Controlled Chaos (Nurse Jackie)

[zakandsara]

I’m back from my unplanned and undefined hiatus, and I have a new muse. Missed writing, and I hope you missed reading, even just a little. 
 

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Jackie Peyton did not like not being in control. Or, more specifically, she did not like not being in control of the situations wherein she felt out of control. Her biggest problem, if she was being honest, was that she liked being out of control a little too much. But she was rarely being honest. That was her second biggest problem. 

That’s why, when she woke up with a dull ache in the back of her head and a tickle in her throat, she immediately knew she was about to be in a very bad mood, and what that really meant was everyone around her was about to have an even worse day. 

She rolled over slowly, knowing Frank would’ve already gotten up to walk the dog, for which she was grateful but not beside herself. It was the toll he paid for getting to stay over four nights a week, she figured as she rubbed at her eyes and stepped into the bathroom. 

She didn’t feel unwell. That’s what confused her. But she didn’t feel herself. The headache was threatening to trickle down into her sinuses, and the scratch in her throat felt like it was constantly on the verge of becoming a cough. She splashed some cold water on her face and instinctively reached for the old tampon box under the sink in which she hid some of the last of her pills. She pulled out one, then a second for good measure, and chewed them up quickly just as she heard the door creak open downstairs. 

“She has to stop on every single tree to piss. I don’t understand how that’s efficient,” Frank yelled, only half-kidding. 

Jackie smiled to herself, only half-amused. “Maybe you should try it,” she called down, her voice catching on itself as she finished. She cleared her throat, taking a sip of water. She tried again. “She do okay?” Better. 

Frank appeared behind her in the doorway. suddenly, as though he’d glided up the stairs. He walked closer and hugged Jackie from behind. “Course she did. She’s always good when she’s with her number one guy.”

He leaned in to kiss her, but she ducked away, escaping his grasp and slipping into the bedroom. He followed, never quite understanding the dexterity with which she was able to keep him at bay. 

“What, I’m cut off?” he asked, watching as she shoved her work clothes into her gym bag. 

She looked up at him with a forced chuckle. “For now. I have a tickle,” she gestured vaguely to her throat, which triggered her memory. She reached into yesterday’s bag and pulled out her stethoscope, slipping it into a zipper pocket. “I don’t want to kiss you ‘til I know I’m not sick.”

He rolled his eyes. “I don’t care. C’mere,” he said playfully, moving toward her with his arms outstretched. 

She put a hand up. “No. I’m serious. I don’t like to share germs. You wouldn’t believe the kind of shit I see at work that starts as a cold or a flu. Or a kiss,” she shot him a look, slipping her pajamas off and pulling her gym clothes on. 

“If you’re sick, you should skip the gym,” he pointed out. “You can’t swim and then go outside in the cold. That’s probably why you’re sick in the first place.”

She smiled, genuinely this time. It was nice to have someone who cared so wholly. She pitied him every day that it had to be for her. “Yeah?” She slipped her pants back off, giving him a look as she did. He picked up on it right away. 

“Ah, no. No way. If I can’t kiss you, you don’t get to be all sexy,” he turned away from her, facing the wall as she changed. 

She laughed. “Jesus, it’s not like you haven’t seen it before.”

“I’m a guy. Every time is like the first time, babe.” 

She pulled her scrubs on and shook her hair out, tying up into a quick ponytail. “You can...” she started, but paused herself. She stood still, looking quizzically up at the light in the middle of the ceiling fan until she finally snapped into her forearm. 

“Huh’nDtchh-uh!” 

Frank flipped back around. “Gesundheit.”

She swiped at her nose. “This is why. No kiss,” she reminded him, sliding past him down the stairs without touching any part of him. 

He followed close behind, trailing her to the kitchen, where she greeted the dog with a morning nuzzle and pulled her usual breakfast banana from the basket on the table. “You gonna be okay at work?”

Jackie shrugged. “Have no choice,” she said flippantly. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

He cocked his head. “You’re kicking me out?”

She slowly cheated away from him, bringing a reluctant palm up to her face and bending behind it. “Huh’dTnschh-uhh!” She sniffled and pointed up at herself. “Save yourself.”

He laughed. “Fine. But I’m staying over the whole weekend once you’re better.”  

She smiled. She knew by the weekend she’d have a new excuse to keep her distance, and that no amount of negotiations or promises would let him in the way he wanted. But she’d break that to him another day. “Deal.”

———————————————————————————

By the time she arrived at the hospital, she’d somehow managed to feel both better and worse. Her headache was gone, but that was mostly thanks to the little blue pills that never failed her. She wasn’t as tired as she’d expected to be, but the tingle in her sinuses and her throat didn’t seem to be going anywhere. 

She stepped in through the automatic double-doors, already wishing she’d brought more than just the few rogue pills she’d shoved into her front pocket, but before she had time to remember where she may have hidden a pill or two around the nurse’s station, she was interrupted. 

“I know this is inappropriate but if Roman drops the ball one more time while I have to sit back and do her bidding, I am going to lose my god damn—“

“Morning to you, too, Zoey,” Jackie said with a smirk. Sometimes, the girl was overwhelming, but today’s spark complemented Jackie’s in a way she wasn’t used to seeing. She liked it. 

“What do we do?!” She lamented, stopping in her tracks at the counter of the station. “I’m serious. We need to find a way to overthrow her.”

Jackie cracked a smile. “She’s not a medieval dictator, she’s just an idiot.”

Zoey glared at her like she’d used a slur. “We can’t say that about other women,” she near-whispered. 

Jackie mobilized them again, taking a seat at her desk area and watching Zoey do the same across from her. “We can if they’re idiots.”

She reached under the desk, stretching her arm as far as she could without making it too obvious she was looking for something. Just as she was ready to give up, her finger came upon the tiny, oblong miracle. She rejoiced for just one silent second before her current larger annoyance made its presence known again.  

