Very happy, very vocal Shea shipper here, with a VERY long fic that picks up exactly where the season 3 finale of The Good Doctor left off. This is canon compliant, so yes, Melendez is dead. It sucks, but sometimes life does suck. All of the other characters are featured in this story, though it is primarily a Shaun and Lea story. My endless thanks to my fellow Shea shippers Kelli and Sonya, for encouraging me to keep going with this, to Kelli for coining the term "St. Bonaventurites" (I hope you don't mind I borrowed it for the front page summary of this fic), and Sonya for helping me with especially getting Shaun's voice right. If I succeeded at that in crucial places, it's because of her. The title comes from the beautiful song that played over the final 5 minutes of 3x20, "Send the Rain (To Everyone)" by Noah Gundersen, with a pronoun change. (The song lyric is "Hold onto what you've got/Put a lock on the door, double the knot"; to reflect the beginning of Shaun and Lea's official couplehood, I changed it to "What We've Got.") I hope you enjoy this story. I can honestly say every word of it came from my heart.
Shaun wrapped his arms around Lea's waist and pulled her into him as he kissed her and she kissed him back. He felt her arms go around his neck, one of her hands slipping up to the back of his head and into his hair. He had never felt so alive, or so at home, in his life as he did in that moment, standing on the street outside of the destroyed brewpub with Lea in his arms, the two of them kissing. He was in love with Lea, and Lea loved him back with all her heart! This wasn't a practice kiss, or a goodbye, or pity, oh no. This was the beginning of a whole new chapter in their lives. Shaun had gone into the building on a singular mission: save Lea. He hadn't found her, though. He wondered idly for a second who had found Lea, but dismissed the thought to concentrate on the feel of Lea in his arms, the feel of her arms around him, the taste and feel of her kiss, different than the kisses they had shared before, but in the best of all possible ways. Shaun hadn't felt this kind of peace since he had cried in Lea's arms after his final confrontation with his father months ago. It was a feeling that he knew he could get very easily get used to feeling regularly.
Lea's world had been knocked off its axis the night before when she heard Shaun on the radio, and lived through those terrifying moments when it seemed that he wasn't going to make it out of that building alive. Of the many regrets and failures in her life, Lea knew that not taking the chance on a real love relationship with Shaun would be the greatest regret and biggest failure of her life. That was why, when the firefighter had told her to go, she had said simply, "I can't," because as long as she stayed outside the brewpub, she didn't have to really face that she had lost Shaun in the cruelest manner possible, and had wasted precious time that now she would have no way of getting back…at least until she heard the radio crackle to life and the report that the firefighters still in the building had something. She took off sprinting at that, ignoring the firefighter who yelled after her she needed a helmet.
The world righted itself again when Lea rushed into that what was left of that dark, debris-strewn building, came skidding to a halt in front of the firefighters bringing Vera up on a litter, and there, standing behind them all, drenched to the bone but very much alive and well, was Shaun! The instant she saw him, she felt her heart start beating again, felt a bone-deep relief and joy she had never felt before in her life.
When they were both safely outside, she had stood watching, staring as he got Vera onto the ambulance, and then she couldn't wait anymore. She ran to him and kissed him, cutting off what he had been about to say about Vera and the promise to move on if Vera didn't make it that the woman had extracted from him, which Lea had heard on the radio. It was time to be braver than she'd ever been in her life. It was time to be more honest than she'd ever been in her life. There was no more time to lose.
And now, standing here on her tiptoes, kissing and being kissed by Shaun, his arms wrapped around her waist after he pulled her against him, her fingertips lightly running through his hair before she dropped her hand from the back of his head to wrap her arm around his neck, Lea knew this was the best, most right decision she had made since she had come back to San Jose from Hershey and waited outside Shaun's door for him to come home from work, because Shaun Murphy was the best friend she had ever had, the best man she had ever known, and the man she loved with her whole heart. Lea had kissed a lot of guys in her life, and she'd even kissed Shaun before, but not like this, not with such tenderness, such promise, such love. Real love was something Lea didn't have a lot of experience with, but she knew that that's what she felt for Shaun: real love, not just as a best friend, but as the only man she'd ever known who made her more than she ever believed she could be. This is happiness, Lea thought giddily, smiling behind the kissing as she and Shaun instinctively kept moving their heads every few seconds so they didn't bump noses. Happiness, and a peace I haven't known since the night Shaun's dad died and we ended up sleeping in each other's arms all night. The night everything crystallized for me…
When the need for oxygen finally forced them to stop kissing, Shaun rested his forehead against Lea's for a few seconds before pulling back. She opened her eyes to find him looking at her so intently, his heart in his beautiful blue eyes, and she smiled shyly at him. He smiled back. Their arms were still around each other. "I need to get back to the hospital," he said. "And you need to get checked over. I'll ask Dr. Lim or Claire to check you over."
"Dr. Lim already checked me over last night, because she's the one who found me, and the paramedics wouldn't clear me until they'd done their own check. I'm all right, just very dusty and dirty," Lea replied. "Do you need a ride to the hospital?" She didn't want to leave Shaun yet. Then another thought occurred to her. "Have you heard from Glassy? Shaun, he and Dr. Melendez were here when the earthquake hit! Dr. Melendez yelled at me, trying to warn me, but I froze, and that's how I ended up falling through the floor!"
"Dr. Glassman is all right," Shaun assured Lea. "He was outside here when I arrived with the Hurt Team. He told me that you were in the building when the earthquake hit, and when I asked him where you were then, he told me, 'I don't know.' He told me the first responders would find you, but I went in there to look for you. I thought it was you I heard calling me, but it was Vera."
"I'm glad Glassy's okay," Lea said, relieved that her curmudgeonly boss, and Shaun's father figure, was all right. It had been a difficult couple of weeks for her all around, including at work, and she would never get the image of Glassy's epic side-eye to her in the brewpub before all hell broke loose the night before out of her mind. She wasn't sure he'd approve of her and Shaun's new relationship, but she vowed to work on earning the man's approval.
"I need to thank Dr. Lim for saving you," Shaun said seriously.
Keeping their arms around each other's shoulders, Shaun and Lea turned around and saw Dr. Alex Park standing by one of the remaining fire engines, looking in their direction. He had seen the young couple kissing after getting off the phone with Mia and Kellan, and though he didn't know Lea, he knew Shaun pretty well, and he knew that his young colleague loved this woman. He was rooting for them.
"Dr. Park," Shaun said. "We're going to the hospital. Can we give you a ride?" Then Shaun turned to look at Lea, the question written on his face. Despite everything he'd been through overnight, Park swallowed a chuckle. Oh, you'll learn, Shaun, he thought with amusement. You'll learn to check with her first before you make offers like that.
"Actually, yeah, I would appreciate it, if you don't mind, Lea, Shaun," Park replied.
"As long as the Striped Tomato wasn't destroyed in the earthquake, sure," Lea said.
Park fell into step behind Shaun and Lea, who were walking side by side, arms still around each other's shoulders. "Get out of here," Park said. "You have a replica of the Starsky and Hutch car?"
"Dr. Park was a cop before he was a doctor," Shaun put in helpfully.
"See for yourself," Lea replied. The Striped Tomato was covered in dust, but otherwise none the worse for having been parked in the parking lot across the street from the brewpub during the earthquake.
