Chapter Text
March 20th, 2003
Pittsburgh, PA
Midday in the Pitt never meant calm. It meant momentum. The morning rush had burned itself out into something sharper and more dangerous—a lull threaded with exhaustion, where mistakes happened not from panic but from attrition. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic and overheated coffee. Monitors chimed in asynchronous rhythms, each one a small insistence that someone, somewhere, needed attention now.
The waiting room was packed full, per usual, Adamson was giving his usual orders as the Chief attending of the Pitt, while the rest of his doctors and nurses scattered throughout the busy emergency room. Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch was standing at the central workstation, sleeves rolled up, stethoscope still looped around his neck, eyes flicking between a trauma board and the patient in the bed just beyond it. He had one hand braced on the counter, the other flipping through a chart he already knew by heart.
“Pressure’s holding,” a nurse said behind him.
“For the moment,” Robby replied, not looking away. “Let me know if it dips again.”
He moved easily through space, body calibrated to the Pitt’s narrow corridors and constant motion. He checked an IV rate, adjusted a monitor alarm, pressed fingers briefly to a patient’s wrist—warm, present, alive—and nodded once, satisfied.
A younger med student trailed him, trying to keep up. “You wanted labs repeated at noon?”
“Yes,” Robby said. “And page me the second they’re back. Don’t wait for the system to flag it.”
He turned back to the desk, finally taking a sip of coffee and grimacing at the taste. Cold. Again. Bitter, and not nearly strong enough. It left a lot to be desired. Robby was rewriting a note for the third time—not because it was wrong, but because the wording mattered. The patient was stable for now, and the difference between stable and stable enough to transfer was a line Robby refused to blur. He rubbed at the bridge of his nose, eyes burning faintly, then kept typing.
That was when the Pitt seemed to recalibrate around him—not louder, not quieter, but narrowed, as if everything else had slid slightly out of focus. Robby glanced up reflexively, then looked again, his attention settling fully this time on the man standing just inside the ER ambulance bay doors.
Jack Abbot wasn’t moving. His hands were tucked into his jacket pockets, his posture still deliberate. He wasn’t scanning the room the way visitors did, nor cutting through it with the urgency of responders. He was simply there, waiting, his face neutral, bordering on disappointed. Despite that, he was beautiful.
Robby had known Jack since undergrad at the University of Pennsylvania. Their history stretched back through years of half‑timed flings and long absences, Jack coming and going with deployments, Robby building a life that kept moving whether Jack was in it or not. Two years ago, when Robby had returned to Pittsburgh after years several years at a Chicago ER, they’d finally decided to stop orbiting and commit to something real.
Robby hadn’t regretted that decision for a single second. But Jack didn’t belong at this moment—and that’s what made Robby’s chest tighten.
Jack was usually a constant presence in the Pitt: moving, helping, anchoring himself somewhere useful, generally the senior resident on the night shift. Today, he looked like a man who had stepped out of a different world and hadn’t quite adjusted to the gravity yet.
Robby felt the interruption before it happened, a subtle pulling of attention he couldn’t ignore. He saved the chart without finishing the sentence and straightened.
“Hey,” Robby called, frowning. “What’s going on?”
Jack’s eyes found him immediately. There was no smile this time. No attempt to soften the impact.
“Can we talk?” Jack asked, his voice calm, but something in it firm and leaving Robby feeling unnerved.
Robby hesitated—just a fraction of a second—then nodded. “Yeah. Give me one sec.”
He handed the chart to Dana, rattled off two quick instructions, and followed Jack toward the supply alcove, the half wall offering the closest thing to privacy the Pitt ever allowed.
As they stepped out of the main flow, Robby became acutely aware of everything he was leaving behind: alarms, patients, unfinished notes, the fragile equilibrium he’d spent the last six hours maintaining.
He didn’t know yet that Jack was about to dismantle the rest of it.
Jack leaned back against the wall, tension locked into his shoulders, his gaze fixed just beyond Robby’s shoulder, as if looking directly at him might fracture whatever control he had left. He looked braced—for what, Robby wasn’t sure.
“I got the call,” Jack said. The sentence was quiet. Careful. Like he was trying not to startle something fragile.
For Robby, it landed like free fall.
The Pitt—the alarms, the movement, the endless forward momentum he used to stay grounded—dropped away all at once. His chest tightened, breath catching as a cold certainty took hold. Not surprise. Recognition. The awful sense that this was the thing he’d been afraid of since the beginning, the thing he’d never quite let himself forget was possible.
He stared at Jack, heart pounding too fast, already grieving a future that hadn’t happened yet.
“What call?” Robby asked, though part of him already knew. Part of him was already calculating distances, probabilities, the unbearable number of ways this could end. Each more graphic and horrible than the last. War had been declared, this was an inevitability, not just a possibility.
Jack lifted his eyes then, hazel meeting Robby’s brown. There was resolve there, and regret—and something else Robby hadn’t expected to see so clearly: fear. Not of going, but of what he might lose by doing it.
