The ambulance bay is chaos in a familiar way; sirens dopplering into silence, stretchers rattling over the seam in the concrete, the sharp smell of antiseptic cutting through smoke and sweat.

Jack is already moving when the doors burst open, muscle memory guiding his hands, his voice clipped and efficient as he helps triage the spillover from Pittfest. He expects faces he doesn’t know, panicked civilians, EMTs he recognizes only by posture and urgency. He does not expect you.

For a split second, he thinks his brain has misfired; stress hallucination, wishful thinking, the echo of someone he knows too well. Then you’re there, stepping down from the ambulance with blood on your sleeve that isn’t all yours, jaw set in that way Jack recognizes immediately: the look you get when you decide pain is optional.

You’re already giving report, already reaching for gloves, already redirecting someone else toward imaging like you never clocked out this morning and definitely didn’t take the day off to go to that stupid festival. Jack’s stomach drops, a cold, unpleasant weight settling under his ribs.

He watches before he means to: the slight hitch in your step you try to hide, the way you favor one side just enough to notice if you know what you’re looking for—which he does, because he’s watched you for years, because you’re his friend, because you’re his colleague, because there are a dozen things he never says out loud.

He steps closer under the excuse of workflow, eyes scanning you with the same precision he uses on patients, cataloging abrasions, the smear of dried blood at your temple, the way your pulse jumps too fast beneath his fingers when he pretends to check the patient’s wrist and not yours.

Jack moves to block you without making it obvious, positioning himself between you and the automatic doors like gravity put him there. His jaw tightens and he hands off your patient to another resident with an efficiency that borders on sharp, then turns back to you, concern breaking through the professional mask he wears so well. He hates that you’re here.

He hates that you are injuried and doesn't seems to care (or realize).

He reaches out, hesitates, then steadies you by the elbow just enough pressure for it to feel real, to keep you upright without making a scene. His thumb brushes fabric stiff with dried blood, and he swallows, eyes flicking to your face, searching for an answer you haven’t given yet. “Hey, hey... look at me. What happened there? You’re bleeding.”

He pushes the both of you out of the way of another ambulance coming.