Chapter Text
“You ok kiddo?” Dana asked
They were on the rooftop looking at the fireworks but Samira could not really focus. Not since she’d glanced at the parking lot and saw Baran and Jack leaving side by side. She suddenly had not interest whatsoever in what was happening in the sky, she just couldn’t stop peeking at the scene below. They both took their phones out, in what Samira guessed was an exchange of telephone numbers, and the Jack pointed towards time end of the road, mimicking a turn, and Samira just knew he was explaining how to get to Conner’s, the bar around the corner when PTMC workers usually went to decompress over a few drinks. She can count on one hand how many times in the last four years she went there too. One time she was practically dragged by Parker. The second time it was Donnie’s birthday, and he warned her he would be extremely offended if she hadn’t shown up. The third time was right after Pittfest, maybe a week or so after, when she tried -really tried- to take on Cassie’s advice and live outside PTMC. The hungover the next day, Samira decided, was really not worth the effort. The fourth time was 10-days prior. Just a couple of drinks to celebrate Heather’s farewell, getting tipsy enough to shed a few tears and an open invitation to her new house in Portland one she settles.
She considers Heather more of a friend than a co-worker, surely a female ally she’d needed more than once in her side when she was on the receiving end of Robby’s shitstorm. But now she’s gone, and she wasn’t going to bother finding another one. She was happy for Al-Hashimi’s arrival, even though in the end her relationship with Robby wasn’t that bad anymore. Today had been a whirlwind, a shitshow, and an emotional rollercoaster. She tried as much as possible to avoid both attendings at once, not wanting to get caught in what seemed a custody battle. The moment she felt most at ease was when she stumbled into Abbot. Ok not that much at ease, especially when she opened the curtain and found him shirtless, and she couldn’t tell who was more flustered to be caught in such an embarrassing situation.
Not that she cared about aesthetics, not when he seems to have this calming aura that slowed her heart rate enough to make her take a minute.
Not when he gets shot - shot at- and still cares about what has her so agitated.
Not when he gets vulnerable enough to only half-joke about therapy.
Not when he offers to pay for Ubering the supplies to Orlando’s house.
She couldn’t help but look at him then. He wasn’t looking at her, busy as he was prepping to tend to his wound, but still she felt seen. And it was only fair to look at him and see him too.
And when she stood up and gloved up it was automatic and somewhat intimate. As much as cleaning one of the department attendings’ bullet wound with the door wide open could be. And yet he let her. Not that she would’ve accepted a no for an answer. There was no way he could’ve reached his shoulder like that. But she wondered if it were Whitaker, or Santos, or Garcia, if he would’ve put up more of a fight.
Good thing he didn’t, cause she felt the need to be the one to treat that. To care for him and to touch him and make sure he was cared for like he had just cared for her. That this physical hole in his shoulder could heal thanks of her, just like the hole in her heart healed a bit thanks to him.
Then they went to the station and he pulled out his phone while she looked for Orlando’s address. He’d offered to pay for it and yet she was amazed he actually did it. He picked the bag from the floor and told her he was going to leave it to Ahmad to deal with it while she went back to work. She doesn’t even know how but this kind of investment and understanding took a genuine smile out of her. Not a smirk, not polite, not forced. Genuine. True. Real. She chased this realness for a second, turning a bit to physically touch him. She could only brush him arm with the tip of her fingers while he picked up the bag, but it was enough to make sure it was real, and she was present in the moment.
It was too bad the rest of the day did a really poor job to keep up with those 10 minutes of bliss. It was a nice diversion, but it wasn’t real life. Real life was too many patients and too few doctors; real life was a future mapped out for 15 years and shattered in a month and a half; real life was trying to figure out if there was a way, anyway, that this place she existed in for 8 years -and in which she refused to plant any type of root- could be the place she didn’t know was home; real life was her unhealthy way to cope with her father’s death by pouring body, mind, heart and soul into caring for everyone else but herself. But she wasn’t ready to deal with that.
She wasn’t ready for a lot of things. She wasn’t ready to deal with the abrupt change of plans; she wasn’t ready for her mother to move on, especially when she was so attached her father that moving on from him feels like moving on from Samira too.
If you add all the patients that today seem to have agreed to hit too close to home.
Seeing Baran and Jack planning on hitting a bar is really close to the last straw. Samira doesn’t even know why, but seeing this immediately bond between the two provoked an unsettling feeling in her chest. It felt like getting to the station a second too late and seeing your train sliding by. Like waking up at 6:55 when you have to be at work at 7. She doesn’t know why she feels this way. And she doesn’t know why she can’t look away. It feels somehow like self punishment, a torture she’s inflicting herself to learn a lesson. She must be a very bad teacher cause she can’t really scratch more than the surface. Or maybe she can but she’s not brave enough to do it. Maybe what’s below it’s even more scary. So self punishment is it.
“Samira?” Dana said again, following the direction of her gaze
“Mh?” Samira managed, only half paying attention
“I asked if you’re ok?” Dana asked again
That forced her to tear her eyes away. And they were heading to their cars anyway.
“Yeah. Yeah of course. I’m fine” Samira answered a little too forcefully to be sincere.
“Right. We’re heading downstairs and then call it a day, but we’re planning on an early birthday celebration for Javadi’s 21s” Dana suggested “we all need a drink after this shitty day anyway. We’ll just crash at Connor’s”
At the mention of the bar Samira’s brain rewired, causing Dana’s eyebrows to hit her hairline.
“That’s what I thought”
“It’s not. I’m not” Samira tried to explain, but didn’t even know what she was justifying herself for.
“See you downstairs in 5 Mohan” Dana said “I’ll give you a ride”