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The first days are spent in a false calm that tells Robby and Jack everything they need to know.
Frank is barely awake most of the time, certainly not strong enough to hold a conversation. His presence in their mind still so frightfully feeble, so far out of their reach.
Speech eludes him, recognition only slightly lighting up his eyes, his exhaustion profoundly embedded in his psyche. The only one he has been reaching out for is Santos, and Robby tries not to let it grate on him too much. Even so far out of his mind Frank is right. The young R1 takes precedence. She needs the help. And he and Jack haven’t exactly been doing a bang up job of it.
One day turns into two, then three, then four, and before they’ve realized it it has been a week and a half. Frank still struggles to stay awake for more than a few hours at the time. Struggles to speak. To move. His legs don’t respond to stimuli, his reflexes are non-existent. He can’t keep any food heavier than broth down.
The neurologists begin recommending more thorough exams. Robby knows what they’ll find. A heavily inflamed brain, a body screaming its distress.
Frank really did a number on himself this time.
He and Jack take turns at his side. It is sometimes days before they go back to their own places, making use of the communal showers and the on-call rooms to stay close. Both out of fear of letting Frank out of their sight and because they don’t want to take the risk of having him thinking he is alone.
The protections they implemented in his mind still stand strong but they are only at ease with a direct view on their Third.
Xxxx
HaShem yishmor, what a day.
What a fucking hell of a day.
He wants to break.
To forget. To disappear.
If he starts crying again… He doesn’t think he will ever stop.
Adamson dead. Six feet under for so long now. Leah dead. Dead before her time. As dead as Jake’s innocence. Dead because he couldn’t save her!
Dana punched in the face. Because he couldn’t protect his staff correctly! Jack on the wrong side of the railing this morning. Frank levelling up, uncomfortable all day, overstimulated and overwhelmed, and made to deal with it on his own. Because he was too busy dealing with everything else to listen to his best resident when he tried to reach out.
Too busy shouting. Berating. Closing himself off.
Adamson. Dead too soon. Dead because he wasn’t good enough.
Leah, so young, so full of life. Lying, cold and broken on a gurney. Too late. Always too late.
Frank writhing in that room, his incredible gift turned into a monstrous weapon, his mind fracturing under the terrible strain. His light dying because HE made the wrong call.
“You’re in my spot.”
Jack, faithful Jack. He barely glances at him.
a yiddishe mame, es gibt nisht besser oif der velt…
Jake. So young to already know the bitter poison that is death. Too young. Always too young.
Jack giving his own blood, Mel doing the same. Frank working under conditions he should never have been working with. McKay breaking her monitor, nearly taken into custody for it. All of them. Breaking the laws. Breaking the rules. To save one more person. To offer one more chance.
Who offers them a chance?
Jack comes closer. He sways a little bit, the blood loss still there.
He can’t look at him. His heart is hammering recklessly in his chest; a feral, untamed beast trying to claw its way out of its cage. A foreboding nestles itself under his skin, the certainty that something bad has yet to happen. A heavy, bloated mass growing in his heart.
He can’t breath…
Oy vey vi bitter ven zi felt…
He can’t breath!
And suddenly…
A snap! A dreadful tearing that shreds everything on its path as Frank spends the last of his strength trying to hold onto them, splintering the bond they have only just acknowledged in his desperate efforts not to succumb!
Jack screams! Full of shocked anguish and despair, his hands going to his temple in reaction to the pain!
He clings onto the railing, slamming his knees into the ground in his fall.
They look at one another, denial written on both of their faces, raw and desperate. A twisted mirror of one another. “No” he breathes. Refusing to believe it. Like a child who still thinks that rejecting it will make it not true.
“No!” cries Jack, grief already in his voice.
Vi sheyn in lichtig iz in hoiz…
They start running.
Vi sheyn in lichtig iz in hoi-i-hoiiz-z-z…
Robby wakes up in a cold sweat! Heart racing a mile a minute, breathing heavily, the song still resonating in his head.
