Work Text:
The letter arrives on a Tuesday morning. Jack is at work, so Robby is home alone when he rips open the envelope and unfolds the letter inside.
He reads it three times, like he expects to find something new. It has to be a joke, or maybe it was sent to the wrong person. But it's his full name at the top of the letter, and the headed paper looks real.
As much as he would like to throw the letter in the trash and forget it even exists, he pushes the letter back into the envelope, folds it in half, and sticks it in the back pocket of his pants.
He says nothing to Jack as they do their usual handover and doesn't reveal anything as they share a brief kiss in the empty staff lounge. He wouldn't know what to say anyway; he's barely digested what the letter says himself, and there's a level of denial he hasn't shaken off yet.
The letter burns a hole in his pocket. Every time he helps move a patient onto a bed, pushes a wheelchair, or gets a blissful five minutes sat down at a desk, he feels it, he remembers the contents. And with it comes a short temper, snapping at Santos and Mohan and Whitaker in the space of an hour. Even Dana gets caught up in it, standing there with lips pressed tightly together as he lashes out at her.
When he's finished, she steps up to him, unafraid and under her breath says: "Whatever you got goin' on, get a handle on it."
He does his best to hold it in, but then he's just distracted, and he notices the way the interns and junior residents do their best to avoid him.
"What's up with him?" He hears Garcia mutter to Perlah after a patient dies in trauma one before they can get him up to the OR, and Robby curses loud enough for most of the ED to hear.
"No one knows, Dana's on the case though."
He soon finds out that Dana's version of 'being on the case' was to call Jack.
"What the hell are you doing here?" He asks when Jack strolls in. He looks tired, like he only got a couple of hours of sleep, which is likely.
Robby heads to the lounge for coffee, and Jack trails after him.
"Why do you think?" Jack replies, "Dana's worried about you, man."
"I'm fine," he insists.
"Talk to me, brother," Jack implores.
Robby's head spins sharply, "What did you just say?"
Jack frowns, confused by Robby's sudden reaction, "I just-
"Don't call me that," Robby growls. "We sleep together for Christ's sake."
"Oh, is that all we do?" Jack retorts.
Despite Robby's cutting words, Jack doesn't look offended. He feels guilty anyway. It's been months since they turned their strictly sex only arrangement into an actual relationship. He doesn't apologise; instead, he compartmentalises the guilt along with everything else and focuses on trying to make his coffee.
There's barely enough coffee left in the machine for half a mug, so he sighs loudly and starts refilling the machine with a fresh filter and grounds.
"Robby."
Robby ignores him.
"Michael," he tries next. "Before you actually bite someone's head off out there, talk to me. One of the very few people in this world you can't push away."
Robby watches the coffee begin to drip slowly into the jug and sighs. Jack is too stubborn to give up on him; he isn't left with much choice. He reaches into the pocket, lifts out the folded letter and, without meeting Jack's eyes, hands it over.
Time passes as Jack reads the letter. The coffee machine hums. On the other side of the room, the din of a busy ED seeps through the closed door.
Finally, Jack speaks.
"Holy fuck."
Robby finally looks over at him, meeting his eyes. They're wide in disbelief. Exactly how Robby had reacted when he'd first read the letter.
"You have a brother."
"I have a biological half-sibling," Robby corrects quickly.
The word brother feels wrong. It feels familial and domestic. This person, this stranger, isn't his family.
"Did you know?"
"That after leaving my pregnant mother, my father ran off with another woman and had a son? No, Jack, I didn't know."
Jack knows the basics about his upbringing. His mom raising him on her own for the first four years of her life before she got sick, which was when his grandmother took over. He barely remembers his mom. He vividly remembers his grandma dying a week before he graduated from medical school. He's been alone ever since. Never even met his father.
"So this is legit?"
Robby shrugs, "I guess, I don't know. The logo on the letterhead is a private investigator firm based in Texas, I looked them up," he admits. "I don't know what they get out of lying."
