miss twenty something

Flashback to 3 and a half years ago.

For the past few months, you have been internally battling whether you wanted to confront Jack about how you have been feeling lately. About how he keeps putting his job before you, how it feels like you have been out of sync for a while. How every plan is met with “Sorry, I have to go in” and picking up extra shifts because “he wanted to”. 

You lived together but it feels like you are two ships sailing in the night. Where has your husband gone? You haven’t felt married in a really long time.

It’s not like you didn’t know what his job entailed. You’ve dated for a really long time. Between the night shift and his second job as a SWAT medic, he managed his schedule fairly well when you came into the picture. But lately you’ve felt like a second thought.

You’ve called your mom about this a million times. She’s told you the same thing over and over. “Just open up the floor to the issue,” she says. You can’t tell if she’s annoyed if you brought it up once again on your daily catch ups, but she’s your mom. She’s not allowed to hear the end of anything. “He probably is just stressed or there’s something else going on he’s not telling you about. I know you know how he is,” she continues.

She’s probably right, then again when is she ever wrong. But you decide to hold out just a bit longer. 

On an ordinary weekend, you wake up to no alarm, the sunrise gently waking you up through a crack in the curtain. You reflexively move your hand over to his side of the bed, only to be met by cool sheets and no Jack. That’s nothing new, you’ve been waking up to an empty bed for weeks at this point.

You sigh and stare at the ceiling before getting up to freshen up in the bathroom before you stroll into the kitchen, only to see Jack making an omelet.

“You’re here,” you state, surprised. You didn’t mean for that tone to come across as such, but the communication between you two had been so off kilter you didn’t even know he had today off.

Jack, confused on why you’re confused, responds, “Yeah, hon. I do live here don’t I?”

As you move towards the espresso machine, still groggy from sleep you respond, “I don’t know…do you?” at what you thought was under your breath. Jack hears what you say, but he’s too tired to even start whatever argument is brewing along with your morning coffee.

All of a sudden the kitchen feels too small as you both move around making your own breakfasts. It's silent, save for some sizzling, some whisking and some pouring.

You both hated the uncomfortable silence. “Maybe I should bring it up now,” you thought. No better time like the present.

Jack still stands over the stove as you move behind the counter and sit behind the bar. You stare at his perfect back. His shoulders are always so tense and never relaxed, but this time, it seemed different.

“Jack,” you start. He doesn’t turn around. “Jack, can we talk…please,”

You can see his back slowly rise and fall, signaling him sighing. He knew what was coming. He just thought he could avoid it just a little longer.

He reaches over and switches the stove off before turning around. He tries to make eye contact with you, but your eyes were already welling up. He didn’t want to see you cry, especially when he was the cause.

He nods before whispering, “Yeah. Yeah, okay,”

You close your eyes and breathe before speaking. You want to be as concise as possible with what you want to say, but you don’t want to come across as angry because at the end of the day, you weren’t. You just wanted to be seen and heard by the man you loved. 

“I feel…I feel like we’ve been drifting apart,” you start. “It’s like you’ve been putting your job before me and I am an afterthought,”.

Jack continues looking at the floor. He knows he has. It wasn’t intentional. He doesn’t know what it was. He’s just felt off for a really long time.

“We haven’t spent real time together in months, Jack. I don’t even know what is going on in your life anymore. We’re supposed to be a unit, a team,” you rush out. “I am not sure if there’s something else going on with you, at work or something, but I’d really hope you’d let me in. I love you and I don’t want to feel like this anymore,” you finish. 

You feel out of breath. As if holding this in for the past few months was equivalent to being in a perpetual race and you just crossed the finish line.

Jack loves you, you know he does. But he can’t bring himself to say anything, let alone look at you. His continued silence starts to anger you. 

“Do you really have nothing to say?” you whisper, as to not raise your voice. You were getting upset, but the last thing you wanted was to yell.

He finally looks at you, eyes glazed. The look in his eyes breaks your heart.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. Not wanting his voice to break. 

It’s obvious he had more to say but he was holding back, but you don’t say anything. You just keep staring at him. As if you were subliminally letting him know this was a space he could and should open up to you. What happened within him that he feels that it’s necessary to shut down?

“I’m sorry, I really don’t know what else to say,” he repeats. 

You feel a sense of defeat as you look down and start picking at the skin on your fingers. Although the conversation was short. You were already tired. But something pushed you to try one more time.

“Jack, we can’t work through this if you can’t let me in. Please let me in,” you plead. 

The distance between you and him has never felt further. Both emotionally, and physically as you can’t bring yourself to cross over to his side of the kitchen.

He turns back around. He wants to let you in so bad. He almost spoke up at least 10 times, but with every thought he beat himself back down. The last thing he wanted to do was drag you down with his problems. He’s done that enough, he felt.

You finally hit a wall and say the quiet thing out loud.

“I can’t be the only person in this marriage,” you spill out. “It’s been months of this and it's frustrating you never want to talk,” you continue over hot tears.

Giving up, you suck in a breath and wipe your eyes, heading to the door and grab your keys, your bag with your computer and slip on your shoes.

