(2)
The very first morning after, he arrives at work with his stomach producing way too much gastric acid and his heart practically in tachyarrhythmia. She had long vanished when he woke up very much alone and naked on the couch, save for his unbuttoned shirt that she must have flung over his body as she left, which was equal parts embarrassing and depressing. He doesn't know her schedule and he doesn't want to ask in case someone suspects something and runs their mouth, so he starts his day with no idea of what to expect or say when he sees her.
Except, he doesn't see her, not even once.
Still, he keeps an eye out all morning, unable to completely focus on the work at hand. He spills coffee all over his charts, zones out during the transplant meeting, fucks up two sets of progress notes (Pam takes it upon herself to berate him loudly after the second time), and gets booted from a procurement run for not being able to keep it together. Or as Dr Jordan puts it, "You're looking a little tired."
Inder takes his place on the plane and comes past to raise an eyebrow and mutter under his breath, "Did you score majorly at the wedding or something?"
He doesn't answer because he doesn't know if Inder has put two and two together or if he's just enquiring in general, but the other doctor seems to take his silence as acquiescence and gives him this slow nod of approval – right on, dude – and it suddenly feels like everyone around him is pretending not to notice. He takes his paperwork and disappears into one of the empty meeting rooms, tries to make himself scarce for the rest of the day. Andy finds him after 15 minutes; whoever was responsible for all of the glass walls in this place had a lot to answer for.
"You okay?" the attending surgeon asks, helping himself to a leftover doughnut from the morning meetings.
"Yeah," he says, trying to sound off-hand. "Didn't get much sleep."
Andy looks like he wants to smirk but admirably keeps it at bay. "Big weekend?"
"Not too," he replies. He trains his gaze on the pathology report in front of him, pretends like it's the most interesting thing he's ever read. Andy chews for another moment or two and then stands up to leave, thank fuck.
"Hey, David?" he shoots over his shoulder. "Just take off early. We've got it under control."
He nods but doesn't follow through, hanging around until an hour after his shift ends to see if she's clocking on for night. She doesn't and the evening cover keeps looking at him funny so he eventually goes home, feeling something a whole lot like disappointment.
When he steps out onto his floor, keys in hand, the very last person he expects to see is her, leaning against the wall, arms crossed. He gapes a little and she cocks an eyebrow at him. He wonders how long she's been standing there. (He wonders how she got into the building.)
"Where were you today?" He fumbles to get the lock before realising he's trying to jam the wrong key in the door and she looks at him like he's the biggest idiot she's ever laid eyes on.
"Time off," she answers shortly, pushing past him into the apartment.
Right. It figures.
He follows her in, trying to work out what she's even doing here and whether they need to talk or debrief, but then he sees her heading straight for his bedroom. The bedroom with the king-sized bed he hardly ever uses because he prefers the couch. She disappears into the room without a word and he stands in the hallway waiting for who knows what until her jeans come flying out in his direction, landing at his feet. Despite the situation, he has to admire her good arm. He picks them up and walks them back in to their owner.
The couch wouldn't have sufficed anyway, he realises much, much later.
(6)
It occurs to him that he might be a fuck buddy.
Actually, a lot of things occur to him: it's always his place and never hers, she comes and goes whenever she pleases regardless of what he wants, and they don't talk about what they're doing because it's not a big thing.
He knows she wants to keep a lid on it for whatever reason, and that's fine because it's not like he's dying to let everyone know he's somehow become entangled in some friends-with-benefits situation where he doesn't even get to call any of the shots. It's just a little disarming, is all. He's not used to operating like this, despite his known history.
Although no one at work would believe it, he is actually not that adept at dealing with romantic encounters past the stage of a hook-up or a one-night stand, which is exactly why he doesn't do a whole lot more of anything else. Relationship longevity isn't currently his strong suit and up until quite recently, he's been okay with that. And then, Miranda happens and not only does he not shut it down, he allows it to continue. She keeps showing up and he's the stupid guy who keeps letting her in.
(After the first time the sex improves enormously, so if this is just purely physical, he can at least respect that.)
A part of him wonders if he should feel used and cheap being someone's dirty little secret like this, but he doesn't for the most part. Perhaps a little used, maybe. And if he does, it's really no different to how those warm bodies and nameless faces that kept him company probably felt, is it? It takes him a while to pinpoint but he eventually realises that it's the feeling of being at a loss with the lack of a definition for them and okay, he admits it, some sort of commitment that's really fucking with him here. It's like he doesn't know who he is anymore and it's only been a few days. (And nights. Mostly nights.) Somehow, he is being slowly but surely dismantled by this and he has no earthly idea of how to deal.
Maybe he should just resign himself to being a fuck buddy.
…
…
Maybe he should just stop answering the door.
(5)
He's at a desk pretending to read a surgical report but he's really actually watching her confer with Andy about a patient, watching how easily Andy places his hand on her back and give a reassuring, if not a bit too overly familiar, rub. If he tried that, she'd probably remove his hand with a sternal saw. He sighs and returns his gaze to the screen.
Her scent hits him before her voice does – it is unsettling that he can even discern that faint but clean citrus and jasmine - and when he turns to face her, she's right at his shoulder. Their noses almost collide.
"Quit staring at me," she says impatiently, plucking the tablet computer out of his hands. "You are so fuckin' obvious."
