Hey, guys! The season 9 canon is a little rearranged in terms of Spence's return and Bianca's arrival, but hopefully not to noticeable. Set following Charlotte's announcement of her pregnancy with Zach.

Gabrielle Jaeger parked her car on the driveway of her subordinate, Dan Goldman, and walked up the drive. Dan had been complaining for the second she had started work at All Saints Western General as Nursing Unit Manager a few weeks ago about the fact he was always working weekends. Gabrielle had taken a look at the roster history; Dan had been working an awful lot of weekends. She wondered if he had pissed off one of her predecessors. God knew there had been enough of them; she had taken this job partly out of interest about the fact the position – a plum position in a great hospital – went unanswered week after week. Once she got there, she understood why; the ED HoD, Frank Campion, was a difficult man to get along with. Gabrielle found it easy enough – it was no harder than getting along with her father or brothers – but it hadn't taken her long to understand why the ED had gone through so many NUMs in such a short period of time. He was a perfectionist, short-tempered, quick to hand out insults and slow to reward compliments. But he was also a brilliant physician who cared about patients and staff alike, and Gabrielle had a feeling that they would end up getting along very well – once he figured out that she wasn't a stupid country girl that he could walk all over.

First thing was first, she had fixed up the mess Dan – who had been acting NUM in between Nelson Curtin quitting and her taking up the position – had made of the rosters. It didn't surprise her that he had gotten stuck with so many weekend shifts; he had no idea how to balance a roster, and as a result, he got stuck with all the shitty shifts. She had done a roster which gave all her staff one weekend off in three; none of them could really complain about that, although she was sure that someone would. It had been a month and she had already well and truly learnt that people would complain about anything to their superiors.

She sighed. It was a far cry from the small country hospital that she had come from, where she was friends with everyone. Here, people saw her as a boss. She wasn't someone they could pal around with. There were exception, of course – Charlotte Beaumont was one, a doctor who didn't look down on nurses the way so many of them did – but she felt isolated a lot, which was kind of ironic, given she had gone from a small farming community to a major hospital in the country's most populous city.

Well, maybe doing this for Dan – and delivering the news personally, since she found out that she lived so close to him – would make him more friendly towards her.

She knocked on the door. There was no answer, so she knocked again. She heard footsteps on the other side of the door, and the sound of several locks being undone. That struck her as amusing and a little sad at the same time; she hadn't understood the need for multiple locks until she had come to Sydney. She still didn't see the need for multiple locks.

Dan's housemate Jack Quade – a surgeon at All Saints who Gabrielle knew in passing – opened the door. He cocked his head when he saw Gabrielle; he had only had a few interaction with the attractive young nurse. Given his history, he thought it was best to steer clear of any woman who was under forty and holding the ED NUM's position. He had hardly expected her to show up on her doorstep. "Yeah?" he asked.

Gabrielle tried not to be taken aback by Jack's rudeness. Maybe he'd been in the middle of something; it wasn't like he was expecting her. It was just that she had found people in Sydney so rude compared to the country friendliness that she was used to. "I came to let Dan know I've given him a weekend off like he asked," she said, holding up the clipboard that the roster was attached to helplessly.

"He's gone to his parent's place for a few days," Jack said shortly. "Was there anything else?"

"Uh, no," she said, flustered. She had heard Jack liked to pursue anything in a skirt – especially if that skirt was holding the position of ED NUM – but she hadn't expected him to be this rude. She stared at him intently for a few seconds, and recognised the smell of alcohol. Looking closer, she realised he was leaning against the doorframe as if standing upright was more trouble than he cared for. "Are you drunk?" she asked, scandalised because it was still the afternoon - late afternoon, but afternoon nonetheless – although she really shouldn't be surprised after all the years she had spent with her ex-boyfriend, a problem drinker. Problem drinker? Gabrielle thought bitterly. Try raging alcoholic. And low-life cheating scum. It still hurt to think about it, and seeing Jack drunk before the sun had gone down made her think about it.

"That's none of your business," Jack said shortly. He went to close the door on her, but she shot her foot in it. He shut it anyway, and was surprised to discover it didn't have the impact it should have. Which was a good thing, but nonetheless – "You always wear steel-caps?" he asked.

"Farm girl, remember? You always slam the door on people's feet?"

"Returning the favour on my step-mum," he said. Sighing, he opened the door again. "What do you want?" he asked resignedly.

