Work Text:
but fix your eyes on me // I guess I’m all you have // and I swear you’ll see the dawn again
Guiding Light – Mumford and Sons
The words fall easily in the darkness of the locker room. With no one around to hear it, she wonders if she will even make a sound.
“Randolph, it’s me. I know it’s late, but I… I needed to hear your voice.”
Kit drops the phone to her chest and leans back against the wall. It’s not like this case was the worst of her life. The day isn’t even close to the worst, but it hits her at once. And every time she calls he answers, and he seems to pick up on her state of mind and can recenter her in under ten carefully curated words. She needs that friendly voice tonight to remind her that it is only one day, and that tomorrow will be a new one.
One glance at the clock and she realizes why the call went to voicemail.
“Give me a call when you get this.”
The call hangs open for four seconds before she turns the phone over and sighs. Embarrassment sets in and she debates calling back and telling him to disregard and not to worry, but the pager detracts what little attention she has remaining. As she trudges towards the ER, she hopes that the incoming case is nothing more than a broken finger or sprained ankle.
She’s not sure she can handle more than that.
…
When she finally changes out of the soiled scrubs, she can hardly keep her eyes open. She’s running on fumes after an extended double shift on call, and she is under two minutes away from calling a cab instead of driving herself home. There are no unread messages or missed calls and while she doesn’t blame him for not returning the voicemail, it doesn’t make things any easier. She really wanted to talk to him tonight.
When the cool air of the employee lot hits her face, she can’t believe her eyes.
Parked right next to her car is a black sedan, like it was this afternoon when she arrived, and leaning against the trunk is a beacon of light in a hooded sweatshirt. His back straightens when she approaches, and everything goes dark except for him.
He’s like a mirage.
It’s late enough that no one they work closely with is there to pass judgement but even if they were, she wouldn’t care about passing her car and walking directly to him. It used to be that she would take an Advil PM and sleep days like this away but now, for the first time ever, she finds herself wanting the company of one person in particular. Tonight, it’s more along the lines of needing.
It’s instinctive.
He doesn’t say anything when she approaches, but his eyes speak for him. Wordlessly, Randolph opens the passenger door and stays outside the car until she gets in, not accepting no for an answer. The car is still warm from the drive and there’s a travel mug in the cupholder, because he’s been fighting off sleep while he waits outside the hospital at two in the morning.
No words are shared over the drive and Kit stares out the window, following the streetlights she recognizes until they diverge from the ones she knows lead the way to her townhouse.
The car turns right on Arden and she knots her brow. “This isn’t…”
“It’s not open for debate.” He makes another turn and keeps his tone light but firm. “I don’t know what happened, but I can hear it in your voice. You’re staying with me tonight.”
She shakes her head. “I’m f—”
“I know you are,” he interrupts. Three streetlights go by, steady as always, and he drops his hand to the gear shift. “All you have to do tonight is sleep, Kit.”
She wants to fight it and stick up for her independence, to not be treated like a child or broken glass, but his tone is gentle and she really just wants to sleep. There’s already so much that happens between them that is never mentioned again, moments shared that don’t go beyond one night or the walls of someone’s home, this is likely to be another one of those. Whatever happens tonight, only they will know about it.
Everything. Including the phone call, the voicemail, and the travel mug of coffee. Everything is inconsequential, because she’s truly too tired to do anything beyond fall into his caring embrace.
She blinks herself awake when he puts the car in park and follows to his apartment in a daze. Randolph unlocks the door, takes her coat, and shows her to the only bedroom. The bed is made, a t-shirt folded atop the quilt at the bottom, one she’s not sure she’s seen before.
Kit turns around in the doorway and takes him in. There’s so much she wants to say but none of it comes out as words. She wants to apologize, to thank him, to say nothing and fall asleep, and she wants to tell him things she’s never said out loud but thinks about all the time.
Instead, she turns her eyes upwards, and whispers the first thing that comes to mind.
