synopsis: After months of job searching, you clicked on a position for an overnight custodial position in the Emergency Room at the Pittsburgh Medical Treatment Center. It paid more than any other job that you had seen thus far and it came with a retirement plan.
chapter 1: the roof.
chapter two: the ride - All you wanted to do was go home after the world's longest shift and your bus had left you in the dust. Jack comes to help you out.
There was always the same overwhelming sounds and smells that you always had when you entered back into the ER.
Bright fluorescent lights. You could feel the sizzle of the lights in the back of your brain.
The tapping of keys.
The plastic smell of nitrile gloves.
Hand sanitizer.
The odd combination of clean and dirty. Nothing felt all the way clean here.
All you had to do was get through the last 30 minutes of your shift.
"Are you okay?" Amy said as she was tying the trash bag up. It felt like you could see through the bag to see the torn up shirts and bloody wipes.
You swallowed bile in your throat, "I am. Thanks for finishing that room for me. I'm sorry for freaking out and leaving that for you to finish up for me."
Amy finished tying the bag and looked at you, "You don't have to be sorry for having emotions. It's normal."
Emotions always needed to be sorry for existing and taking up space inside of you.
You nodded. "Let me help you finish up here so we can go home."
The carts needed to be restocked with sheets, wipes, and gloves. The mop head had to be changed. The sanitizer pumps needed to be refilled. All you could think about was your conversation with Jack.
Honestly, he was a mystery to you. Dr. Shen told you bits and pieces of his history that seemed to be information that you could have gotten from his LinkedIn.
It wasn't hard for you to make connections with other people. All of your parent teacher conferences in school had the same message.
"She's great but loves to chat in class."
It wasn't your fault. You wanted to learn more about everyone around you.
Over time, you learned to control yourself from chatting all of the time. That didn't stop other people from wanting to talk to you.
People naturally gravitated towards you whether you liked it or not. It didn't matter if headphones were in your ears or not. People wanted to talk to you.
Jack Abbot didn't seem to want to talk to you.
Jack never seemed interested in having a conversation with you.
No one liked the person that forced people into a conversation.
He hadn't been mean to you ever. He really just didn't make unnecessary conversation with you.
The roof conversation was unnecessary, right? He didn't need to tell you that story to comfort you. But, did he want to comfort you?
"You must have listened to that boring talk by Gloria. You're going to save the hospital so much money." Mel said behind you.
Both of your hands were clenched tightly around the hand sanitizer. It did look like you were trying to get every single drop out of the bag.
"You know I don't listen to those talks at all," you unclenched your hands, "It's already time for you day shifters to come in?"
"Yes ma'am. The sun is up and we are here," said Mel.
Clearly, Jack had been taking up your thoughts by not noticing the hum getting louder in the hospital.
The shift change was usually noticeable right away. All of the day shifters thought that all of the night time staff were neurotic to want to be awake at 4:00am and deal with crazy patients. It was a hidden secret that night shift was peaceful compared to day shift.
Day shift was pure chaos.
The chaos was a rush of people from nurses, aides, social workers, security officers, doctors, volunteers, and maintenance staff. There were people that you had no clue what they even did but they had a name badge. The name badge people were NPCs.
You did keep a running list of all of the day shifters you knew.
Dr. Robby was Jack's buddy. Sometimes frenemy.
Perlah, Princess, and Dana were the HBIC's of the nursing world. You wanted to be them when you grew up.
Dr. Frank Langdon and Dr. Mel King.
Dr. Mel King was the highlight to you. You naturally gravitated towards people like Mel. Her spirit was infectious in a serious way and you couldn't help to want to be her friend.
Shit. All your mind could come up with the word was shit. It smelled like sweet shit. You looked around and there was a trail of poop that looked like red clay.
"It's actually C-diff. But, yes. Sweet shit." You were thinking out loud again.
"What the hell is C-diff?"
Dr. Langdon led the way towards room number three and stopped suddenly, "C. diff is clostridioides difficile. It's highly contagious bacterium that causes diarrhea. Also, we haven't met yet. My name is Mel King. Please call me Mel."
