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Mel had forgotten something in her car in the garage and Jack Abbot was on his way home, which is why they were in the same elevator when it jolted violently to a halt and sent both of them up in the air enough to lift their feet off the ground. Jack, ever prepared, set himself for the downwards fall.
Jack managed to catch himself on the way back down and Mel...well, didn’t. She fell up then down, first on her ankle and then on her ass. There was a sharp crack from that ankle and a whimper of pain that garnered a sharp glance from the attending.
“Don't try and get up. I don't think we're going anywhere for a while and I don't want you weight bearing on that.” Jack pressed the emergency button but nobody answered the other end of the line. Jack pulled out his phone and shook his head. “No service.”
Mel, still on the floor, looked up at him before reaching into her pocket. “Me either.” And the Spectralink could be fickle in the elevators. She could give it a shot, trying one of her friends to a series of small beeps of failure. “Not yet. I'll try again, but they know I'm gone. I told them it shouldn't be long.” She was trying to contain her slowly rising panic at the fact that she was trapped in a metal box and nobody knew where she was. “If nothing else they'll get mad and try my phones...”
She trailed off, watching Jack sit on the floor and carefully pull her sneaker from her foot to get a better look at her ankle. It was roughly the size of a baseball already and his poking gently at it caused an involuntary backwards motion and loud whimper of pain, almost bringing tears to her eyes.
“I don't think I broke it. It doesn't hurt bad enough.” Mel was absolutely trying to downplay things in front of one of the emergency room attendings but the body didn’t lie, and that much swelling that quickly never boded well for an injury.
“Or you just have a high pain tolerance.” Jack countered and arched a brow at her. “You’re still not getting up.”
“How are you so calm?” The younger doctor was trying to contain her increasing anxiety.
“Easy. Because they'll try the Spectralink and it'll work and we'll get out or it won't and they'll send a med student after you and find a busted elevator. If it's a smart med student they might put it together.” He had let her pull her ankle back. “You shouldn't be walking on that, it could be a grade three or a fracture. I'll grab a chair when they get us out of here.” Jack was being dead serious in his refusal of letting her bear weight.
“I'm okay, Doctor Abbot. I'll walk on it with some help.” Mel was trying to be firm as she could but he wasn't playing those games.
“You aren't okay, though, I said so and I'll stand by it. And call me Jack, for right now anyway.” He snagged her foot, pointing out the problem spots like she didn't know what a simple sprain was. “You'll let me get you a chair.” It was non-negotiable. “Are you usually so clumsy?”
“It was just unexpected, that's all. I'm generally not clumsy at all.” Mel didn't bother putting her sock or sneaker back on, it was best to just let it swell without an elastic in the way. Ideally she'd have some ice on it but such was life.
She was trying so hard to not to think about the fact that she was stuck in a small box suspended over a pit. All it would take is one cable to snap and then they’d be falling and falling...
Jack Abbot watched the resident’s face go pale and her hands begin to start rubbing her arms.
“Hey, it’s gonna be okay. You'll be fine.” Concern registered on his face at this new behavior of hers. He’d never seen it before but then again he’d never been this close to her, either. They saw each other at rounds at best.
“Is this a bad time to tell you I’m claustrophobic?” Mel was trying so hard to look either straight ahead or at Jack, not at anything else. Anything else might cause panic and there was nowhere to go because they were trapped in a freaking box.
“You’ll be okay, Mel. I promise.” Well shit. Jack had thought that the only thing he’d needed to manage would be this injury she’d come up with, but if she was going to have a breakdown that was one more thing to handle. He checked his phone again, nothing.
“But you don’t know that.” She could feel her heart picking up and she jumped out of her skin when a bored tone finally rang out from the speaker.
“What’s your emergency?” You'd never have guessed anything was wrong by the bored sounding voice alone.
“The elevator is currently stuck between floors.” Jack’s voice was crisp and no nonsense. “We have two people, one injury.”
