Archive of Our Own ^beta

Cleo doesn't know why she's nervous.

She's got no reason to be—this wasn't her harebrained idea. She wasn't the one inviting a near stranger into their home to give him round-the-clock care.

No, this was all on Peter. And he'd promised as much when she'd finally relented. This would be his problem. And still, she paces, head craning out the window to see if Peter's car is back yet.

At the kitchen island, Reese is working on his homework—or at least he's supposed to be. But he's caught wind of Cleo's restless fidgeting, and he's staring. His eyes track her back and forth, and finally, he waves at her and raises his fist to his chin.

What's wrong?

The question shakes Cleo out of a daze, and she taps her chest in response. I'm fine.

And she is. Really. It'll be fine.

Two Weeks Earlier

Cleo can tell something's wrong the minute he gets in the door.

Peter Benton's not what anyone would call overly emotive, but ten years with him have taught her to read the signs. The proud angle of his jaw after a successful day. The defeated slump of his shoulders after a challenging one. It's all there—and if she looks at him long enough, she knows he'll let it out.

So she trains her eyes on him as he slips off his coat, his bag, and moves to the island as if in a trance.

But five minutes go by. Then ten. For a half hour he sits, staring off into nowhere, and Cleo wonders if he'll ever spill.

"I saw Carter today at work."

For a moment, nothing registers. "Who?"

"John Carter. He was at the hospital."

The name means very little to her, but it's familiar, wait, she knows that name—

Faint flickers of memories—a young resident back at County General, confident, self-assured, intelligent, addict, negligent, impervious to consequences….

Yes. That Carter.

There had been a time when Carter had been all Peter would talk about—during one of their early dates, she'd redirected the location so he could keep talking about Carter. She didn't know how or when that had slowed, but they hadn't spoken about that kid in years.

"Was he working there or…."

"He's a transplant patient. Got a new kidney today."

"Oh." Cleo's own memories of him are admittedly foggy, but she couldn't remember if anything had been wrong with his kidneys all those years ago. "How did it go?"

"Well enough. He's recovering well, but it's too early to know how long he'll be in the hospital." It's clear there's more on Peter's mind, but Cleo doesn't get to find that out—because he gets up, wanders out into the backyard, and doesn't come back inside until long after she'd gone to bed.

Over the next few days, Peter's arrival home from work is later and later than usual. He doesn't hide that he's visiting John, and Cleo doesn't begrudge him this. Over the years, they've learned the delicate balance of being a family of doctors—who picked up Reese, who made dinner, who had busier weeks and when, when they wanted to talk work and when work needed to be left at the door. They were adults. They were independent. And when the time came, they could always trust that the other would be their safe place to land.

A few days later, Peter comes home and Cleo immediately knows something has shifted. Instead of the belabored reticence of the past few days, there's determination in his face that often preludes Peter saying or doing something Cleo knows she won't like.

She steels herself—no use putting off the inevitable. "Good day today?"

Peter nods as he slips his messenger bag off of his shoulder and toes off his shoes. "Fine," he says, tone clipped.

Okay. So anything but fine.

Cleo sips, then sets down her mug of post-dinner tea on the kitchen table, bracing her hands on the countertop. "Anything on your mind?"

Peter shrugs out of his coat and comes to the island. He mirrors her stance, bracing his hands on the other side of the island. Meets her eyes.

Then, he drops the bomb.

"Cleo…I want John to come stay with us once he's cleared to go home."

For a moment, the world stops. Cleo can't speak.

It takes her ten seconds to find her voice. "Peter….what?"

"I want him to stay with us while he recovers, and I want to be his primary caregiver. "

All Cleo can do is stare at him. Her wonderful, infuriating, rational, logical husband cannot be asking this. "You want. This is something you want to do."

To his credit (and to her frustration), his face looks like this was exactly the reaction he had been expecting. "Cleo, I promise, can explain–"

She whips around to the other side of the island, eliminating any barrier between them so she can confront her idiot of a husband face-to-face. "Yes, Peter. I think you'd better. Please explain how you want a stranger–"

"He's not a stranger–"

"To come live in our house after a major surgery? Under the same roof as your son?"

"He knows Reese–"

"No. Absolutely not." She shakes her head. "It's been years, Peter. Let him go home to whoever his designated caregiver is."

"He doesn't have one. Not a personal one, anyways."

At this, Cleo's wheels spin. "Wait. You're telling me didn't have a primary caregiver lined up? Don't the transplant protocols say–"

"I know the protocols, Cleo."

"And?"

Peter sighs. "I think some money in the right hands turned a few heads the other way, and he hired in-home care as a substitute. But it's only because he didn't have anyone else."

Cleo feels something hot flare in her chest and she laughs a bitter, mirthless laugh. "Peter, he shouldn't have even been on the list without a caregiver."

"Well he was. And now it's done, and he's off it."

And there it was. She hadn't thought about John Carter in years. But what she did remember was a rich white kid who never faced a single lasting consequence. He could lie on a patient form and pass it off as an accident. He could steal drugs and treat patients while high. He could flaunt his recovery plan, relapse, and still stay in the hospital's good graces. It was the kind of privilege she could only dream of having, and yet it barely made a dent in his career.

Over the years, her loathing for him had faded to a quiet indifference, and eventually she'd all but forgotten him. And now here he was again, creeping into their lives, lying his way into a transplant, his family wealth buying himself out of one more inconvenience.

Worst of all, she remembered what John Carter did to Peter Benton.