"You can get diarrhea bad enough that you leave traces of it on the ground everywhere?" you asked.
"Yes. You aren't able to control your sphincter muscles which results in this," she said as she pointed to the ground.
"Before we go in there, you need to put this on. C-diff is contagious and I don't want you to get it." She handed over gloves, a paper gown, and a mask.
Did she expect you to do surgery?
Dr. King opened the curtain and God must have decided to punish you in that moment.
The smell of sweet shit doubled. You had to hold in a gag.
"Hi, Mr. Hendricks. My name is Dr. King. It looks like you have all of the signs of C-diff. I am going to prescribe you a medication that will help clear up the infection. Also, you should see your primary care physician to get a referral for a colonoscopy," explained Mel.
How did she have such a straight face while it smelled like shit had been boiling on a stove?
"I want you to be comfortable while you wait for your medication. My colleague and I are going to clean this room up so you're able to relax," Mel said as she nodded to you.
She turned to you with the box of Cavi wipes. "Let's get to cleaning."
Since the education and deep cleaning of C-diff, Mel was your buddy.
"The next shift can finish up here for you. You have about ten minutes until your bus is supposed to come."
Damn it.
Your bus has left you every day for the past two weeks and you didn't want to be caught waiting outside in the heat until the next one.
"Thank you for letting me know!" you said. You quickly finished putting away the cleaning supplies and ran to your locker. "I'll see you later, Amy. I gotta go!" Amy waved bye to you.
You needed to hustle to the bus. When you came outside of the hospital and got hit with the wave of heat, you watched your bus speed by.
"Oh. My. God. Not again!" you groaned loudly.
All you wanted to do was get on your bus, listen to your music, and get home. Take your shoes off. Let your dogs breathe. Shower. Rot on the couch.
Instead, sweat was starting to form on your forehead. You leaned against the pillar and let your backpack fall to the ground. Home felt so far away at this point.
"What are you doing out here? You trying to go back in there?"
You turned your head and Jack was standing with his backpack that had to be from the military. There was no way you could get a backpack like that at Walmart.
"My bus came ten minutes early and drove off without me. I'm either going to have to wait for the next one which comes in the next hour or walk four miles home. My feet are already screaming thinking about walking home," you said tiredly.
Jack looked at you, "Let me give you a ride home. There's no reason for you to wait for the next bus."
You didn't want him to have to go out of his way to drive you home. He had been on his feet all day saving people's lives. You could wait until the next bus came by inside of the hospital. The lobby had the best air conditioning. Corner Store Joe and you would be able to soak up some of that sweet air conditioning together.
"Hey. I can tell that you're thinking about going back into the hospital and waiting. You're not going to bother me or whatever you're thinking about," said Jack.
"Ugh, okay. I'll let you give me a ride home just because I'm tired and it's too hot out here. I'm going to give you some gas money since you're going out of your way."
He nodded and started to walk to the parking lot. You walked alongside him and tried to focus on his humongous backpack. Or, how it felt like hell outside. You couldn't think about the fact that Jack was taking you home.
He pointed to a black pick up truck with tinted windows.
"That's mine."
Of course, he drove a pick up truck. It was one of those that would be driving up a mountain in a commercial to show off how much it could haul. You walked over to the passenger side and reached for the handle of the passenger door.
Jack cleared his throat and looked at you, "No woman should have to open their door." He opened the door and gestured for you to get in the truck.
You climbed into the passenger seat and put your seatbelt on. Jack closed the door behind you.
Wait. Wait. Did he just open the door and wait until you were comfortable before he shut the door?
God God.
Before this moment became a core memory for you, Jack got into the car and turned on his truck.
Thank God for whoever invented air conditioning.
"You can put your address into my phone," Jack passed his phone to you.
You put your address into his phone and handed it back to him. Your fingers grazed his and you had to stop yourself from thinking about how his hands looked like grabbing the door handle.
Get a grip, girl.
This is the longest you had been around Jack.
