Chapter Text
Six more goddamn hours.
Six hours until Johnny could finally leave the hospital, go home, and pass out in bed. Six long hours. Well—six hours and twenty-three minutes, to be exact. It was only 2 p.m. He glanced down at the clock again. 2:22. Time was crawling.
He ran a hand down his tired face. Why the hell did he ever decide to work at a hospital? And to make things worse, the place was completely packed. A long line of sick, injured, and clearly annoyed people stretched out from the front desk.
Johnny would’ve felt bad for the receptionist... if he wasn’t the receptionist himself.
Right now, an older woman was yelling right in his face. She smelled like cigars and kept going on and on about how her leg hurt and how she “could barely stand”—which was funny, considering she’d been standing there for a solid fifteen minutes, spitting her complaints at him.
Johnny, blond and barely awake, wasn’t really paying attention. His mind drifted off to the sleep he’d get once he got home. But when he leaned a little to the side to peek past her—she started snapping her fingers in his face—and he saw even more people coming in. Great. A whole crowd now, he thought, already annoyed.
“Can you keep your damn hands to yourself?” he snapped. “Ma’am, there are a lot of people waiting. Saying ‘my leg hurts’ isn’t going to move you ahead of someone with a fractured clavicle .”
“Well, my clavicle hurts too!” she barked, clearly caught off guard.
Johnny just rolled his eyes. “Do you even know what a clavicle is?” he asked, raising a brow.
She didn’t answer. She stomped her foot and shoved her way out through the crowd.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Johnny muttered, feeling oddly proud of himself.
People always said Johnny was too harsh with patients. That he was rude. That he barely did his job. He never argued with that. There were even a bunch of complaints sent in about “that rude blond guy in a wheelchair.” But for some reason, Valentine—his boss—never seemed to care.
How have I not been fired yet? Johnny thought, grinning to himself. He leaned back and let his thoughts drift back to the bag of sour gummy snakes waiting for him at home.
Just six more hours.
Gyro checked his watch: 2:23 pm. He had to leave by 4 pm. sharp—his son’s class play started at 4:30, and he refused to miss another milestone.
Balancing a small paper sack of discount pastries, he walked toward Room 214. Inside waited Mr P., a man in his mid‑forties with severe opioid‑use disorder who had been admitted—again—after an overdose found him unresponsive on a downtown sidewalk. Detox, naloxone, and two nights of observation had brought him back, but discharge day always felt hard.
Gyro, a registered nurse recently promoted to charge nurse, pushed the door open with his shoulder.
“You’re back,” Mr P. murmured, eyes drifting from the pastries to the medication cups on Gyro’s tray.
“Sure am.” Gyro set the tray on the bedside table and scanned the electronic medication‑administration record. “Here’s the plan the hospitalist signed off on naloxone 4 milligrams to 1 milligram, sublingual, once this morning and once right now; then 4 milligrams at 8 pm. You’ll get the last dose in the ED‑outpatient bridge clinic tonight. That sound okay?”
Mr P. nodded, but his gaze stayed on the pastries.
Gyro handed over the first muffin. “Eat something before the tablet dissolves. Helps with the nausea.”
Mr P. swallowed a bite, then whispered, “What about the bill?”
“I talked with Social Work,” Gyro said, keeping his voice low. “They enrolled you in the charity‑care program, so today’s stay is covered. But the next time we see you, I hope it’s for primary‑care follow‑up, not another overdose. The bridge clinic gave you an appointment for Monday; please keep it.”
Mr P. offered a faint smile, slid off the bed, and tucked the discharge papers into his backpack.
Gyro breathed out and started closing charts—he still had wound‑care notes to cosign. As he turned to leave, the privacy curtain at the far end of the room swished open. Dr. Hot Pants—the internal‑medicine attending—stepped out, arms folded.
“Pleasure seeing you, doc,” Gyro said.
“Skip the small talk,” she replied. “Are you the one covering patient balances out of pocket? That violates policy—and puts you at risk.”
