Chapter Text
Robby was happy.
He had a career he loved. A department that felt like his. Friends who had become family somewhere between overnight shifts and shared disasters.
He dated. Sometimes seriously. Mostly not.
He laughed often enough.
He slept well most nights.
The sharp edges of his twenties had worn down into something steadier, something stronger.
Now in his thirties, he was steady.
If someone had asked, he would have said he'd had a good life.
And it would have been true.
Mostly.
That's what made hearing Jack Abbott's name so unsettling.
Because Robby had been waiting.
Not actively. Not desperately.
But in the quiet moments between shifts. In the space between one relationship ending and another beginning. In every city he visited and every unfamiliar number that flashed across his phone.
Part of him had always been waiting.
Waiting for the man who had left, the man who had disappeared, taking Robby's heart with him.
"Kid, did you hear what I said?"
Robby blinked.
The organised chaos of the emergency department rushed back into focus. Phones ringing. Nurses calling for supplies. Monitors beeping from behind half-closed curtains.
Adamson was standing across the nurses' station, coffee in one hand and a patient chart in the other.
"Sorry, no," Robby said. "Still half asleep. Can you repeat that?"
Adamson rolled his eyes.
"You've been here for three hours. You've intubated five patients."
"And yet somehow I'm still half asleep."
Daina snorted as she walked past.
Adamson shook his head before glancing back at the chart in his hand.
"I said administration finally approved the new attending."
That got Robby's attention.
"Oh, right. Who is it again?"
"Jack Abbott. He's got military trauma experience, emergency medicine, the whole package."
Robby forced himself to nod.
Right.
Jack Abbott.
As if he could ever forget.
"Sounds impressive."
Adamson gave him a look.
"Impressive? Kid, the guy's résumé is ridiculous. Army trauma surgeon. Multiple deployments. Every reference I called practically tried to recruit him back before I could finish the conversation."
"Huh."
It was all Robby could manage.
Because while Adamson saw a résumé, Robby saw a twenty-year-old crammed into a library carrel at two in the morning, stealing his coffee and grinning like he owned the world.
Adamson kept talking.
Something about staffing.
Something about coverage.
Robby didn't hear a word of it.
Jack was coming here.
After all these years, Jack was coming here.
"Robby."
He blinked.
Adamson was staring at him.
"You good?"
"Yeah."
The lie came easily.
Adamson looked unconvinced, but a monitor started alarming down the hall before he could press the issue.
"Room twelve," Daina called.
Robby was already moving.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Robby sat alone in his apartment, a glass of whiskey balanced against his knee.
The lights were off.
Not because he was trying to be dramatic.
He'd just never bothered turning them on when he'd gotten home.
The city glowed through the windows instead, painting the living room in shades of gold and blue.
It had been a brutal shift.
The kind that usually left him too exhausted to think about anything except sleep.
Tonight, though, sleep felt impossible.
Jack.
The name had been following him home for years.
Now it had an arrival date.
Monday.
Robby let out a quiet laugh and took another sip of whiskey.
It was ridiculous.
He was too old for this. Too old to be sitting alone in the dark thinking about a college boyfriend. Too old to feel like his entire world had tilted because of a name.
And yet.
Monday.
Six days from now, Jack would walk into the emergency department.
Older. Changed. A stranger.
The thought should have comforted him. Instead, it made his chest ache.
Because somewhere beneath all the years, all the anger, all the hurt, there was still a part of him that remembered exactly what it felt like to love and be loved by Jack Abbott.
And maybe that was the problem.
Because when Robby thought of Jack, he never thought of the man who had left.
Not first.
First, he thought of a cramped dorm room.
August heat.
Cardboard boxes.
And the first time they'd met.
Robby had already unpacked.
Every box.
Every book.
Every pen.
His desk was organised. His schedule was pinned to the wall. His classes are highlighted in three different colours.
His grandmother had helped him move in that morning. Before she'd left, she'd hugged him so tightly he'd thought she might cry. Then she'd told him to become a doctor already because she wasn't getting any younger.
Robby smiled every time he thought about it.
Orientation didn't start until tomorrow, but he liked being prepared.
His roommate, however, was three hours late.
Robby was debating whether he should call housing when the dorm room door slammed open.
A duffel bag hit the floor. Followed by a second duffel bag.
Followed by a very out-of-breath blond guy.
"Please tell me this is room 314."
Robby nodded.
"Oh, thank God."
Robby immediately disliked him.
"Jack Abbott."
He held out a hand. Robby looked at it for a second before shaking it.
"Michael Robinavitch."
Jack blinked.
"Michael?"
"Yes."
"Huh."
"What?"
"You look like a Robby."
Robby frowned.
"You don't even know me."
"Exactly."
Jack pointed at him.
"Trust me. You're a Robby."
The grin widened.
Robby had known Jack Abbott for less than a minute.
Already, he was annoyed.
Unfortunately, that feeling wouldn't last very long.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Robby had known Jack Abbott for exactly three days when he discovered his roommate was incapable of setting an alarm.
"Jack."
No response.
"Jack."
Nothing.
Robby threw a pillow.
It hit Jack square in the face.
Jack sat bolt upright.
"What?"
"We have chemistry in twenty minutes."
Jack checked the clock.
"Oh."
Robby stared.
"That's all you have to say?"
Jack grinned.
"Good thing I've got you."
By week three, they had developed a routine.
Jack forgot things.
Robby remembered them.
Jack talked his way into situations.
Robby talked his way out of them.
Somehow it worked.
*
"Your grandmother scares me."
Robby nearly dropped his fork.
"What?"
Jack pointed across the diner.
"That woman looked at me for thirty seconds and somehow learned my entire life story."
"That's because she's smarter than you."
Jack considered that.
"Fair."
*
The first time they studied together was supposed to last an hour.
It lasted six.
At three in the morning, Robby looked up from his notes.
Jack was asleep.
His head was resting on an open textbook.
One hand still holding a highlighter.
Robby smiled despite himself.
Then went back to studying.
*
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
Robby blinked.
Jack was grinning from across the dorm room.
Sunlight poured through the window behind him.
"What are you talking about?"
"You were staring."
"I was not."
"You absolutely were."
Jack's grin widened.
Robby hated that grin.
Or at least he was pretty sure he used to.