"Okay, that's just cool," Park said, admiring the car for a moment while Lea unlocked the doors.
The ride to St. Bonaventure was silent. Lea drove, Shaun in the passenger seat next to her, and Park in the backseat. Lea found a parking space in the employee parking lot, and the trio headed into the ER, Shaun and Lea still walking side by side, now holding hands, and Park walking behind them.
The ER was remarkably normal for the day after a major earthquake. But the first indication that something was seriously wrong was the shocked and dazed expression on Dr. Morgan Reznick's face as she stood at the ER nurses' station in a hospital gown and robe, her recently operated on hands bandaged after she had unbandaged them only two days post-op to operate on a patient with an ectopic pregnancy when no one else was available to do so the night before.
Even Shaun noticed the look on Morgan's face, but it was Park who posed the question. "Morgan? What happened?"
Morgan's head snapped up as she took in the tired, disheveled trio standing before her now: Shaun, Park, and Lea. Morgan didn't even notice that Shaun and Lea were holding hands, so great was her distress. She swallowed hard, opened her mouth, closed it again, cleared her throat, and then said, "Dr. Melendez died half an hour ago."
Park looked stricken. He had seen Melendez briefly when the Hurt Team went into the brewpub. Melendez had been working with Claire. Park remembered the cut on Melendez's forehead. Had the man had a head injury that no one, including himself, had realized? He'd been on his feet, speaking and moving without difficulty.
Lea was hit by a wave of shock. She had seen him last night before the earthquake, and he'd been fine. Once she fell through the floor, she had been alone in the dark until Dr. Lim shone her flashlight on Lea and, with the aid of a couple of firefighters, got her safely out of the rubble of the building. She hadn't thought about Melendez again, but she knew he had been on site working, and of course she had stayed after Dr. Lim and then the paramedics had examined her and pronounced her physically healthy and fine, because she had asked Dr. Lim if Shaun was there, and Dr. Lim had told her yes, he was in the building, but he was trapped below with a patient. Lea had wrangled a radio from a firefighter and sat in the open back of a rescue vehicle, waiting for word of Shaun and ultimately hearing him speak over the radio and talking to him herself. She had thought Melendez was all right, since he was still in there working. Her focus had quickly shifted to Shaun, so she didn't give another thought to any of the other doctors, except for noticing that Glassy wasn't in the brewpub or outside from what she could see. A few more footsteps in one direction or another, and maybe she would have been the one to die instead of Dr. Melendez. The thought sent chills up her spine and had her fighting tears, because although she had barely known him. Dr. Melendez had been nice to her the night before, and had shouted a warning to her when the first tremors of the earthquake struck. Unconsciously, Lea tightened her grip on Shaun's hand, then looked at him, worried about how he would take the news that one of his teachers had died.
Shaun's last memory of Dr. Melendez was seeing Dr. Melendez and Claire with their patient trapped under a great amount of debris. Shaun had given them advice on surgery for her and then left after announcing he had to find Lea. Had Dr. Melendez been crushed or seriously injured in the aftershock that had burst the water pipe where Shaun and Vera had been? Looking stoically in Morgan's direction, Shaun asked, "What happened?"
"Melendez was at the brewpub when the earthquake hit. Him and Glassman," Morgan said. Her voice sounded far away to her own ears. She was having a hard time wrapping her brain around the fact of his death. "He stayed on site to do triage, and he did an emergency surgery there with Claire. He insisted he was fine, but after his patient was in an ambulance on the way here, he threw up and passed out in the street. He had internal bleeding in his abdomen, and when Claire and Lim opened him up to fix it, they found a tear in his small bowel. Bacteria had been leaking into his bloodstream for hours, and he didn't know. No one did. He had large areas of necrosis in his intestines by the time they found it in the OR, and it was spreading. They couldn't do anything to stop it."
"He went into septic shock," Shaun said.
"Yeah," Morgan said softly. "Catastrophic multiple organ failure. Half an hour ago."
Park wearily scrubbed at his face with both hands, trying to process this bombshell on top of still processing the death of Casey, the teenage boy he lost in the earthquake, the one he'd been with when he took his final breath. Morgan still looked dazed. Lea was stricken, and she looked at Shaun and saw that his eyes were wet. Still holding his hand, she wrapped her other hand around his arm and leaned closer. "Oh, Shaunie, I'm so sorry," she whispered.
Shaun turned his head to look at her. "I am too," he said sadly.
Dr. Glassman appeared then, bags under his eyes behind his glasses, his scrubs wrinkled, his shoulders stooped. When he caught sight of Shaun, with Lea standing next to him, holding his hand and with her other hand wrapped around his arm, he literally bit his tongue. Now was not the time, and maybe she was just comforting him, since Reznick had obviously told Shaun, Park and Lea about Melendez's death. "Shaun, are you all right?" Glassman asked.
It didn't go unnoticed by anyone, including Morgan, that Shaun visibly squeezed Lea's hand after Glassman asked that question. "I am sad about Dr. Melendez," Shaun replied. "But physically, and emotionally, I am better than all right, Dr. Glassman. Are you all right? Have you talked to Debbie?"
"I'm all right," Glassman replied. "Sad about Melendez, of course, but otherwise all right. And yes, I have talked to Debbie. She's all right, too." Glassman then turned his attention to Morgan; the fact that he hadn't acknowledged Lea in any way, even with a glaring side-eye like the night before at the brewpub, did not escape Lea's attention. "Morgan, I thought Dr. Andrews ordered you back to bed?"
"He did," Morgan conceded. "I just…None of this seems real." Melendez's death, the damage Morgan had done to her hands possibly spelling the end of her surgical career before she was even finished with her residency, the earthquake and all of the injuries that had come streaming into the ER in the last 18 hours…It was a waking nightmare.
"You'd better get back to your room before Andrews see you and orders restraints," Glassman told Morgan. After exchanging looks with Park and with Shaun, Morgan walked away, going back to her own hospital room.
"You two are off the clock," Glassman told Shaun and Park then. "Shower, get changed, go home and get some sleep. The worst of the crisis has passed, and you two were at Ground Zero all night."
"I'll wait for you at the clinic," Lea said when Shaun turned to look at her.
"Okay," Shaun replied. He squeezed her hand again, and she squeezed his back. "I won't be very long."
As Shaun and Park headed to the residents' locker room, walking side by side, Park asked Shaun, "Do you love that girl? Lea?"
"No," Shaun replied, surprising Park until he finished his sentence. "I am in love with Lea. I have learned that there is a difference between loving someone and being in love with someone. I am in love with Lea. I have been in love with Lea for a long time. And Lea is in love with me too. I know that not very many people here know her well, if they know her at all, and Morgan and Dr. Glassman think that she is a flake, and when I was hurting, I even told her she is a flake, but I don't really think she is. I need to apologize for that. And I will. But Lea is a good person, and the woman I love. I know that a relationship is not easy, but Lea is my best friend too, and I am her boyfriend now. We will make things work together. And I think the least that I can ask of my friends and colleagues is that they respect that Lea and I love each other and that she is my girlfriend."