Her nose twitched suddenly and urgently, and she quickly pulled her hand back, bending her elbow and dipping tight into it. 

“Huh’nDtchUhh! Hih’Dtsch-shUH!”

Zoey swiveled her chair around to face the woman, making the kind of face a mother would make upon finding her child had washed, dried, and folded all the laundry without even being asked. “Bless you, Jackie,” she said, resting her hand on her chin and tapping her fingers in a faux show of over-surveillance. 

“Thank you, Zoey,” Jackie matched her tone, if not slightly mocked it. “Please stop staring at me.”

“You never sneeze more than once unless you’re sick,” she said matter-of-factly. 

Jackie furrowed her brow and glared at the girl. “First of all, why would that be something you know?”

“It’s true,” Thor jumped in, bending down to lean against the counter on Zoey’s side.

Jackie did a double-take at his sudden entry and compliance. “Why?” she repeated, the particular Jackie edge in her voice rearing its head. It was the edge that said ‘I’m no longer playing around,’ or ‘don’t make me come over there’ or some combination of both. 

Thor shrugged and, as quick as he had come, he skipped off again. 

Zoey watched him and crossed her hands over her chest. She was in a defiant mood today, too, it seemed. “Don’t act like you don’t know stuff about me.”

“Yeah, your birthday and your favorite color. Not insane stuff like that!”

Zoey sat up and leaned forward. “You know my favorite color?”

Jackie rolled her eyes. “This conversation is over,” she declared, opening up the day’s first file and absentmindedly rubbing her nose. It killed her that Zoey was still watching her, but she couldn’t help it. “And for the record, I’m not sick.”

“Okay,” Zoey said softly, turning to her pile of files and sorting through them herself. 

Jackie shut hers and slammed it back into its place in the file cabinet. She was not in the mood to be played with today, especially not by Zoey. She needed to be believed. She needed to be in control of this narrative. She needed to sneeze. 

She stood up swiftly and hoped to make it the vestibule in time, but was caught off guard by an incoming patient on a gurney. She flipped back around to face the nurse’s station and bent into herself, against her better judgement. 

“Hn’DtSchh-uhh! H’iHdtsch-UHh!”

Zoey wordlessly stared as the woman recovered, and without averting her gaze, pulled open the bottom drawer of her desk, ripped a tissue from its box, and passed it across the counter. 

Jackie took it, reluctantly but secretly thankfully, and wiped her nose. 

“I would say ‘bless you’ again, but you’re not sick,” Zoey tested, raising an eyebrow.

“That’s right,” Jackie affirmed, stubbornly. She turned on her heel to leave, but stopped herself. Even she wasn’t that person. “But thanks, anyway,” she said quietly, before making her way onto the floor. 

Zoey nodded, clicking her pen and getting back to work. “You’re welcome,” she said to no one, a grin creeping onto her face as Thor suddenly reappeared. 

“She okay?” he asked, looking after her. 

Zoey nodded, biting her lip. “Oh yeah. She’ll be fine.” She looked up, craning her next to watch Jackie disappear around the corner. “Today is gonna be fun.”

 

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There’s more, if you’re enjoying it. And maybe even if you’re not. 😉

[silentdreamer789]

Nice start!

[jamesdear1]

i am enjoying it and i dont even follow the series keep up the good work!

[zakandsara]

Thanks for reading, pals! Here’s part 2. 
 

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“I need Jackie!” Dr. Fitch Cooper yelled from a trauma bay, as he often did, and she came running before she could even think about what she was doing. 

“What’s her name?” Jackie asked, sidling up to the bedside of the patient, who appeared to be no older than 25. “Sweetie, can you tell me your name?”

“Kayla,” the girl managed to groan out, wincing in pain as she did. “What’s going on?”

Jackie looked down to find Coop cutting a straight line up her shirt to get to the wound. She was bleeding, fairly heavily, from a huge unnatural gash in her stomach, and Coop was making quick work to suture it up. 

“I’m Jackie,” she said, shifting her attention from the injury to be dealt with and back to the person on the table.  “It looks like you had a little accident. Do you remember what happened?” she asked, brushing a strand hair out of the girl’s face.

“I’m not...” she trailed off. Jackie watched the panic suddenly set in. “I don’t remember.” She started to cry. 

“Keep her calm,” Coop ordered, barely looking up. 

Jackie scowled at the implication that she’d do anything else, but took the girl’s hand. “Hey,” she nudged her. “Hey, look at me.”

Kayla obeyed, expending what seemed like too much energy just to tilt her head toward Jackie. 

“You’re gonna be fine, okay?” Jackie squeezed her hand. “Coop is a great doctor. You’ll have a little scar, and...” She stopped herself, an urgent tickle in her nose interrupting her. She removed one of her hands from the girl’s and rubbed at it, but it seemed to only make it worse. She moved to pull her other hand away, but Kayla moaned in distress. 

“Please don’t leave me,” she begged, squeezing tighter. 

Jackie nodded, and cheated her body away from the girl as much as she possibly could while still attached. “Hehn’DtschhT-uhh! ‘Scuse me, sorry about that,” she sniffled and pivoted back. 

“You all right?” Coop looked up at her, his hands making quick work of the stitching. 

She gave a tight nod, wishing at that moment she was a little less essential so should could just sit down and have a moment to herself for once. 

“Kayla, you still with me?” Jackie asked, leaning back in. 

The girl groaned. “Mhm.” 

“She’s hemorrhaging,” Coop stated, calm as ever but serious. “Jackie, I need you down here.”

“Jackie...” Kayla whispered. 

