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Samira Mohan, whether she wanted to admit it or not, was in desperate need of a day off.
Two years into her residency at PTMC, Samira had never once taken a day off. She wore it as a badge of pride, a holdover from all the ‘perfect attendance’ awards she’d received in school growing up, she supposed. She’d ignore the signs hung up in the breakroom reading ‘TIPS TO AVOID BURNOUT,’ as they simply did not apply to her, because Samira Mohan did not experience burnout. Not in undergrad, not in med school, and not now.
At least, that was the reality she thought she knew, and desperately tried to cling to, until a panic attack during her shift finally fractured her illusion. It’d hit her hard and fast, tearing the air from her lungs and balance from her body. She’d ended up in a patient bed, Dr. Robby standing over her, snapping - I don’t need the fucking liability - before sending her home abruptly with her hands still shaking.
Reckoning with the new reality that she was, in fact, not infrangible, and desperate to not be alone, Samira drove to the other side of town towards Jack’s house instead of her own. They’d been dating for a couple of months - no official declarations had been made, but long enough that she no longer needed to map directions to his house.
She knocked on his door, softly at first, and harder a few moments later when he hadn’t answered yet, arms crossed with impatience at how long he was taking. Despite having only been dating a couple of months, Jack had quickly developed a tendency to give over to Samira’s whims with little to no resistance. She’d gotten used to a certain standard of service.
Finally, Jack opened the door, his grey sweatpants hanging low on his waist, a worn, black t-shirt clinging softly to his chest. His curls were untamed from bedhead, glasses sat on the bridge of his nose, magnifying the size of his green eyes. If she wasn’t cycling through rotating feelings of anger and grief and disbelief at being forcibly sent home early, she would’ve melted at the sight.
“Samira, you okay?” There was obviously sleep in his voice, and she suddenly felt ridiculous for having driven over here unannounced, interrupting his nap. “What’s going on, why aren’t you at work?”
Samira opened her mouth, but no words came out, stuck somewhere in her throat. Tears welled in her eyes before Jack could pull her in.
“Oh, sweetheart.” Jack wrapped his arms around her, holding Samira there for a moment in his doorframe. He pressed a kiss to her forehead as she cried, ushering her inside with one arm, closing the door behind them with the other.
“Can you tell me what happened?” Jack asked from the kitchen, making Samira her favorite tea as she settled into his couch. He heard no response but carried on, unsure if she’d just not heard him, or if she was still crying.
Before the tea was even done steeping, Jack returned to find Samira already curled up on the couch asleep, snoring softly under a blanket pulled up over shoulders, scrubs in a pile on the floor. Perhaps he’d developed a tendency to give over to all of Samira’s whims, but Samira had made her own habit of making herself completely at home with him.
He set the tea down next to her anyway, before settling on the other end of the couch near her feet. He gently propped her legs up over his thighs, one hand rubbing her calf gently as she slept so she'd know he was there, a book in the other hand. He stayed that way for hours, reading quietly and keeping watch, until it was time for his own shift to start.
Samira awoke gently the next morning from what was probably the best sleep she’d had in months. She couldn’t help but feel at home at Jack’s, often finding sleep pulling her under before she was ready whenever she stayed over there.
She stretched widely under the covers, smiling to herself at the realization he must’ve moved her from the couch to the bed, when her eyes found the clock on his bedside table: 9:00 a.m.
“Oh, SHIT.”
She was supposed to be at work at 7.
Samira nearly flew out of bed, attempting all at once to locate her scrubs, her shoes, her bag, her hair clip. She sped through the house, moving so quickly she nearly toppled over Jack, who was making coffee in the kitchen.
“Woah, woah, sweetheart,” Jack stopped her, resting his hands on her shoulders. “Slow down.”
“Jack, I am two hours late for work, I cannot slow down.” Samira said, loosening his grip on her to continue her tornado pace, panic in her voice. “Why didn’t you wake me up?!”
“Samira, you don’t have work today.”
“Yes, I most definitely do have work today, and I'm two hours late. I know you know my schedule, I can’t believe you let me sleep this long!"
“You don’t, actually. Not today or tomorrow.” Jack sipped his coffee casually. “I called in a favor with Robby.”
Samira stopped dead in her tracks for the first time since she’d jumped out of bed this morning, one shoe on, turning around to face him.
“You did what?”
“Robby told me what happened yesterday.”
“So you what, called out on my behalf?" Samira couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You don’t think that’s crossing a line a bit?”
“Listen, I’m sorry if I overstepped – I am. But I’ve never once seen you take a single day off, in two years, and you had a major panic attack. So much so, you thought you were having a heart attack.” his voice lowered, pleading. “I wouldn't have done this if I didn't think it was serious. You need to take a break, Mira. You deserve to take a break.”