"He wants to meet."
Robby nods, "Yup."
"Do you want to meet him?"
Before Robby can answer, Dana pushes the door open. "Sorry Cap, MVA two minutes out."
"I'll take it," Jack offers.
"You're not even working," Robby reminds him.
He grabs the stethoscope from around Robby's neck and loops it around his own, "I am now."
"Jack-"
"Go get some air, grab some food, whatever, just don't come back to the ED for at least half an hour, I've got this."
Robby sighs, his whole body sagging. "Okay."
"We'll talk later?" Jack checks as he follows Dana out the door.
Robby nods.
For once, he does as he's told. He takes a walk down the street, heads into his favourite coffee shop and orders his usual. He sits there for exactly thirty minutes, wincing slightly every time the sharp blare of an ambulance siren passes by.
"You good?" Jack asks when he re-enters the ED, a little bit more settled than before.
"Yeah, thanks," Robby says honestly.
He's still struggling to come to terms with what the letter says, but the break has put him back on an even keel.
He wants to reach out, pull Jack into a much-needed embrace, but they keep their private life private for a reason. Neither of them likes to have their relationship be the centre of attention. Jack seems to sense what he needs and goes to stand next to Robby at the boards, their hands brush at their sides, Jack's pinky looping his briefly. It's enough.
"MVA all dealt with, one's already up in the OR, other is in south fifteen with a head-lac and a fractured ankle, McKay's on it."
"What would I do without you?" Robby asks quietly.
"Not something you have to worry about," Jack bumps their shoulders. "I should go, get some sleep, I've swapped with Shen so I'm off tonight, pick up some takeout on the way home?"
Robby nods and reluctantly takes his stethoscope back and watches Jack leave.
Six hours later, he arrives home with a bag of Chinese food. Noodles for him, beef, broccoli and rice for Jack, and a big bag of spring rolls to share. They eat in front of the TV, clean up in silence, and then head to the bedroom.
They're too tired for sex, and Robby certainly isn't in the right headspace for it. They take turns in the bathroom, undress, and slide under the covers. Robby lies on his back, his eyes focused on the ceiling, whilst Jack curls on his side, his leg slung over Robby's.
"Do you think I should meet him?" Robby cuts through the quiet.
"I can't tell you what to do here", Jack replies.
Robby pushes, "If it were you?"
"God, Robby, I don't know. Neither of us had the happiest of childhoods. That's a can of worms I'm not sure I'd want to open if it were me."
Robby shifts onto his side, facing Jack. In the low light, their eyes meet.
"What's going on in that head of yours? Tell me," Jack asks.
"I honestly don't know what to think. I knew deep down that there was a chance. My father was young when I was born, plenty of time to have more children. I just-"
"Didn't think one would actually contact you?" Jack guesses.
Robby exhales, "Yeah."
"Whatever you want to do, I'll support you. If you want to meet him, I'll be right there by your side, you know that, right?"
Robby doesn't speak, his throat too tight to form words. Instead, he removes the distance between them, pressing his lips to Jack's. He feels Jack's hand reach up to cup the back of his head, holding his head in place as they kiss, the taste minty from brushing their teeth.
"Sleep on it," Jack suggests when they finally separate.
Robby tries to, but sleep doesn't come easily.
He thinks about the mother he barely knew, struggling on her own, fighting for every last dollar to feed her son. He thinks about his grandmother, tough but fair, who did her best with very little. He remembers the other kids in his class at school who would talk about all the fun things they got up to at the weekend with their siblings, something Robby never related to.
He'd once asked his grandma if he could have a sibling, too young to understand where one came from. She had smiled at him, patted his hand, and swiftly changed the subject. He'd never asked again.
Forty-eight years later, he apparently finally got what he asked for. Except, instead of feeling happy at having a brother, he doesn't feel anything at all. This man might be related by blood, but he's gone most of his adult life without family; he doesn't need any now.
