content: pope and reader are in highschool | pope has a fat crush on reader | baz being his usual wacky self | bullying | angst with comfort | poor pope just wanted to impress you | happy ending
🟡 author’s note: this was inspired by that one unreleased ethel cain song that’s trending… i was going to make it completely angsty, but i had to give andrew a happy ending
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“…what the fuck is that for?” baz barked out, amused by the half-finished poster that sat in the middle of pope’s bedroom.
pope instinctively moved to hide it from his pestering step-brother, but it was too late as baz stepped in, swiftly grabbing the poster board from his grasp.
“will you go to…” baz began to read out aloud, “oh, pope, don’t tell me you’re planning on asking that girl to the dance…” he cooed condescendingly.
pope stiffened, his jaw clenched tightly as baz teased him. “put it down,” he mumbled, biting down the sense of humiliation that always followed after baz’s words.
“alright, alright… no need to get yourself worked up,” he scoffed, carelessly setting it down.
pope let out a relieved huff the second baz left the room, moving to lock his bedroom door before carefully smoothing out the creases that his brother left. he looked down at the poster, his eyes glazing over the colorful letters.
he had been planning to ask you to the homecoming dance for the past few weeks. he even strung julia into it, asking for her guidance and girlish opinion when it came to preparing his homecoming proposal.
sure, he felt incredibly out of place; even borderline foolish for attempting to craft something like this.
but he wanted to do it for you.
he wanted to be someone charming, someone who could impress you, similar to the male leads of the romcoms you adored watching. that reason alone was why pope spent the rest of his night locked away in his room as he finished up the poster, obsessively making sure that every detail was executed just as he planned.
you two had met in science class. your teacher had assigned you as lab partners for the semester at the beginning of the school year. initially, you couldn’t help but feel a pang of disappointment at not being paired with one of your friends, but pope had turned into a pleasant surprise. despite your peers warning you of pope’s unsettling demeanor, the two of you collaborated well, and eventually it gave way into an easy friendship. it was something that pope held protectively, especially when everyone seemed to prefer baz over him. besides you, there were only two other people in the school who would tolerate his company.
once the day to ask you to the dance finally arrived, he spent the whole class watching you with butterflies flooding his stomach. each time you’d flash him an easy smile or make eye contact with him, he’d feel the mix of nerves and anticipation worsen as the time ticked past.
the bell rung for the final time, dismissing students for the day. pope hurriedly rushed downstairs, his feet carrying him to his locker. “do you… would you want to go to the dance with me?” he muttered to himself, practicing the grand question as he opened his locker.
he reached for the poster and bouquet of crochet flowers he carefully prepared, before heading towards the lobby where he requested you to wait.
as he rounded the corner, he didn't see baz and his football friends waiting, grinning as they prepared to spring their trap. before pope could even take a step towards your direction, the group ambushed him, catching him completely off guard.
he felt his shirt become wet, drenched and slimy with a sharp, pungent smell.
“holy shit, i can’t believe you were actually planning to ask her,” baz scoffed, cracking up at the sight of pope holding the items.
the other guys followed suit, thinking his efforts were some kind of joke.
pope shifted slightly, his heart pounding out of his chest as he felt the halls close in on him.
he felt ridiculous and humiliated, the buzzing in his ears blocking out their continued remarks until something else hit the side of his face.
he looked down, realizing it was a discarded frog leg from the dissection earlier that day.
shit, how was he supposed to face you when he had animal guts splattered over him?
when the poster he had prepared now reeked of formalin?
would you laugh at him as well?
what if he accidentally embarrassed you by asking?
what if this entire time, you had been tolerating him out of sheer politeness?
“it’s bad enough she’s stuck with a nutjob like you. i heard mr. smith had to assign her as your partner because no one else wanted to volunteer,” one of them snickered.
pope couldn’t bear it anymore, quickly turning to rush away from the obnoxious bunch. his vision was too tunneled to realize that he had ran past you in the hall, your brows furrowed at the sight of his distress. he faintly heard you calling his name as he left the building, not realizing that you had picked up the discarded poster and flowers.
pope was thankful that the following day was saturday, at least then he’d be able to hide away from everyone, especially from baz.
he wanted to wring his brother’s neck for orchestrating something like that, but his embarrassment kept him cooped up in his room, not moving an inch even after craig and deran’s attempts to invite him to the skate park.
he only slipped out of the cody compound when he knew nobody would notice, his feet dragged as he walked to the cathedral, the only safe place that he had left. as he reached the entrance, his eyes spotted you seated on the steps.
he almost turned around and fled until he heard your voice, “andrew, wait!”
you were sweating slightly from waiting on the steps for hours, your hands holding onto the poster board and flowers.
“i knew you’d show up,” you sighed happily, flashing him a small smile.
he stiffened as you stopped right in front of him, awkwardly glancing around before his eyes uncomfortably settled on your face. he swallowed nervously, his mouth feeling incredibly dry as he watched you hold up the crochet bouquet.
“you… made these for me? to ask me to homecoming?” you asked.
he gave you a brief nod, his fingers drumming against the side of his thigh. “…it’s a gift. my sister told me that you’d like it,” he mumbled.
that earned him a wider smile from you, your eyes lighting up.
he cleared his throat, before replying, willing himself to speak a little louder. “i’m not going anymore,” he clarified, the sound of their teasing laughter still ringing in his ears. “you… you should go with someone else.”
“…well we don’t have to go to the school dance. we can just do our own thing,” you suggested. “i didn’t really wanna go anyways. it’s just gonna be a bunch of sweaty teenagers packed into the gym,” you shrugged.
pope’s brows furrowed, the thought of you choosing to spend time with him rather than attending a special event seemed out of reach.
“oh! how about the science museum? it’ll be open late if we go on a friday night…” you continued, rambling on and on about other potential options, other things that included you spending time with him.
pope quietly stared at you, his mind struggling to catch up with the sudden shift in reality. he had been ready to crawl into a hole and never come out, but now, you were standing right in front of him, casually pitching a night at the museum as if it were the most obvious choice in the world.
“the science museum?” he repeated, the tension slowly bleeding out of his shoulders.
“yeah! unless, you think looking at fossilized bones and learning about our solar system is too lame for a friday night?” you teased.
a tiny, reluctant smile tugged at the corner of pope’s lips. “i heard they’re also opening a new wing for exotic bugs and insects,” he informed.
“so… is that a yes?” you asked softly, leaning in slightly, your eyes searching his. “andrew, i never cared about the dance. i just wanted to go with you,” you added, sensing his hesitation.
the lingering sting of embarrassment finally vanished, replaced by something warmer, something steady fluttering in his chest. his drumming fingers went still against his leg. he looked down at the handmade gift in your hands, then back up at your face, realizing you meant every word.
“yeah,” he said, a shy, but genuine smile breaking across his face. “…i’d really like that.”
without thinking, you reached out and gently squeezed his wrist. “it’s a date, then.”
pope felt his cheeks heat up, but for the first time all week, he didn’t mind at all. “it’s a date,” he agreed.
Oh to be the lesson Jack Abbot can't seem to learn.
The young pretty resident who recently joined the night shift and also his wildest fantasies. The shift from dream to reality did not take long; your hot attendant was, in fact, the first thing you noticed as soon as you arrived.
Jack likes to remind you that whatever has happened between you two can't happen again, yet he is the one who finds the silliest excuses to touch you in some ways and pushes you in the first empty room to kiss your skin.
As you put your scrub back on as soon as you can, Jack likes to remind you of his favourite words "Can't happen again". At the millionth time you hear that, you just roll your eyes and ignore the old man.
"Same time tomorrow?" you ask.
To which Jack finds himself nodding faster than he likes to admit.
You kiss him quickly before leaving the room.
"Tomorrow is the last time" Jack tells himself and he knows he is lying.
synopsis when your and Robby's son joins PTMC he sees just how much his parents have to deal with, including Myrna, the gift that just keeps on giving, and she thinks trading in the older model for the younger is a good investment (4.1k words)
warning language. parents reader with robby, mom!reader, preganant reader! general hospital stuff, allusions to smut, allusions to sex work!
authornote a very lovely anon pointed out that Myrna would love to tease Carter because he looks so much like his dad and I couldn't stop thinking about it. I love Myrna. I tried finding out more about her for this and all I could find was that she's apparently a sex worker? I don't know how true that is but there's hints to it in this fic. Thanks to anon for the idea! robby gif credit to @emziess, john carter gif credit to @erotizmas
pitt masterlist! part one 'the kids aren't alright'!
“VIP, room twelve asking for you,” was never a good thing to hear. VIP's meant family and friends, or on the other hand - frequent flyers that had been in enough to know their favourite doctors and nurses faces and names and who to ask for.
You hung your head and sighed before dragging your feet over that way.
“Might want to take the cuffs,” Dana added, sending you on your way.
You pushed open the door to twelve and was greeted with cigarette breath and stale perfume.
“Hey, sugar tits!”
“Myrna,” you greeted. “I thought we agreed we'd stop meeting like this.”
She chuckled, showing off teeth that weren't particularly white anymore, stained by years of smoking and drinking. “What can I say? I can't get away from you hot stuff.”
Myrna was around enough you were shocked she didn't have her own room. She did have her preference of wheelchairs, the one that had the smoothest wheels she deemed that made pushing around the Pitt and chasing doctors easier.
“What are we in for today?” you asked, folding your hands over her age old chart and keeping to the end of the bed.
Her brows rose. “Aren't you gonna come any closer?” she teased, crooking a finger into her as best she could from where they were restrained softly to the bed.
“Myrna you know I'm married.”
“Happily?”
“Sadly.”
“To the fruitcake?”
“Still,” you said with an amused smirk. Sometimes when you wanted to annoy Robby you'd call him fruitcake and watch his face twist up.
Myrna scoffed. “Pathetic.”
“You had another seizure?” you asked, knowing already her usual tricks.
“Yeah.”
“Who brought you in?”
“Some guy.”
“And what was his name this time?”
“Antonio. Italian. Handsome,” she said with a drool. “Looked great in his uniform.” Myrna pulled at her restraints again as you walked around her, checking the vitals another nurse (most likely Dana) had already took. “Are these really necessary?”
“They are when police bring you in.”
“Is this because I grabbed fruitcakes ass?” she asked.
“No, Myrna,” you said, checking her IV. “It's because you grabbed my ass.”
As if she were proud of herself, Myrna grinned and chuckled.
The door behind you pushed open gently, two bodies, one tall and lean and the other slightly rounded blocking the doorway.
“And this is, Myrna. Seizure activity, or so she says,” said Robby as he gestured from his son next to him to the lady in the bed.
Carter's med student days had been spent mostly in Presby, in order to avoid such conflicts of interests like working with his mom and dad in the ED. However, Presby was closed for up to two weeks due to a viral outbreak and quarantines that Robby insisted Carter come do days in the Pitt.
Carter was pressed in his fresh and light coloured scrubs, a polished stethoscope slung over his shoulders and a pep in his step. Looking at him, you wouldn't have thought he was roaming the halls he ran through as a child, talking to Dana as if he didn't use to babble incoherently at her.
“Myrna, say hello,” said Robby, passing you a nod.
Instead, Myrna dragged her tongue over her teeth and growled.
Carter all but jumped back.
“Fruitcake, you've multiplied,” she smirked.
“Don't worry, Carter,” you said. “She's harmless.”
“She's-she's tied to the bed.”
“Exactly. So she's harmless,” you said. “Just don't get too close if you're examining her, she bites.”
At first Carter laughed but when nobody- not even Myrna- laughed with him, he fell silent, looking between his dad and you. Robby only nodded, confirming that fact.
“Who is this tall, lean, fresh blood?” Myrna asked, eyeing him up.
“Myrna, this is Carter. Our kid. He is doing a emergency medicine rotation and is here to learn,” said Robby.
Carter's chest puffed out, his hair that was soft to the touch and bounced around like Robby's used to do, fell in front of his eyes.
Myrna shifted in her bed. “You need to do a physical, huh?”
“He does not,” said Robby. “Rest easy, we'll be back soon.”
Robby held the door open, letting you and Carter out first as if to protect you from her 'abuse', but he didn't close it quick enough, the nicknames sugar tits and fruitcake floating out behind you.
“What-what was that?” asked Carter, frowning at the names he could have sworn he heard.
“Nothing, don't think about it,” said Robby, a firm had clamped on his shoulder and stirring him away.
“Fruitcake?” he laughed, probably thinking of every way he could use it against him.
“I said don't ask.”
“Don't worry about Myrna, just keep your distance,” you advised.
Carter looked between you and Robby, the both of you in doctor and nurse mode. It was the sort of thing he'd caught glimpses of throughout his life but never seen so much of. The both of you shed the scrubs like skin when you got home, pulling off the medical practices and putting on everything you'd learned about being parents. It was a fine line, Robby had decided, between happiness and work and he wasn't going to drag the dead and the sick into the home he'd created.
“You guys put up with her a lot?” he asked.
Robby huffed. “She comes in to avoid the cops.”
“She's here so often we're thinking of inviting her to thanksgiving next year,” you teased.
“But she doesn't actually bite, does she?” asked Carter, laughing at the very idea.
You and Robby shared a look, ignoring him.
“Just don't find out the hard way, son,” advised Robby, leaving him to it and letting him go.
Carter nodded. “Is she the reason you came home with a bite mark on your shoulder last week?”
He regretted asking almost immediately as he watched your cheeks grow pink and watched Robby fight a smirk down at you. He reached for you, turning you around as you walked away laughing.
“Yeah, sure, son.”
Carter was at the nurses station, leaning over the cool counter and watching the rest of the ward work. He watched nurses float around him, Dana be called off on different ventures, traumas being wheeled in and pushed through doors. Nobody was calling his name. He was waiting to be called, to be rushed into the action.
At some point he watched you and his dad be called around, the two of you taking patients like it was a tag team mission. He watched Robby's hand ghost the small of your back as he directed you around, he watched your careful words console him after tough patients.
So, that's what love was.
The squeak of wheels from behind him sounded, dragging over the floor closer and closer.
“Doctor, doctor, I got a bad case of loving you,” said the drag of a voice.
Carter turned, looking down at the wheelchair. “Oh, I'm not a doctor. I'm a med student.”
“Younger, even better,” she smirked, licking her lips.
“You're Myrna, right?” said Carter, looking around him for help before he was cornered by her.
“Call me mama,” said Myrna.
Carter gulped, eyeing the handcuffs that gleamed in polished silver. She was attached to the wheelchair. Could she still bite him? “Is there anything I can help you with, Myrna?”
“You could make my time worth while,” she said with a lur of desire.
Presby had been a different kind of chaos to PTMC. There'd been a blur of patients and an over crowded hall way of equipment, less put back and clean and darker than here. He could see Myrna in daylight, the ragged pull of a dressing gown which seemed to be strictly hers. The dark colour of exhaustion under her eyes. Hadn't he been told she came here to hide from the cops?
“I need the bath room hot-stuff,” she said, as if catching his hesitation.
“Oh. Right. Yes, course, let me just-” Carter looked around desperately, hoping to catch a face he could put a name to. He drew a blank.
“Come on, sweet-cheeks,” she said, a low droll of her voice. “Never seen a real woman before?”
If he said yes would word get back to his mom? If he said no would word get back to his dad?
Finally, a small doctor in a neatly combed-back braid and glasses walked by, focused and clear of mind.
“Hey! Um, hey! Wait, Can I-Can I get some help?”
She looked back to him, eyes alight. “Oh, Doctor Robby! I mean not-not our Doctor Robby, a Doctor Robby, our third, really,” she frowned at herself and shook her head. “I'm Mel, D-Doctor King.”
“Hey, nice to meet you, Doctor King,” he greeted with a bright smile. “Myrna needs the bathroom and I-”
Mel caught on quick and took over the charge of Myrna who was less than enthusiastic later.
“Strip down and get on my bed, sailor!” she yelled.
Carter's cheeks blazed.
It was one of those days where things seemed quiet for you and Robby. Where patients came in with small complaints that could be handed off to med students and residents, carefully supervised of course.
So carefully supervised from Robby's place in the lounge, you perched on his lap with his arms tightly around you. You were only blocking his view a little bit, he'd know if anyone was dying at least, it was basically a sixth sense.
But with you in his lap, tracing patterns in his hands, Robby didn't seem to care if outside was on fire.
“You know, if this one's another boy,” he said, resting his head on your shoulder, hands pressing into the small, nearly un-noticeable swell of your stomach. “We might have to call him Jack.”
You smirked. It was a running joke that with three sons and one daughter not one of them was named after Jack, even if he was there for the births of them. Once when Robby was not.
“He might start thinking we hate him.”
“But if we have a girl I am not calling her Jaqueline,” you said.
Robby huffed a laugh into your shoulder. “No, definitely not.”
“I think if it's a girl, we should call her Stacey,” you suggested.
“Stacey?” asked Robby, trying to go through everyone you knew to understand why Stacey was an important name. He came up blank.
“So I can be Stacey's mom.”
Robby knew there was a joke there that he didn't understand.
You backed up, peering at him. “You don't know Stacey's mom?”
The door squeaked open, flashes of the Pitt startling the two of you as Dana walked in, pushing her glasses up into her hair.
“There you two are! Hiding out here while the rest of us do your dirty work!” she said, smiling at the sight.
“Is somebody dying, Dana?” asked Robby, smug and still secure with you in lap.
She scoffed. “Yeah, your kid.”
You shuffled in Robby's lap, sitting up straighter. “Carter?” anxiety clawed at your nerves, turned over the little breakfast you'd eaten.
“Myrna's got her claws in him, poor kid,” she said with a show of no sympathy. The truth was all of them had to put up with Myrna at some point. It was always best to get it out the way in the early days. Let Myrna have her fun then she usually left you alone.
Except you. And Robby. By a common trend, Carter might not be so lucky either.
Robby's hands squeezed your thighs, a subtle signal that you were both going to have to get up. “All part of the hazing programme.”
The three of you crept to the door, huddled close and looking out the slim window at the door.
In his scrubs still yet to be strained, Carter was crowded at the counter, Myrna and her wheelchair up to his feet, practically rolling over his toes in the trainers you'd brought him. He was laughing awkwardly and trying to climb up the counter to get away from her. You'd never seen someone so afraid of an elderly woman in a wheelchair.
Robby's chest rumbled in a chuckle as he lingered over you. “He's your son.”
You swatted his chest.
“C'mon,” tutted Dana. “He's doing good. Says he wants to go inter surgery.”
“We taught him where the money is.”
Across the way the three of you noticed you weren't the only one watching the show. Hiding by an exam room, a curtain pulled close you could see Santos and Whitaker watching. Trinity was doing a bad job at hiding her grin while Denis was a decent guy, he looked bad.
“Shouldn't we be helping him out?” you pondered.
“Are you kidding?” smirked Dana. “This is the most fun I've had in years.”
“You think he gets treated better at Presby?” you asked.
Robby shook his head. “Presby doesn't have a Myrna.”
Carter had just stitched up a gruesome cut in a leg, finally staining his scrubs in a speck of blood. It was small but made him feel like a real doctor.
He was just walking past an exam room when he heard calling. He supposed it was for him, though it wasn't his name.
“Hey! Pussycat!”
He paused past the exam room, hand grasped at the doorframe to steady him. Sweet-cheeks. Hot-stuff. Pussycat. Carter dreaded to think what she could come up with next.
Carter stepped back. “It's-It's Carter, or Robinavitch.”
“Yeah, yeah, plenty of them,” she said, holding up her arm as far as she could while restrained. “I got an itch.”
“Okay?”
Her restraints jangled again as she proved a point. “I can't reach.”
He was stuck in spot, wondering if Myrna had been paid by his parents to make his day harder. With a sigh he took a step in at her bed side, making an exaggerated move in tugging on powderless, latex gloves.
She watched and rolled her eyes.
Carter was tempted to pull on a mask to prove a point. “Where's the itch?”
Myrna tugged a little at her gown, exposing the curve of her thigh. “Right here,” she said, as seductive as she could.
Carter stared down at the skin, veins a deep blue and a wide purple bruise forming over where she needed the itch. He drew a stool closer and settled, drawing a delicate circle around the mark. “When did this happen?”
“When the cops caught me, itch!”
Gently, Carter started to drag his fingers over the mark she emphasised. He eyed the bruise still, trying to find the best way about it. Had anyone else examined her? “I could get you a band for that,” he said. “To help with the inflammation. Some elevation and that-”
“Higher!” she said.
Carter looked to see if she had listened to him. It seemed she had not. He moved half an inch further, knowing where his hand would end up if he went any more, or even if she shifted.
“You know know one's been this high up to me since my third husband,” she said.
“What happened to the other two?”
“I killed them!”
When Carter looked up at her she seemed only smug and proud of herself. It was impossible to tell what was a lie.
Myrna rose her brows in challenge.
Carter itched a second more before slowly taking away his hand, yet she latched on like a snake sinking in its claws when his hand brushed hers. “Is your... itch satisfied?”
“Not yet sugar,” she smirked. “You want to see my Vagina?”
Carter felt his cheeks rise up in heat.
“Myrna,” you appeared in the doorway, leaning there with your pleasing smile, the sort reserved for patients. At home, the kids got a different one. And Robby got another one. “Are you behaving?”
“Me? Please. I'm a good girl,” she said with a wink, releasing Carter.
He fell to your side quickly, like you could protect him.
“Really? Cause we've had a complaint from a nurse saying you grabbed his ass,” you said.
Her face fell. “That grey-haired pussycat? There was nothing there for me to grab, please.”
“So you're keeping your hands to yourself?” you asked.
“Urm, mom- I-I mean Nurse Robinavitch,” said Carter with a clear of his throat. “Miss- Mrs, er-”
“It's just Myrna, Carter.”
“Oh, okay.”
“She won't tell us her last name,” you added, looking to her pointedly.
“It changes!”
“Myrna has a pretty bad coloured bruise on her thigh,” he said. “I suggested a band to help with the swelling and elevation.”
You nodded. “She knows all of this. We put a band on her when she came in with the bruising, she just choses not to.”
“You want to see my vagina?” asked Myrna.
Carter looked back to you. “And she keeps asking that.”
“I'd be worried if she didn't.”
“Can I see yours?” she asked.
Carter suddenly really didn't want to be in that room.
You patted his shoulder, gently leading him out the room. “When you become a doctor, Myrna and I have a problem you'll be the first I go to, I promise.”
You closed the door behind you and chuckled quietly, shaking your head.
“Is she- is she a real patient?” Carter asked. “Or has dad paid her to do all this?”
“Myrna is as real as they get. Just wait till you meet Earl.”
“Who's Earl?”
“Don't ask.”
It was only one hour later when Carter knew what all the warnings about Myrna had been about. Why Jesse had complained about her hand and his butt. He knew it in the cigarette breath, the scratch of a wheelchair against the floor and the pinch in his ass.
“Ah- what the-”
Myrna was still looking down at him when Carter turned, biting his tongue. “You have a much better ass than your daddy.”
“Okay, Myrna, that's-”
Before he could erupt about how wrong it was to flirt, to pet name, to touch, two doctors slid up on either side of her.
“Hey, pussycat,” said Santos, taking the bars of the wheelchair and pushing her away. Next to her Javadi accompanied and Carter followed slowly to see what happened to her. “We've got your discharge papers.”
“Fuck off,” she grumbled.
“Ah, my own term of endearment.”
“So you're like-” started Javadi next to Carter. “The prince of this place?”
Carter was surprised it had taken this long for someone to bring up his name. To bring up the fact he was a Robinavitch. “I mean, I don't know about prince.”
“Please,” said Santos with a scoff as she pushed the door open to Myrna's room with her back. “You're set to inherit this place when Robby retires. Or if.”
He didn't think Robby would ever retire. There were days his dad relaxed, always easier when with you. If the both of you had days off, which seemed to be the only days you and Robby took off, Carter could usually find the two of you at each other's side. It was all romantic but as the child to witness the stolen kisses in the kitchen, the moments you both thought you were being sneaky in making excuses as to why Casey shouldn't come in their room for ten minutes, it was also embarrassing.
In PTMC it didn't seem to change that much.
Robby still touched you all the time. Still looked for you when he left every exam room, still called for you at every trauma. He almost envied anyone else ever trying to get in Robby's good books because your name took up the whole thing.
Robby wasn't leaving this place without you.
“I'm thinking about surgery, actually,” he said.
Victoria's eyes widened. “Surgery. Woah. That's- that's really cool,” she said with a dusting of pink on her cheeks.
Santos's eyes rolled. “Surgery, yeah, great.”
“She's got a lover up in surgery,” said Myrna as she moved herself back into bed.
Carter's brows rose. “O-oh?”
“You know,” said Javadi as he looked back to her. She was staring up at him, a sparkle in her eyes. “It's-it's like they copy and pasted Doctor Robby.”
“Yeah, I- I get that a lot.”
“Goin’ into medicine like them?” Said Myrna with a cheap Ha! Punctuated at the end. “What’s the point? I won’t be around forever to watch out for you Robinavitch’s.”
“Don’t say that, Myrna,” Trinity said with an air of boredom, like she’d had this conversation a hundred times before. “You’re gonna live forever.”
Myrna chuckled dryly.
“I-I’m thinking of psychiatry,” said Victoria, still to Carter. “Emergency psychiatry.”
Carter nodded. “Cool.”
“You think so?” She blushed.
“Crash, you can’t flirt with Carter,” said Santos. “That’s like flirting with Robby.”
Victoria stuttered, ponytail swooshing as she looked between her and Carter. “I’m-I’m not flirting. What? No, I-I would never and that’s totally- totally-”
“Honey,” said Myrna. “This is painful.”
With some dull excuse, Javadi scrambled away quickly, Carter still trying to figure out just what had happened as he watched her go.
Santos looked at where she’d left. “Damn. Crash crashed.”
You were hunched over at the nurses station, chasing up labs for Robby as he always knew how to ask sweetly. In the dim reflection of the glow of the screen you saw Myrna creeping closer, regular clothes adorned.
“Myrna,” you warned.
“Can't a girl say hello?”
“So long as your hands are to yourself.”
“Then how are we supposed to shake hands?” she hummed, the gruff sort.
You shook your head and fought of a smile as you slowly turned to her. “I'm sure you'll be shaking something. Are you going home?”
Myrna smirked. “The city doesn't sleep for anyone.”
It wasn't a secret to you what Myrna did that had her being brought in so often enough you typically always had a gown and room ready, even her favourite snacks in the lounge. She'd maybe never said it in so many words but you knew the streets were her domain, the hospital her sanctuary. You'd offered to help, dropped of pamphlets on her first few visits before you realised she only used it to dump her gum.
“So, I'll be seeing you soon?”
“You know I can't stay away from you, Sugar Tits.”
“Don't I know it,” you said, walking her out to the doors. The real VIP treatment of passing through the ambulance bay.
“Your kid is good,” she grumbled.
You smiled to yourself. “You think so?”
“He's on a tight leash. You must have warned him about me?”
“That we did.”
She rolled her eyes, her mascara smudging at the edges. “He'll be an annoyingly good doctor. Just like his daddy.”
“Who knows, maybe the next time you're here he'll be around to patch you up.”
The automatic doors slid open as you walked her outside, letting her give her flirtatious smiles and winks to the paramedics on call and a special blow of the kiss to Ahmed.
“Yeah,” said Myrna in the dying light of the day. “I left him a little something to remember me by, just in case he forgets me.”
You chuckled. “I don't think he'll be forgetting you.”
When she was far away enough, Myrna popped a cigarette between her cracking lips and lit it up. Though she may have squeezed the asses of any hospital worker close enough, she respected the rules enough to stand out of the no smoking zone and light one up.
“Well, see you around sugar tits!”
You watched her slowly walk off, the click-clack of her heels fading as she went.
The doors behind you sounded and Robby's arm slowly slid over your shoulders.
“Was that Myrna?” he asked.
“Yeah, she's off to fight crime and defend our streets,” you teased.
“You worry about her?”
You worried about everything. Really, it was your job as a nurse. Your regulars who came in, Earl with his sandwich requests, Louis and his stories, Myrna with her nicknames. You worried that every time you saw them it would be your last.
Robby drew you in closer to his chest, caving you in in his warmth. “She'll be back, then you'll be sorry.”
Behind you the ambulance bay doors slid open and closed again and a distressed voice called out.
“Why is this in my bag?”
The both of you turned to Carter who was pink in the cheeks and hands trembled as he held up a thin and stringy lingerie set. It was pink with bows, saggy in all the wrong places and teared slightly at the seems.
You chuckled as Robby stared, almost as alarmed as Carter. “That's Myrna's gift. From her to you.”
You had a felling she'd be back for that.
taglist (if you want to be added or took off just say the word!): @oldbaddies, @mafercita101,@tiddieshakeshownu, @mismwaa, @annabethpotter221b, @elizamoe133, @delicatedragonflower, @mysatnin, @cherbicdollie, @macbaetwo, @cod-guys-slvt, @rach2602
( cont.of exhibit of his life. ) feat. doctor john carter (ER).
summary. after a nasty fall, you get sent to presby hospital rather than ptmc where you get treated by a doctor that eerily looks like your fiancé.
word count. 2.2k
content warnings. none, just fluff!
notes. this takes place after exhibit of his life, also i know that ER takes place in chicago (cook county hospital) but i'm having the ER gang work at presby for fanfic purposes thank you! also as always, medically inaccurate!
You should know better than to try and change the lightbulb in the study yourself; that's what your grumpy old fiancé is for. But said fiance is currently working his shift at the pitt (the nickname's rubbed off on you, much to Gloria's dismay once she's overheard you last week when you had dropped off Robby's lunch) and the flickering light above your desk is driving you insane.
So you enlist one of your older neighbors next door to hold the ladder for you, hoping this would be enough to avoid any mishaps. But mishaps occur anyways when sweet 65 year old Lillian had stepped away to grab lemonade for the both of you, only gone for five minutes, giving you ample time to lose your footing and fall off the ladder.
While it might've resulted in a sprained or broken ankle at worst, your shitty luck had you pitching forward towards the edge of a piece of blunt furniture before falling onto your back and your head landing onto the hardwood floors. It clips your hairline and while the sudden burst of pain has you seeing stars, your vision evens out and the pain lessens to a dull throb. You wince and settle back onto your ass as you gently touch the source before whimpering.
"Mrs. Robinavitch—!"
Lillian gasps as she rushes into the study, kneeling by your side, and the title has you chuckling weakly. "Not yet, Lils. We haven't even picked a date yet— Ow."
"I'm calling the ambulance," the sweet old woman says and before you can protest, you look at your fingertips when you had touched something wet upon your forehead. Blood. Immediately, your vision blurs and your stomach turns. Then the spots in your vision bloom and the world goes dark.
—
You come and go as the paramedics arrive, your sweet neighbor rattling off what she knows as you try to deny and refuse any help. The paramedics ignore you, attaches leads onto your chest as they flash a penlight in your eyes.
"Do you know your name?"
