Chapter Text
Short breaths huff in and out of Brenna Wright’s mouth as she rounds the corner from the elevator corridor to make her way towards Pittsburgh's Emergency Department. DOCTOR Brenna Wright -Jesus- she's a fucking attending and still forgets the formality after a long day.
And it has been an excruciatingly long day.
Coming in for a simple consult on her day off as a favor to Dr. Megan Colsen, one of her favorite colleagues in the pediatrics unit, turned into a full shift edging on a double after the only other on-call peds attending had to leave for a family emergency.
To many, that alone would make the day awful- relaxation turned into a tiresome display of labor, but that was not why her day was so long.
Would she rather be reading on a lawn chair in her backyard or getting a deep tissue massage at that nice salon her sister gifted her a voucher to… yes. But, she loved her job and loved helping those around her even more. To a fault.
During the summer before her fourth year of undergrad, her mom found her face down and drooling over an MCAT prep book and several stacks of notecards littered with scribbled terms and phrases.
“Honey?” She whispered into the dimly lit kitchen at the doorway.
Looking over at the microwave clock, she sighed at the red LED slashes cutting through the dark reading 4:05 before turning her attention back to her daughter.
“Brenna…” She whispered again, coming up behind her and slowly petting her hair and running a hand over her back.
A “WROSHAHSH” cuts through the silence as Brenna wakes up from the slight pressure on her back- a disproportionally alarmed sound and thrashing movement for a person gently coaxed out of sleep by their mother.
Her mom caught her under the arms as she tipped back on her stool in surprise, groaning in effort to lift her and the chair back upright.
“What the hell are you doing?” She yell whispered into the dark.
“The sun comes up in what- an hour? Why did I just walk down here to find you using your wildly overpriced book as a pillow?”
“Well,” Brenna begins, rubbing her eyes and swatting the loose hairs that had fallen out of her ponytail during her sleep out of her face,
“I was studying for that exam I have next week. Did I mention it? I HAD to have mentioned it given it is the-”
Her mother cuts her off before she can finish:
“MOST IMPORTANT EXAM OF YOUR LIFE!” a pause, “I know.”
Brenna's mouth slowly gaped open and then closed. With a swivel of her body and a quick scratch of her arm, she slid off her chair, adjusted the blanket around her shoulders and began to pack her stuff up.
“I’m sorry.” She began, packing up highlighters and white-out as she softly spoke
“I know that this is a stressful time for the whole family and I'm sorry for taking it out on you. I don't know what I'm doing. I just want to do good so badly to prove that it was all worth it, you know?”
“I’m still listening” Her mom cuts in while rounding the kitchen island to make her way to the coffee machine before switching it on and grabbing a mug.
“Ive been studying for months and have worked my ass-”
“- Language.” She interjects with a stern look over her shoulder; still attending to the coffee machine.
“Sorry-” She replies with a weak smile "I've been working my butt off for my entire life to get me into college, and then worked even harder to get through college to get me into med school, and i'm starting to realize that i'm still working so hard to just get to the starting line. It only gets harder from here. Let's say I get a good score- great. But then I have to get into a school, and once I do I have to excel, and after that I have to work hard to get into a residency, and after that I have to do great to move forward, and then afte-”
“I’m gonna stop you right there.” Her mom begins, eyes on the floor as she leans off the counter and turns to meet her daughter's eyes, the sound of coffee brewing behind her.
“It is way too early for me to properly conjure up the right kinds of words you need to hear right now, but I'm going to try so stay with me.”
Leaning forward on her elbows, she reaches across the counter to take your hands and look right into her eyes. Her mothers eye contact was lethal, the kind of trait she would spend her entire life trying to mimic but never able to fully master. Her gaze pulled truth out of bold face liars, love out of cynicism, and empathy out of Brenna and her sister during childhood fights- it was her superpower, and she was using it right then and there.
“I love you. So much. And it is natural for mothers to want to keep their children happy and hopeful and excited for the future- thats my job: to keep you happy, healthy, and growing.”
“But,” She continues
“Im not going to sugarcoat anything for you. This will be really hard. You are such a smart girl, the smartest ive ever met, but you are choosing a hard path. It takes dedication, hard-work, and grit. You know this.”
Brenna breaks eye contact and opts to look at their intertwined hands in front of her instead.
