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If there's one thing she swore not to do, before she ever got her hands on that brand new white coat, it was nurture a crush on her attending.
Especially an engaged one.
It's not that she thought she was above that kind of thing. She's fallen in and out of love unexpectedly, unwillingly, before. But she somehow thought she'd have the steel to keep herself from getting attached when it really mattered, like now. She just never really banked on turning up on her first day all lofty ideals and innocence, and crash landing into him.
It's not like she meant it, or even really tried to stop it. It's just somewhere along the line, she quietly forgot the things she swore not to do until he started to become a permanent fixture in her thoughts. She could never quite bury her attraction, even when they squabbled and fell out and insisted the other was wrong. Couldn't even stop thinking about him when he was seeing other people right in front of her face, or when she was too, and by the time she realised she might be falling stupidly in love with the man it really seemed altogether too late.
And that's why now she's doing her best to fight her way through the smoking ruins of a half-derelict hospital while sirens scream outside, because of course he had to be the hero. Of course she's the one searching, ignoring the burn in her lungs, because of course. She's always been out there looking for him and some things just don't change that much.
Only this time she might be too late to find him.
Forty days after Claire told her therapist that she was in love with her boss, she did the same to Neil himself.
It's a night when he's managed to con his way into a gala oncology is hosting that neither of them were really invited to. It's pretty obvious they're not going to try particularly hard to win money for a department that isn't even theirs, so she has no idea what random lies he spouted to get them here. But she's not complaining either.
"You know that wine is terrible. I could get you a grown up drink," he says, grinning over the generous tumbler of whiskey he always seems to insist on, every time they go anywhere. She rolls her eyes.
"We both have to be conscious for nine tomorrow, I don't know why you're already on the hard stuff. Pace yourself, or you'll be on the floor by midnight."
"Please. I can handle my drink. And I know you wouldn't let anything happen to me," he says, and her eyes flick to his. He's obviously feeling mischievous tonight, flirtation coming across the table in spades, but he's also right. She'd defend him from anything.
"That depends on how annoying you've been," she says back, airily, but she's not fooling anyone. He laughs and looks around.
"Don't tell me you're not a little bit in love with all this glamour. You look incredible, by the way,"
"All this excess, more like," she says dryly, ignoring his blatant flirting. "I'll admit it's nice to wear something other than scrubs for a change. Although why you decided we should crash an oncology fundraiser on a weeknight is still unclear."
"Because if we weren't here, you'd be at the 'how to hold a scalpel' evening Andrews is putting on for the new first years," he replies. And she raises her eyebrows.
"Oh, so this is for my benefit?"
"Don't be silly, Claire, it's for children with terminal cancer. Mostly." He coughs and takes a sip of his drink. "If you start feeling too guilty I can point out which of those rich old guys you can go and charm for donations to the programme."
"Who says we wouldn't be better off sending you?"
"Please. Have you met you? Everyone loves you."
She feels a low warmth at his quick reply.
It's taken a while, but she knows now when it's just surface flattery, just charm where there's something in it for him, and when he actually means it. When it's real, he gets this very steady look in his eyes, like he's piercing right through the bullshit and delivering a truth as unremarkable yet undeniable as the sky being blue. He's looking at her like that right now.
"Want to dance?" she says, when the intimacy of the moment gets a little too much. He grins.
"I knew you couldn't get enough of my moves at that prom," he says, as he offers her his hand. He's back to light-heartedness now, his eyes all humour and surface charm, and it's both a disappointment and a relief. There's so much she wants to say to him, but every time she gets close she remembers what's at stake.
"How are things going with Dash?" he asks her, almost absentmindedly, as he manoeuvres her gently around the dancefloor. She stiffens. He seems completely unphased by the thought of her with somebody else, even seems encouraging of it. It's not what she wants at all.
"I- uh, we decided to stop seeing each other," she says, fighting to sound as neutral and carefree as he does. He frowns.
"Really? When?" he says. "I thought things were going well with him."
"It was just... weird, him being Kayla's husband. It was always her idea more than mine." She wishes he'd let it drop, because it's already been a month since she broke up with Dash and she definitely, definitely doesn't want to think about how the reason for that was mostly that she couldn't get over her feelings for someone else who's way too close to home right now.
"Are you sure that's what you want? I don't want to see you give up on something that-"
"Neil, no. He's not the right guy-"
"I'm just saying that you shouldn't run away-"
"Why do you keep pushing me to him when it is so obvious that I-" she almost snaps out the damning words in her annoyance with him, then chokes on them instead. He frowns at her, confused.
"That you what?" he asks, and she's suddenly sick of him, of this constant silence.
"That I'm in love with you," she says, a sudden, reckless bravado overcoming her in the instant before she's immediately full of horrified regret. His eyes widen, and she feels the full mortification of what she's said bubbling up inside her. Without another word, she tears her hand from his and flees from dancefloor, throwing open the doors to the main wing of the hospital without a second glance.