Gyro shrugged. “I’m directing them to charity care. Nothing illegal about that.”
“But you’ve been buying discharge medications, too.”
“Because a thirty‑dollar prescription can keep someone from coming back in an ambulance,” he shot back. “If Finance cared that much, they’d fund that one program again.” hinting at the charity event that only got hosted, sadly, once.
Hot Pants held her gaze. “Just… document everything and don’t break yourself doing it. Valentine loves rules.”
“Noted.” Gyro headed for the door.
In the corridor a large metal frame—some kind of intra‑operative CT scanner—was being maneuvered into the shelled‑out operating room suite that Valentine had mothballed last year. The unit looked brand‑new, power‑hungry, and expensive. Weird timing , Gyro thought, but he had seventy‑one minutes left on his shift and a front‑row seat to his son’s play waiting.
He kept walking.
Johnny finally got to take his break. Just fifteen minutes to himself. He couldn’t wait to crash at the staff station and nap at Mountain Tim’s desk—Tim wasn’t using it anyway.
He shut down the computer, lowered his office chair, and carefully moved himself back into his wheelchair. As soon as he rolled away from the front desk, people started calling out his name, asking him to come back. But it wasn’t his problem anymore—Lucy was covering him now, and Johnny was going to make the most of his break.
The nurses' station was pretty far from the main lobby. Whoever designed the hospital—probably Valentine—clearly didn’t want patients or visitors getting into staff‑only areas. That made it a pain for Johnny to get there, especially with how much effort it took to move around in his wheelchair.
Even though he’d worked at the hospital for three years, his legs hadn’t improved. In fact, they still hurt sometimes. He had asked Valentine plenty of times to bring in a physical therapist, which would actually help staff and bring in money—but Valentine always seemed to choose expensive machines over anything useful.
When Johnny finally got to the nurses' station, he groaned. It was packed. Over twenty staff members were rushing around, answering phones, giving meds, and trying to manage the chaos. The hospital was having one of those days where everything went wrong at once—and with only one receptionist on shift, the crowd just kept growing.
He wheeled himself through the mess, spotting the new head nurse with the long hair—Gyro Zeppeli. He’d taken over after Dr. Ferdinand was forced to leave for doing illegal animal testing. Gyro looked like a mess, sprinting around the unit and clearly overworked, even though he was supposed to get off in less than an hour. That alone shocked Johnny.
Then his eyes moved over to Dr. Hot Pants—who was shouting at nurses and probably giving the wrong directions in the process.
Johnny had just made it to Mountain Tim’s desk, ready to rest his head, when he heard a familiar voice call out from behind.
“Johnny! We need you back at the front. I know you’re on break, but Lucy can’t handle it all alone!”
He turned to see Gyro, looking completely overwhelmed.
Johnny stared at him with tired eyes, trying to dodge the responsibility. “...Don’t you have to leave soon?”
Gyro groaned, tugging at his messy hair. “I do! I do , I’ve got a play to go to—my kid’s school play!” he whined before hurrying off again.
That caught Johnny off guard. A play ? He hadn’t known much about Gyro—he was still new, and kind of a mystery. He’d only been here a few months, but everyone liked him. He’d even been a surgeon before, though he never explained why he stopped.
With a quiet sigh, Johnny turned around and started heading back toward the front desk. Gyro looked completely worn out. The least he could do was help out a little.
Forty-five minutes. That’s all Gyro had left. Just forty-five minutes until this chaos was no longer his problem.
He rushed back to his desk, deciding it was better to finish everything now before the day got worse. He filed the rest of his reports, printed out discharge papers for patients, placed new medication orders, and checked off everything left on his to-do list. Only one more report to finish and he’d be done. So close.
Then—
Black.
The screen went dark.
Gyro froze.
He hit the Enter key.
Then Escape.
Then the power button.
Nothing.