He tells Jack as much over breakfast, hugging a mug of coffee to his chest as he explains his decision.
"Okay," Jack nods. It's as simple as that. Jack accepts his decision without even blinking.
Before he leaves for work, he emails the firm that wrote to him, confirming receipt of the letter and that he has no desire to meet with his sibling. As soon as he clicks send, the weight of the information lifts from his shoulders. The letter is dropped into the trash, and he heads to work.
He doesn't think about it at all. The matter has been dropped.
Four weeks later
"Dr Robby?"
Robby looks up from the computer screen to find Javadi standing over him, tablet computer gripped in both hands. He peers at her over the top of his glasses.
"Javadi, what can I do you for?"
"The CBC for Mr Peterson in six is back, his white blood count is, like, really high, around ninety thousand."
Robby frowns. That isn't good at all.
"Other symptoms?"
"Fatigue, swollen lymph nodes, shortness of breath, joint pain."
"Differential?"
"Could be lupus, lymphoma, though most likely leukaemia?" She suggests carefully, like she's worried about giving Robby the wrong answer. He needs to speak to her about gaining some confidence in her diagnoses.
He nods, "Next steps?"
"Talk to Mr Peterson, get him referred to oncology as soon as possible."
"Perfect, alright, let's go talk to him."
Halfway across the room, McKay flags them down. "I need an extra pair of hands in twelve, four-year-old twins with matching rashes. Can I borrow Javadi?" She asks.
"Sure," he deftly lifts the tablet out of Javadi's hands. "I can handle Mr Peterson."
Robby pushes the curtain back, takes in the figure lying on the bed. The man looks like he's in his forties, tall with pale skin and brown eyes. There's something familiar about him, but Robby can't put his finger on it.
When he steps into the room, Mr Peterson looks up with wide eyes, surprised by Robby's presence. As he stares back, his eyes following every movement Robby makes, his hands wring in his lap.
"Hi, Mr Peterson, my name is Dr Robby. How are you doing?" He says, bringing the stool closer to the bed and lowering himself down onto it.
"Robby?" The man repeats.
"Michael Robinavitch," Robby clarifies. There's a flash of something in the man's eyes, though Robby thinks nothing of it, "Everyone calls me Dr Robby, though, I'm aware it's a bit of a mouthful."
"Polish?"
"Russian, actually, on my mother's side, now, I really want to talk about your test results." Robby quickly steers the conversation back to the man's own health.
"So we're really concerned with the results. You have an abnormally high white blood count, and combined with your other symptoms, it suggests there is something serious going on, and we'd like to refer you to oncology for further tests."
Mr Peterson stares back at him, like he doesn't really hear what Robby is saying.
"Mr Peterson?"
"Nick," the man says.
"I'm sorry?"
"My name's Nick."
"Okay, Nick," Nick continues to stare at Robby, examining him like a puzzle to be solved. It leaves Robby feeling uneasy. "Do you understand what I'm telling you?"
"It's leukaemia," Nick says bluntly.
Robby frowns, "Well, that certainly is a possibility, but until we've done more tests, we won't-"
"No, it is."
A lightbulb goes off in Robby's head. "You've already had the diagnosis," he realises.
Nick nods.
He can't help but feel annoyed, "Then, can I ask what you're doing here, tying up my staff, wasting time and money on unnecessary tests?"
He wonders if he needs to refer this man to psych instead of oncology.
"I need a bone marrow transplant," Nick explains.
"Okay," Robby says slowly, still not understanding what's happening.
"I don't have any relatives that matched, or at least I thought I didn't. Turns out, before my parents got married, my dad had a child that I never knew about."
Robby freezes, his hands gripping the edges of the tablet tightly as Nick's story starts sounding familiar.
"I reached out to him, of course, via an intermediary. I wanted to talk face-to-face, get to know him before I asked for him to undergo an invasive procedure for me, but he said no. Didn't want to know me. Didn't feel like I was left with much of a choice after that."
