Archive of Our Own

When Jack first moved into his apartment, he had chosen the building strategically. It was a newer build with an open floor plan that made navigating on crutches easy. There was an elevator to deliver him to his floor, and only one flight of stairs between him and the roof.

The roof was arguably a bigger selling point than the ease of accessibility had been. The flat square on the south side of the building wasn’t exactly a patio. The floor was plain concrete, pipes and HVAC lines took up most of the east corner near the stairwell door, and a low brick wall ringed the whole thing. But the air was fresh, there was a view of the river in the distance, and he only had to share it with the neighbour on his floor.

The neighbour was named Brad. Or Brett. Jack had spoken to him exactly once, coming off a particularly long shift at eleven thirty in the morning. They both got in the elevator from the lobby, and exchanged semi-awkward eye contact when they realized they were heading to the same floor.

The neighbour, who was taller than Jack with dark hair and a mustache said, “Hey, I’m Brett,” or maybe, “Hi, I’m Brent.”

He really didn’t remember and it didn’t matter because he said, “Jack,” and never spoke to the man again.

It wasn’t that Jack was opposed to chatting with a neighbour. He talked to Donna, who was forty-ish with a couple kids and lived somewhere in the building, with some regularity. He talked to her kids too, both teenagers who called him ‘sir’ when their mom was in earshot and ‘dude’ when she wasn’t. He talked to Randy, who was a plumber, and Sadie, who had some kind of medical administration job that he hated on principle, despite the fact that she seemed nice enough.

He wasn’t averse to neighbours. Brent in particular just seemed to run on a schedule that was perfectly opposite to his own. He didn’t see the guy in the hall, the elevator, or the lobby. He did pass him once or twice on the street, enough to recognize the white Subaru with the gaudy spoiler on the back, and heard the occasional staccato beat of a raised voice through the wall.

Jack went to work and came home. He followed SWAT teams into active fire and watched hockey at a bar near the bridge. He talked to his therapist regularly and hung out on the roof before he went to bed most mornings. Things were pretty good. Not two legs, married, something worth going home to good. But pretty good.

Then he got on a plane.

The plane wasn’t the notable part. He didn’t remember the flight, or even where he’d gone. It wasn’t important.

What was important was that he went somewhere, a medical conference maybe, the one in Denver, and came back a few days later. And when he came back he went home. He parked, slung his pack over his shoulder, and unlocked the building's front door. He checked his mail. Hit the button for the elevator. Got on.

“Hold the– Oh my God!”

Automatically, he stuck out his hand to stop the closing door. He squinted through the gap.

The woman was in her early thirties, shortish and thin, with olive skin and long dark hair. She’d unlocked the front door then managed to snag the strap of her tote on the edge of the push-bar. She muttered a steady stream of words he couldn’t quite hear as she disentangled herself, dumping half the bags contents on the floor as she did it. She kept up her muttered, ‘Oh my Gods’ as she scooped up the items and jogged across the lobby.

“Thank you!” Her cheeks were very pink as she hopped the little gap into the elevator. She gestured to the panel of buttons with full hands. “Can you hit ten, please?”

He remembered feeling pretty dumb for not having done it already while he’d waited for her to sort herself out. The only logical explanation for that was his being tired. But maybe he’d just been distracted by all her fumbling. It might’ve been funny on someone else. He would’ve outright laughed at Ellis for that kind of display. He didn’t laugh at this woman. He hit the button for ten.

His floor. And she wasn’t visiting him, so she must’ve been visiting Brent.

There was no accounting for why that was interesting to Jack. He didn’t give a shit about Brent, who he never saw, or his guests, who he sometimes saw and who were always pretty.

The woman looked at the panel with its one lit button, then at him. Her eyebrows scrunched together. “Are you a friend of Beau’s?”

“No,” Jack said.

She frowned. Then her eyebrows un-scrunched and she said, “Oh! You live in B! Jack, right?”

He did live in 10B. And his name was Jack. But he wasn’t sure why she knew that. “Yes.”

“It’s so nice to meet you!” she said brightly, like she meant it. She tried to shuffle her armful of stuff; tote bag, book, several small tubes and bottles that had to be makeup, then gave up and huffed. “I’m Wyn. I just moved in.”

Moved in. To 10A presumably. With Beau. That struck him as unbelievably weird, but he couldn’t pin down why it should. He said, “Wyn?” which was pretty dumb. Christ, he must’ve been tired. How many days had that conference been? Not that many, he didn’t think.

“Sorry.” She made a face, the kind people sometimes did when they admitted to having a glass of wine with their meds, like she’d knowingly done something wrong, and corrected, “Wynona. Beau’s fiancé.”

Now that was weird. “Fiancé?”

“Uh-huh.” She looked down at her full hands and frowned. “Shoot. I must’ve forgotten to–“

The elevator doors slid open. It was like divine intervention. He was saved. Because he needed to get the hell out of Wyn’s orbit. The air in the elevator was suffocating. He didn’t usually have issues with proximity, he worked all day with people crammed in his personal space, but she was standing way too close.

She made a mild humming sound and stepped into the hallway. “It was nice to meet you!”

”You too,” he replied automatically. He let her take a few steps toward the door of A, then started toward B. He realized when he made it to the threshold that his keys were in his pack. Usually he would’ve had them in his hand already. It would have occurred to him to dig for them while he was still in the elevator. He slipped his pack from his arm and unzipped the front pocket.

Wyn, fifteen feet away and still too close, frowned briefly down at her armload of junk, then shook her head and kicked the door with the toe of her boot.

Where the fuck were his keys and why couldn’t he find them? He always kept them in the front pocket of his bag, and the pocket wasn’t that big.

The door of 10A swung inward. After half a beat, Beau said, “Where are your keys?”

Wyn replied as she stepped into the apartment, “In my bag somewhere but I yard-sailed half my stuff in the lobby and then I was in a hurry to catch the elevator and I thought this was easier.”

“I was in the middle of–” The door clicked shut.

Jack’s keys appeared, as if by magic, in the mesh pouch he would’ve sworn to God he had already checked.

Here was the thing, which he could recognize in hindsight, but hadn’t been able to identify at the time. Brian was a complete douche. Despite having spoken to him exactly once, Jack knew that. He knew because what had probably only been a month before, he had crossed paths in the hallway with a pretty young woman as she fled Brian’s apartment in tears. That young woman had been the third to flee in such a manner that Jack had witnessed.

He had felt poorly for all of them, but it wasn’t his business. Just like Wyn being engaged to Brian wasn’t his business. Just like the fact that the man had probably cheated on her wasn’t his business. Just like the fact that she was pretty, and smelled like lilacs, and had a smile like the goddamn sun, wasn’t his business.

He went inside, showered off the lingering feel of recycled air, and went to bed. He tried very hard not to think about Wyn.

He wasn’t as successful as he would have liked. Because while he hadn’t given Brian a second thought for months, something about Wyn stuck with him. He didn’t see her, not in the lobby, or the elevator, or the hall, but he thought about her sometimes. When the front door tried to snag on the edge of his coat, or he got distracted and forgot to hit the button on the elevator. Once when he watched Whitaker fumble his coffee and dump the whole thing on his own shirt.

He had some trouble connecting those particular dots.

He realized, leaning on the charge station as Whitaker took Santos’ rapid-fire tirade of shit-talk, that he’d come across like a complete idiot. He must’ve. He’d said like, three words, none of them together in a coherent sentence. That was embarrassing.

“Uh-oh,” Dana drawled. When he glanced at her, she was studying him over the rim of her glasses. “What’s that look for? You got a problem with the Odd Couple?”

He didn’t. Generally speaking. Santos was decent and he could appreciate her willingness to go off-script. Whitaker was a little like Robby in that he cared too much, but he was good at the job too. Sort of sad-looking, usually, but that couldn’t be helped. Not when he spent all seven of his free seconds on-shift pining.

“Do I make a good first impression?” He asked. Then immediately regretted opening his mouth.

Dana’s eyebrows shot up. “Why’re you asking?”

Because he was suddenly pretty sure he didn’t. He said nothing and shrugged. It didn’t work. Dana waited. He was forced to reach for a halfway passable answer, “Call it professional curiosity.”

She snorted. “Sure. Hey Mel!”

Jack glanced over his shoulder at the young woman as she strolled from the trauma bay toward the desk. Robby trailed behind her as he eyed the Pitt at large and rubbed sanitizer into his skin. Mel offered an awkward smile. “Yes?”

“What was your first impression of Doctor Abbot?” Dana hitched a thumb toward him. Robby, behind Mel, raised his eyebrows at Jack.

Mel answered immediately, “Oh. Well. Sort of stern? Dour. A little scary.”

Jack let the adjectives roll through his brain and settle. Stern, dour, and scary. All distinctly negative words. That wasn’t ideal. But he’d been tired when he met Mel the first time. Hadn’t he been coming off a shift? But– hadn’t he been tired on the elevator too?

Robby coughed a laugh. Dana smirked. Mel glanced at her attending, then at the charge nurse, then at Jack. She looked aghast. “Oh, no. I mean, not scary. Just, intense? Not intense. Serious?” She cringed.

“It’s alright Mel.” Robby set his elbow on the charge station and grinned. “I’m sure you didn’t hurt Doctor Abbot’s feelings. Why’re you asking?” He directed the last at Dana.

“Jack wants to know if he makes a good first impression,” she replied, tone teasing.

“Definitely not,” Robby said. “You’ve scared the shit out of every ER intern since you’ve been here.”

He didn’t try to, but that was a fair assessment. “Alright, but if you were meeting me for the first time outside this building,” he circled his finger to indicate the hospital as a whole, “what would you think?”

“Super intense, definitely killed a man, probably likes long, contemplative silences.” Jack turned his head very slowly to study Santos where she had posted up at a nearby charting station. She shrugged and leant in a little like she was going to lower her voice but didn’t. “Have you killed a man?”

‘Definitely killed a man’ was a way worse descriptor than ‘dour’. He knew he came across as being serious, that was fine. He hadn’t realized he was coming across like a serial killer. No fucking wonder he hadn’t seen his neighbour in the hallway again.

“I need some help over here!”

Jack turned on his heel and strode toward the shout. Behind him, he heard Santos say, “Holy shit, he totally has, right?”

Robby’s hand grasped his shoulder and squeezed as they turned together into the curtained bay where Jesse had already lowered the patient and was starting compressions. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Nothing.” Jack glanced at the monitor. “New neighbour.”

Robby might’ve had some follow-up questions about that, but they spent eighteen minutes trying to correct the patient's unpredictable and irregular heart rhythms, and then Jack clocked out and went home. By the time he saw Robby again a few days later, the whole thing was as good as forgotten.

Jack was aware that ignoring a problem didn’t make it go away, but like the rest of humanity he preferred to pretend otherwise while it suited him. It didn’t really, but he pretended anyway.

He went to work and went home. He hung out on the roof and read medical journals. He did enjoy long, contemplative silences, and wondered if that was a character defect. He didn’t see how it could be. Sometimes, when he was off work and home at night, he listened.

Not on purpose. He wasn’t trying to hear it, really, but his apartment was quiet and Brandon’s voice was loud. If he wanted to, he wouldn’t have been able to pick out the words, but he was equally incapable of getting up and removing himself to a different part of the apartment. So he would sit, and listen to the vague noise of almost-shouts, and study the disgusting simmering in his stomach like it was something he could make sense of. It wasn’t.

The first plant appeared on the roof.

He noticed because he noticed most things. Every time he stepped through a doorway he scanned a space for anything different and wrong, because that was how you kept from dying in a combat situation, and once you trained it into yourself you couldn’t really dig it out.

The plant was medium-sized, green, and leafy. He didn’t know shit about plants, so he couldn’t tell what it was, but he was pretty sure the Pittsburgh weather was going to kill it.

Like neighbours, Jack wasn’t opposed to plants. They tended to be around and he didn’t mind. He wasn’t inclined to own any himself, and he didn’t understand why his neighbour would have gone to the effort of carrying this one up a flight of stairs to its all but certain doom.

He eyed it, instead of the skyline, and forgot why he was on the roof to begin with.

