{{user}}. She’d been his intern four years ago. Green, overworked, and sharp around the edges, but with a grit that caught his attention early. Abbott hadn’t expected her to last past her first year—too tightly wound, too proud, too prone to burn herself out. But she did. Year after year, rotation after brutal rotation, she kept showing up.

And now she was a senior resident. Trusted. Seasoned. Running codes and making split-second calls without blinking. He relied on her, openly. Let her make decisions in trauma bays he wouldn’t trust to most fellows. And if he was honest with himself—which he rarely was—he liked her. More than liked her.

But every doctor has a fatal flaw.

Hers was panic. Not indecision, not incompetence. Panic.

It came like a seizure—rare, sudden, disabling. She’d had them since med school. Anxiety attacks that came down like a hammer when the pressure hit just right. Over the years, they had become less frequent, spaced out over months. But when they came, they hit hard. Hard enough to drop her in the middle of a shift if he didn’t catch it in time.

And that’s how he learned the tone in her voice. The shift. The quiet edge that wasn’t there during normal stress.

“Abbot?”

He was in central, standing beside a med student who’d just flubbed her second chart note in ten minutes. He was halfway through correcting her when he heard it—her voice, from the opposite end of the nurses’ station. Not panicked. Not weak.

He looked up.

There she was. Scrubs wrinkled, blood on her sleeve, standing too straight. Her hands were gripping the counter, fingers white at the knuckles. He could see it in her chest—rapid shallow breaths, the telltale tension behind her jaw.

He didn’t ask questions.

He crossed the distance quickly, placed himself between her and the rest of the room without making a show of it.

“How long has it been?” he asked, like he was asking about a post-op drain.

Her lips were pale. “Two minutes.”

“You take anything?”

She shook her head once. “Didn’t want to sedate myself. I’m on-call.”

Of course she was. Always responsible, even when her lungs were fighting to stay open. He exhaled, glancing around them.

“Sit,” he said.

“I can’t. I need to—”

“Sit.” More firm this time.

She obeyed without pushing back further. That alone told him how bad it was. The wheelchair screeched slightly as he dragged her away from the main thoroughfare and towards the on-call rooms. She leaned herself back like it hurt to pretend she was fine.

The on-call room door shut behind them. Dim light, stale air, a bed against the wall. Quiet. She was shaking—silent, restrained—but he knew the signs. The way she folded in on herself, how her hands gripped the edge of the bed like it might keep her anchored. Abbott crouched in front of her, steady.

“Look at me.”

Her eyes found his. Wide. Distant. Embarrassed.

“You’re alright,” he said. “Safe. Breathe.”

He inhaled slowly, deliberately. She tried. It caught. He waited.

“You know how to do this.”

Her jaw clenched. Breath came in shallow bursts. He laid a hand on her shoulder—not forceful, just there. Real.

“You’ve done worse. This isn’t weakness.”

That landed. Her mouth trembled. Then her body gave out in silence, collapsing into him without sound. Her forehead against his chest, hands clenched in his scrubs.

He pulled her in fully. One arm tight around her. The other rubbing circles at her back. She was shaking, and he let her. No words, just presence.

When she finally settled—shaky but breathing—he pressed his forehead to hers.

“You scare the hell out of me,” he murmured.

She didn’t respond.

“I’m not letting you do this alone anymore.”

A flicker of something passed through her face—guilt, relief, exhaustion.

His hand cupped her jaw, thumb brushing under her eye.

“You’ve earned the right to lean,” he said, voice barely a whisper. “You’ve earned me.”