Chapter Text
“Move it people! We’ve got an incoming trauma! Pedestrian vs. automobile!”
Robby looks up from where he's been dutifully scanning his chart for the last ten minutes as Dana alerts the ED.
“Sounds good, uhh” he surveys the ED, “Yeah let's prep trauma 2.”
“Oniell says the driver is good, coming in for check up though.”
Robby flashes a thumbs up before heading out to wait in the ambulance bay.
Seconds later, the blaring of sirens reaches his ears as he watches the vehicle pull up. Helping to unload the gurney, the medic explains, “Drivers good, showing strong BP and a pretty normal heart rate, however we’ve gotta concern for a possible concussion.”
Robby hesitates, he’s seen too many cases that look exactly like this. Too many times where the driver remains unharmed while the victim hangs onto life by a thread.
He has to ask.
Robby nods once before leaning in and whispering, “Any suspicion of substance usage?”
“Nope,” Oneill shakes his head quickly as if he knew what Robby was about to ask, “the driver isn't showing any signs of slurred speech or confusion.”
He just wants to fucking go home and crash on his bed, maybe sit in front of the TV and do absolutely nothing.
He sighs rubbing at his temples, only one more measly fucking hour before he can throw himself into his car and get out of here. Only an hour.
Nodding his head again, Robby lets the paramedics wheel the driver into the ED. Seconds later, the second ambulance comes peeling in. Robby can just tell, call it superstition, call it whatever, but he can all but feel something in the air, practically vibrating with malice.
Amor Fati Robinavitch, get to work.
The first thing he sees is the blood, it blankets the patient and paramedics in layers, the sticky scarlet substance coating nearly everything.
It’s not uncommon to find an ambulance practically dripping blood, but this time something unpleasant curls in his gut.
Shoving it down, Robby moves to the patient's side, snapping on a pair of gloves.
Here goes nothing.
The medic recites, “Male, mid 30s, unconscious and unresponsive on scene, blood is from the head lac still bleeding profusely and unable to clot. Large lacerations across the back and sides from broken glass. Possible broken ribs, weak pulse, heart beat is tacky and bp is 180/130. Uh, we looked for an ID, and looks like his name is Jack Abbot.”
His ears ring, as if a heart monitor had a flatline tone sounding right next to him, when shock douses him with its icy fingers. He freezes as the sound in his ears fades.
“What did you say?”
Robby looks down at his hands, refusing to believe in the slightest that the medic is telling an inkling of the truth.
He refuses to look down, incoming confirmation from the medics enough to prove him right.
They have it wrong.
His eyes look up and Robby’s hands shake as his mind refuses to comprehend what his eyes see.
No.
“Uh, his name is Jack Abbot? Why?”
Robby chokes on his breath at the words, air stopping halfway to his lungs as they seem to constrict. Truth, a wire snaking around his ribs and squeezing slowly, suffocating him. Robby lets his eyes flick down to the patient. To Jack. Jack, the man he spends nearly every waking hour with, his best friend and more, lays prone on a gurney.
Helplessly, he feels a gasp trap in his chest, bubbling up into panic. Blood spills everywhere, trickling from Jack's face onto his grey shirt, collecting along the crevices of his body.
Jack what did you do?
Robby stares at Jack's face. Jack’s eyes are hidden by his lids as his breath shudders.
It’s him.
“Fuck. Fuck, no, no, no.”
“Yo Robby, what the hell?” Robby backs away, breaths coming in gasps, “Jack. “ He repeats.
His breath catches as he chokes out “He’s one of ours,”
“Oh shit!”
It’s like his body is frozen to the floor, limbs unable and unwilling to cooperate. The floor turns to tar, trapping him as the bay spins around him.
The paramedics seem to move faster, rushing Jack into the trauma bay as Robby snaps out of his daze, following helplessly like a lost puppy.
Tears prick at the corners of Robby’s eyes.
“Robinavitch!”
Robby snaps up, eyes meeting the paramedics.
What's his name again? Right Medic Spratt.
“Where to!?” He hesitates silently before pointing to trauma one. He watches them wheel Jack into the room.
Get it together.
He inhales deeply before yelling, “Dana, get Adamson!”
His voice comes out like a croak, nothing like the doctor he was mere seconds ago.
She stares at him confused before turning to dial a number into the telephone.
He rushes into the Trauma room, surveying Jack the patient.
Not Jack. Not him. Just another patient.
Grabbing the nearest scissors from the tray, Robby efficiently cuts off the patient's bloody shirt to reveal a torso full of jagged pieces of glass.
Fuck.
The wounds bleed sluggishly, most of the lacerations plugged up by remaining shards of glass.
He needs to…
He has to-stop the bleeding, watch out for punctured lung, listen for lung sliding, get Adamson, keep him breathing, wake him up, watch pupil dilation.
Moving towards Jack the patients head, Robby uses the knuckles of his right hand to press onto the man’s sternum and rolls them. He watches the man;s face for any sign of consciousness before repeating the motion again.
This time, Jack the patient elicits a hazy groan, eyes fluttering open momentarily before resting closed again.
“No… Jac-Sir! Can you hear me? Do you know where you are?”
Another groan escapes as Jack the man makes no move to answer his questions. Pulling at Jack the patient's eye lids, Robby uses his pen light, the one Jack got him for his birthday three weeks ago.
