Chapter Text
Frank was fifteen the first time he hurt his back. He hasn’t set foot on the ice since.
Today he wakes up closer to thirty-three than thirty-two with a dull ache in his lower back that never really goes away anymore. He briefly considers calling out and spending the day on his couch with painkillers and a heating pad. But that feels a little too much like surrendering and it was made very clear to him when he returned back in July that his colleagues were tired of covering for him. So he ignores the sharper twinge that twists as he pulls himself out of bed and refills the Advil bottle in his bag before heading to work.
He regrets the decision before his shift has technically even started.
Robby is working today, because of course he is. He’s worked every single one of Frank’s shifts since he started back, his ominous three month spirit quest delayed indefinitely. He doesn’t so much as spare Frank a glance when he banishes him with a single word, cold and clipped – triage. He goes without protesting, the way a well behaved senior resident should. Because he knows it’s futile and because he’s too tired today for anything more than keeping his head down and making it through the next twelve hours.
The first part of the day passes without incident as he takes care of a swath of the usual low hanging fruit – a few minor lacerations, a UTI, a toothache, one case each of pneumonia and strep, a pair of bruised rips, two sprained fingers, and one very ingrown toenail. He passes a young woman with endo to Mel and a man who lost a fight with his lawnmower to Mohan. He doesn’t bother sticking around to offer help on the floor, he retreats to chairs before Robby has the chance to chase him off.
He’s working his way through a nasty case of road rash–a skateboarder decided hanging off the back bumper of a pickup would make him go viral–when his eyes catch on the pain scale poster on the opposite wall. Physically he’s at three, probably closer to four when he’s not distracted. But mentally – his eyes slide to the right and hover between the orange frown and the red grimace.
He sees red, he feels red, he’s drowning in red.
Just as he’s wrapping up with tiktok’s next Tony Hawk, Mel appears in the doorway asking if he can spare a few minutes to consult on a case. He’s hesitant to leave the stool he’s currently perched on and the small comfort that triage affords of being shielded from wandering eyes. But apparently Mohan and Ellis are busy with a trauma, Robby has disappeared for a meeting upstairs, and he finds he can’t say no to Mel.
Walking the floor of the Pitt is the closest he’s ever come to feeling like he was out on the ice again. Skirting from one case to the next, moving on instinct a beat before the facts backed him up. Smooth and natural and a bit like coming home. Familiar to his bones in a way nothing else has ever been.
Now he follows Mel across the floor toward North with his head ducked, one hand rubbing the back of his neck, and more nervous than he ever was with a stack of benzos in his pocket.
It comes as no surprise to him that Mel has already considered and eliminated a lot of the possibilities that might explain the patient’s symptoms, Ms. Carmichael has quite the interesting history. His mind is off and running through the differential, tracing the familiar grooves, stringing symptoms together until they stack up into the shape of a potential diagnosis. It’s the first time he’s actually had to turn his brain on to solve a puzzle today and it’s a welcome distraction.
“She’s been in and out of the ER a lot,” Mel says. “Well, you saw her chart. No one’s ever actually diagnosed her with any underlying condition.”
“Positive ANA. CRP is high and Sed Rate is low,” he says more to himself. Then prompts, “you said she mentioned a rash on her face in the past – did she mention sun exposure making it worse?”
“Yes, actually, how did you…” She stops, eyes losing focus while she retreats to sift through her mental library for the answer. Absently she fidgets with the end of her stethoscope, crossing and uncrossing the binaurals in a rhythmic cadence.
“Oh,” she says, a bit loud in her enthusiasm, “oh, it’s lupus.”
“Maybe,” he says, nodding, “what’s your plan?”
“Steroids for now and a referral to a rheumatologist for a formal diagnosis and management plan."
“That sounds like an excellent plan, Dr. King.” He offers the tablet back so she can put the orders in herself.
“Thank you,” she says with a smile bright enough to tug at the corners of his own. “I’ve been working on this since handoff and I really didn’t want to send her home without answers. Again.”
“Well, mission accomplished.”
She carries the conversation on and tells him about how long and difficult it was for her mother to get diagnosed and how it was actually an ER doctor who finally caught it.