She thinks he's probably so shocked he just let her go, because she can't hear anyone coming after her, and that's probably for the best, except-
"Claire?"
She shuts her eyes but doesn't stop, her footsteps rapid through the dark corridor as if she thinks she can somehow outrun him in stiletto heels. She hears him break into a run, catching her up easily, and feels his hand land cautiously on her elbow.
She gives up on running then, and turns to face him, her eyes a mix of defiance and despair.
"Claire," he says, shaking his head. She swallows hard, because he's got that look in his eyes again, and he has never sounded so serious. So much like he's about to tell the truth. "If I wasn't your attending, I'd have done something months ago. But I didn't think you would want me to- I didn't think we could-" He shuts his eyes. "What you said- it's not one-sided, obviously it's not."
She looks at him for a long moment, searching for any kind of hint that he's playing games, though she knows already that he isn't. She's afraid to believe what he's saying, afraid of how this has changed the landscape of their relationship, but there's a racing heat rapidly blooming inside her too.
"That probably makes it worse, to be honest," she answers eventually. Her voice sounds a bit shaky. She feels it too, because suddenly he seems very close to her, in this otherwise empty hall.
"I know," he says, and his hand finds her wrist, sliding down to brush her fingers. "But I have to do right the right thing," he says. "Even if that means not yet."
And she smiles at that.
Not yet, she thinks, is not at all the same as never.
The first time she stays over at his house, it's not for romantic reasons.
It's because they've both come off a hellish week ending in a thirty hour stint with a patient and they're so tired it's not even in contemplation that he'll drive her to her apartment. It's twenty-two minutes further out than his place, and that's forty-four minutes he could be sleeping.
They stagger inside, bleary eyed, and he nudges her towards the bathroom so she can shower. He hands her clothes around the door while she's drying off, and if she weren't so tired she would probably be blushing as she tugs his t-shirt over her damp skin and stumbles out into the hall where she finds him waiting for her.
He's already showered too, his hair wet, and he hovers just long enough to direct her to the spare bedroom before both of them collapse into their beds and pass out for ten hours straight.
She feels like a whole new person when she eventually opens her eyes, some time in the afternoon. She wanders downstairs to the kitchen where she finds him, hair sticking up in all directions, already brewing coffee.
"Hey," he says, spotting her. She doesn't miss the way his eyes drift up and down the length of her before landing back on hers. "Sorry, I probably should have driven you home yesterday," he says with a faint air of embarrassment.
She picks her way round the kitchen island cautiously, accepting the coffee cup he's holding out to her.
"It's fine," she says. "Not a big deal, right? It was a long shift."
"Right," he says softly, and he has that deep intensity in his eyes again. He must know by now that that look does strange things to her, makes her want to forget all the rules.
"I can get going," she says, not really wanting to, but figuring she should give him an out if he needs one. He shakes his head immediately.
"Stay for breakfast," he says. "You can give that Annals article I mentioned a review. See what you think," he adds, glancing at her nonchalantly. She hides a smile in her coffee cup.
Yeah, he's mentioned that he's got an article he's planning on submitting. No, she doesn't think he really needs her opinion on it right now. But she's more than happy to accept it as cover, while she sits down in his beautiful house and lets him make her brunch while she sits back and reads.
Nobody else has to know if she doesn't make it back to her own apartment until late that night, if she spends the entire day lounging around in his sweater and feeling like his house is her home.
"What do you think?" he asks, as he puts a plate of eggs in front of her and pulls up the chair opposite.
"You don't need me to tell you it's great," she says wryly. "They'll bite your hand off to publish it."
"Couldn't have written it without you," he says with a teasing grin. "It was the surgery you suggested for Elwyn that gave me the idea."
"That only worked because you figured out the lateral approach," she says, but she's secretly pleased. He doesn't hand out credit where he doesn't think it's due.
"True, I am excellent," he says, and she rolls her eyes over a very excellent forkful of eggs. She's suddenly wistful, thinking about the possibilities and the past, and she falls quiet as they eat.
And when their plates are cleared, she can't help herself.
"We don't work on much together like we used to anymore," she says, suddenly. She doesn't miss how he pauses, collecting up the plates.
"I've got the newbies to look after now," he jokes, as heads over to the sink. He means the two of four new residents Shaun is supervising - it's his job to make sure Shaun doesn't rack up any lawsuits.
"How are they doing?" she asks, casually. "I heard Jackson impressed in the OR the other week."
He looks up and smiles teasingly at her. "You worried you're not going to be my favourite resident?"
She scoffs as she gets up to dry the dishes he's washing. "Don't be ridiculous. I'm everyone's favourite resident."
He laughs at her brazenness and their eyes meet, and she feels momentarily like she's lost all rational thought. He inclines his head.
