August 1, 2020

Gabe showed up at her door looking remarkably well-groomed, at least by his flimsy standards. His unruly hair stuck up in a tangled mess, yet despite his usual sloppy ponytail, it was still damp from a shower—likely the first Gabe had taken in days—and his strong jaw was free of its usual stubble. Naomi smiled at his feeble efforts. After all, he still wore his rumpled old suit and the pair of scuffed-up shoes he fancied, and he still reeked of cigarette smoke. Not even his attempts to tidy up could erase that smell; it clung to his skin, his hair, his clothes, and she wrinkled her nose at the thought of it getting on her furniture. Gabe was a package deal, though; she couldn't just take his conversational skills and leave behind the chain smoking.

"Evening," he greeted, hefting a six-pack of beer. "Looks like I kept you waiting so long you went gray on me."

Naomi rolled her eyes at his jibe, but it had been years since comments on her hair had affected her; it had turned prematurely silver when she was still in college, a trait that ran in the Kimishima family. Instead of rising to the bait, she nodded and held the door open for him, letting him saunter into her apartment as if he owned the place. She chuckled under her breath and turned to latch the door behind him.

Naomi still wasn't sure if their meeting was a good idea, or even of what had possessed her to actually agree to it. She had met up with Gabe a week prior to pick up some papers, and somehow the ensuing conversation had led to…this. Her eyes flickered over to the lanky doctor as he leaned against the wall. He had been the one who had inspired theirpoorly thought-out plan to get together for good conversation, a few drinks, and casual sex, but for some reason she had agreed to it, and so he wasn't entirely to blame. Naomi was wholly unwilling to start up a real relationship with anyone, after all, and his motives didn't matter one bit. Gabe could stay detached from her, and that was all that mattered. And if he was married, well…

She glanced down at his conspicuously bare ring finger and forcibly banished those thoughts from her mind. It wasn't her business.

He quirked an eyebrow, catching her look.

"You sure you're okay with this?" he asked. "I won't be upset if you're not."

"Sit anywhere you want. I'll get a bottle opener," Naomi replied. It wasn't her job to worry over his life or the problems therein. If he could let her faults go without comment, she could at least afford to show him the same courtesy.

Naomi returned from the kitchen to find Gabe sprawled out on her white couch with his shoes off and his feet up on the armrest. He cracked open one eye, flashed her a lazy grin, and folded his arms behind his head, looking for all the world like a great cat sunning himself. An unlit cigarette stuck out of the corner of his mouth, completing his carefree look.

"You're not going to light that," she said flatly. Naomi didn't think that he actually would have, but given his demonstrated lack of respect for her property, it was best not to risk it. He smoked in his office at Resurgam First Care, after all, and that was technically illegal.

He shrugged as if he'd expected it and pocketed his tarnished metal lighter. Instead, Gabe reached for the carton of beer he'd set on the table, wordlessly taking the bottle opener out of her hand.

"This is good stuff," he remarked as he took a deep drink. "Maria recommended it. You remember Maria, right?"

"Your emergency physician friend with the bad temper? Yes, I think I do," Naomi replied, taking a seat in her favorite stiff-backed armchair. She sat with her legs crossed primly and her hands folded in her lap, posture perfect, as her mother had drilled into her head since she was little. Naomi popped the top off of her beverage and tentatively took a sip—she didn't drink much, but in the interest of being social, she'd give it a shot. True to Gabe's word, it was more than passable, and she mentally congratulated Maria on her taste.

"That's the one," Gabe confirmed with a nod. "What about your coworkers? I imagine those morticians are real lively."

She ignored his sarcasm, saying, "One of the new pathologists lost an earring in a corpse's chest cavity. You should have seen the look on Little Guy's face when I asked for an analysis on it."

"What kind of idiot goes by Little Guy?"

Naomi stifled a smile, remembering that the rest of the world knew nothing of her ongoing banter with her assistant.

