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The monitors are annoying.
It’s the first thing he registers, really. He knows, now, why patients are always so annoyed by the incessant noise.
His brain takes a minute to reboot. And then the pain comes. Deeply unwelcome sparks up and down his back, an ache at the back of his head and heaviness to his limbs.
He doesn’t know how long he lays there, eyes still closed. He just wants a couple more minutes. He hasn’t slept in so long; cannot remember the last time he laid horizontal; cannot bring himself to open his eyes and see that he is alone, he did not succeed, he failed at this just as much as he failed Langdon, Mohan, McKay and countless others after them.
“Michael.”
Or maybe he’s not alone.
“I can tell you’re awake.”
Once upon a time he would have said the tone of that voice was amused; but it’s been too long since he’s heard it to tell for sure - not that that’s anybody’s fault but his own. He hadn’t exactly taken it well when his fellow attending and, though he’d denied having one to Langdon, best friend had tendered his resignation.
They hadn’t actually been speaking when he left. Robby still didn’t know where he’d gone — or why. All he knew was that Jack had told him you have to want help, Robby, and I don’t think you do. I think you enjoy the wallowing, that it gives you permission to be like this — and he’d lashed out.
Straight to the heart, quick as a whip, nailing Jack right where it hurt, and Jack had just walked away as if it was final.
As if he’d finally decided to save himself.
He hadn’t gone to the goodbye party. He hadn’t stopped to listen when people spoke about him in passing. When gossip peddled by Princess and Perlah reached his ears about him, he’d simply walked away.
(He’s regretting that now, he thinks. But not more than he is regretting how he got here.)
“I’m not awake,” he grumbles, still refusing to open his eyes.
“Robby.”
Something curdles in Robby’s stomach. Why did he have to be here? Why now? Why not any other point in the last five years?
Why had he never changed his stupid emergency contact?
He blinks his eyes open, furrowed brow a little more silver than it had been when Jack had last seen him and eyes sadder. That’s what you get when you push away any meaningful connection in your life, he thinks.
For a minute, he just stares at the man at his bedside. The familiar leather jacket, the same cargo pants he used to wear every shift, the same flat look on his face that Robby can no longer read. That thought slams into his head with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer and it’s only when his gaze drops that he registers something’s different about him.
“Long time no see.” He can hear the misplaced anger steeped in every word.
Jack, for his part, doesn’t seem to notice. Although maybe it’s more apt to say that he doesn’t care. Not anymore.
He’s greyer, new smile lines beside his eyes, an ease to him that Robby cannot remember seeing in years - or maybe ever. He has to cut his eyes away when Jack starts to speak. “Well, brother, that’s what happens when people accept it when you say you don’t want help.” The indignity of it burns.
But he can’t bring himself to disagree.
He forces a noncommittal hum, eyes red raw and aching. It feels like that ache is constant these days. “Here to castigate me some more? Didn’t get enough after our last conversation?” He regrets bringing it up nearly as much as he did having the conversation in the first place.
The silence is devastating.
The set of Jack’s jaw even more so.
Something in Robby shrivels up abruptly at the darkness in those familiar hazel eyes. He thinks for half a second that he’s not going to let it be — but Jack does. He’s always been better at that. Better at pretty much anything, even though he’s loath to admit it.
“Heard you’re still going through therapists like tissue paper,” Jack states smoothly, as if being the bigger person doesn’t cost something.
Robby snorts derisively. “Who’d you hear that from?”
For a second, Jack’s sardonic look at him feels so familiar that he almost laughs. And then he remembers where he is. And that they don’t do that anymore.
“Right. You’re still in contact with Dana.” Of course he is. He’s going to have a migraine the size of Texas by the end of this.
Jack’s flat, near unreadable look is back again. One step forward, fourteen steps back.
“She’s family, of course I’m still in contact with her.”
For such a simple sentence, it shouldn’t be so troublesome. It certainly shouldn’t start to break the reality Robby’s lived in for over 58 years.
“Family,” he echoes, as if repeating it makes it anything other than nonsensical.
Jack goes silent for a second before nodding. “Family.” It’s just a word, but it explains next to nothing. How are they related? Or is he just referring to some “claimed” family situation?