There's a ringing in his ears as the realisation sinks in. The man across from him is his half-brother. A man he thought he'd thought very little about since he'd trashed the letter. Now here he was in front of him, in his ED.
"This really isn't how I wanted this to go."
No words come to him, and the urge to get out of there overtakes any anger he feels from being ambushed.
"I'm leaving now," Robby says shakily, stands up and exits the curtained area. He doesn't look back as he starts walking towards the nurses' station. He feels unsteady on his feet, but he keeps putting one foot in front of the other.
"Wait!" Nick shouts after him.
Robby doesn't stop walking.
"For Christ's sake, Michael, you're my brother! I just want to talk!"
Nick's voice carries across the department, and immediately, everything stops. The place goes quiet. Robby feels a hundred pairs of eyes on him.
He freezes.
When he looks up, his eyes meet Dana's. She doesn't know about the letter. There's surprise in her eyes that quickly morphs into concern. She knows this is his worst nightmare. This is the kind of attention he actively avoids. The last thing he wants is everyone knowing his personal business.
His heart thuds in his chest as he slowly turns around. Everyone watches as he walks back towards Nick, not stopping until he's pushing into his half-brother's comfort zone.
"This is my ED," he hisses under his breath. "You don't get to just walk in here like this, ambushing me."
"You didn't exactly give me another choice."
"You're going to leave, immediately, before I call security."
"Michael-" Nick tries.
Robby doesn't want to listen anymore and throws a hand up to stop Nick. He turns back around and walks out of the department, heading for the stairs. As the door shuts behind him, he hears Dana shout for everyone to get back to work.
It's Dana who finds him fifteen minutes later on the roof.
For a moment, when he hears the door open and close, he hopes it's Jack, but logistically, he knows it's unlikely. From his spot leaning against the railing, he glances back and sees her walking up to him, her arms wrapped around her body to protect herself from the cool breeze. Robby hadn't even noticed the chill in the air.
"Is he gone?"
"Yeah, he's gone," she answers. "Left you his phone number, in case."
Robby nods, returns his gaze to the Pittsburgh skyline.
"So…you have a brother, huh?"
Robby grits his teeth, still not used to that word. "Half-sibling," he corrects, "On my dad's side. Found out a few weeks ago."
"That musta been a shock."
He doesn't answer her. "I assume you've called Jack by now."
"What, you think I can't handle you?
"I don't think I need handling at all," he argues.
She pats his shoulder, "It's cute you think that."
Her comment lights the mood momentarily. He huffs in amusement and meets her eyes.
"He has leukaemia, needs a bone marrow transplant."
"Oh hell," she murmurs, putting two and two together. "What are you going to do?" She asks softly.
"Well, isn't that the million-dollar question."
What is he going to do? It was one thing, deciding whether to meet this long lost relative, it's a whole other thing to find out that he needs bone marrow, and Robby might be the only person in the world that can give it to him. He doesn't even know if he's a match.
"Damn," Dana mutters when her phone goes off. He waits as she checks the message. "Unresponsive male on his way in, we should go."
"Yeah," he pushes away from the railing.
"You going to be okay?" She checks, just as he holds the door open for her.
"Oh, when am I not?" He gives her a wry smile.
She barks out a laugh, "You don't want me to answer that."
When Jack arrives for his shift, Robby is waiting for him at the boards. The minute he lays eyes on his partner, his shoulders immediately relax, and the lines on his forehead smooth out. He only recently recognised the effect Jack's presence has on him, like he's the human version of a white noise machine.
"So," Jack says as a greeting, keeping his voice low in order not to be overheard. "Anything interesting happen on your shift?"
He rolled his eyes, "I'm guessing Dana told you."
He's really not sure whether to feel comfort in his two closest relationships showing their concern for him by talking about him behind his back, or be incredibly offended by it.
