you the reader

✧ hello! i'm dee. she/her. i currently write for joel miller, clark kent, jud duplenticy, michael robinavitch, and jack abbot✧ my requests are open

✧ i do not have a taglist, so please follow my updates blog @sempersirenswrites to be notified each time i post a new fic

✧ last updated: 07/06/2026

✧ all fics are 18+ and have specific content warnings for each chapter. no use of y/n, implied afab reader in all fics. mdni

jack abbot ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

✧ these arms of mine | widower!jack x f!reader

what if you were a WIDOWER and you had COMBAT TRAUMA and a DEAD WIFE and there was a STORM but the WOMAN that you're IN LOVE WITH wouldn't let you DRIVE HER HOME but she's also TRAUMATISED and did i mention there's a STORM

michael robinavitch ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

✧ i still dream of violence, angry at the waiting game

during a flare of pmdd, you arrive in dr robinavitch's emergency room

clark kent ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

✧ freeze | corensupes x journalist!reader

after a traumatic train ride, clark does everything in his power to ensure you don't blame yourself

jud duplenticy ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

✧ genuflecting ghost | part one - part two - part three

ongoing. when two people starved of being truly seen meet across a vow neither of them chose lightly, restraint can only hold for so long

joel miller ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

✧ bambi | jackson!joel x teacher!reader

when ellie’s instincts tell her something is wrong, joel follows them into a morning that refuses to stay quiet. what begins as concern leads him into the private violence of a house built on fear and righteousness, where belief is used as a weapon and love becomes possession

✧ raising hell all over town | bfd!joel x younger f!reader | part one - part two

completed. you've been a friend of sarah's since you were old enough to steal bottles of her dad's whiskey for parties. sarah was always the sensible one in your friendship, getting you out of the trouble you usually started. but now sarah has gone off to college, who else but joel could pick up the pieces?

✧ party 4 u | dbf!joel x f!reader

you and joel have been in a secret relationship for almost a year, but fear soon seeps into the cracks when you get an offer you can't refuse - and all comes to a head at a party thrown for you by your dad

✧ daughter lessons | preachers daughter!reader x jackson!joel

would it kill joel to just touch you?

✧ yes, chef | au chef!joel x f!reader | part one - part two - part three - part four

completed. joel miller is the head chef of a prestigious michelin star restaurant in the city. after working for him for over a year, you're determined to not let his ill-temper and cutting words dampen your spirit and love for your career. you won't give in at chipping away at his tough exterior, living in the hope of finding something sweeter below the surface

✧ sun bleached flies | chapter one - chapter two - chapter three - chapter four -chapter five - chapter six

(please read with caution of warnings) stumbling upon the settlement of jackson whilst 4 months pregnant had almost felt too good to be true. for the past seven years, you had been able to raise your daughter, mia, surrounded by a safe and supportive community. however, your small slice of paradise comes tumbling down the day joel miller arrived. despite only crossing paths for a fleeting encounter all those years ago, you would never forget the face of your daughter's father

✧ strangers in the night | series masterlist - part one

bill furlong (small things like these)

something tender still - after your father’s death, you return to your childhood home in rural Ireland and find yourself drawn into an unexpected intimacy with bill furlong, your late father’s oldest friend.

the weight of kindness - After being cast out by your family and confined to a convent, you are rescued by Bill Furlong. Taken into his household, you begin to build a quiet, uncertain life. As an unspoken intimacy grows between you, you must face what it means to be wanted—and to stay.

what hands are for - Furlong shows up on your doorstep in the rain, carrying a feverish girl in his arms and a look you remember too well.

emmett (a quiet place ii)

emmett breeds you. - Emmett goes feral whenever he’s inside you.

between silence - You see him again years after the world ends - Emmett, the man who once lived three doors down and never looked at you for too long. But now there’s nothing left to protect, and nothing left of you but hunger and survival.

some kind of shelter (series) - In this safe place, you sign up for the community’s newest effort: structured pairings; an attempt to re-populate. It’s not an arranged marriage exaclty, but it’s hope.

j. robert oppenheimer (oppenheimer)

near zero (series) - Brought on as part of the Manhattan project, your old physics professor sees you in a new light.

jackson rippner (red eye)

takeover - Jackson finally corners you one late night in the filing room, you discover you’re completely hopeless against him.

jim (28 days later)

something feral - When you catch him from the corner of your eye, sharpening a blade or folding a tattered map, his gaze pins you like a knife to the wall. There’s hunger in it.

warm under the blankets - His hand finds your hip under the blanket. His touch is gentle, fingers slow, like he’s making sure he doesn’t spook you. His thumb moves in slow circles on your bare skin. “I keep thinking I’ll wake up back in that hospital,” he says. “Alone.”

neil lewis (watching the detectives)

out of frame - Late nights and quiet houses make it too easy to cross lines you can’t uncross.

steve (steve 2025)

the keeping place - At Stanton Wood, you and Steve find solace in one another.

tom (the party)

request #1

andy barber (defending jacob)

andy bends you over his desk. - Andy reprimands you for wearing an inappropriate skirt at work.

gator tillman (fargo)

gator blackmails you. - To avoid arrest, you do something for gator.

gator catches you. - Gator finds you on the edge of town after he lets you get away.

general marcus acacius (gladiator ii)

after the roar (series) -  After a brutal day on the battlefield, General Acacius returns to his quarters to find you waiting—naked but adorned in gold and scented oil, a gift meant to ease his mind.

between his hands, my wings - Your nobleman father has you learn to fight under the guidance of famed General Marcus Acacius.

every night you allow me - You are tasked with saving the General Marcus Acacius’ life.

spoils of war - You expect cruelty from General Marcus Acacius. Instead, you find restraint, respect, and a love that defies Rome itself.

frankie morales (triple frontier)

lo que me haces - You were supposed to be backup. Then the mission went loud and Frankie Morales saw exactly what you could do. Now he doesn’t hold back.

joel miller (the last of us)

be the thing I want (series) - Your body still trades well when you move to Jackson. Though ostracized by the majority of the town, you find an ally in Joe Miller.

echoes in the dark (series) - Every morning you wake up and remember two things. firstly, that your son is dead, and secondly, that joel miller is your patient.

hard bargain (series) - You can’t pay Joel in ration cards — not this time. He delivers what you asked for anyway. What happens next isn’t a favor. It’s a transaction. And Joel takes payment in full.

next time - Joel keeps his promise. (hard bargain ii)

I'm yours - Joel comes to you after he’s injured. The next day he gets jealous. (hard bargain iii)

what they saw - You should’ve cared that someone might see. But you didn’t. (hard bargain iv.)

taken - You're kidnapped (hard bargain v.)

take it - You should’ve known better than to offer. Joel should’ve said no. But now you’re wrecked, ruined, filled to the brim, and he’s not sure he’ll ever let you come down from this. (hard bargain vi.)

to kill for - You kill for Joel. He can't use words so he uses your body. (hard bargain vii.)

not now, not ever - When word spreads that the dead men had friends, and their debt is now yours, Joel makes the call — you’re leaving the QZ. (hard bargain viii.)

the road - Tensions mount beyond the QZ. Now, you’re all each other has. (hard bargain ix.)

needy - You wake up desperate for Joel.

neighbors - “You’re like a damn stray cat,” he said, voice warm but teasing. “Show up on my doorstep enough times, guess I gotta let you in.”