The first plant did not die. Nor did the second or the third. Not even when it was cold outside. He realized he really didn’t know shit about plants and stopped being surprised by their continued fortitude. He did continue to be surprised by their general presence. What was the point of having plants on the roof? Nobody else was ever up there.

He kind of wished somebody else would come up. So he could ask about it. No other reason.

“How’s that new neighbour of yours?” Robby asked one Friday afternoon while they were sitting side-by-side in uncomfortable plastic chairs donating blood. It was sort of their thing. Or, it was Jack’s thing, and Robby tagged along sometimes when he was free.

Jack dropped the ball he’d been tossing idly from hand to hand. It bounced a few times and rolled away under a shelf. “Fine,” he said.

Robby raised his eyebrows.

“Really.” Jack frowned at the ball’s final resting place so he didn’t have to look his friend in the eye. “I never see her.” He could practically taste the change in Robby that oozed out into the air around them and tried to smother it before it ignited, “Or her fiancé.”

“Ah.”

The response wasn’t even a full word. It was a syllable at best. But it was surprisingly weighty. The ‘ah’ seemed to say, ‘You’re disappointed. You want to see her, and you’re jealous of the fiancé, and you think she’s pretty, and you’ve been pining since you watched her dump all her shit on the floor, and you don’t know what to do about it’. The ‘ah’ couldn’t possibly have that much to say. He was projecting. Which was weird, because he didn’t usually project such complete and utter nonsense.

“You wanna come watch the game later?” Jack asked.

The deflection was effective. Robby agreed and they spent the rest of their time debating whether the Penguins were likely to get completely destroyed or not. Of course, and probably because he’d been so pleased at getting out from under Robby’s scrutiny, the universe conspired against him.

Jack and Robby finished donating blood and went to get food. They ate a pair of steaks at a place that always got the cook right and picked up a six-pack around the corner from Jack’s place. Then they walked the block and a half to Jack’s building.

He could see her the second he rounded the corner. The building was practically at the other end of the street, and he’d only ever met her once, but he could still tell from the shape of the person sitting on the bottom step that it was her. He felt suddenly like his centre of gravity had shifted. Was just a little off. It made him dizzy.

“I don’t know. Seriously. No, I swear, I’ve got no idea. Of course they aren’t mine. Well, I’d know if they were– Hi Jack! No. Hold on.” As they approached the steps, she lowered her phone from her ear and pressed it with both hands to her chest. She smiled at him. “How’s it going?”

“Fine,” he replied. How the hell did she remember his name? They’d only met the once. And he may or may not have made an awful, murdery impression.

“Wyn,” she supplied, tapping her phone against her chest like she thought he’d forgotten her name. “10A.”

“Right,” he said. He knew that. She hadn’t made an awful first impression. She’d been cute. “How are you?”

“Oh you know.” She waved vaguely. He didn’t and frowned. She looked from him to Robby and smiled. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Robby also smiled, and Jack thought the expression seemed a little smug. “I’m Jack’s friend, Michael.”

Jack made an involuntary noise of irritated protest. People didn’t call Robby ‘Michael’. Hell, he only called Robby ‘Mike’ thirty percent of the time and he was pretty sure they were best friends. Where did the guy get off suggesting Wyn call him by his first name?

“Nice to meet you!” Wyn didn’t stand or try to shake his hand. “You guys doing anything fun with your Friday?”

“Just the game,” Robby answered. Jack wanted to punch him.

“Gonna keep me up yelling at the TV when the Penguins lose?” Her tone was teasing.

“Hey now,” Robby joked, despite their already having agreed that was the predictable outcome, “that’s our team.”

She shrugged. “Sorry. I’m a Canuck’s fan.”

“Vancouver girl?”

Jack really wanted to punch his friend. He didn’t, and what came out of his mouth was, “Canucks are way worse than the Penguins.”

Wyn laughed. The same bright, bubbly sound that haunted him through his dining room wall. “I think those might be fighting words! Now we’re going to be nemeses and I’ll have to– Oh crap–“ She lifted the phone from her chest to her ear. Jack could hear, even from several feet away, the rapid chatter of the person on the other end of the line. Wyn grimaced briefly, then covered the mouthpiece and said, “Sorry. I’ve got to– I’ll see you around?”

“Yeah,” Jack replied, though he probably wouldn’t. Robby waved, and together they climbed the stairs.

Behind them he could hear Wyn’s continued conversation before the door fell shut. “I’m not trying to brush it off, I just don’t know if it’s worth getting upset about until I know for sure– Well, no. But I– No. Right. No, I know.” At each pause her voice got a little quieter. A little less bubbly. More sad.

He wanted to ask her what was wrong. He wanted to help somehow. But it wasn’t any of his business.

“New neighbour, huh?” Robby said as he hit the button for the elevator.

“Yeah,” Jack said. “Wyn.”

Robby turned to pin him with a look. A look that seemed to say, ‘You were full of shit earlier, and you’re being deliberately obtuse now. You clearly think that woman is pretty. It’s the only explanation for you acting like a total dumbass. Did you know you can put more than two words together in a sentence? Usually I can’t get you to shut up if I beg. Seriously, what the fuck?’

That was incredibly verbose for a look. He was projecting again. At least only half of it was nonsense this time.

Robby didn’t actually say anything else about their encounter with the neighbour. Every word out of his mouth for the rest of the evening was hockey or work related and he provided no more verbose looks.

Regardless, Jack was uncomfortable. Like his bones didn’t want to sit quite right. Ordinarily, he was good at being still, but he couldn’t seem to manage it anymore. Any time spent sitting, or lying in bed, he tapped and shifted and shuffled. Why was his apartment so goddamn quiet all of a sudden?

He kicked out his leg. The usually very comfortable armchair in his therapist's office seemed dead set on putting what he had left of the limb to sleep.

“You seem unsettled.”

That was a good word, Jack supposed. He nodded his agreement.

They sat in silence for a minute before Doctor Khan prompted, “Why?”

He didn’t want to talk about it. The whole thing was weird, except for the parts that were embarrassing, and dragging it into the light of day seemed like a bad idea. But he was committed to his sessions. So he talked anyway, “I have this new neighbour.” That was the whole problem, but he was compelled to continue, “She’s got all these plants. They’re all over the roof.”

The most recent additions he had recognized. Five tomato plants, each in their own container in a row against one of the low brick walls. They were big enough to have flowers and not dead despite the late March frost he’d left work to that Wednesday. The whole space was starting to look like a botanical garden.

“What are you doing on the roof?” Khan asked. His gaze was critical.

“Meditating,” Jack replied.

They both knew that wasn’t quite the right word for what he did on the roof, but it was close enough. The man tapped his pen. “And the plants bother you?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

Because they made him think about the pretty woman with the long, dark hair. “I liked the desert,” he said, voice dry.

They both knew that wasn’t true, but Khan let it slide.

Two weeks later, Jack climbed the stairs to the roof at two thirty in the afternoon. He’d been held up at work by an apartment fire and despite having worked eighteen hours in a row, he didn’t think he’d be getting to sleep any time soon.

He was already wondering about the plants and whether they had been drowned by the torrential spring rains that week. He thought he might not like it if that were the case, despite how crazy they were making him. When he actually opened the door, he didn’t notice the plants at all.

What he noticed was Wyn, in more or less his usual spot, though she was turned to lean on the wall so she could look at the plants instead of the river. Her face was tear-streaked.

“Wyn,” he said sharply, because using a patient's name focused their attention better than anything else. “What happened?” He crossed the roof in a handful of quick strides and reached to take her forearms and lift them away from where they were tucked tightly against her stomach. “Are you hurt?” He didn’t see blood, but that didn’t indicate a lack of injury.

She blinked at him, clearly stunned, while he slid his hands down toward her wrists and turned her palms up to inspect them. “No,” she said. Her voice was thick, “I’m just–” a few long seconds passed. He didn’t let go of her and she didn’t pull away. “Crying.”

That was good, he thought, and bad. An injury, he was uniquely qualified to fix. ‘Just crying’ indicated a larger problem he probably couldn’t help with. “You come to the roof to cry?” He didn’t like that at all. Likely because of his own long, sordid history of ideating in high places.

“Yeah, I can’t do it in the apartment.” The statement came out like that was a given. As though people shouldn’t cry in their own homes.

He let go of her hand and pulled the sleeve of his hoodie over his thumb to wipe the tears off her face. By the time he realized what a mistake the action was, it was way too late. Even tear-streaked, she was beautiful. Her eyelashes were damp, her cheeks flushed. Her long dark hair waterfalled across her shoulders. She closed her eyes and sucked in a breath when he touched her.

And he hadn’t even brushed her skin but he was on fire. The cool, petrichor air crackled to life, electrically charged like a thunderstorm.

“Sorry.” The apology was out of his mouth before he knew what it was for. “I’m a doctor. See tears, think bodily injury.” He lowered his hand from her cheek but it took him a second longer to let go of her fingers still in his.

“It’s okay.” She cleared her throat. “I’m alright. I just needed to cry without Braydon around. He can’t handle it.”

“Can’t– what? What’s to handle?” Jack didn’t get it, but he was angry. A partner was meant to support the person they were with. Comfort them. Not banish them to the roof of the building when they felt a negative emotion.

Wyn snorted a laugh. It was an awful sound that probably should’ve been irritating and was somehow endearing instead. “My feelings.”

Jack was pissed. And disgusted. “You aren’t supposed to have feelings?”

“No, I just– Well, he–” she frowned and looked over to the water-logged leafy thing that had been the roof’s first occupant. “Huh.”

She hadn’t explained, but it probably wouldn’t have mattered if she had. “You’re allowed to feel however you feel, Wyn.” Her soft brown eyes flicked to meet his and he was momentarily lost. His mouth kept going without the rest of him, “It’s cold up here. You want me to make you a cup of coffee? You can tell me about it.”

“About what?” her voice was practically a whisper.

His hands weren’t on her anymore, but they had been. And he was still standing very close. Too close, for someone he’d only met twice before, who had a fiance. “Whatever you want.” He was caught in the middle of something terrible. A mistake that he couldn’t help but make, objectively wrong, and damning, and so, so tempting. He knew she should say no, just like he shouldn’t have asked, and that the disappointment of hearing it would fester like an open wound.

But if she said yes, maybe he could learn why the air around her was so magnetically sweet. Why her skin had been able to burn him through a layer of cotton, and why her image was burned across the back of his eyelids.

She made a soft sound. Not a laugh, but something that was pretending to be. “Do you offer every damsel in distress a shoulder to cry on?”

“No,” he answered honestly. “Just the ones in high places.” It might’ve been a joke. Or not.

“Not to worry, Jack.” She smiled at him, and even with her eyelashes still damp from tears she was beautiful. “It’s nothing that serious.”

It was an attempt to brush away his concern. And he would respect that and not dig, but only if she meant it. “Sure you don’t wanna talk about it?”

“I am extremely sure.” She wiped her eyes again with her own sleeve and he took half a step back to give her the space to do it. “I think I might need a nap now though.”

“Sure. Crying really takes it outta you.” He shoved his hands deep into his pockets so that he wouldn’t be tempted to reach for her again.

“It does,” she agreed. She studied him briefly. He’d gone straight to the roof after stashing his pack so he was still in green Carhartts and potentially bloodstained boots. “What’s got you up on the roof? Not smoking? Doctors don’t endorse that anymore, do they?”

His mouth twisted up against his will. “I like the fresh air. Used to come up for the solitude but it feels pretty crowded these days.”

“It’s gotten a little out of hand,” she admitted with a feigned grimace. “Braydon claimed to be allergic to Albert.”

“Albert?”

“The hosta.” She gestured toward the first plant to occupy the space.

“Albert,” Jack repeated again. “You didn’t name all these plants.” Even as he said it, he was pretty sure that she had.

“Of course I did,” Wyn replied. “That’s Odin, and Tiernan, and Esher the third.” She pointed down the line of tomato plants, then stopped and flushed deep pink. She seemed embarrassed to be telling him.

It was absurd, of course. There were a dozen or more plants on the roof and he was sure she couldn’t remember all of their names if they were as ridiculous as ‘Esher the third’. It was also pretty cute. “And those two?” He tipped his chin toward the last two tomatoes.

