Caliana exuded a breath of relief when she saw there were no cages in sight.

Instead, she and Isaac were introduced to rich earthen hugs of brown intermingled with viridescent foliage hues carrying all the essence of a rainforest. The only thing in omission was the fresh river water and the woollen grey sky of the late winter. The air was heavy with the pitter-pattering of several monkey infants roaming around, feasting on a wide spread of seeds, legumes, and nuts.

Perhaps the smallest infant of them all scuttled forth, gazing up at Caliana impishly, with soulful honey-glazed eyes amidst sombre brown fur. Still, he tentatively manoeuvred further on prehensile hands and feet. Between his teeth, he held the teat of a sippy cup containing fresh milk. Caliana inclined forward, a strand of chestnut-brown hair tussling down in front of her eyes, as she widened her stance and held her arms out. "Aw, he's well cute, isn't he?"

She peered over her shoulder watching for the Zookeeper, but quickly averted her gaze back to the monkey when she realised that he had long gone, leaving her alone with Isaac once again.

The monkey nuzzled against her chest, causing the plastic-linen protective drape that she'd worn over her scrubs to rustle with the motion.

"Very."

The infant-monkey who had been gaping up at Caliana in soundless contemplation as he continued to suckle from the bottle, now raised his head up from his supine position, catching Isaac stood behind them. He waggled his tail out, crashing it against Isaac's arm. "Really? You've got to hit much harder than that to have any real impact." Caliana jokingly whispered to the monkey, as she coasted her hand over his mane in a pacifying manner.

As though the monkey was able to apprehend her words, he wagged his shaggy tail once again, this time making contact with Isaac's abdomen (but still much more gently than Caliana had silently hoped for).

Isaac emitted a chuckle. "He clearly likes me more than you do."

"Yes, well, I suppose you can be cute and still be a bad judge of character."

"Actually, studies show that animals – monkeys in particular are excellent judges of character," Isaac argued back. "Which explains why they all tend to like me." His large hand scooted around Caliana's shoulder as he petted the monkey's mane, the animal coddling against his hand. "I have a dog, actually. And, unlike you, I've never had any thoughts of dismembering my dog."

Caliana side-eyed him. "Let me guess; a Rottweiler?"

Isaac raised an eyebrow, a crease forming between the two brows at the insinuation. "A beagle. He's called Fleming."

"Fleming?" She reiterated slowly, glancing up at him, incredulously. "Please tell me you didn't name your dog after –"

"Alexander Fleming. The forefather of antibiotics. Of course, I did."

"Of course, you did." She murmured under her breath. The monkey perked up within her arms, clambering up her forearm, leaning towards Isaac, eyes enlarged as he analysed the man. "Maybe he thinks you're his daddy."

Isaac rolled his eyes, as he allowed the monkey to clamber onto him, the animal draping his arms around his neck.

Caliana leaned forward, standing on her tiptoes as she glanced between the two. "Aw look, he's even got your ears."

"Behave, will you?"

--

With only thirty minutes remaining until the completion of the scans (and until the end of this shift), Caliana and Isaac found themselves back in the cloakroom.

Caliana sat cross-legged against a far wall, a woolly fur Karen Miller coat repeatedly smacking against her temples from beneath the coat pegs (and annoyingly reminding her that it cost more than her monthly salary, alone).

Isaac was seated opposite her, body angled so his flanks were facing her as opposed to his face. His legs were bent rather awkwardly, owing to the fact that the room was far too diminutive to accommodate his legs comfortably.

Caliana's head lolled back and forth, suggesting that the seventy-two hours without sufficient sleep were fast catching up with her. Through fatigued eyes, she watched as Isaac's head veered to the side, and she bit back a laugh as she watched him invertedly collide with the hard wall.

"Ouch." He glared around, freezing once he took in Caliana's smirking frame. "How on Earth are you still smiling at 7. a.m in the morning, after a night shift?" He peeked down at his watch, emitting a profound sigh. "In the hospital, we can get any scan performed in half an hour – forty-five minutes tops – there's no way it's actually taking two hours in this place. Night or day. It's one thing saying you don't have enough staff, and it's another thing to admit you're just incompetent—"

"Are you being serious right now?" Caliana hissed, catching Isaac by surprise as he leaned back in response to her words. "I don't want to talk about the scan. I can't stand this...this whole Jekyll and Hyde act you've got going on." She gestured at his body using both hands. "You're so different when you're with me, and yet when anyone else is around, it's like you have a literal stick wedged up your ass." When he persisted in glimpsing at her with a bewildered expression, she lowered her voice down further. "The kiss. I'm talking about the kiss! We need to talk about it...otherwise...otherwise, I'll go insane."

"It might be a bit too late for that. That train has well and truly left the station." He quipped.

"Be serious, will you?" Caliana urged. "I know...I know that there's something between us. I can feel it." She placed a hand to the middle of her chest, just above her abdomen. "I can feel it...right here."

He glanced down at her fingers, his expression softening. "Really?" He crouched closer towards her, placing a finger on top of where hers was residing, and she had to consciously ignore the fact that he was less than a centimetre away from her breasts. "Here?" She nodded up at him. "Caliana, that's called trapped wind."

