Thanks, guys, for reading. Sorry for the delay - my awesome betareader let1986 had exams. Unfortunately, it may take some time with ch11 because the chapter evolves around Erica's death and the last episode made me so sad that often I just stare at the computer for an hour and write a dozen words. We'll never see Dan, Jack or Ricki again. I know it's just a show but I knew those characters as real as I know some of my friends. I'll get over it to write but for now, it keeps coming back to me. I hope you understand any delays.
"Frank, do you have a sec?" Jack asked Frank two days after he and Gabrielle had consummated their friends-with-benefits relationship.
"Can it wait?"
"I'd rather it didn't." While he looked calm on the outside, inside, he was trembling with fear. He and Gabrielle had talked at length but he hadn't strayed from his conviction that Frank needed to know they were sleeping together. He still felt awful about Deanna and the fact she had used him in her battle against Frank, and he didn't want to put his professional reputation at risk by not having who he was sleeping with a matter of public record, at least to the people who mattered. Like Frank.
Not that he thought Gabrielle was anything like Deanna. But it would make him feel a lot better for Frank to know about his relationship with Gabrielle.
Frank, grunting at the inconvenience that someone – even someone who was proving to be an invaluable help on the ward when he found Steve to untrustworthy and Bart too green – would interrupt his down-time. He gestured to the seat opposite his desk (his desk, despite the fact Charlotte kept insisting it was their desk) for Jack to sit down. "What is it?"
Jack got straight to the point. "Gabby and I are involved."
Frank scowled. Just what he needed, Jack Quade getting it on with another member of his staff – and he kept thinking of the entire nursing staff as 'his', despite Gabrielle's repeated protestations that the nursing staff were an entirely different department to the ED doctors – like he hadn't caused Frank enough headaches with his apparent penchant for his doctors and nurses. "Not funny," he said, hoping it was Jack's strange idea of a joke.
"I'm not being funny, Frank," he said. "You think I'd joke about something like this after Deanna?"
Frank had to give Jack credit for that. He had been genuinely contrite about the havoc Deanna had wreaked on the ED, using him as a character reference. That he was coming to Frank and admitting his relationship with Gabrielle voluntarily was testimony to his character. "How do you mean, involved?" Frank asked.
"We're sleeping together," Jack replied. He didn't go into the details of their arrangement; Frank wouldn't understand. More then that – he wouldn't approve, and Frank's approval was something he craved.
"Since when?"
"Since two days ago."
Frank sighed. But who was he to deny the simmering chemistry that had existed between them for months? Their kiss at Dan and Erica's wedding had simply been the most obvious manifestation of it. And she was good for him. Frank doubted Jack had ever been as happy as he had been in the past few months living with Gabrielle. "Bloody be discreet. The last thing I need is this rivalry between you and Steve flaring up against over her." His face softened a fraction. "But good luck. I think you'll be very happy with her."
"What do you think is going on between them?" Dan asked Bart a few days later. They were watching from the main staff area, which conveniently had a direct view into Frank, Charlotte and Gabrielle's office. Gabrielle and Jack spent an awful lot of time in there. Always with the door open, of course, so no-one could say they were getting up to no good behind closed doors, but even then, they looked pretty cosy. His arm was draped casually across the back of her chair and they were doing something (actually, Jack was going through the rosters with her) that meant he spent a lot of time leaning in to her...
"Wonder what they're talking about," Bart mused. Given they seemed to have nothing in common, the fact they always had something to talk about was something no-one understood...
"... Tonight I'm going to go down on you until your begging for me to screw your brains out," Jack murmured huskily, his breath warm against her skin.
Gabrielle blushed. Jack delighted in saying crass things to her while they were working, pushing her unsophisticated buttons just because he could. Sharing Jack's bed, she discovered, was a thrilling and eye-opening experience. Not only was the sex sensational, but Jack was as far away from the once-a-week missionary type as you could get. He liked sex on the beach. He liked sex in the back of his car. He liked stirring her awake by touching her until she didn't care what time it was. He'd introduced her to games and toys she knew she could feel dirty to oblige but with Jack she felt loved and respected. And she knew she would never seriously chide him for talking to her the way he sometimes did with their colleagues just meters – sometimes feet – away from them. "Be quiet!" she admonished him half-heartedly, more because he was putting thoughts in her head and distracting her then because someone might overhear.
