Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Samira slips away from the crowd in the park, no one takes much notice. Donnie nods as she passes. People’s eyes trail over her as she leaves, but it doesn’t register with any of them. No one has the energy to take stock of who is gathered here, let alone who has left. No one is paying much attention to anything. 

The adrenaline crash has stolen their attention away. They don’t notice that only a minute passes before Jack reattaches his prosthesis with a grimace, rises from his spot on the bench, and follows after her. 

In ten hours, they will all be awake and alert. They will work as if there are no screams lodged in their ears. They will pretend that they don’t notice the blood that has splattered on the ceiling and crusted over. They will walk along the same floor they always walk on and act like it is not haunted. They will do all of that tomorrow. But right now, under the stars, out in the open air, everyone is too focused on the sound of their own breathing and the thudding of their own hearts to pay them any attention. 

Samira recognizes the sound of his footsteps immediately, but she doesn’t turn around. She continues walking, letting her legs lead her all the way around the corner to the bus stop. Her bus won’t be here for twenty minutes. They both know this. He makes a point to know these things. “Dr. Mohan,” she keeps walking despite the quiet, familiar timbre of his voice. Despite the fact that she wants to turn around, Samira keeps walking. 

No one is paying attention to them. No one has registered their absence, but she can’t allow this conversation to happen within earshot of the hospital. She can’t allow whatever he is about to tell her to get absorbed into the gossip mill. She is not a selfish person by nature, but Samira desperately wants to be selfish after what she has seen tonight. She wants to have something that is hers. She wants to sink her teeth into something. Claim a mountain or a night alone or a conversation all for herself just so she can remind herself that she’s real. That she exists. Sometimes she isn’t so sure.

Samira doesn’t stop walking, but when Jack catches her wrist in a soft grasp, she doesn’t pull away. She lets his warmth crawl up her arm and into her chest. She lets the memory of his hands under her scrubs and her fingers fumbling with his waistband float to the front of her brain. The feeling of want and of being wanted. The excitement of a secret stowed away in the on-call room at the end of the hall. The searing burn of guilt that he kissed away. The fuzzy warmth she pushed down and attempted to ignore. 

She hasn’t worked with him since that night, not until today. She hasn’t been avoiding him, necessarily, but it isn’t difficult to only pull doubles when Shen is the night attending. To sidestep for a day and then a week and then two and then three. Samira nods to him at hand-off. Still reads the articles he texts her and sends her own in response. On any other day, Samira would have enough wherewithal to recognize that everything about the two of them is a terrible idea. That even in the best-case scenario, Jack Abbot would serve as a roadblock in her residency. 

But she’s never been more alive, more depleted, or more acutely aware of her own pulse. 

When Samira turns to face him, the glow of streetlights is caught in his eye. She can see every line on his face, every hair on his head. “Can I give you a ride home?” He asks.

“My bus will be here soon.” 

“In half an hour,” he corrects. “Your apartment is on my way.” 

“No, it isn’t.” Samira can’t even justify why she’s turning down his offer. She still hasn’t removed herself from his grip. They’re so close that she is nearly standing between his feet. 

He straightens the bag slung over his shoulder. “I want to give you a ride home.” 

“Why?” It comes out a bit too desperately. 

His lips press into a line before he speaks. Jack promised to show her everything in it. “You know why, Samira.”

She usually wouldn’t dare say what she does, so she blames it on the crash. It’s the brutal comedown of adrenaline and panic and confidence that makes her seek out his reasoning. This is not any other night. “Will you tell me anyway?” Will you give me something I can sink my teeth into?

“You’re very important to me, and I would like to make sure you get home safely.” He almost looks pained. There’s a speck of dried blood along his hairline. She wants to reach up and scratch it away. “I’m very—I care about you, Samira. A lot.”

Part of her, some part that is nestled away between muscle and bone, believes that Jack Abbot was carved out specifically for her. That someone placed him in a kiln and traced her initials underneath the glaze. She knows that isn’t true. He is a man with a life outside of her and outside of this hospital. He is a person who bends upon resistance rather than breaks. “If you give me a ride tonight, I’m going to start expecting them.” 

It’s quiet between them as they look at one another, her wrist still in his hand. They can’t be more than seven feet away from the bus stop. “I’d like to be someone you expect things from.” 

Samira nods. Just once. She can rely on him, if only for ten minutes. Just long enough to get from here to her door. She can climb into his passenger seat. Jack would like her to expect things from him. Tonight, tired and tightly strung, she can do that. If not for herself, then for him. Samira tells herself that she is not a selfish person, so she will pretend that this favor is for him. 

He is not kiln-fired, but maybe he could be hers. 

Samira doesn’t take his hand. Doesn’t lace her arm through his and lay her head on his shoulder, but she does follow him in a wordless rhythm. Allows her steps to fall in time with his. 

Jack glances over his shoulder to look at her once. He flashes her a smile, small and contained, not like the grin on the park bench, all teeth on display in a laugh, but more like the smirk when she asked to see his go bag. It’s something just for her. That’s something she has always admired about Jack. He isn’t trying to make everyone laugh, isn’t trying to calm every nerve. He’s purposeful. 

The inside of someone’s car is a bit like the inside of someone’s mind. At least, that is what Samira assumes as they approach Jack’s black CR-V, and she sees just how clean it is. It’s freshly vacuumed, recently washed. The interior is illuminated by a dim, flickering light on the other side of the parking garage. 

Samira has a car. Technically, she has a car. It’s outside her apartment in a spot she pays for but really shouldn’t, considering her car didn’t start this morning and doesn’t most mornings. She could jump it, probably, but Samira doesn’t know any of her neighbors. Certainly not well enough to knock on their doors before dawn. 

Jack’s car is clean and well-tended. Samira’s car is cluttered, it doesn’t start. She buckles her seatbelt.

Jack seems like the kind of guy who backs into parking spots, but maybe he didn’t have time today. Did he speed on the way over? Probably. Almost certainly. He turns the keys in the ignition. His arm stretches behind her seat as he turns to reverse. 

Their eyes catch. 

Their eyes always catch. Across a trauma bay and a gurney and the break room, their eyes catch. He looks at her with a shocking and gentle focus. An intensity that is so inherently Jack Abbot that Samira knows it comes naturally to him. He isn’t looking for her. He just finds her. Finds her crying on the roof as an intern before she had any idea that the roof was his spot. Finds her by the Hub before sliding a case study in front of her. He finds her during the night shift lull. 

Samira finds herself pressed against an on-call room mattress, his eyes still shocking and gentle and him. Finds that her fingers tangle deliciously in his hair. Finds that he’s just like he is in her dreams.

Neither of them talks until Jack has pulled out of the parking deck. “Eat anything other than pizza today?” 

“How do you have the energy for this?” 

“For what?” 

“That was the craziest thing I’ve ever experienced in my life—I’m not sure I’m even in my body right now. You just ran a MASH unit on your day off on what I’m presuming was not enough sleep, and you’re concerned about getting me dinner.” The words come out a bit too rushed, a bit too rude. “Why?” Now it’s too desperate. Too earnest. “Why do you care?”

He could be hers. If she let him, he could be hers. 

“Can’t help it, I guess. People like me and you have to care. It’s in our bones.” Jack shakes his head, hands steady on the steering wheel. Green light flickers across his face. “Told Robby earlier that we’re the bees that protect the hive. Not my best work, but it’s true.” His jaw flexes at the staccato of his turn signal. “I think it’s true.” 

Samira presumes he would have said anything to get Robby off the roof. Not that she is supposed to know that Robby was on the wrong side of the railing to begin with. Not that she’s never been there herself, fingers trailing on the cool metal behind her, eyes trained on the horizon. The fleeting thought of what if. Loneliness crushed by duty.

Samira suspects, dreads, maybe hopes that the three of them are made of the same stuff. The same crazed, frenetic carbon let loose during the big bang and scattered throughout the universe has somehow been reunited now through them. Robby, who cannot stand her, and Jack, who cares despite it, and Samira, who tries and claws and pushes. They are doctors because they have no choice but to be doctors. They must work in emergency medicine, or die. That is the hand they’ve been dealt. It isn’t fair; it’s just true.

“You were incredible today,” Jack says. “The crash is brutal, but don’t let it take that away from you. You rocked it tonight. You lit up.”

“I don’t think I’m going to sleep tonight.” She’s never been more exhausted and never felt more wired. 

“You probably won’t.” His eyes meet hers, a red glow radiating from the streetlights. “You probably won’t for a while. The first time you see something like that—.” Jack’s foot eases off the brake as the light turns green. “It sticks with you.” 

The rest of the drive is silent. Not uncomfortably, but not purposefully either. Samira has been wrung dry, her body and her spirit clenched between angry fingers. Jack Abbot’s car smells like cinnamon gum and blood. 

At the last intersection before reaching her apartment, Samira thinks briefly about running her hand through his hair. Letting her fingers tangle in the mess of curls at the top of his head, just like she had the night he kissed her in that on-call room up against the locked door. Gently at first. Then desperately. Then disbelievingly. Like she was something he had been waiting for. Something he couldn’t believe he was able to get his hands on. 

Everyone loves a taboo. 

But there’s nothing particularly taboo about this. About the quiet companionship of a ride home. He walks her to her apartment, keys in hand. He waits in the hall when she opens the door and makes no attempt to peer inside or invite himself in. A gentleman. If she had the energy to be endeared, she would be. 

They are made of the same stuff. The same patience and the same restlessness. Jack Abbot looks at her and her only, not the dishes piling in her sink or her bare walls. He cares about her. He said it himself by the bus stop, and he would say it again if she asked. She knows he would. 

Samira is not a selfish person by nature. Maybe she is. Maybe she is selfish for feeling the most alive she’s ever felt while injured victims rolled through the doors. Maybe she is selfish for feeling pride for the first time in months when Robby relied on her in the red. Maybe she is selfish, and maybe that is why she laces her fingers through Jack’s and asks, “Do you want to come in?” 

“Do you want me to?” His voice is soft, low. Samira remembers how the buzz of his words felt against her neck. Reverent and desperate in the tenuous solitude of an on-call room.

Samira nods. On any other night, she would send him away, and she suspects that he knows that. She toes her shoes off in the entryway, and Jack follows suit, making quick work of the laces on his boots. She gets a better look at his leg as he does, black and silver carbon fiber peeking out in the space between his sock and his pant leg. He lets her take his hand again as soon as he is standing upright.

It echoes when the door latches shut, Jack looking for permission before turning the deadbolt. Her apartment is technically furnished. She has a couch, a table by the door that catches her keys, and her banged-up water bottle. There’s a giant, meticulously updated calendar on the wall, but there’s nothing to swallow up sound here. Every noise reverberates, bouncing from the walls and hitting their ears all over again. 

He follows her into her apartment, a grown man tugged along with ease. She only lets go of his hand once they’ve reached the kitchen, which isn’t actually separated from the living room by anything other than an arbitrary change in the flooring, fake hardwood meeting fake tile. She pulls open the cabinet by her sink filled with dishes and finds she has exactly two clean glasses. She only has four. Everything echoes and bounces and gets louder, louder, louder as Samira pulls the glasses from the cabinet, opens her abhorrently, embarrassingly empty fridge, and pours from her half-empty Brita filter. 

She can feel the adrenaline leaking out of her pores. Can feel herself becoming someone who did something frightening, rather than someone who is doing something necessary. Samira’s hand shakes as she places a glass of water into Jack’s grasp. He looks at her. He hasn’t stopped looking at her, actually. She has felt the weight of his gaze on her skin since he strolled in through the ambulance bay doors, and it hasn’t relented since. Still, he looks as she chugs her glass of water, her eyes trained up toward the popcorn ceiling. 

“I won’t ask if you’re okay,” Jack says. “But, is there anything I can do for you?” 

“I’ll be okay.” 

“I know you will.” His voice is so tender, Samira feels something inside her snap. A fracture, a dislocation, something dramatic and real. Samira did something. Samira was incredible. Samira is standing in her kitchen with Jack Abbot.

He could be hers. If Samira lets him, Jack Abbot could be hers. She sets her glass on the countertop with clumsy urgency as she moves forward. It’s one step, then two to close the gap between them. Her hands are in his hair before her lips are even on his mouth. Jack tastes like cinnamon gum and the last breaths of a cigarette. He feels more familiar than he should, like she’s known him for decades, not just a handful of years. He is far more coordinated than Samira as he sets down his water. 

They’re less frenzied now compared to the first time they kissed. They aren’t on the clock, side-eyeing the door. There is no one who could barge in. For the first time in fifteen hours, if someone is coding, it isn’t Samira’s responsibility. If this is a bad idea, which it certainly is, there is no one here to find out and punish them for it. It is just the two of them and the rapid beating of Samira’s heart and the sharp, unmistakable burn of a day that should never have happened. He’s so warm that Samira could melt into him if she wanted. Become nothing more than a puddle of Abbot-warmed endorphins. 

It echoes when her hand slips under his shirt, fingers splayed over taut muscle. His lips are chapped, and they are determined. Jack’s hands skim over her hips, trailing over the waistband of her scrubs. His breath is warm, just like the rest of him. He radiates heat.

Samira laughs against his neck as he mumbles, “Beautiful,” his mouth trailing over her jaw. “Don’t laugh,” Jack says. His hands tighten around her waist before he hoists her up into the air, planting her on the edge of the countertop as if it were nothing at all. “It’s true. You’re gorgeous, Samira.” 

She doesn’t have it in her to bite back and point out that she has been awake for eighteen hours now, and there is dried blood crusted in her sweaty hair. That she is crazed and certainly not worth his time. Instead, she says nothing, allowing Jack, with his lips pressed against her skin, to pull whatever sounds he wants from her. She gasps and sighs against him, leaning against the cabinets as Jack murmurs “beautiful” again and again and again. His hand moves under her scrub top, rough calluses running against her abdomen. Samira hums, hooking her legs around him to pull him closer. 

