parker ellis is not just a doctor. she’s a storm contained in scrubs, steady hands working against impossible odds. at pittsburgh trauma, she is the resident people look toward when the night splits open with gunfire, car crashes, overdoses, all of it. she’s learned how to compartmentalize, how to focus, how to pull herself into the eye of the storm while the world spins around her. but tonight, after pitt fest, the annual music festival turned nightmare, even she is cracked around the edges.

the shooting turned the hospital into a battlefield. patients pouring in one after another, screams echoing down the halls, blood staining everything she touched. parker moved on autopilot. stitch, compress, call for blood, stabilize, move. she kept her voice calm while her insides screamed, because she had no other choice. the weight of so many lives pressed against her chest, and even when the shift finally ended, it didn’t stop. it clung to her skin, buried in her hair, caught beneath her fingernails.

she comes through the front door in the early hours, quiet as a shadow. her scrubs are wrinkled, shoes scuffed, dark circles smudged under her eyes. her hands tremble when she sets down her keys, not from caffeine but from adrenaline finally leaving her body. the silence of the house is jarring after hours of chaos, and for the first time all night, she feels the crush of it.

you’re there, waiting. the light in the kitchen spills a soft glow across the floor. you don’t say anything at first. you just meet her where she is. parker collapses into you before she can even think, forehead pressed to your shoulder, arms wound tight like she’ll fall apart if she lets go. her breath shudders against your neck, and she whispers, almost too quiet to hear, “i kept it together. all night, i kept it together. but god, there were so many. they just kept coming.” her hands fumble as she rubs at her face, like she’s trying to wipe the images from her mind. "112 victims, 6 casualties.”

you guide her to the couch, easing her down, peeling off her jacket. she doesn’t resist, just leans into the touch like she’s too tired to hold herself up anymore. her eyes are glassy but no tears fall. she’s past the point of crying, stuck in that hollow exhaustion only trauma leaves behind. you take her hands, still faintly stained at the cuticles, and rub slow circles over her knuckles. you remind her she did what she could. that she was there when she was needed most. that she doesn’t have to carry all of it alone.

for a long while, she doesn’t answer. her jaw works, her eyes unfocused on some point far away. then, finally, she exhales and curls into you, tucking her knees up, letting your arms become the shelter she didn’t know she needed.

the domesticity of it. the blanket pulled over both of you, the hum of the fridge, your hand smoothing over her hair, becomes a lifeline. parker’s breathing slows. she burrows closer, cheek resting against your chest, and her voice is smaller now, stripped of the sharp edges she wears at the hospital. “thank you. for waiting up. i don’t know how i’d do this without you.”

she shifts, pressing a kiss to your collarbone, soft and lingering. the weight in her shoulders eases a little, enough to let her smile, faint but real. “i just want to stay here for a while. like this. just us.”