Chapter Text
Samira resolves to never listen to Cassie McKay again. Medical matters excluded, of course. She has nothing but respect for her advice as Dr. McKay, but as Cassie, she can fuck right off.
Exhaling with frustration, Samira hikes the strap of her bag up her shoulder and hobbles off towards home. She had just taken a hip hop class for beginners. Or at least, the website said it was for beginners. The first alarm bells went off in her head when she noted all the flowy pants and off the shoulder t-shirts. Actually, scratch that, normal oversized t-shirts that were worn half on with only one arm through the arm hole? Samira was able to appreciate that they looked cool, but she also felt extremely out of place in her leggings and tank top.
Looking back, she should have left after she couldn’t even keep up with the warmup sequence, but quitting was not something Samira was used to and didn’t even occur to her as an option until after. And now here she is, walking home on a twisted ankle with a newfound aversion to dancing, cursing Cassie for telling her to get a life.
Samira supposes she said it in a more caring way than that, but she still blames Cassie for her rapidly growing list of failed hobbies. She found pottery frustrating despite her teacher’s praises (too many of her pieces collapsed as she was trying to smooth out imperfections), and the women’s romance book club disturbing (she made it through one Colleen Hoover book before quitting). Then she decided to go a more active route. CorePower yoga was nothing like the yoga she grew up doing with her dad (savasana was like two seconds long, and half of the students skipped it!), so after reading a preliminary study from the NIH that dancing may be the best form of physical exercise for mental and cognitive health, she got herself into this hip hop fiasco.
I guess I need to stick to lifting, she thinks as she walks up her stoop (one stair at a time) to the front door. She had started lifting weights after her first emergency medicine rotation in med school when she felt her body wavering after helping move her fifth patient of the day. She likes it, but it’s a headphones in, head down, anti-social experience, and she wants something with more community.
She somehow makes it to her second-floor walkup above the pierogi shop, cooks herself dinner (reheats takeout lo mein) and does some self care (icing her ankle, ibuprofen, and a no-hair shower) before setting an alarm for 5:45 am and falling into bed.
The next morning, she groans when her alarm interrupts a dream full of yearning and fingers dragging through curly silver hair...
Stop that right now, Samira. Shove it back down. But she knows this troublesome little feeling her subconscious mind released from the box she keeps it in is going to stick with her throughout the day if she doesn’t deal with it. So she reaches into the bottom drawer of her nightstand, clears her mind of any specific names or faces, lays back down, and takes care of it.
She doesn’t want to jinx it, but her shift is actually going pretty well. Her ankle was painfully stiff this morning, but 800 mg of ibuprofen and constant movement has kept the soreness at bay enough to focus on work. Her current patient is a 62 year old woman named Carol with a thrown out back. “I shouldn’t have twisted while lifting, I can’t believe I did that. I know better! When I told my husband I was going to start working at the food pantry now that I’m retired he said ‘I don’t know about that honey, I think it’s a lot of lifting’ and I snapped back that I know damn well how to lift! You lift with your legs, and then once you’re fully up, you can turn...”
Samira, though curious about how Carol’s husband responded, worries that Robby could be glaring at the back of her head right now. She interrupts Carol by asking her about her physical activities leading up to the pain.
“Oh I had been unloading boxes from trunks of cars all morning, it was so beautiful to see how many people were donating! But that had been no problem at all, because, you know, the trunks are already at hip height so there’s not as much opportunity to twist while lifting. And then, after that...” she continues on recounting her day. During a pause, which were impressively few and far between, Samira jumps in to tell her that it’s most likely a muscle strain, but that she’s going to send her up for some scans to check for herniated discs and treat the pain in the meantime. Carol effusively thanks her and promises she’s never going to twist while lifting again.
Samira’s looking at the board for her next patient when Cassie comes up to her. “Hey, I know you said your mom’s in town this weekend, but you’re still coming to Dana’s party on Friday, right?”
“Yeah I wouldn’t miss it, and she’s not getting in until Saturday anyways.” She can’t describe how much having a friend show that they care means to her, even in such a little way like remembering a detail of their tipsy conversation a week ago. Alright, she’ll forgive Cassie for her hip hop fail. Pittfest was six months ago, and they had long since cleared the air about their confrontation that day.
