Chapter Text
Logically, Samira knew that her last few fellowship applications were due at the end of January. But when she told Victoria weeks ago she would cover her shift on January 30th, the day before the deadline, she thought she would already have submitted everything with days to spare.
That was before Robby took 6 weeks to get a letter of rec to her, and before she last minute decided to ask Dr. Al to write her a letter to speak to their time at the VA in addition to the pitt together. And before she had a crisis of identity for the entire month of January, stalling out edits to her essays and statements, because everything felt suddenly inauthentic. I mean, what DOES an ultrasound fellowship entail anyways, and is said ultrasound education really so different from what was available here in Pittsburgh that it's worth moving across the county for?
That was also before the back to back snow storms, which on numerous occasions messed with the power at the hospital, brought in an increase of 22% more patients than expected based on Q4 (according to Gloria), and had made her commute awful and waiting at the bus stops downright painful.
Luckily though, she was off tonight, for a glorious 12 hours before she was required to be back in the bowels of the pitt at 7am. So… after rounding one more time, doing some charts, clocking out, commuting home, dragging herself to her apartment through the snow, doing elaborate tinkering with her units precarious heating unit, warming up a microwavable single serve pizza, taking a scalding hot 3 minute shower before the hot water would inevitably and abruptly cut off for some reason (she blames Mrs. Rose in the unit below her who admits to soaking in the tub 2-3 times per day), she should have… 7 hours to: review application materials again, make any final edits, consider submitting but likely put that off until tomorrow night, sleep, and get back to the hospital. Jeez.
She was doing rounds on her patients with Ellis when Dana popped her head into 4, chewing gum with her glasses perched on the bridge of her nose in a way that almost looked like they were defying gravity. How do they not fall off her face, especially at the speed she moves??
“Samira, you use the bus lines to get home right?”
“Yeah, I take the 2 to Baxter St where I hop on the 35, it puts me about a block from my complex. Why?”
“Just got word. Bus crashed on 376. Might be two buses involved, waiting on more info but I’m hearing some buses are being rerouted to cover those routes now. I think 2 is affected. Thought I’d try to give you a heads up before you head out into that cold only to freeze your ass off waiting.”
Just great. “Thanks, Dana,” Samira sighed.
“Also, Ellis— victims are en route, be here in 10, but Abbots on the way, said he can come help. Must be your lucky day.” Dana was out of the room before either woman could reply.
“I can st–” Samira started, but Ellis cut her off.
“Don’t even try. I know you’ve been here since 6am and you look like you might drop dead. But you know if you need a ride, I’m sure Donnie would be able to help, I think I just saw him head to the locker room..“ Ellis said.
“No it’s okay, I might as well hunker down in the on-call room, I have the last of my last fellowship apps due tomorrow at midnight… I put off submitting them when I really shouldn’t have, and at this rate, I was only getting like 4 hours of sleep tonight at home anyways.”
“Oh right, I remember hearing that you were considering some different options in Pittsburgh. Well, you’ll be excellent wherever you go, Dr. Mohan.” Ellis winked in a way that wasn’t explicitly flirty but was playful in a manner only Ellis could, and then cut through the med bay to head into trauma 1 to check on the nec fasc patient who was still waiting for surgery to come down. If Samira tried winking at a colleague like that she’d probably have an HR meeting on her schedule the next day. But, Ellis had been out for a week when Samira was in the depths of her fellowship crisis and all the stuff with her mom… how did Parker know she’d been considering additional fellowships in Pittsburgh?
Samira packed up her belongings and headed to her lodgings for the night. The on-call room consisted of two very squeaky lopsided cots on opposite sides of the room, with a desk in the middle. No windows..it was in the basement after all. It reminded Samira of a dorm room from hell. It didn’t matter if there was a blizzard outside or it was the Fourth of July, the room always had a weird chill. She turned on the desk lamp, which luckily did not still have the terrible flickering light bulb that made her feel like her brain was going to explode. She took out her laptop and began reviewing the statement she had re-written and reread thousands of times over for UPMC Mercy's EM fellowship. It was usually around this time that she would start to spiral and question where she even belonged in the field of medicine much less geographically, and how the hell was she supposed to know where to go when all she really wanted was to practice medicine and build community with friends and people she loves…who she will surely meet at some point…maybe during fellowship! Right? She thought that was going to be Jersey but...perhaps not after all.
She wasn’t thinking about all that tonight though. In fact before she knew it, she was fantasizing about eating pasta carbonara. In her bathrobe. With the heat actually working, watching the Roku City dreamscape roll slowly across her tv. Oh yeah. Oftentimes, Samira was too tired to even bother clicking the 3 buttons it would take to open Netflix, which Mel had put her on tv months ago in an attempt to get Samira to watch Veronica Mars with her. Mel had told Samira that Frank was the one who suggested Mel watch it, only for Mel to become obsessed, and how uncharacteristic it was for Mel to like some guy in it… Logan or something. Samira had never seen Mel so flustered as she got when trying to explain the appeal of this Logan guy to her and Frank, and Samira had never seen Frank so enchanted. Samira felt like she was missing some inside joke, maybe she should actually put in some effort and watch it before it leaves Netflix. In fact, she needs to text Mel back actually…
The words on the Google doc began to blur a little, and Samira caught her head before it hit the desk. Damn …she needed some sleep. Oh wait, she also never ate. She grabbed a protein bar from her bag and then heard a soft knock at the door which for some reason, despite being almost inaudible, jolted her out of her seat, protein bar hanging out of her mouth, her arms coming up to cover her chest for some reason?
