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It had been a hell of a shift, but it always was on the night of the Fourth. This one had been rich with nonsense but weirdly q-word. Enough for him to notice a little too much, feel too much, think too much, but also enough for him to slip up to the roof to get a breather. Again.
Shen was downstairs. Ellis, too. Also holding down the fort: his brilliant, open-hearted, bewitching, perceptive, and immensely stubborn more-than-a-friend. It was very, very good but very, very new. All night, Samira had been doing her level best to watch him like a hawk without actively putting any pressure on him. It wasn't working, but he mostly appreciated the effort — of the surveillance and of the failed attempt to stand back.
He heard the door open and close and the shuffling of footsteps.
"How's it going?"
To her credit, she wasn't trying to sound casual, but she also wasn't talking to him like he was an especially jumpy horse. Maybe the neighborhood feral cat.
Hey there, little buddy. Still being adorably antisocial?
"Loud," he replied.
"Louder out here, I'm guessing."
"Out here, I can see that it's fireworks."
"Is PTSD that rational?"
He deeply appreciated her for just naming it, but, then again, now that she had named it, he couldn't as easily talk around it.
"It can be. I mean, not deep in an episode, usually, if that's what you're talking about. I'm not having an episode. I don't much anymore."
"When you say episode, do you mean a flashback or something more like a panic attack?"
"I don't have single events that come back, just a general feeling that I'm there, which can be panicky."
"Would you tell me if that was happening?"
"The question is whether I would be able to. Words don't always work. But I promise it would be obvious. If you have to ask, I'm more or less okay."
"You mean you're functional. Doesn't mean okay."
"Let's say they're equivalent for the purposes of this discussion."
She slipped through the railing near the edge in a clumsy way that told him she'd never done it before and leaned back against it, staring out over the city.
"You don't believe me," he said, once the silence started to feel oppressive.
"I do. But it's not just about…" She turned her head to look at him, but it took a moment for her to consider how to word things. "I'd like it if you were in a less risky location if something in your body begins to think those sounds are not bottle rockets and roman candles."
"I hear you," he said.
Because she wasn't wrong. There was always a chance that the emotional kevlar he's developed would fail, and he'd need to rely on grounding techniques and scripts dividing his emotions from his observations, his present from his past, or maybe even take a pill. And, yeah, he was going to feel it in his bones tomorrow. But he'd learned that he was willing to pay the physical price after the fact in order to avoid something that might leave him mentally rattled for days.
"I also noticed this is the second time you've been up here," she said.
"Ah. Why didn't you chase me the first time?"
She wrinkled her nose, hesitating a little. Again.
"I wasn't sure I was supposed to. Still not sure, but I'm not taking any chances."
He started to push back, but she cut him off by holding up her hand.
"I didn't know if this" — she gestured between them — "is that kind of thing or not."
He reached out and covered her hand with his.
"It is," he said. "From my perspective."
"Okay."
Not Good. Not Thank God. Except he could hear relief in her voice, see it in her posture.
Why were they fucking tiptoeing around this?
"Anyway," he said, "that's probably why I'm doing such a miraculous job of not letting a single goddamn thing get to me today. Except you."
She tried to jerk her hand away, apparently feeling exactly what he didn't want her to know but felt compelled to say, in probably the most defensive way possible.
She had found some of the softest places in him already, or at least she had access to them. Of course, her own give-and-take of vulnerability meant they were moving slowly in that regard, in fits and starts. At the moment, she was finding all the cracks in him and filling some of the empty space with herself. Mostly, it was a heady combination of exciting and comforting. Sometimes, though, it scared the hell out of him.
"Don't," he said.
"Don't what?"
"Pull away from me like you think you're gonna hurt me somehow."
It was a dodge. She could hurt him so easily now. But she was so unlikely to, at least intentionally, that it didn't feel like a lie.
Never mind what he wanted to say but couldn’t yet trust — not because he was a bad man but because, like most good people, she herself was breakable: I could never hurt you.
After a pause, she said, "Why does talking to you sometimes feel like the easiest and hardest thing at the same time?"
He wanted to play it light, but instead, what came out was something he hadn't articulated for himself before:
"Because being frank or just saying whatever shit comes into your head isn't the same thing as honesty. And by 'your head' I mean mine. Me."
"You think you're fake with me?"
He shook his head, feeling it to be true, but he waited to think it through before he replied.
“I’m as real as I can stand to be, but there's probably an awful lot of bullshit around that. Which I'm not doing on purpose, by the way."
