Fourth of July, Epilogue
Word count: about 4.9k
Pairing: Michael Robinavitch x attending!reader/former student (main couple)
A/N: Finally finished the story I started writing around the time episode 4 aired. Epilogue was meant to be part of the Finale, but due to Tumblr's limitations, I've separated the two. Hope you enjoyed this angsty series, because it tore me to bits. Shoutout to @beinscorpio for suffering my ideas during this time period, because she's the true survivor.
Fourth of July // Part two // Part three // Finale
A year has passed achingly slow, and yet faster than they anticipated. While she had taken over for him in the ER, Robby’s work was focused on getting back to himself – both mentally and physically.
And now, Robby lies with his head in Y/N’s lap in the middle of nowhere.
That is not an exaggeration. There is no hospital in sight, no monitors, no smell of antiseptic burrowing into their lungs, just open sky, wild grass, a thin country road beyond the hill, and the kind of quiet that feels almost sacred after a lifetime spent inside a hospital.
The world hums softly around them; cicadas, wind, the distant rustle of trees brushing one another. Somewhere nearby, water moves over stone, a creek hidden behind tall grass and summer weeds. The air tastes warm and green, with a faint salt edge that makes Y/N’s chest ache in anticipation.
The ocean is close. Not close enough to see yet, but close enough to ease her nerves.
Robby’s eyes are closed, his face tipped toward the sun, a lazy smile curved over his mouth. His hair is longer than it used to be, the beard softer beneath her fingers as she scratches through it absentmindedly. The first time she had done this after he came home, he’d nearly cried from the normalcy of it, then immediately it on allergies despite the fact they were indoors in December.
Now, he only hums contently, the sound vibrating against her thigh.
Y/N looks down at him, trying not to feel overwhelmed by her own heart. It is impossible. He is here, and not in theory, daydreams or as a wishful thinking. Here. Warm and heavy and alive, with one hand resting over the swell of her belly as if even in his half-dozing state, some part of him refuses to stop keeping watch over his favorite people.
His left hand is stronger now. There are still mornings when the fingers move slower than his patience, days when fatigue turns his left leg uncooperative and she finds him standing too still in the kitchen, jaw clenched, pretending he is simply appreciating the tiles. Migraines have become unwanted houseguests, arriving with pressure behind his eyes and light sensitivity that forces them into dark rooms and quiet afternoons. Dizziness still creeps up on him when he changes position too quickly, or when he forgets that improvement is not perfect.
But month ten after the coma gave him back the biggest pieces of himself…It’s not the same Robby that kissed away her fears, or held her tightly in the snow, because that man is gone in the same way people change after traumatic events. There is no exact restoration, no perfect stitching of before to after. but Robby returned enough to argue with her about overpacking, to burn eggs while insisting he had everything under control, to make Dana laugh so hard she snorted coffee through her nose, to kiss Y/N against the kitchen counter with his right hand cupping the back of her neck and his left gripping her hip with a steadiness that made them both go still for a second.
The doctor cleared them for activity gradually. Walking at first, then longer drives and light travel with careful exertion and lots of rest breaks. There’s a medication schedule, hydration reminders, migraine management. There’s no pretending his body has the same capabilities, because this changed him, for better in ways…and for worse in others. It didn’t derail Y/N’s love for him, at all. If anything, she learned to love this Robby deeply, even if she had to fill in some of the gaps in his memory.
He had forgotten their first kiss, it had taken months for him to bridge the synapses hiding that night from him. He had forgotten the meat pie recipe, and the his favorite flavor of ice cream. She relearned them both with him.
Some memories came back on their own, some have become narrations she offered, but the most important thing remained: their love for one another.
And eventually, when Robby was cleared for the kind of activity neither of them asked about without blushing like two hypocrites who had both seen far worse in trauma bays, it had taken time to find their rhythm. His body had to learn trust again. Movement had to become less frightening. Balance had to become a negotiation rather than a threat.
At first, Y/N took charge because he needed her to, because his right shoulder tired quickly, because twisting wrong made his back seize, because dizziness could interrupt the moment and easily ruin the night. Sometimes frustration would flash across his face so quickly she had to kiss it away before he could apologize for being human.