Working with Mel always leaves him feeling a bit lighter somehow, a little bit more like his old self. It helps that she’s one of the few people who doesn’t treat him any differently now. She still sees him as Dr. Langdon, no qualifiers, no doubts.
Absently he fidgets with his bracelet, his fingers working over each bead on the string until he reaches the twelfth one, carefully tied in place before he left that morning.
No one at the hospital knows. He almost told Cassie when they met for coffee last week. They’ve been doing that, pretty regularly. It helps. As much as it can. They’ve probably talked more in the two months he’s been back than the entire two years prior so she knows that it’s coming up even if he’s never admitted the exact date. And he knows that if anyone will understand what today means for him, it’s her. But he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he’s asking for a celebration over a participation trophy. So he kept it to himself.
He considers showing Mel though, he knows she’ll be happy for him because that’s just who she is. He can already picture her glowing smile and the little jolt of genuine excitement she couldn’t contain if she tried. She might even give him a high five. The thought tugs at the corner of his mouth.
But before he can work up the nerve, his gaze slips over her shoulder to find Robby watching them, just this side of the doors back to Central. He’s standing there with his arms folded and a scowl so deep that he’s almost unrecognizable.
– You let me down. You let everybody down –
Frank’s stomach goes sour. His hand recoils from the reminder that he is first and foremost a fuck up and he tucks his arms across his chest. Any notion he had about telling her–about telling anyone–evaporates.
The first anniversary of PittFest doesn’t seem like a day that should be celebrated anyway.
“Hey, sorry,” he interrupts and hates the way she stutters to an abrupt stop and hugs the tablet to her chest like a small shield, “I gotta get back.”
“Oh, of course, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to keep you,” she says with genuine remorse, like she’s been keeping him from a critical trauma patient rather than another sprained ankle or minor laceration.
“You’re fine,” he assures her with a smile that he doesn’t feel. “Good job on this one.”
She beams back at him with another soft ‘thank you’ and he wishes he could bottle up a bit of her sunshine to carry with him. Warm and bright and easy. Maybe it would ward off the dark gray fog that seems to take up residence in every corner of his mind these days.
He turns to head back to chairs and he can feel Robby’s eyes boring a hole in his back as he crosses the hall. Just past the workstations, he pauses to glance back and sure enough he finds Robby talking to Mel, gesturing to her patient in North 2. Checking up on him. Again. Always. Some days it chafes more than others. Today is one of those days. Today he doesn’t know why he even bothered coming in.
If Robby is going to act like he’s as incompetent as a first day MS3 then there’s really no reason for him to be here at all.
It made sense in the beginning. Back when each minute took an hour and the days never seemed to end and all he had to pass the time was the misery of his own thoughts. He had to come back to the scene of the crime. Because if he could resist the temptation at its worst point, where he’d already given in, then he would prove he was stronger than this. He would prove that Robby could trust him again.
He never expected to come back to a version of Robby that didn’t care if he failed and stayed quiet when others rooted for it.
He takes a blind step backward to pivot around the desk and hit something solid. It’s not a hard collision, he’s used to being jostled during the close proximity of a trauma where personal space doesn’t exist, but pain forks through his back like lightning anyway. He bites back the string of silent curses disproportionate to the incident and mutters a dismissive ‘don’t worry about it’ overtop of Jesse’s apology and passing concern.
He swears he can feel Robby’s gaze on him again just before he rounds the corner but he doesn’t dare look back.
~~~
The shift continues to grind along slowly, each minute stacking up like pebbles in his pockets. It’s not the worst day he’s had since he came back – the sting of that first shift and the shock of Robby’s apathetic hostility will be difficult to beat – but he’s counting down until it’s over and he’s another day closer to the end of his residency.
Dana finally pulls him off triage around midday.
“You, uh, run that by Robby?” he asks, trailing behind her and scanning the floor.
“He’s the one who put you on the schedule, isn’t he?” she says.
“Yeah, along with two other senior residents.”
“Ellis was only covering for McKay for a few hours.” She stops in front of the board, props the tablet on her hip and glances sidelong at him over the top of her glasses. “We’re back to just you and Mohan.”
