Like A Scar of Age
Chapter Two: Lay Down My Sword
Warnings: Angst, fluff, humor, mentions of violence.
Word Count: 2.4k
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Morning came and Robby was still in his scrubs from the previous night. At some point, he must’ve dozed off because Jack came by, startling him and looking far better than he did the previous night.
“You been here overnight?” It was posed as a question but said like he already knew his friend would be in this room anyway.
“Yeah.” Robby rubbed at his eyes before he blinked, allowing them to adjust to the harsh hospital lights he had become so used to. Even he wasn't prepared for it immediately after waking up. “Are you about to leave?”
Someone must've removed the oxygen tube from Aria's nose while he was out because it wasn't there anymore. Meaning, she was breathing fine on her own.
“Yep.” Jack nodded as he went over to the computer in the room, swiping his ID to access her charts and other medical records.
Robby walked to his side, eyes skimming over the charts. He had to put his glasses on to read them clearly.
“Since you're not her doctor, you're technically not supposed to be looking at these.” Jack pointed out with a light smirk, making no move to exit out of the computer.
“And you’re technically not her doctor anymore.” Robby bit back with no real malice.
Kaminski, Aria M
She had never been to PTMC, for any reason, emergency or otherwise. Hell, she'd never been to any emergency room for anything, but all clean records get tainted eventually. Her main care provider was West Penn. Psychologically, she was diagnosed with autism, chronic depression, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and general social anxiety. Physically, she had a mild case of both scoliosis and arthritis, and took estrogen every week on Fridays in pill form.
Her main care provider—a Doctor Abigail Richards that he remembered talking with at one of the mandatory conferences he had to go to—noted Aria coped with overstimulating situations by isolating and wearing noise canceling headphones, but otherwise was able to function just fine.
“Apparently, she’s famous.” Jack commented after typing in a note or two into the chart. “Ellis mentioned she was in an article about the shooting. One of the only people named.”
Famous? Aria looked normal. Not that there was a specific look to fame but not many celebrities had that many tattoos, especially not that many big ones.
To be fair, Robby didn't have much time for movies or television, so how would he know?
He pursed his lips and looked at Aria. “I'd rather hear it from her.”
“And yet you basically already know her entire medical history.” Jack teased, tilting his head to the side.
Robby flushed all over. He took a breath and ran a hand through his hair. “Aren't you off shift by now?” He changed the subject. He was quite adept at that.
“Yeah, just want to come by and check on her.” Jack said, his words softer.
A comfort washed over Robby. If he wasn't there to watch over her, then Jack would've. He knew that she was precious to him. Especially precious since he hadn't had the chance to properly interact with her at all.
“So we're all good, Doctor Abbot?” Robby said somewhat sarcastically.
Jack chuckled. “Yeah. Looks like she's alright. Should be cleared to go home when she wakes up. Just needs to be watched for the next few days so she doesn't pull stitches. You know the drill.” He gave the other man a nod.
“Do you, uh, know if she has any family nearby or…?” Robby shifted his weight on the balls of his feet.
“Not really,” Jack answered somewhat solemnly. “Her brother lives in New York but I had someone call him to let him know what happened. He's on his way.”
If Aria’s brother couldn't watch over her, someone else had to. Damn it if that person wasn't going to be him.
Jack left soon after he finished up checking her vitals, as if they would have changed since Robby last checked them himself. It was a reflex. Precaution. Something all, or most, doctors did before they left a room.
Robby sat back by her side, half-thankful it was the weekend. He never worked on the weekend. And he had four days off the coming week. Maybe he could guilt-trip Gloria into giving him more days off if it meant spending time with Aria, making sure she was alright, at the risk of being a helicopter partner.
He returned his hand to hers, thumb brushing over her lightly calloused knuckles. He could tell they were likely from working out. Boxing. She did have a fairly athletic body, nicely built muscles in her biceps and shoulders, which contributed a lot to her overall health. It certainly helped her pull through this shooting.
Like Jack said, a true fighter.