payment in kind - You only meant to thank Joel for fixing your leaky sink.

still works - It starts with seeing him alone at the dance, nursing a drink like he’s half there, half somewhere else.

tears - Your friend Joel shows up at your door bleeding from patrol so you patch him up. Things only escalate from there.

reed richards (the fantastic four: first steps)

consequences - Normal date night: denied. Reed Richards: ruined.

control group - You and Reed Richards have been together for years. You run the labs, balance the mission schedules, and occasionally have kitchen-floor sex when the mood strikes. Everyone thinks you’re the one in control. And you are—until Reed asks if he can experiment on your body.

critical mass (series) - You’re a supervillain. Reed Richards is the bane of your existence—and also the only man you’ve ever met who can keep up with you, mentally and physically. threshold - Sequel to Critical Mass. Caretaking turns filthy when you push Reed past every limit.

observed behavior (series) - Dr. Reed Richards doesn’t pay you much attention. You’re just another intern in the lab—quiet, efficient, always taking notes. But you’re also a telepath. And Reed has no idea you can hear every filthy, unspoken thought he has about you. singularity - Sequel to Observed Behavior. Reed Richards can’t silence his thoughts around you. What starts in the lab follows into orbit, where a rift, a sealed module, and zero gravity leave him unraveling in your hands.

undone - Reed Richards was supposed to have unshakable control — in the lab, in the field, in every part of his brilliant life. But under you, all that brilliance unraveled fast. You set the pace, making him beg.

user error - You accidentally text your professor and it only gets worse from there.

you're okay - A mission goes wrong, and you don’t make it back unscathed.

michael "robby" robinavitch (the pitt)

anybody but you - You’ve always thought Robby didn’t like you. He barely speaks to you, keeps you at arm’s length, and he admits you weren’t even close to his first choice. A work trip to Baltimore should be simple. It isn’t.

blurb #1

it's only love (we belong together) - Sometimes love shows up wrapped in a hospital blanket.

now or never now - You were meant to be on vacation with your boyfriend, but instead you were there alone, where you meet the man across the hall from your hotel room, Michael, drinking alone in the hotel lobby. Months later, you’re admitted to the ER at the Pitt.

put your head on my shoulder - “If you’re lonely, you get a cat,” she went on. “You don’t fuck your Attending.” Or: when a patient attacks you, everything changes between you and Robby.

jack abbot (the pitt)

in good hands - Sleep deprived at PTMC, you get into the on-call bed, realizing too late that Dr. Abbot is already in it.

request #1 - Jack catches you sniffing his army fatigues after a long shift together.

you chose well - You’ve never been with anyone, and somehow Jack is taking that information far better than you are.

“Patient isn't engaging.” Someone mumbles at the foot of your bed.

You know they’ve already decided what you are. You can hear it in the tone, in the looks exchanged between staff who think you aren't paying attention.

“I think she’s had too much,” another voice replies. “Offer a non-steroidal if she complains again. Hold the PCA.”

You shift slightly against the mattress and immediately regret it. The pain doesn't spike so much as deepen, pulling low and heavy through your abdomen, radiating outwards into a warbled moan.

That had been about twenty minutes ago, maybe longer. Time didn’t behave properly here. It stretches and contracts in ways that make it difficult to trust, marked less by minutes and more by interruptions: blood pressure cuffs tightening around your arm, the soft beep of a monitor recalibrating, the flick of a curtain as someone else’s crisis briefly becomes visible before being hidden again.

Your arm stings where the butterfly cannula sits against your skin, though the IV pump itself has gone quiet. No soft mechanical click, no option to press and wait for a temporary fog of relief. Just the awareness of your body, unmediated.

You knew the timing. You always knew the timing. Even when you had tried to gaslight yourself into not knowing the timing by deleting all of your menstrual tracking apps, your body wasn't as amenable.

The physical part was easier to name, even if no one ever seemed particularly interested in addressing it. Bleeding that comes heavier than it should, cramps that aren't cramps so much as sustained contractions that never quite resolve, dragging through your back and down to your thighs.

It's the rest of it that makes things difficult. The way everything slows, not dramatically enough to alarm anyone else, but just enough that you notice it in the gaps. The way your thoughts feel padded out, as though they have to travel through something dense before they can reach you, arriving softened at the edges, already half-lost.

Words coming late, or not at all. Reactions dulled before they could fully form. A constant, low-level awareness that you are slightly misaligned with your own body, as if you had stepped half a second out of sync with yourself and can't quite find the point at which to slip back in.

So, last night you had decided to go to bed early: quietly and without commotion. It hadn't felt like a decision so much as a pre-emptive retreat. You were not someone who made a scene, or asked to be managed, and you knew—had learned, carefully—what the consequence of doing so was. It's easier to step back before it becomes uncomfortable for others.

Eight o’clock had felt reasonable. Early enough to be unremarkable. Considerate, even.

Ten hours later, you hadn't slept: your body hadn't allowed it.

Pain came in waves that never quite broke, low and insistent, threading through your pelvis and pulling tight enough to keep you anchored in it. It was familiar in the way something could be familiar and still take you by surprise. You could have described it clinically if asked. You could have located it, mapped it, and accounted for it. That part, at least, behaved as expected.

You had tried, at first, to push against it in the ways you knew how. You had read, though the sentences refused to hold their shape long enough to mean anything. You had written, filling pages with words that felt accurate in the moment and incoherent the second you looked back at them. You had been searching, not for a solution, but for a description that felt precise enough to be believed.

You had not found one.

Despondent was the closest you had come, and even that felt too neat, too self-contained for something that seemed to leak into everything. It implied a feeling you could access, name, hold in place. This was looser than that. More diffuse. You did not so much feel it as exist inside it, aware that something was wrong without being able to reach the part of yourself that might respond appropriately.

At some point, you had ended up on the floor, your back pressed against the bed frame. You did not remember deciding to sit down. You only became aware of it once you were already there, folded in on yourself slightly, the room around you dimmed in a way that suggested time had passed without your noticing. You had stayed there for longer than was sensible, or comfortable, or measurable, watching nothing in particular, thinking in fragments that dissolved before they could be completed.

When you finally stood, it was less a decision than a shift. Your body moving first, your awareness following a fraction of a beat behind. You noticed, distantly, the imprint the metal frame had left along your back when you caught sight of yourself in the mirror later—thin red lines pressed into your skin, sharp enough to suggest they should hurt.

They didn’t.

You found yourself staring at it for longer than necessary, as though observation alone might prompt a reaction. As though, given enough time, something might catch up and correct it. It didn’t.

The thought arrived slowly, as everything did now, but it landed with a clarity that felt out of proportion to the rest of you. If that didn’t register, what would?

It lingered at the edge of your thinking, half-formed but insistent, carrying with it a shape you recognised without wanting to examine too closely. It was not a plan, or even a desire, but the awareness of a possibility—one that existed entirely outside of the muted, padded quality of everything else.

That was the fear that had driven you to the ER waiting room just after seven a.m.

You had called an Uber without really registering doing so, pulled on whatever was closest to hand, and left your apartment before there was time to reconsider. Pyjama bottoms. A sweatshirt you only noticed later, faintly stiff at the collar where toothpaste had dried and been forgotten.