You mumble, your tongue heavy in your mouth. "… Robby…"
The world spins above you and when you come to, you're in a hospital bed but fortunately still in your own clothes. The sounds of the emergency room comes to life around you but while it all feels familiar, it all feels off— like entering your bedroom and the curtains are the wrong color.
"Mrs. Robinavitch, how are you feeling?"
The curtains slide open and an unfamiliar face enters your room. Blue scrubs, kind face. Your head tilts slightly; you'd figured Lillian would've told the paramedics to send you to the pitt but if you aren't recognizing anyone, panic threatens to settle in at the damage done from falling.
"I— Um. I'm okay," you manage as your gaze flits around the room, searching for anything that could look familiar. But your heartrate is starting to skyrocket and you raise your hands to stop the approaching nurse. "Just—can you give me a minute, please?"
The older nurse stops and gives you a warm smile, understanding laced in her next words. "Of course. My name's Lydia." When you remember your name, you offer it next. Lydia nods and plucks your chart from the foot of your bed, tapping through the iPad before the curtains shift and a new doctor steps in.
Your mouth goes dry. Now you're absolutely positive you must've scrambled your brains on the way down the ladder because right in front of you is a man that's the spitting image of your fiancé— only… ten years younger.
"Looks like you took quite a nasty fall," the handsome doctor smiles as he taps through the screen. "Your sweet old neighbor was smart to call the ambulance as quick as she did, you were losing a lot of blood."
The severity of your injury takes your notice first and you startle. "But I didn't fall that high… there wasn't that much blood when I fell at first. Are you sure?"
The doctor nods, sets the screen down to give you his full attention. It's enough to bring forth a blush; he looks so much like Michael. Behind the doctor, Lydia rolls her eyes goodnaturedly. There he goes, she thinks, charming another patient.
"Head wounds usually look a lot worse than they are but you sustained a minor concussion when you landed. Lillian said you hit your head on the way down," he tells you kindly. With the pain ebbing away from whatever they've given you, it gives you the bandwidth to realize how embarrassing it is to get sent to the hospital for a concussion for just attempting to change a lightbulb.
Before you could respond like a proper adult woman, you blurt out the next thing that comes to mind. "Your name isn't Michael, is it?"
An incredulous chuckle escapes him, cards a hand through his soft brown hair. Your eyes track the movement. "No, my name's Carter. Dr. John Carter. You know what, can you sit up for me?"
Your lashes flutter as you nod. Slowly, you pull away from the hospital pillows to sit up. "Are you sure?"
Lydia sighs and exits the room; she's worked with the young doctor for a good amount of time now, she knows when Dr. Carter's upping the charm for a pretty patient. He approaches your side and settles onto the edge of the bed.
"Am I sure of my own name?" Carter repeats with a soft laugh as his hands gently cradle your jaw. His hands are warm, smelling vaguely of antiseptic, as the pads of his fingertips apply pressure from the back of your head. "Yes, I'm quite sure. So, what happened?"
Your cheeks burn. "I was trying to change the lightbulb. I lost my footing on the ladder."
"Oh, well—it's a good thing you came in. Might've had a bigger injury," Dr. Carter murmurs and warmth returns to your cheeks but it's coming from his palm where he's cradling your jaw, his penlight coming up to gently flash in your eyes.
"I know, I know." You sigh as you blink away the slight spotting, a part of you missing the warmth of his hand before guilt takes a stab into your gut. Fortunately, you chalk it all to the fact that this young doctor looks eerily like your fiancé. "I learned my lesson. Wait 'til my fiancé gets home to do it. God, this just sets back feminism," you mutter dryly.
Dr. Carter laughs again. "No, there isn't anything wrong with waiting for someone else to do something in the name of safety. Fiancé, though? When's the special day?"
A flustered smile curls upon your lips. Pretty, John thinks. "We haven't picked a date yet. He just proposed like last month."
"Congratulations." Dr. Carter murmurs as he begins to edge off the bed. As he does so, Lydia returns but with a new man in tow. You perk up immediately, a glimmer in your eyes and a smile that nearly knocks John off his feet. But that smile is directed over his shoulder and when he gets up to face the newcomer, his eyes widen.
Michael Robinavitch is a storm when he enters, barely managing a quick thank you to the nurse that had greeted him at the front before she recognized his name as the one listed as your emergency contact. Lydia had barely been able to keep pace with his long legs as she guided him through Presby Hospital towards your room in the emergency department.
"Michael," you say in such adoration that John feels a stab of jealousy of the man that looks like an older version of him. "I thought you were at work—?"
Your fiancé shakes his head as he circles the bed, bypassing Dr. Carter, to cradle the back of your head before he lowers down to press a gentle kiss to your lips. "Drove straight here when Dana got a call that you were admitted into Presby for a concussion of all things. Peaches, what the hell happened?"
Your embarrassment returns full force. "I— The bulb in the study," you mutter sheepishly before Robby blinks twice, a fond chuckle curling along his lips as he shakes his head and pulls you in for a kiss to your nose.
"Sweetheart, I was gonna take care of that tonight when I got home," he tuts lightly before he gently takes your chin and lifts your head up. His hand flies up to his scrub pocket for his pen light but another appears in the corner of his eye. He pauses and glances aside to see the doctor offer his. "Hooooly shit."
Dr. Carter chuckles and nods. Both men rub the back of their necks in unison. Between them, you sit and stare in slight awe. "That's what I was thinking. I'm Dr. John Carter." He offers his hand across the bed to Robby.
Robby takes it with a shake. "I'm Dr. Michael Robinavitch."
"This is really fucking weird," you cut in and when both men turn their attention to you, your heart flutters. "Are you two not related?"
Your fiancé shakes his head as both hands drop and fall away, his body shifting to settle beside you with a gentle arm around your shoulders. You melt immediately, leaning your cheek into his soft stomach.
"I had a brother," Carter says with a quiet smile. "He passed when I was a kid, though. But no. No one else."
"Could just be one of those odd coincidences," Robby shrugs as he gently rubs your shoulder. "Very odd, though."
"Very."
A quiet and not-so-awkward silence follows so you cut in with a quiet clearing of your throat. "Can I go home now? I was told I only had a minor concussion."
"Yes, that's right. Sorry about that, I'll go ahead and get started on those discharge papers. Sit tight." Dr. Carter gives you both a terse smile before he exits, leaving you with Robby. When he's gone, your fiancé gives you a little wry grin.
"Did he flirt with you or somethin'?"
You splutter, "what—? No, I don't think so…?"
"Sweetheart, he was doing a head exam with less than a foot of space between you two." Robby raises his brow as he stays standing, your head tilting up to maintain eye contact. "I don't think he had to stand that close, let alone sit beside you."
Your cheek nuzzles into his palm, kissing his calloused skin there before a mischievous grin blooms across your features. "You're jealous."
Now it's his turn to splutter. "I don't get jealous."
"Yes, you do!" You laugh as you latch onto his reaction, digging your metaphorical heels in. "Honey, you got jealous when Mateo complimented my outfit the last time I came to visit you at work."
"He was staring, Peaches."
"The time before that, you got fussy with Jack when he walked me to my car after I dropped you off for work."
"… He pissed me off before you dropped me off, sweetheart."
You pause and fix him with a deadened glare which he had enough sense to buckle down and nod. Happy wife, happy life, he chants to himself.
"Alright, alright. I get… a little jealous," he mutters before he leans in for a stolen kiss, mumbling against your lips. "Could you blame me? My wife's a knockout."
"Not your wife yet, Robinavitch," you giggle teasingly against his lips.
"Don't tell me you're getting cold feet, Peaches."
You pull away to huff at your fiancé. "Definitely not. But I'll start having second thoughts if you can't even admit to being jealous—"
"Okay, yes—I was jealous that the doctor that creepily looks like a younger version of me was hitting on my wife. Would that be such a hard concept to understand?" Robby grumbles as he traces your jawline with his fingertip. He waits for your correction but it doesn't come. You see where he's coming from; although you've been together long enough that the age gap is irrelevant to you, you'd also feel uncomfortable if an older woman that looks just like you had been flirting with Robby.
"No, I see what you mean," you murmur as you kiss his palm once more. "But I really don't think he was flirting."
Robby fixes you with an incredulous look but he had no time to argue because Lydia's returning with discharge papers and sheets on aftercare— although she sees no reason why since you've got a whole doctor in your life that seems as though he'd go above and beyond for you.
Once everything's in order, Robby's got an arm around your waist (you had to fight him on getting a wheelchair for you) and your papers in his other hand. Lydia and another nurse— Carol—waves you goodbye. Down the hall, Carter's conversing with another doctor. When he sees you and Robby, he gives you two a wave before Robby guides you out back to his car.
—
Back inside Presby, Carter and Carol lean against the nurse's station as they watch Robby help you inside the passenger's seat. Carol sighs sweetly when Robby leans down to kiss you before he shuts the door.
"That's sweet," she murmurs.
Carter startles slightly. "Yeah, I guess."
When the older woman notices the way the doctor couldn't seem to look anyone in the eye, something sparkles in the nurse's eye. "And that ring, did you see it? That rock on her finger's just as big as my nail, I swear."
"Mhm."
"Carter, please tell me you did not flirt with that woman even after you've seen that ring?"
He flips through another patient's chart, staunchly keeping quiet.
Carol releases a scandalized gasp. "John—!"
thank you for reading! likes, reblogs, and replies are heavily appreciated! ♡
it's 3am and you've gotten up to pee when you notice that your husband pope cody is not in his usual spot next to you in the bed.
you turn on the lamp next to your bed, wake yourself up a bit, and then head out into the hallway to find where your husband has ended up, and that's when you see him.
he's taken a chair from your dining room table and set it up outside of your daughter's door. he's sitting with his arms crossed over his chest, his posture straight, and once he notices you in the hallway he moves his gaze up to you.
"andrew?" you question, "what are you doing?"
"she's been having trouble sleeping," is all he says to explain what he's doing. he's not wrong, the past couple of nights your daughter has inevitably ended up in your bed. you've woken up in the middle of the night due to her cold feet pressing into your legs as she shuffles in between you and pope.
when you ask her in the morning she'll tell you that she had a bad dream, and you don't think the way the light from her window casts a shadow on her closet door helps either.
"so you're going to sit here all night?" you ask.
"i wasn't going to sleep anyway," he says, "i'm here if she needs me." you walk closer to him and run your hands through his hair, taking a second to admire your husband and his heart full of so much love.
"do you need anything?" you ask, leaning down to kiss him on the forehead. "i can get you a blanket? a snack?"
"i'm fine," he says, but you disappear down the hallway and towards your living room anyway. when you return, you have a blanket in your hand.
"i could've gotten that myself."
"i know," you put the blanket in his lap. you know he's too stubborn to let you do things for him, but that doesn't stop you from doing them.
"i'll be in bed if you need me," you leave him with a kiss and head back to your bedroom.
pervy!mechanic!robby whos garage you stumble into after some car troubles. you sit in his office, waiting for him to return with the details and the price.
when he eventually returns, he gives you a rundown of what’s wrong and what needs fixed—but it all gets a bit overwhelming and robby pulls you in to his side, rubbing his hand up and down your arm and trying to soothe you. he coos at you, telling you he can cover some of the costs so it reduces the price—but only if you do him a favour.
next thing you know, your bare knees are sore, almost scraping on the metal floor as he sits at his chair, head thrown back with one hand on the back of your head. he pushes your head further down into his lap, the blunt head of his cock hitting the back of your throat as he mutters sickly sweet praises telling you how warm your mouth feels and how good of a job you’re doing.
Brendon Park’s wife who can’t stop getting pregnant… you’re a nurse practitioner in the emergency department but has been in so rarely that when you come in after your latest maternity leave, the interns and even some of the residents don’t know who you are, or why all the staff love you?
“Why have we never met her? You all seem to love her,” Whitaker had asked Dana.
“She’s been on maternity leave since you were interns.”
“for two years?” he asked, confused “i’ve never seen her. ever.”
“she’s had three babies,” she expanded, “she’s got a 5 year old, 3 year old, and her one year old.”
Whitaker knew it might be a bit of a misogynist thought, and he was far from that, but what was the point in still working if you were constantly popping out babies? then again, Whitaker hadn’t known you before you were a mom, he’d blindly go off of Dana’s word about you. and he’d be too scared to not believe Dr Park when he’d (rarely) talk about his wife. “wow. three kids.” is all he could reply with.
it became a little bit of a joke amongst the emergency department staff, that you could just look at your husband and get pregnant, but Brendon didn’t like that joke. didn’t like how people said ‘you used to be blah de blah’ used to? if anything, his wife is 10x more capable than the average person. you were so much more than that, and yes, he loved his children and you so so much, he loved that you loved him enough to give him all of these babies.
and he knew it affected you, that when you were pregnant and still working, people would tease and joke but it would upset you; he changed socks as many times as you ran up to Orthopaedics and cried in his office. he couldn’t give a fuck what anyone else thought about him, but when it upset his wife? when they were insinuating that all she was good for was to give him babies and be some trad housewife? it fucked him off.
…and a year and a half later, you got pregnant again.
thinking about pope cody finally coming to see you when he gets out from prison…
pairings: pope cody x fem! reader
tags: no smut but still 18+ only, stalking, obsessive tendencies, dark! pope cody, longing, breaking and entering, legal age gap (reader is 22, pope is 39)
word count: 1090
summary: pope had been out of prison for 2 weeks, yet you didn’t know it, but he had been watching your every move and finally decides to come pay you a visit.
a/n: who wants to be on the shawn hatosy universe taglist? i may do a google form
two weeks.
that was how long pope had been home from prison, and also how long he had been watching your every move from afar, as he was so good at doing. standing hidden across the street, parked down the block, eyes catching the lights in your room flick on and off, you name it. smurf had caught him a couple of times walking down the street as late as 3 in the morning going or coming from who knows where. baz knew where he was going. where else would pope go?
your house.
well, your father's house. the father who leaves every friday night at approximately 8 pm to go to the bar downtown and wouldn't be back until 11 pm to midnight, drunk.
for the 3 years he was in prison, you got a different job, working at a retail store on the closing shift every other day. on those nights he watched you close the shop, he always brought his gun with him in case he needed to protect you from any nightcrawlers.
you had no idea he was home. when pope went in, your father made you cut all ties with the cody's and made you stop responding to pope's letters and collect calls.
'you need to focus on your college classes.' he would say.
'that andrew is older than you and dangerous.'
but he always had a soft spot for you.
every single night in prison, he thought about you. if you changed your hair, if you got a new wardrobe, if you still wore pink, if you had a new boyfriend. the last thought always angered him to no end, the thought of another boy touching you, caressing you, kissing you, making you smile. pope couldn't handle it.
your father was in the way.
pope didn't like people getting in his way.
you were 19 when he first got locked up, and now you were freshly 22, and even more beautiful than pope remembered when he last saw you. you were walking to your car one morning, pope watching you from behind the corner of your house outside. he decided to try and call you to see if you would answer.
you felt your phone vibrate in your hand, holding it up to look at the caller ID but it says unknown caller. you reluctantly slide it to the right to answer.
"hello?" you were met with silence, as pope's eyes traced your every move as you waited for a response that he would never give. you heard even, calm breaths through the phone speaker before speaking again. "...andy?" you breathe out and he hangs up the call before disappearing, not that he was in your sights anyway.
that was a few days ago.
now, pope was standing in your dark bedroom, watching your peaceful sleeping figure. he slid open your bedroom window with barely a sound before he stepped softly on the carpet and closed the window shut behind him. he tilted his head as he watched your chest rise and fall with each breath. you still slept on your side, facing the wall that was right next to your bed.
you didn't even stir as he walked to the edge of your bed and just stood there. you felt his presence before you saw him and your eyes opened only to be met with a tall, dark figure standing right in front of you. you shot up, sitting upright immediately and pushing yourself back against the headboard in fear.
"a-andy...?" your eyes still adjusting to the dark room and from just waking up.
"why were you avoiding me?" he asks in that tone that always made your breath hitch. your eyes dart all over him.
"i-"
"you knew i was calling you." he calmly spoke again. "you answered." his head moved with his words, never taking his eyes off of you.
"why didn't you come see me?" he asks with a lingering hint of sadness, it broke your heart.
"andy, i wanted to but-"
"i waited every day." he paused. "you weren't there." all those days you could've snuck out of the house to visit him while he was up there all alone came back to you.
baz had told you he was having a hard time. the guards not treating him right, getting into fights, you name it. you knew he had to defend himself. you could see the results of that; he was bigger, stronger. you gathered up the courage to get up out of your bed, stand up, and walk over to him. you looked him in the eyes before bringing your arms up to wrap behind his neck, standing on your tiptoes in a hug. his arms stay at his sides but not for long. when he does embrace you back, it's as if he's holding on to you so that you don't slip through his fingers.
he puts his nose into your neck and breathes you in, pushing that breath back out against the skin there as he reveled in your floral scent that always drove him crazy. "you still smell the same."
he spoke again. "you stopped writing me." his words muffled by the skin of your neck.
"i didn't want to, i promise." you truthfully tell him. your father threatened to stop paying your tuition if he caught you sending another letter or another one from pope being mailed to the house.
"he made you stop." it was more a statement than a question, to which you nodded your head.
"but i never stopped loving you, andy. i missed you so much." you kindly admit to him, knowing that he has doubts about love. he pulled back so you could see his face, as his expression broke. he didn't speak, he just slammed his lips against yours, his hand sliding to the back of your neck to grip it there possessively. three years of longing and desire put into this one kiss made your knees weak as you kissed him back.
as your lips were still connected, he walked you back to lay on your bed on top of the astray sheets, his hands coming to dig into the mattress on either side of your head.
"were you a good girl while i was gone?" he asked, alluding to did you sleep with anyone else. you violently shook your head yes and the ghost of a smirk showed on his face.
"good. now show me how dirty you used to get, hm? just for me."
Summary: Things aren't much better as Robby decides to confront you which leads to an even worse confrontation and cruel words being said while Jack takes a step back. All seems to be okay until tragedy hits and a moment you, Robby and Jack will never forget occurs
Warnings: age gap, toxic!Robby, violence in form of a slap, toxic relationship, inaccurate medical information, mentions of blood, wounds and shooting event similar to Pittfest, mental breakdowns, religion
AN: Thank you so much to those of you who read and gave me feedback on Part one !! Enjoy Part 2 and please let me know what you think 💙. Remember to comment and reblog !
You didn’t say anything and you knew Robby wanted you to, he wanted a reaction. He wanted you to go after him but that was done. You held Jack’s arm and shook your head “Let him be, chances are if you try to go talk to him he’ll just push you away”
Jack nodded “Okay”
“I don’t think we should’ve kissed” you admitted “No offense of course”
“Non taken” he held his hands up “I saw the chance and took it, that being said…can I take you out sometime ? Maybe this weekend ?”
Chuckling you rubbed your arm and finally nodded after a bit “Okay, can it be Sunday though ? College gameday is Saturday and my friends are in from college and they really want to go”
“Sunday it is,” Jack nodded with a smile “You wanna pick or you want me to pick ?”
“You pick dinner and I pick dessert” you grinned “Deal ?”
“Deal, let’s shake on it” he offered his hand to you
You reached and shook it, lingering a little longer than usual as you took in his features. His hair was greying more at the temples but it was still full of curls, his skin perfectly freckled as if it had personally been kissed the sun and his eyes resembled emerald jewels that caught the perfect shine under the moonlight
“Uh, do I have dinner on my teeth ?” he asked softly “That damn caesar salad, I knew it”
“No, no. You’re fine” you shook your head “Sorry, I doze off”
He sighed softly “I think you should maybe go talk to him, I think he wants you to”
“Well I don’t” you shook your head “This is not the time or place and quite frankly I think he’s the one who made it pretty clear. If anything maybe it’s best we don’t talk”
“Okay” Jack nodded as he put his suit jacket over your shoulders “Let’s head back inside, gonna be over in a bit anyways. Gameday should be fun, I went a couple years back and it was cool”
“If I get too fucked up can I call you ?” you met his eyes
“Preferably before you get shit faced” he winked
Back inside the event was finally coming to an end. You said your goodbyes to the board members, hugged your father when he congratulated you on the overwhelmingly positive response to your designs and promised Jack you'd text him when you got home
He had been reluctant to let you leave alone, insisting on walking you downstairs despite your teasing that he was becoming annoying as can be
"Occupational hazard," he laughed before hesitating a bit and pressing a kiss to your forehead outside the elevators “See you tomorrow, get some rest”
“See you” you grinned
The hotel lobby was beginning to empty when you made your way outside to the valet stand. The cool air felt nice for it being summer, you looked back when you heard footsteps and sighed looking ahead to see if your car was almost back
“Ignoring me” Robby nodded “Funny”
“There’s nothing comical when it comes to you Michael” you answered back
“You know I tried to talk to you and you didn’t let me, instead you’re shacking up with Jack now. Who does that ?”
“Not that I owe you an explanation but no, I am not…shacking up with Jack whatever that old fucking phrase means and second of all, you’re quite literally here with Noelle, so what exactly is your deal ?” you sighed “Honestly it’s been a night and this weekend is gonna be busy”
“Yeah because going to some football game is such a hard job” he scoffed
“Here we fucking go, you know what go back inside. I’m tired and I wanna go home” you sighed
“Do you like him more than you liked me ?” he asked suddenly
Rubbing your forehead you shook your head “Michael, go inside. Go back with Noelle please.”
“She left” Robby answered “And can you please call me Robby, Michael is what my mother used to call me and that’s not really what I want to be referred as right now”
“Please do not, do NOT bring up your mommy issues right now” you snapped back sternly
“You know what ? Forget it, I’m out. Have a good night with Abbott, make sure you do that thing you do with your mouth on his dick, I’m sure he’ll love that” Robby looked you in the eye
You weren’t a violent person but in that moment you stepped forward and slapped him across the face as hard as you could “Fuck all the way off and get therapy you weird, manipulative piece of shit”
“You’re fucking insane” he rubbed his cheek “Batshit insane”
“At least I can actually admit it and don’t have to go around being some asshole” you responded calmly “I’m not the one going on some suicide mission because I can’t accept help. I’m not the one being cruel to colleagues simply because I can’t handle the fact that maybe just maybe they care about me. That’s you and truth be told, maybe it’s time you walk the walk instead of doing all the talk because quite frankly you acting like a martyr is just getting old and annoying. Face your demons or get on with life Michael”
“What the fuck do you know about life ? What do you know about hardship ? Nothing !” he exclaimed “Not a damn thing !”
“Oh here we fucking go” you threw your purse on the floor “It’s not my fault that I was born into privilege and I’m not gonna stand here and let you of all fucking people berate me for it. Yes my parents have money, yes I went to amazing private schools and an amazing private university and got to travel all over the world on their dime and had really special opportunities most people my age don’t. But you know what ? That’s what happens when two people get together and have a child they actually wanted. That’s what happens when a child is loved and doted on, they get spoiled”
You shook your head and picked your purse back up after a while of silence and let out a sigh “I am sincerely sorry you were dealt with a rough hand in your upbringing but you cannot, you will not” you met his gaze “Use that to project all your anger and insecurities on me. I was your friend, before we hooked up we were friends, genuine friends. You encouraged me to be uncomfortable with things, to face my discomforts and then you wanted sex when you realized you couldn’t just be my friend. You’re the one who pursued me to no end, who laid next to me in bed after that first night and told me how being with me was the only time you felt peace, then you wanna turn around and paint me out to be some whore when you’re the one sleeping around ? Which one is it, Michael ? What am I ? Am I some whore who sleeps around or am I the girl who gave you peace ?”
For once Robby was speechless, you didn’t see him like that ever. He always had a response to everything, good or bad. It sucked that things had to get to this level but quite frankly you were tired of it. His hot and cold demeanor had you at your wits end, especially when he chose to bring it up during a night that should’ve been special for everyone at the hospital
“Nothing” you whispered as your car was brought in “Just as I assumed. Stay away from me and don’t say a word to Jack. Weirdly enough he still cares about you when you don’t give a rats ass about him”
Driving back to your apartment felt like hell. Robby deserved every bit of the tongue lashing you had given him yet the pit in your stomach told you otherwise. You pushed it out of your mind the best you could as you got ready for bed and thought about the weekend, knowing it’d be the perfect distraction you needed
Saturday- Gameday
Saturdays were always statistically the worst day for the emergency department, Robby wasn’t superstitious at all but the day had been weirdly calm. It was nearing 4 pm and things had been surprisingly normal as far as the level of patients they had. He was in the middle of sipping his coffee when he saw Dana walk towards him
“Ready to go home ?” she asked
“Sure” he shrugged “Been up since 4 so I might need a nap”
Dana had known him for years, way too long. He had just finished his residency at Big Charity hospital when he had first gotten to PTMC, the first day on the job he had met her and soon realized she’d be his life long friend. She was upfront and honest while still staying kind after more than 20 years as a nurse and seeing things that he still couldn’t deal with properly
He watched as her phone rang abruptly, her face changing as she hung up and looked up at him “What’s wrong ?”
“Set up triage, there’s an incident and we’re gonna have a lot of hurt people coming in” she said “Let’s go”
“What happened ?” he asked concerned walking back inside with her
“There’s been a shooting at the local college” Dana informed him “I don’t know how many are hurt but they said the shooter’s still at large and police are coming to make sure we’re safe. Let everyone know”
Robby felt his stomach drop and shook his head as he stopped walking and leaned against the wall “She’s…she’s at gameday”
“Who ?” Dana asked confused, suddenly realizing who he meant “Call her right now, please”
He took out his phone with shaking hands and quickly found your contact as he dialed, letting out shaky breaths in between each ring only for it to go to voicemail. He rubbed his forehead and sighed “She’s not answering”
“She’s probably fine” Dana said softly “She knows what to do”
Robby dialed your number again and again, he sent you text messages that weren’t delivering and you weren’t responding, he did so repeatedly until it was starting to take a toll on him
He had no time to calm himself down before cars began pulling in with bloodied victims who were crying and writhing in pain, he along with the others did the best they could in stabilizing them and assigning them to the appropriate triage station. When he saw Jack pull in he walked over and pulled him aside
“Please tell me you’ve talked to her” he whispered “Please”
“No” Jack whispered, shaking his head “She won’t answer a text or call, I’m just…I’m just hoping all is well and it probably is man, just…just think positive okay ? Everything's gonna be okay”
“Okay” Robby agreed “You’re-You’re right”
He moved back outside to help unload more patients when he heard your voice and quickly rushed over
“They’re all stable” you panted holding a teenage girl in your lap “Get in quick, she stopped responding to me and I did my best to control her bleeding, she was cohesive and breathing just a few minutes ago”
Robby nodded and quickly got a gurney and had the others take her inside, he watched as you wasted no time and helped carry every other person onto a stretcher “Hey…your shirt…you need one”
You looked down at yourself in your bralette “I took off my shirt and ripped it to makeshift bandages for people who were bleeding, get me a top, anything”
“You’re not a doctor you can’t help, you need to-”
“I know how to stabilize wounds, I know how to insert IV’s, I can do stitches and I can keep people distracted. You guys are short nurses and doctors and they’re not gonna let them come by this way because the shooter still hasn’t been found. I can help Robby, I can do this” you met his eyes
“Go inside and get scrubs, you do not go inside any surgery room and you only help in cases that are non fatal. You stick by Whitaker and Santos and check in for everything it is that you need to do, is that understood ?”
“Understood” you said back going to change quickly
“Take her boyfriend with you” he said softly when you got back “Please”
You put your arm around the teenage boy and helped him out until you got him in a wheelchair “Come on, we just gotta clean you up and get you stitched up, call your mom while I do this”
“But…But I need to be with her” he whispered “Take me to her, please”
“She’s with a really good doctor” you said softly “He’s the best of the best and she’s in good hands, don’t worry about her”
How you were able to get him to calm down, you didn’t know but somehow it had worked. When his mother got there you left him in her care, accepting her sudden hug and assuring her you’d see them again. You made your way to the cafeteria that had turned into the waiting room full of concerned family members and friends who were looking for their loved ones. Your head turned towards the children that were with them, all with wide eyes and scared looks as they huddled in the furthest corner of the room focusing on one ipad
“Hey, Dennis….do we still have that abandoned wing on the 8th floor ?” you asked
“We do” he looked up “Should I transfer some patients up there ? I can get some beds ready if you give me like 10 minutes”
“Actually it’s not for patients” you shook your head “Go take some beds up there along the old tv’s and kids videotapes that are stored away up in the hospital storage room. We’re gonna take the kids up there. I’m gonna go get juice and snacks from the cafeteria and I’m gonna print out some coloring pages and grab some crayons. They can stay up there away from all this chaos and we can have a nurse and a security guard up there with them to make sure they’re safe while the families of the victims and patients wait to hear what their status is”
“That’s really smart” he said softly with a nod “I’ll get to it quick, I’ll be back soon”
“And Dennis ?” you looked at him “Make sure to get your things and put them in the lounge, once it’s time to go home you can crash at mine. I’ve got an extra room that is all yours”
With that you spotted Jack and practically speed walked over to him, sighing softly when he looked you over and pet your cheek
“You didn’t answer calls or texts, what the fuck ?” he whispered
“My phone died” you said quietly “When it all….when it all started I was buying a water bottle and the cashier had me and everyone else who was in line get behind the counter. After about 5 minutes it was silent but when we got out bodies were everywhere, I couldn’t just leave them there so I did what my dad had taught me years ago. I stabilized those who could and jumped in a truck with them to here”
“Are you hurt ?” he asked, concerned “Did they check you over ?”
“I’m fine” you answered “I’m fine, I promise. I just wanted to see if I could donate blood. I heard Dana say they’re down O-neg and that’s me”
“Go” he nodded “I’ll find in a bit”
You felt like adrenaline was running through your veins as you made your way to a nurse and took a seat as your blood got drawn, chewing on granola bar she had given you to keep up your energy
On the other side was Robby who was simply looking at you, daydreaming in a way to distract himself from the utter chaos that was going on around him. He looked over at Jack who was doing the same thing he was. Both of them were looking in your direction and you were too focused to ever notice
“Call it” a nurse suddenly interrupted his thoughts “She’s gone, we couldn’t get the pulse back”
“What ?” Robby whispered “She has a pulse, I just heard it” he took the machine and moved it towards her neck “It was just there, she had one”
“Robby we don’t have time for this” Jack said gently “You spent over half an hour giving her chest compressions, she’s gone”
“She’s 16 and healthy ! I heard her fucking pulse !” Robby snapped “I heard it, it was strong ! It was there ! Start compressions again”
“She’s gone” Jack repeated “She’s gone and we’re gonna hand her over and move on to someone else that needs us so she can be placed in peds where the makeshift morgue is an”
He felt his skin crawl at the mention of the peds room and shook his head “You….you’re putting dead bodies in the peds room ?”