Peter became reckless. Single-minded. Closed off to everything else but him. It was a devotion that Cleo couldn't make sense of. She'd seen it first the night of the Valentine's Day attack, when Peter was willing to let another man die just so he could supervise Carter's surgery from start to finish. It had terrified her, seeing him lose the control he so often wore as a badge of honor.

And now, Peter's at Northwestern. He's a surgical attending. He has a lot more to lose. And Cleo won't let him lose it just because John Carter's crawled out of the woodwork.

She crosses her arms over her chest and prepares to face off. "So John Carter's paid people off. Disregarded the rules to suit himself. Sounds like he made his bed, and he can lie in it. In his own house."

Peter shakes his head. "I'm telling you, he doesn't have any other choice. And you know it's not the same kind of care. He won't have a personal advocate–"

"And why is that your problem, Peter?" Cleo feels her voice raise. "I applaud your compassion, but this isn't some friend stranded in town for the weekend who needs to crash on your couch. It's 24/7 care for weeks after a kidney transplant. Which you don't have time for."

He sighs. "I called a few people. Patched together coverage for a few weeks. I'll use sick days for the rest—"

"Peter, you are a surgical attending," she hisses.

"Cleo, I know."

"You know? What else do you know, Peter?" The fire's burning hotter now in her gut. "What I know is that all these years away from County, you barely kept in contact with John Carter. You ran into him by accident. And now, he's asked you to drop everything because he needs something."

"He didn't ask me to do this, Cleo," Peter says quietly. "He doesn't even know that I want to do this. I wanted to tell you first."

"Tell me? So you've decided already?"

"Cleo, I–"

In the melee, neither Cleo nor Peter noticed that Reese had crept in and was watching their animated conversation with great curiousity from the living room. They don't even realize he's there until he waves his hands in their direction, and their heads both snap his way.

What're you fighting about? He asks.

Peter and Cleo both turn guilty eyes toward the other.

Sign it, he demands. You know the rules.

Go to your room, his parents respond in tandem.

Reese rolls his eyes and jogs up the stairs. For the first time since the fight began, Peter's silent. When he finally speaks, his voice is soft.

"It's not just John's fault. I should have reached out to him. I could've stayed in touch." He turns to face Cleo, and the anguished look on his face cracks something in her heart. But she maintains her resolve.

"Peter, it's been eight years. He wasn't even your student for that long. You're not responsible for him."

Peter shakes his head. "I know what he's like, and I didn't reach out."

"So this is about your guilt?" Cleo's head falls in her hands. "You don't owe him anything, Peter. People get sick. You can't save them all. That's not your job."

"He's different."

"How so?"

"He just is, Cleo." There's a fire in Peter's eyes Cleo hasn't seen since his younger years, and for the first time in the conversation, he looks genuinely angry. "Did you know his own wife didn't even come? Even when he asked her to?"

It's a sidebar meant to throw her off balance. And it works, because she changes course immediately. "He's married?"

Peter scoffs. "He says he is. I think it's complicated." He sighs. "None of his family came either. He was alone, Cleo. When I say he's got no one else, I mean he's got no one."

It's the third time he's said it, and the third time must be a charm, because it lands squarely like a blow to the chest. An involuntary flash of a man, in pain and alone in a hospital bed, Peter Benton his only visitor.

No. She can't let this go. John Carter had enough money to buy his way out of everything. And still, years later, he needs more, and it's always from Peter.

Another flash, this one a memory. John Carter, long before the stabbing, the drugs, all of it. Making a little girl laugh as he sutured a cut on her arm. He had returned her smile with a bright one of his own.

She shoves the memory down. One sentimental memory didn't mean she wasn't right to be concerned.

Peter eyes are soft now. "Please, Cleo." His thumb traces a vein of dark color in the marble countertop. "If he comes home here, he does it the right way. He'll have a personal advocate. He won't get around the system, and he'll get better. I'll take care of it all."

That's what worries me.

But it's Peter. He won't let this go. And her wedding vows had said in sickness and in health—she just didn't know that counted for John Carter's sickness and health, too.

Cleo can feel her her resolve slipping. "Tell me what you have in mind."

Cleo and Peter had worked out an agreement. John Carter would stay in their home for three weeks before transitioning to his own place for in-home care. During his stay, Peter would be his primary caregiver. Cleo's schedule at the private practice would stay the same, and she could help with meds when she was around, but the day-to-day care would largely be on Peter's shoulders.

That was a week ago, and now Cleo's nervous.

You'll be fine. This will be over before you know it.

Around 5:30pm the doorbell rings. Peter crosses the threshhold first, holding the door open. Then, John Carter walks back into Cleo's life.

It's him. But it's not.

John's hunched and limping, dressed in sweatpants and an old grey Northwestern sweatshirt with Peter's coat over his shoulders. He looks older than she remembers—the lines of life etched in his face, dark shadows under his eyes, his skin sallow and paper-thin against his cheekbones. His clothes hang off his frame, and his wispy brown hair's flat and lank after days in the hospital. Next to him, Peter's got a duffle bag looped over his shoulder and a couple of plastic bags in his hand.

John meets her eyes, giving a weak smile and feeble little wave. "Hi, Cleo."

Her name feels like a current through her body. He remembers her.

Peter probably talked about you. That's not anything groundbreaking. But there's something sweet about the gesture, and she remembers that he didn't ask for this, either. So she returns his wave with one of her own. "Hi, John."

John just nods, then winces, hand slipping to his lower back with a sharp intake of air.

