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Victoria Javadi checked the address three separate times before getting out of the car.
Then a fourth just to be sure. Because there was absolutely no way Dennis Whitaker lived here.
The house sat warm and golden beneath the glow of porch lights, tucked halfway down a quiet tree-lined street like something out of a film about emotionally stable people. Old brick. Wide porch. Soft light spilling through downstairs windows. Music drifted faintly through the evening air alongside the muffled sound of voices inside.
Didn’t look like it was full of mold, half done IKEA furniture, dying houseplants and unpaid parking tickets. Which is what she was expecting.
But this is a real house. A family home even..
Javadi stared at it through blurry eyes while tears continued slipping angrily down her face.
No. Wrong address. Had to be.
Dennis had scribbled it onto the corner of one of her pharmacology handouts two weeks ago after she’d mentioned needing to find a copy of an emergency medicine textbook he owned.
“Borrow mine, just come grab it whenever,” he’d said.
“Seriously?”
Then Trinity added, overhearing, “The front door’s usually unlocked anyway.”
Which had sounded deeply unsafe at the time.
Now, sitting outside this enormous glowing house while emotionally disintegrating behind the steering wheel, Javadi wondered if maybe she’d copied the number down wrong.
Her phone screen blurred again. She scrubbed furiously at her face with the sleeve of her hoodie. God. She probably looked insane.
The argument with her mother still buzzed painfully beneath her skin, replaying in vicious little fragments every time her thoughts slowed down enough to let it.
“You only see us when you need something.”
“You used to care about people more than this.”
“I don’t recognise you anymore.”
Javadi squeezed her eyes shut hard. The stupid thing was that none of it had even started as a fight. Just dinner.
Just another Friday evening she’d almost skipped because she’d been post-call and exhausted and emotionally running on static. Her mother had made comments about work. About her missing another family event next weekend. About how tired she looked lately.
Then somehow they’d both said too much. Javadi had snapped first. That part sat ugly in her chest now.
She’d said “You think medicine is ruining me, but you’re the one making me miserable.”
Her mother had gone very still after that. Not angry. Worse. Hurt.
And Javadi, suddenly unable to breathe properly inside her childhood home anymore, had grabbed the nearest bag and left before she could make anything better. Or worse.
Now she is here. Crying outside what appeared to be a wealthy architect’s home because Dennis Whitaker had once offered her a textbook. Excellent. Fantastic choices all around.
Javadi looked back down at her phone. The address still matched.
Warm light glowed through the downstairs windows ahead. She could see movement inside now. Figures crossing briefly through the kitchen. Somebody laughing.
A strange ache twisted low in her chest suddenly. Not jealousy exactly. Something lonelier than that. The thought nearly made her cry harder, which was deeply pathetic.
Javadi pressed both hands briefly against her face. Okay. New plan.
She will stop crying, knock on the door, then pretend she’s just here for the textbook and get herself some nice friendly human contact. Dennis and Trinity are people she’d consider ‘almost friends’, they’d be nice to her.
Simple. Manageable. Normal.
Before she could think too hard about it, she forced herself out of the car and up the front path. The porch creaked softly beneath her trainers.
Javadi hesitated. Maybe this was a terrible idea. Maybe she should just text Dennis instead. Or leave. Or drive into the ocean.
Instead, before she could lose her nerve completely, she lifted one shaking hand and knocked.
Voices shifted faintly inside. Footsteps approached. Then the door opened.
Dr Robby stood there holding a dish towel over one shoulder.
Javadi’s brain stopped working immediately. Not Dennis. Not Trinity. Dr Robby.
For one horrible second she genuinely considered turning around and sprinting directly off the porch.
Robby blinked once in surprise. Not dramatic surprise. Just clear confusion at finding one of his med students standing on his doorstep at eight-thirty on a Friday night looking like she’d been having a mental breakdown on the way over.
“Javadi?”
The warmth from inside the house spilled around him. Music somewhere deeper in the house. Voices talking over each other. The smell of food.
Robby looked behind her briefly toward the street like maybe he expected an emergency to materialise from the darkness.
Then his attention snapped back to her face properly. Something in his expression changed immediately. Concern sharpening fast.
