Chapter Text
Dark clouds crash through Pittsburgh leaving cracked windshields, power outages, and intense car collisions in its wake through the night. The sun hasn’t been out in days, and the cold air has made the entire city encased in ice.
Samira slips once and tries to steady herself with the railing.
The railing is just as slick, and she feels herself crash to the sidewalk with a thud. The pain immediately shoots up her spine and to her parietal lobe.
She groans in pain and gives herself a moment to breathe.
Robby makes eye contact with her through the double doors. His face is flushed with concern, and it irritates her immensely. She hopes he’ll walk away, although she knows that was next to impossible to happen.
He pushes past the double doors to look down at her. “Are you alright?”
Samira wants to roll away down the stairs and pretend the day has already passed. Go back to her messy apartment and crawl into her unmade bed to sleep until her next shift comes.
Instead, she holds out a hand and lets Robby pull her up off the cold ground. The step she takes forward makes her brain throb; the sharp squeeze to his hand is for a moment too long, long enough that she knows he won’t let her work her day shift.
“Samira, we have enough staff. You should go home.”
She already starts to shake her head no, although she realizes her hypocrisy. This is what she wanted just a moment ago, wasn’t it? To go home.
The thought of home made her realize she’d then have to answer the phone. The anxiety for this day always lessened when she could blame her lack of response on an incoming trauma.
Robby rests both hands on her shoulder and gives her a tight smile. “It’s your birthday, this is the universe giving you a day off.”
Samira didn’t expect Robby to be the first and probably the only person to acknowledge her birthday; she usually moved past it like it was just another day in February.
No reason to make a big deal when there are other things to focus on, people to help.
Her birthday hasn’t felt the same since Appa-
Samira looks away and at the pouring sleet. “It’s my birthday, and you want me to catch a bus in this?”
Robby laughs and is happy to take that as her agreement. “No, no, I can have someone drive you.”
Samira hates the idea of making someone drive outside of Pittsburgh in the weather as it is, up the winding roads to her cramped, but somehow still 50% of her paycheck, apartment.
“I wouldn’t want to-“
The door swings open and breaks them apart while a duffel bag cuts off her line of sight.
She sees his calloused hands and the black scrubs that tighten on his arms as he brings the bag down to the floor with a thud. There are tired hazel eyes that make eye contact with hers, always on alert. He takes in her stance and then looks to the ground, as if he knows she fell based on her tight posture.
That, and the ass print she left in the snow, didn’t help.
“You ok?” Jack asks, and Samira is not surprised by the warmth that runs through her body.
“Yeah, slipped. Not the first, surely won’t be the last.” She’s flippant, urgent to calm his concern.
He looks her over again, and Samira fights the urge to fidget or do something stupid like pull her hair out of the clip and toss it just to see his eyes flash.
She doesn’t have a lot of fun often, but she enjoys flirting with Jack; he’s the PTMC flirt. Stern smile and eyes following anyone who’s within his vicinity.
Again, it was simple, fun, and it rarely happened.
Give it only a moment or two later, and he’ll do something similar with Emery. No one at PTMC knows the truth behind their relationship; Samira only knows she often feels like a tennis ball caught between two rackets when surgery is called down.
She never knew him before the two things that people often gossip about him happened. She met him like the rest of PTMC, gaping at his sweat-covered face as he was wheeled in performing CPR on a woman who collapsed in the parking lot.
Robby cuts into their line of sight and her distracted thoughts, the slight smile that had crept up her lips vanishes. “Jack, Samira needs a ride home.”
Jack nods and grabs his bag with his left hand, and then his right pulls Samira’s from her hands. “Sounds good, my car’s in the parking garage.”
Samira gapes at the two of them. “Hey! I can carry my bag, it’s like an ice slip and slide out there. Also where is your coat?”
Jack rolls his eyes at her stubbornness. “Fine, you watch the bags. I’ll grab the car.”
Samira snaps her jaw shut, and she waits.
Jack looks at her and sighs loudly. “I’ll go back in and get my coat first.”
