Work Text:
Rook had been married to John Duncan for six months. She worked long hours as a nurse in the emergency room of one of Atlanta’s biggest hospitals and was surprised when John had come in one night, sporting a concussion from a drunken fall. He had asked her out for dinner and she had declined, but he had decided that she was worth trying for as he kept coming back to see her.
The first week, bouquets of flowers would be sent to her workstation, and lunch would be hand-delivered because for some reason he knew her schedule. Rook had a feeling her coworkers had something to do with it as they had always pressured her to go out on a date. So when John came around the next week, she agreed to one date with him.
And then they had another date. And then another, and soon they were dating steadily and a year had gone by. Her parents were no longer in the picture, and she knew about John’s past- at least of what he was willing to share. She had learned quickly that his parents were a very sensitive subject and she didn’t push.
She had heard stories about John Duncan, the big-shot lawyer, but the man she knew was entirely different. The man she knew, loved her and treated her well. So when he asked if she would marry him on their one-year anniversary, she said yes.
Now, six months later, she found a bag of white powder hidden on his side of the bathroom and instantly knew what it was as she had saved too many kids from drug overdoses. So she simply made sure the bag was zipped tight before shoving it in her purse and getting in her car, heading to her husband’s office.
Now, standing outside his office doors where Rook heard screams of her husband’s name and his moans that she knew well, she couldn’t decide if she wished she had just stayed home.
John’s assistant, Naomi, looked terrified as she stood next to Rook, and honestly, Rook couldn’t blame her.
Rook’s wedding ring felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, the expensive rock on top of the gold band making her sick. She remembered telling John she didn’t want anything expensive as she only wanted him, but he had insisted.
Her heart felt like it was physically breaking as she said, “Have you screwed him?”
“No,” The girl answered immediately. “Never. You’re such a kind lady, Miss Rook, I would never.”
Rook winced as another moan ripped through the air. “Has he tried to?”
“Yes,” Naomi whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
Rook shut her eyes tightly, saying, “Is there anything else I’m not aware of that I should be?”
“He does a lot of drugs,” Naomi whispered.
Rook nodded and said, “Yeah, I found that out today too. It was what I was coming to talk to him about it. Tell me one thing, Naomi. How long has he been doing this?”
Naomi stayed silent.
“Before we got married?”
Naomi looked like she wanted to cry. “He was still bringing them around before I met you. His previous assistant told me that it was normal.”
Rook wanted to scream, throw her fists through a wall, and sob. But she held it inside as she felt tears well in her eyes.
Naomi had started working there only three months after she and John started dating. He had been cheating on her for almost their entire relationship.
Rook finally turned to look at the woman. “You should get out of here.”
Naomi nodded and quickly walked towards the elevator, but stopped and turned, looking at Rook and saying, “Is there anything you need?”
Rook nodded. “Get me a list of the best divorce attorneys in Atlanta.”
Naomi nodded and headed for the elevators again.
That was when Rook took a deep breath of air and turned the knob on the door, opening it.
Seeing it was a lot different than hearing it.
And as soon as she saw a naked woman on top of John’s desk, her husband’s shirt ripped down the middle, and fluids covering their bodies, Rook had a feeling that they’d been there for a while.
The sight caused tears to slide down her cheeks, the feeling of her heart breaking ripping through her chest like a tidal wave.
That was when John’s eyes met hers, and he instantly stilled, the color leaving his face as he whispered, “Rook-“
“I came to ask about the drugs I found in our house, but I don’t want to know anymore,” Rook choked out.
She turned and headed towards the elevator, hearing John yelling her name as she sped walk down the hallway.
She felt a hand touch her, and she ripped her arm out of John’s grasp, saying, “Do not touch me.”
“Rook, please listen to me-“
“I don’t have to listen to anything that comes out of your mouth.” Rook didn’t yell. Her voice was even, tears streaming down her face as she looked at her husband. “Naomi told me. You’ve been doing this since before she got here. What about the drugs?”
John said nothing, instead looking down at himself where there was sweat and semen on his skin, the only clothing he had on being his pants that he had managed to slide on as he ran after his wife.
Rook nodded. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“I love you.“
The dry laugh Rook let out shattered his heart into millions of pieces as she said, “Of course, you love me, John. You cheated on me for our entire relationship and then have been doing drugs for what I’m assuming is much longer.”
Rook looked down at his left hand, seeing his gold wedding ring still on. She simply turned and headed for the elevator, John right behind her.
“It was all a mistake,” John pleaded.
Rook ignored him.
“Sweetheart, please,” John begged as he dropped to his knees. He took her hand in his, not wanting to get any of the liquid on him onto her as he said, “I love you, I swear. You’re the most important thing in my life. Nothing made sense until you. I was drowning and then you showed up and saved me. I love you more than anything, baby. They’re nothing to me! You’re everything!”
