Chapter Text
‘Dr Abbot, This is Mrs Reed’s husband.’ Jack turns to the young nurse peering in through a gap in the door.
The man towers behind her like a shadow, an incomprehensible expression plastered across his face, staring at you. He pushes past the nurse into the room, and a wave of tension enters with him.
Something in his unbroken stare unnerves Jack. His eyes are dark, and when Jack glances at you, he recognises the stiffness in your body, fear permeating the peace.
He’s seen patients in dangerous situations before, and he’s been surrounded by far too much death. He’s become accustomed to much of the tragedy and pain that comes with working in an emergency department—as much as possible, that is. Granted, most of the time it doesn’t reach the levels of horror he’s seen on deployment. He’s had to learn to deal with it all; compartmentalise, then sort through the hard stuff later. But abuse never leaves him. Every case he’s ever dealt with, they’ve all stayed, stuck in his mind like bad memories. He knows why, of course, and every time he thinks about it his palms grow sweaty and his throat tightens.
‘Mr Reed,’ Jack forces. He holds his hand out, and the man shakes it stiffly. Jack glances at his reddened knuckles, then back to his cold eyes. This is the part he hates; the bureaucracy that keeps his hands tied. He wants to kick this dark cloud of a human out of the hospital, but civility is his only option. It’s not because he would face consequences or that the hospital would suffer, but it wouldn’t be of any help to you.
‘I’m the Attending assigned to your wife.’ Jack says, to which your husband flippantly nods his head.
‘I’d like a moment with her.’ His eyes narrow as he drops Jack’s hand.
‘Of course.’ Jack forces a smile that fails to reach the rest of his features. ‘I’ll be right outside, then.’
As he makes his way out, he glances back at you. Your body is rigid, and when your eyes flash to Jack for just a moment, he feels a familiar tightness flourish in his chest, fresh with memories he refuses to acknowledge.
He sanitises his hands as he exits the room and makes his way toward Lena and Parker talking behind the nurse’s station.
‘Tired already? Shift just started.’ Lena’s hand is at her waist as she waggles her brows. Jack scratches at the grey stubble poking from his jaw.
‘It’s this patient.’ He sighs from deep in his chest as Parker eyes him carefully. Jack turns his attention to her. ‘Why’d you give up?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Parker starts, frustration etched into her brows. ‘I know it wasn’t right. I just get so frustrated, you know? All of us know what’s going on, but we can’t do anything about it.’
‘Don’t apologise, I know it’s hard. But we have to be there with them, even if you think it’s not going to help. Sometimes showing them that extra bit of care is what gives them the courage.’ Parker nods as Jack squeezes her shoulder.
‘But this is a pretty clear cut situation because of the severity of her injuries, so we actually can report it,’ Jack says.
‘Already done, cops should be here soon.’ Lena looks past Jack to your room. Your husband towers over the bed, and you’re responding to whatever he’s saying with a nod.
‘Poor thing,’ Lena continues. ‘He must have some grip on her.’
‘What’s his name?’ Parker asks Lena, who looks down at the computer.
‘Taylor Reed,’ she reads out.
The same tightness returns to Jack’s chest, slowly morphing into a pit deep in his stomach. He tries to breathe a bit deeper, slower, but he can feel the familiar taste of anger prickle his warming skin. He has to move, go somewhere quiet for a moment.
‘Let me know when the cops are here,’ he says to them both as he tries to calmly walk to the break room.
The room is thankfully empty when he arrives, and he shuts all the doors for a moment of privacy. He needs to recollect himself, to regain his composure and be professional. This is not how a doctor acts. They cannot let these things get to them, he cannot let this get to him. He shuts his eyes and tries to breathe again, long inhales through his nose, and even longer exhales through his mouth.
You flash through his mind, your cuts and scrapes and deeply scarred body, interspersed by pictures, fragments he’d long since shoved away and hoped never to confront again. He opens his eyes and the fluorescent ceiling light almost blinds him. He blinks a few times as he hears that cold, dry laugh that bubbled out of his sisters throat drift into his thoughts, and a pang of something—guilt and anger and sorrow—hits his chest harder with each beat of his heart.