The journey itself blurred almost immediately. You could recall fragments—the shape of the driver in the rear-view mirror, the muted hum of early traffic—but none of it settled properly. By the time you reached the entrance, everything had already begun to glaze over. The coughing, the raised voices, the low, constant churn of movement and disinfectant and something less definable beneath it. It all passed through you without landing, as though you were moving through it rather than existing within it.

At reception, you had given your name. You assumed you had, at least. There was a vague memory of speaking, of answering questions a fraction too slowly, of watching the person behind the desk recalibrate their tone in response. You had been triaged more quickly than you expected, though you couldn’t quite place why.

They had given you a bed in a small bay near the nurses’ station, close enough that the noise never quite dropped away. Someone had found a vein on the second attempt, the sharpness of it noted more in theory than in sensation, and the IV had been secured with efficient, practised movements. A low dose of morphine had been administered for the pelvic pain, and then, at some point after that, a decision had been made.

Across the bay, someone has visitors.

You are pulled from your thoughts by the soft crinkle of a bed sheet, followed by the hushed affirmation of: I'm here.

You try, briefly, to imagine what it would feel like to be on the receiving end of such reassurance. The thought doesn't hold. It slips, the same way everything else does, leaving behind only the faint awareness that something is missing where another thing should be. A thing that everybody else around you seems to have.

You settle on staring at the ceiling instead.

Your phone lies on the tray beside you, screen dark. You had turned it face down earlier, not because anything new had come through, but because it hadn’t. Because the same message had remained there, unchanged, taking on a different tone the longer it sat unanswered.

Let us know if you need anything.

You had read it enough times for the words to lose shape, flattening into something more abstract than meaning. You find yourself circling the phrasing, not for comfort, but for clarity: what, exactly, qualified? What threshold would you have to cross before it became something you were permitted to ask for, that you wouldn't be reprimanded for causing unnecessary concern over?

You wonder, not for the first time, what would actually happen if you did. The question lingers, unresolved. You don't reach for the phone.

There are voices closer now, just beyond the curtain.

“…She’s not engaging with questioning,” the younger doctor says, recognising the voice from an earlier consultation. “Just kind of staring. We thought maybe she’d had too high a dose of analgesic for what she’s reporting.”

Another voice answers; it's older and steadier, not louder, but more certain.

“Tell me about the patient.”

“Twenty-seven. History of dysmenorrhoea. Six months in on subcutaneous injection gonadorelin analogue treatment for PMDD, apparently.”

You can almost hear the air quotes being made around the word PMDD.

“Could be… you know,” the younger voice adds, a fraction quieter. “In withdrawal.”

Something in your chest tightens. The other voice doesn't respond immediately. But when it does, it's measured.

“Or,” he says, “she’s in pain.”

You picture it without seeing it: a shift in posture, the slight tension in the air when something isn't received the way it had been expected to.

“We see this all the time,” the younger one continues, pressing slightly. “Chronic presentations, high use—”

“And we also see people get labelled before anyone’s actually listened to them.”

Another pause, longer this time.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Langdon,” the older voice adds. “I’ll assess her. Properly.”

Another beat passes. Then, quieter—almost muffled by the sound of latex gloves being stretched over large hands:

“Assumptions don’t tend to age well around here. A little empathy goes a long way. You should know that better than most.”

You find yourself staring more intently at the ceiling, as though that might make you less obviously aware of what you had just heard.

Footsteps follow, moving closer.

You consider, briefly, closing your eyes again. Letting whoever walks in think what they want. Letting this version of you—the one that doesn't answer, doesn't engage, doesn't quite exist—continue to erode any sense of self you have left.

It would be easier. Less effort. But the thought doesn't settle long enough to act on, and the curtain shifts.

The man who steps in doesn't hesitate at the threshold: he pulls the curtain closed behind him in one smooth motion, cutting off the rest of the department with quiet efficiency.

“I’m Dr. Robinavitch,” he says. “People call me Dr. Robby.”

His tone isn't warm, exactly. It isn't cold either. It sits somewhere in the middle, grounded, as though he has no interest in performing anything beyond what is necessary.

His eyes move over you quickly, not lingering but not missing anything either. You have the distinct sense of being seen, so much so that you can't quite bring yourself to meet his eyes.

“Pain’s been bad?”

“It’s fine.”

Your voice sounds flatter than you expected. Distant, even to your own ears, as though it has come from slightly to the left of where you actually are.

“Okay,” he says, lowering his glasses to rest on the bridge of his nose.

His gaze drops briefly to the pump, then to the line at your arm. He reaches out, gloved fingers light but deliberate as he traces the cannula site, pressing just enough to assess without causing unnecessary discomfort.

“Let me know if that’s sore,” he says, holding your arm gently between his gloved fingers.

You watch his hand where it touches your skin, waiting for the sensation to arrive in a way you can meaningfully respond to. It doesn't quite come.

He adjusts the dressing slightly, then straightens.

“My colleagues stopped your PCA,” he says, pushing the frames back to rest on his head. “Said you weren’t responding.”

You shift your head slightly against the pillow.

“I am.”

He watches you for a moment. Not evaluating or dismissing, just taking you in.

“No, you are,” he nods, furrowing his brows into a sympathetic frown. “Just not very quickly.”

“I’m not like this because of the morphine,” you say, cheeks turning pink at the unexpected sharpness of your tone.

“I didn’t say you were.”

His gaze holds yours for a moment longer, steady but not challenging, before shifting to the monitor beside you. Heart rate. Blood pressure. Oxygen saturation. You watch his eyes track each number.

He asks you to lean forward, fingers catching the hem of your hoodie just enough to lift it at the back, exposing your skin to the air. The stethoscope follows a moment later, and he murmurs an apology for the apparent coldness of it against your spine.

“How would you describe the pain?” He asks, looping the stethoscope back around his neck. “Where it sits. What it’s doing.”

“Low,” you say eventually. “Pelvic. It—” you pause, the rest of it catching somewhere just out of reach. “It doesn’t really… peak. Just stays.”

He nods once, as though your garbled brain fog is crystal clear to him.

“Radiating anywhere?”

“Back,” you say. “Thighs.”

Another small nod.

“And the morphine helped at all?”

You consider the question longer than you should.

“Well, yes,” you hesitate. “It just—”

Robby waits, his eyes never leaving your face. Not in a way that presses or demands, but holds the space open for the answer to form without pressure.

“—I can cope with the pain,” you finish, quieter. “It’s the thoughts that I want to stop.”

For a moment, he doesn't speak.

You feel it, the silence, but it doesn't close in on you the way it usually does. It doesn't carry that familiar sense of having said something wrong, or too much, or not enough. It simply exists, held in place between you, as though he were choosing not to move past it too quickly.

“That’s been happening with this cycle, especially?”

You nod, the motion small, reluctant.

“Worse,” you reply. “It always happens. Just… not like this. I was, I don't know. Scared, I guess.”

He absorbs that without interruption, his attention settling more firmly rather than pulling away.

“Feels like you want it to quiet down,” he says. “More than the pain.”

It wasn’t quite a question. You hesitate, then nod again.

“Yes.”

The word comes more easily this time. Still quiet, still slightly out of step, but closer to where you mean it to land.

You expected him to redirect. To return to something measurable. Pain scores. Medication. Something that can be charted and delegated to a student doctor.

