Shawn Hatosy as Dr. Jack Abbott The Pitt, 8:00 P.M

obsessed how no one knows the name of Langdon’s daughter and every fic calls her something different — this is what fandom is all about

next little blurb will be the morning after shy/night shift reader goes home to abbot's place for the first time!!! it'll be like combining all my tiny posts recently especially the one about his home. yay <3

debating posting this late tonight when maybe no one will be awake or wait until tomorrow. thoughts???

THE PITT 7:00 A.M.

abbot disappointed at his joke flopping.. girl look who you're talking to

he's traumatized and he's funny and he yaps and he goes to therapy and he cares and and and he was made in a lab for me ily jack abbot

soft-spoken but bright shy reader who loves day shift. she can hide behind the scenes, take her time with the waiting room patients while letting the other residents duke it out for the more urgent, trauma cases that roll in. her skills aren’t rusty but she just prefers a different approach, still in love with the quickness and urgency of the er but not in the right mind set for the competition and favoritism. but after pitt-fest she really can’t look at day shift the same again. becomes even quieter, even more withdrawn, flinches at every noise and not defending herself when the occasional patient chews her out for taking too long.

it’s not good for you. not sustainable. robby thinks the solution is to give you a change of scenery. asks if you’d want to give night shift a try for a week or two. it’s quieter—though he makes sure to mouth that word instead of actually saying it—and in a twisted way, a little more balanced. it actually calms down eventually, gets into a lull where you can catch up on notes and eat granola bars while the place fills with some snores. you can’t lie, it does sound pretty appealing. so you take a chance and switch with some other resident who grumbles something about finally being able to get some sleep. but you’re not phased. maybe this is what you need.

you know the night shift. you thought you knew them well, but it turns out you just know them regular. you’ve interacted during trade offs, those group bonding activities they really try to push every other month, and throughout little stories during the day, reports of something funny or crazy that happened during the hours of the infamous night shift. but actually being one of them takes you a little by surprise.

shen has a secret drawer of snacks in central. underneath the handle there's a label that says something inconspicuous, and even then, the food is hidden under a stack of papers and a box of pens. your second night he shows you the hiding spot, so you don't have to run to your locker for your protein bar like yesterday. ellis is the one you reminds you not to get sloppy just because it's late. you don't know how she can tell, but your body hasn't really adjusted yet. you got a few hours of sleep but the sun was really bright and the dark grey curtains that had always been sufficiently dark were suddenly not. she's the one who airdrops you the link to proper black-out curtains, standing somewhere across the room when you look up to thank her, giving you a nod.

but you're still deciding if this is really better for you. it's hard to leave the routine you've known for almost two years and expect a decision overnight, even though you do expect it.

at the end of your first week, the curtains have been delivered and you're sleeping a lot more soundly. from seven to ten you handle the overflow from the chairs until it's more or less settled. you're never really going to catch up, but there's more movement some nights than others. you report your orders to ellis, make sure to debrief shen every hour on the status of your beds. the charge nurse tells you who next up and where to take them, and you do, no cherry-picking allowed. it might be a fraction less busy, but it just seems a little more organized, more managable. you might be able to see yourself here for a little longer.

and of course, he doesn't help matters. dr. abbot. shen and ellis and the other handful of residents keep the place running but dr. jack abbot is what keeps all of you running. you knew that robby had told him something about you, something about how you need an eye on you for now, that you're not acting like yourself. you know this because abbot checks in on you no less than once every two hours, more if you're swarmed.

you didn't think he'd be interested in hearing about the allergic reaction in bed eight or the sprained wrist in six, but he does. watches you with that gaze from across the room, observing, noticing. you don't know exactly what, but you hope it's good. he stays a couple steps behind you for some of the first few shifts. when you closes the curtain and move too quickly, you've even bumped into him, not realizing how close he was. you stammer out an apology while his hand is on your shoulder, steadying you from losing any more of your balance.

"doin' okay, kid?" he asks, and you hope the heat on your face isn't as visible to him as it feels to you.

"y-yeah. i'm good. sorry-"

he settles down eventually. then there's the other things.

a hot cup of coffee at nine-thirty, closer to the ending half of one of the bigger rushes. you're getting your bearings, yawning at the screen while you type out some orders. he just sets it in front of you and walks away, doesn't even stay long enough to hear your thank you. (but he does hear it, and walks away from you smiling. not that you could see it.)

tea closer to one in the morning. you could try to get sleep but that's pretty impossible, and you think mostly frowned upon. the day shift doesn't get to sleep, so it'd be unfair if you snuck off for a nap. and besides, the er never really quiets down that much—there's always some car accident or late-night injury while making dessert. the middle of the night is a haven for falls—in the hallway on the way to the bathroom, getting out of the car in the dark, missing a step in a sleepy state.