They had reached the locker room now. Park opened the door and gestured for Shaun to go in ahead of him. Both men were silent as they went to their respective lockers. Then Park spoke again. "Shaun." Shaun turned around to look at Park, clasping his hands in front of him and focusing over Park's left shoulder. "I don't know Lea, but I know you. And I saw the two of you in the street outside the brewpub earlier. If you're in love with her, and she's in love with you, then you hold on to each other. Do what you need to do to make it work, because nothing in the world is more important than the people that you love, and that love you. Nothing. Remember that."
"I will," Shaun replied. "Thank you, Dr. Park."
Park nodded, then headed into the showers. Shaun pulled his things from his locker and headed into the showers himself a couple of minutes later.
Meanwhile, Lea was waiting at her desk outside Glassman's office when Glassman returned. He flicked a brief glance her way, then stalked into his office. Lea got up and followed him. Standing in his office doorway, she said, "Glassy, we need to talk."
"Why?" Glassman packed a lot into that single syllable, Lea reflected grimly.
"Because I could have died last night, and Shaun could have died last night, and I know I've never been your favorite person, especially these last two weeks, and that's on me, because I let my fears get in the way of something that I've wanted deep down for a long time, and now Shaun and I finally have our chance, and we're finally on the same page, and I'm going to work harder than I ever have at anything in my whole life not to screw this up, because I love Shaun with all of my heart," Lea said.
Glassman steepled his fingers on his desk and looked at her. "You broke his heart," he said.
"He broke mine," Lea returned. "You've been in love before. If you're really in love with somebody, then they have the power to really hurt you like you've never been hurt before, and you have that same power over them." Lea crossed the room and stood in front of his desk, having worked up a good head of steam now. "I know you think I'm a flake, Glassy. I know you've only put up with me all this time because of Shaun, but that's a hell of a thing to have in common: you and I both love Shaun more than anything, and he really did almost die last night! A pipe burst, and water was pouring into the space, and he had a patient, Vera, and he wouldn't leave her. He cut off her leg to get her out of there alive, and they both almost drowned in the process. When he wasn't answering me on the walkie-talkie anymore, I felt all the life drain out of me! I thought he was lying dead in what was left of that damned brewpub and that he'd never know how much I love him. I lied to him trying to get him out of there, and he knew me well enough to know I was lying, but he didn't get angry at me for it. He wouldn't give up on that patient. You've known him since he was 14 years old. When it's something or someone that really matters to him, Shaun Murphy does not quit! He didn't quit on you when you had your brain tumor, when you were convinced it had come back, and he didn't quit on Vera last night, and he doesn't want to quit on me! I heard him say it! He doesn't want to change the person he is when he's with me! I make him more! And he makes me more too, Glassy, he makes me more than I ever thought I could be!
"In all my life, the only person who never gave up on me was my Grandpa Rod, and he's dead! Shaun doesn't want to give up on me, even after we hurt each other the way we did, even after I pushed him away like I did because I was such a stupid idiot, because I was so afraid. Well, I'm not giving up on him, either! I didn't give up on him last night, and I'm not going to give up on him, because I'm in love with him! He's the best, most wonderful man I've ever known, and I admit, I don't know why he loves me, but I know that he does love me, and I know that I love him, and God, you just don't know what a gift that is! So you can think I'm the biggest flake in the universe, and think that I'm not good enough for Shaun, but I love him, Glassy, and he loves me, and we're going to be together, so you may not like it, but you're at least going to have to accept it, for Shaun's sake!"
She whirled around and started to stalk out of Glassman's office, but he made her nearly trip over her own feet when she stopped short at his words: "Shaun told me weeks ago that he loves you, and he wasn't sure if he should tell you because he didn't know what you'd say. I asked him, what if you said that you loved him too?"
Lea turned around to look at Glassman, and her jaw dropped. "Yes, you annoy me," Glassman continued neutrally, "but Shaun can be annoying too. I should know that, he's been a major part of my life for 14 years now. He's loved you for a long time. And I think you've loved him for a lot longer than you're admitting at the moment. So the two of you loving each other isn't some big secret exposed here. I don't know all the details of what went on between the two of you these past weeks, but I do know that Shaun burned through some sick time calling off of work after he first told you he loved you, and I know that last night, when I told him you'd been in the brewpub when he earthquake hit but I didn't know where you were then, he was on a singular mission to find you and save you. You were the whole reason he went into that building. You're right: when it really matters to him, Shaun doesn't quit. So all that I am asking of you, Lea, is that you don't quit on Shaun. You both have your…idiosyncrasies."
"We can both be a pain in the ass, you mean," Lea retorted wryly.
"There are going to be arguments. There are going to be issues. Every relationship has them," Glassman continued, ignoring Lea's remark. "There are times things will get tough. As long as you don't bail on him without doing everything possible to work it out first, as long as you don't purposely, cruelly break his heart again, I can't ask any more of you than that."
"I swear to God, Glassy, on my Grandpa Rod's grave, I am in this all the way with Shaun," Lea vowed fervently. "I love him so much. I just want to be with him, and we take care of each other. He's the best thing that ever happened to me."
"You just might be the best thing that ever happened to him," Glassman replied. He turned his attention to some files on his desk then. "Speaking of Shaun, I'm sure he'll be done with his shower soon. You don't want to keep him waiting. You both had a very long night."
"Glassy—" Lea started.
"You don't want to keep Shaun waiting," Glassman repeated, glancing up from his files to see the smile on Lea's face before she nodded a goodbye to him and walked back out to her desk to wait for Shaun.
Shaun was just finishing gathering up his things at his locker following his shower, with his jacket on and his backpack on the bench behind him, prepared to go upstairs and meet Lea in the clinic, when the locker room door opened and Claire walked in.
Tearstains had dried on her face, but she felt like she could burst into tears again at any moment. She was fighting the powerful urge to walk out of St. Bonaventure, find the nearest bar, and drink herself into numbness and oblivion, and only two things stopped her: Morgan's words from several months ago ringing in her head when Morgan had tracked her down at a bar and told her to stop doing that before she really became that person, and she didn't want to dishonor Neil's memory that way. She had meant it when she'd told him that he had saved her. She had no idea how the hell she'd go on without him now, but she knew that she had to do it. She owed it to him. I'm gonna be spending a lot more time in therapy than I thought, Claire reflected.
Claire was so caught up in her own thoughts that she didn't notice Shaun until she heard him quietly speak. "Claire?"
"Oh. Shaun," Claire said. She didn't know if she could give voice to the awful truth, but Shaun deserved to hear it from a friend, she thought. "I don't know if you heard—"
"Dr. Melendez died earlier this morning," Shaun finished for her. His flat monotone didn't make the words spoken aloud any easier to take, and Claire felt a physical pain in her chest. "Morgan told Dr. Park and Lea and me when we arrived here."
"Oh," Claire said again. She had no idea that Morgan had known. Of course, Claire had gone to the bridge to be alone after she and Lim had hugged and then walked down the corridor together, and was only now returning to the locker room. She didn't even know how long she'd been out there. At least she would probably be spared having to tell anyone else, since Morgan knew and had told Shaun and Park, and surely Glassman or Lim had notified Andrews by now.
"I'm very sorry, Claire," Shaun said. "I know that you cared about Dr. Melendez. It hurts very much when people we care about die, and there is nothing we can do to save them."
The thought crossed Claire's mind that Shaun actually did know whereof he spoke, because he had watched his younger brother die in front of him when they were both still kids. And people who don't know you think you're not capable of empathy, she thought. Sadness was etched deeply into her features, and would be for a long time to come, but she appreciated Shaun's attempt at comfort because she knew it was sincere.
