Scars & Stitches Part One
Series: Scars & Stitches
Part: 1/6
Pairing: Jack/Sawyer
Rating: R
Spoilers: None - AU
Prompt: for foxys40 #20, Compassionate
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Jack downs the last of his 7th cup of coffee of the day and tosses the empty Styrofoam cup into the nearest trash bin, hoping to god that its effects kick in immediately. 23 hours and the end is nowhere in sight. Sleep is just a notion now, a figment of his imagination. The thought of his nice warm bed waiting for him at home…
His shoulders slump when he realizes he hasn’t spent more than 10 hours in that bed during the entire week. He’s running on empty, but he has to keep going. That’s what this is all about, being an intern, being a grunt. He’d wanted this experience.
This experience is why he’s putting in his internship in New York City, not back home in L.A. It would’ve been so easy, too easy really, to just walk into St. Sebastien’s and work there. His father would’ve insisted on no special treatment and Jack wouldn’t have received any, not from him. His father wouldn’t have been the problem. It was all those nurses and doctors who remembered him coming to visit the hospital as a child, who still saw him as the boss’ kid…that would’ve been the problem.
His father had been furious with Jack’s decision on many levels, the most prominent one being his rejection of his father’s hospital, the second being his choice to go to the opposite side of the country to work.
But Jack felt stifled in L.A., smothered by the heavy layer of smog and his father’s stern voice. He didn’t want to work in a city where the plastic surgeons were more highly valued than all others, where everyone lived in the isolation of their cars and talked only through their cell phones and e-mail. Jack had spent his whole life in isolation; he was ready to break free.
The hustle and bustle of New York suited him. Surrounded by people constantly; even in the seclusion of his own apartment, he wasn’t alone. He could hear everyone in the apartment next door, the one upstairs…the noises from the street, honking cabs, passing pedestrians. Yet he didn’t have to interact, if he didn’t want to. He could read his newspaper on the subway and go down the street without having to say hello to a single person - but the option was there if he wanted it to be. He could smile and he could talk if the sentiment struck him, and there’d always be someone nearby.
He looks around the thinning waiting room and glances out the front doors toward the street. It’s completely dark now, only the faint glow of the streetlights visible, illuminating vague details of the building across the street. The wee hours of the morning in the ER are the hardest, when the pace started to slow. People always said New York never slept, and it certainly doesn’t.
But it does ebb and flow and 3 in the morning is not a high point. His body starts to relax, thinking it is time to rest now that he has stopped running around like crazy. Jack can feel that wave of tiredness start to take over when the doors open and someone stumbles through, his hand clenched around his side, blood streaming through his fingers. He looks straight at Jack, shoots him perhaps the most wickedly handsome grin he’s ever seen, and then collapses to the linoleum floor with a heavy thud.
*******
“So, you want to tell me what happened?” Jack asks as he inspects the wound carefully, his gloved hands gently touching the 4 inch gash in the man’s side. He doesn’t receive an answer to his question and Jack looks up to his face, finding him scowling. “Look, I can treat it without knowing, but I’m telling you, it really helps to know the circumstances.”
“Let’s just say I got mugged and some punk knifed me.” He says it like it’s a suggestion, not a fact, his southern accent coming on heavy like he’s trying to lay on the charm, his tone sweetened and thick with honey. Jack shrugs, not buying it.
“There’s shards of glass in this wound, want to try again?”
“Bar fight?”
“Okay, I can go with that,” Jack forces a small smile, carefully pulling the small fragments of glass from the man’s side with a pair of tweezers and depositing them in the stainless steel dish in front of him. “You really did a number on yourself here.”
“What, you think I did this to myself?”
“No…no, it’s just an expression,” Jack shakes his head, sighing in frustration. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I’d have to be pretty crazy to cut myself with a broken bottle, you know. I’m crazy, but I ain’t that crazy.”
“Good to hear,” Jack nods. “So it was a broken bottle?”
“I was speakin’ theoretically.”
“Of course.” He checks the wound carefully to make sure all the glass is gone and then dampens a piece of gauze with alcohol to clean it out. “This is going to sting.” He presses it to the wound and is met with a sharp wince and an intake of breath. “Sorry.”
“I’ve had worse.” Jack finds himself staring for a moment too long as the man’s jaw line tenses, sharp and defined, his shaggy blonde hair brushing against his cheek. He purposely looks away, not wanting to think what he’s thinking, and gets rid of the alcohol soaked cloth, picking up his chart.