Jackie bit her lip, looking around to solidify her next move. She couldn’t let go. She’d made a promise. But as she watched Coop struggle with the stitching and the bleeding, she knew the promise she’d made as a nurse to “first, do no harm,” was just as crucial to uphold. She surveyed the room, hoping a plan would materialize, and at that moment, it did. Zoey zipped past the barely-shut curtain in the hallway outside the bay. 

“Zoey!” Jackie called to her. Within seconds, the girl rushed in. “Coop needs an assist.”

She nodded,  jumping into action. 

Jackie exhaled a quick sigh of relief, giving Kayla’s hand another squeeze as she watched her team finish the job, but as though to remind her of the danger of getting too comfortable in an ER, Kayla’s heart rate dropped.  

“She’s slipping,” Jackie stated, reaching up to the girl’s throat to feel for for a pulse. She shook her head, simultaneously willing this to be a hiccup and trying to ignore the growing tickle in her nose. “Coop, how are we doing? Almost closed up?”

“30 seconds out,” Zoey confirmed. She looked up at Jackie, whose breath was catching intermittently, no matter how hard she tried to stop it. She caught the woman’s eye. “You okay?” she mouthed. 

Jackie shook her head and took a sudden and final deep breath in, turning over her shoulder. “Heh’UhhKdtschhT-uhh!”

“She’s closed,” Coop called. “Prep for defib.”

Jackie nodded and finally let go, pulling the girl’s shirt open more to give a clear pathway for the paddles. 

“Clear,” Coop called, and he and Zoey got to work. 

“Nothing,” Jackie told them, rubbing at her nose. She twisted away from the scene once again and ducked tight into her elbow. “Huh’DnKshhtCh!”

Zoey looked up at her, distracted. Jackie shot her a glare, and shook her head decidedly. Not now. 

“Clear,” came the second call, and the second shock. 

“I’ve got her,” Jackie’s eyes lit up. “Kayla, you with me?”

She mumbled something and fluttered her eyes open.

“What was that, honey?” Jackie leaned closer, returning her hand to the girl’s forearm. “Can you hear me?”

She nodded, giving a tiny but assured smiled. “I said god bless you.”

Jackie pulled back, cocked her head in amusement and relief, and sighed out a laugh. She caught Zoey’s eye again to find her smiling, too. 

“Good work, team,” Coop declared, pulling his gloves off. “They’ll take care of you from here,” he gestured at the nurses and backed out of the makeshift room, on to the next one. 

“You’re going to rest now, okay Kayla?” Zoey said in her soothing Zoey way. “This button right here is for if you need anything.”

She gave a weak thumbs up, and shut her eyes again slowly. 

Jackie backed up and tossed her gloves into the deposit box, leading them back to the station. “Thanks for jumping in,” she said, swiping her nose with the back of her palm. 

“Of course,” Zoey said, and she meant it. That was the thing about her; she could be too much sometimes, but at least she was always being perfectly, honestly herself. “You feeling okay?” 

Jackie started to nod, but realized there was no point in telling anything less than the truth. “I’m...not sure yet,” she answered, struggling to strike a balance between opening up and avoiding being seen as a liability.  

“Okay,” Zoey replied gently. “If you feel like letting somebody know when you figure it out...” She looked at Jackie with an assuring smile. In the least manipulative way humanly possible, Jackie could tell she loved having the upper hand in this situation. 

“You’ll direct me to the right person?” Jackie asked cheekily. 

“Ha ha,” Zoey replied, deflated. 

Jackie bumped her playfully with her hip as they slowed to a stop at the nurse’s station. “I’ll be sure to send up the Bat Signal,” she said quietly. 

Zoey grinned, unable to look away from the spot where their bodies had just connected. Jackie rolled her eyes. 

“Don’t you have anything better to do besides worry about me?” Jackie asked, starting to fill out the information on Kayla’s chart. 

“No, actually. I was on my way out for the night when you called me in,” Zoey said matter-of-factly. 

Jackie stopped writing mid-word. She looked up for a moment, cracked a smile just to herself, and continued. “You’re a very good nurse, Zoey.”

She practically felt the girl’s giddiness rise from the bottom of her feet to the top of her head, which was confirmed when a small squeak of acknowledgment slipped out. 

“Coincidentally, you’re also a very good friend,” Jackie put the pen down and closed the folder, turning to face her. 

Zoey’s mouth dropped open and her hands started to twitch, as though she wanted to start clapping. She took a deep breath and braced herself for what she was about to ask. “Can I hug you?”

Jackie raised her eyebrows in genuine surprise, and before she could answer, Zoey moved closer. Jackie took a step back. “Not today,” she said quickly, before she got any closer. She saw the girl’s face fall and had to course correct as gently as possible. “Because of...because I’m possibly contagious,” she clarified. 

“Oh,” Zoey stepped back, taking in her response. “Oh. So you’re protecting me?” 

Jackie half-rolled her eyes. “Sure. Yes.” 

Zoey grinned. “All right, I’ll take an IOU,” she said in all sincerity. 

“I’ll pencil you in for next week,” Jackie replied, dripping sarcasm. 

“Great, Thursday works for me,” Zoey answered, skipping away. 

Jackie shook her head and laughed. All she knew was that if she weren’t better by Thursday, Zoey would make history being the first person to find a cure for the common cold.  

———————————————————————————

The day drug on without any incident nearly as exciting as the morning’s trauma, which gave Jackie more time to think about her relationship, her kids, herself. And more time focusing on that which she usually took pills to avoid thinking about was never a good idea. By 5 o’clock, when her shift was nearing its end and she’d exhausted all other possible forms of distraction, she pulled out her phone to read the texts that had been buzzing in her pocket throughout the afternoon. 

“Will drop the kids off Friday at 5.” Kevin. 

“How’s my girl? Let me bring soup over for dinner. It’ll cure anything.” Frank. 

“Hope you’re feeling better!” Zoey. 