—
Jack played Little League Baseball in elementary school. His dad had encouraged him to get into the sport as a child, so he’d grown up with a deep love for it. He’d stay after practice most days to play with his friends. It was one of the happier parts of his childhood, when he was still young enough to hope that things might get better.
On one of these evenings, Jack had ridden home on his old bicycle, down the manicured streets of the suburb they lived in, and had made it home just after dark. He was excited to tell his dad about practice that day.
He jumped from his bike, leaving it stranded on the front lawn, and ran inside. What greeted him, however, stopped him in his tracks, and his body froze.
His dad was in the kitchen with his mom, shouting at her so loudly that Jack could hear it from this side of the house. Various curses and words he would never utter to anyone in his life were flung at his mother with seething hatred, and he started to shake as he turned to quietly shut the door behind him.
He gingerly crept through the hall and made his way upstairs, hoping they couldn’t hear the creeks emanating from the carpeted staircase beneath his feet. He kept going as he made it all the way up, then a loud crashing sound rang out through the house, shattered glass, followed by a guttural scream from his mother. He spun on his heels—looking to the stairs—and panic began to build in his body, primal fear. The urge to run. To hide.
But a door opened down the hall, and Amelia’s head peeked out. Her eyes locked onto Jack, and she motioned for him to come inside. He followed the order quickly, and crept into her room. She gently shut the door behind him and after a few seconds of the two both holding in a deep breath, Jack erupted into quiet sobs.
Amelia pulled him into her chest and enveloped him in a tight embrace. He cried into her sweater until the fabric became wet with tears. He felt it all caving in around him, his life, or the picture of what he thought it might be. Up until this point, he had been sure things would change. His dad had recently gotten a promotion at work, and he hadn’t been angry like this in some time. He thought it was over. His mom would always tell him it was the stress, that once it was gone things would be normal, better.
It was never going to be normal. Things were never going to get better. This was who his father was; a mean, violent man. That was in his genes, his heritage. Wherever he went in life, however much he’d try to distance himself from it, this is his father. He swore to himself that he would never follow that path, he would never be like him.
‘It’ll be okay Jack,’ Amelia rubbed his hair as he clutched at her sweater. He didn’t want to let go.
‘No,’ he mumbled. ‘It won’t.’
Amelia pulled back and held him at arms length, leaning down to speak to him on his level. ‘Yes it will.’
She stared him in the eye. Her face was so certain, like she actually knew, like it was a fact. Jack shook his head.
‘No, it’s never gonna change. He’s always gonna do this. He won’t try,’ he blubbered.
‘I know he’ll always be this way, but we’ll be okay. This isn’t forever, Jack, we’ll grow up and get out and we’ll never have to see him again.’ She wiped a tear from his cheek with her thumb. ‘It’s awful. He’s awful. But we’ll make it out. We’ll do it together.’
They spent the rest of the evening in Amelia’s room, and she let him listen to her tapes to help distract from the painful cries of their mother. They shared her bed that night, and she held Jack the entire time, full of fear and anxiety. She tried hard for him, to be strong and brave, but they were both scared, and they were both stuck in that house.
The next morning, when Jack had slowly made his way to the kitchen for breakfast, it was as if nothing had happened. There was no shattered glass, nothing was broken or out of place. But when his mom appeared from the pantry, her face a mess of black and blue behind a useless layer of makeup, his stomach twisted in on itself. He didn’t have much of an appetite, and he and Amelia sat quietly munching on their toast as their mom busied herself with the dishes.
Amelia walked Jack to school as he pulled his bike alongside him. He didn’t know what to say or what to do. His head was a mess, questions and fear swirling about until he couldn’t stand it anymore.
‘Do you think he’ll do it to us too?’ It came out so casual, like it wasn’t some sort of horrible realisation.
‘I won’t let him.’ She kept her head forward and it sent a chill down his spine. There was something so determined in the way she said it, like she could see into the future.
