To be honest, there isn't nearly enough Hank/Jill stuff out here. (What do we call that? Jank? Hill? Janky Hill? I dunno.)
And I don't even begin to understand or tolerate Emily/Hank. That's just... Awful. Plus Jill Lawson sounds much better than Emily Lawson. Or is it just me?
And since I ship this to the ends of the Earth, I decided to take it upon myself to change that.
And if you like the character Charlie, I apologize for making him a douche bag. Not really... I don't like him at all, so I portray him how I view him.
Disclaimer: My name is Andrew Lenchewski and I demand to be credited like this is pay-per-view. Yeah, not. Unfortunately, Royal Pains does not belong to me (Yet), therefore you can insert some boring sentence about how I don't own it and whatever while I cry.
Jill would never admit it and Hank would never say it to her face, but it was true. Sometimes he'd 'hypothetically' talk to Divya about her (Because who understands women anyways? Shouldn't they write a 'For Dummies' book on that?) and they'd have a conversation about it without actually saying it.
Sometimes Hank even talked to Jill about it. Of course, he was especially careful not to call it that.
But she proved time and time again that she had it. Bad.
Sometimes, in the middle of they day, it'd hit her out of nowhere. She'd be eating lunch and have the sudden urge to call Hank. She didn't like it one bit when his work took him away from home and she couldn't stand it when he had to take an emergency case in the middle of the night, leaving her to wake up alone.
But Hank took special care to avoid it once he understood it more.
He always called her at lunch and tried to actually eat it with her at least once a week. Because if he took time out of work to be with her, or at the very least talk to her, he wasn't leaving her for his work, wasn't holding his job over his life with her.
He tried his best to schedule business trips, but the majority of the time they took him by surprise. When an unexpected overnight crept up on him, he always made sure to drive down to Hamptons Heritage and tell her as much as he could in person. When he was going, where, why, how, and when he was coming back. Somehow it made her feel better.
Maybe because if he cared enough to do that, he wasn't leaving leaving, right? He was coming back for sure, then. It was some twisted logic that made her feel safer. Like a child closes his closet door at night because he believes that will trap the monsters inside.
He learned that if he had to get out of bed at an unpresidented time, it was best to wake her and tell her. She'd be angry in the moment, but relieved when she woke. He also left cliched notes in case she didn't remember.
Because Hank didn't lie, so if he told her there was an emergency, he simply had to go save a life and he'd come back.
Even if he simply woke up ten minutes before her, he'd just lay there with her. If he was honest, he loved those short moments of just laying there with her, asleep or not. In the least creepy, most un-Twilight way, he'd lye and watch her sleep. She insited he didn't have to do it, but he said it wasnt a big deal and they went on with their lives. Plus, he knew she'd come down in a frenzy, only to find him eating a bowl of cereal and bickering with Evan if he didn't.
Her budding friendship with Divya helped as well. No one knew how or why, but it did. Maybe because if he was working with Divya, he wasn't leaving her.
Hank also found that often, doing the opposite of what her ex had done also helped. So on the rare occasion that she told him about Charlie, he listened carefully.
For instance, Charlie and Jill's relationship only existed in one place: their bedroom. So Hank made it a point to connect with her off the matress and on an intellectual level. Thay'd always have real conversations about their day. Not just 'How was your day?' 'Great, and your's?' 'Good.' Real conversations.
He wouldn't act like and he really didnt even believe that his having an MD made him any smarter than her, like Charlie did. He'd always acted so above her and she hated it. She went to college too. So Hank treated her like the educated woman she was. Because there is no denying that women are some of the most intelligent creatures the good Lord has ever made.
Charlie never complimented her, which Hank found appaling. Hank spent just as much as his life with his nose in a medical textbook and he still knew that you have to compliment women. So he did. Every day. And every day she'd blush and Evan would pretend to gag.
Charlie never noticed anything. Jill could shave her head and the man wouldn't notice. So Hank transferred his attention to medical detail to attention to Jill detail to ensure he'd notice if she so much as had split ends trimmed or got a new scent of shampoo.
Charlie was never around, even if he was in town. So Hank was always home by eight PM and didn't leave again until eight the next morning, assuming there wasn't a emergency. But he always called her if that was the case. Because if he liked to spend time with her, he wasn't leaving.
As long as he wasn't leaving.