Chapter Text
Robby’s relationship with the Pitt is…complicated.
Sometimes, the Emergency Department of Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center feels more like home than his own house. All of the most significant moments of his life over the last 20 years have occurred within the sterile white walls of his ED. His promotion to attending. His career-defining relationship with Montgomery Adamson. A significant portion of Jake’s childhood. Countless lives saved, residents mentored, students guided…
In spite of living in his Mexican War Streets rowhouse for more than a decade, however, it’s nothing more than a glorified landing pad – perfectly comfortable but impersonal. It boasts an oversized bed with an orthopedic mattress and a shower with killer water pressure, but there’s also a refrigerator that rarely sees more than a case of beer and leftover takeout containers, a television that never turns off, and a distinct lack of photographs or pieces of art on the walls. So there are some days when Robby arrives for work and feels less like he is about to clock in for a 12-hour shift and more like he can finally breathe again.
Other days, the Pitt is a prison.
Every exam room a cell, every corridor lined with a memory Robby wishes he was strong enough to suppress. Or perhaps callous enough to forget.
The pandemic, of course. Endless weeks, months seen through a foggy plastic face shield, trapped behind layers of scrubs and gloves and sanitary gowns, strung tight enough to snap, haunted by the endless noise of heart monitors and pulse-oxes and ventilators.
The helpless sound of Adamson’s lungs seizing, his heart stopping. The brittle silence that followed.
The crash and burn of his dalliance with Heather Collins. The death of Jack’s wife. The wide blue eyes of his star resident, his protégé, his heir apparent, frantic and desperate and rimmed with unshed tears as Robby shoved the contents of his locker into his arms and banished him from his sight.
And then there’s the blood. The chaos. The impotent, sickening agony of Pittfest. Cold crimson pooling, dripping, spilling onto the floor as poor Leah bled out under his trembling hands.
No.
Robby pauses and draws a deep breath through his nose, eyes falling shut, steeling himself before the memories can overtake him.
Flashbacks, his last therapist had called them. A characteristic symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder.
As if he didn’t know. As if such a thing was a revelation to him. He’s a doctor, for fuck’s sake. He knows what PTSD is.
Robby is never sure precisely which version of the Pitt will greet him as he swings through the public doors and breezes through security with a nod to the officers stationed there. It’s the walk through the waiting room that usually tells him. He likes to take a quick pass through the press of bodies there, to scan the crowd and feel its energy, to use it to gauge what he might encounter on the other side of the triage doors. Today, the energy is restless and tense. It’s busier than usual – not holiday busy, thank god, but certainly more than an average Monday morning at 7 AM.
On Mondays, the GP offices re-open, marking the start of the new week. If a patient has waited until Monday to seek medical attention for whatever ails them, they tend to seek it with their own providers. Though he supposes having a GP at all is becoming less and less common.
Regardless, Mondays are typically more…the q-word than this.
He offers nods and half-smiles to the colleagues he encounters on his way to the lockers. Lupe at the reception desk, Ellis doing hand-off with McKay outside Central 10, Kim chatting with a patient in a wheelchair, Esme pushing an environmental services cart in the direction of the South corridor.
If he focuses hard enough, he can sense each of them. There’s the bite of antiseptic, the sterility of the ultra-filtered air, the muted dullness of medical-grade scent blockers and the metallic tang of too many suppressants in too many bodies. But underneath all of the olfactory noise, there’s his people.
One in particular catches his attention as he makes his way toward the Hub, a head of silvering curls accompanied by the faintest whiff of leather, patchouli, and gunsmoke. Subdued, nearly deadened by the white, cotton-backed patches on his wrists and at the base of his neck, but so familiar, Robby feels confident he could pick it out of a crowd of thousands.
If Jack had been on shift the night before, perhaps there is hope that the state of chairs had misled him. Perhaps his ED is in better order than he thought.
One peek at the board, however, squashes that hope in less than a second.
Okay, Robby thinks to himself, allowing his backpack to slip off his shoulder and rest on the counter in front of him. Prison it is.
“There you are,” he groans, pinning Abbot with a frown. “This board’s a nightmare. Surprised I didn’t find you on the roof this morning.”
The other Alpha doesn’t look up from his computer screen and instead continues to chart as he offers Robby a quirk of his lips. It’s not quite a smile, but it’s pleasant, and it’s enough to crinkle the corners of his eyes.
“If you’d been paying attention, brother, you’d know I haven’t taken a trip up that way in months,” he replies easily.
Robby’s frown deepens, and he picks up a tablet from the charging station. “Months? It can’t have been that long.”
“Just haven’t felt the need.” A quick, decisive couple of keystrokes, and Abbot logs out of the terminal. “I can flirt with the abyss in plenty of other ways. Think there might be something to the idea of tempting fate too many times.”
The declaration startles a snort from the older man, and he shakes his head, pulling his glasses from his jacket pocket and sliding them up his nose.
If such a thing were true, Jack Abbot would have been dead a hundred times over. As would Robby.
He proceeds to log in to the tablet, but he doesn’t make it far before taking note of the burn of narrowed eyes on the edge of his periphery. Glancing up, he finds his friend staring at him with an unreadable expression on his lined face, arms folded thoughtfully across his chest. There’s tension in his jaw, and a mild flare of frustration colors the air around him.
“Walk with me,” Jack says, ticking his head further down the corridor, toward the relative privacy of the far east end of the department.
“Hm?”
His eyebrows arch, pointed and insistent, and he gets to his feet. He doesn’t check behind him to see if Robby follows.
Robby follows anyway.
The two walk in silence until they reach the narrow stretch of tile where the employee lockers have been tucked away, wedged between Behavioral Health and Trauma 2. Jack pauses there, leans back against the cool metal, and shoves his hands into the pockets of his cargo pants.
“What is it?” Robby asks.
The other Alpha is blocking his locker, his sharp hazel gaze steady and knowing. “What’s this I hear about you dropping the therapist Caleb recommended?”
