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“I told you she wasn’t dead!”
Before you could even brace yourself, a flash of blonde hair collided with you. Mel threw her arms around you, squeezing for a second before pulling herself away sheepishly.
PTMC looked the same, never changing. It was still crowded, hectic, and too small but the familiar faces made it worth the while.
“You look so different,” Mel smiled, locking her eyes on you, scanning your face frantically. “D-did you eat while you were gone? When was the last time you slept?” She rambled, concerned. “Sorry, it’s just, I can see the dark circles under your eyes and—” She stopped herself, taking a deep breath. “Sorry. Sorry. Welcome back.”
You managed a small, genuine smile—the first one in months. “Nice to see you again, Mel.” You breathed through a small laugh. “I missed you.”
“We missed you,” a voice broke in.
Samira stepped forward, her expression calm, but there was a warmth in her eyes. She didn’t offer a super dramatic hug or a loud greeting. She just placed a hand on your shoulder, looking at you with the silent comradery.
You’d first met Mel and Samira while working at the VA Hospital before moving onto The Pitt. Their faces being the first ones you see when returning back after a two-year long stint as a Combat-Medic was more than comforting.
“Well, that’s a face I haven’t seen in a while,” a familiar voice echoed from the corridor as Al-Hashimi strode out, a grin splitting her face. You’d met her at the VA as well, alongside Mel and Samira. She was a great mentor. But you didn’t know she was at PTMC.
“Baran?” You started, surprised, before recomposing yourself. “I mean, Doctor Al-Hashimi, what are you doing here?” You asked, a small smile on your face as you offered the woman a light hug.
“My work at the VA was done.” She explained. “I wanted to implement my quality improvements at other ED’s, starting with PTMC.”
“That’s amazing,” you supported. “I’m really glad it all worked out.”
“Me too,” She nodded, straightening herself out. “I’m glad to have you, doctor. We could use the extra hands, right now—”
“Let the kid breathe, Al-Hashimi,” a dry voice cut through.
You turned and Abbott was leaning against a wall, his arms crossed over his chest with a smug smirk on his face. His sharp eyes flicked over your stance, taking in the tactical gear, the way your hand hovered naturally near your medical kit, and the stiffness in your frame.
“I figured you’d either come back a hero or end up face-down in a muddy trench somewhere out there,” Abbott said, his dark humor something you’d never forget. He walked over, laying a firm hand on your shoulders. “Good to see you didn’t let them kill you, kid.”
You chuckled under your breath, though painful memories flashed behind the dark of your eyelids, but only for a moment. Abbott was the one who’d presented the Combat-Medic opportunity to you. You were very close to him during your time in The Pitt, starting as part of the night shift. He’d told you all about his time serving as a Combat-Medic in the Middle East, and although he’d lost a limb for it, he always talked about he didn’t regret it.
When he’d heard from an old friend that they could use some help, he recalled the spark in your eyes whenever he told his stories and told them that he had just the right person, only if you were willing.
And, well…
“Missed you too, Abbott,” you murmured, a sarcastic spark returning to your eyes. “Glad to see your bedside manner hasn’t improved a bit.”
THE warmth of the welcome you’d received faded the second you really stepped into the Pitt’s main medical bay. Everyone had welcomed you back and congratulated you, happy to see you alive and back in one piece.
But you were having a harder time than you anticipated. The loud chatter made it hard to focus, the screams and cries from patients had you centering yourself. But you couldn’t show any of that, especially not on your first day back. Not when everyone was happy that you were fine, because that was the way they needed you to be.
Your hands, shaking, immediately went to work, keeping your mind from drifting to the old sounds of artillery and people in immense pain as a war raged outside. You spent the first hour cleaning, sorting, and organizing the surgical tools—lining up scalpel handles, forceps, and retractor blades. You couldn’t stand a messy bay, not anymore. In the field, misplaced tools meant one less soldier saved.
You were just finishing wiping down a metal tray when the heavy double doors of the clinic were sliding open.
“Hey, we need a doctor out here now!” A man bellowed. “He’s dying!” At the outburst, your head whipped towards the doors.