Jack’s stubble is rough against her face, the burn sparking something in her. A new adrenaline spike, a new drive. She lifts her hips, helping Jack pull her scrub pants along with her underwear down to her ankles. Jack’s fingers dance across her hips, hot breath on her neck. “Please,” Samira rakes her nails through his hair. “Please, I need—” She has no clue what she’s even trying to ask for.

“It’s okay,” he says. “I’ve got you.”

Her entire body lights up when the pad of his thumb rolls over her clit with feather-light pressure. Samira can feel him grin as her grip on his hair tightens. She screws her eyes shut as he continues to rub small, slow, almost lazy circles. “Just relax, Samira. That’s all you have to do.”

His lips dip to her collarbone as her head falls back against the cabinet door. Her heartbeat pounds in her fingertips. “This is really unhygienic,” she says, mostly to herself. 

Jack huffs out a laugh against her sternum. “I always clean up after myself.” His thumb begins to work faster, still light. None of the hard, desperate pressure that she might have imagined to come from an adrenaline crash hookup. This is deliberate and purposeful and soft. Some part of her brain that is not being engaged in this moment suspects that he’s doing this as a favor. Helping her ride through the cocktail of terrified chemicals that flooded her system four hours ago. The rest of her brain is not concerned with any of that. Not as she watches him lower to his knees in front of her, eyes sharp and shaded under his brow, before he presses a kiss against her calf, the crook of her knee, her inner thigh. His thumb still working away at her. 

“Oh, Jesus, fuck—Jack!” Samira barks out as he licks into her. She jolts, out of instinct, thighs moving to close around the man kneeling in front of her. Both of Jack’s hands move to her hips, keeping her in place. He buries his face in her cunt, tongue plunging into her core, nose bumping against her clit. Samira yanks his hair so hard it must hurt, but all Jack does is groan against her, the vibrations running through her bones.

His eyes stay trained on her. Always do. He must get tired of the sight of her burned into his corneas like a broadcast logo on an old TV. Jack’s fingers dig into her hips hard enough to bruise, and part of her hopes he does bruise her. If only for the proof that this is not something she dreamed up in the aftermath. Jack is real, just like this hazy, delicious moment. Pressure builds between her hips. A tension, growing, expanding with every pathetic whine and plea that escapes Samira’s lips. Every swipe of her clit, every moan elicited from Jack by the involuntary bucking of her hips. 

“Taste so good, Samira.” It’s a murmur aimed at the crease of her thigh. Samira worked for 15 hours straight today. He certainly isn’t telling the truth, but she can’t bring herself to care as the muscles in her legs tense. Her entire abdomen tightens in the solitary want for more. For release. “I’ve got you,” he mumbles before plunging his tongue deep enough that she feels him in her bloodstream, infiltrating her. 

It’s a sweet orgasm that spreads through her, blooming from the very center of her being and radiating out to her extremities. A gentle sort of release that doesn’t shake away the terror of the night so much as shake it loose. Samira reaches down, grabbing Jack by the collar of his scrub top and hoisting him back up to her level. His face is slick, her own wetness trapped in his stubble. “You’re going to hurt your knees, Abbot.” 

“Oh, I’ll live.” Jack’s lips are salty against hers as he kisses her, hands sliding over her thighs, along her hips, and up her ribs. “I’ll stay on my knees all night.”

“My bedroom is down the hall,” she offers, nose a centimeter away from his. “If you care about your joints.”

He’s all muscle. She already knows this. Knew it before she went into that on-call room to check in on him post-panic attack, only to leave with beard burn on the inside of her thighs. But there’s something about feeling all of that muscle move around her that makes her feel just the tiniest bit lightheaded. Jack scoops her into a bridal hold, laughing at her own surprised laughter as he makes the short walk to her bedroom. She watches bare white walls pass over his shoulder.

He sets her down gently, arms not letting go until her entire body is settled into the soft hug of her mattress. “We can be done,” he offers. It’s considerate and entirely unnecessary. 

Samira’s hand moves under his shirt, fingers grabbing the chain around his neck and pulling him towards her. “You’re wearing far too much clothing.”

Jack leaves just after 4:00 AM, pressing a kiss against her bare shoulder before he sneaks out the door.

He’s already there when Samira gets to the hospital. Knee-deep in the remnants of the night before, Jack nods at her as she enters. “Dr. Mohan,” he says, eyes flitting over her just for a moment, both familiar and professional at once. “Hope you slept well.”

The haze wears off in the week after Pittfest. 

The sticky pink film of blood clouding her retinas disperses. She rubs it from the corners of her eyes. Blinks hard in the new light of reality. Samira knew, even as patients were rolling in, even as the high of saving lives continued to climb, that her life would be cleanly divided into the days that occurred before the PittFest shooting and the days that occurred after the PittFest shooting. 

The same thing happened when her father died. There was a world that existed before her father died and a world that existed after. There was a world that existed before her mother died and a world that existed after. 

There was a world that existed before PittFest, and there is a world after. 

Samira feels the heavy tug of the after. Of a world that exists only because a previous reality was lost, ground to dust beneath the rolling wheels of gurneys and the weight of restless, sprinting feet. She thought, briefly, probably stupidly, that she might escape without her life being divided up again. Thought that maybe she was far enough removed from the carnage that it would spare her. Samira Mohan was only securing airways and plugging bullet holes; she was not a patient. She was not one of the countless family members crowded in the makeshift waiting room. She walked away with all her extremities intact. 

Robby’s absence cements that things are different. He’ll be gone for a month. Dana will be gone for however long Dana will be gone for. Samira overhears Princess say that a fifth of the nursing staff are taking PTO, which seems like an overstatement until she’s confronted with just how many travel nurses are milling through the department. She’s never seen so many high ponytails before.

Welcome, Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, to the after. 

She breathes in the heavy fog of the after and feels it catch in her lungs. In the after, Jack Abbot is not hers. He’s not anyone else’s either. He is Samira’s, but on a per diem basis. He is PTMC’s on a salaried, overtime schedule. He is Interim Chief of Emergency Medicine, Interim Residency Director, and occasionally, the man who rubs soothing circles between her shoulder blades when the bite of after makes her so nauseous she can’t function. 

It’s not as if Samira has a significant amount of free time. With Langdon gone, she’s the second most senior resident on most shifts. It’s not as if Samira necessarily wants Jack to belong to her. Something about it feels too tidy, too clean in the aftermath. Overworked, orphaned resident meets overworked, widowed attending. It’s a neat bow she doesn’t want to tie. A made-for-TV Lifetime movie that she would scoff at.

Exhaustion lives within her. The sting is constant and satisfying, like lactic acid building up in effort-sore muscles. It’s a pain she has earned. One she could brag about, if she really wanted to. She imagines that if her parents were alive, they would be concerned. They would tuck her hair behind her ear and tell her she is working too hard. Giving too much to a place that doesn’t really like her that much. 

Really, she has no way to know what her parents would think. Her dad didn’t get to see her start high school. Her mom missed match day by two weeks. 

She likes to think they would be proud. Allows the fading memory of their voices, the blurry wedding portrait, the handwriting tattooed along the back of her shoulder to chase her through residency. Encouragement she probably has not earned that accompanies the critique she cannot escape.

Three weeks and two days post PittFest, Samira is just starting to adjust to the sight of Jack in the daylight. The presence of him here, bright and early on a Monday, is alien. She slept in his bed last night. Well, first, she fell asleep in his massive bathtub and woke in tepid water with Jack’s hand carefully cradling her head. Then, she woke a second time in his bed, so she presumes she must have slept there. He’s so considerate it makes her teeth ache. It stirs up a massive whirlpool of doubt and denial within her that is so cliché and dramatic, she wants to roll her eyes. 

Samira finds herself at the Hub with Cassie, both of them staring up at the board, a suspicious amount of white space hanging over their heads. It should not be so calm just after 10:00 AM. Things should be ramping up; the volume in the room dialed to the max. Instead, there is an uneasy murmuring, a trickle of patients, and the quiet tap of Cassie’s toe against the linoleum.

“I’m waiting on labs,” Samira hears herself say. Cassie nods. Her silence isn’t pointed, and it certainly isn’t antagonistic, but it is there, needling into Samira’s exterior. Silence in the emergency room feels wrong. Eerie, almost. This used to be a hospital, and now it’s a haunted house. Halloween is right around the corner. If she believed in ghosts, in the thinning of the veil between here and there, the living and the dead, Samira might attribute all of this unease to just that. Ghosts, spirits, something that cannot be explained away by mere science. But Samira does not believe in ghosts. Not even the custodian who supposedly haunts the eighth floor. 

It would all be a lot easier if she did. 

It’s still quiet. You aren’t supposed to say the word quiet in the ER, so she doesn’t, though she would welcome the chaos of a massive interstate pile-up right now. Samira rises on her toes before settling back down into the heels of her sneakers. “I’ve been thinking about getting a cat.” 

Cassie exhales a laugh at that, finally looking over to meet Samira’s eyes. “Yeah?” 

“I used to have a cat. I found him by the dumpsters outside my apartment when I was in med school.” 

“You know, you’d have to leave work reliably enough to feed it, right?” 

Samira blinks. “Of course, I know that.” The words come out rushed and bright, dripping with sloppily applied positivity. “Despite what everyone thinks, I do have a life outside of the hospital.” 

Cassie’s stare goes on for one second, then two, then three before she raises her brows in either acknowledgement or surrender. “Good. You can’t be a doctor every second of the day.” She says. “You have to be a person every now and then.” 

“And doctors aren’t people?” 

Her eyes linger on Samira for just a beat too long to be comfortable. “Not always.” She shifts her attention back to the board overhead. “I’ll take abdominal rash in North 2.” 

Samira exhales, long and slow, tongue pressed flat and heavy against the bottom of her mouth. The sting of a conversation survived crawls up her skin. She’s home often enough to feed a theoretical cat; she had no problem with it before. Though she had roommates back then that Lil’ Wayne would scream at until they filled his food bowl if Samira was running behind. Or picking up an unexpected double. Or staying late to look over her research.

She could buy one of those automatic feeders, just in case. 

Her eyes survey the board once again. Hoping, against her better judgment, to find something grizzly. She resigns herself to a dislocated shoulder in North 4. 

“Dr. Mohan,” he still won’t call her Samira on the clock. Everyone calls her Samira, except Jack. He always seems confused when she points out that he is the sole holdout. He stands just to her right, tablet in hand and reading glasses on the end of his nose. “Do you have a minute?” 

“Of course,” she says.

“PTMC has been,” Jack glances down to read directly from his tablet, “invited to speak about our harrowing and impressive handling of the PittFest mass shooting at the New Orleans Topics in Emergency Management conference in January.”

“We aren’t even a month out, and they’re already asking you to present?” 

“They’ve been emailing Robby daily for the past two weeks. Finally got fed up with that and found Gloria’s email. She graciously accepted on behalf of the department.” Jack gives a faux smile. “Admin thinks it would look good to have a resident co-presenter. You were our senior-most resident. You were in the red the entire night. Pigtail catheter, IO borehole, I mean you—" he stops himself. “You can say no; I wouldn’t blame you, but if you’re interested, the spot’s yours.” 

Samira clasps one of her hands in the other, thumb running over her knuckles. She pretends to consider the offer, as if there is a single thing that would prevent her from going. If she had a cat, she would need someone to cat-sit for her. Samira does not have a cat anymore.

Samira has been reading a lot about shock. About what you are supposed to do in the aftermath of a mass tragedy. There is a tab open in her browser titled ‘Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Emergency Medicine Residents.’ She has read it twice. Samira is almost certain that she does not have PTSD. She’s shaken to her core. Something inside her has been knocked loose. But she simply does not meet the diagnostic criteria. There is no condition to explain away witnessing something horrible and promptly feeling miserable afterwards. Maybe it’s just the human condition. Maybe merely witnessing a mass casualty event is enough to make you sick for weeks afterwards. Maybe sitting alone in an apartment that is so silent you can feel the pressure of absence squeezing tight around your ribs as you stare at the ceiling only makes things worse. 

Jack calls one night, and she does not answer. He could be hers. 

She doesn’t remember falling asleep, but she wakes with a start. She vomits in her too-small bathroom. The sound echoes. Samira rereads Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Emergency Medicine Residents. This is her routine in the after. 

It’s Friday, or maybe it’s Thursday? The weekday is unclear, but Jack knows for certain it’s September 27th. Knows it like he knows the lines of his own palms, the weight of his own tongue. It’s something entirely native to him. Cell-deep memorization. It is probably Friday, and they’ve been slammed since the moment Jack walked through the door.

The last gasps of summer injuries have flooded the waiting room alongside all the new back-to-school infections. Well past noon, and Jack hasn’t had the chance for a smoke break, hasn’t had time to piss, and his phone will not stop ringing. His sisters, his mother-in-law, Lizzie’s oncologist. He’s grateful for the grind, in all honesty. For the excuse to ignore the calls for just a few more hours. 

The buzzing has not relented in the past two minutes, sending vibrations down through his prosthesis and back up into his residual limb. Jack fishes his phone out of his pocket as Perlah places a folder full of bullshit paperwork he’ll have to open and read and make sense of eventually in front of him. “You’re popular this morning,” she says over his shoulder. 

All Jack can do is grumble in response, not bothering to actually find words. She’s gone before the sound even leaves his mouth. No one is standing in one place for longer than a second today. The words Michael Robinavitch stare up at him from his screen. “How ya holding up, brother?” Jack holds his phone between his ear and his shoulder, his hands attempting to coax Epic into actually loading on the desktop in front of him. 

