Open Heart One Shots (Choices)

A Time and A Place

Summary: Ethan Ramsey and Cassie Valentine's relationship has seen its share ofbumps on the road, but it's finally smooth sailing. Are they ready to take thenext step? Follow-up to Cassie's Day Off.

When Dr. Ethan Ramsey, world-renowned diagnostician, was asked by Edenbrook's employee magazine on how his life had changed since being appointed Head of Diagnostics, he was hard pressed to answer in a way that would satisfy himself, let alone the readers.

The reality was that the position had come at a time in his life when everything had been in flux, both professionally and personally. He had to let go of the idea that his mentor, Dr. Naveen Banerji, would return to take over the team. And he had to accept that some rules were meant to be broken when he'd gotten involved with his former intern, Dr. Cassie Valentine.

The Ethan Ramsey of two years ago would have been irked at the question and his bark would have been as worse as his bite. As it was, he had mellowed and was only mildly irritated. He gave a non-answer in a tone that discouraged any follow ups from the communication specialist asking the questions and hurried them out of his office.

Given the announcement to senior management about the acquisition and consolidation of Edenbrook and Mass Kenmore, he had other things on his mind. This interview, long delayed from his end until the directive had come straight down from Naveen to get it done, was just one more irritation in a long day.

The other, he was sad to say, was caused by him missing a certain junior fellow on his team who had the day off. So, when he heard the distinct ping on his phone, one that only went off when said individual posted on Pictagram, his response was Pavlovian in nature.

They exchanged messages, her responses coming in faster than his. But the net result was that Cassie would be going home with him tonight. Suddenly, the day was starting to look a lot brighter.

So much so that the janitor mopping the floor outside the glass walls of the Diagnostic Team's office looked up in alarm at the sight of the normally reserved Dr. Ramsey shooting his arm up in the air as if his team had just scored a touchdown.

It was almost seven o'clock in the evening when Ethan heard the office door slide open with a swoosh. Engrossed in a case study on irregular proteins in the blood stream, he barely looked up until he felt the back of his chair move.

Suddenly, his arms were full of a familiar green-eyed blonde, who settled on his lap, sitting sideways with both her legs hanging across his thighs. Her arms circled his neck, fingers tangling in the hair at the back of his head.

He glanced towards the glass wall, noting with relief that she had shaded them already to prevent anyone looking in.

"Hey, stranger," she said, leaning up to tease his lips with hers. "Did you miss me?"

"Oh, were you gone somewhere?" he said, tone disinterested, an eyebrow raised quizzically even as his hands came to rest on her lower back.

She just shook her head in amusement, her head falling on his shoulder as she nestled closer. He tightened his embrace, inhaling her scent as they stayed wrapped in each other.

"I missed you today," he said eventually.

"Thank you," she grinned up at him. "I missed you too, but I didn't miss having to wake up at the crack of dawn, so really it's a tossup on whether one cancels out the other."

Feeling his heart lift at the laughter in her eyes, he leaned down to cover her lips with his. The irritation from earlier faded away and he realized that his life was very different from a year ago. But it had nothing to do with his job and everything to do with her.

"I was going to wait until we got home," he began, his hand reaching inside the desk drawer, "but this is our time and our place."

Cassie watched with curiosity as he took out a small square box with a silver lid. He lifted the cover to remove two silver keys on a keychain in the shape of running shoes.

"It's adorable," she said, smiling as the base of the shoes lit up when she shook the keychain. "What are the keys for?"

"My apartment," he said simply. "The one with the square head is for the lobby door."

"Ethan..." she began only to stop.

Moving off his lap, she stood up and he followed as they faced off across his desk.

"I'm not ready to move in with you," she said, her tone apologetic.

"I like our current living arrangement and don't want to change the dynamics. I love being with you," she said quickly, "but the rest is not something I want at this stage of our relationship."

"That's not what I'm asking, Cassie" he told her, his hand staying hers when she tried to return the keys.

"I want you to have access to my place for when you need it, whether I'm there or not. I know you like living with the Roomies; you've said so before. And to be honest, I'm not ready for our dynamic to change either," he said, hesitant for the first time since they began this conversation.

"What I do know is that I want us to explore where we are headed together and," he continued, his hands closing around the keychain in her hand, "all these keys represent is a willingness by both of us to do that. That's all."

Cassie watched Ethan, trying to read his tone and body language, noting that he wasn't as confident as he normally appeared. But she could tell that he was sincere.

For someone who had eschewed a committed relationship for as long as he had, the fact that he was even considering giving her keys to his place said volumes. She was too smart to recognize that it wasn't the keys so much as what they represented — access to his most personal and private self — that told her he was all in.

And he wanted to know if she was too.

After almost a year as a couple, she thought, if she wasn't ready to take that step then what were they even doing here together?

She glanced down at the keys in her palm, his hand half covering hers so that all she was the dangling running shoes. He loved her enough to pick something that had personal meaning to her rather a generic keychain.

How could she possibly say not see what that meant?

She folded his hands between hers, the metal pressing into their palms, before looking him straight in the eyes.

"I'm all in, Ethan," she said. "Thank you for trusting me with these."

She waited for that smile to break across his face, the one reserved for her. And when it came, she knew it was indeed their time and their place.

"Now, can we go home so I can test out these babies?" she quipped, dangling the keychain and laughing in delight when the shoes lit up in blues and greens.

"Fine," he said, his sigh just a tad dramatic and at odds with the grin on his face.

They walked hand in hand down the hallway, nodding at those they passed on their way to the elevator. Neither noticed nor cared at how everyone from nurses to orderlies turned back to watch the couple.

Some commented on how Dr. Ramsey laced his fingers through Dr. Valentine's as the elevator doors closed, and all wondered if the Dr. Terminator was forever a thing of the past.

For tonight, they said, it looked like he might as well be. As for tomorrow? Well, that was another day.