And yet,” he said, grabbing a blanket and draping it over your body. “You’re here, on my couch, in my clothes… In my arms”

“…and kind of in love with you”

It wasn’t meant to slip out. It just did. Fever loosened your tongue, and your heart as well.

His breath hitched - and the cogs in his brain started running. It was the medicine, wasn’t it? It was making you bleary… and saying things you didn’t mean.

But what if you did mean it?

He didn’t say anything at first.

Just looked at you, really looked at you. Your lashes clumped from sleep, cheeks flushed and lips plump - all in your feverish state. You looked as if you hadn’t realised what you’d just said. He found it adorable.

It would be easier to laugh it off. Deflect. Say something cruel and clever, to ruin the moment.

Instead, House reached up - carded his fingers through your hair, noticing how you let out a quiet, but content sigh.

“You’re kind of high on ibuprofen,” he said finally, voice rough.

“Maybe. I meant it either way” you said, words muffled against the fabric of his shirt.

A beat passed.

Then another.

House didn’t look at you when he answered—just let his hand trail down your arm before lacing his fingers with yours.

“I’m kind of in love with you too,” he muttered. “Unfortunately.”

You huffed sleepily, snuggling closer to him. “Tragic. Can’t have you become a softie now”

“Oh, you’re an evil woman,” he said teasingly, squeezing your hand.

For a moment, you didn’t move. His free hand continued its soothing motions on your back, making you feel safe, kept. Like even if he wasn’t good with words, he was still choosing you, quietly, in all the ways that mattered.

Eventually, he shifted - manoeuvring you so you were lying on his chest with your legs entwined.

“Sleep, sweetheart,” he said in a hushed tone, pressing a kiss to your warm forehead. “Maybe I’ll make you grilled cheese tomorrow”

You smiled against his chest, the warmth of his body lulling you under again.

“You better” you whispered.

*****************************

I

The knife slashes diagonally across your upper thigh, cutting deep enough you see … yellow? That’s probably not good, your mind flashes. You stumble forward.

The man who had just given it to you tries to grab you again; he was careless where the knife in his right hand went, as long as you weren’t killed. You feel his gloved hand snatch at your left arm, but his attempt ends abruptly. You feel his body fall to the floor with a thump. You hadn’t even heard the gunshot, but there in front of you appears a disheveled Six, his firearm still pointed down the hallway behind you. 

His eyes drop to your hands clutched around your bloody leg, and he closes the distance between the two of you in a second.

“You’re okay. Can you run?” He sounds calm. One hand reaches out to gingerly touch the side of your face; he tilts his head to peer into your eyes. It won’t cross your mind until later that he’s trying to keep you from panicking. 

“I-” your voice breaks. “I think so, yeah.” 

Six nods, thankful that your adrenaline has taken hold; even he'd be making noise with that kind of injury. That wound was certainly going to require several stitches. 

“Hold on to me.” He indicates his belt, wanting to keep you close behind him but needing to keep his arms free. You comply gladly, curling your fingers through a belt loop. Though still scared, your body responds automatically to the protectiveness emanating from the man who has watched over you for the last five months. 

He sweeps through the house, following the escape route he’d had planned from the very day he got here. You try not to glance around but the specter of death is unavoidable. Black-clothed, anonymous bodies lay strewn across broken glass. Debris extends throughout the house, but mercifully the kitchen is corpse-free. Six guides you across the room, and he reaches out for the garage door. As it swings open, Six curses. 

“What’s wrong?” You whisper to his back.

He hesitates, then states, “A friend did me a favor.” He doesn’t move toward the broken body lying next to the vehicle - it’s clear by the angle of the man’s neck that he’s beyond help. 

“We’re even,” Six solemnizes over the man. He says it so quietly that you’re sure you weren’t meant to hear. You feel a prickle of pain in your nose, like you’re near tears. You don’t know if it’s the situation or the fact that you’ve never seen the reticent man show any strong emotion, but you scrutinize the back of his head, trying to understand what’s inside.

“I’m sorry,” you breathe. You drop your hand from his belt to give him space.

Six doesn’t respond. 

You can’t really tell the difference between the man lying there and the other bodyguards that had been rotated through over the past week. Six had hidden the fact that he knew the man well; you’d never seen them interact.

He steps over to the driver’s door cautiously. You wince as your adrenaline starts to fade and the distraction of Six’s body is gone. Ensuring no joy-riders are hiding in the backseat, he starts the car. He climbs in. As the engine purrs to life, he looks up at you standing still in the headlights and deadpans, “If you’d rather stay, I’ll send a pizza ‘round for you.” 