Rook simply pulled her hand from his, stepping into the elevator as she said, “Then it’s a pity that you threw everything away for nothing.”
And before John could say anything, the elevator doors shut.
John tried to be quick. He tossed the girl out of his office, snarling at her as everything suddenly slammed into him at full speed.
He was losing his wife. His Rook. The woman who made him not feel like a piece of shit and who cleaned him up and made him sit down when he was overworking. The one woman who would come home from working twelve-hour shifts at the hospital and cook him dinner when she knew he hadn’t eaten. The one person who saw past his money and the trauma that she knew was there, but never pushed for him to reveal it.
Rook was the only woman he had ever truly loved.
And he was losing her.
He cleaned himself off as quickly as he could, throwing on his clothes and leaving his jacket behind as he rushed back to their apartment on the upside of town.
He remembered how excited she had been when they picked it out. It had a balcony where she could grow plants, a large kitchen where he had spent many mornings teaching her how to cook, an office that he spent way too much time in and she would normally have to drag him to bed if she wasn’t at work herself.
And the two extra rooms. The two rooms that they had nothing inside of yet because Rook desperately wanted children and he wanted to give her the world, so he agreed even though he was terrified of being a bad father.
He didn’t even bother with the elevator once he had parked. He simply rushed up the stairs, feeling like his lungs were on fire by the time he made it there, but he didn’t care as he threw open the door, yelling, “Rook!”
No answer and that was when John noticed the table. It was prepared and he stepped into the kitchen, seeing the remains of what looked to be a dinner that she had been making for them.
His heart cracked more at the thought. This was her only day off for the entire week because she had covered extra shifts for her co-workers and he promised her he’d be home in time for dinner and not only had he forgotten, but she’d found the drugs he had hidden in the bathroom and come to his office to confront him only to find him fucking someone else.
He felt the world start to spin.
“Baby, please still be here!” John pleaded as he ran towards their bedroom.
The room was empty, and John rushed towards their walk-in closet then, the air getting knocked out of his lungs when not only did he see that some of her casual clothes were gone, but every single pair of her scrubs were gone. He rushed towards the drawers and ripped them open, seeing all of her jewelry was gone, he turned and looked at his side of the closet seeing the college hoodie that he still kept around that she loved to wear was also gone.
The tears fell down his cheeks then as he rushed to the bathroom, seeing her things gone there too, and the bag of drugs now sitting in the sink.
He collapsed to his knees, a choked sob leaving his lips as he realized what he had done.
It took only two days for the divorce papers to appear on his desk at work. But John wasn’t there, instead having not left his house in the two days as he repeatedly called Rook, sent her flowers, gifts, and hundreds of texts as he drowned his sorrows in alcohol.
Naomi hand-delivered the papers.
John felt sick to his stomach as he opened the envelope, already knowing what was inside though he wanted to deny it.
But the words, “PETITION FOR DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE” were written as clear as day on the top, and he chugged an entire bottle of whiskey before crying himself to sleep.
The next morning, John puked up the contents of his stomach before wiping his face, brushing his teeth, and making sure he looked somewhat decent before heading to the hospital.
The nurses Rook worked with smiled at him, pointing at where the woman was working as they knew him well.
She walked out of the room she was in, shutting the door behind her as she looked down at the clipboard she was holding.
“Sweetheart-“
Rook’s head instantly snapped up, and her jaw clenched as she saw him.
“What are you doing here, John?”
“Did you get my voicemails? My flowers? Texts?”
“Every single one,” Rook said with a nod. “I deleted the voicemails and texts as soon as they were received, and the flowers went to the elderly patients in the hospice. They loved them and said thank you.”
“I made a mistake,” John pleaded as he placed his hands on her waist. “I made such a huge fucking mistake, and I’m sorry. I’ll do anything to make it up to you, baby.”
That was when John realized she wasn’t wearing her wedding ring anymore.
“You’re not wearing your ring.”
“You stop wearing your wedding ring when you’re getting divorced, John.”
“We’re not getting divorced,” John said, shaking his head. “We can work through this.”
“We could’ve worked through your drug problem,” Rook explained. “What we couldn’t work through is the affairs you’ve apparently been having throughout the entire course of our relationship.”
“They meant nothing to me, I swear,” John pleaded. “They were just stress relief and sometimes the result of a lot of drugs, but you were the only one I thought about every single time.”
“So you had sex with other women and thought about me… when you could’ve just… come home?” Rook laughed. “Right, that makes a lot of sense.”
