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Retrospectively, all Jack had been attempting to do was treat Dr. King with her due respect, and, if Robby ever returns from his suicidaddical so he has someone to bitch to, Jack’ll be sure to make that fact abundantly clear.
The original issue has been silently brewing in the first month of Robby’s absence, unnoticed and overlooked by Jack, like a speck of dirt on glasses.
Day shifts are a necessary evil when down a chief attending, and even more so with the revised policy requiring two attendings per shift. The powers that be assure him it isn’t permanent, for which his sleep schedule and nerves are profoundly grateful.
The day shift crew is – fine, for the most part. Pleasant enough, competent enough, respect him enough. They’re not his ducklings, though, and it’s certainly an adjustment.
Dr. Mel King has been one of the easier adjustments.
She’s intelligent and skilled, kind and thoughtful, measured and controlled. She’s not a squeaky wheel, and Jack’s genuinely unsure if he’s ever had to correct her on a medical procedure during her entire tenure here. She does have an occasionally unfortunate lack of ability to hide her feelings, a tendency to let conversations run too long, and Jack idly wishes he could scoop out a tablespoon of his own self-confidence and plunk it into her spine – but she’s a wonderful doctor, and never, ever a problem, and, if pressed, he’d certainly say that he views her as a trainee on the path to becoming a trusted colleague.
Which is why, on a completely unremarkable Tuesday at 11:14am, when he hands her an iPad back with a bump on the arm and a “Thanks, kiddo,” he blinks at himself.
Kiddo?
Like a spot on glasses, it’s invisible until noticed, but once Jack sees it, he can’t stop.
The next instance occurs the very same day, 2:13pm, during treatment of a sweet woman in her late eighties who fell off her porch while carrying a pot of roses.
“I know better, too.” She clucks her tongue in disappointment at herself. “My grandson just installed a handrail!”
“And now he gets to install a wheelchair ramp!” Jack pats the bed by her hand sympathetically; he’s taken his share of tumbles from hubris of ignoring handrails, particularly early in his return to America, sans a leg. He’ll likely take more as he ages, knowing himself.
The woman, Barbara, sighs, heavy and long, eyes closing. “I just hope I can recover from this,” she mutters.
It’s not an out-there concern. At a certain age, the body stops mending itself in a timely or healthy fashion. Jack can’t promise her anything, but he’s careful to keep levity in his voice when he responds, “We’ll do our best to get you back to breaking hearts instead of legs in no time.”
A snort.
Jack’s eyes flick up just in time to catch Santos rolling her eyes. He makes a questioning noise – he’s actually fairly certain what she’s thinking, but he wants to hear her say it; it always does the youngins good to express themselves – and her hands might be fully engaged with the leg brace the paramedics put on, but her smirk betrays her.
“Nothing, Dr. Abbot. Guess only Mel is exempt from your flirting.”
Jack blinks in surprise.
That’s not what he expected her to say.
He glances to the corner of the room, where Dr. King is obliviously clicking a few keys on the computer, no doubt meticulously ordering the labs that Jack had ordered out not two minutes ago. Santos was quiet enough that she likely didn’t hear, even if she was paying attention, and some part of Jack that he needs to inspect is distantly grateful.
He eyes Santos, whose smirk is still in place. He crosses his arms, trying to look like the intimidating boss that he doesn’t currently feel like. “Excuse me?”
Santos shrugs, hands still busy stabilizing the leg, not meeting his gaze. “It’s common knowledge, man. You’d flirt with an anvil. Swear to God I heard you coming on to Whitaker last week.”
He absolutely was not; the boy just has an unconscious habit of setting up innuendos, and what is Jack going to do, ignore it when given an opening like “in baseball, I usually used to get to at least second base”?
There’s a triumphant mouse click in the corner, and then King swivels her chairs back to face the room. “All ordered, Dr. Abbot,” she says, brightly, with that earnest, actually-real smile that he doesn’t know how she manages 7 hours into a shift.