But he healed, slowly, unevenly and stubbornly. Now the swell of her belly rests beneath his palm as proof, not of a cure or of some perfect victory over the injuries he sustained. It’s proof that life he chose with her has taken root.
Robby opens one eye. “You’re thinking very loudly.”
Y/N’s fingers pause in his beard. “That’s rich coming from you.”
His smile widens. “Thinking loudly is my defining trait. It’s not something I expect with you often.”
She resumes scratching gently along his jaw, sighing. “We’ve been on the road long. You okay?”
He exhales, eyes closing again. “Yeah.”
“Head?”
“Fine.”
“Dizzy?”
“No.”
“Pain?”
He opens both eyes now, giving her the look.
She arches a brow. “I’m growing your child. I am immune to that look.”
His hand shifts on her belly, thumb moving over the fabric of her dress. “Three.”
She gives him a soft smile. “Thank you for not lying.”
“I considered it.”
“I know.”
“Decided against upsetting the tiny dictator.”
Y/N glances at her belly. “He does have strong opinions and he makes them heard…Just like his dad.”
Robby lifts his brows. “He kicked me last night.”
“He was trying to communicate…or stretch.”
“That was an assault. He knew what we were doing.”
“He knows nothing, Robby. He’s the size of a mango.”
“A violent little mango.”
Y/N laughs, and Robby’s face changes with the sound. It always does. Even now, after everything, even with the scars and the medication bottles and the bad days folded into the good ones, he still looks at her laughter like it is something he fought hard to hear.
His fingers press lightly against her stomach. For a while, neither speaks.
Then Robby clears his throat. “Mind getting my phone from the bag?”
Y/N looks toward the worn leather duffel near their picnic blanket. “Why?”
“Want to see how long the drive is.”
She narrows her eyes. “You planned this trip.”
“I did.”
“You booked the house.”
“I did.”
“You printed an itinerary.”
“I had a brain injury. Can’t trust I know how all the roads are right now.”
“You printed two itineraries.”
“One was color coded for your benefit.”
She chuckles, “Keep telling yourself that.”
His mouth twitches. “Phone, Minnie.”
The nickname still makes her chest fill with tenderness. She rolls her eyes, though she reaches for the bag. “You know, for a man who planned this entire road trip, you are suspiciously bad at remembering where we’re going.”
“TBI makes it feel like a mystery at times.”
“You hate mysteries.”
“I hate poorly managed mysteries. That’s why we have printed copies on top of the digital one.”
She pulls the bag closer, leaning awkwardly around her belly. Robby immediately starts to sit up.
“Don’t,” she says.
“I can get it.”
“You asked me.”
“I changed my mind.”
“I’m pregnant, not made of glass.”
“Glass would probably accept help.”
She points at him without looking. “Lie back down before I tell Dana you said that.”
He lies back down. “Cruel woman.”
“Stubborn man.”
His mouth softens, thumb moving again over her stomach. A year ago, during the long middle of his recovery, he asked her what she missed.
He asked it one evening while she was changing the sheets, back when he still needed rest after walking from the bedroom to the kitchen and his migraines could turn afternoon into night without warning. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, hair damp from a shower she had helped him through claiming it was a couple bonding shower instead of admitting it’s because he’s untrustworthy in a slippery shower despite the modifications she made to his bathroom.
“What do you miss?” he asks.
She glances at him. “Sleep.”
He doesn’t smile. “Y/N.”
She tucks the sheet under the mattress with more force than necessary. “I don’t know.”
“Liar.”
She stands still for too long before reluctantly, almost embarrassed by the softness of wanting anything for herself, she admits, “The ocean. It’s the one thing I really loved about L.A. Laguna beach was my favorite.”
He looks at her, really looks, as if he has found something he can still give her.
“I owe you a road trip,” he raises a brow.
“You owe me nothing.”
“Wrong.” He reaches for her hand, slowly, his left fingers still clumsy. “We missed ours.”
“We missed it because you almost became human confetti.”
His lips twitch. “Fair.”
She sits beside him, careful not to jostle his back. “You don’t have to promise me anything.”