Jackie let herself crack a tired smile. She moved to put her phone away, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. There was a rare, almost unexplainable impulse nagging at her. She pulled it back out. 

“Want to come over later?”

She locked her phone and dropped it back into her pocket before waiting for an answer. She already knew what it’d be, and sure enough, the second her phone hit her pocket, it buzzed with what she imagined were ecstatic YESes for 2 minutes straight.

She took a long-overdue seat back at her desk in the nurse’s station and put her head in her hands, rubbing her temples in an attempt to bring on a moment of relief. No such luck. 

“Taking a nap? Perhaps there’s an open bed in trauma for you to take up. Might be a little less obvious.”

Jackie scowled into her hands, but sat back and put her work face on. “I’m painfully awake, thank you very much,” she told Mrs. Akalitus. 

“Rumor has it you’re sick,” Gloria waltzed over and leaned against the barrier between them. “You look okay to me.”

For once, Jackie was grateful for the woman’s almost superhuman lack of empathy. “I happen to agree, actually,” she conceded, rubbing at a vague tickle in the back of her nose. She sniffled, begrudgingly. 

Gloria sized her up. “Things are pretty slow right now,” she said as a sort of proposition. 

Jackie looked around. “A good observation.”

“Don’t be smart when I’m trying to be nice here.” She looked up at the clock. “If you wanted to slip out, there’d be no one to know you didn’t stay right up ‘til six.”

Jackie’s eyes widened. “Oh,” was all she could muster. She sat up a little straighter. “I guess I do feel a little worse than I did this morning,” she said, slowly packing her things into her bag. She cleared her throat pointedly, pulling her jacket from the back of her chair and slipping into it. 

Gloria watched and tried to remain unamused, but it was clear she was using this moment as a distraction of her own. “I’m looking away now.”

Jackie mouthed ‘thank you,’ and turned to leave, but paused in her tracks. Her breath suddenly caught, and she bent into herself swiftly. “Huh’DtnSchh-Uh!” 

“Don’t push it, Jackie,” Gloria said, turning on her heel and walking the other way. 

Jackie lowered her arm and laughed out loud, walking through the automatic doors back out to the street. She never knew what would happen from day to day at All Saints, and that kind of chaos was the only thing that kept her sane anymore. 

 

[SneezingGenius]

i love it!!

[zakandsara]

Finishing this story out. Been binge-watching and binge-writing, so there’s a ton more where this came from if anyone remains interested! 
 

—————————————————————————————

She arrived home before 6, which felt like a miracle considering she was supposed to have been at work until at least then, and she thanked the mysterious universal intervention that inspired Gloria’s moment of grace, whatever it may have been, but she had a sneaking suspicion it was more a who than a what. 

She shed her coat and her bag and finally emptied her pockets of her cell phone, a few miscellaneous pills, and a handful of crumpled tissues. She popped the pills, swiped at her nose with a tissue and unlocked her phone. 

Seventeen text messages. 

Two were from Frank, wondering if she’d received his earlier message and asking, again, whether he was approved for a visit later that evening, even though she thought she’d already made it clear that he wasn’t. 

The other fifteen were from Zoey, which on any other day would’ve sent Jackie’s brain into a tailspin, but today, oddly soothed her. She liked that she could be herself around Zoey, and that would only make Zoey like her more. She liked her optimism, though it sometimes grated on her nerves. She liked having a friend who didn’t demand much of her, but happily took what she was able to offer. 

As she sat letting her high sink in and thinking of all the things that actually made her day better, the doorbell rang, and almost immediately, a sharp twinge of a tickle sparked in Jackie’s nose. She got up, but steadied herself at the table for a moment, waiting for the sneeze to come. Her breath hitched a few times to no avail, so she blew her nose, unsatisfied, and made her way to the door. 

She opened it, and there stood Zoey, hands full of bags. “Hi, sicky,” she said, trying to sound sympathetic but coming off downright thrilled. 

Jackie took a step back to let her in. “Welcome,” she said, leading the girl back to the kitchen. “What’d you bring?” 

Zoey dropped the bags down on the table and got to work unpacking. “Oh, just a couple things. DayQuil, NyQuil, Flonase, cough drops, Vick’s, some of those tissues with the extra lotion, I whipped up some chicken noodle soup when I got home, just in case...”

Jackie took a seat as she continued on, emptying the bags of a shopping haul that could’ve very well cleared out the cold and flu aisle of a Duane Reade. She looked on in amusement, until the intense sensation from earlier returned with a vengeance. She twisted away, hugging her elbow to her chest and bending into it. 

“Hi’iHdtSch-uhh! Huh’IhTdschhUh!”

Zoey ripped open a fresh box of tissues and held it out to Jackie. “Bless you.” 

She took one, fiddled with it hesitantly. “Thanks, Zoey. Thanks for coming.” She looked on as the girl peeked into cabinets and opened drawers to put everything away. “This is really sweet.” 

“Of course, are you kidding me? I couldn’t believe you actually texted me. I was thinking about you all afternoon. You never get sick.” She crouched down and rustled around for a few seconds before emerging victorious with a pot. “Hungry?”

Jackie bit her lip, thinking. “Actually, yeah. Starving.”

“Good thing I brought this then,” she said smugly, taking the lid off the mason jar of soup and pouring it into the now-hot pan. “How did Kayla do today?”

Jackie nodded. “She was stable. Slept mostly, but she seemed to be doing fihhh... fine. Sorry,” she barely finished before she cut herself off and snapped into the tissue again. “Hi’nDtschhhT-chh! H’ihnDtschhUhh!” She blew her nose and pulled another tissue out of the box, just in case. 

“Bless you,” Zoey told her, stirring the soup. “Why don’t you change? I’ll finish getting dinner ready.”

