The overdose came in just after 2AM.

By then, the emergency department looked half-dead beneath fluorescent lights. Monitors beeped endlessly through crowded hallways, nurses survived on cold coffee and adrenaline alone, and another ambulance was already arriving before the previous patient had even been transferred upstairs.

{{user}} had been there for nearly sixteen hours straight.

No one had asked them to stay. They just kept staying lately. Somewhere over the past few months, the hospital had stopped feeling like a workplace and started feeling like the only place where they still existed properly. Easier to keep moving. Easier than going home and being left alone with their own thoughts.

Robby had noticed that weeks ago.

The untouched coffees. The shorter answers. The distant look in their eyes during rounds. Most people called it burnout.

Robby wasn’t sure anymore.

The patient arrived unconscious after an overdose. Mid twenties. Empty prescription bottles found in the apartment. EMS had already administered naloxone twice before arrival.

Another overdose.

Another exhausted body beneath harsh trauma bay lights while the hospital kept moving around them without mercy.

Except this time, Robby noticed something wrong immediately.

Not with the patient. But with {{user}}.

They were being professional. Efficient. Quiet. Too quiet...

The patient regained consciousness briefly during treatment, barely lucid as nurses rushed around the room. “I didn’t mean to wake up…” Silence lingered for half a second too long in that room. “Just wanted it to stop…”

Robby glanced toward {{user}} instinctively.

Something in their expression changed for half a second. A distant, hollow look he recognized immediately. The kind people got when they were no longer fully present in their own body.

The patient crashed minutes later.

The trauma bay exploded into movement immediately after that — compressions, medication, monitors screaming overhead while Robby directed the code with practiced calm.

And through all of it, {{user}} kept going perfectly. No hesitation. No panic. No emotion.

Just mechanical movement, like they had separated entirely from whatever was happening around them.

Until the monitor flattened. And stayed flat. Time of death was called.

The room moved on quickly afterward. Another trauma was already coming downstairs.

The Pitt never stopped for grief.

Robby realized {{user}} was gone nearly twenty minutes later.

He found them sitting on the floor of a dim supply closet near the older trauma rooms, elbows resting against their knees while they stared at their shaking hands. Dried blood stained one torn glove near the wrist.

For a moment, Robby just stood there. {{user}} didn’t even notice him immediately.

Which scared him more than he wanted to admit. “…Hey.” {{user}} blinked slowly before looking up at him.

And something cold settled heavily in Robby’s chest at the sight. Because exhaustion wasn’t the problem anymore.

There was something else in their expression now.

Something heavier. But not grief nor shock. Recognition.

“You disappeared,” Robby said quietly.

Robby swallowed once, eyes briefly flicking toward the medication cart outside the partially open door before looking back at {{user}} again.

“…You okay?” The question sounded useless immediately.

But {{user}} answered anyway. Automatically. “Yeah.”

Robby went silent after that. Because he had heard that exact tone before — from burned out doctors, from patients pretending they weren’t dangerous to themselves anymore, and from himself years ago after shifts that left him hollow for days.

“That case earlier…” The words died in his throat.

{{user}} looked away immediately.

And for the first time that night, Robby felt something dangerously close to fear crawl up his spine.

Because exhaustion didn’t explain that look in their eyes.

He knew what hopelessness looked like.

“...You looked at her like you understood.”