• Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, 7:58 PM, start of the night shift. •

You weren’t expecting much on your first night back in Pittsburgh—just the usual chaos that comes with a trauma center. PTMC had that smell: antiseptic, cheap coffee, and the ghosts of stress past. But after everything? It was better than silence. You’d been out of the field for over a year now—some shoulder mess from that last deployment. It got you honorably discharged but didn’t kill your drive. You weren’t ready to sit at home staring at your own walls.

So, you did what you knew best. You signed up for night shifts, pulled your scrubs on, and walked back into the fight—this time with less sand, fewer bullets, and more fluorescent lights.

You scanned the ER floor, nodding at unfamiliar faces. Then your eyes landed on someone else—a tall, broad guy with a slight limp, charcoal scrubs, and a stare like he’d seen it all and didn’t care for any of it.

Jack fucking Abbott.

Your heart punched your ribs.

You hadn’t seen him in years. He looked older, sure—some new lines around the eyes, some gray at the temples—but it was definitely him. You two had served together overseas. He was your superior—gruff, precise, relentless—but never cruel. Hell, he taught you half the stuff you still used. And when that IED hit and took out part of his leg, you were the one keeping pressure on the wound while mortars fell two klicks out.

Back then, he called you “rookie” more than your real name. You respected the hell outta him, even when he chewed your ass out.

He looked at you now, squinting across the floor. Once. Twice. Like his brain was rifling through an old personnel file. Robby was mid-sentence when Jack paused, head tilted, brow furrowed.

“Wait a damn second,” he muttered, more to himself than anyone.

You saw it click behind his eyes—like someone flipped a switch and dumped a decade of memories on his desk. He blinked, then laughed under his breath, like he didn’t quite believe it.

“Holy shit… You’re you,” he said.

Robby turned to the both of you, eyebrows lifted. “Wait, you two know each other?”

Jack snorted, arms folded. “Know ’em? This one served under me. Combat medic. Helped haul my ass outta a minefield once—saved what’s left of my leg.”

Even Robby had to do a double take. “Seriously?”

You just smirked, gave a half-ass shrug. “What can I say? Old habits die hard.”

Jack walked over, gave you a long look, then slapped a hand to your uninjured shoulder—not hard, but solid. “Didn’t think I’d see you again, not like this. You’re walking back into the fire, huh?”