It left an uneasy fear in Jack for the rest of the day, a feeling he couldn’t shake even after he’d laid down to sleep in his own bed that evening. He didn’t know, then, that that fear would never leave him. It would follow him around for the rest of his life, a constant reminder of his inherited brokenness.
He wouldn’t escape it, and every time something was given and taken away it would resurface tenfold, upending his life, reminding him of who he was, and where he’d come from. His family, his leg, his wife. Nothing was safe from it, everything was contaminated by that fear. It haunted him, always there when things were good, always telling him it wouldn’t last.
—
He breathes—strong, deep, and steady—and forces it all back. He refuses to let it in. Once it’s in, it controls him, and if it controls him, he might as well not be here. He turns to the counter behind him, grabbing a cup to pour himself some coffee. He takes a few slow sips of the dark, rich liquid, willing his mind to empty. But he can’t get the eerie sound of his sister's laughter out of his head, or that resigned look on your face—the one his mother has worn almost her entire life.
He’s worked with abuse patients before, and they’ve always brought up these same feelings in him. He’s always been upset by it, but he feels unsteady today. Something about you, perhaps the tiredness in your features, or your quiet acknowledgement of the severity of the situation, tugs at him incessantly. He can’t get it out of his mind. He needs to refocus himself, he needs to be calm so he can do his job, but adrenaline pumps through his hot veins, and his heart thuds against his chest.
One of the doors swings open and Parker tells Jack of the police’s arrival. He steels himself for the conversation ahead and downs the rest of his black coffee, placing the cup into the sink along with his lingering memories before he leaves.
The two police officers, a man and a woman, wait near the nurse’s station, talking to each other while surveying the room. They bring a nervous energy to the already tense emergency department. Jack rolls his neck as he nears them, trying to release the agitation in his gait.
‘Will you keep an eye on them for me?’ He asks Lena, pointing to your room as he passes. She nods.
‘Officers, why don’t we talk in here for a moment.’ Jack ushers them into a room just off the station, hoping your husband hasn’t seen them. Parker follows, pulling the curtain closed behind them.
‘Your charge nurse says there’s been a possible assault.’ The man—Officer Howard—speaks, a gravelly texture to his voice.
‘Yes.’ Jack folds his arms across his chest. ‘A woman, Y/N Reed, came in a couple hours ago with a brain bleed and blunt force trauma to the front and back of her head, lots of cuts and bruises, and a pretty bad ankle sprain where the bruise pattern resembles a shoe. We did some imaging for extra measure and there are a few healed fractures and injuries. So, we’re pretty sure someone’s doing this to her on a regular basis.’
‘Was it life-threatening?’ The woman—Officer Thomas—asks. Her eyes are big and round and outlined by thick black liner. Parker gives her a confused look, to which she replies, ‘we can’t arrest the guy unless we know her life was genuinely in danger. Otherwise she’d have to make the report herself.’
‘Yes, she could’ve died.’ Jack runs a hand through his hair.
‘If you arrest him, what happens if he gets out?’ Parker’s words are cautious.
‘The courts will give her a protective order. If he comes near her he’ll be arrested again and charged for breaking the order too,’ Jack answers before the officers get the opportunity.
‘And if he goes after her anyway? I mean, if he gets to her first and she isn’t able to call the cops then what’s the point of the order?’ Parker’s tone has changed, it’s clipped and rigid. Jack has worked with her long enough to know that she’s not going to let this go, she’s going to try her hardest to protect her patient. It’s why he’s so fond of her.
‘That’s the system,’ Jack sighs. ‘Works well, doesn’t it?’ He mocks, but refocuses his attention on the uncomfortable officers standing in front of them.
‘We’re pretty sure it’s the husband, Taylor Reed. He’s in there with her now. His hand was bruised, too, so pretty sure there’s enough probable cause for you guys.’ Jack pulls back the curtain and makes his way into the hall, the others in tow behind him.
His adrenaline spikes as they near your room. In all honesty, nobody ever knows how these situations will pan out. Sometimes they go easily, but others they put up a fight. He hopes for your sake that it’s the former.