He drags a hand through his hair and then tucks both hands in his pockets as Mel and Santos duck into South 15 behind them. “Some might prefer just Mohan.”
“We need you back here. Now if you’re done with the pity party, I got one hot and ready in North 4. The kids are waiting for you,” she says, handing him a tablet like it’s that easy. When he still hesitates to take the chart, she adds a bit softer, “you leave Robby to me.”
Warm gratitude blooms in his chest at her words and then heats further into embarrassment. Having someone on his side is a welcome relief but the idea that he needs Dana to act as some kind of shield or buffer is anything but.
“Are you sure–”
“Does it look like I have time to argue about this right now? Get moving. I got three more lined up for you that were promised service in thirty minutes or less.”
He twists his wedding ring around his finger, it doesn’t quite fit right anymore. He’s not sure anything fits right anymore. “Thanks, Dana.”
“Anytime,” she says with a wink.
Javadi fumbles awkwardly through the presentation, tongue tied and wide eyed as ever around him, while Joy hangs back like she’s watching a trainwreck. Somehow he manages to keep a straight face when she hits the punchline of the case, the burn is from an incident with molten cheese sliding off a pizza.
Hot and ready indeed.
After the code cheese is resolved, he heads back to the hub to pick up another patient. Robby and Dana are tucked into the hallway between Trauma 1 and South 22 like it affords any degree of privacy for whatever argument they’re having. By the looks of it, it’s a bad one. Robby’s all looming, snapping anger like something straight out of a nightmare, but Dana is holding her ground, leaning into her own sharp words before she turns abruptly toward the charge desk. Robby throws something else at her retreating back and she snaps ‘then get some air’ right back.
Princess and Perlah scatter out of Dana’s path. Robby shakes his head, glances up, catches his gaze and immediately pivots to circle the South rooms.
Frank doesn’t cherry pick cases much anymore but he opts to skip the sore throat in South 18, takes the wrist pain in Central 7 instead, and mentally tallies the hours left in the shift.
~~~
When Robby calls him over for an incoming trauma he assumes he’s misheard. Robby doesn’t pull him into traumas anymore. He allows it occasionally when Frank stumbles into one or Dana sends him because everyone else is too busy. But he thinks if it were entirely up to Robby, Frank wouldn’t even set foot in the trauma rooms.
“What have we got?” he asks, flanking the gurney as they roll toward Trauma 2.
“Thirty-four year old male, Michael Lutz. Altered mental status and fever. Call reported one seizure, unknown duration, self resolved before we arrived. Seized again en route, administered four of Ativan but seizure persisted until another four of Ativan was given.”
Frank nearly trips and his stomach flips. It’s a coincidence, it has to be. Because there’s no way that Robby purposely pulled him in for a trauma for the first time for a patient exhibiting signs of–
“Dr. Langdon, are you running this or not?”
His attention snaps to Robby and he’s caught again, even though he hasn’t taken anything. He’s trapped in that hallway by the lockers, punching his code in with a shaky hand and there’s no way out.
“Transfer on three,” he says in a rush, “one, two –”
The lift is done and over in the span of a second but Frank feels it. The reach is awkward and the guy is heavy, he reasons. Or maybe he’s just a weaker doctor than he was before.
He’s missed the vitals again and half of the preliminary eval. A quick glance at the screen tells him SATs and respirations are too low while heart rate and BP are too high, but for a beat he doesn’t know what to do about any of it.
The patient seizes again.
He can almost feel his own muscles constricting again.
“Dr. Langdon.”
Robby’s standing opposite him, eyes darting from him to the patient and back again. It’s a challenge and a demand. A test he doesn’t expect him to pass. It’s nothing like the mentor he met as a med student, back when the questions were leading and aimed to teach instead of sharp and aimed to cut.
His mouth has gone dry but he stumbles into action. “Another four of Ativan.”
“Are you sure?”
Yes–no–maybe. He doesn’t know if he remembers how to be sure anymore, or what it’s like to be in a trauma room that’s not doubling as a battlefield. “We can try four of Keppra.”
“Is that a question?”
“No.”
It’s what they gave him when the consequences of refusing the taper protocol reared up.
“Anything else?”