"Yes, it does," Claire said. She sat down on the bench next to Shaun's backpack and bowed her head, letting her clasped hands fall between her open knees. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the backpack move and Shaun take its place, sitting down next to her. Neither of them spoke for a long moment. Then Claire said, "It's been a rough time for a lot of us lately," thinking of Morgan's rheumatoid arthritis bombshell (she knew Morgan had had a synovectomy only a few days ago in an effort to stay in the surgical residency program), Shaun's recent heartbreak, and of course the gaping maw of grief Claire herself was now staring into face first.
Shaun ducked his head, and Claire could have sworn he was trying to hide a smile. His hands were clasped in front of him, and he was avoiding eye contact with her in a much more obvious way than he usually did. "Shaun?" Claire asked, turning her head to look at him.
"My heart isn't broken anymore," Shaun burst out.
Claire's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "It isn't?" she asked. "You and Carly—"
"No, me and Lea," Shaun said, and Claire could hear the pure joy in his voice. He concentrated on the lockers in front of him very intently. "I shouldn't say any more. Not when you're so sad. That wouldn't be nice."
"Shaun?" Claire said. "Would you look at me, please?" Shaun turned his head to look Claire in the eye. Claire swallowed hard, unable to keep the emotion out of her voice, and she spoke with a shaking voice. "I'm happy for you. I know that you've loved Lea for a long time. I remember talking you out of following her to Hershey when she moved away. You and Lea are incredibly lucky. So the two of you, you give this relationship everything you have. You fight for each other, and you keep on loving each other even when you're mad and scared and confused and even when you annoy each other, and you wake up grateful every single day that you have each other. Don't take a single moment for granted, Shaun. Be happy. I've never known anyone who deserves that more than you."
Both residents sat in silence for several moments. Claire couldn't help thinking back to when their situations had been reversed, when Shaun had been fired by Dr. Han a year ago, and Claire had helped him pick up his stuff from the locker room floor after Han fired him and then just sat beside him, albeit on the floor, in silence for a long time after that. Finally Claire asked, "Where is Lea now? Is she okay?"
"She's here," Shaun replied. "She's waiting for me at her desk."
"I would say you have somewhere else to be now," Claire said.
"Will you be okay if I leave now?" Shaun asked.
"I won't be okay for a very long time," Claire replied, surprising even herself with that brutal honesty. "But I will be okay eventually. So yeah, Shaun, go. Go be with Lea."
Shaun stood up, so Claire did too. He grabbed his backpack from the other side of him on the bench, and put it on, adjusting the straps on his shoulders. With a silent sigh, Claire mentally readied herself to leave the locker room as well. She needed to check back in with Lim, wherever she had gotten off to. Shaun looked at Claire for a few seconds, seemingly considering something, and then, without a word, put his arms around her and hugged her. Startled, it took Claire a few more seconds to hug him back. Then Shaun released her, and looked at her once more. Claire looked at him gratefully, and then watched him leave, leaving the locker room herself after taking a few deep breaths.
While Shaun had been talking to Claire in the locker room, Lea caught sight of Dr. Lim walking by outside the clinic, a haunted look on her face. "Dr. Lim!" Lea called. The woman stopped suddenly, seemingly startled to hear her name. Lea walked out into the corridor. "Dr. Lim," she said again, softly.
Lim looked at Lea then. "Oh. Lea. Hello," Lim replied. "It's good to see that you're all right."
"I wouldn't be if it wasn't for you," Lea said. "You're the one who found me, and helped me get out of there, and checked me over." Shaun had mentioned to Lea once, several months ago, that Dr. Lim had been dating Dr. Melendez. Then, shortly before their fateful trip to Wyoming when Shaun confronted his estranged parents for the first time in almost 14 years, he had idly mentioned that Dr. Lim and Dr. Melendez had broken up, but he wasn't sure why. Of course, Shaun generally wasn't interested in details like that. Still, looking at Lim now, Lea could see the grief in Lim from head to toe, so even if they had broken up, Lim had obviously still loved Melendez. Not for the first time in the last several hours, Lea realized that she might be as grief-stricken as Lim now was if her worst fears had been realized and Shaun had drowned trying to save Vera.
"I was just doing my job," Lim replied, almost absently.
Lea shifted her weight uncomfortably. "I saw him there, at the brewpub last night," she said. "Dr. Melendez." Lim's head snapped up at this, and she looked at Lea eagerly, twisting a knife into her heart, because Lea knew that Lim looked like that because she wanted to know about the last moments of Dr. Melendez's normal, healthy life.
Taking a deep breath, Lea began, "We didn't know each other very well, last night was the first time we ever talked, in fact, but he was nice to me. We were going on a tour of the brewpub when the earthquake hit. Dr. Melendez, and Gla—Dr. Glassman and I, and I was the furthest down the hall. When we felt the tremor, we all stopped walking, but Dr. Melendez and Dr. Glassman flattened themselves against opposite walls. I was standing in the middle of the hall, and Dr. Melendez yelled at me, 'Lea, get out of there!', and I just froze where I was, and the next thing I knew, the floor opened up and I fell through, and I was down there alone in the dark until you came. I didn't see or hear Dr. Melendez again after that." Lea's eyes grew wet. "Maybe if either one of us had taken a few footsteps in the other direction, we'd both be here now, or maybe even he'd be here now and I wouldn't."
"No," Lim told Lea. "You can't think that way, Lea. Neil had serious internal injuries. But he put them off, he didn't know how serious they were, because he loved being a doctor, and he was there to help and to save as many others as he could, including you. We can't save everyone." She thought briefly of young Casey, the teenage boy she and Park had worked on in the rubble, and Park's face when she had told him they wouldn't be able to save Casey flashed across her mind for a second. "We fight like hell for all of our patients, but the reality is that we can't save them all. Sometimes, no matter what we do, no matter how hard we try, nothing can be done."
"But he did the right thing! He flattened himself against a wall, and I froze where I was standing, right in the middle of the corridor, but he's gone, and I'm here. It's not fair!" Lea exclaimed, the tears in her eyes choking her voice now.
"No. No, it's not fair at all," Lim agreed. "But I found you where you fell through the floor, and you got out of the building without any major injuries, Lea, and I am grateful for that. And considering that Shaun went rogue in there to find you, ignoring the firefighters when they told him the area he went to search for you hadn't been cleared yet, I know that he's grateful too." Lim sighed deeply, tipping her head back, and then bringing it down again to regard the young woman in front of her, the young woman that she knew Shaun was in love with, because she, and Park, and everyone else on that frequency, had heard Shaun's declaration over the radio the night before.
Lim laid a hand on Lea's shoulder, and Lea blinked back tears to look at the trauma surgeon. "You are a triumph, Lea. I had to make one of my residents face the harsh reality that we couldn't save a 17-year-old boy in that brewpub. I operated on my best friend, the man who..." She trailed off as she fought down her grief and her guilt; she knew the anger would come later, and she would deal with it when it did, but right now, she had to make Lea understand that there was no cosmic balance at work here, and absolve this young woman of any guilt she might be feeling because she had survived the earthquake and Neil hadn't.
