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Parker had just gotten the patient's CT results when Toomarian pulled up short by central and stuttered out, "So, um, is it possible that Dr. Robby and Dr. Abbot are about to make out in Trauma 1?"
The intern clocking their weirdness on day one? That might be a new record.
Parker didn't bother looking up from her tablet. "Now that sounds like the definition of not my business," she drawled. "But if you see any hot man-on-man action, note the date and time. Ahmad's got a pool going."
Toomarian was silent for a beat. "Really?" she asked, voice lowering, sounding vaguely scandalized, though it was unclear whether because of the pool or the possibility.
Parker did look up then, letting herself smirk. "Don't do anything interesting unless you want your coworkers betting on your business."
Toomarian blinked her wide brown eyes, the whiff of disbelief still hovering. "No, I mean about Robby and Abbot."
Parker blanked her expression. "I plead the Fifth."
Toomarian frowned. "Wait, how would that incriminate you?" she asked, like she was doing the math on that and failing.
Thankfully a trauma rolled in, the medics calling out, "Forty-two-year-old male, sparkler to the eye," in a way that had Parker instantly heading over.
Let the intern wonder.
***
After stabilizing her trauma and doing some recon—Jack would approve—Parker found him studying the board in the way that meant he wanted to be distracted. The overhead fluorescents hummed their tune as nurses and aides hurried around central, the ED hopping on this explosive holiday eve.
"I hear you and Robby were getting hot and heavy in the trauma bay," Parker said as she took up her post next to him, an opening volley.
Jack turned to her, smirking. "You having fantasies about me again, Parker? I mean, I get it, but I'm already hearing the HR call."
Parker tsked at him. "That's only if it's unwanted."
Jack dipped his head. "Fair." He could only hold the straight face for a beat, though, lips twitching.
Parker suppressed her own smile. "All I'm saying, it's day one and you're scandalizing the intern."
"Hey, I'm not the one who sees two guys talking and jumps to conclusions," Jack said, mild.
"See, and I heard it was more like two guys getting handsy in a glass-walled room."
Jack made a little fluttering dismissive gesture. "Now that's an exaggeration."
"You hugged Robby for so long it turned into holding Robby. Vivi started a timer."
"Sounds like Vivi needs more work to do. And possibly glasses," he added, light.
Parker tilted her head at him. "You realize people always got eyes on you two, right? The Chief and his right hand. They notice what you get up to."
Jack went innocent. "Maybe I'm trying to sweeten the pot."
"I wouldn't know a thing about that," she said, dry, playing Jack's beloved game of saying one thing while meaning the opposite. Apparently it was a whole thing in the Army.
"I'm sure," Jack said, joining in, the straight face saying one thing, but his eyes gave him away; they sparked with amusement.
Parker let herself grin at the shared subterfuge...and then let it fade into the ether. "Robby gonna be okay?" she asked, stepping closer and lowering her voice to something that would stay between them, even with the ever-present buzz around central. It was fine for the joking to be overheard, but Parker had seen the shadow in Robby ever since Pittfest, growing deeper as the months wore on. And she saw its echo in Jack, a futile, flailing thing. If Jack had been holding him in Trauma 1, well. There was a reason.
That line crinkled between Jack's eyebrows, the one that had been appearing whenever anyone brought up Robby and his death machine. He shrugged one shoulder. "I hope so. I tried," he added, small, helpless in a way Jack was not.
Parker hmmed. If anyone could reach Robby, it was Jack...but Jack was also a stubborn jackass who was his own worst enemy. Sometimes he needed a little push. "Last I heard, Tim said he was in Pedes rocking the baby."
Jack nodded, like he knew that. Like he'd been keeping track. "Happy babies chill everybody out. Maybe it'll work its magic."
Which was the kind of hands-off that didn't bode well. So Parker decided to bust out the big guns: "It damn well better. You've been an entire bitch about his trip and it'd be great if you could not be that." Because sometimes a little push actually meant a shove off the building and Parker would happily oblige.
Jack shot her a disgruntled look. "I have been so fuckin' cool about his death tour. The very definition of cool."
