Reed

I woke feeling intense heat wrapped around me and winced as I realized I was practically roasting alive. It didn't take long to realize the cabin"s air conditioning must not be strong enough to keep up with two people sleeping side by side for hours. Especially when one of those people was Leon, who I remembered all too well from when we were younger, had always been the living embodiment of a furnace.

Thankfully, his grip on me wasn't that strong, and I slipped out of bed without too much fuss. Silently yawning, I padded to the bathroom to empty my bladder, washing my hands before I stepped back out into the room, bathed in sunlight. Leon was where I left him, on his side, his arm in the space where I had been a few minutes before.

Smiling, I grabbed my pants off the floor. There was a strand of hair on his forehead that I brushed away, thinking about how this was the first time I'd seen his hair this long in two years. He'd always complained when we were younger about how long his hair got and how it got in his way. I guess here, where you could get a haircut whenever you wanted, he subconsciously fought that same battle and kept it short.

It didn't matter to me, even when it annoyed him. I'd always liked his hair. There hadn't been much about him I hadn't liked. Fittingly, the small list of things I didn't like drove me crazy, but even then, they had always been outweighed by the things I loved. I had always thought that would be enough, but first I left, and I suppose, in his own way, he left as well, years later.

Now, here we were after two years of awkward talking and carefully trying to feel one another out. Trying to move beyond our past but always tied down by it. Had last night finally been a way to break those chains we'd forged, or was it just a new one that would keep us locked in place? I suppose there was no way to know other than to keep living our lives and deal with one another.

I glanced at the clock and realized I had a shift to deal with, so our relationship, or whatever this was, would have to wait until we had free time again. He had a later shift and a shorter one because he was technically on partial leave for his injuries. I would have to tell Mona at some point today that he was cleared to work independently again, even if I would miss it.

I dressed quickly, making sure the coffee pot was prepared, and almost left. I looked toward the bed where Leon was still sleeping peacefully and realized that slipping out in the morning might look bad. He would try to keep it under his hat, but I knew it would bother him. The only thing available to write on was his journal. Opening the back cover so I wouldn't see the rest of the pages, I tore a page out to scribble a note.

Leon,

Sorry to leave without saying anything. I know the pills make you sleep better than ever, and you looked sweet. I'm not the slightest bit worried or upset about what happened, and I know things will still be slow for us, and that's good. Try not to freak out too much when you wake up and think about it, alright? Just hit the switch on the machine. I know you're a zombie when you wake up, so that should be simple.

I was tempted to sign off with something, but that would be too much to figure out this early in the morning. Something too casual, and he might think I was brushing off the possible seriousness, too serious, and he might think I was getting too strong an idea about what we were doing. Or maybe I was just overthinking the possibility of him overthinking things, but it felt safer to leave it like that.

With that out of the way, I left his cabin quietly and set off toward mine. I hadn't thought about bringing a fresh set of clothes when I'd stopped there the day before. Guys were milling around, heading toward the dining hall for breakfast, though some were standing around talking, giving me a nod as I passed.

Cutting between two buildings, I stopped when I heard something. Glancing over, I smiled when I saw Reno and Elliot walking toward the hall. Well, Reno was the one walking. Elliot was on his back like a toddler, and it was a little amazing to see Reno tolerating it. Then again, they were on one of the more isolated paths without anyone around from what I could see, so maybe Reno was more tolerant when no one else was?—-

I stopped in my tracks as Elliot said something and laughed, only for Reno to turn and…kiss him. It was brief; if I hadn't seen it exactly when it happened, I would have missed it entirely, but I saw it. Elliot stopped laughing, giving Reno a push on the shoulder that made the man keep walking, a smirk on his face, proud he'd managed to shut Elliot up.

I stood there, realizing it was a miracle neither of them had spotted me since I was standing in the gap between buildings. Then again, they'd been too busy with one another to care what was happening around them. All for me to bear witness to something I was sure neither of them wanted anyone to know about, let alone witness.

