Chapter Text
She doesn’t know why she’s here. She could have passed the time at home, going through the motions of routine in preparation to slumber away through dreams she won’t remember upon waking. Instead, she’s sitting in a bar off Millvale, biding her time in a place that would have ended in blackouts and benders if she were a decade and change younger, the condensation of the Sprite she’s been nursing for an hour running over her fingertips like tears.
Woof. She’s melancholic tonight.
Even if she can’t participate in the actual drinking, just being in the space feels like letting a load off. It’s the atmosphere of it all, a placebo she’s only comfortable participating in because it’s been a decade since her last relapse, and she’s more than managed not falling victim to her own desires since. Even with tomorrow in plain view and all the anxiety surrounding it, she is not reaching for the thing she’s never been able to moderate. She knows better now.
It should be an exciting prospect—her first shift in a highly regarded hospital—but the sizable boulder in the bottom of her stomach won’t leave. Perhaps it’s because tomorrow will be the first official day of her starting over at forty-four, solidifying an arduous move across the country in the name of getting a “fresh start.”
Is it starting over, though, if she’s coming back home? The first eighteen years of her life were spent here, until she graduated high school and left this whole place behind. Now she’s crawling back on all fours after twenty-odd years of mistakes piled on top of each other, the only things worth taking along being her son and her medical degree.
She’s spent the last few weeks waiting for her Pennsylvania medical license to finalize and trying to settle in, secretly licking her wounds because it feels like moving backwards. There was nowhere else to go, though, and she figured she might as well follow the pull, like a string tugging on her body, that has always tethered her to this city. Who knows? Maybe she’ll find something worth staying for this time around.
“Did that bottle of Jameson kill your family or somethin’?”
She startles, pulled out of her stupor by a woman sitting a few stools away, looking at her in amusement.
“Sorry?”
“You’ve been staring at it for ten minutes. I started to wonder if I should have gone with Jim Beam instead.”
She points behind the bar. “They have Maker’s Mark here, and you’re telling me you went with Jameson?”
The woman laughs, a high, throaty sound, and it warms her insides better than whiskey ever could.
“Stockholm Syndrome. Jameson was the only thing my parents kept in the house,” she explains.
“I guess I’ll let it slide, then.”
The woman stands, coming closer to slide into the stool next to hers. She puts out her hand for a shake. “Dana.”
She slides her palm against this stranger’s, something inside her fluttering at the feel. “Cassie.”
“Nice to meet you, Cassie.” The woman—Dana, she thinks, her name is Dana—nods at her glass on the counter. “What are you having?”
Cassie looks at her drink, trying to decide how truthful she wants to be tonight. “Uh, Sprite.”
Dana’s smile morphs into a smirk, one eyebrow rising. “They have alcohol here, and you’re tellin’ me you went with Sprite?”
She breathes out a laugh, looking down. “Touché.” She looks back up, flitting her eyes across the rows and rows of bottles. “I have to drive, so I figured I better play it safe.”
“Admirable.”
Cassie looks back at this woman next to her, starting to catalogue her features. She’s probably a little older than herself, but not more than a decade. Her platinum blonde hair is streaked with silver near the front, the lines on her face a combination of old smiles and exhaustion. She’s beautiful, and Cassie has to cough around the urge to tell her. Sprite always does make her courageous.
“So, uh,” she clears her throat, “what brings you in tonight?”
Dana eyes her sideways, smirking again. “Smooth.”
“Sorry.” Cassie feels her cheeks redden, willing the flush not to spread down her neck. “It’s been a long time since I made small talk with anyone.”
“What makes you think I want to talk small?”
There’s a suggestion there, but she isn’t quite sure what it means yet—this is Pittsburgh, in the middle of a bar that is one health code violation away from becoming a dive, not southern California where everyone is a little more fluid with things. But Dana is beautiful, and she’s waiting to see if Cassie will bite.
She does.
Turning in her stool, knees facing Dana, she asks, “Do you always spill your deepest, darkest secrets to strangers, or am I special?”
Dana smiles, turning too. “Only time will tell.”
She looks down at her watch, noting the time. “We got about half an hour before I have to leave.”
“Hot date?” Dana takes a sip of her drink, eyebrows raised innocently.
Cassie laughs, because it couldn’t be further from the truth. She shakes her head, “I’m waiting to pick my kid up from my parents’ house.”
“You from around here?”
“Used to be.” At Dana’s questioning look, she explains, “I grew up here but moved after high school.” A beat, as she remembers she’s here again, her brain still getting used to this new normal. “And now I’m back.”
Dana stares at her for a moment, eyes roaming over her face in a way that makes Cassie want to hide from the scrutiny. “Running from something?”