Wyn smiled brightly. The effect, with her cheeks still pink with embarrassment, was shocking. “Jeremiah Plant and Oscar.”

So, one less ridiculous, and one equally so. “You talk to them, too?”

“Studies show it makes them grow faster!”

She seemed to think he was making fun of her, but he didn’t think that he was. “Well, who am I to contradict the science.” He grinned. “Must be working. I didn’t think Albert would last the first week.”

“Me neither,” Wyn admitted. “But look at him, he’s thriving!”

The plant had indeed grown several new fronds and a few inches in height. Jack nodded his agreement.

For a minute, she smiled at him, and Jack felt like he’d fixed something after all. Then the smile slid off her mouth and she fidgeted before shoving off the wall to stand straight. He hadn’t put a lot of space between them when he’d let go of her and it suddenly felt like very little. She was nearly as tall as he was. She flushed again and made a little, “Oh,” sound. She cleared her throat. “I better go. But I’ll maybe see you around?”

He didn’t want her to go. He wanted to hear what the rest of the plants were called. But he didn’t think he could keep her by saying so. After all, she was only his neighbour. He nodded and said, “Sure,” even though they’d barely crossed paths in months, and it felt sickeningly unlikely.

“Okay.” She sidestepped around him and flapped her hand up in a very brief wave. “Bye Jack. And thanks.”

“Bye Wyn,” he said. He watched her scamper across the roof, nearly tripping on a bag of dirt, and into the stairwell. He huffed a breath and hoped to send his disappointment with it. Then he looked at the tomatoes. Esher the third had several blossoms, despite it still being early spring. He wondered how many tomatoes it was likely to produce. And there were five of the plants. Was that a lot?

When he was showered and relaxed into his couch an hour later, he opened a tab on his phone to look it up.

“How’s your neighbour?”

“What?” Jack didn’t immediately register the question. There was an insistent ringing in his ears. It had been there since he’d sent his patient up to surgery and evacuated the trauma bay. He was no stranger to catastrophic bodily injury, but there was something about the man’s mangled and sure-to-be amputated leg that was hard to look at. He just couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was. And what was wrong with his ears? He pinched the cartilage hard and tried to focus on Robby.

“Your neighbour,” Robby repeated. “Dark hair. Canucks fan.”

Jack squinted at him. “What about her?”

“How’s she doing?” He hitched his elbow up on the counter, the picture of nonchalance. Behind him, sitting at a charting computer, Whitaker turned his head to look at them, then looked away when he caught Jack’s eye.

The nonchalance was feigned. Jack could smell the subterfuge. Robby was trying to hint at something. “How would I know?”

The man shrugged. “You haven’t seen her lately?”

Jack had not. Not in weeks. Not since the roof. Not since he’d had his hands on her. He hadn’t told Robby about the meeting at the time, and he wouldn’t be admitting now that it was stuck under his skin like a fiberglass sliver. “No.”

The meeting would have been one thing. One excruciating thing. But then, a couple weeks after, there had been the labels. One for each plant, neatly affixed to its pot, a little nametag. He’d read them all. There was Prudence, with the little white flowers, and Nyx, with the striped leaves. The conical shrub was called Constance, and the weird vines were Hyperion.

He thought about the names. They were silly. He wondered how she had picked them. And he wondered if the labels were for his benefit or her own. Nobody else had access to the roof.

Robby’s mouth twisted toward a grin. “She was pretty.” Behind him, Whitaker went rigid.

“She’s engaged,” Jack countered. It seemed the most effective response. Because regardless of whether Robby thought he was interested, there was nothing he could do about it. He wasn’t interested anyway. He told himself that all the time.

“Still?” He seemed surprised. He rubbed his jaw. Whitaker seemed to have recovered from his rigor, and was becoming very small in his chair.

Jack lifted a hand in an exasperated question. “Why wouldn’t she be?”

“It just seemed like– Damn. Nevermind I guess.” He frowned.

“Doctor Robby?” Mel asked, sidling up and glancing between them. She seemed nervous, but she usually seemed a little nervous when she stepped into a social conversation. Jack didn’t think socializing was her strong suit. It wasn’t his either. “I have a patient presenting with sudden onset partial blindness, but their retina looks normal.”

Robby gave a little hum and shoved off the counter. He gestured Mel off and started to quiz her as they crossed the linoleum.

Whitaker glanced over his shoulder. Jack met his gaze. The kid turned red and shot up from his stool so fast it spun off and whacked Jesse in the knees. He stammered an apology as he raced off on an emergent, and fake, errand.

Jack wasn’t sure where the fuck Robby got off grilling him about a romantic prospect when he had that going on and hadn’t noticed.

But maybe Robby was psychic.

Not that Jack believed in psychics. He didn’t. He also didn’t subscribe to astrology, tarot, or the power of crystals. He believed in science. Statistics. Probability.

The probability of Robby bringing up Wyn and suggesting that her engagement may have failed, and then Jack's discovering the next day that it had seemed astronomical. But that’s what happened.

He woke up at noon, and he could smell it. The same smell that had been plaguing him for weeks. The smell of baking.

Jack didn’t bake, but when he was a kid, his mother had baked. The house had always smelled like muffins, or cookies, or pies. The smell that leaked into his apartment filled him with bone-deep nostalgia that made him ache.

He was going to have to complain to someone. The apartment was new. He shouldn’t have to smell his neighbour's baking, or hear her laugh when the windows were open. It was killing him. He seriously considered the idea that he might need to move. At the very least, he needed to get the fuck out of his house. He opened the kitchen window hoping would air things out by the time he got back, shoved his wallet in his jeans pocket, and fled to the hall.

“Jack!”

Fuck’s sake. He turned, his key hovering in the air halfway to the lock.

Wyn was standing a few feet outside of her door, like she was on her way to the elevator too. She was wearing a pink hoodie layered under whitish overalls with a dusting of flour across the bib. She had the tote bag that had caught her up in the lobby slung over her shoulder.

She was pretty. And he was doomed. Especially when the next words out of her mouth were, “Thank God I ran into you!” He opened his mouth, but he couldn’t form words with the weird roiling that was happening in his stomach. She seemed both happy and relieved. “Do you like cinnamon buns?”

“I– Sorry?” That wasn’t the question he’d expected. Usually when people thanked God for his presence, someone was bleeding profusely.

“Do you like cinnamon buns?” she asked again. She waved her hand and spun off a rapid explanation, “I’ve been doing all this baking and I can’t eat it all so I’ve been taking it to work. But then yesterday, Bianca told me I can’t keep doing it because she’s going to Maui in two weeks and she doesn’t have any self-control. Except, I’m not really ready to stop baking, and my friend Tish gave me a sourdough starter, so I wanted to try cinnamon buns, and I can’t take them to work, so now I just have two dozen cinnamon buns.”

He listened to the story, but that didn’t mean he understood how any of the details went together. He lowered his hand slowly to his side. “Yes,” he said, because that was the answer to her original question. He wasn’t totally sure where to begin following up with the rest of it.

“Great!” Wyn clapped her hands together. “Can I give you a dozen?”

“Uh–“

“You can take them to work, or you can chuck them, but I can’t throw them away myself. It's such a waste.” She looked at him expectantly.

Was he supposed to say no to her? He wasn’t sure what he was going to do with a dozen cinnamon buns. “Sure,” he agreed.

“Thank you so much!” She turned on her heel and strode back to her front door. She dropped one handle of her tote and started digging for her keys. “Seriously, this means a lot.”

He frowned. He wasn’t sure he was the one doing the other a favour. He waffled for a second, then shoved his hands in his pockets and strode down the hall to meet her at her door. He left a respectful distance between them this time, and it felt like way too much. She found her keys, shoved them in the lock, and shouldered the door open.

“Do you know if there’s like, a shelter or a community kitchen or something around here? Maybe I should be donating my baked goods if this keeps up.” She left the door wide with her keys in the lock as she went to the kitchen.

Jack took a single step so that he could look into the apartment. “Not close,” he answered. The look of the apartment was startling. He couldn’t keep himself from saying, “This place looks–”

“I know,” Wyn said. She’d made it to the kitchen and ducked to dig in one of the cupboards he couldn’t see, but were identical to his own. “Brennan moved out, hence all the baking, and most of the furniture was his. It’s deeply depressing to look at, which makes me want to bake more, and then there’s nobody around to eat it but me.” The cupboard banged shut and she came into view over the peninsula. The expression on her face was hard to name. “I finally decided today that if I don’t buy a couch things are going to get really dark.”

He nodded and watched her transfer buns from a covered pan to a large rectangular Tupperware. “I’m sorry to hear that.” He wasn’t.

“I’m not?” she replied. “I mean, I don’t think I am. He’s a really careless person. And he cheated on me.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He was. A little.

“Oh God, don’t be.” She pressed a lid onto the container and crossed the empty floor to meet him. He took it from her hands when she offered it, and then stepped back to let her close and lock the door. “I offered you baked goods, I didn’t mean to dump my whole heartbreak situation–” she waved her hand and flung her keys. They bounced off the wall with a clatter. “Oops.”

Jack could see very clearly the lack of a ring on her empty left hand. “It’s alright. You doing okay?”

“Yes! Absolutely!” She spun and bent over to pick her keys up off the floor. He turned his gaze to the roof. “Except for when I’m not. But then I bake!”

“Seems like a healthy coping strategy,” he drawled.

“Yeah.” She didn’t seem to catch his sarcasm. She flicked her hair over her shoulder. “Do you like peanut butter cookies?”

“Yes.” Really, who was he to judge?

“Holy shit,” Shen moaned around a mouthful of cupcake.

Jack didn’t look up. He kept his face buried in his hands, positive he didn’t need that particular visual to haunt him. The sound was bad enough.

“Where’d you get these again?” The question was half garbled around a mouthful of baking.

“Dude,” Ellis muttered, disgusted.

“My neighbour bakes.” Boy did she ever. Apparently, Wyn baked when she was heartbroken. And she was still, several weeks removed from their last meeting, heartbroken.

That was fair. Jack didn’t know how long she’d been with Bentley, but if they were engaged the relationship must’ve been important to her. He understood the need to mourn that. And mourning meant baking.

Every few days Jack would step out his front door and find a container of something new. He’d received cookies, brownies, fudge, an entire pie, and two kinds of cupcakes. He’d eat some, proving they were delicious, and take the rest to work. He didn't get caught up by overtime and he always had the container back in his bag before Robby saw it. Which was good because if Robby saw it, he’d grill him about the neighbour and her baking. And Jack would break, and tell him about the notes.

Because every baked good was accompanied by a note.

The first, on the cookies, was brief. It said:

Jack,
Thanks for returning my Tupperware, and thanks for taking some baking off my hands! Bianca said if I bring one more cookie to the office, she’ll strangle me. I hope you enjoy them!
XO Wyn

It told him pretty much nothing, except maybe that Bianca was kind of terrible. He stared at the XO beside her loopy signature for a long time.

The note on the fudge, told him more, and pissed him off heartily. It said:

Jack,
I used to make this all the time with my grandma. It was her birthday yesterday, so I thought I’d give it a try. Fair warning, it’s been a while. Brandt always said I shouldn’t bake so much cause it was important to count calories, so I don’t remember the last time I made fudge. If I messed it up, don’t feel badly about tossing it. The recipe is totally unhelpful, it actually says ‘butter the size of an egg’ and I don’t know what that means, so I tried to do the whole thing on muscle memory alone.
XO Wyn

Fucking Brandt.

The previous times he’d returned her dishes, he’d felt obligated to attach a note of his own and been at a complete loss for what it should say. He settled for:

Thanks and the scribble that almost looked like it might say Jack if one was to squint.

The note on the fudge motivated him to respond properly. He sat at his table for a long time, and was eventually left with a piece of stolen hotel notepaper that said:

Wyn,
The fudge was fantastic. Your grandma must know what she’s doing. Do they not make an egg-sized measuring cup?
Jack

He felt like an idiot, and he stared at it a long time when he left the dish beside her door, but he was ultimately rewarded. The next note he received, accompanying brownies, was long.