Santos just shoots him a look, silently moving over to make room for Mel to double check her work.
“Thank you, Dr. King,” he says, a touch too late, and notes a lack of any desire to follow that up.
Does he treat her differently?
He does, he notes, with a rising sense of both irritation and resignation.
Her under-shirt sticks to her scrub top as she’s pulling it off, and he averts his eyes without a comment. She mentions going to see the new sci-fi flick, and he bites back a knee-jerk reaction about how she had to work the next day, was she sure she’d get enough sleep? She wears her hair curled one day, and he doesn’t tease her on if he’s the reason.
Christ, she chattered about wishing for after work plans, and he, without thought, asked if maybe she wanted to invite a friend over.
Jack and his wife never had children, and he’s never been particularly paternal, but it appears he daughter-zoned Mel without his conscious input.
As much as he’s loathe to acknowledge it, the military shaped swaths of his personality; inevitable, joining young at an impressionable age. Young men, in uniform, repressed, horny, stuck in rooms together, flitting between bored and scared out of their skulls – yeah, sexual commentary was basically a language fallback, like others use “a and & the”. Years have changed and tamed him, but it’s still a default, and he’s always been indiscriminatory about who is on the receiving end; a fact that’s saved his ass with HR on two occasions, as well as got him in hot water with HR on four occasions.
And look, it’s not that he wants to flirt with her in a way she’d be receptive to, especially as he watches her try to control her beam at Langdon earnestly and awkwardly telling a knock-knock joke that has a thirteen-syllable medical punchline.
But it’s a bothersome thought, that he doesn’t treat her the same as others.
Dr. King is just – she’s a little different. Jack fucks with people who are different, always has. Her otherness is clockable pretty much from “hello,” and time only serves to highlight her kindness, her consideration, how easily she’s wounded and how easily she’s excited. Her heart is on her sleeve in a way that doesn’t feel intentional, and it leads people to treat her – well, differently.
Staff are more considerate of her. She’s snapped at less, listened to more. Rambles are tolerated, and quirks ignored.
While cloaked in niceties, it’s patronizing at heart, and it’s silently irritated Jack on several occasions. People infantile her. They treat her as an innocent child, as someone to protect, rather than the protector she actually is. She’s a competent, probably thirty-something year old doctor, she’s saved hundreds of lives, and, as Jack is bitterly aware, it can be really fucking annoying when people treat you with kid gloves you didn’t ask for, even if there’s a little indication you might need them. Maybe even more, then.
He’ll do better, he resolves.
Opportunity strikes not a week later.
A patient who somehow managed to get a piece of hay stuck behind his eyeball has found his way to he, Dr. King, and Dr. Langdon’s med table.
“Alright,” Jack says, squinting at the optical coherence tomography images. The patient is remarkably calm; if Jack had this thing wrapped around his eyeball, he’d need sedation. “Which one of you wants to be on magnification and light duty, and who wants to be on object retrieval?”
“What, you’re not participating?” Dr. Langdon asks, eyebrows raised, arms crossed, and just a tone too close to snark for Jack’s favor.
Langdon had always been Robby’s boy, not Jack’s. Energetic to a fault, undoubtedly intelligent, but his smart mouth never gelled well with Jack’s own, and there was always something a bit – a bit twitchy, about him, that put Jack on edge.
Funnily enough, the rehab stint has made Jack like him notably more. It can be hard to find patience for doctors who think they’re hot shit; it’s far easier to handle someone who knows they can fail.
And Jack’s old and wise enough to not let an off-hand comment ruin a work atmosphere. He just meets Langdon’s eyes, snaps off his gloves, and replies, “This is a teaching hospital, is it not? And look at me here, participating by teaching you.”
“I wouldn’t mind giving the retrieval a shot,” King pipes up, gaining both their attention. She’s been seated on the spinny chair in the corner of the room, hands politely folded in her lap. She continues, “If you think I have steady enough hands for it.”
