aaaaah!!!

Today's shift seemed to have no end. Every corner he turned, there was another fire. And somehow, always, only he could be the one to put it out.

The Fourth of July always came with its surprises, but today really took the cake. The cases alone were enough. Add to that dealing with Al-Hashimi, Langdon, ICE agents, and everyone who seemed to have an opinion about his sabbatical.

On top of all of it, he was supposed to sign his divorce papers today. 

He couldn't understand why everyone was so against the sabbatical. They should be relieved he was finally taking a break from all this. No human being was built to survive this many stressors at once.

The truth was the whole divorce negotiations were a wake-up call. He didn't know how to be a person who wasn't Dr. Robby, Chief of Emergency Medicine. He didn't know how to not be your husband. He needed time to figure himself out.

But at the rate this day was going, he wouldn't get the chance to leave.

──

He hadn't allowed himself a single moment of break during the day, until he saw you.

He caught you from afar, when you were walking through the doors to the ED. You walked in through the the ones that led from the main hospital wing to the Pitt, a place you rarely found yourself in these days. At the beginning of your relationship, sure. You and Robby quite literally met at the hospital. Your relationship was born out of intern Robby looking for any excuse to disappear to administration, or trick you so you would have to come down. And then, during the early stages of your marriage, you would stop by to force a sandwich into his hands, or just talk maintenance about some home matter. But over time–if he tried to pinpoint it, he’d say the last three years– your visits became less and less frequent. And now, with the divorce, you only came to follow up on legal proceedings, and even that was rare. You'd made it clear you preferred doing everything through your lawyers.

You were making your way toward the nurses’ station when Dana spotted you.

"Hey, sweet thing."

The urge to roll your eyes was hard fought. "Please, do not call me that." 

"Looking for Robby? You just missed him."

You sighed. "How much does he pay you to cover for him?"

"Not enough," Dana said cheekily. "Need me to make sure he gets anything?"

You lifted the manila folder, a deadpan expression on your face. "They need to be signed before he leaves. Whenever that is. Please."

Dana, recognizing the weight of what was in the folder, took it from you solemnly, with both hands. "I'll make sure he gets it before he leaves today."

Robby didn't hear any of that, though. The second he caught sight of you walking in, with that hellish yellow folder pressed flat against your side, he ducked into the bathroom.

He knew what was in it. You'd both spent the last six months going through the motions of divorce paperwork, which was always stuffed into those same yellow folders. But, now, all that was left was his signature. He'd gotten intimately familiar with the process this year, and these would be the final pages of it.

Okay, sure… he'd agreed to it. He was used to the idea by now. But having the papers handed to him today, of all days, would be too much. Better to get them from Dana than you personally.

He gripped the edge of the sink and looked at a face he barely recognized as his own anymore. He was tired to the bone. There was not enough of him to go around. Not enough for the department. Not enough for you.

Ten years. One signature away from a failed marriage.

It had ended not with a fight, not with an affair, not with anything you could point to exactly. He recalled the way you struggled to explain it when he first brought it up. Because according to you, it wasn't something he did; it was was he didn't do. Their marriage had ended with his silence, and inaction. He couldn't even own up to it out loud. He could recognize what he'd become. How he'd lost himself in a grave, grave way. He hadn't been your husband, not really, not for a long time. So he'd just let you have the divorce you wanted.

He waited two more minutes.

He was washing his hands when the bathroom door creaked open and a voice he didn't recognize immediately squeaked in. 

"Doctor Robby? Sorry— sorry to bother you in there—" Emma, was it? The new nurse under Dana's supervision. She hovered by the doorway. "You said to tell you if your friend Duke tries to make a run for it?"

Robby closed his eyes for exactly one second. Some small, tired part of him was almost grateful. It was easier to deal with Duke than it was to deal with his feelings about today being the day his marriage potentially ended. And that was saying something. 

"I've got it," he said, and dried his hands, and went.

──

He found Duke in the ambulance bay, checking over the Bonneville.

"I can see why you liked restoring this bike." Duke said, not looking up from it. "You're a fixer. I fix bikes, but you fix people. That's pretty damn impressive, man.."

Having had entirely too much time alone with his thoughts just moments earlier, Robby said, "Some people can't be fixed." 

Duke looked at Robby for a moment, then as if he’d given in and decided to have the difficult conversation, he added, “Look, I'm- I've done plenty of things I'm not proud of.”

"Yeah," Robby said. "Me too."

"No, bad things," Duke's voice dropped out of its usual gravel-and-grin register, "hurt people on purpose, hurt myself. And I did my time, but that doesn't wash away the regret. I... wish I'd done things differently. I think about it every day.”

"They say it's never too late to change," Robby offered.

