Chapter Text
After 13 hours they finally land in Iraq, she couldn’t sleep the whole way there. Instead, she found herself staring at him, and thinking this was all a big mistake. “I definitely did not miss the heat.” Nathan says as he wipes sweat off his forehead, the group laughs. And there they are again, in the middle of the desert.
Iraq hasn’t changed a bit, the base stayed completely the same, same people, same bad food, even their rooms stayed just as they left them. The only thing that changed is Megan, because of a bug infestation in her old room, moving to the container next to Teddy’s, which means she should expect many visits from the redhead.
After two days back in the desert Teddy hears a knock on her door, it’s dark outside, but Teddy doesn’t need to see anything to know who it is who knocks on her door at 12pm. “Come on in.” Teddy sits in her bed, “Thanks Teds.” The girl smiles, “Do you by any chance have space for me?” Teddy lifts the covers and the girl slips into her bed, laying next to her. Teddy moves to lay on her side, looking at the girl. “It’s so hard to be back here. It’s like everything stayed exactly the same, but changed at the same time.” She sighs,”Yeah, but we’ll get used to it again eventually, Megan.” The blonde reassures her. Megan moves to face Teddy, “I had a life out there Teds.” Her gaze is broken, “With real dates, and family, and carrot cake.” Teddy laughs, “Nathan is here you know.” She keeps looking at Megan, “but it’s not the same, here we have to sneak around and hide, and make out in dark places. God, I miss the queen size bed sex.” Megan moves her gaze to look back at the ceiling, “Trust me, everyone knows about you two, you don’t really have to hide.” Megan knew she and Nathan weren’t the best at hiding, but that bad?
“So Owen and Beth, ah?” Teddy dares to ask, trying to hide the pain in her voice and fails completely. “Can you believe that? I was convinced he was going to break up with her during that leave, not fucking propose to her. Dummy.” Megan sounded a bit mad, “How did he propose?” Teddy asks quietly, because for some reason that’s the only sound she can manage to get out of her mouth without completely breaking down. She must be a masochistic, asking Megan that as if she wants to hurt herself even more. “He took her to the same stupid gas station, and then to the park, he pre-set a bunch of candles there, and he just asked her to marry him.” She didn’t even know it was possible, but somehow her heart breaks even more. “Nice.” She whispers, wishing in her heart that it was her, that he would put candles for her and ask her to spend the rest of their lives together. The thought made her feel stupid, so she moved it aside. She shifted to look at the ceiling as well. “You should just tell him how you feel, you know.” Megan says, “He’s marrying Beth.” She answers, “Yeah, but he doesn’t talk to her. Not like he talks to you, he doesn’t talk to anyone, really, not even me or mom, the way he talks to you. I don’t know what you guys talk about, but I know you’re the only one whom he tells those things to. Whatever there's between you two, he doesn’t have that with anyone else, surely not Beth.” A slight smile gets on Teddy’s lips, Megan is right, Owen is the only person she can really open up to, and she hasn't seen him open up to anyone else the way he opens up to her. “There’s nothing happening between us, we’re just friends.” She answers firmly, because she knows she cannot develop feelings for Owen Hunt, especially not now. “You keep telling yourself that.” Megan chuckles in disregard.
She doesn’t know how to act around Owen upon hearing the news, so she keeps herself busy by being in the OR and checking on her patients, working extra hours at the clinic, for the better part of the day, so she won’t have to face him. And it works for about 3 days, until he decides to scrub in on one of her surgeries. She knows she’s not supposed to avoid him, she has no reason to. She’ll just turn this all thing into an embarrassing mess for the both of them. But then he walks into her OR, and her heart sinks to the ground. “Hi,” he stands in front of her, completely nonchalant. “Hi,” she returns, feeling the blood rush to her cheeks. “I haven’t seen you in a while.” He mentions, “I’ve been busy, a lot of patients.” She lies, the truth is she’s been volunteering to do other doctor’s surgeries for them, as long as it keeps her occupied enough to not run into him. “Oh, I understand.” Owen realizes something is off about his friend, but he doesn’t want to push her, and judging by past experience, if she’ll want to talk about it she’ll just come to him, so he decides to put that aside. “I was trying to catch you the last few days.” He looks at her, she’s avoiding his look, trying to keep on focusing on her surgery. “Oh really? I didn’t know, sorry, I was packed with patients.” She lies again. Of course she knew, almost every second person she ran into told her about how her 'boyfriend' Hunt is looking for her.