He doesn’t know how you’ll take his arrest, you’ll probably be scared out of your mind of the repercussions that may come with it. What he might do if he gets out. Jack tries to push those thoughts out of his mind. He can’t imagine someone hurting you like that.
He knocks on the door to your room, and when he walks in with the officers, the atmosphere shifts. Your husband stands taller, chest puffed out and expression betraying the anger bubbling within.
‘What is this?’ he asks, and your eyes go wide as you try to sit up. Parker moves to the opposite side of the bed, resting a hand on your back to help keep you steady.
‘I-I don’t…’ You try, but panic and confusion betray you. ‘I swear I didn’t!’ Your tone matches the fear in your eyes, but his attention moves to the officers, and Jack watches your body deflate against the slightly raised bed.
‘Ma’am, Sir, I am Officer Thomas and this is Officer Howard.’ She points to herself, then her partner. ‘We’ve been called in on a suspected report of assault. Can you tell me how you received the injuries you came into the hospital with today?’ Your eyes flit between the officers and your husband. Your skin is exceedingly pale and Jack worries about the strain this might put on your recovery.
‘I didn’t call you, I-I don’t even know why you’re here.’ You try again, but it falls on deaf ears.
‘I need you to answer the question, ma’am.’
You look at the officer, dumbfounded by the situation. The brain injury’s probably not doing you any favours either.
‘I… we were moving the furniture around and I fell and got stuck under the bed. It was an accident.’ Your attempt is desperate, every small movement eliciting a wince of pain, but the excuse is flimsy, and even your husband looks at you in disbelief.
‘How did this happen?’ Officer Thomas points to your ankle, with an almost clear boot-print set into the bruise pattern.
‘It was an accident, we were messing around. All of this is just a big misunderstanding.’
The officer nods her head gently, turning to give her partner a look.
‘Sir, can you confirm any of this information?’ Officer Howard questions your husband.
‘It’s true.’ He glances at you, something uncertain in his eyes. ‘It was an accident.’
Officer Howard glances down at his bruised hand. ‘What happened to your hand, Sir?’
‘I hurt it at work.’ The words are grit through a clenched jaw.
‘What do you do?’ The officer asks.
‘Is this really necessary?’ He’s frustrated. Jack’s body tenses, ready to protect his patient at a moment's notice, as is Parker. ‘She said it was an accident.’
‘Sir, we understand this situation may be distressing, but we have to make an arrest today. We’re going to bring you in on aggravated assault.’ Officer Howard pulls his handcuffs from his utility belt and moves toward your husband, signalling for him to turn around.
He shockingly obeys, though he’s gone completely silent, and the anger brewing beneath his façade of composure threatens to spill over.
‘Sir, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you?’ Officer Howard moves him toward the door, and he spits out a ‘yes’ as they leave the room.
Officer Thomas nods to the two doctors, and says goodbye to you—leaving a contact card on the edge of the bed—before exiting the room and walking off with her partner and their charge. You sit up again as you watch them leave, panic and confusion scrawled across your face.
The room is silent. Both Jack and Parker wait for you to speak, but tears stream down your face as you stare at the door. You look exhausted and scared. Jack’s own eyes threaten to well up, but he pushes through it. He cannot start crying for a patient in front of said patient. That is the last thing you need right now. You need the people who are helping you to be strong and supportive, a bastion of hope in your time of need.
‘Y/N,’ Jack starts, but you cut him off.
‘I didn’t call them.’ Your voice is shaky and broken, as if you’re questioning yourself. Parker sits down beside you, and Jack moves to the other side of the bed.
‘We did, Y/N,’ Parker says gently, a hand resting on your shoulder.
Your head turns to Parker then Jack, and the look in your soft eyes, full of hurt, makes Jack feel sick. He tips his chin to the ceiling to stifle his own emotions, he can’t let the dam break.
‘Why would you do that? I didn’t say anything.’