She threw up her hands, shoving him away from her as he bursted into laughter. "You are such a stubborn pig!"

"You want the truth so badly?" He placed a hand over his mouth, muting his laughter. "Fine, but you won't like it." He cradled his nasal bridge before resuming. "The truth is I'm tired. I was tired then, and I'm tired now. And I had a lapse in judgment." He stealthily met her gaze. "The honest truth is there could've been anyone else in that room, and the outcome would've been the same. Preeti, Dawn...anyone." He emphasised his final words.

"Wow." Caliana breathed out in retort. They were just words, and yet they still hurt. Whoever had coined the sticks and stones rhyme clearly hadn't been on the receiving end of a conversation with Isaac Rhys. "I must've missed the part where you woke Dawn up at seven a.m. to take her out to a coffee shop. Or the time you remembered that she wanted to go into Dermatology and arranged to take her to a conference in Petras so she could achieve that goal."

He blinked down at her, pursing his lips. "You didn't miss that part, because I only did those things because I'm your supervisor, not Dawn's. Of course, I want to see you get ahead." He sighed as she gulped. "I'm not saying this to be cruel."

"Well, how are you saying it, Isaac? Because you are not being honest right now. Not with yourself, and certainly not with me." He opened his mouth to respond, but Caliana scooted forward, the carpet beneath them grazing against her knees. She clapped her hand over his lips, much to his dismay. "You know what? Save it. Since you're going to keep telling lies, how about you don't say anything at all."

It wasn't a particularly tight grasp, yet Isaac froze momentarily, muscles locked in paralysis, eyes widened with astonishment at the act. He perched up from his seated position, hands reaching for her forearm, as he stood up, bringing her up to her feet with him. He let out a sharp exhale, his words muffling beneath her grasp. He tugged her hand, her clasped hand now settling upon his chin. "I can't breathe! I have a deviated septum, I'm a pure mouth breather."

She loosened her grip for a moment. "Oh...well in that case—" She clamped her hand over his lips once again, slightly tighter, perching up on her tiptoes, leaning towards his earlobe before hissing. "Good."

But she appeared to have underestimated his strength, because, in one brisk moment, he yanked her hand away from his mouth, clutching both of her wrists within his palms above her head. "You're a living nightmare, Caliana."

"See, now we're getting somewhere. You're admitting to dreaming about me now." She continued to taunt him, her feet aching from the amount of time she'd been perched on her toes to meet his gaze, her neck straining. "You kissed me because you wanted to. And I'm not too proud to admit I really wanted to kiss you too." She exhaled, her breath fanning against his lower neck. "But since you're so worried about admitting the truth, then...just know it didn't have to mean anything more if you didn't want it to. But for God's sake, at least admit in that very moment, it was me you wanted to kiss. Not Dawn. Not Preeti. And certainly not anyone else."

He inhaled deeply, the noise sharp as his pupils began to dilate, eyes inquisitive in every sense as they roamed across her face, deciphering her words and thoughts. And yet it was Caliana who was taken aback by his next words. "So...hypothetically, if I was to say I wanted to kiss you again, it wouldn't mean anything...at all?" She felt the warmth of his fingertips as they released their grip on her hands, crawling from her wrists to her forearms, leaving swollen hair follicles in their wake.

"Absolutely. Nothing." She enunciated the words; the minty aftermath of her breath mingling with Isaac's. "So, if somehow you did kiss me again – hypothetically, of course, you'd have nothing to worry about."

"Even if I was to kiss you...here?" He pressed his lips half a width above her left clavicle, joining with where his fingers had trailed. He wasn't touching her, yet she could feel the heat spill over upon her skin. So hot and heavy, that Caliana wondered if she'd be able to find scald marks the following day. He glanced back up at her from his position. "Hypothetically, obviously."

"Yes." She muttered, the word converging from her mouth as little more than a moan; both her vision and sanity beginning to blur. "I mean, no! It still wouldn't mean a thing."

"And how about here?" His fingers traced along the gentle curve of her neck, his hand cupping the nape of her neck, pressing her head against the wall. This time his breath was even closer, at her pulse point where he could visualise the bobbing of her carotid artery. So near that she could almost anticipate the saliva grazing against her skin, akin to sandpaper.

What she hadn't anticipated was for his hands, belonging to someone with such a rough and hardened exterior to cradle up her neck and to her face so delicately. She allowed her eyes to flutter closed, tilting her chin up as she opened herself up to him. She felt such a burning between her legs, within her core that she wondered if a furnace had been brought into the room.

She could see the internal battle within his pupils. He leaned closer for a second, and then doubled up backward, as though she and he were two magnets of sorts. In one field, irrevocably drawn together, and in another, flying miles apart.

"Please, Isaac." She whimpered out the plea, unsure what exactly she was asking for.