"It's what I call him. He's a newly-assigned coworker of mine. From…"

Naomi hesitated. She still couldn't say "Delphi" without flinching, even two years after she'd left the ranks of that nightmarish organization. Little Guy had been nothing more than a sardonic chauffeur to her in those days. He hadn't seemed like the sort to join the ruthless medical terrorists of Delphi…but neither was she, and still Naomi had ended up working with them. She wished more than anything that she had not, but she had wanted so, so badly to continue operating after her license to practice was revoked, and Delphi had offered her a new name and a chance to help patients again. She hadn't been able to resist their siren song, and she still dealt with the consequences of that poor decision.

"From…?" Gabe prompted.

"The FBI," she muttered. It was the truth, but certainly not what she had intended to say. More than just her bad memories held her back. She may have been arrested for her involvement with Delphi, but Little Guy had apparently gotten away and started a new life for himself. No matter what her opinion of him was, she couldn't betray him so easily, not when he was trying to start over clean.

"Ah, a government brat," he snorted. "Just ditch him. All that stupid red tape kills progress."

"You never did care about the rules," Naomi remarked. "Just be glad you haven't been fired yet."

The diagnostician shrugged and took her warning in stride, ignoring it as she knew he ignored all cautionary words; to him, regulations were little more than fancy names for things that other people were supposed to follow. She, in turn, cared far more for protocol than he did, but even Naomi had to admit that the Cumberland Institute of Forensic Medicine had gotten more uptight since she had been recruited for the FBI cases.

"Besides those idiots, have you been doing well?" Gabe asked.

"As well as a terminally ill woman can," she replied with a shrug.

"…I'm sorry," he sighed, sitting up. There wasn't a hint of discomfort on his face or in his voice, but all the same she suspected that he had been sobered by his words; his posture was stiff and awkward, long legs splayed uncomfortably and shoulders bowed.

He fiddled nervously with his lighter as he waited for her to respond.

"I'm going to die, Gabriel. You're supposed to be a doctor—be professional. There's no point wasting time crying over it," she said. It bothered Naomi that cool, unflappable Gabe would skirt around the issue like everyone else did. It was her life; if she wasn't undone by her own mortality, then no one else should be. She had come to terms with her imminent death in a few short, brutal days after diagnosis, days spent shell-shocked and futilely trying to go through the motions of regular life while she dreaded the numb, sleepless nights and the sobbing fits. That had been months ago, though; Naomi had ceased to rail against her fate. Death came to everyone at one point or another—as her career viciously reminded her—and whether she died in twenty days or in twenty years wasn't an issue anymore.

She could tell from the scowl on his face that Gabe didn't like her calm acceptance one bit. The scruffy man didn't press the issue, however. Perhaps he understood better than she had initially thought—after all, he had met others at the thin line between life and death, pulling them to one side or the other with gun or scalpel in hand. Naomi didn't know much about his military days, for Gabe grew uncharacteristically terse when the topic came up, but she knew that he had come almost as close to death as she was, and so she accepted his unease with less irritation than she would have from another.

She continued to stare him down, waiting for a response.

"Fair enough," he finally agreed. Naomi knew that he wouldn't give up entirely; he was a doctor first and foremost and she had never seen Gabe give up on a life, even one as hopelessly doomed as hers was. She had been given a respite from his dogged harping for the moment, though, and that was good enough for her.

"So tell me," Gabe began, nudging the conversation onto a new topic. "What symptoms have manifested thus far?"

"Can't you leave the diagnoses at the office?" she grumbled.

"I'm not diagnosing you. We already know what you have, right? I just don't want us ending up in an avoidable emergency because of something you didn't tell me," he countered.

She rolled her eyes, but didn't comment further. Naomi couldn't blame him for his inability to separate work from his personal life—medicine was a difficult field to work in, especially for them. Most grew detached from it, but Gabe had traded his family and she had traded her morals for the hospital. It played tricks on their minds, crept into day-to-day life, entwining itself with their personalities until even time off was dominated by the hospital. She still dreamt of her surgeon days, waking up breathless with the remembered smell of disinfectant and blood in her nose, the image of stark ivory ribs and pulsating organs branded on the backs of her eyelids. The sound of an ambulance siren sent adrenaline pumping through her veins and her hands reaching for a surgical mask that she wouldn't find.

