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Jack stood outside the bar, trying his best to catch his breath in a way he couldn't entirely blame on the damp August heat. The last stragglers of a night out were paying their tabs but Jack stood in the alley, sticky air dampening the curls at the nape of his neck in a somewhat unpleasant way.
Samira paced back and forth in front of him, chewing her lip, clearly working up to something. Jack knew better than to rush her when she was working through a problem. Robby considered it a weakness. Slow, he called her. Indecisive. But Jack knew her better than that. He did his best to keep polite distance but he couldn't help but watch her. It wasn't indecision. It was curiosity. It was a need to see a problem from all angles before she worked out the best solution.
Still, tension was coming off her in waves and Jack thrummed his fingers against his own thigh, regretting that he'd kicked the smoking habit he'd taken up while deployed. The thought of nicotine calming his nerves and giving the anxiety in his hands something to do called to him.
Whatever it was she was mulling over, she must have figured it out because she stopped pacing and turned to him, a determined look in her eye.
"I think you should kiss me," she said finally, almost a demand.
Jack felt his heart stop and then restart. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting but that certainly wasn't it.
"Mohan," he said slowly, "You know I think you're brilliant, but that is a wildly stupid idea."
Uncharacteristically stupid. Catastrophically stupid. He spent his days mulling over all the reasons it was a bad idea. All the reasons he couldn't follow his own instincts and pull her against him and never let go. Sharp as she was, he'd just assumed she'd reached the same conclusion.
"I actually think it's brilliant," she countered. "There's unnecessary tension between us. A lot of it. Don't lie and say you don't feel it. It's distracting. I don't have time for distractions."
Jack didn't make it a habit of lying to Samira, except by omission. He couldn't honestly claim he didn't know what she was talking about. The air between them lately had been thicker than the summer humidity. But he couldn't do what she was asking either so instead he offered her one of the many reasons he'd begun repeating to himself like a mantra. "I'm your supervisor."
She nodded in agreement. "Exactly. It's inappropriate. It can't happen. So, the sexual tension is unresolved. It won't go away so we're just suspended in this—" she stopped abruptly. Apparently unwilling or unable to share her own experience of what the something brewing between them felt like for her. He wanted to ask her to elaborate but he bit it back. "It's just potential energy. It's not real."
Jack felt a fissure rip its way through his heart at her assertion. That there would be no kinetic energy. It was something he was making up in his head. That she couldn't have the real kind of feelings for him that he carried for her.
"It's potential energy," she repeated. "But if we kiss..."
Jack exhaled, reaching her point. "You think it will break the tension."
Her eyes lit up. "I do. There's no way it will live up to the hype right? It'll be nice but probably underwhelming after all the build up. You'll kiss me and we'll both know that is just the human impulse to want what we can't have and not that we're actually—" she stopped again. It seemed like her ideas were coming faster than her filter could handle and Jack was desperate for more but she cleared her throat. "And we can go back to before."
Jack knew that for him, there was no back. He couldn't remember a moment in all the time he'd known her that Samira didn't make his brain feel a little like he'd shoved a screwdriver into an outlet.
But from her point of view, he could see how it made sense. "It's a well reasoned treatment plan. I'll give you that," he allowed, and she practically beamed in return.
"Right. So. Whenever you're ready," she instructed.
Stubborn was another word Robby liked to toss around when griping about Samira, as though he had any room to talk. Jack acknowledged that she was headstrong. Tenacious. No one could accuse her of being a pushover and when she made her mind up about something, he knew better than to try and change it, regardless of his position of authority over her. Maybe she was stubborn but on balance, he considered it an asset.
He couldn't hide his amusement, a wry smile taking over his face. "Just like that? Just whenever I'm ready, I kiss you and that's that?"
She shrugged, a smug look on her face. "Yeah. It's business. Rip the band-aid off and all that."