Apparently, Leon needed to consider dipping his toes into the waters of matchmaking. There was no doubt in my mind that what I'd just witnessed was genuinely affectionate and earnest. That was not the passionate, heated kiss of two men using each other because they were warm bodies conveniently located. No, that was the quick, furtive kiss of two people who wanted to sneak affection before they had to go on stage in front of the rest of the ranch.

"Huh," I said, scratching at my neck. "Did not see that one coming."

I quickly realized there was no way in hell I would tell anyone what I'd just seen. Not even Leon was going to find out from me, if he found out at all. I wasn't sure how he would handle the news, possibly relieved someone had managed to get through to Reno but worried he might have accidentally forced it to happen. It wouldn't matter if I pointed out that you can't force two people to like each other, especially not that much, he was a worrier deep down, and he would worry.

I was taken aback by what I'd witnessed, but it also made me happy. I wondered how long it had been going on and figured it had to be enough for someone like Reno to be the one to give such a quick, sweet gesture of his own accord. It proved that Leon's instincts were as good as ever, even if they were a little…imprecise. There was a softer person under Reno's fire and anger, and it looked like there was a way to keep Elliot in control as well.

It also meant I wasn't the only one enjoying that soft, warm feeling around the edges of my emotions. All I had to do was think of the night I'd shared with Leon, and a smile crossed my face, whether I was brushing my teeth or putting my work clothes on. I even had to smile at the idea that he was probably going to wake up and worry, only calming down when he read my note, bleary-eyed and with a pillow mark on his face.

Alice was behind the desk when I walked in, and immediately, her brow rose. "Well, well, well."

"What?" I asked, stopping short and looking to see if I'd forgotten my pants or something.

"You look chipper this morning," she said.

"You've always said I keep a positive attitude," I snorted, relieved to know she was just catching onto my happy glow. She didn't need to know why the glow was there; that could be Leon's and my little secret, but I wasn't going to worry just because she could see it existed.

"Hmm," she said, looking me over carefully. I met her eyes when they settled on me, raising a brow while I waited for her final assessment. "Get some good news from home?"

The idea was laughable, but I shook my head. "Nothing other than the standard weekly deposit into my commissary account that mostly goes unused."

I had never figured out the point of sending me money. To say my parents were disappointed and shocked when I was arrested was putting it mildly. Only my father had ever come to one of my court sessions, and even then, he hadn't spoken to me, and I was pretty sure he hadn't looked at me once. Their conversations with me since my sentencing had been stilted, to say the least.

In an interesting turn of events, they started reconnecting with me after my admission to the program. I wasn't sure how they'd even found out about it, considering I'd never told them. I knew there was a small ‘support outreach program' or something of the sort that tried to help the guys here reconnect with distant family and friends they might have lost contact with over the course of being arrested and thrown behind bars.

It wasn't what you'd call real contact between us. I might get a phone call once a month from my father, who kept me up to date on their lives and asked me how ‘work' was going. That was the only real insight into how my parents felt about the ranch, and I wasn't surprised to see the signs pointing to denial of my reality. In their world, I had simply found a new job, albeit one they disapproved of, but they never had to say that aloud. It was there in their subtext I'd learned to read at a very young age.

The money started coming right around my first month in the program without explanation. I had no illusions that it was their way of making up for cutting ties with me while I was in prison. My parents didn't do apologies, and they were firmly entrenched in their righteousness. More than likely, someone in their social circle had heard about my situation, and they had to scramble to make themselves look better. Or maybe, in their minds, it was some way of showing their support because I was doing better.

"Well, whatever the case," she said, pulling her hair behind her shoulders. "I'm happy and should point out that you shouldn't let it affect your work."

"Now, when have I ever let my mood affect my work?"

"There have been some…inconsistencies. So I need to ensure you're on top of things."

That took me by surprise. "I…what? What inconsistencies?"

"Nothing alarming," she said, though I could hear the unspoken ‘yet' in her words. "Just inventory taking mostly, so try to stay on top of that. The last thing we need is an audit. We both know those get messy."