"There might have been a message received about a confrontation in the middle of the ED with a certain half-sibling, yes." Jack's eyes flick to his briefly. He assumes to gauge his current mental state. "You want to talk about it?"
"Here? Absolutely not."
"You want me to call Shen? Swap shifts?"
Robby finally turns to Jack. "I appreciate it, but I'm okay, really. Not planning on doing anything stupid in the next twelve hours. I'm off tomorrow, we can talk over breakfast."
"You sure?"
"Go," Robby waves him off, "Look after my ED. I'll see you in the morning."
"Okay," Jack relaxes, clearly realising there's not much he can do or say to Robby until he's had time to digest everything. Robby's always been stubborn like that.
There's no kiss goodbye, not in the middle of the room. Robby's already brought enough attention to himself today without revealing his and Jack's relationship. Instead, he squeezes Jack's bicep and goes to get his things.
On the way home, he stops by a grocery store and picks up a few items, including some eggs and bacon for breakfast. His fridge is currently empty, so he stocks up on some essentials and makes sure he's got something to eat for dinner before walking home.
He makes dinner with one of his favourite playlists playing in the background. He's not the best cook; Jack has him beat there, but he's been cooking for himself most of his life, so he's mastered the basics. He prefers whatever cooks the quickest. Steaks, baked potatoes, ramen. It's Jack who likes to spend all afternoon in front of the stove, slow cooking pork or roasting a chicken. Robby doesn't mind sitting in the kitchen with a beer if it means watching Jack work.
Tonight, he digs out a portion of chicken and rice from the freezer and chucks it into the microwave. While it cooks, he changes into a pair of sweats with a hole in the knee and a t-shirt he bought while he was still in medical school, the material soft and thin from age.
His stomach has been protesting for the last few hours after he skipped lunch, so when the microwave beeps to let him know the food is cooked, he hurries back to the kitchen to retrieve his dinner. The tips of his fingers burn as he lifts the scalding hot container onto a tray, ignoring the pain to grab some cutlery from the drawer. His fingers wrap around a cold beer bottle from the fridge, soothing the burn away.
Instead of the couch where he'd normally eat on his own, he carries the tray over to the dining table where his laptop sits open. Whilst he promised Jack he wouldn't do anything stupid until they talked, there's a compulsion in the back of his mind that refuses to go away.
It was easy to say no to meeting his half-sibling before. He hadn't met the man, didn't know anything about him. He was just a concept written about in a letter. Now that he'd come face to face with Nick Peterson, he could no longer bury his head in the sand and pretend.
Shovelling a mouthful of steaming hot food into his mouth, he pulls up his Facebook account, set up by Jake years ago and mostly neglected by Robby since. Whilst he's never been someone interested in social media, he's not completely tech illiterate. He knows enough to get by, and it doesn't take much searching to find a Nick Peterson based in Texas. The profile picture matches the man he met today, and he clicks to view the whole profile.
There Nick is.
Photos of him golfing and fishing with some buddies. There's a post celebrating a promotion and another sharing a fundraising link for a marathon he planned to run. He wonders briefly if he ran it or if his diagnosis came first. Amongst the photos of Nick, he starts to spot faces popping up again and again, and when he hovers over the tagged accounts, he realises these are his family. His wife, Emily Peterson, and his daughter, Kayla Peterson. She looks like she's maybe early twenties.
He has a niece.
It's all too much after that, and he slams the lid of the laptop down. He finishes his now lukewarm dinner, downs his beer, and goes to bed.
He wakes up early, a good couple of hours before he expects Jack to appear. He goes for a run, showersm, and downs a cup and a half of coffee before it's time to start making breakfast. He keeps it simple. A mountain of bacon, scrambled eggs, and lots of buttered toast. Somehow, he'd timed things perfectly, and Jack walks through the door just as he plates up.
"Smells good in here," Jack says, heading straight for Robby.
Robby barely holds onto the two plates as Jack leans in for a proper kiss. He holds Robby's face securely and doesn't let up until their lips are swollen and their lungs burn for oxygen.