His eyes catch on the monitor and it clicks. “We need to intubate. 120 propofol and… 60 sux.”
“What about paralysis masking the seizures?”
It’s a question for an intern, which is fitting considering that’s how he feels fumbling around the trauma right now. “We’ll monitor with EEG.”
The corner of Robby’s jaw ticks twice before he tells Princess to push the meds.
His shadow looms over Frank’s shoulder until he clears the chords.
The patient’s motionless. He’s still seizing.
“What now?”
Frank catches a bead of sweat on his brow before it can drip into his eye. “Push 100 ketamine.”
“Why?”
“It –” His palms are slick with sweat inside the gloves, he can feel the shake starting deep in his bones, and the room is getting smaller and smaller, pressing his ribs in tight against his lungs. “– it’s had results with breaking RSE.”
It’s a terribly inadequate answer – state the obvious, yet still don’t answer the question – but the patient crashes and by the time he’s done enough compressions to shock him twice and get his rhythm back, the seizure has ended and Robby’s forgotten about that particular line of inquisition.
“Joy, Whitaker, differential?” Robby prompts.
Frank keeps his gaze fixed on the monitor and feels the sweat slide down his back. He tries not to listen as Joy lists symptoms and potential diagnoses and wonders if anyone but Robby would notice if he slipped out before they–
“Alcohol withdrawal,” Whitaker says.
“And what else can mimic acute alcohol withdrawal?”
The question isn’t directed at him, not really, but he can feel the weight of Robby’s gaze anyway. The other eyes in the room flit to and away from him and everyone seems to be holding their breath a little bit. He doesn’t know if Robby thinks this is some twisted kind of exposure therapy or just straight torture and he’s not sure which one is worse.
He’s not sure if it really matters.
“Benzodiazepine withdrawal,” Joy supplies, none the wiser.
Robby can’t know, the tox screen hasn’t come back yet so it’s impossible for him to know. And even if he did know it was a withdrawal seizure coming in, alcohol is far more likely than benzos. Plenty of alcoholics come through the Pitt, Frank was bound to get one eventually – another one, after Louie.
It should make him feel better.
It doesn’t.
The dust settles now that the patient is holding stable and everyone slowly disperses.
He lingers, spent and a little shaky as the adrenalin bottoms out. He’s a little light headed and the fluorescent lights are too bright and the cacophony of the ED is too loud and the dull throb at the base of his spine is starting to wear on him.
Only half of him is still here in this room. The other half of him is twelve months away, stuck in a different room with the same cotton filled mouth and knotted up stomach. He made it out once. He’s not sure if he can do it again.
~~~
He nearly runs into Whitaker on his way into the lounge.
There’s a poster on the wall by the medicine cabinet that tells him with colorful cartoon infographics that he has the right to a safe and healthful workplace, free from harassment, discrimination, or retaliation. It’s always been something of a joke to the ED staff, they all know the risks they take just coming to work.
Now the joke has a second edge reserved specifically for him.
He’s tossing two pills back when Javadi comes in and damn near jumps out of her skin when she sees him.
“Dr. Langdon, I didn’t know–I’m sorry–I didn’t realize you were in here–”
“Relax, Javadi, it’s Advil,” he tries to keep the edge out of his voice, he’s not entirely successful.
“Oh, no–I wasn’t–I didn’t think you were–”
He’s not sure he’s ever seen her eyes quite as wide as they are right now.
“–I don’t–um, what I mean–what I meant to say was, um…” She trails off and her lips roll together.
He starts counting.
Her eyes dart around the room as he refills his water glass, looking anywhere but him. She’s paralyzed two steps from the door. She clearly came in here for something but she can’t decide if she needs it enough to risk staying in the same room as him. As if addiction is contagious.
He can’t decide if her particular flavor of nervous energy is more or less irritating than the way other eyes follow him. The ones that linger a little too long when they think he doesn’t notice and the ones that track his hands when he puts orders in or administers meds. Like they expect him to grab some lorazepam and shoot up right in front of them.
It’s exhausting.
She opts to get whatever she came for out of the refrigerator and her gaze drifts in his direction without ever actually looking at him. She mumbles something too quiet and jumbled for him to make sense of as she flits back across and out the door.