They did. No matter how strict or orderly, mistakes were still made in the tightest-run ships. Usually, those mistakes were treated indifferently by the bean counters until there was a reason to pay attention. When that happened, they swarmed like ants over a carcass, picking apart every little decision and mistake. Nothing was left alone, and everyone was dragged through the mud and shit, feeling exhausted and like everything was about to come crashing down.

Alice flashed me a smile. "I'm not getting on your ass. I'm just telling you to watch yourself from here on out, alright?"

"I'll keep an eye on things," I said, wondering what kind of inventory mistakes I could have made. The actual doctors on staff looked over most of the inventory I did. I would have passed it off as an overabundance of caution on her part, but to bring up an audit made me worry. That said, I needed to be more aware of the counts when handing out medication. The last thing I needed was to risk even the slightest hint of doubt about my medication management reaching the wrong ears.

"We've got a handful of flu shot appointments today," she said, looking at the tablet in her hands. "A couple of stitches that need to come out?—"

"If they haven't removed them on their own," I said. "Any luck on getting the dissolving kind?"

"You'll have to take that up with Mona," she snorted. "Mostly, it's just follow-ups, barring any disasters."

I groaned. "C'mon, don't jinx it. What, are you going to say it's quiet in here today?"

"You," she said, jabbing a finger at me, "shut your mouth before you actually curse us."

"Oh sure, you can play with fire, but the minute I even hint at it, I'm suddenly the bad guy."

"Do not utter those cursed words."

"Sure, sure."

She glared at me for a minute before setting her tablet down. "There's some fruit in the back fridge in case you forgot to eat breakfast…again."

"Me? Never," I said, sighing when my stomach chose that exact moment to sing its song, announcing the lie for what it was.

"Uh-huh, nibble on something. If one of us collapses because they didn't eat, imagine how that would look," she said. "I'd better not find you looking like you're going to drop later."

"Yes, ma'am," I said with a snort.

"I'm going to grab a nap," she told me. "I've been manning things all night and can't wait until my shift ends. Your morning should be calm, there's only the computer for you to do. Wake me if someone comes in with their insides on the outside."

"Dying, dismembered, or on fire," I repeated, remembering the mantra she'd given to me on the first day in the clinic. Not that I'd needed to be told. I knew full well what a few power naps could do for you when you were being run all over the place.

That was enough for her, and she left with only a glance toward me, a slight smirk on her face. I was sure she would take the final exam room at the end of the hallway, the customary place for the doctors to nap when they were on shift. Dr. Gideon generally fell asleep wherever he sat down. He claimed it was because, at his age, sleep was elusive, but I wasn't sold on it.

I sat at the desk and loaded the program to start reviewing things. It was sorely tempting to dig up some of the inventories I'd done, but not everything would be available to me. At least half of the things I dealt with had to be signed off by the doctors, who were the only ones who could access that information.

So, instead, I focused on the stuff I was supposed to be doing and tried to push the problem out of my head. There was no point obsessing, even if I considered myself meticulous. Past mistakes weren't something I could fix, but I could make sure I didn't repeat them in the future.

Most of the work involved going through today"s patients" files and trimming up the ones from the past few days. The clinic"s record-keeping was as detailed as…well, actually, it was more stringent than the hospital I'd worked at. It was probably a case of needing to stay on top of things to avoid potential legal issues since the ranch operated on a razor's edge thinner than most hospitals.

The sound of the doors whooshing open wasn't enough to pull me out of the zone as I tapped away. Unlike many of my colleagues at the hospital, I had always been fond of paperwork. It was soothing to pour over the minutiae rather than face the perilous and nerve-wracking demands of trying to save a life. It was a way for me to turn my brain off and find a comforting zone of silence.

The final check on the file I was working on became hazy, my eyes stuttering over the words as a rich smell filled my nostrils. It was meaty, reeking of salt and fat, and the sweet scent of sugar followed it. My stomach rumbled, reminding me what I had neglected this morning.

