i'm just a black woman who wants to write about her fave men to dream about before bed!
the custodian and the doctor - jack abbot x reader
synopsis: After months of job searching, you clicked on a position for an overnight custodial position in the Emergency Room at the Pittsburgh Medical Treatment Center. It paid more than any other job that you had seen thus far and it came with a retirement plan.
synopsis: After months of job searching, you clicked on a position for an overnight custodial position in the Emergency Room at the Pittsburgh Medical Treatment Center. It paid more than any other job that you had seen thus far and it came with a retirement plan.
chapter 1: the roof.
chapter two: the ride - All you wanted to do was go home after the world's longest shift and your bus had left you in the dust. Jack comes to help you out.
There was always the same overwhelming sounds and smells that you always had when you entered back into the ER.
Bright fluorescent lights. You could feel the sizzle of the lights in the back of your brain.
The tapping of keys.
The plastic smell of nitrile gloves.
Hand sanitizer.
The odd combination of clean and dirty. Nothing felt all the way clean here.
All you had to do was get through the last 30 minutes of your shift.
"Are you okay?" Amy said as she was tying the trash bag up. It felt like you could see through the bag to see the torn up shirts and bloody wipes.
You swallowed bile in your throat, "I am. Thanks for finishing that room for me. I'm sorry for freaking out and leaving that for you to finish up for me."
Amy finished tying the bag and looked at you, "You don't have to be sorry for having emotions. It's normal."
Emotions always needed to be sorry for existing and taking up space inside of you.
You nodded. "Let me help you finish up here so we can go home."
The carts needed to be restocked with sheets, wipes, and gloves. The mop head had to be changed. The sanitizer pumps needed to be refilled. All you could think about was your conversation with Jack.
Honestly, he was a mystery to you. Dr. Shen told you bits and pieces of his history that seemed to be information that you could have gotten from his LinkedIn.
It wasn't hard for you to make connections with other people. All of your parent teacher conferences in school had the same message.
"She's great but loves to chat in class."
It wasn't your fault. You wanted to learn more about everyone around you.
Over time, you learned to control yourself from chatting all of the time. That didn't stop other people from wanting to talk to you.
People naturally gravitated towards you whether you liked it or not. It didn't matter if headphones were in your ears or not. People wanted to talk to you.
Jack Abbot didn't seem to want to talk to you.
Jack never seemed interested in having a conversation with you.
No one liked the person that forced people into a conversation.
He hadn't been mean to you ever. He really just didn't make unnecessary conversation with you.
The roof conversation was unnecessary, right? He didn't need to tell you that story to comfort you. But, did he want to comfort you?
"You must have listened to that boring talk by Gloria. You're going to save the hospital so much money." Mel said behind you.
Both of your hands were clenched tightly around the hand sanitizer. It did look like you were trying to get every single drop out of the bag.
"You know I don't listen to those talks at all," you unclenched your hands, "It's already time for you day shifters to come in?"
"Yes ma'am. The sun is up and we are here," said Mel.
Clearly, Jack had been taking up your thoughts by not noticing the hum getting louder in the hospital.
The shift change was usually noticeable right away. All of the day shifters thought that all of the night time staff were neurotic to want to be awake at 4:00am and deal with crazy patients. It was a hidden secret that night shift was peaceful compared to day shift.
Day shift was pure chaos.
The chaos was a rush of people from nurses, aides, social workers, security officers, doctors, volunteers, and maintenance staff. There were people that you had no clue what they even did but they had a name badge. The name badge people were NPCs.
You did keep a running list of all of the day shifters you knew.
Dr. Robby was Jack's buddy. Sometimes frenemy.
Perlah, Princess, and Dana were the HBIC's of the nursing world. You wanted to be them when you grew up.
Dr. Frank Langdon and Dr. Mel King.
Dr. Mel King was the highlight to you. You naturally gravitated towards people like Mel. Her spirit was infectious in a serious way and you couldn't help to want to be her friend.
Shit. All your mind could come up with the word was shit. It smelled like sweet shit. You looked around and there was a trail of poop that looked like red clay.