Ah, and there it is. An opening for a comment he’d make with near anyone else. “I doubt anyone has ever had cause for complaint about your hands, Doctor.”
Jack’s not sure he nailed the tone, but King smiles in response, one of those “the world is a nice place :D” ones that she seems to have patented.
“Thanks, Dr. Abbot,” she says, earnestly. She looks down at her hands, clenching and then unclenching them. “I’ve been working on it, ever since I did a rotation up in surgery and Dr. Javadi commented on how I shook a little. There’s exercises you can do to steady your hands, you know?”
“I did know,” Jack responds, mildly. “And smart of you to do them. Okay, let’s get you gloved up. Dr. Langdon, can you fetch a sterile cotton swab and a blunt-tipped eye spud?”
He glances over instinctively as he’s speaking, but does a double take at the glare he’s receiving, eyes narrowed and jaw clenched, and it looks like he’s quite literally biting his tongue. “Something amiss, Doctor?”
A pause, then, “No,” Langdon answers, clipped. He turns on his heel and stalks out, presumably to retrieve the requested items.
He glances over at Dr. King, who is blithely unaware, responsibly relaying the next steps to the patient.
Jack should have seen that one coming, probably.
Jack’s eyes do not have hay obscuring his vision, so yeah, of course he’s noticed how odd Dr. Langdon and Dr. King act around one another.
It’s actually really sweet, if you can get past how annoying it is.
Dr. Langdon carefully, purposefully, dulls his sharp edges when she’s in sight. Gone are the acerbic comments and flighty thoughtlessness, and in comes the compliments, the consideration. For a man who typically has the energy and attention span of a border collie, he gentles; instead of running around the ER barking, he calms, approaches with a wagging tail and lolling tongue.
Dr. King, the shelter dog begging for more attention than others have to give, blossoms under his. Every time their eyes meet, hers light up. Every time he walks in the door with a greeting, hers is more effusive. Every conversation, every successful procedure, every moment together – she’s unwilling, or perhaps just unable, to hide how much joy they give her.
Of course, this often manifests in them standing in front of the board, trading compliments with besotted eyes, and not moving out of the goddamn way.
Jack’s been in love with coworkers before, and he’s certain no one else knew. He’s not sure how to impart that kind of advice, though, teaching-hospital or not.
The second time barely even clocks in Jack’s head. Dr. King waves him over to the charting computer, requesting his review of her plan of care for a retiree who lost some fingers to a hacksaw.
Thoughtlessly, he places one hand on the back of her chair and the other on the desk, in order to let him lean on his good leg, which had a secondary consequence of him lightly hovering over her. She startles just slightly at his proximity, but simply shifts to the right a few inches to accommodate him, and Jack thinks nothing of it – mostly because he meant nothing of it.
When he pushes off after giving her the OK, he notices that Langdon had been across from the computer, but mostly misses his scowl.
The third time clocks, mostly because it’s Jack’s fault. He’s taking a moment in-between emergencies to relax, his back leaning against Dana’s desk, his elbows on the countertop behind him, his feet jutted out in front, a little too casual for most moments – but it’s going on 5pm; he’s exhausted, his stump hurts, and chairs only has three bodies. If there ever were a moment to catch the breath.
To his right, he glances over when the pedes door opens, and Dr. Langdon and Dr. King exit side-by-side, heads together and in the middle of some conversation, and Jack just catches her excited, “But then the reindeer—” when what’s going to happen becomes obvious to Jack the split-second before it does.
Her eyes are trained on Langdon’s face, not the floor, and Jack’s feet are just slightly further out than she’d unconsciously expect from his position. Her foot catches on Jack’s, and she begins to stumble forward. Jack, whose motor reflexes are actually fairly decent friends of his, instinctively reaches forward, one arm quickly snaking around her shoulders, and the other around her back, catching King in a bit of a swooning-maiden pose, just a few feet before she hits the floor.
“Oh,” King breathes, the little exhale moving the hairs in front of her face.