Instead, he shifts his weight slightly, one hand coming to rest against the rail of the bed, not quite leaning in, but closer than he had been before.

“What were you scared of?” He asks, his voice lower now, softer.

"I don't know."

Your eyes betray you almost immediately, stinging before you can stop it, vision blurring at the edges. You blink hard, dragging your focus back into place, forcing something like a scoff under your breath.

“I'm not usually like this.”

It doesn’t land. A small silence settles.

“Okay,” he says. “Tell me what the thoughts are doing.”

His hand shifts slightly where it rests against the bed rail, fingers adjusting their grip in a way that feels more unconscious than deliberate.

You look away, your gaze drifting somewhere over his shoulder, towards the indistinct blur of the curtain. Easier than holding his eyes while you try to organise something that resists logic.

“They’re just—” you stop, frustration dull but present. “Everywhere.”

The word feels insufficient the moment you say it. You try again.

“I feel like I'm not really here,” you whisper, slower. “But the thoughts are just all-consuming,” you pause, searching. “I'm everywhere, but also nowhere.”

“And do the thoughts feel like yours?” He asks.

You stare at him for a second, and it takes longer than it should to answer.

“I don’t know,” you say eventually, sitting with the honesty. “I think so. They feel like me, but—” you exhale, quieter now. “They don’t feel manageable.”

Another small nod. He doesn’t rush to fill the space after that, or attempt to soften it into something more palatable.

“Any thoughts about hurting yourself?” He asks.

You could lie—it would be easier, cleaner.

“I don’t think so,” you say. It’s not entirely untrue.

His expression doesn’t shift much, but he doesn’t move on.

“Don’t think so?” He repeats.

“I wouldn't act on it,” you start, then stop. You glance at him, briefly, then away again. “But if I don’t feel anything properly, I don’t really trust what I might… not react to.”

The sentence hangs there, incomplete, but understood.

“Like those lines on your back didn’t hurt?”

You look up at him, quickly: you hadn’t told him that. He holds your gaze, steady but not intrusive. Something in your chest tightens, slow and unfamiliar.

“Yes,” you say quietly.

Another pause. This one heavier.

“That makes sense,” he says eventually, and the phrasing is careful enough that it catches your attention despite the fog. Not it’s fine, not you’re okay. Just an acknowledgement that what you’ve described follows its own internal logic, even if you don't quite know what that is.

And it shouldn’t land the way it does. It’s a standard response. Something he likely says a dozen times a day, in a dozen different contexts.

He shifts his weight back a fraction, his hand leaving the bed rail, though he doesn’t step away immediately. There’s a brief pause—small, but deliberate—like he’s recalibrating something in his own head before moving on.

You look down again, your fingers curling slightly into the sheet, suddenly aware of how tired you are.

“I’m going to restart your PCA,” he says, eyes flicking to the pump as he adjusts the settings. “And I’ll speak to the team about your management. You shouldn’t have had it stopped without a proper assessment.”

He watches you for a moment longer, as though checking that the answer has settled properly rather than simply been given.

“Are you here on your own?”

“Yes.” You don’t elaborate. There isn’t anything to add that wouldn’t require more effort than you have to give.

He nods once, absorbing it without comment, though something in his expression shifts—subtle enough that you might have missed it if you weren’t already scanning for changes.

“I’m going to step out for a few minutes,” he says. “I want to sort a couple of things for you.”

You nod, or at least you think you do. The movement is slight enough that you’re not entirely sure it registers.

He doesn’t ask anything else of you before he turns. No final question, no instruction to try and rest or drink water or behave in a way that would make you easier to manage. He just reaches for the curtain, and then, instead of closing it, he leaves it half-open. There’s a line of sight now—partial, but intentional—between you and the nurses’ station just beyond.

You watch as he steps out into the corridor, and for a moment you can see him properly, framed by the gap in the curtain. He doesn’t move away straight away. Instead, he turns slightly, catching the attention of the charge nurse stationed a few feet down.

You recognise her vaguely—she’d been the one who checked your obs earlier, efficient without being brusque. You had felt the warmth of her palm when she had placed it against your forehead.

“Dana,” he says quietly, low enough that you wouldn’t catch it if you weren’t already listening.

She looks up immediately. He gestures, small and unobtrusive, back towards your bay. You can’t hear every word, but you catch enough.

“…keep an eye… bit dissociated… PCA restarting… I’ll be back.”

“Got it,” she replies, equally quiet.

Robby doesn’t look back at you before he leaves. You’re not sure if it's intentional or simply out of habit, but something about it feels restrained. Maybe it's the delirium of morphine working its way back into your body.

The noise of the department seeps back in around the edges. It doesn’t feel as overwhelming as it did before, though you can’t quite explain why. The same sounds persist—the low murmur of voices, the intermittent beeping of monitors, the distant clatter of something being wheeled across linoleum—but they don’t press in quite as insistently.

A few minutes pass. Or longer. Time still refuses to behave in any meaningful way.

Dana appears at the edge of your bay not long after, stepping into view with the same steady efficiency you remember.

“Hi sweetheart,” she says, voice pitched somewhere between professional and kind. “Just checking in. You doin' okay? Anything I can get for you?"

You hesitate, then nod.

“I don't think so, but thank you, ma'am.”

She studies you for a second.

“Okay,” she smiles, patting your leg affectionately. “If you need anything, just shout. I mean it, okay? We’ve got you.”

It’s close enough to the message that lies dormant on your phone that you flinch slightly. And then she adjusts the blanket where it’s twisted near your legs, a small, practical movement, before stepping back out again, leaving the curtain as it is.

For a while, nothing happens.

You drift in and out of something that isn’t quite sleep, more like slipping under and catching yourself again before you fully go. The edges of the room soften, then sharpen, then soften again, like your awareness can’t decide how much of it it wants to hold. At one point, you think you’ve been gone for seconds; at another, it feels like you’ve been sitting there for hours without moving at all.

You only realise your eyes have closed when you jolt slightly back into awareness, neck aching faintly from the angle you’ve fallen into. Another time you’re sure you’ve only blinked, and yet the light has shifted imperceptibly, the room rearranging itself in small, untraceable ways.

He doesn’t announce himself this time, but you recognise the movement immediately, the same unhurried presence stepping back into the space.

Robby’s holding something in his hand. A paper cup, steam curling faintly from the lid.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d want this,” he says, crossing the small distance between you with an ease that feels unforced. “But it’s easier to talk when you’ve got something warm.”

He sets it down on the tray beside you, within reach but not pressed into your hands. An offering, not an instruction.

“Tea,” he adds, almost as an afterthought. “No sugar. Best I could do was steal a sweetener from the staff lounge.”

You stare at it for a moment longer than necessary. It’s such a small thing, objectively. Something anyone could have done. Something that probably gets handed out a dozen times a day without meaning anything at all.

But it doesn’t feel incidental.

You glance back at him, a fraction slower than you intend.

“You came back,” you say.

It slips out before you can stop it.

“I said I would,” he replies, and there’s no defensiveness in it. Just fact.

He doesn’t sit, but he doesn’t hover either. Instead, he settles into the space beside the bed.

“I’ve got a couple of minutes,” he says, his tone unchanged, but the words carrying a weight that the others hadn’t. “Tell me about yourself.”

