destiel is canon in my heart @isaacthedruid - Tumblr Blog

16h

You're gonna go far . . .

tags: mentor jack abbot x mentor michael robinavitch x mentee reader, angst, hurt/comfort, burnt out reader, only child, high parental expectations, judgmental parents, it has to hurt before it can get better, the need to run to grow

notes: well....after orbiter i kinda binged listened to more noah kahan, so if you demand paid therapy talk to him not me, like always if you enjoy getting your emotions pulverized and built back together, putting my phd in daddy issues to good use, please comment on this post to be added to my permanent taglist!

extra: made sure to get all the h's in Pittsburgh for my anon here

word count: 8.5k

The Pitt existed in a constant state of controlled disaster. Every hallway carried noise. Every room carried urgency. It breathed around you like a living thing with stretchers rattling over worn tile floors, trauma pages shrieking overhead, nurses calling for labs over the phone while exhausted residents moved from room to room with coffee-stained charts tucked beneath their arms. The overhead light cast everything in the same washed-out brightness that made it impossible to tell whether it was four in the afternoon or four in the morning, and by the twelfth hour of your shift, time itself had begun to feel slippery and unreal.

You had learned to survive inside the madness long before you had learned how to survive anywhere else.

Only a year into residency, most people in the department knew you as the resident who never stopped moving. You picked up extra shifts before anyone could ask. You stayed late without complaint. You volunteered for difficult patients, difficult procedures, and even more difficult families. If someone needed help, you were already there before your name was called.

Nurses adored you for it. Attendings trusted you because of it. Med students followed after you like ducklings because despite your exhaustion, despite the permanent shadows beneath your eyes and the way your hands occasionally shook after eighteen-hour shifts, you were patients with them in a way few residents still had the energy to be.

But Jack and Robby knew better.

That was the most unfortunate thing about being mentored by two men who noticed everything.

You had somehow ended up under both of their wings during your first terrifying months at the Pitt, though neither of them would probably describe it that way aloud. Jack had claimed you first, in a sense. He had been the one to sit beside you after your first patient death that happened to be right as he walked in for handoffs, talking softly while you stared blankly at the vending machine in the waiting area because you couldn’t stop hearing the flatline in your head. Somewhere between that moment and now, he had somehow become the person who checked whether you’d eaten, who remembered the names of your difficult patients, who bumped his shoulder against yours after bad shifts and told you quietly that you did good work before your brain could convince you otherwise.

Robby had been different.

Robby mentored you the way sharpened steel honed another blade: precise, observant, relentless in a way that had terrified you initially because he missed absolutely nothing. He corrected your charting with brutal efficiency, expected excellence without excuse, and had a habit of standing silently behind you during procedures until your nerves nearly gave out completely. Yet somehow, beneath all of that intimidating composure, he had become one of the few people whose approval genuinely mattered to you. Maybe because it had been hard-earned. Maybe because when Robby praised someone, it actually meant something.

Together, the two of them had slowly turned into the closest thing you had to stability inside and outside the hospital.

Which was dangerous, really, because it meant they noticed things you desperately wanted hidden.

“You’re doing it again,” Jack’s voice cut through your concentration softly enough that you nearly missed it beneath the noise of the department.

You looked up from the computer at the nurses’ station to find him leaning against the counter beside you, early like always, salt and pepper curls slightly flattened and damp like he’d just stepped out of the shower and only ran a towel over them without any added products. There was a coffee cup balanced carelessly in one hand and a familiar look on his face that instantly made your stomach sink.

“What?”

“You’re clenching your jaw.” He pointed toward your face. “You only do that when you haven’t eaten like biting your cheek is going to magically fill your stomach.”

You looked back down at the chart in front of you, tearing your eyes away from his hazel ones. “I ate.”

He snorted quietly. “You are genuinely one of the worst liars I’ve ever met.”

“I had half a muffin,” you confessed.

“Was that before or after noon?”

You didn’t answer and that in itself was answer enough to make the man sigh dramatically before reaching into the pocket of his jacket and producing a protein bar that he slid across the counter in your way. The gesture was so practiced now it almost embarrassed you, because somewhere along the way, Jack had apparently decided monitoring your nutritional intake had become his person responsibility.

“You know,” he said casually, “most people usually eat more than vending machine crumbs during a twelve-hour shift.”

“I’m busy.”

“So is everybody else.”

You finally glanced up at him, an argument resting on your tongue, but the words died behind your teeth because he was looking at you with that same unbearably gentle concern he always wore whenever he thought you were running yourself into the ground again.

It disarmed you every single damn time.

Before you could force out another excuse, a trauma alert rang overhead sharp enough to snap the entire department into motion.

“Trauma two, ambulance bay. ETA two minutes.”

Jack straightened automatically. Across the department, you caught sight of Robby (who was supposed to already be gone) already moving toward the trauma room while barking instructions to a nurse beside him, his expression shifting seamlessly into focused command.

“Come on,” Jack said, but you were already following.

Moments later, the patient arrived unconscious after a multi-car collision, blood soaking through gauze wrapped hastily around his abdomen while paramedics rattled off vitals over the anxiousness of the group. The trauma room exploded into movement the second the stretcher crossed the threshold. Nurses shifted around each other with practiced efficiency, monitors shrieked intermittently, and beside you Robby’s voice remained impossibly calm.

“Pressure?”

“Dropping.”

“Get another line in.”

You slipped into place near the patient’s shoulder, adrenaline replacing exhaustion as your gloved hands moved through familiar motions. Your mind always quieted during trauma cases. There wasn’t room for self-doubt when someone’s life was actively bleeding out in front of you.