“Oh, you know me. New reason to smile every day.” Robby’s voice is thin on the other side of the line. The quiet static of an empty room manages to make its way into the phone. “How are you?” 

“Awake.” Jack’s entire screen goes dark before rebooting. Epic cackles at him. Taunts him. He has never wanted a cigarette more. “Is this a wellness check, or do you need something?” 

“Tough shift?” 

Jack runs a hand across his face. “You know how I feel about sunlight.” 

“Look, I know it’s a big day.” Jack does not laugh. He’s almost proud of himself for not laughing. Big day. Like there’s a party, something big and exciting, instead of a cool, seeping cruelty. “I just—I wanted to check in, I guess. 

“Robby,” 

“That therapist of yours said I should work on communicating my concern,” Robby says. “It’s Lizzie’s birthday. I’m concerned.”

Instead of responding, Jack watches the choreographed chaos of the Pitt from his chair. Before it all fell apart—before Jack fell apart—he wanted to be department chief. He’d put up a good fight. He came prepared to all the interviews with proposals and statistics. Sharp answers loaded regarding his “unconventional background” and his approach to teaching. He’d wanted this once.

His eyes track the new intern, Santos, as she ducks into Central 10. Collins strides across the bullpen towards BH2, walking just a half-step behind Donnie. McKay ushers someone from Chairs inside. Samira sprints past towards the bathroom, the back of her hand pressed to her mouth with an urgency she typically reserves for a rapid response. He watches as she grabs a recycling bin from underneath the hub and doubles over, retching. A medical assistant takes a wide berth around her. 

Jack sits up straight in his seat, wheels rolling underneath him. “I have to go.” 

“Take care of yourself.”

“You first.” Jack doesn’t actually hang up; he just drops his phone by his desktop as he jumps to his feet. “Dr. Mohan,” the front tendrils of her hair dangle in front of her. Jack runs his hand over the crown of her head, gathering her curls away from her face. 

Gasping, Samira shakes her head. “I’m so sorry.” 

“Don’t apologize.” Jack guides her to one of the abandoned rolling chairs, motioning for her to sit. “Nothing to be sorry for.” He presses his hand flat against her forehead. “No fever, at least. You can have the next bed that opens up.”

“Absolutely not.” Samira takes a tissue from his outstretched hand, wiping at her mouth. “I don’t need a bed. I need a water and ten minutes.”

“You’re sick.”

“Everyone is sick. I’ll wear a mask.” 

“I’m not letting you see patients without a work-up.” Samira scoffs in protest. He can see her eyeing the board. Not all doctors are terrible patients, but all of the best ones are. Samira is an excellent doctor. “Five minutes. You can have Collins, McKay, whoever you want, but I want to make sure you haven’t ruptured your appendix.” Or developed a hernia or gallbladder disease or a sudden infection. 

Samira is silent, eyes bloodshot. Her hands still clutch the small trash can. Her eyes are so wide that sometimes he feels overwhelmed by them. Like he’s drowning in the rich pools of her irises. It’s impossible to look away. Not that he’d ever want to. Only a stupid man would want to look away. “Can you do it?” She asks. 

“Of course I can.” 

Jack knows before she does. 

Honestly, that is the worst part. Samira never envisioned herself as the type of resident who sleeps with an attending. That isn’t something you do as a serious physician. That is something the Lifetime Original version of Samira would do. But this is real life. In real life, Jack Abbot’s face is trained into a look reserved for patients. His voice is just a half-step higher than it usually is. He hands Samira his tablet so she can look at her own chart. “Do you know that you’re pregnant?”

Samira immediately shoves the tablet back into his hands, her legs swinging off the side of the bed. “I have to—” She stands on unsteady feet. “Dr. Abbot, I have to go. I have patients.” 

Chapter Text

“Samira,” Jack steps halfway in front of her, stopping Samira in her tracks.

Her hands grip either side of her stethoscope, pulling the tubing snug against the back of her neck. Another rush of nausea surges through her. She doubts it has anything to do with her hCG levels. She is going to throw up all over Jack Abbot’s shoes if he doesn’t fucking move. 

She’d like to say that none of this makes any sense. That the unnecessary bloodwork Jack ordered is lying. Or, that the 32,100 mIU/mL of human chorionic gonadotropin that’s cycling through her veins, and stated plainly on her medical records, is actually the result of a previously undiscovered cancerous growth. Samira would like to think that she’s stuck in some trauma-induced stress dream. That all of this is a misunderstanding fueled by the prodrome of a migraine she can feel creeping up her spine, latching onto her brain stem. 

Samira would like to say any one of these things is true, but unfortunately, she is smart enough to recognize just how stupid she has been. Unfortunately, her extensive medical training included a month-long OB/GYN rotation, meaning she knows an hCG level of 32,100 is not merely indicative of pregnancy, but likely a pregnancy somewhere around its sixth or seventh week. Unfortunately, she is staring down a man who knows all of this information as well. A man who is undoubtedly running over the timeline in his own head. 

Samira presses her hand flat against her sternum and swallows down the bile rising in her throat. “Someone else could use this room. I think we’re done. I think— we have patients.” 

“Hey, take a second.” Jack moves to touch her shoulder. 

“I can’t talk about this right now.” Something flits across his eyes as she moves away from him. Neither of them has time for this right now, and even if they did, Samira cannot entertain whatever soft-spoken conversation he wants to initiate. She shakes her head, blinking hard. Panic and guilt flood her nervous system. A jittery, fanged sort of guilt that is entirely illogical but sharp and real nonetheless. “After shift, please. We can talk, I promise, but I need to get back to work.” Her voice wavers. “I need to work.” 

“Okay,” Jack steps to the side, gives her room like she is some sort of frightened animal. Maybe she is. “Okay, just do me a favor and catch your breath before you go.” Jack makes a point to model himself taking deep breaths. Samira feels both insulted and comforted by it. She watches Jack’s chest rise and fall beneath his scrubs as her heels dig into her sneakers. Every instinct in her body tells her to bolt. 

She takes five big, uneven breaths before giving in to that instinct, brushing past Jack through the door. The overstimulating buzz of the Pitt seeps into her cells. Cassie gives her a concerned, quizzical look from the other side of the room. Samira shakes the past fifteen minutes from her memory. She is an emergency medicine physician. She is excellent at compartmentalization. When someone asks if she’s okay, Samira tells them the truth: she has a migraine. She isn’t contagious. She’s fine to work. All of these things are true. 

And Samira is fine to work. She’s the most focused she has been since PittFest. Her mind is sharp. It has no room for anything other than medicine. “Excellent catch, Samira,” Heather says at one point, a hand placed on Samira’s shoulder. All she can do is nod, her breathing too labored, her eyes surely too dark based on the way Heather cocks her head to the side just slightly. “Are you feeling alright?” 

Samira nods, her lips pressed into a smile. “I’m fine.” This is an emergency room. Samira resuscitated someone’s grandfather forty-five minutes ago. Pregnancy, in and of itself, is not an emergency, and she is not going to delude herself into thinking that it is. There are many, many problems to solve in this overrun department. Lives to save, and all that. Samira is fine.

“It’s okay to sit down for a minute if you need to,” she offers. “We have things under control.” 

“I don’t need to.” 

Jack might be haunting her. It feels like he is haunting her, at the very least. He’s everywhere. Of course, he’s everywhere; he’s the attending on shift. It’s his job to observe her, but Samira has never been more aware of the sheer heft of his attention. He looks, he haunts, but he doesn’t press. Doesn’t approach. 

The stream of patients is relentless, even as the day stretches into the afternoon. One trauma is immediately replaced by another. One open seat in Chairs is filled by three new occupants. It is a marathon, not a sprint, but Samira’s heart rate doesn’t  ever even out. She is perpetually tachycardic. A new ambulance, a new trauma. Intubation, escharotomy, fasciotomy. Their patient is halfway to the elevator, and the lingering stench of full-thickness burns clings to the stale air. 

Samira catches Jack looking at her out of the corner of his eye again. She can feel him breathing from the other side of Trauma 2. Can feel the snap of nitrile as he peels off his gloves, even as hers remain plastered to her hands. He doesn’t look guilty or scared; he looks concerned for her, which is infuriating for some reason. He slips away. Doesn’t press, but he looks, stares enough that Jesse follows his line of sight and finds Samira at the end of it. 

Another patient from Chairs, a little boy who fractured his rib on the playground. Samira prescribes rest, ice, and a visit with his pediatrician. She nods, smiles, and listens as his father recounts the story. He’s so visibly shaken by the ordeal that Samira can’t help but be endeared by it. By how much this man loves his child. They’re discharged. The room is turned over and filled by someone else as Samira orders imaging for a woman with a concussion on the other side of the department. 

Another trauma, another patient, an ambulance whoops in announcement of its arrival. It’s a near save. An almost save. If the car had been any slower, the cyclist brought in two minutes earlier, if the strap of her helmet had snapped a second later, everything would be much different. But it’s not different, and none of them cry. They wouldn’t have the time to cry anyway. 

Again and again. Trauma, Chairs, charting, a ragged breath that knocks around in her bronchi, snags a tear in her pleural tissue, a half-sip of water from a bottle is probably hers, a glance from Jack. Trinity Santos has her head in her hands at her desktop, heels of her palms digging into the soft divots of her eyes. Another trauma. A save this time. Back to admits from Chairs. 

Around 5:00, there’s a reprieve for four, maybe five minutes. For the first time in hours, her body exits fight or flight mode only to immediately re-enter it. For the first time in hours, Samira does not attempt to duck away from Jack Abbot’s gaze—she walks towards it. Towards him. 

The conversation is brief. It has to be brief, or Samira suspects the ground would swallow her up. “That sandwich place you and Parker always try to get me to go to.” She tries to phrase it as a question, but it comes out as a statement instead. 

“Carson’s?” Jack asks. His arms are crossed over his chest, arms tensing and relaxing again and again. 

Samira nods. It’s neutral ground. Not the hospital where their coworkers linger. It’s not Samira’s apartment or Jack’s house. “We can meet there, if you want.” Again, not the question that she wants it to be. “7:30?” 

Jack clears his throat. “7:30,” he echoes. “If you need to head out early, we can manage.” 

“I don’t.” Pregnancy is not an emergency. 

A case from Chairs, then another. Patient notes, discharge paperwork, a trauma, a joint reduction, a laugh forced out of her when a med student manages to knock an IV pole onto an instrument tray, puncturing it with a scalpel and sending saline everywhere. A handful of trail mix from a styrofoam bowl. A discharge, a patient, a trauma, a pair of gloves just a size too small. A tap on the shoulder from Parker at 7:05. 

Samira is, first and foremost, data-driven. 

So, without doing any cursory research, she knows that a twenty-year-old woman having unprotected sex has a 30% chance of getting pregnant in a given month. A thirty-year-old woman having unprotected sex has a 20% chance of getting pregnant in a given month. By forty, that number is somewhere between 5% and 10%. 

Regardless of specialty, female physicians have children later on average than their peers.

1 in 4 women is expected to have an abortion by age 45. 56% of all abortions performed in the United States are performed on people between 20 and 29 years old. 

Over 80% of pregnancy-related deaths are preventable. The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate of all developed nations. 

8% of pregnancies experience complications that, if left untreated, could result in death. 

1 in 6 people struggle with infertility. 

4 out of 10 pregnancies are unintended. 

Samira runs over the stats, but she knows most of the statistics involving fertility and reproductive health are unreliable, unclear, or just false. 

Statistics are merely statistics. An attempt to quantify billions of experiences. They cannot ever represent one person. They cannot represent the entire truth. Truth is difficult to grasp and harder to distill. Scientists dedicate their lives to the pursuit of a truth that they know, deep down, they will never be able to fully synthesize. Truth is messy and it is sharp and it is loathsome and it is punchy and it is hidden away. Truth is what Samira is constantly, constantly striving for. 

The truth is, Samira is lonely. Disastrously lonely.

Her father died when she was 13. She was so young that she didn’t have to face any complicated feelings. She has mourned a perfect man for 16 years. A man with graying hair,  endless patience, and a booming laugh.  He died quickly. Cruelly. He was stolen away in the blink of an eye by a heart attack and by a lack of care. 

In Samira’s mind, he remains an endlessly supportive cheerleader. He remains a man with no qualms. A ghost she chases with her arms outstretched with a childish desperation. 

The ghost of her mother lurks around every corner. 

Cancer is not quick, but it is cruel as well. It takes in all the ways a heart attack takes, but unlike a heart attack, it is not something Samira can spot from the other side of the department and treat. Her mother's memory is more complicated. It is built upon conflict and care and misunderstanding and grief.

Her memory is fresher and fuller. In so many ways, it’s worse because Samira does not chase after the specter of her mother. She remains haunted anyway. Mourns a memory that is complicated and crooked and treasured all at once. A woman who would have sighed upon hearing that Samira matched into Emergency Med, but would have hugged her tightly nonetheless. 

15% of all deaths are a result of cancer. 1 in 3 women will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetimes. 

In the United States, someone has a heart attack every 40 seconds. 7.1 million people die from heart attacks each year. 

These are just statistics. They don’t represent the wholeness of a person or their experience, but they are integral to the scaffolding propping up Samira Mohan. 

The data tells her that having a child is simply not a good idea. Women with children make less money than their peers. That is a fact she read in a Pew research article, as she sat buckled in the front seat of her car. The data tells her that the average mother of a child under 6 spends nearly 8 hours caretaking every day. That is time Samira simply does not have. The data says 88% of mothers view parenting as the most important aspect of who they are. The slippery, difficult to pin down truth tells her that she is an island, isolated and uninhabited. That she lives in an apartment so sparsely decorated that it echoes when she sets her keys down after each shift, and that no matter what setting her white noise machine is set to, no matter how loudly she plays reality competition garbage on the television she got for free off Facebook Marketplace, there is a loneliness that overpowers it. 