“Well, hi there,” Jack says, because he can’t think of what the fuck else to say, and he’s delighted to see her blush slightly – it never gets old, flustering people.
Smoothly, he pulls her back to a standing position, steadying her with one hand on her middle-back, the other on her forearm.
Langdon’s hands are still hovering in the air, an inch away from where she’d landed in Jack’s arms; he’d clearly been reaching for her, but she’d just been slightly too far. His hands hang uselessly in the air, before they clench, and he stuffs them into his scrubs pockets, clearly as fists.
Jack meets his eye briefly, before Langdon looks away swiftly, and yeah, Jack doesn’t want to touch that one.
King’s brushing off invisible dirt from her pants, cheeks still molten red, and, ope, yeah, she’s the one whose heart probably just skipped a few beats.
“You okay?” Jack checks, trying to meet her eye.
In typical King fashion, when she grasps that he’s trying to connect with her, she brightens, shaking away any residual awkwardness with a smile. “Oh, yeah, of course. Sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going.” She fixes her glasses, pushing them up with one finger, before clasping her hands together in the air. “Well! Back at it!” Her hands make a little snake motion. “Zoom zoom zoom!”
Head slightly ducked, she marches forward – probably still a bit embarrassed, given she’s headed towards nowhere in particular. Maybe Jack should—
“That was smooth.”
Jack’s attention snaps back to Langdon, who is looking on, impassive. The tone is impeccably dry, and the words benign, but something about the delivery doesn’t sit quite right.
Jack goes to reply – with what, he’s honestly not sure, even as his mouth is opening – but Langdon just ducks his head slightly with a grimace, and heads off after King.
From there, it becomes stupid.
Jack compliments her new glasses; Dr. King blushes, and Dr. Langdon suddenly recalls the exact book character she now reminds him of, which just so happens to be her favorite heroine in literature.
Jack leans against her shoulder to look at a patient’s bloody arm, and suddenly she’s been jerked to the side because of an invisible “spider.”
Jack comments on how her scrubs’ color compliments her skin tone, and an elbow finds its way accidentally into his ribs.
“Christ,” Jack mutters, watching their backs as Langdon ushers her to the other side of the medbay to ‘show her a new piece of equipment’ after Jack had handed her a clipboard. “You think he’d understand no one is trying to take her from him.”
“Come on, man, have a little sympathy,” Mateo tsks. He’d witnessed the whole sorry affair, ostensibly finishing an x-ray request, but quite obviously just eavesdropping. “That’s a hard position to be in. Loving someone, but not knowing for sure where you stand? It’s scary as hell. That shit sucks.”
Memories pop into Jack’s head, unwanted and mostly forgotten – nights alone in his bed, wrestling with the idea of courting his wife, feeling like a disabled-PTSD rattled veteran wouldn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t do it for her, wondering how he could make himself more appealing, wondering what to say, what to wear, what to do.
“Yeah,” Jack concedes, watching Langdon clearly decide, decide against, then re-decide to pull her braid, only for her to walk away, leaving his hand in the air. “Fair enough.”
“Hey, Dr. Abbot, could I speak to you a moment?”
Jack spins to find Dr. King biting her lip, hands fiddling in front of her stomach. “Yeah, of course,” he agrees, instantly. “What do we got?”
“Oh, it’s not about a patient.” She jerks her head to the side, indicating the little alcove they keep equipment; not private, necessarily, but more private, and Jack follows her, curiosity piqued.
She spins on her heel, facing him, and says, determined, “Dr. Abbot. I’ve noticed that you’ve started flirting with me a little bit. I know you tend to say these things to others, but you didn’t used to with me. So I just wanted to ask – well, I guess, if you mean it. I assume you don’t.”
He’s a little stunned by her bluntness. “I mean,” he hedges, taken aback. “I always mean the things I say. But, uh, no, I don’t mean it in – I am not hitting on you.”