Jackie cleared her throat and smiled at her, increasingly surprised at how touched she continued to be the longer she was here. “Yeah, okay.” 

She got up, putting an appreciative hand on Zoey’s shoulder as she passed and gave it a squeeze. Zoey shut her eyes, savoring the moment, but she let it pass, which Jackie was even more grateful for.

She headed upstairs slowly, the day finally catching up to her. She certainly felt worse than she did that morning, she admitted to herself, but not as poorly as she might’ve thought she’d feel by now. Maybe it was because she’d kept herself busy, or maybe it was the pills, or maybe there really was something to the whole letting-people-be-nice-to-you thing. 

She rubbed her eyes and pulled her hair out of its ponytail, sitting on the side of the bed for a minute. She yawned; she was so tired. She sat with herself for a second, willing herself to get up and get changed, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She laid down, just for a moment, just to rest her eyes, and was out before she could even think about it. 

A sudden ring of the doorbell jolted her out of her accidental nap. She sat up, shaking off the rest, which could’ve been five minutes or two hours for all she knew. She stood, her head feeling foggy and congested the second she did, and slipped on a sweatshirt and some pajama pants. 

“Jackie?” she heard Zoey call from downstairs. 

She cleared her throat. “Coming,” she croaked out, coughing a bit as she finished. She sniffled and rubbed at her nose, making her way back to the stairs. The nap was a bad idea. 

She heard a second familiar voice in the kitchen as she descended, and with each step, she got madder. It was a man’s voice. It was Frank. 

She finally stepped into the room, barely, leaning against the doorframe and watching the two of them chat. It took a few seconds for him to notice she’d arrived.

“Honey,” he blurted out when he caught her eye, moving toward her. “I tried calling—“

She put a hand up to keep him where he was. “I’m pretty sure I asked you not to come.” She swiped at her nose with the back of her palm. She was getting heated.

He paused, cocking his head. He let out a sarcastic laugh. “I thought you were just being... ya know, like a girl about it. Saying not to come really meant ‘please bring me flowers.’” He pulled a hand from behind his back and produced a small, almost pathetic bouquet. 

Jackie furrowed her brow. “Well, when I say something, I don’t secretly mean something else. I mean, ‘I’m sick, please don’t come.’” She rubbed at her eyes, frustrated, and crossed her arms in front of her. “And what the hell are you doing bringing me flowers? I can’t smell anything anyway.” 

He laughed again, seemingly in shock. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” 

Jackie threw her hands up in a show of faux-exasperation. She took a step back. “I’m not.”

“Can we talk about this? Outside?” He shot a look at Zoey. 

The women stayed quiet for a moment, both of them waiting for the other to take the floor for different reasons, but of course, Zoey lost the game of chicken. 

“Why don’t I go outside for some fresh air? Jackie should stay in. It’s cold out there.” She turned the burner off and pulled her coat from the back of the chair, nearly jogging to get out the door quick enough. 

Once the door was closed, Frank tossed the flowers onto the table in a fit of rage. “Jesus Christ, Jackie. You tell me I can’t come see you, you don’t answer any of my texts all day, and I come here and you’ve got this girl in the house?”

“She’s my friend,” Jackie said calmly, balancing out his manic energy. 

He stepped closer to her. “Since when do you have friends?”

She shrugged. “I guess you don’t know everything about me.”

He guffawed. “It looks that way, huh? I mean, what the fuck? You can’t keep pushing me away! You’re supposed to be my... you’re supposed to be with me.”

“I am with you, Frank. That doesn’t mean I have to be with you 100% of the time,” she explained, talking as though she were describing the rules of a game to a toddler.

He moved even closer. “She’s here, what, making you soup? Bringing you medicine? What is she gonna do, tuck you into bed later?” 

Jackie shot him a look. “Leave.”

He shook his head. “You’re really something. You have me begging to come take care of you and instead, you invite over your little puppy dog just because she has some sort of crush on you—“

Jackie slapped him. Harder than she’d intended to, but the second her hand left his face, she realized just how little she regretted it. 

He stumbled back in awe. “Fuck. You.”

He grabbed his jacket from the couch and slammed the door open, storming back out into the cold. 

“Fuck you back!” Jackie yelled after him, but her voice betrayed her, and she started coughing before she could get anything else out, which was probably for the best. 

Zoey rushed back in looking like she’d witnessed a murder. “What just happened?”

Jackie shook her head and took a seat, wrapping her arms around herself. She was suddenly freezing. “Nothing. You don’t have to worry about it.”

“Jackie, he was really mad,” she said, taking the seat across from the woman and trying to wrap her head around what she’d just become a part of. 

Jackie shrugged. “I hit him.” 

Zoey’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. “You what?!”

The older woman nodded. “He said some stuff about you that I didn’t like.”

“So you hit him,” Zoey repeated, sitting back in her chair, trying to process. “You hit him because he said something about me.”

Jackie shivered, but sat up, too. “Zoey, this had nothing to do with you. Frank has jealousy issues, he wanted to come over, I asked him not to.”

“You told him not to come but you invited me?” 

Jackie nodded. 

“On purpose?” 

She cracked a smile. “Yeah, Zoey, on purpose. I wanted you here. You make me feel better.” 

Zoey’s mouth threatened to drop again, but it quivered instead. “Oh my god, can I please hug you?”

Jackie put her hands up. “No! Don’t make me hit you, too.”

Zoey swiped at her eyes and nodded. “No, right. You’re right.” She stood up and made her way back to the stove, dishing out a steaming bowl and delivering it to the woman. “What did he say about me?” Zoey began cleaning up the broken flower bits from the floor. 

Jackie sat up and blew on a spoonful of soup, taking a small sip. “Leave it,” she said to the girl as she picked petals off the tile. “Leave it.” 