Peter flashes a glance at his watch, then puts a hand between John's shoulder blades to nudge him forward. "Next meds are in half an hour. Let's get you showered first." His other hand drops one of the plastic bags, filled with prescription medication, on the kitchen counter. "Your bedroom's back here, and the bathroom's right across…."

Then they're gone, whisked out of her sight.

Reese stares after them, then turns to Cleo.

Was that him?

I guess so, Cleo signs back. She gazes at the medications on the counter. Stapled to the outside of the bag is a detailed timetable of when to take each one. It's a dizzying arsenal of antibiotics, antivirals, steroids, immunosuppressants, painkillers (no opiods, she notices), anti-rejection drugs….

She hears a cry of pain from the back room, followed by Peter's hushed tones.

Without thinking, she plucks open the bag and begins to sort the medication bottles in neat rows. It's the least she could do.

For Cleo, the first few days are relatively uneventful.

Her days are spent at the private practice clinic, seeing a constant stream of kids with bumps and bruises and ear infections. She picks up Reese from school, and often comes home to an empty house—John ushered off to follow-up appointments and lab draws back at Northwestern until Peter half-carries his exhausted frame back through the door and back to bed.

In the evenings, she cooks dinner and accounts for an extra portion. She helps Peter verify where each pill belongs in the timed pill organizer for the following day, then loses him again as he goes to sit at John's bedside.

Her nights are spent alone in their king-sized bed, half-awake as she imagines Peter uncomfortably scrunched in the reclining chair they'd moved next to John's bed.

Despite John's presence in their home, she barely sees him at all that first week. He takes his meals in his room, and he never comes out to sit in the shared spaces—Peter goes to sit with him instead.

But the abscence feels logical, at least to Cleo. From the few glimpses she gets of John, he looks dead on his feet and not up to socializing, much less with a casual acquaintance like her that he hadn't spoken to in years. He's also got the immune system of a newborn post-surgery, so of course he wouldn't be out and about among the rest of them.

Her longest sighting of Peter and John together comes the first Saturday John's there, when she catches part of their routine Peter had mentioned. The pair take twice-daily walks around the perimeter or their backyard—slow, glacial jaunts, Peter patiently slowing his steps to keep pace with John. As Cleo watches through the window, there's something tender about the way they walk side by side, sometimes talking, sometimes silent, with Peter's posture relaxed in a way she doesn't often see.

From what Peter shares about John's medical progress, their patient seems to be recovering about as well as expected. His new kidney took a little while to start functioning back in the hospital, but his check-ins have all gone well, and his transplant team has been happy with his progress.

Cleo just smiles and nods, but there's an innate part of her brain that's unsatisfied by Peter's bare-bones answers. John's kidney function was one thing—the circumstances of him being here was quite another.

Why did he even need a kidney in the first place?

Where has he been all these years?

Why didn't he call?

Why are you the only one who can take care of him?

But at her core, she knows none of it is her business. John's not some specimen for her to gawk at. He's Peter's charge, here for a finite amount of time. She'll leave him be. He'll recover And soon, life will go on, as if John Carter had never been there.

Early morning, several days in to John's stay, Peter gently shakes her awake. It's 3 am, and despite being half-awake, she immediately knows something is wrong.

"John spiked a fever," Peter says, voice urgent. "102.1, and he's throwing up. I need to take him in."

Cleo rubs the sleep from her eyes and nods. "Go. I'll stay home with Reese tomorrow."

In the dim light, she sees Peter's face fall—he clearly didn't remember that Reese had the day off school. "I'm so sorry, I forgot–"

She immediately puts a hand on his arm. "Peter. It's fine. I'll call in. Call me with any news?"

Peter nods in affirmation, and then he's gone.

In the morning, the day passes at a snail's pace. Reese asks if he can video call a friend, and Cleo absently agrees. She completes an online training module. Still no word. She plays one of Reese's video games with him—even manages to beat him twice. Nothing.

Around noon, she gives up and starts cleaning the house, top to bottom. She checks her phone every 15 minutes for a missed call, a text, anything. But there's nothing, and the butterflies begin to flutter.

Her wayward men finally return home around 6:30 pm, with a pale, wrung-out John heavily leaning on Peter.

"Everything okay?" Cleo turns from the bubbling pot on the stove, and her heart involuntarily clenches at how much worse for wear both of them look.

"Ended up with a UTI," Peter says, gently adjusting John in his arms as he sways. Cleo instinctively rushes to John's other side, and she feels the heat of the fever through his clothes as she loops his boneless arm around her neck. "They wanted to admit him, but I don't want him picking up anything else in the hospital. So they got him stable, and we agreed I could administer the extra antibiotics here."

Oh, Peter. I knew you'd do this. But despite her best efforts, Cleo can't summon much anger right now—not when they both look like they've been to hell and back.

They reach his room and ease John down on the bed, and with a weak moan, John immediately slumps forward on Peter like a limp rag doll. He murmurs something—a name?—but Peter shushes him.

"Shhhh. I've got you, John. I've got you." Peter's eyes slip closed, and he slides a hand up to the back of John's head, fingers threading through his fever-damp hair. It's so tender that Cleo can barely stand to look.

"Peter, do you need any–"

"I've got it, Cleo," he says, quietly. "You and Reese have dinner. I'll get him settled."

An hour later, Peter comes in the kitchen and slumps down at the island, letting his head fall in his hands. He sits for a while in silence, and then raises his eyes to Cleo.

Cleo knows those eyes. He doesn't have to say a thing. So she just holds out her hand to him, and he takes it in his.

He asked for this, she reminds herself. He chose this.

Peter, why?

She doesn't ask him that. Not now. "Get him settled in?"