Robby glanced toward you briefly while adjusting his gloves. “You’re on airway.”

You nodded once.

Years ago in med school, the assignment would’ve terrified you enough to make you freeze even with an attending helping you through it. Now you moved through muscle memory, repetition overriding fear. To your left, Jack handed over supplied before stepping in to stabilize the patient’s chest.

The three of you worked together seamlessly by now: one of the problems with mentorship built over too many sleepless nights and too many near disasters; you learned each other’s rhythms too well. Jack knew exactly where your confidence faltered during procedures. Robby knew when you were overcompensating by volunteering for more than you could realistically handle. Both of them knew the particular silence tat settled over you after difficult phone calls from home.

Neither had ever pushed too hard about those.

That is until now.

The trauma stabilized eventually after what felt like hours compressed into minutes. Once the patience was sent upstairs, the adrenaline drained out of your body so suddenly it left you dizzy. Your head pounded faintly behind your eyes. You realized belatedly you were running entirely on caffeine and anxiety.

No one noticed when you slipped quietly down the hallway toward the supply closet near the back of the ER.

Or at least, you thought no one noticed.

The closet was cramped and dimly lit, packed floor-to-ceiling with stacked saline boxes and extra linens. It smelled faintly like antiseptic and cardboard. You leaned back heavily against the shelving unit with your eyes closed, fingers pressing hard against your temples while you tried to steady your breathing.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale—

Your phone buzzed wildly in your pocket, and the same lighting up the screen had your stomach dropping.

Mom.

For a brief moment, you considered ignore it entirely. But years of guilt and obligation had conditioned your body to respond before your brain could argue otherwise.

You answered quietly. “Hi.”

“There you are,” you mother said, her irritation bleeding through the speaker. “I’ve been calling.”

You closed your eyes harder. “I’m at work.”

“Well, forgive me for wanting to hear from my daughter.”

In the background, you could hear the television from your parents’ living room playing faintly. The sound hit you with sudden painful familiarity. You could practically picture the entire scene despite being hundreds of miles away: your father in his recliner, your mother pacing the kitchen while holding the phone too tightly.

“How’s the hospital?” she asked.

“Tiring.”

Your father’s voice cut in from somewhere behind her. “Still pretending to be a hotshot doctor?”

His words landed exactly where they always did, making your bottom lip wobble before you trapped it under teeth.

You swallowed carefully. “I’m not pretending.”

He laughed once under his breath. “Right.”

Silence stretched. The voices on the TV laughed. You slid slowly down the unit until you were sitting on the floor between the shelf and stacked boxes, exhaustion suddenly pressing into your bones with unbearable heaviness.

“We just worry about you,” your mother continued, though the concern in her voice always came wrapped in something sharper. “You sound miserable every time we talk.”

“Everyone’s the same, Mom. That’s residency.”

“No,” your father snapped, voice now closer and louder in the phone. “That’s what happens when somebody spends their whole life chasing things they were never meant for.”

Your chest tightened painfully as footsteps approached quietly down the hallway outside the supply closet. You didn’t notice.

“You could’ve stayed here,” your mother said. “You could’ve worked somewhere smaller. Normal. But no, you always just had to prove something.”

“I’m not trying to prove anything.”

“Aren’t you?” your father snarked back. “You think these people actually see you as one of them? You think you belong in that fancy hospital?”

Your throat burned.

No matter how many patients trusted you, no matter how much Jack and Robby praised your work, no matter how many lives you helped save, some small broken part of you still believed him.

You stared numbly at the floor tiles beneath your shoes, eyes blinking away tears and failing.

“I have to go,” you whispered.

“Of course you do,” your mother replied sharply. “Work matters more than family again.”

The call ended before you could pull the phone away from your ear. Quiet swallowed the room afterward so completely that the distant sounds of the emergency department suddenly felt muffled and far away. Your grip tightened painfully around your phone while humiliation and exhaustion tangled together so tightly in your chest it became difficult to breathe.

When the closet door opened suddenly, your head jerked upward.

Jack stood there first, one hand resting against the handle. The concern on his face hit you like a physical blow because it wasn’t pity. Somehow thought, pity would have been easier to stomach instead of the open heartbreak painted across his face.

Robby stood just behind him, arms folded tightly across his chest, jaw visibly tense beneath his incoming beard.

Neither man spoke right away, which told you that they heard enough. The thought made heat blood your face.

“I’m fine,” you blurted out, the response almost automatic and reflexive.

Jack’s expression only softened further. “You’re sitting on the floor of a supply closet.”

You tried to laugh weakly. “Needed a minute.”

Robby’s gaze remained fixed on you with clinical precision, but there was anger simmering under his composure now. You could tell it wasn’t directed at you but outwards to the voices he’d overheard tearing pieces of out of somebody he had spent years trying to build back up.

“How long has that been going on?” he asked quietly.

Your eyes went back down to the flooring. “It’s not a big deal.”

Jack exhaled slowly through his nose. “You don’t believe that.”

The gentleness in his voice nearly undid you more than the phone call itself had. You always hated this part most, the unbearable vulnerability of being seen clearly by people you respected. Jack and Robby had watched you become a doctor piece by piece. They had seen you at three in the morning after losing patients. Seen you shaking before procedures. Seen you exhausted, angry, frightened, overworked. And along the way, they had also noticed the deeper wound beneath all of it:

The one you spent most of your life trying to hide.

Robby stepped forward and crouched slightly so he was closer to eye level, his voice remaining calm and even in the way it always did when he was trying very hard to not overwhelm patients.

