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The emergency department is far too bright. Not in the way sunlight is bright – it isn’t worn nor golden nor alive – but in a way that’s harsh and fluorescent, making everything seem sharp at the edges. Your headache throbs behind your right eye, pulsing in time with your heartbeat, and every overhead announcement, every ringing phone, every distant burst of conversation makes something inside your skull protest.
You should have gone home. That’s what you told yourself after it happened. Head back to your apartment, splash some water on your face from the kitchen tap with the leaky faucet, take a seat on one of the dining chairs from a thrift shop, and shake it off. However, your colleagues had other ideas the moment they saw you swaying against the breakroom counter with a little blood drying at your hairline.
Now you sit in a plastic chair in the Pitt’s waiting room with your hands clenched so tightly in your lap your knuckles ache. “Ms Y/L/N?” Your head snaps up too fast and the room tilts violently making you curse under your breath. But you get up anyway because you’re polite like that however the second your feet are under you, it’s like the floor tilts. A steady hand catches your arm before you can stumble. “Easy.”
The voice is calm and professional, and the moment your vision starts to become less blurred you can focus on the woman in dark scrubs and a Pitt ID badge hanging from her waistband: CASSIE MCKAY, MD. Resident physician.
She doesn’t remove her hand immediately, clearly waiting until she’s sure you’re actually upright. “Hello, I’m Dr McKay. What’s the problem today?”
You swallow against the nausea before croaking out. “I fainted at work and hit my head.”
“Okay.” She studies you for half a second, eyes flicking over your face, probably noting the pallor, the way you’re gripping your own sleeve, the obvious discomfort. “Any vomiting?”
“No.”
“Lost consciousness?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Headache?”
You’re nodding before you verbally answer. “Pretty bad one. But I had one before I fainted.”
“Hm.” The medic hums, scanning how you’re holding yourself, how just standing still seems like a struggle. “Any history of heart problems or seizures?”
“No.”
Dr McKay nods, her stare settling on your face for a moment longer. Maybe she notices how tightly wound you are or how you keep looking around the department like you’re expecting something bad to happen. Maybe you just look as awful as you feel. “Let’s get you somewhere quieter.” Relief hits so hard it’s almost embarrassing.
“Okay.”
“I think North 5 is free…” She murmurs under her breath to herself more than anything, but you follow along.
You trail after her through the controlled chaos of the department, trying not to focus on the movement around you. The gurneys lining the walls, the hustle and bustle of nurses at work, beeping monitors, EMTs calling out medical jargon as they wheel someone in who looks in a much worse state than you do. Maybe you should be grateful that isn’t you.
But instead, your stomach twists because you know this place. Not well enough to belong here, but enough to know who works here, how bad it can get, some of the many horror stories. All you can think about though is how you pray that he isn’t here.
You’re relieved when you’re in North 5 and McKay is patting a hand on the bed, signalling for you to sit. She then works on some gloves as you do before pulling a cart nearer to the bedside. “Let’s start with some basics and work from there.” You nod, sitting stiffly on the exam bed while she wraps the blood pressure cuff around your arm in almost the same move as she slides onto a stool. “Do you work in a hot environment?”
“No, I-I work in an office with A/C.”
The monitor beeps quietly as it begins cycling. “You’re slightly hypotensive. Is that normal for you?”
“I…”
“It means low blood pressure.” McKay smiles warmly.
“Oh… No I-I don’t think so.”
“It could explain the fainting.” She says, removing the cuff from you with a quiet hiss. “Are you on any medication?”
“Nothing.”
“Been staying hydrated?” You nod. “Have you eaten much today?”
“A reasonable amount.” It sounds like a weak excuse before the excuse even comes, it makes her cock her head to one side questioningly. “I was feeling sick this morning so couldn’t get down my usual breakfast.”
McKay hums, sifting through the medical knowledge in her mind. “And do you feel nauseous now?”
“A little.” The room moves faintly when you adjust your position. “And dizzy…” Your attention has drifted to the narrow window in the door, offering a partial view into the department beyond. Staff move past in flashes of black, grey, and blue.
McKay notices that you’ve become distracted, so she asks, “Are you expecting someone?”
Your head turns back too quickly, immediately regretting it when the movement sends another wave of dizziness through you. “No. I mean…” You look down at your hands realising that they’re shaking in the way they do when you’re anxious. There have been many times when he has held them whilst trying to calm you down. “I just know someone who works here. And… And I don’t want him to see me like this.”