She smiled, then, and said, "I know."
He raised his eyebrows.
She spoke softly: "It's like… When you're dealing with a serious injury, maybe a rolled car or something, and by 'you,' I mean me" — she smiled at the echo of his words — "and all the alarms are going crazy, and bodies are moving around you. Maybe Mateo is running a line. Santos is practically vibrating as she prepares to intubate. Whitaker is making an all caps concerned face. And, of course, Robby is standing back trying not to ask questions but you can actually feel the weight of him not asking. You can't get distracted. It's not that those details don't matter, or that they don't tell you things, they're just not the thing that matters, in any given moment. You read the monitors, you listen through your stethoscope, you do some math in your head, you feel the pieces slot into place in your understanding of what this is that you're looking at, and you act."
Of the many things he liked very much about this woman, her brain was right there at the top of the list. The way she saw things, the way she processed emotions. It occasionally made for loud and colorful debates about literally any damn thing, but even that was good. Because they didn't get mad, really, just heated. So far, they'd channeled that into pointed snark at work or, outside of work, just-the-right-kind-of-aggressive sex. Of course, that was only a facet of their dynamic. Mostly, they were pretty sympatico. That actually made him more nervous.
She added, “What I’m saying is, I see you, despite the bullshit. Like I suspect you can see through to me."
He smiled. He'd always thought they understood each other, even before they started sleeping together, but hearing it from her was reassuring. Made him feel less like a delusional old man.
"And yet you still didn't know if you should come up here."
"You're not a patient. This isn't a code."
"Nope. Just a sky full of stars and explosive powder."
"Does it look like Afghanistan?"
It always felt weird when someone referenced his service in such a specific way — not like they weren't allowed to, but like it didn't make sense for them to be talking about a him they've never met, and a world that had been so real but was now all but inaccessible to him.
"Not really. Sure as shit doesn't smell like Afghanistan. Or actual ordnance, really."
She nodded.
"You know, you don't seem stressed tonight," she said. "You seem kind of performatively not-stressed, but that’s not unusual." When he gave her a questioning quirk of his eyebrow, she added, "I was worried that I've been seeing what I want to see."
He shifted a little closer to her, taking his hand back so he could settle their shoulders together. "Not that I mind the company, but you don't have to worry about me up here."
"Even on this side of the security rail?"
"Even. Now, if you find Robby up here, especially out here, that's cause for alarm. Me? I'm just flirting with something. I'm coming right up to most dangerous woman in the room, kissing her hand, and walking away. You're not the woman, by the way. Just a metaphor."
"The night or the sky or depression or whatever. I get it. I can't decide if you're a poet or an asshole."
"If my experience in undergrad was any indication, those are not mutually exclusive things."
"Reading poets or dating poets?"
"Does the lyricist of an all-girl stoner metal band count?"
"Depends. Singer?"
"Bassist."
"Hot."
"Yeah, that wasn't the problem."
He turned and pulled her into his arms, and though her body swayed willingly against his, her hand didn't leave the railing. It was only then that he saw she was white knuckling it. A lot.
"Samira?"
They don't use first names at work. It's one of their boundaries. And since he'd already broken it, she just mirrored him:
"Jack."
She knew she'd been caught, and she kept her eyes on the horizon, which was precisely where they didn't need to be. That was making this worse.
He said, "You wanna come back to the safe side of the railing with me?"
"I'd love to," she replied. Her mouth was set in a hard line, and she choked out, "If you can convince my body to do that."
"You're afraid of heights."
"Nothing gets past you," she murmured.
She took a shaking breath and let it out as slowly and evenly as she could, which was not very.
"By the way," she added, "it feels dumb to use the word 'afraid,' like I think heights are going to Blair Witch me."
"Acrophobia, then."
"Not any less infantilizing in Greek."
He managed to catch her gaze and pull it away from the skyline.
"Alright. What's a grown-ass woman doing putting herself in a position she knows she can't handle?"
Her chest heaved with a bitter laugh. Yes, he did know he was being more than a little hypocritical, but he hoped she'd let him focus on her for at least a couple of minutes.
"I've been on the roof before,” she said. “I kind of forget it's a problem because it's not one — until I'm near the edge."
He believed her, mainly because she was far more frustrated than apologetic.
"Well, your hand is still on the railing," he said, "so you're steady. Should I let you go or…?"
"No," she replied with a shudder. "Not at the moment. Please."
"Okay. What do you want to do?"
"Take a few deep breaths."
"Good," he said. "Turn a little, if you can, and face the door. Don't look out."
