i don’t know. i think that they look very similar and i just. blinked and made this? idk. i’ve just always thought sokka looked more like his mother than katara did … but literally i get told ‘erm ackshually No he doesn’t he looks NOTHING like her!’ like please just let me live!! so i made this. because i truly do think that he shares more features with her than he does his father!
(and also the angst like. gets real with this little thing. the irony of not remembering your parent’s face and feeling ashamed about it, while not realizing that you look just like them??
and plus like… AUGHHH sokka can’t seem to remember his mother’s face, and katara literally can’t forget??!! how could she when it’s like she’s seeing kya all over again with sokka!!!??? what??!!)
Summary: The every day or the shift that got you thinking if your life is going the right direction and where Jack Abbot takes concern for you. Maybe a little too late.
Pairing: Jack Abbot x nurse! reader
Word count: 1,7k
a/n: Feeling burden comes to everyone and so this was an inspiration of a few other one shot I read sometime ago. It was kind of difficult to write this one so bare with me for part 2.
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In the Pitt, you never expect the best, always the worst.
Probably came with your own perception of life until now, or maybe it was all the time you ever doubted yourself to be able to continue in medicine.
It was a rough shift every day, every night. Being a nurse, you always said it could be easier than to become a doctor, and how wrong were you when right at that moment, you were over a patient, doing chest compressions like there was not tomorrow.
Sweat going down your forehead, hair tie falling on the ground - Santos got it for you- almost giving up and switching up with someone else, when the child below you got her pulse back. Santos eased you down from the little girl as Jack and Lena worked on stabilising the girl.
Eyes, trained on her. Legs collapsing. Head full.
You stepped out of the trauma room, barely arriving at the bathroom, throwing up the nothing you had on your stomach for hours of not eating. No food, just bile.
A movie went over your head. You. As a little girl. A hospital scenario much like this one. A vacation day gone wrong.
6 years old, you and your family had gone camping, found a nice spot after hours of searching, it was close to the riverside, fresh both in the morning and night. Easy access to the park cabins.
You had made a friend that summer. Her name was Judith. Same age as you.
One day, you both went to the riverside alone. Both wanted to explore and play fairies together. Innocence. Adventurous. Until everything went quiet.
You both separated from each other and when you had come back to the cabins, all adults were around an ambulance. Her parents were screaming for her well-being, and you froze in place.
Tiny steps until you reach the ambulance where the paramedics are trying to bring her back. Minutes went by. You reached for her hand that had fallen from the stretcher. She was cold.
Your parents pulled you back and hugged you. Worried sick about you too. Yet, you stood there, not crying, looking at the ambulance and feeling your hand freeze with the past touch on Judith's hand.
You didn't know why, maybe guilt, maybe hope, maybe rebuilding. Judith was the reason you wanted to become a nurse or a doctor, you didn't know yet.
You snap back as the bathroom door opens. Lisa, a younger nurse must have seen you run inside, distressed face, and she followed you. In seconds she was brushing your back and holding your hair up.
The night stood still for you after the little girl came back but had to be directed to the ICU, upstairs.
Many came to check on you. Santos gave the hair tie back before she left the shift, which she already had stayed back for too long after her original one.
Crus brushed your back as he came by the nurses' station once or twice. Dr. Ellis had brought you chamomile tea in the middle of the shift.
Everything slowed down, the hours didn't seem to end. Your hands worked automatically and your brain focused on the tea taste. The outside world became white noise while you kept going until the end of the shift.
Someone coughed in the distance.
Dr. Ellis's voice sounded tired but hanging there as she stood next to a distressed patient. Dr. Abbot's claps were in slow motion as he passed through the nurses' station where you were charting. Motivational words being shot in the air to the medical professionals.
Your eyes landed on his. No emotion, just tiredness and sluggish strength. Three seconds that felt like a whole minute.
By the end of the shift, you punched in your ID and grabbed your bags. Instead of going home, you climbed to the rooftop.
You walk to the edge and sit down, your legs dangling down the railings. A gap between the pumping of adrenaline as you lean forward and the soul resting when you lean back.
There were times like this. When ending it sounded like the easier route. A moment that once you closed your eyes people would still be in your life. Not alone. Alive.
"This is usually my spot, you know?" His voice had woken you up from the light sleep you had succumbed to.
Still feeling the weight on your shoulders, you look up at his approaching figure.
"Hey, Dr. Abbot, sorry for occupying your space." You rub your eyes and sigh.
