Chapter Text
The first time Jack Abbot really looks at you, it’s not during a trauma.
Not when you’re covered in someone else’s blood, not when your voice is sharp and commanding, not when you’re moving like instinct and training stitched together into something unshakeable.
It’s quieter than that.
You’re leaning against the nurses’ station at the Pitt, one boot hooked behind the other, lazily spinning a pen between your fingers while Samira finishes charting. There’s a smear of something dark on your forearm—probably not yours—and a lollipop tucked into the corner of your mouth like you forgot it was there.
“Rough shift?” Victoria asks, not looking up.
You shrug. “Define rough.”
“Gunshot, stabbing, cardiac arrest, or emotional damage?”
You pull the lollipop out, inspect it like it personally offended you. “Yes.”
Samira snorts.
That’s when Jack notices you.
Not because you’re loud—because you’re not. Not because you’re trying to be seen—because you aren’t.
But because you look entirely at home in a place that’s been quietly falling apart since Pittfest.
Since Bobby.
Since the weight of it settled into the walls and never really left.
You don’t carry it the same way.
You carry it… lighter.
Not careless. Never careless.
Just—like it hasn’t managed to hollow you out.
And that, to Jack, is new.