penvisions

“Fuuuuuckin’ hell, man,” Robby exhales loudly, palms flat on the back of his head as his fingers spread wide, the tension in his shoulders getting heavier as your vitals even out. You look sallow even with the oxygen they’re now supplying to you. Jack is still holding tight to the last shot of epinephrine, despite the lumen being empty. It feels both like the lightest and heaviest thing in the world, as he holds it in his hand, poised exactly as it was for him to give you the shot of medication.

He’s about to move when Jack does, his head ducked low and his hands clenched as he tosses the needle into the sharps container and rids of himself of his gloves. Calculated movements that err on the side of too fast that give away the tension he’s carrying in every muscle of his body. But he’s gentle when he reaches over your unconscious form to lay a blanket over your ruined clothing, wanting to preserve some semblance of your modesty.

His knuckles pop as he sets the guard rails in place, his grip turning the freckled skin completely white.

“You didn’t know.” Robby quietly reassures, knowing the direction of his friend's thoughts.

Jack can’t get that flicker of fear in expression out of his mind’s eye. It’s replaying like some sick film at the end of it’s roll. Flashing over and over and over, dissolving into you on the floor and convulsing something wicked and horrifying. He never wants to see anything like it again. Not when it’s you.

His composure broke.

He’ll be the first to admit it, Robby noticed it too.

Just for a moment.

But that’s all it takes for something to go wrong, for the brain to be depraved of oxygen, for organs to shut down, for skin to wither. For someone to suffer. For someone to die.

It’s only ever broken one other time.

And he doesn’t like to think about it. but it was when he first returned home earlier than normal to find his wife passed out in their previous home. He’d paused for a long while, brain short circuiting before kicking in and assessing the scene. He’d been one of those people that cradled the downed person when he should’ve immediately called for help and then done what he could to assess the situation. He knows now that he hadn’t caused any damage or further issues, but the guilt is still there. It will always be there, that he paused. That he acted like a civilian.

He's never been just a civilian.

✦✦✦✦

Jack doesn’t go home after his shift. He sits in the room with you, where you’re still a goddamn patient in the emergency department even as the sun rises on the city.

His thoughts consume him in the worst way.

Memories of doing this with his late wife play like some twisted movie in his head. Failure after failure reminding him why he works himself to the bone, until there’s nothing left, why he sometimes sits in deathly silence across from his therapist for the full hour of their session even as they call his name and try to bring him back to the living world.

And then Gloria is stepping into the room. Frown on her face.

“She’s turning out to be a problem, isn’t she?”

“Excuse me?” Jack’s head whips up deadly fast from where he had been holding his face in his hands, neck cricking from the movement. His anger flares up, hot and fast like it used to when he was young and trying to prove himself in the service but fell just short of getting the recognition he thought he deserved. It took time for him to learn, to understand that some things are just expected actions and nothing to be rewarded. That the things that end up getting such are the things he carries with him in his low moments, that make his body ache and his mind glitch. But this?

You being accused of something totally and wholly inappropriate and wrong?

That deserves his anger.

“Two incidents within six months is…not satisfactory.” Gloria continues on her assessment of you, of the two things out of your control when the overall track record is rather impressive. So impressive that you’ve gone ahead and accepted the offer for the attending position. But now? The same woman who sat at the table as your superiors, as your coworkers, as patient satisfaction reports and comments were read aloud for her based on your work and interactions- is saying that you are not up to snuff. That you are becoming a burden.

Jack’s not going to let it happen.

You do a perfectly fine job here at the PTMC. You take the time to talk to people in a calm, attentive voice even in a rush. You take the time out of your busy schedule to conduct street team duties and thrive in that environment- helping to bridge the gap between the often forgotten or overlooked with a soft smile on your face and a kind hand. He’ll be damned if the opportunity to continue to do good work, to be yourself and to continue to thrive in the field you’ve worked so hard and sacrificed so much to be in is taken from you over something that was his fault.

Because if he hadn’t gone across the street and gotten that damn pastry…

“You know what’s not satisfactory?” Jack’s voice is even, commanding, a little louder than normal because he’s stressed and his protective instinct was just activated. “That my patient is still waiting on a room in a hectic emergency department when she should be upstairs in a quiet hall getting some rest after having being in respiratory distress!”