Disgusting metaphor aside, it was still such a bad idea. For her, Jack was an authority figure who believed in her, who noticed her, who admittedly stared and flirted a little. For her, the tension was just the thrill of being wanted when she had no outlet for it outside the hospital. As if any man wouldn't walk across hot coals for the chance to do what she was proposing he do.
Jack knew kissing Samira would not magically break the spell for him. He'd long surrendered to the fact that he was in love with her. She brightened his nights and haunted his dreams. Some days he wanted her so much, he couldn't breathe. Other days, just watching her over a procedure was the only was the only way he could draw a clean, deep breath. For him, kissing her could only make things dramatically worse.
But if that's what she needed to move on, to do the work she was born to do with a clear head, he'd give her that. And selfishly, he wanted to. Even just a moment would be more than worth whatever it cost him.
Jack chewed at the inside of his cheek. "Do you have gum or something? Maybe an altoid?"
Samira looked momentarily mortified, pulling her hand to her mouth, and Jack rushed to correct the assumption. "No! Not for you. I just. My mouth tastes like scotch and you once said that scotch tastes like campfire and lighter fluid.
She laughed, sharp and loud and indelicate but Jack still felt it like a physical blow.
"That's fine, Abbot. The point of the kiss is not to knock me off my feet. It's to prove that we've both been building this into something it's not. If anything, it will probably help."
It tugged on the crack that had opened in his heart—threatening to break clean open—that she was so certain there was nothing substantial between them, nothing real. Samira was rarely wrong but God, in that moment, did he want her to be.
"Right. Okay. Sure," Jack agreed, shoving his hands into the pocket of his cargo pants. He rocked back on his heels, trying to work up the courage.
"Any day now, Jack," she chastised, clearly impatient and again, regret pulled at him, that for her, this was something to get over with. Still, there was something just so Samira about how she was going about it.
"Anyone ever tell you you're kind of bossy?" he asked with the ghost of a smile.
She fixed him with an unimpressed look. "Yeah. Every boy who thought he was smarter than me since about the second grade."
"I didn't say it was a bad thing." He held his hands up defensively. "And I'd never claim to be smarter than you, Samira. You're the smartest person I know." His voice low and laced with sincerity.
She looked a little stunned. It made Jack sad to think of yet another way something he loved about her had been used to put her down. He thought he might need to create opportunities for her to take charge more in the Pitt, to show her that assertive and thorough and headstrong were assets to their work, not hindrances.
"Right. Well. On with it," she shrugged, clearly aiming for nonchalant but missing the mark as he watched her glance at his mouth.
The reaction stirred something in him, a reminder that even if it was only a fraction of what he felt for her, some part of her wanted him. It gave him the courage he needed.
He stepped closer to her, but she took a step back. He took another step, then another until he was crowding her against the exterior wall of the bar. Her eyes shot wide, pupils blown as she looked up at him, a little surprised, a little desperate, so beautiful it could have stopped his heart.
If he was only going to do this once, he figured he might as well give it his all. She wanted the tension to snap; he'd do his best to provide. She looked up at him expectantly, her chest rising and falling just a tad heavier than it should. He only had a few inches on her but her head still tilted up toward his.
He placed one hand on the wall beside her head and allowed himself to glance at her mouth. She pulled her lower lip between her teeth and Jack followed his instincts, bringing the thumb of his free hand to her mouth and tugging her lip free, then threaded his hands into her hair, holding her face barely an inch from his.
Electricity buzzed through the air between them, a physical sensation that set his hair on edge. He paused there a moment, savoring the last moments before Samira was freed from the thrum of the want he'd certainly be plagued by until they put him in the ground.
He finally closed the last of the distance between them, leaning in and pulling her forward by his grip on her curls in equal measure. He felt more than heard a low moan escape from Samira at the movement. Their lips pressed together, hers a little chapped but soft as they gave way to the pressure of his own and Jack felt, for just a moment, complete, whole in a way he hadn't been in years.