Peter nods. "He finally fell asleep. I'll go back in with him in a bit, but I just…needed a minute."

"How bad was it last night?"

"Bad enough." Peter scrubs his eyes, then turns his head toward the bedroom—like he can't bear to be away. "But I'm glad I was with him."

She knows it's his version of thank you.

Cleo lets her thumb trace Peter's knuckles. "When was the last time you ate anything?"

Peter shrugs. "Last night, maybe? I don't really remember."

She releases his hand and goes to the stove, and returns to push a warm bowl of chickpea and rice stew his way, bright with herbs and lemon.

"Eat first. Then the rest."

After dinner's cleaned up and Reese has been put to bed, Cleo's just crawled between cool, crisp sheets of her bed with a book in hand when she hears Peter yell her name.

His tone sets her heart racing and Cleo immediately whips off the sheets, meeting Peter as he's a quarter of the way up the stairs. "What? What's wrong?"

Peter looks over the banister, back towards John's room, then back at her. "Where do we keep the extra sheets?"

"Oh." Cleo's hand flies to her chest and she exhales sharply. "Peter, don't do that."

"I'm sorry, I just…" He rubs his hand over his head, and she sees the toll of the last week radiating off of his whole body. "He sweat through everything, and his fever's spiking and he's miserable–"

The implications of what's next aren't lost to Cleo—changing the sheets, getting John cleaned up and in dry clothes, all while he's completely dead weight, and Peter probably hasn't slept in at least 24 hours….

He asked for this. He chose this.

No. Peter's not doing all that alone. Not on her watch.

So she passes him on the stairs without asking his permission. "Come on. I'll help."

It's a testament to how desperate Peter is that he doesn't push back at all.

They both head back downstairs to the guest room, where a glassy-eyed John is curled up in bed and wheezing shallowly, fingers limply clutching the sheets around his body. His cheeks are flushed with high spots of color, lips ash pale and dry. He shivers violently, chills rattling his teeth as he mumbles.

"Aidez….aidez-moi. Kem…ça fait mal. Kem…j'ai mal," he croaks. "Kem, j'ai besoin de toi…" Over, and over, repeated like some kind of mantra.

Cleo instinctively begins to categorize his symptoms in her head. He's feverish. He's dehydrated. He's altered. "How high is his fever?"

"102.8. I just gave him more Tylenol." John moans again. Peter puts a hand on his forehead, and John reflexively leans into the touch—an achingly soft gesture that reminds Cleo of when Reese used to get bad ear infections, and the only thing that would calm him was human contact.

The utter weakness terrifies her. This is bad. "You sure he shouldn't be back in the hospital, Peter?"

"They'd just give him more IV fluids and monitor him," Peter says, thumb brushing against his forehead. "As long as his fever doesn't go above 104, it's not worth the stress of dragging him across town again. I can do it all here just as well."

"Peter, I think–"

"Cleo. It'll be alright." Peter's voice is even, and Cleo couldn't disagree more. John's incredibly sick. He shouldn't be here. He should be in a hospital bed, with a whole hospital's worth of resources dedicated to getting him well instead of a single exhausted surgeon who wants complete control over an impossible situation. All because Peter feels guilty.

Peter. You're not thinking logically.

She know this would happen. Peter's not thinking like a doctor. He's thinking like the worried parents she sees every day. He's being stubborn. He's being overprotective. He's being irrational.

I knew you'd do this to him, John.

Peter, unaware she's thinking any of this, launches into action. "Alright, John. We're gonna sit up now." John whimpers in protest as Peter peels away the soaked sheets, but he's too weak to keep them in his grasp. Otherwise, he's pliant as Peter gently raises him to a seated position, and he flops against Peter's shoulder with all the resistance of a newborn.

"Gotta…gotta call Kem," he rasps.

"In a minute, John." He turns to Cleo. "Can you go get the shower set up?"

Cleo bites her lip. She remembers her days in the ER, feeling the sting of being overruled by an attending even when you knew your plan was better for the patient. And she realizes that's what's happening here.

It's Peter's call. And she's got no say.

So she goes into the bathroom, busying herself with the practicals—setting up the shower chair, running the water, laying out soap and clean towels, checking the temperature to make sure it won't spike his fever or chill him through.

When she returns to the bedroom, John's still only halfway undressed. His eyes are half-open in a thousand-yard stare, and his cheek is smushed against Peter's shoulder, head too heavy for his shoulders.

"Cleo, can you hold his arms?" Peter adjusts John in his grasp, who may as well be asleep for all he's helping. "He can't lift them high enough, and they won't stay on my shoulders."

Cleo manages to gently wrangle John's arms above his head—he's both incredibly compliant and absolute dead weight, and Peter's arms awkwardly tangle with hers as he pulls off the t-shirt to reveal the pale, goosebumped skin. John shudders at the brief exposure, and Peter wraps an old bathrobe around him and rubs his shoulders, murmuring soft words of encouragement.

Both Peter and Cleo brace him on either side and help him up to take small, shaky steps. It's painfully slow going, but they manage to wrangle him into the bathroom and get him seated in the shower chair under the warm spray. Still he shivers, arms wrapped around his bare midsection as his feverish brain subconsciously tries to preserve warmth.

"…..j'suis froid…" His head tilts to rest against the tile, and he curls into an even tighter ball.

"It'll be quick, John. Promise." Peter begins to lather up the soap, and Cleo can't bear to watch.

