Chapter Text
The group therapy room is warm without trying too hard to be comforting. Soft amber lamps sit in the corners instead of harsh fluorescent lights, casting a low golden glow across the space.
The walls are painted in muted sage green and dusty cream, colours chosen to calm the nervous system rather than draw attention.
A circle of mismatched armchairs fills the centre of the room, each chair slightly worn in a way that suggests years of people sitting down with difficult truths.
A kettle hums quietly on a side table beside a tray of untouched coffee bags and paper cups. A box of tissues sits within easy reach of every seat, not hidden, not emphasized, simply expected.
Rain taps softly against tall windows covered by half-open linen curtains. The carpet is thick enough to soften footsteps. Somewhere, faint instrumental piano music plays through an old speaker.
Along one wall hangs a series of posters about the five stages of grief, each framed in simple oak wood:
DENIAL - a pale blue poster with fog drifting across a shoreline, that reads: "This cannot be happening.”
ANGER - deep red and burnt orange, abstract brushstrokes colliding like sparks, stating: “Why is this happening to me?”
BARGAINING - muted yellow with an image of folded hands and overlapping clocks. The caption says: “If only I had…”
DEPRESSION - dark indigo fading into charcoal grey, showing a solitary figure beneath rainfall. Small lettering at the bottom reads: “The weight of loss settles in.”
ACCEPTANCE - soft green and sunrise gold, featuring a quiet path through trees. The final line says: “Learning to move forward.”
Between the posters are smaller affirmations pinned unevenly to a corkboard:
Healing is not linear.
You are allowed to feel everything.
Silence is participation too.
The room smells faintly of coffee, old books, and lavender oil. Some chairs are occupied already, people avoiding eye contact, clutching notebooks, rubbing their palms together while waiting for the session to begin.
The therapist stood in the center of the circle, greeting everyone by name with an easy smile and a handshake. He looked young, maybe twenty-five, with short brown hair and a bright, modern outfit that made him seem more approachable than clinical. After everyone settled into their seats, Adam clapped his hands together lightly.
“Tonight’s topic is surviving after survival,” he said, his eyes moving across the circle of weary faces.
Silence answered him.
No one spoke at first.
Then, finally, a woman cleared her throat.
“Hi, my name is Veronica but you can call me Vee" she says flatly, a currous of "Hi Vee" follows.
"My wife died three years ago,” she stats, pressing her hands tightly against her paper coffee cup. “And everyone keeps congratulating me for functioning.”
She sat quietly in the circle of chairs, looking like she had come straight from the office without stopping to change or fully decompress.
Her tailored black blazer rested open, revealing the soft ivory blouse beneath, slightly wrinkled from a full day at work. One leg crossed over the other, polished ankle boots planted carefully against the carpet, while her laptop bag slumped beside her chair with folders and a half-visible notebook sticking out.
Her red curly hair framed her face in loose, slightly frizzed waves, the kind that had clearly been styled that morning but had relaxed over the course of a stressful day. A few curls fell forward whenever she lowered her head to listen.
There was a professional sharpness to her overall appearance, but the exhaustion in her posture softened it, shoulders subtly tense, fingers wrapped around a lukewarm coffee cup as though grounding herself.
What stood out most against the clean business attire were the tattoos covering much of her forearms. Dark ink flowed beneath the pushed-up blazer sleeves, intricate floral designs intertwined with geometric patterns and fragments of script disappearing beneath her cuffs. The tattoos gave contrast to her polished corporate look, revealing something more personal beneath the professional exterior.
When she folded her arms or brushed hair from her face, glimpses of color and linework shifted with the movement, making her seem both guarded and expressive at the same time.
In the quiet atmosphere of the group therapy session, she looked like someone balancing two worlds, composed and capable on the outside, yet carrying enough weight to need this room just as much as everyone else there.