"It's actually C-diff. But, yes. Sweet shit." You were thinking out loud again.
"What the hell is C-diff?"
Dr. Langdon led the way towards room number three and stopped suddenly, "C. diff is clostridioides difficile. It's highly contagious bacterium that causes diarrhea. Also, we haven't met yet. My name is Mel King. Please call me Mel."
"You can get diarrhea bad enough that you leave traces of it on the ground everywhere?" you asked.
"Yes. You aren't able to control your sphincter muscles which results in this," she said as she pointed to the ground.
"Before we go in there, you need to put this on. C-diff is contagious and I don't want you to get it." She handed over gloves, a paper gown, and a mask.
Did she expect you to do surgery?
Dr. King opened the curtain and God must have decided to punish you in that moment.
The smell of sweet shit doubled. You had to hold in a gag.
"Hi, Mr. Hendricks. My name is Dr. King. It looks like you have all of the signs of C-diff. I am going to prescribe you a medication that will help clear up the infection. Also, you should see your primary care physician to get a referral for a colonoscopy," explained Mel.
How did she have such a straight face while it smelled like shit had been boiling on a stove?
"I want you to be comfortable while you wait for your medication. My colleague and I are going to clean this room up so you're able to relax," Mel said as she nodded to you.
She turned to you with the box of Cavi wipes. "Let's get to cleaning."
Since the education and deep cleaning of C-diff, Mel was your buddy.
"The next shift can finish up here for you. You have about ten minutes until your bus is supposed to come."
Damn it.
Your bus has left you every day for the past two weeks and you didn't want to be caught waiting outside in the heat until the next one.
"Thank you for letting me know!" you said. You quickly finished putting away the cleaning supplies and ran to your locker. "I'll see you later, Amy. I gotta go!" Amy waved bye to you.
You needed to hustle to the bus. When you came outside of the hospital and got hit with the wave of heat, you watched your bus speed by.
"Oh. My. God. Not again!" you groaned loudly.
All you wanted to do was get on your bus, listen to your music, and get home. Take your shoes off. Let your dogs breathe. Shower. Rot on the couch.
Instead, sweat was starting to form on your forehead. You leaned against the pillar and let your backpack fall to the ground. Home felt so far away at this point.
"What are you doing out here? You trying to go back in there?"
You turned your head and Jack was standing with his backpack that had to be from the military. There was no way you could get a backpack like that at Walmart.
"My bus came ten minutes early and drove off without me. I'm either going to have to wait for the next one which comes in the next hour or walk four miles home. My feet are already screaming thinking about walking home," you said tiredly.
Jack looked at you, "Let me give you a ride home. There's no reason for you to wait for the next bus."
You didn't want him to have to go out of his way to drive you home. He had been on his feet all day saving people's lives. You could wait until the next bus came by inside of the hospital. The lobby had the best air conditioning. Corner Store Joe and you would be able to soak up some of that sweet air conditioning together.
"Hey. I can tell that you're thinking about going back into the hospital and waiting. You're not going to bother me or whatever you're thinking about," said Jack.
"Ugh, okay. I'll let you give me a ride home just because I'm tired and it's too hot out here. I'm going to give you some gas money since you're going out of your way."
He nodded and started to walk to the parking lot. You walked alongside him and tried to focus on his humongous backpack. Or, how it felt like hell outside. You couldn't think about the fact that Jack was taking you home.
He pointed to a black pick up truck with tinted windows.
"That's mine."
Of course, he drove a pick up truck. It was one of those that would be driving up a mountain in a commercial to show off how much it could haul. You walked over to the passenger side and reached for the handle of the passenger door.
Jack cleared his throat and looked at you, "No woman should have to open their door." He opened the door and gestured for you to get in the truck.
You climbed into the passenger seat and put your seatbelt on. Jack closed the door behind you.
Wait. Wait. Did he just open the door and wait until you were comfortable before he shut the door?
God God.
Before this moment became a core memory for you, Jack got into the car and turned on his truck.