Jack,
I’m glad to hear it! I learned all my baking from my grandma. She was amazing at it. And awful. Like, really mean. I did not enjoy spending time at her house. But I love baking now. They don't make egg measuring cups, I looked it up.

He couldn’t tell if that was a joke. He didn’t think it was. Wyn struck him as incredibly earnest.

I think if this baking situation goes on much longer, it's going to get dire. I might have to try phyllo pastry. Or croissants. I’ve never made either before, and apparently they’re nearly impossible. Will you still take my baking if it’s bad?

He would as long as it came with a note. She continued, her writing getting smaller as she ran out of space.

Maybe I should take requests instead. What’s your favourite dessert?
XO Wyn

Again, he stared at the XO for a long time. He had to get rid of the brownies, which he really wanted to keep all of for himself, as quickly as possible so that he could reply on her returned dish.

He fed the brownies to the nurses at work, and scrawled his reply on a piece of notepaper from the charge desk. His favourite dessert was apple pie.

Of course, then she went and made him one, which he didn’t know how to deal with. It suggested that she cared somehow. As did her note, which indicated that baking for someone was much more fun than stress baking. She wrote about her new couch, which was green, and asked him if he worked nights.

He did work nights. He was glad that he could help, and thank you for the pie. It was delicious. Her couch sounded very interesting.

She apologized and asked if she played her music too loudly in the morning. She wanted to know when he usually tried to sleep so she could be quiet. She worked during the day. She didn’t say exactly what she did, but that it was a lot of spreadsheets and internal memos that didn’t actually go anywhere or do anything. He was a doctor, right? What kind? Where did he work? Did he have other favourites she could try to make?

He read all the questions. Studied the XO. And left the note stuck to his fridge with the rest under the big magnet he used to use for bills he hadn’t paid yet. His reply, when he wrote it, started with a fib.

Your music is fine.

The music was driving him insane. It was almost certainly too loud. He could hear it when he stood in the hallway near the bathroom, the thrum on the opposite side of the wall.

It shouldn’t have been a real problem. It didn’t last long, and he couldn’t hear it in bed. But he’d linger in the hall until the thrum turned into something recognizable. Often it didn’t, and he’d be left to wonder what kind of music she liked best.

The whole situation was spiraling out of control. He thought about her when he got home and heard music. And in the afternoon when he went to the roof and caught himself inspecting Ferdinand, who had several leaves that didn’t look great. Everything inside his ribs rearranged themselves when he stepped out his front door and found a dish and a note.

He was shaken back to reality, thankfully, by Ellis slapping him on the shoulder. “Old ladies love Jack. They think it’s sexy when he calls them ‘ma’am’.”

He rolled his eyes as he lifted his head and sat back in his chair. Everyone had, for some reason, gotten it into their heads that his baking neighbour must’ve been elderly. He didn’t correct them.

“Do you think she knows how to make zucchini loaf?” Shen asked wistfully.

Jack frowned at him.

A few more weeks passed. Jack went to work, and went home. He agonized over notes signed with a kiss and lingered in the hall when he came and went from his apartment. He pretended not to feel it like the ache of a poorly healed bone when the frequency of baked goods delivered to his apartment waned.

That was a good thing. It meant Wyn was less sad. Maybe not heartbroken anymore. But he didn’t see her in the hall, or on the roof, and loopy print on pale pink paper was all he had.

It wasn’t enough.

His shift was awful. Properly. Again. For the third night in a row. He had one more to get through and wasn’t sure he’d manage. He went home and climbed the stairs to the roof without even dropping his bag first.

Spring had gone, burned away by summer sun that hung in the sky long enough for him to enjoy it each day. He shoved through the roof access door, took a deep breath of cool morning air, and choked on it. He learned several things very quickly as he coughed to dislodge whatever had caught in his throat.

Wyn did yoga. The practice couldn’t have been new, not with the angle she was bent at, but her doing it on the roof in the morning must’ve been. She was flexible. So, that was what he learned about Wyn.

What he learned about himself was that he wasn’t as uninterested in the opposite sex as he’d previously believed. Between the gentle curve where her waist met her hip and the full view he had of her ass in her very tight leggings, he was in fact, extremely interested. He felt like his whole body was on fire.

Wyn twisted to look at him past her own shins, then gave a surprised chirp of, “Jack!” And straightened. “What’re you doing up here?”

He looked at Esher the Third, because her orange shirt was just as tight and he didn’t think he could safely look directly at her. There were several small green tomatoes on the plant. “I come up here after work.”

“Oh.” She looked him over in a way that wasn’t subtle at all. “How was your night?”

“Fine,” he answered. It had been. He’d fielded multiple GSW’s from a drive-by, but he handled them each with an efficiency born of routine.

Wyn nodded and said, “I don’t think I could work nights. I’m not a very good sleeper. Do you like it?”

“I do, yeah.” After a second, he hazarded a glance in her direction. She had her hair tied back in a ponytail and she flicked at an errant strand that dangled near her nose. “I don’t sleep well either.”

Well that had come out of nowhere. He didn’t sleep well. Usually in one four-hour stretch that never felt all that restful. But that was to be assumed when one suffered from PTSD and when one worked nights, and he did both.

“That sucks. Meditation helps me. You wanna try?” The question left her mouth completely earnest. Like she wanted to help and didn’t see anything about Jack that might suggest meditation was not his thing.

Which it wasn’t. His therapist had suggested it, and he had scoffed. He’d turned it into a joke. It just seemed a little crunchy for him. There was no chance he’d get anything out of it when he felt like it was garbage, so there was no point in trying. “Okay.” Except apparently he would try anything if a pretty girl suggested it.

“Okay!” Wyn took a step to the edge of her mat and lowered herself to sit cross-legged, facing him. She patted the empty cork in front of her.

Well, he’d fucked up. There was nothing to do but work through it. He dropped his pack to the ground and went to meet her. He surveyed her pose on the mat. Hell, she was pretty. “I can’t sit like that.”

“You can sit however’s comfy. Some people like to kneel. Or lie down.” Her tone was cheery.

Well, he couldn’t kneel either, and he definitely couldn’t lie down. The idea of being horizontal near her made his neck burn. He lowered himself to sit at the opposite end of her mat. He wasn’t very close, there was a few feet between them, but he imagined he could feel the warmth of her. He kicked out his right leg to rest on the concrete off the mat’s edge. ”Bad leg,” he offered when she looked at his boot.

She made a mild noise that transformed into words, “So the gist is that you sit for at least five minutes, and try to let your thoughts flow through you instead of lingering. But when I can’t sleep I like to do a body scan, so you start with your toes and try to notice how they feel and then relax them, and you go up all the muscles in your body until you reach your head, and by then you’re supposed to be totally relaxed and you can drift off.”

Jack had kind of a weird relationship with his toes. It should’ve been easy to think about them because he had half as many as an ordinary person, but his brain didn’t always get that memo and sometimes he thought they were still there. “Does it work?” He sounded skeptical even to his own ears.

“I don’t know,” Wyn said. She smiled at him. There was a dimple in her left cheek.

“Do I close my eyes?” Jack grumbled.

“Uh-huh.” Wyn closed her eyes as if to illustrate, then wiggled and straightened her spine. “Or you can pick something to look at but kind of unfocus your eyes.”

He wanted to look at her, but that wasn’t going to work. He shut his eyes. “How do you know when it's been five minutes?”

“I dunno. I just guess.”

He snorted a laugh. Her whole methodology seemed incredibly imprecise and even she didn’t know if it helped at all.

“Shush,” she muttered, but she was giggling too. “Okay, start.”

So Jack thought about his toes and tried to make them relax even though they weren’t there. He called attention to every muscle on the way up through his body, gastroscnemius, vastus medialis, obliques, pectorals, trapezius. He willed each to relax in turn and by the time he made it to his jaw, he was surprised to find that he felt different. Maybe not completely better. But definitely not worse. He opened his eyes.

Wyn was looking at him. There was a smile on her face, bright as the sun rising over the bridge.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she replied. “You did great. How do you feel?”

He considered the question seriously. He was tired from being on his feet all night, and his leg was a little sore from the angle he had it stretched at, but he felt okay. He liked that she was smiling at him. “Good. Was that five minutes?”

“I have no idea,” Wyn admitted. “I’m terrible at meditating. I always get bored and start thinking about The Bachelor before I finish.”

Jack couldn’t believe he’d been tricked into meditating by someone who didn’t even do it properly. He also couldn’t believe– “You watch The Bachelor?”

“Tish loves it,” Wyn said. “I go over every Thursday and we have a glass of wine and see who gets kicked off. The show is terrible, but the wine is really good.”

He snorted another laugh.

He couldn’t say afterward whether it had been the meditation or sitting with Wyn that made him relax. Properly. So well that he fell asleep quickly, though he didn’t stay that way much longer than usual.

Sometimes in the morning when he went to the roof she’d be standing there. Or sitting. Or in the middle of a pose that made his heart palpitate. She would greet him warmly, and quit whatever she was in the middle of to ask how his night had been. And he’d tell her. Not in specific terms, but truthfully enough.

It was better than the notes, which he still received and responded to at least once a week, because he could see her at the same time.

Conversing with Wyn was interesting. She had a lot to say, and she was funny. She missed his dry jokes half the time, and then would pause in her reply a minute later, and say, “Jack,” but she was always smiling when she did it.

He spent more time on the roof. Sometimes he’d sit on the other end of her mat and meditate while she pretended to do the same. When he asked afterward what she had thought about, the answer was always absurd.

“Well, fuck,” Robby remarked. He had a long pull of his beer and frowned at the TV above the bar.

Their team was losing. Badly. Badly enough that there was almost no point in watching the rest of the game. They’d watch anyway, of course, even when they both knew better than to pray for miracles. Jack clicked his tongue in irritation.

“Should’ve pulled Skinner last period. What the hell were they thinking?”

“Need to do something about that whole defensive line,” Jack returned.

The pub was a little crowded for being a game night, but still quiet enough that their table near the corner felt removed from the bustle. Groups of people laughed and joked together, conversing more than watching the game. He and Robby tended to do the opposite. He huffed as the camera zoomed in on the extremely angry coach, who appeared to be chewing out half the bench of players.

“Oh,” Robby said.

“Yeah, he’s pissed.”

“Not that.”

Jack glanced at Robby, who was looking across the room with a grin on his face. Jack followed his line of sight, frowning.

Wyn had clearly seen them before he saw her. She was already halfway to their table, smiling. She was wearing a green sundress, her hair pulled halfway back from her face and falling in gentle waves. It was more affecting, somehow, than the yoga pants and pink sports bra he’d seen her in two weeks before.

“She’s coming over here,” Robby noted gleefully into his beer.

“Shut the fuck up,” Jack replied, immediately defensive and not totally sure why.

“Jack! And Michael!” She greeted Robby with equal brightness. She slid directly into the booth beside him and reached to snag a nacho from the neglected plate in the middle of the table.

“Help yourself.”

“Thanks,” Wyn said around the bite she’d already taken. She was entirely oblivious to his sarcasm. “You don’t work tonight?”

“No.” The colour of her dress brought out her eyes. He took a drink, positive his mouth hadn’t been so dry since the last time he’d gotten a mouthful of Kandahar sand. “What’re you doing here?”

Wyn made a face and glanced over her shoulder. She crossed her arms on the table and slouched when she turned back to face him. “I was supposed to be meeting a date down the street, but I chickened out and cancelled. I’m just grabbing some food before I go home.”

Jack felt a cold shock, like an ice cube had been dropped down the back of his shirt. ”A date?”

“I thought you were engaged?” Robby asked.

“Yes,” she said to Jack, “and no,” she said to Robby. “My fiance cheated on me so I dumped him and kicked him out of the apartment. Three months ago. Which according to Tish is enough time to get over someone, which is why she set me up with this guy she knows, but I can’t do it.”

“You’re not over–” What the fuck was his name? And why was his heart beating so fast? “Byron?”

“Blake.” Wyn grabbed another chip and shoved it in her mouth. “I’m over him. It. I am super good.”

“So why’d you cancel?”

Jack glanced at Robby. Why was he there again?

