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Chapter Text

Peter Benton hadn’t expected to feel like this.

He had done dozens of hospital tours over the past year. He was part of a cross-country initiative led by a national task force to study emergency departments and trauma centers across America. The goal was simple: learn how the top hospitals managed their EDs and implement successful strategies back home. He had once stood at County General, toe-to-toe with surgeons, running trauma like a war zone. Now he was part observer, part consultant, part ghost himself.

Allegheny General hadn’t been on the itinerary.

A mix-up in scheduling. Originally, they were supposed to be in D.C., but a systems failure at that hospital diverted them last minute to Pittsburgh.

“Welcome to PTMC Emergency,” Gloria Underwood, the hospital’s Chief Medical Officer, announced with a tight smile. She was a polished woman in a tailored blazer and pearl earrings. “You’re about to see one of the most effective—and busiest—emergency departments on the East Coast. The staff here are…unique, but they get results.”

They followed her through the wide hallways and into the pit of the ED. It was loud. Controlled chaos. Fluorescent lighting washed the faces of overworked residents and under-rested nurses. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic, coffee, and the coppery tang of blood.

Peter walked at the back of the group of visiting doctors, arms folded, his dark eyes scanning. He tried not to judge. Emergency medicine was ugly in most places. You couldn’t wrap it in a bow.

“Patient satisfaction is low,” Gloria continued. “That’s no secret. But their outcomes? Their trauma survival rate rivals Level 1 centers. They run like the military.”

That’s when Peter saw him.

A tall man, probably in his fifties, weaving through the chaos like it was choreography. Black scrubs, grey jacket half-zipped. A beard, just scruffy enough. Ears caught the light—he had hearing aids. He held a tablet in one hand and a coffee in the other. He leaned over to talk to a younger woman, smiling faintly, pointing to something on the screen. The woman—older, blonde, hair clipped up—smiled with a maternal softness as she adjusted the sleeve on his jacket.

Peter stopped walking. His breath caught.

No. It couldn’t be.

The beard, the height, the way he walked…

“Dr. Underwood,” Peter said suddenly, stepping up beside her. “Who’s that man?”

Gloria looked, followed his gaze, and smiled with what Peter thought was forced pride.

“Oh. That’s Dr. Michael Robinavitch. But we all just call him Robby. He’s our Chief Attending and runs the ED. Bit of a cowboy. Brilliant mind. Terrible bedside manner. He can diagnose an aortic dissection in the dark, but he won’t remember your birthday.”

Peter felt the blood drain from his face. “Robby?”

“Mmhm,” she continued. “Lost most of his memory after an incident in Africa with Doctors Without Borders. Has some cognitive gaps. PTSD. But he’s…remarkable. Honestly, he’s one of the best we’ve got.”

Peter stared. Carter.
It had to be.
Same height. Same face. Different name. Different eyes.

He was about to speak when two younger doctors approached.

“Hey,” said a tall man with a messy bun and cocky grin. “I’m Dr. Frank Langdon. Senior resident.”

A bald Black woman with kind eyes followed. “Dr. Heather Collins,” she said, nodding. “Welcome to the chaos.”

Gloria stepped forward. “Langdon, Collins—point out the nursing staff, would you?”

Langdon gestured around the room. “That’s Mateo—. He’s cranky before his fifth coffee. Princess is over there, she’s terrifying but kind. Jesse’s on trauma duty. Perlah’s somewhere in the back. She floats. And Dana—” he nodded toward the blonde woman Robby had spoken to—“she’s in charge. Period.”

“Dana Evans,” Heather added. “Head charge nurse. The whole place runs because of her.”

Peter’s heart thudded again.

“Dana?” he asked.

“Oh yeah,” Langdon chuckled. “She’s like Robby’s mom. He listens to her even when he won’t listen to anyone else.”

Peter turned back toward Robby just as the man turned and began walking briskly toward the trauma bay, tablet in hand, not even glancing at the group.

Gloria scowled. “Dr. Robinavitch!” she called. “Come greet our guests!”

The man raised one hand in a wave and kept walking.

“Robby’s being Robby,” Dana said from across the nurses’ station, not even looking up from her charting. Her voice was warm, sarcastic.

Peter felt dizzy.

Gloria looked annoyed. “Dr. Abbot!” she called sharply.

A shorter man with silver hair turned from one of the beds. He had strong arms, sleeves pushed up, and cold, calculating eyes.

“Would you get your boy over here?”

Abbot’s jaw clenched. He gave Gloria a long, deadpan stare and said flatly, “No.” Then turned back to his patient.

Several nurses snorted with amusement. Peter noticed some of them glancing at Gloria with thinly veiled contempt.

Peter’s mouth was dry. “He… was in Africa?”

“Yes,” said Heather. “He doesn’t talk about it much. But it was bad. He was captured. Hurt badly. Had a traumatic brain injury. We don’t know much. Just that he used to be a whole different person.”

Peter barely heard her.

Carter.

Carter had gone to Africa. Had disappeared. And no one had heard from him again. Everyone thought he was dead. Including Peter.

But he wasn’t. He was here. Walking these halls with a prosthetic limp—no, that was the other man. That was Jack.

Peter glanced again and saw the man—Jack Abbot—heading down the hall toward Robby. He had a prosthetic leg, but moved like a former soldier. His hand brushed Robby’s shoulder as he caught up.

Peter saw Robby lean into Jack slightly. Like muscle memory. Like trust.

He had questions. A thousand. But before he could move, a trauma alert went off.

“TRAUMA BAY ONE. ETA TWO MINUTES. STABBING. MALE. MID-20s. CHEST WOUND. UNSTABLE.”

Robby’s voice cut across the room. Low, quick, and commanding. “Dana—prep one. Mateo, I need two units of O-neg ready. Langdon, Collins, Ellis—gloves on now. Samira, you’re with me.”

Like a conductor in an orchestra, everyone moved.

Dana pushed a gurney into place. Jesse and Mateo grabbed the crash cart. A med student dropped a tray and got barked at by Perlah.

The patient burst in on a stretcher. Pale, gasping, blood-soaked.

“Chest wound!” Langdon barked.

Robby was already beside him. “Left side, fourth intercostal. Hypotensive. Breath sounds?”

“Diminished on the left!” Samira called.

“Needle decompression,” Robby said. “Now.”

Collins moved fast. “28-gauge in. Pulse thready. Sats dropping.”

Robby leaned over, listening, eyes hyper-focused. “We’re not waiting. Crack his chest.”

“Open thoracotomy?” Ellis asked, voice tight.

“Yes,” Robby said, snapping gloves on. “Now.”

Peter watched, frozen. The way Robby moved. His technique. His voice.

Carter.

Even his trauma voice was the same. Calm, fierce, terrifyingly smart.

Blood sprayed. The young man on the table was dying. But Robby—Carter—had his hands in the man’s chest, massaging the heart, shouting orders.

“Abbot!” Robby called. “I need you!”

Jack was already there, gowned and gloved.

In the chaos, Peter stepped back, heart hammering.

He had to know.
He had to talk to Dana.
He had to talk to Carter.

But one thing was clear.

John Carter was alive.
And he didn’t remember anything.

Chapter Text

Peter Benton didn’t remember leaving Allegheny General.

He vaguely recalled saying something about a headache, ducking out of the hospital tour and into the parking lot like he was trying to escape a fire. His hands were shaking. His chest ached. He hadn’t felt like this since his early days at County, when adrenaline and grief were indistinguishable.

It wasn’t a mistake. He knew what he saw.

John Carter—Dr. John Truman Carter III—was alive.

He pulled out his phone as he sat in the rental car, locked the doors, and stared at the screen. It took him three tries to type Doug’s number. His vision blurred with a mix of shock and memory.

Doug answered on the third ring, voice groggy and annoyed.

“Benton? What time is it?”

“It’s Carter.”

There was a long silence.

“…What?”

“I found him. I found Carter.”

Doug didn’t respond.

Benton pressed harder. “I’m in Pittsburgh. We got rerouted to Allegheny General. He’s here. He’s going by a different name—Robby Robinavitch. He’s the Chief Attending in the ER. He’s older. Beard. Hearing aids. I—Doug, it’s him.”

“Wait,” Doug said, voice cracking, suddenly awake. “Carter’s dead. Dead. Luka said he died in Africa. The consulate confirmed it.”

“No.” Benton gripped the steering wheel. “He’s alive. I saw him. He doesn’t know who he is. He’s—he’s got a TBI. They said he was hurt in Africa. PTSD, memory loss, chronic pain. It’s bad. But it’s him. Same height. Same build. Same voice. His hands, his trauma response—Doug, it’s Carter.”

Doug let out a long, ragged breath.

“Holy shit,” he whispered. “Does he remember anything?”

“No. Not a thing. They said he doesn’t talk about the past. Doesn’t remember it. Just that he was in Africa with Doctors Without Borders. He was captured. Tortured. Something happened. Dana Evans and a guy named Jack Abbot are the only people who know anything about what came before.”

“Dana…?” Doug echoed. “Is she a doctor?”

“No. She’s the charge nurse. But she’s more than that. She looks out for him like a mother. She’s the only one he listens to when he’s having a bad day. I saw him perform an open thoracotomy in the trauma bay like it was a morning routine. He hasn’t lost a step. He’s a machine.”

Doug was quiet again. Then, “Peter…we thought he was gone.”

“I know.”

“You’re sure?”

Benton’s voice cracked. “I would bet my life on it.”

Back inside the hospital, the ER was finally calming down.

The patient from earlier was stabilized—barely. He was in the ICU, lungs reinflated and chest cavity closed. Langdon had looked a little green after the thoracotomy, and Mel King had gone to cry quietly in the stairwell.

Robby was on hour thirteen of his shift. He had skipped lunch, as always. He was standing outside exam room 7, rolling his shoulder with a wince, pain medicine still in his pocket. His hearing aids were buzzing—one was almost dead. He could feel the familiar throb in his jaw, a sharp nerve pain behind his cheekbone, radiating down into his teeth.

Dana noticed him leaning slightly against the wall.

“You didn’t take your meds,” she said, approaching slowly. Her tone was warm, but not soft. “I counted. Don’t argue with me.”

“I was busy,” Robby said, half a mumble. His voice always dropped when the pain kicked in.

Dana sighed. “Give me the bottle.”

He handed her the amber vial, and she popped the lid with the ease of long practice.

“Water,” she demanded.

He obediently reached for a staff fridge bottle. She handed him two of the meds and waited until he swallowed.

Dana was quiet for a moment. Watching him.

“You’re getting worse again,” she said, not unkindly. “You need to sleep, Robby.”

“I’ll sleep when the ED stops imploding.”

“Smartass.”

He smiled faintly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He was exhausted. She knew the signs. His shoulders were stiff, his pupils dilated from pain, and his left leg trembled occasionally when he stood too long. She noticed everything.

Dana was about to push him harder when someone cleared their throat.

She turned.

Peter Benton.

He had come back.

She stared at him for a moment, suspicious.

“You're one of the doctors from the tour,” she said.

“Yeah. I need to talk to you. Privately.”

She looked at Robby. He was already walking away, distracted, muttering something about updating charts and “finding Langdon before he glues someone’s hand shut again.”

Once he was out of earshot, Dana crossed her arms.

“You want to tell me why you’re looking at him like he’s a ghost?”

“Because he is,” Benton said.

Dana’s expression darkened. “Be very careful with what you say next.”

“I think you know,” Benton said gently. “You know he wasn’t always ‘Robby.’ You know something happened.”

Dana’s jaw clenched. “I don’t owe you anything.”

“You don’t,” Benton agreed. “But I’m not here to hurt him. I’m not here to force him to remember. I just—Dana, I knew him. His name was John Carter. He was a doctor at County General in Chicago. We worked together. He was my student. Then he was my equal. He went to Africa with Doctors Without Borders. And then he disappeared.”

Dana’s shoulders dropped slightly. The fire in her eyes dimmed. “They said he was dead.”

“We thought so.”

She leaned against the wall now. “He was brought here barely alive. Burned. Starved. His back was a roadmap of scars. They said he’d been missing for weeks in a conflict zone. He didn’t speak for days. When he did…he couldn’t remember his own name. He called himself ‘Robby.’ Said he liked the name. It stuck.”

“And the PTSD?”

“Severe. Some days are good. Some days…” Dana sighed. “He has night terrors. Can’t handle loud bangs or crowded rooms. He gets stuck in the past—has flashbacks. His body’s a mess. Trigeminal neuralgia, spinal damage, chronic migraines. He has a regimen of meds longer than a grocery list. Jack—Jack Abbot—he’s the only one who can touch him during those episodes. Served in the Army. They understand each other.”

Benton swallowed thickly. “He’s alive.”

“Yes,” Dana said. “But barely. You need to understand something—he’s not who he was. And he doesn’t want to be. He made that clear from the start.”

“I’m not trying to change him.”

“You’re going to make him question everything,” Dana warned. “He’s stable now. Mostly. But if he finds out who he was, what he lost… it’ll break him. Again.”

Benton looked down, heart heavy. “I just want him to know he wasn’t alone. That we never forgot him.”

Dana paused, then nodded slowly. “I’ll think about it. But you don’t tell anyone else. Especially not him. Not yet.”

“I understand.”

As Benton turned to leave, Dana called after him.

“He still likes Ethiopian coffee. Black, no sugar. Same as back then?”

Benton smiled faintly. “Exactly the same.”

She sighed. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

Back in the ED, Robby stood over a patient, his hands steady as he reduced a dislocated shoulder. Langdon was watching, trying to mimic the angle.

“Gentle. Controlled force,” Robby said. “Don’t yank.”

Langdon nodded. “I got it, boss.”

As the joint popped back in, the patient yelped, and Robby stepped back.

“You okay?” Robby asked.

“I think so,” the teen muttered.

“Good. Ice, immobilizer, ortho follow-up. Dana’ll handle discharge. Langdon, chart it.”

Langdon moved toward the computer, but glanced at Robby.

“You ever think about the past, boss?” he asked.

Robby blinked. “What?”

“Just…you ever wonder who you were before Africa?”

Robby stiffened.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said flatly. “I’m Robby. That’s all I need.”

Langdon nodded, but quietly said, “Some of us think you were someone important.”

“I’m important now.”

Robby walked away.

From the hallway, Dana watched him go. Her expression unreadable. And from a distance, Peter Benton stood near the exit, phone pressed to his ear.

“…Doug? Yeah. He’s still in there. Same scrubs. Same walk. He’s here.”

And outside, the Pittsburgh rain began to fall.

Chapter Text

The apartment was dark except for the warm pool of amber light coming from the reading lamp on Robby’s side of the bed. The sheets were a mess, kicked down to the foot of the bed, where they draped lazily over Jack’s side. Rain tapped gently on the windowpanes, soft and steady, like the world had taken a breath.

Robby sat cross-legged in the center of the bed, wearing an old Cornell hoodie, cracked letters faded from too many washes. His glasses slid slightly down his nose as he turned a page in the worn paperback in his hands, Hamlet, marked with dozens of tiny sticky notes in Robby’s tight, slanted handwriting. A small gray tabby cat purred loudly in his lap, her front paws kneading rhythmically against his thigh.

“Molly,” Robby murmured without looking up, “that’s not helpful annotation technique.”

The cat blinked slowly up at him, unbothered, before resuming her purring as if in protest.

From the bathroom came the sound of running water, a soft hum of a familiar melody—some Springsteen song Jack always butchered on purpose. Robby barely registered it, fully engrossed in the page. His lips moved with the lines, quiet but insistent, like prayer.

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so…”

The bathroom door creaked open.

Jack walked out, damp hair tousled from the towel he’d half-heartedly used. His prosthetic leg clicked softly against the wood floor as he moved, otherwise silent. A towel hung loose around his waist, low and teasing, his chest damp and still steaming slightly in the cool air.

“You quoting to the cat again?” Jack asked, voice low, amused.

“She asked me a question,” Robby replied, not looking up. “I’m giving her context.”

Jack chuckled. “I bet she asked you what madness it is to read Hamlet for the hundredth time.”

Robby’s brow furrowed slightly. “Eighty-seventh.”

Jack grinned.

With practiced ease, Jack tossed the towel toward the hamper—missed—and crawled into bed beside Robby. The cat gave him a stern look, then repositioned herself across Robby’s shins with a heavy sigh.

Jack leaned close, cool from the shower, and pressed his nose into Robby’s neck. The scent of eucalyptus, skin, and a bit of antiseptic clung to Robby like memory. He was always clean. Clean, clinical, exacting, even now. Jack didn’t mind. It was a tether.

“You smell like the ER,” Jack murmured.

Robby shrugged one shoulder. “I washed up.”