“You are one of the best residents in this department,” he said plainly. “You know that right?”

The laugh that followed came out thin and humorless. “Sure.”

“I’m serious.”

“I think as my attending you have to say that.”

“No. I really don’t.”

Jack stepped further inside the closet before leaning back carefully against the shelves opposite of you. “You stayed two hours past shift last week helping an uninsured patient figure out medication access because you knew nobody else would. You caught a pulmonary embolism every other resident missed in triage. Half the med students here want to be you when they graduate.”

You stared down at your hands because looking at either of them suddenly hurt too much. Whatever they said didn’t matter against the voices you’d been hearing your entire life. Robby seemed to recognize that quickly as sadness settled under his frustration.

“They’re wrong about you,” he said softly. “So very wrong”

Tears now burned at your eyes because, honestly, no one had ever said that to you before. Not friends. Not professors. Not even yourself.

Jack’s voice softened even further. “You do not have to destroy yourself to prove that you have the right to be here.”

Your face must have cracked at that because both men went still as the terrible truth sat openly between all three of you: you genuinely didn’t know how to exist without earning your worth first.

_______________________

Robby’s office always smelled faintly like burned coffee and old paper.

You noticed that before anything else when you stepped hesitantly through the partially open door, your stomach already twisted tight with anxiety from the brief message Dana had relayed twenty minutes earlier.

Robby wants to see you in his office.

Which, in your experience usually meant one of three things: you charted something incorrectly, you had forgotten something important, or someone had died.

By the time you reached the office, your pulse had worked itself into a miserable rapid flutter under your ribs despite trying to convince yourself you were overreacting. The Pitt swallowed the rest of the noise, leaving behind a small ringing in your ears. Robby’s office felt strangely isolated from all of it.

Behind his desk, Robby sat with his reading glasses low on his nose, flipping through a stack of papers with the same composed concentration he approached nearly everything with. The desk lamp cast warm yellow light across the room, softening the harshness of the hospital fluorescents filtering in through the blinds. A half-finished cup of coffee sat forgotten near his elbow beside several patient charts and an open laptop screen crowded with emails.

He looked up when you entered.

“There you are,” he said warmly. “Close the door.”

Your stomach dropped further.

You obeyed instantly, fingers tightening around the strap of your bag as the door clicked softly shut behind you. For a moment, neither of you spoke. Robby returned his attention firefly to the papers in front of him while you remained awkwardly hovering near the doorway trying not to catastrophize every possibly outcome.

Your brain, against your best wished, supplied several anyway.

You replayed the last few shifts rapidly in your head searching for mistakes. Had you missed a lab? Forgotten an order? Spoken too sharply to a nurse during trauma intake? The anxiety sat so naturally in your body now that panic felt less like an emotion and more like muscle memory.

“You can sit down,” Robby said after a moment, finally glancing back up at you.

“Oh. Right.”

You skittered across the office and lowered yourself carefully down into the chair across from his desk, posture still rigid with apprehension. Robby watched you for a long moment over the rim of his glasses.

“You think you’re in trouble.”

His observation landed embarrassingly accurate.

You opened your mouth automatically. “Am I?”

To your surprise, something almost amused flashed briefly across his face. “No.”

The tension in your shoulders loosened slightly, though not fully. Years of criticism had taught your nervous system not to trust relief too quickly.

Robby leaned back in his chair slowly, folding his hands together atop the desk. “How long have you been considering fellowship programs outside Pennsylvania?”

Your breath caught. The question hit so directly you genuinely didn’t know how to answer for a second. The trust was humiliating in its own way. You had been considering them for months in secret, in the privacy of late nights and exhausted internet searches and moments where Pittsburgh suddenly felt too small for the life you wanted but had never allowed yourself to reach.

Sometimes after difficult shifts, you would sit alone in your apartment scrolling through fellowship programs across the country just to imagine it for a moment. California. Seattle. Boston. Places so impossibly far away they barely felt real. Hospitals attached to research institutions and trauma centers bigger than anything you’d ever known. Places where no one knew your parents. Places where your entire history wouldn’t already be waiting for you before you arrived.

But then guilt would settle almost immediately afterward.

You would close the tabs, delete the searches, and clock in the next day without thinking of leaving. Because wanting to leave felt selfish. And because some part of you still couldn’t imagine being brave enough to actually go.

Your hands folded tightly in your lap. “I haven’t really.”

Robby remained entirely unconvinced. “You’re a terrible liar.”

The words startled an unwilling laugh out of you despite your nerves. Jack was the one to usually say that not him. At the sound, Robby’s face melted before he reached for a folder sitting near the corner of his desk.

“I got a call last week,” he said hesitantly, almost like he was testing the waters. “From a colleague at Harborview.”

Your heartbeat stumbles.

Harborview.

Seattle.

Clear across the country.

You stared at him silently as the office suddenly became too warm.

He slid the folder across the desk toward you, the paper catching slightly against the grain before stopping directly in front of your hands. You looked down slowly, eyes catching and widening at the sight of the logo at the top that belonged to one of the most prestigious trauma centers in the country.

And below it, your name was written in Robby’s perfect penmanship.

Something cold and electric moved down your spine all at once. Your fingers hesitated against the edge of the folder before opening it carefully. Inside sat printed information about the fellowship program alongside a letter clipped neatly to the front.

A recommendation letter.

Signed by Michael Robinavitch, MD

Your eyes caught only fragments at first because your pulse had become unbearably loud in your ears. What he had written brought tears to your lash line.

Exceptional clinical instincts . . .

Among the most promising residents . . .

