Chapter Text
February 23rd
Day 2 ~ Day shift, cramps, acne, fatigue
By the time she left the hospital at the end of her shift, Samira could barely keep her eyes open.
It was a good thing she was staying at Jack’s for a few days — though can mold remediation in your apartment building ever be called a good thing? He had dropped her off in the morning and would be picking her up, saving the pedestrians, motorists, and squirrels of Pittsburgh from the truly dangerous fate of an achy, exhausted, and irritable doctor behind the wheel.
She knew her exterior must have reflected the interior to some degree, especially after twelve grueling hours in the emergency department, but she didn’t expect his reaction from where he stood against the passenger door of his SUV, waiting for her.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he said, voice so full of care, eyes so soft with concern. Not pitying — never pitying — but uncomfortable, like the pain she felt was stinging him too.
As soon as she was close enough, he pulled her into his arms.
“Do I really look that bad?” Samira mumbled into his shoulder, and while she relished the comfort of this familiar embrace, familiar smell, familiar warmth, she resented the idea that she was so easy to read, so incapable of a poker face.
“I’m just sorry you’re hurting,” he whispered into her hair, before releasing her, opening the door for her, closing her safely inside. There in the cupholder was an insulated cup, the tag identifying it as raspberry leaf tea.
Samira held his hand for the entire drive home, fingers intertwined over the gearshift.
The first thing she always did when she first arrived home (because yes, this was home, even if she still had her own small apartment) was shed any and all clothing that had been in the hospital and change into loungewear.
Today it was a struggle — she felt disoriented, the fabric rough on her tender skin, the motions of changing slowed and a bit clumsy. Jack hovered in the doorway to his bedroom, offered to help, but she didn’t want his help, she was just tired and sore and dealing with low levels of estrogen and progesterone. She was fine.
Samira snatched her heating pad out of her duffel bag, maneuvered through the bedroom door by ducking under Jack’s arm, and made her way to his glorious sectional. There was really no other word for it: it was deep, soft but also firm, upholstered in a velvet the color of nutmeg, fitted with the plumpest pillows and coziest blankets. The “sofa” (more of a sad loveseat, to be honest) in her apartment was covered with a material that felt more like vinyl than fabric, and she’d never spent enough time on it to even spring for a slipcover for it.
She used what felt like the last of her energy to plug it into the extension cord, swing her legs onto the couch, position the heating pad, and dial it up to its maximum temperature, which was quite high — it had been the cheapest and quickest option after her last one decided to shit the bed the same day she got her IUD replaced (because of fucking course it would). She was almost certain that if there were regulations for these kinds of products, hers didn’t meet them. Jack had accidentally brushed it once and swore like he’d been burned. She had called him dramatic; he had called her a masochist.
Samira sighed at the relief in her feet, but cringed at the ongoing cramping in her lower abdomen, at the tensed muscles in her lower spine.
“How bad’s the pain?” he asked, leaning over the back of the couch, placing the back of his fingers against her forehead as a reflex more than to actually check her temperature.
“I feel like my uterus is a pumpkin and someone is scraping the guts out before they carve into it.”
“You have such a way with words, Samira,” Jack drawled, “but I was thinking more on a scale of one to ten?”
She rolled her eyes, but gave him an answer: “Six, maybe six and a half.”
“You’ve taken ibuprofen?” He stood, headed towards the kitchen.
“400 milligrams about two hours ago with a granola bar.” She checked her watch, confirmed the timing — she was a doctor, after all. “I can take more around nine.”
“Was a granola bar the only thing you ate today?” Jack called to her, voice a bit hard to decipher over the clinking of ceramic against metal. But she had heard enough of it.
“No!” she shot back, indignant — what a stupid question. “I had yogurt this morning, you were there, and a protein shake on the way to work.”
“There’s this saying, about how an apple a day keeps the doctor away?”
“Will it keep you away?”
“Good one.”
He reappeared with a slightly-still-steaming bowl, a spoon, and a napkin. “Chicken noodle soup with lemon and ginger.”
Samira accepted the offering, despite her irritation, because it smelled delicious and tasted divine. It wasn’t fair that he was good at so many things. It helped that he was sincerely terrible at a few — like wrapping presents neatly or loading the dishwasher the right way (because yes, there was a right way).
He turned the TV on to Channel 11 just in time for Jeopardy!, and while it probably wasn’t the smartest thing to yell out answers with mouthfuls of broth, she still did it, because she knew the answers, had to beat him to them, and it pulled her focus from her contracting uterus for a bit.
After the Final (Women of Shakespeare, "This middle daughter of the old King Lear dies offstage after being poisoned by her elder sister due to their shared interest in Edmund: sisters before misters!", who is Regan?) Jack took her dishes, hand-washed them (smart man), and brought her another cup of tea.
“Would a hot bath help?” he murmured in that low, gravelly tone that always made her blush a bit, even now. For a moment she let herself imagine it: sitting between his legs, her spine pressed to his chest, his stubble rough against her own cheek as he kissed her…
Her pelvis throbbed again, and all thoughts of pursuing orgasm as pain relief faded away, like her libido was on lockdown.
“If I’m the only one in it,” she purred back, because, truly, the most sexually attractive thing he could do right now would be to leave her alone.
“Samira, you boil yourself like a crustacean,” he deadpanned, pressing a swift kiss to her forehead. “Trust me, it’s all yours.”
A vintage claw-foot standing tub with steam curling off of it might be the single best thing on the planet.
It had come with the house, and the bathroom had been large enough to build an accessible shower, so he’d kept it. (It might seem like she was only in a relationship with Dr. Jack Abbot because of the amenities in his house, but that had been only a small factor in her decision.)
Samira gasped as she climbed in, the heat of it both painful and perfect, and Jack immediately rushed towards her, but she waved him off.
“It's fine, I'm fine,” she groaned, sinking down until everything below her collarbones was submerged.
"I know," he said, and she knew he meant it. "Just call if you need anything, okay?”
He started to go, she could see him moving towards the door in her peripherals, and something like panic rose in her throat.
“Can you stay?”
Jack turned back around instantly, like his body had already been thinking of doing so.
“I’m sorry, I just -” The words seized in her throat, suddenly unable to fly free after seeing his gentle gaze, his reassuring nod.
Samira liked being taken care of. Deep down, she craved it. And she knew what it was like to be cared for, to feel safe — she'd gotten thirteen years of that, far more than many people got. She knew she had to let people in, especially her partner, but there was a fierce independent streak from years of being alone, and that was hard to unlearn.
It was hard for him, too, and that helped as much as it hurt. He, too, often resisted her offers of aid, support, love. He would hide the grimace from a misstep on his prosthetic, would lie and say his sleep had been dreamless even with the shrunk pupils and damp hair that came from nightmares.
“Will you braid my hair?" she finally whispered, like it was a secret.
Jack came to the edge of the tub, took her hand in his, pressed his lips to her knuckles.
"Single or double?"
So Dr. Jack Abbot, with hands that could crack sternums during CPR and force joints back into place, nimbly plaited her hair into two Dutch braids, parted down the middle, like it was second nature (because it was — having sisters does that to someone).
He tucked her into his bed, which was slowly becoming their bed, and though this was man who could wield a scalpel and fire a gun, you would never guess it from the relaxed reverence of his care.
And later, as she drifted to sleep, his hands moved to rest over her lower abdomen, a gentle pressure that made her believe in the idea of healing hands.