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“He understands why people hold hands:
he’d always thought it was about possessiveness, saying this is mine.
But it’s about maintaining contact. It is about speaking without words.
It is about I want you with me and don’t go."
― City of Bones // Cassandra Clare
Kai Bartley is distracting.
This is something Amelia has known since her residency. It’s not a new realisation.
But it had still caught her off guard when Dr. Hamilton had introduced them, when they’d walked in, when they’d smiled at her and really all she’d been able to think was oh god.
Now it’s been a little over two months of the two of them working together, and they’re not getting any less distracting, not getting any less attractive . And Amelia is finding it a lot harder to deny, as Maggie would put it, that she has a crush.
And it’s not what she needs at the moment, this level of distraction. There’s enough going on in her life as it is. Even now as Amelia makes her way through the empty parking lot towards her car, she can feel the background levels of anxiety simmering in her chest. It’s late, but still earlier than she usually leaves. It averaged out to her spending three days a week in Minnesota in the end, which lines up with what she and Link had worked out all those months ago.
But she needs to get back for Maggie, and needs to pick up Scout, and it’s not like she didn’t know what she was walking into, taking on this project, working with this team. But as much as she loves it, as much as it challenges her, it’s tiring.
It doesn't help that Kai is a genius in their own right. It’s been a while since she’d been around someone who could challenge her when it came to neurosurgery. Derek was one thing, but they had always argued too much to actually get any sort of productive outcome from working together.
Here it’s different. Here her head hurts sometimes trying to keep up, but she feels engaged with it, feels like maybe this is what she needs after everything. They encourage her to look further, and she pushes for bolder approaches, setting logic aside and trying to build something entirely new.
Whether it’ll actually work is something else entirely, but for the first time in a while, she feels awake.
It had been a nightmare at the beginning, so she’s not even sure how this had happened.
She’s been keeping up to date with their work for years, but it’s one thing reading about someone with a vague memory of residency attached. It's something else entirely to spend most of your day working with them. There were always bound to be clashes, she’d just assumed mutual respect would balance it out. But what she hadn’t accounted for was that they both have a bit of an authority issue.
A bit being a generous description.
So they had clashed at the start. A lot.
They'd argued and pushed and they had kept doing that for far too long until something clicked.
Or maybe it had just changed.
Amelia’s half asleep on one of the couches in the neuro lab when the door slides open. Her flight is early tomorrow, and she hadn’t had it in her to drive back to a hotel, not tonight. They’ve been here for a little over a month, and the lack of immediate progress is starting to grate on her nerves, exhaust her.
Even in the disorientated mid-point between sleep and consciousness, she can hear the quiet footsteps moving around the lab, seemingly careful not to make too much noise. A minute later, she feels a light pressure fall over her. It’s only when she feels something soft brush against her arm that she realises it’s a blanket. Her fingers curl around the knitted fabric, and she thinks she mumbles a quiet thank you before she drifts back to sleep.
When she wakes up, there’s a takeout cup of coffee on the table. She wonders if they asked Meredith how she takes it.
She wonders if it’s just something they know.
Meredith and her don’t cross paths as much as she would’ve liked, schedule nightmares mostly, and so Amelia ends up spending most of her time with Kai Bartley.
The clashing tension eases. Slowly, it eases.
Something else takes its place.
It comes in the form of smiles first. She finds it easier to smile around them, easier to laugh. The neuroscientist is still a mystery to her in a thousand different ways, but she knows they like black coffee with too much sugar, and knows there’s a Thai place down the road that they love.
But the issue is that Kai is starting to get tangled up in that feeling of belonging, of adrenaline and butterflies. There’s a part of her that wonders where the line blurred, when she stopped thinking about rings and beaches and such an overwhelming feeling of nothing, and started thinking about half moon piercings and bright hazel eyes and that clever, quiet smile.
There’s an invisible line here, between friendship and something a lot more volatile, something a lot more likely to explode in her face, to hurt . She should know, she’s walked it too many times to count, isn’t particularly eager to go there again.
So this distraction, she thinks, annoyed as she pulls out her car keys, is inconvenient. It's inconvenient, and she’s trying to focus on curing an incurable neurodegenerative disorder with a ticking time bomb of a patient relying on them to save his life.
They’re distracting. If she was being harsh, she’d emphasise that they’re specifically distracting her.
She very much doubts that anyone else's stomach flips every time the neuroscientist walks into a fucking room after months of working together, and it's setting her nerves on edge and making her feel like a mess of a teenager and-
“You left early today.”
Amelia freezes with her hand on the car door, turning to face Kai. She hadn’t heard them approach, too wrapped up in her own head. They’re in a leather jacket she hasn’t seen before, piercings glittering up their ears, so beautiful it's making something in her chest ache.
“I booked an earlier flight, it’s my sister's birthday tomorrow.”
“Dr Grey?” They ask, stepping closer to lean against the car door. She feels the fabric of their jacket brush her arm gently as they shift, wonders if they can hear her heart rate right now.
Amelia shakes her head, trying to remember how to have a normal conversation. “My other sister Maggie. It’s a long story.”
“Right.” They’re giving her a look she can’t decipher, something that’s been happening more often than not lately. It makes her want to run, mostly because she’s scared of what it means.
Mostly because she so desperately wants to know what it means.
“It’ll be quiet without you this weekend,” they say after a beat of silence, “that lab is far too big for one person.”
Amelia laughs, tension in her shoulders easing a little. It does that around them, she finds it easier to smile.
“You’ll have to work out a way to live without me for a couple of days, might even have to go for Thai on your own.”
“This is coming from the person who pushes for delivery every time because she can’t be bothered to move, and why can’t we just eat in the same room as the tech worth millions of dollars?
