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Jack opened his eyes.
Dawn was just breaking, pale morning light filtering through the bedroom curtains, dusting the walls a faint gold.
And beside the wall stood Robby, watching him with an expression too tender for seven o'clock in the morning.
“You’re still here,” Jack mumbled. His voice was rough with sleep.
He pushed himself up on an elbow, blinked, and tried to orient himself. “Wait. Your shift started already.”
“Called in a favor,” Robby said. His smile was soft and wistful in a way that Jack couldn't quite name. “Figured we deserved a day off. Oh, and before you ask, I'm not sick.”
Jack frowned. In the thirty something years he had known Robby, he could count on one hand the number of times Robby had voluntarily taken a day off, let alone an unscheduled, unplanned vacation. The ER was his sanctuary, his calling, and his addiction. He couldn't live without it. So, why did Robby do something so uncharacteristic?
There was nothing special about today. No anniversary, no birthdays they need to remember or deaths that they need to hold each other through. Jack racked his brain and couldn't find a single answer. He shifted his gaze onto Robby.
Robby met his eyes head on. He looked healthy, lips quirked in that small, amused way that both infuriates and endears. A nearby window turned, caught the soft morning light, and cast it onto Robby's face. Robby's eyes glistened, and Jack fancied that he could catch the tiny sparks of gold dancing in those warm brown depths. He tore his gaze away before he forgot entirely what he had meant to say.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing, I swear. I've been good.” Robby's smile was disarming enough to make Jack's suspicion climb up a notch.
“Oh, and before you even ask, I didn't break anything. I didn't lose my license. I didn't get fired. Gloria has absolutely nothing to complain about, even though she always tries her damn best at it.”
So, Jack thought, he is in a playful mood this morning, which only raised the question of Why. While Jack ruminated, Robby, having finished his little speech, folded his arms and cocked his head. His pose tugged at Jack, and Jack was suddenly reminded of their neighbor's border collie, the one who always looked so unbearably proud of herself after catching the ball.
Fine. Jack could play catch.
“Did I get fired and you’re breaking the news to me gently? Because if you were, you're doing a terrible job at it—”
Robby’s laugh rang out before Jack even finished his sentence. It was full-bodied and just a tad loud in the early morning stillness. He shook his head. “I'm fine. You're fine. No one got fired. Can’t a man surprise his partner of—what are we at now, eight years?”
“Nine in a month.”
“Nine…” Robby sighed. That wistful quality was back and Jack realized that he hated it without knowing why. He decided that seven a.m. is too early for the human-shaped puzzle that was Michael Robinavitch.
He sat up fully, and ran a hand through his graying hair. His right leg—or rather, what remained of it—ached dully. Phantom pain, residual limb discomfort, the usual complaints of a twenty-year-old amputation that had healed well but never quite quit making itself known. “Nine years, and you’ve never once arranged a surprise day off.”
“Then I’m long overdue.” Robby pushed away from the wall, squeezing Jack’s shoulder as he passed. “Stay there. I’m making breakfast.”
Jack’s eyebrows shot up. “You? You're making breakfast?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Robby, the last time you made breakfast, the egg somehow ended up on the ceiling. The fucking ceiling! And I still don’t know how that’s physically possible.”
Robby paused in the doorway, and for just a moment, something flickered across his face—something sad and distant and utterly unlike him. It was gone in an instant, quicker than a heartbeat.
Jack blinked.
When his eyes refocused, Robby's eyes held that same soft smile. “Trust me,” he said, and disappeared into the kitchen.
Jack sat in bed, and waited for cursing, crashing, and smoke alarms. Instead, what greeted him was the sounds of someone who knew their way around a kitchen. He should have been more skeptical. Instead, he found himself absurdly touched. Robby was many things—brilliant, dedicated, stubborn as hell—but domestic was not typically among them.
When Robby returned carrying a tray, Jack had to admit he was impressed. Scrambled eggs with bacon just slightly burnt, exactly the way he liked it. Then perfectly toasted bread, fruits, and coffee that actually smelled good instead of the mushy brown water Robby used to concoct.