Last October, a month after Pittfest, Samira noticed that Cassie no longer had her ankle monitor on. Hesitantly, she brought it up to Cassie and congratulated her. Her face had lit up in joy as she told her she got it off just that morning. They had never been close before, but looking back Samira could see how much the house arrest had put a damper on her.
“So what mischief are you going to get up to with your first night of freedom? Take Harrison to an arcade?” she had teased. She instantly regretted it when Cassie’s face fell and she said Harrison was at his dad’s, and she didn’t have plans. Before she could think whether it was weird to ask a coworker she had never hung out with before to drinks after work, Samira found herself suggesting a bar down the street. It only took that one night of them cackling over stories of med school and their crazy exes to switch their relationship from coworkers to friends.
Cassie smiles, relieved. “Great. I think Javadi and Whittaker are going to make it too.” Rotations are usually too short for doctors to form much in the way of bonds with med students, but that first shift with Javadi and Whittaker felt like a year in and of itself, so they’d stayed in touch.
“Oh and Victoria’s in surgery with her mom right now isn’t she? Can’t wait to hear how that’s going.” Cassie hums in agreement as she gloves up and heads towards a new patient coming in from the ambulance bay. Samira feels a little weird about not sharing her hip hop story with Cassie. In fact, she doesn’t share any of her quests for hobbies. She doesn’t want Cassie to know how much she still thinks about what she said that day.
The scans come back right before the end of the shift. “Alright Carol, how are you feeling?”
Carol takes a second to look at her and process the question before responding “Mhm, doing well,” with a grin. Alright, the oxycodone is working.
“Well I have great news for you, your spine looks perfect. That means your injury is muscular, which will heal on its own. It’s also encouraged to keep moving throughout the recovery process, so you shouldn’t be stuck inside. Someone will come by soon with your discharge paperwork and instructions.” Samira resists the urge to enter discharge instructions into her tablet while sharing the news. She usually has no issue keeping eye contact with patients when talking to them, but her ankle had started throbbing an hour ago and some multi-tasking would really help get her home sooner.
Looking like the picture of contentedness, not a patient who’s been in the Pitt all day, Carol croons “Oh that’s excellent. Really great. Hopefully I’ll be back at the food pantry soon.” Samira warns her off of lifting heavy things for a little bit, then bids her goodnight and heads to the lockers, a little distractedly. She’s embarrassed to say that in her search for hobbies, she hadn’t given much thought to volunteering. She joins the street team when she can, which is gratifying but feels not far enough removed from work for it to qualify as a hobby. Samira smiles as an idea forms in her head.
Samira eyes the sweater and jeans laid out on her bed that she’d been planning on wearing out tonight. Uninspired, she muses, reaching for the new dress in her closet instead. It’s exciting getting to go spend time with her coworkers, who she thinks might slowly be morphing into friends, outside of work.
Princess and Perlah had been plotting how to turn Dana’s 50th birthday party into a rager all week. She even overheard them discussing how the night shift members who were off will be there. She runs her fingers through her hair, puts on a touch of makeup, then tosses on some block-heeled boots and a jacket and heads out.
As she walks back towards downtown she reflects on how happy she is with her decision to live downtown. Her apartment’s way smaller than what she could get in the suburbs, but only knowing Pittsburgh by its emergency room and traffic seemed like a sad way to experience a place. She enjoyed walking through the city, even on nights like this when she definitely overestimated how far along spring was. She shivers and buries her hands in her pockets, beginning to regret not choosing the jeans. Hopefully she isn’t overdressed.
She hears the bar before she spots the sign when two EMTs open the door to come out for a smoke break. As soon as she walks into the crowded bar, Mel King (wearing a t-shirt and jeans), Trinity Santos (a black dress showing an impressive amount of cleavage), and Victoria Javadi (an oversized sweater and a skirt) hail her over to their table. Samira relaxes at their range of outfits.
She smiles at her coworkers (friends?) and hugs Victoria, asking how her surgery rotation is going. Victoria stumbles over her answer, fluctuating back and forth between “great” and “a little stressful.”
