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Robby hung by the door, an extra backpack on his arm. It was smaller than his, and covered in moon designs. He hadn’t held a bag like this since.. He didn’t want to think about the way his relationship with Jake and his mother had fallen apart since Pittfest. He needed to focus on his current charge, anyway. The one who Jack had convinced him to let crash on his couch, although it was for a good reason. He’d had a feeling something was off with the kid all day, and now this only served as confirmation.
Dr. Ellis was currently in the process of trying to wrangle the kid (She was nineteen; that was still ridiculously young to him.) into a wheelchair, while Dana (The amazing Dana, who should’ve clocked out hours ago.) held her crutches and worked to try and convince the young volunteer.
(“I’m going to be walking home anyway!” He heard Alex protest.)
He still thought half the volunteers they had working in the pitt were way too young for half the shit they saw on a daily basis (He had that feeling about Javadi, too. Sometimes all he could think about is Jake being there and seeing all of- He turned his eyes back to the somewhat amusing scene before him, trying to keep his brain from going down that road.) but at the same time, he had said they needed extra help, and they were giving it to him - albeit in probably the most ‘upper-management’ way possible because they didn’t have to pay them.
“Just..let her walk out on her own. If Gloria gives you guys shit, I’ll tell her off.”
Dr. Ellis made a face that looked frustrated, Alex looked smug, and Dana just gave a small smile and set the girl's crutches down, giving her a moment to get situated before she stood, albeit a bit unsteady even with the crutches. She seemed to get herself sorted, though, because she made her way over to him.
“Ready to spring this joint?”
“Please don't do that.”
“Do what?”
“That thing where you're trying to be cool because you think I'm mad at you.”
“... alright, then.”
She walked ahead of him, slower than usual. He knew her legs were definitely starting to bother her at that point, especially with the way she was babying her left knee, even with the crutches. And braces, because he remembered seeing Jack grab a set of knee braces (the over-the-counter ones you could get in the sports medicine section at the pharmacy, that were made with neoprene and had metal hinges.) from her backpack before handing it to him and going to the room she was in, and he watched Jack help get them on under her pant legs.
He wondered if Jack saw the little similarities, too.
Speaking of Jack, the man suddenly appeared from whichever room he had just been in, keeping up on his promise to see them off. He put his hands on Alex's shoulders, one part to steady her, one part to reassure. Robby was starting to wonder if she'd make it to the bus or if he was going to have to carry her for the second time that night.
(Alex, in his arms, paler than death, her sugar was plummeting, and he couldn't do anything to stop it at that moment, still didn't know what caused this much dysregulation. He prayed she didn't seize. They couldn't wait. He hadn't run that fast in a while.
Leah. Bleeding out. He needed to save her, he needed to-
Jake. Screaming. Crying-)
He snapped himself from the memory, forcing himself to focus on what was in front of him.
“-and get Robby to keep an eye on your pressure, too, okay? I know your body tends to bounce from one crisis to another. And eat a bag of chips, too.” He watched Jack lean in a little, whispering (although intentionally loud enough that he could still hear him) “Talk him into ordering you a cheeseburger from the saltiest fast food place possible, doctor's orders.”
“I will.” She turned towards him. “You got that?”
Robby snorted. “Yeah, yeah, I got all that.” He waved a hand. “How about Asian dowsed in soy sauce, instead? I know a good place that's open all night we can order from.”
She smirked. “That works. But just so you know, I will get the most expensive seafood thing on the menu. Especially if they have sushi.”
Jack looked at him with the closest thing to what he could describe as a ‘silent shit eating grin.’, one that said ‘You walked yourself into this one’ without actually saying it out loud. And, yeah, he (or rather his internal monologue.) was right, he did sign himself up for this. It wasn’t like he couldn’t afford it - he absolutely would be letting her order whatever the hell she wanted because, amongst other things, one of the things she probably needed the most right that second was a sense of control. Robby just wasn’t expecting to suddenly be thrust so quickly back into this odd not-quite parental role.
He was an attending, though, so in a way, he had never quite left it behind.