Heads turn to peer in through the glass that makes up the walls of your room. As if this is just some television drama that upped the ante. Conflict for the sake of conflict. But no, this is something that Jack will not have happen, not in his department, not in his life, not to his girl.

“She shouldn’t have even been in respiratory distress to begin with, she was on the clock.”

“Oh, my bad, Gloria. Let me just- tell my staff to not fucking eat on the clock real quick and that will resolve the issue of accidental allergen consumption! What the actual fuck?” He makes an ugly face, he knows he does, a grimace that does nothing to hide his disgust at the words his superior just spoke.

And then she proceeds to-

“Dr. Abbot, I suggest you calm down.”

Tell him to calm down.

As if she isn’t literally coming after the one person that’s managed to make a home under his skin and in his heart after everything that’s happened to him.

“I suggest you leave the room, Gloria. You are not going to like any more of my responses at this time if you do not.”

“Dr. Abbot, you may have authority here but you are toeing the line like Robby,” Gloria’s words are even in tone but the underlying question is there. Are you going to start causing problems and back talking?

Jack shifts his weight on his feet, arms crossed over his chest as he fixes the woman across from him with a stern glare. She’s not even in the room completely, nor has she asked if you’re okay. She’s only barely entered the room, the door still open slightly behind her and she’s basically accused you of being a problem for having a medical emergency in a hospital.

It’s honestly the best damn place to have one of those, if you ask any one of the professionals on shift.

Regardless if you’re staff or not.

Resident, nurse, doctor, what have you.

“You may have authority over the floor in some regards but you certainly do not have it over how the workers manage their time and when they can and cannot have their own medical emergencies.”

Gloria’s eyes take in your form once more before she turns her back and takes her leave, the door is barely snipping shut behind her when a new sound breaks the tension.

“You tell ‘er,” Your weak voice croaks from behind him, making him whip around so fast his prosthetic creaks. He’s across the room in a heartbeat, hands reaching to cradle the one that you raised to reach for him. The IV along the back of it feels cold and all too familiar in against his palm but he tamps down the memories that crop up, focusing on you and the present.

And he isn’t too big a fan of what he sees but he’s determined to help you get better, to make a difference and help you get that room upstairs or discharged so he can take care of you at home.

Home.

Because it’s not his place anymore. Not just his place.

It’s been transformed into something new since you’ve moved in.

Fresh flowers in the entry way and kitchen, the smell of homemade food, fresh bread and tortillas, your perfume lingering fucking everywhere.

“Cherry, baby, I am so fucking sorry.”

“You didn’t…know, Jack.” Your voice cracks on the harsh consonants of his name, breath wheezing an uncomfortable thing from your lungs at the effort. You grimace, face twisting into something that makes your freckles and beauty marks pop against the florescent lighting even more so. You’re so beautiful, even in the hospital bed, even sallow,

“I…I should’ve.”

“How do you figure, hmm?” Robby’s voice piques up from the doorway, helping to bridge the gap of communication seeing as you’re unable to get out more than a few wheezing sounds that resemble words. You nod weekly, touching a weak pointer finger to your nose and aiming the other at the man as he approaches. It trembles with the motion.

Jack just frowns, wrinkles forming as his mouth pulls down heavily and he almost pouts with the motion.

It’s…heart wrenching.

Robby’s deep chuckle fills the room as he pulls the stethoscope from around his neck and readies it to listen to your breathing. Jack just watches, mind a little slow, turned down a bit, otherwise he would’ve thought to do that the second your eyes fluttered open.

He feels like he’s in limbo.

Not quite a doctor, not quite a partner. Something in between, but he isn’t sure what. With his wife, it was obvious he was the worried spouse, the doting husband, the doctor who worked a shift at the hospital and then one at home- but this…this is different and new in ways he’s not sure how to navigate quite yet. Not with you.

“She’s good to go upstairs, brother,” Robby announces, wringing the device back around his shoulders and gripping each end in a hand as a soothing motion. It’s not much, but it’s helping him keep his hands to himself as he regards the display of your vitals, of eyeing the steady drip of your IV, the sweep over your frame in the bed. You’d been changed into a gown, blankets piled on and pillows propped up all around you at Jack’s insistence.