"Do you have a preference on what you want us to listen to? I don't care either way." said Jack as he cut on the car, "Shen forced me to get Spotify so you could also play what you want."
You huffed out a laugh, "I was the one that had Shen switch from Pandora to Spotify so he has some nerve to force you to get it. I'm fine with whatever."
Jack pulled out of the hospital parking lot and turned onto the street. "How long has your bus been passing you by?"
"It has been about a week of the bus being early by ten to fifteen minutes. I don't know if it's a new driver or someone thinks that I need to get more steps in after being on my feet for twelve hours."
"What do you do if your bus doesn't come by?" said Jack.
"It depends on the day. I walk home or I'll wait for the next bus. It's really annoying when the bus comes early in the morning because I have to hustle to make it to work on time."
Jack stopped at a stop light and turned his head towards you, "You're telling me that you either walk three miles to work at night. Or walk back home after being on your feet for twelve hours?"
"Sometimes, yeah. It's better in the summer for me to walk to work because it doesn't get dark outside until late. If it's the morning, I'll wait in the hospital or I'll sit outside with Joe if it's not sweltering. For whatever reason, Joe knows the bus schedule by heart."
He nodded slightly and looked back at the road.
The hum of the engine was his response.
You looked at him at the corner of your eyes and noticed that he was calmer here. At the Pitt, he was on edge waiting for the next emergency. He hovered in the ambulance bay to see if he was able to help EMT. There was always a restlessness to him. Was it his time as an ER doctor? Or his time serving in Iraq?
Jack pulled into the front of your building and cut the truck off. That was the fastest ride back home ever.
"Thanks for the ride home. You didn't have to do that for me. What's your Venmo or CashApp?"
He shook his head, "I don't want your money."
"Come on, please. I don't want you to think that you had to give me a free ride."
"The ride wasn't a problem at all. You're not giving me any money," Jack said as he opened his door, "Don't get any ideas. I'm coming to open up your door."
He was really serious about women not opening up doors for themselves.
You gathered your backpack and waited for him. He opened the door and you hopped out of his truck.
It really made so much sense that he drove a truck.
"Have a good rest of your day and I'll see you in the evening," Jack said.
"You get some sleep and don't do whatever you do to keep yourself busy. Don't go saving kittens out of a tree," you said quickly.
You swore you heard an amused huff as you walked to your front door. You could feel his eyes on you until you unlocked your door and entered into your apartment.
"Thank you. I really appreciate that," you said with a shaky voice, I think we better get back down there before Shen burns down the place."
He thought, "I don't want to go back down to the hospital. I want to stay up here with you."
Don't say that out loud. Don't be weird.
He nodded at you and said "You're right, please lead the way."
He couldn't keep his eyes off of you as you walked down the stairs.
Jack didn't know what was going on with him when it came to you. There wasn't time to go into that when he needed to close out the last thirty minutes of his shift.
The hustle of day shift was coming in. It was sensory overload. He couldn't believe that he went from sitting in the dusty heat of Iraq waiting for an emergency alone to now having to be around 20 plus people every shift.
He could feel the weight of finishing up this shift. There were charts to finish, check in with the residents to sign off on any labs, and hand off to the day shifters.
Instead of that, Jack couldn't stop watching you with everyone who came into the door. Doctors, nurses, custodial workers, social workers, and even the grumpiest security officers gravitated towards you.
He wanted to be one of those people to you. But, why would you want to be around him?
Jack could list all of his issues in order.
Emergency room doctor who worked insane hours and was known to work double shifts with no problem.
A widow who's wife had died over two years ago and wasn't able to take off his ring until a month ago.
A man who couldn't stand fully for longer than six hours a day without his prosthetic pain throbbing throughout his body.
A man who wasn't able to sleep more than three stints without being woken up by his brain's variety of nightmares.
Yeah.. He didn't expect that you would want to talk to him.
"You must be thinking about something really serious because the vein from your neck is about to burst out."
Of course. Robby always knew when to interrupt his spiraling thoughts.
"Shut the hell up, Robby. Don't you have patients you need to save or something?"