“You still smell like saline and trauma.”

Robby turned the page.

Jack leaned in closer, warm breath brushing Robby’s jaw. “You smell like you.”

And then, teeth, gentle, teasing, nipped just under Robby’s ear.

Robby huffed, not quite annoyed. “Jack…”

Jack smiled against his skin. “Hmm?”

“I’m reading.”

“You’re always reading.”

“It’s how I unwind.”

“It’s how you hide,” Jack murmured. He pressed his lips just below Robby’s jaw, lingering. “How about unwinding with me tonight?”

Robby’s fingers curled slightly around the edges of the paperback.

“I’m not really in the mood.”

Jack didn’t pull away.

Instead, he reached up slowly, fingers grazing Robby’s wrist, then took the book from his hands. He closed it gently, marking the page, and set it on the nightstand.

“Look at me,” Jack said softly.

Robby hesitated. Then he did.

His eyes, sharp brown and so haunted, flicked up and met Jack’s blue. There were lines there, fatigue, pain, memory—and something else. A ghost of fear, of vulnerability, that always lingered just beneath the surface.

“You okay?” Jack asked. His voice was serious now, grounded.

Robby didn’t answer at first. His hand drifted down, instinctively pressing against the side of his hip where nerve pain liked to bloom in sharp, cruel bursts. “Long shift. Collins missed a tension pneumo, almost cracked the kid’s ribs wide open trying to decompress it. Dana stepped in, diffused it. Then Perlah chewed Langdon out for mislabeling blood draws again

Jack reached forward and brushed a thumb under Robby’s eye. “You haven’t slept more than four hours in three days.”

Sleep is overrated.”

“Try again.”

Robby leaned back against the headboard. “I… I just—my head’s too full. It’s like all these pieces are there but they’re not mine. The voices, the lines, the medicine…I remember how to save a person with a central line and a pocket knife, but I couldn’t tell you what my real name used to be.”

Jack’s hand rested lightly on Robby’s chest, just over his heart.

“You are real,” Jack said quietly. “Whether you remember the past or not, you’re here. You matter. You are enough.”

Robby’s breath hitched. “What if I was someone terrible?”

Jack smiled faintly. “Then I guess you’ve got one hell of a redemption arc going.”

Robby let out a soft soundhalf-laugh, half-sigh.

Molly stretched and rolled onto her side like she was over both of them.

Jack reached for the bedside table, grabbed Robby’s nighttime meds, and shook the bottle. “Come on, Doc. Take your poison. Then you’re mine for at least six hours.”

Robby took the pills, swallowed them dry, grimacing.

Jack adjusted beside him, settling in. “Want me to hold you while you fight the existential dread?”

“You always say that.”

“Because it’s always true.”

Robby glanced at him. “Do you think I’ll ever get those pieces back?”

Jack kissed the center of Robby’s forehead. “Maybe. But even if you don’t I’ve got enough memory for both of us.”

The rain picked up outside.

Robby sank back against Jack, finally letting his weight go, tension easing from his shoulders. Molly curled tighter against his legs.

He closed his eyes, whispering, “To sleep—perchance to dream…”

Jack smirked. “Hey, I was promised cuddling, not more Shakespeare.”

But his arm tightened around Robby’s waist, grounding him. Robby didn’t answer. His breathing slowed. For the first time in days, sleep began to take hold.

And Jack, always watching, always protecting, held him through the quiet dark.

Chapter Text

The clock on the nightstand glowed 3:17 AM in soft red digits. Peter Benton stared at it like it owed him something

He stared at the ceiling like it had wronged him personally. The hotel AC made the room too cold, but he didn’t get up to adjust it. His sheets were tangled around his legs, one pillow was on the floor, and his back ached in a way that reminded him he wasn’t 30 anymore. Wasn’t even 40.

He would turn 63 this month. Jean made a joke about colonoscopies and gravity-defying socks. Reese had sent him a playlist of jazz tracks titled “Old Man, Still Got It.” He was loved. He was supported.

But none of that mattered now.

He had been tossing for hours, each minute dragging behind his eyes like static. His wife slept soundly beside him, breath slow and even, cocooned in the down blanket. He didn’t want to wake her. He didn’t even want to be here.

Carter was aliv

And they left him behind…

Mark Greene had survived cancer. He had nearly died. But Mark had clawed his way back, married Elizabeth, and was living quietly in San Diego. Luka and Abby had married too. Two kids. Pictures every Christmas.

And Benton? Married. Private practice. A few surgical consults at County when he had time.

They had all moved on.

They left Carter behind.

God, he hated that thought.

He hadn’t meant to. None of them had. They thought Carter had died—disappeared in the middle of a conflict zone, his name quietly added to a plaque in the County General breakroom. There had been a fundraiser. A candlelight vigil. Then silence.

And the world kept turning.

That was the thing about death. You mourn for a while. You cry. You bring flowers to the ER chapel. And then…you go back to your shift. You get married. You have kids. You argue about board meetings. You wake up one day and realize you haven’t said his name in five years.

But tonight, Peter couldn’t stop saying it.
Carter.
John.

Benton sat up, pressing both hands into his face, dragging his fingers down until they trembled in his lap.

He had seen a lot in his life. War zones. Gangs. Hospital hallways full of blood and screams. Children dying in front of him. But nothing, nothing, had hit him like this.

Not in the chest. Not in the soul.

John Truman Carter III was alive.

He had called Doug the second he got back to the hotel. It hadn’t even been a conversation, really. Just Peter pacing a cold room with shaking hands and a voice like gravel, choking out everything he’d seen.

Doug hadn’t believed him at first. He had gone quiet. Real quiet. Then swore. Said he was coming to Pittsburgh. Asked for pictures. Asked how he looked. Asked if he remembered.

“He doesn’t,” Benton had said. “TBI. PTSD. Whole damn suitcase of trauma. He goes by Robby now. He’s the Chief in the ER. Everyone defers to him. He runs the place.”

Doug had whispered, “Jesus.”

And then Doug had told Carol. And Carol had told Weaver. And Doug had called Mark.

The ripple had started. The old County crew, scattered across the country like dust in the wind, suddenly pulled together by one name.

Carter.

Benton got up. The floor was cold against his feet. He walked barefoot to the window and stared out at the Pittsburgh skyline, dark and industrial, a few towers glowing with red and white security lights.

He thought of Carter’s hands. Not shaking. Not hesitant. Steady. Exact.
The way he’d leaned into Jack Abbot, just for a second, like it was muscle memory.
The way Dana Evans had stood guard over him like a lioness.

The man he saw in that ER wasn’t the Carter Peter remembered.

Carter had led with his heart. Always. Foolishly, bravely, beautifully. He’d drive himself into the ground trying to save a life, skip meals to comfort a grieving family, blow past protocol if it meant someone walked out of the trauma bay breathing.

But the man in Pittsburgh?

That man was tired.
Worn.
Efficient.

He moved with precision. Cool, collected. Like a surgeon. Like… like Benton.

It hit Peter hard.

Carter used to tell him they made a good team because Peter kept him grounded, and Carter kept him human. But now the roles were reversed. Carter’s hands still moved like second nature, still carried brilliance in every gesture—but they didn’t tremble with emotion anymore. They just… worked.

There was no spark in his eyes. Just muscle memory. Experience.

Peter didn’t know how to feel about that.

How do you grieve someone who’s still breathing?

He laid back down, the hotel mattress too soft beneath him. He thought about Robby. He thought about the way Robby leaned into Jack Abbot’s touch when he wasn’t looking. About how Dana spoke to him with a kind of ferocity only a mother could wield.

Carter had people now. But did he even know? Know that there were people who loved him… before?

Peter’s eyes burned. He blinked hard.

What hurt the most wasn’t that Carter had changed—it was that he had to. Whatever happened in Africa broke him open, poured out the man Peter knew, and left someone else behind.

Someone brilliant. Resilient. But different. So very different…

Peter didn’t know how to bring him back.

Hell, maybe he shouldn’t even try.

He exhaled slow. The digital clock read 4:43 a.m.

He rolled onto his side and stared at the wall, his breath shallow.

Carter had always led with his heart. Always. Even when it got him hurt. Even when it got other people hurt.

But… this man…Robby? Who looked like Carter. Walked like Carter… but somehow… wasn’t?
He led with his head. Clinical. Sharp. Too sharp. Like a scalpel used too long. Rusted…

That haunted Benton.

Time had drawn lines on Carter’s face. Carved shadows under his eyes. Bent his back just slightly. Dusted his hair and beared gray.

Benton thought about the time he’d sat at Carter’s bedside after he’d been stabbed. About how Carter had tried to hide how much it shook him. How he’d pretended to be fine. How he wasn’t. How he went to rehab scared of what was happening to him…. To his career

And what had they done?

They moved on.

They lived…

Doug and Carol… married. Their twin girls were in college now.
Mark had beaten cancer…. retired now, living in San Diego, spending his days fixing up old boats.
Weaver had gone into politics for a while. Now she ran a nonprofit.
Abby and Luka… married. Two boys. One in high school.
Benton…married. Had two kids. A dog.

They had mourned Carter. Cried at his funeral—what little there was of it.
And then the world kept spinning.

They left him.

They left him behind…

Peter felt the grief crawl up his throat like acid. God, he missed him. He hadn’t even known how much until he saw him standing there, alive, breathing, older and weathered but moving.

He remembered that Christmas in the ER, when Carter stayed behind to work.
He remembered how Carter used to smile when he got a complicated trauma case.
He remembered teaching him to place his first central line, Carter’s hands trembling.

And now?

Carter didn’t know who he was. These thoughts kept circling in his mind kept coming kept showing up, screaming at him for how wrong he was…

The man that wore Carters skin…
Didn’t know Benton.
Didn’t know any of them.

Robby. That’s what they called him now.
He looked like Carter, but he didn’t feel like him. He felt older. Hollowed out. Filled in with something else—grit and pain and caution.

He had twenty medications.

He wore hearing aids.

He didn’t laugh. He didn’t smile. He self soothed by touching his face, his head his neck… he loved a man…

Benton shifted in bed, lying back stiffly, eyes still open. He stared at the ceiling.

How could they fix this? Should they even try?

What if reminding him broke him?

Would Carter even want to know the truth?
Was it even fair to tell him?

Peter pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes until color sparked behind them.

He couldn’t decide what hurt more—knowing Carter was alive… or knowing Carter wasn’t Carter anymore.

He reached for his phone again.

Text from Doug: “I booked a flight. Landing tomorrow. I need to see him.”

Peter typed slowly. “He won’t know you.”

Doug replied fast. “I don’t care.”

Peter turned off the phone, rolled onto his side.

The sheets were cold now. His chest was heavy. He could still see Carter in that trauma bay—Robby.

Still saving people. Still carrying the weight.

Benton closed his eyes.

“I’m sorry, kid,” he whispered.
“We didn’t forget you. We just… thought we had to.”

And then finally, finally, sleep came for him.

Chapter Text

Dana Evans didn’t consider herself impulsive.
In fact, she’d built her entire career—hell, her whole life—on being methodical, prepared, calm under pressure. That’s why she’d been head nurse for decades. That’s why Robby listened to her when no one else could reach him.

So she didn’t know what made her do it.

Maybe it was Peter Benton’s face, lined and tired, but desperate, when he’d found her in the hallway two days ago.
Maybe it was the way Robby had been lately—shaky, stiff, withdrawn, drifting again.

Or maybe it was that damn text from Frank Langdon at 11:32 PM:

“Robby went home early. Not like him. You check in?”

She had replied:
“He’s asleep. Jack says he had a migraine and his knee was locking up.”

But now it was 2:48 AM. The room was dark, lit only by the soft glow of her laptop. Daniel was snoring beside her, arm flopped over a pillow like a Labrador retriever. He didn’t even stir when she moved. He hadn’t in years.

Dana sat with her reading glasses pushed halfway down her nose, one hand wrapped around a mug of lukewarm tea, the other hovering uncertainly over the keyboard.

She took a breath. Exhaled.
Typed:
Dr. John Truman Carter III.

She stared at the search bar for a long time before hitting enter.

The name exploded across the screen like a trap sprung.

Deceased.
Presumed dead.
Former trauma fellow, Cook County General.
Stab wound, 2000.
Drug addiction. Recovery.
Doctors Without Borders.
Sudan. Kenya. Congo.
Missing, presumed dead in Africa.

Dana’s heart dropped into her stomach. She scrolled through photos, young, clean-shaven, broad smile.
Dark brown hair.
Sharp jawline.
Bright eyes.

The same eyes.

She clicked on a PDF of old hospital files, public, but barely. The name Peter Benton appeared a dozen times.
Then Susan Lewis. Doug Ross. Kerry Weaver. Luka Kovač. Carol Hathaway.
Even Abby Lockhart.

All real. All connected.

Then came the photos from the consulate notice in 2009: “Dr. Carter presumed deceased after regional outbreak in DRC. Body never recovered.”

Dana stared at the screen.

Never recovered.

She scrolled to the next document—a post from a now-defunct ER blog.
A eulogy of sorts.
Written by a former resident.
Called him “brilliant and reckless and kind. The kind of doctor who made you want to be better, just by standing next to him.”

Dana felt the tears sting before she realized she was crying.

She sat there, trembling slightly, hands curled into fists.

She had known—somewhere deep down—that the man sleeping two blocks away in a cluttered apartment with Jack and a cat named Molly had not always been Robby.

She had seen the scars, the half-remembered procedures, the way he went still at a child’s cry or at a woman’s cough.
She had heard him mutter in his sleep, sometimes in French, sometimes in Swahili. Sometimes, terrifyingly, in complete Latin.

And once… just once… he had said, “Benton… I’m sorry.”

Not Jack. Not her. Benton.

Dana closed the laptop slowly. Her hands were cold. Her throat tight.

She padded downstairs in bare feet, breathing deep through her nose like she did during code blues. Her fingers ached. The floor creaked beneath her.

She didn’t know what this meant. Not yet.
But she knew one thing…

Robby was Carter.

And Carter had been loved. Deeply. Enough for Doug Ross to fly halfway across the country. Enough for Peter Benton, who didn’t care about anyonto look like he’d seen a ghost.

And now?

Now Carter was alive. And hurting. And different.

Dana pulled out her phone.

She hesitated. then texted Jack.

Hey. Can we talk tomorrow? Just us. No Robby. Coffee?
The reply came almost instantly:

Yeah. Everything okay?
She thought about lying. She didn’t.

I know who he was.
There was a long pause. Then Jack’s reply came:

Yeah. I figured you would, eventually.

The Next Morning – Hospital

The ED was already humming by 6:20. The early shift had been chaos—MVA, diabetic ketoacidosis, and a seventeen-year-old with a GSW who’d coded twice in trauma bay two.

Robby was in black scrubs, sleeves pushed to the elbows, leaning over the suture tray, directing Dr. Collins on closing a leg laceration.

"Use 3-0 Vicryl for the muscle layer," he said quietly. “Keep your hand steady, Heather.”

Collins nodded. “Got it, Dr. Robinavitch.”

Robby flinched slightly at his own name. It still felt foreign on certain days. Like wearing someone else's shoes.

From behind him, Dana approached silently, a clipboard in her hand and something else—an old ache—in her eyes.

"Morning, Doc," she said casually.

Robby turned. “Hey, Mama D. What’s the damage?”

“Three incoming from a fire in Hazelwood, multiple inhalation injuries, one pediatric burn. EMS ETA six minutes.”

“Alright. Trauma one and two prepped?”

“Already on it.”

Robby gave her a tired, grateful nod. “You’re too good to me.”

Dana met his eyes. And for a moment, she saw himreally saw him.

Not Robby.

John Carter.

The stubborn brilliance. The buried grief. The way he carried pain like a second spine.

“You ever think about who you were before?” she asked gently, surprising even herself.

Robby blinked, caught off guard. “What?”

“Before Africa. Before the ER. Before Jack. Do you ever wonder?”

He hesitated.

“Sometimes,” he admitted. “Sometimes it’s like… like there’s a room in my head that’s locked. And I know something’s inside. Something important. But every time I try to open it, I get hit with a migraine or I can’t breathe. So I stopped trying.”

Dana nodded slowly. Her hand squeezed his shoulder.

“You were loved, you know,” she said softly.

He stared at her.

She gave a small smile. “By a lot of people. You still are.”

Before he could reply, the trauma doors burst open.

A paramedic shouted, “Ten-year-old male! Burns to 30% of his body, semi-conscious, struggling to breathe—”

Robby’s voice snapped to command.

“Princess! Perlah! I want lactated ringers and respiratory here stat. Mel, you’re with me. We intubate now or we lose him!”

He was gone in a flash, moving like fire through smoke.

Dana watched him go.

