Chapter Text
A knock on his door. His pacing told Robby exactly who it was.
Robby looked up, instantly irritated. He stilled his knife, dusted crumbs from his hands, and stayed there behind the counter, staring at the shadows moving around in the hall.
He knocked again, more insistent.
Soft knuckle taps, four steps one way, and three the other way, with a slightly uneven gait, and a long pause where he was probably contemplating just letting himself in. He still had the key. Right on track, the doorknob shook.
“I’m letting myself in, thanks for the welcome.”
Jack Abbot poked his head in, scanning the apartment, and then stepped fully inside, shutting and locking the door like he lived there. He put his hands up in the universal sign for ‘what the fuck?’ when he saw Robby watching.
“You can’t text me back?”
He started dumping his pockets on the table by the door. Scissors, a flashlight, bits of medical tape, three bullets, and a handgun. Or maybe it was a pager. Robby shook himself. It was neither, just a box of mints.
Jack winced as he came through the living room, walking a little more skewed than normal, and leaned heavily on the half-wall between the couch and the kitchen. “Welfare check. How you doing, champ?”
Robby went on cutting.
“Nice dinner you got there. You missed the boiling water, the noodles, the sauce.” His eyes flitted over the kitchen, cataloguing every detail. Sharp eyes, accustomed to rapid evaluation. “Come on, not even butter? What kind of savage life are you living in here? Perfectly good baking pan, right there.”
Robby cut a final slice, and dropped the knife beside the cutting board, pointedly picking up one of the hunks of baguette and biting into it.
Jack sighed. “And cold to boot. You really are in bad shape.”
“Leg bothering you?” Robby said, rounding the wall, flopping gracelessly onto the couch. He had a big TV set up, the volume blaring, playing the news or something. He wasn’t sure. He barely looked at it, staring past it to the dimples in the wall. Sometimes they looked like constellations. Not right now. It just looked like a wall right now.
Jack took a piece of bread and sank into the recliner.
He disconnected his prosthetic leg and dropped it. He didn’t usually drop it. Robby looked up at the clattering sound, watched his friend massage the stump that remained. It was angry and red beneath its protective cover, a sign he was on it too long.
“Lack of a leg problem,” Jack said, a little too late.
Robby chewed, and watched him, and said nothing.
“You got anything good in that fridge?” Jack said.
“Drank it.”
“Outside the fridge?”
“Maybe.”
Jack gestured to his leg. “You’re gonna make the cripple serve you?”
Robby almost smiled. He felt the muscles in his face engage, but was sure the expression never made it out. He was so tired now that reality filtered down a long, dimly lit hallway, but sleep would be hard to find. He was too tired for that.
No sleep for Jack, either, who was due to go back to the hospital in a few hours.
He used furniture to hop around, digging through cabinets, pulling out glasses, dispensing ice. Robby only watched for a moment, and then listened, refocusing on the dimples behind the TV. He found solace in the sounds – not real words, not real stories. It was chaotic enough to keep his thoughts in order, to keep things from getting out of control. Jack banged around a lot, slamming cabinet doors, tapping his glass on the counter, humming a classic rock song. He liked noise, too. He might even be a little bit deaf. Hard to say.
Robby’s head was fuzzy in that special way. Multiple modes of exhaustion met and overlapped, pulling in different directions, neither giving ground, and forcing him into the restless, helpless center. He sometimes thought of it as ‘the pit,’ which was funny most of the time.
Jack came back, dropping the glasses, a big bottle of whiskey. He said, “Neat?”
“Nothing for me.”
Jack nodded along, pouring him a glass on ice. Never fucking listened.
“Sip,” he said.
Robby reluctantly picked up the glass, “Only because you worked so hard for it. Presumably shaken, not stirred.”
“You’re a funny guy. Redirect that thousand-yard stare and you’ll see me laughing.” Jack snapped right in his face, stirring him away from the dimples again. “Hey, over here. Look at my beautiful blue eyes.”
Robby finally laughed, and Jack smiled.
“There he is. Can’t resist being a jackass. It’s in the blood.”
Robby took a sip, winced as it burned down his throat.
“Now, a bite of your sad bread. Get that nice and mixed up in there. I’m ordering food. Uh, what do you want? Chinese?”
Robby shook his head. “Nothing. I don’t-”
“Shut the fuck up, and eat your fuckin’ bread,” Jack snapped, a little on edge, passing in and out of it. Nothing personal, and nothing new. Just the product of a long day, their familiarity. He had his phone out, the light making his face glow in the dark living room. When did it get so dark? “Wow, the food delivery apps jacked the prices, go figure. Hazard pay, my ass. It’s gonna be Korean. Remember what that dish was called that I liked last time?”