"Don't worry," she said with a tremulous giggle. "Making me dizzy now."
"Jesus," he murmured, and he brought up his hand to cradle the back of her head, pulling her a little closer without restricting her movement. He kissed the top of her head, smiling at the lingering scent of coconut from her hair oil.
She was doing a pretty good job of calming herself, as much as was possible at the moment. Box breathing, it seemed like. In for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four. He imagined that calm was at war with a whole lot of self-consciousness, maybe even some misplaced shame.
Didn't he know that all too fucking well.
After a few breaths, she did turn a little, but that meant her back was more or less to the edge.
"Okay," she said, "so how is it that looking away is worse?"
"Hold on. I'm gonna move to brace you up a little, okay? But you've still got a hand on the railing, and now so do I."
He pressed closer, not entirely coming around behind her — which would put him a little closer to the edge than he would like — but enough to get his other hand on the railing, on the other side of her.
"Two hands," he said when that second hand clamped down.
Like it was an instruction instead of an attempt at reassurance, she put her other hand on the railing, too.
"You good?" he asked.
"No, I'm not good. But this is better, I think."
"Then let's get you back over."
"I'll try," she said. "If you promise to stay there. And to keep your hands on the railing, too."
"Yep. You got this, Mohan," he replied, kind of shocked but not surprised to hear himself fall completely back into teacher mode. They still did that often enough, at least at work, and he was eternally grateful that they were able to move in and out of that space without losing whatever this was between them.
He could see her trying to figure out how her body might be made to move. It was too tall to step over, even for Robby’s long legs.
"Three options, I think," he said. "One of them neither of us would like."
"If you even try to pick me up and move me," she said in a low tone of sincere warning, "I'll kick you off the roof myself."
"'Kay. So you either step between or — and this is my suggestion — scoot under. Tight fit, but you'd be on solid ground."
She nodded, and then, after a long moment of consideration, she said, "Under."
It wasn't a super tight fit, actually, but it looked awkward as hell shimmying over concrete without banging her head on the railing. He tried to look at her enough to make her feel secure but not so much that she felt even more self-conscious. Based on his own reactions to her solicitude over the course of the night, he was pretty sure that he both failed and earned some points for trying.
Once she pulled herself back up again, he climbed back through in a way that must have looked annoyingly easy to her and promptly stuck his hands in his pockets. He wanted to hug her, but he could see in that moment it might be the worst thing.
"Thanks," she said. She pressed her hands to his chest and came up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek.
"You're welcome." After she'd taken a step back, he added, "Do not do that again."
"Don't worry."
"I'm serious. With me, you gotta know that I don't cross over if I'm not steady enough to be there tired, bleary-eyed, and balanced on a foot I can't feel. If it's Robby, he's pretty much guaranteed to be in a bad head space, and he won't be capable of helping you. At all. You stay on this side and call Dana or me, if I’m here. Ditto Shen. Garcia in a pinch. Maybe Whitaker. Collins would be the nuclear option."
She just nodded.
Now she was turning to stand like he was, leaning forward against the railing and looking over the city.
"It's a great view," she said.
"That's actually why I come up here, by the way."
"Yeah?"
"To see the sky and the city and imagine all the people down there, living their lives. Turns out literal perspective helps with mental perspective. That's what my therapist says, anyway."
"What does he think about you being at work today?"
"Not a big fan, but he doesn't think it's self-destructive. And at this point he trusts me to recognize when I'm heading in a bad direction."
"How would one of your colleagues recognize it? Your occasional sleepover friend, say."
He could feel the hesitancy in her voice again, and he decided he was done with dancing around things. They both knew what this was. She came up to the roof. He had even maybe wanted her to, not to save him but to see what this night actually meant for him.
“My girlfriend, you mean,” he said.
“Yeah?” she replied with a grin.
“Yeah. If that’s...“
She just grabbed his hand and squeezed it.
In-two-three-four, hold-two-three-four, out-two-three-four, hold-two-three-four.
"As to your question,” he said, “she would know because I would tell her."
"Okay,” she replied.
And it really was, wasn't it?
In-two-three-four, hold-two-three-four—
She added, "Although I would love if you could promise me that the next time you're at work when there's super fun explosions, you'll stay on the safe side of the rail."
He let out the breath he was holding with a kind of startled laugh, then he just met her gaze and nodded, smiling.
"Okay."
They stood there for another couple of minutes, listening to the usual chaos of a summer night in Pittsburgh overlaid with sirens and street-level flashbangs and the pop-and-crackle of aerial fireworks.