I finally looked up, blinking, when I found Leon standing there, watching me with a smirk. My eyes were drawn to the container on the counter beside me, and I looked back up toward Leon, who continued to look smug.

"Really?" I asked with a sigh.

He shrugged. "Well, I thought you might need some breakfast."

"And what makes you think I didn't eat?" I asked him wryly.

He flipped open one of the containers, where I could see thick strips of bacon lying beside steaming flapjacks. I watched as he took a huge pat of butter and dropped it on the pile, drizzling the warmed syrup over the cakes and bacon. The smell filled my nostrils, and my stomach made its loudest rumble yet.

"That's cheating," I informed the overly smug man on the other side of the counter.

"You were always terrible at eating in the mornings," he said with a laugh. "And the number of times I came in here over the past few years on your morning shifts and heard your stomach complaining are…well, I lost count."

I sighed. "So, this is what that feels like."

"Having someone know you well enough to know your bad habits and be able to call you out?" he asked, pushing the container toward me. "Because, yeah, that's what this feels like."

"I'll forgive you because this smells absolutely amazing," I told him, knowing that would make him even more smug. Sure enough, he grinned as he held out silverware in one hand and a Styrofoam cup in the other.

I took both, opening the lid to find orange juice with plenty of pulp. Of course, he remembered how much I enjoyed the high-pulp orange juice. He'd always joked that I enjoyed chewing my juice. The food was fresh and hot as I munched through the cakes and shoveled some bacon into my mouth. The salty and sweet combination had me ravenous because, of course, I didn't realize how hungry I was until the food was in my mouth.

"Maybe you should stop going without breakfast," Leon said slowly. "Because there's hungry and then there's this Oliver Twist thing you have going on."

"Since when do you know your Dickens?" I asked as I plucked a piece of bacon from the container. "You hated the excerpts we had to read for class. Said they made you feel like your brain had turned into sanded-down wood. For the record, that makes as little sense now as it did back then."

He made a harsh rubbing gesture at his head. "Just the constant grind that reduces my brain cells to sawdust."

"Mmm, yeah, not helping."

"Anyway, everyone knows about the orphan scene and how he wants more."

"You could always go back and read it, see if there's anything else you could pull from it."

"Thanks, I think I'll stick to detective books."

"Don't think I didn't recognize a couple of the books on that shelf of yours. The ones you didn't get from the library."

I had to give him credit; if it had been anyone else but me, his attempt to hide his surprise would have been effective. As it was, I saw the way his lips almost thinned noticeably and the twitch of his eyes as he fought off the instinct to widen them. Mostly, though, it was the way he stared at me for a second too long in complete silence as he tried to think about what he could say that might throw me off the trail…which he had no hope of.

"What books?" he asked finally.

I cut into the final flapjack, knowing it was too much for me to eat, but a full stomach could easily lose an argument against happy tastebuds. "I have to say, your taste in romance books is special. They don't have obvious covers that would give them away, but they are what they are."

He blinked, fighting with himself for a moment before sighing. "I got into the series ages ago. They were different from other romance books. Less, I don't know, fluffy."

"Then you'll have to let me read them, and I can tell you whether they"re good or if you're just being picky."

"Wait, you didn't recognize them?"

"No, not really a romance book reader myself."

"Then how…ugh, you read them, didn't you?"

"I might have skimmed the backs and seen what they were about."

"Right."

"So when you said you liked detective books, you mean you like two FBI agents who can't stand each other and end up falling for each other while fighting crime and doing filthy things in private."

He sighed. "There's more to it than that."

"Oh, what kind of filthy things do they do then? Is it kinky?"

"No, other than a couple of, uh, rough scenes, they're pretty vanilla. The good stuff is in the plots and how the two stop being, well, awful."

"Well, it's hard to argue with you expanding your horizons. If you want to read about sexy FBI agents, I won't stop you."

"You're trying to provoke me."

"Trying and succeeding in so many ways, it's almost unfair but funny."

"Weird how that seems one-sided."