The question lands like a boulder to the older man’s chest – heavy and forceful enough to knock the wind out of him for a beat or two. It’s a shock to the system, and while some days, it’s easy enough for Robby to laugh off such expressions of concern, to deflect and project and crinkle-eyed smile his way out of confrontational conversations, today, it takes him by surprise.
So instead of meeting the question with laughter, he greets it with scorn instead.
“What? How the fuck do you know that?” he barks, brow pulled low. He hasn’t had the opportunity to put on his hospital-issued scent patches yet, and it’s apparent by the way the burn of Alpha anger crackles through the air.
Jack, unsurprisingly, does not cow in the face of it. Instead, he simply stares, quirks a single brow, and waits for a real answer.
“Jesus Christ.” Robby crosses his arms over his chest, looks down at his feet and shakes his head. “So much for doctor-patient confidentiality.”
At that, the other man rolls his eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, it wasn’t her. Or Caleb, for that matter,” he adds, before Robby can protest. “But if you want to keep your…experiments with mental health treatment a secret, you’ve gotta stop bitching about it to the good doctor every time he comes down for a psych consult. The nurses hear everything – you should know that by now.”
Ah. Well.
“Of course.” Sighing heavily, the chief presses his fingers to the pressure points on either side of his nose.
“So. What’s the deal?”
Robby looks away with a dismissive shrug. “Just wasn’t a good fit.”
“The others ‘weren’t a good fit,’ either,” Jack counters. Pushing himself away from the lockers, he takes a step closer, ducking his chin as he looks up into Robby’s eyes through his graying eyebrows. “Starting to sound like a bunch of excuses to me.”
This is one of Robby’s favorite traits of Abbot’s. The man is a dog with a bone – focused, determined, stubborn as hell. It had made him a great soldier and an even better doctor. In the friendship department, however…
He scoffs a laugh, the sound humorless and hollow. “Yeah, well, maybe if I could find somebody who didn’t look at me like I’m about to walk into oncoming traffic every thirty seconds, I could actually get somewhere.”
Fuck, Robby hates therapy. The way the therapists always start out with this blandly pleasant expression on their faces, blank and generic and disingenuous. The inane questions they ask, the probing and the poking and the prodding into his every thought and feeling and memory. And of course, like clockwork, the longer he talks, the more honest he allows himself to be, the more offput they all seem to become.
Truthfully, he can never make heads or tails of it. The only conclusion he has managed to come to over his many months of test-driving various providers and modalities is that therapists have no idea what to do with him.
Sometimes, it’s concern he senses, the scent of it warm and lactic – something that might have once been comforting but these days feels cloying and discomfiting. Other times, it’s more like fear, and that’s even worse – astringent and sharp and evoking in him the immediate need to soothe, to comfort, to shield and protect.
How can he be honest with someone who fears for him? His pride won’t allow it, nor will his instincts.
Or at least, that’s what he tells himself when he inevitably calls the therapist’s office and informs them that he won’t be continuing his care.
“Well, are you?” Abbot asks bluntly.
Robby blinks. “Am I what?”
“About to walk into traffic.”
For a moment, he is speechless, stunned into silence by the baldness of the question. However, it doesn’t take long for aggravation to rush in to replace the shock, and then Robby is turning on his heel to return to the Central Hub. “I don’t have time for this.”
“Make time, Robinavitch.”
The words are cold and commanding, the other Alpha sounding every bit the retired Army captain he is, and Robby stops in his tracks, hackles up immediately. There’s a rare challenge in his tone, in his scent.
“Really?” The word comes out like a growl, and he has to swallow thickly to rein in the sound. “That’s how we’re playing this today?”
Behind him, Abbot sighs. The sound is heavy with exhaustion, the first hint of fatigue he has allowed himself to show in spite of just coming off of a 12-hour shift. “Take a breath, quit stinking up the place, and just listen to me for a second, will you?”
Although he is far from the only other Alpha in the ED, Abbot is singular in that he is the only one who could get away with talking to Robby like this. Whether it’s his own rank in the department, or his strength of will, or his seasoned age that makes it possible, he isn’t sure. Jack likes to think it’s a testament to their friendship, to the respect that they have for each other. Regardless, the scolding is enough to stop Robby in his tracks, to force him to turn back around and meet his gaze.
Encouraged by the silent capitulation, Jack spreads his hands wide, putting on a show of making himself open and approachable.
“Let’s take therapy off the table,” he agrees. “Clearly, it’s not doing anything for you. And I know better than to offer the medication route.”
Robby grits his teeth. “Because they make me feel like a fucking zombie, man. I’d rather fuck a cactus than take any more pills.”
Jack’s open hands become a gesture of surrender. “I know, I know. I got it – no pills.” He pauses, then takes a handful of steps to close the distance between them. Voice dropping low, close and confidential, he adds, “But there is one treatment you haven’t tried yet.”
For a moment, the older man frowns in genuine confusion. The way Jack looks at him… There is significance there. There is weight and meaning. Admittedly, embarrassingly, whatever silent message his friend is attempting to convey is lost on him.
He opens his mouth, a question on the tip of his tongue, a plea for the other Alpha to please be so kind as to spell it out for him because this attempt at discretion is quickly losing its practicality, but before the words can form, a delicate note of sweetness reaches his nose.
Omega.
His jaw snaps shut, nostrils flaring, tongue feeling wet and swollen in his mouth as he instinctually starts analyzing the scent. There’s a medical compulsion there, of course; you could tell a lot about a person’s biology from their scent. More than that, however, the impulse was…primal.
It was unfamiliar, he noted – not one of his staff. Unfiltered – perhaps a low-dose suppressant, but no blockers, no patches. A patient, mostly likely. Or a family member.
He draws another breath through his nose and allows his eyes to fall shut.