" I couldn't save him," Lim continued. "And then I was the one being told by my senior colleague that nothing would save him. And nothing would save Dr. Park's teenage patient either. But we saved you, Lea. Shaun saved the woman he was trapped with. And Neil and Dr. Browne saved their patient with emergency surgery in the rubble. The pain of the losses will stay with us for a while, but we know that the three of you are alive this morning because of what our team did, and that's why we do what we do. The last thing Neil Melendez would want is for you to feel guilty for living."
"It isn't guilt, exactly. It's the knowledge that a different toss of the dice, and maybe I wouldn't be standing here right now," Lea replied. "I never truly understood how random life could be until these last 20 hours."
"But you ARE standing here right now," Lim pointed out. "It wasn't your time to die, Lea. You have a life, a future, to live. Focus on that. Irony isn't going to give us any answers or help any of us. We'll find our way through this, all of us. Don't waste your time on 'what if's and 'might have been's." I'll be doing enough of that for a dozen people, Lim thought.
When they heard footsteps approaching, Lea and Lim both turned to look, and there was Shaun striding towards them, backpack on his shoulders. "I'm ready, Lea," he said.
Then he turned his attention to Dr. Lim. "Dr. Lim, thank you for saving Lea last night." He was looking Lim right in the eyes when he said it, a fact that let Lim know just how much Shaun meant those words, which wasn't surprising to her given what she had heard Shaun say about Lea on the radio last night.
Then Shaun continued, "I will miss Dr. Melendez, but I know that you will miss him much more, because you loved him, and he loved you too. Morgan said he went into septic shock from bacteria leaking into his bloodstream for hours from a tear in his small bowel. There was nothing you could have done to save him."
Hearing those words from Shaun felt like less of a failure to Lim than when Glassman had spelled everything out for her regarding Neil's condition several hours ago.
Audrey regarded the duo standing before her for a moment, wondering if they were aware of their body language, how, although they weren't touching or holding hands or engaging in any physical contact there in front of her, when Shaun had approached them, he stopped and stood right next to Lea, and they were standing so close to each other, there was maybe a centimeter of space between them, and their bodies were oriented toward one another; though they were both facing Lim, their stances silently screamed that they were a couple in love.
"Yes, Dr. Lim, thank you for pulling me out of there," Lea added, realizing, with no small amount of embarrassment, that she hadn't specifically thanked Shaun's Chief of Surgery for saving her life before now.
"I was just doing my job," Lim replied. She looked at Shaun and Lea again, and she knew she didn't have much time before the dam burst on the emotions she was trying to hold back. And suddenly, Lim had to get this out, had to give Shaun the advice that she could have benefitted from years ago and now would never have the chance to put into action.
"What we do is important. But it shouldn't be all there is. Shaun, I heard you on the radio last night, and it seems to me you're way ahead of most of the rest of us, because you've figured that out." Lim looked at Shaun and Lea standing before her, and the feelings of mourning for all that she lost when Neil died a short time ago began to breach the walls of her professionalism. "For whatever it might be worth, take it from someone who would give anything in the world to have the chance that the two of you have right now: let each other in. Talk. And it's okay to be scared as long as you're scared together. Don't let a personal life pass you by. Have something outside these walls that's worth going home to every night, and worth waking up for every morning, because that's where your true, lasting happiness will come from." Lim's pager went off then. "Excuse me," she said, hurrying off, managing to get away from Shaun and Lea before the tears slid down her cheeks, and ducking into a restroom to quickly collect herself before answering her page.
After Dr. Lim had left, Shaun and Lea looked at each other. "You need a shower," Shaun said. Lea bit her lip to keep from laughing. It wasn't an insult, it was just Shaun stating a fact in his Shaun-like way. She recalled when she gave him a ride home after she'd worked out at the gym and Shaun had commented that she stank.
"Yes, I do," she agreed. "Should we go to my place or yours? You haven't seen my place yet. Not the inside, anyway."
"Where do you want to go? To my place or yours?" Shaun asked.
"Could I grab some clean clothes from my apartment and then come over to yours?" She looked at Shaun sheepishly. " I, um, didn't get a chance to get to the grocery store before last night, and I think I have some bad Chinese food and half a pint of freezer-burned ice cream at my place."
"I went shopping as usual. I could make pancakes, or scrambled eggs—" Shaun began.
"Scrambled eggs sound really good," Lea said.
"I'll make them while you take a shower," Shaun replied.
They headed down the corridor together, and they happened to be passing by Morgan's hospital room when they both heard a voice call out, "Dr. Murphy." They stopped, turned to look over their shoulders, and saw Dr. Andrews rushing toward them. "Headed home, Dr. Murphy?" he asked.
"Yes, Dr. Andrews. Dr. Glassman said Dr. Park and I should go home," Shaun replied.
"And I agree with him," Andrews said, "but I wanted to talk to you about your patient from the earthquake, Vera, before you leave." He finally noticed Lea standing next to Shaun and regarded her with a flicker of curiosity in his eyes. "If you'd excuse us for moment, Ms.—" Andrews said.
"Dilallo. Lea Dilallo," Lea introduced herself. "I recently hired on here in the IT department. I work directly for Dr. Glassman."
"Marcus Andrews, attending surgeon," Andrews replied. "Now if you'd excuse Dr. Murphy and me…"
"Of course," Lea said. Shaun looked at Lea uncertainly, but she smiled at him reassuringly.
"Let's take a walk, Dr. Murphy," Dr. Andrews said. They headed down the corridor, leaving Lea standing where she was.
"So are you and Shaun a couple now or what?" The unexpected voice made Lea, who had been watching Shaun and Dr. Andrews depart, jump, and when she turned around, she saw Morgan standing in the doorway of her hospital room, looking at Lea with undisguised interest.
"How, exactly, is that any of your business?" Lea wanted to know, as she recalled Morgan's comments that Shaun had relayed to her on her first day working at St. Bonaventure.
"Because I consider Shaun a friend, and I've already been through one relationship where he overshared about everything because, as I'm sure you know, he has no filter," Morgan replied. "So come on in here, would you, before Andrews catches me out of bed and either gives me more bad news or a pitying look?"
"He's discussing a patient with Shaun," Lea replied.
"Even better. Then you and I have time for a little chat," Morgan said as she returned to her room and got back into her hospital bed. Lea inwardly fumed for a moment before stalking into Morgan's room, stopping at the foot of the bed, and crossing her arms over her chest to glower at her as she settled herself back into bed.
"You wanna chat? Fine, I'll start," Lea said, feeling a flare of anger. "You're the twisted beeyotch who told Shaun that me stealing French fries from his plate was like me peeing on his leg? What kind of deranged thought process connects those two things?"
"You know Shaun doesn't do well with hyperbole," Morgan retorted. "My point was that you eating off his plate multiple times was a way of you asserting dominance and being territorial about him, especially after he started dating Carly, who, by the way, I also called out to make sure that she wasn't looking at him as some kind of project, so don't think you're going to intimidate me or get me to back off. I'm a bitch, and everybody here knows it. If you don't believe me, walk out there to the ER and ask any nurse. They will gladly confirm it."
"I don't need confirmation of that from any nurses. I observed it for myself after Shaun told me about your comments," Lea replied, her arms still folded across her chest.
