Work Text:
and if only you could see yourself in my eyes // you'd see you shine, you shine
Lost – Dermot Kennedy
One month, six days, and fourteen hours later
(Not that he’s counting.)
…
Today, if nothing else, he is free to be a surgeon.
He takes off his watch and focuses on what he knows is ahead for him: the next three hours in OR two. When Kit enters the scrub room he’s taken by surprise, but her presence makes sense considering the location of the lesions. Randolph can’t help but smile when he greets her.
“Randolph, I heard.”
He scrubs at his wrists and ignores how quickly news like this travels around Chastain. “Tending to my first love. Putting my affections where they stand a chance of being returned.”
It’s dangerous and it’s bold to use such loaded words, directed only at her, but he tests the waters. It's been over a month since she was at his apartment and all he knows for certain about the outcome of that night is that she is in Atlanta, not Boston. Kit doesn’t react to his choice of words at all, because all he can see is her heart on the floor, shattered and crushed as she concedes that she’ll be fired. It rises immediately when he tells her that she has a five year contract.
Kit Voss is rarely speechless, but today, there are tears in her eyes as he beams back to her.
His last act as Chief of Surgery was to protect her. To advocate for his resident, to sling one last pebble at the Goliath that was Red Rock Mountain Medical, and finally to be sure she would survive the bloodbath, even if he couldn’t. To keep her at Chastain no matter what happened to him.
It doesn’t make her decision for her – she already knows that what she feels even though it’s different than the kind of love she’s felt before – but his valiance makes her sure.
The way he cares for her is so evident, so constant and unyielding even through the overemphasized smile and brave face she knows that he’s putting on now, and for the first time she wants to show it back. She wants to give to him what he deserves and what he needs to shield him from the demons that befall him. She wants to brush the dust from his shoulders after he falls and make him stand taller than before, and she wants to hold him and shelter him and care for him the way no one else has.
It scares the hell out of her and it sends a jolt of adrenaline though her veins, and it is further evidence that he knows her better than anyone. This feeling, the rush, is what she lives for. It’s that moment that she decides she’s pondered her feelings for long enough and it’s time to show them.
He had recognized that the surgical team was walking on eggshells and he shut them all down in one sentence.
I promise you Mrs. Alvarez’s liver doesn’t care about what happened this morning, and neither should you.
It’s a wonder, really, the way he wields a scalpel. He works with precision and care, meditative and serene as he cuts and stitches and heals. He commands a procedure and holds the reverence of everyone in the room without saying a word.
Kit adjusts her watch at the scrub sink, and there’s just enough adrenaline left in her veins for her to take a chance. She hates that it has to be today, with all that’s happened, but it does. It’s clear now, crystal clear, that she doesn’t want to waste another minute.
“If you’re not busy, I’d like to buy you dinner tonight,” Kit shuts off the water and takes a deep breath, hopes it sounds more confident than she feels. “There are some things I want to talk to you about.”
Randolph takes off his scrub cap and runs his hand roughly over his hair. “Kit,” he sighs heavily, “it’s been a really long day.”
“Please,” she passes him a towel and waits for him to look back to her, “have dinner with me.”
She is reassuring and soft and he buckles under the weight of her kindness. The wariness that plagues him is replaced with hope, if only for a few moments under the fluorescent lights, and he reluctantly agrees to meet her at seven.
“I can’t remember the last time I had a hot dog.” He laughs.
Kit smiles. The idea to keep things informal had been a last-minute revelation, a way to keep things light and private and friendly despite the tension. So far it’s been going exactly the way she had hoped. “You don’t have grandchildren. Hot dogs and mac and cheese are the way to a five-year-old’s heart.”
The promenade is surprisingly empty as they walk through the park. The streetlights and ambient city noise blend with the sounds of the rustling leaves and it reminds him of a simpler time. The food truck hot dog does, too.
And, of course, there’s the company.
It’s been a while since they’ve gotten to spend time together like this. Outside of work. He tries not to dwell on it – he’s desperately holding on to the hope that seems to fade more with every passing day. Kit admitted to having feelings for him then and he hopes that’s the case now, but she’s still avoiding talking to him and he’s wracked with a sudden anxiety that today will be his fall from grace in every regard, not just from the tenth floor. Today might be the day he really will lose everything. The thoughts have gripped hold now and there is so much thunder in his head right now and he can’t see anything through the storm.
He tries to put off what he fears is the inevitable disaster and hold on to what he can see now – a walk in the park. “Kit, we really don’t have to do this tonight.”
“There’s no time like the present.”
The vulnerability in him rises alongside his anxiety, and he disguises his response with petulance. “I get fired twice in one week and that’s when you decide you’re ready to talk?”
“You think…” Her eyes narrow at his accusation. “You think that I waited until you lost your job?”
“The timing is conspicuous.” He shrugs.
She stops walking and makes sure he does too. “Bullshit.”
“Oh, come on, Kit! It’s been over a month since you and I have said two words to each other about anything other than work and now all the sudden there’s no workplace divide. What the hell am I supposed to think?”
“You being my boss was never a factor.”
The icy tone makes him flinch and he tries to hold his convictions. He masks his own anger and fear and stares her down as she continues.
“It didn’t matter that you were C.E.O., or Chief of Surgery, or whatever else they used to call you around the hospital. That never mattered to me.”
Sometimes he forgets that she knows the tales of The Mighty HODAD, too. “Well, then why now?”
“I needed to be certain that I was in love with you, and it wasn’t just that I liked being loved by you. It took me a month to be certain because the last thing I wanted to do was lie to you about something this important and risk losing you entirely, and because I’m not used to questioning myself every night. And today, when you told me about my contract, it became clear that I don’t want to waste another day not telling you that you are loved, Randolph.”
