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With a soft grunt, Cassie slots the gearshift into reverse and begins backing out of the parking spot, inching closer to home by the moment.
Pearl Jam croons darkly through the speakers about a world turning to black as she twists in the driver’s seat, hand thrown across the back of the bench seat to get some leverage, when she sees Samira through the smudged glass of the rear windshield.
She wanders aimlessly behind Cassie’s truck, face tilted towards in the distant horizon. Her curly is hair wild and unbound against her shoulders, a sagging duffle bag in the listless curl of her hand. Completely unaware of the parking lot emptying out around her.
Even in her dirty black scrubs, even after a hellacious fifteen hour shift in July heat, she still looks more beautiful than she has any right to.
A little lost, maybe.
A little tragic.
She pauses behind the truck, in her own world, looking down at her phone with her lip between her teeth. Her lithe figure cuts through the thick cloud of exhaust that billows from the tailpipe. The black smoke - an unfortunate byproduct of owning a truck older than Cassie herself - obscures Samira’s lower half, curling thickly, possessively around her legs.
It makes her look like some confused angel that’s become earth-bound against her will, like she tore at clouds in her struggle to stay aloft in the heavens and ended up pulling some of it with her on the way down.
Cassie holds her foot on the brake as Samira crosses behind her, throwing red light onto her. Light shines onto her face, painting her in bright red and pouring into her eyes. Even from the awkward angle, Cassie can see the moment Samira notices her for the first time.
The catch in her breath, the widening of her eyes.
Samira blinks against the light, squinting and physically shaking herself as she hurries off out of the way. She waves a hand to disperse the exhaust around her and catches McKay’s eye through the glass, gesturing for her to back up.
Cassie moves to take her foot off the brake, to make her way home, but something stops her.
With her body turned, she can still see Samira’s face: see the harsh pinch between her brows and the downturned corners of her mouth, slanted with discontent and worry and pain. Cassie knows to trust her insight, knows that her gut feelings has never led her astray. They’re her “special sauce,” the parts of her that make her a great fucking doctor, that have kept her safe through addiction, divorce, and single-motherhood.
She’s always trusted herself when those alarm bells flare. They ring loud now when she sees the stormy look on Samira’s face and the tension in her shoulders.
Once glance through smoke and glass, and Cassie can tell that Samira isn’t quite right.
Before Cassie second guesses herself, she cranks the gear shift again, pulls the truck forward, throws it in park, cranks the window half-way down with a few pumps of her shoulder — enough to stick her hand out to wave and for her voice to be heard — and hollers out the window.
“Samira, c’mere!”
In the rearview mirror, she sees Samira hesitate. Her waving hand pauses mid-air like it’s caught in some in visible snare.
When she looks away, towards that mysterious point on the horizon again, the running lights paint her jaw in sharp relief, Cassie worries that she’s not going to join her, that she’ll walk away, aching and alone.
When Samira turns back and catches Cassie’s eyes in the mirror, Cassie smiles, and knows before Samira starts walking toward the passenger side that she’s got her.
With a quick press of her fingers against the lap belt, Cassie unbuckles and leans across the cracked bench seat, pulling up on the stubborn manual lock. It releases with a thick click just as Samira fills the window with her body.
From her perspective slanted across the seat, Samira’s head blocks the streetlight behind her and the ambient beam surrounds her: A man-made halo to adorn a fallen angel.
Jesus, she’s getting fucking soft.
She opens the door for Samira who stands rigidly at the threshold. Samira catches the interior handle instinctually to keep it from swinging against the nearby car.
She starts to swing her body into the car, her cute white Hoka bright against the ancient carpet in the floorboard. But with one foot on the pavement and her bottom lip between her teeth, Samira stops moving, brow pinched again, body taut and half-cocked to flee.
Within, without.
Not today, she won’t.
“Get in the fucking truck, Dr. Mohan.” Cassie orders, settling into the driver’s seat again.
Samira’s jaw drops even as she sits down, eyes flaring, and closes the door behind her with some heat. The slam shakes the body of the truck minutely. She’s got her bag across her lap, pulls it into her stomach as she huffs, “And I thought I was the superior here?”
Cassie can’t help but laugh, nodding in appeasement. “You are, certainly, but I think I have some authority in my own car.”
“I’ll give you that,” Samira says, the fight leaving her as quickly as it arrived. Her arms go lax around the duffel as she looks about the cabin, noticing the space for the first time: the wood paneling on dashboard, Cassie’s extra gym shoes in the passenger floorboard, the soft binder full of CDs shoved between the back window and the seat. “And what exactly am I doing in your car?”
Before she answers, Cassie turns down the volume to a low murmur; soft enough to be unobtrusive, but not so silent as to be unsettling.
“You tell me, Samira.” Cassie watches her. The tightening in her jaw, the frantic look in her eyes, the tensing of her body like it could deflect any pain just by straining hard enough.
“I don’t know what you expect me to say, Dr. McKay.”
Cassie lets Pearl Jam fill the tense little silence between them. Eddie Vedder laments soulfully over a warbling guitar for a minute. She doesn’t want to scare Samira, doesn’t want to push on a bruise that hasn’t healed yet. She’s thinking of something else to say, something to coax Samira open when the other woman speaks up.