Watched Carter rise again, tired, scarred, unknowing—and still save the world.

Chapter Text

The hospital cafeteria was nearly empty—too early for the lunch rush, too late for breakfast. The industrial lights buzzed softly overhead. Dana Evans sat at a corner table, her blazer draped over the back of the chair, a plain black coffee cradled in her hands. She wore the face of a woman who’d been up since 4:30 and had no plans to stop until midnight. But there was something tight in her jaw, something unreadable in her eyes.

Across from her sat Jack Abbot, ex-Army, ex-special forces, current chaos containment specialist, and partner to the most complicated man she’d ever known.

Jack looked like a man who lived with ghosts and made peace with themmostly. His prosthetic leg tapped lightly under the table, a nervous habit he didn’t seem to realize he had.

Dana took a sip. “Thanks for coming.”

Jack nodded. “You’re the only one I’d trust with this.”

She didn’t waste time. “I know. It’s Carter.”

Jack’s eyes didn’t waver. “Yeah.”

“I found the records. He’s him. John Truman Carter III. Former trauma fellow. County General. All of it.”

Jack let out a long breath and rubbed his eyes. “You know he doesn’t remember. Not fully. Not really.”

“I know,” Dana said. “But the people who loved him? They do.”

Before Jack could respond, the doors opened.

Peter Benton walked in first, shoulders broad and stiff, hands tucked into his coat like he was trying not to shake. Behind him, Doug Ross in his usual black leather jacket, and Carol Hathaway, face softer than Jack thought, but her eyes just as sharp. She walked beside Doug like a woman who didn’t take nonsense anymore. She carried herself with history.

Jack stood immediately, protective instinct kicking in so fast Dana could practically feel it. He was already halfway between them and the table.

Peter narrowed his eyes. “Abbot?”

Jack’s tone was flat. “Benton.”

“You’re the one keeping him from us.”

Jack didn’t flinch. “I’m the one keeping him safe.”

Doug raised a hand, stepping between them. “Whoa. Easy. We’re not here to fight.”

“You’re damn right we’re not,” Dana snapped, standing now. “Sit down, the both of you. Unless you want to do this in front of hospital security.”

Peter’s eyes flicked to Dana. “You saw the files too?”

“I did,” she said. “And I’ve seen him nearly every day for the past four years. I’ve held him when the seizures came. I’ve watched him wake up crying in French and not know why. I’ve seen him forget me… forget Dana… I know him.”

Carol stepped forward. “So do we.”

Jack’s jaw flexed. “You knew him.”

That stung.

Carol hesitated, then slowly sat. “We want to help.”

Peter sat too, reluctantly, still watching Jack like a man ready to go to war.

Jack stayed standing. “Robby doesn’t even know who he was. And you think showing up after fifteen years of thinking he was dead is gonna do what? Heal him? He has night terrors. He can’t remember his birthday. He still wakes up reaching for his side because of old shrapnel from Congo. He—”

The cafeteria doors slammed open.

Everyone turned as Dennis Whitaker burst in, panting hard, red-faced, eyes wide with fear.

“I—I didn’t know where else to go,” he stammered, looking at Dana. “Something’s wrong. With Doctor Robby—he—he just collapsed in the hallway. He’s seizing. It’s bad. Really bad.”

Dana was already moving.

Jack was sprinting.

Doug and Peter were right behind them, with Carol on Dana’s heels.

The ED was chaos when they arrived.

Robby was on a gurney in trauma bay four, thrashing violently, arms and legs locked in tonic-clonic spasm. His head jerked sideways with each wave of the seizure, saliva foaming at the corner of his mouth. His scrubs were soaked with sweat. His hearing aids were missing.

“Get 4mg Ativan IV push, now!” Collins shouted.

Langdon had the ambu bag ready, watching the O2 sats drop into the 70s. “He’s not breathing right!”

“BP’s 170 over 112,” Mateo called. “We’re gonna lose him!”

Dana shoved her way in. “Move! I’ve got his chart!”

Jack was frozen in the doorway, hand over his mouth, face pale.

“Jack,” Dana said, voice sharp but not cruel. “I need you here.”

Jack snapped into action. “Where’s his meds? His emergency benzos?”

“Lockerbottom shelf, red box,” Jesse van Horn shouted.

Peter Benton was at the foot of the bed, eyes locked on Robby’s face. “Jesus…”

Doug pressed forward, checking vitals on the screen. “He’s got a TBI history?”

“He’s got everything,” Dana said, shoving the red med kit into Jack’s hands.

Jack popped the lid, yanked out a pre-filled syringe, and passed it to Dana, who injected it into the IV line without pause.

Robby’s body was still shaking violently. The gurney rattled beneath him.

“Come on, baby,” Jack whispered, grabbing Robby’s flailing wrist and holding it tight. “Come on. Breathe.”

“2mg more Ativan!” Collins barked.

Langdon wiped sweat off Robby’s brow. “His pupils are unequal—his brain’s taking a hit.”

“He’s gonna bite through his tongue,” Princess muttered, reaching for the bite block.

“No,” Carol said quietly, stepping in beside her. “Let Jack do it.”

Everyone looked up.

Carol knelt beside Jack, placed a hand on his back. “He needs you. He knows your voice. Talk him down.”

Jack leaned in close, pressed his forehead to Robby’s.

“It’s me,” he whispered. “It’s Jack. You’re safe. You’re in the hospital, Pittsburgh. You’re not there. You’re not in Africa. You’re not alone. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

The seizure began to slow.

Twitches replaced the full-body spasms. Then… stillness.

A breath. Ragged. Deep.

Robby choked. Gasped. Then stilled again.

Langdon checked the monitor. “Sats climbing. 86. 89. Heart rate stabilizing.”

“Jesus Christ,” Benton muttered.

Robby’s eyelids fluttered.

His face was pale. Lips cracked. His voice was hoarse, barely audible.

“…Jack…?”

Jack’s hands tightened around his.

“I’m here,” he whispered, eyes wet. “I’m here.”

Robby blinked slowly, eyes not quite tracking.

“Dana…?”

Dana stepped into view, gently smoothing Robby’s soaked hair back. “You had a seizure, honey. Bad one.”

“…forgot my meds…”

“I know, baby. I know.”

Robby’s eyes shifted past her. Locked on Benton.

“…do I know you?”

Benton’s throat bobbed.

Jack answered for him.

“You did,” he said quietly. “Once.”

Robby’s eyes fluttered closed again, too exhausted to ask more.

Silence stretched in the trauma bay.

Peter Benton stepped back slowly, one hand covering his face. Doug turned away, visibly shaken. Carol didn’t move. She just stared.

Jack sat down heavily on the floor beside the gurney, hand still wrapped around Robby’s.

“Tell me again how this is supposed to help him,” he said, voice cracking.

Dana didn’t answer.

No one did.

Chapter Text

The machines beeped steadily. Too steadily.

IV drip. Heart monitor. Oxygen sat reader. Blood pressure cuff.

The fluorescent lights above trauma bay three buzzed low, white and sharp. It was quiet. Unnaturally quiet for an emergency department. The curtain had been drawn, the room cleared except for the bare minimum.

Dana had fought for thatmade it clear that if anyone tried to crowd him again, she’d revoke access to the entire unit. No gawking. No curiosity. Just care.

Robby lay in the narrow hospital bed, pale as the sheets, a nasal cannula feeding him oxygen. He looked younger in sleep. Or older. It was hard to tell. Bruises bloomed across his arms where the IV had been started in haste. His fingers twitched against the gauze wrapped around one wrist. His dark hair was damp, matted to his temple.

Jack hadn’t left his side.

He sat hunched in the bedside chair, shoulders rounded, hands resting on the mattress like they belonged there. Like they were part of the structure that held Robby together. His prosthetic leg was locked, stiff, forgotten under the strain of waiting. His face looked carved from stone.

Peter Benton stood against the far wall, arms crossed tightly, jaw clenched. Doug Ross paced slowly at the foot of the bed, eyes flicking from monitor to monitor, lips pursed. Carol sat beside Dana on the opposite side of the bed, her fingers wrapped tightly around a coffee cup she hadn’t touched.

The room was full of people who had known Carter. And yet none of them were sure if Carter was still in there.

It started with a twitch.

Robby stirred, his hand curling weakly toward his chest.

Jack was on his feet immediately, brushing the damp hair from Robby’s forehead.

“Hey,” he whispered. “You with me?”

Robby’s eyes opened, glassy and unfocused. He blinked once. Twice. He stared at the ceiling. Then to the left. Then back to Jack.

“…who…” his voice rasped like gravel.

Jack swallowed. “It’s me. It’s Jack.”

Robby’s brow furrowed. His breathing hitched. He flinched.

Doug stepped forward, slow and calm. “Easy. You’re okay. You had a seizure. You’re in the ED.”

Robby looked around the room like it was made of fire. “Where…?”

“You’re safe,” Carol said softly.

Peter didn’t speak. His eyes were locked on Robby’s every twitch, every flicker of expression.

Dana approached the bed, slow and gentle, holding up a cup of water with a straw.

“Just sip,” she said. “No pressure.”

Robby took a shaky sip, then flinched again, pulling the nasal cannula away from his face. “Too loud.”

Jack nodded quickly. “Okay, okay. I got you.” He adjusted the hearing aids out of Robby’s ears, placed them in a padded case he kept in his pocket. He always had it. Just in case.

Robby’s breathing calmed slightly.

“…what happened?” he whispered.

Jack met Dana’s eyes. She gave a nod.

“You had a seizure. Bad one,” Jack said, keeping his voice steady. “You’re in the hospital. Everyone’s here. It’s okay.”

Who… are you?” he whispered. His eyes shifted to Jack again.

Jack’s throat bobbed. He reached for Robby’s hand—tentative, gentle. Like he didn’t want to scare him.

“I’m the guy who carries your bag when your back hurts,” Jack said. “The guy who makes your tea too strong and your coffee too weak. The guy who sleeps next to you every night and gets elbowed when you steal the covers.”

Robby blinked slowly. His gaze dropped. “I don’t remember.”

Jack nodded, not trusting his voice. “That’s okay.”

“Do…. I think… I love you?” Robby said quietly.

Jack smiled softly, nodding.

“What’s the last thing you remember sweetheart?” Dana asked softly.

“…Hamlet…”

Jack nods “you were reading that last.”

Robby’s eyes shifted to Benton. Something twitched in his jaw.

“I… know you,” he said slowly. Then looked confused. “I think.”

Benton stepped forward. “Yeah. Yeah, you did .”

Robby frowned. “You’re a doctor.”

“I am,” Peter said, voice thick. “You were my student. A long time ago.”

Robby blinked.

“…Dr. Benton.”

Jack stiffened, heart hammering.

Peter nodded. “Yeah. That’s right.”

Robby’s lips trembled. His eyes went glassy.

“I…” he whispered. “I don’t remember.”

“That’s okay,” Doug said gently, stepping beside Benton. “You don’t have to.”

Jack sat again, one hand gripping Robby’s.

Robby's head turned to Peter again.

“You're a doctor,” he said slowly. “You look like… like…”

He winced, closed his eyes. His brow furrowed deeply.

“…Benton.”

Everyone froze. Robby was repeating himself. Hoping to remember.

Peter stepped closer, slowly. His voice low. Careful.

“Yeah. That’s right. I’m Dr. Benton.”

Robby’s eyes flew open, breathing quickening. His heart monitor beeped a little faster. He gripped the blanket with shaking hands.

“I know that name,” he whispered. “I do. It’s… in there…”

“Easy,” Dana said. “Just breathe, Robby.”

Robby nodded, but his hands fisted in the blanket. His voice dropped to a hush.

“Why do I know you?”

Peter’s throat was dry. “We worked together. A long time ago.”

Robby blinked, staring at him. His lips parted, like he was going to say something else.
But Robby was drifting. His eyes darted, breath quickening. His fingers began to curl tightly into the blankets.

“Heart rate’s rising,” Carol said softly, glancing at the monitor.

“Hey,” Jack said quickly, “hey, breathe with me. You’re okay. You’re safe.”

But Robby was somewhere else.

“Where is she?” he asked, voice panicked. “Where’s Lucy?”

Jack froze. His hand tightened. “Who—?”

“Lucy. Lucy Knight. She was—she was—” Robby’s hands were trembling now. “She was here. I saw her. Where is she?”

The monitor beeped faster.

Doug leaned in, voice low and careful. “She’s not here. You’re okay. You’re having a memory. Just breathe.”

“No—no, she’s—she was stabbed. She was on the floor—there was blood everywhere—I called for help, I—I was too late—”

“Robby,” Dana whispered, stepping closer.

“She was cold, and I—” He clutched at his side suddenly, as though remembering something sharp. His body curled halfway in on itself. “I got hit too—oh god—my back—my back—”

Robby’s body tensed his body arched as if he was feeling the stab wiound for the first time.

Peter moved before anyone else could. He grabbed Robby’s hand, gripped it hard, knelt beside the bed.

“Carter. Look at me. You are not there. You’re not on the floor. You’re not bleeding. You’re here. This is real. This is now.”

Jack’s eyes brimmed with tears. He’d never seen Robby this far gone.

“Where’s Lucy?” Robby sobbed. “I promised her—I promised—I told her I’d protect her—”

“She’s gone,” Benton said softly. “And that wasn’t your fault.”

The monitor beeped higher. Dana reached for the Ativan, her hands calm even as her heart pounded.

“I don’t remember,” Robby cried, curling tighter, shaking. “I don’t remember her face—I can’t—I can’t remember her voice—”

Jack’s breath caught. He pressed his forehead against Robby’s hand.

“You don’t have to,” he whispered. “You don’t have to carry all of it anymore.”

Robby was sobbing now. Raw, open, wrecked.

Dana injected the Ativan slowly into the IV line.

The shaking began to ease. His breaths slowed. His fingers unclenched.

The room was silent except for the soft hum of monitors and the quiet sound of Carter—Robby—falling back into sleep, eyes wet, mouth slightly open, still murmuring Lucy’s name.

Doug turned away.

Carol pressed a hand to her mouth, wiping at tears.

Peter stood slowly, eyes hollow.

Jack didn’t move. He stayed exactly where he was, holding Robby’s hand, eyes shut, forehead pressed to the sheets like prayer.

And Dana?

Dana pulled the blanket up over Robby’s shoulder. She smoothed his hair again. She kissed his head like she would do to her daughters. And for the first time since this began, she let herself cry.

Chapter Text

The room was darkened now. Monitors hummed softly, casting faint green glows across Robby's pale face. A nasal cannula fed him oxygen. Electrodes dotted his temples, wires trailing to the portable EEG machine brought down by neurology. Robby lay still under sedation, eyelashes barely fluttering, chest rising and falling in a slow, medicated rhythm.

Outside the room, Dana stood with arms crossed tightly against her chest. Her face was unreadable, but her eyes followed every flicker of movement on the EEG like it might spell the future.

Jack leaned against the far wall, jaw locked, a tremor in his prosthetic leg that wasn’t from pain this time. Benton stood stiffly beside him, arms folded like a sentinel, unmoving. Doug and Carol stood near the nurses’ station, murmuring quietly with Perlah and Langdon, but no one smiled. No one joked.

No one looked okay.

“I need to ask something,” Dana said softly, her voice barely above a whisper.

Peter looked at her.

She turned her gaze toward the darkened window. “Who was Lucy?”

Doug’s jaw twitched. Benton didn’t answer for a moment. Then he exhaled sharply through his nose.

“She was a med student,” Peter said. “Bright. Quick. She had heart. Worked under Carter back at County General.”

Dana glanced at him. “What happened?”

“She was attacked. Stabbed by a psych patient. Carter found her. Tried to save her. He…” Peter’s voice cracked a little. “He was stabbed too. They were both left bleeding out on the floor.”

Jack pressed his fist to his mouth and turned away.

“She died?” Dana asked gently.

Peter nodded.

“And Carter… he survived.”

Doug added quietly, “But he never stopped blaming himself.”

There was a silence. Thick. Suffocating.

Jack abruptly turned and walked away.

“Jack,” Dana called after him, but he didn’t stop.

He shoved the bathroom door open and barely made it to the sink before he threw up. His hands braced on the porcelain. His stomach heaved once, twice. When he was done, he spat, flushed, and pressed his forehead to the cool steel of the mirror frame.

He was shaking. Not just physically. His whole self was shaking. His thoughts. His center.

The door creaked open behind him.

“I locked it,” Jack muttered.

“Picked it,” came a voice.

Jack turned his head.

Dr. John Shen stood in the doorway. Calm. Neutral. Hands in his pockets. He walked in slowly and sank down to the floor beside the sinks like he belonged there, crossing his legs.