“I know.” His thumb brushes her wrist. “That’s why I want to.”
And he made sure to make good on his promise.
The ocean, a secluded beach house at the end of a narrow road, rented under the excuse of rest, salt air, and finally giving her the trip they should have taken before the accident had taken over their lives. He had planned it quietly, with more caution than he would ever admit, factoring in migraine triggers, medication, breaks, terrain, accessibility, distance from the nearest hospital, weather, privacy.
Y/N had teased him for being excessive but secretly, she loved every line of the spreadsheet. It marked the return of Robby she remembered before normalcy became too much to ask from life. This trip, the meticulous planning, the dedication, it all screamed Michael Robinavitch…and she adores Michael Robinavitch.
Now she rummages through his bag with one hand, pushing aside a folded sweatshirt, his pill organizer, a bottle of water, sunscreen, a printed map because of course this fifty year old would own one, a small pack of crackers he always carries for times she’s too nauseated to eat anything else, and the soft case for his sunglasses.
Her fingertips brush velvet. Everything inside her goes very still. At first, her mind refuses acknowledge it, her mind offering alternative explanations with admirable stupidity: it could be a small medical case, cufflinks, something she didn’t see him pack.
But when her fingers close around it, she knows it’s the ring box.
Y/N looks down at Robby. He is no longer lying lazily with his eyes closed, because he’s already moving.
“Oh,” she says.
It is the only word that survives.
Robby pushes himself upright carefully, slower than instinct wants, bracing with his right hand while his left presses into the blanket. His jaw tightens briefly, the old pain in his back reminding him that romance still has to respect the pain he lives with now. He shifts his weight, then turns toward her.
“Robby.”
He takes a shuddered breath.
“Robby, what are you doing?”
He gives her a look so soft and filled with love that it steals the air from her body. “What do you think I’m doing?”
Her fingers tighten around the velvet box, bringing it out entirely. Her lips part.
“I’m going to be sick.”
For one frozen second, panic flashes across his face, then she places a hand over her belly.
His expression clears into a breathless laugh. “Committing to me makes you that nauseous?”
She shakes her head quickly. Everyone always warned of nausea as an early pregnancy symptom, the first trimester is meant to be ruled by it, but it remained with her in the second trimester as well. “No. No, it’s your son doing this to me.”
Robby’s eyes drop to her belly, and the smile that overtakes him is so unguarded it hurts.
“And the excitement,” she adds, voice trembling.
He nods, biting his lower lip as if the happiness is too much for his heart to take. He reaches out, gently taking the ring box from her fingers. His right hand shakes slightly, not from weakness. For once, its just his nerves. She can tell the tremor is different.
“I’m glad to hear you’re excited,” he says, voice lower now, scraped with emotion. “Because I’m terrified.”
Her eyes snap to his.
“Not of commitment,” he adds immediately. “Not of what this means for us. Not of you being mine forever. Never of that.”
He adjusts his position, pressing more of his weight into one knee, careful but determined. It is not the effortless kneel of a younger, uninjured man in some pretty, staged photo. It is harder than that and infinitely more honest. His body makes him pay for the movement, and she sees the pain flicker in his face before he forces it away.
The sight of it breaks her heart. “Robby, you don’t have to get on one knee.”
“I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I really do.”
“You’re impossible.”
“Still?”
“Worse now, actually. You’re lucky I love that about you.”
His smile grows for a second, then softens into vulnerability.
“I’m terrified,” he repeats, “of you wising up and leaving.”
Y/N’s face falls. “Robby.”
“I know.” His eyes shine. “I know. I’m better than I was. I know what you’re going to say. I know you’re here. I know you moved into my house and reorganized my kitchen in a way that makes no sense to anyone except you.”
Her laugh breaks despite the tears.
“But fear doesn’t disappear because the facts are against it,” he says. “It just gets quieter.”
The wind moves through the grass around them. He looks at the ring box, then back at her.
“You’re worth the fear,” he says. “You’re worth all of it.”
Her fingers curl into the blanket.
