Chapter Text
## Chapter 1:
There was supposedly some sort of beauty in the firework display unraveling before her eyes. It was, ostensibly, why she had climbed the stairs to the rooftop with her fellow co-workers, ready to see the spectacle of patriotism and joy.
The contradictions were subsumed by the bright flashes of red, leaving scars across the sky, as Samira’s eyes traced the lingering tails of smoke, long after the light flickered and vanished.
Samira had never really appreciated fireworks herself. Most of the time she found them to be a nuisance. As a doctor, she found herself oscillating between exasperation on behalf of the wayward fools that would land themselves in her care for the sake of the pyrotechnic toys, and something that slithered a little too close to admiration for Samira to feel fully comfortable admitting.
But appa had loved fireworks. Said amma reminded him of the firecrackers that littered the sky each July. He drove them all the way to Pennsylvania, sputtering along in the ancient station wagon that Samira would drag, kicking and screaming, to the very finish line of her days in undergrad. New Jersey had too many restrictions on the fireworks, he would always complain, shaking his head. They only allowed the small stuff. Even the articles Samira had found to support her burgeoning disdain were not enough to sway her appa.
He loved the excitement of them. There was a predictable sort of surprise that inspired giddiness. It was a strange paradox for a man as calm and quiet as Mohan.
When she closed her eyes, she could remember the fattest whips of conversation, held in hushed voices with Samira supposed to be asleep in the backseat. It was full of tension, as it often was between amma and appa, whenever they thought she couldn’t hear (and sometimes when they knew she could.) Tamil and English wove a clumsy dance, but there was an intimate exasperation to their voices that Samira had heard at the tail end of many a failed nap in her day.
Perhaps, appa had teased, barely lifting his eyes from the road to cast a fleeting glance at amma. Perhaps, the fireworks felt so familiar to him, because they reminded him of his lovely wife and her temper.
Amma had huffed and crossed her arms, turning away from her husband to glare out the passenger window, but Samira knew every line and rigid stance to her amma’s ire. Appa’s eyes had lifted from the road again, only to catch Samira’s gaze with a quick wink before she had squeezed her eyes shut.
Samira was different though. Her mother’s sharp, biting jabs were quick to flare and lingered, often invisible, long after the words disappeared. But Samira was a volcano, anger building and rising from deep within, buried until there was nowhere left for it to go but out, sometime with no warning at all.
Appa told her as much, the night before the fifth grade science fair. The battered clock that had traveled to three different continents indicated it was well past the hour both father and daughter ought to have been asleep. But making a volcano for a science fair was a rite of passage. Appa had insisted as much, eager to help Samira sink her teeth into the American dream. Amma scoffed, but even she had allowed a small smile to crack through the stone facade when Samira clutched a slightly wrinkled honorable mention ribbon between her sweaty fingers.
She tipped her head back, letting the wash of orange and yellow illuminate the rooftop before blinking out of existence. A false peace settled over the rooftop, though it was only a matter of moments before the next whistle of a rocket broke through the dull murmur of conversation she had so skillfully tuned out.
Samira missed her father. Robby hadn’t been wrong about the personal baggage she brought through the door. Hell, he hadn’t even been far off the mark, though she didn’t know if she would ever recover from the derisive slant to his mouth as the words mommy issues crackled like a sparkler between them.
Her father loved fireworks. He also loved this day, embracing the complexities of it in a way Samira had never quite understood. And she hadn’t known to ask. She hadn’t known how little time she really had.
Samira had seen appa all day. With each shrill alert from her phone, attempting to beckon Samira to amma’s side, familial tenderness frayed by irritation, she would remember how her parents would end arguments in a gruff silence that eventually wore thin. She couldn’t recall an apology ever passing either of their lips.
Orlando Diaz. The name alone stirred a deep ache that had Samira’s hand drifting to rub at her sternum unconsciously. The parallels had been obvious enough to leave Samira feel as though she had been left dangling precariously over the edge of a deep well of grief all day. But it was after Austin Green that her heart truly began to race.
Joy had noticed her panic, but hat Ogilvie noticed the way her breath hitched as he bonded with their patient over their shared connection. She had pushed the memories of her appa’s warm hands tracing over the words of poetry in the various collections he kept strewn around the extra room he always referred to as his “office”. Someday, he would take some time off of the restaurant and become a poet himself. Again, amma had laughed. Again, Samira had smiled. None of them knew how cruel time really would prove to be.
But it didn’t matter how raw and tender the scars around those particular wounds still were. Samira had a duty to her patients, and she had failed. Just like her father had been failed, all those years ago.