"Been thinking about that all night," he admits to Robby.
"And how many patients did you lose because you were too busy fantasising about sticking your tongue down my throat?"
"None, thank you very much" Jack swipes a piece of bacon off one of the plates. "I'm a multitasker," he adds with a wink,
Robby laughs, "Don't I know it."
He places the plates down on the dining table, and as he moves his laptop and some paperwork out of the way, he tells Jack to bring the two cups of coffee he'd also prepared. Caffeinated for him, decaf for Jack.
Jack politely waits for most of their plates to be empty before he raises the subject of his half-brother.
"So, his name's Nick?"
Robby nods as he swallows a mouthful of toast.
"Nick Peterson, forty-six years old, from Houston, Texas, works in publishing, married, one kid." He lists it all off in one breath.
Jack's eyebrows raise up "And where exactly did you find that out?"
Robby winces, "Facebook," he confesses. "I needed to know who he is."
"And who is he?" Jack asks softly.
"From what I saw, a family man. He raises money for charity, he likes reading and fishing and supporting the Astros." He sighs, "He's a good man who was desperate enough to get on a plane to Pittsburgh and track down the only person who might be able to save his life."
"There were other ways he could have gone about it," Jack reminds him. "Conning his way into the ER and ambushing you like that was a stupid thing to do."
"Yeah, it was," Robby agrees easily. "Can you honestly say you wouldn't try something similar in his shoes? What if it were me who needed a bone marrow transplant, what would you do?"
"You know the answer to that," Jack says firmly, reaching across the table to link their fingers together.
Jack is right. Robby knows Jack would go to the ends of the earth if it meant saving Robby's life.
"So what now?" Jack asks.
"Doesn't feel like I have much of a choice, I need to get tested, see if I'm a match."
"You do have a choice."
"Do I?" Robby asks. "If I'm a match and I can save his life, I'm not sure I could stand by and let him die."
"Is that the doctor talking, or the half-brother?"
It's a good question. "I don't know."
"Here's what I know," Jack starts. "If a complete stranger needed your bone marrow to live, you wouldn't even hesitate. You'd ask when and where to donate."
"You can't be sure."
"You say he's a good man? Well, I know you are a good man too…Maybe it's in your genes."
Jack's hand squeezes Robby's.
Robby sniffs, feeling the moisture pool in his eyes, "I think if that's the case, it might have skipped a generation."
Jack huffs in amusement.
"What if I'm not a match?"
"Then we find someone who is," Jack replies, like it's that simple.
Robby blinks, and a teardrop slides down his cheek. "I love you."
It's not the first time he's said it, but Jack still melts at the words, his cheeks going pink. He makes a mental note to say it more often if he gets that reaction.
"I love you too."
Robby refuses to let go of Jack's hand as they enter the park. He doesn't know why he's so nervous; he's already met his brother a couple of times, although both were before the bone marrow transplant.
That was eight weeks ago. He was back to work a week after donating and completely recovered a few weeks later. He'd been putting this meeting off ever since.
Jack refused to let him avoid it any longer. He dug out the contact details Nick had left with Dana and pushed it into Robby's hand.
"I don't care if you hug him or curse the hell out of him," Jack had said. "You need to see for yourself that he's okay and maybe figure out what the next chapter with him in your life looks like."
Jack seems to spot him first, sitting on a bench near the pond, and points him out to Robby. As they reach the bench, he feels Jack's hand squeeze his, a silent reassurance that he's there for Robby, no matter what.
"Nick," Robby says as they approach.
Nick looks up, and Robby shouldn't be surprised by how good Nick looks. He's a doctor; he knows the outcome of a successful bone marrow donation. Still, he's taken aback by it.
"Michael," Nick smiles up at him.
His eyes flick to Jack, then down to their conjoined hands.
"This is Jack, my partner."
