Chapter Text
Three bullets struck his vest, having been fired from just a few feet away. Jack stumbled back and forcefully exhaled, gasping as the pain spread through his whole body. His legs should have buckled, he should have crumbled to the ground.
In the gloomy light of the barracks they’d breached, he hadn’t gotten a proper look at the gun or the shooter, but almost regardless of the weapon, a point blank shot at that range was bound to do some damage, even with the kevlar vest. There was a chance he was bleeding internally, that he had punctured a lung, that he had broken one or more ribs. But out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw another SWAT member collapse, clutching the wound on her throat. Another one dropped in quick succession, blood immediately soaking through his trouser leg.
Jack knew there was something fundamentally wrong with him. He wasn’t sure the exact reason and he wasn’t sure exactly when it happened. Maybe it was the way the IED had rattled his brain around at the same time as it took his leg, maybe it was the consequent PTSD and grief, maybe it was the unexplainable heartbreak of his wife’s death, or maybe it was a combination of it all. But something was off. At some point, some wires had gotten crossed.
As he saw his friends fall down, actively bleeding from GSWs, his brain decided to just ignore the signals from his battered body. Somehow, it pushed it all away. The faulty wiring protecting him from registering the damage done to him. For now.
Robby tried to stop thinking about Jack. He really, really did. His sabbatical had been… He wasn’t sure what it had been. Enlightening? Overwhelming? Horrible? Wonderful? A combination of all, perhaps. But during his time away, he had realised that he needed to talk to Jack. He needed to tell Jack about his feelings for him, because they were eating him up. Robby thought that he could suppress his feelings, lock them up and shove them to the back of his mind for the rest of his life.
Jack was his best friend. Jack was also a widower and still wearing his wedding ring. Robby knew that Jack was bisexual and he had started to accept that fact about himself as well. But that didn’t mean Jack was interested in Robby. And even if Jack found Robby attractive and would potentially be interested in a romantic relationship, it didn’t necessarily mean he was willing to throw away over two decades of friendship to try out a relationship.
And then there was Robby’s whole thing. He was getting help, he was going to put the work in. Jack had asked him, nearly begged him. For Jack’s sake… He’d try. And then Jack had his whole thing. There were a myriad of reasons why it was a bad idea for him to even consider opening up to Jack about the things he’d realised during his sabbatical.
But, if he didn’t, Robby feared he’d actually lose his mind.
“Hey, Robinavitch,” Dana snapped her fingers in front of his face. “You’re not on vacation anymore. Two traumas, cops. Heard a little whisper that Abbot was on scene and did a good job stabilising them. ETA four minutes.”
Robby’s stomach clenched uncomfortably. He didn’t like to think about Jack’s extracurricular activities with SWAT. He treated it like other uncomfortable truths of life, like how he consumes about a credit card’s worth of microplastics weekly. There was nothing he could do about it. He had no right to tell Jack what he could or couldn’t do with his time off. Robby had only told Jack that he didn’t want to know whenever he went out with SWAT. Because if he knew Jack was out there, potentially getting shot at, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to focus.
“I’ll take one in trauma 2, you take the other in trauma 1?” Baran said as she came to stand next to him.
Robby glanced over at her. When he came back, they had a long, good and productive talk. They both apologised for their behaviour on their first day together. Baran for barging in and trying to implement radical changes during her first day and Robby for just being difficult. It had been a rough day for him, to say the least. While it had seemed almost physically painful for both of them, they had opened up slightly about their lives and experiences. He wouldn’t say that they were friends, but perhaps, they were on their way there.
“Sounds good,” Robby nodded before turning away to get ready to meet the traumas.
Jack’s forearms were cramping. He’d kept pressure on the hemostatic gauze for the whole of the ambulance ride. He’d managed to get Higgs’ bleeding under control on scene, but as soon as they moved her into the ambulance, it had started bleeding again. Jack had already packed it with as much gauze as he could and now he just had to keep pressure until they arrived at the Pitt.
