Work Text:
It is possible that Samira has been in a protracted and productive anxiety attack since she came out of anesthesia in the early morning hours of July 5th, 2026. She’d woken up from her appendectomy and realized her future was a horrifyingly open plain of possibilities and she had no idea which direction she should go.
After she was cleared to leave, Dr. Abbot insisted on driving her home, stopping at a 24 hour pharmacy to get her pain meds. She barely remembered the ride, or him walking her up to her apartment.
She obediently took her pain medicine, listened when he told her she was not allowed to return to duty for two weeks, he was serious Dr. Mohan, two full weeks and only himself or Dr. Al-Hashimi could clear her, and then she crawled into bed.
She woke up in her bedroom with walls that she’d never bothered to decorate, lying on a mattress that she’d never bought a box spring for, and realized she needed to fix her entire life. Professional, social, romantic.
Luckily she had some time off to research.
She crawled out of bed, went to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, and went to go find a fresh legal pad. On the way to her desk she got distracted by some unexpected items in her kitchenette.
There was a box of protein bars sitting next to a bag of apples and a bag of oranges, and then a doordash gift card. When Samira opened her fridge it was full of perishable groceries she knew she hadn’t bought - milk and eggs and a box of mixed salad greens.
She grabbed a raspberry yogurt, a spoon, and settled herself at her desk.
By the middle of August, she’d made excellent progress in getting a life.
She had applied to a teaching fellowship at the Pitt, an attending position at Presby, and fellowships with Harbor-UCLA, Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, Ryder Trauma Center, and Chicago’s County General Hospital. She had another six applications she planned to complete in the next three weeks.
She excavated her text threads with undergrad and med school friends and was now corresponding regularly with several people she hadn’t talked to in years.
She had started responding patiently and in a timely manner to her mother.
She googled “things to do in Pittsburg” and mapped out one activity per day off.
She downloaded Tinder and Hinge, made profiles and managed to message men back 45% of the time.
She forced herself to say “yes” to every invite to any kind of social event until saying “yes” became her reflexive response.
Wednesday evening, August 12th, 2026
“Are you working a double tonight?” Jack asked, coming to lean next to her at the HUB.
Samira looked up from where she was checking her tablet if the blood tests for her patient in North 4 were in. He was a 57 year old who’d decided to DIY the electrical work to add a new light to his living room and lightly electrocuted himself. His ECG was normal but she wanted to check kidney function before discharge and she wasn’t quite ready to hand him off to another practitioner.
“Do you need me to?” Samira asked.
Jack smiled at her. “I’d never say ‘no’ to having you on my shift but the board looks pretty manageable.” He knocked on his forehead with the first two knuckles on his right hand.
“In that case, once I discharge North 4 I’ll be out of your hair,” Samira answered.
“You have tomorrow off, right?” Jack asked. At her nod, he continued, “any plans?”
“Yes, I have a yoga class tomorrow morning,” she said. That reminded her. She pulled out her phone and checked the commute time between her apartment and the yoga studio and discovered in her email a cancellation notice about the class she’d signed up for.
“Scratch that - my class was just canceled,” she told him.
“I sometimes do a yoga routine after I get off work,” Jack said. “Do you want to join me?”
And Samira, having trained herself well, said “yes” on autopilot.
It was only after a time had been established and her labs had showed up and she’d gone to discharge North 4 that she remembered overhearing Whittaker telling Princess that Robby had said Dr. Jack Abbot liked to do nude sunrise yoga.
Thursday morning, August 13th, 2026
Samira pulled up into Jack’s driveway, turned off the ignition and Made A Final Decision.
She had spent the night debating. Should she go? Was it a platonic invite to naked morning yoga or was Jack making a pass at her?
Did she want him to be making a pass?
She remembered him shirtless in the exam room on the 4th, his shoulders, his pecs, his broad, pale biceps. She thought of the three boring dates she’s suffered through in the last month. She’d always enjoyed working with Jack. She’s gone to post-night shift breakfasts, sometimes with him alone, sometimes with the rest of the night shift and enjoyed herself. They exchanged articles. He was an attractive man. He wasn’t boring. He might be interested in her.