"Maybe you're right about that," he says softly, and there's that swooping feeling low in her stomach again.
"So why the distance?" she asks, and he looks at her pointedly.
"I think you already know why."
She frowns. "No, I don't understand. I thought the whole point of us staying platonic was so we could keep working together without affecting anything."
He wipes his hands dry on a towel and turns to face her head on.
"It's already not platonic, and it already is affecting things," he says, his tone a little on edge. She's not used to seeing him rattled, and it unnerves her too.
"What do you mean? Nothing has changed, I don't see why-"
"The way I feel about you is as much of an ethical overstep for our respective positions whether I do anything about it or not," he says. "I realise that now."
"So what, you're saying that I don't get to be with you, and now I don't get to work with you either?" She can hear herself getting annoyed, can see the frustration building in his expression.
He exhales, and doesn't say anything for a long moment.
"I'm saying pick one. We can't have both."
She stares at him in shock, wondering if he's actually suggesting what she thinks he is.
"You mean- we-"
"Which one?" he says steadily. She shakes her head.
"Do you really need to ask?" she says, and she gets the feeling that he's somehow sifting through every one of her thoughts with that searching gaze, looking for any trace of doubt. Let him, she thinks. She has nothing to hide.
But she can think of one way to put her position beyond any doubt.
She steps right up to him, closer than she's ever been, and she reaches up to kiss him, the culmination of everything she's been holding back.
It does not disappoint.
Fundraising season has always been one of those things that nobody likes but always seems to come around quickly. And every year, Neil is heavily involved.
He's second in the surgical department only to Andrews in skill at schmoozing donors, and that's mostly because he loathes doing it while Andrews revels in the charade, the thrill of dazzling the wealthy with heavily romanticised stories of their most impressive cases.
Neil mostly gets by on wit and the occasional impassioned speech, and then complains about it later.
This year though, he is even less happy about it all.
Aoki has strong-armed him into doing a live stream of a cutting edge robotic surgery, the equipment made possible by one of her biggest donors providing enormous sponsorship to the department. He makes his disgust at turning their profession into a spectacle for public entertainment widely known, but the surgery is going ahead regardless.
"Are we going to make a habit of this? Maybe our residents should work on how to deliver a punchy tagline to camera as well as how to not kill people?" he demands, bad-temperedly. She looks at him sympathetically, her hand resting soothingly on his forearm.
"I know, it's tacky and commercial and not at all what we're about. But it's going to make sure the humanitarian program gets funded for another year. Isn't that worth it?"
He looks mutinous. "It should be a given that we fund that program, it's not like we don't have the cash," he says, though she knows his indignation is losing its sting and he is already resigned to doing the job.
"I agree. But unfortunately, sometimes we all have to sing for our supper," she says, as she slides her arms around his neck. "Even you. At least they asked you and not Andrews."
He lets out a short laugh. "I'm better looking than Andrews."
She pretends to consider that seriously, and he rolls his eyes before he tilts his head down for a kiss.
"I'd better go prep for this thing," he sighs, and she gives him a bolstering smile.
"You've got this."
And true to form, the surgery that afternoon is clean, performed to the letter without a hitch. She watches the feed on a big screen that's been erected in the atrium of the hospital to seat the VIPs, and she knows she's biased but Neil's steady, confident voice explaining each of his precise movements make him the perfect ambassador for surgery. Whether he's reluctant or not, he has a charisma that's effortless.
She hears the murmurs of the impressed sponsors, and basks in the reflected admiration he's getting from the entire room. She's proud to be with him every day, but on days like this, it hits another level.
"Uh, can you quit drooling over him?" Morgan says, rolling her eyes.
"She can't help it, her man's now the face of cutting edge robotic surgery, it's irresistible," Park says, smirking.
She just shoots both of them a self-satisfied smile, tosses her hair over her shoulder, and keeps watching. The days of embarrassment over her colleagues knowing about her relationship with Neil are well behind her. Not many even remember now that when this started, she was his resident. A detail best left in the past, but not one that seems to have left any lasting damage.
There are drinks at the hospital that evening, to celebrate the success of another round of fundraising. She thought she'd be too drained for a party after a painfully drawn out week, but the buzz in the atmosphere is undeniable, and she knows Neil is getting swept up in it too. He tracks her down a little later, after he's done shaking hands with his many well-wishers and admirers. He has a self-satisfied smile on his face as he presses a glass of champagne into her hand.
"You've certainly cheered up. All this celebrity going to your head?" she teases. He grins in response.
"Nope," he answers. "It's mostly because Aoki just had me drink about eleven of these with the sponsors," he says, tapping her glass. She laughs incredulously.
"What happened to my responsible attending?" she says, wondering whether she's about to see him really letting loose.
