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I'm sick, I watched 4 seasons of Nurse Jackie, and this happened.
Title: Breaking Down
Rating: Gen/Pre-Slash
Summary:
“Name?” O’Hara asked.
“Max. It was bad from the start, but the crash was fast.” Jackie shrugged. “Kid didn’t have a chance.”
O’Hara’s eyed the space where Coop had disappeared from. “Still,” she said. “He seems to be taking it hard.”
Jackie rolled her eyes, “You know how Coop is.” She gave O’Hara a grin.
“Tragically unequipped for adult emotions?” O’Hara quipped, though her mind was elsewhere. It was never easy to lose a patient, but that reaction was… stronger than one could usually expect from Cooper, at least in public.
-
Or: Coop takes a patient loss hard, O'Hara helps.
Fic below cut. Cross posted to AO3 Here
The monitors were screaming. Coop stood next to the bed, gloved hands desperately pushing down into the boy’s chest as nurses worked around him- compressions, epinephrine- he yanked his hands away as someone yelled, “Clear!” and watched the kid spasm. He checked the pulse again, and restarted compressions. Max Sampson was seventeen, and this was his third time in their ER in as many days. Only this time his skin had gone waxy, blood darkened the collar of his shirt, and his lips were blue.
“Push another epi,” Coop said, voice tight. “Can someone take over compressions?” He had been doing it for too long, he knew, his arms were trembling. He hardly registered O’Hara entering the room, his vision tunneled to his patient- his dying, teenage patient.
“Coop,” Jackie said, already peeling off her gloves, “we’re not getting him back.” She gave O’Hara a look- that Coop clocked, he knew what they thought about him, but it hurt extra, after that statement. He didn’t answer, though his mouth opened and closed a few times, then looked back at the kid. He stared at the boy’s face, like if he focused hard enough, it would change something.
Coop leaned down and pressed his palms to the kid’s chest himself. He pushed once. Twice. Then stopped. His hands hovered, useless. His shoulders hunched. He stepped back, looking at his watch, then at the group of nurses who hovered around him, around the patient who was alive twenty minutes ago and had died because of his failures. “Time of death...” He croaked out, “Ten fifty four AM.”
Coop peeled off his gloves, keeping his eyes anywhere but at the faces of the people around him. He couldn’t look at them, couldn’t bear to see the disgusted looks in their eyes.
O’Hara watched him peel off his gloves and escape the room like he was being chased, tilting her head. She glanced over at Jackie, who had already started detangling the wires and bagging equipment.
“Name?” O’Hara asked.
“Max. It was bad from the start, but the crash was fast.” Jackie shrugged. “Kid didn’t have a chance.”
O’Hara’s eyed the space where Coop had disappeared from. “Still,” she said. “He seems to be taking it hard.”
Jackie rolled her eyes, “You know how Coop is.” She gave O’Hara a grin.
“Tragically unequipped for adult emotions?” O’Hara quipped, though her mind was elsewhere. It was never easy to lose a patient, but that reaction was… stronger than one could usually expect from Cooper, at least in public.
“You said it, not me.” Jackie hummed, tugging the plastic covering over the patient and leaving the trauma room. O’Hara lingered for a moment, staring at the now-covered body like it might reveal the reason behind Cooper’s dramatics. Perhaps she could go check on him, if only to make sure he would not unravel all over the next patient.
The door to Coop’s office was slightly ajar, so O’Hara didn’t bother knocking. She pulled the door open, but hesitated in the doorway as she observed him. She half expected him to be on his computer, to have been worried for nothing, but as he often did, Coop defied her expectation. He was snapping a rubber band against his wrist with the most blank facial expression she’s ever seen on him. He paused momentarily, and she thought he might have noticed her, but then the snapping resumed. It took her a few cycles to realize he was doing it in sevens. Lucky number.
She realized he clearly wasn’t going to notice her, so she stepped into the office and pulled the door shut behind her, locking it for good measure. She did not anticipate this would be a fun conversation to have someone else waltz in on, as at worst, it might end with Cooper hugging her.
He still didn’t look her way, not until she was right in front of him and grabbing his wrists in her hands. He looked startled, as if she hadn’t been in his field of vision for the past minute. "That's enough, Dr. Cooper." She means for it to come out sharp, but it's damningly soft. She releases his wrist and takes a step back, clearing her throat. Cooper had yet to say anything, and it’s slightly unnerving.
In lieu of words, he snaps the rubber band again. She scowls and clicks her tongue, “I said enough.” She repeats, tugging the rubber band off his wrist and tucking it into her pocket. She doesn’t miss the way his hands spasm on the desk, his face going through a series of complicated expressions before settling on kicked puppy.
