Chapter Text
There’s very few people that get a thrill walking under fluorescent lights day in and day out but Michael Robinavitch is one of them.
It’s not the lights necessarily, but it’s the unknowing that beckons him.
“I don’t know why you’re so awake right now,” Jack sniffs, knocking back the rest of his energy drink before tossing it into the trash can underhanded and making it like he does every single time he’s seen him do it
“Can’t you smell it in the air?” he says with a sigh.
“Vomit from the night before and overflowing trash cans? Yeah, real lovely at 7am.”
“No, it smells like snow.”
Jack shoots him a mildly disgusted look. “So I need to put you down for a psych eval too? I haven’t even clocked in yet.”
His hands clamp on Jack’s shoulders and he shakes him a little. “Come on, fall is almost over and then it’s winter.”
“Which means more idiots driving when they shouldn’t be on black ice and old people falling and breaking a hip. Got it.”
“You’re always such a pessimist before 10am aren’t you?” he sighs, shaking his head.
“Says the man raw dogging it without any caffeine.”
“I’m trying to cut back.” he shrugs. Jack holds the door open for the two of them and there the lovely glow of the fluorescents awaits them inside the emergency room of Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital. The place that has been his home since third year of med school.
“Talk to me in an hour. You’ll be begging for a coffee.”
“You’re just sour that Adamson put you back on days,” he says, nudging Jack as they take the back way so they don’t have to deal with the overwhelm of the lobby waiting on their arrival.
“Less idiots that yap in my ear.”
“Yeah, because most of them arrive unconscious.”
Jack grins and leans in. “Exactly.”
Robby simply shakes his head as they round the corner to find Dana waiting for the both of them as usual. “What’s the scoop?” he asks, plopping his backpack into the desk drawer of his work station. “Anything good?”
“We got a drunk driver that wrapped a pole. Still being stabilized,” she starts and both he and Jack peer into trauma room 1. The night shift has on paper gowns to cover their scrubs and he can hear the muffled voices telling orders.
“Odds?” Jack asks, standing on his good foot to see over the frosted glass.
“We’ll see. Came in twenty minutes before the shift so we’ll be called in soon if they can’t do it,” Dana says, looking down her clipboard. “We have our vaccine drive today—”
Jack lets out a groan and he and Dana share a look.
“Don’t act so chipper,” Dana says, clapping Jack on the back. “You’re behind our Dr. Robinavitch here. That means you’re in charge of the interns which means you’ll be watching over the drive.”
He smirks at Jack who catches his gaze and shrugs. “Thems the rules. You gotta pay the dues you missed while you were—” But then he cuts himself off. “Elsewhere.”
It’s not a well known secret where Jack was over the summer. Sixty days drying up in a recovery clinic through the VA will do wonders on a man’s reputation so he and Adamson had come up with another reason. The story everyone else has heard was he was taking time off. Jack had been through a lot and even though Robby’s seen how strong he can be, there’s only so much a man can really take in the end.
He just wishes he had seen it earlier.
He wishes he hadn’t let Jack isolate himself for so long.
Dana clears her throat. She’s one of the few that knows the truth about Jack’s situation and since he’s returned, nothing has gone awry. Robby made sure of it.
“Oh and we have our first talk of snow so be on the lookout for something going nasty by the end of the shift. Other than that, we take ‘em as we get ‘em.” Dana holds her clipboard to her chest with that lopsided smile of hers that always seems to get any patient to calm down no matter how agitated they are.
He looks at Jack with his brow raised. “See? Snow. I knew I called it.”
“He’s a lunatic, this one,” Jack sighs.
“Yeah, but we love him for it,” Dana says, patting him on the back and then sending them both on their merry way.
Having Jack back in his life has been as natural as breathing. There’s not a single person on this planet that understands him as well as Jack Abbot understands him. Not even his mother though she does her best.
The months without Jack were like someone was shoving a hot poker iron down his throat and asking him to smile through the pain. Even though the man had been close enough to touch, he hadn’t been there. He had only been a shadow and he’ll never forgive himself for how long it took him to see it.
“Robby,” Adamson gestures him over. “I want to talk to you about something.”
“What’s that?” he asks, hands wrapped around his stethoscope while his eyes take stock in all the patients filling up the ED.
“I want to get your opinion.”