With those thoughts on her mind, it was too hard to begrudge Gabe his questions, and so she gave in and replied:

"It's nothing serious: trembling fingertips, weight loss, minor dizziness."

"Yeah, I thought you looked thinner," he commented with a nod.

"Most women would take that as a compliment," Naomi returned, but she knew what he meant—she had always been on the slender side, and with her recent weight loss, she was beginning to look sickly. "My health shouldn't affect things any more than your bad lungs will."

Gabe shrugged, not bothering to deny it. The cigarette in his mouth more than spoke for him.

"What about your family? How is your son doing?" she asked.

"Lisa's coming by tomorrow to pick up Joshua's things. I don't know why I even still had them. The kid hasn't been by in months."

Naomi grimaced, fighting to bite back her disgust. She still had fond memories of her own parents and the childhood she'd had. Her father used to read to her on warm evenings as the fire burned low and she sat at his feet, her tiny hands fisted in their Akita Inu's ginger fur and her eyes wide with rapt attention. Those old detective stories and her mother's medical dramas fed her young fascination with medicine, molding her into the person she would become. Naomi had religiously kept in contact with her family until their deaths, and seeing Gabe lackadaisically ignore his son hurt her more than she'd admit. She clamped her mouth shut, though, as he had on the issue of her upcoming death. It wasn't any of her business.

Instead, she made an indistinct, noncommittal noise that Gabe was free to interpret however he wished.

"Yeah. Guess she thinks I don't need it. She's probably right—the kid's been with her or the hospital so long I doubt he even remembers me," Gabe continued.

"He's in the hospital? Why?"

"Didn't I tell you? He's pretty sickly; this time it's some ulcers that are going to be treated. It'll be a simple endoscopic procedure, so he shouldn't be in long, but Tomoe wants to keep her eye on him in case any complications develop," he explained. Catching Naomi's blank stare, he added, "Tomoe Tachibana? You know, our endoscopist? You'll have to meet her sometime—she's from Japan, like you."

"Where, exactly?" Naomi asked, curious. News from her home country was always welcome, especially given that she could never, ever go back. That thought hurt her every time it surfaced. America was a fine country, and one that had granted her clemency for her actions and a chance to practice medicine again, but it wasn't where she belonged. She still dreamed in Japanese most nights, even though she hadn't carried on a conversation in the language since before she was exiled from the country. At heart, she still belonged there.

"Koga, I think. Is that anywhere near your old stomping grounds? You were in Kyoto, right?"

"Kyushu," she corrected wistfully. "Okinawa, to be precise."

"It's all the same to me," Gabe muttered. "But I'll tell her to drop you a line, if you want. She's got nothing else lined up for next week beyond Joshua's surgery."

"Thank you. But do you worry for Joshua?"

"Nah. Tomoe's a top-notch surgeon. The kid'll be fine," he responded. "Although I've gotta say, he definitely didn't get my toughness."

"Or your attitude."

"I'd kill him myself if he had my attitude," he chuckled, his laugh a raspy half-cough. "The world only needs one Gabriel Cunningham."

"I'm not going to argue with that," she teased.

She caught herself smiling at his light jokes despite the solemnity of their discussions. Removed from the urgency of the workplace, his cynical humor made for a truly laid-back atmosphere. Naomi outright grinned as he feigned offense at her comment, childishly sticking his tongue out at her.

The green glow of the clock above the TV caught her eye—it was well past midnight. She started, wondering just how she'd lost track of time so easily. A glance at her coffee table provided the answer; six empty bottles vied for space along the polished surface, and she knew they weren't all Gabe's.

He followed her eyes and quizzically turned to face her.

"Hey, what's the matter? The night's still young."

"Ten years ago, I would have agreed with you," she sardonically replied, shaking her head.