“Anyway, do you think you can spare a few minutes for me today? I have something that I want to give you. But I’ll understand if you’re too busy.”
He smiles, god, that smile. She fucking hates that smile. Mostly because it makes her melt like some lovestruck teenager.
He got her a present? She’s now intrigued. Not that it matters, because regardless, she can never say no to Owen.
“No, no, it’s okay, today is quite slow. I have a few check ups after we finish here and then I’m done.” She finally looks back at him, his blue eyes catching hers. “Great, meet me at 10pm then? I promised Megan I’ll assist her with some procedure, but we’re supposed to finish by then.” She nods in approval.
She’s walking back and forth outside the clinic for the better half of an hour now, being too scared to actually talk to him once he finishes his surgery. Then she sees Megan walk out, which means they’re probably done, and he’s probably waiting for her already.
So she walks to their usual spot, and then she sees him, sitting there, looking like he’s trying to figure some things out. She breathes deeply, there is no reason for it to be embarrassing, she reminds herself. And then she gathers enough courage and walks up to him.
“Hey,” she sits next to him on the sand, “Hey” he looks at her. “So Megan told me how you proposed to Beth, didn’t know you were such a romantic Hunt.” She chuckles, “Me neither.” He laughs, “Have you talked about wedding dates yet?” She asks him, “Not yet, I still want to go on another tour after this one, so it might take some time.” He answers, he seems a bit distant. He never really talks a lot about Beth, she is his best friend and even she doesn’t know a lot about the girl, but she surely knows that engaged people don’t look like that. Of course, she can't say that, lying to him will be easier, she figures. “You seem happy. I’m glad.” She says softly.
Because even if he’ll leave her behind for that girl, the only thing that matters is that he’s happy, that’s all she ever wanted for him. And she? Well, she can manage.
“This is not what I called you for,” he moves his gaze to look her in the eyes, and for a moment he’s breathless by her sparkly eyes. He never really noticed how they sparkled with joy when she was talking about something that she was excited about. It was fascinating, it looked as if the stars from the sky were reflecting in them.
“Owen?” He shakes his head, snapping back to reality, “Umm.. Yeah” he cleared his throat. ״Are there any more major events you guys forgot to tell me about?” She laughs, “No, there aren’t, Megan kept you pretty up to date.” He reassures her, Teddy smiles in return. “So,” he returned to meet her gaze, “I know this time of the year is difficult for you, you know, the last few months. With all the anniversaries… coming by.” he didn’t really know how to navigate around the subject.
She didn’t know what to say either, so she just moved to look at her hands in her lap, she knew Owen wanted her to feel her grief so she can live with it, but what was his point bringing it up now?
“And I know I’m no carpenter, but I remembered you told me about Allison loving birds, and my dad had a bunch of tools, so during the leave, I went to the garage and I… I made you something.” He took something out of his pocket and handed it to her, placing it in her palm. She opened her hand, it was a little bird, curved out of wood. She was shocked.
“Owen… I…” she gasped, then she looked up at him, “I…I, I don’t know what to say.” This was single handedly the best thing someone ever did for her. It was beautiful, curved with so much care, and gentle, tiny details. She brushed it with her fingers, taking in any curve he worked so hard to create. “I wanted you to have something to remember her here.” He said, gently. She looked at him, “Thank you so much.” She said, tears welling up in her eyes. And before she could even know it, her arms pulled him into a tight hug, tears streaming down her face. To think about the fact that he cared about her so much he spent every day of his leave to try and curve her that little bird, to think that he actually thought of her to make her this, no one has ever done anything like that for her. And she was so stupidly thinking he’d leave her behind for Beth. How could she even think that? He was her best friend, her best friend in the entire world.