Peaking in under the eyelid with the light, Robby watches, careful as the right pupil dilates; the left, a pupil as large as his pen.
Fuck.
“Ah shit! Left pupil is blown and unreactive to light!”
His announcement strikes a new onset of harried movement, the possible neurological dysfunction increasing the stakes.
The pace seems to pick up after that, the nurses and doctors working around him in a flurry of movement as they try to keep Jack from crossing the line that is impossible to return from. Robby looks around him, at the worn faces screwed up in concentration, so weathered by what they have witnessed. None of them show a single crack in spite of the fact that the man hanging by a thread on the table is one of their own.
Gritting his teeth, Robby forces himself to return to the patient, eyes locked on the monitors for any discrepancy.
Someone announces “Absent lung sliding on the left lung, likely from the fractured ribs”
“Is it pneumothorax?” Robby questions, standing over the patient to survey the ultrasound.
“Robby.”
A hand reaches out and touches his shoulder. He startles. Adamson stands over him, eyes bright with empathy as he gently leads Robby away from the table.
Robby pulls away, “Wha-No! No!”
His hand shoots out and he moves to grab at something, anything. As if he could latch on and keep the patient Jack alive by sheer will.
The emotions Robby tries so hard to hide bubble up.
He ignores it and pushes forward.
He needs to be there.
He needs to help.
“I can do it! Let me help him!”
That thing, inside his chest constricts as his eyes clearly land on Jack.
His breath catches in his throat.
All the witty retorts, sharp armor, confident grins–stripped away, leaving Jack laid bare. Small, as if he were just a man.
How did this happen?
No. No. No.
He needs to help.
He can make it better.
Robby’s hands shake as he surges forward, breaking Adamson's grip on his shoulder.
“Let me do it!”
In any other situation, Robby would cringe at his tone, loud and petulant, but all he can hear is the sound of his own heartbeat, loud in his ears. The constant sound of his heart drums a steady rhythm ever since Jack was rolled into the Pitt on a gurney.
He has to do this.
Jack the patient has to live.
All he can see is the blood now, it coats everything, everywhere. As though his vision is warped with a film of red.
He needs more blood.
Jack needs more o-neg.
Opening his mouth to say so, Robby finds his tongue heavy in his mouth, breath hitching where there should be words.
He has to-Jack can’t-he can’t-he can help-why won’t they let him help?
Fuck, the blood, it coats his hands crimson.
Jack's blood.
The hand on his arm tightens, pulling him further.
“No!” He snarls, trying to shrug off the hand, even as it clamps tighter.
Robby can still see Jack.
He needs to save him.
He tries to surge forward again, to catch the hands off guard, but the movement is in vain as they tighten around him, squeezing him tighter.
“Jack!” He yells. “Jack!” Even through his thrashing and struggling, the loud flat tone signaling a flatline from the trauma bay reaches his ears.
Silence hits him like a wall, crashing down on him…………………………………………………… It’s all he can hear as the tone continues as the doctors work fervently ………………………………………….. Robby’s eyes fly to the heart rate monitor………………………………….Nothing.
Flat.
Tone.
Gone. …………………………………………. A ghostly hand reaches into his chest and jerks, as if it’s trying to pull his heart from his chest.
Finding his breath again, he gasps.
“JACK!”
Robby kicks at the hands holding him, clawing at them in fierce desperation as he tries to fight them off.
No. No. No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No .No. No.No. No.No. No. No. No.No. No. No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No .No. No.No. No.No. No. No. No.No. No. No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No .No. No.No. No.No. No. No. No.No. No. No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No .No. No.No. No.No. No. No. No.No. No. No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No .No. No.No. No.No. No. No. No.No. No. No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No .No. No.No. No.No. No. No. No.No. No. No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No .No. No.No. No.No. No. No. No.No. No. No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No .No. No.No. No.No. No. No. No.No. No. No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No.No. No .No. No.No. No.No. No. No. No.
“ABBOT!” He's screaming now, vocal cords straining at the volume.
Flatine.
No.
He can still save him, “LET ME GO! LET ME SAVE HIM” Robby shouts.
Tears fly from his face as he struggles with increasing desperation as arms enclose him, wrapping around him like a cage.
They keep him from getting to Jack.
They keep him from saving Jack.
Robby snarls at whatever holds him again, trying to push them off when Dana’s face cuts off his view from Jack. Robby moves sideways, doing everything he can against his captor to catch a glimpse of Jack.
Snot and tears pour down his face as he struggles.
“Robby! If you don’t calm down, we're gonna have to sedate you!” Dana nearly shouts, but her words fall upon deaf ears as Robby increases his struggles.
Dana makes eye contact with Adamson who bears the brunt of Robby’s thrashing, the older doctor’s arms that encircle Robby are red with scratches from his nails. Her words have no effect on Robby as he continues to scream.
“JACK PLEASE!”
Without pause, Adamson gives a small nod, moving his hand a fraction to allow Dana to plunge the needle into Robby’s arm and push down on the plunger. The effect is immediate, Robby’s limbs go limp as his body shuts down.
Silently, he collapses into Adamson’s arms, eyes rolling back as his screams for his friend die upon his lips.