Red roses. Citrus. Something green and fresh, like cut stems and summertime. It’s not to his particular taste, a bit too…perky, perhaps? But pleasant all the same. It’s just enough to smooth the edges of his aggravation, to soothe the barbs of his defensiveness. He feels his shoulders softening, dropping from around his ears. His fists unclench, and the tightness in his chest eases.
The realization shoots down his spine like a bolt of lightning, and Robby’s eyes fly open.
“You’re out of your mind,” he rasps, soft and dangerous and final.
Jack Abbot, however, must have seen the refusal coming. He is there, hot on Robby’s heels as the latter takes off down the hall, determined to put some distance between him and the mere implication of what Jack is suggesting.
“There wouldn’t be any shame in it,” he insists. He keeps his voice quiet, but it doesn’t matter – the two of them are still attracting looks, and the ED is a hotbed for gossip. Robby focuses his gaze on the Hub, clinging to the hope that if he can just get there, something, someone will need his attention badly enough that he can discontinue this conversation and then hopefully shove the roundabout proposal deep into the far reaches of his mind where it won’t be able to surface again.
But still, his best friend is stubborn.
“Look, I hate to break it to you, Mike, but you’re not special,” he hisses. “You are far from the first Alpha to ever struggle with their mental health. Seeking an Omega for emotional support is just about the oldest move in the book.”
At a nearby terminal, Robby notices Princess freeze in place. She does him the courtesy of keeping her eyes on the screen in front of her, but her fingers still, hovering over the keyboard as she subtly pauses in her charting.
Fucking hell.
Robby comes to an abrupt halt, Jack nearly colliding with his back. Quickly, wordlessly, the older man turns, wraps his fingers around the other’s elbow, and ushers him into the closest empty exam room.
Only once the door has clicked shut behind them does he meet Jack’s flinty stare.
“This isn’t the fifties anymore, Jack,” Robby growls. “I don’t need a sweet, submissive little Omega at home just waiting for me to take out my aggression on them. I am not that kind of Alpha.”
And he isn’t, truly. He knows that he might not always be the most reliable judge of his own behavior, but he has been around enough regressive asshole Alphas in his life to know that for all his many, many faults, he has never fit that particular mold. Even as a young pup, freshly presented and bursting at the seams with needs and instincts and desires he had had no idea what to do with, he had felt certain that the path of the stereotypical Alpha was not one that interested him.
It had taken him years to find his own way – to figure out what might suit his natural inclinations, what might sate the need to protect and provide in a way that didn’t involve settling down right after undergrad, bonding with the first Omega that could tolerate him, and keeping them round with his pups. It wasn’t until the start of medical school when he got his first taste of a different sort of pack, one based on competence, mutual respect, and a formal hierarchy that spoke to the deep-seated thing inside him that so desperately needed to understand his place in the world.
In that sort of pack, Robby had excelled. And now he is the Chief of Emergency Medicine at a Level 1 trauma center. Every day, when he walks through those doors, he gets to be a teacher, a mentor, a guide. He is an advocate and a protector. A leader – valued, admired, respected.
What more could an Alpha want?
“I know you’re not,” Jack sighs. There’s frustration in his tone now, his annoyance souring the stale exam room air. “I never said you were.”
Robby’s neck flushes a deep red. “Well, it sure as hell sounded like it!”
At that, Abbot’s hand shoots out and grips him by the shoulder. His palm is warm and broad, fingers firm and insistent as he compels the older man to meet his gaze. “Will you stop posturing at me and give me a chance, here?”
Goddamn it.
He is posturing isn’t he? Drawn up to his full height, shoulders wide and intimidating, throwing the stink of rage and dominance into the atmosphere so carelessly that he knows he’s going to need to have Esme put a portable air filter in here if any of his Omega staff are going to be able to work in here at all today. Not to mention the potential patient impact…
Swallowing the lump of embarrassment in his throat at the realization, Robby rubs the back of his neck in a self-soothing gesture and forces himself to settle down.
“Fine. Say what you need to say,” he rasps.
Something like relief colors Jack’s expression, and he wastes no time making his case. “2022 meta-analysis on the effects of pair-bonding on stress hormone production in sexually mature Alphas.”
The chief releases a deep sigh. Of course, Abbot the niche medical research fiend would come prepared to cite his sources.
“Consistent exposure to Omega pheromones over the course a single month significantly reduced the production of cortisol, epinephrine, norepinephrine, and CRF in Alphas,” he continues, ignoring Robby’s exasperation. “Mating, however, had a multiplicative effect, resulting in benefits to the emotional and physical well-being of both parties.”
It’s all he can do not to roll his eyes. “Brother, I am not a fucking JAMA study.”
“This is what we do, man. We conduct the research. We study the research. We implement the research,” Jack counters, an accusatory finger now pointing at Robby’s chest. “This is legitimate medicine, and you know it.”
In spite of his attempts to get his temper under control, his tone has Robby’s hackles rising again. He feels flayed open, picked apart and placed under a microscope for all of the tender, vulnerable parts of him to be examined. It makes him mean, makes him want to bite.
“You sure you aren’t just chomping at the bit for me to find an Omega because you’ve got one now, and you want to see me all settled down and domesticated like you?” His words come out derisive and cold, and he thinks for a moment that Jack might actually yell at him now. His chest and neck, sun-weathered and freckled, are starting to flush, immediately drawing Robby’s eye to the complimentary bite marks on either side of Jack’s neck. Partially hidden by his scent patches, one is decades old and faded white, barely visible with the unrelenting passage of time. The one on the opposite gland, however, is practically brand new – mostly healed but the scar still a vibrant red, no more than three months old.
However, when his eyes flick back up to meet Jack’s, the other Alpha looks at him not with anger, but with a mix of exhaustion and…
Jesus. Pity.
“Look,” he sighs, the sound of his voice coarse and worn like gravel through a sieve. “All I’m saying is, speaking from experience, sometimes healing for your own sake isn’t enough of a motivator. Sometimes, you need somebody to heal for – somebody you care about enough to actually give a shit about getting better. And then, eventually, over time, maybe you’ll feel good enough to start looking after yourself for you.”