“Yeah?” She slips the pulse oximeter onto your finger. “Who?”
Your hesitation is brief. “Dr Abbot.”
“Oh.” Her lips quirk upwards into a smile that you don’t quite understand. “Jack is a good man.” Heat crawls up your neck, hating the idea that she’s managed to work it all out already. “He won’t be here. He’s on nights.”
The relief that crashes through you is immediate and embarrassingly obvious. “Oh.” You sag slightly without meaning to, something your doctor definitely notices but doesn’t bring up.
She removes the pulse ox from your finger and pulls a penlight from her pocket instead. “Alright, look at me for a minute.” You obey and the light is brutal, making you wince. “Any blurred vision?”
“Not really.”
“Light sensitivity?”
“Yes.”
She clicks the penlight off, slipping it back into her scrubs. “How were you feeling before you fainted?”
“Erm… Hot and queasy. A little shaky as well maybe.”
McKay nods once, filing each answer away. “Any chest pain or shortness of breath?”
“Nothing like that.”
“Okay.” She gets up from the stool with a short nod. “And when was your last period?”
You blink, surprised that the question came up. “Oh um…” You fumble for your phone then from your pocket. “Let me check. I have an app that tracks them because they’re a bit of a mess.”
McKay’s expression stays neutral as you tap at the screen. “Messy how?”
“I’ve been irregular since I was a teenager.”
The app loads and she leans in just enough to see before looking back at you with a slight quirk to her brow. “Two months is a long time not to get your period.”
You shrug, trying for casual. “I’ve gone longer.”
“Are you on any birth control to try and regulate it?”
“No.” The answer comes quickly. “It screwed with me… mentally and emotionally.” You grimace at the memory of that period of your life while McKay appears unbothered.
“That can happen.” She reassures without judgement. “Are you sexually active?”
The question catches you off guard. “S-Sometimes.” If Jack isn’t in one of his self-pitying phases.
It started as a harmless hookup after meeting at a bar, both of you getting trashed after a hard few days. A couple weeks later, you bumped into him at the same bar, both reasonably sober this time, and you got talking. There’s a vibe there, maybe even a spark, but when you started sleeping together it was decided it would only be sex, something that seemed a good idea almost a year ago, but now when you’re apart you miss him more than the pleasure, he can bring you.
You’ve been icing him out a little recently, claiming to be busy when the reality is you’re too scared to face your feelings. He never pushes, only messages occasionally to check in. Not the kind of check in because he wants something, but because he does care. “Do you use protection? Condoms, that kind of thing.”
“Yeah.”
McKay gives a small nod like that confirms exactly what she suspected. “Okay.” She strips off her gloves, dropping them into the clinical waste bin. “I’m going to order some bloodwork. I think we should also do a urine pregnancy test.” Something stutters in your brain when you hear this. “We’re going to keep you in for monitoring for a bit. If your symptoms continue, we may need a CT.” She gestures vaguely towards your hairline. “I’ll ask a nurse to come clean that wound properly, but it looks superficial. I don’t think you’ll need stitches.”
You stare at her, barely listening because the only word you could home in on was ‘pregnancy’. It turns your mouth dry, makes your chest a little tight. “D-Did you say pregnancy test?”
For the first time, her expression softens into something more explicitly reassuring. “Given the symptoms, the missed period, and the fact that protection isn’t always one hundred percent effective. It’s routine.”
Time becomes strange after that.
McKay leaves, a nurse appears long enough to draw blood before handing you a labelled plastic cup with brisk instructions, another comes to clean the cut at your hairline, apologising before dabbing antiseptic against the tender skin. It stings sharply enough to make your eyes water. But after that you’re alone, and suddenly there’s nothing to do but wait.
Constant noise bleeds in from the department beyond North 5. Voices layered over monitor alarms, footsteps, wheels squeaking against polished floors. Someone laughs, someone else cries out, just life continuing to move while you sit completely still in the middle of it.
It’s routine. You try to remind yourself, but it does little to help. Missed periods do happen, nausea could mean anything, plus fainting doesn’t automatically mean…
You try to think of something else, anything else. Instead, your brain offers memories you absolutely did not ask for. Like the feeling of Jack’s hand at the back of your neck, the weight of him half asleep beside you on early mornings, that one time he kissed you slow enough to make your chest ache for hours afterwards.
