Chapter Text
It startles her sometimes, waking up in Jack’s bed, with him spooning her from behind. But she is slowly getting used to the idea. She quite likes the solid line of his body behind hers, one arm draped low across her waist, his chest rising steadily against her back.
Jack shifts slightly. Even half asleep, his hand reflexively tightens against her.
Outside, somebody is mowing their lawn. The sound vibrates faintly through the neighborhood in long mechanical passes.
Day people—disturbing and unnatural.
Jack exhales against the back of her neck, dropping a kiss there. “You’re awake.”
His voice is rough with sleep, lower than usual. She feels it more than hears it.
“Good morning,” she greets.
A soft huff brushes her shoulder. “What time is it?”
“Loud and bright o’clock.”
Jack laughs quietly, then finally lifts his head to check the clock on her nightstand. 11:11 am.
Jack’s hand slides lazily beneath her shirt, fingertips brushing against the bare skin of her hip. His touch is absentminded and comfortably intimate.
She loves every sweep of his palm, every caress of his fingers. His hand at her back while passing her in the kitchen. Knees knocking together on the couch. His lips on her neck during slow mornings. Once he finally allowed himself this, he stopped rationing affection.
Samira’s eyes start to drift shut again when Jack says, “Farmer’s market is still open for another couple hours.”
She cracks one eye open. “Do you want to see if you can score an ostrich egg?”
She rolls onto her back, blinking against the sunlight filtering through the room. Jack lies beside her shirtless because he runs hot, although by the way he enjoys cuddling her at night, she is starting to doubt it. The bruise he sustained from the TEMS deployment earlier in the week is yellowing at the edges.
Alive.
The sight still hits her unexpectedly sometimes.
Jack notices her looking. “What?”
She reaches out, fingertips brushing lightly along the fading bruise. “You narrowly escaped death a few days ago.”
His expression softens. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.” He lifts her hand from his jaw and places a kiss on her palm. The action eases her worry instantly.
Jack sits upright with a low exhale and reaches for his prosthesis. “Come on, eggs won’t wait.”
Jack and Samira move slowly through the farmer’s market, lingering without urgency. They are also waiting out the rain, neither of them eager to leave the warm and dry building to run back to the car.
He carries most of the totes despite her protests. Familiar vendors greet him by name, just like last time. The sweet lady selling herbs asks if Samira is “the doctor sweetheart” they keep talking about, which nearly kills her while Jack somehow remains composed to sdimply nod once and smile.
There were no ostrich eggs in sight, but they did purchase more duck eggs and goat milk.
When the rain slows down for a beat, they run to the SUV, laughing all the way. They stop by a café on their way home.
Samira is warm, overstimulated, and nibbling on a chocolate croissant. “I need to swing by the duplex later,” she says while stirring her matcha. “Rotate out my clothes.”
Jack nods. “Okay.”
“I think most of my things still technically live there.”
“Mhm.” Then, after a brief pause too carefully casual to be casual, he asks, “How much longer is your lease?”
Samira stills. Jack takes a sip of his coffee without looking at her.
She watches him over the rim of her cup while he remains focused very intensely on absolutely nowhere.
“August,” she says carefully.
“Okay.”
Another pause. Then he adds, “Not saying you should move in tomorrow.”
Heat climbs up Samira’s neck.
Jack clears his throat lightly. “Just practical to know.”
She bites back a smile.
Jack glances sideways and sees from her expression that she understands perfectly.
The thought remains lodged firmly between them afterward.
Move in.
During the drive to the duplex later, she catches herself imagining what that would even look like. More clothes in his closet. Her books on his shelves. Her picture on his walls. Shared routines. Coming home after shift and knowing where he is.
The idea feels natural.
The duplex is empty when they arrive. Priya is working and Veda has vanished into whatever social dimension extroverts disappear into on weekends. Samira moves through her bedroom gathering clothes while Jack waits politely in the kitchen, probably evaluating the structural feasibility of future cohabitation.
She catches him looking at a Polaroid on the fridge from Mateo’s karaoke party months ago. Everyone crowded into the frame. Jack at the edge pretending not to smile.