Shame rose in her throat, twisting and careening like a rocket launched from the ground. Her hands reached out to curl tightly around the railing. She had no idea when exactly she had drifted so far away from the others gathered to watch the fireworks, only that the cold metal felt right, digging into her skin.
“If you’re looking for some peace and quiet, I’m afraid you’ve chosen the wrong door, Dr. Mohan.”
A voice startled Samira from her reverie. She kept her feet planted firmly, but her head whipped around to immediately place the source of the sardonic greeting.
“Didn’t you hear?” A faint smile twitched at Samira’s lips as her eyes darted across Dr. Abbot’s face almost involuntarily. The night shift attending had always been something of an enigma around the ED, but he had long been a physician she had admired. Samira still recalled one of the lectures he had given, back in her days at the VA hospital. There had been a deep intensity about him that Samira had come to realize was so inherently him. And yet, he had set everyone at ease within moments of cracking a dry joke, before launching into a well-argued demonstration of strategic and tactical medical maneuvers. Samira doubted Abbot even knew she had been in attendance. It was long before she knew how the Pitt would open like a sprawling grave before her. Someday, she might have the courage to tell him how it was that very lecture that had flashed through her mind, like a golden strike of lightning as she had reached for the EZ-IO drill in the midst of the Pittfest trauma.
Abbot cocked his head to the side, once more pulling Samira from the gnarled threads of her mind.
“Hear what?”
Samira’s eyes darted over to glance at the attending. Abbot didn’t stand much taller than her. On some nights, like tonight, when he was shifting his weight back and forth in an attempt to alleviate the obvious fatigue, they were nearly the same height. It allowed Samira to see the gleams of faint auburn in his hair, illuminated by the scarlet fireworks dotting the sky.
“I finally finished my charts. This seemed like the best place to celebrate.”
“Ah, I see.” Abbot said, his mouth twitching into a smile that came to him so much easier than the stilted movement of Samira’s mouth. It always seemed so easy when it was her patients. When it was someone else on the table before her, ready to be examined and cured. “I suppose a few firecrackers are nothing compared to what Dr. Mohan is used to in the ED.”
Abbot still wore that teasing smile, but there was no insincerity behind it. Samira felt a sudden jolt of assurance that he actually believed what he was saying.
It was the only reason she could give for the garbled huff of words that slipped from her mouth before she could catch and yank them back with horror.
“I’ll get plenty of peace and quiet with geriatrics, anyway.”
Samira immediately flushed, turning away from Abbot, her shoulders instinctively curling in tighter as if shielding herself from his very presence.
Immediately, there was a frown creasing between his eyebrows. For a single, wild moment that she couldn’t even begin to explain, Samira was seized with the sudden urge to lean over and smooth the confusion from his expression. Abbot’s elbow twitched ever so slightly, as if he had a similar thought, staring at her with that patent intensity.
“Geriatrics? Is that what you’re hoping to go into?” With every word, Abbot’s brows furrowed deeper.
Samira lifted a shoulder helplessly. “I guess. I mean, both Robby and Al-Hashimi suggested it.” Her voice was flat, carefully to bleed the resentment and bitterness out of her tone. She couldn’t afford to be thin-skinned as a doctor. If she couldn’t take critique and criticism, she couldn’t best help her patients.
It was something else to hear that what she had worked for her entire life might not actually be the path she needed to be on.
“But are you interested in geriatrics? I thought you were moving back to Jersey?” There was a strange lilt in Abbot’s voice that Samira could not place. Still, there was an earnestness to his questions, instead of the overt hunger for the latest tidbit of fodder for yet another betting pool.
Samira lifted her shoulder, almost helplessly.
“I don’t know. That was the plan, but now my mom has decided to throw that out the window for a year long-cruise with a new boyfriend.”
Abbot’s eyebrows did a funny twitch where they appeared to knit together in deeper confusion, before enlightenment settled his forehead into its natural grooves that Samira sometimes found herself admiring a little too closely.
“I see. I take it this threw away wrench in your plans?”
Samira sighed, nodding and reaching behind her to gather her curls in one hand, twisting them around her fingers to pull the sticky strands of hair from the beads of sweat gathering at her neck.
Suddenly, without warning or notice, Abbot produced a claw clip from seemingly thin air. Samira blinked at the claw clip for a moment, practically gaping at the gesture, her eyes darting between Abbot and the clip. As she glanced up again, she noticed the faintest hint of red at the collar of his neck.
“Yeah. And now I’m trying to find an elective last minute and also completely rearrange my future.” She sighed, turning her head to look out again at the fireworks exploding above them. She noticed a tension to Abbot that hadn’t been there moments before, and it was Samira’s turn to frown.
