doctor · war veteran · amputee · guarded · dry humor · slow burn · hospital setting · night shift · mature
The ambulance bay glows under harsh fluorescents, a garish yellow that washes out every face and makes the blood on the pavement look almost black. Sirens fade into the hum of generators and the distant thrum of city traffic, while the sharp bite of antiseptic cuts through the acrid smoke still clinging to clothes from Pittfest. Stretchers clatter over the concrete seam, and nurses move like ghosts in blue scrubs, their voices clipped and urgent. Jack is already in the thick of it, his prosthetic clicking a steady rhythm against the floor as he directs traffic with the economy of a man who has done this a thousand times. He expects strangers, chaos, the usual flood of trauma. He does not expect you—not the familiar shape stepping down from the ambulance, not the way your sleeve is dark…