Twenty-two seconds, give or take. That’s as long as she could stand being in the same room as him without a patient tying her in place. Santos still holds the record low at two seconds. Approximately. She left before he even started counting.
He counts a lot of things now.
~~~
He stops at the hub and leans hard against the counter with a measured breath under the guise of reviewing a chart that he couldn’t read right now even if his eyes weren’t pinched closed behind his thumb and forefinger. He can feel the heat of Robby’s gaze pinning him in place within seconds. He’s slower now, even on good days, and every time he stops to catch his breath Robby sees it, sees the weakness.
“Dr. Langdon.”
Robby’s voice grates against him in a way that makes him want to crawl out of his own skin. If he turns himself inside out, all his veins clean and exposed, would that be enough to convince him to back off just a little?
“Yeah?” He drops his hand and meets Robby’s gaze squarely, because one thing he’s not going to do is act like he has something to hide when he doesn’t.
“Robby,” Dana says, her voice low with the hint of a growl.
He ignores her and gives Frank a clipped, “Come with me.”
Robby peels away from the desk without looking back and Frank moves to follow like the well trained dog he’s become. He catches a glimpse of Dana as he’s leaving and she’s stalking back toward the charge desk like a wildcat, her livid gaze fixed on the back of Robby’s head like she wants to claw it off.
He knows immediately where they’re going and he knows everyone else does too, swears he can hear Santos and Whitaker laughing somewhere behind him. As if the routine screenings upstairs weren’t embarrassing enough, Robby seems to get some kind of satisfaction out of conducting the random screenings. Like a schoolyard bully kicking the back of his knees the second he was finally getting his feet back under himself.
But he stops short just outside the restroom and rounds on him, both hands deep in the pockets of his hoodie. He stands there, staring him down with a scowl like this is the biggest inconvenience for him. His lips roll into a flat line while he waits expectantly. Except Frank has no idea what reparation he’s waiting for.
“What?” he finally asks, sharper than he meant, duller than he feels.
Robby’s eyes track down to where his badge is clipped to the pocket of his scrubs and the corner of his jaw ticks before he finally speaks. “Whitaker’s badge is missing.”
He blinks. “Okay.”
“You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“Why would I–” It hits him just as hard as a fist hits a locker and he doesn’t know if the nausea that rolls through his stomach is from that or the ache in his back. “Why would I know anything about Farm Boy’s badge?”
“The last place Dr. Whitaker remembers having his badge is in the lounge. Where he ran into you.”
It hurts more than he wants to admit, cuts deeper than being exiled to scut work, and adds more air to the scream he’s kept locked inside his chest for months. “So, the intern loses his badge and the first person you question is the resident drug addict? That’s great.”
He’s already shaking his head, mouth pulling into a mocking smile. “You made this bed.”
“Come on, man –” his breath catches and he’s struck with an echo of fear that somehow he’s been caught again “– you really think I took his badge?”
“I think you don’t get the benefit of the doubt anymore,” he says. “Did you take it?”
“No.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me.”
He’s not. He hasn’t since he came back, still determined to earn some semblance of his trust back someday. Lately the effort feels more like trying to scoop water out of the Titanic with a teaspoon.
But truthful or not his words aren’t enough anymore. So he inverts both of his pants pockets the same way he does before every single mandatory drug test, flips his own badge around, and sweeps his fingers through his shirt pocket too. “See – empty. Do you want to check my locker too?”
“Yeah and I will. As soon as we’re done here.” Robby turns and throws the bathroom door open hard enough that it hits the stopper with a loud crack.
For a heartbeat he can’t move, rooted in place by a fearful instinct planted so long ago that sometimes he forgets it’s still there. The part of him that’s still fifteen wants to run even though he knows he can’t, not fast enough.
He catches Santos’ gaze across North for less than a second before she looks away and disappears behind the curtain of bed 4.
The door shuts with a hollow click and it occurs to him that it would have been very easy for them to have that entire conversation inside the privacy of the bathroom. Robby stopped short on purpose, pinned him in place like an ant under a magnifying glass on a hot summer day just to see if he would catch fire.