Thank God for whoever invented air conditioning.
"You can put your address into my phone," Jack passed his phone to you.
You put your address into his phone and handed it back to him. Your fingers grazed his and you had to stop yourself from thinking about how his hands looked like grabbing the door handle.
Get a grip, girl.
This is the longest you had been around Jack.
"Do you have a preference on what you want us to listen to? I don't care either way." said Jack as he cut on the car, "Shen forced me to get Spotify so you could also play what you want."
You huffed out a laugh, "I was the one that had Shen switch from Pandora to Spotify so he has some nerve to force you to get it. I'm fine with whatever."
Jack pulled out of the hospital parking lot and turned onto the street. "How long has your bus been passing you by?"
"It has been about a week of the bus being early by ten to fifteen minutes. I don't know if it's a new driver or someone thinks that I need to get more steps in after being on my feet for twelve hours."
"What do you do if your bus doesn't come by?" said Jack.
"It depends on the day. I walk home or I'll wait for the next bus. It's really annoying when the bus comes early in the morning because I have to hustle to make it to work on time."
Jack stopped at a stop light and turned his head towards you, "You're telling me that you either walk three miles to work at night. Or walk back home after being on your feet for twelve hours?"
"Sometimes, yeah. It's better in the summer for me to walk to work because it doesn't get dark outside until late. If it's the morning, I'll wait in the hospital or I'll sit outside with Joe if it's not sweltering. For whatever reason, Joe knows the bus schedule by heart."
He nodded slightly and looked back at the road.
The hum of the engine was his response.
You looked at him at the corner of your eyes and noticed that he was calmer here. At the Pitt, he was on edge waiting for the next emergency. He hovered in the ambulance bay to see if he was able to help EMT. There was always a restlessness to him. Was it his time as an ER doctor? Or his time serving in Iraq?
Jack pulled into the front of your building and cut the truck off. That was the fastest ride back home ever.
"Thanks for the ride home. You didn't have to do that for me. What's your Venmo or CashApp?"
He shook his head, "I don't want your money."
"Come on, please. I don't want you to think that you had to give me a free ride."
"The ride wasn't a problem at all. You're not giving me any money," Jack said as he opened his door, "Don't get any ideas. I'm coming to open up your door."
He was really serious about women not opening up doors for themselves.
You gathered your backpack and waited for him. He opened the door and you hopped out of his truck.
It really made so much sense that he drove a truck.
"Have a good rest of your day and I'll see you in the evening," Jack said.
"You get some sleep and don't do whatever you do to keep yourself busy. Don't go saving kittens out of a tree," you said quickly.
You swore you heard an amused huff as you walked to your front door. You could feel his eyes on you until you unlocked your door and entered into your apartment.
"Thank you. I really appreciate that," you said with a shaky voice, I think we better get back down there before Shen burns down the place."
He thought, "I don't want to go back down to the hospital. I want to stay up here with you."
Don't say that out loud. Don't be weird.
He nodded at you and said "You're right, please lead the way."
He couldn't keep his eyes off of you as you walked down the stairs.
Jack didn't know what was going on with him when it came to you. There wasn't time to go into that when he needed to close out the last thirty minutes of his shift.
The hustle of day shift was coming in. It was sensory overload. He couldn't believe that he went from sitting in the dusty heat of Iraq waiting for an emergency alone to now having to be around 20 plus people every shift.
He could feel the weight of finishing up this shift. There were charts to finish, check in with the residents to sign off on any labs, and hand off to the day shifters.
Instead of that, Jack couldn't stop watching you with everyone who came into the door. Doctors, nurses, custodial workers, social workers, and even the grumpiest security officers gravitated towards you.
He wanted to be one of those people to you. But, why would you want to be around him?
Jack could list all of his issues in order.
Emergency room doctor who worked insane hours and was known to work double shifts with no problem.
A widow who's wife had died over two years ago and wasn't able to take off his ring until a month ago.
A man who couldn't stand fully for longer than six hours a day without his prosthetic pain throbbing throughout his body.
