A/N: Here's the second part! I wrote this to cure a rainy day depression and my brain was a bit foggy so if there's anything that needs to be edited, let me know. Thank you all so much for the support!!
Tag list: @abbotsyogamat @prose-before-hoes @red-dead-02
Warnings: AFAB!Reader, medical inaccuracies
Your next few shifts went more smoothly in nearly every aspect. After you were reprimanded by Jack in front of the whole emergency department, both Dr. Parker and Lena had enough sympathy to take you under their wing. You’ve learned that Ellis is one of the coolest and most laid-back people you’ve ever met. After your unpleasant interactions with Abbot, she let you stick by her for the rest of the shift and never pressured you to talk about what went wrong in trauma one.
Lena stepped in almost immediately after you spoke to Abbot. Instead of acknowledging the issues you were facing, she became a needed distraction and gave you a brief tour of the most important parts of The Pitt (a tour that was most definitely more talkative than the first one you were given). Both women were much-needed sources of comfort. Their presence and silent reassurance made you feel like you didn’t completely screw up when deciding to work here. However, one man stood in the way between you and feeling like you truly belonged.
You had been avoiding Jack Abbot as much as one could avoid the head attending. You were eager to busy yourself with your triage patients and made sure to clean any wounds, administer IVs, and hand out needed medications as quickly and gently as you could so you wouldn’t hold any beds for longer than necessary. When you were needed by Abbot for a trauma, every command was met with a quick response. Jack wanted a vitals report? Done. The parents of an underage patient needed to be called? They’re on the way. You made sure everything you did was fast and efficient for him, afraid to be the subject of his cold reprimanding stare again. It may have saved you from the reprimanding aspect, but today, you couldn’t quite shake Jack’s stare, no matter how much you tried.
_______________________________
Jack noticed your behavior right away. Well, to be fair, he noticed every little detail about you since you arrived at The Pitt. He noticed how you tap each of your feet to the ground twice before coming through the ED doorway. He noticed how you pinched the skin between your thumb and pointer finger when you were nervous. He also noticed how quickly you’ve become an extra help to anyone who needs it, always asking Lena what she needs from you to make her load lighter. He observed a lot of your little habits when you thought he wasn't looking, but the habit that really gets to Jack is your avoidance of him. Any time he speaks to you, he sees how you have to force yourself to look him in the eye and wring that spot on your hands a little harder. It causes a sort of tightness in his chest that he doesn’t quite know what to do with.
Jack knows he wasn’t as kind as he should have been on your first shift. He didn’t know how to handle you coming in and wrecking all of the acceptance and bottling of emotions he had worked through as a result of Daphne’s death. Jack had been content to never feel anything like what he felt for her again, until you walked in. But instead of acting professionally, he took his failure to understand his emotions out on you, and that was unacceptable. He was better than that. He needed you to know he was better than that.
_______________________________
“Hon, this is the third time you’ve asked me. You’ve already done plenty to lighten my load,” Lena said to you in her chiding tone.
“Y/N, look at me,” she commanded, seeing how stressed and restless you were becoming. Ever since your conversation with Dr. Abbot, you’ve been stretching yourself thin, running around on your shifts trying to help anyone and everyone, especially Lena, aware that she had a thousand things to do at any given time. She knows you’re still unsure about where you stand here, but she also knows how much the majority of the staff already love you.
You obeyed and looked at her with hesitant eyes, a tight grip on both of your hands. Lena continued, “You are doing okay. You’re great with your patients, you help us to free up beds faster, and you’re quick to lend a hand to anyone who needs it. You’re doing great here. You don’t need to take up extra tasks just to be helpful because you already are. If you keep going like this, you’re going to burn out before your first year here is up, and I don’t think anyone here wants to see that happen.” Lena took your hands gently, gazing at you with her kind and seemingly all-seeing eyes.
You bit your lip in contemplation. You knew she was right. You were exhausted; people could see the fatigue in your eyes. Being everything to everyone was taking its toll on you, and you knew it.
“I know. It’s just…I want to be useful, needed. Everyone here already takes on so much. I don’t want to be dead weight,” you confessed quietly.
Lena gave you a sympathetic smile. “If this is about what Dr. Abbot said on your first shift, don’t take it to heart. Transitions are hard for everyone, and you’ve certainly made up for it since then. Ease up on yourself.”
You returned her smile reluctantly, but before you could form a response, Jack Abbot came striding into the hub and looked to where you and Lena were standing. You both met each other's eyes. His eyes softened at the sight of you.
“The three-car pileup on the highway is almost here. Y/N, you’re with me on the first ambulance to arrive. Lena, make sure Dr. Shen and Dr. Parker are close by for the next ones,” he spoke with all the confidence of a hardened soldier. You nodded, looking away from his gentle gaze as you followed him out to the ambulance bay.
_______________________________
The bay held an uncomfortable silence as you waited for the ambulance. You kept your stare to the ground as you pinched your palm. You bit your lip in hesitation before ultimately deciding to speak.
“Dr. Abbot, is there anything you specifically need from me during these cases? Is there anything I can do to be of better use to you?” you meekly spoke.
“Just…” Jack sighed at the question, hating that you were trying harder than you needed to to fit in here. He took a breath before continuing in his typical gruff tone, “Stay close by. So you can follow my orders quicker.” Yeah, sure, let’s go with that, Jack thought. He knew it was a bullshit reason and he was lying to himself just as much as you, but he didn’t have time to unpack what he really needed from you, wanted from you, especially when the ambulance was speeding into the bay.