Parker crossed her arms and just looked at him. "How much of it did you map out?"
"Every mission requires a detailed OPORD. That's just good planning."
"'Cause if you acronym it up, that makes it better," Parker said, in a tone sure to get to him. "Did you enable location tracking on his phone, too?"
"Of course not," Jack said, for all the world like he was offended. "I put a tracker on his bike like a civilized human."
"Well, in that case," she said, shooting him an expectant look.
His frown said he still wasn't getting it. "Man, what do you want from me right now?" he asked, annoyance flaring. Jack generally let her roll how she liked, but he did get testy with needling.
So she shot him an exasperated look and stopped dancing around it: "I want you to use your words."
"I did use my words," he said, getting defensive. "I used a lot of words."
Parker raised an eyebrow. "Did you use all your words?" she asked, putting a layer of implication in it. Because she could be more direct, but they were at work, with all sorts of ears present. And Jack didn't like his business spread around.
His jaw clenched.
"That's what I thought," Parker said, pinning him with a look. "If you're gonna paint a picture for the intern, maybe make it count."
Now he actually glared at her. But the joke was on him; that hadn't worked on her since she was an intern. And barely even then. "I seem to recall something about you not wanting to hear about white boy dicks outside of a medical context," he said, going outright pissy. Which meant he knew she was right.
Parker spread her hands wide, gesturing to all and sundry. "So you see how dire it is."
Jack huffed a disgruntled breath. "Yeah," he finally said, something resigned in his voice. "Solid copy."
***
After more nonsense from drunk assholes with too many explosives and too little sense, Parker arrived back at central just as Toomarian returned from outside. "Um. Is it possible that Robby and Abbot are gonna make out over his bike?"
Parker just stared at her. "Will this be a thing with you?"
Toomarian's eyes went big. "It's not—they're just standing really close. And staring at each other. Kind of a lot."
"They do that," Crus offered from the other side of central, supposedly charting, though clearly not. "Like bloodhounds who imprinted on each other as puppies."
Toomarian swung her gaze to Crus for a beat, then looked back to Parker. "So...yes?"
Parker sighed something long-suffering and gave in. "Here's the deal: Robby and Abbot? Are all kinds of intense about each other. If you want to place a bet on it, Ahmad's your man. But the rest of the time? These are the things we do not mention. Little chats on the roof or in Robby's office or the trauma bays—"
"I caught 'em coming out of the single-occupancy bathroom once," Mateo added as he swooped by, dropped a tablet in the charger, and headed off to his patient in South 16.
"Or anywhere else," Parker added, shooting Mateo a look, "well, those are just leadership talks and none of our business. You understand," she said, not a question.
Toomarian blinked. "Got it," she said in a way that didn't understand at all. "So if I run into them during a chat—"
"No, you didn't," Parker corrected, because hadn't she just said that?
"Right. No, I didn't. Well, Abbot is not having a chat out in the ambulance bay right now, for anyone who needs to know."
John ambled over from his zone, already on his second iced coffee and they hadn't even hit midnight. "What do we need to know?"
"Robby and Abbot," Crus said simply, because they all knew what that meant.
John bobbed his head easily. "Someone finally win the pot?"
"We're getting the intern up to speed," Parker said, offering a commiserating look.
John smiled a little. "I remember when Price got me up to speed. What a dick."
"That guy sure made an impression," Parker said, amused. "What a shame he forfeited his bet when he bounced for the celebrity set."
Toomarian went vaguely alarmed. "Exactly how big is this pot?"
John's forehead scrunched as he tried to remember. "We up to five figures yet?"
"Ten thousand dollars?" Toomarian asked, scandalized anew.
Parker shrugged. "A little less than, but yeah." At her incredulous look, Parker added: "It's the longest-running pool. Been going since before covid. Ahmad inherited it from his predecessor."
John tipped his coffee at Toomarian. "That's what we call PTMC dedication." Then he slurped from his straw, just any old day.
Robby and Jack being weird about each other? The very definition of any old day.