A man who wasn't able to sleep more than three stints without being woken up by his brain's variety of nightmares.
Yeah.. He didn't expect that you would want to talk to him.
"You must be thinking about something really serious because the vein from your neck is about to burst out."
Of course. Robby always knew when to interrupt his spiraling thoughts.
"Shut the hell up, Robby. Don't you have patients you need to save or something?"
Robby stood next to him and smiled, "Of course, this is the ER. I am trying to figure out what you're thinking about so hard. You're brain is going to explode."
"Don't worry about it. It's nothing," Jack said, "I am just ready to shower and go home." His eyes lingered over to you as you ran off to the break room, "It's time for me to wrap up for the day."
Robby looked at him and smirked softly, "You never want to leave the ER this quickly. Usually, you want to see if there's any exciting action happening on our shift before you go back home to your castle."
Jack never wanted to go home. It was too quiet. The Pitt gave him a break from the quiet.
Jack could see all of his crew getting ready to leave. All of them knew to wrap up as quickly as possible before they hit the weird period where they were desperate for sleep but couldn't sleep at all.
"I have a hot date with my shower and my couch."
He gave Robby a pat on the shoulder and gathered his jacket. He was ready for a shower, his couch, and try to think about anything but you.
He wondered how you got home from work.
His answer came to him leaving the doors from the Pitt and entering back into the world.
Your backpack that was covered in miscellaneous pins was thrown to the ground with defeat that only came from people who desperately wanted to go home. He could see the exhaustion in the slouch of your body.
He wanted to comfort you. He wanted to give you a hug after the shift you had.
No.
He just needed to make sure that you were okay.
"What are you doing out here? Are you trying to go back in there already?"
Smooth one, Jack.
He listened to you talk about your bus commute and what would you would have to do to get back. He could feel the weariness coming off of you.
Jack's entire job is listening to the problem and finding the solution. He knew how to fix this problem. He could give you a ride home.
Of course, he didn't want to become the person Gloria would use as an example of how to not make an employee uncomfortable by driving them home.
Instead of asking you if you wanted a ride home, he told you that he would give you a ride home.
What the hell happened to acting normal and asking if she even wanted a ride from you?
He watched you trying to figure out a way to not inconvenience him by driving four miles away from the hospital. He would drive you anywhere.
When you finally agreed to ride with him, he didn't know what to do after that. He wasn't the best conversationalist (according to Robby, Shen, and Ellis) and didn't know what you would want to talk about after the shift. Just because you were friendly and chatted with everyone at work didn't mean that you wanted to talk to him after work. You reaching out to the door handle of his truck finally snapped him out of his thoughts.
"No woman should have to open their door," he said.
Call him old fashioned. Jack's dad had drilled into him that no woman should have to open the door for herself. His dad would raise up from the dead if he started to let women open up their doors at this point in his life.
He watched as you gently smiled at him and turned to get into the truck. He could almost taste the combination of your faded perfume, your hair products, and the light smell of sweat on you.
Focus. All he asked was to drive you home. He definitely knew that he couldn't ask if you would let him smell you.
He needed to focus on driving you home. That's it.
Close your door. Walk to the other side of his truck. Get into the truck and turn it on. Try not to think about your smell anymore. Be normal. Drive you home without crashing his car and having to explain to a cop that he distracted because of a person's scent.
He pulled out of the parking lot and realized that normal people wouldn't want to sit in silence or listen to his radio guys talk about the Eagles finally not being a disappointment.
Shen did get him onto Spotify and now he had unlimited access to music (and his secret love of history podcasts that Shen had deemed as old white man entertainment).
He handed his phone to you and your fingers grazed his hand. Immediately, he felt a shiver run down his body and had to focus on breathing. Nothing had put him on high alert like this in a long time. The contact between the two of you couldn't have been longer than two seconds. He wished for more.
Think about something else. Ponder about something else. Ask her something.
The safe thing to ask was about traveling on the bus and what she had been doing if her bus didn't come on time. You gave your answer quickly with your hands doing majority of the story telling. He couldn't believe that you were walking to work at night.