*****************************

The two of you burst into the tiny apartment, not initially noticing the fact that it’s shockingly small: one chair, one bed, one bathroom. Without warning, he scoops you up into his arms and heads into the bathroom, flicking on the single bulb. He sets you gently on the countertop. He bends to grab a first-aid kit from the cabinet, and you wobble without his support, lightheaded from blood loss and exhaustion. His hands steady you and he stares into your eyes, willing you to be composed. You blink twice, realizing he’s not been this close to you - ever. You smile shyly, and he frowns. Clearly, he thinks you’re in shock. Your heart is racing but it has very little to do with the night’s events. You’d been half-expecting an assault for some time now, and you’d prepared yourself as best a normal person could. Sure, you were scared - nothing would ever be the same now. But you had survived, thanks to Six, and the cold, animal part of your brain knew that was all that mattered. No, the thudding of your pulse was the fault of the ever-present magnetism you felt for the man working before you.

“I’m going to cut your jeans,” Six states. You nod, mind racing with thoughts too silly to vocalize. He pulls a knife from his pocket and gingerly slices away the front half of the already-cut pant leg. You’re left with what resembles a pant-mullet and you giggle a little hysterically at the ridiculous thought. 

He glances up at you, certain you’re in shock, “Lean against the mirror.” 

You obey, your eyes lifting to the ceiling as you recline. Six rises from his hunched position, standing so close that you can still see his face out of the bottom of your vision.

“Tell me when you need a break.” His voice is gentle, but you notice his jaw clenching. His hands settle on your skin. “Deep breath.” 

Then the pain blinds you. You’d been silently crying in the car, the constant burning feeling in your leg causing you to grind your teeth, fidget, do anything you could to distract yourself. But the bite of the needle through your torn, pained flesh as he stitches you back together is much worse. You slam your palms down against the edge of the counter, gripping tight - your sheer willpower the only thing keeping you from thrashing against him. You take deep breaths as he instructed, trying to leave your body behind. 

Your mind wanders to earlier in the night, before chaos reigned, when Six had actually agreed to play a video game with you. You’d let him pick the game, and he’d chosen a first-person shooter (because of course he did). You’d still beaten the trained assassin. He’d sat beside you on the couch, his body heating your right side, and when you won the match, you’d sworn the side of his mouth turned up a little at your gloating. When he beat you in the next round, you’d been a sore loser - accusing him of cheating. You had poked his side, gently, and he had actually laughed. Okay, you checked yourself, it was more like a snort, but it probably counted. 

But then he had admitted to it, “Gotta use everything to your advantage. I could see your location on your own side of the screen.” 

You gasped, “You’re a screen-looker!”

“A what?” He scoffed. “There’s a name for it? And not even a creative one.” 

“Yeah, for cheaters who screen-look.” You glared.

He’d rolled his eyes, then met your stare with his own, much more intense one. His face might be guarded, but his eyes expressed his feelings. He always tried to hide it, but everything was written there among the blue. Your heart had lurched, your breathing requiring thought. For God’s sake, he was so close. His eyes flickered down to your parted lips; but then he had stood, walked a few paces away from the couch. 

“It’s late. You should get some sleep.”

Rattled, you hadn’t been sure how to act, so you followed his lead. You knew he wanted you in your room; he always did his rounds once you turned in for the night. You had stood and stretched upwards, relieving your back. You never saw the guilty way his eyes followed the curves of your body as you moved, nor the way his jaw ticked as you bent to turn off the gaming console. 

When you’d turned around, he had been perfectly composed. You had passed by him as close as you dared, so close you could hear the gum he was chewing, and muttered, “Goodnight, cheater.” 

“Goodnight, loser.” He’d said, shrugging at you as you closed the bedroom door. You’d laughed at that, and as soon as your door had closed, he’d allowed himself to smirk.

He stuck the needle through a particularly sensitive section of your leg, and you were thrust back into your new reality. The safehouse wasn’t safe anymore, and people had died because of you. Including Six’s friend. He’d probably request an entirely new team now; one that would replace him. He’d be free of the assignment he’d had for too long. You’d heard him say once that most assignments don't last longer than a week, and he’d been stuck babysitting you for months.

Your eyes close again, and a sob escapes.

He stops, “I'm halfway. You need a break?”

You shake your head, “Get it over with.”

The next three stitches are as painful as the others. But then you feel his hands leave your skin, and you hear something fall in the trash can - bloody material, maybe. You hear Six wash his hands in the sink next to you, then dry them with a towel. Exhaustion tinges your every thought, now. It’d been nearly a full day since you’d slept.

Tears fall from your closed eyes, unbidden. Gently, but quickly, his fingers wipe away the liquid, and your eyelids flutter open at the contact. The ugly light causes you to squint, but you see Six lean toward you. His right arm slides under your legs, his left snakes around your back, and he lifts you from the counter. You softly cling to his neck. He’s careful not to jar your leg as he maneuvers out of the bathroom and across the room. The bed dips with your weight as he sets you down on top of the covers. Instead of moving you again, he lays a different blanket across your body. He leaves your wound uncovered. 

“Don’t let that touch your leg. Need to keep it as clean as possible, and the last time these were washed, cell phones still had visible antennas.”

“Yes, sir.” You say sleepily. It’d been a long day, a longer night, and though your leg was still paining you, the temptation of the abyss was greater. 