“It’s gonna be a couple hours. We might need the fire department if maintenance can’t do it.”
Mel blanched. Jack hadn’t thought it was possible for her to go any paler but now the girl was a walking ghost.
“Hurry it up if you can, someone is hurt.”
--
Jack was in crisis management mode. He needed to keep the resident calm and collected for hours and he wasn’t sure how he was going to manage that. He didn’t know all that much about her; they were opposite shifts and she was Robby's resident, not his. He knew she had a sweet, optimistic nature with a good heart, and was a good doctor, but that was about it. He now knew she was bad in small spaces. Abbot reached over and grabbed one of her hands.
“It’s gonna be okay, Mel. They’ll come get us out.” Jack gently squeezed her hand, hoping the compression might help.
“What if they can’t?” She was clearly uncomfortable and still panicking. “I need to get out of here.” Mel wasn’t even registering Jack holding her hand, not until he reached out to hold the second one.
“They will. If they can’t, the fire department can. They have tools for this sort of thing. Okay? And I’m right here. Clearly I’m not going anywhere either. We’ll get through this together.” Jack gave her hands another squeeze and got one in return; although hers was more akin to clinging to a rock. “Let’s try and play something like 20 questions, get your mind off it.”
Mel was holding herself back from shaking and avoiding looking up. It was easier just to look at Jack, although that brought problems of its own. His elegant hands were holding hers and she was getting a close up look at him for the first time and she liked what she saw. Blue eyes that pulled her in, muscular arms that vanished up under his scrub top, a face that could make women walk into walls by accident, and even his grey hair was good looking. She wanted to run her hands through it. She wasn’t sure which was worse; thinking that way about one of her her attendings while he was right there or being stuck in a fucking box. He could have been an asshole about this, too. He could be sitting in the corner playing a game on his phone. But no, here he was on the floor with her, holding her hands, and offering to distract her.
“Okay. Let’s try it.” Mel was desperate.
Jack shifted slightly so he was fully next to her but kept a hold of her left hand with his right. He was hoping that the contact would help ground her, and maybe keep her brain from going into the dark spaces of the phobia. Hours of crisis management. Abbot could do that. He’d done harder things. His concern was that she may not be just a student anymore after this; Jack saw his residents as just that; his residents. The kids he had to teach, and teach well, in order for them to be able to pull off the magic that was the emergency department. There was always that level of professionalism between them. A wall built of the bricks of protocol. He’d already broken one, and he glanced down at their combined hands. She was squeezing it so hard her knuckles were white and it was beginning to hurt. But that didn’t matter, not when she was panicking this badly.
Abbot had never noticed how beautiful she was before. He’d never really had the chance, they’d never really interacted outside of that first day and he hadn't been in the best mood as an understatement. It was the nature of night/day divide, there was some overlap but not a ton. Soft blonde hair that framed her face like a halo, kept strictly in a braid that never came undone no matter how much chaos was going on. Soft green eyes that kept getting hidden behind those glasses. Abbot wanted to pull her hair out of her braid and have it cascade around her face. He wasn’t sure where that urge had come from. Mel had a quiet, self-contained beauty at work and he couldn’t help but wonder what she would look like outside of work, out of her scrubs and with her hair down.
“Okay then.” Jack paused. “I’ll go first.” Here was the hard part. Coming up with the damn questions. “Was your high school large or small?” Start with the innocuous and build up to the fun stuff from here. Get her mind off of this situation first, then start asking the real questions. Start small and build up to the bigger questions.
“Small. Very small, I lived in a small town. Becca, my twin, and I were pretty much a closed unit until I went to college, and then I had to transfer undergrad...well, let’s just say things were really complicated for a while until I figured it out. I had a lot on my plate. Guess it’s my turn.” Mel let her brain start turning in a different direction from the panic. “Why do you like working nights?”
