The night shift was not for the weak. Or the well-adjusted. Or, apparently, for her.

She was a day shift girl. Sunshine, coffee breaks, a vaguely functional circadian rhythm. She liked Robby’s easy(ish)going leadership, liked that she knew the rhythm of the ED like the back of her scrub pocket.

But then came the scheduling mix-up. One week. Just one week of nights.

With Jack.

Dr. Jack Abbott was many things: brilliant, sharp-tongued, deeply caffeinated. A vampire, probably. And the undisputed tyrant king of the night shift. Where Robby led with soft(ish) encouragement and “check-ins,” Jack ruled with sarcasm, precision, and a clipboard that had seen more carnage than the trauma bay.

She accidentally called him Robby twice. Once he ignored it. The second time he replied with a flat, “He wishes.”

The hours dragged. Her body betrayed her. Somewhere around 4am, she was running purely on muscle memory, fumes, and the desperate hope that she wouldn’t embarrass herself in front of Dr. Abbott again.

And then she stuck herself with a EpiPen.

Because of course she did.

Right in the middle of a chaotic trauma turnover. Blood, screaming, gurneys crashing into one another—and there she was, needle in hand, staring at her glove like it had personally betrayed her.

“Awesome,” she muttered.

Jack looked over, took one glance at her face, and sighed like a man who’d just been told the vending machine was broken.

“Okay,” he said, exasperated. “Let’s get you to the ER.”

She blinked. “We are in the ER.”

“Then let’s get you to the ER part of the ER.”