Robby swallows, suddenly feeling deeply uncomfortable. His mouth is dry, his throat is dry, his palms are dry and itching. “You never said anything.” Neither did Dana. Both of those thoughts hurt like a rubber band tightening around the lobes of his lungs.
Jack scans his face. Impassive. A brick fucking wall with all the cracks patched up. Part of Robby hates him for that — for having gotten better.
“You never asked.”
It’s not quite a death knell, but it’s close. If he’d been on his feet, it might have knocked him to his knees or tackled him flat on his back. As it is, he’s laying down so it just feels like a weight conjured to press him into the mattress. The worst part is that Jack’s right — he hadn’t ever asked. He’d merely filed away their easy rapport, their familiar teasing, as a fact of the world and not something indicative of anything more.
But he also, as Dana had pointed out recently, never asked her what her kids' names were. He’d never asked her why she was so adamant about keeping her colleagues separate from her family, from her kids, from her husband. He’d never pushed, or questioned her deep abiding love for the hospital, or asked her why she kept coming back — why she kept willingly drowning herself in this work.
“Right.” He’s just tired. He can’t even imagine what he sounds like anymore.
Jack lets the room lapse into silence for a few seconds. He lets it sink in, as though it won’t still be sinking in days and weeks from now, just how totally oblivious Robby has made himself to everything around him.
(Adamson would’ve known Dana’s kids names. He probably got them birthday presents every year. He probably had dinner with them all every couple of months. He was good like that. Robby falls short in so, so many ways.)
“She say anything else?”
“Heard Whitaker’s moved onto rural med. Ellis, Crus and Mateo are thriving. Shen’s still — Shen.” There’s a certain fondness to his voice there, one that Robby used to count himself as falling under. Something twists to hear that he doesn’t. “King’s at UPMC with Santos, Donnie and Jesse made the switch to nights, McKay is the usual attending asked to pick up swing shifts, Javadi is doing a teaching fellowship, Emma’s doing Dana proud, Gloria caused a riot by attempting to ‘forbid chismis’ and betting, and Langdon’s thriving as an addiction specialist.”
Robby swallows. It seems like Jack’s been keeping up with everyone. Everyone except for him.
“Heard that Baran stuck around, too.”
He flinches, just a little.
(I like her.
More than me?
Time will tell.)
They’ve had this conversation before, just in different words. It feels like time really did tell.
“Yeah,” he murmurs, ignoring the stab of pain when he shifts his head on his pillow. “She stuck around. Sounds like you’ve been keeping up to date with everyone.” Everyone but me.
Part of him wants to scream. Wants to throw a pillow in his face, to choke him with it, to throw a punch. Wants to demand answers, to know where he’s been the last five years, to know why he’s still just standing there with his left hand shoved into his pocket.
Jack sighs. “You’re the one that didn’t show up to anything, Robby.” His pause is loaded, jaw locked and eyes suddenly so tired. Robby wants to look away, but he can’t. “So forgive me for not reaching out when you couldn’t do the bare minimum for me.”
Robby lets his gaze drop, stares and thinks about counting the threads in the blanket over his legs to avoid saying something stupid. He hears what Jack isn’t saying — that he never called, never texted, never even emailed or looked him up on LinkedIn.
His jaw won’t unhinge. The apology he wants to give, the part of him that he thinks was half smothered, doesn’t come. He just stares. And stares. And stares.
When he manages to open his mouth, to say something, all that comes out is a grunted — “Why’d you come, Abbot.”
He’s not looking at him, so it comes as a surprise when all Jack says is: “It’s not Abbot anymore.”
Robby pauses, lifts his head, becoming suddenly and deeply aware that he’s staring at Jack like he’s got three heads and just sprouted wings. What does he mean it’s not Abbot anymore? Did he hit his head on the way here?
The look on Jack’s face is almost amused. He looks restrained, still, like he’s holding something back. It suddenly occurs to Robby that he doesn’t know him anymore. The sharpness of it turns his stomach.
“I’m not an Abbot anymore. I got remarried.”
