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“Dr. Griffin,” Abby hears someone call as she heads towards the locker room, one of her hands massaging the cramp out of her tired neck.
In a perfect world this would be where she closed her eyes and magically transported home, where she could slip into a hot bath and sip on a glass of red wine. It’s been a terribly long day, and she aches just about everywhere. But this is not a perfect world, and she’s still on-call. So she turns on her heels and forces the exhaustion from her features. A rush of relief floods her body when she sees it’s only Jackson, holding up his hand and waving goodbye, already wearing his jacket and ready to leave the hospital.
“Have a good night. I’ll see you in the morning,” she says with a friendly smile, giving him a small wave as well before turning back around.
It’s late and chilly when she later exists the hospital. She pulls the zipper up on her leather jacket and straightens the straps of her backpack so they’re more comfortable on her shoulders. Her braid gets caught underneath one of the straps and she lifts the weighty bag to pull it free. The doctor takes another moment to adjust and then starts her short walk to the bus stop where she catches the 9:48 every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday night.
Abigail Griffin lives in a much quieter town just outside of the city she works in. On Sundays she drives into the city, but the traffic during the week is too much of a headache for her. Instead, she drives to the closest bus stop to her house and takes the bus, which also gives her time to read. The ride isn’t too long, lasting just over thirty minutes, and then her drive home is only another five.
Usually, by the time she gets home she’s already ready to fall into bed. So most nights she only jumps into the shower and then goes to sleep. If she’s feeling like she can handle a little more than that, she’ll throw together some dinner and see if her daughter, Clarke, is available for a quick check-in call. Most nights she’s busy with schoolwork, and Abby’s brain is drained, so their phone calls are more silence than talking. Abby knows her daughter only stays on the phone because Abby misses her and even the silence makes her feel like she’s back home for a little while. Clarke gets that compassion from her father, Jake, Abby thinks with a sad smile as she fingers the wedding band she wears on a chain around her neck.
The screeching sound of the bus arriving breaks her reverie and Abby tucks the necklace back into her black leather jacket. She squints at the bright headlights and stands up from the bench she took a seat on. It’s just her and a nurse she recognizes from pediatrics, and the two of them board quickly. The driver is a friendly gentleman who always seems happy when he greets the passengers, his wide, toothy grin brightening up even her worst days. Abby makes sure to return his smile every night before she heads to her usual seat in the middle of the bus.
When she sits down and slips her heavy bag from her shoulders, the doctor breathes out a tired sigh. What she would give for a good massage right now, she thinks, rubbing her right shoulder and the back of her neck. She rolls her fingers in soothing circles at her temples and then unzips her bag and locates the medical journal she’d tucked in there earlier. She drops her bag down between her slender legs and gets comfortable against the side of the bus, looking around the nearly empty bus before she thumbs open the journal and starts reading an article.
The words start to blur and bleed into one another after a few minutes, and even though she tries to fight it, her eyelids grow heavy and continuously fall shut for long moments. It gets to the point where she no longer has any idea what she’s reading. Within almost no time at all she’s fallen asleep, her head resting on the arm she’d draped over the back of her seat as she read.
She’s used to sleeping whenever and wherever she can. During her residency she’d fallen asleep in the stairwell once, unintentionally, while taking a breather, and had woken up with a terrible pain all along the left side of her body that she’d spent the entire day trying to get rid of. It’s been many years since then; she’s not exactly used to it, but she’s learned to accept that it comes with the job.
It’s the feeling of a strong hand on her shoulder that wakes her, familiar in a way that it really shouldn’t be. She’s a light sleeper, easily woken and quick to come to full consciousness. But she hums in her throat and finds herself wanting to sink into that small amount of warmth that radiates from the person’s hand. A low chuckle meets her ear and the hand gives her shoulder a squeeze. Abby blinks her eyes open and looks at the young woman who’s sitting in the seat behind her. She smiles sheepishly at her and pulls away from the touch, looking out of the window to see where they are - of course, she already knows, though, because this is part of her weekly routine just as much as picking up coffee before heading into work.