"Sometimes life is unfair. Are there handcuffs involved?"

He rolled his eyes. "I said they weren't kinky."

I snorted, closing the empty container and dropping it into the basket beside the desk. "Seriously? Light bondage is so vanilla these days that it might as well be flavorless. We're in a day and age of breathplay, fisting, dildos, and strap-ons in the shape of animal dicks. All sorts of things count as the base level of kink."

He stared at me, and I had to restrain the urge to laugh, but then I realized he was probably screaming internally. After another beat, he swallowed and cleared his throat. "So, uh, I guess you've experienced some…interesting things then?"

"Well, we can't stay innocent forever, right?" I asked with a wink. "Plus, everyone knows nurses are freaks, and you want to guess what I worked alongside all the time? And don't even get me started on how stressful med school can be and the ways you find to work off stress before you explode."

He stared at me again, swallowing hard. "I…alright. Well, that makes sense. And, uh, how much of that was…necessary for you to be happy?"

Continuing was probably cruel, so I finally cracked a grin and leaned onto the counter. "Leon? While it's true I've known some people who were into all that, I was never one of them. I've been fucking with you."

The barely repressed tension in his shoulders disappeared instantly as he let out a long, slow breath. "Oh, thank God. I was terrified you were some ultra-kinky, can only get off if you're being choked and treated like a puppet."

"Like a pup…" I stopped and remembered I'd said something about fisting. The image made me wrinkle my nose. "Alright. Fair assessment? No, you know what? That's awful, and you should be ashamed of yourself."

"Are you ashamed of making me feel like I'd just stumbled into a world of kink I wasn't prepared for?"

"Not in the slightest."

"Then you have your answer."

I laughed, leaning forward and smirking at him. "So, how badly did you freak out when you woke up and saw I was gone?"

"Is there any point in saying I was perfectly calm and kept a level head?"

"Not really, no. I'm looking for the truth here."

"Fine, I might have freaked out a little," he admitted with a shrug. "After last night, we didn't get a chance to talk. So, lo and behold, I woke up and didn't see you there. I might or might not have had a small moment where I wondered if you had run out and decided to leave things where we left off before."

"Where we left off before?" I wondered.

"You know, just the two of us…not talking. Well, we were talking, but we weren't really?—"

"Talking."

"Yeah," he said with that shy smile he rarely pulled out and never in mixed company. "So, maybe I worried things were going to go back to what they were before. Which I realized I didn't want. I made it happen before."

"Leon, you didn't make anything happen," I said. "Now get your butt clocked in while we talk about super serious stuff, or we're both going to get strung up."

"God, are they still making you watch over me?"

"Just in the professional sense."

"That's what I meant."

I got up from the chair so he could punch in his login information. "They're not used to having someone without much medical experience working in the clinic. They just want to make sure you don't accidentally maim or kill someone over a mistake."

"Oh yeah, all that lifting and sorting I have to do, that's really going to kill someone," he said as he took the seat.

I sat on the desk beside the keyboard. "You'd be surprised. Clerical errors potentially kill hundreds of thousands of people every year."

"Hundreds of thousands?"

"Something around a quarter to a third of a million people yearly. Sometimes it's the doctors" fault, sometimes a nurse"s, sometimes it's impossible to tell whose mistake or negligence caused a problem."

"Geez, how do they stop that?"

I stared down at the tile floor. "They don't. Not really. No system is perfect, and in the cracks, far too many fall in and never come out. Most of the time, it's just a small thing, an error in coding, someone reads a bottle wrong, a machine screws up somewhere along the line. It can be so complex it's hard to stop and usually downright impossible to punish."

"Usually?"

"Well, yeah, how do you punish someone who typed in the wrong code after an eighty-hour week? Or more than that? Sometimes, all it takes is to punch in the wrong number or letter and forget to add something to the file for later use. Those things are just human error, and trust me, punishing those moments harshly is the fastest way to drive people out of the field in droves."

