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There are no quiet shifts, night or day, in the Pitt, not really, but this last one had been relatively uneventful. This one had been straightforward, flying by in steady streams of near crises and patients moving in and out; this one had simply progressed as he worked, steady and sure, until the clock struck 6, then passed it, time passing by in the inexorable tick of seconds, minutes, hours. This night had been gentle, on the people who manned the Pitt and the ones who sought its treatment, as the hours had passed, the sun rose tentatively across the sky, and suddenly day appeared, even as Jack Abbot watches and takes one deep breath after another, exhausted and yet not.
Maybe that’s why it happens.
It’s after seven now, past time to brief Robby and head home, and Jack is tired, too tired and yet not nearly tired enough to sleep. Standing on this roof, comfortable for once on the far side of the steel railing of bright yellow, Jack is so tired, all too tired to sleep, so tired, he wants just to walk out of this hospital and head home to eat a shit ton of eggs and toast, maybe a few avocados, and then mainline enough coffee to regulate his system. He wants to sprawl in his big chair, pop on his headphones and listen to '60s Blues standards until his brain fizzles so badly that, even if it won’t power down, it will at least do him the mercy of shutting the fuck up. Maybe – maybe – then he’ll be able to sleep.
But he can’t do any of that until Robby finally stops talking.
“... and I know you and Mohan have been researching the impact of…”
Mohan. Samira. Right.
And Jack is tired, too tired to sleep, and his brain is not firing on all cylinders, too tired by the routine of taping broken bones and tending to alcohol poisonings and listing off concussion protocols. He’s tired, too tired to sleep, and yet here he is, stuck on this roof, and Robby keeps droning on, and he just wants to go home for once, and he’s miles away from sleep – maybe that’s why it happens.
“I’m going to dance at her wedding.”
He is. He will, he promises himself, he can. He is going to dance at Samira Mohan’s wedding if it fucking kills him, which it probably – well, definitely – will. He nods a little to himself, staring out on the horizon now, at peace, calm, centred. Yes, he thinks, confidently, sure, dancing at Samira’s wedding is definitely going to kill him, is going to do so quickly and efficiently, is going to do the job that the IED in Bagdhad couldn’t, is going to finish off the last little bit of him that survived after losing Michelle to that drunk driver over in Philly, is going to smother that last little bit of something (Life? Hope? Joy?) that had somehow managed to linger despite it all.
Dancing at Samira Mohan’s wedding is going to kill him, but he is going to do it.
“Mohan? I didn’t know she was seeing anyone,” Robby muses, and Jack sometimes wonders how he can see anything beyond his own two feet.
Twisting his ring – the one his late wife had placed on his finger, Michelle’s ring, the ring of a woman he still misses, the ring of a woman he loves, the ring of the woman who was once his future and is now his past – around the finger of his left hand as he looks out on the horizon, Jack frowns, reflective. Maybe he wishes he couldn’t see beyond his own two feet either.
“Shen, last couple of months.”
Maybe he wishes he couldn’t notice anything beyond himself, beyond his own neuroses and his own needs, either. Because Jack, unlike Robby, sees all too much, he even sees, from behind him as he looks out on the waking city spread out before him beyond the railing of the roof of the hospital, how Robby furrows his brow in confusion, the way he always does when a concept eludes him. (He’s done that since med school, Jack imagines he’s done that since he was capable of thought; Michael Robinavitch is nothing if not predictable.)
Jack, on the other hand, sees it all. He’s certainly seen how Shen and Samira – both mostly on the day shift these days – have been growing closer these last months since she finished her residency and joined PTMC as a fully-fledged junior attending. He sees it all, and he hasn’t failed to notice how they gravitate together each shift; he sees how comfortably they talk, how they put their heads together as they work. Samira put her hand on Shen’s arm last week as they were laughing together, coming off shift, just for a second, and Jack has noticed that. He had noticed how she’d been comfortable touching the other attending, but then, it's unusual. Samira doesn’t touch people without thought, not really.
(It had been a matter for pride for him, these last months since PittFest, how comfortable she is touching him; he always notices it when it happens, but then he feels it like a burning brand each time she brushes up against him, how it feels when her knuckles move against his, even through gloves, how it feels as her hands move on him. He notices everything about her, he notices her hands, notices how she moves, and he has noticed this above all, how it feels when she touches him.)