Demonstrates rare emotional intelligence under pressure . . .

Would excel in any institution fortunate to train them . . .

Your throat tightened at you looked up too quickly. “You—”

“I submitted it three days ago,” Robby confessed quietly.

Shock hit first. Then confusion. Then something dangerously close to hurt.

“You sent this without asking me?”

Robby held your gaze steadily. “Yes.”

It felt almost impossible to breath because this—this was the dream, wasn’t it? This was something you had secretly wanted for so long it physically ached sometimes. An escape route handed gently into your trembling hands. A chance at something bigger than the life you’d been told to settle for.

So why did it suddenly feel a little like grief too?

“You want me to leave?” you asked before you could stop yourself.

Robby’s face dropped slightly. “No.”

“Then why would you—”

“Because you were never going to do it yourself.”

You looked back down at the letter because suddenly meeting his eyes felt unmanageable. You had spent so long imagining leaving that you never truly prepared yourself for the possibility someone else might believe you capable of it too.

Robby leaned forward in his chair, head tilting to try to meet your eyes. “You belong somewhere like this. You know that.”

You laughed under your breath, the sound fragile in and of itself. “My parents would lose their minds.”

Robby’s jaw tightened as he said your name. “This isn’t about your parents.”

Except it always was. Every choice, every opportunity, every dream carefully cut down before it could grow too large to reach.

You swallowed hard against the sudden pressure building in your throat. “Seattle is across the country.”

“I’m aware.”

“I don’t know anyone there.”

“You would.”

The certainty in his voice hurt unexpected because it implied something you still struggled to believe yourself: that people would want you there. You stared down at the recommendation letter, vision beginning to blur slightly.

“You really think I could do this?”

“I think,” he started, “you’ve spent your entire life making yourself smaller for other people.”

Your breath hitched again.

“You are one of the best doctors I’ve had to privilege to train,” he continued. “And if you stay here because you’re afraid of disappointing people who will never be satisfied anyway, you’re going to wake up in ten years from now wondering what happened to your life.”

His words landed with devastating precision because deep down, under all the fear and guilt and fatigue, you had already wondered that yourself.

Robby’s kind, brown eyes held yours. “You’re getting smaller here.”

The office felt unbearable quiet now except for the faint hum of his fan and the occasional muffled announcement from the ER outside.

Finally, your voice came out barely above a whisper. “What if I fail?”

He looked at you the same way he looked at difficult trauma cases; not dismissing the fear but refusing to let it dictate the outcome. He wasn’t going to let you walk away from this because you were scared.

“Then you fail,” he said simply. “And you survive it.”

Failure had always sounded catastrophic in your parents’ voices. Permanent. Proof that they had been right all along.

But with how Robby said it, it felt like it was survivable and human.

For the first time, the possibility of leaving didn’t feel entirely impossible anymore. It felt terrifying yes, but also maybe worth it all anyway.

_______________________

The emergency department had somehow managed to pause for you.

Not fully, of course. The Pitt never truly stopped moving. But for once, the chaos had shifted itself long enough to make room for something softer.

You stood near the center of the department feeling almost painfully aware of yourself while half the ER crowded around the nurses’ station holding vending machine snacks, cafeteria cupcakes, and paper coffee cups lifted in celebration. Someone had dragged over a flimsy folding table covered in sheet cake with GOOD LUCK written across it in slightly smeared blue icing. Balloons bobbled lazily near the ceiling tiles, looking deeply out of place in the harsh lighting.

It was absurd, embarrassing, and almost humiliating. And somehow it nearly made you cry.

“You look terrified.” Jack’s voice appeared beside you through the noise, warm amusement threading easily into his words.

You glanced sideways to find him balancing two plastic cups of terrible hospital punch while watching you with barely concealed fondness. “I hate this,” you muttered under your breath.

“You absolutely do not.”

“I’m being publicly perceived.”

Jack snorted softly before handing you one of the drinks. “Tragic.”

Across the department, several nurses had cornered Robby near the charting computers demanding he say something resembling a speech. Judging by the look on his face, he would’ve preferred active physical violence.

“You trained them,” Dana was insisting firmly.

“So did literally anyone else here,” Robby replied.

“Yeah, but you’re the scary one, so it’ll mean more.”

A ripple of laughter moved through the staff nearby while Robby looked profoundly unamused by this logic.

Your chest tightened unexpected as you watched your surroundings unfold in the familiar faces, the exhausted laughter, the warmth threaded through the department despite another endless shift looming only hours away. The Pitt had become something dangerously close to home somewhere along the way. Not because the work was easy—God knew it wasn’t. But because these people had seen every broken terrified version of you and stayed anyway.

And now you were leaving them; the thought still felt surreal even after the acceptance calls, even after signing the paperwork, even after the official announcement against your will that you would be joining one of the most prestigious trauma fellowship programs in the country at Harborview in Seattle.

Seattle.

The word still startled you. It was so far from Pittsburgh that it barely felt attached to your real life at all.

A resident from across the department raised his coffee cup toward you. “You know how insane this is, right?”

Heat flooded your face. “Please don’t start.”

“No, seriously,” Perlah chimed in. “Do you know how many people would kill for that placement?”

“You’re representing the Pitt now,” Princess added proudly.

Her sentence lodged itself awkwardly beneath your ribs. Representing the Pitt. You weren’t escaping it, weren’t abandoning it, but representing it. You looked instinctive toward Robby. As if he sensed it, his gaze lifted from across the room and settled briefly on yours. His features softened for a half a second before Dana shoved a plastic knife into his hand and demanded he cut the cake already.