And with that, she stalks off to go terrorise Ryan about something or other. He takes a deep breath and counts to ten, fights the urge to follow her and...well, he doesn't even know what he'd do. Start an argument? Pull her into a supply closet? Take back the tablet he was rightfully using?
In the end, he draws this little cartoon figure, badly. It's supposed to be him, with a hand over his eyes. He leaves it at her desk and clocks off for the night.
(12)
He misses his alarm and wakes up late, grumpy and still tired and his mood isn't helped when he realises he's alone. He texts her while he gets ready and when he checks his phone, he can see that she's read his message, so he texts her again while he's stuck in the mother of all peak hour traffic jams, just to see if she'll read it without replying once more. (She does.)
By the time he gets to work, his mood has considerably worsened and he's ready to snap at the next person he sees, so of course it's at that moment she steps off the elevator with Andy, the two of them chatting and laughing and, for all intents and purposes in his miserable narrative this morning, having the time of their fucking lives. He turns away and starts to head in the opposite direction but Andy calls out to him, wants him in on the transplant case of the morning with her. "My dynamic duo," he grins at them.
She gives him the briefest of glances, like she wasn't sprawled beneath him not even twelve hours ago, and then turns back to Andy to continue their discussion, so he takes a deep breath. "Where were you this morning?" he asks.
"Here," she says without missing a beat. He has to hand it to her; she hasn't even flinched. "Like you were supposed to be at eight."
His jaw clenches reflexively and he hands Andy back the case file. "Thanks, but no thanks," he says. "I've got too much to catch up on." He walks away before either of them can say anything.
It takes an hour before she pages him, telling him to meet her before the transplant committee meeting so she can fill him in. He ignores it and tries to bury himself in two other cases in an effort to keep busy and feel useful. He is being petulant, he knows this, but today he can't help it. He's so tired from not sleeping properly and from the effort of pretending in public that nothing has changed between them. He's tired of her nonchalance here, as if he's not the guy who comforted her all night after a bad call. He's really tired of her expecting him to just accept her way all the time. So he ignores her next two pages, purposely avoids the main areas of the hospital, and doggedly works through the incredibly mundane non-surgical cases he picked up because at least here he knows what he's doing.
She eventually tracks him down at lunch, tucked away in the corner of the courtyard. He's sitting with Beth, a very cute paediatrician he met at last year's Christmas party, and they're having a grand old time, even if he really has to force laughter at the stories she's telling. (She's an absurdly terrible storyteller, and he wonders how she relates to the kids she treats.) He thinks Miranda won't approach them but he underestimates her. She invites herself to the table without much preamble and deadpans the conversation into awkward silence until Beth takes her leave.
"Friend of yours?" Miranda asks coolly. Her eyes have that steely look like when she's fighting with committee members to put things to a vote.
"Jealous?" he shoots back, tilting his head to one side and regarding her. She doesn't even blink and he feels annoyance flare right through him, so he stands to leave too.
"Your pager broken?" she says but she's not really asking. He shrugs. "You missed the meeting so I need you to familiarise yourself with that kidney case ASAP. The kid's going in at two."
"I told you I can't, I've got too much on my plate."
"And I'm calling bullshit."
He is speechless for a second and has to sit back down. "You're calling me out for my bullshit?" he asks incredulously. "Are you even serious right now?"
She purses her lips and he can tell she's angrier than she's letting on but her façade remains fairly controlled. He thinks this is actually pissing him off more than his own behaviour is grating on him today; he wants her to snap, is itching for a fight.
"David," she starts, her nostrils flaring slightly as she breathes out. "I don't know what your damage is, but you need to suck it up, okay? We have work to do here."
"See, I don't think you get to tell me what to do or how to act, friend," he spits out. "My damage is that you think everything runs the Miranda way and it doesn't. Not anymore." The words are out before he can stop them but he realises as soon as he speaks that he means every last one. He pushes back his chair and stands to leave again but she gets there before him.
"You're absolutely right," she says and he can immediately tell by her tone that she's about to destroy him somehow. "Please don't feel you have to do anything, as you say, the Miranda way anymore. I wouldn't want any favours."
He opens his mouth but she leans down and lowers her voice. "But here's the thing: in this hospital, it's got nothing to do with the Miranda way. It's called a pecking order. And I am telling you, Resident Lee, for the last time to get your ass into gear because you are scrubbing in on that kidney under my lead. That is your job. Do you understand?"
She storms away in a whirl of white coat, leaving him standing there, his fists balled up and his jaw clenched so tight he's surprised his teeth are still standing. Oh, fuck her for pulling rank on him. And fuck her even more for laying his professional duty on the line. He breathes in and out several times in great effort to steady himself before walking back inside.
By some stroke of luck, she ends up being called off to a trauma right before they head to theatre, so Andy steps in for her and the patient is none the wiser about dodging the bullet of two surgeons who were pretty much ready to cut into each other instead of his abdomen.
The back elevators break down during the evening so he takes the staircase to the carpark. When he rounds the corner to suddenly find her idling by his car, he's so surprised he almost yelps out loud. She watches him approach with something unrecognisable shadowing her features, so he waits for her to say something except she doesn't say a thing and instead kisses him. It isn't wildly romantic or anything but she reaches out to find him through his clothes, scrapes along his collarbone, feels for his chest, his heartbeat – here, I'm here – and when she lapses away, she's breathing a little harder.
