Hurts So Good (Neil Melendez (The Good Doctor) x OC)

Ops

"Oh and we've gotta finish that talk we started, don't think I've forgotten about it..." Claire says. How is it possible? She had so much to drink you'd think she'd at least forget the last ten hours, but apparently she remembers. Everything. Then I hear the sound of water running and a couple knocks on the door.

I go open and Neil is right outside.

"What are you doing here?" I ask him.

"I take that as a 'no, I haven't seen your messages'," I take my phone and look at the notifications that I missed, three text messages from Neil.

"Yeah, I still had it silenced, Claire was still sleeping."

"Claire?" and then as if summoned, she gets out of the bathroom a scrunchy in her right hand, head bent down, trying to tame her hair into a bun.

"Why did you say it would be difficult for you and Mel-," my eyes are wide, hers too, her mouth shaped in O of stupor, "Dr. Melendez! What a surprise, I wasn't expecting you here."

"Hi Claire, had a good night?"

"Ah, yes. Yes, we had!" she exclaims, "I... Actually was just asking Jay about... A new friend. We made last night. Uhm, Mel...ian, right Jay?"

"You sure had too much to drink, I think Melian was a Mel...anie. Anyway, Neil you were saying?" I try to make the quickest subject change possible.

"I was just passing by to see if you could switch our physiotherapy session from this evening to... Well, now. We'll have a big surgery later this afternoon," he inclines his head a little toward Claire, "Have you heard about the football player coming in for surgery today?"

"No, I haven't. Can we still watch the surgery even if we're not actually on duty today? I think I'm okay, despite everything I poured into my system last night," Claire says with a confident face, "the headache will go away in a matter of minutes."

"Yeah, sure. I'll tell Dr. Andrews. What about the physio?" Neil asks turning back to me.

"Yeah, yeah we can do that now. No problem. But first... Breakfast. I made waffles."

"I think I'll be on my way..."

"Oh no, you're not going anywhere. You need to eat something and I made a ton of these. Neil, you too," I tell them. I had already laid the table, and adding one more seat doesn't take me too long. Neil pulls back the chair and sits down a little far away from the table, Claire, on the other hand, sits down and rests her head upon her hands.

"Thank you for the aspirin. Next time take the glasses away from me though, will you?"

"You needed to shut off the negative thoughts, you pulled that off," I tell her, while taking the waffles and fresh fruit to the table.

"Ah this looks good and I'm starving, you're the best. I love you, can I move here?"

I start laughing so loud and deep that I my belly aches and I need to put my hands over it, "you'd regret that in a matter of months, I'm afraid!"

"Oh right, I hadn't thought about it. Well, can I move here when the baby stops crying at night?"

"We shall see about that," I say still chuckling in between the words.

Then I sit down and we start eating. It's not the most comfortable breakfast ever, I'll admit that, but making Claire leave like that wasn't an option, and at the same time turning down Neil's suggestion wasn't an option either.

I'm about to bite into my second waffle when Neil asks, "did you sleep well?"

"Hope that's ironic," I say, Claire starts looking at us like she were looking at a tennis match.