But Samira had just asked for a kiss, something to break the tension and nothing more. So even though desire pooled in his stomach at the weight of her against him, the soft plush of her lips, the slight frizz of the hair wrapped in his fingers in the August heat, he relaxed with the intention of pulling back.
Samira seemed to read the intention and apparently found it untenable because she fisted a hand in his scrub top and held him to her, not allowing him to move an inch until her lips parted against his on a gasping inhale.
Jack would not deny her what she wanted and so he tightened his grip with one hand and brought the other to her cheek, cupping her face in his hand as he dipped his tongue hesitantly along the inside of her lip. She seemed grateful for the invitation, her tongue meeting his, a little messy but hot and desperate as she relaxed her body weight into his hold on her.
He let himself feel the weight of her, going a touch limp, apparently trusting him to hold her up. He brought his arm up the length of her back, holding her up, holding her to him, for however long she needed, however long it took for the chord to snap in her mind. He kissed her back, greedy to take as much as he could and give it in return before he never had the chance again.
She didn't seem eager to stop. Her breasts pressed to his chest and she let a soft whine into this mouth that went straight to his dick, which he felt certain she could feel, as close as they were. The rational part of his brain didn't seem to be at the wheel at the moment as his hand came to cup her breast. His thumb found where her nipple peaked beneath her tank top and swiped. Her head fell back, her mouth dropping open so Jack leaned to latch his teeth against the arch of her throat.
"Fuck..." she moaned, but the sound of her own voice seemed to surprise her and she went rigid against him before standing up and pulling back to look at him with wild eyes. "Fuck," she repeated but this time her tone was panicked. She pressed her fingers to her lips as though she couldn't believe what had just happened. "Oh my god. That was such a bad idea."
Jack immediately felt guilt drop like lead in his stomach. He'd pushed too far, practically groping her in an alley behind a bar when all she had asked for was a kiss.
"Samira, I'm so sorr–"
"No. That's not what's happening here. Don't apologize. You were just doing what I asked," she corrected firmly, but her eyes still betrayed a kind of horror.
"You asked me to kiss you. You didn't ask me to" he tried rebut but she interrupted him again.
"I basically climbed you like I was in heat. You didn't do anything wrong," she assured him, looking more than a little embarrassed.
"Okay but you're freaking out," he reminded her.
"Right. Because that was a terrible idea," she repeated.
Jack looked at her, perplexed.
"I believe I pointed that out to you," he said softly.
"Yeah, but you didn't push the issue!" she accused. Apparently she was going to let him admit to wrongdoing now.
"Samira, you asked me to kiss you. Insisted on it. I'm not sure there's a man alive who could but put up a sustained argument against that. I'm only human," he explained, tone almost pleading.
"What's that supposed to mean?" she demanded, looking puzzled.
"It's not news to you I want you. You're the one that brought up the tension! I was perfectly content to ignore it!" he explained. "I told you it was a bad idea! You're too smart and too headstrong to argue with once you've made up your mind."
"You want me? As in want me? I thought—I'm young and pretty and off limits. I thought that's what this was to you!" Her tone was frantic.
"You said that. I didn't say that. Didn't agree to it either."
"But–"
"You thought it would make things easier for you. I wanted to help," he explained. "Apparently it didn't?"
"If it had helped, I wouldn't be freaking out right now. I'd be over it. I'd be on my merry way and not thinking about you shoving your hand in my jeans in a grimy alley." She sounded exasperated but Jack was immediately on the defensive.
"Hey. I might have felt you up but it was all upstairs!" he objected then winced at the wording. "I didn't–"
"I know you didn't! And yet I'm still fucking thinking about it," she exhaled, a little breathless.
"Oh," was all Jack could manage as he realized what she was saying.
"Why, did it work for you?" she pressed, her voice taking on a sharp edge.
"I didn't believe it would for a second."
Her pretty face shaped into something worried but more than a little hopeful. "You didn't?"
"Samira, young and pretty and off-limits don't scratch the surface of all the reasons I want you," he explained. "That's not why there was tension. Not on my part."
