Chapter Text
Let me love you. Let me love you. Let me love you. It rang louder and louder in her head.
Samira didn't know how she expected him to react, but continuing to dance as if nothing had been said at all certainly didn't align with the chanting in her mind.
"Careful," Jack's voice was light and casual. "Say that enough times, you might start to believe it."
"I do." Samira wondered for just a moment if maybe she hadn't actually said anything. Maybe it hadn't made it from the Broca's area in her brain to her tongue.
He stopped moving. "What?"
"I do love you," Samira repeated herself, more confident and far more afraid all at once.
"Why would you say that?" Jack was no longer smiling, no longer moving, but his hands were still gripped tightly around her body, pinning her in place like she was a prey animal poised to escape.
She could see the furrow nestled deep in his brow. The twitch of his jaw that always signaled confusion. What she would give to live in his mind for just a moment and understand how he thought. "Because it's true. I love you." She'd said it so many times she was beginning to feel delirious. The words felt entirely correct and entirely foreign at the same time.
Samira Mohan loved Jack Abbot.
How long had that been true?
A beat. A silence that she had come to acknowledge without fear.
"I can't believe you're real." His hands both moved to her waist, and any last shred of perceived professionalism disappeared. He kissed her soft and slow and devouring all at once as everyone else moved around them.
Samira heard someone whistle and knew without any additional information that it was Dana. Maybe Trinity. She forced herself to pull away. "Jack," He kissed the corner of her mouth. "Jack. We're technically at work right now."
"I'm not clocked in." He mumbled.
"Jack."
He held both of her hands in between his own. "I'll behave myself." The smile tugging against Samira's lips was so wide it had begun to hurt her cheeks. Jack leaned forward again, his lips next to her ear. "Is this your way of making sure we get out of here by 10?" He asked.
"You are unbelievable."
"That's all you." He looked back over his shoulder. "Fuck everybody else. Let's get out of here."
"Where?"
"Anywhere." He said. "You already got us a fuck ton of money. You've paid your dues."
Samira had always been measured, careful. Rational, for the most part. Maybe neurotic, but never absurd. In a ballroom two blocks from the hospital, with Jack Abbot doing his best not to kiss her, with so much money headed their way, with an orchestra playing dutifully in the background, Samira couldn't help but feel entirely severed from reality. This was not real.
Could not be real.
No one had ever looked at her the way Jack was looking at her. Brimming with so much excitement and adoration and recognition, it seemed to seep out of his pores. He looked at her like he knew her better than he knew himself. Like he would find a way to give her the moon if she only asked for it.
Samira squeezed his hands, pulling them away from the center of the dance floor, weaving through a maze of uncoordinated couples. A resonant buzz rattled in her chest, spurring her forward. She didn't need the moon. Didn't want it, to be honest. She had him. "Come on," She said.
Jack did. Wordlessly.
If anyone watched as they slipped out of the room, Samira was none the wiser. There was a welcoming stillness in the lobby. The conversation they'd had in the same exact spot just an hour before felt like eons ago. His arm wrapped around her waist as he settled into step beside her. "You have your keys?" She asked, knowing the answer was yes.
"Where am I taking you?" He asked.
"Anywhere."
"Can I take you out for a drink?" He asked.
"Are you asking me out on a date, Doctor Abbot?"
"Something like that."
Samira expected a bar. She should have known he would bring her back to the park, gas station beer in hand. Not their park. A park. A park with a bench. It would do. Jack sat beside her on the bench, their hips pressed closely together. The familiar sound of sirens echoed faintly in the distance. He handed her a beer, cracking it open for her in the process. His wedding band glinted under the harsh glow of the street lights.
Jack had already experienced the great love of his life. He had already been struck with infatuation, fallen in love, gotten married, and lived in bliss. He'd had it all ripped away from him without warning or cause. Samira knew this. Knew she could never ask him to feel about her the way she felt about him.
It wouldn't be fair.