“Alright, enough work talk.” Trinity’s voice cuts through the din of the bar. “Here comes Huckleberry with the shots. Samira, I ordered two for myself but you can have the extra if you promise not to bring up how rude I was to that anti-vaxxer today.”
Samira laughs and tries to decline the shot while still swearing not to tell her off again for asking the man if he was one of the people who shot up bleach to kill COVID, but Trinity insists that she won’t trust her unless they drink on it. She hasn’t taken a shot since... her cousin’s bachelorette party last year? But she downs it dutifully and thinks she does pretty well at not making a face.
She spots Cassie a little further back in the bar and announces that she’s going to go say hi, but that she’ll come back with a round for everyone in a bit. After all, she still owes Victoria a drink after missing her 21st birthday last month.
The bar is packed with people from the Pitt. It seems like everyone who isn’t working tonight made it out for Dana, which doesn’t surprise Samira one bit. Dana’s ability to perfectly thread the needle between no-nonsense and compassionate makes people both respect and love her. She sees Dana laughing at a story Mateo is telling, surrounded by an impenetrable crowd of people at the bar. She smiles and keeps weaving her way through the crowd towards Cassie.
As she approaches, Samira can see that next to Cassie in the booth is Heather Collins, arriving at the table with a round of drinks is Robby, and across from the women is a head of curly silver hair on top of a set of broad shoulders.
Fuck.
The raucous noise of the bar morphs into a ringing sound. The crazy idea of walking straight past the booth to the bathrooms flits through her mind. But her best friend, who is constantly, unknowingly making Samira push herself outside of her comfort zone, spots her and waves. Feeling a little too unstable on her feet for someone who only had one drink, she walks up to the table with a little “Hi!” and awkwardly stops next to Robby, who is still standing from returning from the bar.
“Mohan! Long time” he jokes, having just waved goodbye at her from the Pitt an hour ago, and briefly puts a hand on her back. He turns around and pulls an empty chair up to the end of the table, then gestures her into the booth while sitting in the chair himself.
Fuck fuck fuck.
She slides into the booth, says hi to Heather, and then can delay no longer. She turns. “Hey, Dr. Abbot.”
“Hi Dr. Mohan.” He smiles at her, a smile that comes primarily from his eyes. “How would you feel about us dropping the ‘doctors’ for tonight?”
“Sounds good, Abbot.”
“Jack” he corrects.
She fakes looking confused and points to herself, “No, Samira.”
The corners of his mouth twitch up, and his smile is no longer contained to his eyes. “Okay, Samira,” Euphoria. “I would love to hear your account of this bird that you all let fly into my ED today.”
His gray henley pulls snugly on his delts as he shifts back to lean against the wall, his chest turned towards her.
“Hey now, you only get to call it that at night, brother” Robby interjects, snapping Samira out of her hyper-focus on Dr. Ab- Jack.
Holy shit, what just happened? That was so corny, why was she acting like a fool?
She glances across the table to check if Cassie and Heather are staring at her, having no idea how strongly she was broadcasting I sometimes have sex dreams about you throughout that exchange. They are laughing about Robby laying claim over the Pitt, so she thinks she’s safe.
“Oh right! I can’t believe that was only this morning. I actually never saw the bird, but I had to wipe its shit off the cheek of my very displeased back-boarded patient.”
The table erupts with oh nos and guffaws. “Well thank goodness it was your patient, maybe now the rest of us will get a chance to catch up to your patient satisfaction score,” Jack says, bumping her knee with his to let her know he’s teasing.
She preens at this recognition of her skill with patients, a very different satisfaction than she gets when Robby compliments her.
She tries to keep this infatuation that she has with Jack shoved down, she really does. Most of the time it isn’t a problem. She’s too busy at work for her thoughts to stray, and even her life outside of work has been filling up between socializing and attempts at hobbies. When she does work with him, or when they cross paths when changing over shifts, Samira needs to put a bit of effort into keeping the box of illicit thoughts and feelings from cracking open. But Samira loves her work so much that it isn’t too difficult. The only time her desire breaks loose has been when she’s unconscious, in the form of dreams that leave her throbbing with need in the morning. And now, apparently, also in dimly lit bars.
