Jack Abbot’s Wife 🩺

You have always aspired to be perfect in anything you do, but as you grew older and started your nursing career, physical limitations had to be implemented so you don’t injure yourself.

Jack Abbot knew that you have always felt insecure about not being able to fulfil some of you duties at work and it never, ever bothered him or anyone else, except you. Jack fell in love with you not because you are a great nurse, but because you are an amazing person who is kind, hard working and wonderful. No matter how much he told you how brilliant you are, at home and work, you never fully believed it. So Jack came up with a different way to show just how great you really are. The perfect list.

⋆ ──── ♡ ──── ⋆

It was around midnight that the ache in your back starts to bother you, but worry not because Jack would be on the case reminding you to catch up on charting. A subtle way of telling you to sit down and have a break, without showing favouritism. It was you, actually who told him off for caring way too much about you at work, whereas Jack on the other hand would have shouted it from the rooftop for the entire city to hear on how much he truly cares about you.

“I still have a few patients to see”

“Don’t care” Jack gives you a lazy smile, “sit down”

“Abbot-“

“Who the hell is Abbot!”

“Baby stop…”

He immediately smirks at the way you softly say baby, “that’s it… I was wondering if I was put in the dog house for a minute..”

“I have so much to do”

“And I…” he leans in, “don’t care”

You shake your head at him in disappointment, but still do as he says and sit down. 

“Now what would you like to drink?” He asks, still smirking, clearly pleased with his bossy tone that you cannot resist.

“Don’t you have patients to attend to?”

“That’s what residents and med students are for… they’re like my minions. They as they are told”

You giggle and turn your attention back to the computer. “Baby go do some work, if I want a drink I can make it myself.”

He huffs awfully loudly at you, “okay little miss independent. I guess you don’t need me anymore!”

Before you can say anything, he walks away in a strop and you can’t help but laugh at him. You love how much he loves you, but you also worry about how much he worries about you. 

Your sitting down break doesn’t last very long before you get called away, just as Jack was coming back to see you with a hot drink. He watches as you run off in the distance and puts both hands out in protest but you shrug and run into the room. 

“What do we have?” You ask as you put your gloves on. 

Parker replies, “T-bone accident, mobilised with c-spine. We need to be careful transporting him onto the bed.”

You look around the room and not enough bodies are in here to help transfer the patient. You grab onto the gurney, but Parker immediately cuts in, “don’t you dare! Go get someone else”

“I can do it” you shouldn’t do it, but the patient needed to be moved asap. A small part of you desperately wanted to prove to everyone that you can do anything.

“Abbot would kill me, go get someone else.”

You shake your head at her and get hold of the gurney, “I’ll deal with Abbot later. On your count?”

The patient transfer goes smoothly, but your back immediately protests the movement and you feel a sharp pain shoot up your spine. Parker watches your reaction as you grunt in pain, but then focuses on the patient in front of her, immediately making a mental note to check on you later. Once the patient is stabilised and ready to be transferred to CT, you offer to take him up but she immediately rejects your offer. “Go get someone else” she says firmly.

“I said I can do it.”

“I know you can” she says calmly, “doesn’t mean you should.”

“But-“

She walks over to you and leans in, “I can’t have you injured because the floor can’t lose its best nurse.“

“I don’t feel like I’m the best right now, or any other day.” You mutter as you feel heat creep up to your cheeks, and you swallow back your tears. You do as she says because at the end of the day she is the lead on this case. 

Two hours later, the pain is now terrible, and you’ve taken pain relief that doesn’t seem to touch it. Usually it’s manageable if you avoid any activities that would trigger pain to this extent, but in this case, there was no helping you. You power through your feelings, and take on one case after another. 

Parker out of respect to you, doesn’t mention anything to Abbot but it was too obvious that you’ve hurt yourself. She’s also beating herself up about it, and she knows full well Abbot will be give her a well deserved lecture when he finds out. 

