Ghosts Don’t Stay Gone
Michael Robinavitch hadn’t thought much about the daughter he left behind. Not since the day he signed away his parental rights twenty-three years ago, when her mother got married to a more reliable man. She’d been four years old; small enough to still reach for his hand, too young to understand why he stopped showing up.
Until a new nurse practitioner started at PTMC.
She was twenty-seven. Bright. Bubbly. Effortlessly kind. The kind of person who could make even the most exhausted patient smile. And when she laughed, her chocolate-brown eyes crinkled in exactly the same way the chief attending's did.
Warnings: absent biological father, abandonment, parental regret, adoption, references to addiction and recovery, divorce, emotional hurt, medical setting. Notes: Hey guys! I'm back! Please enjoy this little Robby remembering he has a heart story. Also the dividers mean we're switching scenes or into Robby's POV.
Ghosts Don't Stay Gone Masterlist | Pitt Masterlist
You have been sitting in your car, parked outside Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center for exactly twelve minutes, when your mother called you a coward.
Not directly, Elizabeth Grace Daniels was far too loving to call her only daughter a coward. Let alone on the morning of her first day as emergency nurse practitioner. She merely said, “I thought you told us you were going inside.”
Which translated from mother speak, meant: You have spent twelve minutes in your car, Y/N. Stop being ridiculous.
“I am going inside,” you said, staring at the hospital’s ambulance bay, watching people in scrubs and ambulances enter the building.
“You said that about ten minutes ago,” sighed your mother. ”I’m mentally preparing.”
“You have worked in the ER for almost three years and completed your emergency fellowship at Mercy. I think you’ll be fine.”
”They’ll expect me to know things. I’m not just a nurse and this isn’t just family medicine mother.” Your mother sighed through the speakers of your car.
You could picture her standing in the kitchen with one hand braced against the counter, already dressed for the day even though it was barely six thirty in the morning. There would be a cup of coffee beside her, cooling down as each minute passed. The aroma filling the kitchen. Your dad would be somewhere nearby in his robe and slippers, pretending not to listen, newspaper in hand and his glasses sitting low on his nose.
“You do know things,” she said, “You thrive in the hospital. It’s strange how calm you are in that place.”
“I don’t feel so calm right now,” you say, tapping your fingers on the steering wheel.
Your mother called away from the phone. “James, tell your daughter to get out of her car.” A deeper voice answering from somewhere in the background.
“Get out of the car, Birdie.” You rolled your eyes, smiling despite yourself. “One of these days you’re going to have to retire that nickname.”
“Not happening, my girl.” Your dad said with a quiet laugh. “You’ve been calling me Birdie for twenty- four years.” “And I’ll do it for another twenty-four if you’ll let me.”
The nickname came when you were three, instead of walking like a normal child, you skipped from place to place with your arms stretched out behind you, making chirping noises and pretending you could fly like a bird. You were also convinced that the birds could talk to you. What a weird toddler.
James had watched the whole thing with the kind of adoration only a father could have. One afternoon, after chasing you through the backyard while you “flew” in crooked little circles around the maple tree, he scooped you into his arms and laughed. “I’ve got to catch my little Birdie before she flies away,” causing you to go into a fit of giggles.
The name never disappeared.
James Daniels had been making you laugh your entire life, or at least as much of your life as you can remember.
He was the one who taught you how to ride a bike, placed bandaids on your scrapped knees, and was the loudest person in the crowd at every graduation ceremony. He had cried when you passed your boards, although he insisted a strong breeze had somehow entered the house and irritated both of his eyes.
The fact that James was not biologically related to you had never mattered.
There had been another man once.
Your mother had told you the truth when you were old enough to ask why your original birth certificate held a different last name. His name was Michael. He had been young, frightened, and inconsistent. He had tried to be a father for four years before deciding that signing away his rights was the best thing he could do for you.
Or the easiest.
Your mother had never said which.