“Well, Jack, it’s really not up to you to decide that for me.” Samira’s voice cracked, nearly in tears at the betrayal she felt. “I’m going to work.” Samira slipped her other shoe on and started towards the door, but was stopped with her hand on the door knob, feeling Jack’s warmth behind her.
“Samira,” his voice was nearly a whisper. “I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. You need to take a day off. You’re off the schedule for the next two days, it’s already done, okay?”
She turned to meet his eyes, staring at him in complete and utter disbelief. First Robby had sent her home early, despite her claims that she was completely fine, and now Jack had messed with her schedule. Who did these men think they were?
“If you could get dressed, though,” his voice significantly softer now, “I do have somewhere I’d like to take you.”
Samira, left with no other choice, scoffed before storming off to Jack’s room, slamming the door behind her.
“I’ll be by the car in 20 minutes,” Jack yelled through the closed door. “I have your bag packed already. And your coffee.”
Fucking unbelievable, Samira thought to herself, angrily changing out of her scrubs and into clean clothes from the drawer she kept at his place. Calling out on my behalf, insane work, as she brushed her teeth with the toothbrush she kept in his bathroom. She stomped her way back through the house, despite it now being empty, slamming the front door behind her again as she left.
Samira stood on the porch, the picture of petulance - arms folded, hip cocked, sunglasses on, grimace stern between smacks of her gum.
“Ready to go?” Jack asked with a smile, opening the car door for her in the driveway. Samira stood unmoving, wondering if he could detect her glare through her dark sunglasses.
“Okay, alright. I know I crossed a line, and I’m sorry.”
Good, he could. Samira stood still.
“I understand you’re upset. But it’s done now, and I really think this will be good for you, to get out of town for a bit.”
Samira only smacked her gum. Jack shook his head and let out a restrained laugh, hand resting on top of the passenger side door.
“Would you just get in the god damned car, Mira?” Jack let out, exasperated. Her gum smacking stopped, both of them taken aback by his demand. “Please.”
Samira moseyed over leisurely, stopping in front of him before getting in the car. He embraced her pout, kissing her forehead again with a soft “thank you,” before closing the passenger side door. Jack hopped in the driver's side, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on Samira’s thigh, as they took off.
The drive to the cabin was only an hour, which despite their tensioned silence, passed by quickly.
The most they’d spoken during the ride was when Samira had started absentmindedly humming along to a song on the radio. Jack glanced towards her, throwing her a soft, hopeful grin, thinking maybe the storm had finally passed. Samira noticed immediately and dutifully quit humming, pouting again to keep up her disgruntled facade, which got a playful “Aww, c’mon,” out of Jack, and a “Nope,” from Samira in return.
They arrived at the cabin and Jack parked the car, turning to Samira before they got out. He pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head and she let him, both of their eyes softer now than they’d been an hour earlier.
“Mira, I am sorry I made this decision for you without talking to you first, okay? You have every right to be upset. When Robby told me what happened, it scared me, and I panicked, and I was upset I couldn’t be there for you. I was just trying to help, and I knew there wasn’t any way I could ever get you to agree to a day off, and-”
Samira cut him off with a soft kiss, his stubble tickling the soft skin above her lip. Both of their bodies immediately relaxed in each other's embrace, letting out an exhale together, only then realizing how much tension they’d been holding since they left.
“Jack, it’s okay.” She smiled, her thumb brushing over his cheek. “Thank you for apologizing. I don’t love the way you went about it, but I understand why you did what you did. I’m kind of tired of pouting anyway, and we’re here now, okay? If you’re gonna force me to take a day off, I may as well enjoy it.”
“Okay. Okay, good” Jack smiled shyly, grateful for her forgiveness.
Samira peppered him with soft, quick pecks, smiling in between each kiss. “Where exactly are we, by the way?”
“Oh, this is mine.”
“Oh, right, of course,” Samira said to herself, as if she was supposed to know that.
Jack led her up the wooden stairs to the house, unlocking the door before guiding her in by the small of her back. He slipped her bag from her shoulders, freeing her up to wander and take in the interior of his cabin.
A worn, leather couch sat atop a large rug, patterned repetitively with silhouettes of deer and pine trees across the living room floor. A small stone fireplace sat in the corner, wood stacked in the log rack next to it. A sprawling, quiet lake glimmered out of the big bay windows, a narrow strip of beach at the end of the yard. Jack had dropped their bags in the bedroom to her right, which was mostly taken up entirely by the large king bed, covered in a soft quilt. The entire place smelled of cedar and a faint memory of campfire smoke, which was oddly reminiscent of how Jack smelled all the time anyway.
Samira breathed in deep, letting it all wash over her - the cabin itself, the fact that this belonged to Jack, the fact that she was actually here when she was supposed to be at work. A thrill ran down her spine, and she couldn't help but smile. A day off. Holy shit.