The next patient you encounter was a toddler, no older than three years old. The dad in the room seemed to care more about scrolling on his phone than attending to his own crying child, and despite your loud huffing and puffing, he doesn’t look up for his phone , once. You’d taken his observations, and administered his meds as prescribed and hung around him so he can have some company. You brought him some toys and sat on the bed with him, but the child clearly needed someone, anyone, to hold him. “How about you get him some chocolate milk and something to eat from the cafeteria?”

“Hm?” The dad hums cluelessly.

“Patrick, your kid. He’s hungry..”

“Oh right okay. Where’s the cafeteria?”

“Upstairs” 

“Where?”

“Figure it out” you bite back rudely as he gets out of the room in a rude strop. One thing you hated was useless parents. You turn your attention back to Patrick, whose fever was slowly coming down. His red cheeks and teary eyes broke your heart. “Shall we go say hi to everyone outside? Go for a little walk around?” 

“Okay!” The child exclaims happily. It was also awfully alarming that he did not care once that his dad had left the room. Without thinking, you pick him up, steady him on your hip and walk over to the hub with him. “This is Lena…”

“Hey little one!”

Patrick wraps his arms around you, burying his face in your neck shyly.

“Where’s the dad?”

“Getting him some snacks.” You then whisper, “he’s useless.”

“Hey you two!” Jack says from behind you, putting one gentle arm on your back, “what are you up to?”

“Just a little walk around, introducing him to everyone. He needs some love and hug”

Jack immediately extends his arms out and Patrick without hesitation launches himself at him. “Oh you’re heavy, what do they feed you??”

“Pizza!”

Jack mutters, “Jesus” and you giggle softly. 

Jack walks around with him for a bit and you follow, showing Patrick all the different rooms, avoiding anything too gruesomer. You offer to take him back but Jack refuses and instead he walks him back to the room and sits him on the bed. “Shall we play?”

“Okay! Do you like superman?”

“I love superman!” Jack replies happily. You reach down for the toys that scatter all over the chair and some that had fallen to the floor, and as you pick it up, pain shoots up your arm and you fully lose grip in your hand. Without saying a word, you pick it up with the other hand and hand it over to Jack.

“Can I leave you with him for a bit?” you ask Jack who is too distracted with Patrick. 

“Why don’t you have a sit down with us for a bit?” 

“Can’t, too many patients to see.” You lie. Your left arm was now tingling and you were starting to get anxious and sweaty. 

“You alright?” He says softly, noticing that you don’t look yourself.

“All good baby. Have fun in here.” You rush out of the room and look around for a doctor, because it’s either you are having a panic attack or a heart attack, because your back was aching terribly, your left arm was tingling and painful. It all came on within a matter of seconds. You clock eyes with Parker who instantly can tell something is wrong. She points at a room and you meet her in there.

“You look terrible” she spits out, already putting gloves on.

You say shakily, “Ellis it’s either i’m-“ you choke up on your word and suddenly feel nauseous, “My back hurts so much, my left arm- it’s uhhh tingling and painful.”

“Take your top off I’ll run an ECG.” She immediately moves to the machine, “is it your scoliosis?”

“I thought it was but this pain… it’s never this bad.” Living with chronic pain becomes a habit. Your body adapts to the pain, making it difficult for you to distinguish between a flare up or danger. The 0-10 pain scale no longer applies to you; it was never an accurate measurement of pain anyway, because everybody’s tolerance is different. However at this exact moment, your pain was a steady 9/10 and hence your panic.

“You told Abbot?”

“No” you mutter, “he doesn’t need to know.”

“He’s gonna kill me!” She spits out as she puts the leads on your chest, arms and legs. 

“Can we make sure I’m not having a heart attack please”

“Any heartburn?”

“Huh?”

“Is your stomach on fire?”

“I don’t think so…”

A moment passes as Ellis watches the waves on the screen, “ECG looks fine - let’s do troponin bloods. ECG isn’t always a 100% accurate”

“Seriously?”

“In women, heart attacks can present with symptoms as simple as heartburn. So we do bloods to rule it out.” She moves over to your arms, “let’s do a neuro exam.”