“As much as I tried to convince myself I could live without you, I can’t.” His voice cracks, and he pauses, swallowing hard. “I did. Technically. For stretches of time, very badly, like a man surviving, but not living. The ache in my chest was never smaller than when you were close. It was like my heart knew where home was before the rest of me stopped being stupid.”
Y/N’s eyes burn as tears slowly fill them, dissolving mascara into her waterline. “You were never stupid.”
He gives her a look.
“Fine,” she whispers. “Not always.”
His mouth twitches in amusement. “After the accident,” he continues, quieter, “there were days I hated being alive.” The admission is terribly gentle. “I hated the bed, the weakness, the way everyone knew my body better than I did. I hated needing help. I hated that you had to see me like that. I hated that sometimes I couldn’t find the word for spoon and still remembered every second of you saying you loved me.”
Her tears spill over as Robby’s gaze remains steady.
“And there were times I resented you,” he confesses.
She closes her eyes because there it is, the truth she expected and feared, but deserves.
“For being with me, mainly, despite how hard I was. For wasting your youth and health and beauty on a man who didn’t know how to accept himself, let alone the unconditional love you wrapped me in.”
Her breath trembles, as do her lips.
“But that’s not the whole truth,” he says.
She opens her eyes.
“I’m grateful too. Eternally grateful. Angrily grateful sometimes, which I know sounds insane sometimes.”
“It doesn’t,” she whispers.
“Yeah.” He smiles faintly. “It does, but I’ve accepted it all.”
He looks down at her belly, then back to her face.
“If I didn’t learn to embrace what I truly wanted, I would have missed this,” he says. “I would have missed you in the kitchen barefoot, furious because I put mugs in the wrong cabinet. I would have missed Dana crying at an ultrasound photo and threatening to kill me if I hurt you in the same sentence. I would have missed Jack pretending he didn’t tear up the first time I walked without the cane. I would have missed our son.”
Y/N presses a hand to her mouth.
“And I would have missed becoming someone I actually want to live with.”
His voice drops. “You made that possible. I did the work, because you supported me. I know you’d kill me if I gave you all the credit -”
“I would.”
“But you turned the light on.” His eyes are wet now too. “And every day, somehow, you make it brighter.”
Y/N cannot breathe around the love in her chest. It is too big, too wild, too much like pain as it forces her heart to grow in order to accommodate the way he makes her feel.
He opens his mouth to continue, but she lifts her palm toward him.
“Wait.”
Robby stills.
“If you’re going to do this,” she says, voice shaking, “I have to admit something.”
He looks at her for a long second, before softly speaking over her, “You buried my DNR.”
Her eyes widen. “You knew?”
“I knew.”
“When?”
“Not right away,” he says. “Later. After realizing how long I’ve been hooked up to life support. That would never have happened if they found the DNR and the only person crazy enough to bury it would be my Minnie.”
Y/N’s lips press in a thin line. “I was going to tell you.”
“I know.”
“No, Robby, I need you to understand, I didn’t do it because I thought your choices didn’t matter.”
“I know.”
“I did it because I couldn’t let them use that paper against you, while we didn’t know, while there was still a chance you could come back. I couldn’t stand there and let everyone treat a decision you made when you were depressed and in the trenches of a pandemic like informed consent.”
His eyes soften. “I know,” he says again.
“I was so angry at you,” she whispers. “And so scared. And I kept thinking if you woke up and hated me, at least you’d be awake. At least you’d be alive to hate me.”
He shifts closer, still on one knee, and reaches for her hand. “I don’t hate you.”
“You said you resented me sometimes.”
“I did.” His thumb brushes over her knuckles. “Resentment isn’t hatred, just grief and pain.”
A sob breaks out of her as Robby’s own mouth trembles.
“I’m not mad at you,” he says. “Not now. Not here. Not after everything. All I feel is love. So much love I don’t know where to put it half the time.” He glances at her belly. “Apparently, some of it went there.”
Y/N laughs through tears, pressing her hand over the swell. Robby’s expression becomes achingly soft.
“I never knew I could feel this much,” he says. “I thought there were limits. I thought I knew the size of my own heart. Then you walked into my life humming Stayin’ alive during CPR and proved I didn’t know a damn thing.”