Zoey nodded. She took her place back at the table, trying too hard to stay even-keeled. “How’s the soup?” 

“It’s really good,” Jackie said, though setting her spoon down. She quickly pulled her sweatshirt sleeves up over her hands and bent into them. “Huh’iDtschhUhh!” 

“Bless you,” Zoey said sympathetically. “It’s okay that you didn’t want him here.” 

Jackie sniffled. “I know.”

“But I’m really glad you wanted me.”

She smiled. “I know that, too.” She pulled a tissue from the box in the center of the table and wiped at her nose. “The girls are at Kevin’s til Friday. Plenty of beds here, in case it gets too late.”

Zoey cracked a grin. “I did bring my toothbrush and my robe, just in case.” 

“Of course you did,” Jackie deadpanned. 

“You gonna call out tomorrow?” 

The older woman raised an eyebrow. “Hadn’t thought about it.”

Zoey nodded. “I don’t think it would hurt,” she offered, being careful not to sound like she was trying to tell her what to do.

“You might be right,” she conceded, slurping another spoonful. “This is so good.”

“Well, you haven’t really eaten today,” Zoey pointed out. 

Jackie laughed. “I haven’t. That’s correct.” 

The girl shrugged, almost guiltily. “I just know stuff. It’s my thing.”

Jackie finished her soup and pushed her bowl aside, rubbing at her nose with the tissue again. “I’m glad I hit him.” She met the girl’s eye and gave her a wink. 

Zoey looked away; she was too overjoyed by the statement to maintain eye contact. She stood up, clearing the bowl from in front of Jackie and heading to the sink to clean up. 

“Don’t do that,” Jackie told her, switching back into mom mode. 

Zoey shook her head. “It’s one bowl. I got it.” She hummed to herself as she cleared the pot from the stove, making clear to both of them that it wasn’t just the one bowl she was washing, really, but that nothing was going to stop her from helping, if she could.

“You want some tea?” Jackie asked, feeling useless and a little too taken care of. 

“I’ll get it,” Zoey tried to quickly pivot from her place at the counter, but Jackie stopped her with a steady hand on the small of her back. 

“I can make tea, Zoey, I’m not an invalid,” she snapped, maybe sounding harsher than she meant to. 

Zoey shut the water off. “Yeah, I’ll have some.” She knew better than to challenge, or to try to soften the mood, or to even acknowledge the shift. She knew it’d pass as quickly as it had come. 

“Why don’t you sit down for more than one minute, hmm? In the living room? I’ll bring it over.”

The girl nodded and made her way out of the kitchen, taking a deep breath of relief after having finally processed what just happened. 

Jackie did her own version of the same the moment Zoey was gone. She pulled a few pills from the bag she’d hidden in an Old Bay container in the back of her pantry and chewed them up quickly, putting the kettle on the stove and lighting the gas. She wandered over to the at-home pharmacy Zoey had set up and ripped open a box of NyQuil, popping several of them, too. She exhaled. Better. 

She rifled through the drawer looking for the crumpled box of teabags, hearing muffled white noise waft in from the living room as Zoey turned the TV on. The drugs started working their way into her system. She melted into the feeling. 

She stood at the counter, her eyes shut and her shoulders lowering as she relaxed, finally, until an untimely, nuisance of a tickle worked its way into her nose. She tried to ignore it, but at the last second, when she realized she couldn’t, took a step back and bent double. 

“Hih’iHdnTchh-cHuhh! Hih’NdtSchh-Uhh!!”

She straightened up, grinding her teeth at the interruption, and swiped at her nose. 

“Bless you!” Zoey called in from the other room, almost passively. 

Jackie shook her head, turning the burner off as it began to whistle. “Thanks,” she muttered, barely loud enough to have been heard even if Zoey had been in the room with her. 

She sniffled begrudgingly and filled their mugs with steaming water. “Sugar?” she called, which made her cough into her shoulder. She growled at herself. Nothing was more annoying to her than something she couldn’t fix immediately. 

“Yes!” Zoey called back. “Like three scoops.”

Jackie laughed to herself. She didn’t have the energy to ask the scientific measurement of a scoop, so she took her best guess and made her way into the living room. 

“Thank you,” Zoey’s face lit up as she took the mug from her hands. “This is the first time you’ve cooked anything for me!” 

Jackie glared at her. “Boiling water is not cooking.” She took a seat next to the girl and, for the first time, had a moment of clarity where she realized how weird this was. 

“It counts. You did it in a kitchen.” Zoey blew gently across the surface of her drink. “How you feelin’?”

Jackie did the same and took a tiny sip. She liked the way it burned. “I’ve been better.” It was the closest she’d come to saying what she meant, and she knew it was more than enough for Zoey. 

She sniffled and brought her mug down to the couch, stabilizing it against the cushion as she brought her wrist up to her face and jerked behind it. “Heh’DnTschh-Uhh!” 

“Bless you,” Zoey said softly. “You sound worse.” 

Jackie rolled her eyes. “Gee, thanks.”

Zoey sat up, turning in toward the woman and tucking her legs underneath herself to sit cross legged. “Why didn’t you want Frank here?” 

Jackie took a deep breath and shrugged. “Honestly?”

Just the idea of getting a moment of intimacy made Zoey practically shiver with giddiness. She clutched her mug closer to her face. 

“I don’t think he knows what he’s getting into. Here. With me. I think he has a different idea of me, and I can’t be that for him. It’s exhausting.” She wiped at her nose. 

“I see that,” Zoey nodded. “I was so scared of you when we first met.”

“So you’ve said,” Jackie recalled with a smirk. 

“But it was because I wanted you to be something you’re not. I wanted a mentor and a friend and a colleague and, like, a Grey’s Anatomy work person.” 

Jackie looked down. She hated that that was something Zoey would have wanted, and somehow, she also hated that she couldn’t be that for her. 