Jack bumped his shoulder lightly against yours. “You should probably enjoy this.”

You laughed weakly. “I’m trying.”

“You’re spiraling internally.”

“I’m always spiraling internally.”

“Fair enough.”

The familiar ease of the conversation helped settled your nerves slightly, though not enough to stop the overwhelming ache building slowly in your chest. You kept catching yourself looking around the department like you were trying to memorize it all before it disappeared: the trauma bay doors, the faded blue walls near triage, the nurses’ station where you had spent countless night charting beside Jack while Robb criticized your caffeine intake with hypocritical seriousness.

This place had watched you become someone, and now it was letting you go.

A few hours later, after the cake had been mostly demolished and the department slowly returned to its normal rhythm, you found yourself cornered near the supply station by Perlah and Princess aggressively insisting you take leftovers home.

“You’re too skinny for Seatle,” Princess informed you.

“I don’t think that’s how geography works,” you replied.

Before they could continue, Jack appeared suddenly at your elbow. “Borrowing them,” he announced.

Perlah narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “For what?”

“Secret attending business.”

“That sounds fake.”

“It is fake,” you admitted.

Jack ignored the three of you and jerked his head toward the hallway. “Come on.”

Confusion washed over you, but you followed him anyway. A few feet ahead, Robby waited near the elevators with his hands tucked into the pockets of his zip up jacket. The second he saw the two of you approaching, he pressed the button for the elevator without explanation.

You frowned slightly. “Am I being murdered?”

“Probably,” Jack teased.

“Good to know.”

Robby simply shook his head tiredly as the elevator doors slid open. Neither man explained anything during the ride upward. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable exactly, but it carried a strange weight to it that settled gradually over your shoulders the higher the elevator climbed. Your pulse quickened with anticipation and something sadder underneath it.

The roof access door creaked loudly when Jack shoved it opening, causing the cold night air to hit your face.

Pittsburgh stretched endlessly around you under the dark sky, the city glittering gold and white against the streets below while ambulance sirens echoed faintly off in the distance. The hospital roof had become something sacred over the years for exhausted staff members needing five minutes away from the noise downstairs. You had come up here after bad shifts before, after losing patients, about pulling doubles that left you too hollowed out to immediately drive home after.

Tonight, though, it felt different.

You stepped further onto the roof slowly while Jack let the heavy door slam shut behind him. The city wind tugged lightly at your jacket while your eyes drifted toward the skyline. Seattle suddenly feeling impossibly far away.

“You know,” Jack said quietly behind you, “you almost turned this down.”

You huffed softly. “I know.”

“And you’re still thinking about it.”

“I know.” The honestly slipped out before you could hold it back.

Despite everything—the excitement, the honor, the impossible opportunity—fear still lived stubbornly in your body. Fear of failing. Fear of disappointing everyone. Fear that your parents had been right all along and eventually someone at Harborview would realize they had made a mistake choosing you.

You wrapped your arms tighter around yourself against the cold. “I keep waiting for somebody to figure out I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Jack and Robby exchanged a brief glance behind you.

Robby sighted softly through his nose like the words physically pained him. “You know,” he said, “most arrogant doctors are the most terrible doctors.”

You glanced back toward him.

“However, the ones who question themselves,” he continued, “the ones who worry about failing . . . they’re usually the ones who care enough to become great doctors.”

You swallowed tears down thickly.

Jack stepped closer, pulling something oblong from the pocket of his jacket. “We got you something.”

“You didn’t have to—”

“We know,” Jack interrupted gently before holding the item out for you to take.

Your eyes dropped toward the object in his hands, and your heart fluttered.

A stethoscope.

It wasn’t hospital-issued, wasn’t cheap.

The instrument was beautiful with dark blue tubing catching faint city light beneath the skyline while silver detailing gleamed softly near the chest piece. You stared down at it wordlessly. For a second, you genuinely couldn’t breathe as you took it from him, fingers rubbing along the soft rubber.

“There’s something engraved on it,” Robby added softly.

Your fingers trembled slightly as you turned it over. Near the tubing junction, etched carefully into the metal in precise lettering, were four simple words:

Still in your corner.

The world blurred, and you swallowed hard against the sudden painful pressure in your throat while your thumb brushed shakily over the engraving again.

“Oh,” you whispered.

Neither Jack nor Robby spoke, which somehow made it all worse.

Your eyes burned fiercely as a tumble of emotions crashed through you all at once: gratitude, grief, fear, love so deep and overwhelming it physically hurt to carry.

“You take this with you,” Jack spoke softly but sternly. “Every interview. Every trauma. Every shift from hell.”

“And when you’re convinced that you’re failing,” Robby added, “you hold onto it and remember that two old guys from Pittsburgh already know exactly how capable you are.”

Your composure broke as you tried to laugh through the tears threatening your voice, eyes looking back down because crying in front of them still embarrassed you despite all the versions of you they’ve seen before.

“This is unfair,” you muttered, back of your hand wiping aggressively under your eyes.

Jack smiled sadly. “Yeah, probably.”

The stethoscope felt heavier in your hands than it should have only because of what it meant.

For so much of your life, support had always felt conditional, fragile, something that disappeared the second you disappointed people. But standing there on the hospital roof with a glowing Pittsburgh and cold night air nipping your skin, Jack and Robby were handing you something terrifyingly unfamiliar:

the certainty that even thousands of miles away, even if you struggled, even if you failed sometimes, even if Seattle became lonely and overwhelming and difficult, you would not lose them.

You pressed your fingers tighter around the tubing, Robby’s features softening as he watched you.