Even when they separated from the hug, they stayed close, his hand on her hair, foreheads touching. He looked her in the eyes, those green, quite teary, sparkly eyes, he felt as if they were pulling him in. He gently wiped a tear from her cheek with his other thumb, then his gaze moved to her lips, her pink lips. That even in this horrendous weather and absolute dryness looked so soft. He could kiss her, he could do it right now.
But he’s engaged to Beth. He just proposed to Beth, and he can’t cheat on her, she doesn’t deserve it. And she’s his best friend, he can’t kiss her.
Teddy looked at him, damn, those blue eyes again. Those piercing blue eyes. He wiped a tear from her cheek, and that gentle brush of a thumb was enough to make her feel as if she was melting under his touch. At that moment she knew, maybe she did have feelings for Owen Hunt. Maybe Megan and the others were right, maybe she was the only one lying to herself.
But she can’t have feelings for him, not now.
Not ever.
He just got engaged, damn it. She can’t tell him, she can’t allow herself to lose him. She has lost too many people, she can’t afford to lose another one. Most definitely not her best friend whom is the only person in the world who gets her. And that realization hurt more than anything in her life.
And there he was, staring at her with those piercing blue eyes, she can’t kiss him, she can’t love him. And she hated herself with every cell and cell in her body for that.
And then they pulled apart, like it was coordinated. Like both of them knew this can’t happen. He cleared his throat, she wiped the rest of her tears. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her closer to him, placing a kiss on her head. “Thank you.” She sniffed. He just kept stroking her hair.
She knows she can’t have him, so she makes a decision not to tell him about her forming feelings, about the fact that she feels butterflies inside her every time their gaze meet.
And it works, she’s his best friend, and she’s there for him when he needs her, and he’s there for her when she needs him. And every once in a while, when she catches him looking at her at the clinic, or when their hands touch accidentally when they sit on a sand dune in the dark, and this forming ball of feelings comes floating back, she just urges it back down, which makes it hurt even more.
“Have you heard the news?” Nathan is trying to catch up to the two girls, they notice him and stop giggling from the funny comment Megan made earlier. “No, what news?” Megan asks, “About the prolonged tours.” Nathan is panting from his run, Owen joins them, staring at Nathan confused, as the poor man tries to catch his breath. “They’re prolonging our tour?” Megan asks, probably as serious as she ever was. “Owen, have you heard something about it?” She stares at her brother, he looks down, a guilty expression on his face. “You knew!” Megan laughs hysterically, “of course he knew…” she continues to mumble in disbelief. “What does that mean?” Teddy tries to figure out, “It means they’ll add an extra few months to our tour.” Owen says quietly, avoids looking any of them in the eyes. Megan pulls her hair, “I can’t believe them.” Nathan throws his fists in the air, Teddy just puts her hands on her hips, taking a deep breath as she closes her eyes, then kicks the sand with her boots.
It turns out getting their tour prolonged isn’t that bad, even though the work is hard and the surgeries never seem to end, they have a lot of good times together and they learn to stick to each other on the bad times. They spend a lot of nights sitting together and drinking beer, while Megan is telling them some stupid story she heard and Nathan tries to refute them, mumbling something about how the details aren’t lining up. Sometimes Teddy is the one telling the story, she has a lot of interesting stories to tell from New York. After all, it’s a big city, and like every big city, it's full of freaks.
Another thing that becomes more frequent during that time is Megan’s and Teddy’s sleepovers. Whenever Megan got into a fight with Nathan, or Teddy wouldn’t want to be alone, they’d knock on each other’s door.
He’s looking for her everywhere, his ecstasy is raging, he just got out of one of the best surgeries he has ever performed, all throughout the only thing he thought about was how he’s gonna tell her all about it afterwards.