There’s something in the timbre of his words – something in the weight they carry, heavy in the way that only someone who has clawed their way out of their own darkness can convey – that brings Robby pause. For the briefest moment, he considers it.
Jack certainly paints a romantic picture. What kind of love would that have to be? What kind of devotion could inspire one to heal? If such a thing exists, Robby knows he has never experienced it.
“If that were true,” he says tentatively, “don’t you think I would have already done it? This place…” He wraps his long arms around his torso and looks away. His throat feels thick and dry, his eyes pricking dangerously. “It’s the closest thing to a pack I’ve ever had. I’d give my life for each and every person in this department.”
The vulnerability nearly chokes him, and he coughs loudly. He can feel Jack watching him, can feel the fondness and the warmth of his gaze even as he stands at a distance, giving Robby his space. There’s no frustration or anger in his scent now, which upsettingly only makes the attention more difficult to bear. Robby could handle rage. Softness, however, makes his palms itch.
“I know you would,” Jack acknowledges.
“Then why isn’t it enough?”
The other man sighs, scratching his graying stubble thoughtfully. “I don’t know. But what I do know – from one Alpha to another – is that you’re dropping the ball.”
The admonishment comes without malice or cruelty. It’s matter-of-fact, almost kind in its earnestness, but it doesn’t matter. Robby thinks that if the other man had punched him across the jaw, it might have hurt less.
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”
Jack plows onward, undaunted. “And I’ve never aspired to the kind of leadership you’ve taken on, but these are my people, too, and until you start making some real progress on those demons you’re carrying around in your head every day, I can’t sit by and watch you consistently fail to show up for them the way they deserve.”
Every word is a dagger. An accusation. A fear made real, acknowledged out loud and thereby given body and substance. Robby feels as though the other Alpha has cracked open his ribs and reached his fist into his chest cavity, his thick fingers wrapping tightly around every forbidden anxiety and dragging it out into the daylight, hissing and spitting.
Robby’s eyes remain fixed firmly on the floor. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
The words themselves are aggressive, but they land softly – without acid, without bite. It’s only 7:15, the shift has barely begun, and yet he suddenly longs for his bed. He’s so goddamn tired.
Sensing his exhaustion, his hopelessness, Jack brings himself into Robby’s space, grips each of his biceps in his palms, and squeezes.
“You’re my brother, Mike,” he declares gruffly. “I love you.”
Robby makes a wordless noise of disbelief, but the other man won’t hear any of it.
“Don’t fucking scoff at me, man, you know it’s the truth. Just like I know, underneath all the shit you think you’ve buried, that you’re a good man. This place is lucky to have you.”
Wetness gathers at the corners of Robby’s eyes, and he grits his teeth against the threat of it spilling onto his weathered cheeks.
“But believe me when I tell you – whether you choose to take an Omega or not, if you don’t get your shit figured out, I will petition the administration to have you put on a leave of absence. And I will take over the ED.”
The older man’s eyes flick upward, finally meeting Jack’s. “Why not just do it now? Save us both the trouble?” he asks softly, bitterly.
Jack offers him a sad smile in response. “Because I really don’t fucking want to.” Releasing one of Robby’s arms, he reaches up and pats him on the cheek. “So please don’t make me.”
Abbot ducks out of the exam room soon after. The slight limp in his stride is the only indicator he gives that he is fatigued, that the day may have worn on him. Otherwise, his shoulders are square, his eyes clear, and Robby thinks he catches him giving a wave and a half-smile to someone out of sight as he shuts the door behind him.
Robby, for his part, takes a few more moments to collect himself. He’s later than he wants to be getting out onto the floor, but he’s worn thin enough by the early morning confrontation as it is; he decides he can afford to give himself a minute or two to clear his head.
As he emerges into the corridor, however, the first thing he notices isn’t the hustle of his staff or the barely-controlled chaos of his patients. It’s the faint, homey fragrance of clean laundry and drugstore lipstick that lingers directly outside the door. The scent clings to the nearby walls, like someone had hovered there for an extended period, perhaps just out of line of sight from the exam room window.
And he would know that scent anywhere.
Clearing his throat, swiping his hands under a hand sanitizer dispenser on the way by, he makes his way back toward the Central Hub.
There, glasses low on the bridge of her nose, ostensibly concentrating on a staffing chart on her computer, is Dana Evans. She’s got nicotine gum between her teeth, the only indicator that perhaps she also is not having the morning she wished when she arrived today; otherwise, her ironed scrubs, tidy bun, and freshly-applied makeup paint the picture of someone eminently in control. The ringleader of the circus, the navigator at the helm.
Robby approaches her silently then pauses to lean against the counter where she sits. “How much of that did you hear?”
“Good morning to you, too,” she replies with a wry smile. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Please. I know better than that.”
At that, Dana shrugs. She turns in her chair, looking up at him over the rim of her glasses. If she was honest with herself, she would get a pair of bifocals. As it is, she makes do with the same lenses she’s worn for the last 10 years.
“I heard enough,” she admits quietly. The Hub is empty with the exception of her, the rest of her staff dispersed around the floor receiving report from the night shift nurses, but she still keeps her voice down. It’s one of the innumerable things Robby appreciates about his favorite charge nurse; she knows when to be discrete.
He tucks his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Do you have anything to add?” The end of his question tilts up facetiously, and Dana damn near rolls her eyes as she gets to her feet and starts bustling around the station.
“You’ve known me long enough to know what I’m gonna say to that,” she quips in reply, snagging a tablet off the nearest charging bank.
Of course, after so many years working side-by-side with her, Robby does. “Alpha business is none of your business,” he quotes.
“That’s right. If I spent all my time trying to figure out why you all do the things you do, I’d never get anything done.”
