With and Without | Open Heart 2/3 AU | Choices

Just Tonight

Charlie Greene had no reason to be standing at Ethan Ramsey's front door.

But there she was, staring right at his door with an expression that could only be described as shock.

She had no excuse to give for why she came here, not even for herself. If anything, she had a plethora of reasons not to be here, especially at midnight. Even if they pretended otherwise, they had a history that made everything about this moment dangerous. What reason could Charlie have to visit her boss so late in the night if their relationship was solely professional?

When Charlie left Edenbrook only an hour earlier, she was supposed to go home. The only reason she'd even left Kyra's side was that she'd been forced out by the night nurses, and they'd implored her to assure them that she would go straight home to bed. But the idea of going home after everything that happened at the baseball game and after Kyra's collapse made Charlie's stomach twist. Her happy apartment was full of tension, and undoubtedly, a fight was in her future. And she just couldn't do it tonight, not when she was so close to losing Kyra. Instead of taking the train back to her apartment, she stopped at a nearby bodega just to waste time. In a panic to buy something, she'd bought ice cream and eaten it on a dark park bench, rushing to finish it before it melted in the warm summer night.

She wasn't sure why she did that, either. It was as if reason had abandoned her the moment she watched Kyra cough up that blood. Every ounce of control she thought she had over her life was gone as if it had never existed in the first place. All day, she'd wrestled with a desperate need to scream or cry or run, and she'd done none of the above. Instead, she threw herself into work, checking on Kyra every half-hour and lingering by her bedside after her shift ended.

The entire time, she felt like an animal on exhibit. Everyone watched with quiet whispers of concern or expectations of her descent into chaos. She felt determined to prove her stability, which only made her seem more unraveled. Individually, all of her friends had tried to help. When that failed, they became a cohesive unit trying to soothe their friend despite their own internal struggles. That was even more of a failure.

Ethan, to the surprise of everyone, was the most effective. When Sienna approached him and requested that he take Charlie off all her cases for the day, he refused and left the decision to Charlie herself. She decided to keep working. She needed to work, to distract herself, and somehow, Ethan knew that. He'd monitored her progress through the day, checking in on her work and her wellbeing. On each check, he lingered far longer than he really needed to. He couldn't suppress his deep concern. He recognized the flashing panic in her eyes and the deep-rooted need to control what she still could. He'd seen it before in his own reflection.

That night, he stayed in Edenbrook for hours after he needed to, picking up stray tasks to justify his long hours. He only left when he ran out of pretense, but before he finally went home, he'd gone to Kyra's hospital room to see Charlie. He made her promise that she would take care of herself for the rest of the night. Before that point, he'd assumed that responsibility himself, making sure she didn't work herself to a breaking point and remembered to eat. When she'd mumbled her promise, he almost didn't leave because he didn't believe her.

But he did leave.

And eventually, so did Charlie – and then she came here.

Charlie raised her hand to knock on his door and hesitated. There was a flash of recognition of the situation, and she wondered what the fuck she was doing. She thought about turning around, ordering an Uber, and just going home like she was supposed to.

But she knocked.

Charlie seemed startled by the noise as if she hadn't even known she was going to do it. She held her breath as she waited for his answer, wondering if he would answer at all. He could have been asleep, out of the apartment, or uninterested in humoring a late-night visitor. Perhaps, if she'd stood longer, she could have convinced herself of any of these options and gone home, but she wasn't given the opportunity.