‘We’re mandated reporters, Y/N. Even if you don’t say anything, we have to call it in.’ Parker's tone is gentle, calm, but Jack can see that it’s affecting her in a similar way.
‘But why?’
‘You could’ve died, Y/N. You were actually quite close to it.’ Parker purses her lips as she waits for a response.
The door opens and Lena pops her head in to call Parker out for another patient. She gets up from her seat beside you, shooting Jack a concerned look.
‘I have to go, Y/N. But I’ll come check on you a little later, okay?’ She hesitates at the door. ‘I’m really sorry this is happening to you.’ But the words don’t register with you. Your attention is focused on the beds of her fingernails as you pick at them, a habit it would seem, from their painful appearance.
Jack sits beside the bed, unsure of what to say or do to help his patient. He’s never at a loss for words, but now he just doesn’t know. It feels too close for him to be pragmatic. He understands you too much, and then not at all. He wants to help without overstepping.
‘Y/N…’ He starts before pausing, unsure of where he’s going. ‘How can I help you?’
It’s simple, probably the most simple thing a human being can say to another. And yet, your trickling tears erupt into loud sobs, heavy, breathless, and full of uncertainty.
Jack is a solid presence in your time of need, a body to populate a room so that you don't have to feel alone. He sits and waits, because that’s what Amelia did, and that’s what helped him. She sat with him and listened and didn’t push or pull, she was just there. That’s what he’ll do for you.
You cry and he waits. He isn’t going to leave you like this. You need someone and he’ll be that for you, at least in this moment. It’s all he can think to do.
After a few minutes, the seconds between sobs lengthen. Jack hands you a tissue which you use to wipe away the tears from your stained cheeks, grimacing as you graze the tender area around your left eye. You sniffle through the process, and then finally, look at Jack.
Your eyes, though red and one filled with blood, almost sparkle in the harsh light, and your nose looks raw from the constant rubbing.
‘I’m sorry.’ Your chin wobbles.
‘Don’t apologise. This is not your fault.’ Jack gives you a gentle smile and you look away.
‘I just… feel so stupid. You’re all trying to help, and I’m causing so many problems. And-and Taylor… I just don’t know.’ A lone tear slides down your cheek. ‘I’m so useless.’
‘No.’ Jack is firm, looking pointedly at you. ‘You’re not useless. You needed help, and that’s what our job is. That doesn’t make you useless. And your husband… I won’t speak on it, but that isn’t your fault either. You have nothing to be sorry for, and nothing to feel ashamed about.’
‘Would you like me to find Belinda so she can come sit with you?’
You gently nod your head.
Jack stands from his seat, but just as he makes to leave, he can’t. He’s held back by something. His heart pounds against his chest, the remains of adrenaline still coursing through him as he stares down at your hand clutching his own.
Your grip is firm, yet cautious, and the skin on your palms is callous and rough and a bit wet. You look directly at him, and the eye contact is so intense it makes him uncomfortable. He shifts on his feet, turning toward you.
‘Thank you, Dr Abbot.’ Your face is still bright red from the tears that had moments ago populated it, and the genuine appreciation radiating off of you fills Jack with a hollow sense of pride. It makes him feel ill. You are thanking him for what little he’s done on the worst day of your life.
‘You don’t have to thank me, Y/N. It’s my job.’ He speaks with a genuine smile. Something flashes across your face momentarily, a hint of sadness or disappointment. Your waterline fills with a new set of tears, but you wipe them away before they have a chance to leak out.
You drop his hand and resume picking at your fingers. ‘I’d like to see Belinda now.’
Jack feels an awkward shift in the tension of the room and mutters a ‘sure’ as he turns to leave, not quite sure of what just happened.
In the hall, he hesitates for a moment before sanitising his hands. The hand you held tingles, a light sensation of pins and needles. Jack swallows as he forces it under the machine, and the cold gel deposits into his palm.
As he walks away, slowly rubbing the gel into his hands, something in him wants to turn around, to stay with you until that sad look on your face completely disappears. He wants to make sure you’re okay. A heavy feeling leaks into his chest as he makes his way to his next patient.
This is not good.