It could be another glib remark, but the way she asks it sounds like she wouldn’t mind hearing the real answer. Cassie looks away for a moment, running a hand over her mouth so she doesn’t reveal it. She doesn’t know this person—but the idea makes her want to open up even more. It’s a big city, and she never has to see Dana again. It wouldn’t hurt to be honest, but she also doesn’t want to burden this conversation with her past. She wants to pretend she’s somebody who’s never fucked up, if only for the next thirty minutes.
Leaning her head on her hand, propped up on the bar, she looks at Dana. What she finds is understanding, like Dana already knew she wasn’t going to answer, and the transparency of her own thoughts has her changing the subject: “What about you? Are you from here?”
“Born and raised,” Dana replies, voice full of pride.
“Never left?”
She knows the answer before Dana even says it, her accent lilting every word she’s said tonight.
Dana shakes her head. “Nope.”
“That’s a long time in Pittsburgh.”
“You’re tellin’ me.” Dana waves a hand, casting a glance around the room. “I’ve been coming to this place since I was sixteen.”
Cassie gestures to the necklace hanging around her neck, glinting in the low lights of the bar. “A good Christian like you was participating in underage drinking?”
Dana stirs the ice around in her drink with the straw, voice light. “Catholic, actually.”
“An even bigger sin, then.”
“There wasn’t much to do around here in the eighties, okay? Gimme a break.”
Cassie smiles, noticing the fidgets for what they are. “How about a smoke break?”
Dana’s eyebrows furrow, mouth quirking in a disbelieving smile. “How do you know I smoke?”
“Let’s just say I know what it looks like when someone’s craving something.”
It’s a version of the truth, and all Cassie is willing to divulge. She meant it; she wants to leave as many of her mistakes behind as she can, though she still wears some of the scars. An uncanny ability to read people just comes with the territory.
Instead of replying, Dana stands and starts walking towards a door near the back of the place. She looks over her shoulder once to see if Cassie is following and smiles when she finds her a few steps behind. Cassie thinks she would follow Dana anywhere if she kept smiling at her like that. It’s teasing but friendly, open yet enigmatic, and a mix of so many other things that Cassie wants to pick apart under a microscope, learning the nuances of this woman leading her outside, like a jigsaw with no reference picture.
It has been so long since Cassie allowed herself room to learn someone new. Most of the last ten years have been spent learning differentials and how to get a seven-year-old to eat brussels sprouts; how to suture methodically and set broken bones while ingraining twelve steps into her everyday values. Dana’s sudden appearance in an otherwise monotonous night is the most groundbreaking thing to happen in a long time, and Cassie wants to find out how it’s going to end.
The door leads to an alley running along the side of the bar, lit by a few errant streetlights on either end. She watches Dana’s ritual of pulling out a pack of Newports and packing it a few times against the palm of her hand. Reaching inside, she brings out one cigarette and offers it to her wordlessly, but Cassie shakes her head.
Shrugging, Dana sticks it between her lips and tries to light it, but the breeze blows the flame out before she can. Moving closer, Cassie cups her hands around Dana’s, who glances up briefly before focusing back on the tip glowing red in the night when she flicks the lighter again.
Once it’s lit, Cassie steps back and leans against the brick wall, her hair caught between her shoulder blades and the rough exterior. The breeze blows gently again.
“It’s warm for September,” Dana remarks.
“Climate change. I hear it’ll do that.”
She can see Dana roll her eyes, even in the dimness, and it brings a smile to her face. Dana leans against the brick wall opposite her, and they let the quiet of the night linger around them. Sirens wail somewhere in the distance, and it’s a heavy reminder of tomorrow, first-day jitters looming over her. Once again, she thinks she should be at home, resting for what is sure to be a very long day—but Harrison begged to go to the Steelers game her dad somehow acquired tickets for, and she couldn’t bring herself to say no. He’s being so good about it, but she’s been trying to make up for uprooting his entire life and moving him across the country anyway.
And now she’s here, watching a woman she just met puff on a cigarette like it’s the one good thing to happen to her today.
“You know,” Dana says, breaking the silence, “I had my first kiss here.”
“At…” Cassie tilts her head, peering at the building behind her while trying to remember the name. “Sonny’s Tavern?”
Dana smiles ruefully, glancing away for a moment before she points at their feet. “In this very spot, actually, doing the same thing with a boy I really,” she pauses, “shouldn’t have been talking to.” She looks up as she says the last part, eyes trying to communicate something Cassie doesn’t know the language for.
The unspoken suggestion sends a frisson down her spine anyway, and despite her better judgement—she’s completing a major life transition still in progress, she has to leave soon, this is a stranger, she has bigger things to focus on, but she’s so lonely—she leans into it. “That so?”