“Did you buy this from the diner down the street?” Jack asked as he took the tray. “Are you trying to trick me?”
Robby shook his head and settled himself on the edge of the bed. “Made it myself.”
Jack's eyes narrowed.
“I promise.” That smile again, tinged with that enigmatic quality that made Jack think Robby had been studying Mona Lisa—if that wasn't an even more absurd idea. “Just eat it before it gets cold.”
The eggs were perfect. Light and fluffy, seasoned just right. Jack took a second bite, then a third, while trying to reconcile this with the man who’d once burned water. “Okay, seriously. When did you learn to cook?”
“It's a secret.” Robby's eyes twinkled—that same mischievous glint peeping out at Jack from twenty-five years ago.
They fell into their familiar rhythm: bickering over whether scrambled eggs should have cheese—Jack's “yes, always” versus Robby's “culinary heresy”—debating the merits of whole wheat versus sourdough, arguing about nothing and everything the way both of them enjoyed too much to pretend that they didn't. Sunlight climbed the walls in slow, patient increments until it tipped over the edge of their window and slanted right into Jack's eyes. He squinted, raising a hand. “Can you—”
But Robby was already moving. He skipped the pull cord, fingers closing around the fabric as he tugged it into place, adjusting it until the sun was blocked but the room wasn’t dark.
Jack's fork froze halfway to his mouth. “How did you know?”
“Know what?”
“The pull cord. It broke last night. I was going to fix it today.” He stared at Robby’s back. “I didn’t tell you it broke.”
Robby's hand tightened on the curtain, just for a moment. He kept his back turned for a second too long before facing Jack again, a perfectly casual look on his face.
“Oh, I noticed it earlier,” Robby said lightly. “when I opened the curtain to wake you up.”
But I slept with the curtains open, Jack thought. He tried to reconstruct their positions in his mind but Robby cut through his efforts with a question.
“You done with breakfast? We should get going if we want to beat traffic.”
“Going where?”
“It’s a surprise.”
Jack wanted to press for answers. His head spun, thoughts tugged in a thousand different directions all at once: did Robby ignore proper leave procedures—probably; who was running the ER then; miraculous culinary skills; the pull cord… Too many things didn't line up, too many details not making sense. He nearly said something, nearly insisted.
But one look at Robby—at that bright, almost feverish glint in his eyes—and Jack knew that he wouldn't get any answers.
Robby turned back toward the living room, taking the tray with him. As he walked past the bedroom door, a soft sigh drifted back to Jack.
“Just trust me, Jack. Trust me today.”
Jack couldn't quite tell if the words were meant to be heard.
The drive was strange.
Robby—a man who treated his bike with more care than he treated his own body—had always been openly hostile to what he called “four-wheeled monstrosities”; and, the feeling is mutual. As for his driving skills, the kindest thing Jack could say was that Robby technically possessed a license. Possessed being the operative word, in the past tense. No one should let him drive unless they were in a zombie movie and were themselves zombies.
And yet here they were, in Jack’s car, with Robby behind the wheel, navigating the early-morning Pittsburgh traffic with a patience and competence Jack didn’t remember him ever having.
“Since when do you drive like an adult?” Jack asked, watching Robby signal and merge.
Robby didn't look over. “I’ve always been a good driver.”
“Tell that to the tree you decapitated,” Jack said, “or—oh, even better—the fire hydrant that somehow and I quote, ‘found its way into your bumper’.”
Robby feinted nonchalance, but Jack could see a blush creeping up his neck and over the edges of his beard. When he spoke, his voice came out just a tad higher than normal. “That was years ago. I'm better now.”
“Are you even legally allowed to drive?” Jack pressed.
“Yes, mom.” Robby's voice was dripping with sarcasm. But, Jack noted somewhat grudgingly, that Robby's eyes never left the road. He scanned the traffic ahead with the same intensity he used in the trauma bay. “Got my license renewed a month ago. You just sit back and enjoy the ride.”
Jack tried.
