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9:32 Dana was having a surprisingly good morning. The board at seven wasn’t the disaster that it often was at shift change. There were no boarders waiting to be sent up to psych, only one waiting on the ICU. The patients in the first two hours of the day were mild. Mild cases, with mild tempers, and mild mannered families. It was the type of day that had been nearly boring in its mundanity.Of course, it was only nine-thirty. There was plenty of time for everything to go to shit. Which it would. She had worked at PTMH for long enough to know that it always did, it was only a matter of when and how. A city bus crash, a drive-by shooting, a house fire. One might accuse her of cynicism, but in the ER cynicism was a little more like pragmatism. She might hope for the day to carry on as it had, but was prepared for when it inevitably fell apart.In her time as charge nurse, Dana had learned to recognize an instigating incident. A patient that would turn the ER on its head, sucking up time and resources and leaving them spent. Rarely could she get ahead of it properly, but she could at least prepare her staff for the shitstorm. She picked up her coffee and surveyed the Pitt. A broken ankle in four. A stomach virus in seven. A bowel obstruction in eight. A biker who had experienced an unfortunate run-in with the side of a taxi in trauma one. Collins was vomiting in the bathroom. Langdon was surveying the board. She hadn’t seen Robby, but he was somewhere. Gloria had been circling the ER all morning and God help him if she’d finally tracked him down. It seemed almost like she had a free second. She set down her cup and made the snap decision to grab a smoke while the opportunity lingered, positive that if she waited the window would slam shut. She strode out from the desk and toward the exit and the ambulance bay beyond. She always kept a pack hidden in a little niche between a pillar and a trash can. She made it most of the way there.Dana really could recognize an inciting incident when she saw one. And the woman with the short blond hair was a hell of a shitstorm wrapped up in a cute pink hoodie. She pivoted hard, cutting her feet toward chairs and McKay at the computer where she was rapidly charting a patient.“Pink hoodie, near the door.”McKay glanced at her, then followed her eyes to the woman. She was youngish, short and slim, with pale skin and cropped bleached-white hair not unlike Dana’s own. Dana could have rattled off her name, age, and medical history from memory. “The broken arm?” McKay asked. Her tone was questioning. It wasn’t the type of injury that necessitated a quick entry, and the woman seemed remarkably okay. She was cradling the limb against her chest and her eyes were red from where she’d obviously been crying, but she wasn’t anymore. There was no blood, no screaming, and no indication that she was about to take a header out of her chair.“That’s not a broken arm,” Dana said firmly, “That’s a VIP. Get her into a bay, now, and pass her off to a senior resident.”McKay’s eyebrows shot up, “For a broken arm?”“Yes,” Dana backed toward the ER proper, “Five is open, I’ll warn Collins and Langdon that you’re coming.” And just like that her opportunity for a cigarette was gone. Already she could feel the headache coming. She glanced around and breathed half a sigh of relief when she didn’t see Robby. She hoped Gloria kept him busy until she could get the patient settled. Collins had joined Langdon at the board. They were having some kind of argument over a patient in Central but she didn’t stop to hear what it was.“VIP incoming, who’s taking it?” She set her feet firmly and crossed her arms. Technically, she didn’t have the authority to order doctors around, but when used sparingly her strictest tone had the power to move them all anyway.Collins eyed her, “Who’s the VIP?” It was a good question. A VIP had the power to make or break a career, depending if they were likely to live or die before they left the department. Dana took a breath and shot a glance over her shoulder. She lowered her voice a little, “Grace Summers.”“What for?” Langdon asked sharply, in time to Collins, “Oh, fuck no.”They looked at each other. Then started to argue. “I’m not taking her, you know it’s going to be-”“I had her the last time, it’s your-”“He’s not going to-”“Well why do you think he’d-”“Shush!” Dana barked. Both doctors fell silent. “Rock-paper-scissors, now!”Collins and Langdon stared at her, then looked at each other. They both looked like they wanted to argue, then raised a hand. They shook fists in the air three times, then threw.“Fuck!” Langdon barked.“Yes!” Collins glanced once at the board, then darted off toward the south end.Langdon sucked in a huge breath, and let it whistle out between his lips, “Which bed?”“Five.” Dana answered, “Look, keep the curtains closed, keep the med students away, and I’ll try to keep him distracted.”“Yeah, that’ll help.” He threw a frustrated hand up toward the board, “He’s gonna see her name the second he walks over here.” He slapped the same hand down on the counter, “This is going to be my whole fucking day.”Dana glanced toward five where Grace Summers was being gestured by a smiling McKay, “It’ll be fine. It’s just a broken bone, no reason to get worked up.”“Uh-huh,” Langdon scowled and backed towards five. He lifted a finger to point in Dana’s face, “Tell him that.”Dana would. But it definitely wouldn’t help. She knew from experience, as well as Langdon did, that while very few things got Robby worked up, Grace was all but guaranteed to manage it.Frank couldn’t believe he had lost at Rock-Paper-Scissors. He never lost at Rock-Paper-Scissors. He played against his kid four times a day. Twice to convince him to brush his teeth, once to get him to clean up his toys, and again so that he would eat his vegetables. But, that was a four-year-old with a pretty viscous tell and not an adult woman who knew just how badly his new patient was about to fuck his whole day. He took deep breaths the whole way to bed five, and stood on the outside of the curtain for a minute, fighting with the urge to run. It wasn’t Grace. He could handle Grace. Grace was great. He couldn’t handle being treated like a first year med student when Grace was in the ER. It was like her presence rolled back the clock and all of a sudden he was as fresh-faced and twitchy as Whitaker. Robby would be up his ass the second he saw the board, and refuse to crawl his way out until the woman was discharged, which would probably take the whole goddamn day. He swore once more, under his breath, and ducked through the curtain.“Langdon!” “Hey Grace,” Frank greeted. He managed to grin. He really did like Grace.Grace, for her part, seemed to like Frank too. He’d been her doctor before. She was always pleasant, smiling, and had a sense of humor that made him feel like he could crack a joke and not get sued. She grinned widely at him, despite her red eyes, “How have you been?”“Fantastic,” He answered, “I got my kids a puppy.” He yanked a pair of gloves out of the dispenser and pulled them on.Grace raised her eyebrows, “How’s your wife feel about that?”Frank rolled his eyes, “Seriously? Why do I keep getting asked that question?”She shrugged, “How long are your shifts again?”“Twelve hours.” Grace made a face and he thought he might be supposed to glean some information from it, but he didn’t. He asked instead, “What happened?” and held out his hand for hers.Dutifully Grace stretched out the limb and tugged up her sleeve with the opposite hand and a deep grimace that put fresh tears in her eyes, “I fell on the stairs at my place and landed on it. I’m pretty sure it’s broken.” Her voice broke, just a little, on the last word.The entire statement was truly terrible news. He took her hand and pinched gently at her swollen wrist, then manipulated it left and right. She sucked in a pained breath, “You take anything for the pain?” She shook her head, “Okay. I’m gonna need an x-ray to know for sure.” He didn’t really. If Grace was crying it was definitely broken, it was just a matter of whether it was badly enough to need a few screws, “We’ll get you something for the pain while you wait. Do you know what caused the fall?”“I dunno, the stupid stairs are carpeted, it’s a deathtrap in wool socks. I usually wear my slippers but do you think I can find them?” She sucked in another breath and took her arm back when he let go. Frank surveyed her carefully, “Is there a possibility you hit your head when you fell?”“Why am I not making sense?” Grace asked back, her mouth twitching back up into a little smile.Frank smiled in return, “Because if you don’t really know you could’ve bonked your head on the way down. I’m gonna order a CT just in case.” He pulled a penlight from his pocket and shined it rapidly across her pupils.Grace blinked at the light. Her eyebrows shot up, “You’re kidding.”“Nope,” Frank put the light away and yanked off his gloves, “Gotta rule it out. Can’t have you dropping dead of a brain bleed.”“I didn’t hit my head, Langdon, I just slipped.”Frank shrugged, “Just doing my job Grace. I’ll get Princess in here with some painkillers, alright?”Grace chewed her lip, “How long is a CT gonna take?”Frank shrugged again, “I dunno. Better cancel your plans and get comfy.” He didn’t know, but he had an idea. They’d been backed up, seemingly for the entire lifespan of the hospital. Grace would be in the ER for hours at least. Definitely too long to keep her under wraps from Robby and the second the cat was out of the bag, he was screwed. She huffed a huge sigh, “I was supposed to go to yoga today.”“You can do yoga right there,” he grinned and watched her roll her eyes before he slipped through the curtain. He could see on the opposite side of the ER, Robby on the heels of a pair of medics and Mel, a STEMI on the gurney. If he was lucky, that would buy him half an hour. He practically ran to the nearest computer to order imaging. Santos swept up beside him, “How’s your broken arm? Gonna need to be set?”“I dunno,” he glanced toward the nurses behind the desk, “Princess can you get 1000 of tylenol and 400 of ibuprofen to five? Rush.”Santos blinked, “You’re rushing ibuprofen?” When he didn’t reply she asked, “If your arm needs setting can I do it?”Frank liked Santos okay. She was ambitious and annoying, but she was decent. He’d be damned if he let her touch Grace, “No. Stay the hell away from five.” He pointed a stern finger in her face, “If she asks for a cup of water, you defer to me, do you understand?”“Woah, alright,” she held up her hands in surrender, “Who the hell is she?”“A VIP. You want to keep your spot here? Don’t touch her.” He glanced toward the trauma bay and the STEMI he couldn’t see beyond its doors. “Holy shit,” Santos muttered, “She own the hospital or something?”Langdon waved toward the board, “Go find a patient. Now.”Santos gave him one more alarmed look before she disappeared toward the north end. Just in time for Collins to hit the counter beside him, “Well?”“Fell down the stairs.” “Why?” Collins glanced towards the trauma bay too. “Slipped.” He didn’t really want to explain the case to Collins when she could have been working it, and he would have to explain again sometime in the next hour. The woman grimaced, “You better-““I know.” He did know. Grace was about to be the most thoroughly cared for broken limb in hospital history. It was already making him sweat. “GSW to the abdomen!”“Mine,” he barked at Collins, and made a break to meet the gurney. Heather let him have it. She had won the day already, there was no sense in fighting him on anything else. She wasn’t Grace’s doctor, and hadn’t been for a long time, but she remembered enough of her history to know that a fall was bad. A fall on some stairs was worse. And Robby knowing that she’d fallen on some stairs was the absolute fucking worst of all. She really didn’t envy Langdon, and the littlest twist of worry settled in her stomach. Heather liked Grace too. Of their frequent fliers, she had been the most pleasant, and often most heartbreaking. And that had been before they all knew. “Javadi,” she called across the desk. Javadi changed course, her notebook pressed to her chest, “Yes Dr. Collins?” There was a hesitant smile on her face. “I need you to get some apple juice from the cafeteria and deliver it to five.” Javadi stared at her like she was insane, “Off you go.”“Oh. Okay?” Victoria didn’t really understand why she was being asked to deliver apple juice to a patient. By Collins, who wasn’t overly involved with her patients. For a patient that wasn’t even hers. According to the board when she glanced on her way by, central five was a broken arm that belonged to Langdon. The whole thing was weird. Maybe, she thought as she walked to the cafeteria, it was a friend or relative of Collins’. She wouldn’t be allowed to treat her family, but she probably would check in on them. Although, she didn’t know if Collins actually had any family. She didn’t know anything about any of her colleagues. Or maybe, she thought on the way back, Collins just wanted her out of the way on an errand. Because she had messed up. She’d crashed and been too nervous to get back in a trauma bay. She had to do it, that was the bottom line. Especially if her teachers thought she needed to be gotten out of the way.She slid the curtain open. The woman didn’t look like a relative of Collins. She was white, and almost ghostly fair in the way that had her wondering about low iron and anemia. Victoria supposed that didn’t mean a lot. The woman had her left arm against her chest and her phone in her other hand. She was scrolling idly and glanced up with a little grin. “Lemme guess,” she dropped her phone, snapped her fingers, and pointed, “Student doctor.”“Yes,” Victoria felt a momentary tickle of pride, then remembered she was acting as a glorified delivery woman, “Dr. Collins asked me to bring you this.” She stepped closer, content to know the woman wouldn’t snap at her or start bleeding everywhere. She offered the cup in her hand. The woman took it, “Aw, Collins. What a beauty.” She took a sip and considered Victoria, “I’m Grace.”“Dr. Javadi,” she smiled, “Is there anything else I can get you?”“No, thanks,” Grace squinted, “Are you related to-“It was a bit like being splashed with cold water. How did this random patient know her mom? And well enough to recognize her ? She didn’t get the time to process it, or ask, because then she was getting shouted at. “Javadi!” Langdon stalked up beside her and yanked the curtain shut with a rattle, “What are you doing to my patient?” Her heart pounded painfully, “Dr. Collins asked me to-““Chill, Langer.” Grace raised an eyebrow and rattled the ice in her cup, “She brought me juice.” She sipped it, “She’s my new favourite doctor.”Langdon slapped a hand over his heart dramatically, “Ouch! After all we’ve been through?”“You didn’t bring me juice.” Her tone was teasing. “What if I bring you to x-ray?” He waved a hand at Victoria, “Grab me a wheelchair.”Victoria was already a little sick of being ordered on tasks worthy of a much-disliked orderly but she knew when to keep her mouth shut. She went to get the wheelchair and tried hard to listen to the conversation that faded out behind her. “I know you’re not trying to put me in a chair right now.”“Hospital policy for head injuries.”“I don’t have a head injury!”“We don’t know that yet.”“Langdon!”“C’mon Grace, it’ll take five minutes, be a good sport. For me? You can tell me what’s wrong with my dog.”The woman huffed a huge breath, “Fine.”By the time Victoria returned with the wheelchair, Grace was sipping her juice and Langdon was looking extremely contrite. Grace hopped up from the bed and flopped into the chair, “Just get a dog walker.” Langdon chewed his lip. “Need some help over here!” Victoria looked over her shoulder. Whitaker was chasing a gurney, blood fountaining off a patient and onto the floor. Her stomach lurched. “Better get that,” Grace said mildly. Langdon seemed to stick to the floor. He stared at her. Grace frowned, “Really? Javadi can take me. Or a nurse. Or I could walk myself there-“ she gestured toward radiology with her cup. “No med students for you.” He grit, but seemed torn. “She managed the juice,” Grace said seriously. “She didn’t. You hate ice-“ he dropped off with another shout from Whitaker, “Fuck! Straight to radiology and back!” That to Victoria, then he was off through the curtain like a shot. “Aw. I do hate ice.” She sipped her drink anyway, “Why was he being so weird? Are you bad at your job?”“No!” Victoria snapped, grabbing the handles of the chair and steering her through the curtain. “That’s super weird then,” Grace said mildly. She surveyed the Pitt. Victoria glanced around. She was pretty sure the woman wasn’t trying to be rude. Collins was in a bay with an elderly woman. Mel was making her way to a computer. Santos was leaning on the desk, staring at Victoria like she’d grown two heads. Dr. Robby took two steps out of a trauma bay, looked at Victoria, glanced at the back of her patient's head, took two more quick steps and nearly ran into Evans who started talking rapidly and steered him back the other direction with a hand on his arm. “Everyone’s being weird today,” she muttered. Grace laughed, “No kidding. So does your mom work in surgery?”“Yes,” Victoria answered. She didn’t really want to think about her mom. Grace made a mild huh sound. She didn’t say anything else for a while. In the radiology department she asked about Victoria's favourite places to eat in the city and they debated her choices the whole way through x-ray and back to the ER.Everything seemed to have gotten less weird. Or at least more busy. Nobody was lingering in the corridor, they were all gone to bays. Victoria delivered Grace back to her own bed. Grace shoved up out of the wheelchair, set her mostly empty drink on top of a cardiac monitor, and flopped back to sit on the bed, “I seriously don’t know why he made you push me there. I could find the radiology department blindfolded. And my head is fine by the way.”