Samira had left her hand to linger on Shen’s arm, and Jack hadn’t been surprised to see it. When she and Shen were on the same shift, Jack had noticed, they drifted together, comfortably, as they worked together. They ebbed and flowed together – moving together, chatting, laughing, walking together, their feet falling into a natural, complementary rhythm – as they worked and as they headed towards the lockers before leaving. It’s a feeling, a dynamic, he recognizes.
Samira often is uncomfortable with anyone but him; she is all too often uncomfortable with physical affection from anyone but him, she's uncomfortable touching anyone other than him - but she’s comfortable with Shen.
Watching, he can’t help but see how they fit.
Sometimes, he wonders if Robby must actually be blind.
“Oh..’kay,” his friend says now, clearly (finally, because sometimes he’s an idiot, is Michael Robinavitch) at long last putting the pieces together, and there's a quiet moment – before he blathers on. “Great guy, Shen. Great doctor.”
Yup. He is. A great doctor, one Jack trusts, in the ER, at least. A good guy, from what he knows.
“Kinda reminds me of you. You know – the way he approaches things, looks at things. The two of you, like feral cats, show up when needed, can’t be tamed. Ready to help. Don’t get panicked.” A pause as Robby smiles, apparent in his voice even if Jack can’t see it. “Better looking, though.”
Younger, too. (Age-appropriate, much, much, more age-appropriate, for Samira. Perfect in so many ways for Samira. Way more perfect.) Less broken, less twisted, Jack thinks, the thought hanging in his brain without bitterness. It’s not bitter, it doesn’t sour his brain, it doesn’t, thinking it, it’s just a fact he reminds himself of when needed (which is often).
“Moves faster, too, if he’s got Mohan to agree to marry him after only a couple of months.”
Fucker.
Deep breath. Come on, Jack, you can do this.
He can. He’s going to dance at Samira Mohan’s wedding. Even if it kills him, he’s doing it. He’s not going to dance with Samira, obviously, not while she’s still wearing the dress in which she married someone else – even if she should have time for him on that day (unlikely), he’s not a machochist, for fuck’s sake – but he’s going to do it, he’s going to dance at her wedding. He can do it. It will not kill him. (Probably. He’s almost certain. Well, it will only mostly kill him.) He can keep moving, he will keep standing, he will keep breathing.
It will be possible.
He’s familiar with weddings; he’s been to plenty. (He went to his own, once upon a time; he danced with Michelle, big, white dress flowing across the floor, danced with her mother (still calls her on his late wife’s birthday, his wedding anniversary, Christmas), ate bits of nothing, staring at his new wife in awe that she agreed to take him on.) He’s danced at plenty of weddings, danced at Robby and Heather’s, stood witness at his side, acted as Walsh’s best man when she married her wife. Hell, for that matter, he’s walked his oldest niece down the aisle last spring, swallowed a lump in his throat as he placed the hand of his baby sister’s baby in the hand of a man still with the gangliness of youth on him.
Jack has danced at weddings, many weddings; he can dance at Mohan’s.
More than that, he will go to her wedding. He will sit politely in the uncomfortable seats, will witness her pledging herself to someone else, clap politely so it doesn’t look weird, ignore the looks people (Walsh) shoot his way. He will eat two bites of coronation chicken that tastes like ash, and he will watch her dance with her new husband. He will let Dana drag him onto the dance floor, will waltz with Heather for the few minutes possible before Robby cuts in, will dance for half a song with King, then, before he makes his excuses, shakes hands with the happy couple and heads home. (Maybe head back into the Pitt to see if he can pitch in during the night shift, keep his brain from leaking out of his ears.)
It is possible; he can do it.
Robby is watching him too closely, now; he can feel his eyes boring into his back, but he keeps his eyes focused and his commitment clear. He can dance at Samira Mohan’s wedding, and he will. He will.
A slow, considering drawl from his all-too oblivious friend as he struggles to catch up – “She hasn’t mentioned anything, no ring on her finger,” – but Jack doesn’t look back, keeps his thoughts committed and his gaze on the lightening of the morning sky.
He will be happy for Samira when she finds happiness; he will. If it kills him, so be it.
“Hasn’t been asked yet.”
Idiot.
The writing’s on the wall, though, Jack knows. Eventually, Shen will see – he’ll have to, it’s inevitable – eventually he’ll see what he has, inevitably, he’ll make that final move, eventually he’ll look in those gorgeous brown eyes, take that capable hand of Samira’s in his, the lucky bastard, and slide a ring on it.