Perla had asked how Jack knew you’d want so many of them but he’d remained silent in the wake of such a question. She didn’t say anything further, but followed his orders, knowing that the two of you were close. Princess and her share a look every time he lingers and then eventually when his shift was over and they were back for theirs the next morning to find him sitting there with his head in his hands.

A different twelve hours for each of them, to be sure.

“…h-home,” Is what you manage to say, fingers tangling with Jack’s atop your lap. Your grip is weak but enough for him to understand that you’d rather recover in private, with him tending to you rather than a plethora of nurses and doctors. And then there’s the issue of insurance and billing…he’s unsure if you even have medical coverage, because while the hospital is a decent place to work, it doesn’t exactly offer the best benefits for those who haven’t established themselves or are willing to pay a high monthly premium.

Regardless, he would over to cover any expenses.

Just to ease his own mind a bit.

To help you where and when you might need it.

Not because you can’t tend to it yourself but because he wants to.

To be that pillar you lean on when things get tough, to be a support for you where you have none. Not just as a man and woman but because he cares for you, he wants to be a safe space for you, to be want you want in any ways and all ways even if you might not think it.

“I’ll get the discharge paperwork all drawn up. Medications, breathing treatments, all of it packed and ready for you two to take with you. Follow up in three days for a check-up and secondary tests, Sound good?”  Robby tetters back and forth on his feet, height towering over both of them but it’s reassuring in a way at the moment. He’s going to make sure you get what you need and none of it shows up on the books. You’re thankful for that, you can’t even begin to fathom how much this mishap is going to set you back and end up costing you in extra hours at your second job.

A simple thumbs up is your reply, a tired smile pulling at your lips as you head rests heavy against your many pillows. Numbers and percentages swirling around sluggishly behind your eyes. It tires you, it stresses you, but you don’t have the energy to focus on it any more than fleetingly at the moment.

Instead, you shift to Jack. Eyes finding his hazel ones that are shining despite the overhead fluorescents being turned off in the early hours of the day. You can only assume since Robby is here and Jack appears to be so ruffled and resolutely sitting by your side. His curls care completely frizzy, the varying shades of silver that make them up wrecked from him running his hands through them no doubt. You untangle your hand from his and reach shakily for them, wanting to pat a few of them down where they stick up a little too tall, the roots no doubt teased out from his ministrations.

Robby turns towards the door just as Jack tips his head low for you, his cheek resting on your thigh lightly to allow you to thread your fingers through his locks. He sighs heavily, his breath stuttering out as a dry sob wracks his body on the exhale. You only watch with tired, glassy eyes of your own as his wrinkles crease around his clenched, freckled face.

✦✦✦✦

Anyone who even gives a curious glance in his direction as he maneuvers his truck into the ambulance bay gets a withering glare. Jack isn’t typically one for such outright aggression or stern imposition without reason, he knows he’s breaking several laws and even violating some hospital safety guidelines, but he’s not about to wheel you in your weakened state to the front pick up on the busy street side. The sun shining down harshly on the entrance alone would be too much for you, let alone the exhaust from the traffic and general stuffiness of the city. The backside of the hospital a little less so, shaded, easier, better. For you and thus for him. He leaves his hazards on and makes sure his parking pass as well s his handicap [term for pass] is on display before he shifts it into park and carefully get out.

His own legs are aching, his right a little stiff from being so tense in that chair for so long. It’d taken a few more hours for discharge to become a reality, no doubt due to Robby finagling the system in your favor.

For which Jack is grateful. He’d seen the swirl of stress begin to brew behind your eyes at the mention of medication and everything.

A soft, tired smile pulled at his lips as Mel carefully wheeled you up to the bay doors. Your little wave melts his heart and he shifts his weight on his legs to work out a kink in his hip before walking over to help.

In the quiet of the truck, after an easy transition under his watchful eye, Jack’s eyes flit to you when you whisper something conspiratorially to him in the cab.

“Your pastry fairy dropped off their weekly treats,” Your voice is weak, a little raspy, a little hoarse, but you manage to inflict a little bit of a teasing tone into the words still. The ongoing joke between you and him and Robby something that normally brings out a good laugh and the gossip lover in him.

But it seems to have a negative effect today. Your teasing falls flat.

“That’s not funny, Cherry.”