He thinks the realization should hurt more than it does but this is a game he learned a long while ago, back when it was fists against walls and dashboards instead of lockers and the penance was physical therapy instead of rehab.
“Anything you wanna tell me before you fill this?” he asks, holding the sample cup aloft like it’s the chart of a particularly interesting case rather than the physical reminder of the biggest fuck up of his life. The older, kinder version of Robby would have asked the question earnestly but the version standing here now asks it only as an accusation.
Some atrophying part of him still wants to throw out a joke, yeah I actually spiked my last cup of coffee with Klonopin instead of creamer on accident, probably not a big deal though, right?
But instead he just says, “No.”
Robby tips his head, expression skeptical and demanding, almost like he’s–well, like he’s looking at a drug addict. “Are you sure about that?”
His gaze sweeps over Frank, clinical, assessing, and serrated. He hasn’t missed the headache, the fatigue that hangs off his bones, the antsy movements, or the flush beading sweat at his temple. Part of him thinks Robby can even hear the tachy rhythm of his heart and the way he’s felt out of breath since he got out of bed that morning.
He’s right on all counts because of course he is. He’s Dr. fucking Robinavitch, a God among men.
Frank wants to shout at him, wants to push him back against the beige tiled walls and maybe even crack a few knuckles against his jaw. Because it’s been three hundred sixty-five days since he’s taken a benzo–three hundred and sixty-fucking-five days. And tomorrow it will be three hundred sixty-six. He’s done it, the hardest year of sobriety and of his life. A year he thought more than once might kill him. But it’s over and he’s still standing and isn’t that enough? Doesn’t that count for something?
“I haven’t taken anything,” he says, even knowing Robby won’t believe him without proof.
Robby considers him for a long moment before he says, “You’re off the floor until I get the results.”
“Are you serious?”
But apparently the fact that he’s standing here, ready and willing to piss in a cup again isn’t worth anything. Through benzo-addict tinted glasses everything is a symptom and instead of entertaining the idea that maybe this is anything other than a relapse, Robby just shoves the sample cup against his chest with enough force that it stings.
– I don’t know if I want you working in my ER –
Yeah, he thinks he would prefer a fist fight actually.
Bruises and bloody knuckles and broken bones will heal on their own. But trust? That’s a two person job and he’s the only one showing up.
He takes the cup that feels more like a shackle and it adds a little more to the weight tied around his ankles. He’s barely keeping his head above water, gasping and choking. He’s drowning. And Robby is the one dragging him under the surface.
“Do you think riding me like this is actually helping or do you just enjoy making this harder than it already is?”
“If you wanted to take the easy route, you should’ve just paid for movers.”
It’s a low blow, possibly the lowest since the lockers and the ambulance bay and the helipad. “Fuck you.”
He turns, more than ready to get this over with but Robby isn’t quite done slinging grenades yet. His voice is maddeningly even, like the personal attack behind the words can be disguised if they’re papered over with a neutral enough tone. “Are you going to be able to finish this shift without relapsing?”
The question lands somewhere very raw, a wound he picks at every hour of every shift. It’s automatic, he sees the opportunities to steal the same way he sees patient symptoms – puzzles his brain has already worked out before he even consciously decides to tackle them. He wonders if it’s something he can ever unlearn.
He looks back and finds Robby watching him with the same icy stare he’s had since open your fucking locker. Like he doesn’t care one way or another what the answer is, as long as it doesn’t land him in another meeting upstairs with Gloria.
“Probably easier for you if I didn’t, right? Just ship me off to be someone else’s problem again.”
The corner of Robby’s jaw flutters, his posture stiffens and shifts and for a few heartbeats Frank thinks he might throw a fist. Part of him hopes he does because a black eye or a broken nose couldn’t be any worse than the cold war he’s been waging these past months.
Robby’s arms fold across his chest, left hand gripping tight at his elbow. “I asked you a question.”
Frank doesn’t know if he’s used the same words again on purpose or by accident and he doesn’t know which idea he hates more.
“I’m fine.”
Technically it’s a lie but not in the way Robby means so Frank figures he won’t care.
Robby nods once. “Guess we’ll find out.”