Squeezing your eyes firmly shut you can’t help but consider how absurd this all is. You are catastrophising over a routine test because you hit your head and now your brain has apparently stopped functioning.
But then outside the room, someone says Jack’s name and your entire body goes rigid, breath catching in your throat. “Abbot signed off on that last night.” Last night. It doesn’t mean he’s here right now.
Dr McKay leans against a desk at the central hub with one forearm braced against the edge, rolling some of the stiffness out of her neck as the department churns around her. She’s tired already – which is ridiculous, considering she’s barely made a dent in the shift.
Dana appears in front of her, already thrusting a tablet towards her hands. “Results are back for your patient in North 5.”
McKay takes it automatically, already mentally sorting through likely causes like dehydration, an imbalance to electrolytes, low blood sugar… but those results all look within normal range. There’s no obvious explanation for the syncopal episode. Then she pauses and looks again at the beta hCG result. “Huh.”
Dana glances at her. “That a good huh or a bad huh?”
“Depends.” The doctor turns around the tablet for her charge nurse to see who is immediately raising her brow, glasses perched on the end of her nose.
“How do you think it will be received?”
“I don’t know… she’s nervous as it is.” McKay pushes herself upright, dragging a hand briefly over her face before heading back towards North 5. Because there’s no version of this conversation that’s easy, no perfect wording, only hope that it is received well.
Dr McKay steps back into the room, expression composed in that carefully neutral way doctors seem to perfect. It’s not cold but unreadable and immediately your stomach ties into knots. “How are you feeling?” She asks.
“Better I think.” You tell her. “Dizziness and nausea have gone. Only got a slight headache. Nothing Tylenol can’t fix.”
This makes the medic smile faintly, already grateful that you appear to be more loquacious. “I’ll get you some.” Relief loosens something in your shoulders. “You’ll need to stay a little longer for monitoring. Just so we can be sure you don’t need that head CT.”
That makes sense so you nod, excepting that with the busyness of the ER you may be here for some time. “Okay.”
McKay shifts her weight slightly on the balls of her feet then, and something about the movement changes the atmosphere in the small room. “I do have your results.” There it is. Your pulse starts climbing so fast it feels ridiculous. “Your bloodwork looks good. Nothing of concern.”
“Okay.”
That should feel reassuring but instead your whole body feels primed for impact because you have a sinking feeling there’s more. “The pregnancy test came back positive.”
Everything inside you goes very still. There’s no immediate panic, no being flooded with dread, just a strange blankness, like your brain has stopped translating language correctly. “W-What?”
Her expression softens as she produces a small smile. “The test was positive.”
“No.” The word comes out like a reflex. “That’s not-” But it is possible. It’s very possible. “Are you sure?”
“Based on the hormone levels, this isn’t likely to be a false positive.”
Your hand comes up over your mouth, thoughts moving too fast, colliding into one another in sharp, useless fragments. Like dates and sleepy conversations and a handful of nights that suddenly feel catastrophically significant. “How am I going to tell him?” Your voice comes out small, a little broken in a way you’ve not heard it to be in years.
McKay pauses, already suspecting that you’re not just vaguely referring to the baby’s father but to someone that she knows, someone who she’s experienced disasters with, someone who she’s shared a beer with. But she can’t say that, can’t bring him up, because it isn’t her place to. “I’m going to get you those pain meds.” She says instead before adding, “And some water, okay?”
You swallow hard and barely nod, the motion feeling strangely mechanical. “Okay.” She lingers for half a second like she’s making sure you’re actually staying upright before heading on out. And you’re alone again – except not really.
A hand sneaks to your belly which is still small but maybe a little firmer than before. Pregnant. It feels absurd and yet it isn’t. The symptoms all add up: nausea, headache, missed period, low blood pressure leading to fainting… How could you not see it?
What started as a harmless hookup has led to something so life altering with a man who you’re in love with. But Jack is emotionally unavailable, still grieving his wife, and keeps things compartmentalised more than he would like. The same Jack who somehow became important when that was very much not supposed to happen.
Back at the central hub, Dana glances up as McKay returns, immediately reading the answer in her face. “How’d she take it?”
“Er... not well.”.
