I.

His grandmother had made the patchwork quilt for him years ago, out of scraps she'd saved from childhood clothes he'd outgrown, as a going-away present for when he went off to college. He had brought it over to Dix's place as a precaution - Dix has a tendency to steal the covers, and while waking up to find her contentedly asleep in a sort of blanket burrito is undeniably cute, it's also kind of chilly over on his side.

This winter night is particularly cold for L.A., down in the 40s, and he has to divest himself of hat and coat and gloves once he's inside and Dix teases him a little about his hat hair. It's one of those quiet nights where neither of them says all that much, where they just end up slouched together on the couch watching bad sitcoms and then after a while she's slowly sliding her hand up his leg with raised eyebrows and a mischievous little smile.

The bedroom is definitely warmer, and the degree of frisky they achieve means all the blankets end up on the floor anyway. It only starts feeling cold again afterward, when he's lying there tangled in a single sheet and Dix is in the shower, splashing and whistling fragments of some jazz tune.

He rolls over to the edge of the bed, enough to pull the quilt back up without actually having to sit up. The slightly frayed patchwork makes him smile. Gram had probably figured it would be on his own child's bed by now.

He'll have to get that fixed before it gets any worse - it probably needs a stitch that's not surgeon's sutures, maybe Dix knows how. Gram and Dix would've liked each other, he thinks.

II.

Sometimes, at his place, Dix gets up in the middle of the night to go read. Investigating her prolonged absence from bed at 2 a.m. that first time and spotting her curled up in the corner of the couch, head bent over the book in her lap and the lamplight turning her hair numinous, had been like seeing some Renaissance painting. (He's never told her that and will probably never get up the nerve to.)

At some point, he's not sure just when, she'd started leaving some of her books in the end-table drawer: cheap paperbacks, some a little frayed around the edges. He'd been in a rare mood of cleaning out all the odd places you hide stuff when company's coming - a mood sourly buoyed by not being able to find the flashlight or his spare keys or the last electric bill - and at first he hadn't known what to think.

Cherry Ames? Sue Barton? Those bubbleheaded fictional twits who've now given about three generations' worth of young women completely wrong ideas about what nursing is like? I thought you were more levelheaded and practical than that, Dix -

And the last paperback is Cherry Ames, Student Nurse, and a dog-eared bit of the corner is missing and there's writing on the flyleaf underneath, Lt. D. McCall 5/1952, and he remembers where she'd been and what she'd been doing just barely out of being a student nurse herself and decides that just this once he'll keep his big mouth shut.

III.

Dix's place is just about halfway between Rampart and the tennis courts, so it only makes practical sense for him to keep a set of clothes and one of the really good racquets at her place, stashed on the top shelf in the bedroom closet. If a morning after happens to be the start of a full day off and the weather isn't too obscenely hot, a couple hours of chasing down serves (mostly from a machine, in the mornings) is one of the few things that makes his brain be entirely quiet these days.

She'd come along a few times, a little sleepy-eyed and gamely whacking at serves like she was macheting her way through a jungle, and for someone so fast on her feet and quick to react in an ER, is she ever hopeless at tennis. You can go score love, I'm staying home and scoring loaf, she'd finally said after that time she'd tripped and hit the court in what he could only describe as a dry-land belly-flop.

Bold of you to assume my final score there, he'd said mock-indignant, and she'd just laughed.

These days, on tennis mornings, she's usually still asleep when he leaves, stirring just enough at a quick kiss on the temple for a smile and a murmured See you. Sometimes, though, she's awake enough to chat a bit, and sometimes he's just finished changing into tennis whites only to turn around and find her sitting up and eyeing him up and down, analytical and appreciative all at once and -

Those mornings, he usually ends up getting to the courts later than he'd planned, but he can't say he minds the reason why at all.

IV.

They don't talk about the war.

He has some idea of the specifics, of course - he'd seen her resume when reviewing his new staff's qualifications after being named Emergency Department head. Nurse, United States Army, Korean Conflict 1950-53. Near-frontline duty caring for combat casualties at the 8063rd and 4077th MASH units. A list of service medals and commendations that made no sense to his lifelong-civilian self but sounded impressive.