He caressed the back of her neck until she struggled to breathe regularly. "Or maybe I can't wait that long. There's a rumour circulating about a blow-job in an closed ward, we may as well be hung for sheep as lambs..."
Gabrielle found herself blushing harder. Jack was thoroughly enjoying himself, she knew... and she had to admit, she kind of enjoyed it. Interacting with Jack was incredibly scintillating. Boldly, she placed her hand on his knee then moved it up. Two could play at that game. She heard Jack's breathing become suddenly shallow and smiled triumphantly. She noticed he made no effort to remove her hand...
Frank walked in and Gabrielle snatched her hand away. He eyed them suspiciously. They both looked guilty. "Hope you're not up to anything," he said gruffly.
Jack looked innocent. "Why would we be up to anything? The door's open." Frank couldn't fault him there, but he still had his suspicions.
It was never easy when they lost a patient but this one was particularly hard on Gabrielle because it was the result of liver failure by being a chronic alcoholic in serious denial. While she didn't have any romantic feelings for Steve anymore, they still shared a long history and whenever she saw the results of alcoholism, it frightened her to think where he could have ended up.
Jack found her in her office, looking distressed and distracted. He came behind her and hugged her. "Does it bother you to think about it?" he asked.
"I know you don't like talking about him," Gabrielle said wearily.
"I don't, but I care about you so if you want to talk about it..."
She allowed herself to relax in his arms. "You're sweet," she said, and he was. They'd been in their friends-with-benefits for several weeks now and while he'd never hinted at making it a proper relationship, she knew that was what it was. Well, apart from the fact they didn't date, per se. In fact, they'd barely gone out apart from work and grocery shopping since they'd started this relationship. Who wanted to go out for dinner when they could order Chinese, be done in fifteen minutes and move to the bedroom? "Just sometimes something happens that makes me think how he could have ended up."
He kissed her on the neck. He felt oddly un-jealous of their relationship. As the weeks progressed, he became more aware that Steve wasn't the ghost of love past he'd worried about. He wondered if maybe he should arrange to take her out on a date, make things official, but everytime he thought of it he decided he needed a little more time to become really secure in her feelings for him – and for Steve. "Sometimes I worry where I may have ended up if it hadn't been for my intelligence and ambition," he admitted. "I guess you just have to come to terms with it however you can."
She kissed the hand that was on her shoulder. "Thanks for being so understanding," she said gratefully.
"That's my job, I'm your best friend." She could have sworn he was about to say boyfriend and wondered if he'd deliberately stopped himself.
Gabrielle turned her head so she could meet Jack's eyes. She loved looking into his eyes. She loved how good she felt around him. She loved everything about him. She closed her eyes and, despite the fact they'd agreed to keep their relationship – whatever it was – quiet, she allowed him to kiss her. Allowed him? She wanted him to. She wrapped her arms around his neck when their tongues met and melted into his arms. Jack always made her feel better...
"Frank, I was wondering if you could –" Bart started to say as he walked into the office, stopping dead when he saw the kissing couple. He blushed. They weren't in a particularly compromising position but Jack and Gabrielle generated a particular brand of heat that made you feel like a voyeur walking in on them. "Sorry," he mumbled, backed out – and rushed off to tell Dan.
"Sorry, should have been more discreet," Jack apologised.
"It's OK. I was kind of sick of having to keep it quiet, and it wasn't exactly stopping people from talking about us." She tilted her head up so she could kiss him again. Now that they were busted, she may as well enjoy it...
Jack was in a dejected mood. He'd lost a patient because the system was down and he hadn't been able to get the information he needed, so he'd had to guess, and guess right. Dan had warned him against taking such a risk but he'd been too stubborn to listen and gone ahead anyway.
And now his patient was dead. Damn it.
In his head, Jack knew he couldn't have done anything different without the backup he had needed – a guess was the best he could have done and it just happened to be the wrong guess.
"There's nothing you could have done, Jack," Gabrielle said soothingly. "You did the best you could with the circumstances you had." She tried to rub his shoulders but he remained tense. "Try and forget about it."
