aaaaa I'm gonna really struggle without any Flac content for a month- I'm hoping fanfic and ao3 will be rich with flac content to help me cope ? Here's my contribution xo
He's at the nurses desk, his tired eyes searching for Mr Henley's discharge papers that he'd put down not only 5 minutes before, when she takes a step back onto the ward. His back is to her, and she's glad she has a chance to mentally prepare herself before she is to confront him properly. She fidgets with her hands for a second, and smooths out her trousers, trying to prevent the inevitability that she would eventually face up to what she had left behind.
She starts moving towards him, tentatively and quietly, hoping that she could drag this out as much as possible. It had been a long month; a long month she had used to forget about the loveable fool known as Adrian Fletcher, the lovable fool that had managed to walk straight through her walls, her years worth of building up walls to protect herself being no match his cheeky grin and boyish charm. She thought, just maybe, that a month away from him would help her get over it. That it was just a phase. Just a silly teenager crush. But, she couldn't lie to herself anymore; there was no running from it anymore.
There really wasn't. She's stood behind him, he's still searching through the paperwork in front of him, and, with a shaky breath, she reaches out and presses her hand to his shoulder, her delicate fingers carefully pressing down tentatively as if he would shatter with her touch.
He looks up from his work, and she can see straight away how tired he is. Physically and mentally. His eyes are clouded over, bright blue bags hang under and they hold no spark of cheekiness or rebellion that they usually do.
He looks defeated.
The look is wiped off his face and he becomes devoid of all emotion almost instantly as he clocks onto who is stood in front of him. She retracts her hand timidly as his stare bores into her, an unreadable expression adorning his face, as she tries to hold eye contact but ultimately fails as her guilt eats away at her. He finally stands, after what seems like a million years, and she finally looks back into his gaze again. Only this time, he's got his back to her and he's reaching for some files that are on the desk behind him.
"Welcome back. These need signing off."
He dumps them in her arms, and with that, he strides off to his office, shutting the door behind him without looking back at her once. Her breath catches in her throat as she watches after him, feeling extremely small all of a sudden. She knows that she deserves the reaction. After all, she's ran away when he was left vulnerable, when he'd he'd finally been the one to make a move, and she had ran. Like she always does. It's what she does best, she concludes.
Pulling herself back to the present, she shakes her head, puts on her steely gaze and strives back to her office, shutting the door behind her with a harsh slam. It wasn't like she could distract herself through surgery, either; she had a months worth of paperwork to catch up on, and she had to claw her way through it, whether she was feeling sorry for herself or not. She dumped her bag to the side of the room and took her place on her chair, hair tied back and glasses perched on her nose. Better now than ever, she figured.
It was drawing up on lunchtime now, and she had gotten a fair chunk of work done. No where near what she needed to do, but it was well underway. Satisfied with herself, she decided to go and pick up her daily chicken salad from pulses- it wasn't anything fancy, but anything was better than a salt beef nudger, as Fletch had called it. The thought of Fletch caused her to stop for a second, and let out a long sigh. She had no idea how to make things right between them.
When they had fallen out before, they'd never really addressed the situation, just seemingly fell back into the routine that they had before. She had a feeling that she'd gone too far this time, and that simply ignoring the elephant in the room wasn't going to be enough. She decides that she will buy him his lunch, and even a packet of mints to go with them, to do him a favour, of course.
She returns back to the ward with her usual and Fletch's insulting lunch, and scours the room. There's no sign of him, so she peers into his office door to see him sat at the desk, focused on some form or another in front of him. He looks completely deflated. He looked lost when Raf had died, he'd looked exhausted, but this was different. He'd given up. His hair was messy, his beard appeared even scruffier than usual, and his eyes just seemed to be void of any emotion. She wonders what had happened while she was away, was it just her that had caused him to be like this.
She approaches the door hesitantly, knocking softly before entering, not giving him a chance to hide or shut her out. He looks up, and she doesn't see a trace of emotion flash on his face. He's not surprised that she's come to find her.
Feeling extremely small under his intense gaze, she steps fully into the room, shutting the door behind her. She holds up the lunch she had bought him to answer the unspoken question, before timidly placing it down in front of him, before retreating back to the other side of his desk, feeling his eyes burning into her as they followed her the whole way through. He's unusually quiet, and her eyes flicker around the room, unsure of what to do or say. So, she asks the easiest thing she can think of.
"How have you been?"
His eyes narrow, before he lets out an empty chuckle, dropping his pen to his desk and leaning back in his chair, clutching the sides, clearly agitated by her presence.
"I've been just fantastic, Jacqueline. Anything else I can help you with?" He bites out, an empty smile plastered on his face as he silently challenges her to dig herself out of this one.