“Yeah?”
“I think it was a shock.”
“Understandably.”
Before McKay can elaborate, Dr Robby looks up from the chart he’s reviewing. “How did who take what?”
“My patient in North 5.” McKay starts to explain. “Came in after fainting and hitting her head. Turns out she’s pregnant.”
“Ah.” He says it with the thoughtful neutrality of someone mentally slotting information into place. “Fainting during early pregnancy isn’t common, but it happens. She really had no idea from the missed period?”
McKay shakes her head. “Her periods have apparently been all over the place since she was a teenager.”
Robby nods once, sliding his tablet onto the charging dock. “Well, she has options. And hopefully once the shock wears off, she might find something positive in it.” His voice remains factual but not unkind. “Anyway Dana, is Jack still here?”
McKay’s focus sharpens as she straightens her posture. “Abbot’s here?”
The attending and charge nurse look at her then like she’s grown two heads, evidently confused by her apparent eagerness to know the answer to that question. “Yeah.” Dana says. “In the on-call room, hopefully getting some shuteye.”
“I need an opinion on a patient who came in on his time.” Robby moves past his confusion fairly quickly. McKay says nothing, only concentrates on her patient, walking away from the hub without uttering another syllable.
When she returns to North 5 with two paper cups in hand, you’re still frozen to the edge of the bed, hands clasped tightly in your lap appearing like the world has tilted on its axis. “Hey, I’ve got you that Tylenol.” She says, bringing you out of your spiral fleetingly.
“Thanks.” The single word comes out strained, but you take the two cups, swallowing the tablets in one before washing them down with water from the other.
McKay hesitates then, peering down at her shoes briefly before looking back up at your worried form. “This isn’t really my place Y/N, but that doctor you mentioned earlier…” Your stomach drops so fast it almost feels physical. “I was wrong. He is here.”
You actually laugh once then. It’s a short, disbelieving sound as you shake your head. “No… You said that he’s on nights.”
“He stayed over.”
Your whole body reacts before your mind does. Heart slamming painfully against your ribs, muscles tensing, heat flooding your face before draining just as quickly. “No.” Your hands move to your hair to sweep through, then immediately stops when your fingers brush the tender spot at your temple. “Shit, I-” You swallow against the rising sickness. “I cannot tell him like this.”
Abbot returns to the department looking freshly brushed up but not exactly rested. The clean black scrubs help, so does the dampness to his curls suggesting a quick shower or at least a determined attempt to wash sleep off in the staff bathroom. But exhaustion still sits in the lines around his eyes, in the mechanical way he moves, in the slight stiffness when he rolls one shoulder as he crosses the department towards Robby.
But once he’s back in the rhythm of the ER, the fatigue becomes secondary.
The patient he’s been called to see is a complex case, one that has required a lot of group diagnosis and some experimental procedures, but when he left him at around eight o’clock this morning all was well. Now the patient has deteriorated, and a new plan needs to be formed. “This would be a great teaching moment.” Abbot comments once the two attendings decide the best course of action. “Who’s here who has time to listen?”
“Whittaker is at the nurse’s station I believe and the last place I saw McKay was heading into North 5.” Robby answers. “Everyone else is tied up I think.”
“I’ll go and get them.”
Abbot catches Whittaker first at the nurse’s station, chatting to Kim about something, but he doesn’t mind the interruption and is immediately heading to Trauma 2 with a spring in his step. The attending then moves to North 5 where he pushes open the door without thinking much about it, because why would he? “Cassie, we have-” But the words die instantly in his throat.
For one strange, suspended second, nothing in his expression changes as he takes in the sight of you sitting rigidly on the examination bed clutching onto a paper cup so tightly that it may break with McKay standing beside you with the kind of posture doctors unconsciously adopt when delivering difficult news.
“Wait.” He shakes his head as if he’s hallucinating. “What are you doing here?”
The effect of his presence is immediate. Every bit of oxygen seems to vanish from the room as the internalised panic you were already experiencing seems to amplify. No, no, no. This can’t be happening. He can’t find out, not now, not like this, maybe not ever.
You don’t say anything – neither does McKay – but you start to quake, pulse rapidly hammering relentlessly. The cup of water slips from your other hand, hitting the floor with a light thud as liquid spills across it. Something that you find completely humiliating amongst it all. “Fuck I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” McKay reassures, leaning down to pick it up before dropping it into the clinical waste bin all while Jack is silent, studying you, now with concern etched into his features.