“Ive seen how stressed you are, Bren. You are tearing yourself apart trying to do good for everyone else, and its making you mean.”
Brenna's head snaps up
“Bu-”
Her moms blue eyes hit her right in the soul, and her mouth clamps closed.
“You've always been my most sensitive girl. Lola's been a force since she was young, I love her, but shes been screaming at me and complaining since she learned to talk.”
Brenna lets out a strangled laugh, a slice of joy clogged up by the emotion threatening to leak from her eyes.
“But you,” she bows down to get directly eye-level with her. “Have always been so kind, so gentle and empathetic. I don't know” She shrugs “I would hate to see you lose that in all of this.”
And that's all it took before every once of exhaustion in her body exploded out of her in a choked sob. As her hands broke free from her mothers to cover her face and tuck her head to her chest in defeat, her mother rushed right over, robe billowing behind her in the swift movement, so as to hold her close in the kind of embrace only a mother and daughter could understand the depths of.
“I don't want to become hard. That is not who I am. It's just so difficult not to when everything around me is.” She choked out, snot and tears wiping down the right side of her mother's robe, just under the monogrammed labels.
“I know, baby.” Her mother coo’s, cradling her close to her chest.
As she sits in her childhood home, in the kitchen with her mother holding her if she might float away, the first streaks of sunlight hitting their backs through the blinds, she thinks that if she could freeze time she would do it right then. Nothing could hurt her and nothing was wrong. She was safe and all was going to be okay.
Oh how she wishes looking back that time really had frozen her right there in her pajamas; the smell of coffee budding in the lightening air; the steady heartbeat of her mothers heart against her head; the love that could be felt in the moment, not just understood.
It was not because of a lack of impending success that she wishes she could go back to that kitchen everyday- she did end up getting a 522 on the MCAT, an impressive score that led her to Penn on a full scholarship, and then into the sterile arms of Allegheny General Hospital for her residency in pediatric medicine- a specialty that was as perfect for her as peanut butter is for jam.
It had nothing to do with what she thought she knew at the time, it is what she didn't.
What she didn't know was that her mom had quit her job three months prior not to look for something new, but to go to treatment during the day. What she didn't know was that her mother had been diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. What she didn't know was that she was bitching about a fucking test while her mom was essentially dying in her arms. And what she didn't know then, but spends everyday thinking about before she goes to bed, is at that very moment in the kitchen, bathed in early morning sunlight and heartfelt words, she had only three months before the woman she was hugging would be gone forever.
…
Nowadays, there was never a doubt that crossed her mind before saying ‘yes’ to helping someone out. She, more than most, understands the weight life can burden you with, and actively chooses to say yes to making others lives easier when she can. Making the effort to stay kind and empathetic; to stay gentle.
Known for her warm disposition and sympathetic approach to medicine, patients and family loved her, her fellow pediatric nurses and physicians loved her, but in the pitt, love would not be the word anyone would use to describe overall feelings towards her.
Sure- some were nicer than others. She was quite fond of the nurses, Dana especially. They were always kind and friendly to her in a way that the other ED doctors were not. Down in the pitt everyone was hardened by the gruesome hurricane they walked themselves into the epicenter of everyday. Brenna didn't blame them, she could understand why. Understanding, however, could never stop the boiling disgust that raced through her every time some resident talked down to her like she was the child, called her Sunshine, scoffed when her sticker book fell out of her back pocket or when they noticed the charms hanging from her stethoscope.
Over time, though, this burden lessened. After all, the only times she found herself in the pitt were for pediatric emergency consults, and thankfully those were more rare than anything else. The painful sting of a rude remark stopped mattering as much, and once she was an attending it stopped mattering at all.
…
The doors to the Pitt clip her shoulder as she brushes through a set of nurses making their way through, breathing an apology as she went knowing that in this moment manners were of much less importance than getting to her consult.
As she hastily made her way down the initial corridor off of the elevators, she quickly bowed down to take a look at the waiting room- yikes- before picking up her head and letting it loll to the side with a crack and a low groan from her throat.