So much for the easy ones first. “I like the challenge of it.” Jack glanced over at her, trying to monitor the resident's anxiety level by how she looked. Some of the color was coming back into her cheeks, she was looking more human with every passing minute and the death grip on his hands was lessening. “As crazy as day shift can be, night shift is crazier. I like being pushed to my limits and working nights helps do that for me. It gives me an adrenaline rush that I need to keep my sanity. And I’m also not too attached to the concept of sunlight so it's not the end of the world.”
"Who needs sun anyway?" An attempt at a joke. Hooked on adrenaline, hm? Mel supposed that was why he worked with the police like he did.“Why do you work with the cops?” The blonde felt her heart beginning to slow just a little. Jack’s silly little game (was it really silly with questions like this? Sort of?) was working. She closed her eyes and focused on slowing down her breathing, waiting for his answer as she tried to root herself to the floor and ignore the ever present and ever growing pain in her ankle.
“Because it gives me the rest of the adrenaline I need to keep my focus. It’s also a nice feeling to know that sometimes these guys live because I’m there.” Because he could work calmly under literal fire while ignoring what was around him and focusing solely on the patient. “It reminds me of an earlier time with the benefit of being able to go home at the end of the day.”
Mel made the mistake of looking up and the color that had accumulated drained immediately and her hand, which had loosened its grip a little, suddenly clenched down on his.
Jack could see her shoulders shrink into themselves and that was unacceptable. “My turn.” It had to be a good one, distract her from this. “If you could be any animal, what would it be? Mythical or real. Or one of each. Your choice.” The grip on his hand lessened. He’d need to come up with a backup plan in case this didn’t work out, and quickly. The knowledge they’d be here for hours didn’t seem to help her much.
“Probably a house cat if I could get a good person. No obligations, no need to hunt or worry about predators, just sleep in the sun and get cuddles and toys and treats just for existing. Sounds like a good life to me.” Mel’s voice shifted out panicked tones into something a little more manageable. Just a little, just enough for him to notice. “Mythical...probably a Pegasus. I’d love to fly and they’re just so pretty.” Now she needed a question. “Why did you join the army?”
“Not pulling any punches there, huh? I wanted to be a doctor but couldn’t afford college. I followed the medical path and I don't have a dime of debt." He'd lost his leg, though. That counted for something. "I killed undergrad and med school in three years each. I was stationed in Germany for a little while before coming back stateside, then it was off to Afghanistan and Iraq.” Jack gave her a look. Maybe his own questions should be a little deeper. Maybe he was just afraid of her turning into a real person on him. “Basically started working here after I was discharged, Adamson gave me a chance and I never looked back.” Questions.
Questions. Jack desperately needed more questions to fill the time they were stuck in here.
“Here’s one, Mel. Why did you transfer in undergrad?” It wasn’t intended to be a loaded question. It was.
Mel's hand twitched in his almost like she didn't want to answer him.
“My mom died and I had to take care of my sister, she's on the spectrum. I was able to hire someone to help me during the day but I was on my own the rest of the time. It’s why we’re here in Pittsburgh; she’s living in a facility here while I do my residency and she’ll probably want to stay there when I’m done. She loves it there. And PTMC has a good reputation so I figured I’d give it a shot. I didn’t think I’d get in here.” It had been her Hail Mary, her reach position, and she'd done it. They'd matched her after the VA.
“But you did.” It was a statement of fact.
“I did. I guess I was good enough.” A small hint of pride entered her voice.
“I’ve seen you work, Mel. You’re good enough. Your turn.” Jack checked his watch; it had been a whole half hour.
--
They managed to kill another hour with this and Mel seemed almost back to normal, until the elevator lurched on them. Luckily they were both on the ground already but he was not ready for Mel’s instant panic, and panic that he could not seem to calm. He tried and tried to get through to her and finally he did the only thing he could do, the only other idea he had, the final attempt at getting through to her.
Jack Abbot took her face in both hands and kissed her.