"Okay?" she whispers, leaning her forehead against his, like this is supposed to be some sort of apology. He suspects it's the closest he's going to get and while he appreciates the gesture and knows what it means for her because they are still on work grounds, he's not about to just let go and fall of this damn cliff edge again. He grips the car door like somehow this might save him and yet, it still feels inevitable that he will lose this battle.
Okay.
(9)
She gets hungry at one in the morning and there's nothing in his fridge again so they drag themselves out of the apartment to some 24-hour diner he vaguely knows of, or at least has driven past a few times. There are a couple of high school kids trying to pretend like they're not sobering up at a nearby booth but otherwise the place is dead. They barely get the privilege of a menu.
"Do you think they do all-day breakfast?" She looks at him over the top of the sticky laminate, brow furrowed. He shrugs, yawning, and doesn't order anything, earning himself a glare from the waitress.
He's really struggling to keep up by the time her Eggs Benedict arrive and he starts building little structures made out of sugar packets and straws for something to do while she eats. She's so wide awake and he can't figure out how, considering they've both been up for an obscene number of hours at this point and they're expected to front back up to work in a few more. He realises he still knows so little about her and she's too good at keeping it that way. He is wary just thinking about how many warning signs he might have already missed; he needs to be careful here.
(He is wary just thinking about how fast he's lost his proverbial footing with her.)
On cue, he catches her eyes for a moment – hazel under this light – and she unexpectedly reaches out to skate her fingers across the back of his hand. His stomach goes a little swoopy, like on a rollercoaster that's cresting, about to plunge.
He really needs to be more careful here.
(4)
"I don't want to tell anyone," she says out of the blue, staring at her food. He looks up from his plate, confused. "About this," she continues, lifting her gaze to meet his. "About..."
"...us?" he supplies. They haven't spoken about anything to do with "this" or "us" since he tried to get her to stay the night with him.
"There is no us," she says a little too sharply and it takes him aback somewhat, so he swigs from his beer for something to do. "What I mean to say," she hastens to clarify, "Is that this isn't some big thing, right?"
She watches him carefully, her eyes boring into him like she's trying to will him to agree. With anyone else he probably could, but with her there are just so many more questions than there are answers. Like, does he still belong to the singular terms if there isn't an "us", and if so, does that mean he can see other people? Does she want to see other people? Is this just a sex thing? What does she think is worse for people to find out – that they're sleeping together, or that she's sleeping with him? He just wants a little clarification but the look on her face is bordering on desperate hope and it makes him want to go easy on her, shelve his priorities away for the moment.
"Right," he eventually says. "It's not a big thing at all."
They finish their cold takeout and then she makes some lame excuse about having to go home that he sees right through but he lets it slide because he's not exactly in the mood either. He walks her to the elevator and she insists on taking it down alone so he stands there staring at his own warped reflection long after the doors have slid shut.
His bed feels too big and he tosses and turns until about three in the morning, when he finally grabs his pillow and heads for the couch.
(1)
It's past midday when he wakes and the first thing he notices is that he's on the floor wearing last night's suit.
The second thing he notices is Miranda, blinking wearily at him from across the room where's she's slumped on his couch, her hair a distracting, tangled disaster. He grimaces; she looks as hungover as he feels.
"We didn't...?" she asks hesitantly, her voice slightly raspy.
He almost smirks but his face feels like it might crack in two if he tries and as much as he enjoys her discomfort and uncertainty (for it happens maybe once in a blue moon), he's fairly certain he doesn't want to piss her off right now.
"No," he says, and her relief is so obvious to the point of being insulting that he can't help himself. "You would have remembered."
She snorts and he manages a weak grin, even as his head throbs with the effort. He knows there's a bottle of aspirin in the bathroom but the thought of standing up and making his way even just to the hallway is nauseating to say the least. No, better to lie here and suffer in at least some semblance of tragic manliness, rather than chance a possible regurgitation of his stomach contents in front of her. (Because that would be so uncool, on account of him looking so smooth and suave right now on the ground.)
He hears her shuffling around, her keys jangling like they're actually dancing on the inside of his skull and he moans (in a very manly way, of course) and tries to press his face further into the shag pile rug. He wants to pass out so very badly. He wants her to leave his passed out body here on the floor in peace. He closes his eyes, figuring she'll head home, and that they'll laugh about it on Monday at work when they no longer feel like dying might have to be a considered option.
It comes as a complete surprise to rouse again, this time to the unkind clanging of kitchenware, and realise that he's either being burgled or that she's still here. It's dark outside as he stumbles towards the sound to find her in all her wrinkled pantsuit glory, poking through the cupboards like she owns the damn place. He is a little stunned at the sight of her in his kitchen to be honest.
"Why do you have so many unused pots and pans?" she asks when she catches sight of him, as if this is a completely normal conversation opener and they are not actually smack bang in one of the weirdest tableaus of ever. Her tone is equal parts curious and disgusted - he's heard it often enough to know. "Some of these still have tags on them," she continues, thrusting a saucepan at him accusingly.
He shuffles up behind her, feeling heavy in his limbs and like he could still very much sleep another good couple of hours. "What are you looking for anyway?" he asks, reaching around either side of her to hang onto the cupboard handles, peering in over her head. He actually has very little idea of what exactly he stores in here.