Her fingers are tapping against the redtop diner table when Jack finally makes it inside, bell jingling above his head. 7:32 PM, two minutes late. It might be the latest he’s ever been. He spots her immediately, eyes finding hers the moment the door closes behind him. Jack smiles as he gets closer, his keys grasped securely in his palm. “Sorry to keep you waiting. I should have texted,” he says, sliding into the seat across from her in the booth. “Robby,” he offers as a justification in full. 

“The server hasn’t even come by yet.” 

Jack nods one of his big, full-body nods, shifting in his seat as he shoves his keys in his pocket. His hands move to the sun-faded, laminated menu in front of him, plastic peeling in the corners. He looks at Samira, the menu, then back to Samira. “Look, I don’t—” he begins quickly before literally snapping his mouth shut. He takes a breath and tries again. “I am more than willing to write a script for Mifepristone right now. Or, to help you find another provider who will. You don’t have to explain anything. You don’t owe me anything. I don’t want you to think that you do.” 

Samira digs her thumb into her palm. “So you want me to terminate the pregnancy?” 

“I want whatever you want,” he says simply. “You’re young. You have an incredible career ahead of you.” 

He seems taken aback as she laughs down towards the red tabletop. “Well, that’s not very helpful.” 

Silence stretches between them. Condensation collects in a ring beneath her ice water. The plastic straw she did not ask for has a puncture mark from her canines. The average American has their first child when they are 29 years old. Samira is 29.

Samira orders a sandwich she knows she won’t be able to stomach when their server finally comes to take their order. Jack orders the same thing. Their feet touch accidentally beneath the table. She decides silence will not solve anything. She has enough silence already. Enough silence for a lifetime. She bites first. “Do you… I don’t know, do you want kids?” Does he like them? Does it even matter?

“This isn’t about me.” 

She has to wonder if his selflessness is trained into him or if it’s genetic. “How am I supposed to make an informed decision if I don’t have all the relevant information?” Samira counters. 

The corners of his eyes soften, just a bit. He twists his wedding band between his thumb and his index finger. Samira forgets it’s there most days. Her eyes never catch on it, her mind doesn’t snag on it. He has worn it for as long as she’s known him. “We tried for a few years—me and Lizzie—but we didn’t have any luck.

“So you do?” 

“I want whatever you want, Samira.” 

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the truth.” Jack’s hand knocks against the table as he gestures. “I shouldn’t have put you in this position to begin with.” 

Samira kissed him first. Samira pulled her own scrubtop off over her head in a desperate frenzy. “I’d say the blame is pretty equal.” 

“I don’t think Human Resources would agree,” Jack says. There has to be at least one policy in the handbook that forbids an attending from having unprotected sex with a resident on hospital property. Well, the unprotected aspect probably isn’t written down anywhere. Doctors should be smart enough to discuss birth control before their illicit on-the-clock hookups. “I want what you want. Whatever it is, I’m in.” 

And, what does she want? What should she want? Samira has thought about having children, has slotted them into her exhaustively detailed plan. Children, the very concept of children, is at least four years down the line. She needs to complete her residency, her fellowship, and get settled in her position as an attending at a high-volume trauma center before she starts having kids. Two kids, preferably two to three years apart, with a partner she has thoroughly vetted. 

“Whatever I want?” There’s an incredibly serious, furrowed look on his face like she might ask for something he hasn’t considered. Marriage, cohabitation, a declaration of love. He’d probably offer all of them to her out of some hardwired chivalrous instinct.

Jack’s phone rings. He barely looks at the screen before silencing it and turning it face down on the table. They’ve reached some sort of stalemate. There’s an awkward distance between them, an arm's length of separation that has never existed between them, even before they started sleeping together. Things have always been easy with Jack, even when they’re stilted with everyone else. His phone rings again. 

“Do you need to take that?” Samira asks. 

“Sorry, it’s Amber. I’ll call her back later.”  She’s seen Amber’s picture on Jack’s mantle, her curls in a heap on the top of her head, her arms wrapped around two little girls in matching blue dance costumes with her husband, Ethan, and Jack standing proudly on either side, bouquets in hand. There’s another photo of Amber in his entryway, a baby-faced Jack in military fatigues surrounded by his sisters, Amber, Kelly, and Nicole. Jack’s house is full of photos. His sisters, his nieces and nephews, his wife and her family, pictures of old Army buddies and med school friends. It must be overwhelming to be loved by so many people. To have a sister to annoy you with phone calls. He even has photos in his locker. There’s a glossy snapshot of teary-eyed Jack in a Labor and Delivery room with his nephew cradled in his arms. 

Samira has no problem recognizing that she is intelligent. She graduated with a near-perfect GPA. She could have matched into any specialty she wanted–plastics, dermatology, or neurosurgery. Samira is a smart person. Objectively. She does not feel any guilt in acknowledging this fact. She knows that being lonely is not a justification to have a child. She doesn’t need data to know that.

The vision of Jack Abbot holding a baby in his arms shouldn’t tug at her heartstrings the way it does. It shouldn’t make her actually consider having a baby as a 3rd-year resident, especially when he refuses to tell her what he wants. She shouldn’t consider it, even for a minute. 

But she can’t stop thinking about it. Can’t stop thinking about what he would look like holding a bottle. Can’t stop thinking about a child that is half-Samira and half-him. A baby with her hair and his nose. A baby with her eyes and his freckles. A permanent connection between the two of them. A source of noise and warmth.  

Their server, some poor teenager with braces who can clearly sense the tension settled over their table, places two identical paper-lined red plastic baskets in front of them and leaves without saying a word. The two of them talk quietly, passing the heavy responsibility of speaking between them. 

Jack wants whatever Samira wants. But what if what she wants is selfish, inconvenient, and ill-advised? She pokes at her food with a plastic fork and boxes it up uneaten. Jack immediately reaches for the check and won’t listen to her protests. “Let me buy you a sandwich, Samira. Please.”  

Samira almost kisses him in the parking lot for no other reason than to feel the warmth of another person. Unsettled and unresolved, they part ways. Jack doesn’t pull out of the parking lot until he sees that her car starts. Samira tries to push the photo of Jack and his nephew from her head. Tries to stop thinking about a tiny hand wrapped around his index finger. She presses her forehead against the steering wheel and really, really tries to stop. She tries to imagine what her parents might think and finds nothing helpful. Nothing other than the dreadful knowledge that if she ever has children—nine months from now or nine years from now—they won’t ever meet her parents. 

As intelligent as she is, Samira taps through her contacts and finds Jack Abbot (Attending, Nights) while she’s still sitting in the parking lot. 

Jack picks up on the first ring. “Hello?”

Samira exhales, grounds herself from her stationary driver’s seat. “I’m not marrying you. I’m not moving in with you, but I think—but I want to have a baby. With you.” She tacks on the last two words not as an afterthought but as a clarification. She’s going to have a baby. With Jack. 

Jack is quiet on the other side of the phone. “You didn’t want to sleep on it?” She can imagine his face, the furrow of his brow. The way his hazel eyes would search her features for the truth if they were face to face. 

“Are you in or not?” Samira picks at her cuticles. Her nails aren’t long enough to bite. 

It’s safer to have this conversation over the phone, but part of her wants to see his face. To see the way he smiles as he says, “If you’re in, I’m in.” The uncertainty that was grasping at her insides loosens. Unfurls in a way that frightens her even more. “Let’s have a baby.”

There’s a spare room in Jack’s house. A long time ago, he and Lizzie thought it might be a nursery. It has a window seat and two built-in bookshelves on either side. It’s empty other than a neatly made queen bed and a singular nightstand. It only exists in case the usual guest room is occupied. The bed frame is the third cheapest option from IKEA. The door stays closed most of the time, but when Jack gets back home, Samira’s voice ringing in his ears, he pushes open the door. He sits in the dusty window seat and calls his sisters, his mother-in-law, all the other well-intentioned people who require proof of life.

His own words echo back towards him, call after call. 

Jack was born in an unincorporated town in a smudge of a county in West Virginia. He grew up surrounded by bright fields of goldenrod growing among thick mats of kudzu. He ate climbing bittersweet berries and honeysuckle flowers and wild goose plums picked straight off the tree. He spent his childhood painting with his sisters. Well, he watched his sisters paint from what they deemed to be a safe distance. He watched Amber and Nicole attempt to capture what it looks like when the Blue Ridge Mountains spring to life, foggy greens and blues too brilliant to be believed. He watched them layer cascades of deep reds and oranges as autumn took hold of the high country. Watercolors overtaking and overwhelming one another, no one shape having a solid beginning or end. No one color exists without all the others. 

His mind is a mess of watercolors. No one thought exists independently. No one feeling isolated and easily understood. Overtaken, overwhelmed, loud, and unceasing, the colors bleed into one another. A brain bleed empties into Jack’s skull. Surely, this is a trick of the light. The last wild moments of a conscious mind overtaken by an uncontrolled bleeder. 

Samira Mohan is pregnant. It’s Lizzie’s birthday today. Two things that should be entirely distinct but have somehow meshed and fused both in his mind and in time. Samira Mohan is having a baby. Lizzie would have been 43 today. Samira Mohan is having a baby with Jack. Lizzie always thought this room would be a nursery. They pictured butter yellow walls, dark wood, and a mural above the crib. Lizzie thought this room would be a nursery, and it finally will be. 

This room will be a nursery. Probably. They have discussed exactly zero details, so maybe Jack is lying, even on his wife's birthday, he’s lying. Or maybe he isn’t, and he is still horrible anyway, because the baby that may or may not sleep in this nursery that Lizzie always envisioned won’t be hers. 

Jack calls Amber. He calls Kelly and Nicole immediately after, so he can’t be accused of picking a favorite sister. He calls Lizzie’s mother, Allison, and Lizzie’s brother, Christopher. He deletes the voicemail from her oncologist without listening. He lets his head slump against the window. The world outside is dark by the time he has answered every call, read every text, and allowed himself to exhale. 

It’s dark. His house is quiet in ways it never used to be. 

Samira expects to feel different. To feel maternal. The greatest observable change in her life is her lowered caffeine intake. There is no overwhelming wash of emotion. No sudden connection to babies that come into the Pitt or mothers in line at the grocery store. 

She’s still herself. Still nauseous. Samira is still Samira, just underlined by a current of anxiety because she is not different when it feels like she should be entirely different. She should glow, right? She should feel a radiant sort of love unlock within herself. Instead, she remains entirely ordinary.

A week after he was supposed to come back, Robby finally returns, and Dana comes with him. They both find her with an emesis bag in the staff lounge and corner her as if she’s a patient with a history of eloping. She has morning sickness down to a science, though Jack does not entirely agree. He’s already tried to diagnose her with hyperemesis gravidarum. She keeps an emesis bag on her, ducks away from whatever patient she’s with when the nausea first hits her, disposes of her biohazardous medical waste in the biohazardous medical waste bin, washes her hands, and goes about her day. 

“I’m fine, really, Robby, I promise.” 

“You don’t seem fine.” 

Dana swats at him. “If you don’t leave her alone.” 

“If you’re infectious, Mohan, it’s irresponsible.”

She should wait. They haven’t told anyone yet, partially because she’s still in the first trimester, partially because Samira and Jack both know the situation will immediately spiral beyond anything either of them can control. They aren’t together. They’re having sex, they’re having a baby, but they aren’t doing most of the other things people probably expect them to. The specifics aren’t really anyone else's business. She should just lie, or she should let Robby send her home and put a dent in her overwhelming sleep debt. She could drive back to Jack’s and curl up against him. She could go back to her own apartment and sprawl out on her cool mattress. She could just get up and walk back into the bullpen. 

Samira can’t entirely admit it, but one small, petty part of her wants to see Robby squirm. Once again, she knows something that he does not. There’s a diagnosis he has missed. Again. 

Samira has been here, and he has not. She has worked through the messy and the terrible aftermath that he could not face, and she did it pregnant. She takes a breath, locking eyes with Dana’s before she says, “Morning sickness isn’t contagious."

Robby stares at her. His attention jumps to her abdomen as if he’d suddenly notice a difference. Like if he rubbed his eyes, a baby bump would materialize. “I see.” Robby’s head bobbles on his neck as he runs his hand over his beard. “I shouldn’t have—I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“No one does.” It’s not entirely truthful. Jack knows. Her OB/GYN knows. Anyone who cares enough to put two and two together probably knows. Robby doesn’t know because Robby hasn’t been here. Robby couldn’t handle the after. “And, I would really like to keep it that way.”

“Of course. Right,” Robby nods. “Congratulations,” he immediately presses his lips into an uneasy, thin line, like he might have said the wrong thing.

She can’t help but feel that they should mean more to each other. Or maybe, they should mean less to each other. They are made of the same stuff, and somehow, that infiltrates every interaction they have. He took a month off, and Samira stayed. She worked her ass off while he haunted a house owned by Jack’s mother-in-law. “Thank you,” Samira says. “I appreciate that.” Robby is also the first person to congratulate her. And she deserves congratulations, doesn't she?

Dana breaks the tenuous silence with a gentle shove against Robby’s shoulder. “Go do your rounds. She’ll be out in five minutes.” She shakes her head. “That man,” she says under her breath. “Morning sickness should clear up in the next few weeks unless you’re unlucky enough to be like me.” 

“Oh, god.” 

Dana grins, both fond and all knowing. She moves to the other side of the lounge, pulling open one of the top cabinets and grabbing a box Samira’s never noticed. “Ginger tea’s supposed to help.” It’s likely a placebo effect, but Samira doesn’t voice that fact. Dana knows that fact just as well as she does. “Excited?” She asks, filling a disposable coffee cup with tap water and placing it in the microwave. 