He recalls the first time he had met her, decades ago now, he had falsely assumed that she was an Alpha, as well. A supremely self-possessed woman, even before she had been given the formal authority to back it up, she had been so comfortable stepping up, taking charge, creating order out of madness, setting an example for others with her level head and gentle hands. Her scent, of course, hadn’t been quite right, but at the time, Robby had just assumed she had found herself some powerful suppressants. He would never forget the way she had lined him out in front of the entire department for the presumption.
“What, because only an Alpha knows how to be a leader?” she had snapped. “Only an Alpha can be trusted in a crisis? Sure, because all those raging hormones make you all so stable and reliable. Don’t make me laugh, Robinavitch. Now get out of my face, your embarrassment is stinking up the nurses’ station.”
The memory draws a weak, nostalgic grin to his lips. His gaze flickers down to the telltale bareness of her wrists. Her neck, too, is naked, save for the golden cross pendant he has never seen her without. She has no need for scent patches as a Beta, her pheromones too neutral to have any emotional or behavioral impacts on patients.
“And what about not as an Alpha, but as a friend?” he asks.
Dana softens at that, reluctantly matching his fond expression.
“Abbot’s a good friend,” she says easily. “He cares about you. If there’s something he thinks might…help? Might be worth listening to what he has to say.”
Robby’s jaw works back and forth, a humorless smile twisting his lips. “Thought you were on my side.”
“Always.”
He know she spots the furrow of his brow. It’s been years since he has bothered to put on the same masks with her as he does everyone else; he knows she can see the frustration, the confusion, the hints of betrayal lingering in the downturn of his mouth, the wrinkles on his forehead.
“Look,” she sighs, stepping closer, voice soft and raspy from her last cigarette. “You know I’m in your corner. But Abbot’s right. You haven’t been yourself. Not for a long time.”
Defensiveness flares hot and tight in his chest, and he shakes his head. “Jeeeesus, not you, too.”
“Started during COVID, but after Pittfest, and Jake – ”
“Don’t.” For all that he is burning up inside, anger and grief and self-loathing threatening to consume the core of him, the word comes out frigid. It’s solid, sharp, and pointed as a shard of ice.
Dana, however, appears entirely unmoved. “Look, I can’t claim to understand what you’re going through as an Alpha. Not exactly my area of expertise. But I know people, and I know you. And you…” She reaches out, palm patting his chest, blue eyes sharp and knowing. “…need help.”
“Dana.”
If she registers his protests, she does not react. Instead, she continues, “Who am I to say what form that should take?”
“Allll right,” he groans as he pushes himself away from the counter and claps his hands together. Gesturing with two thumbs over his shoulder, he says, “I think that’s my cue.”
“Hold up, I got one more thing to say.”
But Robby is already rounding the nurses’ station, already retreating back down the corridor. “As long as it doesn’t have anything to do with me!” he calls back over his shoulder.
“I’ve got a new nurse starting today.” It’s not quite a shout, but her voice is the kind that carries, and it’s loud enough to reach him even as he gets to the other end of the Hub. “A traveler on a three-month contract.”
He pauses then to look back at her with a frown. “Okay. And?”
“She’s with HR for a couple hours doing her onboarding, but I want to introduce you when she gets down here. She’s good, I think you’ll like her,” Dana explains.
At that, Robby merely shrugs. “Sure, fine. Come find me when the time comes.”
Travel nurses come and go, even more frequently these days in a post-pandemic world. Often he finds that just about the time he gets accustomed to their presence – to the way they move around the department, their skills and their quirks and their scents – it’s time for them to move on. It keeps him on his toes, if nothing else. Keeps him from sinking too deep into the routine.
Still, he tries not to get too attached. Travels are impermanent, transient things. And the loss of a team member (a pack member, a soft, insistent voice whispers) always leaves him feeling a bit…off.
Sometimes you wonder why it’s taken you so long to accept a contract in Pittsburgh.
It’s not as though there is a shortage of available opportunities in Pennsylvania’s second-largest metropolitan area. There was a need for skilled nursing staff here just like there was everywhere else, and Pittsburgh provided the added benefits of familiarity and proximity to your parents. It is your mother’s hometown, the place where you had spent countless summers with your grandparents, the home of your second choice for universities back when you had been up to your eyeballs in SAT study material, spending your weekends applying all up and down the east coast. You know the city fairly well for somebody who still had yet to unpack her suitcases.
But as you emerge from the elevator into the buzzing madness of PTMC’s Emergency Department, a folder of HR paperwork clutched in your hands and a backpack slung over your shoulder, you meet the all-knowing eyes of Dana Evans, and you remember.
Dana quickly finishes the instructions she had been giving two other nurses and shoos them on their way. Smiling widely, she beckons you forward, thin arms spread wide as she emerges from behind the nurses’ station counter.
“There you are, kid!” she says affectionately, pulling you into a motherly embrace. “I was about to send the cavalry after you.”
It’s well past the time you were meant to have reported for your shift; your meeting with HR had dragged on longer than anyone had expected.
“I wish you would have,” you reply as you return the hug. Just like the bedroom you had woken up in this morning, she smells like nostalgia, like childhood. Soft, comforting, bittersweet. “The orientation is always a nightmare.”
At that, the older woman chuckles. “Well, glad to hear we’re living up to your expectations. Remind me again what number contract this is for you?”
“Five.” You can hear the weariness in your voice with the admission. Still, you smile wryly as you count them off on your fingers. “Cleveland, DC, New York, and Baltimore. I’m a one-woman traveling circus.”
It has been over a year now since you broke your lease in Philadelphia, shoved almost all of your belongings into a storage unit, and hit the road, and you’ve been on the move ever since. You had never felt the urge the run before that day, never looked at the city and the people that raised you and thought to yourself, “I need to be somewhere else – anywhere else.” The choice to upend your entire life hadn’t exactly been planned, but heartbreak had proven to be a powerful catalyst.
It had taken months to stop feeling like you were running away from something and to start feeling like you were running toward something. Freedom, independence, a sense of self-competence and capability that you had never been given the opportunity to develop. You’ve grown so much over the last year that you’ve begun to wonder…would this new version of you be strong enough to go back?