Jack reappeared behind her, hands around her waist, lips on her neck.
“Wanna go for a swim?”
Samira felt her mind slipping already at the sensation of his lips on her neck, but was abruptly pulled back by her realization–
“I didn’t bring a bathing suit.”
Jack continued his kisses down her neck, hands drifting under her shirt to lift it over her head.
“If you really want one, I packed one for you,” He said, pulling the shirt over her lifted arms. “But you really don’t need one out here.”
Samira turned to face him, needing immediately, more than anything, to kiss him. She pulled his lips to hers, losing her fingers in his salt and pepper curls. She’d never experienced anything that felt as much like home as when she was pressed against Jack. She pulled away, only to throw her arms over his shoulders in a tight embrace.
“Thank you for this, Jack.” She could almost feel herself cry with relief at the fact that she was not at work.
“Anything for you, Mira.”
“Let’s go swim.”
They finished stripping down, leaving their clothes in a careless pile on the cabin floor.
They chased each other down to the water with a giddy, unprohibited energy Samira hadn’t felt in months, maybe years. She ran full speed down the dock, jumping into the water without any hesitation. The cold water shocked her system and she came up sputtering, hair slicked back, laughing maniacally with abundant freedom, and release. Air filled her lungs in a way that made her question if she’d even been breathing at all for the entire duration of her residency.
Jack sat on the edge of the dock, removing his prosthetic, bearing witness to a version of Samira he’d never gotten to see before, feeling himself fall unmistakably in love in real time.
He watched with reverence as Samira smiled and laughed to herself, bobbing up and down in the water, utterly awake and alive. He’d travelled the entire world, and had never seen anything like the way she smiled. He finally eased himself down into the water, Samira waiting all of two seconds before throwing her arms around him again, pulling them both all the way under with a giggle.
They spent the afternoon playing in the water, all of the stress they’d been carrying washing away in the current. They asked each other questions about themselves, splashing each other when they got something wrong. They held each other up as they took turns floating on their backs, trying out the feeling of weightlessness - something neither of them had felt much of before - trusting only in the hold of the other person. Samira dove down to the bottom, bringing up rocks to show Jack, which he’d rate on a scale of 1-10, until she was too tired to dive any more.
After they tired of swimming, Jack laid out on his belly on the dock, as Samira read her book, relaxed and reposed in the shade. She had no awareness of time passing, and no interest in knowing, either. It wasn’t until much later, as they were getting ready for bed, that Samira noticed the physical marker of the time that’d passed while they were outside.
“Oh my god, Jack, your back.”
She stifled a laugh at the beat red sunburn radiating off of Jack’s freckled back.
“What? What’s going on back there?”
Jack tried to look, unable to get any type of view over his large shoulders.
“Baby…” she was trying so hard not to laugh. “It’s really bad. I think I can feel the heat from over here. You don’t have any aloe here, do you?”
He finally got a peek in the bathroom mirror.
“Ah, shit.”
By some stroke of luck, Jack found an old bottle of aloe in the medicine cabinet. He laid on his stomach on top of the quilt that covered the bed, as Samira straddled his lower back, illuminated by the dim lamps on the bedside tables.
“How do you have aloe but you don’t have any sunscreen?” Samira asked, squeezing the green gel onto his bare back.
“I don- Woah, woah, stop, stop, that’s way too much, Mira,”
“It’s a big sunburn, Jack.”
Samira rubbed the aloe into his back, massaging it into his shoulders carefully as he winced beneath her. She took her time, admiring his muscled back, tracing the contours of each individual muscle with her fingers, creating constellations out of his freckles in her head.
Jack allowed his body to relax as the aloe sank in, soothing the sting of the burn, enjoying every sensation she drew out of him. She leaned down to press a kiss into his shoulder where a patch of aloe had already dried, eventually leaving a trail of kisses all across the horizon of his warm shoulders.
She flopped over onto her side, meeting his eyes again with a soft smile.
“I can put more on you once this layer dries.”
“Well thank you, Dr. Mohan,” Jack teased, accepting it as Samira’s official plan for treatment.
“No Dr. Mohan today, I think,” she replied reflexively.
She twisted one of his curls absentmindedly, considering the weight of what she’d just admitted, of what had slipped out of her mouth before she could think about what it meant.
She recalled the version of herself that existed outside of Dr. Mohan, like an old childhood friend come back to visit unexpectedly.
Samira, who longed to be taken care of, instead of taking care of everyone else, who through medical school and residency, she’d somehow forgotten.
Mira, a new part of herself that could allow Jack Abbot to take care of her, and have that be okay.
“Just Mira today.” She continued, definitively and content.
Jack kissed her, feeling like he was holding the world in his hands.
“Just Mira,” he echoed back.