Chapter Text
Jack woke the moment the comforter started moving down his chest.
Not groggy. Not startled. Just—firmly awake. That particular gift from the military never left, even eight years out. One second he was asleep, the next he was cataloging his surroundings with the same automatic reflex with which he’d run a code in the Pitt.
Blackout curtains still doing their job. Bedroom quiet except for—
A muffled whine. High-pitched. Edging into distress.
He hit the light switch, sat up and looked down at a writhing pile of navy fabric on the floor. One cream-colored paw sticking out at a baffling angle and the tip of the tail was all that poked out from the cotton avalanche. Of course. When you’d been emotionally manipulated into acquiring a labradoodle puppy with an abundance of energy and periodic outages of common sense, natural disasters followed. Still, he’d take this over the Great Trash Tornado of week one, no question.
Puppy whining kicked up a notch—pure panic now, the kind that communicated: I have made a terrible mistake and require immediate rescue.
Jack scrubbed a hand over his face, then leaned forward and hauled the fabric tangle closer. It took some excavating—folds upon folds of comforter that Noodle had brought upon her head and then couldn’t figure her way back out of—but he finally located the scruff of her neck and carefully pulled her free.
The moment her paws touched the solid ground she launched herself into his lap. He hadn’t even fully straightened up yet.
She tap-danced all over his thighs, wriggled against his stomach, and proceeded to express her gratitude in the only currency she knew: licking every available surface of his face with single-minded devotion.
“Yeah, yeah,” Jack muttered, turning his head to avoid getting a tongue up his nose. “You’re welcome, furball.”
His wry tone did not dent her enthusiasm whatsoever. She kept right on with the hero-worship routine, paws scrabbling against his chest, whining now in a completely different register. You saved my life. You are my hero. You deserve all the licks.
He gave her ears and flanks a good scratch, let her wiggle for another few seconds, then firmly set her on the bed beside him.
“Settle.”
Noodle launched herself off the bed instead.
Landed with unexpected grace for something that was ninety percent gangly legs and ten percent coordination, then trotted out of the bedroom. Stopped in the doorway just long enough to glance back at him—tongue lolling, tail wagging, the entire rear half of her body wiggling with barely-contained purpose. The message was clear: Come on, hurry up. We have Things To Do.
Instead of following that demand, Jack hauled the comforter back onto the bed. Tripping hazards were serious shit for somebody with only 1,5 of the legs and he had no desire to personally reprise Noodle’s performance.
And then his morning had officially started.
He grabbed the forearm crutches from where they’d spent the night propped besides the nightstand and was on his way.
Short detour towards the window to pull the blackout curtains open. Morning light flooded the room. Late August sun, already warm through the glass. It promised the kind of comfortable late-summer day that made one almost forgive Pittsburgh for the winter it had in the works. But that’d be the pain in future Jack’s ass. Today’s Jack was just glad it was shaping up to be one more day when he wouldn’t have to switch between indoor and outdoor shoes every damn time he stepped out the door.
Bathroom next. Crutches propped against the wall and into the walk-in shower. No threshold to navigate, no gymnastics required. Just step in, sit down, get clean. When he’d bought this place in 2018 and gutted the bathroom, he’d spec’d it for function: grab bars positioned where they’d actually be useful, built-in bench at the right height, fixtures he could reach without stretching. The contractor had tried to upsell him on fancy bullshit—tinted glass, burnished brass—and Jack had told him to save his breath.
He had no problem paying for functionality, but paying for aesthetics nobody but him would see seemed… pointless.
He turned the water on hot, just shy of scalding, because he’d had enough cold showers in the Army and the Air Force to last him two lifetimes. The heat worked into his shoulders, his lower back, the muscles that carried tension he didn’t always notice until it started letting go. He allowed himself 3 minutes of this—he was on the clock here, puppy bladders had only so much resilience—then lowered himself onto the bench and washed briskly, paying particular care to all the places sweat liked to gather on the stump.
Drying off was when he did the daily residual limb assessment. Ran his gaze and his fingers along the tissue, checking for redness, swelling, pressure points, anything that might turn into a problem six hours into his shift.
Today everything looked good. Felt good. Yesterday’s day off had done its job. Even that spot where flesh met the bone the prototype rubbed raw last week had finally healed—which meant tomorrow he could maybe drop by the start-up and pick the thing up for another round of testing. Ricky texted him yesterday that he finished tinkering with it.
He finished drying, wrapped the towel around his waist, grabbed the crutches, and headed back to the bedroom.
