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Call it a critical lack of imagination, but somehow Jack Abbot completely failed to realize that Samira Mohan is into him.
He is shocked to stillness when, at the end of a quiet and meandering walk from the hospital to her apartment lobby door, Samira turns to face him and says, “Jack, are we doing this?” One hand is on her hip and the other is holding a mostly finished tea and lemonade drink that was equal amounts of sugar and caffeine.
Jack’s heart beats and his eyes blink at the same rhythm as the hazard lights on a sedan parked up the road. The part of his brain that runs the show when catastrophe strikes the emergency department snaps to, turning over her question. He’s been told his attention can be formidable, a weight, but Samira stands comfortably while his brow furrows, smiling around her straw as she sips the dregs of her drink. The sight of her standing in front of him, posture relaxed and open, eyebrows raised, quickly fries a circuit, and whatever smooth remark was starting to form implodes into something a lot clunkier.
“I...this?” He realizes that he sounds like an intern. He realizes that he has been idling in a groove of unrequited longing. And that that groove was actually fine—ideal, even. Being in Samira’s world as a mentor, colleague, friend. He’s grown used to scraping by on silver linings. Jack’s therapist called it ‘reframing.’ Jack thinks of it like the way he can set his phone camera to blur the background on a shot. Samira is the only part in focus, and the rest of it—his age, his history, his leg, his brain, their jobs—the rest of it is just a blur around her.
Samira finishes her sip, nods, chucks the now empty drink into the trashcan by her building’s buzzer. There is a no-nonsense quality to the way she looks him over, meets his eyes. Jack has only seen this kind of unchecked fondness from her when the therapy dogs come through the hospital on their monthly visit. Jack would truly be fine to be held to the same level of esteem as those dogs if it meant she would look at him like this more often.
“I’m an attending now,” she says. And he knows this. Oh he knows this. This is actually the thing about their jobs that can be excised from the blurry background around her. Jack felt distinct relief at no longer being the lechy attending hung up on a resident. Now he is the lechy attending hung up on the most junior attending in the Pitt. But he’s sure he’s been able to hide that by simply being way, way less obvious than Robby ever was about Collins (thank god that finally resolved itself). At Samira’s expectant smile, Jack nods. She is an attending now.
Samira continues, “I don’t mean to spring this on you. Actually, it wasn’t my plan at all to say...well, anything. Yet. But I had a plan.” She laughs, and her laughter makes him smile despite his profound confusion, and his smile prompts a grin from her that is so bright he feels like he’s stepping into the sun after a long shift. Jack remembers to let the air out of his lungs, takes another breath as his brain clicks back into action, quickly shuffling through the minutes leading up to whatever is happening here.
“Walk me through,” he says, like this is a discussion over a diagnosis, a course of treatment. “Usually we’re on the same page, but right now I think you’re ahead of me.”
His skin itches with the desire to believe there is something blooming between them. Distantly, Jack realizes that he has been staring. That his body has stilled—coiled--into a state of readiness. He scans her face over and over. Robby called him shark eyes once. Because when he’s focused, his eyes are dark and unblinking. Samira meets his gaze, doesn’t flinch (never has), and holds out a hand.
“Come inside,” she says as he takes her hand. She squeezes his fingers and gives both of their arms a shake. “That drink went right through me, and this is probably easier to do sitting down than outside on the street.”
Jack is...possibly having a stroke. Or a dissociative episode. He barely registers moving from the sidewalk, to the lobby, to the front door of Samira’s ground floor apartment. Since he started walking her home—how long ago? After Pittfest, when she moved to working nights for awhile—what started as two people walking in tandem broadened out to include the odd high five, handshake (after that impressive publication), shoulder bump. Once when she’d almost lost her footing on an icy spot, Jack had wrapped his gloved hand around Samira’s bicep to steady her. She’d held his shoulder another time when they split through a crowd of people out enjoying the first day of truly nice weather after a long winter. But that was it. And who was even keeping track? (he was).