so tea. energy drinks aren't really your thing, but english breakfast or earl grey has just enough caffeine to get you through to another hot cup of coffee around four or five. but somehow, without you ever telling abbot how you take your coffee and tea, he's figured it out. each cup is always perfect, always exactly what you needed.

the silly girl inside you thinks it's so sweet. your attending is so caring, so attentive to everyone on his night shift. you hear him take over for shen when he's had four or five back to back, interrupting ellis before she takes on another, instructing her to go take five minutes and that he'll deal with it.

and now you're one of them, and you get cups of coffee and tea, gentle encouragement with nods from across the room, asking you questions throughout so you don't feel like you're missing anything from the day shift. he's even gotten you to trend to incoming traumas with him. at first you'd tried what worked during the day—letting the others fight for it, but it's not like that past a certain time. in fact, shen and ellis think you should take all the incoming traumas, get more experience that way.

"incoming," jack says, and you look up at him, and then around to see if you can find who he's talking to. there's no one else but you and the nurses. "with me, kid, let's go."

shit. you follow his lead, not exactly sure how to tell him that this isn't the part of the job that you're perfect at. you're better with patients who are awake and alert, families that want answers, people that need things explained to them with patience.

"you sure you don't want someone else to assist? i'm-i'm not-"

"i want you to assist," he says, handing you a gown and then pulling one on himself. "turn," and you comply immediately. he ties the neck and back for you, and then you tie his. you reach for gloves but he's already pulled ones in your size.

the paramedics roll in, rattling off a long list of things that you try to organize in your mind. the patient is groaning and bloody, shirt ripped in half and mumbling something you can't make out from over the oxygen mask. you realize the last time you'd really been forced to deal with incoming traumas was the day of the shooting, and your mind wanders briefly. what if he liked this shirt? where is his family at? it's two in the morning, they're probably sound asleep, about to wake up to the worst news in the world if you don't get it together and save him.

"hey," you hear jack's voice over the milion other noises in the room. it's grounding. it whips you into shape, answering his questions and ordering scans and drugs and not stopping until his heart is stable and surgery is aware that he's coming.

outside of the trauma room, you rip off the bloody gown and gloves. when you turn to confront jack, he's already right behind you, the two of you almost colliding.

"i'm so sorry. i-i don't know what happens in there, i just, i freeze, and-"

you feel a hand guiding you, hovering over your lower back. so warm that you can almost feel the heat radiating from him. he takes you into a quiet, empty little corner and doesn't start talking until you meet his eyes.

"what you went through, it's not nothing. it's scary for all of us, but especially if it's the first time."

"i've been here two years. it's not the first time. i shouldn't be reacting like this."

"and if this was happening to me, would you tell me that i was overreacting? hm?" the way he asks the question and the way his eyes don't leave yours makes your face feel warm again. "there's nothing wrong with needing to ease yourself back into it. i'm not gonna lose it if you can't answer every question. no one's judging you for needing a minute to get started. but if you don't stop judging yourself, you'll never get better. and i need you to get better, okay? the whole night shift does."

you nod, coming to terms with what he said. and for the first time in a long time, you do feel better. the patient's fine. jack's fine. you're fine.

until one day, he refills your water bottle for you. cold water, a little bit of ice but not too much. the bottle is easter yellow, the brightest thing at the desks at central, and it looks weird in your attending's hands.

"oh," you get out, a little softly. it's two in the morning, and your tea is almost empty, but you might need another cup. you're not alert enough to notice that your bottle even went missing. maybe fifteen minutes ago, you tried to take a sip but it was empty. your eyes flick between the yellow of your bottle and the brown of jack's eyes for a moment, brain not functioning. "thank you."

"no problem," he says, walking away before you can even process what happened. besides you, the nurses try to conceal their laugh. across from you, you see ellis and shen whispering to each other, but you can't put two and two together.

"is everything okay?" you call out to them. they make their way over, leaning against the counter while stretching. when you look next to you again, the nurses are gone.

"yeah," ellis starts. "it's nothing-" you interrupt.

"-what? did i do something-" those little fears creep their way in, starting at the back of your neck, spreading like ice water throughout you. it seems stupid, but you've always been anxious, and sometimes your field helps you stop being anxious, and instead puts you in go-mode. it's what you used to like about the day shift. so much to do, there's not enough time to sit and think about what everyone else is doing and thinking all the time. but night shift is just a smidge different.

"no-"

"really, it's nothing-"

"-it's just that he's never filled my water-"

"-or gotten me coffee-"

"-i don't even think he knows what my water bottle looks like-"

"-and he's definitely never asked me if i drink tea-"

"oh."

oh.

Shawn Hatosy as Dr. Jack Abbot THE PITT | 1.15

🫵 he doesn't want to be the bee that protects the hive