"What you're doing getting drunk on your own in the afternoon would be a good start," she said. She realised that she barely knew him, and thought that maybe he would rather be with someone who did. She thought about who he was pally with. "You want me to call Charlotte?" she asked.

Jack's eyed glittered dangerously, and Gabrielle noticed that they were a steel-grey colour, hard and cold. "I have enough contacts in Sydney to see you back at whatever nothing town you came from," he threatened, and Gabrielle immediately understood why he didn't want Charlotte to be called – and why he was drinking alone in the afternoon. He had taken the news of Charlotte's pregnancy badly.

She had heard all about it, of course. It had been the biggest to hit the hospital in some time, and people had made a point to come up to her just to tell her about it. Jack had been dating – although 'dating' was probably too strong a word for it – Charlotte's best friend, Terri Sullivan, who Gabrielle knew first-hand to be something of a legend at All Saints. When Terri had dumped him, and Charlotte – a supposed dyed-in-the-wool lesbian – had been dumped by her girlfriend the same day, the two had ended up very drunk and very much in bed together. The result had been a baby that Charlotte had miscarried around three months.

Gabrielle had heard conflicting stories about how Jack had taken the miscarriage. Some said he had been relieved to wriggle out of the responsibility and only disappointed that it hadn't happened before he had confessed to Terri and thereby ruined any chance they had of reconciliation; others said he had taken it very hard, as hard as you would have expected a man to take an actual living child and not just a three-month-old foetus. Seeing him now, Gabrielle was inclined to believed the truth was closer to the latter. He had acted all happy for Charlotte earlier today when he had heard about her pregnancy, even joked about having nothing to do with it – but he must have been dying inside.

"Hey! What are you doing?" Jack demanded when Gabrielle pushed past him into the house, using both the element of surprise and the fact Jack wasn't exactly at his most agile.

"Keeping you company," Gabrielle said. "If you're going to drink, you shouldn't drink alone. If nothing else, I'll make sure you don't hit your head on something when you pass out."

Jack glared at her, flabbergasted by her audacity. "Get out," he said.

"You could make me... or you could get me a drink," Gabrielle said.

Jack glowered at her. Smart-ass bitch, he thought. Then he saw the look in her eyes and decided she wasn't worth bothering with. Hell, maybe he could even have a bit of fun with her. He grinned at the thought of either creeping her out with endless hit-ons, on making her feel intellectually inferior. And she'd only have herself to blame for forcing her way into the house. "What do you want?" he asked.

"Whatcha got?"

"There's beer and mixers in the fridge, take a look at the bar if you want any spirits," he said.

"I think I'll stick with a beer." She didn't like the way spirits went to her head so quickly. Jack got her a beer out of the fridge and then topped up his own vodka and lemonade. "You can handle that?" she asked, seeing how much he poured it.

"It's fine."

"I hear you and vodka don't mix too well," she teased. He sent her a death-glare, and she blanched, realising her mistake. "Sorry," she said. "I didn't meant that the way it came out."

He raked his hand through his hair. "I know you didn't," he said. "I'm just – tired."

She nodded sympathetically, not sure what she was supposed to that. She knew he meant that he was tired on acting like his emotions ran no more complex than being happy for a friend. And tired of people's attitude that he hadn't cared when Charlotte had miscarried. She didn't say anything when he downed the glass in a few seconds and poured himself another."Sit," she said, directing him to the couch. "Before you lose balance and fall on your face."

Obediently, Jack went to the couch. "I hate this couch," he complained. "Dan buys furniture like a boy."

Gabrielle laughed at that. The couch did look kind of ratty. "I suppose you don't need much for playstation marathons," she said. "I take it you miss your old place?" she asked.

"I thought about dragging everything onto the lawn and setting fire to it," Jack said, giggling at the irony. "I really hated my ex, didn't want anything she'd touched around."

"This would be Deanna?" Gabrielle asked. Jack nodded. "I heard about her."

"Yeah?" Jack asked. "Like what?" He saw the look on Gabrielle's face, and laughed in spite of himself. "You don't need to be nice around me. I hate her guts just as much as anyone else. She screwed me over the worst." Well, maybe not as badly as Frank, whose heart attack she helped bring about, or Nelson, whose mental break down she helped speed up, but he'd been publicly humiliated and had had his heart broken, that was pretty damn bad. He scowled, remembering.

"I heard that she was a manipulative tramp who was far better at being a first-class bitch than she was a nurse – and bitch was the nicest word people used. Cate compared her to Eva Braun. I couldn't resist telling her that Eva Braun may have been a twit with appalling taste when it came to men, but she wasn't evil per se."