Of course, Pittsburgh isn’t Philly. But here, in your godmother’s ER, is the closest you have allowed yourself to get to “going home” in months.
Oblivious to your inner turmoil, Dana – your mother’s oldest friend, your aunt in all but name – pats you on the shoulder and gestures for you to follow her. “C’mon. I’ll show you where you can put your stuff.”
The rest of the morning flies by in a blur of new names and new faces, both staff and patients alike. Dana fetches you a set of scrubs in the PTMC-standard nursing gray, checks to make sure your brand-new badge works to log you in to all of their systems, then cuts you loose to shadow with another nurse named Perlah. It’s all par for the course, standard first-shift stuff; by now, you’re deeply familiar with the feeling of drinking from a firehose that comes with trying to digest everything you need to learn and remember about your new workplace. Thankfully, the Beta woman has a sincere, steady energy, and although she doesn’t go out of her way to make anything easier for you, she also doesn’t do anything to make your life more difficult, which is more than you can say for the reception you’ve received on other assignments.
By lunchtime, your impression of the PTMC ED is one of a highly-competent, close-knit staff with a diverse range of personalities and skillsets that are all trying desperately to keep their heads above water amidst the chaos. To your eyes, they seem to be succeeding, though you suspect it is a hard-won success. It’s clear that the lean headcount and the scarcity of beds is wearing on everyone.
You are about halfway through the lunch that Benji had packed for you that morning when you get pulled back out onto the floor. Shoving your lunchbox into the staff refrigerator, brushing crumbs off your scrubs, you find yourself smiling. In your experience, the departments with the biggest staffing problems are the fastest to soften toward your presence. On the one hand, they are the ones who would benefit the most from more permanent, full-time nurses, which can foster more than a little resentment toward those on travel contracts. On the other, however, the sooner you have the opportunity to prove yourself useful, the sooner the team will be willing to bring you into the fold. And goodness knows there are plenty of opportunities here to be useful.
Something else you notice right away is the distribution of designations among the staff. You wish, in this day and age, that it wasn’t such a notable feature of this department, but having now worked in more than your fair share of Emergency departments, you know well enough how their staffing protocols tend to heavily favor Alphas and Betas. There tends to be this antiquated mentality among hospital leadership that the ED is too high-risk, too fast-paced, too physically dangerous for the tender sensibilities of Omegas. Not to mention the potential liability issues of allowing unmated Omegas in the presence of volatile Alpha patients. Intoxication, withdrawal symptoms, psychiatric events, sudden-onset ruts, just regular old aggression, all of it posed an increased risk to Omega healthcare workers in comparison to Alphas and Betas.
You have grown used to being one of perhaps two (if you were lucky) Omega staff members in an ED at a given time. In contrast, during the first few hours of your first shift at PTMC, you meet no less than three Omega doctors and two other Omega nurses, and they all seem fully integrated into the social structure of the team. Perhaps you might actually be able to make a few friends while you’re here…
You catch a spare moment here and there to connect with Dana, which is both pleasant and deeply bizarre, as you have only ever known her as family and not as your superior in a work environment. Still, you quickly find that there isn’t much difference between the two sides of your mother’s friend. Even if Charge Nurse Dana comes with a tougher hide and a sharper tongue, at the heart of her, she is still the same warm, empathetic, powerful woman you have known since childhood. Having a familiar face nearby – even when you know she has a million priorities other than you – is strangely comforting.
During one of these rare minutes of downtime, you find yourself deep in conversation with Dana and a medical student named Victoria when a tall, broad-shouldered figure sweeps by the Central Hub, two other staff members hot on his heels. They’re all clad in black scrubs – EM physicians then – though the man leading the charge appears to be wearing cargo pants instead of a typical pair of scrub bottoms. He is dark-haired, middle-aged, and seemingly in a hurry, but even in the handful of seconds it takes for him to breeze by and disappear into Trauma 2, he catches your attention immediately.
There’s something in the way he carries himself, the way he moves with urgency and absolute clarity of purpose. There is an air of authority to him that is unmistakable, the weight of it solid and heavy, seasoned with age and experience. Granted, he’s too far away and gone too soon for you to deduce much more, but regardless, you would bet your first paycheck that this man is an Alpha.
The errant thought crosses your mind that he must smell divine.
Victoria follows your gaze, watches you as you watch him duck into the trauma bay, and nods knowingly.
“That’s Dr. Robby. He’s the attending on shift today,” she explains, answering your unspoken question.
At that, Dana glances up from her computer screen. “I’ve been trying to pin him down all afternoon – I want to introduce you.”
You nod in easy acquiescence. Even if Perlah had kept you away from the major traumas for your first shift, filling your hours with triage and lower-acuity cases, it was only a matter of time before you would be given the same freedoms and the same responsibilities as any of the other nurses on staff. It would make sense for you to meet as many of the physicians you would be working with as possible.
The opportunity doesn’t come until hours later.
Around you, the day shift draws to a close as members of the night shift staff begin to trickle in one by one. Perlah hovers at your shoulder as you wrap up your charting, her supervision required by policy but not in practice; you’ve used the same charting system in three other hospitals. You are in the middle of documenting the wound care you had administered to an 83-year-old diabetic man’s foot when Dana taps you on the shoulder and beckons you to follow her. Quickly as you can manage, you save your work, lock the computer, and jog after her.
You catch up to her at the South nurses’ station, only to find that it’s not a case that has prompted her to pull you away from your terminal. Instead, she seems to have finally cornered the mysterious attending from earlier. The older man has his hip propped against the nearest work surface, his feet crossed at the ankles, and his head bent over a tablet as he reads lab results. His high forehead creases with a deep frown as he reads, a distorted reflection of the screen visible in the lenses of the round-framed glasses perched on the end of his nose.
“Robby,” Dana says pointedly, hitting him an arched-brow stare that you recognize from your childhood. Long summer weekends at your parents’ lake house with Dana and Benji and their two daughters taught you well enough what it looks like when Dana Evans has run out of patience.