Robby stood next to him and smiled, "Of course, this is the ER. I am trying to figure out what you're thinking about so hard. You're brain is going to explode."
"Don't worry about it. It's nothing," Jack said, "I am just ready to shower and go home." His eyes lingered over to you as you ran off to the break room, "It's time for me to wrap up for the day."
Robby looked at him and smirked softly, "You never want to leave the ER this quickly. Usually, you want to see if there's any exciting action happening on our shift before you go back home to your castle."
Jack never wanted to go home. It was too quiet. The Pitt gave him a break from the quiet.
Jack could see all of his crew getting ready to leave. All of them knew to wrap up as quickly as possible before they hit the weird period where they were desperate for sleep but couldn't sleep at all.
"I have a hot date with my shower and my couch."
He gave Robby a pat on the shoulder and gathered his jacket. He was ready for a shower, his couch, and try to think about anything but you.
He wondered how you got home from work.
His answer came to him leaving the doors from the Pitt and entering back into the world.
Your backpack that was covered in miscellaneous pins was thrown to the ground with defeat that only came from people who desperately wanted to go home. He could see the exhaustion in the slouch of your body.
He wanted to comfort you. He wanted to give you a hug after the shift you had.
No.
He just needed to make sure that you were okay.
"What are you doing out here? Are you trying to go back in there already?"
Smooth one, Jack.
He listened to you talk about your bus commute and what would you would have to do to get back. He could feel the weariness coming off of you.
Jack's entire job is listening to the problem and finding the solution. He knew how to fix this problem. He could give you a ride home.
Of course, he didn't want to become the person Gloria would use as an example of how to not make an employee uncomfortable by driving them home.
Instead of asking you if you wanted a ride home, he told you that he would give you a ride home.
What the hell happened to acting normal and asking if she even wanted a ride from you?
He watched you trying to figure out a way to not inconvenience him by driving four miles away from the hospital. He would drive you anywhere.
When you finally agreed to ride with him, he didn't know what to do after that. He wasn't the best conversationalist (according to Robby, Shen, and Ellis) and didn't know what you would want to talk about after the shift. Just because you were friendly and chatted with everyone at work didn't mean that you wanted to talk to him after work. You reaching out to the door handle of his truck finally snapped him out of his thoughts.
"No woman should have to open their door," he said.
Call him old fashioned. Jack's dad had drilled into him that no woman should have to open the door for herself. His dad would raise up from the dead if he started to let women open up their doors at this point in his life.
He watched as you gently smiled at him and turned to get into the truck. He could almost taste the combination of your faded perfume, your hair products, and the light smell of sweat on you.
Focus. All he asked was to drive you home. He definitely knew that he couldn't ask if you would let him smell you.
He needed to focus on driving you home. That's it.
Close your door. Walk to the other side of his truck. Get into the truck and turn it on. Try not to think about your smell anymore. Be normal. Drive you home without crashing his car and having to explain to a cop that he distracted because of a person's scent.
He pulled out of the parking lot and realized that normal people wouldn't want to sit in silence or listen to his radio guys talk about the Eagles finally not being a disappointment.
Shen did get him onto Spotify and now he had unlimited access to music (and his secret love of history podcasts that Shen had deemed as old white man entertainment).
He handed his phone to you and your fingers grazed his hand. Immediately, he felt a shiver run down his body and had to focus on breathing. Nothing had put him on high alert like this in a long time. The contact between the two of you couldn't have been longer than two seconds. He wished for more.
Think about something else. Ponder about something else. Ask her something.
The safe thing to ask was about traveling on the bus and what she had been doing if her bus didn't come on time. You gave your answer quickly with your hands doing majority of the story telling. He couldn't believe that you were walking to work at night.
He nodded to your answer because he didn't want to tell you what he really thought.
He could fix this problem for you, permanently. He could drive you to from work at night regardless of what was happening at with the city buses.
Unfortunately, Siri's voice took him out of his easy (self-serving) solution to your problem by letting him know that he arrived at your apartment.