You can’t look at him and your breathing turns shallow. It’s all wrong in your chest, fast, and inconsistent. “Hey. Deep breaths for me, Y/N.” McKay says, her tone changing immediately to something calm and yet firm.
“I’m fine.” The lie is automatic and obviously fiction because you’re absolutely not fine.
Jack’s expression hardens into something efficient then, hiding behind his professionalism when internally he’s starting to spiral. It’s a way for him to protect himself. His gaze flicks once from you to McKay, then over his shoulder to the door that he swiftly closes. You suck in a breath in preparation for what is about to come.
McKay starts to say something, but Jack cuts across before she can. “What happened?”
She glances at you first and you give her the smallest of all nods, surrendering to the fact that the truth is going to come out eventually so it may as well be now. “Syncopal episode at work and a bump on the head.” Is all she says, deciding that the big news isn’t hers to disclose. “We’re just monitoring a few symptoms, but things are looking better.”
You can practically hear the cogs whirring in his head. The ones that are experts in emergency medicine and the ones that need you to be alright. “What kind of symptoms?” He then asks, arms crossing over his chest.
“Oh the usual.” McKay shrugs. “Nausea, dizziness, headache, but she’s feeling better now.” You appreciate that she’s doing her best to keep the truth under wraps because it gives you time to find the rhythm in your breaths again, to stop feeling quite so out of control. “Did you need something?” It’s not quite a dismissal, but it’s close.
“Oh yeah.” He remembers, blinking back to coherent thought. “You’re needed in Trauma 2. There’s a great… teaching moment in there.”
“Okay sounds good.” The resident smiles and touches your arm one last time before starting to make a move. “Are you coming?”
“Not anymore.” McKay’s eyebrows lift faintly. “Can you remind him I’m off the clock please.”
“Jack-”
“I’ve got this.” She studies him and then you and then him again. Whatever she sees appears to satisfy her enough not to argue.
“Call if her symptoms worsen.” Jack gives a short nod.
And then there’s just the two of you, engulfed in a heavy silence, the kind that presses against your skin, tries to suffocate you.
The silence lasts all of two seconds before something in Jack shifts. He doesn’t lose his professional edge entirely, but it reshapes into something less in your face. His shoulders drop as he releases breath, lifting a hand to scratch the back of his neck before he utters a gentle, “Hey.” It’s as if he’s reset in front of your eyes. “How are you feeling, baby?”
Baby. The world has the ability to completely undo you, not because you haven’t heard him say it before but because it’s usually under very different circumstances. Late at night, rough with sleep or softened by intimacy, murmured against your skin where nobody else can hear it.
Not here, in the Pitt, while your entire life feels like it’s coming apart.
It makes your expression crumple, throat tightens, as you use every ounce of will to not fall apart before his eyes. “I’m fine.” You claim barely above a whisper, though it comes out far weaker than intended.
“Bullshit.” He crosses the distance between you in a few quick steps, all focus now, concern written openly across his face in a way you almost never see. His hand comes up, fingers warm against your jaw as he tips your face gently towards the light. “Let me look at you.”
Your body obeys before your brain gets a vote. The cut near your hairline gets a brief inspection, his thumb hovering carefully near the few sterile strips without touching. “Did they clean this?” You nod. “When?”
“Jack-”
“When?” He presses, seemingly unimpressed by the work.
“About an hour ago. I don’t know.”
A faint grunt escapes him at this, shifting seamlessly into doctor mode but less prickly than he would perhaps be with other patients. “McKay mentioned nausea, dizziness, and a headache. That all gone?”
“Pretty much.” You shrug, trying to act casual, hoping it will stop him from fussing.
“Pretty much?” He pushes. “What does that mean?”
“Dizziness has gone. Headache almost since having some Tylenol.”
“Nausea?”
“It was but-” You shake your head with a grimace. “I think it’s just anxiety now.”
Jack rests a hand on your arm then, giving it a faint squeeze in attempt to reassure. “That’s understandable. ERs have that kind of effect on people.” But then his touch is gone as he reaches into the pockets of his scrubs for a penlight. “Look at me.”
“I’ve done all this with Dr McKay.”