Across the circle, therapy mentor and local Doctor at Pittsburgh ED sat Jack Abbott, who finally looked up from the notepad resting against his knee. He sit leaning forward on his chair, broad forearms resting on his knees as he balances the worn notebook.
The black shirt pulls tight across his shoulders every time he shifts, the fabric stretched over muscle that looks earned rather than sculpted.
Under the soft amber light, the dark cotton contrasts against the weathered olive of his SWAT-style cargo pants and the scuffed combat boots planted firmly on the floor.
One hand absently flips a pen between his fingers while the other steadies the notebook, pages crowded with clipped handwriting and rushed diagrams.
He looks like a man who never fully relaxes, even seated, there’s tension coiled through him, alertness in the set of his jaw and the angle of his shoulders.
The salt-and-pepper hair catches the light at the temples, slightly tousled as though he’s been running his hands through it for hours. It softens him just enough to make the sharpness of everything else hit harder, the heavy stare, the rough voice, the intimidating build packed into that chair like he’s too large for the room around him.
And despite the military edge, there’s something intimate about the scene, sleeves pushed slightly up his forearms, attention fixed on the notebook, brow furrowed in concentration. The kind of moment where someone watching from across the room might stop paying attention to the words on the page entirely and start wondering about the man leaning over them instead.
He had been scribbling notes ever since the introductions started.
Now his attention settled fully on Vee.
Not on the tattoos.
Not on the expensive blazer or the exhaustion she wore like another layer of clothing.
On her.
The room stayed quiet after her confession. The kind of silence that wasn't empty, but heavy.
Shared.
Adam shifted slightly where he stood in the center of the circle, but didn’t interrupt.
Dr. Abbott leaned back in his chair. “Functioning is a low bar for people to celebrate,” he said gently.
Vee let out a dry laugh through her nose. “Apparently not. My boss called me inspiring last month because I answered emails during bereavement leave.”
A few people around the circle grimaced knowingly.
She stared into her coffee cup. “Everyone loves survival stories when they don’t have to watch the part after. The paperwork. The laundry. The empty side of the bed.” Her jaw tightened.
"People stop checking on you once you become efficient at being sad.”
The words landed hard.
A man two seats down lowered his gaze to his hands. Someone else shifted in their chair like they’d been caught thinking the same thing.
Adam nodded slowly, arms folded now. “And what does functioning look like for you, Vee?"
She opened her mouth immediately, then stopped.
The confidence she’d carried into the room faltered for the first time.
“It looks like making National Manager six months early,” she said eventually. “It looks like never missing deadlines. Keeping the apartment clean. Remembering birthdays. Pretending I’m okay because people get uncomfortable when grief lasts longer than their attention span.” One of her fingers traced absent circles along the cardboard coffee sleeve.
"And,” she added more quietly, “it looks like talking about my wife in the past tense so other people don’t panic.”
The room went still again.
Dr. Abbott studied her carefully. “What was her name?”
Vee blinked, almost startled by the question.
Most people avoided that part. They said your loss, your situation, what happened, as if naming the dead made them too real to survive.
A curl slipped across her cheek as she looked down.
“Danielle,” she said softly.
For the first time since she’d started speaking, her voice sounded human instead of rehearsed.
Not polished.
Not managed.
Just tired.
Dr. Abbott nodded once. “Tell us about Danielle.”
Vee’s grip tightened around the coffee cup. For a moment it looked like she might refuse. The walls came back into her posture, shoulders drawing inward, corporate armor sliding back into place.
"She laughed before she told jokes,” Vee said. “Every single time. Completely ruined punchlines.” A faint smile threatened briefly at the corner of her mouth. “She couldn’t cook anything without setting off the smoke alarm, but she insisted she was getting better at it.”
"We meet briefly after I came out as bisexual, I still didn't want to accept that part of myself but she made me believe that being different was okay" she signed, looking at Dr. Abbot.
The group listened without interruption.