“I don’t need a shrink right now,” Jack muttered.

“Good,” Shen said. “I’m not a shrink. I’m just your friendly senior resident who’s not afraid of blood, vomit, or your bad attitude.”

Jack gave a short, humorless laugh.

They sat in silence for a moment.

“He ever talk about her?” Shen asked eventually.

Jack shook his head. “No. I think… I think it was buried deep. Like the rest of it.”

“You scared he’s going to remember everything?”

Jack looked at him. “Aren’t you?”

Shen shrugged. “Sure. But it’s not about me.”

Jack’s hands gripped his thighs. “What if he remembers and realizes I’m not part of his story? What if he wakes up and he’s him—Carter—and he doesn’t love me anymore?”

John tilted his head. “You love him?”

“More than anything,” Jack whispered.

“Then you stay. No matter who wakes up. That’s love.”

Jack’s voice cracked. “What if it’s worse? What if he remembers everything and it breaks him? What if it kills what we’ve built? He’s barely holding it together now. I—”

“Hey,” Shen said gently. “Look at me.”

Jack glanced at him, tears building.

“I’ve watched you two. Everyone has. You’re the reason he makes it through the day sometimes. You bring him coffee before he knows he needs it. You keep his meds charted. You remind him he matters—every single day. He might not remember who he was, but I don’t think it matters. Because he knows who he is with you.”

Jack was breathing through his nose, jaw shaking.

Shen looked away. “You know when my mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she forgot my name for a while? But she’d still hold my hand. She remembered the feeling. The connection. The safety. Robby—Carter, might forget names, or memories, or entire chapters of his life. But I think his soul remembers you.”

Jack choked a little. He leaned back against the wall, head tilted up, eyes wet.

“What if that’s not enough?” he asked.

Shen’s voice was quiet. “Then you help him find the rest. One piece at a time.”

The door opened again.

It was Dana.

“We’re getting test results back,” she said gently. “Neuro says there’s a pattern, but they don’t know how much was seizure versus flashback. Robby’s stable, but he’ll be out for a few more hours.”

Jack stood, stiffly. Wiped his face. Adjusted his prosthetic.

Dana watched him a long time. Then walked up and took his hand.

“I don’t think Robby could ever stop loving you,” she whispered. “Even if he doesn’t remember how he started.”

Jack nodded once. Just once.

Then he walked back to the room where Robby slept.

And waited.

Chapter Text

The gurney wheeled slowly down the corridor, its rubber wheels humming softly against the floor. Robby lay on his side, loosely strapped, a thin blanket tucked under his arms. His face was pale, his dark hair sticking to his temples, and his hearing aids removed for the imaging. His fingers twitched intermittently—tiny, unconscious spasms as the sedation wore thin.

Dr. Henley, the neurologist, walked at the foot of the gurney, clipboard in hand, murmuring instructions to the orderly beside her. Every so often she glanced at Robby’s EEG readings, brows drawn tight. She didn’t say much.

Back outside the trauma bay, the group waited.

Jack sat in the corner of the waiting alcove, holding Robby’s chart. Not the sanitized hospital recordbut the real one. The thick binder with hand-written notes from Nairobi, scanned records from Doctors Without Borders, typed progress logs from recovery units in Jordan, Israel, and eventually, the States.

Jack had read it a hundred times. Memorized the lines. The bullet wounds. The infection. The renal trauma. The sexual assault. The three-day coma. The brain swelling. The diagnosis that followed: traumatic brain injury. Secondary memory disruption. Disassociation. Mild aphasia. Chronic pain. PTSD. Permanent partial hearing loss.

Every page told a story Jack wished he could rewrite… could help the man he loved forget.

Now, he placed the binder on the table between them.

Doug, Benton, and Carol sat with him. Dana stood beside the coffee machine, silent. Collins, Langdon, and Shen were gathered a few feet off, murmuring quietly, watching the scene unfold.

Jack cleared his throat.

“I figured… if we’re going to help him, we need to stop pretending we’re protecting him by keeping this locked up.”

He slid the file toward Benton.

“I’m trusting you with this.”

Peter opened the binder slowly. His hands didn’t shake, but his jaw tightened with each page.

Doug leaned in. “This from Africa?”

Jack nodded. “All of it. Start to now.”

Carol rested her chin on her hand, brow furrowed as she read over Peter’s shoulder.

“I didn’t know he went back,” she murmured. “After rehab.”

“He didn’t tell anyone what happened when he started working here. Dana said, coming over. “Not even me. I pieced it together after he forgot to wear shoes one shift. He came back… but not all of him did.”

Jack’s voice was quiet. “They think his kidney was damaged from poor hydration, constant infections, but there’s a note in here—Nairobi General suspected an internal stab wound. No entry scar. But there was organ trauma. Infection. Scarring. I guess that originally happened when he was stab by the psych patient.”

Doug looked up. “How’s his kidney now?”

Dana took a deep breath. “It’s failing. Slowly. He’s already doing dialysis. Three times a week. Late nights.”

Collins frowned. “And he still works 60 hours a week?”

“He insists,” Dana said. “I can only pull so many strings.”

Benton snapped “Why isn’t he on the transplant list”.

Jack huffed “He says and I quote “Be a use of plumbing on an old man like me”.

Langdon gave a soft whistle. “Guy’s made of wire and caffeine.”

“More like grit and bad decisions,” Dana muttered.

Shen asked quietly, “Can we pull up Carter’s records from County?”

Carol stood. “I still have access. Give me a minute.”

She followed Dana to the nurse’s station, where the two women quietly pulled up a remote access terminal. Within moments, Carol’s face froze.

“Oh god. He signed a release years ago. Everything’s still here.”

Dana leaned over her shoulder. Her eyes darted.

“That’s… a lot of trauma,” she murmured.

Back in the waiting area, Peter was staring at a progress note from 2010.

“Here,” he muttered. “Disorientation. He tried to treat a gunshot wound using a surgical protocol he hadn’t touched in years. They didn’t let him scrub in for months after.”

Doug rubbed his chin. “So… his cognition dipped before the TBI.”

Jack nodded. “It’s complicated. The PTSD was bad already. He was barely sleeping. And after the head injury… it just stacked.”

Shen exhaled. “So it’s not going to get better.”

“Probably not,” Jack said.

That’s when Dr. Henley returned, clipboard in hand.

She didn’t sit.

“I’ve reviewed the neuroimaging. There’s chronic scarring in the left temporal lobe, mild cortical atrophy, and changes consistent with his prior trauma. Nothing acutely dangerous, but…”

She paused, looking at all of them.

“…Dr. Robinavitch will continue to forget things. Not all at once. Not everything. But short-term memory will be an issue. Possibly retrieval of older memories, depending on emotional triggers.”

Jack’s face was blank.

Doug leaned forward. “How bad?”

Henley folded her arms. “Best case, it plateaus. Worst case, we see progressive deterioration. Right now he’s walking a cognitive tightrope, compensating with routine, partner memory scaffolding—” She gestured toward Jack. “—and sheer stubborn willpower.”

Peter rubbed his face. “And long-term?”

Henley’s voice was gentle. “We treat the symptoms. We protect what he still has. That’s all we can do.”

Jack stood up. He walked to the window and stared out at the hallway where Robby had disappeared.

Langdon leaned over to Benton. “You two’re weirdly similar. Stubborn. Stoic. Take no crap from anyone.”

Doug gave a snort. “Yeah. And both Peter and Jack would burn the hospital down if it meant Robby got an extra minute of peace.”

Benton nodded once. “Then we don’t let him fight alone.”

Jack turned back to them, eyes tired.

“I’ve kept him going all this time. But I can’t fix this. I can’t fix him.”

Dana placed a hand on his shoulder. “No one’s asking you to. Just help him walk it. That’s enough.”

At the nurse’s station, Carol looked up. “I’ve got Carter’s records ready. Let’s start comparing neuro notes. See what lines up.”

Langdon cracked his knuckles. “We hunting for memory echoes?”

“Or warning signs,” Collins said. “If there’s a pattern, we use it.”

“Not to bring him back,” Jack said quietly, “but to keep him from disappearing.”

The team nodded.

Behind the window, Robby was being wheeled back into recovery. His eyes were closed. His fingers twitched.

And the people who loved him were already working to keep him whole.

Chapter Text

The early hours of the morning settled like a thick fog over PTMC. Most of the emergency department was running on autopilot—charting, dosing, monitoring vitals. The shift change was still an hour off, and even the vending machines hummed softly, undisturbed.

In Room 6B, monitors beeped at a steady rhythm. Dr. Robby Robinavitch lay sedated, breathing evenly under the soft fluorescent lights. The nurse on watch, Jesse van Horn, sipped from a Styrofoam cup of lukewarm coffee, eyes fixed on the telemetry screen, more out of habit than concern. Neuro had cleared him for observation post-imaging, but he’d been under sedation longer than usual to rest the swelling from the seizure.

He stirred.

“Vitals look good,” Jesse murmured, noting the pulse ox as it ticked upward slightly. “Hey, Doc, welcome back.”

Robby’s eyes cracked open, unfocused.

Then they widened—terrified.

Jesse straightened. “Robby?”

The doctor suddenly bolted upright, gasping like he was underwater. His hands went to his chest, his throat. Panic. Disorientation. Fear. A deep, primal fear.

“Hey, hey! Doc—it's okay. You're safe. You're in Pittsburgh.”

But Robby didn’t hear him.

He wasn't here.

He was back.

Back in Africa. In the tent. The smell of diesel. Blood on gauze. The wind like sandpaper against his skin. His chest tight. His stomach hollow.

Gunfire cracked—at least, that’s what his mind told him.

He flailed backward, ripped at his leads, tore out the nasal cannula. He swung his arm, fast and hard, and Jesse took the blow across the jaw with a startled grunt.

“CODE GREY!” Jesse bellowed. “ROOM 6B! NOW!”

The hallway exploded into motion.

Jack was already running.

Doug Ross got there first—and took a wild elbow to the ribs for his trouble.

“Jesus Christ!”

“ROBBY!” Jack shouted, barreling through the door.

The man in the bed was not Robby. Not the quiet, brilliant, grumpy Chief Attending who grumbled at paperwork and spoke in clipped precision. This was something raw. Broken.

His eyes were wild. His face drenched in sweat. He was swinging at shadows, muttering, screaming—words in Arabic, in French, in English.

Benton didn’t hesitate. He dove toward the opposite side of the bed, helping Jack pin Robby’s arms down gently but firmly.

“Restraints!” Jack yelled.

“No restraints!” Dana’s voice cut like a knife as she entered. “He’ll fight harder!”

Doug groaned, leaning against the wall, still catching his breath. “Someone wanna tell me why he punches like a linebacker?”

“He’s not here!” Jack shouted over the chaos. “It’s a flashback! He thinks he’s in Africa!”

Robby’s voice broke into sobs—screams.

“N-NON! DON’T TOUCH THEM—THEY'RE JUST KIDS!”

He thrashed violently, striking the bedrail. His hand cracked on the metal with a sickening pop.

“Shit,” Langdon muttered, stepping in with gloves. “Hand’s fractured.”

“Push Ativan, two milligrams IM!” Dr. Collins barked.

“He’s not gonna let us near him!” Parker Ellis said, pulling together a sedative syringe.

“I got it,” Carol said quietly, pushing past them.

And Dana was already there, dropping onto the edge of the bed like a mother sinking to comfort her sick child. Her voice was soft but firm. Unshakable.

“Robby,” she whispered, placing a hand on his soaked hair, “you’re safe. You’re safe. I’m here.”

He flinched, muttering something. His eyes were still wide, dilated, gone.

“Look at me,” Dana whispered. “Come on, baby. Look.”

Robby blinked, his flailing weakening. His lips trembled.

“Carol,” Dana said softly, holding his other arm as he trembled, “get the sedative ready. But wait.”

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” Carol said, her voice trembling slightly, “I promise. We’re gonna get you home.”

Robby froze.

That word.

Home.

Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. His breathing was shallow. His head tilted just slightly. For the briefest moment—just seconds—John Carter was there behind his eyes.

“...I want to go home,” he sobbed. “I just… I want to go home. Please. Please, don’t leave me. Don’t—don’t let them hurt—Lucy, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”

Dana gathered him into her arms as he wept, pressing his head to her chest like he was a newborn, and she rocked him gently.

“You’re safe now. You hear me? You’re not alone. You’re never alone.”

He clutched her sleeve like a lifeline. His grip was painful. He was gasping, begging to go home…

Langdon stepped back, eyes wide. Mel turned away, covering her mouth. Mateo wiped his face with his sleeve.

Doug crouched next to Jack, still winded, voice low. “That was Carter. That wasn’t Robby.”

Jack didn’t answer. He couldn’t. His fists were clenched so tightly, his knuckles were white.

Robby—or Carter—was cradled in Dana’s arms, shaking, whispering apologies to people who weren’t there.

“He can’t carry all this alone,” Jack whispered.

Benton’s voice was low. “He never did. That was the problem. He carried everyone else instead.”

Carol nodded. “And now? Now it’s our turn.”

Jack watched as Dana gently stroked Robby’s hair, whispering soft reassurances. His heart was in pieces.

But he wasn’t leaving.

He would never leave.

Chapter Text

The overhead fluorescents buzzed softly in the early hour hush of PTMC's Emergency Department. Night was folding into morning, but the chaos hadn’t stopped for a moment. The crash room had only just settled from the trauma code when the yelling started from Room 3.

“Jack! JACK!” Doug Ross’s voice tore through the corridor like a gunshot. “He’s fighting—He’s—DAMN IT—”

The sound of fists hitting skin. Of beds creaking violently. A crash. Jack was already moving, his limp as even as ever, the weight of the prosthetic leg handled like it was part of him. His boots pounded against linoleum. Benton was close behind, faster. The moment they opened the door, all hell was already breaking loose.

Robby, Chief Attending of the ER and the head of the entire goddamn department—was flailing wildly on the bed. One IV had already been ripped out; a thin line of blood snaked across the sheets. He didn’t see them. His face was a battlefield—eyes wide, pupils blown, his mouth open and gasping for breath. He was screaming things that made no sense.
“Je leur ai dit de courir—”

He jerked, swung, and Jack barely missed a backhand to the jaw.

“Goddammit—he thinks he’s back there again,” Jack said, grabbing for Robby’s shoulders.
“I need hands on NOW,” Benton barked over his shoulder. “Where the hell is everyone? Mateo, get a crash cart and Ativan, now. 4 milligrams IM.”
Doug had backed up, holding his jaw, a red splotch forming where Robby had sucker punched him square across the face. “He’s strong,” Doug muttered, “and he’s not here with us.”

Benton grabbed Robby’s arms, trying to restrain without hurting him. But Robby bucked like a wild thing, his body soaked in sweat, muscles tight. The gown slipped off one shoulder, revealing the map of scars down his torso and arms. The kinds of injuries that came from places where wars didn’t end and help never arrived in time.

“Ils arrivent! Jack! Jack, where’s the girl?”

“I got you, buddy,” Jack said roughly, wrapping his arm around Robby’s chest from behind. His prosthetic leg made the angle awkward, but he held on. “It’s okay. You’re not there. You're not there anymore. You’re home.”

But Robby thrashed harder. His head connected with Jack’s chin, and Benton cursed.
“Mateo!” Benton roared again.

“I got it!” Mateo shouted from the hallway, sliding into the room with Jesse and Princess right behind him. Dana Evans stormed in right after them like a hurricane in scrubs.

“Move,” she ordered. Her voice didn’t rise, but the authority in it could stop a train. “Out. All of you. Princess, hold his legs. Jesse, get the midazolam from the crash cart and push. Jack, I said out. Now.”
“I’m not leaving him.”

“You can’t hold him without hurting yourself,” Dana snapped. “I can. You know that.”
Jack hesitated—he always did when it came to Robby—but Doug stepped forward, gently guiding him back.

“She’s right. Let her work.”
Benton let go just long enough for Dana to climb into the bed.

“Shhh,” she whispered, straddling the edge of the mattress with him. “I’ve got you. Robby, honey. It’s Dana. I’m here.”

Robby’s movements were slowing now, sluggish, not from sedation—yet—but from exhaustion. His chest heaved. His eyes were still wide, still seeing things none of them could.

Robby—no, Carter—was curled against Dana like a child. His long frame slack, boneless, utterly surrendered to the moment. His head rested on her shoulder, and her fingers, strong but gentle, cradled the crown of his head with the ease of a mother rocking a newborn. She hummed low, tunelessly, just to give his ragged breathing something to anchor to.

Carol sat at the edge of the bed, brushing the back of her hand along Robby’s temple. Her voice was soft, as if anything louder would shatter him like thin glass.