He tried every shortcut he knew, clicked the mouse, unplugged and replugged the monitor. Nothing worked. The computer was completely dead.
Groans and curses echoed through the nurses' station as staff realized their screens were all out too. Documents, reports, patient files—gone in a flash. The place erupted into confused murmurs, the panic bubbling under everyone’s voices.
Gyro just stood there, staring at his useless monitor like it had personally betrayed him. Everything he’d worked on—wiped. And now he couldn’t leave. Not until they figured out what to do next.
“Gyro,” came a calm voice behind him. Dr. HP stepped up, looking around at the mess. “It’s nearly 4 pm. You should go now, before you get dragged into fixing this. If you stay even five more minutes, you’ll end up stuck here until night shift.”
Gyro didn’t answer. He was frozen in place, slouched over the desk in defeat.
“Hello?” she said again, a bit firmer. “You’re going to miss your kid’s play. The parking lot’s probably full by now. If you don’t leave now , you’ll be sitting in gridlock until curtain call.”
Still, nothing.
HP sighed. “Doctor Zeppeli’s down.”
That’s when Johnny Joestar rolled into the nurses’ station, glancing around. The room was nearly silent, heavy with frustration and lost progress.
“...I’m guessing the system’s down,” Johnny said carefully.
“Thanks,” Diego muttered from nearby, not looking up from his desk. “We didn’t fucking notice.”
“Everyone, do not panic ,” Valentine announced, raising his voice in an attempt to calm the chaos in the nurses’ station. But no one listened. The room was still buzzing with low, frustrated murmurs—people venting quietly, but sharply.
“We’ve lost about 50% of today’s work,” Diego said loudly, cutting through the noise. “Which means 50% of our billing is gone, too.”
That hit the mark.
Valentine’s posture slumped as the weight of that number settled on him. Fifty percent. Half a day’s worth of medication logs, progress notes, labs, prescriptions—gone. And worse, half the revenue.
He stared at the floor for a moment before trying to rally. “Well… maybe we go old school. Paper charts, manual vitals, handwritten orders. That’s how we used to do it. We don’t need computers to keep people healthy! We’re San Diego’s best medical team.”
The only response was a few exhausted groans and a couple of side‑eye glares.
Gyro, still at his desk, let out a heavy breath. “What even caused the blackout?”
Then he paused. His eyes narrowed as the answer came to him—slow, clear, and infuriating. Valentine didn’t need to ask what Gyro had figured out. He could already feel the judgment in the air.
“I…” Valentine’s voice wavered. “I have no idea.”
But he did. Everyone could tell.
“Alrighty then! Let’s lift those spirits and get back to it!” he said quickly, trying to keep things from crashing further.
No one cheered.
The two remaining receptionists quietly returned to the front desk, already prepping to explain the outage to a growing crowd of confused and upset patients. Gyro leaned forward and dropped his forehead onto his desk with a quiet thud.
He checked the time. 3:59 p.m.
How had it moved that fast? How the hell was it almost four already?
7:50 p.m.
Gyro finally walked out of the hospital, nearly four hours after his shift was supposed to end. The past few hours had been hell . Nothing worked. No system, no records, no meds could be properly tracked. People weren’t getting the care they needed, and that weighed heavy on him. It was chaos trying to figure out who had follow-ups, who already came, and what treatments were pending. Most of the staff left exhausted and frustrated, clocking out the moment their shifts ended. One by one, they escaped.
But not Gyro.
He was the head nurse.
That meant staying until the very last problem was under control.
He’d missed his son’s school play. Missed the chance to see him in the lead role. And now, he was probably even late to pick him up. The guilt pressed hard on his chest.
Standing alone by the back entrance of the hospital, he looked out at the now-empty parking lot. The cold air brushed against his face as his eyes began to sting. He brought a hand up to his cheeks and realized—he was crying.
“A grown man crying…” he muttered, head hung low as he sniffled.