She asks you to squeeze here fingers but you can’t grip strong enough with your left hand. You can’t push her fingers away or pretty much do anything. 

“What’s your gut feeling?” She asks you, “please don’t lie to me”

“It might be scoliosis but it’s never ever been this bad…”

“You should have never lifted that gurney” she says quietly, “you must have done something else to trigger it.”

“I carried that toddler in room five.”

She sighs and drops her should down in defeat, “girl why the hell did you do that?”

“Because-“ you choke up and find yourself instantly bursting into tears, “because I feel incompetent!”

”What brought this on? You were never like this before, unless you hid it from us. From me.”

You stay quiet, too embarrassed to say anything.

”Something’s been said?”

You reply too quietly, “how do you know?”

“Wild guess. Who the hell have said what so I can rip them to shreds”

“It’s no one…”

“Fine i’m gonna go get Abbot” she moves away from the bed but you immediately plea for her to stay.

“Please don’t! It was a patient, the other day. Called me lazy.”

“What the fuck for!”

“Because I couldn’t roll him onto his side and had to call Mateo in.”

“You’re silly” she sits on the bed next to you and holds your hand, “you’re nowhere near that! That patient is an asshole and clearly doesn’t know you”

“There’s so many things I can’t do, and I…”

“You don’t feel like you’re good enough.”

“Exactly.”

“And whatever I say to you right now… you’re not gonna believe.”

You shake your head in embarrassment.

“I’m gonna ask Mateo to do your bloods, because I can’t do bloods. Wanna know why?”

You shake your head again.

“Because I’m fucking awful at it. I do it wrong all the time. It’s one of the many things I can’t do, but you can.”

“It’s simple really…”

“But is it?“ she tilts her head and leans in, “have a think about how much you can do and I can’t. We’ll circle back to it in a minute. I’m gonna go find Mateo. Stay here, if anything gets worse press the panic button.”

“Yes boss.” You mumble, and wipe your tears away.

She gives you a big hug and runs over to Lena, asking her to block out the room and adds your initials on the board with the diagnosis next to it ?STEMI ?NEURO

As promised, Mateo comes rushing in to take your bloods and to check in on you. You ask him no to mention anything to Jack just yet, but it was too late. Because as Abbot leaves Patrick’s room, he looks at the board to pick his next patient. He sees your initials on the screen with a heart attack and question mark next to it, and he instantly panics. Because 1. Why is this patient with the same initials as you not in a trauma room? And 2. Where the hell are you. 

He charges into the room, opening the curtain rather aggressively in panic. His heart is telling him there is no way it would be you in that room, but the moment he sees you on the bed, his heart sinks and bile instantly fills his throat, “What the-“

“I can explain!” You say quickly, “I’m fine!”

“Mateo have you done what you need to do in here?” He says firmly and Mateo nervously nods before escaping the room.

He links both hands behind his back and walks over, “Who’s your doctor?”

“Ellis…”

He immediately thinks of a million ways to torture her, “Are you having a heart attack?”

You shake your head. 

“Sweetheart what the hell happened!” he says softer now, and approaches you. 

“I can’t feel my left arm… and my back hurts and everything is tingling.”

He sits on the bed next to you and cups your face, “I need you to tell me exactly what you’ve done today. From start to finish.”

“I lifted a patient and-“

“YOU DID W-“ Jack grunts and forces himself to speak calmly, “you did what…”

“There weren’t enough hands in the room….”

“And then you carried Patrick…”

“I did…”

“You had him leaning on your right hip, so my best guess is you’ve trapped a nerve in your back. Have they done troponin?” He looks over at the ECG waves on the screen, double checking that your heart looks fine.

You nod, “I’m sorry…”

“Nothing to be sorry about” Jack murmurs softly, “how bad is the pain?”

”It’s awful” you mumble, “Parker’s ordered some pain meds I think”

“Baby why didn’t you come to me…”

“I didn’t want to worry you!”