She tries to control her smile; if the look he throws at her as he walks back through the doors is anything to go by, she does not succeed. “Thank you!”
Robby smiles at the two of them like they’re an art exhibit to gawk at, and Samira’s steel glare brings him back. “Not fair, you didn’t even give him a chance.”
He has a thoughtful look on his face, the same one he has when he’s figured out a case and she hasn’t. “There are very few things that Jack Abbot wouldn’t do to help others, Mohan. But regardless, I think he’d probably do anything for you.”
Samira doesn’t know how to even begin to break down that statement, and Robby can tell he leaves with a quick, “Happy birthday, try to take it easy for the rest of the day.”
The car is quiet other than the noise of the sleet hitting against the windshield. Jack slipped a CD in before pulling out of the parking garage. Samira’s not familiar with the band on the cover or the music fading in and out.
She makes small talk with him at first, asks about his shift, and what the day shift is up against without her. He assures her that he left the board cleaned up and the turnover percentage of patients as small as the night shift allows.
Satisfied with his answer, she pulls out her phone to lessen his distractions. He won’t say a thing to her, but she can tell from the way his hand continues to turn down the music that he’s trying to focus.
The traffic is a mess, and she expects the 35-minute drive time to her apartment has increased closer to an hour.
With a ping, she looks at her phone and sees that her aunt has sent her well wishes and some confetti emojis.
She likes the message and sends her thanks, ignoring that the messages above are from her aunt’s birthday, and then Samira’s 29th, and so on. Her father’s side of the family often reached out for milestones and always followed it with a "miss you" message, but never showed interest in making plans to see her and the steel city.
Some days she wants to reply, Please visit, see me after such a long lull in family occasions. Her cousin’s graduation was the most recent, nearly two years ago.
The holidays were reserved for her mother, if she had time off. And that was a big if; she normally tells the staffing department to put them where they need her. Their eyes lit up at the words “open availability.”
Samira did not celebrate Christmas, she barely recognized Thanksgiving, and New Year's was saved for PTMC every year. The empty seat at her mother and Stepfather’s townhouse in New York is surely filled by her teenage step-sister’s newest boyfriend.
Plus, her mother loved the FedEx points she received when she traditionally shipped a large box of clothes from the city to Samira as a gift and an unsubtle nudge to sway Samira to change her wardrobe.
Samira forgot to check the lobby for mail, rushing out the door with toothpaste smudged on the side of her face. She hopes her Ring camera is still charged, and the guy who lives next door to the complex with nine dogs doesn’t try to steal it. Her Amazon box of cat food disappeared a few months ago while she was away on the day shift.
The thought reminds her that not only does a package of expertly folded clothes wait for her at home, but so does an empty fridge. Her head throbs at the thought of not eating. Maybe she'll try to order in.
At that moment, the traffic continues its crawl, but the sleet picks up speed. Jack frowns at the development and cuts the music off.
Samira looks at the DoorDash app and moves her thumb away. She can not expect someone to go out in this to feed her.
She clicks Instagram and tries to ignore the urge to check her messages first to see if anyone from her extended family or school friends remembered. It’s silly, she rarely tells people about the day or celebrates much to begin with, but she tries to keep up with her old inner circles. Most friends still see each other on the weekends, or are asked to be bridesmaids.
Samira felt time turn into sand once she moved to Pittsburgh, knuckles grasping the grain and feeling it leak through the cracks of her fingers as she tried to remain in contact while also working every minute she was allowed.
The few and in between months of phone calls are always going the same, “We miss you,” or “Come to our vacation!”
She was an intern and had a maximum of 5 days off, her paycheck running thin, and family events filling the reserved dates.
Or, “That schedule sounds grueling; we’ll have to find time.”
But the time rarely came, and Samira has been running since the moment she walked through the PTMC doors. She tries not to let the distance, the loneliness, and her abysmal response time make her feel guilty or that she chose wrong.
She can feel it in her core that something is calling her and keeping her here. Even if there are days, and there are so many days, when she wants to lean into that guilt and take what she sees as an easy way out. Go back to where she sees friends meeting for trivia night, be a bridesmaid in a wedding, and help her step-sister pick out a prom dress. Get a job at a family medicine clinic where they’d be impressed by her willingness to succeed.