“I’m sure he’s just being cautious,” Victoria said, but it was super weird. By all accounts Grace seemed entirely fine. Or, fine but with an arm that was definitely broken. It didn’t make sense for Langdon to hesitate to leave her for a patient that had turned into a fountain, and it didn’t make sense for Collins to have sent Victoria over in the first place. What happened next made even less sense. The curtain that Victoria had remembered to close behind them, was ripped aside with a screech. Dr. Robby stuck for a full two seconds in the gap. Victoria could see over his shoulder, Evans with a grimace on her face. Collins, behind her, frowned deeply. He didn’t look at Victoria at all. Just barked, “Out!” And stepped further into the bay, through Victoria’s space, forcing her to back up or be run over. “Doctor-“ Victoria started. Robby had been, all the time she’d known him, extremely patient. He’d never snapped at her, even when she’d fucked up. “Go find me Langdon, now!” He turned just enough that she could see the look on his face. Victoria scrambled from the bay. She could just hear Grace’s voice behind her saying, “What the hell Robby? That was so mean!” but she couldn’t stop to listen. She didn’t want Santos to see the tears threatening to well up in her eyes. Robby was vaguely aware that he had been mean. Javadi wasn’t bad. She was delicate, almost sure to flame out before her rotation was finished, but she didn’t need his help to do it. Usually he could muster the patience to be gentle with her, if only so that when she did flounder nobody could say it was for lack of support. But looking at Gracie, sitting on a hospital bed, one foot hitched up and her arm against her chest, he couldn’t manage it. She was too- something. Cold dread settled down into his bones, “What happened?” He reached for her arm. Gracie turned her entire body to avoid his hand, “No way, man! I don’t talk to rude doctors.She didn’t. He knew that. But- “Gracie-““Nuh-uh. You can’t just roll in here and start yelling at the baby doctors. Not to mention I haven’t seen you in a year but no hello or anything?” She hiked up her other foot and swiveled back against the headboard where he couldn’t even see her arm properly, “I’m giving you a two when I do my discharge paperwork.”She was right. He knew that. He took a deep breath, “I’m sorry.” Gracie eyed him, “Don’t tell me that. Tell the baby doctor.”He felt bad about Javadi, but he also felt like he’d die if she didn’t answer his question about what had happened, “I will. I promise. Now will you-““No.” She answered. She gestured toward the curtain, “Try again.”“Gracie-“ he was the head of the department. He didn’t have the time to be screwing around. “Try again, or go away.” Gracie said firmly. Robby fidgeted. Gracie stared him down, her blue-grey eyes serious. She had once kicked a respiratory therapist out of her hospital room for being, in her words, a raging dick. He knew because he had been there. He had followed the RT all the way down the hall, and shouted at him until he agreed to apologize. It hadn’t been Robby’s finest moment, in retrospect, but it was evidence that she didn’t bend. Slowly he turned and slipped back through the curtain. The Pitt on the other side was chaos. The way it almost always was. Noise crashed over him in a wave. He took a deep breath and stepped back into central five, aware as he did it of the eyes of his staff on his back. The noise of the Pitt seemed to disappear. Gracie was sitting the same way she had been when he first walked in, one leg hitched up, her arm against her chest. She was trying to smother a grin.“Gracie,” he tried to inject some excitement into the statement despite still feeling like there was ice in his stomach, “It’s been a while. About a year?”“Robby!” She chirped back, “It’s so nice to see you!” Her grin grew, “It has been a year, look,” she flicked her short hair, “Practically grown out.”“Looks great,” He returned, “Really suits you.” And it wasn’t a lie, or a platitude. A little of the ice melted. She seemed fine. But then, Gracie always seemed fine. Right up until she was dying right in front of him, “What brings you in?”She extended her arm for him to take, tugging her sleeve back over her swollen wrist, “Good old slip and fall.” Gently he took her hand, freezing cold in his, and moved it side to side. She winced. It was definitely broken, “Where did you fall?”Gracie hummed, “My place.”He was immediately positive that she was being evasive. Gracie liked to chat. She could have spun him a whole yarn, “Where specifically?” He prompted. Gracie tipped her head toward her shoulder. She huffed, “The stairs.”“You fell down the stairs?” She needed more than a wrist x-ray. She was probably bruised all over. What medications was she still on? Any that would cause excessive bleeding?“No!” She flapped her free hand, “I fell on the stairs. Not down. They’re carpeted, who’s bright idea was that, right? Freakin’ death trap. I slipped because I couldn’t find my slippers which I think I left in the basement but I really can’t remember why-“The curtain flicked open. Langdon stepped in looking very briefly dismayed, Javadi visible behind him, before he shut it again. Robby looked at Langdon when he asked, “When did you see Dr. Ortner last?”“Oh my God,” she rolled her eyes, “That is so not related.”“Gracie,” his voice was hard. “It isn’t,” she maintained, “I slipped. It’s bad enough that Langer’s going to make me wait here all day for a head CT, we don’t need to go down that rabbit hole.”Robby frowned. He knew from experience that Gracie wasn’t going to tell him anything she didn’t want to, but he needed to know. They had been there before, a fall on some stairs. Two beds over and four years passed, “I’m ordering bloodwork.”“Sorry,” Gracie sassed, “You’re not my doctor.”“I’m ordering bloodwork.” Langdon supplied over Robby’s shoulder. “Why?” Gracie directed her whined question up toward the roof. Langdon looked at Robby. Robby answered, realizing as he did that her hand was still pressed neatly between both of his, “Your hand is freezing. I’ll be surprised if your iron levels are half what they’re supposed to be.”“What he said,” Langdon gestured to his back. “They’re literally always like that and I take my iron supplement every morning.” Gracie rolled her eyes again, “You’re such a worrier. Although,” she touched her free hand to her cheek, “It is a little chilly. Here, do this one.” She held out her uninjured hand. Automatically Robby shifted his grip, letting her injured hand go with his left so that he could grip her right too. It didn’t occur to him immediately what a strange thing it was to do. “I’m gonna order that blood work,” Langdon said mildly, and was gone with a screech of the curtain. Robby held her freezing hands, an ugly puddle of fear still in his stomach, “When did you get labs last?”“Three months.” Gracie answered, “I’m capable of taking care of myself you know. If I thought something was wrong, I’d get checked out. But I’m fine. Actually.”It wasn’t that he thought she wasn’t capable. There was just something that lived in him, despite her assurance. Something that demanded he do it for her, “I need to confer with Langdon.” “Okay. I’ll see you later. Make sure you apologize to the little doctor.”“Alright.” It felt like a promise but to which part he wasn’t totally sure. It took him a minute to let go of her hands and step away. The noise of the Pitt hit him full force the second the curtain was open. Without Gracie’s smile in front of him, the dread in his stomach seemed to grow a set of teeth. It chewed at his ribs. Three months was long enough for any labs to be redundant if the conditions were right. He stalked to meet Langdon at the desk, “Get ahold of Ortner, have everything forwarded.”“On it.” He muttered, already typing on the computer in front of him. “The second it comes back I want to see. You ordered a CT?”“Yes.”“Get me that too. Radiology results?”“Not back.”“Who’s in ortho today?”“Miller.”“Send it to Gilks. Miller needs fucking glasses.” It was rare to hear Robby shit talk a colleague and even more rare for him to do it in the hearing range of the nursing staff. Princess gaped at him, “Anything, and I mean fucking anything changes, you report it to me, you understand?” Frank did understand. He’d been expecting the demand, “Yes.”The doors to the ambulance bay flew open. A gurney rolled in to meet Mel, the medics already talking rapidly about the car wreck the woman had been pulled out of. Robby glanced at the gurney and started to back toward it. He leveled a finger at Frank, “And keep the fucking med students out of there!”Frank just nodded. He couldn’t even muster a smart ass comment. It was like Robby’s standard operating instructions, the ones that designated him a patient teacher who let his students make mistakes and gave his doctors the freedom to act as they saw fit, had been ripped to shreds. Grace’s presence in the Pitt changed everything. 11:18 Dana had seen it, the instant Robby saw Grace from across the Pitt. The change in his body. The loose posture he usually favoured was gone, exchanged for hard lines and sharp angles. She really had done her best to head him off. Tried to mitigate the panic by telling him what she knew, just a broken arm, Langdon was on it, already headed to x-ray. It didn’t help. The only thing that had stopped him from chasing her down in radiology was a head trauma speeding through the corridor. Dana really hoped that whatever tests Robby bullied Langdon into ordering, they all came back clear. She couldn’t handle watching Grace waste away a second time. Wasn’t sure what the watching would do to Robby. “Who’s the VIP in five?” McKay asked, hitching her elbows up on the charge station. “Grace Summers.” Dana answered. “Well, yeah, but,” McKay glanced over her shoulder, then leaned in a little closer, “Santos said Langdon bit her head off when she asked about consulting and then apparently Robby yelled Javadi out of the bay?”Dana sucked her teeth. She glanced at the closed curtain of central five, then at the closed doors of trauma two, “She was a frequent flier. Few years ago.”McKay raised her eyebrows. Everyone knew the frequent fliers but rarely did that influence their care to such a degree. Everyone knew Earl didn’t like egg salad, but nobody had ever shouted at a med student about it, “Robby doesn’t yell.”“She’s Robby’s favourite patient.” Dana supplied. It wasn’t enough to encompass the relationship, and was entirely too much at the same time. She picked up the tablet in front of her and went to find Collins. Cassie watched her go. She had the strong sense that she was missing something important and had been dismissed. It didn’t really matter. She had her own patients, she didn’t need to be messing around with one of Langdon’s. Even if the curiosity was killing her. Although, maybe she did, because the blond woman was peeking out from her curtain. Slowly, she edged through the gap and down the corridor. Cassie was positive the woman had said she’d slipped, there was no reason for her to be trying to skip out of the ER. She pushed off the counter and followed. The woman made it most of the way across the room, then slid around the back of the nursing station. Stealthily, as though she wasn’t making eye contact with a grinning Jesse, she snagged a sandwich off the cart. “Grace!”The blond jumped, and turned, “Earl! Shush! You're gonna get me caught!”Earl’s eyes lit up, “You share and I won’t snitch.”Grace eyed him. Then she grabbed a sandwich from the stack and crossed to Earl’s bed to hand it to him, “That’s extortion Earl.” The man shrugged, “It’s been a minute. You’re not sick?”“No, I fell. Broke something,” she hitched her broken arm a little higher against her chest, “How’re you doing?” “Better now. You been to Fremont lately?” “No,” Grace used her teeth to unwrap the plastic from her food, “I thought it was doing alright. What’s the problem?”“They’re serving the same shit four nights a week!” Earl griped. “Well that’s stupid,” Grace took a bite of sandwich, then said around it, “Is that a money problem, you think?”“Between you and me,” he lowered his voice and leant in so Cassie couldn’t hear the next bit, but whatever he said, his face was serious and it made Grace frown. She nodded slowly along with Earl’s words.“Gracie!” There really was no reasoning out what happened next. Robby, halfway from trauma two to one, diverted course. He grabbed a wheelchair on his way to meet Grace, who flinched visibly at his sharp call of her name, and said to Earl, “You got me busted, man.”Earl looked apologetic and Cassie frowned in confusion. Robby shoved the chair right up behind Grace’s knees and said, “Sit.”“I don’t have a head injury,” Grace announced, but she sat anyway. Robby glanced around, saw Cassie lingering nearby, and barked an order, “Get her back to central five.”Cassie was dumbfounded. Grace swiveled in her chair and said, “Robby, you guys abandoned me in there to starve and scared off all the med students, what did you expect me to do?” He was already halfway back to the trauma bay doors, “Stay put until I get your CT results!”“You aren’t my doctor!” Grace called back. She watched Robby’s retreating back until he disappeared, then took a bite of her sandwich, frowning, “What is up with him today?”Earl leant toward her and muttered something under his breath. Grace laughed aloud. Cassie crossed the floor in a few steps to meet them, “Sorry Grace but I’m a little worried if I don’t get you back I’ll lose my job.”“Do what you gotta do McKay. I’ll take care of it Earl.” The two tapped knuckles, then Cassie steered her around and back toward central. “What are you taking care of?” Cassie asked.Grace swallowed her bite and answered, “I do some work with the shelters around the city. Fremont is closest to where Earl likes to hang but it’s having some issues, apparently.”“You’re a social worker?” Cassie guessed. “No,” Grace shook her head and didn’t elaborate. Cassie took the hint. She said instead, “According to Dana, you’re Robby’s favourite patient.”“Am I?” Grace asked. She sounded pleased, “He’s not even my doctor. He and Langer are being total helicopters today, I can't remember if they were always like this and I was too stoned to notice, or if it’s new for some reason.” She re-wrapped the plastic on her food.Cassie steered them past the curtain, eyebrows raised, “Stoned?” “Oh yeah, but like,” she flapped her uninjured hand as she moved to sit on the bed, setting the sandwich on the side table on her way, “The legal kind. I had a lot of cancer.”Cassie didn’t think she’d ever heard cancer described as a matter of volume before, “Oh no.”“Yeah. It wasn’t great. I was in and out pretty often.” She hitched her arm up against her chest and pulled her phone from her pocket with the other, “But the team here is really good so, silver linings.”“They are good.” Cassie agreed. The curtain slid open. Langdon squinted at her, “What’re you doing?”“Robby ordered her to put me to bed,” Grace said. She set her phone on her stomach, “You can answer this, was he always a complete helicopter?”Frank had only ever heard the term applied to parents. The overly involved kind who called their daycares or schools every day and wouldn’t let their kid further than two feet from them at a park. It was surprisingly apt, “Yes."“Huh,” she seemed to think about that, “Doesn’t he have a zillion patients? How does he get anything done?”“He’s just like that for you Grace,” Frank answered, before it occurred to him that he fucking shouldn’t. The suggestion that she was special, made out loud, was a problem. Nevermind that she was special, and Robby did treat her differently than other patients. He tried to distract her from his slip, “Your x-ray came back, wanna see?”Grace gave him an odd look he didn’t know what to make of. He moved past McKay to pull up Grace’s x-ray on the tablet in his hand and show her, “Check it,” he traced the little line with his finger, “That’s quite the break.”Grace considered his screen, “Nice. I knew it was busted. What do we do with that?”“Gonna have to set it and cast it.” Langdon said. “Oh hell,” Grace muttered, “You better get someone in here to hold my hand.”The curtain slid open. Robby frowned in the opening, “What are you doing?”It could have been directed at any of them. McKay put up her hands and muttered something about intake before darting past him toward the charge station. Frank blinked at him. He couldn’t believe the timing, “We got Grace’s x-rays back. She needs to be set and cast.”Robby frowned a little deeper. He held out his hand for the tablet and Frank gave it to him, “Shit.” He studied the tablet closely, “Have Princess set you up.”Langdon nodded but Grace said sharply, “Langdon is not putting me in a cast.”“You need one Gracie,” Robby said firmly. “Yeah, and that’s intern work at most! What if someone comes in and needs some sort of crazy procedure but you’ve got this guy layering plaster?”“He’s your doctor.” “My Lanta,” Grace slapped her hand over her face, “Get a med student to do it. Isn’t this a teaching hospital? Come on guys, you’re both being absurd.”Mostly Robby, Frank thought, but he didn’t say so. In fact, he would have preferred to be out of the bay and the argument altogether. He stood in awkward silence instead.Robby crossed his arms. His posture was inflexible, “I’m not putting a med student within ten feet of your case.”Grace licked her lip, “Fine.” She sat up very straight, “Then I guess my only option would be to refuse care and discharge myself.”Robby made a sound like she had punched him. All the air whooshed from his lungs in a huff, “You have a broken arm Gracie,” His tone was disbelieving. “Yep,” Grace put her feet to the floor and stood, “And I’m sure they do great work at East Med.”Robby didn’t just bend. He broke. His voice came out soft and he took two steps to almost touch her shoulder, “Please don’t do that. We’re just trying to make sure you get the best care. Our med students started last week. None of them have set a bone and I don’t want you to be their first.”