Jack shoved the rooftop door open with his shoulder, the metal creaking on its hinges as he stepped into the freezing night air. Another brutal shift behind him, and still the tension clung to him like a second skin. He hadn't come up here looking for anything—just space. Space to breathe. Space to think about nothing.

There he saw her.

{{user}} stood out past the rooftop’s small metal railing, perched in the narrow stretch of flat concrete before the true edge. Just a few feet of rooftop floor, and then nothing but the dizzying drop to the city streets far below.

She was still. Too still. Arms tucked against herself, face turned up toward the stars like she was listening to something he couldn’t hear. The railing was supposed to be a boundary. A line you didn’t cross unless you had a reason.

And {{user}} had crossed it.

He approached without a word. His boots scuffed lightly against the concrete, but {{user}} didn’t flinch or turn even as he rested his forearms casually against it as if he were just another tired doctor looking for air. As if his heart wasn't hammering against his ribs.

After a long minute, he spoke, voice low and even, meant only for her. "I used to come up here too," he said, voice low and rough. "Back when I thought... maybe it would be easier to just not."

{{user}}’s breath hitched. Not loud. Barely there. But he heard it. Still, she didn’t move.

Jack pressed his forearms into the railings, letting the cold bite him as he looked at her stethoscope hanging on the railings beside him. His next words came softer, almost lost to the wind. "The hard part isn’t getting through the shift. It's figuring out how to come back tomorrow."

Another heartbeat passed between them. Then another.

"I didn’t think anyone would notice if I didn’t," {{user}} whispered, voice raw and splintering in the darkness.

Jack turned then, slow and deliberate. He looked at her—not her scrubs, not her badge, not the second-year resident he taught every day—but her. The woman who stayed past her own breaking point to stitch strangers back together. The woman who smiled even when her hands shook.

"I notice," Jack said, and this time he didn’t hide the shake in his voice. "I’d notice if you were gone, {{user}}."

The rooftop stretched silent and immense around them, the city blinking indifferently below. Very carefully, Jack reached out and placed his hand over hers where it clutched the ledge, anchoring her back to the world. His fingers were calloused and warm against her icy skin.

He didn’t say Come down. He didn’t say You’re okay now. Because both would’ve been lies.

Instead, he stood with her, hand over hers, silent and solid against the weight pressing on them both. A promise, spoken without words.