“Hey,” he said, softer now. “Are you okay?”
And that, apparently, was the exact wrong thing to ask. Because the second it left his mouth, the careful shaky control Javadi had been clinging to the entire drive over simply shattered.
Her mouth twisted helplessly. Then suddenly she was crying. Not quiet tears either. Actual humiliating crying. “Oh God,” she gasped, horrified instantly. “No- sorry, I-”
Robby moved immediately. One hand caught lightly at her elbow before she could start apologising herself into another dimension.
“Okay,” he said gently. “C’mere first.”
“I didn’t mean to-”
“Inside, sweetheart.”
The word hit somewhere deep and aching in her chest.
Javadi stumbled one step over the threshold almost automatically, still trying desperately to pull herself back together while tears kept arriving anyway.
The door shut softly behind her.
Javadi stood frozen in the hallway trying and failing to stop crying while Robby calmly took her backpack from her shoulder before she could protest.
“No apologising,” he said immediately, like he could hear the words forming already.
“I’m not-”
“You are literally winding up for it.”
Javadi pressed the heel of her hand hard against her eyes. This was mortifying.
Robby, meanwhile, seemed entirely unmoved by the concept of emotional embarrassment.
“Shoes off,” he instructed gently, nudging the mat lightly with one socked foot. “Then kitchen.”
Javadi blinked through tears. Dr Robby was treating her like she’d simply arrived slightly wet from the rain.
From somewhere deeper in the house came the sound of pans clattering and a familiar warm voice shouting: “If nobody comes to get their food in the next thirty seconds I’m going to eat all the roast potatoes myself.”
Several people shouted objections at once followed by heavy footsteps. Javadi stared slightly. What the hell was this place?
Robby guided her gently down the hallway before she could spiral further. The house opened gradually around her as they walked, all warm lighting and old hardwood floors. The kitchen and dining room spread wide across the back of the house in one long glowing space.
Suddenly, two figures came barreling down the stairs a second later.
Dennis reached the bottom first in socks, clutching a hoodie sleeve in one hand while Trinity shoved past him aggressively halfway down the final few steps.
“You stole my seat last week!”
“Because you were too busy using all the hot water!”
“You knew I was washing my hair!”
Neither of them noticed Javadi at first, too busy racing toward the kitchen table with the intensity of people competing in an Olympic event.
Trinity lunged for one of the chairs. Dennis darted around her at the last second and got there first.
“Yes!” he shouted triumphantly.
“Oh, you absolute bitch-”
“Language,” Robby said automatically.
“Sorry, Robby.”
Then Trinity finally looked up. Saw Javadi standing beside him. And stopped dead immediately.
For one brief second the entire room seemed to pause around her. Dennis’ grin vanished instantly. Trinity’s expression sharpened from theatrical outrage into immediate concern.
Javadi became painfully aware of herself all at once. She resisted the sudden overwhelming urge to turn around and flee directly back out the front door.
Then the smell of rosemary and meat drifted warm through the kitchen again, grounding her just enough to actually look properly into the room for the first time. At the stove stood Dr Abbot.
He had one hand wrapped in an oven mitt while using the other to plate food from several enormous pans spread across the counters. Soft music crackled from a speaker near the windows. Reading glasses sat low on his nose.
“Children,” he announced loudly without turning around, “dinner’s ready and if you don’t stop fighting, I’ll disinherit you both.”
Then he glanced up. Saw Javadi. Paused. Just briefly.
Long enough for surprise to flicker across his face before his attention immediately snapped toward the tears still sliding down her cheeks. Something in his expression softened instantly. Recognition maybe.
Then, just as quickly, Jack looked back down at the plates in front of him and said easily: “Alrighty, good timing. I made too much food again.”
The normality of it nearly made Javadi start crying harder.
Dennis had already half-risen from his chair looking deeply alarmed. “Javadi?”
“I’m okay,” she lied automatically.
Trinity snorted softly. “Oh, she’s definitely crying crying.”
“Trinity,” Robby warned mildly.
“What? She is.”
Jack pointed vaguely with the serving spoon still in his hand. “Someone pull out another chair before Michael starts flapping.”
“I do not flap.”
“You absolutely do.”
