“Feelings you’re holding for your now not married lover. Any gossip like th—”

Frazer hung up again and turned her phone on silent. Probably snickering to herself, Jemma wouldn’t try to call back again after that anyway.

Everybody was stupid, and Frazer felt like she was coiled tightly, ready to snap at the closest person. At her hip, her pager trilled, and Frazer stared at it happily. The ward had a patient who was at ten centimetres.

At least something nice was going to happen that day.

* * *

It was that stupid dream.

It was like a phantom, the way it trailed over her mind, touching its fingers to parts of her that needed to be left alone. The conversation with Alec wasn’t enough to ruin it, and neither was trying to remember why Cora had walked away that night. Why she had felt the need to make a point of walking away?

A point to Frazer or to herself? Cora wasn’t sure anymore.

In the cafeteria, Cora was pointedly not watching Frazer laugh at something Lauren said at another table, at the way she threw her head back in mirth, her throat exposed. She pushed away the memory, or the dream memory—or something—of her lips on Frazer’s soft skin, the sigh in her ear as she sucked slightly.

It was like a rush and a slowing all at the same time. As if all the air had been sucked out of the room, yet all of it had blown into her lungs and overinflated her.

It was as if Frazer had taken everything in stride and Cora was the one left floundering.

Across the room, Frazer was settling her chin in her palm. She beamed. Positively beamed.

And Cora was sitting there, aggressively chewing a carrot and staring.

Telling Frazer to leave her alone was supposed to make everything easier. After so long, it was supposed to be a step back while everything else fell into place or fell apart so Cora could figure her life out. Instead, she missed Frazer with an ache that wasn’t about missing friendship.

Carrot grated down her throat.

Cora wanted Frazer to be looking at her like that. She wanted to be the one that made Frazer laugh so hard that she flushed.

Cora wasn’t straight.

Cora didn’t know what she was. But somehow she had fallen for obnoxious, cocky Frazer and hadn’t even noticed until she was laying in dirt she’d tripped herself up in.

Frazer looked up and caught her eye. Her eyebrows furrowed as she looked away and back at Lauren.

At an age she had thought she was past such things, Cora had a revelation. One that had her scraping her chair backwards and walking blindly out of the room and through the closest door she could disappear into.

It was a treatment room, thankfully empty of nurses who were off doing more important things.