Samira somehow responds to Heather’s question about weekend plans, grateful that her subconscious brain at least is keeping track of the conversation while her conscious brain hungrily fixates on Jack. Damnit, her Tinder hookup last month seems to have failed its purpose of satiating her. If anything it just woke her body up after two years of celibacy.
Samira’s conscious and subconscious lines of thought converge and she asks “What about you, Jack?”
His lively gaze returns to her. “I have three nights off, so I plan on getting into a whole load of trouble.”
She shocks herself when she replies “Want me to keep a bed open for you Monday?”
His jovial expression is replaced by something a little more intense. She has to stop him from looking at her like that. Right now.
“Or would IV fluids in the break room be enough?”
Everyone laughs, then teases Jack about what wild things he has planned. Jack’s eyes take a beat too long to leave hers before turning back to the others.
Fuck.
People who are working the next day start slowly trickling out over the next few hours, but Princess makes her rounds to inform everyone that she knows who is and isn’t on the schedule tomorrow and will judge how long they stay accordingly.
Samira finally has her chance to get within a few feet of Dana, still posted up at the bar. Samira grins at the similarities between this set up and the Pitt; Dana stays central while everyone else flocks to her.
“Happy birthday, Dana!” Samira gives her a hug and Dana enthusiastically wraps her arms around her, drawing her in tighter.
“Thanks so much, kid. I can’t believe you’re all spending your free Friday night with an old lady like me.”
Trinity scoffs. “Are you kidding me? This is more lit than me and Samira’s night out for ladies’ night at the new gay bar last week. No offense, Sammy.”
She had taken to calling Samira Sammy recently, which she does not love but manages to look past. When Trinity had overheard Samira off-handedly mention her ex-girlfriend to Cassie last month, she had theatrically gasped, put a hand on Samira’s shoulder, and declared, “On behalf of Pittsburgh’s queer community, we welcome you.”
“Seriously Dana,” Samira assures, “there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.” And she means it.
When midnight rolls around, Samira heads back towards her table with another round for Trinity, Mel, and herself, to find that Jack had joined them. Most of his buddies were working tomorrow and had long since left, but he seems content to stick around. At this point, Samira had drank enough to no longer be anxious about how her box of secret feelings had been breached, and instead revels in the enjoyment she gets from being near him.
Jack’s head turns toward her as she nears the table, and he smoothly comes up to grab two of the three drinks she’s awkwardly clutching. She smiles her thanks at him as Mel and Trinity gratefully acknowledge her return. “Well since you’re all on a fresh round I guess the party’s not dying out too soon, so I may take this thing off.” He reaches down, pulls up his pant leg, and releases the clasps on his prosthetic.
“Does it chafe?” Mel asks, then blushes as if she suddenly doubts if that was okay to ask.
“Nah, I’ve gotten a good fit in the twenty years I’ve had it. It’s more that the weight of it pushing and pulling against the rest of my leg gets tiring by the end of a long day.”
“I can only imagine.” Samira isn’t sure if it’s the drinks, her comfort talking about this stuff with Trinity, or the high of her newfound freedom to enjoy Jack’s company, that make her add on this next part. “I’ve never worn my strap-on appendage for more than half an hour, and even that is exhausting.”
Jack’s eyebrows shoot up and a look of... glee? fills his eyes. She’s heard Jack and Robby make jokes involving his prosthetic so she knows it’s not a touchy subject, and she’s open about her bisexuality whenever it comes up. She supposes she shouldn’t be talking about sex in front of her sometimes-boss, but she can’t find it in herself to be embarrassed.
Trinity raises her glass with an “Amen.” Samira looks to Mel, worried that she might be confused by her comment and not wanting her to feel left out, but instead sees her mouth twisted up in an amused smirk. Interesting.
She turns back to the others and sees Jack still considering her in her periphery. “Okay well moving on,” Samira deflects from her own comment, “Mel you mentioned you heard from Langdon? How’s rehab’s going?”
After they finish their round of drinks, the women agree that they’ve been awake way too long and it’s time for them to head home. Jack agrees, saying it looks like Dana is getting ready to head out too, so their shift at the bar has come to an end.
“How’s everyone getting home?” Jack asks with an air of a parent making sure their kid is making safe decisions.