Her smile trembles as he lifts the ring box, staring at it in shock.
“I know I’m not the easiest man to love,” he smirks. “I’m stubborn. I’m shut down when I’m scared. I make decisions alone and then act surprised when you get pissed at me. I will probably make you regret being with me a million times.”
“Already have,” she says, but her voice is tender.
He laughs, “But I hope you’ll still say yes,” he says. “And I swear I’ll do everything in my power to make you happy. I can’t promise perfection, but I can promise love and honesty, even on the days my head hurts, or my leg drags, or I get scared and temporarily revert to being an emotionally constipated idiot.”
Y/N bites her lower lip, trying and failing to suppress a smile. “I’m already happy.” Her eyes settle on his. “And I’d like nothing more than to be your wife.”
For a second, he just stares at her as if he somehow didn’t think they would get here even after planning the entire road trip, hiding the ring, renting the beach house, and getting onto one knee. Then his face breaks into a grin. He opens the ring box, hands shaking harder now, and starts to take the ring out.
Y/N’s eyes drop to it. The ring is as beautiful as she remembers it. He reaches for her fingers. She suddenly grips his wrist.
“Wait.”
Robby freezes. “What?”
“You didn’t ask the question yet.”
He blinks once, before a laugh bursts out of him. It is breathless and startled and so familiar that her chest floods with warmth. He covers the back of his mouth with his shaky right hand, shoulders trembling with it, trying not to lose balance while laughing from one knee.
“Oh my God,” he mutters.
Y/N smiles through tears, repeating the words she spoke on the night before everything changed. “Doctor Robby, I fear your brain’s already left on vacation.”
He points at her with the ring box. “That joke is medically insensitive.”
“You proposed incorrectly.”
“I was getting there.”
“You skipped a pretty big step.”
“I was overwhelmed.”
“With your own proposal?”
“With your beauty.” His laughter fades, leaving his face open and bright. “Always with you.”
Y/N’s smile softens. He steadies himself, drawing in a breath. His right hand trembles as he holds the ring, but his eyes do not waver.
“Y/N Y/L/N,” he says, voice shaking with every emotion he felt for her in the years it took them to arrive here. “Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
Her hands come up before her answer does. She cups his cheeks, thumbs brushing over his beard, over the face she once feared she would never see awake again. His skin is warm beneath her palms, his cheeks are wet. His smile is nervous and hopeful and scared in a way that does not ask her to soothe it before she answers.
She leans in, her lips press against his.
“Yes,” she breathes into the kiss.
Robby makes a sound against her mouth that is almost a laugh, almost a sob, and definitely relief.
She kisses him again, deeper this time, careful of his balance but not careful with her love. Her hands slide from his cheeks into his hair. His right hand curves around the back of her neck, while his left settles against her belly.
The ring is still caught between his fingers. Y/N smiles against his mouth, tears slipping down her cheeks. He kisses them when they part, one after another, as if each happy tear is precious and not the result of years of terrible timing, stubborn hearts, accidents, hospital rooms, and love he didn’t know was meant for him.
Eventually, she pulls back just enough to whisper, “Ring.”
Robby looks down at his hand. “Right. Yes. That.”
“Very smooth.”
“I’m recovering from a traumatic brain injury.”
“You do not get to use that as an excuse,” she chuckles.
“I absolutely do.”
“You’re lucky I love you.”
His eyes lift to hers. “I know.”
This time, when he takes her hand, he does it slowly. The tremor remains, but so does the intention. He slides the ring onto her finger, and Y/N watches it settle there with breathless awe.
Her hand shakes when she lifts it as Robby presses his lips to the ring, and their son kicks beneath his other palm.
A grin spreads over his face, stunned by it and impossibly soft. “He approves.”
“Kicking me while I’m trying to kiss my husband to be…He has terrible timing.”
“He’s mine. Of course he does.”
She laughs, and Robby leans forward, resting his forehead against her belly for a moment. His eyes close. His hand spreads gently over the curve, reverent in a way that makes Y/N feel like her own body is a chapel built around a miracle they never thought they’d be brave enough to ask for.