“Yeah, well I like to do my own assessment on patients I care about.” He reels off in a way that’s so natural, it makes you believe him.
So you obey, even though the sudden brightness makes you wince. “Sorry.” The apology slips out before you can stop it making him frown.
“For what?”
The question catches you off guard. “For being…” You gesture vaguely at yourself as if to say everything about this situation.
“Don’t.” He states firmly. “Never apologise for being hurt. Not to me, not to anyone. Got it?”
It’s strange, seeing him in this way. This is a man who you associate with a good time, pleasure, cuddles, deep conversation. He’s almost never unyielding in how he speaks to you. Never so urgent. But being in the ER has switched something within him, something that he’s evidently finding hard to navigate. “Okay.” Your voice is small, tone unsure, and it makes him sigh before he continues his task.
A light passes across one eye, then the other while his lips are pursed with focus. There’s something almost unbearably intimate about the proximity, about the cautious hand steadying your chin, about his breath against your face. “Pupils look okay.” He clicks the light off.
Then reaches for the vitals machine with one hand and the stool with the other and you go through the whole rigmarole again: blood pressure, pulse ox, fingers pressed to your wrist. It's different now though. The anxiety thrumming through you isn’t because you don’t know what’s wrong with you but because you do and he does not.
He asks about the nausea, about the symptoms before fainting, about the fainting episode itself. Shortness of breath? Chest pain? Blackouts? Everything that McKay has already asked and most likely charted. “Anything else I should know?” He then questions and something twists in your gut.
Because there absolutely is something else that he should know, but that doesn’t mean it would be easy to admit that. You look down at your hands wringing together, appearing more than nervous. Jack notices immediately because of course he does. “Hey.” His hand rests just above your knee where he rubs circles into your thigh soothingly. “Talk to me, baby.”
The words come out so quietly you almost think he might not hear them. “Apparently I’m pregnant.”
Jack goes completely still. His ministrations on your thigh halt, his shoulders set straight, and you think he even forgets to breathe for a few beats. The only part of him that moves are his hazel eyes, flickering from side to side as he reads your expression, as if trying to work out if this is all a joke.
It’s not a joke. “Oh.” He sounds completely stunned.
“Yeah.” You look away and the silence that follows feels enormous. You hate it because your brain fills every second of it with worst-case interpretations. He’s regretting everything. He doesn’t want this. He’s trying to figure out how fast he can leave. This changes everything – of course it changes everything. “Say something please.”
Jack blinks like you’ve snapped him back into the room. “Right.” He exhales once, dragging a hand over his jaw, still looking shell-shocked. “Okay.”
Your jaw drops. “Okay?”
“I’m thinking.” This should probably annoy you but instead it makes your chest tighten.
The uncertainty of it all launches you into a nervous spiel. “It was a routine test. Dr McKay asked about my periods, and they’re always a mess, and I told her they’ve been weird since I was a teenager and then she ordered a urine test and-” Your breathing starts going wrong again. It’s fast and shallow as the words tumble out. “And apparently that means I’m pregnant and I don’t even know how because we’re careful, except not always careful enough, obviously, and-”
“Hey.” Jack’s voice cuts through the spiral instantly. You stop because he sounds so calm compared to the panic clawing up your throat, digging your teeth into your bottom lip. He squeezes your knee. “Breathe my sweet.” You drag in air, but it catches all wrong. “Slowly, again.” You try again, slower, and it’s minutely better. “Good.”
“I’m scared.” The admission escapes before you can stop it, and something in his expression changes immediately. The shock doesn’t disappear entirely, but it gets overtaken by worry.
He slides the stool he’s perched on closer. “I can see that, baby.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“We don’t need to decide anything right this second.”
It then hits you that he’s still very much here. He hasn’t run away, he hasn’t shut down, he’s looking at you like you are his main priority. “You’re not... mad?”
Jack’s eyebrows pull together. “Mad?”
“That I’m…” You trail off, gesturing helplessly between the two of you instead.
“Baby.” The pet name helps relax you a little before he even finishes his thought. “I’m shocked. But mad?” He shakes his head once. “Not even a little.” A sniffle escapes you then and you look away, embarrassed, but his fingers under your chin are gently tilting your head back towards him. “We’ll figure this out.” And you believe him.