While Robby muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like Yiddish, Jack moved around the kitchen with easy calm, grabbing another plate from the cabinet without hesitation.
No awkwardness. No ‘why are you here?’ No ‘what on earth are you thinking?’
Just another plate. Another seat at the table. Like this happened all the time. Maybe it did.
Javadi stood uncertainly near the edge of the kitchen while Trinity slid sideways into the next chair over to make space.
“C’mere,” she said gently this time. “You look like you’re about to fall over.”
Javadi obeyed before she could overthink it.
Robby set a glass of water carefully beside her elbow almost immediately. “Drink.”
“I’m fine.”
“Mm.”
That sound somehow conveyed: I acknowledge you’ve spoken and disagree completely.
Jack placed a dinner plate in front of her a second later. Roast chicken. Potatoes. Vegetables.
Gravy.
Javadi stared at it slightly. “I didn’t mean to interrupt dinner.”
Jack looked genuinely baffled by this. “Stop that, eat your dinner.”
Robby finally sat down beside Javadi instead of hovering over her like an anxious parent. Across the table Jack was still calmly dishing out extra portions like none of this was remotely unusual.
“You eat cauliflower cheese?” he asked her casually.
Javadi blinked. “…yes?”
“Excellent. Trinity keeps trying to claim it all.”
“Because I have taste.”
“You have greed.”
The argument continued around her automatically while plates got passed down the table and somebody handed her butter without asking.
Javadi sat very still in the middle of it all. The warmth. The noise. The easy movement around one another.
Nobody was staring at her. Nobody was demanding explanations.
Robby simply nudged the bread basket slightly closer to her while Jack threatened Dennis with bodily harm for reaching across the table.
And somewhere deep beneath the embarrassment and exhaustion and lingering ache from the fight with her mother, something inside Javadi loosened just a little.
—
Dinner carried on around Javadi gently. Not awkwardly. Which somehow made it worse. Or better. She genuinely couldn’t tell anymore.
The conversation moved easily around the table in overlapping threads while plates emptied and bread disappeared at alarming speed. Trinity and Dennis argued about whether one of the med students had been flirting with a pharmaceutical rep. Jack told a story about resident-era Robby falling asleep in a supply closet during a thirty hour shift.
“I was not asleep,” Robby said with dignity.
“You were cuddling a box of saline.”
“I was resting my eyes.”
“You drooled on hospital property.”
Dennis nearly choked laughing. Javadi found herself smiling despite everything.
Every so often somebody nudged another dish toward her automatically. More potatoes. More water. Bread. No one commented when she only picked slowly at most of it.
At some point Jack got distracted halfway through a story because Robby reached over absentmindedly to brush his hair back off his forehead. The familiarity of it hurt strangely. Like looking through a brightly lit window from outside in the cold.
Trinity was halfway through recounting a disaster involving a drunk patient and three emotional support ferrets when Robby finally leaned back slightly in his chair.
“Alright,” he said. “Children. Living room.”
Dennis blinked. “…are we being dismissed?”
“You’re being relocated.”
Trinity narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “So you and Jack can clean up without us?”
“Yes.”
“Oh hell yeah.”
Jack looked offended. “We raised freeloaders.”
“You made us potatoes,” Trinity replied. “This outcome was inevitable.”
Dennis was already gathering glasses with absolutely no intention of actually taking them to the kitchen.
Robby pointed at him immediately. “Leave those.”
“Seriously?”
“We got it, don’t worry.”
Javadi stood awkwardly as the others moved around her. “I can help-”
“Nope,” Jack interrupted instantly, already reaching for plates. “You’re visibly one inconvenience away from dissolving into soup. Go sit down.”
Javadi stared slightly. Then, before she could argue, Trinity hooked lightly through her arm. “C’mon.”
Dennis grabbed the blanket off the back of the couch as they migrated toward the living room.
Behind them the kitchen settled into another familiar rhythm, running water, the dishwasher door opening and Jack and Robby bickering softly about where things belonged.
“You stack plates like a maniac. It’s like no one has ever shown you how to load a dishwasher”
“You're one to talk, you’re the reason all our wedding china is chipped.”
“Allegedly.”