“It’s all we have man” Jack responded gently “I know it’s bad and I know that’s where….that’s where he last-”
“Don’t” Robby pointed a finger at him “Don’t fucking mention him. Do not fucking bring his name up”
You turned your head towards the now noticeable yelling in the corner and quickly got up for your chair, making your way and taking Robby’s arm gently in your hold “Dr.Robby…you’re needed somewhere else” you lied, giving a look at Jack who nodded in approval
You didn’t make much distance before Robby shook you off and walked away in the opposite direction, knowing it’d just be more drama you let him go and went back to Jack
“He’s upset that we’re putting bodies in peds” he let you know “That’s where Adamson was, where he passed away”
“Oh god” you whispered “I only had met him a handful of times when I was a kid but he was always so kind, my father started his residency here around the time Adamson was still an attending so he knew him for years. I never knew Robby was….was here during covid. I was still in college then”
“Robby’s the one who stayed with him” Jack nodded “He would spend all day with other patients but after his shift ended he’d stay in that peds room with Adamson, sometimes sleeping there. He loved him, he worshiped him and one day someone else needed a machine. It was down to helping a little girl or keeping Adamson on the machine, he knew the chance of Adamson getting better was nonexistent but it still hurt him. The kid and Adamson both didn’t end up making it…that hurt him more than anything”
“I…I didn’t know” you whispered
“If you weren’t here around that time chances are you’d never know, only a few of the residents and Dana know and now you” he said softly
Suddenly everything made sense but you were left with no time to digest it as more and more people kept coming, some stable that just needed you to stitch or bandage them up and some that needed more than what you could handle
“We need Robby” you said to Dennis as he helped you take off your gloves “Any idea where he’s at ?”
“I saw him walk down the hall but haven’t seen him since” he shook his head
“He’s probably taking a piss or sitting on that stupid motorcycle” you sighed “I’ll go find him”
Deep down you were grateful to take a breather, you had been going nonstop and you knew somehow when your father found out that he’d be proud. You also knew your mother would push the idea of you going to nursing school and doing what she dreamed of you doing but for now your focus was finding Robby
You walked and peeked into the lounge and bathrooms, stopping when you spotted him sitting down with his chest to his knees rocking back and forth in the peds room. This wasn’t what you could handle, this wasn’t what you wanted to see. You debated calling Jack or maybe even someone from psych but you knew he’d hate for you that so instead you gently opened the door and walked in and heard him quietly chanting
Shema, Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad
Baruch shem kevod malchuto le'olam va'ed
He was repeating it over and over as he covered his face, not even realizing you were in the room with him. You didn’t want to scare him so you stood in the corner quietly giving him some time as he continued to do it over and over finally going to next to him and offering your hand
“Hey…I found you” you lied “Come on, they need you”
Robby looked up at you and shook his head “I’ll have Abbott and Shen handle it, I can’t do it”
“Okay…okay then come with me somewhere else” you said softly “Come on, let’s get you out of this gown and gloves”
Surprisingly he did as told and allowed you to remove them, he looked at you as you dabbed his cheeks with the back of your hand and fixed his hair “You gotta look presentable where we’re going, we got critics” you tried to joke
He looked confused but followed as you both went in the elevator and headed towards the 8th floor, his face softening when he saw the ward filled with beds and blankets and pillows on the floor with kids watching some old disney movie on the tv’s he hadn’t seen in years
“Who did this ?” he whispered
“She did” a security guard grinned at you “They’re not as nervous or scared anymore, parents can focus on their family members and it’s all good and secure. Perlah just left but she’ll be back too”
“I figured it’d help the kids not feel as stressed” you nodded as you cleared your throat “Hey guys, remember how I said I’d bring a doctor ? This is…my friend, his name is Dr.Robby and he’s been helping make all your family members and friends all better” you smiled “Can you all say thank you to Dr.Robby ?”
“Thank you Docta Wobby !” the group of toddlers and little kids all said at the same time
“That was so sweet, can you guys show Dr.Robby what you guys made for him ?” you grinned
Robby felt his vision get cloudy as one child took it upon herself and held up a large piece of construction paper full of handprints and scribbles “This for you”
“Oh” he whispered taking it “Thank you, how nice”
“You welcome” she grinned big and hugged his legs
For a moment Robby froze and then gently patted her back with a small grin “I need to….get back to helping people but thank you for this” he held up the paper “I will put it in my desk so I can see it every day”
“Everyone say bye bye, keep being good for Mr.Ahmed and Ms.Perlah please, let’s be good listeners as well when we go home” you waved them goodbye and walked back out with Robby “They had been asking if they could see a cool doctor who saves lives and I knew just the right person for the job” you said softly “You ready to back out there ?”
“Yeah…Yeah I am” he nodded “Thanks for that…do you think maybe we could talk after tonight ? Really talk ?”
“I think that’s a good idea” you agreed “For now you go do what you need to do and I’m gonna make sure everyone in the cafeteria has seen their family and friends”
Reaching up you kissed his cheek, not because you wanted to give him an idea that there was a chance with you but because he needed some gentleness. He needed to know someone was looking out for him and his wellbeing even with all the bullshit from the other night. You walked away and made your way towards the triage where Jack was standing with a blood IV attached to his leg
“You shouldn’t be donating” you chastised “Jack seriously ?”
“What I’m O-neg ?” he shrugged “I’m good, I had a good breakfast and I’m hydrated. I’m perfectly fine to donate some blood”
“Yeah you’re sweating” you shook your head and grabbed a nearby towel as you dabbed his forehead “Take a seat please, things look to be like everything is now mostly wound care and not as many critical patients so take a breather”
“Only because you say so” he sighed and did as told, sitting with you as he looked around “I got scared when you weren’t getting back to me”
“I’m sorry” you apologized
“No need to say sorry, it wasn’t on you” Jack murmured “You alright ?”
You nodded “I’m not bleeding or injured, no cuts or bruises”
“That’s not what I mean” he looked into your eyes “Are you okay ?”
“I will be” you assured him leaning on his shoulder “You okay ?”
He shrugged “Eventually I will be but for now….this shit is terrifying.”
“They haven’t caught the person who did it, my dad texted me how when he got here to scrub in that it was chaos on the streets” you nodded “Shooter is still out there hiding somewhere”
He wrapped an arm around your shoulders and kissed your head “Don’t think about that, we’re safe. We’re gonna stay safe and be okay. Things are getting better”
You wanted to believe him, you wanted to take in his comfort but truth be told you were scared out of your mind. Every time a car pulled in or someone else walked in the emergency room you felt yourself tense up terrified they were a shooter. Your direction turned to Robby who was outside with Dr.Shen and Ellis as you heard a car screech in and watched as Robby pushed them behind him
“Gun !” he called out loudly as he shielded them
You didn’t have time to react as Jack quickly protected you and put his arms around you protectively while police quickly went over to the car and took out the driver, only to realize he was also a police officer who had been injured
“Safe, all good” they called “All clear”
“Your leg…” you whispered to him “Jack your leg, you’re crushing it”
He realized how his leg was positioned and shook his head “It’s…it’s a prosthetic, I-I lost it back during combat”
“I..I didn’t know” you shook your head “I’m sorry”
“Don’t be sorry for something you didn’t know” he quickly fixed it and got up, offering you a hand “I’ll tell you all about it at dinner tomorrow”
You chuckled taking it and smoothing out your jeans “Oh man well in that case pick somewhere really good”
“Watch out, Gloria’s back” he whispered, abruptly turning you around “She’s pissed that we took blood donations without properly screening”
“No one was around to properly screen, it was mostly other doctors and nurses and the small number of family members that are here. We took their word for being clean and I don’t think they’d lie to us during a moment like this”
Like bad luck Gloria called over Robby and they got into it, you and Jack stood there acting distracted as they both went over safety protocols and procedures. Not once did she ever thank Robby for his efforts or tell him she understood why he approved certain orders, instead she complained and nagged until finally you had enough
“Gloria, people could’ve died” you looked at her “We could’ve had more dead bodies if it weren’t for Robby approving blood donations. Everyone donated and that’s the reason lives were saved today. Can we just drop it ?”
She shook her head “That’s not the point here, there are protocols that need to be measured for everyone’s health and safety and they weren’t followed. We just screened and tested some of blood we got and low and behold there’s a pregnancy”
“What-What type ?” you asked
“O-neg” Gloria sighed “Only two bags, they had this” she showed you the sticky note attached to it with your birthday and the time that you had labeled in case anything had gone wrong “the time written says it got donated about 3 hours ago, luckily we screened it and found that out so now I have to find out who donated blood while pregnant”
“Pregnant ?” Jack asked joining you guys “Who’s pregnant ?”
Robby said nothing as he looked at you and that was all it took for Jack to understand the situation. He didn’t react as he took Gloria aside and assured her he’d handle things, leaving you and Robby alone in the hallway
“You’re….”
He couldn’t even finish his sentence before he saw your eyes roll back and caught you just in time as you passed out
*just a little reminder once again that if you read please please reblog with tags and leave feedback :), my ask box is always open or you can just comment here. Feedback is truly what helps the most and I love love reading what you think !!! This isn't AO3 where kudos means something, this also isn't IG or Twitter where likes matter. Please appreciate the work us writers put into this. It's not hard to leave a comment or reblog with some tags.
summary: the three times jack abbot compared you to someone else vs. the one time you were exactly who he wanted but couldn't have anymore.
tags: jack abbot x reader, angst, deep insecurities, jack compares you to samira, robby, and his late-wife (I named her alice), a few scene changes but it's for the plot, trying out [name] but if I don't like it, it's back to y/n for all of you, jack is lowkey an asshole on accident (thinks he's meaning well by complimenting others, but tears you apart in the process), medical inaccuracies, hurt/no comfort (at least for jack), eventual breakup, special end scene guest star, age gape (28-32/50), heavily inspired by lacy by olivia rodrigo (which I suggest listening to while you read) and all the feels that come with that, 18+ MDNI
notes: this hurt to write, and this better hurt y'all in the best angsty way possible! just a reminder that my requests for the hatosyverse are open, and that I'm doing smutty blurbs to build my writing abilities, enjoy!
word count: 7.4k
You didn't understand how you'd been able to score Jack Abbot.
Somehow, the universe decided that you'd be his match, the one he chose to go home to at the end of a bad shift, the one who'd been able to give him the most comfort during his darkest days. You knew what you'd be getting into: the PTSD, the depression, shifts where he felt more like your boss than your partner. But you believed you could get through it; Jack was older, and you liked to think you were mature enough to handle anything thrown your way.
For almost a year, your relationship bloomed in stolen glances across the Pitt, hidden moments in supply closets, and late-night baths spent at his house trying to bury yourself next to his heart. Jack was it for you, and you let yourself dream about a future, ring on your finger, possible children running around the house you shared. The two of you rarely fought, often choosing to apologize for anything under the sun before arguments grew too large for your feelings.
Never once did Jack make you feel inadequate, even if you had voiced early on that you truly didn't understand why he picked you. Compared to his gorgeous salt-and-pepper curls and freckled skin and large stature, you felt plain. Your hair was always pulled into a slick ponytail, makeup caused acne breakouts after 12-hour shifts, and what little time you had to yourself, you spent it at home, reading a book, instead of going out with friends and colleagues. People looked at you without so much as a second glance. Jack, on the other hand, made heads turn and nurses blush if they somehow caught his attention long enough for him to send a look their way. You couldn't remember the last time you went through a shift where a female (or sometimes male) patient failed to make a comment about the sexy, silver fox doctor.
You never made it more than it was: harmless flirting from people Jack would never think about again once they got discharged.
After, you and he had gone through the HR meetings, the contract signings, and the swearing that your relationship wouldn't get in the way of saving lives or have Jack start playing favorites. To further this, around the 9-month mark of being Jack's, they plucked you from the safety of the nightshift and dropped you right into Robby's hands. But this was how it was going to be from now on; there was no point in arguing as long as you got to keep Jack.
For three months, you persevered. Finding a groove with an already well-oiled shift proved to be harder than it looked. People talked. Nurses gossiped. Doctors speculated. You, through it all, kept your chin high. Their words didn't get to dictate your relationship. During handoffs, Jack still swept you into his arms and kissed you like a man coming back from war. He still told you that dinner was in the fridge once you got home and napped. He still continued to send updates during his shift, text messages from the separate night-shift group chat made after your departure chiming loudly while you ate. And most important of all, he still loved you.
However, nothing could have prepared you for the three times you felt the most unloved.
I care, I care, I care, like perfume that you wear, I linger all the time, watchin', hidden in plain sight, ooh, I try, I try, I try, but it takes over my life, I see you everywhere, the sweetest torture one could bear
"Hey, Dana," you called out while swimming through the chaos only brought on by a 4th of July shift.
At her name, Dana looked up over the thin frames of her glasses, pausing momentarily to look your way before going back to her board. "Please don't tell me that the 36 hot dog guy is back."
You shook your head, hands coming to rest on top of the vinyl counter. "Not that I'm aware of."
"Thank heavens. What can I do for ya, hun?"
Leaning in, you did a quick glance around the department. "I heard Jack was here early?"
Her eyebrows almost rose to her hairline. "Yeah; he came in with one of his SWAT buddies. GSW to the man's neck, but it looks like he's going to be okay." She reached over and grabbed a tablet. "Actually, can you find Jack for me? He wanted an update ASAP."
Your fingers drummed against the counter anxiously before you took the tablet from her. "I was just about to ask if you'd seen him."
Dana glanced over your shoulder and stuck out her chin in the same direction. "Saw him duck into Room 15. Might be taking a breather; Lord knows he needs one after that raid." She gave you a knowing look, eyes twinkling with mischief. "Maybe you're exactly what he needs."
A rush of heat flooded your face, eyes darting away from hers. "I'll see if I can find him."
You turned away before she could say anything more, hands desperately holding the tablet to your chest. Your shoes squeaked against the tile floor, steps bringing you closer to the room Jack was supposedly in. Once at the door, you raised a hand to draw the curtain away, but the sound of voices—plural—had you stopping. Saliva pooled between your teeth as you listened closely.
"—is the hospital going to pay for it?"
There was a pause before Jack clearly grumbled, "I'll pay for it."
You slowly moved to the side next to the wall where the curtain didn't completely cut the room off. Through the slot, your eyes widened at the sight of a Jack, shirt off, pale chest, wound-care swab twirling in his fingers with Samira sitting in one of the chairs. In the next beat, she stood and walked right past the curtain slot, completely oblivious that you were right behind it. She stopped near the wall and grabbed a pair of gloves before snapping them on.
His brows furrowed. "What are you doing?"
She smiled before rounding to stand behind him. "What you clearly can't."
Begrudgingly, he handed over the swab.
"Did you make a chart?" she asked while dipping the cotton end into a wound cream.
Jack crossed his arms, and his shoulders rolled and dipped. "No. This can stay off the books. Don't need the paperwork from the hospital or police department."
Samira paused. "Would you rather me go get Dr. [Name]? I'm sure she could do this much better than I could."
"No," Jack responded, shaking his head. "She'd just panic about this. There's no need to throw her off her game."
Your stomach flipped. He thought you'd panic? Sure, you'd be worried, but it wasn't like you hadn't seem him hurt before. Whatever wound he had on his back wouldn't be the worst thing he'd come home with after a SWAT shift.
"Isn't she your girlfriend?" She began dabbing at his back, the swab coming back bloodied.
"Yeah, but it's different with you. I don't have to worry about you taking your time or being indifferent about this." He winced at a deeper brush into the graze. "She's not like you, Dr. Mohan. She wears everything on her sleeve. Really, she could learn how to be more level headed like you, Dr. Mohan. I've seen the way you handle traumas. We wouldn't be so in the low if we had about 10 more of you."
He ended with a chuckle like what he just said didn't feel like a knives to your stomach.
Is that what he really thought about you? That you should be more like Samira and her ability to stay cool through anything thrown at her? With a blink, your eyes glossed over.
Jack turned his head, neck twisting to he could meet Samira's eyes. "You won't tell her about this, right? Our little secret?"
You didn't stay to hear what she said, choosing to turn around before you could watch any longer. It was incredible that you were able to stay for so long, submitting yourself to a new kind of torture. Walking back to the nurses station, your steps slowed as if molasses coated the floor, its stickiness clinging to your shoes.
At your oncoming presence, Dana looked over. "Did you find him, hun?"
You forced yourself to not look back at the closed curtain. "Yeah, but he's in the middle of something right now. I'll just catch up with him later."
The tablet gave a small thud as you placed it back into the holder, and you desperately tried to find another patient to busy yourself with, specifically one furthest from Room 15. However, before you could grab one, a hand wrapped around your elbow and tugged.
"Hey, I need you for the incoming trauma," Langdon said as he dragged you with him. "Twenty-year-old female, unconscious for an unknown matter of time."
You nodded silently, allowing him to keep walking you like a dog on a leash until he stopped in front of the ambulance bay sliding doors. Your lungs expanded in a deep, wavering breath.
Now was not the time to panic. You could do this. You could be like Samira. You could show Jack that you could handle a trauma.
During your internal pep talk, the doors slid open, giving way for the gurney and two paramedics.
"BP is 140-over-92 and climbing. No relevant medical history. She woke up once on the way over and vomited before passing out again."
You quickly followed Langdon into the first trauma room and helped transfer her over onto the bed. Immediately, numbers started being shouted while you started your initial exam.
When nothing seemed to blare any red flags, Langdon started impatient as the woman kept deteriorating. Through it all, you willed your hands to stay steady, your mind calm while you mentally went through what could be the matter. You took a step forward, body positioning near her head so you could look at her pupils one more time, and that's when you smelled it: the acrid, fruity smell puffing out of her mouth as she struggled to breath.
You jerked back quickly. "Dr. Langdon, is there a history of diabetes or hyperglycemia? Her breath smells like rotting fruit."
Langdon looked over at you before leaning toward her face. He hissed a curse before barking for a blood sugar test. Your eyes widened when the screen flashed a 450 mg/dL.
"She's experiencing diabetic ketoacidosis," you breathed.
"Let's get her on an insulin drip, now," Langdon hissed, face pinched until he looked over at you with a softer expression. "Great job catching that and staying calm." He chuckled slightly. "Never seen you like this but keep it up."
You knew his words were meant to be encouraging, but all they did was send bile up your throat. Without saying anything more, you tore off the gloves and shoved them deep into a biohazard bin. You wanted to cry, wanted to find the nearest restroom and tug at your hair.
But that's not what Samira would do your mind provided; the thought ugly and green. She'd shrug it all off and keep working like nothing was the matter.
Your teeth ground together, shoulders squaring in tandem. If everyone would rather have you calm, you'd be calm. You'd tuck your heart away rather than show it to the patients who needed someone that wore it on their sleeve. You picked up another tablet at the nurses station and got back to work.
The rest of the fourth went by in a tornado. Systems went down after a cyberattack; fireworks boomed off in the distance; you stayed busy. Each of your patients were in and out at a lightning speed, and by the start of the night shift, you were ready to go home and cry your heart out into a pillow.
You'd seen Samira every so often in between patients and a small lunch break. Like always, she smiled at you and waved and chatted when she could, but her actions made you want to wither up like a dead flower. You couldn't help but stare at her, thinking that you should be more like the woman in front of you, mind comparing your features to hers at a rapid speed you couldn't stop. She somehow looked like an angel in the middle of a place jokingly nicknamed one of the seven layers of hell, skin clear and hair somehow perfectly put in a bun. You tried your best to match her enthusiasm, but the poison had already been drank.
On the contrary, the only time you really saw Jack was at the start of handoffs. He had helped with one trauma before going to the on-call room for a needed nap, and you hadn't wanted to talk to him then, scared of how he'd act around you.
"There you are, sweetheart," you heard him say as you finished up converting with Lena about the man in Room 5. "I've been looking for you. Thought you might have left without saying goodbye."
You winced slightly. "No; I've just been busy."
Jack hummed and smiled warmly at you, but the expression was tainted by his words earlier. "I heard. Langdon's been nothing but praising you for earlier. I'm proud of you."
"Sure you are," you muttered too lowly for him to catch. Your lips thinly stretched into a smile that didn't meet your tired eyes. "Thank you, Jack," you settled on instead.
His hazel eyes scanned over your face, and his smile slightly dropped. "Are you okay, though? You look a little down."
"I'm fine," you shot out. "Today's just been long, and I'm ready to get home."
Jack nodded. "I left food in the fridge for you, so make sure you eat it after you sleep for a bit."
"Got it."
He looked at you expectantly before rolling his eyes. "Come here."
Like it had been etched into your DNA, you listened and fell into his open arms, face tucking into his chest. He squeezed you tightly before placing a kiss to your temple.
"Proud of you," he said. "You do such a good job. We need so many doctors like you, my perfect girl."
Perfect felt like a twist of the knife, because if you were so perfect, why had he told Samira that he wished you were more like her?
I feel your compliments like bullets on skin. Dazzling starlet, Bardot reincarnate, well, aren't you the greatest thing to ever exist?
As the weeks went on, Jack's words never left your soul, the damage irreparable in everything that you did.
Second guessing yourself had been a struggle you'd dealt with since an earlier age. Normally, Jack would be able to quiet all those thoughts; he had chosen you; he loved you. But now, as you second guessed everything you did, you also second guessed everything Jack said. You picked apart every encouragement, every compliment, every sweet promise he whispered in your ear.
What he said now couldn't be taken at face value, and you wondered if that feeling would ever go away. You'd asked him about the bullet graze a few days after the 4th, acting completely oblivious to what you knew. Like you thought, Jack assured you that he got it handled and for you to not worry about it, like that did anything to settle the rolling feelings in your stomach.
You tried your best to move on, knowing you'd only bring yourself down more if you dwelled too long about really how much Jack's words had affected you while he never said anything directly to your face. The idea that he wanted you to be like someone else made your heart clench tightly to the point you often wanted to call off work, hoping that you could just wallow in self pity for hours and hours.
But the Pitt did not care for you like that; it demanded twelve hour shifts and grueling doubles. So every day, you rolled out of bed before Jack got home and pulled up your big girl pants.
You worked through it. You'd learned how to stay calm, how to not panic under duress, and it killed you to admit that you'd become a better doctor because of it. You hardly ever hiccuped during a trauma, gaining compliments from the surgeons and Robby for your techniques that were close to flawless. For the smallest second, you would preen under their words before the ugly, repulsive reminder that they might not be real swallowed you down in a nasty gulp.
"Dr. [Name] follow me please," Robby called as he brushed past the nurses station where you were currently typing away at a chart, hands clutching a chart out in front of him to read. "Quickly."
You pushed up from the desk, chair rolling far behind you from the force of your legs. Not wanting to lose him, you rounded the counter and jumped into his long stride.
"Yes, Dr. Robby?" you asked.
As far as you knew, there weren't any incoming traumas and it was too late in the day for him to have questions about your patients that were currently waiting for a room.
Robby paused in front of an empty trauma room. "Jack just let me know that he found a man in need of medical attention and is bringing him in before handoffs, and I thought you could help him out." He handed you the tablet, already ready to go with updated information.
You took a quick glance over this. "Um, Dr. Robby, it looks like he'll need a pericardiocentesis."
"It's good that you know exactly what he'll need. What's the issue?"
Your eyes looked from the screen to his brown eyes. "I've never done one before."
He simply smiled at you and patted your shoulder. "That's why Jack's going to lead you through it. I would stay, but since he's coming in early, I'm going to head out."
You tried to quirk a smile. "Got a hot date waiting for you?"
A low chuckle shook his shoulders. "You got jokes. My bike needs some repairs, and today's the only day I can get it into the shop. But I know you'll be just fine. Your improvement in traumas will only grow if you step out of your comfort zone."
The automatic sliding doors slid open, and Jack plus a nurse wheeled a man through on a gurney. Jack's eyes lit up at the sight of you, but his brows pinched when he noticed Robby's bag slung over the taller man's shoulder.
"You leaving early, brother?" Jack questioned as he stepped past the two of you.
Robby's hand gently rested on your shoulder. "Yeah, but you two will have this handled."
You inhaled deeply, the weight of his hand and words pushing down on your chest.
Robby was counting on you. Don't fuck this up. Don't panic.
With the tablet tucked under your arm, you walked into the trauma room before pulling on a pair of gloves. Jack had already cut through the man's shirt.
"I need two 18-gage needles, one 9cm and one 15cm, a guidewire, dilator, and 8Fr pigtail catheter." He looked up toward Jesse. "Let's give him 10ml lignocaine 1%."
You quickly gather what he needed and placed him on the dressing that covered the side tray.
"Okay, Dr. [Name]," Jack said, lips twitching upwards at using your official name, "I need you to place an ECG electrode on the pericardiocentesis needle with a crocodile clip and insert. Once the tip touches the myocardium, the trace should show immediate ST elevation. Once that comes up, insert the wire to aspirate the fluid."
His words tumbled through your mind much too fast to the point that you wondered if he didn't know you'd never done this before. You pursed your lips as you tried to remember everything. In the grand scheme of things, your training provided everything that needed to be done.
Yet, there was a big difference between studying and actually doing the procedure.
You kept your breath steady as you readied the needle, clamping on a clip before turning the pointed end toward the man's chest. The first part went smoothly, and the needle went right through. However, instead of the consistent beeping that should have followed if the needle was in properly, an onslaught of alarms sounded through your ears.
You had missed something.
Jack whipped his head toward you and sneered. "You went too deep. I told you that the needle needed to touch the myocardium not go all the way through. Give it here."
He didn't even wait for you to transfer the needle over, hands already grabbing at it. His head bent down so he could see what was happening. With a practiced ease, he maneuvered the needle exactly where it should have been.
"Fuck," he whispered, "Robby wouldn't have done that. I don't know why he handed this off to you if he knew the patient would need a pericardiocentesis for tamponade."
You thickly swallowed pooling saliva to clear your throat. "Sorry."
"Just—" He closed his eyes and sucked in a breath. "I'll finish up here. You go home."
You jolted just a bit. Go home?
"Jack, I can still assist. You're going to need—"
"We have it covered. Catheter is in place, and you'd just be standing around. You're good."
Suddenly, a wave of anguish flowed through your body. It was happening again. Jack had just added fuel to the ever growing fire of jealousy and self-loathing. The feeling sized your chest, and you stepped back from the bed, shaky hands ripping off the nitrile gloves.
You couldn't help the stressed wheeze that pushed from your lungs.
Don't panic. Don't panic. He didn't mean it. He was just stressed. He didn't know that you'd never done that before.
Numbly, you walked back to the nurses station and sat back down in front of the computer, but your hands didn't raise to the keyboard. Your mind had already taken over, spewing rotten things about yourself that you could fix.
Be like Samira. Be like Robby. Jack won't keep wanting you if you aren't like them.
Your tongue ran across your dry lips in an attempt to wet them, but even your mouth had gone parched.
"Is charting really that bad?" you heard Dennis ask you as she sat down at a computer to your left. "You look like someone just told you they flushed your fish down the drain."
In a jerky motion, you turned towards him and did your best to compose yourself. "Oh no. I, uh, I didn't do well on a procedure with Dr. Abbot, and he asked me to leave."
Dennis at least had the decency to look sorry for you. "I bet you didn't do too bad. What was the procedure?"
"A pericardiocentesis," you said shyly.
He nodded slowly. " Shit, that's like one of the first things Robby let us do." He turned towards his own chart. "I could probably do them in my sleep by now."
Because he wasn't looking at you, Dennis missed the way your shoulders dropped and tears welled in your lash line. Jack's comment had been bad, but he just completely shattered any confidence you had left for the day.
"Right," you muttered. "Of course it'd be that easy if Robby taught you."
And you'd be right. On the night shift, patients like that rarely if not ever needed such a complex procedure. You could only think to one time that a woman came through almost needing one before they were able to use a different method to get her stable enough to be transferred to the OR.
With keys clacking loudly, you quickly finished up the chart before turning the whole thing off. You didn't even try to find Jack before you left, choosing to slip out before he even noticed you'd left without saying goodbye.
Once you were home, you stormed past the fridge and went straight to yours and Jack's shared room. Your scrubs hit the floor, and you didn't even bother to put on pajamas. The bed dipped under your weight as you pulled the duvet up over your body in a sad attempt at being comforted by its weight.
Sleep came quickly, only being interrupted by the door opening, a signal that Jack had gotten home. Blearily, you listened to him walk around the room before his edge of the bed sunk after he sat. The familiar hiss and pop of his prosthesis preceded him turning to lie down. You kept still as he scooted closer before wrapping an arm around your middle and molding your back to his chest.
"Sorry if I woke you up," he muttered sleepily. "Tried to find you before you left, but I guess I missed you. Wanted to say good job for that trauma. You helped so much."
You clamped your eyes shut, squeezing a fresh round of tears that dripped down your cheeks to puddle on your pillowcase.
After Samira, you had done your best to convince yourself it had been a slip of his tongue. But now after Robby, you weren't too sure that Jack would keep you around for much longer before finding someone better. Because there was no way you could ever amount to someone like Robby.
It was impossible.
I care, I care, I care, like ribbons in your hair, my stomach's all in knots, you got the one thing that I want. Ooh, I try, I try, I try, try to rationalize people are people, but it's like you're made of angel dust.
You were trying but failing to pretend Jack's words and comparisons hadn't left a giant, bleeding gap in your heart. Before everything happened, you never ever wondered if Jack loved you. Except now, you waited with bated breath for him to just drop the bucket and break up with you. You walked on eggshells around him.
Don't panic. Be put together. Keep your heart to yourself. Be calm like Samira. Don't fuck up. Know how to do your job. Be confident like Robby.
Those thought became your mantra and lifeline. No one seemed to think twice about your recent personality change. They loved the way they could count on you, the way you had an answer ready for everything. To the day and night shift, you were the epitome of composure. But behind closed doors, you were falling apart and into a pit you didn't think you'd be able to climb out of.
Jack didn't help with that either. You guessed he didn't even know what he had done to you, going on with his life like he hadn't given yours so many potholes that you couldn't continue on without falling behind. Everything you did was carefully thought out, every patient you talked to met a version of you that didn't reflect what you felt inside or outside.
You avoided mirrors the most, their reflections showing you exactly what you weren't. You weren't Samira with her lovely thick hair and clear skin. And you weren't Robby who carried years of trauma like it was apart of his body.
You were you, and you loathed it entirely.
You hated the glances you caught between Jack and Samira across the department. You hated the way they looked like they knew what the other was thinking before they spoke. You hated how you felt like on onlooker to a relationship that wasn't even happening.
You also hated the way Robby changed from a mentor to an idol. He had soon morphed into someone you wanted to so desperately be to the point you lost yourself in ambition.
And the worst part? You held nothing against them personally.
They didn't know what Jack had said. They didn't know that you were dying on the inside every time they raised you up during shifts. Bits of you crumbled away while they continued to glow.
Every morning you woke up, you wondered if the day would provide the straw that broke the camel's back with the way you felt like a stretched out rubber band waiting to fly.
A soft, savory aroma wafted through your kitchen. You absentmindedly stirred the spatula through the sauce, eyes glancing back and forth from the pan to the recipe. The instructions were written in beautiful, slanted cursive with curled letters that danced together. You'd found the card mixed in with a bunch of recipes Jack kept in his drawer. With a quick read told you that the owner of this one was his late wife, and the heart next to the title had you guessing if this was a favorite for the two of them.