He watched the city roll past, sleek glass and steel thinning into brick and wood, cosy neighborhoods merging into the suburbs, then finally yielding to actual trees. They were heading east, he realized with a start.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
They had been driving for about an hour, when Robby suddenly slowed on an empty stretch of highway. Jack opened his mouth to ask why, and then a deer bounded out of the tree line, crossing the road exactly where they would have been if they’d maintained speed.
“Robby.” Jack twisted in his seat to look at him. “How did you—”
“I saw shapes in the foliages a minute ago. Figured something like this could happen.”
“But how? The deer jumped out from my side and I didn't see anything.”
Robby didn’t answer. Jack’s mind was already at work, churning over details that refused to fit. He ended up asking quietly: “what’s going on?”
Robby’s hands tightened a fraction on the wheel.
“Nothing’s going on,” he said, after a while. Then, in a softer, almost pleading tone, he whispered. “Can we just… Can we just have today? Please?”
The raw need in his voice stopped Jack’s questions cold. He’d heard Robby sound desperate before, many times in fact. But never at him, never directed towards him.
Jack looked at Robby who was still looking straight ahead, then at the road unspooling before them. There were answers here. He could feel them pressing just beneath the surface, waiting for the smallest opening. All he had to do was ask again.
Instead, he found himself leaning back in his seat.
“Okay,” he said.
They stopped at Laurel Highlands.
Robby parked in a small lot Jack barely remembered, killed the engine, and just sat for a moment, staring through the windshield at the trees.
Jack waited.
“We used to come here,” Robby said softly. “Do you remember? We were so broke we split a single sandwich for lunch and thought we were living large because we had a whole day with no cases.”
“I remember.” Jack smiled at the memory—two tired residents, punch-drunk on sleep deprivation and new love, hiking trails they were too exhausted to fully appreciate. “We haven’t been back since then.”
“No. We got busy. Always too busy.”
Robby turned to look at him, and there it was again, that wistfulness, now edging towards a profound heaviness that Jack didn’t and preferred not to know. “I thought we should come back.”
Before Jack could answer, Robby got out of the car. He opened the trunk and began unloading supplies: a picnic basket, a blanket, a backpack.
And a prosthetic leg.
Jack’s mouth fell open. “Is that—”
“Your hiking leg. The multi-axial one.” Robby held it up, not quite meeting Jack’s eyes. “I know you forgot to bring it. Figured you’d need it for the trail.”
Jack stared.
He hadn’t even realized he’d forgotten it until this moment. He had been wearing his everyday prosthetic, which although perfectly fine for normal walking, was less than ideal for uneven terrain.
“How did you know I forgot it?”
“Because—because I know you.” Robby set the prosthetic down with care, along with everything else. “Come on. Let’s get you changed and hit the trail before it gets too busy.”
They took a trail that ran alongside the stream. The water sat low at this time of year, exposing smooth rocks that gleamed in the dappled sunlight. Fall was just beginning its slow takeover, splashes of red and gold among the green, the air carrying that particular crispness that spoke of coming cold.
Jack’s hiking leg performed beautifully, multi-axial ankle adapting well to the uneven terrain. Still, he could feel a dull ache in his residual limb, probably from sleeping in an odd position or just the changing weather.
They walked along the wide trail, hand in hand, shoulders bumping into each other every few steps. It was a wide trail, with enough space for three people to walk side by side comfortably. But Jack liked the closeness, the way Robby never quite drifted more than a few inches away.
With his free hand, Robby pointed out things as they went: a hawk circling overhead, a patch of late-blooming wildflowers, the way the light caught the water just so. He was attentive in a way that was both exactly like him and somehow more.
He knew the trail too well. A familiarity that wasn’t quite athleticism but as if he had walked this exact stretch countless times, as if the bumps and bends on the road had been mapped into muscles and bones.
But how was that possible?
And Robby’s eyes—when Jack looked for them, they would stray everywhere but to him. Yet his hands never left Jack, steadying him over slick stones and guilding him around puddles. And when Jack wasn’t looking, he could feel Robby’s gaze on him, boring into him with an intensity that could be felt without being seen, as if memorizing every detail.