On the other side of Frank’s bed Jack is grasping the man’s arms, shaking him, his voice calm but full of that intense heat that makes people obey him as he orders Frank to stay focused, to keep looking at him and leave Robby to his fears.
Around them, the machines are blaring in an uncontrolled panic as Frank’s mind can’t help but be drawn into one of his bonded nightmares!
The day shift attending jumps out of his chair, immediately catching the arm on his side to get his resident’s attention. “Frank! I’m fine, you hear me? I’m fine. Let it go. You don’t need to help me. Calm down, please.”
Robby doesn’t know what does it. His promises or the fact that he is safe and awake for now. But whatever it is, it seems to do the trick. Slowly, oh so slowly, silence falls back into the room as the Empath calms down, his blue eyes still searching wildly across the room. Until they fall back on the man he had been trying to help.
His lips move feebly and both attending are on him, shushing him, begging him to save his strength. He pays them no mind, as stubborn as he has always been. The weak twitch of his arms informs Robby and Jack of his attempt to touch them. They grasp his forearm straight away, relishing in the heat that spreads between the three of them.
And then…
Then…
Miracle of miracle…
“Rro… R-ro-Robb-by.”
Frank speaks.
Frank speaks!
Robby only has eyes for him in that instant. He fights the heavy lump in his throat that prevents him from talking, restricting his airways, squeezing his vocal cords into a vice so tight he can barely open his mouth and make a sound. He comes to rest his palm on the younger man’s cheek, brushing his thumb across the planes of his face. “Yes. I’m here sweetheart. I’m right here.” Then, throwing a look at Jack. “We’re both here.”
“He-he…re.”
Xxxx
Frank takes the first step towards regaining his strength after that day. Admittedly, not without hiccups and pitfalls. He is still very weakened physically, and his control over his gift can sometimes be tenuous.
It is quite the wake up call for Jack and Robby.
While they had both been made aware of his back injury when he had started his residency, and had witnessed enough Empaths over their long years in healthcare to know, intellectually, that Frank was a powerful one… It is another thing entirely to find themselves experiencing it on a deep, personal level.
To find themselves paralyzed by pain after lifting a mere child, 35kg or so of dead weight in their arms putting them out of commission as electrified zings bolt through their body in sympathetic pain as Frank, still in a bed in Neuro, struggles to parse through their physical experiences and his. His back screaming at theirs as if he'd been the one doing the lifting.
To constantly hear this non-ending background buzzing of thoughts and feelings and voices as their newly bonded learns to stand up on his own once more, to stop relying on their presence in his mind and pick up the pieces of his life. Assembling the shattered parts of his self in a slow process, gluing it all together with whatever kindness he can find for himself and Jack’s and Robby’s protective nature and love for him.
It is a humbling experience. To find themselves used like the gold to Frank’s broken ceramic. Both strengthening and embellishing his already wonderful mind. Forever woven in the tapestry of his self, turning three into one.
They also find themselves privy to his darkest parts. To his despair and his shame when he starts his mornings fighting to even get out of bed. To the terrible self-loathing when he realizes he has once again drifted into the middle of a conversation and he can’t, for the life of him, remember what the people around him were talking about, his brain already overloaded by everything else. By the job, by his gift, by his body’s neverending alarm signals going on and on and on! Because the pain is always there, in the background, even when it is only a three. One more thing always running, always blaring, constantly weighing on his attention log.
Jack has less of a hard time accepting it. His own disability is more than likely an advantage in this one, specific case. While he does find himself horrifyingly startled by Frank’s predicament he is, at least, capable of taking it in stride.
The same can’t be said of Robby, who spends an entire week avoiding the night shifter and refusing to approach Neurology. It takes Frank attempting to withdraw from his mind for the chief attending to get his head out of his ass as he finally comes to terms with the fact that he would not, ever, want him anywhere else!
Still, some part of him is angry. Angry at the situation. Angry at having to suffer the struggles of another. As if he didn’t have enough on his plate with his own… Angry that Frank had to know they were compatible and never said anything.