Not unusual, really, emergency as a specialty was drawing a lot of staff who'd been in either Korea or 'Nam. If he'd thought anything at the time, it had been along the lines of Well, if she could handle that, L.A. ER on a bad night shouldn't knock her down. And he'd been right, Dix is practically a perpetual motion machine when she's really in her element.

They don't talk about the war, so it had taken time for him to start noticing the little tells. How sometimes, after certain types of cases - usually ones involving explosion injuries or amputations - he'll go into the break room to find her there, smoking and looking eerily spaced-out and taking a second to respond. The slight double-take she does if a copter flies over (he'd only really picked up on that during the first fire season they'd worked together, damn things were always buzzing around then).

After the Rampart research lab had blown up, there had been nights when he'd been repeatedly vaguely awakened by her restlessness, till finally she'd just gotten up and left. The first time, he'd crept down the hall after a while to check on her and spotted her sitting out on the balcony, back against the sliding door, which was cracked just enough to let the taut phone cord stretch through. Her voice, a little hoarse: I'm just tired, Roy, I don't know -

And he'd gone back to bed with uneasiness stirring like an eel just below his sternum - of course that whole mess might've brought up bad stuff, at least she had the sense to talk to DeSoto, he himself had told her he didn't want to discuss it and did that make him a coward or just insensitive?

They don't talk about the war, but in early April a bottle appears in his medicine cabinet: Valium, two milligrams, Dix's name as patient and Joe's as prescriber. I'm keeping it at your place because I don't want it right at hand if I can't drop off straightaway, she tells him, that particular glint in her eyes that means he'd better not ask for any more detail if they don't want a fight brewing.

But his next free day, he spends some time at the library, looking up some things about Korea - noting, especially, what had happened along the front lines in April 1951, no wonder it gets worse for her in autumn. After that, if she's staying over and wakes more than twice in a night, either tossing and muttering or just bolting right up, he gets her a Valium and some water and she doesn't argue, and if she's not too jumpy for it he curls up around her till she passes out again.

They don't talk about the war.

V.

There are certain cases that are just the equivalent of bar-fight sucker-punches. Everyone who works anywhere near medicine knows that. The ones that knock you on your ass are different for different people. He hopes no one working at or around Rampart has spotted the pattern in his.

(Tommy Mannering, calmly playing with building blocks, as if he hadn't attempted suicide that very morning. Frankie Gentry and the X-rays showing the violence stamped into his still-growing bones. The sick helplessness when a child is on your exam table and you somehow just know what's been happening before you even get started.)

He and Dix don't talk about his childhood any more than they talk about the war. He thinks Dix has probably figured something out, though, because it's after those types of cases being resolved (or at least out of Rampart's hands, one way or another) that she offers Martini Night the next time they both have the night shift off. And he always accepts, because otherwise his brain will just pointedly Not Sleep and he'll only lie there unable to stop thinking. At least at her place they can doze off on her couch after a couple of belts.

Except he's pretty sure Dix makes the absolute worst martinis in the Western Hemisphere: barely short of lethal alcohol content and the flavor of a saturated bar mat. Definitely the worst drinks he's ever had, and that includes his ill-advised attempt at being in a fraternity. He's taken to waiting till she leaves the room, then quietly pouring part of his glass down the sink and replacing it with olive brine.

(Dix just leans back and casually drinks these horrendous disinfectant-like concoctions with the arch sophistication of someone sipping a hundred-dollar cocktail in a fine restaurant, and all he can think is that her palate has somehow not just been ruined but entirely burned off.)

The day the Freeman kid is discharged is no different. (The Freeman kid, slightly pompous and full of high-level medical reading and very scared, and underneath all that the simple fact of being there because of being hit and it was like looking at himself at thirteen.) On the drive over, though, he stops at the first liquor store he spots.

He gets to Dix's place just as rain is really starting to come down. He's not sure what's better, her face going from puzzled when she spots the bag to surprised when he takes out the bottle of high-end gin, or finally being able to mix two proper martinis in this context.

I'll just leave this here, he says as he tucks the bottle away in a kitchen cabinet, and when he brings her her glass she's smiling and he feels the weight lift off him, just a little.