He finds her outside of the clinic, talking to that young soldier, he thinks his name is lieutenant Cameron. The rumors about him say that he’s hitting on every girl around the base, not that he cares about rumors anyway. She’s laughing about something that he said, his hand resting on one of the tent poles, as he’s leaning on it. There’s not a chance Teddy is falling in his net of lies, Teddy’s better than that. But there she was, laughing and flirting with the guy, as if she was some lovestruck freshman who got attention from a senior jock in high school.
He realized he was staring at them, so he just decides to walk away, it wasn't that important anyway.
He doesn't know what it is with him, but ever since that night on the dune, he can’t stop thinking about her. About her eyes, her pink lips, about the way her cheek felt under his touch, the way her hair felt so soft laid on his shoulder. Sometimes he even finds himself staring at her, watching her smiling to a patient at the clinic, her blonde hair swifting around the room as she moves from one bed to another. And all he can think about is how he wants to let his hands wander through it, desperate to feel it’s softness again.
Lately she complains to him about how he’s always talking to Beth on the phone, little does she know she’s the reason he has to call Beth that much, to remind himself of where his duties lay.
And that if he could, he would’ve spent every second with her, he has that urge to be with her all the time, to try and catch a glimpse of those sparkly green eyes again.
Those same green eyes that were now looking at someone else, laughing from his jokes.
He probably should go call Beth.
She was sitting on a picnic table, sipping her beer and waiting for Owen to finish talking to Beth on the phone, watching a drop of dew sliding on the second beer bottle next to her, as he was waiting for Owen to finish too. Even though he’s standing a few feet away from her, She can still listen to their conversation, the girl is crying hysterically about something and Owen tries to calm her down, Teddy rolls her eyes upon hearing her whining. She always hated girls who were like this, who did things like that and acted out only to get attention. “Goodbye, Beth.” He hangs up the phone and steps next to her, “Hey,” she almost chokes on her beer, “Hey” she returns, “How was the call? Is she okay?” She asks, “Yeah, she had a spider in her room and her dad wasn't at home, so she got a bit stressed.” That was the big thing? A spider? The girl was crying for 20 minutes, calling her boyfriend, who is thousands of miles and time zones away, because of a spider? That was what it was all about? “Oh,” she tries to sound considerate. Owen is not the guy to date a girl who’s afraid of spiders, and he’s definitely not the guy to spend 20 minutes on the phone with someone on a different continent who can't get herself to crash the thing with her shoe. And she knew Beth was probably a nice girl, but she wasn’t suitable for him, of that Teddy was sure of.
She couldn’t bring her mind to think about who would be suitable for him, because inside her she knew the answer. She could feel that damned ball of feelings starting to rise up, so she pushed it down.
He’s her best friend, he’s engaged.
She doesn’t have feelings for him. right?
But if that was true, and she didn’t have feelings for him, like she was trying to convince herself so badly, why did it hurt her so much to hear Beth’s name? to listen to him talk to the girl? Or even worse, listen to him talk about the girl? Even though it was pretty rare to hear Owen actually mentioning her, it still hurt like a bitch every time. After some months has passed, and that ball of forming feelings did not disappear, but in fact, was only getting bigger, she was pretty sure of one fact, which was the worst fact to be ever sure of,
He’s her best friend. He’s engaged.
She had feelings for him.
But it wasn’t that bad, right?
Teddy snapped back to reality, “So, have you two already started talking about the wedding?” The masochist she is. “No, not yet. We want to wait until the tour’s over.” He smiled softly, not that again, she thought to herself. He grabbed his bottle of beer and took a long sip, “You’ll come to Seattle with us, right?” He sat next to her on the picnic table, “Yeah, can’t wait to see the space needle that time.” He laughs, and she raises her bottle to take another sip, “Great, Seattle is amazing. And you’ll get to meet Beth, she’s very excited to meet you.” She almost chokes on her beer, spitting it out and knocking on her chest. “Teddy? Are you okay?” He bends down to check on her, She coughs, “Yeah, Yeah, I’m fine.” She can tell he’s relieved.
