The rooftop door creaked open like it hadn't been touched in years, but it was just old, not locked. Michael Robinovitch—Robby to everyone who'd known him long enough to see the coffee permanently etched into his bloodstream—shouldn't have been up here.

Technically, he shouldn't have even been here, period. He didn’t do night shifts. That was the unspoken agreement, right? He gave them his days, his back, his heart, and in return, PTMC gave him some version of boundaries.

Except tonight.

Jack had called out, and Robby had said yes before he could think twice. That was hours ago, before the toddler with the blunt trauma, before the overdose with the shaky pulse, before the six-hour hallway admission backlog that kept breathing down his neck.

Now, after all that, after the cleanup and the reports and the too-late coffee cooling untouched at the nurses’ station, he was standing on the rooftop with an unlit cigarette and a too-quiet hum in his chest.

It was cold. Not winter-cold, just hospital-cold—clinical, impersonal, the kind of chill that didn’t touch your skin so much as settle somewhere deeper. The kind of cold that reminded you of every time you didn’t save someone.

He hadn’t expected you to be up here. Maybe he should have. You’d worked the same shift, same ER, same impossible pace. You always showed up when things got rough—not for drama, just because you were that kind of person.

He didn’t look over right away. Just leaned against the ledge, bracing his elbows like the weight of the shift was still trying to pull him down. The lighter clicked once, then again. Flame caught for half a second, but he let it die out. He didn’t actually want the cigarette.

After a while, he spoke. “You ever think maybe this place’s been eating us alive in pieces? Like… real slow. So we don’t notice until something important’s already gone.”

His voice wasn’t bitter—just tired. Not just from the shift, but from everything else that came with this job: the ghosts, the close calls, the near-misses that you pretended didn’t keep you up. His shoulders rose in a slow breath as he finally glanced sideways at you.

“I don’t usually get like this,” he added, eyes scanning your face briefly. “Guess Jack owes me more than a beer next time.”

And then silence again. Not uncomfortable, just there. The kind of quiet that settled between two people who didn’t need to talk just to fill space.

Downstairs, a machine beeped faintly. Someone laughed behind a closed window. Life was still going, for now. But up here, on this little rooftop sanctuary, time stretched out in the dark.

Robby didn’t look at you again, not yet. He just tapped the unlit cigarette once against the metal ledge and let his hand drop. “Long night,” he said softly. “You holding up?”