“Trinity and I are splitting an Uber- we live near each other.” Mel supplies instantly, assuring the boss that no dangerous choices are being made here. “Samira, want us to add in a stop to your place?”
“No need, I’m in the other direction and I just planned on walking. Thanks though!”
Mel nods and her and Trinity head off to the bar to close their tabs.
“I think you should take them up on that.” Jack leans his weight forward on both forearms, levelling a steady look at her. His shirt once again pulls tight over his well-defined arm muscles. He told her once that he enjoys rock-climbing, and she thinks that with those biceps he must climb constantly.
“It’s really alright, I walked here.” She tells him the block she lives on so he knows how close she lives, and that it really isn’t a big deal.
He nods and gets up, grabbing his coat. “Great, that’s on my way. I’ll drive you.”
She opens her mouth to protest, not because she doesn’t trust him (she noticed he stopped drinking a few hours ago), but because she doesn’t trust herself to act normally about this. She shuts it, not coming up with an acceptable excuse to give.
He lifts her jacket from the back of her chair and holds it up for her. Is he helping me put on my jacket? she marvels, as she obediently puts her arms through and shrugs it on.
She turns, ready to tell him again that she’s fine walking, but he gently cuts her off. “You’ve been favoring your left foot all night and you’re in heels. Please let me drive you.”
It’s her turn for her eyebrows to shoot up. Now that he mentions it, she supposes her ankle is still a little stiff from the hip hop incident, not helped by her working all week. But she didn’t think she was limping, and no one else had noticed anything. Maybe because her mind is now on her sore ankle, or maybe because she liked hearing him say “please,” she nods in acquiescence.
Their walk to his car consists mostly of small talk. He opens the passenger side car door of his pickup truck (one of the old reasonably sized ones) and she climbs in. She’s silent to let him focus as he pulls onto the city street. But then he’s driving, and they’re still silent. After an entire evening of being surprisingly confident around him, she starts to lose her nerve. She shouldn’t be so close to him, late at night, with her vault of secret feelings busted wide open...
“So what’s up with your foot?” His question jumpstarts her out of spiraling.
She lets out a little, self-deprecating laugh. “It’s silly. I just twisted it.”
“I love a silly story” he prompts.
“Oh, ok. So, um, I tried out a hip hop class...” she trails off sheepishly. She hadn’t planned on telling anyone this, least of all Jack.
“Well now I need to know more.”
Fuck.
“I’ve been trying out new hobbies.” And she tells him. All of it. The white people yoga, the book that romanticized domestic abuse, the collapsed vases.
She suddenly spots her apartment. She briefly wonders how he got here without her giving any instructions before remembering that she told him her block. He must know the city well. “I’m right there” she points, and he pulls over.
Samira feels out of sorts, like she was just yanked out of a dream. She had just been telling him about parts of her life she didn’t tell anyone, not even Cassie, and now the conversation, and the whole night, was abruptly ending.
Jack puts the car in park, his talented fingers she’s seen save so many lives wrapped around the gear shift, accentuating the tendons on the back of his hand. For what feels like the hundredth time tonight, but sparking a thrill in her like it’s the first, he turns towards her.
“What’s got you so motivated to try all of these activities?” Wow, he really just cut to the core of her whole story.
Before she can question why she’s sharing so much with him, or if he’s just looking for a quick answer before she hops out of the car, she tells him about her and Cassie’s argument during the shift from hell. About how it keeps her up at night, wondering what she wants her life to be outside of being a doctor.
Jack is an excellent listener. He keeps an intense level of eye contact, softened by his nodding along. Her story finishes and he’s silent for a few seconds while he processes.
“That’s amazing, Samira.”
A shocked snort escapes her. “What? I just told you that I’m failing to get a life and find a sense of purpose outside of work.”
“No, you’re not failing” he jumps in quickly this time. “Well, maybe don’t keep hurting yourself. But recognizing that you can’t get all of your fulfillment from work when you’re, what, thirty?”
“Twenty-nine” she corrects. Jack shuts his eyes quickly, then shakes himself and looks back at her.
“Twenty-nine. I’ve seen so many doctors make the job their whole lives until well past their thirties, just trudging along with nothing for them outside of the hospital. But at some point, every one of them gets burnt out or traumatized at work and turns to find fulfillment in the rest of their life. But it’s empty. McKay started in this field with a full life already, so she didn’t fall into that trap. But so many of us reach a point where we have a crisis because we realize being a doctor isn’t enough.”
