Chapter Text
“You remember how you said to call if I needed anything?”
Jack did technically say that, didn’t he? And Samira’s tone is indicating she wants to cash that in for something more serious than what he originally intended. To which, leading him on with some small talk – rather than cutting to the chase immediately – would have softened the blow for him.
“Uh, yeah?” He tries not to sound surprised, but it’s hard not to be taken aback.
“Do you think you’d be able to write me a letter of recommendation for an elective?” She tries to sound confident in her request, but he can read her nervous undertones.
“Um, sure,” He scratches the base of his scalp, “What’s it for? The Florida rotation?”
“Well, actually,” She audibly perks up, “I talked to Dr. Al-Hashimi about this whole thing, and she said that she has a friend of a friend at Atrius Health looking for visiting residents to undertake a geriatric rotation.”
Fuck him. If he’s remembering correctly, Atrius Health owns some of the biggest hospitals in Boston. A network known for its home health and hospice care – which is perfect for a geriatrics elective – but it’s in fucking Boston. 600 miles away. Yeah, sure, it’s probably only a few weeks, give or take, and a month’s separation of 600 miles is easier than a month and a thousand miles apart. But something still aches in Jack’s chest picturing it – since he knows Samira’s brilliant enough to be an automatic shoo-in, so she’s definitely going to get in and be gone, and he’s going to have to sit with the sick feelings the entire time she’s away. However, he still wants to move Heaven and Earth for her anywhere that he can, even when it’s at his own expense.
He must have been quiet for too long, because after a minute or so, she asks, “Jack?”
“Hah,” He laughs in embarrassment and scrubs his face with his free hand, “Sorry, I was just processing how awesome that is. Really, it would be a great opportunity.”
“That’s what I’m hoping. Or at least it’ll be a change of scenery – like you said.”
He’s really got reign it in and stop saying things like that. But it’s so hard to be tight-lipped around her, when she’s so empathetic and easy to talk to that you want to spill all of your guts to her. Though, he stands by the fact that she needs a change in pace – even just for a short while – and if it means she stays in medicine after all, he has no room to complain.
Well, no complaints beyond hoping she won’t leave any time soon. “When do you need it by?”
“Next weekend I think?” She confirms his fear. “I don’t think the program starts for another three weeks or so, but I want to submit my application and talk to the coordinator about accommodations as soon as possible.”
“Right, right. Okay,” Jack stands up from his couch to find a pen and mark this on his wall calendar, “I’ll look through the programming when I get a minute, and try to get that letter written before the end of this week or start of next, alright?”
“Thank you, Dr. Abbot. Really— you’re a life saver.” Samira’s voice sounds wrought with tenderness in her appreciation.
“That’s what they said at my hooding ceremony.” He has to make himself laugh so he doesn’t choke on formality in the face of intimacy they had shared just a week prior. “You’re welcome, Dr. Mohan.”
“I’ll see you later, then?”
Right— she also took his advice on changing scenery by picking up some night shifts. “Yes, I will see you at rounds. Enjoy your afternoon— don’t worry too much about that application.”
“Thank you. Get some rest. Bye.”
Jack’s mouth is too dry to say anything more, so he disconnects the line rather than saying his goodbyes. Now he’s just standing awkwardly in the junction between his kitchen and dining area, phone thrown onto the dining table, and trying to calculate his next move. Because she sounded so ridiculously excited about this opportunity – and her bursts of excitement about anything make him delirious with fondness – he should probably uphold his promise to do his research. Pulling his dingy old laptop across the table and pulling out a chair, he opens the computer and immediately opens a search tab for Atrius, ignoring the fact that he hasn’t grabbed his glasses from wherever he last left them as he scrolls to their ‘Research, Education, and Well-Being’ tab. He glances through the research subsection before hovering over the education link, clicking on a heading called ‘Future of Medicine.’
Fuck him. She’s going to be a perfect fit for this hospital, he already knows it. And if they have fellowships within their network, or if she becomes interested in their professional development program, she should definitely consider taking the leap. It’ll break his heart, for sure, to watch her go – but that was inevitable, wasn’t it? If she was going to quit medicine, then she would have to move back to New Jersey or find a new place to be from; if she stayed to complete her final year of residency, then she’d probably be gone during a visiting rotation – like in this scenario – and/or leaving altogether after the year closed out. In any case, she was going to leave and there would be nothing for him to do about it. She could go to Jupiter for all he cared and he would try to follow, but it wouldn’t be his call to make, because she needs to do what’s best for her, and he can’t clip this bird’s wings to stop her from flying. So, Jack tries to fight the nauseous pit now toiling in his stomach and opens a Word document to start typing up a letter.