She half turns to give him a look (all knitted brow and narrowed eyes) and it makes him realise with a start just how close they're standing, barely an inch or two between them, in clear violation of each other's personal space. If she notices then she doesn't let on but the brief alignment of their bodies leaves his angling after hers as she steps away from him and he has to right himself, leaning his weight against the cupboard for traction. The air feels emptier for a moment somehow. He shakes his head as if to clear it and follows her to where she's examining the (lack of) contents of his fridge, which, by the way, sure – go right ahead and judge. There's the remains of a six-pack, a carton of eggs, half a loaf of bread and some takeout containers, the origin of which he shamefully but admittedly cannot remember. He almost feels the disbelief pouring out of her, but whatever. It's not like he's trying to impress anyone here.
"Scrambled or fried?" he offers, pretending like this isn't pretty much all he can do. (And all he can offer. And all he knows how to cook. He eats out a lot.)
"Poached," she replies. The left corner of her mouth twitches ever so slightly and he can hear the challenge in her tone.
"Scrambled it is," he says, and when she rolls her eyes he wants to tell her she's free to leave but then she pulls out one of his supposedly numerous frypans, removes the price sticker and sets about the stove, so he just lets her be.
They eat eggs on toast for dinner. He doesn't realise he's starving until he takes the first bite. She sits at his kitchen bench because he doesn't have a dining table but he lounges on the couch, flipping mindlessly through TV channels. They dive back into parts of last night's wedding, sniggering about the bits that they can still remember - like when Ryan caught the garter and thought he was holding the bride's underwear - and swapping snide remarks on all of the showiness of the too-rich crowd. He doesn't know at what point she migrates from bar stool to the spot next to him, but suddenly halfway through an SVU repeat, he becomes distinctly attuned to her presence again. He's so hyper aware of her sitting and breathing beside him that he scarcely moves for a while because he doesn't want her to become equally aware of (and weirded out by) his awareness of her.
To be fair, he's been hyper aware of her since they first met on his second day at Three Rivers when she strongly protested against allowing him to shadow her on rounds and then cleanly dispatched him to Andy, so it's nothing new that she hovers constantly on his radar. (He won't lie: she's also constantly on his radar because he, like anyone with a modicum of functioning vision, notices how attractive she is and sometimes he just likes working alongside her to stare a little.) It's just that he's never spent so much consecutive time with her and it's starting to get to him a little, a bit overwhelming or something and he's probably still too hungover to think about this rationally.
When he carefully rearranges his legs with forced casualness because holding so still has made them start to cramp, he can tell she's watching him and it unnerves him but in a thrilling sort of way. Like when they're flying back on the helicopter together and she falls asleep, head heavy against his shoulder, and that patch of his jacket smells like her hair for days afterwards. (Okay, so that happened once but he's thought about it a lot more than he would ever admit). Or when she leans over him to read a lab on his computer and when she speaks, she's so close her lips graze his earlobe for a second and he swears she did it on purpose. (Also only happened once but he dreamt it happened again). He's not really sure how it got to this point. It's as if his brain has been subconsciously banking up every tiny moment where she might have accidentally or not so accidentally paid him a bit more attention than usual, so that now he can't even handle sitting next to her and watching TV.
He thinks he might need an exit strategy soon.
When he thinks it's safe, he darts a glance at her out of the corner of his eye except she notices immediately. "What?"
"Nothing," he says much too quickly, because he's smooth like that. So fucking smooth.
She's still staring at him and he is starting to possibly sweat under her intense scrutiny when all of a sudden, she leans in a little closer like she's about to kiss him, which is absurd because there's not a chance that's actually her intention, so he prepares to be teased or mocked. When her lips do brush his though, it's barely even a touch and he is still trying to figure out what she's doing here so he doesn't even move much less attempt to reciprocate. She laughs a little but not like she thinks it's entirely funny. "You know, for a doctor, you're a little slow on the uptake."
He blinks and says rather intelligently, "Uh...?"
She kisses him again, briefly but harder this time. He leans back to look at her carefully because he still thinks there's a high chance this is the last vestiges of the alcohol or an exceptionally long con that's about to be exposed, but she seems as serious as she ever is about anything. He breathes out a little unevenly. "Are you sure?" Of what, he has no idea but it seems a good question to ask.
"Right now," she sighs, resting her head on the back of the couch, regarding him unblinkingly. "I am sure that your reputation far exceeds you. And I gotta tell you, I'm a little disappointed."
Well then.
He leans into her and kisses with as much purpose as he can bear to impart, feeling some of the tension lifting from his body. After a beat, she kisses him back. His hands wind through her hair, the previously styled locks crumbling apart into softer, separated strands under his fingers. He remembers now, last night, placing a hand on top of her head to keep her from bumping it on her way out of the cab, and how he had barely been able to key in his code to let them into the building. How they had both been talking really loudly because they could no longer hear their true volume and how his neighbour, crabby old Mr Leith, had opened his apartment door to ask them if they knew what time it was and to mind themselves. How they had practically fallen in through his door, crashing to the floor in a pile of limbs, laughing about everything and nothing. The last thing he remembers is telling her to sleep it off on the bed because he was going to take the couch, but he had obviously failed to make it to his final destination. (Or she pushed him off after he passed out, because that is a very real possibility.)