"Forget about it?" Jack asked incredulously. "Gabrielle, are you completely heartless? The man is dead – I can't just forget about that." He'd called her Gabrielle again.
"I'm not being heartless, Jack, I just think you need to put it into perspective – you didn't kill the guy. What else could you have done, nothing? He still would have died." She kissed the back of his neck. "Try and relax. Beating yourself up over it wouldn't achieve anything." Thankgod, he actually seemed to be responding to her touch. He started making those sounds from the back of his throat that meant he was getting turned on. He pulled her into his lap and kissed her deeply. Relieved, she responded eagerly although she knew something was slightly off he was too forceful, too dominating. He'd always been dominating sexually – at least, he always had been in the few weeks she'd been sharing his bed – but this was different. This was like he was to conquer her.
Within a few minutes they were going at it on the couch and it was over within ten minutes, another two things that were off about him. He liked foreplay and he liked it to last. He still brought her to a climax, but it felt somehow shallow, not as good as it had been in the past.
After she lay in his arms. "You OK?" she asked stupidly.
"Fine." Given he'd lost a patient because he'd made the wrong call.
"You just seem... off."
"You're the one who instigated it, Gabby. What did you expect?"
She was shocked by the aloof tone in his voice. Things had been going so well between them and now this. She tried to shrug it off, tried to tell herself he was just having a bad day after the trauma of losing a patient, but she couldn't get the tone of voice when he'd dismissed her out of her head.
Erica was missing and no-one knew where she was. Dan was trying to keep it together but it was obvious he wasn't coping. Not that anyone could blame him, they were newlyweds, at one of the most intense points of their lives, and she had just vanished off the face of the earth. They were all worried for her.
So Gabrielle was down one nurse – two, if you counted how distracted Dan was – which made it incredibly difficult for Gabrielle to run her department. On top of that, Jack wasn't dealing with Timothy's death. He was becoming increasingly withdrawn and moody, like he had been during the worst of his counseling. She had tried to coax him out of it the way that had been so successful in the past, but he made it clear the only thing he wanted from her was sex.
Friends with benefits, ha. A friendship would be nice.
Now he was facing an internal investigation. Frank had assured him it was just a formality, but Jack knew he faced losing his license, and that scared the crap out of him. Medicine was the most important thing in his life – the only thing he had ever really wanted, he'd told Gabrielle. That had hurt. Did he not want her? Did he not care about her? Oh, she got that it was just a slip of the tongue, but it still hurt.
She came home to find Jack on his laptop. "Why don't we go out for dinner?" she suggested. "We haven't been out in ages." Not since they had started sleeping together. Before, they had gone to plays and movies and dinner all the time but ever since she'd started sharing his bed, it was like all he was interested in was sex. Their friendship had been eroding even before he had lost Timothy. She had hoped being with him would make him fall in love with her and want to be her boyfriend, but it had backfired spectacularly on her. Now she barely even had his friendship.
"Don't feel like it," he grunted, not even looking at her. He reached out and squeezed her thigh. "Give me a few minutes to finish up and I'll be with you."
By 'being with her' she knew in bed. "Jack, what happened to us?" she asked. "We used to be so close and now you don't even look at me when I come in the front door. All we ever do is have sex. You may as well be paying me if that's all you want from me," she finished bitterly.
Jack reached for his chequebook. "How much do I owe you?" he asked distractedly. It was clear he'd barely heard her, but that didn't make it any less a blow to the heart. He sensed her broken heart and looked up to see her crying and he realised what he'd said. "Oh, God, I'm so sorry," he said. "I just heard you say something about paying you and I thought – well, I wasn't thinking. Gabby, please don't cry. I didn't mean to hurt you." He pulled her into his arms and gave her the first real hug he'd given her in weeks – full of compassion, love, friendship. "I'm just under so much stress. I'm scared, Gabby. I could lose my license and it means the most to me in the world other then you."
Finally she'd broken through to him. "I'm scared, too," she admitted. "I'm scared about what's happened to Ricki, I'm scared for you. You used to tell me everything, Jack. Now you shut me out and the only time we're together other then work is sex. You agreed to friends with benefits. Where the hell is the friendship?"