Somehow, after everything else, it still stings.
Frank searches the face of the man standing before him, this version of Robby that he doesn’t quite recognize, twisted into something cold and apathetic and mean. And he doesn’t know what he regrets more, taking the meds or thinking Robby would ever forgive him for it. Of all the things he’s lost in the past year, that trust is the one thing he wants back more than anything else.
He hates himself for it.
It was stupid, in hindsight, to think that all he had to do was kick the benzos and Robby would welcome him back with open arms and the same intuitive trust they spent four years building. Dana told him it would take time and effort and patience but he's not sure any amount of those will do any good if Robby has decided he's a lost cause.
Frank fills the cup, knowing the results will come back in the shape of I told you so. Irrefutable evidence that–no matter how convinced Robby is of it right now–he hasn’t fucked up again. At least not yet. Even if he’s thought about it more than he’s willing to admit.
When he’s done he opts to set the sample on the edge of the sink.
“Why’d you let me come back?” he asks before he can consider whether he really wants an answer. “If you don’t want me in your ER, why didn’t you just say no?”
As soon as he catches Robby watching him in the mirror, Robby’s gaze retreats, dropping to the floor. His head shakes once, his mouth half open like he might offer some answer. But his mouth closes and he takes the sample and leaves without another word.
~~~
He steps out into the open air of the ambulance bay and some small part of the elephant on his chest shifts off. Maybe if he just kept walking he could escape the slow asphyxiation he’s been suffering since July. He presses his fingers deep into his eyes like it might help the pain stacked up against his spine or erase the image of disappointment that’s burned into his retinas for a year now.
Fuck me, he thinks and he hates how even his own thoughts sound like echoes of someone else’s words thrown under flickering fluorescent lights.
Harsh words spoken in a doorway and an ambulance bay and a bathroom. All of them are different versions of the same sharp message – there’s no coming back from this. He was worth something before, he’s not worth anything after.
He shouldn’t have come back, he thinks not for the first time, he should have gone somewhere else where he wouldn’t have to keep apologizing and begging for forgiveness day in and day out while the foolish hope that Robby would one day look at him again the way he did before flickers but never quite goes out.
It wouldn’t be the first time someone he looked up to threw him away after he fucked up.
“You relapse yet?”
The voice pitches the question with a taunting lilt that’s unmistakable – Santos.
Irritation sparks between his shoulders. Two inquiries about relapsing in less than five minutes feels more like a coordinated attack than anything resembling concern. They probably have a bet going by now, her and Whitaker and hell maybe Robby is in on it too. How long will RJ–Resident Junkie, he deciphered a few days after he first heard the nickname–last until he relapses and is he stupid enough to try to steal from the hospital again when he does.
His hands drop to hang limp at his sides and he considers an about face straight back into the ED or maybe into traffic. But his stomach rolls and his pride smarts and his back aches. And she doesn’t own the god damn sidewalk. So he doesn’t move. And neither does she – rooted on the spot by stubbornness or arrogance or some deadly combination of the two.
He knows the odds, it’s essentially a numbers game until he relapses and he’s terrified of the day it finally happens because he’s not sure he can do this past year over again. He’s not really sure how he did it the first time. Stuck inside four walls as a patient instead of a doctor, shaking and scared and alone. Back then he’d been able to cling to the idea of coming back to the same life he had before and seeing Robby look at him the way he used to, before open your fucking locker and you’re done and you let me down.
But the house is empty and his back hurts and he spends the first half of every shift in triage and sometimes his hands still shake the way they did when he was alone in a dark room with cold sweat down his back and itchy bedsheets clinging to his skin and today he’s more convinced than ever that no one would care if he just disappeared and never came back.
“You tell anyone yet?” she asks when he doesn’t respond to the initial bait. The question is lined with a sort of bitter skepticism that tells him she’s already decided what the answer is regardless of what he says.
He bites back the instinctive fuck off that rises up his throat. He doesn’t need her running off to HR with a complaint – or worse, to Robby.
It itches under his skin, the way he sees her walk through the ER like she belongs and he doesn’t. Like he went through rehab, countless NA meetings and mandatory drug screenings, and clawed his way back in spite of her and somehow she still won.
