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Robby is ... not happy that he is here. That's not something that Frank ever thought he'd have to worry about. He'd been Robby's star pupil since day one.
Frank won't think about why that's changed. Rule number one of an MCI: focus on the patient in front of you, and the dying relationship between them is not on the table. Not yet.
Dana is neutral. Robby's undoubtedly notified her, and she's probably doing an audit of his cases. If Robby gained any coolness after Frank left (he doesn't seem like it, but it's been an off day all day for Robby), then Frank knows he will have remembered to follow procedure.
They all know procedure. Frank is not the first person to ... fuck up this way. He won't be the last. They know how this shit goes, and they both know the ways that Robby hasn't followed procedure correctly today.
Maybe that's why Robby lets him stay. Maybe it's just practical; they do need all hands on deck.
He wonders where Collins is. She'd probably judge him harsher than Robby.
Santos is ... just as aggressive as he expects. He doesn't expect anything different from her.
Focus on the patient, he tells himself. Robby isn't going to believe him in any altercation, so there's no point in doing anything else. Focus on the patient.
Garcia doesn't seem have any clue what's going on with him, which is odd. He would have though that Santos would have ran to her buddy and told her immediately. But she doesn't treat him any differently, so she can't. Still, her familiar vague contempt and annoyance with him is calming in a way that it always has been, in the way that Robby's hand on his shoulder used to be. It's grounding, and he hates to see her leave, her presence far too brief.
But Mel... Mel is genuinely happy to see him. Mel's voice cuts through all the stress and judgement (both real and imagined, he's sure). It's filled with joy and relief. "You're here!"
He looks up at that joy - how can he not? - and returns it. "In the flesh! What do you got?"
She doesn't know. Robby wouldn't break the rules that much, of course not. Maybe Santos wouldn't either, he doesn't honestly know. But he's relieved she doesn't know.
He thinks, briefly, that he wishes it could keep it that way.
But there will be time to worry about that later.
At least, that's what he tells himself, because the shift starts on the best kind of high.
But every high has to come with a crash.
None of them actually believe the shooter will breach the hospital walls. They have security. They have a bunch of very well-armed men surrounding them with a lot of guns. The SWAT team is designed for this crisis.
They stay focused on the patient in front of them.
It's a mistake.
It lets them get sloppy.
"It's great about Dr. Robby's son," Mel says to him during a supply run - stealing suture supplies from labor and delivery is generally frowned upon, but necessary. Her voice hasn't sounded this cheerful since she first saw him.
She's overstimulated; he knows this. He also knows that there's nothing he can do about the noise or the crowd. Mel is going to be a great Emergency Medicine doctor someday, but he imagines it will be serving in some rural ED, somewhere, full of people who need her, not in some trauma center.
Maybe she'll hire him. It might take him that long to unfuck his career, he thinks.
He swallows that thought down.
"Technically, it's his stepson," he says, because he knows that details are important to her. "But yes, I'm glad Jake pulled through."
She frowns slightly. "Well, family is family. We care about ... the people we care about," she says definitively, and oh, no, that doesn't sound happy at all. Did he fuck something up? He looks at her, confused, but before he can say anything, she clarifies, "You didn't say goodbye. Before you left, last time. I mean. You didn't have to, but I - I had a really great case. I wanted to tell you about it."
His back aches, and he craves the pills that are no longer in his locker. If disappointing your mentor sucks, disappointing someone who looks up to you might be worse.
"I'm sorry," he says. "Something came up, and I had to go. Listen, Mel - no matter what you hear later, what I said to you today is true. You're going to be a great doctor."
"Are you going somewhere?" She sounds so sad, and he wants to reassure her - because this fuck up isn't career ending.
Plenty of people have struggled at the Pitt. Robby should know that. Hell, his sainted fucking mentor would have known better.
But before he can reassure her, there's a scream.
A scream, and then there's a gun.
And then there's that fucking Doug Driscoll asshole, pointing it at Mel.
No. No. No.
"Hey! Doug, buddy. Why are you pointing that thing at her? She's not the one who pissed you off today, remember? How's the old ticker?"
It's an awful thing to say, but his only thought is to get Doug to focus on him. All of his anger, refocused on him. Where the hell is the SWAT team?
"Oh, I remember you, asshole," Driscoll says, and he turns his whole body towards Frank.
Good. Good. Good.
"Oh, you left beind an impression, too. Not the best one," Frank says, and he moves slowly, putting himself directly in front of Mel. He can see other doctors, and he knows there's a nurse - from upstairs, so he doesn't know her name - covertly calling someone. The fucking SWAT team, he hopes.