“You’re going to do extraordinary there,” he whispered.

Your eyes burned harder not because you fully believed him yet, but because you finally found yourself wanting to.

_______________________

The Pitt had changed in a thousand tiny ways over the years.

Some changes were obvious. Different residents moved through the halls now, newer faces slipping into routines that once belonged to people long gone from the Pitt. The trauma bays had newer monitors. The waiting room chairs had finally been replaced after years of complaints. Dana had somehow gained even less patience despite everyone previously believing that impossible.

Other changes felt quieter.

The kind you only noticed in passing moments.

Like how Robby still occasionally looked toward room six whenever an especially difficult trauma rolled through because that had always been your room somehow. Or how Jack still brough an extra coffee on his way in before remembering halfway through the line that you weren’t there to steal the extra one anymore.

Absence settled strangely into places once someone left them behind especially when they had mattered.

“Whitaker, if you touch that central line tray with your bare hands again, I’m revoking your ability to speak.”

“I literally wasn’t touching it. I merely glanced in its direction.”

“You were thinking about touching it.”

“I can’t believe this is my work environment.”

The familiar noise buzzed around Robby as he stood near the nurses’ station review labs on a tablet, exhaustion pressing heavily behind his eyes after hours’ worth of chaos. Nearby, Dana looked personally victimized by Dennis’s existence while Trinity tried unsuccessfully to hid her laughter behind a patient chart.

Victoria glanced up from the computer beside them. “You know,” she said thoughtfully, “I think Dana actually likes bullying him.”

Dana didn’t even look up from her paperwork. “Correct.”

Dennis pointed accusingly. “See?”

“You’re still alive, aren’t you?”

“That feels entirely unrelated.”

A tired smile tugged briefly at the corner of Robby’s mouth despite his best effort not to seem interested in the banter.

The newer residents had settled into the Pitt in their own messy way over the past year. Samira moved through rooms with sharp instinct and too much emotional attachment to sad patients. Frank boasted too much when nervous and somehow ended up charming most of the nursing staff because of it. Trinity hid startling clinical intelligence beneath dry sarcasm and exhaustion. Dennis had slipped into the department like he belonged there from the beginning, steady and observant in a way Robby respected immediately. And Mel blessed the Pitt with her soft voice that never seemed to sugar coat things but still had the ease to bring patients down from panic.

Different from your class but good.

Still, every once in a while, one of them would do something that reminded him painfully of you. Usually it happened when they stayed too late helping patients who technically weren’t their responsibility anymore.

Dana finally looked up from her charting. “You heard from your golden child lately?”

Robby sighed softy without looking away from the tablet. “They are not my golden child.”

“Sure they are.”

Dennis looked between them curiously. “Wait, who?”

Dana said your name as she casually leaned against the counter. “Former resident. Robby and Abbot’s favorite.”

“We—I don’t have favorites.”

“You still bring them up during trauma reviews.”

“It’s educational.”

“No, Cap, that’s emotional attachment.”

Robby shot her a flat look while several residents nearby became more interested.

“Hold on,” Frank said, glancing up from his chart. “This is the one from Seattle, right?”

His sentence caught everyone’s attention; even Jack’s, who had just wandered back into the department carrying two coffees and the stagger of a man who maybe got 5 hours of sleep before heading back into work.

“Who’s talking about Seattle?” he asked.

Dana pointed toward Robby. “I asked how your kid was doing.”

“Oh,” he answered, face dropping all sharpness and melting into something melancholy at the thought of you.

Trinity blinked between the two attendings. “Okay, now I need context because both of you suddenly look like divorced parents at a graduation.”

Samira, bless her heart, nodded along. “Seriously. Who are they?”

The two men glanced at each other before taking breathing out a synchronous sigh before Robby set the tablet down against the counter.

“They were probably one of the best residents the Pitt has had,” he said.

Mel’s eyebrows raised. “That good?”

Robby crossed his arms loosely and nodded. “Top of their class. Exceptional under pressure. Trauma instincts most attendings would kill for.”

“And terrifyingly hardworking,” Jack added while handing one of the coffees to Dana. “Like, genuinely concerning levels of hardworking.”

“I once found them charting with a concussion,” Dana mentioned.

The small group all looked horrified.

“That cannot be real,” Trinity spoke.

“It was absolutely real,” Jack confirmed. “They tried to tell us they were ‘fine’ while their head actively bled through gauze.”

Victoria let out an impressed laugh. “Okay, that’s kind of iconic.”

“It was deeply annoying,” Robby corrected even though there was an unmistakable fondness in his tone. “The kid wouldn’t just stay down.”

Mel tilted her head slightly. “So why’d they leave?”

Jack leaned back against the counter next to Robby, hazel eyes drifting absently toward the trauma bay doors like you’d step through them in the next moment. “They got offered a fellowship at Harborview. Trauma surgery.”

Trinity’s eyes widened. “Harborview?”

“Yeah.”

“Holy shit.”

Frank looked genuinely stunned. “That’s insane.”

The corner of Robby’s mouth tugged upward. “They deserved it.”

Mel studied the two attendings quietly for a second before speaking. “You miss them.”

Jack huffed something similar to a quiet laugh. “Turns out when somebody spends years haunting your ER, you noticed when they’re gone.”

Trinity pointed her pen toward him. “See? Divorced parents.”

Jack’s eyebrows pinched. “Nobody’s divorced.”

“You’re coparenting emotionally.”

Robby pinched the bridge of his nose tiredly while Dennis nearly choked laughing.

