Rey's follow-up during the week of finals finds her saddled with yet more exercises and Kylo waits until his colleague takes a patient to the front desk before asking her how things are going with the Kegels. He's checked in on her progress with other exercises but taken her at her word that she's doing those and doesn't have any questions.
"Um," she clears her throat, not expecting such a direct question. "Good, I think?"
He nods, hands on his hips. They had been working on the bridges and she's lying on her back on a table, squeezing a ball between her knees as she raises her bottom up towards the ceiling. She'd be the first to admit, it looks pretty sexual.
"Good," his voice is soft. "And you're able to reach orgasm?" He says it clinically enough but the words alone sound intimate in his deep voice. There's something very slight in the way he pronounces the vowels that tell her he's not from here, exactly, but she can't determine where he calls home.
Rey's cheeks burn and she can't look at him.
"Uh huh!" Her voice is a squeak. "All good there!"
"Okay," Kylo taps her hipbone to indicate she should stop. "That's good to hear. It's an important part of our health, and I know it can be awkward to talk about. I'm glad to hear that."
She sits up and kicks her legs off the side of the table.
"Are you doing anything for the holidays?" She asks boldly, as though they hadn't just been talking about her getting off.
Kylo places the ball back on the equipment shelf and shakes his head. "Sticking around here, how about you? You going back to... ?"
"England," she supplies. "I- no, I don't have any family there any more."
He looks mildly surprised and takes this in with his arms crossed. His sleeve hikes up again and she gets a better look at his tattoo. It's a geometric design like the ones in his exam room, a hexagon surrounding a circle with triangular points facing into the center. She can't stop staring at it and wondering what it means. He notices her looking but doesn't remark on it.
"I'm not close with my family," he offers. "My folks split up when I was a kid. I'm… actually not sure where my dad lives these days. We only hear from him once in awhile. Usually when he needs something."
She studies him and wonders what his parents look like. He has an unusual face, one that she sometimes finds terribly handsome and other times, hard to look at.
Before she can react, he forges on. "I want to see you one more time before the holiday. You're doing really well, Rey, so I think that can probably be your last visit."
"Oh," is all she can think to say, and damn if her insides don't feel like Jello melting to hear this. "You think so?"
"Totally," he toes a scuff on the foam mat. "But you have to keep doing your exercises, okay? It's important to keep up that base level of fitness."
"I know." She stands now and reaches for her sweat jacket on the nearby chair.
Kylo reaches at the same time to hand it to her and their fingers touch a split second before she grasps the material and draws it to her. Their eyes meet and Rey feels a bolt of connection in her middle that she hides by fumbling with the zipper.
"I'll miss seeing you in here," Kylo's eyes crinkle. "You're a good student."
Rey's heart pounds at this. Surely he doesn't say this to all his patients, right? He's flirting. He's definitely flirting, just like she was overstepping a second ago asking about his holiday plans.
"Well," she hesitates, then decides to go for it. "That's because you're a good teacher."
To her surprise, he looks embarrassed at this and hunches in on himself. She's not sure how it works, but he suddenly seems like a tall and very skinny kid instead of like the oak tree he normally resembles.
"Well, be sure to put that on your patient evaluation," he mutters, and then turns towards the door. "Come back before Christmas, alright?"
"I will," she mumbles, and goes to reception to make the appointment.
Finals end days before her follow-up and she's at loose ends. Campus is a immediately a ghost town, all her normal haunts empty. She exercises to exhaustion at the gym, finally able to secure a spot to lift in front of the mirror without the usual crew of meathead guys flexing and preening for one another. Finn and Jess have vacated their place to go to their families, and she's gloriously alone in their apartment at last, the kitchen and television hers and hers alone. She watches shows on the travel channels until all hours as she dreams of vacationing in far-flung places, puts on silly voices to Finn's chubby, sleepy cat as she bakes cookies and cakes only she will eat.
It's two days before her appointment on the 23rd when, after having several glasses more of the boxed wine than she probably should've, she thinks of it.
She could email him.