“Someone has to,” Grace said, “And I’m sure you won’t let them mess it up too badly. Then if Langer has to go save a life, he’s totally free to do that and I’m not stuck with half a cast.”“Fine,” Robby muttered. He half turned and shoved the tablet toward Frank, “Get Whitaker.”“I want a pink cast,” Grace said seriously, pointing a finger at him. “Sure thing, Grace.” Frank grabber the tablet and swished out from behind the curtain and into the corridor. It struck him as a little odd that Grace had never noticed just how twisted up Robby got when she was in the Pitt. But then, she had always been in the middle of dying. At the best of times she was only half-lucid either from painkillers or lack of oxygen. It was easy to forget because she always seemed so okay, joking and laughing anyway. He glanced around then drew up to the charge station, “Where’s Whitaker?” Evans’ eyebrows shot up, “What do you need him for?”“Grace broke Robby. She wants a med student to cast her and he wants Whitaker.” It was the natural choice. Santos was too pushy, she would overstep a little and Robby would lose it. Javadi was too soft. She wouldn’t press hard enough and Robby would lose it. Whitaker was the Goldilocks of the three. He would set the arm, cast it properly, and not shake apart under Robby’s glare. Frank hoped, anyway. “No,” Evans made a face, “He’s the best one, what if Robby breaks him?”Frank shrugged, “Then he shouldn’t be here.” Although it was a different animal to break under a patient’s case than it was to break under collegial scrutiny. He caught sight of the intern leaving a bay and waved, “Whit. Here.” He leant to speak to Princess, “Can you set up five for a cast? A pink one.”Princess, who generally would have given him hell first, nodded and was gone to supply. Whitaker tossed his gloves and sanitized on his way across the corridor, “Yeah?”“You’re setting a bone, and casting it.” He drew up the x-ray and held the image out, “Think you can manage?” Evans’ frowned from across the counter. “Sure.” Dennis answered, “I haven’t done it before but just support and align right?” He didn’t mention that he had set bones on a handful of farm animals. He didn’t think it would inspire confidence. “Yeah, here’s the thing,” Langdon lowered his voice and leaned in, like he was sharing bad news, “This patient, Grace Summers, she’s a special case. Lots of history around here. Robby is gonna have both eyes on you the whole time, and he isn’t going to be nice about it.”Dennis frowned. In his experience, Robby had never not been nice. Or, maybe patient was the word? He didn’t hover, he didn’t yell, and he didn’t talk down to anyone. It was great. Nicer than his stint in OB where his attending had spent more time giving him hell than actually teaching. “I can handle it.” He said, because Langdon seemed to be waiting for an answer. He was sure he could. His dad hadn’t exactly been a gentle man, he hovered and yelled whenever Dennis didn’t manage a chore the way he wanted it done. It had given him a thick skin, and a drive to do things well. “Good. Let’s go.” Frank stalked back toward five where Princess had driven a cart of casting supplies. He flicked open the curtain, then shut it behind Dennis, “Grace, this is Dr. Whitaker.”“Hi Grace,” Dennis smiled at her. She was pretty, with grey-blue eyes and a mischievous kind of smile. He glanced at Robby. Immediately the difference was clear. He had both arms crossed over his chest and was wearing an expression that bordered on a scowl. The temperature in the bay felt several degrees colder than the rest of the Pitt. “Nice to meet you,” Grace answered. Her tone was surprisingly bright, “You ready to realign my bones?”“Absolutely,” he thought confidence might be the key with Robby staring a hole in the side of his head. He pulled a stool up from where it had been against the wall and sat, yanking on a pair of gloves. He went over the steps in his head as he took her arm gently and manipulated it in little movements. Grace made a hissing little ‘fff’ sound that might have been the start of a curse. “Stop.” Robby demanded. Dennis stopped. The order was icy. He was positive from the tone he’d done something wrong, and equally sure from his training that he hadn’t. “Why’re we stopping?” Grace asked. Dennis was pretty sure, and offered what he thought was the right explanation, “Because it’s going to hurt.”“Oh,” Grace nodded, “Yeah, that’s fine, I’m used to it. Go ahead.” Robby made a noise and Grace looked at him over Dennis’ shoulder, “What? We can’t not do it, so it is fine.”“Gracie,” Robby said. Dennis couldn’t see his face but his tone was weird . Langdon, who could see his face from the other side of the bed, shifted. “Robby,” Grace replied, and her tone was almost soothing, “Hold my hand or go away.”Dennis shot a look at Langdon, who didn’t return it. There was no way Robby was going to sit and hold a patient's hand. It was totally inappropriate. He waited for the sound of the curtain. Robby stepped past Dennis on his left and sat on the edge of the bed. He offered Grace his hand. Immediately she took it, “Great. Nobody judge me when I cry.”Dennis did his best to maintain a neutral expression. He was starting to suspect that Langdon had buried the lead on him. The patient didn’t just have history in the Pitt. She evidently had history with Robby in particular. “Ready?” He asked, taking a firm grasp of Grace’s swollen arm. “Yes.” Grace nodded and took a deep breath. She squeezed Robby’s hand. Dennis tried to ignore the frigid glare that was being directed at him. Langdon chewed his lip. With a hand on Grace’s, he pulled. He could feel the misaligned bone in his grasp shift and click into place. Grace didn’t make a sound, but tears sprang to her eyes and rolled down her face, “Good, all done.”Langdon moved around the bed to take her hand and prod at her wrist, he nodded approvingly. Dennis hadn’t been in the Pitt very long, but tears were a dozen a day occurrence at least. Patients, families, and the occasional staff member all contributed to the count. It was tough to see, but the senior staff were rarely moved by them. Robby generally responded with the same soft, neutral expression. Not to Grace’s tears, it turned out. He looked like someone had tried to carve out a piece of him, and he was doing his best to keep it under wraps. He reached up and wiped at her cheek with the sleeve of his hoodie. Dennis was floored. There really was only one explanation for that kind of response from Robby. But based on what he knew about the man-The curtain screeched open. Evans was already speaking rapidly, “Hit and run incoming, twelve year old patient, three minutes.”“Fuck,” Langdon ran for the ambulance bay. “Fuck-“ Robby was half a second slower, he stood and squeezed Grace’s hand again. To Dennis he said, “Cast it and find me when you’re done. I’ll be back,” the last to Grace and then he was off running too. Dennis was a little relieved at the order to stay where he was. Twelve was too young. If the patient couldn’t be stabilized- he didn’t want to think about it. He watched Evans shoot him and Grace one last lingering look, then she closed the curtain and was gone too. Grace chewed her lip. She scrubbed a sleeve covered hand over her face, “I hope the kid’s okay.”“Me too.” He agreed mildly. He picked up a handful of cotton backing, “How’d you break this?” He asked.“Slipped on some stairs.” Grace answered, “I didn’t hit my head, if that’s your next question.”He shook his head, frowning. He wasn’t sure why it would have been, there was nothing about her that suggested a concussion, and no physical evidence of her having hit her head. He pressed the cotton to her arm and turned her hand so her wrist faced up. He stalled. “It’s okay,” Grace said, her tone joking, “You’re going to get better at not making that face.” She gestured with a finger to his expression. Dennis tried to school his features, “I’m sorry.” He was glad that Robby was gone, positive that his slip would’ve gotten him banished from the bay. The gears in his head turned rapidly. History, Langdon had said. At least a little of it he had to assume was related to the white ridge of thick scar tissue on her wrist. It wasn’t long but it must have been deep, drawn downward in line with her ulna. Grace smiled at him. A little one that was less joking and more sad, “You better ask. Neither of those jokers did.” She tilted her head toward the curtain. Dennis licked his lip. In a low voice he asked, “Did you hurt yourself on purpose?” He had only been in the Pitt four shifts. Already he’d had two self-inflicted injuries. The scar on her wrist was a clear indicator that at one time, Grace had hurt herself too.“No. I did not,” Grace answered. Maybe he was too trusting, but he believed her. He set to work on her cast again with slow motions meant to keep from jostling her injury. He wasn’t sure if he should ask or not.“Do you have a question?”Dennis looked at her. She had her eyebrows raised and a little smile back on her lips, “How can you tell?”She gestured between her own eyebrows with a finger, “You have a line here. You can ask, I don’t mind.”He was a little afraid that if he asked and she didn’t like the question, he’d be dealing with Robby. But he needed to and she didn’t seem upset that he had asked the first one, “You hurt yourself before?”“Yes.” Grace watched him start layering plaster, “I had cancer.” Dennis thought that explained it, but she kept going, “In my second year of fighting it, things got really bad. I was so sick, but that was fine because I had my family.” She tapped the fingers of her free hand on her thigh, “Then my mom and brother got in an accident. They both died.”Dennis froze, both hands still on her half-formed cast, “I’m sorry.”“Thanks.” Grace clicked her tongue, “I missed the funeral because my lung collapsed. And then for a minute I forgot why I was bothering to try and stay alive. But-“ her phone buzzed on the blanket beside her and she reached for it, “Robby kept me from bleeding out, and I remembered life was worth living. Never hurt myself again.”Dennis stared as she picked up her phone and frowned at the text she’d gotten. Robby had kept her from bleeding out. Robby who had barely been able to watch her get a bone set. Dennis returned to his work, slowly adding layers until she had a functional cast. Grace carried on texting rapidly with one hand, her mouth slowly turning downward into a deep frown. “All done,” he said finally. Grace put down the phone and inspected her cast, “Nice. I love it. Wanna sign your work?” He laughed, “Maybe later. I better clean up and let Robby know you’re finished. Get you discharged.”“I wish,” she rolled her eyes, “I still need blood work and a head CT apparently.” At Dennis’ confused frown she said, “I know. I’m a waste of a perfectly good bed.”She was . Robby never wasted space or time. He knew their value too well. Apparently Grace was the exception, “I’m sure they’re just being cautious, given your history.” Whatever the hell that was. “Yeah, right.” She hitched her feet up on the bed to lounge against the pillow, “Thanks for your hard work Dr. Whitaker.”He gave her a smile and dragged the cart of supplies out through the curtain. He abandoned it against a wall to be cleared and went to meet Collins at the charge station, “Hey, Langdon’s broken arm in five?”Heather glanced at Whitaker sidelong, absorbing his concerned frown, “Grace Summers.”“You know her?” Whitaker spotted Santos lurking at a computer nearby and dropped his voice to almost a whisper. “Yes.” Heather had worked on Grace a half dozen times. She was lovely. Would have been a perfect patient if it weren’t for Robby, who made every one of her visits an anxiety ridden nightmare. “Why didn’t Langdon warn me her and Robby are together?” Heather’s eyebrows shot up, “They aren’t.”“What?” Whitaker furrowed his eyebrows and frowned, “Then- they were though, weren’t they?”“No.” Heather said firmly, “He was the doctor that diagnosed her case the first time she came in. They never dated.” But what did it say that Whitaker had spent five minutes in a room with the two of them a year after their last meeting and had been able to tell that there was something between them? Or at least something in Robby that spilled out all over whenever Grace was around. “But he-“ Whitaker half turned and pointed to the curtains that hid Grace. He turned back to Collins, “Really?”“He was her doctor.” Heather said firmly, “It wouldn’t have been ethical.” It wasn’t to mention that Robby had fifteen years on Grace. It wouldn’t have made a lesser man hesitate, but Heather couldn’t imagine it sitting well with him. “Look, I know. There’s obviously something there, but it’s nobody's business, so keep your mouth shut and do your job.”“I understand.” Whitaker mumbled. He didn’t move. “Job.” Heather prompted, “Now.”Whitaker jumped, then made a break for the computer to chart his work. Heather watched him go. Evans wandered over from the opposite end of the counter, “Took him about five minutes. Sharp kid.”“Dunno about that,” Heather muttered, “A blind man could see it.” She tapped her fingers on the counter in front of her. It had taken her a little while. Longer than Whitaker, but not as long as Langdon who had thought Robby’s foul attitude at the time was personal. A punishment for something he hadn’t realized he’d done. “You say that,” Evans remarked. She had her eyes pinned on the closed curtains across the corridor, “But I don’t know that Grace ever did.” Heather turned to stare, “What? There’s no way she didn’t.”Evans shrugged. Her tone was gentle, “She was sick, and then she was sick and grieving. She was a complete mess, she was just good at hiding it.”Heather knew that. It was how Grace had managed to slice open her wrist in the ER bathroom. Nobody had expected that she would ever do something so drastic when just a few minutes before, she had been telling Earl about the new shelter on Domingo. She had survived because Robby knew. Knew that something was wrong when she wasn’t where she was supposed to be. Heather tried to reign in her thoughts. She didn’t want to remember how awful it had been. She could still hear the yell. The way Grace had looked, tear-streaked and covered in blood. The way Robby had looked, paper-white and equally soaked, when she’d been carted off to the OR. “She has to know.” Heather asserted.Evans shook her head, “Grace never saw what we saw. And Robby never told her.”Heather chewed the information. Grace, from the second she had stepped into the Pitt four years before, had Robby tied in knots. Wrapped neatly around her finger and sure to do whatever it took to keep her healthy and happy. Then she was better, and discharged, and off to return to the life she’d had before she’d gotten sick. And Robby had just let her go, apparently. Not said a word, because it wouldn’t have been right in his eyes, despite not having been her doctor for years. It was the right thing to do, Heather thought. For him to let her go. Let himself get over her and move on.Except that he hadn’t. Not even a little bit. 1:43 There was blood on his hoodie. Right at the edge of his sleeve where over an hour before he’d wiped tears off of Gracie’s face. Robby had worked in the Pitt nearly his entire career. It wasn’t exactly accurate to say that he liked it. He was good at it. It was important. He knew that he could help people with his work. He also knew when a patient was as good as gone. He could recognize it in the first few minutes after they came through the door. He had known, the second he saw the kid on the gurney that he wasn’t going to make it. It didn’t stop them, never stopped them, from trying anyway. They pulled the kid back from the edge twice, and couldn’t manage it the third time. It hit the way it always did when the patient was a little too young, a horrible yawning despair that rose up and threatened to eat away his heart. He let it sit in him while they stood in silence in the trauma bay.King was crying, big silent tears rolled down her face. She had her lips clamped shut like she was fighting the urge to sob. It was tough to watch. The look on Langdon’s face was worse. The kid had looked, Robby thought, a little like Tanner. Not a lot, but they had the same mess of brown hair. It was enough to crack him open.It wasn’t any of their first experiences with a patient dying. It wasn’t even their first experience of the day. It was the worst. Worst of the day, worst of the week. Maybe worst for a while. Robby took a breath, “Alright. Everyone take a break.” He moved for the doors. Pressed a firm hand to Langdon’s shoulder on his way by, “Call home.” It was supposed to help, connecting with someone after a difficult case. Even if Langdon didn’t say what had happened, hearing the voice of his wife or his son would soothe a little of the ache. The little ‘what if’ that survived in one’s head after a patient died.Robby shoved through the door, King on his heels. He watched her dart toward the ambulance bay doors. He thought he should follow, check in and make sure she was okay, and didn’t think he could manage it right that second. Not when he wasn’t okay. He unzipped his hoodie instead and shucked it off. He found the nearest trash can and shoved it inside, positive that there would be no putting it back on, even if the blood washed out. He stared at the wall in front of him. There was a poster, something about handwashing, but he couldn’t read it properly. The hurt in his chest made his head swim weirdly. He knew what he wanted to do. He couldn’t. Shouldn’t. The fact that he’d had the thought at all, was entirely fucked . He licked his lip. His feet moved. Disconnected from his brain and the screeching knowledge that he fucking shouldn’t. How many lines did it cross? Any fewer if he kept his hands to himself? What if he kept his mouth shut? He stopped at the line of the curtain, his hand halfway up to grab it. Inappropriate, he thought. He was going to end up getting fired. But wouldn’t that solve the problem? He ducked through the curtain. Gracie was sitting against the pillows on the bed, her legs stretched in front of her. Her bright pink cast nearly matched her sweater. She had her arm up, resting on the top of her head, and the other hand wrapped around the cell-phone pressed to her ear, “I’m hearing you Joanne, but what I’m not hearing is a legitimate reason behind your sudden change in operating policy.”What did it say about him, Robby wondered, that the sight of her, the sound of her voice, soothed the horrible ache in his heart? Just a little. Just enough. Her voice was firm and even. There were no gasping breaths between her words, the way there used to be. She was still pale, but there were no near-black bruises under her eyes. She was okay. She wasn’t dying anymore.She was beautiful.Her eyes were on his face. She sat up straight and hiked up the leg closest to him, tucking it neatly against her opposite thigh, “Look Joanne, I have to go, but I will be calling back and I suggest you sort things out before I do.” She hit the screen with her thumb to end the call and dropped the phone beside her, “Hey. Are you okay?”