“You don’t have to be out here, Abbot. I promise, I’m not like Robby. I’m staying on the right side of the railing.” Samira had heard the tales about Abbot and Robby and their rooftop escapades. Namely that they seemed to be flirting with death at every chance they got.
Abbot just huffed out a laugh shaking his head, waving his hand dismissively, just as Samira opened her mouth to interrogate him further.
“I’m fine. Not a fan of fireworks, as you can imagine, but I’ve found it’s easier when I can actually see them.”
Samira nodded slowly. She could understand the connection. The body kept a score of its history, both the good and the bad. But they could still ground themselves in reality. There was no true escape, after all. Fleeing could only take one so far, and even then, the fear would still remain. The only real way out was through.
Another firework went off, a swath of oranges reds and yellows patterning the sky as both Samira and Abbot stared up at it in silence for a moment. The smoke left over from the rockets’ ascent was barely visible to the naked eye by the time Abbot spoke again.
“Look, Dr. Mohan. If you want to do geriatrics, you’ll be incredible at it. Because you’re one of the best doctors this place has ever seen, but if you ask me, it would be a huge loss for the ED. But Mohan, whatever you choose, you’ve got to make sure you love it enough to let it get you through days like today.”
Samira stiffened. Days like today. Dr. Abbot knew. For reasons Samira couldn’t explain even to herself, the thought of Dr. Abbot learning that not only had she misdiagnosed herself as having an MI—and likely earning some sort of reputation as a hypochondriac as a result—let alone learning that she had let something as trivial as a panic attack get in the way of providing the best possible care to their patience.
“Yeah, well…” Samira began, but she hardly knew what to say.
“You’re always going to feel like something is off,” Abbot explained patiently, the way he always spoke to her whenever he was walking her through the steps of the drill. His mouth quirked up into a wry smile. “But hey, like Robby says, you’ve got to leave all that personal baggage at the doors to the hospital.”
The effect was instantaneous. Samira felt as though a bucket of ice water had been dumped straight over her head.
It was perhaps, Dr. Abbot’s one and only flaw. Certainly his most glaring. Once it had probably endeared him to her, though one had to only listen to Jack Abbot start talking about one of his passions before realizing he was endearing all on his own. But for Samira’s part, his close personal friendship with Michael Robinavitch was an area for improvement.
It was one thing to know in the theoretical sense that Samira’s favorite attending considered himself close enough to the source of her daily nightmares,. Hearing him actually defend Dr. Robby felt like a betrayal that sank far deeper beneath the skin, traveling a little too close for her liking.
Dr. Abbott seemed to register the change almost instinctively. His took a step forward, as if to follow Samira, but she had already slipped from her grasp, staring up .
“Well, I appreciate the talk, Dr. Abbot.”
She couldn’t meet his eyes, her belly twisting with humiliation and horror. He knew. He had heard what happened. Someone had filled him in on the wasted resources, the most precious of all being _time_. Dr. Abbot knew that while patients languished, aching and suffering in the horrific limbo that was Chairs, Samira Mohan had monopolized the precious, finite time of the ED for something as inane as a panic attack.
But of course he knew. It was probably Robby who had filled him in, before throwing himself onto a motorcycle in what might as well have been the last time any of them would see him upright, from the way everyone seemed to be talking around his ‘sabbatical’. After all, Robby and Abbot were best friends.
The knowledge, as sure as anything, settled like a heavy rock, simultaneously sinking in her belly, while a lump rose in her throat, preventing her from speaking.
It was almost cruel, she couldn’t help but think. A twelve hour shift that had stretched into fifteen had turned her sharp mind to taffy, so that her thoughts were long and sticky. But she didn’t have friends she could turn to, when the heavy tangle became too much. Not the way Robby had Abbot. He told the man everything, didn’t he? He had briefed the night shift attending on the liability that was Samira Mohan, and then he abandoned them both, not caring for the gouges his presence had made in their lives before ripping himself away.
Perhaps they were as lonely as each other.
“I mean it, Samira.”
Her eyes flew up. It wasn’t the first time Abbot had called her by her first name, she was sure of it. But with his intense, unwavering gaze focused on her, and her heart beating twice as fast in her chest, she couldn’t recall a single other time.
“What do you mean?”
She might have had the wherewithal to feel ashamed for the way her voice sounded distant and tinny, even to herself. Instead, she was clinging, captivated, to his every word.
Abbot sighed, and thrust his hands deep in his pockets. She wondered if he had clenched them into fists without her seeing.