Without thinking, you plucked it from the drawer and started working. After a week of back to back cases that ended in more loss than wins, a homemade meal was exactly what you and Jack needed after a day off. He was currently out getting his truck washed, and you wanted to be finished by the time he came home.
Quickly, the separate parts of the recipe—the chicken and veggies basting in the oven, the sauce on the stove top, and the wine chilling in the fridge—all came together right as Jack walked through the door.
"Hi, baby!" you called out as you pulled the pan from the oven. "Dinner's almost ready!"
You picked up on Jack's slightly clompy gate as he got farther into the house.
"Smells good," he said, walking over to stand behind you. "What did you make?"
Suddenly, you got nervous. What if it didn't taste correct? What if Jack didn't want you to make something so special between him and his wife. What if you ruined everything.
You didn't meet his eyes and poured the sauce over the top of the chicken. "Uh, a recipe from the drawer. It looked good, and we already had the ingredients."
He grabbed the card and held it up to his face, and you held your breath. When he didn't seem to get angry or sad, you counted it at a win.
"There's a bottle of white in the fridge if you want to get it out," you offered.
Jack stayed quiet. You didn't dare look even as the sound of a cork popping echoed in the room. While his immediate lack of response didn't cause concern to rise, your stomach still churned. To mirror him, you also didn't speak while you set the table.
He sat down, and so did you, your chairs facing the other like you'd done so many times in the past. Your heart pounded against your sternum as he took the first bite.
Loudly, he smacked his lips, setting his fork down at he chewed. The noise felt like nails on a chalkboard in the silence.
After a minute, he finally spoke. "Did you change anything in this?"
Your racing heart plummeted to your feet. "No. I kept it just like the card had it."
His brows furrowed. "Really? It tastes different than how I remembered it last."
You dug your nails into the fabric of the table running. "Does it not taste good?"
Jack looked up from his plate with wide, hazel eyes. "No, no, it's just different."
"But not good," you scoffed.
"I'm just trying to say that maybe you missed something. I know Alice's handwriting isn't the easiest to read."
"I know how to read cursive, Jack," you spat lowly. "I followed every single instruction on the card. It's the exact same recipe."
"It's not that big of a deal, sweetheart," he tried. "Maybe if you had a bit more practice like her, it might have come out the same. You're a good cook, don't get me wrong, but—"
Your hands slammed on the table in frustration, causing Jack's eyebrows to pinch as his words died in his mouth. He went to keep talking but stopped when he noticed the frustrated tears fall from your eyes.
"I'm done," you breathed, eyes darting around the room.
"Done?" Jack echoed. "What are you done with?"
"Everything," you hissed. "I'm done with this—" You gestured to the food with a wave of your hand. "I'm done with-with you. I'm done with it all."
You pushed up from the table and walked away, leaving Jack to scramble out of his chair and follow you.
"Sweetheart, what's going on?" he loudly asked, but you ignored him.
By the time he made it into the bedroom, you had already ripped out a suitcase from the closet and were pushing clothes into it without making them neat.
"Hey," Jack said gently. "Look, I'm sorry for saying that. I didn't think it'd upset you this much, but you don't have to leave."
You paused in a mid-throw of your shirts and spun to face him. A disbelieving laugh bubbled wetly through your throat. "That's the problem," you muttered, "you don't think."
He crossed his arms, biceps resting against his chest. A need to defend himself bloomed in his stomach. "What's that supposed to fucking mean."
You threw your arms up with an exasperated scoff. "Oh, so now you're concerned for what I'm saying. Maybe you should be concerned more with your words." You sucked in a deep breath. "Just go on and say it."
Jack took a step forward. "Say what?"
"That you'd rather me be someone else!" you screamed. "That-that I'm not enough by myself for you anymore." Pants heaved in your chest. "I'm sick and tired of standing here stuck listening to you compare me and wish that I'd be like or act like someone else."
Your words stole the breath from Jack's lungs as confusion and dread washed over him. "What?"
You closed your eyes and dropped your shoulders. "I heard you; I keep hearing you."
In another step forward, Jack was within two feet of you. He swallowed thickly, but you beat him to more words.
"On the fourth," you began to explain through tears, "I saw Samira patch you up, and I heard the way you told her that I could learn how to be more level headed like her."
A chill crept up Jack's spine. "Sweetheart—"
"Don't," you ordered. "Don't do that where you try to make it all better. I heard you loud and clear, Jack. And that's fine. I knew I could be more calm during traumas, so that's exactly what I did, but apparently—" You chocked out a laugh. "That wasn't enough for you."
He shook his head, hazel eyes swimming with guilt already.
"And I really thought that if I could be anything like Samira, your words wouldn't hurt as much. But then you had to go and tell me that you wished Robby had been there instead of me to do a pericardiocentesis." Your breath shuddered in the next exhale. "Did you even know that was the first time I'd ever been asked to do one? And instead of teaching at a teaching hospital, you threw me to the side saying Robby—the fucking chief attending—could have done the job. No fucking duh, Jack."
You threw a hand in the direction of the kitchen. "And now this? I thought that maybe I could be like Samira or study enough to be like Robby, but h-how am I supposed to compare to the woman who had your love first." You turned back toward the bed and haphazardly packed suitcase. "That's unfair to me. So, like I said, I'm done."
A pleading sound ripped from Jack's throat at the sound of your suitcase zipper closing.
"No, sweetheart, please. Let me fix this; tell me how to fix this," he begged.
"That's just it, Jack. I don't think this can be fixed. I've spent weeks with your words in my head wondering how I can be the perfect person for you. And I don't know if I can keep going on pretending."
Jack's body shook under a small sob as everything came crashing down. He absolutely had no clue what he had done to you, but thinking back, he understood that his careless words wracked irreparable damage to you and your personality.
"I'm sorry," he managed, voice breaking in a whisper.
"I know you are,' you responded, "and somehow that makes it hurt worse. Because while you were trying to compliment everyone else, you made me feel inadequate in every aspect of my life." Your fingers wrapped around the suitcase handle and tugged it off the bed. "I can't stay with someone who keeps hoping I'll be a conglomeration of all the best parts of others; that's not me. And I'll be honest, I don't even really know who me is anymore."
He inhaled sharply, eyes tearing from your face to look down at the floor. "So this is it? You're leaving?"
Another round of tears spilled down your cheeks as you choked on a sob of your own. "I don't want to, but I need to."
"But I love you," he croaked, eyes coming back up to meet yours.
"You love the best parts of me, Jack," you said, already moving to walk past him. "And that's never going to be enough to make me stay."
Your shoulder lightly brushed by his as you walked out of the room and all the way out the front door, leaving Jack behind in a house he realized he didn't want empty.
You poison every little thing that I do, Lacy, oh, Lacy, I just loathe you lately, and I despise my jealous eyes and how hard they fell for you, yeah, I despise my rotten mind and how much it worships you
Jack didn't truly realize what he'd done until almost six months after you left him crying in his bedroom.
Your absence in his life gave him a lot to think about, and the only conclusion he could come up with was that you were absolutely right. It didn't matter if he'd compared you to others unconsciously; he made you feel like that: worthless, in need of self change, inadequate; the list went on.
He'd seen the small changes too late.
The next shift he worked with you, Jack tracked every minuscule thing you did, and it felt like one big punch to the gut. He saw the way you constantly checked your hair, ponytail pulled tight enough to give you a headache, skin, and scrubs and the way you straightened your stethoscope so it rested perfectly across your collarbones.
His stomach dropped when he watched you pause before a trauma and gulp down air before heading inside like someone who needed to take control before it could get out of hand. Before him, you weren't like that. Yes, you could be nervous to mess up, but you didn't act like you had to be the smartest person in the room.
He did that to you. He made you feel the need to change. And it killed him. It killed him once he learned you transferred over to a specialty in orthopedics, and his mind made him think you did it just to get away from him.
He was slightly correct, but not entirely.
You needed a fresh start, somewhere where you knew no on had any high expectation of you. And somehow, orthopedics gave you just that. And you thrived in the environment, only coming down to the Pitt when they needed a transfer or second opinion. Sure, you had to accompany Park the Shark more than you'd liked to, but through your time there, the old you was coming back, the one who worked through her panic instead of shutting it down, the one who only got frazzled when she cared about patients and their needs.
It was never weakness you showed, and you had to learn that all over again.
Someone helped you see that along the way as well.
"What do got here?" Park asked while snapping on a pair of gloves, eyes predatory as he walked into Trauma Room 1.
Jack looked up with pinched brows when he realized that you didn't walk in behind the larger man. "Where's Dr. [Name]?"
Park didn't even acknowledge his question. "For fucks sake man, you didn't even pack this right."
"You should know how to put a detached leg together even if I missed the pressure of the wrapping by an inch," Jack shot back.
"Abbot, you should know that I can't fucking put your patient back together after you decided to play Barbies. It's not as easy as popping a joint back in place."
"Dr. [Name] could do it."
Except for the monitors, everyone went quiet. Jack tore his eyes away from Park and looked back down at his blood soaked gloves. Reality crashed down on him as he realized he just did to Park what he'd done to you. Even if he knew he probably didn't hurt Park's feelings at all, it sucked to know that he was still so quit to throw out words like that.
Park's shoulders rose in a shrug. "She could, but she isn't here right now. She switched shifts and won't be in until 7." He smirked. "Think she said she had plans with someone."
An ugly roar of jealousy clawed at Jack's insides, nails sinking deep in his gut.
You were with someone?
He went through the motions of his shift, mind still on the fact that you weren't on call because someone had taken your time and attention away from the hospital. His knuckles turned white around the tablet he held while going through handoffs. He didn't know if his body was still trained to look for you, forever waiting for your soft lips against his, but Jack couldn't help but keep his head on a swivel and ears open to catch the sound of your voice.
Like a laugh in his face from the universe, your laugh fluttered through the ER, and his head whipped hard enough that his neck hurt in order to find you. When he finally saw you walking in, his heart dropped to his feet, because there you were, smiling brighter than he'd seen in a long while, hand enclasped with a man's.
Jack swallowed thickly. He instantly hated the way his blood boiled at the sight. He looked back down at the tablet after your voice seemed to draw closer to where he was standing.
"Andy," you sighed wistfully, "you didn't have to walk me all the way in here. I know you're weary of the germs."
"I know," the man—Andy (you gave him a fucking nickname?)—muttered back, wide, hazel eyes looking down at you like you hung the moon. "But I wanted to."
You pouted playfully. "You're so sweet. Am I going to see you tomorrow morning, or are you working again?"
He hummed. "My morning's yours if you want it."
"You know I always do."
Jack watched the corner of the man's mouth twitch into an almost-there smile, and he had to look away when his head started leaning in toward yours.
The small smack of your lips on his made bile gurgle in Jack's stomach.
"Okay, you gotta go save lives."
You giggled again. "I just put people back together, and technically, Park's the one doing all the procedures. You know my hands start shaking."
From the corner of his eye, Jack watched him lift your hands to his lips and kiss the tops of your knuckles.
"Just breathe and know that you alone can do this. You were the one to get into the program, so they want you, shaky hands and all."
Jack's heart clenched to the point of a physical reaction to the pain. He should have been the one saying that to you, standing in your corner and building you up one compliment at a time.
But now, he had to stand on the sideline and watch a man (someone who scarily looked a bit like him) give you all the praise and love you deserved. And while Jack could do everything in his power to let people know how good of a doctor you were, it wouldn't ever be the same, forever stuck loathing the moment he lost you without knowing.
Some people might find Pope’s behaviors freaky and off putting—but not you—you kind of like the creepy attention J’s uncle pays you
Masterlist
18+ age gap, PiV sex, unprotected sex, creampie, slight exhibition (J catches you), marking, potential non-con due to alcohol consumption, maybe pain kink if you squint
The party at the Cody residence was in full swing.
Since you’d started hanging out with the youngest Cody, you quickly learned these parties had the same rinse and repeat formula.
Liquor bottles littered the pool area. The smell of weed clung to the air. Dozens of nameless girls in various states of undress surrounded the pool. Music played so loud the air felt like it was vibrating around you.
Unless you were joining in on doing copious amounts of coke—which, you weren’t—the novelty wore off quickly.
J had long since abandoned you, trailing after Nicky wherever she’d disappeared to. Leaving you clutching a lukewarm beer, feet dipped in the pool, bored out of your mind—but you figured it beats being at home doing coursework.
You mindlessly surveyed the crowd, scrunching your nose at the naked rando that jumped from the rooftop, egged on by drunken cheers, before you finally looked towards the kitchen.
The sliding glass doors were shut, in a poor attempt to keep the rowdy party goers outside.
Pope stood behind the glass, like a sentinel.
Silently daring anyone to leave the ‘safe’ area of the pool.
But he wasn’t watching any of the party attendees.
The older man’s eyes were locked on you.
Unblinking, hazel eyes watched you through the glass barrier. With no shame, Pope didn’t look away even after you’d caught him staring, and wiggled your fingers in a half-hearted wave.
He never did care when he was caught, and you’ve caught him staring at you a ridiculous amount of times since becoming acquainted with J.
Enough times that J had noticed too, and warned you to steer clear of his uncle.
“He just got out of prison,” J had whispered to you the first time Pope had found you in the Cody’s’ kitchen. Blocking the doorway, eyes glue to you, like a shark watching its prey. J had spit out some excuse, that you’re his friend from school and Smurf said J should invite you to dinner. “He’s a little…unstable—just, make sure you’re around other people. Don’t be alone with him.”
You didn’t disregard J’s warning—but you didn’t exactly take it seriously either.
For whatever reason, you liked feeling the older man’s heated gaze on you.
A small thrill ran through you when you used the bathroom, and Pope just happened be exiting his room at the exact moment you were finished. An immovable wall of muscle, Pope didn’t budge, blocking the hall and forcing you to brush against him when you squeezed past, stuttering out a quick ‘s’cuse me’ and scramble back to J’s side.
Sometimes, you wondered if Pope knew that you knew he watched you during the days when class was over and you had the pool to yourself. You’d occasionally see the dark curls peaking in the bathroom window, feel your skin prick as you floated in the pool under observation, while wearing the skimpiest bikinis you could find.
What J didn’t know, wouldn’t kill him. Besides, he had Nicky to occupy his time. Why couldn’t you have Pope?
With that immature reasoning, you abandoned your spot beside the pool. Under Pope’s watchful eye, you weaved through the drunken bodies until only glass separated you. He didn’t drop his gaze when he slowly reached for the latch. Cool air conditioning hit you as he slid the door open, silently welcoming you in.
Pope didn’t move an inch as you stepped inside, the space between you shrinking significantly, barely a breath apart.
Silence.
Dark eyes traced over you.
“Shouldn’t you be with J?” The question caught you off guard—you honestly didn’t expect him to speak at all—but the rough, low tone Pope spoke in made your skin tingle.
“J’s busy.” You replied. “Are you?”
“Should I be?”
“Do you want to be?” You took a minuscule step towards him, mischievous in your voice.
Pope looked like he was weighing something mentally—trying to decipher if you were being playful, or outright teasing him, being cruel to the ‘weird Cody’—he seemed to find the answer he was searching for, something shifting in his posture.
His guard dropped, if only by a fraction. Turning, he didn’t look back at you before commanding, “C’mon.”
You obeyed easily, eagerly following as he drifted through the house until he reached his unspoken destination.
Pope’s room—now J’s—was empty when Pope pushed the door open, claiming his spot in the middle of the room and finally turning back to you.
You quietly observed the area. Small hints of J were scattered about—a pair of jeans discarded in the corner of the room, text books piled on the bedside table, his scent lingered.
“It was mine.” Pope stated, forcing you to look back to him. His broad frame looked out of place on the small room. Arms hung limp at his side, hands clenching by his thighs, like he was aching to touch but couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not yet anyways. “It was my room first.”
“And now?” You asked, carefully approaching like he was a skittish animal. You tentatively reached for his twitching fingers, slipping your hand into his rough palm. “Where do you stay now?”
“The couch.” His nose scrunched up, displeased. “Or hotel.”
“Mean.” You frowned, sweet breath fanning the stubble on his cheek.
“We shouldn’t.” Pope stated, though every part of his body was disagreeing. He tracked your every move, eyes soft with desire. His erection already pressing against your thigh as you lean into him. Gripped your hand firmly, as though you might slip right between his fingers, and be gone. “J—we shouldn’t.”
“That’s what makes it fun.” You grinned softly, and then leaned up, capturing Pope’s lips before he could reply.
He folded instantly, strong arms wrapped around your waist and squeezed you against him. Pope’s lips were surprisingly soft, his kisses both desperate and hesitant—as if he expected you to suddenly part from him and reveal this was all a cruel joke.
Lulling your mouth open to welcome his curious tongue, humming happily at the pleasant taste of toothpaste and faint beer. Day old stubble scratched against delicate skin, your fingers glided over his clothes chest, feeling the hidden hard muscles to grip at the collar of his shirt, leaning your weight into him until you were walking Pope backwards towards the bed.
Pope’s knee’s buckled as soon as they hit the frame. You followed as he sat on the mattress, straight and stiff, even as you crawled into his lap. Your legs parted, Pope’s stiffness pressing into you as you settled in his lap.
“Pope.” You broke your kiss, muttering against bruised lips with a light roll of your hips. Pressing your weight down against his trapped cock, shuddering from the deep groan forced from Pope’s throat. “Touch me, Pope.”
Pope took directions easily, hands dropping from your waist to dig his fingers into the plush flesh of your ass. He guided you to rock against him, controlling each roll of your hips. Long digits curled under the flimsy shorts. Warmth spread through you when Pope brushed the pads of his fingers across your pussy, touching you in tune with your grinding.
Every sound Pope made was music to your ears—every groan, every grunt, every shaky breath followed by muffled cursing—sent shock waves through you, made you more and more desperate for the awkward man. Squirming in his lap, wetness soaked his fingers until Pope decided he was done waiting.
In a flash, Pope flipped your position. Your back met the soft mattress as Pope caged you in, raised up on his knees to shimmy your shorts and bikini bottoms off in one fluid motion, tossing them unceremoniously over his shoulder.
“Don’t.” He commanded, voice heavy with lust, when you attempted to shut your legs. Childish shyness had you squirming under his greedy eyes. Strong hands curled around your thighs and kept you spread open for him to ogle. “Wanna see you—see everything.”
Then he was diving in, nuzzling his nose against soft, youthful skin. Brushing over your soft folds. Crudely inhaling the naturally feminine scent he’d been deprived of for three long years.
Pope dully noted the whimper you let out as he nudged the tip of his nose against your little aching pearl, the tentative touch enough to have your hips flexing against his face. A desperate, needy ‘Please’ clawing its way from your throat—and Pope was happy to oblige.
He ran the flat of his tongue through your folds, taste buds singing at the tang of your slick. A pleased hum vibrated through him. Pope pressed you into the bed, unwilling to let your wriggling and whining prevent him from burying his face in your pussy.
Your nails dug into his short hair, he pointed his tongue, drawing the tip around your clit in sharp circles before sucking the little bud, until your shrieks filled the air, “Oh fuck—Pope, don’t stop, don’t stop!”
Pope held you steady as you thrashed against him, damn near bucking him off, feeling your core tightening with each precise lick.
“Cum f’me.”
The command barely registered in your mind before Pope bit down, catching your overly sensitive bud between uneven teeth. Blindingly hot pleasure shot through you. Your back bowed off the mattress as you flooded Pope’s face, while he happily drank down everything you offered.
Lazily running his tongue over you, Pope soothed the pain as you came back down to earth, a puddle of limbs and heavy breathing.
“Still with me?” He asked, pressing soft kisses to your pussy and thighs, drawing your eyes down to him. Face shiny with your slick, and pupils blown wide like he’d consumed the most powerful drug known to man.
Beautiful. You thought, absentmindedly while he waited for a response. “Mhm—still here.”
Twisting your fingers into his collar, you drew Pope back up to you. You tore at his button up, pushing the fabric from his shoulders, exposing thick muscles and freckled skin. Then, your hands dropped to his belt, working the metal free, zipper to his jeans down, and frantically pushing the harsh material from his hips. Nimble fingers found the throbbing length barely concealed by his boxers.
“This for me?” You grasped his cock, feeling the heat through thin boxers, feeling him pulse in your palm.
“All for you.” Pope replied, shucking his boxers down his thighs, fitting his wide frame between your legs. Heavy cock settling against your pussy.
“You gonna fuck me, Pope?” You wormed your hand between your bodies, grasping the thick cock and teased the head through your slick folds, covering it in your wetness while you cooed against his lips. “Gonna fuck your nephew’s friend on his bed?—ah!”
“My bed.” Pope grunted, the air punched right out of your lungs as he sunk into you. “It’s mine. My room—my bed—my girl.”
“Oh my god!”
Pope didn’t stop, didn’t pause, just kept pressing on until every inch of him was sheathed in your tight walls. Hips flush against yours, Pope held you as you spasmed around him, body protesting the sudden stretch.
But you were a greedy young thing, that much was obvious to Pope.
The deep pressure. The feeling of being so full. You preened against his throat, hiked your legs higher around Pope’s waist, blunt nails dug into his ass as you pulled him against you, “More.”
Wet sounds filled the room. His hips met yours with a rhythmic slap! as he picked up the pace, driving his thick cock into you with so much force it had ypu scooting further up the mattress until there was nowhere else to go. Nothing else to do but cling helplessly to Pope as he caged you in and used you.
“That’s it—again, wanna see it again.” Pope growled, a rabid look clouding his eyes. “Cum—wanna feel it.”
Breathless whimpers when Pope buried himself deep, grinding his pelvic bone against your clit until you were crying. Wiggling helplessly in his arms as he forced you over the edge again, you sobbed and tried in vain to push his stone wall of a body away from your sensitive core, to no success. “Too much!”
“You can take it.” Pope dismissed. Manipulating your jelly-like limbs with ease. Pope pinned your knees to your chest, folding you open, strong fingers digging into the back of your thighs as he held you.
He felt so much deeper now. Your eyes rolled back, his balls kissing your ass with each thrust. Being filled so, so deep, you swore you could feel him brushing your lungs each time he bottomed out. Pope’s rhythm faltered, hips twitching against his will the closer he was to spilling.
“Gonna cum in you—then they’ll know.” He panted, face laxed in utter pleasure as he chased his release, fucking into you in shorter, harder thrusts. Deep, masculine groans mixing prettily with your shrill cries and pleads. “They’ll know—oh, fuck—know you’re mine.”
His abdominal muscles tightened, thick vein in his neck bulging as he reached his peak. Pope bowed, body covering yours as he collapsed down, tucking his face against your shoulder.
Your head lulled, lazily against the pillows until dazed eyes wandered over to the bedroom door.
The cracked open door.
Cracked enough to catch J standing in the hallway. A look of indifference on his face despite seeing his uncle naked, folded over his friend, fucking you in his bed.
Pope shuddered as he came—full body shakes and soft whimpering—burying himself deep as warmth filled you.
Sharp teeth found your shoulder, in an attempt to quiet himself, to ground himself. You yelped at the bite, attention drawing back to Pope before shooting back to the doorway—now empty.
You tangled your fingers in Pope’s sweaty locks and pulled, hard.
“Ow, Pope!” You swore, wiggling your shoulder away from his mouth. “That hurt!”
“Sorry.” He whispered, and you believed him. He soothed his tongue over the sore sport, pressed a singular kiss to the bite mark. “M’sorry—they’ll see. Now they’ll see. All mine.”
the pitt x animal kingdom crossover
|| jack abbot x reader || pope cody x reader ||
summary: your first day at PTMC as a transferred resident was stressful enough without your entire past coming to haunt you.
|| angst, crossover fic, baran al-hashimi'sfriend!reader, SR3!reader, exbf!pope cody, resident!reader, medical jargon, this follows the pitt s2 pretty closely (scenes, patients, medical jargon that I def get wrong) animal kingdom s6 spoilers!!!!!!, grief, memories, flashbacks, one could call this a soulmate au, back in the day they might say a whump fic, age gap implied but not specific, timelines are not canon, lil bit of manhandling and tough love, slightly spiritual in the end (ghosts, spirits, parallel universes) ||
a/n: all credit to this tik tok that made me cry on a monday morning and some inspo from this post // last flashback inspired by pope x angela s4e11 // thank you @pearlessance for your big beautiful brain and your unending support!!
a/n II: im serious guys if you haven't watched all of animal kingdom or havent had the internet spoil it for you like me, do not read :)
wc: 13.8k
You know, for what it's worth, your first day had started normal.
Chaotic, maybe— but normal.
You had no reason to think it wouldn't go by like any other.
Your attending, Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi, was scheduled at a new hospital today. Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center on the Fourth of July of all days. And at seven in the morning, you'd barely gotten down your iced coffee before you were being ushered into Trauma One for a left thoracotomy on a patient with a knife wound.
You followed them into the trauma bay, everyone getting prepared with surgical gowns, blue gloves snapping, masks pulled up over noses, the metal tray beside the bed already crowded with clamps and packs of gauze. In the middle of the room, the patient was being bagged through an airway, a nurse continuing chest compressions as his skin was slicked with sterile prep procedure, people moving around him like a choreographed dance. You watched from the edge, waiting for Dr. Al-Hashimi's command to join them.
You were grateful to see a few familiar faces. Dr. Samira Mohan, for one, who was calling for a chest tube while one of the nurses cut through the rest of the patient’s shirt. Dr. Mel King was there too, though she hadn't joined for the case. Both of them great doctors who had trained at the VA with you a few years ago. Different in their approaches, but just as good under pressure.
You'd known Baran for a long time now too. Before you'd even met Samira and Mel. You'd worked with her as a medical student doing your year abroad with Médecins Sans Frontières, knew her medical background with seizures—something that you kept secret through the years—even helped her for a few days at home after her laser ablation surgery.
You and Baran were tied at the hip. You knew her, and she knew you.
Which was partially why you were able to get the PD approval and would be spending the next three months following her around a very surly male attending's emergency department.
"Is the VA even a trauma center?"
You didn't like his tone.
You glanced over through your plastic surgical glasses. He was tall, older and bearded, his arms crossed over his chest, standing at the edge of the hospital bed trying not to take as much space as he did. Robby, you remembered. Dr. Robinavitch. One of the residents—a blond-haired doctor named Whitaker—had told you he would grow on you, that he really was a great attending.
You didn't doubt it. You'd known enough great doctors to also know they could still be complete assholes too. Even on their good days.
"We took walk-ins." you said curtly.
Baran tried to hide her smile. Robby’s eyes moved to you, held there for a second, then he nodded.
"We had falls, major MVCs, GSWs." she added with a much more polite tone than you had managed.
You listened to Dr. Whitaker on your left, asking the medical students questions about the procedure, differentials. Things you knew the answers to, the words sitting right there on the tip of your tongue, but you bit them back.
Teaching hospital, you reminded yourself. More specifically, someone else's teaching hospital.
"Javadi, Whitaker, glove up." Robby said to your left.
"You too." Baran said beside you. "Start on internal compressions."
Robby looked over. "I'd rather my—"
"—she is capable." Baran cut in gently. "And a good listener."
She nodded at you, jerking her chin up. "Go on."
You obeyed, grabbing your gloves from the boxes on the wall, the latex snapping at your wrists. A nurse slid the white surgical covering over your shoulders and tied it behind your back, the paper stiff against your neck. Everything smelled like betadine, blood, and plastic tubing.
The other residents began moving around, making room for the other two that crowded the table. You stepped in close, your toe brushing someone else's as you found a place near the open chest.
"Well hello to you too." one of them said, a woman to your left, her eyes narrowed, but even with the surgical goggles and mask, you could've sworn you saw a smile.
You only looked at her, squeezing yourself past, your shoulder sliding against her chest accidentally.
"Take me to dinner first, would ya?" she teased.
"Yolanda Garcia has trouble expressing her feelings," you heard Dr. Robby say to Baran across the room.
"I sure will miss you, rabbit-bitch," she called a little too loudly in your ear to him.
You saw him and Baran step closer, the two of them side by side at the foot of the bed. Not together, exactly. More like two people standing on the same square of floor and refusing to give any of it up, leaning in and almost hitting heads as they tried to look at what was going on.
There was a lot of talking around you. Samira's phone kept going off, Garcia was opening the chest cavity, her gloved fingers moving quickly through blood and tissue, clearly an OR fellow with many, many hours on the table. Whitaker was trying to explain to the medical students what was going on, his voice steady enough, though you could hear him working to keep it that way.
"No tamponade, pretty dry in here—" Garcia said quickly, looking in. "Heart's empty. Somebody start cardiac massage."
"On it, excuse me." you said, a little more forcefully as you stepped into the space between Garcia and a nurse. There was a half-second where the room narrowed to the patient’s open chest and your own hands. You placed them carefully, exactly where they needed to be, fingers closing around the heart. It was smaller than people thought. Slick, warm, a living muscle that didn't care how many times you had practiced this in simulation. A life.
You began compressions.
One squeeze. Release. One squeeze. Release.
"Okay team, I think—" Baran began, but Robby cut her off.
"Samira?" he called, "Next steps?"
Keep transfusing. Open the right chest. Find the source. Move before he runs out of time.
There would be a lot of blood.
The blood started pouring out, pouring and pouring. Thick and red under the lights, running off the drape, splashing down into the basin below and onto the floor. Your fingers kept moving around the heart. Squeeze. Release. Squeeze. Release. Your forearms began to burn beneath the gown.
"There's too much blood to suction—" Javadi said, panic rising in her voice.
Where was all of this blood coming from?
"Can't locate the source—" Garcia murmured, looking into the chest cavity.
"We need to convert to a clamshell." you said, looking up at Baran, then to Robby.
He nodded, "Exactly."
"Trauma sheers." you called at the same time as Garcia.
"Jinx, now you owe me a drink with dinner." she teased.
Someone handed them over before you could even think of a retort, not that you had one. Your brain had narrowed to the heart in your hands. The life you held there, retaining it, forcing it to continue. The metal flashed in the light before Garcia took them, cutting through the chest, opening it wider. The room shifted around the decision, everyone making space for the next problem.
More talking around you, more hands moving, more suction. Someone called for more units of blood, a second MTP. You kept your hands where they were, the heart softening and filling by turns beneath your palms, never enough to make you comfortable.
"Still bleeding like a stuck pig!" Garcia called after clamping.
You did have one idea—one thing you could do to stop this. Something that could buy the patient enough time to get upstairs. But you knew Baran wasn't exactly keen on risky procedures done because the room had gotten desperate. Better to rush to the OR in her mind. Better to control what could be controlled, to keep the steps precise, to not make a bad situation worse with a move that could tear the lung off its root if done wrong.
But Robby seemed to have the same thing in mind.
"Hilum flip. Rotate the lung one-eighty degrees."
"Like putting a kink in the garden hose." you whispered to yourself.
Everyone looked at him like he was insane, but you knew there was no time to waste.
"Gently. Very, very slow." he said, his eyes on you and nodding. "Whitaker, take over compressions."
Letting go of the heart when Whitaker's hand found yours, you reached for the lung, then looked up at Dr. Robby again.