Wyn shrugged. “I dunno. It feels kind of weird to let Tish set me up. She knows this guy from work. He’s an underwear model, and I’m not sure we’ll have that much in common.”

An underwear model? Was she fucking joking? That was his competition?

Competition?

When had he started to think about Wyn like she was something he could have? She was beautiful, and clumsy, and sweet. Too sweet for him, all his sarcasm and darkness went right past her and she just kept on shining like the sun. The agony behind his ribs manifested in the pull of his cheek. “Bet he counts calories like crazy.”

“Right?” Wyn reached out and grabbed his hand where it rested on the table, brief and warm. She flipped her palm up and gestured with it. “I can’t be banned from baking again! I’ve almost got cream puffs figured out!”

“Cream puffs?” Robby repeated. His eyes were locked on her hand.

“Yeah. Just wait Jack, you’re gonna love them. And you’ll have to share with Michael.” She glanced over her shoulder as the server behind the counter called her name. She shimmied out of the booth, her skirt dragging up toward her hip before her feet hit the floor and she tugged it back down.

“Absolutely not,” Jack said firmly.

“Jack,” Robby drawled.

Wyn smiled at them. “I’m sure there’ll be plenty for both of you. I’ll see you later, Jack?”

“Yeah,” he agreed.

“Okay.” She glanced over her shoulder, took a step back, said, “Bye Michael,” then turned and was off to collect the bag that contained her meal.

Jack watched her go. She was lovely. How could he not have realized sooner that he wanted a little of that for himself?

“I can’t help but have noticed her saying that she’s not engaged anymore,” Robby noted, tone sly.

“Fuck off,” Jack replied. He wanted her, but he wasn’t about to embarrass himself by throwing the fact out there for the whole world to see. After all, he wasn’t in his thirties, or an underwear model. He thought that might put him at a disadvantage. Romantically speaking.

He spent the week thinking about himself. He did that sometimes. Successful therapy demanded introspection. But this was different. He thought about himself like an outsider might. Like a woman he asked on a date might.

He was shorter than Briar, by a few inches. He was fit, but he wasn’t an underwear model. His hair was halfway to gray and there were lines on his face that weren’t going away. He had scars and he was missing a piece. He worked nights, which wasn’t convenient for anything, and worked a lot. One of his jobs was dangerous and both were demanding. He could be surly, and depressed, and overly-poetic.

Not exactly the sort of guy a woman in her thirties would be looking for, he didn’t think. That was a shame. He tried to brush it off like the realization was unimportant, and ignored the agonizing stab of disappointment in between his third and fourth rib.

On Saturday afternoon, there was a knock on his door.

People didn’t tend to knock on Jack’s door, which made it weird, but he was of a time where not every visitor was precluded by a text exchange, so he went to open in anyway, without thinking too hard about who might be on the other side.

It was Wyn. In a pair of pink sweat shorts and a hoodie. Her outfit indicated that she’d spent the day lounging around at home, but her artfully done makeup and pinned hair said otherwise. His mouth was uncomfortably dry again.

“Hi Jack. These are for you.” She held out a dish to him. It had little Star Wars figures printed on the glass. He took it automatically when she held it out to him, but he couldn’t drag his eyes away from her face. There was a beat of quiet, then she said, “Cream puffs.”

Jack glanced at the dish in his hand. “Thank you?” She had never knocked on his door before. She looked a little uncomfortable. She shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. He had to say something. “How’s it going?”

“Good. Great. I mean, I’ve got some friends coming over tonight, hence the cream puffs. We’re gonna drink wine and watch Bridgerton.” A little of the awkwardness leaked away and she waved her hand as she continued, “It’s been known to get a little rowdy when we hang out so I wanted to give you a heads up. Do you work tonight?”

“No.” He planned to sit at home and read. And eat cream puffs, apparently. “I’ll be around.”

“Okay,” she almost sounded relieved to hear that. “I thought I’d give you my number, and you can text me if we’re too loud?” She twisted the toe of one slippered foot on the hardwood floor.

His mind went blank. “Your number.”

“Yeah. Just in case. I’d hate to ruin our relationship because Tish doesn’t have any volume control after two glasses of wine.” Wyn smiled.

“Right.” Jack nodded. He was used to maintaining his composure under duress. He pulled his phone from his pocket and swiped it open. “Very sensible.” He offered it to her.

Wyn took the device and started tapping her details into his contacts. “Plus, this way, I can text you if I need any manual labour done. You look like a guy who can fix a sink. Am I wrong?”

“I only fix people,” he replied, though he was actually a pretty decent plumber. He set his shoulder against the doorframe and waited.

She hummed. It seemed to take her a long time to type her name. “I guess that’s good too. So I’ll call you if someone falls and breaks a leg?”

“Please do.” That would be one way to spice up his evening plans. With the added benefit of seeing whatever outfit it was that Wyn planned on pairing with her lavender eyeshadow. He hoped it was another dress, despite knowing logically that he wouldn’t be seeing it.

Wyn laughed and held out his phone. He took it and glanced at the information she’d provided. On either side of her name was a string of emojis. There were sparkles, cupcakes, strawberries, and leaves.

He used emojis, sure. Mostly the thumbs-up when he couldn’t be bothered to type an actual reply to one of his residents. Or Robby. It never would have occurred to him, not in a million years, to put them next to a contact's name. But he wasn’t about to erase them now that they were there. “That’s very cute,” he remarked. “I like the strawberry.”

“Thank you!” She beamed at him. “Will you text me?” A beat passed. Her cheeks turned pink. “So I’ll know who it is if you–”

“Of course,” he said. The pink in her cheeks was almost the colour of a strawberry. Or at least of strawberry ice-cream.

“Okay. Great. Then I will– see you. Later.” She lifted her hand in an awkward wave and backed away from his door.

“Goodbye, Wyn.”

She turned and practically skipped down the hall. She didn’t face him when she said, “Bye Jack!”

He waited until he heard her door close before he let his own fall shut. His heart had taken up an awful, hopeful, skipping rhythm. He rubbed a hand over his sternum as though that had a hope of correcting the arrhythmia.

He ate a cream puff, which was delicious, and sent Wyn a text.

Thanks for the baking. You nailed it. Have fun with your friends tonight.

Texting Wyn, Jack would later consider the beginning of something. The first step in a sequence. Like a game of chess, or a dance, though neither of those suited Wyn at all. Maybe a recipe was a more apt metaphor.

She texted him back a handful of emojis that he couldn’t parse, and then she just texted him. Semi-frequently, and at random.

Penguins lose again, sucker.

What’s better, plain or chocolate croissants?

Ferdinand grew a flower!

Messages about the plants always came with a photo attached, but he never saw any croissants. He wondered if she’d tried them and they hadn’t come out right. And then, because he had her number, he asked.

I ducked them up so bad. But I’ll get them someday!

Wyn texted him good morning in the middle of the afternoon, and goodnight in the morning. She included emojis in most of her texts that didn’t make sense, or did and he just couldn’t tell. She asked sometimes about his day, his job, his hobbies.

There was a case to be made that he should have ignored the messages. Or responded with a word. Enough to be polite and no more. Because at the end of the day he was fifty and Wyn was not. He was a man that existed in the dark, and she was morning sunshine. They weren’t meant to exist together.

He couldn’t help himself. He answered her questions with his own. He asked her how work was going in the middle of the day when he woke up, and teased her about the plants.

He wasn’t sure if the growing feeling that they might be friends made him feel more or less weird about being able to hear her through the kitchen window.

Jack couldn’t stress enough the fact that he was not listening. Not on purpose. But spring was edging toward summer, and it was warm outside, and the apartment got stuffy being closed up. He liked to open the windows in the afternoon and hear the low hum of the city. He liked to feel the breeze while he was cooking dinner. He knew that he might hear the sounds from his neighbour’s apartment, but it wasn’t his goal.

It wasn’t. That would be weird.

But Wyn clearly liked to have her kitchen window open too, and the sound of her cooking (or baking) filtered out her window, across the brick, and into his apartment as a low melody. Sometimes literally. She liked to listen to music and she liked to sing. Sometimes there was just the beat of dishes clunking together and cupboards clanging closed.

The sounds weren’t anything special. They didn’t give him an inkling of what she was making, or doing, or thinking. But they were comforting. The hum of an ordinary life playing out in time with his own. He got used to the hum, the same as the buzz of traffic several stories below.

Like the awful screech of a car wreck, the clamour of breaking glass stopped him dead.

He was halfway to the sink to fill a glass with water, but what he’d been planning on doing fell out of his brain as the need to listen properly surged up. He tilted his head, his eyes scanning the faceless white of his cupboards. For a second, it was quiet. Then there was a pair of loud thunks that reverberated through the shared wall of the apartments.

Jack recognized the sound in the back of his mind. He set his glass down and was moving for the door before he could stop to assess if it was an odd thing to do. It didn’t matter. He needed to make sure that she was okay. And if he knocked on her door and she gave him hell for being weird, that would be fine because it would mean that she was too.

He knocked twice, hard raps that echoed back through the hallway around him. “Wyn.” He bent his head closer to the door so he could hear a response and didn’t. He knocked twice more. “Wyn!” Low enough that he almost didn’t catch it, the sound of her voice filtered through the wood. That was enough for Jack. He twisted the doorknob and shoved.

Another time he might’ve had words to say about the fact that her front door was unlocked, but right that second he was thankful for it. He gave it a cursory flick to shut it behind him and glanced around. His eyes tracked over the riot of colour around him and didn’t linger. The apartment was nearly a mirror of his own and his feet were already halfway to the kitchen before the situation really registered in his mind.

Wyn was on the floor across from the open dishwasher, her eyes closed and her face pale. She had her left arm stretched away from her body and there was blood on her hand. Not a lot of blood. An almost insignificant smear of deep red. His heart still lurched. “Wyn.” He stepped over her outstretched legs and knelt to take her wrist in one hand, the other reaching to cup her jaw. “Hey. Can you look at me?”

She made a low noise and muttered, “Oh my God,” but then she did what he asked and looked at him. “Am I dying?”

“I doubt it,” Jack replied. “What happened?” He turned over her hand and glanced at it. Wyn made another noise and turned her head away as he inspected the jagged cut in the meat of her palm. It was thin, just over a centimeter long, and not deep enough for him to consider a need for stitches. He glanced briefly over his shoulder at the dishwasher.

“I broke a glass,” Wyn said. “Blood makes me–” she didn’t finish the sentence. She swallowed hard and squeezed her eyes shut.

That was interesting. And usually more of a masculine problem, in his experience. “Did you fall? Hit your head?” He let his hand wander from her jaw to pet gently over the back of her head. She didn’t flinch, and his hand didn’t come away red.

Wyn shook her head. “No. I sat down. Sort of.”

“Good,” Jack muttered, “that’s good. Just hurt your hand? Nowhere else?”

“No.” She swallowed and looked at him. “My pride I think.” She looked a little less pale than she had, and a little more pink.

He hummed. “Tea towels?”

Wyn pointed at a drawer with the hand he wasn’t holding. “There.”

He retrieved a towel, covered in cartoon cows, and wrapped it carefully around her cut hand. Wyn winced. “Well, good news, you don’t need stitches.”

Wyn gave a little groan, “Oh God. You came over to rescue me from a cut that doesn’t even need stitches. That’s so pathetic.”

“It’s alright.” He tucked a lock of dark hair behind her ear. “I’d be happy to rescue you from a paper cut.” Was that a weird thing to say? It was true, but he felt the need to get past it. “We’re gonna sit here a minute until you feel okay to stand, and then I’ll bandage you up, alright?”

She took a deep breath and let it whistle away between her lips, the way she sometimes did practicing yoga on the roof. “What do you charge for house calls?”

“It’s exorbitant,” Jack assured her.

“Are you willing to accept baked goods?”

“I’ll think about it.” It seemed to him that she’d already given him more than enough to compensate for the visit. Enough that his concern that she might be hurt had hit him like a wave and sent him under, his body reacting independently of his brain. He let his hand slide down to grip her shoulder gently and held.

Wyn didn’t shy from the touch. She did the opposite. She tilted her head and bent to press her cheek to the back of his hand. She sighed. “I really thought I was over getting dizzy at the sight of blood, but I guess that was wishful thinking. I haven’t hurt myself in a while. I’m so embarrassed. You must think I’m silly.”