James adopted you shortly after marrying her. Your last name became Daniels, and Michael became someone who existed only in a few blurred childhood memories you no longer trusted.
A man crouching to tie your shoe.
A scratchy cheek when he kissed you goodbye.
The smell of coffee.
A dark-haired figure walking through a doorway.
Sometimes you wondered whether those memories belonged to him or whether your brain had simply built a father-shaped shadow after learning one had once been there.
You did not hate him.
Hating someone required a kind of intimacy you had never shared.
You simply did not need him.
You already had a father.
“Y/N?” your mother prompted. “I’m going.” “You’re going to be wonderful.” your mother said. “You legally have to say that.” “No, legally I have to love you. Lying is optional.”
Your dad’s voice came through again. “Call us at lunch.” “I probably won’t get lunch.”
“Then call when you can.” “I will.”
You picked up the iced vanilla latte sitting in the cupholder and grabbed your tote bag from the passenger seat. “I love you.” “We love you too,” they answered together. You ended the call before either of them could give you another instruction. For a moment, you remained behind the wheel.
PTMC rose beyond the employee parking lot, all glass, concrete, and long rows of windows reflecting the early morning sky. You had completed clinical hours in busy emergency departments. You had worked through codes, combative patients, understaffed nights, and traumas that left blood drying in the grooves of your shoes.
You knew hospitals, but this was PTMC. The emergency department people whispered about in nursing-school clinical groups and praised during critical-care lectures. The place that received the patients other hospitals could not manage.
And this time, you would not be standing at the bedside waiting for someone else to make the final decision.
Your name would be attached to the assessment. Your orders. Your plan. Your mistakes.
You exhaled slowly and opened the car door. “Okay,” you whispered. “Let’s try to embarrass myself.”
The ambulance bay entrance opened directly into chaos.
A stretcher rushed past before you had fully crossed the threshold. Two paramedics spoke over one another as a nurse guided them toward a trauma room. A monitor alarmed somewhere beyond the central desk, followed by a voice calling for respiratory therapy.
You stepped instinctively out of the path.
“Good,” a woman said beside you. “At least you know not to stand in the doorway.”
You turned.
She wore grey scrubs with a white long sleeve beneath them, reading glasses pushed into her hair. Her expression held the specific weariness of a woman who had already solved six problems that morning and expected at least forty more.
“Dana Evans?” you guessed. “That depends. Are you Y/N Daniels?”
“Yes, that’s me” “Then I’m Dana.”
You shifted your coffee into your left hand and held out your right. Your tote bag promptly slipped from your shoulder. Dana caught the strap before it struck the floor. You stared at her hand. She stared at you.
“That’s a promising beginning,” she said. “Should I go back outside and try again?” Her mouth twitched. “No. We don’t have time.”
Dana moved through the department without appearing to rush, in a place where everyone else looked like they were participating in an evacuation. You tucked your bag beneath the desk and straightened your badge, quickly looking at the credentials following your name.
Y/N DANIELS, APRN, FNP-C, ENP-C
It’s amazing how much weight some letters can hold.
Dana gave you a tour of the unit. From where the supply room is, to which bathroom is the most secluded. “Trauma rooms are through there. Red pods take the sickest medical patients. Yellow is supposed to be lower acuity, although patients don’t care about color assignments. Triage is through those doors. Don’t let anyone sneak their way past you.”
Dana pointed towards a physician sitting at a workstation.
That’s Dr. Dennis Whitaker. First year resident.” Whitaker looked up at the sound of his name.
He was handsome in an unpolished sort of way, soft exhausted blue eyes, flushed cheeks, and thick brown curls that refused to stay where they belonged. There was nothing intimidating about him
Dana motioned him over. He stood quickly, caught his foot on the leg of his chair, and recovered with only a minor loss of dignity.
“Dennis, this is Y/N Daniels, our new NP.” “Hi.” He offered you his hand. “Welcome.”