Jack laughed at that. "You don't strike me as the type who knows who Eva Braun was."

"You mean the ignorant country hick type who knows everything about tractors and sheep and nothing about history?" Gabrielle asked. Jack nodded sheepishly, caught out at putting stock in stupid stereotypes. "I read a lot growing up."

"Me , too. I was lonely a lot. At least without my looks."

Gabrielle had to laugh at that despite herself. "You, lonely?" she asked. I bet you had everything you wanted." Looks, intelligence, growing up in a city like Sydney he would have been surrounded by friends – and he thought he had been lonely? Ha, try living on a hundred-thousand-acre farm.

Jack's eyes glittered at that, the same dangerous look that he had given her when she had suggested she call Charlotte. "You have no idea what it's like to be me," he said. "You have no idea what it's like to grow up in a household of men who think the only honourable occupation out there in manual labour, and wanting to do something with your brain is just being a snob. Or what it's like to grow up with a step-mother who's been cheated on practically every day of her life and doesn't have the guts to confront her husband so she takes it out on her step-son. Or – " he stopped himself before he blurted out his most hideous secret, and mentally berated himself for giving away so much of himself as it was.

Gabrielle, thankgod, misunderstood him. "To have no-one believe that you could possibly be hurting over a miscarriage – especially when it was the result of a one-nighter that ruined your relationship," she said. She found herself thinking about her ex-boyfriend, Steve. Their relationship had come to a screeching halt when she had found out that Steve had cheated on het with her best friend. In a way, it wasn't much different to how Jack and Terri's reconciliation had ended. But she couldn't see Steve being so gutted over a miscarriage. She couldn't see Steve ever caring about the pregnancy. Hell, she couldn't see Steve owning up to the pregnancy if he had known, like Jack had, that the consequence would be the end of their relationship.

She found herself having a sudden surge of respect for Jack.

His face lost the hard, dangerous edge to it, and his eyes seemed to physically soften in front of her gaze. "Yeah," he said softly.

"It must've been hard," she said sympathetically.

"There was one nurse – Jess – she didn't know I overheard her, but she said something that really wanted to make me smack her – and I had nearly a foot and, like, thirty kilos on the girl. Crap about me being relieved. How can you say something so heartless when you know the person is still around?" he asked, and Gabrielle understood that Jack's unhealed grief lay not only in the miscarriage itself, but in having so many people think that he had been relieved. "Even Charlotte didn't want anything to do with me for a while. Ironically enough, it was Terri who got her to let me in," he added ruefully.

Gabrielle remembered how once upon a time, she had thought about her and Steve getting married and having a baby. When she had realised the kind of man he was – not the sort you wanted fathering your children – she had felt a deep sense of loss that that family would never be hers. If she had felt that about children that had never been conceived, just an abstract idea, then she couldn't fathom how Jack – let alone Charlotte – must have felt over the miscarriage. And at least Charlotte had enjoyed – if that was the right word – the benefit of an outpouring of sympathy. Jack had gotten nothing; he'd gotten less than nothing. Nothing would have been indifference; Jack got the public opinion that he was relieved at having dodged a bullet.

No wonder he had all this repressed grief inside him. No wonder he was skulking around the house, drinking alone, after an emotionally exhausting day of pretending to be nothing but happy for Charlotte when there was actually a big part of him that couldn't stop thinking about his own child. "Did you find out what sex it was?" she asked.

Jack nodded. "A girl. It was a girl. Funnily enough, whenever I thought about having kids – which I admit, wasn't often – I always imagined having a daughter. I don't know why. I guess I've just always gotten on better with females. I found out I had a sister later that year, actually. I had a lot of people point that out, like it was some kind of trade where I got the better deal – a kid sister who I could have a fully-formed adult relationship with for a brat that would have driven me batty for twenty years. But – it shouldn't have been a trade. I should have been able to have both. I should have been able to have both."

His voice broke at that, thinking about Charlotte's miscarriage and the deep sense of loss he had felt and the fact that not only had almost no-one cared, but most people had figured he was relieved – including Charlotte. "It wasn't fair," he said, finding himself crying into Gabrielle's shoulder – quite literally. "It wasn't fair," he said as she ran her fingers through his hair, drawing him close against her. She could feel his tears on her skin, dripping through her shirt, and it was a strange experience for her. Strange – and somewhat nurturing. It was her job to care about people who were in pain – both physically and emotionally – but this was something else entirely. Jack wasn't her patient, but he wasn't her friend, either. She knew him purely on a professional basis, and yet here and now, she felt very close to him, like she was the only one in the world who had some understanding of what he was going through – and that included Charlotte, the mother of his child.