***
Walsh promptly came down for a surgical consult, which meant John up and vanished, leaving Parker to deal with a level of pissy that required an attending's salary, so off she went to find Jack. The heavy heat had thankfully broken, though the acrid bite of firework smoke hung in the air of the ambulance bay, an unwelcome friend. The bay was empty, in one of those lulls between medic runs—no ambulances coming or going, otherwise deserted—and Parker spotted Jack right where she expected: with Robby at his bike. They didn't notice her, too wrapped up in each other.
In this case, literally. Robby sat astride the bike with Jack leaning down and holding him in a hug, his arms cinched around Robby like he was trying to physically anchor him in place. Parker slowed her pace to give them a minute—
Just as Jack drew back. But he didn't pull away, instead he angled his head—
Parker pulled up short at sight of the kiss, one of those things that had been so anticipated, discussed, predicted, that actually seeing it made her blink, like her eyes might be deceiving her. But no, she was right; after literal years of dancing around their thing, Jack had decided to go directly at it. And Robby was not protesting. He tilted his face up to return Jack's kiss, something desperate in the way his hand gripped Jack's scrub top. Vindication swept Parker as Jack cupped Robby's jaw, their mouths moving together slowly, a real kiss, aching and deliberate, like Jack wanted to get this right.
Jack pulled back to look at Robby and even Parker could hear it when he said, "I need you," ferocity in his voice, like he was continuing some argument.
Robby pulled him back in and this kiss was open-mouthed and intense, the two getting lost in it. Robby's hand slid down to Jack's hip, a kind of ownership in that touch as they kissed and kissed, and huh, the intern had called that one.
Realizing that this would be all over the security footage—and Ahmad was not one to keep a lid on it—Parker cleared her throat.
Jack's eyes snapped over to her, but they held zero surprise. Which just figured. She never could sneak up on him. He barely pulled away from Robby, only enough to raise an imperious eyebrow at her and bark, "What?"
"Walsh," Parker said, all that needed to be said.
Jack rolled his eyes. "I'll be right there."
She nodded and reversed course.
"And Parker—" he called after her.
"Not my business," she called back, not even looking.
She didn't need to see any more of what they were getting up to.
***
Later, after Jack had dispatched Walsh with extreme prejudice, he joined her before the board again, both of them quiet.
"Thank you, Parker," he finally said, obligatory, but there was a rough kind of genuine note underneath it.
She shot him a knowing look. "See what happens when you use your words?"
"Yeah, yeah."
"He sticking around?"
Jack shrugged, a flash of uncertainty there and gone. "I think I bought one more day."
Parker made a sexy kind of noise deep in her throat. "Meet up with him outside this place and I bet you'll buy more than that."
A smile tugged at Jack's lips as he shook his head. "Breaking your own rules," he teased.
"A testament to my love."
Jack's expression went touched. Being a white man of a certain age, he promptly shuttered it because god forbid anyone feel things. "Who do you think wins the pot?" he asked, brisk, going all business again, hands clasped behind his back.
Parker grunted her offense, shocked that he didn't already know. "Please. I changed my bet to Robby's last day as soon as his sabbatical went wide."
Jack's expression cycled through a wildly satisfying progression—startled, surprised, calculating, realizing—and then he shot her an accusing sort of look, finally catching up. "This was all part of your master plan."
Parker reached out to pat him on the shoulder, all the smug in the world as she said, "A girl's got student loans, Jack."
"I'm a pawn," he lamented.
"Don't sell yourself short. You're at least a bishop. Maybe even a knight."
"Well, I'm glad I could help you play your little game," he said, tart.
She tipped her head, considering. "Better way to think of it: I set you up so that you could spike it."
Jack pressed his lips together. "I hate that I like that," he finally said.
"I get that a lot," she deadpanned. She let the humor subside, going serious again. "If you got Robby to take a beat, don't let him slip away," she said, holding his gaze to make him feel it.
Jack swallowed, tensing slightly, like the weight of that bore down. "Yeah."
Parker nodded, seeing that he got it. "And remember, beyond that..."
"I know, I know. Not your business." He made a face at her. "All evidence to the contrary."
Parker smirked as she headed off to check on South 20. "And you should be grateful for it."
***
Fin. Feedback is adored.