Chapter Text
Hour five of your shift, and your gloves are bloody as you suction around the cuts Jack makes in your patient. With your free hand, you pass him forceps before he asks, and then pass the suction off to Mateo. He takes it and you step over next to Jack. He hands you back the forceps, and you pass him a new scalpel. Your brain tracks through his diagnosis, the current procedure, the pivots he’s likely to make. You arrange the tools, prep the needles, tell Reece to call up and yell at Walsh to get her ass down here.
Jack keeps his focus on the patient. He’s able to stabilize them. Walsh takes over, and Mateo and Reece help her with transport upstairs. You and Jack degown and deglove. You head back to the central station, and he heads for the next patient as the EMTs bring them in. Shen and Lane assist.
“G?” Jack calls out.
“Trauma 3!” you answer.
The patient gets wheeled into the corresponding room. You take a second to resituate yourself at the station, sending Josphine out to check on waiting patients.
The rest of the shift goes at about the same pace for the entire night. So when it settles down, you take a moment to breathe and step out into the ambulance bay.
Dawn breaks on the horizon. You let your thoughts wander to post-shift life. There’s a million and one things you still need to do at the house, including clearing out the attic. It’s comforting to work on solving a mundane problem. One that isn’t life or death, or requires you to make the correct decision.
You pull out your phone and start researching prices for dumpsters and trash haul aways and dump fees and storage lockers. You don’t like any of the numbers that you see, but you start drafting plans anyways just to take your mind off the night.
You hear the doors open behind you and you glance up. Jack strolls out into the night, hands in his pockets. You shoot him a questioning look, and he shakes his head in response. You turn back to your phone.
And you both appreciate the quiet. Away from the beep of monitors and the concerns of patients and the general din that comes with authority. Then he decides to break the silence, and you don’t mind.
“Miss it?” he asks.
“Nothing to miss,” you say without looking up. “Believe it or not, this shit happens everywhere.”
“I’m not everywhere.”
You snort. “Don’t get ahead of yourself there, Jack.” Then, after a second, you joke: “If we’re so good at working together, you should help me clean out this fuckin’ house. I might actually get something done.”
“What do you need?”
“A truck, better core strength and extra sets of hands,” you mumble, blowing out a breath.
“I have a pickup, decent abs, and one set of hands,” Jack says. “Will that work?”
You look up from your phone and stare across the bay at him. The offer hangs in the air.
“Your abs are better than decent,” you say, more to distract yourself than anything else.
“I was being modest,” Jack responds. “Don’t like to brag.”
“Mm.”
He looks at you, waiting for an answer. It was probably a bad idea. But the more you’ve worked on the house, the more overwhelmed you’ve become. You need help.
“Saturday?” you ask.
“Sure,” he says. “I’m on call with the local SWAT team that day, but as long as you don’t mind me potentially leaving if I need to, I can do that.”
You stare at him again. Of course he volunteers for SWAT in the teeny-tiny amount of spare time he isn’t at the Pitt. Workaholic Jack Abbot. Fuckin go figure… You pocket your phone and head back inside.
“I’ll text you the address,” you say over your shoulder.
“You don’t have my number,” he calls after you.
“I remember it.”
You do. You put him back in your phone, this time under the name “Doctor Jackass” and send him a cupcake emoji. A couple seconds later you receive a bandaged heart emoji in response. You text him the address.