Two burly steelworkers burst into the room, hauling a third man between them. He was drenched in dark, slick blood, his face a terrifying shade of gray.
Within a half a second, you cursed to yourself, eyes scanning for any attending in the bay—Abbott, Al-Hashimi, Robby—but you saw no one. Not even Dana who was usually glued to the front desk.
You were the only doctor around able to help.
“Shit,” You muttered under your breath, walking away from where you were cleaning supplies and towards the men, pointing them to any empty room. “Put him on that table!” you barked “Now, please!”.
The workers trudged him into the room and let him fall onto the metal table. You snatched up a pair of gloves, slid them on, and tore open his shirt with a pair of trauma shears, your eyes instantly assessing the damage.
It was bad—a massive piece of shrapnel had torn through his right upper chest, fracturing the clavicle and lacerating a major branch of the subclavian artery. Blood was welling up violently, but there were spurts of bright arterial blood underneath and his breathing was a horrifying mess of wet gurgles.
“Tension pneumothorax and a major vascular tear,” you muttered to yourself.
“A what?” One of the men breathed, exhausted and confused. You shook your head, dismissing him. This guy’s blood pressure was dropping fast and his pulse under your fingers was faint. You looked around outside the bay, spotting help.
“Princess,” You called, stopping the nurse in her tracks as she turned to you with wide eyes. “Get me a vascular clamp and a chest tube kit,” you ordered to her as she nodded. She started rifling through a supply cart just outside of the room, throwing her hands up as she looked at you seconds later.
“We don’t have any sterile vascular clamps left in this tray!” she panicked. “A-and the chest tube kits are locked in the back storage, Robby has the key—”
“Where’s Robby?” You asked, still focusing on your patient.
“He’s in Trauma Two,” she told you. “He said that if anyone needed him, to say that he’ll be a minute—”
“He doesn’t have a minute!” you raised your voice just as you felt movement halt beneath your fingers, eyes refocusing on the man below you.
His chest had stopped rising entirely. His trachea was shifting to the left—his collapsing right lung was building up so much trapped air pressure it was literally pushing his heart out of place.
He was dying. And you the immediate tightness in your chest meant that you couldn’t let that happen.
And you didn’t think, you didn’t have time.
“What’s goin’ on?” Abbott appeared, basically skirting to a stop at the door of the room. You stuck a hand out in his direction, ignoring his question.
“Give me your multi-tool,” you ordered.
With a half second’s hesitation, Abbott pulled his heavy-duty tactical multi-tool from his belt and flicked open the needle-nose pliers as you took it from his grasp. You snatched up a bottle of iodine that was laying nearby, dumped it directly over the pliers, and then plunged your gloved fingers straight into the tearing wound in the man’s chest.
“Hey—”
“What the hell’re you doin’?!”
The workers gasped, backing away in horror. You ignored them, your fingers feeling past the shredded muscle until you felt the warm, pulsing tear of the artery.
Using the iodine-soaked pliers as an improvised vascular clamp, you clamped down hard on the vessel, the arterial spurting stopping almost instantly.
You breathed, letting your shoulders fall a bit. “I need a line,” you muttered, your eyes scanning the room.
“I don’t see one,” Abbott threw out, watching you from where he stood, an unreadable look on his face. He didn’t know whether to stop you or help you.
And since was no sterile chest tube, your eyes locked onto a clean piece of flexible plastic tubing connected to an unused suction gauge on the wall. You ripped it down, sliced a section off with your shears, and grabbed a sterile latex glove from the box.
Using your shears, you cut the middle finger off the latex glove, slipped it over one end of the plastic tube, and tied it tight with a piece of surgical silk.
Abbott continued to stand by, watching in awe as you practically just built a makeshift Heimlich valve in front of him out of nothing, clasping his hands as he shifted his stance, glancing back at Princess who was also watching with a hanging jaw.
With a scalpel, you made a lightning-fast incision in his second intercostal space, jammed a pair of forceps in to pop the pleura, and slid your improvised tube straight into his chest cavity.
A loud hiss of trapped air exploded out of the tube, spraying a fine mist of blood against your scrubs as the latex glove finger fluttered violently, letting the air escape. Almost instantly, the gurgling stopped, and the man’s chest rose in a deep breath, his pulse under your fingers growing stronger.