Trinity collapsed sideways into one end of the couch while Dennis claimed the armchair nearby. Javadi perched awkwardly on the edge of the cushions still clutching the sleeve of her hoodie.
For a minute nobody pushed. The television stayed off. The house creaked softly around them. Voices drifted faintly from the kitchen.
Then Dennis looked at her carefully. “What happened?”
The gentleness of the question nearly undid her again.
Javadi stared down at her hands. “I had a fight with my mum.” Neither of them interrupted. “She just…” Javadi swallowed hard. “She said medicine’s changing me.”
The words sounded smaller out loud somehow.
Trinity’s expression softened immediately. “Oh.”
Javadi laughed weakly without humour. “Yeah.”
Dennis leaned forward slightly in the armchair. “What kind of changing?”
Javadi picked at the cuff of her sleeve. “She thinks I’m colder now.” A pause. “And maybe she’s right.”
The silence after that felt careful rather than uncomfortable. From the kitchen came the sound of Jack laughing loudly at something Robby said.
Javadi’s throat tightened unexpectedly. “She said she doesn’t recognise me anymore,” she admitted quietly.
Trinity’s face crumpled instantly with sympathy. “Oh, Ja-”
Javadi looked up sharply. “Can you not call me Javadi?”
Both of them blinked. The request came out more desperate than she’d intended. Javadi looked away quickly.
“It sounds stupid,” she muttered. “I just… I feel like I hear it all day. Attendings, nurses, patients. Even my mum when she’s angry with me at work.” Her shoulders lifted helplessly. “I don’t know. I’m tired of sounding like a problem.”
Dennis asked softly “What do you want us to call you?”
Javadi hesitated. “…Victoria.”
Trinity smiled immediately. Warm and easy and utterly unquestioning. “Okay, Victoria.”
Something inside her chest cracked softly at the sound of it. Not because of the name itself. Because nobody argued.
Dennis nodded once from the armchair like this was the simplest request in the world. “Victoria,” he repeated carefully.
And for the first time since leaving home that evening, Victoria felt herself breathe fully all the way down into her lungs.
—
By the time Robby and Jack finished cleaning the kitchen, Victoria had curled sideways into the corner of the couch beneath the blanket Dennis had thrown at her earlier.
Trinity sat cross-legged beside her scrolling absently through her phone while Dennis argued quietly with Jack about whether brownies could be eaten as a post night shift breakfast.
(“They’re literally dessert. Time is a social construct. We can have them anytime.”
“Go to bed, Dennis.”)
Victoria smiled faintly into the blanket.
Robby stood leaning against the archway between the kitchen and living room, dish towel still slung over one shoulder, watching the room with that same quiet observant focus he carried at work. Only softer here somehow. Warmer around the edges.
Jack nudged Dennis lightly toward the stairs after another minute. “Alright, children. Scatter.”
“We’re adults,” Trinity complained automatically.
“Hardly. Scram, bedtime, shoo.”
Dennis paused halfway toward the stairs and looked back toward Victoria uncertainly. “You okay?”
The question sat gentler now than it had earlier. Less alarmed and more careful.
Victoria nodded slightly. “Yeah.”
It wasn’t fully true. But it also wasn’t entirely false anymore.
Trinity squeezed her ankle once through the blanket before standing. “You can steal my shampoo if you stay over.”
Their footsteps faded gradually upstairs alongside continued bickering about why Dennis wasn’t allowed to use Trinity’s shampoo or conditioner or any skincare products.
Jack disappeared briefly back into the kitchen humming under his breath while Robby crossed slowly into the living room instead. Victoria sat up slightly instinctively.
Robby noticed immediately. “You don’t have to look nervous every time I walk into a room,” he said mildly.
“Sorry.”
“That too.”
Victoria winced faintly.
Robby lowered himself carefully into the armchair Dennis had abandoned moments earlier, exhaustion visible now in the slow roll of his shoulders.
For a minute neither of them spoke. The lamp beside the couch cast warm golden light across the room. Somewhere upstairs Trinity laughed loudly at something Dennis said.
Robby glanced briefly toward the ceiling before looking back at Victoria again. “You can stay here for a while.”
The words arrived so simply that Victoria almost missed them. “…what?”