Robby’s world narrowed to that look alone. The ER hummed on around them, oblivious, while Robby’s mind raced ahead—to unanswered calls, to nights spent staring at his phone, to the sudden, terrifying understanding that loving Jack meant living with the constant possibility of losing him.
“Oh…” Robby whispered, looking down now. His chest ached with uncertainty, his stomach turning as if his body was trying to reject reality before his mind could fully take it in. Terror moved through him with a strange clarity—cold, fast, electrical—filling the spaces where air was supposed to go.
“Two days. I’ve got two days before I deploy.” Jack shook his head, like the motion might dislodge the words, like he might wake up into a version of this where he could stay. He tried desperately to catch his partner’s eye. “Mikey, I need to know this is going to be okay, that… we’re… going to be okay.”
Robby felt like he’d been sucker punched a second time as he lifted his head.
Because Jack was afraid.
Not in the abstract way people were afraid of the unknown. This was the kind of fear you could see—coiled in the line of Jack’s shoulders, in the way his hands stayed buried in his pockets like he didn’t trust them not to reach for Robby and beg him to make it stop.
Robby opened his mouth and nothing came out. His throat had tightened into something small and useless.
They’d been together long enough that Robby knew Jack’s tells. The deliberate stillness. The careful voice. The way he’d chosen this quiet corner instead of dropping the news in the middle of the nurses’ station like it was just another update. Jack was bracing for impact because he’d already lived through it once—leaving, and what leaving did to the people left behind.
Robby loved this man so deeply it made him reckless.
It made him stupidly, violently aware of all the ways a person could be taken. Not just by bullets or explosions, but by distance, by time zones, by silence, by the long stretch of days where you had to pretend you weren’t watching your phone like it held your heartbeat inside it.
“I—” Robby tried again. His voice came out rough. He cleared his throat like it was a procedure he could perform, a fix he could make. “You’re… you’re already packed, aren’t you.”
Jack’s jaw worked. “Not yet.”
But the answer didn’t matter. Jack was already halfway gone. There was a part of him that had shifted into that other mode—the one Robby hated, the one that locked emotion behind necessity and called it discipline.
Robby took a step closer without thinking, as if proximity could solve anything. His hands hovered for a second—uncertain, because this was the Pitt, because they were technically at work, because vulnerability had rules here that didn’t exist anywhere else. Then he ignored them and caught Jack by the front of his jacket, fingers closing hard enough to wrinkle the fabric.
“Don’t ask me if we’re going to be okay,” Robby said, the words sharp with panic. “Don’t put that on me like I have any control over it.”
Jack flinched—not away, never away—but like the truth hit somewhere tender.
“I’m not—” Jack started, swallowing. “I’m not trying to—” Jack looked away, and Robby could see the unshed tears in his eyes. The man let out a pitiful, heartbroken laugh, before looking back to Robby, and Robby felt his own heart shatter. Jack looked gutted, lost and scared, like a boy terrified after a nightmare, desperate for some reassurance. This wasn’t the 28-year-old he’d come to know and love. This was the boy Robby had met Freshman year, scared about the future. “I’ve never really had anything to lose before.” His voice was rough, filled with emotion and vulnerability that neither of them enjoyed showing.
Robby’s grip loosened instantly, guilt flashing hot and immediate. He hated himself for that tone, for the edge. Jack was the one being sent. Jack was the one who had to get on a plane and land in a place where the air itself could be hostile.
“I’m sorry,” Robby said, too fast. His eyes burned. He blinked hard, furious at the weakness of it. “I’m sorry. I just—.”
He didn’t know how to say I don’t know what I’d do without you without sounding like a confession and a curse at the same time.
Jack’s gaze dropped to Robby’s hand where it rested against his chest, then lifted back to Robby’s face. There was something naked in it now, something Jack usually kept guarded behind competence and humor.
“I’m scared,” Jack admitted, voice low. “Not… not of going. I know how to do that part. God knows I’ve had enough close calls, I can keep myself alive.” His breath hitched like he hated the words even as he needed to say them. “I’m scared of coming back and finding out you decided you couldn’t do this anymore.”
Robby went still.
Jack’s eyes flicked away, ashamed, then returned, stubbornly honest. “Serving… it messes with time,” he said, as if explaining a symptom. “Days feel like weeks. Weeks feel like… like you’ve always been there. And while you’re in it, you start to believe the world you left is moving on without you. That the people you love are learning how to live without you because they have to.”
His voice cracked on the last word, barely. Jack swallowed hard, forcing it back into control. “I’ve seen it,” he said. “I’ve watched guys come home to houses that don’t feel like theirs anymore. Partners who had to become strangers to survive the waiting. I don’t—” He shook his head once, sharp. “I don’t want that to happen to us. Cause I do love you, Mike. And I don’t wanna come back if you’re not going be waiting here for me.”
Robby’s chest tightened so hard it hurt. The terror in his veins shifted—reshaping itself into something heavier, something that sank instead of sprinted.