"Yeah? Let's see if this one is better," Doug says.
Driscoll looks at him, smirks, and pulls the trigger. More the once, if the number of Mel's screams are any indication. But Mel's screams come above him, and it his body that hits the floor.
Every high has a crash.
No. No. No.
He thinks he hears another voice. Robby? Garcia? Dana?
He can't - he can't hear anything.
But Mel is above him. She's safe.
They've put Frank in a room, because that's better for morale than treating one of their own in the middle of the fucking floor, and they are lucky enough that the onslaught has slowed down to allow them the abilty to do so.
All you had to do is haning in there for a few more minutes, and I could have yelled at you properly instead of this, Robby thinks. Instead, he has to sit here and wonder if Frank will even surive multiple direct gunshots to the chest.
How many miracles do you get in a day?
Hadn't he already used up his for Jake? Jake, who is alive and well, and breathing next to his girlfriend upstairs. Jake, who is going to be fine.
Focus on the patient in front of you.
Abbot pushes him out of the way. "We don't treat family," Abbot chides. "Especially not on today. This is the second time today I've had to tell you that."
Robby wants to argue with him. He wants to say "We haven't been family today." He wants to say "I fired him." He wants to say "He lied to me." He wants to say so many things that are all a denial of what the man lying in that bed means.
But the words are stuck in his throat, so instead, he tries to pull Dr. King away from the beside.
She is ridiculously strong.
"No!" she says. "I can help. And if I can't -" her voice breaks a little. "This time I will say goodbye."
He knows what she means, even if Abbot doesn't. He knows what she means, and he can't breathe.
He leans against the door and watches Abbot work. There's so much blood that both Dr. King and Abbot's protective gear is entirely red. The blood pressure keeps going down.
Please, he begs to anyone in the universe that might listen. Please give me this one more small miracle.
That much blood is not a small miracle. That chest tube isn't a small miracle.
Dr. King's hands don't shake when she does the intubation, and that might be a miracle, because he's pretty sure his would.
Their argument keeps replaying in his head. He thinks of how he could have done it differently. He thinks he might have of, on any other fucking day but this one. He thinks - he knows Adamson would have done better.
I let them both down, he thinks bitterly. Please let me fix it.
Garcia arrives and brushes past him without a word.
He sees the numbers dip, and he sees Jack's back straighten at the same time that his head bows. He hears Garcia curse.
No.
Then he sees Dr. King lean down and whisper something next to Frank's ear.
It looks like "goodbye."
Dr. King comes out, slowly.
"You should - you should probably say goodbye," she says. "He doesn't have a lot of time left."
No.
"We have to try something else. We can't - " he starts to stay to Abbot, but Abbot just shakes his head.
"Robby," he says quietly. "He's been shot five times in the chest. Say your goodbyes."
He wants to argue, but Garcia reaches down and squeezes Frank's shoulder. "I can't help - I tried. Looks like you were right, Langdon. I'm not quite the miracle worker I thought I was. You get to win the last argument." She sounds as bad as King looked, but then she straightens her back, and says, "I'm going to tell Dana to call his wife."
Then she leaves.
"I'm sorry, Robby," Abbot says.
"No. This can't. You don't understand. I fired him today. The last thing I told him is that I didn't trust him. I - I - I have to fix it. He has to fix it. We have to fix it. We can't - I can't lose him today. Not today."
He's begging. He's pleading. Maybe his pleas are to Jack, maybe they are to an unfeeling universe.
"None of that matters anymore, Robby. Sometimes, we just run out of time, brother. Say goodbye, while you still have your chance."
No.No.No.No.No.No.No.No.No.No.
Frank's eyes are shut. They've given him - oh, the bitterest of ironies, he's full of drugs at the moment.
Robby's vision swims for the second time that day.
"This isn't how this fucking awful day was supposed to go," he says, and it hurts in his throat and in his stomach to talk. "I - you were my best resident. Don't tell Collins. She'll be jealous."
God, he wishes she was here.
"I wish things were different. I wish you could have come to me when you were struggling. I wish I had handled things better when I discovered the truth. I - I'm so sorry. I know why you played hero out there, but I wish you hadn't. Dr. King is never going to forgive herself, you know that? God."
There's so much left to be said.
I thought we had more time.
The words of Adamson are there, in his throat, and he's said them before, but each word feels like a bullet to his own heart. "I love you. Thank you. I forgive you. Please forgive me."
I thought we had more time.
We should have had more time.
I love you.
Thank you.
I forgive you.
"Time to call it. Time of death: 19:08."
Please forgive me.