Her mother would love it, but Samira would suffocate. The air of the Pitt has encased her lungs the same way the ice has trapped the city, and she’s not sure if she can exhale fully without it.
She clicks and responds to the handful of people who always reach out. She appreciates each sentiment and ensures a few, yes, she’ll try to come “home” soon. And when her finger pulls the refresh page down, she tries to fight an inhale from the announcement waiting at the top.
It’s an old acquaintance from high school; she could barely call her a friend. The girl was a year or so younger than herself. Her post reads that she is engaged, showing off the square-shaped cut diamond nestled on a gold band and snug on her finger. Samira swipes to the second photo and sees her and her boyfriend, fiancé, kissing on a beach.
She hearts it and leaves her congrats, ignoring the voice of her mother immediately coming through. Such a gorgeous smile, Samira, too gorgeous to be single.
Jack’s hand moved over to lightly touch her shoulder, pulling her away from the spiral her thoughts were headed towards. She looks at the traffic, then his stoic face.
He’s pulled his hand back to keep both hands on the wheel, but his eyes glance over to hers. “You’ve sighed 3 times in the last minute and a half, everything ok over there?”
Samira snaps her phone off and rests it against her thigh. “Yeah, sorry. Are you alright? This is kind of a mess.”
Jack looks at the traffic, which is still starting and stopping every five minutes. He shrugs and looks over her face, eyes resting on where her phone lies for a moment too long.
“Drove in much worse before, don’t mind at all. You take the bus, right?”
“Yeah, I never officially got my license.”
Jack nods, like he already knows this. She is not sure she can recall telling him about it before. Then she remembers he has access to her file, probably along with her birth date.
Samira looks at her phone and debates if she’d like to crack open this nutshell of insecurity she often tries to keep dormant. The traffic is moving more slowly now, so she thinks, what the hell? Might as well make use of the time she has with someone who likes to campaign therapy helps in Robby’s ear each week.
She went to therapy on and off for six years after Appa died, each new therapist and round of medication worse than the last.
Samira clears her throat, “There’s someone from my high school who’s engaged.”
Jack waits for more, but she doesn’t continue, as if that explains everything. “You don’t like her? Is the guy a dickhead?”
“No! Well- I don’t know the guy, but,” She pauses and tries to word it properly. “It’s my birthday today, and it’s not that I want the milestones now or that it even looks that desirable, but it still doesn’t stop the expectations of others, more specifically, my mother, on where I should be in my life at 30.”
“Happy birthday, Samira.” He smiles at her warmly, and then he tries to remain focused on the road. Like he hopes the brake lights will cover the flush falling from his face to his chest.
Samira rarely hears him use her first name, although she quite likes the Pavlovian way his cardiovascular system reacts to it. The pulse on the side of his neck increased enough for her to see, his fingers twitching on the wheel.
“You knew earlier.”
“I did. I also know that you’ve worked on your birthday for the last 3 years and never shared the news with anyone.” He smiles at her. “I was waiting for you to decide if I had to be one of them again this year.”
“Well, Abbot, on account of you driving through hell and also having to drive back, I can squeeze you on the list and thank you.”
Jack hums and rubs a finger over his wedding ring. Samira rarely looks at it, almost fearful of prying eyes catching her, but her eyes snag on it at this moment, in the reflected light. “I hope since you shared, I can share some perspective.”
She waves a hand for him to go on; he rarely shares a thing with them about his wife. She knows she died before he came to PTMC, rumors that the funeral was merely a week and a half before his arrival.
“Well, first I should ask, do you want to get married?”
She chokes a bit at the question, not prepared for him to say that or used to the person asking to consider her opinion. “Uh.” She thinks about it. “Yes?”
Jack snorts, barely audible over the onslaught of sleet. “It’s okay, you don’t have to be certain now or like, ever.”