"Please what, Caliana?" He responded, his hands skirting down her sides, before tugging her close to him, until her body was flush against his; the thin cloth of their scrubs the only thing parting them. He emitted a stunted moan, as she raised her knee, pressing her kneecap hard against his crotch. "If you ask me for just about anything right now, I'd probably give it to you." He leaned into her neck, the straight slope of his nose caressing the curve of her jaw before he whispered. "But I'm going to need to hear you say the words."

This time, her hand skirted to the nape of his neck, moments away from the label of his scrubs, before gripping down hard onto several locks of his hair, tugging his head back, causing his eyes to snap open as she hissed into his ear. "This means nothing. And right now, we're just two normal people. Not Doctor Rhys and Doctor Monsoon. So, what are you waiting for? Kiss me, you fucking fool."

And finally, his lips collided with hers. The magnetic field that brought them together in firm control. He kissed her softly at slowly at first as though she were delicate enough to break. But she needed more, grappling with his scrub top, nails imbedded into his sides as she hauled it up and over his head.

It was overwhelming. He was overwhelming with his relentless presence. First upon her lips, down her neck, at the curve of her jaw, and then her collar bone, mere moments from her breasts. Until everything around her, around them was blurring and dissipating as though the World had ceased to spin on its axis.

"Beautiful." He muttered against her skin, peppering solid kisses along her chest. "How utterly stupid of me to ever have referred to you as just adequate. I mean, look at you. I don't think I've ever seen anything more beautiful."

She felt herself melt at his words, her heart diving, plunging impossibly low into her stomach. She'd been called beautiful before by Men, but she'd never been made to feel beautiful. But the way he kissed her, all-encompassing, in the way his lips all but duelled with hers, she was afraid she might've just believed him.

His hand glided from the small of her back, down to her bottom, giving it a hard smack and causing her to wince, before he hurled her upwards, gripping her inner thigh and draping it around his waist. She couldn't have told you at what moment, her back had crashed against the wall, or when several coats and hangers had begun to fall like minuscule snowflakes onto the floor.

No, that would've been inconceivable to pinpoint amongst the writhing and grasping. Now, she could feel Isaac's hand skirting around her neck and situating itself firmly on the back of her scalp to prevent her scalp from constantly slamming against the wall behind her. Whether that was to protect her or to minimise the noise of their antics, she wasn't sure.

His hands descended below her scrub shirt, a low groan emerging from the back of his throat, a small, all but pleading sound that set every inch of her body alight with fire. His fingers were cool as they lightly grazed against her nipples.

Caliana released a rather clangorous groan at the simple act. And Isaac gazed back up at her, before glancing over his shoulder, where the cloakroom door remained unlocked behind them. "I knew you'd be loud, but Jesus. I've barely even started yet." He reached for her scrub shirt that was hanging just above her breasts, not quite yet removed. He bunched up the ends of the shirt and placed it into an unsuspecting Caliana's mouth, the cloth functioning as a gag of sorts. "I love it when you run your mouth at me all day long, but God, your mouth looks so much better when it's filled like this."

She glared up at him, eyes wide open with stupefaction, and yet half-turned on by the act. And yet, she made no act to vacate the makeshift gag from her mouth.

Right then, in the dark, in the silence of the cloakroom, they were alone in the world. Miles away from Little Oaks, and moments away from their unassuming, obtunded patient in the scanner. No prying eyes, no judgment, and Caliana's heart clinched with the realisation that this was the only reason Isaac had shattered the professional boundaries. And perhaps, the realisation that things would go back to normal when the sun rose was the most difficult thing to digest.

Her hands reached down for his trousers, the drawstring within her reach until she felt his hands over hers. She peeked up, noting that his expression had changed to one that was unreadable. "What are you...what are you doing to me, Caliana?"

"Something that's making you feel good, I hope." She mumbled but slackened her grasp, letting the scrub top fall from her mouth, taking a step back, her back flush against the wall.

He cleared his throat, tugging his drawstring back, glancing at the floor, squinting for his misplaced scrub shirt. "I'm sorry. I should never have let things get this far."

"It takes two to tango, remember." She responded; her gaze planted upon the floor, tugging her scrub top down, and wrapping her arms tightly around her chest, suddenly feeling the cold tenfold.

He placed a finger beneath her chin, lifting it as he noted her dejected expression. "It's not that..." He shook his head. "I respect you far too much to do this in a...cloakroom."

"You mean...somewhere else, then?"

"No." He breathed. "I mean, I respect you far too much to do this anywhere. I'm your supervisor. I'm in a position of power. How can I push you to be the best you can be...when I've done something...like this?" He halted, looking ashamed of himself. "You're right. I lied. I did kiss you because I wanted to. God...I really wanted to. And for that, I'm so sorry."

She bit her lip, running her hands through her hair to grip it together, using the act as a distraction as she made eye contact with the floor once again. "Well, I lied too."

"About what?"

"I said it wouldn't mean anything. But I lied because it meant something to me. Actually, it meant...a lot to me."

—-
Authors note:

Hope yall enjoyed this chapter! We've finally hit the moment where they've at least started to admit their feelings, a little.
Let me know what you think about the characters so far!
Thanks for reading (as always, lemme know if any typos, mistakes - always looking to improve) ❤️