He keeps thinking that any moment now, she's going to pull back and laugh about what a horrible idea this is. In fact, he should really stop this before it reaches a place they can't come back from and everything is irrevocably changed but instead, he just keeps allowing it to unfold because, well, stupidity or something.
She is surprisingly unabashed and unreserved with her hands and mouth, but he gets over it quickly enough and presses her gently down onto the couch. He would be lying if he says he doesn't feel some level of performance anxiety, what with that line she threw out about his reputation before, but he finds that the buzzing in his ears quietens to a low hum if he keeps his focus on her body. It's unfamiliar territory and they are somewhat clumsy with each other, but he takes his time and discovers her as slowly as he can, bit by bit: the jut of her hipbones, the long expanse of her torso, a spot just behind her ear that his lips find by happy accident, causing her leg to curl tightly around him and her foot to dig into his spine.
He can't say it's the best sex he's ever had, but it is by far the most fascinating one-night stand of his life.
(7)
Through a haze of afterglow and sleepiness, he senses her sitting up and reaching for her clothes. He feels groggy from the lack of quality rest of late but he refuses to succumb just yet. The faint moonlight through the window gives him no indication of time.
"Don't go," he says and for some reason it comes out in a whisper. He rolls over and makes a half-hearted attempt to reach at her, but his fingers meet the empty space beside him. He closes his eyes and waits, listening to her scrabbling around for her underwear, ready for the I'll see you later and the quiet click of the front door closing, and then they can continue ignoring that he keeps trying to change this routine.
He's almost asleep, so close, when he thinks he feels her hand on his chest. Without opening his eyes, he reaches to place his own hand on top so as to anchor her to him, and he can almost sense her hesitation through her touch. And then, she climbs back under the covers, crawls into the space his arm makes around her and curls onto his shoulder, all without saying a word.
He knows through the physical sense that this is actually happening but he doesn't dare open his eyes, just in case. Instead, he presses her palm harder against his chest, right on top of his heartbeat, until he can feel it through her hand.
(13)
It's Alicia Wilson's birthday, the nurse whose number he procured by the end of his first day at Three Rivers. (The nurse he tried to help Ryan win over with lobster rolls, which contrary to what Spongebob thinks, was an honest mistake on his part.) She waves him over to the impromptu gathering at the main hub of desks, where Pam is trying to fit a cake in amongst an array of baked goods and a few bunches of flowers. He steals a cinnamon roll and signs a giant card that's making the rounds. He chats and laughs with the nurses, throws around his so-called charm and wit, and it is effortless. It honestly feels so good to just cut loose for a bit, to say and do without overthinking anything, without worrying that he's out in the open – where everyone can see. It feels even better when the nurses respond in the way he's come to expect, the way he knows how to operate within; they lap it up, pull him in, feed him insanely good cake, and he can't help basking in their attentions.
Alicia is lit up with happiness, as pretty as a picture, and he goes to hug her and wish her a good birthday. She smiles at him and he sees a remnant of their brief history twinkling in her eyes. She is the first person he ever slept with at Three Rivers and they have remained friendly but not close, which is so achingly nice and normal and uncomplicated he wants to hug her again. He finds himself unintentionally but good-naturedly flirting with her, like his default setting has kicked back in, and Alicia laughs along.
Across the floor, his eyes catch Miranda's and she throws him this look, daggered eyes and twisted mouth. He is hotly indignant at her reaction, but also ever so slightly guilty, like he's the one at fault here. Except, he isn't. He's the one who's laid himself bare as much as he possibly can in such a short amount of time – and it has been downright disturbing sometimes finding himself wanting for things he's never wanted before and trying to reconcile that with who he thought he was – and there is only so much non-response he can take, so no. He's not apologising for anything here, especially not for finally feeling like himself again. As if to prove it to the both of them, he leans forward to murmur farewell in Alicia's ear and then grazes his lips against her cheek. The nurse gives him a raised eyebrow but otherwise doesn't say anything. He looks back at the patient's room but Miranda has disappeared and his defiance feels a little hollow.
He goes about his work, quite successfully ignoring the tiny swirl of guilt that settles in his stomach. The transplant list is short today so he gets asked to cover orthopaedic surgery. He wanders around the wards, enjoying the new dynamic and the break from the life-and-death pace downstairs. He goes to lunch with two of the ortho nurses. He doesn't remember that swirl until he gets paged back to her father's namesake wing, where Ryan is running around like some headless chicken and Andy is talking into two different phones at once. He watches them confusedly until Pam informs him: Miranda and Breen, on procurement run to Youngstown and due back almost two hours ago, are AWOL and the pilot isn't answering his phone.
His mind goes blank and he starts to hear things as if from underwater, all muffled roaring and vibrations. Andy is telling someone to start a search from the air and someone else to visually go down to the Youngstown hospital airstrip to confirm they actually left. Ryan is giving physical descriptions of the three on board to an official-looking guy. Pam calls theatre and tells them to close the patient. "They need another doctor up there," she reports back to Sophia, who turns to look at him.
"David, you go," she says a bit absently, her face drawn.
He shakes his head automatically and Sophia comes to stand in front of him, puts a hand to his upper arm. "I know you're worried about your colleagues, but there's nothing you can do for them right now."
"Sometimes she reads the message but doesn't reply, so check if she's read it," he says before she's finished speaking and the older doctor looks at him with a mixture of bewilderment and concern.