"Not in attendance tonight," he replies distractedly, and she knows he must be considerably the worse for wear because suddenly he's got his arm slung around her waist and his lips are nuzzling against her ear. He is not usually one for overt public displays, but seemingly usual rules don't apply tonight. She thinks she can see Park smirking at them with Shaun across the room, but it's getting a little hard to concentrate when he starts moving closer to the underside of her jaw and murmuring distinctly filthy things in her ear.
"All right," she says hastily, nudging him off her. "If you're going to be like that, we need to get out of here," she says, raising her eyebrows.
"Works for me," he says, smirking, and she rolls her eyes, if only to disguise how much she loves this outrageously flirtatious side of him that's so rarely on public display.
She tugs on his hand and they make a semi-subtle exit through the side door, though the getaway is hindered when he suddenly seems determined to ramp up his efforts as soon as they're away from prying eyes.
"Will you behave?" she says, trying not to laugh as he detours them up against a convenient wall and leans in to kiss her soundly. She can't say she isn't willing, her fingers sliding keenly through his hair as her lips part to his.
"Do you really want me to?" he replies, halfway through the kiss, and she pauses.
She tightens her arms around his neck and pulls him back down. "No," she says breathily, and his laugh is lost in her kissing him hard as his hips press emphatically up against hers.
"On call room?" he suggests, a mischievous glint in his eye and she snorts.
"Oh god, what are we, horny first years?" she says. She had thought her days of messing around in those tiny bunks to be long gone; she's not a resident now and she should know better. Not least because they have a perfectly spacious and perfectly private king size waiting for them at home.
"The first part, yes," he says, and drops his lips to apply a very distracting pressure to her neck. She has to concede the point to him, because she now remembers that their place is at least a fifteen minute drive away, not counting the walk to the car park. And maybe there's something embarrassingly appealing about sneaking around the hospital with him again.
"If we get caught and reported to HR, I will be throwing you under the bus," she informs him, and he grins like he really is an idiot fresh out of med school.
"I'll make it worth your while," he promises, and she doesn't doubt it. He's never yet failed to make good on a promise like that.
This time is no exception.
It's funny, the things she remembers now, while she's on her knees watching his blood pool around them, trying uselessly to stem it with her fingers until someone finds them.
"Look at me," she says, her voice breaking. "You're going to be okay, you hear? You are not leaving me."
It's a desperate wish and it's not like she knows if that's the truth, but she can't allow herself to think of any other outcome. His eyes, clouded with pain, find hers, but they don't look scared.
They look like they do when he tells truths.
"I love you. So much," he says, and he manages to get his hand high enough to brush her cheek just slightly, leaving a tiny smear of blood when it falls.
It's funny, the things she remembers now, while she's holding his hand as they pump drugs through him in the ambulance, paramedics frantically working as he slips into unconsciousness.
Then later watching in horror in a hospital that isn't theirs as he flatlines, watching them shove her out the way so they can administer the paddles. Crack his chest and try to force him back to life.
She's never felt more helpless, or more afraid, while the life is ebbing out of him and all she can hear is the high-pitched screech of the heart rate alarm, following her as she's pushed out of the room. Told to wait.
It's funny the things she remembers now, while she's watching Neil die.
While she sits in the waiting room not knowing if he'll make it to tomorrow. She stays awake all night in case anything happens, but there's no word at all. And she's thinking about all those moments, all the tiny little things that led them here, watching them run through her mind like a videotape. And she's crying. She's crying so hard with her elbows on her knees and her hands pressed to her eyes that she can't see, can barely breathe. She hasn't cried so hard since her mother died.
All these memories of him, rushing to the fore, and all she can think is they're just not enough. What they got was not enough. He was meant to die when he was old and grey, surrounded by the kids he probably sweet-talked her into having a couple more of than she ever planned. His death was never meant to be some freak accident.
It's funny the things she remembers.
Life in a hospital is full of the unexpected.
She walks in on a ferocious three-way argument between Lim, Andrews and Neil one day. She blinks like a caught rabbit as all three of them turn to her, intensity crackling between them like an electrical current.
"Dr Browne, would you perform extremely high risk open foetal surgery for a forty-five year old patient with progressive heart failure who won't consent to a termination and whose husband is ready to file court papers if we go to surgery?"
"I- what?" she replies slowly. It's a bold opener from Dr Andrews, to lobby for support from the actual partner of the man he's arguing against, but she probably shouldn't be surprised. It's Marcus, after all.
"You can't ask her, she's got a conflict of interest," Lim says, rolling her eyes. Neil looks at her pointedly, arms folded rigidly.
"And you don't? This woman's story doesn't hit you differently, because of what happened with you and Kashal? You're completely objective?"
She has no idea what that's a reference to, but it obviously strikes Lim where it's meant to. Her face looks like thunder as she rounds on Neil, who squares up to her defiantly. Claire has the distinct feeling that she's inadvertently walked into the worst possible room at the worst possible time. She has a knack for that.