“No-no,” She thinks on this now, and once Samira Mohan starts on a topic, she rarely stops. “I do, if it’s the right person, I feel like that could go unsaid. But it’s rare, I’ve only seen that love in our hospital. When you watch patients pass within hours of their partners, and people stay by a bedside for days without resting, it’s hard to doubt its existence.” Her eyes stare off into the storm, and her voice remains steady as if presenting a case.
“What I don’t know is how to balance high expectations and the lack of patience that comes with it. It makes me uncertain of everything when I try to live by my career and the plan I’ve made, and I very much support.” Samira licks her lips, and Jack turns the heat up slightly, noticing her shivers, “I do want that for myself eventually, but is it wrong to want to grow more in my career first?”
Jack knows she is not actually asking him the last half, that she’s sending it out to her mother, friends, PTMC staff, and anyone else who’s made her doubt herself this year.
He understands the outside pressure to do something more agreeable, to follow what others find normal.
“It’s not wrong.” He validates her anyway. “You saying yes is enough of an answer, and if you said no, that would be enough too.”
Samira exhales, and her heart slows, the throb in her head lessening as his voice calms her. “Thank you.”
“You graduated valedictorian and then finished college at the top of your class. You worked through COVID. You kick ass every shift I have with you.” Jack shakes his head in disbelief. “Trust me, sweetheart. You do not need to speed up with the world; the world needs to catch up with you.”
“Marriage or love in general is complicated, like life, it’s messy and it’s uncertain, but when it happens, god it happens.” His hand lightly smacks the steering wheel. “You can’t time that bolt of lightning, and the people that do, we’ve seen every type of marriage in our job and the results, but again, life.”
He looks over at her for a moment, his head tilting like he’s debating if this is overstepping. “Don’t let those high expectations deny you of the good things, though, Samira. There can be expectations from the outside and from within, and both are mutually beneficial at times and destructive.”
Samira can’t help the words stumbling out of her mouth. Now opening up to him, she wants to hear more. “I have no plans for my birthday, or really any weekend. I blink and four months go by, I’m not even sure how I would start.”
Jack looks sympathetic, like he can relate, and he tells her so, “You’re talking to someone who still listens to the police scanner instead of sleeping. We have to create our own balance, but it takes a long time to get there, and when you do, it falls, and then you go again.”
She slumps against the door and draws a frowning face in the frosted window. “Guess we can both work on a few things.”
“I’ll hold you to yours if you hold me to mine.” It’s a loaded statement, and the glance he throws her way is clouded in uncertainty, like he’s about to play it off with a joke.
Samira looks back at him and narrows her eyebrows competitively. “Like a challenge? What do I win?”
Jack barks out a surprised laugh, and he tries to hold in how much he’s enjoying this drive. He should be paying attention to the road, not her beautiful and finally relaxed face.
“If, if you win!” He points a finger at her. “I don’t know Samira, what do you want?”
There’s a glint in her eyes he’s only seen when he’s pushing her in the trauma room.
He swallows.
She counters, “What will you give me?”
Samira is beginning to solve the case Robby unintentionally left with her this morning; she might not be at work, but she’s innately interested in the inner workings of Jack Abbot, and just how long he’s had a crush on her.
Some, Santos, and definitely Dana, may say she’s crazy for only just now realizing it in an overheated 2010 Jeep Wrangler, in the middle of a snowstorm on her 30th birthday.
The day of her birth is usually reserved for a call to her mother, much too late, and going to Oakmont to grab a cupcake and eat like she did with her father. He would surprise her at school in the morning and bring her a different color candle each year, making sure anyone close by sang to her with him.
But it clicks, maybe with the hint of Robby’s guidance, although she’ll never give him credit. And definitely by the time he dropped the sweetheart nickname, like he calls her that often in his head. The suspension of time and the opportunity for Samira to really look at him and listen outside of the PTMC walls have opened Jack’s secret to her, and she can’t decide if she wants to let him know.
Jack thinks for a long moment, stirring the ideas in his head. “Let’s start with breakfast?” Samira was not expecting that, and her face shows it in the rear-view mirror. “Unless you want to go straight home, does your head hurt?”
