Chapter Text
"And one day, I am gonna grow wings
A chemical reaction (you know where you are)
Hysterical and useless (you know where you are)
Hysterical and (you know where you are)."
-"Let Down" by Radiohead
Somewhere in the back of his conscience, Robby knows riding at the brink of dusk without a helmet is wrong.
There should be immediate alarms screaming at him to stop and turn back, especially since he's an emergency attending. He had even put it on when he first left to ease Jack's worries, but it eventually found its way off his head. Ironically, he's seen so many, far too many MVAs that don't come back.
Hell, this morning, they couldn't save the guy who blew his brains out.
Yet, he's too numb to go back. As much as he wants to, he just doesn't hear any sirens. Really, it's only buzzing and his own steady pulse that accompanies the never-ending swarm of dread.
With every patient that dies in that ED, the one that seems impossibly behind him now, a part of his already-fragile soul dies alongside it. At this point, how can he turn back to a life he hasn't begun to live?
So, he rides. He sets off on his three-month sabbatical – his so-called "spirit quest." It doesn't matter where he goes. As long as he's on the journey, he'll be okay. Maybe. He could end up at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump or the sun for all he cares; he just needs to get away from the place that, paradoxically, gives him his only purpose.
As he crosses the 9th Street Bridge, he takes in the breeze that rises over the river. It blows through his hair and lands on the skin of his neck, causing slight goosebumps to form. Maybe they're a reminder that he's not completely numb; that he's still alive with some humanity left.
After turning on Liberty, he notices a young couple holding hands as they walk down the sidewalk. They look like they're in their twenties, based on how freely they saunter. They have that youthful glow that comes when you seemingly don't have a worry in the world – when you've found "the one" and they're standing right next to you.
Twenty years ago, Robby would have been the same. Before medicine took his identity, he thought he had found "the one." He thought he would have it all: kids in college by now, a wedding ring, and maybe even a house up on the North Side suburbs. But now, in his fifties, he knows that those plans were maybe far-fetched – delusional even. In this universe, fate had other plans for him.
In retrospect, he might have found the love of his life, but that feeling wasn't reciprocated. It wasn't possible.
It's so far in the past now, though. It doesn't consume him internally like it used to; he doesn't need to lock his sad, lonely yearning away anymore. While there are occasional, fleeting moments that cause the flood to rise over the levee, he's built a wall far too tall now to let it overtake him.
As he pulls into the intersection of Liberty and Grant, a thought provokes him. It's the one that's kept him up for countless nights – the one that looms over his life.
What if he made a move that night? The night when both of them, after a clinical shift, were bordering the line of tipsy. The night when Jack gave him the slight smirk that still haunts his dreams.
The night when the line between best friends and something more started to blur.
He ignores the thought as the light ahead of him flashes yellow. Every day, to ride home to Squirrel Hill, he's taken the left at Grant. It's an easy turn, one that you wouldn't even pay attention to.
But, as he shifts the bars of his bike from muscle memory, a deafening, inevitable honk of a horn roars around him. In an instant, he turns his head towards the sound, but it's far too late. Before he knows it, heat is rushing throughout his body, and the world is spinning around him. There's distant screaming somewhere, but Robby can only hear buzzing. Real buzzing, this time. His vision is blurring, and he can't feel a single nerve in his body, save for intense pressure building up at the side of his abdomen.
And after a moment, everything surrounding him becomes too much to process. The blue sky above him, with every passing second, becomes darker and darker, until–
There's nothing at all.
-
"PTMC, Medic 5 with a Trauma Alert. Mercy's backed up, so we're transporting to you. We have a 53-year-old male, unhelmeted rider, T-boned by a truck. Moderate-speed impact with a 15-foot ejection. Patient has been unconscious since our arrival. Current GCS is 8, with E1, V2, and M5. He is non-verbal and isn't opening his eyes, but he is localizing to painful stimuli. There's no visible skull deformity or battle signs. Though, we have a large hematoma in the occipital region. Vitals are stable: HR 105, BP 138 over 90, SpO2 95% on high-flow O2. We also got the C-spine immobilized and an IV established. We'll need a STAT Head CT on arrival. ETA, five minutes.”