"You’re safe, sweetheart," she whispered. "No one’s going to hurt you here. We’ve got you. We’ve got you."

“Don’t let them take the kids—please—they took their hands—I couldn’t stop it—”

“No one’s taking anything,” Dana murmured. Her fingers combed through his hair, slow and steady. “You’re safe. You’re safe, baby. Let it go.”

Carol appeared at her side, sliding in with a soft murmur. “He’s still in there. Carter, you hear me? It’s Carol. I’m here too.” At the sound of her voice, something shifted. Robby’s eyes flickered. A small part of the manic energy melted, like wax under heat. Robby’s, brown and haunted eyes moved toward her. They flickered with recognition. He looked at Carol like she was familiar, precious even. His dry, cracked lips parted, and he exhaled a single name “…Carol?”

“I’m right here,” she said, her voice cracking as she took his hand in both of hers. “You remember me?”
“I…” His eyes darted back and forth. Confused. Hopeful. But it was gone as soon as it came. His brow furrowed, and the clarity drained like water from a cracked basin. He blinked slowly, looked around the room again. Distant. Detached. Robby returned—fragments snapping back into place like a warped jigsaw puzzle.

“Where…?” Robby whispered. “I don’t… know where I am.”

Dana just rocked him. “You’re at PTMC, sweet boy. You're safe. You had a bad night, but we're here.”

“I had—there was blood on my hands—I was supposed to—” But just like that, the clarity was gone. He flinched again, ducking his head into Dana’s shoulder. “It hurts. I want to go home. Please—”

“You’re home,” Dana whispered into his curls. “You’re right where you belong.”

Out in the hallway, the walls shook with another argument.

“He’s not just some broken patient!” Benton snapped. “He’s Carter. That’s John Truman Carter the third! You think I don’t know who he is? You think I didn’t do my research when I found him?!”

“You think yelling helps him?!”Jack shot back. “You think this helps? You’re making it worse!”

Jack shoved Benton back a step. “He’s my best friend! I held him after he nearly bled out in the goddamn jungle, Benton. You weren’t there!”
“You weren’t watching him!” Benton’s voice was like a thunderclap. “He was postictal, disoriented, and you left him alone—”

“I gave him space! That’s what he asked for!” Jack shouted. “You think I don’t know what it looks like when he spirals?!”

“You clearly don’t!”
“He wasn’t this bad before!”
“ENOUGH!” Doug yelled, his voice sharp and deadly. “He’s not a grenade you can yell over! You two aren’t helping.

Inside the room, Robby flinched at the shouting.
Robby’s eyes, sunken and ringed with exhaustion, had flicked toward the hallway. He was watching the fight unfold through the narrow window in the door. Watching like a child might watch thunderclouds roll over a too-bright sky.

“Stop,” he whispered. “Please. No more.”
His hands came up to his ears. He fumbled with the hearing aids—ripped one out in a panic. Carol gently caught his wrist.
“Don’t,” she said. “Just listen to me, okay? Focus on my voice.”

Doug turned, saw Robby staring, and quickly shut the door, pulling the curtain closed for good measure. He turned back to the room, exhaled deeply, and then moved to sit at Robby’s bedside.
“Okay,” Doug said softly, pulling a stool closer. “Let’s talk.”

Carol glanced at him. “Talk about what?”
“Anything,” Doug replied. “Doesn’t matter. Baseball. Coffee. Jazz. Just keep his mind here.”
He looked at Robby—at Carter—and gave him a small, familiar smile.

You’re in your ER,” Carol told him gently. “You run this place, Robby.”
“I do?”
Dana kissed the top of his head. “You save lives every damn day. And we’re all here for you now.”
“I don’t know who I am.”

“You’re mine,” Dana whispered. “You’re my boy.”
Silence. And then Robby leaned more heavily into her, pressing his face to her shoulder like a child hiding from monsters under the bed.

“Remember when we had that vending machine in County that only took quarters? And every time you tried to use it, it would spit them right back out like it knew who you were?” Doug asked hopefully.
Robby didn’t answer, but something shifted in his jaw. His hand twitched faintly where it rested against Dana’s thigh. “Kept telling you to get a new one,” Doug chuckled. “But you were stubborn. Kept going back like it owed you.”

“I… hated that machine,” Robby rasped, barely above a breath.
Doug’s eyes widened.

Carol smiled gently. “There he is…”
Dana looked down and kissed the top of his head. “There’s our boy.”

Robby’s face twisted. His eyes filled again, and his lips trembled.
“I don’t… I don’t know what’s real,” he said, voice cracking. “I see things. I see… soldiers. Bombs. Children crying. I see my tent burning. I see bodies, and I feel it—every day. And then I wake up in places I don’t remember.”

“You’re here now,” Carol said. “That’s what matters.”
“I used to know who I was,” he whispered. “I was a doctor. I saved lives. I ran into chaos with nothing but a scalpel and a dream. Now I forget people’s names. I forget… their faces. I forget me.”

Doug leaned forward. “You’re still a doctor, Robby. You're still saving lives. You run the goddamn ER. You're the one we look to when things go sideways.”
“You think I remember that when I wake up in the middle of the night and I’m screaming because I think I’m buried under rubble again?” he asked. “You think being smart makes it better?”

“No,” Dana said gently, holding him tighter. “But you’re not alone.”

Outside, the team regrouped. Benton stood with arms crossed. Jack was pacing now, agitated, limping slightly from his prosthetic leg. Heather Collins stood nearby, jaw tense. Jesse van Horn was handing out coffee cups without being asked.
“She’s in with him?” Benton asked Dana as she stepped out of the trauma room briefly.

Dana nodded, rubbing her hands together. “Carol’s calming him. Doug’s in there too.”
“He recognized her,” she added softly. “Just for a moment.”

Jack stared. “He remembered?”
Dana looked away. “A flicker. A glimmer. But then he was gone again.”

“Maybe he’s not,” Doug said, suddenly behind them. He looked at Jack, then Benton. “Not gone. Just… buried. Fighting to get back.”
Jack’s throat worked silently.
Doug finally turned to Jack.

“Whatever he was before… whoever he used to be… he’s still fighting to come back. Just like you fought to bring him home.”

Jack didn’t say anything.
Doug added, “But if you want him to heal? You stop fighting around him and start fighting for him. With him. Quietly.”

Jack swallowed hard, nodding.

Back inside the room, Robby had woken again. He lay back against Dana, his face pressed to her shoulder, eyelids heavy. One of his hands rested in Carol’s lap, the other curled in a fist over his ribs.
Dana stroked his hair, whispering. “You rest now, okay? We’ll be here when you wake up.”

Robby murmured something incoherent, then stilled.
Carol stood slowly, kissed his forehead, and gave Dana a look filled with both awe and sorrow.
Robby twitched once in his sleep.

And for just a moment—just a breath—he whispered a name that no one wanted to hear come from his lips.
“…Lucy…”
Dana stilled.
Carol’s eyes filled again.
And somewhere, deep in Robby’s fractured mind, Carter wept for a girl in white.

Chapter Text

The morning rush had hit hard and fast, as usual, with an early multi-car pileup on the I-5 sending a dozen patients into PTMC’s Emergency Department by 7:30 AM. Blood, broken limbs, confusion, panic. The air still held the metallic scent of trauma as things slowly began to settle, like dust after a battlefield.

In the brief lull, three med students found sanctuary at the corner workstation beside Trauma 2. The whiteboard behind them still had streaks of hastily erased vitals and scribbled initials. Victoria Javadi perched on a rolling stool, tapping her pen against her lip. Dennis Whitaker leaned against the wall, arms crossed, still breathing a little heavy from chest compressions he'd done on a coding trauma. Trinity Santos was hunched over the counter, writing something down but not really reading it.

“Okay, so real talk,” Trinity murmured, glancing toward the closed curtain of Exam 4, where Dr. Robby Robinavitch had disappeared almost an hour ago after his fourth round of meds for the morning. “Does anyone know what really happened to Dr. Robby?”

Victoria frowned. “You mean like his TBI?”

“Yeah,” Trinity said. “I mean… he’s brilliant, obviously. Like, actual genius brilliant. But sometimes it’s like he’s two people. There’s moments where he just… shuts down. Then he’ll come back and rattle off six rare metabolic differentials like he’s naming cereals.”

Dennis raised a brow. “You ever notice he always calls trachea a ‘windpipe’? Like, textbook terms 90% of the time, but then he slips into this almost old-school ER lingo. I swear yesterday he said ‘code brown’ and laughed.”

“I heard he used to be a trauma surgeon,” Victoria said, lowering her voice. “Before the TBI. Maybe even military. He has that energy, doesn’t he?”

Trinity’s brows lifted. “Wait… he was military? I thought Dr. Abbot said he was with Doctors Without Borders.”

Dennis nodded slowly. “Both might be true. I mean, it tracks. You ever see him around Jack Abbot? They move like they’ve done tours together. Like… brothers-in-arms vibes.”

Victoria shifted in her seat. “Or more than that.”

They all looked at her. She shrugged.

“I’m not trying to start gossip,” she said. “But Jack basically lives at the hospital when Robby’s working. And the way he watches him... like he’s afraid Robby’s gonna vanish.”

Dennis tilted his head, intrigued. “Maybe he’s his caretaker?”

“No,” Trinity said softly. “It’s more than that. I’ve seen how Dana looks at Robby when he’s not looking. It’s not just professional. It’s protective. Maternal. Like she knows something we don’t.”

Victoria glanced toward Trauma 4, where the curtains rustled briefly, a nurse entering. “You know,” she said, “one of the NICU nurses told me they heard Dr. Doug Ross talking with Carol Hathaway about Robby… but they didn’t call him Robby. They called him Carter.”

Trinity blinked. “What?”

“Yeah. Carter. Like, it slipped out. And they shut up fast. Changed the subject. But I heard it twice now.”

“Wait, you don’t mean… like John Truman Carter III, right?” Dennis asked, incredulous. “From County General?”

“From Chicago?” Trinity asked. “No way.”

Victoria shrugged. “That’s what they said.”

“No way,” Dennis said again, shaking his head. “That guy was a legend. Interned under Benton. Survived stabbing, an ambulance crash, and the Congo. He was, like, the golden boy of trauma medicine before he went off the grid.”

Trinity sat back. “And Dr. Robby was in Africa. That’s where he got hurt. That’s where he stopped being… Carter.”

They all went quiet. The whir of the air vent above hummed like a secret.

“I mean, it’d explain a lot,” Victoria whispered. “Why he’s so weirdly intuitive. He picks up on stuff even the attendings miss. But then he’ll totally blank out on basic things, like his own birthday.”

Dennis nodded slowly. “Dana keeps track of all his meds. I saw her take three bottles from him the other day and hide them in her locker. Like she’s rationing.”

“I saw Dr. Shen give Robby his hearing aids last week,” Trinity said. “He’d left them in the supply closet again. He didn’t even remember going in there.”

Victoria chewed her pen thoughtfully. “If he really is Carter, and he doesn’t remember… what happens if he does? What happens to Robby?”

The three of them were silent again.

Behind them, the door to Trauma 4 clicked open. Jack Abbot stepped out, face unreadable, jaw tight. He gave a tight nod to the nurses and started walking toward the elevators.

Dennis watched him go.

“Whatever the truth is,” he said, “Jack knows.”

Meanwhile, inside Trauma 4, Dana Evans sat beside the gurney, her hand resting gently on Robby’s arm. His eyes were half-lidded, cheeks slightly sunken from fatigue and sedatives. Carol sat across from him, charting, speaking in the soft, steady cadence of someone who knew how to bring someone back from the brink.

“I used to bring you coffee,” she said with a nostalgic smile. “Black. No sugar. You never drank it, but you always said thank you like it was the best gift you ever got.”

Robby blinked, slow. His head turned slightly.

“I remember…,” he murmured. His voice was hoarse.

Dana sat up straighter.

Carol’s charting paused. “You do?”

“I remember a… a girl. Blonde. Lucy?” He winced. “She… she died.”

Carol nodded slowly, heart catching. “Yes. She died. That wasn’t your fault.”

Robby’s eyes welled. “They… they said it was. In the dark. They said I let her die.”

Dana moved closer, placing her hand on his. “You didn’t. You didn’t, sweetheart.”

Robby shook his head, tears spilling. “I was supposed to protect her.”

“Hey,” Dana whispered. “You were a child yourself. And you’ve saved thousands since then.”

Carol leaned forward. “And you’re still saving people, Carter. Robby. Whoever you want to be.”

Robby met her eyes. “Do I have to choose?”

“No,” Carol said gently. “You get to be both.”

Out in the hallway, Shen stepped next to the med students, having just returned from taking vitals on a surgical patient.

“What’s with the conspiracy circle?” he asked.

Victoria hesitated. “Do you know who he really is?”

Shen followed her glance to Robby’s closed curtain. His expression shifted into something unreadable. He nodded, just once.

“I do,” he said. “But you’re asking the wrong question.”

Trinity blinked. “What’s the right one?”

Shen sighed, quietly.

“The question is: who are we to him… when he finally remembers?”
He paused. “And will he still need us?”

The med students sat with that, the silence around them no longer empty—now, heavy with wonder, fear… and something very close to awe.

Chapter Text

The walls of Trauma Room 3 were dimly lit, the hum of monitors steady but quiet—like a hospital holding its breath. The curtain was half-drawn, and the outside buzz of the ER filtered in like distant waves. Charge Nurse Dana Evans sat in a chair beside the gurney, her body curved protectively around the man lying motionless against the raised mattress. She hadn’t moved in hours, except to adjust the blanket that Robby had kicked off in his sleep or to gently wipe the sweat from his temples.

Dr. Michael Robinavitchchief attending, trauma genius, and the reason half the department functioned at all,was not doing well.

He hadn’t been doing well for a while, truthfully. But today was different. Today he’d woken up confused, combative, and then… gone. He’d slipped back into that faraway place his brain went when it tried to survive. His hearing aids had been off. His body had been tight with pain. And no one, not even Jack, could talk him down.

Until Dana had stepped in, lowered the lights, and whispered to him like a mother sings to a child. He’d stopped flinching. He’d stopped growling. He’d slept.

Now the room was quiet again, but not peaceful. There was tension in the air—like the room itself was waiting for the next crash.

A groan, low and hoarse, broke through the quiet.

Dana looked up.

Robby stirred. His eyes blinked open slowly, unfocused and wet. His left hand twitched against the rail. “Mnh…” he groaned, confused.

“Easy, sweetheart.” Dana stood, instantly at his side, hand moving to the crown of his head with practiced grace. “You’re okay. You’re at PTMC. You’re home.”

But Robby's breathing was already changing.

His eyes darted, head jerking slightly like he was trying to orient himself. “Where…? I—Dana? My head hurts. Everything’s loud.”

He reached instinctively for his hearing aids—but one was already in, the other on the tray beside him.

Dana gently placed her hand over his. “Don’t pull it out, Robby. You’ll make yourself dizzy.”

“Too loud,” he mumbled, eyes scrunching closed. “Where’s Jack?”

“Jack’s on his way. Just hold on. You had a rough night.”

Robby’s body shifted like it wanted to get up. “I have to get to rounds. There’s a GSW in—”

“—We handled it, Robby.” Dana’s voice dropped, firm but soft. “You’re not on duty right now.”

But he kept trying to sit, breath hitching with agitation. His joints protested, a hand pressed against his lower back instinctively. The pain from old injuries was relentless—Africa had given him more scars than even he could count.

“Get Jack,” Dana whispered toward the door. “Now.”

Outside the Room

Jack was already halfway down the hall, limping slightly with his prosthetic, Molly the tabby cat in a soft sling across his chest.

“He’s up,” Dana mouthed through the glass.

Jack didn’t wait.

He stepped inside, unzipped the front of the sling, and pulled out the tiny gray tabby with practiced ease. Molly’s head popped up, blinking her pale green eyes.

Robby had managed to get halfway up before Jack reached him.

“No, no—Robby, don’t—”

“I need to check on the residents—”

“Buddy, you’re in the hospital.”

Robby blinked. The voice was familiar. Sharp. Gruff. Safe.

“Jack?” His voice broke.

“I’m right here.” Jack approached slowly, the way one would approach a wild animal, Molly curled against his chest. “You’re okay. You're safe. But I need you to breathe.”

“I—I can’t—I don’t remember—Dana said—”

“I know. Your brain’s doing the scrambled egg thing again.” Jack’s voice was low and steady. “But you’re home, Robby. You’re here with us. Look who I brought.”

Jack laid Molly gently on the blanket.

Robby stared at the cat.

Molly meowed, tiny and plaintive. She pawed at his chest once before curling in the dip of his clavicle and purring, her little motor vibrating against his ribs.