Six watches you fall asleep from the red wingback chair in the corner. He was grateful it was thickly padded - he wasn’t sure he could sit in a plastic chair with the bruises he had. There was no couch, and only one bed, but he wasn’t going to sleep anyway. He wanted to believe that this safehouse, two hours away from the previous, was off-the-books enough for his enemies to have overlooked it. We’re safe here, he was nearly chanting to himself, willing it to be true. But he wasn’t going to relax, wasn’t going to get complacent. Not when he had a job to do.

*****************************

II

Six’s entire body ached. He hadn’t moved from his chair except to use the bathroom. He was completely still, his arms folded across his body. He wanted to check the perimeter, to see what was going on outside. Maybe they were setting up for a raid out there. Maybe they were already on their way inside. Or maybe they had one or two agents doing recon, trying to get a confirmed sighting of him or of you. And if it was the latter, him exiting the building would be the opposite of helpful. But god, he hated sitting here feeling useless.

His eyes kept dancing over your sleeping form. You’d slept fitfully at first, but you seemed peaceful now, despite it being nearly mid-afternoon. Six wouldn’t dream of waking you unless necessary. The chair creaked as he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, hands covering his face. 

How could they have found out? What didn’t I do?

He couldn’t carry the heaviness in his heart. His whole life had been about protecting others; his brother, buddies in prison, strangers, and now you. It’s all he knew, it’s all he wanted to be. Now, because of him, Denver was dead. Six had asked him to help beef up security for a few days. There’d been word that an assault was likely to come soon and Six had looked to one of the few men he truly trusted for help. He grimaced, mourning the dead man; he’d saved Denver’s ass three separate times, each one becoming a joke between them about life debts. Six wished he could’ve been there a fourth time, but he also knew he wouldn’t have altered a thing. 

You hadn’t been in bed like he assumed so he’d broken the pattern in their established rounds to find you. He’d felt nearly panicked searching the house, and when he recognized what he was feeling, he’d grunted, trying to shake it off like a broken toe or a stab wound. It had hurt nearly as badly. He’d shot two men and gotten into blows with a third before finally seeing you at the end of the hallway as you left the bathroom, and of course, he had shot the fourth: your friend, the knife-wielder. Six would never forget the way his body had sagged with relief at finding you.

No, even if he had known that he had a choice that night between you and Denver, he wouldn’t have hesitated in his answer.

And there’s the problem. They somehow know my answer, too.

*****************************

You sat up quickly, knowing you’d slept longer than normal as the golden light streamed through the small, frosted window. Hoping to neutralize the hunger pains, you threw off the blanket and swung your legs over the side of the bed, hissing at the other pain. 

“Well, don’t undo all my hardwork.” Six’s favorite tone with you was exasperation; like a man whose patience was always at its limit, but never beyond.

“It’s fine, doctor,” you toss back sarcastically, “I just forgot about it.” 

“You - forgot - about the gash in your leg?”

“...yes.” 

He rolls his eyes, a hand passing over his face. You’re about to thank him for stitching you up, since he’s apparently sensitive about it, when your stomach growls. 

“Is there anything to eat?” 

“Yeah.” 

You bite your lip and narrow your eyes at him. “Okay, I guess I will make us some food.”

He doesn’t move except to pick up a book from the shelf. 

You hobble over to the kitchenette and see the world’s worst pantry. Canned peaches, olives, green beans, and chicken - the latter of which you gag over. There’s a mini-fridge on the counter next to the hot plate. You open that and see a carton of eggs. Wonder how old those are. The carton seemed new, so you open it and are pleasantly surprised by twelve fresh eggs. 

A few minutes later, you’ve made two chopped olive omelettes. There are no plates, but there is a roll of paper towels. You walk slowly toward the chair Six has taken up residence in, an omelette on a makeshift paper plate in your hand. He sees the movement and glances up from the book. He stands and leans forward to take it from you, with a curt, “Thank you.” 

“So, what do we do now?” You ask. Your mouth is half-full of egg and you’re nearly unintelligible. 

“We wait.”

“For what?”

“For things to get quiet.” 

“Mmm.” You nod, still chewing. “Okay, then what?”

He looks up from his own food, answering, “We move. Further away.” 

“Okay. And by ‘we’, you mean you’re not leaving?”

“Wha-? Where would I be going?” Genuinely not anticipating your question, Six’s eyebrows knit together. He blinks, gears turning in his head. It finally clicks for him and he frowns; you’re a little confused how your question could irritate him, but you can’t stop the satisfied grin blooming on your face. The soulful eyes, the little curl of hair resting on his forehead, Six is one of the most handsome men you’ve ever met, and the thought of leaving you apparently never even crossed his mind.

“And now you’re smiling?” He’s now totally bewildered. Six is doing his damndest to put distance between the two of you emotionally, but you seem to be happy about …him staying with you? After assuming he’d leave you in this mess? He is speechless, his food forgotten momentarily.