“So…I can tell you right now, you’re going to need stitches.”
“What? Oh, come on.”
“And you should probably even get a tetanus shot-“
“Why?”
”Well since you won’t tell me what you were cut with-“
“I don’t need a tetanus shot.”
”How would you-“
”I don’t.”
“Well you’ll probably need some antibiotic ointment as a topical. Maybe even an oral antibiotic too, just to be safe, to kick out any infection that may have started already.”
“Probably? Maybe?”
“Well, not probably. You will. But I’m just an intern, I have to clear any course of treatment with my attending.”
“That’s gotta be fuckin’ annoying.”
Jack has to laugh. “Yeah, it is.”
“How much is this gonna set me back, Doc? I only got $100 on me, that’s it.”
“That’s a question for billing,” Jack informs him, moving to collect what he needs to stitch him up. “But I can tell you right now, I doubt $100 is going to cover it.”
“Shit.”
“You don’t have any insurance?”
“Does it look like I got insurance?” He retorts. Jack finds himself giving him the once over, taking in his ripped jeans, his bloodied plaid shirt next to him on the bed, his scruffy unshaven face, and deciding no…he certainly doesn’t look like someone with a Blue Cross card in their wallet. He looks like someone who might not even have a wallet. “Can’t you just stitch me up for now, make it sos it stops bleedin’ all over god damned creation? I’ll just hit the free clinic tomorrow.”
“I can do that,” Jack nods. “As long as you’re really going to go there tomorrow. Wounds like this can cause some serious problems if they’re not watched carefully.”
“Look. Just look. Do you see what you’re doing? I mean, you can’t be looking because if you were looking, this wouldn’t have happened.” A harsh voice breaks through the relative quiet of the ER and Jack swivels to look at the disturbance. Dr. Hegarty, the chief attending, is hollering at Cassandra, one of his fellow interns, and gesturing harshly toward a patient’s chart. Dr. Hegarty looks toward him and then signals for him to get his ass over there.
“Excuse me for one second, uh…” Jack stands up, pulling off his rubber gloves, and then pauses, realizing he doesn’t even know his patient’s name. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“Cause you didn’t ask. Sawyer.”
“Okay. I’ll be right back, Sawyer.” Sawyer nods and looks down to the wound on his stomach, fingers moving to brush over it delicately. “Don’t touch it.” Jack warns and then heads over toward Dr. Hegarty. Jack speaks softly to him but Dr. Hegarty is loud enough that everyone can hear.
“I am too tired and I am too cranky to deal with this, Shephard, and since Young here doesn’t seem to have listened to a god damned word I’ve been saying to her all week, I thought maybe you could try explaining this to her. Again.” He shoves the chart against Jack’s chest and stalks off, leaving Jack and Cassandra standing there. Jack closes his eyes and sighs before turning to the other intern.
Sawyer watches as Jack looks down at the chart in his hands and holds it so Cassandra can see as well, pointing out some detail to her gently. Her expression, full of terror and apprehension only moments before in Hegarty’s presence, now changes completely to one of admiration and awe. After a few minutes of talking, Jack hands her the chart and comfortingly rubs her arm before walking back to Sawyer’s bedside.
“I’m sorry about that,” Jack sits back down on the stool and puts on a new pair of gloves.
“Ain’t you supposed to ask a patient’s name before getting into all this patching up and shit? Ain’t there forms and stuff that I shoulda already filled out?”
“You were passed out when I started to work on you, Sawyer. In the ER we get the situation under control and work with what we know; trauma patients get top priority. And I can’t exactly have you fill out admissions papers when you’re unconscious and bleeding, now can I?”
“Bedside manner needs some work, Doc,” Sawyer comments and Jack chuckles.
”I know.” Jack carefully sets up what he needs to sew Sawyer’s wound and begins to work. “Just try to stay as still as possible.” Sawyer falls silent, looking down with a perverse kind of fascination as Jack starts stitching.
“You sure seem to know what you’re doin’,” he comments.
“Had a lot of stitches, have you?”
“My fair share.”
“Well thanks for the compliment.”
“Are you the hotshot around here? The golden boy?”
“Excuse me?” Jack glances up at him for a split second and then goes back to concentrating hard on the task at hand.
“Well I couldn’t help but notice that the big Doc called you over to help rag on the other one, so it seems like you’re in his good graces, ain’t ya?”
Jack pauses, not sure this is a conversation he really wants to have, then shrugs.
“Yeah, I guess he likes me,” he responds non-committally.