He nodded to your answer because he didn't want to tell you what he really thought.
He could fix this problem for you, permanently. He could drive you to from work at night regardless of what was happening at with the city buses.
Unfortunately, Siri's voice took him out of his easy (self-serving) solution to your problem by letting him know that he arrived at your apartment.
Get out of the car and open her door. Don't offer to drive her home every single day. She didn't ask you to solve this problem for her.
"Thanks for the ride home. You didn't have to do that for me. What's your Venmo or CashApp?"
He wouldn't take anything from you. He especially didn't want your money.
Jack shook his head, "I don't want your money."
"Come on, please. I don't want you to think that you had to give me a free ride," you said.
"The ride wasn't a problem at all. You're not giving me any money," Jack said as he opened his door, "Don't get any ideas. I'm coming to open up your door."
In his head, he knew that the rush to open your door was purely selfish.
He saw you get your backpack together through the window and your water bottle (where had the water bottle even come from?)
Stop being weird and open the door, Jack.
You smiled at him and he got that same feeling earlier when you grazed his hand. The smile centered him. Not a lot of things could center him.
The wind went by when he opened the door. Your smell went into his nostrils. Again, he was in the same place as earlier. He needed to say something.
"Have a good rest of your day and I'll see you in the evening," Jack said.
"You get some sleep and don't do whatever you do to keep yourself busy. Don't go saving kittens out of a tree," you said cheekily.
Jack had to swallow the laugh that he desperately wanted to get out. Instead, a huff came out of his mouth.
All he could was watch while you walked to your apartment door.
The regret was already setting in. The ride was too short.
my shaylas, thanks for reading! i was so busy with work in the last couple of weeks and i wasn't able to write. i am going to upload more and have fun. i get so much anxiety with writing aka making sure that my words are coherent. if you have made it this far, please like and/or comment <333 appreciate you all!!
i'm also on ao3 if you want to check me out there. :)
synopsis: After months of job searching, you clicked on a position for an overnight custodial position in the Emergency Room at the Pittsburgh Medical Treatment Center. It paid more than any other job that you had seen thus far and it came with a retirement plan.
Chapter 1: The Roof
You had always wanted to be a librarian. You loved the library, books and loved working with children. It didn't seem like the universe wanted you to be a children's librarian.
The only way for you to get a well-paying job at a library was to get your Masters in Library Science.
In school, your family thought that the program consisted of learning how to shelve books, learn the best programs for Mommy and Me time, and how to stop children from shrieking in the space.
In reality, the program included you listening to professors drone on and on about the Dewey Decimal System and having to write 500 papers a week about the history of libraries.
You could only write so much about the Library of Alexandria.
Well. You completed your program, graduated, and desperately needed a job.
No one told you how hard it would be to get a job after graduate school.
Your professors did kind of tell you and your cohort how hard it would be to get a job. They blamed it on the industry and how it's highly competitive.
You think that the Boomer librarians just refused to retire. They were going to just be buried at the library in the Danielle Steele and James Patterson sections.
You constantly thought that maybe people who went into medicine, engineering, or hell even architecture had an easier time finding a job.
It felt like you like you had applied to every single library in Pittsburgh. Multiple interviews, multiple ill-fitting blouses, and printed resumes couldn't help you to find a job.
You had searched for weeks on Indeed and even Craigslist (every waitress job on there seemed like code word for serving something different but no judgment there). You needed something to pay the bills fully and would give you good enough health insurance to at least see a doctor once a year.
After months of job searching, you clicked on a position for an overnight custodial position in the Emergency Room at the Pittsburgh Medical Treatment Center. It paid more than any other job that you had seen thus far and it came with a retirement plan. You had only been to the Pitt when you were in college. Your stupid best friend spraining her ankle on $1 cherry bombs and $2 well drinks at Dusty's.
The interview from the head of custodial who was a barely five foot Hispanic woman named Mimi. Her real name was Marisol but no one ever called her that. You only had found out because someone warned you to never utter it unless you wanted to have to clean MRSA rooms for the next week.)