She had been in the hospital since 9:00 a.m. and upon looking down at her watch she was startled to see it was nearly 11:00 at night. She really wanted this day to be over. Not because it was professionally difficult, if anything the lack of trauma she saw made her day better- the less pain in her section of the hospital, the better. It was all mainly routine stuff with the same group of nurses that she was always with. It was difficult in the kind of way waking up on the wrong side of the bed or a bad cup of coffee could induce. It was a day of annoying mishaps that added up to create an extremely long day.
The transition to Pitt was always stark. Her once cartoon and pastel colored surroundings get stripped bare to the clinical and sterile facts of medicine. Life and death.
In pediatrics, medicine is not just about procedures. To kids, magic is alive, cartoons make them feel better, and the scary edges of sickness and pain are dulled by the sparkles of hope. Brenna does her best to keep that alive in any way she can- especially on consults. She doesn't care how many looks or comments she gets from patients and staff alike when she walks through with her stickers, keychains, lilac colored scrubs, or disney pins- it is the look in a kid's eyes when they notice their favorite princess on her long sleeve shirt, or see their favorite food in her sticker book. Everything as a kid is felt tenfold, meaning that whatever led them to see her is exorbitantly terrifying them, but at the same time, little joys and an empathetic approach can make so much of a difference.
A lot of people in the ED are numbed and coarsened by the trauma they see. Brenna doesn't blame them, but she also knows when it comes to kids, you can't treat them like a body taking up a bed, and you can't treat their families like this is not one of the worst days of their lives if they are spending it in here. The inconvenience for providers to be careful in the way they talk and present themselves during pediatric cases will never level up to the awful feeling that is being a parent fearing for a child, or being a child caught in an awful situation.
If they are bringing her in on a case, that means something is really wrong, and really wrong with someone too young to deserve it.
The noise of the ED swallows everything as she makes her way through the main area for the first time–monitors screaming, gurneys rattling, voices overlapping in a way that makes it impossible to tell where one crisis ends and another begins. It presses in on her from all sides, familiar and suffocating all at once.
It had been a while since the last time she was down here, but certainly not long enough to forget the twist in her stomach and sting of bright lights as she makes her way over.
“Dr. Wright!”
She turns just in time to see a nurse weaving through the chaos toward her.
“Peds consult–trauma two. Eight-year-old, MVA. They’re crashing.”
She begins walking fast, cutting through the swarms of people yet keeping her head swiveled in a way that allows her to continue speaking to the nurse- nurse Emma she reads on her name tag- before letting her back hit the trauma room doors and swing them open behind her.
“Vitals?”
“Unstable. BP’s dropping fast—they’re struggling to get access—”
The rest dissolves as the trauma bay doors swing open and she moves to reach for gloves.
“Move.”
The voice is sharp. Clean. Not loud–but it cuts through everything else like a blade. She doesn't even know where it came from, but before she can think too much about it- reflexes kick in.
Brenna steps in–and the scene locks into place.
A child on the bed. Too small to be going through something like this. The erratic rise and fall of his chest drawing all focus to the center of the room. Blood covering the dinosaur image on his pajamas currently being cut open by a nurse..
“Second line. Now,” a male voice snaps, not looking up as he works. “If you can’t get it, find someone who can.”
“I’ve got it–”
“Then why isn’t it in?”
The nurse falters. Just for a second, and it's enough to make Brenna’s stomach turn.
“Peds is here,” someone calls out into the mayhem. His head lifts.
His eyes land on her – and stay there just long enough to take her in.
Not curious. Not relieved. Assessing.
Judging.
She knows who he is. It would be impossible not to.
After completing her residency in Boston, she moved to Pittsburgh for a change of pace, and to be honest, and change of scenery and the chance to work in a hospital not so clouded with painful memories and an even more painful trail of unfortunately timed one night stands with coworkers- don't ask.
Since starting at Allegheny General, she has become well aware of who works there and when. And in a certain part of her brain, Brenna always knows when Jack Abbott is going to be on shift.
Since she has been here she's worked on many cases with him. In the beginning, she was frankly enamored by his professional ability and obvious good looks. Although he was clearly over fifteen years her superior, she found herself drawn to him in a way she had never felt before. Always catching a glance at him, tracking his movements from across the ED, and keeping note of when he was working. Nights. Always nights. The feelings were obviously not mutual given the fact that her near constant gaze was only ever met with the side or back of his head- he barely even looked at her when directly addressing her for christ sake.