“I’m not being funny, I’m trying to cheer you up, Jack,” You reach out a hand and pull one of his from the steering wheel. But he keeps it firm, not allowing you to uncurl his fingers in your weakened state. The muscle in his jaw is twitching, letting you know he’s trying to keep his emotions in check but that he’s on edge as well. He’s about ready to pop. So you drop your hands back in your lap, attention firmly fixed outside of your window now. Heat builds up behind your face and you hate yourself for the huff of tears that well up. It’s stupid, this whole thing is so stupid.

He made a mistake; it doesn’t need to be this way. He doesn’t need to carry it like it’s some grave affront against you he did on purpose. There’s a lack of knowledge, a lack of awareness involved, accidents happen – medical or otherwise. Just because you’re both in the medical field doesn’t excuse you from the human error of that. Especially with something like this.

You can see him shutting down, now that things are sinking in, have sunk in.

That this has happened, that he’s taking on the blame for what happened. Already has before you even hit the ground all those hours ago. And you’re…too tired to help him work through it at the moment.

Wanting to just curl into yourself and give in to the emotions that are cresting and waning inside of your body. the feeling of being alone all encompassing, of being so far away from all that you know too much to even begin to handle in the wake of all this. His comfort, his hold, his attention- it would help but it wouldn’t heal. Not completely.

And that’s a damn shame.

Nobody can heal someone completely, they can only help.

But only if they can get out of their own shit long enough.

And Jack is about as deep in his shit as you’ve ever seen him.

He helps you out of the truck almost on autopilot, doctor mode fully activated, a touch too professional for the setting. For the front of his driveway, for the entry through his open garage door and the sleek, organized confines of said garage. The hallway is shadowed in the early morning whereas the entryway via the front door is dappled in the morning light, perfectly displaying the mood that swirls heavy in the air around the two of you.

✦✦✦✦

“I think…” You trail off, voice raspy from the trauma of the day before, not sure if you really, truly want to do this but need to do something. “Jack, I’m going to sleep in my room, I think we need some…space from each other today.”

He doesn’t argue, he doesn’t even say anything. He’s completely switched off, given over to this foreign version of himself you’ve only glimpsed before. It’s been easy to drag him back from the edge when you see him amble along it but he’s already halfway over and he needs to sort himself out- you know from experience of your own that any help will only be met with resistance and apathy.

But perhaps there is one person who can help, his best friend. You opt to resort to shooting off a text if Jack is in much of the same state in a few days’ time when he returns to work, having decided to stay home to help manage the breathing treatments and medication in case you get too winded doing every day tasks.

As soon as the door clicks shut behind you, your body sags, the day and everything that happened hitting you. The first sob forced its way out of your chest unexpectedly. It was a violent, involuntary sound that seems to come from the very bottom of your lungs, ripping through your body.

It hurts.

To cry so ferally, to wholly.

The emotions taking over completely.

Loneliness and stress and everything in between taking over in a way that hurts even more as it burns through your exhausted body. the burning in your throat intensifies but you ignore it, almost choking on your next breath as you stagger toward the bed. You scramble for the drawer on the bedside table, for the rosary inside that your parents gifted you when you were born.

You aren’t religious but it brings you comfort to hold it. To feel that connection with them. The grasp you have on it is so tight that it digs into your skin and smarts, distracting you from the other pain your body is going through, it’s almost a welcome distraction as you settle haphazardly on the bed and slump into yourself as the tears and sobs continue to wrack through you in waves.

He just stands on the other side of the door, frozen in his emotions of grief and guilt. The sounds of your sobs echoing around him. his chest feels like its filled with concrete, his feet like stone, he can’t move, immobile and forced to listen to the heartbreaking sound of you losing yourself to your emotions just feet away.

In his room, after you’ve gone quiet and he’s finally able to free himself from the umpteenth ring of hell of that confined hallway, Jack removes his clothing. Harsh movements rid him of the scrubs he’s been wearing for far too long.

The first ring being his hectic, insane shift full of traumas they couldn’t keep up with. The second being the way you were obviously stressed about something he didn’t know about and you were showing signs of even as you executed your job and did it well, catching things early, dismissing simple cases, amazing him and the younger residents with your skills. Then the pastry, then the shift after that- the night one he was originally scheduled for but was infinitely harder to work knowing your transition from doctor to patient.

Now he’s in his head.

Where he deserves to be after letting you cross the threshold into your own room.