"What, do you want me to go?" Gabe questioned, sitting up. "I mean, I had a great time, don't get me wrong, but…"

Naomi rolled her eyes.

"I'm not chasing you out yet. I didn't just invite you here for drinks, you know," she assured.

He grinned roguishly and stretched, drawing himself to his feet and quirking an eyebrow in silent invitation. Naomi smiled in response, blue eyes mischievous, and stood. Gabe was at her side in an instant, his hand on her hip.

"Then let's get this party started," he purred.

"I hope you brought a toothbrush, because you're not using mine."

"You're gonna harp about my breath?" Gabe demanded, his smile replaced by a look of utter puzzlement. "If you're gonna kill the mood, at least have a good reason for it."

She eyed him severely, pausing to think of a legitimate concern. Gabe apparently took her silence as having no further objections, though, and he kissed her on the temple, the cheek, the lips. Naomi pulled back, turning her head to the side to force him to listen to her.

"What about STIs?" Naomi asked. Given his marriage and his intelligence, she didn't honestly believe that he had anything, but Gabe needed to cool his heels and think things through. This wasn't just fun and games for her, and if he didn't take things seriously, she would turn him out on the street in a heartbeat.

"Come on, this is me. I'm clean. What do you have to worry about?" he questioned indignantly.

"I'm not too old to get pregnant," the forensic investigator bluntly stated.

Gabe's eyebrows shot up, before he made a low, pained noise and muttered, "I've had surgery," in a tight voice.

"…Well. I suppose that's one way to answer that," Naomi agreed, taking him by the hand and leading him towards the bedroom. Discomfort forgotten, the diagnostician grinned ear to ear and followed without further comment.

Gabe lay at her side, his arm thrown haphazardly across her bare chest and his nose buried in her hair. His labored breathing was heavy and hot on Naomi's neck, kicking up wisps of silver hair that tickled her cheek and made her wish she still had it pulled back. In lieu of that, she rolled over to face him. The man's eyes were slivers of warm toffee and he wore nothing more than a goofy grin. Naomi arched an eyebrow, a contented smile on her lips, and she nestled deeper into the blankets.

"That just made my stressful week wholly worthwhile," he laughed, fingertips languidly running over her sides. She made a hushed noise of agreement, her eyes fluttering shut with a soft moan.

"Hate to be a killjoy, but you weren't planning on kicking me out anytime soon, were you?" he asked.

"Mm, I don't really care."

"Fantastic. I'll grab a smoke and be right back," Gabe mumbled, reluctantly rolling out of bed. She opened her eyes as he withdrew his hand, only to see him yawn and stretch. From the way he stumbled about, eyelids fluttering, he was fighting to stay awake, like an old lion attempting to shake off the effects of a tranquilizer dart.

"If you're smoking, you're leaving," Naomi reminded him.

He let out an aggravated groan.

"Great. I hate driving home," Gabe sighed as he clumsily pulled on his underwear. He glared petulantly at where his blazer lay in the corner. "I hate getting dressed, too."

She rolled her eyes.

"You could avoid both and just lay off the cigarettes for one night," the woman returned, shutting her eyes and trying to ignore his grousing.

"Very funny," he growled. "I'd rather you shot me. Go on, right between the eyes here. If that's all, I'll grab a smoke and go."

"What, you aren't even going to say goodbye?" she teased, although the jibe lacked any real bite.

"We're on for the same time next week, right?"

"If nothing else comes up," Naomi agreed.

"Well, I'll see you then. Later."

She sighed at his behavior, but soon realized that she was going to have to lock the door behind him. Naomi stubbornly rolled over and tried to ignore it. She was warm and comfortable in bed, and inwardly cursed at Gabe for forcing her to get up. It wasn't his fault, of course, and she knew it—he didn't have a key or any way to lock up when he left. Some part of her still blamed him and his damnable smoking habit for making her have to stumble in the dark towards the door, shivering at the touch of freezing cold linoleum on her bare feet.

Next she saw him, she'd give him a piece of her mind.