“It’s my job to worry about my girl because if I don’t worry about you then it means I don’t love you enough!” Jack gives you a soft smile, “and I love you so incredibly much and I don’t show it enough!”

“You show it more than enough but I’m struggling to understand why you think I’m a great nurse because even I don’t believe it.”

“I’m glad you asked that question” he smiles happily and you’re so confused by his reaction. He pulls his phone out, and opens his notes app. “Now you might think you’re not a great nurse, or feel inferior to our colleagues but no one ever thinks that of you. So a while ago, I started making a list…”

He pulls out his glasses from his pocket and puts them on. 

“December 20th — your elderly patient who came in with a broken wrist said she won’t be able to cook dinner for her husband who can’t care for himself so what did you do? You bought her food from the cafeteria to take home and showed her how to order food on the delivery app. So when Christmas comes, she doesn’t need to worry about food. Do you remember what she said to you?”

You’re far too stunned to speak and you simply just shake your head. 

“She said, people like you deserve everything good in their life. Because not only you were a great nurse, but also kind and went the extra mile for a complete stranger.” He smiles and reads the second one. “Christmas Eve — you came in wearing a Santa hat and the end of life patient who came in here with a fever? She told me she didn’t think she was going to see Santa before she passes. Thanks to you, she saw his hat on last time. I also checked, she died on the 26th of December in the hospital.”

Jack smiles and continues reading, but you on the other hand is staring at him with fresh tears running down your cheeks. “That boy you did CPR on for 15 minutes? He survived because of you. That was on January 5th.”

“Jack today’s the 9th of June…”

“So?”

“You have 6 months worth of notes?”

“Oh and it’s still going. Patrick is going on the list too, don’t worry. Next.” He clears his throat and continues, “Do you remember that lady that overdosed on turmeric? She came in and looked jaundiced and no one figured out what was wrong? You diagnosed her. Not me or any other doctor. In the same day, you also told Shen that he should reexamine a patient, and you were right. He missed a step in his consultation and the patient was treated correctly thanks to yo. A week later, you noticed that the lady brought in with a suspected heart attack had the ECG leads put on incorrectly by the paramedics, and thanks to you she survived.”

Jack continues talking for minutes on end, reading out to you every nice word patients have said about you, staff who praised you and jobs that you excelled in on shift.

“May 16th — you gave that homeless patient a wash and a hair cut. No one asked you to, but you did it anyway. Do you know what he said to Lena on his way out? He told her that now he looks clean, he might be able to go for a job interview. All thanks to you. He offered to leave you a tip but she told him we can’t accept money.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes baby, seriously!” He says excitedly, “I have so much more to read, hang on”

“Jack-“

“No let me finish-“

“Jack! Look at me” He puts his phone on the bed and his warm eyes meet yours, “you did this for me?”

“This was nothing! It’s all little blurbs really I could have done it much better.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Sweetheart, just because you can’t lift a patient up, or carry a gurney, or push heavy equipment around does not make you any less of a great nurse. We all have limitations - including me. It took me a long time to admit that I won’t be able to run to you if God forbid I ever need to, but that’s something I have to live with and accept even my heart doesn’t want to. You are a perfectionist, and you already are perfect.”

“I love you Jack”

“You’re my perfect sweet girl. You got it?”

“Mhm” you bite on your lips and smile, “i’ve got it.”

“Now, once you’re better, can I take you home so I can take care of you? Please?”

“Yes please”

“Seriously?” He grins, “you’re gonna let me take care of you! You never let me do that.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“So many relaxing activities. You’re gonna be so relaxed you’re not gonna make it to work tomorrow.” He leans in and kisses you deeply, “and no more secrets”

“No more secrets.” you kiss him back.

Jack mumbles “perfect” against your lips.

Jack Abbot made you a list of all the great things that make you a nurse. Whenever you’ve achieved something during a shift, he wrote it down. Whenever a patient thanked you, he noted what they’ve said. Whenever he hears praise about you, he opened up the notes app and wrote it down. 

That’s how much Jack Abbot loves you.