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Chapter Eleven

Stuck In My Head

"I want you to have a look at this," Sam told Kate, handing over a hefty stack of papers before sinking into his favorite recliner. "Just in case. I don't want you to be blindsided. You know, if something happens."

The top of the document read Last Will and Testament. Kate sighed and flipped through the pages just to satisfy her father. "Thanks," she said. Though she wouldn't express it, she was thankful that Sam had prepared for the worst in some ways. The surgery was risky and there was a chance—one that she didn't like to think about—that he wouldn't survive.

Expecting a fight, Sam cocked his head to the side and pondered the strange actions of his daughter. "You really have nothing else to say? You always have something to say…"

Kate closed the lid on her laptop, deciding that getting any more work done wasn't in the cards for that afternoon. Marc had insisted that she take a week vacation, in preparation for Sam's surgery and so she would be fully available afterward.

Initially Kate expected that having any strings attached to Marc would be a disadvantage, that being recommended to him by Jack of all people, someone who was clearly interested in her and was also Marc's best friend, would create an awkward tension. There was some of that, like when Jack decided to visit the office and it was unclear who he was there to see, but for the most part, having Marc for a boss was working wonderfully. She wasn't sure that another boss would be so understanding, so adamant that she spend time with her father after only one week of work.

"Is this mine?" she asked, taking a closer look at the documents, noticing that he'd left everything to her. She shouldn't have been surprised; Sam hadn't kept many people around over the years, and she suspected there wasn't anyone else to give it to.

"Yeah, it's a copy," Sam replied, glancing at the clock for the hundredth time that day—always playing the at-this-time-tomorrow-I'll-either-be-out-of-surgery-or-dead game. "And I just wanna let you know, and maybe this isn't the right time for this, but I kinda, uh… met someone."

Earlier in his life Sam was a good looking man, and flashes of that handsomeness sometimes shone through, when his smile was genuine and his laugh was hearty. But with the cancer and the appointments, Kate hadn't thought the timing for a relationship was right—for either of them.

"I—wow, I mean, when?"

"A few weeks now. She's a paralegal at my lawyer's office. I've been in there so goddamn much…"

Fumbling with her hands, unsure whether to congratulate him or ask when the wedding was.

"It's nothing serious," he said, "and I didn't plan on telling you, but with the surgery and everything—"

"No, no, I appreciate it, I really do," Kate said. "But you shoulda told me anyway," she teased, deciding to be happy for him.

"No way," he glared. "You'll just make fun of us."

"Payback," she laughed. "Oh, how fun will this be? What's her name?"

"Marcia," he mumbled.

A shade of crimson Kate wasn't sure she'd ever seen before flushed to Sam's cheeks and she rose from the couch, patting him on the shoulder on the way to her bedroom.

"Dad, I think you're blushing."

Jack wasn't used to feeling like his heart would beat out of his chest. Every time he thought of Sam's surgery, his pulse steadily increased until the thump was bottled in his throat and he felt like he was in someone else's body.

There was always a certain amount of pressure attached to his profession. Performing a surgery meant he held someone's life in his hands. He'd either end up a hero or a failure. Neither was all that easy to deal with.

But Kate had been right, and he hated to admit it. Adamant from the start that building a relationship with Kate or Sam wouldn't compromise Sam's result, as the days crept closer to his surgery, Jack felt the pressure build and build.

It wasn't all about Kate. Sure, it was obvious that he was attracted to her, and wouldn't mind it if a romantic relationship blossomed at some point. But he liked Sam, and would've liked him as a patient even if Kate didn't come packaged. There was more to it than the typical patient-doctor relationship. The ease with which Sam approached life was something Jack admired, and he'd begun to look at the man as a father figure of sorts.

And if it was his fault that Sam died? He wasn't sure he could handle that.

So when he'd picked up the phone to call Sam, the phone number memorized, he was startled when Kate picked up.

"I was just calling to go over everything for tomorrow. Make sure everything's set."

"Okay," Kate said, skeptical already. Jack's normal, confident boom-of-a-voice just wasn't the same. He actually sounded worried.

Kate handed the phone over to Sam, and curled her legs under herself on the couch, waiting patiently.

"Jack wants to talk to you," Sam said after awhile, handing the cordless back to her.

"Yeah?"

Jack let out a timid laugh, wondering himself why he'd asked to talk to Kate again. "Well I've asked Sam how he's feeling and he seems pretty calm."

"You don't," Kate shot back, more harshly than she intended.

"I always get nervous before surgeries." There was some truth in his statement; he always got nervous, just not this nervous.

Sounding preoccupied, Kate rattled off a few suggestions. "Try to relax, go for a run or watch a movie. Distract yourself."

Before he could respond, he heard Sam's muffled voice in the background and a sudden outcry from Kate. He struggled to hear Sam, but heard Kate's side of the conversation rather clearly.

"Where are you going?"

"Are you crazy?"

"Who's taking you?"

"Do you have a death wish?"

"I'm not letting you leave."

What felt like ten minutes later, Kate came back on the line, sounding out of breath and flustered.

"What's wrong?" he dared to ask. Toward the end of the exchange he'd heard a door slam and a few profanities from Kate.