She's suddently assaulted with memories, all flooding back to her from her early days in undergrad when she worked shifts as a care assistant in a long-term care facility. All the worn bodies, left in small rooms by families who could no longer care for them, subjected to the compassion of a stranger for their basest human needs. It had been a soul-shredding experience, and part of the reason she'd ended up in pedes. Kids didn't know they needed help. Adults knew, and it made it so much worse.

It's too much. It makes her stomach twist. She shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be here.

"I'll go get the sheets," she says, turning on her heel. "Yell if you need anything." She doesn't wait around for an answer—just springs into action, returning to the guest room and yanking off the bedsheets before beelining downstairs to the basement laundry.

Only when the water of the washing machine begins to run does Cleo let her body slow down. She takes a deep breath, then another. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Focus, Cleo.

She'd seen countless adults in their lowest moments back in the ED. It wasn't news. Seeing him like that—it'd done something to her. She couldn't name it, and maybe she didn't care to.

He's a patient. He's Peter's patient. Nothing more.

He was John Carter. He was an adult—with nothing in common with the helpless kids that she saw every day, needing their parents to oversee every medical detail. John had a mother. He had a father. He had money. He had everything. And yet he was here. In her house, completely alone, in the care of his old mentor. None of it made sense.

She shakes herself out of the daze and goes back upstairs. The shower's still running, so she busies herself with putting on the new sheets and switching the pillows, pulling a faded Sox t-shirt and a pair of green plaid pajama pants from the drawers. In the distance, she vaguely hears one retch, then another. It freezes her in place for just a moment, and she has to will herself back to focus on the task at hand. 

A few minutes later Peter calls her back in. When she returns, John's seated on the toilet, shivering and wrapped in clean towels, head drooping. Peter gently shakes his shoulder, and John slowly blinks, his vacant eyes landing on Peter.

"Almost done, John."

Peter nods to Cleo, and they both ease him up to shaky feet and lead him back to his bed, setting him down, wrestling his limp arms and legs into clean clothes, then laying him down between fresh sheets.

Between the shower and the Tylenol, his fever's miraculously lower—down to 101.4. Peter starts an IV to replenish his fluids, and the endless day finally catches up to John as he promptly passes out seconds after his head hits the pillow. Peter tucks the sheets around John, then lets himself crumple back into the reclining chair.

Cleo leans in the doorframe of the room. She should go back upstairs, but she can't tear herself away. She searches herself for her earlier anger with Peter, but only finds a cold ache in her stomach.

He was alone, Cleo.

So instead, she asks the first thing on her mind: "Who's Kem?"

"His wife," Peter answers.

They're both silent.

He's got a wife. He's got a mother. He's got a father.

And he's here.

Cleo doesn't know what to do with that. But she knows what she needs to do with Peter.

"Come on, Peter. You've got to get some sleep."

He rubs his eyes. "I'm fine. I did longer shifts during residency."

"Yes," she replies, "in a body that was 15 years younger."

Peter's laugh is wry. "Don't remind me."

It's not funny—none of it is. So she goes for the cheapest shot she knows. "Peter, it's been a week of this. And it's two weeks more. John needs you healthy. You're no good to him if you run yourself into the ground."

He sighs, and she knows she's hit his weak spot, so she presses in with her offer. "Go upstairs for a couple hours. I'll watch him and get you if anything changes."

"Cleo, I–"

"Peter." She locks eyes with him. "You've been awake for nearly 24 hours. He's stable. I am a trained medical doctor, and I'm telling you I'll watch him. Go. Sleep."

Peter knows she's not asking. He stands up, but she can tell it's still a struggle for him to leave. "Take his temp every 15 minutes. If his temp goes up a tenth, I want to know. His meds–"

"I know the med schedule, Peter. I'll take care of the IV, too."

"You promise you'll wake me if anything changes?"

"I promise."

Peter lingers in the door for a moment, an inscrutable expression on his face as he looks at John one last time before going upstairs.

Cleo pulls up her knees and situates herself in the recliner. The intermittent tremors of fever still ripple through John's body. He murmurs once, twice, but doesn't wake.

And Cleo knows she won't look at him the same way ever again.

It takes John three days to make it through the worst of the UTI symptoms. By the fourth day, his fever finally breaks , and though he's still pale and shaky, he's able to walk all by himself when they go to his appointments—daily check-ins, now, after the fever scare.

Something had shifted within her—this, Cleo knew. But she still didn't know what to do with it. She'd seen him stripped bare, at his utter lowest. But she didn't know him. She hardly knows anything about him.

So for the next week, Cleo decides to observe.

First, he seems…reclusive. The first few days had made sense, but now it was beginning to feel like he was hiding—especially when she was home from work.

She brings it up with Peter one night after dinner. "Does he know he can come out of his room while we're all here? Reese and I aren't going to bite."

Peter shrugs. "I've told him. He says he doesn't want to be any trouble."

Cleo rolls her eyes. "This house is already too big for three people. Tell him to come out in the living room tomorrow after dinner and sit with you."

Sure enough, the next evening after dinner, she sees the pair of them move to the couch in the living room. They each take a side—Peter with a medical journal, John with a fiction paperback she recognized from their bookshelf and a blanket over his lap.

For a moment, she watches the way they read in silence. Then, she goes upstairs to change for an evening run.

Second, she's surprised at the sheer lack of interest anyone seems to have in how he's doing. She hadn't expected to be buried in flowers and balloons, but aside from a get well card signed by all the staff at County, there's been nothing. No messages from family, no calls from this mysterious wife.

She doesn't know what it's supposed to mean. But still, she files it away.