He held her so gently that she could almost believe things were back to normal – she wanted things to be back to normal so badly. "I've been selfish," he said soothingly. "I've been thinking only of myself. You're right, we haven't been friends for a while. Just... let me get through this investigation and things will be different, I promise."
"Let me be there for you," she begged him through her tears. "Let me help." Then there was the issue of Erica. Gabrielle knew he was worried about the woman too – he saw Dan like a brother, and by extension that made Erica his quasi-sister-in-law – and it had to be better for them to be worried together then distancing themselves from one another.
"You can't help me," he said sadly. "I have to do this on my own."
The inquiry was a nightmare. Jack had to relive every decision he had made which had contributed to Timothy's death. What had seemed like reasoned decisions at the time were now blatantly stupid. Maybe he didn't even deserve to keep his license. Frank kept trying to paint Jack's actions in the best light possible – he'd done the best he could in the circumstances he had, just as Gabrielle had tried to tell him – until Jack finally got fed up with what he saw as Frank's mollycoddling and screamed "I killed my patient!"
Even though he was cleared of any negligence or wrongdoing, Jack couldn't absolve himself of the guilt. A man was dead because of his actions. That wasn't something you could forgive yourself for. Oh, sure, he had lost patients before, but always when the odds were stacked against him, usually unbeatably so, not when there had been every chance of saving them and they died anyway.
"You can't keep beating yourself up over this," Frank told him, as sympathetic as Frank could get. Jack didn't hear a word of it.
And the worst was yet to come in the form of Timothy's widow, Janice. She had come seeking closure about Timothy's death. Charlotte had initially told Dan and Bart, who were treating Janice, not to tell her about Jack's involvement, or Jack of her presence, but Dan had felt sorry for Jack and thought maybe seeing Janice would cheer him up. Instead, Jack had told Janice he blamed himself, and of course Janice had been furious at the man who had killed her husband, or so Jack said. Frank then had to explain to Janice that Jack had done everything he could, that it was testimony to the kind of doctor he was that he felt so bad about Timothy's death. He managed to convince her that Jack wasn't to blame for Timothy's death, and she apologised to Jack for taking her anger and grief out on him.
Gabrielle, who had been witness to this, couldn't help but compare the similarities between Janice being worried about Timothy and Erica's disappearance. Gabrielle didn't have a lot of friends, and Erica meant a lot to her. She was worried about the woman. She wanted to have Jack back, someone she could go to for comfort and support. Maybe now that this inquiry was over –
She cuddled up to him on the couch after work but he was stiff. "You said after the inquiry was over, things would be different," she said, trying not to sound like a petulant child.
"I've got a lot on my mind," he said shortly.
"You were cleared, Jack. Your license is safe. God, if the board and Frank and Janice can't convince you that it wasn't your fault then what's it going to take?"
Jack shrugged. "I don't know," he admitted miserably. "I just keep wondering if there's something else I could have done that would have made things different – and I keep coming back to having to call time of death – there's a woman out there who doesn't have a husband, children without a father – and he was meant to be under my care."
"Jack..." she tried to hug him again but he shrugged her off.
"I want to be alone," he said quietly. She knew being alone was the last thing he needed but she also knew what he could be like when he dug his heels in. He was determined to punish himself for a perceived fault. She let him go to wallow in his guilt and hoped like hell he would come out of this slump on his own soon enough.
He didn't. Instead he volunteered for triage, a responsibility the doctors and nurses usually went out of their way to avoid. It was the duty Charlotte had gotten stuck on when she'd first come back from maternity leave and the duty Frank had stuck Jack with when he'd fractured his ribs. It was boring and required no effort and no risk and was precisely why no-one wanted the job – and why Jack was volunteering for it.
"Someone has to do it," Jack said evasively when Charlotte pointed out that no-one actually volunteered for triage.
"Oh, come on, Jack, no-one volunteers for triage. I remember how much you bitched and moaned when Frank put you on 'cos of your ribs, and even you knew you weren't physically fit to lift anything heavier then a pen. And now your volunteering for it? I didn't get this job by being stupid and gullible, Jack."
Jack winced. He should have known he couldn't get something like this past Charlotte. "Look, I just need some time to find my feet," he said. "Please just... cut me some slack here," he pleaded.