She flinches at the use of her full name, and clenches and unclenches her fists repeatedly. She feels herself struggling for breath under his antagonising stare. She knew he would be upset with her, hell she knew that that may have been the end of whatever they were, but she didn't expect this level of coldness to come from him. She deserves it, she supposes, but she can't help but long to fix them.
"I'm sorry I left. It wasn't fair." She murmured out, holding his gaze with uncertainty. She'd never felt so powerless. She was always the one with the piercing gaze, with the bite, with the coldness. She never anticipated Fletch to be the one that could reduce her to feeling as small as a mouse.
"No Jac, you needed the time off. You needed time to get better." Her shoulders slump in relief at his smoother tone, shocked that he gave in so easily, but it's short lived when he stands up and faces her properly, standing so that they're only inches apart. "What isn't fair though, is leading me to believe I was what you wanted. Leading me to think that maybe, just maybe, you liked me just as much as I liked you. Playing with my feelings isn't fair, Jac." He bites out, but she knows that it's just pure frustration other than anger or hatred.
She stands under his stare for a while, her eyes holding his for a heartbeat until she drops her eyes to her feet. Coward, she thinks. She hears him scoff, and he turns away from her, running his hands through his hair.
"I thought we were getting somewhere before you left. I thought that maybe, just for a fraction of a second, that you'd finally stopped running. That we were making progress. But I guess I should have just kept things professional before- I mean, if you couldn't even answer a simple question as to why you'd stayed after, then who am I to think that I'd ever be able to have a healthy relationship with the ice queen herself?" He barked out, with more of a ferocious tone than before, and she narrowed her eyes at him, her fists clenched so hard she was sure that she would break her skin soon.
"You think I shut you out for no reason?" She snapped back, taking a step towards him so that she could look him in the eye and hold her ground. "What? You think I'm some sick monster who gets her kick out of leading men on and then cutting them off when most vulnerable?" She challenges, her voice growing steadily louder as her pent up frustrations came pouring out of her at a fast pace.
He lets out a humourless chuckle, and looks around the room in almost disbelief. "Please excuse me for this, but I am yet to see any evidence that you're any different from what you've just said." She retorts, his arms crossed and his posture unusually guarded. She can feel her blood boil, and finally her desperation for him to understand what she wants snaps.
"It's you, okay? It was you!" She snarls, lashing her arms out in front of her in frustration, wanting nothing more than to get through to him. "I needed you! When I was lying on the ground, bleeding out, all I wanted was you to tell me that it was going to be okay! When you didn't leave my side despite being a difficult patient, you stuck with me! Don't you see? No ones done that for me. You were mourning for your best friends death, and yet you still came in and put a smile on for me! No ones ever done that for me before, no ones ever put themselves before me, no ones every made me feel like I was actually wanted." Her eyes are brimming with unshed tears now and she knows that there's no going back. "I'm terrified, Fletch. I'm always in control, I'm always able to choose how a situation ends, but not you. You're different. I've met my match, and I can't stay away from how much I need you. I thought, God, I thought I would be able to get over you if I took that month break, protect you from how much of a total fuck up I am, but I can't. It's, it's always you. Always has been." She finishes, her gaze burning into the ground below her, afraid to look up at him.
They stand there, neither moving, only the heavy panting of her breath can be heard as she tries to control the wave of emotion that washes over her, refusing to cry. She doesn't anticipate the fingers that brush against her chin and gently push her head up, forcing her to look into his eyes.
He's still tired, but he can see a new found softness in them. She furrows her eyebrows as she sees his eyes well up with tears as well, and can no longer hold her own back as she practically leaps into his embrace and wraps her arms around his neck, digging her head into the crook of his neck as he wraps his arms around her, seemingly to protect her from the pressures that have been weighing down on her for years and years.
They stay like that for what seems like forever, until he moves back from their embrace so he can look into her red rimmed eyes.
"I don't know who left you feeling like no one wanted you, like you're a total fuck up, or that no one has truly cared for you, but you're wrong. I need you Jac, just as much and maybe even more than you've just said, and I'll always need you." He murmurs to her softly, running his thumb along her pulse gently, refusing to let go of her.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have dumped that all on you. It wasn't fair." She mumbled.
He let out a quiet chuckle, placing one hand on his wrist, the other brushing against her cheek and dipping his head to meet hers. "The only thing that's unfair now is that you think that you're being unfair. I'm always here, Jac, I'm not going anywhere." He whispers, only having to wait a heartbeat before she connects her lips to his gently, before eventually deepening the kiss, having months of pent up emotions to get out of their systems.
Their lunches are long forgotten, discarded on Fletch's desk, and isn't touched until much later.