A couple of days later, Peter decides it's time for John to join them for dinner. She doesn't think John had much say in the matter—she can hear the coaxing voices behind the door before a Peter emerges triumphantly, a limping John in tow, freshly showered and wearing a Northwestern sweatshirt and dark sweatpants.

He winces as he lowers himself into the chair Peter's pulled out for him, and flashes a weak smile Cleo's way. "Hey again."

Cleo nods. "Hello again. How're you feeling?"

He shrugs. "I'm okay. Thank you for asking."

Peter rolls his eyes. "You said you were 'okay' right before you passed out on me in the shower last week. That's not the reassurance you think it is."

"Maybe 'okay' is relative," John says the hint of a smile in his eyes.

"Or you're telling me what you think I want to hear," Peter says, unamused.

The smile spreads to John's face. "Well, all things considered, today felt pretty okay."

Dinner is served, and Reese begins telling Peter about a soccer game at school. Peter response with his answers out loud as well as signed, and she notices John listening intently, even though he's missing half of the conversation.

His attentiveness strikes something in her, and when Reese finally concludes, she realizes this is her golden opportunity to finally ask John Carter one of her burning questions. And she refuses to squander it.

"So, John," she says, dishing up the peas on her own plate. "What've you been up to these last eight years?"

Peter levels a glare her way, but John seems unfazed by the question. "Little bit of everywhere. Was at a clinic in the Congo for a bit, then Darfur, working with Allíance des Médecine."

It's purposefully vague, and yet it throws open a million doors. Silver-spooned John Carter doing aid work. In Africa. She imagines him in dusty tents, in thick jungles, working miracles among poverty when he had the pedigree to be in the finest research hospitals. Why?

John continues, unaware of Cleo's revelations. "Spent a bit of time back to Chicago in between, and I was back at County until…" He gestures at himself and keeps smiling, but there's something deeper and private about his eyes. Cleo sees it. I'll give you this much. Please don't ask more. It's an answer, and a request.

So she pivots. She does not push further. "Well, I'm glad you made your way here." And to her surprise, she halfway means it.

To John's credit, he manages to eat almost everything on his plate. Peter had doled out his portions, and John didn't complain—just manages tiny bites of roast chicken, peas, and mashed potatoes until it's all gone.

He would've been done faster, if he hadn't spent so much of the meal conversing with Reese. Peter had said John knew a few signs back from when Reese was a toddler, but Cleo's surprised he can patch together simple sentences, asking Reese what grade he was in now, what he liked to do, even asking him how do you say when he didn't know the signs he wanted. It was stilted and imperfect and so, so earnest, and against her best efforts, Cleo feels the pieces of armor around her heart drop, piece by piece.

Is this what Peter sees?

The conversation flows among the four of them like the most natural thing in the world. Eventually, John quiets, and Reese shifts to telling Peter about what he's been learning in science class. But eventually, Reese points somewhere else—John's chin has now drooped to his chest, fork still in his hand, and he's snoring softly.

Cleo bites back a smile, and motions for Reese to help her clear the table. It's adorable, but she figures she ought to spare John the embarrassment of waking with the whole table looking his way. She hears Peter gently shake him awake and tell him it's time for medications and bed.

Later, she's midway through washing dishes when she hears Peter's footsteps. He motions for Reese to finish the last dish and then go up for bed. Then, he crosses his arms and levels a stare at Cleo.

She meets his stare, unphased. "What?"

"You had to ask him that?"

Oh, for crying out loud. "Peter, what else am I supposed to ask him?"

"I don't know. But not that."

She throws up her hands, flicking soapy bubbles out from the confines of the sink. "So it's fine that I've seen him undressed and out of his mind, but I can't ask a personal question about why we didn't hear from him for years?"

"Not like that," Peter says.

"Peter, he's not gonna break if I talk to him." She can't believe this. "What's gotten into you?"

Peter glances back toward the bedroom, then turns back and lowers his voice. "You don't know what he's been through."

"And I won't if I can't ever talk to him like a normal person."

Peter doesn't take the bait, and keeps his eyes locked in hers. "Cleo, I'm serious. What he's been through…." His voice trails off, and his eyes drop. "It's not mine to say. Just please be careful. That's all."

It's the third thing she realizes.

John Carter's got secrets, and Peter Benton knows them.

Cleo wakes at 2 am, hand splaying out to feel the familiar cold sheets on the other side of her bed. She can't remember the last time Peter had slept in their bed.

From the hallway, she can see that there's a light on downstairs, and she feels that familiar vine of curiosity bloom in her mind. Before she can stop herself, she's pulling on her robe, inching down the stairs, Peter's new nocturnal habits pulling her closer and closer to him.

As she gets to the foot of the stairs, she hears….laughter.

"John, it's not that funny." But she can hear the smile in Peter's voice, even though she can't see his face.

A snicker. "Oh come on. You're telling me he put it that far up there and thought he could get away with it?"

"I can't tell you what he was thinking, but I can tell you our whole OR had their theories…."

The door's cracked, and from her place on the steps through the banister, Cleo can just catch both of their faces in the lamplight. John's tucked in bed. Peter's sitting across from him in that trusted recliner, feet kicked out, hands behind his head.

They both look…happy.

Then, a pause. John's face turns solemn.

"You know, you don't have to stay down here anymore," John says, hands tracing the edge of the bedsheet. I can get up on my own pretty well now."

Peter shrugs. "Can't have you getting bored in my house. I'm usually up anyways this time of night."

No you're not, Cleo thinks.

"Still. Thank you." John's face is so open, so grateful, that it feels like an intrusion just to witness it.