Knock-knock.
Dr. Jack Abbot poked his head into the room.
“H- what are you doing?”
“Um, eating this?” She realized how silly she must look and put the protein bar on her notebook because god knows what fluids were on this desk. Then she sat on one of the beds in what she was hoping was a really normal-looking way.
“No, what are you doing here, Dr. Mohan?”
She sighed. “Well I’m staying in here tonight.. I need to work on apps anyways. Plus the snow storm ...makes trying to trek home not even worth it.”
“Dr. Mohan, you’ve been here all day, and you look exhausted. You need to go home. I spoke to Ellis, she can cover for you til 9 tomorrow. Come in two hours later.”
“I can’t do that–”
“Yes. You can. I’m clearing it.”
“No. I literally can’t. There’s this whole thing with the buses– ”
He looked at her intently in that way he was always looking at her really, but this time The Look was tinged with confusion, so she went on.
“Well I take the 2 line to get home, as well as the 35 actually, and with the accident and reroutes Dana thought it might be better if I just stay here tonight.” Dana hadn’t technically said that, but she thought he’d be more likely to just nod along with the plan if he thought Dana had.
He still looked somewhat confused and paused for a moment, seemingly examining her face, and asked, “How long does it take you to get home from here exactly?”
Samira felt nervous to answer for a moment. Was it embarrassing to live so far away? Is that not normal? “Um, about an hour? Give or take? It really depends because sometimes I just barely miss the bus… that’s very frustrating in the winter. Though summer isn’t great either actually…”
He cut her off. “You’ve done this every day? For your entire residency?”
“I actually moved apartments in the middle of R2. That was also two buses but the routes were longer and they didn’t run frequently at night. So this has actually been a lot better than that.”
Then it hit her– the on-call room. He is literally on-call. He probably came in here to use one of these beds and wanted her out.
“Oh, if you want to stay in here tonight, I can be really quiet, if you want to sleep in here or something…”
He let out an exasperated noise and ran a hand over his face. He walked over to the desk, looked at her open folder with papers, program brochures, loose post it notes, her laptop, and sorry excuse for a dinner, and sat down in the desk chair in front of her.
He put his hands together and the light from the crappy lamp shone off his wedding band. “You need a good night of sleep. A solid night of sleep.” He paused before going on. “The way I see it, you have two options. You can let me drive you to your apartment in fucking Sharpsburg apparently, or you can take this -” he grabbed a mostly empty post it, wrote an address and a number beneath it– “walk a block north, up Sullivan, to here.” He touched the address on the post-it note like that made any sense.
“What is this?”
“My address.”
“You want me to… go to your house?”
“Yes.” he said matter of factly. She looked back at him waiting for an explanation as to how this made any sense to him. He had previously been making remarkably steady eye contact but now, with her gaze focused on him, he couldn’t seem to look her in the eyes directly.
“To…sleep?” Was she hallucinating this? How tired was she?
“Look, there are two rooms in my house that are never used. It's remarkably clean, quiet, peaceful, if I do say so myself, and the kitchen should have some…” he looked over at her half eaten protein bar and vending machine rice crispy treat, “...different options. Some cantaloupe, nuts and bagels in the pantry, I think I have a frozen lasagna in the back of the freezer.” He sighed and finally looked back up at her. “Look, I want you to go there because the ED is going to be hell tonight, and I want you far from it.” He paused, seemed to think more on his words and said, “I mean, you deserve to have rest, a meal, and have a clear head before submitting your final applications.” Why did he look flustered? “Or I can drive you. But I don’t know if leaving Ellis is possible right now, in fact I better check on–”
Ellis, who was willing to cover for her to come in late. Who frequently went out of her way to follow-up on shared cases with Samira. The last thing Ellis needed was to lose Abbot's helping hands and expertise in the ER with the snow creating such unpredictable issues. Wait, what was she even thinking? Seriously considering Abbot’s banana-pants plan for her to go to his house? God she was out of it.
“I’m really fine, I can stay here. It’s not so bad.”
“That’s not an option. Your future is too important.” Dr. Abbot stated plainly, making it evident he was not going to budge on this.
Samaria didn’t know what to say. She was SO tired.
“Do you need me to drive you there?” He stood up and looked like he was ready to pick her up and carry her out of the ED if need be.
“No, no, I’ll go. Are you sure I can just... crash at your place?”
“No one will bother you there. I swear. Just take the win, Dr. Mohan.” The eye contact was back. He was smiling that soft, confident, Dr. Abbot smile. “Second door on the right down the hall. Don’t lose the post it.” He grabbed her jacket hem, pulling the pocket section forward towards him, and softly slipped it inside, burrowing it deep inside so it would be secure, all while looking at her face. Was she imagining the look in his eyes, the way they lingered on hers?
Why was he avoiding eye contact…and then insisting on it?
“Okay…well, um, thank you, Dr. Abbot.”
He walked to the door back out of this small pocket of on-call hell. “Get some rest, Dr. Mohan.” He opened the door and was halfway out before he turned around and said, “And you can call me Jack.”