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Samira does not enjoy the 4th of July. Frankly, this country has turned into such a fucking mess that she's unsure what exactly there is to celebrate, and she understands even less why it has to be celebrated quite so noisily.
Her enjoyment of the 4th is further diminished if she's working, but, thankfully, this year she was on day shift, and when the clock strikes seven pm, she is officially done with work.
Still, by the time she has seamlessly handed over all her patients to the night shift, it's just past eight and she's ready to go home and collapse into bed, maybe text Jack to see how he's doing. He texted her the day before, a bit more clipped than he usually was, to tell her he wasn't scheduled tonight.
She knows why, of course; fireworks of all kinds have already been ringing through Pittsburgh the past few days and she can't imagine that's a very comfortable experience if you're a traumatized vet. A part of her was surprised to hear it, though, because she expected him to come in anyway and work a double or something equally stupid out of sheer spite and the need to prove something to himself.
Mateo and Cassie accosting her as she was walking away from the lockers and talking her into “a drink or two" was decidedly not her plan, but since PittFest she had been trying to socialize more, if only to assuage Cassie's and Dana's worry, so she reluctantly agrees and finds herself at a bar not half an hour later.
It's actually a pretty nice evening. They don't stay for too long, but there's something surprisingly comfortable about being at a packed bar and belonging to the chattering and laughing crowd tucked into a corner.
Samira enjoys herself. She goes from discussing the new season of a show they both watch with Donahue to giving Victoria and Mateo tips for their first vacation as a couple to Trinity mentioning that Dennis probably isn't going to move out anytime soon and that said fact is surprisingly okay with her.
Eventually, they all start to head out in smaller groups and Samira, after wishing everyone a good night, steps outside just as the sun sets. She checks her phone and when she finds nothing new from Jack, she can't help the worry that slides through her. She gnaws on her bottom lip in silent contemplation before shooting him a quick ‘How are you?’. There, that's casual enough for what they are, right?
Samira is never quite sure how to talk to him when they're not falling into bed with each other. There's a tension there that snaps to life between them in the quiet moments after. The time she spends at his place in the morning, when he wordlessly pushes a cup of coffee in her hands and tells her to have a good day when she inevitably gets dressed to go back to her own apartment. There's the look he sometimes gives her when they're both sated and relaxed, something too intense to be nothing and too tender to be sexual.
But Samira isn't sure it's not just wishful thinking brought on by how lonely she still gets, despite her efforts in the friends department. Who is she kidding— it's Jack specifically she'd like to have around.
He's… comfortable might be the best way to put it. She likes talking to him and hasn’t yet found a topic he doesn't have something funny, interesting or surprisingly insightful to add to. His company is easy and she feels something bone-deep relax inside her when she's around him.
But she doesn't want to jeopardize what they have now. It's enough for her, these stolen moments of togetherness scattered among the rest. His mouth on hers, her legs wrapped around him, a hand in his silver curls— she doesn't want to lose any of that, and if that's as much as Jack can give her, that's fine. Like she said; it's enough for her. Most days.
With a sigh, Samira puts her phone back in her pocket and tries not to jump at the sound of a volley of firecrackers going off a block or two away.
She can't even imagine how Jack is faring right now.
She should have asked him to come over under the guise of her being horny. Maybe fucking her would have distracted him. And if not, they could have just… talked. Or watched a movie or something. God, she's in too deep. Samira has the bad feeling that this whole thing is not going to end well for her, but she's not sure what she's supposed to do about it.
Her place isn't far from the hospital or the bar they found, but it is a bit too far to walk, so she takes the bus. Despite the drunk horde of frat boys that take up more than half the seats, it's an uneventful ride and before she knows it, she's at the station next to her apartment complex.
The odd firework has turned into a downright torrent of bangs and explosions, loud and deafening, which is why she nearly misses the whimper that rings through the street of her apartment.
She pauses, brows furrowed. That sounded like it came from the direction of the door to her apartment complex.
When she steps closer, keys already in hand, and the light turns on, there's something curled up just in front of the doorframe.