"Oh, that is so rich coming from you. You are always wanting to rush in and be the hero. How many times have I had to stop you doing something stupid? You're not doing the surgery, it's too high risk. So find a way to convince the mother to terminate or she and the baby both die."
There's a moment of horribly awkward silence as Lim whirls out of the room and slams the door behind her, leaving Claire glancing between Neil and Marcus.
"I just came in here to get my pass," she says weakly, by say of explanation, pointing at it sitting forgotten on the table. There's another tense silence, before Marcus shrugs, and claps Neil on the back before he strides out of the room too. It leaves her and Neil, and the remnants of the tense atmosphere trickling slowly away.
"Um," she says, walking up to him with hands on hips. "What on earth was that?"
He sighs heavily and shakes his head, turning away.
"Minor disagreement," he mutters. She purses her lips as she walks over to the table to collect her pass.
"Sounded pretty personal to me," she says. He sighs again and turns back to her, reaching for her hand and running his thumb over the delicate skin of her palm.
"We all have reasons to be invested in this case. It's not my place to tell you why Audrey is, but I'm sure you got the gist from what I said," he says, looking like he's feeling more than a little guilty for letting so much slip. He'll apologise for it, she's sure, and Lim will probably let it go.
"She... lost a baby?"
"Under similar circumstances," he says, downcast. "And Andrews, he has his own reasons for prioritising an adult life and a marriage over a hypothetical child."
"What about you?" she asks, quietly. She's standing right in front of him again, and he looks at her with a deep-rooted pain carved into his expression.
"Pretty obvious why I want to save both. Whatever it takes."
She nods slowly, and reaches her hand up to his cheek.
"I don't know which of you three is most right today. I do know you have your patient's interests at heart."
"But I'm not objective," he admits. "How can I be?"
Both of them pause and look down then. Her belly is flat, but it doesn't tell the whole story. Nobody knows but the two of them, not while everything is still so fragile, but there is definitely a reason why he can't be impartial with this patient.
"Every time I look at her I imagine it's you," he admits. "And I get why the father is so terrified of losing his wife that he wants to terminate. I know I would do anything to save you. But this could well be their last chance at a child, and I understand why the mother doesn't want to give up on that if there's even a tiny chance..." he tails off, and her heart aches for him, and for the people, the real live people, going through this. She cannot even begin to imagine the agony.
"You are an amazing surgeon," she says, her hands cradling his face. "The greatest gift you can give them is to be their doctor, and to give them the possibilities nobody else in this hospital could. But this decision is not yours. You can only do so much. If you can't save that baby, it doesn't mean you don't deserve ours."
He lets out a shaky breath, and she knows that she's reached the heart of this twisting ethical quandary. It's personal, in the way that so many patients are. Their patients are them; for such a divided world there is so little separating each individual human life when all the layers of disguise and distraction are finally peeled back.
"It doesn't feel right," he says, softly. "To let myself be happy about what we have, when other people are losing lives, jobs, a baby they fought their whole lives to have."
"I know," she replies, because she feels it too. Their lives are punctuated by sad stories, broken hearts, obituaries, unfinished business. Sometimes happiness seems to have no place in them at all. "We both know life is not fair. And it sucks. But the reason we're here is to make a few more things right in the world, whenever we can. And being happy about our baby is definitely something that's right."
For the first time the deep tension in his brow seem to ease, even if just slightly. He lets out a long breath, looking down at her through pensive eyes. He lifts his hand to cup her cheek, and she leans into him. She thinks, as long as they have each other, there's always a way through.
"It's going to be okay," she whispers, leaning her forehead against his.
That night, Claire cradles him in her arms, his head resting on her chest, and she presses her lips to his damp, hot forehead. Her fingers work tenderly through his hair, stroking and soothing, and he pants against her skin as his body cools. The sweat is drying on their bare skin as they lie there together in the dead of night, so entangled in each other it's difficult to work out where she ends and he begins.
The baby died, and no surgery was possible in the end.
His hand still rests over her stomach, where there is barely anything to feel, too early for any flicker of life to be felt beneath her skin. But she knows, a strange feeling deep in her soul, that their child is there. Safe.
He seems comforted by the feel of her under his skin, seems unwilling to stop touching her even for a second. She doesn't mind it, and adjusts him in her arms so she can run her fingers down his neck, the broad planes of his shoulders.
She doesn't know why the roll of the dice is sometimes so unjust. She knows how his heart is heavy with the pain he feels for the tiny life he could not save, for the people who must live without it. Her heart is heavy too, tied as it is to his.
But despite the sorrow, there is a sense of calm that spreads between them, a knowledge that between the two of them they will navigate through any storm. His patient's baby did not survive, but his patient did. Life goes on, as it must.
"I love you," he says, a quiet murmur into her skin.
"I love you too," she replies, just as quiet, a conviction that needs no further explication.