Randolph shoves his hands in his pockets. He is still skeptical and a little upset, and a little guilty that he has been treating this like a one way street despite knowing better. He knows what it has taken for both of them to get here and his guilt and uncertainty mix with admiration as he repeats her words to himself.
But Kit won’t let him get away with his approach. He is stronger than he lets on and she won’t let him get away with his tactics of provocation.
“You haven’t said anything in a month, either.” She fires back.
“I was giving you the space you asked for.”
“You also didn’t say anything that night. You didn’t try to influence me at all.”
“It wasn’t my place.”
Her expression drops and Randolph hates that look. He hates when she’s scared and small and hates even more that he’s the reason she feels that way.
“Have… have your feelings changed?” She asks quietly.
“No. No, they haven’t.” His response is firm and immediate. He sighs heavily and walks up the bridge, leans against the half wall and looks out onto the pond below. “If anything, they’ve gotten stronger. That’s why this is so hard.”
Kit stays just out of his periphery to really take him in, his features softened by the reflective glow of the city lights. There’s so much to his story, a torment and a radiance that are indescribable, like the tree that blows in a midnight storm – bending and swaying but never breaking, silhouetted in the darkness and impossible to capture on film.
He wears so much of the beautiful anguish on his face and yet never sees the brilliance himself.
All she can do is hope that he will let her discover the rest of who he is. The tree that remains after the winds and rain have died down, illuminated by the rising moon. The branches strong and leaves green, brightened by the promises of tomorrow, still standing tall after years of storms. The roots and the knots and the rings within. She hopes that he will allow her to hold the mirror in front of him and show him the splendor of the landscape that she sees every time she sees him.
“I never should have gone back to him, I was just so scared that I’d lose him. Brett has been a part of my life for almost forty years. But you were right… I wanted to be comfortable.” He is still looking out over the water but she knows he’s listening by the way he holds his breath. “I did the wrong thing eight months ago, but I’m not about to make the same mistake again.”
“Don’t you want a shot at happiness?” Randolph resigns as he turns back to face the water.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” He is flippant and short, but he’s exhausted and she’s still not even really talking to him.
“Don’t pretend that’s what this is about. I made my decision, and my decision was to stay here, with you, like I am right now.”
The veiled anger is back in her voice, and he twists his neck and tries to hear her, to really hear her through the thunder between his ears.
“I don’t want to be comfortable, Randolph, I want to live. I want to do my job and make a difference and fight for what I believe in, and to be with someone who will make me want to be more than who I am. I want a partner – someone I can fight with and fight beside. Someone I can challenge, and someone who will challenge me, who I can protect as much as they protect me. I know that I have that when I’m with you.” Kit touches his arm and brings him to look at her. “I want to be beside you.”
The words hang between them for a long time. She searches his face for something, anything, and only finds a small relief in how the corners of his mouth twitch upwards to mirror hers. He’s backlit by the streetlights and the reflections off of the pond and it amplifies the sorrow below, the wounds that have come from years of fighting and losing. The scars make him who he is and it’s part of the reason she’s so drawn to him.
It’s a best case scenario, really, hearing her say what he’s been thinking about for a year. But there’s one more big fear looming, one he’ll never forgive himself for if it comes true. “What if I can’t make you happy?”
His question is a fork of lightning – filled with an energy so powerful it can ignite anything in its path and brighten the entire sky in a mere second. She doesn’t see it strike a branch or break him in two like he thinks it will; no, all she sees is the way it streaks across the midnight sky and illuminates him entirely – the fear and the hope and desire to be more, brightened by the fire of the seven words he speaks into existence. It’s remarkable.
“You make me feel known, and understood, and strong…” she cradles his jaw and smooths over some of the lines around his eyes with every word. She doesn’t want to heal the scars, she knows she can’t, but she can show him that his story is not just storms of the past and present, but that the future holds sun and warmth. “With you I feel loved.”
His head drops to his chest, like he can’t carry the weight of it, so she brings her other hand to the other side of his jaw and holds it for him. She kisses his forehead long and slow until the worry lines fade away under her touch. He leans into the hand that stays on his jaw and meets her clear brown eyes as she speaks.
“Let me show you how much you mean to me.”
The clouds in his head have cleared just enough to let the moonlight shine down on him and he can see a path forward, the morning just a distant memory. He almost doesn’t recognize the feeling but he knows it must be true because his chest is warm, and there’s a force beside him that he knows can withstand any storm.
Her hands are wrapped around his bicep, and she’s been asking him half questions about how they’ll work this out and how slow to take things since their breakthrough but there’s one more question left, one that she couldn’t find an answer to.
“Why didn’t you speak up when I first told you I loved you that night?”
The words still send a spark up his spine and he wonders if she can see the way it relieves the muscles in his back. He wants to hear them again and again. “You already knew how I felt about you, and I – I didn’t want to be the other man. I didn’t want to break up your relationship.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The affair, the excuse… the other man.” He shrugs. He knows it will sound pathetic and vulnerable and childish, but he tells the truth. “I waited for you to make your own choice because I didn’t want to be a reason you ran from something else… either you wanted to be with me intentionally, or not at all.”
She stops walking and wraps her arms around his neck, stretches to meet his lips. She kisses him slowly and waits for him to respond and when he does, it’s magical. He pulls her closer and she swallows the rough sigh he’s been holding in. She’s been waiting for this all night, all month, and probably for some time before, but the way he responds tonight she knows it’s not just lust and passion but that it holds the full weight of what’s been in his chest for even longer. He shows it all in how his mouth moves over hers, soft and strong and without any sign of thunder – only radiant moonlight.
She breaks away and kisses along his jaw and holds the back of his head, anchors him to her. He buries himself in the crook of her neck as she whispers against his ear.
“I love you on purpose.”