"All right, Andrews isn't gonna keep Shaun talking out there forever, so I'll get to the point," Morgan said, smoothing out her blanket before looking directly at Lea. "It is incredibly ironic that I'm the one telling you this, considering that I had to be dragged kicking and screaming into it, but we're a tribe here at St. Bonaventure: Shaun, Claire, me, and Park. And Glassman and Andrews and Lim and Melen—And our attendings are our teachers and our mentors. They're part of our tribe too, but the four of us residents? We've been through a lot together in the last three years. I'm not saying there's not room for you in the tribe, Lea, but Shaun is a good guy. He's due for something lasting and something real in his life when it comes to a relationship, and he deserves to be with a woman who's not gonna flake out and who's not going to leave him coming around to the rest of us trying to get answers that she should be giving him, especially about certain aspects of a relationship that are extremely personal, and someone that isn't going to try to manipulate him with ultimatums because of jealousy. And I do give you credit for being way more subtle than the pathologist about your jealousy. But if you can't be serious about him, if this is just some reaction to the earthquake, if you break his heart again in a malicious, cruel, permanent kind of way, the line to break your face will form behind me, and these won't stop me." Morgan held up her bandaged hands then.
"I am very serious about Shaun, Morgan," Lea replied firmly, her head held high as she looked at Shaun's fellow surgeon propped up in her hospital bed. "I'm in love with him. It took the earthquake, and almost losing Shaun, to make me realize that everything else that I was afraid of isn't worth being afraid of anymore. The only thing I'm afraid of is my life without Shaun in it. I'm not going into this lightly, and I'm not going into this planning to screw it up or sabotage it."
"As long as we understand each other," Morgan replied.
"We do," Lea said. She regarded Morgan for several seconds, unfolding her arms and letting them fall back to her sides, before saying, "Maybe you're not such a twisted beeyotch after all."
"Maybe you're not such a flake after all," Morgan returned. "Shaun definitely doesn't think you're a flake. He's made that very clear to me on more than one occasion when I made the mistake of calling you that in front of him."
So that's where he heard it, Lea thought, remembering those painful moments in the parking lot of her new apartment complex by the Striped Tomato two weeks ago. He never called me a flake himself before, but the way I'd been acting, he wasn't wrong that night. We're going to have to talk about that, and about what I said about Shaun not being able to fix his autism, because his autism is a part of who he is, and I love him for who he is.
While Lea and Morgan were having their chat, Dr. Andrews complimented Shaun on Vera's surgery. "Dr. Murphy, you were the very epitome of grace under pressure. Water rising, a patient that lost consciousness, an underwater field amputation in the middle of earthquake rubble…I don't know many surgeons who would have been able to keep their wits in that situation. I would have been thinking twice myself if I'd been the one down there. And the amputation was very well done. We'll be able to do a skin graft from the patient's back to the residual limb before fitting her for a prosthetic and starting her in physical therapy."
Not meeting Dr. Andrews' eyes, Shaun replied, ""It became necessary to amputate. The water flooding in reduced how much time was left to cut the rebar. The only way to save Vera was to amputate her leg, and she did give verbal consent."
Andrews, used to Shaun's logic after three years, said, "You made the right call, Shaun. Excellent work. Now I'm going to check in with my wife, so you can go home."
Andrews had already started to walk away when Shaun spoke again. "You were wrong about love, Dr. Andrews." Andrews turned around to look at the young resident. Shaun continued, "Love isn't always about a certain feeling in your stomach. Love is when your life is better because the other person is in it. Love is wanting the other person to be happy, wanting to take care of them, wanting to see them smile, wanting them to be the first person you talk to in the morning and the last person you talk to at night. Love is when being with this person makes you feel a peace and a happiness you never felt before. Love is when the other person makes you more, and you make them more."
"And does this love have a name, Dr. Murphy?" Andrews asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes," Shaun replied. "Her name is Lea. And she's my best friend and my girlfriend."
"That would be the woman I just met a few minutes ago?"
"Yes."
"Well, you don't want to keep the lady waiting any longer than you already have," Andrews said.
Shaun's answer was to head off down the corridor, back to where they had left Lea standing. He was a bit surprised to find Lea standing at Morgan's bedside. He stood in the doorway. Morgan noticed Shaun and spoke before he could. "I heard about your amputation in the rubble," Morgan said. "Impressive, Shaun."
"The water was rising, and I didn't have time to cut through the rebar," Shaun replied. "The only way to get Vera out was by cutting off her leg."
Morgan reflected that of course Shaun wouldn't just leave the woman there, even to go get help from another doctor or some paramedics. Then she looked at Lea and Shaun, at the way they were looking at each other, and felt invisible, but she didn't mind the feeling. "Okay, you two, get a room, preferably not in this hospital, because we're already almost at capacity after last night. "
"I'm not planning to have sex with Lea today," Shaun said. The remark was meant for Morgan, but his eyes were locked on Lea's eyes. "It's been a long night, and I want to go on a few dates before we have sex. I want to do this right, and give her everything she deserves. And I would never have sex at the hospital with anyone."
For one brief moment, Morgan felt a sharp stab of jealousy at Shaun's words, the look on Lea's face at them. But then she dismissed it and said, "Well, whatever you're going to do, you can't really do it here, and certainly not in my hospital room, so why don't you get going? It was a long night, for all of us. And I'm supposed to be resting anyway. Seriously, get out of here before somebody else stops you."
"Goodbye, Morgan," Lea said.
"Oh, you'll be seeing me around this place when we're all back to work," Morgan replied, going the fake-it-til-you-make-it route. She may have ruined her chance to be a surgeon, but no way in hell was she going to stop being a doctor. And Andrews had said she may have ended her career as a surgeon, not that she definitely had. It was the slimmest of hopes, but it was all she had, and Morgan was holding onto that hope with all the strength in her traumatized, battered knuckles.
Lea and Shaun finally emerged from St. Bonaventure into the fresh air and morning sun. The street on which the hospital was located hadn't seen nearly as much damage as other areas of San Jose, particularly the street where the brewpub was. Lea looked down when Shaun took her hand in his. Looking at their joined hands, and then up at his face, she started to tremble violently as the realization that she could have lost Shaun forever last night slammed into her with more force than the earthquake had.
"Lea?" he asked. "What's wrong?"
"You could have died," she said in a strangled voice. "You could have drowned. You don't swim very well. I know that. I was so afraid for you, Shaun. I was so afraid that I had waited too long, that my fears ruined any chance I might have had with you. You could have died without ever knowing just how much I love you, and that I do want to be your girlfriend." She looked at him desperately. "I was so wrong. I—"
Shaun placed his hands on Lea's shoulders. "Plant your feet as firmly on the ground as you can," he instructed. Lea did so. "Look in my eyes, Lea." Her tear-filled eyes met his. "Now take slow, deep breaths, in through your nose and out through your mouth." With her gaze focused firmly on Shaun's, she became conscious of the asphalt of the parking lot beneath her feet, the feel of Shaun's hands on her shoulders, and she let herself get lost in his eyes, which sparked with both love and concern, both of which were aimed squarely at her. I really was a stupid idiot, she thought as she gradually, with Shaun's help, got her breathing back under control.
When Lea was breathing normally again, Shaun took her pulse in her wrist. "Your pulse is within the normal range," he announced. "Your body was reacting to the adrenaline wearing off. You'll be okay now. But I should probably drive us to your apartment."