“And you are some of those things. But not in the way I thought I wanted you to be.” Zoey looked down. “I think you’re right. I don’t think Frank will ever see you. For the things you actually are.” She took a sip of her tea. “And even if he did, I don’t think he deserves them, anyway.”

Jackie looked up at her. She offered a tiny but genuine smile. “You’re a smart girl.”

“I know,” Zoey smiled cheekily. 

“And so humble.” 

“Well, I learned from you.” 

Jackie laughed, rubbing at her nose. “Touché.” She set her mug down on the end table. “God, I can’t believe I hit him.”

Zoey laughed. “He was so mad, Jackie. Like, really mad. It was terrifying.”

The older woman rolled her eyes. “Let him be mad. I’m sick! I know not what I do. I’m all hopped up on pills.”

Zoey cocked her head. “Like...pills pills?”

Jackie’s smile quickly faded; she fucked up. “No,” she immediately recalibrated. “God, no, Zoey. NyQuil. I took a couple when I was in the kitchen.”

Zoey nodded, almost solemnly. “Okay. Just making sure.”

“You think I’m still using?”

She bit a nail. “I don’t know.”

“Jesus, Zoey,” Jackie spat, as though the girl weren’t right. 

“I believe you! Just to be clear. But I guess... I don’t know. I worry. I worry about you a lot.”

Jackie put a hand on the girl’s knee, knowing an offering of physical touch would distract her for a few seconds. “Don’t.”

Zoey nodded curtly. “Got it.” She looked down. It wasn’t enough. 

Things had gotten so formal all of a sudden, and Jackie knew her slip-up had cracked the always-thin ice she walked upon with the people who knew her best. She wracked her brain for a Zoey-friendly topic to shift to, but an itch in her nose distracted her. 

She stood, both to break the tension and to tend to her impending needs, and pulled a fresh tissue from a box on the coffee table. She sat back down and bent into it just in time. 

“Huh’iHndTsch-uHhh! Huh’nKdschhh-Tchh!” She blew her nose. “Sorry about this,” she said, at the very least, going for the low-hanging fruit: the sympathy vote. 

Zoey shook her head. “Not bothering me. I’m a nurse,” she said with a half-coy shrug of the shoulders. Her jokes rarely landed. It was charming. 

“I know,” Jackie told her, getting up for another tissue, just in case. “Doesn’t mean you want to be doing this when you’re off the clock.”

“I do, though,” Zoey rebutted, matter-of-factly. “I like to be useful.”

Jackie reclaimed her seat and smiled at her. “And you are.”

Zoey nodded, but it was clear the wind had been knocked out of her sails in their moment of misunderstanding, which was really a moment of accidental discovery, only Zoey didn’t know it. The girl sighed to herself and finally said the thing she so desperately didn’t want to. “I think I’m gonna go.”

“Zoey, come on,” Jackie sat up, moving closer to the girl. “You should stay. You should sleep over. It’s late.”

“Yeah, I know, but it feels like I maybe shouldn’t be here anymore after the Frank thing, and...” She stood, bringing her mug into the kitchen and picking up some of the loose tissues left on the table along the way. 

“Don’t do that,” Jackie followed, trying to regain control of the situation. “Just stay, Zoey. I’ll make breakfast in the morning, we can talk about how shitty of a doctor Roman is, and how much of an asshole Coop is...”

Zoey half-smiled. “I think I have to go.”

Jackie sighed and hung her head. “Okay,” she said, defeated. “Okay,” she repeated, believing it a bit more the second time. “I wish you wouldn’t.”

Zoey shrugged a shoulder. “I wish I wouldn’t, too.”

Jackie furrowed her brow, and opened her mouth to talk back, but a sudden hitch in her breath stopped her. She looked up, impatiently, at the light on her ceiling and took a final gasping breath in, bending double. “Heh’ihKndT-schhiUhhh! Hih’iHnDtschht-chUH! Heh’iHnkTschhi-OOh!” Jackie straightened herself, but stumbled a bit as she tried to take a seat. She was suddenly lightheaded. She felt herself starting to slip. 

“Whoa, hey,” Zoey said, startled, as she rushed over to put a hand around Jackie’s back and lower her into the kitchen chair. She knelt in front of the woman. “You okay?”

Jackie’s eyes went bleary and her head felt like it was throbbing to a bad electronic beat on a speaker inside of a balloon. She knew Zoey was talking to her, but the words were garbled, like she was underwater. 

“Jackie?” Zoey called to her, calm and stoic. “Jackie, you’re okay,” she assured the woman, taking a step back to pull a washcloth from the drawer and run it under cool water. She scurried back, dabbing her forehead. 

“Jackie?” She asked again, only this time, her voice was a little clearer, like she was coming into focus. “I’m here. It’s okay.”

Jackie suddenly snapped back into herself and reached up for her head, resting a hand on her temple. “Jesus.” She put her other hand on the table, as if to steady herself. 

Zoey put a hand on her leg, grounding herself to the woman. “Can you hear me?” 

Jackie nearly rolled her eyes, but had to concede that given the circumstances, the girl’s reaction was warranted. “Yeah, I’m here. I’m good. Fuck.” She sat back and took a deep breath, taking the cold washcloth out of Zoey’s hand and wiping her face. 

“What happened?” Zoey asked, sitting back a bit. She, too, took a deep breath and began to come back to earth. 

Jackie shook her head lightly. “I just got dizzy. I’m okay. It’s totally okay.” She pressed the cloth under her eyes against her sinuses. It felt good.  

“God, that was scary,” Zoey admitted, putting a hand over her heart to calm herself. She finally stood back up and pulled a kitchen chair a bit closer to Jackie, sitting, too. 