“Hey there, Sleeping Beauty,” the younger woman says when Abby faces her again, stretching her back and then reaching for the medical journal that’s laying on her lap. Deep brown eyes flick down and a slight smirk teases at her mouth before the other woman licks her lips and then sits back in her seat.
The corner of Abby’s mouth quirks slightly, the nickname something that’s stuck since the first time she’d fallen asleep on her ride home and the brunette cautiously woke her up so she wouldn’t miss her stop. She’s never asked Abby her name, and the doctor has never tried to give it to her. If anyone else were to call her that, she would stop them - but she finds she likes it with her, likes the affection that slips into her tone when she says it. It’s been nearly five months since that first night, and yet they’ve spoken very little. From what little they have said to each other, Abby has learned that the brunette is either the biggest flirt she’s ever met or overly friendly with strangers. But she’s never seen her talk to anyone else, so she's guessing it's the former. She admitted to herself a while ago that she likes the attention, and it excites Abby just hearing the girl's voice - which is why she’s never attempted to actually get to know the much younger woman (Abby’s guessing the girl is at least 20 years her junior, closer to her daughter’s age than her own). That excitement is just too strong, more than it should be.
“I didn’t see you get on,” the doctor says while reaching down for her pack to put up the journal. They usually exchange smiles when the younger brunette gets on the bus, her eyes always lighting up when she spots Abby. The doctor’s stomach gets heavy when she notices they’re nearing the stop where the other woman boards, and it only worsens when she sees a flash of red from a familiar jacket.
“Kinda hard to see anything when you’re off in dreamland,” she says amusedly. “You usually wait for me to get here before you fall asleep.” There’s a hint of accusation in her tone.
The doctor doesn’t comment on how true the observation is, because it’s a bit ridiculous that she usually does fight through her exhaustion just so she can greet the woman who will later make sure she’s awake when it comes time for her to get off the bus.
“You must not have wanted to see me all that badly today,” she teases.
Abby hears the teasing in her voice but still says, “I’m almost certain you don’t truly believe that.”
The brunette bites the corner of her lip, and when Abby’s eyes are drawn to the movement, the girl grins smugly. “Nah, I know you always want to see me. I mean, why wouldn’t you? I do look really good in this crappy bus lighting.”
Abby snort-laughs at the mix of sarcasm and confidence that seems to come so naturally to her. As she gets ready to get off, she gives the younger woman a quick once-over. The doctor has caught herself thinking about the other woman’s tanned skin and attractive features more times than she cares to admit, but she can’t really be blamed when the young woman is so effortlessly gorgeous.
“Anyone ever tell you cockiness is an unattractive quality?” Abby asks with a straight face, her tone serious even as her brain shows her images of that smug little smirk the woman always manages to give her at least once each time they see each other - and that is anything but unattractive.
She shakes her head and eyes Abby challengingly, thinking something over before leaning into the older brunette’s personal space and raising one of her eyebrows. “I don’t have any unattractive qualities, at least you don’t seem to think I do,” she says close to Abby’s ear, her breath tickling the doctor’s skin. A shiver crawls up her spine and she has to force herself not to let it show. It’s only the bus coming to a stop that makes her pull herself together, though. “I’ll see you tomorrow night,” she whispers without waiting to see if the doctor will respond to what she said, and then Abby grabs her bag and stands.
Feeling the familiar tumble in her lower belly that this woman so often causes in the matter of minutes, Abby licks her lips and gives her one more glance before pushing the back door so she can step off the bus. “Get home safely,” Abby tells her, and then she leaves the smirking brunette behind.
Despite the night’s low temperature, Abby’s skin burns with heat all the way home. She hasn’t stopped thinking about the way it felt to have the other woman’s breath on her skin since she’s stepped off that bus - even now in her bed the memory of the prickling sensation won’t go away. Abby rolls over in her too large, too empty bed and stares up at the ceiling, one of her arms bent beneath her head and the other wrapped around her midsection. She breathes out slowly into the quiet room and then tries to get her mind off the woman on the bus.