The trail began to climb almost imperceptibly, the earth sloping upward beneath their feet. Jack’s residual limb was warmer now, a bit uncomfortable. It’s probably from the hike, and nothing to worry about. He’d ice it when they got home. Standard protocol for a long day on the trails.
But Robby noticed. “You’re limping,” he said.
“I’m fine. Just walked a bit more than usual.”
“We can head back.”
“I don’t want to head back.” Jack was surprised by his own vehemence. “This is nice, Robby. This is the first real break we’ve taken in years. I don’t want it to end. We can rest tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Robby whispered. Something flickered in his expression, gone too quickly to name.
They found their perfect spot just after noon, in a clearing near the stream with a view that opened up to the mountains beyond. Robby laid out the blanket with the same meticulous care he used in a trauma bay.
The picnic basket was perfect. Sandwiches made exactly to Jack’s liking; a bottle of white wine, chilled to the perfect temperature; grapes and cheese and the ridiculously expensive gourmet crackers from that shop nearby that Jack loved but rarely indulged in.
“Robby, this is…” Jack trailed off. “When did you have time to do all this?”
“This is nothing, a quick trip to the shop downstairs.” Robby forwent the empty corner of the blanket across from Jack and sat down right beside Jack, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee, their warmth seeping through thin fabrics, reaching towards each other like intangible threads.
They ate in comfortable silence. Jack reached for his wine and found it already refilled, still perfectly chilled despite the warming day. “You’re very attentive today.”
“Just want to take care of you.”
“You always take care of me.”
Robby turned to look at him then, brown orbs meeting brown, and Jack thought he saw a flash of tears in his eyes before Robby could blink them away. “I try,” he said, his voice a little hoarse. “God knows I try.”
“Hey.” Jack set down his wine, touched Robby’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong.” Robby caught his hand and held it against his cheek. His eyes shone strangely, an almost ethereal mix of intense joy and a profound sadness peeking out from underneath. After a while, still holding on to Jack’s hand, he said, “thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being here. For this. For…” Robby shook his head, at a loss for words.
The hundred small mysteries of the day rushed back towards Jack like wind sweeping through the forest crown, but Robby’s eyes were pleading silently for reprieve. So instead, he leaned in and kissed him—soft and brief and tasting of wine and something bittersweet.
When they pulled apart, Robby was smiling. His smile shone almost as much as his eyes.
After lunch, they kept climbing, the stream narrowing as it wound higher into the hills. The incline grew steeper, the forest opening in slow increments until the trees finally fell away altogether.
The sun was beginning its descent when they reached the top. The sky had started its slow transformation—blue giving way to molten gold, then deepening toward orange at the edges. The mountains stretched outward in every direction, endless and ancient and utterly indifferent in their grandeur.
“This is perfect,” Jack said. “Thank you for this, Robby. I didn’t realize how much I needed it.”
He didn’t hear an answer. When Jack glanced over, Robby was standing very still. He stared straight ahead, at—no, through—the treetops. For a moment, he looked like a man watching something approach from a distance, a ghost that only he could see. Or like someone afraid to turn his head and find it standing beside him.
“Robby?”
Nothing.
The thousand small oddities of the day rose up all at once—the careful looks, the sadness he didn’t have time to hide away, the intensity in his gaze, the way he had been clinging to him. They collided in Jack’s chest and formed something cold and sinking.
“Robby,” Jack asked. “Are you dying?”
The words felt absurd the moment they left his mouth.
Robby didn’t give a verbal answer. When he turned around slowly towards Jack, his eyes were brimming with tears. He shook his head.
All the day’s strangeness twisted together and burst into a wild idea. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. And yet—
“I am dying,” Jack said. The words felt foreign, as if spoken by someone else. “Aren’t I?”
A wind moved through the treetops below them, carrying a ribbon of cool air up the ridge. It brushed past them and was gone. And in that silence, they felt the truth standing between them—they were long past the days when they needed verbal answers for each other’s questions.
“But how did you know,” Jack asked, “before I did?”
Robby closed his eyes and surrendered the truth.