You glance at him, expecting to find some sign that this is procedural, a box to be ticked before he moves on. But he doesn’t look like he’s performing anything. He’s just waiting, a paper cup of his own resting loosely in his hand, his other elbow braced lightly against the counter by your bed as though he has nowhere else he needs to be right now.

“Your family in Pittsburgh?”

“No,” you say, a little too quickly, heat creeping up your neck as you realise you’ve been looking at him while he waited for you to answer. You force your gaze down to the cup instead. “I live here for work. My family’s a couple of states away.”

He nods once—like that’s useful, like it slots you into place in his head in a way that matters clinically, but also a little personally, even if he’d never frame it that way.

“And they know you’re here?”

A pause.

“Yeah,” you say eventually. “I texted my mom this morning.”

Robby doesn’t react outwardly. He just watches you for a second longer than most people would, like he’s learned the first answer is never the one he’s actually looking for.

Then, evenly: “And how’d that go?”

Your mouth tightens before you answer.

“Not great,” you laugh. “She didn’t really… take it in properly. I think she thought I was being dramatic when I said I was coming to the ER. Or that it wasn’t serious in the way it actually turned out to be.”

His expression shifts, sharpening at the edges.

“That ‘stuff’ being your PMDD?” He asks, careful, but not hesitant.

“Yeah,” you say. Your fingers curl slightly around the paper cup. “That’s part of it.”

He exhales once, quiet.

“And when you say she didn’t take it in,” he continues, “what does that actually mean?”

“She just… doesn’t know what to do with it,” you say finally. “Mental health stuff. Chronic stuff. She either minimises it or turns it into something I’m supposed to either push through or take some bullshit supplement to cure.”

Robby’s jaw tightens a fraction.

“She always been that way?” He asks.

You swallow.

“I told her I’m not having kids,” you say. “A while ago. It wasn’t impulsive. It was considered. Based on what this does to me, how unpredictable it is, what pregnancy or hormonal shifts could mean on top of it.”

A beat.

“She acted like I was saying it to punish her, and our relationship changed after that.”

Robby’s expression doesn’t change dramatically, but something in him goes still in a way that feels more controlled than neutral.

“She made your medical condition about her,” he says flatly.

It’s not phrased like a question. You blink at that, slightly thrown by the directness.

“I guess,” you say, quieter.

Robby shakes his head once, small and sharp, like he’s cutting through something he’s seen too many times before.

“That’s not how this works,” he says. “You don’t get to override someone else’s health because it conflicts with what you want out of them.”

You go still at that.

He doesn’t raise his voice, but there’s a firm, opinionated edge to him now that wasn’t there before. You look down again, voice smaller.

“She keeps talking about grandchildren,” you admit. “Like that’s the endpoint. Like that’s what I’m supposed to be aiming for, even if I’ve told her I don’t want it.”

Robby exhales through his nose, barely audible, but there’s something unmistakably disapproving in it now.

“That’s not how parenthood works,” he says. “You don’t get to outsource your expectations onto someone else’s body and call it grief when they don’t comply.”

You glance up at him, unsure what to do with how cleanly he’s naming it.

“She doesn’t see it that way,” you say quietly.

“Yeah,” he replies immediately, like that part isn’t new to him at all. “People like that rarely do.”

You shift slightly on the bed, immediately regretting it as the pain drags low and insistent through your abdomen again, grounding you back into your body whether you want it or not.

Robby notices instantly.

“Pain’s spiking again?”

“It comes and goes,” you say automatically, then quieter, “It’s fine.”

His look says he doesn’t fully accept that definition of fine, but he doesn’t push it into words. Instead, he steps back just enough to glance at the pump, then returns his attention to you.

“You’re not staying here alone with this tonight,” he says, like it’s already been decided somewhere upstream of the conversation.

You frown slightly.

“What does that mean?”

“It means we’ll keep an eye on you,” he says. “And you don’t sit with it escalating without saying something.”

Then, more quietly, but no less firmly: “And I'm not just talking about the physical symptoms.”

You look down at the cup again, because looking at him suddenly feels too direct.

Outside the curtain, a monitor alarms briefly before being silenced. Someone calls his name. Life continues in clipped, efficient fragments.

Robby glances that way, already partially pulled by it, but he doesn’t leave yet. Instead, he looks back at you.

Then he says, “Finish your tea. I’ll be back.”

Jack Abbot hates the rain.

Back when he didn't wake, fingertips reaching out for a body that was no longer there, or an itch without a source, he would happily submit to a sudden downpour. Let it wash over him: mind and body. It had been a welcome change from that smothering dryness of the desert.

He relished afternoons spent beneath layers of scratchy blankets and a warm pair of legs stretched languidly across his lap. He never minded the cramps, either, although he’d dramatically complain every time he reluctantly stood to refill the chip bowl. Jack would’ve gladly let both legs go numb for days if it meant she was there with him, sleeping safely.

But that was then. A lifetime ago, it seemed.

In this new life that he finds himself in, rain is no longer romantic: the heel of his prosthetic slips against slick asphalt, and phantom aches bloom beneath the pressure of the storm.

So, he stopped walking to work at even the tiniest threat of a downpour. Started driving instead, one hand loose against the steering wheel while the city blurs in grey and yellow beyond the windshield. His stomach still lurching each time a headlight reflects off his left hand.

Somewhere along the way, you’d fallen into the habit of leaving your umbrella by the front door. This morning was no exception, despite the storm that had loomed over Pittsburgh since you'd woken for the day shift.

Slowly, almost without either of you noticing, the passenger seat beside Jack becomes occupied more often than not. By now, it feels natural: Jack waiting outside your apartment before sunrise, two coffees balanced precariously in the cupholder, the low murmur of the radio carrying you both to and from PTMC.

It’s been a couple of months now, but you still think he sees you as something wounded and uncertain, all stumbling limbs and creased scrubs. At first, the rides home had felt clinical in their politeness, the kind of thing a man like Jack would offer to any young, vulnerable woman walking home alone. An attending physician making sure one of his nurses gets home safely after a shift. Nothing more.

Yet, somewhere between winter bleeding into spring and spring bleeding into summer, rides home become rides to work too. Not that you’d expected it of him. The first time he texted I’m outside before dawn, you stared at your phone for nearly a full minute, assuming the message had arrived by mistake. Truthfully, the time spent beside him at the beginning and end of each day had quickly become your most cherished part of the week, though admitting that aloud would probably kill you instantly.

There is just something about the quiet intimacy of it all. Knowing the inside of Jack Abbot’s truck by heart feels strangely sacred, like stumbling accidentally into a part of him no one else gets to know. You know the cracked leather smell of the seats, the faint bite of industrial-strength antiseptic soaked permanently into the fabric of his jackets, the pine-and-smoke air freshener dangling from the rearview mirror that he pretends not to notice, replacing every few weeks.

You know he taps twice against the steering wheel whenever he’s stuck at a red light too long. That he drives one-handed when he’s relaxed enough. That he always leaves the radio low enough to talk over, even if neither of you says much at all.

Sometimes he leaves you alone in the truck while he pays for gas inside, and you find yourself sitting there in the strange quiet intimacy of his absence, surrounded by discarded receipts and the lingering warmth of him in the driver’s seat.

