Work Text:
10:48pm
She was so tired. The kind of bone deep tired that made your limbs feel heavy. It had been a shift from hell but those kinds of shifts felt like the norm now.
She was lying in bed trying to get any kind of rest she could before she had to be back at the hospital at 7am. However tired her body was, her brain was another story. It continued to race with thoughts, ranging from the diagnoses that she had made today to the phone call she had with her amma yesterday. She had to turn the noise off.
She reached for her phone on her nightstand. As a doctor, she knew that the blue light wouldn’t help her get to sleep any faster but reading an article always helped to calm her mind. Between pulling doubles and trying to decide on a fellowship, she was falling behind on her reading. She pulled up all of the open tabs she had of articles that she had been saving to read and clicked on the newest one.
11:56pm
A couple of articles later, she was still wide awake as she was when she stepped into her apartment. Every article she clicked on, she felt her mind drifting and the words starting to blur on the screen. Her wandering mind had led her to the PTMC website looking at the fellowship programs that she already knew like the back of her hand. The PTMC Geriatric Medicine Fellowship Program screen stared back at her, doctor Al-Hashimi and Robby’s words echoing in her mind. Two attendings with two entirely different teaching styles somehow recommending her the same fellowship. She knew Al-Hashimi was coming from a good place but she had hardly worked with her. Yes, they had the brief time together at the VA but Samira had become a whole new doctor since then. And then there was Robby. What was supposed to be an encouraging suggestion had felt more like a patronizing comment meant to forever feed into the “slow-mo” agenda. God, what a dick. It felt like the only attending to truly believe in her ability and her place in the ED was doctor Abbot.
Doctor Abbot who listens to her reasoning when she feels like she may need to run more tests to make a diagnosis. Doctor Abbot who always says how lucky they are to have her every time she picks up a night shift. Doctor Abbot who trusted her to do a pigtail catheter. Doctor Abbot who told her that she would make a damn good attending one day. She has never felt more trusted and secure in her work than when working with Abbot.
All thoughts of Abbot now, she finds herself staring at his photo on the PTMC staff page. It’s the same picture as the one on his hospital badge. That same stern expression he often has but nevertheless handsome. She would never admit it out loud but she’s always thought he was. She finds herself wondering what a picture of him smiling would look like. If he smiled more in pictures when he was younger, before all of the life and loss he experienced.
12:31am
So, that’s how Samira Mohan finds herself googling her attending Jack Abbot after midnight. She honestly isn’t expecting to find much. She knows she’ll see the hospital site pop back up, maybe a few articles he helped write and research but isn’t expecting anything personal.
When she sees the link for a Jack Abbot on Facebook pop up she doesn’t get her hopes up, knowing that there’s probably plenty of other Jack Abbot’s out there. She clicks on the link anyways and finds herself smiling when the profile picture pops up. Staring back at her is what seems a fairly new picture of him. He wears a camouflage sweatshirt with a black shirt underneath, messy curls and a barely there smirk. His cover photo is a picture of a German shepherd puppy that has Samira trying to remember if he ever mentioned a dog. She scrolls down, seeing that his bio only says that he lives in Pittsburgh. She can’t say that she is entirely surprised by the account, most people she knows have had one at some point or another. What surprises her though, is that he actively seems to use it.
Wanting more, Samira finds herself logging into the Facebook account she hasn’t used since undergrad. Now with full access to all of his photos, she starts scrolling through them praying she doesn’t accidentally like one. Most of his new pictures are him being tagged by a woman named Melissa, which after a quick glance at her page, Samira assumes is his sister. A lot of them feature two teenage girls and a younger boy, his nieces and nephew it seems. Jack is seen with them at Christmas, Thanksgiving, graduations and ballgames. He even has a picture with them and the German shepherd.
She’s still scrolling when she sees one that causes her to have a hitch in her breath. This one also posted by Melissa, shows him sitting at a table in a shirt and tie. Samira has never seen him in a suit before. She finds out that she really wants to.
After scrolling a little more, she notices a lapse in time when nothing was posted. A year or so with no selfies, tagged photos or dog pictures. She realizes this was around the time his wife passed and her heart breaks for him. She thinks of when her appa passed and how her amma was barely able to get out of bed for the longest time, let alone smile in photos.
Then, she starts to see the before. Pictures with him and his wife on date night, vacation, taking the nieces and nephew to an amusement park. His hair is darker then. It looks like it has a reddish tint, a deep auburn. She sees a photo from their wedding. His wife looks stunning in her dress and he, of course, is handsome in a suit.
She’s almost made it all the way through when she sees something she didn’t realize she was so desperate to see. It’s a picture posted as a throwback, one from his early college years. Before time spent in the army, before all the pain and loss that would follow. He’s surrounded by his friends with their arms slung across each other's shoulders. He has a big, boyish grin on his face with a little curl falling on his forehead.
Cute, she thinks. Samira has never seen him smile like that. Wants to know if he still can. She hopes one day she can find out.
Her eyes accidentally flicker to the top of her screen and that’s when she sees how much time has passed. It’s after 2am and Samira has been stalking Jack Abbot for almost two hours. She has to be up in less than four hours to make it in for her shift on time. The same shift she’ll walk into and see a worn down and ready for bed Abbot after she had just been learning about his life through photos hours before. God, she has to get a grip.
She logs out, puts her phone on charge and tells herself never again. She shouldn’t be late night stalking attendings on Facebook, especially the handsome ones who make her feel trusted in the ED.
Samira closes her eyes and forces herself to get some rest but not before her mind wanders. She thinks of him. Freckled, strong arms. Crinkly, hazel eyes. Curly hair that was once a deep auburn, now salt and pepper gray. A smirk on his lips, that one day she hopes will turn into that boyish grin again. She was so fucked.