He lifts himself up on his forearms, and presses his lips softly to hers, before he realigns them with her body curved into his and his fingers linked with hers over her belly. His breathing is gentle and slow, and matches itself to hers. It carries them both to sleep.
"Holy shit, Claire, I just heard-"
She'd know the voice and the rapid footsteps anywhere and it's just as well. She can barely see through her tears and she all but collapses in on Morgan when she puts her arm around her shoulders. She doesn't know how she knew where to find her, but she's sure as hell glad she did.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. Neil's-"
"I know, I got some nurse to read me his file."
"What am I going to do if he- if-"
"Let's not do that," Morgan says bracingly. She grips Claire's hand tightly, and for a time they just sit there, and it feels like time is a physical barrier she's forced to wade through, agonising and choking as the seconds tick by and nobody says a word. Her back is aching, her legs aching from the way she's been sitting in the hard chair, stiff as a board, and she thinks she's about to lose her mind if she doesn't hear something, anything new.
"Mrs Melendez?"
She looks up, dimly, more because someone has spoken than because she recognises that combination of words. Then she realises the unfamiliar, oh so young doctor is talking to her. Somebody has sent her out to talk to the patient's wife, to brief the family, just like she's had to do a thousand times before.
"I'm-" she says, her voice thick and uneven as she gets gracelessly to her feet. She starts to twist and twist the thin gold band on her finger compulsively. "Yes."
She feels sick to her stomach; her eyes have run out of tears by now, and it's not the time to quibble about titles, about the fact that she is and always will be Dr Browne. She only needs to know, to know one thing, is he okay or is he-
"Your husband made it through emergency surgery,"
She breaks down again instantly, dropping back into the chair and covering her face with her hands as her shoulders shake in silent sobs of relief. Morgan rubs her back, and she can hear her asking the doctor rapid fire questions, asking whether he's stable and were there complications and can they see him now. But she can hardly hear it, her mind so numb with the relief that he is still here, he's not gone yet.
She feels sick to her stomach with how close she has already come to watching him die.
"He's not out of the woods yet, I'm afraid," warns the young doctor, and she knows she shouldn't let her hopes run riot. She is a doctor, and she suddenly remembers the blood. Everything steeped in blood. Neil's life still hangs in the balance, and she has no idea if she will ever speak with him again.
"Can I see him?" she croaks, scrubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. The doctor nods, and Claire gets cautiously to her feet.
She discovers there is something uniquely chilling about being a doctor and sitting by the ICU bed of the one you love most, knowing exactly how bad the prognosis could be. He may go into respiratory distress. His heart could stop. His brain might have been starved of oxygen the last time it did. Maybe he'll never wake up. The catastrophising is endless, and the fear overwhelms her.
"Neil, you know, I'm going to need you to be okay," she says, breaking the silence when it becomes oppressive. The clinical beeps of his monitors are a backing track that she lives with day in and day out. Now, those mundane noises become a thousand times louder and more sinister than ever before. Her own voice sounds oddly unfamiliar to her ears, oddly displaced.
"It's not just me who needs you around," she talks, though there are hot, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks. She grips the side of his bed, afraid to touch his skin. Barely a part of him she can see is undamaged.
Eight months pregnant now, and she does not want to do this alone.
"See, you kind of have to come back," she chokes out. "Because you were always meant to be a dad. And I didn't think I could ever have anything close to what we have until you showed me what it feels like to be loved. You changed my whole life into something else, something so much more than I thought I deserved. You made me feel like I could do this, Neil. And I'm not ready to lose you."
But she knows ready or not, some things are out of everyone's hands.
She breaks down into choking sobs, clutching the rail of his bed so tightly her hands tremble. Her head is bowed and she can barely see; this is why, she thinks, she was always so afraid to love before. The scale of loss is unthinkable. It's why she-
"Not... dead yet."
She almost chokes on the breath she suddenly takes, flying to her feet so she can see his face.
"Neil?" she says, heart racing. His eyes are still closed, but his lips are slightly parted, cracked and dry.
"Mm."
He seems to make a gargantuan effort then to crack his eyelids just slightly, and give her the tiniest of smiles when he eventually manages to focus on her face.
"Look like... you've seen... a ghost," he mumbles, and she laughs through her overwrought, exhausted tears.
"Thank God I haven't," she replies, gingerly placing her palm to his cheekbone so as not to interfere with any of his injuries. He lets his eyes flicker shut, and she studies him and his stats with a critical eye. Everything looks as okay as it could be, for now. His complexion is drawn and grey but that's hardly surprising. If he's already conscious and talking, that can only be a good sign...
"Claire," he says suddenly. She looks at him, concerned.
"Yes?"
"Baby okay?"
She smiles at him, her heart constricting painfully. Trust him to think of them before his own condition, while lying in an ICU bed.