%
“Oh, God. Abbot, I can’t have you off your game too. Robby was enough of a shitshow.”
Jack hasn’t the slightest idea what Dana’s talking about; he’s completely fine. He’s totally not being dodgy about the mere sight of Samira running laps between patients, and absolutely not being overly quiet instead of cracking his usual jokes. That would be preposterous. But Dana, who’s too preoccupied with whatever this mood is to clock out on time, has worked with him and Robby long enough to tell when they’ve gotten their panties in a twist, or are verging on a nuclear meltdown. Being intuitive: that’s why she works so well with them, especially when they’re being numskulls about stupid bullshit.
“I’m not ‘off my game’ Dana,” Jack, elbows leaning on the counter of the hub during this slow moment, gestures defensively, “I’m fine. Are you good?”
She scoffs, ripping off her glasses and throwing her jacket over her shoulder. “I’m good. Are you good? Because you keep looking at Mohan like she owes you money.” (Some might say she did, but he was never going to ask her for repayment on the supply Uber).
“Pff, as if! I’m just…” He sucks the back of his teeth with a click, trying to formulate a normal response. “I’m just glad she’s feeling better after the whole Robby debacle. Just keeping an eye on her to make sure she’s really okay.” Which, technically, isn’t a lie.
Dana, however, remains unconvinced. “Hmm… Well, can you do the white knighting while you pick up patients? I’ve got fifteen people who’ve been waiting 45 minutes or longer for someone to come see them, because we’ve been so busy handing off.”
She picks up an iPad with a chart list open and shoves it roughly into his hands, forcing him to take it or risk dropping it. “Alright, alright. Now shoo, your broomstick is primed and ready.”
“Haha,” She fake laughs and pinches the space where his pec meets his lat as she steps out of the hub (and he knows she’s not above pinching closer to his nipple), “Very funny. Night, Jackie.”
“Night, Danny.” He leans to press his cheek to her shoulder for a moment then straightens up to let her pass.
Normally, he’s not one for cherry-picking cases. Honest to some god (Dana’s, Robby’s, or otherwise), it goes against the entire reason he became a doctor. But he gets picky when he gets dodgy or irritable, so scrolling the charts feels more tedious than usual. And it doesn’t help that he’s still paying more attention to Samira’s circles – especially when she’s putting on a yellow disposable mask on her way into South 15 – than actually doing his job. Which makes him thankful to that same god that he has Shen as a co-attending (and Shen has his equally talented partner in crime, Ellis) because the ED would have burnt down without him in all of the times Jack plays Atlas and takes the whole world onto his shoulders – from sheer empathy or, more probable, divine punishment. At least it’s fairly quiet right now, save the wet coughing Samira’s checking on in South 15, meaning the weirdest and wildest haven’t started crawling just yet, so he’s got a second to get his head on straight. Though, that’s quickly becoming more difficult – because as right he’s going to get eyes on an older gentleman with hematuria and lower back pain in Central 8, Samira appears out of thin air and stops him in his tracks with eager doe eyes.
“Hey, Dr. Abbot, can I present a case?” She glances down at the iPad in his hand, but readies to hand him the one with South 15’s chart open.
“Uh, sure, Dr. Mohan,” He turns to set his tablet on the counter of the hub and takes hers, “Shoot.”
She pulls off her mask and wads it up in her scrub top pocket. “12 year old boy, brought in by concerned parents. The family just got back from a mission trip in Indonesia five days ago, and right before they left, he got a sore throat that’s progressed since getting home. His tonsils look pretty grey, his lymph nodes are rapidly swelling, and his temp’s 99.8 so he’s probably going to spike a fever soon.”
“They took their kid on a mission trip? To Indonesia?” Jack did hear all of the other details, and is filing them away as he narrows his eyes at the boy’s past medical history, but his eyebrows furrow at the laughable additional context.
“Kids actually. His five year old sister’s with grandma right now, and doesn’t seem to be sick just yet.” Samira corrects. “Not to judge books by their covers, but they seem like fairly religious folk, so it’s lucky they’re here at all.
“Anyway, the patient’s coughing from the tightened airway and nasal discharge, but he hasn’t been sick long enough and the cough isn’t dry enough to be whooping cough. He’s showing symptoms too early for it to be measles or TB. His skin’s a little red, but no pustules or hives, so probably not chicken pox or some severe allergic reaction.”