“Thank you.” “Is this your first shift?” “Yes.” His entire expression brightened. “Oh, good.”
You laughed. “Why is that good?” “I’m not the newest provider anymore.” Dana looked at him. “You’re an R1. It has been a few weeks.” Dennis shrugged, “Feels like forever in here.”
You liked him immediately. There was something reassuring about his lack of polish. He did not perform with confidence he had not yet earned, and he did not seem ashamed of being new.
“What did you do before this?” he asked. “I did my emergency fellowship at Mercy, but I was a trauma nurse at Allegheny General before that.” you listed while smiling up at him. “Way more experience than I had before starting here then.”
A voice cut in from behind him.
“Whitaker still occasionally needs reminders.” A young woman approached in black scrubs, her dark hair pulled away from her face. She carried herself as though the department had been built to accommodate her.
Dennis glanced over his shoulder. “I haven’t needed a tube reminder in months.”
“I wasn’t talking about medical equipment, Huckleberry.”
You looked between them. The woman’s gaze shifted to you, swift and assessing. “New NP?”
“Y/N Daniels.” “Trinity Santos. R2.” There was pride in the title, as though she had earned every syllable. Her handshake was brief and confident.
Dana resumed walking.
Trinity followed without invitation. Dennis came too, abandoning whatever he had been doing at the workstation.
You suspected this was how the Pitt operated, people collecting into temporary groups until an emergency scattered them again.
“Mel’s an R3,” Trinity explained as you passed a physician speaking gently with an older patient. “She’s frighteningly nice, but don’t mistake that for weakness. McKay’s also an R3 and will probably talk about her lack of a love life with you.”
“Trinity,” Dana warned. “What? It’s useful information.”
“And you?” You glanced at her, “What should I know about you?”
Dennis made a small choking sound. Trinity’s eyes narrowed. You maintained an innocent expression.
After a moment, she smiled. “Very ambitious. Usually right. Occasionally underappreciated.”
“Frequently loud,” Dennis added. “Huckleberry.” “I’m only helping.”
Their bickering had the comfortable edge of familiarity. Trinity teased him because she knew exactly how far she could push; Dennis objected because that was apparently part of the routine.
A burst of laughter sounded from the opposite side of the department. Dana’s expression changed. Not quite an annoyance. Something closer to apprehension.
You followed her gaze.
A tall man in black scrubs stood beside a nurse, signing something on a tablet.
His dark hair had fallen messily across his forehead, slightly too long around his ears, and the sharp line of his jaw only made his bright blue eyes stand out more. He was lean rather than bulky, but the sleeves of his scrub top stretched around his arms when he moved, revealing just enough muscle to be distracting.
Even from across the department, there was something unfairly attractive about him. An effortless, slightly disheveled kind of handsome
He looked up. His attention found you almost immediately. The smile did not disappear. It changed.
Dennis noticed. “Oh,” he murmured. Trinity followed his gaze and rolled her eyes.
“What?” you asked. “Nothing,” Dennis said quickly. “Langdon,” Trinity answered at the same time.
The man handed back the tablet and walked toward you.
There was a slight hesitation in his stride that did not match his confident expression. You probably would not have noticed if you had not spent years watching patients pretend they were less frightened than they were.
“Dana,” he greeted. “Frank.”
His eyes moved to you. “You must be the new NP.” “Is it that obvious?”
“You still look hopeful.” You laughed and offered your hand. “Y/N Daniels.”
“Frank Langdon.”
His handshake was warm. Steady. He did not release your hand too quickly, but he did not hold it long enough to make the gesture uncomfortable.
“Welcome to the Pitt.” “Thank you.”
Trinity folded her arms. “Can you flirt somewhere that isn’t blocking the main corridor?” Frank glanced at her. “I’m welcoming a colleague.”
“You don’t smile at Whitaker like that.” Dennis looked alarmed. “Please don’t.”