Charlotte looked at him dubiously. It was obvious Jack had lost his nerve as a doctor. But she let it go for the time being. "How are things with you and Gabby?" she asked. It was also obvious that things were tense between them.
Jack shrugged. "Fine," he lied. He knew he was being an asshole, shutting her out, but he couldn't bring himself to admit just how guilty he felt about Timothy's death and Janice's widowhood – not to mention their children's loss of a father – and how he felt he couldn't make a medical judgment again in case he screwed up again. He wanted to hide in triage.
The following week Frank, sick of Jack hiding in triage, forced Jack to take on a patient who's source of illness couldn't be figured out. Jack was convinced it was mad cow's disease and pursued it relentlessly, going to far as to tell the guy's wife. Finally, Frank had to step in and take over the case himself before Jack brought a malpractice lawsuit on himself and the hospital.
Later, he came to Jack who was skulking around the hospital gardens. "You need to take some time off," Frank said to a protesting Jack. "I'm not firing you," he reassured the agitated doctor. "But you need to take a step back, get some perspective. I'll write it off as a holiday."
Needless to say, Jack wasn't happy about Frank forcing him out like that, but he didn't have much of a say in the matter. He went home and snapped at Gabrielle when she tried to soothe him until she finally snapped back. "I'm supposed to be your girlfriend, Jack, and you're shutting me out."
"I thought we agreed it wasn't a relationship."
"Oh, who were you kidding? You knew exactly what it was. What, you seriously thought you could be my friend and lover and live in my house and not be my boyfriend? Not that you were, Jack, you weren't even my friend. You let me come to your room every night and screw my brains out and said you were my friend when you weren't. You're so self-absorbed, Jack, that you kept telling yourself it was about Steve when it was about you, you couldn't let go of your stupid hang-ups with Terri, you couldn't admit that you weren't fit to be in a relationship."
"You have no idea what you're talking about," Jack yelled back. "You have no idea about my past, how I feel about things – you're too busy being Steve's nursemaid."
"Stop it!" she yelled. "I love you and you can't see that! Sometimes I think you'd rather live in the past then risk your heart."
"That's not fair." Already Jack was heading to his room and packing a bag.
"Where are you going?"
"To stay with Bec."
"Oh, that is so typical of you, Jack, you don't want to talk to me so you just running away. I seem to recall you doing this after Mercedes."
"I am not running away!" he yelled, and she knew she shouldn't have brought up Mercedes but it was exactly the same behaviour – something bothered him, distressed him right to his soul, and rather then talk to someone about it, he shut down and ran away. "If you didn't nag me so much I'd feel a bit more welcome in my own home."
"I'm not nagging!" she yelled back. "And if I was, can you blame me? You're supposed to be my best friend and you never talk to me."
"You're supposed to be my best friendand you won't quit nagging me," he retorted. He saw the distressed look on her face and felt bad, but he didn't feel like opening up and resented her nagging. "I'm sorry, OK. I just need... time away from this."
"Time away from me, you mean?"
She had always known him – at least she had for the past six months. He nodded slightly. "Yeah," he said, trying to ignore the fact she was battling against tears. "Look, I'll be back in a few days, OK?" he stepped towards her and kissed her as passionately as he could muster – he wasn't feeling a lot of passion right now. Then he left, feeling like a shit but knowing he couldn't be around her right now.
"Jack, who are you talking to?" Rebecca asked suspiciously – suspiciously because she already knew the answer. She figured he didn't know a lot of people who spoke Russian in the greater Sydney area, which meant he was wracking up a long-distance call on her phone.
Jack reluctantly moved the phone away from his ear and switched to English. "She called me – perks of running a hospital, no-one questions her phone bill."
"What if I want to call for a pizza?"
He got his wallet out of his pocket and handed her his credit card. "Add fifteen bucks to your pre-paid and call it even. Now, shoo."
Rebecca poked her tongue out and laughed at his request for privacy. "As if I can understand you, anyway." Secretly, she was in awe of Jack's multi-lingual skills, although of course she'd never tell him that. His ego was big enough as it was.