The story came out in pieces, interrupted by tears Robby couldn’t quite contain.
Waking up at six, every day, always the same moment. Getting called to the trauma bay just before midnight. Sirens fading outside. Jack on the gurney. No pulse.
Robby’s hands on his chest. Counting. Pressing. Screaming orders he already knew weren’t enough. Watching the monitor flatten. Watching the world narrow to a single unbroken tone. His heart shattering into pieces.
Blessed unconsciousness claiming him afterwards, sweet darkness swallowing him whole. Then waking up to light filtering through their bedroom window and Jack sleeping beside him. Alive.
He thought it had been a nightmare.
Until the day happened again. And again. And again.
The first loop was panic. He dragged Jack to the ER before breakfast. Tests. Scans. Procedures. He cut. He infused. He monitored. He refused to lose him twice.
He failed.
The deep vein thrombosis was simply too big, too extensive, formed while Jack slept or in the day before, long before Robby’s day reset at six AM. A ticking time bomb.
He tried everything. Every emergency thrombectomy, every thrombolytics, every prophylactic surgeries, ICU admissions, and a hundred different interventions. But it never mattered, because the clot always broke free, always traveled to Jack’s lungs and lodged there.
Every variation ended the same way no matter what he did. Jack dying before midnight. In the OR. In the ICU. Once even in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, despite Robby’s desperate attempt to keep him home and stable.
“It’s there right now,” Robby said, his voice a hoarse whisper. “In your right femoral vein. It’s been there since last night, maybe even longer. It’s already there when I wake up. Whatever starts this… it starts before my day does. I can’t go back far enough to stop it. I can’t outrun it…”
His voice caught and broke on a sob. After a moment of silence, he raised a hand and wiped at his tears roughly, almost angrily. “And once it’s there, nothing I do matters. Nothing works. Nothing ever fucking worked.”
Jack’s chest felt tight. He tried to process what he was hearing—the repeated day, the time loop, and his own death over and over. It’s too farfetched, too impossible. It can’t be true. He needed it not to be true. Except—the pull cord, and breakfast, and—
“How many times?” Jack asked quietly. “How long has it been for you?”
“I lost count around a hundred.” Robby raised his head. His eyes were red and devastated. “That was weeks ago. Maybe months. I don’t know anymore.”
“And you’ve tried everything medical.”
“Everything. Every protocol in existence and some I invented. Called in favors from the best vascular surgeons in the country—they don’t remember, but I do. I remember every failed attempt, every complication, every time I watched you die and couldn’t bring you back.” His hands were shaking. “There was one loop—must have been around the ninetieth, I was still counting then—where you stayed conscious after the PE hit. Just for a few minutes instead of a few seconds. You knew what was happening. You said you didn’t want to go that way. You said—”
His voice broke completely. Jack waited, his own heart hammering loudly in the otherwise silence of their surroundings.
“You said you wanted to go on a trip with me. One last time. Said we hadn’t gone anywhere in years because we’d been too busy.” Robby looked at him with eyes full of unbearable grief. “So I started bringing you here. Stopped trying to save you medically and just… gave you this. Gave us this. The trail and the forest and the sunset. A good day. One last good day.”
“God, Robby,” Jack pulled him close, and Robby came willingly, burying his face in Jack’s chest like a child seeking comfort. “How many times have we watched the sunset here?”
“I lost count of that too.”
They sat in silence for a long time, Robby shaking with silent sobs while Jack held him and tried to make sense of the impossible. His right leg ached, a deeper pain now. Classic DVT presentation, he realized with a jolt. How had he missed it?
He almost wished that the pain was a hallucination, that the whole day was just a terrible nightmare, and he would wake up besides Robby, ready for a new day, ready for work, ready for life. But—but this was not meant to be.
He felt almost calm—shock mellowing into a detached curiosity. Everything was a mixture of not real and too real, but nothing was real enough, nothing was right. He didn’t feel like he had only hours to live. Maybe just minutes.
“How long?” Jack asked. “How long will I have?”