And Jack is picking up on it, his bond to the Empath already solidifying enough that he can hear and feel the echoes of Robby’s thoughts in his mind.
With tensions running so high, something had to give at some point.
“How long have you known?” Robby stiffly asks on his next visit, ignoring the flinch it gets him and the sharpening of Jack's eyes.
“Known what?”
“Don't play coy, Frank. It doesn't suit you. How long have you known what we were? What we could have been?”
How long have you known we were the ones for you? That we could be great together ? That together took a different significance when it's the three of us? How long have you looked in from the outside, knowing what we could be and said nothing?
The Empath sights, so very sad all of a sudden. Haunted.
“From my very first day.”
Robby drags an agitated hand across his face, exhaustion and aggravation written all over it. “Jesus! Why didn't you say anything?”
Frank suddenly glares at him from his hospital bed. More lively in that moment than he has been in a long time.
“What was I supposed to say?! You made it very clear that you had no interest in bonding with anyone. That you did not want to be someone’s Pillar. In fact, you were quite glad that I did not need that, that I already had such a control over my abilities!”
“So you choose for me? For us?!” Encompassing Jack into the question.
“Don't.” Jack’s intervention stops them both. There is a harshness to his tone. He is still the calm and controlled Jack they know, but the edge is right there, just underneath the surface. He is angry too, cursing all the time they lost.
“He is right. You’ve always been very clear about how little desire you had to be involved in anything Empath-related. You don't get to put that responsibility on him now.”
“Jack-”
“No. I don't want to hear it. I’ve always accepted your choice but you don't get to complain about this now. For fuck's sake you went and fucked Heather and we were right here! Work through your issues Michael, because you're not coming in here to lay the responsibility of your own decisions at someone else’s feet.”
The argument is this close to break out into a full fight when Frank's plaintive voice cuts them short. “Please stop. Both of you. I can't deal with that right now.”
The phantom pain of their anger echoes in each of their minds, as if to prove a point. Jack immediately folds, settling back closer to Frank to provide a physical anchor. A line of heat and the remnant of his complicated feeling shoots from one attending's mind to the other for a second, then it is gone, smoothed over by the Empath that lies between them.
“Sorry sweetheart” and there goes that nickname again, making Robby's eyebrows shoot towards his hairline. “It won't happen again.”
The younger man rolls his eyes in disbelief. “Of course it will. Just wait until I can handle the two of you. That's all I am asking.”
A bit wrong-footed at being called out so easily, Jack promptly changes the subject to ask how Santos is doing with his teachings. A one-shoulder shrug is the only answer they receive at first. But they only have to wait for Frank to open up.
“Not good. She doesn't take well to criticism, doesn't take well to male figures and takes even less well to the idea of having anyone riffling through her mind even if it is to help her. Honestly, I’m just focusing on getting her decent shields for now. Then, if she still doesn't want to change her attitude, she can find a female teacher somewhere else. It doesn't have to be me. And I don't have the energy or the time to do this with her. She'll be better off with another Empath I think.”
Robby can't help but frown, mirroring Jack on the other side of the bed. “That's… unexpected. She certainly seemed adamant to do this with you as far as I know.”
“She also accused me of being an addict, Robby.” The attending winces at the reminder, avoiding Jack's gaze. “I'm not sure we can put much stock in what she said during Pittfest or just after. And she might have meant it then. But the fact is, we're not progressing. She needs someone else. Someone she is willing to trust.”
The rest of the afternoon is spent brainstorming some potential solutions for Santos and reading to Frank when he begins to show signs of weariness. He dozes off mid-sentence, lulled to sleep by Robby’s low baritone.
Xxxx
Little by little, the attending adjusts to the low-level hubbub that is a constant in the life of an Empath, still struggling with the pain, ever-present and gnawing at his defenses. Until Frank puts a lid on what he can feel coming from him. It is shame-faced and disgusted with himself that he thanks the younger man for it. For not sharing his own difficulties anymore.