"We'll do that," she says slowly, nodding her head at him, her eyes scanning his face. "We're doing everything necessary. Go." She rubs his arm comfortingly and then walks away, back towards Andy.
He remains standing on the edge of the floor until his phone buzzes in his pocket and he almost rips his scrubs trying to fish it out but it's just an advertising text from his gym. He resists the urge to throw it against the wall and instead heads for the elevator, thumbing through his messages until he finds her name. Her status comes up as being active twelve hours ago, which really doesn't help matters, but he jabs at the screen anyway and manages to send through a legible message. His eyes wait for the read indication that never comes and he scrubs into theatre with the guilt from before now swollen and acidic, weighting him down like lead and pushing tendrils of bile up his oesophagus. He tries to focus on the patient on the table, waiting for lungs since last week, now being sewn back up to wait it out once more. The surgery takes longer than usual because the patient suddenly becomes hypotensive and he and the anaesthetist fly into action to bump her back up. His hands shake slightly, from adrenaline or anxiety, he doesn't know; he bites his lip and fights to stabilise both the patient and himself.
When at last the patient is wheeled out, he pushes his way through the double doors and almost shoves right into a waiting Ryan. "They're back!" the assistant coordinator exclaims, his face stretched in a wide grin. "Miranda and Dr. Breen! Dr. Jordan wanted me to come up and let you know."
He feels his breath catch at the back of his throat for a second before the passage of air returns to normal and he can exhale. "What happened?" he semi-croaks out but Ryan appears oblivious.
"The chopper had a minor crash just past New Middletown. They were stranded for a while without cell coverage and I think Dr. Breen couldn't walk. But they airlifted him back here and he's being treated downstairs."
"And Miranda?" he can't help asking, moving towards the elevator and jamming his finger against the button.
"Both she and the pilot are okay," Ryan says, watching him practically break the panel. "You know, you always say to me it doesn't make it come any faster – "
"Right, thanks," he cuts off, jogging for the stair door and leaving Ryan to make his own way back down. His heart feels like it's jumped right up to the base of his neck, just above his clavicle, and he almost trips down several of the flights but he ultimately makes it one piece and comes flying onto the floor, eyes searching for her familiar form.
"Hey," comes a female voice behind him and he jumps. It's Alicia. She gives him a onceover while he's trying not to pant out loud. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," he huffs out, immediately sucking in another breath of air to maintain. "I heard everyone's good?"
She nods. "Yeah, lucky escape, huh? And Joseph's only sustained a leg fracture." It takes him a few seconds to remember Breen's first name is Joseph. "It could have been a lot worse." He nods, not wanting to linger on that particular line of thought, and sees Sophia up at the main desks.
"Oh, David!" Sophia says with a quick smile. "Just the person I was looking for. The lungs were lost but as luck would have it, they managed to procure a heart from the same donor for Miranda's patient, and it's still viable. I want you to scrub in to assist Andy."
"I was hoping to see how everyone was doing," he says, glancing again behind his shoulder.
"Dr. Breen is recovering in the ER right now, and the pilot is just having some minor injuries attended to." She pauses and looks at him meaningfully and when she speaks again, her tone is softer. "I sent Dr. Foster home after she was given the all clear. She needed to rest."
Sophia's face is full of sympathy and he shifts uncomfortably, forcing his lips to turn upwards in some approximation of a smile. He doesn't exactly appreciate her manner right now, like she thinks it somehow affects him more, however accurate that may or may not be. In fact, he'd very much like to go and rest too, now that the dust has settled, go be alone someplace to muddle through his thoughts, to try and shelve some of the emotion that's threatening to break forth from him, but alas, the heart. Miranda's fucking heart.
"David," Sophia eventually says, and this time her tone is one of empathy. Like she's been here before. "She's going to be alright. You both are."
He makes a non-committal head gesture and walks himself up to theatre, dutifully scrubs in. When it comes time to hand Andy the heart, he wraps his fingers around it and thinks of how she likely did the same a few hours ago. He thinks of her hand on his chest and his heartbeat through her palm. He watches the heart pulse back to life in her patient, beating steadily and continuously, beginning another chapter in this world. There is a little faintness he feels from the relief that's still coursing through him, but moreover there's a sense of needing to acknowledge an epiphany or two as he stares down at the organ.
He needs to talk to her.
(11)
He's just clocked off shift, nursing a beer up on the lookout before he heads home. They've been stuck in theatre all day and he has no idea where she is, hasn't seen her since before lunch.
The door creaks open behind him, casting a yellowish light into the dark before a figure emerges - he watches as she crosses the landing to come and stand beside him. She doesn't say anything, her face quite deliberately blank, and he thinks maybe she's had a rough call. He wordlessly offers her his bottle but she doesn't take it, just leans in closer to his side, pressing her shoulder against his. Her fingers are cold when he feels them wrapping around his wrist before they slide into his palm and lace through his own. Oh...
Still, she doesn't speak. They stay like that a while, watching the city go on beneath.