She knocked her shoulder into his, saying, "Pretty sure you were going to kiss me earlier."
"Is that not allowed?"
"You're the one that laid down the law about shit like that at work."
"It's a good law," he replied with a nod. "But let's say that the roof is not work."
He turned toward her, and she pulled his face down for a long kiss, the kind that said hello and maybe even mine without demanding something that was not possible at the moment. Soon, they were kissing lazy and sweet, in short, soft pecks dropped playfully and little flips of the tongue, stolen like a secret. He was actually fucking smiling into it — that is, until he heard an explosive pop a little closer than he'd like to be hearing something like that.
He didn't jerk or start to tremble, but he did feel the sick heat of a wave of adrenaline wash through him.
"Well, that was definitely a gunshot," she said, pressing her lips and then her cheek against his neck.
"Most likely a drunk redneck. We'll probably know soon enough."
"I can feel your pulse with my face."
"Yeah," he said. He held her tight. "Was already thrumming pretty good, on account of your mouth and that cute sigh you made when I stuck my tongue in a little."
"Cocky motherfucker," she muttered, but she was giggling.
"Cocky, sure. But if I stay tachy I'll let you drag me off to be managed, okay?"
If there was any part of him, however small, that resented her for coming up here to find him, by now it was pacified. Now, the warmth and solidity of her body against his made the perfect accompaniment to the view of the smoky night skyline and the messy soundscape around him.
She eventually said, "How do you usually dump all this adrenaline?"
"I'm awake until I basically drop."
"Sounds un-fun."
"A potential release valve is physical activity. I could go for a walk, like I sometimes do after a shift, but it's not going to be quiet for a while."
"It will be by the time we leave. Come back to my place?"
"Your apartment is not quiet on a good day. But I guess you're talking about physical activity, huh?"
"I was thinking: a nice hot shower, then—" She stopped and huffed out a breath. "Okay, so we'll need to go to yours, if that's okay."
He smiled slyly, hoping it came through in his voice, too:
"You planning to test the structural integrity of my shower bench?"
She blushed so hard he could feel the heat from her face. His own face was flushing a little as the wheels start turning in his mind: an ADA-compliant shower has a lot of room.
She muttered, "I wasn't thinking about… Not in the shower, anyway."
"Why not?"
"So that's not off the table? For fun, I mean. Not, like, sex."
"Nope," he said. "Now, as you've deduced, your shower — your bathroom in general, to be honest — isn't the easiest place for me to get around without the leg on, but under the right circumstances naked shower stuff is very doable. It also depends on what you mean by sex."
She just shook her head, chuckling. "Let's assume we'll stay in the realm of foreplay."
"Well, now I know I'm gonna need to give you at least one orgasm before we run out of hot water."
"I'll accept that."
"Oh, you will, will you?"
"In the interest of distraction,” she replied in a mischievous tone, giving his waist a squeeze.
"You're a pretty fucking excellent distraction."
"That must be terrible for you."
"You're supposed to say I'm a distraction, too."
"Are you kidding me?” She pulled out of his embrace a little so she could throw her hands around his neck and gaze up at him with a fond smile. “The number of times I've had to physically resist running my hands through your hair or kind of biting the underside of your jaw, just because you smiled at me over, like, a bloody scalpel... I'm lucky keeping sterile is so deeply ingrained."
He groaned a little at that description, pushing her back with two firm hands on her hips.
"We've still got to get through, what, five more hours?"
"Let's go back down, then. I lost track of all the ambulances I was hearing, but at least a couple of them were probably headed our way."
As he reached for the handle of the door back into the building, she put her hand on his arm to stop him.
"Be brutally honest with me right now," she said. "Did I fuck up?"
"Coming up here?'
"Being here at all. Should I have stayed on day shift?"
He shook his head in reply. "Always glad to have you on nights, Dr. Mohan."
"Promise?"
"Yeah. Anytime."
She smiled, this radiant thing that made his heart kind of ache on a night like tonight. She squeezed his hand briefly, then they slipped back inside the building, which now felt more peaceful than suffocating.
He would keep on letting her in, but that was okay. He knew it, intellectually, and now he was learning to feel it, to trust it. After all, he had probably been relying all shift on the soft and steady pitch of her voice, familiar and grounding even a few trauma bays away. The trade-off was that her deep brown eyes were probably going to keep tracking him, but he was starting to realize that was as much for her as for him. He forced his lips into a soft smile, then, and was surprised to find they were already halfway there.