It’s only her exhaustion that gets the thoughts to stop. But she dreams of her - of a breath that teases her sensitive skin, of eyes that glow with mirth and darken with something else entirely when Abby shudders. The dream is vivid, almost too vivid to only be a dream. The younger brunette licks her lips without looking away from the doctor. Abby’s mouth goes dry, her pulse quick to start racing, her eyes following the sweep of a tongue over inviting lips. The girl’s lips slowly form a sexy smirk. Abby’s nostrils flare, want fluttering in her belly. The young brunette raises one of her eyebrows and leans in, looking at Abby’s mouth, close, close, close - -
Abby wakes up with a gasp, her alarm beeping over on her nightstand and desire running rampant through her body. The doctor groans and moves quick to turn off the stupid alarm that ended her dream prematurely. The dream you really shouldn’t be having. She had made it very clear to herself - or at least she thought she had - that she would not allow herself to develop any type of feelings for this woman, not even if it was simply a physical attraction. And yet here she is, her skin damp with sweat and her brain trying to grasp what little pieces of her dream she can remember.
“God, you’re pathetic,” she tells herself, flopping her head down on the pillow and covering her face with her hands. It was one thing finding the girl attractive and funny, it was something totally different actually being attracted to her. They were practically strangers, and they probably wouldn’t have anything in common. Well...that’s not true. She had learned the other woman was incredibly intelligent for her age - no, not ‘for her age’, just intelligent, period. And even though their conversations were short, they were easy. And... “No more,” she decides aloud, putting all thoughts on the nameless woman on the bus away, “time to get ready for work.”
It doesn’t surprise Abby that she thinks of the young woman several times throughout the day. She’s grown used to it. But usually she’s wondering if the girl is in class - she’d spotted textbooks a few times - or if she’s at work - an auto mechanic, Abby believes. She’s wondering if the brunette’s having a good day, not imagining what it would be like to kiss her. She doesn’t usually spend her lunch tracing the shell of her ear with her thumbnail while she imagines teeth nibbling on the sensitive skin. Thinking of the girl isn’t anything new for her, but the thoughts are different.
By the time the day's over and she’s waiting for the bus, the doctor has worked herself up so much that she’s not even tired like she usually is. There’s just this overbearing need to see the other woman, a need that is familiar but stronger than usual. She’s considered finding out more about the near-stranger she travels with on the bus, but every time she decides to do so she talks herself out of it. In the beginning she had thought it was because she wasn’t ready to let someone in on the level she could tell the younger woman was most likely interested in. It had been three years since Jake’s passing, and she still missed him dearly. But it wasn’t until recently that she admitted to herself that it had nothing to do with Jake, that she just wasn’t sure any good could come from dating. It had nothing to do with Jake, or the age gap between her and the younger woman, or any of the other excuses she had easily given herself. She was scared of making the wrong decision and starting something that she shouldn’t.
But making no decisions at all had never done anyone any good.
The bus arrives a few minutes early; Abby swoops up the bag she’d already removed from her back and then steps on, giving the driver a smile before she pays and heads to her seat. She passes the same faces she usually does, people heading home from work, most with tired eyes and slumped shoulders. She feels for them - normally she’s one of them, but not tonight. She feels excitement bubbling in her belly as she drops down into her seat, not even bothering with the medical journal in her bag. She won’t actually be reading it, and she’s never been one for pretenses. She wants to make sure the other woman knows Abby’s attention is all hers, make it clear.
Tonight she’ll take whatever bait is thrown her way and latch onto it.
She’s so busy planning what she might say that she forgets to be nervous when the bus comes to a stop in front of the storefront where the girl is waiting. But the moment she sees her, Abby’s heart violently thumps in her chest and she feels like there’s a large lump lodged in her throat. She has five seconds to pull herself together before the brunette steps onto the bus, and Abby uses that time to rub her sweaty palms down her thighs and relax her spine so she doesn’t look so nervous. She’s good at presenting herself as calm and relaxed even when she’s internally freaking out with nerves.