You glanced at Baran too. Her eyes were wide behind her shield. "He could die if you rip his lung off the hilum." she said.
"I won't."
You sucked in a shaky breath, nodding, and then looked back at Robby.
You looked down and—
—slowly, slowly, you turned the lung.
There were so many bloody gloved hands tucking and moving around you, Whitaker's breath heavy beside you where he'd taken the heart from your hand a moment ago. Your fingers adjusted by tiny degrees, careful around the slick weight of the organ, your wrists stiff with restraint. The room felt close behind your mask. You held your breath for a moment, feeling Dr. Robby's eyes on you. Dr. Al-Hashimi's too.
Then Javadi called, "Blood loss slowing down!"
The words moved through the room like someone had opened a door. You let out a long breath of relief.
"Okay, we fixed the leak. Now we need to refill." Robby said, standing straighter, relief dropping his shoulders too.
You pulled away from the patient, letting Garcia take your place again, Whitaker standing tall and glancing at you with an impressed gaze. You didn't look at him for long, eyes back to the patient, to the monitor, to the line of numbers that suddenly mattered more than what anyone in the room thought of you.
Once normal sinus rhythm came back, you moved to stand back beside Baran. You hadn't realized how hard you'd been clenching your jaw until it loosened.
"Hell of a way to start the day." Robby said, disrobing the white sterile surgical covering. Baran followed suit, and you did the same, peeling the gown from your sleeves and dropping it into the bin. Your gloves were dark with blood, forearms aching.
"Unconventional. But a decent outcome." Baran agreed, every consonance perfectly crisp on her tongue.
All three of you left the bay, the noise of the monitor and raised voices disappearing with a swish of the doors closing behind you.
"Why don't we split up?" Robby said. "For efficiency."
"We can certainly discuss that." Baran answered with a smile. "I'll find you in a minute. I need to speak to my resident."
Robby made a face, but nodded. "Good job back there." he said shortly to you.
You gave him a polite smile, then threw your surgical glasses down into a bin.
Baran came in front of you, watching the attending walk away.
For a moment, neither of you said anything. The bay was still noisy behind you, people cleaning, counting, calling upstairs, stripping the room down so it could become useful again now that the patient was stable enough for surgery.
"I'm sorry… for… undermining your authority in the room." you said with a sigh. "I'd thought of it before he even said anything about the flip, I felt confident enough to—but I should've asked—"
"I have always said I admire your confidence, doctor." she said gently when she turned back to you. "Just remember, you have nothing to prove to them. Or to me. I know your work."
"But they don't."
"No," she said, and smiled, chin tipping up in pride. "But they will."
You looked down for a second, trying to breathe around the adrenaline still crawling under your skin.
"Go check your other patients," she said. "And I expect to hear some updates. And…excellent work. You saved the patient's life."
You nodded, sucking in a big breath before turning and going back to your charts.
A couple hours passed in much easier quiet—though you'd never say the Q word out loud. You hadn't worked in many emergency departments, but you knew better than that in any hospital setting.
Quiet wasn't really quiet anyway. There were still labs to chase, discharge papers to fix, scans to check, patients waiting to go upstairs and heart rate monitors beeping.
Your own patients were doing fine. A few waiting on labs, one getting ready for discharge, one still up at CT. Baran had sent you through triage for a while too, helping clear out the lower acuity cases before they stacked up. It was steady, easy work. It kept you out of the way, too.
You were just making your way across the emergency department when you saw the most peculiar thing. An entire SWAT team was rushing in beside a bed, one of their members holding a breathing bag up, cursing and calling out the trauma.
"intubated neck wound—stats not great. Is there a trauma room open?!"
You ran towards the voice, listening to the story.
Dr. Robby blocked your view as he ran toward the incoming trauma as well, already cutting toward the bay, calling out orders to his residents and students.
You heard something about a high-velocity gunshot wound, the bagging not working on him. Warehouse robbery gone sideways. That piqued your interest, a flicker of memory tugging at your brain, making you smile a little as you pushed the trauma doors open.
They were putting him on the table as you pulled on a surgical gown again, blue gloves and glasses going on quickly. Your heart rate was climbing, eyes wide as you took in the victim. His shirt had already been cut open, blood running out of his mouth, over his neck, soaking into the collar bunched beneath his shoulders. Someone was calling for suction, another trying to get a pressure. The other SWAT team members filed out of the room, making space. But still one of them stayed.
"Thought you left us for the open road—" the remaining team member said from the bed as the nurses got the patient hooked up to the heart rate machine.
You couldn't quite place why his voice sounded so familiar.
"And miss seeing you in uniform?" Robby shot back as he rushed beside the bed.
"Should've seen me as a flight attendant." the other man whispered.
You had half a mind to laugh as you pushed forward toward the patient, not looking up. You moved to the side of the bed instead, checking the tube, the blood around his mouth, the barely there rise of his chest beneath the bagging. Not enough movement on the left. The wound at his neck was still pooling blood and soaking the gauze someone had pressed there, bright blood slipping between gloved fingers and down into the sheet.
"You do this intubation?" Robby asked the man.
Why was this SWAT member still here?
You needed room to work, to get closer to the patient. You stood across from the uniformed man, not bothering to look up as you reached for the suction tubing and cleared blood from the corner of the patient’s mouth. You wished he'd leave so you could see clearer around all the nurses and students, wished his vest and elbows and radio weren't taking up so much of the narrow space by the head of the bed.
"Under active fire, yeah."
Your eyes flitted up to him.
Only for a second, or what you meant to only be a second, to see if he was serious.
But for that second, your brain did something very strange.
For the first time in 7 years, you were looking at Andrew Cody.
But… not Andrew.
Andrew wasn't here. Andrew was… he was…
He was dead.
As the man turned to glance over his shoulder, it was Andrew's hair you were looking at. Graying now, still curly. The freckles on the nape of his neck you used to trace like constellations.
Your hand stayed on the suction tubing, but the room had slipped somewhere far away from you. Voices kept moving around the bed, Santos, Robby, Garcia— all of them thinned out beneath the monitor and the hard thump of your pulse in your ears.
The SWAT member was still turned slightly, glancing back at the bullet graze across his left shoulder. The fabric there was torn, dark with a splotch of blood. He looked at it like it was nothing.
He was saying something, but it joined with the rest of the voices around you—muffled in your buzzing ears. You heard something about the SATs going down, about causes of respiratory failure in intubated patients. Things you'd have answers to if you weren't looking at your dead ex boyfriend.
And he looked back at you.
It felt like someone had taken you by the shoulders and plunged you underwater.
But this man was Andrew. Older, for sure. Older than time would've allowed in those 7 years anyway. There were marks of it around his eyes, in the set of his jaw, in the heavier shape of his shoulders beneath the tactical vest. But those were Andrew's eyes. Those were his lips—lips you knew, lips you'd kissed, lips that whispered secrets in the dark, lips that had curled back and bared at you the last time you spoke.
You heard the talking around you, but you were frozen. Completely frozen as he smiled at you—this SWAT member, this stranger who wasn't a stranger. Your brain was trying to catch up to the uncanny likeness.
You wanted to cry. You felt like you might faint.
You opened your mouth, lips dry, voice tight, and said:
"Pope?"
seven and a half years earlier
"I'm nervous."
It was dark—sometime around two or three, you thought. The only time Andrew could sneak in through your window without your parents hearing the latch of the gate, the scuff of his boots on the siding, the soft creak of your floorboards when he walked across the room to sit beside you on the bed. You hadn't turned on the light, maybe some part of you thought if you did it would all be too good to be true.
"Me too."
"What do you have to be nervous for?" you breathed a little laugh that felt stale in the darkness, your hands a little shaky around the envelope.
You felt the thick sleeve of his jacket rise and fall as he shrugged, "Dunno."
He was sitting very close, his right shoulder tucked behind your left, his palm flat on the bed behind you as he leaned into you until his chest pressed against your shoulder. His jacket was rough against your skin, still cold from outside, but underneath it he was warm, the heat of him coming through by degrees.
You sucked in a shaky breath, "Big envelope usually means good news, right? Right?"
"I have no idea."
"You're so helpful."
"M'here, aren't I?"
You nodded, and then realized he might not be able to see it. "Yeah."
Shifting the envelope in your lap, you turned it over, then back again. The seal caught a thin line of moonlight from the window, your name looking so neat on the front, printed by someone who had never met you. Someone who didn’t know about the hours spent at Smurf’s kitchen table filling out applications beside J, or Andrew grabbing cash from a rubber-banded stack in his glove compartment to pay for the application. You hadn’t asked where it came from, though you'd already had a good idea.
"Are you gonna open it?" he asked.
"I'm scared."
"Do you want me to open it for you?"
You shook your head, "No, no. It's okay."
"So…"
"It's just that… my whole world is in this envelope right now." you said quickly. Admitting it felt surreal, it gave weight to the paper in your hands. You let your fingers trace over the parchment, the white address sticker peeling up a little as you picked at it. It felt as if maybe it would come up, and someone else's name would be under it. Like it wasn't meant for you after all.
He stayed quiet, waiting for you to go on.
"If this letter says I didn't get in… I don't know what my life looks like. I mean, what would I do?"
"You can stay with me." he said softly, just breath against your jaw as he leaned into you. "We would figure something out."
You nodded. "I know. But… if it says I did get in…"
"It will."
You looked over at him. You could see the outline of his face, the barely there moonlight catching the pretty light in his eyes. You leaned in further, pressing your forehead to his temple, letting out a long sigh.
His skin was warm there. A little damp near his hairline from the hood of his jacket, from the climb, from the summer night still caught on him. Your grip shifted around the envelope, paper dragging against your cotton shorts. When you spoke again, it was hardly a whisper.
"How can you be so sure?"
He rolled his head against yours, gently, sucking in a breath with you before letting it out. The smell of pine soap and minty toothpaste moved over your face with it.
"Because this is what you're meant to do. I know it. I just do."
You licked your lips, smooth with your bedtime lotion and chapstick already applied, leaning into him a little more, pausing there. You felt close enough to feel his breath touch your mouth before either of you moved.
He closed the distance, gently pressing his mouth against yours, breathing you in through the kiss.
His hand found your face—rough palm, calloused fingers, the careful cup of his touch beneath your jaw. It always did something strange to you, how gentle he could be with hands that had evidence of so many split knuckles past. His thumb moved over your cheekbone, soothing.
When he pulled away, you almost followed.
His eyes moved over your face in the dark. Searching, maybe, or checking. He said he never had the right words for this sort of thing, not really, but you didn't need them. Because he looked at you like he was trying to make sure you were still there with him. And that was more than anyone else had ever offered.
His other hand came up, fingertips light as they cupped your skull, turning your face just enough for the moonlight to catch it. To one side, then the other. It should have made you laugh, the seriousness of it, the way he studied you so intensely.
Then he leaned in one more time, pressing a featherlight kiss to the tip of your nose.
"Open it." he whispered.
You pulled in one last breath before sitting up straight, crinkling the corners of the manila envelope before flipping it over. You took your time, carefully unfolding the wire clasp, gently slipping your finger between the closure before the sound of tear of paper filled the room.
Pope's hand lifted from the bed behind you to wrap around your body, squeezing you close.
Slowly, you pulled a stack of papers out.
Your eyes immediately dropped to the first line below the greeting of the first page:
On behalf of the Committee on Admissions, we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Even in the dark, there was no second guessing it. The words were there, black and perfect on the page, and your whole body seemed to understand them before your mind could.
Your vision narrowed, your world opened up, a future you had no idea how to take part in but knew you'd be there anyway. Something changing in your own chemical makeup, the feeling of Andrew's arm around you, squeezing you tighter, whispering something.
When you turned towards him, he was already looking at you—so close in the dark, eyes bright and mouth pulling wide like he couldn’t help it.
You smiled back, big and toothy and disbelieving, your throat burning as tears began to gather. The papers slipped from your hands and scattered to the floor as you threw your arms around him, pushing him back into the bedspread with a burst of hushed laughter.
now
"Pope?"
The man who looked like Andrew's lips pulled into a little smile, his head tilting at you, inquisitive.
"You know," he said, voice touched with amusement, "I never pay attention to that stuff. Can't even remember the guy’s name. He's from Chicago, right? I grew up Catholic, so really I should know."
You blinked.
"Dr. Abbot is an attending here," Robby said as he came up beside you, peeling back the soiled gauze around the patient’s throat and revealing the displaced trachea beneath.
You looked down at the patient again, and the transected trachea snapped you almost back to the present. Almost. Your hands were still shaking, your brain still scrambling to separate the man across from you from the dead one in your memory, but you had to get yourself together. The patient could die if you didn't focus.
"Baby—I need a baby—"
The SWAT member—Dr. Abbot, if you remembered right, looked at you a little funny. You shook your head sharply as if to dislodge your running thoughts and organize them with a quick jostle just as another resident moved in beside him with an air bag. The breathing tube was out now, the open wound exposed, blood spluttering from it.
"I mean, a neonatal mask. I need a neonatal mask! He's not getting any air."
You looked around, everyone was still looking at you a little weird, but Robby only nodded his head, agreeing. "Santos—go!"
"Neonatal?" she asked.
"YES!" you barked, and you were surprised to hear Robby's voice overlapping yours.
She was only gone for a moment, but it felt longer than it should have. Too many seconds with the monitor complaining, too many hands hovering over a body that had no usable airway.
The moment the mask hit your palm, you pressed it over the open wound, sealing it against his neck while someone squeezed the bag.
The monitor began to settle down to a steadier beat.
"Neo-natal mask is working," Dr. Abbot said, his voice lighter than before, almost impressed. Dr. Santos continued the EFAST while the patient was stable enough, and Abbot injected lidocaine with epi to help with the bleeders. Things felt almost normal again, or at least close enough to pause and figure out the rest.
You kept looking up at him though.
Not on purpose, and not for very long. Your eyes would lift, catch on the curve of his mouth or the set of his brow, and then you’d force them back to the patient, to the wound, to the monitor, to anything with a number attached to it. Your brain kept trying and failing to separate memory from present.
He and Robby were talking, discussing next steps around you.
"I could do a Shiley?" you offered.
"I don't like the curve of a Shiley." Dr. Abbot teased.
"Didn't know you were so picky," Robby answered. You almost had the nerve to smile.
This was turning into a very weird day.
When you looked back over to Dr. Abbot, he was looking at you. Your skin lifted in goosebumps.
"You must be Gloria's new hire," he murmured.
"One of them." you answered.
He tilted his head to the side, his eyes skating over your features. You wondered what he saw when he looked at you. Your presence didn’t seem to have the same effect. He was calm, collected, nothing like you felt.
Robby answered before he could say anything, "We were lucky enough to get two." he introduced you by name, then explained, "R3. "
He didn't sound like he felt very lucky, but you ignored that.
"Pleasure to meet you." Dr. Abbot said. You could swear there was a certain tone to his voice. Cheeky, almost. Your skin felt tingly.
Just then, you heard Baran's voice enter the room, "What is going on here? You have a field medic assisting?"
"Dr. Abbot is an attending and also a SWAT physician." Robby explained again to her.
"Transected trachea, we're working on an airway." you explained.
Dr. Abbot was moving in with his tube, explaining it to Dr. Santos, but Baran had shouldered her way between you and the resident.
"We can do this." she said stiffly.
"No, no," he said easily. "I got it. You must be Gloria's second hire. I'd shake your hand, but my tube is ready."
You felt your lips twitch in what could've been a smile if you didn't feel like you'd lost your breath entirely.
"Keep an eye on the SATs," she told you over her shoulder.
You backed away, holding your hands up to keep them from touching anything or anyone.
"What, you're gonna take away the only helpful person in the room?" Abbot asked as he inserted the tube into the retracted trachea while Robby pulled it up with forceps, Santos taking over on the air mask.
"Hey," Robby protested. "I'm the one holding this open for you."
Dr. Abbot smiled, focusing back on the patient, "I'm gonna sew this in, 2-0 silk, please?"
"End tidal, good wave form." you called out, eyes flitting from the attending to the screen.
Robby let out an impressed whistle from in front of you. "Not bad, Abbot."
You moved away, feeling a little hazy, like you were walking through water as you began stripping off your sterile surgical gear. You took in a few deep breaths, focusing on the movement. Glove off. Gown untied. Mask flicked off. Glasses lifted from your face. One thing, then the next.
But you couldn't help the way you kept wanting to look back at him.
It felt almost like you'd been transported. You weren't sure if it was back in time or forward, or to some strange parallel universe that had split open in the middle of Trauma One. Andrew Cody was standing in the room. Graying hair, stubble grown out, blood on the back of his SWAT uniform, his hands busy at a patient's throat.
Not Andrew—Dr. Abbot.
Your brain offered the correction, but it didn’t settle right.
He looked up as if you'd called his name. Those eyes followed you across the room, curious, wondering. It was the same steadiness that would study you from across the kitchen counter, the one that would sneak glances at you from the driver's seat of a car, beside you in your bed. Your stomach dipped as you remembered the last time you'd seen them.
You turned away, unconsciously reaching up to grasp the necklace that adorned your throat between your fingers as you pushed the doors open.
The ED had gotten busier than before, and you inhaled the hospital air steadily into your lungs as you looked around. Your hands still felt like they were trembling, all that adrenaline and unease working its way through your bloodstream. Epinephrine, norepinephrine, cortisol. You recited it just to have something you knew. Something that was real. Adrenal medulla. Sympathetic nervous system. Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.
Your body was doing exactly what it was built to do, flooding you with chemicals and tightening your muscles, preparing you for danger.
But instead of danger this time, it was a ghost.
Time passed strangely after that, in pieces easily measured. A CBC resulted. A urine sample collected. X-ray called to say they were ready for the wrist in triage. You'd gone back out there to let your thoughts collect, and maybe to avoid the main trauma center too.
Usually work helped. Even when you'd had bad days before, or days where you felt helpless and tired and worn out, the hours of helping other people could usually quiet whatever was wrong with you. There were orders to put in, pulses to check, nurses asking for discharge plans. There was always something that needed your hands more than your feelings did.
But now… this was different.
In every patient checked, every lab sent, you thought of Andrew Cody.
A broken wrist came in at some point, swollen at the joint and held tightly against the patient's chest, her fingers moving but stuff. Her skin was puffy where it began to swell by her apple watch she hadn't taken off. You touched two fingers to her radial pulse, asking her to wiggle her fingers, then pressed along the snuffbox until she hissed.
"Sorry," you'd murmured. You'd ordered the films and ordered a splint until ortho took a look at her, simple and easy enough.
Except as you were doing it, you felt twenty years old again in a sunken living room in Oceanside, Craig Cody's wrist tucked against his own lanky chest while Deran paced behind you, agitated and barefoot as he tried to call their doctor in Mexico.
Andrew had been standing stiffly behind your chair, one hand gripping the back of it so that when you sat up, his knuckles brushed the top of your spine.
You'd been googling how to make a splint for a broken bone while walking to the fridge for ice. You remembered Craig looking at you funny when you'd returned with one of Smurf's magazines from the bathroom and a roll of duct tape from the junk drawer, wrapping his arm with more confidence than you actually felt.
It had healed fine in the end.
Mostly.
There was a man with split knuckles from a bar fight. Typical day drinking incident for a city like this. But while you cleaned his wounds and bandaged his hand, you thought of Andrew's blood rinsing from his hands in your bathroom sink, quiet while you sat on the closed toilet seat with a towel in your lap. How he would never admit how badly it hurt. Or how badly he hadn't wanted to do it.
There was even a pair of twins, both with fevers. A boy and a girl, maybe four years old, sitting side by side while their mother tried to keep them from touching every surface in the room. They had the same flushed cheeks, the same damp hair at their temples, the same tired little lean toward each other whenever one of them started to cry.
You hadn't known Andrew that young. You hadn't even been alive. But seeing them staring up at you with those big fever-bright eyes made you think of him anyway. Andrew and Julia. Inseparable, but both destined for a tragic end.
You checked their ears, listened to their lungs, pressed gently under their jaws while they blinked up at you. Viral, probably. Nothing too bad. Tylenol, fluids, return precautions. A normal childhood illness on a normal terrible day.
On your way back into the trauma center, you sent a little prayer up that the story of Andrew and Julia would never happen to them.
By the time you made it back to your workstation that had you seated around the edges of the charge nurse area, you felt a little refreshed from your earlier encounter. You hadn't seen the SWAT member—or attending, or whatever his title really was—anywhere yet. That helped too.
You took your seat and pulled the keyboard closer, the plastic keys worn smooth under your fingertips as you brought up the charts that needed finishing. A coffee you'd grabbed on the way over sat beside the mouse, lid half off, the surface already cooling. You began finishing your charts, trying to keep your eyes on the screen and your thoughts inside the room you were in.
"You've been gone for a while."
You looked over your shoulder to see exactly who you'd expected: Baran, standing straight, looking over your shoulder, her perfume faint against the hospital smell.
"Just making myself useful in triage, I guess." you said, looking back at the screen, but you felt her eyes on you anyway.
She let the silence sit there for a moment, the way she always did when she thought you might fill it if she waited long enough. You didn't. You clicked into the next chart and pretended the cursor needed all your attention.
Finally, she sighed.
"Are you ever going to give my generative AI a chance? You could be seeing other patients right now. You could be enjoying a small break in the lounge."
You huffed a little laugh. "When I'm ready to wipe out all the wildlife for data centers, I'll let you know."
She shook her head, a little pressed smile catching at the corner of her mouth. And then, after a moment, she said: "You've been avoiding me."
You paused, fingers hovering over the keyboard.
Damn her for being so observant. It made her a great doctor. It also made her an annoyingly keen boss. And a wonderful friend.
You turned on the rolling stool.
"I"m sorry. It's…"
"Did you know him from somewhere?"
Your eyes widened, heart dropping. Feigning ignorance, you asked: "Who?"
"The patient," she said, watching your face. "The one with the transected trachea. He's in surgery right now. I can call for an update if you'd like."
You let out your breath quickly, almost too quickly. "Oh. No, no. I didn't."
Her eyes narrowed a little, that brown gaze searching your face with a steadiness you had watched study patients, consultants, nervous interns, men who thought they could talk over her.
"Okay." she said.
You could hear the tone of disbelief under it, the things she wanted to say but wouldn't.
Clicking your tongue softly against your teeth, you looked down at your lap, at your hands folded there, at the faint red mark across the back of one finger from where one of the twins had held onto you tightly as you took their blood.
"Well…" she continued. "I trust if it's something that needs discussing, you would—"
"—Yes, yes, I promise." You looked back up at her. "I just… I needed to clear my head. I'm good. I'm back."
Baran held your gaze.
It wasn't like a typical attending, not harsh or deciding whether you were fit for work. More like Baran the friend, the one who had once shared a bowl of popcorn and Raisinets on her couch with you as you watched Love Island after her surgery. She knew what you looked like when you were lying. She knew what you looked like when you were telling only half a truth too.
"Okay." she said at last, a smile twitching back to her lips. "You can help me with a middle-aged woman with sudden-onset blindness. Mel is heading up for her deposition soon, and I need someone in there to observe."
"Sure, yeah." You nodded, turning back toward your chart before she could keep looking at you. "Give me a few minutes to finish this, and I'll be over."
She tapped two fingers against the counter beside you, then walked away. "Room 15."
You watched her reflection move across the dark edge of your computer screen before you started typing again.
The words came slower than they should have, and eventually you gave into the notion that you'd probably be spending an hour after your shift catching up, just like the rest of the residents anyway.
You closed out of the charts, and headed over.
Only, halfway across the department, you realized Baran hadn't said where the patient was. Room 15, yeah. But there were 3 different fifteens in this god damn maze. North, South, Central…
You slowed near the charge board, coffee still in your hand, eyes scanning the names too quickly to make sense of them. Looking for anything resembling blindness or vision loss, neuro, consult pending. You found none of it fast enough. You felt the department going on around you, noisy and distracting.
You gave up and walked a few steps away, looking around the different doors, and just decided you'd try all three.
Central Fifteen was closest, and the curtain was pulled all the way across, so you approached, trying to plaster on your best bedside smile.
You pulled it open.
The sight inside hit you so fast you gasped, nearly dropping your coffee as your other hand tightened around the curtain, wrenching it closed again.
Your heart felt like it had catapulted into your throat, your stomach falling the opposite way onto the floor.
Not Andrew, not Andrew, not Andrew, you kept chanting it as you squeezed your eyes shut, forcing your breath in and out of your lungs.
"You… can come in." the voice said from the bed. It was low and careful and quiet, startled too. His hazel eyes had been wide, flickering up when you'd scared him too. Those broad shoulders bare, thick muscled chest plain as day with his shirt in his hands.
You sucked in another breath and opened it slowly this time to see Dr. Jack Abott sat on the exam bed before you.
seven and a half years earlier
You weren't sure what had gotten into Andrew that day.
It had been a sunny Friday afternoon, the place already loud with music and vices carrying throughout the house. Andrew had asked you to come, and he'd sounded so serious over the phone you hadn't even hesitated.
But now he'd locked you out of his room.
At first you weren't sure if it was just because he needed a minute, or he was messing with you. But Andrew didn't mess with you like Craig or Deran did. He didn't tease just to tease or make you chase him around for the fun of it. If Andrew was making something difficult, there was usually a reason.
You knocked on the door softly at first, a gentle little C'mon, Andy, open up, before you'd started really knocking, practically shouting for him to answer you. The house went on behind you, the day drinkers enjoying summer out by the pool, drinks being poured in the kitchen, a game of kings in the living room. Music carried all through the house. It was why you'd thought maybe he'd just been overwhelmed. Usually an hour or so into a party, the both of you would retreat to the company of only each other in a quiet room.
You leaned your head against the wooden door, and listened.
He was pacing. You could hear him mumbling to himself too, what it was he was saying, you had no clue.
What was his problem?
You were lifting your head from the door, about to go join the party outside when suddenly the bedroom opened up.
"What the hell, Andr—ah!"
You squealed as he grabbed your wrist, pulling you inside roughly. Then, just as abruptly, he stood away from you, breathing hard, eyes moving over the bed, the nightstand, the floor by his shoes, anywhere but directly at your face.
"Sit." he said simply, pointing to the bed.
"What the hell is going on with you?" you snapped, folding your arms over your chest.
He was doing that thing—the puppy dog eyes, rubbing of his palms together, the eye contact flitting around to anywhere but you. It would have been irritating if it didn't make your stomach twist. You knew him angry, you knew him quiet. And you knew this version too—nervous, child-like.
Andrew could scare other people with all his silences and hard staring, but you knew the difference. This wasn’t anger. This was him getting stuck somewhere in his head, turning a thought over and over until it wore a groove.
"Hey…" you said, and then again, softer: "Hey."
He looked up at you. His big hazel eyes were wide in the afternoon light that came through the bedroom window, softened and yellow by the drapes.
"What's going on?" you murmured, stepping closer and reaching out to take the sides of his hoodie in your hands, fisting the fabric so you could pull him closer.
The fabric was warm under your fingers, the pocket stretched out where he always hooked his thumb. You could feel his breath move through him, uneven under the cotton. He stared at your hands.
"Andy…" you said, quieter.
His eyes flicked to the bed.
"Sit."
You sighed, let go of him, and obliged.
You bounced a little as you landed on the mattress, his unease making you fidget. You could smell the detergent from the perfectly made bedspread, the old wood of the house, the smell of your sunscreen wafting around you.
"You're making me nervous." you murmured.
His eyes finally landed on you and stayed there, "M'sorry. I'm sorry."
He sounded so genuine as he sat beside you finally, the mattress dipping under his weight. His knee brushed yours before he pulled it back, and his hand flattened over the seam of his jeans. You watched his thumb press into the denim, rubbing at the same spot, the skin around his nail going pale.
"Just…tell me what's goin' on." you said, laying your hand gently over his.
He was fidgeting too, pursing his lips, his eyes down turned again. Then he leaned toward his bedside table, opened the drawer, and pulled out a leather pouch. There was a gold cord wrapped tightly around it, leather softened and expensive. He held it out while not even looking at you, taking in a long shaky breath.
You took it carefully, setting it in your lap with two hands. "What's this?"
He didn't answer.
"Andy—"
"It's nothin'." His eyes stayed on the floor. "Just—well, not nothing."
"If this is what I think, I can't accept."
"Yes, you can."
You rolled your eyes.
He leveled his gaze very seriously on you, his brow set, his hands suddenly still. "Will you just open it?"
You looked at him for a long moment, and then sighed. Fighting him was futile when he had something on his mind.
You looked back down at the leather pouch and untied the gold cord. The knot had been pulled tight, and it took you a second to work it loose with your nail before you unfolded the worn pieces of leather.
Something glittered beneath.
"Oh—" you gasped.
Inside was a diamond necklace.
A white-gold chain connecting to a bejeweled bail that held two small circles stacked above an oval stone, the whole pendant ringed in more diamonds, so bright that it threw little cuts of light across the inside of the pouch.
You were almost certain it was worth more than anything you had ever owned.
You looked up at him. "Andy…"
His jaw shifted, but he was looking at you differently now—those big hazel eyes stayed on you, waiting, nervous, still, but changed with a softness that often was reserved for only you.
"I wanted to get you something," he said, voice low, "for getting into the program. Do you like it?"
"Andy, I can't accept this—"
"Yes you can." he corrected. His tone was soft, hoarse like he was telling you a secret instead of trying to hand you what had to be a five-figure diamond necklace. You wondered if his brothers knew what you were given. If Smurf had any say.
"Wh—why are you even giving me this? Aren't the cops gonna be looking for it?"
He tilted his head at you and whispered, "Don't worry about that stuff. I'll handle it."
You shook your head in disbelief, fingers toying with the white gold chain in your lap. For a moment, you didn't know what to do about him. About his kindness, his generosity, the over-the-top gestures he often made without understanding they were over-the-top at all. To him, it was direct. You loved someone, so you gave. You celebrated.
You loved him for it, for him wanting to give so much. The way he made sure you understood how much you meant to him, never questioning or second guessing.
Still, you wondered if he'd taken it from under his family's noses when they weren't looking. You were almost certain you knew the job it came from, too. The mansion you'd visited under the guise of a decorating crew with a little black dress on, hair pinned and proper, clipboard to your chest while you smiled at a woman who had no idea you were memorizing the hallway behind her.
"We could've gone out for a drink to celebrate!" you said under your breath, though it wasn't mean.
He shook his head. "You worked hard to get in. You deserve more than a round of shots at Deran's shitty bar."
You stared at the necklace. He whispered your name, and you looked up.
He leaned in closer, making sure you heard every word as he said, "You deserve to be celebrated."
You pressed your lips together, your eyes moving over his face—the freckles across his nose, the little scars near his brow, the old nick at his cheek you still remembered touching the first week you knew him. You'd never seen someone flinch like that before. You thought of how he hasn't flinched from your touch in years now. It makes your chest warm as you look at his cheekbones. They were sharper than they had been a month ago, his eyes darker underneath, like he hadn’t been sleeping well.
"Do you like it?" he asked again, quieter this time, his voice losing some of its edge.