Most days he tends to agree.
She scoffs at his silence, no doubt taking it as confirmation.
“If you want everybody to know so badly, tell them yourself,” he says flatly.
Her arms are crossed, back ramrod straight, scowl fixed in place. It grates him almost as much as Robby’s critical gaze. She sees through him, right down to his rotten core.
Each supervised trip to the bathroom for sample collection is a reminder of just how fast she clocked him. He was stealing for months and Robby didn’t notice but an intern caught it in less than twelve hours. A large part of him is pissed at her for seeing it, another part of him is pissed that Robby didn’t see it first. He doesn’t know which part is bigger. He doesn’t know if it even matters.
His hand drifts halfway to his back before he catches himself and swings it around to be clasped in his opposite fist.
Her head gives a little shake, something disapproving and a little bit mocking in the gesture. Her mouth works like she’s going to say something and he wishes she would. He would much rather have it out loud with sharp words and biting honestly than the silent festering scrutiny kept at a distance. He’s so tired of the whispers and the glances and the not so subtle interjections before he can even so much as think about prescribing a benzo.
“You know what,” she starts and his teeth clench with a spark of something like excitement because if she picks the fight first then at least he can claim self defense, “I don’t even care–”
He doesn’t get to find out what she doesn’t care about because a black sedan whips into the driveway and jolts to a stop a dozen or so feet away from them.
“Are you guys doctors?” the driver asks, his gaze shifting quickly between them.
Frank’s not sure that he is anymore, if he ever will be again. Doctor has been overwritten by Addict in the eyes of everyone who knows and he’s pretty sure it’s stamped on his forehead for anyone who doesn’t.
Santos snaps into action, automatic and eager. “I’m Dr. Santos, is someone hurt?”
It’s the same eagerness in her voice from her first day, asking if she could put a chest tube in any patient that came in horizontal. Always wishing for excitement no matter what it means for the patient.
Even though he’s technically still off the floor–and even if he wasn’t, working a trauma with Santos is one of the last things he ever wants to do–he ambles closer, already scanning the car for a patient.
There isn’t one.
“Dr. Santos?” the man repeats. His eyes dart over to Frank but don’t linger for more than half a second. It’s just long enough for Frank to clock the inflamed sclera, in addition to the sweat beading across his brow and the tachy respirations. He can’t see it but he’s willing to bet the guy’s BP is up too.
“Santos,” Frank says her name like a warning even though the idea behind it hasn’t fully formed quite yet.
“That’s right,” she says, willfully ignoring him, “are you hurt – do you need help?”
“Yeah–” he swallows like his throat is dry “–yeah, I think you can help me.”
Frank doesn’t know what it is – intuition, a sixth sense, nihilism – but something presses him forward with the force of a breaking wave. He sees a flash of metal, hears words he can’t register, hears the deafening crack and then feels the shock of landing hard on the concrete pavement. The unforgiving surface bites at his wrist and his shoulder and all the exposed skin in between.
His ears ring in an uneven pitch and his muscles shake from the surge of adrenaline. The car is gone, his brain registers the engine roaring away a long beat after his ears hear the sound.
“You okay?” he asks automatically, still half shielding her while his brain works to set the world right side up again.
“Get off,” she snaps back, shoving at his loose grip like it might infect her.
Pain lances through his back as he rolls away, current or an echo of memory he doesn’t know. By the time he presses himself up to his feet, she’s a dozen paces away shouting some obscenity after the driver even though he’s long past being able to hear her.
He must have gotten up too fast because his head spins in that light way it does when blood pressure doesn’t keep up. The adrenaline hasn’t settled out yet because his hands are still shaking, in fact all of him is shaking. Why hasn’t he caught his breath yet? He presses a hand against the pinch in his chest like that might help. And why does it feel like there’s a rod jammed low in his sternum–
“Oh, fuck,” she says, her gaze sweeping him up and down.
He glances down to see what’s upset her – maybe she’s just offended that his cologne rubbed off on her or afraid he’ll blame her for the minor road rash that stings all the way up his left arm–
“Oh –” the knot in his chest is actually a hole and it’s bleeding over his hand “– fuck.”