And as Vee spoke, the sharp-edged professional sitting in the cushioned chair slowly became something else entirely.
A widow.
A woman in love.
A person still learning that surviving someone wasn’t the same thing as surviving grief.
Jack Abbott didn’t look at Vee with pity or like someone who needed coddling. Instead, he looked at her with the quiet understanding of someone who truly knew the kind of pain she was carrying. He cleared his throat softly.
“My wife died almost ten years ago now. It never really gets easier.”
He gave her a small, bittersweet smile. “But my best friend from university, a fellow doctor and now my partner, has been by my side since the very beginning.”
For a moment, his gaze drifted somewhere far away, softened by memory. “I think that’s the only reason I learned how to keep going,” he admitted quietly. “Grief doesn’t disappear. You just get better at carrying it. And having someone beside you, someone who doesn’t try to fix it or rush you through it, makes the weight a little less crushing.”
He looked back at Vee then, steady and warm. “Some days, the pain still knocks the air out of me. But it’s different when you don’t have to survive it alone.”
The last few minutes of the therapy group always felt different from the rest of the evening. The circle of mismatched chairs had loosened; people shifted, stretched stiff shoulders, reached for jackets draped over chair backs. The kettle in the corner clicked softly as it cooled.
Someone laughed too loudly at a harmless joke, the kind of laughter that came from relief more than amusement.
The room smelled faintly of instant coffee and rain-damp coats.
Vee stayed seated a moment longer after Adam thanked everyone for coming. Around her, conversations split into smaller pieces.
“See you next week.”
“Text me if things get rough.”
"You did good tonight.”
She rubbed her thumb against the paper cup in her hands, now empty except for a crescent of cold coffee at the bottom.
Across the room, Jack was helping stack chairs against the wall, sleeves pushed up, moving with easy familiarity like he’d been doing this for years.
He caught her looking and gave a small nod.
Not intrusive. Just noticing.
Vee looked away first.
<One by one, people filtered toward the exit. The fluorescent lights seemed harsher now that the room was emptier. Outside the windows, the parking lot shimmered black with recent rain.
"You heading out?” a woman beside Vee asked.
“Yeah. In a minute.”
The woman squeezed her shoulder gently before leaving.
Soon there were only a handful of them left.
Jack finished with the chairs and crossed the room, stopping beside her instead of directly in front of her, as though giving her space to decide whether this became a conversation.
“You were more vibrant tonight,” he said. Vee shrugged lightly. “I had something to say.”
“I'm proud of you for stepping up," There was no accusation in it. Just observation.
She gave a tired half-smile. “You always do that?”
"Do what?”
"Sound like a therapist without charging hourly.”
Jack laughed under his breath. “Occupational hazard of being around this place too long.”
He hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his jacket, rocking once on his heels before speaking again.
"A few of us are grabbing drinks nearby,” he said casually. “Me, my partner, and our friend Dennis” He tilted his head slightly. “You are welcome to join.”
Vee blinked at him, caught off guard by how normal the invitation sounded. No pressure. No careful pity disguised as kindness. Just inclusion.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I’m not exactly great company after group.”
"None of us are,” Jack said. “That’s sort of the point.”
A beat passed.
From the hallway came the muffled scrape of Adam locking another room. Somewhere outside, a car engine turned over.
Jack glanced toward the door, then back at her.
"It’s just one drink. Or fries. Or sitting there pretending to listen to Dennis rant about his coworkers.”
"And your partner’s okay with random strays joining?”
"He likes strays better than people he already knows."
That earned an actual laugh from Vee, small, surprised out of her.
Jack smiled at the sound of it but didn’t push further.
“You can say no,” he added. “I just figured you maybe shouldn’t go straight home tonight.”
The honesty of that settled between them.
Vee looked down at her empty cup again, then finally stood, tugging her blazer tighter around herself.
“One drink,” she said.
Jack stepped aside with a little gesture toward the exit. “That’s usually how it starts.