Chapter Text
The roof was one of the few places in the hospital that still felt quiet. Not silent of course. There was always the distant hum of ventilation units. The occasional wail of a siren somewhere in the city. The faint rumble of helicopters crossing the skyline.
But compared to the Emergency Department, it was peaceful. Jack liked peaceful. Particularly after twelve hours of chaos.
Jack slipped through the railing and onto the ledge beyond it as easily as stepping through a doorway.
The first time Robby had seen him do it, he'd nearly had a coronary. The second time he'd threatened to have security escort him downstairs. The third time he'd simply muttered, "One day I'm going to push you myself." Jack had laughed so hard he'd nearly fallen off.
Now he rested against the railing, settling in to wait and watch the city wake up below. His residual limb was throbbing. His back hurt. He was already thinking about the egg and toast he’d have when he got home.
A truly spectacular shift. The kind that made him consider packing it all in and go farm sheep somewhere.
Jack tilted his head back towards the pale morning sky. Twenty minutes until shift change. Which meant about fifteen minutes until Robby arrived. Not that he was counting.
He absolutely was counting.
The problem with Michael Robinavitch was that he'd somehow become the best part of Jack's day. Which was deeply irritating.
A decade ago they'd barely be able to tolerate each other. A year ago they'd started seeking each other out. Five months ago Dana had started making faces whenever they were in the same room.
Now? Now Jack found himself looking for Robby in crowded hallways. Finding reasons to linger after handovers. Saving stories from difficult shifts because he knew exactly who he'd tell later.
It was pathetic. Embarrassing even .
And, unfortunately, completely unavoidable.
Jack pulled out his phone. No new messages. He stared at the last conversation anyway.
Robinavitch:
Stop feeding the residents espresso.
Abbot:
Stop hiring residents weak enough to be harmed by espresso.
Robinavitch:
One of them cried.
Abbot:
That sounds like a them problem.
A stupid smile tugged at the corner of Jack's mouth. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. Dana was right. It was time to stop pretending.
The problem was that Jack had already decided. Two weeks ago. Maybe three if he was being honest. Long enough that backing out now felt ridiculous. The decision itself had been easy.
At some point he'd looked up from a chart, watched Robby arguing with a surgeon twice his size, and realised he was completely and catastrophically gone. The difficult part had been figuring out what to do about it.
Because unlike most things in Jack's life, this wasn't a problem that could be solved with a protocol.
There wasn't a checklist. No treatment pathway. No guaranteed outcome. Just the possibility that he'd completely misread everything and would spend the rest of his career dying of embarrassment every time he walked into a room.
For three weeks he'd been collecting evidence like a detective. Every lingering look. Every accidental touch that lasted a second too long. Every coffee that appeared magically beside him. Every rooftop conversation. Every smile. Every excuse Robby found to seek him out.
At some point even Dana had started looking at them like they were the last two people on earth to realise what was happening.
Jack had finally decided enough was enough.
This morning. On the roof. He was going to ask. No rehearsing. No overthinking. No talking himself out of it.
Just a simple question. A date. Dinner. Something. Anything.
Because if he spent another month analysing every interaction with Michael Robinavitch, he was fairly certain Dana would smother him with a pillow.
The roof door opened behind him. Jack didn't turn around.
"You're early."
No answer.
"Jesus Christ, Robinavitch, don't tell me you've voluntarily arrived before shift start. Should I call somebody?"
The footsteps continued across the roof. Jack shook his head.
"This is exactly why nobody likes emergency physicians. No social skills."
Still no response.
"What, not even a sarcastic comeback? You feeling alright, sweetheart?"
The footsteps stopped behind him. Close enough now that Jack could hear breathing. He laughed quietly.
"That's genuinely worrying. If you've finally run out of insults, I'm putting in a psych consult."
He started to turn. Hands hit his shoulders. Hard.
For one impossible second his brain refused to understand what was happening.
Then the world vanished beneath him. Concrete disappeared. The roof edge swept past his vision. His stomach lurched into his throat.
Instinct screamed. His hands grabbed for something that wasn't there. Weightlessness.
Then the pavement hit him.
Everything exploded into pain.
And darkness swallowed the rest.
—
Michael Robinavitch was having a good morning. Which, in hindsight, should probably have worried him.