“Yeah,” His throat felt dry, but the word came out fine, “Of course.”Gracie’s blue-grey eyes flicked across his face, then down to his chest, “You don’t have to lie.”Was he lying? He hadn’t been okay before he stepped through the curtain but he felt a little better with his eyes on her, “I’m fine. How’s your cast?”Gracie patted the bed in front of her leg and dropped the arm that was still hitched up on the top of her head, “Your boy did good work, look how pretty it is.”He knew. He fucking knew he shouldn’t do it. But he stepped forward and sat in front of her anyway, his hip nearly touching her shin. He reached up to catch the pink plaster and inspected it closely, “Good. How’s it feel?”“A little sore but I think I’m gonna make it.” She grinned at him, “Now if only I could convince my doctor I don’t need a head CT so I could go home.” She pulled her hand from his grip and pressed her partly-covered fingers to her opposite hand in an awkward prayer gesture, “Please?”Robby felt his mouth twitch into half a smile, “Too bad I’m not your doctor. Not my call.” Gracie let out a little ‘tsk’ and rolled her eyes, “Yeah, right. Everything that happens in this place is your call. You had Langer ordering bloodwork and he didn’t even know why.”“Iron deficient anemia can cause lightheadedness and fainting. Might make a person fall down a flight of stairs.” He answered. Langdon would know that, he just might not have known how cold Gracie’s hands were because he hadn’t been holding them.“I didn’t fall down a flight of stairs. I was on the second one from the bottom and I slipped. I landed on my arm, and probably bruised my butt, but I definitely didn’t faint, and I didn’t hit my head.” Gracie explained rapidly, “I take my vitamins everyday. I’m not anything deficient.” “Sure about that?” Robby asked lightly, “Cause your hands are frozen.”Gracie slapped both palms to her face, “They aren’t! See?” She reached out and pressed her fingers to his cheeks.Robby closed his eyes. His heart thumped painfully in his chest. Her hands on his skin, sliding across the stubble on his jaw, were freezing. It might’ve been unpleasant in a different circumstance but he felt strangely warm, her hands soothing a little more of the ugly thing in his stomach. It was beyond unprofessional, but he wanted her to keep her hands on him. Didn’t want to move ever again if it would take him out of her arms reach. Slowly he managed to open his eyes again. He reached up and caught her hands in his and removed them to the space between them, pressing them together in his left, “They’re freezing Gracie.” Before he could think to stop himself he reached up and slid his thumb across her cheek. One step forward and two steps back, “You can’t tell because the rest of you is freezing too.” Gracie blinked at him. Her mouth fell open. He realized his mistake and pulled his hand away, but it was too late. There was no taking the gesture back.He didn’t know what he expected her to say but her tone was curious when she muttered, “Am I? I honestly can’t tell most of the time. Guess I should’ve worn an extra layer.”“I’ll get you a blanket,” he looked at her hands, still in his. He knew he should let go and didn’t. “How about some lunch?” She suggested, “Think you can sneak away for twenty minutes?”Robby glanced at her. She had a grin back on her face and wiggled her eyebrows at him. He felt settled, “No,” he answered honestly, “I can’t remember the last time I made it out of here for lunch.”Gracie looked outraged, “Not even to the cafeteria? That’s ridiculous.”“That cafeteria food will kill you Gracie.” He slid his thumb over the back of her hand where plaster met skin. “Are you joking?” Her outrage grew, “Have you had the fries?”He had, “You know that fryer probably hasn’t been cleaned. Ever.”Gracie nodded, “That’s what makes them so fucking good!”“Oh my God,” he muttered, “How about I find you a salad? Something with some nutritional value, maybe?”“Absolutely not,” she twisted her hands and he let go, but instead of taking them back she turned them, palms out from each other so that she could grip his tightly, “I would rather fall down some more stairs.”“So you admit, you fell down the stairs.”“Your honor, I plead the fifth.” Her tone was laughing and it was enough to make him smile. He couldn’t be properly happy until he knew for sure that she had just slipped. That there was no little spot on her CT, and no malignant spikes in her blood work. But with her hands gripping his and the smile on her face, he got pretty close. He took a breath. He had a whole Emergency Department outside the safety of the curtain, full of other patients and heartsick doctors. As much as he wanted to stay, he knew he had to go, “I’ll have someone to get you some food okay? Will you please stay put?”“Are you honestly scared I’m gonna collapse in the hallway or something?” She asked. “No,” he shook his head minutely, “I just want to know where to find you.” “Okay,” she took a deep breath and let it whistle out past her lips, “I’ll stay put. I promise.”“Thank you.” He squeezed her hands one more time, and let go. He hauled himself off the bed and walked away. Out into the noise and the mess of the Pitt. He could see Langdon in an empty trauma bay, the door closed, one arm crossed over his chest and his phone pressed to his ear. He couldn’t see King. He shoved his hands in his pockets and went to the charge station, “Dana?”“Yeah?” Dana pulled her glasses down her nose and surveyed Robby over them. She always checked for signs of stress on him after a difficult loss, knew how to spot it even when he refused to open up. It was there, in the line of his shoulders, but not as badly as she had expected. Robby rubbed a hand over his jaw. He looked somewhere over her head at the board, “Can you see who’s on Gracie’s paperwork for an emergency contact?”Dana went cold. She pulled her glasses off entirely and set her hand beside her keyboard, “Why? She’s fine isn’t she? We can discharge her under her own power.”“Yeah,” Robby agreed quietly, “But she’s gonna be here awhile. Might be nice if someone could bring her some food. An extra sweater.”Dana’s heart ached. They didn’t need to call anyone but he wanted to, just to make sure she was taken care of. She didn’t want to be the one to tell him what the paperwork said, “I can find her something.”Robby frowned. His eyes flicked down from the board and landed on her, “You’re busy Dana.”“Not that busy,” she replied. Too fast. Robby straightened up. His hands left his pockets to grip the edge of the counter, “You already looked.”Dana fidgeted. “Yeah.” The two of them stared at each other. Dana and Robby had known each other, worked together, for a very long time. Robby knew her kids. And Dana knew, because he had told her, covered in blood and hardly able to breathe, that he loved Grace. “Right.” He broke their staring contest to look across the room, his eyes tracked King on her way toward the North end, “Call him.”“Call-“ “Yeah. Whoever the guy is. Call him.” Oh, Dana realized, Robby thought she didn’t want to say because Grace was seeing someone. That the name on the form was a man she was dating. It was so much worse than that, “I don’t have to.”Robby shifted, “Why not?”“He knows.”“He knows.” Robby repeated slowly. There was anger in his tone, low and simmering, “So where the fuck is he?”Dana thought it was a good thing there was no guy. She would have hated for Robby to get arrested when he punched the imaginary boyfriend for not being good enough. She wondered if that would be preferable to reality, “Right here.” Dana pointed at him. Robby stared at her hand. His eyebrows crashed together in confusion, “What are you talking about?”Reluctantly Dana opened her mouth, “It's your name. On her paperwork. She must’ve changed it after her last admittance.”Robby opened his mouth. Then shut it. After a long minute he asked, voice gritty, “Why would she do that?”“I dunno,” Dana answered. She fidgeted with the glasses in her hands, “Because you took care of her for years? Because she trusts you?“ Robby looked awful. Like the knowledge had pried something loose inside him and whatever it was hurt . Dana didn’t want him to get hurt anymore, but she thought the next bit deserved to be said, “Because you’d drop everything to make sure she got some lunch and an extra sweater?”Robby turned to fix his eyes on the curtain that surrounded central five, “But she- She knows-“ “We‘ve got an amputation incoming!” Collins shouted, darting by in the direction of the ambulance bay. Robby started. He took one step, then stopped. It was the most she had ever seen him hesitate. “Go. I’ll take care of Grace,” Dana promised. He took her word and moved, was gone to meet the trauma team and didn’t look back. She had lied. She was busy, but she couldn’t look at the thing on Robby’s face and not promise to take care of things. Not when there was a problem she could solve. She caught Matteo’s arm on her way to the lounge. He already had a sweater on and an AirPod in, “Hey, you goin’ for lunch at The Moose?”“Yeah,” he looked suspicious, like she was going to ask him to stay. She produced a bill instead, “Get me something with avocado on it?”Matteo took the bill with a confused look and a muttered, “Sure?” Then continued off down the hall. Dana carried on to the lounge. She fixed a cup of tea with the expensive bags labeled ‘Abbott’ in scrawled sharpie. He would be annoyed but that was okay. Then she grabbed a blanket from the warmer and made her way back across the Pitt to central five. Grace had turned herself upside down. Her sock feet were on top of the headboard and she had her phone held above her face. She twisted awkwardly to look at Dana and beamed, “Dana! How are you?” She hiked her feet up to sit properly. “Fantastic. How are you, sweetheart?”“Oh just peachy.” and she did seem well. Her eyes had lost the red tinge from crying and her smile was wide and genuine. Dana offered her the mug in her hand and said conspiratorially, “Brought you some of Abbott’s good tea.” “Thanks!” Grace took the mug and sniffed it, “Is he around? I haven’t seen him.”“No,” Thank God, Dana thought. If there was anything worse than Robby in the ER with Grace, it was Robby and Abbott fighting in the ER because of Grace, “He’s on nights.”Grace took a sip of her tea, “That’s too bad. I would’ve liked to say hi.”“Well hopefully you’re not here long enough to do it.” Dana shook out the blanket in her hand and wrapped it across Grace’s shoulders, “Your blood work get done?”Grace shrugged, “They took it. It was Bart, I swear that guy has never found a vein on the first try in his life.”Dana grimaced. Bart was notoriously not great, “Don’t tell Robby that.”“Right.” Grace set the mug on her knee and twisted her casted fingers in the edge of the blanket, “Dana?”“Yeah?” She could hear, distantly, someone calling her. She glanced at the curtain. “Why did I never notice?”It was Santos. Santos never called for anyone. She was too full of herself. There must have been a problem, “Notice what?”Grace met Dana’s eyes, “The way Robby acts. With me.” Dana’s stomach swooped toward her feet. It was nice, she thought distantly, to be proven right. She could tell Collins. Just as much as she hadn’t wanted to spill the beans to Robby, she didn’t want to give Grace an answer. But there was steel in the woman’s eyes. She opened her mouth, “You were sick. And he was better at hiding it.” Not by much, but enough to keep it out of Grace’s line of sight. Grace chewed her lip. There was something on her face, an emotion that Dana couldn’t quite make sense of. Santos called her name again, “I’ve got to run Grace.”“Yeah,” Grace gave her a little smile, “Nice seeing you. And thanks.”Dana shot one more look back at her and ducked through the curtain. Santos, it turned out, had lost a patient. Not lost as in they had died, but lost as in they had disappeared somewhere in the ER in the worlds worst game of hide and seek. Dana spent twenty minutes scouring the halls, and didn’t find the girl, who was only seven. Matteo came back and Dana didn’t want to waste time but also really didn’t want to get cornered by another question from Grace. She half-shouted across the Pitt instead, “Mel!”“Yes?” The woman swerved to meet her at the charge station. She seemed a little better than she had an hour before, but not a lot. The loss of the twelve-year-old had cracked her. Dana thought the errand might be good for her. She set the paper bag on the counter, “Deliver this to central five for me?” The phone rang and she picked it up, “Yeah? No we need a-“ Mel had a follow up question, but Evans was obviously busy so she didn’t ask it. She picked up the paper bag instead and started toward five. She had been having a pretty bad day. They had lost a patient. A young patient. She hadn’t been able to keep the tears in and now everyone would probably think she was incompetent. She slid past the curtain. The woman sitting on the edge of the bed was pretty. She had her legs stretched in front of her and a mug half full of tea in her hand. She glanced up from the phone on her thigh that she was swiping idly at, “Hey. You’re new.”Mel’s stomach lurched but the woman didn’t seem upset about it, “I’m Doctor King, Nurse Evans asked me to bring you this?” She held out the paper bag. The woman tilted her head and took it, “I’m Grace. Resident?” She flipped up the edges and looked in the bag, “Oh, nice!”It took Mel a second to realize she was being asked if she was a resident, “Yes. Second year.”“That’s cool. How are you liking emergency medicine?” “It’s good,” Mel answered automatically, “Interesting. I like helping people.” Grace nodded, “I think that means you’ll be good at it.” She pulled a paper package from the bag and unwrapped a sandwich, “Guac? Hell yeah. Dana is the best.” She glanced up, grinning, “I think I said the same thing about Collins earlier though so maybe don’t tell anyone.” “I won’t,” Mel replied. She tried to decide from the look of Grace, what she was waiting for. She had a cast and wasn’t hooked up to any monitors. Was she waiting for imaging still? Why?“What’s with the hubbub?” Grace gestured to the Pitt at large.“Um,” Mel wasn’t entirely sure she should answer but figured the information wasn’t privileged, “A little girl got lost? Her mom thinks she’s playing hide and seek.”Grace’s eyebrows shot up, “That’s not good.”“No, it’s not.”Grace chewed her lip, “Has anyone checked the alcove behind the vending machines?” Mel frowned, “What alcove?” “It’s over- shoot.” She gestured in the direction of the lobby, “I’d show you but Robby made me promise to stay put. The vending machines, like halfway to the lobby? They don’t fit properly into the wall and if you’re little you can crawl in behind them.”That was bizarre information. Why had Robby made this woman promise to stay put? And why did she know that a person could crawl behind the vending machines? She opened her mouth to ask, “Why-“Grace shook her head, “Please don’t ask. It wasn’t my finest moment.” She thought about it for a minute, “Although if Abbott ever gives you a hard time, you can ask him about it.”Mel hadn’t yet worked with Abbott. She had met him a handful of times. He always seemed grouchy, like he didn’t want to be in the building and any optimism that reached his ears caused him pain, “Thanks?” She gestured toward the Pitt, “I’m gonna go check it out.”“Good luck. If you don’t find her, come back. I’ll try and think of some more hiding spots.” Grace took a bite of her lunch. Mel nodded, her lips pressed together. She really didn’t understand why this patient would know her way around the Pitt well enough to be able to list hiding spots off hand. She supposed it didn’t really matter. She ducked out from behind the curtain. Santos was at the charge station talking to Robby. She looked closer to tears than Mel had ever seen and Robby looked tense. Irritated. Or maybe worried. She couldn’t quite tell and the expressions were close enough she didn’t think she’d be able to puzzle it out. She turned to head toward the cafeteria. The hallways were buzzing. It had only been thirty minutes but all of the nursing staff had been informed and were sweeping the rooms and the halls rapidly. It wouldn’t be much longer before the decision would have to be made to lock down the hospital so a proper search could be done. The girl was only seven, in the Pitt in the first place for a seizure disorder that could put her in active danger wherever she was hiding. There were two vending machines in the hall. The one on the left contained a few dozen kinds of chips and candy. The one on the right had soda and water. Mel thought it was nonsensical that they were in the building at all. It took her a second of intentional looking to notice the gap on the left side of the snack machine.Mel pulled her phone from her pocket and swiped the flashlight on before holding it up to the gap. The alcove was bigger than it had any right to be. She couldn’t really blame the girl for thinking it was a fun place to play.