But now she’s holding his hand like this is something they do all the time. And Jack is happy to be lead, to be able to focus on memorizing the weight of her hand and the smoothness of her palm where it rests against his. Samira ushers them inside, leading Jack to one of the stools at her kitchen island. He sits and she lets go of his hand, doesn’t catch the way his fingers flex around the absence of hers. Jack drops his bag beside the stool. Shrugging out of her backpack and toeing off her shoes, Samira tells him she’s just going to use the bathroom quick, he should make himself comfortable.
Jack has been in her apartment before, but he takes the moment to give it a fresh look. It’s spartan but comfortable, decorated more with art than photos, although a few pictures have found their way onto Samira’s fridge. There is a couch where they sat a few months ago discussing revisions to Samira’s article, and there is a slouchy reading chair partially hidden under a blanket where Jack had accepted a cup of coffee following a slushy trudge from the hospital. The bookshelves, coffee table, and media stand are basic and sturdy. Jack thinks of the space as being appreciated but not given much thought besides. It mirrors the vibe of his own house, albeit a little better cared for. She’d asked him once what his place was like, and he’d told her shabby but livable. For whatever reason, she’d nodded like he’d answered more than just the one question.
He hears water run and a door open, turns slightly to see Samira step back into the living room, her hair now falling in loose waves. Everyone has their rituals that signal the end of a shift, and Jack has learned that taking her hair down is Samira’s. His own is usually standing on the roof of the hospital and asking questions at the universe.
Samira rounds the island, puts both hands on the countertop and leans onto her forearms. Then she straightens. Then leans forward slightly and grasps the edge of the counter. Jack watches like he has so many times before, waiting for her to sort her thoughts, to follow paths to different conclusions. He has no interest in rushing her and enjoys—has always enjoyed—this view, watching Samira work out a problem. He has learned that when her face smooths out and she gives a small, firm nod, Samira has rounded the corner on a decision and course of action.
She takes a breath. “What I meant by, when I said—are we, are we doing this. I didn’t mean to just...spring anything on you. My brain skipped a couple steps.” Her chagrin is so intensely adorable to him, blooming in a slight blush. “I’m, okay, I’m going to be forthright. I need to be put out of my misery, as McKay put it.” Samira’s voice drops to a mutter. “Dana, Shen, and Ellis are maybe in on this too.”
Jack’s sense of balance tips the more he sees her begin to fluster. He puts his hands on the counter, makes to stand, but Samira waves him back down, leaves her hands outstretched before his, not touching but almost.
“Wait, let me try and get this out. You know it seemed a lot easier ten minutes ago, between the sun and the lemonade you bought me and that story about Shen losing a hotdog to a seagull. Now I’m in my head. But I’ve been in my head about you for...for awhile. And I was, what I hope you can tell me, is whether you see the possibility of us doing...more. More than work friends who hang out sometimes.”
“More,” he repeats, and his voice sounds like it’s gone unused for hours. She winces like his reply is an answer in itself. Straightens up a bit and slides her hands back. Jack curbs the impulse to reach for them.
“I mean, I want to be clear that it’s totally fine if we just keeping doing what we’re doing. Seeing you at work, and seeing you outside of work, is great. You walking me home is a really nice part of my day. I...I really look forward to this. To you. And I’m fine if that doesn’t change.”
Jack’s brain is processing her words like he has to translate them from one language to another. His internal dictionary pulls up the word more and tries to locate the meaning that she really means, because she can’t mean what it sounds like. Samira can’t mean that she’s...she’s...interested, that she’s surveyed what Jack Abbot has to offer and decided yes, that is something I’d like to pursue. He is a widower with PTSD (but a silver fox, Shen had provided helpfully during a breakroom discussion of what made each of them undateable). He is sixteen years older than she is. He is almost insane some days. He is completely gobsmacked to be having this moment right now.
“Jack. Are you catatonic?” Humour overlays the thinnest sliver of distress in her voice. Whatever Samira had expected, it surely wasn’t Jack staring at her face, then her hands, then the floor, then the wall, then back to her face. He can’t even school his expression because he’s not sure exactly what face he’s making. A concerning one, judging by the way Samira’s beginning to look at him like he’s a patient in need of charting.
“If the prospect of dating me is this horrifying, we can totally pretend like this never happened.”