However, this sparking attraction was snuffed out even quicker than it arrived after she had spent a few months there. There was no way around avoiding the fact he was attractive. It was what it was- a fact as simple as the sky being blue.
What she did not know about him when she first got there, but later came to gather was the other fact; the fact that he was mean.
Not in a bullying the underdog kind of way, did that even exist anymore? She wasn't sure.
He was mean in a sense which was clearly built on a deeply tumultuous past- a past that chiseled away any youth and lightness and left a cold and dark person in its place. He wasn't a bully, but he was not kind. His words were always sharp, cutting, and frankly rude at times. And to Brenna, being unkind was a far too unfamiliar territory to grapple with. In the beginning, she found herself up at night wondering why he was the way he was. It baffled her. But after a while she got over it and let this once consuming attraction fade into something of the past.
“Finally,” he says, like she’s late to something she didn’t even know she was part of. Then, back to the patient. “Eight years old. Blunt abdominal trauma. We don’t have imaging, we don’t have time, and he's circling the drain.”
Brenna steps forward, forcing her focus onto the child.
“Hey, sweetheart,” she says, softer now, leaning just enough to be seen. “You’re okay. I’m right here with you, alright?”
The kid’s eyes flicker.
Lock onto hers for half a second.
It’s fragile–but it’s something.
“Heart rate’s spiking,” someone says.
“BP’s dropping-70 systolic.”
Brenna’s hand settles lightly on the child’s shoulder, grounding.
“We need to stabilize before transport,” she says, quick but steady. “Give me–”
“No.”
The word is immediate. Flat.
She blinks, turning toward him with a wince on her face.
“We don’t have time to play it safe,” he continues, not even sparing her a full glance. “He’s bleeding out internally. Stabilizing isn’t going to fix that.”
Her jaw tightens.
“It’s not about playing it safe,” she shoots back. “It’s about making sure he survives the trip upstairs–”
“He won’t survive if we stand here talking about it,” he cuts in, sharper now. “We move, or we lose him. Those are the options.”
Around them, the room keeps moving–but slower now. Quieter in that subtle way where people are trying to listen without looking like they are.
Brenna feels it. Feels every pair of ears in the room angled toward them. With a huff of breath she looks to the side and makes eye contact with Princess who catches her eye and immediately looks away, pretending to not be curious.
“He’s eight,” she says, voice still controlled but tighter now. “You can't just ram through a pediatric trauma like it’s an adult–” She says while yanking her stethoscope from her neck and leaning forward, bringing it to the child.
“And you don’t hesitate because it makes you feel better,” he fires back from across the bed, finally looking at her fully.
There it is.
Not just cold, dismissive. Like he’s already decided what she is. Incompetent.
“You want to hold this hand,” he continues, voice low but cutting, “Fine. Do it on the way to the OR. Right now, you’re in my trauma bay, and we’re moving.”
The words hit her square in the chest. All she can manage as she stands back upright is to look at him, eyes searching and mouth slightly agape. What the fuck is his problem?
“BP 60 over 38!”
“Line’s in!”
“Good,” he snaps. “We’re done here. Call up–tell them we’re coming now.”
The bed starts moving. Fast.
People fall into place around it, controlled chaos funneling toward the doors.
Brenna steps alongside, keeping pace, one hand still anchored to the kid like it might tether them to something solid; Something certain.
“Hey,” she murmurs, low enough that it’s just for them. “Stay with me, okay? You’re doing so good.”
She doesn’t look at him again.
Doesn’t give him the satisfaction.
The doors slam open. Then closed as the bed and a swarm of people quickly disappeared from view. And just like that–
They’re gone.
…
The silence in the room is all-consuming. It's the kind of quiet that only comes after something big moves through, leaving everything slightly off-balance in its wake.
Brenna stands there perfectly still for a second longer than would be considered normal.
Looking downwards, she surveys the hand which was just let go of by the little boy. She glanced at his chart as she came in– his name was Thomas.
“Dr. Wright.”
His voice again. Jesus– why is he still here.
She lowers her hand slowly before turning.
He’s already stripping off his gloves, movements efficient, like the last ten minutes didn’t exist beyond what they required of him.
“You can head back upstairs,” he says. “They’ve got it from here.”
Dismissed.
Just like that. Something sharp twists in her chest. Give her a fucking break.