It's a dog. One she recognizes as a blue heeler.
Its coat is black, speckled with white hairs that give it a blue-gray color, and its face is marked by that signature dark mask. The mask is broken up by two tan flecks where its eyebrows are, which gives it a surprisingly expressive face.
The dog must have heard her because its light brown eyes are fixed on her, big ears tilted towards her.
That's when Samira notices the shaking.
The dog must be terrified because it's trembling, almost vibrating out of its skin, and its eyes are wild and haunted. Something in her chest aches, and God, she hates this stupid holiday.
“Oh, no,” Samira says quietly, unsure what to do about this. She's qualified to put humans back together, not dogs. And truthfully, she’s always been more of a cat person.
When another firework goes off entirely too close to them, the dog flinches with a whimper and presses itself even harder into the corner between door and wall, gaze flickering from her to the alley beyond, then back to her.
Samira, her mind made up, kneels down and holds out her hand to the dog.
She barely has time to let out a surprised noise before the dog darts towards her, a blur of mottled fur. It doesn't bite her, though, just leans its weight against her, muzzle nosing at her hand like it would like to crawl inside her in an effort to escape the noise all around them.
Samira quickly notices three things now that the dog isn't curled up into a little ball in the corner. The first thing she realizes is that it's a lot bigger than she thought— not a big dog in any way, but stocky and solid. The second is that it's definitely a boy and the third is that he's missing half a hind leg. She has to take a picture to show Jack. He likes dogs. Samira isn't sure anymore how she knows that, but she does.
But pictures can wait. “Oh, you poor thing,” she says to the dog, voice as calm and tender as she can make it.
She experimentally cards a hand through the short fur of the dog's head. He pushes against her palm and when he can reach her hand with his snout, he slobbers all over her fingers in what is probably an enthusiastic greeting for a dog. Samira makes a face at the dog and her wet hand. Like she said, cat person.
But the dog is admittedly pretty cute, and more importantly, he's clearly terrified of the fireworks. Samira sighs, already knowing where this is going.
She gets up and the dog whines like he's afraid she's going to abandon him here. “I'm just trying to open the door. I'm not leaving you out here. I promise.”
Samira can't tell if he understands any of what she just said or at least the sentiment behind it. Maybe he did, because he stops his whining, instead electing to weasel between her legs as she fumbles with the keys. His tail is wagging, repeatedly hitting the back of her knees, but he's still shaking.
When she manages to unlock the door, the dog zips past it into the stairwell, moving surprisingly well on three legs. He pauses in front of the elevator, tail tucked again, to look back at her expectantly, like she's taking entirely too long.
Samira rolls her eyes with a huff, but her words are gentle when she says, “I'm saving your ass here, you know? Maybe give me a second or two.”
The dog tilts his head at her and doesn't answer.
“Figures,” Samira mutters, with a small smile. He really is cute. “I get the one rude dog in need of saving.”
She hurries up to close the door behind her, not wanting to torture the poor animal any longer.
The explosive noise from outside immediately quiets into a muffled drone. The dog starts wagging his tail again, tongue lolling out of its mouth, abruptly relaxed. He pushes a cold nose against Samira's hand as she comes to stand next to him.
“The elevator is always broken,” she tells him, absently petting one big ear. “My landlord keeps promising to fix it, but at this point I don't think I'll live to see the day.”
The dog doesn't know what to do with that statement, which is fair, because Samira doubts he has to deal with a lot of landlords in his life.
“Where did you come from?” she asks him, genuinely wondering.
He looks well-fed and despite the silver around his muzzle and the missing leg, he doesn't strike her as particularly frail. But there's no collar around his neck and it doesn't look like he had one previously, the fur undisturbed and flat.
She shrugs when the dog just keeps pushing into her hand and moves to start taking the stairs up to the second floor, then pauses as she realizes something.
She eyes what remains of the dog's right hind leg, then considers the stairs for a long moment. “I need to carry you up there, don't I?”
