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“Maybe we should stop” He said, driving her back to her apartment after dinner
“Where?” She asked, confused
“I mean, maybe we should stop this… thing between us” he clarified
“Oh… Can I ask why?” She asked
“It’s ... complicated. You’re still a resident and I’m not comfortable with the position I’m putting you in… and I don’t want to make your life…”
“Stop the car” she interrupted
“Samira”
“Stop the fucking car now” She demanded
“We’re 20 minutes from your apartment”
“I swear if you don’t stop the car I’ll jump, Jack” Samira said, her hand threatening to open the door.
He stopped. She Went out and started walking. He tried to park the car and follow her, but she managed to disappear.
She waited until her apartment’s door closed before she allowed herself to cry. She felt humiliated enough for crying over a man, but she felt fucking furious for crying over a man whom she was 100% sure would never break her heart.
The ‘thing’ between them started at the end of July, after a night shift that anticipated 36 hours off for him and 24 for her. A ride home, an invitation for breakfast, clothes scattered across her apartment, prosthetic leaning by the bed, tension bubbling until it exploded and they were left catching their breaths, still joined, foreheads touching. It continued for almost four months, until this terrible evening. Not enough time to make it official, just enough time for her to fall head over heels for the night shift attending.
She looked at the calendar and laughed bitterly. Nov. 8th, the day her heart shattered. It seemed stupid to think about it, but had she known beforehand, she would’ve dreaded this day more than Nov. 12th, the day Robby was supposed to come back on shift. To be honest, it was a little melodramatic, but she was finally coming to terms with the kind of doctor she wanted to be without people constantly undermining her, and he was about to come back. Turns out, it was a worry that shouldn’t hold that much power over her.
Also because, Samira didn’t know, Robby’s return didn’t only worry her. Jack had been constantly worrying about his friend on the motorcycle, and only recently Robby had reached out to inform him of his return. One text message became a thread and the thread became daily calls. An in one of those calls, at the beginning of November, he’d started rambling about the hospital, and the residents, and how Langdon this, and McKay that, and Whitaker that other and Samira. The mess she made, the mess she was going to make. The way he set his mind into pushing her to her very limit. ‘Make it or break it’ he explained. He wanted to push her out and she wasn’t going to handle it, and she was going to leave. And maybe it was for the better. And probably he should just give her a little push towards that direction. It’s not like he actually spoke up when Robby said those things anyway. No, Jack boiled - internally- but didn’t say anything. Because Robby didn’t know about them, nobody did. Because if he knew he would flip out. Because Robby didn’t need that kind of news first thing coming back.
Robby came bacon Nov. 12th, as planned. Jack was on shift and if it weren’t for the patients didn’t even had the time to think about 11th night being veteran’s day. His thoughts were filled with Samira - Robby; Robby- Samira. Rinse and repeat. She avoided him since that night and took the day off on the 12th. Understandable. Probably wise.
It was evident from somewhere around 7:20 that Robby’s sabbatical did wonders for his skin complexion and very little for his mental health. He actually stayed until almost 9 to make sure he was fit to complete a shift.
An when he was in his car the first instinct was to text her and ask her how she was. He didn’t.
He saw her on November 17th, shift change. She didn’t look at him, addressing the night shift in general for handoff. The dark circles under her eyes were even worse than the last time he saw her.
He saw her again on Nov. 20th, eyes rimmed red in the parking lot with Cassie McKay who opened her arms and hugged her.
He didn’t see her again for days and her absence on her usual thanksgiving double rang all sort of alarms in his head.
‘This is Dr Quincy, he’s going to be covering Dr Mohan for a while’ Al-Hashimi announced
“How long is this while?” He finally asked Al—Hashimi
“As long as it takes” she explained, saying everything and nothing at once.
By Dec. 7th he gathered enough courage to knock on her door. He will never know if she was there or not, but nobody ever opened the door.
By dec. 24th he was ready to snap. It was the other granted double, as she always tried to cover for people with actual families and a life outside the Pitt.
They joked about it at the end of September, when he proposed to block Christmas week and go somewhere warm and leave the rest to figure it out. ‘It would be a dead giveaway’ she laughed.
She walked back into the pitt on Dec 31st, 6:56PM.
“Cassie and Brian went to Philly.” She explained to Parker.
He knew better than thinking she was fine. She was absolutely not. Physically she looked put together, good almost. But he was very aware of how Dr Mohan acted around patients, and she was currently the shell of the doctor he was used to work with.
“Yeah well if Robby had said those things to me you’d never seen me again too” Shen said, as if stating something obvious that Jack didn’t actually know.
“What are you talking about?”