Get out of the car and open her door. Don't offer to drive her home every single day. She didn't ask you to solve this problem for her.
"Thanks for the ride home. You didn't have to do that for me. What's your Venmo or CashApp?"
He wouldn't take anything from you. He especially didn't want your money.
Jack shook his head, "I don't want your money."
"Come on, please. I don't want you to think that you had to give me a free ride," you said.
"The ride wasn't a problem at all. You're not giving me any money," Jack said as he opened his door, "Don't get any ideas. I'm coming to open up your door."
In his head, he knew that the rush to open your door was purely selfish.
He saw you get your backpack together through the window and your water bottle (where had the water bottle even come from?)
Stop being weird and open the door, Jack.
You smiled at him and he got that same feeling earlier when you grazed his hand. The smile centered him. Not a lot of things could center him.
The wind went by when he opened the door. Your smell went into his nostrils. Again, he was in the same place as earlier. He needed to say something.
"Have a good rest of your day and I'll see you in the evening," Jack said.
"You get some sleep and don't do whatever you do to keep yourself busy. Don't go saving kittens out of a tree," you said cheekily.
Jack had to swallow the laugh that he desperately wanted to get out. Instead, a huff came out of his mouth.
All he could was watch while you walked to your apartment door.
The regret was already setting in. The ride was too short.
my shaylas, thanks for reading! i was so busy with work in the last couple of weeks and i wasn't able to write. i am going to upload more and have fun. i get so much anxiety with writing aka making sure that my words are coherent. if you have made it this far, please like and/or comment <333 appreciate you all!!
i'm also on ao3 if you want to check me out there. :)
Yes, all/most of the time, and it's mostly neutral or positive in tone
Yes, all/most of the time, and it's mostly negative in tone
Yes, all/most of the time, and it's an even mix of neutral/positive and negative
Only sometimes, and it's mostly neutral or positive
Only sometimes, and it's mostly negative
Only sometimes, and it's an even mix of neutral/positive and negative
Not really, I think in words but it doesn't really have a "voice"
Not really, I mostly think in concepts or images
Not really, I don't actively think very much (e.g. due to fatigue)
Other
( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡° )
Voting ended onMar 10, 2025
For the purposes of this poll, a "neutral to positive" tone would include things like commenting on what you're doing, thinking about random topics, etc, whereas a "negative" tone would include things like criticizing yourself, worrying, etc.
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We ask your questions anonymously so you don’t have to! Submissions are open on the 1st and 15th of the month.
not even the sixth when escape pressed in my mind.
I thought I was the problem,
my needs too heavy, my wanting too much
so I shrank.
A person already small folded herself smaller still.
Each time I pictured leaving I saw the beauty first: the way he loves me, the way I love him, the promise of two people asking each other to change into someone they are not.
Everyone praised him in the beginning,
his gifts, his tenderness, how good we looked together.
But they did not see the fights, the tears, the quiet ways we missed each other’s needs.
Leaving doesn’t feel like freedom but failure.
I stayed because walking away from love takes strength, and I don’t know if I have it.
Yet staying feels like slow self-erasure.
This is survival dressed as hope,
wanting to change what should not be changed.
I am grieving the person I wanted to be for him.
I am grieving the family I built and am losing.
I want not to feel this way.
I want to know how to stop.
But for now I stand inside the ache, holding both the love and the ending at once.
"the 'boo' suffix. the one that indicates fascination with a culture not one's own. originated on 4chan with 'weeaboo' and then spawned several clones with more descriptive names, such as 'teaboo' for fans of Britain and then today I swear I just heard 'wurstaboo' for fans of Germany"
"...lovely"
"and I was thinking. what would you call the guys from Halloweentown who got obsessed with Christmastown in the Nightmare Before Christmas movie? Treeaboo? Wintaboo?"
"there have got to be better uses of your time"
"but I do know what I'd call Christmastown folks who got obsessed with Halloweentown in return"
"...I don't want to know"
"Pumpkaboo"
"...that is a fucking pokemon"
"yeah, a culturally appropriating one, apparently"
