Arrival

[jackabbot]

Jack had gone home, eaten, taken care of his leg, showered, then collapsed into the bed that was, still, too large. He didn’t have any real expectation of getting more than a few hours of sleep, especially after the way the shift ended today, but that just kept his body clock set for the night shift. That was what he told his therapist and the docs at the VA, anyway.

He woke up slowly after a dreamless sleep and laid in the bed for a few more minutes than he might have normally. He was off tonight and there wasn’t too much he needed to do. His laundry was clean and folded, the few dishes he actually got dirty cooking for one were done, and he’d even been to the grocery store recently. He thought about reading a book that had been on his side table long enough for it to be dusty.

The condo was always too quiet, so he opened the police scanner app on his phone and selected the Pittsburgh PD stream for background noise as he started to move around. He wondered if Raymond Orser’s family had come by and if the letter had helped. He hoped it had. He’d seen too many letters written by too many commanding officers, but he also knew they needed to be written. There needed to be more than two people in a uniform on a porch, whether it was a military uniform or a police uniform.

The scanner had been reporting the usual combination of traffic accidents, break-ins, domestic disputes, and missing persons. The rhythm of the dispatcher and the officers was almost like listening to someone calling cadence. He got down on the floor and started doing pushups, then situps, feeling his muscles warm as he focused on proper form and repetitions. Both types of cadence were broken suddenly by the words, “Automatic fire! Automatic fire! Active shooter, all units respond, PittFest, Point State Park.”

His adrenaline spiked, just for a moment. Robby had given Jake his tickets to PittFest. The chances of Jake or Leah being involved were low, but not zero. The chances were never zero, unless they were talking about the chances of everything going well on any given day.

The scanner traffic continued and it became clear that this was going to be a mass casualty event and that PTMC would be the primary facility.  Robby and the day shift were going to need backup staff, and he was sure he’d get a text in the next few minutes asking him to come in. He didn’t need it, though. He was already donning his leg and getting into a clean pair of scrubs. He went to the bathroom since god only knew the next time he’d have a chance to piss, then grabbed his go bag from the corner of the living room and headed out. It was going to be a long night for everyone.

There were distant sirens as he ate a protein bar and walked the few blocks to PTMC. They’d get closer soon, and he couldn’t help but think of the sound of Dustoffs arriving. The glass doors to the hub were in front of him as he walked in from the ambulance bay and he could see Robby starting to direct people. Just as the automatic doors opened to let him step in, he was suddenly not in the hub. He was in a hospital, but it wasn’t PTMC. He didn’t recognize any of these people or any of their uniform colors.

What the fuck had just happened?

Comments

[physicianheal]

"I'll put in a good word for you." The powers that be at Darrow General would be stupid if they didn't jump at the chance of an attending like Jack Abbot. But, he wonders, would they have gotten to be the powers that be.

"I'm actually a few blocks from here," he says, nodding his head in the direction of his apartment. "It's a small town though so nothing is very far from anything else."

[jackabbot]

From someone else, that might be an idle offer, but Jack knew Robby would actually do it. Honestly, whoever was the equivalent of Gloria here might hire Jack just to get Robby out of their office, if he really decided to be annoying about it. Jack had no complaints about that.

"Convenient," Jack agreed, because he still hadn't moved out of the condo near PTMC despite missing what his life had been when he'd moved in there. It was just too useful for work. Also, he'd gotten a great deal on it since the neighborhood had still been a little rough when he'd bought.

He looked around as they walked. It did seem like a much smaller, quieter town than Pittsburgh.

"I'm guessing you don't get many MCIs here of any kind."

[physicianheal]

"Yeah. All my furniture is from whatever they fuck they call Ikea here, but it's comfortable enough," says Robby. His bed, actually, is particularly comfortable. He just wishes he spent more time actually asleep in it, instead of staring at the ceiling. He thinks that Jack would probably know something about that, too.

"Not since I've been here, but people say shit hits the fan semi-regularly," he says. "There was a train crash, a while ago. Bunch of people got seriously incident. And a cult, apparently?" He shrugs. "Who the fuck knows, right?"

[jackabbot]

"IKEA's good at what they do, even if no one can pronounce the names of any of the furniture," Jack agreed. He wasn't sure what else you'd call IKEA, but that was something he could figure out later. It didn't really matter right now.

"Train crashes and a cult? There's a combination that ends about as well as alcohol and 'hey, watch this!'."

They'd just entered what was clearly the government part of town, with a police station, post office, and Darrow Public Library on their left, then City Hall on their right. People were going in and out of all of them, but not nearly as many as he was used to from Pittsburgh.

"This does seem like a small town. What do you do for fun around here, other than the beach?"

[physicianheal]

"I don't think they happened at the same time, if that helps," says Robby, smirking at the thought of it. "I'm not so naive as to think that something shitty won't happen now we're here, but we can but hope for quiet lives, right?" He's not sure either of them are ever going to have that. "Mostly? I read and I drink. There's some pretty decent craft beer being brewed." He shrugs. "Mostly, I go to work. There's some good coffee shops."

It's shorthand for admitting that he hasn't been doing much.

[jackabbot]

Jack didn't think he was likely to ever live a quiet life, and he was fine with that, mostly. He liked the adrenaline and the mental challenge of emergency medicine. He wasn't exactly lonely other than always missing his wife, but he didn't have a huge number of friends, either.

"No shame from me on mostly working and occasionally reading or drinking," Jack said, holding his hand up. "I'm the one who was listening to the police scanner on my night off."

[physicianheal]

"How often do you do that, by the way?" asks Robby, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Like, to a level I should be concerned, or just sometimes, or..." He shifts his grip on his backpack as, ahead of them, the station comes into sight. "That's where we're heading," he says, pointing. "Somebody told me that some people arrive by train but me..." He hesitates, unwilling to tell Jack exactly the moment he came from. "One moment I was in paeds, and the next moment I was here."

[jackabbot]

"Condo's too quiet sometimes," he shrugged. Robby knew exactly why that was and why Jack might not like too much quiet on some days. Jack would bet Robby never walked into or left the Pitt without something playing on his earbuds, though, which was just another form of not liking to be in the quiet with your own thoughts.

Robby was definitely leaving something out about being in pedes when he arrived, but that was part of what they'd talk about when they talked about the two hours Jack had missed somehow. He knew pedes was the designated morgue for MCIs and he wasn't surprised that they'd had to take people there. MCIs weren't known for their lack of mortality.

"I'm glad I didn't arrive on a train. Haven't been on an actual train since the last time I went up to NYC for that continuing ed seminar I hated."

It had been boring and full of people who just wanted to hear themselves talk. If Jack wanted that, he'd talk to any of the surgeons in the doctor's lunchroom.