Jackie shut her eyes, but reached out and put a reassuring hand on the girl’s arm. “I’m fine, honey. It’s just the congestion and maybe a side effect of the antihistamine.” She took another deep breath and brought the cloth down, finally looking at Zoey again. “I’m all right.”

Zoey bit her lip, but nodded reluctantly. “I’m gonna stay.”

Jackie began to shake her head but found that it was a bad idea. She steadied herself once again. “You don’t have to; that won’t happen again.” 

“Maybe it won’t. But maybe it will. I don’t want to think about you being alone here if something were to happen,” Zoey told her, getting a little too worked up for a semi-seasoned nurse who’d simply witnessed someone get a head rush, though Jackie had a feeling that wasn’t all she was talking about.

She decided to let it go. She owed it to Zoey. “Yeah. Okay. You’re probably right.”

Zoey nodded. “You need water.” She stood and made her way to the cabinets to search for a glass. As she filled it with cold water from the tap, the sound of Jackie ripping another tissue from the box gave her pause. 

Behind her, Jackie took a pointedly measured breath in and bent into the tissue. “Heh’nDktSchhh-Uhh!” 

Zoey spun around a little too quickly, already having developed a PTSD-like response. She eyed the woman up. “You good?” 

Jackie chuckled, wiping at her nose. “I’m good. Just a sneeze.”

Zoey gave a nod and set the glass down in front of her. “Good. Bless you,” she said, as though it were a military command. 

Jackie nodded back in respond; a salute. “Thank you.” She lifted the glass up in a cheers and drank half of it down in one gulp. 

“I do believe you,” Zoey said, as though she’d been biting her tongue to keep it back. “Just so you know.”

Jackie smiled up at her. “Thanks, Zoey.”

Zoey blushed a little and looked away. “Okay. Bedtime.” 

Jackie stoop up slowly, careful not to upset the delicate balance of uppers and downers chasing each other around her system again. “You need anything? Towels, toothpaste...”

“I’ll figure it out. I’m very good at being a guest,” she said without a hint of irony. 

“Second bedroom on the left is Gracie’s. That’s probably the most comfortable bed.”

Zoey nodded. “Noted.” She took a step to leave, but turned on her heel to face the woman again. “Do you need anything?” 

Jackie shook her head. “No, honey. I’m okay. Really.”

Zoey gave her a thumbs up. “Cuz if you do, I’ll be... well, you know where I’ll be, it’s your house. But feel free to come wake me up if you need me to do or get anything for you, I’m perfectly happy to...”

As she continued, Jackie took a step toward her. She wordlessly leaned forward and brought the girl in for a hug.

Zoey went silent. Finally. 

“Goodnight, Zoey,” Jackie whispered, giving her a squeeze and releasing, taking a step back. She crossed her arms over her body and watched the girl try to process what had just happened. 

She looked around, like she wasn’t sure if it were a prank. But then her face fell. “I wasn’t even ready! I didn’t get to properly reciprocate!” 

Jackie rolled her eyes and started for the stairs, walking past the girl. “Sleep tight,” she sang as she left her, bewildered, in the kitchen.  

Zoey stared after her, processing what had just happened. She stomped her foot, finally, when it hit her. “Come ON!”

Jackie smiled to herself as she marched up the steps. Some days just turned out okay. And for that, she was grateful. 

——————————————————————————

After a much-needed but hard-fought day off, Jackie was feeling more herself. She was able to sleep in, she didn’t have to worry about food or medicine or staying hydrated, as Zoey had taken care of all of that in one fell swoop, and she hadn’t heard from Frank, which to anyone else might seem like a nightmare, but to Jackie, felt all right. It felt good, almost. But she was always hesitant to let anything be so. 

She strode through the doors of All Saints, feeling clearer and fresher than she had in days, maybe weeks. She had a lingering sniffle and an occasional tickle in her throat, but overall, she was ready to let the day take her wherever it might. She was ready for anything. 

“Jackie!” 

Except, maybe, Zoey’s incomprehensible 7am enthusiasm. 

“Zoey,” Jackie replied, with much less gusto. 

“You’re back!” She pointed out, inching closer to the woman as she settled into her desk. 

Jackie gave her a sidelong glance while she shoved her bag into a metal drawer of the cabinet. “You knew I’d be out.”

Zoey stood finally, like she couldn’t bear to stay down anymore, and perched on the edge of the counter next to Jackie. “No, I know. It just feels weird without you here, like a wing is missing or something.”

“Well,” Jackie gave her a tight smile. “All wings are now accounted for.”

Zoey smiled. “Do you feel better?”

Jackie pulled a stack of patient files from a folder and began to page through them, recategorizing them in order of urgency. “I feel great. Thanks for asking,” she finally looked up at the girl and gave her a nod. “And thank you for everything else.”

Zoey offered an over-exaggerated wink. “Don’t mention it. It’s just what I do.”

Having gotten what she’d been waiting for, the girl hopped off the counter and made her way back to her own area, but paused halfway there. She fanned her face with her hands for a few seconds before ducking behind her forearm. 

“Heh’KtschhhiiEw!!”

Jackie glared at her and remained completely unmoved as Zoey slowly revolved back around to face the woman.

“I feel like this looks really bad, but I promise I’m not sick.”

Jackie finally broke eye contact and shut the files, clicking a pen and standing up to head to a patient. She slowed as she approached the girl. 

“You never present with sinus symptoms when you’re sick,” she said casually, leaning in. “It all stays in the chest with you.” She gave her a smirk and kept walking, leaving the girl, again, shocked in her wake. 

Right before she turned the corner, Jackie turned her head over her shoulder before disappearing completely. “I know stuff, too,” she called, and kept on walking without looking back.

[SneezingGenius]

Okay.. that was amazing!!!! Ahhhhhh. I loved it!

[musiclover90]

I've watched a few episodes of this show. I love this.