“Randolph.”
He puts two hands on her shoulders and quiets whatever would have come next.
“I’m glad you called,” he says. He kisses her forehead, lingers for a few seconds until he feels her shoulders soften, then turns her inside. “If you need anything else, don’t bother asking. What’s mine is yours.”
What’s mine is yours.
The condo, the bedroom, his heart… she hears it in his voice. Everything catches up with her again and her head falls forward against his shoulder. Her hands fist into the fabric over his back and she breathes in the strong scent of him.
“I don’t know why this is so… I don’t know. I’m s—”
“No.” He holds her a little tighter. “No apologies, no questions asked. Get some rest, Kit.”
“You’re not staying?”
He nods towards the couch and twitches a shy smile. The lines between them have been blurred for months, so much he can hardly see them sometimes. Ever since she tested positive it’s been harder to stay away or leave her alone, no matter what the circumstances are. Any hour, any reason, he’ll come when she calls.
“Not tonight,” he finally answers. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
He nudges her inside, shuts the door, and she can breathe.
When her alarm sounds and she wakes in a bed that is decidedly not hers, wearing his t-shirt, it sobers her quickly. Six fifteen comes too soon and with it, a reminder of having worked a double. She doesn’t remember much about how she ended up here, but she does remember the case. That must be the reason she’s here. Another memory stirs, of a voicemail left from the floor of the seventh floor on-call room. And then one of a refuge in the parking lot.
She changes out of his shirt and folds it neatly before splashing some water on her face. It’s Saturday, which means he’s got a half-shift in the morning, and her car is still in the lot at Chastain. She doesn’t know how many hours she’s slept, only that it wasn’t enough, but she does know that she has to get up before she ends up spending all day in his home.
There is a blanket across the couch and a pillow nearby, and the faint sounds of movement emanate from the kitchen. Randolph smiles gently as she comes into focus, and holds up the pot of coffee in his hands, a silent offering.
He adds a splash of almond milk into the warmed mug and passes it to her. “It’s half-caf,” he says.
Her eyes close with the first sip of hot coffee, prepared almost perfectly. He makes it stronger than she does. Perhaps that’s for the best this morning.
“My car is still at the hospital,” she says. “Would you mind giving me a ride back when you go in?”
The expression on her face is unreadable; like she’s switched back into the executive persona, never showing all of her cards and saying what she thinks she should say. But he’s not sure it’s what she wants to say.
His heart is still trying to recover from how her voice sounds, thick with sleep and raw, so he lowers his voice and takes a chance. “You’re welcome to stay here, you know.”
“I should be going.”
“But you don’t need to.” She goes quiet and turns away, and he flexes his hand in his lap. “I’m only working until noon today, it’s only for a few hours.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re exhausted. You worked a 20-hour shift and slept for four. I can drive you back now, or I can do so after you’ve had a chance to properly rest.”
Her jaw clenches and she lets out a slow exhale. She wants to be upset, and to reiterate that he is not her keeper. But she knows when he’s pushing, and this time, it’s like he’s leaving the door open for her to walk through or to shut. It’s not overstepping or demanding, the decision is entirely on her.
She looks into the warm mug of coffee and then back to him, buttoning a flannel shirt in the dim light of his kitchen. It looks as soft as she feels.
“Are you sure?" She asks.
“Of course.” He turns the collar of the shirt down, leans closer against the counter, and lowers his voice. “All I ever want is for you to be safe.”
The voicemail itself is hazy, much like the last few hours of his shift, but she thinks that might have something to do with the specificity of his comment. The thing is, she feels so much more than safe.
Kit covers his hand with hers and avoids his eyes. “Thank you.”
He takes the mug back from her and takes a sip so it doesn’t go to waste. “I’ll be back around 12:30. There’s towels in the closet. The kitchen is sparse right now, but help yourself to anything you can find.”
“Don’t drink my coffee.”