He had slept reasonably well. The coffee in his hand was actually drinkable. Nobody had called him overnight. And for the first time in weeks, the knot of anxiety that permanently lived somewhere beneath his ribs felt manageable. Not gone. Just quieter.
Of course, some of that was probably Jack's fault. Which was an irritating thing to admit, even privately. Robby had spent most of the walk to work doing what Dana had accurately described as "acting like a sixteen-year-old with their first crush."
The evidence was compelling. Jack had touched his shoulder three times this week. Not work touches. Not the absent-minded physical contact that happened when people spent twelve hours a day in each other's pockets.
Intentional touches.
At least Robby thought they were intentional. Then again, he was hardly an unbiased observer.
Maybe Jack was like that with everybody. Though Robby had never actually seen him be like that with anybody else.
There was also the breakfast pastries. The rooftop conversations. The lingering smiles. The fact that Jack seemed to seek him out as often as Robby sought him out.
Unless Robby had imagined that too. Which was entirely possible. Because apparently being an Emergency Department chief did not prevent a person from spending an entire commute wondering whether a fellow attending liked him back.
Dana would never let him live it down if she knew. Neither would Jack. Particularly Jack. The thought made him smile despite himself.
The hospital came into view as he turned into the staff car park. Home, in a strange dysfunctional sort of way.
The first thing Robby noticed as he approached the Pitt was the blood. Not inside the department. Outside. A dark stain smeared across the pavement near the ambulance entrance. Partially washed away but still obvious. People were standing around nearby. Security. Paramedics. Hospital staff.
He slowed for a second. "Damn," he muttered.
Whatever had happened, it had clearly been a rough end to the night shift. Probably an RTC. Maybe a pedestrian versus vehicle. Something messy enough that the trauma team had ended up working the patient before they'd even made it through the doors. Not exactly unusual.
He continued walking. The automatic doors slid open. Warm air hit him immediately. Along with something else. Tension.
Robby frowned. The department felt... tense.
The waiting room was quieter than normal. Conversations were hushed. Staff moved quickly between rooms. Nobody seemed particularly interested in chatting.
Which was strange. Normally somebody would already be complaining about something. Usually him.
"Morning."
A couple of nurses looked up. Their professional smiles vanished almost immediately.
Robby barely noticed. His attention was already elsewhere. A trauma room was active.
He could see people moving through the doorway. Nurses. Respiratory. Several doctors. The sort of crowd that only formed around genuinely ugly injuries. Someone ran past carrying blood products.
He took a sip of coffee. Night shift were still everywhere, mixing with the fresh day staff.
Santos was perched on the edge of a desk, unusually quiet. A couple of the medical students stood together near the medication room, speaking in hushed voices. One of the newer nurses looked suspiciously close to tears.
Nobody was doing anything wrong. But nobody was behaving normally either. They were all staring in the same direction. Toward Trauma One.
Through the trauma room doors Robby caught sight of Shen at the head of the bed. He also spotted Walsh and one of the new anesthetists he hadn’t caught the name of yet. Dana's blood-stained scrubs flashed briefly through the doorway. The patient was hidden behind a wall of staff.
"Busy one?"
The question earned him several looks. Nobody answered. Which, somehow, was stranger than any answer could have been.
Robby's smile faded. "Right. Weird morning. Got it."
He continued walking. What the hell was going on? The department felt like somebody had died. The thought drifted through his head so casually he almost laughed at himself. A fresh trauma was one thing. This was excessive.
He spotted Whitaker. "Morning, Dennis."
Whitaker looked up. His eyes were red, his face pale, his body tense.
Robby paused. "Everything alright?"
"Yeah."
The answer came too fast. Too forced. Definitely not alright. Before Robby could question it, Whitaker vanished into a side room.
The trauma room doors swung open. Dana stepped out, throwing away bloody gloves as she turned to face Robby.
Robby pointed towards the room. "Looks like you've got your hands full. Need me to jump in?"
Still nothing. Just that same strange look everybody else seemed to be wearing.
Robby's smile faded slightly. "What's going on?"
Dana swallowed, opened her mouth to answer but seemed unable to find the words.
His gaze drifted back towards the trauma room. The team were still working. Whatever injuries the patient had sustained, they were serious.
"Where's Abbot?"
Dana froze. The reaction was instant and subtle. But impossible to miss.