3:08
“Mel.”The young woman turned and offered him a little smile. She diverted her course, tablet pressed to her chest, to meet him at the computer, “Yes?”“You doing alright?” Robby asked, voice low. “Yes. Totally.” Mel nodded, “I know I sort of lost my cool for a second, but I’ve got it under control I promise.”Robby frowned. He didn’t want her to think she was in trouble for crying. It was a natural response to what had been a horrible situation. She had even managed not to do it in front of any patients, or any family members. He was honestly a little impressed, “It’s alright, Mel. It’s okay to be affected by the things we see. It’s important to be able to shake it off and do the job, but we aren’t robots.”Mel nodded. She didn’t quite meet his eyes, “I understand.”Robby nodded slowly, but he didn’t think she did. He tapped a few keys then remarked, “Good work finding the kid, by the way. How’d you know where she was?”“Oh, Dr. Langdon’s broken arm?” Mel gestured toward central, “She told me to check behind the vending machines.” She pursed her lips for a second, “Kind of weird that she knew there was a space there. Has she worked here?”Robby blinked at Mel. Why had she been talking to Gracie? And why did Gracie know there was a space behind the vending machines? “No,” he managed to say, “She hasn’t.”“Huh,” Mel muttered. She glanced at her tablet, and then was off toward the south end. Robby didn’t look toward Gracie’s bed. He focused on the chart he was working on instead. Then he did a lap. He saw the parents of the seven-year-old girl who had gotten lost. Talked to the family of an elderly woman with dementia. Watched Santos diagnose a broken leg. Watched Collins inflate a collapsed lung. Got distracted three times by questions from nursing staff, and once by Earl who wanted a sandwich. He made it to the washroom, and actually got to use it. He avoided looking at central five, because if he looked he would be drawn toward it like an asteroid to the earth. He couldn’t help it. He was all caught up in Gracie’s gravity, doomed to be pulled closer and burned up on approach. Why the fuck had she made him her emergency contact?He hadn’t seen her in a year. Not since she was declared to be in remission and discharged from the fourth floor. She had met him in the lobby to say goodbye. She had cried when she said it. He was positive that he would never see her again. He might’ve understood it, if she didn’t have anyone else to put on the form, but she did. She had a father. They didn’t get along well, Gracie had spent a not-insignificant amount of time avoiding the man, even when she was trapped in the hospital, but he had visited. Put a significant effort into making sure Gracie got the best care she could. She had friends, too. A half dozen that had visited occasionally, and one that visited all the time. Her name was Max. She had red hair and a nose ring and visited every other evening that Robby recalled. It was Max that showed up at the ER to pick Gracie up on the rare occasion she’d been admitted but didn’t need to stay. Gracie could have put Max on the form. Her friend would have shown up for her if it was required, Robby was positive about that. But she had put his name. Why had she put his name?It was eating him up. He needed to know. But he couldn’t ask. What if he did and she told him? The conversation could go so wrong. He had been able to let Gracie go once, content that she was well and going home to live her life. He thought he could let her go again, but that it might just kill him if their second goodbye went sour. He chewed on the question. He couldn’t do it. Had to. It would tear him apart. But so would keeping it in. He was so anxious he thought he might just rattle apart.“What is wrong with you?” Collins asked, her expression concerned.Robby shook his head. He couldn’t answer. He ducked behind the desk, dug in a drawer for a piece of gum and shoved it in his mouth.Collins stared. She tapped one finger on the edge of the counter. Then she said slowly, “You know, I asked her once why she kept coming back.”“What’re you talking about?” Robby muttered. He surveyed the board. It was emptier than usual. Why was it that when he needed a distraction, everyone in the city suddenly remembered their knife safety skills?“Her place is on the corner of Redmayne and Fifth,” Collins said, “Equal distance between us and East Med.”The gum in his mouth might as well have been chalk. He clamped his teeth together and looked at Collins properly.“She could pick. Their Oncology Department blows ours out of the water for comfort, they got a total retrofit six years ago.” Collins tapped her finger some more. Then she said something really mean, “She said she liked knowing you were in the building.”Robby’s heart twisted painfully in his chest. What did that mean ? But Collins wasn’t going to tell him, she had already turned and was walking away toward the south end and a new case. He couldn’t stay where he was, he could feel the gravity growing behind his back like a black hole. He turned and made his way to five. He knew he would have to say something when he stepped through the curtain, and had no idea what it would be. He could feel the words all tangled together somewhere behind his ribs, ready to spill out all at once and he wouldn’t know what the message was until they were out. He took a huge breath and ducked through the curtain. The words fizzled away and left him empty. Gracie was lying on her side under a blanket. Her casted hand was tucked under her chin. Her hair was half across her face. Despite the noise of the Pitt, she was asleep. Maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised, she used to sleep in the Pitt all the time, but she had been sick and on half a dozen different medications. He didn’t understand how she could still do it. He crossed the floor slowly and sank onto the stool beside her bed. It wasn’t the first time he sat near her, just for the sake of being close. It was one of the worst. What would she think, he wondered, if she woke up and found him there?“They find that kid?” Her voice was low and gravely from sleep and she didn’t open her eyes. His heart lurched uncomfortably, “Yeah.” He kept his voice just as quiet, “Right where you said she’d be.” Gracie made a pleased little humming sound that reverberated through his ribs, “How’d you know?”“I used to play hide and seek with Fischer,” Gracie answered, “But only at night.”Robby remembered Fischer. He’d been eleven or twelve and had a particularly nasty heart defect. He was often in the ER for lack of oxygen in one way or another because his heart didn’t pump blood correctly. He’d had a transplant, years ago, and Robby hadn’t seen him since. “Abbott hated it,” Gracie muttered. Robby huffed a laugh. Abbott had hated a lot of things during the three years Gracie was sick. Mostly that Robby had been too fucking involved. Abbott knew exactly what Robby was doing, they’d had a dozen screaming matches about it in the stairwell, Abbott telling Robby he was dangerously over the line of what was appropriate and that he needed to step back. Robby insisting that he had never crossed an ethical boundary. He’d lied through his teeth of course, and Abbott had known, but he never reported it. Robby had hated every night that Gracie spent in the ED. There was no excuse for him to stay so he would go home, eat whatever was in his fridge despite it tasting like sawdust, and lie in bed staring at the ceiling until it was morning and he could go back.“Why’d you put me on your paperwork Gracie?” He almost choked on her name. He hadn’t meant to ask, it just slipped out. “What paperwork?” Her eyebrows scrunched together but she didn’t open her eyes. Robby couldn’t open his mouth and answer her. She didn’t remember. She must’ve done it half-stoned on painkillers and then forgotten. It didn’t mean anything at all. It felt like a knife was carving up through his ribs. “Oh, my contact thing?” Her casted hand slid up and she rubbed her eyes, “When I was sick you made me feel better.”The blade stopped carving, “I’m a doctor Gracie. That’s my job.”“Not like that ,” Gracie said, like he was being absurd. She dropped her hand and fixed him with her blue-grey eyes, “Like when you’re a kid and no matter what’s wrong, a hug from your mom makes it better.” She blinked, then her cheeks turned red, “Wow, what a super weird thing to say. What I meant is that I liked having you around. I do, still. Like having you around.” Robby stared. The blush on her face stood out, pretty and warm against the pale white of her skin. The anxiety in his chest fell away and was replaced with a ballooning warmth. He was sure when it burst, the pain would kill him. “Sorry, am I making this worse?” Gracie asked. “No,” he shook his head slowly. “I probably should have given you a heads up. Can you imagine if you were out on a date or something and got a call from the ER to pick up some girl?” She shoved up to sit with her good hand. Her tone was joking but she didn’t quite look at him. “Wouldn’t be a problem,” he muttered. “No? You only date extremely understanding people?” Gracie grinned at him. It felt like he was confessing something, “I don’t date.” It was true, he hadn’t been on a date in years. Not since his last relationship had fallen apart with a series of truly spectacular dramatics. He’d learned his lesson. People liked to say they understood his job was demanding but they didn’t really. They swore up and down they could handle it, the hours and the fatigue and the depression, but they couldn’t. Not for any significant length of time, that had been proven.Gracie frowned. She chewed her lip briefly, “Is that like, a rule?” It was like being struck by lightning. It cracked through him and left sparks in his fingertips. He opened his mouth to answer-The curtain slid open. Frank wished he could turn back the clock about thirty seconds, and fucking not. He should’ve walked right on by and checked on his pencil-guy instead. But it was too fucking late, despite the look on Robby’s face like he wanted Frank dead. He held up the tablet in his hand, “Got your labs Grace.”The expression on Robby’s face changed. His eyebrows crashed together and his frown stayed but he pulled his glasses from his pocket and held out his hand. Frank slapped the tablet into it.Grace rolled her eyes, “What’s the verdict Langer?”“All your labs from Ortner are clear-”“Told you.” Grace said, fixing him with a stern look.“And no negative indicators or deficiencies in your blood work.”“Told you!” Grace burst, shoving an accusing finger toward Robby’s face.Robby caught the offending digit with his free hand and swiped at the tablet in the other with his thumb, “Must be a circulation problem. You should order-”“No.” Grace said flatly, “I will seriously walk if you order anything else.”Frank nodded, “That seems fair. Shouldn’t be long on the CT now.” Robby shot him an acidic look, “Follow up with Ortner about the circulation thing?”“Oh!” Grace beamed, “Good compromise, Langer. I’ll do that. Look, I’ll put a reminder in my phone right now,” she picked up her phone, then put it down, “Nevermind, it’s super dead. Anyone got a pen?”Still frowning, Robby released her hand and fished in his pocket for a felt-tip. He offered it to her. Instead of taking it, Grace pulled her sleeve back from her cast and held it out. Robby sighed, then pulled the cap and scrawled across the bright pink plaster. Grace let him finish, then angled her arm awkwardly to read his writing, “Wow. Terrible penmanship. We better hope I don’t forget what this is supposed to say because there is no way-”There was a crash and a shriek, then Santos and Whitaker were both yelling for help. Any of those things together would have been motivating, but all four together had Frank off like a shot, Robby at his heels. 5:16 Samira had a bone to pick . Slow-mo they called her, when they thought she couldn’t hear. The name followed her around the ER as she worked up patients and typed up charts. Nearly every day she had to listen to Robby lecture her on how many patients she had seen and how many more she should be managing. She had to hear endlessly about timeliness and turning over beds and taking brief histories. And yet, fucking Langdon had kept a bed the entire day for a broken arm. She had watched him and Robby roll through central five a half dozen times, but the diagnostic on the board hadn’t changed. What the hell kind of history was he taking, she wondered, that he had spent what seemed like half his day on one patient? And why wasn’t Robby giving him shit for it?Was it just her that Robby had a problem with? What had she done to earn his attention? Samira slapped her hands down on the counter beside Langdon’s computer. He started and glanced at her sideways. His eyes flicked from her scowl to her hands and back, “Mohan. What’s up?”There was no point in beating around the bush, “What’s going on with your broken arm in five?” Langdon stopped typing. He turned to look at her properly, his lips pressed into a thin line, “What are you asking me?”“A broken bone doesn’t necessitate a bed for the entire day, so why is Robby giving me hell about expediency and letting you take up hospital resources for something that should take an hour?”Langdon stared at her. He gave a tiny shake of his head, “Don’t ask me that.”“Why not?” Her outrage ballooned“You’re gonna jinx it.” Langdon hissed. He glanced over his shoulder like he was expecting to be set upon by some kind of monster. “Jinx what?” She snarled. “Dr. Mohan,” Collins drew up beside them, her tone low and commanding, “What seems to be the problem?”“I was just wondering,” Samira announced loudly. She ignored the rapid shake of Langdon’s head, “Why Langdon has been taking up a bed the entire day for a broken arm."Langdon threw up his hands. Collins made a strangled shushing noise, “Stop! You’re going to jinx it!”“Jinx what ?”For the second time that day, Frank marveled at the universe’s timing. The man in the suit strode directly through the doors, Gloria hot on his heels, and yelled, “Where is my daughter?”“Fuuuuck,” Frank muttered, “You jinxed it.”Declan Summers had to be pushing seventy, but had traded either money or his soul for a surprisingly sturdy (if short) frame, and a voice that could cut through all the noise of the ER and stop everyone in their tracks. A little because of the sheer gravitas in his accented voice, and a little because they were all terrified if they didn’t jump at it he would fire them. The staff in the Pitt did their best to take care of Grace because of Robby. The rest of the hospital did it, because Declan Summers owned forty-three percent of the building. There was a barely audible flurry of something in what might’ve been Swedish, though Frank had never asked, and the curtain to five rattled open, “Dad, what the hell?”The man strode across the Pitt, scrambling a handful of nurses and one patient, “My child is admitted and left in this hole to rot?” He snarled, “Where is-“ he snapped his fingers. “Robinavitch,” Gloria supplied. She looked nervous. Frank would have bet money Declan Summers knew Robby’s name. He shot a nervous glance toward Dana, who was already darting out from the charge station. It would be extremely bad, if Robby was in the room with the old man. “Robinavitch, joke of a department, should be fired , and you should be upstairs-“ he was muttering angrily but the words carried across the entire Pitt. ”Stop,” Grace said, and her voice was nothing like the laughing rapid tone she usually used. It was all ice and gravitas like her father’s. The man did stop, briefly, and it was enough for Grace to let out a violent tirade in- Icelandic? Frank wasn’t great at languages. “Grace Maria-“ the man tried to cut in. Grace waved her casted arm and kept talking. Her volume rose, and so did the speed of her words. “Like fucking Beetlejuice,” Collins hissed under her breath. Declan tried to interject with his own flurry of- Welsh? But Grace switched to English, seemingly mid-sentence, to say, “if you do not leave right now, I swear on my mother’s grave.” She looked extremely serious. “Mr. Summers.”“Fuuuuuck,” Frank hissed. He watched Robby stalk down the corridor, Dana on his heels looking panicked. “You heard my patient. I’m afraid if you don’t leave I’ll need to have security remove you.” Robby set his feet in front of Declan and stared him down. Collins made an alarmed noise. Frank marveled at the sheer fucking balls Robby had, to threaten to eject a part-owner of the hospital he worked in. “Robinavitch,” Declan snarled, “I think I’ll have you fired-“ Dana squeaked. Both hands shot up to cover her mouth. “How did you know I was here, Dad?” Grace asked loudly. “They called,” the old man spat. “No they didn’t.” Grace crossed her arms over her chest, “Because you aren’t on my emergency paperwork. So how did you know I was here?”The old man turned very slowly to look at her. “Surely, my right to medical confidentiality was not breached by someone in your hospital,” her eyes flicked over his shoulder to Gloria, who flinched, “Because that would give me grounds to sue. Let me see, based on the documentation filed during your divorce, I’ll bet I can make a hell of a claim. What percentage of the hospital do you think you’ll have to sell to pay for it? Market value- old facilities, awful Press-ganey, I’m thinking thirty-two?”Declan looked like he’d been slapped. Grace raised her eyebrows, “How’s that for quick math? You wanna find out?”Lowly the man let out a stream of- Turkish? “Then call me. Do not do this.” Grace replied, “Go.”Very slowly, the man bent. He muttered a handful more words, then turned and disappeared toward the elevators. The whole department seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Robby took two steps to touch Grace’s arm. He said something, then Dana had a leading hand on Grace’s shoulder and steered her off. Frank slapped both hands over his face, “I can’t believe you did that!” He groaned. “What the hell just happened?” Mohan asked. “That man owns half the hospital,” Collins explained rapidly, “If he finds his kid in the Pitt at all, much less in the hall in a chair , he threatens to shut down the whole department. It’s a miracle we’re still open with the way Robby argues with him-““Collins!” Javadi shouted, scrambling down the hall from the north end. Collins frowned and took off to meet her. 6:12 “Grace!” Frank yanked back the curtain to central five. Grace was lying face up on the bed, frowning at the roof. She lifted her head to look at him, “What up, Langer?”He hefted the tablet in his hand, “Your CT’s clear!” Grace shot up, “Are you joking?”