“It varies. Activity level, stress, a dozen factors I can’t control. But always before midnight. Usually between six and ten.” Robby pulled back slightly, still holding Jack’s hands. “You’ll start with chest pain. Shortness of breath. Your oxygen will drop. By the time we reach the hospital, it’ll be too late. It’s always too late.”
Jack checked his watch. Five thirty.
Not much time. Not enough for almost anything. But maybe, maybe just enough for the one thing he needed to do.
He could use the time to swear his love. To thank Robby for today, for all the todays he didn’t and couldn’t remember. To tell him how grateful he was, how full his life had been because of him. But he had probably—almost certainly—said all of that already, hundreds of times, in hundreds of different ways only Robby remembered.
In the end, he had time for just one thing.
Robby had always struggled with goodbyes, with letting go. Absurd for an ER doctor who sent people onward every day—to the wards, to their homes, to the morgue. But Robby cared too much, too deeply. It was at once his charm and his curse. And Jack loved him for it. How could he not? How could he not love this tender, stubborn, whimsical man who gave his heart away like it cost nothing but hoarded his pain even as it tore him apart?
Jack had always been there to coax that pain into the light, if only a little. But he wouldn’t be there much longer. And that meant these last minutes had to count. One look into Robby’s eyes told him he might fail.
But he had to try.
“You have to let me go,” Jack said quietly.
“I can’t.” The answer came instantly, a reflex rather than thought. “I can’t, Jack. Don’t ask me to do that.”
“Michael—”
“Every morning I wake up and you’re alive. Every morning I get another chance to see you, to talk to you, to touch you. Even though I know how it ends, even though it destroys me every single time—I can’t give that up. I won’t.” He clung desperately to Jack’s hands. “Maybe it’s punishment. Payment for all the lives I couldn’t save over the years. Every patient that died on my table, every person I failed—maybe this is my penance. And I’ll pay it gladly if it means seeing you again.”
“That’s not sustainable.”
“I don’t care about sustainable. I care about you.”
“But I’m not really here, am I?” Jack squeezed his hands. “Not the me you fell in love with. That version of me is gone. Has been gone for—what, hundreds of days? You’re in love with a ghost, Robby. A ghost that you’re forced to watch die over and over.”
“You’re not a ghost. You’re here. You’re real.”
“For a few more hours. Then I’m gone again, and you’re back to six AM, and we do this all over again.” Jack cupped Robby’s face, forcing him to meet his eyes. “How many times have we had this exact conversation?”
Robby’s expression crumpled. “Seventeen. Eighteen? You usually don’t figure it out. Or if you do, it’s at the very end, when you’re already dying.”
“What do you think the point of this is? The loop, I mean. If it wanted you to save me, it would start your day earlier, give you more time. But it doesn’t. It starts at six AM every time, when it’s already too late.” Jack spoke slowly, working through the logic. “Maybe the way out isn’t preventing my death. Maybe it’s accepting it. Moving forward.”
“I don’t know how to move forward without you.”
“Yes, you do. You’ve been doing it for twenty-three years of emergency medicine. Every patient you lose, you grieve for them and then you save the next one.” Jack smiled sadly. “I’m just another patient you can’t save, Robby. The most important one, sure. The one you love. But still just a patient.”
“You’re not just a patient. Don’t say that.”
“Then treat me like I’m not. Let me have a good death. Not in the hospital, not in the trauma bay where we’ve spent our whole careers. Here. In a beautiful place with the person I love.” Jack’s own eyes were burning now. “And then, when six AM comes around again, you let me go. You wake up and you don’t come to the bedroom. You go to your shift. You live your life. You move on.”
“I can’t,” Robby whispered. “I’m addicted to this. To seeing you alive, even for a few hours. How do I give that up?”
“The same way any addict gives up their poison. One day at a time. One loop at a time.” Jack leaned his forehead against Robby’s. “I’m asking you to let me go. Not today—today you can keep me. But tomorrow, when you wake up at six AM, you let me go. Promise me.”
Robby was silent for a long time. Then, finally: “I don’t know if I can keep that promise.”
“Then just promise to try.”