And just like that—Robby softened.

His shoulders slumped. His jaw unclenched.

“Oh,” he whispered, one hand gently pressing to Molly’s side. “That’s better. She… helps.”

“Yeah,” Dana said, visibly relaxing. “She does.”

Jack sat beside him now. “You had a bad one. Don’t beat yourself up.”

Robby was quiet. Then: “Did I hurt anyone?”

Dana shook her head immediately. “No, baby. You didn’t.”

“You were scared, that’s all,” Jack added. “Happens to all of us. PTSD ain’t polite.”

There was a long silence.

Then Robby whispered, “I thought I was back in the hut. The one outside Congo. There was a cholera outbreak, and we didn’t have clean water. The children kept dying. And then… the shelling started. I was screaming, but no one could hear me because I’d taken out my aids to sleep…”

Dana took his hand and didn’t let go.

“That wasn’t real,” Jack said. “You’re here. In Pittsburgh. You’ve got stupid residents and a crooked back, and a tabby cat who loves you.”

That earned the tiniest smile.

Later That Morning

Robby was sitting up, hair sticking up wildly, glasses slightly crooked, wearing one of Jack’s Army sweatshirts. Molly was asleep beside his hip on a heating pad. Dana had brought him tea.

“You want to see the charts from last night?” Jack asked, flipping open a clipboard.

Robby hesitated.

“No. Not yet.” He took a breath. “Just… talk to me.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “About what?”

“Anything. Everything. Tell me what happened in the ER.”

Jack smirked. “Oh, you missed a circus. Trinity Santos tried to intubate a guy with an upper GI bleed and got vomited on. Mel King accidentally sedated someone twice. Frank Langdon hit his head on the supply closet door. Also, someone paged Dr. Robinavitch to an OB case. Still don’t know why.”

Robby laughed—a thin, wheezy thing—but it was real.

He leaned back, listening.

Jack kept talking. Dana hummed to herself. Molly snored softly.

And for a moment—just a moment—Robby was home in his own body again.

Chapter Text

The ER at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center had a rhythm—a pulse all its own. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, IV pumps beeped in staccato, and nurses’ sneakers squeaked against the floor as gurneys rolled past. But today… something was off.

The whispering had begun early. A kind of static in the air. Not from machines. From people.

It had started after last night—after Dr. Robinavitch had been sedated and restrained.

Robby.

The chief attending.

The genius.

The one who remembered every calcium level from memory, could intubate with one hand while consulting a toxicology chart, and taught residents by scribbling dense medical equations on the whiteboard with three different color markers—and still somehow made it all make sense.

But last night, he'd woken up disoriented, panicked, and fighting again.

He hadn’t recognized anyone.

He had tried to get out of bed, yanking out his IV and setting off his cardiac monitor like a siren. He had fought the sedation, muttering in multiple languages—fragments in French, Arabic, Hebrew—and flinching at every voice. The only thing that had calmed him down was Jack—who had shown up in scrubs with a small gray tabby cat in a carrier.

Molly.

The cat had curled into Robby’s chest, and only then had his shoulders dropped, his jaw unclenched, and the tears had started.

By morning, he was asleep.

But the staff? The staff had been talking ever since.

BREAK ROOM – 7:43 AM

Cassie Mackay leaned on the break room counter, chewing a granola bar with a look of discomfort on her face. Dennis Whitaker leaned against the fridge, arms crossed, listening.

“He ripped out his IV?” Trinity whispered, wide-eyed.

“Word is,” muttered Victoria Javadi, keeping her voice low. “Langdon said he nearly punched Jesse in the face. Just—bam—like a switch flipped.”

Trinity frowned. “That doesn’t sound like him…”

“Well, he didn’t even know who I was yesterday,” muttered Dennis. “I mean, I presented a tox case, and he stared through me like I was invisible. I thought I was just being boring.”

“You usually are,” said Cassie dryly, raising an eyebrow.

“I said what I said,” Dennis grinned.

Victoria shook her head. “Dr. Robinavitch is brilliant, but something’s been...off. Even before this episode.”

“Langdon said he was in Africa when it happened,” Cassie added. “Something happened. He won’t say what. He never talks about his past. But rumor is—it was bad. Like PTSD or head trauma.”

“Or both,” Victoria said, quietly. “He’s got that tremor in his left hand. You notice it when he’s doing procedures.”

They all fell silent for a moment.

Trinity spoke up softly. “So what? He had a bad night. We all do.”

Cassie gave her a sideways glance. “It was more than a bad night. He had to be sedated.”

“Still doesn’t make it okay to gossip,” said a voice sharply.

They all turned. Dr. Samira Mohan stood at the doorway, arms crossed, eyes fierce.

“Let me guess,” she said, stepping in. “Langdon said something, and now it’s making the rounds like wildfire?”

No one answered.

Samira snorted. “Of course he did. You all act like he’s just eccentric, or broken, or interesting. But he’s a trauma doc who’s seen more death than all of us combined. He takes twenty different meds because he has to, not because he’s weak.”

Cassie flushed. “No one said he was weak—”

“Yeah?” Samira raised an eyebrow. “Because I heard Langdon calling him the Rain Man of the ER in the resident lounge. That what we’re doing now?”

Victoria winced. “That’s cruel.”

“Yeah, it is,” Samira snapped. “You all forgot that this guy covered for Parker Ellis when she missed a central line. That he’s the one who taught Heather how to perform an emergency thoracotomy without panicking. And that he personally helped Cassie pass her last tox shelf by tutoring her for hours.”

Cassie looked down.

“He’s not gossip fodder,” Samira continued, her voice low and firm. “He’s our attending. He deserves some damn respect. You wanna whisper about something? Talk about the fact that he still shows up every day, teaching us how to save lives, even when his own is barely hanging on by a thread.”

The room fell into awkward silence. No one met her gaze.

Then a voice from behind them made everyone jump.

“—Couldn’t agree more.”

It was Jack.

Jack Abbott stood in the doorway in his PTMC polo, arms crossed, prosthetic leg stiff from the rain. His jaw was tight. He looked tired.

“I’ve seen Robby crawl through burning wreckage to pull kids out,” he said. “You know what I saw last night? A man having a flashback. A panic attack. A body remembering things his brain can't process.”

No one spoke.

“He’s not broken. He’s surviving.”

He let that hang for a moment, then turned to leave. “Grow up.”

ER HALLWAY – LATER

Frank Langdon leaned against the supply cart, flipping through a chart.

“Dr. Langdon,” came a voice behind him.

He turned—and Dr. Mohan was right there.

“Hey, Samira.”

“Cut the crap, Frank,” she said flatly. “You’re the one spreading those rumors.”

He scoffed. “I’m just repeating what people saw. If our chief attending has violent psychotic breaks, maybe we have a right to know.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t get to throw terms like that around like candy. He had a trauma response. Not a psychotic break.”

“He was swinging at nurses.”

“And how many times have you thrown a chart when a patient screamed at you?” she shot back. “Or yelled at a nurse because your ego got bruised?”

Frank’s jaw twitched.

“You don’t get to weaponize mental illness,” she said. “Not when we work in emergency trauma. Do better, Langdon. Or stay the hell out of my bay.”

He opened his mouth, but she turned and walked away, her coat swishing behind her.

ROBBY’S ROOM – EVENING

Molly the cat purred quietly against Robby’s side.

He was awake now. Eyes open. Glassy.

Dana sat on one side of the bed, rubbing his hand with her thumb. Jack stood nearby, arms crossed.

“You with us, sweetheart?” Dana asked softly.

Robby nodded, slowly.

“I had a… episode,” he murmured. His voice was hoarse. “I scared them.”

“You didn’t scare me,” Dana said gently.

“I scared me,” he whispered.

Jack stepped closer. “You're okay. We're here. You don’t have to explain anything.”

Molly kneaded into Robby’s chest. He reached up and touched her soft fur with shaking fingers.

His voice was paper-thin. “I was back in that tent. In… I—I don’t remember where… but I could smell the blood. Hear the crying.”

“You’re not there anymore,” Dana said. “You’re here. You’re home.”

His lip trembled. “I don’t feel home.”

“You will,” Jack said, gently. “You will.”

They sat like that a while, in the soft buzz of monitors, with only the cat’s purrs to fill the silence.

The whispers still buzzed in the ER, but a shift had started. Because people talk—but they also listen. And when people like Samira Mohan and Jack Abbott speak up, people remember.

The ER isn’t just a place where lives are saved. It’s also where the broken try to heal.

And Robby?

He wasn’t broken.

He was surviving.

Like always.

Chapter Text

The wind rattled the windowpane in soft, shuddering breaths. It was near 3:00 a.m. The world outside was cloaked in blue-black silence, the kind of silence that presses on your chest like a weight. Inside, the soft snores of two little boys echoed in a tangle of flannel blankets, arms and legs askew like starfish on the tide. One had a fist curled in Luka’s t-shirt. The other had drooled on Abby’s pillow, mouth slack in deep sleep.

Abby sat at her desk, just beneath the window, the glow from her laptop long gone. The coffee in her mug had gone cold hours ago. She hadn’t touched it. Her hands were pressed together under her chin, trembling slightly as her eyes traced the frost-glazed streetlights outside.

She hadn’t spoken in an hour.

The call had come from Carol.

Carol, whose voice had cracked before she could even get the words out.

“He’s alive.”

Abby had blinked. “Who?”

And then Carol had said it.

“John. Carter. He’s alive, Abby.”

The words didn’t land at first. They hung in the air like something mythic. Holy. Terrifying.

Alive.

But… but that wasn’t possible.

Abby felt the tears press into her throat again now, like they had the moment Carol’s voice broke over the line.

“Abby… he’s alive. He’s in Pittsburgh. He goes by Michael Robinavitch now. He’s… different.”

A different name. A different life.

But Abby remembered. She remembered it all.

She remembered the boy who was all heart and no armor. The doctor who gave too much and bled too easily. The boy who walked into the ER that first day with wide eyes and trembling hands and left years later with pain stitched under his skin so deep, none of them could reach it.

She remembered Lucy. The blood. The way Carter had wept.

She remembered herself, sitting at his side, holding his hand, lying to herself that she could ever make the hurt stop for him.

She remembered Africa.

The moment when everything had changed.

Carter had flown out to find Luka, to join him. He’d been drowning in grief—Lucy’s death, their breakup, the slow unraveling of the man he used to be.

And then… the letters came.

She remembered Luka’s handwriting.

"We’re getting along. Slowly. Carter… he’s trying. He’s good with the kids. They follow him everywhere. He’s quiet but kind. I think I was wrong about him."

She remembered the fear when the messages stopped.

And then the reports came in.

The clinic had been overrun by militia. Guerrilla soldiers. Blood in the grass. Gunshots over the radio. Luka had been captured, threatened. But Carter had—somehow—saved him. A young soldier recognized Carter from a previous encounter. Carter had tried to save the boy’s brother. And because of that, because Carter had tried, they were spared.

Except for an American Army soldier. The only casualty in that stand-off.

She remembered what happened next. The radio silence. Then the crackled voice of a journalist saying Luka had been killed. That no bodies were recovered.

Abby had collapsed.

Carter had returned to Africa, refusing to leave his body behind. He found Luka alive, burning with fever. Malaria. Delirium. Carter had gotten him out.

Abby remembered standing by Luka’s bedside when he returned. Pale. Weak. Alive.

And then, days later, news came that Carter had been captured. That no one had seen him. That he was presumed dead.

That was the last time she had let herself speak his name.

The grief had broken something in Luka. And in her. They loved each other. They built a life. But Carter—the loss of Carter—was always a space between them. A silence neither of them dared to enter.

Until now.

She turned slowly.

Luka stirred beside her in bed, his arm still wrapped protectively around one of the boys. His hair was longer now, dusted with grey. He looked at peace for once. Finally.

Maybe she should let him sleep.

But her voice came before she could stop it.

“Luka…”

He stirred again. His brow furrowed.

“Hm?” His voice was thick with sleep. He blinked at her.

She stood up slowly, walking over to the side of the bed. She knelt. She touched his hand gently, afraid of how the next words would change them again.

“Luka,” she whispered again, slower this time. “I got a call… from Carol.”

He rubbed his eyes. “What’s wrong? Is she—?”

“No.” Her throat caught. She forced the words through.

“She said… he’s alive.”

Luka stared at her.

Abby’s voice cracked.

“Carter’s alive.”

The silence was instant. Heavy.

Luka froze. His eyes darted across her face, searching for the lie.

“Abby…”

“She said he goes by Michael Robinavitch now. That he’s in Pittsburgh. That he doesn’t remember anyone. That he’s a doctor there. Carol saw him. Talked to him. He didn’t know who she was.”

Luka sat up slowly, shifting the sleeping child against his side without waking him.

He looked at her.

And for a second—just a second—Abby saw everything.

The jungle. The gunfire. The fever. The blood. The guilt.

He had carried it for so long.

His mouth parted. “He’s… alive?”

Abby nodded. “Yes.”

Luka exhaled. It was a sound halfway between a sob and a breath of disbelief. His hand pressed to his mouth.

She reached out to him, gripping his hand in both of hers.

“I thought I buried him,” Luka whispered. “I… I thought he was gone.”

“I know.”

“Why didn’t he come back?”

“I don’t think he remembers who he was. Carol said he… he’s been through a lot. He has hearing aids. He takes over twenty medications. He has PTSD. Brain damage. They said he’s a genius. A brilliant ER chief. But he doesn’t know who we are.”

Luka sat there in stunned silence.

Abby didn’t say anything more. She just sat with him in the dark, their sons sleeping soundly beside them, while the world quietly shifted underneath them.

A ghost had come back from the grave.

And nothing would ever be the same.

Chapter Text

Doug Ross had seen a lot of strange things in his years in emergency medicine. Gunshot victims walking in asking for a Band-Aid, patients delivering babies in elevators, more trauma and tragedy than anyone ought to see in ten lifetimes. But somehow, this, this was the moment that took the cake.
Because Dr. Michael Robinavitch was not in his hospital bed.

Doug stood in the doorway of the private recovery room, blinking once, twice, as his brain caught up with what he was seeing. The bed was empty, the monitors silenced. And there, halfway across the room, facing away from him and squinting at the window, was a tall man in a hospital gown—half of which was very much open in the back, displaying an unapologetic expanse of bare backside and more than enough surgical tape.

Doug smirked. “I appreciate the moonlight, but you might wanna save that for a Friday night happy hour, Doc.” He cleared his throat. “usually when patients try to make a break for it, they at least tie the gown in the back.”

The man turned sharply, startled, and the tips of his ears flushed a deep, embarrassed crimson. His eyes flickered with something close to panic before settling into a kind of weary embarrassment. He glanced down at himself, turned redder, and tried to clutch the back of the gown closed in vain. “Oh. God,” Robby muttered, reaching behind himself. “That’s… I didn’t realize.”

Doug chuckled, stepping into the room. “Relax. Nothing I haven’t seen before. You ER folks never really go for modesty.” Doug smiled, walking over and grabbing a spare blanket from the foot of the bed.“Don’t worry,” draping it over Robby’s shoulders. “You’re not the first ass I’ve seen today.”

Robby huffed out a tired laugh and allowed Doug to guide him back to the bed. “I… I’m sorry. I was just…” Robby’s voice was soft, hoarse from the oxygen he’d been on, and layered with a subtle accent that hinted at years abroad. “I hate lying down too long. Makes my back feel like someone’s trying to bend steel.”

Doug guided him, gentle but confident. “You unhooked your IV, bypassed the fall alarm, and decided to reenact The Great Escape all because of a stiff back? Color me impressed.”

Robby gave a small, apologetic smile. “Not one of my better decisions.”

Doug helped him sit on the edge of the bed, then eased him back against the pillows. “Well, you’ve had two compression fractures, three cracked ribs, and enough scar tissue in your lumbar spine to make an anatomy textbook wince. You earned a break.”
He smirked “Used to be you’d round three different clinics before breakfast,” Doug said. “I remember once you swore the IV pole was your dance partner because you hadn’t slept in forty-eight hours.”

Robby blinked, brows pulling together in confusion. His voice was cautious. “Have we… met before?”

Doug studied him carefully.
“No. Not really,” Doug said gently. “Not in the way that matters now. Let’s call it a second chance.”
Robby sighed and shifted, wincing slightly. “I don’t remember you.”

Doug blinked. “That’s okay. I’m not all that memorable.”

“No, I mean… I don’t remember your face. People come in. They talk like they know me. Some faces I think I know, and then they’re gone. But you… you’re new.” He studied Doug for a long moment. “You’re not from here.”