The atmosphere becomes less panicked. It’s still fragile and very surreal, but different. Jack’s is close enough that you can feel his body heat as your pulse finally starts to come down from its earlier sprint. “Aren’t you needed elsewhere?” The question comes out quieter than you intend, maybe because only part of you means it.
“No.” The answer is immediate. “I’m off the clock technically.” And yet here is. In the ED in scrubs, ready for action but that’s Jack. A man of action. His expression then shifts back into that thoughtful, clinical seriousness as he studies your face. “I think you should have a head CT.” You open your mouth to protest but he’s continuing. “You passed out, hit your head, had persistent symptoms.”
“I feel fine.” His expression does not change, not even slightly.
He slides closer again, enough that his hand finds yours almost absentmindedly, thumb brushing once over your knuckles. “Baby.” His tone is now one he never thought he’d use in this hospital, but here he is, being all affectionate and doting like he’s not surrounded by his chaotic workplace. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”
The words hit harder than they should. “Jack…”
“I know.” He huffs through his nose, glancing briefly away before looking back at you. “And maybe I’m overreacting.” He absolutely does not sound like he thinks that. “But you fainted and hit your head and now there’s…” He doesn’t finish the sentence because he doesn’t need to.
Now there’s two of you.
Protective instinct is written all over him, not just for you but for your unborn child. You look down, suddenly unable to hold his gaze. “Okay. If you think that’s necessary.” He hums and starts to move away but your fingers tighten around his without meaning to. “Stay. Please.”
“Okay.” He smiles. “As long as you need.” Jack studies you for a moment before asking cautiously. “Did you have any idea?”
“None.” You wince at your own answer. “Is that stupid?”
“Not at all.” His gaze drops then to how your hands are linked together, seemingly building up the courage to continue. “I was just wondering if that's why you've been avoiding me.” But the words come out all wrong, landing badly in the process.
You blink, jaw becoming lax as you stare at him completely stunned. “What?” Jack immediately realises his mistake, but you don’t give him chance to cover his tracks. “You think I knew I was pregnant all along?” The disbelief in your voice is climbing. “I ignored you, fainted at work and then decided to come to this hospital on the off chance you'd be working?”
“No, I-”
“Because that sounds insane, Jack.”
“Fuck.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “I'm sorry. That's not what I meant.” The anger drains out of you almost as quickly as it arrives, because he genuinely looks horrified that he upset you. “I was just wondering why you've been avoiding me. Did I do something wrong?”
“No.”
“Then what is it?” You open your mouth, but nothing comes out even though the truth is sitting right there in your throat. The terrifying and impossible to explain truth. “You can tell me.”
Your fingers tighten around his and the bright lights blur slightly but not from dizziness this time. It’s something else. “You ever have something happen that you absolutely didn't plan for?”
Jack snorts softly glancing down to where his prosthetic hides under his scrubs. “More than once.”
“Something that changes things?”
“What kind of things?”
You swallow hard before pointing between the two of you with your free hand. “This.” Then the room, the conversation, just everything that sits with these four walls.
His brow dips as he leans forward a little, trying to understand. “Us?”
The word hangs in the air dangerously and you immediately wish he'd chosen literally any other one. “Maybe.”
Jack goes very still. “Baby-”
But you don’t let him finish. “I didn't mean for any of this to happen.” Your voice cracks. “Not this.” You gesture helplessly towards your stomach. “Not... feelings.” The laugh that escapes you then is not a happy laugh, far from it, it’s dismissive, suffering, and everything in between. “I didn't know what to do with it. I kept thinking it would go away.”
He gulps on his stool, scratching at the slight stubble to his jaw distractedly. “Did it?” You shake your head.
The silence stretches, long enough that embarrassment starts creeping in and you wish you'd never said anything. Maybe you should have kept your mouth shut. Maybe- “You thought you were the only one?”
Your head snaps up from where it was staring at a loose thread on your jeans. Jack is looking at you like you've said something completely ridiculous. “What?”
His jaw flexes, a muscle ticking there. “You thought this was a one-sided problem?”
"I-" Because yes, obviously yes, because why would he have feelings for you?
Jack lets out a breath somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. “Fucking hell.”
“What?”
“Baby.” His hand tightens around yours. “I kept telling myself to leave it alone.”
Your heart stutters in your chest. “Leave what alone?”