He plucked a fresh change of clothes from the closet and plopped himself onto the edge of the bed to dress. That too had a protocol refined through the years. Bottoms first, since it was easier to hike the leg of the sweatpants up than thread the prosthetic through it.Then the liner rolled on smooth, no wrinkles that would turn into blisters by dawn. Socket next, checking the fit, then the rest of the prosthetic assembly. He stood, tested his weight, adjusted his stance. Solid. Pulled the sweatpants leg down the rest of the way, added a t-shirt that had seen better days, and stepped into his indoor sneakers—prosthetic and bare foot went together about as well as summer tires and black ice.
When he stepped into the hallway, Noodle was exactly where he expected her: sitting underneath the coat rack, directly below where her leash hung. The moment she saw Jack her eyes locked on him with the kind of focus that suggested she’d been holding this pose for the better part of ten minutes and deserved a medal for her restraint.
“Good girl,” Jack said, ruffling her fluff with one hand, while the other reached for the leash.
Her tail went into overdrive—going like a propeller, hard enough that liftoff seemed plausible—but she stayed seated.
Until Jack clipped the leash to her collar and she sprung up as if her legs were made of coiled steel instead of muscle, sinew and bone. Spun twice, each of the four paws going in different directions, then bolted for the door and hit the end of the leash with a yelp of surprise.
Every single morning. You’d think she’d learn.
He waited while she collected herself, then led her to the elevator at a pace that was a compromise between his refusal to trot and her insistence that getting out of the building fifteen seconds faster might be worth mild asphyxiation.
Outside, the morning was pleasant. About eighty degrees, humidity not oppressive yet, the kind of weather that made a quick walk easy instead of a chore.
Noodle’s nose dropped to the ground the second her paws hit the sidewalk. Around the block was the agreed upon path, but she had opinions about which vertical surfaces warranted thorough investigation and in what sequence. Fire hydrant: yes. The base of a street sign: not today. Random section of brick wall that looked identical to every other section: absolutely critical, full recon required.
They made it half a block before Noodle forgot herself and lunged toward a pigeon.
Jack stopped her. Noodle looked back at him with betrayed confusion. Then remembered pigeons were on the not-a-toy-according-to-my-stoogy-human list and trotted back to Jack’s leg only slightly sulking. Her expression looked remarkably like Santos on her way to triage time-out.
Jack rewarded Noodle with praise and head scratches and they were on their way. She pranced alongside him properly for another ten feet before her attention fractured and she veered toward someone’s front steps.
Correction. Reset. Try again.
They were almost to the corner when Ikenna Okafor came down the steps of a building across the street, already moving at a jog, tote bag bouncing against his hip.
"Morning, Dr. Abbot!" he called, waving without slowing down. "Morning, Noodle!"
Before Jack opened his mouth to respond, Ikenna was already halfway to the bus stop, moving with the urgency of someone who'd slept through their alarm.
Fair enough.
Jack turned Noodle back down the block.
"Jack!"
He looked up. Mrs. Bianchi was coming down the sidewalk with Vinny waddling beside her on a leash that had seen better days. The dachshund was ancient and moved like every step required a committee vote. Mrs. Bianchi herself was late seventies, beta, and had lived in Bloomfield long enough to know everyone's business without ever quite crossing into actual intrusion.
"Morning, Mrs. B," Jack said. Noodle provided her own greeting in the form of two excited barks and tap-dancing routine.
"Oh, look at her!” Mrs. Bianchi stopped in front of them, smiling at Noodle. "She's a sweetie. Vinny, come, say ‘hello’!"
Vinny didn’t seem particularly interested in the proposal, but Noodle was not about to be discouraged from making friends by something as trivial as middling enthusiasm. She bowed into a play stance, hopped forward, spun in a circle—and somehow managed to tangle herself in her own leash in the process. Because of course.
Vinny stared at her with the profound disinterest of a dog who'd seen it all and couldn’t be bothered with any of it anymore.
Jack crouched down and started working the leash free while Noodle continued to not keep still. "Hold still. Just—stop moving for two seconds." It was not the first time Jack had a fleeting wish that dogs—or at least his dog—had off-switch. In lieu of that, he grabbed Noodle by the scruff of her neck and held her down.
Mrs. Bianchi laughed, raspy and full. "She’s such a character."
Jack finally got the leash untangled and stood. Noodle immediately tried to bow at Vinny again. Vinny somehow managed to look down at her despite her already having at least 2 inches on him.