Frank laughed. The sound held genuine amusement, but something vulnerable lived underneath it, almost relieved.
As though joking with coworkers was a skill he had once performed without thought and was now pleased to discover he could still do.
It piqued your curiosity. Why is everyone somewhat acting cautious around this R4? Why is he looking like he’s anticipating some snarky comment?
You expected arrogance from an R4. Instead, you found a man who seemed to be trying very hard to appear like he had always belonged there.
A nurse passed behind Frank without greeting him. He noticed.
The smile remained, but you saw the moment land. Then he looked back at you and it was gone.
“So,” he said, “first day?” “Yes.”
“Nervous?” “Horribly,” you said with a chuckle.
“Good.” You lifted an eyebrow. “That’s what Dana said.”
“We trained her well.” Dana gave him a look. Frank lowered his voice. “You’ll do fine. Nobody feels ready on the first day.”
There was no flirtation in those words. Only sincerity.
You smiled. “Thank you.”
Frank’s expression softened.
For one strangely quiet second, the chaos around you seemed to fade.
Then a man’s voice called from behind you. “Dana, has surgery called back about bed seven?”
Everyone’s attention shifted. Dr. Michael Robinavitch approached with a chart tucked beneath one arm and reading glasses hanging from his scrub collar.
You recognized him from the hospital website.
The photograph had not captured the exhaustion around his eyes.
Or the gravity.
Dr. Robinavitch was not particularly tall or physically imposing, but the department seemed to rearrange itself around him. Nurses intercepted him with questions. Residents watched for instructions. Even Frank straightened slightly, his earlier ease becoming careful.
“Not yet,” Dana answered. “I can page them again.”
“Page the attending directly.” His gaze moved over the group.
Dennis.
Trinity.
Frank.
Then you.
He stopped.
It was not recognition. You would have understood recognition. This was quieter and more confusing. His eyes stayed on your face as though some detail had disrupted a thought he could not afford to lose.
You suddenly became aware of everything about yourself. Your stiff new scrubs. The loose strand of dark hair near your cheek. The badge clipped crookedly to your chest.
“Robby,” Dana said, “this is Y/N Daniels. Our new nurse practitioner.” His gaze dropped to your identification.
Daniels.
The name meant nothing to him. You could see that much.
“Dr. Robinavitch.” You extended your hand. “It’s nice to meet you.” He looked down at it.
Then back at you. A brief, awkward pause passed before he accepted. His palm was warm, his grip gentler than expected.
“Robby,” he corrected. “Robby.”
Something moved across his face when you said it. Gone before you could understand it.
He began asking you questions about your experience, and where you went to school. Obviously trying to determine if you would survive in his ER and how much he would have to supervise you.
The questions came quickly, each one building upon the previous answer.
Frank shifted beside you. “Is this an interview?”
Robby did not look away from you. “I need to know what she can do.”
“You could also say hello.” “I did.”
“No, you told her your nickname and began an interrogation.”
You pressed your lips together to hide a smile. Robby noticed. His eyes flicked toward your mouth, then returned to your eyes.
There it was again.
That strange pause.
“Do you have a problem answering questions?” he asked. “No.”
“Good.” “You could ask whether I have any weaknesses,” you say looking up at him.
“Do you?” “Charting and authority figures with expressive eyebrows.”
Trinity choked back a laugh. Dennis stared at you as though you had just thrown yourself in front of a moving vehicle. Frank grinned.
Robby’s eyebrows lifted. You gestured toward them. “Those.”
For a moment, no one spoke.
Then the corner of Robby’s mouth moved. Barely.
“Dana will finish the tour,” he said. “You’ll start with lower-acuity patients. Present every case before ordering imaging or specialty consults.” “Understood.”
“If you don’t know something, ask.” “I will.”
“If you think you know something but aren’t completely certain, ask.” You nodded.
He glanced at Frank. “And if Langdon tells you a rule doesn’t matter, assume it matters.”