You and Jack opened the ambulance doors and were met with an unconscious bleeding woman, her abdomen covered in cuts and shards of glass. You helped to roll her into the building as EMTs are rattling off the situation. 23-year-old female in a collision with vitals that were more or less stable.
Jack shouted to the hub, “Lena, what’s open?”
You diverted the stretcher to the room as two residents and another nurse filed quickly into the room. Once the woman was on the table, you got to work on cutting her tank top open before Jack even asked. He barely had time to register that before he was checking her airway.
You were already there, keeping her neck steady as he looked down her throat. “She’s breathing, Dr. Abbot. Her chest is moving, and I haven’t seen any blood from the mouth.”
Jack glances at your quickness and nods. “Let’s do a FAST scan around the glass to see if any free fluid or if anything was punctured.” You roll the ultrasound over, and he takes another glance at you, filing away how quick you are this time around for later.
Once the scan is complete without any negative signs, he speaks up. “No signs of puncture or fluid, all of these cuts seem to be superficial. Y/N, put in an order for a CT.”
He frowns in confusion. “You called it in?”
You nodded. “When you were doing the FAST scan. They’ve pushed it to the front and are waiting for her. A nurse is outside the room, ready to take her up.”
Jack paused, like he was processing, then nodded, standing to his full height rather than hunched over the patient. “Okay, then I think we’re done here. Once she’s admitted, let me know, and I’ll check up on her.”
You dipped your head in acknowledgement and began switching the woman’s monitor to a portable one. You made sure to stay on the other side of the room, trying to avoid any reason for him to critique you.
Jack stood in place, frowning and watching you work silently. When he watched your interactions with others, you were happy and outgoing, if not a bit nervous. You laughed with Parker and Shen and had honest conversations with Lena. Now, it was like watching a flower bud close up before his eyes. You were just starting to feel more comfortable here, but he seemed to mess that up every time he came near.
“Y/N, can we…um…” You looked up from your task, and Jack paused, trying to find the words under your curious stare. “Can you step outside with me? I’d like to speak to you.” Without waiting, he walked out of the trauma room, heading into the locker hallway.
Your eyes widened, stress levels spiking, and quickly walked after him. What did you do wrong? You made sure you were on top of everything that was expected of you. Did you miss something? Was he going to yell at you? Transfer you? Fire you? The further your thoughts spiraled, the harder you picked and pinched the skin on your palm.
When you both arrived in the secluded hallway, Jack’s eyes widened slightly at your mannerisms. He saw the panicked alarm bells ringing in your head, and his hand twitched at his side, wanting to put an end to the pinching and prodding of your palms, but he controlled the impulse.
“Y/N, I wanted to apologize–”
“--I’m sorry!” you both spoke at the same time.
Jack’s face twisted in confusion. “Why are you apologizing?”
You could hear the gentleness in his voice, something that would have normally helped to calm you if you weren’t the most stressed out you’ve been since your first shift here.
“I didn’t do everything I was supposed to do during the trauma! I-I must have missed something, b-but if you tell me what it was, I swear it will never h-happen again!” You shifted your weight from foot to foot, picking at your hand faster and harder as tears came to your eyes. “I u-understand that excuses aren’t acceptable, b-but I–”
“Enough.” Jack held up his hand. You tensed and closed your eyes tightly, bracing for whatever words he was going to spew at you.
“Look at me.” A gentle order, but you did so nonetheless. When you did, you saw a soft kindness in his eyes that you’ve never seen before.
“You did everything you were supposed to do and more. You were quick with orders and did the things I needed before I even realized I needed them,” he reassures quietly. A small weight is lifted off his shoulders when he sees your side-to-side rocking slow down. “You are a good nurse. I pulled you out here because I wanted to apologize.”
Your eyes widened slightly at that. “Why?” you whispered.
Jack’s eyes filled with guilt at you even having to ask that. “Because I was too harsh on you for your first shift. I should have communicated better, taught you what I needed better, but instead, I took my frustration of the day out on you. I made you doubt your position here, and for that I am truly sorry.”
Your eyes widened and glossed over. “Y-you aren’t firing me?”
Jack shook his head. “No, not even close.”
“I…I’m doing okay at my job?” you whispered with hope, needing him to say the thing you’ve been anxious about since you first started here.
He nods, “Yes, of course you are. You still have things to learn, as everyone does, but you are. Better than okay.”
You were silent for a moment, processing. Your lip wobbled, and then all of a sudden, Jack felt your weight on him as you threw your arms around him. He stiffened for a moment, but he knew that both of you needed any source of comfort you could find. Jack wrapped his arms around you, rubbing your back up and down as he felt you trembling against him.
“It’s okay. You’re okay,” he whispered softly against your hair. Jack was reminded of the comforts that came with such an earnest hug. He admitted to himself, just this once, that he had missed this. That he still craved this.
The weight off both of your shoulders was palpable. You eventually wiggled yourself out of his arms, and Jack reluctantly let you. “I’m sorry, I know that was unprofessional,” you nervously whispered, wiping a tear from your cheek.
Jack chuckled. “I won’t tell if you won’t.” His heart felt lighter than it had in years as he heard your soft giggle in response.
areudirty
andulkaphoto
dailybridgerton
annaxmalina
origamiaround
