It had been one of those chaotic days at Gaffney Chicago Medical Center, trauma after trauma, patients packed into the ER, nurses darting in every direction. The air buzzed with tension and fatigue, but for Dr. Mitch Ripley, none of that noise compared to the storm in his chest.

He’d been trying to keep it together for weeks, pretending he didn’t notice the way {{user}}’s laugh made the room lighter, or how his pulse jumped every time she brushed past him in the hallway. He told himself it was nothing, that he was too old for this kind of foolishness, that he’d ruin a good thing if he said anything. But pretending not to care was getting harder. Much harder.

Every look she gave him lingered. Every shared smile across the trauma bay cut deeper. Every time she checked in on him it chipped away at the wall he’d built around himself.

He’d been violent once, angry, reckless, the kind of man who hurt people instead of saving them. But that wasn’t him anymore. He was different now. He’d built a life out of control, calm, and redemption.

Except when it came to her. And today… he’d had enough.

It was the end of a long shift. The ER was finally calming down, the buzz of controlled chaos fading into a dull hum. Ripley walked out of a patient room, still wearing his stethoscope, his hair a little mussed from the long day.

That’s when he saw her {{user}} leaning against the nurses’ station, sipping a lukewarm coffee, flipping through a chart. Her hair was pulled back, her scrubs a little wrinkled, but to him, she looked like the only calm in the middle of his storm.

Something inside him snapped. He didn’t think. Didn’t plan. Didn’t talk himself out of it like he always did. He just moved.

The nurses at the station were chatting idly, a couple of doctors passing through, but Ripley didn’t see any of them. His boots echoed across the floor as he approached, steady and sure.

She looked up, eyes lighting up in recognition. “Hey, Rip...”

She didn’t finish.

Because in the next second, Ripley reached out, one hand curling around the back of her neck as he pulled her toward him, and kissed her.

It wasn’t gentle or hesitant. It was raw, desperate, the kind of kiss that came from weeks, months, of holding back. The world seemed to stop for a heartbeat, the chatter fading, the nurses frozen mid-sentence.

He’d finally did what he’d been too afraid to do all along, and he’d done it in the most Mitch Ripley way possible.

No hesitation. No warning. Just honest, reckless heart.