“You.” The room suddenly feels very small and all too quiet, the sounds of the ED draining away in the distance. “I liked what we had.” The honesty in it hurts because you did too, but that all feels like it’s in the past. “But every time I'd decide to keep things casual, you'd do something that made it impossible.”
You stare, completely speechless, while Abbot works his hardest at stringing coherent sentences together. “I kept telling myself not to get attached.” He shrugs then, a powerless shrug. “Then you would fall asleep on my couch while we watched a movie or made sure I eat after a busy shift or… smile at me.”
You actually laugh then, a sort of startled sound. “That's your evidence?”
“It wasn't helping.” The corner of his mouth twitches, but the joy fades again into sincerity because he knows how much this moment matters. It could path the way for other moments in the future. “I thought either I’d get over it or you’d get sick of me. Never in my wildest dreams did I think you would feel the same.”
“You never said anything.”
His eyebrows lift at this. “Neither did you.”
“Touché.” And for the first time since Dr McKay walked into this room with your results, you don't feel like you're standing on the edge of a cliff by yourself.
Jack is there with you. “For what it's worth...” He continues, still brushing your knuckles with his thumb lovingly. “I wasn't avoiding this because I didn't care. I was avoiding it because I cared too much and… and I didn’t want to wreck what we already have.”
The words slip out before you can stop them. Small, overwhelmed and disbelieving. “And now I'm pregnant.” The reality of it lands all over again the second you say it out loud because it’s not some hypothetical future problem, it’s true. Pregnant. “Shit.” A shaky laugh escapes you. “I still can't believe that's a sentence I'm saying out loud.”
The room is quiet for a moment, not awkwardly so but a little heavy. Jack doesn't rush to fill it which you appreciate because honestly there are very few words that would be reassuring right now when you’re terrified and hopelessly unprepared. “I don't know the first thing about being a parent.” Your voice comes out rough. “I can barely remember to buy groceries half the time. Last week I ate cereal for dinner three nights in a row.”
Jack's expression softens, making a mental note to ensure that never happens again. Especially now that you’re with child. He will grocery shop, he will cook, he will do whatever is necessary to look after you. “People who have babies are supposed to have plans.” You keep going because for some reason stopping feels worse. “They’re supposed to have their lives together.”
He’s already shaking his head. “That’s a myth. The having your life together part.”
Despite everything, this earns the faintest smile, but it disappears quickly. “I mean it. I-I don’t know if I can do this.” There’s the fear underneath everything else. It’s not fear about the pregnancy – not really – or about your relationship with Jack, it’s about failing a child who hasn’t even been born yet.
“Hm.” Jack hums, scooching so close now that your knees bump with his. “When I started residency all those years ago, I was convinced everyone else knew what they were doing. I thought they all had some secret handbook I missed.” This makes you chuckle under your breath at the image of a young Dr Jack Abbot, trying to navigate a busy ER, all green and inexperienced. “Turns out everybody was winging it.”
His thumb brushes across your knuckles again. An anchoring little movement he's apparently decided belongs to him now. “The people who worry they're going to screw everything up?” His gaze finds yours, all hazel and imploring. “They're usually the ones trying hardest not to.” Your eyes sting, next exhale barely a shudder. “Baby… You don’t have to have the next eighteen years all figured out right now.”
“No?”
“No.” He says with zero hesitation. “Today, we focus on you and making sure you’re alright. Starting with a precautionary CT, okay?”
“Okay.”
Then he looks at you, really looks, and whatever he sees there seems to make a decision for him. Because his expression softens all over again. “I'm not going anywhere.” The words are simple and uncomplicated, but they hit harder than almost anything else he could have said.
Your throat closes unexpectedly because for all the things you've been afraid of since Dr McKay read through your test results, that had been the biggest one. The thing sitting quietly beneath every other panic. That you'd tell him and he’d leave and that would be that.
Jack squeezes your hand firmly once. “And before your brain starts doing that thing where it invents worst-case scenarios...” He rattles off, already know that is what’s happening. Your cheeks flush in realisation. “I’m not going anywhere. I swear to you and our child.” This time, you believe him.
Not because he's saying what you want to hear but because he sounds annoyed that you would ever think otherwise, which may be the most Jack Abbot declaration of affection imaginable. It brings a smile to your face, a genuine one, as you quietly utter an, “Okay.”
And for the first time since you arrived at the Pitt, being “okay” doesn’t feel like a lie.