When she returns to the kitchen with folded clothes balanced against her hip, Jack is reading the back of Priya’s textbook.
“Denver emailed,” Samira says quietly.
His attention lifts to her. “Good or bad?”
“I don’t know yet.”
She opens the message while leaning against the counter. She reads the salient points out loud for him. Fellowship follow-up, interview scheduling, expanded itinerary, additional faculty meetings.
Jack listens to her read without interrupting.
“Are you excited?” he asks.
Samira pauses for a few seconds, taking it all in. “I think so.”
And she truly is. The fellowship is prestigious, and very competitive. It is career-defining in ways she has worked toward for years. EMS medicine at that level could alter the trajectory of her entire future.
But now there is Jack standing six feet away in her kitchen.
Now there is this.
“You should do the second interview,” he says gently.
She studies him for a long moment.
“What if I move in with you,” she says suddenly, “and then leave for Denver anyway?”
Jack goes still; she watches the calculations move behind his eyes: logistics, distance, time, risk, fear.
His voice is even and steady when he says, “Then we figure it out when we get there.” He reaches out slowly, fingertips brushing lightly against the side of her wrist. “I spent a long time trying to prepare for every possible loss before it happened. All it did was make me miss parts of my life while I was still living them.”
His thumb rubs gentle circles on her wrist, his hazel eyes meeting her brown ones.
Jack continues, “I’m done doing that with you.”
Samira steps closer until her cheek rests on his shoulder. Jack’s hand settles at the back of her neck. He kisses the top of her head like it’s something he’s been doing for years.
Jack knows Samira is serious about Denver the moment she starts making spreadsheets. She said it herself: she is not especially organized by nature. “I exist in a state best described as an academically functional mess,” she had said, not mentioning the fact that she is also capable of performing emergency procedures flawlessly while simultaneously losing three pens and forgetting where she placed her stethoscope within the same ten-minute period.
But something matters deeply to Samira—when she is afraid of wanting something too much—she compensates through aggressive logistical planning.
This is how Jack finds her at his kitchen table after shift surrounded by flight options, hotel confirmation tabs, interview itineraries, and enough color-coded notes to qualify as operational intelligence.
The warm overhead kitchen light catches the circles under her eyes while she scrolls through airline reviews with visible distrust.
“You’re reading customer testimonials,” Jack says from the stove.
“I’m conducting research.”
“You’re reading comments written by people who made time out of their day to review commercial aviation voluntarily.”
Samira points at the laptop screen without looking up. “This woman says they lost her luggage and spiritually traumatized her.”
“Spiritually.”
“She italicized it.”
Jack snorts softly and returns to cooking.
Early evening drifts across the neighborhood. The dishwasher hums faintly amid the duplex neighbor’s orchestra music playing too loudly for a weekday. Ordinary sounds for ordinary life.
Jack stirs garlic into the skillet and watches Samira from the corner of his eye.
“You’re hovering again,” she says.
“I’m cooking.”
“You sighed at the layover.”
“It’s a terrible layover.”
She looks up from the laptop. “You understand I’m capable of surviving 45 minutes in Nashville.”
Samira is leaving for Denver for three days.
Three days shouldn’t matter this much, but Jack finds himself getting increasingly fidgety by the day.
He plates dinner while she confirms hotel reservations. The fellowship itinerary remains open on her screen, crowded with faculty names and simulation center schedules and so much institutional prestige to make even seasoned physicians competitive.
He understands exactly everything that Denver represents for her: opportunity, reputation, trajectory, and a future.
And the thing is that he doesn’t resent it. If anything, the opposite problem exists. He wants every impossible thing for her. He wants rooms of people recognizing her brilliance, wants her challenged and respected and fulfilled in every way medicine can offer. But this also means he has to acknowledge the possibility that another city may eventually provide those things better than Pittsburgh can.
Better than he can.
Jack rinses the skillet slowly while Samira finalizes the booking.
“Direct flight,” he says without turning around.
“It costs more.”
“You’re not flying budget airlines into altitude.”