“Dr. Abbot? You're needed in Trauma One, Accidental GSW.” Somehow, Dr. Shen still managed to take a large drink from his coffee cup, mid sentence, while walking towards trauma one.
“That's my cue.” Robby watched Jack cup the girl's face, gently, instinctively, like he was about to wipe away tears that had long since dried, before he quickly patted her shoulders. “I'll see you tomorrow morning, okay, kiddo? Robby knows to call me if anything happens, he's got you.” He made eye contact with the other man briefly in a way that Robby knew was a silent ask for confirmation that what he said was true. Robby nodded in response.
With that, Jack was gone, and Robby was back to tailing closely behind Alex, just in case she lost her balance.
They went out through the ambulance bay - he didn't want either one of them to try and navigate the waiting room with the way Alex was so clearly struggling at that point (And, admittedly, he was also pretty fucking exhausted.)
“I'm sorry it took me so long to get done with everything.” He apologized, as they started heading down the sidewalk. “Are you going to be alright with all this walking? We can get on the b-”
“Dude, what?” That gave him pause. Alex, contrary to her age, and the way she usually dressed (A superhero T-shirt over a robin's egg blue polo shirt and black pants was certainly a look. The beat-up Converse added to it, too.), rarely, in the time since she started working in the pitt, at least, used the majority of slang terms, regardless of how modern they were. She especially had never called him (or any of the other adults, for that matter) ‘Dude’.
(Jake explained to him once that it wasn't meant to be insulting, and to take it as a term of endearment. Most of the time it meant that person liked you, or at least that's what he was pretty sure he meant.)
He looked back up to her, and she had stopped when he had. She was leaning on her crutches and giving him a ‘what the fuck?’ look. “Why are you apologizing to me?” Alex questioned, one arm up in the air, crutch dangling from her arm. “I also work in The Pitt. Or whatever the hell you want to call it. You don’t have to explain it to me, I get it. Also - I’m fine, I can handle it. Okay?” The crutch swung around as she used her hand to emphasize. “I just want to go and take a hot shower.” She paused, and her eyebrows furrowed. “You - you do have hot water, right?”
Robby snorted. “Yes, I have hot water.”
- ⚕-
He honestly thought he was going to have to pick her up and carry her through the door. She was stumbling by the time they got off the bus, even with the crutches. Alex was so obviously struggling - he wanted to help, it was in his nature to help, he chose to become a doctor, after all - it didn't help that some jackass had tried to argue with her when she sat in the accessible seating. He had a feeling she normally defended herself, but instead she sank further into herself, and he ended up having to first play the ‘Sir that's my daughter' card, and then had to get the bus driver involved.
Robby watched her out of the corner of his eye as she leaned up against the wall, making sure she wasn't about to keel over. Jack hadn't been kidding about making sure her blood pressure didn't crash, they'd both worked in the ER long enough to know how often one typically followed the other, regardless of who it was. He had thought, because they had treated it pretty instantaneously, that it wouldn't be an immediate issue but..
“I'm fine, Robby. Just worn out.” She muttered, shooting him a glare. “..Can we go inside?”
The little waver in her voice when she asked that snapped him back out of his thoughts, and he realized he hadn't unlocked the door yet. In one quick motion, he turned his keys in the door and cracked it open with a push. He gestured inside. “C’mon. Let's get some real food in you and then you can take a shower, and I'll make up the couch so we can both sleep for the next twelve hours.” He tried to keep his tone light and friendly, attempting to crack some kind of joke. “Oh and, shoes off, please…if you can. If you need to sit down, it can wait.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine.” He watched her set her crutches aside, balance herself against the wall, and painstakingly untie her shoelaces and kick them off to the side. She grabbed one crutch again quickly, and he tried to ignore the way she had to put all of her weight on it.
He decided to change the subject, silently leading her to the living room. “So, what’s your favorite kind of sushi?” He gestured to the couch, and Alex promptly slumped down onto it, setting her crutches (having almost immediately gone back to using both of them) off to the side. There was that twinge of familiarity again - the one that told him just how much time she had spent around Jack.