There was a fire in him. It sparked at his hand and caught, spreading wild down his arm and into his chest. His stomach. The secret place behind his ribs that he’d thought was empty, but turned out to be full of tinder, ready to catch. “I do think you’re silly,” he said. She seemed not to notice his burning up. “But not for this.”

Wyn smiled. She glanced up at him through long lashes. ”Do you tease all your patients?”

“Only the ones I like.” He gave her an assessing once over and deemed her unlikely to faint if he got her on her feet. “Let’s get you off the floor, yeah?”

“Okay.”

She took his hand in hers and let him help her to her feet, her eyes carefully averted from the towel wrapped around her opposite palm. She didn’t sway, but he kept his hands on her anyway and told himself it was just to make sure she wouldn’t take a spill as he directed her into one of her dining chairs. She set her hand on the tabletop with a wince.

“Got a first aid kit in here somewhere?” he gestured vaguely around the apartment.

“Bathroom,” Wyn answered. “Under the sink.”

“Good. Sit tight.” Jack squeezed her arm one last time and strode toward the hall.

He didn’t mean to snoop, but he couldn’t help the assessing gaze he cast around Wyn’s apartment on his way. He’d stood in the doorway once before, and the change that had happened in the weeks since was obvious and stark. It wasn’t empty anymore. There was a green couch and a pair of orange armchairs framing a huge plush rug in the centre of the living room. Several bookshelves stood against the walls, covered in trinkets.

There were several short lamps on side tables, none of which matched, and all of which he was positive would cast strange colours through their shades. The walls were hung with colourful paintings, several of which were crooked. The bathroom was tidy, and full of stuff. Bottles and jars and baskets of hair tools he recognized and couldn’t name. It smelled like lilacs.

It only took him a second to find the little red kit, tucked amongst little tubs of nail polish and bath bombs. He replaced her things as best he could so they wouldn’t spill out of the cabinet the next time it was opened.

“Nice place,” he offered when he returned to the dining room.

“Thanks,” Wyn answered.

“Couldn’t find a spot to put a couple plants?” he teased, gesturing to the half empty bookshelf against the exterior wall of the living room. He yanked the chair beside her out from its place and sat.

“I thought about bringing them down,” she said earnestly, “but I didn’t think they’d like being inside.”

“Right,” Jack nodded like the sentiment wasn’t completely ridiculous. “Gotta consider their feelings.” He unzipped the red bag and surveyed their contents. It wasn’t much, but under the circumstances, it was enough.

“I do!” She watched him line up a few alcohol wipes and gauze across the table, the colour leeching away from her cheeks, then closed her eyes. “What if I bring them in and they all die because they’re used to more sun?”

Jack tried to focus on her hand instead of her face. He drew it closer on the table and unwrapped the towel to study her cut. “That would be a tragedy. I’m going to clean this. It’ll sting.” Wyn gave him an uneasy hum that sounded affirmative, so he ripped open a wipe. The dishwasher had looked clean, and the cut was small. He wiped at it gently and felt a dark swoop of something like guilt when she winced.

“I know you hate the plants,” Wyn said quietly. “I could probably bring the tomatoes inside.”

“What?” He frowned as he cleaned as much of the blood away from her palm as he could. “Esher the Third and I are best friends.”

Wyn’s reply was an immediate snort of surprised laughter. “Jack–”

“I’m serious.” He ripped into a bandage and placed it with the ease of something practiced a hundred times. “Who am I gonna talk to in the morning if you move him?”

“Do you talk to the plants?” she asked.

“Oh yeah.” He crumpled the garbage together, tucked his unused supplies back into the kit, and zipped it shut. “They love hearing about a complex trauma.” He looked up.

Wyn was smiling.

It wasn’t like Jack had never seen her smile before. Wyn smiled like Robby frowned. Unconsciously and nearly all the time. The expression on her face was bright and wide open, always. This smile was different. It was small. Shy. Like a whispered secret. Something just for him. There was a long beat of quiet, heavy with something. Something he thought he remembered and couldn’t be sure of. All he had to do was reach out. All that stood in his way was a dozen inches of empty space.

He didn’t think anyone was likely to call him a coward, but in that moment he felt like one. He cleared his throat. “You’re all set.”

Wyn lifted her hand to inspect his work. Her smile turned teasing. “Are you sure? You didn’t even kiss it better.”

Fuck his life. His neck burned. “Well that’s a whole other—uh, fee structure. Insurance’ll never go for it.” He coughed and shoved up from the table. “Trash can?”

“Under the sink,” Wyn answered. She tucked her bandaged hand under her chin and watched him flee to the kitchen.

He tossed the bandage wrappers, glanced at the dishwasher, then pulled the whole garbage bin free of its home and knelt to dig the broken glass from the bottom of the appliance. There were three pieces, big enough not to give him trouble, one with a smear of red at the edge.

“Jack?”

“Yeah?” He really couldn’t remember the last time he’d hidden from a problem, but there he was, his back to Wyn as he set her kitchen right.

“Do you want to have dinner with me?”

“Dinner?” he repeated, like it was a totally foreign concept, his eyes pinned to the counter in front of him.

“Yeah. Like, as a date.”

He might’ve repeated the word ‘date’ back to her like an idiot, but he swallowed the urge. He said instead, because it seemed important, or maybe because he was occasionally prone to self-sabotage despite his therapist’s hard work, “I thought you said you weren’t ready to date. I mean, I don’t want to–” he trailed off.

“Oh. Yeah. I kind of lied? Bailing on that guy was less about not being ready and more about the neighbour I have a crush on.”

It took Jack a second to connect the dots, despite their being arranged in a straight line. He turned to look at Wyn.

She bit her lip. “So, dinner?”

“Yes,” was out of his mouth before he remembered to think about the details. “I work tonight. Friday?”

“Friday,” she agreed. “How do you feel about fettucini?”

“Good. Great.” If he was honest, he couldn’t have cared less about the food. The gentle, soft joy in his body was all for her.

Jack was used to smothering his emotions under a cover. Anxiety, fear, adrenaline, all carefully subdued so that he could do his job with a steady hand. Under the pressure of gunfire, explosive charges, the immediate threat to life and limb— his or someone else’s.

It turned out that suffocating his own fear of being shot was easier than tamping the nerves that precluded a dinner date. It made sense, in a weird, fucked up kind of way. One of those things was a routine Tuesday, and the other he hadn’t done in years. One had the potential to put him out of his misery, the other to drown him in a fresh wave of the stuff.

“Jack.” The voice seemed to filter into his ears from very far away. “Abbot.”

“Yeah?” He lifted his head and looked at Robby. Robby who looked like usual, except for the raised eyebrow.

“Doing alright?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed. He straightened up properly.

Robby continued to regard him with the same, raised eyebrow look. The look seemed to say, ‘You’re so full of shit and we both know it. Why do you even bother?’ Robby’s mouth didn’t say that. It said, “Then go home.”

Right. He could do that. Should do that. It was closing in on eight and the ED was as quiet as it ever got. He rolled his shoulder. “What, you don’t want my help all of a sudden?”

“I do not,” Robby replied.

Jack blew out an annoyed breath. “Fine. I see how it is. I’ll get out of your hair then.” He didn’t move from his place behind the charge station.

“You got an annoying relative visiting or something?” Dana sniped from behind him. “Get out of here while the gettin’s good.”

Jack frowned. Robby frowned at him. He was compelled to say something to explain away his weirdness. “I’ve got a thing later.”

And Jack wasn’t sure what about that statement provided any sort of context or evidence, but it must have because Robby dropped his voice and said, grinning, “With the neighbour?”

For once Jack desperately wanted to talk about something personal, and said instead, “Oh, fuck off.”

“You’ve got a date?” Robby sounded thrilled.

“It’s not a date,” Jack griped. But it was. He was thrilled and felt in equal measure that he might throw up.

“So, what is it?” Dana asked.

Jack feigned a dismissive wave. “Dinner.”

“That’s a date.” Dana took a few steps so that she could look him in the face when she asked, “Who’s the lucky lady?”

“His neighbour,” Robby answered for him. “She’s a Canucks fan.”

That wasn’t even close to how Jack would’ve chosen to describe her, but he supposed Robby didn’t know her the way he did and if his friend tried to describe her as the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, Jack would’ve been inclined to throw a clipboard at him.

“She’s not local?” Dana’s tone was scolding.

“She’s in her thirties,” Robby provided, like that made up for it, “really pretty.”

“Jesus Christ,” Jack muttered. “Thank you for that. Goodbye.” He did actually move that time, to scoop his bag off the floor and sling it over his shoulder.

Dana smiled and reached out to grip his bicep on her way past. “Good for you.”

He couldn’t be sure whether the conversation made him feel better or worse, but it did release a little of the steam building in his head. He made it home, showered, and slept a little. Not particularly well, but he’d take what he could get.

He was up early enough to stress about dinner all over again. He might’ve liked to call a friend for a distraction, but even if Robby had been off, he wasn’t about to call him now. He got dressed, read two and a half articles, and paced until his leg ached. Then, when it was close enough to seven to justify, he fixed his collar and walked down the hall to Wyn’s.

In the twenty seconds before the door fell open, Jack’s brain got loud. It rolled through all the reasons that his being there was a bad idea. How wrong it could go. How badly it would feel when it did.

And then Wyn was standing in the open door in front of him, wearing a dress with red flowers on it, her hair pulled back in a loose braid, and it went quiet. And he was there, standing in the doorway of a beautiful woman who claimed to have a crush on him, and it occurred to him that he didn’t have anything to lose. “You look fantastic.”

Wyn blushed pink. “Thank you.” She stepped out of the way and gestured him in. “You also look—“ she trailed off. The muscles in his chest did something weird. Then she said, “Would you be offended if I said beautiful?”

He might question the validity of the compliment but, “No.” His neck felt hot. “Smells great in here.” He surveyed the apartment, as colourful and chaotic as the last time he’d seen it, and remembered a second late to offer her the bottle in his hand. “I figured I’d better not show up empty-handed.” The wine, which he’d spent a while debating in the liquor store the afternoon before, had seemed like a safe bet.

She made a noise of delight and inspected the label but didn’t take it, “Do you mind opening it? I’ve never managed to pull a cork without breaking it.”

Jack raised his eyebrows. “How?”

“I have no idea,” Wyn answered brightly. She crossed to the kitchen and pulled a drawer open to rifle through the contents. “You’d think I’d have figured it out by now, but instead I just buy twist-offs.” She found what she was looking for and turned to offer him a corkscrew.

Jack had trailed after her as far as the island and took the offer as an invitation to step into the kitchen properly. He set about peeling away the foil from the neck of the bottle and watched Wyn as she pulled a pair of glasses from the cupboard. “Kind of limits your options, doesn’t it?”

“I guess.” Wyn slid the glasses onto the counter and folded her arms on the surface, her elbow so close to his ribs he could feel it. “How was your night?”

“Fine,” he replied automatically. Which was true, but didn’t feel like enough. He tried again, “Same as usual, I mean.” Jesus. That wasn’t better. He was used to not talking about his job, and he couldn’t in any specific fashion, but he wanted to tell her something.

Wyn watched his hands. “And what’s usual?”

Jack took a deep breath and considered the question. He yanked the cork free and poured. “Some accidents. Some idiots. It’s stressful but I like the pressure. I’m good at the work.” He set the bottle down and slid a glass toward her. Turned to rest his hip against the counter so he could look at her.

Wyn swirled the glass once and picked it up. “My usual is sending emails in a circle and filling spreadsheets with numbers that I’m not convinced mean anything. I don’t think I like it.” She had a sip and smiled. “This is very good.”

“If you don’t like it, why do you keep doing it?”

“Because it’s easy and it pays the bills?” She straightened and turned toward the stove. “What would I do instead?”

Jack watched her pull pasta from a pot and stir it into a high-walled pan. “I don’t know. What did you want to do when you were a kid?”

“Oh! I wanted to be a ship captain. We went on a cruise when I was ten and I kind of thought it was the best thing ever.” She tossed a look at him over her shoulder. “Not a lot of ships in Pittsburgh.”

