Act 1 Part 1
Rey is perturbed but doing her best to maintain her calm. She adjusts her position to turn away from the aisle, but the guy's shoulders in the seat next to her are so broad that they almost extend into her quite sizable first-class seat. He's wearing a baseball cap and hunkering down, which somehow makes him take up more space. His face is turned away from her, which is lucky, because every so often Rey can't help herself from shooting him an annoyed look.
Rey tries to focus on the positive. Things at the conference went well, her paper had been well received, so that was something to celebrate. She bends her head closer to the journal she is reading and grits her teeth, focusing her attention like a laser. Anything to block out the steady stream of women who are positively clogging the aisle to gawk at her seatmate. They started doing this shortly after the plane reached cruising altitude and although the flight attendants are doing their best to keep the aisle clear, the women are persistent. Rey wonders vaguely if there is a federal marshal on the plane she can flag down for help.
She isn't sure what the big deal is. She figures he's probably somebody. He's big enough to be an athlete, but Rey doesn't make it a habit of following celebrities of any kind. She doesn't watch sports and has seen maybe two movies during the past year. She allowed Finn to drag her out to one right before she left for the conference.
"Come on Rey!" He'd exclaimed. "You'll have plenty of time to nerd-out at your "big important doctor" conference. Let's meet up for pizza and a show."
She hadn't wanted to go. She still had so much to prepare, so much research data to pour over just a few more times so that she'd be ready for any question that was thrown at her. It isn't that she's insecure about her research; it's that she knows she's always the youngest doctor in the room, and it still feels like she's got to be better than the rest. Sharper, faster, more focused and intense.
"You've got nothing to worry about," Finn said, trying to assuage her concerns. "You're the genius who graduated from med school at 24. If they can't handle it that's their problem."
But that is the problem that she comes up against again and again. People underestimating her. Thinking she is just a kid. Even Dr. Dameron, who can't be more than ten years older than she is, takes perverse pleasure in putting her on the spot during rounds, even though he knows she's the best doctor in the hospital, possibly in the city.
A girl in the aisle stumbles and falls partially into Rey's lap. Her temper finally flairs and she glares at the women who are clustered in the aisle. She looks pointedly at her seatmate.
"Are you going to do something about this?" She asks quietly through gritted teeth.
He finally deigns to look at her.
Her first thought when their eyes meet is that there is too much happening with his face. No, that isn't quite right. It is that he is striking in an unusual way. Rey likes looking people in the eye, it is part of what makes her a good doctor. She can tell a lot about a person from their eyes, a knack that Finn is fond of calling 'spooky.' This man's eyes are dark and shielded and he does not look like someone to mess with. But neither is she, and she is on the cusp of pushing him further, when she notices the corner of his mouth turn down in a frown. He swallows and furrows his brow. These are fleeting changes in expression, but Rey can read them for what they are as she has seen them many times before.
A silent plea for help.
She turns away from him and stands to face the small crowd of women in the aisle. She places herself in front of him, trying to block him from view as much as she can.
"Ladies," she begins, her voice calm but firm. "I would truly appreciate it if you would leave me and my boyfriend alone. We've had a difficult work week and need time to rest on the flight." She meets each one of their eyes as she says this, and while her tone is reasonable, the look in her eyes is clear.
Don't push me.
The women each react differently. A couple immediately depart, their faces red. A few of them eye her, looking her up and down before skulking away. One remains standing in front of her, hip cocked out to the side defiantly.
"No," the woman says aggressively. She's probably in her late twenties, with caramel colored hair and blue eyes. Her features are lovely and rounded, teeth perfectly straight and bleached as white as snow. Rey has no doubt this is a person who is used to getting her way. "I follow him on social media. He's never said a word about having a girlfriend." She holds her ground and raises her eyebrows at Rey.
Rey is on the very edge of losing her temper, when she feels the man behind her rise slightly in his seat so that his head comes up next to hers. He places his hand on her waist. Rey is about to protest when she feels his lips brush the side of her cheek. She is a hairsbreadth from exploding in indignation when she hears a deep velvet voice close to her ear.
"Sit down darling," he implores as his lips touch her temple, his tone as smooth as silk.
The sound of his voice does something to her. She feels it deep in her core. Rey freezes in place.
His next words are infinitesimally less kind and directed to the woman standing in front of them, who is now gaping, her mouth hanging open unappealingly. "I'm always grateful for support from my fans, but my publicist handles my social media, and trust me," he pauses, and drops the friendly tone so that now his voice is razor sharp, "my Twitter feed has nothing to do with my personal life. Please leave us alone so we can rest."
The woman flinches and her face turns red, but she finally relents, moving reluctantly toward the back of the plane. The flight attendants, relieved, disperse to attend to their duties.