She nods to herself, like that’s the answer she was expecting. “Okay. I didn’t think so. I know you flirt with everyone, but since it’s new with me, I just wanted to be sure.”
And here she goes, proving what he already knew – she’s different, not a child. They’d be so blessed if adults were typically this straightforward; he should have just talked to her directly about it, asked her if she was bothered that he treated her differently, instead of assumed she didn’t notice, and trying to rectify something that might not have even been a problem in the first place.
Jack feels like slapping his forehead like a cartoon character; this entire moronic mess could have been avoided. Way to bugger this one up, Abbot. He’s not going to sleep well tonight.
“I’m sorry, Dr. King,” he says, and means it. “I noticed that I treated you slightly differently than the rest of the staff. I was just trying to correct that. I’m sorry if it bothered you.”
She smiles at him, softly – not one of her 1000 watts, but something a little more real, a little more honest, and suddenly Jack finds himself suddenly understanding Langdon’s tongue-tied struggles a little better. “It didn’t. I just wanted to understand. I don’t mind either way.”
“Okay, then. Good to know.” He may lay-off a bit, then, because he’s a little tired of being scowled at.
“Dr. Abbot?”
“Yes, Dr. King?”
She hesitates, words clearly bouncing around her head, and he’s just about to prompt her again when she blurts out, “I know it means nothing with me, but is there anyone it does mean something for?”
That’s – unexpected. Dr. King isn’t the gossip-type. “Why do you ask?”
“Well.” She works her lip between her teeth, worrying a clear bloody rip. “Uh. Have you ever dealt with romantic relationships at work?”
Oh, for fuck’s – He's not her dad, he's not a paternal-type, and if this endeavor has proven anything to him, it's that he really does, truly, just need to treat her like an adult coworker. And he's not going to coach an adult through a crush; he's just going to answer like a fucking attending, which is what he is.
He gives her a pat on the back, maybe overshooting the roughness slightly, given how she steps forward with an oomph. “Once you guys actually talk, just file the HR paperwork, Dr. King. It’s legal.”
He expected that to be the end of it. And, for five days, it is.
On day six, he’s pulled into an empty BCH-3, via a request per Dr. King.
“I just wanted to get your help on this case,” she says, handing him an iPad. “35 year old man with a toothbrush lodged up his rectum.”
Ah, the fine citizens of Pittsburgh. It’s not even 11am.
Jack idly scrolls through the chart while King runs through the details of the action plan, ending with, “I was wondering if you had any suggestions for what to say to make him a little more comfortable. He was really quiet, hard to get to know.”
“Well. No better way to get to know someone than having your fingers inside them.”
Abbot hears the curtain rustle behind him, and instinctively closes his eyes. There’s no fuckin’ way—
“Sorry,” Langdon says, voice tight. “I was told this room was open for a new patient? Got a burned hand.”
For fuck’s sake.
Jack’s plugging his phone into his car’s audio jack when he feels it rumble in his hand, Robby’s name popping up in the notification bar.
Jack thumbs it open.
How’s the day shift treating you?
Robby certainly knows what time the day shift ends on a normal evening, and still has access to the work calendar; he caught Jack at a time he’s likely to be most honest. He’s also likely actually asking, because the bugger is constitutionally incapable of not giving a shit, either about work or about Jack, and suddenly Jack misses him like the ache of a phantom limb, which is something, actually, that Jack has experience with.
Can I call? would cause a panic, no matter how much Jack suddenly just wants to shoot the shit, fucking chit chat with his friend, complain over beers.
Langdon’s obnoxious is also a no-go; the guy’s trying his best and Robby’s still sore about the entire situation, no reason to stoke those embers back into a flame.
Saying anything negative about King makes Jack the dick.
When are you coming back again? implies that Robby should leave his trip, or that they’re incapable of functioning without him, neither of which are buttons that Jack even wants to breathe near.
Biting his lip and with slow, old fingers, he decides on a neutral yet true, Your children are testing me.