"Yeah, Neil, the baby's okay," she whispers. "We're fine. We're right here with you, okay?"
"Mm," he says, and then he opens one eye. "Stay?"
She smiles. "Of course. Sleep now. We'll be here when you wake up."
He relaxes, and seems to drift off after that. She sits back and observes, unable to stop herself from monitoring everything. His heart rhythm is reassuringly steady, and the numbers are safe. Nurses flit in and out and check on him, and she can barely bring herself to look away, but he sleeps peacefully and without stirring.
Maybe he's really okay.
He's been developing something of an addiction to having her bare skin on his, in the few weeks since they got together. It's not even just when they have sex; sometimes he'll undress them both and just hold her, for hours, his body wrapped around hers.
She doesn't mind, even stops wearing anything to bed at all, since she knows it'll just end up on the floor. And she loves the way he touches her. He's skilled in ways she has only ever imagined before; the real thing with him somehow exceeds all expectations.
She has noticed how tactile he is. His hands are always seeking her out to hold, to stroke, sometimes to work up into a mind-blowing frenzy like nothing she's ever felt before. More often than not she wakes up to him, sliding his hands over her body, slowly dragging her from sleep to a slow state of sleep-heavy arousal. It's become an addiction for her as much as him.
But the longer it goes on, the more she wonders whether he's always been like that, with his partners. Or is she special? The other way round, it's not even a contest. There is nobody at all in her past she's ever lain in a bed for hours with, just to feel close to them.
"Do you think what we have is the real thing?" she asks one weekend morning, post sex, when she's sick of speculating. She has her back to him and it's a bit of a cop out, starting this conversation when he can't see her face, but it feels easier this way.
"Yes," he answers, his lips against her shoulder. And she can hear the perplexed frown in his answer but to his credit, he didn't even hesitate.
"Is it different for you? From... other people?"
"Yes," he says again, and she waits. He doesn't say anything more, and she realises he's deliberately holding back, waiting for her to either elaborate or turn around and look at him.
She sighs, and rolls over.
"I've never been in love with anyone else," she says, holding nothing back. "I've never had anything like this before. But you... almost married someone."
He lets out a long breath. "Yeah," he says. "And I did love her, I'm not denying that. But with Jess it was a different relationship... Not such a healthy one. We were forever sizing each other up. Always having to make compromises and nobody ending happy about it."
His hand moves in slow circles over her hip.
"With you... it's not a competition." He shakes his head. "I don't feel like I'm heading off a fight, or sidestepping things that might cause trouble. Do you?"
"No," she admits. He's right; haven't butted heads on anything serious in a long time. Even before they were together, they had reached some kind of peaceful harmony in so many ways. A far cry from where they started out, but a balance that she's come to rely on with her entire being.
"I didn't know what I was missing," he says softly. "Maybe I've been in love before, but I didn't know it was meant to be like this."
A small smile spreads across her face then; she has always dreaded having a conversation like this, but it has proven itself worth it. The way he looks at her is worth it.
She leans in and kisses him with slow certainty, saying back to him everything she is too overwhelmed to put into words.
"Claire, you are almost nine months pregnant."
"Do you think I don't know that?" she shoots Morgan a deeply scathing look, which no doubt bounces right off Morgan's military grade thick skin.
"Don't you think maybe you should be taking it easy, not moving all this shit around and trying to build furniture? Oh my God, give me that-" she snatches the screwdriver out if Claire's hand, and Claire almost screeches in annoyance.
The house is a mess. There's boxes everywhere. A crib is half assembled in the living room. Why did they wait until the last minute to start putting it all together? No doubt because they were both so busy working, even her, up until Neil was hospitalised. Always thought there would be some quiet time to do the things that had to be done before the baby arrived.
Now she's so pregnant she can't bend over, Neil's in the hospital, and she's pretty sure if she tries to lift anything heavier than a cardboard box the baby will just pop right out of her.
"What are you doing?" She snaps, as Morgan starts dialling on her phone. Morgan shoots her a snide look in return. No sympathy even for the catastrophically pregnant among them.
"I'm calling Park," she announces. "He's the only one of us who's done all this crap before. Maybe he knows which way round this stupid headboard is meant to go.
Claire gives up and sits back while Morgan makes the call, her head thumping against the armchair she's leaning her back against while sitting on the floor.
"Why is everything I do always such a mess?" she laments, once Park's agreed to a rescue mission. Morgan rolls her eyes.
"Oh, don't be such a whiner," Morgan says nonchalantly. "You're about to have a kid with the love of your life, who's not even dead, even though a hospital fell on him. I'd say you're pretty lucky."
Claire snorts, because nobody has a way with words quite like Morgan. Brutal, beautiful, probably true.
"You're right," she says, and she gives a half-apologetic smile. "I guess I just wanted everything to be perfect, you know. For him."