Despite knowing she ought to go back to bed, that she's seen what she needed to see, she stays on the stairs, listening to them talk long into the night. They reminisce on old times. Peter asks about Africa—nothing heavy, just questions about food and culture and medical practices. John answers, surprisingly more effusive than he'd been at dinner.

When the talk shifts to Kem, the tone darkens, and the words drop to hushed tones even though they don't know Cleo's listening. She can see John's shift in body language, sense when Peter enters John's personal no man's land. John's voice becomes shorter. Clipped. Peter's voice softens too. Suddenly, she sees John's face crumple, and his hand flies to cover his mouth.

He's crying.

Peter leans toward him, outstretched arm reaching to comfort, but she's already turning away, breath caught in her throat, silently moving up the stairs and crawling back into bed like she's guilty of something—though of what, she's not sure.

All this times, she's resented John for the person he turns Peter into, the things he takes without abandon or consideration.

But before now, she's never once considered that John might truly need what Peter gives.

"You can't get anyone else? No, I'm in town, but I'm out on personal…" A pause. "Why was Dr. Paterson not called? We're always supposed to have two—I don't care what we usually do, policy says we should always—"

It's 10pm, halfway through the third week. John's already in bed, but Peter had gotten an urgent page from the hospital—one that now had him pacing round their kitchen island.

"Well, hold on. Let me check." He rubs his eyes and sighs, mutes the phone then turns regretful eyes Cleo's way.

"Surgery's shorthanded on attendings. Dr. Singh broke her hand on the way into work, LaMont's in St. Croix for another week, and half the surgeons are in Syracuse for some conference. They've got every hand working to try and clear the urgents from earlier today, but apparently we're trying to hit some transfer metric handed down by the admins, they're asking if I can come in so they can keep their numbers up."

He gazes up at the ceiling, then he looks at her helplessly. "This wasn't supposed to happen, Cleo."

She knows what it means. Like it or not, Peter's got a responsibility—and if he says no, it'll cost him.

But it's happened. And Cleo knows exactly what she's supposed to do. "Go in. John and I will be fine."

Peter shakes his head. "He's had a rough day. He called Kem for the first time, and it didn't go well, and I don't want you to have to–"

"Peter. He's been stable for days. I know the routine. I can handle it."

Peter sighs, then cranes his neck to look down the hall towards John's room. "At least let me tell him. I don't want him to wonder where I went."

To Cleo, this seems overkill—John wasn't a child, and he was a doctor who knew how Peter's job worked—but Peter insists on gently shaking him awake, letting him know where he's going and why. John hmphs quietly in response, squinting as he looks at Cleo in the doorway.

"If you need anything, Cleo'll be here. I promise I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Peter, it's fine," John mumbles. "I know you'll be back."

The reassurance doesn't seem to settle Peter's nerves much. But it must do enough, because ten minutes later, he's kissing Cleo and headed out the door.

And then, it's just her and John.

At first, Cleo's not sure what to do with herself. She's not planning on gluing herself to John's side like Peter does. But it's also still fairly early in his recovery, and she doesn't know how much help he truly needs and how much of Peter's concern is simply Peter being…Peter.

She pokes her head back in John's room. He's snoring softly, night light glowing from the bedside table.

He needs the rest. Plus, he's been stable, like you told Peter. He'll be fine.

So she stations herself in the living room—still within earshot—and starts on some long-neglected reports from the office.

It's close to midnight when Cleo hears a loud string of cursing from the hall that yanks her to her feet. She darts down the hall, prepared to see John bleeding on the floor, pale and feverish, body twisted up in the covers.

But in the lamplight, John's just sitting on the edge of his bed, sheets thrown back, head cradled in his hands.

"John? You alright?"

"Didn't wake up fast enough." His voice is muffled through his hands, and he sniffles.

Cleo's suddenly hit with the unmistakable smell of urine, and she catches a glimpse of the darkened patch on the sheets behind him.

Oh. Oh.

He sniffles again and rubs his eyes. "It hasn't happened for a few days, and I thought…and of course, it's the one night he's not—" His deliberate breathing hitches. "I'm so sorry, I should have—

John looks so small, so curled in, that she can't help but cross to him and and put a hand on his shoulder. He flinches at the touch, but he doesn't pull away from her.

"John. Look at me." He lifts up his eyes, and he looks so forlorn, so embarrassed that it makes her heart ache.

In that moment, for the first time, she wishes she knew him. She wished they had some sort of rapport, something that would make her compassion feel like something other than the twist of a knife in his already-bruised soul.

If Peter were here, he'd know what to say. What to do. Or maybe he wouldn't, and he could fix it just by being him. But he's not here, and she is. She's Cleo. He's Carter. And never in a million years would she be who he'd choose to see him like this.

He doesn't need your sympathy, Cleo.

Give him what he needs.

So she looks him right in the eyes, unflinching, unphased. "John, it's not your fault. And trust me, I've seen it all. Don't worry about it." She squeezes his shoulder. "C'mon. We can get this cleaned up in no time."

And with the precision of a professional, she goes to work.

They go through those same motions they'd done all those days ago, when John was in the throes of fever. Mercifully, John's much more steady on his feet this time as she helps him to the bathroom, but he's still wobbly with sleep, and she tightens her grip under his arm as he sways.

"Arms up." The shirt's off first, then the rest, and she eases him into the shower chair and while the water warms up. She checks the temp with the back of her hand before passing it over John's shoulders, and the goose flesh that pebbles his skin makes her lean forward and catch his eyes. "Warm enough?"