No matter how good she is, there’s nothing to stop the way the sight of the younger woman’s smile makes her feel like she’s melting from the inside out. The girl pauses at the front of the bus, searches for Abby, and then a beautiful smile comes to life on her face. Abby feels her lips curve up automatically, knowing she’s smiling with her whole face and not caring a bit that she looks so happy to see the brunette. The younger woman looks tired as she walks down the aisle, her steps a little slower than usual, but even with exhaustion etched into her face she manages to steal Abby’s breath right from her lungs.
“Look who’s up,” she says in lieu of a proper greeting, tossing her bag to one of the seats behind Abby and then taking the other. “And possibly staying awake, too? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this alert.”
“One of us needs to be,” Abby replies, watching the younger woman fold herself up in the corner the seat and wall of the bus makes. She folds her arms across her chest and pulls her knees towards her and rests her feet on the seat, closing her eyes as she breathes out. Abby’s earlier excitement dies down a little when she gets a better look at the young woman’s face. While Abby’s usually the one that looks like she’s seconds from passing out, the other woman has taken that role for herself today. “You look like you haven’t slept in days,” Abby assesses bluntly.
The brunette hmms. “Worried about me, Doc?” she teases, peeking through one eye.
“How did you-”
“Medical journals,” she says before Abby even gets the question out of her mouth. “No normal person reads those for fun,” she continues, laughing mostly through her nose.
Abby reaches over the back of her seat and swats the woman’s knee, glaring at her as she says, “I’ll have you know, there’s nothing abnormal about me.”
The doctor doesn’t realize that she lets her hand linger until she feels the lightly calloused touch of fingers brushing her skin. It tingles, the contact of skin against skin, and she swallows harshly before pulling her hand away from the woman’s jean covered leg.
“I don’t know, Doc,” she drags out as she slowly looks Abby over, and there’s the beginning of some sarcastic retort on the tip of her tongue. Abby knows her well enough to know that much.
“Watch it,” Abby warns sternly, pointing a finger at the young woman, who only laughs at her and shrugs her shoulders.
“I was only going to say that not being normal isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Who the hell wants to be normal when they could be you, anyway?! There's just so much to like about you the way you are. Who'd give that up for normalcy?” The tired brunette’s voice had dropped low and almost intimate. She openly checks Abby out again, looking up into the older brunette’s eye and giving her a grin before closing her eyes again and shifting on the bus seat.
Abby feels the flush of heat that spreads across her cheeks, but she chooses to not focus on the way the other woman looks at her. It’ll only bring back the thoughts she’d worked hard to push aside earlier. Instead, she hears herself asking a question that probably isn’t much better.
“What makes you say that?” Abby wonders aloud.
“Excuse me for stating the obvious, but you’re hot as hell.” She says it so matter-of-factly that the doctor can’t help but chuckle, which only gives the young woman her next point. “You laugh at everything I say. And, I know we’ve established that I’m funny, but I’m not that funny. Not that I’m complaining or anything. Definitely not. Making you laugh is at the top of my to do list every day.”
“You don’t even see me until the end of the day,” Abby points out, leaning against the back of her seat so she can hear the young woman softened voice. She’s not sure if she’ll fall asleep or not, but it’s clear that she’s getting sleepier. “If that truly makes the cut, you should consider moving it lower on the list. I’m willing to bet there are countless better suited options.”
“Rude. Don’t judge my to do list.” A sudden burst of laughter leaves her mouth then, her eyes opening to look at Abby. There’s a mischievous glint in them that the older of the two is easily pulled in by. “I was about to say something really inappropriate, but even I have my limits of what I’ll say.”
Abby raises her brow. “Well you’ve already brought it up now...”
She shakes her head and rubs her fingers through her dark hair. It’s usually up in a ponytail, but tonight she wears it out, wavy and a little messy like she’s been running her fingers through it a lot. It looks really good like that, Abby thinks.
(Abby doesn’t imagine running her own fingers through the waves, not at all.)
“Not happening. But,” she starts and then pauses, and Abby can’t help but lean in, interest piqued. It’s exactly what she wants the older woman to do, Abby realizes, because she, too, leans in, grunting as she pushes herself from the side of the bus and comes close to Abby. In the back of her mind, Abby’s remembering her dream the previous night, the one where she was this close to the very lips she now finds herself dropping her eyes down to look at. “How would you like to be on the top of my to do list, Doc? Is that something you’d like, or no?”