He thought of nights already, future nights, where he would lie awake staring at the ceiling, listening to the quiet and imagining Jack in a desert he couldn’t picture correctly. He thought of the gap between messages, the way his mind would fill every blank with catastrophe because that’s what it did when it loved someone who could be taken.
And beneath all of it was the worse fear—Jack’s fear—that this wouldn’t just be about survival. That even if Jack came home alive, something about the leaving would change them in ways Robby couldn’t stitch back together.
Robby exhaled, shaky, and forced himself to meet Jack’s eyes fully, to hold the gaze even when it felt like standing too close to an open edge.
“Hey,” he said, voice softer now, breaking around the edges. “Look at me.”
Jack did.
Robby’s hands slid up, not gripping now—just holding, thumbs pressed lightly at Jack’s ribs, as if he could keep him anchored by touch alone. “You don’t get to pre-grieve us,” Robby said, trying for steadiness and failing, because the truth was too big to fit in his mouth without cracking his voice. “You don’t get to assume I’m going to leave you while you’re gone.”
Jack’s eyes searched his face like he didn’t trust hope.
Robby swallowed. “I love you,” he said, plain and raw, no armor on it at all. “I love you so much I feel sick about this. And I don’t—” His breath hitched. He looked down for half a second, then back up, forcing himself to say it. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. So, you make damn sure you come back.”
Jack’s throat bobbed. For a moment the control slipped—just enough for Robby to see how close Jack was to falling apart, too.
“Then tell me,” Jack whispered. “Tell me you’ll still be here. Tell me I’m not going to come back and find out you learned how to live without me.”
Robby’s laugh was small and broken. “I’m a doctor,” he said, voice shaking. “My entire job is learning how to live with unbearable things.”
Jack’s face tightened.
“But you?” Robby added immediately, stepping in closer, forehead almost touching Jack’s. “You are not an unbearable thing I’m going to endure. You’re… you’re the thing I choose. So you make sure you come home to me, and I will make damn sure I’m here to welcome you home.”
Jack’s eyes closed briefly, like the words hurt and soothed at the same time. He leaned in the rest of the way, their foreheads now touching, breathing one another in.
Robby drew a breath, deeper this time, trying to make himself sound like someone who could be believed. “Two days,” he said. “Okay. Then we take those two days and we make them count. We plan. We talk. We fight. We—” His voice caught, and he squeezed his eyes shut hard enough to steady them. “And while you’re gone, you call me. You hear me?”
Jack nodded, but it was tight, pained.
“No,” Robby said, firm now, because he needed something solid, cupping Jack’s face in his hand. “You call me. Even if it’s thirty seconds. Even if you can’t say anything real. You let me hear your voice, so my brain doesn’t write its own ending.”
Jack’s hand finally came out of his pocket and cupped the back of Robby’s neck—warm, steady, grounding. “Okay,” he said hoarsely. “Okay. I can do that.”
Robby pressed his forehead to Jack’s for a heartbeat, a tiny, private collapse in the middle of the Pitt’s relentless motion. He didn’t kiss him—not here, not with people passing two feet away—but the urge was there, fierce and desperate.
He pulled back just enough to look at him. “And you,” Robby said, swallowing down the tremor in his voice, “you don’t get to die on me.”
Jack’s mouth twitched—almost a smile, almost a grimace. “I’ll do my best.”
“That’s not good enough,” Robby snapped, immediately softer, pleading on the exhale. “Jack.”
Jack’s eyes shone. “Mikey.”
For a moment, the world held still between them.
Then a monitor alarm spiked somewhere down the hall, and a nurse called, “Robby—Trauma Two needs you!”
Robby didn’t move right away. He kept his eyes on Jack like he was trying to memorize every detail, like he needed a mental photograph for whatever came next.
“I have to go,” Robby said, voice thick.
“I know,” Jack whispered. His hand slipped from Robby’s neck, reluctant. “I’ll be here when you’re done.”
Robby nodded once, sharply, as if agreement could make it true.
He stepped away, the doctor mask already sliding back into place—because the Pitt demanded it, because patients demanded it, because the world didn’t pause for heartbreak.
But as he turned toward Trauma Two, Robby carried the terror with him like a second pulse under his skin, one he couldn’t silence with orders or charts.
Two days.
And then he’d have to learn how to breathe in a world where Jack wasn’t within reach.
o0o0o
June 2010
Robby was exhausted, Jack was due home in two weeks, this was supposed to be his final deployment, and then they’d agreed he’d retire from the army. Robby was currently sitting at his desk near central, one foot hooked around the base of his chair, as he skimmed over the lab report for his patient in central twelve. His coffee had long since been forgotten, likely left somewhere to be found later. The words felt like they were blurring in front of him, no matter how hard he tried to focus.
“Troponin’s negative,” Dana announced, sliding him the chart and results to him.