Sawyer’s leg wound wouldn’t be an issue, he would probably need a unit of blood or so, but he would be fine, disregarding any potential complications. The chances of Higgs making it were getting slimmer and slimmer by the second, as more and more blood filled the gauze.
“Alright, we’re here!” The paramedic said as the ambulance came to a shaky stop.
It jostles Jack’s insides and briefly, his own injuries made themselves known. Momentarily, Jack was filled with fear and pain before he shut that down. Soon, soon, he could take care of it. He could drag Robby to the side, ask him to look Jack over. He just needed to get his friends handed over.
Getting Higgs out of the ambulance with Jack still keeping pressure on the wound made the whole process a bit more of a chore than it should be. The focus Jack had to keep on not letting the pressure up was enough to distract him from the pain the strange and unnatural movements caused. It was nearly enough to keep him distracted from the dread starting to creep over him.
They rolled through the automatic doors just as Jack saw how Baran followed the stretcher carrying Sawyer into Central 8. She’d done the same assessment he had, then. Sawyer wasn’t in a bad enough way that he’d need a trauma bay. A moment later, Robby was in front of him.
Robby.
The sabbatical had done him good, at least on the surface. He’d been kind enough to check in with Jack during the whole thing, keeping Jack up to date with all his adventures and even, if Jack was lucky, let him in on how he was doing mentally. He’d done like Jack had asked, he had called two times when things became particularly difficult, and he came back in one piece.
“What’ve we got?” Robby asked as he came over, looking pointedly at Jack’s hands.
“Arterial bleeding in neck,” Jack rattled off. He was surprised at how breathless he sounded. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth. “Managed to get it under control on scene, but moving her and the ambulance ride dislodged the clot.”
They looked at each other.
Jack needed to tell him. He needed to talk to him about what he had realised when Robby was away on his sabbatical. And for some reason, he felt like he was running out of time. He had to tell Robby soon, because something horrible was going to happen. The creeping dread was prickling the back of his neck.
“Okay, trauma 1, let’s go,” Robby clapped him on the back. Then he leaned in close. “You alright?”
No. Jack thought. Something is wrong.
“None of the blood is mine,” he said instead.
“Not what I asked,” Robby hissed, but that was all the time they had together. Then they burst through the doors to trauma 1.
Jack kept his focus on his hand, keeping the pressure on as nurses and residents joined him and Robby. His vision tunneled slightly as Robby counted out, then Higgs was lifted. Jack kept up the pressure. As she was moved, Jack was forced to stretch his torso and arms to keep the gauze secure.
Something tore inside of him. He could feel it. Something went horribly, horribly wrong. The feeling of dread, the pain and the panic that Jack had been suppressing ever since the bullets hit his vest washed over him.
Jack gasped and he couldn’t help as he pulled his hands away.
“Okay, bleeding seems to have stopped,” Robby said as he looked close, trauma goggles on to protect him from any splatter.
It was like that was the final thing Jack needed to hear. And suddenly, he slammed into his body fully. He could practically feel the colour drain from his face as he stumbled away from the stretcher. His hands went to his stomach as his heart started thudding loudly and heavily in his chest. Sweat ran down the nape of his neck as he kept stumbling backwards until he collided with the wall. Something clattered to the ground.
He started to feel full, like he’d just eaten a large portion of one of Robby’s hearty dishes, made from a recipe passed down from his grandmother. Then he felt uncomfortably full, as if he’d been gorging himself on a particularly heavy thanksgiving meal. Then he felt sick. It started crawling up his throat.
The process was so quick that Jack didn’t have time to warn anyone. He didn’t have time to call out for an emesis bag. He barely had time to lean forward and wrap his arms around his middle before he vomited. A small part of what he brought up was the remnants of his lunch. The rest was blood. Dark, red and burning.
Oh, he thought before vomiting a second time, bringing up another torrent of red. I’m going to die.