Mrs. Bianchi reached down, gave Noodle's head a gentle pat, then looked up at Jack. Her expression shifted—still warm, but with something else underneath. "It's good you finally have something with a heartbeat waiting for you to come home."
She said it almost breezy, but there was weight to her words. The kind of thing you said when you knew what it was like to come home to an empty apartment, when you understood that sometimes a dog made the difference.
Jack nodded. "Yeah. It is."
Mrs. Bianchi gave him a regal nod, then tugged gently on Vinny's leash, and continued her slow procession down the block.
Jack watched her go, then turned Noodle toward the next block.
They walked a few more feet and finally she found a patch of grass that met her exacting standards, circled it twice, and squatted.
He waited while she conducted her business with the focus of med-student performing their first intubation. When she finished, she kicked at the grass behind her—sent a clump of dirt flying, missed Jack's shoe by two inches—and looked enormously pleased with herself.
"Real impressive," Jack told her. Then bent down to clean up after her.
She gave him a happy grin, tongue lolling out the side, and then they started on their way home.
They made it back to the building without further incident. Jack pulled the door open and let Noodle trot inside ahead of him.
The elevator was on the ground floor. The doors started to slide close when Jack caught movement behind them.
Patty Soo, coming through the entrance. Purse slung over one shoulder, that particular exhausted shuffle of someone who'd just finished an overnight shift and wanted nothing more than to collapse into bed.
Jack held the elevator door.
She saw him, picked up her pace slightly, made it in. "Thanks."
She leaned against the elevator wall and closed her eyes.
"Nights this week?" Jack asked.
"And a convention in town.” She opened one eye, glanced at him. “Three hundred accountants who apparently forgot how hotels work."
"My condolences."
She grunted appreciation for commiseration, one night shift worker to another.
The elevator climbed. Noodle sat at Jack's feet, now looking like the picture of well-mannered obedience.
"She's mellowing out," Patty observed.
"Five minutes at a time," Jack replied. But a smile tugged on the corner of his lip just for a second.
The elevator slowed on the approach to the third floor. Patty pushed off the wall. "Have a good one tonight.” Then she caught herself with a crooked smirk. “Friday today, right? Never mind then. Just survive until dawn, doc.”
And with that stepped out. Jack huffed a dry laugh as the doors slid closed.
The elevator climbed one more floor and then they were home.
Door closed, Jack unclipped her leash and she made a beeline for the water bowl. Lapped at it like she’d just crossed a desert, spraying water across the kitchen floor, then danced beside it radiating impatient anticipation.
Jack filled her bowl, made her sit, set it down, and waited. She quivered. Drool pooled at the corner of her mouth. But she held.
“Break.”
She lunged.
While she inhaled her breakfast, Jack started his own. Coffee first—always coffee first—then eggs, bacon, multigrain toast because he was forty-eight and his arteries deserved at least some consideration. The kitchen counters were a few inches higher than standard, built to his height when he’d renovated. Made everything easier on his back, meant he wasn’t hunching over the cutting board or the stove.
Noodle finished her food in record time, licked the bowl until it skidded across the floor, then collapsed on her dog bed, tucked in the corner of the living room and had her post-breakfast power nap.
Jack ate sitting at the kitchen peninsula, looking out the window at the courtyard below. He finished his coffee, rinsed the mug, wiped the counters, loaded up the dishwasher and he and Noodle were off on another, even shorter potty break.
When they got back, she wandered off towards the spare bedroom where her crate lived, while Jack paused on the bench in the hallway to switch to an iWalk. It was still over seven hours before the start of his shift—and extended Friday shift—so he should “conserve” his prosthetic time for when he’ll actually need it.
Right now what he needed was laundry. Jack gathered what had to be washed—scrubs from earlier in the week, towels, the usual—and hauled it to the washer-dryer stacked in the closet off the hallway. Started the load, measured detergent, hit the button. The machine hummed to life.
Noodle had emerged from her room and was investigating the baseboards in the hallway with the focus of an archaeologist.
Jack left her to it and moved on to the rest of the chores. Nothing extensive, just maintenance. Keep things functional, keep things clean, don't let it pile up.
By the time he finished, Noodle had moved on to chewing the corner of the couch.
"Leave it," Jack said.
She looked at him, considered her options, and left it.
Progress.
He grabbed his laptop from the bedroom, settled at the dining table, and pulled up the hospital's compliance training portal. Annual infection control module. Terminally boring. The kind of thing designed by committee and narrated by someone with the vocal range of a dial tone.