“The other one, the blonde…she your girl?”
“What?” Jack is put off by the question and looks back toward Cassandra. “Who? You mean Cassie?”
“If that’s her name, then yeah. Cassie.”
“No. Why?”
“No reason. She just looked at you like she wouldn’t mind playin’ a round of Doctor & Nurse with ya, is all.”
“Cassie’s training to be a neurologist, not a nurse,” Jack states, knowing how much the female interns hated those sexist assumptions.
“Ain’t what I meant and you know it,” Sawyer laughs lightly and then winces, his hand going instinctively to clutch his side. Jack swats his hand away automatically like he had known the movement was coming and just continues on.
“Try not to move, please.”
“Yes sir,” Sawyer replies. He’s quiet for only a moment. “So…you got a girl?”
Jack looks up at him again, wondering if this guy knew how nosy his questions are, how strange it is to ask these things of someone you’ve just met.
“It ain’t brain surgery, Doc, just a question,” Sawyer smirks and Jack can’t stop himself from rolling his eyes. He knows he shouldn’t let his annoyance show, that it isn’t professional, but he can’t help it. “I’m figuring a guy like you, fancy doctor…you’re probably turnin’ ‘em away.” Jack doesn’t respond, instead just focusing on finishing the stitches. “Or are you one of those monogamous types who are too dumb to take advantage of what god gave ya?” Jack pulls a little too hard on the thread and Sawyer only grins. “Ah. What’s her name?”
“Margaret. Maggie.” Jack finally says, sighing, giving in. He frowns, the thought giving him a moment’s pause. “But we’re not really…we’re taking a break.”
“Ah, the good ol’ break. I love that one. Why you takin’ a break?”
“Well, because she’s in L.A. and I’m here, that’s why.” Jack finishes the stitches and snips the thread, pushing back on the rolling stool to get a clearer view of his work, make sure it looked all right.
“Didn’t think you were from around here…” Sawyer says with satisfaction, like he’s proud that his suspicions were correct. He eyes Jack as Jack dresses the wound. “How long you been here?”
“Two months.”
“Heck, you’re still a virgin. Bet you don’t even know where to go to have a good time.”
“Not much time for ‘good times’,” Jack states. “Not much time for anything except this.” He gestures around the ER and Sawyer nods.
“Price you pay, ain’t that right.”
“What about you, Sawyer, what do you do for a living?” Jack inquires, cleaning up the tray in front of him and handing Sawyer his shirt.
“Ya know, a little bit of this, a little of that,” Sawyer replies, as vague as can be, and takes his shirt from Jack’s outstretched hand. “I all done?” He stiffly slips his shirt over his shoulders and buttons it up slowly. There’s a huge tear in the side where the wound is, the gauze covering it visible through the hole.
“Don’t wash that for 24 hours, it needs to stay dry. After that, try to keep it dry when you shower and clean it at a separate time, gently, with just soap and water. You’ll need to keep it covered with non-stick gauze for at least five days…I’ll get you some pamphlets about proper care before you go.”
“Oh joy, pamphlets.”
“There’ll be some redness and swelling, but that’s normal. If you get a fever, discharge, if the swelling doesn’t go down, or the stitches come out, you need to see someone right away.” Sawyer makes a scoffing noise and Jack leans forward, meeting his eyes. “I’m serious about this.”
“You sound like a disclaimer on a drug commercial.”
“Sawyer.”
“I got it, Doc. Anythin’ else?”
“You just have to do all that paperwork now before you go.”
“Damn.”
Jack hands him a clipboard and a pen, which he takes reluctantly. Jack finds himself staring at Sawyer as he grips the pen in his left hand and fills in the blanks. His scrawl is messy, not in the way of a small child, but in the way of that English teacher one might have had in high school whose penmanship skills had an inverse relationship to their creativity and intelligence.
“Look, I probably shouldn’t do this,” Jack finds himself saying after a moment. “But I have an old family friend who owns a pharmacy up on the Upper East Side. If you’re willing to make the trek I’m sure I can have him set you up with the stuff you need, no charge.”
“I said I’d just go to the clinic, Doc. It ain’t no big deal.”
”Yeah, except, I don’t believe you when you say you’ll go.” Jack says flatly. Sawyer had already opened his mouth to retort but he stops, perhaps a bit surprised by Jack calling him out on his bullshit. He smiles sheepishly.
“Well you got me there.”
Jack pulls out a pad of paper and writes the address down, his doctor’s handwriting even worse than Sawyer’s scrawl, and hands it to Sawyer.