“Nothing, really. Don’t worry about it. I just woke up, I’m still loopy.” You awkwardly smile again. You realize he’s not going to be satisfied with that, but you’re definitely not admitting you’re attracted to him. “Um, well, I figured since the original team is gone, a new one would be coming. Also,” you pause, knowing he’s against emotional oversharing, “I am very sorry about that. I know it doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme, but I feel terrible. How do you get used to a life like this? People dying for you? My project wasn’t even that incredible. There are more intelligent, more experimental chemists than me. There is no way my knowledge was worth that.” You set your partially-eaten food down beside you, no longer hungry. 

“You don’t get used to it.” He answers your first question in the most raw voice you’ve heard from him. His eyes bore holes into the floor, desperately wanting to come clean, to relieve you of your guilt. They didn’t die for you, they died for him. 

You try to catch his eye, to raise him from whatever mood suddenly snagged him, but he won’t look at you. He’s conflicted. Not only is he hiding the truth from you, but you believe he’s capable of leaving you at the first bit of trouble, that he’ll give you up to another protection detail at his earliest opportunity. Six decides he cannot sit any longer. He rises, still avoiding your face, checks his gun, and walks to the door.

“I’m going to do a perimeter check; probably be gone ten minutes. I’ll knock in that pattern I showed you.” He pauses then adds, “If I don’t, there’s a trapdoor in the bathroom.”  

“Alright,” you say quietly, your eyes on his back. Confused by his behavior and unable to let him leave in that manner, you can’t help but stage-whisper, “Please be safe.” 

You can’t see the way his throat constricts, the way he closes his eyes and lets your words soak in. Then he’s gone.

You mark the time with the analog clock on the bookshelf, and busy yourself by exploring the infinitesimal room. Your college dorm had been larger than this. The bathroom door is closed, and when you open it to find the trapdoor - just in case - the door hits the toilet bowl. 

“Wow,” you wonder. “How did we both fit in here last night?”

You crouch to explore the grimy linoleum for the hidden seam, but you don’t see anything. Your eyes strain and your head bobs from side to side, trying to see something. But you find nothing. Maybe he’s confused this place with a different tiny, foreign safehouse. Unwilling at the moment to actually feel around the gross floor, you’re content to just believe he’ll knock in the correct pattern.

You turn back into the main room, and pick up the book Six had been reading off the foot of the bed. A trashy bodice-ripper? How in the hell had he kept a straight face? You cover your mouth to stifle a laugh. There’s no way he’d actually even read the title. He - for sure - had been trying and failing to seem preoccupied while you cooked. You’d get even with him for that.

You sprawl out on the bed, the book still in hand. You skip to a third of the way through, hoping to find the good parts, and sure enough: pure bodice-ripping. Again, you laugh out loud at the absurdity of the emotionally-repressed man you know reading this. Feeling this. That sparks an idea in you; it had been a good long while since you’d been allowed to be completely alone. The waistband of your mangled jeans is loose enough to slip your hand down, and you engross yourself in a particularly dirty passage. 

You're completely absorbed by the filthy story when the front door flies open and Six barrels through, shutting it as quietly as he could compared to his violent entrance. He flinches at your aborted scream, watches as your hand rips out of your jeans and you scoot up against the wall, trying to seem like you were not doing what you were definitely just doing. 

The two of you stare at each other for a breath too long. Knowing he won’t - or can’t - you break the silence, “See anything?”

He short-circuits for a second, “No, you’re wearing jeans.” And then he realizes what you were actually asking about, “Oh, no. Nothing.” His face is flushed and he can’t meet your eyes anymore. You’re under the impression you’ve mortified him, but he knows if he keeps looking at your excited, glowing face for a second longer, he will join you on that bed.

“I’m really sorry. Why didn’t you knock?” You titter at the ridiculous situation. But you’re less embarrassed than you thought you’d be. It hits you suddenly that Six makes you feel safe in more than one way, and maybe... maybe you don’t mind being caught. That’s something to unpack later, you note.

“I did knock. You didn’t answer. Hence the busted door.” 

“Oh.” You look up at him, sheepishly.

He doesn’t make a reply, so you question, “Why were you pretending to read this?”

“Hm?” He settles his firearm back in its holster. Six takes a long, calming breath, then meets your eyes. He’s as stoic as can be - except, now you're starting to wonder if it’s a front. You’d long felt like there was an electricity between the two of you. You’d swear Six’s eyes were on you more than they should be, you’d feel his hand hover over your lower back sometimes when he walked you to your room, sending chills through you. He was reliable, protective, witty - he was also kind and selfless, though he let few people see it. But only in your daydreams could you believe he had any real feelings for you. 

…so why did he just react that way? Wouldn’t a normal bodyguard apologize (right or wrong) and move on? They wouldn’t have to stand there and collect themselves, surely. Or I’m just seeing what I want to, you chastise yourself.

“I know you were not actually reading this.” You tease, waving the book in the air.

He folds his arms across his chest, “And how do you know that?” It’s clear he doesn’t even know what the book is about. 

The smirk on your face warns him that you’re about to say something he’d rather not hear, “You wanna know how I know you weren’t reading this book of trashy erotica?” You heavily emphasize the words, and his eyes go wide. “Want me to read some aloud?”

