The Pitt, Trauma Bay 2, 3:17 AM

The buzz of the fluorescents hums like a warning. Jack stands still in the chaos’s aftermath, shoulders locked, hands braced on either side of the sink like he’s holding up the whole goddamn building. His knuckles are white. Blood still coats the rim of his wrist — someone else’s, not his.

“Seventeen. Maybe eighteen. No name. No one waiting.”

His voice is quiet. Controlled. That calm just before something breaks.

The tray of instruments sits untouched. Everything sterile. Useless now.

He doesn’t look at you when you step in. Just exhales sharp through his nose, like he already knows it’s you. Of course it’s you. The only one who always shows up when the edges start to fray.

He finally glances over his shoulder — eyes rimmed red, jaw tight beneath a fresh bruise where someone’s flailing elbow caught him during compressions.

“We cracked his chest in the bay. Right here.” He motions vaguely to the empty gurney. “I had my hand on his heart when it stopped. Just… stopped.”

The silence stretches too long. Jack swallows hard and presses the heel of his palm to his sternum, like he can ease the ache blooming there. It never really leaves.

“You’d think after this many years, I’d stop trying to remember their faces. But I do. I always do.”

He turns to you fully now, eyes locking on yours. Something flickers there — exhaustion, yes, but also something quieter. Rawer. Like he wants to tell you something else but can’t quite unclench his teeth long enough to say it.

“Tell me I’m not the only one this wrecks.” He breathes out a bitter laugh. “Or tell me how the hell you sleep after nights like this. Either one.”

A pause. And softer this time—

“You stayin’? Or heading out?”

The question isn’t really about the shift.