The dog pants at her. She nods defeatedly. “Yeah, that's what I thought.”
What follows is one of the most humbling experiences of Samira's life. She's just glad it's already pretty late by now, so her neighbors are asleep and unable to witness the chaos in the stairwell.
Because let it be known, carrying a squirming fifty-pound dog up two flights of stairs is no easy feat.
When they finally make it to her apartment, she's breathing heavily and her arms ache. She just barely manages to set the dog down without dropping him down the stairs.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” she says, hands resting on her knees as she tries to catch her breath. She shoots the dog a look. “I'm allowed to swear. Don't look at me like that.”
She drags a hand over her face with a sigh and unlocks her apartment. The dog is immediately gone. Samira drops her stuff in the entry hall and leans against the door with an aggravated groan. She's fucking exhausted, there's a scared dog in her apartment, and not even ten seconds in, she's already lost said dog.
This was not the relaxing night she promised herself.
She toes off her shoes, puts her keys on the hook she has for them, and goes in search of the dog.
She finds him in her bed, because of course she does.
He blinks up at her with big, big eyes from where he's curled up among the ridiculous number of pillows she has. She knows there are too many pillows, but she likes them, and it's not like anyone else ever sees her bedroom. The only candidate would be Jack, but they always meet at his place. They came to some silent understanding about that after the first few times it happened. Never in public and never at Samira's place.
She can't quite recall why she silently agreed to that. Maybe because it seemed very sensible and casual at the time and she was still trying to act like she wasn't pretty much head over heels for the guy.
Samira sighs again, hands on her hips and looks at the dog in her bed. “You are not who I wanted in my bed tonight,” she tells him with a slightly bitter smile. “At least don't get my sheets dirty, please.”
He tilts his head at her again and Samira huffs a laugh.
He really is very cute, but fuck, she can't care for a dog.
She has to find his owners tomorrow and if he doesn't have any, she has to find a shelter to drop him off at. The thought pains her but any dog deserves better than someone who regularly works more than twelve hours, and a heeler specifically deserves someone who actually likes hiking.
Until tomorrow, though, she can do her best to make the little guy as comfortable as possible.
Her thoughts get sidetracked on the way to the kitchen and she takes out her phone just to check if Jack has answered. But there's nothing new— he hasn't even read the message yet even though Samira can see that he's received it. She sighs and puts her phone away.
Instead of worrying about Jack, she decides to worry about the situation at hand and searches for a bowl she can fill up with water.
She returns to her bedroom and the dog—still curled up in the same place—looks up at her curiously. He has calmed down a bit, she notes, as she places the water bowl next to her bed in clear view.
“Please don't make a mess,” she tells him and his tail immediately starts wagging again. Samira laughs. “What? Do you like my voice?”
The dog doesn't answer, of course, but he does keep happily thumping its tail against one of her dozens of pillows. “Do you want me to talk to you?” she asks and takes the even more frenzied tail wagging that follows as agreement.
“I can do that,” she says. “What do you want to hear? I could tell you about my job. It's pretty cool, if I do say so myself.”
Later, Samira will be embarrassed to realize that she talks to the dog for almost two hours, but for the time being, she's happy to ramble and have someone listen. Even if he doesn't contribute much more than tail wagging and the occasional slobbery greeting when her hand gets close to his mouth while she's petting him. She tells him about her patients of the day, about hanging out with the others after the shift, and how it was starting to become a regular thing to her delight.
She also tells him about how it would be nice for Jack to at least answer her messages, then immediately feels bad for saying it, because for all she knows Jack might be having a mental breakdown over the constant crackling and popping outside and she can't do a single thing about it.
Samira doesn't unload all her—what even are they? They're not relationship troubles, because she and Jack aren't in a relationship, but they're certainly not friendship troubles either. Either way, Samira doesn't dump all her ‘Jack troubles’ on the dog because he’s a dog, not a therapist, and she's doing her best to do damage control when it comes to her own feelings about the situation.
After a while, she looks at the dog consideringly.