"Let it out," she said softly, knowing that there was no point in telling him that it would be alright. He was crying into her shoulder – her, who was all but a stranger to him, yet the only person who had twigged that maybe he wasn't as happy for Charlotte as he was letting on – because it wasn't alright. It hadn't been alright since Charlotte had miscarried, and now he was having to deal with the fact that Charlotte would go on to have her own child – and he wouldn't, not yet. The bond he had expected to share with Charlotte was now hers to share with Spence – if he ever deigned to come back from Somalia. "Just let it out."

For several minutes, he cried into her shoulder and she held him protectively, keeping one arm around his back in a comforting hug and using her free hand to stroke the back of his head. Finally, he pulled his head away. "Sorry," he sniffled. "I'm not usually such a baby."

He shifted awkwardly, and suddenly she was aware of how big and strong he was; he had seemed so much smaller when he had been crying in her arms. "You're allowed to be," she said. "What you went through – no-one should have no go through that. It's against the laws of nature for a parent to lose a child, regardless of the circumstances. And to have people think what they did – " she reached out and stroked his tear-stained cheek gently. "I think you would have made a great dad," she said.

He sniffled again. "You don't know me."

"I know anyone as sensitive to loss as you is bound to make a great dad," she said. "Why don't you talk about it, let it out? I'm a good listener?"

So Gabrielle stayed up with Jack and he talked about his night with Charlotte and how he had regretted it deeply and been pissed off at Charlotte when she had told him she was pregnant, and it how it had made him wonder if he had brought it on himself karmically when she had miscarried. How he had been too in love with Terri – although love, he realised, wasn't really the right word for someone he had barely known and who he was so incompatible with, infatuated was more correct – to appreciate the gift Charlotte was offering her; resenting her instead. All those moments he had spent resenting her, worrying that Terri would find out and that would be the end of their reconciliation when he could have been with Charlotte and their child. The repressed guilt and grief and anger that he felt over it all that he had stuffed down inside him but that he couldn't keep down upon learning of Charlotte's new pregnancy; how Goddamn hard it was to smile and hug her and act like it wasn't hurting like hell to think of her first pregnancy...

Gabrielle stayed with him until he fell asleep, and retrieved a blanket from the linen closet to drape over him. She left him sound – if somewhat drunkenly – asleep on the couch, hoping that he had let out some of his repressed feelings and that he could finally start to heal.

Jack caught up with her two days later. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked down at his feet in embarrassment. "I just wanted to thank you for, uh, when you came over," he said. "I was a bit of a mess," he added with a rueful smile.

"It's OK," she said. "I was just glad I was there. My, uh, ex was, ah – uh – problem drinker, I'm well aware of how morose people can get when they're feeling sorry for themselves and drinking alone."

There was a story there, Jack realised. She had been reluctant to talk about her ex and at the same time wanting to explain. He wondered what had happened to make him her ex and if she was the reason she was in Sydney. He found himself struck by the urge to have one-on-one time with her that didn't involve him sobbing like a baby – this despite the fact that he had resolved to not get personally involved on any level with the ED NUM – and returning the favour of confidante. "Let me take you out for dinner," he found himself blurting out.

"I'm sorry?" Gabrielle asked. She had been half-expecting Jack to ask her out since she had started at All Saints – half the staff had warned her about him, said he had a particular penchant for the ED NUM – but not like this, not awkward and blurted out and after a very intimate night between them – although no doubt not the sort of intimacy he was used to.

"Let me take you out to dinner. I know this great Thai place and I want to repay you for what you did for me."

"Oh, Jack. You don't have to do that. I appreciate the offer, though."

"No, please, I insist. I won't feel good about it until I do. And I won't hit on you, if that's what you're worried about. I'm hardly in the frame of mind for a relationship right now," he pointed out.

Gabrielle found herself feeling a fraction of disappointment at that. It wasn't that she wanted Jack to hit on her – she just wanted to know that he found her attractive - attractive enough that he might hit on her in different circumstances. Say, if he wasn't in a confused emotional state and he didn't have a history of dating the women in her position. Although come to think of it – she wasn't exactly in the healthiest frame of mind when it came to men and relationships herself right now – so maybe what Jack was offering was exactly what she needed. "Sure," she agreed. "Sounds great."

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