Abby’s insides clench tightly with the suggestive tone the girl uses. The doctor drags her eyes up to meet the brown ones that are focused on hers, dancing with something she’s seen many times when this woman looks at her. It’s a mix of flirtation and genuine interest, and it is heavy right now, deeper than it’s ever been before. There’s a second question in the one Abby's not going to answer - because, no, Abby wouldn’t be opposed to it, but she’s not going to say that. She focuses on the question in the girl’s eyes, the one that simply asks if there’s any chance for something between them to happen.
“How about we start with coffee?” Abby responds in a way that can easily be mistaken for a joke if she needs to back out of what she’s about to do.
The younger woman seems surprised, but still interested, backing away and going back to how she was sitting before. “Seriously?” she asks with a quirked eyebrow and half of a grin. “You asking me out, Doc?”
The fluttering in Abby’s chest tells her to just go for it. The worst that could happen is the girl tells her she’s been imagining the flirting, which wouldn’t be too bad. So Abby takes a page from the other brunette’s book and gives her a nonchalant shrug and smiles at her. “Yes, I’m asking you out.”
“‘Bout damn time,” the girl says with a full, wide grin. “You were starting to make me question the Reyes charm.”
“Pardon me for not moving fast enough for you,” Abby responds, pretending to be affronted. It doesn’t work, though, because she can’t keep a smile off her face when the brunette keeps smiling at her.
The girl waves her hand at Abby and then uses it to reach for her bag. “Don’t you worry about that,” she says as she unzips the bag and pulls out a pen. “Nice and slow has its perks, too,” she adds.
“Oh, I know it does,” she throws back, letting the girl know two can play the game that’s been mostly one-sided for so long. It earns Abby a wink as the girl catches the pen between her teeth and uses both her hands to find something in her bag. “You know, if we’re going to go out for coffee, you’re going to need to tell me your name.”
She nods absently, scribbling on a piece of paper that she’s pulled from her book bag. Her long hair falls in front of her face, and Abby has to force herself not to brush the hair behind the young woman’s ear. “You too, Sleeping Beauty. Unless - -” she looks up with an arched eyebrow, “- - you want me to keep calling you that. It makes you blush, and you do look good when you’re blushing.”
As if to prove her point, Abby feels heat creep up her neck. “Only when I blush?” Abby challenges.
The younger brunette rolls her eyes, folding the paper up as she shakes her head. “More like only when you breathe.”
Abby laughs and glances out of the window; they’re about to get to her stop. “You’re impossible.”
“I think the word you’re looking for is incredible,” the girl says, biting her lip at the end.
“Or maybe incorrigible,” Abby replies, laughing. The easy back and forth makes her feel that tumbling low in her belly that she has come to associate with this woman.
“Nah. Incredible rolls off the tongue better,” she says to Abby, zipping her bag up and putting it on her back, sitting in her seat properly. “So...”
“Abigail. Abby.”
The doctor watches the way the girl’s lips wrap around the syllables of her name when she repeats it. “Abby. Doctor Abby.” She licks her lips and grins. “Doctor Abby. Has a nice ring to it.” Well, when she says it like that, all soft and more like a breath than a spoken word, it does. It really does. “I like it.”
“Better than Sleeping Beauty?” Abby teases, reaching for her pack and getting ready to get up.
“Possibly,” she answers, standing up when Abby does.
“Getting off?”
“I only ride for another stop,” she says with a shrug, her thumbs hooked in the pockets of her dark wash jeans. The denim is tight and shows off her shape - not that Abby takes an extra moment to check her out or anything like that. “I’m not ready to say goodnight yet. Want some company for your walk?”
“I drive,” Abby says - instead of the ‘I’m not ready to say goodnight either’ that she’s thinking as she watches the confidence she has come to know rather well slip for a moment in the young woman’s eyes.
“Oh,” the still-nameless young woman says, and Abby could slap herself for making that disappointment appear in her brown eyes.
“Let me give you a ride,” Abby suggests quickly, in a I’m-not-taking-no-for-an-answer tone as the bus comes to a stop.
