"Yeah, just come get me when the tests come in, okay?" Jordan asks with a smile, tucking her hands into the front pockets of her scrubs, turning to enter the hallway. She's barely wiped the pleasantry from her mouth when she comes face to face with TC.
"Hey," he says, his hair a bit longer, fading bruises adorning the same stubbled face she remembers, the same one that she can't seem to wipe from her mind, her fingertips still feeling the prick of his face under her hand, even after all this time.
"You're back," she declares, stating the obvious, frozen in her spot.
"Uhh, yeah, got back a couple days ago," he says with that damning grin, and she looks down so it misses its intended target.
"Great," she flippantly says, moving to walk with a hop, her hair pulled in a ponytail, the lighter color catching the light and his eye, as she feels him tracking her, taking in all the changes, grin never leaving his lips.
It's only when a patient is brought in that they jump into action, throwing the awkwardness aside, working seamlessly together like they always have.
He always says the first thing he ever noticed about her was her exemplary skills, and that damn pink sweater. A compliment if there ever was one, especially from him. But the first thing she ever noticed about him was how stupid he'd been to take the kind of risk he had. It was that same risk taking behavior that had probably led him to asking her out, a trait that had seemed so attractive that she'd bitten her lip and signed on for the rest of her life.
The trauma having been rectified, only the stitching of the patient left, it plunged them into silence.
She focuses on her steady, concise work, while he continues to stand across from her, his brown eyes never leaving her, as she focuses on the patient below them. The rest of the room having cleared, leaving the two to continue in this dance, prying eyes probably peering in from the front desk.
"Your hair, it's different," he says with a smirk.
"Don't," she says, not a command so much as a plea of defeat, blinking back her emotions.
"Jordan—"
"No, you don't get to do that. Come waltzing back in here," her voice rising, making direct eye contact with him, before glancing around at her volume, sure that someone was listening.
"I didn't waltz, I rode," he says like a smart ass, and she whips her head back to him.
"On your bike, of course," she says, as if he just proved her point.
"Why do you care, it's not like we're together or you're…" He stops himself, as she visibly balks, as if he'd slapped her across the face with his almost comment.
"Jordan, I'm—"
"It's not like that stopped you before," she says with a finality to her, that with one last snip she finishes her work, tossing her tools on the tray with a clang, and TC closes his eyes at the noise, gritting his teeth.
She's out the door before he opens them again.
The anger in her had risen to its boiling point. What she had meant to say, "I'm glad you're okay," "I'm glad you're back," had somehow morphed into anger, frustration, a myriad of emotions swirling around, coming out in nothing but accusations and snippy comments that had been building from before.
The rest of the shift is spent avoiding him, assigning others to cases he was on, all the while realizing her behavior was somewhat juvenile, the silent treatment doing neither of them any good. But it had been a hard year. The loss she'd been dealing with, now piling on her shoulders in the wake of Topher leaving, responsibility given back to her. It was a lot.
The morning sun beats against her face, bringing out the freckles hidden under her makeup. Taking her hair out of its ponytail, she rests her head against the wall of the hospital, leaning back to soak up the rays with closed eyes, before it got too hot to be bearable outside, which was all too quickly here.
She hears his shoes on the pavement before she can feel him sitting next to her, all of a sudden the heat becoming too much, and she brings her head back down, her hair sticking to the various bumps of the building, pulling on her head slightly.
"Do you remember our first date?" He asks her, his knees pulled up, his arms resting on his knees.
His eyes are waiting for an answer he knows she knows, but they're not eager and excited like usual, instead sad, mouth pursed.
She nods, the grip on her wrist to keep her knees close to her chest tightening, not knowing where this conversation is going.
"You asked me a question," he admits with a laugh. "I thought it was going to be something about the army or med school…you remember?"
She smiles at the memory, a younger version of the two of them, so naive, so untouched by the trauma they were going to not only have inflicted on them, but by each other. She'd promised him one drink, they'd had three before they'd ended back at her apartment, the start of their tumultuous race to the fiery finish.
"I asked how you felt about dogs," she says with a laugh of her own.
He shakes his head with a bark of laughter.
"You were so adamant that you couldn't be with someone who didn't like dogs."
"It's a good rule to have," she says, matter of factly.
"How'd that work out?" He says with a pointed look at her.
She tilts her head at him, narrowed eyes.
"It got you talking, up until that point you were a closed book."
His head moves side to side, contemplating her statement, deciding it to be true with a hint of a grin.
"And now?" He asks.
Her smile fades, and her hand releases her wrist, giving way for her elbows to rest on her knees, her hands coming to push her hair behind her ears with a sigh.
"We never talked about it…" she trails off, chancing a look in his direction. And she swears she can see the moment he begins to hold his breath. "The miscarriage," she finishes, giving the final shot, and he exhales like he'd been hit.
"I uhh, didn't want to talk then, still don't," he says with a clenched jaw.
She closes her eyes in defeat not for the first time today, refusing to cry.
"I lost you both that day," he releases into the silence, the heels of his hands coming to his eyes, his tears not as cooperative as her own.
Her knees fall, and before she knows it, she's moving to lean down in front of him, her hands coming to cradle his face in the same way she'd wanted to before, the stubble pricking her fingers the way she remembered it would, this time wet with his tears, soaking into her hands.
His sad brown eyes coming to meet the now teary green of her own, the emotions of the last few months finally released.
"T, you didn't lose me," she whispers.