He lunges toward you and snatches the book. “No. No, I do not.” He absolutely cannot let you read porn aloud to him, he would lose all semblance of control. Six was already losing it, and that thought has him grumbling under his breath. Unthinkingly, he glances at the page you had open and he groans. This is what you were masturbating to? Fuck, shit. He shouldn’t have looked. His teeth grind together. 

Oblivious, you bounce off the bed onto your good leg and say, “Since there’s no one out there, we need food for dinner. Is a store nearby?” 

“I’ll go. Gotta find a new doorknob, anyway. You stay here, and listen for my knock.” He pins you with another exasperated look. 

You huff, “Okay, jesus.” You want to push him, ask him for the book back, ask him if you’re allowed to continue, but you can see he’s on edge. So you let it go. He tosses the book unceremoniously on the highest shelf which you can’t reach. You glare at his backside, but he’s gone without turning around.

Six doesn’t get surprised, he doesn't let emotion get the better of him often, and in the past hour you’ve done it twice in two very different ways. He takes a deep breath, and swears again to build one more wall. He can’t let you continue being in danger because of him. But, part of him knows there’s not much he can really do; leaving would only make you vulnerable and leave him lost. He couldn’t leave your fate up to strangers. No, he knew staying was still the best option. He just needed to stop entangling himself in you. Six’s best chance at protecting you long-term was to convince everyone else that you meant nothing to him. That meant getting through this current shitshow, and disengaging from you. You deserved a normal, boring life. A life where you wouldn’t be hunted, used as a pawn, just to hurt him.

*****************************

Six didn’t speak to you again the entire night. He hadn’t been able to get much with the cash he’d had on hand, but dinner was satisfying enough. You’d handed him his portion on another paper towel, and he had nodded his thanks, but that was just about the only communication he gave you all night. He’d fixed the door and you’d teased him about being handy, but his only response had been to stick his palm out for one of the screws you'd been holding.

He then picked up a book, pointedly avoiding his earlier choice, and actually read all evening while you snuck glances at the way the light from the dusty reading lamp caught his fair hair, his tense face. He had pretended not to notice, but each time your head tilted toward him, he realized his problematic feelings might not be quite so one-sided.

Sure, he knew you were attracted to him; after all, he was trained to notice the little things. The difference between your genuine smile and the polite ones you gave the other bodyguards; the way you unconsciously broke his personal space, brushing past him, poking him; and the way you tried to take care of him. He'd never had that, never had someone bring him glasses of water while he sat at his laptop, ask him how he felt about a certain song, what his favorite flavor of gum was.

But he was afraid it was more Stockholm Syndrome, or boredom, than genuine affection. You were a good person, and bringing someone a glass of water wasn't a Declaration of Intent.

Now, the bed sheets scratch your face and you rub your eyes, sleep calling you once again. You roll over to face Six, still in his chair, to ask him to join you on the bed. Not for anything nefarious, but because you knew he must be exhausted. The past thirty-six hours had been stressful, and you knew your method of coping with humor had been at his expense.

Your eyes adjust with the dim lamplight and you see the book drooping from one limp hand, his eyes closed and head tilted to the side. Happy he was finally getting some rest, you shuffle off of the bed, take the book and mark his place before setting it down. You grab the plush blanket he had given you last night and drape it over his much-larger body. It didn’t fully cover him, but it’d do. You gaze down at him, admiring his vulnerable form. Six meant more to you than you cared to admit aloud. No family, a workaholic with coworkers for friends, you’d let yourself grow fond of the reserved, self-sacrificing blonde man with the affinity for chewing gum. It was the closest you’d been to a person in over a year. No matter what he considered you - a client, a ward, a burden - you considered him a friend.

“Thank you for everything,” you whisper, knowing he’d never hear. You softly kiss the top of his hair, then get back in bed. The abyss welcomes you back. You must’ve been dreaming when you heard what sounded like a defeated groan.

*****************************

III

You wake the next morning to Six seated on the opposite corner of the bed, his gun in pieces. You prop yourself up on your left elbow and watch as he painstakingly cleans each part. 

“Can you teach me how to do that?”

He lowers the barrel in his hands, turning to you. You’re backlit by the small window beside the bed, and he curses inwardly. You look sleepy, domestic. Something pure and stable that he knows he’ll never have. 

“Yeah, I can.” He twists a little in place to fully face you, and you crawl a little closer to see the parts. “I just started, so all of them are dirty.” He picks up a piece and hands it to you, extremely careful not to touch you.

“This,” he explains, “is the slide. It’s what chambers a new round and ejects the old casing.” He hands you a paper towel, again obviously avoiding your skin. “I like a softer cloth, but I don’t have anything blood-free. Gently rub the interior.” He instructs. You do as he asks, working in silence. You hold it up to him for inspection, a smile - disproportionately proud of your simple task - beams on your face. He answers with his own, nearly invisible smile, and places the slide on another towel designated for finished parts. 