“Well,” she says with a grin, “maybe i’ll come with you next time.”
Their gaze is nothing but steady. “I’d like that.”
And suddenly they’re close, close that she has to look up to meet their eyes. The conversation has shifted, she can barely keep up. Amelia doesn’t remember how they got here, why all she wants to do is freeze time in this moment. She suddenly feels dizzyingly, terrifyingly out of her depth, and that carefully walked line blurs.
Just for a moment, it blurs.
“What are we doing?” She says quietly, and something flashes through Kai’s gaze, too quick to catch.
“What do you think?” There’s no malice in the question, just a gentle sort of curiosity. She realises they’re genuinely interested in the answer. She wishes she had one to give.
“I don’t know what to think,” Amelia says, and suddenly she doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry, has the almost uncontrollable urge to do both. “I don’t know what i’m doing, what we’re doing, what-”
“Amelia,” Kai says, cutting her off gently, and if they’re surprised at the sudden outburst, it doesn't show. There’s no anger in their eyes, just that achingly soft look on their face, and something else that’s so very unreadable. There’s a part of her registers that this is the first time they’ve called her anything other than Dr Shepherd. It twists her stomach into knots. “You don’t always have to know what you’re doing.”
She laughs then, but she’s exhausted and it comes out with less amusement than she’d intended.
“I don’t think i’ve known what i’m doing for a while now.”
A half smile from Kai, and they’re graceful in a way that makes her want to keep staring. Her gaze is drawn to those silver piercings glittering up their ears, she doesn’t know why that feels important right now.
“You’re brilliant, you don’t need me to tell you that. But no one’s asking you to be perfect all the time.”
Amelia just nods, swallowing against a lump in her throat. She doesn’t know where this is coming from, but it feels like something sharp is lodged in her chest. She doesn’t know how to explain it, feels a familiar flare of panic at the fact that now they’re seeing all of her and she thinks it’s almost inevitable that she’s about to break, knows she will if they ask.
But they don’t say anything, just watching her for another moment in silence until she finally drags her gaze up to meet their eyes.
“What?”
In answer, Kai reaches out to take her hand gently, turning it over so her palm faces up. Their fingers are so warm, and the contact sends something lightning fast bolting down her spine.
They hum quietly, touching the lines on her palm absentmindedly with their other hand, grip gentle.
“Pretty sure this says you’re going to live a long happy life.” Amelia isn’t sure she’s breathing, the knot in her chest loosening as her gaze follows Kai’s fingers tracing along her palm. They’ve danced the line before, but never this far, never like this. “You’ll find someone who wants to keep you smiling, probably save the world while you’re at it.”
She laughs shakily, pulling her hand away before she does something stupid like kiss them or bolt, lifting her eyes back up to their face.
“Pretty sure you’re talking shit Dr Bartley.”
“Well,” they say, eyes steady on hers, and something in her stomach flips. “That depends on where you’re standing.”
“I’m a mess,” she whispers, so quietly that it’s barely audible, closing her eyes. “Kai I’m a mess okay? And I don’t want to be too much for you or anyone else and-”
They cut across her again, something softening in their voice now. “We’re all a bit of a mess Amelia, okay? That doesn’t scare me.”
They smile at her then, reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. They’re so close that she can count every fleck of gold in their eyes, and she doesn’t know what to do with her hands or whether to run or stay or-
“I’m going to kiss you now,” they say with that same half smile, thumb brushing her cheek. “So just stand still for a second, will you?”
Kai kisses like they do everything else. Languid, unhurried. Something tightly coiled in her relaxes as their lips brush together. There’s something sweet about this, something soft, and they taste like lemonade. She hasn’t been near someone like this in a long time, hasn't felt this safe in a long time either. It's like they have all the time in the world to kiss her, and it's enough to make her knees feel weak.
Amelia’s cheeks feel warm when eventually she pulls away, fingers ghosting their face. She’s scared to look away, scared of shattering this moment.
“Hi,” Kai says with a faint smile, and god she feels fifteen again, heart hammering in her chest, an aching pressure on her ribs.
She gets the strangest urge to laugh, can taste citrus and something sweet as they reach up, tucking a strand of hair gently away from her face. Their fingers are so warm.
“You kissed me,” she says, and there’s something a little breathless in the words.
“Don’t freak out,” they say, and there’s amusement in their eyes now, gently teasing, but all she can think about is how fucking close they are.
“I’m not freaking out,” she murmurs, shifting forward as they brush her hair back again, wanting more, just wanting to be closer . “I don’t freak out.”
A quiet hum, more than a little disbelieving, but then they’re kissing her again, her hands are tangled in their hair and she’s laughing into the kiss, something so warm flaring to life in her chest.
Kai’s hands drop to her waist, tugging her closer and she closes her eyes as the kiss deepens, thinking that just maybe this is something she’d be happy doing forever and-
“Shit,” she mumbles, pulling away and her cheeks are burning and she can’t stop fucking smiling and they’re looking at her like that and it’s all knowing amusement, grip tight on her waist.
“You okay?”
She resists the urge to pull them towards her. “I need to get to the airport.”
"Sure you don't want to stay, say, five more minutes?"
Amelia laughs and she doesn't remember the last time she'd laughed like this, the last time her head had felt this clear, this empty of that too familiar white noise.
"I'll be back in two days," she tilts her head to one side with a smile. "Don't miss me too much."
Kai reaches past her and pulls open the car door. Then they lace their fingers together gently, tugging her back into another kiss, and just for a second, Amelia lets herself lean into that warmth, that feeling of safety.
"Wouldn't dream of it," they say quietly, and Amelia wishes she could freeze time, just for a minute.
She’s still smiling when she starts the engine.