Samira had come to learn more and more about Andie over the last few weeks as she coaxed Jack to tell her more about his life before Pittsburgh. She wanted to know every scrap of information that he would give her, stitching together something like the story of his marriage in the process.
Andie Carter never changed her name because Andrea Abbot just didn't sound right to her.
Andie Carter met Jack in an undergrad public speaking class and promptly told him he would learn a lot more in a public listening class instead. Jack had fallen for her at that very moment. She came around much later.
Andie Carter loved teaching and hated peanut butter.
Andie Carter had a Bachelor's in English, a Master's in Education, and a law degree hanging on her office wall. She was well-educated, well-spoken, and well-adjusted. According to Jack, she'd never been wrong once in her life.
Andie Carter loved children, hated driving at night, adored her daughter, and despised pants without pockets. Her opinions about all of these things were well-known.
Andie Carter begged Jack not to take the Army up on their med school scholarship. She told him no amount of money was worth signing his life away. He spent the rest of his life regretting the fact that he hadn't listened.
Andie Carter hand-wrote thank you cards for nearly every occasion.
Andie Carter was hit late at night by a drunk driver exactly one year and one day after Jack lost his leg, leaving him with an endless well of grief, a twelve-year-old daughter, and a wedding band he couldn't bring himself to take off.
Andie Carter was a woman that Samira would have loved to meet. In another life, they might have been friends.
She felt a twinge of tension in her stomach as a thread of doubt bloomed within her. "Look, I'm not trying to pull a confession out of you. You don't have to say anything back." She meant it. He didn't need to say anything back. He didn't need to justify himself. Jack Abbot didn't owe her anything. "I understand that I'm not…" She couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence. It sounded too forlorn for what she wanted to communicate.
She wanted to love him–did love him. He didn't have to return the favor.
His hand sat comfortably on her knee, his thumb rubbing over the fabric of her dress. The air was warm, even for a June night. "That you're not Andie?" Jack continued for her. There was no judgment or surprise in his voice. "No, you're something else entirely." She didn't know if that was supposed to be a joke or not. "I'll love Andie for the rest of my life." He admitted. His voice was even, calm.
"I understand that."
"But that doesn't mean I don't love you, Samira." She felt heat bloom across her chest. She could only imagine the blush that crept out from under her dress. "Of course I love you. I would be stupid not to."
Samira tilted her head to the side. Jack took hold of one of her curls between his fingers. "Oh, it's pragmatic, is it?" She'd never been so overwhelmed before. She'd never had someone infiltrate all of her senses, hijack all of her feelings, affect her goddamn autonomic system. He managed to achieve all three.
"Very sensible." His face was mere inches from hers once again
Jack Abbot loved Samira Mohan.
How long had that been true?
Another siren rang out somewhere beyond them, and Samira was swiftly reminded that the world had not stopped turning on its axis. Time had not frozen around her. She closed the dwindling gap between them.
There was a new mantra to live in her brain.
Jack Abbot loves Samira Mohan. Jack Abbot loves Samira Mohan. Jack Abbot loves Samira Mohan.
Samira let her untouched can slip from her grasp onto the ground. Her arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him as close as she could. "You love me?" She asked against his lips solely so she could hear his answer.
His lips curled upwards. "I love you."
"You love me?" She asked again.
"I love you, Samira Mohan."
Samira was not entirely convinced that she was awake and alert. She could very well be dreaming or in a coma or hallucinating off her ass in a facility somewhere. None of that mattered to her when he felt so real against her skin.
At the third siren, she and Jack both hesitated. At the fifth, they pulled away. "That's a lot of ambulances," Samira said, halfway in his lap.
Jack wormed his phone from his pocket, holding it at arm's length to read something on the screen. She filed it away as something to make fun of him for later. "Bridge collapse. Looks like an MCI."
"The one night you can't listen to your police scanner." Samira was already standing, pulling Jack up with her as she rose. "Do we know how bad it is?"