Her eyes were hazel in the bar, but they’re dark gray in the night, turning darker every second. Dana murmurs, “Seems the past has a way of repeating itself.”
Flicking the ash, Dana focuses her gaze back on the ground. It’s the first time she’s shown any sort of bashfulness, and it’s endearing in a way Cassie doesn’t expect. Everything about Dana is unexpected. It pulls her forward, closing the distance between them until she can almost feel the warmth of Dana’s body radiating against her own. Cassie reaches out, tentatively, waiting to be stopped, but the halt never comes.
She slides her fingers along the edge of Dana’s jaw, slowly, lightly, like she’s twelve and her biology teacher has just explained the precisely delicate touch it requires to dissect an earthworm, skin thin and body small. Cassie treated that creature with such reverence before she even knew what it meant to worship something, child-sized hands timidly cutting open its body with scissors to peer at what’s inside, knowing something had just clicked into place inside her own.
Cassie finds herself going about Dana the same way now, curious about this woman who has been plopped in front of her like a prize offering, who has been watching and waiting and reacting to Cassie all night. She wants to know what she would find if she cracked Dana open right now, what’s underneath all her sly turns of phrase, lingering in the shadowed corners of viscera and the tissues that make them up.
She wants to kiss her.
“Tell me to stop and I will,” Cassie whispers, pushing a strand of hair behind Dana’s ear, lingering on the soft feeling of her skin underneath her fingertips. If the condensation felt like tears, this feels like silk on a cool day.
Dana shakes her head, but not enough to knock loose the hold Cassie has on her jaw. She still won’t meet her eyes, and Cassie bends her knees a little in search of them. When she does find them, she sees a thunderstorm of gathering clouds, pooling in the depths of her irises. Dana is battling something, that much is obvious. The only question is whether or not she’ll win. Cassie doesn’t particularly care what it is.
Leaning in feels like tempting fate, but she does it anyway, keeping Dana still with the hand on her face, bringing her own close enough until their noses touch and their eyes fall closed. They’re breathing the same air, and Cassie parts her lips around it, feeling the faint brush of Dana’s lips doing the same. So close, they’re so close, all they have to do is lean in a fraction more—and it’s possibly the most tantalizing, sickly sweet experience Cassie has ever had, here on the precipice with a woman she doesn’t know the slightest thing about. She tips forward a bit more, starting to slot her mouth where she wants it most, her bottom lip tucked almost perfectly between Dana’s, the air between them growing fainter. She smells like whiskey and bitters, and Cassie thinks she might taste like tobacco and liberation. Then—
Warm air blows gently around her once more, hand left empty as Dana takes a large step back. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, dropping her cigarette and snuffing it out with a foot.
Cassie shakes her head, feeling stupid and mortified. “Don’t be.”
Dana looks like she wants to say something else, explain the rift she put between them and why it feels like a rift at all. Cassie has to keep reminding herself they don’t know each other.
“I can’t—” She cuts off, avoiding her eyes again. Cassie thinks she looks equal parts terrified and remorseful, and she hates to think she caused either. Dana’s cross glints in the streetlights as she takes another step back. “I have to go,” she says.
Cassie watches her leave, walking down the side of the alley that leads to the parking lot in front of the bar, and swallowing the instinct to run after her and ask what she did wrong so she never does it again. Part of her feels like she just missed out on something important, but the idea is so romantic and ridiculous she tries to pretend the feeling doesn’t exist at all.
About two-thirds of the way gone, Dana makes a half-turn and hesitates. “It was nice meeting you, Cassie,” she calls, voice drifting along the breeze. Turning once more, she continues her exit and leaves Cassie’s sight a moment later.
All she’s left with is the faint thumping of the music inside, muffled by the door, and a longing she didn’t foresee.
*
The morning comes sooner than she wants, the gray light of a cloudy day starting to peer through her thin curtains. It faintly reminds her of a similar gray from last night, and the thought comes so unbidden she throws the covers off and stands, trying to shake it loose. The last thing she needs right now is a haunting.
Hot water from the showerhead pours over her, cleansing and purifying until she feels ready enough to face the day. Half her time is eaten up trying to get Harrison out of bed, having gone to bed later than normal because of the game. He is all groggy pouts, brushing his teeth and combing his hair with eyes half closed from exhaustion. She’d feel worse about it if she hadn’t told him in no uncertain terms that a late night watching the Steelers (most likely) lose on a school night would not mean a free pass the next day.
Cassie is zipping his lunchbox closed when she checks the time, cursing under her breath. “Harrison, come on,” she yells down the hall, “we’re going to be late!”