He still hasn't really moved, but Samira sat down next to him at some point, propped up by all her pillows and the headboard. He’s a solid line of warmth against the side of her thigh, comforting in a way. Samira didn't realize how much she wasn't looking forward to yet another evening spent in her quiet apartment.
“Oh,” Samira says then. “You must be hungry. Are you hungry?”
When she gets up, the dog whines, a discontent sound. Samira gentles him by softly drawing a hand down his flank. “You can come with me,” she says.
When he doesn't follow, she stretches out her hands while moving backwards, trying to bait him into following her. He loves slobbering all over her hand, after all, so maybe this is going to work.
It does work and before long there's a dog standing in Samira's kitchen as she roots through her fridge. “Can you eat raw chicken?” she asks him.
According to Google, dogs can technically have raw chicken, but cooking it is safer. She hums, not sure what to do. The chicken seems fine, but she doesn't really want to accidentally poison a dog.
Whatever, she's already in too deep anyway; might as well go the extra mile. It's not like being a bit overzealous is something new for Samira.
So she takes out a pan and starts cooking chicken after midnight on the 4th—technically the 5th—of July for a dog she found on her doorstep. And the chicken is unseasoned. What has her life come to?
At least the dog seems happy. He wolfs down the chicken in under fifteen seconds, then sits next to the plate she'd put onto the floor for him like he's waiting to see what she decides to do next.
Samira stares at him and he meets her gaze evenly. Maybe she shouldn’t be doing that. Wasn't there something her mother always said about challenging dogs by looking into their eyes?
The dog doesn't look particularly aggressive, though. On the contrary, he looks pretty happy and he stopped shaking somewhere during the hours Samira spent talking to him.
“I need to go to bed,” she tells him. “And you…” she trails off, finger pointed at the dog who is following attentively. “I guess you'll be coming to bed with me?”
Samira rolls her eyes at herself and sighs. Talk about bleeding hearts and being too compassionate. But she can't help it, so she gets ready to sleep while the dog returns to her bed like he belongs there. She isn't looking forward to parting ways with him. Maybe she could leave her number at the shelter to visit him? That has to count as socializing.
It probably doesn't, but Cassie doesn't have to know her conversation partner of choice is a dog.
By the time Samira is ready for bed, the dog has somehow wormed his way under her sheets. She lets out a chuckle when she sees a vaguely dog-shaped lump smack dab in the middle of her bed.
Mindful of the remaining anxiety the dog is probably feeling, she carefully pulls back the sheets. “You are going to have to move, amigo,” she says, softly carding her fingers through the fur between his ears. The dog doesn't seem like he's going to move any time soon, so she sits down next to him with a laugh and slowly but surely pushes him over the bed.
The dog lets out a displeased huff but lets himself be handled without further protest.
“Alright,” Samira says when she has managed to free up half of the bed—half of her bed. “You just stay over there,” she adds, while shoveling about half of her pillows onto the floor because a dozen pillows and a dog is too much even for her.
It works for approximately thirty seconds after she's turned off the light and then she has an arm full of deceptively heavy dog. She lets out a grunt at the sudden weight and then a sound that was meant to be a sigh but is more of a giggle than anything else.
“You're a cuddle bug, aren't you?” she says, blindly searching for the dog's head. She misses at first; it's too dark to see anything in here, and she gets slobbered on again for her efforts. When she finally finds his head and starts scratching her nails through the dog's fur, he starts wagging his tail again. Samira can't see it, but she can feel and hear the thumping. “Yeah, you are,” she tells him with a grin. “Yes, you are.”
It takes the dog a while to calm down.
Admittedly, she might not be helping with all the petting and the baby talk, but she can't stop. He's so solid, warm, and present , and so happy to be with her, that her throat almost constricts with it. She would really like to have a dog. Someone always excited to see her, someone she could come home to.
But she can't.
So she just makes the best of the situation and gently cards her fingers through his fur until they both nod off, the dog spread half-way across her chest.
—
Samira wakes up with a heavy arm thrown over her chest.