You let out a breath, smiling despite yourself. "Yes."
His shoulders eased, a small shift under his hoodie, but his eyes stayed fixed on you. Then, he smiled. Small, almost hidden at first, just the corner of his mouth lifting. And then his whole face split, his cute toothy grin, dispelling all the tension in his muscles. Your own smile grew before you could stop it.
"You do?" he asked.
"Of course I do."
He leaned in slowly, as if unsure if you'd pull away (you never, ever did) and kissed you gently. His mouth was warm against yours, chapped where he'd been most likely biting at it all day before you got to the house. You held the kiss, lips slotting together, and his hand came up to your cheek, thumb brushing along your jaw, keeping you close.
Your tongue dipped out to trace the underside of his top lip, and he opened for you, eager enough that your breath caught. His tongue slid against yours, and the kiss deepened, both of you breathing heavier as your hand moved up his chest and around his neck, fingers curling into the brown hair at his nape.
Before you could get as carried away as you wanted, he pulled back. Neither of you let go. His forehead nearly touched yours, his hand still at your face, your fingers still in his hair, both of you panting into the small space between your mouths.
"Let me put it on you." he said.
You smiled a little, leaning forward to push your forehead into his before giving in, "Fine, okay, yeah."
He straightened with the necklace in his hands, the chain flashing between his fingers before he stood and crossed to the dresser. You followed him, still breathless from the kiss, the leather pouch left open on the rumpled bed behind you.
The mirror leaned against the wall by the window, catching the softened sunlight through the curtains and spilling it warm across your face, your neck, the front of your shirt. Andrew came in behind you in the reflection, shoulders broad around yours, head bent as he lifted the necklace.
His fingers brushed your skin as he worked the clasp, so careful that you barely felt them. The chain settled cool against your neck, and the pendant rested heavy at the base of your throat, glittering in the mirror each time you breathed.
Andrew leaned into you from behind, his chin hooking over your shoulder. "There." he murmured.
It was beautiful, you had to admit. Glittering in the golden warm light.
"It's perfect, Andy." you murmured.
"You're perfect." he whispered, pressing a kiss to the side of your neck.
Heat rushed to your face, and you lifted a hand over your shoulder, pushing your fingers back through his hair as his arms wrapped around your middle. His mouth stayed at your neck, kisses soft at first, then heavier, his teeth catching lightly at the sensitive skin beneath your jaw.
"Want you to wear it," he said between little nips. "Nothing else."
"Oh, yeah?" you giggled.
"Mhm," he hummed.
He turned you around in his arms and kissed you harder, one hand going to your hair, the other low at your waist as he walked you backward toward the bed.
now
He even had the same freckles.
There was a mole on his right pec, and your eyes dropped to it before you could stop them. Andrew had one there too. You used to kiss it when he'd lead you to bed, when he'd let you kiss all his marks—scars, moles, freckles, the places violence had touched him and the places he’d simply been born with.
You blinked hard and made yourself look away.
This wasn't Pope. It wasn't Andrew.
It was strange, seeing a body you knew so well shaped by time and some other life. There was a time Andrew had started boxing because he thought it would help get out his worst thoughts, and for a while, it had. He’d built himself for muscle and strength, for something to do with his hands besides hurt people, or himself, or anyone who got too close on the wrong day. Even after he quit, he kept the shape of it, strong through the shoulders, leaner when he forgot to eat, his body always carrying whatever his mouth couldn't say.
Jack Abbot seemed similar, though broader now, thicker through the chest and middle, less carved by violence and more by age, work, routine. The same kind of body built to carry too much. The same kind of shoulders that looked like they were holding a door shut from the inside.
You wondered if he was trying to outrun scary thoughts too.
"I'm… sorry." you said, breath uneven as your eyes went back up to his face.
There, some of the freckles were different. Less sun maybe, no California sunshine out here in Pennsylvania, no Oceanside glare to leave burns on the skin year round. But still. There were too many similarities, the kind your brain kept trying to make sense of and failing. Your blood thrummed in your ears again, warm and rushing.
"I was just… looking for a patient."
Jack looked at you funny again, his eyes scanning you, trying to read the messy thoughts behind your eyes, you figured. You probably looked insane.
"It's okay."
"Are you okay?" you asked, jutting your chin up toward his shoulder. Focusing on something you could see, understand.
He glanced back at it as he opened the kit on the medical tray in front of him. "Yeah, bullet just grazed me."
"Jesus."
"S'nothin'." He picked through the supplies with one hand, tearing open a packet with his teeth before thinking better of it and using his fingers. "Geniuses thought it was a good day to rob a goods warehouse. Didn’t think about how much time it would take to load everything up."
You nodded, your throat beginning to burn. You wondered who the kids were, if they were another crew like the Codys had been, sitting around a kitchen table with beer bottles and a map, thinking through cameras, doors, exits, timing. Or if they were idiots with guns and no plan, chasing the rush before they’d learned how much a bad one could cost.
"Did… you catch them?"
"Yep."
You huffed a little laugh despite yourself. "Well… I should probably—"
But when you looked up, he was trying in vain to reach the wound, his shoulder rolling forward, arm lifted awkwardly behind his head. The graze sat high along the back of his right shoulder, too far around for him to clean well. He tried anyway, jaw set, antiseptic swab pinched between two fingers, his back arching a little to reach.
Your mouth was opening before your brain could stop you, "Give me that."
"I'm fine."
"I'll start your chart, then."
"No, no. Don't need the paperwork."
You held out your hand, "Our little secret then?"
He looked up at you, stalling, those hazel eyes searching your face again. So familiar, so steady. Your hand stayed out between you.
"Who are you?" he asked.
Goosebumps rose along your skin. You gave him your name.
"No, I mean…" his eyes narrowed, but he shook his head, sighing.
He handed over the Qtip with the antiseptic.
"Promise I won't tell." you said gently, stepping around him.
"Better not." he huffed with a half smirk.
You moved behind him and set the supplies in order on the exam bed: saline flushes, gauze, chlorhexidine swabs, a small packet of bacitracin, nonadherent dressing, tape. This would help. It had to. Simple stuff, cleaning a wound, knowing the steps. Just doing the work. The exam light above him hummed softly, casting a flat white square over his shoulder and the metal tray.
Both of you were quiet, but you saw his eyes slide around to you every once in a while.
You started with saline, flushing the graze from the cleanest edge outward, watching diluted blood run over his shoulder blade and into the gauze you had tucked beneath it. The wound was shallow, ugly more than dangerous, a raw red track through skin with darker bruising already starting around it. No embedded fragments that you could see. No active bleeding beyond the surface ooze. You wiped the skin around it with gauze, then cleaned wider with chlorhexidine, careful to keep most of it around the wound instead of scrubbing straight into the open line.
You hadn't realized you'd begun to cry until Jack turned his head over his shoulder, his brows drawing together.
"Hey," he said, quieter now. "What happened?"
You shook your head, trying to swallow the burn in your throat as the sting in your eyes flooded down your face with tears. "Sorry—I'm sorry."
You took the nonadherent pad from the tray, too quick, grateful for something to do. Your fingers pressed the dressing into place over the graze, then layered folded gauze over it for a little pressure. All you could think about was a familiar freckled shoulder. A familiarly thick neck with the same curls at the name. The man you loved turning his head in your bathroom to tell you a job had gone bad like he was telling you dinner ran late. Blood on the sink. Blood under your nails. His face pale, and you had felt scared enough for both of you.
"Who…" Jack Abbot began, but bit his lip, and you saw the infinitesimal shake of his head, before he was looking up at you, and trying again. "You lost someone."
Your eyes found his, and held your breath.
He nodded, "I know that look."
You wiped your cheek with the heel of your palm, then reached for the adhesive. Jack tore off two strips for you and handed them back without looking away.
"I'm fine." you said. "It's nothing."
He sighed, hands coming together in his lap, and you saw him twist the gunmetal wedding ring on his left hand.
"I lost my wife," he said after a moment. "A few years ago."
You stared at the side of his face. "I'm sorry." it's all you knew to say in that moment.
He nodded, eyes on his own hands. "Not a day goes by I don't think of her. But today…" He looked back at you, and you stood very still with the tape half-smoothed over his dressing. His eyes moved across your face, knowing and far away. "Today I saw you and it was like she was there. In the room."
You sucked in a little breath.
"I don't know why." His mouth pressed to one side. "I guess you—"
"— look like her?" you whispered.
He nodded.
You let out the breath you'd been holding in. You finished taping the dressing, smoothing the adhesive edges against clean skin because your hands still needed something to finish. The pad sat flat over the graze, the gauze beneath it catching what little blood was left.
"You… you look like my…" you weren't sure what to call him. An ex? Dead boyfriend? "Well. He… died, a long time ago." you went on anyway. "And when I saw you, it felt like…"
"… like you'd seen a ghost."
You looked back up at him with wet eyes, voice cracking, "Yeah."
For a second, neither of you moved, neither of you spole. The exam room felt small around the two of you, the curtain drawn tight, the overhead light buzzing, the metal tray with torn packets and pink-stained gauze piled on it. His shoulder was warm under your fingertips where you hadn't yet pulled away.
How could this be happening? You kept asking yourself over and over, but you couldn't understand the cosmic irony—the idea that somehow…somehow, Andrew had lived on. Maybe not in this timeline, but another. So that you would be here. Now. With Jack.
Out of all the lives you could have lived. Out of all the turns you could have missed and the ones you chose. Your parents and your childhood home. Andrew and all the ways he had been the sweetest soul you'd ever known and the most volatile man in any room. The acceptance letter. The way you'd wanted nothing more than to go but couldn't bear to leave and…the last time you saw him. And then, after years of hard work, of trying to forget, you met Baran overseas, half a world from Oceanside, pulling you into her orbit. Then to the city, to Pennsylvania. The VA. The PTMC on the Fourth of fucking July in the middle of humid Pittsburgh.
All of it. Every terrible, ordinary, impossible thing.
"You were so calm." you said quietly. "How were you so calm earlier? If you felt—"
He shrugged, and the dressing tugged a little at the movement. "I thrive under pressure, I guess."
"That explains the SWAT thing," you murmured.
"My therapist said I needed a hobby." he said dryly.
You stared at him for half a second before a smile caught your lips, as if a string was tied to the corner, pulling it up into your cheek.
"You were great today." he said softly, turning his face toward you so that even with his chin dipped, he could still look up at where you stood beside him.
"Thanks." you murmured.
"I can tell this is…" he paused, nodding a little, like he was feeling for the right words before they left him. "This is something you were meant to do."
You squeezed your eyes shut, your lungs hitching over what little breath you'd pulled in.
It was not only the words. It was the way he said them, low and careful with his eyes moving off yours right after, his top teeth catching his bottom lip, his hands rubbing together with the black shirt bunched between them. He looked so much like Andrew then that your chest went tight and your throat thickened.
You pressed your lips together, shutting your eyes against the threat of more tears, and nodded. You wanted to say something back, like thanks or you're not bad yourself!—but the words wouldn't come. They were stuck behind the lump in your throat, and you had to swallow them down before you choked on the grief.
You moved away from him to begin cleaning up the room, taking the trash from the metal tray, feeling his eyes follow you around in silence.
When all was done and cleaned up, he was standing back up with his shirt back on, his hands shoved in the tan camo cargos, shoulders straight.
"I should… go check on my patients." you said, reaching for the curtain. "Baran is probably waiting for me."
He nodded, fidgeting a little where he stood.
You pulled the curtain, but then heard him call your name.
His head was ducked again, eyes down at his boots, one thumb moving against the seam of his pocket. Then he stood straighter and looked at you.
"We should grab a drink sometime."
Your eyebrows shot up before threading together. "Like… swap war stories, or?"
"Or." he shrugged.
You licked your bottom lip haphazardly. You weren't sure what to say. It felt like a terrible idea. Giving in to whatever weird prank God was pulling on the two of you. A man who looked like Andrew asking you out in a curtained exam room with a bullet graze under his shirt. A man who had seen his dead wife in your face and still somehow looked at you like there might be something to do with that besides run.
"I don't know…"
"If it's too much, I understand." he said softly.
"It's just—" you paused, searching for the right words as you fisted the curtain beside you tighter, looking around like the answer was in the room, "s'kinda weird, right?"
"Very weird." he agreed. "But I see no reason why we shouldn't give in. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work."
You stared at him a long moment, before he was stepping forward, his voice low. You had to hold your breath.
"One drink." he murmured. "What're you doing after your shift?"
The three B's came to mind. Bath, Book, Bed, truthfully. Maybe crying in said bath if the day kept going the way it had been and falling asleep with wet hair and waking up with sore eyes tomorrow to whatever PTMC had waiting next.
"Nothing." you said instead.
His eyes moved between yours, then down to your mouth, to the necklace at your throat, then back up again. The diamonds sat heavy beneath your scrub collar, hidden from most people, except the chain had shifted at some point while you were dressing his wound. A little flash of white gold against hospital black scrubs.
"Aren't you just… a little curious?" he asked, barely above a whisper, "About what the fuck this all is?"
You couldn't help the little huff of laughter that escaped you. He smiled back, just a twitching of his lips.
"Okay." you said. "A little."
"Then meet me at Redbeard's." he said, tipping his head. Then, after a second, quieter, "Please."
You gnawed on your bottom lip, looking past the curtain into the ED. Dana was picking up the red landline again, her other hand already reaching for a pen. A tech pushed an empty stretcher toward the elevators, the wheels clicking over the seam in the floor. Across the hallway, Robby stood in front of Santos with a chart in his hand, listening with his head tipped down while she talked.
The whole department kept moving, loud and bright, as if nothing was amiss. As if your world wasn't folding over itself, different timelines coexisting together in this strange space where time and grief took no pity.
You let out a long sigh.
"Yeah," you said, bringing your hand up to clench around the diamonds of your necklace, "Yeah, okay. Fine."
He smiled a little wider, and looked out into the same sea of chaos as you. "Okay. Go. I'll see you tonight. Redbeard's."
You looked back at him and smiled a little. "See you."
Because when you looked at him, all you could see was Andrew’s face, open in that rare way he never let last long.
seven years earlier
The house already felt out of control when you arrived. The bass rattled through the open slider and the large floor to ceiling windows as you made your way through the sea of bodies in the kitchen, the floor wet under your bare feet where someone had spilled. Beer, maybe. Something sticky that pulled faintly at your skin with each step. You made your way to the fridge anyway, pulling out a beer, the cold neck of it relieving to the touch in your hand.
When you turned around, about to open it, you saw Andrew.
He was sitting on the couch in the living room, sitting up from his laid back position, his arm coming off the back of the couch to stand up. His attention had snapped to you too quickly, and you saw his face change. Confusion first, then relief, but then something much, much harder. Something that shut everything else down.
He was up and beside you in less than ten seconds. "Why are you here?"
You blinked, but turned to walk away. “Hi to you too.”
He reached out quickly, pulling you by the arm to turn towards him. You squeaked out a little hey!
“Why are you here?” The second time was lower, meaner, his head ducking as he said the words.
Your smile faltered a little, but you tried to pull it back. “It’s Craig’s birthday, isn’t it?”
“You’re supposed to be gone.”
You swallowed hard. Your bags were packed. Sitting in the trunk of your car. You'd meant to take the exit going east but… but you couldn't. So, you shrugged as averted your eyes from his, beer pressing coldly into your palm, condensation slicking against your fingers. “Yeah, well. I’m not.”
You could feel his piercing stare on you.
The party kept moving around you, but it felt farther away now, muffled under the rush of blood in your ears. People were shouting by the pool as usual, music blaring and scores being called as idiots jumped from the pool house roof into the water. You watched Deran do a backflip, the crashing of the water making you jump.
When you looked up at Andrew finally, you were surprised to see how uncertain he looked. You could see the thoughts moving through his brain, the cogs trying to make sense of why you were here, if he'd gotten something wrong. But you knew, and you knew he knew, that you should be crossing state lines by now. As if you'd said it out loud, face went hard and strange.
Blank, almost.
“So no med school.” he said darkly. It wasn't even a question.
You rolled your shoulders, trying to make it look easy. Trying to make any part of it feel easy. "No med school."
Andrew's eyes only narrowed more, his jaw tightening.
“I’ll call tomorrow,” you said. “I’ll tell them something came up. Or I’ll defer, maybe. People do that, right? They defer.”
His hands tightened into fists at his side, fingers curling in slow, controlled increments.
“It’s fine,” you said, talking faster now because he wasn’t saying anything, and the silence was getting worse the longer he held you under his stare, no matter how loud the house was around you. “I can work. I can help more. I already know half the shit you guys need before you even ask me. Have you talked to Deran about the mattress warehouse off the 23? Because I was thinking if you hit it before—”
And then he was reaching for you, a hand closed around your wrist, and he was moving.
You stumbled one step after him, your shoulders bumping into strangers. You didn't have time to apologize because he was pulling you so quickly, his broad back making a path ahead. You set your beer down to not add to the drinks already spilled on the floor, tugging at his strong hold.
"Andrew—"
He didn't answer, nor did he stop.
"Andrew, please—wait—" and then you saw he was bee lining for the back gate, and you dug your heels into the concrete of the pool deck, the rough edge of it catching under your flip flops as you tried to hold yourself in place.
He whirled around to glare at you, his grip tightening just enough to sear your skin. You had half a mind to be a little scared, but you just looked at him back with the same iciness, refusing to give him that.
"Stop, let's stay." you said, and then, a little softer, "Let's have a drink and go hide in your room."
His lip curled, and he was reaching out to grab you again, but you slipped free.
You ran back to slip into the house, to maybe weave through the crowd and lock yourself away, but he was on you when you met a road block of bodies, his arms going around your waist, locking in before you could twist away.
To anyone else, this probably looked normal. Playful roughhousing with one of the Cody boys and their girl. And besides, no one stopped Pope Cody when he was in the middle of something. No one even really questioned it.
He manhandled you into his arms, even as you squirmed, his hold already set, already decided.
"Andrew—get off!" you yelled, trying in vain to push him. "Get off!!"
But it was no use, he was breathing heavily, his eyes a mix of muddled color and pain, something too tight behind them, like he was making himself do this, no matter how badly he didn't want to be rough with you. His hands were so big, his muscles bigger, and in no time your gravity was being lurched off its axis, and you were being flung over his shoulder.
You slammed your fist into his lower back, his hand coming over the back of your thighs to stop your kicking.
“Put me down!” you shouted, hair falling into your face, blood rushing to your head. “Andrew Cody, put me down right now!”
“No.”
You shrieked in humiliation, in frustration, and he was walking out the back gate. He carried you across the driveway while you hit at him, furious, mortified, trying to twist enough to get a knee into his chest, his side, anything. Pavement blurred beneath you. The hood of your car flashed in the moonlight. He shifted you higher when you nearly slipped, palm pressing hard into the back of your thigh, his breathing heavy but controlled, like he had shut every other part of himself off except the part that knew how to move, how to get this done.
He came around to the front of the car, and opened the driver's side door.
Gravity whirled once again and the world tilted as he brought you back upright, only to push you off balance again and into the front seat.
"No!" you exclaimed, hands hooking at the door edge.
He didn't say anything, only was shoving your limbs into the seat, hands at your shoulders when you tried pushing back, firm, unyielding, not giving you an inch to work with.
"Andrew—stop!"
"No."
"Fuck—" you tried to push him away, "—off!"
You shoved at his chest and tried to duck under his arm, but he caught you again and again, both hands closing around the caps of your shoulders, pushing you down into the seat.
“You’re going.” he finally muttered.
“I’m not!” you spat back.
“You’re going.”
You wouldn't give in, twisting in the seat so your legs were half out the car door. Trying to stand again, he stepped between your knees, his body blocking the open space, boots planted in the ground, one hand catching both of your wrists when you swung at him.
“Andrew!”
“You’re going.”
The words came out of him like he had to force them through his teeth. Like it was all he could say.
“I want to be here!” you shouted. “Why is that so fucking hard for you to understand?”
His eyes burned into yours.
He didn't say anything else, the two of you a tangle of limbs until his hands snapped over the joints of your wrists, holding them tightly between you. You were heaving in breath, your muscles aching, the hair at your cheeks sticking to your face with what you realized then were tears.
“I love you.” you croaked.
He paused for a moment, looking down at you.
“I love you,” you said again, louder, like maybe if you said it hard enough he would stop looking at you like that. “I want to be with you. I want to live with you. I want to work with you. I want this.”
Your tears began to pour hot and fast, slipping down before you could do anything about them.
“Say it back,” you begged, trying in vain to push at his chest with the hands he held firmly in his grip.
He didn’t answer. But he'd had the worst frown on his face you'd ever seen. His eyes hard, brows drawn, as you begged—
“Say it, Andy.”
His mouth pressed into a line.
Your wrists twisted under his hand, but there was no real fight in it anymore. Your whole body had gone loose in pieces, anger draining out and leaving behind a panic so raw and ugly you felt almost humiliated.
“Tell me you love me,” you begged.
His face changed.
“Say it back.” you cried.
He looked down at his feet, his mouth twisting, his brows threading.
“No.” Your pleaded, hands trying to grip at him, but he held you too tightly. "No, look at me. Tell me you love me.”
He was breathing hard through his nose. His eyes were wet and mean with the effort of keeping it in, and that hurt worse than if he had screamed at you. You wished he'd just say something.
“Please,” you said again.
His hands dropped from your wrists as fast as if they'd been burned, and came to your face instead, both palms catching your cheeks, rough and too fast, his fingers curving harshly into your hair. He pulled your face up to look directly at him, his thumbs slipping through your tear tracks.
“Of course I love you,” he snapped, voice cracking. “Of course I do. What do you think this is?”
“Andy—”
“You have to go.” His voice split again, and he looked furious, whether it was at you or himself, you couldn't tell. But it was terrifying. The tears were beginning to blur your eyes. “You have to. You’re meant to do this. You’re meant to be a doctor. You’re not meant to be here with me and this—this shit.”
"I don't care—"
"You deserve a chance at a normal life." he said tightly, more a whisper than words. "I didn't. You have to go. You have to."
He stood there, shoulders rigid, mouth flat. It was his turn to beg.
“Please, sweetheart. You have to."
You threw him off of you, shoving him away, and he let go this time. You reached for the keys where he had thrown them into the cupholder at some point. You didn’t remember him doing it. You didn’t remember anything except his face, his hands, the sound of his voice telling you no.
You slammed the door and put the car in reverse with your whole body shaking, not looking at him. The tires screeched as he stayed where he was, his chest heaving as he watched you, his face crumbling entirely.
At the end of the driveway, you took one final look back in your rearview mirror.
You could just make out the tears falling down his face, his hands in his hair, elbows flared. Panic there, in his eyes. But relief too.
Relief in watching you leave.
now
Redbeard's was a dingy thing in downtown, thankfully close to your apartment, though you didn't even stop home. As badly as you wanted—hell, needed— to wash off the day, you knew once you made it through the door the fear would keep you from walking out again. And you hadn't gotten Jack's number. Picturing him waiting alone at the bar… on his only night off… you couldn't do it. To him, to you…to Andrew.
You found him outside, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, one hand in his pocket, the other holding his phone close to his face as he read something on the screen. It was like he sensed you coming, whatever strange sixth sense the two of you had for one another prickling up his spine to make him look.
You still had to stifle the gasp that threatened when his eyes found yours.
Jack Abbot, you told yourself again and again. Jack Abbot, not Andrew Cody.
For one brief, insane moment, you wondered if Andrew was with you there. If he was standing somewhere beside Jack on that gum spotted sidewalk, looking him over with that severe set to his mouth, suspicious of the warm little smile pulling at the man's face. Or maybe he would have been looking at you instead. Maybe he would have been smiling too, pleased in that way he got when you were brave.
You didn't even believe in ghosts, or spirits, or heaven or hell. Of any afterlife in which Andrew Cody's spirit would be there that night. You believed wholly in science. In blood and oxygen and a heart and a brain to keep a person alive… And you believed that when those things stopped, when there was no blood flowing to the brain, when the cells began to starve, there was no secret door opening somewhere else.
But that night, standing outside a bar in humid Pennsylvania while fireworks whistled and cracked and died somewhere distant over the water, you felt something too strange to dismiss.
Because… what if… what if there was something? What if there was some universe in which Andrew Cody and Jack Abbot's wife could see the two of you exactly as you were. Lonely, sad people who still carried their ghosts around. Maybe they knew. Maybe they had found each other out there, wherever it was, and maybe Jack’s wife had told Andrew about the man she left behind. How good he was, how he needed you and you needed him.
What other explanation was there?
When you approached Jack, there was an awfully familiar twinkle in his eye that had your lips pulling up into a real smile.
"Hey." you sighed.
“Hi,” he said, then cleared his throat a little. “Thank you for… coming out.”
You shrugged, shoving your hands into the pockets of your jeans to mirror him. “Guess I was curious about 'what the fuck this all is',”
Jack’s smile widened. His head tipped back for half a second before it ducked, his eyes dropping toward the sidewalk.
“Yeah,” he said finally with a nod. “Me too.”
You tilted your head at him. “Shall we?”
His eyes moved over you then, from the top of your head to the toes of your shoes, then back up to your face. It wasn’t the kind of look that undressed you. It was stranger than that. Softer. As if he was trying to make sense of the person standing in front of him, alive and still somehow carrying the woman he had lost.
How two lives could run so far apart and still end up here, on the same humid night, grief and curiosity braiding curiously through the two of you like some invisible red thread.
He nodded, then turned and opened the door.
“After you.”
I’ll be honest I looked over this maybe twice before posting so please excuse any inconsistencies or grammar mistakes! ilysm and THANK YOU FOR READING 🤍
michael robinavitch the type to fuck you absolutely stupid then give you so so many kisses and cuddles afterwards because at the end of the day you're his girl <3
── .✦ MICHAEL 'ROBBY' ROBINAVITCH
★ˎˊ˗ CONTENT 18+ MDNI fem reader, AFAB reader, reader has breasts, descriptive language, aftercare focus (cuddling, praise, etc), hints of possessiveness, fluffity fluff
MASTERLIST | RULES | INBOX
When Robby finally eases the last of his weight off of you, he does so carefully, like you’re an antique he’s terrified of cracking, a jarring contrast to moments ago when he had you folded in half, driving his cock so deep you swore you could taste it, the headboard begging for mercy with every brutal slam.
He groans when the mattress springs back into place. A palm, wide and a little rough, skates down the ridge of your spine as though he needs the touch more than the next breath he’s chasing.
“Christ,” he mutters, half-laughing, half-praying, hair spilled over his brow in damp ringlets. “You all right, sweetheart?”
You mean to answer right away, but your brain is still someone in the rafters, floating among the dust motes he knocked loose out of you.
So what comes out is less words and more a sigh that shivers through every exhausted inch of your body.
His grin spreads, triumphant. “Need a real answer, honey.”
You find your voice, albeit ragged, but present. “M’fine. Floaty.”
“Yeah, I can see that.” He leans in anyway and kisses the corner of your slack mouth, lingering until he feels you kiss back. “Stay right there a sec. Gonna grab water, towel, and and see what I can do about the pretty mess I made of you.”
“Cocky,” you mumble, though there's no bite to it. Really, he’s only stating the obvious. You are a mess, he made you one, and Robby is far too pleased with himself about both.
He chuckles, snagging his boxers from the floor. “Call me whatever you want, sweetheart. You’ll still be asking for more once you recover.”
While he’s gone, you stare at the ceiling fan, counting revolutions until everything sounds less like static and more like your own heartbeat again.
By the time he returns, you’ve made it to an elbow. He sets a glass on the nightstand, drops the towel beside it, then crawls back over you on his knees, trailing the towel like a cape.
“Water first.” He nudges the rim to your lips, waiting until you take a sip. “Attagirl.”
The praise hits harder than the water, but you drink anyway, throat working around the cool relief.
When you stop to breathe, Robby wipes a stray drip off your chin with his thumb. “Good?”
“Better.”
“Anything else you need right now, baby?”
You shake your head, too lazy to hunt for words. You just want him back where he was, wrapped around you, body weight crushing you like a weighted blanket.
He seems to read that want plain as ink. He moves the water, folds the towel under your hips for cushion, then lowers onto his side and drags you into the curve of him. Chest to back, his arm bands over you, palm flattening between your breasts.
“Heartbeat’s settling,” he says into your hair. “Thought I snapped the thing right out of you for a minute.”
You snort, the sound embarrassingly fond. “You tried.”
“Yeah, well.” He peppers kisses across your shoulder, each one a punctuation mark at the end of a sentence only he can read. “Wanted to make sure you remembered whose girl you are.”
Your laugh comes out airy. “Possessive much?”
“Extremely,” he admits without a hint of shame. He noses behind your ear. “Listen, floaty girl — next time you spot that mirror in the hallway, take a good look. There’s a hell of a lot to be possessive of.” His teeth graze your lobe; the hand on your chest gives a gentle squeeze. “And lucky me, I got there first.”
“Think you might be a little biased,” you tease, warmth creeping into your cheeks despite the sleepy little smile pulling at your mouth.
A low laugh rolls out of him, all soft thunder against your back. He lets the sound fade into a lazy trail of kisses, mapping collarbone, shoulder blade, the delicate chain at your throat. Each brush of his lips is slower than the last, until he nuzzles into the crook of your neck.
“Of course I’m biased,” he says, pressing another kiss beneath your ear. “Still know what I’m looking at.”
MARIA NOTE lowkey this is dogshit but fuck it wii ball <3
YOU CAN FIND MY MICHAEL ROBINAVITCH MASTERLIST HERE ⭑.ᐟ
synopsis Robby is known to speak before he thinks sometimes, but when the cost of his words is losing you, he’d rather die (6.6k words)
warningheavy angst, language, hospital stuff, mention of drowning, near death experience, robby is constipated emotionally as always, jack to the rescue, kinda yearning Jack if you squint, inaccurate medical practices I am noooo doctor!
authornotethannk you so much for the request!!! and thank you for your kind words! I had so much fun writing, I think angst is probably my favourite to write over anything especially when Robby is the one yearning. I hope you liked! (Gif credits @emziess :)
Pitt masterlist Last robby fic!
As a resident in the Emergency Department there was a lot you knew.
You knew that preeclampsia effected about eight percent of all pregnant women worldwide. You knew how to intubate and had in fact done so many in your time at PTMC that you were sure you could do it with your eyes closed. You knew that in the bottom draw of Dana's select spot at the nurses station was a pack of nicotine gum hardly used because Dana thought they were a bunch of bull; in spite of the literal doctors orders.
You knew there was a leaky faucet in the women's bathrooms that drove everyone insane when they went in there to steal a moment's peace. You knew the computer in central fourteen was the faultiest one which was why you avoided charting in there all together.
So you knew there must have been a reason why Noelle from insurance was biding her time with your new boyfriend. There must have been a reason why he was grinning big at her like he hadn't with you for days.
“Hey!” said Samira falling at your side at the counter.
You were still too distracted by the two to even tear your gaze away and look at her. “Hey.”
Samira followed your eyeline. “You're staring, you know that?”