“So, you’re leaning…?” Teacher mode, thankfully, overrides pining, since he has a guess based on the kid’s chart, but he wants to make sure she can come to a suitable conclusion herself.
“Well, between missing some of his early vaccines, and his Tdap booster, plus the incidence rate in Indonesia, it’s most likely diphtheria.”
He nods. “Good catch, Dr. Mohan. You wanna go get a culture to confirm it before we start discussing antitoxin and antibiotics?”
He can tell in the wrinkling of her forehead that she wants to ask about treating before they’ve gotten confirmation in a few days, even if prolonging the lack of treatment can elevate mortality. But she doesn’t. “Sure. Thank you, Dr. Abbot.”
“No problem.” He hands her back the iPad and ignores the way her fingers brush his as she takes it.
And ignores the continued formality as she walks away to find the supplies she needs for sampling. It was already giving him enough of a headache just thinking about the way he was going to have to sweet talk Helena, the ICU attending, in order to secure a quarantined room if the boy needs to stay; he doesn’t need to hurt himself more dwelling on ambiguity and mushy feelings. What he needs to do is complete his original mission of visiting Central 8, maybe swing by North 6 and look into how Nazely’s holding up under the pressure of cleaning a woodshop-related corneal abrasion and Ellis’ supervision. He’s got this; he’s calm, cool, and collected – which is the persona he always wants to give patients. Besides, once he gets into the gross details (as in clinically visible and gnarly to stomach) of the bloody urine, then runs some lumberjack joke by Nazely and Ellis’ patient, maybe rounds chairs or the hallways, he’ll get so lost in the usual hustle and bustle that he doesn’t pay attention to the echoing in his head.
And boy, does the hustle and bustle come crashing in. Things picked up all of the sudden around midnight, and the weirdest and wildest did in fact start crawling in, like it was goddamn Shark Week (including some sensationalized and borderline fictitious injuries or disorders that came in). So, Jack got his wish to avoid his issues, even when Samira presented other cases to him or rotated with Ellis and Crus on who would play most senior resident for a case under Jack’s guidance. Somehow his stupid spiral is even kept at bay watching couples and really close friends come through, when normally the things that hit too close to home and swell with emotion make him lose his nerve. But he’s held onto control throughout – at least until 6:45. At 6:45, he’s crashing with exhaustion, worse than usual, and trying not to crumble in the last fifteen minutes of this shift; he’s using the hub as a support while he checks for freed beds instead of falling asleep standing up, and Lena keeps rubbing his back every time she passes, like she’s trying to reinvigorate him till they’re off. He almost misses the slow crawl to 7 on the dot, but Samira taps him on the shoulder ten seconds before the clock strikes, and he rubs his face to feign having been awake this whole time.
“Wow,” She catches his bluff anyway, “You look beat. Are you sure you’re okay to drive?”
Jack rubs the sore muscles at the sides of his neck. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. I need to stay up and finish your letter, anyway.”
Her brows furrow and she crosses her arms. “I wouldn’t have asked you if I knew it would be such a hassle.”
“It’s not a hassle.” He sighs, hoping she’s just cranky from her own exhaustion. “I just want it to be perfect, so they know how great of a candidate you are.”
She looks him up and down to read his body language, as if she doesn’t believe him. Not that he’s ever given her a reason to think him disingenuous, but that’s the tone he’s gleaning from her glance.
“While I appreciate the gesture, I think I’d appreciate it more if you went home and slept first.”
He rolls his eyes. “Come on, then.”
He beckons her in the direction of the lockers with a simple hand motion. And she obediently follows, watching carefully as he grabs his stuff before grabbing her own, then continues to follow his lead at check-out. Even keeps a careful eye on him so he doesn’t eat shit or doze off on the way to the parking garage. At his car, she’s still making worried doe eyes at him, so he tries to shoo her away as quickly as he can.
“Alright, alright. Now you go get some rest.” He cocks a brow to make sure she catches his sternness behind the request.
“Goodnight, Dr. Abbot.” She’s made it a habit to joking say ‘good night’ after a night shift – though he suspects it makes it easier for her to say goodbye.
“Night, Dr. Mohan.” He nods with a smile, eyes trailing as she walks on and toward her own car.
Halfway down the line of cars, Samira turns back to him with a small wave, and Jack can feel his world starting to sink again.