“You’re going home!”“Thank God!” She shot off the bed and shoved her dead phone in her hoodie pocket, “I need out of here, the shame of my father’s tantrum is genuinely killing me.”“It’s not your fault he’s nuts,” Frank said. “No, but unfortunately I am the catalyst.” Grace followed him out of the bay and toward the discharge desk, “Where’s Robby?”Frank waved his hand, “Double trauma. He’s gonna be a while.” He stopped and opened his mouth, then shut it. He took two steps, then stopped again. Grace nearly ran into his back, “What’re you doing?”Frank chewed the question, “Do you- uh- want to wait for him?”“What?” Grace asked. She blinked at him, “No, I want out of this building.”Something squeezed uncomfortably behind Frank’s ribs, “Right. Sure. Let’s get you out of here.” He set his feet toward discharge and Grace followed. He knew she knew where it was, and was more than capable of doing the paperwork herself, but he lingered anyway. He half watched her scribble on her forms, and half watched the door to the Pitt. Robby didn’t appear in the doorway, and Frank's heart sank. “I gave you a ten,” Grace murmured in mock conspiracy. Frank grinned, “Thanks Grace. It was good to see you.”“You too Langer. Maybe next time I won’t need medical attention at all,” she wiggled her eyebrows at him. “I hope so.”One step at a time, she backed toward the door, “Tell everyone I say bye,” she waved, “And get a dog walker!”He huffed in exasperation, “Alright,” he agreed. Grace shot him one last huge grin, and was gone out the door. Frank stood where he was for a long minute. Then he set his feet back to the Pitt. He checked on his pencil guy, his bowel obstruction, and his degloved finger. He set his elbows on the charge station and sipped his Red Bull. “Where’s Gracie?” Frank flinched. He didn’t want to have to look Robby in the face and tell him, but delivering hard to hear news was part of the job, “Discharged.” Frank swiped at the tablet he had kept handy and slid it down the counter toward Robby, “CT was clear.”Robby looked down at the tablet, but didn’t pick it up to inspect the image. His face was blank. “How long?”“Half hour,” Frank answered. He felt like shit. Like somehow Grace leaving was his fault, and not an expected outcome. It was a good thing . Robby nodded once, turned, and walked away. 7:04 “The fuck’s eating you?” Robby scowled at the computer screen in front of him, “Nothing.”Abbott raised his eyebrows. He fixed Robby with an equally unimpressed expression, “Sure. Look like you could use some air.”It was a thinly veiled suggestion that he looked ready to walk off the hospital roof. He scowled harder, “Fuck off.”“Huh,” Abbott muttered. “-the man apparently owns like half the hospital-“ Santos was saying rapidly to one of the night residents as they both darted past the desk. Abbott shot a look at Santos, then swiveled to pin Robby with a scorching expression. Robby slammed both hands on the counter and stood, “Don’t.”“Declan Summers was down here?” He hissed. “No.” Robby replied. He scooped his pack off the floor and hooked it over his shoulder before ducking the desk and starting toward the exit. “Grace Summers down here too?” Abbott stalked after him. “Fuck off, Abbott.”“Jesus Christ,” Abbott snarled, “Can’t help yourself, can you? What was it this time? Something that’ll have her back every-““Fucking don’t!” Robby snarled. He turned and caught a handful of Abbott’s hoodie. For a second they stood locked in a horrible limbo, where they might start fighting or might not, before Robby shrank. He let go, “She slipped. Broke her arm. We ran some tests and then she left.”“Just like that?” If it bothered him to have nearly been decked, Abbott didn’t show it. “Yeah.”“And you just let her go?” “Yes.”“Christ, Robby,” he muttered, “Why?”“What do you mean, why?” Robby shot, “What else am I supposed to do?”“How about tell her .” Abbott griped. Something huge and ugly, the same thing that had been sitting in his chest for almost an hour cutting idly away at his heart, swelled up and threatened to choke him, “Tell her what ?”“That you’re in love with her!” Abbott cried, “That you never said it so that you could take care of her! That you were a walking goddamn disaster every time she was admitted!”Robby let the words hit him. They were all true, each one digging into his skin like a thorn. He could’ve given his friend all the usual excuses. He had been her doctor. He was too old. Too busy. Too stuck. That it wasn’t fair. He couldn’t expect her to deal with his job and she wouldn’t be able to anyway. He said instead, “Doesn’t matter. She didn’t say goodbye.” The last caught in his throat and came out strangled. Abbott’s face twisted up. Robby thought he looked sad. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he muttered, and turned to flee the building. Abbott didn’t follow. Robby hit the sidewalk and sucked back the relatively fresh air of the city. He could hear sirens approaching distantly over the sound of traffic. His body responded automatically to the noise and he took another breath to dispel the spike of adrenaline.He wasn’t sure he could name the feeling in his chest, but it was awful. He wanted to go home, crawl into bed, and- not die but sleep at least a few days, until the sting was gone. How long had it taken the last time he’d had to say goodbye? Weeks at least. And there had been a goodbye to say. “Robby!”He was hearing things. Very slowly, he turned his head.Gracie stepped around a man vaping on the sidewalk. She scrunched up her nose and tossed the coffee cup in her good hand into an open trash can. Then she smiled at him. It was like the sun splitting through the clouds and shining right down on his shoulders. She drew up in front of him and shoved both hands awkwardly in her hoodie pocket, “You’re on time today, that never happens. Good thing I have a chronic fear of being late, I would’ve missed you.”“Gracie?” He asked dumbly. “Yeah?” She replied. She tilted her head and her grin faltered a little, “What? What’s wrong?”He wanted to reach for her and didn’t. He’d been doing a terrible job of holding back all day, but there were no more excuses for doing it. She was fine. She’d been discharged, “I thought you left,” The statement left his mouth low and gravely.“Oh I did,” Gracie turned and gestured down the street, “I was supposed to have a meeting at the bank today so I had to call my investment guy, and then I had to follow up with the shelter for Earl,” she snapped her fingers, “Got that sorted. Be impressed with me, I didn’t have to go in or throw money at it.”He nodded numbly, “I’m very impressed.” He was, a little, but mostly he was confused, “Why did you come back?”Gracie pulled her casted hand from her pocket and tucked her hair behind her ear. She half-turned to look toward the hospital. Her cheeks were pink, “To see if you wanted to get some food. Since you couldn’t sneak off earlier.”Robby stared. His hand fell from the strap at his shoulder to his side. He opened his mouth to say no. That it wasn’t appropriate. That she should go home and rest. What came out instead was, “I’ve got to go home and change first.”Gracie beamed, “Oh my God, I’ve never seen you not in scrubs. Do you own other clothes?”“Yeah, I do. Whole closet full.” He gestured vaguely north, “I’m a few blocks that way.”Gracie followed the gesture, turning to match his pace as he started down the sidewalk, “You live that close?”He nodded, “It’s convenient after long shifts. No contending with traffic.”“Huh,” She tucked her casted hand back in her pocket with some difficulty, “When I worked at this big firm in Philly I couldn’t get far enough away in my off hours. You must like your job.”Hadn’t he just been pondering the statement that morning? “I dunno.” Gracie turned to look at him and he stuck out his hand automatically to guide her toward the blinking crosswalk light, “I like that it helps people.” She hummed. If she was bothered by his hand on her back he couldn’t tell, “You lived in Philadelphia?”“Yeah. For like, five minutes.” She did a little hop onto the curb and his hand fell away, “I passed the bar and got on at this big firm, mostly contracts for financial companies. It was basically the devil’s work. Everyone was so full of themselves and every job was about squeezing the last dime out of somebody. I hated it. I quit after four months and moved back home.”Robby stared at her. His hand tingled where he’d touched her and he shoved it in the pocket of his pants, “How’d I never hear that you’re a lawyer?” He’d thought he had talked to Gracie about pretty much everything. As far as he’d known, when she wasn’t sick she coordinated social programming around the city through a non-profit her mother had started, funded partly by a ridiculous trust from her late grandfather. She hummed, “I don’t really practice anymore. I mean, I do when the Z-O needs me to, or when I need to lean on someone, but it’s not my focus.” She reached out and looped her hand through the crook of his elbow to grip his bicep, “I also like when my work helps people.”Electricity zinged up through his arm and into his chest cavity. His heart beat hard in reply. Gracie didn’t reach for him often. It had always been him crossing that line, taking her hand or wrapping his arms around her, the handful of times it had happened. It had always been awful, the contact a pathetic attempt to comfort her when everything was falling apart. Her hand on his arm was different. It wasn’t sadness or grief tangling up in his ribs and making him ache.What the fuck was he doing? Crossing a line, definitely. One didn’t get dinner with patients. Or former patients. Didn’t get a hand on their arm and wish it would never go away. Didn’t pine after women too young for them, who until recently had been dying . But he was. Didn’t seem to be able to help himself. He lifted his hand and slid his thumb across the back of hers, “That way.”Gracie followed his direction and turned left around the corner of an office building, “Okay, in your opinion, what is the best restaurant nearby?” She looked across the street at the line of businesses, their signs glowing in the failing light of the evening. He followed her eyes and didn’t lower his hand, “Didn’t you rank them all?” There had been a time when she was admitted to the hospital when twice a day she had ordered from a new restaurant and catalogued them. He’d listened to her reviews when he made it up the elevator from the Pitt and been eaten alive by concern when he saw how little of it she was actually eating. “Yeah, but a lot changes in a year. And just because I like something doesn’t mean anyone else does.” She looked up at him, “What’s your favourite thing to order in?”“Pizza.” He answered. He didn’t do it a lot, but there was a place around the corner from his apartment that was borderline disgustingly greasy and it was his guilty pleasure.“Classic,” Gracie replied, “And where’s your favourite place to eat out?”He did that even less. He didn’t have many people he’d call friends and saw the ones he had very little. He didn’t see a point in going out to eat by himself, “Don’t have one.”“Really?” Gracie squinted up at him, “That’s a shame. I’ve got a whole list.”“Go out a lot, do you?” The next words coughed up out of his mouth before he could stop them, “Hot dates?”“Definitely not,” She laughed, “Nobody wants to date a woman with this much baggage.”His eyebrows crashed together, “What?” He couldn’t imagine anyone being dumb enough to say no to Gracie if she asked them out. “Robby,” Her tone was joking. She pulled her hand from his arm and counted on her fingers, “Asshole dad, dead mom, dead brother, bunch of scars, no uterus, and a non-zero chance that I develop some fun new tumors.” She raised her eyebrows at him, “I’m not exactly a sound romantic investment.”He knew about all of that. He caught her hand out of the air and squeezed it, “I don’t see how any of that is relevant.”She smiled at him, “Well that’s sweet, but I can assure you, it scares people right off. That’s fine though, I can take myself for dinner. I’m independently wealthy and have no issues with eating alone.”He clicked his tongue. He had issues with her eating alone. And with the idea that people would be put off by her history. Gracie deserved to be with someone nice. Someone who would take care of her because she didn’t have the family to do it, “What’s your favourite place to eat then?”“Bellessa,” She answered immediately, she gestured off down a side street with her cast, “It’s this semi-Italian place? They’ve got a big crazy pizza oven in the middle of the place. I wouldn’t call it fancy, but it is really nice.”He tried to redirect his thoughts to something that wasn’t Gracie’s dating life, “How’s the pizza?” “Unreal.” She said seriously, “So good. We should definitely go there, it’ll blow your mind. I mean, it’s not the same as ordering delivery and having a greasy, cheesy mess, that’s its own kind of excellent, but it is delicious.” Robby listened to her as they chewed up the sidewalk toward his apartment. The sun was halfway set, casting the street in a warm pink glow that would soon be gone and replaced with dull streetlights and restaurant neon. It was cool without his hoodie, but the summer wasn’t quite done and Gracie’s hand in his was warm. He glanced down. He’d grabbed her hand, he knew that, but he hadn’t realized he’d forgotten to let go. She had turned hers to twine her fingers with his and somehow it had escaped his notice entirely. It felt so natural to have it there. He stopped walking. Gracie took one more step then stopped and swiveled to face him. She glanced at the brick building beside them, seemingly unbothered by their hands floating in the space between them, and unaware of the rapidly spiralling thoughts in his brain, “Is this you? Nice looking building.”It was a nice building. It was newish. He had a beautiful kitchen he couldn’t do justice and a shower that could fit five people, “Gracie.”“Yeah?” She met his eyes.Hers were so pretty. Sometimes he thought he could tell what she was feeling from the colour of them. Whether they looked more blue or grey, “We can’t do this.” She tilted her head, “Do what?”“Whatever this is,” he squeezed her hand gently.“Huh,” Gracie took half a step closer and his heart lurched at her proximity, a dozen or so inches separated them. Less than was appropriate and more than he wanted. Her voice was quiet, almost a whisper, “What do you think it is?”He didn’t have the breath to speculate, “Gracie,” he begged instead.“Okay, fine.” She lifted her casted hand and set her fingers on his chest, right over his heart, “Why not?”He could think of a hundred reasons, “I’ve been your doctor.”“That is true.” Gracie nodded, “But it’s been a long time. I think we’ve run out the statute on that one, don’t you think?”“Today-”“Today you were not my doctor.” She grinned at him, “I seem to recall you saying that several times.” His heart twisted up in his chest. He had said as much. He didn’t know how to tell her the truth, “I always checked your chart. I couldn’t help myself. I can’t-” He stalled. Gracie shrugged, “I would’ve told you anyway.” She looked down at his hand, “Is that the only thing stopping you?”Slowly he shook his head, “I’m too old for you.”She grinned but didn’t look at him, “I don’t care.”“My job-”“I know all about your job.” Her fingers curled in his shirt. She gripped the fabric, her fingers trailing against his skin and leaving sparks behind. His mouth was dry. He ran his tongue across his lip in a poor attempt to correct it, “I want to take care of you Gracie.” There it was. The thing he hadn’t admitted out loud. The reason he’d never let himself see her outside of the hospital. Because if he did, he wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near her case if she was ever sick again. She bit her lip. Her eyes flicked up, “Okay. Do that then.”He knew what happened when a patient’s heart stopped. This wasn’t that. But it felt pretty close. Robby was good at setting boundaries. His professional and personal lives were as separate as he could make them. But he had never managed to set a proper boundary with her. She was too special. She had carved out a piece of him somehow and taken it with her and he’d never been able to fill the space. He dropped her hand and sank both of his into the short strands of her hair. It was only a step closer but it felt like crossing a mile. He pressed tight against her, her thighs, hips, stomach against his, and bent to kiss her. The kiss was open-mouthed and desperate. Her lips were soft, the air she breathed into his lungs warm and sweet. He felt it in his entire body, gentle sparks and heat that he hadn’t known in years. He hadn’t realized how badly he had craved it until it was back, dancing under her fingertips where she pulled at his shirt. He licked across her lip and she responded with a sigh and the glide of her tongue, and he was sure he’d never known anything half as lovely. Reluctantly he broke away, just enough to haul in the air that had abandoned him. He pressed his forehead to hers and didn’t let go, couldn’t risk her pulling away. Gracie smiled. She reached up and gripped his wrist with her free hand, “I knew you liked me, Robby.”“Michael,” he replied, automatically.“Michael,” she amended, and bridged the gap between them to press another kiss to his lips.