They were supposed to leave five minutes ago, the time crunch exacerbated by the fact she’s supposed to get to the hospital a little early to get a rundown from the chief attending. Harrison rounds the corner a second later, somehow still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
“I don’t know why I had to get up early just because you had to,” he mumbles.
Cassie sighs, struck by her luck, once again, that this is the extent of his attitude. “Regrettably, you are too young to drive.” She picks his backpack up from the floor of the entryway, holding it out for him to slide his arms through.
“When I get my driver’s license, I’m gonna get up at the last possible second.”
She laughs, grabbing a zip-up from one of the hooks near the door. “I have no doubt about that. Now put your shoes on.”
Somehow, he falls asleep in the short car ride to his school; her glance back in the rearview mirror to find his body slumped against the window brings a smile to her face. She lowers the radio when she pulls through to the drop-off lane, reaching back to gently shake him awake. “Hey, bud. Time to go.”
He blearily opens his eyes, looking out the window. The change happens in an instant, right before her eyes. One second he is her sleepy son, small and precious—the next he is tween boy, excited by the thought of meeting up with his friends to discuss the last chapter they all read in Captain Underpants. She’s honestly just happy he’s reading at all.
Unbuckling his seatbelt, Harrison leans across the seats to quickly wrap an around her before clambering out of the car. He yells a bye, love you! right before slamming the door, and then she is alone again. There is nothing to distract her now.
Cassie mapped out the route from the middle school to the hospital twice, figuring out which roadways were least likely to make her late, so she already knows the way. Anticipation builds with each traffic light, and the nerves make her feel young and not cut out for whatever is waiting at the destination. The imposter syndrome that plagued her all throughout medical school lessened with each year of her residency, as her hands steadied and her diagnoses became more resolute, but it comes roaring back the closer she gets to PTMC.
After she parks her car and gets lost only once, trying to avoid pulling out her phone to pull up the welcome email she received a week ago in hopes of not looking like a newcomer that doesn’t know her way around—even though that’s exactly what she is—she finally finds her way into the emergency department only a minute behind schedule.
The place is already busy, nurses and doctors, and everyone else it takes to keep a department like this running, walking circles around her as she stares helplessly at the growing bustle. She’s about to stop a kind-looking woman in gray scrubs and ask for help when she hears a voice beside her.
“Dr. McKay?”
Cassie turns, coming face-to-face with a tall, older man in a navy hoodie. His badge tells her this is exactly who she is looking for, and she shakes his hand in greeting. His face is haggard in the way most chief attendings of emergency departments are.
“I’m Dr. Robinavitch, but everyone calls me Robby.” He spreads his arm out, indicating the finely tuned mess before them. “Welcome to the Pitt.”
She smiles genuinely. “Happy to be here.”
“Let me show you around.”
He leads her around the place, pointing out where the crash carts are and the curved hallway that leads to more beds, even though most of them will be filled by nine. He points out her locker, pulling a slip of paper out of his pocket with the combination—I forgot to print it out so I had our charge nurse write it down, but don’t worry, your secrets are safe with her—giving her a moment to shove her things inside before the rest of the tour.
Bringing her back to the station in the middle of the floor, he points above their heads. “And this is where you’ll come to check the board, look at assignments, all that stuff. Our charge nurse is around here somewhere…” He swivels his head, looking around.
While he searches, Cassie peers at the board, going over names and symptoms and room numbers. Faintly, she registers Robby moving behind her, grabbing the attention of someone. Cassie turns when she hears her name, catching the last of his sentence.
“...our newest addition to dayshift.”
Everything goes sort of weird for a moment when the image of the woman standing in front of her registers, like somebody turned her vision’s sharpness and saturation up to one hundred percent.
What the actual—
“Dana Evans,” Dana-from-last-night says, holding a hand out to Cassie like they haven’t already done this. Less than twelve hours ago, she might add. “Nice to meet you.”
This is very, very bad, she thinks, as she slides her hand against Dana’s and pretends it’s the first time she’s felt that smooth skin against her own.
“Likewise,” she says, forcing a smile onto her face. It’s all she has in her arsenal, the shock still rendering her higher faculties useless.
Dana seems unperturbed, however, not a hair out of place. She is still so beautiful and even further out of reach—because as she drops her hand, and Cassie’s eyes are pulled to the movement of Dana’s doing the same, it is only then she sees the glint of a simple, gold band on her left hand that was sure as hell not there last night.
When she looks back up, she catches Dana watching her make the realization, right eyebrow twitching, a gentle clench of her jaw as the inevitable conclusion settles over both of them like a lead paperweight.
Cassie is, completely and totally and utterly, fucked.