“Come on, isn’t Robby your BFF?” Shen teased
“Shen” he warned
“You know, Abbot. The whole ‘My only hope coming back was to find you long gone’? Wait, you didn’t know?” Shen said, disbelievingly
“No I didn’t”
“Come on Abbot, why did you think she was MIA?”
He waited until a couple of minutes past midnight to approach her
“Happy new year Samira”
“Fuck you”
Right.
He pretended not to notice when Cassie seemed to congratulate her, and Santos joined in. He managed to wait a proper amount of time before cornering Santos, who informed him Dr Mohan was selected by PTMC, Presby and UCLA. He tried not to focus on his heart clenching at the prospect of not having those mere seconds of seeing her passing by. Of speaking to her even if it was of cases and diagnosis and labs that are taking too long. Long gone were those nights in his bed when they talked about whatever, getting to know each other, teasing each other over some childhood embarrassing story. Long gone were the evenings off fighting over wether to watch a movie or reality tv and then falling asleep tangled on the couch. He gave up the right to know what was happening in her life and in her mind.
“You’re awfully interested into someone you purposefully walked away from” Cassie McKay said from behind him. And really, he couldn’t have said better.
“I never meant to”
“to what? Break her heart? Pull out stupid excuses to dump her?” Cassie McKay was the only one who knew about them, mainly because she found him in Samira's apartment, naked. She was also in a sort of nirvana state, in which nothing could touch her but she became absolutely defensive when it came on Samira. Mainly because she took four years to crumble Samira's walls, and she wasn’t about to walk away like he did.
“McKay”
“She’s asking me for advice. Selfishly, I want her to stay. At Presby, not here. Fuck this place. And pain management fellowship that would be amazing and close. But man, I sometimes wonder if UCLA is still too close to this fucking place. To Robby. To you.”
“She has a bright future ahead” he said “She should choose what gives her the most, career-wise”
“Yeah, of course. Cause that’s the only thing that matters” Cassie laughed bitterly.
“Yeah, it is” Jack reinforced.
“Whatever makes you sleep at night” Cassie finally walked away.
He was left alone with his thoughts for a couple of seconds, before he was needed in a trauma. But Cassie’s words lingered with him. Its was the perfect solution, he knew. She would be free to choose whatever and wherever she wanted to be the future of medicine. She didn’t need to stay linked to a place that undermined her confidence, with people who undermined her confidence. And most certainly she didn’t need to have Robby in her life longer than necessary, that was Jack's cross to bear. Because Robby had helped him when he was at his worst, and then some, and he didn’t need to feel the betrayal of his best friend linked to the person he was so desperately trying to push away. He didn’t need to see his anchor abandoning him so that his girlfriend could pursue her dream career. He didn’t need to Jack Happy just as much as Jack felt he didn’t deserve that kind of happiness.
The problem of all this, he understood, was that the whole equation didn’t take into account Samira’s feelings. Not as he thought at least.
He was always a bit amazed by the fact she liked him, and that she somehow wanted to spend time with him, getting to know him. But he never thought she would be so heartbroken. He didn’t deserve her and much less her heartbreak, of that he was sure.
Again, he found himself in front of her apartment, at the end of his shift. The lights were on, so she must have been home. He knocked and she opened, hair wet.
“What do you want?” She said, impatiently
“I don’t know” And it was true. What was the plan? Seeing her? Talk to her? Kiss her?
“Ok, knock again when you know” she said and went to close the door but he stopped her
“Give me one minute” he pleaded
She left the door open “I’m going to dry my hair”
“Samira”
“What?”
“I’m sorry” He said
“Yeah, me too.” She said, disappearing into the bathroom.
He looked around and noticed her apartment was a little more furnished. A rosemary plant was almost dying and her laptop was on the table. Open
‘Dear Dr Mohan,
We are glad to inform you that you have been selected for the Cardiac Emergency Surgery Fellowship at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center…..’
‘“You done snooping?” She asked and he almost jumped
“You’ve been selected at PTMC”
“Yeah”
“And some others I heard” Jack said, proudly and it somehow infuriated her
“Yeah, so?”
“So I… I guess I’m proud of you”
“Thank you” she said
“Have you chosen?” He said, not trusting himself with hope
“No.” Was her only answer
“Samira… I know I screwed up” he sighed
“Do you?”
“Yes, I do. But it was for the best”
“And you came here to do exactly what? Rub it in my face again?”