“I promise to try,” Robby whispered.
And they both hoped that it wasn’t a lie.
The sun sank lower, the golden light fading to pink and purple and finally to deep blue twilight. They watched it in silence, pressed together under the blanket Robby had spread over them both, savoring the last warmth of the day.
Jack’s chest began to ache around six fifteen. A dull pressure that he recognized immediately.
Robby felt him tense. “It’s starting.”
“Yeah.” Jack took a breath, measuring how it felt. Shallow. Difficult. “How much longer?”
“Depends.” Robby’s arm tightened around him. “Does it hurt?”
“Not yet. Just uncomfortable.”
They sat in the gathering darkness. Jack’s breathing became more labored, each inhalation a conscious effort. The ache in his chest spread. He had read about it a thousand times, seen it in action a thousand times. But—he realized with a wryness that felt absurd—nothing quite prepared him for when it happened to himself.
“Robby,” he said, his voice thin. “I need you to know something.”
“Don’t. Don’t do goodbye speeches. I’ve heard them all already.”
“Then hear this one again.” Jack turned to look at him, using precious breath for words that mattered. “These nine years with you have been the best of my life. After my… my wife died, I thought I was done. Thought that was it for me, one great love and then just… lonely existence. But you proved me wrong. You gave me a reason to come home after the worst shifts. You made me laugh when I thought I was too tired to laugh. You loved me even when I was difficult, which was often.”
“You’re not difficult.”
“I’m extremely difficult. We both know it. Although you were not easy by any measure either.” Jack smiled, or tried to. His lips were starting to tingle, his hands going cold despite Robby lending him warmth. “Whatever happens after this—whether the loop breaks or continues—I need you to know that you did everything you could. More than anyone could reasonably ask. You’ve given me hundreds of good days, Robby. Today was perfect. They were all perfect.”
“They weren’t enough.”
“They were enough. They are enough.” Jack’s vision was starting to go black at the edges, his heart stuttering in his chest. Medical training gave him a clinical understanding of what was happening, but it was still strange to experience it from the inside, to feel his own body shutting down system by system.
“I love you,” Robby said, his voice breaking. “I love you so much.”
“I know. I love you too. Always have. Always—”
The pain hit then, suddenly and catastrophically, a crushing weight on his chest that stole his breath and his words. Jack gasped, clutched at Robby’s arm, tried to say something—reassurance, comfort, goodbye—but there was no air, no breath, nothing but pain and the terrible awareness of his heart struggling and failing and finally stopping.
Robby caught him as he collapsed, lowered him gently to the blanket. Jack could hear him talking—prayers mixed with desperate endearments, the same things he’d said hundreds of times before—but the words were getting distant, fading like the sunset.
The last thing he felt was Robby’s arms around him, holding him close. The last thing he heard was Robby’s voice: “I’ve got you. I’ve got you. I’m right here.”
Then darkness, and silence, and nothing.
Robby held Jack’s body long after the last breath left him, long after his skin went cold, long after the stars came out overhead. He cried until he had no tears left, until his throat was raw and his eyes burned and his chest ached with a pain that was simultaneously too great and not great enough.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to Jack’s still form in his arms. “I’m sorry I can’t let you go. I’m sorry I’m not strong enough.”
He lay down on the blanket, curling around Jack’s body the same way they had done for nine years. He pulled his coat over them both, creating a cocoon against the cold night air.
“Tomorrow,” he promised, knowing it was a lie. “Tomorrow I’ll let you go. Tomorrow I’ll be stronger.”
He closed his eyes, wrapped his arms around Jack, and let sleep take him.
He felt himself drifting in that liminal space between sleep and awakening, between darkness and light. Something clicked—a small clean sound, like a heart breaking, or maybe it was just the faint crack of a frost-bitten leaf.
Robby opened his eyes.
The bedroom was warm with early light. And in the bed beside him, Jack Abbott was breathing.
Robby looked at him for a long moment—alive, whole, real—and felt something break and mend simultaneously in his chest.
He sat up, and waited for Jack to wake up.
Just one more day, he told himself.
One more day.