“Can you show me how to-” You falter as he turns his heavy eyes back to you. “Like, if I needed to, how to use it?” You hesitantly ask, hoping you weren’t bothering him. You’re not a fan of firearms, they’ve always made you nervous. But if push came to shove, you’d prefer not to be using the gun as a club. 

Six is not quite so nervous around guns, and he nods, agreeing that you should have every possible manner of defending yourself. 

“Sure.” You watch in silent admiration as he puts his weapon back together faster than you’d ever be able to, meeting his eye at the end and giving him a dramatic, impressed look. He smiles again, a shade more than earlier. 

You slide down to sit beside him, your legs dangling off the bed. He spends the next few minutes helping you find your way around the gun. He still refuses to touch you, and it gets more noticeable with every second. He even set the gun on the bed for you to pick up rather than hand it to you. You wilt a little at that, sure now that you’ve pushed him away even further than you thought. You can’t help but feel a pit in your stomach. He’s never been a touchy-feely, overly-friendly person; why did you make him so uncomfortable yesterday? You want to kick yourself. 

You watch as he stifles a yawn. 

“Didn’t you sleep?” You ask incredulously.

“I slept enough.” 

“No, you didn’t.” 

Six gazes longingly at you for a moment, replaying last night’s feeling of your lips on his hair. How he’d woken up at your touch. How could he have slept after that? He’d warred with himself about climbing into the bed, holding you close. But Six didn’t want to push this now. He knew there was a power imbalance here (although most of the time it felt to him like you were the one in control) and he didn’t want your affection out of gratitude or survival. He’d compromised with himself by letting his mind free; he imagined your breathy sighs as you slept curled against him, how perfectly you’d fit alongside his body, the feeling of your hair between his fingers. He tears himself away.

“Please take a nap. You’re no good to either of us dead on your feet.” 

“For a corpse, I think I look pretty good.” 

“Six, for god’s sake, it’s daylight and it’s been silent for nearly three days. I promise I will wake you at any noise.” Your voice drips with earnesty, “I promise.” 

He rubs his brow, knowing you’re right. “Yeah, okay.” His eyes are intent upon you, “You promise.” 

You nod twice in quick succession and he makes a face like he’s accepting a plea bargain. He stands, then all but collapses onto the same side of the bed where you’ve been sleeping. You take up vigil in his chair, and it doesn’t take him long to fall asleep.

After an hour, your legs begin to cramp, and you start pacing the tiny apartment. Still feeling a little guilty for yesterday, you wonder if there’s any gum nearby. Maybe a vending machine? You glance at Sleeping Beauty - still breathing deeply. You tiptoe over to the door and unlock it. Six’s rhythm is unchanged by the sound of the deadbolt, so you slowly pull the door open. Peeking your head out, you see a featureless, white hallway; several other plain-looking doors leading to God-knows-where; and there, at the end and nearly out of sight due to the alcove it’s in, is a glowing vending machine. You pat your pocket and find two coins. Should be enough, you hope. You’re unfamiliar with the local currency, and honestly you’re not even totally sure which country you’re in. You prop the door open, just in case, and cautiously step out into the hallway. Ears straining for any noise at all, you begin your trek. Keeping your feet as close to the baseboards as you can, you make as little sound as possible. Eventually you reach the vending machine, and you’re right - you have no idea which country this is as you don’t even recognize the language. But you can identify a pack of chewing gum anywhere. It’s only one of the coins, so you pop it in and get your reward. Uneventfully, you return to the room, quietly slipping the door closed, and deadbolting it shut.

Six sleeps for another few hours, while you spend time making lunch for when he wakes up, and reading some of the other, mostly boring, novels scattered around. One novel piques your interest with a convoluted plot which helps time pass. The book makes you feel uneasy, makes you start to wonder about your own situation. It really doesn’t make sense for Six to still be assigned to you over some biochemical project that never even made it to the testing stage. The fact that someone had actually attacked you made even less sense. None of your research was on your person, and it’s not like you had memorized every single formula. Maybe Six knew more than he’d told you. 

Thinking about Six makes you grow lonely, wishing selfishly he would wake. You’re debating getting in bed and taking a nap with him, your only inhibitor being your promise, when he stirs. He shoots up like a dead man raised from the grave, his hand going to his side where his weapon usually rests.

“Everything’s fine,” you assure him.

“Mmph,” he grumbles. You’re trying not to stare at him, but he looks so uncharacteristically soft, you can’t help it. He pretends not to notice, thankfully. Six tosses the covers off, and picks his gun up from the nightstand. He walks to the door and listens. Satisfied, he turns around and sits back on the bed. 

“I can make lunch-” he starts to offer, but you cut him off.

“I already made you some,” you swiftly grab the sandwich from the mini-fridge and deliver it to him. After he takes it, you pull the gum from your pocket, extending it towards him, too.

His eyes jump from you to the gum and back again twice. “Where’d you squirrel that away?” He jokes, thinking you took it from your previous residence. Then he remembers the machine outside. His face tightens, “You didn’t leave the room, did you?”

“... don’t be mad at me,” you begin slowly, dropping your hand to your side.