“Oh, no. That’s fine,” she still tries to protest. But before anything else, Abby is a mother and she’d mastered what Clarke calls ‘the look’ years ago. It, apparently, works on her as well. “Fine,” she groans with an eye roll, “you can drive me.”
Abby has a feeling she gave in way too easily for her to truly be against the ride home, but she says nothing as they exit the bus. They walk to the car in a comfortable silence and make official plans for their coffee-turned-lunch date - Saturday, noon, Italian. The rest of the ride is spent with her passenger telling jokes - most which are admittedly terrible but making her laugh nonetheless - and Abby slipping in little flirtatious lines every now and then that she had previously refrained from saying.
When they pull up to the house the young woman shares with her roommates, the car falls silent and their eyes lock. After more than four months of having this girl subtly - and then blatantly - flirt with her, Abby does something she normally would not. It surprises her that she doesn’t feel even an ounce of nervous energy coursing through her body as she brushes silky dark hair away from the young woman’s face, the tips of her fingers tracing the curve of an ear and then sliding down the slope of her warm neck.
The brunette’s eyes soften and pull her in, and Abby allows herself to fall into their deepness while leaning over to the other woman’s side of the car. There’s a challenging smirk on her lips, and Abby feels compelled to kiss it away.
“You’re looking at me like you want to kiss me,” the girl whispers, helping Abby close the distance between their mouths. “So how about you do it, hm.”
Abby drags her eyes down from the dark pools of intensity to the gentle curves of the younger woman’s mouth, Abby’s fingers curling around her neck. The girl's lips part and a rush of warm air meets the doctor’s skin. Abby leans in, their lips nearly touching now, mere millimeters separating them. “First - -” the girl groans, gripping Abby by the shoulder and trying to pull her in when she pulls back slightly.
“Abby,” she whines, and the older woman feels her impatience and need as if it were her own, hot and electric all over her body.
“Tell me your name,” she whispers.
“Seriously, Abby,” she groans with disapproval, sliding her hand up to the older woman’s neck and pulling her in, roughly. “Raven.”
Abby grunts from the unexpected force the woman uses, her eyes slamming shut. “Raven,” she repeats, “Raven.”
“God, Abby, you can say my name as much as you like another night. Please. Kiss me already.”
Abby groans in her throat, following the plea. Their mouths connect with what is intended to be a gentle brush but turns into something hard and deep once she discovers how delicious Raven’s mouth is. Her lips are soft and warm and have a taste she knows she’s going to spend the night thinking about tasting. She practically melts right there in her car as the younger woman parts her lips for her and uses her tongue to guide Abby’s into her mouth, where the brunette sucks on it and then teases it with her own.
“Oh God,” Abby moans, feeling heat swim through her body and pleasure spiral up her spine.
Raven chuckles against her mouth and gives her several lingering closed-mouth kisses before pulling away. “It’s Raven,” she rasps, brushing her mouth across one of Abby’s cheeks, her lips only grazing the skin. “Raven,” she repeats into Abby’s ear before rubbing her lips against the lobe once.
“Raven,” Abby moans as she shudders.
“There you go.” She gives Abby one last kiss. “I knew you’d sound good moaning my name,” she whispers and then pulls away, biting on her bottom lip and unbuckling her seat belt.
Abby’s speechless, cheeks burning and breath heavy. Raven looks proud of herself as she opens the car door and passes her the folded up paper from the bus. Her number, Abby assumes, too busy watching the girl walk to the house gate to check.
“Night, Doctor Abby,” Raven says with a satisfied grin, throwing a wink over her shoulder before jogging up to the door.
Once the door’s shut and Raven’s inside, Abby closes her eyes and rubs her lips together, breathing out through her nose. Time to go home, she thinks, reliving the feeling of kissing Raven for a few more heartbeats before she twists her key in the ignition and starts it up. She unfolds the paper that had been placed on her lap and smiles, reading it aloud - “Sleep well tonight, Sleeping Beauty,” it says above Raven’s phone number and the girl’s name written in pretty cursive letters.
Abby smiles all the way home.