Lea handed Shaun the keys to the Striped Tomato, and, feeling completely spent, was only too happy to sag into the passenger seat and let him drive. When they arrived at her apartment, Shaun shut off the engine, and they turned to look at each other. "I'll only be a minute," she said. "Do you want to come in?"
"Only if you think you need help," Shaun replied.
Lea considered for a few seconds. "I really like the idea of the first time you see my apartment being when you come to pick me up for our first date," she replied.
"Our first real date as boyfriend and girlfriend," Shaun corrected. "On our road trip, the first time we sang karaoke and we drank all that tequila, that was a date, but we weren't boyfriend and girlfriend then."
"Well, we are now," Lea said. She leaned across the console to kiss him again, softly, thrilling inside when he kissed her back. Finally, she pulled back. "I'll just be a minute," she promised.
Lea was convinced she broke a land speed record packing as she swept from bedroom to bathroom, throwing essentials in a duffel bag, trying to make sure she didn't forget anything, mentally checking off toiletries, non-sexy pajamas, flip-flops (her boots had made it through the earthquake unscathed but her outfit would have to go to the cleaners to see if it could be salvaged), a couple of comfortable outfits, one outfit for work, her phone and earbuds, her wallet, and her toothbrush as she threw them into the bag and hastily zipped it closed. Satisfied that she hadn't forgotten anything absolutely necessary, and reasoning that she could dash back later if it turned out she had, she made sure she had her keys, hurried out the front door, locking it behind her, and returned to the car, tossing the duffel bag in the back seat before reclaiming the passenger seat next to Shaun.
"It took you eight minutes," Shaun informed her.
Lea leaned her head back against the headrest, looked over at Shaun, and said, "It was a figure of speech, Shaun."
Shaun started the car, then looked over at Lea. "If you fall asleep, I'll carry you inside when we get to the apartment," he said before putting the car in gear and heading for his apartment.
The mere thought of Shaun sweeping her up in his arms and carrying her into the apartment put a whole series of ideas in Lea's head that she hadn't dared to even let herself fantasize about during these past months. The possibilities kept her brain happily occupied until she felt the car stop, and Shaun shut off the ignition once more. "We're here," he announced. He unbuckled his seat belt, got out of the car, then reached into the back seat for his backpack. Lea mirrored his actions, grabbing her duffel bag before following Shaun towards the apartment building. After a few steps, he stopped, realizing she was behind him, and motioned her to walk in front of him with one hand.
Once they were inside the apartment, Shaun said, "I'll make the scrambled eggs while you take a shower." He put away his backpack and jacket, then headed into the kitchen. Lea put the duffel bag in her old bedroom, taking what she needed out of it before grabbing a towel and washcloth from where she and Shaun had kept them and heading into the bathroom to take that much-needed shower.
After washing his hands, Shaun sliced apples, put on water for coffee for Lea, and cooked a big pan of scrambled eggs. As he cooked the eggs, he thought about how much he missed living with Lea, but, remembering her comment about not wanting him to see her new apartment until he picked her up for their first real date, he knew that it wasn't the right time to ask Lea to move back in. He had never truly wanted her to move out in the first place, but he had been trying to do whatever it took to make Carly happy, although, he realized now, she didn't give him much to go on when it came to what she really wanted. He had asked his friends and colleagues for advice all the time. He wasn't sure he could explain it, but he didn't feel like that would be the case with Lea; they had known each other for three years already, she was his best friend, and he had always found it easier to talk to Lea than to anyone else, with the exception of Dr. Glassman, whom he had known for almost half his life.
Mostly what Shaun wanted to do today was apologize to Lea for what he had said that awful night by the Striped Tomato, and explain to her why he had done it. More kissing would be great too. Holding each other would be even better. Shaun had never felt anything like he'd felt when Lea was in his arms on the street in front of the destroyed brewpub. Holding her made him feel happy, and secure in a way he'd never known was possible.
As Lea showered, she knew that she wanted to apologize to Shaun for the way she had hurt him when they had argued on the bridge at the hospital. It was probably too soon for Shaun to be sweeping her up in his arms and carrying her anywhere, but he had never hugged her the way he had hugged her outside the brewpub earlier. A little more kissing (or even a lot more kissing) once they had cleared the air would be terrific, but Lea wanted to be back in Shaun's arms again, wanted them to hold each other, and her mind drifted back to the night they had held onto each other in Shaun's motel room in Wyoming, the night her true feelings for and about Shaun Murphy had crystallized for Lea once and for all. Of course, there had been Carly, and a mountain of Lea's own fears, but somehow she and Shaun had found their way after all. Shaun had been brave enough to take the risk, to put his heart on the line for her, and Lea was now ready to do the same, because if she were as brutally honest with herself as Shaun always was with everyone, he had had a hold on her heart for a very long time now. This was the chance of a lifetime, and Lea was bound and determined not to screw this up.
After putting her dirty clothes in one of the bathroom-sized trash bags Shaun kept under the bathroom sink, Lea emerged from the bathroom, having towel dried her hair and changed into black yoga pants, a pink hoodie, and white socks. She opted to leave her boots and flip-flops in her old room and, after putting the bag of her dirty clothes there too, she headed out to the living room.
Shaun was sitting on the couch, and he had breakfast waiting for them on the coffee table: bottles of water, a cup of coffee for Lea, a plate of sliced green apples, and she could smell the scrambled eggs from the kitchen. "I made breakfast," Shaun said as he stood up and went to the kitchen to dish up the scrambled eggs onto two plates. He quickly gathered forks and napkins, and carried everything back to the couch, handing Lea a plate of scrambled eggs with a napkin underneath it and a fork on the plate. He sat down beside her with his own plate of scrambled eggs, and they ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes until each of them had taken the edge off their hunger.
After finishing his scrambled eggs, Shaun set the empty plate, napkin and fork on the coffee table and picked up the plate of apple slices. He was eating his second one when Lea reached out and took an apple slice from the plate and popped it into her mouth. "You're eating from my plate again," he said, sounding amused.
Lea chewed and swallowed the apple slice, then reached for another. "Yeah, well, I'm allowed to do that now that I'm your girlfriend," she said. The way Shaun's whole face lit up when she called herself his girlfriend warmed Lea's heart. It also gave her the courage to apologize for hurting Shaun weeks earlier out of her own fears.
"Shaun," Lea said after chewing and swallowing the second apple slice, and he met her gaze, the look on his face still so happy that it took her breath away. "I am so sorry that I hurt you. When I told you that we would never work, that was my fear talking. I've never had a relationship that's lasted any real amount of time. And no other guy has ever been as important to me as you are. You're the best friend I've ever had, and I was afraid of ruining everything, and driving you away, but last night, when I could hear you on the radio, and for those few awful moments that I thought you died, I knew that I would regret not taking this leap of faith with you for the rest of my life." Lea choked up, remembering when Shaun didn't answer her repeated, and increasingly frantic, calls on the radio. She cleared her throat before continuing, "One of the firefighters told me to go home, and I told him I couldn't. And then over the radio, I heard one of the firefighters in the building say they had something, and I just took off running in there, and then there you were, standing behind the firefighters that were carrying Vera out. I'm gonna make mistakes, but I don't want you to doubt for a single second that I love you and I want to be with you. I've never really put all of myself into a relationship, but with you, I want to, and I will."