Rey hears the man heave a sigh. His hand drops from her waist and he returns to his seated position, head down, eyes shielded by the brim of his baseball cap.
Rey slowly sits in her seat, working to wrap her head around what just happened. Her mind is screaming at her to slam down all her defenses. It is also telling her to slap the person who took the liberty of touching her without permission, of kissing her, of whispering in her ear.
With that voice.
Just the thought of it makes her feel a pull deep in her stomach that reaches all the way up to her throat.
"Thank you," he says.
Rey turns her head to face him, blinking and unsure of what he is talking about. In the space of about three seconds she takes a closer look at his face. Raven black hair, pale skin spattered with tiny freckles, dark hooded eyes, nose hawkish, with a soft, full mouth. Being a doctor makes her a master at quick assessment, so she barely skips a beat when she asks, "For what?" She keeps her face completely blank, despite feeling a little bewildered by their encounter, another trick of her trade.
"For trying to come to my rescue," he says, a smile forming on his mouth. His eyes crease congenially, and she catches sight of crooked teeth. This man is not classically handsome, and yet he is stunning in his own way. This passes through Rey's mind in a blink. She continues to make her face a mask.
"A lot of good it did. I think you saved yourself. Maybe a bit at my expense." She crooks an eyebrow at him but remains amiable by offering a small smile of her own.
"Yeah, I'm sorry about that," he says, looking down at his hands as he flexes them in his lap. "I could tell she was going to be one of the clingy ones. Figured I had to go all in, or she'd never leave us alone."
"Why was she like that?" She asks. "Are you an athlete or something?"
The look that he gives her is two things at once and she only catches it because she's seen it on patient's faces when they get very good news. Skepticism and relief.
"No, I'm not an athlete," he says quietly, continuing to regard her cautiously. He is quiet then, as if waiting for her to go on.
But he is waiting in vain because Rey truly has got nothing. She has no idea who this person is, no matter how striking he looks, so she just gives him a small smile and shrugs. "I'm not into sports or other things…don't have the time really, so, I just figured because of your size…you must play something," she finishes lamely.
He looks away and down at his hands. He seems torn about what to say and he shifts in his seat. Rey reads his body language easily. He is terribly uncomfortable.
"Listen, it's okay, you don't have to tell me. I'm not going to know anyway. I've spent most of my life with my nose buried in a book or some lab report. I'm not good with…culture," she says gently, shaking her head slightly with the last word. She's never really thought about it before, how she's sheltered herself from the shiny things in the world.
When he looks at her relief is written across his face.
"So, what do you do that keeps your nose in a book all the time?"
"I'm a doctor. Oh! Which reminds me," she reaches into her bag to grab her phone, "I have to check on a patient." She starts keying in her passcode.
"You are a doctor?" He asks incredulously.
She stops flipping through emails for a split second to shoot him a look out of the corner of her eye. "Yeah, I know. I'm young." She starts digging through her bag, looking for her power cord and charger. She groans. "You don't happen to have a power charger that would work with this phone do you…it's about to die and I need to check on this patient…"
"My phone is broken," he answers absently. She looks at him and finds him staring at her with an odd expression.
"What is it?" She asks, mild irritation leaking into her voice. She turns back to her phone and starts texting. "I just really need to get in touch with my boss about this patient."
The plane suddenly shakes and then dips. The fasten your seatbelt sign dings and lights up. A low announcement is made about returning to seats. Rey absently buckles her seat belt. When she notices he isn't buckling his, she gives him a look, raising her brows.
"Don't smoke and wear your seat belt…millions of lives saved," she says dryly but directly, as if the words have come out of her mouth a thousand times.
He smiles crookedly but complies by buckling his seatbelt.
"What kind of doctor are you?" He asks.
"Infectious disease. Epidemiology, stuff like that," she answers turning her gaze back to the screen, but suddenly her mind is elsewhere. "Damn," she adds quietly.
"What is it?"
"My patient is getting better, but not fast enough. He's going to miss his granddaughter's wedding." Rey feels sad and a bit guilty. It is unlikely that it would have made a difference, but she suddenly wishes she had been there to monitor this case instead of going to the conference.
"Are you okay?" He asks. Rey looks back at him and fixes her face into a smile that is mostly real. It is another thing that all good doctors know how to do.
"Yes, everything is fine," she answers automatically, studying his face again for a few seconds to see if she recognizes him. But she's still got nothing.
Suddenly, the plane drops violently. Some people and a lot of items are tossed into the air and come down hard as the plane levels out.
All at once without thinking Rey reaches out to grab onto the man's arm and he in turn puts his hand over hers. They look at one another, eyes wide.
"What was that?" She asks.
"I don't know," he answers, "But I've got a bad feeling about this."
The plane shudders again, drops, and then the lights go dark. People begin to scream.