He lets out a hum in response, frowning a little while he sees one of the med students writing notes down on their notepad even though he had explicitly told them that they had only one week to use the notepad, then the rest would be done on the fly.
“What do you think about becoming the chief of the ED?”
His head whips back toward Adamson. “What? Why?”
Adamson laughs. “You know, most doctors would jump at the chance to become chief and not question it for a single second.”
He turns his body towards Adamson, crossing his arms now. “Want to tell me why there would suddenly be a chief position open?”
“Because they offered me medical director.”
His face falls.
“You and your lack of a poker face really need to have a talk,” Adamson says.
“That means you’ll be leaving me.”
“Son, I’ve been your chief for as long as you’ve been around and in my opinion, it’s far too long. You don’t need a mentor anymore, you are a mentor.” Adamson’s eyes soften and case in point, the same medical student with the notepad comes up to him.
“Dr. Robby?” she asks, her voice earnest and hesitating.
“Yes Waterford, what is it?” he asks, slow to move his eyes from Adamson down to the year three med student, even as he turns his body towards her.
“I have a patient who’s complaining of stomach cramps and I started her on IV fluids because she said that she was out all night last night drinking.”
“Yes?” he asks, prompting for more.
“Well, I was just…” Waterson trails off, looking nervous.
“Did you do a blood draw to test for blood alcohol levels?”
“Yes, she came back elevated but not in the dangerous range.”
“Okay, and?”
“Her hands were also clammy and she had sweat on her brow so I sent off for a drug screen as well.”
“Good,” he nods, keeping his arms crossed, feet shoulder width apart.
“Do you think I should do anything more, or wait until I get results back?”
He tilts his head, raising his brow. “What do you think?”
“I should…wait?”
“I think that would be a fair assessment. If she’s not vomiting and her blood alcohol levels aren’t dangerous it sounds like she can ride it out for now. Come get me if there’s any change like increased heart rate or labored breathing. Good job.”
Waterford beams and then nods, heading back to the patient.
Adamson just smiles at him and Robby gives him a look.
“Don’t say it,” he warns his mentor.
“Why do I need to say anything when you just proved my point?” Adamson smirks. “Think about it, okay? It’s not going to happen until the new year anyways, but I’d like to tell the board my replacement suggestion.”
He lets out a breath through his teeth and nods. Not exactly how he wants to start today, but he supposes he’d rather have it brought before him earlier instead of later.
As the shift goes on, he’s constantly moving how he always does, sitting down only to chart and only when the med students and interns don’t come bother him. He really needs to have a chat with his senior residents, but that only gets added to a mental list a mile long. As usual.
“You seem stressed,” Dana interrupts him, her eyes scanning just how he always does. It’s only her third year as a charge nurse but already she’s the best he’s ever had, though he supposes in the grand scheme of things, that’s not much to say. In the grand scheme of things, he hasn’t been an attending for very long.
“Oh yeah?” he asks, not looking up from the patient’s chart.
“I mean, that’s your baseline, but you seem extra stressed today.”
His eyes flick up from under his lashes at her and then back down at the screen. “Adamson tell you the good news?”
He can practically feel her eyes narrow even though he’s not looking at her. “No. What’s up?”
He finishes typing his sentence and then clasps his hand under his chin. “He’s being promoted.”
“No shit? Good for him.”
“Yeah. Bad for me though.”
“He wants you to be chief?”
“Now how did you come up with that?”
“It’s written all over your skinny little face,” she says, holding her pencil and waving it like a wand. “Come on, you’d be great.”
“That means dealing with HR. And the board.”
Dana snorts. “Yeah, okay I don’t envy you for that one.”
“Can someone relieve me?” Jack pops his head around the corner and Robby stands.
“Ah ah ah,” Dana snaps at him and points at him to sit back down on his stool. “You’re too important to be doing vaccine drives.” She turns towards Jack. “I’ll get a nurse to come over.” Jack gives a thumbs up and heads back to triage. Dana’s lips twist into a smirk. “You really are torturing him with this, aren’t you?”
“He needs to ease his way in.”
“Yeah, but it’s been a couple months now, right?”
“It’s good for his soul. Besides, he’s still my number one for trauma. He gets enrichment, don’t worry about him.”
“Hey, I’m not the one that lives with him,” she says, holding up her hands. Robby chuckles and watches in even more amusement as Jack hurries his way towards the bathroom after swapping out with a nurse.