Frank placed a hand over his chest. “I’ve been back for months. How long am I going to be the cautionary tale?”
Robby’s expression changed. The humor vanished from it. “So far? Indefinitely.” The words struck more harshly than the moment deserved.
Frank’s smile remained for one extra second before slipping away.
The silence around you tightened.
Robby seemed to realize what he had done, but not quickly enough to take it back.
Frank nodded once.
“Good to know.” He turned away. “Frank,” Dana called.
“I have patients.” His response was light. He walked toward the opposite pod without looking back.
Trinity’s expression held no sympathy. If anything, something like satisfaction flickered across it. Dennis looked at the floor. You looked at Robby.
He had already closed himself off.
“Welcome to the Pitt,” he said to you. Then he followed Dana toward the charge desk. You watched him go.
“Is it always like that?” you asked quietly. Dennis rubbed the back of his neck. “No.”
“Yes,” Trinity said simultaneously. Dennis glanced at her. “It’s complicated.”
“It’s not that complicated.” “Huckleberry,” she warned herself before he could.
You looked toward Frank. He stood at a computer alone, his posture straight, expression composed as he opened a patient chart.
Someone passing him might have believed nothing had happened.
You knew better.
Robby had not thought about his daughter in months.
That was more often than the years before his breakdown, when he could go long stretches without allowing her to enter his mind at all.
He had become skilled at compartmentalization. Medicine rewarded it.
A patient died; another arrived.
A resident made a mistake; another needed teaching.
A memory surfaced; a pager sounded.
There was always something more urgent than regret.
Lately, regret has become less cooperative.
Robby remembered his daughter as a four-year-old.
Dark hair that never stayed in its ponytail. Brown eyes. A stubborn lower lip. The solemn way she colored, pressing crayons so hard they snapped between her fingers.
He did not know what she looked like now. Did not know where she lived. Did not know whether she attended college, married, had children, or ever wondered why her biological father had signed away the right to know her.
He had never searched. He told himself it was respect. It was mostly cowardice.
Y/N Daniels looked nothing like the woman that upheaved all his life plans at first glance. She had been fair-haired, green-eyed, and soft around the face.
Y/N’s hair was dark. Her eyes were chocolatey brown. Robby’s coloring.
The thought arrived without permission. He rejected it immediately.
Brown hair was common. Brown eyes were common. Pitt graduated hundreds of nurse practitioners and nurses. Daniels was an ordinary name.
Still, something about the woman had unsettled him.
Not her features. Her expressions.
The way she pressed her lips together before saying something she knew she should probably keep to herself. The laughter that reached her eyes before it escaped her mouth.
The slight tilt of her head when she challenged him. He had seen those things before. He simply could not remember where.
Dana appeared beside him at the central board.
“You were unnecessarily cruel.” Robby kept his attention on the patient list. “To whom?”
She stared at him. “Frank.” “He made a joke.”
“So did you. His stopped being funny first.” Robby’s jaw tightened.
“He knows the situation.” “He knows it better than anyone.”
“He needs accountability.”
Dana scoffed, “He has accountability. He also has a tracking agreement, mandatory meetings, random testing, a recovery program, a divorce, two children he barely sees, and half an emergency department that looks through him.”
Robby finally looked at her. Dana’s expression softened only slightly.
“You don’t have to forgive him,” she said. “But you should decide whether you want him to succeed here.”
“I do.” “Then occasionally act like it.” She walked away before he could respond.
Robby looked across the department.
Frank stood alone at a workstation.
Y/N was watching him. Then she turned and caught Robby looking.
Her eyes narrowed slightly. Questioning. Disapproving. Familiar.
Robby turned back to the board.
By the final hour of your shift, your feet hurt, your iced vanilla latte, had been replaced by a Celsius that you got from the vending machine, and the careful ponytail you arrived with was barely holding itself together.