He nodded, not looking up at her, but rather looking down at the results. “Okay, lets repeat in three hours anyway. Page cardiology and tell them I don’t like the EKG results—”
“Already done,” she replied with a smirk when he finally glanced up.
“What would I do without you,” he shook his. It hadn’t been a bad day thus far, busy, but not bad. A STEMI first thing this morning, an asthmatic kid who’d responded right away to the nebulizer treatments, chest pain that turned out to be a fractured rib from a sneeze rather than an MI. He turned toward Trauma Two just as Maggie, another doctor, jogged past him, ponytail swinging. “Robby—EMS just called in a rollover, five minutes out.”
“Mechanism?” he asked automatically, already moving.
“High speed. Unrestrained driver. Airbags deployed.”
“Great,” he muttered. He scrubbed a hand over his face and reached for gloves. “Let’s clear a bay.”
The overhead lights seemed a fraction harsher as he stepped into motion. He rattled off instructions, adjusted a monitor alarm, checked a patient’s pulse without breaking stride. That was when his phone vibrated. Robby ignored it at first. Pagers went off constantly—pharmacy questions, consult callbacks, radiology clarifications. It buzzed again, more insistent this time.
He frowned and glanced down.
Unknown number.
That alone wouldn’t have stopped him. But something cold slid through his chest anyway, sharp and uninvited.
“Maggie,” he said, slowing. “Can you take point on Trauma Two for thirty seconds?”
She looked at him, surprised by the tone. “Yeah. You okay?”
“Fine,” he lied, already stepping toward the supply alcove. “Just—hold it.”
He moved into the pedes room, closing the doors and thumbed his phone open and brought it to his ear. “This is Dr. Robinavitch.”
There was a pause at the other end. Not static. Breathing. “Dr. Robinavitch,” a voice said finally. Male. Professional. Not Pitt staff. “My name is Captain Ellis. I’m calling from Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.” The words didn’t register all at once. His brain snagged on the unfamiliar cadence, the distance implied in the name.
“I—” Robby swallowed. “Okay.”
“We have a Captain Jack Abbot here. He was brought in about forty minutes ago.”
Robby’s world narrowed violently, like someone had reached in and twisted a dial. The Pitt—the noise, the motion, the patients waiting for him—fell away. He threw out a hand, pressing hard against the wall in hopes it would hold him up.
“What—” he had to swallow past the lump in his throat. Brows furrowing, he tried again, “What happened?” he asked, and hated how unsteady his voice sounded.
“There was an IED strike during a convoy rescue he was a part of,” Ellis said. “Captain Abbot sustained significant injuries.”
Significant. The word slammed into him like a body blow. He felt his legs shaking, as his knees gave out and he slowly slid down the wall. “Is he alive?” Robby asked, breath shallow now.
“Yes,” Ellis said quickly. “He’s alive. He was conscious on arrival. He’s in surgery now.”
Robby closed his eyes. His hand came up to brace against the wall, knuckles whitening as pressure built behind his ribs, squeezing tight enough to make it hard to breathe. “Doctor, are you still there?”
“Yeah—” he swallowed down the bile. “Sorry. What are his injuries?”
Another pause. Careful this time. “Lower extremity trauma,” Ellis said. “Blast injuries. We’re doing everything we can. He asked that we call you as soon as possible. Does he have any family?””
Jack had asked. The image slammed into him—Jack, bloodied and hurting and still thinking far enough ahead to make sure Robby knew. The thought cracked something open in his chest. He gripped his free hand into a tight fist, letting the pain of his nails and muscles contracting ground him. “Uh, no, not that he’s close to. I’m his medical proxy.”
“Very well.”
“I need specifics,” Robby said hoarsely. “I’m a physician. I need to know what we’re talking about.”
Ellis hesitated. “I can’t give you operative details over the phone,” he said gently. “But I can tell you the injuries are severe. Life-threatening initially, but he made it to us. He’s stable enough for surgery.”
Robby’s throat tightened until the words felt too big to force past it. He pressed his forehead briefly against the cool wall, grounding himself the only way he knew how—through contact, through facts. He took a deep breath in through his nose and let it out through his mouth.
“Okay,” he said finally. “Okay. I’m listening, how do I get there?”
Ellis continued, outlining what he could—timelines, next steps, who would call when surgery was over. Robby absorbed it all with the detached efficiency that had made him a good doctor and, at the moment, a dangerously brittle human being.
When the call ended, the silence roared.
Robby stood there for a long second, phone still pressed to his ear, chest rising and falling too fast. His hands shook. He curled them into fists and forced himself to breathe.
In. Out. Count it.
A monitor alarm spiked somewhere behind him.
Reality snapped back into place like a rubber band someone had stretched too tight. He straightened abruptly, swiped at his eyes with the heel of his palm, and stepped back into the Pitt. The world hadn’t paused for him. It never did. He looked around for Dr. Adamson, he’d need to take time off.
Dana looked up as he approached. One glance at his face and her expression shifted.
“Robby?”
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Tried again.