“Terrified.” Samira screws her eyes shut. That’s not the right answer. It’s not even the most accurate answer. “Sorry, I’m bad at this. I haven’t really talked to anyone about it yet. I am excited, I’m just…” 

“Terrified?” 

“Yes.” 

“Oh, everybody’s terrified, honey.”

Jack Abbot (Attending, Nights)

 [8:08 AM]

Jack Abbot (Attending, Nights): 

Feeling okay? 

[8:08 AM]

Samira: 

oh my god.

Samira: 

just nauseous 

[8:09 AM]

Samira: 

i wonder whose fault that is?

[8:10 AM]

Jack Abbot (Attending, Nights): 

Do you think it’s HG?

[8:10 AM]

Samira: 

i think it’s morning sickness

[8:13 AM]

Jack Abbot (Attending, Nights): 

The-impact-and-management-of-hyperemesis-gravidarum: Current-and-future-perspectives.pdf

[8:15 AM]

Jack Abbot (Attending, Nights): 

Assessment-of-management-approaches-for-hyperemesis-gravidarum-and-nausea-and-vomiting-of-pregnancy-a-retrospective-questionnaire-analysis.pdf 

[8:16 AM]

Samira: 

abbot.

[8:17 AM]

Jack Abbot (Attending, Nights): 

I don’t want you to pass out.

[8:18 AM]

Samira: 

if i let dana administer fluids will you stop?

[8:18 AM]

Jack Abbot (Attending, Nights): 

Yes ma’am.

[8:22 AM]

Jack Abbot (Attending, Nights): 

I could put in an order for prochlorperazine.

Jack Abbot (Attending, Nights): 

25mg twice a day.

[8:23 AM]

Samira: 

i’m turning my phone off

[8:25 AM]

Samira: 

wait who told you i was sick? 

[8:25 AM]

Jack Abbot (Attending, Nights): 

I just heard you might need a ride home.

[8:26 AM]

Samira:

oh my god.

Samira: 

i’m getting fluids

[8:26 AM]

Jack Abbot (Attending, Nights): 

Have a good shift. 

[8:26 AM]

Samira: 

always do 

[8:27 AM]

Jack Abbot (Attending, Nights): 

Attagirl 

[10:17 AM]

Samira: 

robby & dana know. i didn’t tell them about you

[5:27 AM]

Jack Abbot (Attending, Nights): 

Don’t worry about me. 

“Abbot.” Robby’s face is pulled into a clinically neutral mask. “You got a minute.” He doesn’t bother pretending it’s a question. 

Jack has barely crossed the threshold when Robby calls out to him from the other side of the room. Beers of the ‘Burgh hoodie back after a month and some change of absence. “Yeah, brother, what’s up?” 

Robby doesn't answer, just motions out the door with his head towards the ambulance bay. He sets the tablet down on the Hub, letting it clatter against the blue counter. He turns on his heels. Jack follows, bag still slung over his shoulder. “Could use a cigarette,” he finally supplies. He looks expectantly at Jack through his reading glasses pulled to the bottom of his nose. 

“Oh, I’m quitting,” Jack says. “I meant to tell you.” It’s a terrible habit as is, worse for a newborn. A physician who exposes their own child to secondhand smoke probably deserves to have their license revoked. If he’s going to have a baby, he needs to stop smoking. And he is having a baby, so he does need to stop smoking. He’s been working through packs of nicotine gum like they’re Tic Tacs. 

Robby slides his glasses off his face, folding them into his pocket. He rubs an exasperated hand against his beard. He’s more manicured now than he usually is. The mandatory rest and relaxation have done him good. The circles under his eyes are gone. He looks rested in a way that Jack hasn’t been in thirty years. Maybe ever. “So, Mohan?” 

“What about Dr. Mohan?” Jack straightens his shoulders, twists his neck reflexively at the sound of Samira’s name. “I heard she wasn’t feeling great. Is everything okay?” 

“Don’t lie.” 

“I don’t.” 

“I’m not blind,” Robby’s voice raises a decibel or two. 

“Just say what you want to say, Robby.” He’s been back for one day. Jack just did him one hell of a favor. The least Robby can do is just tell him what they both know he knows. 

Robby shakes his head, tongue pressing against the inside of his cheek. “Do you know how much paperwork this is going to be for me?” 

Jack’s had a taste of the paperwork now. The incessant meetings and Emails and bullshit that don't amount to anything—have nothing to do with patient care or outcomes. The bureaucracy of this place is layered and never-ending, and yet Jack does not particularly care about that right now. “That’s what you’re concerned about?” 

“Of course not.” He shrugs, hands deep in his pockets. “But you know things get messy when attendings get involved with residents. Now there’s a kid involved.” 

Jack rocks on his toes, shifting the weight of his stump in his socket. “Do you want me to apologize for the inconvenience?” 

“You know that’s not what I’m saying.” 

“Then what do you want from me, man?” 

“I want you to be careful you’re not getting in over your head just because you’re, I don’t know, lonely.” Jack can feel the abrasive grind of his molars reverberating through the rest of his skull. “Mohan is great, but is she—” 

Jack has made a million mistakes in his life. Has made the wrong decision, even as the correct answer stares him in the face, announces itself with a stark, obvious clarity. Only Samira gets to tell him that their connection is one of those mistakes. Robby, of all people, does not get to insinuate anything of the sort. “I think this conversation is over.” Robby's sigh follows him back into the building. 

He catches sight of Samira, and the tension in his shoulders drops. Jack hopes no one notices.

Samira Mohan

Oct 6, 2025 [1:12 PM]

Samira Mohan: 

FWD: Hi SAMIRA MOHAN, your appointment with Virginia Davis, DO at UPMC OB/GYN Associates of Pittsburgh is booked for OCT 15, 2025 at 10:30 AM. Please reply with C to confirm. Call or text this number to reschedule/cancel. 

Samira Mohan: 

10 week scan next week

[1:14 PM]

Samira Mohan: 

if you want to come

[1:16 PM]

Jack:

Do you want me to come?  

[1:19 PM]

Samira Mohan: 

of course i want you to come

Samira Mohan: 

if you want to

[1:20 PM]

Jack:

Pick you up at 10:00? 

[1:20 PM]

Samira Mohan: 

worried i’m too fragile to drive now?

[1:22 PM]

Jack:

Worried your car won’t start. 

Jack:

I am under no assumption that you’re fragile, Samira

[1:26 PM]

Samira Mohan: 

10 am works for me

The day of Samira’s appointment, he’s in her parking lot at 9:45, car idling in one of the guest spots at the very end of her apartment complex. Early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable. It’s an idea that has been drilled into his head since before the Army cemented it as an inarguable truth. Jack is always early at work. He spends half an hour behind the Hub with Dana, listening with a furrowed brow as Princess updates him on her after-work plans. He’s always the first at the restaurant, first at the bar, the only person in the gym. Dana lectures him about all the unpaid labor he gives the hospital, the hours of his life he is losing. Everyone else thinks he’s crazy. Everyone, but Samira. 

She knocks on his passenger side window at 9:49, bag slung over her shoulder. Her knuckles are quick. Three decisive taps against the glass. Jack reaches across the center console, popping open the door, even though it’s already unlocked. Samira’s hair is down, her curls swept to one shoulder, spilling over her pink sweater. Jack rarely gets to see her wearing anything but scrubs. It feels like an invasion of her privacy whenever he does. Like seeing the inside of her apartment and witnessing what she chooses to surround herself with—what she chooses not to surround herself with, he knows it’s not for his eyes. Anything he witnesses is incidental.

Samira settles into the passenger's seat, slipping her bag by her feet. She clears her throat. “Morning.” 

“Morning,” Jack echoes. Neither of them has spoken to anyone yet this morning. At least, that’s what he assumes. Maybe Samira ran into a neighbor on her way down the stairs and talked to them about their terrible landlord. Maybe she called a friend the moment she woke up. Maybe. 

“This is early for you, isn’t it?” Samira asks as she pulls her seatbelt across her chest. “Or is it late?” 

Jack can’t stop himself from smiling at her question. “Late,” he says. “I think.” 

“Well, thanks for staying up late.” 

“Anytime, Dr. Mohan.” She rolls her eyes at that, smiling just a bit before her eyes trail towards the windshield. Jack allows himself to soak up the way she looks in his passenger seat for several seconds too long before shifting into reverse. 

She went to the first ultrasound alone; she hadn’t even invited Jack. The first ultrasound exists mostly to confirm the results of a blood test. So she had come alone, endured the slightly awkward experience of a transvaginal ultrasound, and nodded along as Dr. Davis told her about prenatal vitamins (which Samira already purchased), unsafe foods (which Samira had already stopped eating), and common questions (which Samira already knew the answers to). She felt like an asshole when they handed her a row of glossy ultrasound pictures and asked if she wanted extra for her partner. Jack had only smiled when she handed him half of the strip. There are 3 pictures of an 8-week 2-day embryo stuck to the front of his fridge with a Smokey the Bear magnet. 

It feels different to have someone tag along with her. Better to have someone tag along with her. A warm body in the chair beside her. 

Samira is not an ultrasound technician or an obstetrician, but Samira knows exactly what she’s looking at on the monitor. Jack does too, probably better than she does. At 10 weeks, a fetus is barely a fetus, just a week past being categorized as an embryo. 3 centimeters long, 4 grams in weight, 10 defined fingers, 10 defined toes, and tiny, rudimentary organs. The singular source of all of her nausea. Not a baby, more so the idea of a baby. The unsteady promise of a baby 30 weeks from now. 

Samira reaches out for Jack’s wrist, a grounding reminder that this moment is real. She can feel his quickened pulse beneath her thumb. This is the unsteady promise of their baby. Their loud, needy, demanding baby. Chubby arms and newborn curls and tiny fingers. Noise and warmth and connection. “That’s our kid,” Samira finds herself saying. It is not their kid yet, but it will be. 

Jack’s fingers run across her forehead, just barely brushing along her hairline. She looks over at him to find that Jack is already looking at her. Of course. He always is. “That’s our kid.” 

Chapter Text

Samira Mohan

Oct. 12, 2025 [10:00 AM]

 Samira Mohan: 

do you want to go look at strollers with me? 

[10:02 AM]

Samira Mohan: 

if you’re free 

[10:05 AM]

Jack: 

Free until 7:00.

Jack: 

Have you left yet? 

[10:06 AM]

Samira Mohan: 

not yet!

[10:07 AM]

Jack: 

I can swing by and pick you up in fifteen minutes, if that works for you?

[10:08 AM]

Samira Mohan: 

sure : )

Samira Mohan: 

do you just like love driving?

[10:09 AM]

Jack: 

I like driving you. 

The Periwinkle Fox is the kind of store Samira has seen plastered all over the mommy blogs she hate reads from the comfort of her couch. Everything is sustainably sourced, made only with natural materials, and offered in a curated array of muted colorways. This is the store you go to if you are enrolling your child in a Montessori school. The kind of store you shop at if your infant has their own Instagram page. Despite that, she and Jack have been perusing the newborn section for nearly an hour, hands running over every onesie and swaddle and set of tiny knit mittens. 

Samira is no stranger to babies. She sees plenty of them at work. She paid her rent in undergrad by nannying. She has helped with dozens of deliveries. If push came to shove, she could probably deliver her own child. She is no stranger to babies. To fresh, brand new, still covered in vernix babies. Still, it’s sort of cruel to show someone a pair of mittens so small and expect them to behave normally. Jack picks up the pair off-white mittens Samira has been returning to again and again. They look even smaller in his hands, another cruelty. “Think we should get these?” He asks. 

“They’re white. It’s not practical in the slightest.” 

“There’s other colors,” Jack says. “Could get the blue.” 

Samira’s due date is mid-March. They won’t even get the opportunity to use them more than once. “We won’t need them.” 

“But you like them,” his brow is raised in a challenge. “Fine. I’ll get them.” 

“Jack,” she isn’t entirely sure why she’s protesting. 

“Don’t worry. I’ll keep them at my house. You won’t even have to look at them.” He tucks them into the bamboo shopping basket they were offered upon entering, laying them on top of the burp cloths and swaddles they already agreed on. They’ll need to buy two of everything. Or, two of most things, at the very least. 

“Those are like thirty dollars and they’ll never get worn.” 

“I’m buying them.” The ghost of a smirk lingers on his face, lips curled upward just slightly. “Isn’t buying impractical stuff half the fun? We’re going to be spending thirty unnecessary dollars on this kid every day for the next twenty years.” 

Samira has to fight her own smile. “Well, if you insist on buying them, get them in brown.” 

“Why not both?” He asks. “Could even get the matching socks.” 

Samira does not even want to think about how much Jack spends when they finally check-out, considering the stroller she picked out is well over $800. She really does try to pay, but Jack has already handed over his debit card before Samira can wrestle her wallet out of her purse. He looks so damn proud of himself after that Samira considers punching him in the bicep as hard as she can manage.  

“You can’t pay for everything,” she says as he’s loading everything into the trunk. “We agreed this is a 50/50 arrangement.” 

“50/50 custody. You make a resident’s salary, Samira, it’s a miracle you can afford to feed yourself.” He pauses, hands on either side of the hatch. “You had lunch today?” 

“You’re actually unbelievable.” 

“I have leftovers.” 

It starts innocently. 

Things with Jack always start innocently. A touch on the shoulder that could easily be platonic. An invitation to read the newest edition of AJEM. Leftovers at his house. It’s innocent enough until she’s panting out her third orgasm, hips at the very edge of Jack’s bed, pillow under her back to avoid any strain on her abdomen. Their clothes are scattered through the room. Her underwear slung across his shoes, for some reason. Samira knows for a fact that Jack has Googled ‘Pregnant Sex Positions’. She can imagine it clear as day, that studious look he gets plastered on across his face, reading glasses halfway down his nose as he scrolls through Google Images. Her fingers twist in his familiar sheets and not for the first time she thinks about inhaling his laundry detergent. 