Any anger he might feel about having not known, about having not been there, is doused like a forest fire by a helicopter. If he weren’t literally bruised all the way from his shoulder blades to his tailbone, he’d surely be bruised now. Robby’s jaw unhinges and he swallows roughly.
“That’s —” He cuts himself off, takes a breath. He remembers to tread carefully. It’s no longer his place to ask who. Or when. Or if he can meet them. “I’m glad for you, brother.”
Jack looks surprised for a second. It’s as if he thought Robby would demand to know who — as if he still thought his worst impulses would beat out his better ones. For him, it’s downright mild. After all, he’d once memorably laughed in Mohan’s face for having a panic attack — something he still regrets. Something he can’t ever take back, really.
“Thanks,” Jack’s voice tapers off, before a look of almost mischief slides over his features. “Got a kid, too. And another one on the way.”
Robby knows he was already gawking. He knows this as surely as he knows that this — this will probably be the last time they ever speak to one another.
It’s like his heart is a bruised peach and Jack just keeps twisting it, kneading it, intentionally or otherwise.
“Congratulations.” He means it. He really does. He remembers how Jack had been after his wife. He remembers that shell of a man who had clawed his way back to some semblance of sanity. He remembers the night they met, how he’d waxed poetic for hours about his wife and how they were waiting, wanting at least two kids that they’d never gotten. “I’m happy for you, brother.”
He is. He just also happens to hate that he wasn’t there for any of it, which he knows is his own fault.
Jack gives a nod, this dip of his chin. “Thanks, brother.” He doesn’t say it means a lot. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything to him now. Maybe this is just an exercise in closure.
They’re silent for a little longer. Robby doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know if there is anything to say. It’s not his place to ask for photos or their names. He knows, though, that Jack probably would have shown him anyway if he asked. He’s always been better than him.
Jack Abbot was once his best friend, probably still is, but Michael Robinavitch is not Jack Abbot’s. Not anymore.
By the time a nurse shuffles in, they’ve been intentionally drawing out the silence for ten minutes. She — he can’t see the name badge, and perhaps, at this point, doesn’t really care — doesn’t jolt, only holds up an IV bag and says this, “this won’t take long.”
Jack just shakes his head, scratching at his jaw as he murmurs something Robby can’t hear to the nurse in her green scrubs. A spark of almost fear fizzles in Robby’s veins, because he knows. Jack had always been a nervous talker, but there’s nothing of that in him now. He must have decided long before he ever set foot in this room what he was going to say.
He grants him the mercy of waiting until the nurse bounces back out again, but not by much.
It stings like hell when Jack opens his mouth and — “You should change your emergency contact.” — falls out. Robby blinks, swallows before he nods. He catalogues how Jack’s feet are already pointed towards the door.
No tears spring to his eyes. There’s no relief, tangible or otherwise, that settles in his bones at Jack’s pronouncement. There’s only the lingering, visceral reality that this is it. One of the longest relationships in his life, done, just like that.
“Yeah.” His voice is slightly thick but still steady. He’s just glad he isn’t resorting to begging. He knows it’ll be no use. “I’ll do that.”
Jack gives a single nod. He doesn’t open his mouth. Robby’s glad for it - that he’s not trying to justify it, to tell him exactly why he can’t be that person for him anymore. It had been a very long time since he’d had to be. It’s one of the only parts of all this that he’s truly glad about.
Jack pauses on his way to the door, goes quiet as he turns his head. He gets one last look. He shifts his weight. Rebalancing, Robby thinks, on his prosthetic. Probably brand new.
“Robby.”
“Yeah?”
“…I’m glad you’re alive.”
The door clicks shut and Robby is alone. He doesn’t reach for his phone or the plastic cup of water that sits on the bed tray. He just blinks at the door, as if he expected things to end differently. With a bang rather than a whimper.
The monitors are still annoying.
—
Samira strokes her fingers through her daughter's hair, humming thoughtfully as little impatient hands pressed into her leg.
“He’ll be out soon, kanna. You can watch the doors if you want, or we can pick something else.”
Avani was taking all of this about as well as Samira was. Which meant to say — not at all.
They’d just gotten to her brother's house in Long Island when the hospital called. Pittsburgh Presbyterian had left three messages (and, presumably, many more on the answering machine at home) — all for a Jack Abbot, though Jack hadn’t had that name for four years, seven months, two weeks and three days.
