Work Text:
Sometimes, Samira feels like the shadow from Peter Pan. The one that can be detached and left behind. Something easily discarded and forgotten. She’s lived so much of her life like that. Always there, on the edges, never a part. Always apart.
She’s never connected with people on a deeper level. Has kept herself behind walls, books, and education. Being a firsthand witness to the grief the loss of love leaves behind, Samira figures it’s not something she wants. No one has shaken the foundation of her walls, never cared enough to knock them down after getting a peek over the top. It’s a lonely way to live, this life as a shadow.
Where she is a solid foundation and firm walls, Jack Abbot is an earthquake and a wrecking ball.
They’re sitting on the bench outside in the park. The only two left as day breaks over the tree line. Everyone else has families or loved ones to get back to. But not Samira. Not Jack.
This shift has not been kind to either of them. Fourth of July seldom is to veterans with PTSD, and Jack has worked far more than his night shift, having come in early with the crush victim from the parade he’d been working. Samira, pulling a double, has been inundated with the usual 4th chaos, but also a racist drunk with a foul mouth and a pathetic right hook after she told him she was from Jersey when he told her to go back where she came from.
“How’s the jaw?” Jack asks once they’ve settled into the quiet of it being just them.
“Fine.” She lies, and Jack knows she’s lying. Reaching out, he gently catches her chin and angles her face so he can see her left jaw.
“I’ve already been through the forced checks and scans.” She reminds him, but doesn’t pull away. She’s so, so tired of pulling away. “Besides, he was weak. It felt like being hit by my grandma.”
“Your grandma hits you?” Jack lifts a brow, fingers idly working from her chin up her jawline.
“No.” Samira smiles. “Never met either of them, actually.”
Jack hums, continuing to gently palpate along her jaw. Samira catches his wrist, but doesn’t pull his hand away.
“Are you okay?” She asks, eyes dipping to his neck that’s been rubbed raw by the neck guard he was wearing along with the flak jacket earlier. She’d helped him remove both, after finding him curled into a tight defensive posture in the stairwell after they got his patient stabilized, edges of a panic attack leaving him too shaky.
“At this moment?” He asks back, head dipping slightly so he can catch her gaze. Samira lifts her head to meet him, gives him a nod. A smile, small and almost shy, curls his lips, and Samira gets a little lightheaded at the dimple it brings out on his cheek.
“This moment, I’m more than okay.” He says softly, fingers curling around her jaw. Samira lets the gentle pressure pull her closer to him.
“I don’t want to go home.” She whispers, feeling brave in this early morning bubble of peace that she’s found with Jack. She always feels braver when she’s with him. “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”
“Samira.” Jack breathes her name, his forehead tipping to rest on hers. “Think hard about what you’re asking me for, here. I’ll give you whatever you want, but I can't do casual.”
“No one who has ever met you could ever accuse you of being a casual man.” She smiled, bringing her free hand up to rest on his shoulder. “But I don’t want casual, not with you.”
Jack breathes out a little raggedly, but then he tips his chin and presses his lips to hers. And it’s like time softens. The chaos of the world fades and dulls. Recognition sparks along her skin as he tilts her head for a better angle, like her heart is whispering, “oh, it’s you.”
When she opens for the warmth of his tongue, she sighs at the peace her body feels, even as there’s a pleasant spike of want rushing through her veins. Jack groans with her sigh, pulling her closer to him and letting his hand tangle in her hair. He holds her like he’s scared she might slip away, and she wants to tell him that she won’t, that she’s with him here in this moment, and probably forever. To the ends of earth and time, she is with him.
Instead, she holds him tighter. And she doesn’t feel like a shadow anymore.