Now that he’s mentioned it, Samira’s focus shifts to the base of her skull and where pain has started to spread. “It’s starting to, I have medication at home, but no groceries.”
Jack hooks a strong arm around the back seat, and Samira allows herself the chance to ogle. He heaves the bag over the console and to the floor and between her feet with a light thud. “Right side zipper, left side zipper, red pouch. Take a Rizatripan and then tell me if you have any blurriness.” He does his usual lip twitch that Samira adds to a list of things to figure out, so far it comes out at sporadic times. “Did Robby check your pupils?”
Samira would love to get back to their challenge, but she ignores him and grabs the pills she already knew to grab before he listed them like a drill sergeant. She sees a blue pouch and unzips it to see he has pads, tampons, Plan B, and a pregnancy test stocked along with some anti-nausea pills. The green pouch has a suture kit-
“Are you going to look at every kit I have? Might as well wait until you have better light and you’re not in pain.”
Samira sticks her tongue out at him and places the pill on the pad. She brings her water bottle straw up to her mouth to suck and wipes at the bead of water that escapes and trails down her chin.
When she looks up, Jack squirms in his seat when they make eye contact with each other.
She smiles and takes another drink, “I think he did, he was staring at me but didn’t use a light, and he grabbed my wrist to feel my pulse.” She ticks off symptoms on the tips of her fingers. “I am not experiencing any of the following: dizziness, memory problems, nausea, slurred speech.”
Jack groans as she continues to list every symptom she can think of. Samira sits up straight when they cross lanes, the icy roads rough but nothing Jack’s weatherproof tires can’t handle.
Her eyebrows crease when they take the exit. “Wait, do you need maps? It’s one more exit until mine.”
Jack scoffs, “Please, did you already forget our challenge? Step number one towards some balance, good nutrition means faster brain power, we need groceries.”
“Hey! Who said I don’t normally shop? I could be having an off week.”
“Samira, what do you have in your fridge at this moment?”
“Ice cream, vegan chicken nuggets, some decaying salad, hummus,” She taps her chin. “Oh! And a grape.”
Jack enters the exit lane, and the storm begins to lighten up. “A grape? As in singular?”
Samira side-eyes him before crossing her arms defensively, “You never know when you’ll need a snack, Jack.”
With an exasperated sigh, he pulls into Aldi and remembers how long it was until he managed to nail his grocery store and meal prep routine. A routine he has been failing at immensely the past few weeks, taking too many doubles off of Robby following last September.
He pulls out his flashlight once the vehicle is parked, and Samira immediately sounds her disapproval. “Is this necessary?”
“You’re beginning to sound like the patients in chairs. I could do the King-Devick test if you keep being stubborn.”
Her jaw drops in offense, and she leans over the console with two hands, entering Jack’s space. He stares for a beat, his pulse pounding with the proximity.
His hands move with practiced ease and bring her chin up softly, the light not helping the headache forming at the base of her skull. She grabs the hand, not irritating her eyes, to prevent her body from turning away.
“I know this sucks when your head hurts, I’ll be quick.” He moves the light and holds up a single digit.
“To the right, left, up,” Samira’s pupils follow the instructions, but her head remains unmoving. “To confirm, no dizziness?”
“No.”
“Nausea?”
“No.”
“And any ringing in the ears?”
“No, just a headache.”
He clicks the light off, and Samira always knows when she’s passed or failed a test, but the relaxed look from Jack confirms her success.
“All clear, just one extra Rizatripan every 2 hours should help any persistent pain.”
Samira opens the car door. “Thank you, doctor.”
Jack takes a deep breath in the truck, his head shaking in disbelief at her tone and the flirtatious quirk of her eyebrow. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she was flirting, but he blames it on the fast-acting pain relief for her noticeably rising mood.
He says a quick prayer to whoever is on the mic upstairs and hops out of the car to join Samira as she makes her way into the grocery store.
A sly smile and searching eyes thrown over her shoulder make Jack jog to catch up with her. “Will you push the cart?”
“You’re injured, of course I’m pushing the cart.”