He takes another long drink from the mug and holds her stare. “Make yourself a fresh pot in a few hours,” he smirks. “Go back to bed.”
He turns away but her hand catches the sleeve of his shirt and keeps him there. Her eyes search for his and she follows the nervous bob of his Adam’s apple when her fingers curl around his wrist.
“You are my saving grace,” she says quietly.
It takes everything he has not to tell her what she is to him. Her hand is burning over his arm and if he doesn’t go now, he’ll crawl right back into bed next to her and then the lines really will be blurred forever.
Instead, he makes a show of looking to his watch and pretends to be running late.
“Go. Go save lives. I’ll be here.”
He kisses her cheek quickly and peels away with a quick, “I’ll be back before one,” and lets her go back to the bedroom without addressing… any of that. If he lets it take up any more of the morning, he really won’t be able to focus on rounds. Kit seems to have a similar approach, because she goes back towards the bedroom and closes the door behind her.
…
He drops his keys by the door and when enters the apartment, Kit is curled into the armchair with a book. The clothes are the same as what she wore home from the hospital, but her hair is tied back and she takes the glasses off when she sees him. The thin black frames retake their place on the end table and his stomach flips at how easily she borrowed his pair.
“Hey,” he says. “I can drop you off whenever you’re ready.”
She stands up and crosses her arms in front of her chest. “Actually, I, um… that can wait. I feel I should explain my behavior.”
“Kit…”
“Before you say, ‘you don’t have to’, I want to talk to you about how I wound up in your bed this morning.”
Most of the morning rounds had been spent trying not to picture her, asleep in his bed, or wondering whether she’d still be there when he got back. Kit has a key for emergency purposes, just like he has one to her place, but he hoped that she would at least say goodbye before wordlessly disappearing into the weekend.
He settles into the couch and she takes a steadying breath. “Late last night, I was tending to a gentleman who presented with a wrist fracture. He’d fallen on the stairs while leaving the office where he was working late with a friend. It was hardly surgical, but she brought him in to the emergency room to get checked out. She seemed more nervous than he was, so I pulled her aside when the x-rays were being taken.” Kit wrings her hands, looking towards the floor when she continues. “She was sweating, her pulse was racing, and then all of the sudden, she collapsed.”
He waits silently as the color fades from her face with each passing second.
“The cardiologists said that she had a blockage, and the clot must have traveled to her brain with the stress. She was dead before she even hit the floor.”
“God. That’s awful.”
“At the same time, the man who was barely hurt in the first place was being fitted for a cast. He went on about how blue was Cindy’s favorite color and since he fell trying to ask her out, maybe looking down and seeing something that reminded him of her would give him the courage to tell her how he felt.” She clears her throat and tries to continue with a level voice. “Once he calmed down from the shock of her death, he told me that he had been a fool. He wasted so much time moving forward because the friendship was the best thing in his life, but now he would never know what could have been if he just told her how he felt about her.”
It’s a carbon copy of how he feels, except with tragedy to punctuate. Already there is nothing worse than when a routine case turns to tragedy, but when work begins to echo the personal…
“You hear it, too, don’t you?” She wonders aloud, like she can read his mind.
“Yes.”
“I could not stop thinking about what might happen if one day I woke up and you weren’t there,” she says quietly. “I needed to know you would be there. For you to tell me you would see me tomorrow, like you always do. And… maybe also for you to tell me that everything would be alright.”
She turns to see his eyes in the sunlight, brighter now than they were last night, but still deep blue. The color they get when he’s under the surgical lights or working on a puzzle. Intensely focused.
“You didn’t return my call.”
His heart sinks. “I —”
“But you…” she looks to the ceiling and smiles in disbelief, “you showed up in the middle of the night and took me in your arms and lay me to rest. Without questions, arguments, or hesitation. Randolph, you knew what I needed even when I didn’t. And never for a minute did I doubt that you would.”