"Says they're still assessing."
"We better move before we get stuck in traffic on the way there." She said.
Jack's beer hadn't even been opened. "You want to spend your night off at the hospital?" He asked her.
"Don't you?"
He kissed her again. Hard. Quick. A look of disbelief and something like excitement on his face. "Quite the date night, Doctor Mohan."
Samira spent the entire ride over, attempting to memorize the way Jack looked in his suit. The coif of his hair, the lipstick accidentally smudged on his collar, his tie loosened around his neck. She knew that once they arrived her attention would be divorced from him entirely.
Samira had never stepped foot in The Pitt wearing heels before.
Robby had already changed into his scrubs by the time they arrived. The Emergency Department was quickly springing to life behind him. People rolled gurneys and disaster bins and blood into place. Samira felt oddly confident seeing the beginnings of a plan being set in place. She was prepared. Practiced. She would save lives tonight. She could hear Dana talking somewhere.
"Where the hell were you man?" Robby asked Jack. "You disappeared and left the schmoozing to the rest of us." She knew that if circumstances were slightly different, Robby would ask why they had gone missing at the same time. Or maybe he would ask why he saw them making out in the middle of a very fancy, very crowded room, but the ticking clock of an approaching mass casualty afforded them a certain level of 'we will discuss this later' eye contact from Robby.
Not that he had any right to be asking them questions that Samira could easily ask about him and Heather.
Jack shrugged off his tuxedo jacket. "Didn't need to schmooze. Doctor Mohan got us more money from Weyes in the first 30 minutes than anyone else did the whole night. I bet she beat out every other department in the damn hospital."
Robby raised his brows. "And how much money is that?"
Samira needed to grab a pair of scrubs from the machine. She needed to change into her work shoes that were never allowed to leave the premises of the hospital because only god knew what she stepped in each day. She needed to pull back her hair and wash her hands and find a trauma gown.
"Oh, tell him. He needs some good news." Jack rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, grinning in anticipation.
Samira knew that it was not the time to be cocky, but she felt a rush of pride regardless. "Ten million dollars."
Robby laughed, glancing between the two of them before he realized that Samira was serious. His face dropped, eyes searching for a clue to let him know it was all some odd joke. "Are you fucking serious?" She nodded. He grabbed her by both shoulders, shaking her just slightly, overwhelmed by his own excitement. "You're the best thing that ever happened to this hospital." And then, a hug. A pat on the back. Robby's big, perpetually sad eyes beamed at her.
"I have to change." She said, removing herself from his grasp.
"When this is over, we're buying you as many field crike kits as you want, Mohan. Whatever you want."
"I told you he'd freak."
Samira walked to the locker room as quickly as her shoes would allow. Scrubs, shoes, gloves, gown, deep breath. She steadied herself in the routine. Steadied herself in the knowledge that she was entering her element.
Samira slipped out of the locker room as Robby and Shen rattled off emergency protocol and triage standards. She spotted Mel and Trinity gowning up in the far corner. Nearly everyone who had attended the Gala would be too drunk to make it in during the initial rush. Night shift and the few sober stragglers (comprised mostly of on-call residents) would deal with the brunt of things on their own.
She planted herself in the red zone before Robby had the chance to officially assign her. Jack, in his scrubs with his hair already sticking in a hundred different directions, handed her a pair of glasses without a word. His hands worked diligently to tie the back of her trauma gown.
"First ambulances are two minutes out," Dana called with her phone pressed to her ear.
The already rowdy room was set alight with motion and chatter as everyone launched into their last-minute preparation. "Ready, Doctor Mohan?" Jack asked.
"Are you going to use a pigtail catheter to flirt with me this time?" The rush of adrenaline thundered through her veins, shooting her full of energy and clarity.
"Oh, I'll try my best."
Samira Mohan was put on the earth to practice Emergency Medicine. To save lives.
Jack Abbot loved Samira Mohan, and they were going to save lives together.