Robby took another sip of whiskey. “What am I, your wife?”
“You couldn’t handle it, buddy. I found it. You still on low sodium?”
“No.” Robby took another sip, and one to follow it.
Jack’s eyes were intent on him while his fingers worked. Calculating, documenting. It looked like he might start a chart soon.
Robby said. “Why give me the whiskey if you don’t want me to drink it?”
“I was watching the color come back to your face. You were ashen when I got here.”
Robby sat back, putting his feet up on the coffee table, crossing his arms tightly across his chest. He could just barely see himself in the TV reflection when the screen was dark, and thought he looked normal. Not that it meant anything. Sometimes he saw Adamson sitting beside him, too, and recognized that his lack of sleep was playing games.
“What? Did I make you mad?” Jack put his phone down. “Go ahead. Snap back.”
Robby shook his head. “I’m not mad.”
“You’re fuming.”
“I’m not.”
“I wish you would.” He sipped his own whiskey, watching Robby over the glass. “Got an hour on the food. Eat your bread.”
“I don’t need-”
“You do need, so shut the fuck up, and eat your sad cold bread.” Jack took a longer sip, glaring at Robby. His temper rarely came out at work. He saved it for after hours, sometimes on his runs with SWAT. It was easier to be mad at people shooting at you. Harder when they were just desperate for your help.
Robby battled with himself – the side that wanted to kick Jack out and throw that stupid leg at him, and the other side that respected him, and trusted him. Few people had both. If it was anyone else, it would be such an easy choice. But Jack was probably right. He knew his shit. He knew people. Robby resisted the thought that he had anything diagnosable. A waste of time, a waste of breath. He filtered thoughts that he recognized, that came up frequently, that swarmed when the memories of death were the most vivid.
He could do everything right and nothing would ever get better. He could never escape this feeling. Every day was an uphill battle and he gained no ground, and even lost some.
Adamson was beside him again, on the couch.
He sipped his whiskey, and took a bite of his bread.
It was like a wad of paper in his mouth.
One by one by one, he shut the thoughts away.
He finally said, “You think psychiatrists know when they’re crazy?”
Jack was in the middle of a sip. He sat clutching his glass to his chest, staring at the ceiling, considering that. “You devolving into thought exercises now?”
Robby shrugged.
“I think they do, yeah,” Jack said. “Seek treatment? Probably not. Doctors are the fucking worst at dealing with their own shit.” He hugged his glass a little tighter, looking down into it. “I’ve meant it three times this year.”
Robby looked at him involuntarily, alarmed.
Jack smiled his same, easy smile. “I know. One more than last year.”
Robby went back to the dimples. “What stopped you?”
Jack breathed out, long and dramatic, like he was stalling. His words were a little strained, a little reluctant, filled with the kind of nuance that Robby was usually so good at reading. “Well, you kept coming to the roof.”
“Which nights?”
“Last night.” Jack drank down to his ice cubes, and then shook them around, not looking away from the glass the whole time he spoke.
“You gonna say some bullshit about how I reminded you what it’s all really about?”
“Fuck no.” Jack laughed, still didn’t look up. “I don’t have many friends, and seeing you reminded me that you’d have to see that, and deal with it again, after what happened. It’s really hard to think about anyone else… in the moment. But you showed your stupid face. Once it passes, it’s like cold water washing over you.”
Robby wasn’t sure what to say to that.
It was the last thing he expected, a welcome distraction from his own thoughts. He latched onto it, sorting through their interactions, trying to find the moments he missed. He finally felt like he was here, and he could understand the reporter on the news, and feel the couch under his leg, and that it was way too cold in his apartment.
He managed to say, “Thank you… for telling me that.”
“I’m not trying to be nice. It’s just the truth.” Jack poured himself another glass, and reached over to refill Robby’s, where it sat clutched on his knee. He left his glass on the table and massaged his leg again. “God, fuck this thing some nights.”
“Kiss your mom with that mouth?”
“Kiss yours.” Jack checked his phone. “Forty-five on the food.”
Robby drank his glass more quickly this time, the burning lessened with each sip. It was a better fuzzy than the one he was in before. Different. Not perfect. Just different.
“It was last week, with that kid with the uh… the…”
Robby filled in, “Perforated bowel. I remember.”
Jack nodded, and took another sip, and squeezed the glass against his chest again. He might break it, if he put much more pressure on it. “Yeah… that one.”
Robby had found him on the roof, his spot, and they chatted about some bullshit. He couldn’t even remember now, and felt guilty, instantly, for missing it. “Not the soldier?”