She’d gone back and forth over if she should simply cancel or go through with it.
But she was here now, and New Samira, she could do naked yoga with a handsome attending.
“When in Rome,” she told herself, got her yoga mat out of the backseat, and went up to knock on Jack’s door.
Jack was pleased that Samira had decided to join him. He did yoga semi-regularly. It helped with his balance, and releasing the muscles that were used unevenly to compensate for his prosthetic or in the course of his duties. Between that, weight-lifting, and running, he was in damn good shape for a man staring down the barrel of fifty, and he’d remained able to outpace and outwork some of the younger men and women of the SWAT team, as well as fulfil his obligations as an ED attending.
Jack showed Samira out to his back porch. It was a good place to do yoga on a summer morning, before it got too hot. Right now the temperature was balmy, as inviting as a kiss.
Samira rolled out her yoga mat next to his and then casually whipped off her shirt. She wasn’t wearing a bra.
For one endless, adrenaline fueled moment, Jack froze, gazing at her sweet brown nipples, her full breasts, the curve of her belly—
She pushed her shorts down and Jack watched as the neat curls at the apex of her strong, lean thighs were revealed.
His pulse thundered in his ears like he was under active fire.
He managed to force his gaze forward.
He hadn’t realized Samira had signed up for naked yoga. He hadn’t realized that she wanted to do a naked yoga routine with him.
Was she making a pass?
He didn’t know.
Act, Act, Act, he thought, the mantra he’d said to himself during his first tour, when his adrenaline had spiked and his body wanted to freeze.
His body decided to yank his t-shirt off with one hand.
He casually tossed his shirt over the raining. Was he also going to..?
Out of the corner of his eye he could see Samira watching him alertly.
When in Rome, he thought and pushed his gray sweatpants and boxer-briefs down, moving carefully as he stepped out of his clothes.
Don’t get an erection, he told himself, already half hard.
“Let’s start with a sun salutation,” he heard his voice say from far away and started the sequence.
Samira was next to him, naked, going through the same motions he was.
Jack tried to think of disgusting things to prevent himself from chubbing up further. His feet after 18 hours in combat boots in Kandahar. Projectile vomit. C. Diff.
He was only semi-successful as they moved from a half-forward bend to a plank to upward facing dog. Then it was time for downward facing dog and humiliation bit sharply at Jack; he could think of few things more ridiculous than a pasty middle-aged man with his bare ass and cock out in Adho Mukha Svanasana. Especially when the most gorgeous woman in the world was next to him—
Jack made the tactical error of looking at Samira.
She looked like a goddess, her gorgeous bronze skin kissed by the morning light. Her inky curls hanging down, obscuring her face. Her form was pretty good, her knees slightly bent due to the tightness of her hamstrings, and there was a tremble in her thighs— Jack thought of being behind her, hands on her hips, taking her like that, making her thighs tremble for a different reason—
He snapped his gaze forward again, blood rushing away from his head.
They moved on to the warrior poses and Jack did excellent at not looking at Samira again through one and two, and then in three he caught her wobbling out of the corner of his eye. Warrior three was a pose where you balanced on one foot, while keeping the rest of your body horizontal.
Samira lost her balance and, stubborn girl, fought to get it back, refusing to put her leg down.
Jack stood up, got his prosthetic on the ground and braced. He was ready when she tipped towards him, falling.
He caught her, one hand on her shoulder, one at the dip of her naked waist. Her skin was softer than silk.
They were face to face, Jack lost in her dark eyes. The exertion had brought dark pink to her cheeks.
“Sorry,” she apologized.
They stared at each other for a long moment.
Samira was so close to him, he could feel the warmth of her body, and then she was slanting her mouth carefully against his.
Jack kissed her back. He kissed her lush mouth and then he moved lower, kissing the elegant line of her jaw, down the graceful line of her neck. He kissed along her collarbone and licked into the hollow of her throat, tasting the sweetness of her skin.
“Jack,” Samira said, sounding dazed. “Jack.” She had her hands on his shoulders, sensible nails digging into skin.
He guided her down onto her yoga mat. He held himself over her, kissed her sweet breasts, rubbed his palm between her legs. Her pubic curls were damp and she pressed her cunt into his hand.
