Work Text:
...let me play among the stars
On Samira Mohan’s last day at the Pitt, she clocked out early.
She hadn’t meant to, had purposefully chosen a day that seemed the likeliest to be busy, to avoid feeling so caught up in the emotions of the day, but the universe seemed to have other plans for her. The waiting room had been at a tolerable level all shift, traumas came in like clockwork but remained relatively simple and speedy, and by some sort of miracle, half of the floor had been moved up to their respective units by 5 PM. For someone who had been deemed “Slo Mo” one would’ve assumed that she’d revel in the slower pace, but the increased level of calm just made Samira feel like she was vibrating in her skin, ready for the day to finally be over.
“Are you absolutely sure?” Cassie had asked the previous week, as the two residents pulled off their gloves in Trauma 1, “I know we didn’t throw one for Heather, but that was because she was leaving so soon and—”
“No, no, it’s fine. I don’t want the attention,” Samira had placated, backing into the door to let McKay through, “besides, it’s not like we’re throwing one for Langdon or Ellis.”
Cassie shrugged, “Well, that’s because they’re both coming back. You’re not. The least we can do is throw a party for you.”
“It’s fine. Honestly. We’ll be too busy to enjoy it anyway. No party, no cards.”
Sure, she meant it, but deep down, the fear of nonchalance from her peers was what she was scared of most. The image of walking into a half-decorated break room with mountains of leftover cake and a barren card everyone forgot to sign was seared into her imagination and was enough for her to wave off the whole idea altogether. If she had made more of an active effort to get to know her coworkers then maybe she’d feel different, but at the moment, she would rather die than put herself in that type of humiliating position.
The late June evening air was stifling as Samira pushed through the front doors of the ER waiting room, the humidity seeping into her skin immediately as she hiked up the ramp to the sidewalk. She turned, peering up at the looming hospital building behind her, her eyes landing on the edge of the roof.
The memories blurred together. She vaguely remembered Perlah’s face when Heather had pulled the two of them up the stairwell and through the doors to tell them why Langdon was on leave, the shocked “what?!” filling the early morning ambience of the city getting ready for work that Thursday. Then there were the rare holidays, like the Fourth of July, when a handful of them would gather the rogue folding chairs from the abandoned utility closet on the seventh floor and scatter them across the concrete as someone—usually Donnie—fired up an ancient and incredibly illegal grill.
The moon was too close to Earth the night Abbot had pulled her up there at the tail end of her first-ever double shift. She had barely worked with the older attending at that point; his suave attitude and hyper-focused nature in a crisis immediately lured her in, but there was something about him that made her trust the superior without a shadow of a doubt. So when he had merely jerked his head towards the stairwell and held open the hall door for her, Samira couldn’t help but follow. The sky opened up as they both had stepped closer to the railing, the gentle hum of the city below them.
“How did you get through the emergency door without setting off an alarm?” She had asked, errant curls whipping around her face as she watched his eyes follow them. His own curls glowed almost white against the dark sky as a sudden urge to reach out and wrap her fingers around one overtook her. Her grip on the metal railing tightened as she clung to it like a lifeline.
“I’m a man of many talents, Dr. Mohan.” The bright moonlight caught the jest in his eyes as he smirked, the full moon directly above them threatening to engulf the entire city. She had never felt so exposed in her life.
Samira’s chest ached as her palm crushed the ancient cardstock that had landed in it moments prior. She had been on her way out, badge gone, scrubs returned, when Robby had cornered her, looking erratic and as uncomfortable as ever. She politely thanked him for his time, hoping to skip over any awkward goodbyes, when he had pulled out a crumbling old wallet from his front pocket. “Uh, if you need a reference or anything…” he muttered as he thumbed through various paper cards, landing on a faded yellow one with an old PTMC logo on the back. He passed it to her with a quick nod and a, “New Jersey’ll be lucky to have you,” before being pulled away by Dana barking orders towards him.
More like she was lucky to have New Jersey. The terrifyingly stressful summer of frantically attempting to sort through potential fellowship opportunities was well and truly behind her, but still haunted her dreams from time to time. Their house had been sold back in November, and her mother had moved in with her aunt between cruise excursions with her new boyfriend, but after an albeit tense phone call with her family, Samira had landed on a plan. She’d keep the fellowship offer in Jersey after all, live with Priyah in Edison, which would put her within walking distance of her new hospital until she could find her own place to stay. It wasn’t ideal in any sense of the word, but it would do for now. Besides, it wasn’t like anywhere else wanted her.
Samira wandered across the street to the park, absentmindedly tossing the crumpled business card in the bin as she crossed the road and headed towards the wooden bench before her. She had time now, too much time in the grand scheme of things, to sit and reflect on the past several years of her life here in Pittsburgh now that she was mere hours away from leaving it all behind. She wasn’t sure yet if she’d ever try to come back, the culture Robby had curated in his ED turning her off of any thought of ever returning to PTMC specifically, but there was something about Pennsylvania that she wasn’t quite ready to let go of.
She pulled open the Uber app as she sat, swiftly entering her apartment address in the destination box and thumbing through the options; a ride share over a long bus ride her final post-shift indulgence for the road. Her finger hovered above the glass, a feeling of finality coursing through her bloodstream as some long-ignored part of her screamed to stop for a second.
“Hey.”
Samira’s phone chimed as she dropped it on her lap and turned towards Abbot, slowly approaching the bench holding something small in his hand.
“Hi.”