Robby blinked. "...Dana?"
She looked away.
"Is he still in there?"
Nothing.
"Dana." This time his voice was sharp. Demanding. The voice he used when he needed answers immediately.
Her eyes closed briefly. Just for a second. When they opened again, they looked exhausted. Heartbroken. Terrified.
She stepped closer. Lowering her voice. "Come with me."
"No." The answer came automatically. "Just tell me."
"Robby. Come with me."
She was already moving. Heading towards one of the empty consultation rooms. Robby followed because suddenly he couldn't do anything else.
The door closed behind them. Cutting off the noise of the department. Dana didn't sit down. Neither did he.
For several seconds she just stood there and then Robby saw the shift happen.
Dana stopped being his friend. Stopped being his colleague. Stopped being the person who would roll her eyes at him over bad jokes and poor staffing decisions.
She became charge nurse.
"Robby, I need you to listen to me."
His blood went cold. "Dana."
"Listen first."
Her voice was gentle, but there was steel underneath it. The kind that made patients stop arguing. The kind that made junior doctors shut up and pay attention.
"We have Jack in Trauma One."
Robby stared at her. The words landed. Then didn't. "What?"
"He is alive." Dana said it immediately. Firmly. "He is alive. He's being treated. Shen is leading with the team, and they are doing everything exactly as they should."
Robby's mouth opened. Nothing came out.
Dana took half a step closer. "Look at me."
He did. Barely.
"Jack came in about fifteen minutes ago after a fall from height."
The room seemed to shrink. "From where?"
Dana's expression flickered. Only briefly. "The roof."
Robby stopped breathing.
Dana kept going, because she knew she had to. "He's critically injured. He's intubated. They're transfusing. There are obvious fractures and a head injury. We don't know the full extent yet."
Robby shook his head once. "No."
"I know."
"No, he was..." His voice failed.
"We don't have all the answers yet. Right now, what we know is that he fell from the roof and the team got him inside fast. That is all I know for certain."
Robby looked towards the closed door. Towards the trauma bay beyond it. "Was he alone up there?"
Dana's throat moved. "We think so."
The answer was careful. Too careful.
Robby heard it anyway. His face changed. "Dana."
"I don't want you filling in gaps yet."
"Dana."
"I mean it."
Her voice sharpened, not cruel, not loud, just enough to catch him before he spiralled. "You are going to want to make sense of this immediately. You can't. Not yet."
Robby pressed his hand to his mouth. His eyes were wide. "He wouldn't."
Dana didn't answer. And somehow that was worse.
"He wouldn't."
"We don't know what happened."
"He wouldn't."
"I know you need that to be true." Robby flinched. Dana softened immediately. "But right now, I need you to stay with what we know. He is alive. He is being treated. He is not alone."
Robby laughed once. A broken, awful sound. "Not alone? Dana, he's in there and I was walking to work."
"Robby."
"I stopped to get coffee."
"Robby, look at me." He couldn't. "Look at me."
This time he did.
Dana held his gaze. "You missed the fall. You did not fail him."
His face twisted. "You don't know that."
"I know you weren't there."
"Exactly."
"And I know standing here blaming yourself does not help Jack."
Robby swallowed hard. His hands were shaking now. Coffee still clung to his fingers from the cup he'd been holding moments before.
A normal morning. A stupid, normal morning.
"What does he need?"
"What he needs is the team working without you frightening them."
Robby blinked. Despite everything, some tiny reflexive piece of him almost argued.
Dana lifted a warning finger. "Do not chief your way into that trauma bay unless Shen asks for you. You are not his doctor right now."
Robby's breath caught. "Then what am I?"
Dana's expression broke for half a second. Only half. "Someone who loves him."
For a moment, Robby looked completely undone as he tried to process what he’d been told.
Then he lowered his head. Eyes squeezed shut. One hand braced against the wall.
Dana stayed close, steady as stone.
"Oh God." The words barely made it out. "Oh God, no." The coffee slipped from his fingers. Shattering across the floor.
He walked out of the room on numb legs, Dana close behind him, hand on his arm, guiding him towards the central hub. Robby barely noticed. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the trauma bay.
From the shape on the bed. From the blood. From the fact that he could see Jack's prosthetic leaning against the wall.
And suddenly the whole world tilted sideways. Because this was really happening.