Doug nodded slowly. “Chicago. I’m visiting. Thought I’d lend a hand, see the legendary PTMC ER with my own eyes.” He offered his hand. “Dr. Doug Ross. Pediatric ER. Sometimes rogue cardiologist, depending on the day.”

Robby took it, his grip strong despite the tremor in his hand. “Michael Robinavitch. But… everyone calls me Robby.”

“I know,” Doug said gently. “I’ve heard good things.”
Robby tilted his head. “From who?”
Doug’s smile turned sad. “Old friends.”
There was a pause. Robby blinked, then leaned back. “I’m sorry if I’m supposed to remember you. I… I don’t mean to be rude.”

“You’re not,” Doug assured him. “You’ve been through hell. And back. Not many people walk out the other side of a civil war in Africa, traumatic brain injury, and a near-decade on the frontlines with sanity intact.”

“Who says I’m sane?” Robby murmured, but there was a hint of humor behind the words.
Doug chuckled. “Touché.”

Robby looked down at his hands—scarred, fingers slightly tremoring. “They say I was in Africa,” he said. “That there was an injury. Head trauma. I don’t… remember any of it. There are pieces. Ghosts in doorways. Names that feel familiar but have no weight.”

There was silence for a moment, filled only by the soft beep of a heart monitor and the muted buzz of hospital life outside the door. Doug pulled a chair over, settled in beside the bed, and looked over at the man in front of him. Fifty years old. Thick, salt-and-pepper curls, he had a beard, brilliant eyes dulled slightly by fatigue and medication, but still keen. He wore hearing aids in both ears, discreet, but unmistakable. There was a weariness in his posture, but not defeat.

Doug nodded, voice soft. “You were in the Congo. With Doctors Without Borders. You were a hell of a doctor, Robby. I mean that.”

“I’m still a doctor,” Robby said absently, then looked up. “They tell me I run this ER. That I built it with Jack. That I’m… someone people trust.

Doug smiled. “You are. Jack calls you the brain, Dana says you’re the heart. From what I’ve seen, you’ve got half the staff ready to throw hands if someone messes with you.”

Robby gave a small smile. “That sounds exhausting.”
“It probably is,” Doug replied. “But you’re worth it.”
A beat passed.

“I don’t feel worth it,” Robby admitted. “I wake up and… it’s like everything’s rewritten itself. I have to write notes to myself just to get through the day. I have to guess who I was from how people react when I walk into a room.”

Doug leaned forward. “Let me help.”
Robby looked at him, surprised.
“You don’t know me,” Robby said.
“No,” Doug agreed. “But I know you. And I’ve got a weird feeling you’d do the same for me if things were reversed.”

Robby tilted his head. “You’re not like the others. They walk on eggshells. You’re… not doing that.”
“Yeah, well,” Doug shrugged. “I was a screw-up for a lot of years. I’ve seen people lose themselves and find themselves again. I figure we all get broken in some way. You just… break more beautifully.”
Robby laughed—quiet and genuine. It caught Doug off guard.

“I don’t remember being funny,” Robby said.
“You were,” Doug said. “You were infuriating, stubborn, and way too smart for your own good. But funny. And kind.”

Robby glanced at him. As if he said something… untruthful?

“You’ve built something incredible here,” Doug said. “This hospital. This ER. The Pitt.”
“I know,” Robby said quietly. “Sometimes I walk the floors and I feel… proud. But I don’t always remember how I got here. Jack—Jack helps me with the pieces. And Dana. Dana remembers more than I do.”

Doug smiled. “They care about you. A lot.”
“They put up with me.”
“Because they love you.”

Robby looked away. “I forget people, Doug. People who said they loved me. Who I think I loved. My memories… they’re like fractured glass. Names. Faces. Feelings, but no anchors. I remember medicine. I remember anatomy. I remember how to intubate a child with crush injuries. But I can’t remember my mother’s voice.”

Doug swallowed hard. “You remember pain.”
“I always remember pain.” Robby’s voice cracked a little. “Chronic pain. It’s my oldest friend.”
Doug looked at him for a long moment, the sharp burn of sympathy lighting in his chest. “Can I tell you something?”

“Sure.”

“I knew someone like you. Someone brilliant. Stubborn. Brave. Too brave. He went to the Congo too. After we lost a friend. He couldn’t forgive himself, so he ran off to try and save the world. And somewhere along the way, he disappeared.”

Robby’s brow furrowed. “What happened to him?”
“He was captured,” Doug said quietly. “He stayed behind to help. He tried to protect everyone. Got beaten. Tortured. No one knew where he went. Eventually… everyone thought he died. Except for a few of us. We hoped.”

Robby looked at him, something flickering in his eyes.

Doug leaned in. “That man’s name was John Carter.”

Robby blinked. Slowly. His breath hitched.
Doug sat back, gave him space. “I’m not saying you’re him. But I’m saying that if you ever feel like parts of your life don’t make sense—if you feel like something’s missing—you’re not alone. People out there still care. People out there remember.”

“I don’t remember them,” Robby whispered.

“That’s okay,” Doug said softly. “We remember you.”

For a long time, Robby didn’t speak. He stared down at his hands, long fingers curled into fists, then slowly relaxed. “…Why would someone like that let everyone think he was dead?”

“Maybe he didn’t have a choice. Maybe he forgot. Maybe he had to become someone else to survive.”
Robby looked up, voice hoarse. “Why are you here, Doug?”

Doug gave a small smile. “Because Peter called me. Because I needed to see for myself.”
“See what?”
“That you were alive.” Doug’s voice broke, just barely. “That you made it out.”

And in the quiet that followed, Robby’s hand shook just a little as he reached up and touched the hearing aid in his left ear. His chest rose, then fell. He looked back out the window.

“Do you think…” Robby started, then hesitated.
“Yeah?”

“…Do you think it’s possible to find a memory again? If it’s buried deep enough?”

Doug nodded slowly. “I think anything’s possible, Robby.”

“I don’t know why, but I believe you,” he said.
Doug smiled. “Good. Because I think you’re stuck with me now.”

Just then, Dana stepped into the room, a soft smile on her face and a clipboard in her hand.
“You causing trouble already?” she asked, giving Robby a look.

“Always,” Robby said. “But I’m being supervised.”
Doug grinned. “Doctor’s orders.”

Dana chuckled. “You boys need anything?”

Doug shook his head. “Just a little more time.”
Dana nodded and left the room quietly.

Robby looked back at Doug. “Tell me more,” he said. “Tell me about this John Carter guy. Tell me who he loved. Who he lost.”

Doug leaned back in the chair.
“It’s a long story,” he said.
“I’ve got time.”

And so, Doug became telling the story of John Carter.

And for the first time in a long time, Michael Robinavitch allowed himself to cry, not in pain, not from physical torment, not from the ghosts of Africa or the agony in his spine. But for something half-remembered.

A ghost of a name.
A young man named Carter.
Who maybe… had never really died at all.

Chapter Text

The early afternoon light filtered through the blinds in Robby’s private room, casting angular shadows on pale walls. Robby sat propped against pillows, Molly the tabby cat curled at his feet. Jack stood nearby, reviewing patient notes on a tablet. Outside, the steady hum of PTMC’s trauma ER reminded them life kept moving—even amid fractured memory.

At Robby’s bedside, Doug Ross settled into the chair opposite him, coffee in hand. He cleared his throat.

“So, uh… you ever hear about a guy named John Carter?”

Robby’s eyebrow arched. “Tell me he’s not a basketball player.”

Doug chuckled. “Nope. He was a trauma doc. Chicago. Legend at County. Heard of that ER by any chance?”

Robby quirked a half-smile. “Famous… mostly for chaos.”

Doug leaned forward, tone turning serious, but with a practiced lightness. “Well. This Carter guy — brilliant, quietly obsessed with anatomy, had a penchant for saving kids with nothing more than a penlight and stubbornness. Then he goes to war zones. Doctors Without Borders. He kinda… disappears.”

Robby tilted his head. “People disappear all the time.”

Doug sipped coffee. “True. But the way he disappeared? Like an eclipse. One day he’s snapping sutures, next day they’re filing him under ‘MIA — presumed dead.’”

Robby frowned. “And you’re telling me this… why?”

Doug pulled a folder from his jacket. “Because I think you might be that guy. And I want to know what you think.”

In the folder were photographs—young Carter with scrubs, arms folded; Carter in Africa, dust-streaked and grim; Carter smiling with Luka. And worse, poor, weary photos of Robby in recovery, scarred, older, eyes haunted.

He flipped to a medical collage: CT scans of cerebral lesions, neurosurgery reports, hip X‑rays showing a shrapnel fragment embedded near a fractured left kidney.

Robby’s silence echoed.

“So. What if the idea that you died was… wrong?”

Robby blinked. Then let out a slow breath. “That would mean… I’d have been playing dead.”

Doug smiled, gently awkward. “Well, you were definitely playing Robinavitch for a while.”

A flicker of amusement crossed Robby’s face. “And you’re telling me there was a whole Carter version…?”

“With wrinkles on your face and more trauma than medical school can prepare you for,” Doug replied. “But yes.”

Robby shifted, grimacing in his spine. “My back hurts, Doug.”

Doug gestured to his killer posture. “We’re adjusting that room so you won’t grow old crooked. But your brain…?” He tapped temple.

Robby glanced away. “I remember medicine. I remember emergency orders, thoracotomy procedure steps… I remember how to save a kid from getting crushed lungs by starting an emergent O‑tube, even with broken inventory. But I have no chapters before PTMC.”

“Which is why…” Doug paused, swallowing. “If you are John Carter—and I’m not saying you are—but if you are… people out there loved you. Still love you. Not just Robby, Dr. Robinavitch—the you before.”

Robby’s lip twitched. “That’s... kinda flattering.”

Doug gingerly smiled. “Unless you were a jerk. Could’ve been a jerk.”

Robby let out a breathy laugh—thin, but real. “Maybe I had moments.”

Silence returned, but softer now.

Doug reached forward and touched his arm. “I’ve lost patients. Kids. Friends. Loved some of them, silently. Carter’s death hit us all long before we had proof. We mourned. And we moved on. But... when he came back as you, only nothingness came back.”

He exhaled.

Robby swallowed. Vonnegut once wrote something about time and hurt and memories and how they break us—stuff Robby vaguely remembered reading in Africa one lonely night.

“So… what now?” Robby whispered. “Do I go looking for answers?”

Doug shrugged. “You can. Maybe there’s someone who still has letters. Photos. MRI reports from the Congo. Maybe there’s a Lucy somewhere in memory. Or maybe you just keep being this guy. The one who leads a Pittsburgh trauma ER. The one who saved lives yesterday, today, whenever.”

Robby’s hand tightened around the sheets. “I could lose Jack.”

Doug’s voice softened. “Only if you let that be the memory that matters. But Jack’s here because he chose to be. Even if you never remember your first time meeting, he stays.”

Robby closed his eyes. “Does that make me terrible?”

“No,” Doug said firmly. “It makes you human.”

Time passed. The room grew quieter, the afternoon slipping toward evening. Molly stretched, sleepily climbed onto Robby’s chest.

Doug stood. “I gotta go. Pediatric trauma calls.”

Robby nodded. “Thanks, Doc.”

Doug hesitated. “Whatever happens, Robby—or Carter—I’m glad you’re still here.”

Robby cracked open a smile. “Me too.”

Doug left. Robby lay back, breathing gentle breaths, Molly kneading lightly.

He touched his hearing aids. He stared at the photos again. And for the first time, felt something—something like hope

Chapter Text

The lights in the private recovery room were dimmed, machines humming in quiet rhythm. Robby stirred, slow and groggy, eyes blinking against the heaviness of sleep. His ribs still hurt with every breath. His left shoulder burned with nerve pain. And the damn tinnitus—like someone frying bacon inside his head—was loud as ever.

It took him a minute to focus, pupils adjusting, hearing aids crackling faintly with distortion until they leveled. There was a shape in the chair beside him. A man. Tall, broad-shouldered, posture sharp and military even in repose. Dark skin, close-cropped hair speckled with gray. A face etched with lines of discipline and something heavier—loss maybe.
“Dr. Benton,” the man said, voice low, smooth but firm.

Robby squinted. “Do I… know you?” His throat was sandpaper.

Peter Benton smiled faintly, just enough to crease the edge of his mouth. “Not really. But we’ve… crossed lives. More than you realize.”

Robby frowned, shifting carefully. He hissed when a nerve in his back flared. “Sorry. I—my head’s not exactly… reliable. TBI scrambled half the files. You might be in there, but… I don’t have the password anymore.”

Benton leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His eyes searched Robby’s face in a way that felt oddly intimate. Almost reverent. “You remind me of someone I trained. Someone who used to sit exactly like that, holding back pain like it was nobody’s business. John Carter.”

Robby’s brow furrowed. “Carter? Dr. Ross told me about him…”

“Yeah,” Benton said softly, almost wistfully. “He was… a pain in my ass. Entitled at first, arrogant. But he grew. He grew into one of the best doctors I ever worked with. Compassionate. Brilliant. Annoying as hell.”

Robby gave a small, tired chuckle. “Sounds like a handful. Sorry he’s not here. You probably got… me instead. Downgrade model.”

Benton’s gaze sharpened, almost stern. “Don’t say that.”

Robby blinked at the intensity. “I’m not—look, Doc, I’m not this Carter. I’m just Michael Robinavitch. Or Robby. Whatever you wanna call me. I’m fifty. I’m busted up. I forget names I should remember. I take twenty pills a day just to function. I can’t even run a code without Jack watching my six.”

“You are Carter,” Benton said, his voice cutting through the haze like a scalpel. “Different, yes. Changed, yes. But still him. Still that stubborn idiot who would throw himself into every patient, who’d take a hit before letting someone else bleed out.”

Robby’s stomach twisted. Something in his chest tugged hard, like a string being pulled from deep in scar tissue. He swallowed. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I don’t remember you. I don’t remember… me. If I am this Carter, then—I’m sorry I’m not what you want me to be.”

Benton shook his head slowly. His hand hovered, then rested gently on the bedrail. “I don’t want anything. I’m not here for me. I’m here because… I thought maybe, under all the wreckage, you might want someone to tell you it’s okay. That you’re still you, even if the pieces don’t line up the same way anymore.”

Silence hung. Robby stared at the ceiling, eyes wet but refusing to let the tears fall.

“Do you know what Carter did?” Benton continued, softer now. “He survived. Over and over. Stabbing. Addiction. Loss. He’d stumble, but he kept getting back up. That was his curse and his gift. And looking at you… I see him. You survived. Africa. Being a prisoner in a foreign country. Whatever hell you walked through. And you’re still here. Still healing people. That’s Carter. That’s you.”

Robby turned his head slowly, meeting Benton’s eyes. “Even if I don’t remember the road?”

“Even if,” Benton said firmly.

Robby let out a shaky laugh, half humor, half despair. “Hell of a thing. I thought I reinvented myself. Turns out I’ve just been reruns this whole time.”

Benton smirked, just a little. “Nah. Not reruns. Sequel. And sometimes sequels surprise you.”

Robby’s chest shook with another soft laugh, then he winced at the pain. “God, you sound like Jack. He’s always trying to sell me on ‘the brighter side.’ Drives me nuts.”

“Jack sounds smart,” Benton said.

“Don’t tell him that. His head’s big enough.”
Both men let the silence breathe again. The machines hummed, a nurse’s footsteps padded faintly down the hall.

Finally, Benton stood. “You don’t need to apologize for not being Carter. Because you are. Just… in a way that took the long road back.”

Robby’s throat tightened. He wanted to say thank you. He wanted to say stop. He wanted to ask a thousand questions about a life that might’ve been his. But all he managed was:
“…Stay a little longer?”

Benton nodded and eased back into the chair. “Yeah. I’ll stay.”

And Robby, against all his instincts, let his eyes close, the connection tethering him to something he couldn’t name, but felt in his bones.

The silence between Robby and Benton had shifted less like two strangers, more like an old rhythm one of them half-remembered. Benton had leaned back slightly in the chair, one leg stretched out, his hands folded loosely, watching Robby with the same quiet focus he gave his most complicated post-op cases.
Robby’s hearing aids buzzed faintly. He adjusted one, then smirked a little.

“Do you always stare like that?”

Benton’s mouth twitched. “Do you always ask questions you don’t want the answers to?”

Robby huffed a laugh, then winced as a muscle spasm tugged across his ribs. He pressed a hand against the sore spot, his fingers brushing over the edge of his hospital gown. “God, I feel eighty.”

“You look fifty,” Benton said, dry but not unkind.

“That’s not exactly flattering.”

“It’s honest. You’re still standing. That counts.”