His wet nose presses against her neck as he mouths his way up her neck. Samira’s entire body is shaking. Not shaking—vibrating. All of her cells were wound taut, a bow string nearly snapping under the pressure before being released. Now they all move at a frequency they didn’t have access to before. God, she feels new. 

Jack’s voice is muffled against her skin. “Got another one in you?” He asks. “Gonna let me put my mouth on you again?” 

Samira shakes her head, raking across his back. “I want you inside me.” She kind of wants to bite him. Wants there to be no room between them at all. “I want to feel you.” 

“Christ, Samira,” he groans.

She hasn’t really had the chance to look him in the eye, not while her own eyes have been squeezed shut. She has no where to look but those eyes as Jack’s arms bracket her head. As he moves in and out of her in long, languid strokes. There should be a burn, a stretch as her body acclimates to Jack’s cock, but Samira’s already taken all four of his fingers. She came desperately grinding on his thigh in the living room and then on his fingers against the bedroom door and then splayed out in bed on his tongue. His entire body is flushed just the faintest shade of pink. His curls are a mess from where she’s pulled at them with frenzied fingers. Jack groans, head dipping down to press a sloppy kiss against her mouth and something tightens in Samira’s chest. Twists. 

They can’t keep doing this. 

Their situation is complicated enough as it is. Attending and resident. Twenty-nine and forty-two. Are they going to have casual, no-strings-attached sex every time she drops the baby off at his house? Are they going to raise this child as co-parents with benefits? Pass down all the baggage of a divorce without ever being married? Samira is pretty sure that Jack is the only person she would ever agree to do this with. He’s the most reliable person she’s ever met in her life. Pragmatic and practical and still empathetic, somehow. He’s good. Good in all the ways that matter and all the ways no one bothers to think about.

He’s going to be a good father. She doesn’t necessarily know why she thinks that. She has no specific justification as to why, just that he will be. Sometimes, when it’s late and she’s having trouble sleeping because her first trimester morning sickness has been replaced with second trimester heartburn, she imagines what life will be like when this baby is born. When she does, she thinks about Jack humming to a swaddled newborn. She thinks about him throwing a giggly toddler up in the air. She thinks about him chasing a pre-schooler through the park, big smiles and a warm laugh. She knows he’ll be good at it. 

He’s literally inside her. Big hands on either side of her head, mouth trailing over her sternum. “I can feel you thinking,” Jack says, his pace slowing. “Let yourself feel good, honey. Let me make you feel good.” 

Samira wraps her legs around his torso, tries to draw him deeper, a hand scratching along the nape of his neck. This is the last time they’ll do this. This is the last time she’ll be able to touch him like this. She’s already so sensitive, her body overworked from pleasure and now anxiety that it doesn’t take Samira long to stumble her way into another orgasm, fingers barely moving over her swollen clit. “Should fucking see yourself Samira. So fucking beautiful when you come. So fuck—God, Samira, can’t believe you let me—” Jack babbles as her cunt spasams around him, a sob traveling through her ribcage and up to her throat. His movements grow more erratic, hips chasing his own long delayed release. He would have been content to get Samira off four times without her ever returning the favor. “—me look at you. Can’t believe you let me touch you.” 

A tear slips out of her eye, rolling down her cheek. She can feel how close he is, can feel the tension building in his body. She can see it in the furrow of his brow. Her hands run over either side of his face. His cheeks are warm and prickly with stubble in her palms. “Want you to come inside me.” Jack makes a noise in the back of his throat, mouth half-open and pupils blown wide. “I wanna feel you.”

Jack takes her words as a command, grunting as his spills inside her. His breathing is heavy and hot against her face. They’re both covered in a sheen of sweat. His lips part so easily for her as Samira kisses him. This is the last time. This has to be the last time. “Stay here,” she’s surprised by how much her own voice wavers. That single tear threatens to become two, three, a constant unending stream. Samira blinks hard, burying the instinct to cry and ducking from the potency of Jack’s stare. “Just stay like this for a second.” 

“Okay,” he pants. If she could, Samira would pull Jack down on top of her. Let the weight of him on her chest calm her. “I’m not going anywhere,” Jack says. Samira hooks her chin over his shoulder, one of her arms wrapped around the back of his neck. A chill settles over her sweaty skin as they both come down from the adrenaline and the euphoria. 

He has so many freckles. Constellations across his back and his shoulders. It really is a shame more people don’t get to see them. How many people see him everyday without knowing there’s a scar that arches from his trapezius all the way down to his L1? Samira runs her finger along that scar. Traces the delicate line of scar tissue with the pad of her index finger. “We can’t do this again.” Her mouth is right beside his ear.

“Hmm?” 

“We can’t keep having sex,”  Samira says. All of his muscles tense under her touch, his uneven breathing becoming suddenly very, very even. “It’s going to complicate things, and everything is already really complicated.” He is good and he is going to be a good father and Samira cannot allow anything to weigh down their relationship. Their growing friendship will have to last for the rest of their lives now that they have decided to tether themselves together. He’ll get tired of the sex and her guardedness one day. It’s best to just nip it in the bud. 

Jack is quiet for one beat. Then two. “Okay,” he says simply. He’s still inside her. Still warm on top of her. Still smells like laundry detergent she wants to huff. The result of some hormonal change, certainly. He turns his head so his face is pointed towards her. There is a neat line of freckles along the curve of his top lip. Five of them, perfectly arranged. 

“Okay?” 

Finally, Jack climbs off of her, and she misses his presence immediately. He sits at the very edge of the mattress, prosthesis bumping up against her knee. “Yeah,” he nods. “You don’t have to—whatever you want, honey.”  

“Okay, good,” her voice breaks. 

His fingers run along her forehead, pushing sweaty wisps of hair away from her face. “I’m in this for the long haul, whatever you want that to look like.” His eyes catch on Samira’s bottom lip trapped between her teeth. 

The questions are not subtle. 

But then, a hospital is not the place for subtlety, is it? If one more person asks if she’s feeling okay or suggests she sit down, Samira might explode. Might burst into a thousand useless pieces. As she has been repeating to herself since that positive blood test, pregnancy is not an emergency. It’s not even exceptionally interesting. At least, not usually.  

Sometimes, when she’s home alone, Samira is struck with the overwhelming knowledge that there is a second set of organs growing in her body. Cartilage ossifying, bones developing everyday. She’ll catch sight of her reflection when she’s getting out of the shower and find herself running her hand over the baby bump that’s becoming more and more apparent. All of that happens when she’s outside the hospital and has the chance for her mind to wander. Now that she’s progressed past morning sickness and into the brief reprieve of the second trimester, it’s mostly a thought that lingers ambiently in the back of her mind while she’s at work. A fact that does not require her undivided attention in most cases. It does, however, appear to be a fact that takes up unprecedented space in everyone else’s heads. No one has been bold enough to come right out and ask point blank, but that does not stop them from dancing around the subject. Princess keeps asking if Samira has been seeing anyone lately. Cassie takes a strong interest in what Samira is finally using her PTO on recently. 

They all know. Clearly, they know. They’re healthcare professionals who watched first hand as Samira was all but seasick for weeks on end. As she started sizing up her scrubs and actually taking a lunch, or at least attempting to take a lunch. They know. They have to. 

Trinity should have finished up her patient note 10 minutes ago. Instead she is picking apart Samira’s disinterest in going to Tequila Cowboy for their new craft mocktail menu. Samira presses her palms together under the Hub counter, clasps her fingers in a mimicked prayer. There is almost certainly money on this, Samira doesn’t know if she should be flattered or not. There’s probably well over two hundred dollars wrapped up in whatever is happening in her uterus. “I’m not going to pay 13 dollars for juice, Trinity.” 

“You could also get a regular cocktail.” 

“Yeah, maybe next week.” Samira offers half-heartedly. “There’s a head lac in North 2 that needs sutures when you finish up.” 

“Do you know if Dr. Abbot is working tonight?” 

The questions are not subtle. They are, however, constant. “I have no clue. Why do you ask?” It’s only fair that she gets to ask questions back. Everyone knows. Samira wants them to know that she knows exactly what they’re after.

“I don’t know. Seems like you two are good friends.” 

“Santos,” Dana’s voice is even, calm, still demanding, somehow. “Don’t you have patients to see?” Trinity’s mouth screws shut. She nods, fingers finally moving on her keyboard. It can’t take her more than thirty seconds to actually finish her note. 

“It’s not going to stop is it?”

“Don’t worry about them,” Dana says. “You’re glowing and everybody else looks like they got dragged through the mud.” Samira is not glowing, she just isn’t throwing up three times a day anymore.

“I just don’t want to make it a thing.” What if people start talking to her about wake windows or breast feeding or worse, paternity? People already think Samira is incapable of leaving work often enough to take care of a cat. They will undoubtedly have opinions about whether or not she’s fit to be a parent. A mother. 

“Then don’t,” she says. “Something else will crop up. Someone will steal another ambulance or need a foreign body removed. The world goes on.” Dana’s charge phone trills with. She holds it out as if to say see, people continue to have strokes and break their femurs. “81, this is PTMC. Uh huh,” her fingers make quick work of her keyboard, updating the board in read time. “Thank you 81, we’ll be waiting for ya’.” Dana searches the room for Robby, her eyes not traveling far before she finds him and flags him down. “Motor vehicle accident, partially degloved arm. How’s that to take your mind off things?” 

Unfortunately, it works exceptionally well.

“You’re screening my calls.” Amber doesn’t even wait for a hello. She doesn’t need to, honestly. “Three calls, all straight to voicemail. You’re ignoring me.” Jack shouldn’t be surprised by the chill that sneaks in through the window sill. November has brought winter with it in full force. The slice of backyard he can see from the window above his sink is filled with the kind of sunlight that’s so bright it’s cold. 

“I do have a job, Amber.” 

“At night. I don’t call you when you’re at work.” 

“Except when you do.” Jack pulls a mug from the very back of the cabinet to his right. It’s one from the set he and Lizzie bought when they first moved into this house and opened all the moving boxes labeled ‘Kitchen’ only to find literally everything shattered. All the nice china from their wedding, the dinner party serveware, the thrift store bullshit they bought when they were still in undergrad. They never got around to replacing the replacement mugs. Cheap, kind of ugly, but they get the job done. They were always a good story for the million and one house guests Lizzie had over. “Do you need something?” 

Amber snorts at that. There is a sequence deep in his genetic makeup programmed to seek out the laughs of his sisters. There has to be some sort of evolutionary explanation for it. “Are you taking time off for Christmas?” Amber asks. “I told Kelly the answer is probably no. That you might have someone else you want to spend the holidays with.” 

Jack hands work of their own accord, scooping coffee grounds into the filter and flipping down the lid. He presses brew on his ancient Mr. Coffee. “I already told Kel that I have to work Christmas Eve,” he declined her Google Calendar invite and everything. “I can come home for New Years.” 

“You should invite Samira,” Amber says. “If she gets any time off. I remember they barely let you leave the hospital when you were a resident.” 

“I don’t know if she’d like that.” 

“Why wouldn’t she?” 

“I don’t know. She keeps to herself, likes working overtime. Likes pulling doubles.”  She’s selective about who she lets into her life. Clearly not selective enough if Jack has managed to worm his way in. 

“Like you?” She asks.

“I guess.” It’s bright outside. Every tree he can see out his window is bare. “There’s a conference in January. I don’t want her to get sick of me.” 

“Well, you should invite her at the very least. The girls would love to meet her, you know.” 

“You told the girls?” 

He can practically hear Amber smirk. “No, I’ve been good. They’ve just heard a lot about Samira the past few years. We all have. You know they’re going to find out eventually. Harriet can find out anything about anyone as long as they have a public instagram.” 

“Little private detective.” 

“Invite Samira. Tell her it was my idea if you’re scared it’s going to make you seem too eager to spend time with the woman you impregnated.” 

He rubs a hand along the back of his neck. “Very classy, Amber.” It’s not that Amber is blunt. It’s that she always thinks she is right and has rarely seen herself proven wrong.

“Oh– Ethan’s calling, I’ve got to go. I’m serious about the invite. I’ll send her one in the mail if she wants it.” 

There is no chance she’s checked her mail in weeks. “I don’t think you need to do that.” 

“Love you.” 

“Yeah, love you too.” 

Jack knows better than to ask for more when he’s already been given far too much. When he doesn’t deserve what he has to begin with. So if Samira wants to stay completely and entirely platonic, he won’t fight her on it. Why would he? It’s a miracle that she wants to spend any time with him at all. Jack isn’t old, but he isn’t as young as he once was. He isn’t as charming as he thinks he used to be. Isn’t anywhere near as smart as Samira is, even on her worst days. So yeah, he’ll count his blessings. Samira likes Jack enough that she wants to raise a child with him. She is content to spend the next eighteen years, at minimum, speaking to him. 

He’ll take what he can get. 

The nursery is starting to resemble a nursery now. The last time he had three days off in a row, Jack painted the walls a soft yellow, dusted off the old book shelves. He gave the bed frame away to some med student. There are boxes now. Lot’s and lots of boxes that he doesn’t dare open yet. Eventually, he’ll need to put together the crib. The changing table should get shipped to his front door soon. 

It’s too much too fast. Probably. Samira just hit fifteen weeks; they’re still a long way out. But Jack has been struck with an irrational sort of joy. He’s going to have a baby— and then not just a baby, but a child. He’s always loved kids. Always loved his sisters' kids like they’re his own. A new life, a fresh start, a person who hasn’t learned about any of the terrible things that are out there. 