“You know, at first she thought there was something going on between us,” he laughs, she looks to the side, trying to ease the feeling of his words stubbing her heart. “You knew people were thinking it?”
Of course she knew, every time she would look for him people referred to him as “her boyfriend”, even when they knew he was engaged.
“No, what? Have people completely lost their minds? Maybe it’s the sand, it messes with their heads, people start to imagine things.” He laughs, “But, I reassured her we were just friends.” He finishes his words from earlier, Teddy just smiles at him, completely ignoring how she just felt her heart sink. “I heard you were looking for me earlier, what did you need?” She reconciled, “Nothing too important, I had a good surgery, I just wanted to tell you about it.” He says nonchalantly, as if he wasn't running all over the base looking for her as soon as he left the operating room. Teddy smiles, “Cool, what procedure?” She looks at him, “We don’t have to talk about it.” He cancels out, and she knows better than to try and push him, so she just accepts his contradiction.
“When I was looking for you I saw you talking to that lieutenant outside the clinic, is there something going on between you two? Are you into him?” He looks at her, He notices he caught her off guard. “Lieutenant Cameron? Hell no, he’s 21, he’s practically a child.” She immediately dismisses the allegations, “I don’t know, you were all laughing and flirting with him.” He says, like a duckling that tests the water, trying to see how far can he go before he'll drown.
“He said something funny, so I laughed. It doesn’t mean there’s something going on between us.” She defends herself, a bit irritated. “I’m just saying his intentions are clear, there’s rumors running about this guy all over the base.” She knows he just wants to protect her, but why does he have to be so bossy?
“I thought you didn’t listen to rumors.” Now she’s completely annoyed, “Do you want me to say something to him? Because I can.” He suggests, “No Owen. I can handle my own rejections. I don’t need a delivery guy to go talk to him.” She’s prepared to go off on him, but then he looks at her with that worried look, “I know Teddy, I just… I don’t want you to get hurt.” How can she get angry at him now? The bastard.
The moment they end the conversation and separate each to their own dorms, she runs to Megan’s room. The container next to hers. Most soldiers would have to share a container, but because of the hard hours they worked, the military surgeons would each get their own.
“What’s wrong?” A rather sleepy Megan Hunt asks as she opens the door to find her friend rapidly knocking on it. Teddy ignores her and enters the room, then sits on her bed, “What is it Teds?” The redhead closes the door and turns around to look on her friend, “I just… I can’t be alone right now. My thoughts are running me crazy.” Megan looks at her, worried. Then she walks to sit next to her on the bed, and holds Teddy’s hands in hers. “It’s okay Teds, whatever it is, I’m here.” Megan smiles at her. They lay next to each other on the small bed.
“So, are you gonna tell me what the hell he did this time or do I have to guess?” Megan finally asks, Teddy chuckles, “Nothing.” Megan turns to look at her, surprised, “You tell me you came to my doorstep, telling me you're going crazy, without any reason at all?” She opens her eyes wide, “Listen, as someone who grew up with that dummy, there are a whole bunch of ways he can make a person go crazy, believe me. So excuse me for not believing he did not do anything to contribute to your situation.” The two look at each other, Megan raises her eyebrows as a sign for Teddy to start talking, Teddy sighs, then she gives up. “Why the hell does he think he can interfere with who I flirt with or who I don’t flirt with? I’m a grown woman. I can date whoever I want. And he is not allowed to have any opinion on that.” She lifts herself up and leans on her forearms. Megan closes her eyes in desperation, “You two are even more stupid than I thought.” She mumbles, then turns around to the wall.
“What does that supposed to mean?” Teddy asks, “Nothing Teds, let’s go to sleep. I have a surgery tomorrow’s morning and I don’t want to kill the man because I was too tired.” Megan yawns, Teddy moves to lay on her back again and stare at the ceiling.
'Even more stupid than she thought'? What was her point?