Shaun had maintained eye contact with Lea throughout her apology. Now he clasped his hands in front of him and shifted his gaze to a point somewhere over her head. "You broke my heart when you said we would never work. I remembered what you said before we moved in together about you not wanting us to be a couple. You said that that would never happen."
"And you said that I couldn't predict the future, and that feelings change," Lea reminded him. "You were right, and I was wrong. You're the most wonderful man I have ever known, Shaun, and I let all of my fears and insecurities make me doubt that, but I don't doubt it anymore, and I'll never doubt it again."
After Lea had spoken, Shaun continued, "I got a lot of advice, but none of it was helpful. I didn't want to stop loving you. I didn't want to find somebody else. I didn't want to take up martial arts, I didn't care that every young man goes through this, I couldn't focus on what I learned instead of what I lost, and I couldn't just pretend that everything was okay. I thought that if I could hurt you the way you hurt me, it might make me feel better. My patient hurt one of his girlfriends, and she said she felt better after she smashed up his car with a baseball bat. But I couldn't smash up the Striped Tomato with a baseball bat."
Lea felt tears burning in her eyes and a lump growing in her throat. Then Shaun shifted his gaze again so that he was looking into her eyes again. "Hurting you did not make me feel better. It made me feel worse. I don't think you're a flake. I know you're not prejudiced. I don't care about your past relationships not working out, and I want you to have a job that you like as much as I like being a doctor. And you should not die alone. Dying alone is my biggest fear, and I projected that onto you. I am very sorry that I hurt you, Lea. Can you forgive me?" His face betrayed his inner anxiety over whether or not she would be able to forgive him.
Lea nodded her head, then thickly said, "Yes, Shaun, I forgive you. Can you forgive me for hurting you?"
"I forgive you," Shaun affirmed. He moved closer to her on the couch then, still looking into her eyes, and he reached out and took her hand in his. "When we were on the bridge at the hospital and I said I wanted to fix this, you thought I wanted to fix you, but I don't, Lea. You don't need fixing. I love you exactly the way you are, and that includes your selfishness and your neediness and your messiness. I want to handle those things. I want to be with you, and we can learn how to be in a relationship together." Lea couldn't hold back her tears any longer, and as she began to cry, Shaun looked uncertain. "That wasn't supposed to make you sad," he said.
"It doesn't. It doesn't. It makes me so happy. You make me so happy," Lea replied. She removed her hand from Shaun's to brush an errant lock of hair out of his eyes, and then she framed his face in her hands. "I know you have autism, but you are so much more than that, Shaun. I wouldn't want you to fix it even if you could, because if you did, then you wouldn't be my Shaun. You wouldn't be the sweet, kind, brutally honest, agenda-free man who never lies to me , and who had a goldfish autopsied to prove to me that I wasn't such a flake that I killed it, and rented the apartment I liked for us to share when I couldn't afford it on my own. You wouldn't be the man I love."
She swiped at her eyes with one of her sleeves, then continued, "We're going to annoy each other, and we're going to argue, because we have before. Everybody does. That's just human nature. But I want this, I want us, more than I've ever wanted anything in my life. I don't know what I did to deserve you, but I'm so in love with you, Shaun Murphy, and I'm going to do everything I can to make you as happy as you make me."
"Just be Lea," Shaun replied. "Dance in the kitchen, and sing karaoke with me, and eat pancakes with me. Steal food from my plate, and tell me about your day and let me tell you about mine, and watch TV with me, and go on dates with me, and be my best friend and my girlfriend, and oh!" He started to get up. "I have to fix the toilet paper."
Lea tugged on his hand, so he sat back down. "That can wait, Shaun."
"Are you sure?" Shaun asked seriously. "I can go hang it the wrong way…I mean, hang it the way you like it, and it won't take very long."
"I'm sure," Lea replied. They were looking in each other's eyes again. Shaun had been making eye contact with her a lot more often since their most recent fateful karaoke night. "You have to be exhausted after last night. I know I am. I was hoping we could just sit here together on the couch, maybe take a nap."
"I am tired," Shaun agreed. He and Lea each started to move closer to the other on the couch, stopping when the sides of their knees met.
Lea shifted, tucking her legs beneath her on the couch, and, facing Shaun, laid a hand on his chest, over his heart, as she had when they were standing in the street shortly after dawn that morning. He shifted so that his back was resting against the arm of the couch, both his feet planted firmly on the floor, and then he stretched his arm across the top of the couch. Lea, understanding what Shaun was wordlessly asking, moved so that her head was resting on Shaun's shoulder. He brought his arm down from the back of the couch and wrapped it around her, his open palm resting on her bicep. Slowly, she moved one arm so that it was behind Shaun's back, resting on the arm of the couch. Cautiously, she stretched her other arm across his abdomen in a loose embrace, letting her hand rest lightly on his ribcage. "Is this okay?" she asked, lifting her head from his shoulder to look at him.
"Yes," he replied, slightly tightening his arm around her and bringing his other arm up to wrap around her waist so that she was in his embrace.
She laid her head on his shoulder once more and closed her eyes, a contented sigh escaping her as, for the first time in two weeks, she truly relaxed. After a moment, she opened her eyes and lifted her head to look right into Shaun's eyes and found that he was already looking at her. "This is the first time I have felt truly safe in months," she said. "Being here, with you, us holding each other like this." The last time she and Shaun had held each other, the circumstances had been very different, the turmoil of the moment both overshadowing their other feelings and, at the same time, crystallizing for Lea the fact that she loved Shaun. All these months later, she finally wasn't afraid to tell him, or to show him, that she loved him.
"I always feel safe with you. Even when I didn't feel safe with Dr. Glassman, I felt safe with you. And you hid me from him," Shaun recalled, holding her gaze.
"I remember," Lea said, fighting a yawn.
"I love you, Lea," Shaun said.
His head was held high, his eyes were locked with hers, and she heard the truth, the joy, and unless sleep deprivation was getting to her, she thought she also detected pride in Shaun's declaration. Shaun loved her and was proud to love her.
This time, she followed her heart, and, her own head held high, her own pride and joy ringing loudly and clearly in her voice, Lea replied with the most profound truth of her life. "And I love you, Shaun."
She craned her neck to kiss him again, and the kiss lingered, each of them drinking the other in, until sheer exhaustion forced Lea to tear herself away from kissing Shaun, because she didn't want to fall asleep in the middle of kissing him. She rested her head back on his shoulder, her eyes drifting shut again, and snuggled in closer, feeling his arms tighten around her as sleep pulled at her.
The last thing Lea felt before sleep claimed her was Shaun ever-so-gently kissing the top of her head. Then she tumbled into dreams of him and their future together.
Shaun carefully reached across Lea's sleeping form snuggled against him to get the blanket off the back of the couch. He draped it over her, giving her the lion's share of it, the rest falling to cover his lap, before returning his arm to its place around her waist, his hand resting on her side. His other arm remained wrapped around her upper back so that his hand was on her bicep. Then he rested his cheek lightly against her temple, closed his own eyes, and fell asleep with Lea in his arms, one of her hands between his shoulder blades, the other stretched across his abdomen.
The possibilities for the future stretched endlessly before them, and Shaun and Lea would navigate all of those possibilities, the joyful and the sorrowful, together.