She jumps, lets out a truly embarrassing shriek of surprise, and tumbles unceremoniously off the bed.
Luckily for her, the overabundance of pillows she had to shovel onto the floor makes for a pretty comfortable landing.
Still reeling, she blows her hair out of her face, stares back at her bed, and finds herself looking at a sleep-rumpled Jack Abbot.
“What the fuck,” she says, slightly hysterically. Her heartbeat has gone a bit tachy.
“What the fuck.” She doesn't even manage to make it sound like a question, though her voice breaks halfway through.
Jack, who seemingly only now processes what's going on, pales rapidly. “I—”
“What the fuck?” Samira is beginning to feel like a broken record, but she thinks it's justified because what the actual fuck?
“Samira—” Jack says, voice calm in a tightly controlled way.
He moves in her direction, which is when they both notice that he's very naked. In her bed. After she fell asleep with a dog she found on her doorstep. Samira is many things, but she is not stupid. She is, in fact, very capable of putting two and two together. Which brings her back to her initial point: What the fuck?
Jack, meanwhile, gracelessly tries to cover himself up with her blanket. He sends about five pillows flying in the process, moving clumsier than Samira has ever seen him, and there's an abject look of panic on his face.
Samira lets out a noise that might have been a laugh or a giggle if it wasn't for the disbelieving and more than slightly hysterical edge to it. “Jack,” she says.
Jack looks down at her, blanket awkwardly pooling in his lap.
“Jack, what the fuck?” Samira asks, still half-sitting, half-lying on the floor next to her bed.
“Are you okay?” Jack asks instead of providing something even close to an answer. There's real worry in his voice.
“Yeah, I'm—” Samira swallows an incredulous giggle. “—Fine. Considering…” She trails off, vaguely gesturing between them and to the situation at large.
Some of the tension leaves the line of Jack's shoulders and he nods. “Good.”
There's silence for a moment, both of them entirely too aware of what is going on but not wanting to voice it. At least Samira really doesn't want to voice it. That would make it too real too quickly.
“Would you care to explain?” she asks despite herself.
Jack hesitates.
Samira raises an eyebrow at him. “What? You can make your way to my apartment, eat my chicken, and sleep in my bed, but you can't explain why you were a dog a few hours ago?”
“I— That wasn't—” Jack starts. “I didn't plan on coming here,” he settles on.
Samira crosses her arms in front of her chest. “Oh, that makes it way better, thank you!” she says, sarcasm thick in her voice. “Seriously, Jack, what the fuck?”
Jack shrugs helplessly, looking like he'd rather be anywhere but here. At least he survived the night in one piece despite the fireworks, Samira thinks somewhat hysterically.
“You, what— You just spend half your time as a dog?”
Jack's ears go red and Samira gapes at him. “Oh my god, you totally do,” she says.
“Not half,” he protests.
Samira sends him a look.
“But, well, yeah,” Jack mumbles then, not meeting her eyes. And that's definitely new. Samira can't recall a single instance where Jack's gaze hasn't been fixed on her.
Samira drags a hand over her face. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
She gets up, professionally ignoring the fact that she's wearing her underwear, an oversized shirt, and nothing else. Not like Jack is faring any better.
She puts her hands on her hips, not sure what to do. Jack is looking up at her, all puppy dog eyes, and Samira wonders for a split second how she didn't see it. Then her mind comes back online. Of course she didn’t see it, because she doesn't tend to be fucking delusional. She's definitely not imagining this, though.
She points an accusatory finger at him. “Explain.”
Jack evades her gaze again. “Can you get me some pants or something first? Not sure if you noticed, but I'm pretty naked here.” There's a not insignificant amount of forced levity there.
“Trust me, I noticed,” Samira says and regrets it immediately, because why the fuck did that sound flirty?
Jack looks like he's trying not to laugh but also vaguely pained by the whole situation.
“Don't laugh,” she tells him and he nods seriously.
“Heard, chef,” he says and Samira rolls her eyes. God, this man. She should be ashamed of how charming she finds the dorky shit he says.