“No,” he confirmed. “Was there something between ship captain and—“ He wasn’t sure how to label her current occupation.

“Data stooge?” Wyn suggested. She furrowed her brow and stirred the pot in front of her as she thought. “Marine biologist.”

Jack frowned. “And yet, you are landlocked.”

“I actually can’t swim,” she offered, grinning. At Jack’s scoff of laughter, she asked, “Okay, what did you want to be when you were a kid?”

“GI Joe.” He swallowed a mouthful of wine to wash down the regret of his immediate and embarrassing answer.

“Okay, see?” Wyn gestured at him with her spoon. “You didn’t do that.”

He realized abruptly that he’d forgotten to mention the fact that— “I was in the military.” He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck.

“Oh my God, you did become GI Joe. Those toys must’ve really made an impression.”

She was making fun of him, but he found he didn’t really mind. “They did.”

“Let me guess, when you were a little older, you decided you wanted to be a doctor.”

“I did.”

Wyn flipped the burner on the stove, then tapped the other dials in apparent confirmation that they were off too. She pulled a pair of plates from the cabinet to her left and dished pasta onto each. “Do you accomplish everything you set out to do?”

“Just about.” That didn’t mean his life had turned out at all the way he’d pictured when he was younger.

“That is very good to know.” When she passed him, a plate in each hand to go to the dining table where he’d bandaged her up a few days before, the expression on her face lit a spark of embarrassment that burned across his neck.

Jack cleared his throat and went to meet her, setting her glass at her elbow before he took the seat next to her. “How’s your hand?”

“Good.” She turned her hand palm up between them so he could see the fresh bandage covering the cut. “You’re an excellent doctor.”

From anyone else he would’ve thought the statement was teasing, but her tone was so warm he couldn’t help but think she meant it. Which was absurd, of course, anyone could put a bandaid on a cut. “I’m glad you think so, but I’m afraid you might be easily impressed.”

“Definitely.” Wyn picked up her fork and twirled pasta around it. “Would you like to tell me something actually impressive?”

He did want to. He wanted her to know that he really was good at his job. He searched his brain for something he could tell her to illustrate as much. “Maybe after we eat,” he said finally. Why was his job so gross? Wyn had almost passed out at the sight of a cut on her own hand, there was no way he could tell her about his making an airway for a patient with a tube and a prayer after their throat had been half ripped away by a dog.

Wyn hummed. “Can I ask how many people you’ve kept from dying?”

He tracked the movement of her fork to her lips and his brain quit working for a second. “Like, this week?” Wyn raised her eyebrows in surprise as he counted patients in his head, “Eleven?”

“Eleven?” The word came out a little muffled.

“I mean it’s not just me.” He stabbed at his own plateful of food in an effort to squash the weird emotion in his chest. A blend of embarrassment and pride. “A standard trauma usually involves at least two doctors, a few nurses, an RT, then there’s the surgical team upstairs.”

“That doesn’t make it less impressive, I don’t think.”

Jack often took compliments with a wave of his hand. A thumbs up. A generally dismissive attitude, because making sure people didn’t die in his ER was his job. He had to do it well and there was no excuse for doing it poorly. But he wanted to impress Wyn. It made him feel good. “Alright, tell me something impressive about you.” He shoved a bite full of pasta into his mouth.

It seemed like she genuinely had to think about the question. Like she couldn’t come up with something she was good at. “Well, it turns out I’m an okay gardener.”

That seemed like an understatement to Jack. The plants on the roof continued to thrive in the rooftop sun. He nodded as he chewed. “This pasta’s pretty impressive.” It was delicious. As good as any of the things she’d ever baked.

The compliment earned him another smile. “Thank you! Oh, and I figured out croissants!”

“That is impressive,” Jack agreed. “Why didn’t I get any?”

It was easy, he found, to make Wyn laugh. And the fact that it was easy, and that she did it a lot, didn’t make it feel any less special. He savoured the sound every time it came from her mouth.

He asked about her family and she told him about the brother she did nothing but argue with, and the niece that she loved. She asked about his hobbies and he told her about his job with the police. She argued that a hobby was supposed to be a leisure activity. Something relaxing. He wasn’t sure he had any hobbies fitting that description, and joked that he’d recently taken up meditating.

And sure, okay, maybe Jack was a little weird, and a little intense. Maybe he didn’t know how to relax like a normal person. But that was fine. He didn’t care, he’d made peace with who he was as a person. And Wyn didn’t seem to care either. She seemed to like him.

“You better let me handle that,” Jack said, long after they’d finished eating and Wyn finally moved to clear the dishes in front of them. He took the plate from her hand and stood. “I hear you can’t be trusted with that thing.” He gestured vaguely toward the dishwasher.

“That was a one-time incident!” Wyn defended, but she sat back in her chair and drew up one knee to her chest. Her skirt slid dangerously up her thigh toward her hip. “I’m very capable of tidying up.”

“Doctor’s orders,” he maintained, attempting to avert his eyes from the long expanse of olive skin and failing. “You are inordinately clumsy.” Besides the thing with the tote bag, and the dishwasher, he’d seen her bump into corners, walls, and plant pots. She’d tossed half a dozen items mid-gesture, including her perpetually cracked phone. It was as cute as it was worrying.

“I am not—” She caught the hard look he fixed her with as he loaded the dishes and tried to flatten her smile. “That clumsy.”

He could not, in good conscience, agree with the statement. He set his palm on the counter and leant into it.

“Okay, fine.” Wyn dropped her foot to the floor and stood. “There is a reason I never played competitive sports.” She crossed the room and put herself directly across from him, her feet crossed at the ankles. “Dessert?”

Jack wouldn’t have described himself as a person with a sweet tooth a few months before. But he wouldn’t have described himself as a person who meditated either. “Yeah.” He took two steps, set his hands on the curve of her waist, and kissed her.

Fuck it was sweet. The heat of her body under his palms and against his chest when he pressed closer. The taste of her lips when he licked across them. Her tongue when she opened her mouth to let him in. It was intoxicating.

Wyn gripped his shirt at his ribs, the contact burning through the fabric, her other hand skirting up to linger on the back of his neck. She unfolded her legs and he took the opportunity to grip her thighs, under the fabric of her skirt, and lift her onto the counter. She made a low sound into his mouth and that was sweet too. She wrapped her ankles loosely around the back of his thighs and then they were pressed together all over. She sank her fingers into his hair and he shuddered, the line of her touch like fire.

He could’ve stayed there forever with his mouth on hers, all that heat trapped between them and simmering. Except for the fact that— “Fucking—” He growled something indeterminable as he pulled away and dug in his pocket for his phone where it was vibrating insistently. The hospital’s number flashed across the top of the screen and he swiped to answer it, “What?”

Wyn had her lip trapped between her teeth and was breathing rapidly through her nose. Her hand stayed on his neck and he wanted to close the few inches between them again as badly as he’d ever wanted anything.

Shen’s voice was an unwelcome intrusion on his little bubble of happiness. “Hey boss, we’ve got a bit of a situation over here, I don’t suppose–”

“No,” he snapped.

“Just for a— wait. No?”

“No.” Jack didn’t have to justify himself, but he did anyway, “I’ve had a couple drinks. Call Robby.” He hung up before Shen could properly form his reply, and tossed his phone onto the counter. Wyn smiled. Again, Jack wanted to close the distance between them, but it seemed important that he tell her the truth before things got too far. The truth that might hurt her despite his best intentions. He wrapped his fingers around her wrist in a gentle grip. “When work calls, I go.”

It was a hard truth. A terrible one, because he didn’t have to. There was nothing in his job description that required him to set foot in the ED on his days off. But he always went. He went because he wanted to. Because he liked helping people. He couldn’t imagine a future where that stopped being true.

Wyn nodded and stroked cool fingers down his neck. “Okay.”

It couldn’t be that easy. “Okay?”

“Mhmm.” The hand at his ribs slid down to his hip, then back up under the hem of his shirt to ghost across his skin. “I understand.”

He wasn’t sure that she did. Not really. Not the way someone did when a thing became a part of their every day, disrupting their life and driving them crazy, but he liked to think that she might try.

He kissed her again, hotter this time. Her legs around his waist pulled him closer, as close as he could get, fitted against her everywhere he could be. Her touch felt amazing and then she rolled her hips against him and he was on fire, desperate to get his hands on her bare skin.

She whined as he slid his hands up her legs, under her skirt to grip her thighs, the curve of her ass. “Jack.”

His name was the sweetest thing he’d ever tasted coming off her tongue. “Jesus, sweetheart.” He buried his hand in her hair and dragged her head back so he could kiss down the column of her throat to the place where her neckline dipped below her collarbone. Her chest heaved under his lips. Fuck, he was going to pick her up and carry her off to her bed. Except— “Shit, I forgot.”

”What?” Wyn gasped toward the roof. She gripped his hair hard.

“It’s just– my leg.” It wasn’t that he’d forgotten about his leg. He’d just forgotten that it was something he should probably mention to her. Before they were stripping the clothes off each other and she saw it for herself.

Her confused little, “Huh?” was directed somewhere in the vicinity of the lights that overhung the kitchen island.

For the second time, and mostly against his will but aware that he should do it, he pulled away. Just a little. Far enough that he could no longer feel the scorching heat of her against his erection. The space made it a little easier to think, but there was still no good way he could think of to spit out what he needed her to know. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt the need to tell someone, “My right leg. I don’t, uh, I don’t have it. Anymore.”

“You– What?” Wyn looked at him. Then glanced down at the navy fabric of his pants like she’d be able to see the evidence of his missing limb. Her eyebrows knit together.

The expression was so cute it was almost enough to soothe the panicky beating of his heart. “I lost it. Below the knee.”

Wyn’s touch ghosted down his neck and across his shoulder as she dropped back onto her elbows. He could practically see the gears turning in her head. “That is,” she started finally.

He cut her off, “Fine. It’s fine.”

“Is it?” she asked.

“Isn’t it?” Hell maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it made her uncomfortable. To him, the piece he was missing was just another fact of life. An everyday reality.

She gave her head a little shake. “I don’t think we’re asking the same thing.”

“No?” They sounded like the same question to him, but it was important to communicate clearly. Despite the way his ribs were trying to cave in on him. “I’m trying to say I’d like to make you come. Twice. And I don’t need my leg to do it.” Wyn stared at him. He could feel the look on his skin like something physical.

“You’re gonna make fun of my duvet,” she said.

“Yeah,” he agreed. He hadn’t seen it yet, but he had no doubt it would be as ridiculous as the cow print rug in her living room.

Wyn grabbed a fistful of his collar and yanked him down to meet her in a searing kiss.

He didn’t make fun of her duvet, but only because he was too busy getting her dress off and his mouth between her legs. There was a metaphor to be written there, but he’d made a goal and he hadn’t been kidding about doing the things he set his mind to.

The thing that surprised him about being with Wyn, was how easy it was. He had thought that, for about fifty different reasons, having a relationship with her would be difficult. Because he worked nights and worked too much. Because he was older than her by a wide margin. Because his jokes tended to go over her head and at some point she was sure to get sick of it.

None of that mattered, it turned out. He’d see her on the roof in the morning and watch her roll through yoga poses before he pulled her onto the mat and into his lap to kiss her. It was better than meditating, he found. On weekends when she didn’t work, he could convince her to come to bed with him. On weekdays when she did, she’d talk him into eating breakfast together before she left.

In the evenings, they’d meet somewhere for dinner. Sometimes at a restaurant, and sometimes at one of their apartments. He liked that better. She complained about his apartment being empty, and he joked about hers being so full, but neither thing mattered when he was kissing her against the marble counters both places shared.

His favourite thing was climbing into bed with her at night.

She’d been sure he’d make fun of her duvet, and it was a ridiculous shade of purple, but he liked it. It was comfortable. The bed and the feeling of her skin pressed against his. He never fell asleep when she did, but he’d get an arm wrapped around her and enjoy the quiet sound of her breathing.

Wyn continued to be the clumsiest person he’d ever met. There was a lamp in her living room that seemed to live on the side table for the sole purpose of her knocking it over, but if he was honest he kind of liked that too. It gave him an excuse to do things for her. Carry things. Keep an arm around her when they went out.