“Dammit.” Six hisses. “Dammit, you promised.” He’s off the bed again, towering over you. He shakes his head. He looks you over in disbelief, but his eyes catch on your pouting lips. He’s finding it difficult to be upset with you when all he can think about is how those lips would make him feel.

“I upheld my promise! There were no noises!” You know it’s not a real defense.

He pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to keep his mind on the problem. “Did you see anyone? Did anyone see you?”

“No to the first, and honestly, I can’t answer the second.”

His mouth opens to retort, but he closes it, thinking better of whatever he was going to say. He raises his hands in supplication and slowly states, “You can’t go out there alone.” 

“I wanted to do something nice. I feel useless- like a burden. That weighs on me.” You explain. “But I am sorry. I was trying to ease some small amount of stress for you, not add to it.”

Six snorts and looks away. You'd put yourself in danger to make him happy. How was he supposed to react to that?

When he turns back to you a moment later, he reaches down to take your wrist. Goosebumps appear down your arms, but he tries to ignore it. You loosen your grip on the small plastic package, allowing him to take your peace offering. You don’t want him to let go of your wrist, and he doesn’t. His hand is hot, his thumb rubs languidly across your skin. 

“Thank you,” he says genuinely, stormy blue eyes pinning you to the spot. “But shockingly, you take priority over gum.”

His tone deepens and he orders again, “Do not go anywhere alone.” He’s not trying to turn you on, but with his rough hand covering yours, his authoritative face inches from your own, and his protective demands, you feel the tension flare in your center.

“Mhm, noted,” you respond. Your blood feels hot. Surely he can feel your pulse thrumming? You try to shake yourself out of the rising heat you feel: Take a cold shower, you thirsty bitch, you mentally jar yourself.

“You wanna relax? Make my job a little easier? It’s like you’re trying to kill me yourself.” Six accuses playfully, finally releasing your wrist, where - yes - he had been enjoying your quickening pulse. His soulful eyes dance between yours. You feel flames licking up your body, your stomach tightening in anticipation. Am I killing him? The way he’s killing me? Your heart is hammering, body screaming for him to touch you again. 

“Little dramatic,” you snort, surprised it comes out in a normal tone of voice. Turning away from him, you walk towards the bathroom. And you’re not sure what possesses you, you’re half-sure he can’t stand you, but still you hear yourself say, “I’m going to shower. Am I allowed to do that alone, Six?” 

His head snaps, his intense stare nearly stopping your breath. You watch his Adam’s Apple bob and you wonder what he’s thinking. Your chin tilts upward, inviting him in.

And well, he tried, didn’t he? Six is a strong man. He’d been stabbed, shot, he’d fallen from great heights, been pepper-sprayed - and through everything, he’d kept on fighting. But this? The slow drip of you over the past few months had been bad enough, but stuck in this room with you nearly begging for him? He wasn’t strong enough for that.

“No. You’re not,” he growls.

He crosses the room in two strides, his arms enfolding you. He grunts as he lifts you up and backs you into the wall; at the same time his lips come hard against yours, months of repressed feeling apparent in his grip, his fevered kiss. Your legs curl around his waist, tugging him closer, and your hands move down him - everything you can reach, you want to feel. Your hands press in his hair, his beard, they caress his throat before dropping to feel the beat of his heart through his wide chest. Your frenzied movements send him wild. He had no idea giving in would feel this good; he’s already forgotten about the shower. 

You feel the wall disappear as he moves toward the bed. His knee bends on the soft surface as he lays you both down. You feel his weight pressing into you, grounding you to him. His left hand slides up your shirt, breaking his kiss to remove it fully. He tugs his own off by the collar, and the sight of his bare chest makes you gasp. Intensely defined muscles riddled with scars and tattoos decorate his body. He's lived a hard life. You’re breathing heavily, chest heaving, and he makes a lustful noise at the sight. He unclasps your bra, replacing it with his own mouth. 

“Oh,” you throw your head back at the feeling, and he makes another deep, rumbling sound at your approval.

His pants go next, leaving him in dark red briefs. He pauses and looks down at your pants, your wounded leg. 

“Um, carefully, I guess?” You shrug. He moves his hands appreciatively down your sides, stopping when he reaches your waistband. Six’s beard scratches your sensitive skin as he plants kisses lovingly around your thigh. He’s hoping you understand it’s his apology for not killing the man before he ever touched you. He unbuttons your frayed, fucked-up jeans and places a large hand over your cut to protect it while he pulls the material down, your underwear also going. As he leans back over you, you can’t help but admire him, your eyes brimming with affection at his care. His burning chest presses into yours, and you can feel his muscles flexing as his hands roam your body.

Your hands go to his hair once more, clutching him to you. His tongue skates over the hollow at the base of your throat - you inhale sharply at the sensation. His thigh shifts up between your legs, and the pressure on your most sensitive area causes you to tilt your hips back and forth, riding him a little. Six notes your reaction greedily; he presses his thigh into you harshly and you whine. He places a large hand around the base of your throat, and continues his mouth’s path upward until he reaches your jaw, spurred on by the obscene moans you’re making. 