"It doesn't? Then why?" she demanded.
"Because you're smart. Smarter than anyone I know. But more than that, you're curious. You don't rush into things. You're hardheaded and willful. Strong. You're a force of nature. Like gravity," he explained and thought it apt. Had he not be trapped in her orbit for years?
"Gravity is actually the weakest of the fundamental forces," she corrected and then pulled her lip back between her teeth, her expression caught somewhere between embarrassed and puzzled.
Jack chuckled. "You're such a smart ass."
"Sorry," she muttered, sounding small.
"Don't be. It's cute," Jack assured her.
She shrugged. "Robby calls it a lack of respect for authority."
"Yeah well, Robby's a fucking hypocrite."
She snorted a laugh then quickly covered her mouth. "Why does it seem like all the reasons he hates me are reasons that you–" she paused, seeming to think better of finishing that line of thought but he eyes were pleading.
"Because they are," he admitted, hoping the tenderness of his voice confirmed the question she couldn't bear to ask.
Her features softened, her expression almost grateful. "So what do we do now?"
"I was hoping you had a backup plan. You're the smart one," he accused, trying to leaven the intensity that had settled over their exchange.
She shot him a deeply unamused look.
"Look," he tried. "You said it was a mistake. If you want to pretend this whole thing never happened, I'm happy to oblige." It might kill him to—to go back to watching her, to wanting her, all the time knowing what the weight of her in his arms felt like, knowing that he wouldn't have it again. But if it was what she needed, he wanted to be the kind of person who tried. For her.
"I–" she began but stopped. "I never said it was a mistake, Jack," she said softly, her voice wrapping around his first name in a way that constricted his throat. "It was a bad idea. A very bad idea. But it wasn't a mistake."
The gears in Jack's brain turned, trying to make sense of what she was saying. He didn't know how much time past, but she must have grown impatient because she followed it up.
"It's not a mistake because I learned something. It's like rejecting the null hypothesis," she assured him.
"The inside of your brain seems exhausting," he offered, still unsure where she was headed, but a glimmer of hope tried to shine through the tear in his heart.
"It is. Thank you for noticing," she allowed.
Noticing her was one of his favorite, if involuntary past times. "Any time. But where does that leave us? Pretending it didn't happen?"
She sighed, a small smile on her face. "I'm don't know that I can do that. I'm just not so sure I can pretend I don't know how it feels to be pressed up against you."
Jack felt his face heat. "So what's your solution?"
Her smile widened, something glinting in her eyes. "I think I need more data. A new hypothesis. Maybe we need to go further."
Jack's eyes widened. "Go further...." he repeated.
"Maybe we'll have sex and it will be terrible and we can just get it out of our system," she offered, sounding like she didn't believe a word she said.
"Samira..." Jack answered, his voice a warning. "If you let me...If we do that, I'm not gonna pull any punches. I'm not going to help you convince yourself to get over me. I'm a good guy. Or I want to be. But I'm only human and I've been thinking about that for a long time—about all the things I could do to you, all the ways I could make you feel the way you deserve to feel. I'm not gonna make it easy for you to walk away," he implored. It was selfish of him but he'd gotten a taste and found himself starving.
"I wouldn't want you to," she assured him, her grin turning conspiratorial.
He took a step closer to her. "You wouldn't?"
It was her turn to move closer, stepping into his space close enough to feel the air once again fizzing with tension. "I can't be sure unless I have all the facts, right?"
He smiled in response, guessing at the answer to his own question but asking anyway. "What can't you be sure of?"
"That I was wrong not to trust my instincts. That this is–" she said, laying a hand on his chest. "Is real. It's not just potential energy. It's something. We could be something."
She moved a hand to his shoulder, pushing herself up on her toes to ghost her lips against his, before looking at him, big brown eyes shining with the same hope he felt rising in his chest. He smiled down at her and the hope overtook him as he wrapped both arms around her waist, holding her tight.
"Real."