Jack clicked through the first slide. Then the second. Noodle wandered over, sniffed his ankle, and flopped at his feet.
Slide five: Proper hand hygiene techniques.
Jack had been washing his hands for forty-odd years. Seventeen of those in hospital settings. He was reasonably confident he had the concept down.
Slide ten: Identifying high-risk contamination zones.
Noodle had gone quiet. Suspiciously quiet.
Jack glanced under the table.
She was inching toward the laptop charger plugged into the socket with the single-minded determination of someone attempting the heist of the lifetime.
"No. Leave it." Jack reached down, hauled her back at the last moment. Then unplugged the thing and rolled up the cord. Electrocution was where he drew the line.
Noodle whined.
Jack sighed, put the charger on the table, and looked at her. She was vibrating now, all that energy redirected from Forbidden Cord to Everything Else in the Universe.
Right. She needed to burn some of this off or she’d get herself into more mischief than she’d be able to chew through.
He closed the laptop, stood, and grabbed the tug rope from the basket of dog toys by the couch.
Noodle wiggled, the entire thing forgotten in the face of playtime.
They went a few rounds of tug—Jack letting her win just enough to keep her interested, making her work for it the rest of the time. Then he switched to training games. Sit, down, stay. She managed sit most of the time. Down was hit or miss. Stay lasted approximately twenty seconds before her brain rebooted and she forgot the command existed.
But she was trying. And she was focused. That was the point.
When she was panting, tongue lolling, eyes bright but tired, Jack sent her to her crate with a command and a treat. She went willingly and was out cold in thirty seconds.
Jack watched her for a moment, then grabbed the yoga mat from the closet.
PT time.
Nothing fancy. Just basic maintenance meant to keep his body functional. Twenty-five minutes and he was done. Rolled up the mat, shoved it back in the closet. Noodle was still snoozing in the spare bedroom. Perfect.
He went back to the laptop.
Slide twenty-three: Bloodborne pathogen exposure protocols.
Jack clicked through. Answered the quiz questions on autopilot. Moved to the next section.
The washer chimed from the hallway. Jack saved his progress, hauled the wet laundry into the dryer, started the cycle. Came back to the table.
Slide thirty-seven: Environmental cleaning best practices.
He was halfway through when Noodle emerged from her den like she'd just woken from a week-long hibernation and was ready to take on the world.
She trotted into the living room, looked around, and launched into the zoomies.
Full speed. No warning.
Around the couch, behind the armchair, figure-eight through the dining area. Her nails scrabbled on the hardwood, tail tucked for maximum aerodynamics. Jack knew combat pilots with less bravado and more respect for laws of physics.
He watched her lap the dining table three times, gain speed on the fourth, and—
The dryer chimed.
Noodle's head whipped toward the sound. Lost focus. Lost traction.
Crashed into the kitchen counter with a solid thunk.
Still, she shook her head, and looked at Jack like the universe had personally betrayed her.
"You're fine," he assured her. He assured himself by stopping to pat her gently on his way to the drier. Good thing she was seemingly made of fluff and rubber, given her favorite midday occupation involved crash-test-dummy auditions.
She scrambled to her feet the moment he let go of her, apparently no worse for wear, and trotted after him to the hallway.
Jack opened the dryer, started pulling out warm laundry. A sock hit the floor.
Noodle pounced.
Had it in her mouth and was halfway to the living room before Jack could say a word.
He watched her go. It was a sock. She wasn't going to eat it. Probably.
He finished unloading, carried the basket to the bedroom, and put everything away. Scrubs in the closet, towels in the bathroom, socks—minus one—in the dresser.
When he came back to the living room, Noodle had dragged the throw blanket off the couch and was in the process of wedging it under one of the dining chairs.
Nesting, apparently.
Jack looked at the couch. Looked at the time. Just past noon.
A nap was actually an excellent idea before his shift. And at this point in life he could fall asleep basically on command.
He took the iWalk off, stretched out on the couch, one arm behind his head, and closed his eyes.
Thirty seconds later, he heard the soft patter of the nails against the floor. Noodle has abandoned her blanket nest and scrambled up onto the couch. Turned three circles, stepped on his stomach twice, and flopped against his side with a satisfied grunt. Then promptly stuck her wet, cold nose up his t-shirt.
"Sure, furball," Jack muttered. "We can cuddle."
She was already snoring.
Jack let his hand rest on her back, felt the rise and fall of her breathing, and fell asleep.