The door creaked open before Robby could come up with something clever. Jack’s uneven footsteps tapped across the floor, prosthetic clicking softly against linoleum, Dana close behind him with a thermos of coffee clutched in both hands.

Jack stopped short at the sight of Benton sitting there. “Huh. Either I’m hallucinating again or Robby’s gone and collected another mentor. What is this, Carter’s old crew reunion?”

Dana swatted his shoulder as she moved past him. “Don’t start, Jack.” She set the thermos on the rolling tray, giving Benton a polite nod before fixing Robby with her mother-hen glare. “You’re awake. Good. Did you let the nurses check your vitals or did you pull the leads off again?”

“I didn’t pull anything,” Robby muttered, though his eyes flicked toward the monitor with a guilt that told on him.

Jack grinned. “See, Dana, I told you. He’s collecting them like Pokémon. First Ross, now Benton. Who’s next? Hell, give him a couple more days and he’ll have the whole set.”

Robby groaned. “I hate you.”

Benton actually chuckled — a short, rough sound that surprised them all. “You two always like this?”

“Always,” Dana said dryly, pouring out some coffee. “Forty-nine years old and Jack still thinks sarcasm counts as bedside manner.”

Jack leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “Hey, it keeps him awake, doesn’t it? Better than half the benzos in this place.”

Robby looked between them, then back at Benton, almost embarrassed. “They’re insufferable. Don’t let them fool you.”

Benton shook his head, but his gaze softened again, landing firmly on Robby. “No. I think I get it now.”

Dana set the steaming cup in Robby’s hands carefully, like she’d been doing for years, her voice gentle. “Drink. Then let someone else talk for a while.”

Jack tilted his head toward Benton with a mock-serious expression. “You’re welcome to stay, Doc. But fair warning if you stick around too long, Robby’ll rope you into his trauma rounds. Man’s got a way of making people work.”

Benton’s eyes never left Robby’s. “I know.”

Robby swallowed against the lump forming in his throat. The warmth of the coffee seeped into his palms, grounding him. For the first time in years, with Jack and Dana flanking him and Benton steady on the other side, the weight of his fractured memory didn’t feel so impossible.

Chapter Text

The halls of PTMC’s Trauma Wing never really slept. Machines beeped in cadence, stretchers rattled against the linoleum, and somewhere a nurse’s laugh carried down the corridor like a buoy in dark water.
Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch shifted uncomfortably in his bed, wincing when the movement pulled at his ribs. He was still pale, hearing aids tucked snugly behind his ears, IV running fluids into the crook of his arm. He had wanted—no, demanded—to return to rounds, but Jack and Dana had shut that down with military precision.

And now? Now his own med students and residents had apparently taken it upon themselves to act like bodyguards.

Dr. Dennis Whitaker, tall and wiry with an earnest streak that bordered on obsessive, stood near the foot of the bed with a tablet clutched like a shield. Beside him, Dr. Samira Mohan perched on the window ledge, arms folded, eyes sweeping the hallway like a sentry on watch

“Is this really necessary?” Robby muttered, rubbing his temple. His voice rasped from disuse

“Yes,” Whitaker said flatly without even looking up.

Robby blinked at him. “That wasn’t rhetorical, Whitaker. It was a pointed complaint.”

Samira slid off the ledge and leaned closer, lowering her voice. “People are talking, Dr. Robinavitch. About you. About your… memory.”

Robby’s jaw tightened. “Rumors.”

“Rumors spread fast in hospitals,” Whitaker added, finally lifting his gaze. “Especially when the Chief Attending is stuck in a bed and everyone’s trying to guess if he’s coming back at full strength.”

Robby exhaled sharply through his nose. “And what? You two think you’re going to… what? Intimidate them into silence? Last I checked, this wasn’t high school.”

Samira exchanged a look with Whitaker. “We’re not trying to intimidate anyone,” she said. “But we’re not going to let you get chewed up by politics when you’re still healing either.”

Robby looked at her, the edges of irritation softening. “Samira…”

Whitaker interrupted. “Dr. Robby, with respect, you don’t hear what people say when you’re not in the room. The interns whisper that you can’t remember names. A couple of attendings joke that you’re more patient than doctor now. Someone even asked me yesterday if Dana’s basically running the department while you… fade out.”

Samira crossed her arms tighter. “We’re not letting that slide.”

Robby swallowed, something uncomfortable settling behind his sternum. He hated pity. He hated weakness. But most of all, he hated being talked about like he wasn’t still here.

“Listen to me, both of you,” Robby said finally, voice low but steady. “I’ve been shot at, bombed, and I’ve operated under mosquito nets in ninety-degree heat with no electricity. I don’t give a damn what gossip runs through these walls.”

Samira raised an eyebrow. “Maybe you don’t. But we do.”

The door creaked open then, and Nurse Mateo poked his head in. His curly hair was covered by a scrub cap, and his expression was cautious.

“Dr. Robinavitch, vitals check.” He stepped in, glancing nervously at Whitaker and Mohan as though asking permission to approach.

Whitaker didn’t budge. “Go ahead.”

Mateo rolled his eyes. “What is this, the secret service?”

“Something like that,” Samira said.

Robby groaned, holding out his arm for the blood pressure cuff. “I swear to God, if the next person comes in wearing an earpiece, I’m filing for protection from my own staff.”

Mateo smirked but wrapped the cuff anyway, watching the digital readout climb. “BP’s stable. Low, but stable. Better than yesterday.”

“Because I’m actually lying down like I was told,” Robby muttered. “Unlike when Abbott isn’t looking and I sneak to the charting station.”

Whitaker scowled. “You what?”

Samira shot him a glare sharp enough to cut glass. “Don’t give him ideas. He’s supposed to stay in this bed.”

“Supposed to,” Robby repeated under his breath.
The tension was broken when the door opened again—this time, Jack Abbott himself strolled in, cane tapping against the floor, prosthetic leg stiff beneath scrubs. Dana Evans followed close behind, holding a clipboard like it was a weapon.

“Jesus Christ,” Jack said, surveying the scene. “What is this, the Robby Fan Club meeting?”

“Bodyguards,” Mateo supplied before anyone else could answer.

Jack’s mouth twitched. “Bodyguards? You two?” He pointed at Whitaker and Samira. “Do you know how ridiculous you look? You’re supposed to be second-year residents, not extras in a spy movie.”

Samira didn’t blink. “He needs protection.”

Jack groaned, leaning heavily on the wall. “He doesn’t need protection. He needs rest. And possibly a muzzle, but we’re still sourcing that.”

Dana’s voice cut through the chatter. “Enough.” She set her clipboard down with a decisive thunk. “Let them be protective. The ER’s a jungle. People sense weakness and they’ll circle like hyenas. If Whitaker and Mohan want to stand watch, I say let them.”

Robby shot her an incredulous look. “Et tu, Dana?”

“Et me,” she said briskly, adjusting his IV. “Now quit sulking, Michael. You’ve got a team that clearly loves you.”

Jack snorted. “Or worships you. He’s collecting residents the way some people collect Funko Pops.

“Shut up, Jack,” Robby muttered, but the faintest smile pulled at his lips.

Mateo finished charting vitals and gave a two-finger salute. “You’re stable, Chief. And judging by the way your little army’s circling, I’d say you’re untouchable too.”

As he slipped out, Samira returned to her perch, Whitaker resumed his tablet vigil, and Dana checked the saline bag.

Jack leaned close to Robby, lowering his voice so only he could hear. “They’re scared, you know. Scared of losing you. Let ‘em play guard dog if it helps. Hell, maybe it’ll remind you you’re not fighting alone.”

Robby stared at him, throat tight, then nodded once. Quiet. Steady. Accepting—for now.

Chapter Text

The Pitt Medical Center ER was humming in that unique way it always did — the organized chaos that only trauma doctors knew how to navigate. Gurneys rolled past, machines beeped rhythmically, Mateo barked updates to Jesse over incoming traumas, and Dana Evans, as always, was the calm in the storm.
But today… today was different.

Dr. Luka Kovač and Dr. Abby Lockhart had just arrived from Chicago.

Benton led Luka and Abby down the east hallway, his hands shoved into his white coat pockets. Doug and Carol trailed behind, speaking quietly about a burn patient down the hall.

Dana intercepted them halfway, charts in one hand and her coffee in the other.

“Peter,” Dana said, nodding at Benton. “These the two?”

Benton gestured between them. “Dr. Luka Kovač, Dr. Abby Lockhart — meet Dana Evans, charge nurse, queen of this ER, and the only reason half of us still have functioning nervous systems.”

Dana smirked. “Flattery won’t get you out of the dog house, Benton.”

“Wasn’t trying to,” Benton muttered, earning a soft laugh from Carol.

Jack Abbott appeared from around the corner, his gait slightly uneven, prosthetic leg clicking faintly against the tile. “So these are the Chicago hotshots?” he teased, offering his hand to Luka first, then Abby.

“Jack Abbott,” he introduced himself. “Senior attending, former Army medic, current babysitter for every doctor in this building — and yes, I know what you’re thinking, yes, the prosthetic’s titanium, no, you can’t touch it.”

Luka raised an eyebrow, caught slightly off guard, but shook his hand warmly. “Luka Kovač. Trauma attending. And no, I wasn’t going to ask about the prosthetic.”

Jack grinned. “Sure you weren’t.”

Robby lay asleep in the hospital bed, monitors softly beeping, IV lines trailing to a saline bag and PCA pump. His hearing aids were out, resting carefully on the tray beside him, and his chest rose and fell steadily beneath the thin hospital blanket.

Dana held the door for Luka and Abby.

“This is our chief attending,” Dana explained quietly, lowering her voice instinctively. “Dr. Michael Robinavitch. Everyone calls him Robby.”

Abby stepped forward first — but the second her eyes landed on the man in the bed, her breath caught.

“Oh my God…”

She grabbed the doorframe for balance, frozen, staring at the scar running down Robby’s temple, the faint mottling of old burn marks on his neck, and the exhaustion carved into his face.

It couldn’t be.

But it was.

“Abby?” Luka glanced at her, confused.

Abby’s throat felt tight, her voice breaking as she whispered, “… Carter.”

Doug’s head turned toward her, his jaw tensing, but before he could speak, Abby stumbled backward into the hallway. “I—I need a minute.”

Luka Stayed Behind

Luka hesitated only briefly before stepping closer to the bed. He looked down at Robby — Carter, his Carter — and his chest tightened with something he hadn’t expected.

He sat in the chair by the bedside, resting one hand gently over Robby’s.

“You saved my life,” Luka whispered, his accent softening, the words meant for no one but him. “In the Congo. You stayed behind so we could get to the airfield. I never… I never thanked you.”

He stayed there for nearly an hour. Watching the monitors, adjusting Robby’s blanket when he shifted, sitting in silence with the man who’d once meant so much more than he could explain.

The clock on the wall ticked softly when Robby stirred, his brow furrowing as though waking in pain. Luka leaned forward instinctively.

“Hey… it’s okay,” Luka said softly. “You’re safe. You’re in Pittsburgh. You’re at The Pitt.”

Robby’s doe eyes fluttered open, unfocused at first, scanning the ceiling before darting to the side — and locking on Luka.

And freezing.

Robby blinked, his breathing hitching suddenly, his whole body tensing beneath the thin blanket. His hand twitched in Luka’s grip.

“No… no no no,” Robby whispered hoarsely, shaking his head. “You’re not real.”

“It’s me,” Luka said gently, reaching for calmness. “Luka Kovač. It’s okay. You’re safe.”

But that only made it worse.

Robby’s chest started heaving, breaths short and ragged, heart monitor chirping louder as his vitals climbed rapidly.

“Shit,” Luka muttered, hitting the call button on the wall. “I need a nurse in here, now!”

Dana burst into the room first, followed by Jack, Benton, and Jesse.

“What the hell happened?!” Dana barked, moving instantly to Robby’s side, taking his wrist to check his pulse.

“I—I just said my name,” Luka stammered, “and he—he panicked—”

Benton slid in next to the bed, already assessing. “BP’s 190 over 120, tachy at 140, sats dropping to 89!”

“Robby, listen to me!” Dana said firmly, leaning over him, grounding him with her voice. “You’re okay. It’s Dana. You’re safe.”

But Robby wasn’t hearing her. His breaths came in fast gasps, tears brimming without falling, and his gaze was fixed on Luka like a man seeing a ghost.
“Panic response,” Jack said sharply, grabbing the crash cart. “He’s gonna code if we don’t stabilize him!”

“Get me 1 milligram Ativan IV,” Benton ordered, holding out his hand. Jesse slapped the syringe into his palm without hesitation.

Dana cupped Robby’s face, speaking low and steady. “Robby, sweetheart, I need you to breathe with me, okay? In through your nose, out through your mouth—”

Robby’s eyes rolled back.

“Damn it, he’s going down!” Benton barked.

“Push the Ativan!” Jack yelled.

Mateo skidded into the room just as the high-pitched flatline screamed from the monitor.

“Start bagging him!” Benton snapped. “Dana, get me the pads!”

Chapter Text

Robby ran his hand along the rough stone wall, its cold edges biting against his fingertips. He had no idea how long he’d been walking. The walls stretched high into shadows, twisting and turning with no logic, no sense. A maze.

He stopped, chest heaving, pain throbbing deep in his hip and back. He knew this was wrong. Knew this wasn’t real. But the air here smelled sharp and metallic, and every step hurt, so how could it not be?
“Hello?” Robby called, his voice echoing strangely.
And then he saw him.

A young man, not more than thirty, clean-cut dark hair, kind but sharp eyes, white coat hanging from his shoulders as though he’d just walked out of County General. The sight knocked the air from Robby’s lungs.

“My name is John Carter,” the man said softly, offering a small smile. “You’ve been looking for me.”
Robby froze. His throat tightened. “Why… why are you here?”

Carter tilted his head, hands folding in front of him like he was still trying to explain something to a med student. “Because you already know the answer.”

They walked together, Carter’s pace unhurried, steady. Every so often they came to a door. Carter would pause, glance at Robby, and open it.

The first door creaked open into a trauma bay — Lucy Knight’s pale face, her blood everywhere, her eyes wide with horror as she gasped her last breaths. Robby staggered back, clutching the wall.

“No,” Robby whispered. “No, I don’t want to see this.” He felt the pain in his back.

“You don’t get to choose,” Carter said gently, though his own eyes were wet. “This is where it began.”

The door shut.

Another door. Carter pushed it open a dingy bathroom, him hunched over the sink, a vial in his hand, his eyes bloodshot, his body trembling as he drew a needle.

“I was weak,” Robby said bitterly, unable to tear his gaze away.

“I was hurting,” Carter corrected.

The door shut.

A third door swung wide to reveal chaos in the Congo clinic gunfire outside, patients screaming, blood and dust mixing in the air. Luka shouting at him to leave. Robby refusing. The sound of boots slamming against dirt. The crack of a rifle butt against his head. Darkness.

Robby staggered, clutching his skull as though the blow had landed again. “Why are you showing me this?”

“Because you need to remember,” Carter said quietly.

They came to one last door. Carter hesitated, then opened it.

A field hospital. Canvas walls flapping in a hot wind. The smell of antiseptic, rot, blood, sweat. And there, on a cot, a man with a prosthetic leg, young and worn all at once, reaching out a hand.

Jack Abbot.

“Who are you?” Jack had asked that day, when Robby could barely remember his own name.

“I don’t know” Robby said weakly.

“A nurse turned and smiled. “He looks like a Michael”.

“Michael,” he’d whispered, because it was all he could understand.

But Jack had smiled like it was enough. “Okay, Michael. Then we’ll start from there.”

The door closed.

Finally, the maze opened into a small clearing, a single gnarled tree in the center. Its branches stretched wide, offering shade. Carter sank down beneath it, patting the ground beside him.

Robby sat slowly, his back aching, his heart heavy.
“Why did you leave?” he asked at last, voice raw.
“Why did you let go of me?”

Carter looked at the dirt between his knees.
“Because it hurt too much. Because I didn’t know how to keep being me after everything broke.”

Robby blinked, the ache in his chest unbearable. “Then who the hell am I now?”

Carter finally met his eyes. His voice was firm, unwavering.

“You’re still me. Different. Changed. Older. But still me. You’ve built something out of the ruins. You’ve saved lives, taught new doctors, made a family where you thought you had none.”

Tears slipped down Robby’s face. “But I feel so lost.”

Carter’s smile was faint, but steady. “Lost doesn’t mean gone. You set the tone, Robinavitch. You always did. Even when you didn’t believe it yourself.”

Robby closed his eyes, letting the words sink in, letting the grief wash through him like a tide.
When he opened them again, Carter was gone. The maze had dissolved.

And Robby was left, heart pounding, somewhere between the man he had been and the man he was still becoming.