Chapter Text
Jack was the one who suggested Robby take Jill to swim practices at the age of three. She had so much energy back then, running in the garden, around the living room, despite Żywia’s constant: you will trip if you keep zooming around the table like that.
“It is a safe sport, good for your back, and she will have a place to burn the energy”, Jack said during their shift.
Robby listened to his suggestion, and three years later, when Jill was about to start elementary school, she was enrolled in a swim team. Robby looked proud of her, rare moments of unfiltered emotion gracing his lips and eyes. Jill seemed to be glad as well, her hair still damp, red rim from goggles on her eyebrows. Jack said one day she would become a mermaid. She gave him an unimpressed stare that reminded him of Robby.
“Mermaids don’t exist, uncle Jack!” she huffed, and took a book from the table, opened it and tapped Narwhal's photo with a finger. “I wanna be a narwhal!”
He strode through the ER doors with cold hands on his oesophagus. Jack spotted Santos, one of the day shift’s residents, who pointed to a room where Robby was probably taken. Jack braced himself, knowing already it would be a tough fight.
Doors swished quietly, and he quickly spotted Robby. He was sitting on a chair, his head in his hands. It stirred something behind Jack’s sternum to see Robby, a man whose presence competed with the Colossus of Rhodes, crumble, as if his legs were made of clay all along.
It made him think of Jill, too.
She always remained composed around others, with a small smile and focused eyes. Only after someone tried to see the real, raw truth was she jolting away like a scared rabbit. In this nanosecond, everything oozed from her, packed in layers of quick excuses, but real and visible. Jack tried to unveil them, knowing her parents did too. Nevertheless, she was Robby’s kid, his blood and stubbornness.
Maybe this was why they drifted apart?
It began with small things Jack ignored at first, but later it made him pause whenever Robby mentioned them. Not announced swim meets, briefly mentioned golden medals or shrugged off big competitions. For some, it might be seen as giving up, but not in Jack’s eyes. For him, it was another way to punish Robby.
After Langdon’s phone call, he got in his car quickly and drove to the Pitt, probably breaking several road laws. Jill. His best friend's eighteen-year-old daughter, his niece, whom he held when she was just a baby, wanted to commit suicide. The dread that filled every space of Jack’s body crushed his bones and turned them to dust. He knew the feeling: dark, ugly, a want to cut the strings of pain firmly. He did, but Jack never thought that Robby’s baby would ever experience it, too.
The same girl who took half of Robby’s old clothes because they were “fashionable” among her peers. The same girl who made Jack's birthday cards by hand, even after entering the “moody teenager” stage. The same girl who had her whole life to experience…
“Dr Abbott”, Langdon greeted him with a curt nod.
“It’s gonna be alright, brother”, Jack said, coming next to Robby, clapping a hand on his stiff shoulder. “If it is her, we’ll do everything in our power to keep her alive. Then, she’ll find help.” A long pause stretched between them. “Look at me.” Silence. “Look at me”, he repeated.
Robby slowly lifted his head, red-rimmed eyes wet and big.
“We’ll help her”, Jack repeated.
“She wants to die, Jack”, he rasped out. “And I didn’t notice. How can I name myself a father if I didn’t notice my own daughter’s suffering?” Robby continued, rubbing his beard.
“Nobody noticed. Now, we know, and we can act. It is never too late to get help.”
Jill and Robby. Robby and Jill. Two sides of the same coin, now forced to separate and stare at each other. Jack gripped him more tightly to make him listen and understand.
“She’ll have your support. Mine. Dana’s. Żywia’s.” Jack’s voice was steady but not cruel. “It’ll take time. Effort. She will kick and scream, but there is still hope for her to escape the clutches of darkness.”
The doors of the ambulance bay opened, and the gurneys with paramedics beside them rolled in.