Jack was happy.

He just kind of wished he knew what they were.

Alright, Jack knew what they were. Or what he hoped they were. He just couldn’t say for sure that Wyn agreed, because she hadn’t said as much and he hadn’t asked. He was a little afraid to ask. Or, a lot afraid to ask. Because if she didn’t think they were anything serious, it might break his heart. Would break his heart. Which would suck.

“We’re losing her,” Ellis said from across the table. She had one hand on the ultrasound wand that was guiding him and her voice was hard.

“No, we are not,” Jack replied. He wasn’t going to lose anyone, not when he’d been having such a good week. Not when the balloon in his hand, inflated in the right place, would stop the bleeding long enough to get the woman to surgery. “We’ve got her, I just need– Fuck.”

“What?” Santos wasn’t usually a night shift pick, but she wasn’t bad and Jack didn’t mind having her around during a trauma. If nothing else, she had the grit to do hard things. “Suction?”

“No, my phone.” He’d done harder procedures in worse conditions, but the insistent vibration against his thigh was annoying if nothing else. “Left pocket. Can you– There it is.” He watched the screen in front of him and adjusted the line toward the bleeder. Santos huffed. She dug briefly in his pocket and then he was free of the distraction. He switched paths again. “Alright, inflate the balloon.”

“Woah.”

Ellis watched the screen as the balloon inflated and stopped the rapid flow of blood. She blew out a long breath. “Yeah, that was something.”

“Something is right. I’ll take it from here,” Walsh looped a finger in the air in the universal gesture for takeoff, and half of the room emptied rapidly along with the patient Jack had saved and would never see again.

“No,” Santos said. “I mean, yes. Just, that is a lot of emojis.”

Jack scowled. “What?” When he turned to look, Santos held his phone up, screen out, so he could see the missed call notification with Wyn’s unmistakable arrangement of sparkles and fruit that he’d never changed. He yanked his gloves off and chucked them amongst the pile of discarded and bloody towels. “Yeah, I picked them out myself. Give me that.”

Santos let him snatch the phone from her hands and asked, “Who’s Wyn?”

“Who is Wyn?” Ellis asked, delighted.

“She’s my–” something. His something that should not have been calling him after midnight on a Friday, when she knew that he was at work. Everything about that was wrong.

“Got another one for you!” Bridget called from the doorway.

“Fuck,” Jack snarled. He wanted to call Wyn back and couldn’t. Thought about telling Santos to do it and couldn’t justify it. Instead, he stalked into the second trauma bay and set to work trying to right the pelvic crush injury that was the second victim of the car wreck.

The second he was out of the trauma bay on the heels of the gurney heading to surgery, he shoved his hand in his pocket to free his phone.

Bridget scrambled his train of thought with another call, “One more from that accident.” She gestured toward the open curtain of Central Two.

Jack squinted at the man in the bed, his leg still in the splint from the paramedics, “Beckett?”

“Who?” Santos muttered from over his shoulder.

“My old neighbour.”

“Board says Rodney,” Ellis said, gesturing vaguely at the screen above the charge station.

“Rodney?” Jack repeated. He glanced from the man to the screen, which did indeed label him as Rodney. “Shit. I wasn’t even close.”

What Jack didn’t want to do, was go see to Rodney. He hadn’t liked the guy when they were neighbours and he liked him significantly less after meeting Wyn. But he’d dealt with the rest of the traumas from the accident and it was starting to feel like his responsibility to see the whole thing through.

“Rodney,” he greeted, stepping past the curtain with Santos on his heels.

“Jack,” the man replied, grimacing.

“Santos.” He gestured to the young woman with a thumb, then waved at Rodney in his bed.

Santos took his cue and started her work up, relaying standard questions rapid-fire before settling on the obvious conclusion, “We’re going to get an x-ray of your leg to check the extent of the break before we make a plan, and a CT to rule out other injuries.”

Jack nodded his agreement, offered a distracted, “Sit tight,” and shoved his hands in his pockets as he made his way back to the desk. He pulled his phone and glanced at it as Santos pulled the curtain shut behind him. He flicked past the lock screen and swiped on Wyn’s contact.

The phone rang twice, then clicked. “Jack?”

“Wyn. What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, yeah, but you’re not going to believe– Oh! Jack!” And suddenly he wasn’t hearing her voice just through the phone. He let it drop to his side and spun.

Jack always wanted to see Wyn, but he realized in that second that he really didn’t want to see her in the ED at one in the morning. He lost his Santos-shaped shadow as he crossed the floor to meet her. “Hey, what’re you doing here?” He gripped her shoulders the second he was close enough and slid his palms down the length of her arms to her hands, checking automatically for injuries despite the visitor badge on her hoodie indicating that she probably had none.

Wyn hooked a hand around his wrist and squeezed. “There was a car accident. Someone called me because–”

Something ice-cold slithered through his veins. “You’re here for Roger?”

“Rodney,” Wyn corrected. “I’m still his emergency contact. Have you seen him?” Her voice was shaky.

“Yeah, he’s there.” Jack gestured toward Two with a hand he would’ve preferred to keep on her. He could see the tension in her body. Hear the upset in her voice. It made him feel off balance. Even less than he liked her being in the ED, he liked her being there for fucking Rodney. “He’s stable.”

She took a deep breath and let it whistle away. “Oh thank God.”

His chest ached. “Look at you. I can’t believe you got out of bed for that guy.” He tugged at the loose, brown checkered fabric at her hip. He liked her pajamas, but he liked them better when he was peeling them off of her. He was going to miss that.

Wyn pulled her loose braid over her shoulder and huffed. “The lady on the phone kind of made it sound like he was dying.” She glanced at the closed curtain. “He’s really okay?”

Jack had learned never to confirm positive adjectives of any kind unless he could be sure they were true. Things like okay, fine, good, and he couldn’t know for sure that Rodney wasn’t going to spontaneously decompensate until he saw the CT. Still. He had to say something. “He’s a little banged up, but he’s awake and alert.” Was that comforting? She relaxed a little, so it must have been.

“Okay. Okay. I should probably,” she trailed off.

“You don’t have to,” he said flatly. He really didn’t want her to.

“No, but his sister lives like an hour away. It seems mean to leave him by himself.” She tugged at the end of her braid in what seemed like a nervous gesture.

”Alright,” Jack muttered. He could hear the rapid relay of information by a paramedic as they wheeled someone in through the ambulance bay doors. He needed to be paying attention to that. His feet stuck anyway. “I’ll find you later, okay?”

Wyn hummed her agreement and that probably should have been it. Because he was at work, and she was only there to check on her ex-fiancé, and they were maybe not really anything. But that couldn’t be it. He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, felt the quick beat of her pulse under his thumb and pulled her close to press a brief kiss to her cheek. Less than he wanted and more than he should have had.

Then he let her go.

“Who is that?” Ellis grilled when he met her in the trauma bay.

“My neighbour,” he replied darkly as he yanked on a pair of gloves.

“The baker?” Her tone was surprised even as she eyed the monitor for the distinct tombstone pattern that would indicate their new patient’s impending demise. Or not, if they were quick. “She’s young and hot?”

Despite the fact that all of those things were true, he shook his head. “Focus, Doctor Ellis.” Jack was a decent teacher, and he tended to give his residents good advice. He followed it himself and focused on the man in front of him. He did his best to keep focusing on the two patients afterward, and then on the chart he was trying to type.

“CT’s back on our friend in Two.” Santos sidled up and offered him the tablet in her hand. “All clear.”

He frowned as he took it. Really that was good news, he didn’t want the man dropping dead of a brain injury, he just would’ve preferred not to have to deal with the case at all. “Plan?”

“Keep an eye on him until Ortho picks him up for surgery.”

“Good.” He offered her the tablet back.

Santos took it and tapped the edge once on the counter before she shoved off to deliver the news. Tiernan, a red-haired nurse Jack liked, stopped her with a hand. “I’d give it a minute if I were you.”

Jack straightened up. “Why?”

“They’re in the middle of some serious drama. Like, tele novella levels.” She grinned at them both and was off toward triage.

He scowled. There was no fucking way he could focus on his job after hearing that. He stalked toward Two, grabbing the tablet from Santos on his way by.

“–Know I fucked up, Wynona, and I’m so sorry. I love you, I just want to–” Rodney stopped dead at the screech of the curtain. He looked pained, which might’ve been the result of his badly broken leg, or of the emotional display he was putting on.

Jack hated him. Just a little bit. “Good news, Rodney. CT came back clear. You’ll need surgery to set the bones in your leg, but until then we’ll keep you comfortable right here.”

“Oh, good,” Wyn said brightly. She squeezed Rodney’s arm. “See, you aren’t dying. You’re going to be fine, which means–”

Rodney grabbed her hand tightly and held it. He quit looking at Jack and fixed wide, begging eyes on Wyn. “I’m not saying this because I thought I was dying Wynona, I’m saying it because letting you go was the worst mistake of my life!”

Jack scowled. He was inclined to do something about the hand on Wyn. Over his shoulder, Santos mumbled, “Good God.”

“I appreciate that, Rodney.” Wyn patted his hand. “But I don’t love you. Now please let go.”

For a brief second, Jack felt soothed. Then Rodney kept going. “No. No, because if you didn’t you wouldn’t have come here!” His voice took on a desperate edge. Wyn winced.

Jack took one step forward. Santos said, “Oh shit! Shen!” Which was weird.

Wyn grabbed the pinky of Rodney’s gripping hand and pulled. He made a squeaky sound as the rest of his fingers followed to avoid her breaking the digit. More firmly, she said, “Rodney, I do not love you, and we are not getting back together. I’m glad you aren’t going to die, but I think it’s a good idea if I leave now. Good luck with your surgery.” She stood. The stool she’d been sitting on rolled backwards and she muttered a curse as it briefly snagged on her pajama pants.

Jack kicked the thing out of the way so he could wrap a hand around Wyn’s shoulder and steer her away from Central Two, and Rodney.

Shen appeared in front of him, Dunkin’s cup in hand. “Everything okay Boss?”

“Yep,” Jack replied. He let go of Wyn’s shoulder so he could grab her hand instead and lead her across the corridor and through the stairwell door.

“That was embarrassing,” Wyn was saying, “I can’t believe I was engaged to that man. Worst mistake of my life.”

Jack turned to study her. There were dark circles forming under her eyes. She looked tired. And beautiful. “No,” he found himself saying, “I’m glad you were.”

“What?” She huffed a surprised laugh. “Why?”

He cupped her jaw and stroked a gentle thumb across the pink in her cheek. “Because we wouldn’t have met otherwise. And I love you.”

Wyn made a soft sound of surprise. Jack held his breath.

“Hey,” Robby greeted.

Jack didn’t look up from the chart in front of him as he replied, “Hey.”

He couldn’t see, but did hear, the rap of Robby’s fingers on the counter. Like he was waiting for Jack to tell him something. After a moment’s silence he gave up, “I hear you had an interesting night.”

“Who told you that?” Jack asked. It was only 7:02, someone was gossiping with truly impressive speed.

Robby clicked his tongue, “Ellis texted me.”

“Ellis?” Jack barked in surprise. “Doesn’t she have better things to do?”

Robby shrugged. “Better give her tougher cases. Everything alright?”

Jack shook his head briefly, “Yes. Some idiot confessed his love to my girlfriend. It wasn’t that exciting.” Two idiots, technically, but she only loved one of them back. And it had been exciting for about two seconds, because apparently Santos had thought he was going to deck the patient and called Shen to intervene.

“Girlfriend?” Robby repeated, surprised.

“Yeah. Wyn. You’ve met.” He offered the information like it was something the man should know, not something brand new. He slapped his friend on the shoulder. “I’m out of here. Enjoy your day.” He gestured to the Pitt at large.

“Right. You too.”

Jack almost certainly would. He’d go home, and up to the roof, and watch Wyn while she rolled through yoga poses and fussed with the plants. He might help, or he might distract her. They’d have breakfast together, and he’d steal the taste of syrup from her lips.

She’d drive him a little crazy, and he wouldn’t mind.