When he finally relented and handed over control of the Bluetooth, you started building entire playlists around songs you thought he might like. Older songs, mostly. The kind that sounded right played low through sleeping streets and rain-heavy mornings.

The first time a Jeff Buckley track played through the speakers, Jack glanced sideways at you so abruptly you nearly laughed.

“Kid,” he’d said, one corner of his mouth twitching despite himself, “how the hell do you know about Buckley? Were you even alive when he was making music?”

“Wow,” you’d muttered, feigning offence while staring pointedly out the windshield. “That doesn’t make you sound ancient at all.”

A quiet huff of laughter escaped him then, brief enough you almost missed it. “Answer the question.”

Warmth had spread embarrassingly fast through your chest. “My dad had all of his records,” you admitted. “He would play them every Sunday morning, without fail. Coffee brewing, windows open, the whole house smelling like burnt pancakes.”

Jack had gone strangely quiet after that. “Sounds nice,” he’d said eventually, voice softer than before.

You remembered thinking, stupidly, that you would spend the rest of your life chasing the feeling that single sentence gave you.

This morning, however, Jack had nearly rear-ended a Prius at a stoplight when Otis Redding flooded suddenly through the speakers.

“Fuck––” he braked hard, enough for the coffees to slosh dangerously against their lids.

You burst into laughter immediately, fumbling for the skip button. “You trying to kill us before shift, Abbot? I didn’t realise you felt that strongly about Otis Redding.”

Something unreadable crossed his face then. Quick enough, you almost missed it. “I’m sorry,” was all he had replied.

Of course, you were entirely oblivious to the fact that he’d once held his wife close to that same song in the soft yellow light of a rented reception hall.

Suddenly, he had been twenty-nine again, one hand at his wife’s waist, convinced happiness might actually last forever. He can still remember the weight of her against him. The damp curl of her hair at the nape of her neck from dancing too hard, too long. She’d laughed when he stepped on the hem of her dress, all breathless disbelief, like she couldn’t understand why someone as solemn as him had chosen her.

Someone had told him once that wet knots were harder to untie. Jack remembers hearing it the morning of his wedding, while rain hammered against the reception hall roof and guests stumbled inside carrying dripping bouquets and ruined umbrellas.

Later on, he’d watched as water dripped from his wife’s eyelashes, dress plastered against her knees, and kissed her beneath a storm-dark sky. Of course it is, he’d thought. Nothing on this earth could pull us apart.

Despite the steady pull of nightfall, the remnant heat of the day still presses hard against the windows. A couple of hours into your shift, the air conditioning had finally coded after years of being on the brink; also known as Gloria's so-called "to-do list". Now, every surface feels like it's sweating, and every fluorescent light buzzes too loudly.

In the room next to you, somebody bleeds onto the floor of trauma three.

Outside of ordering around overheated interns, Jack has barely spoken for the entirety of your shift, not that the others have picked up on it. To everyone else, Jack Abbot is always stoic, vaguely irritated, and entirely in control. It's part of his whole thing. But you'd come to learn the difference between Jack's tiredness and absence.

Even exhausted, Jack keeps the music low on the drive to and from PTMC. He still asks what you’re doing for dinner afterwards, still tucks away pieces of his day to tell you during the quiet stretches between traffic lights.

But this version of him, with all that vast, unreachable space that leaves you fumbling blindly in the dark, prefers the low hum of the road instead. You think it steadies him. Quietens whatever is clawing around inside of him.

Tonight, Jack is somewhere else.

You watch as he moves through the department with clipped efficiency, jaw locked so tight it hurts just looking at him. He answers questions with one-word responses, broad shoulders tense beneath black scrubs, already darkened with sweat between the shoulder blades and armpits.

Twice, you catch him staring blankly at nothing after trauma pages. The third time, you find a moment to slip beside him, fingers skimming his arm against his behind the privacy of paperwork.

“Hey,” you whisper. He blinks hard and sucks a breath deep between his teeth, like you'd dragged him up from underwater. “You okay?”

For a second, something unfamiliar to you flicks across his face. “I'm fine.”

His hand flexes once against the counter between you, silver flashing beneath fluorescent light. A stupid ache twists unexpectedly beneath your ribs. He isn’t yours, and you’re not even sure he ever could be.

Around you, monitors beep. Someone shouts for respiratory. Rain hammers steadily against the ambulance bay doors with sudden force.

Jack is already turning away. “I’m trying to work.”

The sentence lands clean between your ribs. Heat lightning pulses silently behind dark clouds.

“Right,” you say quietly, resting your hands on the desk in front of you. "Of course."

By the time the words fall from your lips, he's already gone.

The storm breaks fully an hour later. Thunder rattles the entire building hard enough to shake already wobbling ceiling panels loose, while half the waiting room complains about flickering lights. Ambulances keep coming anyway. Wet footprints mesh with stray drops of blood that fall from passing gurneys, streaking across the tile.

You stop looking for him. Stop drifting unconsciously toward whichever trauma bay he’s ruling over. You make the conscious decision not to double-check if he’s eaten, if he needs coffee, if he remembered to take something stronger than aspirin for the headache he’s been nursing since noon.

And the ER continues to move around both of you in frantic bursts: trauma pages, crying parents, soaked paramedics tracking rainwater across the floor. But now there is something strained and invisible stretching between you; it hums louder than the fluorescent lights overhead.

Dana corners you near the nurses’ station while peeling off a pair of latex gloves with her teeth.

“You two fight or something?”

You nearly fumble the stack of charts in your arms. “What?”

Dana snorts softly. “Please. The air pressure in here dropped ten degrees the second Abbot snapped at you.”

“He didn’t snap at me.”

“Mm.” She arches a brow. “I hope you remembered your umbrella.”

Despite yourself, your gaze flickers instinctively across the department.

Across the ER, Jack stands with one hand braced against the trauma board while an intern stumbles through a patient presentation. You can't help but let your eyes fall to his broad shoulders, tense beneath dark scrubs. His wedding band catches briefly beneath harsh fluorescent light.

You know about his wife; you understand enough to know this has never really been about rejection. The problem is almost worse than that. Because sometimes, in the quiet moments between shifts and traffic lights, it feels painfully possible that Jack wants you too.

Dana follows your line of sight before nudging your shoulder lightly. “He’s been in a mood all day. I doubt it's you, kid.”

As though he feels you looking, his head turns. Your stomach knots stupidly, and you look away first, busying yourself reorganising charts that don’t need reorganising. “He was fine this morning.”

“Fine for Jack or fine for a normal person?”

Despite yourself, a small laugh escapes through your nose.

“No, I mean…” You hesitate. “He was okay. We were talking like normal in the truck.” Your chest tightens unexpectedly. “And then something just switched.”

Dana’s expression softens slightly. “What happened?”

You think of the way his face closed the second you touched him. Like a door slamming shut.

“I don’t know.” The words come out quieter than intended. “Dana... Sometimes I can’t tell if he actually wants me there or if I’m just…” You trail off.

“Just what?”

You stare toward the ambulance bay, where rainwater runs in shimmering rivers beneath harsh fluorescent light.

“A distraction, maybe.”

Even saying it aloud feels ridiculous. Jack isn’t yours to lose. There’s no relationship to question, no promise sitting between you waiting to be broken. Just shared rides to work, lingering glances, coffee cups balanced between the seats of his truck. A thousand tiny things that you so dangerously wish meant something more.