The one you haven’t slept in since moving into his place all those weeks ago, months ago.

Offered and accepted but not used.

Not once. And unspoken thing. His comfort allowing you even more space to handle the things you were going through. To help him with the things he’s been going through but pushing down. The bed a common ground between two people who lead busy lives and meet in odd hours of the day, of the night with yearning bodies for human connection. The bed being such a simple thing that has become something of a safe space.

His own becoming yours as much as it is his.

Shared.

His sheets smell of your perfume. The ones he stares at through blurry eyes now. they’re mused, from sleeping beside you through the night, from tangling his body with yours in ways that have become almost second nature, comforting, an obsession if he cannot do so. You are an obsession he does not deserve. A gift and continuation of life he has not earned.

With a huff, he turns from the bed, bracing himself against the dresser. He shoves at it, anger taking over in that split second. The motion rocks everything resting atop it. a frame clatters face down, the single, sharp clink of glass cracking gives him pause. With shaking hands, he picks it up- a photo of him and his late wife, caught unaware out at a gathering. Smiling at each other, completely enraptured in each other’s orbit.

His heart thuds painfully.

He misses her.

He misses you.

Only one of you is here. Physically, alive, breathing.

Cherish what finds you next, promise me, Jack.

Some of the last words his wife spoke, in a voice that was barely her own play in his head now. Haunting him, making him hurt. Make him realize what he’s doing is casting himself into damnation and dragging you down with him- and it doesn’t have to be that way.

Cold dread, hot regret. Flashing through him with startling intensity.

He’s down the hall, his prosthetic pinching and his leg throbbing with the heaviness and quickness of his steps. He doesn’t even bother knocking on your door, rushing inside to see you simply sitting in on the edge of the bed with your hands in your lap. Something glitters in them but he doesn’t pay it much mind as your head rises and your watery eyes meet his.

He barely gives you the chance to stand up, but you do at the sight of him standing there- paused for the briefest moment. His chest heaving as if he’s run across an active war zone loaded down with gear and under fire, his neck hot and his heart thudding almost painfully. He reaches for you just as you stand and do so yourself, new tears silently racing down your cheeks.

He pulls you into him, arms caging you against him tightly. His head knocks into yours where he nuzzles it as close as he can, peppering kisses into your hair, your temple, anywhere he can.

“I’m here,” He croaks, his own tears working him up even if they don’t fall. His eyes shiny and burning with them as he clenches them shut and just feels the way you breathe against him. He only relents when you gently usher him toward the bed, hands steady save for a slight tremble as you sit turn to sit him down. You rest your hands against his bare chest as he heaves a heavy sigh, the weight of no longer standing on his leg a relief even in his worked up state.

Silently, you gently helped him remove the pinching pieces. Dissecting him in such an intimate, instinctual way that wasn’t just due to the knowledge you’ve cultivated and honed for years. It feels like you’ve learned him, studied the subject of Jack since meeting him. You know where to press you thumb to avoid his leg jerking up, you know where his thigh tingles when the weight it first taken out of the artificial socket, you know the ache in his hip is more interior than exterior, as exhibited by your soothing fingers on the side of his body there now.

All of this is done in silence, your tears dried on your face though Jack’s reaches out to thumb at them.

You look up from where you rub in the ointment that helps relieve his aching pain and offer him a soft smile, you throat burns and your voice is raspy but you think you’d still talk to him all night if that’s what he needs. You think you love him. this man who has welcomed you into his home, who has given you the space and the time and the means to do what you need to do to become what you want. He doesn’t ask for anything in return, he doesn’t demand anything of you. he simply wishes for you to be the best version of yourself that you want to be- and that means so much.

You leave for just a beat, going into the room that’s become the den of the house, essentially. You grab his crutches, the ones with the elbow rests in them because you know he prefers those. And a change of clothes for him from the dresser in case he wants to dress. The scattered and knocked over items atop it give you pause, because you thought you heard a thud earlier but had chocked it up to him bumping into something on accident in his tired state. You eye the broken glass inside the frame, heart aching for the loss he’s experienced and thinking back to your teenage love back in your home country. Nothing in comparison to be sure, but you place the rosary from around your neck, the one you had been holding when Jack walked in over the frame as an offering before returning to you him and room down the hall.

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