“We were trying to find you, but Robby said you had already left,” he responded quietly, thigh brushing against the end of the bench now. The attending lifted the rounded object towards her, “Shen made you cupcakes.”
“Oh! That’s… sweet.” Samira reached out to grab the treat, ignoring the heat that surged through her palm as their fingertips brushed, and looked down at the baked good. The frosting that sat atop the chocolate cake was covered in yellow and blue sprinkles, a vague memory of her telling Abbot weeks ago which hospital she was doing her fellowship at tugged at her heart.
He must’ve told Shen to match the sprinkles to the hospital logo.
God, she should’ve switched to night shift.
“What are the odds that this is coffee-flavored?” She joked, delicately pulling at one side of the wrapper as Abbot sat on the opposite side of the bench. “For the sake of the rest of the night shift, hopefully low. The night crawlers don’t need any more caffeine.” Samira chuckled beside him, an ease falling into place between the two of them.
This was what she’d miss most of all. The two of them, sitting in the quiet, letting the world pass by behind them as they enjoyed each other’s company. They’d started sharing medical journals back and forth through their hospital emails at the start of her R3 year after she had let it slip that most of her weekends involved holing herself up in her apartment and scrolling through JAMA. Post double shifts, he’d drag her to the diner down the road to talk them over, insisting on ordering a second breakfast to go for her while he subtly settled the bill, much to her chagrin. Those mornings with Abbot, debating and discussing and dissecting all sorts of traumas and treatments, were what got her through the gnarliest shifts.
She’d miss them.
She’d miss him.
“When’s your flight?” He asked, folding his hands over his lap as he leaned back. He knew the answer, of course, had been asking her all month. But maybe he just needed to hear her say it one more time to remind them both that it was actually happening; that she wouldn’t be waiting on the bench for him tomorrow night.
“In the morning. I’ll head directly to my cousin’s, then start on Monday. Quick turnaround.”
Abbot huffed in agreement beside her, his head tilting to the side. She knew what he was thinking: that she should have scheduled in time to rest, time to get settled back into Jersey, but she couldn’t let herself stop for a second. Then it would be too real.
“We’ll miss you, you know.”
Samira’s laugh jerked out of her, “What will scheduling do without me?”
“Start dogging Whitaker’s phone, probably.”
“Like Robby would allow that.”
The two of them shared a look, both fully aware of the favoritism on the day shift.
The fragile paper crinkled under her fingertips as she looked up at the bright night sky. “Quiet shift for a full moon.”
“Hey! Don’t jinx us like that.” He chastised with a smile as she giggled, watching it fall across his face in a wave. Samira lifted the cupcake to her lips and gingerly took a bite: coffee-free but rich and deep, definitely homemade. She had no idea Shen could bake like this. To be honest, she didn’t know a lot about her coworkers’ home lives.
The dull shine of Jack’s onyx ring caught in the moonlight.
“Are you excited to move back home?”
Samira shrugged, “You can see a lot more stars back in the suburbs, I guess.”
She watched Jack perk up slightly, “Big stargazer, huh?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes it’s nice to remember how small your problems are in the grand scheme of things. And to know that someone else out there is looking up at the same sky as you, marvelling at it, too.”
A heavy silence followed, one that made Samira want to run to the end of the block to throw herself into the river. All residency she had tried in vain to ignore her feelings for Abbot, especially while he grieved his wife. But every time she tried to create distance, tried to convince herself that what she was feeling was just some sort of twisted Stockholm syndrome of crushing on someone you work so closely with, he’d do something out of the ordinary, like offer her his jacket when the heater broke one double or drive her home after the roads iced over and the buses cancelled early morning services one winter, and she’d fall right back in love with him again. She’d never act on it, and the longer they worked together she was sure he wouldn’t as well. Besides, he was her attending, her superior.
Was.
Samira looked over at Abbot, his gaze trained up towards the bright full moon, purposefully giving her space. But she didn’t want it, she wanted…
His head snapped towards her in the next breath, his eyes filled with a conflict that surprised her, like he was about to say something he might regret. Her muscles tensed and before she could talk herself out of it, Samira seized the moment.
“I’ll miss you.”
She watched as the confession crashed over him.
“Samira—”
Ping!
Beeeeeeeeeeppppp!
Her phone chimed at the same time as a Honda Civic’s car horn blared through the silent night, causing them both to jump. Samira looked down to see that the car she had accidentally ordered when Jack had shown up with the cupcake had arrived, and was ready to depart without her if she didn’t hustle over to the sidewalk in the next thirty seconds.
“Oh… that’s me. I… I should go.”
She gathered her backpack up from the ground, careful not to smash the cupcake nestled in her left palm, and stood, Jack following silently behind her.
Samira watched as he leaned through the front window of the car, confirming that the driver’s name matched the app with her and opened the back door. She threw her backpack into the footwell and turned back towards him, eyes suddenly burning in the brightness of the night.
“Get home safe.” His grip was tight on the door’s top edge.
Samira huffed a breath in a feeble attempt to ease her nerves, “Wish me luck, Jack.”
She never called him Jack.
He pressed his lips together, holding back from saying something yet again, before responding, “You don’t need it. You’re extraordinary, Samira.”
She wanted to kiss him.
She wanted to lean in, chuck all sense towards the stars, and latch onto those curls to haul him towards her.
She sat down on the leather instead, the echo of Jack shutting her door and patting the roof of the car shuddering in her head.
It wasn’t until Samira looked down at her half-eaten cupcake dotted with sprinkles that swirled like the galaxy above her that she realised her tears were soaking the frosting.