Jack tosses his phone onto the passenger side seat and starts the engine. He’s just pulling onto the road when his car announces that he has an answer.
The robotic car’s voice speaks for Robby: They respond to food and positive reinforcement.
“Don’t we all,” Jack mutters to himself.
“Pizza in the breakroom,” Jack announces, approximately fourteen seconds before he’s seated eating his own slice.
It’s for morale – but his morale is also in the gutters. He can team build with himself.
Robby was right, he thinks, a mouth full of cheese and grease and pepperoni. This helps.
It’s a few minutes before anyone joins him, and to his surprise, it’s Dr. King, who greets him with an excited wave and an unfortunate trip over his leg, which he’d unthinkingly placed under the table.
“Sorry,” he apologizes, moving it to the other side of his chair. “I’m always tripping you, huh?”
“It’s okay!” she reassures, because of course she does. Jack wonders what it would take for to snap at a coworker; murder likely would do it, but maybe something lighter too, like stabbing. She politely takes the chair across from his, folding her hands in front of her on the table, like she’s setting up for an interview. “I didn’t know you took it off on-shift.”
Jack gestures with his hand, something meaning something akin to sometimes. “I probably shouldn’t even have it off, honestly. The stump’s just been annoying me.”
Her head cocks. “What’s wrong?”
Ah, shit, he shouldn’t have said anything. She’s a fixer, not a complainer. “Eh,” he waves his hand in the air. “Nothing.”
“If you want,” she starts, and he notes she’s focused solely on the conversation instead of reaching for a slice of the truly divine smelling pizza, because she’s a kinder person that most of this department combined. “I know a bit of a massage trick for amputees. I worked at the VA for a while, and got good at them. It’s good for soothing the nerves.”
He shouldn’t. He shouldn’t.
But – it hurts like a motherfucker, he still has nearly half a day left to this shift, and she is a doctor.
“Alright,” he acquiesces, which is how he finds himself sitting in a plastic chair, one leg on the ground, his stump sitting in her lap, her fingers pressing into the puckered skin in a way that really, truly, does help, and facing Dr. Langdon’s crossed arms and impassive face in the doorway.
“I heard there was pizza.”
Jack lets his head fall backwards, hitting into the wall behind him.
Why me, God? One of your most favorite creations.
King’s thumb hits a particularly delicate spot and Jack jumps, a tingle spreading throughout his whole leg, and he draws back instinctively. He doesn’t want to let Langdon’s presence influence anything here – they’re not doing anything wrong – but there’s something uneasy about the whole atmosphere, and, at this point, he’d rather just leave this room, even if it stokes the fire. “Okay, that’s enough, I think,” he says, pulling his leg back to the ground. “Thank you.”
“I can go longer, if you want,” King offers, earnestly. “It really does help.”
“It really does,” he agrees, because it’s true. “But it still hurts, and we have shifts to complete. I should just go to an actual physio appointment.”
“Okay! Just let me know.” She turns in her chair, resting her chin on the back of it, and smiles up at Langdon, who is still hovering in the doorway. “Hi, Frank. I was just coming in for some pizza – oh!” She sits up, straightening her spine. “I brought an ice tea, I left it in my backpack this morning. I’m gonna go get it.”
Langdon immediately shifts to make room for her to get by, the kind of thoughtless consideration King seems to effortlessly bring out in him. “Was it that Lipton fusion you wanted to try?”
“Yeah!” She skips over to him, smile obvious in her voice even though Jack can’t see it anymore. “Do you want a sip when I come back?”
“Sure, Mel. Love one.”
“Cool,” she says, squeezing his forearm briefly, before making her leave.
The door closes behind her, and with her she takes the air in the room.
Langdon stares at Jack a moment, then ambles over to the table. He sits in King’s recently-vacated seat, movements precise and somehow annoyed, and Jack finds his own shoulders tensing in response. “Pepperoni?” Langdon asks, voice deceptively light.
Jack narrows his eyes. That’s how he wants to play it?