At first she puts the thought out of her mind.
But the longer she sits alone on their sagging couch with Beebee curled next to her thigh, the more pathetic she feels. And besides-he said he was staying here alone over the holidays. That he wasn't close with his family.
What could it hurt? The only thing she has to lose is… well, her pride, she supposes.
It's tougher than she imagined to strike the right tone. She sits with her laptop open for so long the messaging system times out a couple times before typing anything. Even the opening is awkward - should she call him Kylo like he told her, or address him as "doctor" in an email? Dear Dr. Ren sounds way too formal, but Hi Kylo sounds like she actually knows him.
She settles on Hi there to eliminate the issue altogether.
Her heart pounds as she types out her note.
Happy almost-Christmas! Hope you're doing well and I'll see you on the 23rd. Don't worry-I'm doing my exercises! ;)
Also, I wondered if you might want to get coffee (or a drink) sometime? I felt a real connection to you and would like to see you outside the clinic. Since we'll both be here over the holidays, I just thought I'd ask.
See you soon,
Rey
She hits send before she can back out and slams her laptop closed, sticking it under a throw pillow where she can't see it. Beebee raises her head and blinks at Rey sleepily, annoyed at the interruption.
"He won't write back until tomorrow," Rey tells her. The cat's fur is very soft between her ears and she falls back into an imperious cat slumber that Rey envies.
Tomorrow dawns earlier than Rey anticipated. She's still on their couch and the TV has turned to Sunday morning talk shows-her least favorite. Christmas is on a Wednesday this year, practically guaranteeing that everyone with any vacation to burn will take off the entire week around it. No wonder Kylo is stuck covering these few days leading up to the holiday.
She manages to wait until noon before logging into the chart system only to find he hasn't responded yet.
Well… it's still the weekend. She goes to the gym and lingers there, enjoying the silence.
By the evening she can't stand it any longer and she checks once more.
You have no unread messages.
She even refreshes the page a couple times but the words don't change. Maybe he's one of those weird, old-fashioned young people who hates technology and doesn't respond to messages outside of work hours.
But then, he's a doctor for heaven's sake, surely he's used to strange hours and the inconvenience of human illness?
On the other hand, he's a physical therapist. No one ever had a life-threatening physical therapy question, did they? She doesn't. Her question isn't even about her treatment.
She stops herself after losing an hour googling what exactly physical therapists do and what their schooling is like and their expected salaries and work environments and employment outlooks. She resists the urge to google him specifically, ashamed at herself but also half-afraid of what she might find.
Rey lays in the bathtub until she is a prune. One of Jess's fancy bath bombs stains the water bright pink with sparkles. Beebee deigns to leave the couch to perch on the edge of the tub, even sticking a curious paw in the foamy water only to withdraw it with a disgusted shake. Rey isn't really an animal person, but she has to admit, Beebee has grown on her. The orange-and-white calico with one damaged ear might be more Rey's cat than Finn's these days.
The idea that she might be a cat lady at 22 has her wiping back sudden tears and shooing Beebee angrily from the bathroom.
The morning of her appointment brings temperatures in the teens and Rey can tell, just by looking out her window into the alleyway, that it's bitterly cold.
She spends the morning baking to warm up the place and not thinking of what will happen to all the baked items spread out on their tiny island counter. After much consideration, she makes a plate of things to take to the clinic.
Someone will eat them. If she leaves them with reception, they'll end up in a breakroom, and everyone will say they shouldn't but then, they will. Rey's had an odd office job or two and that's what always happens.
At one, she dares to peek at the messages again and tries not to worry when she finds he still hasn't responded to her.
Why would he, when he's going to see her in person in a few hours? That must be the reason.
She has a brief flash of him cuddling in bed with his perfect imaginary girlfriend, reading the note and laughing at her. Rey stuffs her mobile back in her pocket and resolves not to think of it or to check again.
Her appointment is at three and she arrives over a half hour early. Without any schedule to keep her comings and goings regular, she's feeling over-eager and ends up sitting in the waiting area for a long time.
