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He couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do less than climb on a motorcycle right then.
There was a knot in his lower back, tension in his hips that felt more like grinding broken glass in the sockets than stringy tendons and flexors, all compounding into a radiating soreness around his middle that only a hot shower could possibly put a dent in. And maybe a heating pad. A maximum dose of ibuprofen. An excruciating ten minutes on a foam roller that he wouldn’t be doing. There was an ache in his scalp, his temples, his jaw, a foul taste in his mouth of old coffee and nicotine gum. A tired tick-tick-tick behind his eyes, fuzzy with exhaustion, combined with the gnawing in his stomach that came with the end of a shift, usually remedied by one of the lackluster meal preps he’d put together on his day off and a cold beer. Unfortunately for him, his fridge was empty, because Robby was not supposed to be going home after this shift.
Despite that, the temptation to call an Uber grew more by the second as he lingered at the Hub, screen blurring in front of tired eyes, to go home and sink into his sofa and not move for the foreseeable future. Most of the day shift had already been sent home, only a straggler or two finishing up their charting with him and Dana. Jack was around somewhere, in with a patient, convinced to only stay for a couple hours till they got caught up again and not the whole night like Robby knew he wanted to. It was insane, even for Jack, to work a full shift with SWAT and then another at the hospital. The later into the night they got, the more fireworks would make their appearance in the form of burns and stupidly missing fingers, and those were best dealt with after at least a couple hours of sleep.
He rubbed his eyes, adjusting his glasses as he scrolled down the list to the last chart on the board, and paused when he saw it.
DOE - MATEO - AWAITING PEDES ADMIT
“Baby Doe still isn’t upstairs?” Robby leaned back in his chair, clicking open the chart to find nothing more recent than the last vitals log an hour ago, and no new messages from the pediatric department to boot, “You’re kidding.”
“Afraid not,” Dana said, dropping the stack of charts she’d just scanned into the system into the shredder and raising her voice to be heard over it, “The lab pushed all non-critical testing back as soon as they got up and running again. Needed new samples too. Baby girl was not happy about it.”
Jesse was passing by in his street clothes as she said it, backpack already on his shoulders, but he detoured to lean over the Hub with an irritated look on his face.
“She wasn’t happy with anything really. I guess witching hour hit right as we went to do the draws, she wouldn’t take a bottle or anything for almost hour after.”
“Poor lamb,” Dana said, lips pursed, turning back to her workstation, “She asleep now?”
“Mohan’s with her and she’s not screaming anymore, so maybe.” Jesse shrugged, “I’ve got a bone to pick with upstairs for making her sit down here all day. I tried to keep rotating her to her belly with a book or something when I was free and could supervise her but I doubt she’ll sleep properly tonight after all the naps she took.”
With a sigh, Robby signed off on the chart, back twinging as he pushed back from the desk and stood.
“I’ll check on them. Gotta get you guys out of here so I can leave. Have a good night, Jesse.”
“Yeah, safe travels, Robby.”
Jesse shook Robby hand as he walked by, sending a little salute to Dana as both men headed in the direction of the busy waiting room. They went opposite ways at the split, Robby pointing at Santos who was still sitting at the desk duo there and giving her a look and tap of his watch that he hoped adequately conveyed the message of go home, to which he received a sarcasm-laced thumbs up in return.
The lights were off in pedes once he reached it, the room lit only with what filtered in through the sheer curtain, but it was enough to see Samira in the rocker, phone glowing in her free hand and reflecting off the high points of her face. A tiny hand flailed up near her collarbone, the baby nestled across her lap and in the crook of her arm, stubbornly awake.
Robby opened the door and Samira looked up, dropping her phone on the table next to the rocker, the tiny hand smacking at her chin.
“How’s she doing?”
There was a chair against the wall, padded and armless and calling his name, and he dragged it over, turning it around to sit on it backwards so he could fold his arms atop it. The fabric was scratchy but it was such a relief to be sitting and not hunched to type that he couldn’t really find it in himself to care. He was more focused on the fact that he didn’t recognize the chair Samira was sat in, a proper glider rocking chair he was fairly certain they didn’t have the budget for down here.
“Better than she was,” Samira hummed, letting tiny fingers wrap around one of her own, “"She gave Jesse and Mateo a run for their money earlier, just screamed and screamed. I made Ogilvie go get the rocker from upstairs and now she’s just happy to have someone around to hold her.”
Her phone buzzed on the table but she didn’t even look at it. Just shook her head and looked up from the baby to his face instead.
“I know you said to go home but the lab told me it’d maybe be another hour at most when I called, since she’s low risk, and I didn't want her to have to deal with more change than she has to.” Samira paused, looking down at her, “She’s had enough of that today, I didn’t want her to feel abandoned again.”