However, underneath all the humor, their ache remained. Because the truth was you’d been gone for years. Seattle had become your life. Harborview. Research publications. National conferences. Cases more complex than anything the Pitt could ever offer Every once in a while, Dana would forward an article mentioning your name, and the entire department would pass it around like proud relatives.

Look at them!

Look how far they’ve made it!

Yet whether you’d ever come back was always a lingering uncertainty that threaded with their pride.

Jack stared absently into his coffee for a moment before smiling faintly to himself. “You know they still call Robby before major procedures.”

A look of irritation crossed Robby’s face. “That happened once.”

“Three times.”

“Four,” Dana corrected helpfully.

Robby looked personally betrayed.

Samira grinned. “Wait, seriously?”

Jack nodded. “Middle of the night sometimes. They’ll panic about a surgery complication and call him like he’s Google MD.”

“That is adorable.”

“It is not.”

“It’s extremely adorable,” Dana cheesed.

“Seems like you really love them,” Dennis added after watching Robby try to hide a fond smile.

Robby simply shrugged. “They’re worth loving.”

Everyone in emergency medicine understood what he meant. To train someone, watch them grow, lose sleep over them, fight for them, and let them leave anyway because loving them properly meant wanting more for them than you could personally give had to mean something.

“They’re doing good things out there,” Jack said softly.

Beneath their sadness of missing you, beneath the uncertainty of whether Pittsburgh would ever become home for you again, there was still steady, undeniable, endless, and unwavering pride that blossomed in their voices whenever your name came up.

And that was more than some could even wish for.

_______________________

The Pitt sounded exactly the same.

That was the first thing you noticed standing just outside the ambulance bay entrance beside Gloria, fingers curled tightly around the strap of your bag while your pulse thudded unevenly beneath your ribs. Even through the sliding doors, you could hear the department breathing in a familiar rhythm with distant overhead pages crackling through speakers, monitors beeping deeper into the ER, phones ringing near the nurses’ station, and voices overlapping one another beneath the constant movement of gurneys against tile floors.

For years after leaving Pittsburgh, those sounds haunted you a little like a phantom limb and memories stitched into your nervous system.

Seattle had its own rhythm. Harborview had become home in many ways over the years in its trauma rooms, its residents, the skyline outside your apartment after long shifts. You had built an entirely life there; a very successful one; the kind of life younger you used to ache for so badly it hurt.

But the Pitt still lived deep in your bones.

You swallowed thickly.

Gloria glanced sideways at you as she pushed open the ambulance bay doors. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”

“I might,” you answered truthfully.

“That’s reassuring from our new attending.”

“I haven’t been back here in years.”

“You’ve also performed surgery on people with rebar through their chest cavities without breaking a sweat.”

“That was highly dramatized.”

Gloria laughed softly before stepping fully into the department.

Warm light spilled over your instantly. The familiar smell of antiseptic, coffee, and stale hospital air wrapped around your senses so quickly your chest tightened. The ER stretched before you exactly as you remembered. And somehow, despite all the years apart, your body still knew this place instinctively.

No one noticed you at first which was good; you weren’t entirely sure your heart could survive being perceived so quickly.

Gloria guided you quietly toward the side of the nurses’ station while staff rushed around nearby. A sleepy looking blond stood half-asleep beside a computer while a brunette argued with Dana about discharge paperwork. A young, dark-skinned med student leaned against the counter drinking matcha with an expression of someone reconsidering every life choice that brought her into emergency medicine.

And across the department, Robby stood at the center of handoff looking so tired enough that your chest ached on instinct for him. He looked older than when you left, all worn down in the way emergency medicine wore people down eventually. His sleeves were rolled unevenly to his elbows, stethoscope hanging crookedly around his neck while he scanned through a chart with quiet concentration. The sight hit you harder than expected because memories came rushing back all at once.

For years after the move, there were still moments you caught yourself thinking: I should ask Robby what’d he do.

Some habits never left.

He looked up briefly while continuing handoff, entirely unaware you were standing barely twenty feet away watching him.

"We’re short two nurses today,” he said tiredly, glancing between the residents gathered around him. “Which means nobody gets to psychologically unravel until after noon.”

The sleepy blond raised a hand weakly. “Can I schedule mine in advance?”

“No, Whitaker, you cannot.”

“That feels very anti-worker.”

“You’re lucky we feed you,” Dana spoke up without looking away from her board.

Whitaker (now that his name had been provided) blinked. “We’re getting fed?”

Nearby, the brunette laughed while a man with a hairline people would fly to Turkey for shook his head behind a patient chart with visible amusement.

At the sight, a warmth settled low in your stomach. You had missed this—the Pitt and all its ramblings and teasing and ability to make someone feel comfortable in their own skin.

Robby flipped absently to another page in the chart before continuing. “Also, administration finally approved another attending for day-shift trauma coverage.”

That caught everyone’s attention.

The brunette straightened slightly. “Wait, seriously?”

“About time,” Dana muttered. “You’ve been stretched thin for far too long.”

Whitaker looked suspicious. “Are they normal?”

“No normal person willingly works here,” the dark-skinned med student said around her straw.

“Fair.”

Robby sucked in a deep breath, shaking his head. “I haven’t met them yet, but apparently they’re starting this morning, so please try not to scare them off immediately.”

Dana finally looked at him. “You say that like it’s our fault people quit.”

“It usually is.”

A ripple of tired laughter moved through the group.

Robby opened his mouth to say something again as he lifted his gaze, but his words died instantly on his tongue as his eyes found yours.

For one suspended second, the entire department seemed to blur around his face’s expression that changed through confusion first, then disbelief, before settling on something so sharp and emotional it nearly knocked the breath from your lungs even from across the room.