At least, it feels like a long time until the medical assistant calls her back. She wonders what the hold-up was since the gym area is deserted. She's put on a few pounds but she knows it's muscle she's regained after her long convalescence.
The exam room is freezing and she's not sure how she feels when the assistant tells her she can stay dressed for the duration of this appointment.
Something is off the moment he walks in the room. He doesn't smile back when she gives him her flirtiest grin and it slides right off her face. Her stomach clenches nervously. He's wearing his usual black save for a pin clipped on his breast pocket made of a green outdoor holiday lightbulb painted to look like a reindeer. It looks like something a child might have made in art class, something he grudgingly agreed to wear in the smallest concession to seasonal cheer.
"How're you doing today?"
He doesn't use her name or look at her as he seats himself. Her chart must be the most interesting thing he's ever seen, from the way he's looking at it.
"Good," she answers. "How about you?"
"I'm fine."
He starts in with a series of questions that are obviously mandated by the clinic, assessing her progress to date and measuring her condition in abstract, numeric terms.
How would she asses her overall physical fitness, on a scale of one-to-ten? One meaning she's basically dead, ten being Olympic-level fitness.
"Eight?" Rey hazards a guess that sounds confident but not like she couldn't improve a bit.
He types her response without comment.
Can she do the activities she did before her illness without tiring? Run a mile? How about three?
"I'm not really a runner," she hedges, trying not to picture the imaginary girlfriend she's concocted for him, the one who is most definitely a runner. He glances up at her with a raised eyebrow and she rushes to say, "I could probably get into it, though."
"Is that a yes?"
"I-yes. I can run a mile."
He clears his throat and continues his interrogation.
Her incontinence?
Is better, yes. No further incidents for over a week.
And how is her sexual health?
"Normal," she coughs delicately and reddens, thinking of the email. If she weren't so on edge she might make a joke about him finding out personally how her health was in that department. She doesn't dare, not with the cold way he's handling her now.
He nods curtly, clicks rapidly and pulls a pad of paper out of the breast pocket of his scrubs. She recognizes the logo as one of the pharmaceutical companies. He engages an expensive-looking ballpoint pen with a decisive swipe of his thumb on the end.
"If you don't have any further questions, you're good to go." He says this without looking at her and continues writing on the prescription pad.
"Um," she stalls, fidgeting with the paper on the exam table. "I sent you an email with some additional questions and I just wondered if you saw-"
"Rey," he cuts her off, "Yes, I got your message. Just so you know, all the doctors you see here can also read those. It's… they're a part of your chart in the e-records system the clinic uses. A- uh, a permanent part."
Rey wants to die. Just die. She nods and can't bring herself to say anything. A lump is welling in her throat already. He tears the slip from the pad with a flourish and creases it, his thumbnail making a small sound against the crisp paper.
"If there's nothing else, take care of yourself, okay? Come back and see us if you need to." Kylo stands and nods at her, then hands her the slip he was writing on.
See us. Not see me. The distinction isn't lost on her, even in her distress.
She waits until the door closes behind him to look at it, and she can hardly read with the tears that are welling up in her eyes already. She wants to crumple it and throw in in the trash and run out of the office. What was she thinking, sending that note? She can never come here again, not even if she's dying, knowing everyone can see that she's a pervert who hits on her doctors.
She squints at the paper, almost illegible through the haze of water in her eyes.
I have a huge crush on you.
Call me sometime: 426-236-7656.
K.
A snort of nervous laughter wracks her torso and she wipes at her tears with the back of her hand. She has to reread his note twice to make sure she's not hallucinating it or manifesting her inner desires or whatever it is Jess was on about after reading too many celebrity lifestyle blogs.
But no- it's real, and the glow she feels radiating out from her middle is most definitely real.
She practically skips out of the office.
A/N: This is my 2nd PSA for this silly story: my husband had a patient hit on him once via the electronic charting messaging system, and it really does stay with your record (at least in that software, a major one used by lots of providers in the US ). He was so mortified that the patient's other doctors could read what had been sent.
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