-
Dana, who's ever stoic, has furrowed eyebrows and an evident frown as she picks up the phone. It's a face that she rarely presents, even in the midst of the chaos that goes down at PTMC. When she hangs up, her expression only tenses further. The overhead speaker then announces:
"Double trauma MVA 10 minutes out."
Then, Dana turns her head to Jack and gives her that look. The one that says I have a bad feeling about this. And right then, Jack, for only a moment, shudders.
MVAs are never good, especially double traumas. But, that look Dana gave – the slight glint in her eyes, the way she tensed up, and the fact that she too is holding her breath; it can only mean one thing:
No. It can't be – he left an hour ago. Jack watched him ride off into the sunset. He promised him to come back in one piece – if not for PTMC, then for Jack. And MVAs are common. Almost 2.5 million in the US last year – they can happen to anybody.
For Jack's sake, it has to be anybody else.
For Jack's sake, it can't be Robby.
An all too familiar rush threatens to seize Jack's usual composure – there are flashing glimpses of the battleground he still sees in his nightmares.
His hands won't respond to him; he needs something to hold on to, or else he'll fall with his prosthetic, and then he won't be able to stand up, and then he won't be able to do anything when Robby-
"Abbot. Abbot. Stay out of this one," Danielle sternly warns, shaking his shoulder.
"But, you need an attending–" Jack tries desperately, before being cut off.
"I'll get Shen, or call someone in. But you need to stay out of this. For both you and him," Danielle orders, stubbornly.
Her eyes are in disbelief too, but it's evident she's trying to still be a pillar for the rest of the ED. Jack can only stare at her in shock because, well, it's Robby. He has to do something, or else the guilt of seeing Robby in the trauma bay, and him not being able to do anything about it – him not being able to save Robby – will haunt him for the rest of his days.
-
Robby, impossibly, feels like he's falling, ascending, but also suspended – all at the same time. But then again, he can't really feel anything at all. He's trying to open his eyes, but what returns is only an empty void that's equal parts haunting and comforting.
After a moment, in an instant, he blinks a new reality. He awakes to a room full of warm lighting overhead and aesthetic forest decals plastered across the walls, finished with crown molding tracing the room. There are decorations on shelves, and a few books scattered around a circular table topped with a succulent. His fingers skim the soft gray fuzz of the couch he's sitting on, and his back is held up by plushy pillows, and what counts as a backrest, he guesses. Though its support feels like he's floating rather than sitting.
He actually kind of enjoys the quiet of whatever this place is; it's a paradise in contrast to what he's used to. However, the rattle of a door handle behind him interrupts his peace, and before a groan can escape his throat, he turns to see who has the pleasure of meeting the absolute trainwreck that is Michael Robinavitch's life.
In walks a woman with brunette hair – albeit that's slightly fading – who sits down in front of Robby with a small notebook and pen in hand. "Hello, Michael," she greets flatly, as she crosses her legs and leans forward towards him, tilting her head slightly as if Robby were some sort of animal exhibit.
He stays silent for a second to gather his words. Then, he responds: "I'm sorry, who are you?"
"It does not matter who I am, yet," she responds calmly. "This," she pauses, spinning her finger in a circular motion, "...is about you."
"Me?" He scoffs, because in no world did he sign up for this. Whatever this is. The way this is going — the way this lady's stare is intruding into his soul — it's almost like he actually went to the therapist Dana constantly urged him to book. No way in hell that happened.
"Do you remember what happened before this? Before you got here?" the woman asks, shifting her position on the couch. She sets down her notepad and pen before turning back to him.
Robby has to think. He remembers leaving the ED, crossing the bridge, getting to Liberty, turning onto Grant, seeing that damn couple, thinking about Jack, and a loud horn. And then –
– that's where it ends. He can't picture what happens after that because…
Wait.
Either he has degenerative amnesia, or he's—
Dead.
"Actually, not quite," says the mysterious, nameless lady. His impromptu, uninvited therapist. Her voice, Robby recognizes now, is soothing, rigid, but also kind of harmonious. It's the kind of voice that a newborn would sleep peacefully to. Though it's creepy that she just answered a question that he didn't ask aloud. "Your body is still fighting for your cracked soul."
"And what does that mean?" He questions, baffled. He almost wants to laugh; she's talking in metaphors, or some kind of riddle. It's been a long time since Robby's taken English.
"Your questions will be answered in time," she calmly says, nodding her head once.
"Welcome to Limbo."