"Hey, hey, there is enough space for both of us, right?" His usual smoulder laced with exhaustion settled down as he sat beside you.
"Right." The slight breeze helps the incoming headache. Your hands brush your hair back as the city lights reflect from your eyes.
There was a moment of shared silence. The weight of the shift is noticeable between you two.
His eyes travel from the cars, lights and stars back at you. "Rough night?"
A nod. No words needed.
"You did good, tonight. I saw you with the little girl at the beginning of the shift." He tilts his head back, leaning on his palms. "It's never going to get easier. Better, yes. Perfect, never."
"I didn't think this through. I don't even know what I am doing here.” Finally, you were able to be honest with yourself. Not quite answering him back but spitting the words to the air. "It's been months. And I never found myself. I just...work. I started with a purpose in mind but now, I don't believe I can keep this going."
He looked at you. Stared. Eyebrows furrowing. "You are an amazing nurse, Y/n. What do you mean not made for this?" His words sounded curious but mostly concerned. "You have been working with Lena for a year and with Dana for a few more months. You are always the first to react."
"Would that mean anything if I said I only did it to make myself feel better about the past? Try to solve my problem while taking care of others? It seems like the greatest motivation in the beginning, to never forget the ones I lost. To try and save them, even though I couldn't bring them back." Your back meets the concrete as your eyes find the stars.
"Y/n, it doesn't matter the motivation. Selfish or not. You helped people along the way. A lot of patients mentioned you." He moved closer to you. Hand lifting brushing your shoulder.
"It doesn't matter. It never did. I can't bring them back." The tears ran down your cheeks, an arm over your eyes to hide the sadness from Jack. From the world.
Jack risks it and brushes the back of his hand up and down your arm. He didn't speak. Yet he knew how it felt. To lose people. To lose the ones you love.
He used to be you, if not, he still had that gap over his heart, but he learned with the passage of time.
Some days later, Jack always made sure to check on you. Glances over charts, steps slowing down behind you as you check on a patient. He seemed to be concerned after that conversation on the rooftop. He knew how good of a professional you were and losing such a great nurse would be hard, this technically speaking. Now, his thoughts that usually drifted to you very briefly were on you, constantly.
He barely knew how to function with this weird sensation on his chest. Not even therapy seemed to help, not the nights he spent on the rooftop alone or with Robby's company.
During the next shifts he had noticed your down sided shoulders, the smile that didn't reach your eyes like always, the mistakes you made. A medical charts falling, you bump on others, the constant sneak aways with the excuse you were feeling hungry.
One night, he arrived at his shift, earlier as always. After he gets out of the locker room his eyes automatically search for a certain dark blue ribbon you always used in your hair, the smell of the sweet yet calming perfume you use, or from your detergent, he didn't really know, or didn't care.
No sign of you. You haven't gone past him, or he would have noticed. You weren't charting or at the nurses' station.
Without looking at Lena or any of the nurses at their station, he leans his back against the counter. "Hey, Lena? Where's Y/n?"
Lena, the head nurse for the night shift stops her conversation with Dana, which was leaving, and turns to face Jack. "Oh, Dr. Abbot, she left."
His eyes dart to the nurses behind his shoulder. "She worked the morning shift today?" His gulp going down his dry throat as he waited to be right.
"No one told you, Dr. Abbot? Y/n left the hospital this morning. She terminated her contract with the Medical Centre." Lena's voice softens as she tells him about your decision. It stung. Not only for you but to all of them. You were loved there. A sweet nurse and even better person.
So, when Jack heard you were gone, and gone for good his head snaps back to look at every single nurse. You were gone. His shoulders tighten as it did his jaw. "Did she give a reason?" He didn't want to believe you were gone, just like that. Not now he started to show how you mattered. To ED and also to him.
Lisa steps up, chart in hand. "She wasn't feeling well while she worked, and I think we all noticed. I just wished we could have done something more for her. She is really kind..." Lisa's voice breaks. You were her helping step as Lisa was only starting as a nurse. Maybe because of closer age range or simply because you made space for her. That's why Lisa was feeling so affected.
Jack's eyes travelled to Lisa, then back at Lena. He didn't believe in you leaving. Even after that rooftop conversation, he thought he had convinced you to stay. And yet, he lost you.
"Okay. Alright. Thanks..." He nods at the nurses before he takes a random tablet and walks away, still in his head space.