“Sweetheart, you’re making me blush," his voice husky.

One of your hands cradles his chin while the other snakes along his body, pushing his briefs down - he kicks them off. The feeling of his thick, naked thighs against your own nearly distracts you from your goal. But you find him quickly - you knew he would be big there, too - and you relish the way his powerful body goes slack at your touch. In your peripheral, you can see his biceps shake at the tension building in him. Your thumb brushes over a vein, and you shiver as he lets go of the most wrecked groan you’ve ever heard him make.  

You lean up to capture his lips and swallow the sound he just made. His hand slides into your hair, cradling your head while the other palms your lower back; he grunts as he leans back onto his heels, easily taking you with him. His mouth connects with yours, and his hand slides to the curve of your ass. 

Your thighs straddle him in this kneeling position, and you grind along his length. His hand encourages your rhythm. His other arm falls from your hair to wrap around your midsection, holding you tight to him. Six’s kisses are deep, desperate, but tender somehow. It makes you want him everywhere - you want to know nothing but him. You rock forward further, his tip catching at your center. 

He stills your movement, keeping you in limbo. He leans his head back to see you. You can feel the strength in his muscles, so you don’t even attempt to fight him for the friction you’re craving. Artlessly pushing back the hair that had fallen in your face, he then rests his palm on your cheek, thumb brushing your swollen bottom lip. He shifts his body for a better angle, then slowly - so slowly - pushes up into you. Six’s eyes are almost entirely black, the smallest bit of blue rings his blown pupils as he drinks in your whimper. You didn’t think you could be more turned on, but the look in his eyes is so hungry. He licks a quick line up your neck and the sensation of the warm trail cooling on your skin causes you to clench down on him; he grunts again at that.

You sigh in relief as his hip bones sit flush with your own. You’ve been so ready for this man, the considerable stretch doesn’t hurt in the slightest. You breathlessly laugh, feeling utter bliss. You don’t try to move, knowing instinctively that he’s in charge. 

“Mmm,” he hums gruffly, running a hand through your hair. You feel him twitch inside you, and you want to ask him what he just thought about, but he pulls out and thrusts up into you without warning. You cry out, but he’s not done. He does it again, then again, snapping his hips at a brutal pace. You’re getting what you wanted, he’s driving up into you and it’s overwhelming; Six is dismantling you, piece by piece. His arms flex as they hold you still, his stomach muscles jump at the strain underneath your slack hands. Sweat begins to shine on both of you; the slick reward for his exertion somehow making you wetter elsewhere. A lock of dirty blonde comes free, swinging against his forehead; and you’re mesmerized by the masculine beauty of Sierra Six.

His pattern slows briefly to lay you both back down. His right hand finds its home in your hair, before he begins a deeper, more sensual pace. You gasp out his name at the new feeling, the intimacy. He’s weakened your body so thoroughly that he is absolutely fucking you senseless into the mattress despite his slower pace. You grasp at the bedsheets above your head; you can hear the bed creaking with the force of him. His lips press against your forehead, breathing heavy. One hand cradles the base of your skull while the other plants against the wall for leverage. He tilts his forehead to rest against yours, and it’s clear he’s all but making love to you at this point. The knot in your stomach gets more tenuous with each and every one of his touches. 

You try to reign in your gasps, your cries, but his left hand falls between where you’re joined, and your attempt at being quiet ends entirely.

His lips brush your ear and he growls, “Should’ve known you’d be as loud in bed as you are every other fucking day.” 

“You love it,” you choke out, smiling smugly.

“Is it that obvious?” His voice is heady. 

You’re in sensation overload, the feeling of Six pushing inside you, the rhythmic motion of his hand, and that look in his eyes has your body taught as a bowstring. Your hands reach up to frame his face, wanting to hold him, when you're surprised by the tension in your abdomen snapping viciously. You writhe up beneath him, fucking him back, never breaking eye contact. You feel yourself repeatedly clench down as you come apart for him, finally closing your eyes when you breathe out his name. Six possessively parts your lips with his own, groans echoing in the space between kisses as he lets go, too. His hips begin to stutter; his abdominal muscles jerk as he buries himself deep within you, spending himself nearly as powerfully as you did.

His head drops to your collarbone and you press another kiss to his hair. Six raises up on his forearms, memorizing the way you look underneath him. His lips meet yours again softly before he carefully eases himself from you. He wraps a muscle-corded arm around you, tugging you to him. Six scoots both of you a few inches onto a pillow and throws the covers over you.

Diffused, indigo light from the window indicates that sunset has just occurred, and you can’t help but hope tomorrow doesn't come. Staying here in this wordless, intimate twilight world was the only place you cared to exist. You feel Six’s chest press into your back then retreat, and his exhale tickles your ear. The tattoo on his left forearm lay across your naked breast, and you don’t stop yourself from tracing it. 

“That feels wonderful.” His voice is gravel. You shift further down into him. He pulls you tighter, completely flush against him.

“I won’t stop, then,” you promise him quietly.