“I’m going to the coffee shop down the street. If you actually want to work on this, meet me there. If not…,” your voice breaks as you trail off. You can’t even fathom the end of that thought. So you don’t. Without another word, you turn and walk out the door.

As the back doors of the ambulance open and the paramedics start to roll out your gurney, you beg them to just let you go home.

"I promise you, I am fine, I'm just a little scraped up," you plead.

After a minor car accident, you were seriously fine. Just a ding, or a bruised rib maybe, but since your car was totaled and the other driver ended up way worse than you, EMS urged you to at least get checked out. If anything you just felt a little embarrassed being rolled around on a gurney.

As you enter the double doors, and the large letters of PTMC adorn the archway you automatically recognize where you are and your stomach immediately drops.

"Fuck," you swear under your breath. Thinking that if you close your eyes and lay down you'd turn invisible. You cannot be here right now. You didn’t even think about the possibility of being brought here. Quickly, you try to recall what time it is. 5 o'clock, you think, maybe he isn't here yet. You knew that was bullshit. He was always early to work. The only thing he made sure he was never late to.

When the bright lights blind you and the cold air breezes through your hair, a familiar face comes rushing to the gurney for intake.

"Alright, boys, what do we got-...Y/N?" she all but yells.

You grimace.

"Hi Dana, how have you been?" you say with an awkward smile. "I swear I'm fine they made me come in"

Dana’s eyes widen and she starts scanning the room, knowing exactly who we need to be straying away from.

“He’s here, isn’t he?” you sigh. Knowing the one person you have been avoiding for years could show up at any moment.

“We don’t have to worry about that right now,” she rushes out as 2 young…interns, you assume, come rushing beside her. They just get younger and younger don’t they?

“Santos and Whitaker,” she starts, both of them wide eyed and eager. “Take her to West 12 and page Robby.

They nod, confused on her sudden sternness as she emphasizes “And do NOT call Abbot, I do not care if Robby is packing up to leave you leave Jack out of this”

As EMS rolls you to your room, past all the patients waiting and the other nurses and doctors, you attempt to breathe through the pain you were pretending you weren’t having. Anything to get out of there faster.

As you get transferred and hooked up to monitors, an older doctor walks in, introducing himself as Dr. Langdon.

You smirk with nostalgia, remembering his dark brown hair and Ken doll-like build.

“Wait, I know you,” you begin.

He raises his eyebrow, “You do?”

You giggle as you remember Dr. Langdon the intern.

“Yeah you were an intern who loved kissing ass to every attending around you,” you chuckle. Reminiscing about how Jack would complain about him at least 4 times a week.

Santos perks up, seemingly excited to learn about her boss’s past.

 “Wow, Langdon, who would have thought you were a brown-noser?” she says sarcastically.

Langdon, ignoring her, continues his work-up as Robby walks in. He pauses at the door as you make eye contact sheepishly. Again embarrassed to be there but more embarrassed he’s here to oversee you.

“Oh here we go,” you sigh as you sit back in the bed. 

Robby was always protective of you. Like a little sister. You hated it sometimes because you can handle your own and you always have, but you understood where he was coming from. 

“Good to see you too, Y/N,” he says while gloving up, grabbing your chart and walking over. “What’s it been, 3 years? What the fuck happened?”

“Robby, please,” you beg. “I was just telling the paramedics I am just scraped up. I am literally fine,” you start.

You look at him intently, as if telepathically telling him you need to get out of here as soon as possible before Jack shows up, not wanting to bring your business up to the 3 other people in the room you just met.

You can tell he knows what you’re thinking, but he would be damned if he’d let you walk out of here without properly making sure you were 100% fine.

“Y/N…,” he starts.

“Fine,” You dramatically sigh as you finally give up. “Just do whatever you need to do”

“It’s good to see you,” he says. “I hate that it had to happen like this but I have missed you. You could have called”

“I could have,” you look away, feeling guilty. Robby was family. But it hurt too much to continue to talk to anyone that reminded you of him. You needed to completely move on. It wasn’t personal, you just had to be selfish for yourself for once.

The awkward silence is broken by a sharp gasp triggered by Santos prodding your side.

“I’m sorry,” she states in a monotone state, fiercely focused on the work at hand. You respected that. 

Santos turns to Whitaker, asking him to notate bruised and/or cracked ribs.

“Damn it,” you grumble.

Robby chuckles under his breath. “Yeah you are not getting out of here soon”

“That’s not funny,” you roll your eyes.

At the Nurse’s Station, Dana is suddenly hawk-eyed. Making sure Abbot stays far away from the clear doors of the room you’re in, knowing she’d be on the hook first for not telling him.

“Perlah, if you see Abbot can you let him know I need to see him stat”, she says as she strategizes excuses.

“You got it,” she responds, turning towards Princess with eyes that say “I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s gonna be really juicy”

Dana makes a round on the floor, making sure everything else is running smoothly as a couple of young parents come busting through the ambulance bay with their toddler who may or may not have shoved a Lego piece up her nose. 

As Jack makes his way to the E.R., she asks him to take a look at this young girl, buying her just a smidge of time.