You stood there, chest heaving, covered in blood and still holding the multi-tool pliers clamped inside the man’s chest.
“…What the fuck?”
Robby’s voice echoed as he marched into the bay. He was wedged between Princess and Abbott as he took one look at you, the blood-splattered walls, the plastic tube sticking out of the patient’s chest with a piece of a rubber glove dangling off it, his face turning bright red as his lips curled.
“Are you completely insane?!” Robby shouted, marching up to the table. “Your first day back and you use my ED as your playground?” He reprimanded, throwing a hand out in the unconscious mans direction.
“Doctor Robby—” You started just to be cut off, watching some of the other doctors gather outside of the door.
“I don’t even know how many violations I’m looking at!” He laughed humorlessly, hands above his head. “You are using unsterilized, non-medical hardware inside a patient’s thoracic cavity! This is malpractice, unsanitary, and you could have killed him!”
“C'mon, Robby,” Abbott started with his arms crossed, Robby’s fury turning towards the other attending.
He scoffed. “And I’m assuming you, what? You co-signed this?” He accused. “This isn’t a goddamn battlefield, we have rules here—”
“The rules would have had him in the morgue five minutes ago,” you said, your voice clipped as you kept your hand perfectly still, maintaining the clamp on the artery. Robby turned to you, nostrils flared. “He had a tension pneumothorax, his heart was compressing, and had I waited for you, he’d be dead.” You quipped, eyes locked on Robby. “I stabilized the airway and controlled the hemorrhage. As any doctor would.”
Behind him, Abbott smiled, lowering his head to hide it.
“With a piece of wall tubing and a pair of pliers?!” Robby yelled, his voice cracking. “I—”
“Oh, let it go, Robby,” Abbott interrupted, stepping forward now, a faint grin playing on his lips. “The kid just performed a miracle with a multi-tool and a prayer. Look at the monitor,” He motioned towards the machine. “The guy’s breathing, his heart rate is stable, and he’s alive. If it were up to your protocol, we’d be measuring him for a coffin right now.”
“He’s right, Robby,” Al-Hashimi added, walking into the bay with a look of pure awe on her face as her eyes scanned over everything. “While I can agree that this was far from conventional and probably legal, she did what she could.” Al-Hashimi defended as Robby shook his head. “Give her a break.”
Robby sputtered, looking between Abbott’s proud stare, Al-Hashimi’s smirk, and your unwavering gaze, waiting for whatever happened next. Realizing he was completely outnumbered, he threw his hands up in defeat. “Y'know what? Fuck it,” He gave up, sliding through Abbott and Al-Hashimi, and past the small crowd outside of the room to leave. “But when this patient develops an infection, or dies, it’s on your head.” He scolded, pointing a finger on you as he spun on his heel and stormed out.
You let out a long breath, your shoulders finally dropping an inch. Abbott walked over, gently taking the handle of the multi-tool from your steady hands. “I’ll hold the line while you get some proper sutures to tie that artery off, Doc.” He lessened your load, patting you lightly on the back. “Welcome back to the Pitt.”
BY the time the evening rolled around, the adrenaline from the morning had entirely burned out, leaving you with a hollow, heavy exhaustion. Your patient was resting comfortably in the back ward, pumped full of antibiotics and properly sutured by now.
You were leaving his room after checking on him, closing the door behind you as you entered the relatively empty hallway—a hallway that wasn’t crowded with patients and doctors when a sudden crash echoed from further down the hall, followed by a muffled groan.
You flinched, spinning around and in a split second, you bolted toward the sound.
Rounding the corner, you saw the source of the noise.
Kneeling on the floor, pressing against his leg, was Dennis Whitaker—one of the newer residents you had met earlier in the day. A fully-equipped supply cart was lying across the lower half of his leg as his face twisted in pain.
“Whitaker!” you breathed, dropping to your knees right beside him.
He looked up, his face pale, sweat beading along his forehead. “Y-you remember my name?” His breathing was shallow and ragged.