(14)
It's late when he gets out from work. She hasn't made contact all day and while he hadn't really expected her to be standing outside his door waiting for him when he arrives home, he is still disappointed not to see her when the elevator slides open. He orders takeout and calls her while he waits for the delivery guy, except her phone has been turned off since who knows when and no matter how many times he calls, she doesn't all of a sudden magically pick up. When his food arrives, he paces the kitchen for a while, neither eating nor doing anything remotely self-sustaining. He messages her even though he knows she's not receiving any of his texts. In the end, he throws the food containers into the fridge and gets into his car, takes it upon himself to find out where she lives or if she has a landline. It's just past midnight when he calls work and switchboard transfers him to the main desks instead of reception. Of all the people to take his call it's Pam, doing a rare double shift, and when he makes his request he can tell by her pause that he's just blown their cover.
Thirty minutes later, he finds himself in Shadyside in front of a little, old Victorian-style home. It's been raining and there are no lights on but still, he rings the bell over and over, knocks on the door, calls out to her in a voice quickly becoming hoarse. He gets cold and tired, right down to his bones, and sinks down to sit on the wet stoop and wait her out.
When at last she holds the door open and stands aside, he almost just crawls in instead of getting up. She flicks on a small lamp in the entrance way and stares up at him, her hair tied back and her green eyes enormous; her face sports a handful of cuts, scrapes and bruises on the left side, starting from the hairline down to her upper lip. She is wearing an oversized gentleman's cardigan and it swathes her frame, leaving her looking diminutive. He has things he's been wanting to say while outside, has a rough speech prepared in his head, but she looks so broken that all he can ask is if she's okay.
"Yes," she says stiltedly. After a pause, she asks him back, "Are you?"
"No," he replies honestly.
There is a moment of silence and then he blinks first and she's suddenly on him, lips pressed hard against his, hands pulling his face closer to hers. It is not gentle, it is not an apology, and when she yanks at his jacket and claws at his shirt, causing him to stumble back and whack his elbow against a side table, he suspects there's a part of her that wants to hurt him. He doesn't respond too much at all, is afraid of exacerbating any of her existing injuries, and so he lets her tug at his clothes and bite at his lip and all the while, he keeps his hands anchored at her hips, steadying her chaos.
When she pauses to draw breath, he presses her back against the wall and kisses the skin at her neck, combatting her actions with unrushed, more deliberate movements. She gradually slows her pace to match him as he undoes the cardigan and slides her underwear to the side. He lifts her leg up and wraps it around his hip, and she arches her back off the wall, pushes impatiently against him as he moves; it takes her a while but when he finds that spot just behind her ear, she finally lets go.
The second time, in her narrow bed just barely big enough for the two of them, she works him over agonisingly slow, slower than he'd gone before, until he thinks he might actually combust. Afterwards, she sits up against the headboard, hunching forward slightly, and he lies next to her with his head on her pillow and his feet just hanging off the mattress.
"I'm sorry about the last few days," he says, looking up at her by the dim light on her bedside drawer.
She shakes her head slowly. "Don't be," she says. "I shouldn't have reacted the way I did."
"Why?"
"Because you were right," she replies, avoiding his eye. "It's not my place to feel that way and to take it out on you." She picks at a bit of fluff from the sheet, still not looking at him.
"Right," he says shortly, and she finally glances over.
"I just mean that we seem to be in a holding pattern," she clarifies. "And I'm the one who should be saying sorry."
He clears his throat and rolls onto his back, trying to remember how his speech began. "I'm not trying to force us into becoming something we're not but I can't help feeling like we have something here," he starts. "And it freaked me out a little. I'm not great at this to begin with and with you, everything was different and confusing and I didn't know how to handle it. I kept trying to take a step back and maintain myself but that didn't really work. So I tried to make you jealous to see if you felt the same, because I was convinced it was all one-way." He glances at her and she is listening intently. "But then today, I realised it doesn't matter if this doesn't work out or you don't feel the same and I've just been making a fool of myself, because this conversation might never have happened if things had gone differently. I should have told you how I was feeling sooner. And I'm really glad you're okay."
She doesn't say anything for a while and he thinks he may have lost her with his so-called speech, but then she makes a noise that sounds like a small mirthless laugh. "I'm not though," she says. "Not really." He waits and she sits up a little straighter, arms falling to her sides. "I'm afraid," she half-whispers, and he can tell how tough it is for her to even voice it.
"What are you afraid of?" he asks, reaching out to take her hand in his, rubbing his thumb in circles across the back.
She takes a breath and lets her gaze wander around the room before settling back on his face. "That I'm not great at this either. That we'll ruin it because of who we are, fundamentally. That I'll lose my friend."
He ponders this and she leans her head back with a sigh. "That last one won't happen," he says. "Because I am actually really great at breaking up amicably."
She closes her eyes in exasperation and extracts her hand from his grip, but a tiny smile is threatening her lips. "Shut up."
"Seriously," he deadpans. "All my exes love me."
"Yeah, I'm sure they do," she mutters under her breath, and he grins.
"Can I ask you something?" He shifts his legs so that they don't cramp. "Why did you do it the first time?"
She laughs unexpectedly. "Because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about."
"Huh," he exhales, somewhat surprised by her answer. "So then the second time…?"
"Well, I wanted to give you a shot at redeeming yourself from that first time," she says and he swears he can see a glint in her eye. "Just in case it was an anomaly."
"Ouch," he says, but he's smiling again.