“Soldiers die every day, everywhere,” Jack said simply. “But, uh, that kid’s dad raped him to death. To death, Robby.”
Robby stared, still trying to find the signs.
“I masked it pretty well,” Jack said, like he saw where Robby was going. “Impossible for you to notice. I just… I thought about it. How easy it would be. How I could just rest.” He paused, waiting, and then went on when Robby only stared at him. “I was just so tired, brother.”
Jack had tears glittering in his eyes, reflecting in the TV light.
Rare for him.
Robby had not seen him cry since they were overseas.
It hit him like a brick to the chest, and he choked up a little, “Yeah, me too.”
Jack half-laughed, half-sobbed, and drank deeper, finishing off his glass. He wiped his face on his shirt, and shook his head, like he could throw the thoughts away. “We’re getting old.”
“We might.” Robby sat up, and topped off their drinks this time. His hands shook, vibrating the bottle, the glasses, making the ice clink when he tried to hold them to keep them steady.
Jack nodded along, slow, the glittering returning to his eyes.
They watched TV for a time.
Robby thought of what the world might be like without Jack, and decided he probably wouldn’t survive another loss like that. His thoughts came across plainly, logically. He may follow, or he may just quit, and make some radical change.
“I wanted to be a police officer, when I was a kid,” Robby said at last, when time had passed, and the program had changed on the TV.
Jack had a half-voice, too soft, “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Didn’t last long.”
“What stopped you?”
“I couldn’t do a pullup to save my life, so…”
Jack laughed a little, and his cheeks twitched. No smile.
“Tired now?” Robby said.
“Not that tired,” Jack said. His eyes flickered to him. “What about you?”
Robby almost said ‘no,’ flat out, and if it had been anyone else asking, he would have. He stumbled over it. “Haven’t decided yet.”
Jack just nodded.
Silence, again, until the delivery guy came with the Korean, and Robby got up to receive it because Jack didn’t seem to hear the door. He put it on the table between them and sat forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the logo on the bag.
“It’s that place we went, few weeks ago,” Jack said.
“We go a lot of places.”
Jack laid the food out, and the smell finally enticed him. Robby’s stomach snarled.
“I saw a kid today, little girl,” Jack said conversationally. “Or, I guess it was yesterday. Last night? Whatever. Anyway, I discharged her. Huge hernia on the abdomen, belly button malfunction.”
Robby said, “Is that what you wrote in the chart?”
“I put umbilical hernia in parenthesis, but mine was more fun.”
Robby was falling back, again. He set his plate down and picked up his glass, sitting with his arms folded, holding it. Jack watched him. Perceptive, and annoying.
“You look pretty tired,” Jack said.
Robby shook his head, because the words were suddenly gone.
“You wanna talk about what happened today?”
“Why the fuck would I want that?” Robby wished he didn’t choke on his words, because he wanted to sound as angry as he felt. He preferred the anger, and tried to hold onto it between waves of grief, and waves of nothing.
“I dunno. Maybe because of your menty B in peds?”
Robby looked up.
“I’m up with the lingo,” Jack said, putting his free hand up. “And I’m not trying to corner you. Okay, maybe I am. You definitely can’t walk straight, so you’re gonna have a hard time dragging me out by my stump.”
Robby put his glass down, and maybe dropped it. He pressed his hands into his forehead. The long hallway was coming back, and the battleground, the tug-of-war.
“Do you want a war story, or a home story?” Jack said, from very far away.
Robby shook his head. “Get out.”
“I can’t do that. I’m fucked up.”
“God, shut up, then. I don’t want to hear your fucking stories.”
He was quiet for a time.
Robby ran his hands through his hair, along the aching lines of his skull. He could feel his heartrate going up, his chest tightening, and did nothing to stop it. He stood on the tracks, in front of a train, and waited for it to let him rest.
Jack touched his knee and he flinched away, “Don’t touch me! I’ll… I’ll…”
“You’ll what? Hit me? I’m okay with that.” Jack touched him again, his fingers digging into his shoulder this time. “How about some deep breaths? Can we do that? You’re hyperventilating. I know you can feel it. So slow it down. Get that control back.”
Robby sucked in a breath, forced it out. “I can’t… I want…”
“What do you want?”
“I don’t know. I want you to shut up. I want you to leave.”
“What else?”
Robby looked up, suppressing a very real urge to punch Jack in the face, disarmed by his steady expression, by how warm he looked. “I want them to stop dying. I want to go back and do better and save Leah and… and… and… all of them, everyone.”
“Her heart was so bad, there was-”
“Nothing I could do, I know. I fucking know that.”