You sighed, fixing him with a look of pity. “Yes, I remembered your name. Why wouldn’t I?” You assured, focusing on his leg, not noticing that his own eyes were glued to you. “Shit, you’re bleeding. Let me move the cart,” You explained, standing and taking the cart with you, standing it upright before kneeling back down.
“Hey,” he managed, a strained, stubborn attempt at a smile flitting across his lips. “I, uh, I heard about what you did this morning, and I just wanted to say that I thought it was really cool—”
“Stop talking,” you ordered gently but firmly, your hands already moving. You pulled his hands away from the wound and rolled the end of his pants up.
It was nothing serious but between the sharp objects and the cart and, seemingly the way he fell, his foot was twisted at an unnatural angle, and there was a fairly deep lash on his calf.
“Your knee is dislocated and you need stitches,” you said, your voice tight as you pinched your eyebrows together, trailing your fingers lightly down his leg.
Dennis groaned, throwing his head back. “Great. One more thing for Santos to make fun of me for…” He sighed, dropping his head to look at his injury, then you, his jaw clenching as another wave of pain hit him. “So… what’s the play, Doc?”
You looked into his eyes, your expression dead serious. “Well, I could drag you back to Ortho and let you wait for one of their slow ass doctors to help you,” You started, making Whitaker laugh, a small smile gracing your face. “Or I could do it myself.” You offered, locking eyes with the doctor. “It’d be a bit.. unconventional. And it’s going to hurt like hell.”
Dennis stared at you, mild fear in his eyes. He admired looked at your face, but more importantly, he looked at the absolute confidence in your eyes.
He had heard about what you did this morning. And surprisingly, it made him trust you.
Whitaker let out a ragged breath, leaning his head back against the linoleum and he splayed out, reaching out and fisting his scrubs in his hands. “I trust you,” he breathed out, his voice thick with pain but entirely sincere as he closed his eyes and nodded in your direction. “Do it.”
Your heart strangely fluttered against your ribs at his words—I trust you—people usually doubted you because of your age, or feared your intensity and methods. You found yourself staring at him for a moment as he held his eyes shut, waiting for you to fix him, when you spotted a figure at the end of the hall.
You snapped yourself out of whatever trance you’d found yourself in, noting the slight heat in your cheeks, but locking your emotions away. “Doctor Abbott!” you shouted, the older man lifting his head and slowing in his tracks. “I need you in here to hold his shoulders.” You waved him over.
“Woo, Whitaker,” Abbott amused himself, smirking as he kneeled and steadied the younger male’s shoulders. “You sure are taking a lot of falls today, huh?” He teased.
Unknown to you, Abbott had caught Whitaker with his eyes glued to you the second you introduced yourself.
“Stop, please,” Whitaker hissed, pinching his eyes open to glare at the older man.
Abbott chuckled, taking one look at the leg and Dennis’s white-knuckled grip on his shirt, and nodded. “Ready when you are, Doc.”
You wrapped your hands firmly around Dennis’s ankle and heel, bracing your own foot against the base of the wall to give yourself maximum leverage.
“Hey, Whitaker, look at me,” you commanded.
Dennis forced his eyes open, locking his gaze onto yours.
“On three,” you said calmly, offering a soft, fleeting smile. Dennis nodded back, shakily, before you took a breath. “Count with me, okay?” You started. “One,”
And before you even reached two, you threw your entire body weight backward, pulling the leg with everything you had, twisting the foot sharply to the left and shoving it violently upward and forward, the bone making an audible ‘pop’ back into place.
Dennis let out a strangled, roaring scream that tore through the clinic, his body jerking violently against Abbott’s grip as he tried to shoot upright. The veins in his neck and arms bulged, and his eyes rolled back slightly as his body absorbed the pain of the bone resetting.
“H-Holy—!”
“There,” you breathed, a massive wave of relief washing over you as you leaned back on your heels. “Now, you should be good to stitch yourself up.”
Abbott let go of Dennis’s shoulders, patting the man on the chest. “Good job. You handled that better than most.” Abbott glanced at you, a mischievous look in his eye. “I’ll…go grab a suture kit.”
Abbott got up and walked back down the hall, leaving the two of you alone.
