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His heart stopped briefly when she said it.
“I had a dream about you last night!"
She’d said it so casually too, like it was nothing out of the ordinary. Sandwiched between a “Good morning, Dr Abbot!” and a “Oh, gotta go! Head lac in South 10 waiting for me”
He stood there, mouth gaping like a fish for longer than he cared to admit. It wasn’t until he heard Ellis chuckling next to him that he felt his system rebooting.
“Did she just…?” He asked, still very overwhelmed by the possibilities of what Samira Mohan had just said.
“Oh, yes she did. And you are blushing, old man.” Ellis was enjoying his distress a little too much.
“C’mon, let’s go. I wanna head outta here before they rope us into another trauma.”
They were just now ending their shift, and the switch to day had just finished when Samira had done a drive-by bombing. Absolutely no regard for his mental health, that one. How was he supposed to take that information? Was that flirting? He was beginning to overthink this, he had to leave now. He couldn’t stay longer because he’d have to be back for his shift in, oh, just under 11 hours. He’d be fine. Knowing Samira Mohan, MD , had had a dream about him did not have to mean he was going to spiral about it all day.
He spiralled all day.
Ok, not really. He had managed to get some sleep when he got to his house, the exhaustion after a brutal shift at PTMC ED was impossible to ignore. But the moment he opened his eyes he was thinking about it again.
What did that mean? What was the dream about? What was he supposed to do about it? If she had had a… dream of intimate nature and she disclosed that to the subject of said dream, did that mean she intended him to know and do something about it?
He was giving himself a headache.
It wasn’t like he had not noticed Samira before this morning. In fact, if you asked Parker or Shen or Lena they would say that him noticing Samira had become a bit of a problem. But how was he supposed to act when she was just so beautiful but more importantly was so talented? He couldn’t help it if he gravitated to her, paying more attention when their shifts overlapped and providing a bit of a more hands-on approach to teaching her. She always absorbed whatever information he gave her like a sponge and then applied it flawlessly in a way that was dazzling to watch. And yes, he had gotten a little flirtatious with her and perhaps she had flirted back on occasion. He truly had never expected anything to come out of it.
He resolved to ask her about it when he got to work. Otherwise he was not going to be able to concentrate and the patients and staff did not deserve it.
Knowing that the conversation had to be had and it might take a while, he drove in to work a full 45 minutes before his shift was due to start. His palms were definitely not clammy and his heart was absolutely not racing. He took a deep breath, turned off the car and walked inside. He had a 4th year resident to find.
He spotted her instantly, sitting at her workstation. She looked tired, but calm. Definitely had no clue about the havoc she had wreaked in him.
As if she could feel his eyes on her, she looked up and smiled the moment she saw him.
Fuck, what he wouldn’t do to be the one to always be making her smile like that.
“Evening, Dr. Abbot!” She said as he approached her. “You’re here early. Is everything ok?”
“Hello, Dr. Mohan. Yes. Well… maybe. I had a question,” He was nervous, his voice gruff and he hoped it wasn’t too obvious.
Samira’s eyebrows scrunched in worry at his response.
“Of course! What can I help you with?”
“Earlier. I mean this morning. At handoff? You mentioned a dream?”
“Oh my god!” Her eyes widened at this, “I had completely forgotten about that! Oh it was insane, truly, I should stop having greasy things for dinner. I always dream nonsense after.”
She was trying to brush it off.
Maybe she had realized what she had said and was embarrassed? It made sense, that she was trying to make up an excuse and absolve herself of whatever her brain had come up with if she thought he was not interested in it.
“Oh? And what was last night’s nonsense? If you don’t mind me asking. It’s just, it felt like it was important enough for you to mention it before so now I can’t help my curiosity.” He insisted, intently looking at her.
His gaze was so intense Samira blushed, casting her eyes downward.
“I don’t want to bore you, nobody ever wants to hear someone else’s dreams.”