Her two interview questions would have been comical if you didn’t need a job so bad. (maybe you should have focused more on the questions to understand what she was asking) if you hadn’t had to focus on the intensity of her gaze.
“Do you have a weak stomach?”
“No. I haven’t thrown up since the sixth grade and I have lived in Pittsburgh my whole life so I know terrible smells.”
“How would you respond to a doctor telling that you’re not moving fast enough to clean up a room?”
“I’m not Cinderella so they can grab a couple of wipes to wipe some things down too.”
“You’ll do just fine here, mija”, said Mimi while smiling.
You have been scrubbing, wiping, and trying to understand what the hell you had gotten yourself into at The Pitt for about 6 months. No one in your life could believe that you willing would want to work cleaning up the ER. Everyone thought that you would have run out of the hospital as soon as you had to clean up vomit. Vomit didn't faze you at all at this point. (Your one no-no was spit. Spit was disgusting.)
You had seen plenty of crazy shit and nothing really fazed you anymore.
People covered in mystery liquid that wasn’t pee, vomit, poop, or blood. You have come to the conclusion that those people had wanted to see if they could swim in the local swimming holes aka city pot holes.
A group of sorority girls who all peeled the skin of their arms in the same place because they fell off of a roof while reenacting Mamma Mia?
Frequent fliers who really didn’t need the ER but liked the flavor of the free crackers?
To be honest, it was only corner store Joe who came in for that. You had even started to become his dealer by stashing extra packs for him in your fanny pack so he wouldn’t have to come to the ER every single day.
Today was your Friday and you were so excited to finally be able to rot on your couch and watch 90 day fiance. As you walked in, you noticed that the ER lobby was fairly empty for a Friday which could either be heaven sent or an omen.
"Hey you! It has been pretty slow today so I hope it stays slow for you night owls," said Kiara, one of the intake coordinators.
"I'm hoping that it stays sane for the rest of the night," you said.
The weirdly comforting smell of the medical grade cleaner that could strip paint off of your car hit and old coffee hit your nostrils.
Of course, you saw Shenny aka Dr. John Shen. He was one of the most annoying and wonderful people you had ever met. You would never tell him that in your life.
Your dysfunctional relationship started with the infamous Dunkin incident that forced everyone to have to put their drinks on the designated coffee table.
Mimi was directing you on how to never mix the bleach and hydrogen peroxide cleaners together by the main desk in the ER. She had watched staff over time thinking that they're cleaning "smartly" by making some type of cleaning bomb.
As she was telling you about the different colors of the cleaners and how to use them correctly, you watched Dr. Shen come in. He was carrying four dozen donuts and a tray of drinks from Dunkin'.
"Good evening my sun shines! Here's the report for the day! It is a full moon, the lobby is packed, and I saw at least five people with the good ole Tupperware bowl as a puke bucket. So, we will all need a treat to get us through the night," said Shen.
You watched him set down the coffee down just fine. His downfall was the donuts. It all happened in slow motion. As he was setting down the donuts, the bottom of the box caught on the tray and he knocked all of drinks over on the desk. It seemed like every single piece of paper, keyboard, and set of keys was covered in sticky coffee.
You turned to him to look at him and said, "I'm new here and you're already forcing me to clean up after you. I hope you know that you will owe me a Dunkin' coffee after this."
"Deal, newbie," said Shen.
You walked over to one of your (you would never tell him that) favorite doctors, Shen, with his order from Dunkin.
"Here you are, sir. Your ridiculous order of a large iced coffee with eight pumps of sugar free hazelnut, four pumps of sugar free vanilla, cold foam, and half half," you said.
"You're a life saver. I wouldn't be able to make it through this shift without my sweet treat," said Shen.
"You would be able to make it but you wouldn't be nice," you said while sitting down your backpack behind the desk.
"That is very true. You should go grab your stuff before our fearless leader comes for our nightly meeting," said Shen.
"Yes Shenny! Please make sure that you don't let Dr. Ellis with your coffee at the desk," you said.