That snaps him out of it. Jack’s gaze lands back on her face, takes in the grimace that signals she’s embarrassed to have said any of this to him. He shakes his head but the goofy smile crossing his mouth refuses to come off. A little tension ekes out of Samira’s shoulders and she returns the smile. Hers is a little smaller, tentative.
“Samira, I would be a fucking idiot not to want to date you. I didn’t think you would ever want to date me. I thought,” he gestures at himself, like there’s something obvious she’s not seeing, “I thought...I never thought you’d even...that you’d even think there was something more here than an old guy with a hopeless crush. I was just happy to hang out, get a little of your time.”
He watches Samira process this information. Her expression shifts from uncomprehending, to perplexed, to pleased, all subtle shifts of her brows and mouth. And then a bark of incredulous laughter springs from her throat and Jack is caught up watching Samira dissolve, her shoulders and back shaking until the laughter subsides and she’s steady enough to thumb a tear from her eye. He’s laughing too, caught up with her in this mutual unravelling.
“Have we both seriously been tagging along with each other like two smitten idiots? This is out of Austen. Out of Grey’s. This is a storyline my aunties would die for. Are you serious, Jack? Were you ever gonna say anything?”
“No. No, I wasn’t,” he says and his tone is the same deadpan one he uses in the Pitt. How can he tell her that pining is really all he ever aimed for? He almost can’t look at Samira because now he actually gets to look-look at her without having to hide all the raw longing that has simmered under his tight control for so long. He is a little afraid that if she sees just how badly he is all in for her, that she will realize he is well and truly insane and way too much, too intense, too swept up by devotion. Dating is a far cry from I am literally thinking about you all the time, and would happily be over here completely in love with you without you doing anything.
But Samira is smarter than he is. She is smarter, and more perceptive, and so very brilliant at working things out. He is swept up in her assessing gaze, and watches the figurative lightbulb click on like it’s hovering just above her head.
She presses on. “You weren’t going to say anything, at any point, because...?”
He swallows. He has done some pretty epic shit in his life, and survived the kind of stuff that makes it into those Oscar baiting movies. How is it possible to be this ungrounded right now? Jack taps the counter and thinks about the cool smoothness of the granite under his fingers, reflexively practicing one of the mindfulness techniques championed by his ever patient, ever optimistic therapist.
“Because...because there is no bridge for me. There is no space between being your friend and being...well, being yours.” He sighs. “Shen says I have no chill. And I thought there were too many, there was too much that you’d have to...overlook? I figured you’d already realized I was into you and decided to just keep it friendly. And I am good with that, seriously. I am not interested in asking you to not see all the shit that’s wrong with me, or to ask you to make your work life messier. Being your friend and your colleague was...is...enough for me.”
He swallows. Samira nods, encouraging him, waiting. Jack takes a breath.
“But I would really, really like to be more than your friend.” He drops his voice over that more, clocks the shudder that ripples across Samira’s shoulders. Something is happening, something is shifting.
“And colleague,” she supplies, teasing. Jack watches as she bites her bottom lip. He is unspooling rapidly.
He smirks, holds his hands palm up against her counter as though that’s a given. “And colleague. I just don’t have it in me to be casual about you. If...if dating means that we’re just fooling around or whatever the fuck people say these days—situationship? If that’s what dating means, I can’t. I am too far gone.”
He watches Samira digest this. She has been wearing a very pleased smile since he started talking. Little by little the careful lines they’ve drawn around each other disappear, meant to safeguard the other from being unintentionally drawn into some kind of soppy one-sided crush. Jack feels one tension dissolve as another takes its place. The air between them is thick with it. How is it even possible they’ve been hiding this much from each other? Half of his brain must have been tasked with Keeping It Cool around Samira.
Samira pushes her hands forward across the counter, fingers meeting his before she slides her palms into his. He immediately runs his thumbs across her knuckles, enjoying the slight hitch it gives her next breath. Anchored by his hands, Samira moves around the counter towards him, pulls her hands and his flush to her chest. The rest of his body follows and he is standing in front of her. They have been this close before, at work, when it was necessary to move as a single mind sharing two bodies. His body is humming now. They are on a precipice together, and he will pitch forward after her the second she starts to leap.