You nodded.
Robby rubbed at the side of his face as his cheeks flushed, Noelle shifted her weight onto her other heeled foot- apparently getting herself comfortable.
“Who is that, again?” asked Doctor Mohan.
“Noelle. She's from insurance.”
Samira nodded. “Noelle from insurance. Annnd do we like Noelle, from insurance?”
At that you realised just how transparent your glares might have been.
“Oh, you know,” you mumbled, finally looking back down to your tablet that had grown dark in the absence of movement. “It's our job to like everyone.”
Santos passed by you then, dropping herself down into your favourite chair in exhaustion. “Not everyone.”
“So we're all having a great day, I see,” you commented, sarcastically. However the sardonic tone of your voice was over-saturated with a loud laugh.
Your head practically snapped up to see Noelle laughing at something Robby had said. Even his face was scrunched up at his joke. You watched as Noelle's hand darted to his bicep, playfully hitting him in a way that could only be recognised as flirting.
You watched as Robby looked down to her hand on him and then he looked up, finding you and finding your watchful gaze. Only then did the pink in his cheeks subside and the wrinkles of amusement die.
“Didn't they have a thing before you and him got together?” asked Santos.
You sighed. “Yes, they did, thank you, Trinity.”
“Hey, just trying to be helpful.”
“Save it for the patients,” you said.
Robby took one step in your direction but you'd already dismissed yourself from Santos and Mohan, walking the ward like it was a battle field.
But you could hear your boyfriends heavy boots close behind you.
“Don't do that,” he said, calling after you.
“Do what? See a patient?”
“It's not what you think,” he said.
“Of course it's not,” you said, trying your best to be indifferent.
You knew about Noelle and Robby's history, just as you knew about his and Heathers, and his and the pathologist from upstairs, and the one from ortho. You knew and you understood, heck you'd even been around to joke about with Landon. Robby's famous seven-week itch.
Rumour had it before he finally got to hold your hand and kiss you whenever he liked he'd been trying to nail you down for years, but you weren't sure how much you believed.
It had been nine months, maybe closer to ten since you and Robby had officially started seeing each other. It was the real boyfriend-girlfriend deal where you could call each other at any moments of the day, could get take out together and discuss the boring things together.
Yet, you did none of that.
Robby and you didn't talk.
You fucked- but only each other. You worked on cases together- strictly professional. On the days where you were desperate there was an on-call room Robby could book out and steal time away with you.
But you didn't remember the last time you'd laughed like that with him.
“It's not,” said Robby again.
“Of course it's not.”
Robby sighed, falling closer behind you. “Well, it doesn't really sound like you believe me.”
“I believe you,” you said. “Do I believe Noelle...”
“Oh, c'mon,” Robby chuckled, like the very idea of them was ridiculous. Like the two of you didn't begin where they ended. “You seriously gonna be hung up on that?”
“Don't,” you warn, shaking your head.
You reached for an exam room door, where a sixteen year old boy was complaining of migraines but Robby grabbed your wrist and stirred you away.
“You wanna argue, not here,” he said.
“I don't want to argue.”
Robby led you out to the ambulance bay. Any nurses stealing a couple minutes of peace quickly diverted back in and even ambulances seemed to divert away. He let go of you, standing away and folding his arms over his chest, defensive. “So come on, tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“You're mad because I was talking to Noelle- about a case, might I add,” he said. There was nothing soft in his tone, nothing that calmed your nerves on edge. He said it all like it was a joke that he already knew the punchline to.
You rubbed at your temple. “You can talk to Noelle about cases, of course you can-”
“- Oh, thank you, glad I have your permission,” he chuckled.
“Can you just not be a dick about this, for once!” you snapped.
Robby's brows rose to his head, almost shocked at your snap at him. He held out his hands. “Okay, I'm not being a dick.”
“You are, and it's like sometimes you don't even realise.”
His hands were worn with the mornings patients and you could see the stress he tried to hide away as he wiped up and down his face.
You took a deep breath. “Robby, if you don't want this to work out all you have to do is say.” You said it, un-sure if you even meant it. Un-sure that you could ever go back to who you were before meeting Robby, let alone sharing in his life. In the small moments grabbing take out together and eating it on his sofa. In the mornings where you both naturally woke up early enough to just admire each other before you had to get to work.
Robby chuckled dryly, hands on his hips. “Oh my god, all of this because I spoke to another woman?”
“Because you laughed with her like you haven't with me for weeks!” you argued.
For once, Robby was silent.
You told yourself after the seven week mark that it would be any day now, that he'd tell you you were better off friends; colleagues. Every day and week it didn't come, every month he got more comfortable in your bed you figured you'd easily get rid of him in your life as easily as you welcomed him.
Now you stood across from him in the early morning light of the ambulance bay knowing if he left you now you'd never get back on your feet again.
“I see the way Noelle looks at you, how the others from upstairs do to,” you begin.
Robby shook his head, something earnest in his gaze. “They're not- they don't-”
“- I know, I know,” you said, cutting him off with a grimace of a smile. “ ”I know you don't love them, Robby. I'm just not sure you love me either.”
As un-cultured as you were with your own relationships you weren't sure when the right time to say I love you was. You knew Santos had said it to Garcia drunk one night and woke up with regret pinning her to the bed. You knew Dana and Benji had said it to each other a week in. You knew you loved Robby before you even kissed him.
Robby looked down to his boots, shaking his head. “That's not fair.”
Your heart pinched. “I know I love you, Robby. But I can't watch all these woman over you and-and wonder.”
“Your insecurities are not my fault!” Robby snapped.
You knew he didn't mean it, or hoped he didn't. You knew in the very small arguments you'd had that he spoke without thinking and came grovelling back.
Maybe it was worse this time because you knew it was the truth. You knew these women- his ex something's- didn't get to see Robby in the early mornings and be the last thing he spoke to at night. You knew Robby wasn't inviting them into his self, but he wasn't pushing them away either.
They'd all been quick, snaps of bands on wrists. You were supposed to be something more.
Maybe you weren't.
Biting on the inside of your cheek, you felt the familiar burning in your chest, rising up to your neck.
“Okay.” You held yourself tight, heading past him and to the doors that were already welcoming you back.
Robby was hot on your heels, quicker even as he pushed himself ahead of you. “No, no, no- hey- wait, no I-I didn't mean that.” His eyes were wide, hands held out in front of you, not quite clasped together, pointing to the sky but pleading none the less.
“We shouldn't talk about this now, Robby-”
“- I- we... honey, please.”
He stood in between you and the doors. Beyond him you saw the chaos of the room, the charts being passed, the labs being reported. The world still turned.
Robby's hands fell to your shoulders, rubbing up and down your arms. “Let me- jus' let me-let me-”
“Hey! You two!”
Robby didn't jump apart from you, he squeezed your arms tighter as the two of you looked back to Dana who rushed out, wisps of grey hair falling around her. “What is it?”
“There's been a crash down the docks, all hands on deck!”
You thought you knew chaos, having seen all sorts of terror and oddities in the Pitt but the scenes at the dock were nothing like it. A complication with a boat, an explosion- small enough- rattled ferries and had them crashing into one another like terrible scene of dominoes.
Heck, you weren't even sure if the docks were safe to be standing on.
There were fire trucks and ambulances that didn't just respond to PTMC but Presby too. Police were corning off the area, talking to any witnesses but everyone blurred in one as you weaved in and out of them.
You'd been sent as an emergency respondent thanks to how level-headed and sturdy you were in the Pittfest. You still remembered how Robby nominated you as well as Whitaker to go with some from surgery, his eyes dark on you, a trusting nod passed before you were handed a jacket and pushed into an ambulance.
You'd already pulled a sheet over three bodies, one of them too small for your liking.
“Any for me?” asked a first emergency responder, you think his name was Spencer, catching it in the rig you caught a ride in. “We can take two.”
“Yeah!” you yelled and led him away. “This guy, approximately in his thirties, head lack to the right, needs to go to surgery immediately. This woman, late twenties, lost consciousness, possible pelvic bleed but she's stabilised, need's a ultrasound.”
“Got it!”
You'd gone through almost all the gloves you had in your pockets. There was blood seeping into your scrub uniform at your knees. You'd forgone your coat to a little girl who took an ambulance back with her mother, trembling from the cold.
A steady, firm hand settled between your shoulder blades.
“How you holding on, Slugger?”
Your heart soared in relief when you recognised Jack's voice, felt his steady hand and saw his easy smile in the middle of all the pain.
“Jack, thank god. Are you here with your team?” you asked, eying the uniform he was in.
“Yeah, we came to secure the area, doing everything I can to help,” he said, the two of you nudging your way through the people, stepping over the rubble and pools of water or blood. “How you holding up?”
“Lost three,” you told him.
Jack looked down at you, the weight of his gaze always heavy. “And how many you saved, huh? Focus on that number.”
The wind picked up, sending a chill over your bones.
“Hey, where's your jacket?” asked Jack, a frown taking over his features.
You chuckled. “Probably half way to Presby by now, think we've handed off all the traumas PTMC can take.”
Jack tutted and shook his head aside. “I reckon they've got one more in them.”
You didn't know how you and Jack had got so close, somewhere along the lines of hand-offs and covering night shifts you just always gravitated toward each other, working well and saving lives. Every daring procedure you'd taken was with him over your shoulder only for him to go and boast about you to Robby later.
Jack led you to Robby, for that you always had to be thankful.
“Hey! I've got a guy seizing over here!”
With your case in hand the two of you rushed off.
The man seemed middle-aged with no obvious wound to him as you and Jack took either side. The man was at the edge of the docks, the crashing of the waves fighting against you as you worked to stablilse him.
Jack steadied him. “Check if there's any medication on him! It might be a disorder!”
You checked, coming up empty pocketed. You fumbled in your bag and tried your pockets before finding the vial and clean needle. “Pushing diazepam!”
With five cc's in his seizing slowed to dull twitches.
“We need a back board and neck brace,” said Jack, looking around to try and flag down anyone.
Nobody was catching your eyes. This close to the water you were out of the way of most of the chaos.
“Go!” you told Jack. “I'll stay with him, make sure he doesn't sieze again.”
Jack's brows pinched together for a second. “You sure?”
You nodded. Your hands remained on your patient, feeling his tremors and already timing his pulse with your watch. “I've got it, go!”
In hind sight you should have thought about the implications. You'd been grabbed and yelled at and spat at in the ED by less sever patients but once you'd been attacked by a man who just woke up from a seizure, dazed and confused and naming you his enemy.
Robby had never been so close to murder.
It took weeks for the bruises to go down, for your hand to heal properly from the fall and you were on bed rest for a week.
You knew what it meant to be alone with a patient, but sometimes you supposed it couldn't be helped.
The diazepam should have helped- you've seen it help- but soon enough the man started twitching, slow at first, before it started to fit and his whole body moved.
He was a strong man. You weren't.
“It's okay, sir- sir!” you threw your weight against him to hold him still, wonder what you can do to stop him biting down on his tongue with the little equipment you had.
The man was mumbling to himself, thrashing violently.
“C'mon Jack, c'mon-”
It only took a wide sweep of the mans arm to send you hurtling back and crashing into the icy water.
The sky was darkening by the time Robby counted off his thirtieth patient of the day. Twenty-five of them had been from the incident at the docks. Only one he couldn't save, two sent up to the OR.
He counted the patients, counted the hours that ticked by, counted every ambulance that came by not carrying you. He'd expected you back by now, expected to have a little piece of mind with seeing you back in his eyeline.
Robby's heart was being squeezed progressively as the day went on, ever since he'd snapped and said words he never even meant.
Every second, passing from patient to patient and tearing off gloves to replace them with clean ones he checked his phone for any update from you.
Nothing.
You must have been busy down there.
But just three ambulances ago Whitaker returned saying he lost sight of you practically immediately.
So where the hell were you?
“Hey, Dana-” he called, rounding on the nurses station.
She looked as dishevelled as he felt, wisps of hair, dark circles under her eyes.
“Can you get a hold of transport, ask where the hell is my resident.”
“I just got off the phone with them, Robby-” she reached over and placed a hand on his, the one that had been tapping relentlessly. “She's on her way in now.”
Before Robby could even wonder why Dana had to hold his hand to tell him, why her eyes were glassed over and her voice trembled to tell him the doors bust open.
“Robby!” Jack yelled out.
He turned, catching sight of his old friend, the greying hair damp and sticking to his skin. He was half dressed in SWAT gear, his jacket discarded and bits of tinfoil falling from his shoulders. Jack was set over a gurney, hammering down on a chest and going in for CPR the old fashioned way.
“What happened? You fall in-”
Robby got to the other side of the gurney and breath caught in his chest.
“She's been down thirty- thirty-five minutes, I dunno, man,” said Jack as he continued hammering down on your chest.
It was you. Blue in the face and eyes closed, droplets of water at your lashes. Your hair was turning to ice fanned out underneath you. He'd been running his hand through your hair just that morning, had he not. There was a blanket, maybe two, thrown over you but your body only reacted to the thumping Jack delivered on your chest, pinching your nose to breath down your open mouth.
This morning you'd been warm, so warm, with a leg thrown over his hips in attempts to keep him in your bed. And he'd been close, so close to burying himself in your warmth.
He didn't even have to touch you to know you were cold.
“I found her- in the water- pulled her out-” gasped Jack as he continued compressions.
“What do you mean in the water?” asked Robby, surprising himself by how calm he sounded.
“She- she fell, or-or something, I dunno man-”
“You don't know?” he snapped. “Why isn't she bagged?”
“We ran out,” said the paramedic pushing you in.
“You ran out?!”
“Robby- Robby!” Dana's hands were on his chest, keeping him at bay before Robby even knew what he was going to do.
Robby shook her off. “What's open?”
“Trauma two just got cleaned up-”
He grabbed the gurney and pushed you into the room. The weight of Jack on top of you trying to save your life squeaking the wheels against the floor not long wiped from blood. Robby was aware of other voices, of people wondering if that was Jack and was it... no... it couldn't have been.
The doors closed behind a team of people all teaming in, stuttering when they saw you.
“Hook her up!” ordered Robby, ignoring any protocol of gowns and gloves. If he was going to get you back he was going to feel the beat of your heart under his palms. “Jack, move!”
Jack slowly climbed down and Robby jumped up next, quickly taking over compressions.
He remembered kissing down your chest, hiding himself there on mornings he wanted to steal away five minutes, pulling the covers up past the two of you. How he was breaking ribs to keep you alive. “Somebody get a bag on her, now!”
“She's- she's been down a long time,” said Jack, catching his breath.
Robby thumped down on your chest, kidding himself with the dull flutter of your eyelashes, knowing it was only through the force of his hammering down on you. “She's alive.”
“Jesus, Jack, you're as cold as ice,” said Dana from somewhere behind Robby.
“I'm fine,” he dismissed. “Robby, you shouldn't be working on her, brother.”
Others in the room stopped, hearing that.
It was protocol family waited outside, that if family or friends ever came in demanding help the same DNA did not attend. They were too emotionally clouded. To invested to think straight. The last time Robby found himself in this situation: blood pumping in his ears, chest tight was trying to save Jake's girlfriends life.
He'd failed.
The only person to pull him back from that was you.
There'd be nobody if you didn't pull through. He'd be left in that pedes room, never to leave.
“Robby!” Jack tried again.
“Shut up and get me some warm saline!”
“Oh, no,” said Jack, walking around till he was on the other side of your gurney. “No, I'm not going anywhere.”
Robby was still pressing his hands down on your chest when Jack reached over, past the bag they'd finally clamped over on you, and stroked back your hair.
“We're gonna get you through this,” he uttered in an oddly tender moment.
“We need to get a central line in her,” said Matteo.
Jack looked at Robby. “Brother.”
“No.”
“You have to move, we need to get a line in her.”
Robby knew that. He knew so much as a doctor, as chief attending. But he couldn't stop, he physically couldn't bring himself to.
“Robby, man, you gotta let go.”
“I can't... I can't... I can't...” he said. The only thing keeping him sane was the one, two, three, four count in his head, was the cold feeling of your flesh under his hands. “Push three milligrams of epi.”
Jack huffed in frustration, probably the only thing keeping him warm. He marched around your bed to his side. “Robby, so help me god I will drag you out of here if you don't let her go!”
“I can't!” he yelled.
It was selfish but Robby had some how convinced himself he could be selfish with you. He could hold on tighter in the mornings and let you go for the rest of the day. He could watch patients get close to you because he knew it was him who got to kiss you. He could hold back the worst parts of himself to keep you, no matter how much it tore him apart to push you away on the days he wanted to be closest.
No, Robby could never let you go.
If you ever tried to leave him, he'd hold on tighter.
Robby dropped his voice low. “I can't.”
Jack took in a slow breath, a gentle hand on Robby's bicep. “Okay. Okay. You don't have to let her go... but to save her you have to move aside.”
A monitor somewhere in the room beeped.
Slowly, Robby moved from your chest.
The people swarmed you. Someone cut into you, getting a central line in on your other side.
Robby stayed where he was, a hand holding yours tightly as if he could squeeze his own life into yours. He cried- maybe loudly- at the feel of how cold you were.
“What's her temp?” asked Jack.
“Eighty.”
Robby looked up to the monitor reading your vitals. “That's- that's too low.”
“We're getting her warmed up.”
“Get the warm saline.”
“We are.”
Robby leaned over you once the line was placed, brushing back your hair and trying desperately to ignore how cold you were. “You're not dead, you're not,” he said, low for you. Your vitals may have been saying different. “You're not dead.”
“Doctor Robby-”
“Please,” he begged with trembling lips. “Please, don't do this to me.”
A monitor sung low and dry. The classic song of a flatline.
His head jerked up.
Jack caught his stupor and pushed him from you, sending him into Dana's ready hold. “She's going into V-fib!”
Dana held Robby. Physically she wasn't strong enough to hold him back but Robby wasn't strong enough to fight against her. “Robby... Robby, c'mon, let's wait outside.”
He was shaking his head.
“Panels, charge to three hundred!” called out Jack.
Dana had just managed to push him out the doors as he shouted clear!
Through the glass Robby watched your body jerk but not respond.
“Please, please, please,” he uttered. His back hit the nurses station, his knees giving out as he slowly slid and sank to the floor.
“Okay, okay,” muttered Dana, falling with him and holding him there.
The Pitt seemed to stand still at the sight of their boss, white faced and hands trembling, brushing back his hair. Noise travelled quick, that it was you in the bed, ribs breaking from compressions, chest hurting from the shock.
Robby's hands clasped in front of him, his star of David chain clenched in his hands. “Please.... she can't do this to me, please.”
Dana tugged on his body, bringing him in closer. With her sharp gaze she pushed everyone else that dared try and get closer away. “C'mon, Robby, she's strong, you know that. And stubborn like hell, huh?”
Robby nodded along with her words, un-sure if he could believe it.
“Charge again, three hundred, let's go!” called Jack, rubbing the panels before everyone backed up. “Clear!”
There was a small beep, a pick up in the line.
“There! Resume compressions!”
“Doctor Robby!” Santos ran up, her gown like a cape around her. She slowed to a stop in front of the two slumped. “Dana. Dana, is it- is it true, is it?”
Robby looked up, tear stained cheeks red.
“Yeah, kid,” said Dana, sadly.
Santo's jaw trembled before she shook her head in resolute, saying one simple word. No. Then she stormed into the room.
Robby knew you favoured Santos and somewhere along the way Robby had come to look for her when an interesting case came in. He came to favour the way you smiled at Santos when she did things right and Robby searched for any smile he could get from you.
So, he pushed himself up on shaky legs and followed her in- back into the chaos that was your room. The blankets had slipped from your body in the shocks and he desperately tried to hold himself back from fixing them.
“Doctor Abbot-” said a nurse or a intern or someone in the room. “It's been thirty minutes.”
“Hold compressions.”
Robby knew it was to check your pulse but he winced when they paused, when your body didn't respond.
“Still asystole, resume compressions.” Jack caught Robby's gaze.
He'd seen that look on Jack's face. Had seen the hopelessness and the devastation at losing a patient not only in his face but in his own reflection. “Don't-”
Jack lowered his head. “Robby.”
“No, Jack, her temp is not up! She's cold,” he said, walking back around the room. He rolled his shoulders back, pulling on gloves. If nobody else was going to save you he would. “She is not dead! She's not- She's not dead till she's warm and dead! Push another round of epi!”
Matteo jumped at the chance.
Jack stood by Robby's side. “Just... prepare yourself, okay? She's been down a long time. She might not come back from this.”
Robby glanced back at him. “She will.”
“And even if she did-”
Robby cut him off. “She will.”
They couldn't send you up to the OR- there was nothing surgical to do. They couldn't send you to the ICU- you weren't stable. They could work on you for hours, in the pitts of hell.
Robby didn't stop Jesse from compressions but he leant over you, leaning his lips into your forehead. “You'll come back, you have to come back.”
“What's her temp?”
“We're up to eighty-eight.”
“When was our last epi?”
“Ten minutes ago.”
“Push again.”
At some point Santos pushed her through the crowd, taking compressions from Jesse who she deemed weak-armed.
“Doctor Santos-” said Jack, the only one seeing this for what it was. A disaster. One more emotional person in the room wasn't going to help. If you woke you might just choke on tears from them all.
“I can do it,” she argued, nodding to the night attending. “I can do it.”
Santos was as stubborn as you. If anyone might have been able to beat her heart into beating, it would be her.
Robby leant over you. Robby could feel your skin cold against his lips and he pet back any bit of you he could reach, trying to warm you. He caught Jack's tired gaze, his lifeless stare like he was already grieving you. “I never told her I love her, Jack.”
“Get an APG,” said Santos.
Jack clasped his shoulder. “Tell her now.”
Robby looked back down to you, past the bag pushing your breath, through Santos keeping your heart beat. He kissed your forehead. “I-” he chocked on the words. He couldn't remember a time where he'd said it and meant it like he does now.
He knew Jack was giving him a way out. He knew Jack was giving him the chance to live with no regrets.
But Robby would regret not dying with you if you didn't make it.
There was a silence throughout the room, not even the beating of a monitor keeping him sane.
Robby's hot tears hit your cheeks.
“Temp?”
“Up to neinty.”
“Halt compressions.”
Santos paused.
Nothing.
Then a shrill beeping.
If Robby thought it was life he was going to be souly mistaken.
“She's in V-fib again!”
Robby backed away, tucking his head down to his chest as he watched Jack get the panels, rub the gel on.
“Charge to three hundred- clear!”
Your body jolted again, blankets slipping down your bare body and Robby suddenly wanted to cover you, wanted to pull every tube keeping you alive out and just hold you. Warm or cold. He just wanted to hold you.
“Again, charge. Clear!”
There was a silence. Maybe you were so angry at him you were proving a point by dying. You were a good swimmer. Why didn't you swim?
Everyone in the room paused, seeming to wait for someone to call it.
Jack looked at Robby.
“No,” he said, pushing past everyone.
“Robby-” interjected Jack.
He snatched the panels from Jack. “Charge again, three hundred-”
“-Robby-”
“I said charge again!”
The room was heavy as Jesse moved to do so, charging them up.
“Clear!”
Your body jerked again, violent. Your face remained peaceful, Santos remained off to the side, waiting for orders, waiting to know. Everyone else was looking to each other, silently deciding who would be the one to drag Robby away from your body.
“Wait- there!”
In the middle of them all there sat a pick up in your heart.
The room jumped into discussion about how to carry on, about how to keep the momentum going while Robby pressed his stethoscope into his ears and the other down on you. He listened, catching the beat of your heart.
“She's warm, she's warm and she's alive,” said Jack with a smile.
You were dreaming. It was a sweet sort of thing.
It was a warm body blanketing you and hands holding you. It was lips you knew pressing along you and drawing out pleasure. There were three tiny words spoken into flesh.
It was Robby, his head laid upon your chest in your bed and mumbling the words, tracing every letter over your ribs. When you reached for his hair, when you tried to say the words again you coughed up water instead. You clawed at your throat. You chocked in panic-
Then there was a beeping bringing you out of sweet dreams.
“Hey, hey. Honey? Honey, can you look at me?” a warm hand was running over your head, pushing back your hair. “Open your eyes.”
You tried to. They felt heavy. Sleep heavy.
But someone was coaxing you through it, holding your hand and brushing back your hair.
“Yeah, there we go... there we go, hey.”
The lights were bright, almost painfully so as they blared in your eyes. It took you a couple blinks to get them right but when you did there was a dark shadow looming over you, blocking out the lights.
There was the ragged pull of a beard and the slope of a well known nose.
You breathed in and smelt burnt coffee and hand sanitiser. “Robby?”
He smiled, crows feet at his eyes. “Hey, honey.”
You pushed up your arm, finding it oddly weak like it had been weighted down. You found an IV down in your arm. The white lights... the white walls and the IV all made slow sense.
“Wh-what?”
“Easy, easy.” Robby grabbed at your arms, holding you. He helped you sit up, reaching over and plumping your pillow and holding you there.
Only when you heard the monitor calming down and felt the pain lessen did Robby let you go, perching close on the bed next to you and grabbing your hand again.
“What happened?” you asked, finding your throat parched.
Robby sighed, pulling your hand into your lap. “There was an accident at the docks. You went with the responders to help. Your patient had a seizure and...”
You remembered the dock, the wind cold and the yells. You remembered Jack was there and the patient, he was seizing. “What happened to him?” you asked.
Robby stared at you, a small shake in his head as his brows pinched together.
“The seizing, the patient.”
There was a small look of disbelief, a soft smile creasing his chapped lips.
“What?”
His smile turned sharp with affection as he looked down. Your hand, engulfed in his, was pressed to his lips. He stayed like that as the scenes played in his head and the smile slowly started to fall. “You were brought in, your body temp was eighty. Jack was- was doing compressions. We- we had to shock you, so much, you don't- ” Robby sighed out a shaky breath. “You don't know what it was like.”
The dock, the bodies, Jack. The bite of cold water like a thousand daggers piercing into your skin. You had gasped for breath, limbs flailing.
It had felt like dying.
“Oh.”
You rubbed at your chest, pain blooming.
“You might be a bit burnt, from the shocks. And we were- we did compressions for a while so you broke a rib,” he said, chocking down a cry.
You squeezed his hand. “We?”
He nodded, chin tucked into his chest. His lips were pursed.
You'd seen Robby cry before, in shades of red face and clenched palms and always trying to hide it away. But you'd never seen him try to hide away as much as he was now. Your hand escaped his hold, caressing down his cheek.
“Robby.... hey....”
His lips puckered to your palm, pressing a kiss there. His palm was large as he held your hand up to his cheek.
“Hey,” you cooed.
Robby glanced up at you. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry.”
“It's okay.”
“No, no it's not, it's not okay,” Robby took a shaky breath and scooted closer. His arm came over you, bracing himself on the bed. “You almost died.”
You searched his eyes but only found pain and defeat. He looked tired. Really tired. “But I didn't.”
“That's not the point,” he said. He brushed back strands of your hair, kept petting it down in a way you guessed comforted him more. “Jack was doing compressions for almost an hour. Your temp was down the whole time. We shocked you four times. Four.”
Robby's voice broke.
“You almost died and the last thing we did was argue.”
You didn't know what to say to that. The words I'm sorry were already rising and like he sensed it, Robby gave a small shake of his head. “Yeah... probably wasn't the best timing.”
“We're never arguing again, you understand?”
You smirked, wrapping your fingers around his wrist. You could feel the race of his pulse. “Give us a week.”
“No,” said Robby. “Never.”
Something sour tasted it your mouth.
“Because we- are we, broken up?”
“No. No. We are not,” he said sternly.
You let out a breath. “Good. Good. I'd have hated to wake up from near death to that.”
“I should have listened to you,” he uttered. “Noelle is nothing, everyone else is nothing, nobody means anything to me, only you. Only ever you. And I am never letting you go again, ever.” He kissed your hand again.
You smiled at him. “What if I need to pee?”
“You can hold my hand.”
“And on mornings where I have really bad morning breath?” you teased.
“That doesn't happen, you know that,” Robby smiled.
Without any arguments left you gave up, sinking into your sheets with a shiver.
Robby frowned. “Are you cold?” he was up at once, pulling at the covers over you and the blankets. He was all but tucking you in as you laid there, taking it.
“Robby.”
“Yeah?” he hummed.
You tugged at his arm, pulling him down.
“What are you- what are you doing?” he chuckled, lightly.
“I'm cold, you're a human furnace, hold me.”
Robby was on the verge of complaining even as you pulled him down on the bed. He grunted at the squeak of the bed, was careful of the monitors assessing you. He squeezed in, pulling the rail back up as you curled up to the side to give him space. “These beds are not made for two.”
“You'll have to get onto the attending about that,” you teased, resting your head on his shoulder.
“Yeah, first thing tomorrow.”
“Meh, I can persuade him, if you like.”
Robby smirked. “He'll do whatever you say.”
His arm slung over your shoulder and rested there, holding your body into him till your head was on his chest and you could feel the beat of his heart. It was just like you dream. Of comfort and warmth.
Robby said your name in a whisper.
You looked up at him to see his eyes screwed shut before releasing them.
“I...”
You watched the move of his lips. “Robby, you don't have to-”
“No, I want to,” he said. Robby's hand was careful as he cupped your face.
“You don't have to say it just because of what happened.”
“I'm not, believe me, I'm not,” he said. “I love you.”
It was the words you wanted to hear, the words you needed to know, the very thing to finish off your dream.
“Robby-” you interjected.
“I love you,” he smiled, grinning wide at you. “I've said it now, I don't think you'll get me to shut up.” There was fake remorse in his voice, a feigned sort of sorry.
“I can think of a few ways.”
Robby's lips were warm and giving as you puckered your up to his, kissing him slow. If you lost your breath kissing him it'd be a hell of a way to go.
Robby smiled against your lips. “That might work.”
His body half rolled onto yours, the bed creaking in protest. Only when your monitor warned of you losing breath did he pull away and check the machine.
“Get some rest, Robby, you look like you need it,” you said, kissing his cheek slow.
There was fight of protest in him that quickly gave up.
Robby looked up at you, wide eyed. “Can I stay?”
You nodded.
“I love you.”
The words he'd given you, the words he'd never forget to say. The words he'd spoken and would never take back.
summary: you and robby have managed to keep your relationship a secret from your coworkers for sometime with zero complications. that is, until the new attending and a positive pregnancy test threaten to ruin everything. (6.6k)
pairing: michael robinavitch / fem!pitt crew!reader
contents: established relationship, secret relationship, implied age gap, angst, hurt/comfort, jealousy (dr. al-hashimi wants your man BAD), protective!robby, domestic bliss cw for mentions of pregnancy & pregnancy complications, brief mentions of blood, very brief mentions of puking, very brief mentions of surgical procedures, smut 18+ (MDNI): mirror sex, fingering, overstimulation, hand jobs
“Want a coffee?”
You hear Robby’s voice behind you, half-muffled, like it’s coming from underwater. The bitter stench of a fresh brew finds you a second later, followed by the man’s familiar cologne. You blink hard to remove the glaze from your eyes when his towering warmth looms behind you. Only then do you realize that you’ve been staring at the chart before you for some minutes now, still blank, with only a blinking black line looking back at you.