“Where’s Adamson. Jack’s been hurt,” he said quietly. “He’s overseas. He’s… in surgery.”
The words felt unreal once spoken, like saying them might make them solid.
Dana’s hand came up to his arm without hesitation, grounding. “Oh my god. He’s in trauma one.”
“I need five minutes,” Robby said. His voice was tight, clipped. “Then I’ll talk to him.”
Dana searched his face. “Robby—”
“I’m fine,” he repeated, firmer now. He knew in any other world, he’d work until he knew Jack was out of surgery, but right now he needed to be by his partner’s side. He needed to know he was safe and okay.
She nodded. “I’ve got you covered.”
Robby turned away and hurried to the bathroom by the chairs, quickly closing the door and locking it. His breath came in rapid pants, everything felt hot and cold all at once, it felt like he was swimming under water.
Jack was alive.
Jack was hurt.
And Robby had to learn how to exist in the space between those two truths—alive and hurt—a narrow, unbearable place where his mind kept ricocheting between hope and catastrophe.
His chest felt too tight, like his ribs were closing in on his lungs. He barely registered the knock on the door until it came again, sharper this time. The reminder that he was still in a public bathroom landed distantly, unreal. He crossed the small space on unsteady legs, unlocked the door, and pulled it open.
Adamson stood there.
For half a second, Robby just stared—surprised enough that he didn’t even try to hide how wrecked he looked. Adamson stepped inside without waiting to be invited and locked the door behind him, the click loud in the cramped space.
“Look at me,” Adamson said, firm, unmistakably an order.
Robby tried. He really did. But the moment his eyes met Adamson’s, something inside him cracked wider. His breath hitched painfully. “I—” His voice failed him. He shook his head, hands curling uselessly at his sides as he fought for air that wouldn’t quite reach the bottom of his lungs.
Adamson closed the distance in two strides and gripped Robby by the shoulders—solid, grounding, impossible to ignore. “Breathe, son,” he said, slower now, anchoring each word. “In. Out.” He waited until Robby managed a shaky inhale. “Jack Abbot is the strongest son of a bitch I know. He’s not done yet. Now tell me what you need.”
The question nearly undid him. “I don’t know,” Robby admitted hoarsely. The words scraped on the way out. “I don’t know enough yet. But—I’m his medical proxy.” Saying it out loud made it real in a way that terrified him. Responsibility and fear tangled tight in his chest. If something happens, it’s on me. I have to decide. I have to be strong enough.
Adamson nodded once, already shifting into motion, into certainty Robby didn’t have. “Okay,” he said. “Then here’s what we’re doing. You’re taking time off. I’ll start you with a week—easy. Once we know his status, we adjust. I’ll book the flight, and have everything sent to your email. You go home and pack.”
“Mont—” Robby started, reflexive, the word catching on guilt and instinct and the old need not to be a burden.
“Don’t argue with me,” Adamson cut in, not unkindly, but final. “I know moneys still tight. Least I can do is cover the flight for my boys. You worry about Jack. You let me worry about the rest. You tell me when you’re ready to come back.”
That did it.
Robby nodded, the motion small and unsteady, his vision blurring despite his best effort to keep it together. He felt stupidly young all of a sudden—too young to be making life-and-death decisions for the man he loved, too tired to pretend he could handle this alone.
Adamson saw it. Of course he did.
A moment later, Robby was pulled forward, crushed against a broad, familiar chest. He clutched at Adamson’s coat without thinking, fingers digging in as he came apart—clinging to his mentor like a broken kid instead of the thirty-year-old attending he was supposed to be. His shoulders shook once, then again, breath stuttering against Adamson’s collarbone.
Adamson held him without comment, one large hand firm between Robby’s shoulder blades. The other coming to rest on his neck. “I’ve got you,” he murmured, low and steady. “You’re not doing this alone.”
After a beat, he pulled back just enough to look Robby in the eye. His voice roughened, dropping into something private. “One more thing. This is a military hospital. DADT’s still a thing.” He didn’t soften the reality, but he didn’t let it loom either. “So, you’re brothers. Or best friends. Nothing else.”
Robby nodded, wiping hastily at his face, jaw clenched tight around everything he couldn’t afford to say.
Adamson squeezed his shoulder once, hard and sure. “You call me if you need anything,” he said. “Anything at all. You hear me?”
Robby nodded again. He couldn’t trust his voice—but the grip he kept on Adamson’s sleeve said enough.
o0o0o
Just over fifteen hours later, ten of which were spent on a flight, Robby stepped off the cab in front of the hospital in Germany, it felt wrong the second Robby stepped inside it.
Too quiet. Too clean. The air smelled sharper than the Pitt’s—less coffee, more antiseptic—and the language around him blurred into consonants he had to consciously translate. He followed the signs anyway, following the instructions he’d written down, as his hands shook. He was sure he could go to a hotel, get some rest, but the idea of taking even a moment to himself felt impossible. Another moment without Jack. If Jack didn’t get a break, neither did he.