Then there is the ADHD. And Robby can say for certain that this! Is. The. Worst !
His brain feels staticky all the time, too full of thoughts and ideas and his usual mental gymnastics threaten to implode under the strain ! Staying put becomes a challenge unless he is onto something that truly catches his attention, which only happens with passion projects and exhilarating medical procedures. Something he hasn't truly felt in a long time.
He can't sit still for more than a dozen minutes at best and spends his time switching from one task to the other without meaning to. He knows others have taken notice, but only Dana dares voice their concern.
She grabs him by the arm one day, after he has changed position from his seat seven times in less than fifteen minutes then gone from charting to reviewing a lab result he knows won't be due before an hour until he had finally fallen into a hyperfocus hole when browsing through the last infectiology articles on Pubmed, forgetting about everything else.
“Okay big guy. What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing!” He answers, too quickly, too shortly for her to believe it. She raises her eyebrows at him and he deflates at once. “I am having a hard time adapting to Frank's neurodivergence. I don't know how Jack does it. It's…” He makes a vague motion with his arms, trying to encompass the too much feeling that is buzzing under his skin. “It's everywhere. Always there.” Dana scoffs.
“Well of course it's always there, it's how his brain is wired. Where do you expect it to go?”
He flounders a bit, not knowing how to put his unease into words. Dana takes no pity. “Maybe Jack has an easier time because he is actually giving the therapy session a try? You know, the one you've been nicely offered the moment HR learnt you'd completed a bond?”
Even with the nurse calling him out, Robby still does not go. Years of escapism pushing him to continue avoiding anything therapy-related. Until Jack frogmarches him into a session with him and Frank, finally fed up with his behavior. “We need to go through this so Frank can be released brother. So you better park that ass into a chair and learn.”
Even though he refuses to admit it, the attending actually finds these sessions more than useful as, at last, his brain quiets down, feeling more like his own than it has these past few weeks. He, Jack and Frank strike a balance, finding their footing as each of them learn to accept what they are to one another. What they will always be from now on.
Five weeks after Frank woke up, the two Pillars finally lift the protections they’d had to implement that fateful day and, to everyone’s relief, nothing happens. Frank does not start to seize, does not collapse or throw up or begins bleeding for his nose and ears. It is a wonderful thing to see him walking on his own, talking animatedly with Mel - who’d come to visit him - without having to rely on their support.
The day after, the resident is released.
There is still work to be done. PT appointments to honor as he relearns to run and perform all their procedures, a new pain management plan to implement once Jack, irritated at the discrepancies between Frank’s pain levels and Hagan’s decisions, stomps his good foot down and strong-harms the goddamn idiot into relinquishing Frank’s care to another Ortho. Park jumps on the case a little too quickly for comfort as far as the two attendings are concerned, but the Empath’s relief at being seen by the surgeon is enough for them to keep their mouth shut.
There is Tanner, and Penny to take into consideration. And Abby, who might not be Frank’s wife on paper, as Robby had always believed her to be, but is still very much a presence in the man’s life. The two of them interacting like a well-oiled machine, a team that has weathered every storm thrown their way together.
There are fights and heavy silences and cold shoulders sometimes. Their darkness pulling them under, sometimes all at the same time. Sometimes grating on one another until they can’t take it anymore and they snap, immediately regretting their words in the aftermath but unable to take them back.
But there is also the unparalleled beauty of being known so entirely. The unbelievable strength that comes from always having a support in the back of their mind. The incredible heat and startling sensations of their own self the first time they make love, Frank broadcasting the delicious dragging of Robby’s cock deep within him while echoing Robby’s own pleasure at ploughing into that welcoming warmth, the three-way communication being enough to send Jack into an orgasm of his own as they both climax.
The quiet certainty that they will never be alone ever again.
Ten months after Pittfest, seven after Frank woke up from a coma and six months after he started his recovery process at home, the resident walks back into the Pitt, standing on his own. Never to be alone with his thoughts ever again.