𝐿𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑎 𝑆𝑢𝑟𝑔𝑒𝑜𝑛-𝒯𝒽ℯ 𝒜𝓇𝓉𝒻𝓊𝓁 𝒟ℴ𝒹𝑔ℯ𝓇//ʲᵃᶜᵏ ᵈᵃʷᵏⁱⁿˢ

𝙴𝚗𝚝𝚛𝚢 𝙵𝚘𝚞𝚛

MARY

I arrived home not long after picking up Theo and Daisy from my brothers wife who had been looking after the two toddlers for the day, only to be greeted by an empty home. Somehow I'd still beaten Jack, but it looked to me as if he'd already been beaten, just not in the way I had.

Dabbing the cloth to the gash along his cheek, I couldn't help but wince at the damage. He'd really done a number on himself, I didn't know whether this was from the fall or the bashing, there wasn't any signs of concussion yet, hopefully there wasn't any further damage he wasn't telling me about either. "Gosh, Jack. How many times did he hit you?"

He shrugged his shoulders, wincing when I dab the bruised area of his face. He really got his ass handed to him. "I counted three, but I think he hit me again because I woke up on the ground just in time for Thomas to stumble across me," He looked over his shoulder and out to the hallway where my brother stumbled in, both hands gripping tight to the rusted pail filled to the brim with water from the well outside the house. "Ain't that right Bud?"

"Sure is Rosey, he copt a good one, went down like a sack of spuds, sis," The tween nodded, placing the bucket to my left for me to dip the cloth into. He sat himself down to my right, admiring the small medical task I'd been handed when Jack walked through the door beaten to the brink. Tom swung on the wooden chair, my eyesight watching him ever so slightly in case he were to swing too far, he'd claimed that chair as his since Billy had brought it home a few years ago, handcrafted from Tim's shop, it's been sitting there ever since. "Sawed it all with my own eyes."

"Seen, my dear. Past tense," I murmur, twisting out any residue from the water and back into the bucket, the slight shade of crimson dyeing the water pink.

"And how's that hand of yours, buddy?" Jack tapped the side of my leg, and with a sigh I backed off, knowing he'd only repeat his classic 'I'm fine'. Getting up from my seat on the floor, I roll onto my feet, tossing the blood smeared cloth into the laundry basket, I'd ensure to give that an extra scrub later on.

"S'right Jack, kept it clean just as you said," He offered the doctor his hand, the grubby bandage showing just where the burn had been. Last week I was baking dinner when Tommy got ahold of the hot tray I had just pulled from the fire, leaving a good sized mark along the skin of his hand. I felt so guilty, the poor kid screamed and it sure didn't help that I panicked forgetting just about everything medical I'd learnt. Thankfully it was just at the end of Jacks shift so he was already on his way home.

He drops the boys hand, searching through the medical supplies I'd already dragged out and finding a new white bandage. "Good, Lad. Where's Billy?"

"He got the late shift tonight, if not he'd be with Miss Stracott, he's whipped on 'er," Jack unwrapped the boys hand and gently turned his palm over to reveal the slightly pink marking that rested along his palm. Applying a few drops of an ointment, Jack rewrapped the bandage, patting the boy on the shoulder and standing from his seat by the bench.

Jack scuffed the young teen by his hair, bringing him into his side and kissing the top of his head. "Billy's got himself a girlfriend, eh?" I went to grab the pail only to be stopped by hands around my middle and for Jack to kiss the side of my head, he grabbed the bucket from my line of reach and headed outside.

"Sure does, won't shut his gob when it comes to 'er," Tommy trails behind the young doctor like a puppy and drags his satchel along with him, his soft brown hair falling around his eyebrows.

"Oh come on, kiddo. I was just like him when Mary and I first started out. Even just the mention of her name had me in a mess—just ask your Uncle Sam, he was sick of me by the time I was done," Jack trailed around into the hallway, falling out of my line of sight, yet I could still hear the muttered giggles and laughs from the two boys.

Later on that night, everyone but myself and Jack had gone to bed, we typically stayed up longer to the kids due to wanting the little ones to be asleep for a few hours before they wailed during the night, somehow the boys never woke up, but since I was such a light sleeper, I seemed to struggle in a house filled with kids under the ages of seventeen.

I was never one to enjoy sleep though, I always worried about things I had no control over, like if someone got hurt during the night and I wasn't at work to help, or maybe someone was injured outside of the town and they couldn't make it to the hospital. Little things like that I always freighted over, but thankfully I had a Jack to help me. To reassure me even though that may happen, it was just that, out of my control, you can't save everyone, that's a doctors job, to save people who want and can be saved.

Tidying up the kitchen from dinner, I heard heavy footsteps through the living room, too heavy for the kids and too fast for Billy, Jack.

"How's your head?" I call over my shoulder, my hands dug deep into the hot soapy sink.

I feel arms loop around my stomach from behind, Jacks chin resting on my shoulder. "I'm all good, love," His hands found my forearms and gently lifted my hands from the warm water. "Here, sit down. Let me take over."

Retracting my hands from the dishes, I turn around to find a dish cloth, if he was going to wash up, I was going to dry. That's when he grasped ahold of my palms, turning them over and noticing the small abrasions along the irritated skin.