“Also a Supreme, and a cheese,” Jack answers, purposefully matching the tone. “I have taste.”
“I can tell,” Langdon says, an edge to the words. He doesn’t move to open the box. A moment, then, “Leg hurting?”
“Yeah.”
“Getting a massage at work?”
Jack’s too fucking old for this shit. “Don’t you think we’d get to the point quicker if you got to the point?”
Langdon apparently only needed the invitation. “Don’t you think this is beneath you?”
Jack feels his irritation overcome his apprehension. “Come again?”
“What’s the saying – once is an occurrence, twice is a coincidence, three is a pattern. What are we at, five? Six? Look, you can be flirty and creepy with the rest of the—”
“Alright,” Jack cuts off, because he is still the attending here, and Robby might put up this kind of backtalk, but Jack’s never had Robby’s patience, and this is all so goddamn stupid. “What exactly do you think I’m doing with the kid?”
“She is not a kid,” Langdon snaps, glare intensifying. “She’s an adult who has real feelings.” Jack deeply resents that not only is he right, but that’s the exact thought that prompted all this in the first place. “And she deserves better than an old man flirting with her when he doesn’t mean it.”
Huh – and that…Hm.
“Doesn’t mean it?” Jack echos, lifting an eyebrow and crossing his arms in a way he knows makes his biceps bulge, a move he’s seen Langdon do several times. “Who says I wouldn’t be down?”
Langdon’s throat moves, his Adam’s apple bobbing, but no sound comes out for several moments. Finally, he stutters, “Excuse me?”
“What,” Jack snarks, “You think just because you’re too afraid to go for it, everyone is? I’m missing a leg, not my balls.”
Langdon’s eyes are big and blinking, and his hair is flopping in his face, and Jack works to keep the smirk intact and the laugh out of his throat.
“You wouldn’t,” Langdon says, more a statement than a question. “She’s too – young.”
She is. “She isn’t.”
Jack leans forward, and slaps him on the shoulder, which Langdon accepts, silently, apparently too thrown to complain. “May the better man win.”
There’s no competition in the first place, but Jack’s more than happy to play a loser if that’s what it takes for King to choose a winner.
Shift handover is quiet, except he can hear Dr. Langdon request to speak to Dr. King, and then, infuriatingly, flick his eyes over to Jack, and lead her out into the ambulance bay.
After all that, Jack doesn’t even get to overhear the fruits of his labor? Seriously?
“You look angry.” Dana drops a pen into her canister, and Jack lets himself exhale out an annoyed huff.
“I wish Robby was here so I can complain to him,” Jack admits.
“Complain to me.”
“Can’t.”
“Ah,” she says, elongating the vowel. “So complaining about coworkers.”
Absolutely. “Never.”
Two mornings later sees Dr. King walk into the locker room with Dr. Langdon’s arm around her shoulder, and, over top King and Dr. Santos’s lockers, Langdon sends Jack the most self-satisfied smirk Jack has ever had the displeasure to watch cross another human’s face.
Jesus Christ, he thinks he won something over him. Jack did not think this through.
“Hey, Santos,” Jack whispers, leaning in.
She’s distractedly rifling through the pockets of the jacket hanging in her locker, looking too close to a hangover for Jack’s comfort as an attending.
Whatever. He hasn’t clocked in yet.
“Mmm?” Santos mumble-answers, half-paying attention.
“Do you wanna annoy Langdon with me today?”
She immediately perks up, eyes dancing, attention snapped to Jack completely. “Oh, hit me with it, boss. What we talking, bodily harm, or just mental?”
And people call the nightshift animals.
Over her head, Jack can see a quiet conversation has begun between the two lovebirds. Langdon’s eyes have turned soft, staring down at King, calm and so affectionate, and King’s answering with a grin, her smile uncontained, eyes so bright and happy.
Well. Alright. Maybe Jack can take the L.
“On second thought,” he says, shutting his locker with a bang. “Maybe I should mind my own goddamn business.”