“No, no, please go ahead. Now you have to, Samira.”
At the mention of her name her head snapped up to look at him. Her blush intensified and her mouth parted in surprise. Slowly, a smile appeared on her face.
“Well… if you insist.”
Jack could only nod, anticipation building in his mind.
Briefly, he considered that perhaps he should suggest they move from the main floor for this conversation but there was enough bustle that he didn’t think anyone would hear much if things got a little too steamy. Before he could make any mention of this Samira began recounting her dream.
“So, it was here at work.” He raised his eyebrows at this. Kinky of her, but who was he to judge.
“But it looked different. I don’t know, like everything was glowy and pink.” Ok, that made sense, kind of. That could potentially be romantic. Maybe.
“And then there was a call for a trauma incoming so I went down to the ambulance bay, but it was all water and the ambulances were boats. So here comes Terry, you know the EMT? Here comes Terry driving this ambulance boat and the water was slushing all around so getting the gurney out was a mess but there you were, on top of the patient performing CPR and we got into Trauma 1 but we lost the patient almost immediately. Which was a bummer.”
Jack was confused to say the least. Maybe this was the lead up? Did he end up comforting her after the patient passed? That could make sense.
“So I told you, ‘Dr. Abbot we have to call it, he’s gone’. And then you finally stopped compressions and got down from the gurney and that is when I realized the patient had been a giant rotisserie chicken all along.”
He couldn’t help it: his mouth was hanging open, his eyebrows almost disappearing into his curls. What on earth was going on?
“So you just go, ‘you win some you lose some, Mohan!’ And then you grabbed a leg and twisted it and started eating the patient. Which was a rotisserie chicken, right? So weird. And I was just standing there saying how we had to finish the chart but everyone, Donnie and Jesse and Santos and Robby and I can’t remember who else was there, maybe Dana?, was starting to eat the chicken straight from the gurney and you told me to try it. I said something along the lines of ‘no, I can’t do that I’ve never done this before’ and you responded ‘well, Mohan, if you never try something you’ll never learn anything new’ but then I reminded you that I am a vegetarian and you said ‘well good thing this chicken is made out of tofu’. And then you shoved the remaining chicken leg towards me, which was where the IV was still connected, and sure enough it was made entirely out of tofu. And then they were calling a code Gold, which I guess in my dream that meant that someone had hit the jackpot in the slot machines in the lobby, which is insane because why would there be slot machines in a hospital lobby? so we all went to celebrate. And that is when I woke up”
She blinked up at him, a smile lingering at the corners of her mouth.
“Huh. Yeah, no that, that is definitely up there for weirdest dreams.” He cleared his throat. He cleared it again.
He heard giggles to his left and saw Parker, who had arrived at some point while Samira was telling him about her dream and clearly heard most of it. She was trying and completely failing at hiding her reaction at this development.
“Right? So weird. It was so fresh in my mind this morning that when I saw you I couldn’t help but mention it. I wonder what it means? Anyway, I have to finish up this chart before I head out. See you later, Dr. Abbot!”
She still had a bit of a blush on her cheeks, absolutely amazed that Dr. Abbot had listened to her ramble on about her nonsensical dream for almost 15 minutes.
Jack Abbot was an idiot. Parker was still clutching at her stomach and laughing at him.
He turned around in astonishment and silently made his way to the staff room to put his bag in his locker.
Ellis’s steps fell behind him almost instantly.
“So… that was the dream, huh? A little bit more… PG than you expected, perhaps?” She asked, snickering.
“Parker, shut up. Go find Robby and ask about the handoff.” He retorted.
His hands came up to scrub at his face.
He was mortified. The only silver lining was that Samira seemed to have no clue about him being a pervert or about the existential crisis he had suffered while she was at work.
“Sure thing, boss. Just remember, no eating the chicken-patients straight off the gurney, ok?”
He groaned as she walked away, cackling at his misery.
And truth be told, it was on him for jumping to horny conclusions.