Dana snorts immediately. “That man looks at you like you hung the moon.”

“Sometimes I think he likes needing me more than he likes… me.”

“Maybe at first,” she admits carefully. “Men like Jack… they cling to whatever keeps them standing.”

Your stomach drops. Dana watches the expression cross your face and immediately sighs.

“Hey.” Her voice softens. “That’s not what I meant.”

“It kind of sounded like what you meant.”

“What I mean,” Dana says softly, “is that Jack’s been drowning for a long time.”

The rain batters harder against the ambulance bay doors, loud enough now to shake through the walls.

“And?” you ask quietly.

She glances across the department before answering. “And people who’ve been drowning long enough don’t always realise they’re allowed to want more than just survival.”

Your throat tightens painfully, and for a moment, neither of you speaks.

“I loved her too, you know.”

“Dana—”

“I’m serious.” Her expression gentles. “She was my friend.”

Guilt blooms hot and immediate beneath your ribs, ugly enough to make you feel suddenly sixteen instead of twenty-six. Dana must see it on your face, because she reaches over and briefly squeezes your forearm.

“Oh, honey. Don’t do that to yourself.”

“I’m not—”

“You are.”

She lowers her voice slightly. “Loving him doesn’t make either of you disloyal to her.”

Your chest aches so sharply it almost pisses you off.

"I never said that I—"

Before you can finish, a parademic calling out a trauma page cuts violently through the hallway.

Your head snaps up instantly, and just like that, the moment is over.

By the time handover finally arrives, the storm has swallowed the entire city. Water pours in silver sheets beyond the ambulance bay, gutters overflowing enough to sound like rushing rivers. Somewhere miles away, thunder groans low and endless.

You pull your bag onto your shoulder without looking toward the trauma board. You can still feel him anyway; that awful magnetic awareness.

Jack appears beside you silently a moment later, keys spinning once around his finger. He always does that when he’s tired; an unconscious little movement that grows faster the longer his shifts run.

Usually, the sight of it softens something in you instantly. Tonight, it feels mocking.

“You ready?” he asks.

You zip your jacket slowly. “I’m going to walk.”

Jack’s brow furrows immediately. “What?”

“I said I’ll walk.”

Outside, heat lightning fractures the sky in white bursts.

For a second, he just stares at you, genuinely confused, like the possibility never occurred to him. Somewhere along the way, your place beside him had become inevitable. Passenger seat. Coffee cup. Shared silence before sunrise.

“Don’t be crazy,” he says. “It’s pouring.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

Another roll of thunder shakes the garage.

You should let him drive you home. You know that. The walk to your apartment isn’t exactly safe in weather like this, and Pittsburgh streets flood if somebody sneezes too hard near the river.

But something ugly and wounded still twists beneath your ribs.

Dana’s voice echoes unpleasantly in your head, and maybe she's right, but people look at beautiful things all the time without intending to keep them.

“You’re tired,” he says flatly. “Just get in the truck.”

“Goodnight, Jack.”

Before he can answer, you push through the garage doors into the storm.

The rain is brutal immediately.

Cold water soaks through your scrubs within seconds, hair plastering to your skin as thunder cracks somewhere overhead, sharp enough to make you flinch. Cars hiss past through flooded streets, headlights smeared gold against rain-slick asphalt.

Anger keeps your spine straight for almost half a block. After that, exhaustion starts creeping in around the edges.

Your soaked scrubs cling uncomfortably to your skin with every step. Water fills the seams of your shoes. Somewhere above you, old fire escapes rattle in the wind hard enough to sound like distant applause.

Rainwater splashes around your ankles as you step off the curb. Five minutes later, headlights appear beside you through the storm.

Jack’s truck crawls slowly along the flooded curb lane, and the passenger window lowers with a mechanical whine.

“You’re being insane,” he calls over the rain.

You don’t look at him.

“Go home.”

The truck keeps pace beside you as thunder rolls overhead.

“Please get in the truck.”

Rain batters violently against the hood as the truck crawls beside you. You wipe water from your face angrily, though it’s useless.

“I said no.”

Jack exhales sharply through his nose, fingers tightening against the steering wheel. “Jesus Christ, what is this about?”

The question stops you cold. Because that’s exactly it, isn’t it?

He still thinks this is sudden. Like your hurt appeared out of nowhere instead of being carved slowly into you over months of almosts and maybes and careful little silences.

You turn toward the open window, finally. Rainwater drips from your jaw onto the pavement below.

“I’m sorry that I snapped at you earlier.”

“That’s not the point.”

Something flickers across Jack’s face then. Frustration. Confusion. Fear. You can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. For a second, he just stares at you through the storm.

Then the truck shifts abruptly into park, and the engine dies. Jack shoves the driver’s door open hard enough for rain to blow immediately into the cab.

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters under his breath as he steps out into the street.

Water darkens his shirt within seconds while he comes around the front of the truck toward you, expression tight with something dangerously close to desperation now.

“Help me out here, kid,” he says. “What is this really about?”

Thunder cracks overhead hard enough to rattle nearby windows.

Your laugh comes out thin and disbelieving. “You pull me close every time you want something to hold onto, and then the second it feels too real, you shove me back out again.”

“That’s not fair.”

Lightning flashes somewhere overhead, bleaching the entire street white for half a second. In the sudden brightness, Jack looks exhausted.

Your anger falters dangerously before hardening all over again.

“No?” Your voice rises despite yourself. “Then what exactly are we doing here, Jack?”

Rain streams from his hairline now, dampening the collar of his shirt where the storm blows through the open window.

“You think you’re protecting people,” you say, quieter now. “But you’re not. You’re just hurting them before they get the chance to hurt you.”

Jack’s jaw tightens visibly. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Something hot and furious twists suddenly through your chest.

“No,” you snap. “You don’t get to do that.”

His expression hardens. “Do what?”

“Act like you’re the only person on earth who’s ever had something terrible happen to them.”

The words disappear instantly beneath the storm. Rainwater drips steadily from the edge of the truck roof between you both. Somewhere nearby, thunder groans low enough to vibrate beneath your feet.

You can see the exact moment he starts to answer automatically — defensive and wounded, ready to shut the conversation down entirely. Then, something in your expression stops him.

“What does that mean?” he asks finally.

Your throat tightens. You hadn’t meant to say that much. “Nothing.”

“Hey, don’t do that.”

A sharp laugh tears out of you before you can stop it. “That’s funny coming from you.”

Jack ignores it, eyes fixed entirely on your face now. Rain darkens his shirt collar, curls damp against his temples.

“What happened to you?”

The question lands like a bruise; not because nobody has ever asked before, but because Jack asks it like he already knows the answer will hurt him, too.

You fold your arms tighter across yourself instead, fingers digging hard enough into your sleeves to ache.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters if—”

“No.” Your voice cracks sharply enough to surprise both of you. “No, Jack, it doesn’t.”

Heat rushes suddenly beneath your skin despite the freezing rain.

“Because that’s not the point.”

Jack’s expression shifts again. You look away from him first.

Cars move through flooded streets behind you both, headlights smeared gold and white against rainwater. The entire city feels blurred at the edges.

“You think I don’t understand fear?” you ask quietly.

Jack says nothing.

“You think it’s easy for me to let people touch me?” The words scrape painfully against your throat. “To trust them?”