--
Mel’s brain was running in circles like a scared little mouse convincing her that she was, in fact, about to die. The cables were going, something was wrong, and it made complete sense to her that she was about to perish in a small metal box.
Her panic was running away with her and her breathing was coming short and she couldn’t catch it, her heart was pounding and her arms were shaking-
And then her world stopped. It froze on its axis and simply ceased to move. Jack was kissing her, and thoroughly. Mel found herself melting into it as she kissed him back and the panic receded. He kissed her like there was nothing else he wanted to do in the world. Like being stuck in an elevator was an every day occurrence to him and he just wanted to focus on what was important.
Her.
Mel surprised herself by reaching out and running a shaky hand through his hair and moving as close as her ankle would allow. There was a fire building in her soft and slow and she was lost in him.
--
Jack didn’t pull away. If anything he pulled her closer and when she ran a hand through his hair he actually shivered and kissed her a little harder. A hand came up to tug her braid free and let her hair down completely, and he finally buried a hand in her hair.
They couldn’t keep it up forever, especially as he accidentally knocked against her ankle with his prosthetic and caused an audible gasp and teary eyes. He immediately felt like an asshole.
“I’m so sorry, Mel. About both of them. Kissing you was inappropriate but-”
“Stop, Jack.” Melissa had gotten her wind back, barely, and put a hand on his leg. “Please don’t apologize.” Her hands went to re-braid her hair and they were caught by his. Apparently he liked her hair down and it was confirmed a second later.
“I like your hair down, Mel. I know you need it back for work but just let me see it?” On some level he knew there were cameras in here; he’d need to behave. To a point. He still kept her hands trapped in one of his so she wouldn’t start her moving her hand over her arms again and he used his other hand to make sure her hair was entirely free of the confining shape of the braid she'd tried to put it back into.
“I’m just not used to anybody seeing it down.” Mel shook her head.
“Please?” Jack wasn't expecting to have asked for this when he'd entered the elevator with her but here he was, dying to see her hair down.
Mel wasn’t sure why she was hesitating. The man had literally just kissed her out of a panic attack. “Fine.” She shook her head and let her hair truly fall around her in sheet of wavy gold. “Happy?”
“Almost.”
She turned to look at him. “Almost?”
Jack had nothing to say so he buried his hands in her hair and kissed her again instead and eventually pulled back. “Now I’m happy.”
--
Sure he might have been happy but Mel was now hot, bothered, and still a little bit scared. Jack brushed a lock of hair behind her ear.
“Why did you kiss me, Jack? Not that I’m complaining, you’re a really good kisser.” If she hadn’t been blushing before she was now, she could feel the heat radiating off her skin. She was burning. Not for the first time, she cursed her pale skin. It was always a dead giveaway.
“I didn’t know what else to do.” He didn’t think slapping her was the correct move and was the only other thing he could think of at the moment. “It seemed like the best idea at the time. And don’t sell yourself short, Mel. You’re not bad yourself.”
She buried her face in her hands and mumbled something under her breath he couldn’t make out. Mel stayed like this for more than a few moments, just buried in her own hands and Jack wasn’t going to allow that.
“You don’t have to hide from me, Mel.” Abbot reached over and carefully pulled her hands down.
“Here’s a question, Jack.” Mel wasn’t going to address his statement at all. She glanced down at his hand. “Are you married? Did I just mess something up? Or did you just cheat without caring about it?”
Jack’s shoulders dropped as much as his voice did. “No, Mel. I’m a widower. She died a few years ago, there’s nothing for you to fuck up.”
“I’m sorry I brought it up.” She hadn't meant to bring up something so painful.
“Don’t be. It tells me the kinda person you are, that you’d ask that question when-” trapped in an elevator, stuck in a small box, “-you’re kinda stuck with me and whatever answer I give. That it matters.”