He turned to look at me, chewing on his bottom lip. "Probably not the most comforting thing in the world to the loved ones who lose grandma because someone wasn't paying attention."

"And it won't be a comfort to the people when they come in for treatment, and there's no staff because they've all been fired, or refuse to work because they might lose everything for a mistake anyone, even the best trained professional, can make."

"That's…wow, that's a depressing system. You're kind of fucked either way."

"Name a system that isn't like that."

At that, he smiled. "The ranch."

His answer surprised me, but I couldn't help but laugh. "Alright, well, I suppose you have me there. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot that's cursed about this place, does there?"

"No," he said, busying himself rearranging the pens on the desk. "Is it normal to know so much about the system?"

"Which one?"

"You seem to know a lot about, like, the errors and the kind of trouble people usually avoid."

"Well, it's pretty standard to know. And when you're working on the floor, you see your fair share of screw-ups and mistakes. And you see people get in trouble for it, and when people really screw up and go down in flames," I said with a derisive snort. "They're the ones people show off to make sure you really know the score."

"A sacrifice or an example?"

"The only difference between the two is the person"s willingness."

"Yeah, okay, that definitely sounds like first-hand knowledge."

"Does it?"

"Maybe."

I rolled my eyes, knowing it was probably his inner voice talking again. "Maybe I do know something about it. Maybe I made the same mistake so many people before me made, and it cost me just about everything I had."

"But not everything?"

I sighed. "I didn't have my license revoked, if you can believe it. Well, I can't practice while I'm a convict, and I'll have to take a series of tests, probably go before the board. More hoops than I'd like, but it's not permanently revoked, so that's something."

He stared at me momentarily before leaning in so his body pressed against my thigh. "How bad?"

"Well, it's a lot of work, and I don't even know if that's something I want to do at the end of the day, but I have time to?—"

"No, the mistake. The one that cost you so much."

"Oh, it uh?—"

"You've never talked about it, have you?"

"Your insightfulness continues to be as annoying as it is accurate."

"It's a gift."

"Uh-huh," I said before sighing and leaning back. "The thing is, it was stupid. I was ignoring a problem."

"What sort of problem?"

"The kind of problem where I realized medication was disappearing but kept pushing it out of my head. First, because it happens sometimes, and then I realized it wasn't just happening. It was intentional."

"Someone selling pills?"

"Turns out. Up until the end, I had almost convinced myself it was just a coworker self-medicating. Except he wasn't or wasn't just doing that, he was making money on the side. It was unbelievably stupid of me to ignore it for as long as I did, and then, well, he ended up killing someone…someones."

"Shit, like, poisoned them?"

I sighed, not feeling the smile I gave him. "How fucked up would it be to admit that I wish it were something as simple as blatant murder? That it's somehow worse that he did it because he was greedy and not thinking about what he was doing."

"Hey, I can…yeah, no, I can see it. I mean, murder means you're trying to kill someone. You have a reason. I mean, a shitty reason if it isn't saving your life or someone else's, but it's a reason. There's an intent there. But if it was just him being sloppy and greedy, that's just fucked up. There's no rhyme or reason, just fucked up."

"He didn't see the signs of the addiction going too far with one of the patients we shared."

"Wait, I thought you worked in the ER?"

"I did, but there were clinic hours we had to take, like most doctors. Her name was Dawn. She always had these little things wrong with her and liked to ask for me, but I couldn't always be there. I guess he took her on when I was gone."

"What was wrong with her?"

"I didn't know. It felt like as soon as we got rid of one thing, another would pop up. Maybe it was hypochondria brought on by a severe case of anxiety. Or maybe she had already been self-medicating with pills. Opioids can wreck the system if they're used for too long, and I just…point is, she overdosed. An accidental one. But when her younger brother found her, well, his overdose wasn't accidental."

His eyes widened. "Jesus."