“I’ve never heard this song before,” Samira murmurs, tilting her chin to the radio, her curls swinging with the momentum which makes Cassie smile. “He sounds really sad.”
Cassie hums contemplatively, letting the moody grunge wash over her. The track ends with the fading guitar accompanying Vedder’s sad singing, and Cassie lets the disc roll into the next song before she replies.
“One of their best songs. Powerful, sad… lonely,”
Cassie wets her lips, looks into the deep brown of Samira’s eyes, noticing the way they shine in the dim light of the truck. Samira does herself a credit and doesn’t look away, sits tall and proud in the passenger seat, and holds Cassie’s eye contact when lesser people have looked away.
Even as they start to get glassy with tears.
Cassie doesn’t flinch or turn away from that intense stare when she murmurs, “Kinda like someone I know.”
Samira doesn’t cry, doesn’t rage at Cassie, doesn’t leave the truck.
Instead, she sniffs lightly and crooks her lips into a miserable little smile that breaks Cassie’s heart.
“How can you tell?” Her voice is thick, ready to break like a piece of glass. There’s a laugh in the question like she’s been caught sneaking cookies from the jar.
“Samira, honey, it’s written all over your face.”
A few tears leak out of the corners of her eyes as she nods. They carve straight lines down her cheeks, mingling with sweat from earlier and tracing the line of her jaw.
“I - I just don’t know how to… treat it.” Samira abandons her duffle, lets it cram itself in the floorboard, and pushes at her cheeks with her hands like she can shove the tears back into her eyes.
“Well, you really shouldn’t be treating yourself, anyway,” Cassie says as she scoots towards the middle of the cabin, seat creaking with her weight.
When Samira laughs, looking up from her hands with an incredulous combination of sadness and humor, she sniffs and says, “I’ll defer to you for my care, Dr. McKay.”
“Music is a good start.” McKay murmurs softly, nodding to the dash. She speaks as if she were presenting her case to Robby or even Samira herself, giving the younger woman something to latch onto. It feels like it’s working when Samira can look her in the eye again, even if she is still crying. “Laughter is the best medicine, but I do think, for your case, we need more invasive treatment.”
Samira hiccups another laugh, dries her face on the hem of her scrubs as she waits for Cassie to proceed.
Cassie wriggles closer, fully sitting in the middle seat. A palm’s width separates her knee from bumping into Samira’s thigh. She can smell Samira’s body, musky with sweat and the acrid tang of hand sanitizer, familiar.
“Do you trust me, Samira?”
Samira looks up, and seems smaller than she ever has. Brown eyes wide and pleading, looking to Cassie for answers. Her loneliness is plain in the downturn ridges of her face, obvious as the DOCTOR on her badge: This internal bleeding has been going on for far longer than Cassie thinks Samira is willing to admit.
“With my life.”
Finally, Cassie reaches for her.
Her hand moves slowly through the space as if approaching a wild animal so as to not spook it. She touches Samira’s shoulder, cups it lightly but doesnt linger as she slides her palm across her trapezius and hooks around her ribs on the other side. Feeling Samira shiver, she uses her new leverage to pull her body flush with her own, uncaring of the sweat that soak their scrubs, tucks Samira’s face into her neck, and settles her other hand at the nape, fingers dipping into her soft, damp curls as they massage the fascia with light, gentle circles.
Cassie hugs her, twisting her aching body awkwardly in seat. For one moment, two, she just holds Samira. Tries to impart her affection and care through just the pressure of her body. Relishes the strong pump of blood when her fingers brush over her jugular and the hot puffs of Samira’s breath against her throat.
And then, Cassie feels it.
Feels Samira begin to move, at first like she’s moving through molasses then she’s scrambling, desperate, almost knocking Cassie over as she scurries around her.
“Oof,” Cassie grunts as Samira adjusts herself in the too small cabin. A knee to the inside of Cassie’s thigh. Samira grunts when her elbow bumps into the rear windshield. Fingers catching in Cassie’s knotty ponytail. Samira’s nose bumping awkwardly into her throat as she curls more intentionally around Cassie’s body. Cassie flexes her stomach to stay upright against the adjustments as Samira settles fully in her lap, heels crossing at the base of Cassie’s back to mirror the arms wrapped around her shoulders.
“Better?” Cassie murmurs to the V of Samira’s scrubs, trying not to think about the press of Samira’s body against hers.
She can feel Samira’s answering nod against the crown of her head more than she can see it. Damp tears soak her hair from where they drip off her jaw. Samira’s hands clutch at Cassie’s back like a lifeline, warm and restless along her latissimus dorsi like she doesn’t quite know where to leave them. Her long legs circle Cassie’s torso tightly, hamstrings tense against her obliques as she latches on like a koala.
When Samira has settled in her lap, she speaks up softly over the music and the rubbing of their scrubs, “Better.”
They sit there for a while with Samira clinging to her like a koala. Long enough that Cassie’s legs start to experience paresthesia. Long enough that the parking lot starts to get more and more empty as the hospital empties out for the night. Long enough that the album in her CD player starts from the beginning.