Thankfully, Dr. Robby appears to recognize it, as well. His eyes – a deep, soft brown – flick up to meet hers over the rim of his glasses.
“Dana,” he replies, just as pointed and more than a bit facetious. You smother a smile.
If the charge nurse is irritated by the response, she doesn’t give it away. Instead, she gestures to you. “Told you we’d have a fresh face today. This is our newest traveler.” You duck your chin at him in greeting as she introduces you by name. To you, she adds, “Dr. Robinavitch, Chief of Emergency Medicine.”
Chief. You add that new piece of information to the model you have created of this man in your mind, and it slots right in with the rest like a puzzle piece. Of course, he’s the chief. He would have to be. Only someone with institutional power and all the baked-in clout that came with it could carry themselves with such…casual gravitas.
You offer the chief attending a polite, personable smile and reach to shake his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” you say as he grips the meat of your hand in his own. His grip is strong but not domineering, and his hand is huge. You wouldn’t consider yourself to be especially small, but his grasp dwarfs yours in a way that makes you feel almost dainty. It brings heat to your cheeks, makes your mouth run dry.
This close, even with the hospital-issued scent patches clinging to the insides of his wrists, even with the layers of antiseptic that cloak everyone in the hospital, you can finally smell him. You resist the sudden heaviness in your eyelids as you take in his scent – earthy, grounded, comforting. You detect oakmoss and cedarwood, perhaps a whiff of high-quality black tea. It reminds you of an old library or perhaps a cabin nestled in a damp wood.
It makes you feel strangely safe, like you could unclench your jaw in his presence.
Now that you have identified the source, you realize that the whole department smells like him. His scent all over everything – the computer terminals, the Pyxis, the exam rooms. Beneath the bleach and the hand sanitizer and the metallic notes of suppressants, everything carries the scent of this man. He permeates the air, leaves faint traces everywhere he touches. A silent claim – his territory, his people.
Still holding your hand, Dr. Robinavitch blinks. His dark, weary eyes pin you to the spot. “The, uh – pleasure’s all mine,” he replies. There’s a question in the pitch of his voice, and you watch as the frown returns to his brow. His nostrils flare, a gesture you ought to find rude, but instead, it merely makes your neck feel warm. “I – uh, I’m sorry, have we… Have we met? There’s something familiar…”
He glances between you and Dana then, as though trying to add up something in his head, and for the first time, you realize that Dana hasn’t shared anything with him about your relationship. He’s wondering why you smell like his charge nurse. And of course, he can’t ask you outright; a male Alpha attending asking a female Omega nurse anything about her scent was the sort of thing anti-harassment trainings were made of.
For the span of a breath, you consider brushing off the question. Really, it’s none of his business. It isn’t as though Dana had been a part of your hiring process, and while close, you aren’t technically family, which means that there were no policies in place that would prevent the two of you from working the same shifts. From a staffing perspective, there is no conflict of interest here.
But there’s something endearing about the confusion on his face, something that gives you the insane urge to pat him reassuringly on the head. You got the impression that nothing happens in this ED without this man’s knowledge; his ignorance in this situation must be maddening for him.
So before he can open his mouth and say something he might regret, you find yourself offering, “Dana’s my godmother. I’ve been travel nursing for about a year now, but I chose PTMC for my next contract because I knew I would have someone local I could stay with. I’m crashing in her and Benji’s guest room. Much cheaper than trying to find a sublet or an Airbnb.”
You can feel Dana’s eyes on you, and though she says nothing, you’re certain you have surprised her with the disclosure. For the sake of your reception by the rest of the department, you know she would never have revealed your relationship without your blessing. You love her for it, of course. But you were equally certain that if anyone had any misconceptions about any favoritism you might receive, those concerns would be quickly put to rest the more time you spent under her authority.
Dana was far more likely to push you harder because of your relationship than she was to coddle you.
As for the Alpha still holding your hand, this seems to provide him with enough pieces of the puzzle that the deep wrinkles between his eyebrows smooth, and the slight downturn at the corners of his mouth softens.
“Ah,” he says, eyes darting back and forth once more between you and the woman at your side. “That…certainly explains a few things. Well.” He clears his throat and finally drops his grip on your hand, letting it fall limply back at your side. “Welcome to the Pitt. I, uh, hope we haven’t scared you away after your first day.”
“Not at all.” You offer him an earnest smile. “It’s intense, but nothing I can’t handle. And everyone’s been very welcoming and helpful so far. I’m excited to be part of the team.”
Loosing a breathy sound somewhere between a scoff and surprised laugh, the attending scratches the back of his neck and shifts on his feet. “Ha. Well. I’m glad to hear it. You know, normally I’d just…direct you to Dana, give you the same spiel I give everybody about how she runs the place and how you can go to her if you need anything, but something tells me you already know.”
The wry expression on his face makes you laugh. “I do,” you agree. “Though if you have any other pieces of advice, I’ll happily take them.”
The question seems to take him aback for a moment, and you watch as he gives you a once-over with his eyes. He doesn’t linger too long anywhere, doesn’t hesitate on any of the bits of you that typically get the attention of men, but you aren’t naïve. He’s scanning for evidence of your designation.
You know what he will see. The scent patches on your neck, partially hidden by the collar of your baby pink undershirt. The matching ones on your wrists, these fully exposed by your rolled-up sleeves. The distinct lack of bite marks.
With his proximity, you wonder if he can smell you the way you can smell him.
You wonder what he thinks. You wonder if he likes it.
Blinking rapidly, Dr. Robinavitch seems to shake himself out of a stupor as he says, “Uh… I guess I would say don’t be afraid to lean on your team. This place isn’t for the faint of heart. We’re all here to support each other, so don’t feel like you have to go it alone.”