A nurse led him into a small consultation room just off the surgical wing. No windows. A table bolted to the floor. Two chairs. The kind of room where life changes quietly, behind closed doors.
Jack is alive, he reminded himself, over and over, like a mantra he could cling to. He made it through surgery. He’s alive, he has to be.
The door opened.
The surgeon was already in scrubs; cap tucked under one arm. He looked tired in the way only surgeons did after hours of sustained focus—eyes sharp, posture still controlled. He didn’t sit right away.
“Dr. Robinavitch?” he asked.
“Yes.” Robby stood without realizing he’d done it. His pulse was pounding so hard it felt like it was in his throat. “I’m— I’m his medical proxy.”
The surgeon nodded. “I’m Dr. Keller. I operated on Captain Abbot.”
There it was. The pivot point.
Robby braced himself, hands curling into fists at his sides, nails biting into his palms. Details, his brain demanded. Vitals. Blood loss. Complications. Infection risk.
“Jack survived the surgery,” Keller said first, clearly, deliberately.
The relief hit Robby so hard his knees nearly buckled. He sucked in a sharp breath, shoulders sagging despite himself. “Okay,” he whispered. “Okay.”
Keller let the moment exist—but not for long. He shifted his weight, expression sobering.
“He sustained extensive blast injuries to his right lower extremity,” he continued. “There was significant vascular damage. Bone fragmentation. Soft tissue loss.”
Robby nodded automatically, his mind already reconstructing the injury from the words alone. He could see it. Too much blood. Too much trauma. Too little salvageable tissue.
“We did everything we could,” Keller said, voice steady, professional. “But the damage was not survivable.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“What—” Robby swallowed, throat closing. “What does that mean.”
Keller met his eyes directly. No evasion. No false softness.
“We had to amputate,” he said. “Right leg. Below the knee.”
The words landed like a physical blow.
Robby’s vision tunneled, sound dulling at the edges. His brain tried to reject it outright—No. That doesn’t fit. Jack runs. Jack stands. Jack kicks his boots off at the door. His chest tightened painfully, breath coming shallow and fast.
“No,” he said, before he could stop himself. “No, he— he was walking when he left. He—”
“I know,” Keller said gently. “And I’m sorry.”
Robby shook his head, a sharp, disbelieving motion. “Below the knee,” he repeated faintly, like if he said it again it might change. “So… tibial stump. Patellar tendon intact?” The doctor part of him clawed desperately for control, for structure, for something he could fix.
“Yes,” Keller said. “We preserved the knee joint. That gives him better long-term mobility and prosthetic outcomes.”
Prosthetic.
The word echoed in Robby’s skull.
Jack without his leg. Jack relearning how to stand. Jack waking up and realizing something fundamental was gone.
Robby sank into the chair hard, elbows braced on his knees, head dropping forward as his breath finally broke apart. His hands came up to cover his face, fingers digging into his hair as the reality crashed down on him in waves.
“He’s going to hate this,” Robby whispered, voice breaking. “He’s going to— God, he’s going to hate this.”
Keller stayed quiet. He let Robby have the moment.
“Is he—” Robby dragged in a breath. “Is he awake?”
“He’s still sedated,” Keller said. “We’ll keep him that way for a bit longer. His vitals are stable. No signs of systemic infection currently. He’s a strong patient. He had some other minor injuries, a concussion, some minor burns. Nothing he won’t recover from. You should know, they will likely discharge him after this.”
Robby let out a wet, broken sound that might have been a laugh in another life. “Yeah, I figured.” he said hoarsely. “That’s Jack.”
Silence stretched between them, heavy and sacred.
Finally, Keller spoke again. “He survived something that kills most people. That matters.”
Robby nodded, tears slipping free despite his best effort to stop them. “I know,” he said. “I know. I just—” His voice cracked completely now. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to tell him.”
Keller’s expression softened. “You don’t have to do that alone,” he said. “And not this morning.”
Robby wiped at his face with the heel of his hand, drawing in a shaky breath, forcing himself upright. His chest still ached, hollow and raw, but beneath it—beneath the grief and fear and rage—there was something else.
Jack was alive.
Changed. Hurt. But alive.
“Can I see him?” Robby asked quietly.
Keller nodded. “Of course.”
As the surgeon opened the door, Robby pressed one hand briefly to his chest, grounding himself, steadying his breath.
You survived, he thought fiercely. You’re still here. And I will learn how to love you in this new world, too—whether you like it or not.
The ICU existed in the thinning hours before morning. The first rays of sun beginning to pain the sky lighter blues and deep pinks. Night still clung to the building, but it was loosening its hold—lights dimmed to a low, artificial twilight, footsteps softer, voices kept instinctively quiet. Somewhere beyond the concrete and glass. Robby felt it without seeing it: time moving forward whether they was ready or not.
Jack lay motionless in the bed.