(No, she hasn’t been counting. Jack has a calendar app that counts it for him, despite the fact that he’s never forgotten an anniversary or birthday for as long as she’s known him.)
So they’d gotten on a plane. Bought tickets at a desk on Jack’s black Amex, got Avani settled with a hastily purchased colouring book, all the snacks they could shove in a carry on and an iPad the size of her head. They’d been spat out of the airport two hours later, exhausted and worn thin. Samira, still giving herself a pep talk; Jack, still giving himself a pep talk; and Avani, completely unaware of her parents' general state of angst.
She didn’t mind hospitals. Usually, though, she wasn’t a visitor. Despite herself, or more accurately despite Robby and his mountain of unprocessed shit, she’d loved PTMC. She’d loved the VA before it. Both had validated, even only to herself, that emergency medicine was where she was always meant to be. She loves where she works now. She loves her emergency department, her charge nurse who reminds her so much of Dana and Bridget, her residents who she despairs of one second but adores the next. (She loves, especially, her fellow night shift attending, but the ring on her finger and the bloom of marigolds and cosmos over her left shoulder has already made that clear.)
But there’s a stark difference between being an attending physician and being relegated to the waiting room, being regarded as members of a patient's family (even though that’s a lie).
“Can I watch Bluey?” Avani suggested hopefully, blinking hazel eyes up at Samira. She was only 3 but was perfectly aware of her ability to get her way when she blinked just right. Usually Jack was the one fumbling, but today, with her nerves badly frayed, she knew she’d be the one to fall on the sword.
Samira smiles, this gentle reflex that reaches her eyes. She tucks a curl behind her daughter's ear before she affirms. “Of course, kanna. You mind if I watch with you?”
Avani scrunches up her face in thought.
Despite her fairly obvious distaste for this hospital, she was offered a jello cup when they arrived and quickly discovered it was inferior to Amma and Appa’s at “home” (otherwise known as Johns Hopkins) and her general confusion about where her Appa had gone and why she wasn’t allowed to go, too — she was holding her own rather well, Samira thought. The pads of her fingers stilled against the curve of Avani’s head as she waited for an answer.
The look on Avani’s face intensified. She’d gotten her ‘interrogation face’ from her father; God help anyone who wanted to get one over on her when she became a teenager. “We watch together then get ice cream later?”
Samira huffed a laugh, correcting her gently. “You sit still while we watch together and we can go get ice cream later. Deal?”
Avani nodded, curls bouncing on her shoulders. She stuck her pinky finger out, waiting for Samira to obediently link their fingers together.
Samira could only guess where she’d learned that. (Shen, Crus, or Ellis, from their annual summer trip that had involved Jack pretending again he wasn’t delighted to see them, their tiny night shift crew back together again, plus one tiny straggler.)
As she watched Avani wriggle her way onto the plastic chair beside her and plop the iPad onto her legs, she let her mind wander.
When she’d been preparing to leave Pittsburgh, Samira hadn’t believed that Jack had actually meant what he said. They’d been drunk, talking about her upcoming Disaster Medicine fellowship at Hopkins and how she’d never done long distance before and joked ‘at least this time it wouldn’t be complicated by one of us being in a warzone,’ and Jack had gotten this look on his face before he told her, “I don’t want to do long distance. I’ll come with you.” She’d laughed it off, thinking that when he sobered up, he’d come to a different decision.
He hadn’t.
By the time she’d figured the logistics of her move out for herself, he had handed in his resignation, told Dana and Jesse and the rest of his family that they wouldn’t be far; it’s only Maryland, it’s not like we’re moving to California or Afghanistan (Dana had hit him for that, as was her right); and started looking for houses. She hadn’t expected any of it. She hadn’t wanted any of it, at first, had told him she didn’t want him blowing up his life, his support system, for her. The only thing he’d had to say to that was that she is his life and his support system, and he doesn’t want to waste any more time — tomorrow is never promised, they know that better than anyone.
(Besides, he would’ve made it everybody else’s problem if he had to stay while she had to go. Screw him, he’s selfish, and he wants to watch the future of medicine blossom.)
