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(...) I want
to drift back through the black sky,
pulling stars inside my pockets on the way
back so that dark nights like this will illuminate
a path wide enough to finally allow me to see.
It is not the first time Samira has opened her locker to find a surprise inside. There was the time that Parker snuck in a toy rat, winning her a shriek and the coveted spot at the top of the leaderboard of John’s prank war; Princess once pilfered her a strip of condoms from the supply bins at her delight to hear that Samira’s dry spell would finally be over, courtesy of an upcoming date; and it’s always a good day when Trinity makes too many galletas paciencia because she makes sure to split the airy merengue spoils with her, bless her.
And then there’s Jack.
Jack and his lovely little things, left for her like trinkets from a loyal crow. NEJM and Lancet issues traded back and forth, annotated with two hues of sticky notes: electric green for him, violet for her. Completed Yinz punchcards, too, for when she needs the pick-me-up; she steadfastly refuses his offer to use his Amex for auto-reloading her mobile account, so he holds onto the cards for her, pleased with the loophole he’s found.
There is nothing little about this, though. When Samira opens her locker at the beginning of her first shift after making Chief Resident, there is a neat roll of gifts waiting for her, tied together with a silky, forest green ribbon that yields easily at her touch. They’re scrubs, she realizes, and nice ones at that—the telltale butter-soft fabric of FIGS. She might have assumed them to be her group gift if not for the dueling flower bouquets from the day and night shifts that had been waiting for her at the Hub when she arrived; or the fact that the scrub pants in the set are cargos, with a Control-Cric kit of her own nestled into one pocket; or that the flat card tucked into the folds of fabric reads,
More pockets for all the responsibility you now hold, Chief. Congratulations. I can’t wait to see everything you do next.
– J
No, there’s no doubting the identity of her gift giver.
He’s always wanted a front row seat with her, Jack has. Samira knows as much. She’s tried to ignore the implications for a while, and he has dutifully let her—would let her forever, if it meant never squandering her comfort for a second—but it’s only gotten harder and harder to do so. Harder to have the ball perpetually in her court, because Samira Mohan has never been particularly good at letting herself want, choosing proficiency in anticipatory grief instead in order to keep herself humble and her chance at disappointment and pain low.
She’d wanted Chief Resident, though, and look at how that worked out for her. Wants now, too; takes her scrubs in hand and shuts the door of her locker with a resolute, declarative clang.
“Do you have a minute, Dr. Abbot?”
Jack doesn’t know what he’s expecting when he looks up from his charting, but it isn’t Samira already wearing her new scrubs. She’s beautiful—of course she is, always sharp and a particular kind of radiant at the top of a shift like she’s just been drawn over a whetstone—but there’s an added level of satisfaction that pulses through him at the sight of her in something he picked out for her.
“For you, Dr. Mohan? Always.”
She blinks up at him, doe eyes out in full force. “I, um. Wanted to thank you.”
“For?”
At his feigned ignorance, she gives him a look that can only be described as adorable, lips pursed and one brow raised in a come on. He can’t help his grin then; and neither the gift nor the long-held affection bubbling between them could possibly be called subtle, but they are somehow more so than the appreciative once-over he finally allows himself to give her, drinking her in right there at the Hub.
Still: “You know, there are plenty of Js here,” he doubles down. “It might not have been me.”
“Yeah, I’m not sure anyone else would have given me cargo pants and a tactical airway.”
“Could have been Nurse Jesse. John, even—he’s picked up some habits from me over the years. Hey, maybe Jamie in neuro ICU finally decided to make her move and asked around about what you might like. She does have a thing for you, you know.”
“You’re keeping tabs on people who have a thing for me now?” she tosses back, easy as ever. That’s the thing about Jack Abbot; he makes wanting easy.
“Have to keep track of my competition, don’t I?”
Slowly, Samira’s mouth blooms into a wide, warm smile, the most she can gift him in return in full view of all of their colleagues. To him, it is more than enough, but she one-ups herself by replying, “There’s no competition, Jack,” she says quietly.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Tonight, unsurrounded, she’ll show him as much. She’ll let him take the scrubs off of her, piece by piece, as meticulous in his—her—undoing as he always is: the top, the collar wet where he’s laved at the vee of exposed skin, then her blue undershirt, dark as the night sky, then the drawstrings of her pants, as neatly tied as the ribbon around her gift had been.
(“I’m pretty good at knots,” he murmurs against her neck when she points it out, and oh, doesn’t that cause a frisson of lust to spear through her.)
Tonight, they’ll make good on all of the tiny ways they’ve been choosing each other over the years, and as Jack holds her, whispers her into pleasure she hasn’t known before, she’ll let her fears of the future slip away and will finally allow herself to look, really see what could be.
Tonight, she’ll go to bed a creature of want and wake up to the world still turning, Jack Abbot sleeping soundly at her side.