She turns around to root through her closet, aware of Jack's eyes on her. She finds an old pair of boxers she must have stolen from an ex-boyfriend, a pair of loose sweatpants that should fit Jack, and one of her numerous oversized sleep shirts.
She turns back to Jack and abruptly feels bad for not offering him clothes before starting her interrogation because there's something horribly vulnerable about the gratefulness in his eyes when she hands over the bundle of clothes. She realizes in the same breath that his prosthetic is nowhere to be found, because of course it isn't. Fuck.
Probably not Jack's preferred way to wake up either. She noticed how he always keeps his prosthetic within reach, no matter if they're at the kitchen table, on his couch, or in his bed.
“Do you want some privacy to get dressed?” Samira asks gently.
Jack regards her for a careful moment, then nods. It's a small movement and Samira can read the hesitation out of it.
She nods. “Alright,” she says. “Just tell me when I can come back in.”
Jack clears his throat. “Thank you,” he says, as earnest as he always is, and Samira can feel it all the way to her heart.
She simply nods and closes the door behind her.
When Jack calls out to her that she can come back, she has nearly paced a hole in her living room carpet.
He's still sitting on her bed, fully dressed now. The right leg of her sweatpants is folded up in a way that looks practiced to account for his missing limb.
She slowly sits down at the foot of her bed. “So,” she says, unsure how to start this. “Paws instead of hands, how did that happen?” Not very graceful, but just corny enough to lift some of the doom off of Jack's face.
He shrugs. “No clue. Always been this way,” he says.
“Your parents knew?” she asks, curiosity slowly gaining hold.
“Yeah, they did,” he confirms. “Still do, I expect.” There's a far-away look on his face for a moment, like he's all the way back in Maryland where he grew up. “They used to call me their pup,” he says and his reddening cheeks make Samira think he didn't want to add that part.
She can't help the small smile that appears on her face. Cute. “How does it work?” she asks, trying to stay on topic.
“Oh, I got no fucking clue,” he says with a sardonic laugh. “My mother kept finding muddy paw prints all over the house. Was driving her mad. Then she saw me change.”
“You didn't know?” Samira asks.
Jack tilts his head at her with a grin. Now that she knows, it's frankly really obvious that this man is a dog. “I was a baby, Samira. I didn't know a whole lot in general.”
Samira rolls her eyes.
“But in case you were asking if I could or can change at will—”
At this, Samira straightens up because, truthfully, the curiosity is nearly killing her, but she wanted to work her way to the harder questions.
“It depends.”
Samira deflates.
Jack just laughs at her. “Normally, I can control it,” he says. “I got good at it. Had to, really. Turning into a yipping dog is not the most effective anger management strategy there is.”
Samira nods. “I can imagine,” she says with a grin, mind full of a younger Jack interspersed with impressions of a heeler puppy. She still can't really wrap her mind around all of it, but she's getting there.
“Yesterday,” Jack says into the silence and Samira is glad that he's broaching the topic himself. “I really didn't mean to end up here. That wasn't some kind of master plan or something.”
“Yes, I gathered that,” Samira jokes, but Jack still looks pained when he returns her look.
“I didn't plan on going out all day, to be honest. I'm sure you can gather why,” he says and Samira nods, expression sobering. “But I was all out of anything edible at all and— because I couldn't sleep anyway, I thought I might as well eat something—” he continues and he's rambling because he's nervous, Samira realizes. “So, I thought I'd go to the store. It's not a long trip, I thought I'd be okay, but clearly…" At this he trails off, grimacing. “It was fine at first, but then some moron lit a fucking firecracker in the smallest alley you can find in this city and I just,” he shrugs, looking embarrassed. “I panicked.”
“And you,” Samira hesitates, waits for Jack to meet her gaze. “You came here?” she asks.
Jack nods. “Everything is less complex as a dog.” He shrugs. “It's all a bit… flatter. That's got its upsides and downsides,” he explains. “What's left is just instinct.”
Samira's breath hitches.