His breaths were out of control, again, his heart thrashing in his ears, heat rising up through his body as his chest constricted like a thousand pounds had suddenly dropped down on top of him. Half there, half elsewhere, with the beeping and the sterile smells and the blood drip-dripping onto the floor. It was almost as loud as the machines, as the disjointed rhythms of people who were dead or dying, who could not be helped, who he would spend hours trying to help until his hands shook and his legs went numb.
“What do you see?” Jack said softly, his voice cutting through the beeping.
“I lost her,” Robby said, a convulsion passing up his body, making the tired muscles in his arms burn. “I lost her. I couldn’t save her.”
“No one could have.”
“I know!”
Silence, for a moment, as the apartment shook around him. Robby shrunk toward his knees, trying to keep the dam from breaking. He was drowning again, deep down at the bottom of a pool. Somehow, he kept talking, how own voice coming from far away.
“And… and the girl, the little girl who drowned. The overdose. Eighteen years old, dead, one pill. His parents wanted me to bring him back. I can’t. I couldn’t. He was braindead, before he ever go to me. There was nothing I could do.”
Jack just nodded along, his eyes heavy with sympathy, or empathy, or whatever it was.
Robby cut off thoughts of the dead, overwhelmed by it. “Just leave. Please.”
“I would, if I didn’t think you were gonna jump off the roof.”
Robby stared at him, because the statement was so blank. Jack stared back, challenging, waiting for an argument, his eyes shimmering with tears that fell over onto his cheeks this time, unmanaged, unnoticed.
“Well?” Jack said. “Am I reading it wrong? Did I lose my touch?”
Robby tried to sit back, but pitched forward again, feeling too exposed. His fear and grief passed, overtaken by venom. “I want you to go. I mean it. I’ll drag you out.”
“I’d like to see you try, pal. If I don’t get to take a header off the hospital or jump in front of the next Amtrak I see, I’m sure as shit not letting you do it.” Jack practically spit the words, sitting straight up, ready for a fight to start.
Robby put his hand over his mouth a second after a sob escaped.
“I’m just so tired, Jack. I’m just so fucking tired.”
Jack moved to the couch and hugged him.
Robby lost the details as the river rushed into the town and washed out all the inhabitants. Every ounce of grief from the day came back fresh, new, and drowned him. It came from other days, too, and years ago, the machine sounds and the overcrowded floor full of stacks on stacks of dead bodies. Adamson. His face hit the hardest, cut the deepest, and his body convulsed.
It could have been an hour later. Robby lost track of time. He slowly resurfaced, the grief spent, replaced with shame at losing control again.
Jack pulled away, his shoulder wet, and slid back into the recliner without a single word. He picked up their glasses, refilled them.
He leaned in to take Robby by the hand, to turn it, to put the glass in it and fold his fingers around it.
Robby stared at him with burning eyes. “I’m sorry, I-”
Jack cut in, “You’re not going in tomorrow. I’ll work a double, and they can call in Harton to take my shift tomorrow night.”
“You can’t-”
“You’re gonna drink that, and get some sleep. Eight hours, twelve hours, sixteen hours, whatever it takes.”
“Jack-”
Jack grabbed his face, forceful, insistent, an almost dead-on reversal of a conversation they had a long, long time ago, in a place that was much sunnier, and drier. “Shut up. Listen. I will do this for you. Open your fucking eyes.”
Robby opened his eyes, not realizing they had closed.
Jack shook him, and the whole apartment shook, too. “I will do this for you. I’m gonna stay here ‘til my shift. Go to sleep. If you need me, you fucking call me. Okay?”
Robby blinked, deep underwater.
Jack shook him again, harder this time, so his head snapped a little. “I’m not playing with you. Call me, and I’ll walk right outta that ER and come back here. Deal?”
Robby nodded, reluctant, thinking the third shake might break something.
“Good. I’m gonna sit here for a while.”
Robby got up as soon as he let him go, now so much more tired than he was when his shift ended. But he was no longer in the middle of them. One or two had given up the tug-of-war, and he was pulled toward sleep, finally.
He walked around the back of the couch, unsteady on his feet, pausing. He was close enough to the surface now to see the look Jack had. When the flooding got too high, Robby was thinking about the hospital, the beeping, the masks and dead bodies. Jack was somewhere else, with bombs dropping like thunder, lighting up the night sky.
“Continuing that existential crisis from this morning?” Robby asked.
Jack nodded, “Yep.”
“You can call me, too, if you need me,” Robby added, and headed for his bedroom. He saw Jack nodding, but knew that was never going to happen.