“No, I never meant to hurt you”
“Well then you should’ve never drag this situation for months to dump me out of the blue” She said
“You don’t understand”
“Damn right I don’t. Why, if you didn’t think we were going to last, why did you wait months before breaking up with me? Why did you have to wait until I was in love with you before breaking my heart?” She said and then her eyes widened when she realized what she said
“Sami…”
“Go away. This conversation is over.” She bottled up again
“Samira I’m not leaving”
“Get out of the house and forget what I said.” Samira pleaded
“Samira, it was too complicated. You had all this fellowship stuff to think and Robby was coming back and”
“What the fuck has Robby to do with all this?” She fumed
“Nothing… It’s just. We didn’t know how he was going to be once back. He would’ve come after you and I could do nothing”
“So what? You thought it was better to add to my plate with a messy breakup?” She hissed
“It’s not that. I know Robby, he would’ve never accepted that we…”
“Who the fuck cares about what Robby thinks?” She shouted and the neighbor banged on the wall
“You? Me? Everyone?”
“No I wouldn’t have. I spent the entirety of his sabbatical healing from the hold his opinion had on me, and I cared about us too much to let anyone ruin it. Turns out, I didn’t have to look that far away.”
“Samira… the thing between me and Robby is…”
“That you mutually established to spend the rest of your days being the suicide watch of one another? Is that what you’re going to do? Self-punishing yourself cause you can’t be happy if he’s in a bad place and vice versa?”
“It’s not like that” he said
“It looks a lot like that. So instead of helping one another you’re just going to brood together until you retire or jump? Tell you what, had you cared about getting you and your friend in a better place you would’ve put him on a psych hold until Jefferson could finally work his way into treat him.” Samira said
“He would’ve hated me”
“Maybe. But don’t fool yourself into thinking you can magically heal him. He’s too far gone, and you’re choosing the easy way by letting him pull you down with him. I need to go to sleep, I’m on shift in six hours.” She said retreating to her room.
He had no choice but to leave. She knew she was being hurtful, but he had broken her in a way she didn’t expect. A way she never allowed herself to feel. And even then, her instinct was to protect him, and the only way she could was throwing the truth in his face. She was certainly not surprised when Robby jumped at her throat, she just talked to Al-Hashimi and decided to adjust her schedule and split her time between PTMC and the VA, so that she could get to the finish line of her residency. PTMC fellowship proposal was all she wanted. Cardiac Emergency Surgery her dream, but her reservations about staying extended to two attending instead of one, and she didn’t know what to do, besides trying to understand how much time, especially at the beginning, she was going to spend in the department.
His mind was in complete turmoil. He knew she was trying to hurt him back, but there was this layer of truth that he was having a hard time ignoring. He found himself at the bar around the corner of PTMC. Robby was already there, playing with the ice in his whisky.
He ordered a beer and waited. They sat in silence for a while, each with his thoughts.
“I’ve been seeing Samira” he blurted out and Robby looked up
“Didn’t think Mohan had it to sleep with an attending” Robby commented
“It wasn’t… We were together, it wasn’t just sex”
“And yet you’re using past tense”
“I broke up with her, a couple of days before you came back” Jack admitted
“Good choice, she could do better than you”
“Yeah, she could”
“And that’s why you dumped her?”
“No” Jack sighed “I left her because of you”
“Because of me?” Robby chuckled “No offense, Abbot, but you’re not my type”
“I didn’t want to pick sides between you and her”
“Oh but it seems to me you took the decision already, isn’t that all were talking about?” Robby stated
“I guess”
“Never thought you would try to have a new partner. I mean… after Jessie”
“I wasn’t planning to”
“But you fell in love with her” Robby said half jokingly, but one look at Jack was enough to understand “You did! You fell in love with Samira Mohan? Oh my God are you kidding me”
“Robby”
“The two most fucked up people I know falling in love with each other. Let me say, we need something stronger than beer”
“It’s not a joke” Jack insisted
“It’s damn funny to me. Of all the things? Did you wait for me to go before playing your cards?”
“It didn’t. Ok, this is actually not of your business.”
“Except, we’re talking about two people who work in my department” Robby stated
“Not for long”
“Yeah, hopefully she’ll take the fellowship in California. San Francisco, was it?” Robby asked
“UCLA, and as far as I know she could also choose the pitt”
“She applied to geriatrics as I suggested in the end?” Robby inquired
“No. She was selected for CES”
“CES? The one that takes one fellow every five years? How did she secured that. Oh wait let me guess”
“Don’t even dare. I found out today and I would’ve never done it. And you know it”
“Whatever. So I guess I have to resign to have her around” Robby gulped his drink down
“Are you going to antagonize her?” Jack asked
“Nah, she’ll be out of my hair enough I hope. Are you going to push her away? Would be pretty stupid to take another fellowship”
“No”
“Are you going to kiss and makeup?” He joked again, unnerving Jack
“I don’t think so” mainly because he didn’t think she was ever going to forgive him, but Robby didn’t need to know.