Some of the color had come back into her face and Mel freed up one of her hands to finish untangling her hair, still somewhat surprised when Abbot ran his fingers through it. He leaned in to kiss her again when a voice came out of nowhere.
--
“Sorry folks, looks like we need the fire department. It’ll be another hour at least.”
Mel shrank and something about that made Abbot distinctly unhappy.
“Tell them to hurry it up.” His voice was sharper than he’d intended it to be and he idly wondered why. He turned back to Mel and reached out to turn her face towards him. “You’re gonna be okay. This is temporary.” He could already see the panic building. Jack took a moment to get up and set himself up on her good side before pulling the resident into his lap and kissing her again. It worked the last time, right? Odds were good it would help again.
--
The resident’s brain was already in panic mode; so much so she didn’t register being moved until she was literally in the man’s lap and he was kissing her with both hands in her hair. On some level she knew they were likely being watched but she was desperate.
He was a firm kisser, like he knew exactly what he wanted from her and wasn’t afraid to chase after it. Jack wrapped an arm around her hips, fingers pressing firmly into her scrubs to steady her as she simply let him take control. It was so much easier to let go, to get lost in him, to bury her own hand in his hair and feel it run through her fingers. Mel felt a hand slip under her scrub top and she didn’t stop him, gasping as his fingers hit the swell of her breast.
Jack took the opportunity to taste the skin on her neck as his free hand roamed under her top. If she’d said no he would have stopped, but she hadn’t so he didn’t. He was slowly becoming addicted to the feeling of her hand in his hair, the feel of her on his lap, and he wondered what the skin on her hip would feel like under his fingers. That would be too far, even for right now.
It did give him the idea of chasing her outside of work. If she was this responsive while panicked what would she be like when not under duress? Jack nipped under her jaw before kissing the same spot and chuckled when she gasped and arched under him. He would definitely be pursing this outside of work somehow, shift divide be damned. He wanted to have sex with this woman and that wouldn’t be happening while she was hurt and trapped in an elevator with cameras. He wanted to know for sure she wanted to be in that moment. It was easy enough to infer but these were extraordinary circumstances, she might be less receptive to his advances outside of this thing.
--
Well it was easy to ignore both her panic and her ankle when her attending was kissing her like this, and she couldn’t help but jump at the feeling of his teeth on her skin. Mel had been trying to keep her composure but he’d found one of her weaknesses and her body was curving towards him without her say so.
“Jack...” She’d meant it to come out firmer but it was breathy at best. “No hickeys. I can’t hide them.” Mel couldn’t help but squirm as he nipped her more gently and chuckled against her skin again.
“Take away half my fun.”
“That’s half?”
“Half the fun I can have in here, anyway. But you’re right. I need to be careful. You’d bruise too easily. They’d need to be somewhere else.” His hand came to slip inside the cup of her bra and gently pinch her nipple before filling his hand with her. “Like here, maybe.” Jack went in for another kiss and was thrilled with her enthusiasm and the small sounds she was making into his mouth, the small motions on his lap. Thank God he was wearing jeans and his scrub top instead of scrub pants or he would have had a problem getting out of here when the fire department showed up. Her skin was silky soft under his calloused hand and she tasted sweet and he wanted so much more.
As it was this was far as he’d go because he thought he heard-
--
There was a series of thuds and clunks that had Mel breaking out of the kiss and clutching her attending out of fear, burying her face in the crook of his neck. She’d never have expected him to pet her hair and whisper to her.
“I think it’s the fire department, Mel.” He reluctantly withdrew his hand and she was able to put herself to rights by the time they managed to get the doors open and the elevator up to a place where Jack could physically carry her out into what was apparently a waiting crowd. Luckily her bruised and swollen ankle was out crowd-first, and Jack simply took her down to the ED himself to get her checked in since this was technically a work related incident.
Abbot left with her number in his phone and the promise of a follow-up when her fracture healed.
It would be a long time to wait now that he knew what was under her top.