“You sound like a dad.”
“I sound correct,” he huffs. “I’ll pay for it if I have to.”
She laughs softly again. The noise follows him all the way through the evening.
The airport departure happens too early for coherent human functioning. Jack drives through near-empty streets before dawn with one hand on the wheel and the other intermittently resting against Samira’s knee while she dozes lightly on the passenger seat between bouts of caffeine and existential resentment.
The city still belongs mostly to night workers and delivery trucks at this hour. Streetlights wash everything gold and silver beneath fading darkness. Samira’s head tips briefly toward the window before jerking awake again.
Jack glances sideways briefly.
She looks small curled into the passenger seat in sweats and one of his hoodies, hair still damp from her shower.
Three days. Rationally insignificant; emotionally irritating. He tightens his grip on the steering wheel.
Pittsburgh International Airport hums with sleepless transit energy and rolling luggage wheels. Travelers drift through terminals with hollow-eyed determination.
Jack carries her carryon for her all the way to security. Samira turns toward him near the TSA line while adjusting the strap of her bag. Around them, announcements echo overhead in distorted bursts.
Jack smooths one hand briefly along the side of her neck, thumb brushing beneath her ear before he leans down and kisses her forehead. When he pulls back, she surges up on her tiptoes to capture his lips in a quick kiss.
“Text me when you land,” he murmurs, small smile on his lips.
Samira nods once. Then she disappears gradually into the security line.
Jack remains rooted where he is, hoping she would turn around. A deeply irrational part of him already misses her.
Two minutes later, she does turn around. Their eyes meet across the terminal. She flashes him the sweetest smile, dimples and all, and he feels his chest fold inward.
Jack recognizes the sensation of wrongness within the first hour of triage overflow and ambulance arrivals stacking two deep outside the bay.
The ED still functions as it always has. Trauma activations continue, residents require supervision, and Ellis continues behaving like a liability in scrubs.
Objectively, nothing significant has changed. Except that Samira Mohan isn’t present.
Jack reached for a second coffee during chart review before remembering midway through the motion that Samira is in another state. He pauses outside Trauma 2 after a difficult consult expecting her beside him before realizing the space remains empty. Absence develops geography quickly.
“Fun fact,” Ellis starts while settling down next to him at a charting station. “You haven’t flirted with anybody in months.”
Jack cocks an eyebrow. “What?”
“Not even casual morale flirtation.” Ellis points accusingly at him. “You used to keep night shift psychologically stable through moderately inappropriate eye contact.”
Jack walks away before OSHA inevitably becomes involved.
Still, the accusation follows him through the rest of shift. Ellis isn’t entirely wrong, he knows that. Before Samira, flirtation functioned strategically. He was never serious or reckless, but he put on just enough charm to keep warmth circulating through endless nights filled with bloodwork and grief. He understood the ecosystem of emergency medicine well enough to know that people survived partly through temporary brightness. Smiles and banter. He could spare controlled intimacy and limited it before real vulnerability entered the equation.
His flirtations were always safe and transient.
Then Samira arrived and gradually redirected every instinctive piece of his attention until suddenly he no longer dispersed affection outward because all of it had begun collecting around one person instead.
Shen catches him alphabetizing backup laryngoscope blades around 2:30 in the morning.
Samira texts him photographs from Denver—hotel coffee, mountains beyond the skyline, a vending machine selling locally sourced organic trail mix at extortion-level pricing. All ordinary moments.
Jack finds himself checking his phone between traumas with embarrassing frequency.
He misses her in specific ways, like the lack of the rhythm of her footsteps matching his through hallways and the lack of her voice on patient notes.
His restlessness prompts him to volunteer for additional chart review responsibilities just to redirect the energy somewhere productive. Unfortunately, this results in HR scheduling the follow-up meeting sooner.
The conference room is just as severe as the last time he was in it.
Jack sits across two administrators and a GME representative at 10 in the morning after working twelve hours overnight, which already places everyone at a tactical disadvantage emotionally.
The blinds remain partially open behind them, sunlight filtering weakly across stacks of paperwork carrying his name and Samira’s in increasingly bureaucratic combinations.