"Claire. He's not going to care what the house looks like. He's coming home. He just wants to see you."
She fiddles with the packaging from the crib, studying the shreds of cardboard.
"I know," she says softly. But maybe it's more than that; maybe she's afraid of how quickly her life descended into disarray without him as the steady, ever-present counterbalance she only now realises she has come to depend on so heavily. Maybe she can't do on her own anymore, and that terrifies her.
"Somebody call for a doctor who actually knows how to handle power tools?"
Park's voice, in the hall, makes her automatically smile. She looks up, and gestures helplessly at the scattered pieces of wood and dislodged screws.
"Now, I can't lie to you, Claire. Mia one hundred percent assembled Kellen's crib while I slept off a night shift," Park says, spreading out the diagram of instructions and squinting. "But surely three medical degrees can get this thing up?"
"Maybe I should have just called Mia," Morgan says, and Park rolls his eyes at her.
And Claire sits back and laughs, and somewhere along the way she thinks she forgets to feel afraid.
Because in just under an hour her friends have built her a crib and a pram, and have somehow managed to usher all the mess out of her house so it looks- well, perhaps not tidy, but passable. Not the chaotic mess she'd allowed to build up for weeks.
She slings her arms around both of them in a fit of gratitude and affection, to the extent that her pregnancy allows. Maybe, she realises, she doesn't actually have to be on her own anymore. No matter what fires are started in the backdrop of her life.
Maybe she's done being alone for good.
"Hey, is that-" Morgan says, and she peers behind the blinds, then abruptly pulls back. "Yep. Alex, that's our cue, get your coat," she says, and she only gives him enough time to get one arm in before she's marching him towards the door.
"Er- bye-" Claire calls, lamely, as they disappear into the hallway, Alex protesting and Morgan ignoring him. Not for the first time, she wonders whether the wind is changing between those two, but she doesn't have time to give it much thought. The reason for their departure is all too clear; the car that's pulled up in the driveway belongs to Marcus Andrews.
And inside it, Neil.
She tried to say she'd come and collect him, but she's been nervous about driving any longer distances so close to her due date. It's difficult to even get behind the wheel. So she's grateful to Marcus - reaches out to embrace him, even - as he gets out of the car, and squeezes her hand warmly.
And then she turns around. And sees him, climbing carefully out of the passenger seat. And it feels like seeing stars flicker to life in the endless empty sky.
"You're home," she chokes out, as she lets him pull her into his arms, his lips pressed to her temple as he holds her close.
"I said I'd always come back to you, didn't I?" he says, and she laughs and cries and shakes in his arms, and he leads her up the driveway until they're both home again.
She's got a thing about people leaving, she knows. It's not that surprising, all things considered, but she is surprised by how strongly she reacts to news that he's going away to work on a humanitarian program even if only for a few weeks. She can't go with him, not with her relentless, gruelling schedule in her final year.
But it's still a wrench, the day he is due to leave. Since they got together she hasn't spent more than a night away from him, and it affects her more than she'd like that he's going. She tries to hide it. To be cool and collected, like him. But on the inside she's wound up, her thoughts rattling around in her head like a fly bouncing off walls. And of course he knows it. He always does.
It's just before sunrise, and the air is a little bit cool. But it doesn't reach her because he's got a thick blanket wrapped around them, tucked carefully over her body with his arms tight around hers. She smiles and squeezes his hand.
She's in the space between his legs, his back against the wall, and their hands are linked in front of her. She couldn't sleep, and her tossing and turning woke him, and instead of rolling over and going back to sleep or complaining, he just said "let's watch the sunrise," so here they are. That peaceful time before the world wakes up; it feels as if it could be only the two, the three, of them for miles around.
She even feels a little drowsy now, warm and safe against his body, her head pillowed softly on his shoulder. The first rays of day are breaking over the horizon, an otherworldly pink half-light spreading all around them.
"I forget how beautiful the world is," she says sleepily. He laughs.
"I don't. I have you to look at."
"Not for the next four weeks," she mumbles, and turns over slightly so her head is pressed into the crook of his neck, her arm tucked around his neck.
He beautiful in this light, playful but underlaid with a sombre stillness; the thing about him is that he's always had a timelessness, an old-soul gravity that always makes her stop and stare.
"Do you really have to go?" she says sleepily, and he smiles gently.
"I'm afraid so. But whatever happens, I'm always coming home to you," he replies, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "Every time."
She smiles back then, and tilts her head to kiss his lips, basking in these last moments with him before they are separated. Trusting that it will not be forever, that nothing on this earth will part them for long.
The sun breaks through the sky, and turns the world from dusky rose to brilliant gold, chasing away the dull grey of the night.
She looks at him, and he could be otherworldly, the way the sunlight catches every line of him, catches the silver in his hair and the shine of his dark eyes. He could be immortal, he could be eternal.
She thinks some part of them, together, already is.