“Rook-“
“No,” Rook snarled. “I ignored everyone telling me that dating you was a bad idea. That getting married to you was stupid. I trusted you. I put faith in you and how much you swore that you loved me. I believed it was all rumors. And two days ago, I had the truth shoved down my throat in the worst way possible. You are everything they said you were, and worse. So go back to your whores, go back to your alcohol and drugs- I don’t care. I stopped caring the second that elevator opened and all my nightmares came true.”
And with tears in her eyes, Rook turned and walked away from what she believed to be her soon-to-be ex-husband, breaking his heart just as he had done hers.
Five months later, John was fresh out of rehab when he called Rook. He didn’t expect her to pick up, but when she did, he didn’t expect her to say, “Are you ready to sign the divorce papers now?”
“No,” John whispered as he held a glass of water tightly in his hands.
“Then why are you calling me?”
“I want to talk.”
“I have work tonight.”
“Then tell me when you’re free and I’ll be ready,” John pleaded.
“John-“
“Rook, please. Just listen to me and if you still want to get divorced, I will sign the papers then and there.”
He could hear her sigh before she said, “Fine. I’m off tomorrow. I’ll meet you at our house.”
And John felt hope blossom in his chest as she said “our”.
The next night, when Rook knocked on the apartment door, her heart was pounding in her chest.
John opened the door and smiled at her nervously.
Rook was painfully reminded of that same smile he used on their first date.
He stepped back and let Rook inside, and she took off her coat, automatically draping it on the coat rack by the door.
Rook headed into the living room, her arms crossed across her chest as John said, “Do you want something to drink?”
“Not really,” Rook admitted. “Can we just get this over with?”
John nodded and Rook moved around the couch, remembering how long it had taken them to pick it out as she sat down.
John paced in front of her for a few moments, and she watched him, her hands clutched tightly together as they lay in her lap.
“I first want to say I’m sorry.”
Rook nodded.
“I have no excuse I can ever make, but just know that I regret what I did more than anything. I love you and I know that doesn’t change anything.”
Rook looked down at her hands, holding back tears.
“I know I hurt you. I broke your trust, and it kills me to think about how much I hurt you. If I could go back and change it, I would, but I can’t. I just… I want to fix this and I’m scared I can’t.”
Rook sat there for a moment before saying, “It isn’t fair that you’re putting this on me.”
“No, it’s not, but I’m being selfish,” John said as he kneeled in front of her. “I can’t live without you, Rook. As soon as that door opened and I saw you, everything I had done slammed into me, and I saw my entire world burning. Please, just… one more chance. That’s all I’m asking.”
Rook had tears streaming down her face as she shook her head. “How do I know you’re not lying to me now? How do I know you haven’t been traipsing around Atlanta with a new girl in your bed every night while getting high?”
John quickly pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, and Rook blinked, clearing the tears from her eyes as she unfolded it.
It was a certification paper saying that John had been in a drug and alcohol rehab facility.
“You can call and ask them to see if I was actually there,” John told her. “You’re my wife and they can tell you.”
Rook shook her head as she looked at him. “What are you trying to prove with this?”
“I’m trying to prove that I want to be better. I want to be better for you,” John explained. “I want to be better so that I can love you the way I should have been since the day I met you. You just have to let me have a chance.”
“John, I don’t know if I can,” Rook whispered.
“Please,” John pleaded as he held her hands. “Please, just one chance. Let me try the way I should have, please, Rook.”
Rook shook her head and pressed her hands against her forehead as John clung to her legs.
“Please, baby,” John begged.
Rook sniffled, opening her eyes as she said, “One chance.”
John felt a choked sob leave his chest, but Rook shushed him. “One chance. If you do drugs or drink, or even look at another woman wrong, I am gone. You will sign those papers without a single complaint.”
“I swear,” John sobbed as he pressed his head into her knees. “I swear I will never hurt you again.”
And he didn’t.
John wrapped his arms around Rook’s waist, pressing a kiss to the side of her neck as he shut his eyes, breathing in the smell of her shampoo.
It had been four long years since that day, and John had stuck by everything he said. Their relationship was stronger than it had ever been, and they had even gotten their vows renewed.
Rook laced her hands with his from where they laid on top of her large stomach that held their unborn child.
“You okay?” Rook questioned.
John nodded. “Just thinking about how lucky I am to have you.”
Rook snorted in response and said, “You’re just saying that 'cause I look like a whale.”
“You do not,” John argued. “You look beautiful.”
Rook turned around in his arms, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Stop thinking about it.”
“How do you do that?” John questioned.
“Superpower,” Rook teased. “The past is the past. Leave it there. We’re okay.”
He rested his forehead against hers and relaxed, letting her hold him.
She was right. They were okay.