Well, maybe not. She knew losing Timothy had gutted him, made him question his ability to be a doctor. She knew he had come here because something had gone terribly wrong between him and Gabrielle – and she knew, deep down in her heart, that Gabrielle was better for him even more then she was. She kept hinting to Jack that maybe he should talk to her, let her in the way he talked to Rebecca and let her in, but it went in one ear and out the other and Rebecca had long since learnt that there was no point in arguing with Jack when he dug in like this.
At least he was talking to Tanya. Rebecca didn't know the older woman that well, but knew enough about Jack – as painful as it had been to learn, she was glad she had learnt it – to know she had been one of the major influences between Jack ended up someone like Travis Knight – never escaping his working-class origins, incapable of any kind of intimacy – and for that, she was grateful to the woman. She just wished it was Gabrielle he was confiding in...
... "You know what your problem is?" Tanya asked him, no doubt about to tell him. "You've never left the state borders of New South Wales, have you?"
"No," Jack admitted, because the ACT and Canberra were inside the state borders.
"You've been thinking about committing yourself to a fellowship when you've seen nothing else of the world outside your state? I had seen more of Australia when I was your age, let alone as much of Russia as anyone can expect to ever see."
Jack immediately launched into a litany of excuses. His dad's idea of travelling was to take the family to Byron Bay for a few days. He'd been sixteen when he had graduated and been emancipated, he hadn't exactly been equipped to travel, let alone travel internationally. He – "Cut the crap, Jack," Tanya said in English. She had a fondness for the saying. She reverted back to Russian. "You speak decent Russian, French and German." Which wasn't strictly true, he read French and German so his pronunciations weren't the greatest sometimes but between English, French and German, he could make himself understood throughout Europe. "You have the financial resources and with your language skills, you can always find work."
Jack had a feeling Tanya was leading up to something. "What do you want?" he asked.
"Merely to do a friend a favour. I'm going to be in St. Petersburg for two weeks a month from now and I think it would be the world of good to come. I know how much you loved Ana and you used to be so enthusiastic about going to Russia... you never talk about that anymore."
"Tan, I can't just pack up and go to Russia," Jack objected, although his brain was ticking over; why not?
"Why not?" she echoed his thoughts. "You need to get out and see the world, that's your problem." You have a passport, don't you?
"Yes," he said. He'd gotten it years ago when he'd first thought seriously about going to Europe – a move which had amounted to nothing.
"Then come with me. I can put you on payroll and get your ticket paid for." It was an urban legend, and one that Jack had never been able to confirm, that Tanya was so legendary that not even Kevin Rudd dared question her dubious accounting skills.
Jack thought about it for half a minute. There was Gabrielle, of course... but Gabrielle had already made her point about the fact they weren't even friends anymore, and without being friends, weren't they close to the soulless screwing that had once been his trademark? Who else was there? Dan, but he was wrapped up in Erica – locatable or not. Rebecca, who he adored, and adored him... but some time away wouldn't hurt their relationship. Charlotte and Zach. Christ, he was already feeling awful at the idea of leaving Zach without a father-figure and Charlotte without a carer... but again, it was only temporary.
"OK" he agreed. He'd never made such an impulsive decision in his life, but it felt right.
He returned to work a few days later happy with his decision. "What did you do all week?" Frank asked him.
"Mostly sat around thinking about what you guys were doing, which is kind of sad," he said ruefully. "But I thought a lot and... things are sorted." Jack didn't say he was resigning; he wanted to confirm that with admin first.
"Good, good. Oh, listen, we have a new nurse, a Claire Anderson – she's Erica's replacement."
"So you hired someone? What happens when Ricki comes back?" Jack asked when, not if, because like everyone in the ward, he hoped Erica would be found alive and well – but like everyone on the ward – except Dan – he knew the chances decreased everyday.
"Claire knows the position is based on Erica's absence."
"How is Dan taking to her?"
"Sees it as a kind of betrayal on Gabrielle's part. Speaking of which, how are you two? She's been pretty upset the last few days, said you were staying with your sister."
"I had to, Frank, she was getting on my nerves. I know she meant well but she could be such a nagger."
"That – or you can be incredibly proud and stubborn. Karen said you weren't complying about Timothy."