“Philadelphia rolls..I think those are my favorite.” She answered after a moment of silence. “California rolls, Alaska rolls.. Honestly, anything with Salmon. I love salmon.”
“I will…keep that in mind for future reference.” He sat down on the couch next to her, pulling up his phone and quickly navigating to the delivery app on his phone. The particular sushi restaurant he was looking for immediately showed up in his recents. “Okay,so.. A Philly roll, Alaska roll - do you like the fish over the rice, too?”
“Uh..yeah. That works - I usually get the crab stick ones, too.”
“Got it.” This place had platters, too. It wasn’t cheap, but he’d figured that scarfing down sushi was at least a little bit healthier than gorging themselves on burgers and fries. “And do you use chopsticks?”
She nodded wordlessly in response.
He clicked a few more buttons, and (after double-checking to make sure he did not have the hospital's address instead of his house.), their food was on the way.
Robby turned his eyes to the Switch 2 he’d bought for Jake not long before.. He’d never really gotten it working outside of one game of Mario Kart (Against Jack, who had thoroughly beaten his ass.). He nudged Alex gently with his elbow. “So… do you want to play Mario Kart while we wait on our food? Probably’ll help keep you awake.”
Alex looked up from where she’d been slumped, and nodded. “Yeah.. that works.”
- ⚕-
“Do you have anything to wear to sleep in?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.
Several whole sushi rolls, and rounds of Mario Kart (that he had, predictably, lost miserably.) later, and he’d noticed her eyes starting to droop. At least some of the color was back in her skin, now.
He watched her stop and think, before she frowned. “I might have a spare t-shirt in my bag. Y’know.. In case something spills or something on the one I normally wear. Because who would be caught dead wearing a robin's egg blue polo shirt and nothing else- Seriously. Why.” She waved a hand.
Robby chuckled. He honestly hadn’t thought she cared that much about fashion, but apparently he was wrong. “I think Jake left some stuff here the last time he stayed with me.” He tried to ignore the itchy feeling in the pit of his stomach when he said that. “And I have some T-shirts you can borrow if you don’t have anything.”
Alex didn’t question that - He figured Dana or Jack might’ve mentioned Jake at some point, and he’s sure she would’ve asked about it - instead, she just nodded. “Where’s your bathroom?”
“Just up the stairs on your right.” He paused. “Are you going to be okay getting up-”
“Robby! I can handle myself!” She told him quickly, putting a hand up again.
She stood - leveraging herself on one of her crutches - before making her way back to where he’d thrown their bags down in the entryway. After a few minutes of the distinct noise of someone going through their bag and not finding what they needed, she stuck her head back into the living room (There was an arch connecting the room to the entryway and the rest of the house.) and sighed. “..I apparently remembered wrong.”
Robby shook his head in mock exasperation, turning to face her without getting up from the couch. “I’ll find you something and leave it on the counter - or the floor outside the bathroom door, if you’re more comfortable with that. Do you need me to show you how mine works?”
“I think I can figure it out.” She shrugged, already heading up the stairs.
He ended up digging out an old, well worn T-Shirt of his (that he was fairly certain hadn’t seen the light of day since his college days - it was pretty well faded, but he hazarded a guess that it was for some local band that had been broken up for the last few decades.) and a pair of basketball shorts that belonged to Jake. He neatly folded the two garments and sat them on the floor outside the bathroom door, knocked once to let her know they were there, and headed back downstairs to make the couch up - sitting down on one end while he waited for her to come back.
She joined him about fifteen minutes later, hair half dry and hanging down - which was a bit of a shock, he’d gotten used to seeing it braided or tied back - to a few inches above her shoulders, dressed in the clothes he’d sat out. In her right hand was a shiny purple cane, and the braces were noticeably absent. He didn’t say anything, figuring that she probably kept it in her bag in case she ever needed to do something that wasn’t easy with the crutches. He wasn’t sure if she used them at her house or not, either.
Alex set it off to one side and slumped back down on the couch, her expression only changing for a moment when she noticed the sheets and the pillow on one arm. “Thanks..” She muttered.
(Were those bruises he saw when she sat down? He frowned, deciding to file it away for tomorrow, hoping that maybe they were just the results of falls from her issues with joint instability. A small part of him had a feeling they weren't.)