He just shrugs, so she bumps the temperature up a few notches anyways.

John doesn't speak, and he doesn't look at her. Not when she lathers up the soap and gently navigates the harsh lines of his incision. Not when she has to lift his arms for him because he's too weak to do it a second time.

It's all muscle memory, and yet it's so different from the night he spiked a fever—the shock, the uncertainty, the urgency, the wrongness of him being in their home in this state.

How alone do you have to be, to be willing to surrender yourself to the mercy of strangers in a state like this?

Cleo knew the answer now.

John Carter was completely alone.

And then, by some miracle, Peter had found him, and then he wasn't.

It should have been someone else. But it's not, and he's theirs now. The Bentons and John Carter, and whatever came next.

When it's all said and done, she dries him, dresses him in clean clothes, and helps him stand back up, and he takes the same shaky steps back to his room. When they cross the threshhold, his eyes lock on the bed, and he stares blankly at the sheets like he's trying to compute his next move.

Cleo makes the decision for him, angling his body toward the chair. He eases himself down, and she wraps a throw blanket around his shoulders before beginning to strip the bed. All the while, he just watches her, first as she strips the soiled sheets, then as she replaces them with clean linens.

And then she's done, the plump mattress once again encased in crisp white sheets. She helps him stand again for what's hopefully the last time for the night, and he eases himself into bed, sliding himself between the layers and pulling them up to his chin, the throw still tucked around his shoulder.

He looks so tired that she thinks he'll drop off into sleep immediately, but as she turns to pull up the extra blanket from the foot of the bed, she feels a hand around his wrist. He's looking right at her, eyes clear.

"Thank you, Cleo," he says, raw gratitude in his eyes. "Really. I appreciate all of it. More than you know."

Cleo knows he means more more than the clean sheets, or the meals, or the monopoly he's had on Peter Benton for the last few weeks. And it's so different than anything she'd ever expected from the John Carter she thought she knew.

This John Carter was different. He was worn down, and he was humbled, and he was grateful, and he was kind, and he had so much less than she'd ever thought possible. And maybe he was other things, more complicated things when he was well. But that was for later. For now, this is enough.

"You're welcome, John." She squeezes his hand once, and he falls back into the sheets. Still, he looks at her.

"I know you didn't ask for this," he says.

"Neither did you," she replies.

It's meant to comfort, but he shakes his head. "No. I know it's too much. And I know Peter wanted to do this, but you got dragged into this and so did Reese, and I-"

"John. Really. It's all right." The more the flounders, the more she wants to ease his mind.

He presses his palms into his eyes, and sighs, his hands falling limply on top of the covers. "None of this was supposed to turn out like this."

"No. It shouldn't have." John turns to her, as if surprised by the unexpected affirmation from Cleo, and she continues. "Look, I don't know all that's happened to you over the last few years. Nor do you owe it to me. And I won't try and tell you how you're supposed to feel about all of it."

His gaze is still locked with hers, and she feels some sort of invisible tug to keep going, to make him know what she's about to say. "But for as long as you're here, this is your home. Peter wants that for you. I want that for you. And it should feel that way as long as you need it to."

It feels matter of fact as she says it, but something in her words must strike a chord with him, because she sees his eyes suddenly shining in the lamplight, and the bob of his throat as he swallows hard and nods.

"I mean it, John. Don't hide in here because you think you have to. Okay?"

"Okay," he whispers. "And thank you."

"Now go to sleep."

John closes his eyes, and for the first time, Cleo feels a wave of something like affection wash over her. He looks younger and softer as he drifts off, unguarded in a way she so rarely sees him. For a moment, whatever burdens he's carrying are gone, and she finds herself realizing she'd do anything for him to make sure he can hold on to it for as long as possible.

So this is why Peter stays.

Cleo's got no expectations for the morning, but she'd be lying if she said her heart didn't leap when she saw John tentatively padding out of his room and into the kitchen in the early morning. He locks eyes with Cleo, and she smiles at him. He returns it, and she can see the remnants of his gratitude in his eyes from the night before.

"The usual for breakfast?" She sets down her mug of coffee, and goes to flick on the burner. "I think I've got it down to a science."

"If it's not too much trouble," he replies, leaning against the breakfast bar. Still too timid for her liking, but they'll get there.

She throws him a look. "You know Peter wouldn't let me live it down if I didn't feed you properly the one morning he was gone."

She follows the meal plan to a T, and breakfast passes in a comfortable silence. Reese is in and out of the kitchen in a flash, on a mission to finish a puzzle he had started the night before in the living room. He asks John to come join him and John promises to come once he's taken his morning meds.

The door clicks, and Peter walks in and freezes at the sight.

At first, Cleo doesn't know what the big deal is. It's just breakfast.

But then her eyes catch on John, then Peter again, and there's a wordless exchange between the two of them that only they know the meaning of. Whatever it is, it seems to light up Peter's eyes in a way she hasn't seen in a while.

The morning continues on, Peter confirming that surgery was in fact a mess when he got there and they spent the whole night on emergency surgeries, John listening with rapt attention as Peter detailed the highs and lows.

Cleo's only half-listening as she watches them interact. It hits her then that it's exactly three weeks since John Carter came home—the deadline Peter had given her for how long John would stay with them.

Cleo would have to have a talk with him about that. Surely John staying a few weeks longer couldn't hurt. This morning, he looked the best he had so far since coming home—and transitioning him to the care of strangers just seemed cruel when he was finally settled in here and headed in the right direction. 

And anyways. She's grown quite fond of him.