"Oh," Nick looks surprised but not disconcerted. "I didn't realise, the investigative agency I used never mentioned-"
"We keep it quiet," Robby explains. "No one at work knows."
"Yet, at least," Jack adds under his breath.
"How are you feeling? You're looking better." Robby asks before Nick can ask any more questions about his and Jack's relationship.
"I'm doing great, feel better than I have in months, thanks to you."
Robby finds the gratitude hard to take, and he lets it slide off him. "You have a good oncologist," he replies instead, ignoring the way Jack shakes his head in response.
"I am sorry about how things went down," Nick says, the remorse visible in his eyes. "I was desperate. My wife tried to stop me, but I got a little tunnel-visioned."
"Next time, maybe just call?" Robby suggests.
Nick's eyes widen, "I can do that?" He asks. "I wasn't sure, you didn't seem keen on meeting me the first time, I don't want to pressure you into anything. We can go back to not knowing each other."
Robby turns to Jack. "Give us five?" He requests.
His hand feels cold when Jack lets go. He isn't offended at being asked to go away; instead, he smiles, mentions a walk around the pond and promises to be back in five minutes.
Then Robby and Nick are alone.
Nick shifts along the bench, making space for Robby.
"I don't know how much you know about my upbringing," Robby begins as he lowers himself down, "My mom died young, and it was just me and my grandmother for a while, and then when she died, I was all alone. No uncles or aunts, no cousins, just me."
"That sounds…lonely."
"It was, for a while, but then I had Jack, and I have other people in my life I consider family."
He thinks about Dana, the closest thing he's ever come to a sister. He thinks about Jake, too, briefly.
"The reason for telling you this is that I'm not used to having family. I don't really know what to do with them. I push people away, keep people at arm's length…so when you came along, I decided to reject you before you could reject me."
"Ah."
That's all Nick needs to say. He might not understand, but he accepts Robby's explanation for what it is. There's something else they need to talk about. The question that's been on the tip of his tongue since the letter first arrived can't be held in any longer.
"Where is he?"
"Who?"
"My-… our father."
Nick swallows hard. "He had a stroke six years ago; he didn't make it."
He'd been expecting that his dad was dead, but that doesn't make it any easier to hear.
"I'm sorry," he croaks out.
He doesn't ask what he was like as a father. Robby doesn't need to know that he was there for all of Nick's baseball games and helped with his homework after dinner. He'd rather go on not knowing anything about him than discover his dad cared for others, just not him.
"He's actually the reason why my daughter is in medical school."
"Yeah?" Robby sits up a bit straighter.
"Won't be long before you're not the only doctor in the family," Nick jokes, and then winces. "Sorry, that was too much, wasn't it?"
"It's okay, really. As long as she isn't planning on doing her residency in Pittsburgh."
"Back home in Houston, I promise."
"Well, if she has any questions about anything."
Robby hands over a scrap of paper with his email address scrawled on it. When he wrote it down, he wasn't sure if he was going to hand it over or not.
"You sure?"
"Yeah," Robby replies, honestly. "And maybe you could email sometimes, let me know what's going on with you?"
"I'm warning you now, my wife writes a Christmas letter longer than the Iliad, you're going on the distribution list."
Robby barks out a laugh. "Okay then."
Jack returns then, two coffee cups in his hand.
"We should go," Robby says, a little reluctantly.
He stands up, taking one of the cups from Jack.
"Thanks for meeting us."
"You kidding? You saved my life, there's not much you could ask for that I wouldn't try and give you."
Robby smiles, "Just look after yourself, okay? My body isn't a vending machine."
Nick laughs.
They say their goodbyes, the moment awkward when Nick goes for a hug and Robby holds out his hand to shake. Nick puts his arms down and takes the offered hand.
As they begin to walk away, he hears Nick call his name.
"I better get a wedding invite!" He shouts after them.
Jack laughs as Robby splutters.
Jack pulls him closer, swapping their linked hands for an arm around his waist.