The chart lowered slowly in his hand, his feet already shuffling slowly toward you while everyone looked between you and him with confused wide eyes.

Michael Robinavitch didn’t freeze for anyone.

You smile before your nerves could completely betray you. “Hi, Robby.”

Whitaker frowned, eyes glancing between you too as he leaned closer to the brunette. “Why do I suddenly feel like I’m watching something deeply important?” he stage whispered.

Robby didn’t hear him. He stopped and stared at you like the floor had disappeared beneath him. “Kid?”

The nickname hit hard. No one in Seattle ever called you that. There, you were doctor, attending, colleague. Somewhere along the way, you had become someone polished and capable and frighteningly respected.

But one word from Robby and suddenly you felt twenty-six again, exhausted and terrified and trying desperately to prove you deserved to exist in this department.

“You’re here,” he said softly.

You giggled, eyes bright and glossy. “That’s usually how jobs work.”

That seemed to finally know him back into motion as he wrapped his arms around you and brought you into his chest. You all but melted into him, the smell of his cologne hitting warm in your nose. His cheek rested on the top of your head.

“You didn’t tell me,” he murmured.

“I wanted to surprise you.”

“Well, congrats; color me very surprised and very happy.”

Around you, the rest of them had gone nearly silent watching the interaction.

Dennis glanced wildly between everyone. “Hold on.”

Trinity’s eyes grew even bigger. “Oh. OH!”

Victoria slapped a hand over her mouth. “That’s them.”

Mel blinked slowly. “The Seattle one?”

You pulled back from Robby and looked over at Dana. “Am I hospital folklore?”

She nodded, eyes also glossy as she took you in over her silver frames. “You absolutely are.”

Dennis looked scandalized. “Wait, this is the resident you two keep talking about?”

Robby sighed softly without taking his eyes off you. “Apparently.”

“No, seriously,” Trinity cut in, staring openly now. “You’re like . . . Pitt mythology.”

A snort flew loudly through your nose. “That feel so dramatic.”

Hearing you laugh again seemed to physically settled something inside Robby as his face morphed into something prideful. His arm raised and wrapped around your shoulders, effectively pulling you back into his side with a smile.

It looked like everyone was dying to interrogate you further, but before they could, the trauma alarms screamed overhead. Dana, who had picked up the station phone, lowered it.

“GSW incoming. SWAT raid gone wrong; officer involved. ETA two minutes,” she announced.

Like a clack of thunder, the department exploded back into motion. Nurses rushed toward the bay, and the residents scattered for more supplies all while monitors flickered awake. Gloves snapped loudly in the air into place around wrists. And without even thinking about it, you set your bag down on the station and grabbed a pair yourself.

“Mind if I join in?” you asked calmly.

The newer residents went slightly quiet at the confidence in your voice while Robby looked at you fully. You weren’t the frightened resident he used to know you as. Now, you were a physician standing tall beside him. Another wave of pride washed over him.

“Yeah,” he said awestruck in a way. “Please do.”

The trauma bay doors slid open moments later. Paramedics and uniformed SWAT members wheeled in a bleeding officer while voices overlapped through the commotion.

“GSW through the shoulder—”

“Pressure is dropping—”

“Move, move—”

Then, another familiar and sarcastic voice cut through the others. “If one more drop of blood gets on my new shoes, I’m actually going to file a complaint against veteran discrimination.”

Your head snapped in his direction as Jack stepped through the ambulance bay doors half-covered in SWAT gear, helmet tucked beneath one arm while blood stained the bottom of his pant leg. He looked irritated and entirely focused on the patient—

Until his eyes landed on you, causing him to freeze instantly. Everyone watched as disbelief, relief, and love flashed so quickly across his face it almost felt too intimate to witness. Your composure nearly shattered on the spot.

“Hey, Jack,” you said, voice loud enough to carry over.

The words had barely left your mouth before he crossed the department toward you quickly. He didn’t seem to care about the motion around him, didn’t seem to even notice he had an audience.

Once second you stood there clutching your blue, latex gloves in trembling hands and the next Jack had pulled you tightly against him, one arm wrapping around your shoulders hard enough to nearly steal your breath entirely.

“Oh,” he whispered quietly against your hair. “Hey, kid.”

Your eyes burned while your arms wrapped around his middle, familiar warmth and exhaustion and home hitting all at once beneath the light.

“You came back,” he murmured softly.

“Yeah,” you whispered back.”

Suddenly, the years of distance, Seattle itself, phone calls, missed birthdays, research conferences, and lonely apartments after terrible shifts didn’t matter because Jack still held you exactly the same way he used to after nights in the Pitt, carefully like something precious that had exhausted itself by trying too hard for too long.

Somewhere nearby, Dennis whispered, “Oh my gosh, they really are their kid.”

No one corrected him.

Jack finally pulled back enough just to cup your face briefly in both hands, hazel eyes moving over you like he was trying to memorize every changed detail all at once. “You look good.”

Healthier his expression implied. Lighter

You swallowed thickly. “You look tired.”

“That’s because Robby keeps aging me prematurely.”

“Liar,” Robby muttered nearby, though his voice had gone suspiciously soft.

The patient groaned loudly behind all of you, shattering the moment but snapping the motion back into place. You stepped toward the trauma bed first.

“Okay,” you said, pulling gloves on. “Let’s save this guy before Dana kills us for emotional loitering.”

Dana pointed toward you across the room. “See? They did come back healthier.”

Laughter rippled quickly through the bay as you, Jack, and Robby moved together in a seamless action just like no time had passed at all.

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