Cassie matches her breathing to Samira’s, pleased when Samira’s deepens. They stay there through three songs, making micro adjustments with care.
“Dr. McKay?”
“I think you can call me Cassie, Samira.” Cassie tightens her hold, breathing out a laugh at the absurdity of Samira using her title as they sit here on top of each other.
“Cassie,” Samira murmurs, looking down into her eyes, and pulling her lip between her teeth. “What if I need more?”
Cassie stills, feels the expansion of Samira’s ribs as she breathes. In and out. Searching Samira’s face, Cassie zeros in on her wet mouth and the dilated pupils in depths of her eyes. “Samira, what are you asking me?”
The younger doctor puts her hands on Cassie’s shoulders, squeezing the ropes of her traps as she tilts her face down to Cassie’s. The distance between them closes as Samira leans down, her hands stroking a hesitant path along her neck, fingers rolling her necklace against her skin. Puffs of air settle on Cassie’s lips like a promise.
Beneath her hands, Cassie can feel her spine steel. Resolve and bravery appear on Samira’s a face, a striking combination that makes Cassie thrum.
“Cassie, will you kiss me, please?”
Cassie doesn’t think twice, only hesitates long enough to see the surety etched into Samira’s face above her, framed as it is with the cute spirals of her hair. Samira is an intelligent, grown woman who can make her own decisions — and Cassie would be lying if she said she hadn’t thought about Samira underneath her when sleep eludes her in her bed in the middle of the night or that wondrous smile turned in her direction.
Cassie arches her back to reach Samira’s lips, making herself tall to reach her where she sits so high in her lap. With one touch of Samira’s lips her own, she knows she’s done for.
Samira Mohan kisses like she does everything else in her life — with her full attention and absolute investment.
When their lips touch, Samira’s lips are soft and insistent and warm, sliding against Cassie’s mouth with curiosity and enthusiasm. She’s in no rush, exploring Cassie’s mouth and body as her hands stroke that luxurious path along her upper back, earning soft moan from Cassie against her mouth.
Samira’s weight in her lap gets heavier as she clutches Cassie, more insistent in the need to be as close as humanly possible, flexing her thighs against Cassie’s side as she tries to fuse them together. She moans suddenly, unbidden, when Cassie dips her tongue into Samira’s open mouth, licking at Samira’s with desire.
The answering moan as Samira licks back into her makes Cassie’s skin burn, goosebumps arcing up her back as Samira slides her hand into the root of her hair. Samira shifts, adjusting her leg to cage Cassie’s body, but her leg slides off the narrow bench seat and she overcorrects, taking her hand from Cassie’s shoulder and catching herself with the flat of her palm against the steering wheel.
A loud, bellowing horn sounds, disturbing the relative peace of the parking lot and making them both jump against each other in surprise. A smattering of birds scatter off from the trash they were eating. Cassie knocks her elbow against the radio with a bitten off “Fuck!”, accidentally ejecting the CD from the stereo.
After the commotion, gravity condenses in the truck and Cassie sees the moment Samira starts to freak out. Her eyes widen, swollen mouth parted to suck at the humid air in the cabin, her eyes snap this way and that looking for a quick exit.
As she’s rubbing her elbow, Samira starts to clamor off of her.
“Oh my God, I - I have to go —“
“Samira,” Cassie tries, dropping her hands to Samira’s wiggling hips even as she keeps mumbling through her crisis.
“ — so inappropriate, I’ll just —“
“Samira!” Cassie nearly shouts, locking eyes as she slams her palm on the horn again while she grips the dip of Samira’s hip with the other, holding her in place. It does the trick, jolting Samira from her spiral.
Half-way out of her lap, Samira’s chest heaves as she tries to collect herself. That manic, hyper energy that she gets sometimes during pressure situations courses through her body.
Cassie knows she just has a moment, a fraction of time to recover this before everything goes to shit.
“Are you hungry?”
Brown eyes blink at her, pulling together at the brow in confusion as Samira processes her words, “Am I — am I hungry?”
“There’s a diner that’s still open not far from here.” Cassie rushes out with what she hopes is a charming smile. When Samira relaxes imperceptibly in the passenger seat, Cassie feels her heart soar. “Music, laughter, some human contact, and greasy food. All essential treatments for your particular diagnosis.”
The world outside pauses for a moment, suspended in amber as Samira studies Cassie, her face open and unguarded. Her lips shine with Cassie’s saliva and her scrubs are rumpled from wandering hands and the writhing of their bodies. Cassie briefly wonders how many people have seen her like this; vulnerable, afraid, but brave anyway.
She’s never been more beautiful than when she settles in the passenger seat, clicks the seatbelt in place, and looks at Cassie with that determination and spirit that’s so uniquely hers.
Samira slides her hand across the seat, over the cracked leather slicked with Cassie’s sweat, boldly grabs Cassie’s hand where it’s rests on the bench.
Light pours into the truck the streetlight overhead, glinting of the CD sticking out of the stereo and glinting ethereally off of Samira’s eyes and smile.
Cassie feels her own grin slot into place when Samira announces, “I’m absolutely starving.”