“Dr. Abbot can absolutely help you guys,” she says with a sense of concerning enthusiasm.

He offers his help of course, but not before giving Dana a look that says “This is intern work”. 

Speaking of, where are the interns? he thought. With no time to actually track them down, Dana leads him and the family to South 20.

Dana sighs with relief knowing that will keep him occupied for at least a while.

Back in West 12, Robby starts prepping an ultrasound probe to check for internal bleeding. Still feeling slightly embarrassed and now wholly exposed, you lay completely flat with your arms up covering your eyes, hoping this nightmare will end soon.

“So,” Robby starts trying to break the silence. “I heard you moved to New York,”

You peek through your forearms. He is really doing this.

“Yeah…my- uh sister is down there. Needed a change and my job was really flexible about it,” you explain, guilt creeping up your throat. Why do you feel guilty? You were a newly single woman, you could do whatever you want.

Robby doesn’t say anything, continuing to move the probe around in your midsection to make sure you aren’t bleeding out.

“I didn’t mean to just run away, I just-,” you begin to defend.

Robby looks from the monitor to you with understanding eyes.

“Hey, if anyone can relate to having the need to get away, it’s me,” he starts. 

You give him a confused look as he remembers you’ve missed the last 3 years.

“I uh, also went away for a while,” he says.

You blink, stonefaced before you crack a smile.

“You, Michael “I’m addicted to my job” Robinavitch, went on leave? Ha ha good one,” you joke. There was just no way he got up and left his job. The only person more committed to the PTMC than Jack was him.

Robby can’t help but chuckle at the joke. It’s true, he was so entangled with his job, he didn't know where Dr. Robinavitch stopped and just Michael started.

“I did, I’d never lie about that. I almost didn’t come back,” he says.

You turn towards him, serious now. 

“Damn it must have been serious for you then,” you say.

After taking out the 2 Lego pieces from little Jane’s nose. Jack Abbot strolls up to the Nurse’s Station to prepare for the night shift. As he waits for the rest of the Night Crew to show up, he takes a look at the ER board.

“Wow, not too busy at the start for now,” he thinks to himself. He wouldn’t dare say that out loud.

As he’s scanning, he notices a familiar name. 

Y/L/N,Y/F/I

MVC

West 12

He freezes. He thinks to himself there is no way that this is the same Y/L/N he was…used to be married to.

Dana comes back to the station cautiously. She can see his gears turning. “Fuck” she thinks.

“Jack,” she starts. Not wanting to cause a scene here.

Jack closes his eyes and sighs. That’s all the confirmation he needed.

“Dana, please don’t tell me she’s here. Please don’t tell me she’s here and no one told me,” he says calmly while his heart starts picking up pace.

“She asked me not to say anything,” she tried to soften the blow

“Bullshit,” he scoffs as he looks around the floor. “Where’s Robby?”

Dana looks down, absolutely not wanting to be involved in the argument that’s about to follow.

When Jack realizes the extent of what the hell was going on as he makes his way to West 12. With each step he grows less angry and more anxious, like his legs could give out at any moment. He doesn’t know how bad it is. It’s also been 3 years since the divorce. 3 years since they’ve spoken to each other. 3 years of him wanting to call her everyday, but knowing he shouldn’t. 

Jack busts through the doors as Robby has continued X-rays and ultrasounds. You can’t see who has walked in, as Robby was blocking the door, but you are just assuming it's another nurse as Whitaker keeps ordering labs and scans.

When Robby finally turns you make eye contact with Jack and freeze. Neither of you move. Neither of you talk. The room somehow grows even colder.

Robby begins to speak. “...Jack-,” he starts.

Jack puts his hand up. He doesn’t want to hear it at all. Not now, that doesn’t matter now.

Santos and Whitaker exchange glances and make up some excuse to exit the room that no one really heard.

Robby slowly follows, putting his hand on Jack’s shoulder as he leaves, tapping it twice as if to say, “I’m sorry” and “Find me if you need me”. 

It’s now just you and Jack. Silent and staring at each other from across the room as if you’d entered a staring contest. You didn’t even know what to say. 

“Hi,” is all you can choke out.

Jack stares at the floor and quietly scoffs. “That’s really all you have to say?” He grabs your chart at the foot of the bed.

“Hey, you aren’t my doctor you can’t just grab my chart,” you try and joke.

He isn’t in a laughing mood, not in the slightest. “You were in an accident and tried to hide from me,” he starts.

“I am literally fine,” you groan for what feels like the 100th time. “I didn’t even know I was coming here it all happened so fast I would have-,”

“Would have what?” he interrupted. “Asked them to take you somewhere else?”

You grow quiet, knowing that you probably would have. You weren’t ready to face him again. You were never going to be ready.

“Jack-,” you begin.

“I have missed you…so much,” he chokes. “I always want to call you after every shift to update you on literally the smallest things, but I knew that you hated me so I-,”

“Woah,” you cut in. “Hate? Jack, I don't hate you. I have never hated you,” You were kind of surprised he felt this way

Jack blinks at you.