All he does is think about this baby and about Samira. It would be embarrassing if Jack had any embarrassment left in his body. If that part of him hadn’t shriveled up by the time he got to medical school and then entirely died by the time he lost his leg. There’s no room for embarrassment in the PACU. Not when a hundred specialists and their residents are cycling through to poke and prod at you. There’s no room for embarrassment in the military. Not in the barracks. Not in basic training. Not when you have three sisters who deemed you the world's best dress-up doll when you were a year old. He does not contain the chemicals necessary to be embarrassed, so he is not embarrassed to admit that all he does is think about Samira, the baby, and the fact that their lives are different now. Will be entirely different soon. 

Lizzie probably didn’t mean this when she told him to move on. To live life to the fullest or else she would haunt him and not even in the fun way. This likely isn’t what she meant, but it is what he has done. On accident, but that doesn’t really matter, does it? 

He knows better than to ask for more than what he deserves and he knows not to question a good thing when it falls in his lap. 

Jack Abbot (Attending, Nights)

Samira:

Do you know your attachment style? 

Jack Abbot (Attending, Nights):

Can’t say I do.

Samira:

https://www.attachmentproject.com/attachment-style-quiz/

Jack Abbot (Attending, Nights):

Do you actually want me to take that? 

Samira:

i’ve been doing some reading

Samira:

about building healthy attachments in newborns 

Samira: 

https://www.amazon.com/Raising-Securely-Attached-Kids-Connection-Focused/

Samira: 

it’s a good read

Usually, his nightmares have to do with his time in the desert. With blood that won’t wash off his hands. Gunfire and a med kit and sand seeping into bullet wounds. He dreams about the feeling right before an explosion. The way all the pressure is sucked out of the air. The split second when you know your life is about to change. Tinnitus. The thudding of his back against a concrete wall. Darkness.

Shrapnel and infection and sweltering heat replaced by an all-consuming, shivering chill. The word amputation echoing with all the heft of a ton of bricks. 

The beeping of heart monitors. The distinct smell of chemotherapy drugs. Discussions of vacations and promotions and bucket list items that all get crumpled and forgotten, thrown out along with medical waste. The feeling of Lizzie’s hand growing weaker in his own over the course of two painful years. The echo of an empty house. A room that they always imagined might be a nursery. A bedroom he can’t sleep in. A couch picked out by a woman with big plans. 

In his nightmares, he finds the letters she left for him. His unconscious mind recites them with perfect clarity. In his nightmares, he tosses them into the fireplace and watches the burn. Her handwriting lost to ash and smoke.

His nightmares were exclusively replays of the past until recently. Until PittFest, really. 

After PittFest, things morph. 

In his nightmares, he doesn’t get to the roof in time. He doesn’t get to say whatever adrenaline fueled bullshit he said to Robby that night. He finds a stethoscope hanging on the railing. He finds his best friend on the pavement. He knocks on Heather’s door and she already knows what he’s about to say. Knows it is his fault 

In his nightmares, the carnage doesn't stop. They run out of O Neg. They run out of everything. He pulls out every trick in the book and comes up short. The makeshift morgue overflows. He is buried in his own failure. In the lives he cannot save. He fails them. He fails himself. He fails Samira as she desperately attempts to do it all by herself.

He has had a lot of nightmares about Samira. 

In his nightmares, her head hits the shiny linoleum with a crack. Her blown pupils overtake her irises. Blood blooms around her head in a bright red halo. It coats the tread of his boots and mats her curly hair. It stains every surface. She’s gone before he can get to her. Before he can even process that she’s on the floor. 

In his nightmares, Samira Mohan doesn’t even die in his arms. She dies at the feet of a gunman or a patient or an angry family member. She looks to him for help, but he’s too late. In her last moments, he has failed her. Again and again and again, he fails her. 

In Jack’s nightmares, she gets wheeled in on a stretcher bloodied and bruised and broken. He codes her for hours, shoving away Robby’s attempts to reason with him. She grows cold in a trauma bay. Intubated, lifeless, gone. He ignores them, for the most part. He wakes panicked and uneasy, but quickly comes to his senses. A nightmare is just a nightmare. Nothing more. Jack has had enough of them that he can regulate himself back to normalcy quickly enough. Usually, he box breathes until his heart rate slows. He makes his way to the kitchen and downs a glass of water. Jack reminds himself that he is not stranded in the past. He is not divining the future. He finds five things he can see, four things he can touch. He grounds himself. He heads into work early if he needs to. He gets over it.

Jack could handle the nightmares, even the nightmares about Samira, until she handed him the first ultrasound and invited him to come along for the next one. That day, something switched. Solidified.

Now, in his nightmares, he loses them both. In his nightmares, she hemorrhages in the delivery room. She is killed in a hit and run. He loses Samira in a million ways and their child goes with her. Jack is useless to help. Useless as his life falls apart again. Another fool-hearted attempt at family struck down. He performs compressions and craniotomies and crikes and finds himself alone, yet again. Finds himself swallowed up by a grief he didn’t know he was capable of experiencing.

Jack wakes up thrashing in his sheets and covered in a sheen of sweat. He wakes, hyperventilating, pulse thundering in his ears, with the phantom feeling of a scalpel in his hands and blood beneath his gloves. He wakes with Samira’s name on his lips. 

Every attempt at box breathing leaves him gasping. It’s irresponsible and it’s rude to do what he wants to do, but Jack can’t shake the vision of Samira dead in front of him. Terror has crawled inside his chest and settled there. Made a home among the scar tissue. It did this long, long ago, but right now it feels new. Fresh barbs finding purchase where he’s finally healed over. Scar tissue is more sensitive than unmarred skin. 

She’s asleep back at her apartment. If she’s alive, she’s asleep. 2:07 AM, it’s rude to wake her now when she has to be up in just a few hours. She barely gets enough sleep as it is, especially now that the baby is moving constantly.  Jack knows that he shouldn’t, but his thumb finds Samira Mohan in his contact list anyway. Jack imagines the trill of her ringtone. The place on her bedside table where she keeps her phone and her watch. It only takes three rings for her to pick up. Her voice is bleary on the other side. “Hello?” 

Jack startles himself. His words come out too jumbled and too quickly. “Are you okay?” 

“Jack?” She asks.

“I know this is stupid, but, just—Are you two okay?” He asks. His breathing is stilted. “It’s really stupid, but I need to hear you say it.” 

“Yeah, I’m fine. We are fine.” It shouldn’t make him feel any better than hearing her voice, but for some reason it does. “Are you okay?”

“Nightmare,” he says quickly. “Usually, I can ignore it.” The stupidity of the moment begins to close in on him, a flush of heat crawling up his neck. Jack is forty-three years old, he shouldn’t need to call his not-girlfriend when he gets scared in the middle of the night.  “Sorry, I’ll let you go back to sleep.” 

“You had a nightmare about me?” He hears a clicking noise on her end. Maybe her lamp or a light switch. “Do you want to tell me about it?” 

Jack shakes his head as if Samira can see him. “I don’t want to keep you up.” 

“Too bad,” she says.

“I’m not going to subject you to all the ways I just pictured you dying.” A gunshot wound. Anaphalaxis. A hit and run. A series of horrific complications following a traumatic labor.

Samira clears her throat, fully awake now. Fully capable of dismantling him, even over the phone.  “Come over.”

“You said we’re not having sex anymore.” 

She laughs at that, the noise low and warm in her chest. Something wound taut between Jack’s shoulder blades unspools, loosens every tensed muscle. “I’m asking you to pretty please come lay down with me. You’re working in the morning anyway, right? We’ll go in together.” He can hear her duvet shifting. “Plus, I’m cold, and you’re always hot.” 

“I’m always hot?” 

“I just told you to come hold me until I fall back asleep. Don’t fish for compliments. Just come over.” It feels deeply, plainly selfish. Jack hasn’t earned the invitation. He woke her up in the middle of the night. Maybe she can sense his apprehension through the phone. “I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.” 

Despite himself, Jack grins. Just a bit. Like he would if they were face to face. “Okay, I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.” 

His heart rate evens out on the drive. Jack feels more pathetic with each green light he passes. 

Samira greets him at her door in a Johns Hopkins shirt that pulls over the swell of her abdomen, a pair of Jack’s boxers, and a pair of white fuzzy socks he’s almost certain he got her years ago in a secret Santa exchange. He tries not to linger on the sight for too long. At Samira Mohan, pregnant with his child, wearing his clothes. She grabs his hand while he’s still standing in the doorway and drops it onto her bump, eyes half-lidded. “Your child won’t leave me alone.” 

“I’m sorry,” he says as a tiny foot presses against where his hand sits. That is his kid. Their kid. “Baby’s not yours when it kicks?”

“Correct,” she turns away, his fingers left to trail against the sliver of her bare skin exposed by the stretch of her too-small shirt. Samira pads off towards her bedroom, trusting him to follow and lock the door behind him. He pulls off his shoes and drops his bag on the couch before doing just that. 

There’s a pile of cardboard boxes in the corner of her living room with Crate & Barrel and Target logos emblazoned across the sides. A crib, two scalloped bookshelves, a Pack and Play. Jack makes a note to conveniently leave his tool kit in the back seat of his car next time he’s over so he can offer to put them together without sounding too eager. 

Samira is already settling into the right side of her bed when he rounds the corner. She holds up the corner of her duvet. Yellow light spills from her bedside lamp. Her hair is piled into a loose bun on the top of her head, curly tendrils spilling out haphazardly. She plucks Jack’s glasses from his face and sets them on her nightstand as he removes his prosthesis and slides under the sheets beside her. Samira’s hand brushes against his arm and finds purchase in the crook of his elbow, her thumb brushes against his brachialis. “God, you really are warm,” Samira turns in towards him, her head nestling in Jack’s shoulder, her right leg hitching over his left. He can feel their child stirring inside her. He can feel the beating of Samira’s heart. He can feel his own nervous system readjusting. 

Her white noise machine is perched on the edge of her desk along the far wall. It unnerved him the first time he slept over at Samira’s but now he can’t help but find an odd comfort in it. This static is the soundtrack of Samira Mohan’s life.

“You didn’t have to invite me over,” he says when the air in the room has stilled, his breathing finally even.

“I wanted to,” Samira says into his neck. “This is the most comfortable I’ve been in weeks. You aren’t allowed to move.” She’s only half-serious, but Jack takes it as an order, because really it’s the least he can do after waking her up in the middle of the night. It’s the least he can do after getting her pregnant. 

His eyes trace the slope of her nose in the dark. The plane of her forehead, the arch of her brows, the shell of her ear. “I wouldn’t dare.”

She hums contentedly against his chest. Her cheek rubs against his shirt as she settles, but Samira’s breathing doesn’t slow with the evenness of sleep. There’s an exhausted but restless energy running through her. Jack can feel it cycling through her veins. She traces along his shoulder up to the neck of his t-shirt and back. “Can I tell you something kind of stupid?”

“I doubt whatever you’re about to say is stupid.”  

“I keep thinking about introducing you to my parents.” Her voice is just above a whisper, like this is an admission she can barely bring herself to voice. Like it's a secret she’s entrusting him with.

Jack has to clear his throat to buy himself some time. “You think they’d like me?” 

“Probably not.” Her index finger continues to trace its familiar path. “But I think they would have come around.” Samira’s eyes are closed as she speaks. “Even if they didn’t like you, I really wish you could have met them.”

Jack doesn’t kiss the top of her head like he wants to, but he allows himself to draw her closer. “Me too,” he says. “I would have made a fool of myself.” He would have called them Mr. and Mrs. Mohan. He would have worn his nicest shirt and his only pair of dress shoes. Jack would have pulled out all the stops, shown himself as the bumbling idiot he feels like. 

“I’ve been having these dreams where I introduce you, and I can’t remember what my dad’s face looks like. I have to get out of bed and look at photos just to prove that I do know.” Samira empties her lungs entirely. “We’re going to give this kid the craziest nightmares.” 

“You think it's genetic?” 

“I looked into it. Nightmare disposition is likely heritable and associated with sleep disorders which are also heritable— which we both have.”

Jack would manage to pass down nightmares to his own child. “She’ll be the perfect candidate to work the night shift.” His fingers move through her hair absentmindedly, the pad of his thumb swiping back and forth over her temple in a pattern he hopes is soothing, even though he knows he is the one being soothed here. “She’ll be perfect,” he says, “Just like her mom, she’ll be perfect.”

Something settles somewhere in her apartment. The ambient creaking of an old building. It just barely cuts through the drone of her white noise machine. If he could, Jack would live like this for the rest of his life, the scent of Samira’s shampoo in his nose, her hand tracing patterns against his chest. Samira shifts, propping herself up on an elbow so her face is hovering just a few inches above Jack’s. Something seems to settle within her too. 

She stares down at him wordlessly, her features barely visible in the low light. Her face gets closer, closer, eyes shifting over his face until Samira presses her lips against his in a lazy kiss, warm and soft. Jack parts his lips for her immediately, chin tilting down so she doesn’t have to work as hard. “I’m glad you called me.” She kisses him again, toothpaste still on her breath. “I’m glad you’re here,” Samira mumbles the words against his mouth.

“I’m glad I’m here too.” Jack slides his hand along the small of her back. He always is. He’s glad to soak up the sunlight she emanates. Glad to feel the hum that grows in his chest anytime she’s near. Glad to see her. To look at her plainly, unabashedly, and feel the zap of a connection when her eyes meet his and she notices that he’s been looking. He’s glad to feel the heat of her skin, the press of her lips, the sheer intelligence she radiates. Glad to know her in any way she’ll allow him to know her. 

“Good,” her voice is low with a sleepy, syrupy kind of fondness. Samira sighs against his lips, hand held at the side of his jaw. Her nails scratch softly against his skin. “You think we’re having a girl?” 

“What?” 

“You said she will be perfect.”

“I don’t know why I said that.” It’s just a hunch he’s been nursing for a few weeks. A senseless idea that popped into his mind and hasn’t left since.