Samira is stunned, but doesn’t miss his use of first-person plural pronouns. “You went through that?”
He has a look in his eyes that she sees in her patients with chronic pain, a kind of resigned acknowledgement of a deep hurt. “Yeah, I went through that. In some ways I was lucky because I was young, but when I lost my leg and was discharged I was extremely lost.”
Without thinking she reaches out and places her hand on his forearm. He stares down at it.
“But you have a full life now?”
He lets out a choked laugh. “No. But it’s better. I think of what the job gives me- a sense of purpose, challenge, camaraderie, the knowledge that I’ve helped people. Then I think of what it doesn’t give me and try to find that elsewhere. Like peace” he laughs, a little sardonically.
Samira looks at him with awe. “Well I’m not sure what need motivational speaking would fill, but you would crush that one.”
The serious atmosphere in the car lightens a touch. She realizes her hand is still on his arm, and he’s staring at her with a look mirroring her own. Suddenly, she knows.
She knows why Jack stayed so late at the party.
She knows that he likes her touching his arm.
She knows that these escaped feelings she has aren’t as unreciprocated as she’d always assumed.
And, most surprisingly, she knows that she could have him tonight.
Samira leans in until her and Jack are breathing the same air. She looks down at his lips then back up to his blown pupils, making her intentions perfectly clear but giving him an out.
He doesn’t take it.
With fast but purposeful movements, he reaches his hand up to cup the side of her jaw in his palm, his fingers sliding into her hair. And he kisses her.
Their lips immediately open and she tilts her jaw up to deepen the kiss, her lower lip disappearing into his mouth. And oh does he know what to do with it. He sucks on it, then runs his tongue along it. She takes the opening to reach into his mouth with her tongue. His circles up and glides back along the seam where the roof of her mouth meets the back of her teeth. He starts to pull back, tugging at her bottom lip with his teeth as he retreats. She panics that the kiss is ending, until he tilts his head the other way and goes in again from the new angle.
The kiss is hard and filled with a deep need. It is sometimes sloppy, but not frantic. They nip and lick and explore each other with an intense drive.
His lips travel from her mouth to her jaw then down her neck. She tilts her head up to give him access, taking quick, shallow breaths. She’s a little lightheaded. His kisses turn lighter and his hand in her hair and the other on her lower back (when did that get there?) start to loosen, and she can tell that he’s winding down to end it.
Samira is faced with a dilemma. She could invite him up. She would have to assure him that she is also sobering up and that she still wants this, that she has wanted this for months. She thinks he would come upstairs with her based off of the desire she just felt from him. Or, she could take the out that he is probably about to offer and take the time to process the night. After all, she has never consciously admitted to herself that she wants this before tonight, so she has never actually considered what sleeping with Jack would mean. What sleeping with Dr. Abbot would mean.
Thinking of her career, she makes up her mind.
They share one more sweet, chaste kiss, then pull apart. Samira has to unfist her hand she didn’t realize was clenched in his hair.
Jack looks at her with messed up hair and barely restrained hunger (and fondness?) in his eyes. “You said your mom is visiting tomorrow morning, right?”
Samira does not remember saying that, but he’s right. She probably said it when she was drooling over him and Collins asked about her weekend. “Yeah. I should probably go get some sleep before getting up to clean in the morning.”
He nods once, settling back into the driver’s seat that he had risen from, and smiles at her with a look of acceptance. Samira immediately questions her decision as the desire to decrease the amount of space between them flares up. But the decision to sleep with a senior attending of her department is one to make while stone cold sober.
She combs her fingers through her hair and smiles at him. She wants to assure him that she really does want fuck him, to run her fingers over his whole body, to show him how wet she is from just a few minutes of kissing. But she does none of that.
“Goodnight, Jack. I had a great night.”
“Goodnight, Samira. Me too.”
When she walks into her perfectly clean apartment she goes straight to the window and looks down at the street, her eyes drawn to the spot where she had just had the hottest make out session of her life. She is surprised to see his truck only just pulling away.