Conventional methods of relaxing out the window, and she and Jack's pact forgotten for the moment, Kate took a deep breath and posed a question.

"Look, you need to relax, and the only way I relax is by cooking. So…?"

"So you wanna cook for me?" he hesitated.

"Well, yeah. But it isn't—"

"I know, it's not a date. But don't forget…"

How could she forget? Jack only reminded her every chance he had that she owed him a date at the very least.

Blowing off the comment, Kate opened the fridge to find it mostly bare. "Do you happen to have any… food?"

Jack laughed and already Kate was sure they were doing the right thing. "You're in luck. My mom just stocked my fridge. She's convinced that I don't eat."

"He's going skydiving!" Kate ranted when she arrived at Jack's apartment, forgetting that she'd never been there before and skipping the formalities. "He's going to leap out of a fucking plane and trust his life with a piece of nylon!"

His apartment was definitely an upgrade from Sam's, though sparsely decorated and too clean for her taste. It didn't look lived-in.

Besides their day trip together, Kate couldn't remember seeing him so informally. Wearing jeans and a dark t-shirt, he was dressed casually but looked tense.

"Skydiving?" Jack asked, raising his eyebrows. He'd always heard stories of people taking chances and doing crazy things before life and death situations, but Sam didn't seem the type. "With who, exactly?"

"Oh," Kate rolled her eyes. "You'll love this. With his new girlfriend, or something like that."

Jack laughed, suddenly admiring Sam more than he already did, and his ability to pick up women even when he was stricken with cancer and half-dead.

"Marcia," Kate said, rolling her eyes again.

"Oh man."

"And skydiving? He's crazy, Jack. I don't know what to do."

He nodded, pretending to be completely on Kate's side but also understanding Sam's.

Kate walked into the kitchen and to the fridge, pulling vegetables out of the drawers and pork chops from the shelves. "Something about 'celebrating life and taking chances'."

So for the next 45 minutes, while the pork chops cooked and the vegetables steamed, Jack listened to her venting turn into genuine worry, and catapult into tears at the thought of losing her father. It was awkward and Jack could think of nothing to say, nothing that would make her feel better. He wasn't feeling the greatest, either.

"I'm being stupid," she eventually said, wiping the tears from her cheeks and taking a deep breath to compose herself.

"You're not stupid to be worried," he offered, putting a hand awkwardly on her shoulder and removing it when he sensed she felt uncomfortable.

It was rare that she looked him right in the eye and held it for longer than a few seconds, so when she didn't break, he knew to take her seriously. "That's comforting, coming from his surgeon."

"I'm a little freaked out, all right? Is that so bad?"

"It's not the greatest feeling Jack, I'll admit it!"

Suddenly everything he was thinking, everything that had been building for the past week, came bursting out. "I'm freaked out because I care about your dad, Kate. And I care about you and I don't think I can handle being the cause of his death. And you were right from the start, saying that we shouldn't be more than patient-doctor. Because you've made me care about him and care too much about you and how this surgery affects… everything. It's more than just cutting him open and removing a tumor."

"Where's that attitude you had a while ago? The 'I'm going to fix him, Kate,' attitude? That's gotta be in there somewhere," she pushed.

"It is," he agreed. "I'll be fine when the time comes to do the surgery, I can promise you that. That attitude is just buried right now."

Jack set the table and Kate tested the food, surprised at how good the thrown-together meal was. When they were settled, Jack was decidedly still tense, his brows furrowed together, deep in thought.

"You've just gotta eliminate me from the picture," she started. "Forget about me and concentrate on Sam, like we've never met, like there aren't all of the consequences that you think there are. And then you operate on him, and get the tumor out, and save him."

Jack shook his head, amazed at how simple the situation could sound, but how impossible it would be for him to execute.

"I can't do that, just forget about you," he said. "You know that." He held her gaze again and she threw him a small smile. "You're stuck in this head of mine."

Secretly thrilled, Kate leaned her cheek into her palm, hoping to cover up the rosy tint that his compliments brought.

"You can do this, Jack. There's a reason we came to you. You're great. You fix people. You care. Maybe that's what's holding you back right now but don't doubt it. You're our last chance. There's not as much pressure involved with that as you think, because if you can't fix him, no one else can, and he'd be dead in a few months anyway."

Jack forced a half-smile. "Perspective, I guess."

Kate stood from the table, ending the internal debate if she should do what she was about to do. She had the overwhelming urge to hold him tight and tell him everything would be just fine. "Come here," she motioned.

He stood too, confused, taking a few hesitant steps toward her with his hands in his pockets. Standing like this, so close, she was reminded of his height again, imagining the way her head would lay against his chest, wondering how many heads taller than her he actually was.

"Don't overanalyze this too much, k?" she asked, not waiting for his reply, instead wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her body to his. She could hear his heart beat in an erratic pattern, her own breathing hitched until she felt his large arms wrap around her lower back and return the sentiment.

They stood for a long time, linked together in warmth and silence, until they had nothing left.

He was going to have trouble forgetting her.

Up next: Like I'm going to tell you that? ;)