She releases his hands and winds her arms slowly around his sides, lets her hands drift across his lower back until they meet, and then back again until a hand rests on each of his hips. Jack swallows. His hands had fallen to her shoulders, and then up to her neck, lightly, just fingertips gliding along the line of her pulse, the curve of her jaw. Samira smells so good. He is delirious with it. He is into her in a way that is almost overwhelming, like jumping deep into cold water, the same breathless and exhilarated feeling. They are standing where her kitchen meets her living room, and it is barely a hug, but things are almost spinning. It has barely been fifteen minutes since they were standing outside and she was rattling the ice in her drink, weighing him up with clear eyes and a small smile. But he is completely sure his life is changing, right now, and he is unprepared for it because never, not once, did he indulge himself by giving into the fantasy that Samira Mohan wants Jack Abbot.
So when Samira turns her head just slightly and presses her mouth to his, letting out a happy little sigh that becomes a smile against his lips, Jack stalls out for a split second. And then his lizard brain kicks in and he really, really kisses her back. His hands shift from her neck to her hair, fingers grazing lightly, earning a startled and pleased ‘mmm’ from the back of Samira’s throat and a reflexive squeeze of her hands on his hips. Her tongue flicks against his bottom lip and he is happy, so so happy, to answer that call, crowding closer, intent on kissing her senseless.
Jack licks into her mouth and one of Samira’s hands flies up into his hair, clutching, like she’s losing her balance. He drops his hands and pulls her in, drags his mouth along her jaw to a spot below one ear, and then drops his head onto her shoulder for half a second, thrumming at such a pitch he’s sure she can hear it. She pulls his mouth back to hers and they exchange drunken chaste kisses. He cannot see her smile but he feels it.
Now they are holding each other tightly and Samira’s mouth is somewhere near his ear.
“I can’t believe you were hiding that from me,” she says, voice husky. To make the reprimand stick she runs her hand up his neck to the nape of curls at the back of his head and tugs lightly. He lets out a sound that is somewhere between a snort and a groan, kisses her again.
“My self-control is legendary,” Jack says after kissing the hollow of her throat. “I was completely satisfied with the prospect of being your secret admirer.”
Samira tuts at him, disentangles enough to lean back and level him with an unimpressed stare, which Jack immediately protests.
“You were also hiding from me,” he reminds her. Samira shakes her head.
“I had a plan: become an attending, and then make out with Jack Abbot.”
He likes this plan. He likes all of her plans.
They kiss again and it quickly goes from being sweetened with laughter and shy smiles to filthy and heavy with charged promises fast enough that Jack recognizes he is at real risk of fucking Samira Mohan on her kitchen counter. He wants to do that, but not now, not when they are post-shift and wearing scrubs, needing to shower, eat, and sleep. He wants the first time he fucks her to go so well that it cements his presence in her plans now and in the future.
Jack groans, pulls her hips against his and lets her feel how hard he is, then takes a breath and steps back, kisses her firmly. Samira already seems to know where his thoughts have travelled, petting his hair and running her hands down his stubbled jaw to his shoulders and then his chest.
“I am going to take a shower,” she says. “I’m starving and about to fall over, and I really, really do not want to rush this.”
He nods. This is extremely reasonable.
“I’ll go home and do the same,” Jack says. “My car’s not far from here, I’ll just let myself out and—”
Samira kisses him to shush him, smiling.
“Or, or,” she says. “You could stay here, and shower, and eat, and nap. With me. Together.”
He appreciates the way she clarifies his role in this plan. The prospect of driving home to his shabby but livable house, getting cleaned up and fed and rested without her is an unwelcome step outside of this new wonderful bubble they’ve just found themselves in. He does not want to be away from her, would actually be just fine never being away from her again. He could have a u-haul with his things at her apartment by the weekend if she let him.
“I like that idea,” he says. Samira takes his hand again, this time pulling them towards what he knows is her bedroom, where she has an en-suite. Then she stops abruptly in the doorway, turning to look at him with an expression of mild mortification.
“Not to freak you out, but at some point in the last...while...I picked up a shower seat. The shower in here is a walk-in, good sized actually. I thought a seat would be...a good idea.”