He holds his breath when she rises from the chair and joins him on the couch. He’s holding his heart in his hands and they’re on a precipice. No matter the direction, and she wants to be there when they fall, right next to him.
Time passes slowly and he’s reminded of the anecdote that started it all. Randolph cranes his neck and straightens his back.
“That is what we do for the ones we love.”
Her hand rises to his cheek, tracing slowly across his jaw and memorizing the way the muscles move under her hand, and he turns into the contact. Kit follows his eyes until hers flick to his lips and she can’t hold the truth in any longer.
“I love you,” she whispers. “I love you. I love y—”
Her voice breaks and he wraps his arms around her shoulders and pulls her close. One hand holds the back of her head when she buries into the crook of his neck and the rest of the words and whispers catch in his shirt. Her breathing slows down and with it, his heart rate, and it gives him time to hear what she’s said.
Three words he’s only heard himself say in dreams.
His heart has slowed but it’s still thundering against his chest because she’s making confessions on the edge of tears and he can’t tell what’s real and what’s pent up emotional release after a long night. There’s a catalyst, a tragic dual narrative to their own situation that complicates three words like that. And it’s bothering him.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Kit loosens her grip enough to rest her forehead against his cheek. “I’m not only saying it because of the case.”
His fingers curl under her chin and tilt it upwards. He leans closer, close enough to feel her breath against his lips. Gone is the apprehension from his eyes, replaced by a light that rivals the sunlight.
“I’m not thinking about the case,” he says.
His lips flutter against hers in a kiss so soft and sure it pulls at his chest. She chases the contact when he pulls back but her eyes are still closed and she doesn’t make it far.
“I love you, Randolph.”
Words catch in his throat and he can’t look away from her smile. She’s said it at least five times now and each time it’s clear but there’s this ringing in his ears that makes him wonder whether this is all some kind of dream.
“You do?”
Her smile lights up with the dumbfounded question and she smiles against his lips. “Something wrong with your ears?”
The jokes that normally settle him sour his stomach instead. His hands catch around her wrists and he moves away. “Kit, I’m serious.”
She hates that look. The one that says he’s doubting his instincts and his feelings, and worse, he’s doubting whether he’s deserving of a great love. She tries to get back into his line of vision but his stare is focused on her hands.
“Hey, look at me.” She turns his hands over and finally he looks up. “I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true.” She raises a hand to his chest and flattens it over his heart, rising and falling with his deep breath. “I don’t understand it all, not yet, but there is not a doubt in my mind how I feel about you and I don’t want time to pass by without you knowing.”
Knowing. If Kit is one thing she is honest, and she speaks her mind. He certainly knows now and while it’s all rattling around between his ears, he’s done sitting in turmoil.
Now is the time to speak with action.
His hands come to her jaw and he doesn’t waste another second before kissing her again. He puts everything into it and when she sighs into his mouth he holds her even closer, wrapping an arm around her back and fighting the urge not to roll her under him. It’s mid-afternoon on a Saturday and he’s running on four hours of sleep, too, so he does need 30 minutes to close his eyes but right now he never wants to open them. All he wants is to feel like this.
Kit breaks away to breathe and presses a long kiss to his cheek.
“I love you, too,” he whispers.
“I know.”
She keeps her hand against his chest and he breathes a relieved, mildly embarrassed sigh when she smiles back to him with a teasing sparkle in her eye. His arm spreads over the back of the couch so he can run two fingers over her shoulder, tangling in some of the stray hairs that escape the messy bun.
“Would you like to stay a while?” He asks.
His eyes have fallen to follow the movement of his hand and a wave of heat settles low in her stomach. She releases the elastic and sets the wild curls free, shaking her head to help increase the volume. The heat skyrockets when he stops breathing, fully focused on the way her hair falls over his hands, and she leans closer. His fingers tighten instinctively at the nape of her neck when she bites her lip.
Inches away from his mouth, she whispers, “I would love to.”