“You think we’re having a girl.” Not a question this time, a statement of fact.  “You didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t think it was anything worth telling.” 

Samira settles back down beside him. Sets her head on his chest. “Maybe not.” Jack can’t help but wonder if she can hear his heartbeat. “If you had brought your go bag with you we could find out.” 

“You want to use the butterfly ultrasound?” Jack asks. 

“In the morning,” she says against his neck. “Go to sleep.” 

Samira has her toothbrush trapped between her molars. The sun hasn’t risen, and it won’t for well over an hour. Jack could be wrong. It’s still early, she’s only eighteen weeks along, so Jack could be wrong, but that would require Samira being wrong, too. 

He isn’t wrong. He wasn’t wrong before, either. Jack’s daughter will be perfect, just like her mother. He can sense it. Knows it with a certainty that can’t be explained and can’t be argued with.

It takes a little over four hours to get from the hospital to Jack's hometown. Samira is only slightly uncomfortable the entire time. She is slightly uncomfortable most of the time, so honestly, it isn’t all that different. It was a quick four hours, if that’s possible. It’s easy to get lost in conversation with Jack. To lose track of time as they talk about the newest edition of their medical journal of choice, or relitigate the nasty trauma that came through recently. Samira can sometimes feel herself slipping down the rabbit hole, losing herself to the patter of conversation with a person who understands exactly what you’re saying, even before you say it. There are other things to talk about, too. He left a neatly stapled pile of papers in her locker earlier this week that detailed his life insurance plan because Samira is now the sole beneficiary of Jack Abbot’s life insurance policy. There was a green sticky note on top that said, very simply,  ‘For my girls, just in case. Have a lawyer look over this if you want. Emery knows a guy if you need one.’ 

His girls. Samira tries not to dwell on that too much. 

Gravel crunches beneath the tires as they pull into Amber's driveway. A brick two story home just outside of town. There is a line of pine trees along the back of the yard. Their Christmas lights are still up. 

They sit in the car for a long time. Probably too long, as Samira stares at the house in front of them. She’s never been good at parties. She had a boyfriend in undergrad, back when she had the time to date, and broke up with him the night after he brought up introducing Samira to his parents. She couldn’t help it. The impending doom of seeing how incredibly happy someone else's family could be closed in on her. Suffocated her. Truthfully, Samira hadn’t liked him that much. Thomas was nice. He was also an Econ major with a haircut that didn’t really suit his face. So she fled. 

You can't really flee from the father of your child who is also your boss and, somehow, your closest friend. Samira runs her sweaty palms across her thighs. “They already like you,” Jack says, pulling Samira from the depths of her own mind. 

“Easy to do when you haven’t met me yet.” 

“What is that supposed to mean?” He asks, the faint glow of the dashboard illuminating his face. 

“I’m just kind of a difficult person to like.” She gives him a shaky laugh in an attempt to shake the furrow deepening between his brows. “An acquired taste. It’s okay, I know myself.” 

Jack shifts forward in his seat, leans an inch or two closer across the center console. “You’re very likeable.”

“You have to say that.” 

“The truth?” He counters.

“You’re ridiculous.” Jack is nice. He’s stuck with her. 

“Call me whatever you want, but I’m honest.” He says. “Samira, you are not an acquired taste; you’re incredible.” 

The porch light flips on as Jack kills the ignition and climbs out of the car. Samira does her best not to audibly groan as she unfolds from her place in the passenger seat, but her joints are sore. Jack gives her a raised brow smirk anyway that he quickly tries to disguise as concern when she glares at him. “Not funny,” he says preemptively, shaking his head. “I’ll come back for our bags later. We can—” his attention snags on a figure by the front door. “Hey, bird!”

“Mama says you need to stop hanging out in the driveway and come inside,” A voice calls. 

The walk from Jack's car to the front door is short and absurdly cold. Cool air snakes up her legs and into her bones. Her boots pinch her toes, but she’s in denial about the fact that her feet are widening. “Well, if that’s what your Mama says,” Jack is smiling wider than she’s ever seen him  “Harriet, this is Samira. Samira, this is Harriet.” 

She looks at Samira with wide eyes, surveying with a potent curiosity.  Her eyes look just like Jack's. “You are pretty.” 

“Harriet.” Jack says immediately as they reach the porch. They have a real wreath hanging on the door. It’s been overtaken by ice crystals.

“I’m just saying.” 

“Let’s head inside before your mom sic’s the dogs on us.” 

“You’re a doctor, right?” Harriet asks, stopping in front of the door. 

Samira’s breath clouds in front of her face, illuminated by the glow of the porch light. “Yeah. I work in the ER.” 

“If I went to the ER and you were my doctor I would think I died,” Harriet says, hands nestled deep in the pocket of her hoodie. She looks just like all the photos of Amber that Samira has seen around Jack's house and on the nights when she deep dives through his Facebook friends. 

“Seriously, kid.” 

“Okay, whatever, whatever,” Harriet says as Jack presses a kiss to the crown of her head. She’s almost as tall as he is.

Warmth hits Samira square in the face the second the front door is opened. The entire house is filled with light and noise and lived-in clutter. Jack’s hand grazes the small of her back, a barely there guide through the entryway into the kitchen, where all that warmth and light and heat seems to be emanating from. Amber takes a single look at her and smiles. Beams. Everyone in this family smiles with their entire face. Samira isn’t sure if she’s ever felt the need to do that. 

“There they are. Come in, come in.” She waves them in, there’s flour on the bottom of her shirt and clinging to the curls she has tied behind her head. “Jack, you look tired as hell.” Amber presses her cheek to his as she pulls Jack into a hug getting flour all over him in the process. “God you need to start using that sunscreen we sent you home with last time. The skin on your neck is going to flake off like a fish by the time you’re forty-five.”

“Thank you, Amber.” 

She hums in satisfaction, turning to Samira. “Do you do hugs?” Amber asks. 

“Umm,” not the best start, admittedly. It’s been a long time since she’s hugged someone who wasn’t a patient. “Yes— sorry, yes, I do.” Amber’s arms are tight around her,  giving a quick squeeze before retreating. 

“God, it’s good to finally meet you,” she says. “I can’t tell you how many times we’ve heard about Dr Mohan.” 

Samira feels heat flood her face. “Good things, I hope.” 

“Oh, more than good things, baby doll.” She rests a hand on Samira’s shoulder. “Okay, you’ve met Harriet, I’m Amber– I don’t know if I actually introduced myself, I got excited. This is Emma,” she motions to the teenage girl Jack has trapped in a hug. “And Ethan is in the living room trying to set up the new TV. Food should be done in fifteen. I think. I’m a terrible cook, to be honest, so Ethan did most of it.” 

Samira isn’t entirely sure what she’s supposed to say, so she just just nods. Smiles, but nearly as wide as any one else here. 

“Oh, and Jack, I set up the guest room for you two.” She turns to Samira. “It’s got an en suite. If you’re anything like me you have to pee a hundred times a night.” For the first time her eyes drop to Samira’s stomach, just for a second. 

Harriet rises on her toes. “Oh my god, Emma, have you told Jack about Katie?” 

“Katie?” He asks.

Emma’s face flushes a faint pink. “Oh my God, why would you even say that?” 

“I wanna hear about Katie,” Jack says. “She’s not soccer girl right? You know I don’t like soccer girl.” 

“I’m going to go outside and freeze. Swear to God.”

“Is she nice?” Jack asks. “Funny?” 

“She’s just a girl who sits next to me in Chem. It’s not a big deal.” 

“Sounds like not a big deal at all.” Jack grins. “Very chill.” 

“Ethan, come say hello. We have company!” Amber half yells. 

Samira is not easily overwhelmed. She’s not overwhelmed, even as Ethan, a man with mostly gray hair and a neat gray-brown beard that she recognizes from those late night social media deep dives, lumbers into the room. She’s not overwhelmed, but she does feel like she’s back in medical school, soaking up each new stimulus like a sponge. Ethan ruffles Jack’s hair, clapping him on the shoulder as he pads into the kitchen. “How ya doing, brother?” 

“Can’t complain, how are you?” 

“Never better.” Ethan turns to Samira, extending his hand for a handshake. “Dr. Mohan, right?” 

Samira nods, shaking his hand. “Samira,” she insists. “Please, call me Samira.” 

The dinner itself is nice, far less intimidating than she imagined it would be. Jack pulls her chair out for her at the dinner table, smirk twisting along his mouth as he does. She’s nestled between him and Emma, the eldest of his nieces—his birds, as Jack calls them. “They were real chirpers as babies,” he explains when Samira’s confusion at their nickname becomes apparent. “Then they got old enough to be embarrassed by chirpers and I thought Robbins girls was too boring.” 

Emma is a Junior in high school with a newly minted drivers license and a very casual crush on the girl she sits next to in chemistry class. Harriet, on the other side of the table, is a freshman who managed to get on the varsity basketball team. They both adore Jack, hanging on to each and every word he says. Jack very clearly adores them ten fold. He hasn’t stopped smiling, his eyes literally twinkling in the warm light of the dining room. He has questions about every anecdote. Opinions about every tertiary character mentioned. He has two thousand dollars worth of Christmas presents carefully wrapped in the back seat of his car. When Harriet snorts at a joke mumbled by Jack into his mashed potatoes, Samira finds herself wanting to freeze the moment, just so she can take a bite out of it. 

“Can we come to your baby shower?” Jack, Ethan, and Amber’s heads all snap towards Harriet. 

“Don’t be rude,” Amber admonishes, pointing with the tongs of her fork. 

“Oh I—We haven’t talked about having a baby shower.” Samira looks over at Jack, and finds him wide-eyed and endearingly concerned. “Do you want to?” 

“That’s up to you.” Jack says immediately. It’s always up to her. Always on her terms.

“We’d have to put together a registry,” Samira says. 

“We could put one together for you,” Emma offers. “Or we could help curate one, I mean.” 

Harriet nods. “Just so no one gets you anything ugly.”

Jack’s hand finds the top of her chair, his fingers brushing along her back. “I’d really appreciate that,” Samira can see the two girls formulating a plan immediately. Silent, sisterly communication across the dinner table that Samira never experienced. “I’m sure you have much better taste than I do.” 

Dinner wraps up quickly, Emma and Harriet running off to one of their rooms immediately. After an attempt to wash the dishes, which resulted in Amber hitting him with a dish cloth, Jack heads off to grab their bags from the car. Samira finds herself alone in the guest room. There’s a row of pictures along the dresser. Old pictures of Jack and his sisters in Christmas sweaters, all four of them piled on a porch swing, Kelley and Nichole as bridesmaids at Amber's wedding, Jack in a handmade Halloween costume. She thought the photo collecting was specific to Jack Abbot. Turns out it’s a familial trait. 

Her hand runs along the edge of the dresser. She can sense Jack lingering in the doorway. Can feel him watching, drinking her in from the other side of the room, even as her back is to the door. “You were a cute kid, Jack Abbot.” 

“Yeah?” He sets her suitcase just inside the doorframe. His nose is pink from the cold. 

“Look at your cheeks,” Samira points to a Kindergarten school picture. He’s in overalls and a white shirt. He’s absolutely covered in freckles. “You’re little curls.” 

Jack moves to stand beside her, his hand bracing against the top of the dresser. She lets herself lean against him, her body tired from a day of travel and a full meal. “I’m sure you were a cute kid too.” 

Samira doesn’t even know where her baby pictures are. She knows they exist. They used to live at her parents house. Now they’re probably packed away in the storage unit she refuses to visit. “I had a giant gap between my two front teeth. I used to ask when my middle tooth was going to grow in.” There’s another photo of Jack wearing a little league jersey, a bat clenched in his hands. He can’t be older than 8 or 9. “Your parents took a lot of pictures. You’ve got your entire life documented.” She presses her finger against the very edge of the picture frame. It’s just the tiniest bit painful. “I don’t think I have any pictures of myself.” 

She turns to Jack expecting to see the Abbot family smile again, but instead, the corners of his mouth are twisted down towards the floor, his cheek caught between his teeth. “We’ll have to change that.” Samira tries to peer through his expression, read his mind like they seem to always do, but she has no luck. She places her thumb against the furrow between his brows, until he relaxes. “I’ve never seen the girls so excited about something,” he says finally, hands moving to rest along her waist. 

“You have to plan this baby shower, by the way,” Samira says. 

“Oh, I assumed,” Jack says as she runs her thumbs along the ridge of his brow. “I might pawn it off on Dana so she stops glaring at me every day.” He ducks his chin so he can better look her in the eye. “You’re exhausted,” a point of fact, not a question. 

“I could fall asleep standing up,” she admits, Jack chuckling along her hairline. 

“Let’s get you to bed, Dr. Mohan.”

Maybe: Emma Robbins 

Maybe: Emma Robbins:

hai samira!!!! This is emma (robbins!)

Maybe: Emma Robbins:

we got your number from jack’s phone but i promise we didn’t look at any of your messages

Maybe: Emma Robbins:

(his password is my birthday if you ever need to get into his phone btw)

Samira:

hi emma!

Emma Robbins:

autocaps off….. you are cool

Emma Robbins added you to group chat with Maybe: Harriet Robbins

Harriet Robbins: 

omg yayyyayyyay!!

Harriet Robbins named the group chat best baby shower ever !!

Emma Robbins: 

girl.

Emma Robbins: 

this group chat name. are you 45?

Harriet Robbins: 

whatever :/

Harriet Robbins: 

ignoring your hater energy because we finally finished your perfect registry for the best baby shower ever 

Harriet Robbins: 

https://www.babylist.com/samira-jack-2485q-09 

Samira: 

oh wow, thank you girls!

Harriet Robbins: 

omg all lower case how did jack bag you?

Emma Robbins: 

i don’t think we can say stuff like that