Hi! This is the first fanfiction I've ever written and I'm not a native English speaker so I'm kinda nervous to post this here. But I hope you enjoy this.
"Who are you doing this for?"
Jac felt restless. She had gone to bed early and slept for a few hours but then woken up in the small hours. Now she found it difficult to fall asleep again. She laid on her side and stared at the white windowpanes. Shadows were dancing on her face and she couldn't stop thinking about what had happened over the last couple of days.
Jac hadn't told Fletch she had thought about leaving. Fletch had confronted her in the theater which had led to an argument and her telling him to go home. That she had no use for him. Jac acknowledged that she had been too harsh with him. Cruel even. With Essie scrubbing in to assist Jac, the surgery itself had been text-book. Well, after all, she was Jac Naylor. The Jac Naylor. Elliot Hope's little protege, who had grown out the boots she had been given when she had replaced Elliot as the clinical lead of Darwin. She was good, the best, the queen of heart surgery and she knew that.
Later on that day they had had yet another argument. And that was when Fletch had asked Jac why she had decided to stay. Now, one could say that that wasn't a tough question to answer. But she was Jac Naylor and Jac Naylor didn't answer questions that had anything to do with her personal life. Deep down Jac knew very well why she had stayed. More importantly who had made her stay. She was doing it for Fletch. After everything they had been through lately, Jac knew Fletch needed her. That's why she had chosen not to go anywhere in the first place. Least Jac had thought she could do, had been to look after him. Too bad, she hadn't had the courage to tell Fletch that she was doing it for him. Jac had wanted to scream from the top of her lungs that he had made her stay. But the words had never come out of her. They were trapped inside of her. She so hungered to tell him she liked him more than as a colleague, but she didn't know how, when or where. The walls on Darwin had ears, and Jac wasn't a huge fan of rumors.
In the beginning, Jac had seen Fletch just as another irritating nurse. So unsurprisingly preconceived of her. But she had soon learned she had been wrong about him. Nowadays Fletch was everything but just another irritating nurse to her. She willingly gave him credit for being good at his job. He was hard-working, competent, compassionate and managed to perform miracles on a strict budget. He looked out for his people and clearly loved his children to the moon and back. More than anything else, Jac appreciated how Fletch had been there for her when she had needed help the most. He hadn't even judged her or made her look weak. Fletch was her another pair of hands, professional support, and most importantly a friend Jac had never thought she would ever need. And now she was falling for him.
Jac couldn't recall the exact moment she had started to fall for Fletch. It had taken her a few weeks even to realize what was happening. The other day, she had had an awkward conversation with her patient Becky, who had asked Jac if she liked Fletch. Of course, Jac had denied having any feelings for him. To be fair, having any feelings for him hadn't occurred to Jac until that conversation. After Becky had pointed out how hot Fletch was, Jac had started to see him in a different light. Jac had soon realized that she, in fact, cared about him a little bit more than she was willing to admit. Not just as a friend and a co-worker but as something more than that. Jac didn't have the exact word for that feeling, but it had been there when she had been first with Joseph and then with Jonny. Only this time it didn't feel as complex.
Jac knew very well that she had hurt Fletch not once or twice but thrice: first by keeping a secret from him, then by saying she had no use for him and then again by not telling him how she really felt for him. But what had been done had been done and now Jac felt bad for doing that. Out of all people she had been mean to Fletch. To the person who had always been nothing but kind to her. To the person who put up with her little fits on the daily basis and never even complained. He was a father of four and had lost both his wife and his best friend and yet he hadn't let the world make him cynical. Jac hadn't meant to hurt Fletch. It was just her arrogance and inability to show any affection that made her either say almost every thought that would come to her mind or bottle everything up.
Fletch had walked into Jac's life and become her friend. When they first had begun to work together, neither of them had put much thought into befriending each other. Much to their surprise that had happened and now Jac was falling for Fletch fast and hard. She didn't want to admit it, but she couldn't deny it. He had the power to read her like an open book and she both hated and loved that about him. She loved that she didn't have to explain herself to Fletch. Jac loved that he respected her boundaries when it came to talking about personal stuff or Jac pushing herself to work too much and too soon after the shooting. She hated that they had grown so close ever since the day Fletch had moved to work on Darwin. Jac didn't let anyone close her – except for Sacha and Emma – and she liked it that way. Her life was easier when it was just her, Emma and her work. She kind of hated Fletch for just being Fletch.
Fletch was her opposite. Always patient, peaceful and caring. Even when Jac had called Raf's vinyl collection stupid, he had stayed calm. Even when she had told him she didn't know what he wanted from her, he had just taken a deep breath and said: "I know." He hadn't even elevated the volume of his voice. That's why he made such a good nurse. Jac wasn't much like him but maybe that was the reason why she had started to fall for him in the first place. Jac hated not only Fletch for being Fletch and how things were between the two of them, but also herself for letting her guard down and Fletch into her life. She was always the one who somehow managed to destroy the men she was with and hurt herself in the process. That was the reason why she hadn't told Fletch she had decided to stay for him. She wanted to protect both from the pain she knew would eventually come.
After a good while of rolling around in her bed, Jac knew she couldn't fall asleep again. She had been lying awake for too long. She shifted to sit, brushed her hair behind her ears and sighed before checking her phone. No received messages or emails. It was already 5 AM and her shift would begin in three hours. Before that, she needed to get Emma to the crèche. She got up. The hardwood floor felt cool under her warm feet causing her to shiver. The twinge on her left side made Jac take a few seconds to catch her breath. "Collect yourself." She muttered as she leaned against her bedside table. A warm bath (with a bath bomb and a face mask and some body oil afterward) would do wonders. She would bathe and take all the time she needed to get ready before she was going to wake Emma up. They'd spend a moment cuddling before Jac would bathe and feed her daughter. She would then have her own breakfast - a cup of coffee and two slices of toast with avocado topped with some sea salt and black pepper - while Emma watches Peppa Pig on the telly. Yes, that was what they were going to do. They would have a normal morning and Jac wouldn't show her daughter that deep inside she was hurting. No, not in front of her daughter.