“You need something to keep you going, to keep you coming back. If it turns out your passion is for geriatrics, that’s great. But if you don’t know why you come to work each day, this place will devour you.”
There was a strange shadow to Abbot’s eyes. The modicum of knowledge that could not help but bleed through into his words betrayed the truth of it; he spoke from experience. One he might want to save Samira from understanding herself.
She let out a soft huff, the emotion impossible to place, wishing, for a moment, that the air was cold enough to produce the tiniest trace of frost like evidence of life she needed to collect for herself.
The silence lingered, an unidentified tennis swelling between them, with Samira’s gaze stubbornly fixed on the fireworks scattering the sky, when Abbot finally let out a sigh of his own.
“I should be getting back,” he said softly. “Whatever you decide, you’re going to chance medicine wherever you are.”
She turned to look then. There was a small crooked smile tucked into the corner of his mouth, and Samira’s own lips parted in slight surprise. There was no placation, no saccharine platitude that couldn’t quite disguise the sharp, antiseptic taste of a hidden lashing. He _believed_ it.
In a single moment, Samira’s world seemed to turn on its axis.
She turned back to gaze over the city, listening to Abbot’s footsteps carry him away. Slowly, the voices of the others gathered on the roof began to filter back in, and Samira became acutely aware of how she stood off to the side, quiet and alone.
Was this how her father had felt? Standing in the waiting room for hours, haven long surrendered his seat to a woman with a squalling, colicky infant and desperation in her eyes. Had he too assumed he didn’t belong, accepted the poisonous words as medicine, only for his heart to give out hours later?
Samira felt her own begin to race. She knew the answer to Abbot’s question without the attending ever needing to ask. She suspected he probably knew it too, or at least had his theories.
Appa had called her a volcano, pressing a teasing kiss to her forehead. Slow to anger, unlike her mother’s quick, incisive fury, yet quick and impossibly lethal once she finally let it free. With her fingers curling around the railing, Samira tilted her head back, and let her eyes close, the fiery orange hues still dancing behind her eyelids.
She was surprised to find Dr. Al-Hashimi still in the parking garage, several minutes later when she came flying down the stairs with the speed she knew her co-workers thought she reserved for mass casualty events. Dr. Al-Hashimi, for her part, looked only slightly surprised to see Samira herself.
“Samira. Is everything—”
“I don’t want geriatrics.” The words were bursting out of her chest, a pyroclastic flow devouring the space between the two. Dr. Al-Hashimi’s brow simply rose, her mouth closing as she subtly gestured for Samira to continue.
She took a deep breath, steadying herself.
“I appreciate your feedback, Dr. Al, really, I do.” Samira hastened to tack it on, realizing the clumsiness of her words could easily be confused for a lack of gratitude.
“But I’m where I’m supposed to be. I know it. I want to be in an ED. I know I’m good with geriatrics. But I’m better here. I know I didn’t necessarily show it today, but it’s true. I became a doctor to work in emergency medicine.”
She could taste the iron on her tongue, maroon blood licked from her sensitive inner cheek where she bit down every ounce of regret and shame from Orlando Diaz, from Austin Green, from Michael Robinavitch.
Across from her, Dr. Al-Hashimi’s gaze seemed to be a million miles away, almost the way she had looked when staring at the abandoned baby earlier in the morning. But there was a steel Samira could see, settling into place, something she had missed earlier.
“I see,” Dr. Al-Hashimi said, nodding her head, and instinctively letting her hands drift to clasp behind her back, a resting position she had often seen other doctors adapt as well. “You seem quite determined.”
“I am.” Samira hoped it was confidence the attending heard in her voice, louder than the slight quaver that accompanied it. Dr. Al’s brow twitched again. She must have come to some sort of internal decision, however, because she squared her shoulders, Samira instantly straightening in response.
“You’ve given me some things to think about, Dr. Mohan.” Samira frowned, not understanding. It seemed Dr. Al didn’t care to elaborate either, though she did smile ever so slightly. “But I do agree. You belong here. We both do.” The last sentence was added, almost as an afterthought. Before Samira could question it, Dr. Al seemed to draw herself up even taller.
“You should go home, Samira. It’s been a long day. You have the weekend off, don’t you? When you come in on Monday, stop by Dr. Rahman’s office.”
Samira felt a swooping sensation low in her belly at the mention of the program director’s name. It was an experience she knew she shared with all of the residents that had walked the halls of the PTMC as a resident at one point or another. But this time, it didn’t just inspire that cold feeling of dread curling like a python, slowly starving her of oxygen. This time, buried beneath the fear Dr. Rahman’s name drew forth, there was the tiniest flicker of hope.