“I would’ve stayed with him,” she says with an intentional edge before she can stop herself.
His hands pause for half a second. Then continue.
“They don’t need you up there.”
His words are casual and clinical. Like he’s stating a fact, not cutting her out at the knees.
“Well it seems like hell they needed me down here,” she replies with a scoff, quieter now but no less firm.
That gets his attention. He looks at her again, really looks this time and somehow, it’s worse.
“Did they?” he asks.
Not mocking. Not loud. Just… direct.
Brenna feels heat crawl up her spine, and then feels it snap at her mouth.
“I don't know how aware you are of how you are supposed to handle a pediatric trauma” Oh no “.. But when you are working with the lives of innocent children who are experiencing the most terrifying event of their lives– an event more terrifying than most people experience in a lifetime, you don't get to treat them like bodies to simply fix. They aren't just smaller humans, they are children. I was trying to make sure he made it to the OR alive, just like you-” she says.
“And I was trying to make sure he didn’t die waiting for you to get comfortable,” he interjects.
“ALIVE, Dr. Abbot. And reassured.” She continues - ignoring him and gaze hardening - “You have to take the extra step sometimes. Thought you would know something so simple as basic pediatric bedside care given your…”
She gives him a slow glance. Head to toe.
“... Senior position at the hospital”
His jaw ticks at the jab.
A small smile quirked at the corners of her lips. She has never felt like this before. Such a high. Especially from being an asshole. She always made it a rule to try her best to be kind. Dr. Abbott, however, is the exception. He is a dick.
“I was just doing my job.” She states. Eyes still locked on his and arms tightly crossed in front of her.
“And mine includes making sure they have a pulse long enough for you to care about their feelings,” he cuts in.
The silence that ensues is heavy and ugly.
Brenna’s throat tightens, not from anger this time, but something much worse- hurt.
“You don’t get to decide that,” she says, “You don’t get to decide that kindness is a liability.”
His expression doesn’t change, if anything, it settles as if this--this right here--is the part he is most sure of.
“In here?” he says. A small, humorless breath leaves him. “It is.”
The words aren’t cruel. They’re worse; They’re certain and final.
And for the first time since she walked into the Pitt tonight – Brenna doesn’t have a response.
He tosses his gloves into the bin, already turning away.
“You gotta keep up next time,” he adds over his shoulder, like an afterthought, “Sunshine.”
Oh hell no.
He does not get to treat her like a kid or a child because she's had an education in human decency and empathy. He also doesn't get to mock her.
Sunshine- the derisive nickname residents whisper behind her back. She's long gotten over her subordinates using it against her, reducing it to a lack of maturity. But this guy is old. As fuck. He does not get to talk to her like that.
She promised to never let that soft part of her leave, and it's not going to. But, part of keeping that part of her alive is by protecting it as well.
She picks up the pace and reaches the door before he can. Spinning on her heels to face him and opening the door with her back simultaneously– wow she is close to him– she looks him square in the face, trying her best to channel her mothers piercing eye contact and ignore the heat and musky scent radiating off of his body-
“Go fuck yourself.”
Clear as day. And with a slightly too loud of a delivery, but that's neither here nor there.
With a scoff and a turn, she exits the trauma room shaking her head.
Swallowed back into the chaos like she was never separate from it to begin with. Several nurses and doctors nearby stand there, jaws on the floor.
Walking back towards the elevators, she itches her arm and keeps her eyes on the floor. What on earth had gotten into her. She was never like this. Ever.
Everything keeps moving. It always does. But for a second all she can hear is her mother’s voice, soft and steady in the back of her mind:
I would hate to see you lose that.
Brenna swallows hard, forcing her shoulders back, forcing her feet to move. Forcing herself not to think about the way his words lodged somewhere deep—Not because they were cruel. But because a small, traitorous part of her is already wondering if they might be true.
She presses the ‘up’ button on the elevator and stands there waiting, checking her pager as it buzzes at her hip. Walking on, she clicks the peds floor and presses the heels of her hands to her eyes- dragging them away from her face just in time to see the doors of the elevators close. And in the distance, see Dr. Abbot right where she left him in the doorway of trauma 2, eyes deadly and boring into her soul.
The doors close with a resounding thud.
The upward movement acts as a bucket of cold water washing over her.
What the fuck did she just do.