“Hi,” he whispers.
Her fingers slide through his hair. He opens his eyes and looks up at her, still kneeling, still smiling, still completely hers.
Somewhere in the distance, beyond hills and trees and the road that will carry them forward, the ocean waits. Y/N looks at the ring on her finger, at his hand on her belly, at the man who once believed death could be an exit and now kneels before her asking for forever.
No matter how painful the past decade has been, she knows it was worth it, and not because pain is noble. It isn’t. Pain is senseless half the time, an ugly animal gnawing through years it had no right to touch. But every road they took, every goodbye they survived led her here, to salt in the air, his hand on their child, his eyes full of dreams for a future he is no longer trying to outrun.
Her soul had ached for him since the first moment they met. It had recognized him long before reason did. Long before ethics, distance, fear, flings and old relationships, bad timing, pride, grief, and blood tried to bury the truth of them. It had yearned for him with embarrassing certainty, reaching across country, years, breakups, hospital corridors and death itself.
Robby looks at her, and she sees the same realization in him. For some people, love arrives slowly, cautious as a hand testing water. For him, it had come all at once, with thunder and lightning. It had wrecked his life, knocked the locks off doors he did not know he had sealed, broken him open until he could learn where the rot lived and what healing might cost.
She had not saved him by loving him. He knows that love is not a rescue helicopter. It is not an operating room, it cannot intubate, stabilize, or repair what’s broken, but it can turn the light on. And for once, the darkness does not rule his heart or his mind.
It still exists. It always will. Some days, it waits in corners muttering about what a burden he is, offering him escape routes, trying to seduce him into disappearing.
But Y/N makes the light brighter with each passing day, not by chasing darkness away with a sword, by staying, laughing, loving him when he is easy and when he is impossibly, by placing his hand on her belly and letting him feel the future kick back.
Robby finally lifts his head up to the sky and sunlight and reaches for his face.
“Mrs. Robinavitch,” he says, testing it.
Y/N raises a brow. “Bold. We haven’t discussed names.”
His smile turns sly. “Doctor Robinavitch?”
“Now you’re just trying to seduce me.”
“Is it working?”
She glances at his knee. “Can you get back up?”
His expression changes. The question could be a wound. Once, it would have been. Now he looks at her, then down at himself, then back up with the as a man who has learned survival occasionally involves asking for a hand.
“Help?”
Y/N smiles. There is no pity in it, only love.
“Always.”
She stands first, then gives him both hands. He rises carefully, slower than he wants, using her support and the strength he fought a year to reclaim. His balance wavers for half a second and her hands tighten. His left leg corrects, breathing through the moment instead of pretending it did not happen.
When he is fully standing, he looks down at her with quiet triumph.
She tilts her head back, enjoying the familiar ache in her neck.
“There you are,” she says.
He bends just enough to kiss the tip of her nose, careful now, always careful but no longer ashamed of it.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Here I am.”
She laces their fingers together, the ring catching sunlight between them.
“Now can we go see the ocean?”
Robby looks toward the road, toward the hidden saltwater horizon and the beach house waiting with its secret already spoiled and its purpose made brighter for it.
His hand settles at the small of her back.
“Anything you want, Minnie.”
Y/N leans into him. “Can’t believe you forgot to ask the question.”
“Temporary lapse in memory.”
“Historic lapse.”
“Can we not tell Dana?”
Y/N laughs. “I’m telling Dana before we get back in the car.”
Robby sighs, but his smile gives him away.
Together, they walk toward the car, slower than they might have once, steadier than they were promised, carrying every scar of the past and every impossible piece of luck with them into the future no one thought they’d have.
Robby is here.
Robby is hers.
Robby proved everyone wrong, just like she knew he would.
When they come back from this trip and he takes his place as Chief again, he’ll keep proving them wrong. Their life won’t be perfect, or the way they expected before the accident. It’ll be full of adjustments, of day to day planning, but she wouldn’t give this up for the world. And the truly comforting part? He wouldn’t either.
This is the most beautiful fic I’ve ever read 🥲🥲🥲
Had me crying but the surviving is soooooo worth it 🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲
