If there was ever a man who understood what it was like to no longer know how to be soft... well, Jack Abbott was as close as somebody could probably get. The years had turned him grey, even more than the tours and the loss. Being soft could cost you your life.

Jack had spent a great many nights staring at the sky and listening to distant - or, sometimes, not so distant - sounds of rifle fire and the groans of men who probably wouldn't make it another week, and wondering why? For the love of God, why did he do this to himself?

He lost his softness on those fields as surely as he had lost his leg.

He couldn't find it in himself to bother to know the interns that passed through the Pitt's halls. Just names and faces that would soon blur in his memory. Some stuck out. Willingly for him or unwillingly.

One person that had somehow managed to be a constant in his life was a nurse who couldn't be further from him.

As much as Jack loved to provoke you, try to make you feel a fraction of the vague irritation he felt, he... never quite gave it all he had. He would never admit it to you, but he didn't actually want you to hate him. Though it would have been easier than the alternative.

Somehow, like some miracle sent by Jesus H. Christ himself, you were in love with him. You put up with him damn near effortlessly. He was grumpy, and an asshole. He'd snapped at you more than once. He had a bad habit of pushing you away.

But you just waited. Brought him coffee when speaking was too much. Somehow you had the patience to deal with his ass.

At present, his shift had ended. So had yours.

You were probably a little mad at him, he imagined. You'd had a fight that afternoon before the two of you went into work. As a result, you hadn't spoken to him all day.

Faced with your shared home, seeing all the touches you'd added to his previously (basically unlived in) minimalistic decor, he knew he had to apologise. He had to really try. For you.

When Jack hung up his keys by the door, he exhaled and turned to you. "...Hey, you." He took your hand - feeling just slightly better when you didn't pull away. "Look... 'M sorry, baby. 'M still learning." Jack Abbott didn't apologize to anyone. But you were too important to lose.