There was a tremble to her voice when she said it, the sound thick and caught up in her throat before she cleared it roughly.
“I know it’s silly, she probably won’t remember us tomorrow-“
“It’s not silly,” Robby said, shaking his head. He still remembered every safe haven baby he’d had in the last twenty years, every child patient he’d ever stayed late with until a parent could get there. Sometimes he wished he didn’t remember them so clearly, he wondered a bit if Samira would feel the same, two decades from now, if she would be worn and weary as him or if she would retain her light despite it all-“It’s just care. Love. Being her doctor in the best ways you can even when you should probably learn how to disconnect from the job once you’re clocked out.”
“What?” She grinned a little, “Like you do?”
“I wish,” He scoffed, scrubbing a hand roughly down his face.
“What are you still doing here anyways? Thought you were headed out on your road trip tonight.”
Her phone buzzed again, insistent, ignored. His hips groaned as he shifted in the chair, pressing his forehead into his folded arms. Dots bloomed up in the darkness of his closed eyes from the grounding pressure and he reluctantly let up, shifting to angle his temple into the crook of his elbow instead.
“Back’s acting up, can’t bring myself to try and balance on the bike yet so I guess I’m just waiting it out at this point. Might just order delivery and take a nap in an on-call bed before I go, head out of here when Jack does. At least then I’ll know he’s left.”
Samira huffed a laugh, “Caught him trying to stitch himself up earlier.”
“Of course you did.”
Robby had done a double (correction: triple) take at some point in the aftermath of her catching him after getting a half-second view of Jack, shirtless, sitting on the edge of the bed with the resident standing there between his legs.
Her phone, again. This time a double buzz, enough that he lifted his head just enough to look at her again over the sleeve of his green fleece, “Very popular today.”
“It’s my mother. She doesn’t understand that I’m doing a good thing in not answering her calls right now.”
“Can’t escape her when you’re roommates next year, Mohan.”
He’d offered her the attending position at PTMC already during the last few months of their much-improved working relationship, so he knew the details of why she’d rejected it. That she’d been offered a fellowship in Jersey, not in the hospital where her father died thankfully but in the one across town, where she was planning to move back into her childhood home to both support her mother in her retirement and also use the lack of paying rent to save up for a downpayment on her own place.
She let out a bitter laugh, shifting the baby out of the cradle of her arms up to her shoulder, little hands immediately grabbing a fistful of hair from her ponytail and pulling, little feet kicking against Mohan’s belly as she settled.
“Not happening, apparently,” Samira sighed, “She’s selling our house and marrying some guy she’s known for less than a year.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” The baby flailed a bit, restless sounds filling the room until Mohan untangled her fingers from her ponytail and laid her down on jean-clad thighs, bottom and feet pressed into the soft fabric of her t-shirt. A pair of tiny hands clutched at Samira’s fingers, “Abbot and I talked about it earlier. Widower's perspective on it, which I think will be more helpful once I sleep on it and I'm not so angry about the fact that she keeps giving me life updates while I'm at work instead of just letting me call her back."
"Well," he hesitated only for a second, watching her face, "the Pitt would be happy to keep you, if you decided to stay."
The selfish part of him was thrilled at the possibility, he’d been dreading trying to figure out the upcoming staffing issue he’d have when she, Ellis, and Langdon finished their fourth year. From what he’d heard, Abby was inclined to move closer to her family in South Carolina, and after the year she’d had? Robby’s pretty sure that Frank would follow without complaint. As for Ellis, Jack had told him that she was looking into a disaster medicine fellowship in Nashville.
But also it was Samira. Samira, who despite the times he'd had to push her to be quicker, he trusted. Who had bore the brunt of his impatience and irritability on bad days yet did not hesitate to invite him to post-shift dinner (or breakfast, when he was off and she had worked the night shift with Jack) to pick his brain about new studies and procedures on the good ones. Samira, who fought for her patients no matter who they were or what they'd done or how they treat her. Samira, who was as stubborn as he was, who reminded him of his younger self more than he liked. Samira, who had the potential to be better than he’d ever be.
"I bet with the possibility of keeping patient scores up we can convince Gloria to pay the fees from canceling your Jersey contract."
Samira laughed, though one of her hands came up to wipe at her eyes. They were glassy, vulnerable. Watching him like he was going to take it back.
"I'm serious," he chuckled, "when she found out about Jersey she was distraught. Said our scores would never recover from the loss. Whole hospital was going to go under because of you."
“And you’d be okay with that?”
“Samira, I-“
The phone rang, not Samira’s on the side table but the one next to it, the clunky home line for the pedes unit. Its screen glowed a sickly green, LAB in thick black font typed across the screen, and she answered it before it could ring a third time. Robby dropped his head back into his arms, eyes shutting as she went over the last round of results they’d been waiting on and staying shut as she hung up to call the nurses station up in Pediatrics to let them know.