"Dr. O’Hara," Cooper starts, then stops, jaw clenching as he begins to rub at the part of his wrist the elastic had been hitting. She bet it stung, it looked quite irritated. Abruptly, he stood up, nearly smacking their heads together as she had stepped closer when she had taken the elastic. He sat back down, and then shook his head and stood back up. She backed up a step and let him do it as many times as he needed, which appeared to be seven times, and then took the seat across from him when he finally remained sitting.
"Do you want to tell me what all-" She gestures to him "This is about?"
Cooper's lower lip began to quiver, and she felt her stomach drop. Please don't let him cry, she thought rather desperately. Of course, no one ever listens to her, and big fat tears start rolling down his cheeks, quickly hidden by him covering his face with his hands. She waits, hesitating over what to do, because she has never been in a situation like this before, until-
"I didn't check the lights this morning." It was quite difficult to understand him, but she got the jist of what he said. The only thing she didn’t get was why he said it. “I woke up late and I didn’t flick the switch in the kitchen before I left, and I thought... I thought something bad was going to happen if I didn’t, but I just left anyway.” He drags in a deep breath, giving O’Hara a moment to try and piece together what he was saying, but none of the pieces quite fit together. “And then I get here and this kid shows up and he’s dead. Just like that. He wasn’t supposed to die. I didn’t check the light this morning, Dr. O’Hara, and I know it’s not rational–it didn’t kill that kid, I didn’t-, but I can’t know for certain because I didn’t check the light this morning-”
She can’t decipher the rest of his muttering, as his voice grows hoarse and nasally and incomprehensible, words choked between gasping sobs. She sighed quietly and reached across the desk, taking both his hands in hers. She noticed that his fingers had curled together tightly, digging his nails into his palms. She squeezed them gently, pretending for a moment that she was Jackie with a patient. “Deep breaths, Dr. Cooper. I won’t say another word until you’ve pulled yourself together. There you go. You’ve got it.”
Slowly, his sobs subsided until only the occasional sniffle remained, and silence stretched between them.
O’Hara didn’t push him, she kept Coop’s hands in hers, feeling the tension in his muscles slowly relieve, the trembling fading away. She looked at him, examining, trying to figure out her next steps because she felt a little bit lost. His eyes were red-rimmed and unfocused, staring just past her, at the bookshelf, although he clearly wasn’t paying attention to any of the titles.
“You know,” she spoke eventually, her tone slightly cautious, but with some of her natural sass, “there are worse compulsions. It could be fire starting.”
He blinked, refocusing on her, before his brow furrowed and he looked away, “It’s not a compulsion,” he mumbled, shoulders coming up to his ears. Cooper could be an awful liar– though sometimes he was deviously brilliant at it, this was not one of those times.
“Of course not,” she accepted easily, because she didn’t want to fight him on it. “But you do have OCD, do you not?”
He hesitated for a long moment, gaze searching as he looked up at her, before nodding slowly. “Yeah. Since I was a kid, it was under control until recently…work stress, moms divorcing, you know the deal.” He laughed awkwardly, looking more uncomfortable than she had ever seen him. “It’s a control thing, a safety thing.” His hands twitched in hers, and she quickly retracted her grasp. He aimed for a smile, she could tell, but it came off as a pained grimace.
“Right.” She hummed, taking a long moment to gather her thoughts. She wasn’t exactly friends with Cooper, but she had put in all this effort already, so might as well go in for the kill. “Well, for what it’s worth–and I don’t say this often–I think you’re a good doctor. And I don’t think there was anything you could have done for that kid.”
Coop’s throat bobbed, and he looked an absolute mess. “Yeah, but what if—”
“No.” Her voice hardened slightly, she needed him to listen to her, to understand what she was saying. “There is no what if. Sometimes bad things happen, and we have no power over them. It’s not fair, but it’s the job. We have to live with it, or quit.”
His face twisted at that, and for a second she thought he might start crying again—but instead he shook his head and let out a huff that was almost a laugh. “You’re not really the comforting type, are you?”
“Not usually, no.” O’Hara smirked, relaxing a bit into the chair.
There was a moment of silence again, though far less tense this time. He was looking at her expectantly, and she wasn’t entirely sure why.
“I’ll be okay,” he eventually said, and O’Hara took that as her cue to leave.
She stood, smoothing her coat and glancing at the clock. “Well take a moment, splash some water on your face, and go be okay while doing your job.”
He smiled at her, nodding. She made it to the door before he spoke again.
“Hey… Eleanor?”
She paused, it wasn’t often anyone used her first name.
“Thanks.”
She looked back over her shoulder, brow arched. “Let’s not make it a habit,” she said lightly, then left him in the quiet of the office, door clicking shut behind her.
#project hail mary
#heated rivalry