Robby knows you could use the pick-me-up. He can see it in your heavy eyes, still not all the way alert, even when you turn slowly to face him. You are neither pleased nor dissatisfied by his presence — and this foreign indifference from you has been haunting him for some days now. He extends the paper cup of steaming coffee to you like a peace offering, and pretends it doesn’t hurt when you snap the proverbial olive branch in half.
“Not particularly,” you answer, a little more deadpan than you mean to be, because you can feel the exhaustion down to your bones now.
You think you need coffee right now like you need to breathe, in truth, but all the websites and forums have scared you off of caffeine for the foreseeable future — or, at least, for the next seven to eight months.
Robby nods through his own coffee, which singes the tip of his tongue and stings going down just the same.
“Okay…” he lilts and clears his throat as he sets his coffee cup on the desk next to your untouched one. “Then do you wanna tell me why you’ve been avoiding me lately?”
He drags his glasses from the pocket of his dark scrubs and slides the black rims over his eyes in one fell swoop, pretending to examine your empty chart just to be closer to you. Your heart lurches into your throat when you feel his crossed arms rubbing against your back. Your skin crawls in annoyance a second later, when his warm breath fans across the exposed skin of your neck.
It’s a tug of war your body has been battling for weeks — you love everything and nothing all at once. It’s driving you as crazy as it’s probably been making the man behind you.
“I live with you, Robinavitch,” you murmur lowly, fingers click-clacking on the clunky keyboard as you type on borderline autopilot. “I couldn’t avoid you if I wanted to.”
“Well, that just makes it sound like you want to avoid me,” he scoffs.
“If I wanted to, I wouldn’t be letting you breathe down my neck right now, would I?”
Robby laughs, a sharp exhale through his broad nose. You can hear the smile in his voice as he quips, “Well, now I’m gonna stand closer just to piss you off.”
Dana watches from the other end of the circular work station, peering at the two of you over the top of her clear glasses and shaking her head to herself. Because, sure, you work with some of the smartest people the world has ever seen, but she’s the only one perceptive enough to see how lovesick the two of you are.
(It took her less than a month to find out the two of you were dating, after your return from a less-than-subtle shared week off, with your scrubs smelling less of your perfume and more of Robby’s expensive laundry detergent).
“And they say romance is dead…” the woman lilts in a gritty deadpan.
Robby laughs under his breath in response.
The distant frown on your face never wavers.
The sight finds Robby like a knife to the chest.
His brows pinch as his brown eyes squint behind his glasses. “What is with you?” he hears himself ask, a little more blunt than he intended to be. “You’ve been acting weird for days now. It’s like ever since—”
“Dr. Robby?” a familiar voice calls from the otherside of the bustling work station.
Your heads whip over your shoulders in tandem to where Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi stands at the edge of the hall. Her plush lips curl into a smile as she smooths a rogue curl back behind her ear, with the hand not clutching her tablet. The polite grin sparkles in her eyes, so brown they’re almost black against the soft canvas of her olive skin.
As if it weren’t already abundantly clear that the universe despises you, the unmerciful gods have sent the most beautiful woman on this side of Pennsylvia into the Pitt. She was older than you and far smarter than she probably realizes. The combination of her being both closer to Robby’s age and intellect has given you a complex you’re too ashamed to admit to.
“Are you busy?” she asks, dark eyes flitting between the two of you. “I don’t want to interrupt.”
Robby opens his mouth to speak, to turn her down.
You answer for him.
“No, we were just wrapping up, actually,” you tell her, plastering an artificial smile on your lips that makes Robby’s brows furrow when your dull eyes dart back to his. “Right, Dr. Robinavitch?”
He takes the hint in stride and your distant rejection on the chin.
“Uh, right…” he drawls, nodding slowly and parting from you with a huff. “What do you need, Dr. Al?”
“Well, I think there are still a few things we need to go over before we…”
Their voices disappear as they walk down the long hallway.
You mourn his warmth when he leaves. Your chest deflates with a wavering breath you didn’t know you were holding.
“So…” Santos lilts as she leans on the desk in front of you, drumming her palms on the surface. She flashes you a smile, but the wide look in her green eyes makes it look more like a grimace. “Dr. Al-Hashimi… Do we… like her?”
You shrug, still typing. “She seems nice. I guess.”
“Oh, yeah. She seems real nice…” Santos lilts in a gritty monotone, then scoffs at the look you give her. “You don’t see how close she is with Dr. Robby? Yeah, she wants a taste of that tall glass of skim milk real bad.”
“Haven’t noticed,” you respond, despite the jealousy burning like rolling lava in the pit of your stomach.
“Ew,” Whitaker blurts from the desk over, pale features screwed in disgust. “Why would you choose the worst type of milk?”
“Because men are the worst type of milk,” Santos answers like it’s obvious.
Whitaker doesn’t exactly understand her meaning, but to be fair, he rarely ever does most days. He just nods with a confused look pinching his face. “Touche…?”
The interaction from earlier that morning weighs on you all day. You can feel it physically, a heavy swirling in your stomach, that rises inevitably into your throat some hours later.
You were in the middle of performing a particularly bloody cricothyrotomy in a busy examination room with all hands on deck when it finally hit you. You were just barely able to ask Langdon to take over before the nausea could strangle you.
With Robby manning the camera shoved several inches down the sedated man’s throat, he was forced to watch you storm out, ripping off your bloody gown and gloves as you went.
“Is she okay?” Dr. Al-Hashimi wondered aloud, passing Langdon the thin blue bougie and helping him ease the instrument into the man’s open mouth.
It took Robby a second too long to realize she was asking him specifically. He blinked hard, clearing the glaze of concern from his eyes, and shook his head. “No idea…”
“Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” Dr. Garcia crooned from the head of the room with a knowing smirk and a mischievous twinkle in her eyes behind her safety glasses. “Kept her up all night, didn’t ya, Robby?”
“Not the time or the place, Garcia.”
“I was just asking if you had her working late,” the woman shrugged with a feigned air of innocence. “That’s all.”
“Oh, I’m sure you were…”
Robby didn’t see you again until the procedure was done. By then, you had already puked up your breakfast and brushed your teeth with the hygiene kit typically reserved for patients. You’d gotten some of your color back, too, from where the sudden wave of nausea had you corpse-like and clammy-skinned.
“You okay?” he’d ask with concern sitting heavily in his dark brown eyes behind the glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. He peers over the monitor, following your form as you pump hand sanitizer from the dispenser on the wall.
“I’m fine,” you answered instinctively, rubbing your palms together. “It was just… a lot of blood.”
“Never bothered you before.”
“I know. Weird, right?”
Robby opted not to press you on the obvious at the time, just told you to take a break for a while —“if not for you, then for me,” he’d pleaded, and thought you might listen to him for a change.
You’re much too stubborn for any of that, though, and you’ve never been entirely sure what to do with yourself when you aren’t doing something useful with your hands. It’s two of the main reasons he fell in love with you in the first place — and, coincidentally, two of the main reasons you constantly stress him out.
Robby stops suddenly in his tracks, shoes squeaking against the tile, when he passes by the security room window. He sees you through the glass, sticking post-it notes to the wall with Ahmad, the security guard, at your side.
The dry-erase board has since been cleared and labeled: “How come? How long? How many?” with various other specifications scrawled in your neat handwriting to make a makeshift grid.
The man shakes his head despite the soft smile on his face and doubles back for the door.
“You know, when I said ‘take a break,’ I meant an actual break,” he says in lieu of any real greeting. His arms strain against his scrub sleeves when he crosses them over his chest. “I didn’t mean helping these bozos out with their gambling ring.”
“Well, this bozo is about to be $100 richer, Robinavitch,” Ahmad says with a wide grin, flashing him the wad of cash he’s been collecting from miscellaneous bets all day. “Don’t worry— I’ll throw the Pitt a pizza party or something. I’m not totally heartless.”
“Good to know,” Robby nods before his eyes flit back to you.
“I like organizing,” you tell the man, when you feel his gaze boring into the back of your head. You press each of Whitaker’s bets into the proper squares — outage, $40. “I’m good at it. It helps take my mind off… everything…”
You exhale a heavy sigh and smooth the bright blue post-it onto the board.
Robby frowns, though you aren’t looking at him to see it. “Like what—?”
“How’s the grid coming along?” Dr. Al-Hashimi wonders aloud as she saunters into the security room.
Robby notices that you don’t turn your head to answer her question or to otherwise acknowledge her presence. Your shoulder just tense instead, like she’s startled you, or like her being there alone has you holding your breath. To be fair, though, Robby doesn’t turn to look at her either when she walks to stand at his side.
“Why?” Ahmad asks with a teasing grin. “Wanna get on the books?”
“Yeah, actually…” the woman lilts in a pretty voice as her dark eyes scan the slowly building grid before her. Her lips curl into a teasing grin when she finds Robby’s name scrawled along several neon orange sticky notes. “Put me down for… Flooding, four hours, and thirty patients.”
Robby scoffs to himself — it’s an exact copy of his bet, just a bit more dialed up. His eyes follow the woman’s form as she passes Ahmad a creased twenty-dollar bill. He scratches at the gray patch in his beard and jokes, “Well, that sounds awfully familiar, doesn’t it, Dr. Al?”
“Don’t worry, Dr. Robby,” she shrugs. “I’ll buy you a drink with my winnings.”
You can hear the quiet smile in her voice, even though you aren’t looking at her to see it. You can practically feel the look she’s giving Robby, too — all doe-eyed and glittering, like she knows some sort of secret she isn’t willing to share just yet.
What you can’t quite figure out, though — and what you’ve struggled to figure out for days now — is how Robby might be looking at her. He’s too secretive. Too stoic. A brick wall in every sense of the word.
His squinted eye expression never wavers, and never truly does when he’s looking at her, but you wonder what he might be thinking behind him. Does she annoy him? Does he like that she annoys him? Is her constant teasing attractive to him the way it used to be with you?
The nauseous feeling returns to your stomach in that instant, along with a distant cramping that makes your heart drop — a ring of dull, red-hot pain you can feel up into your back.
“That is… very presumptuous of you,” Robby responds with an air of indifference that borders on playful.
“Well, I happen to call that confidence,” she retorts with a similar playfulness that’s far more obvious in her pretty voice.
Your mouth parts to gulp for air when the nausea starts to strangle you once more.
“Have you talked to Dana yet?” you hear yourself ask Ahmad, though your voice sounds much further away than that, like it’s coming from someone else entirely. “I haven’t seen her name.”
“Not yet,” the taller man answers, still scribbling down Dr. Al’s bet with a pungent Sharpie you can smell from here. “I meant to catch her in the break room, but it slipped my mind—”
“I’ll go find her,” you blurt before the words have properly left the man’s mouth.
You spin on your heel, fighting back the dizziness and stumbling back a step when you find Robby much closer than anticipated. His dark eyes soften with concern; yours widen like you’re looking at a stranger.
“Excuse me, Dr. Robby,” you murmur, polite and half-strangled, as the cramping sensation swells. You duck your head from the quiet looks of worry all around you and hurry out of the room.
Robby watches you disappear through the window, unsure of whether or not to follow after you. The dilemma glues his feet to the floor.
You don’t want him near you now but, at the same time, you hate him for not coming with you. The contradiction makes you feel like puking.
Your vision goes red. The sight of blood stains your retinas, as though you had been looking at the sun for too long and are blinded with every blink. The deep crimson blotched in your panty liner was too dark and much too heavy to be the normal spotting you’d anticipated. Your mind reels for what might be the cause — the worst case scenario and then some — and you get lost in the spiral for several long minutes, all alone in the narrow stall of the E.R. bathroom.
A knock on the door brings you to life again.
A call of your name makes your heart drop to your cramping stomach.
“Robby?” you call back, rushing to pull up your scrub pants and flush the toilet behind you, despite not having actually used it.
The stall door clicks open and fills the tense quiet of the bathroom. You step out and find the man peeking through a crack in the ajar door, with only a sliver of his face on display. Despite not having the strength to smile, you manage to joke in a strangled voice, “Do you have any idea how creepy you look right now?”
Robby exhales sharply through his nose in place of a laugh. His eyes are still heavy with worry as they follow your form to the sink, where you drench your hands in foamy soap and warm water.
“Just wanted to make sure you didn’t keel over in here,” he tells you, only partially joking. “Why didn’t you tell me you were sick? I wouldn’t have let you come in today.”
“I’m not sick,” you say, definitive but still a little vague, as you reach for the paper towel dispenser at your side.
“No?” he calls when you turn your back to him. “What are you then?”
Hopefully still pregnant, you think cynically to yourself as you shut off the running faucet and chuck the crumpled paper towel in the bin. Because apparently I can’t even do that right—
“It’s just been a long day, Robby…” you confess with a heavy sigh as you close the distance between you.
“It’s barely noon,” he says.
“I know.”
You don’t look at him as you walk by, knocking gently into his shoulder as you slide past him in the doorway. The chaos of the Pitt finds you immediately — muddled conversation, constant beeping, and three nurses chasing a naked psychiatric patient down the hall. There is a strange comfort in the noise, but there’s a never-ending panic in it, too.
You struggle now to find the balance as you weave through the crowded emergency department with all the effortlessness of someone who’s mastered the sea of chaos. Robby tries to follow you, but loses you first behind a patient in a wheelchair, then another in a gurney headed for the morgue downstairs, and then by—
“Everything okay, Dr. Robby?”
He flinches when Dr. Al-Hashimi appears suddenly at his side, seemingly everywhere all at once — which is probably the exact reason why she’s one of the best attendings to ever touch this floor.
“Jesus…” the man huffs when the fleeting panic passes.
“You think you’d be used to meeting me this way by now,” the older woman jokes with a quiet laugh. Her pretty smile wavers with a flickering look of confusion when Robby’s eyes dart over her shoulder, flitting over the crowd like he’s searching for something within it. “Are you sure you’re okay? You’ve been acting off all morning.”
Robby chokes back the immediate anger that rises in his throat like bile. He understands why you’ve been dismissing him all day, now that the same suffocating concern he’s been giving you is now being pointed at him.
“Great observation, Dr. Al,” the man quips in a gritty monotone.
He steps to the side to walk past her. She steps back in front of him a second later, always so stubborn in her way. Her doe eyes harden while Robby’s widen in confusion.
“I can’t help out around here if you cut me down with something snarky every time I try to talk to you, Dr. Robinavitch.”
Robby concedes with an exhaled breath through his nose. He nods slowly to himself, raking his calloused palms down the length of his scruffy face. Muffled behind his hands, he says, “You’re right. I apologize—”
“I forgive you,” the woman nods.
“—But you can’t come in the middle of everything and expect to fix it,” Robby continues with a sterner look.
“I can try.”
“But not everybody wants you to,” he says, far kinder to her than he’s been since she got here, despite the harsh truth in his words.
She’s left stewing in them when he walks away from her and after you.
It takes Robby another five minutes to find you. You’re not with Dana at the work station, or with any of your patients, or getting a coffee in the breakroom. He’s almost certain you’ve disappeared entirely until he starts checking empty rooms. He finds you in Central 20, catches the back of your form through a sliver in the drawn curtains.
He raps his knuckles against the glass door, which squeaks quietly when he pushes it ajar. “Yell at me all you want, but I’m coming in,” he says to announce his presence, before stepping past the threshold.
He says it mostly in jest, and with a smile you can hear in his gravelly voice. The distant playfulness ebbs at the sight he finds before him — you, in front of an ultrasound machine, with tears glittering on your face beneath the white-blue fluorescent lights overhead, which you wipe haphazardly away with the back of your hand.
You drop the wand into place at the sound of Robby’s voice, stepping back from the screen as if it had burned you. Your black top falls into place over your stomach a second later.
Whatever was on the screen before has since zapped to black.
Robby’s eyes dart between it and you. A distant panic flashes across his chest. He crosses his arms as if to stifle that feeling, and clears his throat to keep it from strangling him.
“What’s… What’s this?”
You sniffle, blinking wildly at him with wet eyes and dark lashes clumped together with tears. “I… I can explain.”
He nods slowly, feigning an air of composure despite his racing heart. “Please do.”
“I, uh… I took a pregnancy test,” you confess for the first time out loud, voice wavering under the weight of your emotion. “A few weeks ago now, I think—”
“Weeks?” Robby hears himself blurt with his brows raised to his hairline. “Why… Why are you just telling me this now?”
“Because I don’t know how,” you shrug, voice cracking, as you wring your hands into a knot and ramble in a single breath: “You told me you didn’t want kids. We agreed that we didn’t want any— So I thought I’d just get rid of it, you know? So we wouldn’t have to worry about it. But I didn’t want to do that without telling you first, but I… I didn’t know how you’d take it, or the pregnancy, and so I just siked myself out—”
“Breathe,” he tells you, ducking down to meet your watery gaze as he takes slow steps towards you. He can feel the panic radiating off of you like steam.
“I was scared you were gonna leave me either way, and then Dr. Al came—”
The name gives him great pause. “Dr. Al? What does Dr. Al have to do with this?”
“Everything!” you answer, a little louder than you mean to be in your hysteria. “She’s perfect! She’s smart, she’s your age, and she’s not actively carrying your child after we agreed that’s not what we wanted— Don’t laugh!”
Robby hides his smile behind his fist.
“I’m not,” he says, struggling to choke back his laughter. “I’m not, okay? I just— I love the shit outta you, you know that?”
He closes the distance between you in a few short strides. He wraps his arms around your shoulders and pulls you into his chest, swaddling you in his inherent warmth and musky cologne. Your hands wrench in the stiff fabric of his scrubs, like you’re worried he might slip away at any moment. Your tense form deflates with a wavering sigh.
“You don’t hate me?” you wonder, muffled into his shoulder.
Your words make his heart ache.
“I couldn’t,” he tells you.
“I just… I feel so bad…”
“Why?” Robby asks with his lips against your hair, right before he presses a chaste kiss there.
“‘Cause I… I didn’t think I wanted a baby. Like, at all. And then I went to the bathroom, and there was blood, and I thought—” You cut yourself off when your voice breaks. “I thought that maybe I lost it, and it made me realize that I do want it— The baby, I mean. But that scares me even more than not having it, ‘cause I don’t know what that means for us—”
“Doesn’t have to mean anything,” he shrugs. “Doesn’t change a thing— whether you want to keep it or you don’t.”
You jerk back from him, flashing the man a teary-eyed scowl. “Don’t just say that ‘cause you don’t wanna hurt my feelings.”
“I’m not,” he promises through a chuckle you can feel rumbling in his chest. “If you don’t wanna have a baby, we’ll take care of it here. But if you do, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll even sell my motorcycle in solidarity.”
“Oh, thank god—” A teary laugh sputters from your mouth before you can stop it. It feels like it’s the first time he’s seen you smile in days. He leans in to press a kiss to it, but you keep him away with your hands to his chest. “Do you really mean it?”
“About the motorcycle?” he presses.
“About having this baby? With me?”
Robby inhales sharply through his nose, calculating his words because he only knows one thing for sure: “I wanna spend the rest of my whole life with you… I’m in it for the long haul, alright? Whatever that looks like.”
When he ducks down to kiss you again, you let him.
You exhale slowly through your nose and savor the feeling of his beard against your skin and the taste of his mouth, a mixture of coffee and spearmint and something without a name but still achingly familiar. Your fingers wrench in the collar of his scrubs to pull him impossibly closer.
The feeling of him against you is louder than the familiar voice outside.
“20 is open. Why is nobody—”
The door swings open again. The two of you just barely manage to pull away from each other when Dr. Al-Hashimi peeks in. She stills suddenly in the threshold, wide eyes darting between the two of you. She gains her bearings in a flicker of a second and calls over her shoulder as she shuts the door behind her.
“Never mind. It’s taken…”
You and Robby hold your breaths until she’s gone.
“Do you think she’ll…?”
“No,” Robby shakes his head. “She won’t tell anybody.”
Your lips curl into a quiet, crooked grin that glimmers mostly in your wet eyes. “Well, I was actually going to ask if she’ll finally stop flirting with you now, but… Good to know.”
“She’s not flirting with me,” Robby scoffs.
“She literally asked you out for drinks earlier. She couldn’t be less subtle if she tried—”
He tilts his scruffy cheek to his shoulder, dark eyes squinting in time with the quiet smile that pulls slowly at his mouth. “You get real pretty when you’re jealous. You know that?”
“Well, I’m about to get real damn adorable, Robinavitch—”
You survive the rest of your shift, but only barely.
It pains you to turn down beers with your coworkers after the fact, but you feel the exhaustion of the day down into your bones, and you opt to save yourself the embarrassment of having to come up with a lie about why you’re not drinking with the rest of them.
Robby hangs around for a bit, just to make it a little less obvious. He sips at his can of beer just long enough for you to walk out of sight before following behind you, where you wait for him at the bus stop around the corner. You make the trek to your shared home together like you do every day, and nobody’s the wiser.
The rest of them are left betting on how long it’ll take for you and Robby to finally start dating while you’re getting ready for bed alongside each other.
“Did you hear me?” the man calls over the drumming shower faucet behind you.
“Mhm,” you hum through the toothbrush in your mouth. “Something about… moving something?”
Your freshly washed hair dampens the collar of your oversized t-shirt, borrowed from Robby’s side of the closet, when you bend over to spit toothpaste into the sink.
“Moving out,” Robby corrects.
“Why would we do that?” you ask, and then, muffled through the toothbrush, say, “We’ll just turn the guest room into a nursery, and then we’ll be set. It’s easy.”
“You say that now, but I know you,” he says with such conviction that it makes you roll your eyes. Without looking at you from behind the opaque shower curtain, he continues, “And don’t roll your eyes at me, either. This baby is gonna be here before we know it, and by then, you’ll wanna get out of here and move somewhere more permanent—”
The hissing shower faucet turns off to a slow, steady drip. Robby reaches blindly for his towel, wiping it down the length of his face before wrapping the fluffy white nettle around his waist. The curtain opens with a faint swishing sound.
Your eyes remain locked on his form through the steamy bathroom mirror as he steps out onto the plush bath mat — pale skin flushed, dark hair wild on his head, scruffy chest dripping, pudgy stomach hanging over the towel.
“And, trust me, honey. The last thing you’re gonna wanna do while you’re nine-months pregnant is move,” Robby continues, meeting your glassy gaze in the mirror. “Or much less with a newborn. Could you imagine?”
You forget to respond for a long beat, with your toothbrush still caught in your mouth, softly jutting out your cheek
Robby’s brows pinch at the glassy-eyed look on your face. His lips quirk into a soft smile behind his glittering beard. “Are you even listening to me?”
“Mhm…”
“Yeah?” Robby grins wider as he closes the distance between you, bare feet padding on the tile. Warmth radiates from his freshly washed skin, which smells distinctively of sweet musky bodywash. You lean further into him, letting his towering body dampen the back of your t-shirt.
He presses his nose to your hair and leaves a chaste kiss to your temple before he mumbles there, “What’d I say then, huh?”
“You said that…” You drag the toothbrush from your mouth, talking through the spit on your tongue and the foam on the corner of your lips. “…My pregnant girlfriend is really hot and super turned on right now, so I should probably take care of that for her before the moment passes and she hates everything again.”
You feel Robby’s chuckle rumbling in his chest. “Yeah, close enough—”
He ducks down to press a longer, wetter kiss to your neck. You giggle quietly when his beard brushes the delicate skin there, shrugging him off with your shoulder as you bend softly at the waist to spit toothpaste in the sink. Robby keeps you at that angle with a wide hand smoothed over your shoulder.
“Oh, we’re doing this here?” you lilt, rinsing off your toothbrush and dropping it back into the cup beside the faucet.
“Well, I’m nothing if not proactive, honey…”
You wipe your mouth off with the hand towel beside the sink and rest your elbows on the counter’s edge. You have only a partial view of Robby’s body in the steamy mirror from this angle — a sliver of his soft stomach, the expanse of his scruffy chest, and the attentive gaze he points at his free hand that trails down your spine and over the curve of your ass.
Your breath catches when his pointer and middle finger run over the most sensitive part of you through the thin cotton of your underwear — from your drooling cunt to the top of your throbbing clit. He presses the pads of his fingertips there, and your exhale leaves in a quiet whimper as you hang your head on your crossed arms.
“Look how sensitive you are already…” Robby hums, almost sympathetically so, as he rubs his fingertips up and down the length of your clothed pussy. “I bet I’ll slip right in… What do you think?”
You nod slowly, wordlessly.
Robby grins to himself at the sight of you, already half-gone, and he’s barely even touched you.
He hooks his fingers around the hem of your panties, dragging them to the side to put your glimmering cunt on display for him. His middle finger slots effortlessly between your folds, slippery like silk under his touch. It slides within your velvety walls with little effort as your cunt clenches around him, subconsciously suckling him further inside.
Another whine sounds in the back of your throat despite yourself as the stress of the day ebbs from your body. Robby can feel it under the palm he keeps curled around your shoulder. He knows you’ll cum for him any second now with how sensitive you’ve gone, but he doesn’t say that out loud. He just keeps searching for your sweet spot as your honey leaks into his palm.
“You shouldn’t have let yourself get all pent up like this, baby…” he mutters in a low voice, slipping in his pointerfinger beside his middle with a similar ease. “Should’ve let me take care of you.”
“I’m sorry,” you hear yourself say — apologizing not just for now, but for earlier that day, and for all the days before when you refused to be open with him.
“Don’t be sorry,” Robby coos in a gravelly voice, too sweet for the sinful words that follow. “Just cum for me.”
You mourn his grounding touch when his hand leaves your shoulder. The protesting whine gets caught in your throat a second later when he curls his left arm around your waist and presses his fingers to your clit again, rubbing mercilessly at the sensitive button.
His touch is unrelenting. A honeyed pleasure starts to bloom within you almost instantly. A coil in the pit of your stomach threatens to snap, wound tight from a week or more of not being touched.
“Please fuck me,” you hear yourself beg through panted breaths as you lift your heavy head to meet Robby’s gaze in the mirror. Your eyes glaze over with pleasure. Your thighs start to tremble around his hand. You whine again, “Please fuck me…”
“This isn’t the only time you’re gonna cum tonight,” Robby promises you, warns you. “So just go ahead and cum for me. I got you.”
Your head drops back onto your arms again. Your hips buck against his fingers, chasing the pleasure and running from it all at once. You rise to the tips of your toes when the buzzing pleasure crescendos. Your body tenses, trembles, then releases when the orgasm finally hits you. You cage your bottom lip between your teeth when your leaking pussy flutters around Robby’s fingers.
“There you go…” you hear him praise through the heartbeat in your ears. “C’mon. Give it to me. I want all of it. C’mon…”
His fingers never let up, even after the high has come and gone and left nothing more than tremoring aftershocks in his wake.
Your blissful moans turn into strangled whines as the sensitivity increases — a pleasure you crave, but a pleasure that terrifies you nonetheless.
“It’s okay,” Robby rambles in a gentle coo. “I got you— It’s okay. Just give me one more. I got you.”
You whimper when his fingers drag out of your cunt. You’re left clenching around nothing when he hooks his right arm loosely around your neck, dragging you up against his scruffy chest, still damp from the shower.
Your head tips back against his shoulder as your hands curl around his biceps. You watch through lidded eyes in the foggy mirror as Robby sticks his middle and forefinger into his mouth, licking your honey from his skin and sighing at the familiar taste of you. You whine at the sinful sight, and at the man’s fingers on your clit that refuse to slow down.
Your right hand slips from his arm and reaches blindly behind you, slipping in between your bodies. The towel unknots and pools around Robby’s barefeet when your hand wraps around his stiff cock. He’s softer than velvet in your fist, and leaking pearls of precum that your thumb swipes over.
A groan sounds deep in Robby’s throat. A dazed grin tugs at your mouth.
“Cum for me,” you tell him through labored breaths.
“You first,” Robby huffs, then commands. “Put your leg up.”
You bend your knee and rest your foot on the shelf below the counter, opening yourself up for him. You sigh a low moan. Robby exhales through his nose in place of a laugh.
“You’re close again, aren’t you?” the man pants in a gruff voice, gritting his teeth through the distant stinging in his wrist — ‘cause he’d sooner lose the feeling in his hand than stop now. He smiles lazily when you nod against his shoulder, digging crescent shapes into his bicep with the hand not massaging his twitching cock.
“Hold it.”
Your breath catches at his command. It makes the warmth in the pit of your stomach swell all at once. Your body tenses instinctively to hold it off.
“Wait for me,” Robby says, breath fanning against your cheek. “I’m almost there— Fuck.”
You turn your head, and he catches your mouth with his own. He kisses you like he’s trying to swallow you whole, licks into your parted lips like he’s tasting you for the very first time. His tongue feels like velvet as it ruts against yours — you can feel every grunt that rumbles in his throat as his orgasm nears; he can feel each of your whimpers as your second one sends shockwaves down your spine.
Your thumb swipes over the sensitive head of his cock, collecting the drools of precum there, and using that as lubricant to jerk the rest of him in your fist. Robby exhales a low grunt just before he parts from you with a quiet smack.
“Cum,” he pants, eyes heavy and lips kissed. “Right now. Cum right now. Shit.”
You cum for him again, not as quick or as powerful as the one before, but still enough to bring you to your knees if it weren’t for Robby’s strong arm keeping you to his chest. You whine as the coil in your stomach unknots itself, and as Robby’s twitching cock spits warm cum along the top of your fist.
He ducks down to bury his face in your neck, nipping at the burning skin while he groans through the waves of his own orgasm. You bury your nose in his damp hair as your high comes and goes, inhaling the sweet musk of shampoo in his silky brown locks.
There’s a lazy smile hinting at the edges of your mouth when Robby catches your eye in the mirror.
You hold his gaze when you release his softening cock, flashing him the glittering pearls of milky cum on your skin as you bring your hand to your mouth. Your pink tongue darts out to lick the salty tang away. Robby exhales a rumbling groan against you at the sight.
“Just give me a second…” he says through labored breaths. “And I’ll fuck you like you want…”
“Nah, you’re down for the count, Robinavitch,” you quip with a smile, parting from him for the first time in several minutes to flip the faucet back on to wash your hands. “You’ll be asleep before you can get it up again.”
“Hey,” he scolds, feigning offense, as he reaches for the discarded towel on the floor.
“It’s okay,” you shrug with a knowing glint in your eye. “It was a long day.”
“Well, if you weren’t so greedy, I’d have you face down in the bed right now,” he says, only partially playful, as he tucks his towel into place around his hips.
“Ooh. That sounds fun,” you lilt, flicking water from your fingertips before you turn the sink off again. “Raincheck?”
“Raincheck?” Robby scoffs in amusement. “Get your ass in that bedroom.”
The act of dominance makes your chest flare with a warm feeling. You smile all giddy as you walk by him. “Think if you fuck me good enough, we’ll have twins?”
Robby laughs at your stupid joke, a sharp breath through his broad nose. “I guess we’re about to find out…”