"Two people dead," I said with a sigh. "And it's funny. You think you're used to death. Working in the ER, you feel almost numb sometimes. People roll in, their guts in their laps, and you try to shove them back in and get them through the night, but you don't have hope. Or they come in filled with enough heroin to kill a moose, and you shove the Narcan into them and wonder if the Grim Reaper will take them or let them go back out onto the street, maybe get their lives back on track, or more likely, do it all over again."

And then there were the gangbangers and lifelong criminals who always found their way into the ER, holes in their bodies from the gun or knife fight. People with half their faces missing from an ugly car accident, people with bars sticking out of them, making them look like human pincushions because workplace safety was more of a suggestion for some companies. So many lives in your hands, and at the end of the day, it was death you expected the most.

"What was the worst?" he asked. "Kids?"

"At first," I said with a sad smile, rubbing my fingers with my other hand. "You think it's the worst thing you can ever see. Then you stop feeling it as much. It just doesn't affect you the same way anymore. You wish for so long that you could stop feeling so heartbroken and useless when you can't save this kid from the car accident he was trapped in or that kid because Mommy or Daddy was a little too aggressive with their ‘punishment.' But you do, and when you realize it, that is the worst thing imaginable. Realizing you just don't feel the hurt anymore, not like you used to."

He reached out suddenly, taking my hand in his and squeezing it. "Reed…of course that happened. I mean, how could you keep up like that?"

I shrugged. "Sometimes it felt like I was failing at my job, you know? Like, it wasn't just to save people, which I always tried to do, but to care about them too."

"Look," he said, a firmer tone in his voice. "Where I grew up? You got used to seeing all sorts of fucked up shit. A parent smacking their kid across the face was considered mild for my block, and you heard people screaming all the time, usually in anger, but terror too, and sometimes they went silent. You got used to seeing people drugged out of their heads, and sometimes you found them slumped against a wall, puke in their laps. You…when you're surrounded by horrible things all the time, your brain has to learn how to deal with it so it shuts down. It has to block out the horror otherwise, your whole life is just one big horror show."

"I used to think of you a lot on those days."

"The horrible ones?"

"It's not like you hadn't told me some rough stories from your neighborhood. I used to think about those stories and how you were surrounded by so much shit. And yet, at the end of the day, you never let it change you or make you worse. If anything, it made you throw yourself all the harder into trying to help your brothers, improving their lives and giving them something you never had from others. It was like…inspiration, I guess. If you could manage that while living in the middle of it, I should be able to do something good or be better with what I was surrounded by at work."

"Well, you said yourself, you still tried to save lives."

"I did. I fought like hell some days, even when people told me to leave it and let it happen. And sometimes they were right. Most of the time, actually. But sometimes, oh that sometimes, they were wrong, and I could tell myself I hadn't given up yet, and that hope and sheer stubbornness was worth it….sometimes."

He bent down to peer into my face, his eyes searching my expression, mouth twisting downward. "Those two people who died, Dawn and her brother?—"

"Mitchell. Dawn and Mitchell Fassen, the only two children of Joyce Fassen, who had raised them on her own since her husband passed after a long battle with cancer about ten years before. Dawn was nineteen, Mitchell was seventeen," I recited, but there was so much more about them that I had come to find out.

Mitchell had been a track star, and Dawn was a capable musician. Both had been incredibly close and despite Dawn having graduated and going to college, she always made sure to drive home and spend time with her mother and brother on weekends. Perhaps no one knew how close they had been, not until Mitchell found his sister's body and decided life was no longer worth living without her in it.

"I've seen so many people die, I can't even keep track of how many there really are," I told him softly. "And in its way, that's a horror on its own. All those lives, and they're just…numbers."

"Wasn't there a dictator who said something about that?"

"Stalin. A single death is a tragedy, but a million is a statistic. And how depressingly true that was for my life. All those deaths, but it was these two that drove home the horror of everything. I don't know if I was too scared to shake the boat, too trusting in my coworker, or simply too disconnected from everything to care enough to see the danger of what he was doing. Whatever it was, it cost two people their lives."