Aria’s hand began to twitch, fingers tightening around his as her eyelids squeezed for a second before they flickered open. Her irises, an icy blue-grey, could split the sea in two. She lifted her free hand to rub at her face, disoriented by the hospital light.
“Ms. Kaminski?” Robby tried his best to put his ‘doctor’ voice on to grab her attention.
“Yeah, um,” Aria spoke, eyes flicking to him, “I'm sorry, where are my glasses?”
Okay. She was near-sighted, good to know.
There was something about her voice that made his insides flutter. Deep and gravelly from sleep, but still feminine and soft and easy to listen to.
Robby grabbed her glasses from the bedside table and offered them to her. She took them and put them on, hissing in pain. He wasn't thinking. That must’ve pulled at her stitches.
“I’m Doctor Michael Robinavitch,” He said, “Everyone calls me Doctor Robby. Do you know what year it is?”
Yet another reflex. A quick exam to make sure there was no possible brain damage.
“2025.”
“Do you know where you are?”
“A hospital. Can't say which one.”
“What’s your birthday?”
“June 1st, 2000.”
“What's the last thing you remember?”
A darkness clouded Aria’s expression. “I was at PittFest, I was only there for one of the artists but, um… people started dropping like flies,” She licked her dry lips, “I tried helping a few people and then I… got shot. After that, all I remember is the sharpness of the pain and that I must've passed out.”
Robby nodded, swallowing thickly. His eyes stung as he choked down tears. His soulmate tried to help others. Should he have been proud? Instead, he was scared. She was actively putting herself in harm’s way to save others.
“You're at PTMC,” He attempted to say as calmly as possible, not noticing how he squeezed her hand, “You lost a lot of blood but it was superficial. The bullets went through you so you only needed stitches.”
Aria pursed her lips and nodded. “When will I be able to go home?”
“Today. But you'll need to limit lifting your arms above your shoulders and have someone watch you so you don't tear your stitches.” Robby had to focus on the facts.
Aria was alive.
She was talking.
She was coherent.
Everything was fine. Everything should be fine, so why did he still feel that pit of dread in his stomach like something bad was bound to happen?
“My brother—”
“We called him already. He's on his way.”
Aria’s eyebrows raised. She was surprised. Why? “Well, his flight is gonna be a few hours, at least.”
“That's fine. No one here is in a rush.” Robby assured. He certainly wasn't.
Then, there was silence. Aria seemed to notice that Robby's hand was clasping hers. Not the usual doctor-patient conduct that's for sure.
Just get it over with. Say it. Don’t beat around the bush.
“I'm your soulmate.” He told her, turning his hand so she could see their soul-marks had gone red.
Aria blinked, glancing from the red line on her wrist to him. It was black before she passed out, she was sure of it. “You… you’re my soulmate?” She breathed.
Robby’s breath caught in his throat. More dread seemed to fill his chest.
He was too old. Way too fucking old for this girl. Every now and then, he felt a tightness in his back when transferring a patient from a stretcher to a gurney, he had more gray than he liked to admit sprouting in his beard, he had seemingly countless wrinkles around his eyes. He felt his age every goddamn day.
He would slow her down.
He would keep her from living her life to the fullest.
The universe just loved to have a fucked up sense of humor.
Aria appraised him, but he didn't feel horrible about it. Strange. Some sort of excitement ran through him, surprising himself. She didn't mind his age. Was it indifference? Or was she trying not to let her disgust show?
Robby hated not being able to read people's minds. Especially now. Typically, he wanted that power to better understand his patients or the parents of one of his patients.
Now, it was a selfish reason. He wanted to know what she thought of him. Was he underwhelming? Did he look how she hoped? Who was he kidding? Of course he didn’t. A middle-aged man who was the primary physician of a hospital emergency room in a large city wasn’t anyone’s first pick. Maybe twenty years ago, when he was a little younger, had a little more light in his eyes, would he have been bumped to the top five.
“Huh.” Aria breathed, incredulous.