They got married three days after they touched the ground in Baltimore. Avani, on the heels of her fellowship ending, had been a surprise, a beautiful one, but definitely unexpected. The greatest surprise of her life.
The reality of it was that Samira had never really thought about returning to Pittsburgh for a prolonged period of time. Her fondness, her love, for this place wasn’t conditional but it was something she preferred to think about as part of the past. She could never regret it, because it had brought her Jack (and Crus and Parker and John, Trinity and Mel and Cassie), but the person she’d been when she was here was worlds away from who she was now.
If Robby hadn’t… done what Robby had done, as she still couldn’t put it into clinical terms and cursed herself for it, she doesn’t know if they would have ever come back outside of weekend visits to Jack’s family, far, far away from PTMC and their old haunts. She knows, for certain, that they wouldn’t have gone to see Robby. It would’ve required communication on both ends and they hadn’t spoken to him since — Well. Since they left. Since before they left.
Five years is a long time, objectively. Five years is the length of a residency and maybe a fellowship program if you're lucky. Five years is a lifetime — five years is longer than Avani’s whole life.
Samira snapped back to reality to Avani trying (and honestly succeeding) to lift her arm to settle into her lap. She tsked her tongue, lifting until her daughter was mostly satisfied with her positioning.
“Sorry, kanna.” She whispered, resting her chin on her daughter's wild head of curls as she shuffled back until she felt the curve of Samira’s bump at her spine, usually hidden under formless clothing. Her fingers smoothed down her rucked up shirt as she peers down at the screen.
“S’okay, Amma,” Avani squeezes the arm that settles around her. “Y’can make it up to me wif chocolate.”
Her snort is muffled. It breaks into a real laugh when she registers the episode name on the loading screen. Of course their little wannabe nocturnist picked Fruitbat out of all of them. She insists she wants to be just like them.
Jack hopes she’ll be able to do it without the trauma; Samira just hopes their girl will be happy. That both of their girls will be.
Avani presses play, her thumb smudging the middle of the screen, and Samira watches the familiar episode play out. Sings under her breath as her daughter shimmies. Reflects on how glad she is that her daughter latched onto this — and not Caillou or K-Pop Demon Hunters. She couldn’t imagine Caillou was any less annoying in Tamil and K-Pop Demon Hunters had been beaten to death by a certain night shift attending with a penchant for Dunkin’ Donuts who shall remain unnamed.
She wonders, idly, if Robby has woken up yet. Wonders if Jack’s told him anything, about her or Avani or their second child, the one that they’re both convinced is a girl despite it being their decision not to find out yet. Wonders if he feels guilty now, laying eyes on Robby, his brother, his best friend, for the first time in years. Wonders if he’s shown him the wedding photos, the blurry ones they’d had a stranger take and the handful of nice ones that had ended up framed on their wall.
They make it through six episodes - bouncing around the first season, sticky fingers picking her favorites to rewatch - before anything changes.
Samira’s tearing open a packet of goldfish crackers, listening to Avani monologue about her dream, when she hears it. She nods in the appropriate places, asks a simple “what kind of wings did you have, kanna?” and snorts ungainly at her “Amma! I not have wings. I just fly like in snowman movie.” The sound of familiar footsteps - the gait she’d long memorized (at first, against her conscious will) - catches her attention.
Something deflates in her. A worry she hadn’t known she was holding onto — that he’d come back, see Robby and realize he’d made a mistake — disappears.
Her eyes soften as she takes him in, the black cargo pants and glitter on his shirt that catches the fluorescent hospital lights. “Look who’s here, Ani.” She nudges their daughter and manages, somehow, to catch the iPad that clatters off her knees as she flings herself through the air.
Cassie had warned her that the mom instinct feels damn near superhuman. She just hadn’t expected it to extend to preventing property damage.
“Hey, kiddo.” It was the work of nothing for him, swinging Avani into his arms. She leaned against him, rubbing her cheek against his while Samira started putting away the clustered belongings they’d accumulated on the plastic chairs.
Her eyes, though, barely left Jack.
She could see the tension in his shoulders, even as he bounced Avani. She could see the emotions on his face, barely held back.