The silence that settled was awkward and suffocating, Dennis laying on the floor, biting the inside of his cheek as you stared at his frame blankly.
You were still kneeling at his feet, your hands lightly resting on his ankle to keep it steady. You slowly looked up, your eyes traveling up his long legs, past his broad chest, until you met his face.
Dennis was breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling in deep, ragged drafts. But he wasn’t looking at his leg. He was staring straight down at you.
His eyes were filled with a mixture of pain, relief, and something else—something warm and soft that you weren’t exactly prepared for.
You froze under his gaze, body stiffening. And for a long, agonizingly beautiful moment, neither of you said a word, the only sound being the chatter that was traveling from Central.
As you stared back at him, a sudden, intrusive, thought wiggled its way into your mind—Oh. He’s actually really cute.
You noticed the sharpness of his jaw, the gentle curve of his mouth even when tight with pain, and the comfort of his presence. After being surrounded by soldiers—big, muscly, serious men—Dennis was intriguing to you.
A fierce blush erupted across your cheeks, traveling all the way to the tips of your ears. Your chest tightened, and your heart began to thump against your ribs.
What are you doing? your brain interrupted. You are a doctor. And you haven’t been in a relationship in years.
The sudden rush of romantic feelings felt completely foreign, and terrifying, after not experiencing them for years like a normal person. You didn’t know how to handle a crush.
You abruptly pulled your hands away from Whitaker’s ankle as if he had burned you and scrambled to your feet, nearly tripping, your face completely flushed.
“Right, okay, um,” you blurted out, your voice a little too high, a little too fast, entirely stripping away your usual cool. “The bone is aligned, and I’m sure Doctor Abbott will be back in a second with the suture…stuff.” You rambled calmly. “Just, um, wait for him and don’t move. I have to… go check—yeah. And the…yeah, see you around, Whitaker.” You bid farewell, turning away and practically sprinting down the hall with your eyes glued shut in embarrassment.
Dennis blinked, completely startled by your sudden exit. He opened his mouth, his hand reaching out slightly. “Wait, I didn’t even get to say—” But you were already gone, your feet clattering against the floor as you fled the room. “…Thank you.”
Dennis sat back against the wall, confused, staring at the wall across from. He let out a breathless, slightly confused chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck.
A second later, Abbott walked back down the hall, carrying the suture supplies. He looked at the empty hallway, then looked down at Dennis’s utterly bewildered, dazed expression.
Abbott let out a low, dry chuckle, shaking his head as he dropped the supplies onto the floor.
“Good luck with that one, kid,” He said, his voice dripping with dry amusement.
Dennis frowned, looking up at him as the man kneeled beside him, pulling out the supplies. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Whitaker asked, concerned now. “Did I do something wrong?”
Abbott started to thread the needle, his cynical, sarcastic demeanor softening.
“When it comes to doctors who have done serious combat time—military, frontlines, SWAT like me—it changes them,” Abbott said quietly, his eyes focused on his work. “Out there, your brain drops everything that isn’t necessary to live. Romance, crushes, feelings… all that normal civilian stuff? It gets completely thrown out. It’s a luxury you can’t afford when people are dying in your hands every day and there’s brutality everywhere you look.”
Dennis listened intently, his eyes softening as he looked toward the corridor you had disappeared down.
“She’s…young, too,” Abbott continued, looking up to meet Dennis’s eyes. “But she’s spent the earliest years of her adult life in situations that most people only hear on the news. And she probably hasn’t really had time for anyone, or had anyone look out for her, in a very, very long time.”
“…She looked terrified,” Dennis murmured softly, wincing as Abbott go to work on his leg.
“She was,” Abbott nodded, a faint, empathetic smile touching his lips. “That kid’s just spent two years in a warzone. She comes back to the Pitt, her guard is up, her brain is wired for the worst. And then, on her very first day back, she looks at a guy—a co-worker—and realizes she likes what she sees.” He shrugs, a smirk on his face. “She’s different. Troubled. And while I have no doubt that she could probably patch a torn artery in four minutes flat,” He tilts his head, curling his lips. “A normal human feeling is probably the one thing she doesn’t know how to handle anymore.”