You recognize the platitude for what it is, the easy thoughtlessness with which he delivers this nothing-burger nugget of wisdom. But you would be lying if you said you didn’t feel a twinge of annoyance at his words. It’s exactly the kind of gentle, well-intentioned condescension you’re familiar with – as a woman, as an Omega, as someone who is perpetually the newbie, who never sticks around long enough to accumulate the kind of respect earned by those with greater tenure. This man has only just met you, and there is a part of him that already thinks you soft.
You are soft, of course, but he cannot possibly know that.
You wrap up your pleasantries with a close-lipped smile and the unexpected weight of disappointment in your gut.
Each of you goes your separate ways then, eager to tie up the shift’s loose ends as best as you can. Dana greets the incoming charge nurse with an arm around her shoulders, the redhead clearly a friend, while you give report to the night shift nurse taking over Perlah’s patients. In spite of your exhaustion and what you feel is a rather lack-luster presentation, you earn yourself a pleased smile and an approving pat on the shoulder from your Beta mentor. Embarrassingly, the implicit praise gives you a zing of energy that reinvigorates you, and you find yourself humming a tune as you gather your backpack and water bottle from your new locker. It’s nice to be recognized, to be appreciated.
You spot Dr. Robby one more time on your way out the door, the older man chatting with one of the other Omegas you had met earlier that day – a young male resident, friendly and kind, with wide blue eyes and mousy-golden curls. The attending’s arms are folded across his chest, but he looks at the resident with such softness in his gaze that it almost stops you short. It’s nothing like the way he had looked at you earlier, with confusion and mild bewilderment, as though he hadn’t quite known what to do with you. You had wondered whether that might be an Alpha quirk of his, if he struggled to interact with Omegas in the workplace, but apparently not.
Apparently it’s just you.
Something tightens in your chest at the realization, though you don’t allow yourself to pause and examine it further. Instead, you pull the keys to your beat-up old CRV from the pocket of your backpack and head for the parking garage.
It’s for the best that you keep things…detached, you think as you wave good-bye to Dana, promising to park on the curb so she would be able to pull into the driveway. This job is temporary; PTMC is only one of many hospitals you have called home over the last year. You’re good at what you do – good at learning quickly, good at earning the trust of your coworkers, good at turning yourself into exactly what the team needed until it was time to move on. It’s a hard-won skillset, being able to connect and separate, connect and separate, over and over. And you’ve created a good life for yourself doing it.
The last thing you need right now is a man messing up your plans, you remind yourself. Especially when the man in question is an unmated Alpha.
That night, for the first time in months, Robby stops and picks up groceries on his way home.
Well, not exactly on his way home. He goes quite a bit out of his way, all the way to the other side of the Allegheny to the Squirrel Hill neighborhood. He tries not to visit this part of town too often – too many childhood memories, too sweet and too painful and too much when he is already worn thin from the weight of his work. But he finds himself there anyway, at the same kosher grocery his grandmother had favored when he was a child, and he thanks the bone-deep fatigue he had awoken with that morning that had prompted him to drive to work today rather than walk.
He shops thoughtlessly, allowing his limbs to take him where he needs to go. His body seems to know what he’s looking for even if Robby himself hasn’t given it any conscious consideration. By the time he arrives at the checkout counter, there is a modest collection of ingredients in his shopping basket that he pays for in cash.
By the time he stumbles through the front door of his house, it’s nearly 9:00 PM.
There was a time – perhaps not so long ago, though it feels like lifetimes now – when Robby loved to cook. There are cookbooks in the little cabinet above his refrigerator; some are glossy and modern, while others curl and yellow with age, precious heirlooms inherited from his grandparents. There are heavy-bottomed stainless-steel pans hanging from a rack mounted to the kitchen wall, their exposed surfaces collecting layer upon layer of dust. There is an oversized, over-featured gas grill on his back patio rusting beneath a protective tarp. He hasn’t touched any of it in years.
For a moment, he pauses, bags of groceries in his arms, backpack still slung over his shoulder, and wonders. He’s exhausted. The sun set long ago. His house is dim and quiet. On most nights like this, he barely has enough energy to shower the scent of the hospital off his skin and collapse into bed.
What has gotten into him?
When he poses the question to himself, he comes away empty-handed. All he knows for certain is that the day had opened up a pit of longing in his chest. It’s a homesickness that hollows him out, that makes every heartbeat feel effortful, that makes him feel unmoored and fragile in a way that knocks the breath out of him. The feeling does not bear dwelling in for long; otherwise, he will surely fall apart.
So instead, he turns on the TV for some much-needed background noise, and he moves.
He grabs a deep, high-walled sauté pan from the rack and scrubs it until it shines. He dices chicken thighs, minces onions, and grates carrots. He rinses buckwheat over the sink until the water runs clear, dumps it into the pan, and douses it all in vegetable broth. It’s so simple, so easy it almost shocks him, but in the end, it is precisely as he remembers. The memories have not left his muscles after all this time, and those memories guide him now. The rich, nutty, savory fragrance of the kasha fills his kitchen, reaches behind his ribcage, and softens something there.
It smells like his grandmother’s kitchen. It smells like home.
He plates up a serving for himself, packing the rest into a small stack of meal prep containers Heather had bought him years ago. He can count on one hand the number of times he’s used them, but he’s grateful for them now. Perhaps he will actually take the time to eat something during his next shift if he knows he has a home-cooked meal to look forward to.
As he takes the first bite, he nearly chokes and needs to reach for a glass of water as he struggles to swallow. Not because of the food, he realizes, but because of the feeling, and it is then that he understands.
He still has them.
All the parts of himself he thought he had shed so long ago. The parts that had granted him the softness that nearly killed him when Adamson died, the parts that had hurt too badly to keep. Those parts of him hadn’t abandoned him. They had been smothered, scorched, excised like a malignancy that threatened to poison the rest of him, but he hadn’t gotten them all. He is, it seems, still human. Still a man.
Robby takes another bite of kasha, his eyes prick with the threat of tears, and for the first time in recent memory, he feels…alive.