“…we watched some Bluey and we were gonna eat some fishies…”
Jack nodded along, solemn as ever. She could tell it was helping him — this piece of normalcy, even standing in a hospital waiting room for someone they hadn’t seen in years.
“But now you can eat fishies, too!” Avani concludes, her mind working as fast as theirs ever does in a trauma bay. It’s maybe the first time since they got the call that she’s seen a real smile on Jack’s face.
Samira folds the bag closed, stands from the hard plastic chair she knows she’ll regret sitting in for so long and picks her way across the room to them.
The restless flip-flopping of her stomach ceases when she’s close enough to touch. Her hand settles on his forearm when he reaches to snag the fabric of her faded shirt, hand that settles on the side of her ribcage still feeling like a brand after all this time.
“Everything okay?” She exhales in a whisper, as soft as she can manage, eyes on their daughter who seems to notice nothing amiss, staring at one of the posters on the wall that she’d missed.
She has, over the years, come to reconcile the Robby Jack knew and the Robby she knew; the good man and doctor turned into the voice of all her doubts and self recrimination. But that doesn’t make any of this easier.
(They’d talked about it. It has been unavoidable. Between her move to nights after that awful July 4th shift from hell when she was PGY4 and the not quite a fight that left Jack without his friend, they had a lot to discuss. A lot to be sad about, to be angry about, to offer apologies and understanding and a little bit of misplaced guilt. They had both decided they’d wait for Robby to reach out, if he ever did. They hadn’t expected a hospital visit to send that plan off a cliff.)
Jack nods briefly, gently tugging her to step closer and sliding his arm around her back in one smooth motion. The inhale he takes, she knows, is deep, filling his lungs. He presses his nose into her hair, lips pressed to her crown briefly. She knows he can smell the jasmine of her shampoo, the shea butter of her curl cream and feel the swell of her bump. She hopes he gets what he needs from it. That’s what she’s there for.
She knows that was hard for him. She knows how many times he’s dreamed about seeing Robby again, about him choosing to get better. She knows, instinctively, that him being here so soon means Robby’s still — Robby.
Eternally stubborn. Refusing to reach for help despite it being so close. Lashing out because it’s easier than trying, easier than accepting his own flaws and doing the work to fix them.
She hates herself, just a little, for feeling relief.
(But who can blame her? She’d almost been collateral damage once. Had been prepared to quit, to switch specialties, to throw away her plan and all the many back-ups she’d made, until, well. Jack.)
His voice is quiet but sure. “Yeah, baby. Everything’s okay.”
Samira sways a little bit with him and Avani, nodding small. Her smile grows. “Everything’s okay,” she echoes.
She squeezes at his side, feeling Avani wiggle and then demand, “where’s my kiss?” The energy around them - almost solemn, worried and contemplative - bursts as they both laugh.
“Where’s your kiss? Mm. I don’t know. Where’s her kiss, Amma?” Jack’s voice is playful. It’s a balm to Samira’s soul. The ground beneath her feet.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she teases, fingers creeping up Ani’s side and grinning when she giggles. “Maybe right here!”
They pepper her face with kisses, luxuriate in the sound of her bell-like laughter.
She eventually fends them off, stomach shaking and her hair even wilder than it had been before. Samira adjusts the bag strap on her shoulder, leaning into them both. Her two favorite people.
She keeps her tone light, purposefully conspiratorial — leans into her husband, steady as a rock despite the way she knows his prosthetic is rubbing, and tells him. “Someone bargained with me for ice cream earlier and I think it’s about time I made good.”
It’s subtle. Her way of making sure he’s good to leave, that he’s ready to leave. Dark brown eyes meet hazel, flecks of brown and gold.
Jack’s tone is just as light, his hand squeezing her hip. “Sounds like a plan.” Yeah. I’m ready.
Avani beams, squeezes her arm around Jack’s neck and starts to ramble about getting to eat ‘fishies’ and ice cream at the same time.
Samira curls her fingers into her husband's pocket, watching the side of his face as they move.
He never looks back in the direction of where she knows Robby’s hospital room is. He keeps looking at her, at their daughter. At his future.
She supposes that’s all the answer she’ll ever need.