You considered that a successful first day. You had not killed anyone. You had not cried in a supply closet. And you had only been corrected by Robby four times. Which according to Dennis, was practically a glowing performance review.
“You should’ve seen my first shift,” he told you as the two of you stood at a workstation, finishing notes before handoff. “I’m pretty sure he corrected me four times before eight in the morning.”
Trinity glanced up from the computer beside him. “And you were covered by like 4 different types of fluids.” “Santos!”
You smiled down at your chart, rereading the assessment for what had to be the sixth time.
Your last patient had been a seventy-two-year-old woman with dizziness, dehydration, and a urinary tract infection. Nothing dramatic. Nothing worthy of the trauma center reputation that had made your stomach twist that morning.
Still, you had presented the case to Robby carefully. You had explained your reasoning, anticipated his questions, and already had the answers waiting when he asked them.
He had stared at you for a moment after you finished. Then he had simply nodded.
“Good plan.”
Two words.
You had spent the following twenty minutes trying not to appear embarrassingly pleased by them.
“You know you can sign that,” Trinity said. You looked at her. “I’m checking it.”
“You’ve checked it.” “I’m making sure I didn’t miss anything.” “You didn’t.”
Dennis leaned toward you. “You’ll learn that Trinity only offers reassurance when she wants access to the computer.” “I need to finish my notes, Huckleberry.”
You signed the chart and stepped aside. Trinity immediately took your place.
The department had shifted around you as evening approached. The daylight staff moved with the tired urgency of people trying to leave before one final disaster trapped them there. Nurses gave report beside open charts. Residents hurried to finish notes. Patients continued arriving as though the hospital had not already taken everything the staff had to give.
A man in dark scrubs approached the desk, travel mug in hand.
“Jack Abbot,” he introduced himself. “Night attending.” “Y/N Daniels.”
His eyes briefly scanned your badge before he smiled. “First day?” “And hopefully not my last.”
Jack looked toward Robby. “She survive you?” “Barely,” you answered before Robby could. Jack laughed. “You’ll fit in fine.”
You gathered your bag and said goodbye, but Robby stopped you before you reached the doors. “You did well today.” Your smile appeared before you could hide it. “Thank you.”
You lifted a hand in goodbye and walked through the ambulance-bay doors into the evening air.
Robby watched until the doors closed behind you. He told himself he was evaluating a new employee. Nothing more.
But long after you had disappeared, an old memory rose with such clarity that it stole the breath from his lungs.
His daughter had been four years old, sitting on the kitchen counter while he struggled to fasten the tiny buckle on her shoe. She had been wearing a yellow dress. Her dark hair had escaped its ponytail, falling around her round cheeks as she watched him with complete seriousness.
“You’re not very good at this,” she had told him. He laughed despite himself. “I’m trying.”
Her little head tilted. Then she reached forward and pressed both hands against his cheeks, forcing him to look up at her.
“That’s okay,” she whispered. “You can try again tomorrow.”
He had promised her he would.
At twenty-three, Robby had believed tomorrow was an endless thing. There would always be another morning. Another chance to show up. Another opportunity to become the father she deserved.
Until one day, there wasn’t.
He could no longer remember what happened after that moment. Whether he finished fastening her shoe. Whether she hugged him goodbye. Whether he told her he loved her before he left.
He only remembered her smile.
Bright and sudden.
Reaching her brown eyes before it reached her mouth.
Now, staring at the doors you had disappeared through, he wondered what that little girl looked like grown.
I think it will be really interesting to explore this new dynamic, especially because we know Robby was abandoned by his own mother. Maybe part of him believed he would never be good enough for his daughter. Maybe he convinced himself that letting her be raised by her mother’s husband would protect Y/N from ever feeling the same kind of abandonment he did. That does not make what he did right, but I think it adds another complicated layer to his choices and I am excited to dive into that. Anywho, thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. Hopefully, I am finally back to being active on Tumblr because I really, really want to be.
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