In addition to our jobs and freedom, other people were caught in the mix, but we got the worst of it. The number of signs I'd ignored were enough to weigh on my conscience, but as far as the law was concerned, I was complicit. It hadn't helped that I hadn't fought the charges much. Even now, I thought I was just as responsible for their deaths as my greedy coworker.

"I notice you haven't mentioned his name. The coworker."

I snorted derisively. "He doesn't deserve to be named. I failed at my job, my goddamn oath, but he outright betrayed it. You can look him up if you want, you could probably use the computers in the library. He'll be serving another five years on good behavior, most likely, but he needs to go the next eight instead."

Leon surprised me by laughing. "See?"

"See what?" I asked, staring at him in confusion.

"You clearly didn't get that disconnected. You can still find a whole lot of anger toward him and yourself, for that matter. If you really lost it as badly as you're afraid you did, then why would you care? He would be just another asshole who abused the system and didn't care who he hurt, and the mistake you made was understandable. You were just minding your own business. Yet here you are, taking your lumps, pissed at him and disappointed in yourself. That sounds like a perfectly moral person."

It didn't sound right, but for once, I understood what Leon meant when he said something felt right. I'd been trying to navigate my feelings about the situation for years, from the moment I heard I was under investigation for two deaths. Then came one hit after another as I learned the details, learned how it had happened, and realized just how badly I'd screwed up.

I wasn't absolved of my…of my what? Was it a mistake or was it neglect? Leon had made a good point. I hadn't completely lost connection with my inner self. I still cared about what I'd done, or rather, what I hadn't done. Whether it was a mistake or a product of being distant from everything around me at the time, I was still living with it. And I would never again make that choice or allow myself to do something like that.

Ambivalence was how I felt back then when I realized what he had been doing. It was the same thing I felt now, thinking about whether I was going to continue to practice medicine in the future. Not because of the work that would have to go into getting my license again or the distrust I would receive. No, it was because I feared I had lost all connection with my original motivations for becoming a doctor, that all that care had disappeared, and if it had, what was the point of being responsible for people's health and safety?

Yet, here I was, sitting in this clinic, not necessarily by choice, but I had never begrudged it. If anything, I had quietly become attached to it, enjoying what I did despite how quiet and slow it was compared to working in the never-ending energy and demand of the emergency room. That passion hadn't been lost, not completely. Sublimated for a while, buried under my rightly deserved guilt and shame, and then quieted by the voice of fear…but not gone.

Finally, I chuckled, squeezing his hand. "You really need to trust yourself more often, you know that?"

Confusion tightened his brow, his lips thinning in what might be annoyance. "Why are we talking about me all of a sudden?"

"Because you got right to the root of the problem and found the perfect way to make me stop feeling sorry for myself and realize what I should have long ago," I told him, leaning closer. "You need to start trusting your instincts and stop doubting yourself so much. You're good at this shit, Leon. If it's time I start realizing I'm not a lost cause, then you should too."

Leon scoffed. "You really can't help yourself, can you? You have to find a way to fit me into things."

I arched a brow. "I need you to think about what you just said."

"I…oh, that's not?—"

I laughed, leaning in the rest of the way to kiss him. "Relax, alright? I just thought it was funny."

Well, not really. He had no idea how true that was, but that conversation would have to wait until later. Right now, it was more important to get my point across to him and that he understood, than dealing with whatever was between us.

"Alright, fine," he said with a groan as he pulled back slightly. "I'll give it some thought, okay?"

"Give it more than just a thought."

"Two thoughts."

I snorted. "Three."

"Two and a half."

"Three, and I'll take at least a week not giving you shit about your self-doubt issues."

"Three and at least nine days."

"Deal."

He kissed me this time. "Deal."

We both jerked when a voice came from down the hallway. "Reed? Is your boy toy here yet? I need someone to clean out this closet."

"What's the point of cleaning it if nobody uses it?" I wondered with a chuckle.

"Boy toy?" Leon asked with a frown. "I'm thirty-three."

"You can take that up with her yourself," I said as he got up from the chair, allowing me to slap his ass. "Get to work, boy toy."