For a long moment, Robby stayed just inside the doorway, afraid to cross the threshold. Hospitals had a way of making loss feel final the moment you stepped fully into it. Robby wondered just how many of his patients and the families of his patients had stood in moments exactly like this, caught between their new normal and their old lives.
I made it, Robby told himself. You’re still here.
He moved closer.
The monitors responded immediately—heart rate ticking up, just a fraction. Robby froze, then forced himself to breathe through it, stepping carefully to the bedside. His hand hovered over Jack’s before he let himself take it.
Warm. Solid. Calloused.
The sensation nearly buckled his knees.
“Hey,” Robby whispered, voice rough with hours of swallowed fear. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
Jack’s face was pale beneath the dim light, lips dry, lashes dark against skin that bore faint smudges of soot that no one had quite scrubbed away yet. There was a shallow abrasion along his temple, cleaned and dressed, and faint bruising blooming along his jaw where something—ground, vehicle, debris—had struck him hard enough to leave its mark.
Robby’s eyes tracked lower, cataloging automatically despite himself.
Bandages wrapped Jack’s right shoulder and upper arm, thick and layered. Beneath the gauze, Robby could see the telltale outlines of burns—angry red skin peeking at the edges, some blistered, some already darkened where the heat had bitten deeper. Shrapnel wounds dotted his forearm and ribs, each one meticulously cleaned and sutured, but unmistakably violent in origin. Scrapes and abrasions crossed his knuckles, his left knee, the side of his hip—evidence of impact, of being thrown, of hitting the ground hard and not gently.
You fought, Robby thought numbly. Your body fought even when you couldn’t.
His gaze dropped further, dread pooling heavy in his stomach.
The blanket lay smooth over Jack’s left leg.
It ended too soon on the right.
Even knowing it was coming—even after hearing the surgeon say the words plainly, the sight stole the air from Robby’s lungs. The careful mound beneath the sheet, the compression dressing, the clean, precise finality of it felt brutally intimate.
Below the knee.
The words echoed sickeningly as nausea surged up his throat, fast and merciless. His vision tunneled, the room tilting hard to one side, and then he was moving—stumbling toward the adjoining bathroom like his body had made the decision without consulting him. He barely opened the door before he collapsed over the toilet, retching violently, emptying the scant contents of the last fifteen hours onto porcelain that felt too close, too loud.
Each heave tore through him, sharp and punishing, his stomach cramping so hard it felt like it might fold in on itself. His ribs ached. His hands shook. The taste of bile burned his throat, his eyes watering until everything blurred into color and motion.
When it finally stopped, he stayed there, folded over, forehead pressed against his bare arms on the cool rim of the toilet. His whole body trembled, muscles exhausted, breath coming in broken pulls that wouldn’t quite settle. The reality caught up to him all at once, heavy and suffocating.
Below the knee meant gone.
It meant Jack waking up changed forever. It meant pain Robby couldn’t fix. It meant a future rewritten without permission.
A sound tore out of his chest before he could stop it—a raw, strangled sob that echoed too loudly in the small room. He clenched his jaw, trying to swallow it back, but grief didn’t listen. It shook through him anyway, leaving him gasping, forehead still pressed down, hands curled tight like he was holding himself together by force alone.
For a moment, there was nothing but the ache in his chest and the sick certainty that the world had shifted irrevocably—and Robby was still kneeling on cold tile, trying to breathe through the worst moment of his life.
“No,” he whispered, barely sound. “God… Jack…”
Images crashed through him unbidden—Jack jogging at dawn, breath puffing white in the cold; Jack leaning all his weight into Robby in the kitchen just to be annoying; Jack stretching his calves before a run, complaining the whole time. Motion without thought. Balance without effort.
“I’m so sorry,” Robby breathed, guilt clawing at his ribs. “I should’ve been there. I should’ve—”
The words broke apart, useless and cruel. He cut them off, jaw locking tight. He knew better than this. He’d tell anyone else the same thing: This isn’t your fault. It didn’t stop the ache. Still trembling and feeling weak as a kitten, he pushed himself to his feet, flushed the toilet, and made quick work of washing his hands, rinsing his mouth and then drying them, before stiffly walking back into the hospital room.
Jack shifted faintly beneath the sedation, brow tightening as if even unconscious his body didn’t trust the quiet. The monitor chirped, heart rate climbing.
Robby straightened instantly, swiping his face and pulling the doctor back into place. He adjusted his grip, thumb brushing gently over Jack’s knuckles.
“Easy,” he murmured. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
The promise felt dangerous. Necessary.
He pulled a chair close and sat, careful of lines and tubes, settling into the vigil without hesitation. Outside the unit, the world was inching toward morning. A new day. A changed one.
“I know you’re going to hate this,” Robby said quietly, voice steadier now. “I know you are. And you get to. As long as you need.” His throat tightened as he leaned closer. “But you survived. Burns, shrapnel, all of it—and you’re still here. And I don’t care what this looks like now. I don’t care how hard it gets. We’ll figure it out. Together.”
Jack’s fingers twitched faintly in his grasp.