“Just go by tomorrow afternoon if you can. He’ll have it ready.”
“He’ll just…give me meds. Like that. No questions asked.”
“He’s known me my whole life. I’ll just tell him I have a friend who needs some help.”
“And he won’t get in trouble.” Sawyer says flatly, skeptically.
“Antibiotics aren’t exactly painkillers or something else questionable. It won’t be a problem.” Jack assures him, his smile friendly.
“You do this for all your patients, Doc?” Sawyer asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Let’s just say that I’m not someone who thinks a person should be denied proper medical care because they can’t afford insurance in this country.”
“Ah, a budding socialist,” Sawyer smirks. “Why don’t you go on up to Canada? They love that commie bullshit up there.”
“If you don’t want my help-“ Jack goes to take the piece of paper back from him but Sawyer moves it away, shoving it into his front shirt pocket.
“Now now, I didn’t say that.” He smiles. Jack finds himself smiling back, though he’s not sure why. Something about this man’s grin is just infectious, contagious.
“Jack?” Cassandra’s voice interrupts and Jack turns toward her. “Hegarty has an emergency surgery in Op 2. He told me to tell you to come scrub in.”
“Oh. Okay,” Jack stands up quickly, nodding. He turns to Sawyer, suddenly all business. “If you’d just fill out the paperwork and give it to Cassie here when you’re done, that would be great. Thanks.” He looks at Cassie. “Could you…?” He gestures to Sawyer and she nods.
A few minutes later he enters the operating room, but the second he enters he knows that his hurry was all for nothing. The sound of the patient flat lining is loud in the quiet room. Hegarty snaps off his gloves and matter-of-factly declares the time of death before turning to Jack. He gives him a sympathetic smile, like Jack’s missed opportunity is the real tragedy here.
“Sorry to have brought you up here for nothing, Shephard. Wasn’t anything we could do, it was just too late.” Jack looks past him at the middle-aged woman lying on the table and frowns; death still isn’t something he’s accustomed to brushing off so easily. Hegarty pats him on the shoulder. “Maybe next time.”
“Yeah. Maybe next time,” Jack replies softly, not really caring about something as trivial as whether or not he got to scrub in when there is now a corpse before them, but not about to say so to Hegarty’s face. He waits until Hegarty leaves to take off his mask and cap, then slowly makes his way back downstairs.
When he enters the ER, Cassie meets him, looking worried.
“What?” He asks, immediately concerned.
“I’m sorry, Jack…your guy…”
Jack, alarmed, hurries to the bed where he had left Sawyer, thinking something had happened, that he’d missed something important in terms of Sawyer’s injuries, but instead finds the bed completely empty, the clipboard on the tray, and Sawyer gone.
“I left him alone to fill out his paperwork - only a few minutes - and when I came back…he was gone. He bolted.”
“He left?”
“No sign of him.”
Jack draws in a deep breath and lets it out, staring at the empty bed. He rubs the back of his head and then turns to Cassie.
“It’s all right. I’m sure this happens all the time. I’ll just go talk to Donna, figure out what I’m supposed to do now.”
“I’m sorry, Jack.”
“Cassie, you didn’t make the guy leave. Don’t worry, it’s not your fault.” He assures her. “Just…I’ll deal with this, all right? Let me deal with it.”
“Okay.” Cassie nods. Jack picks up the clipboard and looks at the sheet, half-filled out. He’s sure nothing on it is real, that Sawyer, if that was even his name, wasn’t about to dole out anything that would enable them to track him down. He lifts the paper from underneath the clip and crumples it up, tossing it into the nearby trash can.
He stands, already regretting trying to help the guy out, knowing that if his father could see him now he’d be laughing, reminding Jack not to take everything so personally, telling him that he cared too much about everyone who passed through the hospital doors, and that he couldn’t do that if he was going to survive in this world. And perhaps he’s right.
But something tells him he’s still going to make that call tomorrow and have those meds ready, just in case Sawyer decided to follow his advice. If he didn’t, he’d always be wondering, wondering if he did the right thing. Even though Sawyer probably won’t show up to get them, and Jack knows he’ll never see him again, Jack will make that call.
Because no matter how many times life wounds him and human nature fails him, reminds him that people as a whole don’t care nearly as much as he does, Jack can’t stop hoping. He just stitches up the deep gash in his spirit and keeps going, hoping one day the scars will fade.
TBC
Next Parts: 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6