Oh he is delighted by this information. Samira Mohan had pictured him using her shower. She planned for him to use her shower.
“That’s very convenient and thoughtful,” Jack hums, kissing her temple. “Is there room for all three of us? You, me, the seat.”
She laughs, turns and pushes him towards the en suite door.
“There is, actually—I measured. But right now we’re gonna divide and conquer. I’ll start some food and find you something to sleep in.”
“There’s a spare pair of everything in my bag,” he says.
“I should have expected,” Samira says, grinning. “Okay, that’s easier than me digging out a random pair of basketball shorts. I’ll drop your bag in the bathroom.”
Jack showers and does his best to refrain from memorizing Samira’s bathroom. He surveys the products in her shower. He is so grateful and goddamn touched that she bought the seat. It’s a relief to sit and let the water fall over him, to wash away the remnants of his shift and realize that shortly, he will replace the smell of antiseptic and sweat with the smell of her. There is so much opening up in front of him now. He is in Samira’s home, will be in her bed, has vacated the groove of unrequited longing. She is not afraid of the parts of him that healed in weird ways. She is so smart, so thorough in her assessments, that if she is choosing him Jack just has to trust that she committed to this decision after thinking all the parts of it through. The only front he ever put on around her was meant to hide his big dopey feelings—there was nothing left over to adequately hide the rest of his wreckage.
Samira slips in and out of the bathroom, leaves a towel and his bag. He rinses, manages to hobble around enough to dry off, dress, dig out a spare toothbrush from the recesses of his bag. Gets the prosthetic back on and leaves the bathroom in a faint cloud of citrusy-smelling steam. Samira is lounging on the edge of her bed, propped up on her elbows, taking him in with a satisfied smile. Jack leans down and kisses her, because he can, because he wants to, all the time.
“Food’s in the oven—it’s just a frozen chicken thing from a place up the block,” she says, taking his hand and letting him pull her to her feet. “It’ll be done in fifteen, the timer’s on. I’ll be out of the shower before that.”
“Take your time,” he says. As much as he wants—and oh, he wants—to make up for lost time, to give form to the urgency of his feelings for her, Jack is enjoying this slice of domesticity. They could have this now, a rhythm of care and companionship outside of work. He wants this aspect as badly as he wants the feel of her body against his.
Twenty minutes later they are sharing the chicken thing straight from its container, crowded over the kitchen island with two forks and a couple paper towels. It’s the best thing Jack has ever eaten. He tells a story about the time Walsh went on a hanger-induced rampage because she thought someone had stolen her lunch, only to realize it was in a different fridge. Samira laughs hard at his impression of a vaguely contrite Walsh apologizing in the most Walsh-like way, which is basically just a huffy eyeroll. He clears the counter, puts the forks in the dishwasher and the container in the trash, finds Samira in her bedroom where she is pulling blackout curtains tight together. The covers on the bed are open and inviting.
“I hope you’re a cuddler,” she says. Jack nods emphatically. He will be her big spoon or her little spoon. He will make do with just touching feet. He just wants to be in her bed next to her.
He scores the role of big spoon. It gives him the opportunity to smooth his hands down her arms, to rest his face in her neck. Her body slots easily against his and Samira pulls his arm around her front, holding it there. He is hit immediately by the need to sleep but manages to keep from sinking into the warm pool of absolute exhaustion.
“Thank you for saying something,” Jack says, his voice low and near the shell of her ear. Samira wiggles closer and hums, half-dozing already. “I would have been pining forever.”
She laughs a little. “Dana was about to lock us in a utility closet together, she told me. I think maybe we weren’t that subtle.”
“I certainly had no fucking clue,” he grouses, which makes Samira laugh a bit harder. She squeezes his arm and he holds her tight.
“We can talk about that later, when we wake up.”
“Maybe much later,” he says, pressing against her, a promise sealed with a kiss against the slope of her shoulder. Jack matches his breathing to Samira’s. She is quickly in a light doze again, and he is quickly following her.
Reframe, reframe, his therapist has told him many times. But there is nothing to reframe here. The blurred out photo of just Samira that he has carried in his minds eye for years simply needs adjusting.