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6:38It was almost the end of his shift. So close he could taste it. And in rare form, the ED hadn’t given him a completely miserable lineup of lost causes. He was going to make it, without disaster, to shift change. He was going to go home, and go to sleep, and have no new nightmares about things that he couldn’t change.Except- maybe he was going to get screwed just a little.“No!” Jack pointed a harsh finger at the junior resident leading Grace across the floor of the ED. The young man jumped and opened his mouth to supply an explanation, “That’s my patient. Get lost.”Grace raised her eyebrows and watched the resident skitter away across the linoleum, “Good gravy, Abbott. That was mean. You have a rough night?”He hadn’t, but he thought he was about to. He glanced at his watch. He had twenty-one minutes to get Grace out, if Robby was going to be exactly on time, which he never was. There was no way in hell he could manage it. He gestured her toward the open curtain of south four, “No. What brings you in, Grace?”Grace sat on the edge of the bed and hitched both legs up, crossing them in front of her. She yanked up the sleeve of her sweater, exposing a bright pink cast, “It’s time to chop my cast off.”Jack squinted at her, “At six in the morning?”“Well I got here at four, but the x-rays took a while.” She tilted her head and grinned at him.“Four.” Jack repeated.“Yes.” Grace nodded.“And why are you getting a cast removed at four in the morning?” He felt like he was putting his hand in some sort of trap. Like it would snap shut any second and crush his bones.Grace clicked her tongue. Quietly she answered, “Because Robby can’t be here when I do.”There it was. Something dark churned up in his stomach. Grace had never once been bothered by Robby’s hanging around. He wasn’t sure if she’d noticed his crossing boundaries all over, but Jack had. They used to fight about it all the time. If she didn’t want Robby to see her, something had happened. He wasn’t sure what the result would be, if he didn’t have her out of the ED in the eighteen minutes before Robby saw her.“Alright.” He replied, “Give me a minute.” He backed out of the bay and flicked the curtain shut.Jack thought hard, even as he found a tablet to pull up her x-rays and directed a nurse to find him a cast spreader. The bones in Grace’s arm looked good. They’d healed well, despite her history of struggling to heal at all. It would take him three minutes to get her cast off and then she could go, and if Robby was late, they’d avoid whatever mess it was that was trying to derail his day at the final hour.But what exactly was the mess?Robby hadn’t told her. Weeks ago when she’d broken her arm, he’d been tied in knots when he left because she’d been discharged and not said goodbye. Was that it? Grace had finally seen just how desperate the man was for her and not returned the feeling? Had she left to let him down and now was trying to keep from bringing the feeling back up? Jack frowned as he strode back to south four. If she was trying to avoid Robby to spare his feelings, she was doing a shit job. She should’ve gone to East Med.He shoved past the curtain, “X-ray’s good.” He reached for a pair of gloves and yanked them on. He kicked the stool out from the wall and sat, then hefted the spreader on the tray, “Let’s get that cast off.”Grace raised her eyebrows, “In a big hurry, Abbott?” She lifted her arm and offered it to him.Jack knocked the rolling tray with his foot so that it slid under her cast and she took the hint to set her arm on the surface, “Six forty-eight,” he supplied as an answer.“Damn.” Grace replied, “I guess I should’ve come in at three.”Jack paused, the blade at the edge of her cast, “Grace. That’s insane.” He fixed her with a hard look, “If you’re avoiding him, why didn’t you go to East Med?”Grace scrunched her nose, “It’s sort of a delicate situation, you know?”Jack didn’t. He stared at her. He was aware, vaguely, of the clock counting down.“I obviously can’t come in here during the day when he’s working. There’s no way he could handle someone else doing it.” She gestured to the cast with her off hand.Jack nodded. That was true. He’d spoken, however briefly, to Langdon after Grace was in last. Robby had effectively micro-managed the entire case. He’d demanded labs that were almost certainly unnecessary, scared both of his med students, barked orders at his residents, and threatened to have a part-owner of the hospital removed by security. There was no way in hell she could come in, even for something as easy as an x-ray and cast removal, and expect him to mind his own business. Even if it was what was best for him.“But I also can’t go to East Med.” Grace remarked seriously.“Why not?” He asked. As far as he knew, East Med was fine. They had better patient satisfaction scores than PTMH, and probably halfway competent staff. She didn’t need a transplant, any idiot with a saw could cut off a cast.“Because,” Grace started, like it should have been obvious, “He’d never trust that my x-ray was clear. We both know he’s gonna want to check it the second he realizes I was here.”Jack blinked at her. He knew Robby well enough to know that was true. But why the fuck-“Now he promised he wouldn’t, we had a very long conversation about it, but I thought it would help if it was your name on my chart.”His eyebrows crashed together. Jack could admit when he was fucking lost. What conversation had Robby and Grace had? The last he’d heard, Grace had left without saying goodbye. And why the fuck would it help to have his name on her paperwork, “Sorry, what?”“Can you-” Grace gestured to the cast on her arm.Belatedly, Jack remembered that he had a job to do, and that he was wasting time. He nodded and set the tool to the edge of her cast to start cutting.Over the noise, Grace continued, “He trusts you. I think you’re the only other person in this hospital he really trusts, so if I can say you checked my x-ray, then he’s not going to break his promise and check it himself.”Jack frowned. Robby did trust him, they’d worked together a long time, but he wasn’t sure the trust extended to Grace. They’d had a half-dozen shouting matches when Grace had come in while Jack was working. He couldn’t really recall what they’d been about. Had Robby thought he was fucking up, or had he just been stressed out about her being in the ED at all?“What did he promise?” He asked. It really wasn’t any of his business, and usually he was good at keeping his nose where it belonged, but he thought of Robby as a friend. A proper one. He didn’t want him getting hurt.“To keep his eyes off my chart.” Grace watched the blade cut through the last of the plaster before Jack stuck the spreader in the gap to pry it open.Jack frowned as he pried the thing open and off of her arm. He set down the tool and rolled the cast over in his hand, “The hell is this?” There was a thinly scrawled note on the bottom side in handwriting he recognized and could barely read.Grace rolled her eyes and rubbed at the skin of her forearm, “My note to follow up with Ortner about the circulation problem that I don’t have.” She pointed at the cast, “I promised that I’d tell him what came out of my appointments and it’s still killing him. He didn’t believe that Ortner read my- fuck. I forgot the name. Anyway, he spent an entire evening grinding his teeth because he’s so sure I’ve got some mysterious circulation problem that’s going to kill me. Finally I had to pull up the results on my ELife account and show him cause I was afraid he’d crack a tooth.”Jack stared at the plaster in his hands. A whole evening. That meant-“Anyway, he’d never believe anyone at East Med could read an x-ray properly and it would turn into a whole thing. He will believe that you can read an x-ray properly, and maybe I won’t have to spend my evening talking him off a ledge.”“You’re together.” He dropped the cast to the tray in front of him.“Yeah.” It was Grace’s turn to squint at him, “Did he not mention that?”“Nope.” Jack replied. Probably because as much as Jack had thought Robby needed to air his fucking feelings, he did also think the relationship played jumprope with an ethical boundary.“Well, we are.” Grace yanked her sleeve down to cover the ugly scar at her wrist, “And he promised to be a partner and not a doctor, which means he isn’t allowed to look at my chart anymore.”“Right.” Jack nodded, “Good luck with that.”“Thanks.” Grace responded brightly, “And good luck to you, because he’s going to grill you the second he gets here.”“Thanks,” Jack responded dryly. Grace beamed at him. The problem with her presence in the ED, had always been that as much as Robby liked her and spent his time crossing lines, Jack liked her too. She was sweet, and funny. She made him want to laugh. He had wanted her to be okay, and it put him on edge. Made him willing to shout and argue over what he felt was best for her.The curtain screeched open. Jack turned to fix Robby with a glare, “I’m with a patient, get the fuck out.”“I’m the attending on duty,” Robby replied, his voice gravely and hard, “Which means every patient here is my responsibility.”Jack checked his watch, “Not for another two minutes.” He looked at Grace, “You’re done. Better get out of here fast before he starts ordering PDI’s and D-dimers.”Grace laughed, “Thanks Abbott.” She shoved off the bed and took two steps to put a hand on Robby’s chest, “Look, I’m cured.” She wiggled her fingers.Robby caught her hand and frowned over her head at Jack, “How was her x-ray?”“No, no.” Grace said, pushing him and forcing him to back up into the ED corridor, “You don’t ask him that, because you’re not my doctor. You ask me that.”Jack watched Robby scowl as he stood and shoved his hands in his pockets. He followed them both. Robby was obviously fighting with the demand. Jack felt a little grin tug at the corners of his mouth.“How was your x-ray?” Robby grit, his eyes fixed on Jack.“Great.” Grace replied. She looped her arm through Robby’s and steered him in the direction of the exit, “Like it was never even broken.”Robby glanced over his shoulder at Jack, as though hoping for some indication that she was being truthful. Jack gave none.“When did you get here?” Robby asked.“Four.” Grace replied, “I thought it would be quieter but apparently some people think the middle of the night is an appropriate time to do their landscaping.”She was referring to the man who had embedded a sawzall in his leg trimming hedges. He’d been rushed pretty quickly from chairs to a bed to stop the massive hemorrhage that had left blood splattered across half the ED floor.“Why didn’t you just come during the day?” Robby griped.“Are you kidding?” Grace remarked, “I couldn’t do that to Langer twice.” They hit the threshold of the exit door and Grace turned to face Robby properly. She squeezed his arm, “This way when you start complaining about not seeing my x-ray, Abbott can go home instead of listening to it.” Robby’s mouth twitched down. He looked deeply unhappy. Grace wasn’t bothered, “I’m gonna go take a nap. Come over after your shift? I’ll use my newly healed hand to make dinner.”Slowly, Robby nodded.“Great! See you later.” She stood on her toes to kiss Robby on the cheek, then half-turned and waved to Jack, “Bye Abbott, thanks for the speedy work.”He lifted a hand, and watched her bounce off through the doors and into the city. His eyes slid from the doors to Robby, who watched for a second longer, then turned sharply to glare at him, “Show me the x-ray.”“Fuck off.” Abbott remarked.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Do you need to talk?
Wanna talk about it?