“You heard me.”
Victoria stared at him. “No, I mean- I can’t just-”
“Yes, you can.”
“But I live at home.”
Robby nodded once. “I know.”
The gentleness of it made her throat tighten unexpectedly.
Victoria looked down at the blanket twisted in her hands. “I don’t want to impose.”
Robby actually looked faintly offended by that. “Victoria,” he said carefully, “there are currently two extra adults living in this house because my husband keeps accidentally feeding strays.”
“Michael,” Jack called distantly from the kitchen.
“You know it’s true!”
Despite herself, Victoria laughed softly.
Robby smiled faintly at the sound before continuing. “You don’t have to decide anything tonight,” he said. “But if things are difficult at home for a while…” He shrugged lightly. “You have options.”
The words landed harder than they probably should have. Options.
Not demands.
Not obligations.
Just:
you can stay here.
Victoria swallowed hard. “My mum’s going to be angry.”
“She’s probably worried too.”
The immediate defense rose sharp in Victoria’s chest. “She doesn’t get to say those things to me and then be worried.”
Robby nodded slightly. “No,” he agreed quietly. “She doesn’t.”
The simple validation almost hurt. Victoria looked away quickly. “I shouldn’t have left like that.”
“Maybe not.”
She blinked at him slightly, startled by the honesty.
Robby leaned back into the armchair. “But,” he continued calmly, “sometimes people need space before they can talk without hurting each other more.”
The words carried the weight of experience behind them.
Victoria frowned slightly. “You think I should go back?”
“I think,” Robby said carefully, “that disappearing completely won’t make you feel better in the long run.” The room stayed quiet around them for a second. “But I also think you deserve somewhere safe to land while you figure things out.”
Victoria’s eyes burned suddenly. This was ridiculous. She was too old to cry this much.
Robby noticed the expression immediately and sighed softly. “Oh, sweetheart.”
That was somehow worse. Victoria ducked her head hard enough that her hair fell forward around her face. “I just feel so stupid.”
“For what?”
“She said I’ve changed and I didn’t even know how to argue with her because maybe she’s right.”
Robby was quiet for a long moment after that. “Medicine changes people.”
Victoria looked up slightly.
Robby’s expression had gone distant in that particular way people sometimes did when remembering older versions of themselves. “You see too much,” he said quietly. “You carry too much. Eventually it reshapes parts of you whether you want it to or not.”
The honesty in it settled heavily between them. Victoria waited for the warning that usually followed.
Be careful.
Don’t lose yourself.
Don’t become hard.
Instead Robby simply said “That doesn’t mean you became someone unlovable.”
Victoria looked down immediately before he could see the fresh tears threatening again.
From the kitchen came the sound of the kettle clicking off. A moment later Jack appeared in the doorway holding two mugs. “I made emergency tea,” he announced softly.
Robby took one automatically. Victoria accepted the other with slightly shaking hands.
Jack sat carefully on the opposite end of the couch beside her, warm and familiar and entirely unbothered by emotional devastation apparently unfolding in his living room on a Friday night.
“You know,” he said conversationally, “I once ignored Mikey’s calls for three days after our first real fight.”
Robby looked pissed. “That is not supportive storytelling, Yankl.”
“You drove to Baltimore to yell at me in person.”
“You were being unreasonable.”
“You threw a bagel at my head, but we did talk about it in the end.”
Victoria laughed helplessly into her tea. Jack looked pleased immediately
And somehow, sitting between them with warm tea in her hands and the low comforting noise of the house settling around her, Victoria realised Robby had been right.
Maybe she didn’t know what to do about home yet. But for tonight at least, she had somewhere safe to be lost.
—
After that night, Victoria never fully moved out of her parents’ house. But she never fully left the Abbot-Robinavitch house either.
Instead she drifted slowly between them, carrying overnight bags and textbooks back and forth across Pittsburgh depending on shifts, arguments, exhaustion, and whether she needed her mother or the warm comfort waiting for her at Robby and Jack’s place that week. Somewhere along the line, without anyone ever formally discussing it, a drawer appeared for her in the upstairs bathroom beside Dennis’ and Trinity’s, and the house quietly made room for one more lost adult.