As you were walking back to grab your cleaning supplies (you really needed to grab the wipes that you liked with the top you could take off easily. you hated tearing the wipes through the stupid little hole) to make it through the night, you started to think about the night shift's fearless leader.
Dr. Jack Abbot.
Dr. Abbott was known at The Pitt as a doctor who took no shit and you had seen it in action. He didn't let any patient disrespect his staff, always thanked the staff for their work, and was the only one who could call Mimi by her first name.
He was also known to you as the hottest doctor ever but that was besides the point.
You thought that he would ignore the custodial staff as some as the other doctors did during their shift. You were pretty sure they saw you as maids for them to do their fancy doctor stuff. He made sure that you and your other coworker were included in the team meeting from your first day.
"Hey, come on! You're going to be late and I don't want to hear Abbot's mouth," said Shen.
When you walked up to the circle that had been formed, you glanced over to your coworker, Amy, and waved. She was your favorite person other than Shen at work.
Amy was one of the nicest people you had ever met and made some of the best banana bread that you had ever tasted. She also knew how to fold a perfect hotel corner so she was pretty much God to you.
"Good evening, everyone. It is a steamy 79 degrees outside with perfect weather. Unfortunately, that means every frat bro in Pittsburgh will decide to either jump off of their patio onto a beer pong table or singe their face off trying to grill a hot dog," said Abbot.
Everyone including you laughed at that. How many people had you all seen at this point that had singed off their eyebrows trying to create the biggest flames known to man?
" That's all for us. We are going to have the best night that we can. On one, weirdest and wildest! One!" said Abbot.
"Weirdest and wildest!" said everyone.
You turned to Amy after the chant and said, "How many people are going to have no eyebrows tonight?"
"There will be at minimum five people who won't have eyebrows tonight. We will what the night holds for us," Amy said while giggling.
Eight hours go by with wiping surfaces, changing bed sheets, mopping up liquids, and trying to figure out how Amy got her sheets to fold so nicely. And, you had to yell at Shen to at least try to make his gloves get into the trash can.
At 8:15pm, you hear the one code that you haven't heard at all from Dr. Ellis.
Pink.
Code pink is known as a pediatric emergency.
You watched Dr. Shen, Dr. Ellis, and Dr. Abbot run over to bay number one while a medic pushed in three separate gurneys. Two of them held toddlers and one of them with a woman that you assumed had to be their mother. They all were covered in blood.
"It was a fucking domestic violence situation. The asshole got mad at the mom for feeding the kids and herself first before him. A neighbor heard the noise and called the cops. We tried our best but I- I don't know…" said the medic sadly.
"Look, you tried your best. We can take it from here and see if there's anything that we can do to help them," said Dr. Ellis.
As they wheeled the gurney past you into surgical room #3, you noticed the kids were both barely breathing. You sucked in a breath and focused on sweeping up the confetti from a bachelorette group.
Thirty minutes went by and it felt like you had wiped down each computer four hundred times.
Amy tapped your shoulder and said, "I think they're ready for us to clean up in there."
You turned around and started to walk towards the room. You saw that the three doctors were talking to each other softly with Ellis rubbing Shen's shoulders.
As you opened the door, the overwhelming smell of iron hit your nose. The beds and the floor were covered in blood. As you were putting your gloves on, you started to notice the details in the room. Someone must have tried to grab one of the boxes of gloves and it was thrown to the ground. There were multiple pair of scissors spread across the floor.
You bent down to pick the first pair of scissors up and noticed something. There was one of the kid's shirts cut up that was soaked in blood. You could see that the shirt had Elsa's face on it.
Elsa was your niece's favorite princess. What if she had been hurt like these kids had been? Would her blood be covering an emergency room's floor?
The room started to feel smaller and you could feel yourself starting to hyperventilate.
"Amy. Amy. I need to step out for a minute," you said as bile started to rise in your throat.
You ran to the staircase and climbed five flights of stairs to get to the roof.
Fuck.
You needed some fresh air now or you were going to throw up.