She doesn't know what to do with that admission. With the fact that Jack, reduced to his most basic instincts, afraid and alone, ended up at her place.
He still looks helpless. Lost, too, and Samira just wants to gather him in her arms. But they don't do that. It’s not part of their thing.
Then again, turning up on her doorstep in the middle of the night, shaking and terrified, isn't really part of their thing either. And Samira already held him. She remembers how clingy the dog—Jack—was, how he kept crowding in as close as possible, how he literally fell asleep cuddled up to her.
“Come here,” she says, beckoning Jack over, not able to bear him looking this abjectly vulnerable and ashamed of it for a second longer. Her questions can wait.
Jack hesitates for barely a heartbeat, then Samira has her arms full again.
He's very graceless today, tipping over face-first into her chest, his hands coming up to clutch at her shirt in quiet desperation, but Samira doesn't mind.
“You're okay,” she assures him, wrapping her arms around him. “I don't mind. It's alright.”
She can feel Jack nod and hopes he believes her.
She strokes soothing circles down his back, fingers trailing over the knobs of his spine. His skin is hot even through her shirt. Jack says something after a while, but it's too muffled for Samira to decipher. She hums questioningly and continues to hold him.
“Thank you,” Jack says then, clear enough to understand.
Samira sighs and cards a hand through his curls that are so similar to the mottled coat he has as a dog. Light and dark.
“It's no problem,” she says.
When Jack doesn't acknowledge that, she tips his head back and waits for him to open his eyes and look at her. “I mean it,” she says, eyes roaming his face, urging him to believe her. “It’s good that you came here. I'm glad you weren't outside the whole night.”
Jack gives her a tight nod and Samira decides to accept it for the time being. “I'm just sorry I came home so late,” she admits, thoughts turning. She can't stop thinking about him curled up in her doorway. The terrified noises he made and how he trembled.
Jack huffs. “Not like you could have known,” he says.
Samira knows he's right, but still. “Next time when people think they need to be stupid with their fireworks, you're coming here straight away,” she says, half order, half offer. “No pit stops at a supermarket or anything like that.”
“Yes, Ma'am,” Jack says and Samira lets out a huff.
“I mean it,” she says.
Jack's face softens, something tender to the slant of his brows and the look in his eyes, and she knows he believes her. Good.
“How did you get here anyway?” she asks, suddenly reminded that Jack has never been here before. She doubts he can read as a dog, so even if he did know her address, how would he translate that to actually finding her apartment.
Jack hesitates for a second, then taps his nose. He looks embarrassed about it, but noticeably less than before in the face of her acceptance.
Samira gapes at him. “You— What?”
Jack gives her a crooked grin that doesn't manage to be wholly carefree. “I know your smell,” he says like that's normal.
“I think we need to go on a date,” Samira blurts.
Jack blinks at her.
“I'm so sorry,” Samira says, heat rushing to her cheeks. “I don't know why I said that. Ignore that, please.”
Jack shakes his head, and ice-cold worry grips Samira's heart when he scoots back a bit to properly look at her. “I don't want to ignore that,” he says.
Samira regards him, highly skeptical of the sudden hope that rises up in her. “You don't?”
“No,” Jack confirms. “I actually agree.”
“That we need to go on a date?” Samira confirms haltingly.
“Yes,” Jack says. “In fact, I don't just think we need to. I really want to.”
Samira breaks out into a broad grin. “Really?”
Jack smiles at her, eyes crinkling. “Yes, really. If you want—”
“Yes!” Samira says immediately. “I definitely want to.”
“Cool,” Jack says and Samira feels way too much fondness for this middle-aged man and the questionable shit he says. Last week he unironically told a guy getting uppity in Chairs to ‘Watch it, Buddy.’
“I know a brunch place we could go to,” Samira says after a beat of silence. “They make amazing—” she pauses and looks at Jack in horror. “Wait, can you eat chocolate?”
Jack laughs at her, like the numerous Reese's Samira has shared with him over shitty hospital coffee couldn't potentially have killed him.