“Did the heat help with the pain at all?”
She seemed surprised by that. “I-” Alex took a breath. “Yeah..a little.”
He’d seen enough people close to tears for various reasons to recognize that little breath- the small intake of air before the tears started. “You okay?”
She was silent for a few minutes, and he watched her lip quiver. He could barely hear her when she spoke. “I-I… No.” For the second time that night, she started sobbing again, wiping her eyes with her arm.
On instinct - one that had come from several years of working in the medical profession and delivering bad news, or, sometimes, good news - he pressed a bit closer, in an attempt to be reassuring. “What’s wrong?” He asked, voice soft.
“It’s just…It’s..all of this?” She sniffled, taking in a long breath between sobs. “This..this care? This…You bought me food….you….you…you gave me clothes and a place to sleep and now you’re asking me if something helped with my pain and- I just- I don’t know what to say and-” She was ugly sobbing now, knees up against her chest. “I just..I’m not used to it and-”
“Shhhhhh…” He muttered, reaching an arm around her shoulders. “It’s alright..” He rubbed his thumb in a circle.
She kept crying, shoulders shaking. “I just…I just..”
“Alex..” He didn’t get the chance to finish whatever the hell he was about to say, because she let out a low noise that sounded like something between a whimper and the noise of someone holding back tears. That flipped a switch in his brain, and he pulled her to his chest - He’d seen Jack do it earlier when she broke down like this; he figured it couldn’t hurt to try.
“Alex. Listen to me. Look at me.” He rocked her gently. “I don’t pretend to know why exactly you feel this way but - hey, hey, listen, eyes up here, you don’t have to make eye contact, but I want you to focus as best you can-” He tapped her cheek softly when she started to turn away from him. “I don’t know entirely why you feel this way, but whatever it is, whatever’s caused this..know you are never, ever, a burden. To me. To Jack. To Dana. To anyone. I volunteered to let you stay the night because I knew you needed to get away from your mother for a little while, okay? That’s it.”
He paused, waiting to see if she’d say anything. When she stayed silent, he continued. “And for the record, I am a doctor, Alex; my job does revolve around caring for people. That extends outside of the hospital, too.” He patted her head softly, running a hand through her still damp hair. A thought dawned on him. “And I am sorry for the way I snapped at you earlier, especially if that’s in any way related to whatever’s got you so upset about this.”
He felt her nod into his chest, staying silent.
They sat like that, in silence for a little while, before he noticed her eyes starting to drift closed. Instictually, yet again, he reached across the couch for the pillow he’d rested on the arm and sat it down against his leg, manuevering her so that her head was against his lap against the pillow (he’d done it before, with Jake, when he was little and not feeling good.), and then pulled the blanket that was strewn half-hazardly over the back of the couch down, draping it over her.
Once she was settled, he grabbed the remote off the coffee table and turned the TV on, flipping around for a bit, looking for something that had caught his eye not long ago (Had he heard her mention it in passing and accidentally been looking for it? Maybe.), and started an episode at random.
It took a few minutes, and he was fairly certain she was asleep, until, at the sound of what was something she probably remembered well from the show, her head picked up and he looked down to see the look on her face.
“This is the one you’ve talked about before, right? The one from the seventies with the paramedics.” He asked, genuinely not sure for a moment.
Thankfully, she nodded. “Yeah.” She was quiet again for a few moments, focusing on the show. “It was my dad’s favorite show when he was little and he kinda just..passed it on to me, I guess. This is the one with the catfish, I think.” She muttered before laying her head back down.
He didn’t dare prod anymore, mostly because he was starting to think her father was a sensitive subject and he didn’t want to make anything worse, but also because she was barely awake as it was and probably wouldn’t be for much longer.
Sure enough, about halfway into the episode, she was out like a light. He couldn’t help but smile, knowing she was finally resting after the shit day they had all had.
He ended up watching the show for some time longer, mentally noting every little thing that definitely wouldn’t be done today, before he himself dozed off.
(She was right, it was the episode with the catfish.)