Robby squinted, confused by the almost non-reaction.
Like a whirlwind, the door to the room burst open and flying in came Sloane—one of Robby’s senior residents. He was about to speak but was cut off by her frantic question aimed towards Aria, “What the fuck were you doing there? I thought you weren’t going to PittFest!”
Oh. Sloane and Aria were friends. There was a clear familiarity between them like they had known each other for a while. Probably years.
Aria shrugged, “I decided I wanted to see Hozier.” He was the headliner for the evening.
“I tried calling you, I can’t fucking believe you were right above me this entire time.” Sloane hissed, rubbing her hands against her face.
“I don’t know where my phone is.” Aria said quietly.
Sloane shook her head, “It’s probably in the patient lockers somewhere. I’ll find it for you.”
“What about my clothes?” Aria looked from Sloane to Robby, which caused Sloane to finally register that he was there too.
Robby found his voice after a moment. “We had to cut open your shirt. Your pants and shoes are probably in the patient lockers, but they’re bloody.”
Sloane narrowed her eyes at him. Clearly studying why he was there. Sizing him up? Robby felt a pang of fear in his stomach. What the hell? Why? Sloane was usually a bundle of sunshine and stood at five-foot-four compared to his six-foot-one. Nothing to be scared of, right? Wrong.
Realization dawned in her eyes when she saw their entwined hands and the matching red lines around their wrists. A smug smile spread across her lips as she looked at Aria who avoided her gaze like it burned.
“Is Jesse on his way?” Sloane asked instead of probing for details.
Jesse. Her brother. Robby saved that information for later. He would be meeting him soon. Perhaps a little too soon.
Aria gave her a nod. “Won’t be here for a few hours. Not sure he’ll be able to watch over me, though.” She shrugged nonchalantly.
There were so many things that were messed up because of this accident. They wouldn’t be doing things normally. They wouldn’t be in their own little bubble before branching out to meet family or friends. Robby didn’t have either, he assumed Aria had both.
While Sloane talked with Aria, Robby slipped out of the room to find Gloria.
He knew her patterns like the back of his hand and, as suspected, she was in the ER hounding the weekend attending, Doctor Morales.
“Ah, just the man I was looking for—” Gloria turned to Robby.
“My soulmate was caught in the shooting and I—”
“You can take as much time off as you need.” Gloria finished. Robby blinked. “It’s hospital policy, in case you forgot.”
He did forget. Because he didn’t think about it.
For thirty-six years, he never found his soulmate and began to accept that he never would. Plenty of people never found their soulmate and led fulfilling lives. He wouldn’t categorize this as a fulfilling life but his job kept him busy and he hoped that, one day, he would be able to focus on the good things about it.
He saved countless lives. So why did he focus on the few he couldn’t?
So, no, he never thought about somehow finding his soulmate on one of the countless gurneys that passed through his emergency room. Never remembered the policies about such an occurrence. Hell, for the longest time, Robby thought rules like that were stupid because the hospital barely let staff go on paid maternity leave, but if their soulmate was hurt then they could take all the time they needed. He was grateful for those rules now.
When he came back to Aria’s room, Sloane was nowhere to be seen. He returned to his seat and let out a breath, “How’re you feeling?”
“Not as bad as some others, I’m sure.” Aria offered, something sad brewed behind her eyes.
“Yeah, well, you’re alive. Which is good.” Robby had to speak the words aloud, maybe that would help convince himself of it too.
She didn’t say anything in response to that. “So you’re Doctor Robby?” She asked instead.
She said it like she knew who he was though he was certain they had never met before. He would have remembered his soul-mark turning red earlier.
“Yeah,” He tilted his head, “You’ve heard of me?”
Aria chuckled softly, “Sloane talks about you all the time. ‘Second hottest senior doctor on the floor.’ An achievement given she’s a lesbian.”
“Oh.” Robby felt his face heat. From his neck to the tips of his ears. Then his eyebrows pinched together, “Second?”
“Abbot.”
“Ah.”