“They’ll be here in ten, supposedly.”
A strange air fell between them, solemn. Almost sad. Something akin to grief, even though Baby Doe wasn’t the first safe haven baby either of them had cared for in the ER.
“She’ll be okay.”
He glanced up to catch her nod in reply, her fingertips tracing circles on the baby’s belly, “I know.”
His throat felt tight. He didn’t know what to say to clear the air, to soothe the restless energy that both of them emanated, the day finally unwinding in them both, desperately clinging for control with this one small thing. Control that was counting down on a timer, ending with the chime of the elevator, with one last handover. Baby Doe would go upstairs, Samira would go home, and Robby-
Robby would have to make the call of stay or go.
The minutes stretched, Samira lifting the baby again from her lap to her shoulder, a tiny face pressed into her neck, little, grasping hands clinging to her nose, her curls. Digging little nails into her skin.
And then the door opened. The light clicked on, searing brightness and thudding pain behind his eyes at the suddenness of it. A faint sorry, from the nurse, though in his opinion she didn’t seem that sorry, brought him to his feet. Led him to push the chair aside as Samira stood too, rocker creaking, and he reached out in her direction.
"Dr. Mohan, if you'll do handover?"
"Of course.”
The nurse stood there silently, waited as they untangled tiny fingers from curls, transferring from her arms to his, and Samira ran her hand down the baby’s warm back before withdrawing.
Robby didn’t bother listening to the report, not when he could press his nose against the top of the baby’s head instead. Not when he could breathe in the smell, eyes prickling in a way he couldn’t afford to think about too much. Not when he could commit the warm weight on his chest to memory, cheek to slobbery baby cheek.
And then too quick, it was over, and he was handing Baby Doe to the nurse with one last pass of his palm over her back like Samira had done. Was meeting little eyes over a shoulder, heart squeezing in his chest, and when the door shut behind them the air went out of him in a rush. Samira’s inhale at his side was shaky enough that he turned to check on her. Wide eyes wet with tears, arms wrapped around her middle, as her phone buzzed, buzzed, buzzed on the side table-
Against his better judgement, his arms opened. Against hers, she went into them. Pressed her face into his chest even though he knew he had to smell after the long day. Her shoulders shook, her arms still folded between them, his around her, and she let out a shuddering sob.
“I don’t know why I’m crying,” Samira said tearily after a moment, tilting her head back a bit to where she could see his face, “Sorry.”
Robby shook his head,”You haven’t eaten, haven't slept. After a long day like today, it makes sense.”
His own exhaustion was swirling in his head, sluggish and slurred, and in a reciprocal moment of insanity and need to comfort he dropped his chin to kiss the top of her head.
They both froze.
"I am so sorry, I don't know why I did that.”
Her lip twitched, a smirk forming, and she parroted his own words back at him, "You haven't eaten or slept, it makes sense.”
Rolling his eyes, he pulled away and put a step between them, hands shoved into the pockets of his hoodie.
"Should we shake hands or something? Rebalance the professionalism of our working relationship?”
She laughed then, eyes still shimmering but less sad than before, head shaking, “Don’t worry, Robby, HR will never know.”
“Much appreciated.”
The ER was surprisingly quiet as they made their way towards the Hub, her hand grabbing his arm just above his elbow before they rounded the corner.
“Robby, my car has heated seats.”
And? His tired mind provided, ”Lucky you."
“Robby,” Samira shook his arm a bit, then withdrew like he’d burnt her, “Come on, I'll drive you home. You can start your trip fresh and in a lot less pain in the morning. It's been a long enough day already.”
“I don’t have anything in the house to eat, was just going to grab something here-”
It was a flimsy excuse, but a true one. She barreled past it.
“Then we’ll stop at a drive thru on the way.”
There was something pleading about the way she said it, enough so that he turned it over in his mind again and again in the second they stood there in silence, just looking. And then, in the back of his mind, a little voice.
I didn’t want her to feel abandoned again.
“Okay,” He said, before he could even really think any more, “Lead the way, Dr. Mohan.”
He could give her this, before he left, what he could. What he had left to give. An email to Gloria, a meal, a conversation. A hug. A kiss to the top of the head, not to be repeated, but it would live in him, would sit with him till the end of time. There were worse things to think about, to examine until it was worn through and overwhelming. Worse places to be than the cafe down the street, the dinner crowd thinning with the late hour, the waitress tired but sweet, coffee's on the house tonight, dears. Worse company to keep than Samira Mohan.
(And besides, her car had heated seats, how was he meant to resist that after such a long day?)