Hope flared sharp and painful. “Jack?” Robby whispered.
Nothing—just the steady hiss of the ventilator, the stubborn rhythm of a heart that refused to quit.
Robby exhaled slowly and pressed a careful kiss to Jack’s knuckles. “Okay,” he murmured. “Sleep. I’ll keep watch.”
He leaned back in the chair, eyes never leaving Jack’s battered, familiar face. Dawn was coming, slow and unavoidable.
Robby stayed anyway.
o0o0o
Jack’s brow furrowed, a faint crease forming between his eyebrows, and his breathing—still assisted—went uneven, fighting the rhythm instead of flowing with it.
Robby straightened instantly, chair scraping softly as he leaned forward. His hand tightened around Jack’s without thinking.
“Hey,” he said quietly. “Jack. I’m here.”
Jack stirred again, fingers twitching weakly against Robby’s palm. His lashes fluttered, eyes struggling beneath them like they were too heavy to lift.
“Easy,” Robby murmured, his voice low, careful. “Don’t rush it. You’re safe.”
Jack’s eyes opened.
The panic hit immediately—Robby saw it bloom the second Jack took in the room. His gaze darted, unfocused, chest hitching, and Robby knew in an instant, Jack remembered everything.
“No—” Jack rasped, the sound wrecked. “No—what—”
“I’ve got you,” Robby said quickly, leaning into his line of sight so Jack wouldn’t have to search for him. “It’s me. Robby. You’re in the hospital.”
Jack’s eyes locked onto his face.
The relief there hurt almost as much as the fear.
“Mikey,” Jack croaked. His grip tightened, weak but desperate. “You—”
“I’m here,” Robby said, voice breaking despite his best efforts. “I made it.”
Jack swallowed hard, eyes glassy. “I can’t—” His breathing stuttered. “I can’t move right.”
“That’s okay,” Robby said, anchoring. “You’re sedated. You’ve been through surgery. Just breathe with me, okay? In… out.”
Jack tried. Robby could see it—the effort, the way his body wanted to bolt even though it couldn’t.
“What happened—we were in Kuwait…there was a convoy--” Jack whispered. Not a question, more as if Jack could see the visuals playing across his memory.
Robby felt the weight of it settle fully into his chest.
“There was an explosion,” he said gently. “An IED. You were hurt. They brought you here—Germany. You’ve were in surgery for hours.”
Jack frowned, trying to line the words up with memory. “I— I remember heat,” he murmured. “Pressure. And then—”
His voice cut off.
Jack shifted, a reflexive attempt to pull his legs up.
Robby saw the moment it registered—the instant Jack’s body told him something his mind hadn’t caught up to yet. His breath caught sharply.
“No,” Jack whispered.
Robby squeezed his hand. “Jack—”
Jack’s eyes slid downward, horror dawning slowly, inexorably. “No,” he said again, louder now. “Mike, no. I can’t— I can’t feel it.”
Robby’s throat closed. He leaned closer, one hand on his chest, gently but firmly keeping him against the gurney, Robby kept his voice steady by sheer force of will. “I know.”
Jack’s breathing went ragged. “Where is it,” he demanded hoarsely. “Where’s my fucking leg?”
Robby didn’t look away.
“You lost it,” he said softly. “Your right leg. Below the knee.”
The words landed like a detonation.
Jack shook his head weakly, tears spilling immediately. “No—no, that’s not— I was walking. I was fine—”
“I know,” Robby said, his own vision blurring. “I know. The injuries were too severe. They didn’t have a choice.”
Jack let out a broken sound that tore straight through Robby’s chest. “I need it,” he whispered. “Mikey, I need it. I run. I— God—Fuck!” He screamed.
Robby leaned in until their foreheads nearly touched, careful of tubes and lines. “Listen to me,” he said fiercely, voice shaking now. “You’re alive. You hear me? You survived. You should not have survived—and you did. It’s not fair, and I know that. But I’m not going to pretend I wanted a different outcome.”
Jack sobbed, grip tightening painfully around Robby’s hand. “I don’t want this,” he said, raw and unguarded. “I don’t— I can’t—”
“I know,” Robby whispered. “You don’t have to accept it. Not now. Not ever, if you don’t want to. You don’t have to be okay.”
Jack’s breath hitched. “Don’t leave,” he begged. “Please.”
Robby felt something in himself lock into place, solid and immovable.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said immediately. “I’m right here. I’ve got you. We’ll figure this out together—one piece at a time.”
Jack’s strength ebbed quickly, exhaustion crashing back in as the adrenaline burned out. His grip loosened, tears still sliding down his temples.
“It hurts,” Jack murmured.
“I know,” Robby said softly. “They’re giving you medication, I’ll ask them when your due for your next dose. I’ll stay until it settles.”
Jack nodded faintly, eyes fluttering. “Promise,” he whispered. “Promise you’ll stay.”
Robby pressed his forehead gently to Jack’s hand.
“I promise.”
TBC