He wiped his tears away quickly and reached into his pocket, pulling out a crushed box of cigarettes. He’d sworn he quit. Told himself over and over that it was for his son. But now… it just felt easier to give in.
Marco was only six. And Gyro had just missed one of the most important moments of his childhood.
He was the lead… he was the lead, and I wasn’t there.
He pulled out his lighter from his bag—one he had kept "just in case"—and lit the cigarette. He took a long drag, letting the smoke sit in his lungs before slowly blowing it out.
“Hey!” a voice called out. “Anyone ever tell you not to smoke at a damn hospital?”
Gyro turned, eyes narrowing, ready to snap—but relaxed a little when he saw who it was.
Johnny Joestar.
The hospital lights behind him made him glow in the dim night. His smirk was faint but familiar.
“What’s up?” Johnny asked, but his tone softened once he noticed Gyro’s red, tired eyes. Then it hit him.
The play.
“I missed my son’s play,” Gyro admitted quietly. “I feel like a dick.”
Johnny raised an eyebrow. “But you don 't feel like a dick for smoking?”
Gyro looked down at the cigarette in his hand. The smoke curled up between his fingers. “I do… I promised I’d quit. For my son.”
Johnny paused, caught off guard. He hadn’t meant to make a joke at Gyro’s expense. Comfort wasn’t really his strong suit, but he tried anyway.
“Hey man… sometimes life just throws too much at you. Joy has to wait. I’m sure your son will understand. And if he doesn’t? You teach him to hold on to the moments he does get with you. Didn’t his mom pick him up?”
Gyro sighed. “I doubt it. We… got divorced a few months back. Thought everyone knew. She used to pick me up with Marco all the time, remember? Looked like the perfect family. Then the fights started. Everything fell apart.”
Johnny didn’t know what to say at first. Now that he thought about it… yeah. He did remember a black-haired woman always meeting Gyro after work. Then one day, nothing.
“Guess I didn’t notice when your wedding ring disappeared,” Johnny said quietly.
Silence followed.
Johnny still had another hour on shift, and the hospital had finally gone quiet. Nothing was happening. And somehow, this weird moment—outside, in the cold, under harsh lights—felt easier than being inside.
Gyro pulled out another cigarette and offered it to Johnny.
“What’s your story?” he asked.
Johnny reached out to take it, but instead of handing it over, Gyro leaned his cigarette forward and lit Johnny’s by touching the ends together.
Johnny raised a brow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Like… what happened to you? Why do you always look so down?”
Johnny leaned back a little, instantly defensive. “ What happened to me? What the hell do you mean? You talkin’ about the wheelchair?”
Gyro raised his hands, backing off. “No, no—God, no. I’d never ask that. I mean… why do you always seem down? What’s your story?”
Johnny let out a breath. “Can’t a guy dream about the nap he’s gonna take once he gets home?”
He took a drag of his cigarette and blew out a perfect smoke ring.
Gyro chuckled, clapping slowly. “Alright, alright. That’s impressive. You gotta teach me that sometime.”
“Yeah, probably not tonight. Don’t you have a kid to pick up from school?”
Gyro froze. Then—
“Shit!”
He dropped the cigarette and scrambled toward his car. “You’re right! See ya, Johnny!” he shouted, nearly tripping as he waved and ran off.
Johnny waved lazily back before putting out his own cigarette and heading back inside.
Inside his car, Gyro pulled out his phone, heart pounding. He quickly dialed Marco’s teacher’s number.
“Hello?”
“Hi, this is Marco Zeppeli’s dad—uh, I’m coming to pick him up, is he still at school?”
There was a pause. Then:
“Oh, Mr. Zeppeli! I was just about to call. Marco’s mother already picked him up. She said she’d take him home. I hope that’s alright?”
Gyro froze.
Melissa picked Marco up?
Home?
But… she wasn’t even supposed to be in the country.
And he didn’t know where she lived anymore.
“Uh—hello? Mr. Zeppeli? Is something wrong?”
Gyro didn’t respond.
He hung up.