Dr. Keith Valenzuela from GME folds his hands carefully atop the folder. “First, I want to acknowledge improvement regarding disclosure compliance and scheduling boundaries.”
Jack nods once.
Another administrator—HR this time—continues reviewing notes. “There’s been a measurable reduction in observable preferential behaviors during active shifts.”
Observable. Interesting word choice.
Jack remains silent.
“However,” Valenzuela says carefully, “there are still concerns regarding departmental perceptions.”
Jack studies the paperwork in front of him.
Concerns regarding supervisory optics.
Interpersonal visibility.
Evaluation structures.
The language remains impressively sanitized considering the actual subject matter boils down to: Everyone can tell you’re in love with your resident.
Strange how institutional vocabulary transforms human emotion into administrative architecture.
“What exactly are you asking for?” Jack says finally.
Valenzuela glances briefly toward HR before answering. “Long-term planning. We need sustainable reporting structures moving forward. Particularly as Doctor Mohan approaches fellowship placement and eventual attending transition.”
Jack leans back in his chair. He has been awake almost thirty consecutive hours; the last thing he needs and should’ve signed up for was this meeting.
“What would satisfy the institution?” He asks. It’s a practical question in a measured tone, but he doesn’t miss the subtle shifts across the table.
HR outlines possibilities: adjusted evaluation chains, additional attending oversight, formalized disclosure procedures, and potential reassignment structures if Samira remains at PTMC long-term.
The meeting concludes half an hour later with procedural next steps. As Jack leaves the conference room, one realization follows him down the hallway relentlessly: the hospital is no longer asking whether their relationship exists, only whether it can be administratively contained.
By the third day, Jack checks flight status updates between trauma consults. He sleeps terribly because the bed feels too large without another body occupying the left side.
The airport pickup happens directly after shift. Jack drives to PIT still wearing scrubs beneath his jacket, his shoulders sagging under the weight of another overnight flood of traumas and psych holds and the city generally refusing to behave responsibly after midnight.
The closer he gets to arrivals, the quieter he becomes internally. The ugly truth he has spent three days refusing to examine directly is looming closer—the fact that Denver might fit her. He understands how much losing proximity to her would actually cost him.
Jack parks outside arrivals and waits. Travelers spill continuously through sliding terminal doors dragging their luggage.
Then he sees her, and every anxious thought inside him goes abruptly still.
The moment Samira’s eyes find his, something in her entire body visibly relaxes. She hurries toward him wearing travel-wrinkled clothes, hair pulled back messily from the flight. He takes her bag while his other arm wraps around her shoulders for a warm hug.
“How was it?” he asks.
She exhales slowly. “Good.”
Jack nods once, already preparing internally for whatever future version of this conversation eventually arrives.
Then Samira reaches lightly for his hand. “But I missed you the entire time.”
The drive home passes quietly. Samira falls half asleep while Jack drives through morning rush hour.
The garage door rattles shut behind them when they arrive home. Samira walks inside ahead of him, abandoning shoes beside the door before disappearing down the hallways toward the bedroom like she truly is at home.
Jack remains briefly in the kitchen staring at the half-empty glass she left beside the sink three days ago before leaving for Denver. He had kept it there as evidence; proof that he had not imagined all the days and nights she was in his home. He follows her down the hallway a few minutes later.
Samira is already curled beneath the blankets in one of his old shirts, barely awake. Her carryon sits unopened near the dresser.
When she notices him in the doorway, she lets one exhausted hand to him.
Come here.
Jack doffs his prosthesis and climbs carefully into bed beside her, the mattress shifting under his weight. Samira instinctively moves backward until she fits against his chest. He wraps an arm around her waist instantly. She exhales once and relaxes against him.
For the first time since she boarded the plane to Denver three days earlier, the restless tension beneath Jack’s sternum finally eases. He is no longer worried because just as she promised, she came back. To him. To this place they are slowly turning into a home.
And somewhere over the course of those three days apart, Jack finally understands that home is not geography; it is wherever she is sleeping.