Jack glowered. While his conversations with Karen were covered by doctor-patient confidentiality, Karen's opinions on how well he was doing were not. "She's a sexual trauma psychologist, Frank, she doesn't deal with professional stress."
"Fine, then go to another counselor."
"Frank, I'm not seeing another counselor on top of the one you're already making me see." Besides, it would be a moot point soon enough.
He ran into Gabrielle soon enough. "Hi," he said nervously.
"Hi."
"I'm sorry I left, I just needed some space. I haven't been expressing myself well lately and I'm sorry."
"It's OK. Do you want to come over for dinner?"
He didn't want to think about how she'd react when she found out he was leaving so he decided to stall. "Maybe, if I'm free – Frank's pretty keen to have me make up the hours," he said ruefully. He bent down slightly to kiss her forehead, and she felt how distant his kiss was.
He found Claire to be quite a pleasant person, actually preferred her to Amy. They had shared a patient called Gemma, a smoking addict suffering from emphysema. Within ten minutes Jack had wanted to smack her because she wasn't taking her illness seriously, thought it was just something doctors made up to scare patients into quitting. He knew he could be stubborn and pig-headed sometimes, but at least he listened when it came to his health.
It was Claire who finally got through to her, getting her to admit that there was something other then smoking that made her happy – or rather, there were so many things she wanted to do, including travel. It seemed like serendipity.
At the end of the day, Jack handed in his letter of resignation to admin, then went back down to the ED to hand in his resignation to Frank. Charlotte was there, too, which made things convenient.
Needless to say, Frank wasn't happy about Jack leaving. "Sounds a bit woolly to me," he declared when Jack cited his desire to travel as his reason for leaving.
"Tanya just reminded me that it was something I always wanted to do – but kept putting it off. I still love medicine, I'm not throwing away my career, but I want to see what else is out there."
"You sure this is what you want?" Charlotte asked. Jack nodded, and Charlotte could see Jack had made up his mind. "Then enjoy yourself."
Jack department, and Frank turned to Charlotte. "What have you been saying to him?" he demanded, as if she were personally responsible for Jack's decision to leave.
"He's got a point., Frank. He's young, ambitious, wants to see what else is out there – I have no doubt he'll come back even more passionate about medicine." She sighed. "Going to miss him." Zach would miss him. Her son was old enough to recognise Jack, and his absence would be noticed in both their lives. "I wonder how Gabrielle will take to it." Unlike Frank, Charlotte knew Jack and Gabrielle's relationship was sexual, not romantic, but she also knew that Gabrielle was crazy about Jack and waiting for the day he realised he was in love with her. Well, now that day was never going to come. Poor girl.
"I can't believe I had to hear you were leaving from Bart!" Gabrielle yelled at him. She had already hit him, but didn't feel any better for it. "I'm supposed to be your girlfriend, and you don't even consult me that you're leaving the country or tell me yourself."
"You're not my girlfriend!" he yelled back. "Why can't you get that through your head?"
He'd never been so rude to her, and that cut straight through her heart. It wasn't supposed to end like this. Jack was meant to realise he was in love with her and they'd live happily ever after and – "Please, Jack, you don't have to go."
He raked his hand through his hair. He hated hurting her but, damnit, he needed to do this. And besides, she had come to him with her friends-with-benefits proposition, what right did she have to turn around and call herself his girlfriend? "I'm sorry it turned out like this," he said. "If I could give you what you wanted, I would." If I thought you could give me what I wanted, I'd stay. And therein lay the crux of it, he realised sadly. No matter how good a friend and lover she might be, he could never get over the haunting feeling that she would one day return to Steve. "Do you want me to move out?"
He was still here a month. That gave her a month – oh, it was all so sad and desperate but every moment she had with him was a moment she could maybe make him realise how much she loved him, how deeply she was in love with him – and then he'd return her feelings. "No," she said. "You're right, if this is something you need to do, then who am I to ask you to stay? Why don't we just enjoy what time we have together?"
He was relieved she had come to his way of thinking so readily. "I'd like that," he said.
A month. A month seemed like such a long time, plenty of time to make Jack see how in love they were and how happy they could be together. A month. She had a whole month.
It was less then she thought it would be. Soon after, they found out what had happened to Erica and Jack's time was taken up with both Dan and running interference between the two families.