You threw the door open to the roof and sucked in a huge breath of air. You needed to focus on something else other than thinking about those kids and how it could be your niece. You stepped closer to the edge and looked out at the city as the sun started to come up. As you started to close your eyes, you heard someone approach.
"This is a beautiful spot to see the sunrise," said Jack.
"Dr. Abbot! I- I'm sorry if I'm stealing your quiet roof time. I just needed a minute."
"I don't own this roof. You can come here anytime you want. I wanted to come check in and make sure you're okay," he said while walking up to stand next to you. "I grabbed these for you. It will help you calm your stomach. Also, call me Jack."
As he handed you a zero sugar Sprite and crackers, his fingers brushed over yours. You felt a spark on your hands and quickly took a drink of your soda.
You knew rationally that Sprite would help settle your stomach better than a Coke would but how did he know that this was one of your drinks. You couldn't help yourself to ask him.
"How did you realize that Sprite was one of my favorite drinks?"
"You don't think I notice you getting Sprites from Corner Store Joe every week? He has to get you something after all of the extra crackers you supply," laughed Jack.
You couldn't believe that he noticed you hoarding crackers for Joe and that Joe started to buy Sprites for you.
"What if he's just a really nice patient and appreciates how I fold his bed sheets up nicely?"
"Right, right. You're the only person that he's nice to here. Shen has tried for years to butter up to him. I have at least tried to be decent to him. If I brought him a single cracker pack, he would crush it up in his hands and throw it on the ground," said Jack.
You laughed gently at Jack and turned back to the sun rise over the river sipping on your soda. A few moments of silence went by before Jack spoke again.
"The first time I had to come to the roof was a few years ago. It had been a long day and in the last hour of my shift, we got a group of five teenagers in multiple ambulances. They had been out on the Clarion River and they had gotten stuck in a rip tide," said Jack softly.
"One of their friends had gotten pulled under and the rest of them tried to save him. When they came into the hospital, none of them had been responsive to any of the treatment. We tried for 30 minutes to get the water out of their lungs and get them to breathe."
You could feel the tension rolling off of Jack. It had no where else to go but outside of him.
"We couldn't save them. None of them. You think that would have been what pushed me over the edge? No, it was realizing that none of these kids would ever grow up. They would never graduate high school, date, have a drink at a bar, or anything," said Jack.
You finally looked at him and saw that his eyes were fixed on the sun rise.
"The rest of the hospital was too loud for me. I could hear everything and nothing. The only place I could think of was the roof. I sat here, watched the sun come up, and got to catch my breath," said Jack.
He looked at you out of the corner of his eyes.
"You can come up here any time to catch your breath," said Jack.
You took a deep breath in through your nose and slowly exhaled through your mouth.
"Thank you. I really appreciate that," you said with a shaky voice, "I think we better get back down there before Shen burns down the place.
Jack nodded at you and said, "You're right, please lead the way."
As you turned and walked towards the door, you swore you could feel Jack's eyes on you.
Jack noticed everything.
He couldn't help it. After years serving in the military and having to pay attention to his surroundings, he couldn't turn it off in the hospital setting. He kept track of everything that happened on his shift.
Marisol had let him know that she would have a new custodial staff member starting today due to one of the women retiring after 35 years at the hospital.
"Hola, mijo! Here is my new girl!" said Mimi.
"Hola, como estás, Marisol?"
"Bien y you know to call me Mimi. Marisol is for old ladies, medico" said Mimi while laughing, "This is my new girl and you have to be nice to her."
"I'm always nice to everyone except Dr. Shen. My name is Jack Abbot but call me Jack."
You smiled at him and stuck your hand out, "Nice to meet you, Dr. Abbot."
He looked at you and shook your hand. He immediately thought about the softness of your hands.
"Call me Jack."
You smiled at him, leaned in a little towards him and mouthed the word no.
He knew that he was fucked.
more to come at some point!!! thanks for reading <33
while my mom was pregnant with me, she was delivering chinese food on bike in new orleans. i like to think that the music she heard in the streets made me the way i am now.