“Can I taste you, sweetheart?” he asked.
She nodded frantically.
He got his head between her legs, used his thumbs to spread her open and feasted. He licked broad strokes along her cunt, coating his tongue in her taste, salt-sweet, the taste of woman and sex. He felt drunk. She pulled his hair when he sucked on her clit, pressed her hips up when he lashed his tongue over it, so he went back and forth, sucking and stroking, her thighs shaking against his ears until she was coming, dripping down his chin.
And then she was pushing him back, reaching for his cock. She gave him a light stroke, her thumb smearing the pre-come at the head further down. He bucked his hips into her touch, went to kiss her again.
“Will you fuck me?” she asked into his mouth, in between kisses.
“Of course,” he said and then stood, pulling her up as well, leading her inside, hustling to the entryway table next to the front door where he kept his keys and wallet.
Samira didn’t make it easy, she kept touching him - his chest, his shoulders, his arms.
They made it to the front of the house and Jack grabbed his wallet, ripped it open, yanking the condom out and sheathing his cock faster than he ever had his life.
“Bedroom?” he asked and Samira shook her head, boosting herself up onto the entryway table, tugging him between her legs. She took his cock in hand, notching it against herself and Jack started to push inside. She was deliciously wet and impossibly tight. Just after the head was inside, Jack forced himself to hold still.
“Sorry, it’s been a while,” Samira said. Jack dropped his head to kiss along the top of her shoulder.
“You’re perfect, honey, we can go slow,” he panted into her skin.
Samira made a frustrated noise. “I don’t want to go slow,” she pouted and she was, oh fuck, she was squirming, working herself further down his cock, desperate for him. She had her heels in the back of his thighs and she grabbed his ass, nails digging into his skin, and pulled herself onto him. He felt her body making space for him as he pressed inside until he was in her to the hilt.
They stayed there for a minute, just breathing the same air.
“Move,” Samira ordered, and he did.
Tuesday morning, January 12th, 2027
Jack put away the breakfast dishes as Samira sat at their kitchen table, looking through the tabs on her phone.
“We’re both off next Saturday and there is a studio doing an intro to aerial yoga class,” she said. “Are you interested?”
“If you’re game, I’m game,” Jack said. He chuckled. “I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks.”
“What?” Samira asked, sounding confused. Jack walked over, leaned down and gave her a quick kiss.
“Perks of dating a younger woman,” he said. “My horizons get broadened. Naked yoga, art walks, now aerial yoga.”
“What are you talking about?” Samira’s voice rose. “You did naked yoga before I came along.”
“No I didn’t,” Jack laughed. “Trust me, sweetheart, I was not doing naked yoga until the most beautiful resident in the world came over to my place and whipped off her shirt.”
He reached out to touch one of the curls framing her face but instead of looking charmed, an expression of horror was dawning across Samira’s face.
“Whittaker said that you did naked yoga,” she whispered.
“What? Why would he say that?” Whittaker wasn’t the type to make up gossipy lies about coworkers.
Jack felt a suspicion start to bloom.
“Who told Whittaker that?”
Samira looked absolutely aghast. Her lips parted but it took her several attempts to get the name out: “Robby.”
“Samira, please come out from under the covers,” Jack asked for the seventh time.
“NO.” Samira’s voice was muffled by the comforter that she’d completely wrapped herself in.
He’d already tried to unwrap her once and she’d taken a swipe at him like an angry cat.
“I hate Robby,” Samira said.
“I know, he’s awful,” Jack agreed. He’d happily sucker punch Robby for the joke and then give him a six-pack of his favorite beer for starting the series of events that lead to him and Samira dating.
Never one to learn his lesson, Jack tried again to unwrap Samira but she’d gotten all the blanket edges tucked under her and was curled up like a roly-poly bug.
“On the bright side, this will make an amazing wedding speech,” Jack tried.
Samira gave a shriek like she was being murdered and then threw back the blanket to glare at him.
“Is this how you’re proposing to me?” she demanded.
“Yes?” Jack said.
Samira pulled the blanket back over her head.