You know I’m always here if you need-
But he didn’t fucking want to talk about it. What would be the point? It wouldn’t change anything. At the end of the day, Adamson was still dead and so were the rest of the patients he’d lost, during the pandemic and since. The ones he remembered vividly and the ones that had blurred together.In theory, he knew the point. He had done a psychiatric rotation just like every other doctor. He talked to Kiara everyday about patients. Encouraged them to open up to her for help or closure or whatever else it was they needed.He just couldn’t manage it himself. Couldn’t imagine it helping when he felt like shit. When the day went so poorly that he just wanted to go home, crawl into bed and forget about everything.Find balance, he had told Whitaker once, weeks ago. What a fucking joke.“Rough day?”Robby lifted his head from his hands and squinted at Jack. The man had one hand on the counter and the other wrapped around a battered travel mug he could only assume was full of expensive tea. He wondered when the last time had been that they’d had any other kind of conversation at shift change, “Yeah.” He answered, passing a hand over the stubble at his jaw, “Apartment fire.”Jack’s expression didn’t change, “Anyone I need to keep an eye on?”Slowly he shook his head, “Nope.”Jack’s expression did change. Robby looked away under the guise of scooping up his pack and opening it to check the contents. He zipped it shut again and stood, “I’ll see you Monday.”“Sure,” Jack replied.Robby could feel his friend’s eyes on his back as he crossed to the ambulance bay doors and fled out onto the street. It was already dark, summer had turned into fall and it was rare that he saw the sun anymore unless an emergency had him running to meet a patient on the sidewalk. He thought that might have a little to do with how shitty he felt, but definitely less than the four patients he had lost that day.He didn’t put his Airpods in, just started down the street toward home. He didn’t have to think about his route, and tried hard not to think about anything else.It didn’t work. He wondered if there was a time he had really enjoyed going to work. He wondered if there would be again. Was he just too fucking traumatized to deal with the job? The pandemic had changed things, that was irrefutable, but was it before or after that things had changed for him?He watched the crosswalk light change and start to blink, glanced both ways to make sure a car wasn’t about to hit him anyway, and crossed.He was so fucking tired. Maybe if he could get a good night’s sleep. He hadn’t for days, not since before the first shift in his rotation. He always slept poorly the night before he started work again, which made the day hard, and then when the day was hard he slept poorly, and the whole thing repeated until he was off again. Then, even when he was off, he might still sleep poorly.The second he got home, he would crawl into bed and try to get some actual rest. Except, he had to eat first. And he definitely had to shower before that.What was in his fridge, anyway? It was usually pretty empty after a rotation. He’d ordered Thai on his second day, was that still good? Probably not. Maybe there was something in his freezer? Although, he didn’t think he could manage cooking even if there was. He studied his boots as he ate up the long stretch of sidewalk. He could order something again, but making the decision to do it, and then what, and from where, was again more than he thought he could manage. How many decisions had he made that day? Too many.“Hey good-lookin’.”Robby stopped dead, his eyes jumping up to land on Gracie’s face where she sat, grinning, on the railing of his apartment building’s front step, “Gracie, what’re you-”Her eyebrows shot up. She tilted her head, her smile turned teasing, “Did you forget?”He tried to think back. She had been gone a few days, since before his first shift. In Chicago visiting an old friend. They’d exchanged a handful of texts, but he couldn’t remember any of them having been about her coming home, much less coming to see him. And it was tough to think back at all with his eyes on her. She was wearing a pair of slim jeans and a pink sweater, her hair in neat waves and pushed back from her face with a pair of pins on either temple, “I, uh-”“Sorry,” she interrupted, “I’m messing with you. I just wanted to see you.” She unhooked her feet from the rail beneath her and stood. She took three steps down and stopped to hook her fingers in the collar of his sweater, “Are you still off tomorrow?”He wished she’d gone for the hem of his t-shirt instead so that he could feel her against his skin, however little the contact was, “Yeah.”“Then I can stay over?” She asked, her voice low and smooth, “Order us some food? Hog all the covers in that ridiculous bed of yours?”Robby’s bed was ridiculous. He’d thought, months ago, that a new bed would help him sleep. It was king sized, extremely comfortable, and he hated it. Gracie tended to roll in her sleep. He would wake up three times a night, positive she had snuck away when he didn’t feel her beside him, only to realize that she’d rolled across his giant fucking bed. He preferred hers. It was smaller and she was never out of arm's reach. It wasn’t to mention her stupid weighted blanket. The thing weighed thirty pounds. It made him feel like he was being crushed and he was loathe to admit out loud that it squashed a little of the anxiety out of him even when Gracie wasn’t lying next to him.He realized he’d forgotten to answer when Gracie lifted her hand to his cheek and started to nod, “Say yes.”“Yes,” he replied, “Sorry. I missed you.” It was true. She didn’t often stay over when he was working, he was always tired and useless after a shift. He wasn’t good company and then always woke her up too early, but sometimes he got to the middle of a rotation and couldn’t help it. He’d ask if she wanted to come over, or he’d show up at her place. He’d spend a whole evening just sitting with her, listening to whatever she wanted to tell him, watching whatever was on TV that she wanted to watch until it was late enough that he could herd her to bed.He’d wrap himself around her and press his face to the back of her neck and breathe the flowery smell of her shampoo. Sometimes he would fall asleep right away, and stay that way, and then wake feeling more rested than he had since the last time he’d done the same thing. Sometimes he wouldn’t and he would lie awake and listen to the slow sound of her breathing, feel her chest rise and fall under his hand, and he would relax properly and still wake feeling more rested than he would have if he was home alone.Gracie smiled, the same easy smile she always did, and slid her arms around his neck, “I missed you too.” She leant to kiss him, the single stair putting them at the same height.Robby could feel the effect immediately, the press of her mouth on his spreading soothing warmth through his whole body. All the tensed muscles across his shoulders eased. He reached up to slide his hand around the back of her neck, pulling her a little closer so he could lick across her lip.Gracie tilted her head up, breaking away from his mouth. He wanted her back but let her go, “Do you have thoughts about food?” She asked, seemingly to the sky.“No,” He answered. He felt guilty for it and slid his thumb up the side of her neck in silent apology.“Good!” She turned and he let his hand fall away so she could bounce back up the steps and scoop her tote from the landing, “Because I have many thoughts about food. Specifically sushi, and how many different kinds of rolls I’m gonna order us.”He exhaled his guilt and followed her up the stairs, fishing for his keys in his pocket, “How many is that, exactly?”“At least seven.” She watched him unlock the door and ducked under his arm when he opened it for her, “But I’m on the fence about sashimi.”“Huh,” He followed her across the lobby to the elevator, “But you hate sashimi.”“That’s true,” She hit the elevator button with her elbow. He appreciated the movement. Appreciated that she continued to use whatever strategies she could to avoid touching public surfaces even though she had a white-cell count that could fight the common cold, “But every once in a while I think, what if I don’t hate it? What if I just need to give it another chance?”“Does that ever work for you?” He asked. The doors slid open.“Good evening Mrs. Sutton,” Gracie greeted. She stepped backward so her spine pressed against his chest and the elderly woman could step out of the elevator past her.“Mrs. Sutton,” Robby greeted. He offered her a little smile and was positive it wasn’t nearly as bright as Gracie’s. He couldn’t see her expression but he savoured the warmth of her against him.The little old woman scowled at them both. She said nothing. He watched her shuffle over the gap in the floor and across the tile, and followed Gracie automatically when she stepped into the elevator. The doors slid shut and he elbowed the button for his floor.“That old lady is seriously miserable. What’s her issue?” She hiked her bag a little higher onto her shoulder.Robby frowned. Mrs. Sutton used to like him. She used to be nice. She would greet him in the hall, “She thinks I’m an old perv.”Gracie laughed, “What?”He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. He didn’t like the words that were about to leave his mouth but couldn’t deny her an answer, “Gracie, you know how this looks.”It didn’t happen often, because they didn’t go out often, but occasionally they did and were treated to a couple odd looks that Gracie never seemed to notice, but Robby did. He had more than a decade on her. It wasn’t something he felt good about, but together in his apartment it didn’t matter. Out in public though, where he looked his age and despite the years she’d been sick she looked less than hers, he felt the difference keenly.She opened her mouth, then closed it. She pressed her lips together into a frown, then glanced at him sidelong, “I bet it’s me.” The doors in front of them slid open and she stepped out and started down the hall to his door.“What do you mean?” He juggled his keys.Gracie gestured back at him, “Nice older doctor. I bet she thinks I’m a gold-digger out to steal all your money.”He snorted a laugh, “Gracie!”“She totally does!” She leant on the wall while he unlocked the door, “If only she knew the truth.”“And what’s that?” He shoved open the door and held it for her. She stepped into the apartment and kicked off her boots, then dropped her bag onto the island and turned to face him.“That I’m the rich one here. And way more likely to drop dead. If anything, you’re the gold-digger.” Her grin was impish.His heart twisted at the joke, “I don’t think I like that.” He muttered.“No?” She set her palms back on the counter and hopped up to sit on the edge, “You don’t want to be my sugar-baby?”He kicked off his own boots and stepped toward her. Sitting on the counter she was shorter than him, but he could stand right between her knees. He slid his palms up over her thighs and held them, “What’s that entail?”“I buy us dinner in exchange for sex and companionship.” She answered, hooking her fingers in his pockets.Robby nodded, “That sounds pretty good, actually.”“I know.” She smiled against his mouth when he kissed her, then poked at his ribs, “Go shower.”“Yes ma’am.”He was halfway done and rinsing shampoo out of his hair when he remembered he’d been feeling like shit. He examined the emotions in his chest, turned them over slowly as though he could actually see them.Guilt at losing four patients. Grief for their families. Anger at the building manager who had caused the fire in the first place. Shame for the position he put Gracie in. The scrutiny she would get just for being with him.They were still there, lingering in his body. But they shied away from the warmth of the other thing. The thing that took hold of him whenever Gracie was around. The thing that had stopped feeling so unstable, so dangerous, since he started seeing her places that weren’t the hospital. When he started to believe that she really was well. He was grateful for it.It still might blow up in his face and he was sure the fallout would kill him, but until then he would be grateful.He shut off the water, toweled off and pulled on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. He opened the bathroom door and listened carefully. He couldn’t hear her, but he took a guess and wandered toward the living room.Gracie was sitting on the couch, both legs tucked up underneath her and her phone in her hand. She had a finger wound up in her hair and chewed her lip absently. She glanced up when he crossed the room to flop next to her. She dropped her phone to the side table, “How was work?”He scrunched his nose, “Shitty.”“Wanna talk about it?”How many times had he been asked that recently? It didn’t annoy him nearly as much coming from her lips, “No.”“Okay. Wanna hear about Chicago?”“Yeah. I do.” He wanted to hear about whatever she wanted to tell him.“Well, I thought we were just there to hang out. Food, drinks, museum tours, shopping,” She shuffled a little awkwardly, then swung her leg over both of his to settle across his lap. She slid her hands across his neck, scratching her nails up into his hair, “But it turns out that Izzy decided to break up with her husband. We were actually there to supervise the movers, and I had to spend forty minutes on the phone threatening Bill with legal action that I’m definitely not allowed to take in Illinois.”He gripped at her hips. Her body was warm under his hands. Her fingers in his hair felt good. He dropped his head back a little against the cushions, “That sounds stressful,” he remarked. He didn’t like the idea of her friend putting her in a difficult situation without any warning.“Sort of?” She tilted her head, “I just liked hanging out with Izzy and I’m glad we got to help her out. Plus we did still make it shopping. I got the cutest sweater.”“How’d Max feel?” He knew her friend had gone with her, she’d told him as much.Gracie shrugged, “She was annoyed. Mostly because Izzy’s not moving back, even though Bill’s the only reason she moved there in the first place. I think she still will though. It’ll only take her a month and a half of living in that apartment by herself and she’ll be out of there.”Robby felt good, with her hands on him. And guilty, for feeling it. He muttered, “She doesn’t have kids?”“No. She wants them, so I think she always knew on some level that Bill was terrible and it wasn’t going to work.”“What about you?” It was like his brain was trying to make himself hurt. He couldn’t stop the words even though he knew they would only lead to more misery.Grace raised her eyebrows, “What about me? I definitely always knew Bill was terrible.”Robby gripped a little tighter at her thighs, “Did you want kids?” It was another thing he felt guilty for. She couldn’t, he knew that, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t adopt or didn’t have plans for a surrogate. She was still young enough to do it. He couldn’t. Wouldn’t. “Not really,” Gracie pulled her hands back and slid them over his jaw, her thumb petted over his cheek, “Then I got sick and I definitely didn’t.” Robby wrapped his arms around her back and held her tightly. He had thought he’d known that, but he’d never asked aloud. It was one more thing that could have driven a wedge right between them. One more thing he would have been guilty of.“I lost four patients,” he said. The words came out strangled. He hadn’t meant to say them. Or maybe he had because the rest followed, “There was a fire. It was awful.”Gracie made a noise, a sad kind of whine. She moved to sit up but he gripped a little tighter and she stopped to press against him instead.“There wasn’t anything we could do. We just had to watch.”He could feel Gracie’s hand on the back of his neck. The slow stroke of her thumb, “What can I do?” She muttered in his ear.“This.” He answered.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
There was blood on his hands. On his skin, wet and red.She was supposed to be sitting in North twenty, but she hadn’t been. That wasn’t unusual, she didn’t like sitting around and waiting, she’d wander off and chat with somebody. Hadn’t she just been chatting with Earl? But he knew. He knew instantly that this time it was different. This time it was wrong.It was one of the first rules, always glove up first. Like when the air masks deployed on a plane, protect yourself first, but he didn’t. Hadn’t.She knew her way around the ED backward and forward but so did he. He knew what spots she liked and what spots she didn’t. She always went to the washroom at the south end. Something about the vent but he couldn’t remember what it was right that second, when he was jogging across the linoleum.It was under his nails, dried into the lines on his knuckles.He knocked. Not knocked. Banged on the door. Hard enough that he got Dana’s attention halfway down the corridor. Had he said something? Maybe. But there wasn’t an answer so he hit the handle and shoved through.It was on his clothes too, drenching his scrubs, hot and sticky.The floor was soaked, and so was she, in blood and tears and he remembered the fucking scissors so clearly, but not what he yelled back into the corridor.How had he gotten blood on his face? He didn’t remember.He hit the floor on his knees hard enough to bruise and caught her wrist in his hand. Squeezed tight enough over the gash to slow the bleeding and pulled her arm up, over her head. She was crying and he thought he might have been too but he couldn’t tell. He wrapped his other arm around her, hauled her right against his chest, and he was yelling something but again he had no idea what the words were.The blood leaked through his fingers, down his arm, dripped off his elbow onto his thigh. It was fucking everywhere.She was saying something. Sorry. Over and over, and he didn’t want her apology. He wanted to go back. How much faster would he have had to be in noticing?Blood never bothered him but he felt sick.Then Dana was there, and Collins, and his hands were being pried open, and somebody was yelling (him, again) and she was gone, and he was drowning, and there was so much blood, too much, she wasn’t going to make it-Robby jolted up and hauled in a huge breath of air. Then a second. It was dark, cold morning light barely filtered through the curtains leaving the room in a wash of grey. He shoved the covers away, but there were no bloody scrubs underneath, just his boxers. His hands itched, but there was no blood there either.“Gracie?” He reached out but the bed beside him was empty. His heart beat painfully. That was wrong, she had gone to bed with him, hadn’t she? It was too early for her to be up, she always slept in. Until he was up and made coffee and delivered it to her in an effort to coax her out from under the covers.He shoved the blankets the rest of the way back and lurched to his feet, half-stumbled across the floor to the doorway and shoved open the door, “Gracie!”“What?” There was light, warm and clear, spilling down the hall from the kitchen. There was a thud, then Gracie slid across the wood floor and into the open hall. The blond of her hair shone like a halo, her top half covered in one of his sweaters and her legs bare except for a pair of wool socks, “Michael? What’s wrong?”He took a breath that came easy. There she was, solid and real. The only person that called him by his first name, “Shit,” he muttered, and took the half dozen steps to meet her. He wrapped his arms around her and she looped hers around his waist in return. Her hands were freezing against the small of his back. He pressed his cheek to her hair and breathed the soft floral smell of her shampoo. The fearful beat of his heart slowed.“Hey,” she whispered against his chest, “What’s going on?”He wasn’t sure how to explain. How could he tell her he’d had a nightmare where she bled to death? He couldn’t. Not when the event, one of the worst days of his life, had been one of the worst of hers too. He couldn’t ask her to comfort him when it would mean reminding her, “Sorry,” he grit out, “I just- bad dream.”Gracie let out a low hum. She rubbed his back slowly, “About what?”He pressed his eyes shut and didn’t answer. It wasn’t often that he avoided answering a question. Gracie let him have it. She kept her arms tight around him until he stopped feeling like the world was sliding out from beneath his feet. He lifted his head and glanced toward the kitchen counters, “What’re you doing out here?”“Having a snack,” she answered.He squinted at the stove, “At four-thirty?”“Yeah,” she leant back to study his face, “Is that weird?”“Yes.” The time was weird. And the spread of raw vegetables she was apparently eating was also weird. Gracie hated to eat anything green, but there was a half eaten celery stick on the marble.“Huh,” She let go of him slowly and moved to scoop up the broccoli also on his counter, and shove it back in the fridge. The celery she picked up and took a bite of, “I do it literally all the time.”He watched her closely. She seemed fine. He crossed to open a cupboard for a glass and went to the sink to fill it, “You’re messing with me.”“No. You never notice, because you’re asleep.” She took another bite.He set his hip against the counter and took a drink. He liked the look of her in his hoodie. The line of her bare legs. He was glad her arm was covered, “You hate celery.”“I do, yes.” She gestured with it to the roof, “But it would be extremely unhealthy to eat leftover pizza at four in the morning so this is my compromise.” She shoved the last bite in her mouth and chewed.He had a few thoughts about her habit but he was her partner, not her doctor, so he didn’t voice them. They’d had a long conversation, months ago, to iron out that rule. He didn’t try to talk her into healthier choices, just cut up vegetables and put them in front of her when it was his turn to cook. Blended up smoothies and left them in her fridge for when she woke up, hours after he went to work. It wasn’t that she had a host of bad habits, it was just that he worried about her regardless.He had another drink and set his glass on the counter, “Are you coming back to bed now?”“Yes.” She answered, shoving off the counter, “But I have to brush my teeth first.”Robby followed her down the hall. That explained, at least, why sometimes he kissed her before he left in the morning and found her mouth tasted like mint. He’d thought it was strange and never remembered long enough to ask about it later. He didn’t go to the bedroom without her, he leant on the door frame and watched her squeeze out toothpaste.Gracie watched him out of the corner of her eye. Halfway through, and with a mouthful of foam, she muttered, “What?”He shook his head and waited. She frowned. He watched her finish and spit into the sink. She took a second to rinse it, then turned to face him. She raised an eyebrow. He didn’t move. Gracie made a humming sound and edged past him and down the hall. He followed.She pulled his hoodie over her head and dropped it to the floor. The tanktop and underwear she had on might’ve had his thoughts spinning a different direction, but he could just see when she reached out to straighten the blanket, the line at her wrist.The sight of it made his heart lurch. He watched her climb into bed before he rounded the foot of it and slid in beside her. He didn’t need to reach for her, she rolled to pillow her head on his chest, her hand sliding up to trace her fingers across his collarbone. Her fingertips were ice cold. He shivered and caught her hand, cupped it in his and breathed warm air over her skin.He knew where the line was. The little scar that ran vertically across her skin. He tugged her hand a little higher, shifted his grip, and pressed his lips to it. It had been stitched shut. Was closed up and long healed. Just a scar. A memory of something terrible.Gracie didn’t say anything. But she inched a little higher, and pressed a kiss to his mouth. She breathed warmth into his lungs, and the last of the fear leaked away.