His face changes instantly, and you laugh again, softer this time. Bitter around the edges.

“Yeah.”

Jack opens his mouth, then closes it again. Windshield wipers drag furiously across the glass beside him, rhythmic and desperate.

Back and forth. Back and forth.

“Every day,” you continue, staring hard at the sky, “there’s this feeling—”

You press a fist briefly against your sternum.

“Like somebody left a knife inside me and every time a person gets too close, it twists a little deeper.”

Jack’s entire expression crumples for half a second before he catches it.

“But I still try,” you whisper. “I still wake up every day and make the choice to trust people anyway.”

Your eyes finally meet his again through the rain.

“I’m sorry, Jack.” Your voice shakes slightly now, exhaustion bleeding through the anger. “I really am.”

He looks away immediately. Rainwater drips from the edge of his jaw while one hand comes up briefly, rubbing hard across his mouth like he’s trying to physically hold himself together.

“I’m sorry you lost her,” you continue quietly. “I’m sorry the love of your life died, and I can’t even begin to imagine what that did to you, and what it continues to do to you.”

His nose scrunches sharply for half a second, pushing away the first hint of pain before it gets the chance to reach him.

“But you can’t have it both ways.”

Jack’s eyes close briefly.

“You can’t pull me close every time the silence starts feeling too heavy and then shove me away the second you remember why you’re scared.”

The storm presses around both of you in violent sheets of rain.

“I can’t be the person who makes you feel less lonely when it’s convenient and then take the brunt of your grief every time it catches up to you.”

He flinches, and you think it might be the first time you’ve ever seen him look genuinely ashamed.

Your throat aches around the next words.

“You have to be brave enough to let this be real,” you whisper. “Or you have to leave me alone.”

Rainwater streams steadily down Jack’s face now, impossible to separate from anything else.

When he finally looks back at you, he looks devastated.

Jack stares at you through the rain for so long you start to feel hollowed out by it.

His chest rises once beneath soaked black fabric.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he says finally.

The words come out rough and stripped raw. He shakes his head once, hard enough to send rainwater scattering. “You don’t understand.”

Something inside you splinters quietly as he laughs once under his breath. The sound is horrible.

“I buried my wife.” The sentence seems to fight its way out of him.

“I had to stand there while strangers asked me what kind of wood she would've wanted for her casket.” His eyes unfocus somewhere beyond you. “I had to pick flower arrangements. Do you understand what that does to a person?”

You stare at him for a long moment, rainwater dripping steadily from your chin. "No, I don't."

“But, Jack... I can’t keep standing in the doorway of your life hoping you’ll eventually let me inside.”

Your voice breaks softly then. Worse somehow than yelling.

“And I love you too much to let it turn me into someone who begs for scraps.”

Jack physically recoils like the words hit him somewhere vital.

When he still says nothing, that’s how you know it’s over. Thunder rolls somewhere far above the city, softer now. Tired. Your chest hurts, and now that the adrenaline has worn off, you can feel the cold seeping into your bones.

You wipe uselessly at your face with a soaked sleeve before stepping toward the passenger door. The handle sticks slightly before finally giving beneath your grip.

Jack looks over immediately, startled.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m cold, and I want to go home,” You say quietly.

The words sound exhausted rather than angry now.

You climb into the truck without waiting for permission, soaked scrubs sticking unpleasantly against the leather seats. The interior smells faintly like rainwater, old coffee, and pine.

Home. The feeling nearly makes you nauseous.

Jack says nothing as you pull the door shut, just hauls himself inside, next to you but far away, and shifts the truck into drive.

Rain hammers steadily against the roof while Pittsburgh slides past in blurred reflections of red brake lights and flooded sidewalks. Somewhere near downtown, a traffic light flickers weakly against standing water.

You stare straight ahead the entire drive.

Once, at a stoplight, Jack opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but quickly thinks better of it.

Twenty minutes later, the truck pulls to a stop outside your apartment building. Neither of you moves.

Your fingers tighten slowly around the strap of your bag. “Goodnight, Jack.”

His jaw flexes.

“Kid—”

You can’t survive hearing whatever he has to say right now.

“Don’t.”

The word comes out smaller than intended, and Jack falls silent immediately.

For one awful second, you almost take it back. Almost lean across the centre console and kiss him just to stop this feeling from happening.

You force yourself to open the door instead. Cold air rushes instantly into the truck.

“I meant what I said,” you whisper without looking at him. “You have to leave me alone if you can’t be brave about this.”

Then you step out into the rain and close the door behind you.

Jack watches you disappear into the apartment building without moving. He stays parked there long after the hallway light above your door finally clicks off.

By the time Jack gets home, the storm has started to weaken. Rain still falls steadily, but softer now. Exhausted around the edges.

His prosthetic clicks dully against the front steps as he climbs toward the porch, each impact softened by waterlogged carbon fibre. Somewhere nearby, gutters overflow in uneven streams.

The house greets him in the same empty way it always does.

Water drips steadily from the hem of his jacket onto hardwood floors she once insisted were charming because of the scratches. Jack had argued about refinishing them for almost a year after moving in.

She’d laughed outright. “If a house looks like nobody has ever lived in it, what’s the point of having one?”

His chest caves suddenly around the memory. Jack shuts the front door behind him and abruptly cannot breathe.

Both fights replay violently in fragments behind his eyes.

You stood in the rain, water running down your face in silver streams beneath flashing streetlights, being braver than he had ever been.

The look on your face when he told you he couldn’t do this. His chest tightens hard enough to hurt.

He reaches automatically for the kitchen counter and misses. His keys hit the hardwood first, then the rest of him follows.

Jack sinks heavily onto the kitchen floor with one hand crushed hard against his mouth because the sound trying to crawl out of him feels unbearable.

He hasn’t cried like this since the first night without her.

Not at the funeral or while signing paperwork. Not while packing her clothes into boxes that lie dormant in the guest bedroom.

Only once. The night he rolled over half-asleep and reached for a body that was no longer there. The memory of it still lives inside him like a wound that never scarred correctly: cold sheets, darkness, and the split second before remembering.

A broken sound tears violently out of him before he can stop it.

“What am I supposed to do?” he chokes helplessly into the empty house.

Rain taps softly now against the kitchen windows. Jack lowers his head hard against the cabinet behind him, shoulders shaking beneath soaked fabric.

“Please,” he whispers.

He doesn’t even know who he’s talking to anymore. God? His wife? The version of himself that existed before grief hollowed him out from the inside?

Outside the kitchen window, the storm has finally broken apart. Water still drips steadily from gutters and telephone wires, but above them, the clouds have started to split open. Pale gold light bleeds softly through the darkness beyond. Jack stares at it through blurred vision. And suddenly, horribly, he remembers her laughing beneath the awning outside their wedding venue while rain soaked the hem of her dress.

Rain always stops eventually, Jackie.

The memory lands differently this time; alive enough in his mind that for one impossible second, Jack can almost feel her hand slipping damp and warm into his. God, she would’ve been furious with him for mistaking loneliness for love all these years. Furious that he’d turned surviving her into the only thing left of himself.

Jack lets out a breathless sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob, rubbing hard at his face with the heel of his hand. And for the first time since she died, the memory of her does not feel like being dragged under. Rather, it feels like somebody reaching back for him through the dark.