"Some things can't be changed," Duke's eyes didn't leave him. “like death. Death can't be changed..."

"Hey." Robby's voice slid automatically into his attending voice. "I know the surgery is scary-"

"I'm not talking about me."

Robby didn't have an answer ready for that. "Yeah," he admitted instead, the words slipping out before he could stop them, his head was shaking on its own and he was fighting the emotions. "I don't know if I want to be here anymore."

"I don't know how you last twelve minutes in that place," Duke said, "let alone twelve hours. Twenty years."

"No. That's the only place I can be." His voice was full of emotion he was struggling to keep in check, "I have purpose in there. I can be distracted in there. I don't know that I wanna be... anywhere anymore.”

It was true. At least in the ED, his mind was never still. Every second demanded something of him. Every crisis he averted meant he was serving a purpose. But when he got to his apartment, there was nothing left to silence his thoughts. He missed your presence in his life. More than his wife, he missed his best friend. Night after night, he wondered when it was he should have noticed your unhappiness. He questioned what he could have done to make it right, if he had only caught it in time. When he should've known it was too late. 

"So what's the plan?" Duke asked, 

"Ride."

"Toward what?"

"I don't know."

"Away from what?"

"Everything."

Duke shook his head slowly. "That's not riding. That's running. That the last lesson you're gonna leave these kids?"

Robby shook his head, started to make his way back inside.

"No, no, no. Don't go." Duke sighed, and stopped him with just his voice. "Look, if you got the chance to do it again. Not as yourself. Not as the big chief. As the guy you used to be, before all this— would you take it?"

Robby sighed, "That guy died a long time ago," and walked away.

──

When Robby finally walked out of the ambulance bay doors by eight p.m., it was pouring rain.

"Fuck." He muttered it under his breath, backpack slung over one shoulder, and made his way to his bike.

He would've left it, but he needed her running by tomorrow. He was supposed to be on the road first thing in the morning. 

He carved his way through the dark, slick roads of Pittsburgh. His headlight and the occasional lamp lights were the only thing carving the pavement ahead of him. 

The rain had turned vindictive by the time he reached the bridge, his headlight could barely cut through. The engine's growl and the rain's static blurred as his mind circled back to today’s goodbyes.

He thought about Whitaker, who he'd left the key to his apartment with. His bachelor pad, he called it during his conversation with him, but really it was the apartment he had gotten back when you and him had separated six months ago. Dana hugged him and tears slid from her eyes. Jack bear-hugged him outright. After the day’s nasty exchanges with Langdon and Al-Hashimi, it had all just been too much to sit with, and he avoided saying goodbye to anyone else. 

He'd waved in their general direction, saying "I'll see you in a few weeks".

And then, because there was no keeping it out any longer, he thought about you. He’d slipped the manila folder into his jacket before leaving, to avoid rain damage. 

When he got home, he’d sign them. Drop them by yours before he hit the road tomorrow. Say your proper goodbyes. 

He recalled the day before your ten-year anniversary, when he’d come home his usual hollowed-out self to find you looking at him across the kitchen with tears already falling. "I want a divorce." He hadn't argued. He'd just stood there, and let you believe there was nothing in him that wanted to fight for it.  

He often wondered if there was anything he could've said in that moment to keep you from leaving. You’d asked for that, he’d come to realize much later. You’d pleaded with him even, saying "I just asked you for a divorce, and you don't even care?"

He felt the length of it when he got a call from your divorce lawyer for the first time. “I’m calling because we haven’t received a response to our filing.”

“Yeah sorry, I'm a Chief Attending at the Pittsburgh Trauma-”

“Mhm, yes Dr. Robinavitch. We're aware, however court terms are very strict, and we're going to need to file your response. If you don’t, we’ll be forced to file a request for default judgement against you.” 

That was probably the first time it jolted him that this was happening. That this was real, that you wanted to end your marriage to him. 

He was the shell of a person by then. He couldn't manage the ED and also a divorce at the same time, so he hired the first recommendation he got from the hospital lawyers, and the proceedings went on. 

It pained him to sit across from you in those conference rooms. Your eyes would avoid his when he searched for them. He didn't put up a fight during negotiations. He let you keep the house, he moved out immediately. He wanted to give you whatever you needed, whatever you wanted.

He was brought out of his thoughts by the obscene loudness of a horn.

He didn't register what happened. There was metal screaming against metal, the bike going out from under him. 

He was airborne for a fraction of a second that felt weightless. Gravel scratched his face, his body. Rain needled down and he felt the wetness coming from the dark sky overhead as he lay contorted on the road. 

It was curious. No pain yet, just a white so total that it swallowed the rain, the road, the darkness, the decade past.