He’s finally caught up on charting when Jack comes out of the restroom and leans against the counter to join them.
“What were you two gossiping about?” Jack asks, eyes narrowing.
“Your boyfriend’s getting promoted,” Dana says and Robby rolls his eyes.
“Adamson’s getting promoted,” he corrects.
“So you’re being promoted,” Jack finishes for him. “I guess this means you’ll be my boss now?”
“I thought you were already his boss,” Dana jumps in.
“You two are just on fire today, aren’t you?” Robby says, standing and slapping the desk like he’s slapping his knee, expression in a comical smile before it drops to deadpan. “Don’t you have some beds that need to be moved upstairs? Where are we on that?”
Dana presses her lips together in her own form of amusement and looks down at her clipboard. “Beds 10, 13, and 16 are waiting on ICU transfers. Bed 12 is waiting on psych consult. Beds 1, 2, and 6 are being cleaned as we speak. Everything else is waiting on either doctors orders or discharge papers.”
“Let me see what I can do,” he says, clapping the top of the desk again and then heads out to track down his doctors. Jack’s eyes simply follow him as he does.
“I guess I’ll go back to triage?” Jack calls after him.
“Godspeed my friend,” he says, saluting and getting another narrowed eyed look.
Over and over again, it’s like a never ending hamster wheel of a shift. First they’re full, then they’re somewhat empty, then triage moves them back up to full again. In between there are a couple trauma patients that Robby lets Jack take, him standing in the back watching Jack teach the med students and younger residents.
“Steady,” Jack says, looking over the shoulder of one of the interns. “Good, now feel for the fourth and fifth rib and you’ll make an incision right there to open up the pressure build up. Nice.”
The intern looks over his shoulder, for Jack’s confirmation and one corner of Robby’s mouth ticks up.
“I think you’ve got it,” he says. Jack finds his eyes and then he dips out back to the rest of the ED.
He doesn’t realize that his shift is almost over until the night shift starts trickling in. It’s only at that point that he also realizes that he hasn’t seen much of Adamson all day. He finds the man in his office and he knocks on the door frame.
“You’ve been hiding,” he says, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms.
“No, just…observing.”
“What, was this a trial run?”
“Please, we’re far beyond a trial run at this point. I know how you operate, Michael Robinavitch.”
It’s odd to hear his first name. He’s gone so long without anyone saying it that sometimes he forgets that’s what he’s gone by nearly his entire life. At least until Jack offered up the nickname, Robby.
“So…what is this?”
“It was a trial run to see if I could take a step back. And I think I was pretty successful. You forgot all about me, didn’t you?” His smile is warm and Robby tilts his head to the side.
“No, not necessarily.”
Adamson lets out that booming laugh of his. “Please, you only showed up at the very end of the day. You were doing a great job out there. I told you. You can be chief.”
His lips quirk up into a half smile. “Does that mean you’ll be in our corner when HR comes knocking?”
“I’ll always be in your corner.”
He huffs out a laugh. “Tomorrow though. I want you out on the floor to fend off the interns.” He points to Adamson and he chuckles with a nod.
Leaving the office, he runs over the current caseload with the night shift attendings, filling them in on who’s ready to be discharged and the current status of the rest of them. Then he goes to find Jack waiting for him at the entrance.
“So. Chief huh?” Jack asks, fighting a smile.
“Not until the new year.”
“That means you said yes though, right?”
“Not yet.”
“Robby, come on. You practically ran the show all by yourself today. Even if you were torturing me with triage.”
They cross the darkened street and head towards the park on their route back to Robby’s house.
“Did you really think it was torture?” he asks, meaning it.
“I mean, it wasn’t all bad but you know how I am. I’m not a people person.”
Robby can’t help but laugh. “Yeah, not exactly. How were the vaccines treating you?”
Jack’s face is deadpan and he snorts out another laugh.
“Okay, okay, I’ll talk to Adamson about moving you back to the floor. Do you think you’re ready though?”
Jack’s quiet for a moment, looking straight ahead and he watches as the man shifts his backpack on his shoulders and shrugs. “I don’t know. I’d like to be.”
“That’s all I need then. Tomorrow, we’ll get you back with the patients.”
Jack’s head turns towards him, that classic Jack Abbot smirk on his face. “Thanks man. I mean it.”
Robby nudges him with his arm. “Always.”