They lapse back into tired silence and she eventually shifts down the bed. He follows suit and they arrange themselves carefully around each other, his hands running paths across her skin. His feet still stick out from under the duvet but he doesn't mind, not when she rolls over and curls right into his space, tucking herself under his arm. When she drifts off, he fights the fatigue a little longer and just watches her – her face softening in slumber, her eyelids fluttering and not fully closed.
Life-affirming speech aside, it still terrifies him how much he really wants this now.
(10)
He recognises her ringtone, some generic ditty that came pre-programmed with the phone, and it's probably not even her phone but still. It reminds him of home - of sitting on the couch, watching TV and listening to her take calls from night cover, even when she's not the on-call surgeon.
(In fact, she's hardly ever the on-call surgeon these days but she always picks up when she sees it's a work number. He teases her once about how she'll wind up married to her work, momentarily forgetting about her father.)
The tune plays on a while and he realises belatedly it's actually coming from her denim jacket after all, where she's left it slung over a chair on her way to get the next round of drinks with Inder. He scrabbles in the pocket and pulls out two pens, gum wrappers, her swipe tag, and a folded scrap of paper before he can reach her phone, by which time he's missed the call.
He's re-pocketing the items when he glimpses the familiar, badly-sketched cartoon of himself. The one with his hand over his eyes.
(3)
She gets dressed in the murkiness of somewhere between night and dawn, pulling on her clothes with an air of detachment as if he is not lying right there watching her.
"We are so not going into work together," she had said earlier, flat on her back after round two. He had suggested it jokingly, more to see how she would respond, but she is not joking in her vehemence.
"Hey, don't leave," he says now, even as she continues dressing. He can just make out her profile from where he's lying, can see the jut of her hipbone before she pulls her jeans up. "Get some sleep and I promise we'll clock in separately." She moves to find her shoes like he hasn't just spoken, like he hasn't just kind of maybe tried to steer this somewhere else. He wonders if it's too much for her. (He wonders if it's too much for him.)
"I'll see you later," she finally says, not even glancing back at him as she walks out and he realises she's not going to be that kind of girl. He thinks he already knew she wouldn't be.
The front door closes and he rolls over, tries to find some semblance of her left behind.
(15)
They spend the weekend at her place, lazily looping their way through her much roomier residence. She has a long hallway, which is kind of a novelty until the carpet burn. They come dangerously close to breaking her dining table and afterwards, it tilts to one side but she doesn't seem to care too much. He washes the clothes he wore last night and while they dry, he wears her cardigan and nothing else.
(He thinks of the last two insane, glorious, bumbling, thrilling, head trippy weeks, and how if someone had foretold him at the wedding that this is where he would be today, he would have asked for whatever they were drinking.)
She has a sizeable bruise on her ribs, from when the chopper malfunctioned and hit the ground and she was thrown to the side. It is yellow and purple and he can see exactly where her blood vessels have burst. He spreads his fingers over the discoloured skin to cover the entire area, making sure to exert no pressure. She skitters her lips across his forehead, brushes her nose against his, coaxes his lips open - i want to be lost in you - and when she settles onto him, her eyes don't move from his face.
Time seems to pass them by defined only in moments, with no seconds, minutes or hours here. He catches her wrist before she slips away, pulls her back to the bed; they lie half-asleep on the couch, pressed up against each other, TV flickering in the background; under the running shower, she wraps her arms around his hips and leans her head on his shoulder. It does occur to him that they can't stay in this bubble forever as much as they want to, that outside of these confines is a world where this still doesn't yet live. Not entirely.
He offers to make dinner while she leans a forearm on the couch, watching with much amusement. He's trying to poach eggs, following a step-by-step tutorial complete with idiot-proof diagrams that he printed out while she was sleeping; he's stashed it into a corner where she can't see, playing it like he knows exactly what he's doing, that he does this kind of shit all the time. For some reason, the simplistic graphics hinder more than they help and the written instructions make less sense to him than the pictures, so he winds up with a pot full of half-cooked egg bits floating around in vinegary water. She comes up behind to check on his progress and cracks up.
They order a pizza, giving the delivery guy a giant tip, and talk about mindless crap, carefully skirting around work but in a much more comfortable way. She plays a Jackson 5 song while they clean up and he surprises her by singing along, although it is quickly apparent that they are both tragic at holding a tune. All you gotta do is repeat after me...She hip checks him in time to the beat and raises his arm high above her head, spinning slowly underneath again and again. Easy as 1, 2, 3.
He wants to exist, just like this.
In bed, she keeps the light off and opens her curtains so that the night washes over them in a muted, milky film. Here, it's like they're the only two people in this entire world. He keeps his lips at her shoulder, not actively kissing her but just wanting the contact. The whole weekend he's been constantly touching her, because he can't get over the feeling of her skin on his. He's pretty sure she's mostly indulging him as he doubts she usually has patience for this kind of stuff, so he enjoys it while he can.
"So, tomorrow," she says.
He considers for a moment and then speaks without moving his mouth from her shoulder. "Only if you're ready. I can wait." And he really can he realises, now that things have settled. Now that they are.
She stares up at the ceiling and seems to internally struggle with herself and so he noses forward, kisses the skin underneath her jawline softly – it's okay, it's okay – and she arches her neck towards him in response. "Tomorrow," she finally says again.
"Are you sure?" he asks, voice floating out into the quiet. She looks at him then, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
(Easy as 1, 2, 3.)
He thinks they're going to be alright.