Chapter Text
The Pitt Fest shooting had changed things, particularly for the younger, newer additions to the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center’s ER.
The older, better established staff… well, it affected them, certainly, but GSWs, and larger traumatic events such mass shootings weren’t new to them, and hadn't been for a while.
Unfortunately, they’d had more than enough firsthand experience with the repercussions of the Second Amendment over the years. (“This fuckin’ country,” Dana would scoff, the sadness in her eyes in juxtaposition with her light tone. “Yeah,” Robby would sigh, nothing more to say.)
After the mass casualty event, the three pittlings, as they’d colloquially (and lovingly) been designated, had gotten together in Trinity’s (and temporarily, Dennis’) apartment at some point, after they’d had some time to decompress individually. They hadn’t talked, exactly, that implied healthy conversation. But it had… helped. Somewhat.
Trinity would never admit it, but her confidence that night had come from an unknown place, different from the self-preserving self-reliance where she usually pulled her off-putting quips and tendency for possibly harmful relationships with surgery fellows. She often thought back to the REBOA she performed that night and remembered, well, nothing. Flashes here and there, sure, but her mind had chosen to forget much of what it had seen. (“I swear to god, Whitaker, tell anyone I admitted that and I’ll kill you.”)
When Dennis thinks back to that night, all he remembers is his nerves. The heightened awareness. Every little mistake from that shift proves impossible to forget. If he closes his eyes he can almost feel a phantom IO being drilled into his body, over and over and over. It hurts, not physically, but in the depths of his soul.
Victoria feels like a fraud. When she thinks about the mass shooting, she remembers how entirely unequipped she felt. Like she was moving on autopilot, a more experienced and secure doctor taking over her body. The spirit of Dr. McKay, maybe? (“She’d have to be dead for that, crash.”) Late at night, when she considers which specialty she’d like to choose, putting the voices of her parents out of her mind, that whole night is marked firmly in the ‘cons’ of Emergency Medicine.
Mel and Samira hadn’t made it to the debrief session at Trinity’s. Mel was busy with Becca and Samira, well, she’d felt a bit uncomfortable with the whole thing, especially if Mel wasn’t going. They’d experienced a shared trauma, but that didn’t mean they knew each other. She’d given some nondescript excuse for her absence.
Mel feels conflicted about the shooting. It brought out the best of her, professionally, as it should’ve, she’s past her intern and early resident years. She knows she handled the situations being thrown at her well enough. But that day was hard, for other reasons too. So regardless, she prefers not to think about it too much.
And, Samira. Well. Samira had suffered through some difficult revelations that night, and not altogether related to the shooting itself. Yes, she’d allowed herself to burn out, pushing herself too far without realizing it. However, she’d accomplished a lot, and that was something to be proud of. But. She’d also come to the realization that all of her accomplishments were intertwined with pain and hurt and suffering. And perhaps more significantly, intertwined with her career.
Samira’s residual discomfort associated with that fateful day was twofold. Like the rest of them, the things she’d seen, from not only the patients but from her coworkers as well, were hard to forget. The devastation on the faces of the family members of the dead. The realization setting in on the faces of the injured. The weariness on the faces of the doctors, the nurses. The quietness after the whole thing was over. She felt all of these things, just like everyone else who had been working in the ER that night.
But Samira had a secondary, more deep-rooted pain. A pain that had been following her for a while, if she was being honest, but one that she rarely let herself consider.
Her loneliness.
She had tried to ignore it, push it down, because her job was enough, wasn’t it? She got to wake up every day knowing that it was saving lives that pushed her to leave the warmth of her bed, to brush her teeth while half asleep, to push her scrubs over the expanse of her skin. She was making a difference.
And her research? She had such dreams for the future of medicine. She dreamed of a future where no patient would suffer the way her father had. That there would be no young girls like her, pushed towards medicine out of sheer necessity. That goal would be enough. Her job would be enough. They had to be. They were all she had.
And so, Samira decided, one last time, to push down that loneliness. Push it down so far she could no longer feel its effects. The Pitt Fest tragedy had spurred this whole thing on, and that was an exceptional case, right? It wasn’t as if she’d be living through mass shootings leading to existential crises every other week.
So, Samira decides that the best method for ignoring her emotions is to throw herself into her work. Even more so than before.
She picks up more doubles.