She doesn't bluster in with all guns blazing right away. She gives herself time to think, about what she ought to say, and how to move forward from this. She lets herself consider what would be best for her.
It wasn't until over halfway through the shift that she approached Fletch's office and knocked on the door. He was surprised to see her, eyebrow arched as she stepped inside and closed them off in some semblance of privacy.
"How can I help you, Ms Naylor?" He asked in a professional, detached tone.
"You were right, and I was selfish and stupid and reckless. I've booked an appointment with a therapist. I know you aren't going to take me back, or at least not right away. You can't trust me after this, I don't even trust me right now. I just wanted to tell you that I'm trying, because I don't want to watch myself ruin us," she declared boldly and waited to hear his response.
Fletch blinked profusely at her, almost as though he thought she might disappear.
"I'm not going to sit around and watch you struggle through this alone just so I can step in at the last minute and be there for the easy bit. If you want this, then I'm here, from today until the day you don't want it anymore," he offered and stood, approaching her with a hopeful smile. "I will listen to you try and leave me a dozen times a day if I have to, I am not going anywhere."
Perhaps it was the fact that it has been so long since she had kissed him, or perhaps it was the fact that she lets herself believe this is forever for a second, but when she closed the gap between the two of them and met his lips, she did not care that the blinds were open and the entire ward could be watching.
She tugged him closer to her and breathed him in, feeling his hands at her waist and wondering how she ever gave him up.
They broke apart for air, smiling wildly at one another. Fletch did not loosen his grip on her and she wondered if for the first time, he was just as scared as her.
"You really booked therapy?" Fletch asked as he pulled her with him so that he could lean against the desk.
"If it isn't you, it'll just be the next person that I shut out of my life. This is about me, and I want you to be a part of that, but I can't let you be my only reason behind it," Jac answered and Fletch had never been so proud of her.
It was Frieda who worked up the nerve, almost twenty-five minutes later, to knock on Fletch's door and request Ms. Naylor's help with a patient. Jac begrudgingly left, going to fix whatever mess Frieda had managed to make.
The rest of the day was relatively quiet; Jac performed an elective surgery and Fletch drew up rotas for the next month. At the end of the day, Fletch popped into Jac's office to ask her if she wanted to come over for dinner.
"Not tonight...maybe we should take things a little slower this time," she suggested tentatively, and his enthusiastic grin was not what she had expected in response.
Walking across the room, he leant down to kiss her softly and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Jac smiled at him, eyes glinting in the poorly-lit room, and gave him a peck.
"I'll see you tomorrow," Fletch said with a smile as he stepped back and made towards the office door.
When he returned home that afternoon with a beaming grin on his face, Evie had to try and hide her smugness. He does not tell anyone why he is in such a good mood and nobody dares to ask, but in her own head, Evie knows that she somehow got through to Jac.
Under the dinner table, she unlocked her phone and tapped out a message to Jac:
Evie: Happy you saw sense.
Jac: Pleased you presume your Dad's good mood is courtesy of me.
"Evie, no phones at the dinner table, I've told you before," her Dad reminded her and she tucked it into her pocket.
She had done her bit and now it was up to the adults to work things out for themselves. She wanted her Dad happy, and if that meant Jac was in the picture then so be it. Ella and Theo might've preferred someone a little more traditional, given the option, but she had already known a mother and she did not need another one.
Jac was a person that she trusted and respected deeply but she was not her mother, nor would she ever be. It was an arrangement that she was sure suited all those involved.