And if not Shen, then someone else – and soon.
It’s Samira fucking Mohan for fuck’s sake; Jack’s actually surprised someone hasn’t done it already. It’s somehow inconceivable to him that no one has yet done it; thinking about it, he is always incredibly surprised no one has begged to put a ring on the third finger of her deceptively delicate, capable left hand, told the world of how amazing she is, pledged their devotion – and made her their wife. He’s surprised no one sees how desperately brilliant she is; he’s surprised anyone could resist wanting to claim the right to stand at her side.
So, yes, he is going to be happy for her no matter what. Kill him or not, he is going to dance at Samira Mohan’s wedding, and thank her for the privilege of letting him know her.
He will; he swears he will.
“Ah.”
Robby’s still there, which is annoying, and somehow yet still comforting. The sun has come up fully by now, he should be in the Pitt by now, he should be staring at the board, he should be moving through the ER to oversee the residents. For that matter, he should have overseen their treatment of at least three patients, annoyed Dana and sucked the soul out of at least five interns and a med student by now. He should be doing his job, tending to patients – and yet he’s here, speaking softly as he addresses Jack, his voice all too pitying.
“I didn't realize it was this bad, brother.”
Well, Robby is an idiot; then, Jack is one, too, and like recognizes like.
“Yeah.”
The difference is, idiot or not, he is going to dance at Samira Mohan’s wedding as it kills him.
In the meantime, the sun is shining, the city awake, he’s tired, all too tired to sleep, so he’s going to resist the urge to punch his brother in the face. No, this is his problem, so he is not going to take out his frustration out on Robby's smug face; yes, he is going to tear his gaze off the horizon, move off this roof, move through the calming chaos downstairs, wave at Samira when he sees her, and head home.
He’s going to ride down the elevator with Robby, fill him in on the deadbeat dad of the kid with kidney disease in North Seven (the one who only showed up to question every decision the mom makes). He’s going to fill him in on the two college kids with alcohol poisoning in West Six and the woman with the lingering surgical infection in North Five (the ultrasound department is backed up for hours, otherwise she’d be there now), and wish him the best with the anti-vax influencer in East Six. (He considers that last one what Robby deserves for the way he speaks to him with a hint of cloying sympathy in his voice.)
Jack is not going to fixate, joy and dread moving through him in equal parts, on how Samira will be moving through her rotation to work nights next week.
He is going to be fine; this is fine.
Today is another day, a beautiful (dull) day, everything is under control, and he can do this. He will dance at her wedding when that day comes; it will be fine. He will be happy for her; he has himself fully under control; he can handle almost anything. He can handle working next to her, next week, and for the foreseeable future, through her inevitable engagement and wedding and all that comes next. He can handle seeing her every day, working with her every day, watching her, seeing her being her brilliant, amazing, incredible self, near enough to touch and yet completely untouchable; he is a big boy, he can handle it.
Or at least, he was sure he could – he really was. He wasn’t lying to himself, he wasn’t – that is, until it is that he hears a third voice – light, soft, familiar, beloved, confident, soothing – join that of the two of them, a gentle alto counterpoint to rise above the lower tones of his and Robby’s voices.
Until he hears her speak.
“Shen’s been dating McKay for the last year. She moved in with him last month.”
As Abbot spins – almost toppling back over the railing as he feels his legs go, buckling under him – as he turns so quick, head dropping to see Samira Mohan standing there, calm, fresh, in fresh, dark blue scrubs, dark hair tucked up in that big, light green tortoiseshell clip of hers, her eyes wide as she stares at him; he knows he’s falling.
He knows he’s falling (fallen, gone) as, panicked, he freezes, his brain spinning as he tries to get words – explanatory words, English words, any words, words formed by noises that might be uttered and shaped in comprehensible forms used by humans – out of his mouth. As, even as he stares at her, he fails. As, even as he feels the air shift as Robby moves quicker than he had thought possible to leave them, as, even as he blinks and the day shifts and Samira Mohan suddenly stands in front of him - close, too close, not close enough - as she stands look up those few inches separating him, staring back at him, and thoughts fail to form.
Her smile, as it comes at last, is gentle as the sun he'd watched rise.
“Good morning, Jack.”